Originally posted by: marvdmartian
Originally posted by: Stunt
There's no reason for US nuclear warheads.
This, from a Canadian. :roll:
Your point is? He can't have a good opinion for some reason?
Let me ask you this, OP. Let's say your name is Hatfield, and across the street from you is a family named McCoy. Your two families aren't on very good terms, and to keep your families safe, you've each stockpiled some weapons, so that if one family starts to shoot, it's pretty much a given that they'll receive return fire. An uneasy peace now exists, since you each know that as long as you keep the peace, you'll have peace yourself, and not have to worry about your family dying.
You have a bad analogy, because there's a difference between how a few inbred members of a family might make a choice in a feud, and how nations make a choice based on perceived national interest and the scale of the issue. You can have inflamed relations - look at India and Pakistan, Israel and its neighbors - but it doesn't make them the same, and the analogy between a few people and bullets has no bearing on the deterrent needed for nuclear war.
A better analogy, in fact, might be to having that uneasy truce between the Hatfields and McCoys, but your reasons are used to give everyone of the Harfields a gun, including the children, and the next thing you know, a boy shoots a McCoy, and the war is on, disaster which could have been prevented if a smaller but still good deterrent had been in place. Again, we could always build more nukes if needed, we're talking about to deter.
Do the math - why would Russia or China want a nuclear war with the US at all, much less to take a nuclear hit as the cost? You're arguing irrationally.
That's pretty much how the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) came about, and what led to the increcible buildup of nuclear weapons in the first place, and why every SALT and START treaty we signed with the USSR made certain that no one country had a numerical advantage over the other, as we both started to dismantle our vast array of death dealing missiles & bombs.
Which had to do more with politics than nuclear strategy. It was a time of crazy paranoia as well, as I noted above, with baseless escalation in the numbers of weapons by the US.
The USSR countered our build up with their own because they had to have enough to survive our huge first strike numbers.
If all the nations pare down the numbers, you don't need hundreds or thousands for big damage and a deterrent.
Look at the politics - John Kennedy won the presidency over something that wasn't true, as he claimed we were behind in a missile gap.
Once in office he determined we had 1,000 missiles to their four.
Yes, four missiles, while we were screaming to have to build more. (I've never seen any conclusive info that he knew the gap was false when he ran on it).
Now........how far do you think the USSR would have taken us seriously, if they'd had (say) 2000 nuclear bombs, and we'd had TEN?? Could we have taken out enough of their command structure, infrasctructure and military bases for them to worry about us?? I'm pretty sure that if we'd stuck to our guns, and limited our weapons buildup to just TEN hydrogen bombs, we'd all be calling each other comrade right now.
Yes, they would, since the ten are safe from a first strike.
At the height of the cold war, as JFK was pouring billions into more warheads, look at what he said in a major speech about war and peace with the Soviet Union:
We have also been talking in Geneva about the other first-step measures of arms control designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and to reduce the risks of accidental war. Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament-- designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms. The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this Government since the 1920's. It has been urgently sought by the past three administrations. And however dim the prospects may be today, we intend to continue this effort--to continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.
While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can--if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers--offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.
(There was an obsolete sentence too:
"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.")
But hey, nowadays we're buddies with the Russians, right? If that's the case, why then do they still have thousands of nuclear weapons in their arsenal??
For a variety of reasons, from the cost of getting rid of them to the fact that they, unlike us, face a rival who is pouring hundreds of billions into missile defense research.
And with the volatility of the Russian government, and the fact that there are STILL hard line communists that would love nothing more than to return back to the heyday of the USSR, would it really be in the best interest of the USA, let alone the world, for us to dismantle all but ten of our weapons??
It would not be in our interest to get rid of our deterrent. We need ten or fewer missiles for a deterrent.
I don't know about you, but I sleep better at night, knowing that we still hold the ultimate trump card.
You underestimate the problems and risks of the thousands of warheads, and your desire for overkill is not enough to justify the billions and risk. You have nothing better?
