4 ms·

Deterrant?, I honestly do not fear Russia, NK or any other nation but the U.S in starting a nuclear war, why? for the simple fact that some idiot think tank som

Deterrant?, I honestly do not fear Russia, NK or any other nation but the U.S in starting a nuclear war, why? for the simple fact that some idiot think tank somewhere has convinced themselves that such a war in winnable.

ocdtrekkie 3y ago
The US is the only party that probably will never have a reason to really consider a nuclear first strike: Basically endless conventional options with significant superiority over any potential enemy makes the risk of MAD completely unworkable. The party most likely to go nuclear is the one that has no other avenue to success.
- thsksbd 3y ago
  Incredible. Two years later and Americans have forgotten the Saigon like scenes in Kabul and we're back to being invincible. We haven't won a war against a peer enemy since WW2 and lost most of the wars against non-peers since then.
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    > We haven't won a war against a peer enemy since WW2 and lost most of the wars against non-peers since then. Sure, but effectively because the US is fighting on terms that nuclear weapons do not really help: The US has more than enough conventional firepower to turn most of the countries it has been at war in to sheets of glass, but the goal is very distinctly to not do that. Losing wars fought in the streets where you're trying to not kill civilians isn't really a scenario where adding nukes helps.
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    Depending on the definition of war, that claim can look quite different: perhaps cultures conduct their real clashes not with armaments but with propaganda and economic prowess. (google and android and apple and iphones might all be examples, as might be science like CRISPR-CAS9, none of which originate in Chinese or Russian labs, though China was smart enough to build factories as a service, for examples, but in some collaboration of european cultures including in the americas).

ocdtrekkie 3y ago

The US is the only party that probably will never have a reason to really consider a nuclear first strike: Basically endless conventional options with significant superiority over any potential enemy makes the risk of MAD completely unworkable. The party most likely to go nuclear is the one that has no other avenue to success.

thsksbd 3y ago
Incredible. Two years later and Americans have forgotten the Saigon like scenes in Kabul and we're back to being invincible. We haven't won a war against a peer enemy since WW2 and lost most of the wars against non-peers since then.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  > We haven't won a war against a peer enemy since WW2 and lost most of the wars against non-peers since then. Sure, but effectively because the US is fighting on terms that nuclear weapons do not really help: The US has more than enough conventional firepower to turn most of the countries it has been at war in to sheets of glass, but the goal is very distinctly to not do that. Losing wars fought in the streets where you're trying to not kill civilians isn't really a scenario where adding nukes helps.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  Depending on the definition of war, that claim can look quite different: perhaps cultures conduct their real clashes not with armaments but with propaganda and economic prowess. (google and android and apple and iphones might all be examples, as might be science like CRISPR-CAS9, none of which originate in Chinese or Russian labs, though China was smart enough to build factories as a service, for examples, but in some collaboration of european cultures including in the americas).