Transition source: Obama to extend "nuclear umbrella" to Israel?

[Naked Gents Rut]

Sunnis and Christians are pussies. They don't love death.

[Darius871]

Sunnis aren't quite as big on apocalyptic Mahdi stuff either.

[Naked Gents Rut]

Shia Islam is all about martyrdom and suffering.

[Darius871]

Of course, Martyrdom is how it originated, after all (Karbala and whatnot). Not so for the Sunnis.

[Traianvs]

Jesus died on the cross for us. How's that for martyrdom.

[Traianvs]

Oh, and what 'bout the countless saints who got tortured or killed in Roman times (this is for all you Catholics out there, we all know you heathen protestant *****es don't want to worship those heroes!)

[Naked Gents Rut]

Jesus isn't dead.

[KrazyHorse]

ZOMBIE JESUS?

KILL IT!

[Naked Gents Rut]

Zombie Jesus is immune to conventional weapons. We'll have to nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Sirotnikov]

oh noes

[Darius871]

bumpin for Space05us

[GePap]

Originally posted by Traianvs




So John Mearsheimer was your professor at uni?? So you are probably from Illinois and you studied what?

Anyway, Mearsheimer is an anachronism. It surprises me he even has an audience these days. He could be right on the issue you brought forward there though.

One does not have to be from Illinois to have studied in the University of Chicago.

Yes, Mearsheimer is old fashioned (in the only classroom experience I had with him, he called the Chinese "Chinamen") but he isn't clueless about MAD.

The issue with having a viable MAd strategy is not just numbers, but survivability.

In order for a country to have a credible nuclear retalitory force, and thus make them able to use a MAD strategy, you need to be able to guarantee that a significant number of strategic warheads will survive the initial strike and would be able to mount a credible (as in, gets through enemy defenses) and coordinated counterstrike.

The Chinese are closer to France and the UK in terms of strategic warheads, and their ICBM's are still older, not equipped for multiple warheads, and all landbased.

Israel lacks the land area to hide anything, and they are also lacking a sea based deterrent. India and Pakistan both have too few nukes and backwards enough command and control that in their case a first strike scenerio makes some sense, given that they could, if lucky, really cripple the other side's ability to launch any nuclear retaliation.