Mastodawn

One thing I think is worth to mention is that strategic nuclear weapons are defensive weapons by the definition.

If #ukrain would have kept its arsenal - #russia wouldn't have attacked them.

The same for #iran and the #us.

Even the term "nuclear shield" states it: its a defensive thing.

So everyone claiming #iran would attack #israel the next day if they had nuclear weapons only shows that (s)he has not even basic knowledge about nuclear strategy.

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R.L. LE 20h ago

@alios On the other hand, Iran is known for supporting shadowy militias outside its territory, that can be claimed to require defense, when they are attacked in retaliation for previous terror attacks, for instance with Katjushas.
I believe IDF when they say, they are concerned about such a fabricated incident – and those potential delivery systems are a different deal from the Cold War scenarios.
Apart from that, IMHO, Tehran has never in decades been a "rational actor" in this sense.

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alios

@herrLorenz Sure every new nuclear actor requires all other actors to react to that and especially the existing nuclear actors have good reasons to not want that...

I cant imagine any (rational) offensive scenario where the use of strategic nuclear weapons would bring you any benifit.

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R.L. LE 19h ago

@alios I agree that tactical benefits that some cuckoo hardliners claim to favor are ludicrous, at best, but the more I know, the less I trust in the continued prevalence of reasonability – when battlefield commanders agitate their flock into some sort of Holy War, and Hegseth encourages that, these are desperate times for many forms of enlightened, practical reason.

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alios 19h ago

@herrLorenz In context of the #coldwar powers I guess both systems where pretty prepared for those kind of scenarios (to not let a convential war escalate accidentally to nuclear). One big difference is actually that the #russian model is perpared for the top of command chain gone mentally ill - the #us model isn't ... this what i fear most (in combination to the Säuberungen in the US general staff)

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R.L. LE 19h ago

@alios On the other hand, AFAIK there's quite a bit of OPS cutting corners in both militaries mentioned – Hegseth's loyalty mongering might further contribute to a decay of institutional, non-partisan operability concerns; when it comes to that, Russia is far gone down this road, already.
If general wonkiness contributes to "nothing actually happened", that's probably good for something, 🙃
If.