You seriously overestimate the intelligence of some Americans in this regard. After 9/11 some Sikhs were beaten up because they wore turbans and were thus obviously Arabs.
As I said above, I have a rather dry and deadpan sense of humor.
Incidentally you’re talking to someone who’s RL first name is Ali and has has had to correct many people(most of whom weren’t stupid or bigoted) who assumed I was an Arab.
How many of those wars were between nuclear powers? And did you check the casualty numbers? 1900-1945 was less than half the century, with more primitive weapons, and I’d be willing to bet there were more casualties because the wars were more “no holds barred”.
But I’m not making a definitive claim here. “Nuclear peace” is a controversial topic and one with no clear answer. Quoth the Journal of Conflict Resolution:
I for one would rather take a number of “lower intensity disputes” over a single WW3.
And let’s face it, Iran doesn’t want to nuke anybody. They just want a respectable position on the world stage. No matter how crazy, poor and backwater NK and Pakistan are, nobody can ignore them like they can Cambodia or Uruguay. Nukes are a way to make your country’s voice heard, and while I wish it didn’t have to be the threat of efficient mass murder that guaranteed it, every country ought to have that right. To be an equal among world powers, rather than simply a pawn.
Of course, the last thing the US and Israel want is a level playing field with their enemies. That doesn’t make it wrong for a country to attempt to level it anyway. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that every world leader who doesn’t want their country to remain a US or Russian pawn (hey, it’s a good deal sometimes) is neglecting their duty if they don’t start a nuclear program.
But most of those countries don’t think they’re at risk of a U.S. attack. What happens is that Iran increases its regional influence if it gets nuclear weapons, and other countries might go in the same direction for the same reason. Other countries in the Middle East don’t much care for Iran and they don’t want to see it gain power that way.
If you’re going to move goalposts, at least try to stay within the same sport. You said:
Which is unequivocally false. There have been more wars fought in the 68 years since the introduction of the bomb than the 68 beforehand; there were more wars fought in the second half of the 20the century than the first. You’re digging yourself an even deeper hole by asking about casualties when you have no idea of the answer given you are “willing to bet” and you imagine wars were more “no holds barred”. You can’t even make the claim that possession of nuclear weapons keeps the owning countries safe or even safer from wars given the number of conflicts nuclear powers have fought while owning them. Every single nuclear power has fought at least one war while owning the bomb: the US (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again), the USSR/Russia (Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia), France (Vietnam, Algeria, Suez, Korea, Iraq), the UK (Korea, Suez, Falklands, Iraq, Iraq), China (Sino-Indian War, Sino-Vietnamese War), India and Pakistan (each other), South Africa (Angola) and Israel (hard to pin down as the date Israel acquired the bomb isn’t well established).
Yes, you are. An incorrect one, but you made a definitive claim. As for “lower intensity disputes”, are you aware that the United States dropped more tons of bombs on Cambodia alone during the war in Vietnam than it did on all Axis powers combined during the entire Second World War, both nuclear bombs included?
I don’t think you’d feel this with anything near as much intensity if you were for example a Korean (Korean War Total civilians killed/wounded: 2.5 million (est.))or a Vietnamese (Vietnam War -Vietnamese civilian dead: 245,000–2,000,000[25] Cambodian Civil War dead: 200,000–300,000*[26][27][28] Laotian Civil War dead: 20,000–200,000* Total civilian dead: 465,000–2,500,000** Total dead: 1,102,000–3,886,026). The problem with WW3 is it only needs to happen once; the participating countries will cease to exist for all practical purposes.
Got a cite for that?
Wartime deaths per capita by year. Number of wars by year (Notice please the decline in “interstate wars” which is what foreign policy is mainly concerned with).
These are both from Steven Pinker and his extensively researched thesis that we are living in the most peaceful and least violent period in human history.
Again though, I’m not making the claim that nuclear bombs have caused this peace. That would be controversial. I am making the un-cited hypothesis that nukes contributed to the relative peace between nations, or at least hasn’t provoked more war than would have occurred without them.
With the gun debate, whether they deter more violence than they cause is a subject of much controversy. Either way, I believe free adults should have the right to defend themselves. With nukes, it’s a similarly controversial question whether they cause more wars than they deter. And similarly, I’ll conclude that sovereign states ought to have the right to defend themselves the best way they know how. If the US and Israel suddenly disagree with that statement, they can prove it by disarming themselves and I’ll rethink my position. Until then, I’ll welcome a nuclear Iran, and any other country that wants to join, into the World Power family.
I’m familiar with Pinker’s work, and it states that opposite of what your are claiming. And the graph you cited only goes back to 1946. How is that supposed to prove what things were like prior to 1946?
These two statements are not contradictory. And it is not moving the goalposts to note that the post-WWII wars have been small ones. An era containing two very small wars is more peaceful than an era containing one very large one.
How about these:
Quoth Pinker:
Bolding mine. Since 1950, wars between the great powers have been fewer, shorter, and less deadly. That counts as “more peaceful” to me. And it conveniently lines up with the first nuclear arms race, though I’d still take that with a grain of salt.
Sorry, I thought you were arguing the other side. :smack:
It may be because there is, in my opinion, a well-founded concern that Iran may deliberately, or accidentally (i.e. by diversion without their permission), or as a result of regime change, provide “the bomb” to some rather desperate groups. I know it’s a cliche, but what if Al-Qaeda or some other terrorist organization had access to a bomb(s)? I do not think it is that far-fetched that a nuclear weapon made by Iran might wind up in the hands of such groups.
For the record, I do not think it would be wise for the Israelis to try to take out Iran’s nuclear capability.
I doubt that would happen. There’s no way such a thing remains secret and as we’ve seen in Iraq, even a lie linking you to non-existent WMDs can result in an invasion.
I think people really need to accept this fact of life: Iran is not some tiny terrorist country with no infrastructure like Afghanistan. They will NOT do anything that gives the US or Israel reason to bomb their country. Thus, they will never provide any nuclear material to terrorists. It simply is too big of a risk. Who’s to say that the terrorists would use it properly or not get captured and blab about it? Iran’s not going to take that risk. They won’t attack Israel with nukes, if anything, the nukes are to ensure Israel doesn’t attack them if they build it
Why only focus on great power wars, though? Why not look at all wars?
I think you didn’t address this:
I am waaaaay more concerned about an al Qaeda - Pakistan link than a link with Iran. They are natural allies with Pakistan and natural enemies with Iran.
It’s highly implausible; that’s just not something nations do. Neither America nor the Soviet Union did so during the Cold War, and both fanatically hated each other and cheerfully armed & funded terrorists. But never with nukes.
And the leaders of Iran are well aware that if it even looked like they’d done that we’d take the excuse to destroy them utterly; quite possibly do our best to kill their entire population along with the leaders themselves. We spent decades threatening the USSR with exactly that after all. And we’ve demonstrated again and again our implacable hostility, and the fact that we don’t really regard them as human.
That is a truly bizarre definition of peace; there is no WW3, therefore peace. You’ll note your own cite shows the number of wars per year has increased since 1946, remaining at twice the number in the last decade as in 1946 and spiking to three time as many. This definition of “more peaceful” also conveniently ignores that great powers have been to war since 1950 with nations other than each other, and if anything more frequently and for longer. The US has been at war for more years since WW2 than it has before WW2. I’m sure it will come as a relief to the 5 million or so who died in Korean War and Vietnam War to know that they don’t count since they either weren’t great powers or for the US dead weren’t fighting a great power. Keeping in tune with the OP, none of the dead in the wars Israel has fought count, not even from the 1956 Suez War since the great powers involved were on the same side. None of the ~1,250,000 dead from the Iran-Iraq War count.
To reiterate, every single country that has the bomb has been to war since acquiring it.
That’s great if you’re talking only about deliberate actions by the leaders of Iran, which is not the only possibility KarlGauss was talking about. And it’s a serious concern with regard to Iran and nuclear proliferation in general.
You’re right, but why is that not also a concern with other nuclear powers, including the US and Israel? I mean, why is Iran special here?