Rangoon Kaboom

[Kadagar_AV]

My dear Louis, one would have thought that the reference to "using" nukes would be taken as "using them on civilians in an actual war".

Of course every country with nuclear weapon capacity has done testing (wouldn't be very scientific if not, would it?). I am sadly aware of the French testing, as well as the impact on the environment. US testing wasn't better, there has been a quite excellent movie about it. Don't even get me started on Russian testings.





However, this is all WAY away from my main point. That the ONLY country to ever USE nukes somehow see themselves at a moral superior level.

There is a very old saying, I think it has something to do with boomerangs, no?

"What goes around, comes around..." "... and often harder".

I will not cheer the day America gets hit by a nuke. Nor should anyone. I will however save my tears for more pressing issues.

[Louis VI the Fat]

One could argue that the Americans used their nukes to end a war of agression brought upon them. Whereas the French nukes were used on thousands of French troops, used for guinea pigs. And some local Algerians.

No need to travel to Hiroshima to see the effect nukes have on populations, decades onwards. Just visit a French verteran's association.


Considering the circumstances under which the US boms were used - I, for one, find it not within me to decry their use other than on a 'shame it had to come to this' level - I do not see why the US should lose any moral authority over it.

Has America lost its moral authority by fighting the Axis, whereas has Sweden retained its moral authority despite growing rich by being the largest industrial resource supplier to the Nazis?

[Kadagar_AV]

A stab at my ancestry? If so, I would have to say you are very very very very VERY much wrong. On both sides of my family.

One could argue that... And one could argue this... And then of course that again.

At the end of the day though, no matter how you try to bend it, the end result will be that only one nation has ever used atomic weapons in a war. Sure other nations has also used it on their own population. That is however an internal national problem.

My point still stands, the only nation to have used such a horrid weapon at war is most def in no position to influence who would posses this weapon and not. From a moral perspective. If you, however, want to argue that "might is right", or that "the winner writes the history", I will be the first one to put on my pom-poms and cheer the US on.

Your point about Swedens neutrality... Uh... Ok, I got it. No, wait, I did not. You claim that my point is invalid because some country was neutral in WW2? You might want to elaborate on that. Don't get me wrong, I for one most def think Sweden should have stood up for Norway when they were attacked by the bad guys, as well as we should have stood up for Finland when they were attacked by the.... uh... good guys?

I am sure you know more about Swedish history than poor old me, or even the politicians at the time. I still, however, very much question the relevance to this thread though.

[gaelic cowboy]

USA used an atom bomb but todays missiles are well Thermonuclear.

[spmetla]

I'd say that the circumstances surrounding the dropping of the two a-bombs justified the action of doing so. It was an impressive weapon and together with the Soviet entry in the war on Imperial Japan helped end the war in a short time instead of conducting a protracted and bloodier campaign through the entire Japanese island chain. It was still a horrible thing to do but more Japanese would have died if the war continued on an the land invasion was needed not to mention the continued firebombing of Japanese cities.

I'd think you'd understand that WWII was one heck of a circumstance in which to use such weapons, weapons for which the US wasn't even aware of the long lasting radioactive effects. How does this reduce the US moral authority in trying to limit how many countries have access to such powerful weapons. Why does this make it okay for you to stab at MY ancestry in the same way? Do past wrongs or horrors by previous generations mean that the current generation is equally as guilty and unfit to see the horror that the weapons can cause? We could make endless analogies of current countries decrying something their countrymen of a previous generation did but that shouldn't mean that the current generation should not be allowed to or be considered hypocritical because they oppose such outrages.

Do you think that the US should not try and limit the spread of nuclear weapons?

[Megas Methuselah]

Do past wrongs or horrors by previous generations mean that the current generation is equally as guilty and unfit to see the horror that the weapons can cause?

Intergenerational guilt varies on the circumstances.

[Centurion1]

No megas I'm not giving you up my land because I'm white......... lol

Oh and I agree with kadagar. America sucks! Nukes for everybody I want equality dammit!

[Ironside]

Going back on topic, I'm more curious on why they are developing nukes. They aren't really threatened by their neighbours or any western country, they still get money through sanction loop holes and they aren't feeding their population by aid.

So most threats are internal and I don't think nuking the rebels in the north or Suu Kyi's home are going to be the most sane course of action.

Other option would be watching too many super villain movies and trying to blackmail the world with nukes. That won't end well either.

[spmetla]

Intergenerational guilt varies on the circumstances.

EDIT: What's your verdict on this circumstance then (US guilt of abombs in relation to nuclear non-proliferation enforcement)?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

A stab at my ancestry? If so, I would have to say you are very very very very VERY much wrong. On both sides of my family.

One could argue that... And one could argue this... And then of course that again.

At the end of the day though, no matter how you try to bend it, the end result will be that only one nation has ever used atomic weapons in a war. Sure other nations has also used it on their own population. That is however an internal national problem.

My point still stands, the only nation to have used such a horrid weapon at war is most def in no position to influence who would posses this weapon and not. From a moral perspective. If you, however, want to argue that "might is right", or that "the winner writes the history", I will be the first one to put on my pom-poms and cheer the US on.

Your point about Swedens neutrality... Uh... Ok, I got it. No, wait, I did not. You claim that my point is invalid because some country was neutral in WW2? You might want to elaborate on that. Don't get me wrong, I for one most def think Sweden should have stood up for Norway when they were attacked by the bad guys, as well as we should have stood up for Finland when they were attacked by the.... uh... good guys?

I am sure you know more about Swedish history than poor old me, or even the politicians at the time. I still, however, very much question the relevance to this thread though.

It is possible that I am mistaking the tone of your posts herein. This happens to me when I am inundated by what appears to me to be sanctimonious self indulgence -- it gets in the way of a clear read of things. Nevertheless, a few basic points:

1. My nation is the only nation known to have used nuclear-design weapons in combat. We did so on carefully selected "virgin" targets in Japan and in the full knowledge that tens of thousands of civilians would be killed along with the military personnel and industrial infrastructure in those cities. The virgin targets were specifically selected to make dramatically clear just how much destructive power we had at our disposal, with the intention of shocking into surrender an opponent who had demonstrated, to that date, a willingness to die while killing as many of us as possible without anything resembling a large-scale surrender. We wanted to make it clear that each and every plane we sent over could level a city, and that we no longer needed hundreds upon of sorties to destroy one as we had with the Tokyo Fire Raid. Again, the real purpose was to bring the war to a rapid conclusion and to kill far fewer US military personnel in the process.

2. While US forces had already demonstrated their willingness to obliterate targets of limited military/industrial value so as to break the enemy's will to resist (e.g. Hamburg, Dresden), the weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a quantum leap forward in destructive power. After absorbing damage from two such attacks, political elements willing to surrender were able (narrowly) to take that step and bring about a conclusion to the war.

3. After this surrender, authorities from Japan and from the USA (along with most of our other Allies) began to really learn the real long-term impacts of nuclear attack on an urban center -- an ongoing impact that is felt, at least to a limited extent, to the present. The USA has never used nuclear weapons in combat since, even on those occasional situations where it would have made excellent military sense and would have harmed relatively few civilians, infrastructure, and the like.

4. From the outset, non-proliferation was one of the goals of our nuclear weapons program. We shared technology with the British and French, but specifically exempted the Kuomintang and the Soviets (who stole and/or replicated it for themselves) as we did not fully trust them nor want them to have that power. We have steadfastly employed quite a lot of effort over the years to limit other nations' ability to acquire the technology and resources necessary to create their own nuclear weapons. On one level, that can be considered morally absurd -- by what right do we believe that we should be able to make such weapons and have that power over other nations whereas they do not? -- but on a simpler moral level, that of protecting your own people, the attempt to limit proliferation is almost a moral absolute.

5. Six decades after their use in combat, no nuclear devices have been actively employed as weapon. Regrettably, we will not be able to say that after another six decades. Those holding the "nuclear card" have shown themselve unwilling to do everything in their power to prevent others from acquiring this capability -- and yes that means violence and sending your own to die to achieve national security at the expense of the individual rights and self-determination of another state. Moreover, the respect accorded a state with nuclear weapons -- particularly if all concerned are convinced that there are a set of circumstances in which they would be used -- does change the level of "respect" accorded those nations so equipped. It is, therefore, a national objective worth more in terms of power and security than feeding your own people. The most rational choice a smaller state can make is to equip itself with nuclear weapons and outline their "final resort" usage -- it frees them from playing second fiddle to all of the other nuclear powers and grants them a measure of equality.

6. However rational such a choice may be for the state in question, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states whose track record on issues of corruption is at best mixed is to me the most alarming of all. Whatever else may be said of them, the pre-1950 nuclear powers had an enviable lack of corruption (relatively, not absolute) combined with a vested incentive to maintain strict control over such weapons. Though the latter incentive is true for all members and would-be members of the nuclear club, the former condition -- a relatively minimal degree of corruption -- is less and less the norm. It is this that will, in my opinion, likely see a nuclear weapon pass into the hands of some NGO with an axe to grind and enough money to buy off the right people at the right time. That weapon will then go off somewhere very painful to my country and our allies and Tens of thousands of one of our countries citizens will die. Moreover, we will not be able to hit back in kind, because the NGO will have no fixed locale worthy of such an effort. We can make a sustained effort to stop such an event before it comes to fruition. Sadly, as with all such "asymetric" combat issues, we'll have to be successful 100% of the time...a pretty tough standard.

[Kadagar_AV]

Reminds me of an old Russian joke...

A Russian submarine meets an American one in the ocean. They rise to the
surface and the American captain and some officers come to visit the Russian
submarine. They enter it, go through looking around and finally enter the
nuclear missile control room when the Russian captain suddenly loosing his
temper shouts out with all his might to his crewmembers:
- Who the ********, ******, has thrown the boot on the console?!
Americans say:
- We in America don't use such ugly words.
- America!? There is no America any more! Who the ******* has thrown the boot on
that console?!!

[gaelic cowboy]

Kadagar your reasoning on banning nuke sounds good till you cop that even rubbish countries like North Korea apparently have nukes. Banning nukes will make the world less safe as small to medium sized powers scramble for the advantage even a single nuke could give them in there particular region.

If every country on earth has say less than a dozen nukes then they will likely be used more often as it's not an extinction event for the entire earth

[Centurion1]

Exactly when everyone becomes an idealist and develops nuclear weapon, sure id say go for it. Until then we will just have to wait for some sort of magical technology that can counter a few thousand nukes all at once.