Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rlgvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!lsuc!pesnta!hplabs!hao!seismo!rlgvax!plunkett From: plunkett@rlgvax.UUCP (S. Plunkett) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: World War III. Part Message-ID: <499@rlgvax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 18-Feb-85 13:02:10 EST Article-I.D.: rlgvax.499 Posted: Mon Feb 18 13:02:10 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 19-Feb-85 05:51:56 EST References: <3364@alice.UUCP> <4819@ukc.UUCP> <434@rlgvax.UUCP> <4844@ukc.UUCP> Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA Lines: 43 > >> b) Even if a potential aggressor is willing to take on the > >> costs & risks of war, the use of Nuclear weapons is so self- > >> destructive as to be lunatic, so he would not believe that they > >> would be used anyway. > > > >This is by no means certain, having never happened. I would not > >recommend relying on this being the conventional wisdom in the > >Politburo. > >..{ihnp4,seismo}!rlgvax!plunkett > > I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying is by no > means certain, that has never happened. There is no experience, other than the one-sided and very limited examples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of nuclear warfare. Whereas the great debate in the Democracies seems to be (as G. Bush would have it) on "how high the rubble will bounce," the Soviet regime has always planned for survival; i.e., it intends to use them if and when necessary, and if tactically prudent. > .. Britain had nuclear weapons when > Argentina invaded the Falklands. They didn't seem to be too > deterred. Admittedly, the political situation was a little abnormal, > but even so, the Royal Navy might (say) have knocked out the > Belgrano with a nuke, and not caused any civilian casualties. > Or any target out at sea, come to that. > The Argentinians had to be pretty sure that that wasn't going to > happen. > So what's the point in Nuclear weapons? Clearly a situation, a threat, a move, must be of a scale to warrant the use of a nuke. Using one to sink a battleship is somewhat of an overkill, and ultimately self-defeating. This is because the primary point in nuclear weapons is deterring nuclear attacks; the secondary point of them is to prevail during a serious superpower brawl. The main problem with nuclear weapons is that the West is in the process of talking itself out of their secondary purpose because it is too horrific to contemplate. Without the second, the first collapses, and the U.S.S.R. wins. Scott Plunkett, ..{ihnp4,seismo}!rlgvax!plunkett