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Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
by Shannon at 1:46 pm EDT, Sep 13, 2005 |
The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
Um... Who do you "nuke" when a couple people might try to bomb you? Do we roll dice? Sending nukes after terrorists is sort of like blowing up an apartment building to kill a mouse.
The Pre-emptive bit is troublesome... I wonder who's job it'll be to figure out thay=t "They" are after us. |
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RE: Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
by Jamie at 2:50 pm EDT, Sep 14, 2005 |
terratogen wrote: The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
Um... Who do you "nuke" when a couple people might try to bomb you? Do we roll dice? Sending nukes after terrorists is sort of like blowing up an apartment building to kill a mouse.
The Pre-emptive bit is troublesome... I wonder who's job it'll be to figure out thay=t "They" are after us.
Your analogy is excellent and right on the money. However, If the "mouse" has the potential to kill 50,000 apartment buildings worth of people. BLOW UP THE APARTMENT BUILDING and save the other 49,999 apartments. So yes - if we find a stockpile of nukes in Iran. Nuke it. If a nuke detonates on US soil - nuke North Korea, Iran, and Syria - 50 times each. |
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RE: Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan
by Shannon at 3:24 pm EDT, Sep 14, 2005 |
ibenez wrote:
However, If the "mouse" has the potential to kill 50,000 apartment buildings worth of people. BLOW UP THE APARTMENT BUILDING and save the other 49,999 apartments. So yes - if we find a stockpile of nukes in Iran. Nuke it. If a nuke detonates on US soil - nuke North Korea, Iran, and Syria - 50 times each.
The problem is that terrorists are often not working as government agents. Nuking their country of origin will kill mostly innocents and has a high probability of missing at least some of the terrorist targets. This is not a very efficient way to discourage terrorists, and will likely fuel more fires than it puts out. If we find stockpiles of nukes there are better ways of getting rid of them than nuking them. Pre-emptively nuking someone is the fastest path to Armageddon. If one bomb goes off in the US, nuking everyone we don't like will end up with many more nukes going off in the US. The strategic benefit of nuclear weapons generally goes away once their used. That's why this policy is a pretty bad idea. |
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