I was saying thats what we DON’T want to do because it’ll give nations a perfect reason to get nukes.
Between two nations? Short answer is no.
It was part of our security policy during the Cold War, and still is today, but to think we could compell another nation to act the way we wanted it to by threatening to nuke them wouldn’t be credible today because civilians would be the principal victims of nuclear war, which goes against today’s norms and morality.
in the 1970s American leaders threatened that if the U.S. were attacked, it would respond in a “balanced and proportional way” short of nuclear war, but eventually it would use them.
For these reasons nuclear weapons are useless in interstate wars, but some claim they are the major reason why the second half of this century has been relatively peaceful as far as wars between nations goes.
Since threatening to use nukes is neither credible, nor useful (assuming the other nation has nukes) our policy is to continue developing precision guided weapons that make conventional weapons such as tanks and airplanes useless, all while limiting civilian casulties.
The fear of Iran and South Korea is that they are “irrational” and may not care about their lives or civilian’s lives, but are these leaders willing to give up their seat at the top and their lives? Also, do they have total authority in their state or are their enough checks and balances to say that if they issued the order, it wouldn’t be followed?
[quote]spyoptic wrote:
Between two nations? Short answer is no.
It was part of our security policy during the Cold War, and still is today, but to think we could compell another nation to act the way we wanted it to by threatening to nuke them wouldn’t be credible today because civilians would be the principal victims of nuclear war, which goes against today’s norms and morality.
in the 1970s American leaders threatened that if the U.S. were attacked, it would respond in a “balanced and proportional way” short of nuclear war, but eventually it would use them.
For these reasons nuclear weapons are useless in interstate wars, but some claim they are the major reason why the second half of this century has been relatively peaceful as far as wars between nations goes.
Since threatening to use nukes is neither credible, nor useful (assuming the other nation has nukes) our policy is to continue developing precision guided weapons that make conventional weapons such as tanks and airplanes useless, all while limiting civilian casulties.
The fear of Iran and South Korea is that they are “irrational” and may not care about their lives or civilian’s lives, but are these leaders willing to give up their seat at the top and their lives? Also, do they have total authority in their state or are their enough checks and balances to say that if they issued the order, it wouldn’t be followed?
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These are good points, but in the case of Iran and North Korea there are no checks and balances. The head person calls the shots. In the case of Iran it is the supreme leader. He is the head of the state, and the church. If they are willing to send civilians to kill other civilians with a suicide bomb, I would think them to be just enough irrational to try and send a nuke over to Israel. North Korea on the other hand is trying to save money on the military. If they have nukes they will down size their army, and sell their technology to other countries. They are already doing the later.