> to preserve control by the elites
Stretch Armstrong would be impressed, this one is not easy to frame through the class war lens.
Nukes don't stop a rebellion. They do make other nations think twice about launching nukes at us, though.
Stretch Armstrong would be impressed, this one is not easy to frame through the class war lens.
Nukes don't stop a rebellion. They do make other nations think twice about launching nukes at us, though.
the only people to survive a total nuclear war would be the elites sheltered in some bunker somewhere; the point is that decision makers were/are willing to risk destroying the species itself just so that the surviving 5 people could preserve their ideology/territory and 'win', not that nuclear war is a deterrent against local uprisings.
MAD works until it doesn't. Even small escalations can rapidly ramp up into a worst case scenario. There is another path though: Disarmament though international treaties with comprehensive monitoring. Unfortunately, that was not the path taken as nation states that managed to accrue small advantages decided to press them instead. Today, the US is modernizing the nuclear arsenal to the tune of over a trillion dollars and is investing in tactical nuclear weapons.
> Stretch Armstrong would be impressed, this one is not easy to frame through the class war lens.
The cold war was about (some form of) capitalism vs (some form of) communism, which was in fact class war... However, in this case you can also see it as the ruling class is defending itself against control by another nation's ruling class. The people at the bottom are forced to deal with whatever the ruling class decides with little input.
I sleep better with a big deterrence arsenal than with a treaty that gets ignored the moment it becomes inconvenient.
> The cold war was about (some form of) capitalism vs (some form of) communism
The soviets didn't buck elite exploitation. Not for long and not by much.
If you think native elites are exploitative, I have news about foreign elites who have conquered you.
If they've reached the point where they actually have to use nuclear weapons in a MAD scenario, that political leader in question has failed at doing their job utterly, and completely irredeemably. It's a complete and utter betrayal of both their constituents, and the responsibility the world entrusted in them.
Why preface this with an "if" like it is a hypothetical where we don't know what happened? It is history now and we know how it turned out. MAD worked, there was never a nuclear war or major conflict between superpowers.
Political leaders didn't fail and have been redeemed. Their constituents weren't betrayed, and the world moves on.
Moreover the world came incredibly close to total destruction a number of times, and in part it is just look that we are still alive. For example, imagine a different president than Kennedy in power during the Cuban missile crisis.
Isn’t the opposite true? That American elites conquered the rest of the world.
MAD works best also when you act as militaristic and insane as possible so the other side is afraid to do anything lest you kick the nuclear football. Hopefully everyone with access to the nukes knows this, but you cant admit you know this lest the enemy spies find out its a bluff thus weakening the bluff so both sides have to keep up the keefab at all time even internally. so while both sides may act like paranoid crackhead with a gun on the edge of starting Nuclear Armageddon for looking at them funny. They know its a suicide to actually fallow through. And it works. Why do you think the whole world puts up with the ongoing shit show in North Korea? They have nukes and can hit Tokyo Seoul Honolulu and Seattle.
Besides we don't even know that doesn't work. We haven't had a World War or major European war since the end of ww2. If we look back historically going 75 years without a major European war is amazing. all of the big wars since have pretty much been with major powers with non industrialized nations or collapsed failed nation states.
As for elites using nukes on the proles, that is ridicules and violates the don't shit where you eat rule. IE radiation poisoning doesn't care about your net-worth.
You can maintain the safeguards and inspections indefinitely via the IAEA.
For an example of this type of thing, see slide 11 (which refers to air dropped munitions rather than SLBMs): https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Brief2017_Italy2....