moonJun 26
myrmepropagandist

Everyone keeps saying "Iran must not have a nuclear weapon."

And while this statement is something many people would agree with they aren't all agreeing for the same reasons.

The general public in the US is *scared* of "Nuclear Iran" (some bigotry informs this) --the war hawks aren't scared. They think they are playing chess, believe they can dictate the balence of power through "surgical*" force.

They have failed and we've watched it happen.

*there is nothing surgical about it

Jun 26 at 10:05amWeb
Show threadmyrmepropagandistJun 26

Many "scary" nations that don't like the US have horrible weapons. So what?

You will die because they close the dialysis clinic in your small town, not because of Iran.

These guys will cheerfully kill tens if not 100k civilians just to have the edge in negotiations about who makes money off the tankers and who gets the plumb trade deals.

The ideological battles are a smoke screen to make Americans scared enough to let them play risk with our lives.

Show threadmyrmepropagandistJun 26

And it's not even like losing economic dominance would make them poor. Just not as obscenely rich.

Every nation should be constantly engaged in the process of reducing the number of nuclear weapons on the planet.

Instead we keep demonstrating that nations that don't have such power will be manipulated, and ordered around, attacked without provocation.

Is the US public falling for it again?

We get NOTHING if this goes perfectly. And worse that nothing if it fails.

Show threadCitoyen européen Ray Hindle ✔️Jun 26
@futurebird Zero-Zero is the only option. Nobody has them.
Show threadmyrmepropagandistJun 26

@rayhindle

This is correct, but we aren't going that way. And I think some of these hawk types dread the thought of peace because peace means that everyone slowly grows more powerful and prosperous. EVERYONE. and they can't abide the thought of not having a total monopoly on economic and military power.

Show threadCitoyen européen Ray Hindle ✔️Jun 26
@futurebird Wasn't this what the SALT was all about?
Show threadsuzanneJun 26
@rayhindle @futurebird
I don't know. I'd like to see a new culture around nuclear weapons that a small stockpile (in the low dozens or even just a handful) is something only thought necessary for small, weak countries. Bigger stronger countries could protect themselves with conventional weapons and would be embarrassed if they felt like they needed nuclear weapons.
Show threadGeorge BJun 26

@futurebird

I keep thinking of how Ukraine gave up their nukes in the 90s in exchange for a treaty saying it's borders would be respected.

We all saw how that went. The lesson being taught everywhere is "you're not safe unless you have nukes" and that's such a terrible world to live in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

Ukraine and weapons of mass destruction - Wikipedia

Show threadEm Jun 26
@gbargoud @futurebird this is sadly the world we live in. No matter which Nation, be it Ukraine or Israel, both states are threatened by neighbor(s) since they were created. Overbearing nationalism from the neighbors, either Russian Imperialism or anti-jewish and muslim nationalism on the other. Without Nukes, Ukraine is free game for Russia, and Israel would be for Egypt, Syria, Jordania and Iran.
Show threadLinebylineJun 26
@Em @gbargoud @futurebird Bit of a weird comparison given that what Russia is doing to Ukraine is basically the same thing Israel is currently doing to Palestine. The only major difference is that Russia can do it by itself but Israel needs to be bankrolled by Uncle Sam.
Show threadPetra van CronenburgJun 26
@futurebird Yes, therefore, the world had that international treaty which Trump had broken in it's first term. And the rest of the world has fear that this crazy fascist is at the buttons to start nukes (including that Zero responsible for the US military). It feels like in a very bad film.
Show threadJürgen HubertJun 26

@futurebird

My general impression is also that many Israeli believe that Iran _will_ use nuclear weapons to destroy Israel sooner or later, if they get them.

I am not saying that they are right, but this is what they believe.

Show threadmyrmepropagandistJun 26

@juergen_hubert

Yeah and a lot of people in the US think the same way which is even more wild.

But this isn't about technology. It's about negotiation and finding reasons to depend on each other instead of hurting each other.

Iran should be an important trade partner for all of these nations to the degree that no one would dream of starting a war because everyone is too busy making dialysis machines.

... or something.

Show threadMirko AdamJun 26
@futurebird @juergen_hubert The "change through trade" policy does not work. We, Germans, have tried that with Russia. They used this money to build up a large army to make possible Putins imperialist phantasies. No, to bring peace to the middle east, a strategy just focused on military and / or economy won't work. Diplomatic and cultural initiatives are more important, but also need to be backed up by economic and yes, also military measures.
Show threadSeiðrJun 26

@elshid @futurebird @juergen_hubert There was never a "change through trade" policy, there was only a trade policy with complete disregard as to the political, social and human conditions of Russia. Germany got a big economic engine on cheap Russian gas and Russia got unimaginably rich oligarchs and a dictator that for 20 years was very comfy for the islamophobic West*, no matter that he had paneslavist ambitions, because that was a problem for Eastern Europe.

*See: Chechenia.

Show threadEinsPossum, Hass-ÄraJun 26

@futurebird @juergen_hubert What should be and what is are very different things. I think you are disregarding the realities of iranian imperialism and oppression of minorities.

Stabilising the iranian government by letting it back into the wider global trade community shouldnt be of interest to minorities in Iran or the region.

Show threadJames GleickJun 26
@futurebird Exactly. North Korea? Somehow Trump forgot to bomb them.
Show threadEstarriol, lucozade dragonJun 26

@futurebird

there is another reason, if/when Iran gets nukes all the US enemies in its self proclaimed axis of evil will have them, meaning no one the US can bully anymore....

Show threadMirko AdamJun 26
@futurebird That is surgical. Not surgical is what Putin does in the Ukraine, or the strategic bombing campaigns during WWII. Surgical does not mean that the effects of such a strike can be contained. I mean, if you do a micro-invasive surgery on a patient and accidentally punctuate the wrong artery in the wrong place, the patient will still die.
Show threadAlexander The 1stJun 26

@futurebird There's an additional aspect - apparently this is their use of a "Bunker Busting Bomb".

Which, allegedly, was one of the things that people were developing to shift the nuclear MAD strategy to involve also attacking nuclear bunkers.

...And now everyone that the Bunker Buster Bomb MAD concerns knows what the capability actually is.

And...it's not as deterrent as they expected it to be.

Show threadDavid Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Jun 26

@futurebird

There are a few related threads:

During the Cold War, MAD worked because the leaders of the nuclear powers were not completely suicidal. The worry with proliferation is that someone for whom scorched earth is a valid strategy would get them. A dictator of a small country may decide that it's better if everyone in their country dies when they lose power. Between Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu, I'm not really convinced that we haven't passed this point.

The other worry that undermines MAD is unaccountable nuclear weapons. If a Russian missile silo launches a missile, everyone knows where it came from. Nuclear submarines are harder but multiple countries know at least vaguely where everyone's nuclear submarines are, so if there's a nuclear launch from a bit of the sea then attribution is at least plausible (especially if everyone else then shares the location of their submarines). Strategic arms limitations treaties actually require nuclear powers to place other people's monitoring instruments in their silos, which means that everyone gets a constant telemetry stream saying 'missile not launched yet' (no idea how this works on submarines, probably they get it later?), so for the people playing by the rules you can tell that they haven't launched any of their missiles.

The big proliferation worry for US defence is someone putting a nuclear weapon in a shipping container and detonating it on the way into a major port city (like the one you live in), which would cause a massive tsunami and kill a lot of people, but be much harder to attribute unless someone claimed responsibility (there are deployed defences for this specific attack, but there are probably variations that would work). This makes the worry bigger for countries that have a history of sponsoring deniable terrorist groups. It turns out that nuclear material is not actually anonymous (you can probably work out from the fallout where it was refined, but it's far harder than just 'look, it was launched from over there'), so this isn't fully deniable, but it might be enough that if a country says that they didn't do it (and has a paper trail showing that a small quantity of fissile material was 'stolen') then it might be politically infeasible to retaliate. And if someone can show that you can kill a few million people in the USA without retaliation, then that's a strong message to the next group that wants to try.

The big worry for US politicians is that the US has a big conventional army and can probably manage 'regime change' (i.e. kick out the government and replace it with a puppet regime) in a lot of countries that have strategic resources (oil now, might be lithium or something else later) if they are unfriendly. They've done this multiple times (as has Britain, of particular relevance in Iran). Russia is failing to do this in Ukraine only because a load of other countries are helping. But if they try this with a country with a nuclear deterrent, they learn why it's called a deterrent. If a country is being invaded and looking at millions of deaths, destroying a city in the USA in retaliation looks attractive. It's much easier to negotiate for a good price on oil when 'if you don't do it, we'll tell everyone you're baddies, bomb your cities, and kill all of you personally' is the implied (or explicit) threat.