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0 pointscrystal_revenge10mo ago0 comments

The point parent is in making is that this strike against Iran demonstrates, that yes indeed you do need nukes to be safe and that's one of the major risks of this action.

Going with your analogy, this would be the same as if police basically ignored all home invasion/trespassing laws such that the only houses that criminals entered were in fact those of undefended home owners. In this scenario, it would be demonstrated, by this policy, that yes home owners need to own guns to be safe.

To your point, if you don't want a world where it's safer for home owners to own guns, than you need to ensure there are policies in place to create a world where that was true. The lesson of Ukraine and Iran is that, if you don't have nuclear weapons, your sovereignty is always at the mercy of nations that do.

A world where every country needs nuclear weapons to remain sovereign is similarly undesirable (on a larger scale) to a country where every home needs to have guns to be safe. However we're on a path with nuclear weapons where that is unfortunately not the reality we are creating.

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nradov10mo ago

A handful of nuclear weapons won't keep a country safe. They would also need a credible second-strike deterrent.

Relations between sovereign states are fundamentally anarchic. There are no world police. The UN and other international institutions have little or no real power, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty is only enforceable through kinetic action by other countries when it suits their interests.

twelve4010mo ago

NK can have a handful of submarine-based missiles that threaten to wipe out say Seoul or LA for example, even after the first strike. It's not a guarantee by any means but it does raise the bar and would probably prevent a situation like the current one.

XorNot10mo ago

NK kept itself safe for decades with just a lot of artillery aimed at Seoul.

Second strike weapons are in some ways a holdover from Cold War strategic thinking which it's sort of acknowledged probably overestimated the penchant of any side to engage in a first strike.

The practical reality of nuclear war planning has generally been that no one will accept even a single city-buster landing - and no first strike option is really reliable enough to guarantee you didn't miss one.

corimaith10mo ago

>To your point, if you don't want a world where it's safer for home owners to own guns, than you need to ensure there are policies in place to create a world where that was true

So achieving monopoly on violence first. Which requires forcefully disarming all opposition just like what is happening right now. Is the Sovereign hypocritical because they arrest and potential kill people they don't like but they do not others to do so? According to many mainstream political theories, not neccessairly so.

The matter of fact is that if a major power really wants to destroy a smaller power, there's nothing a smaller power can do even if they develop a handful of nukes, especially at the cost of their economy. Much better just to work diplomatically with said major powers so that interests are aligned rather than demanding a absolute respect for sovereignity which does not exist in reality. So then the question is, why can the Shah or the Gulf States work with Israel and America, but not the Islamic Regime? Even worse so, it's one to turn a cold shoulder that America or Israel wouldn't care much, but to actively fund proxies that destabilize other allies is just warranting a response.

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