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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:37
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Have they benefited the world up to this time?
Do you think that they will benefit the world in the future?
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:37
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Exactly what I was thinking. That we're just at the end of the benefit stage. Though there was no point in the US/USSR going at it due to their own vulnerability, the next likely nuke attack will be in the war on terror, by the terrorists. How to retaliate against such an attack?
Regarding the WWs,
The 1st WW, truly the first industrialized war of slaughter, set the stage for the second. The second, which ended with the division of europe, set the stage for the third, the third never happened because of nukes, and only nukes could have stopped it, yes?
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:37
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Pekka, were it not for nukes, you might be dead. Likely you would be living under Russian domination. With no nukes, there isn't much NATO could have done to help Scandinavia.
Verres, while the statement
"I'm sure there must be a better solution. Somewhere."
might have felt good, it really doesn't work around here.
The Soviets put 10 armored and 10 motorized divisions in East Germany alone. In all of West Germany there were maybe a dozen NATO divisions. The USSR also had large conventional forces in Poland and Czechoslavakia.
I was on the border with East Germany, it wasn't a good situation.
Give your solution if you have one. Imo, nukes stopped the end of freedom in europe after WW2.
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Proteus_MST
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I agree with Lancer.
I read that during the 80s the Soviets had accurate Battleplans in their drawers to take over the western part of europe.
They were based on surprise, speed and multiple waves of attacks to counter the western technological superiority and the soviet general staff took into account, that the first waves would have 80% losses and more (which wouldn´t make a difference, as after the first wave the second wave would press forward and so on).
So, despite nuclear weapons not being good, they were necessary during the 20th century (and if they hadn´t been there, the whole of europe would probably be under soviet control by now).
But nowadays (as was mention ed before) nuclear weapons grow to a larger and larger danger for peace, as more and more countries try to (openly or secretly) get their hands on nuclear weapons.
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Solver
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Apolyton Duke Of Something
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Latvia, Riga
Sep 2000
time: 07:37
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The Soviets were preparing to take over the rest of Europe, there's no denying that. If it weren't for nukes, I'm sure they'd attack the American troops shortly, and definitely win, because of large numerical and tactical advantages. The Soviets would have taken all or most of Europe. At which point, USA, despite having been attacked by Soviets, would be able to do nothing against it. They can't land a big enough force on Soviet land without huge casualties, a force that would be enough to win against the overzealous (for different reasons) Soviet soldiers. It would be much, much harder than the Battle of Normandy.
Nukes prevented a conflict between the USSR and the USA, which would have resulted in complete dominance of USSR in Europe, and, quite possibly, a very bloody yet resultless war with the USA.
At this point, though, nukes are a danger because of North Korea, Iran and similar insane countries. One hope is that theywon't actually get the nukes, and another hope is that the countries that are the first potential targets for these nukes (USA and Israel) have advanced defensive systems that stand a decent chance of intrecepting a nuclear attack.
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Pekka
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em seu burro dos pais!
Feb 2002
time: 07:37
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Verres, loathe to agree with me? BACK TO BASEMENT you dirty hippie!
Lancer, speculations speculations. Means nothing. There are lots of what ifs. We are very familiar with SU and what ifs. Doesn't matter. It didn't happen and we can never point explicitely it was because of a or b.
Nukes are an object. If you want to determine if object is good or bad, well that's already sidetracking. Nukes can be used to killing millions of people. That's not good. Or you can use them as deterrent.. deterrent for others nuking you  . That's kind of fly logic. Millions of flies like poo. It doesn't make poo good.
And even then, all we are talking is speculations. As if we wouldn't have a telephone now if it wasn't for Bell etc etc etc.
Besides, US considered Finland to be some weird SU backrounds ANYWAY until the 80s. That's a fact. Kind of like light remote satellite country. Had SU attacked in the 70s or 80s, there would have been NO NATO intervention what so ever. It's so clear, that it shouldn't even be a subject of any kind of debate. Because all the indicators point to it. We would have been another Afghanistan or something similiar, and that's a fact. Few other western countries would have had a dilemma with it, and US would have been concerned about it, but that is all. So no, nukes didn't save us. US didn't save us. NATO didn't save us. Yeltsin didn't save us. Gorbie didn't save us. Nukes the least.
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Zkribbler
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Los Angeles, CA, USA
Feb 1999
time: 21:37
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quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
as the son of a US naval gunnery officer whose assignment in the event of an invasion of Japan in 1945 was to land secretly, in advance of the invasion and act as a spotter for naval gunfire, a task with an estimated survival rate only marginally above zero, I must disqualify myself from this discussion. |
My dad to was set to invade Japan. I doubt he'd have come back.
Japan was effectively defeated at that point, cut off from their supplies by our submarine attacks, their cities destroyed by our fire bombing. But the Japanese were fanatical and were determined to fight on.
What the A-Bomb did was to give them a reason to accept the unacceptable and to endure the unendurable.
Post-war, I agree with Lancer:
Nukes and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) kept us out of WWIII.
But eventually, terrorists will get their hands on one, and then we are so screwed. And North Korea has shown a willingness to sell its military technology to anyone who'll pay. 
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Proteus_MST
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As for the Nukes on Japan:
No, I don´t think that it was justified to A-Bomb 2 Japanese cities.
They should´ve been used on more isolated military bases if possible (which I think, was).
IMHO one of the reasons the american HQ chose the cities as targets was, because they were considered good "testing grounds", where you could clearly calculate the power of the A-Bombs by checking the grade of destruction of the houses around ground zero (something which would´ve been more difficult to assess in a non urban area where you wouldn´t have so much indicators for the destruction caused within certain radii around ground zero)
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Lancer
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Oregon Coast, USA! or Bohol, Philippines!
Apr 1999
time: 05:37
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I still agree with you Rufus.
Anyway, I think that the US should have nuked a patch of ocean off of Tokyo. If the Japanese didn't give in, then nuke a city.
Regarding the conventional defense of europe against the Sovs, the US was the nation most dedicated to it. We spent roughly double on defense as a percentage if GDP than most of our european NATO partners we were defending. I never did understand this. It's as if they stuck their heads in the sand and just wished it would go away. Which of course it eventually did. Very dangerous game they were playing though. Plus, the Germans insisting on holding em at the border was just incredible considering the order of battle.
The lack of ground forces was the reason that the US turned tactical nukes over to German control, though it was considered joint control. Nobody believed that the US would use nukes to defend europe, and by so doing bring retaliation down on US cities. Germans with nukes scared the Sovs though, according to my understanding of the times.
The lack of NATO ground forces also made the release of nukes inevitable if the Sovs were to be stopped. In every exercise at the time commanders used nukes as a last resort to avoid losing europe. Still, the europeans refused to put up the $ needed to build the ground force needed to prevent nuke release. Go figure. Yet, in hindsight maybe they were right. The Sovs never came, the nukes did their job. It's all good now.
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22-06-2005 13:25
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