billvon 2,991
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and after the cold war ended, it turned out that a lot of what we thought were workable missiles were actually just empty mock-ups.QuoteThey did it to us, too - they built tens of thousands of missiles, most of which wouldn't have launched due to crappy manufacture. But we thought they would.)
Speed Racer
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If we had only a few thousand ICBM's we would be speaking Russian. They would have been able to take out most of our ICBM's with just their first strike.
uh, those B-52s are out there too, you know. And the subs. I'd venture it would take us fewer nukes to totally fuck them up (fewer cities, fewer agricultural areas) so they'd have to be pretty confident in their chances.
And just to finish out this ridiculous notion - we'd not be speaking Russian. Best case scenario has us surviving in smaller pockets of humanity. English would have much better odds than Russian in that world.
The only challenge in maintaining a deterrence triad with 1000 nukes is that a single sub carries too big a chunk. We'd have to empty out half the silos or more so that losing one sub wouldn't be such a strategic blow.
JohnRich 4
Quote> I believe he was referring to using conventional bombs, to destroy
> Iran's nuclear facilities. No radiation to be spread.
Is it your belief that Iran's nuclear facilities do not contain any nuclear materials? If so, then there is no risk of spreading radiation - but also no need for the bombing.
Conventional bombs would not send radioactive particles way up into the atmosphere like a nuclear mushroom cloud, to be spread to neighboring countries. Besides, the bombs being readied are bunker-busters, to strike deep down into the earth where the Iranian facilities reside. So it's likely that none would even reach the surface - it would all be buried under tons of earth, never to see daylight. It would be a fitting end to their nuclear ambitions.
Conventional bombs would not send radioactive particles way up into the atmosphere like a nuclear mushroom cloud, to be spread to neighboring countries. Besides, the bombs being readied are bunker-busters, to strike deep down into the earth where the Iranian facilities reside. So it's likely that none would even reach the surface - it would all be buried under tons of earth, never to see daylight. It would be a fitting end to their nuclear ambitions.
the best part is a 20Kiloton weapon is all that is needed if its a penetrator
billvon 2,991
>it turned out that a lot of what we thought were workable missiles
>were actually just empty mock-ups.
Yep. And even some theoretically-working ICBM's were stored in silos half filled with groundwater.
>were actually just empty mock-ups.
Yep. And even some theoretically-working ICBM's were stored in silos half filled with groundwater.
QuoteQuote....MAD only works when there's a return address on the package.
The "FEDEX" bomb theory. The counter to this is that weapons grade material actually carrys the "fingerprint" of the reactor which produces it. This is how it was established who, how & when helped Israel's nuclear program along.
It's also a very strong motivation against countries "losing" fissile material. Were a FEDEX bomb to be found or detonated, say in The US, then retaliation is virtually inevitable. Governments KNOW that claiming "A Bad Boy did it & ran away" just wouldn't wash without COMPELLING reason to believe them.
Yes, I've heard this argument before. Pardon me if I'm not overly reassured by it. Even if this "fingerprinting" is as infallible as you say (you realize that fingerprinting itself has been shown to be erroneous at times), it still is a tough call to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike when there's any ambiguity as to who was responsible. There's no way around it, nuclear material in the hands of suicide terrorists, or countries that directly sponsor them, is an extremely bad prospect that should be prevented at all cost.
Quote>If we had only a few thousand ICBM's we would be speaking Russian.
Really? And they would have taken out our submarines . . . how?
A few _hundred_ are all that's needed for deterrence. The vastly greater numbers were used as a propaganda weapon to get them to overspend on their military program. (They did it to us, too - they built tens of thousands of missiles, most of which wouldn't have launched due to crappy manufacture. But we thought they would.)
We didnt have enough Subs to take out enough hard or soft targets to even make a dent... They had so many its fucking scary. Which is why we had so many missles spread over the country. And they still had more than us.. I dont think a few hundered would be enough at all. We needed to be prepared to really use them... Toward the end we did have the upper hand with the missles in Turkey and japan and our other european allies. and like BillVon pointed out our subs.. We could hit them quicker but not do as much damage as they could... Even with the thousands of missles...
I guess my point is we needed them. At one point they actually put fake ICBM's in several locations to throw off the russians. The russians had to target every silo no even though they didnt know which missles were real.
We were in serious trouble... Good thing we went crazy on the missles back then..
Which brings me back to the topic. We wont have an arms race here.. All we have to do is bomb their nuclear facilities. If they still persist after that its time to invade.... You'll see alot of help from within the country.. We've been on the ground for years there.
Plucky 0
In my opinion, the reason is "because the US has enemies".
At least one other country has had a secret nuclear weapon programme (South Africa), and voluntarily dismantled it. This country co-exists fairly happily with the rest of the world, and therefore doesn't need military deterrents.
If all nuclear weapons-enabled countries dismantled their weapons, there would be no problem, but as long as those who have them remain the US's enemy ... the US will most likely keep theirs (as deterrents, or whatever).
If the US government wasn't "the enemy" to so many other countries, there would be no need.
So, the answer, to me, lies in the answer to why the US has so many enemies. A lot of other powerful countries in our world don't.
I hope it doesn't end up like a lot of conflicts in the world: "you guys did x to us, so we retaliated" <- both sides repeat this until everyone's dead.![[:/]](/uploads/emoticons/dry.png "[:/]")
At least one other country has had a secret nuclear weapon programme (South Africa), and voluntarily dismantled it. This country co-exists fairly happily with the rest of the world, and therefore doesn't need military deterrents.
If all nuclear weapons-enabled countries dismantled their weapons, there would be no problem, but as long as those who have them remain the US's enemy ... the US will most likely keep theirs (as deterrents, or whatever).
If the US government wasn't "the enemy" to so many other countries, there would be no need.
So, the answer, to me, lies in the answer to why the US has so many enemies. A lot of other powerful countries in our world don't.
I hope it doesn't end up like a lot of conflicts in the world: "you guys did x to us, so we retaliated" <- both sides repeat this until everyone's dead.
billvon 2,991
> All we have to do is bomb their nuclear facilities. If they still persist
> after that its time to invade.... You'll see alot of help from within the
> country.. We've been on the ground for years there.
Right. I'm sure we will be welcomed as liberators. The war might last six days, six weeks, I doubt six months. I mean, it's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-war Iran than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Iran's army. Hard to imagine. And US casualties? Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.
And as to the reasons for the war? Our intelligence has learned that the Iranian nuclear program recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. We know they have been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe they are, in fact, about to develop them.
Like the old saying goes - fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .
> after that its time to invade.... You'll see alot of help from within the
> country.. We've been on the ground for years there.
Right. I'm sure we will be welcomed as liberators. The war might last six days, six weeks, I doubt six months. I mean, it's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-war Iran than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Iran's army. Hard to imagine. And US casualties? Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.
And as to the reasons for the war? Our intelligence has learned that the Iranian nuclear program recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. We know they have been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe they are, in fact, about to develop them.
Like the old saying goes - fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .
SkyDekker 1,465
QuoteWhich brings me back to the topic. We wont have an arms race here.. All we have to do is bomb their nuclear facilities. If they still persist after that its time to invade.... You'll see alot of help from within the country.. We've been on the ground for years there.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool my twice...well you really should know how that saying ends....
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So, the answer, to me, lies in the answer to why the US has so many enemies. A lot of other powerful countries in our world don't.
Name one.
Andy9o8 2
Leichtenstein?
any country whose GDP is described using millions probably fails the 'powerful' criteria.
Plucky 0
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So, the answer, to me, lies in the answer to why the US has so many enemies. A lot of other powerful countries in our world don't.
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Name one.
I thought about rattling off a few European country's names, and my original example, SA, but I suspect your criteria of 'powerful' is different to mine.
So if I concede that point for the sake of the debate, are you saying that the US has enemies all over the world, not just it's neighbours, simply because of it's political\economical power? .. not many people seemed to really hate the UK (a big world power) until they got involved in Bush's Iraq war. However, the US had enough enemies before then. Why?
Why did things like 9/11 happen? Childish jealousy? US foreign policy? ... ?
I'm not trying to make implied accusations, I'm genuinely curious why, everywhere I go, a large proportion of the people dislike the US government\Americans.
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Like the old saying goes - fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice . . .
So you didn't like my Boy Who Cried Wolf comparison?
SkyDekker 1,465
QuoteSo you didn't like my Boy Who Cried Wolf comparison?
that post doesn't tie back to this though.
This post was about how the americans would be treated like liberators, how the war would be short etc etc. Not about relying on faulty intelligence.
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I thought about rattling off a few European country's names, and my original example, SA, but I suspect your criteria of 'powerful' is different to mine.
So if I concede that point for the sake of the debate, are you saying that the US has enemies all over the world, not just it's neighbours, simply because of it's political\economical power? .. not many people seemed to really hate the UK (a big world power) until they got involved in Bush's Iraq war. However, the US had enough enemies before then. Why?
Why did things like 9/11 happen? Childish jealousy? US foreign policy? ... ?
I'm not trying to make implied accusations, I'm genuinely curious why, everywhere I go, a large proportion of the people dislike the US government\Americans.
France is powerful, England is powerful. Both have enemies. Belgium is not. Spain isn't either, but still got its elections tampered with.
Power is the ability to affect others to your own advantage is what is essentially a zero sum game. Why did France oppose the US's approach in Iraq? It wasn't about altruism. They've been fighting over the same piece of pie. So I don't think you'll find any powerful countries. South Africa certain has a history of messing with nearby countries, nevermind the internal issues with apartheid.
America is a problem to the Arab world on two fronts. One, it's the top dog, so it meddles there. And two, its citizens enjoy a standard of living that the leaders won't give their own people. I'll got Marxist on you and say that Allah is being used to distract the people from this.
Plucky 0
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America is a problem to the Arab world on two fronts. One, it's the top dog, so it meddles there. And two, its citizens enjoy a standard of living that the leaders won't give their own people. I'll got Marxist on you and say that Allah is being used to distract the people from this.
I'll take some convincing on your second point - it amounts to simple jealousy, which I find it hard to believe people are willing to die for. I'm not arrogant or knowledgeable enough to say it's defintely not true though. It's a real pity if it's true
On your first point "so it meddles there", would it be fair to say that if the US stopped meddling, it wouldn't need nukes as deterrents?
It's a simplistic, naive idea, I know, but I believe there's some way for all nukes in the world to be dismantled, which is a good thing. It won't happen in my lifetime, I'm sure, but eventually, if the human race makes it that far ...
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America is a problem to the Arab world on two fronts. One, it's the top dog, so it meddles there. And two, its citizens enjoy a standard of living that the leaders won't give their own people. I'll got Marxist on you and say that Allah is being used to distract the people from this.
I'll take some convincing on your second point - it amounts to simple jealousy, which I find it hard to believe people are willing to die for. I'm not arrogant or knowledgeable enough to say it's defintely not true though. It's a real pity if it's true
For all the petro dollars that have come in, the Arab world has a terrible standard of living. Saddam had how many palaces? While the people couldn't get clean water. The women have how many rights? These sorts of things are hard to maintain when they can see Western TV. The only way to blunt it is to make the West a bogeyman.
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On your first point "so it meddles there", would it be fair to say that if the US stopped meddling, it wouldn't need nukes as deterrents?
It's a simplistic, naive idea, I know, but I believe there's some way for all nukes in the world to be dismantled, which is a good thing. It won't happen in my lifetime, I'm sure, but eventually, if the human race makes it that far ...
Like I've been saying to others, come join us in the real world. The one where people are greedy, and only a fool would disarm himself because 'everyone agreed to it.' One cheater then had the rest at a serious disadvantage. End result of this simple game theory - everyone cheats.
Really? And they would have taken out our submarines . . . how?
A few _hundred_ are all that's needed for deterrence. The vastly greater numbers were used as a propaganda weapon to get them to overspend on their military program. (They did it to us, too - they built tens of thousands of missiles, most of which wouldn't have launched due to crappy manufacture. But we thought they would.)
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