Your world view is warped, dude. Stalin was just as evil as Hitler and killed many, many, many more people than Hitler did. The American alliance with Stalin was by necessity only. Everyone at the time was aware that Stalin would have to be dealt with after the war. The leading American generals wanted to continue the war and march into Russia after defeating the Nazis, that's how prepared they were to fight Stalin.

And when/if he does nuke someone, MAD theory will come into play. In theory, if North Korea resorts to an unprovoked nuclear attack on any country, then every other country with nukes should nuke them back. This is what is supposed to be what is keeping every nuclear power in check.

Okay, new question. I read somewhere that we are more at risk now of a nuclear attack (don't know if it was by terrorists or otherwise) then we were during the Cold War. Is this true?

Dabiggman: I'm not deep into demographics, but China has a total population of about 1 billion (1 billion PEOPLE, not men). You think China would just tell all their soldiers AND citizens to invade the rest of Asia and Europe? More importantly, do enough guns exist to equip that many people (Sadly, there probably is, but anyway). If that's what you meant, it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard, aside from Brother in FFX-2.

As for what China's capabilities are...I don't know. In fact, I know very little about what Russia, China, India, Pakistan, NK, SK, or any other countries could do. I'm pretty confident that very few of us here do. Most of the discussion here about nuclear checks and balances (as well as the first world vs. third/second world nuclear defense) sounds logical.

I've got no data on hand, so I can't even make hypotheses here. I can randomly throw figures at everyone in total darkness, though. I doubt the U.S. would stomp China, personally. Maybe on the defense, but I don't even see THIS superpower having enough resources to fight an international war against someone the size of China, not without immense casulties.

Instead of blabbering on about a topic I know little about. I'll just say this:

What about those one or two million U.S, Canadian, British, Chinese, Russian, or Korean civilians which'll be annhilated in a matter of minutes by "one or two measely nukes." What about the horrible fallout which will subsequently affect millions more? I almost find it sickening that some people were talking about it like, "Ah well we'll only lose a couple cities, they'll lose 'em all har har!!!"

Besides, in my opinion, nuclear attacks probably wouldn't target cities, they'd target key military installations. Again, I could easily be dead wrong. After all, the U.S. dropped its two bad boys onto cities. And terrorists are fucking nuts. Hmm...okay, so it depends WHO fires the nuclear missiles. But in war, I'd say only military installations would be attacked on that scale.

If only it were secluded to military installations... If it results to Nuclear War, cities will be the target, becasue by that point the war itself will be a last ditch, all or nothing, sink or swim affair. You tactically strike military installations for obvious reasons, then detroy civilians to destroy their morale.
In world war 2 England started by only flying daytime raids, on military installations, then realized that they were loosing far too many soldiers for the week or 2 they set back the enemy with their bombardments. Then, they realized, theres is NO civility in War any more, so htey did hte most logical thing, night time raids. And in the night time, the biggest target is a city or town, in short, civilians. While destroying civilians is by far the least ethical approach to winnign a war (imo) it is the most logical. If the enemy can decimate your civilian population, who is left to grow the crops ot sustain your army? Who is left to pay the taxes to afford this war? Who is left to suport the administration? Who is left to replenish the ranks after countelss soldiers have died? Who is left to_______? Add whatever you want there, the sad fact of war is that civilians are the key to victory. All soldiers (except seelct few who were raised form birth to fight, i.e. Spartans) began life as a civilian. As a civilian they decided to answer their country's plight for help, and server their country in the best way they knew how. You take out the civilians you take out the reinforcements. Strenghten the resolve of hte remainging forces in some cases, and completely destroy their will to carry on in others... So yes, civilians will be lost when it comes time to go to war, or in the case of a nuclear war as is being discussed in this hypothetical situation.

And Azin, be sickend all you want, but a lot of people out there are willing to sacrifice those few million souls in order to acheice what they concider the greater good. The military trains its personel to think that way. The grunts are taught to value every life and do everything in their power to save everyone. If sacrificing a lone baby will save billions more, they will strive to find another option, a way to save the baby and they billions of others. The officer's on the other hand, are taught to weigh the losses and the potential gains. They would sacrifice hte baby to save countelss others (or atleast thats waht they are trained to do). That is why officers often times lead a lonely life in troubled times, and why after such atrocities as nuclear war they are the bad guy in the end. [/rant]

As for who has what capabilites, it doesn't matter.. If any one person who is crazy enough, or who has hte balls enough to launch a nuclear weapon gets hish ands on one of these, its over. He will launch it, undoubtedly he will actually want to take credit, (as terrorists are netoriously proud of their work), unless his goal is to start and internation war, in which case he'll plant evidence pointing towards another country, likely one with probable cause to do so... but even if he does take credit for his work, unless he anounces the bomb seconds before its detonation, whoever he attacks will retaliate too quickly and war will erupt until the cool heads regain control, and by then atelast 2 nukes will have been launched. Terrorist blows L.A, president freaks out, thinks it was Korea (or whoever) and nukes back, to try and show the country he will fight to protect us no matter what he has to do. Korea launches in retalliation to our attack, on South Korea or Japan or whoever they can hit where they think it will have the biggest impact, they retalliate. And this is all within a matter of hours if not minutes. Then we get a tape that says "Haha! I nuked you american bastards." What then... we jsut appologize for nuking North, and they appologize for retaliating? Nope, its gone too far for that. Depending on who is attacked there may be no chacne of reconciliation...
Also, I'm less worried about terroist getting nukes as opposed to EM missles... A nuke still costs millions of dollars, and often times will only have short range launch capabilities. An EM bomb can be bought for $5k, and have an intercontinental laucnh capablility. With a single EM bomb they could turn New york into the stone age, and all for the price of a '98 Tauraus. Our economy crumbels, riots ensue, killings erupt all across the city. Sure, they didn't directly kill thousands, possibly millions of people, and casue a radioactive fallout, but they saved $995,000 and crippled, if not ruined America. And sitll were the indirect cause of countless deaths.


Wow... so I apparently like to rant and carry on a LOT when I'm pissed.. lol sorry for the insane length and sort of randomness of soem of htose ideas... it may not be compeltely coherent, but somewhere in there I had a point...

BTW, in my last point it was all one sarcastic joke, just icnase you didn't catch that little tag at the end :p

I don't really see how a WWII reference is valid here. In this day and age, you don't need to send any soldiers in bulky, slow bombers to strike installations. You launch an intercontinental missile from all the way across the world.

And I wasn't sickened by the points of the discussion, I was a little taken back by the tone is all. Casulties in war is pretty much inevitable, and don't take me for some anti-war pro-lifer hippie or anything either, war can be necessary too.

I'm fully aware of what the military trains their personnel to do, but that point only has limited validity, if we're talking specifically about war (or a handful of other cases). Some people would be willing to sacrifice a few million souls for the greater good. In this discussion, I'd probably call them stupid. Now, I agree, a few million is better a hundred million. But a few million souls to stop one crazy guy that decided to push the red button? Then subsequently nuke hundreds/thousands/millions of his citizens? I don't think that's worth it. Killing a baby to save a billion lives? Just give me the weapon.

Regarding the whole buying nukes/EMP bombs off the blackmarket and such. I don't really think its a problem right now. Why? Because none of it has ever happened before, and even if it has, it must not have been very devastating, because it sure wasn't covered well by the media. You could say, "Yeah, but it MIGHT happen in the future!!! We need to be ready AHH!! We're all gonna die AHHH!!" But then you're a paranoid basketcase. Oh my god aliens haven't attacked us yet, but they might! Ahhhhh!

The WWII was jsut to show that militaries do attack civilians in a war. its sad but true

The EM Bomb thigny... not sure why I mentioned it really... just sort of a random thought. Dunno... streesful times, had a nice rant on random subjects in this and another thread or two... lol. Rants are fun

Okay. I've taken your advice and I've checked on China's facts. Among the literal plethora of .org sites (Including public CIA sites, China census sites, etc), never once did I see a population above 1.3 billion. Most were 1.2-1.3, nothing anywhere close to what your "official military intelligence" claims.

After having this discussion, I'm probably wrong about city targetting when it comes to nukes. I can admit that. (Though, I have to point out there are only two data points in history regarding nuke targetting, so none of us have a terribly great idea).

I also took your increasingly sarcastic advice and googled blackmarket EMP bombs, and also general EMP bomb information. In the BM search, I came up with game sites, CnC, Star Wars, a couple d20 games, etc. But I did read up on general EMP bomb information, pretty impressive stuff. According to everything I read, only first world countries really have EMP launch capability right now. Some projections said they will become very dangerous in about a decade as terrorist groups/other countries gain the capability.

It's definitely something to be aware of. Not as bad as nuclear weapons, but they would be pretty bad. You also must forgive my lack of faith in general world security, because I really doubt every 'attempt' at detonating an EMP bomb (or something else just as bad or worse) has been stopped. (I realize some haven't, hence some of the successful terrorist attacks around the world, but NOTHING has been near the scale of this stuff).

I'm having trouble reading that. Can you please spellcheck your posts?

I gather the gist of it is something along the lines of that the U.S. shouldn't nuke the rest of the world. Contrary to that belief, we already know that, and have absolutely no desire to kill everyone else. Our nuclear weapons are now a means of self-defense, nothing more.

To quote Stalin, "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."