What functions do nuclear weapons serve? Are they justifiabe?

Answer 1

Sure they are. They prevented a war between Russia and the USA after WWII.

Answer 2

Mutual Assured Destruction -- MAD

As much as I hate war, the deterrence is there. I seriously doubt we'll ever have a WW III as envisioned by Hollywood. It is far too destructive and the outcome is worse then the reason, far worse.

I support a countries right to have nukes. I do not support the right of a country to have an unlimited amount of them.

I also believe it should be illegal for any country, individual, state or company to sell any kind of firearms or war making material to another country or individual that is not a citizen of that country.

In short, shut down the military industrial complex.

Nukes, as horrible as they are, are a hell of a deterrence to war.

In as much, in the states, if all citizens were allowed to carry a concealed weapon, crime would be reduced because the bad guy would not know who is packing. In affect, a country knowing another has nukes will have exactly the same affect.

Peace

Jim

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Answer 3

Effectively, they are a deterrant. No government genuinley expects to have to use them, but by having them available they cannot be intimidated by other countries threatening with a nuclear attack.

This was a key feature of the Cold War, the USA and USSR kept building bigger and better missiles. Never were they actually used, but the USA wanted to let the USSR know that if America was ever attacked by a nuke, then Russia would receive bigger nuke attacks, and vice versa - preventing nukes from ever being used.

It's a huge paradox really, the idea was known as Mutual Assured Destruction or, quite fittingly, by the acronym "MAD".

If you want to learn about it in more detail, check my source page.


EDIT: Yes, America did use two nukes at the end of WWII. The public motive was stated as to end the war with Japan quickly, but it's generally thought by historians that Japan were on the brink of surrender anyway. Quite a common viewpoint is that America dropped the nukes for two reasons - to test them in a genuine combat situation and to show the rest of the world, especially the Russians, that they had developed a weapon of such power and should be feared (linking in with the M.A.D. idea)

Answer 4

are they justifiable yes because of the purpose they serve

the purpose they serve was known in the cold war as
'Mutual Assured Destruction' or MAD for short (this is an actual military phrase and not a joke as it sound)

Mutual Assured Destruction - this phrase means that if a country i.e. the usa or ussr was fired upon they would then and ONLY then fire there nuclear weapons. it was a signed agreement believe it or not between the two countries signed by the russian premier and the us president (jfk and kruschiev) after the cuban missile crisis. it was hoped that MAD would ensure that the cold war stayed cold due to the assurance that if us/ussr missiles were detected on radar they would immediately retaliate thus no- one would fire first.

however, the use of nuclear arms proliferation - by n. korea and Iran - while not having entered into a M.A.D. agreement is defensible if looked in the same way .....i.e. we wont use them if we are not attacked. If you believe this is the case that they are trust worthy states and they would in essence be bombed out of existence if they did use nuclear bombs themselves. so in many respects MAD still exists today

Answer 5

The ultimate weapon serves as a detterent to outsiders. If I'm the president of a country and another country wants to wage war with my all I have to do is wave the red button and hopefully they change their mind. Unfortunately in our day and age, with America's war adventures around the world, America has actually encouraged the spread of nuclear weapons. Compare Iraq and North Korea. We attacked Iraq because it didn't have any even though Bush falsely claimed so. North Korea has not been attacked and because of this many nations are starting to say, "Hey if we have nukes then we will be safe. Ofcourse others will threaten us with sanctions and so forth but that's as far as they'll go." If this trend continues then the human races is at risk

Answer 6

Yes. They are.

Firstly. They are weapons. "nuclear" has a public stigma and fear-factor attached, bred in from the cold war. But they are still effective weapons.

Of course, it's cheaper (and better) to spend your money building up air force, artillery, navy, army etc if you're after destructive power. At least, doing that *first*. Especialy an Army first, but certainly an air force. air superiority is a dangerous thing. But actually, building up a air force (on your own) is MORE EXPENSIVE than hundreds of nukes. Course, you can buy planes from others, but that's no way to get air superiority against them.

For example, do you really care if a nuke kills you, or a bomb kils you? Conventional bombing and artillery can GROSSLY outweigh the damage, energy release and loss of life. I mean, a thousand times over. WW2 is a great example. Four dozen flights from a flying fortress outweighed energy release of nukes used in war (BOTH OF THEM). Also, I should mention, The nukes were also delivered by superior airforce during a time that losing was INEVITABLE. No nukes, wouldn't have mattered at all for outcome.

Secondly, If you have superior nuclear force (ie:10,000+ or high kt/mt yields), along with reliable method of delivery - that acts as an extreme deterrant against conventional force, even superior conventional force. The only way for takeover here is getting immense support within that nation, such as a coup - or economic leaning.

As for other places, like North Korea, Iran, etc. They are justifiable, only because how much undue importance is placed upon them. If we were so worried about "aircraft carriers" and would grant them soooo much political power and resources that vastly outweighed buildind that "aircraft carrier", of course, they would be building aircraft carriers and not nukes. It's NOT A WEAPON IN THIS CASE. It's politics. They grant that nation immense political bargening capability. Mainly from poor foreign policy.

This has NOTHING to do with the actual weapon itself. Yay, North Korea destroys maybe 1 city block, at best, in a city in California. Lol wildfires did more damage than 2000 piddly north korea nukes (if you take their test as an example). But, then the North Korea can't be inhabited safely for 10,000 years afterwards from the all-out-nuclear counterattack, without regard. It's just absurd. .5kt. 500 tons TNT = North Korea. USA, 40 MT, 40,000,000 tons TNT and that's just um, 1 nuke. And only um, tests from 50 years ago, before ban on testing, think they didn't improve?

In this way, it's not a weapon. Not even close to. It's a means to not have world powers sit on your face if you aren't a "nuclear power" or, alternatively, to attain bargening power or resources that vastly outweighs the resources to create a nuke (and dismantling it). Justified then. Smart, and obvious, move.

(BTW, people saying "using a nuke to take out other nukes" is ******* stupid. You can attack a silo OPENING all you want. Damage the silo, fine, underground the nuke just gets relocated to a new silo. Doesn't matter, since already obviously the nation possesses the ability to extract isotopes and construct ICBMs. Going underground with them is ..... like..... um, "Jesus tech", like 2000 years old. lol. A nuke will do didly squat on an underground facility. It would even provide less force to it than "bunker buster" traditional aircraft launched explosives, at least those bury in the ground under high velocity before exploding. You can, however, certainly use a nuke to take out economic interests that fund it. Or government or military interests that control it. Or facilities that support making more of them.................)

Answer 7

kaboom!
they blow stuff up.

are they justifiable?
it is debateable that other large wars would have broken out without nuclear deterrent.

I dont think the large numbers of nuclear weapons in the US and Russia's arsenal are justifiable in any way. I also think that the large numbers of nuclear weapons owned by those two countries encourage other countries to try to get them more.

Answer 8

I don't think that anyone would disagree that it would be better if they were never developed. However, the technology used to develop the has also lead to other technology developments that are good. One such example is a better understanding of the atom, which has helped us to better understand physics at the atomic level.

Would you say that a rapist was justified if his son cured cancer? It is a catch-22 situation.

Answer 9

weather there justifiable or not there here to stay--functions-they scare people and countries and can be used like holding a hammer over someone's head--nuke power is fine if you dont live next to the plant

Answer 10

If the US and USSR did not have them we would have went to war in the 1950s. There is no doubt about it.

The irony is they are such a horrible weapon no one wants to use the or have them used on them, so they keep peace.