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Post by who won on Mar 28, 2003 18:28:07 GMT -5
A nuclear weapon can hold the entire world hostage. If the leadership of any one nation is so utterly crazed that it launched an unprovoked nuclear attack on any nation including the US, the response could not be conventional. Even if my earlier scenario of the country nuking the troops on the border would not happen, the IraX or whoever would be known as a country prepared to use nukes and could merely threaten that if any military build up were to occur in the immediate vicinity of its country it will launch another attack on say Israel, or Kuwait or any other country it chose to threaten. A conventional attack would therefore be too dangerous to contemplate.
If a situation became so dangerous in conventional military terms for the US, or for Israel or any other nation for that matter, some sort of cost benefit analysis would take place and if it is judged to outweight the cost in terms of lives lost to the threat from say Iran or Iraq (whether conventional, whether biological or nuclear, or even terrorist) and conventional military action would not work, then nuclear may be the only answer.
Where exactly that cuts in in terms of cost benefit, who knows.
Lets ask this question then, we already know the US has used nuclear weapons, was it justified at that time?
The only difference between now and then though and this is significant, is that the US is not the sole nuclear power, one nuclear attack deserves another. Japan could not respond in 1945.
In 1945, the bomb did bring forward by probably some time the end of a bloody war. Was that right?
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Post by who won on Mar 28, 2003 18:31:55 GMT -5
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Post by Wycco on Mar 29, 2003 17:18:10 GMT -5
Who Won,
Thanks- that was a very interesting article!!!
Re Japan:
If we were in a similar situation today- or even if I could travel back in time to the mid 40's- I would be appalled and totally oppose the use of nuclear weapons. They simply wern't necessary to defeat the Japanese- and at that stage I don't think there would have been much loss of American lives before the complete crumbling of Japan- they were already on the run.
With that said...
I am almost glad nuclear weapons were used then (please don't take that out of context!)... It allowed people to see how attrocious and devastating nuclear weapons are! I'm sure the emotions of Hiroshima was on the mind of the Russians AND Americans during the 60's, the cuban missile crisis, and throughout the cold war.
If Hiroshima had not have happened- would the Americans (or Russians) not have had the nasty aftertase of nuclear weapons in their mouths throughout the cold war? Would they have been as appalled and disgusted by nuclear weapons as they were?
I don't think nuclear weapons would have the respect they had during the cold war if Hiroshima had never happened... If Hiroshima never happened perhaps mankind would exist only in what was want the remote wastelands that noone thought to bomb.
As sick and disgusting as Hiroshima was- it may be the only reason we are alive today.
The dangerous thing is: the current world leaders are of a generation too young to have witnessed the horrors of Hiroshima... as such- I don't think Bush, and others truly respect nuclear weapons- thus his willingness to flaunt them and break standing treaties.
Re Mini-Nukes:
I really know little about these... What sort of long-term impact do they leave- do they "steralise" the environment long term, or are they small enough to dissipate without much long term radiation present? Anyone know more about them?
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Post by JWK on Mar 29, 2003 19:23:46 GMT -5
Good post Wyc
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Post by who won on Mar 29, 2003 19:49:02 GMT -5
supposedly the use of Nukes brought forward the end of the war by quite number of years and if it had not been used would have cost another million men in continuing fighting.
Lets not forget that thanks to the so called conventional war some 19 million men lost their lives. (that might actually be the figure for WW1, but anyway, whatever the number it was in the millions, so the prediction of another million may not be that absurd.
Now, whether you believe that to be the case, or you believe your post above - that is that Japan were crumbiling anyway, lets just suppose that the prediction would have been accurate. That is, the war might well have dragged on for another 3 -5 yearsand another million men would have been killed in the fighting, (in WW2 massive so called collateral damage was a daily occurence of war), would the use of a nuclear bomb to end the war in one move be justified?
I think it was. Of course I don't need to discuss the horror that 10's of thousands of people had to die for that benefit, but, given the prediction discussed above, when it comes down to it, it was a horrific price that probably saved the world from far more suffering. Additonally, I do think that it did bring some level of stability at least for a while. As you mention above, the very real power of the nuke was exposed and that destructive power ironically kept the peace.
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Post by Danny Boy on Mar 29, 2003 21:29:31 GMT -5
The americans could have dropped the first bomb on an unoccupied area of land in order to show the power of said bomb. America could then have warned the Japanese to surrender, or the second bomb would be dropped on one of there cities. However, when in their history, have america not used overwhelming force to smash and destroy, rather than display tolerance, compassion or humanity.
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Post by who won on Mar 29, 2003 23:59:32 GMT -5
I'm not sure but would imagine that the nuke had been tested before its first ever use, therefore most interested parties would have had some knowledge of the awesome power of the bomb. Now had they just dropped it on an unoccupied piece of land everything would have been fine right?
Two questions, why aren't things all fine now? we all know what awesome power the bomb has and yet Iraq has the audacity to stand up to the US and not bow down. It is only by the use of it that it did anything. And not only did the US have to use it on Hiroshima, that was not good enough, they had to use it on Nagasaki again.
So you see, simply demonstrating it was not enough, just as it is not enough now. If the US were to drop a bomb on Iraq, perhaps the rest of the world while appaled would once again realise that the threat is very real and behave themselves a little.
Now i am not advocating that as a policy, but simply demonstrating that merely testing a nuke without the very real threat and realization of use, is not good enough, it took two uses before Japan caved in. I conclude that if it took two nukes on Japan before they caved, a mere demo of the weapon would not have been enough.
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Post by Danny Boy on Mar 30, 2003 1:02:08 GMT -5
Who Won: I did not mean the Nevada (or wherever) test, but on the Japanese Mainland. I have no idea why the americans wanted to drop 2 atomic bombs within 3 days of each other, other than pure bloody mindedness. It took the Japanese 6 days to surrender after the dropping of the second bomb. Time I assume was taken up with negotiations for the ceasefire, negotiations, that most likely would have started straight after the dropping of the first bomb. With Iraq, they, Iraq, did not start the war with america, it was americans that started the war against Iraq. As far as most of the world was concerned, Iraq was trying to comply with the UN investigators, especially in the last few weeks. The Iraq's have not used any chemical/biological bombs in this spat or the last one. Rather it was the americans that used chemical bombs last time, the aftermath of which the Iraq's are still living with.
As for america dropping a nuke on Iraq now, bush has already made every american, either at home or world wide, a target for all, would-be Muslim avengers, for the next 20 years. So why not go the whole hog and show the World the contempt with which he and his cohorts really have for the world.
Thanks for your imput by the way.
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Post by whowon on Mar 30, 2003 8:10:10 GMT -5
I see your point, but think anyone would be extremely hard pressed to find a reasonably uninhabited area of japan, is one of the most desely populated countries in the world. But anyway, I get your point.
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