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Likely Reaction to Rogue State Nuclear Strike

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  • Likely Reaction to Rogue State Nuclear Strike

    As kind of a sidebar to a previous thread, what if Pakistan, North Korea or Iran were to resort to a nuclear strike in the event of a conflict? How do you think the US and its allies would react to it? Sit on the sidelines and let events unfold? Try to open negotiations? Issue strong statements of condemnation and economic sanctions? Or does it require immediate retaliation? With conventional weapons targeting suspected launch sites? With ICBMs or SLBMs? It's a fire that you have to put out, isn't it?

  • #2
    IMO, there would probably be prompt conventional strikes to disarm the perpetrator. With current weapons, nukes in response wouldn't be necessary - and would needlessly add to the civilian death toll.
    sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
    If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Red Seven View Post
      As kind of a sidebar to a previous thread, what if Pakistan, North Korea or Iran were to resort to a nuclear strike in the event of a conflict? How do you think the US and its allies would react to it? Sit on the sidelines and let events unfold? Try to open negotiations? Issue strong statements of condemnation and economic sanctions? Or does it require immediate retaliation? With conventional weapons targeting suspected launch sites? With ICBMs or SLBMs? It's a fire that you have to put out, isn't it?
      In the event of a conflict with whom? In case of a Pakistani first-strike on India, the US will probably be doing two things in parallel (a) letting India handle Pakistan as it wishes within the Indian sub-continent, and (b) mollifying and threatening, I mean "negotiating", India about further actions arching outside the sub-continent. Once the nukes have started flying, the world will have only one option -- to try and contain the damage to the the sub-continent (geography helps).

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      • #4
        Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
        IMO, there would probably be prompt conventional strikes to disarm the perpetrator. With current weapons, nukes in response wouldn't be necessary - and would needlessly add to the civilian death toll.
        USSW, Iran and Pakistan cannot touch the US... their main targets are two other nuclear powers, and secondarily each other. The aggrieved parties can take care of themselves and then some. At that point of time they won't caring about civilian death toll, maybe they will even be trying to take down as many of their enemies. The US will be more worried about who else they count as their enemies; the civilian populace of the countries, which bred and sustained the perps, will be low priority on the To Save List. The people of these countries MUST understand that. Only from that understanding will the people consciously work towards taking back control over their governments and putting in place responsible and rational parties.

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        • #5
          Cactus Reply

          "...The people of these countries MUST understand that..."

          This is a powerful but intentionally-diminished notion in internat'l conflict jurisprudence and must be re-established. Whether nuclear or conventional, the civil populace takes responsibility for the government it maintains in power. No government on earth can sustain itself in the face of a civil population determined to oust it from power. As such, there are degrees of complicity with every government currently existing anywhere.

          A civil population which stands mute, whether witnessing the planting of an IED or the crimes of a rogue government share in that blame. Yes, even the N. Koreans. If their own internal moral compass have been so altered to be terribly askew with the rest of mankind then you can trust that their worldview is utterly alien and disdainful to the rest of us. THEY become the enemy, en toto, until proven by their actions otherwise.
          "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
          "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Cactus View Post
            USSW, Iran and Pakistan cannot touch the US... their main targets are two other nuclear powers, and secondarily each other. The aggrieved parties can take care of themselves and then some. At that point of time they won't caring about civilian death toll, maybe they will even be trying to take down as many of their enemies. The US will be more worried about who else they count as their enemies; the civilian populace of the countries, which bred and sustained the perps, will be low priority on the To Save List. The people of these countries MUST understand that. Only from that understanding will the people consciously work towards taking back control over their governments and putting in place responsible and rational parties.
            This might be true in conventional warfare, where armies fire rockets or launch bombers. But in today's world, snivelling sneak attacks using airliners, container ships or trucks- no one is beyond the reach of being attacked. As 911 demonstrated to Americans and the world, even a rag tag group of cowards can attack the most powerful countries - and take many lives.
            sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
            If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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            • #7
              IMO, the days of total war, with whole countries fighting honorably is disappearing (if it ever existed in the first place). Wars have, IMO, almost always been provoked and instigated at the behest of a few people, though they have had popular support and have united entire countries.

              Surgical strikes - aimed at the actual perpetrators appears to be the direction of future warfare - while the civilians of countries need to get their governments to behave as part of the world community and see one another as neighbors - instead of enemies - the time it will take to do this will permit the corrupt and inhuman factions to do considerable damage in the near term.
              sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
              If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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              • #8
                Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
                This might be true in conventional warfare, where armies fire rockets or launch bombers. But in today's world, snivelling sneak attacks using airliners, container ships or trucks- no one is beyond the reach of being attacked. As 911 demonstrated to Americans and the world, even a rag tag group of cowards can attack the most powerful countries - and take many lives.
                USSW, I agree, but that would be more along the lines of a terrorist attack (covered here http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/int...n-mounted.html) than nuclear warfare by a rogue state.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by USSWisconsin View Post
                  Surgical strikes - aimed at the actual perpetrators appears to be the direction of future warfare - while the civilians of countries need to get their governments to behave as part of the world community and see one another as neighbors - instead of enemies - the time it will take to do this will permit the corrupt and inhuman factions to do considerable damage in the near term.
                  Sir, I am absolutely with both Cactus and S2 on this. Surgical strikes in the event of a first nuclear strike are just too little too late. The doctrine should be clear. Kill a thousand of them for every one of yours killed. Anything short of that implicit exponential promised retribution will lack the necessary sting to jolt mass indifference/passive emotive collusion into galvanizing necessary action to save their own collective backside.

                  We need to make the environment non-conducive to a population allowing such rogue elements to not only exist and thrive unhindered, but actually call the shots. If the promise of killing them all is what it would take from our side, most of us would not spend more than a moment in giving such our collective national tacit approval. If it means incremental responses to each act of aggression from their side, spanning the entire spectrum of choice and nature and scale of response, so that the point is driven home, then so be it.
                  Last edited by vsdoc; 26 Jun 11,, 08:04.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by vsdoc View Post
                    Sir, I am absolutely with both Cactus and S2 on this. Surgical strikes in the event of a first nuclear strike are just too little too late. The doctrine should be clear. Kill a thousand of them for every one of yours killed. Anything short of that implicit exponential promised retribution will lack the necessary sting to jolt mass indifference/passive emotive collusion into galvanizing necessary action to save their own collective backside.

                    We need to make the environment non-conducive to a population allowing such rogue elements to not only exist and thrive unhindered, but actually call the shots. If the promise of killing them all is what it would take from our side, most of us would not spend more than a moment in giving such our collective national tacit approval. If it means incremental responses to each act of aggression from their side, spanning the entire spectrum of choice and nature and scale of response, so that the point is driven home, then so be it.
                    If you can achieve the same solution - end of the regime, with minimal civilian causalities, you are preventing a similar regime of the sorts currently in power from coming to power in the future in that very region.
                    "Who says organization, says oligarchy"

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Wayfarer View Post
                      If you can achieve the same solution - end of the regime, with minimal civilian causalities, you are preventing a similar regime of the sorts currently in power from coming to power in the future in that very region.
                      And what you say holds good if all we were dealing with was a rogue regime.

                      Such is not and has never been the case with Pakistan as is increasingly apparent to the Western world.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by vsdoc View Post
                        And what you say holds good if all we were dealing with was a rogue regime.

                        Such is not and has never been the case with Pakistan as is increasingly apparent to the Western world.
                        For all intents and purposes, Pakistan is "rogue" when and if the U.S pull out their support for the current administration, and this would most presumably occur in the aftermath of a Nuclear Strike upon India/S.Arabia.

                        You instantly assume without the benefit of doubt that a significant proportion of the Pakistani people are behind the idea of total war, when I'd say the radical Islamists aren't in a majority, as evidenced by the 'existence' of Pakistan today.
                        "Who says organization, says oligarchy"

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Cactus View Post
                          In the event of a conflict with whom?

                          I'm assuming traditional enemies but it could be any state within the range of their missiles. In any and all cases your last sentence would apply.

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                          • #14
                            my guess is that if it is a strike on CONUS or civilian populations of any of the major NATO countries, nuclear retaliation. otherwise, a massive conventional campaign.
                            There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Red Seven View Post
                              As kind of a sidebar to a previous thread, what if Pakistan, North Korea or Iran were to resort to a nuclear strike in the event of a conflict? How do you think the US and its allies would react to it? Sit on the sidelines and let events unfold? Try to open negotiations? Issue strong statements of condemnation and economic sanctions? Or does it require immediate retaliation? With conventional weapons targeting suspected launch sites? With ICBMs or SLBMs? It's a fire that you have to put out, isn't it?
                              Stuart Slade, a nuclear targeteer, stated that such a strike would invite an immediate counter and devastating nuclear response. There's no choice in the matter. When one flies, they all fly.

                              We have to guarantee that any remaining nuclear assets must be destroyed and that means 3 nukes per target.

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