If a nation sponsors an attack like that against us in any way shape or form, we are at war with that nation. And since they used nukes, that’s what the retaliation will be with.
Actually, Mutually Assured Destruction coupled with rational leadership (in the sense that a rational person does not want themselves or their society destroyed by nuclear fire) seemed to work just fine for 50 years between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
The big wild-card now is that you are dealing with people who aren’t rational. They have no problem dieing if it means lashing out at their enimies so they aren’t detered by threat of retaliation. Maybe they wouldn’t have a problem with sacrificing Mecca to the Islam cause if it meant that it would force world opinion against the US. After all, look how much controversy was caused by topping some dictator with precision conventional weapons.
Congratulations, you just about perfectly phrased the terrorist method…
…Just replace bin Laden, Mecca, and Arab world with Bush, Washington, and US, respectfully. Terrorism does not justify terrorism.
So I take it you are against MAD?
Let’s see if I understand this. MAD was a good policy when we dealt with rational people. All right, I’m with you there. But then you seem to be saying that it should never have actually been carried out in the event of an attack.
How do you consider that a policy? A threat is useless if it will never be carried out if challenged. Are you proposing empty gestures?
You seem to credit me with a lot of opinions on the validity, morality, and practicality of MAD for me having never once mentioned it. Interesting.
Of course, I could turn it around, and say because you think MAD was an acceptable tactic, you think the tactics of terrorists was an acceptable tactic, seeing as they share the qualities you mention. It would be unwarranted, and frankly, unreasonable, but so were your statements of my unstated opinions.
Personally, I consider MAD to be of a larger scope, and of different targets. Terrorist attacks are not nearly up to the risk posed by a massive strategic nuclear strike by soviet Russia followed by conventional military power. In the cold war, the idea of offensive use of nukes was to soften the enemy up enough that conventional forces could overpower them. Even then, both sides had reservations about wether a pre-emptive nuclear strike would actuall be enough for them to win. In any case, an offensive nuclear launch was a declaration of war, and one that would surely be followed up by conventional means, if possible. A retaliatory nuclear strike, as of the MAD doctrine, was to hit the enemy back hard enough that they could not conduct the following conventional opperation. It was not a tactic aimed at committing horrors to prevent others from committing horrors upon you. It was not conducted as a policy of detering terror with terror. The missiles were pointed at opposing missile fields, millitary bases, infrastructure, and production centers, not population centers. The goal was to heavily impare and/or destroy the opposing nation’s capability to conduct warfare, and potentially destroy the ability to hold themselves together as one cohesive nation. There would be vast civilian casualties, of course, but significantly less than if they had targeted population centers, instead. And quite simply, there is no method of replying in kind with a conventional attack. No other method can result in such a swift and effective destruction of millitary and infrastructure targets.
However, unlike MAD, nuclear arms are not necessary to respond to terrorism. Using excessive force that results in significantly higher civilian casualties than is needed, especially when there are options that are just as easy and result in far less unwarranted destruction, is morally bankrupt, in my opinion. It is unneccesary, and further, it’s unneccesary targeting of people who had no connection with the events you’re retaliating for. It is no better of an action than what the terrorists did in the first place. In fact, I find them to be comparable enough to be identical. Both are the use of force against a civilian populace with the intended effect of influencing a nation’s policies. It’s like carpet-bombing an Afghanistan city with the intent to kill 3,000 civilians as an example, after 9/11.
If another country, or a group heavily sponsored by a country, used a nuclear weapon against the US, the only use of nuclear weapons I would find acceptable is only that which would prevent that country or group from using nukes again immediately, and only then if there were no less destructive methods that could achieve that goal as easily and assuredly. Unless this is a country with a significant supply of nuclear weapons, in hardened possitions, that means no nukes. Why? Because you don’t need them. You should remember how much world-wide support there was for the US in Afghanistan just after 9/11/01, and that was a few planes flown into buildings, killing 3,000. Here, we’re talking nuclear weapons wiping out a good portion of a city, and probably killing a LOT more than just 3,000. How many nations do you think would stand opposed to the invasion of a country that would do that?
But then, I kind of think we should try to uphold higher morals than terrorism and murder.
In other words, “Don’t shoot the gunman, Mr. police officer, disarm him! Oh, how tragic, the poor policeman is dead now.”
Sorry, but in real life you can’t just use the minimum force necessary. You have to be sure when millions of AMericans are at risk.
Not to mention there is absolutely ZERO deterrence using the methods you advocate.
Nukes must be responded to with total destruction of the orginating country. Anything less will only make a second attack a certainty.
So what you’re saying is that if some terrorist faction nukes the US it would be rational to do the same to them (whoever they are) in order to discourage a future attack. So in your scenario did the original nuke in the American city discourage a counter attack by America? It seems it did the opposite.
In fact if you nuked some city in the middle east there would be way more terrorist trying to kill Americans than ever before because having a city nuked tends to piss people off as many people have pointed out in this thread. Terrorist groups thrive on opposition. The more countries the US attacks the more people there are going to be who hate the US.
So I would say that unless it was a nuclear weapon used by a foreign government it would be a really bad idea. But, to link it back to the topic of the thread, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
Snippet from article:
**The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force - including potentially nuclear weapons - to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies," the document, National Security Presidential Directive 17, set out on Sept. 14 last year. **
Inspite of the wishful, pacifistic (and may i add, naive) views which are held by certain people here, the response would most definitely be massive, overwhelming and crushing.
If there was a nuke set off in some US city, then it is fairly obvious that we would figure out who did it, and who helped them. A nuke is the only appropriate response to being nuked. As a matter of fact, many nukes is the appropriate response to getting nuked. If it was found out for example that 3 countries were behind it, then we would obviously have no choice but to nuke them to smithereens, and preferrably back to the stone age (which isn’t that far of a step back for certain countries). 
Put it this way. During the cold war, we had plenty of targets already picked out (u.s.s.r.) and we were ready to fire our arsenal at a moments notice. I’m not privy to any top secret info, but I’d say it’s safe to assume that we have recalibrated and reassesed our potential target choices.
Where do you think our target choices today are pointing towards ?
So to answer the OP question, we would not engage in a nuclear attack, if we were not nuked first (or bioattack etc.). Small scale nuclear weapons (Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators) which are being talked about is another matter all together, and I could see the US using these in future situations, if proven to be effective.
So, if anybody tried to nuke the USA, they would be very, very sorry, to put it mildly. There would be a retaliation like nothing seen before. Fatman and littleboy pales in comparison to what we have now.
:o
**So what you’re saying is that if some terrorist faction nukes the US it would be rational to do the same to them (whoever they are) in order to discourage a future attack. So in your scenario did the original nuke in the American city discourage a counter attack by America? It seems it did the opposite.
**
The THREAT of a nuke keeps people from using them because they know they’d get nuked in return. What’s your logic here, that once it happens, we should prove that our threat was empty, and just completely destroy any credibility we have on the subject of deterrence? What does it tell China or Iran or North KOrea if we don’t respond in kind?
Answer: It makes a future all out nuclear war more likely. Nothing emboldens enemies more than weakness in the face of aggression.
**So, if anybody tried to nuke the USA, they would be very, very sorry, to put it mildly. There would be a retaliation like nothing seen before. Fatman and littleboy pales in comparison to what we have now.
**
Absolutely. Is it moral? Heck no. But morality takes a back seat to survival. We didn’t worry to much about a “moral” response in WWII, did we? Why would we worry about morals when we have just taken casualties that make WWII look like a minor war? Please. Americans will be 90% in favor of completely obliterating whoever did it to us and whoever is harboring them. If the Japanese unleashed a monster on Dec. 7, 1941, just think what a nuclear attack will do to America.
Then the UN can produce a study that shows that terrorist attacks radicalize America. The terrorists will wonder, “Why does America hate us? It must be our foreign policy.” Ya think?
Deterrence out of threat of mutual self-destruction is irrational when dealing with those who no problem of becoming martyrs.
**In fact if you nuked some city in the middle east there would be way more terrorist trying to kill Americans than ever before because having a city nuked tends to piss people off as many people have pointed out in this thread. Terrorist groups thrive on opposition. The more countries the US attacks the more people there are going to be who hate the US.
**
And they get nuked again. You figure they’ve got about five or six countries they can go to. And do you really think any country would harbor these guys after what we did to the first country that did it?
This quote from you led me to think you did endorse this idea somewhat at least.**
If you don’t support this Idea I’m sorry I connected you to it.**
So, if I speak out against out-n-out murder I am advocating “Just bend over and take it”?
Not in theory, but in practice, that is exactly what you are advocating.
The terrorists can do simple math. If they kill a million Americans and the only penalty is that we capture or kill a few thousand of them, they can win.
If they lose an entire country for a million Americans, that’s a cost they cannot bear.
I’m confused. Are my posts only visible to me, or did you simply not read it? Because the entire point I was making was “shoot the gunman,” (Assuming it needs to be done; shooting a guy just because he has a gun is homicide here in the US if there is no valid reason for it) but not shoot him and his entire family and anybody else who happens to be nearby. In other words, use appropriate force for the situation. They teach that to policemen, you know.
Not only do you seem to be very bad at guessing other people’s unstated beliefs, but you seem to be very bad at interpreting and rephrasing their stated ones. If something I said was unclear to you, feel free to ask me to clarify, but you might want to stop assuming things.
Really? Then to repeat an earlier bit, would you have condoned the carpet-bombing of Afghanistan cities with the specific goal of killing an equal number civilians as were killed in 9/11? We were able to conduct the campaign there without resorting to indiscriminate carpet bombings and specific targeting of civilians, and chances are, the US (And the large number of other nations that would be willing to help) would be able to easily handle any country that sponsors such a terrorist attack.
I have specific distaste about the idea that morality must take a back seat to the US’s “survival” (As much as I object to the use of the word, as no matter how tragic nuking a city is, it’s rather significantly unlikely to affect the survival of the US). Would it then be fair to say that you would find it perfectly fine for the US to help and even conduct terrorist attacks on other nations that are opposed to it, if it might aid security?
I certainly don’t think morality should be so blithely cast aside.
So in the desire to deter other nations from committing terrorist acts, one must commit other terrorist acts? You can deter people without the use of nukes. Just because an action may be a deterrence towards others thinking of comitting the same action, does not make it just. What if we start torturing people convicted for murder. Maybe even execute their friends and loved ones, too. That deters murder just as well as nuking a city deters terrorism (That is, debatably so), but I don’t think anyone would consider it “right.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you probably believe terrorists should not commit the attacks they do. I wonder why it would be okay, then, for the US to commit terrorist acts, seeing as they rely on the same style of deterence; If you don’t do what’s in our interests, we’ll kill as many of your citizens as we can. Unless you’re saying terrorism is always okay, of course.
I would very much like to hear, however, how you figure my “methods” provide no deterrence whatsoever. That’s a pretty surprising assertion on your part. Plenty of governments saw a pretty big deterrence to supporting terrorism when the US stepped in and wiped out the Taliban, accompanied with the message that they would do the same to any other country that helps terrorists.
Really? Can we hear your reasoning behind that, then? That’s a very bold, and as far as I can tell, completely unfounded, assertion there.
And for the heck of it, since you used Mecca before, let’s say Saudi Arabia helps nuke a US city. Three months later, when Saudi Arabia is controlled by a coalition of allied countries and the UN, how many other nations do you suppose will think “this is a good idea”? What governments do you think would not be detered by the rather potent display of what can happen to them?
I think if a country launched a single nuclear attack on us, we would just take the country over. We’ve managed to conquer a couple of countries in the last few years, I think we’d only get better at it, and I think the process would be even quicker if it was against a country that had used a nuke on an American city - there would be no caution applied, little mercy shown.
As nuclear weapons become more commonplace, I think someone will eventually use one in a terrorist act, and there’s a good chance it will be against the USA, if we continue to be the worlds primary superpower. The use of a nuke against the USA could very well touch off a chain reaction that leads to world government.
So you do adaher believe that the choices would be massive Arab genocide or submission to terrorists?**
Of course, why would you want to “capture or kill” those who are NOT terrorists? What possible good could come from that fucking idea?
Only a man man would use nuclear weapons. Is your President a mad man ?
What’s a man man??? - Do you think Truman was crazy ** AlahAkbar **?
Yeah, but do ya think EVERYONE who’s in on the job of nuking a U.S. city is going to have that “martyr” mindset? It’s not something one person can do, it’s going to take a lot of people. Probably some government officials. Everyone who does so is at extreme risk of causing the death of everyone they know and love, including themselves. I’m betting SOMEBODY somewhere on the chain is going to get rational somewhere along the line and say, “Goodness, everyone I know is going to be radioactive dust if we get found out!”
I’m just asking what’s your plan, other than “Just bend over and take it.” How do you think the U.S. should respond to a city nuked by terrorists?