I don't want to argue about the reasons for the two A-bombs right now. Let's just remember the lessons of history and never repeat them again. And let's hope that a nuke-free world will happen, eventually.
Unfortunately if it does that removes the incentive that's kept the Great Powers from resuming war against each other. Nukes prevented and continue to prevent a recurrence of the Korean War. Humans will still be bastards without nukes, and removing them will remove the single crudest prevention of another large-scale war: the knowledge that sustained nuclear warfare will destroy the entire species.
Between the Great Powers, yes. Proxy wars have always happened. The last war between the Great Powers was the Korean War. The more societies get nukes, the more peace will spread because those societies will be afraid to use them. Nuclear proliferation is not bad for peace, it is in the end the only thing that would secure it. If you compare the Kargil War with other Indo-Pakistani conflicts it limited the severity and the scale it could expand. Neither wished or or could push it far enough to chance nuclear war.
And the only way to cease warfare between human beings will be when our successor species starts *its* own wars as by then humans will be extinct. Homo and Pan alone among God's primates kill for sport, lust, or greed, and slay their brothers for their brothers' land. We cannot eradicate war but we can force the Great Powers to limit the severity of it, which is the best that can be hoped for.
More nukes would give more strong cards to the otherwise strong forces: the US can attack Iran whenever it finds the resources and the right moment (before elections?), whereas Iran couldn't retaliate. Russia could attack Georgia, while Georgia couldn't do the same.
True what you say about great powers restraining themselves. However that shifts the focus on smaller countries used as proxies - so the big are never suffering, instead the proxies are used as pawns.
What guarantees that there won't be a crazy guy who'd decide to turn his vile rhetoric into practice and start an all-out assault (NK, anyone?)
What guarantees that the next weapons wouldn't be even deadlier?
First, that would be equally true without nukes as well. Without nuclear weapons in fact Iran would have long ago buried Israel under a steel rain the Israelis could never have retaliated against effectively. Conventionally Iran is in every way Israel's superior. Nuclear weapons have prevented Khomeinism from being spread to the eastern Mediterranean at gunpoint.
What guarantees it is that today's world no longer depends on military power. The main role today's militaries serve is to give some powers greater economic oomph than they reasonably should have. In today's world power is all about economics, militaries are white elephants and no more than that.
Nukes themselves. While they were vastly superior to the devastation of WWI weapons.....in 1939 everyone feared massed bombers with waves of gas bombs ending the war in a few months. But World War III would be more like World War I in that it would trigger mechanistic processes turning into general nuclear exchanges. It would never last long enough to create the truly more deadly weapons, for which we can all be grateful.
So when Iran gets a nuke too, what prevents them from blowing it off in Israel under the guise of some vague terrorist organization?
Let's face it. Wars will exist for a long time to come. How deadly they'll be depends on the technologies used. I have no illusion that a nuke-free world will happen any time soon, but it doesn't mean I can't dream a little, does it.
Israel has enough to blow Iran to smithereens. In any case Iran won't do it because Supreme Leader Ali Khameini has ruled out nukes as against Islamic law. Defying totalitarianism is risky, and that goes double for religious totalitarianism which needs no concessions to basic reality.
And no, and I would prefer a world that never developed nukes to start with, too. We are fortunate that Hitler was too much of an ideologue to respect his physicists the way he could have.
And why would Israel blow up Iran, if Israel is blown up by some terrorist organization with no known leader, sponsor and borders? Tracing their roots back to the actual source may prove to be a slippery task, and I'm not sure Israel would want to attack the wrong country, would they? What if they're sponsored by Saudi Arabia? Or Turkey? Here's a scenario: Turkey sponsors a group which sneaks into Israel and activates a nuclear bomb in a Tel Aviv basement, prompting Israel to blame Iran, while Turkey is rubbing their hands with delight. Too implausible?
Modern warfare has stopped being a great power vs another great power for, like, 60 years. I understand how bound you are to the history books covering events and phenomena that existed more than half a century ago, but here's a news flash: we're living in the 21st century, not the 19th.
And lastly, I was wondering where you'd evoke Hitler's name. It happened in your comment #5. That's a new world record! :-)
Because Hezbollah, the group that provoked Israel into exposing how meaningless hard power is in today's world, is an Iranian proxy. Again, this is a *religious* extremism and Iran would be no less willing than the old Soviet Union was to destroy heresy in its proxies without. Secular extremism has to some degree to be rooted in the here and the now. Religious extremism can just handwave it all.
Didn't I just say that two comments above, how the last Great Power conflict was in 1950? But I suppose you didn't really read that comment before making this one.
If terrorists amounted to anything they'd have armies instead of resorting to terrorism. It is a weapon of the weak and the desperate.
Yet it works, and it works damn well today. The whole military of the most powerful countries in the world and the most powerful military alliance in the world have not been able to deal with a group of insurgents hiding in caves. Or would you say this is deliberate and they just don't want to deal with them at this point? That'd be an interesting conspiracy theory. ;-)
Hezbollah is sponsored by a number of organizations and countries, you cannot apply a label on them as an Iranian proxy, unless you'd like to show an even standard of measurement, in which case you'd have to include half a dozen Middle Eastern countries in your list of targets.
It's not so much that terrorism works as the reality that United States military force has never been able to defeat guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare led to a Seminole victory in the Second Seminole War, to a Sioux victory in Red Cloud's War, it led to the longest war in US history being fought in the Pacific......
US strategy is effectively battering an enemy to death upon superior force. Other armies can easily negate that strategy (Overland Campaign, the Second Indochina War) and the simplest and most effective means to fight a superior enemy is to use attrition strategies. The Taliban have learned from 2001 and are fighting a different war. We Yanks as always fight our wars the same way and never learn.
And frankly I'd be not surprised if the Iranians ultimately intend to turn Hezbollah on the Arabs. Arab-Persian hatred has some rather deep roots in Islamic history and with modern technology I have a feeling the First Gulf War won't be the last such confrontation.
Such has it ever been, so shall it ever be. It's really the ultimate lesson of American and human history in a nutshell: US Imperialism is always flawed and contains the seeds of its own destruction in much more insidious means than those elsewhere.
You de-friended me and banned me from your LJ back when the USA refused to ban land mines because one of the primary reasons we need the fuckers is in the DMZ, which your post immediately after the banning said was a reason that was "not good enough." I haven't forgotten that and I suppose you think without the DMZ or South Korea an the USA having military force superior to that of the North that Kim Jong Il would be a nice guy, eh?
Really, defriending, banning people and remembering that and reminding it every time a similar topic gets brought up, for reasons of political disagreements, sounds to me pretty lame. I don't know what happened and who started it, but from a first reading I could only suggest that you two avoid each other. And I mean both of you.
Obviously he's disturbed, and you're right I ought to avoid him. But he holds a grudge, so I don't mind a bit yanking his crank. I apologize to you Stijn, but it goes no further than that.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 04:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 04:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 05:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 05:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 05:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 05:25 pm (UTC)True what you say about great powers restraining themselves. However that shifts the focus on smaller countries used as proxies - so the big are never suffering, instead the proxies are used as pawns.
What guarantees that there won't be a crazy guy who'd decide to turn his vile rhetoric into practice and start an all-out assault (NK, anyone?)
What guarantees that the next weapons wouldn't be even deadlier?
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 05:37 pm (UTC)What guarantees it is that today's world no longer depends on military power. The main role today's militaries serve is to give some powers greater economic oomph than they reasonably should have. In today's world power is all about economics, militaries are white elephants and no more than that.
Nukes themselves. While they were vastly superior to the devastation of WWI weapons.....in 1939 everyone feared massed bombers with waves of gas bombs ending the war in a few months. But World War III would be more like World War I in that it would trigger mechanistic processes turning into general nuclear exchanges. It would never last long enough to create the truly more deadly weapons, for which we can all be grateful.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 05:45 pm (UTC)Let's face it. Wars will exist for a long time to come. How deadly they'll be depends on the technologies used. I have no illusion that a nuke-free world will happen any time soon, but it doesn't mean I can't dream a little, does it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 06:20 pm (UTC)And no, and I would prefer a world that never developed nukes to start with, too. We are fortunate that Hitler was too much of an ideologue to respect his physicists the way he could have.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 06:35 pm (UTC)Modern warfare has stopped being a great power vs another great power for, like, 60 years. I understand how bound you are to the history books covering events and phenomena that existed more than half a century ago, but here's a news flash: we're living in the 21st century, not the 19th.
And lastly, I was wondering where you'd evoke Hitler's name. It happened in your comment #5. That's a new world record! :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 06:59 pm (UTC)Didn't I just say that two comments above, how the last Great Power conflict was in 1950? But I suppose you didn't really read that comment before making this one.
If terrorists amounted to anything they'd have armies instead of resorting to terrorism. It is a weapon of the weak and the desperate.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 07:56 pm (UTC)Hezbollah is sponsored by a number of organizations and countries, you cannot apply a label on them as an Iranian proxy, unless you'd like to show an even standard of measurement, in which case you'd have to include half a dozen Middle Eastern countries in your list of targets.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 08:06 pm (UTC)US strategy is effectively battering an enemy to death upon superior force. Other armies can easily negate that strategy (Overland Campaign, the Second Indochina War) and the simplest and most effective means to fight a superior enemy is to use attrition strategies. The Taliban have learned from 2001 and are fighting a different war. We Yanks as always fight our wars the same way and never learn.
And frankly I'd be not surprised if the Iranians ultimately intend to turn Hezbollah on the Arabs. Arab-Persian hatred has some rather deep roots in Islamic history and with modern technology I have a feeling the First Gulf War won't be the last such confrontation.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 08:18 pm (UTC)Well, if that's at least one historical lesson we could learn from, so be it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 08:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 08:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 11:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-06 11:40 pm (UTC)/kidding/
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 12:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 03:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 10:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 12:30 pm (UTC)Really, defriending, banning people and remembering that and reminding it every time a similar topic gets brought up, for reasons of political disagreements, sounds to me pretty lame. I don't know what happened and who started it, but from a first reading I could only suggest that you two avoid each other. And I mean both of you.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 12:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 08:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 10:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-07 12:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-08 12:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-08 08:20 am (UTC)