"Rob van Riel" wrote in message
om...
Jim Yanik wrote in message
...
If a nuclear power is believed to be unwilling to use their nukes,then
they
aren't much of a deterrent or any intimidation.If that "global oucast"
threat you believe in is so effective,than that would negate any power
of
possessing nukes.

Which of course proves my point. There seems to be, at least in your
mind, doubt that whoever uses nukes would become an outcast. We both
have the luxury of discussing these matters from the safety of our
homes, but this is exactly the sort of doubt that makes the threat
credible. You just can't risk it when dealing with real nukes.
Even if the threat of becoming an outcast is taken seriously, that
doesn't automatically make having nukes useless. The only real point
during the cold war was the MAD doctrine, and that still holds. In
other words, they can be very usefull in convincing a nutcase who
couldn't care less about his status in the world not to throw some
nukes at you. That calles for a strategic nuclear ability though, not
for tactical weapons.

Which begs the question of what you define as a "tactical weapon". FYI, the
US retired all of its ADM's, and all of its nuclear artillery rounds, about
a decade plus back. Tactical does not equate to "small, low yield"--there
may indeed be a reason for using a small, low yield weapon in a "strategic"
role--which is why some of the current enventory of weaponms retain
selectable yields down in the low kT range. In fact, any use of nuclear
weapons by the US in the current or immediate future would by definition be
of a strategic nature--there are no plans afoot to go back to the bad ol'
days of the Cold War where we envisioned the use of nuclear warheads against
enemy military formations, logistics points, transport hubs and the like up
near the FLOT.


Well,we nuked Japan,but did NOT "nuke them out of existence",and at that
time,it would NOT have "turned the US into a global outcast". Even
today,I
suspect nations would stil trade with the US,those boycotts don't seem
to
work very well or for very long.

Aside from the fact that the US threw its entire nuclea arsenal at
Japan, and couldn't have done more damage even if it wanted to, I
suspect you're right. This was also a time when the full effect of
nuclear weapons was largely unknown, and they were mostly considered
just another big bomb. The world has changed a bit over the last 60
years.

So you equate any use of nuclear weapons in the modern era with the utter
annihilation, or attempt thereof, of the opposing side? That would be an
unrealistic assumption IMO.

As for the effectiveness of boycotts, we just don't know, and
hopefully never will. I expect some nations would still trade with the
US, but I think result in a cold war style polarisation, with the US
taking the part of the USSR.

The US is still the dominant economic power in the world--any nations
choosing to join in such a boycott do so at the extreme risk of completely
decimating their own economic wellbeing. I find it odd that someone can even
consider the likelihood of any anti-US boycott, given the example of
European defference to the likes of the economic power of the PRC; all it
took to render the past sales of advanced weapons to Taiwan by various
Euro-nations a distant memory was the mere threat that those nations would
not be welcome in the growing PRC marketplace. The US economy still dwarfs
that of the PRC, and you find that nations may be willing to boycott the US?



Counterbalancing;so that would have prevented us from nuking Libya
instead
of sending in FB-111's? (different administration,too)
Like the USSR would have gone to war over Libya.Right,sure.

The USSR would not have gone to war over Libya. However, this might
have convinced them (or the Chinese) that using a few of their own
might be a good idea. Use of nukes could have become an accepted way
of doing business. With the number of score to settle in the world at
large, things could very well have escalated quickly, in any number of
possible unpleasant directions.

I hate to tell you this, but those nations already regarded the use of nukes
as being an accepted form of general warfare. Read the since-declassified
warplans of the WARPAC, and peruse the past statements from senior Cold War
era Soviet military leaders--nuclear weapons were considered to be just
another tool for use on the battlefield, just as chemical weapons were. If
anything the US demonstrated much more reticence in regards to unleashing
the nuclear genie in the event of a major attack against NATO, at least from
the late sixties onward--it was regarded as a likely contingency
requirement, but it was not planned for use in the initial defense. The bad
guys, on the other hand, planned to use them from the onset of hostilities.



Testing has killed "considerable numbers" of people? Certainly not by
direct weapons effects.Please explain this,it ought to be humorous.

Depends on what you consider direct weapons effects. Both among
inhabitants of the Pacific isles near thest sites, and among observers
of tests in the US, deaths due to cancer and birth defects are much
more common than among those who were never anywhere near nuclear
detonations. Cause and effect might be separated by decades, but that
doesn't break the link between them.

How many of those vets also lived in brick homes which dosed them with
higher levels of radon? What was the effect of increased solar radiation?
Etc. etc., ad nauseum. You will have to do better than that to demonstrate a
distinct link, and if you want to make it relevant to the possibility of
continued testing, you will have to show that underground testing maintains
the same threat level--and you are not going to be able to do that.

Brooks

Rob