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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (36929)	8/12/2002 8:00:18 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; [Warning: non PC post] Re: "My point is that the occupation of Europe was supposed to be temporary. That was the agreement reached at Yalta. But Stalin never had any plans on giving up the territory he had conquered, nor give the people occupied by Nazi Germany their self-determination." I agree. Re: "And when he finally obtained nuclear capability, the West lost any chance of being able to threaten him with nuclear attack if he didn't retreat to the border of the USSR." (1) We never threatened the Kremlin with nukes when we did have the "nuclear shield". This is a historical fact. (2) I think that where we differ is on the utility of nuclear weapons as a threat. It's my suggestion that if we had threatened the Soviets with nuclear weapons, either in 1948, or later when we still had massively more than they did, the result would have been no better and no worse than the Cuban missile crisis. They would have just stood there and said "GFYM". Then we would have admitted that we were bluffing. That's why we didn't do it, not because the people in charge of foreign policy then were morons. (3) Why didn't the Soviet's nuclear shield protect North Korea from our troops in 1952? Re: "Give him the opportunity to obtain nuclear weapons and he'll suddenly become the Joseph Stalin of the Mid-East, subjugating his neighbors and creating buffer states from which to spread his influence." I'm sorry, Hawk, but the historical facts are crystal clear. When the Communists attempted to subjugate neighbors (like Vietnam and Korea), the US responded militarily *despite the Soviet nuclear shield. This, as well as the post WW2 history in Europe, is simply incompatible with your theory of nuclear shields. All you have to support your theory is a pile of "woulda coulda shouldas". The historical record is clear. There is not a "nuclear shield" effect, as far as nuclear weapons allowing a nation to invade its neighbors without being thwarted militarily.* Come on, explain how the nuclear shield protected the attempted subjugation in Vietnam or Korea. Explain how the nuclear shield kept Reagan from arming the Afghans. The usual theory is that nuclear weapons only protect the homeland, they do not protect a nation's attacks on others. This theory accurately conforms to the historical reality. It's even spelled out in the nuke war white papers. Let me try and put you into a frame of mind to understand why this is the way that history reads, and why this is what the official doctrine is, rather than according to your theory of nuclear shields. Suppose you're the prime minister of Jordan. *Would you bend over when Saddam Hussein threatened to nuke you?* If you would, you're not near the man that I suspect you are. If you think that the Jordanians are made of substantially flimsier stuff than you, then you are very wrong. (If you doubt this, take a look at those Jordanian women, and imagine what an unshaved armpit is like.) So what would you do if you were the prime minister of Jordan and Saddam threatened you with nuclear destruction? Don't you think that you would consider calling up another nuclear power (U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel) and asking for them to place you under their "nuclear shield?" What nuclear weapons do is create what we, in our non PC youth, called a "Mexican Standoff", which is two people with loaded guns pointed at each other. Just because you have a gun doesn't mean that you can have your way in the world, unless you're willing to ignore what happens when you pull the trigger (or even flash the weapon publicly), or you're surrounded by people who love life more than absolutely anything else. If the neighbors of Iraq were populated only by hip swishing wusses, I can see how your fears of their being dominated by a "nuclear shield" would be valid. But they're not pansies. Like every other nation on this planet, the locals in the Middle East are populated by brutal game players, and they won't let Saddam win a game of Mexican Standoff with them. The reality of nuclear weapons is that they are a defensive weapon only. You put them in nuclear submarines and tell everyone that if you're attacked, you will have your revenge. You tell the Russians that if they come across the border, you're going to use tacticals on their armor. They're useless to threaten with because using them would bring the whole rest of the world down on you. That's why they're called "nuclear shields". If nuclear shields had a viable offensive roll they'd be called "nuclear swords" instead. -- Carl