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Might be controversial, but if saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction, maybe the US and buddies would not attack them as they did, while lying about th

Might be controversial, but if saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction, maybe the US and buddies would not attack them as they did, while lying about the weapons. Atomic bomb would give Iran an extra layer of protection from those few countries that can do whatever they want, start wars based on lies, steal oil, commit genocide and worse, and the "international community" turns a blind eye most of the time.

iwontberude 3y ago
If Saddam had weapons of mass destruction it would’ve been because of a partnership with the US so it’s a moot point.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Sure, but a lot less iraqis would die, if saddam had a few nukes pointed at washington, ready to launch in case of a us invasion, and US decided to not risk it (or well,... risk it once and never again, and some other countries people would be alive instead of the next war there).
kjkjadksj 3y ago
What layer do nukes honestly give you that your chemical and bioweapons don’t? All are taboo to use. If shit hits the fan its far easier to gas and plague the country than to develop and successfully deploy nuclear weapons.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  I mean... soviets had both those too, and a few nukes on cuba caused such a crisis, that the sanctions are still in place there Luckily we have UN, which can vote against sanctions,... oh wait, they did that: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143112 https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143112 > General Assembly votes overwhelmingly against US Cuba embargo > Those in favour: 187 > Those against: 2 (the US and Israel) > Abstentions: 1 (Ukraine) Guess what, sanctions are still in place :)
- MilStdJunkie 3y ago
  In terms of weapon effect, nukes really are in a whole other category, particularly against invasions, which require concentration of force by their nature. Even a dozen nukes with 1950s delivery systems can make the price of invasion untenable - particularly for democratic governments. And once a country is making them, they're very easy to stash, so you can never be sure you got them all. We faced a similar problem with Cuba, when we learned that they'd stashed possibly quite a lot of FROG launchers in addition to the big missiles. Chemical weapons are a bit like Age of Sail line of battle, with an awful lot depending on the weather. Biologicals are even worse, since neighboring populations - surprise! - turn out to be pretty closely related, making it difficult to target foreign ethnicities. Humans in general are pretty tightly clustered, although I would imagine one of the great weapon uses for AI systems in this century (or decade) will be biologicals very tightly targeted at micropopulations, very small cell factors (so, with your new AI-designed bioagent, instead of 80% enemy 40% friendly [which was the estimate for an Anti-Black People agent in South Africa] it goes to something like 70% enemy 10% friendly). Both biologicals and chemical can have unpredictable weapon effect, which is the primary reason we don't see them more often. A really great rifle that shoots backwards even .1% of the time would still be the world's worst rifle. Nuclear states have a form of "super-sovereignty" that effectively makes them a different kind of state. No one's chucking rockets or missiles at you anymore, no one's going to risk an airstrike or putting you on the Regime Change list. The long term effect of holding a nuclear arsenal has some nasty follow-on effects internally, for a nation, beyond just the sanctions and such, but it's such a cost-effective method of deterrence that such factors fade into the background.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Nuclear states have a form of “super-sovereignty” that effectively makes them a different kind of state. No one’s chucking rockets or missiles at you anymore Except, you know, that’s not actually true. Recently, a greater share of nuclear states have had direct strikes on their territory by foreign enemy states than is the case for non-nuclear states.
    - MilStdJunkie 3y ago
      Yeah, my bad, chucking rockets isn't what I had in my head, but I always try to use "chuck" as a verb as often as possible. What's actually the critical word is "invasion": no one[1] tries to take your land when you can hawk[0] a nuke at theirs. If you can give me a counterexample, I would be super excited to hear it. [0] In your FACE, "chuck"! There's plenty of verbs in the sea. [1] This is a fun one. "No One" would be "another state", someone that has land to lose. Stateless entities - religions, ethnicities, corporations - have sort of a secret superpower when dealing with nuclear states. We kind of see that in the post-ww2 era, and the "Cold" War, for the nuclear powers, was a war of stateless factions (a little bit like the European Wars of Religion). A follow on from this is that an unstable land border of a nuclear power is more or less the exact definition of trouble: Taiwan, Ukraine, Gaza/West Bank[a], and going back, the Soviet breakup of course. The real horror story would be a nuclear state run by a stateless minority - like a religious government that hates the bulk of its own people - because they're at least partially incentivized to take nuclear casualties. [1.a] Yeah yeah I know "Israel Doesn't Have Nukes", but c'mon.
earthworldpsion 3y ago
Nothing controversial about it. That’s a very simple deterrence argument a la Schelling.

iwontberude 3y ago

If Saddam had weapons of mass destruction it would’ve been because of a partnership with the US so it’s a moot point.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Sure, but a lot less iraqis would die, if saddam had a few nukes pointed at washington, ready to launch in case of a us invasion, and US decided to not risk it (or well,... risk it once and never again, and some other countries people would be alive instead of the next war there).

kjkjadksj 3y ago

What layer do nukes honestly give you that your chemical and bioweapons don’t? All are taboo to use. If shit hits the fan its far easier to gas and plague the country than to develop and successfully deploy nuclear weapons.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
I mean... soviets had both those too, and a few nukes on cuba caused such a crisis, that the sanctions are still in place there Luckily we have UN, which can vote against sanctions,... oh wait, they did that: https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143112 https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143112 > General Assembly votes overwhelmingly against US Cuba embargo > Those in favour: 187 > Those against: 2 (the US and Israel) > Abstentions: 1 (Ukraine) Guess what, sanctions are still in place :)
MilStdJunkie 3y ago
In terms of weapon effect, nukes really are in a whole other category, particularly against invasions, which require concentration of force by their nature. Even a dozen nukes with 1950s delivery systems can make the price of invasion untenable - particularly for democratic governments. And once a country is making them, they're very easy to stash, so you can never be sure you got them all. We faced a similar problem with Cuba, when we learned that they'd stashed possibly quite a lot of FROG launchers in addition to the big missiles. Chemical weapons are a bit like Age of Sail line of battle, with an awful lot depending on the weather. Biologicals are even worse, since neighboring populations - surprise! - turn out to be pretty closely related, making it difficult to target foreign ethnicities. Humans in general are pretty tightly clustered, although I would imagine one of the great weapon uses for AI systems in this century (or decade) will be biologicals very tightly targeted at micropopulations, very small cell factors (so, with your new AI-designed bioagent, instead of 80% enemy 40% friendly [which was the estimate for an Anti-Black People agent in South Africa] it goes to something like 70% enemy 10% friendly). Both biologicals and chemical can have unpredictable weapon effect, which is the primary reason we don't see them more often. A really great rifle that shoots backwards even .1% of the time would still be the world's worst rifle. Nuclear states have a form of "super-sovereignty" that effectively makes them a different kind of state. No one's chucking rockets or missiles at you anymore, no one's going to risk an airstrike or putting you on the Regime Change list. The long term effect of holding a nuclear arsenal has some nasty follow-on effects internally, for a nation, beyond just the sanctions and such, but it's such a cost-effective method of deterrence that such factors fade into the background.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Nuclear states have a form of “super-sovereignty” that effectively makes them a different kind of state. No one’s chucking rockets or missiles at you anymore Except, you know, that’s not actually true. Recently, a greater share of nuclear states have had direct strikes on their territory by foreign enemy states than is the case for non-nuclear states.
  - MilStdJunkie 3y ago
    Yeah, my bad, chucking rockets isn't what I had in my head, but I always try to use "chuck" as a verb as often as possible. What's actually the critical word is "invasion": no one[1] tries to take your land when you can hawk[0] a nuke at theirs. If you can give me a counterexample, I would be super excited to hear it. [0] In your FACE, "chuck"! There's plenty of verbs in the sea. [1] This is a fun one. "No One" would be "another state", someone that has land to lose. Stateless entities - religions, ethnicities, corporations - have sort of a secret superpower when dealing with nuclear states. We kind of see that in the post-ww2 era, and the "Cold" War, for the nuclear powers, was a war of stateless factions (a little bit like the European Wars of Religion). A follow on from this is that an unstable land border of a nuclear power is more or less the exact definition of trouble: Taiwan, Ukraine, Gaza/West Bank[a], and going back, the Soviet breakup of course. The real horror story would be a nuclear state run by a stateless minority - like a religious government that hates the bulk of its own people - because they're at least partially incentivized to take nuclear casualties. [1.a] Yeah yeah I know "Israel Doesn't Have Nukes", but c'mon.

earthworldpsion 3y ago

Nothing controversial about it. That’s a very simple deterrence argument a la Schelling.