If they have any value at all as a "deterrent", nuclear weapons are an instrument of terror.?

Question

Who then are the real terrorists who hold the world to ransom?

Answer 1

You have an interesting point, but I think you are making a false moral equivelancy here.

Terrorisim is defined as the deliberate targeting of non-combatants in order to create political change through fear and terror.

A terrorist is someone, normally a non-state actor, who deliberately goes after innocents, in order to create an atrocity. They want to kill as many NON-COMBATANTS as they can. Ironicly enough the attack on the Marine Barracks in Beriut would not be a terrorist attack... the attack on the Pentagon on 9-11 probably still would be because the terrorists used a civilian airliner full of kids, women, and men that were innocent. Had they used a stolen cargo plane, you might be able to argue it wasn't a terrorist attack. (Though in both cases the fact that the terrorists were not part of an organized military organization that wore uniforms and identified themselves as such would still put them outside the Geneva Convention rules.)

The Strategic Nuclear Weapons you speak of are the polar opposite. They are owned and run by uniformed militariy organizations of legitimate States for one thing. They are targeted on strategic military targets for another.

Now, if we agree that taking out the Pentagon is a legitimate military target, and using 50 kilotons to do it will cause a lot of what the military calls "colateral damage". This is true. It is also true that 5 year old kid is just as dead if he gets hit by 50 kt coming down on the air force base his daddy works ator if he gets hit by a Palestinian Kassam rocket that was aimed at his kindergarden.

However I think there is an important moral difference between the two cases. The palestinian is deliberately trying to kill children... the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces is not... they are trying to take out an American Air Force base, which is a legitimate military target.

Even more important is the fact that neither the Soviets nor the Ameircans used their nuclear weapons... those weapons were (as everyone said at the time) "made not to be used" they were made in the hopes they would never have to be used, and they wern't.

The terrorists make their weapons in the hopes they WILL be used...deterrance was all about NOT having to kill anyone, and it worked. Terrorisim is all about killing as many innocent people as you can.

Answer 2

Yes basically nuclear weapons tell people "if you attack us with nuclear weapons we will use our own on you" thereby something terrible will happen.

So basically you are assuming that the US is "holding the world ransom" because we have stated if you use nuclear weapons on us we will use them on you.

How are we holding the world ransom based on that? This is not WW2. The US has clearly stated that it will never again use nuclear weapons unless attacked with them first.

Your assumption is like me walking up to a police officer and telling him that he is holding me ransom by having a firearm.

If I attempt to use deadly force on the officer he will shoot me most likely.

Does the fact that I cant attempt to use deadly force on a police officer without being shot mean that the officer is holding me ransom? Of course not....

Who are the real terrorists? Those who intentionally kill civilians, period.

Your rhetoric will not be able to deny that fact from any reasonable person.

Answer 3

Nuclear weapons are a deterrent.
The commission of nuclear attack by any nation would be catastrophic, so the world is arguably safer because these weapons are stored and not used.

Answer 4

I think you've missed the point.
If you take an objective look at US history before Vietnam, the US was NEVER the aggressor. We were attacked by France, England, Mexico, Spain, Germany, and Japan, in that order, while trying to avoid conflict at each time. In Korea, we moved in to defend an ally, per our treaty with that ally, after our ally was attacked, and after diplomacy failed.
The policy of Nuclear Deterrence, and that of Mutually Assured Destruction, rose out of a collective frustration with being attacked by foreign powers.
The US has used nuclear weapons twice--against an implacable enemy who swore to never surrender, whose civilians were teaching their own children to be suicide bombers against US tanks...and whose Navy had initiated the war with several unprovoked surprise attacks that occurred 30 minutes BEFORE the declaration of war was delivered.
Since them, we have never employed this weapons against an enemy--we have only held them to be used if needed against someone we could not otherwise defend ourselves against. Notice, though, that the other countries who have them don't use them, either...because, in part, we promise to answer anyh use of those weapons in kind.
Meanwhile...terrorist organizations, supported by sovereign governments, continue to kidnap and murder our citizens. But we still don't use those weapons.
But it was the unprovoked atrocities of so-called civilized countries that drove US policy into being what it is today...since the "civilized world" was not content to have us as friends.

Answer 5

You sound like a CND protester. They are a deterrant in as much as we can fire back with the same might as a potential aggressor. Of course they are only terrifying if deployed otherwise they are no worse than any other weapon or suicide bomb.

Answer 6

You could say that about any weapon system.. The humble long bow struck terror into the hearts of the french at the battle of agencourt.

Answer 7

In a way, you are right and wrong depending on which angle you look at it. A nuke is like a gun, a policeman holding a gun and killing someone is legal but if a robber uses a gun then it is illegal. Its a deterrent when the robber knows you have one and its wiser to rob someone else.

Answer 8

Who are the real terrorists?

The ones in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and other harbinger countries of Al Keida, the Taliban, etc., the people responsible for 9/11, the Munich Olympics, the U.S. Embassy bombing in Lebanon, etc, ad infinitum.

THOSE are the real terrorists. Stop trying to twist it around.

Answer 9

The terrorists are the REAL terroists who hold the world for ransom.

I bet they want $1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.01 ...and they want that last penny just to piss us off. Freakin' terrorists.

Where's Team America when you need them?

Answer 10

nonsense, have you not heard of the principle of mutually assured destruction, for example during the coldwar if only one side had nuclear weapons the other side would have been destroyed. nuclear weapon have done more to instill peace than terror