Would we nuke the middle east?, page 4

I assume we are discussing a retaliation for a nuclear terrorist attack in an US medium, large city, with casualties above the 100k figure.

The general public in the US would undoubtedly be motivated for retaliation
but one shouldn't confuse the public's motivations with the top brass Generals.

The Pentagon isn't run by a bunch of rednecks. And they have predicted such a scenario and probably have a number of answers in the drawer.

Likely Retaliation

It is obvious there would be repercussions, vast resources would be set on motion to assess the level of cumplicity and so on.

Countries suspected of giving aid (at a governamental/military level) to the people responsible for the attack would probably face an attack (depending on the country).

Such attack would use vast conventional forces, and the amount of collateral damage (even using just conventional armament) caused by such action could largely exceed the civilian casualties suffered by the US. (at the time of the nuclear attack)

A Nuclear reaction is highly improbable, if we are discussing using nuclear weapons in densely populated areas, cities, etc.

A Symbolic Nuclear retaliatory attack against a particular military facility (Naval base, for ex) could happen, but as some have said, the fallout would provoke cancer and birth defects over a large area, and it would be hard to justify that to Israel.

To actually consider using Nuclear weapons in large scale, targeting large cities , one must take into account, that this would be in practical terms a demonstration of intention of performing a War of Extermination.

This goes beyond the German Total War.

Such an action (the instaneous killing of tens of millions of civilians) would provoke total international isolation for the US.

Every US asset abroad would be confiscated, every US embassy, consulate, diplomatic mission , closed , US representatives expelled all over the globe, economical and political isolation (in absolute terms, not just some harsh words on tv)

The World as a whole would be so outraged at the Nuclear Large Scale Reaction that any sympathy towards US victims (in the Nuclear Terrorist act) would transform itself into fear and hate.

Most likely US citizens around the Globe would be lynched by furious mobs.

And the World would enter a stage of nuclear buildup leading to an almost inevitable full nuclear war (of extermination)

All of these hypothetical considerations suggest that a Large Scale Nuclear Response as proposed by this thread, is improbable and perhaps even impossible.

One should realize that when we deal with armament of such lethal capability , countries are very reluctanct to do so.

An example, Gas was used in WW1, and not used in WW2.