Wmds
Dread
Join Date: 2002-07-24 Member: 993Members
Join Date: 2002-07-24 Member: 993Members
in Discussions
<div class="IPBDescription">Who should have them?</div> How do you determine who has the right to have WMDs? Is it up to one/few nations to say who is 'bad' and who is 'good' enough to have nuclear weapons/other WMDs? Can you give that right to one nation depending on how it has used them before, or how it governs its people?
I've been wondering, if everyone would have nuclear weapons, would there be any wars? Of course WMDs are like fire arms, even the smallest and poorest individual/person can defend itself with WMDs without any conventional army. Many nations don't like that because it would render their great armies useless, and that's part of why they don't want WMD's to become widely used.
What's your take?
I've been wondering, if everyone would have nuclear weapons, would there be any wars? Of course WMDs are like fire arms, even the smallest and poorest individual/person can defend itself with WMDs without any conventional army. Many nations don't like that because it would render their great armies useless, and that's part of why they don't want WMD's to become widely used.
What's your take?
Comments
If we could, I'd say we should destroy ours and show the world that we know we don't need them, and neither do them. Of course we would never do that (and doubt that we actually could). But really, who does need them? Third world countries? Superpowers of the world? No, noone needs a nuke. Our world isn't big enough to harbor everyone having a nuke, as all it takes is one wrong decision and we're enganged in nuking half the world to kingdom come. That's not what I want and I doubt what anyone else wants.
It's probably a far better idea to focus on stamping out the WMD's which have been used over and over for the past hundred years (which the US is doing, as started by the Carter administration and continuing to this day) - chemical and biological. Each has been used far more often than nuclear weapons, and each is far easier to manufacture.
And let's not forget that nuclear weapons probably prevented WW3 being fought in europe over the past 50 years. Without mutually assured destruction, there was little reason for the USSR not to drive all the way to Portugal. Uninventing them means enslaving all of Western Europe and Japan at the least...
Not the US.
Not the UK.
No one should have WMD.
They are a mistake.
EDIT: I 'spose a couple tac nukes for a giant asteroid would be ok.. I don't know..
While I feel nobody should have them in theory, in practice I think that they're a necessary evil.
Yes let’s give every country a nuke, that way a small civil war in Africa can result in that deaths of millions. Here you go Columbia, here’s your nuke...oh the drug lords took it....well that can't be good.
Syria we trust you won't use this against Israel, and give this one to Palestine for us, thanks.
Yea, we really don't need anymore countries with nukes.
Yes let’s give every country a nuke, that way a small civil war in Africa can result in that deaths of millions. Here you go Columbia, here’s your nuke...oh the drug lords took it....well that can't be good.
Syria we trust you won't use this against Israel, and give this one to Palestine for us, thanks.
Yea, we really don't need anymore countries with nukes. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
No one could actually USE the nukes because the country you would use them against would have them too. Like I said: fear of MAD would keep everyone down.
This theory does not hold up, due to the 'crazy' factor. In the US, Russia, UK, etc. there is no way one crazy person can launch a nuke. Not the president, not anyone. In your scenario, you have to hope that all those really sane people like Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe, Kim Il Sung, etc. just don't get suicidally insane and start launching stuff at random.
I think everyone is full of holiday cheer, due to some of these suggestions hinting that you've lost your good senses <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
This theory does not hold up, due to the 'crazy' factor. In the US, Russia, UK, etc. there is no way one crazy person can launch a nuke. Not the president, not anyone. In your scenario, you have to hope that all those really sane people like Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe, Kim Il Sung, etc. just don't get suicidally insane and start launching stuff at random.
I think everyone is full of holiday cheer, due to some of these suggestions hinting that you've lost your good senses <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then again, who is to say what is sane and what is not? Or who is to say what leader is moron and who is the second Einstein? You? Me? The one with the biggest guns? Besides, we never know what happens inside a nation. Crazy dictator could get overthrown by some wise and kind leader and democratic Presidents could get replaced by the next Hitler.
Meh, I'm not affected by holiday cheer until I get my stomach full of Christmas food. That would be...today, seeing as it's already 24th today. Which reminds me...
Merry Christmas to everyone in Discussions! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Yes, you and me. It doesn't take an Einstein to see that Robert Mugabe is straight-up batso dictator nutcase scum, compared to say, Tony Blair. No matter how much you may not like Tony Blair, if you think he's crazy like Robert Mugabe, you need your head examined. The point is not who is sane, the point is that there's no way for one person to start a thermonuclear war in a properly controlled WMD environment. Your plan to hand out nukes is still dumb, and I mean that as a friend <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> .
Happy holidays!!!
It doesn't matter who is sane and who isn't. The assumption is that there are more sane people than insane people. Thus the more people that are required to sign off on the launching of a nuke, the greater the probability that one of them will be sane. No single person in the US has the power to launch a nuke, although I'm a bit shady on the details as to who all specifically has to agree to it.
If America launched a nuke back some people sympaphetic to Iraq qould be a bit peeved to say the least and so on...
Basically, WMD exist, and no one is quite sure how to handle them. You can't be sure another country isn't going to use them, you can't believe them when they say "we haven't got any/we got rid of them" and you can't get rid of your own to set an example because another country might take advantage.
I don't really have a stance on this, other than i open it never comes to an open war using them.
It doesn't matter who is sane and who isn't. The assumption is that there are more sane people than insane people. Thus the more people that are required to sign off on the launching of a nuke, the greater the probability that one of them will be sane. No single person in the US has the power to launch a nuke, although I'm a bit shady on the details as to who all specifically has to agree to it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The lovely thing about insane people and nukes is that they dont need to be in a majority, they just have to push a button. If they have a knife, they can kill maybe two before they get taken down. Give him ideals and a nuke and he can do a hell of a lot more.
Frankly - I agree with Burncycle. We are Westerners, we basically pwn atm. Why the hell would you people want anyone else other than us to have nukes? Talk about kicking ones self in the rectum.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
First of all, that doesn't make any sense <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> You watched to many Hollywood movies I guess.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In your scenario, you have to hope that all those really sane people like Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe, Kim Il Sung, etc. just don't get suicidally insane and start launching stuff at random. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What you do MonsE, is take your opinionated feelings for a fact. You still think in those "good-bad" boundries which were aforementioned and criticised by Dread. It reminds me of the cold war, where every "sane" person in the East would argue that the West are evil warmongers and one has to build more WMDs in order to prevent them from incading free countries. And vice versa.
I think you should realize that dividing the world into balck and white isn't helpful at all. I wouldn't rate Mugabe any worse than Tony Blair for example. But that's another topic.
So the question is once again, as Dread stated correctly, who has the right to stigmatize other nations whether they are allowed to have WMDs or not. I think the pragmatic answer to this is the following: Countries that do have WMDs are, more or less, safe from US intervention because they pose a threat to them. Those which don't and are not military strong have to fear US wrath whenever they do something that is opposed to US interests. Thus every small country is interested in getting WMDs in order to feel internationally safer. It is a sad process, but it's the only way for smaller countries to keep their souvereignity, isn't it?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->First of all, that doesn't make any sense You watched to many Hollywood movies I guess.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How does it not make sense? If a big old asteroid is headed for the earth, the only way to prevent the extinction of the human race would be to salvo a couple dozen Minuteman III's at it. What would your solution be?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->What you do MonsE, is take your opinionated feelings for a fact.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow, you've been back for a whole 5 minutes and already making personal comments. What a shock. If you feel like saying such things use a PM. Next one is a loss of posting rights in Discussion.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I wouldn't rate Mugabe any worse than Tony Blair for example. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's because you know nothing about Mugabe. Only a uniformed or illogical person would believe such things if they knew anything about Zimbabwe:
<a href='http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=zimbab' target='_blank'>http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=zimbab</a>
<a href='http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-zwe/index' target='_blank'>http://web.amnesty.org/library/eng-zwe/index</a>
<a href='http://allafrica.com/stories/200312230204.html' target='_blank'>http://allafrica.com/stories/200312230204.html</a>
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Countries that do have WMDs are, more or less, safe from US intervention because they pose a threat to them. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Did we not invade Iraq in 1990 to liberate Kuwait and defend Saudi Arabia? Did Iraq not have lots of chemical and biological weapons at this point, weapons which they had already used previously on their own citizens and the Iranians? Your theory is not backed by experience.
Anyway, about those asteroids: Maybe you really believe in that "asteroid threat" and how you would "solve" it, but usually you're the one to post lots of "proof" or at least reference. In that case I'm sure you won't find any. Please don't tell me you really think that shooting abombs on asteroids will safe the earth from the menace? Even in Armageddon it didn't work!1
Edit: Merry Christmas
<a href='http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/news98/970317-shield.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/ne...0317-shield.htm</a>
<a href='http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/deflection_asteroids_020214.html' target='_blank'>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sola...ids_020214.html</a>
<a href='http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2212doom.html' target='_blank'>http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2212doom.html</a>
And here's a quote from the above:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->PETER THOMAS: With sharp cuts in the military budget, weapons designers wondered if they could apply their skills to a related problem, saving the earth from an asteroid impact. But, is such a feat even possible?
GENE SHOEMAKER: If you discover an earth-crossing asteroid that was going to impact, say, thirty years in the future, then you could actually nudge it a long time ahead of time. You only have to change the velocity by an exquisitely small amount. Millimeters per second is the change in velocity needed to divert a body from a dead-centered collision to a miss.
PETER THOMAS: Given enough warning, we could launch a rocket. But even so, the current "Star Wars" technology, which relies on lasers to destroy a target, is not powerful enough to affect a billion-ton asteroid. Would a nuclear warhead do the job?
CLARK CHAPMAN: A nuclear weapon carries a tremendous amount of energy per pound to lift off the earth, and calculations show that a typical thermonuclear weapon would have the energy required to move the asteroid. Exactly how to use those weapons, whether to have a series of smaller blasts or to blast the thing into smithereens with one immense explosion, these details have not been worked out, but there is enough energy there, and we have the technology to put them in a rocket and launch them, if we're given enough warning time.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
PS: And of course, your immediate thought is to make more personal comments. You never learned a thing, did you? You really should learn to use PM's like you were told, but instead you had to keep on runnin' your piehole. So be it. Discussion posting rights removed for the second time, and this time it's permanent.
monse you are a tard <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> and i mean that in a nice way
Now, I think its safe to make a basic assumption. Namely, that countries what currently have nukes (US, UK, N. Korea, etc) aren't likely to give them up any time soon and forcing them to get rid of said weapons also doesn't seem too feasible for fear of nukes being used.
So, that being said, if we can't eliminate those that are already well established and the most devastating, what do we do about those countries seeking WMDs? Personally, I like the current stance on WMDs, which basically is, if you don't have them now, don't try to get them. Since I honestly don't believe its possible to get countries with WMDs already to disarm, stopping their spread seems the safest bet at this point. MAD is a nice approach with large countries who have the power to truely obliterate each other, but with smaller countries just now pursueing WMDs, if two small new WMD using countries got into a fight, MAD wouldn't hold as neither would have enough to obliterate the other. Here, using the WMD would be a tactical move as you would sacrifice part of your country to take out part of theirs. This I think would promote more WMD usage by small countries against other small countries. (note: by small country, I mean small WMD arsenal, just realized that wasn't very clear before). So, while I don't believe the US or UK or whoever should invade everyone pursueing WMDs, I would like to see more international pressure against countries after WMDs.
So in summary: those who have them won't give them up without a very costly fight so let them have them for now, and those without them shouldn't pursue them, and those who pursue them should get strict international sanctions and pressure.
I hope that made sense... too much christmas food is making me groggy <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
If we could, I'd say we should destroy ours and show the world that we know we don't need them, and neither do them. Of course we would never do that (and doubt that we actually could). But really, who does need them? Third world countries? Superpowers of the world? No, noone needs a nuke. Our world isn't big enough to harbor everyone having a nuke, as all it takes is one wrong decision and we're enganged in nuking half the world to kingdom come. That's not what I want and I doubt what anyone else wants. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
As cruel as it sounds, with japan is was either millions of american men or millions of Japanese. The people only have the nationalists who were running it at the time to blame. And as sick as it is, I choose millions of Japanese than millions of young men dead.
Fair enough <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> How about we get rid of all the nukes except we give few to the worlds space agencies in case your big-space-rock-hits-our-earth-rock scenario takes place?
Though there seems to be lot more to this WMD thing than I thought. If we get rid of all WMDs, there is no fear of MAD keeping superpowers steady. We would probably see a lot of conventional wars, not to mention how would we make sure everyone got rid of their nukes in the first place? Or that no one makes new ones? You already covered what would happen if we would let everyone have nukes, so we don't need to go there.
However if we continue the way we do now; few countries have them, few try to obtain them and rest don't want them, what's going to happen? It's still a delicate situation. If a country USA deems dangerous tries to get nukes, US goes there and makes sure it doesn't get them. What if a country that is not ruled by a dictatorship tries to get nukes? Should Poland be allowed to have nukes? Or Mexico? Or Vietnam? Where goes the line? Maybe Finland should get nukes too, so we wouldn't have to maintain our conventional army. What if we let every democratic nation get nukes and then only one of them needs to slide in to dictatorship and we have an explosive situation. Who decides who is stable enough to have nukes? Currently it seems to be USA but IMO it's not very reasonable for one nation to rule them all <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I'm so stuffed with food that I don't know if I'm making any sense. Hasn't stopped me before <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
I noticed a lack of responses to it, but I believe it holds true even now and answers such questions as "Who are we to say who can and cannot have nukes" etc.
MAD has never been an official policy. It was just a slang term to describe the situation.
Relying on MAD to prevent war is idiotic. You can't just say "Well, a nuclear exchange hasn't taken place yet......so......" and use that as a basis of a defense policy. That's more warped than the minds of some people I know. Basing your opinion on that, and then saying "Hey, if we extrapolate from that and give EVERYONE nukes, no one will ever use them!" is what boggles the mind.