There are people that are trained to be soldiers and won’t shoot, even to save their own lives. Given that this is death on a vastly more massive scale that we’re talking about, this is less about training and more about both conscience and idealism. You can train a monkey to turn the key.
I still don’t understand the problem, here exactly: that young people do understand that MAD means you shoot the other mofo if he shoots you?
- Depends upon who’s “idea” it is that a nuclear war is winnable in the first place. A strategic missile shield of some sort may make a nuclear war “winnable” from an American perspective, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate a willingness to engage in nuclear war on the part of Americans or American political or military leadership.
Like the lady said in the movie, “…I’m worried about the person who just wants one nuke.”
-
It makes it more likely to happen once the order is given; it removes a “speedbump” from the process. But if even a few dozen silo-operators decided not to “turn the key,” there’s still more than enough missiles flyin’ to make their last “Act of Conscience” a relatively moot point.
-
Sounds like you’re getting older, Airman, and beginning to wonder about the next generation of “dang fool ijits,” the same we way old geezers worried about you when you were a young’un.
Seriously, it sounds like your class simply “got into” an interesting role-play exercise, and if it seems as if they had little or no idea of the import of their decision, it was likely because they knew they were sitting in a history class in college and their decision had little importance.
I’ve slaughtered trillions of people electronically without batting an eye or losing a wink of sleep; if I ever had to actually kill another human being (you know, face-to-face, up-close-and-personal), I might wind up a mental/emotional wreck. The difference being that in the first, I know it’s not real; in the latter, I would wish that it wasn’t real, that it didn’t happen, and that I could rewind time and avoid the situation altogether.
And I think your classmates overall (barring the odd ijit) knew, and know, the difference as well.
And I also think that you might want to give them a bit more credit than you seem to be in your OP; you know, the same way we old geezers gave you young’uns credit even when it sometimes seemed y’all didn’t deserve it.
Yes, there’s something deeply satisfying about cracking an inhabited planet in half, and watching the pieces drift off into space.
WRT MAD, Left Hand of Dorkness is right to point out that there’s no one around at the present with which the US can play. There’s little reason for kids to think about it, or try to understand it. Their not knowing poses little immediate threat. Now if 30 years from now, China looks back on three decades of 15% per annum growth and decides that it could have had 25% per annum without the interference of those pesky Americans, we may find ourselves playing the MAD game in deadly earnest again. At that time, visions of worldwide nuclear holocaust will once again haunt people’s dreams, and they’ll start to bone up on MAD.
The trouble is, we seem to be in a period where people are willing to destabilize future MAD in order to feel safer about today’s low level threats.
“…an inhabited planet…”?
Piker.
Try going on a Sector Crawl with a Death Star. :eek:
To the real topic at hand:
Hell, if China keeps killing off their female babies in favor of “man-child,” there may not be much left of China in 30-40 years.
Since there has not been a single instance of a nuclear war (where both sides fight with nukes) then we can not say what makes one likely or unlikely. We have not fought one yet, so that would imply that what we’re doing is working to keep the first nuclear war from starting. The gloom and doom scenario wherein we are only moments from atomic war would have us believe that every day we’re on the brink of planetary anihilation. I do not hold this view.
Winnable? depends on your definition of “winning” and “losing” a nuclear war. I think that the USA could survive quite alot of punishment, doesn’t mean I’d like to see it happen though.
I still don’t understand the debate here. If the missiles from the other side are flying, are you proposing that we do nothing? Don’t retaliate?
If someone hits me in a bar, and I can’t run away (imagine I’m in a corner, backed in), should I not retaliate? (probably not the best analogy, but…)
Without the retaliation being a certainty, what is MAD all about? MAD is to keep the missiles from flying in the first place.
All that said, I hope they NEVER fly, but if they do, I hope the authorities in control of the “button” push it. Then push it again, and again, and again.
-Butler
Airman, not to seem pushy, but, what did you think of my input?
That is exactly what I’m proposing. If we get in a situation where MAD is occurring, there’s a certain logic behind threatening to retaliate, preparing to retaliate, making every possible indication to the enemy that we will retaliate. But actually retaliating would be murder on a scale unimaginable. The person who makes the decision to retaliate will, in one split second, eclipse all the world’s previous murderous despots combined. I don’t believe in Hell, but I’d make an exception for that individual.
Daniel
Morally, I think that one could make that argument and defend it quite easily. If you do nothing, half the world dies and the other half will be in pretty bad shape from the fallout, but mankind will survive. If you retaliate, than the whole world dies. The problem with this argument is that it makes a first strike the only “winning” move in the game. I’m not saying that it’s a position that I endorse, but I can see and understand it.
This post was not here when I started my post. Is it magic? :smack:
:Waves fingers spookily
Daniel
Actually, if I can clarify, I think Weirddave and I are saying basically the same thing from different perspectives. I agree with him that saying publicly you won’t retaliate to a nuclear strike is problematic: you run the very real risk than an insane, murderous enemy will decide that it’s therefore okay to make a nuclear strike. I therefore don’t fault politicians, especially presidents, who insist till the cows come home that they’ll annihilate any country that tries a nuclear strike on the United States, IF there’s a country that can present such a threat. I don’t much like it, but until I can propose a reasonable alternative to get around the very real problem Weirddave brings up, I can’t complain too much about it.
However, this is a case where moral absolutely demands a broken promise, if the bluff is ever called. You’ve got to convince an enemy that you won’t break your word, but then you’ve GOT to break your word if it comes down to it.
Because if you get called on this bluff, it’s the last bluff you’ll ever get called on. You’re not going to lose your street-cred if you fail to retaliate. You’re not going to encourage the enemy. All you’re going to do is spare a billion-and-change lives.
Daniel
You have no proof of this.
Since China currently doesn’t possess first strike capability, and Russia’s arsenal of nuclear arms is scattered and piecemeal, and thus unlikely to be used for a first strike, I think a better question might be: How should the US respond to a limited nuclear attack? Suppose a nuke was smuggled into the country and detonated in central Manhattan. Some of the terrorists (those not in NY obviously) are caught, and clearly implicate the government of, say, Iran (I picked Iran at random, substitute the country of your choice) as the instigators of the attack. Should we then retaliate by taking out Tehran?
No proof of what?
Maybe I’m just the vengeful sort but if the other side is going to kill me and everyone I love I’d sure like to return the favor. Is it fair to place all this moral baggage on the retaliator?
Marc
Yes. Any government should understand that if they attack us with biological or nuclear weapons that we might retalitate with a nuclear strike.
Marc
The basic thing is, it only works if your enemies know your deadly serious about retaliation. If you think too much about not retaliating “for humanitarian purposes,” then they may become willing to use it in the belief you will not react. If you do not, then the armies of darkness will march all over the earth.
In any event, it would take out a major opponent of good.
Yes, it’s absolutely fair. You may kill the guy who pressed the red button on their side without my shedding a tear; but when you kill a billion innocent people in order to avenge that bastard’s action, you become as bad as him.
If I kill your mother, you’re not allowed to kill mine for revenge. The same principle applies here.
As for the limited nuclear strike: wiping out Tehran in retaliation for the Iranian government’s complicity in a terrorist nuclear strike on the US would be a grievous war crime. It wouldn’t be a Stalin-level war crime or a Hitler level war crime (and let me reiterate, a full-scale retaliation would dwarf Stalin’s or Hitler’s acts, and that’s absolutely not hyperbole), but it would be a war crime, a horrific act, mass murder on a terrible scale.
You may not kill civilians in order to scare a government.
Daniel