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MAD is not necessarily a silver bullet preventative here. If two nuclear-armed states are fighting, for either of them to bring out the nukes would be a huge, d
by smacktoward 8y ago
MAD is not necessarily a silver bullet preventative here. If two nuclear-armed states are fighting, for either of them to bring out the nukes would be a huge, difficult decision. It's entirely possible to imagine them settling into an unspoken "gentleman's agreement" to stick to conventional weapons only, as long as the conflict stays within certain parameters (i.e. the war doesn't pose an existential threat to either).
India and Pakistan fought a war in 1999, despite both having sizable nuclear arsenals (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War). The risk of escalation kept the scale of the fighting limited, but it didn't prevent the war altogether.
- learc83 8y agoThe article is specifically talking about another "Great War", not limited conventional conflicts. All out, generation crippling war is a far cry from anything we've seen large industrialized countries engage in since World War II. I can't see how anything like another "Great War" could be possible without going nuclear.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoNobody brought out chemical weapons in World War II, though both sides had them. (Granted, chemical weapon defenses were practical in WWII, whereas nuclear weapon defenses are not today. Still, even in great wars, there have been weapons that were not used.)
- dsfyu404ed 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_warfare#World_War_II Not exactly.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoAll right, not exactly, but close. Close enough that I think the point still stands - they had these weapons, but they were mostly not used, because of the fear of retaliation with the same weapon, even in the heat of a great war.
- learc83 8y agoThat's a very good point. They weren't widely used. But Japan did use both chemical and biological weapons against the Chinese. We don't really know why Hitler didn't use them, but it's likely that his experience in WWI gave him a unique hatred of chemical warfare. Regardless by the time Germany accepted that they were facing an existential threat, they couldn't have used Chemical weapons to completely decimate their enemy the way a losing country could with ICBMS (both land based and on submarines). They had no way to reach America, or even Britain at the end of the war (with enough munitions), so chemical attacks would have been pointless by that time. If Hitler could have pressed a button completely destroy America, Britain, and Russia when he was in his bunker in Berlin, I'm willing to bet he would have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changde#Use_of_chemical_weapon_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Changde#Use_of_chemi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...
- CamperBob2 8y agoNobody brought out chemical weapons in World War II, though both sides had them. Sure they did. They were just used on civilians instead of regular combatants. What was Zyklon-B, chopped liver?
- Nomentatus 8y agoThe Germans couldn't match the Allied expertise with biological weapons, and were warned that using chemical weapons would be responded to with far more effective biological weapons. I don't see anything "greater than nuclear" that would complete the analogy here.
- Symmetry 8y agoThankfully that stayed a limited war with combat in one region and relatively modest forces and casualties on both sides. It's when a country feels that its existence is threatened, as in WWI, that the use of nuclear weapons becomes very likely.