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The Case for the Nuclear Option

Should Nuclear Weapons be an Option in Ukraine Struggle

  • Nuclear weapon use should be threatened as a bluff but not used

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    7
I give up. Where in Europe do we stop them?

Looks like they're being stopped right now.

They've been "driving on Kyiv" for how long?
 
I give up. Where in Europe do we stop them?

If the Russians invade a NATO country we can defend said NATO country.....but the idea that Putin is just going to start his armies marching towards the Atlantic is laughable on every level. We certainly don’t need to start a global thermonuclear war in the name of “stopping Putin”.
 
The excellent analysis by Edward Luttwak in the August 1982 issue of Commentary Magazine (link), (which I will send a PDF copy of upon DM request) makes a case for a vital nuclear option in the Ukraine War (special military option) and indeed illustrates it. Ukraine is not a perfect country by any means but it is certainly better than Russia as controlled by Putin. Our response should be effective, and not limited to the "coordinated cries of anguish and nicely orchestrated hand-wringing" (original phrase by William Safire, a New York Times columnist (link to Safire article)

He wrote those words relating to similar Soviet aggression against Poland, now playing out in similar manner as the unprovoked attack by Putin against Ukraine. Conventional defense, as we have seen in Mariopol, is allowing atrocities. As Luttwak pointed out, “the European system of peaceful construction needs is a preclusive method of protection, not ultimate victory after much destruction and millions of deaths.” P. 14 of Luttwak article. As the article further points out “If NATO could not hold the front by non-nuclear combat, it would warn the Soviet Union that (small-yield) nuclear weapons would be used to strike at the invading Soviet forces. And then it would strike with such weapons if the warning went unheeded.”

With regard to actual casualties of such an approach “(t)he entire "software" of discipline, of morale, of unit cohesion and esprit de corps and all the practices and habits that sustain the authority of sergeants, officers, and political commissars, are simply not built to withstand such terror as nuclear weapons would cause-even if at the end of the day it were to be discovered that the dead on all sides were surprisingly few.

One of the reasons that opposition to nuclear methodology is almost entirely on the liberal side of the political spectrum is that the Soviet Union and now the Russians have stoked fear of full-scale nuclear winter. The Russians are, from a practical standpoint, the only logical aggressors. The West is the only logical user of defensive nuclear weapons. That is why I favor the “nuclear option” being alive and well. We do not need to fight this conflict to the last Ukrainian.
Your poll didn't include Of Course Not. Nuclear weapons are widespread poison for years and years. No one should consider them.
 
It’s the Thomas S Power School of Conflict Resolution.

“If there are two Americans and one Russian left at the end, we win!”

I just horked coffee all over my keyboard.
 
NYC is probably not at the top of the list. Wyoming, Nebraska and North Dakota are.

NYC, Galveston, Boston, San Diego, LA, and Portland are very much on the top of this list.
 
NYC, Galveston, Boston, San Diego, LA, and Portland are very much on the top of this list.
I know next to nothing about it but from what I’ve read a first strike would overwhelmingly be aimed at our ICBM silos - all in the Great Plains - submarine pens and bomber bases. Population centers are further down the list.
 
You know what I see in these replies? A bunch of no-good Putin apologists!
 
When and if they set a pinky toe in a NATO nation.

Which Russia won’t.
I wish. But I'll believe it when I see it. We'll have more "coordinated cries of anguish and nicely orchestrated hand-wringing" (original phrase by William Safire, a New York Times columnist (link to Safire article) in an attack on Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia. There will be some mealy-mouth reasoning.
 
The fact is, it is now absolutely obvious that we would shred any Russian forces that attacked any NATO nation. The Russian army is a paper tiger.

No threat of nukes is required.
It’s not obvious at all, unless you are believing Ukranian propaganda uncritically. 24 gorillian russians dead, and their entire Air Force shot down, blah blah. The Russians have greatly destroyed the capacity of the Ukranian forces.
 
It’s not obvious at all,

Yes it is, lol. The Russians have completely ruined the image of an elite, powerful military they spent the last decade building up.
 
He’s calling for a NATO first strike. The guy is a nut any way you slice it.

If the USSR were overrunning Europe, would we really want to relive Normandy?
 
If the USSR were overrunning Europe. Did we really want to relive Normandy?

With his plan we wouldn’t have the ability to relive Normandy, because we’d be a radioactive cinder.
 
With his plan we wouldn’t have the ability to relive Normandy, because we’d be a radioactive cinder.

Small tactical weapons wouldn’t do that. Then there was the neutron bomb, but leftists went nuts over that one.
 
Small tactical weapons wouldn’t do that. Then there was the neutron bomb, but leftists went nuts over that one.

No, the Russian counter strike would.
 
You realize the argument in that article exists as current Russian military doctrine, right?

You realize that howling “but Russia” doesn’t excuse a NATO first strike, nor would it change the fact that doing so would have obliterated us....right?
 
You realize that howling “but Russia” doesn’t excuse a NATO first strike, nor would it change the fact that doing so would have obliterated us....right?

The point was if it’s such a crazy idea, why would the Russians incorporate it into their current war planning? Don’t you think they considered this? Also, what would your plan have been? Just give Europe to the USSR and accept that we fought WWII for nothing?
 
The point was if it’s such a crazy idea, why would the Russians incorporate it into their war planning? Don’t you think they considered this? Also, what would your plan have been? Just give Europe to the USSR and accept that we fought WWII for nothing?

Because they figured the West was incorporating the idea into its own planning, and there are always folks who assume “gee, if we just hit them hard enough, they’ll fall!”

Well gee, for starters I wouldn’t launch a nuclear first strike. That’s the most obvious answer.

And btw, we fought World War Two to crush Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, not to establish a sphere of influence.
 
Well gee, for starters I wouldn’t launch a nuclear first strike. That’s the most obvious answer.

So Europe should just surrender then, correct?

And btw, we fought World War Two to crush Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, not to establish a sphere of influence.

We fought WWII to help rid Europe and the world of fascism. We didn’t destroy one totalitarian state just to hand it to another one. Remember, Hitler declared war on us after we declared war on Japan after they attacked us. The idea that we could just sit twiddling our thumbs across a giant moat while the world burned ended on December 7, 1941. After that day we figured out that a free Europe is a vital strategic interest of the United States.
 
So Europe should just surrender then, correct?



We fought WWII to help rid Europe and the world of fascism. We didn’t destroy one totalitarian state just to hand it to another one. Remember, Hitler declared war on us after we declared war on Japan after they attacked us. The idea that we could just sit twiddling our thumbs across a giant moat while the world burned ended on December 7, 1941. After that day we figured out that a free Europe is a vital strategic interest of the United States.

You do realize there’s a whole lot of options between “start a global thermonuclear war” and “surrender” right?

We fought World War Two because we were attacked by the forces of Imperial Japan. Most Americans were perfectly happy sitting on the sidelines up until that point.

Ah yes, “free”. The Greeks, to name just one example, might have a thing or two to say about that 🙄
 
Well there you go: New York City "Very Liberals" are in the bag for launching nukes.

What about pikes with heads on them? Is that on the table?

No Vikings in NY, none in the US… bunch of pansies
 
How about that, lunacy is alive and well.
 
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