Summarizer

I assume that nuclear capability would rule out a target from this kind of snatch operation, and that this event will add pressure to proliferate.

Indeed. The DPRK was right from the start. They always were. For the longest time I thought they'd gone too far, but now we're the clowns putting on a show.

Watching a civilized nation drop a nuclear bomb on an enemy really got into peoples heads. What's worse is.. it worked.

Note that MAD only works when there are a small number of players. Once it gets up past around 12, a.) it becomes too easy to detonate a nuclear weapon and then blame somebody else to take the fall and b.) the chance of somebody doing something crazy and irrational becomes high. Same reason that oligopolies can have steady profit but once you have ~10-12 market players you enter perfect competition and inevitably get a price war. There are 9 nuclear-armed states today. Likely this has set us on a path where nuclear war is inevitable.

Yeah I imagine we’ll see a cottage industry of small countries with nukes in ten-fifteen years. Plenty of places have uranium and unless they are being watched like Iran they can just set up clandestine enrichment operations.

The nukes are a bargaining chip (disarmament). Basically, if your country has the human and tech capital to develop a nuke, you probably should because it's free money. I don't believe that NK's nukes deter the US from doing anything. Would NK nuke Guam and risk getting carpet-bombed with nukes for endless days and nights until even the ants are dead? Artillery on Seoul doesn't matter. The US would just ask SK to evacuate it. The US doesn't do anything about the DPRK because it's not economically relevant (i.e. it doesn't have the world's largest oil reserves etc). In an ironic way, their economy being closed-off and mostly unintegrated with the Western world maintains the peace.

The nukes have many roles perhaps but I think the fully developed weapons are for retaliatory strike. They are the North Korean leadership saying that if the US (or China or anyone really) tries to surgically decapitate them (like the US just did in Venezuela) then the nukes are used to take the attackers with them

Guess the US's mistake was not decapitating NK earlier then. Too late for NK, not too late for other regimes.

It will increase the desire for nukes, but also increase the hesitation to seek them now that credibility and capability (particularly what modern intelligence is capable of) are demonstrated. Hard to say how this nets off.

Counterpoint is that Ukraine, Qaddafi, and Assad already demonstrated the significance of maintaining certain capabilities. Vzla didn't have those capabilities before, much less publicly depreciate them.

Ukraine wouldn’t have been invaded if they hadn’t given up their nuclear weapons.

I have a few questions about that: 1. Did Ukraine control the nukes, or did Russia? 2. Could Ukraine keep them working on its own? 3. If nukes stop invasions, why do nuclear countries still get attacked?

1) It's complex. Formally, Moscow controlled the launch codes. However Ukraine designed and built the ICBMs, and are near the top of nations with the highest nuclear physicist per capita ratio. On top of that the Soviet nuclear lockout systems are rumored to be much simpler than the American ones. Whereas the American system is rumored to be something like the decryption key for the detonation timings (without which you have at best a dirty bomb), the Soviet lockout mechanism is rumored to just be a lockout device with a 'is locked' signal going to the physics package. If that's all true, taking control of those nukes from a technical perspective would be on the order of hotwiring a 1950s automobile. Taking physical control would have been more complex, but everything was both more complex and in some ways a lot simpler as the wall fell. It would have ultimately been a negotiation. 2) See above. 3) Which military nuclear power has been attacked by the kind of adversary that you can throw a nuke at? Yes, it doesn't remove all threats, but no solution does. Removing a class of threat (and arguably the most powerful class of threat in concrete terms) is extremely valuable.

> However Ukraine designed and built the ICBMs Your computer is designed and built in China therefore your computer belongs to Chinese and China. Right? > See above Maybe you should see how good the Ukraine was at keeping their naval assets after they used the totally legal methods to obtain them. Maybe then you would have a clue on how good they could had maintained them.

> Your computer is designed and built in China therefore your computer belongs to Chinese and China. Right? The previous owner was the USSR, who ceased to exist, and who Ukraine was a part of. > Maybe you should see how good the Ukraine was at keeping their naval assets after they used the totally legal methods to obtain them. Maybe then you would have a clue on how good they could had maintained them. Are you talking about the ships that weren't originally that Russia mostly scuttled on their way out of Sevastopal, in addition to stuff like a 70% completed nuclear powered carrier that even Russia couldn't maintain the sister to, and didn't fit in any naval doctrine that made sense for Ukraine?

> The previous owner was the USSR Not quite. > and who Ukraine was a part of Oh, so there were some wedding contract what stated what in case the parties.. part - there would be the transfer and division of assets? When why Belorussia didn't received their part of the navy? Kazakhstan? Georgia? Baltics, because they surely "were parts of USSR"? > Are you talking about the ships that weren't originally That weren't originally what ? I know you degraded to just throwing words with your blanket knowledge but again you can find out the fate of the ships the Ukraine used totally legit means to obtain from Russian Federation with a quite short trip to Wikipedia.

> Not quite. Actually, exactly. We're specifically talking about the arsenal of the 43rd Rocket Army of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces. A force not reorganized until much later to be under the Russian Federation, and the relevant 1990 Budapest Memorandum occurred before the 1991 creation of the CIS. Rather than a vague "not quite", would you care to elaborate? > Oh, so there were some wedding contract what stated what in case the parties.. part - there would be the transfer and division of assets? When why Belorussia didn't received their part of the navy? Kazakhstan? Georgia? Baltics, because they surely "were parts of USSR"? I think a divorce settlement is actually a pretty good model actually. Those other states rankly didn't have the means to keep them, but should have been otherwise compensated for that loss. However, as I described above, Ukraine literally designed and built large portions of these systems as was capable of keeping them. > That weren't originally what? I know you degraded to just throwing words with your blanket knowledge but again you can find out the fate of the ships the Ukraine used totally legit means to obtain from Russian Federation with a quite short trip to Wikipedia. I'm dyslexic and accidentally a word while editing. Are you incapable of telling what was meant by context, or where you just looking for a reason not to address the point made?

> Your computer is designed and built in China therefore your computer belongs to Chinese and China. Right? The question is whether china would be capable of maintaining the equipment they created and have physical possession of, not whether they can root it without physical access.

Most non-nuclear heads of state have never had their leader kidnapped, either.

Russia promised not to invade if Ukraine gave up the nukes.

No no no, some random American diplomat told a random Soviet diplomat during the East Germany negotiations that NATO wouldn't extend east at all. No, it wasn't put on paper anywhere. No, it wasn't mentioned (much) when the countries of eastern Europe all chomped at the bit to join NATO in the 90s. No, it completely makes the Budapest Memorandum bunk. No, the people of Ukraine absolutely do not have the agency to want to pivot towards the EU and become wealthy and stable like the former Warsaw Pact countries did. It must have been the CIA, so Budapest is bunk again! (and other lies the war apologists tell themselves)

Even setting aside that Ukraine never had the technical means or infrastructure to operate/maintain those weapons, I don't think they would have dissuaded Russia or actually been used. Russia could turn them into a wasteland in response and 6 million people (including hundreds of thousands of men of military age) weren't even willing to stay in Ukraine, much less fight for the country. If Zelensky were to give an order to launch hypothetical nukes, I'd think there would have been a coup and no launch.

You don't think that Ukraine, the country that designed and built those ICBMs, and had one of the highest per capita counts of nuclear physicists could handle at least a few decades of upkeep on those nukes? And the point of nukes isn't to launch them. By then you've already lost, you're just making good on your offer to make the other shmuck lose too.

> the country that designed and built those ICBMs, and had one of the highest per capita counts of nuclear physicists could handle at least a few decades of upkeep on those nukes? They don't even need that. They just needed ambiguity. Ukraine absolutely fucked up giving up its nukes, that's abundantly clear with the benefit of hindsight.

The idea that a nation state could not make use of the hundreds of nuclear weapons in its territory is just absurd. It's sillier than the people that think disk encryption will spare them the crowbar to the face. Beyond the whole chauvinistic idea that it was "Russians" that built them in the first place.

Why not? Russia invades. Ukraine launches nukes. Every major city in Ukraine is ash. Several major cities in Russia are ash. Millions die plausibly. That scenario is not what would happen from an invasion. Zelensky would not have used nukes to prompt the death of millions instantly. He would have proceeded with the same defensive war. The false premise rests on: it's better for everyone to die than live under Russian occupation. That would overwhelmingly be chosen false by the population in question that is being invaded. All those people that lived under Soviet Russia occupation, they were better off dead in nuclear fire than living under said occupation? Obviously not what the masses would have chosen (just look at what they did choose to do while living under Russian occupation - how many gave up their lives to fight back?). It's fundamentally why nuclear weapons as deterrant is largely fraudulent. They're solely viable as a last option against total oblivion at the hands of an enemy: it entails everyone dies, which means there has to be a good enough reason for everyone to die to justify use.

If having nuclear weapons did anything at all to prevent cyber attacks, the US would not be getting constantly victimized by cyber attacks.

I think "this kind of operation" refers to the entire "we bombed your capital and stole your President" thing, not just the cyber component of it. It seems extraordinarily unlikely we'd have attempted such a thing if Venezuela had nukes.

I agree with that speculation, but if you keep your launch chain of command short enough (as the US does), nukes can also be a deterrent to a palace coup; doubly so for a foreign-backed one.

Oh, so the commenter is not actually talking about the BGP anomalies at all? He's just hijacking the comment section to advocate for nuclear proliferation?

You still have to be willing to use the nukes. The threat has to be real or it doesn't work as a deterrent. I think this is a situation where even if Venezuela had nukes, this still would have happened.

the popular conspiracy theory among Russian opposition is that Maduro exit was negotiated, so he will do small time at a Fed club and would preserve significant amount of his money (at least couple hundreds of millions), and after completing the time will end up with his money in Russia/Belarussia. We can see that nobody was going to resist the operation in Venezuela, so it doesn't really matter that Venezuela doesn't have nukes. Using nukes isn't just a matter of pressing a button, it involves a lot of people and processes - thus any significant opposition inside the force or just widespread sabotage will make it unusable.

Nuclear deterrent is absurd. You have to assume everyone is willing to die over every single thing short of obliteration. So what's the scenario then? Venezuela has nukes. The US abducts Maduro. Venezuela launches its nukes, everyone dies on both sides. Please, explain that laughable premise. Everyone in Venezuela dies for Maduro? Go on, explain it, I'll wait. Back in reality: Venezuela has nukes. The US abducts Maduro. Venezuela shakes its fists at the sky, threatens nuclear hell fire. Nothing happens. Why? The remaining leadership of Venezuela does not in fact want to die for Maduro.

> So what's the scenario then? Venezuela has nukes. The US abducts Maduro. Venezuela launches its nukes, everyone dies on both sides. US attacks, Maduro threatens to launch nuke(s) ... then what? Do you call bluff? Maduro was capture in a militair base (as he did a Saddam, switching sleeping locations), he almost made it into a safe room. What if he had nukes and made it to the safe room. You know the expression "Cornered rat"... For all he knew, the US was there to kill him. The US killed his 30 Cuban bodyguards so high change Maduro thought its his end. > "Cornered rat" refers to the idiom that even weak individuals become desperate and dangerous when given no escape, often applied to intense political or military pressure. The scenario that you called, that nobody wants to die for Maduro, is you gambling that nobody want to die for him or not follow the chain of command! Do you want to risk it? No matter how many precaution you take, are you really sure that not one or more nukes go to Texas or Miami? This is why Nukes are so powerful, even in the hands of weaker countries. It gives a weaker country a weapon that may inflict untold dead to the more powerful country (let alone the political impact). Its a weapon that influences decision making, even in the most powerful countries.

Your tone is unnecessarily condescending and confrontational, but your point is reasonable with respect to Venezuela and Maduro. With Iran, North Korea, or Ukraine, the calculus is different.

> remaining leadership of Venezuela does not in fact want to die for Maduro Now do this same exercise for Taiwan.

Are you trying to argue that M.A.D. hasn't been an effective deterrent to violence for decades? Do you think the US and EU would have hesitated to send enough arms to keep Ukraine comfortably fending off Russia if they weren't afraid of the nuclear threat that Russia kept toying with?

That's like arguing against the police arresting criminals because it will incentivize them to acquire weapons. The only consistent action for the US to take, given they - and much of the world - do not consider Maduro the legitimate President of Venezuela, was to remove him from power.

Given that the nukes topic came up ... Will the US/Trump be so aggressive if Denmark has a few nukes that can hit the US? Or at minimum sink a invading fleet? These actions by Trump are only reinforcing that we will see even more of a push for everybody to get their own nukes, even in Europe. People do not need to yell "bad trump", to have his actions result in decisions being pushed forward like this. Theodore: "speak softly and carry a big stick"... and nuke(s) is a BIG stick.

> What does action (i.e. not-strongly-worded-letters, i.e. not words) look like? Europe withdraws from the non-proliferation treaty, publicly resolves to building and maintaining a European nuclear deterrent and greenlights members who have been militarily threatened (the Baltics, Poland and Denmark) to start clandestine programmes. The last part doesn't even have to happen. Hell, none of it has to happen. But that would be playing from strength. Unfortunately, Europe is not politically unified enough to do this. (Same for Asia.)

Action probably looks like crash-starting multiple nuclear weapons programs. With or without the help of the british/french. Probably with. I'd imagine programs from: the Nordics and Poland+Baltics. Maybe Germany, probably not.

What happens when you start making nukes and the US doesn't want you to? Ssetting aside the whole non-proliferation thing, or expense (see NK), etc. Let's get serious, please.

Why set aside expense? You do it anyway by whatever means necessary, like the DRPK. And if you’re a “western democracy” (also known as capitalist dictatorship) and you’re part of the ruling class, you still have the incentive to protect your assets, things you exploit in your country, land, natural resources, etc, that the US won’t be sharing or that they want to decrease supply when they take over through puppets or multinationals, and you can always force the public to pay for such a project, like all the times western peoples had to bail out or spend their taxes to benefit private corporations, but now it would look like it’s to protect sovereignty, which is a bonus of course, it would be to protect the local ruling class’s interests, but anyway. It’s clear the Americans will stop at nothing to acquire whatever it is they want, including indirectly violent means like ordering their financial institutions and tech giants to destroy whoever is on the way. The monster was always there since the Cold War and just now it dropped any pretenses.

Time for every country at threat from the US to invest in their own independent nuclear arsenal....