Ok, state what these "caveats" are? The United States and NATO are clear that PRE-EMPTIVE nuclear strike is on the table. This applies to not just if they are attacked with nuclear weapons but if they face large scale inter-state conventional attack. I clearly stated their policy is that they could launch a nuclear first strike against a conventional threat. I clearly stated this is a defensive measure, it has nothing to due with using them for whatever reason you want.The point of this is to discourage anyone from launching a conventional attack against them(little things like terrorism dont count, Im referring to inter-state warfare)Rockie wrote:
The US/Russia and NATO do not have the policy but there are stated caveats to their use that you are ignoring. Infinitely more important than the policy though is that up until now the leadership of those entities has not been in your words, crazy. They know that when nukes come out the conflict becomes unsurvivable for everyone. So the nukes stay in.
"Crazy" and "nuclear weapons" together are a grave threat that vastly increases the likelihood of their use.
"Stable" and "rational" are what keeps nukes off the table, not "no first use" policies. The US has up until now had stable and distinctly non-crazy leadership. Now no one can be sure about the US given Trumps' rhetoric, temperment, and demonstrated total ignorance of geopolitics. He makes the world a more dangerous place.
And stop twisting my words, I clearly connected the "crazy" factor with the aspect of someone making the decision to launch a nuclear strike in the face of conventional attack. Not someone with mental illness.
Here is a common scenario from the cold war era to illustrate what I mean by "crazy". Soviet forces seize west Berlin and push into west Germany quickly overrunning the much smaller NATO forces. US policy states they will respond with tactical nuclear weapons. The only way they can defend western europe. The US president has to actually decide if he will follow through on this knowing the soviets will respond with their nuclear weapons leading to a strategic nuclear exchange. In his head it comes down to 'Do I want to end the world just to keep western europe out of Soviet hands'.
Thats my point, deciding to possibly bring about the end of civilization over that is a CRAZY decision. The problem was tactical nuclear weapons was the only way that NATO could defend against soviet attack. Thus the purpose of US policy was to convince soviet leadership that US leadership would take that crazy decision, in order so the president would NOT be in a position to make that decision. If the USSR did not believe the president would follow through, they would have moved on western Europe.
In summary the key to this policy to work is that adversaries of the United States would believe that a president would use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack.
As for Trump. I would agree its not as relevant(though it is still the cornerstone to US defence policy) but its called rhetoric. It was a political campaign. He was trying to convince the voters who believed the previous administration lacked teeth. So he over compensates to show he will have a tough defence policy. Im not defending it, I am just saying that this is a much more likely reason as compared to him not knowing what nuclear weapons do and thus use them all willy nilly.
Im not debating whether or not this pre-emptive nuclear strike policy is moral, thats a different story.... For the last time I am simply stating what US defence policy is! And the reason they reserve that right.
Even an actual real murderous aggressive dictator, Stalin, knew better than to actually use nuclear weapons. So I dont think you have to be affraid of the world ending in nuclear war with Trump as president... sure there could be many many other problems. But a nuclear war is not one of them.