Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Helgoland]

How can you be against MAD? It logically follow from the existence of nuclear weapons and lack of efficient anti-nuke system. It's not good or bad, it just is.

I dunno, but there's plenty of people that are - unilateralists, pacifists, "Friedensbewegte" (peace activists in the '80s, goddamn hippie communist scum; most notably were opposed to the NATO double-track decision, parts of the movement later formed the Green Party)... Basically all the [REDACTED] who consider Realpolitik a bad thing.

[misko27]

Well, I'm not claiming it is a instant-win. But it could have opened up so much; especially in the tactical sense we often ignore. An enemy base in the way? Nuke it. It's even better if you use a small one: On a tactical scale, it simply trumps. And say, so you want to conquer a country? Let us, since this was used heavily in US research, use the US itself: Nuke Cleveland immediately. Then, having demonstrated you are exactly that crazy, threaten New York. Or San Francisco. Or DC. Then press for negotiations. No one is going to argue with you. And as for Terrorism, remember, that wasn't even a consideration back then. There was no terrorist movement against the US taken seriously. And - this is both important and hard to imagine - it was seen as legitimate to use. A weapon of war. Certainly not worse then large-scale napalm.

Again, to a foreign policy guy sitting in his desk reading reports from the occupation, it was attractive.

[Sergarr]

The main problem with using nukes to conquer territory is the same reason why people don't use chemical weapons en masse to do so.

Both those weapons render the territory gained useless.

[Guardian G.I.]

Here's an interesting article I've found - it's about how American intelligence agencies constantly misidentified Soviet defensive preparations during the Cold War.

[10ebbor10]

The main problem with using nukes to conquer territory is the same reason why people don't use chemical weapons en masse to do so.

Both those weapons render the territory gained useless.

Chemical weaponry less than nukes. Poison gas just kills everyone/everything, nukes have tendency to destroy infrastructure as well.

[Sergarr]

The main problem with using nukes to conquer territory is the same reason why people don't use chemical weapons en masse to do so.

Both those weapons render the territory gained useless.

Chemical weaponry less than nukes. Poison gas just kills everyone/everything, nukes have tendency to destroy infrastructure as well.

Chemical weapons also include stuff like this

Also you can technically spray acid to destroy infrastructure...

[scrdest]

The main problem with using nukes to conquer territory is the same reason why people don't use chemical weapons en masse to do so.

Both those weapons render the territory gained useless.

Chemical weaponry less than nukes. Poison gas just kills everyone/everything, nukes have tendency to destroy infrastructure as well.

Chemical weapons also include stuff like this

Also you can technically spray acid to destroy infrastructure...

People tend to overestimate what acids are able to do. Hell, a thin plate of steel would withstand acid.

E: And on the other side, you have neutron bombs which don't destroy infrastructure.

[10ebbor10]

Chemical weapons also include stuff like this

Also you can technically spray acid to destroy infrastructure...

Just because some chemical weaponry destroy what you're going for, doesn't mean that you can't use others.

[Funk]

Agent Orange in of it self just a herbicide and mostly safe.
It is the contaminating 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) that is the real nasty stuff that build up over time.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Also if the Chinese pollution is any indication, we might see a bunch of fallout and chemical nastiness blow back into the Americas.

[misko27]

Also if the Chinese pollution is any indication, we might see a bunch of fallout and chemical nastiness blow back into the Americas.

I'm not sure what this is in reference too. Chinese Pollution is predominantly a Chinese problem, followed closely by a Global Warming problem.

Then China makes medicines, and America has to buy them en-masse.

Clearly, China is good with evil economics. They are exploiting the world!

The FDA rejects a lot of stuff from China actually. Might be all that pollution.

[Descan]

A lot of the smog and pollution on the west coast is Chinese pollution.

[tahujdt]

I read this on the TVTropes 'Captive Audience' trope page, so its accuracy is not guaranteed, but I imagine that if it wasn't true, somebody woulda removed it, so: In North Korea, they have speakers in all living quarters that start blasting martial music and "news" at six in the morning. 1984, anyone?

[Steelmagic]

I read this on the TVTropes 'Captive Audience' trope page, so its accuracy is not guaranteed, but I imagine that if it wasn't true, somebody woulda removed it, so: In North Korea, they have speakers in all living quarters that start blasting martial music and "news" at six in the morning. 1984, anyone?

I think I've heard that from a couple of other places. But i can't remember what those places were and they were probably equal to or less than TVTropes accuracy wise.

[Guardian G.I.]

I read this on the TVTropes 'Captive Audience' trope page, so its accuracy is not guaranteed, but I imagine that if it wasn't true, somebody woulda removed it, so: In North Korea, they have speakers in all living quarters that start blasting martial music and "news" at six in the morning. 1984, anyone?

Something tells me that they are probably talking about national cable radio system similar to the system that existed in the USSR.

In Soviet Union, there used to be a cable radio service broadcasting 3-4 national radio stations, which could be received by special devices called "радиоточка" in Russian. In order to turn it on, you had to put its plug into a special "radio socket". Unlike all radio devices in all Western propaganda dystopias about socialist states, they could be turned off without any consequences, like all television sets and radios. They didn't have any equipment to receive any conventional radio broadcasts and were designed to receive only the cable radio signal.

Spoiler: Here's how they looked like (click to show/hide)

In wartime, the cable radio system would be used to broadcast civil defence instructions and attack warnings. People didn't use the cable radio much and listened to radio stations by using ordinary radios with antennae.
I'm not sure about Russia, but in Belarus the cable radio system is still operational. No one uses it, though.