Caledonian, agreed. Whatever we say are the inevitable results of that slaughter, whether it’s that we prevented a later nuclear war or we poisoned the chance for peace, they’re all bogus.
We don’t know what would have happenned instead if only things were different. We can only guess by making netaphors from other situations.
Here’s a metaphor--
Pre-nuke: You have a neigbor who annoys you. He plays his stereo too loud. He throws garbage over the fence into your yard. He doesn’t mow his grass, you get bugs and another neighbor has trouble selling his house.
You annoy him too.
Every now and then the two of you have a big argument that perhaps goes to the level of a fistfight. If one of you is enough better, he can intimidate the other. Maybe you can make him leave his stereo low and mow his grass, for fear you’ll beat him up again. Maybe he can make you stop cooking with garlic and pick up his trash and stop mowing your lawn. Maybe other neighbors will get involved and who wins depends on how the allies fall out. Maybe the allies aren’t stable enough to get any resolution.
One-nuke: You buy a gun. You’re not sure he’ll be properly intimidated by the gun so after you knock him down you shoot off on one of his toes to prove you mean business. Also this helps to intimidate one of your other neighbors who’s really good with his fists. Your neighbors argue some about whether you should have done that, but they aren’t ready to do anything about it.
Two-nukes: You have a gun. Your ugly neighbor has a gun. You practice your quick-draw and your targetting because next time there’s a fight one of you is going to die. The first one to get his gun out and aimed properly wins. So it makes sense to draw quick at the first sign the other guy might draw. It makes sense to draw and shoot at the first sign the argument is getting intense. It makes sense to draw and shoot at the first provocation. It makes sense to draw and shoot the next time you see him.
Many-nukes: You have a gun. Your ugly neighbor has a gun. You have a bunch of catapults that will throw tanks of gasoline onto your neighbor’s house and yard. Also thermite. Anybody there will be killed. Your neighbor has the same thing aimed at you. It’s a standoff, neither of you can kill the other without at least losing his house. Your neighbors don’t like what the situation is doing to their property values, but they are neither willing nor able to kill you over it. You work hard to persuade your neighbor that you’re crazy enough to die killing him, so you can intimidate him even though you can’t really win. Meanwhile you work at more catapults designed to knock his oil drums out of the air before they reach your house. It doesn’t seem like it would work, but if you can persuade him that you believe they’d work then you can intimidate him.
And you’ve arranged your catapults so that you can in theory hit any house in the neighborhood. It’s all very expensive but you know it’s necessary. You try to keep any of your other neighbors from building catapults themselves and mostly they don’t want to. But if they do try, and they’re a bit unfriendly, you threaten to fire-bomb them to make sure they don’t, or maybe you shoot them or just beat them up. Whatever it takes, since you sure don’t want another important enemy.
Many of your neighbors think you are crazy. But as you point out, you can’t expect to have peace. There’s always going to be an enemy, and you have to do whatever it takes to win.
If this metaphor fits, it makes the whole thing look insane. You have to accept that any of your neighbors can shoot you while you’re opening your front door, or burn your house down around you during the night. It just isn’t practical to prevent that, and yet it hardly ever happens. But maybe this isn’t a good metaphor. Maybe nations aren’t like people, and neighboring nations aren’t like people’s neighbors. Maybe the best chance for national survival is to threaten everybody else with nukes.
Caledonian, agreed. Whatever we say are the inevitable results of that slaughter, whether it’s that we prevented a later nuclear war or we poisoned the chance for peace, they’re all bogus.
We don’t know what would have happenned instead if only things were different. We can only guess by making netaphors from other situations.
Here’s a metaphor--
Pre-nuke: You have a neigbor who annoys you. He plays his stereo too loud. He throws garbage over the fence into your yard. He doesn’t mow his grass, you get bugs and another neighbor has trouble selling his house.
You annoy him too.
Every now and then the two of you have a big argument that perhaps goes to the level of a fistfight. If one of you is enough better, he can intimidate the other. Maybe you can make him leave his stereo low and mow his grass, for fear you’ll beat him up again. Maybe he can make you stop cooking with garlic and pick up his trash and stop mowing your lawn. Maybe other neighbors will get involved and who wins depends on how the allies fall out. Maybe the allies aren’t stable enough to get any resolution.
One-nuke: You buy a gun. You’re not sure he’ll be properly intimidated by the gun so after you knock him down you shoot off on one of his toes to prove you mean business. Also this helps to intimidate one of your other neighbors who’s really good with his fists. Your neighbors argue some about whether you should have done that, but they aren’t ready to do anything about it.
Two-nukes: You have a gun. Your ugly neighbor has a gun. You practice your quick-draw and your targetting because next time there’s a fight one of you is going to die. The first one to get his gun out and aimed properly wins. So it makes sense to draw quick at the first sign the other guy might draw. It makes sense to draw and shoot at the first sign the argument is getting intense. It makes sense to draw and shoot at the first provocation. It makes sense to draw and shoot the next time you see him.
Many-nukes: You have a gun. Your ugly neighbor has a gun. You have a bunch of catapults that will throw tanks of gasoline onto your neighbor’s house and yard. Also thermite. Anybody there will be killed. Your neighbor has the same thing aimed at you. It’s a standoff, neither of you can kill the other without at least losing his house. Your neighbors don’t like what the situation is doing to their property values, but they are neither willing nor able to kill you over it. You work hard to persuade your neighbor that you’re crazy enough to die killing him, so you can intimidate him even though you can’t really win. Meanwhile you work at more catapults designed to knock his oil drums out of the air before they reach your house. It doesn’t seem like it would work, but if you can persuade him that you believe they’d work then you can intimidate him.
And you’ve arranged your catapults so that you can in theory hit any house in the neighborhood. It’s all very expensive but you know it’s necessary. You try to keep any of your other neighbors from building catapults themselves and mostly they don’t want to. But if they do try, and they’re a bit unfriendly, you threaten to fire-bomb them to make sure they don’t, or maybe you shoot them or just beat them up. Whatever it takes, since you sure don’t want another important enemy.
Many of your neighbors think you are crazy. But as you point out, you can’t expect to have peace. There’s always going to be an enemy, and you have to do whatever it takes to win.
If this metaphor fits, it makes the whole thing look insane. You have to accept that any of your neighbors can shoot you while you’re opening your front door, or burn your house down around you during the night. It just isn’t practical to prevent that, and yet it hardly ever happens. But maybe this isn’t a good metaphor. Maybe nations aren’t like people, and neighboring nations aren’t like people’s neighbors. Maybe the best chance for national survival is to threaten everybody else with nukes.