Accidental nuclear war

[Lonestar]

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Geronimo
I really doubt china is held back in any way from an invasion of taiwan or japan by nukes given they had the balls to intervene in the korean war at a time they had no nukes and one of the combatant nations they would be fighting had a huge nuclear arsenal. Furthermore it's quite absurd to suppose that a chinese invasion of either japan or taiwan would by itself lead a nuclear attack on China. Neither of those places has nukes and it's very doubtful any country allied with them would be willing to open the nuclear can of worms for the sake of retribution on behalf of their ally.

I admit that I'm ill informed about America's nuclear arsenal in the early 50s, but I didn't think that it was "huge." I thought we had a few, but not enough to ensure a country's destruction. Besides, there were no ICBMs in those days. I don't think that MAD applied until the advent of the ICBM.

As for a hypothetical invasion of Japan, I *think* that we're treaty bound to protect Japan with nuclear weapons. Though I'm not sure an invasion of Taiwan would guarantee a nuclear war, I think that an invasion of Japan very well could.

I agree that nuclear weapons have made the world more peaceful than the world would be in which such weapons were not possible to create so far but I have yet to see a good argument that would explain how nuclear weapons could not end up being used through accidents or unrecognized oversights in nuclear use policies.

I don't think that there is a good answer to your concerns. Nukes do have to potential for accidental or rouge misuse. I guess the question comes down to what's worse: the risk that one city may be accidentally destoryed at the price of general peace between great powers, or the lack of nuclear deterrance leading to the possibility of huge conventional wars.

Agathon's #1 is the best we could hope for, but I don't think we've reached that point yet. If it gets to the point that nuclear weapons are truly unnecessary to deter aggression, then it's a no brainer: dismantle the weapons. Until then, they still serve a purpose.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I admit that I'm ill informed about America's nuclear arsenal in the early 50s, but I didn't think that it was "huge." I thought we had a few, but not enough to ensure a country's destruction. Besides, there were no ICBMs in those days.

As for a hypothetical invasion of Japan, I *think* that we're treay bound to protect Japan with nuclear weapons. Though I'm not sure an invasion of Taiwan would guarantee a nuclear war, I think that an invasion of Japan very well could.



I don't think that there is a good answer to your concerns. Nukes do have to potential for accidental or rouge misuse. I guess the question comes down to what's worse: the risk that one city may be accidentally destoryed at the price of general peace between great powers, or the lack of nuclear deterrance leading to the possibility of huge conventional wars.

Agathon's #1 is the best we could hope for, but I don't think we've reached that point yet. If it gets to the point that nuclear weapons are truly unnecessary to deter aggression, then it's a no brainer: dismantle the weapons. Until then, they still serve a purpose.

Could it really be limited to one citys destruction though? Do we have any examples of leaders showing the kind of restraint that would be necessary to not retaliate to a nuclear attack on one of their cities?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Agathon
It goes like this (from best scenario to worst).

1. Nobody has them and we are safe.

2. We and our opponents have them (the MAD scenario).

3. Only one country has them (no deterrence from using them).

Aren't you on record as opposed to development and deployment of anti ballistic missle systems? Wouldn't such systems offer the most secure route for countries to dismantle their nuclear weapons and acheive scenario one?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Geronimo

Aren't you on record as opposed to development and deployment of anti ballistic missle systems? Wouldn't such systems offer the most secure route for countries to dismantle their nuclear weapons and acheive scenario one?

No. One reason is that they don't really work. Even if they did work, they would just make nuclear weapons more usable for the one side that has them first. This fact penetrated even the thick skull of Ronald Reagan, who (to the horror of his advisors) wanted to share SDI technology with the Soviet Union (Reagan is often misunderstood by many conservatives - more than anything it appears he cared about avoiding armageddon).

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Wycoff

I don't think that this is completely true. The disappearance of nuclear weaponry makes conventional war between powers feasible again.

Actually it doesn't.

Conventional war is now less feasible than ever before due to the sheer cost of modern weaponry. In WWII fighter aircraft and tanks were relatively cheap, easy to manufacture and plentiful. Now fighter aircraft are hideously expensive, take ages to build and are scarce. The same goes for most military technology. Were a conventional war to start tomorrow, the expenditure in equipment would be quick and we would be reduced back to simpler methods quite quickly.

Not to mention that the majority of the world's population has simply gone off the idea. 100 years ago most people approved of war. Coverage of war by the mass media changed all that.

But it doesn't really matter. Absent some massive ideological difference between powers, there is simply no point to war any more. You cannot win. Decolonization, Vietnam, and now Iraq, have demonstrated that you simply cannot invade a country and get anything out of it except a long occupation and a huge bill.

Military people are basically a stupid anachronism. We have no real use for them any more. Whether we have nuclear weapons or not, the age of massive global wars is effectively over.

[civman2000]

Originally posted by Lonestar
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nucl...clearwar1.html

What I've never understood about that scenario is why the Russians nuke China and Israel nukes the Arabs. What, as soon as a single nuke is launched everyone decides to randomly nuke whoever they're mad at? I would think that Russia would want to get China on their side, or at least neutral...

[Evil Knevil]

Here's a link about Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet Nuclear Command Official, who may have prevented an accidental nuclear war in 1983.

http://officersclub.blogspot.com/2006/02/man-who-saved-world.html

I'm sure that many of you have heard about it before, but it's quite an interesting story. Just shows how close we came to nuclear war at certain points.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by civman2000

What I've never understood about that scenario is why the Russians nuke China and Israel nukes the Arabs. What, as soon as a single nuke is launched everyone decides to randomly nuke whoever they're mad at? I would think that Russia would want to get China on their side, or at least neutral...

The PRC has been in the United States' camp(or at least neutral in the event of war with Russia) since Nixon. HAIL NIXON.

Originally said by Spock
Only Nixon could go to China.

[Agathon]

What this shows is that anyone in his right mind should be an abolitionist. Nuclear weapons are simply immoral. No matter what good end we use them for, they end up perverting it. One only need to look at some of the insane strategies for "limited nuclear war" and "winnable nuclear war" to know that the very possession of the things makes people go nuts.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I admit that I'm ill informed about America's nuclear arsenal in the early 50s, but I didn't think that it was "huge." I thought we had a few, but not enough to ensure a country's destruction. Besides, there were no ICBMs in those days. I don't think that MAD applied until the advent of the ICBM.

As for a hypothetical invasion of Japan, I *think* that we're treaty bound to protect Japan with nuclear weapons. Though I'm not sure an invasion of Taiwan would guarantee a nuclear war, I think that an invasion of Japan very well could.



I don't think that there is a good answer to your concerns. Nukes do have to potential for accidental or rouge misuse. I guess the question comes down to what's worse: the risk that one city may be accidentally destoryed at the price of general peace between great powers, or the lack of nuclear deterrance leading to the possibility of huge conventional wars.

Agathon's #1 is the best we could hope for, but I don't think we've reached that point yet. If it gets to the point that nuclear weapons are truly unnecessary to deter aggression, then it's a no brainer: dismantle the weapons. Until then, they still serve a purpose.

Drop by aircraft, we has a few.

[DRoseDARs]

Originally posted by civman2000

What I've never understood about that scenario is why the Russians nuke China and Israel nukes the Arabs. What, as soon as a single nuke is launched everyone decides to randomly nuke whoever they're mad at? I would think that Russia would want to get China on their side, or at least neutral...

Dude, there is NOTHING "random" in that scenario about the Soviets nuking the sh*t out of the Chinese or Israel settling old scores with her Arab neighbors. The USSR had border disputes with China, Israel's very existance of course pisses the Islamic world off. If the US and USSR had gone at it, China would absolutely seek to take advantage of Russia's being distracted and rapidly (as in "just a few hours") deteriorating internal situation and military structure. Israel, being an ally of the US, would no longer be able to count on the US coming to its aid what with their being distracted too. I don't think Israel would have started it, more likely Egypt, Syria or Saddam's Iraq would seek to hit Israel while the US has its hands full with the USSR. Given the decades-old policies of both superpowers of meddling in the affairs of other, weaker nations, the other conflicts can just as easily be explained: When the cat's away, the mice will play. The US and USSR are no longer in a position to come to the aid of their various "satellite states" unless they're directly involved in the hostilities with the US/USSR. All other conflicts, disputes, and hatreds are irrelevant to the two superpowers when they're duking it out with nukes.

[Flip McWho]

I don't know, its not like nuclear war is gonna be to hectic. Most of it'll be sitting in an office pushing buttons or going damn there goes washington, ooo blast theres new york, denver? please anything but denver.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Flip McWho
I don't know, its not like nuclear war is gonna be to hectic. Most of it'll be sitting in an office pushing buttons or going damn there goes washington, ooo blast theres new york, denver? please anything but denver.

it all depends on how it starts I'd suppose. I'm assuming it probably won't lead to instant armegeddon but would start with an unplanned unexpected regional nuclear war which would make a general nuclear war far more likely if one involved party emerged far better off than it's rival.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Geronimo

it all depends on how it starts I'd suppose. I'm assuming it probably won't lead to instant armegeddon but would start with an unplanned unexpected regional nuclear war which would make a general nuclear war far more likely if one involved party emerged far better off than it's rival.

And this is what I was referring to before.

As one writer said, people who strategize about nuclear conflict are like virgins discussing sex. They have absolutely no idea of what nuclear war will really be like.

There were dozens, if not hundreds of war plans based around the idea of limited nuclear war, but all would have ended in disaster, since the Soviet Union was at a major disadvantage and could only maintain a credible threat at the time by means of all out destruction.

Bertrand Russell once said that you could expect a man to walk a tightrope without falling for half an hour or so, but no-one would expect him to walk for 100 years without falling off.