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Hey it's not all bad, we managed to convince Ukraine to destroy their nuclear weapons and it worked out really well for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud

Hey it's not all bad, we managed to convince Ukraine to destroy their nuclear weapons and it worked out really well for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

nyolfen 9y ago
not to mention gaddafi
- triplesec 9y ago
  If you think Gaddafi was a particularly bad guy, you need to watch Adam Curtis' excellent documentary 'Hypernormalisation', still available on the BBC iplayer, and probably elsewhere too
- hangonhn 9y ago
  Nuclear weapons wouldn't have help Gaddafi anyways. He didn't have a working weapon nor a reliable way to delivering it. Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people? There's an illusion of the utility of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons might be OK if you want to destroy masses of conventional armies or destroy the ability of an enemy fighting a heavily industrialized conventional form of war. Unless the destructive power of nukes fit into your overall strategy, it's better not to have them or waste the resources developing them (along with the risk of sanctions, etc.)
  - Xixi 9y ago
    Had Gaddafi developed a working nuclear bomb with the necessary delivery mechanism, would France/UK/US have launched a campaign that ultimately ended with his death? We will never know, only speculate, but North Korea is betting that the answer to this question is "no".
    - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
      On the other hand, the US didn't launch a campaign that ended in the NK ruler's death before they had nukes, either...
      - Xixi 9y ago
        Quite true. Though western countries didn't attack Gaddafi before he gave up nuke either. The speculation I've heard (on radio, so I cannot paste a link) is that NK analysis is roughly: NK's regime is safe as long as China sees it as useful (probably using NK as some sort of buffer state against US), but sooner or later that support will end. Then only nuclear weapons will ensure NK's regime survival. It's rational, though again just speculation. The contradiction, or maybe unintended side effect, is that the developing of nuclear weapons itself is causing China to rethink its support of NK regime...
        hangonhn 9y ago
        Not saying the hypothesis you put forward is wrong but I've heard a very convincing complementary one: Kim's goals are: 1. Survival of the Kim leadership 2. Reunification of Korea To achieve the latter (and also the prior), he needs to remove the US from intervening in any conflict on the Korean peninsula. If he had a credible threat to any major US city, then the US would have to weight the freedom of S. Korea vs. the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
        adventured 9y ago
        Kim has a substantial problem in that premise, regarding China. At this point we have to assume North Korea will soon have dozens of nuclear weapons (basically as many as they can manage to make), and in a few years that they'll have dozens capable of being placed on an ICBM that can hit most US cities. Their progress has accelerated dramatically, that will probably make such numbers very feasible. Now, following the premise of keeping the US out of it by way of the risk that the US will lose several or more of its major cities. Here's the problem. If the US loses a dozen of its major cities, we'll destroy China in retaliation for making the North Korea situation possible to begin with. There's no scenario where the US just absorbs that kind of vast destruction, trades nukes with North Korea and says: oh well, woe is me. China will lose hundreds of millions of its people - Beijing, Shanghai, etc - if the US sees its biggest cities nuked. The American public will demand all enablers of North Korea be held accountable, it'll lead to the classic global nuclear war scenario, a billion people die.
  - nyolfen 9y ago
    >Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people? prevent the US from intervening/preventing him from putting down internal rebellions. the risk of nuclear escalation gives you a much greater license to do things that fly in the face of international conventions.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
      I think the question is "how would he do all this"? Realistically speaking, if you can't hit your enemy because they're too far for your nuclear weapons and the only opportunity you have to hit them is if they invade your territory (in which case you're nuking yourself) then having nuclear weapons is not much more of a deterrent than threatening suicide: you're just hoping your opponent will take pity on you.
      - nyolfen 9y ago
        there are plenty of creative avenues that the weight of existential risk combined with the ability to vaporize a few square miles gives you. read about the samson option.
  - indubitable 9y ago
    "Internal" rebellions in nations tend to be sponsored and supported by other nations. A leaked diplomatic cable [1] from 2009 described Gaddafi as "an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends." The "common enemy" Senator Lieberman was referring to are groups we were calling terrorists at the time. They're the same groups that we would decide to arm, support, and ultimately help overthrow Libya 2 years later. This is hardly a secret and a retaliatory strike from Libya would have been justified. And ultimately that's what nukes provide. North Korea is not deterring a US invasion by threatening to nuke our invading soldiers. They're deterring an invasion by implicitly threatening to nuke South Korea. If the US invaded North Korea and it ended up costing millons of lives and billions/trillions of damage in South Korea, the responsibility for that change would lay with the US as they threw the first punch. On the other hand, if North Korea engaged in any substantial preemptive attack themselves - then any loss of life could be argued as saving even more lives; similar to how we ended WW2 by nuking hundreds of thousands of otherwise innocent civilians. [1] - https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TRIPOLI677_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TRIPOLI677_a.html
batter 9y ago
It worked so 'well' that it lost part of it's territory. From Budapest Memorandum Wiki: 'The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.' Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow: http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotten-security-guarantee-the-budapest-memorandum/a-18111097 http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotten-security-guarantee-t...
- hangonhn 9y ago
  "Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow" Is it really though? Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. I don't think nukes are the be-all-end-all weapons people think they are. There are huge consequences to using them, especially against another nuclear power.
  - googletazer 9y ago
    They couldn't launch them anyway, its the same as US nukes in Turkey.
  - greedy_buffer 9y ago
    > The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. Firstly "was" is not the right word, the war is ongoing: http://tass.com/world/965974 http://tass.com/world/965974 Secondly, imo the nature of the conflict is less important than whether a concentrated population of the adversary's citizens are within range of the weapon as far as determining the effectiveness of nuclear deterrent. > Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? Would those that made the decision to invade have accepted the risk of even the most minute possibility? No leader has done that so far.
    - 9y ago
countryslicker 9y ago
It worked out even better for Libya.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Not sure if you're joking...

nyolfen 9y ago

not to mention gaddafi

triplesec 9y ago
If you think Gaddafi was a particularly bad guy, you need to watch Adam Curtis' excellent documentary 'Hypernormalisation', still available on the BBC iplayer, and probably elsewhere too
hangonhn 9y ago
Nuclear weapons wouldn't have help Gaddafi anyways. He didn't have a working weapon nor a reliable way to delivering it. Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people? There's an illusion of the utility of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons might be OK if you want to destroy masses of conventional armies or destroy the ability of an enemy fighting a heavily industrialized conventional form of war. Unless the destructive power of nukes fit into your overall strategy, it's better not to have them or waste the resources developing them (along with the risk of sanctions, etc.)
- Xixi 9y ago
  Had Gaddafi developed a working nuclear bomb with the necessary delivery mechanism, would France/UK/US have launched a campaign that ultimately ended with his death? We will never know, only speculate, but North Korea is betting that the answer to this question is "no".
  - AnimalMuppet 9y ago
    On the other hand, the US didn't launch a campaign that ended in the NK ruler's death before they had nukes, either...
    - Xixi 9y ago
      Quite true. Though western countries didn't attack Gaddafi before he gave up nuke either. The speculation I've heard (on radio, so I cannot paste a link) is that NK analysis is roughly: NK's regime is safe as long as China sees it as useful (probably using NK as some sort of buffer state against US), but sooner or later that support will end. Then only nuclear weapons will ensure NK's regime survival. It's rational, though again just speculation. The contradiction, or maybe unintended side effect, is that the developing of nuclear weapons itself is causing China to rethink its support of NK regime...
      - hangonhn 9y ago
        Not saying the hypothesis you put forward is wrong but I've heard a very convincing complementary one: Kim's goals are: 1. Survival of the Kim leadership 2. Reunification of Korea To achieve the latter (and also the prior), he needs to remove the US from intervening in any conflict on the Korean peninsula. If he had a credible threat to any major US city, then the US would have to weight the freedom of S. Korea vs. the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
        adventured 9y ago
        Kim has a substantial problem in that premise, regarding China. At this point we have to assume North Korea will soon have dozens of nuclear weapons (basically as many as they can manage to make), and in a few years that they'll have dozens capable of being placed on an ICBM that can hit most US cities. Their progress has accelerated dramatically, that will probably make such numbers very feasible. Now, following the premise of keeping the US out of it by way of the risk that the US will lose several or more of its major cities. Here's the problem. If the US loses a dozen of its major cities, we'll destroy China in retaliation for making the North Korea situation possible to begin with. There's no scenario where the US just absorbs that kind of vast destruction, trades nukes with North Korea and says: oh well, woe is me. China will lose hundreds of millions of its people - Beijing, Shanghai, etc - if the US sees its biggest cities nuked. The American public will demand all enablers of North Korea be held accountable, it'll lead to the classic global nuclear war scenario, a billion people die.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  >Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people? prevent the US from intervening/preventing him from putting down internal rebellions. the risk of nuclear escalation gives you a much greater license to do things that fly in the face of international conventions.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    I think the question is "how would he do all this"? Realistically speaking, if you can't hit your enemy because they're too far for your nuclear weapons and the only opportunity you have to hit them is if they invade your territory (in which case you're nuking yourself) then having nuclear weapons is not much more of a deterrent than threatening suicide: you're just hoping your opponent will take pity on you.
    - nyolfen 9y ago
      there are plenty of creative avenues that the weight of existential risk combined with the ability to vaporize a few square miles gives you. read about the samson option.
- indubitable 9y ago
  "Internal" rebellions in nations tend to be sponsored and supported by other nations. A leaked diplomatic cable [1] from 2009 described Gaddafi as "an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends." The "common enemy" Senator Lieberman was referring to are groups we were calling terrorists at the time. They're the same groups that we would decide to arm, support, and ultimately help overthrow Libya 2 years later. This is hardly a secret and a retaliatory strike from Libya would have been justified. And ultimately that's what nukes provide. North Korea is not deterring a US invasion by threatening to nuke our invading soldiers. They're deterring an invasion by implicitly threatening to nuke South Korea. If the US invaded North Korea and it ended up costing millons of lives and billions/trillions of damage in South Korea, the responsibility for that change would lay with the US as they threw the first punch. On the other hand, if North Korea engaged in any substantial preemptive attack themselves - then any loss of life could be argued as saving even more lives; similar to how we ended WW2 by nuking hundreds of thousands of otherwise innocent civilians. [1] - https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TRIPOLI677_a.html https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TRIPOLI677_a.html

batter 9y ago

It worked so 'well' that it lost part of it's territory. From Budapest Memorandum Wiki: 'The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.' Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow: http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotten-security-guarantee-the-budapest-memorandum/a-18111097 http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotten-security-guarantee-t...

hangonhn 9y ago
"Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow" Is it really though? Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. I don't think nukes are the be-all-end-all weapons people think they are. There are huge consequences to using them, especially against another nuclear power.
- googletazer 9y ago
  They couldn't launch them anyway, its the same as US nukes in Turkey.
- greedy_buffer 9y ago
  > The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. Firstly "was" is not the right word, the war is ongoing: http://tass.com/world/965974 http://tass.com/world/965974 Secondly, imo the nature of the conflict is less important than whether a concentrated population of the adversary's citizens are within range of the weapon as far as determining the effectiveness of nuclear deterrent. > Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? Would those that made the decision to invade have accepted the risk of even the most minute possibility? No leader has done that so far.
  - 9y ago

countryslicker 9y ago

It worked out even better for Libya.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

Not sure if you're joking...