Is Nuclear War Inevitable?

[Dougie93]

Thus, nuclear weapons, or more specifically, two stage fission-fusion thermonuclear weapons, are the most useful weapons in history, in that they resolve most wars, nary a shot fired.

[GostHacked]

2 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Thus, nuclear weapons, or more specifically, two stage fission-fusion thermonuclear weapons, are the most useful weapons in history, in that they resolve most wars, nary a shot fired.

Interesting that we still have war going on all over the world. And tactical nukes are used all the time.

[DogOnPorch]

1 minute ago, GostHacked said:

And tactical nukes are used all the time.

 

Really?

[Dougie93]

1 hour ago, GostHacked said:

Interesting that we still have war going on all over the world. And tactical nukes are used all the time.

Tactical nukes are standing by in support of all operations, their presence alone shaping the battle space.  In the event of escalation, an escalation of force operation will commence, escalation of force operations are war, maneuver war in fact, escalation being a maneuver.

[Dougie93]

So for example, if the American NCA sends B-2's to nuclear weapons in situ at Guam, that is a maneuver,  in a war,  using nuclear weapons, otherwise known as nuclear war,  by definition.

[Dougie93]

And when Bush_Cheney2004 was in the Boomer sailing the high seas from below, he was fighting a nuclear war, at the strategic level.

Strategic maneuver by countervalue survivable second strike.

Strategic maneuver by counterforce preemptive strike as necessary.

If the TACAMO come over the means with an EAM directing him to approach by stealth and execute a counterforce, or hover and launch on warning immediate action.

That's DEFCON One.

But that's not the beginning of the war, that's the end of the war, as once the birds are in the air; war's over, plus or minus 30 minutes.

[Dougie93]

If Cold War Two continues to escalate by current vectors,  then at some point an additional maneuver phase may be added to the CONOPS,  by Strategic Ballistic Missile Defense.

But it's going to take some time for the Americans to build up their BMD counterforce enablers to a comprehensive global BMD capability, so this phase is still aspirational at this juncture, arms race in progress, wait out.

[Dougie93]

Now, over on Mr. Ivan's side of the trace, they employ theater tactical nuclear weapons in a nuclear war maneuver called Deescalation.

In simple terms, when they seize and hold ground, Crimea for example, they immediately bring the nuclear weapons to bear as a shield, so you can't force them back out of what they've taken, without inciting a launch on warning at theater level, otherwise known as the operational level.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

Not that there is any OSINT that Mr. Ivan is actually poised to do so at this moment, in extremis, if he felt that his position in the Baltic was imperiled as he did with his position in the Black, he could by these means cross the NATO Article V line at the Suwalki Gap, and take the Baltics to shore his position up, and then employ Nuclear Deescalation to force NATO to back down and ultimately accept it and except it as a casus belli.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

At the operational level, which is the theater level below strategic, these weapons are called Long Ranged Tactical (LRTNF) or more commonly in the publice vernacular, Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF)

These nuclear weapons are not, say again not for deterrence.  These weapons are fully operationalized to conduct theater thermonuclear war, in support of a maneuver operation underpinned by a strategic objective. 

These weapons (INF) are for fightin', which is why they are dangerous, destabilizing the strategic mutual vulnerability regime above.

This is why they were banned by mutually agreed treaty in 1987, which was the main reason things cooled right down between Reagan and Gorbachev and they startin' huggin n' sheeit.

But now that Cold War Two is heating up to 1983 levels of strategic tension. INF are coming back.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Dougie93

[Dougie93]

And this might not even be something NATO can control, because it might be either of the Neutrals at Helsinki and Stockholm who end in a fight with Ivan, and he simply takes the Baltic as both a buffer and a hostage, and because he has to, because his Baltic Fleet HQ is not in Russia, it's in Kaliningrad.

Which is why the Pentagon is coseying up to said Neutrals right now to try to reassure them, so they don't feel the need to shoot Ivan in self defence.

[Iznogoud]

13 hours ago, Dougie93 said:

Not actually the case, there are strategic weapons, there are intermediate weapons,  and there are tactical weapons, you've simply conflated countervalue strategic with nuclear weapons writ large.

You're also viewing an illusion projected by the pax Americana, making it seem like interstate wars have gone away forever and war is imperial policing and nothing else, but really that's just King Dollah paying everybody to get along.

I have a full understanding of nuclear arsenals.  My point is that despite the huge numbers of nuclear weapons not a single one has been used in any war since Nagasaki and due to the reasons I suggested in my post such use is unlikely.  This is interesting given that pretty much every other weapon in existence has been used in the numerous conflicts since 1945.  Fear of a nuclear attack appears to be something drummed up the the media on a slow news day. 

[Iznogoud]

16 hours ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

Ergo, that's why nuclear weapons will continue to exist...to prevent exactly that.

Tell me something else I knew more than 50 years ago.

[bush_cheney2004]

2 minutes ago, Iznogoud said:

Tell me something else I knew more than 50 years ago.

 

There are those who watch...and those who do.

[Iznogoud]

20 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

The question isn't really 'are nuclear weapons good'. 

As for Japan being innocent, they started the war. They were also guilty of very heinous war crimes that I doubt you're aware of.

Here's a minor example that was repeated many times across the Pacific & Indian oceans...

https://www.armed-guard.com/ag87.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_submarine_I-8

 

 

I am fully conversant with World War II.  In fact I have lost track of the number of books I have read and the number of videos I have watched on the topic.  A case could easily be made that if any nation deserved a couple of nuclear bombs it was Japan.  Ironically, it is these nuclear attacks that seemed to force Japan out of the war, probably saving Japan from  an even worse fate at the hands of conventional weapons. 

[Iznogoud]

8 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

There are those who watch...and those who do.

Thanks - I fit into both categories.  Too bad you don't.

[Dougie93]

21 minutes ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

There are those who watch...and those who do.

It's funny how you're being told off about nuclear weapons by a dork in his mom's basement.

Nelson; ha-ha.

[Dougie93]

Anyways, back to the Suwalki Gap, or Sulwalki Corridor, the Russian's don't have the horses yet, but it's quite clear that they are preparing and building a force which serves no other purpose in the Western District, but to drive on Suwalki, a classic Soviet operation which was already done in the Second World War.

The formations in question are the 1st Guards Tank Army at Odintsvo, 6th Combined Arms Army at St. Petersburg, and the 20th Combined Arms Army at Voronezh

Again, arms race in progress, wait out.

[Dougie93]

This would likely only come to pass in what is called the Leningrad Rat Bites His Tamer scenario, where Putin is cornered and then comes swinging to incite a crisis to prop himself up.

[Dougie93]

And therein lies the problem at the strategic level, in that despotic regimes do not prosper, and despots cannot rule forever, so while Putin is emulating his idol Stalin, Stalin didn't last, so this is why Putin is so paranoid.   There is no peaceful transfer of power.  So Putin is cornered by default.   And nobody knows what he would do when the noose starts to tighten.

[Dougie93]

And this is not like the Soviets at all, the Soviets went peacefully because no one man was responsible for it, nobody was going to be executed for the crimes of the Soviet Union, so there was no personage of the state which would have to protect its life from the fall of the Soviet Union.

Whereas now, Putin is a de facto Czar.   And he has no successor.   Which means he ain't planning to retire, ever. 

[Dougie93]

To wit, the posture in the West is the end game here is going to be Gorbachev 2.0 takes over.

But this is not Gorbachev, this is Czar Nicolas II

With 20/20 hindsight of what happens to Czar Putin if he is naive enough to come peacefully upon regime change pressure applied.

[Dougie93]

There's also a flexible response option where the 1st Guards Tank Army falls in on its Zapad prepared launching position in Belarus, escalating Cold War Two to the trace at Suwalki, before Ivan even crosses it, and then the pressure just builds as the INF paranoia builds, which is what happened on the Inner German Border and Fulda Gap in the so called 1983 War Scare.

[Dougie93]

And what the 1983 War Scare showed us, was that even when the Russians had a false warning that made no sense, which was one American ICBM being launched at them at a time, one, then another, then another, which was not a logical strike profile. . .

 . . .  every single officer in the chain of command except one guy, wanted to retaliate, massively, and they were egging it on, because they said "we can't see the rest of the American missiles, they are coming at us right now from all direction, our early warning just sucks, so we can't see them'.   

And so it was only Stan Petrov who saved the world, simply declining to tell the Kremlin what was going on, so they couldn't launch on warning.

Therein lies the problem with Russian faulty early warning, or simply lack of any effective early warning to make them confident that they can see the Americans coming.

And just like you are unlikely to get Mikhail Gorbachev and One World Kumbaya every time you go to the well, you're unlikely to get Stan Petrov every time as well.

[GostHacked]

17 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Really?

They were used in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Interesting that the West bitched at Saddam for pursuing Nukes yet the USA used nukes (small tactical ones that have a low yeild which means they are in a different classification... nice way to get around saying they outright used nukes .. and no not talking about the MOAB ...)on Iraq.  Talk about hypocrisy. And let's not forget the large amounts of DU shells from A-10s littering Iraq.

Also you have a bigger chance of getting caught up in a nuclear plant meltdown than a nuke attack.