Us having enough nukes to obliterate the world twice over with warheads to spare is what keeps it from descending into utter chaos. But it's not the use that does so, it's the mere existence and perceived use.

Look back at how Europe descended into chaos toward the end of the Western Roman Empire. Why did this happen? Because the legions, the ancient world's WMDs, weren't there to keep the peace and keep all the little warlords in their place. At the same time, the Eastern Empire, which thrived until the 1400s, remained relatively peaceful. Why is that so? Because the legions were still there to "destroy the world" of any little troublemakers.

The major difference between the US having nukes and Iran having nukes is that Iran is lead by a genocidal extremist who's bound to use them at the slightest provocation.

As I have said, nobody actually believes Iran will use the nukes at "the slightest provocation". They may be Shi'ite fundamentalists, but they still have national interests that involve their country not getting nuked in return. I'm not big into deterrence theory myself, but I can tell you that even the most conservative, anti-Iran scholars in my field do not anticipate Iran ever using its nukes against Israel, or anyone else.

What they're a lot more worried about is how it would affect the regional balance of power and embolden Iran to act more recklessly in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza. Also, Israel's possession of nukes is part of what has allowed them to maintain hegemony over the Arab countries, so Iran having nukes might encourage the Arabs to shift away from Israel (though this is not certain, since most Arabs and Persians will always hate each other more than they hate Jews). From the Israeli - and, by extension, the American - point-of-view, this is not acceptable. The Russians and Chinese don't exactly like Iran having nukes, either, but they do like what they can get out of the negotiation process.

I can see the deterrance theory, the problem is, we don't know enough about if we finally come to nuclear war. We really don't know if peace using nukes would actually work or if the deterrance would just fail. We really don't know much about either. The only way we will finally know about deterrance and nukes, is when a nuclear war actually starts. It doesn't even need to be a big war, just a small one.

If you said this 50 years ago, you might have sounded credible. As it stands now...I think you really need to do some more homework. I think it's especially inane that you think WE need to give up our nukes at the same time that the DPRK and Iran are building/developing them.

BTW, remember when everyone was so worried that North Korea would nuke us at the soonest opportunity?

Okay Ace I understand you have aspirations of enlisitng in one of the U.S. military branches in the future. Which is great. When I was in the Army I served with foreign nationals from Switzerland, Canada, Honduras, Mexico, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, China, Sweden, England, Ireland and Poland. And those are just the ones that I can remember. Many Americans do not realize that foreign nationals have served in our military throughout our nation's exsistence and have made invaluble contributions. Many of them have died in our wars. In some cases wars that their respective nations were not involved with. Something else that is sometimes overlooked by my fellow citizens.

Now soldiers,sailors and airmen swear. Actually they curse all the time. Swear words are basically part of their everyday vocabulary. Here's a tip how to make yourself sound like a native English speaker when cussing. And this is important because your average enlisted member is not politiclly correct and/or enlightened and they'll make fun of you if say "What the motherfuck?"

It is actually stated "What the fuck?" or "what are you a fucking asshole?", or my all time favorite "shut the fuck up asshole." Also you can try "Really? You are one stupid asshole. Did you know that?"

There are other variations, but I thought you might like a tip. :D

Thank you, Jcordell :D. I started saying that after watching Full Metal Jacket. I though that line was so original that i should start using it in my vocabulary. And yes, there's a huge number of immigrants in the US Armed Forces thanks to the accelerated citizenship.

And now for actual content.

MT2008, i don't know if nukes would actually work as deterrants. We don't know if they are good or bad. We don't know if Nukes are what made NATO and the Soviet Union not go to war. We don't know enough about Nuclear Weapons. We also don't know if any country would be insane enough to use Nukes. Kim Jong-il seems to be crazy enough to do that. I really don't know.

You are WAY behind the times, bro. People have been studying and debating this question for decades, and there is almost nobody in academic or military circles that believes state actors will use nukes.

We do know this for sure, and we've known for a very long time now. Eisenhower is the only U.S. President who ever considered the possibility of using nuclear weapons in warfare. That's why he put together Project Solarium in the early-50s to study the possibility that the U.S. could ever deploy its nukes against the USSR in any situations. And the answer basically turned out to be, NEVER, not in a million years, because there was simply no benefit whatsoever. One of the teams involved in the exercise did recommend threatening to use nukes if the USSR acted aggressively outside its sphere of influence (this is what then-Secretary of State Dulles called "massive retaliation"), but in practice, this meant that it was all talk, no walk. This was also a result of ICBMs coming into usage (which made spheres of influence obsolete on the tactical level), but it pretty much clarified what everyone already knew about using nukes.

What's more is that we know that the USSR also conducted similar studies at about the same time, and reached the exact same conclusion. And so did the Israelis in the 1960s - during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, they loaded nukes onto their fighter-bombers and intentionally let USSR satellites photograph them. Why? Because they wanted the Russians' Arab allies to think they'd use nukes even though they had no such intention.

Right now, Kim Jong Il and the Iranian clerics are doing the exact same thing - they're trying to act as deranged as possible and make idiot American neo-conservatives think that they'll nuke South Korea/Israel (respectively) at the soonest possible opportunity. But they won't. Bush knew this, Obama knows it, and the North Koreans and Iranians know that they know. But they also know that they can scare the shit of civilians around the world so that they demand their governments do something, and then those governments are forced to act in some way, which usually means concessions of various sorts. It's all smoke and mirrors.

Do you really think it's just a coincidence that, 64 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there hasn't been a nuclear weapon used in combat yet? That is quite a long time, don't you think? We've seen this question come up time and again with the rise of new nuclear states - first the Chinese, then Israelis, then the Indians, then the South Africans, and then the Pakistanis. Now yet again with the DPRK and Iran. Every time a new state gets nukes, their enemies (and everyone else) wonder if that state is going to be crazy enough to use them, and the answer always turns out to be no.

Rant off.

Fuck....I guess i'm just scared shitless of nukes.

I'm scared of nukes like a British college student is scared of guns.

And don't call me "bro". I hate that word.:D

Jcordell and Checkman are the same person? heh, never knew that.

Yep I sure am. Checkman is my moniker on forums. It started years ago when I was still a detective. I investigated frauds which meant I investigated a lot of bad check writers (forgery, counterfeit checks, bounced checks ect.). One of my fellow detectives took to calling me Checkman (like Superman get it?). So I adopted the nickname.

I'm back in uniform now. No I didn't get into trouble. That's something of a movie myth that once you're a detective you never go back to uniform unless you screw up. In many respects life is simpler as a uniform officer and I actually have more opportunites to earn overtime as a uniform.

I just choose to go with my actual name for the screencapping. Don't really know why.

Actually, in south america, USA has a very bad image, due to the "imperialism" (as that ugly fat president that believed Bush was the devil :confused:)

Just think that this guy´s wet dream is attacking an US aircraft carrier in the Caribbean... BTW, if you say "USA", they say "FASCIST!, MURDERERS!" (even here, in Argentina...). And don´t forget about that NWO crap, i´m sick of reading about that in spanish forums (conspirations about the 11/S, Iraq and etc)...

OK, bruh. :p

Anyway, if you are scared of nukes the way Brits are scared of guns, then surely you concede that your argument is emotional rather than empirical in nature? Suffice to say, that doesn't lend you much credibility.

On the other hand, naive people being scared of nukes is part of why deterrence theory works. The "nuclear taboo" isn't exactly a bad thing per se - but arguing that nukes need to be non-existent is.

No offense, but...how do people in Argentina deal with the fact that Juan Peron (one of their national heroes) helped ex-Nazis escape Germany and re-settle in his country, whereas the United States helped defeat the fascists? That strikes me as somewhat hypocritical.

And yes, Chavez is a huge fucking moron.

Well, our country is divided about Perón (i don´t think his an hero, he was just a president). You have those who hate him, those that just approves some of his actions but dissaproves a lot of him (me) and the blind fanatics (as our president, Mrs. K). It´s kinda extrange, because Perón helped jews and nazis to re-settle here, but the "peronist" are the first to attack USA all the time blaming them to be nazis...

Those are the same that called "nazis" to the israelis. Just idiots that don´t know anything about history...


+1. Remeber what he said: "Winds of war are blowing in the region" :confused:

Hmmm, I see. I had always thought most Argentinians respected him for being so important in the country's development into a regional power, in spite of his authoritarian tendencies. But yes, I do think it would be weird for Peronists to call the U.S. "fascists" while their hero helped actual fascists.

Ah, well, at least your current President is kinda pretty (for her age) even if she is a Peronist. Dunno about nationalizing pensions, though...

Chavez often doesn't make sense about a lot of stuff. I also still find myself pondering how a leftist finds common cause with the Shi'a clerics of Iran...

I highligh the fact that, during his administration, he helped in the development of the nuclear energy in Argentina and the first two jets in the region, the "Pulqui I" and "Pulqui II" (very similar to the MiG-15).

Neh, she is a puppet of his husband. And the pensions... well, i hated her for doing that.

PD:That was a bit of offtopic, btw...

Haha, no worries. Anyway, I guess I do respect that Peron was very good for Argentina from an economic perspective...political, though, not so much.

I always did figure Kirchner was probably working closely with her husband. It's hard for me to imagine she wouldn't be. Though they are part of the same party, anyway.

Here in Brazil most people like the US. The problem is, hating the United States is a goddamm trend. It became cool when W. Bush fucked up by Invanding Iraq. And because like ignorant americans, british and anyone from any other country, they generalize about anything, really. It definatly does not help that some people here in Brazil are actually scared of the US. Just like i am scared of Nukes, they are scared of the US invading us to colonize the Amazon and the rest of the country or some insane shit that's equally ridiculous to that.

And yes, MT2008, it's a emotional issue that i'm scared of nukes. I got shellshocked last year when i saw the effects of a large scale nuclear war during the 1980s between NATO and the Soviet Union would do to the world and humankind. I got shellshocked for 4 or 5 months because of that. No joke. It fucked me up. I started sleeping in class and all that. It was horrible.

Um, wow, that's taking things a little too seriously.

Those projections of a Fulda Gap invasion are precisely the reason why WWIII never happened. If there hadn't been nukes, there's a better chance that Europe would have become a warzone again, with far more deaths. Nukes made sure that couldn't happen by being so horrible that nobody would ever use them...or take risks that might provoke their use by the other side.

But anyway, it's still ridiculous that you're THAT afraid of them. Personally, I love nukes. I thank God/Allah/science that we have so many of them because it means war between states is more likely to remain limited (if it occurs at all). Nukes have, indirectly, saved more lives than they've taken.

Well. I learned something today. Nukes aren't that bad. Thank you Matt.

You're not being patronizing?

Uh, nope. After reading it it seems that nukes are something that saved humanity. The irony is ridiculous though.

That's really unnecessary.

I concur, and I have removed it.

But I have been saying the same thing for several pages of this topic now. You're saying that just now you suddenly agree with me? Does this mean that I should only make short posts that don't cite so much historical evidence?

Well, not exactly. I have been thinking about the deterrance theory for months now. It really made a lot of sense. Then there's you. A guy that seems to know more about things than i do. Reading about deterrance is what convinced me though, not you.

But you didn't know what deterrence theory was until I told you about it. I mean, no offense, dude, but you actually went so far as to suggest that the U.S. should give up its nukes while the DPRK and Iran have them. I fail to see how you could possibly understand what deterrence theory is if you believed that.

Also, if you're even able to read any of that literature at 14, I envy you. I first got exposed to this stuff as a undergraduate, and a lot of it was Greek when I first tried to read it. I didn't think they assigned that kind of stuff in high school.

Nobody told me to read those books. Not even teachers. Hell, in History classes we are still reading about Napoleon, the French Revolution and the American Revolution.

And i knew about the deterrance theory. I knew about the theory but i didn't think it was a good theory. Reading about it again, it seems that it worked. Both sides in the Cold War were trying to fight eachother without actually going to war. Both NATO and the Soviet Union knew they couldn't fight eachother directly. Why is that? Because of nukes. Nobody wanted to fight eachother. Because if one side attacked, the attacking side would get oblitoreted by the Attacked side. It would be suicide.

See? I get it now. It just finally entered my head that deterrence works.

And because the Soviets knew that even if they managed to sweep aside the armed forces without being nuked into oblivion, there were still thousands of police departments and millions of private gun owners ready and willing to fight the good fight. Our Second Amendment was one of the things that scared them the most.

I kind of doubt that. During the Cold War, the USSR clamped down upon a number of armed uprisings in Eastern Europe without too much difficulty. Afghanistan was another matter, but even then, the Mujahideen didn't start to make serious headway until we gave them Chinese-made weaponry and Stinger missiles in huge numbers (which is something we still regret to this day). And Americans, much like Eastern Europeans, aren't nearly as tough as the Pashtun in Afghanistan. I don't think a bunch of McDonalds-eating hillbillies living in trailers with their guns presents much of an insurgency challenge.

Then there's the geographic matter. The United States is hard to invade by virtue of the fact that it's in North America (this, we often forget, is the biggest reason why America has almost never faced invaders on its shores). A "Red Dawn" situation involving the Soviets' Latin American allies would be possible, but only if it were done through Mexico, and that wasn't going to happen.

I think you've been watching way too much Red Dawn, Spartan. I don't think civilian guns would to anything to Soviet vehicles and soldiers. The police departments could probably fight but the civilians? No. Like MT2008 said, American civilians won't be able to endure all the horrible shit a guerrilla sees and has to do in a daily basis. And the way guerrillas have to live would probably kill a huge number of those "freedom fighters". American civilians just wouln't be able to take it.

2 things

1st of all Police Guns and Civilian Guns are almost identical

2nd of all you would not fight with Civilian guns for the entire conflict, you would use the Civilian guns to ambush/kill Soviet troops in order to take their weapons(which would be capable of disabling their vehicles/armor and whatnot)

Oliveria is wrong; cops would not be any better as guerrillas than civilians. And it has NOTHING to do with the types of guns.

Like way too many pro-RKBAers, you are thinking about this way too much in terms of weaponry. If you wanted to fight a guerrilla war against either an invading army or a totalitarian government (or both), guns are just about the last thing to be concerned about. I'd worry a little more about your ability to survive outside of modern civilization - no electricity, scarce food, poor weather - for a start. Also what would happen if you ever got captured - how well can you withstand torture? Start thinking about those things, and start thinking about how many Americans besides yourself would fare any better - after spending all of their lives living better than anyone else in the world. On the list of things to think about in preparation for guerrilla war, guns should be about 100th, if that. (And no, that's not an exact scientific estimate, but you get my point).

Another thing I find ridiculous is pro-RKBAers always claim that criminals can always get guns on the black market, but civilians can't. I do hope you realize that, assuming civilians were willing to form militias to overthrow an oppressive government, international arms dealers are almost always the first people to take advantage of wars nowadays? Sometimes, even rival governments are willing to serve the same purpose. I think it rather neatly undermines some of the basic premises of pro-gun arguments.

But again, the big "if" here is whether or not the average American would really be willing to become a guerrilla, or at least provide support to the guerrillas. I'm rather doubtful that would happen. Even those survivalist nutcases are not guerrilla material, no matter what they believe.

Thanks for pointing out that i was wrong.

Matt is right (as always) most of the stuff guerrillas endure would break the mind of your average american. There is also the issue of military vehicles. If the Soviets invaded, you can be damm sure they wouln't give a shit about collateral damage. MiGs would have been bombing entire towns and citys that had anything that could help the US Government. Hell, they could even fire bomb citys, if the Soviet had napalm or the something like it. There is also training. A lot of people will learn how to reload weapons and all that, but what about knowing how to fight the enemy? Especially without vehicles. The arms dealers could sell vehicles to the rebels and maybe even train them, but i doubt that. Some one correct me if i'm wrong.

That's not really a big issue.

The average CIA agent could only withstand 7-14 seconds of waterboarding (which is mild torture if any)

If an average person is fighting to survive, American or any other. They may not want to become a guerilla. But will if they had to in order to survive. A person can adapt easy when it's their own life at stake. It may be a miserable way to live, but better than being dead or worse a prisoner.

Even though the Russians are more ruthless than their Western counterparts (as evidenced by case studies from the Hungarian Uprising to the recent Chechen Wars), I don't think they'd bomb entire towns and cities.

All invading armies recognize that they need the cooperation of the local civilian population, unless they're willing to resort to plain genocide. Bombing cities with intent to kill lots of civilians is not SOP nowadays, at least not for major states like Russia (if you're talking Third World hellholes like Sudan, that's another story, but those are the kinds of countries that could never invade the U.S. even if they wanted to, so it's a moot point).

Training, again, has nothing to do with weapons in guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla tactics are pretty simple - hit-and-run attacks, IEDs, things that wear the enemy down. The big challenge is endurance of extremely bad circumstances. Guerrillas win when they outlast the conventional forces by denying them victory, so that the enemy is forced to cut their losses. Poor people who have lived in squalor (or awful terrain) can take this kind of warfare. Americans, on the other hand, can't.

A priori argument. When a CIA agent gets tortured, he might give up secrets, but they're rarely secrets that can completely topple the American system (because most of those are above his pay grade).

On the flip side, torture is a HUGE determinant in winning guerrilla wars. It's a lot easier for a captured guerrilla to give up info that can completely undermine the entire insurgency.

You also are ignoring just about everything else I've said.

Key words here...fighting to survive. You're assuming a totalitarian government would put Americans in those kinds of conditions. I hate to break it to you, but as long as the average person in America (or most other civilized countries in the world) has the ability to get food, water, and electricity, they aren't likely to decide that they have much incentive to overthrow the regime.

If you look at the list of insurgent movements that have emerged in the last century, you'll find that 99% of them are started by the poorest, most disaffected segments of the population, the kinds of people who have absolutely nothing to lose. That is not my opinion; it's statistical fact. And do you really think that any totalitarian regime wanting to take over America doesn't recognize this?

Another thing you're forgetting is that many such regimes also come to power after starting out as insurgencies against the existing government.

You are completely, 100% right about training. There is still the problem with military vehicles, though. Also, what is SOP?

Is it just me or has this thread experienced serious topic drift?

Nope, just that the torture part of what you said was the only thing that I had a reply for.

The percentage of the population that will resist an invader is always very small. Most will just try to survive. And that includes the population of Afghanistan. However just because a population is well off and comfortable dosen't mean that it will collapse entirely after an invasion.

For example in WWII there was an active resistance movement in the Netherlands, Beligium and Denmark. It was small and it certainly didn't drive the Germans out (that task fell to the Allied armies), but it was there. Yes they were supported by the allies, but they were active. I would certainly say that those nations were pretty well off.

Most resistance groups don't do very well unless they recieve outside assistance. It just stands to reason because they don't have the resources. If the organization recieves no assistance then eventually it will collapse. It might be bloody and take years, but it will go down.