Originally posted by Nygdan

I agree, but the use of a nuke doesn't mean that everyone dies. If pakistan nukes india, why would the US respond with a first strike on the the russians and ukranians? Without exchange between the US and Russia, or two similarly armed regimes, there is no 'global' danger from nukes. The US and Russia can destroy most of modern civilization with their arsenals. france, north korea, england, india, can't.

So you're saying - Don't bother about the nuke arsenals of third world countries they are far away and will only kill themselves but be concerned if it endangers you!- is this what you are saying?? People dying in the third world due to nuclear weapons is some distant unrelated phenomena according to you is it? Nukes are nukes If a million die here in America or in the third world it should generate the same amount of concern because it is a danger to HUMANITY and more importantly innocent people have DIED!
Nukes are bad and nothing that they have prevented will last forever, Pakistan may not nuke India now in fear of MAD but what if they had a credible missile shield ?? How many would die ?Where is the MAD?
If we really want to destroy ourselves even god cannot stop us! Has anybody thought about the tilt in the balance of power the nukes have brought to the world, rouge nations have got their hands on nukes this has endangered the security of the world, North Korea for example has nukes and now threatens the entire region with a nuclear catastrophe! Do you think the region should be subjected to such danger due to a maniacal few??
Why does Japan so strongly advise against nuclear weapons because they have felt the destruction first hand and know that that kind of tragedy must not fall on any nation ever again.
What if some country like Libya got nuclear weapons ? Do you think they will listen to the international community and heed its demands ? What stops them from giving their nukes to terrorists and other lunatics to threaten the world with? We cannot risk fighting them for the risk of facing nuclear weapons and we cannot make them heed our demands !What then ?How have nuclear weapons "saved the day" ??

IAF..

Originally posted by Starwars51
Can you name one war since 1945 between two nuclear armed countries?

The point should be well taken, nuke armed nations tend to not go to war with one another, similiarly democractic countries tend to not go to war with each other, and also interestingly democracies tend to not have famines. India is the exception to all of that however, it has famines, it also has gone to war with pakistan when pakistans was at least argueably democratic, and, more germanely, nuke armed india and pakistan did go to war. Notice however that it was a very short war, it didn't go nuclear, and its entirely possible that the threat of nuke exchange forced both sides to stand down.

On the other hand, there is something of a new nuke detterence issue. The US couldn't prevent the Soviets from developing nukes. It can prevent the iranians from doing so. Its plausible, I'd say rather probably, that the US will go to war with iran to prevent them from getting nukes. In that situation, nukes will have precipitated a war where before there was none. Of course, that different than 'blowing up the world'.

Originally posted by IAF101

Originally posted by Nygdan

I agree, but the use of a nuke doesn't mean that everyone dies. If pakistan nukes india, why would the US respond with a first strike on the the russians and ukranians? Without exchange between the US and Russia, or two similarly armed regimes, there is no 'global' danger from nukes. The US and Russia can destroy most of modern civilization with their arsenals. france, north korea, england, india, can't.

So you're saying - Don't bother about the nuke arsenals of third world countries they are far away and will only kill themselves but be concerned if it endangers you!- is this what you are saying??

No, i am definitly not saying that. I am saying, however, that nuke war between india and pakistan isn't going cause a so called 'nuclear winter' or kill everyone on the planet. The justifiable hysteria over soviet-american nuke war is not justifiable in the case of third world/second world countries.

it should generate the same amount of concern because it is a danger to HUMANITY

No, its not a danger to humanity. Its not the same scale of nuclear warefar. Islamabad and New Dehli going up in nuclear flames is horrible, the loss of life is staggering and disgusting, but its not a threat to humankind.

Do you think the region should be subjected to such danger due to a maniacal few??

And what do you suggest be done about it?


Why does Japan so strongly advise against nuclear weapons because they have felt the destruction first hand and know that that kind of tragedy must not fall on any nation ever again.
What if some country like Libya got nuclear weapons ?
If they acquire some then they'll use them and millions will die. Thats why the rest of the world has to make sure that they don't get them, and respond violently and absolutely when they do.

How have nuclear weapons "saved the day" ??

No nukes and you have a continuous World War between the united states and its allies and the soviets, one that won't end until at least one is completely destroyed, and if the soviets had won then you'd have a international global communist dictatorship dominating and controling most of the planet. Nukes 'saved' everyone from than, and potentially saved everyone from any other possible domination. The dangerous exchange is that rouge non-power nations can get nukes and kill millions with them, and that major powers can get them and possible disrupt human life as we know it with them. It requires real concerted effort to fix the problems assoicated with war, to ensure that the world isn't more or less destroyed (well, humanity anyway) in a nuclear holocaust, not mere nuclear exchange. The real danger is, say, a hundred years from now some country is able to build up a nuke stockpile on the scale of the US and old SU and actually use it, not carring about being destroyed in the exchange themselves. This is a technology that requires the people in power now to do something about preventing that sort of thing, to, effectively, remove the causes for war across the globe.

Originally posted by Nygdan
I am saying, however, that nuke war between india and pakistan isn't going cause a so called 'nuclear winter' or kill everyone on the planet. The justifiable hysteria over soviet-american nuke war is not justifiable in the case of third world/second world countries.

Even if the US and Su went to war it wouldn't " kill every one on the planet" that's just a perpetuated myth! Many people would survive like some in the people in nuclear bunkers[most nations have them!] and other locations that are too remote to be bombed or suffer from the effects of radiation. In the end modern civilization as we know it would be destroyed but " Humanity" will still survive!- if you can call it survival!
Every nuclear war would effect the world drastically! No doubt about that, moreover the a third world nation of today won't be content with a "Fat Boy" but will go for nothing short of a thermo nuke and the effects of that on a populated city can be nothing short of complete Mayhem!
Hysteria about a nuclear war is the only thing that keeps people alive!

Originally posted by Nygdan
No nukes and you have a continuous World War between the united states and its allies and the soviets,
Nukes 'saved' everyone from than, and potentially saved everyone from any other possible domination.

Not necessarily, the US wouldn't be bothered about the Su if the didn't have nukes and after WW2 the whole world was pretty tired of war to start another war immediately. Actually without nukes the world would have been closer together and the UN would have worked better. Nukes have given any nation the ability to destroy utterly an opponent without the need for any conventional allies and thus every nation that has nukes has supremacist tendencies, that’s the problem in the world today and that’s why we contend with rouge nations and other numero uno wannabe's that have nuclear arsenals and go unchallenged.

If every body remembers their history right it wasn't nukes that saved the world from a nuclear war but the call for freedom from the people of the SU that eventually ended the cold war. The SU would never have planed to go to war if the entire western world was against them and without nukes the cooperation between the allies would be much greater and more lasting because to survive they would need each other!
A peace brought about by intimidation is short lived and the real solution is only brought about brought about by understanding! No solution was ever solved by a nuke and the present Pakistan-India standoff will again show the world that the nuke has accomplished nothing but Death and misery!
If the attitude that more powerful weapons will give more powerful conviction for peace prevails then our destruction is definitely certain, in the future do you think that an antimatter weapon that could blow up the entire planet would be the messiah for everlasting peace! As Winston Churchill said :
"If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce."
Sir Winston Churchill


[edit on 6-1-2005 by IAF101]