[Qatar-6]

Well, if I had NUKES and it looked like I was losing a conventional war, I might just think about using them on the nations that were ATTACKING me to win on the battlefield as opposed to deliberately trying to start WW3.

You reflexively excuse Israel guy. Are you actually telling me that they would have been JUSTIFIED in attacking the Soviet Union in 1973?

And I'M the weakest link?

I think you need to reappraise your value system

[Poohbah]

Well, let's look at the calculus of likely actions circa 1973:

Scenario #1: Israel loses conventional war. Result: Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel.

Scenario #2: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel launches a nuclear strike against Syrian forces. Result: USSR launches a "limited" nuclear strike against Israel to keep its treaty commitments to Syria. Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, outcome also unacceptable to Syria.

Scenario #3: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel launches a nuclear strike against the USSR in retaliation for arming up the Syrians in the first place. Result: USSR launches a nuclear strike against Israel and the United States. US counterstrike destroys USSR. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, but it's also unacceptable to the United States and the USSR.

Scenario #4: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Result: Israel does so and is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel.

Scenario #4: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Israel launches a nuclear strike against Syrian forces. Result: USSR launches a "limited" nuclear strike against Israel to keep its treaty commitments to Syria. Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, outcome also unacceptable to Syria.

Scenario #6: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Israel recalls Scenario #4, puts forces into place to implement it, calls a responsible adult at the White House, responsible adult gets drunken idiot to realize that, no foolin', the world is f***ed if this goes down, and US assistance stabilizes the situation in the Middle East. Outcome acceptable to Israel, Syria, USSR, and US--everyone's happy, no one's vaporized. In short, the Israeli threat, apparently irrational, actually is the most logical choice in that it prevents a nuclear exchange to begin with.

Please note that all YOUR proposed scenario accomplishes is getting Israel nuked by the USSR. That tends to raise the issue of "gee, why screw around with Ivan's shoeshine boy, why not just nuke Ivan himself, we still get the same result, and maybe the threat gets us some leverage?"

If the US faced a similarly grave situation--a large enemy force having overwhelmed US defenses and headed towards the national center of gravity, said forces supplied and backstopped by a hostile superpower, your in-the-box thinking would simply guarantee our national destruction.