# The Nuclear Option **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850 "2009-08-09T17:53:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/1 "2009-08-09T17:53:12Z")
I understand the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, but is there any moral or practical justification for their use ? I assume that there are those who believe that a nuclear response to a nuclear attack is needed, but I suggest that doing so will only worsen the future political and environment situation for all of us. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/2 "2009-08-09T17:58:23Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > but I suggest that doing so will only worsen the future political and environment situation for all of us. Small consolation to those wandering a post nuclear hellscape. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/3 "2009-08-09T18:25:04Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Small consolation to those wandering a post nuclear hellscape. Bah Japan had 2 nukes USED on it and twenty years later you couldnt tell. Hundreds if not nearly a thousand nukes were detonated above ground post WW2 by USA, USSR, France, and GB and again, the Earth looks pretty fair and clear nuclear zombie wise. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/4 "2009-08-09T18:50:22Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Bah > > Japan had 2 nukes USED on it and twenty years later you couldnt tell. > > Hundreds if not nearly a thousand nukes were detonated above ground post WW2 by USA, USSR, France, and GB and again, the Earth looks pretty fair and clear nuclear zombie wise. You’re not seriously comparing nuclear weapons of the 1940s to today, are you? [Fat Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man) had a yield of 21 kilotons. The [Trident II Mark V SLBM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II) in use today (by the United States and United Kingdom) has _eight_ W88 warheads with a blast yield of 475 kt - each! You might be able to tell 20 years later that one of those had been used against you. I also think there’s also a massive difference between testing done on unfortunate Pacific islands/barren tundra/deserts compared to an all out strike against major urban centres. As to the OP; morally, environmentally, there is no justification. Politically, if an enemy strike is imminent, I’d imagine that if you were in a position to launch the second strike and hesitated a way would be found to ‘convince’ you to press the button regardless. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/5 "2009-08-09T19:08:19Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > You might be able to tell 20 years later that one of those had been used against you. > > I also think there’s also a massive difference between testing done on unfortunate Pacific islands/barren tundra/deserts compared to an all out strike against major urban centres. > > . Dead is dead. Sucks if a nuke is dropped on you. Grenades, bullets, regular old bombs, or your whole town in flames (fire or bat bombing) due to conventional means sucks just as hard. The only real evil of nukes is that death is so much cheaper on a wholesale rather than retail level. The oggy booggy radiation effects (long term and non-local) are nearly in the noise. Worried about being blasted to bits because a nuke went off nearby? fine. Be worried about that smart bomb the USA had targeted on your house during the Taliban open house as well. Worried that a few nukes will result in mutant zombies roaming the earth? Lay off the halucinagenic granola bars for a bit and take some real science classes. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/6 "2009-08-09T19:31:30Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Dead is dead. Sucks if a nuke is dropped on you. Grenades, bullets, regular old bombs, or your whole town in flames (fire or bat bombing) due to conventional means sucks just as hard. > > The only real evil of nukes is that death is so much cheaper on a wholesale rather than retail level. The oggy booggy radiation effects (long term and non-local) are nearly in the noise. > > Worried about being blasted to bits because a nuke went off nearby? fine. Be worried about that smart bomb the USA had targeted on your house during the Taliban open house as well. > > Worried that a few nukes will result in mutant zombies roaming the earth? Lay off the halucinagenic granola bars for a bit and take some real science classes. Who said anything about mutant zombies? The fact that all major urban population centres would be reduced to rubble (overlaying the blast radius of a Russian [550 kiloton Topol-M](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2UTTH_Topol_M#Equipment_of_Topol-M_with_MIRV) warhead over [Washington D.C.](http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html) leads to total destruction of the surrounding urban environment) is bad enough. Then you’ve got the effects of radiation poisoning from nuclear fallout in the atmosphere not to mention [EMP](http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm) rendering electronics useless. Essentially you’d be thrown back into the stone age within the blink of an eye. The severity of each would depend upon the yield, detonation height, wind conditions and so on. You just can’t compare the effects of a conventional war to that of a total nuclear exchange, especially based on assumptions drawn from Fat Man/Little Boy and controlled testing. Yes, dead is dead, but no grenade (or smart bomb, or whatever) is going to fundamentally change human civilisation as we know it. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/7 "2009-08-09T22:46:48Z")
> [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](#): > > I understand the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, but is there any moral or practical justification for their use ? For the most part we are moving away from having nukes in the planning and no , if you feel that way there is no moral or practical justification for using any weapon. Like the torture thread, the only justifications you could make are based on a slim or non-existant set of conditions. Having said that , we are not going to get rid of them. They make excellent vengance weapons and I would have no moral qualms about removing an attackers city in exchange for them doing unto us. I think the only way that you could remove nukes from the arsenal , is to have a weapon with the same payout, without the fallout and the only thing even close to matching nukes are orbital kinetic weapons. Declan ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/8 "2009-08-09T22:52:48Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > You just can’t compare the effects of a conventional war to that of a total nuclear exchange, especially based on assumptions drawn from Fat Man/Little Boy and controlled testing. . Who said TOTAL nuclear exhange? It wasnt in the OP as far as I can tell. And besides, how is blowing the shit outa everything that is worth anything THAT much worse using nukes than using a buttload of high explosives or bats? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/9 "2009-08-09T23:20:29Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > And besides, how is blowing the shit outa everything that is worth anything THAT much worse using nukes than using a buttload of high explosives or bats? Exactly. People get their panties in a twist any time “nuclear” gets mentioned in any way about anything. We did a lot more damage to Japan with incendiaries than we did with nukes. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/10 "2009-08-09T23:45:04Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Who said TOTAL nuclear exhange? It wasnt in the OP as far as I can tell. > > And besides, how is blowing the shit outa everything that is worth anything THAT much worse using nukes than using a buttload of high explosives or bats? The MAD doctrine? If you’re gonna go up in a mushroom cloud, make sure the other guy is too. Petty spite, really, but it was the MO of the US and USSR in the cold war. Buttloads of high explosives don’t create radioactive fallout or EMPs, nor do they cause as much devastation. Even ordinance like the U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb and Russian Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (aka “Father of All Bombs”) can’t compare in sheer destructive power to a modern nuclear device. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2009, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/11 "2009-08-09T23:54:05Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > The MAD doctrine? If you’re gonna go up in a mushroom cloud, make sure the other guy is too. Petty spite, really, but it was the MO of the US and USSR in the cold war. > > Buttloads of high explosives don’t create radioactive fallout or EMPs, nor do they cause as much devastation. Even ordinance like the U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb and Russian Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (aka “Father of All Bombs”) can’t compare in sheer destructive power to a modern nuclear device. AND the US and USSR never had a big war did they? MAD worked great. I love the bomb. If it wasnt for nukes IMO we would be on WW4 or 5 by now. And the world would suck in comparision to what we have today. Conventional explosives create as much destruction as you are willing to pay for. All nukes really do is make death and destruction dirt cheap. THATS the moral question you really need to address. My feeling? Hell, if you are going to do it, it might as well be cheap (preferably free actually). Making it expensive just means money cant be used for other good things. ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/12 "2009-08-10T01:01:07Z")
i’m with billfish. MAD was/is a very effective deterrent for war. Today the destruction goes even further than just bombs. Collectively, we’ve got our hands in so many honeypots worldwide, the only places that are worth waging war are with economically insignificant countries. China would never bite the hands that feed it by going to war against the EU or US. The US and EU wouldn’t give up its cushy import-heavy lifestyle just to take a stand over human rights violations. At this rate of globalization, i think we’ve seen the last of the “world wars” and the warfare in the future is going to be more of the current terrorist insurrection type. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/13 "2009-08-10T02:08:51Z")
They’re just bombs. Big bombs. Bombs with a nasty after effect. But they’re just another way to kill people. No more or less immoral than a theoretical Fuel-Air Explosive (MOAB) bomb of the same size, except for the environmental contamination issue. Yes, there’s political implications to using them, but not moral ones, not really. If you’ve made the decision that you absolutely have to kill EVERYTHING in a certain location, and you need something the size of a nuke to do it… then, well, frankly, I don’t see any difference between nuclear and an equivalent conventional bomb. If you believe in hell, you’re going there _either_ way. I can see reasons to use 'em. God forbid, there’s some flesh-melting plague in a city, and you want to burn it out, f’r example. (shush, I know, airports, Madagascar.) Or… I don’t know. The reason they’re so scary is because they’re so freaking huge and lethal in effect, but small and deliverable in size. Both halves are important. You can replicate the lethality and effect with conventional weaponry, just with a lot more effort. Edit: I dunno. Big wars happen a lot when people think they’ve evolved past war. I could see one erupting in Europe for some stupid reason. Or China/Russia. Don’t get comfortable with peace. ---
**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/14 "2009-08-11T22:17:24Z")
According to [this](http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html), probably the worst part of a total exchange would be devastation to the infrastructure leading massive post-exchange starvation and disease. The link describes an exchange mainly between the US and the USSR, but you can probably extrapolate a little for today’s case. We wouldn’t exactly be in the Stone Age, but we would become third world. Also, the ascendency of Southern Hemisphere nations is likely. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/15 "2009-08-12T04:08:32Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Who said TOTAL nuclear exhange? It wasnt in the OP as far as I can tell. > > And besides, how is blowing the shit outa everything that is worth anything THAT much worse using nukes than using a buttload of high explosives or bats? Mr. Kobayashi got it in one. A single Trident submarine launched against a country the size of the United States would render the country dead. The damage of a single warhead is twenty TIMES that of Hiroshima. It would cause such economic and infrastructure damage as to render the affected areas dead for many generations. Look at the economic damage of 9/11. It caused a half trillion dollars of damage with little affect on a city. There isn’t enough money on the planet to cover the damage of eight W-88 warheads. Such destruction would cause a worldwide collapse of markets. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/16 "2009-08-12T04:25:05Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > You’re not seriously comparing nuclear weapons of the 1940s to today, are you? [Fat Man](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man) had a yield of 21 kilotons. The [Trident II Mark V SLBM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UGM-133_Trident_II) in use today (by the United States and United Kingdom) has _eight_ W88 warheads with a blast yield of 475 kt - each! You might be able to tell 20 years later that one of those had been used against you. Sends a signal of ‘fuck with someone else’, no? ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/17 "2009-08-12T04:36:23Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Essentially you’d be thrown back into the stone age within the blink of an eye. I completely disagree! Anywhere there are survivors, there will be people who can reconstruct technology. All of it? Atom smashers? Maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/18 "2009-08-12T06:22:17Z")
Nuclear Weapons are useful to armies that are badly outnumbered and don’t have a lot of room to back up before the war is ‘lost’; Israel and South Korea are two such examples. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/19 "2009-08-12T07:10:19Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > I completely disagree! Anywhere there are survivors, there will be people who can reconstruct technology. All of it? Atom smashers? Maybe not. The problem is that you lose all the infrastructure in all major cities; universities, schools, hospitals. People might be left alive who are experts in technology and scholarly pursuits, although in nuclear aftermath which is going to be more useful; physicists and computer technicians or farmers and builders? Note that as well as the death toll from the initial blast you also have the effects of radiation sickness, disease and starvation. Then you get the problem of the next generation. The skills needed to survive will be passed on, any sort of advanced scientific knowledge will take a back-seat. With no advanced educational infrastructure the facilities to educate the people needed to reconstruct society as we know it will simply not exist (meaning the ‘war’ generation will be the last generation that receives a formal education). ‘Stone age’ was hyperbolic, admittedly, but civilisation would never be the same. > [@](#): > > Since 1970, an increasing fraction of the human race has been losing the battle for self-sufficiency in food, and must rely on heavy imports. A major disruption of agriculture and transportation in the grain-exporting and manufacturing countries could thus prove disastrous to countries importing food, farm machinery, and fertilizers–especially those which are already struggling with the threat of widespread starvation. Moreover, virtually every economic area, from food and medicines to fuel and growth engendering industries, the less-developed countries would find they could not rely on the “undamaged” remainder of the developed world for trade essentials: in the wake of a nuclear war the industrial powers directly involved would themselves have to compete for resources with those countries that today are described as “less-developed.” > > Similarly, the disruption of international communications–satellites, cables, and even high frequency radio links–could be a major obstacle to international recovery efforts. > **[Some Conclusions | Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War | Historical Documents |...](https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/effects/wenw/chapter-4.html)** > > Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War by U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Worldwide effects of a large scale nuclear exchange, an interesting read. I’m not sure why people are making an issue of nuclear warheads being ‘just big bombs’ which make death cheap and that the word ‘nuclear’ has political connotations - well, one is the result of the other. Nuclear weapons are far more destructive than a conventional war and would change civilisation far more than a conventional war (on account of being ‘really big bombs’ - causing a _massive_ amount of destruction). I think people are seriously underestimating the power of modern nuclear devices, both in a physical sense and the effect they have on the popular conciousness. Note that the OP asks if there is a moral justification to the second strike. There is no way a first strike would be on a limited basis - one of the things that tipped off Stanislav Petrov to the fact that his computer was glitching is that there were too few inbound ICBMs - > [@](#): > > Petrov’s decision was based partly on a guess, he recalled. He had been told many times that a nuclear attack would be massive – an onslaught designed to overwhelm Soviet defenses at a single stroke. But the monitors showed only five missiles. “When people start a war, they don’t start it with only five missiles,” he remembered thinking at the time. “You can do little damage with just five missiles.” [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/coldwar/shatter021099b.htm) The whole idea of a first strike is that you are inflicting such a devastating attack on the enemy that you disable their ability to retaliate in any way. Firing off just a few nuclear missiles would be literal suicide for the attacker - it would still be seen as a first strike, but limiting the strike would be guaranteeing a nuclear response. Can you honestly imagine even a limited nuclear attack on a nation would not be met by a total second strike? They’d be outrage and whoever made the call not to retaliate would be out of office in short order. In these days of SLBMs a limited first strike would be even stupider. If you kill the leadership and communications infrastructure of a nation and a sub captain has reason to suspect a nuclear strike they will launch their payload [according to the Letter of Last Resort](http://www.slate.com/id/2208219/) in the UK’s case, and establish MAD doctrine in the case of the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2009, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850/20 "2009-08-12T12:35:00Z")
Heck, the U.S. could just cut off aid to any country that attacks it with nuclear weapons. That’d work. (Longtime Cecil readers will understand that reference.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nuclear-option/505850.md?page=2)