Simon Darkshade
Mysterious City of Gold
"If you had used nukes during the Cuban missile crisis or in Korea the world would now be a green rock.
You seem to think that nukes can be used in some sort of absolutely casual manner, as if they are some sort of conventional weapon hyped up.
Lets just hope you are never actually politically empowered in any way."
Unfortunately, this is based upon popular illusions as to the strategic situation in these periods. During the Korean War, the Soviets had quite a small nuclear arsenal, and no reliable means of delivery to CONUS. Thus, a few may have been used in Europe, but there was no way to properly hit the US. By comparison, the US had SAC bases and aircraft all within striking distance of their targets within the USSR.
No world annihilation in that case.
In the Cuban Missiles Crisis, the situation was somewhat more advanced, but operated according to similar principles. The US had its Jupiter missiles in Turkey, along with the myriad other SAC assets. There was not yet the great preponderence of ICBMs on both sides, but rather a massive advantage to the US. A nuclear exchange at that stage of history would have resulted in the destruction of the USSR as a modern state, and some comparably minimal damage to the United States and its allies. Which is a small price to pay for the elimination of the international communist conspiracy to corrupt our precious bodily fluids
The USSR was playing catch up for the vast majority of its existence, and it was only in the mid to late 1970s that something approaching the popular conception of MAD was existant in some form.
But, in the early years of nuclear weapons, and definitely prior to the ICBM, the war would have been very, very one sided.
As to your assertion that nuclear weapons are some sort of mystical device in a realm of their own, it is rather nonsensical. In the final analysis, they are but very powerful bombs with some interesting side effects, and the constraints upon their use are of a political nature.
Certainly, their profligate use can have adverse environmental effects, but limited and sensible use of nuclear weapons should not be excluded from a complete military policy.
The ways described by the poster you criticized were not casual situations, but rather situations of war and extremity. And one cannot but agree with him on the potential for the nuclear option in most of those situations. Certainly, nuclear weapons were close to being employed at Dien Bien Phu, and had the Hussein regime employed WMD in the Gulf Conflict, Baghdad would have been vaporized shortly afterwards courtesy of a Tomahawk cruise missile with nuclear warhead in the bowels of the USS Wisconsin.
Automatically recoiling from even the mention of the nuclear option is short sighted idealism at its best/worst, and to add a cheap shot at the end, cursing a persons whole political outlook on one matter of policy is rather silly.
You seem to think that nukes can be used in some sort of absolutely casual manner, as if they are some sort of conventional weapon hyped up.
Lets just hope you are never actually politically empowered in any way."
Unfortunately, this is based upon popular illusions as to the strategic situation in these periods. During the Korean War, the Soviets had quite a small nuclear arsenal, and no reliable means of delivery to CONUS. Thus, a few may have been used in Europe, but there was no way to properly hit the US. By comparison, the US had SAC bases and aircraft all within striking distance of their targets within the USSR.
No world annihilation in that case.
In the Cuban Missiles Crisis, the situation was somewhat more advanced, but operated according to similar principles. The US had its Jupiter missiles in Turkey, along with the myriad other SAC assets. There was not yet the great preponderence of ICBMs on both sides, but rather a massive advantage to the US. A nuclear exchange at that stage of history would have resulted in the destruction of the USSR as a modern state, and some comparably minimal damage to the United States and its allies. Which is a small price to pay for the elimination of the international communist conspiracy to corrupt our precious bodily fluids
The USSR was playing catch up for the vast majority of its existence, and it was only in the mid to late 1970s that something approaching the popular conception of MAD was existant in some form.
But, in the early years of nuclear weapons, and definitely prior to the ICBM, the war would have been very, very one sided.
As to your assertion that nuclear weapons are some sort of mystical device in a realm of their own, it is rather nonsensical. In the final analysis, they are but very powerful bombs with some interesting side effects, and the constraints upon their use are of a political nature.
Certainly, their profligate use can have adverse environmental effects, but limited and sensible use of nuclear weapons should not be excluded from a complete military policy.
The ways described by the poster you criticized were not casual situations, but rather situations of war and extremity. And one cannot but agree with him on the potential for the nuclear option in most of those situations. Certainly, nuclear weapons were close to being employed at Dien Bien Phu, and had the Hussein regime employed WMD in the Gulf Conflict, Baghdad would have been vaporized shortly afterwards courtesy of a Tomahawk cruise missile with nuclear warhead in the bowels of the USS Wisconsin.
Automatically recoiling from even the mention of the nuclear option is short sighted idealism at its best/worst, and to add a cheap shot at the end, cursing a persons whole political outlook on one matter of policy is rather silly.
