Comment by heartbeats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by heartbeats | Hacker News Reader

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Surely, this is not a serious take.

For one, NK hardly has the capacity to "destroy" the US - they barely have working ICBMs.

Secondly, whatever the amount of nuclear warheads necessary to deter this is, it's surely less than 3,750[0].

We cannot know whether it is impossible to stop the "genie," as no serious attempt has been made. The U.S. and Russia together hold 90% of the world's nuclear weapons. The Cold War being over, are you seriously proposing they need this entire arsenal in order to defend themselves against the very serious and dangerous threats of checks notes Pakistan and North Korea?

If so, then how come the US still reserves the right to a pre-emptive nuclear strike? How come it has not adopted a "no first use" policy like China and India?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_of_the_United_...

I chose North Korea for the thought experiment because of it's belligerence, not because of it's quantity of nuclear weapons.

>The Cold War being over, are you seriously proposing they need this entire arsenal in order to defend themselves against the very serious and dangerous threats of checks notes Pakistan and North Korea?

Why did you choose to ignore the Chinese who are currently rapidly expanding their nuclear arsenal. The world is on the precipice of a new cold war between Beijing and Washington.

>If so, then how come the US still reserves the right to a pre-emptive nuclear strike? How come it has not adopted a "no first use" policy like China and India?

A "no first use" policy is worth less than the paper it would be printed on. No one serious actually believes in them.

Well, is it to defend against small, irrelevant third-world countries with a handful of nukes with barely functioning delivery systems, or is it to defend against large, serious places with serious arsenals? Because these are two very different goals.

If North Korea is a bad example for a thought experiment, then you should pick a better example.

As for China - surely the U.S. and China could come to a mutual agreement to reduce their nuclear arsenals?

It might be worth noting here that China's "rapidly expanding" arsenal clocks in at 350 warheads, while the U.S. has only a meagre 6,185 (barely 17x the size). If America is concerned about large nuclear arsenals, surely they could take the first step or three?

> A "no first use" policy is worth less than the paper it would be printed on.

In that case, its decision seems even stranger.

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