Korea

[RedImperator]

Imperator, if you'd bothered reading, one of the skill it seem that you do not possess,

Funny how I seemed to have this skill during the four years I was studying political science and international relations, but what do I know? Maybe by reading, you mean, "reading bullshit nonexistant stipulations and conditions into the scenario" or "reading my mind to discover my deluded interpretation of a plain English question", in which case you're right, I can't read.

you'll note that this is a NK specific example. The poll was put up as what to do about the destruction of a U.S. city, not a policy regarding deterrent and future implications. You're extending this out to Russia and China looking forward. (Note that I did in fact say the end result of NK dropping a bomb somewhere on U.S. soil would result in massive conventional response coupled with occupation of that part of the Korean peninsula)

Kindly tell me where in the original post does it say "only in a hypothetical fantasy world where the United States and North Korea exist in a total geopolitical vacuum"? Because that's the only scenario in which you wouldn't consider future deterrence or the reaction of the rest of the fucking world. The question was, "What is a proper response to a North Korean attack on a U.S. city?" and that response, as me, Skimmer, and everyone else with a brain in this thread has argued, is nuclear.

I also noticed that you're perfectly willing to consider the rest of the world and the future when it's convenient to you. In your second post, you're worried about the stigmatism that comes with using nuclear weapons, but now you're telling me this idiotic idea that we're not supposed to consider the future, so who gives a flying fuck about stigmatism?

I'm looking at the situation after the bomb gets dropped where deterrent (with respect to NK) has failed. Then the next step is response. Which of course is the point of the poll. The entire point that Skimmer brought up was credibility of deterrent, once the bomb gets dropped, deterrent (against the guy who dropped the bomb) has failed.

Yes, deterrence has failed, and the result is hundreds of thousands of dead Americans and likely hundreds of thousands of dead Koreans no matter what the American response. Your response is to take actions that would encourage deterrence to fail again. Brilliant. At least in my solution, those deaths serve a purpose, visibly demonstrating to the rest of the world what happens to those who use WMD against Americans.

While you've managed to keep the sanctimony down in this post, this entire thread you've been puffing your chest over your imagined moral superiority. Yet your shortsightedness actually causes you to make a decision that places 290 million people in constant jeopardy from nuclear blackmail, destabilizes the world, and forces the United States into first strike situations where it once could rely on fear of its retaliation to prevent attacks. For all your self-important rambling, you've taken a course of action almost as immoral as glassing the country from the 38th parallel to the Yalu river.

The two of you are talking about something completely different from the original point. You are looking the situation after resolution of NK.

Which is the only fucking way someone with a brain would look at it.

So, let's talk about that for a moment, by not retaliating using nukes (for whatever reason) you are saying that the credibility of the U.S. govt and U.S. policies are diminished. So, let's examine that in a way that might shed a little more light on your idea of a credibility gap:

This should be good.

Hypothetical scenario:

Let us say chemical weapon had been deployed during the first gulf war by the Iraqis, Israeli civilians as well as U.S. personnel in the region suffer casualties as a result. However, the tactical forces on the ground are still intact and more than capable of ripping apart the Iraqis. What then?

By the U.S. deterrence doctrine, WMD (regardless of type) are the same. Do you think the U.S. would use nukes as a reaction to this chemical attack? I would venture to say that the application of WMD is highly dependent on situation. If chemical weapons were used, the likely response at that point would be the demise of the regime through conventional means, not nuclear weapons. The Iraqis would still be crushed.

First and foremost, the Israelis would have replied with nuclear weapons regardless of the U.S. response. For some unfathomable historical reason, they're a little sensitive about poison gas.

Leaving Israel out of it, we already know what the U.S. response would be. We would have smashed the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates and put Baghdad under 6 feet of water and we likely would have used small tactical weapons against Republican Guard formations.

"The application of WMD is highly dependent on the situation" is the first valid point you've made this post. Unfortunately, you're still selling everybody a false dilemma where the only two responses to a provocation are "do nothing" and "glass 'em". There are degrees of retaliation. That's why we have nuclear weapons with sub-kiloton yields and multi-megaton city busters in the same arsenal.

All that being said, this example is retarded. You're trying to compare the hypothetical American reaction to mustard gas shells lobbed at troops with chemical weapons gear in the field, and an unprovoked nuclear attack on an American city. I suppose if I'd said, "we probably wouldn't have used nukes then", you would have jumped all over that statement, saying that I didn't really believe in retaliating with WMDs for WMDs, utterly ignoring the qualatative difference between poison gas attacks on troops in the field during wartime and the unprovoked slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Americans on American soil.

But that would not make the concept of deterrent against (say the Soviet Union) any less credible. It doesn't mean that the Soviet leadership would suddenly decide that the Americans have no stomach to use nukes against WMDs, so let's nuke a few American installations.

It would have showed them nothing at all. The Soviets were never stupid. They would have understood our conventional advantage was so overwhelming and our sensitivity to world opinion so acute that showing restraint in the face of gas attacks was a viable option. And I really don't consider flooding Baghdad and most of the Tigris-Euphrates valley to be a "small" response anyway, another consideration that would have made Iraq a special case--in most places, we wouldn't have had the option to launch such a devestating conventional counterattack. And the whole point is moot if we reply with tacitcal nuclear weapons against the chemical batteries, which, in my opinion, is very likely.

Fast forward to today, the same situation still applies. Assuming WMD were deployed against the U.S. by NK, the options are to retaliate with nukes (limitd or other wise) or use conventional forces. It seems that you are saying that it would reduce American credibility with countries such as China if the U.S. crushed NK with conventional methods only. The reason would be because countries such as China would think that the U.S. would have no stomach to use WMDs in the future if by chance China did use WMDs against U.S. interests. Now is that an accurate assessment of what you're trying to say?

I love how North Korea hasn't used nuclear weapons anymore, they've used WMDs, as if they could have done anything from drop a hydrogen bomb on Los Angeles to sending the President a letter with boubonic plague inside. Just in case you've forgotten, they've nuked an American city unprovoked! Yes, it Goddamn well would destroy our credibility, not to mention the credibility of the administration which refused to reply with the American people. If somebody punches you in the fucking face and you don't respond, do you think other people will think, "Well, he stood there like a total pussy last time, but that doesn't mean he will again," or will they think, "We can push this fucking pansy around. He's too chickenshit to fight back even when someone sucker-punches him in the head"? Jesus Christ, I thought you would have learned this shit back in the second Goddamn grade.

This is what you'd call lunacy, it's the equivalent of a Chinese (insert any alternative you want here) leader saying: "Well the U.S. didn't nuke NK when they turned LA into a radioactive wasteland and they used conventional forces. Well, since our conventional forces are more than enough to stalemate the Americans, and we don't think they have the stomach to nuke us, let's go ahead and turn (put in a U.S. city here) into a pile of radioactive ash."

Well, why not? Give me one good and logical reason why China shouldn't think that, given that we didn't go nuclear against North Korea, which likely expended its arsenal (the second weapon undoubtedly going to Seoul, because a N. Korean nuclear attack on the U.S. WOULD be part of an invasion of South Korea), and China's third strike capability is enough to destroy the 10 or 15 largest American cities, we wouldn't respond to another nuclear provocation. We didn't respond with nuclear weapons against a country that was helpless against them, why would we against a country with a ballistic missile submarine and ICBMs?

Now, you mentioned Sept 11th, I'm not sure about what your point is there. But let's talk on that for a moment, let us say Al Qaeda managed to use and improvised nuclear device instead of airplanes and that kills tens of thousands. Are you saying that the response would necessarily be the glassing of Afghanistan simply as a matter of credibilty?

My point was that you were playing down American casualties from a nuclear strike on a major city to the level of a conventional terrorist attack, while using realistic numbers for the U.S. counterstrike, stealthily making our response look disproportionate to the provocation. As for the rest of that paragraph, it's a complete Goddamn red herring. Al Queda is not a nation state and was not synonymous with the government of Afghanistan. Deterrence is a policy designed to deter nation states, not fucknuts who think there are 70 virgins wating for them in Paradise if they vaporize enough people for Allah.

All that being said, we probably would have used small, 1kt weapons against certain Al Queda positions, and possibly against Taliban military forces. Again, you and that false dilemma. There are responses between "no nukes" and "glass the entire country".

Granted, it would be much easier than deploying conventional forces, and I don't think people would miss Afghanistan all that much. But that threshold and rationale for using nukes would likely be a little more intelligent than retaliation in kind which would not necessarily have accomplished its purpose.

We still would have deployed conventional forces (or, more accurately, would have supported the Northern Alliance's bid to retake the country). All a nuclear terrorist attack would have done was "take the gloves off", so to speak, so that we could use tactical nuclear devices in situations where we otherwise would have had to use very large conventional weapons.

If you've read this far, I guess I might actually be impressed, the point that I'm making is that the use of WMD does not necessarily require a response in kind in order to preserve credibility.

What point? You haven't made any point at all. You've blathered about situations that aren't remotely analogous to the one being discussed and gibbered that you've proven a nuclear response to the nuclear destruction of an American city is unnecessary. I can't believe someone who can't tell the difference between Al Queda and a nation state, or gas shells against troops in the desert and the destruction of an entire city, is smart enough to use a computer. Perhaps one of Huxley's infinite monkeys has gotten Internet access.