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Quite. Would MAD really have deterred Hitler?
by TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Quite. Would MAD really have deterred Hitler?
- BurningFrog 5y agoHitler's goal was a large prosperous German empire across eastern Europe.
- jacquesm 5y agoYes, and failing that goal he didn't particularly care about sacrificing his own people. If he had had the capability to nuke London, Paris, Moscow or Amsterdam during the withdrawal he would have certainly done so.
- CamperBob2 5y agoThen it's a darned good thing we got the Bomb first, I'd say. Tell me again how giving up our weapons would leave us in a better position against the next Hitler. Would the same sort of people who failed to enforce the terms of Versailles be in charge of nuclear disarmament?
- jacquesm 5y agoNot necessarily. Hitler likely wasn't going to get the bomb regardless and Hiroshima and Nagasaki will forever taint the USA.
- CamperBob2 5y agoThe first is a matter of luck. If Hitler had funded Heisenberg instead of von Braun, things might have turned out very differently. The second is a matter of opinion, one that's largely unjustified by history or morality. Setting aside the fact that rational opponents would have surrendered after having one city vaporized, would you have preferred that we learn the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Korea and China instead, with hundreds of bombs instead of two? Truman would have had no incentive to deny MacArthur's request if we hadn't dropped the bombs in Japan and seen the results firsthand. What happened in Japan was horrific, but it was also a relatively cheap lesson for humanity, compared to how things could have played out.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 5y agoIt would have incentivized more assassination attempts against Hitler, certainly. One of them would eventually have succeeded. Failing that, the answer is still "Yes." Having his bunker vaporized would have deterred him nicely.