Any way to prevent a nuclear war?

[Isard]

Originally Posted by The Illusive Man

Yes and they're also forbidden to use them on Pandora.

Yep. However, I'm curious wether the ban only is on Nukes, or other WMD like devices.

While ago I think China was experimenting with dropping giant metal rods from orbit. All the kick, none of the radiation. "Win win"

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Isard

Yep. However, I'm curious wether the ban only is on Nukes, or other WMD like devices.

While ago I think China was experimenting with dropping giant metal rods from orbit. All the kick, none of the radiation. "Win win"

At a guess I would say that it extends to all WMD's but I don't know for sure.

Interesting method of destruction, dropping metal rods? I might look into that further. I suppose it would be like a very slow MAC cannon off Halo. Big metal slug slammed into the ground.

[Isard]

Originally Posted by The Illusive Man

At a guess I would say that it extends to all WMD's but I don't know for sure.

Interesting method of destruction, dropping metal rods? I might look into that further. I suppose it would be like a very slow MAC cannon off Halo. Big metal slug slammed into the ground.

I wouldn't call it slow.

Oh, and it was a popsci article. /facepalm

So... Not exactly in the works. Has a wikipedia article though.

Kinetic bombardment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Isard

I wouldn't call it slow.

Oh, and it was a popsci article. /facepalm

So... Not exactly in the works. Has a wikipedia article though.

Kinetic bombardment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course, it would still be very fast but I'm sure it would still pale in comparison to the 4% the speed of light that the Halo 600t slugs are accelerated to.

Kenetic bombardment though is an interesting weapons delivery system.

[Advent]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

In such cases the best move is not to counterattack.

If your country was about to be obliterated, you wouldn't go down without a fight.

[ZenitYerkes]

Originally Posted by Advent

If your country was about to be obliterated, you wouldn't go down without a fight.

Problem is that we aren't in feudal times where wars couldn't go any further than your little local village and were a matter of honor and glory.

Here you're wiping out a whole country. Counteroffensive movements will go for yours, the fallout will spread throughout near countries... And that if there's only two nations involved. Think about mutual defense treaties.

Now, on WMD weapons in general: if all the relationships we are going to have here are fear based... It's sad, you know. But it's all what power is about. You make what I say; or else you are dead, capisci?

Perhaps what we shouldn't go discussing about is the weapons but the hand that handles them. As they say "guns don't kill people: people kill people".

Any case, and now regarding modern war in general, it's unfair. It's gross. I don't mean we can reach an idyllic state of "everyone living in harmony and peace as we sing 'Age of Aquarius'"; violence will exist as man exists too, since we aren't always the rational animals we are supposed to be.

But this is mass violence and the people interested in making such conflicts happen do not even get involved. It's the powerful sending their armies to kill other armies and innocents (the so-called collateral damage; such nice words they use in journalism) that don't have anything to do, weren't guilty for it and their only crime is being born in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

I repeat and state again: I defend and demand the right to live to be turned back to the people. War is the greatest denial of that right any nation can make.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Isard

Yep. However, I'm curious wether the ban only is on Nukes, or other WMD like devices.

While ago I think China was experimenting with dropping giant metal rods from orbit. All the kick, none of the radiation. "Win win"

All WMDs (they are even limited in terms of what conventional weapons the marines can use), and it was the US that was investigating it and found that the effort of getting them into orbit and maintaining there would be prohibitive for anything with a useful mass.

[Banefull]

During the cold war, nukes were made out of every single weapon system possible. Missiles are what most people think of but really the majority of nukes are airplane bombs (U.S. especially) and artillery shells (Russia comes to mind). Portable nuclear infantry weapons were even made. The only reason they never saw service was because the designers couldn't solve the problem of range as it was just inside the blast radius (self-annihlation ).

Governments are not going to be shooting nukes at each other anytime soon. The people in government are not idiots. They will do what it takes to stay in power. Nuclear war = no country left to rule = no more power.

I would be far more worried about Nuclear terrorism than Nuclear war. A terrorist has nothing to lose in such a situation.

"Give in to our demands or we will blow up this city."

Quite a scary thought.

[Isard]

Originally Posted by Banefull

The people in government are not idiots.

The US congress begs to differ.

[Sempu]

Some of us lived through the Cold War and believe me, it had a profound effect on our psychology. Massive rallies against Mutual Assured Destruction; we believed that we were -><- this close to the world ending. Try and imagine living with that for a couple of decades. It shaped huge portions of the culture; numerous movies and TV shows were pounding on a message of stopping the insanity.

Some things emerged long after the Cold War, like the fact that the Soviet Union was nowhere near as armed as the West believed. Not that there wouldn't have been enough destruction anyway. Also it came out that the Kremlin was never prepared to launch a preemptive strike in the way that we thought they might. Seems obvious now, perhaps, but... the war could easily have started by accident. Several times, it almost did. Hard to believe, I know.

And finally, I read something not long ago about game theory and its use in Cold War politics. It turns out that the US actually was prepared to retaliate with total warfare even though that was patently counter to its interests. Because game theory says that the other side can only be kept guessing if your strategy is truly unpredictable. And this is what helped keep the peace.

This is the bizarre kind of logic that we lived with in those days.

(Sorry, I don't have a citation for you on this one, I'm going off recollection and my reading list is so long it all blurs together.)

[The Man in Black]

Originally Posted by Sempu

And finally, I read something not long ago about game theory and its use in Cold War politics.

Precisely, game theory would likely shape the outcome of any nuclear war, although with new technology coming soon in the form of rail guns and such, I'm not sure we'll ever have to worry about a nuclear war because of defense initiatives. Game theory can basically be applied to any competition, and one of it's main uses is in microeconomics to study the behavior of competing firms. Ever heard of a prisoner's dilemma, Sempu?

[Advent]

Originally Posted by ZenitYerkes

I don't mean we can reach an idyllic state of "everyone living in harmony and peace as we sing 'Age of Aquarius'"; violence will exist as man exists too, since we aren't always the rational animals we are supposed to be.

No no no. Humans are the same as any animal. We use violence just like a tiger, or a hippo, or an ape.

Humans, as we have advanced, have simply advanced the violence as well.

And yes, I agree that a massive counterattack doesn't seem all too well. But tell that to military officers, leaders of countries. Patriotic, angry, nervous citizens.

[Fosus]

Originally Posted by Advent

No no no. Humans are the same as any animal. We use violence just like a tiger, or a hippo, or an ape.

Humans, as we have advanced, have simply advanced the violence as well

Not so simple IMO. Not all humans blindly attack back once attacked. We can also seek the sympathy of others by staying out of the violence, which can be way better than a direct attack.

If an innocent country gets bombed by another country, it's nowadays high likely that the information will spread fast making the attacker hated by the rest of the world. Now if the other country revenged, the rest of the world would pick their sides way differently.

[Advent]

Originally Posted by Fosus

Not so simple IMO. Not all humans blindly attack back once attacked. We can also seek the sympathy of others by staying out of the violence, which can be way better than a direct attack.

True. But how many people do so?
Most people won't take ****.

[ZenitYerkes]

Originally Posted by Advent

No no no. Humans are the same as any animal. We use violence just like a tiger, or a hippo, or an ape.

Humans, as we have advanced, have simply advanced the violence as well.

And yes, I agree that a massive counterattack doesn't seem all too well. But tell that to military officers, leaders of countries. Patriotic, angry, nervous citizens.

I thought reasoning and consciousness allowed us to control our instincts.

Just like we don't jump on the first female we find in our way.