“Nukes...the great equalizer. “
Actually, probably not. That’s because the conflicts America is faced with are not the big state vs. the US. It’s more a war of ideologies. And, we are in an ideological war right here at home. We are in the next Civil War right now. To simplify it, the liberals are on the side of America’s enemies because, to them, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Thus, you have the alphabet crowd siding with Muslims who would be required to kill them if they were running the show. But, I digress.
Take any conflict you can think of, Syria, ISIS, any African country, Russia/Ukraine. I can’t see nuclear weapons playing a role, at least from the US side. Now, let’s suppose Hamas gets a nuke and sets it off in DC. Are we going to nuke Hamas? I can hear a chorus of yes! But what and where is Hamas? It’s not a country. Let’s say that the group that nuked DC is The Rotary Club. Would you nuke The Rotary Club headquarters? Probably not. And, as far as the Muslim world is concerned, Hamas is just a tiny spec in their country and they can’t get rid of them, even though, say, Lebanon has tried. Are we going to nuke Lebanon? Probably not. As a former Marine buddy said of his several tours in Afghanistan,(approximately) “I knew natives who were very much in favor of us. Then, their relatives would end up collaterals and suddenly, they hate our guts. It’s just a really bad situation and I don’t think we should even be there because you can’t tell who the bad guys are. Especially, from F-16.”
And, what weapon are we likely to face? We know, for example, that Iran sent scientists to collect samples during an outbreak of hemorrhagic fever. When you worship the Mahdi, who represents Armageddon, then, suddenly, a human race ending plague is on the table. Most likely though, we will face hordes of drones. Little, cheap, weapons that can be assembled in a toy factory. we have almost no defense and, it’s often the case that we can’t find who produced them or who used them. In my book, they are the next big killers. Countries with big infrastructure are the richest target zones. Again, there’s nobody to nuke.
The biggest deterrent is a blustering president who seems unhinged and tweets a lot of threatening things. Not one who can’t make it up a set of stairs. The threat of retaliation in kind is much worse than any actual retaliation.
Lebanon has tried. Are we going to nuke Lebanon? Probably not
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If it is an undefined stateless muslim group just nuke Mecca Medina and Riyadh. Total and absolute end to the muslim cult. All the remaining adherents will convert because their ‘god’ has been humiliated and shown to be less powerful than the God of the West; further, its personally humiliating for those individuals to pray 5 times a day to radioactive ruins.