Are nuclear weapons still neccessary?

[Thunder]

Now that the Cold War is over, and a American-Russian conflict over Europe is all but fantasy, do we still need nukes?

I say we still need nukes. Not to protect us from Russia or even China, but to let other countries know that if they dare attack us, we can utterly vaporize them.

so how many does the USA and Russia need? maybe a few hundred.

id be happy with 500. and then leave it at that.

 

[Seismosaurus]

500 seems a little low. I'd go for about 1,000 warheads on SLBM/ICBM, and about 500 bombs on B52/1/2 bombers.

 

[Upchurch]

Can't put the genie back in the bottle.

 

[Beerina]

I have an old Willy 'n Ethyl cartoon.

Willy is polishing his 2-barrel shotgun.

Ethyl: What would you do if all the armies and all the people gave up all their guns and weapons?

Willy: Rule wisely.

 

[Cainkane1]

Now that the Cold War is over, and a American-Russian conflict over Europe is all but fantasy, do we still need nukes?

I say we still need nukes. Not to protect us from Russia or even China, but to let other countries know that if they dare attack us, we can utterly vaporize them.

so how many does the USA and Russia need? maybe a few hundred.

id be happy with 500. and then leave it at that.

We still need nukes as a deterrant against small terrorist nations such as North Korea and Iran

 

[Corsair 115]

We still need nukes as a deterrant against small terrorist nations such as North Korea and Iran

One Ohio-class SSBN has more than enough nuclear weapons onboard to destroy Iran several times over.

 

[lionking]

Now that the Cold War is over, and a American-Russian conflict over Europe is all but fantasy, do we still need nukes?

Cold War over? Really?

Have you been planning this thread for 20 years parky?

 

[Biff Starbuck]

Cold War over? Really?

Have you been planning this thread for 20 years parky?

Cold War over? Really? Really?

Has anyone told the Russians it is over? This video was played on a giant screen in front of the US embassy. Propaganda played to thousands of Russian youth like members of Nashi and Youth Guard, and even college students who were invited to the "rally" if they were interested in the US. The versions of the videos on the Russian RuTube site, which are dubbed into Russian for the local target audience have hundreds of thousands of hits. Thousands of teens and young adults who were told the US was trying to foster a revolution in Russia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TOG28fDs5I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfEnYrAiOJQ&NR=1
(including the claim the US destroyed the twin towers on 9/11 and that no passengers were on the plane that hit the Pentagon)


Or this planted news story, where video was cut and pasted together to make it look like the American diplomat who worked with the local religious groups was made to look like he was frequenting prostitutes and cheating on his wife. When he refused to cooperate with the blackmail attempt, the tape was released. The video includes clips from the diplomat 5 years earlier when he was talking to local women on the phone, yet the Russian Federal Security Service had recorded him on video and tapped his calls as a tourist, saving the information in a file for a situation just like this where they could use it for blackmail.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/russian-sex-tape-smear-american-diplomat/story?id=8651311&page=1

The blatantly false smear attempt was so obvious that instead of the old days when the US would have pulled out the employee to avoid embarrassment, the US ambassador went on Nightline and derided the Russians for such blatant lies to discredit the political officer working with religious groups and dissidents.


While I agree with the recent arms reduction treaty signed by Obama, and that the number of warheads can safely be reduced, the threat from Russia is not over.

 

[lionking]

=
While I agree with the recent arms reduction treaty signed by Obama, and that the number of warheads can safely be reduced, the threat from Russia is not over.

Please tell me this is a joke. Russia is a threat to the USA? Pull the other one.

 

[theprestige]

I think nuclear weapons are still necessary.

I think even big dumb city-killers are still necessary--though I sincerely and fervently hope it never becomes necessary to use them.

I think there should be even more nuclear weapons. Not more city-killers, but newer, better, smaller, cleaner, more accurate weapons. I think that instead of relying on clumsy, dirty, overkill weapons that become more obsolete and unreliable every year, nations should continue to develop, upgrade, and replace their arsenals with weapons that more efficiently harness the destructive power of the atom while increasingly minimizing the detrimental side effects.

Not to mention that an active nuclear weapons program would produce reactor fuel, power units for interplanetary probes, radiation sources for science and medicine, and an ever-increasing body experimental observations and data to improve our understanding of radiation phenomena.

The drawbacks to such a program (aside from the political posturing and fear-mongering), would be the increase in radiation-related problems and the increase in opportunities for nuclear weapons to be lost or stolen and used by rogue organizations (or even detonated by accident). These are very serious drawbacks, and should be taken very seriously.

 

[daenku32]

Hell. No.

They were talking about MAD on the radio the other day. The only thing MAD is the idea of using one even in retaliation. Essentially, you would be condemning millions of innocent lives to death for the actions of a few maniacs. Already in conventional warfare we have the ability to destroy a nation, as we did with Iraq. And we didn't even break a sweat. We have the ability to eliminate any force or commander for much fewer casualties than what a nuclear attack would cause. The only excuse ever given for their uses were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The excuse was that it saved us from doing a ground invasion that would have cost more lives. That's an excuse that has no bearing anymore. The sizes of modern militaries are tiny compared to national populations. Wiping them out would be a lot less costlier than wiping about entire cities.

 

[theprestige]

Hell. No.

They were talking about MAD on the radio the other day. The only thing MAD is the idea of using one even in retaliation. Essentially, you would be condemning millions of innocent lives to death for the actions of a few maniacs.

You have no idea what the purpose of the MAD policy actually was, do you?

Already in conventional warfare we have the ability to destroy a nation, as we did with Iraq. And we didn't even break a sweat.

I'm not sure how you can count the number of human lives lost as "didn't even break a sweat"--not to mention the very real, very significant strain on the nation's resources in areas ranging from logistics to diplomatic relations.

And that's without even pointing out that Iraq remained at least moderately functional the entire time. It was far from "destroyed".

We have the ability to eliminate any force or commander for much fewer casualties than what a nuclear attack would cause. The only excuse ever given for their uses were at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The excuse was that it saved us from doing a ground invasion that would have cost more lives. That's an excuse that has no bearing anymore.

A low-yield, precision-guided, underground-detonating "bunker buster" would eliminate a commander for zero casualties, compared to a ground assault on that bunker. Unless bunkers have suddenly been eliminated from war plans worldwide, I'd say that excuse still has plenty of bearing anymore.

The sizes of modern militaries are tiny compared to national populations. Wiping them out would be a lot less costlier than wiping about entire cities.

Except that modern militaries are designed to make wiping them out as costly as possible. Also, sometimes they fight inside cities (which greatly increases the costs of wiping them out--both to their enemies and to the city's civilian inhabitants).

But nuclear weapons could--and in my opinion, should--have applications besides wiping out entire cities. Applications having to do with reducing the costs of wiping out modern militaries that are becoming increasingly costly to wipe out with conventional weapons (see bunker-busters, above).

 

[autumn1971]

I think nuclear weapons are still necessary.

I think even big dumb city-killers are still necessary--though I sincerely and fervently hope it never becomes necessary to use them.

I think there should be even more nuclear weapons. Not more city-killers, but newer, better, smaller, cleaner, more accurate weapons. I think that instead of relying on clumsy, dirty, overkill weapons that become more obsolete and unreliable every year, nations should continue to develop, upgrade, and replace their arsenals with weapons that more efficiently harness the destructive power of the atom while increasingly minimizing the detrimental side effects.

Not to mention that an active nuclear weapons program would produce reactor fuel, power units for interplanetary probes, radiation sources for science and medicine, and an ever-increasing body experimental observations and data to improve our understanding of radiation phenomena.

The drawbacks to such a program (aside from the political posturing and fear-mongering), would be the increase in radiation-related problems and the increase in opportunities for nuclear weapons to be lost or stolen and used by rogue organizations (or even detonated by accident). These are very serious drawbacks, and should be taken very seriously.

Except that small nukes are indistinguishable from large conventional explosives, minus the rather glaring drawbacks that you cite. There is really no need to use nukes in warfare unless one is intent on demonstrating the ability to destroy entire cities at a stroke.
Even a small nuclear arsenal is effective in terms of MAD. Is there really any country on Earth willing to accept the loss of, say, fifty or sixty major metropolitan and industrial centers at once?
Remember that the Soviets were ahead of the Americans on at least one metric of humanity: upon witnessing a nuclear test, Kruschev was reported to remark that he was no longer as worried about nuclear weapons, as it was clear to him that no country would ever again think of using them. Curtis LeMay had rather different views.

 

[Moochie]

Now that the Cold War is over, and a American-Russian conflict over Europe is all but fantasy, do we still need nukes?

I say we still need nukes. Not to protect us from Russia or even China, but to let other countries know that if they dare attack us, we can utterly vaporize them.

so how many does the USA and Russia need? maybe a few hundred.

id be happy with 500. and then leave it at that.

Nuclear disarmament will succeed as long as all parties in the nuclear club are completely open and transparent regarding their stores of nukes. Anything less will fail, and they're all aware of that.


M.

 

[George 152]

Disarmament does NOT work.
The League of Nations debacle that led to WW2 should not be forgotten.

The only way to prevent war is to be prepared for it

 

[BeAChooser]

Nuclear disarmament will succeed as long as all parties in the nuclear club are completely open and transparent regarding their stores of nukes.

Then Obama's agreement is surely doomed to fail since the Russians have repeatedly lied about that. Here's a question for everyone:

Why is Russia building a multi-million square foot deep underground facility under Yamantau mountain in the Urals?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Disarmament does NOT work.
The League of Nations debacle that led to WW2 should not be forgotten.

The only way to prevent war is to be prepared for it

Because that's worked out for the world so far...

 

[Bikewer]

One of the commentators on NPR Friday said that Russia (with a long history of invasions) felt that they could never equal the technological expertise and conventional armaments of the US, so they feel that their arsenal is a necessary counter-balance.

I suppose I can see this; although we "know" that we would never attack Russia, the Russians do not have such a rosy view of international relations. They've been burned too many times.

 

[Moochie]

Then Obama's agreement is surely doomed to fail since the Russians have repeatedly lied about that. Here's a question for everyone:

Why is Russia building a multi-million square foot deep underground facility under Yamantau mountain in the Urals?

Did you read what I wrote? Openness? Transparency? On all sides? Nations need to be seen to disarm. That can be the only way. And that includes the U.S.


M.

 

[BeAChooser]

One of the commentators on NPR Friday said that Russia (with a long history of invasions) felt that they could never equal the technological expertise and conventional armaments of the US, so they feel that their arsenal is a necessary counter-balance.

And, of course, they'd never attack us first or out of the blue.