Peisthanathos: the cold war started precisely because the USSR had nukes. Without soviet nukes, talks and mutual understandings would have been far easier between the two blocks. The Western powers signed the Yalta treaty with Stalin and would nuke them 5 years later? Non sens. The west started to consider the soviet block as a treath from the day it had auired nukes. Without nukes, we would have let the commies do what they want in Asia. the Vietnam war would not have happened. the nuclear deterrent didn't detter the US intervention on Vietnam.

 Exactely the same thing arrived with any new comer to the club: Who would ever think of sanctions against India and Pakistan before they had nukes?
There was never talk of sanction or war against Iran before their nuclear program.
Saddam was ousted, not because of nukes, but the best pretext given was still "WMD". Why they didn't say "Saddam kills chlidren instead"?
Iraq and Syria have been attacked by Israel only because they had built nuclear sites. Israel would never have bombed them otherwise.

The view from the other side confirms it further: The arab world is worried of Israel because of their nukes, the USSR worried of the west because of its nukes.

Nukes and theior developement only ccreate rgional destabilisation, disruption of the diplomatic process, worries among populations, cases for wars, proxy wars, waste of resources, the list goes on.


It represent a deterent, yes, but there is a problem:
If somebody wants he can also use it as an weapon of agression. The only thing he would need is the believe that either his enemy won't be capable or willing to retaliate nuclearly or that he can sustain such a retaliation. If someone want to blow a nuke on civilians he can do it. Technicaly no problem.

So far only the US and the USSR have been near the nuclear war breaking point or at least that nuclear war was a serious possibility (India and Pakistan never went as close as that). Why did we worry of USSR missile and why did the soviet worried of our missiles if it was deterrent only?

Why at this time nobody said "Ho, as long as we don't nuke them, they won't nuke us so their nuclear arsenal is not a concern"?
Because this detterent stuff or MAD is a view of the mind, specific to our time, not an absolute reality.

Fortunately we avoided the disaster. We avoided it because we were not at war. Japan and the US didn't avoid it because they were at war. Any country atwar with another would come to it sooner or later if they are at war.
You think war has rules like "not hitting under the belt"?
You think a nation close to a total defeat after years of wars and millions of death would not use it?
You think nobody will be enough crazy to do it?

Now why do you want to bet that the second time we would be in a cold war situation with totaly different poeple, the outcome would be the same?

As i said above, how can you make statistical prediction on example you can count on on the fingers of only one hand?

Ahk is right as almost always when he speaks on Iran. Fred is wrong as almost always when speaking about nukes. It eludes me how anyone can fail to see the restraining effect that MAD had on the USA-USSR "axis of love".


the cold war began with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 to which Western powers responded by military invasion of the Soviet Russia. Both sides saw each other as foes ever since 1917. Hitler reconciled them briefly but the cold war was effectively back on track already in 1944. Hitler even hoped to survive by playing his enemies one against the other. In 1919 West was prevented from subverting Russia by refusal of soldiers to fight the war. In the 20-30s by the gigantic military of the USSR. In the 50s by the Soviet A-bomb.


they both receive huge aid from the US; India in terms of technical assistance in nuclear issues. Musharraf gets cash to keep nukes safe, India behaves independently. There are no sanctions. Korean profile was vastly raised by the nukes acquisition. Remember the "all means on the table" talk? There is no more. Instead, vast economic aid.



only because they didn't build them fast enough.


it would not be in that position if it had nukes. the whole point of nukes is to prevent wars between those who have them. All wars.

Ahk,
You are right about everything you said.
I would only add this:
Those who had the nukes and didn't use them, didn't do so also for two other reasons: First, they didn't want to nuke a land they regarded as their own.
Second, and the most important, the countries they were at war against (was China even at war with Tibet?) were far from posing a vital treath.
Aghanistan never destroyed half of the Soviet army, Vietnam never destroyed half of the US navy. Japan did. That's where all the difference is.

So far we haven't seen any nuclear capable country near potential military defeat except in the case of Japan. And on this only case the US didn't hesitate one second to kill 350,000 civilians with two A-bombs.
Do you think Iran will hesitate?

Peis,
I think that you are dreaming completely. You think that once everyone on the planet will have nukes, there will be no war anymore? No, there will be wars with nukes. That's the only difference.