Rockie wrote:LittleNelly wrote:First strike is the corner stone of US (and NATO)Nuclear policy in order to deter acts of aggression against american interests. "a willingness to use nuclear" is a key defence policy of the United States and NATO.
Excuse me, but you're outside your sandbox here. Nuclear is a genie that stays in the bottle until the other guy uses it and everybody knows it. They are a
deterrent against nuclear aggression only. In the following interview Trump is talking completely out his ass (as in pretty much everything else) about something he knows nothing about, because he's never devoted more than 15 seconds thinking about it.
Wow, I was not arguing or debating, just pointing out a well known official US defence policy(this is NOT mine but the US governments policy) as a possible reason why Trump would make statements about the use of nuclear weapons... Your response was to personally insult me?
I was just pointing out that the American (Canada included as part of NATO) policy of nuclear deterrence requires the belief that you will turn the key when push comes to shove. Hence leaders from all nuclear powers want others to know that they are willing to use them. No where in my statement did I say anything about using nuclear weapons in unprovoked aggression. The threat of using nuclear weapons is so you dont have to actually use them. That is the point of Mutually Assured Destruction.
By the way you are incorrect in regards to American policy(once again not mine, but the US governments) that "they are a deterrent against nuclear aggression only". The policy(common NATO) is to specifically reserve the right of nuclear first strike in conventional conflict. Its still defensive in that if the US is attacked(or a NATO member) by conventional means they will respond with nuclear weapons. This was borne out of the cold war where the USSR could have easily overpowered conventional NATO forces in Europe. The USSR did not need to use nukes to win. The only defense against their superior force was to say well we will respond with our nuclear deterrent.(fun fact, the Canadian Air Force was part of this force in Europe that would have dropped first stike nukes on russian forces). In turn the USSR would retaliate with their nuclear deterrent. In the end everyone is dead, nobody left to claim victory.. Mutually Assured Destruction.. Thus the war would never happen. But for this to work NATOs adversaries had to believe that the US president was "CRAZY" enough to launch a nuclear first strike leading to the end of the world. You would have to be "CRAZY" to end the world just to keep western europe out of the USSR. It is crazy and irrational when you think about threatening the end of the world but if you didnt make those threats the alternative would have been another war in Europe that would have guaranteed to kill hundreds of millions of people. Post USSR records show soviet leadership thought Reagan was actually crazy and they feared what he would do with nuclear weapons. You just dont take chances in that situation.
The real danger was in that if the USSR thought the US president wasnt "crazy" enough to use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional russian attack. In this case they might have tried to seize say West Berlin or West Germany. A defeated NATO force may have then led to the actual use of nuclear weapons.
By reserving the right to launch a nuclear first strike in response to a conventional attack, it ensures that these state actors will not wage conventional warfare either. In this world conventional war=nuclear war which means no side has incentive to wage war.
I agree the way Trump worded these statements was not very presidential language but it is most certainly due to this dynamic of sounding tough and yes giving the PERCEPTION that "crazy" enough to make that decision if the United States or its allies faced even a conventional attack. For all the tough talk of EVERY previous US president about using nuclear weapons, we dont know if they would have actually gone through with it. Reagan came off as really aggressive with threats of their nuclear deterrent. You never know maybe he had no intention of following through. But reality is irrelevant, its all about perception.
Yes we live in a much more peaceful era now as compared with the cold war, but the reason we didnt keep having large conventional wars is because of this American nuclear first strike policy.
Its not a coincidence that after a solid 4,000+ year run of near constant warfare, large scale state versus state war came to a close after the dawn of nuclear weapons... There is no more point in war in the nuclear age. Once again the point of threatening nuclear weapons is so you dont have to use them as well as deter conventional warfare.
This is not my opinion, I am simply saying what US policy is that every US president since Eisenhower(Yes even Obama, and yes Clinton too if she had won) has followed.
