
The US has 6500 nuclear weapons -so why is it so hard to comprehend nuclear war? - huihuiilly
https://bostonreview.net/war-security/elaine-scarry-rachel-ablow-sleeping-through-alarm
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harimau777
It seems to me that the reporter never asks the really important question: Can
we realistically get rid of nuclear weapons. I just don't see any pragmatic
way for America to disarm as long as countries who are our enemy have nuclear
weapons.

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toomuchtodo
I disagree that is the important question.

The important question would be: "To what extent can we disarm, realizing
tremendous cost savings and increasing safety, and still have a reliable
nuclear deterrence strategy?"

"More than 100 nuclear weapons in a nation’s arsenal does more harm than
good—as using them can destabilize the country that uses them even in a best-
case scenario." [1]

[1] [https://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2018/june/more-harm-than-
go...](https://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2018/june/more-harm-than-good-
assessing-the-nuclear-arsenal-tipping-point.html) (More Harm Than Good:
Assessing the Nuclear Arsenal Tipping Point)

[https://www.defensenews.com/space/2019/01/24/heres-how-
many-...](https://www.defensenews.com/space/2019/01/24/heres-how-many-
billions-the-us-will-spend-on-nuclear-weapons-over-the-next-decade/) (Here’s
how many billions [$494 billion] the US will spend on nuclear weapons over the
next decade)

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harimau777
My understanding is that nuclear deterrence is not based on the idea that you
would survive using your own nuclear weapons, rather it is to insure that an
enemy cannot survive using nuclear weapons on you. Therefore, I don't see how
reducing the number of weapons would make a difference.

In addition, my understanding is that the reason for having so many is to
prevent a scenario where an enemy decides that they can shoot down enough of
your missiles to survive a counter attack.

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chewz
Russia is largest country in Earth and Soviet Union + sattelites had even
larger teritory. But Iran or North Korea? Do you really need 6400 nuclear
warheads to cover their teritory in response? Perhaps 1609 would be enough?

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leetcrew
why do you think Iran and north Korea are the only countries that we need to
deter from launching nukes?

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chewz
Just saying that you don't need 6400 to effectively obliterate large country
or even few countries. Unless you plan a war against all.

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leetcrew
it's hard to say how many you need for a truly effective deterrent when you
don't know how many launch sites can be destroyed before launch or how many
missiles can be intercepted in flight. iran or nk almost certainly can't hit
any US launch sites and probably can't intercept many missiles, but it's hard
to know exactly what Russia or China would be capable of in a hypothetical
conflict.

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chewz
So you are going for 12 thousands and then some? :-)

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leetcrew
all I'm saying is there's no number where you can say with 100% certainty "we
have enough missiles to meet our strategic goals". this doesn't mean you
devote your entire production capacity to making nukes, but it makes it sort
of silly for laymen to sit around talking about whether we have too many. we
don't have enough information to make even a halfway-educated guess.

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greedo
The interviewee conflates so many ideas that their argument loses cohesion.
Add to that numerous factual errors and odd interpretations (the 2nd Amendment
prohibits nuclear weapons?) that the article ends up just being a wandering
rant.

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fallingfrog
People very much underestimate the risk of a nuclear war, because they are
calculating the risk based on the situation today when that situation is
naturally going to change over time. Think about any long tailed event. The
financial crisis. Fukushima. What are the chances that all the backup
generators and safety systems are going to fail at the same time? Very small,
if you just assume they’re independent and multiply together their failure
rates. But a tsunami of sufficient size demonstrates that those failures rates
are not in fact independent.

Same thing with nuclear war. The chances of having a) a crisis of sufficient
size to suggest the use of nukes b) two leaders who would actually push the
button c) total diplomatic failure and so on would appear to be small. And it
is- _today_. But what about in a situation where there is mass migration of
people due to climate change, and the rise of authoritarian leaders in
response, and war between major states? Now what’s the risk?

Remember that in the Second World War, every weapon that was developed during
the war was immediately used, including nuclear ones. Because it was a
different context. If China invaded Taiwan tomorrow morning, the whole
conversation would change in ways that seem unimaginable today. Think about
how everything changed after 9/11\. It was a totally different landscape.

The only way to truly reduce the chances of nuclear war is to _dismantle the
nukes_ , and if their use seems unlikely now, that’s an indication that the
time to dismantle them is now, when it’s relatively easy, not later, when it
might be impossible.

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hnarn
Because the literal amount of nuclear missiles you have does not correlate
with the likelihood of you going to war and using them.

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smacktoward
We all know we're going to die, but it's also hard for us to comprehend our
own mortality. The brain tends to push us away from contemplating big,
unpleasant subjects.

