Having a credible nuclear deterrent is existential. We’ve seen attack after attack from countries armed with nuclear weapons only against ones that don’t.
And if you look at India and Pakistan, it’s not true anymore.
India and China had also battled, but with fists, to avoid escalation.
In any case it is a catch 22. Developing a star shield will hold the EU back in robotics, AI and microelectronics to a point that nothing will be left to defend.
But the US are contemplating to use tactical nukes against China, with the idea that China wouldn’t escalate to strategic nukes to avoid their complete destruction. So nukes alone won’t deter, at least not the US.
Don’t forget that the US already control the politicians and, with their social networks, also the votes. There won’t be war between the US and the EU because the US will get what they want. But the EU will fight when the US asks for support. No nuke can prevent that participation.
India and Pakistan only proves that nuclear states can still end up in conflict between each other. Nukes being in the calculation is very likely to still incentivize de-escalation between the two of them just like your example of India and China.
Both Russia and (still to lesser extent for now) USA are now adversaries of Europe and we can’t afford to have adequate deterrence for both. Having to engage in wars against one of those would set Europe back far more than developing a nuclear capability at home.
You’ll find no agreement with me about Americans controlling European politicians beyond what is caused by precisely the fact that we’re dependent on them for our defense and in no insignificant part because of the US nuclear umbrella. When it comes to things like social networks I’m definitely all for moving away from that to European digital sovereignty.
Nukes being in the calculation is very likely to still incentivize de-escalation
It does, but much less if the US or China can take down ICBMs. The hard part is not the bomb but the delivery.
Both Russia and (still to lesser extent for now) USA are now adversaries of Europe
So it appears. If Trump would really oppose EU goals why don’t we try to influence American voters? Why have we remained silent about project 2025 when it could have changed the election? Why don’t we finance a free social network?
You’ll find no agreement with me about Americans controlling European politicians
It does, but much less if the US or China can take down ICBMs. The hard part is not the bomb but the delivery.
there’s no reason to think the extremely difficult problem of intercepting nuclear ICBMs with the kind of reliability required has or will be solved anytime soon. The thing about nukes it that you don’t really want to let even one through because of the devastating results and you can look at the current events in the middle east to see that while there are interceptors they don’t have anything close to 100% reliability.
Yeah sorry I don’t think any of these are comparable to knowing that as a direct consequence within hours of your decision it is likely that a major city will get hit and that will kill millions instantly. The first one is also false in all but the weakest possible sense of it never being possible to really know whether anything at all including pink elephants bursting out won’t happen before you’ve done something new.
I believe the actual picture also is a lot more bleak when it comes to successful defense. Interceptor success rate is fairly low, time is limited and no major breakthroughs are predicted for future versions. They’re not presented as ever being useful for defending against a near-peer adversary launching a full scale attack.
Having a credible nuclear deterrent is existential. We’ve seen attack after attack from countries armed with nuclear weapons only against ones that don’t.
For now.
And if you look at India and Pakistan, it’s not true anymore.
India and China had also battled, but with fists, to avoid escalation.
In any case it is a catch 22. Developing a star shield will hold the EU back in robotics, AI and microelectronics to a point that nothing will be left to defend.
But the US are contemplating to use tactical nukes against China, with the idea that China wouldn’t escalate to strategic nukes to avoid their complete destruction. So nukes alone won’t deter, at least not the US.
Don’t forget that the US already control the politicians and, with their social networks, also the votes. There won’t be war between the US and the EU because the US will get what they want. But the EU will fight when the US asks for support. No nuke can prevent that participation.
India and Pakistan only proves that nuclear states can still end up in conflict between each other. Nukes being in the calculation is very likely to still incentivize de-escalation between the two of them just like your example of India and China.
Both Russia and (still to lesser extent for now) USA are now adversaries of Europe and we can’t afford to have adequate deterrence for both. Having to engage in wars against one of those would set Europe back far more than developing a nuclear capability at home.
You’ll find no agreement with me about Americans controlling European politicians beyond what is caused by precisely the fact that we’re dependent on them for our defense and in no insignificant part because of the US nuclear umbrella. When it comes to things like social networks I’m definitely all for moving away from that to European digital sovereignty.
It does, but much less if the US or China can take down ICBMs. The hard part is not the bomb but the delivery.
So it appears. If Trump would really oppose EU goals why don’t we try to influence American voters? Why have we remained silent about project 2025 when it could have changed the election? Why don’t we finance a free social network?
Why are you sure?
there’s no reason to think the extremely difficult problem of intercepting nuclear ICBMs with the kind of reliability required has or will be solved anytime soon. The thing about nukes it that you don’t really want to let even one through because of the devastating results and you can look at the current events in the middle east to see that while there are interceptors they don’t have anything close to 100% reliability.
But you don’t really mind either.
People have risked more for less.
I don’t know that people have ever risked millions of lives like that as would be the case here.
Nobody knew if the atmosphere would burn when the first bomb was tested.
The US did some maneuvers, including the Cuba crisis, that could have triggered nuclear war.
Global warming puts humanity and nature as we know it at an existential risk.
The housing crisis could have led to the collapse of the world economy which would have risked huge famines.
WW2
Keeping the risks of smoking or soft drinks secret.
Outsourcing pharmaceutical production lines to China.
Yeah sorry I don’t think any of these are comparable to knowing that as a direct consequence within hours of your decision it is likely that a major city will get hit and that will kill millions instantly. The first one is also false in all but the weakest possible sense of it never being possible to really know whether anything at all including pink elephants bursting out won’t happen before you’ve done something new.
I believe the actual picture also is a lot more bleak when it comes to successful defense. Interceptor success rate is fairly low, time is limited and no major breakthroughs are predicted for future versions. They’re not presented as ever being useful for defending against a near-peer adversary launching a full scale attack.