"So we might shoot down 90% of the warheads but
the number of people who are going to survive will not be any different?!?"
While the immediate deaths might be somewhat different, the final count will likely be similar. A couple of hundred warheads is going to mess up the major cities just as well as several thousand. But even if no cities are hit, once EMP wipes out everything electronic that is attached to more than a couple of square mm of metal, the die off is going to be something serious. Think of it, no cars or trucks, except for those that don't have electronic ignition or electronic fuel injection (i.e. nothing built in the past couple of decades), no electricity and no communications. And no real hope of restoring any of that without rebuilding much of the present infrastructure. Now even if you assume that people in the cities will just sit there and starve, as the majority likely will, the farming communities won't be all that much better off. Probably no one farms in the integrated, subsistence manner that was common when my father was young, at least none of my cousins that still farm do it. So the first winter after such an attack would be a gate through which only 20 or 30 million would be able to pass. If there is a significant number of people who aren't content to quietly starve to death, those numbers would be on the high side...
"Or China could possibly deter the US from interfering against an invasion of Taiwan by even the threat (directly spoken or very subtle and idirect) of a nuclear attack."
I'll grant you that prior to 9/11, that is a strategy that might have worked for China. I don't think it would in the present climate.
As I stated, we should research ways to deal with such an attack. However, implementation should be based on something that provides hope of it actually doing some good. You don't want to build a Maginot Line equivalent. While it did it's job, all the Nazis had to do was to invade France through countries that didn't face the Line. It is hard to argue that the money was wisely spent... |
