Should America Atomic Bomb China?

Then we're in deep **** because they are there now.

However, if they destabilize the dollar they will go bankrupt in short order, since most of their currency reserves are in dollars

They can't do without us and we can't do without them. The major difference between us is that the Chinese know this and are making plans to live with it by trying to be major participants in a "global" economy. We are being chauvinist *******s and desperately trying to apply Hermit Kingdom 'solutions' that were outdated a century ago and didn't work all that well even then.

Hopefully once Biden is elected this will change.

 

I have joke that the COVID19 pandemic makes for a good fiction of intrigue. Given the state of world economies, China releasing a bio threat like COVID19 in their own country, potentially killing but a tiny percentage of their citizenry while disrupting the world’s economies, can be seen as a leveling strategy that they can survive, emerging in a better relative position of economic status among the world economies as part of a long term strategy for world economic domination. That they lose a few million lives in China provides for plausible denial of evil intent, impeding a consensus among other nations of China being branded an hostile nation justifying a coordinated economic or military response. And, losing a tiny proportion of their population is a small price to pay over a strategy involving military options that would result in higher Chinese casualties and damage to the County’s infrastructure. It’s a good basis for a Netflix production. But, if you understand the Chinese culture, patterns of thinking and patience of strategy, it makes for a plausible plot.
The author in the following article explains such a plot in terms of gaming strategy....
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304259304576374013537436924
To understand China, you can’t think like westerners think; you must get into the minds of how the Chinese leadership perceives the game board.

 

Because it is beyond idiotic. it is flat out insane. Russia would risk American nuclear attack on its own cities just because the U.S. uses nuclear weapons on China?

Get real. Eliminating the Chinese would actually be to the overwhelming benefit of the Russians. If the Russians were going to threaten anyone with nuclear weapons it would be nations on the European mainland.

 

This may be plausible as a movie plot, but genomic analysis of the virus shows that it is natural, not man-made, and not tampered with. Any thoughts to the contrary outside of a fictional movie, would be just a groundless conspiracy theory. I oppose the Chinese like I said, but I'm not for conspiracy theories.

 

For advocating mass murder? Maybe.

 

As I suggested, makes for a good fiction. But, interestingly, fictional narratives often get pass off as non fictional conspiracy theories. In such conspiracy narratives, any facts like analyzing the DNA signature to ascertain likely origins (not a fool proof process) or tracing a virus’s dispersion vector by analysis of mutations of it’s genetic code become simply explained away by part of the conspiracy narrative itself...as Biden explains, ‘we chose truth over facts’. Considering how many Hollywood fictional narratives have become accepted as historic truth, who needs facts?
One of my favorite cartoons on the matter...

Lots of them post here.

 

True, I agree with all that you said above. Let's also remember K. Conway's "alternative facts."
LOL, I love your cartoon too! Thanks for posting it!

 

You misunderstand, they're not doing this out of sympathy for the Chinese but because they think the Americans are going to attack THEM. The whole idea of nuclear war is that he who attacks first "wins" because you destroy your opponent's ability to fight back. Not entirely, this is why we have so many more weapons than we need but enough so that the opponent is entirely dead while you have survived, just barely maybe, but still being better off than the enemy.

As long as everyone is assured that nobody is going to use Nukes, no one will. but once one guy starts it, it's all in by everybody whether they want to or not.

 

Utterly ridiculous. No nation on Earth has every had the policy of launching nuclear weapons until they have actual nuclear detonations on THEIR OWN SOIL. Not even the old Soviet Union. The current Russian regime is certainly not going to start launching nuclear weapons at the U.S. just because there are a line of mushroom clouds rising several thousand miles to the southeast over China

 

I’ve often smiled at phenomena of the ‘they’ don’t have facts, ‘we’ do universal framing of ‘Truth’. Often reminds me of Clinton’s assertion, “I did not have sex with that woman”. Words you know can have multiple meanings depending on who is speaking them and who is hearing them, and the stupid ones are those who disagree.

 

Nobody wins in a nuclear strike. It’s the threat that is the weapon, not the weapon itself.

 

Well technically, that is a theoretical assumption given there has never been a nuclear exchange.

 

Bullshit, EVERY nation with nukes has the policy of using those weapons as soon as it becomes clearly evident that nuclear weapons are going to be used against them. That's why we had the DEW line. The "pre-emptive strike" is an integral part of the MAD tactic and one of the major reasons it is seen as such an insanely dangerous ideology.

"Nowadays our major powers are two people standing in a room up to their knees in gasoline with each one threatening the other with a box of matches" Carl Sagan

 

A) Carl Sagan was a decent scientist but politically he was a complete idiot who was overly influence by wife #3 (Ann Druyan)- one reason I had no respect for the man.

B) Do some research, while popular entertainment loved to promote the idea of the U.S. and Soviets scrambling to launch nuclear weapons after missiles are detected being launched (it made dramatic tv and movie with U.S. bomber crews running to their planes and desperately trying to take off, ICBM launch centers scrambling to launch their missiles in time) this was never the policy of either the U.S. or Soviets.

The U.S. policy was to absorb a nuclear attack, assess the damage and then decide upon retaliation Likewise for the Soviet Union. For very practical reasons. Neither the U.S. or U.S.S.R. had (or have today) the capability of making decisions on retaliation in a 15 minute time frame.

 

Interesting, but I agree, fiction.

Before I started posting here, I had written about the integral importance of Go in Chinese culture, it's quite remarkable.

Sad to say, they aren't using the wisdom that's in the game in their international relations. They used to, to a degree they still do, but they've been seduced by power. If you play, they risk a snapback.

Anyway, here's a good book about the importance of Go in China, should anyone want to pursue the topic:
https://www.amazon.com/Go-Nation-Ch...rds=go+nation+moskowitz&qid=1602509548&sr=8-1

 

Right sure, I hear ya. This is why we spent millions of dollars and stationed thousands of men on the DEW (Distant Early Warning ) line in some of the most remote and far North areas in the Western Hemisphere. This is why we have all the satellites watching Russia and China, this is why we have NORAD. All so we can "assess the damage" after we "absorb" the end of all our cities AND our missile bases, and plan our counterattack with what ability to counterattack we have left.

Pull the other one, they get jealous

It's fashionable nowadays to attack Sagan because he was a "SJW" who thought nuclear war would irrevocably wreck the Earth and end humanity and everybody knows that post-apocalytic stories make the aftermath of nuclear war such fun that no old considerations of "scientific possibility" should be let to get in the way

 

Sorry, Alek, but no.

A pre-emptive strike is not part of MAD.

Earlier you seemed to be referring to the 'use it or lose it' point. If people had actually followed policy, we would have had a nuclear war by now.

But there is a near universal reluctance to use nuclear weapons that is a result of human nature. Wars happen partly because we can't foresee the future. But with nukes, if it's morning and you launch, you know the rest of the day will be no fun at all. Which is the real reason there has not been a nuclear war. The primitive part of our brain, the one we share with rats, can grasp that.

 

You would think so, but have you ever read much by Curtis LeMay? (there's a rat for you)

We had the SAC as far back as the 50's for a reason

 

The existence of SAC doesn't support your contention.

Sorry, you are wrong.

 

Your idea that we would simply "absorb" a nuclear 'first strike' and that the whole concept of the"pre-emptive first strike" wasn't and isn't a known tactic and major fear of nuclear war is not supported by the evidence and never was. You misunderstand the whole concept of MAD, perhaps fatally.

 

If America starts a war with China, it will be a worse mistake than when we started the war with Vietnam.

 

1) The whole point of early warning satellites and the DEW (Distant Early Warning) line was NOT to enable the U.S. to launch nuclear weapons upon detecting an incoming attack. The point was to enable U.S. bombers time to disperse from their bases and ICBM sites to lock themselves down.

2) If the U.S. and Soviets were ever going to launch nuclear weapons upon the warning of an incoming attack then why did the U.S. and Soviets spend billions trying to perfect mobile ICBMs and other ICBM survival methods of basing? If you're going to launch on warning, there is no point to any of that at all. Hell for that matter you might as well have your ICBMs standing exposed on launch pads and save your money. The only reasons to spend a dime on ICBM survivability is in fact you plan to absorb a nuclear attack and then choose your level of retaliation.

 

We didn't start the Vietnam War.

 

Didn't say that, wouldn't say that.

It's a known tactic, but it never happened for a reason.

MAD is simple. It's about fear as a deterrent. A pre-emptive strike is not about deterrence, at all.

 

That's the problem with MAD and the pre-emptive strike. It's unpredictable. It's like you come out with testing a new higher yield bomb to scare the opponent and he launches a pre-emptive first strike to get you before it's deployed. Or you keep the new bomb secret but the opponent finds out about, it, and then gets you before you have a chance to deploy. The entire concept of nuclear war is shot through with these kinds of things, that's the whole thing when you're dealing with something that is entirely insane from the inception.