Nuclear war still a threat?

KiwiKid

I don't really care what the 'deal' is. The fact of the matter is that a. the majority of those people would have absolutely nothing to do with such a nuclear strike NOR do they have anything to do with this deal you speak of, and b. the US can easily smash the NK government (i.e. those who were responsible for the strike) into pulp *without* murdering most of its citizens. IMO, retaliating by flattening Pyongyang would be barbaric.

Ryan_m_b

The likelihood of the latter IMO is exceedingly low. Building and delivering a nuclear weapon requires a large, well funded, technically specialised industry. If a terrorist were to sit back and try to plan how to perform mass murder they are far more likely to choose chemical/bio attack, persistant bombings in urban areas or multiple hijacking/crashing of planes into built up areas. All of these things are far easier than trying to build and launch a nuclear weapon, caveat being that something like a dirty/radiation bomb might be possible though I'm not sure how realistic it would be to assume they could get their hands on radioactive waste.

Ryan_m_b

100% agreed. Mass murder of civilians because their government/military mass murdered civilians in your country is about as ethical as slaughtering a family because one of them was a serial killer who killed most of yours.

nitsuj

I get it was subtle but I did say "pirate". As in country xyz is behind/supporting, a "surprise" attack with nuclear powers but not taking responsibility.

And yes that is unlikely, but I think that is more likely than an all out nuclear world war where due diligence was taken before launching. Mostly since due diligence determines its a ludicrous idea.

ThinkToday

Forgetting history of bombing civilian targets?

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk...s_on_japan.htm
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar...bout-blitz.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

It happens on all sides. To think that a rogue group/nation would never use a nuclear weapon is, IMO, absolutely wrong. It would redefine terrorism.

Ryan_m_b

I assume you're replying to me. If that's the case I never said never and acknowledged I can't know for sure and I outlined my view by pointing out that the nature of warfare (and interaction between countries in general) has changed, moving away from total war into precision strikes aimed at taking out governments. Regarding terrorism I explained that as well, whilst a nutty group might use nuclear weapons if they had them getting them is nigh on impossible. As for rogue states they are constrained by the obvious point that any use of nuclear attacks against another country is virtually bound to result in the international community going to war, perhaps even nuclear.

Because of this it seems likely IMO that as others have pointed out if nuclear attacks were to happen they may be a terrorist group supplied by a rogue state. However this ignores the fact that this is the type of thing intelligence services look out for and finding out a terrorist cell is about to or has been supplied by a specific party is the kind of thing they'd probably discover. That would bring us back to the MADness outlined above.

ThinkToday

Pretty much generally directed, since I didn't quote anyone’s post. However, the MAD strat that worked between the East, China, and West assumes people that the people running the show have some level of reason. Terrorist groups know we are trying to kill them on sight, so MAD is pretty much moot for them. I wouldn't even entertain the notion a group like that would develop a nuke, however, this is the real problem "In September 1997, the former secretary of the Russian Security Council Alexander Lebed claimed 100 "suitcase sized" nuclear weapons were unaccounted for. He said he was attempting to inventory the weapons when he was fired by President Boris Yeltsin in October 1996.[13] In 2005, Sergey Sinchenko, a legislator from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, said 250 nuclear weapons were unaccounted for. When comparing documents of nuclear weapons transferred from Ukraine to weapons received by Russia, there was a 250-weapon discrepancy" quoted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_...ss_destruction

Terrorist groups target civilians. It wasn't the government that stopped the underwear bomber, the bomber in Seattle discovery was more accident than government intel and skill, etc., and we didn't stop 9/11, even with signs it was coming.

aquitaine

Do I really need to point out that to live in Pyongyang you have to be 110% on board with the whole great leader worship thing? These people are in part responsible because the regime can't govern everyone else effectively without them. In every dictatorship there's always a small segment of the population that supports them, in North Korea's case they just made it easy to get rid of them by putting them all in one place.

There's a huge difference here, this is the ultimate expression of total war. The point of it is to win, all other priorities are rescinded. Besides, nuking a couple of Japanese cities ended up saving hundreds of thousands of American lives and millions upon millions of Japanese civilian lives.

Also consider this, if we renege on our treaty obligations, do you know what's going to happen? Everyone else will run out and start developing their own nuclear weapons program. It would be a proliferation nightmare. The entire point of the nuclear umbrella was prevent this. So frankly, not nuking a bunch of brainwashed commies in this scenario would make the world a much more dangerous place.

KiwiKid

Your words disgust me. Even presuming for the moment that *everyone* in Pyongyang loves the regime of NK, have not been brainwashed and love the regime out of their own free will, AND are proponents of nuking USA (which is highly unlikely), that still doesn't make it ethical to wipe everyone out. I'm not even going to use an example here, because there is something seriously wrong if you can't see that wiping out millions of people when there are rational alternatives is somehow ethical.

Evo

Enough.