# Will nuclear weapons be used again in wartime before the year 2100?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 30, 2016, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608 "2016-03-30T04:01:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@2gigch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2gigch1)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/21 "2016-04-02T03:15:35Z")
Eighty four years from this time is a long time. Long enough for someone to convince themselves that the lessons of WWII and the Cold War don’t apply to them at that time.
My gut reaction is that a device will be used to inflict significant casualties, and that this event will be the defining moment for the next few generations to remind THEM not to do it again.
I don’t believe it will be civilization ending.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/22 "2016-04-02T03:31:48Z")
MAD isn’t what prevented the Cold War from going hot, because MAD doesn’t work (in fact, if it did, it _would_ have gone hot). What actually prevented the Cold War from going hot was the simple fact that most people, on both sides, are basically decent.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/23 "2016-04-02T04:51:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> MAD isn’t what prevented the Cold War from going hot, because MAD doesn’t work (in fact, if it did, it _would_ have gone hot).
??? How do you figure? I’m willing to accept the “false positive” – that MAD didn’t prevent a nuclear exchange, because some other factors did. But how in the world do you leap to the “positive falsehood” stance, that if MAD worked, there would have been a nuclear exchange?
(In my opinion, MAD worked exactly as intended…with some stupid scary bits when both sides went to MIRVs, highly increasing the risk of war.)
> [@](#):
>
> What actually prevented the Cold War from going hot was the simple fact that most people, on both sides, are basically decent.
Alas, not so. Individuals tend to be fairly decent, but large organizations are utterly psychopathic. Warfare is in the hands of political parties and military hierarchies. War was deterred, in large part, because those organizations would have been the first casualties of an exchange.
(“Nixon is the only President to have lost Massachusetts three times.”)
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/24 "2016-04-02T05:23:35Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> (Also, the OP asks, “…in wartime.” \*\*What about a terror strike, \*\*or just a first strike by an enemy as an initial attack. Do we bootstrap that into “in wartime” because the attack defines an act of war?)
Yes, the OP specified that.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/25 "2016-04-02T05:51:30Z")
Nitpick: It’s 85 years to the next century, the first year of which will be 2101.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/26 "2016-04-02T12:07:11Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> Well, we should exclude simplistic and pedantic answers. If I spill a couple ounces of radioactive medical waste on someone’s lawn, I’ve deployed a “nuclear weapon,” i.e., **made a weapon out of material that is undergoing nuclear fission.**
>
> FWIW, I would include a home-made bomb that only fizzles, but doesn’t pop.
>
> Maybe the threshhold should be how many people (statistically) die from it? If it kills more than 1,000 people, the answer is, “Yes.”
>
> (Also, the OP asks, “…in wartime.” What about a terror strike, or just a first strike by an enemy as an initial attack. Do we bootstrap that into “in wartime” because the attack defines an act of war?)
Bolding mine. That’s not fission; that’s decay. And yes I agree that it such an attack will certainly rise to the media’s definition of WMD, but not yours nor mine.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/27 "2016-04-02T12:29:43Z")
One of the things I find interesting about the whole debate is how much Americans (and as best I can tell Europeans) use words like “unthinkable” to describe using nukes.
Lots of folks in militaries and politics and think tanks around the world don’t consider there to be that big a difference between nukes and conventional arms. So if one is imagining this wide firebreak between warfare and nuclear warfare, remember that your enemy may not share the idea of there being any firebreak at all. Understanding your enemy is key to not being surprised by him.
The things that kept the world sorta-safe during the height of the Cold War were:1) Distance between the contenders provided the possibility of warning time.
1. Satellite and long range radar warning systems provided actual warning time.
2. Possession of assured second strike systems allowed MAD to be mutually credible and credible[sup]2[/sup] (i.e. I believe that you believe that my second strike is credible).
3. Clear attribution. There wasn’t going to be any doubt where the attack came from.
And a VERY large dose of 5) Both powers were essentially status quo powers willing to play a long game with decades or centuries of stalemate. When I was in the military in the early 1980s we at all levels of the DoD fully expected to be facing off against the mostly-unchanged Soviets in 2050.
Most of those 5 conditions for stability don’t apply to small countries with nukes, such as Israel or Pakistan. And none of them apply to rogue nations or terrorist groups.
IMO it’s a statistical certainty some messianic hothead will obtain or build one in the next 100 years. And will try to use it promptly to implement his destiny. Whether the attempt is intercepted or works depends on luck and the depth of the target’s defenses.
In discussions on these topics I often say “I know for 100% certain that Al Qaeda / IS/ etc. don’t have a nuke. How do I know that for sure? Downtown NYC, DC, or Tel Aviv hasn’t been blown up yet.”
IMO interstate nuclear conflict is a little less likely than insurgent / terrorist use. But it’s not implausible that two competing powers with nukes both get hothead leaders at the same time. With bad results for both. e.g. right now India and Pakistan both have fairly rational leadership and are working peacefully on risk reduction and tension reduction. It just takes two elections or a coup to change all that.
Not to mention what a President Trump might do to the odds of state-to-state nukes. “Fuck Yeah America!!” might be our new motto to replace _e pluribus unum_.
[hijack]
Assume a scenario where somebody tries to smuggle a bomb into the US (or Israel) in a shipping container and it’s detected and disarmed. Should or will the government publicly acknowledge the attack and hero-ify the defenders while loudly and publicly going after the perpetrators? Or should/will it continue the fight under the blanket with the public none the wiser?
[/hijack]
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### Author:  [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2016, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/28 "2016-04-02T16:29:48Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> _snip_
> [hijack]
> Assume a scenario where somebody tries to smuggle a bomb into the US (or Israel) in a shipping container and it’s detected and disarmed. Should or will the government publicly acknowledge the attack and hero-ify the defenders while loudly and publicly going after the perpetrators? Or should/will it continue the fight under the blanket with the public none the wiser?
> [/hijack]
interesting question, and now I have a headache LSLGuy big and it has Excedrin written allll over it;)
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2016, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/29 "2016-04-03T02:53:47Z")
If Trump is elected, it could very well happen. He wants to replace American troops in South Korea and Japan with nukes and let them have at North Korea if need be.
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### Author:  [@Chihuahua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chihuahua)
#### Post date: [April 4, 2016, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-nuclear-weapons-be-used-again-in-wartime-before-the-year-2100/750608/30 "2016-04-04T17:58:55Z")
For a nuclear state to attack another nuclear state is extremely improbable, because of the deterrent effect. For a nuclear state to attack a non-nuclear state is likewise improbable, because there is no need. I am vastly more concerned with the possibility of nuclear terrorism.
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