No country would ever destroy itself by attacking another country that also had nuclear weapons. It serves no purpose, there is nothing to gain. Also, one thing I never understood about the concept of nuclear war was why other countries are also attacked? Why would the USA or Russia ever want to nuke Argentina, New Zealand, South Africa, etc...?
I am so smart, the only thing I can't comprehend is how stupid everyone else is
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It is just basic logic. It is true that some crazy people in power don't use logic at all, but in a case of nuclear war it takes more than one person to start it and retaliate. The cold war was all just a scare tactic to put the masses in a constant state of fear.
I am so smart, the only thing I can't comprehend is how stupid everyone else is
I am sure there are some leaders who would think nothing of launching their missiles, even if they knew they would be attacked in the same way. Particularly, those who think dying for "allah" is some type of honor.
shareI don't think even they would do that, certainly the Soviet Union was never going to.
I am so smart, the only thing I can't comprehend is how stupid everyone else is
I don't recall the Soviet Union ever having suicide bombers/suicide missions as some other countries do.
shareThat is my point, the Soviets were too smart to ever start a nuclear war.
I am so smart, the only thing I can't comprehend is how stupid everyone else is
I agree with that. My point it that there are others who would not care, they would start one because to them it would be "honor killing". Even if it meant retaliation, because they would think they were dying "with honor".
shareI suppose, but those types of people don't have enough nukes to cause a nuclear war. If they haven't done it by now, I seriously doubt it will ever happen.
I am so smart, the only thing I can't comprehend is how stupid everyone else is
North Korea would use their nukes. Iran would, if they ever get them. Pakistan most likely would not but if their government ever collapsed, a lot of nukes could go "unaccounted for".
share[deleted]
They may been smart by never starting a nuclear war...but they literally bankrupted themselves creating the mass arsenal they had. They could not feed their people, but they could have a state of the art nuke sub. They just bankrupted themselves trying to keep up with us in the arms race.
shareHistory does not back up your assumptions. I suggest you read "The Dead Hand" by David Hoffman. The Soviet Union very much would have used nuclear weapons and was prepared to do so on several occasions. Was a surprise nuclear attack ever likely? No. But we came very close to accidental exchanges on more than one occasion.
shareYep! That 1995 launch of a Norweigan weather satellite that was identified by Russian military leaders as a U.S. nuke sent to Russia. We all almost saw firsthand what M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) was all about!!
shareThe Cold War was a strategy to stockpile nuclear weapons to prevent the opposing side from attacking, also known as nuclear deterrence. For the most part, the two Superpowers would avoid starting a full blown nuclear war unless one side tested the other with striking first.
We see movies such as Crimson Tide, The Day After, Terminator movies and other World War III movies where a wrong mistake could start a nuclear war. In a way, WarGames is like Terminator movies. Similar concept.
I think it was a real possibility. Having said that, I don't think it was ever a real possibility that either side would have simply launched an unprovoked, full-scale nuclear strike -- as you say, there would have been no benefit, and nothing to gain.
However, here are the two scenarios where the "real possibility" comes in.
1. Launch based on misinformation. This was a real possibility on several occasions. One of the most frightening was in 1983, when a Soviet colonel named Stanislav Petrov was the duty officer at a Soviet detection installation when it detected a launch of a single American missile. He (correctly) judged it to be an error; it's been suggested that, had he reported it to his superiors, which he was supposed to do, they could have launched a responsive strike. The big question there is how far the retaliations would have gone -- especially since the US, which hadn't launched at all, would have suddenly seen an unprovoked Soviet missile heading their way, and presumably fired back with at least one missile.
2. Escalation. The 1970s and 1980s saw the development of the doctines of "conventional war" and "limited nuclear war". Both sides had massive conventional forces in Europe at that time, armed with tactical (i.e. battlefield, or "smaller") nuclear weapons. Tensions were high for years, and the possibility always existed that one side would try to make gains using conventional forces, or that both sides would intervene over a particular global "flashpoint". Fighting it out with only conventional weapons is all fine and dandy, until one side perceives some great tactical advantage from using a battlefield nuke (e.g. wiping out an entire enemy division, all at once), or worse, starts to run out of conventional weapons and sees no other alternative. In NATO's Autumn Forge 1980 exercise, which lasted several weeks and involved the militaries of numerous nations in a mock war between east and west, the defending side, after taking considerable losses, made the decision to use a single tactical nuclear weapon. The attacker responded in kind, and the escalation to all-out nuclear war took only a few days.
This was precisely the sequence of events listed in Threads.
What do you think would have happened if the US had invaded Cuba and 1962 and a nuclear weapon was used on the troops? There's also the scenario of a incorrect attack detection where a response is launched. That almost happened in 1995.
shareIf Cuba were invaded and a nuclear weapon was used the Soviets would have responded, but all out nuclear war would have never happened. The Soviets were not stupid like most movies make them out to be. Full scale nuclear war between the USA and the USSR would have killed everyone, no government would participate in it's own destruction. Both countries would be uninhabitable for many generations.
I will put it like this...If it were a possibility it would have happened by now. 40 years is enough time for any situation to play out.
Even North Korea or Iran are not stupid enough to start a nuclear war with the USA or any other nuclear country. It serves no purpose to do so.
I am so smart, the only thing I can't comprehend is how stupid everyone else is
The Cuba scenario was the reverse. It would have been a Russian weapon deployed by Castro on the invading US forces just 90 miles from the US coast. The US would have no reason to use a nuclear weapon as Cuba wouldn't be able to resist a conventional US invasion. The minutes and hours after that would be a panic about what other weapons would be launched from Cuba into the US mainland. There was also a lot of Russian ships in the area that would become targets.
shareIt was quite possible for a nuclear confrontation in the 60's...
You Have a Hard Lip, Herbert..
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Obviously, MAD worked because there was never a nuclear war between the USA and USSR. From a strategic standpoint, it doesn't make sense because nobody wins in a nuclear war.
In the case of the Cuban Missile Crisis (mentioned above), what would have happened if the US Navy fired on a Soviet (or Soviet allied) transport ship, in international waters? There would have been a naval engagement off the coast of Florida, followed by a US invasion of Cuba, and a retaliatory Soviet attack on Turkey. From there, who knows.
The biggest risk of nuclear war isn't going to be by those setting policy, it's going to be by individual military commanders, during a crisis, who have an itchy trigger finger coupled with radio silence. It takes one screw up for things to spiral out of control with retaliatory attacks.
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Maybe what you mean to say is that it shouldn't be (or shouldn't have been) a real possibility, but it was.
A lot of people don't seem to realize just how close the US came to nuclear annihilation until then-President John F. Kennedy basically talked Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro out of launching Soviet missiles from Cuba only a mere 90 miles away from the coast of Florida. That event was called the Cuban Missile Crisis, occurring in 1962.
Fortunately from a logical standpoint, MAD (Mutually-Assured Destruction) maintained a somewhat tenuous peace, resulting in a Cold War rather than a hot one--ya know like WWIII and the end of the world and stuff, see.
And speaking of 40 years, IIRC the Cold War lasted 42 years (1947-1989) ending with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, and even the Soviet Union itself, etc.
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And to think that computers used to be about precision! Bah! Precision! Who needs it!
Bullshït. The Cubans never had control of Soviet nuclear weapons. The Soviets were not that stupid.
Kennedy had little to do with it. It was Khrushchev who made the unilateral decision to remove the Soviet missiles. He managed to parlay that into a US promise not to invade Cuba and a secret promise for the removal of American medium range weapons from Turkey.
Castro was livid about the Soviet betrayal.
StrangerHand wrote:
A lot of people don't seem to realize just how close the US came to nuclear annihilation until then-President John F. Kennedy basically talked Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro out of launching Soviet missiles from Cuba only a mere 90 miles away from the coast of Florida. That event was called the Cuban Missile Crisis, occurring in 1962.
one thing I never understood about the concept of nuclear war was why other countries are also attacked?