Acquiring nukes seems like the best way for any country to protect themselves against outside interference.
We know that as soon as Gaddafi decommissioned his nukes, Libya was targeted and invaded. If Iraq actually did have nukes, the USA wouldn’t have been so brazen to invade.
China, Russia, and North Korea’s acquisitions of nukes are also some of the main reasons why they are not easy targets for direct US invasion.
If Iran had nukes, it would drastically limit Israel’s ability to indiscriminately attack Iranian assets.
Western policies against nuclear proliferation always seem to target the countries that need them the most to ensure national sovereignty, and never refer to their own nukes.
For example, they always fearmonger about “rogue states” like North Korea getting nukes, while being perfectly okay with Israel’s own nukes. It might be best if these policies are ignored entirely.
It might be best if these policies are ignored entirely.
You just answered your own question. Fuck the imperialists and fuck their “non-proliferation” hypocrisy. Why are they allowed nukes while other smaller countries are not? It’s time to start ignoring them and their attempts to impose rules on the rest of the world that they themselves don’t abide by.
The world can possibly only deescalate its nuclear arsenal under communism. As terrible as nukes are, anti-imperialist countries having nukes makes it less likely that the imperialists will use theirs.
Yes.
Yes.
Indeed.
Yes.
I’m unconvinced.
Sanctions are warfare and nuclear weapons do not deter those at all. In fact, they become justification for even more sanctions! Fortunately this method of warfare is becoming less effective as the global economy dedollarizes and the industrial capacity of the Global South continues to rise, but it’s still devastating to the millions of people who are subjected to what is essentially siege warfare. Do you think Cuba or Venezuela would be helped at all by having a nuclear program? The sanctions would still be there and probably get even worse.
The sanctions are going to be there no matter what, and the more sovereignty and socialism a country strives for the more the imperialists try to pile on the sanctions. A country refraining from acquiring nuclear weapons does nothing to make them impose less sanctions. Your argument essentially amounts to allowing the imperialists intimidate and blackmail a country into foregoing self-defense. Iran has not yet developed nuclear weapons but they have essentially been treated as though they have. Cuba has been living under a crushing blockade, do you think that the US has been holding back because Cuba was nice enough to not have nuclear weapons?
To believe that if a socialist or anti-imperialist country just “plays by the rules” and bows down to imperialist diktat about not having nuclear weapons they will somehow be treated more nicely is incredibly naive. Not having the capability to defend yourself just puts you at risk, it emboldens the imperialists to more regime change attempts, more color revolutions, more aggression. Acquiring any and all necessary and available means for self-defense is a strategic and imo moral imperative for anti-imperialists. Whether that means nuclear weapons or more conventional assymetric armaments depends on the economic and military-industrial capabilities of a country, but nothing should be excluded.
Sanctions can always get worse.
My argument is that nuclear weapons don’t help and might invite greater sanctions. At best it doesn’t change anything.
And I’d rather a sanctioned country have nuclear weapons always available rather than be a sitting duck.
Plenty of so-called sitting ducks have avoided getting invaded for decades, it doesn’t seem like nuclear deterrence is either necessary or helpful. If the DPRK had slashed their military budget after getting nukes I could see the appeal, but they still spend more as a percentage of GDP than any of the other sanctioned nations. Having nuclear weapons hasn’t stopped the West from waging proxy war either.
You can’t be this willfully ignorant and naive
I want you to imagine Cuba having its own nuclear program and nuclear arsenal. Would that change anything for the better for Cuba? I certainly don’t think it would change anything about Cuba’s current situation, but maybe it would hold off potential future US aggression.
I’m not convinced, I think the US would become even more aggressive if there was a nuclear rival in the Western hemisphere.
Now I want you to imagine the DPRK not having a nuclear program. Would they actually be vulnerable to Western aggression? They have the fourth largest military in the world, with or without nuclear weapons they could flatten Seoul. Do the nukes actually help? Maybe.
Again, I’m not convinced. I don’t think nuclear weapons are as powerful a deterrent to be worth bothering with. I’m not even against enemies of the US/NATO suicide pact having nuclear weapons, I just question if they’re really the best use of resources or worth the consequences.
The DPRK having nuclear weapons is unarguably the reason they haven’t been attacked yet. That and China’s help, of course, but with how often U.S. politicians have suggested nuking the DPRK, I can’t not take them at their word.
That’s a fair point and I didn’t mean to be too dickish. I think Cuba is the exception to the rule though.
I don’t think so, although I can see the arguments for both sides.
I just bought a book on Disarmament published by the USSR, once I get a chance to read some of it I may loop back to this.
I think the biggest reason why all countries should have nukes is that there is no way to guarantee that any one country doesn’t have nukes, and just isn’t telling anyone else.
For instance, there is no way in all hell the US will ever give up its nukes, unless the leadership gets blown to kingdom come first or they get overthrown.
If no one had nukes, all would be well and good. But if one country has nukes, everyone should have them as deterrence.
That makes sense, I just think about all the times nuclear war was accidentally started when effectively only two countries had nukes. The risk of an accident or a lapse of judgment happening when some two hundred countries have nuclear weapons is magnified significantly.
Yes
Iran doesn’t need nukes, right now at least. Iran’s missile strike against Israel demonstrated that Iran can hit what it wants when it wants. Israel has a nuclear power plant and (illegal) nuclear facilities, which Iran can hit and turn Israel into a radioactive wasteland, if push comes to shove.
Moreover, Iran is morally opposed to nuclear weapons, so I don’t see them getting them any time soon.
Also, if this story is to be believed, Israel tried to hit Iran with an EMP nuclear device, after Iran’s missile strike, which was shot down by a Russian aircraft.
That is not how nuclear reactors work, they don’t explode and turn the surrounding area into a wasteland.
First, reactors are some of the most impervious buildings in existence. It would be incredibly difficult to significantly damage a reactor in any other way then dozens of large yield bunker buster munitions. It’s to the point where Al Qaeda planned several attacks on US nuclear plants, but had to scrap all the plans as even a jet liner going over a thousand kilometers per hour would barely cause a scratch on the outer reinforced walls.
The fuel in a reactor is also not explosive, and will not meltdown when rendered inert. Further, in the case of an attack, a reactor can be SCRAMed in seconds to kill an ongoing reaction, and fuel rods can be contained. Obliterating a reactor rendered inert would at best leave the site of the reactor room itself moderately radioactive, though cleanup would be easy as the radioactive material would still be in the form of dense fuel grade metals, as they would not have undergone nuclear reaction and been broken down into radionuclide. That is if the reactor room itself could even be breached.
Reactors do not turn into Chernobyl, that was the result of multiple factors all coalescing into a horrific failure due to several protocol and design failures.
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