Your thought on nuclear weapons?

How do you feel about the existance of nuclear weapons and the possible use of them in a war?

I feel that nuclear weapons would ease the suffering and the disasters a war should have... One side will suffer, while the other can't come close to viewing the suffering imposed on the other side's people. I feel that they should be banned, it prevents people from viewing the disasters of war. It prevets people from seeing that war is hell...

I think they're just a very big form of ordnance. How else do you suggest sinking an American aircraft carrier? The Soviet 500kt Shipwreck ASM was designed to disable the carriers, but even it didn't guarantee a kill. How do you propose to do it with conventional means? Remember that the delivery method was a saturation strike against the CVBG's IADS, which would then allow several nuclear ASMs to sneak through undetected. To achieve the same effect with conventional ordnance one would need half of the Soviet Airforce coming down on a single carrier battle group.

Their numerous existance is preventing a world war, because everyone knows that the humans are actually able to destroy the earth several times with all their nukes.
Such a war would have a dramatic scale, nobody can imagine.

And if a country uses it once again against a militarily inferior enemy, It will probably lose the whole trust all the people had in it before.

So it would not make much sense to use them in an agressive way, not even for a "preemptive" strike.
Well, it probably would make sense at least for the idiot who orders it.
Or if he has an impressive propaganda machine that could compensate the bad image, that all the people will get.

However if somebody uses that weapon against a country that could defend itself with similar weapons...
Well, we were just lucky not to have such completely insane guys as leaders yet.

In the UK, I am in favour of my government unilaterally disarming.

It is my belief that as humans are fallible, and our leadership are more fallible than most, it is likely that a future crisis could trigger the launching of nukes which could very well spell the end of the world. We came very close at the Cuban Missile Crisis to Nuclear confrontation and we have only had the weapons for 60 odd years.

That said, my beliefs are situational, and I accept that if I was in a position of power nuclear weapons would make me feel safer.

Still, disarm now, before another crisis.

I feel that you cannot win a nuclear war. Best case scenario you have a 5 minute victory.

I'm a member of CND.

Against nuclear weapons and using them in a war; however, I don't see them going away. I really don't see capitalists using not the full extent of their power to win. The laws of competition dictate how they will act. It's nice to think that warmongers will play fair and nice, but in this kind of society I don't see that happening.

I recall that in about 1965, a US Physicist suggested that the US government simply flip all Nukes upside down & aim them at the ground...

Based on his calculations? There was no point in wasting fuel - the total payload would simply crack the Earth, killing its population.

By the way - you haven't LIVED until, as a small child, you've seen your parents & neighbors spending all their free time building bomb shelters... It makes for a unique answer when someone asks you "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

... I always said "alive".

You guys are living in another time period if you really think modern nuclear arsenals are that powerful. Russia and the USA have both drastically reduced their strategic nuclear arsenals, with the Russian one scheduled to shrink even further, and the American one in a position where it has no replacement for when the current ICBMs lifetimes expire. China is keeping a minimal-deterrence arsenal meant for keeping America (and Russia) at bay in case of anything bad, and India and Pakistan both have pocket arsenals mostly consisting of tactical weapons. The only significant arsenal left is the Russian tactical nuclear arsenal numbering iirc ~15 000 warheads, but like I said most of that is meant for tactical use as heavy ordnance rather then as a strategic city-killing weapon.

I am for the abolition of nuclear weapons by all nations, including the United States, China, Russia, and North Korea.

It only takes one TRL. How many people could be killed by a modern strategic H-bomb? A million? More in a well placed area. (How many people are on manhattan island at peek times?)

Few is certainly better than many but zero is better than few.

Really? So millions of people can't be killed with conventional ordnance and fire-bombings? Or are you a pacifist? (in which case you can hardly call yourself a communist, as a revolution would have blood, and I mean major blood)

And how do you propose that a small isolated socialist country (hypotheticals here) defend itself against a large and powerful imperialist aggressor? If they possess a small but potent nuclear arsenal, possibly the full triad of delivery systems, and sufficient early warning assets to retaliate against a pre-emptive strike, then that is essentially a guarantee of peace.

Finally do you not see that if you remove nuclear weapons, the possibility of conflict increases greatly even between major powers?

Another problem with Nuclear Weapons is the fallout they leave behind, which can take years to go away.

How can the organised proletariat wield nuclear weapons against the bourgeois? Strategic nuclear weapons are designed to kill (enemy) workers, we have no enemy workers.

Your hypothetical could be discussed on its merits but there has never been such a case and there is not likely to be one in the foreseeable future.

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Strategic nuclear weapons are designed to kill (enemy) workers, we have no enemy workers.

Well, not technically, but enemy soldiers tend not to be sympathetic to a Communist Revolution; not to mention workers whose livelihood depends on Capitalism, like Repomen and Hitmen.

Strategic weapons are designed wipe out enemy infrastructure and production (by destroying the workers and physical capital) not enemy soldiers (thats tactical weapons.

I really don't see how repo-men (hit-men aren't proletarian) can justify a strategic nuclear deterrent. What would we do, nuke the city if they take our cars?

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How can the organised proletariat wield nuclear weapons against the bourgeois? Strategic nuclear weapons are designed to kill (enemy) workers, we have no enemy workers.

Strategic weapons exist to prevent a world war. I already discussed that. Most nuclear weapons in the world right now are tactical, and most of those are in Russia's hands, where they are used as an assymetric response measure to mitigate the relative weakness of the armed forces. The Soviet Union practiced this strategy with nuclear ASMs and saturation strikes which I also mentioned earlier. Please read my posts before responding. Thanks.

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Your hypothetical could be discussed on its merits but there has never been such a case and there is not likely to be one in the foreseeable future.

North Korea?

Strategic weapons can only deter war when a very fine balance is met, otherwise they serve as budget world domination for whoever has most. Only Russia (and less so China) could respond to a US nuclear strike with sufficiently devastating consequences for any attack to be deterred. As time goes on things become less balanced, US technological and military-industrial superiority will render pre-emptive strike a more and more favourable option for the US, the missile shield is just one very real case of this and other advanced technologies are planned to enter service over the next few decades.

The fact is back when balance was best maintained (or so the various players believed) both super-powers were activity pursuing disarmament and stopped implementation of certain agreed-upon technologies (ABM etc). As Russia began to lag behind the US resumed a more aggressive strategic policy and with a crippled Russia (but with the threat of its gradual economic recovery) the US is moving full steam ahead with weapons technology which is generations ahead of the Russian equivilants.

N. Korea has survived for over 50 years since the en of the war without nuclear weapons (or protection by Soviet nukes). Its recent nuclear activities have just been ways of getting the US to take notice and get them to start negotiating. With the economic disasters there they need aid, as well as a new source of fuel if their industry is to ever start developing again (they don't get it cheap from Russia anymore). It has never really had anything to do with defence. So long as the DPRK remains weak and doesn't threaten US interests in the south the US has no interest in it, there's nothing there worth taking.

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Strategic weapons can only deter war when a very fine balance is met, otherwise they serve as budget world domination for whoever has most. Only Russia (and less so China) could respond to a US nuclear strike with sufficiently devastating consequences for any attack to be deterred. As time goes on things become less balanced, US technological and military-industrial superiority will render pre-emptive strike a more and more favourable option for the US, the missile shield is just one very real case of this and other advanced technologies are planned to enter service over the next few decades.

You're conflagrating the BMD and nuclear strategic arsenal into one. Morever the BMD is very limited in it's ability to respond to anything other then ICBMs, and even there it's usefullness is questionable. Against SLBMs, and nuclear cruise missiles it's simply incapable. Finally modern ICBMs such as the Topol-M are often roadmobile, and carry complex on board ECM as well as a ton of decoys. Intercepting them is no easy task.

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The fact is back when balance was best maintained (or so the various players believed) both super-powers were activity pursuing disarmament and stopped implementation of certain agreed-upon technologies (ABM etc). As Russia began to lag behind the US resumed a more aggressive strategic policy and with a crippled Russia (but with the threat of its gradual economic recovery) the US is moving full steam ahead with weapons technology which is generations ahead of the Russian equivilants.

But the USA has yet to have an operational land-based ABM that can even match the old Soviet A-135 system around Moscow. Generations ahead eh?

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N. Korea has survived for over 50 years since the en of the war without nuclear weapons (or protection by Soviet nukes). Its recent nuclear activities have just been ways of getting the US to take notice and get them to start negotiating. With the economic disasters there they need aid, as well as a new source of fuel if their industry is to ever start developing again (they don't get it cheap from Russia anymore). It has never really had anything to do with defence. So long as the DPRK remains weak and doesn't threaten US interests in the south the US has no interest in it, there's nothing there worth taking.

Granted. It was a loaded example. However my other points stand. Modern BMD capabilities cannot stop the full triad of modern stategic delivery systems.