Nuclear War: The next step?

Remove all ads!

Ahh, well, I see why we didn't get it then. Your question is would it be bad to murder millions of innocent men, women, and children because they don't meet your standard of intelligence? Maybe we missed it because we thought the answer readily apparent.

 

Now seriously, even if some git of a country that was on the verge of war did have nuclear missiles, do you really think that they would be stupid enough to use the missiles and face nuclear winter? and wipe out the human civilization, themselves and their beliefs?

 

-Slith

Who decides who the smartest people are?

 

Heh, the smartest are sometimes the ones:
A) lacking in common sense
B) the ones who connive to get more power

Personally, unless something real bad happens, like N Korea nukes S Korea or Pakistan nukes India, I don't forsee usage of high yeild nuclear weps in the near future. I would be quite fearful of a "dirty nuke" that terrorists might try and smuggle into countries.

 

Slith, read "Grimus," Rushdie's first novel.

Or "The Tyranny of Numbers" to work out how impossible it would be, collectively, to measure intelligence. (Say IQ and I'll scream.)

Or "Of Grammatalogy," to realize the extent to which most things genius go over everyone's head. By "everyone's" I mean yours.

Or "Foucault's Pendulum," so you can understand how a collective of obsessive intelligent people can seriously screw up the world.

Or "Brave New World" to get an idea how a society composed of solely the intelligentsia would implode.

Either get your head out of "Mein Kampf," or go ahead and just shoot yourself. (Incidentally, the most intelligent way to do it, i.e. your way, would be to aim the business end of the firearm at the back of your throat, tilted slightly upwards. For minimal pain and maximal efficiency.)



[This message has been edited by Gonzago (edited May 15, 2002).]

 

Somehow I see a scenario something like this:
The next major war will be over the control of fossil fuel energy. There was a small blip on this radar screen when the US went after Saddam Insane in the gulf war. This little conflagration wasn't about Iraq invading Kuwait, it was about the free flow of petroleum. Unfortunately for most of the world, G.Bush Sr. didn't get him out of power. Now this guy has had over 10 years to get his shit together, and gather more extremists.
I have a fear that someone in that part of the world will get their paws on some nuclear material and do something really stupid. They might do the 'dirty bomb' or even try to make a nuclear booby trap. Heaven help us if some nut actually aquires a full up weapon. If they can't get it into the US and set it off, they may go after Israel or some of the OPEC nations.
I don't know about you, I think that once the oil supply starts drying up and tempers start to flare, we can all expect to see nukes coming into the picture. Someone will set one off, and then it will be done. The thing will escalate unless cooler heads prevail.

 

There is no way to justify the use of nuclear weapons. Nagasaki was a war crime, but America won the war so no one dared to ask and everybody was in fear of nuclear war in the 50's. But Hiroshima was also a war crime: they should have use the bomb on some damn pacific island to show its powers not on the city where were killed mostly civilians (because they destroyed the whole city not just military buildings that were used as excuse)! Imagine they used it today! And yes i think that the greatest threat is from those damn terrorists and American's anti-missiles shield is of no use since the bombs will not be used as missiles! Lets hope that there is still trace of sanity in those Laden and company heads!


Edit: And yes, to not be : Yes it is bad!

[This message has been edited by total (edited June 16, 2002).]

 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, although tragic, probably saved 5 million lives and shortened WWII by at least 4-5 years! Casuality estimates for the allied amphibious invasion of the Japanese home islands totalled in the millions (on both sides)

I don't think they are war crimes, but then again - I am an American and I see it differently. I think 50 years ago the end justified the means. We've had the capability to deliver nuclear warheads for over 50 years now, and we know the dangers and devastating effect of the weapon...And we have the sense to use it only in the direst of circumstances.

Unfortunately, nuclear proliferation will make the world a much more dangerous and unstable place. Think how violent times are now when any knucklehead with A 75 IQ can buy a gun, point it at someone, and pull the trigger! Think of what one knucklehead with a nuclear device can do!Now you know why peasants weren't allowed to have swords in midieval times!

I just looked at my post above - I basically just typed the same thing over again...At least I know I haven't changed my mind!

[This message has been edited by Sir Belisarius (edited June 16, 2002).]

 

One weird thing: Generally it is claimed that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a crime - because the death and destruction there were caused by dropping just two nukes. Actually the more "usual" firebomb raids (Tokyo - approx 200.000 deaths; Dresden, Hamburg, Lubeck and Cologne for example) of WW-II caused just as much if not more victims. Sure, one nuke can kill many, many more people than a conventional bomb but, as we say in Cologne "Kleinvieh macht auch Mist!" (or: The effects add up)

Victimwise I can't see a real difference between dropping one nuke or dropping 10.000 conventional bombs. Bombing cities with the simple aim to kill as many civilians as possible to weaken the enmies economy and morale is just outrageous. And in anticipation: "But it has saved our soldiers lives who had to fight otherwise when invading japan ..." is not really an argument.

Besides: In case anyone dares to come up with that the conventionally killing of millions is better than doing so nuclear (because of the lack of radioactive fallout) I will flame him to death.

Dissclaimer: No, please, no "But the german started city bombings in WW-II ... " shit ... please

 

People do terrible things in wars, no matter the side. I dont think the past is what this topic is about (ooh I got to use a new smiley!)
I see no real difference between a soldier shooting one civilian with his rifle and one bomb killing 10 000, if you go to the bottom its the same thing only difference is quantity. People make horrid things in wars, so lets make sure we dont start any more of them!

 

My point was not so much about the past but about the minor difference between a conventional and a nuclear war from a victim's perspective.

Conventional war alone is bad enough: Iraq (after a conventional war) is still suffering from the utter annihilation of it's civilian infrastructure - as a pentagon report stated a result of the underrating of the destructive efficiency of modern precision guided munitions. It is no chance that serb powerplants were not blown up but only disabled by carbon fiber bombs. However, now - 10 years after the country is still not rebuilt (yes, it sure is Saddam's fault - undisputed) and people are still dieying from the secondary effects of the destructions in the war.
Isn't that practically so much different from residual radioation of fallout?

So what shall we fear more: The usual, everyday conventional mayhem or the (thanks god that till now nuclear deterrence has worked!) nuclear holocaust? If it's your land where the fighting is you just don't care.

 

"I dont think the past is what this topic is about"


The question was:
"Do you think the world leaders have enough sense not to do it?"

History has a direct impact on the answer to this question. Or at least, history will have a DiReCt impact on said world leaders decisions.

"If it's your land where the fighting is you just don't care."

Exactly. There are many people (some of whom I know) that cannot/will not imagine what being at 'ground zero' is like, regardless whether it's it with octol or Uranium/Plutonium.

War == Hell.

If War /= Hell, then you are not actually at War. "Police Actions" are one example.

 

I have a comment about Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and why they're often considered war crimes...
In my opinion, Nagasaki and Hiroshima are thought to be so terrible because the nukes were dropped on a civilian population. Most of the other bombings (as far as I know) were directed at military targets in the cities, or at least, at civilian targets that supported the war effort.

 

hmm, I'm still trying to imagine on what pinpoint top priority military target in a city a nuclear or conventional firestorm (firestorms also were a result of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) could be aimed on ... ... the tactic to first blow away the roofs of buildings to create rubble then to intentiously concentrate enough firebombs in a small area to ignite the rubble - aimed on causing a firestorm virtually "eating" it's way through the city (very efficient from a economical point of view: You only need to burn down one area - the firestorm will do the rest for the neighbouring areas), limited only by the amount of inflamable material material in its way and guided by it's own dynamics only - doesn't really sound to me like a way to hit a pinpoint military target like a single factory or even a number of factories ... and by dropping bombs at night guided by flares set by pathfinders you don't really improve your precision ... Let's assume the allieds knew what they did when burning cities in germany and japan. Insofar I still don't see the big difference between nuking and just burning a city.

And even if the firstorms are just considered as sad, accidental sideeffects of "precision bombing" military targets - don't you think that the death of let's say 50.000 people like in a smaller raid of WW-II are a somwhat high price, making it ... maybe a failure? Wake up, civilians were valid military targets in WW-II, that's the sad truth.

In the time of WW-II there was a kind of strategic thinking of some airpower theorists going into this direction: By destroying an enemy city from the air you will so utterly demoralize your enemy that he will surrender. While that may have worked in Guernica and Rotterdam it did not work when germany targeteted british cities (with the cities itself as argets first in the raids against Coventry and York) and not when the allieds targeted german cities. This thinking was at home in the heads of quite a number of airpower enthusiasts of that time. The use of nuclear bombs or nuclear missiles just continues that conceptual thinking.

[This message has been edited by Ragusa (edited June 17, 2002).]