If you were given the choice of removing every nuclear weapon on the earth forever, or making ISIS disappear forever, which would you choose?

1/9/2016 7:11:13 PM

is ISIS a codeword for the entire middle east?

Also, can we eliminate nuclear weapons but keep nuclear power?

1/9/2016 7:30:01 PM

What kind of options are these? Specifically, why were these two chosen?

Of course anyone who prefers global stability and wants to avoid wars would choose to remove isis.

1/9/2016 7:48:11 PM

nuclear weapons and it's not even close

1/9/2016 8:59:10 PM

^

1/9/2016 9:15:40 PM

One option promotes peace and one option prevents peace.

Nuclear weapons are the most effective deterrent to war and help insure the security of every nation that has them. If you got rid of nuclear weapons, the world would historically and politically go back to a world war 2 era of invasions and empires.

Many americans prefer an unstable middle east to a stable, hostile one. I understand that through the lens of american foreign policy, nuclear weapons would be the likely answer, but that could never be the answer through an objective lens.

1/10/2016 12:59:28 PM

nuclear weapons and it's not even close

1/10/2016 6:31:51 PM

can we dispose of all every nuclear weapon on the planet on top of ISIS strongholds?

1/10/2016 6:46:19 PM

I'm fascinated that anyone would choose nuclear weapons and I'd love to hear some reasoning for that choice.

1/10/2016 7:06:32 PM

because its a pretty easy choice, if it was religious extremism or something larger and more general than just ISIS then the decision would probably be different

1/10/2016 7:21:35 PM

So wait, were you saying you'd keep nuclear weapons or are you now saying that you think ISIS is partially a good thing? Everyone knows the benefits of nuclear weapons but I'm having a hard time thinking of a good reason for keeping ISIS around.

The question was which you would remove forever, not which one you would keep.

If I'm reading your answer correctly, I'm wondering why you would want to remove all nuclear weapons. Specifically, if its the same line of reasoning used by greenpeace against almost anything nuclear or if there is more to it.

[Edited on January 10, 2016 at 7:47 PM. Reason : everyone hates isis]

1/10/2016 7:46:12 PM

wat

1/10/2016 8:04:43 PM

That was cluttered. I'm simply asking you to explain the reasoning behind your choice.

1/10/2016 8:09:57 PM

ISIS isn't big enough to trade making nuclear weapons disappear

1/10/2016 8:13:05 PM

history is littered with much worse, far scarier, and better organized awfulness than ISIS

and they would love to get their hands on a nuke, so of course the obvious choice is to rid the world of nukes

1/10/2016 8:13:55 PM

Thegoodlife has provided reasoning for why he wants to get rid of nuclear weapons. Is your reasoning the same, dtownral? If not, I'd love to hear it.


Getting rid of all nuclear weapons and nonproliferation are two different things.

I know it happens a lot in movies but it would be extremely difficult to steal/buy a nuclear weapon from a current nuclear power, then go on to successfully conceal and deploy that weapon. A lot of unprecedented things (never happened before) would have to take place for that sort of worse case hypothetical scenario to occur.

Meanwhile ISIS is a real problem that is actually happening and the benefits of the nuclear deterrent are real and observable as well.

One of the reasons I ask for reasoning is because perspective is everything.

Someone living under the threat of ISIS invasion would be more likely to choose ISIS than someone who doesn't face the threat of invasion at all. If their biggest fear is terrorism then they would be more likely to choose nuclear weapons.

[Edited on January 10, 2016 at 8:36 PM. Reason : kk]

1/10/2016 8:35:31 PM

the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction means absolutely nothing to ISIS since a vast majority of them would gladly die for their cause

1/10/2016 8:39:04 PM

How do you see a scenario where ISIS completes the following:

1. develops a nuclear weapon or obtains one from one of the 9 nations that have them
2. transports it to target before it is destroyed/captured by basically the entire world simultaneously attacking them
3. execute the technical skills to detonate it on a target before being detected


All 3 of those seem extremely improbable even as independent events.

1/10/2016 9:02:14 PM

If we got rid of nukes, the Isis couldn't get one......

With this question, I think the altruistic pie in the sky ideology wins out with nuclear weapons. You still have Al Queda, Boko Haram, and plenty of other militant Islamic groups so making Isis simply vanish doesn't accomplish a whole lot.

[Edited on January 10, 2016 at 9:10 PM. Reason : .]

1/10/2016 9:10:04 PM

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Nuclear weapons have been a very useful asset and have lead to peace in every situation.

Going back to the days of total war doesn't sound like an accomplishment to me. Theres a long list of negative options I would choose over getting rid of all nuclear weapons.

1/10/2016 9:18:46 PM

we wont see large scale total war again even without nuclear weapons no longer existing, we live in a global community now that will change how wars are fought

1/11/2016 9:19:18 AM

When Isis is weakened/defeated, another group will just gain power.

Whatever happened to Al Queda?

1/11/2016 9:24:50 AM

today's western-funded allies are tomorrow's radical terrorists

1/11/2016 10:22:58 AM

The argument against nuclear weapons would be much stronger if they were actually being used. All historical evidence suggests the atomic bombs in world war two saved hundreds of thousands of lives while simultaneously telling the world not to violate anyone who has them.

[Edited on January 11, 2016 at 11:11 AM. Reason : Its like having a CPI sign in your front yard]

1/11/2016 11:10:00 AM

I think that was true through the end of the cold war.

In the modern era, war between developed nation-states is a relic of the past due to the reality of economic interdependence. Today's wars are stateless insurrections (ISIL, Syria, Libya, Egypt, etc) and nukes don't mean anything to them unless they can use one for their own purposes.

In my opinion, the threat of mutually assured economic destruction between nation-states is enough to prevent any of the countries who currently have nukes from attacking each other if those nukes magically vanished.

1/11/2016 12:02:20 PM

I seriously doubt Russia would be fucking with Ukraine as much if Ukraine still had nukes.

1/11/2016 3:58:08 PM

Would you rather:

Not have invaded Iraq -or- picked single payer instead of individual mandate healthcare

1/12/2016 11:13:23 AM

I'll preface with this to try to lend some minimal credibility to my opinion. My undergraduate degree is in Nuclear Engineering and I have been in the industry for about 7 years now.

With that said, getting rid of every nuclear weapon is absolutely the way to go. Think of those options in this manner. Which do you chose of the two: A 99% chance you get a bad rash on your arm or a 1% chance your arm is amputated?

The chance of a nuclear weapon falling into the wrong hands and being used is slim to none. It is possible though with the absolutely perfect assistance from an inside source. Get rid of them all and it is not possible. ISIS is annoying but so are the other terrorist groups. If this scenario was all terrorism is eliminated it would be a closer choice.


[Edited on January 12, 2016 at 4:47 PM. Reason : df]

1/12/2016 4:36:29 PM

The question is pretty lopsided and basically boils down to whether or not you think nuclear weapons are a stabilizing force or not. Even then its fundamental flaw is that it does not refer to how either vacuum would be filled. If ISIS disappears, another group of lunatics fills its place. If nuclear bombs disappear, they are immediately rebuilt by every country capable of so doing. Or if you say that's not part of the hypothetical decision, does the world look to some other weapon to take its place? In a world without nukes, would the quest for military supremacy have focused instead on biological and chemical warfare?

Given all those problems, I suppose I'll say "remove every nuclear weapon" just because I'm pretty sure we could rebuild ours faster than everybody else and Russia (maybe some others, too) would go broke trying to keep up.

Plus, "getting rid of ISIS" would lose to most things, because it doesn't address the problems that created it once and would create it again.

Quote :

"Not have invaded Iraq -or- picked single payer instead of individual mandate healthcare"

Hmm. I'm not convinced that not invading Iraq would have improved the current situation. At best, it's impossible to guess how it would have played out but would have saved us a lot of American money and quite a few American lives. On the other hand, though I hate to admit it, all credible research suggests that a single-payer plan would save a lot more of both. So I guess go with the single payer plan.

1/12/2016 5:05:01 PM

there are other terrorist groups, but there are also other weapons that are actually being used and kill massive amounts of people everyday. Chemical weapons as well as good old fashioned guns kill a lot of people quite frequently. The mere existence of nuclear weapons reduces those numbers.

1/12/2016 5:25:15 PM

^ I understand your deterrence theory. Unfortunately the evidence to prove nuclear deterrence is real is the absence of an all out global conflict since WWII. Deterrence is working when certain actions or policies are averted. I'm not sure how to prove the existence of something when it's outcome is imperceptible when successful.

1/13/2016 10:40:57 AM

You can't. It's the premise behind an old Simpsons bit:

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
[Homer thinks of this, then pulls out some money]
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

1/13/2016 10:49:31 AM

I never understood why we need 4,500 active warheads much less the 30,000 we had at peak stockpile. Sure there are different delivery vehicles, different sites (i'm guessing so you can still strike back during a sucker-punch, and different yields. Yet how many do you need to fuck up your target country. I'm guessing we were aiming to annihilate every goat village in Siberia at one point.

As far as the OP does this assume that no one else can develop new nuclear weapons?

[Edited on January 13, 2016 at 11:03 AM. Reason : a]

1/13/2016 11:02:56 AM

As with any other defense spending, part of it is legislators throwing work to their districts. Someone has to have the factory to build the nukes and the missiles. Even now, the reason we have so many in silos is that the states that house them (I think Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas) fight to keep those silos from being closed, because they generate some jobs. Never mind that the silos are outdated, wildly insecure, and poorly managed (or that a stationary silo is strategically not worth nearly so much as a mobile platform like a submarine).

So, part of the reason we had (and have) so many is because Congressman Fuckwittle from Pig's Ass County, Idaho works his ass off to keep them around.

There are some legitimate strategic reasons too, though. There's a lot of variety in yield and delivery mechanism, as you say. We had to plan for smaller nukes to destroy Soviet tank formations pushing into Germany, big nukes for hardened Soviet defense facilities, and (since either move would probably make a full-on nuclear war inevitable) enough city-sized nukes for all the important Soviet cities. And you need many versions of each, in case the Soviets launch first-strike and take most of ours out before we can retaliate, and of whichever ones we do launch, a certain percentage won't make it to their target. Maybe the missile guidance is off and it crashes into the ocean, or the B-52 gets shot down. Then take into account that the Warsaw Pact was big and spread out, and for a long time our strategic planners assumed that war with them meant war with China, too...that's a lot of potential targets requiring a lot of redundancies.

Then there's just outright competition with the Soviets, which is a combination of strategic factors (if they have a lot more warheads, they can overwhelm us in a first strike), national pride (no goddamn communist is gonna have more nukes than me!), and geopolitical/economic considerations (if we build more, the commies have to try to match us, and they can't compete for long).

Put that all together, and that's a lot of motherfucking bombs. Plus to a certain degree I think we just didn't understand nuclear strategy that way (and maybe still don't), and when things get too complicated or nuanced its easy to say, "Until we figure this out, more is better."

1/13/2016 3:31:57 PM

Quote :

"Given all those problems, I suppose I'll say "remove every nuclear weapon" just because I'm pretty sure we could rebuild ours faster than everybody else and Russia (maybe some others, too) would go broke trying to keep up"

Geez, dude, RTFQ.

forever means FOREVER

1/13/2016 7:55:20 PM

Its different from the Simpsons because the bear patrol has worked once. Its not just a correlation. We can point to the nuclear deterrent as an instant war-ender.

Quote :

"^ I understand your deterrence theory. Unfortunately the evidence to prove nuclear deterrence is real is the absence of an all out global conflict since WWII. Deterrence is working when certain actions or policies are averted. I'm not sure how to prove the existence of something when it's outcome is imperceptible when successful. "

There are some theories out there that disagree on the ending of the war, but Its a historical consensus that the atomic bombs led to the unconditional surrender of Japan. All historical military estimates as well as historian estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of lives were saved by the bombs even when you consider the hundreds of thousands of lives they suddenly ended.

If you're talking about evidence. The idea that something could go wrong, an accident or a nuclear weapon falling into the wrong hands, has never happened and the argument against nuclear weapons is more like the argument against vaccination by focusing on the small idea that something could backfire and kill you and the idea that you could still get the disease you are being vaccinated for.

With all that said, nuclear shelters and defense systems would be much more affective against a modern-day nuclear attack than they were with a complete surprise attack. Duck and cover.

I also wonder what the odds are of an ordered nuclear attack being carried out. Someone like theduke, who knows more about military operations and the degree of brainwashing would have a better idea about how many people would be required and how much thought they would put into nuking a city if president trump made a rash decision.

Quote :

" Put that all together, and that's a lot of motherfucking bombs. Plus to a certain degree I think we just didn't understand nuclear strategy that way (and maybe still don't), and when things get too complicated or nuanced its easy to say, "Until we figure this out, more is better.""

I also wonder what the odds are of an ordered nuclear attack being carried out. Someone like theduke, who knows more about military operations and the degree of brainwashing would have a better idea about how many people would be required and how much thought they would put into nuking a city if president trump made a rash decision. I think you would need to order like 5 just to get one carried out. I could see a situation where a lot of people refuse to carry out orders in a mutually assured destruction scenario because--whats the point?

I think both countries accounted for this notion in their attempt to build so many. If 90% of the military quit, would you still have enough nuclear wepaons to apply the deterrent? If all us territory was captured or destroyed from within, could you still apply the deterrent? You also have no idea of the effectiveness of a country to shoot down ballistic missiles in the future. Think about iron dome. You have to overwhelm a system like that with numbers.

The moment a nation thinks they can calculate they'd only be hit by an acceptable of nuclear weapons in all out war, the deterrent becomes less effective, and at the very least, soviet tanks roll through eastern europe to call our bluff.

1/13/2016 8:45:08 PM

Quote :

"forever means FOREVER"

One could remove every nuclear weapon currently on the earth forever without removing the concept of nuclear weapons. But OK, thanks for the clarification. Still the same answer, for basically the same reason, except replace "rebuild ours" with "develop whatever new horror will replace nukes"

Quote :

"Its different from the Simpsons because the bear patrol has worked once. Its not just a correlation. We can point to the nuclear deterrent as an instant war-ender."

1) Even assuming we accept your premise that the atomic bombs "instantly" ended WWII, that's a very different thing from nuclear deterrence, a concept I'm not entirely sure you understand. It's only a "nuclear deterrent" if you aren't using the bomb; that is, your possession of the bomb had deterred an enemy from attacking you, specifically from attacking you with their own nuclear weapons. Vaporizing Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't "deterring" Japan, it was bombing them with big fucking bombs.

2) Our possession of nuclear weapons has not been a deterrent against conventional wars, because -- I'll repeat -- that's not what "nuclear deterrent" means. Involved parties having nuclear weapons did not prevent wars in Korea, Vietnam, or Afghanistan during the Cold War; Israel's well-known "secret" nuclear deterrent did not prevent its neighbors from invading it in 1973. Both sides having the A-bomb didn't stop the 1999 Indo-Pakistan war. Our having enough firepower to wipe out the species a few times over didn't deter 9/11. To which you will respond that the use of nuclear weapons might have ended any of those wars sooner or in a different way, and in turn I will respond that, again, using a nuclear weapon is not the same as nuclear deterrence. It's the opposite in many of those cases -- if a bomb was used, the deterrent failed.

3) The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not "instant war-enders." For one thing, it just manifestly, obviously isn't "instant" -- if it were, we wouldn't have had to bomb them twice, and it wouldn't have taken so long after the second bomb. For another, while the bombs contributed to the surrender it is likely that the Soviet declaration of war played at least as big a role, to say nothing of the blockade.

Now, having said all of that, while I disagree with your assertion that nuclear deterrence was somehow proven by the end of WWII, or that it was proven by the general absence of a nuclear war (hence the "Bear Patrol" bit), I do actually think it has worked so far. But "so far" actually establishes a narrow set of parameters, including a fairly small number of nuclear-equipped nation-states.

1/13/2016 9:23:32 PM

Sometimes I think we just need to Nuke the Middle East and probably Alabama too....

1/14/2016 2:01:12 AM

I have wondered about the potential benefit of some high-altitude nuclear blasts over ISIS strongholds like Raqqa -- not to cause physical damage, but to EMP their electronics to impede command and control and recruiting abilities. The problem (aside from the obvious, that everyone would wildly overreact) is that the factions are so jumbled up that you couldn't fry all the ISIS stuff without also fucking over everybody on our side.

1/14/2016 11:02:28 AM

1/15/2016 8:32:12 AM

Not having nuclear weapons might result in our extinction. Never know if aliens attack or a meteor needs deflecting.

As for ISIS, who cares? More Americans drowned in their bathtubs last year than ISIS has killed. Should we have god disappear bathtubs?

1/21/2016 2:38:08 PM

Isis is not a big problem for America but that doesn't mean its not a big problem. Not everything is about your country.

1/21/2016 4:05:11 PM

Isis isn't a big problem unless they live next door to you. Isis is not about to blitzkrieg across any major continent. They are a regional problem at best, and that region is not that big. The people of Turkey should be paying attention to Isis. The people just one step further away, such as Greece, should not bother. As for people even further away, such as China and the U.S., they should most certainly not bother.

1/21/2016 7:48:33 PM