Why some people still believe you can win a nuclear war when you obviously can't!?

Answer 1

Why some people think people talk english when you obviously can't!?

Answer 2

In a 2-megaton explosion over a fairly large city, buildings would be vaporized, people reduced to atoms and shadows, outlying structures blown down like matchsticks and raging fires ignited. And if the bomb were exploded on the ground, an enormous crater, like those that can be seen through a telescope on the surface of the Moon, would be all that remained where midtown once had been.

There are now more than 50,000 nuclear weapons, more than 13,000 megatons of yield, deployed in the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union -- enough to obliterate a million Hiroshimas.

But there are fewer than 3000 cities on the Earth with populations of 100,000 or more. You cannot find anything like a million Hiroshimas to obliterate. Prime military and industrial targets that are far from cities are comparatively rare. Thus, there are vastly more nuclear weapons than are needed for any plausible deterrence of a potential adversary.

Even small nuclear wars can have devastating climatic effects. A war in which a mere 100 megatons were exploded, less than one percent of the world arsenals, and only in low-yield airbursts over cities. This scenario would ignite thousands of fires, and the smoke from these fires alone would be enough to generate an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as in the 5000 megaton case. The threshold for the Nuclear Winter is very low.

Yeah, we might win, but the last man standing will be in deep silos for at least two years....

Answer 3

Your question is a lot more complex than you think it is. Therefore, my answer is going to be a lot more complex than you probably want it to be, but please bear with me on this.

You are probably thinking of nuclear war as an exchange of ICBMs between two superpowers with the resultant destruction of both countries, spread of radioactive dust, etc., as described in many books and movies. In this case, you would have to describe winning as survival. And you're right, in this case, there would probably be no winners.

However, the previous example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is perfectly valid. That is an example of use of nuclear weapons to win a war. Fortunately for the US, it worked. Had Japan continued to fight, both countries would have lost an estimated 1,000,000 more people before the war ended.

Another example of a nuclear war, and one that hasn't been used yet (thank God), is the use of tactical nuclear weapons on a limited battle front. This would be more like the WWII usage than what you are imagining. It would be a small yield weapon directed at a small area. It would be different in that it would be directed at a military force rather than a civilian target. It would also be considered only as a last resort, at least by the US, to keep an enemy from completely overrunning a position that we consider to be essential to keep. By definition, being limited to the one time use, it is conceivable to "win" using this tactic.

The use of nuclear weapons is not limited to an exchange of large yeild warheads. Q.E.D., some scenarios have outcomes that can be considered "winnable." However, the use of nuclear weapons in any context is something that no military has needed to use since WWII. Interestingly enough, we "won" the Cold War not by employing a nuclear force, but by the simple threat of developing a defense against nuclear attack.

It is my opinion that we have to figure out a way to "win" a nuclear war, not because one is winnable, but because nuclear weapons are a fact of life. They are here, and they are not, sadly, going to go away. We have to adapt to survive.

Answer 4

There is no reason to not do your best to mitigate the damage. If an active working missile defense shield means you only lose 3 cities instead of 8, then it was certainly worth it.

I do not see why so many folks think that if a nuke gets dropped, it's Armageddon and everyone needs to take the black suicide tablet and die.

Certainly, a nuclear war would be disastrous, but humanity will still crawl back out of its hiding places and rebuild.

Answer 5

In theory you can, but it would require a country to launch first and take out the entire nuclear arsenal of the other country. That would be very difficult to do, especially if the other countries arsenal includes submarine based missiles.

Note to I "Hate Liberals Is Back": at the end of world war two there were only 3 atomic bombs in existence and the US had them. You can't compare the situation then to the situation now.

Answer 6

Who says we can't?
We have the most advanced nukes -- enough to destroy the world -- and enough Patriot missiles to stop 95% of all inbound enemy missiles.
In a world-wide nuclear war, we would be the last ones standing; thus WE WIN!
Yea America!

Answer 7

Would you like to explain the War in the Pacifc? We dropped 2 Nukes and Japan surrendered.

Answer 8

Nuclear war isn't about winning.

It's about if you go down, you're taking them with you.

Answer 9

Nuclear war is about losing less than your enemy.

Answer 10

There are some out there who can think only about the length of their nose, and these are the dangerous ones!