Comment by NickC25
7 hours ago
>deploy weapons humanely and morally
A bit of an oxymoron there wouldn't you say?
>naively think less weapons is better
This I agree with. We should really only have a few dozen nuclear weapons, and nothing more. The whole point is to have a clear line of "DO NOT FUCKING CROSS AT ALL", and that's it. You cross us? We nuke you. We don't bother you, you don't bother us unless you want to face nuclear annihilation. Seems to work for North Korea.
> You cross us? We nuke you. We don't bother you, you don't bother us unless you want to face nuclear annihilation. Seems to work for North Korea.
I think this is interesting on a few levels.
One issue with North Korea is that they have an enormous number of uneducated, malnourished citizens that no country can reasonably absorb. I feel that the potential chaos from the fall of NK was part of the brinkmanship that led to them getting nuclear capabilities.
Second, if you only have nuclear weapons then you lose a lot of tactical possibilities (bunker busting bombs for example) and you lose the ability to dial up/down aggression as we've seen with Russia.
In all, I think have a continuum of force options is rational. What is scary is that this continuum may no longer involve soldiers - and if there's no risk of soldiers' dying, force projection becomes a lot 'cheaper' in a political sense.