And they will cheat and steal and lie and fight and die for their "right" to take your money and tell you what to do. Now what?
That sort of person doesn't die for free lunch. This reminds me of the vicious infighting in the Third French Republic prior to being overrun by the Nazis at the beginning of the Second World War. The right-wing which had somewhat similar fiscal views to myself on government made the decision to collaborate with the Nazis in part because they could implement without contest the policies they desired and which couldn't be done in the crippled pre-war years.
That eagerness to force people to do what they considered to be the right thing damned them. I will not go that route. If it comes to outright civil war, sure, I'll help the mooching class with the fighting and especially the dying, but otherwise they have to learn things for themselves - such as when everyone is a thief then there's no one to steal from.
There's the "Team B" report. Basically, it claims the CIA estimates of USSR nuclear strength and capabilities were short throughout the early 70s and I think made a good case for that. They also made a good case that the USSR was more aggressive and had a different nuclear strategy than the US had. That is particularly important since a lot of the 70s strategy was dependent on the USSR being equally unwilling to enter into a nuclear war.
The irony is that the Team B reports went the other way from the CIA reports, exaggerating USSR strength and intent.
My view is that the Soviets had a strategy to build a far larger nuclear arsenal and use its presence in a "soft" sense to sway third parties and influence psychologically the decision making of the US and its strongest allies, rather than to threaten the US directly. The "Team B" affair, the subsequent election of President Reagan a few years later, and the neo-con movement may have been unintended consequences of this strategy.
The bit about Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia getting nukes because Iran has them? That's standard balance of power. If a sometime enemy has a powerful weapon and you don't, then you're at a disadvantage until you do get the weapon in question or have some similar power.
For example, Turkey might as a future member of the EU and ally of the US count on a nuclear reprisal from either EU members or the US. Or it might have to depend on its own arsenal of nuclear weapons due to the unreliability of these allies.
I'd worry more about India's nuclear weapons stocks as they face an existential threat from their nuclear rivals, Pakistan and China.
Fixed it for you. Recall that India developed its first nuclear bomb in response to the Chinese not the Pakistanis. And that India also shares a common border with China.
A the moment the Chinese have no usable SSBNs never mind the small number (three minimum, one on patrol, one working up, one being refitted and if possible one spare above that) needed to maintain a credible second-strike worldwide retaliatory capability all the other members of the Big Five possess.
"At the moment." It's clear that China is working hard to change this and that they have the resources to do so. My view is that China will be a true superpower inside of 50 years and when it does, it will have a considerable nuclear capability of some sort. How much and the nature of the delivery systems will depend on who's in charge then and what their strategic goals are.
As I understand it, you can get Pu-238 this way, but only mixed in with your Pu-239. They are very hard to separate since they differ in mass by just under half a percent.
No, it's a trade agreement wherein two of the participating countries have nuclear weapons. The EU doesn't command a single solider from its member states, much less the nuclear weapons possessed by the UK and France.
Yet. Once again, I don't see the point of extrapolation from the current state of affairs. Today the EU may be just a "trade agreement" (which it already really isn't BTW), in 2050 it could be an empire with a growing nuclear arsenal.
Anyone who has studied the history of intelligence in the arms race would know that initial reports on Soviet capabilities were talked up so the departments could get budget.
So you wouldn't be interested to know that CIA estimates of USSR nuclear forces fell short throughout the 70s? That's not much of a "talk up".
It's a trade agreement with government and nuclear weapons.
The UK is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States in the event of a major nuclear conflict; the Royal Navy is even part of the American SIOP. Other NATO countries (Germany and Belgium) have access to American nuclear weapons under sharing agreements in the event of a major conflict, while France is also a member of NATO.
Where's your guarantee that this state of affairs will continue for the next fifty years? I don't see the point of extrapolating the current state of affairs to the indefinite future especially when it is obviously in flux.
Nuclear weapons don't require toilet paper last I checked. The USSR and communist China both probably had issues with toilet paper as well, but that didn't keep them out of the nuclear club.
I take it you have an opinion on the matter? Mind sharing it? As I understand it, they're trying to get nuclear weapons and they haven't succeeded yet. So the "if" applies. Nothing "naive" about that.
It is exactly from past experiences. Iran has seen Israel defeat enemies many times larger then itself without using anything as advanced as nuclear bombs.
Iran has never been at war with Israel except by proxy, meddling in the affairs of Lebanon. I bet without that particular entanglement, Israel wouldn't have bothered to meddle with Iran's nuclear program.
If we could create an internet governence that grows slowly are delibrately keeps excessive numbers of the "fucktards" out, then there might be hope.
I agree with the original poster here. I don't think that is possible. This scheme will work ok until someone comes in who abuses the power. It could be right away or take a few years, but it would happen.
Unlike Israel, if Iran gets nukes, then that's going to be big incentive for a bunch of other countries to get them, including Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. It also provides a channel for getting nukes to South America, should the military cooperation between Venezuela and Iran still be in effect.
Again, you've changed the criteria to multiple horses.
Which is an obvious thing to do since it both was used in history at the time of the Black Death and demonstrates a counterexample to the somewhat off-topic claim I was arguing against.
There is no means of defeating a MAD strategy. Your enemy can only get so dead, and the same goes with you.
The problem with that assertion is that even a full blown nuclear war doesn't get you dead enough. The USSR thought there was considerable advantage to the strategy I mentioned, resulting in their strategy of building up nuclear forces throughout the 70s and early 80s. If the US hadn't countered by building up its own nuclear forces, then things might have gotten a lot hairier in the late 80s.
A foe knowing that the US has the potential in place to rebuild a large nuclear force in a short span of time is far less likely to even entertain the strategy. In other words, I see the potential to expand nuclear weapons as being necessary to insure that countries don't actually do so.
Russia, China, and the EU are the obvious counterexamples to that claim that no one has the potential to outmatch the US on nuclear forces. Other countries or groups of countries may achieve that status as well in the coming decades. And MAD is countered by you have inadequately destructive forces to assure your share of the destruction.
If we're not planning on reducing our arsenal anymore, then we're already in violation of the treaty, so we might as well stop complaining when our enemies start developing their own weapons.
Why is that implied? The problem here is that if you do have to expand your nuclear force for purpose of survival MAD-wise, whether in violation of the treaty or not, then you need to have some capability in place to do so.
The problem is that nuclear tigers aren't imaginary enough. In the past sixty years they've killed up to a quarter of a million people and have the potential to kill billions of people at any time.
I really don't think that's an actual good counter to a MAD situation..
The problem is that MAD is merely weakly so. If it were the difference between making the rubble bounce once or ten times, it wouldn't matter. But the difference between partial and a far more complete destruction can be good enough to weaken or negate the purpose of MAD.
What makes this "unnecessarily" ambitious rather than "necessarily" ambitious? Overwhelming nuclear force by a foe remains a means of defeating a MAD strategy. You can't counter that unless you have the capability to expand your own nuclear force in response.
It's only a freaking website that cost more than $600 million dollars. I suspect that these usual suspects will have moved on to the cost of fixing healthcare.gov by then.
By the next election this thing is going to blow up in Republicans faces big time.
Not at all. By then the Obama administration will have moved on to doing other dumb, arrogant things. It's a bonfire of incompetence and small-mindedness that never runs out of fuel.
Slashdot Mirror
And they will cheat and steal and lie and fight and die for their "right" to take your money and tell you what to do. Now what?
That sort of person doesn't die for free lunch. This reminds me of the vicious infighting in the Third French Republic prior to being overrun by the Nazis at the beginning of the Second World War. The right-wing which had somewhat similar fiscal views to myself on government made the decision to collaborate with the Nazis in part because they could implement without contest the policies they desired and which couldn't be done in the crippled pre-war years.
That eagerness to force people to do what they considered to be the right thing damned them. I will not go that route. If it comes to outright civil war, sure, I'll help the mooching class with the fighting and especially the dying, but otherwise they have to learn things for themselves - such as when everyone is a thief then there's no one to steal from.
What do you mean by "fell short?"
There's the "Team B" report. Basically, it claims the CIA estimates of USSR nuclear strength and capabilities were short throughout the early 70s and I think made a good case for that. They also made a good case that the USSR was more aggressive and had a different nuclear strategy than the US had. That is particularly important since a lot of the 70s strategy was dependent on the USSR being equally unwilling to enter into a nuclear war.
The irony is that the Team B reports went the other way from the CIA reports, exaggerating USSR strength and intent.
My view is that the Soviets had a strategy to build a far larger nuclear arsenal and use its presence in a "soft" sense to sway third parties and influence psychologically the decision making of the US and its strongest allies, rather than to threaten the US directly. The "Team B" affair, the subsequent election of President Reagan a few years later, and the neo-con movement may have been unintended consequences of this strategy.
The bit about Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia getting nukes because Iran has them? That's standard balance of power. If a sometime enemy has a powerful weapon and you don't, then you're at a disadvantage until you do get the weapon in question or have some similar power.
For example, Turkey might as a future member of the EU and ally of the US count on a nuclear reprisal from either EU members or the US. Or it might have to depend on its own arsenal of nuclear weapons due to the unreliability of these allies.
I'd worry more about India's nuclear weapons stocks as they face an existential threat from their nuclear rivals, Pakistan and China.
Fixed it for you. Recall that India developed its first nuclear bomb in response to the Chinese not the Pakistanis. And that India also shares a common border with China.
A the moment the Chinese have no usable SSBNs never mind the small number (three minimum, one on patrol, one working up, one being refitted and if possible one spare above that) needed to maintain a credible second-strike worldwide retaliatory capability all the other members of the Big Five possess.
"At the moment." It's clear that China is working hard to change this and that they have the resources to do so. My view is that China will be a true superpower inside of 50 years and when it does, it will have a considerable nuclear capability of some sort. How much and the nature of the delivery systems will depend on who's in charge then and what their strategic goals are.
As I understand it, you can get Pu-238 this way, but only mixed in with your Pu-239. They are very hard to separate since they differ in mass by just under half a percent.
No, it's a trade agreement wherein two of the participating countries have nuclear weapons. The EU doesn't command a single solider from its member states, much less the nuclear weapons possessed by the UK and France.
Yet. Once again, I don't see the point of extrapolation from the current state of affairs. Today the EU may be just a "trade agreement" (which it already really isn't BTW), in 2050 it could be an empire with a growing nuclear arsenal.
Even if you were right, which you aren't, no country has sufficient infrastructure to sustain a direct attack on the US.
Today. One doesn't prepare for the future by assuming it'll be the same as today.
Anyone who has studied the history of intelligence in the arms race would know that initial reports on Soviet capabilities were talked up so the departments could get budget.
So you wouldn't be interested to know that CIA estimates of USSR nuclear forces fell short throughout the 70s? That's not much of a "talk up".
We don't have inadequate destructive forces, we can literally blow up every major city on Earthy a multiple of 2 times. Closer to 10 times.
That's not good enough to defeat a large military power which has deliberated hardened itself against nuclear attack. And 2 is not very close to 10.
The EU isn't a country, it's a trade agreement.
It's a trade agreement with government and nuclear weapons.
The UK is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States in the event of a major nuclear conflict; the Royal Navy is even part of the American SIOP. Other NATO countries (Germany and Belgium) have access to American nuclear weapons under sharing agreements in the event of a major conflict, while France is also a member of NATO.
Where's your guarantee that this state of affairs will continue for the next fifty years? I don't see the point of extrapolating the current state of affairs to the indefinite future especially when it is obviously in flux.
Nuclear weapons don't require toilet paper last I checked. The USSR and communist China both probably had issues with toilet paper as well, but that didn't keep them out of the nuclear club.
"if Iran gets nukes" - you are so fucking naive.
I take it you have an opinion on the matter? Mind sharing it? As I understand it, they're trying to get nuclear weapons and they haven't succeeded yet. So the "if" applies. Nothing "naive" about that.
It is exactly from past experiences. Iran has seen Israel defeat enemies many times larger then itself without using anything as advanced as nuclear bombs.
Iran has never been at war with Israel except by proxy, meddling in the affairs of Lebanon. I bet without that particular entanglement, Israel wouldn't have bothered to meddle with Iran's nuclear program.
Why do you think Iran is trying to get nukes in the first place?
Power play for the Middle East. Same reason that Iraq wanted them in the 80s and should have made sure they had them before they invaded Kuwait.
If we could create an internet governence that grows slowly are delibrately keeps excessive numbers of the "fucktards" out, then there might be hope.
I agree with the original poster here. I don't think that is possible. This scheme will work ok until someone comes in who abuses the power. It could be right away or take a few years, but it would happen.
Unlike Israel, if Iran gets nukes, then that's going to be big incentive for a bunch of other countries to get them, including Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. It also provides a channel for getting nukes to South America, should the military cooperation between Venezuela and Iran still be in effect.
Again, you've changed the criteria to multiple horses.
Which is an obvious thing to do since it both was used in history at the time of the Black Death and demonstrates a counterexample to the somewhat off-topic claim I was arguing against.
There is no means of defeating a MAD strategy. Your enemy can only get so dead, and the same goes with you.
The problem with that assertion is that even a full blown nuclear war doesn't get you dead enough. The USSR thought there was considerable advantage to the strategy I mentioned, resulting in their strategy of building up nuclear forces throughout the 70s and early 80s. If the US hadn't countered by building up its own nuclear forces, then things might have gotten a lot hairier in the late 80s.
A foe knowing that the US has the potential in place to rebuild a large nuclear force in a short span of time is far less likely to even entertain the strategy. In other words, I see the potential to expand nuclear weapons as being necessary to insure that countries don't actually do so.
Russia, China, and the EU are the obvious counterexamples to that claim that no one has the potential to outmatch the US on nuclear forces. Other countries or groups of countries may achieve that status as well in the coming decades. And MAD is countered by you have inadequately destructive forces to assure your share of the destruction.
If we're not planning on reducing our arsenal anymore, then we're already in violation of the treaty, so we might as well stop complaining when our enemies start developing their own weapons.
Why is that implied? The problem here is that if you do have to expand your nuclear force for purpose of survival MAD-wise, whether in violation of the treaty or not, then you need to have some capability in place to do so.
The problem is that nuclear tigers aren't imaginary enough. In the past sixty years they've killed up to a quarter of a million people and have the potential to kill billions of people at any time.
I really don't think that's an actual good counter to a MAD situation..
The problem is that MAD is merely weakly so. If it were the difference between making the rubble bounce once or ten times, it wouldn't matter. But the difference between partial and a far more complete destruction can be good enough to weaken or negate the purpose of MAD.
What makes this "unnecessarily" ambitious rather than "necessarily" ambitious? Overwhelming nuclear force by a foe remains a means of defeating a MAD strategy. You can't counter that unless you have the capability to expand your own nuclear force in response.
How many directors do you think want to have interns smearing Black actors with vaseline between shots?
Given that everyone in the shot was smeared with something, that can't be hard.
It's only a freaking website.
It's only a freaking website that cost more than $600 million dollars. I suspect that these usual suspects will have moved on to the cost of fixing healthcare.gov by then.
By the next election this thing is going to blow up in Republicans faces big time.
Not at all. By then the Obama administration will have moved on to doing other dumb, arrogant things. It's a bonfire of incompetence and small-mindedness that never runs out of fuel.