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axeil posted:it also has the advantage of not intentionally trying to kill anyone! i mean, loads of people would die from having no working electronics but that wouldn't be the primary purpose of the weapon. An EMP attack carried out by ballistic missile would still kill everyone in the attacking and target countries. An ICBM on track to detonate high above your country is indistinguishable in flight from one that's just going to keep flying and land in one of your cities. Any nuclear power with launch on alert capabilities would immediately retaliate as soon as confirmation was received, and the EMP-launching party would shoot back as well. As for the second part of your post, nukes can be specialized for different functions. A neutron bomb emits a disproportionate amount of its yield as high-energy particles that kill biological creatures dead but minimize damage to structures and vehicles. Obviously ground zero would still be blasted flat since it's still a nuke. Tactical nukes and cobalt bombs can both be used for area denial, either short- or long-term respectively. And for maximizing loss of life nothing beats a countervalue strike with a MIRV.
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Jan 20, 2017 23:59
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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hakimashou posted:"If you invade us we will nuke you" is the right policy for Israel to have and the one which makes it least likely they will ever either be invaded or use nuclear weapons. Dr. Gatling's dream is at last realized. Sort of relatedly, does anyone find no first use policies to be accidentally hilarious? Like, a nuclear power can say that they wouldn't launch first all they want but if an army they couldn't stop was genociding their populace and systemically crushing any resistance, they'd do it. Limiting situations in which nukes will be used is great but with a blanket NFU stance it's kinda like... come on.
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Jan 21, 2017 22:04
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Willie Tomg posted:Using nukes on metropolitan areas as a component in a strategic exchange is one thing, but in the case of China in particular and also Russia I find the most primarily concerning use in a defensive posture as part of say, intervention in the South China Sea or Crimea. The U.S. has zero problem with first use against nuclear armed opponents. If you're already in a hypothetical high threat possible war situation, multiple Ohio subs are going to already be right off the Chinese coast. If they get intelligence in time about what you're planning, everyone in Beijing has three minutes to live. If they don't get it time, everyone in Beijing has 3 minutes + Chinese missile TOT to the carrier group to live.
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Jan 21, 2017 22:29
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Yeah if they kill a CVN with a kinetic impactor then that's just too bad, so sad in terms of nuke use for the U.S. I still wouldn't want to be anywhere near a Chinese military base or ship after that though.
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Jan 21, 2017 22:44
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call to action posted:How is there any way we make it out of this century considering how close we've come to nuclear annihilation multiple times, and climate change? The odds don't seem stacked in humanity's favor. Climate change is not by any reasonable projection an existential threat to humanity. It can if left unchecked potentially kill 10+% of the population and radically alter the ecosystem in numerous ways, but not literally destroy humanity. As for the nukes since we've got Trump and Putin currently slamming their dicks together and China being our major trading partner I think we're fine at least for now.
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Jan 27, 2017 04:04
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the black husserl posted:This is pretty asinine because one of the biggest fears re: climate change is that a drought or flood will spark regional tensions, which will spark war, which will spark global nuclear war. You cannot separate the threat of climate change from the existential threat of nukes. Notice I only spoke about nukes "right now." Also there's the fact that if you want someone else's arable land, glassing it and your own in a nuclear exchange would probably be a bad start. Like yeah what you're talking about could happen for sure. I was trying not to go too far out on the branch though and keep it to what we know.
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Jan 27, 2017 20:07
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