@malacandran wrote:
Thanks Suzie. Perhaps you're taking a rather too simplistic view, if you don't mind me saying so.
Obviously countries which fire nuclear weapons at each other, are both going to suffer consequences.
But I can't see why that should stop countries using nuclear weapons, just because they cause heavy casualities.
I mean, in the Second World War, RAF Bomber Command conducted massive air-raids on German cities. The raids caused very heavy casualties. Hundreds of thousands of civilians - men, women and children - were blasted and burned to death by the bombs.
Was this OK because the bombs only contained conventional explosives. Whereas if they'd been nuclear bombs, they'd have caused "world outrage"?
You say my view is simplistic but it is only one reason that I think countries would/will think very hard before resorting to the use of nuclear weapons with an intent to kill the maximum number of people. I can't help but find it difficult to understand your view, if you don't mind me saying so. You seem to be suggesting that nuclear bombs are just the next step on from conventional. I would say that they are an order of magnitude worse, not to mention long-term radiation effects. It's not just a question of much heavier casualties - entire countries could be wiped out pretty much.
Why do you think there was a need for a Non-proliferation Treaty and a desire to only use nuclear for peaceful power generation?
And yes I do think that the use of nuclear weapons would and probably will one day cause outrage and shock the rest of the world.
A study / computer simulation of the effects of Israel dropping nuclear weapons on Iran are truly horrendous in terms of deaths, in part because of the topography of the country and the concentration of the inhabitants.
"Iranian cities -- owing to geography, climate, building construction, and population densities -- are particularly vulnerable to nuclear attack, according to a new study, “Nuclear War Between Israel and Iran: Lethality Beyond the Pale,” published in the journal Conflict & Health by researchers from the University of Georgia and Harvard University. It is the first publicly released scientific assessment of what a nuclear attack in the Middle East might actually mean for people in the region.
Its scenarios are staggering.
An Israeli attack on the Iranian capital of Tehran using five 500-kiloton weapons would, the study estimates, kill seven million people -- 86% of the population -- and leave close to 800,000 wounded. A strike with five 250-kiloton weapons would kill an estimated 5.6 million and injure 1.6 million, according to predictions made using an advanced software package designed to calculate mass casualties from a nuclear detonation.
Estimates of the civilian toll in other Iranian cities are even more horrendous. A nuclear assault on the city of Arak, the site of a heavy water plant central to Iran’s nuclear program, would potentially kill 93% of its 424,000 residents. Three 100-kiloton nuclear weapons hitting the Persian Gulf port of Bandar Abbas would slaughter an estimated 94% of its 468,000 citizens, leaving just 1% of the population uninjured. A multi-weapon strike on Kermanshah, a Kurdish city with a population of 752,000, would result in an almost unfathomable 99.9% casualty rate. "
http://www.thenation.com/article/174295/who-will-drop-next-nuclear-bomb
This article makes for some pretty shocking reading and I hope that no leader or faction would ever resort to the use of nuclear bombs because they thought there was no good reason not to, which is what you seem to be saying.
No-one wants to see huge civilian casualties and 'modern' warfare has tended in the main to use technology to target attacks where possible, although sadly civilians are killed too. To use nuclear weapons goes totally against that - they are completely indiscriminate and far-reaching. Heaven help us if ISIS have access to them as some claim they have.
All that we are is what we have thought.
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