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Isn't that like a turkey asking why they haven't been slaughtered yet? Then the day before Thanksgiving comes and times up. That's one of the reasons the U.S. n

Isn't that like a turkey asking why they haven't been slaughtered yet? Then the day before Thanksgiving comes and times up. That's one of the reasons the U.S. needs to adopt a "no first use" policy. If our adversaries don't have to worry about the U.S. launching another first strike, then the risk of a miscalculation goes down.

delibes 9y ago
Is it that easy? If the USA declares 'no first use' do I believe it? How much more than UK, Russia, China, ... Israel, Pakistan, North Korea? In fact, only America has ever actually used a nuclear bomb in a real war. On the balancing side, they've had a series of de-escalating disarmament treaties with the former USSR, so could be argued to be heading in the more peaceful direction than counties further down my list. In the game Civilization I know that Gandhi will always, left to his own devices, eventually nuke me, because of a historical in-game joke. The real world is a lot less predictable.
- BerislavLopac 9y ago
  Thank you for this tidbit, I had no idea: https://kotaku.com/why-gandhi-is-such-an-asshole-in-civilization-1653818245 https://kotaku.com/why-gandhi-is-such-an-asshole-in-civiliza...
  - nickelcitymario 9y ago
    This is the most interesting thing I've read all day.
  - kstenerud 9y ago
    He was an asshole in real life as well. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/3/7/the-truth-about-gandhi-pbtbhe-movie/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/3/7/the-truth-about-g... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/what-did-mahatma-gandhi-think-of-black-people/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- icc97 9y ago
  In the same way as a national bank trying to inspire confidence in the economy they know they have to make what they say credible. So it has to be part of acting in a longer term that shows consistency with the words. But probably slow disarmament would be more likely to succeed.
jlebrech 9y ago
"no first use" is begging the enemy to attack first.
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  How? What benefit does the enemy gain that they don't already have by launching first?
  - jerf 9y ago
    In a super-power-sized exchange, increased confidence that their missiles will land before the other side retaliates. Launch sites can be destroyed, which means you may face fewer weapons. Planners during the Cold War appeared to consider "20% of my population survives and 5% of theirs does" to be a victory, and promising you won't launch until you're hours and hours of sure of what's going on is inviting a pre-emption strike. That said, even if someone promises up and down they won't retaliate until they are very sure what's going on, that's not a guarantee that if you launch 1000 missiles at them that they won't launch immediately in return. I personally think the game theory shows it's better to signal willingness to retaliate swiftly, but even if that's too much for you to stomach the game theory clearly says you'd better have the capability of swift retaliation, regardless. For the smaller players like North Korea or Iran, who are credibly threatening to use nuclear weapons in the next decade, but have no credible possibility of doing it at superpower scales, nothing much. They face annihilation if they launch, regardless. However, some of these smaller regimes are signaling that they are willing to face annihilation to get their strikes in. How much of this is game-theory-based posturing, and how much of it is true, well, that's for the reader to decide. (Though I will toss in that at least North Korea is also signaling a belief that they will be annihilated if they don't get nukes, so given their belief system they may still not care, especially since it may be the case that North Korea === Kim Jong Un, and frankly, he may be rational to believe he's riding a tiger by the tail and must either get to and use nukes or personally face one sort of death or another. I see Iran as making more conventional power plays throughout the region, and even if their recent protests didn't topple the regime, it is likely that one way or another they are going to be forced to pour less resources into the nuke programs, either because they will need to placate the population, or because protest N+1 will topple the regime, or because they finally provoke external military or covert action that will result in regime change.)
rhino369 9y ago
Nobody will believe any such promise anyway. The real solution is continued reduction in the number of arms. Russia and America need to reduce to ~1000 each or less. There is a belief that any nuclear war will destroy the world, but that isn't true. A global war would be horrific, but civilization would survive. A war with 2-3k nuclear detonations is better than one with 20k. Particularly, tactical nuclear weapons need to be destroyed. They are more likely to be used because they aren't a holocaust on a rocket like strategic weapons are.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > A global war would be horrific, but civilization would survive. Humanity will survive. Civilization will be utterly destroyed for a long time to come.
  - excalibur 9y ago
    In the event of a massive nuclear conflict, the destruction of civilization is a given. The survival of humanity is far less so, but it's certainly possible.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      One of the things that my travels have shown me is that there are people everywhere. To eradicate humanity completely is an exceedingly hard task. Maybe a massive nuclear conflict would destroy civilization and our knowledge to the point that the last ones alive would simply give up, but we're an incredibly hardy and adaptive species. See: Greenland, the Andes, Nepal, Siberia, Nunavut (36000 people on 2 million square kilometers, you'd have to roughly assign one bomb per person to ensure you got everybody) and so on. Some of those places are likely to be on somebodies annihilation short list, but all of them would require a degree of carpet bombing with nukes that I highly doubt it will happen. Though Washington DC, and just about every other major capital would very likely be a smoking crater.
      - icc97 9y ago
drspacemonkey 9y ago
>Isn't that like a turkey asking why they haven't been slaughtered yet? Then the day before Thanksgiving comes and times up. This is an excellent way to illustrate so many problems of this nature. "If X is a real concern, why hasn't it happened to us yet?" is such a huge problem in so many organisations, and it's so frustrating.
- pgwhalen 9y ago
  That’s a good point, but it does feel like a poor analogy to me. Obviously nuclear war is not as inevitable as thanksgiving.

delibes 9y ago

Is it that easy? If the USA declares 'no first use' do I believe it? How much more than UK, Russia, China, ... Israel, Pakistan, North Korea? In fact, only America has ever actually used a nuclear bomb in a real war. On the balancing side, they've had a series of de-escalating disarmament treaties with the former USSR, so could be argued to be heading in the more peaceful direction than counties further down my list. In the game Civilization I know that Gandhi will always, left to his own devices, eventually nuke me, because of a historical in-game joke. The real world is a lot less predictable.

BerislavLopac 9y ago
Thank you for this tidbit, I had no idea: https://kotaku.com/why-gandhi-is-such-an-asshole-in-civilization-1653818245 https://kotaku.com/why-gandhi-is-such-an-asshole-in-civiliza...
- nickelcitymario 9y ago
  This is the most interesting thing I've read all day.
- kstenerud 9y ago
  He was an asshole in real life as well. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/3/7/the-truth-about-gandhi-pbtbhe-movie/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/3/7/the-truth-about-g... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03/what-did-mahatma-gandhi-think-of-black-people/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/09/03...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
icc97 9y ago
In the same way as a national bank trying to inspire confidence in the economy they know they have to make what they say credible. So it has to be part of acting in a longer term that shows consistency with the words. But probably slow disarmament would be more likely to succeed.

jlebrech 9y ago

"no first use" is begging the enemy to attack first.

boomboomsubban 9y ago
How? What benefit does the enemy gain that they don't already have by launching first?
- jerf 9y ago
  In a super-power-sized exchange, increased confidence that their missiles will land before the other side retaliates. Launch sites can be destroyed, which means you may face fewer weapons. Planners during the Cold War appeared to consider "20% of my population survives and 5% of theirs does" to be a victory, and promising you won't launch until you're hours and hours of sure of what's going on is inviting a pre-emption strike. That said, even if someone promises up and down they won't retaliate until they are very sure what's going on, that's not a guarantee that if you launch 1000 missiles at them that they won't launch immediately in return. I personally think the game theory shows it's better to signal willingness to retaliate swiftly, but even if that's too much for you to stomach the game theory clearly says you'd better have the capability of swift retaliation, regardless. For the smaller players like North Korea or Iran, who are credibly threatening to use nuclear weapons in the next decade, but have no credible possibility of doing it at superpower scales, nothing much. They face annihilation if they launch, regardless. However, some of these smaller regimes are signaling that they are willing to face annihilation to get their strikes in. How much of this is game-theory-based posturing, and how much of it is true, well, that's for the reader to decide. (Though I will toss in that at least North Korea is also signaling a belief that they will be annihilated if they don't get nukes, so given their belief system they may still not care, especially since it may be the case that North Korea === Kim Jong Un, and frankly, he may be rational to believe he's riding a tiger by the tail and must either get to and use nukes or personally face one sort of death or another. I see Iran as making more conventional power plays throughout the region, and even if their recent protests didn't topple the regime, it is likely that one way or another they are going to be forced to pour less resources into the nuke programs, either because they will need to placate the population, or because protest N+1 will topple the regime, or because they finally provoke external military or covert action that will result in regime change.)

rhino369 9y ago

Nobody will believe any such promise anyway. The real solution is continued reduction in the number of arms. Russia and America need to reduce to ~1000 each or less. There is a belief that any nuclear war will destroy the world, but that isn't true. A global war would be horrific, but civilization would survive. A war with 2-3k nuclear detonations is better than one with 20k. Particularly, tactical nuclear weapons need to be destroyed. They are more likely to be used because they aren't a holocaust on a rocket like strategic weapons are.

jacquesm 9y ago
> A global war would be horrific, but civilization would survive. Humanity will survive. Civilization will be utterly destroyed for a long time to come.
- excalibur 9y ago
  In the event of a massive nuclear conflict, the destruction of civilization is a given. The survival of humanity is far less so, but it's certainly possible.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    One of the things that my travels have shown me is that there are people everywhere. To eradicate humanity completely is an exceedingly hard task. Maybe a massive nuclear conflict would destroy civilization and our knowledge to the point that the last ones alive would simply give up, but we're an incredibly hardy and adaptive species. See: Greenland, the Andes, Nepal, Siberia, Nunavut (36000 people on 2 million square kilometers, you'd have to roughly assign one bomb per person to ensure you got everybody) and so on. Some of those places are likely to be on somebodies annihilation short list, but all of them would require a degree of carpet bombing with nukes that I highly doubt it will happen. Though Washington DC, and just about every other major capital would very likely be a smoking crater.
    - icc97 9y ago

drspacemonkey 9y ago

>Isn't that like a turkey asking why they haven't been slaughtered yet? Then the day before Thanksgiving comes and times up. This is an excellent way to illustrate so many problems of this nature. "If X is a real concern, why hasn't it happened to us yet?" is such a huge problem in so many organisations, and it's so frustrating.

pgwhalen 9y ago
That’s a good point, but it does feel like a poor analogy to me. Obviously nuclear war is not as inevitable as thanksgiving.