I'm going to kill my karma on this, but..
Atomic weapons have only twice ever been used in offence. Yes, the US was the one who dropped them, but that has been the first and last time this was really "possible". (After all.. we were the only ones who had the capability at the time, hence the ability to "get away with it").
The nuke today is NOT a tactial offensive weapon. You gain nothing but scorched earth if you Nuke some place. You can not viably threaten to nuke a country that has such capability, or nuclear capabale allies (or if you have such in enemies). Even when the US used the bombs on Japan, the idea was not to "capture" japan but to demonstrate that we now had such force to wipe the islands clean. The threat of destruction is in some cases what prevents the use of the bombs today. For instance: should the bitter enemies of Inida and Pakistan seriously threaten to use such a weapon (or north korea, or iran, or any other country) you would have every other nuclear capable country pointing it's nukes at them, similar to a gun toting robber in a police station.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to kill my karma on this, but.. Atomic weapons have only twice ever been used in offence. Yes, the US was the one who dropped them, but that has been the first and last time this was really "possible". (After all.. we were the only ones who had the capability at the time, hence the ability to "get away with it"). The nuke today is NOT a tactial offensive weapon. You gain nothing but scorched earth if you Nuke some place. You can not viably threaten to nuke a country that has such capability, or nuclear capabale allies (or if you have such in enemies). Even when the US used the bombs on Japan, the idea was not to "capture" japan but to demonstrate that we now had such force to wipe the islands clean. The threat of destruction is in some cases what prevents the use of the bombs today. For instance: should the bitter enemies of Inida and Pakistan seriously threaten to use such a weapon (or north korea, or iran, or any other country) you would have every other nuclear capable country pointing it's nukes at them, similar to a gun toting robber in a police station.