Quote:
Originally Posted by Skybird
I think you have no clue of the horrors that you claim could be "managed" this way. To me what you say in this whole paragraph, is utmost absurdity.
Allout nuclear war cannot be won. "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." You can bet your life and soul on it.
What you say, nevertheless is dangerous, for it creates dangerous illusions. For exmaple that preemptively triggering a nuclear war may be rewarding, since it can be "won". That kind of thinking paves the way to hell.
There is only one scenario where the use of nuclear wepaons is somethign you could get away with: if the other has neither a nuclear arsenal nor biological weapons.
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There are few simple points here.
First point is that the strategic nuclear arsenal's primary purpose is deterence. This means that their job is to decrease the likelyhood of war between nuclear armed nations particularly in Russia-US(+UK+France) billateral relationship. This leads to the problem strategic stability. It would be irrational for powers that cannot defend themeselves adequately conventionally against agressive foreighn powers to disarm as they would then perish.
The second point is that nuclear weapons are what they are - weapons, military means to achieve political ends. While very efficient in their job of destruction their power is finite and can be rationally accessed.
The third point is that deterence can fail, thus one considers the great yet finite power of the potential attacks and attempts to allow a degree of survival through and after such an attack. This however does not mean that the nuclear exchange is not costly and thus that deterence becomes irrelevant.
However if you do not view nuclear weapons or other WMDs rationally but rather through a quasireligeous prism then sure, you can elect to do other things, for example you won't build shelters and other means to survive and then rebuild.