You got me there. I don’t think everyone having nukes leads to true peace just this queazy unease. I think once any country fire off a nuke it’s all or nothing. One of my greatest fears indeed. While I doubt Iran possesses the capability. It’s not a road I want to go down. If even on their best days they were able to get even one nuke to the US. With so many geopolitical issues among nuclear powers I fear it would trigger a domino effect of nuclear war. A lot of people used to wave off the nuclear threats from North Korea as the rantings of a mad man. However with a more capable power like the US. It’s hard to laugh it off.
The point that I’m trying to get at is that mutually assured destruction is a condition that can only exist between two nuclear powers. It’s right in the name - mutual and assured.
If Trump decides to glass Tehran, there’s no reason why that would trigger a full nuclear exchange between the US, Russia, and China. It would break the nuclear taboo and make it more likely for those countries to use nukes to solve their problems in the future, but there would be zero chance of Russia just immediately deciding to commit suicide because Iran got nuked. I can’t see Putin going, “well, Terhan got nuked. Guess we better launch all of ours and kill everyone for some reason!”
The whole point of MAD is that it is both mutual and assured. Both sides need to represent a threat so great to the other that both know they are guaranteed to die in a nuclear exchange. MAD exists between the US and Russia because both sides can send so many nukes flying that the destruction of both sides is guaranteed. That simply does not exist in the case of Iran.
Now, you’re right that traditionally it’s been assumed that firing one nuke would lead quickly to a total nuclear exchange. But that assumption is based on Cold War-era wargames that tried to game out what a limited nuclear war between nuclear powers would look like. What those simulations found was that even if you set out trying to just use a few tactical nuclear weapons, things quickly spiral tit-for-tat until both sides are launching hundreds of megaton city busters. That is valid for the case of war between nuclear powers, but it’s not at all applicable in conflicts between nuclear and non-nuclear powers.
Has no one ever told you about mutually assured destruction? Because you seem to be ignoring the requirements for that condition…
You got me there. I don’t think everyone having nukes leads to true peace just this queazy unease. I think once any country fire off a nuke it’s all or nothing. One of my greatest fears indeed. While I doubt Iran possesses the capability. It’s not a road I want to go down. If even on their best days they were able to get even one nuke to the US. With so many geopolitical issues among nuclear powers I fear it would trigger a domino effect of nuclear war. A lot of people used to wave off the nuclear threats from North Korea as the rantings of a mad man. However with a more capable power like the US. It’s hard to laugh it off.
The point that I’m trying to get at is that mutually assured destruction is a condition that can only exist between two nuclear powers. It’s right in the name - mutual and assured.
If Trump decides to glass Tehran, there’s no reason why that would trigger a full nuclear exchange between the US, Russia, and China. It would break the nuclear taboo and make it more likely for those countries to use nukes to solve their problems in the future, but there would be zero chance of Russia just immediately deciding to commit suicide because Iran got nuked. I can’t see Putin going, “well, Terhan got nuked. Guess we better launch all of ours and kill everyone for some reason!”
The whole point of MAD is that it is both mutual and assured. Both sides need to represent a threat so great to the other that both know they are guaranteed to die in a nuclear exchange. MAD exists between the US and Russia because both sides can send so many nukes flying that the destruction of both sides is guaranteed. That simply does not exist in the case of Iran.
Now, you’re right that traditionally it’s been assumed that firing one nuke would lead quickly to a total nuclear exchange. But that assumption is based on Cold War-era wargames that tried to game out what a limited nuclear war between nuclear powers would look like. What those simulations found was that even if you set out trying to just use a few tactical nuclear weapons, things quickly spiral tit-for-tat until both sides are launching hundreds of megaton city busters. That is valid for the case of war between nuclear powers, but it’s not at all applicable in conflicts between nuclear and non-nuclear powers.