That’s ridiculous. You’re seriously saying it’s no different if we let homicidal maniacs who are willing to kill by the hundreds of millions run the world instead of our peaceful selves? No big deal, I’m just engaging in US vs them biases?
And that ignores the fact that it’s kind of inconvenient for them to have their full capacity to attempt the hundred million+ survivors on our side.
Nuclear winter is greatly exaggerated - even the most brutal nuclear exchange of the cold war would’ve left at least a third of the human population alive and viable, probably more.
No, of course I wouldn’t order retaliation. That would be killing hundreds of millions to no useful end. (I am assuming the incoming strike is enough to wipe out the US for all practical purposes.)
If the US is doomed, why doom the rest of the world?
Of course, if the question ever came up during my campaign for the Presidency, I would swear an oath on a stack of Bibles that I would order the military to retaliate with everything they have. But I wouldn’t tell anyone that I wasn’t going to keep that promise.
That way, we have the deterrent effect of MAD, but no MAD if it doesn’t work.
They’ll still be alive to kill you. The collapse of society post-war is as big a killer as the actual bombs themselves, and as we’re trying to consolidate the remaining infrastructure to keep the food and supplies going to people, they’ll be launching more nukes, possibly biological weapons, and conventional military strikes at our infrastructure.
As far as nuclear winter, I don’t have time to find the data right now, but an academic review of the original research which later plugged in better and more realistic numbers found that the initial report was greatly exaggerated, and clearly agenda driven.
Of course not. It would serve no defensive purpose. It could not save lives, only add millions more innocent lives to the body count, and do incalculable damage to the environment for nothing but childish, petty spite.
Remove them from the earth and there won’t *be *survivors, because the end result of their bombs + your bombs = death of most humanity as a side effect, even those who weren’t immediately obliterated in the blasts.
That’s what makes nuclear war so scary. If it were just about two nations duking it out and wiping each other out, nobody would give a fuck. In fact everyone else would be cheering them on - more resources for the rest of us.
If you don’t use them to retaliate, then what’s the point of having the bombs at all? You have to retaliate, because that’s the deal you make when you get a nuclear arsenal. That’s how deterrence works.
The point, if there is one at all, is deterrence/MAD, but personally, I don’t think there can ever be a moral justification for using them. Retaliation is not defensive, just pointless mass murder.
No. Deterrence works by making them *believe *you will retaliate. It doesn’t matter if it’s fact or bluff - if they believe it, it will deter them period. If they assume you’re not going to it won’t, even if you’re absolutely determined to fire back and do decide to fire back. Retaliating won’t change anything.
Once the bombs are aloft, deterrence doesn’t matter. It has already failed.
IOW, the point of having the bombs is to subsantiate your possible bluff. It’s neither here nor there on whether you’re bluffing or not. It is necessary to have them either way, but having them or even pledging to use them as part of deterrence doesn’t make it a good idea to actually do so.
I tell the world that I would retaliate – before the event arises – so that the opposition knows my determination – and thus they are (if game theory is worth a poop) somewhat less likely to launch in the first place.
I respect the humanity of those, here, who have said that they would not retaliate. I also would not vote for such persons to become C-in-C, because their strategic position makes an enemy attack somewhat more likely.
How much more or less likely? Probably not very. But are signs of pacifism encouraging to aggressors? The history of the “King and Country Debate” (aka the Oxford Resolution) suggests that it was a little encouraging to Hitler (oops, sorry, Godwinized!), Mussolini, and Tojo.
Yes, it does, because if you don’t use them, that makes future nuclear wars more likely. Because now, if somebody starts a nuclear war against a nuclear nation, it’s with the understanding that there will be retaliation. Then, the Soviets nuke the US, the US doesn’t retaliate, and then in some future war, when some other country with nukes is considering starting a nuclear war, they can’t know that they’ll be nuked in retaliation any more. The other nation might follow the precedent you set and take the “humanitarian” option. Deterrence disappears and the world gets a lot more dangerous.
Almost every answer starts with the false premise “well everyone in our country will be dead” - but find me on source of anyone who actually knows what they’re talking about who thinks the US would suffer >95% casualty rates in the event of a nuclear war. Find me one that says anything anywhere near that.
The “we have enough nukes to kill everyone on the planet 7 times over!” stuff is bullshit. Even in the most pessimistic projections of the cold war, at least a third of the population would’ve survived the initial strike, probably over half. More would die from fallout and the collapse of society - but at the very least tens of millions of people would survive at least a few weeks.
What does this hostile country that launched the first strike do with these tens of millions of people? Leave them be? Whether that country still has the ability to project power may mean the difference between millions, tens of millions, and hundreds of millions of survivors. If you don’t retaliate, they can follow up with conventional strikes, more nukes, whatever they want - at their leisure.
What does it mean for the rest of the world? Will there be no greater international reprecussions to this attack? Is the rest of the world not going to band together against this new power? It’s very likely that there will be a subsequent nuclear exchange between the allies of the country that gets nuked and the attacking country. The US has more and better weapons than these countries and it’s in our interest and our duty to give them a better fighting chance by putting them at an advantage in future nuclear conflict. If the aggressor holds nukes in reserve so that they can continue to threaten the rest of the world, then they’ll have the power to strike out at our allies. The US counterforce retaliation would destroy most of those - we would put our allies in a better position, keep as many of them from being killed, and potentially avoiding subsequent nuclear wars entirely.
To not retaliate means to put the world (including lots of survivors in the attacked country) at the mercy of a country that has proven that it is the most destructive and ruthless in all of history, a country that would retain the ability to kill on an unprecedented scale. Greater harm is done by leaving them at full strength.
…but their bombs without our bombs mean the bystanders will probably pull through? That’s a rather arbitrary interpretation of the hypothetical.
I’ll assume that the odds are pretty good that the rest of humanity will be able to bounce back without civilization collapsing entirely and order full retaliation. Hopefully seeing MAD in action will help deter nuclear exchanges in future generations, and ultimately (over the course of centuries) lead to less overall nuclear devastation.
On preview I see that Captain Amazing beat me to it.
The trouble with this rigged scenario is that there will probably not be only a “first strike”. What are the chances of survival if two(and more than likely four or more) sides keep hitting the button until everything is spent?
BTW,
is not really a very reassuring statement. It’s the equivalent of pointing out that the chicken is still jumping around after you chopped off the head.
At first I was going to say no, to give the human race a chance. But I’ve changed it to yes, having remembered Australia. I would rather they emerge as dominant than the Soviets, assuming Europe/China/Japan are also whacked, being a full scale war.