Is one obligated to turn the key?

[Zack]

But we already know how devastating nuclear weapons are. We don't need this hypothetical to be aware of that. I don't think not retaliating would say that humans can be restrained in their use, either. Rather, I think that the hypothetical enemy used them in the first place says that humans could be very wanton in their use of nuclear weapons, regardless of whether there was a retaliation.

I think in the scenario described, retaliation, at least of some sort, makes sense. This is assuming that it's certain who is launching them and that they're launching them intentionally. Not retaliating would leave the door open for the same nation to do the same thing to another nation in the future, and might also invite others to assume they wouldn't be mutually destroyed by a first strike. I can see the argument for a selective retaliation, primarily against leadership and military targets. This would be more appropriate if a full retaliation would likely render the planet uninhabitable. So, the scale of retaliation would depend on the situation.

I do agree with Farm Boy that the scale of the destruction caused by the atomic bombs in Japan likely was not a surprise. At the very least, there were fairly good estimates of what the destructive power would be from the trial bomb used the previous month. Truman likely knew the general scale of destruction to be expected.

Yeah. If someone is insane enough to order an overwhelming nuclear strike, they have to be checked with at least some scale of retaliation. I agree with Quintillus completely.

 

[SamSniped]

Their nuclear arsenal is enough to destroy your country a few times over. I suppose it's important then to think of which country one thinks they represent in this scenario.

With a vast majority of your conventional forces maimed, I highly doubt you can respond that way in any meaningful way. And once the missiles that are in flight hit, there's no point for the enemy to launch more after the coup de grâce.

Hm. In this situation you describe, I would turn the key for part of my nation's nuclear arsenal as retaliation, targeting key military locations and hopefully to deter any more launches. It seems senseless to me to cause more innocent deaths than will already happen after the hypothetical 15 minutes until impending doom.

 

[Farm Boy]

If something is insane enough to cause an overwhelming nuclear strike, they demand being destroyed, not simply some measure of retaliation. The nature of that destruction is up for grabs, but in the OP the situation described allows one response. The only reason that response is valid is because while proving oneself being necessary to destroy by counterstriking, that part is already ensured.

 

[Zack]

I think it is rather idealist or naive to say you wouldn't "turn the key" at all.

<insert analogy(ies) including Hitler and/or the Soviet Union here>

 

[Tahuti]

I think the scale of the radiation was something of a surprise. I think the scale of the body count was not. We'd already been dropping firebombs on paper houses. And unpowered little lead slugs with fins by the millions. Weapons that had no capacity to destroy war production, but remarkably effective at wholesale and random slaughter. Yet that is justified or ignored. Failing most reasonable explanations there is always the old fallback of "desperate times call for desperate measures." They'll always be a justification. If not before the action, then after.

Well, those actions were simply not justified, full stop. It is however that considering the circumstances and the role the allies played in WWII, they had at least several redeeming qualities that most of their enemies simply did not have. Conversely, no matter the little good the Hideki Tojo regime brought, it would simply not be enough to redeem it.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I'm all for mobilizing all means of knocking out the aggressor nation's remaining nuclear capacity. I suppose if I judge that, in the circumstances, that can only be done by a nuclear counter-strike, then I would turn the key, on the argument that that nation's general populace must die so that the agressor nation isn't encouraged to conduct another attack on a different nation.

But otherwise I wouldn't want the certainty of destroying that nation's general populace to be the price of warding off the possibility or likelihood of the aggressor nation being encouraged to target a second nation.

Again, one nation has used nuclear bombs in its felt immediate interest without it meaning that that nation went on to use nuclear bombs again. I think you've at least got to think of the best odds for humankind in general, as you can make them out, in a situation like the one described.

Edit: Five posts between when I started typing my response and when it was finished.

One further thought. We should treasure this thread. When I began typing at least, the poll was tied 9-9. We rarely get issues that break so evenly.

 

[SamSniped]

I'm all for mobilizing all means of knocking out the aggressor nation's remaining nuclear capacity. I suppose if I judge that, in the circumstances, that can only be done by a nuclear counter-strike, then I would turn the key, on the argument that that nation's general populace must die so that the agressor nation isn't encouraged to conduct another attack on a different nation.

But otherwise I wouldn't want the certainty of destroying that nation's general populace to be the price of warding off the possibility or likelihood of the aggressor nation being encouraged to target a second nation.

Again, one nation has used nuclear bombs in its felt immediate interest without it meaning that that nation went on to use nuclear bombs again. I think you've at least got to think of the best odds for humankind in genera, as you can make them out, l in a situation like this.

Edit: Five posts between when I started typing my response and when it was finished.

One further thought. We should treasure this thread. When I began typing at least, the poll was tied 9-9. We rarely get issues that break so evenly.

This is basically the point I was making as well. If disabling their nuclear capability is an option, then it's the best option IMO.

 

[Zack]

As I have already said, the US dropping the bombs on Japan is completely different to the situation described in the OP, and not especially relevant.

 

[Gori the Grey]

As I have already said, the US dropping the bombs on Japan is completely different to the situation described in the OP, and not especially relevant.

I'm trying to make it relevant to the claim that not retaliating in kind will automatically encourage the aggressor nation to conduct a second strike on someone else.

 

[Zack]

But it's a completely different situation. The US didn't completely destroy all of Japan with a single nuclear launch, and their arsenal was empty after the attack anyways. So it's not really that relevant.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Zack, my comments on this point have been responses to this claim by Farm Boy:

Once the nation state has endeavored to mass murder for profit, it either needs to cease or embrace. Odds are, it's going to embrace.

I'm questioning his "odds." As I understand it, from within say a month of Nagasaki, the US had the capacity to produce and thus use another nuclear bomb. In nearly seventy years, it hasn't done so. His rationale for turning the key is what he regards as the likelihood of the aggressor nation using its bombs on another nation. If we knew that likelihood was high, then I approve of sacrificing that nation's general populace to stop that second attack. But I'm not as sure of that as Farm Boy seems to be.

These odds seem to me to be important to try to calculate because in the situation described, we really are trying to figure out what will insure the largest human survival overall.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh, I think they're pretty good. The US, after all, has embraced its use of nuclear force as an overall lifesaving measure. It's not unlikely that it, indeed, was.

There was a window, close to 15ish years later when the US possessed lone and significant nuclear superiority while also on a scale that could massively cripple its sole significant opponent without fearing being absolutely crippled itself. It was during a period of relative peace, if not through lack of contention. There was no stomach for suffering the loss of a dozen US cities to "win" a war that was not then "hot." If you change the equation by putting ICBMs en-route, en-mass, in full scale nation erasing scale - that changes everything.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, I took "embrace" as meaning "embrace using them on a second country."

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh, I took "embrace" as meaning "embrace using them on a second country."

Well, they are somewhat linked. The US has an embraced precedent for using nuclear force in a situation where conventional casualties would probably be extreme. It's had the luxury for the past 20 or so, possibly longer years of being relatively unrivaled conventionally, so it hasn't been tested on that. The Russians, in the face of decayed conventional might have listed their arsenal as appropriately used to repel conventional attack if necessary(in keeping with this example of use). Should/if/when US sole dominance of conventional arms also decays, I would put heavy money on that also being a declared use of the remaining US nuclear arsenal.

The issue with a full scale exchange becomes this. The OP did not seem to indicate that a hot war was being fought as the missiles began to fly. If the aggressor nation then embraces it's victory as "necessary" in hindsight, as I think it would, what does this normalize? A first strike during peacetime if the risks are right? I'd say that does make a 2nd first strike significantly more likely. Grow powerful enough to threaten us, and we'll melt your continent first seems a pretty horrible new state of the world. Just think what the gentle peacetime exploits of such a nation would actually be.

Not super sure on the last paragraph. Just musing.

 

[Hojsimpson]

It seems that is the entire enemy nation who "turn the key" and not their government or the one who "decides" to turn the key.
So you want vengeance against millions of people.

I say yes because humans don't deserve living. They're pest.

 

[warpus]

I wouldn't do it. No need to kill more people - and the war is lost either way.

"Let's do it so the other side doesn't win either" is a silly reason to push the button. "I want at least some parts of humanity to survive this crapstorm" is why I wouldn't do it.

Then again, it depends on the exact scenario.

 

[Farm Boy]

I don't know that it's a vengeance thing. It walks and quacks like a duck, granted, but I think it's something different. I think it's the acknowledgement that mankind can actually form abominations. Even ones as broad as nation states. That the constituent parts of that nation state may themselves be largely clean of blame is just another layer of the insanity of people. Either way, the abomination of a nation state that would use massive first strike capability must not be allowed to continue to exist. The same probably goes for biological weaponry. Perhaps it would be possible in some situations to divest and change a government while leaving most of the citizenry, well, alive but not exactly how that would be done here. Counterforce launching is too late once you've already identified that the missiles are airborne. Those aren't recallable like the bombers.

 

[Adjuvant]

"Our world" almost ended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

 

[Colonel]

If this were completely up to me not only would I launch all nuclear weapons, I would follow up with all remaining convential weapons under my control. Additionally, I would call on all of my allied nations to do the same, and an open request for all non-aligned nations to follow suit.

 

[Hygro]

This happened once.

And the Russian guy in our chair of the hypothetical opted not to counterattack because he didn't trust it was true, even though his entire protocol and all the data required he launch.

Good thing he didn't counter fire, it was a computer error.