freediver wrote on Jan 31
st, 2019 at 12:24pm:
No nukes have been used in war since WWII.
Two episodes in history you may be interested in FD:
1. a computer malfunction incorrectly alerted the Russians to a US first strike nuclear attack - to which the Russian officers were obliged by standard protocol to order a retaliatory strike. This would normally have happened, but was thankfully averted by a quick-witted and entirely non-compliant Russian officer on duty at the time.
2. President Nixon one late night was drunk and reportedly ordered a nuclear strike against the Vietnamese - as is his absolute prerogative as President. White house staff present at the time were able to delay him long enough to wake up Secretary of State Kissinger and summon him to talk him out of it.
How long before another drunk president decides on a whim to exercise his right to press the button on any nation he pleases? Forgive me if I see this as a more pressing and greater concern than the far-off possibility that some low resourced tinpot dictator may develop a nuclear threat somewhere in the unforeseeable future.
freediver wrote on Jan 31
st, 2019 at 12:24pm:
How long do you think it would take a Muslim nation or some other tinpot dictatorship to develop and use them, if they were faced with the possibility of being the only nation on earth to wield them?
There are so many problems with this argument. Firstly, why wouldn't they be hell-for-leather to develop them now? The nuclear deterrent you say? This makes no sense given that the non-nuclear deterrent is far more present and realistic, has demonstrated its devastating results many times before, and will not disappear with nukes.
Secondly, a point which I continually raise but you continually ignore, is the fact that no tin pot dictatorship are going to have the ability to build a viable nuclear threat without some sort of assistance from an existing nuclear power - no matter how fanatical or determined they are to do it. Their ability will be even more hampered in a world in which all previous nuclear powers - ie "nuclear knowledgable" not only won't help them, but will have a vested interested to actively thwart them.