Why Doesn't the US Support North Korea's Right to Nuclear Arms?

[dontknowdoya]

I am not, and never will argue that a firearm expels more energy than a bomb. This is now the third time that you'll be reading words written by me that align with that statement.

You conveniently glossed over the point I'm trying to make -- again. Both are weapons. Both are destructive.

The other guy was staying so blatantly off base that I thought he was being disrespectful to my efforts to contribute here. I chose to disengage. I could've ignored him, but I wanted him to know I was no longer going to converse with him. I don't know if telling him he's not really "getting it" is an attack on him personally, but, buddy, if you're still out there reading and you feel like I went after you, I apologize. No ad hominem here.

Yes, they are both weapons and have destructive potential; on that there is no argument. However, the destructive power of a nuke over a gun is so massive that there is no relative comparison and I do not see the point of your argument. Let me put it this way.

Let us be over generous and say that a gunman at a soft target (schools and other no weapon zones) kills 100 people, hell let us go overboard and say 500. That sucks, hard!

Kim Jong Un, the crazy fuck, decides he wants to nuke Tokyo (population 9.2 million). Millions of people die, many more in the surrounding areas die horrible deaths due to the radiation and the land can not be safely inhabited for years.

Again, yes both are weapons and both are destructive but the use of either yields completely different results. Your not comparing apples to oranges here.

[Logwyn]

UN security Council's permanent members; US; Russia; UK; France; China; all have nukes.
Israel, Pakistan, India are other countries that have them.

You need to throw North Korea on that list now too. They seem to show up on all the lists I see now.

Technically Israel "may" of have them... but yeah we all know they do.

Technically you need to throw in the Nuclear sharing states of NATO: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey. They have them inside their borders to use. I'd suspect the first four could make their own if needed. (Why would they need I hope we never see that).

Then you have to throw South Africa in the mix. While they don't have any at present but made their own in the past. They know how if they wanted.

The former USSR that had them but gave them up: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine. Maybe could make their own.

[Shadowferal]

Well, Japan could have several in a day or two if they really wanted them.

[dontknowdoya]

the first two, at a time where the US couldn't enforce shit. Their development of nuclear weapons was too early into the process. The second two, the US saw India getting nuclear weapons as a win in the cold war, never thinking the USSR would not only support but provide for Pakistan.

The fact is the nuclear powers don't want other people having nuclear weapons because it's the way they mantain their superiority.

I do not think maintaining superiority is the main focus. I think the concern is some of these smaller countries may be more willing to deploy their nukes.

[Macaquerie]

I do not think maintaining superiority is the main focus. I think the concern is some of these smaller countries may be more willing to deploy their nukes.

They would certainly be willing to deploy nukes if they were attacked without provocation like Iraq or Libya were, but what reason would they have to just randomly shoot of a nuke for no reason? Dictators aren't literally crazy, they might be brutal and authoritarian but they still have a self-preservation instinct and they know what would be the result of a nuclear first strike on their part. On the other hand, because of that self-preservation instinct, they know that if they were to give up their nukes, the US may just go in and take them out anyway, whereas continuing to develop the nukes keeps them in power and also gives them more leverage in negotiations. And nowadays the risk of a crazed dictator launching a nuclear strike on a whim seems much more likely to come from our president than from North Korea or Iran.

[Rhaide]

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This is gonna get locked anyways.

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I like you. Your post is funny and makes this worthless thread worth something.

I hope you have a very nice night.

[Speaknoevil]

If I said what I wanted to say I would be banned.

In a nicer way: This question shows supreme ignorance about the subject matter to even warrant the right to ask the question.

Nuclear proliferation is the surest way to assure the death of the planet at worst and the deaths of countless innocents immediately, fallout and radiation poisoning for infants born later at best.

For anyone to have these weapons is a sin, for more to be allowed to acquire them is dangerous beyond scale and for them to be in the hands of megalomaniac dictators is just asking for disaster.

[dontknowdoya]

They would certainly be willing to deploy nukes if they were attacked without provocation like Iraq or Libya were, but what reason would they have to just randomly shoot of a nuke for no reason? Dictators aren't literally crazy, they might be brutal and authoritarian but they still have a self-preservation instinct and they know what would be the result of a nuclear first strike on their part. On the other hand, because of that self-preservation instinct, they know that if they were to give up their nukes, the US may just go in and take them out anyway, whereas continuing to develop the nukes keeps them in power and also gives them more leverage in negotiations. And nowadays the risk of a crazed dictator launching a nuclear strike on a whim seems much more likely to come from our president than from North Korea or Iran.

Kim Jong Un just wants to extort more money from other countries. He will likely never launch an attack for a multitude of reasons.

If Iran tried to nuke anyone, they would try to hit Israel; I would not rule that possibility out.

Trump, love him or hate him, I do not think he would launch a nuke first. A conventional strike of some sort would not surprise me.

[MyndZero]

and in your fantasy world, who exactly sets the world's most powerful, well funded military force on it's ass?

Is it really that well funded when they're the most in debt country in the world?

[The Stormbringer]

OP logic: Right to arms = nukes

Okay, let me just head on down to the local nuclear arsenal and get one for my own protection, kk?

[Azelas]

I do not think maintaining superiority is the main focus. I think the concern is some of these smaller countries may be more willing to deploy their nukes.

on what basis? The US is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon.

[Brubear]

To quote Judah Friedlander,

"I am against North Korea using nuclear weapons. Because that is cultural appropriation of the United States. And that is not okay."

But realistically, it's because nuclear weapons aren't comparable at all to guns. A single gun won't wipe out an entire city, a nuke will. So the US, and most nations, tend to want to limit the amount of people who have access to such destructive capability, especially countries that are shown to either be unstable/tends to be antagonistic towards other countries.

[Spiffums]

The last thing a nuclear power wants to do is use nukes...........Kim would use it in a heartbeat over something he thinks happened. We don't let crazy people have weapons.

[Maxilian]

To evade Nuclear weapons proliferation. /thread

[Blamblam41]

No nation has a right to nuclear weapons. The very fact they had to be used just to demonstrate how stupidly destructive they could be at all was an absolute shame. Continuing the course of having them in the modern era is just another ticking time bomb waiting to extinct our species. And possibly all life on this miserable rock.

Not the first, not the last. Just another way to die.

[Macaquerie]

Kim Jong Un just wants to extort more money from other countries. He will likely never launch an attack for a multitude of reasons.

If Iran tried to nuke anyone, they would try to hit Israel; I would not rule that possibility out.

Trump, love him or hate him, I do not think he would launch a nuke first. A conventional strike of some sort would not surprise me.

Trump has actually questioned why we have a nuclear arsenal at all if we aren't using them, and he tends to defer to the wishes of the generals, and I can't remember a single crisis in which the generals HAVEN'T advocated for a nuclear strike of some kind. History has shown that you need leaders with a firm grasp of international diplomacy in order to rein in the trigger happy military commanders, and Trump is certainly not that.

And if Iran ever nukes Israel, it will certainly have been a problem that we created. Their president has had to walk an impossible tightrope between the crazed hardliners in his own country and the impossible demands we keep making of them. The nuclear deal was pretty much the ideal compromise because it allowed them to save face while mostly removing the actual nuclear threat. But of course Republicans keep demanding that they bend the knee in submission, something that their leadership cannot be seen to do lest they want to get pushed out and a new Ahmadinejad take their place, something that nobody should wish for.

[dontknowdoya]

on what basis? The US is the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon.

I am assuming you mean in war; in that case, I believe you are correct.

I do not want to change the subject to this but have not Iranian officials on several occasions threatened Israel with complete destruction. I think if certain people in Iran had the ability to nuke Israel they would.

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Trump has actually questioned why we have a nuclear arsenal at all if we aren't using them, and he tends to defer to the wishes of the generals, and I can't remember a single crisis in which the generals HAVEN'T advocated for a nuclear strike of some kind. History has shown that you need leaders with a firm grasp of international diplomacy in order to rein in the trigger happy military commanders, and Trump is certainly not that.

And if Iran ever nukes Israel, it will certainly have been a problem that we created. Their president has had to walk an impossible tightrope between the crazed hardliners in his own country and the impossible demands we keep making of them. The nuclear deal was pretty much the ideal compromise because it allowed them to save face while mostly removing the actual nuclear threat. But of course Republicans keep demanding that they bend the knee in submission, something that their leadership cannot be seen to do lest they want to get pushed out and a new Ahmadinejad take their place, something that nobody should wish for.

Trump is not going to premiptively use anything but conventional weapons. The international backlash of using nukes would be to great and would likely throw us into WW3.

As far as relations in the Middle East goes, I am not touching any further on that subject.

[Auxora]

There are really 2 big concerns with NK and nukes. #1 is the fact that NK is eager to sell nukes to anyone that will buy them to help his country's economy. #2 is him being so unstable that him having nukes while pushing propaganda about unifying Korea through war is worrisome. Keep in mind this is a regime that imprisons 3 generations of families in labor camps for 1 person's crime. They also teach math in grade schools as "if you have 8 Americans and kill 3 Americans, how many Americans do you have left to kill?". So North Korea isn't exactly a normal functioning country.

That said, reality is that North Korea is bearing nuclear arms today and has been, and despite all the talk that isn't something that has been changed. So it's not like the US has gone in and removed them or restrained any NK rights. In fact, the US or Japan could and probably should have shot down missile tests that flew over Japan but they didn't. They've heard plenty of talk that the US won't accept a nuclear NK, but until if/when the US actually removes that capability it's all just diplomatic talk.

[Macaquerie]

I am assuming you mean in war; in that case, I believe you are correct.

I do not want to change the subject to this but have not Iranian officials on several occasions threatened Israel with complete destruction. I think if certain people in Iran had the ability to nuke Israel they would.

Trump is not going to premiptively use anything but conventional weapons. The international backlash of using nukes would be to great and would likely throw us into WW3.

As far as relations in the Middle East goes, I am not touching any further on that subject.

So Iran is the only country to have ever threatened an enemy with war? I don't see how their threats toward Israel, threats that they have nowhere near the capability to back up, are somehow especially bad.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I boils down to one word. Opinion. US has one about NK having nukes. Deal with it.