Israel plans using mini nukes to blow up Iran nuclea facilities

[Sandman]

It's not semantics. The argument is like saying if that a someone pointing a gun at police shoots one of them, they won't return fire to avoid a shoot-out.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

You seem to be grossly underestimating the world's general feelings on the use of nukes. Simply stated, you seem to have no clue.

I think its a bluff.

Its a great assumption which probably no longer holds true.

Heck - lets assume that someone else uses nukes. Say North Korea nukes S. Korea once.

What do you think happens?

Total War?
I doubt it. With the threat of even more nukes being launched - no one would risk war.

More sanctions?
Unlikely. China and Russia will go for appeasement.
Japan will be mad, and develop its own nuclear arsenal, as it should have, years ago.

If N Korea nukes S Korea once, twice (or any other non-zero number of times) then you might as well kiss N Korea bye. The US might avoid nuking Pyongyang, if they didn't think that N Korea had any nuclear assets there. But the rest of the country would mushroom cloud so fast your head would spin.

[Sirotnikov]

It's not semantics. The argument is like saying if that a someone pointing a gun at police shoots one of them, they won't return fire to avoid a shoot-out.

Sometimes they won't.

If a bully comes and punches a weak guy in the face, the weak guy will try and 'leave it at that' if he's afraid of a fist fight.

[KrazyHorse]

I sincerely doubt any of your ships could acquire any of our ships as a target or hit it

I sincerely doubt you know what you're talking about. Our ships are generally built for air defence, ASW and as helicopter platforms, but they also have guided-missile capabilities. We also have 4 pathetic submarines, which, as I said, are less pathetic than your pathetic submarines.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


KH believes conscripts are not suited for anything other than static defense or occupation duty, so any mainly conscript army must have seperate maneuver units of professionals.

Actually, I believe that they're not suited for anything other than defence or occupation against a real enemy.

[Drake Tungsten]

Your pathetic submarines are British, right? And Israel's pathetic submarines are German, IIRC. If that's the case, Canada has the clear advantage.

[Sirotnikov]

I sincerely doubt you know what you're talking about. Our ships are generally built for air defence, ASW and as helicopter platforms, but they also have guided-missile capabilities. We also have 4 pathetic submarines, which, as I said, are less pathetic than your pathetic submarines.

I really hope you speak the same when you won't be able to see our vesseles or target them with your guided missiles

[KrazyHorse]

And why is that? Are you making a joke that you have no navy?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

It's not semantics. The argument is like saying if that a someone pointing a gun at police shoots one of them, they won't return fire to avoid a shoot-out.

Sometimes they won't.

If a bully comes and punches a weak guy in the face, the weak guy will try and 'leave it at that' if he's afraid of a fist fight.

The weak guy has loads of friends and the bully has none... can't believe I'm having this discussion.

[Drake Tungsten]

The North Korea example is terrible, anyway. In the Israel nukes Iran scenario, the weak guy has no friends and the bully only has one. Hard to see a large scale nuclear exchange resulting from that...

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Sandman


The weak guy has loads of friends and the bully has none... can't believe I'm having this discussion.

Actually I believe it usually works the other way, at least in elementary, middle and high schools. Bullies find watching other bullies torture their victims very entertaining, and they can network. For that matter even non-bullies enjoy the entertainment, Victims OTOH shy away from other victims in order to avoid getting some of what the other poor guy is getting. Only if you have a bully who is completely socially incompetent and therefore unable to take advantage of the status that his brutality conveys or whose anger/malevolence is so diffuse that it spills over onto everyone will a bully be friendless.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Sandman


The weak guy has loads of friends and the bully has none... can't believe I'm having this discussion.

The bully's only friend happens to be the biggest bully around.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't see that either.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Actually, I believe that they're not suited for anything other than defence or occupation against a real enemy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Legion

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

You seem to be grossly underestimating the world's general feelings on the use of nukes. Simply stated, you seem to have no clue.

I think its a bluff.

Its a great assumption which probably no longer holds true.

Heck - lets assume that someone else uses nukes. Say North Korea nukes S. Korea once.

What do you think happens?

Total War?
I doubt it. With the threat of even more nukes being launched - no one would risk war.

More sanctions?
Unlikely. China and Russia will go for appeasement.
Japan will be mad, and develop its own nuclear arsenal, as it should have, years ago.

If NK nukes SK, there is no doubt in my mind SK would invade NK, which would be total war, and end in the crushing defeat of NK. More likely, the US would nuke Pyongyang AND SK and the US would invade NK.

Why? Because once you use nukes offensively, THATS IT. You have done the most you can possibly do. There is no backtracking- there is no going back - to the vast majority of the world, you are already a war criminal, and only successful war criminals stay around and in power.

If you honestly think that North Korea nuking South KOrea would not lead to the end of the North Korean regime, one way or another, then you really must leave your job, because no state needs intelligence analysts with that kind of mindset.

Oh, and on a technical issue, going back to your statement about Israel possibly using a large conventional bomb, or claiming a small nukes was a large conventional bomb:
Beyond the already stated issue of no conventional bomb coming close to 1 KT of blast damage (The MOAB has a blast equivalent to .01 KT), there is also the simple problem of delivery.

As hopefully you know, given your position, Israel's airborne nuclear deterent is carried by F-4's and F-15's. Both aircraft can carry nuclear warheads. Neither aircraft could carry a bomb like a Daisy Cutter or MOAB, both of which were designed to be used from cargo planes. Even the tall boy and other previous masisve bombs could only be dropped from large bombers. Unless Israel all of a sudden procurred strategic bombers to its airforce, your idea could not even be sold.