Mutually assured destruction

[lobe]

Considering this, what is actually the likliehood this happens?

[Reactordrone]

The likelihood of what exactly? The likelihood of someone launching or the likelihood that the exchanges will result in mutual destruction?

[Scotius]

Low. Surprisingly small amount of politicians consist of genocidal psychopaths with suicidal tendencies. On the other hand, we won't be completely safe until we dismantle 99% of warheads currently stored all over the world. Unfortunately humanity needs to grow up more until that happens.

[Shpaget]

16 minutes ago, Scotius said:

On the other hand, we won't be completely safe until we dismantle 99% of warheads currently stored all over the world.

We won't be completely safe ever.

Also, I'd be more worried about biological weapons than nukes or chemicals.

[ChrisSpace]

14 hours ago, Scotius said:

Surprisingly small amount of politicians consist of genocidal psychopaths with suicidal tendencies.

[citation needed]

[GoSlash27]

15 hours ago, lobe said:

Considering this, what is actually the likliehood this happens?

On a long enough time line, 100%. As bad as that sucks, there's just no alternative. Without a reliable defense, the only thing that will stop a nuclear attack is the threat of a credible offense.

Best,
-Slashy

[insert_name]

this is gonna get political real fast, in before the lock

[Nuke]

18 hours ago, Scotius said:

Low. Surprisingly small amount of politicians consist of genocidal psychopaths with suicidal tendencies. On the other hand, we won't be completely safe until we dismantle 99% of warheads currently stored all over the world. Unfortunately humanity needs to grow up more until that happens.

i have a feeling we wouldn't be safe if we dismantle all the warheads. without the threat of nuclear annihilation, nothing keeps conventional wars between superpowers in check. then if you have an evil empire with world domination in mind, they might commit resources to developing warheads and no one would be there to stand in opposition. then when the aliens come we wouldn't be able to nuke them. earth in danger? need to build orion drive for a generation ship? sorry you banned nukes, lol.

[vger]

3 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

On a long enough time line, 100%. As bad as that sucks, there's just no alternative. Without a reliable defense, the only thing that will stop a nuclear attack is the threat of a credible offense.

Best,
-Slashy

Sooner or later, I can't see anyway that missile interception won't be cheaper than nuclear missiles, which would make nukes more or less obsolete. ICBM's need nuclear material. Interceptors don't.

Edited February 7, 2016 by vger

[Camacha]

37 minutes ago, Nuke said:

i have a feeling we wouldn't be safe if we dismantle all the warheads. without the threat of nuclear annihilation, nothing keeps conventional wars between superpowers in check.

On the contrary - conventional wars are much more visible and costly. Sending hundreds of thousands of able men into war to die and crippling the country with debt both quickly become uninteresting to the public and therefore politicians. The war in Ukraine pretty much proves this. It shows us super powers are still willing to go to war, just in a way that allows them to tell the public they are not actually fighting. If nuclear arms really were a deterrent, they would not be fighting a proxy war at all.

Nuclear arms are just a way of making a bad situation worse very, very rapidly. Having a fist fight is bad enough, bring guns and make everything significantly worse. They almost blew apart the world a couple of times already and we would never have been at risk of doing so if nuclear arms did not exist.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Camacha

[magnemoe]

23 minutes ago, vger said:

Sooner or later, I can't see anyway that missile interception won't be cheaper than nuclear missiles, which would make nukes more or less obsolete. ICBM's need nuclear material. Interceptors don't.

Its other ways to deliver nukes and I doubt an ABM system is effective enough against an massive strike. 
However blowing up the earth is kind of overkill, it more than enough to inflict so large destruction on the enemy it would be political and military suicide.
China apparently follow this thought. US and Russia has also reduced their nuclear forces a lot.  

[GoSlash27]

6 hours ago, Camacha said:

 They almost blew apart the world a couple of times already and we would never have been at risk of doing so if nuclear arms did not exist.

Camacha,
 Granted, but nuclear arms do exist and there's no way to make them not exist.

Best,
-Slashy

[A35K]

Well, while nukes don't prevent proxy wars, they DO prevent a full scale war between superpowers, which would be unimaginably deadly and costly, and probably cripple the world for centuries. Imagine what the Cold War would have been without nukes. Probably not so cold...

[magnemoe]

2 minutes ago, A35K said:

Well, while nukes don't prevent proxy wars, they DO prevent a full scale war between superpowers, which would be unimaginably deadly and costly, and probably cripple the world for centuries. Imagine what the Cold War would have been without nukes. Probably not so cold...

This, without nuclear weapons it would probably have been an WW3 during the 50s. On the other hand that war would been much like WW2 except with Korea war weapons. 
Another effect is that without nuclear weapons military spending would have been far higher as you would have an conversational arms race from WW2 and onward. 

[Mazon Del]

There have been fairly legit calls by random sources (I THINK that Times was one) that basically said the single thing that did the most for world peace in the last 60-70 years was nukes, by making it basically impossible for any seriously industrialized country to go to all out war with others. You either had nukes or were friends with someone who did, while your opponent was in the same shoes.

[Camacha]

7 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

Camacha,
 Granted, but nuclear arms do exist and there's no way to make them not exist.

Dismantling them all goes a long way and is, for almost all intents and purposes, the same thing. Granted, there is always a risk of countries saying they do not have any while they actually have them, though I also think it becomes less feasible to hide such a thing every day.

4 hours ago, A35K said:

Well, while nukes don't prevent proxy wars, they DO prevent a full scale war between superpowers, which would be unimaginably deadly and costly, and probably cripple the world for centuries. Imagine what the Cold War would have been without nukes. Probably not so cold...

Disagreed. The thing about all-out wars is that they become crippling pretty quickly. Look at World War 1 and 2. Any country directly involved had an economy in shatters, a society that barely functioned because the social fabric was torn apart, resources were scarce everywhere. Simply put, there was no way to sustain that fire for another 5 years. An all out marathon can only be run so long.

It is like huge stars. They burn fiercely, but also die quickly. Meanwhile, pouring everything you have into a war against one country means weakening yourself when compared to others. If you fight an all out war against another super power, you are setting yourself up to be dominated by a third. No one would want to risk that.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Camacha

[vger]

14 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Its other ways to deliver nukes and I doubt an ABM system is effective enough against an massive strike. 
However blowing up the earth is kind of overkill, it more than enough to inflict so large destruction on the enemy it would be political and military suicide.
China apparently follow this thought. US and Russia has also reduced their nuclear forces a lot.  

Hopefully this can be answered without it turning too political, but do we still have the security of knowing that everyone is sane enough to not be this stupid? I'm mainly thinking about North Korea as it applies to this. Their leader at least seems apathetic enough to start a nuke war if he had the capability, simply because he's already acting metaphorically like a Leeroy Jenkins character and he doesn't even have the weapons yet. One can HOPE that it is just an act for the sake of his own people who want a "god" for a leader, and to keep the rest of the world on its toes, but in our modern age of "70-virgin" cults, there's no way to be sure.

Similarly, it seems entirely possible that Japan would have initiated a full-scale nuclear war if both they and the U.S. had nuclear capabilities at the end of WWII.

Have we just been lucky that no nation has acquired the bomb during a time period that had a terrible mix of high volatility and sociopathic leadership? Or am I not giving common sense enough credit?

[GoSlash27]

44 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Dismantling them all goes a long way and is, for almost all intents and purposes, the same thing. Granted, there is always a risk of countries saying they do not have any while they actually have them, though I also think it becomes less feasible to hide such a thing every day.

Camacha,

 If only. Not only would you never get every country (or potential bad actor) to dismantle their nukes, but the ability to make them is simply a matter of time and money because the science is known.

 If I was a bad guy and the rest of the world was foolish enough to dismantle their arsenals, I'd *for sure* keep mine. And I'd use them, too on the first country that dared defy my will.

Best,
-Slashy

 

[Camacha]

7 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

If only. Not only would you never get every country (or potential bad actor) to dismantle their nukes, but the ability to make them is simply a matter of time and money because the science is known.

 If I was a bad guy and the rest of the world was foolish enough to dismantle their arsenals, I'd *for sure* keep mine. And I'd use them, too on the first country that dared defy my will.
 

Again, that is not going to happen. Hiding things is becoming harder and harder. Where they used to need complex missions to take a look at someone else's territory, now you can have 24/7 feeds of anything and everything. Having or building a large number of nukes would not be easy to hide.

Also, if you were they only one to have and use nukes, you can be pretty sure you are too much of a risk to all the other countries. They would pile on top of you through conventional means. As has been said before in this thread, it would be military and economic suicide. You cannot take on the whole world, even with nukes.

[GoSlash27]

4 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Again, that is not going to happen. Hiding things is becoming harder and harder. Where they used to need complex missions to take a look at someone else's territory, now you can have 24/7 feeds of anything and everything. Having or building a large number of nukes would not be easy to hide.

I wouldn't have to hide it. I'd do it right out in the open.

5 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Also, if you were they only one to have and use nukes, you can be pretty sure you are too much of a risk to all the other countries. They would pile on top of you through conventional means. As has been said before in this thread, it would be military and economic suicide. You cannot take on the whole world, even with nukes.

I bet I could.

And notice that you have just proposed a global war as a direct result of your own scenario that would not have happened had everyone just kept their nukes.

Apologies,
-Slashy

[Camacha]

2 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

And notice that you have just proposed a global war as a direct result of your own scenario that would not have happened had everyone just kept their nukes.
 

I did not I just noted that there is still something like mutually assured destruction without nukes. Using them would still be suicide. Arming yourself to the teeth with nukes gains you nothing but the risk of blowing up the entire world. And yes, if the choice is all out nuclear war or all out conventional war, the latter is to be preferred every time - however strange it might sound. Though I think we all agree that not having an all out war is the preferred option, if at all possible.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Camacha

[Hcube]

How is this scientific exactly ? 

[GoSlash27]

1 minute ago, Camacha said:

I did not I just noted that there is still something like mutually assured destruction without nukes. Using them would still be suicide.

 Again, I disagree. Full- scale conventional war is not an effective deterrent against using nukes. That deterrence is what "MAD" is all about. The moment that deterrence is softened, some nut will decide it's worth the risk and trigger WWIII.

Universal disarmament is not a reasonable course of action. I wish it was, but it's not.

-Slashy

[Camacha]

50 minutes ago, GoSlash27 said:

 Again, I disagree. Full- scale conventional war is not an effective deterrent against using nukes.

You might disagree, but nuclear nations do not share your views. They are slowly starting to realize that if any one nation used its nuclear arsenal even on a small scale, the whole world would pile on. It is certain death in economic, political, military and any other sense. So yes, full scale conventional war is an effective deterrent. The nuclear advantage is not infinite.

Whereas the initial thought was that only MAD could assure safety, people have begun to realize that it is not a viable option. Either the whole world perishes including yourself, or you survive, only to perish in the massive and universal backlash. The only winning move is not to play. Nations around the world have started realizing this, hence the reduction in nuclear arms numbers. Slowly, of course, because no one want to upset the balance or be caught out. If MAD really were to be the only solution, no one would ever consider scaling down nuclear operations.

Quote

Universal disarmament is not a reasonable course of action. I wish it was, but it's not.

It is, for the same simple reason it is every time; with or without, the situation is the same. The only thing that changes is that escalation has much more dire consequences. Have a fist fight, end up with a black eye. Have a gun fight, end up dead. The choice is easy.

Saying that certain arms cannot be effectively banned is untrue too. Many types or weapons have been banned and seem to be pretty successfully so.

[GoSlash27]

Camacha,

 You've had your say and I've had mine. I'm really not interested in arguing back and forth about this. What you perceive to be a "fist fight", I perceive to be a "hostage scenario", and if the powers- that- be truly shared your opinion on the matter, they would've disarmed themselves by now. They haven't and haven't made any moves to do so.

 I'll let you have the last word on the matter, but I really have nothing left to add and no wish to continue this disagreement.

Best,
-Slashy