8 ms·

The take home message from this is that the only way for any country to be secure is to have nuclear weapons.

by sega_sai 8mo ago

Matl 8mo ago
North Korea looks a lot less unhinged now.
- wiseowise 8mo ago
  It is still unhinged, but not because of nuclear weapons. Ukraine, and now Iran, showed the whole world what happens when you don’t have a nuclear deterrence.
  - somenameforme 8mo ago
    I think the unhinged rhetoric is, in part, a necessary partner of the nukes. Because you need to not only have nukes but have your adversaries believe that you won't hesitate to use them. If North Korea had nukes, but the US didn't believe they would use them, then they'd be getting the Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc, etc, etc treatment.
    - Gare 8mo ago
      Exactly, the threat of using nukes needs to be credible in order to work as a deterrence.
    - thrance 8mo ago
      I mean, nothing unhinged here, nukes are only ever useful if other countries believe you will use them when attacked. Same thing for North Korea as the US, France, etc. (Well, nuclear war is unhinged, but...).
    - wk_end 8mo ago
      The claim has always been made that attacking NK was off the table anyway, because they have obscene numbers of conventional artillery pointed directly at SK's capital and largest population centre, right across the DMZ; even the fastest decapitation strike wouldn't have prevented Seoul from getting flattened. Nukes definitely don't hurt but I'm not actually sure NK needed the bomb as an additional deterrent.
      - jjk166 8mo ago
        North Korea didn't acquire nukes to protect itself from the US, it got them to protect its regime from China. It began pursuing nukes in the 80s once its original safeguard against China, its alliance with the Soviet Union, started showing signs it would not be a viable long term strategy. The anti-US spiel is just rhetoric. It helps save face when dealing with China, which it still utterly depends on, and it goes along with decades of internal propaganda lionizing China to its own people. Indeed North Korea wants heavy US military presence in the region, maintaining its status with regards to China as a strategically important buffer state which can act with plausible deniability instead of a resource rich neighbor with uncooperative leadership. If North Korea only had conventional forces, what would stop China from installing a loyal puppet? The international community wouldn't lift a finger, threats to South Korea would only further alienate the regime, China could bring its full might to bear, the DPRK military would have no effective means to retaliate and would be more likely to turn on the regime than mount a credible defense, and North Korea's own people would probably welcome the change which would dramatically reduce oppression and increase prosperity. Nukes are the only way for a small number of regime loyalists to make such an operation too costly for Beijing to justify. This is also why talks with the US have utterly "failed" for decades - there is nothing the US can offer that would provide the same security guarantee for the regime and the status quo is advantageous to the US for multiple reasons: justifying its large military presence in the region, justifying its efforts to develop and deploy ever more capable ballistic missile defense systems, and North Korea not being completely under China's control.
    - csomar 8mo ago
      That doesn’t make sense. Even if you are almost certain they won’t use the nuke, do you really want to take that gamble?
    - wat10000 8mo ago
      NK didn’t get nuclear weapons until several years after the invasion of Iraq, and it was probably longer still before they had a viable delivery system. The nukes clearly aren’t the only reason they’re left alone.
- baxtr 8mo ago
  Do you believe it’s a good thing North Korea has the bomb?
  - AbstractH24 8mo ago
    If you are the leaders of North Korea, yes
    - baxtr 8mo ago
      What about its people?
      - AbstractH24 8mo ago
        The leadership in North Korea’s clearly doesn’t prioritize them.
      - Matl 8mo ago
        The fact that NK possess nuclear weapons strongly discourages external players from attacking it. It does not in any way change the tools NK has at its disposal domestically. If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale.
        lyu07282 8mo ago
        > If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale. You think the US would just leave them alone as a communist, sovereign country without nukes, bordering china???
        Matl 8mo ago
        I think any US intervention in NK would not be to help the people of NK, that's all.
      - 8mo ago
_heimdall 8mo ago
How does that factor in here right now? We haven't used or threatened to use nukes, and at least the public case made is in part that Iran is trying to get nukes and shouldn't. I say "public case" specifically here, I don't buy that justification but it is still the one being used.
- knorker 8mo ago
  How does it factor in? How doesn't it? If Iran had deployable nukes, would they get invaded? Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes. I'll wait.
  - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    > If Iran had deployable nukes, would they get invaded? Honestly, maybe? Like if we had high confidence we knew where they were, and Israel consented to the attack, I could absolutely see the U.S. trying to take it out in storage. If Iran had a nuke that could hit the U.S., I'd say no. But that's a stretch from "deployable nukes." > Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes Pedantically, Ukraine.
    - knorker 8mo ago
      > if we had high confidence we knew where they were That's a very big gamble. They only need to have hide one on a cargo ship and the attacker is going to have a Very Bad Day. Nobody's made that gamble yet. Yes, there's been kinetics between India and Pakistan, and Iran sending missiles at Israel, but not a credible threat to the state. > Pedantically, Ukraine. Not sure when you mean. Did they get bombed while they had physical control in the early 90s? They never had operational control, but now that they're being bombed they don't have even physical control of nukes.
  - _heimdall 8mo ago
    It likely wouldn't be kinetic, but nukes didn't stop us from chipping away at the Soviet Union. I could be wrong, but I don't buy the public story that this is about regime change. You don't topple a government with air superiority alone, and you don't do it in a matter of days. I also don't expect the US would be okay letting the Iranian people pick who comes next. We have a history of installing puppets and that similarly doesn't happen only via bombing runs.
rich_sasha 8mo ago
And not to negotiate with the US in good faith.
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  [flagged]
  - roryirvine 8mo ago
    I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago. But it turns out that they were actually negotiating in better faith than their counter-party, who have just launched a war whilst still claiming to be interested in a peaceful settlement.
    - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
      > I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago These are somewhat independent variables. America was open about the fact that we were trying diplomacy before force. Either, one or no sides could have been negotiating in good faith and still wound up here with that setup.
      - master_crab 8mo ago
        No they weren’t. Trump cancelled the previous treaty and then wanted a new agreement more favorable to the US than JCPOA. I don’t like the mullah’s in Iran anymore than the next person but no reasonable and sane person would take that to mean “negotiating in good faith.”
        JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
        > no reasonable and sane person would take that to mean “negotiating in good faith.” Taken as a whole, Trump has not been negotiating with Iran in good faith. That does not mean that Iran has been negotiating in good faith.
ekianjo 8mo ago
Israel has a lot of nukes (while they pretend they don't) and that does not prevent them from being attacked.
- xrd 8mo ago
  It probably prevents armed warships from attacking them. It doesn't, as you correctly point out, prevent guerilla warfare.
- learingsci 8mo ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. I hear people say this over and over, if Iran only had nukes it would be safe to continue propagating terrorism as it has been doing. It’s obviously wrong, as you point out. Russia has nukes. India has nukes. Having nuclear weapons doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want, if anything it brings a higher level of scrutiny. A nuclear Iran would be a serious problem for many and that’s why it’s so critical to make sure that doesn’t happen, not just for Israel but the entire planet.
  - FrustratedMonky 8mo ago
    Maybe it is scale. Maybe Nukes do not prevent terrorism, or gorilla warfare. Having Nukes would prevent a large strike from another state, like what US just did. Nobody is doing this large scale of bombing on any of the nuclear powers.
  - someotherperson 8mo ago
    There's only one country that has repeatedly attacked its neighbors and has decided to occupy and seize land from two of them while actively calling for and carrying out strikes in many others all in the last two years. It ain't Iran.
    - flyinglizard 8mo ago
      Iran effectively controlled Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq through its proxies and puppet regimes. Right, it didn't annex territory, but it complete subjugated these countries and their population to their goals.
JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
"In the world of strategic studies, there has been a return to ‘theories of [nuclear] victory’. Their proponents draw on the work of past scholars such as Henry Kissinger, who wondered in his 1957 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy if extending the American deterrent to all of Europe at a time when the threat of total destruction hung over the US itself would actually work: ‘A reliance on all-out war as the chief deterrent saps our system of alliances in two ways: either our allies feel that any military effort on their part is unnecessary or they may be led to the conviction that peace is preferable to war even on terms almost akin to surrender ... As the implication of all-out war with modern weapons become better understood ... it is not reasonable to assume that the United Kingdom, and even more the United States, would be prepared to commit suicide in order to defend a particular area ... whatever its importance, to an enemy’. One of the recommended solutions was to bring tactical nuclear weapons back into the dialectic of deterrence extended to allied territories, so as to give US decision makers a range of options between Armageddon and defeat without a war. Global deterrence was ‘restored’ by creating additional rungs on the ladder of escalation, which were supposed to enable a sub-apocalyptic deterrence dialogue — before one major adversary or the other felt its key interests were threatened and resorted to extreme measures. Many theorists in the 1970s took this logic further, in particular Colin Gray in a 1979 article, now back in fashion, titled ‘Nuclear Strategy: the case for a theory of victory’. ... In 2018 Admiral Pierre Vandier, now chief of staff of the French navy, offered a precise definition of this shift to the new strategic era, which has begun with Russia’s invasion: ‘A number of indicators suggest that we are entering a new era, a Third Nuclear Age, following the first, defined by mutual deterrence between the two superpowers, and the second, which raised hopes of a total and definitive elimination of nuclear weapons after the cold war’" [1]. I think the chances we see a tactial nuclear exchange in our lifetimes has gone from distant to almost certain. [1] https://mondediplo.com/2022/04/03nuclear https://mondediplo.com/2022/04/03nuclear
- wat10000 8mo ago
  Now that the last generation with direct experience of the Nazis is leaving us, it seems like the populace is forgetting the horrors of that time. That also happens to be the last generation with direct experience of nuclear weapons used in war.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
jmyeet 8mo ago
I just want to expand on this. 1. According to the US and Israel, Iran has been a week away from having nuclear weapons for at least 34 years [1]; 2. It's quite clear Iran could've developed nuclear weapons but chose not to. I actually think was a mistake. The real lesson from the so-called War on Terror was that only nuclear weapons will preserve your regime (ie Norht Korea); 3. Israel is a nuclear power. It's widely believed that Israel first obtained weapons grade Uranium by stealing it from the US in the 1960s [2]; 4. In a just world, people would hang for what we did to Iran in 1953, 1978-79, the Iran-Iraq War and sanctions (which are a sanitized way of saying "we're starving you"); and 5. The current round of demands include Iran dismantling its ballistic missile program. This is because the 12 day war was a strategic and military disaster for the US and Israel. Israel has a multi-layered missile defence shield. People usually talk about Iron Dome but that's just for shooting down small rockets. Separate layers exist for long-range and ballistic missiles (eg David's Sling, Arrow-2, Arrow-3). In recent times the US has complemented these with the ship-borne THAAD system. Even with all this protection, Iran responded to the unprovoked attacks of the 12-day war by sending just enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences, basically saying "if we have to, we can hit Israel". Many suspect that the real reason the US negotiated an end to the 12 day war was because both Israel and the US were running cirtically low on the munitions for THAAD and Israel's missile defence shield. You can't just quickly make more either. Reportedly that will take over a year to get replacements. Thing is, pretty much all of this missile defence technology is about to become obsolete once hypersonic missiles become more widespread, which is going to happen pretty soon. I suspect that's a big part of why the US and Israel are now trying so desperately to topple the regime and turn Iran into a fail-state like Somalia or Yemen. I'm not normally one to encourage nuclear proliferation but when it's the only thing the US will listen to, what choice do countries have? [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-netanyahus-rhetoric-on-irans-nuclear-ambitions https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-n... [2]: https://thebulletin.org/2014/04/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-from-the-united-states/ https://thebulletin.org/2014/04/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-...
- flyinglizard 8mo ago
  Yes, because "what choice did Iran have" other than: 1. Routinely calling for death to Israel and America, turning it into part of the national curriculum and sowing hate 2. Funding, training, supplying and directing multiple violent proxy organizations around the region which attacked Israel and undermined their own countries (Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in West Bank and Gaza, other organizations in Iraq) 3. Enriching Uranium to clearly non-civilian grade in multiple militarily hardened facilities; 4. Directly attacking multiple Jewish targets around the world (like the AMIA and then embassy bombings in Argentina) 5. Attacking neighboring countries with ballistic and cruise missiles, like the attacks on Saudi Aramco in 2019 6. Holding international shipping and energy markets hostage by threatening to attack ships and tankers in the Persian Gulf 7. Abusing their own citizens, including public executions, persecutions and extreme violence 8. Providing support to Russia in their efforts in Ukraine, and especially drones used for indiscriminate dumb attack waves against civilians and infrastructure Now we have people arguing that if they had just gotten nukes then they could have continued doing all of that.
ruben81ad 8mo ago
This has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. The only problem here is that iran has petrol. Thats it.
- baq 8mo ago
  I used to believe that, I think there are also some very ambitious people nearby who want to use US armed forces for their benefit - as any rational player who has influence over such power would attempt.
- gpderetta 8mo ago
  > Iran has petrol More than taking control of Iranian petrol, this is probably more an attempt at cutting off China access to it (and also generally eliminating one of their allies), same as for the Venezuelan invasion.
- squidbeak 8mo ago
  You've completely misunderstood the poster's point. Nations are being taught that without nuclear weapons you could be attacked in this new world.
- ch4s3 8mo ago
  This is an incredibly facile take on the situation. Iran has been a destabilizing regional power with imperial aims for 47 odd years. They even murdered the PM of Lebanon via their proxy army. They’ve been poking the bear for decades, and there are serval occasions where it may have happened sooner in an alternative universe. Had McCain become president in ‘08 we may well have seen a land invasion from US positions in Iraq, as the Iranian Quds force was already fighting US soldiers in Iraq. The whole DoD is now full of Iraq veterans who hate the Iranian government to their bones. It’s shocking this didn’t happen sooner, and probably only didn’t because of luck.
yonisto 8mo ago
Those who paid any attention to Ukraine already figured it out
edgyquant 8mo ago
Considering the rationale for this war that kind of seems false
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > Considering the rationale for this war that kind of seems false The spring to a nuke is riskier than ever. That doesn't change that nuclear sovereignty is a tier above the regular kind, this is something every one of the global powers (China, Russia and America) and most regional powers (Israel) have explicilty endorsed.
hmokiguess 8mo ago
On another note, Canada is the only country that ever decided against having them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_weapons_of_mass_des...
- iso1631 8mo ago
  Ukraine literally had them and gave them up
- throw-the-towel 8mo ago
  South Africa got rid of its nukes after the apartheid ended.
- soraminazuki 8mo ago
  You missed like, *checks notes* 186 other non-nuclear-armed states parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. https://www.iaea.org/topics/non-proliferation-treaty https://www.iaea.org/topics/non-proliferation-treaty
  - hmokiguess 8mo ago
    Thanks I wasn’t thorough in my readings, appreciate the correction!
lingrush4 8mo ago
[dead]
reliabilityguy 8mo ago
Israel has nuclear weapons. Did it keep them safe?
- markus_zhang 8mo ago
  Pretty safe if you ask me, judging from their…location and historical context.
- alkonaut 8mo ago
  From invasion or forced regime change? Yes (But I don't think the nukes actually helped in that regard).
  - reliabilityguy 8mo ago
    It did not keep them safe from the invasion 2 years ago.
    - delecti 8mo ago
      Those attacks were horrific, but certainly nothing that rises to the level of an "invasion".
      - reliabilityguy 8mo ago
        They were invasion by definition: Palestinians crossed into Israel, invaded villages and towns. How come it's not an invasion?
        wvbdmp 8mo ago
        Usually an invasion entails an intent to capture territory and occupy. A suicide terror attack is qualitatively different even if it’s large-scale. The boots on the ground could just as well have been rockets, whereas an invasion needs a longer term presence.
        randyfox 8mo ago
mickle00 8mo ago
100% -- unfortunate, sad, and entirely predictable

The take home message from this is that the only way for any country to be secure is to have nuclear weapons.

Matl 8mo ago

North Korea looks a lot less unhinged now.

wiseowise 8mo ago
It is still unhinged, but not because of nuclear weapons. Ukraine, and now Iran, showed the whole world what happens when you don’t have a nuclear deterrence.
- somenameforme 8mo ago
  I think the unhinged rhetoric is, in part, a necessary partner of the nukes. Because you need to not only have nukes but have your adversaries believe that you won't hesitate to use them. If North Korea had nukes, but the US didn't believe they would use them, then they'd be getting the Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc, etc, etc treatment.
  - Gare 8mo ago
    Exactly, the threat of using nukes needs to be credible in order to work as a deterrence.
  - thrance 8mo ago
    I mean, nothing unhinged here, nukes are only ever useful if other countries believe you will use them when attacked. Same thing for North Korea as the US, France, etc. (Well, nuclear war is unhinged, but...).
  - wk_end 8mo ago
    The claim has always been made that attacking NK was off the table anyway, because they have obscene numbers of conventional artillery pointed directly at SK's capital and largest population centre, right across the DMZ; even the fastest decapitation strike wouldn't have prevented Seoul from getting flattened. Nukes definitely don't hurt but I'm not actually sure NK needed the bomb as an additional deterrent.
    - jjk166 8mo ago
      North Korea didn't acquire nukes to protect itself from the US, it got them to protect its regime from China. It began pursuing nukes in the 80s once its original safeguard against China, its alliance with the Soviet Union, started showing signs it would not be a viable long term strategy. The anti-US spiel is just rhetoric. It helps save face when dealing with China, which it still utterly depends on, and it goes along with decades of internal propaganda lionizing China to its own people. Indeed North Korea wants heavy US military presence in the region, maintaining its status with regards to China as a strategically important buffer state which can act with plausible deniability instead of a resource rich neighbor with uncooperative leadership. If North Korea only had conventional forces, what would stop China from installing a loyal puppet? The international community wouldn't lift a finger, threats to South Korea would only further alienate the regime, China could bring its full might to bear, the DPRK military would have no effective means to retaliate and would be more likely to turn on the regime than mount a credible defense, and North Korea's own people would probably welcome the change which would dramatically reduce oppression and increase prosperity. Nukes are the only way for a small number of regime loyalists to make such an operation too costly for Beijing to justify. This is also why talks with the US have utterly "failed" for decades - there is nothing the US can offer that would provide the same security guarantee for the regime and the status quo is advantageous to the US for multiple reasons: justifying its large military presence in the region, justifying its efforts to develop and deploy ever more capable ballistic missile defense systems, and North Korea not being completely under China's control.
  - csomar 8mo ago
    That doesn’t make sense. Even if you are almost certain they won’t use the nuke, do you really want to take that gamble?
  - wat10000 8mo ago
    NK didn’t get nuclear weapons until several years after the invasion of Iraq, and it was probably longer still before they had a viable delivery system. The nukes clearly aren’t the only reason they’re left alone.
baxtr 8mo ago
Do you believe it’s a good thing North Korea has the bomb?
- AbstractH24 8mo ago
  If you are the leaders of North Korea, yes
  - baxtr 8mo ago
    What about its people?
    - AbstractH24 8mo ago
      The leadership in North Korea’s clearly doesn’t prioritize them.
    - Matl 8mo ago
      The fact that NK possess nuclear weapons strongly discourages external players from attacking it. It does not in any way change the tools NK has at its disposal domestically. If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale.
      - lyu07282 8mo ago
        > If you're trying to say that had NK not had nukes we would bomb it for 'humanitarian purposes' or 'on behalf of its people' then I have a couple of bridges for sale. You think the US would just leave them alone as a communist, sovereign country without nukes, bordering china???
        Matl 8mo ago
        I think any US intervention in NK would not be to help the people of NK, that's all.
    - 8mo ago

_heimdall 8mo ago

How does that factor in here right now? We haven't used or threatened to use nukes, and at least the public case made is in part that Iran is trying to get nukes and shouldn't. I say "public case" specifically here, I don't buy that justification but it is still the one being used.

knorker 8mo ago
How does it factor in? How doesn't it? If Iran had deployable nukes, would they get invaded? Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes. I'll wait.
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  > If Iran had deployable nukes, would they get invaded? Honestly, maybe? Like if we had high confidence we knew where they were, and Israel consented to the attack, I could absolutely see the U.S. trying to take it out in storage. If Iran had a nuke that could hit the U.S., I'd say no. But that's a stretch from "deployable nukes." > Name a country that got bombed to credibly destroy the government, and had nukes Pedantically, Ukraine.
  - knorker 8mo ago
    > if we had high confidence we knew where they were That's a very big gamble. They only need to have hide one on a cargo ship and the attacker is going to have a Very Bad Day. Nobody's made that gamble yet. Yes, there's been kinetics between India and Pakistan, and Iran sending missiles at Israel, but not a credible threat to the state. > Pedantically, Ukraine. Not sure when you mean. Did they get bombed while they had physical control in the early 90s? They never had operational control, but now that they're being bombed they don't have even physical control of nukes.
- _heimdall 8mo ago
  It likely wouldn't be kinetic, but nukes didn't stop us from chipping away at the Soviet Union. I could be wrong, but I don't buy the public story that this is about regime change. You don't topple a government with air superiority alone, and you don't do it in a matter of days. I also don't expect the US would be okay letting the Iranian people pick who comes next. We have a history of installing puppets and that similarly doesn't happen only via bombing runs.

rich_sasha 8mo ago

And not to negotiate with the US in good faith.

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
[flagged]
- roryirvine 8mo ago
  I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago. But it turns out that they were actually negotiating in better faith than their counter-party, who have just launched a war whilst still claiming to be interested in a peaceful settlement.
  - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    > I'd have been sympathetic to that argument up until a few hours ago These are somewhat independent variables. America was open about the fact that we were trying diplomacy before force. Either, one or no sides could have been negotiating in good faith and still wound up here with that setup.
    - master_crab 8mo ago
      No they weren’t. Trump cancelled the previous treaty and then wanted a new agreement more favorable to the US than JCPOA. I don’t like the mullah’s in Iran anymore than the next person but no reasonable and sane person would take that to mean “negotiating in good faith.”
      - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
        > no reasonable and sane person would take that to mean “negotiating in good faith.” Taken as a whole, Trump has not been negotiating with Iran in good faith. That does not mean that Iran has been negotiating in good faith.

ekianjo 8mo ago

Israel has a lot of nukes (while they pretend they don't) and that does not prevent them from being attacked.

xrd 8mo ago
It probably prevents armed warships from attacking them. It doesn't, as you correctly point out, prevent guerilla warfare.
learingsci 8mo ago
Thanks for pointing this out. I hear people say this over and over, if Iran only had nukes it would be safe to continue propagating terrorism as it has been doing. It’s obviously wrong, as you point out. Russia has nukes. India has nukes. Having nuclear weapons doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want, if anything it brings a higher level of scrutiny. A nuclear Iran would be a serious problem for many and that’s why it’s so critical to make sure that doesn’t happen, not just for Israel but the entire planet.
- FrustratedMonky 8mo ago
  Maybe it is scale. Maybe Nukes do not prevent terrorism, or gorilla warfare. Having Nukes would prevent a large strike from another state, like what US just did. Nobody is doing this large scale of bombing on any of the nuclear powers.
- someotherperson 8mo ago
  There's only one country that has repeatedly attacked its neighbors and has decided to occupy and seize land from two of them while actively calling for and carrying out strikes in many others all in the last two years. It ain't Iran.
  - flyinglizard 8mo ago
    Iran effectively controlled Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq through its proxies and puppet regimes. Right, it didn't annex territory, but it complete subjugated these countries and their population to their goals.

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago

"In the world of strategic studies, there has been a return to ‘theories of [nuclear] victory’. Their proponents draw on the work of past scholars such as Henry Kissinger, who wondered in his 1957 book Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy if extending the American deterrent to all of Europe at a time when the threat of total destruction hung over the US itself would actually work: ‘A reliance on all-out war as the chief deterrent saps our system of alliances in two ways: either our allies feel that any military effort on their part is unnecessary or they may be led to the conviction that peace is preferable to war even on terms almost akin to surrender ... As the implication of all-out war with modern weapons become better understood ... it is not reasonable to assume that the United Kingdom, and even more the United States, would be prepared to commit suicide in order to defend a particular area ... whatever its importance, to an enemy’. One of the recommended solutions was to bring tactical nuclear weapons back into the dialectic of deterrence extended to allied territories, so as to give US decision makers a range of options between Armageddon and defeat without a war. Global deterrence was ‘restored’ by creating additional rungs on the ladder of escalation, which were supposed to enable a sub-apocalyptic deterrence dialogue — before one major adversary or the other felt its key interests were threatened and resorted to extreme measures. Many theorists in the 1970s took this logic further, in particular Colin Gray in a 1979 article, now back in fashion, titled ‘Nuclear Strategy: the case for a theory of victory’. ... In 2018 Admiral Pierre Vandier, now chief of staff of the French navy, offered a precise definition of this shift to the new strategic era, which has begun with Russia’s invasion: ‘A number of indicators suggest that we are entering a new era, a Third Nuclear Age, following the first, defined by mutual deterrence between the two superpowers, and the second, which raised hopes of a total and definitive elimination of nuclear weapons after the cold war’" [1]. I think the chances we see a tactial nuclear exchange in our lifetimes has gone from distant to almost certain. [1] https://mondediplo.com/2022/04/03nuclear https://mondediplo.com/2022/04/03nuclear

wat10000 8mo ago
Now that the last generation with direct experience of the Nazis is leaving us, it seems like the populace is forgetting the horrors of that time. That also happens to be the last generation with direct experience of nuclear weapons used in war.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

jmyeet 8mo ago

I just want to expand on this. 1. According to the US and Israel, Iran has been a week away from having nuclear weapons for at least 34 years [1]; 2. It's quite clear Iran could've developed nuclear weapons but chose not to. I actually think was a mistake. The real lesson from the so-called War on Terror was that only nuclear weapons will preserve your regime (ie Norht Korea); 3. Israel is a nuclear power. It's widely believed that Israel first obtained weapons grade Uranium by stealing it from the US in the 1960s [2]; 4. In a just world, people would hang for what we did to Iran in 1953, 1978-79, the Iran-Iraq War and sanctions (which are a sanitized way of saying "we're starving you"); and 5. The current round of demands include Iran dismantling its ballistic missile program. This is because the 12 day war was a strategic and military disaster for the US and Israel. Israel has a multi-layered missile defence shield. People usually talk about Iron Dome but that's just for shooting down small rockets. Separate layers exist for long-range and ballistic missiles (eg David's Sling, Arrow-2, Arrow-3). In recent times the US has complemented these with the ship-borne THAAD system. Even with all this protection, Iran responded to the unprovoked attacks of the 12-day war by sending just enough ballistic missiles to overwhelm the defences, basically saying "if we have to, we can hit Israel". Many suspect that the real reason the US negotiated an end to the 12 day war was because both Israel and the US were running cirtically low on the munitions for THAAD and Israel's missile defence shield. You can't just quickly make more either. Reportedly that will take over a year to get replacements. Thing is, pretty much all of this missile defence technology is about to become obsolete once hypersonic missiles become more widespread, which is going to happen pretty soon. I suspect that's a big part of why the US and Israel are now trying so desperately to topple the regime and turn Iran into a fail-state like Somalia or Yemen. I'm not normally one to encourage nuclear proliferation but when it's the only thing the US will listen to, what choice do countries have? [1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-netanyahus-rhetoric-on-irans-nuclear-ambitions https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2025/6/18/the-history-of-n... [2]: https://thebulletin.org/2014/04/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-uranium-from-the-united-states/ https://thebulletin.org/2014/04/did-israel-steal-bomb-grade-...

flyinglizard 8mo ago
Yes, because "what choice did Iran have" other than: 1. Routinely calling for death to Israel and America, turning it into part of the national curriculum and sowing hate 2. Funding, training, supplying and directing multiple violent proxy organizations around the region which attacked Israel and undermined their own countries (Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in West Bank and Gaza, other organizations in Iraq) 3. Enriching Uranium to clearly non-civilian grade in multiple militarily hardened facilities; 4. Directly attacking multiple Jewish targets around the world (like the AMIA and then embassy bombings in Argentina) 5. Attacking neighboring countries with ballistic and cruise missiles, like the attacks on Saudi Aramco in 2019 6. Holding international shipping and energy markets hostage by threatening to attack ships and tankers in the Persian Gulf 7. Abusing their own citizens, including public executions, persecutions and extreme violence 8. Providing support to Russia in their efforts in Ukraine, and especially drones used for indiscriminate dumb attack waves against civilians and infrastructure Now we have people arguing that if they had just gotten nukes then they could have continued doing all of that.

ruben81ad 8mo ago

This has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. The only problem here is that iran has petrol. Thats it.

baq 8mo ago
I used to believe that, I think there are also some very ambitious people nearby who want to use US armed forces for their benefit - as any rational player who has influence over such power would attempt.
gpderetta 8mo ago
> Iran has petrol More than taking control of Iranian petrol, this is probably more an attempt at cutting off China access to it (and also generally eliminating one of their allies), same as for the Venezuelan invasion.
squidbeak 8mo ago
You've completely misunderstood the poster's point. Nations are being taught that without nuclear weapons you could be attacked in this new world.
ch4s3 8mo ago
This is an incredibly facile take on the situation. Iran has been a destabilizing regional power with imperial aims for 47 odd years. They even murdered the PM of Lebanon via their proxy army. They’ve been poking the bear for decades, and there are serval occasions where it may have happened sooner in an alternative universe. Had McCain become president in ‘08 we may well have seen a land invasion from US positions in Iraq, as the Iranian Quds force was already fighting US soldiers in Iraq. The whole DoD is now full of Iraq veterans who hate the Iranian government to their bones. It’s shocking this didn’t happen sooner, and probably only didn’t because of luck.

yonisto 8mo ago

Those who paid any attention to Ukraine already figured it out

edgyquant 8mo ago

Considering the rationale for this war that kind of seems false

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> Considering the rationale for this war that kind of seems false The spring to a nuke is riskier than ever. That doesn't change that nuclear sovereignty is a tier above the regular kind, this is something every one of the global powers (China, Russia and America) and most regional powers (Israel) have explicilty endorsed.

hmokiguess 8mo ago

On another note, Canada is the only country that ever decided against having them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_and_weapons_of_mass_des...

iso1631 8mo ago
Ukraine literally had them and gave them up
throw-the-towel 8mo ago
South Africa got rid of its nukes after the apartheid ended.
soraminazuki 8mo ago
You missed like, *checks notes* 186 other non-nuclear-armed states parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. https://www.iaea.org/topics/non-proliferation-treaty https://www.iaea.org/topics/non-proliferation-treaty
- hmokiguess 8mo ago
  Thanks I wasn’t thorough in my readings, appreciate the correction!

lingrush4 8mo ago

[dead]

reliabilityguy 8mo ago

Israel has nuclear weapons. Did it keep them safe?

markus_zhang 8mo ago
Pretty safe if you ask me, judging from their…location and historical context.
alkonaut 8mo ago
From invasion or forced regime change? Yes (But I don't think the nukes actually helped in that regard).
- reliabilityguy 8mo ago
  It did not keep them safe from the invasion 2 years ago.
  - delecti 8mo ago
    Those attacks were horrific, but certainly nothing that rises to the level of an "invasion".
    - reliabilityguy 8mo ago
      They were invasion by definition: Palestinians crossed into Israel, invaded villages and towns. How come it's not an invasion?
      - wvbdmp 8mo ago
        Usually an invasion entails an intent to capture territory and occupy. A suicide terror attack is qualitatively different even if it’s large-scale. The boots on the ground could just as well have been rockets, whereas an invasion needs a longer term presence.
      - randyfox 8mo ago

mickle00 8mo ago

100% -- unfortunate, sad, and entirely predictable