
Can nuclear war be morally justified? - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200804-can-nuclear-war-ever-be-morally-justified
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mytailorisrich
I would make a huge difference between "nuclear war" and using a nuclear
weapon.

Nuclear war is often understood (at least I think) as a total annihilation of
all parties through extensive use of nuclear weapons. This is the boogeyman of
the nuclear dissuasion strategy and not meant to happen.

On the other hand, the use of nuclear weapons as they were used in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki is not very different from the use of conventional weapons as
they were used at the time: Whole cities were obliterated through carpet
bombing with comparable damage. A nuclear bomb was 'just' more efficient.

In my opinion the moral dilemma was not the use of a nuclear weapon but rather
the total destruction of a city, and that choice had been made before nuclear
weapons were used (see Dresden, Tokyo). This might not have been considered at
the beginning of the war, but with time and the toll on people and society the
limits of what was previously acceptable or not start to fade. I think in 1945
the mindset of people was "do whatever it takes."

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nabla9
I don't see how nuclear war is fundamentally different from conventional war
in this respect.

The real difference is between _counterforce targeting_ vs. _countervalue
targeting_. Counterforce strike is strike against enemy forces. Countervalue
strike is strike against enemy’s cities and civilian population with nuclear
weapons.

