Sunday Afternoon Nuke Discussion

Better to hold your own people hostage and threaten the detonation before the invading force arrives.

Either way, the Us would be blamed, for stirring up the hornets nest.

This is why many people worry about true believers such as Almond Dinnerjacket.

This scenario is not a strategy for military victory. But it may be worthwhile to someone (such as Ahmadinejad) who believes in a form of "eternal victory" achievable through marytrdom, summoning the 12th Imam, etc.

In other words, this scenario is irrational, but not unthinkable.

I would also add that I think the 12th Imam scenario (see my post above) would become more likely for Iran if they had a method for spreading the nuclear mayhem beyond their borders -- e.g., nukes in other lands, long-range missle systems, etc. I mean, if you're gonna start Armageddon, you need to spread the wealth around a little.

I don't see why self-annihilation would be more effective than threatening self-annihilation. If what you want is really to not get attacked, telling the other side you have a nuke and you don't care where it goes off seems like a good way to keep them off your soil.

On the other hand, if what you really want is to kill a few thousand invading troops, keeping it secret makes sense. It just seems unlikely for someone who presumably still wants to lead something resembling a country.

Sorry for another post right away, but just a PS for my previous one--so while it does not seem like a likely strategy for a country's leader, it would be incredibly effective for some sort of insurgent group a la AQI.

This scenario raises the question of who to retaliate against if terrorists were ever to detonate a nuclear bomb, either in Middle East, or in the Continental US. It always seems to be assumed that the most dangerous thing about such an attack is that there is no country that can be counter-attacked, therefore, deterence is defeated. However, there is a very short list of nuclear powers that might give nuclear weapons to a terrorist group. However threatening the Chinese and the Russians may become in the future, they have generally demonstrated themselves to be rational, deterable adversaries. In terms of nuclear armed enemies, that leaves Iran, North Korea, and possibly Syria. Why not simply make it American policy that if America or its allies ever suffers a nuclear attack of unknown origin, the three countries listed above will all be the target of an American retaliatory attack? These countries can all get themselves off the shit-list by abandoning nuclear research and allowing complete and unfettered inspection to verify it.

Hmmm,

I seem to remember that during Gulf I, Iraq threw more than a couple of SCUDS into Israel proper. There was an attack and night time video of the remains of the missle that made my hair stand on end because it showed the badly dented warhead body which looked to the untrained eye like it was packed with plaster of Paris. But remembering my readings on WMD, this was the way you delivered biologicals so as to detonate above target and powderize the agents without destroying them. A message sent then?

Popping off a nuke in an occupied city would be much more effective for an attack on US forces and to destabilize confidence in US forces. If the US controls your city, there is no more city.
The group who sets off the nuke promises no retaliatory action to a city who fights off our soldiers.

I can't see this as a viable strategy for stopping an attacking force - it simply invites overwhelming retaliation in kind. Even if that option is not exercised, How many troops are you likely to kill this way? Most likely we are talking about a weapon with a yield of well under 100 kilotons. It pretty much has to be buried in a building somewhere, because there wouldn't be any way to get it in past the total air supremacy the US forces would enjoy otherwise. A small ground burst nuke in the middle of a major metropolitan area against a heavily mechanized force simply isn't going be all that effective in causing casualties to the invading force. (Okay, it would be shocking in a world where ~1,000 KIA per YEAR is considered an appalling loss rate, but a mechanized infantry division should still have plenty of fight left, IMO.)

It is timely then having watched a cnn puff piece on i-ran's nuke progrom being not so progrom scince "03"? I for one say "ya truth!" Just look at the last debate they hosted with Boob-tube...nuff said.