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On the topic of nukes. What is the point of them... Conventional warfare.. you cannot send in nukes before your troops to soften up the enemy. Assuming you los

by bobsy 13y ago

On the topic of nukes. What is the point of them... Conventional warfare.. you cannot send in nukes before your troops to soften up the enemy. Assuming you lose an invasion you cannot send them in after you pull your troops out. You cannot use them for precision strikes. You cannot use them over your own country should it get invaded. Apparently they are a deterrent from getting nuked yourself. Are they though? Nukes blow up civilians. Civilians do not press the big red button. Crack pot lunatics do from some deep underground bunker. Would you really launch a counter-strike killing potentially millions of civilians. I wouldn't. You don't answer genocide with genocide. The only use I can see is a small tactical nuke which could be used to blow up an enemy fleet at sea. Even then, launching the nuke in way that it wouldn't get intercepted I guess would be difficult. The implications for such a use would also be pretty profound. In the UK the Government want to / will renew trident. The UK nuke system. I don't really understand why. The cost is in the billions. The weapon is unsafe, as well as expensive to protect and maintain. I don't know what the current state of the UN is right now is but it seems to me a better solution would be to give the UN 50 nukes or whatever. The UN then becomes the deterrent. Pass a resolution. 'Those who use Nuclear weapons will be counter-nuked.' Other nations can then give them up. The only danger with nukes is that only one country has them. They can then threaten others 'Do as I say or be obliterated.' Realistically though so many countries know how to make nukes I can't imagine it would take too long to rearm in this scenario.

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guiomie 13y ago
Nukes are political/psychological tools. You'd rather be the guy with nukes, then without in my opinion. I'm sure you'd love every country simply not having any nukes, but I'm afraid this situation is impossible.
arethuza 13y ago
Here is a good article by Charlie Stross (HN cstross) on how silly the UK's "indepedent" deterrent is: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/04/on-the-uk-and-nuclear-disarmam.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/04/on-the-u... Another reason why other might people might want to worry a bit about UK nukes is that our Trident submarines are unique in that they don't have PALs - they do not require any authorization through the chain of command to launch weapons - they can do it all by themselves if they wanted to. Of course, being the RNs finest they are probably pretty decent chaps... [NB Charlie does say the UK Tridents have US PALs - I need to check that, my understanding is they don't due to fear of a decapitation strike and the famous Letters of Last Resort]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
- runarb 13y ago
  At list one need to be two (or three?) to launch a Trident from a submarine. The RAF used to use a simple bicycle lock: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm That "The Bomb is actually armed by inserting a bicycle lock key into the arming switch and turning it through 90 degrees. There is no code which needs to be entered or dual key system to prevent a rogue individual from arming the Bomb." isn't something one likes to hear when its about nuclear weapons...
  - arethuza 13y ago
    My favourite story about the wonderfully shoestring UK nuclear weapons program (even better than the chicken heated nuclear bomb or the H-bomb that wasn't) is the fact that for quite a while the communication channel between the PM and the V-bomber fleet relied upon the AA (yes, the Automobile Association) radio network: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/in-the-event-of-a-russian-nuclear-attack-call-the-aa-710672.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/in-the-eve...
Retric 13y ago
There great for hitting bases. Consider if all things being equal pearl harbor had been nuked the Japanese would have been far better off in WWII. Instead they sent a huge force which dropped a lot of bombs but failed to take out the base or kill a high percentage of the soldiers there. There are also strategic value in that it forces a country to respond even if you only send one aircraft. Don't forget Japan did not bother trying to take down the the first atomic bomber presumably because they assumed it was just taking pictures but even still.
Symmetry 13y ago
Conventional warfare.. you cannot send in nukes before your troops to soften up the enemy. Huh, why not? Generally speaking the idea with the tactical nukes deployed in Germany was to hit Soviet armored divisions at the start of WWIII before they engaged allied troops. I can think of a great many reasons why you wouldn't want to do that, but I can't see why you'd want to start fighting before doing that. And generally speaking, even if enemy forces have crossed into one's territory nuking the roads behind them will do a lot to fight off the invasion by preventing the flow of supply and reinforcements. Are these actually ideas I would endorse? No. But there's a tendency humans have to think that if something is bad in one way it must be bad in other ways too, and a tendency to want to believe that one's preferred course of action has zero drawbacks.
- deleted 13y ago
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by bobsy 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

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guiomie 13y ago

Nukes are political/psychological tools. You'd rather be the guy with nukes, then without in my opinion. I'm sure you'd love every country simply not having any nukes, but I'm afraid this situation is impossible.

arethuza 13y ago

Here is a good article by Charlie Stross (HN cstross) on how silly the UK's "indepedent" deterrent is: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/04/on-the-uk-and-nuclear-disarmam.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/04/on-the-u... Another reason why other might people might want to worry a bit about UK nukes is that our Trident submarines are unique in that they don't have PALs - they do not require any authorization through the chain of command to launch weapons - they can do it all by themselves if they wanted to. Of course, being the RNs finest they are probably pretty decent chaps... [NB Charlie does say the UK Tridents have US PALs - I need to check that, my understanding is they don't due to fear of a decapitation strike and the famous Letters of Last Resort]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort

runarb 13y ago
At list one need to be two (or three?) to launch a Trident from a submarine. The RAF used to use a simple bicycle lock: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm That "The Bomb is actually armed by inserting a bicycle lock key into the arming switch and turning it through 90 degrees. There is no code which needs to be entered or dual key system to prevent a rogue individual from arming the Bomb." isn't something one likes to hear when its about nuclear weapons...
- arethuza 13y ago
  My favourite story about the wonderfully shoestring UK nuclear weapons program (even better than the chicken heated nuclear bomb or the H-bomb that wasn't) is the fact that for quite a while the communication channel between the PM and the V-bomber fleet relied upon the AA (yes, the Automobile Association) radio network: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/in-the-event-of-a-russian-nuclear-attack-call-the-aa-710672.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/in-the-eve...

Retric 13y ago

There great for hitting bases. Consider if all things being equal pearl harbor had been nuked the Japanese would have been far better off in WWII. Instead they sent a huge force which dropped a lot of bombs but failed to take out the base or kill a high percentage of the soldiers there. There are also strategic value in that it forces a country to respond even if you only send one aircraft. Don't forget Japan did not bother trying to take down the the first atomic bomber presumably because they assumed it was just taking pictures but even still.

Symmetry 13y ago

Conventional warfare.. you cannot send in nukes before your troops to soften up the enemy. Huh, why not? Generally speaking the idea with the tactical nukes deployed in Germany was to hit Soviet armored divisions at the start of WWIII before they engaged allied troops. I can think of a great many reasons why you wouldn't want to do that, but I can't see why you'd want to start fighting before doing that. And generally speaking, even if enemy forces have crossed into one's territory nuking the roads behind them will do a lot to fight off the invasion by preventing the flow of supply and reinforcements. Are these actually ideas I would endorse? No. But there's a tendency humans have to think that if something is bad in one way it must be bad in other ways too, and a tendency to want to believe that one's preferred course of action has zero drawbacks.

deleted 13y ago
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