4 ms·

In terms of weapon effect, nukes really are in a whole other category, particularly against invasions, which require concentration of force by their nature. Eve

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 2y 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 2y 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.

dragonwriter 2y 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 2y 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.