05-04-2003 16:30									#1
	War between great powers with WMD now seems possible. Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Would anyone ever use them? The US in the '70s said they would if the Sovs defeated NATO, but I now doubt it. So did the Germans btw...

Who knows, maybe they are useless.

	05-04-2003 17:14									#2
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Only nuclear weapons are useful.

	05-04-2003 17:17									#3
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I donīt think it is more possible than during the Cold War. When you use them, both sides lose....

	05-04-2003 18:10									#4
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UR, how so? Remember MAD...

BeBro, that's right. That's what makes conventional war possible. It's always been assumed that if one side started losing realy bad that they would push the button. Seems not to be the case...

OT, when do we have to change the clocks?

	05-04-2003 18:31									#5
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Other WMD are useful in non-conventional attacks. Such as using biological weapons to destroy the livestock population of a country and starve them. During the Cold War, evil men on both sides were very good at coming up with creative ways of killing billions.

	05-04-2003 18:41									#6
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That is silly. If you can do that, you might as well use high explosives to do the same thing.

	05-04-2003 18:58									#7
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UR, he's not entirely wrong, amazingly. I had a chat with someone I consider reliable about something of this sort. Used, but not used against livestock though. Don't really want to get into it any further.

	05-04-2003 21:20									#8
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I saw a special on the History Channel about how many biological weapons were developed to poison Soviet livestock.

	05-04-2003 22:15									#9
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In Space you should have high effictivity/kg. This means if not just pure U bombs, then tritium + levitating core.

One man vs one army. Well it's more interesting with nuclear weapons.


MAD? Do you believe MAD? MAD never worked, nuclear weapons wasn't used for different reasons.

BTW East Timor citizens would be happy if they had NW. I listened: One citisien one enemy soldier, at least in their capital.

Last edited by raghar on 05-04-2003 at 23:05

	05-04-2003 23:16									#11
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Well I said it simply, shortly, becose I didn't want to get in details like TAARPS study, gold bombs, Fairy tales about bunker busters, how many NW has NK, or why pre - Russia didn't use NW.
Lancer asked if anyone use them, so I wrote about two possible uses.

	06-04-2003 09:47									#12
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U bomb? Uranium?

	06-04-2003 09:55									#13
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Wars for limited objectives are still possible. Sates won't nuke each other over some fight for some god-forsaken peace of dirt. They will used WMD if either side thinksa victory for the other means the end for them.
Well, the salient ground for this notion is South Asia. If Pak and India go to full scale war, well then, as the Chinese say:
"interesting times"

	06-04-2003 09:58									#14
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MAD works. Nuclear weapon obsoletes itself because of MAD.

	06-04-2003 09:58									#15
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I don't think it plausible that any "great power" would use WMD now or in the forseeable future. Most have simply been rendered ineffective or have such a huge risk of backfiring that their use is strategically unjustifiable.

The MAD principal still applies to nukes. I don't believe the western (and major eastern) powers that possess them would be irresponsible enough to actually put them to use.

The threat of WMD comes mostly from fundamentalist terrorist groups who don't seem to share our understandable reluctance to die.

	06-04-2003 10:01									#16
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It would be great world if fists were enough deterrent.. 'if you attack us, we'll come and hit you in the face.. YES RIGHT IN THE FACE!'

	06-04-2003 10:03									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Calc II MAD works. Nuclear weapon obsoletes itself because of MAD.

Which then allows you to forge ahead with a conventional arms race as normal.

The thing with MAD is, once you reach a certain point, more nukes are not usefull. With 1000 hundread's of kiloton warheads you can pretty much destroy any modern state, no matter the physical size or its pop. (Be it Russia, the US, or China). Why then did the US and USSR exceed 15,000 warheads each at the height of the Cold War? Seems like utterly useless overkill, until you start examining all the "nuclear warfighting" strategies that came up, such as how to use your nuclear arsenal to take out his, and then, well victory!

	06-04-2003 10:08									#18
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With detection system thats available these days, can you fire a nuclear warhead w/o other countries retaliating ASAP? I dunno, you tell me.

Also, even if we are talking about state w/ WMD VS State w/o WMD, there will be huge diplomatic repercussions for who uses it first. Human beings have this ridiculous preference of choosing "civilized" method of shooting down people and bombing them into bits instead of one big drop leveling the country.

	06-04-2003 10:15									#19
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quote: With detection system thats available these days, can you fire a nuclear warhead w/o other countries retaliating ASAP? I dunno, you tell me.

For a time, you may not know where the missiles are going, and by the time you do know, then you have to start to mobilize everything. Not all nucear weapons were on a hair trigger. There were stuides done about the timing of each incoming warhead into a silo field, to make sure the second warhead came after the dangers posed to it by the first detonation were passed.

Many in the US theorized that with the new weaposn the US was coming out with in the late 80's, the Us could do a conventional strike to try to take out the bulk of Soviet nuclear forces.

As I said, South Asia right now is where the theory opf MAD may get its test. Speically since neither India nor Pakistan may trully have a survivable second strike capability, whcih would give the incentive to whomever fired nukes first to take out the other sides delivery systems.

	06-04-2003 10:30									#20
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quote: With detection system thats available these days, can you fire a nuclear warhead w/o other countries retaliating ASAP? I dunno, you tell me.

Theoretically, a group of subs stationed along a coast line, could simultaneously fire a volley of nuclear tipped cruise missiles, with flight times insufficient to provide for warning and response. The US and Russia are both too large to be prone to such an attack, without being able to retaliate... however.

The subs do have to get into position to fire, though.

The US sub fleet is certainly more than capable, of premptively destroying many nations before the fact that they'd noticed launches.

The Russian sub fleet might not be able to achieve a coast line attack, due to its obsolescent and degraded state. They'd rely on their boomer (SSBN) fleet to provide for nuclear deterence: they maintain a boomer fleet of 18 vessels, down from 62, pre breakup.