jdavidb's Journal: Do Nuclear Weapons Deter?

Do Nuclear Weapons Deter?

The first part of this article is very interesting, as he proposes a chain of logic that he asserts proves that ownership of nuclear weapons is not actually a deterrent to attacks by enemies. I'm not quite able to wrap my head around the logic, yet, and I'm not sure I agree. But it's an interesting thought, and I think I'll be revisiting it.

Then he gets to the point where he mentions "market anarchism." After that point the reasoning gets really weird, and I'm saying that as a market anarchist, myself. I'm sure it's even weirder to those who aren't. :) Some leftist pacifists might agree with and like his conclusions, though.

It is a known fact that they do

[sam_handelman]

I haven't read the article, but I *have* read the declassified record.

And it is full of instances of "we would attack them, but we can't because the Soviet's have/gave them nukes." The Soviets were not as agressive as we were/are, but you see similar comments by planners.

Now, the *US* may not have a nuclear deterrent, because our conventional military is so overwhelmingly powerful that it doesn't matter, but that's a special circumstance and not relevant to the deterrent power of nukes gene

i don't buy it

[subgeek]

the author seems to think of nuclear strike as tit-for-tat. the example of russia wiping out new york and then waiting doesn't make any sense. russia is (and was back in the cold war) smart enough not to strike without a good reason or a feeling that they would definately win. even if russia did do something that stupid, the idea that the US response would have been to take out moscow makes even less sense. at that point, the US would know for a fact that russia had hostile intentions. massive retaliat