The US can’t launch nukes anymore because guess what? We’d get nuked too.
It's worth noting here that America has NOT ruled out a nuclear first strike and neither has Russia - in fact the only nuclear powers that have a clear "no first strike" policy are China and India. America has unofficially hinted at not first-striking another nuclear power, which is a diplomat's way of saying "we absolutely would first strike a country that DOESN'T have nukes"
sure, these declarations never stop anybody and it's good that you bring that up. people tend to put too much faith in these. i'm not an idealist who believes that institutions and contracts are the most important thing in geopolitics. but such declarations can still matter a lot in diplomacy and in how other geopolitical actors perceive a nation state. it makes a difference if you've been sitting on a comparatively tiny stockpile for decades, declaring a "no first strike" policy or if you're basically the geopolitical equivalent to somebody who constantly open-carries their dual .50 BMG hand cannons with compensators, reflex sights and underbarrel counterweights while wearing an "An Armed Society Is A Polite Society" shirt, a :fuck-around: pin and a "Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes" hat.
that totally changes how the rest of the world sees you and reacts to you. There's policies of de-escalation and being non-confrontational and limiting arms expenses and preventing arms races and standoffs. and there's policies of constantly telling the world you're ready to snap at any moment and end human civilization as we know it to cause maximum deterrence.
especially important in this regard is Mearsheimer's concept of the power-security dilemma, where increased arms spending and other measures that are supposed to make your position more secure lead to you being perceived as a threat. which leads to those seeing you as a threat to join in on the arms race. which leads to you feeling more threatened and so on and so on. we're in an age of armament spirals and escalating threat displays again and when we want to have other options than fully nukepilled posadism, we need political actors to get back to disarmament treaties, declarations of no first strike etc. etc..
i also think that the MIC will do everything it can to prevent such a change. and given that our next generation of natsec ghoul PMCs is intent on cancelling Mearsheimer and other neo-realist hawks because they do not share their idealist brainworms, we may simultaneously arrive at a point where the basic tools of realpolitik have been replaced with jingoist rage not only among the propagandized populace, but among the propagandizers themselves.
it does make a difference because it's also their policy on who can authorise a launch under what conditions and how primed the things are for launch. American first strike policy has resulted in near misses where downed phone lines meant that they have gone so far as to load bambers with nukes and fly them off to drop them before recalling once they realised it was a mistake
One of the reasons I despise libs is because of people like Sam Harris who envisions a future where America would try to stop a Middle Eastern country from getting nuclear weapons....with nuclear weapons. Never mind that America has extremely powerful conventional weaponry, this guy goes to the genocide option first. He makes sure to tell us about how he sees it as being a tragedy, but that he sees it as a necessity.
One of the few things making libs only marginally better than reactionary chuds is that chuds would go for the nuclear option sans any threat, merely as punishment for the attacks of unaffiliated terrorists.
Sam Harris has said many quackish and stupid things in his dubious career as a self described "scientist" that has never published a peer-reviewed scientific paper and used his family fortune to assign himself a PhD that he uses to peddle his books and merch.
One of the worst things he ever said was "there is more scientific advancement in a single New York zip code than in the entirety of Islamic history." One is a location, one is a measure of time. If we're going to combine those, how many seconds of that New York zip code's "scientific advancement?" How many years focused on that location? It's such a remarkably "not even wrong" level of stupid that it hurts thinking about it.
It's worth noting here that America has NOT ruled out a nuclear first strike and neither has Russia - in fact the only nuclear powers that have a clear "no first strike" policy are China and India. America has unofficially hinted at not first-striking another nuclear power, which is a diplomat's way of saying "we absolutely would first strike a country that DOESN'T have nukes"
Isn't this kinda meaningless? I feel like if you're in a position where you make the decision to drop a nuclear bomb then a "policy" won't stop you
sure, these declarations never stop anybody and it's good that you bring that up. people tend to put too much faith in these. i'm not an idealist who believes that institutions and contracts are the most important thing in geopolitics. but such declarations can still matter a lot in diplomacy and in how other geopolitical actors perceive a nation state. it makes a difference if you've been sitting on a comparatively tiny stockpile for decades, declaring a "no first strike" policy or if you're basically the geopolitical equivalent to somebody who constantly open-carries their dual .50 BMG hand cannons with compensators, reflex sights and underbarrel counterweights while wearing an "An Armed Society Is A Polite Society" shirt, a :fuck-around: pin and a "Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes" hat.
that totally changes how the rest of the world sees you and reacts to you. There's policies of de-escalation and being non-confrontational and limiting arms expenses and preventing arms races and standoffs. and there's policies of constantly telling the world you're ready to snap at any moment and end human civilization as we know it to cause maximum deterrence.
especially important in this regard is Mearsheimer's concept of the power-security dilemma, where increased arms spending and other measures that are supposed to make your position more secure lead to you being perceived as a threat. which leads to those seeing you as a threat to join in on the arms race. which leads to you feeling more threatened and so on and so on. we're in an age of armament spirals and escalating threat displays again and when we want to have other options than fully nukepilled posadism, we need political actors to get back to disarmament treaties, declarations of no first strike etc. etc..
i also think that the MIC will do everything it can to prevent such a change. and given that our next generation of natsec ghoul PMCs is intent on cancelling Mearsheimer and other neo-realist hawks because they do not share their idealist brainworms, we may simultaneously arrive at a point where the basic tools of realpolitik have been replaced with jingoist rage not only among the propagandized populace, but among the propagandizers themselves.
it does make a difference because it's also their policy on who can authorise a launch under what conditions and how primed the things are for launch. American first strike policy has resulted in near misses where downed phone lines meant that they have gone so far as to load bambers with nukes and fly them off to drop them before recalling once they realised it was a mistake
One of the reasons I despise libs is because of people like Sam Harris who envisions a future where America would try to stop a Middle Eastern country from getting nuclear weapons....with nuclear weapons. Never mind that America has extremely powerful conventional weaponry, this guy goes to the genocide option first. He makes sure to tell us about how he sees it as being a tragedy, but that he sees it as a necessity.
One of the few things making libs only marginally better than reactionary chuds is that chuds would go for the nuclear option sans any threat, merely as punishment for the attacks of unaffiliated terrorists.
Sam Harris has said many quackish and stupid things in his dubious career as a self described "scientist" that has never published a peer-reviewed scientific paper and used his family fortune to assign himself a PhD that he uses to peddle his books and merch.
One of the worst things he ever said was "there is more scientific advancement in a single New York zip code than in the entirety of Islamic history." One is a location, one is a measure of time. If we're going to combine those, how many seconds of that New York zip code's "scientific advancement?" How many years focused on that location? It's such a remarkably "not even wrong" level of stupid that it hurts thinking about it.