Will anyone stop the Iranian nuke?

[Datajack Franit]

Turning to slavery takes at least 1 turn, noobs

[Krill]

Not if you're spiritual.

[Krill]

Really, you should have stated the exception.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by GePap
No one stopped NK, Israel, India, Pakistan, Soth Africa, China, France, the UK, or the USSR (not putting the US because they were first and working on it secretly).

Any state that feels they national interests demand they have a nuke will get them unless it is physically destroyed or conquered. The question is how to change that calculation of national interests. Threats of destruction or impoverishment have usually not worked, since they only intensify the logic for getting nukes.

carry out the threats *after* they have the nukes to break that logic.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Geronimo


carry out the threats *after* they have the nukes to break that logic.

And gain what? Threat of invasion or conquest becomes counterproductive after they have nukes, because the principle of non-poliferation is worth less than the reality of suffering from nuclear attack. As for attempts at impoverishment, regimes that are able to project some form of legitimacy have shown themselves quite capable to sitting out such policies, whatever the detrement to their populace might be, as long as the legitimacy of that reigme is based on some ideology that allows for isolation. The apartheid regime in South Africa fell because its internal legitimacy was highly questionable in the age of popular soverignty, plus white South Africa defined itself as part of the Western world, and isolation from it was to great a cost to bear.

[Kuciwalker]

And gain what? Threat of invasion or conquest becomes counterproductive after they have nukes, because the principle of non-poliferation is worth less than the reality of suffering from nuclear attack.

Bzzzzzt. We have a lack of reading comprehension here.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

And gain what? Threat of invasion or conquest becomes counterproductive after they have nukes, because the principle of non-poliferation is worth less than the reality of suffering from nuclear attack.

Bzzzzzt. We have a lack of reading comprehension here.

You are certainly displaying that quite well.

[Kuciwalker]

You have this bad habit of having faulty/false premises that render the rest of your argument worthless.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
You have this bad habit of having faulty/false premises that render the rest of your argument worthless.

This coming from a kid who never has an arguement to begin with?

Wait, lets go back to 2003 and dig up those old Iraq threads from then, and lets look at "false premises."

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by GePap


And gain what? Threat of invasion or conquest becomes counterproductive after they have nukes, because the principle of non-poliferation is worth less than the reality of suffering from nuclear attack. As for attempts at impoverishment, regimes that are able to project some form of legitimacy have shown themselves quite capable to sitting out such policies, whatever the detrement to their populace might be, as long as the legitimacy of that reigme is based on some ideology that allows for isolation. The apartheid regime in South Africa fell because its internal legitimacy was highly questionable in the age of popular soverignty, plus white South Africa defined itself as part of the Western world, and isolation from it was to great a cost to bear.

carrying out the threat of invasion or conquest after they have gotten the nukes might prove to be counterproductive in the short run only.

The huge long term bonus would be shredding the current perception that nukes=invulnerability from such threats.

[edit I hadn't realized how 'legitimacy' forms a cornerstone of your post]

[Datajack Franit]

So Iranians are Spiritual and...? Muslim civilizations cannot be Aggressive, it's teh racist

[GePap]

Originally posted by Geronimo


carrying out the threat of invasion or conquest after they have gotten the nukes might prove to be counterproductive in the short run only.

The huge long term bonus would be shredding the current perception that nukes=invulnerability from such threats.

Except that by having nukes you invariably make the likelyhood of anyone else, including the other state's own people support such a war relatively small, unless those people believe the treat is sufficient, and last time I looked the "principle of non-proliferation" is not something anyone is willing to die for.

Besides, carrying out a war despite an enemy having nukes does not negate the worth of getting nukes. It only increase the worth of getting enough of them quickly enough to make MAD viable.

[Kuciwalker]

This coming from a kid who never has an arguement to begin with?

More evidence of the fact that you simply cannot understand what other people say.

[Kuciwalker]

I'll be nice and explain it to you: Geronimo's central assumption is that the principle of non-proliferation is long-term more valuable than preventing the damage caused by a couple nukes. You open your response with an blanket dismissal of one of the assumptions in the argument (without even realizing it) and then go off onto some irrelevant tangent about sanctions and legitimacy.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I'll be nice and explain it to you: Geronimo's central assumption is that the principle of non-proliferation is long-term more valuable than preventing the damage caused by a couple nukes. You open your response with an blanket dismissal of one of the assumptions in the argument (without even realizing it) and then go off onto some irrelevant tangent about sanctions and legitimacy.

My point, if you failed to grasp it, is that Geronimo is probably alone in such a belief, and as such, to assume the world will or should work based on that assumption is utterly non-realistic.

And why is Geronimo so alone in this belief that the concept of non-proliferation is so totally important? Because it is contradictory to state that non-proliferation is some immensly valuable goal while stating that having a small nuclear exchange is "worth it." The whole point of non-proliferation is that nuclear weapons are so, SO, terrible that they must be limited period. If nuclear weapons are so terrible, then any situation in which they might be employed is already too far.

So either they are so terrible that you must do all you can to stop their spread, OR, they are not that terrible, so you can afford a war which would include a limited nuclear exchange because the spread of thse weapons, which we can accept being used, is too terrible a thing to allow.