Nukes!

[Doc. Josh]

A question for the age's, Should the world be nuke free or not?

[Zarnaxus]

It depends on how mature our social and governmental structures are.

[Doc. Josh]

In the sense being we are always trying to keep them from terrorist but will they get ahold of them eventually? So why not just stop nuclear production altogether.

[Zarnaxus]

It sounds like the terrorists are the problem then, not the nuclear production. Should we stop the production of guns just because robbers can use them?

[Doc. Josh]

Great point but guns will not destroy the earth and cause destruction at that caliber. If someone gets a gun a few die... A terrorist gets a nuke and kills a small country and cause nuclear holocaust. Quite a diffrence id imagine.

[Zarnaxus]

I see. I think it is a freedom to scientifically and technilogically create nuclear weapons, just as an expirement; although, i suppose it is unnecessary to make thousands of them.

 

As i said before, i think we need to mature socialy and governmentally before our species can handle the responsibility of making newer, dangerous technology. War and terrorism is silly. Nothing more.

[ydoaPs]

It sounds like the terrorists are the problem then, not the nuclear production. Should we stop the production of guns just because robbers can use them?

Food. Humans do like their meat.

[swansont]

Food. Humans do like their meat.

 

But you can hunt cows with a hammer.

[StringJunky]

We may have a non-militaristic need for the explosive power of a nuclear weapon...destruction or deflection of potentially catastrophic Earth-bound space debris for example.

[JohnB]

Like guns and hammers, nukes are tools, nothing more.

 

A tool can be used or misused, but misuse is the fault of the user, not the tool.

 

Like everything else, nukes are a people problem, not a technological one.

[zapatos]

If one goes off though, it doesn't really matter whose fault it is. Knowing who is responsible won't help the cleanup much.

 

It may be a people problem, but when designing the solution what is easier to do? Fix all the people who may be a problem, or remove the tool from reach?

[lemur]

I've read that convention bombs can be deployed more effectively than nuclear weapons now and with more firepower.

 

I think the benefit of nuclear weaponry is that it seems to be a quick, painless exit for those close enough to the center of the blast radius. I view it as preferable to other WMD or death by bullet. There's also some comfort in knowing that you're not dying alone, no?

[zapatos]

What conventional bombs have more firepower than nuclear weapons?

[lemur]

What conventional bombs have more firepower than nuclear weapons?

I read that more total firepower can be delivered by traditional means and because the targeting is more specific, the net effectiveness is greater than with dropping on big bomb with a giant radius.

[JohnB]

I believe that lemur is correct. While there might be more bombs now than in the 60s, there is less total megatonnage.

 

When you needed an ICBM to destroy a target but only had an accuracy of 5 miles, then you needed a bomb that would take out everything within 5 miles of ground zero. As accuracy increased, the size of the bomb required to neutralise the target got smaller.

 

In modern technological warfare if you need to neutralise an enemy airbase, taking out communications and radar make the base almost useless. With the accuracy of modern cruise missiles etc., this can be done quite simply with conventional warheads.

 

Conventional warheads are also easier to use due to the lack of international condemnation if you use them rather than nukes and they are far cheaper to make and store.

 

People often forget that the purpose of warfare is not to kill as many as possible of the opposition. The purpose of warfare is to destroy the enemies ability to continue the conflict. While it is true that wholesale destruction can accomplish this goal, it is like killing ants with a sledgehammer. Far better the "surgical" strikes that destroy his warmaking ability without causing massive destruction. It lessens dislike for you after the conflict because you aren't percieved as a no holds barred mass murderer and it makes the rebuilding faster, easier and cheaper. The aftermath of the conflict is always figured into war strategy with both tactics and weapons being restricted by this factor.

 

zapatos, the problem is that you can't remove the tool, you have to fix the people. It's not like a nuke is hard to make, the knowledge is out there and can't be hidden again. Put enough Uranium in one place and it goes "Bang" all by itself, you don't even need a detonator. IIRC Mother Nature worked out how to do it about 50,000 years ago in South Africa. Uranium being heavy like gold washed to the lowest part of a lake and when there was enough in one spot, "Bang".

[lemur]

People often forget that the purpose of warfare is not to kill as many as possible of the opposition. The purpose of warfare is to destroy the enemies ability to continue the conflict. While it is true that wholesale destruction can accomplish this goal, it is like killing ants with a sledgehammer. Far better the "surgical" strikes that destroy his warmaking ability without causing massive destruction. It lessens dislike for you after the conflict because you aren't percieved as a no holds barred mass murderer and it makes the rebuilding faster, easier and cheaper. The aftermath of the conflict is always figured into war strategy with both tactics and weapons being restricted by this factor.

You make good points about logistics and very clearly so. I would just like to add that I think that the threat of nuclear holocaust, and holocaust/genocide generally, have had a significant hegemonic effect in promoting nationalism and other forms of regional solidarity, such as keynesian economic governance. Specifically, I think the nuclear threat was used to propagate two social-political ideologies in particular: 1) that people living within the same region were/are equal in exposure to the same military threat 2) that the world could end at any moment so the economic present should be privileged over any concerns about the future. Globalism and economic/ecological sustainability fly in the face of these 20th century ideologies. I think there's a reason you typically see the nuclear threat propagated in terms of national governments in conflict with other national governments, instead of inter-corporate conflict, for example. During the cold war, European nationalism was preserved by reference to the violence of WWII and the idea that the "superpowers" US/USSR kept each other in check and national (social) autonomy was a given because ethnic solidarity was garnered in opposition to a nuclear and genocide threat that targeted people at the level of the masses and in terms of ethno-national identity.

[Marat]

Consider the naval warfare strategy concept of the 'fleet in being' for purposes of this discussion. The idea of a 'fleet in being' was that a nation could exercise most of the diplomatic pressure it needed to achieve its international objectives, or most of the military influence it needed to subdue an enemy, just by having a fleet in existence even without using it in actual combat against anyone, or even necessarily going to war at all. The reality of the threat created by the fleet's existence was sufficient to do everything that having a fleet sink another nation's fleet could accomplish.

 

Similarly, it would be silly actually to use nuclear weapons, given how destructive they are to populations, how destabilizing they are to global politics, how much discredit they would bring on the nation using them, and how much damage they could do to the environment. So instead, the theoretical threat that they could be used, the possibility that they might have a massive, real, material significance, however statistically small a possibility that might be, was sufficient to give them their full value.

 

The problem is that after more than 60 years of not having been used the theoretical threat that a nation might be wearing a bit thin. But now the possibiity that a terrorist group could acquire or make its own nuclear weapon creates the ultimate paradox of asymmetrical warfare, since trying to force that terrorist group into submission by having more nuclear weapons than they could muster would be meaningless, since nuclear weapons could not harm them any more than a cannon can usefully be employed to kill mosquitos. So would it make any difference if only terrorists had a nuclear weapon as opposed to terrorists having a nuclear weapon while countries had more nuclear weapons than the terrorists? At most some area of the world precious to the terrorists, say Mecca for Islamic extremists, could be threatened by the nuclear weapons of nations to force the terrorists to abandon their threat of a nuclear attack, though this would amount to illegal hostage-taking, in effect, by nations which purport to abide by international legal conventions which forbid hostage-taking.

[lemur]

At most some area of the world precious to the terrorists, say Mecca for Islamic extremists, could be threatened by the nuclear weapons of nations to force the terrorists to abandon their threat of a nuclear attack, though this would amount to illegal hostage-taking, in effect, by nations which purport to abide by international legal conventions which forbid hostage-taking.

Isn't this what nuclear warfare amounts to generally? That's why I noted the connection between nuclear holocaust and other identity-based forms of holocaust, such as genocide. As long as nations are viewed as natural containers for ethno-social solidarity, they are natural hostage-pools for inter-national relations. National socialism ends when there is no more logic in bombing a certain region for the actions of its government or other individual/institutional actions identified with it than bombing another region. If every nation was simply a regional subset of free global migrations, any nuclear blast would claim casualties of all ethnic identities, the way the WTC bombing killed people with every national citizenship. However, as long as there's a notion that, e.g., the US can be destroyed by nuking all the states, or that the French, Germans, Israelis, etc. could be eliminated by nuking a corresponding nation-state, that national-socialist ideology of regional-ethnic correlation lives on.

Edited April 17, 2011 by lemur

[Marat]

I'm not sure it much matters what X it is that your enemies want which you can hold hostage against them to keep them from acting against you by threatening to destroy that X with nuclear weapons. If Islamic extremists worshipped a sacred billy-goat which was known to live only in the forests of the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, then you could threaten that island with equal effect to threatening Mecca, not because it was nationalistically, ethnically, or racially associated with your enemy, but just because it was something they wanted to preserve. Similarly, if the German Communist group, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, had gotten ahold of nuclear weapons, they might have threatened the West with using them against the oil-rich regions of the Middle East, thus bringing capitalism grinding to a halt because of its sudden loss of oil supplies.

[lemur]

I'm not sure it much matters what X it is that your enemies want which you can hold hostage against them to keep them from acting against you by threatening to destroy that X with nuclear weapons. If Islamic extremists worshipped a sacred billy-goat which was known to live only in the forests of the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, then you could threaten that island with equal effect to threatening Mecca, not because it was nationalistically, ethnically, or racially associated with your enemy, but just because it was something they wanted to preserve. Similarly, if the German Communist group, the Baader-Meinhof Gang, had gotten ahold of nuclear weapons, they might have threatened the West with using them against the oil-rich regions of the Middle East, thus bringing capitalism grinding to a halt because of its sudden loss of oil supplies.

Imo, it works like this. Hegemons seek to exercise social control by indoctrinating people with collective identity. This way they don't have to deal with humans as individuals. They can just demonize an ethnic identity and cause people to discriminate and self-segregate as a result. Once you get people into their "separate pens," you can manipulate them in all sorts of ways just by using global mechanisms like currency exchange, international relations histories, etc. Typically, people tend to individualize as they develop as individuals. This happens to everyone in adolescence. Once they start to express and exercise independence from collective authorities such as parents, teachers, church officials, etc. it can help to terrorize them in some way that makes them feel relatively helpless. If the threat of terror is symbolized as being directed against the individual as part of a collective identity/group, they will feel and express solidarity with others who share that identity, revile those identified as threats/enemies of the group, etc. Simmel was the first to note this commonly referenced phenomenon of war bringing people together, as far as I know, though I would guess people recognized it far earlier. The nuclear threat thus has the effect of making people feel that they share a common vulnerability and common threat/enemy. Thus Americans were Americanized by being told that communism/sovietism was threatening to evaporate them while the same was probably true in the USSR. Europeans were threatened that both US and USSR were going to absorb them into cultural homogeneity, so they would rally and express solidarity in national cultural distinctions and small-country autonomy. What's more, conflicts between EU nation-states were/are also used to promote solidarity among national citizens and hostility toward other national citizens as a response to remembrance of historical abuses and threats. I think the nuclear threat is the means by which people are consistently moved to national-level social solidarity by confronting them with the threat of national others evaporating them "collectively as a people."

[JohnB]

Lemur, you make good points.

 

Have you considered that nationalism, rather than being encouraged as a top down affair is a natural consequence of bottom up tribalism? People can identify with groups of varying sizes for defensive purposes. At the lowest level a person identifies with and is fiercely loyal to their family. The next level up is the tribe which can take many forms, the most obvious being sports teams. The behaviour of the supporters of two opposing teams is classic tribalism at work, complete with "war paint".

 

This ladder continues up through support for your City, your State (as in "State of Texas", the geographical subdivision of a nation), your nation, your "race" (whatever that is supposed to mean) and finally your species. The police officer or firefighter exemplifies the idea of someone who values the safety of his/her City and its citizens above their own life. The war fighter places his/her nation or political system above themselves.

 

How far up this ladder a person can go is of course an individual thing and is innate to that person. Assuming a bell curve distribution then at one end we have the most basic tribal behaviour while at the other we have those who put humanity first, people like Mother Theresa. Now there must be a median point on this curve and I think that it is around the size of "Nation" or the next step down, perhaps "political party". Note that there is little difference between the Democrat/Republican tribalism and the tribalism between two sports teams.

 

Actual numbers could be a factor here as well, since smaller nations don't have the same sorts of divides.

 

Your thoughts?

 

Marat, I think you have a point about the "Fleet in being" idea. The only thing that prevented a Third World War was MAD. With both sides having nukes, if a conventional war started nukes would be used at the end because the losing side would have no other weapons left. This being a major strategic factor meant that a conventional "all out" war had to be avoided at all costs. In the case of terrorists and nukes it is a "hostage" situation, but so was MAD at the bottom. "If you destroy our cities, we'll destroy yours". In wars cities and their civillian populations were always hostages and I don't see the terrorists as any different "Do as we say or your civillians and cities will suffer". While certainly not politically allowable, I think a reasonable response to a nuclear terrorist threat is "Use it on one of our cities and you'll be making pilgrimage to a radioactive hole in the ground". "Destroy what we value and we'll destroy what you value."

[lemur]

Lemur, you make good points.

 

Have you considered that nationalism, rather than being encouraged as a top down affair is a natural consequence of bottom up tribalism? People can identify with groups of varying sizes for defensive purposes. At the lowest level a person identifies with and is fiercely loyal to their family. The next level up is the tribe which can take many forms, the most obvious being sports teams. The behaviour of the supporters of two opposing teams is classic tribalism at work, complete with "war paint".

No, because at the ideological level, groupism is little more than a relationship experienced/expressed between the individual and the collective identity as an abstract image first and a set of inter-individual relations second. Nationalism is not a natural extension of the family. It is an abstract ideology used to generate distinctions between families and individuals on the basis of ideologies of collective belonging. Actually, that is just national-socialism (social nationalism you could call it). You could also view nationalism as purely an ideological commitment but that would undermine the essentialism of it as an innate identity.

 

This ladder continues up through support for your City, your State (as in "State of Texas", the geographical subdivision of a nation), your nation, your "race" (whatever that is supposed to mean) and finally your species. The police officer or firefighter exemplifies the idea of someone who values the safety of his/her City and its citizens above their own life. The war fighter places his/her nation or political system above themselves.

This all translates into subordination of the individual to social-interests. Nothing more.

 

How far up this ladder a person can go is of course an individual thing and is innate to that person. Assuming a bell curve distribution then at one end we have the most basic tribal behaviour while at the other we have those who put humanity first, people like Mother Theresa. Now there must be a median point on this curve and I think that it is around the size of "Nation" or the next step down, perhaps "political party". Note that there is little difference between the Democrat/Republican tribalism and the tribalism between two sports teams.

There is logic in what you're saying, but there's a difference between a will to help others because you recognize value in it and a will to collectivist submission to authority. In the latter, you express your individuality in the interest of good beyond yourself whereas in the former, you just suppress your individuality in submission to external authority. Collectivism neutralizes the ontology of individuality.

 

Actual numbers could be a factor here as well, since smaller nations don't have the same sorts of divides.

You'll have to give specific data. 'Smaller nations' tend to utilize the ideology of smallness to promote ideological distinctions vis-a-vis other 'larger nations." At the individual level, no nation is larger or smaller except at an abstract conceptual level. At that level, ideological framing makes a difference.

 

What does any of this have to do with nukes? You should start a different thread on nationalism if you want to discuss its relevance beyond the relationship with nuclear warfare, imo.

 

 

 

[Doc. Josh]

John B, I understand your view point but i must comment on one thing. The terrorist we are currently in a scuffle with are hoping to die, somthing like the kamakazys did to american ships. They kill Americans they get virgins in heaven and whatever else, point being is how do you keep nukes away from them? And if/when they get ahold of one what would stop them from using it? What collatarel do we have on them? It may be nieve of me to say but i feel a nuclear attack emanate if somthing isn't done.

[lemur]

/when they get ahold of one what would stop them from using it?

Love for what they would be destroying?

 

 

 

[JohnB]

Lemur, fair enough. Another thread maybe.

 

Doc Josh. The thing that will hold them back are their "Brothers". While there is a lot of talk about solidarity against the infidel and the like, each and every one of the nations that provide any comfort to terrorists will fall over themselves to tell you about a possible nuke threat. For all the talk it is quite well realised that if a nuke goes off all bets will be off. If an American city takes the brunt there is nothing the Americans won't do to avenge the act, and the ROW will not even try to stop them. This goes for every Western nation. Any nation with connection to the terrorists will cease to exist in short order and the various politicians know this. They will rat on the terrorists just to ensure their own survival.

 

Also note that the majority of attacks are on Muslims in marketplaces and Mosques and the governments of Muslim nations don't want a nuke going off in their nation either.