

Nukes Are "The Only Peacekeeping Weapons the World Has Even Known" - dshankar
http://thediplomat.com/2012/07/06/kenneth-waltz-on-why-iran-should-get-the-bomb/

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clarky07
Comparing Iran to China or Russia is absurd. It is a terrorist run nation that
openly says it wants to wipe Israel from the face of the Earth. It being a
nuclear power is not a deterrent that will bring peace.

~~~
mkr-hn
Consider whoever told you this an unreliable source.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#.22Wiped_off_the_map.22_controversy)

[http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/israeli-
minister...](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/israeli-minister-
agrees-ahmadinejad-never-said-israel-must-be-wiped-off-the-map/)

It's obvious that some in Iran's government don't like Israel, but that's a
long way from pressing the button to wipe it off the map.

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drhodes
I didn't see any mention of the scenario where Iran sells nukes to Al Qaeda
who may perform a strike by proxy. Nuclear material can be sourced back to the
lab of origin in some cases, but I wouldn't bank on that being enough to
dissuade terrorists.

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gfodor
Would you rather have a 5% chance of a war that kills 50,000 people, or a
0.01% chance of a war that kills 5 billion people?

~~~
barrkel
You have no idea of whether these probabilities and payoffs are correct. WWII
killed tens of millions of people, not including nuclear weapons. I have zero
doubt that there would have been a conventional war between US and USSR in the
20th century if it hadn't been for nuclear weapons, and that war would have
killed millions.

So which is better: a 100% chance of a war that kills millions, or a 0.01%
chance of a war that kills 5 billion? On a calculated payoff basis, a 100% war
would only have to kill half a million people before it's "worse".

We don't know the probabilities here. I don't think the actual probability for
global nuclear war is as high as 0.01%, for one; and I do think nuclear
weapons are the biggest reason for global peace. Politicians would love to
start more wars if they could.

~~~
gfodor
My point wasn't that the probabilities were correct, my point is that the
author pretends like this "marginal utility" based argument has no merit. In a
world with nuclear weapons, there is some non-zero chance of a nuclear war
that results in massive casualties (if not complete eradication of the human
race.) Counterbalancing this scenario with the one whereby there is more
likelihood of a large-scale war but less likelihood of global extinction
simply shows that the point the author is making is not as clear cut as he/she
makes it out to be.

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henryboston
Does that make the United States the most peaceful nation the world has ever
known?

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adventureful
Only until the first one is let loose in a conventional war.

And or only if we're talking about at least modestly rational nation states
(all bets off in the hands of 'rogue groups' or terrorists).

It's not amazing at all that Israel has remained the sole nuclear power in the
Middle East. Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria have all been attacked (in one form
or another) over the years to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons.

~~~
phon
It should be noted that nuclear weapons weapons were used twice during a war
that is almost universally thought of as 'conventional'. Furthermore, they
were used against a state that arguably had ceased to act as a rational entity
quite some time before August 6, 1945.

Later the increasing quantity and quality of nuclear weapons combined with the
de-fusion of the underlaying technologies to a growing number of international
actors in the 1950's and 1960's lead to the Soviets and Americans backing of
the Non-Proliferation Treaty regiem. This was done to avoid an August 1914
Nuclear-Redux in which the super powers would be pulled into a full scale
nuclear exchange. Thus the situation in the middle east today can be traced
back to actions taken almost 50 years ago.

~~~
chadgeidel
Do you have any reading material that you could point to in regards to your
comment about "the situation in the middle east"?

I'm not saying you are incorrect - actually the opposite is true (I _believe_
this to be the case). I'm not much of a student of history and would like to
educate myself.

Thanks.

~~~
phon
Sure thing.

Frist, the NPT is part of a larger system of treaties, alliances and
agreements that grew during the Cold War and its aftermath. 'Cornerstones of
Security: Arms Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era' (2003) by Thomas Graham
and Damien J. Lavera is somewhat dry but exhaustive.

Secondly, here is an interesting over view of US Government thinking on
weapons of mass destruction at the end of the cold war:

<http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1993/9341/9341.PDF>

Finally, Nigel Ashton's 'The Cold War in the Middle East: Regional Conflict
and the Superpowers 1967-73' covers the actions of many international actors
in the middle east during the critical years during which the Non-
Proliferation Treaty was put into effect.

With luck both of these books should be available via inter-library loan.

