Trump + Nukes + Twitter = Lulz

[Reclaimer]

Trump supporters just have to live with the fact that they voted for this sort of nonsense.

Would have been worst if Hillary got in, She's still selling guns to ISIS. Would have been nukes if she got in.

[Wells]

like obama blamed bush?

The difference is the US leaves Obama's administration in pretty good shape, rather than the strong resemblance to a burning tire rolling down a hill it bore in 2008

[Orlong]

Holy shit Orlong. So you want us to use nukes someday?

Only as a last resort

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You're still the country with the most nukes.

Holy shit. Your nukes aren't going to magically disappear into fairy land if you don't make more.

No, but they get old and need replaced and we need redundancy in case some are duds

[Total Crica]

Treaties, sanctions, threats, and embargoes are just words. Words written on paper, or issued verbally. People who threaten those around them cause wars.

If I gave the order for your children to be kidnapped and murdered, and made it very clear to you with my words that it would be occurring, would you trust that I was lying? Or would you "go to war" with me before I managed to touch your kids?

Yes, I understand your ridiculous semantic argument that someone somewhere has to fire the first shot, but all that demonstrates in the larger picture is that you have a juvenile understanding of international politics and the way the world works. No one is taking you seriously here if you haven't noticed, so if you actually want people to consider your opinion meaningful whatsoever you might want to lay off the high-school stoner levels of pseudo-intellectual semantics.

That, or you could continue to convince us more and more about exactly how wilfully obtuse you can be.

Trump did not use his words to threaten anyone. He simply said we need to keep our defenses in tip top condition so we can defend ourselves from those that threaten US until such a time when no one has anyway to threaten US.

[jackofwind]

No, but they get old and need replaced and we need redundancy in case some are duds

Replace/maintain =/= expand.

[Total Crica]

Replace/maintain =/= expand.

expanding capabilities doesn't need to mean "more nukes", it can refer to "more ways"

[jackofwind]

Trump did not use his words to threaten anyone. He simply said we need to keep our defenses in tip top condition so we can defend ourselves from those that threaten US.

You haven't been talking about Trump for two pages here, you've been engaged in a pedantic argument about words not starting wars that has done nothing but make everyone here think you lack even the most basic levels of debating skills.

That you can't see how him saying he wants the US to expand their nuclear program is perceived as threatening to other countries is no one's fault but your own. All you're doing is showing that you can't see the forest for the trees because you've either got sand in your ears or your head in the sand.

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expanding capabilities doesn't need to mean "more", it can refer to "better"

You don't need better, you have enough nukes to destroy the planet already. How many planets do you want to destroy?

Let's make our delivery systems and payloads better so we can blow the whole world up even faster!

[Zenfoldor]

Question, what is stupid about expanding one's military arsenal as a deterrent? Really, I'm asking.

[Bullettime]

Question, what is stupid about expanding one's military arsenal as a deterrent? Really, I'm asking.

It revives the arm race. Not so bad normally, terrible with nukes.

The more the race escalates, the higher the chance one gets used, and not always directly by the parties involved.

[Total Crica]

You don't need better, you have enough nukes to destroy the planet already!

Sources? That can't be refuted? Also, how is destroying the planet the best way to use nukes? Lets try to expand that capability to include just destroying the targeted area!

[Wells]

Question, what is stupid about expanding one's military arsenal as a deterrent? Really, I'm asking.

Nuclear escalation is generally thought of as a bad thing.

[jackofwind]

Question, what is stupid about expanding one's military arsenal as a deterrent? Really, I'm asking.

Because the "military arsenal" can already destroy the planet. It's like saying you're going to get penis enhancement surgery when you already have a 24" long cock. You already can't even use the whole thing without killing someone but for some reason you want it to be even bigger.

[Bullettime]

Nuclear escalation is generally thought of as a bad thing.

Yeah because it's severe overkill, wasted resources, increases tension, and increases the chance of nuclear weapons or materials falling into the hands of parties who actually may use them.

[jackofwind]

Sources? That can't be refuted?

Nearly 7000 available nuclear warheads with a payload large enough to cause cataclysmic damage to the planet and flat out destroy any earthly enemy that could possibly appear.

https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapo...uclear-forces/

Feel free to refute them with stats of your own, though I doubt you understand how burden of proof works.

[Zenfoldor]

It revives the arm race. Not so bad normally, terrible with nukes.

The more the race escalates, the higher the chance one gets used, and not always directly by the parties involved.

Thanks, and to those others who answered as well. I'll have to research/review this a bit before I give a comment.

[Total Crica]

Nearly 7000 available nuclear warheads with a payload large enough to cause cataclysmic damage to the planet and flat out destroy any earthly enemy that could possibly appear.

https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapo...uclear-forces/

Feel free to refute them with stats of your own, though I doubt you understand how burden of proof works.

I understand how burden of proof works, I don't understand how to trust sources. I have a trust issue. Perhaps because I don't understand alot of the magic of tech. Including the tech of nukes! But you do, I assume? My father worked on nuclear warheads for the Air Force back in his day. He is 60+ now and retired though. But I don't know much about them. I'm sure I could ask him though.

[Bullettime]

We literally couldn't destroy the planet if we tried to, but facts have been few and far between in this thread.

Destruction of the planet itself? Not likely. But we could certainly render a massive amount of it uninhabitable for indefinite periods of time while ending civilization.

[Auxora]

It's tough to know just from a tweet exactly what he means (and tbh even he may not know, considering he didn't know what the triad was). If he means a refresh of current warheads, many of which are over 30 years old, I can't argue with that. They need to be reliable to be a real deterrent. But more than that the delivery systems definitely need a refresh. Those are over 30 years old also, and Russia is making big advances in that area as far as decoys and altering paths in-flight to evade Patriot-type missile defense systems. So in the same way, if another country thinks they have an advantage that's not really a deterrent. 30 years ago with the Minutemen missles an ICBM that went up to space and came back down was unstoppable. They pretty much were a direct arc. Now they have evolved with technology to be much more evasive, changing directions mid-flight. They can essentially zig-zag or look like they are destined for 1 target city and then change mid-flight, making them very difficult to intercept China has ICBMs now capable of that as well (primarily to hit moving US carriers).

So even though he really probably doesn't know much of what he's talking about, in a weird way he's actually correct. Not needing more warheads, and we'd need to bail on all sorts of nuclear treaties to increase that count anyway. But the delivery systems and a refresh of existing warheads, definitely. Hopefully he leaves all that up to the military though and he sticks to things he knows.

[Tijuana]

The trade restrictions? The US denouncing Japan's invasion of China up to and including the Nanking massacre? Japan's withdrawal from the League of Nations? The freezing of Japanese assets and oil/gas embargo?

Those were some of the events that caused it. The trigger was probably the oil embargo: "In July 1941, IJN headquarters informed Emperor Hirohito its reserve bunker oil would be exhausted within two years if a new source was not found." Note that 80% of Japan's oil came from the US before the embargo.

No, I was thinking more along the lines of the big sneak attack on our naval base, with a healthy dose of civilian targets mixed in for style.

Pretty much the definition of a war that started from a single event.

[Belize]

Holy shit, the amount of mental gymnastics being used to spin this into something that it isn't should get a few people qualified for the special Olympics.