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> It's not whether we are, it's whether they think we might. No, what they're thinking is "If we attack America, or allow America to be attacked with nuclear a

by alexqgb 13y ago

> It's not whether we are, it's whether they think we might. No, what they're thinking is "If we attack America, or allow America to be attacked with nuclear arms we supply, will we end up dead as a result?" And the very obvious answer is "Yes, yes you will. And if you try to disappear with your families, they will probably die too." American military commanders do not regard leaders of the Revolutionary Guard as social equals with whom they share the bonds of class. They will hunt them and kill them like animals. We know it. They know it. Everybody knows it. >Well, not without nukes. I'd bet on Russia or China's nukes over the US conventional military any day. To do what? Protect Iran from retaliation? Thanks to economic integration, neither country could afford to harm America this severely. China especially. The larger point is that, even without nukes, we are an exceedingly dangerous country to attack. While the American people can and do balk at the prospect of constant aggression coming from the hawks in Washington, they can be counted on to support absolutely devastating levels of violence if attacked directly. > It means that the US can't just start a war with China or threaten them with nuclear attack because a state of MAD exists. No, threatening one city is not 'destruction' in the MAD sense. Mutually Assured Destruction is the logical outcome of nuclear conflict in which the only way to avoid retaliation is to wipe the enemy off the map, in a surprise first-strike. The Nuclear Triad was developed as a counter-strategy to ensure that this wasn't possible. Even if a Soviet first-strike did leave every man, woman, and child dead, the Triad (composed of ICBMs, perpetually-airborne fleets of B-52s and several Trident subs) meant we'd still retain the power to respond in kind. The exchange would mark the last act of both nations. In essence, it was a suicide pact that treated the rest of humanity as collateral damage. That's not even remotely close to what was being promised in the conversation over Taiwan. More to the point, the conversation didn't end there, since China cares about having the US as a market more than it cares about having Taiwan as a provence.

philwelch 13y ago
It's not about Iran. Forget Iran. MAD works as a method of keeping the peace between Russia, China, and the USA and it would be a humanitarian disaster to eliminate that bulwark of world peace by disarming any of the three. The conversation clearly didn't end there because the Chinese changed tactics with Taiwan (they're actually talking to each other sometimes) and our aircraft carriers sailed away from the Taiwan Straits. It was more their way of saying "you can't dictate terms to us" rather than "we will dictate terms to you".
- alexqgb 13y ago
  Given the deep economic codependence of China and the US, to say nothing of the historically limited range of China's territorial ambitions, there is precisely zero need for the threat of mutually assured destruction in order to keep the peace between China and the US. In fact, we could unilaterally disarm and suffer absolutely no increase in risk from China for the very obvious reason that they are not going to nuke their biggest market. Nor are nuclear weapons needed to keep the peace with Russia, which is a shadow of what it was as the Soviet Empire. Indeed, even then their primary concern was containing the American threat. As far as the arms race is concerned, that was very much something America started. It took several years for the Soviets to join, and several more for them to even try to match us, which they never came close to doing. Unlike the Space Race, where we were playing catch up, the arms race was one in which we were ahead, by a very wide margin, from the very beginning. They were responding to our lead. We were not responding to theirs. I know Americans don't like to think of themselves as the belligerent party, but in the case of nuclear weapons pointed at the USSR, we really were. Even the Cuban missile crisis, which we like to think of as an unprovoked escalation, was a direct response to our own truly unprovoked escalation (placing missiles in Turkey aimed at Moscow). Having seen the error of our ways (well, sort of) and more importantly, having seen the Soviet Union collapse entirely, we can safely dismantle our arsenal, knowing full well that the biggest threat to world peace following WW2 was always us. Indeed, having first gotten rid of our own, we could help the increasingly impoverished Russians make the world safer by helping them get rid of theirs. The truth is that we were the ones who brought the scourge of nuclear weapons upon the world. We were the ones who sparked the Arms Race. And we remain the only country to have used them in combat. Frankly, leading efforts to rid the world of these things is the least we can do. Clinging to outdated and conspicuously unworkable "balance of power" arrangements simply isn't in our interests. And having removed the biggest threat from the table, without demands for reciprocity, we not only project massive confidence, we also make others look foolish by fearfully and pointlessly holding onto theirs. Truth be told, we all have better things to do with our money.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    The world would be less safe, not more, if all three parties disarmed. Economic interdependence isn't sufficient (it didn't prevent WWI) and "just trust Russia" isn't tenable either.

by alexqgb 13y ago

philwelch 13y ago

It's not about Iran. Forget Iran. MAD works as a method of keeping the peace between Russia, China, and the USA and it would be a humanitarian disaster to eliminate that bulwark of world peace by disarming any of the three. The conversation clearly didn't end there because the Chinese changed tactics with Taiwan (they're actually talking to each other sometimes) and our aircraft carriers sailed away from the Taiwan Straits. It was more their way of saying "you can't dictate terms to us" rather than "we will dictate terms to you".

alexqgb 13y ago
Given the deep economic codependence of China and the US, to say nothing of the historically limited range of China's territorial ambitions, there is precisely zero need for the threat of mutually assured destruction in order to keep the peace between China and the US. In fact, we could unilaterally disarm and suffer absolutely no increase in risk from China for the very obvious reason that they are not going to nuke their biggest market. Nor are nuclear weapons needed to keep the peace with Russia, which is a shadow of what it was as the Soviet Empire. Indeed, even then their primary concern was containing the American threat. As far as the arms race is concerned, that was very much something America started. It took several years for the Soviets to join, and several more for them to even try to match us, which they never came close to doing. Unlike the Space Race, where we were playing catch up, the arms race was one in which we were ahead, by a very wide margin, from the very beginning. They were responding to our lead. We were not responding to theirs. I know Americans don't like to think of themselves as the belligerent party, but in the case of nuclear weapons pointed at the USSR, we really were. Even the Cuban missile crisis, which we like to think of as an unprovoked escalation, was a direct response to our own truly unprovoked escalation (placing missiles in Turkey aimed at Moscow). Having seen the error of our ways (well, sort of) and more importantly, having seen the Soviet Union collapse entirely, we can safely dismantle our arsenal, knowing full well that the biggest threat to world peace following WW2 was always us. Indeed, having first gotten rid of our own, we could help the increasingly impoverished Russians make the world safer by helping them get rid of theirs. The truth is that we were the ones who brought the scourge of nuclear weapons upon the world. We were the ones who sparked the Arms Race. And we remain the only country to have used them in combat. Frankly, leading efforts to rid the world of these things is the least we can do. Clinging to outdated and conspicuously unworkable "balance of power" arrangements simply isn't in our interests. And having removed the biggest threat from the table, without demands for reciprocity, we not only project massive confidence, we also make others look foolish by fearfully and pointlessly holding onto theirs. Truth be told, we all have better things to do with our money.
- philwelch 13y ago
  The world would be less safe, not more, if all three parties disarmed. Economic interdependence isn't sufficient (it didn't prevent WWI) and "just trust Russia" isn't tenable either.