The practical deterrent capability of nuclear weapons, especially in the context of two opposing parties with relative parity in their nuclear arsenals, is vastly overstated as the credibility of the deterrent is based on the willingness to engage in a nuclear response to a conventional attack. The use of nuclear weapons by one side almost automatically demands reprisals by the other, irrespective of whether the use was ‘tactical’ or ‘strategic’, and game theory analysis of a nuclear exchange tends to result in a full scale exchange (“Use it or lose it,” or the Diner’s Dilemma). Contests between three or more vying, nuclear-armed parties that devolved into a nuclear exchange will almost result in a full up exchange. Even with one nuclear-armed party against another party not so capable, the political backlash by the rest of the world would be enormously detrimental.
Also infrastructure capable of supporting heavy tanks. In some countries, you’d have to build bridges and railroads before you could even use such vehicles.
A willingness that is a near certainty faced with the threat of conquest. More importantly, we see the same pattern all over; nations don’t try to invade other nations with nukes; usually they are quite cautious in general towards such nations.
That doesn’t matter in the case of defending against an invasion; the effects of any political backlash from the rest of the world would be trivial compared to the effects of not using nukes to stop the invaders.
With respect to India and China, I disagree. There’s a story that in the 1960s, one of the American Presidents threatened China with a nuke over something and Mao’s response was, “A million less mouths to feed.”
It appears to be a fictionalized derivation of the original quote according to Wikiquote and Mao’s Last Revolution, “People who try to commit suicide — don’t attempt to save them! . . . China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people.”
To paraphrase the great military philosopher, GI Joe, “knowing is only half the battle.”
John Keegan illustrated this point with the example of the German invasion of Crete in 1941. British intelligence had pretty much figured out when, where, and how the Germans were going to invade. And the outcome was that the Germans captured Crete.
Why? Because, even though the British knew what the Germans were going to do, they didn’t have enough forces available to stop them from doing it.
While I have little doubt that story is not accurate, biographers of Mao have reported a serious lack of… empathy for the deaths caused by the Great Leap Forward. It’s a matter of some debate, but the debate is clearly more substantive than “them weirdos who don’t speak American don’t much like their children like we do.”
Sure, but the contrast is that was within the context of one of those lovely Soviet-style industrialization/collectivization efforts, meant to drag the nation out of a backwards, agricultural mindset and ensure its ability to defend itself from future aggression. He was ready to break quite a few eggs to build a powerful Chinese omelet, and he recognized that there would be quite a bit of resistance for numerous reasons.
That’s different than viewing the population as a resource, just like any other, that can be expended (even though that’s true to some extent).
That it does. You’d think JFK or Johnson threatening to nuke China would have made the news somewhere.
The idea that 100,000,000 deaths from nuclear attacks would be viewed as nothing - or even a benefit (wtf?) - by China or India is palpably absurd. 100,000,000 is larger by far than the total deaths for every nation on the planet during the entirety of WW2. If one insists that this loss would mean nothing to those in power in New Delhi or Beijing, having New Delhi or Beijing and a number of other cities turned into radioactive cinders and the subsequent fallout would tend to get their attention.
Seems to me that the OP is comparing apples to oranges. If they are spending 2/3 of their GDP vs us, then that seems to be the more apt comparison. Further, MILPERS is a big piece of our DOD budget; what do they pay for conscripts?
Why do we need anything? Because the tax payers THINK we do. As for the military, if we don’t protect our external interests, who is going to do it for us? What it boils down to is this: does the American tax payer THINK we need a military capable of protecting our interests abroad, the ability to project power on a global scale (and, perhaps, deter other countries from either aggression or from feeling they can attack our interests), etc etc. The answer still seems to be ‘yes’, so that’s really the only one that counts. When the American tax payer (as a whole) no longer wants to foot the bill for those kinds of capabilities, or no longer feels that the US should be involved externally (i.e. if we turn back to isolationism) then we won’t have it any more. Hopefully it won’t happen any time soon, or someone else will step up and decide to protect our interests for us.
For that comparison to be meaningful, the U.S. would need to spend most of its defense budget on R&D. The data, however, shows that R&D spending was only at around 12% of the total defense spending in 2009.