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0 pointsben_w6y ago0 comments

That sounds a bit like Israel’s policy — Although officially Israel’s policy is one of deliberate ambiguity, if they have nukes then they are doing exactly what you just said; and if they don’t, then presumably the scientist that they imprisoned for revealing the existence of the nuclear program was a stooge designed to make them look scary without any of the cost and complexity of actually bothering to make any nukes of their own.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

dogma11386y ago· 1 in thread

He wasn’t a scientist he was a low level technician.

He didn’t even finish high school completely (no diploma), and dropped out of his engineering course at uni.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

While he did revealed some information a lot of the technical details he talked about during his early interviews made absolutely no sense.

He was imprisoned on the basis of revealing classified information and taking photographs of a sensitive site.

Whether Israel has actual assembled weapons or not, they are a breakout state they have 2 reactors one at Dimona one at Soreq and even if in the 60’s and 70’s they didn’t had the knowledge to build nukes considering they took in nearly 2M Russian Jews and their family members they probably could’ve gained that capability from that immigration since the late 80’s to early 90’s.

Israel can also potentially posses a nuclear Triad however for Israel nukes are only really useful as a deterrent against a conventional threat as due to their size MAD will not work for them against any of their possible opponents in the region.

MAD also requires that everyone in the equation will be sane and held accountable, if there is an Islamist coup in say Pakistan or if a regional theocratic regime gets nukes it’s not clear how MAD would work even if the geographical and population sizes weren’t that different.

mieseratte6y ago

MAD still applies to Israel if they can field a sufficient submarine force to retaliate against a first-strike, unless their opposition can also field enough hunter-killer submarines to perform a full decapitation with surety.

Also worth pointing out, while a theocratic takeover of a state like Pakistan would be infinitely problematic, (probably) particularly for non-proliferation, MAD still applies unless the takeover is a flat-out doomsday cult. Problematic as I may find an Islamist theocracy as a Westerner, they're not insane, but simply of very different cultural belief. Should anyone want to live to see tomorrow, and or allow their offspring to do so then MAD applies.

eloff6y ago

I'm certain they have the nukes, since South Africa did for a fact. They became the first nuclear power to invite the UN to disassemble all their nuclear weapons. Before the apartheid government handed over power to the Mandela government.

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