Let's Ban War!

[Shakkara]

(Peregrine @ Mar 18 2004, 09:16 PM)

 

And what happens when the US (or even any other country) deploys its missile defense system in however many years? There goes your balance of power.

 

 

Then other countries will launch against them before they can deploy it.

 

which, again, is a rabid anti-United-States statement. The whole premise is that this wont work. We need everyone in the world to get rid of their differences and weapons to become completly "peaceful" as you put it. But, weapons, like everything else, are tools. And, likewise, real tools, such as hammers and screwdrivers, can be used as weapons. Its man who is a primate by using tools. We became sentient by making the first step and picking up a stick to use to get food. And, that stick was a weapon too. Man hunted with it. In fact, if we ate all their radioactive corpses, wed get the sickness too.

There are societies that have lived in peace with others in the past for centuries, so it is possible. Maybe humanity as a whole will be able to understand it when they've been 'off the dose' for a while.

[Shakkara]

Wars usually comes from interfering with others. This is no longer possible when everyone has nukes, since you cannot force any other country to do anything anymore. Every country can turn isolationist and exist in peace.

 

Except you're wrong. Are you honestly ignorant enough to think some country that can't even afford to feed its people is going to have enough nukes to stop an invasion? All that would do is make the nukes the first target. Lets look at the Iraq war in your dream world:

 

Negotiations fail, and Bush decides it's time for war. Let's even be overgenerous and say Iraq has missiles capable of reaching the US. Now, what happens? Well, maybe Iraq decides to nuke an American city or two then gets turned into a glass crater as the US replies with a hundred times more nukes. Or perhaps Bush and Saddam both see that would be the outcome, and Saddam doesn't want his country erased from the map. So he doesn't fire first, Bush doesn't want American casualties and a useless conquest, so he doesn't fire either. Now we've got the exact same war anyway, but with the rist of massively increased casualties.

 

Look at history. All giving every side nukes does is make them fight with other weapons.

Wrong. I don't mean giving every country one or two nukes, I mean giving them at least 20, 50, 100 whatever. This way the US cannot bully Iraq around in the first place, nor invade it at all, or else SH will just wipe the a large part of the US off the earth. No more war, because when one side starts losing there is a large chance they'll launch because they lose anyway.

A few problems with this. Firstly, who, exactly, is going to give away nukes to everyone? There are very few countries, if any at all, with the capability to produce enough nukes to supply the entire world with the amounts you're talking about here, certainly in a short time. Also, can you really see America, or Britain, for example, giving nukes to, say, Iran? Or Syria? Or Iraq as it was under Saddam? Or even allowing them to get nukes from elsewhere? I most certainly don't.

 

Secondly, as Malchik has already pointed out, the nukes themselves are only half the battle (no pun intended).

The US has too much nukes, and yes, I expect them to give their excess away to countries like Iran or Syria. Would at least stop them from EVER interfering with their business again.

 

And what happens when the US (or even any other country) deploys its missile defense system in however many years? There goes your balance of power.

Then other countries will launch against them before they can deploy it.

Then we have America's allies launching against those countries' date=' then those countries allies launching against America's allies, and so on and so forth. Result? Bye, bye humanity, nice knowing you.[/quote']

No, the US wouldn't be so stupid to develop a defense shield in the first place.

 

Why would the people with power want to hand more weapons to their (potential) enemies? Who would maintain and operate those nukes' date=' not to mention providing them to begin with? You think all that comes free?[/quote']Don't give a damn where they come from. Let the UN provide them for free if they have to or sponsor North Korea :P

OK' date=' fair enough, that's what you think, but it doesn't really answer the question. Despite the fact the UN is essentially committed to peace, in that situation, it would only supply nukes to countries the main members could trust. Where would the other countries get their nukes? You say to sponsor North Korea, but the simple fact of the matter is that it will take quite a significant length of time for North Korea to be in a situation where it is [u']physically able[/u] to supply all these countries, and this time would probably be measured in decades, not years, even if nobody stood in their way and everybody simply stood and watched them do it.

We simply need to develop them globally. The US, China and Russia can all produce a lot and then give them to countries that are unable to create their own. Plus, they already have large stockpiles they can hand out.

 

The benefits of this system are simply worth that risk.

Ugh' date=' are you really that ignorant? It's not a risk, it's suicide. We didn't survive 50 years of it because it was a good system. We survived because we got lucky!

 

What happens if some terrorist decides the unholy Americans must die? Or maybe the wrong military officer wakes up depressed and decides that if he's going to commit suicide he's going to make the world notice?

 

A nuclear missile takes about 30 minuites to reach its target. Of course with no missile defense system, there's nothing you can do to stop it and no time for evacuations, but you've got plenty of time to figure out exactly who's going to die.

 

Now what happens while it's in flight? First the target knows they're dead anyway, so they launch all their missiles at every enemy they can think of. And the new targets do the same, then the allies get into the fun.

 

End result? Say goodbye to the world. For someone who claims to value the lives of innocent civilians so much, you sure don't act like it...[/quote']There would be much less terrorism because no-one will interfere with them and no-one is able to bully them around.

Except that nukes are absolutely useless against terrorists, and they know it. The thing about nukes is they generally cause damage on a massive scale over a large area. Terrorists are small, elusive targets that fairly often operate within the borders of the target country or a country that does not knowingly harbour them. You can't exactly launch a nuke at them in that situation, can you?.

There would be hardly any terrorism because everyone can now fight the bully. I said it before, terrorism exists BECAUSE of some nations being so powerful that they cannot be defeated in conventional ways, but those nations continue to INTERFERE in other people's affairs. This would be completely impossible in my scenario.

 

And you only look at the small chance that something goes wrong. You do not take into account that mankind could finally grow up and just live peacefully. It's a chance we should take' date=' because the current course of action leads no-where anyway.[/quote']

You have a point that Peregrine (and me) look on the risk of something going wrong. Speaking personally, this is because, from what I have seen, that's no risk, that's a certainty, sooner or later.

I already adressed this in one of my earlier posts.

[Shakkara]

My Two Cents:

 

Mankind, no matter what the idealists may say, will never give up War. Even if we find peace here on Earth it is unlikely unless all are under control of a Government like that of Orwell's 1984. There is just too much money to be made in weapons R&D, and if anyone recalls what the Wartime economy in WWII did for the US, well there's your other factor. War is a huge producer of money, convenient that Bush should declare a War on Terrorism with 'No forseable end in the near future' or an un-ending total and all out war.

 

War is still possible, regardless if you give everyone nukes. Why do you think we are trying to set up a Missile Defense Shield? Obviously the Pentagon has forseen that Nukes will be used at some point in the future (it's ineveitable anyways) and so they are attempting to once again tip the balance of power in our favor. It's only a matter of time before other countries develop a Nuclear Weapon, and so to make sure that no one uses them (aaginst us, anyways) we decide to establish a Missile Defense System. If the MDS proves infaliable and testworthy they won't be able to touch us (again, if the MDS works at all).

 

So regardless of giving everyone Nukes, or not giving everyone Nukes I say that (with the exception of third world countries) these Nations that are without Nukes will obtain Nuclear Capabilities, either through Arms Trade or R&D, regardless of what we attempt to do.

 

~A.

The defense shield hopefully will never work, and otherwise I hope someone is smart enough to wipe out Rogue State America before they can deploy it and get the ability to oppress the rest of the world without being able to get harmed at all.

[Shakkara]

The idea of supplying every country in the world with an equal amount of nuclear weapons is assinine. The mention of MAD earlier in this discussion needs to be revisited, and seriously. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was the general policy pursued by the Soviets and the Americans during the Cold War. This doctrine succeeded in preventing nuclear conflict between the two super powers, not in preventing conflict in general (Vietnam & Afghanistan for starters). MAD is a clinically insane program borne of the misconception that nuclear weapons provide security. Deterrence, which is what you all are arguing in this forum, is the product of Realist thinking that predominated during the Cold War and exists today as a central tennet of the neocon foreign policy.

Except that you forget that in my scenario this indirect forms of conflict would be impossible, since both Vietnam AND Afghanistan would have nukes too and be a superpower in themselves. Here EVERY country is a superpower, the only forms of conflict that would remain are internal ones.

 

Giving every country in the world nuclear weapons guarentees nothing other than there are a lot more nuclear weapons floating around than we really need. Every country (including and especially the US) needs to make serious efforts to reduce the stockpiles of weapons and to decrease the importance placed on these weapons. The research of, ownership of, or use of nuclear weapons must be banned by international treaty and enforced by very severe penalties. Also, the Missile Defense Shield (which is a giant piece of crap waste of money...it does not work regardless of what the "government" says) should be heavily developed and then offered to every nation in order to make ICBM's obsolete.

Yet war will simply go on with conventional weapons and unconventional forms (aka Terrorism). And there are other WMD, like biological weapons, which they will simply use instead. What we need to do is remove every countries ability to interfere with other countries. This will stop war. If you have another way of doing that besides making everyone a nuclear power, I'd like to hear it.

 

As for war, it will always exist. Perhaps not always in the form of full scale international conflict, but in tribal feuds, territorial disputes and the like. If humanity should be unified under a single Federation, then war-spending will be directed towards making the conquest of other planets possible. Humanity will always be warlike, there is simply nothing for it.

That's a fable, there have been plenty of societies that have been able to keep themselves from killing others (Mayan tribes, Australian Aboriginals, Native American tribes, Tibetans) which were a lot more civilized then the 'western' human is today.

[Shakkara]

i would like to add a few comments to the mix here...  war under my definition is fighting for a purpose and if you believe in that purpose enough to give your life then you should be able to... terrorism is the attack of inocent pople who are not willing to give their lives for their beliefs or who probably wouldnt if asked to...

Wrong. Terroists could be freedom fighters like anyone else. A lot of times the term is even interexchangable. The French resistance fighting Nazi Germany were terrorists, believe it or not. But when it's YOUR side doing these things it's called freedom fighting, and when the OTHER side does it they are terrorists. Terrorists fight for a purpose too, and usually they try to get freedom from their oppressors which they cannot harm in other ways.

 

personaly i would give my life if it meant defending my country.

 

another comment... each generation has its enemys germany for old folks russians for younger old people vietnam for younger younger old people and the middle east for me.. and you cant honestly say that during those greatly described generations there wasnt some one afraid of and ready to kill those people.. and right now i am afraid of the middle east and i am ready to go to the middle east and die if i have to

Nice to see you're a sheep not able to think for itself. The US OPPRESSES and INTERFERES WITH the middle east, no wonder people there start fighting back. YOU stroke the first blow and YOU deserve to get punished.

 

so i close with a phrase that should be embedded in our minds forever

 

as patrick henry said at the virginia convention

 

"GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH"

From Rogue State America's oppression yeah.

[Shakkara]

It heartens me to see that people have given so much thought to choosing their enemies. Apparently we must go to war out of fear of others who are different from us and our desire to kill them for those differences. The existence of such a mentality will only work to ensure that war continues to plague human existence.

 

Iraq, let alone the entire Middle East, has never once challeneged the liberty or freedoms we enjoy. The only entity that seriously threatens our freedoms are those within our government who would seek to create a police state and trod on the Constitution.

Exaclty, thank you for putting it so well.

[Hayabusa]

Well Immanuel Kant said, eternal peace can be achieved only in cemetery. Until now it seems he was right.

 

I may write a bit more in the evening, haven`t much time for it now.

[Shakkara]

Oh once more about where the nukes must come from, Al-Qaida just claimed they have one or multiple themselves

 

Will be on BBC tonight.

[Ancalagon]

If this is true, then a whole deal of good the bloody war in Iraq did us, huh?

 

Jeez, sometimes I wish we stayed in the trees...<_<

[Darnoc]

Look, that's the way you must deal with these people. I really applaud Switzerland here. These so-called terrorists merely wanted their independance I presume. Now why is that so hard? Why not make Chechenya and Pays Basque (or whatever it's called in Spanish) or Kurdistan (you will get A LOT of problems there later) independant too? Why keep oppressing them in one way or another?

 

Thanks for such a positive comment on my country, I am honored :D . The whole affair was that in Kanton Bern (where I live) a minority of the population was French speaking. Those are the people who lived in the part of Bern which lied in the Jura (a chain of hills in the north of Switzerland; the jurassic geologic period is called after those hills). Now a minority of those "Jurassians" are Protestants, like the rest of the people living in Bern. But the majority of Jurassians are Catholics and they have a whole different culture than the one of Bern. So they demanded (reasonably) independence and their own Kanton.

 

A seperation movement was founded and they launched some attacks against Bern and the Bernese government. Also they destroyed some monuments or stole cultural important stuff (like the "Unspunnen-Stein", a very important cultural item to the people of the Bernese Oberland, my people). The Bernese and the Swiss government agreed that their wish was reasonable and gave them their own Kanton Jura 1979. So Jura is the youngest of all Kantons of Switzerland. But the Protestant minority of Jurassians stayed with Bern. Unlike in Northern Ireland, you can draw clear borders in Switzerland where which religion is. So it was also in the Jura, there you can draw a clear line where the Protestant and where the Catholics live.

 

Now my question is: What is so wrong about demanding independence? And why have some nations so much problems giving independence to minorities, like the Bascians in Spain and France or the Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Iran?