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I can't recall the source during the moment, but I read that during the cold war it was decided that targeting major population centers was more ethical than ta

I can't recall the source during the moment, but I read that during the cold war it was decided that targeting major population centers was more ethical than targeting nuke-capable military installations. This is counter-intuitive until you consider that population centers are worthless targets if you're planning on launching a decapitating first strike, therefore targeting major population centers signals to the opponent that you are poised for a retaliation strike, not a first strike. This is more ethical because it makes a nuclear war less likely to occur.

lmilcin 8y ago
I like you pointed it out. Cold War has its own, counter-intuitive logic. It is governed by game theory. If war is bad then why US invests so much in war machine? Well, probably because investing nothing is historically bad way of maintaining peace. You are just inviting a bully to come and take your toys. Looking from this point of view isn't it strange that so many people treat Russia as villanous because it invests so much in their military (or it has been investing)? I really wonder why people think it is ok for US to militarize itself but for USSR or Russia to do that it is somehow bad. I, of course, intentionally omit what the country is doing with its power, it is one thing to have military and the other thing what are you using it for. Now, if US sends its troops abroad to subject some country, is it so difficult to think that USSR may feel threathened? If the way to keep peace is to keep parity and one party is trying to upset the parity the other has no other choice than to respond. This game has many paradoxes and I feel people have not enough willingness to look at some geo-political events through the lens of a longer game. We may say we want to bring democracy to Venezuela but what Russia is seeing is their power slipping. Right now they have precious little friendly land close to mainland US and they have no prospects of gainging more. At the same time, US is expanding NATO with more and more countries close to Russia border. Why is it so difficult to figure out this makes them very uneasy? Wouldn't some kind of response be expected? Why would US be surprised by it? Up until now the game was to keep parity and now the parity is slowly eroding away. This absolutely must cause a response from Russia because the theory says they have to fill the void some way. Electronic warfare? Hacking? Meddling in elections? Each side wants, understandabl, to mobilize its population in this struggle and there is no better way than to paint the enemy as a villain. I just wish we keep healthy amount of population on all sides capable of seing through cheap propaganda.
- avmich 8y ago
  > At the same time, US is expanding NATO with more and more countries close to Russia border. Why is it so difficult to figure out this makes them very uneasy? Wouldn't some kind of response be expected? Why would US be surprised by it? One of the reasons could be that US and RF are very asymmetrical players in the game. The structure of control in RF is less reliable, to the point of having arguments (not in the Kremlin, of course) of passing nuclear arms to US (!) to avoid dangerous scenarios. The intents are also different, modern RF power is mostly interested in material gains rather than strategic development. Abilities are different - RF can't always adequately answer to some voids left.
- literallycancer 8y ago
  The calculus becomes a bit different if you are one of the countries Russia considers its buffer. You might have some aspirations of your own, but of course Russia has its own plan for you. The opposing superpower follows the same playbook, but you don't care since they aren't invading you, and so you'll happily join their defense pact.
- watersb 8y ago
  I don't know if I am addressing your questions, but FWIW I am impatient when I encounter this blindness in other citizens of USA, that our military is only over there trying to stop violent people who do bad things. I am far more intelligent than such people, and so I am obliged to show them the logical fallscy of their bias. ^^ yeah, literally as I was writing the first sentence, I realized how it reinforces the very self-serving bias that you seem to be confronting. Despite gross miscalculation on the part of USA intelligence and military strategists, Soviet leaders did not issue a decapitation strike in late summer of 1983. I am sure they thought our President and military leaders to be crazy to wish for such a thing. High-school and college students, we felt every bit as confused by all this. Madness. Every teenager must beleive at some point that their elders are completely insane... A couple of years later, I had two classmates from the USSR, the only two such students in the United States at the time. Anyway. The bias: "We are the Good Guys!" -- yeah that seems to have gotten worse, if anything. President W Bush asking Sec of State Colin Powell to systematically lie to the UN in order to drag them to war with Iraq, I was in Germany that week, and most people would ask me WTF your country so crazy and I would say actually yes i try to make noise to protest this myself, don't give up on us, it will get better... And here we are. My kids think this is all normal.

lmilcin 8y ago

I like you pointed it out. Cold War has its own, counter-intuitive logic. It is governed by game theory. If war is bad then why US invests so much in war machine? Well, probably because investing nothing is historically bad way of maintaining peace. You are just inviting a bully to come and take your toys. Looking from this point of view isn't it strange that so many people treat Russia as villanous because it invests so much in their military (or it has been investing)? I really wonder why people think it is ok for US to militarize itself but for USSR or Russia to do that it is somehow bad. I, of course, intentionally omit what the country is doing with its power, it is one thing to have military and the other thing what are you using it for. Now, if US sends its troops abroad to subject some country, is it so difficult to think that USSR may feel threathened? If the way to keep peace is to keep parity and one party is trying to upset the parity the other has no other choice than to respond. This game has many paradoxes and I feel people have not enough willingness to look at some geo-political events through the lens of a longer game. We may say we want to bring democracy to Venezuela but what Russia is seeing is their power slipping. Right now they have precious little friendly land close to mainland US and they have no prospects of gainging more. At the same time, US is expanding NATO with more and more countries close to Russia border. Why is it so difficult to figure out this makes them very uneasy? Wouldn't some kind of response be expected? Why would US be surprised by it? Up until now the game was to keep parity and now the parity is slowly eroding away. This absolutely must cause a response from Russia because the theory says they have to fill the void some way. Electronic warfare? Hacking? Meddling in elections? Each side wants, understandabl, to mobilize its population in this struggle and there is no better way than to paint the enemy as a villain. I just wish we keep healthy amount of population on all sides capable of seing through cheap propaganda.

avmich 8y ago
> At the same time, US is expanding NATO with more and more countries close to Russia border. Why is it so difficult to figure out this makes them very uneasy? Wouldn't some kind of response be expected? Why would US be surprised by it? One of the reasons could be that US and RF are very asymmetrical players in the game. The structure of control in RF is less reliable, to the point of having arguments (not in the Kremlin, of course) of passing nuclear arms to US (!) to avoid dangerous scenarios. The intents are also different, modern RF power is mostly interested in material gains rather than strategic development. Abilities are different - RF can't always adequately answer to some voids left.
literallycancer 8y ago
The calculus becomes a bit different if you are one of the countries Russia considers its buffer. You might have some aspirations of your own, but of course Russia has its own plan for you. The opposing superpower follows the same playbook, but you don't care since they aren't invading you, and so you'll happily join their defense pact.
watersb 8y ago
I don't know if I am addressing your questions, but FWIW I am impatient when I encounter this blindness in other citizens of USA, that our military is only over there trying to stop violent people who do bad things. I am far more intelligent than such people, and so I am obliged to show them the logical fallscy of their bias. ^^ yeah, literally as I was writing the first sentence, I realized how it reinforces the very self-serving bias that you seem to be confronting. Despite gross miscalculation on the part of USA intelligence and military strategists, Soviet leaders did not issue a decapitation strike in late summer of 1983. I am sure they thought our President and military leaders to be crazy to wish for such a thing. High-school and college students, we felt every bit as confused by all this. Madness. Every teenager must beleive at some point that their elders are completely insane... A couple of years later, I had two classmates from the USSR, the only two such students in the United States at the time. Anyway. The bias: "We are the Good Guys!" -- yeah that seems to have gotten worse, if anything. President W Bush asking Sec of State Colin Powell to systematically lie to the UN in order to drag them to war with Iraq, I was in Germany that week, and most people would ask me WTF your country so crazy and I would say actually yes i try to make noise to protest this myself, don't give up on us, it will get better... And here we are. My kids think this is all normal.