this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2024
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And then, in the aftermath of the decision to wipe those cities off the map, the United States said "That worked great. Let's make thousands more of those."
This country is vomitous.
Well, the US and every other 1st world country. Nobody wants to be the guy without nuclear weapons when the nuclear war starts - the ones that can't defend themselves would be easy first targets. That's what the cold war was all about - 2 countries, each just waiting for the other to drop the bomb they're sure is coming eventually.
And we’ve had some very close calls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_close_calls
The thing is, the MAD doctrine works. We enjoy relatively more peace than we had before.
It works until it catastrophically fails. That's the gimmick. You can partly offset the risk by bringing the overall nuke count down to dozens or hundreds per country, but only partly. And how many dictators want to create a small nuclear arsenal these days? It's the only way to keep others out. Which brings the risk back up.
I mean, we basically have two classes of countries - those who do not have the power to catastrophically end all life on earth and those who do and sit at the big kids table. The first group is routinely used for dick measuring proxy wars., until they develop nukes and get to join the second group.
I'm not so sure it does. This comedy sketch succinctly explains why, but thankfully nobody's tested it.
I'm pretty sure that the current situation in Ukraine proves that it works.