5 ms·

It's absurd to me that chemical and biological weapons are banned, but nuclear weapons are not. There is an international campaign to ban nuclear weapons, and

It's absurd to me that chemical and biological weapons are banned, but nuclear weapons are not. There is an international campaign to ban nuclear weapons, and I hope more people learn about it. The organization won the nobel peace prize in 2017. Many nations last year signed on to the ban. Let's encourage the rest to also sign it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Campaign_to_Abolish_Nuclear_Weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Campaign_to_Abol...

jandrese 9y ago
Of course those bans are just words on paper if actual fighting breaks out. Unless they are actually enforced somehow they don't mean anything.
muninn_ 9y ago
I've seen this come up a few times and let me explain why this is not a good idea. Excluding MAD theory, if you're the United States, or the UK, or France, or whomever - your nuclear weapons are the great equalizer and keep you safe. Other countries have a lot more people than you and will catch up or surpass you technologically and can invade you. Nuclear weapons immediately stop that. Let's say China (and I'm not a fan of the idiotic relations between the US and China and the foolishness on both sides) decides that Japan just has to go. What stops them? You could say the United States, sure, but what really stops them? It's not the US Army, or the Marines - the air force and navy certainly play a part in "hey we'll come try and blow your stuff up" but what really stops them is that, no matter how much manpower they have, no matter how many airplanes or tanks they build, or how many rockets or missiles they can construct, a nuclear weapons makes all of that pretty much useless. It allows countries with smaller populations to posses weapons such that big countries can't go stomping around and hurting them. Is North Korea really scared of the United States military coming from all the way across the ocean to help South Korea? Or are they scared that the United States will drop nuclear bombs on the country? People forget how easily countries can slip into war, even between great powers. If you live in the UK or something - you better hang on to your nuclear weapons for dear life. It sounds fun and all good to have everybody disarm, until some big country decides to come after you and you're hoping other people want to help you out.
XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
Chemical weapons were used during the Syrian civil war. Just because something is banned doesn't mean someone won't use it.
- beebmam 9y ago
  I of course agree. But this isn't a serious argument against banning them. With a ban, there are legal routes that people can take to sue their governments to enforce the law. Unless you mean to imply the ban will be completely ineffective. I think that would be absurd thing to argue, as there are an uncountable number of instances where laws have been effective.
  - XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
    When it comes to Nuclear weapons we do see a ban, but only on new countries gaining them. This international ban has been effective when it came to Iran, but ineffective when it came to North Korea.
    - beebmam 9y ago
      Please refer to the link I posted. It's an actual international ban for all nations that sign it. Not the NNPT.
bhhaskin 9y ago
Nuclear weapons are not banned because they are the deterrent. Ban on Chemical and biological weapons only works because no one wants to get nuked in response.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > Ban on Chemical and biological weapons only work because no one wants to get nuked in response Chemical and biological weapons are uniquely messy and de-stabilising. Messy because it is difficult to limit the damage to targeted enemy combatants. (In World War I, the British mistakenly gassed themselves [1].) De-stabilising because once built, they are easy for unskilled actors to clandestinely transport and deploy. [1] https://www.webharvest.gov/peth04/20041017045619/http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Heller/HELLER.asp https://www.webharvest.gov/peth04/20041017045619/http://www....
  - vkou 9y ago
    Nuclear weapons are even messier - fallout does not respect national borders. They are, arguably, harder for unauthorized persons to clandestinely transport and deploy, but not necessarily in terms of damage/effort. Stealing poison gas shells from a WW1 army's stockpile, and setting them off in a city will kill hundreds of people. So will stealing regular explosive shells, and setting them off. For some reason, though, nobody's eager to outlaw bombs.
    - sigstoat 9y ago
      > So will stealing regular explosive shells, and setting them off. For some reason, though, nobody's eager to outlaw bombs. what's the difference between a bomb, and a big pile of demolition explosives?
      - vkou 9y ago
        There isn't one, and no treaty will stop some jerk from cooking up a batch of bathtub C4, and then taking it to a movie theater. My point is that claiming that arms limitation treaties counter the 'destabilizing' aspect of stolen/unauthorized use of chemical weapons is... Not true.
indubitable 9y ago
The 'rules of war' are written by those on top, and they tend to benefit them. Chemical/biological weapons are relatively easy to make for smaller nations, and their development can be disguised. Nuclear weapons are the opposite on both accounts. As an aside, this is a recurring theme throughout history. Chivalry, for instance, had a not coincidental effect of ensuring that knights were very rarely killed in most battles. Look for what can't be done in warfare and it tends to have a direct link to strengthening (or sustaining) the established powers at the expense of 'lesser' forces.
- danielvf 9y ago
  Reminds me of the statement issued by the Shining Path in Peru (who once killed everyone in village with machetes/axes, down to a six month old infant). They believed that "human rights " were an instrument of oppression, designed to weaken the power of revolutionaries. > "...Freedom, equality and fraternity were advanced bourgeois criteria in the past. But today, since the emergence of the proletariat and more like class organized in the Communist Party, with experiences of successful revolutions, construction of socialism new democracy and dictatorship of the proletariat, has historically proven that "human rights" serve the oppressing classes and operators who run the imperialist states and landlord-bureaucratic bourgeois states in general..."
- taneq 9y ago
  > Chivalry, for instance, had a not coincidental effect of ensuring that knights were very rarely killed in most battles. Which is the goal of any 'rules of combat' - to formalize the process in a way which reduces the actual damage done (or at least, the damage done to those writing the rules). It's no different to the way cats will hiss and growl and spit at each other but will usually try and avoid actually fighting. Both sides have too much to lose unless a fight is really necessary.
  - indubitable 9y ago
    It had nothing to do with reducing the actual damage done. Disemboweling an unarmed and yielding infantryman was considered perfectly chivalrous. Chivalric warfare only applied to the self preservation of those in power at the time, which would be the knights and other ruling class individuals.
Zigurd 9y ago
It makes an absurdist kind of sense if you consider that chemical and biological weapons have limited usefulness on the battlefield, and are difficult to use as weapons of mass destruction. This in contrast with an H-bomb, which will reliably destroy a whole city in an instant. Nukes are the weapons that could actually end the world as we know it, and kill hundreds of millions of humans, if not billions, if they were unleashed. Even VX can't come close to that.

jandrese 9y ago

Of course those bans are just words on paper if actual fighting breaks out. Unless they are actually enforced somehow they don't mean anything.

muninn_ 9y ago

I've seen this come up a few times and let me explain why this is not a good idea. Excluding MAD theory, if you're the United States, or the UK, or France, or whomever - your nuclear weapons are the great equalizer and keep you safe. Other countries have a lot more people than you and will catch up or surpass you technologically and can invade you. Nuclear weapons immediately stop that. Let's say China (and I'm not a fan of the idiotic relations between the US and China and the foolishness on both sides) decides that Japan just has to go. What stops them? You could say the United States, sure, but what really stops them? It's not the US Army, or the Marines - the air force and navy certainly play a part in "hey we'll come try and blow your stuff up" but what really stops them is that, no matter how much manpower they have, no matter how many airplanes or tanks they build, or how many rockets or missiles they can construct, a nuclear weapons makes all of that pretty much useless. It allows countries with smaller populations to posses weapons such that big countries can't go stomping around and hurting them. Is North Korea really scared of the United States military coming from all the way across the ocean to help South Korea? Or are they scared that the United States will drop nuclear bombs on the country? People forget how easily countries can slip into war, even between great powers. If you live in the UK or something - you better hang on to your nuclear weapons for dear life. It sounds fun and all good to have everybody disarm, until some big country decides to come after you and you're hoping other people want to help you out.

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago

Chemical weapons were used during the Syrian civil war. Just because something is banned doesn't mean someone won't use it.

beebmam 9y ago
I of course agree. But this isn't a serious argument against banning them. With a ban, there are legal routes that people can take to sue their governments to enforce the law. Unless you mean to imply the ban will be completely ineffective. I think that would be absurd thing to argue, as there are an uncountable number of instances where laws have been effective.
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
  When it comes to Nuclear weapons we do see a ban, but only on new countries gaining them. This international ban has been effective when it came to Iran, but ineffective when it came to North Korea.
  - beebmam 9y ago
    Please refer to the link I posted. It's an actual international ban for all nations that sign it. Not the NNPT.

bhhaskin 9y ago

Nuclear weapons are not banned because they are the deterrent. Ban on Chemical and biological weapons only works because no one wants to get nuked in response.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Ban on Chemical and biological weapons only work because no one wants to get nuked in response Chemical and biological weapons are uniquely messy and de-stabilising. Messy because it is difficult to limit the damage to targeted enemy combatants. (In World War I, the British mistakenly gassed themselves [1].) De-stabilising because once built, they are easy for unskilled actors to clandestinely transport and deploy. [1] https://www.webharvest.gov/peth04/20041017045619/http://www.cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources/csi/Heller/HELLER.asp https://www.webharvest.gov/peth04/20041017045619/http://www....
- vkou 9y ago
  Nuclear weapons are even messier - fallout does not respect national borders. They are, arguably, harder for unauthorized persons to clandestinely transport and deploy, but not necessarily in terms of damage/effort. Stealing poison gas shells from a WW1 army's stockpile, and setting them off in a city will kill hundreds of people. So will stealing regular explosive shells, and setting them off. For some reason, though, nobody's eager to outlaw bombs.
  - sigstoat 9y ago
    > So will stealing regular explosive shells, and setting them off. For some reason, though, nobody's eager to outlaw bombs. what's the difference between a bomb, and a big pile of demolition explosives?
    - vkou 9y ago
      There isn't one, and no treaty will stop some jerk from cooking up a batch of bathtub C4, and then taking it to a movie theater. My point is that claiming that arms limitation treaties counter the 'destabilizing' aspect of stolen/unauthorized use of chemical weapons is... Not true.

indubitable 9y ago

The 'rules of war' are written by those on top, and they tend to benefit them. Chemical/biological weapons are relatively easy to make for smaller nations, and their development can be disguised. Nuclear weapons are the opposite on both accounts. As an aside, this is a recurring theme throughout history. Chivalry, for instance, had a not coincidental effect of ensuring that knights were very rarely killed in most battles. Look for what can't be done in warfare and it tends to have a direct link to strengthening (or sustaining) the established powers at the expense of 'lesser' forces.

danielvf 9y ago
Reminds me of the statement issued by the Shining Path in Peru (who once killed everyone in village with machetes/axes, down to a six month old infant). They believed that "human rights " were an instrument of oppression, designed to weaken the power of revolutionaries. > "...Freedom, equality and fraternity were advanced bourgeois criteria in the past. But today, since the emergence of the proletariat and more like class organized in the Communist Party, with experiences of successful revolutions, construction of socialism new democracy and dictatorship of the proletariat, has historically proven that "human rights" serve the oppressing classes and operators who run the imperialist states and landlord-bureaucratic bourgeois states in general..."
taneq 9y ago
> Chivalry, for instance, had a not coincidental effect of ensuring that knights were very rarely killed in most battles. Which is the goal of any 'rules of combat' - to formalize the process in a way which reduces the actual damage done (or at least, the damage done to those writing the rules). It's no different to the way cats will hiss and growl and spit at each other but will usually try and avoid actually fighting. Both sides have too much to lose unless a fight is really necessary.
- indubitable 9y ago
  It had nothing to do with reducing the actual damage done. Disemboweling an unarmed and yielding infantryman was considered perfectly chivalrous. Chivalric warfare only applied to the self preservation of those in power at the time, which would be the knights and other ruling class individuals.

Zigurd 9y ago

It makes an absurdist kind of sense if you consider that chemical and biological weapons have limited usefulness on the battlefield, and are difficult to use as weapons of mass destruction. This in contrast with an H-bomb, which will reliably destroy a whole city in an instant. Nukes are the weapons that could actually end the world as we know it, and kill hundreds of millions of humans, if not billions, if they were unleashed. Even VX can't come close to that.