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Comment by iamnotlarry | Hacker News Reader

Nuclear weapons are the reason Russia can invade Ukraine without consequence. And annex Crimea, and attack Georgia.

They are the reason that Turkey can shoot down Russian fighters without Russia attacking Turkey.

They are the reason USA can invade Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. without being counter-attacked by others.

Because of nuclear weapons, we can have dozens of "wars" all the time where nobody has the courage to stop the 10Ks of deaths in each one because we're terrified of millions of deaths.

I don't know how you can say it stops countries from going to war. The largest nuclear powers are in a constant state of war, daring anyone to stop them.

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While undoubtedly tragedies in their own right, Ukraine, Iraq, etc. are tiny conflicts in comparison to major industrialized economies making total war on each other in the years before nukes existed.

By the most liberal estimates, the Iraq war killed 1 million. World War 2 killed 70 million easy.

10M deaths not inflicted through nuclear exchange is still better than 10M deaths that happened, from conventional exchange in a war that starts from one party retaliating after a shot down plane.

Current situation sucks, but I'm not convinced removing nukes from the equation would improve it.

For 10M to die, 10M need to show up when the invitations to please attend the war appear in their mailboxes. I, for one, will decline. I'd rather spend my time watching the highlights on TV, between the cricket of course. Should things go bad for "my" side, I'd go camping until it all blows over. Nuclear war is going to ruin my fishing, and probably my weekend - that won't do.

You're assuming you'll be the attacking side.

Compare with a story of a real country not so long ago. A large power invented a false reason to start a war, and then suddenly the country gets bombed all across the territory, and few days later there are shock troops in the capital. Total death toll of citizens of this country is, to date, around 0.55M [0].

Were you living there, I'm not sure you'd have time, or capacity, to "go camping until it all blows over".

Now this situation - and a bunch of similar ones in recent years - only reinforces the perception that if you don't have nuclear weapons, or don't have very close friends with some, you risk being abused or outright invaded by the larger players. It's actually no surprise NK is so aggressive in their nuclear program.

[0] - I'm counting the 0.37M of those who opposed the invasion and 0.18M who switched sides.

It will be like a invitation to work from your boss- you simply will decline, because hey basic income.

Your argument is a contradiction to itself. Ukraine was invaided after it gave up its stockpile of nuclear weapons.

https://en.m..org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

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