How many nukes do you think we need?

[Infohawk]

I was against the Iraq war but I am a big fan of our nuclear arsenal. It effectively means no rational power can invade our country. The deterrent is based on overwhelming destruction of the enemy. We need lots of nukes to do this. I think people overestimate the power of nuclear weapons that can be delivered by rockets or planes. Sure there have been some ridiculous tests like Tzar Bomba but the average mirv warhead isn't that big.

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Detonate some nukes on your favorite city. (And use a modern nuke that can be realistically be delivered to a distant target.) You can see it takes quite a few to anihilate a metropolitan area. If you want to devastate hinterlands you need even more.

I think we should keep developing unconventional weapons (including missile defense) and drastically reduce our conventional force. We don't need to invade Iraq or North Korea. We do need to be able to turn Russia, China, or North Korea into ash.

 

[PottedMeat]

1000 continuously updated nukes sounds good to me.

 

[spidey07]

When it comes to our defense, there is no such thing as too many. Think about it - is there ever such a thing as too much ammunition?

 

[StageLeft]

Same. I have seen the site before or one like it but was dismayed to find out how screwed I am if a bomb hits Rochester. That soviet one is a real bitch, eh?

 

[Infohawk]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
Same. I have seen the site before or one like it but was dismayed to find out how screwed I am if a bomb hits Rochester. That soviet one is a real bitch, eh?

It's a bitch but I think it would be pretty hard for them to deliver it to Rochester without us intercepting the plane that is to deliver it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

 

[ochadd]

Smaller. I'm a fan of nukes but I don't think 80% vs 95% annihilation is going to make a difference when it comes to deterrence.

"Should we fuck with the US?" asked the senior baddie
"They can take out every one of our cities in one shot." responded baddie PFY
"They can't take out the mountain folk and farmers until the following week!" exclaims the senior baddie

 

[nageov3t]

1 more than anyone else.

 

[Andrew1990]

Im not a big fan of nuclear weapons. The civilian casualties would be too great. Although I do believe a dozen or so will deter some of our enemies from attacking.


I wish that Nuclear weapons were never discovered. Conventional wars create more overall casualties, but with less of a horrifying way of killing.

 

[rudder]

I prefer 100,000 moabs ... I don't want to radiate the planet but want something that tells our enemies to think twice.

 

[Triumph]

Enough that we could obliterate any single country at a moment's notice. But not a single nuke more, we promise!

 

[JS80]

Enough that we could obliterate any every single country in the world 10 times over at a moment's notice.

 

[Synomenon]

One for every major city in every country in the world.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

And unfortunately there are plenty of warheads that could be used in conventional war. But you could imagine the headlines "US nukes Afghanistan."

There are plenty of small devices that can be used for a localized area and then people walk around afterward.

Same stigma that applies to nuclear power plants because of 3 Miles Island or Chernobyl.

 

[IronWing]

At the beginning of the Cold War the US had ~5 nukes. It was sufficient to deter the Soviets from overrunning western Europe. I'm going to go with an even dozen.

 

[MovingTarget]

I'll stick with about a thousand. Less than what we have now, but do you really need enough to destroy the planet many times over? Just once will do.

I wonder what new sorts of WMD we have developed... We could always go for orbital mass drivers...

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Andrew1990
Im not a big fan of nuclear weapons. The civilian casualties would be too great. Although I do believe a dozen or so will deter some of our enemies from attacking.


I wish that Nuclear weapons were never discovered. Conventional wars create more overall casualties, but with less of a horrifying way of killing.

If i had to choose, id take instant death over being shot and bleeding out...

Fuck radiation poisoning though, thats gotta be a bad way to go.

 

[manowar821]

There's no reason to kill civilians. That's evil and fucking disgusting. WMDs are for pussies.

 

[Brovane]

Well Russia is a lot bigger than the US. In order to maintain deterrence against Russia we need to maintain or arsenal. Unfortunately nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented. Also the Russian's have multiple hard targets that would take multiple hits from a nuclear weapon.

 

[dennilfloss]

We need to keep enough for deterrence and to deal with any killer comet/asteroid that might threaten us one day.

 

[nyker96]

just enough to destroy the world 1x.

 

[Kadarin]

We need enough to obliterate anyone who nukes us. A couple of dozen won't necessarily be enough.

 

[miniMUNCH]

How many we have is not the point... I think it is our nuclear missile subs that scare the shit out of countries like North Korea. Our missiles don't have to come from US soil... we can launch a full nuclear strike from 100 miles off their shore. With 2-3 missile subs we could nuke every military and politically significant installation they have and they'd likely have less than 10-20 minutes warning, if that.

I would surmise that right now we have 1 or 2 Ohio class missile subs camped off North Korea...

 

[Craig234]

Robert McNamara knew a bit about the topic of adequate nuclear deterrence.

Wiki:
[qIt was only with the advent of ballistic missile submarines, starting with the George Washington class in 1959, that a survivable nuclear force became possible and second strike capability credible. This was not fully understood until the 1960s when the strategy of mutually assured destruction was first fully described, largely by United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

In McNamara's formulation, MAD meant that nuclear nations either had first strike or second strike capability. A nation with first strike capability would be able to destroy the entire nuclear arsenal of another nation and thus prevent any nuclear retaliation. Second strike capability indicated that a nation could uphold a promise to respond to a nuclear attack with enough force to make such a first attack highly undesirable. According to McNamara, the arms race was in part an attempt to make sure that no nation gained first strike capability.
[/quote]

In 2005, he gave a talk and said that he was convinced that a handful - as in a single-didigt number, like six - of nukes was a very secure deterrent.

He also said in his view the reduction and, IIRC, the slimination of nuclear weapons in the world was the top priority for the planet.

I wonder how many of our armchair citizen generals who express opinions on this can be bothered to listen to the talk and get more informed in their view.

I'll make it as easy as a click:

Link

 

[Dr. Zaus]

This is the wrong question.. in truth we should say we have as many as we can get away with saying we have and have as few as we can get away with having and still have the idea that we has many as we say we have be plausible.

.. could be one.. could be none.. could be 100,000; this question is way above my pay grade.

 

[JSt0rm]

since you guys are all hard core you better learn how to survice a nuclear attack


http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/...nuclear_terrorism.html

ted rules