I know that the mods will probably ban this post outright but I have a genuine legitimate question.

People who oppose nuclear weapons want them gone. My question is the following

"If we got rid of nuclear weapons in our country (say, the US and UK combined) what would happen to us? We cant expect Russia and others to get rid of theirs (why would they) so what would happen? Why would us getting rid of our weapons be a positive?"

 

The idea is to get rid of the weapons in all countries, not just some.

 

Unilateral action would in my estimation be imprudent. The idea behind the SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) was to gradually draw down the respective arsenals to a level where there would only be enough weapons to destroy the the planet once, instead of four times over.

At the moment we have no effective strategy covering the use of a single weapon.

 

Why would us getting rid of our weapons be a positive?

Well that question has an easy answer: You cannot have a nuclear accident if the weapons don't exist in the first place.

The rest of the geopolitical war game theory and strategy is beyond human comprehension, I think. As @Papabravo noted, getting a big reduction of the total warheads on the planet is doable but complete elimination is not likely.

 

 

^ The problem is some people will play a losing move, repeatedly, just to prove they could. ^

There are those who don't care about themselves or anyone else and are happy to watch the world burn even if they go down with it.

 

You need them as a deterrent; as in Mutually Assured Destruction. Unfortunately, someone might be crazy enough to launch a first strike.

Civilized countries need to prohibit their leaders from launching a first strike without super majority approval from other governing bodies.

 

Civilized countries need to prohibit their leaders from launching a first strike without super majority approval from other governing bodies.

They pretty much all do. I don't know of any civilized and developed semi first world country that allows for one single person to have total unquestionable control over their nuclear weapons.

It's rather why all the countries of the world who have nuclear capability tend to work together on getting along and making sure each has a reasonable amount of safeguards in place for both themselves and everyone else's bet interests.

In a way thanks to NK doing what they are doing it's helping the major world nuclear players work together better on multiple levels. Nobody wants some crazy dictator from some horrendously undeveloped backwards country picking fights with anyone just because they feel like it and know they have nothing to lose for trying.

 

They pretty much all do. I don't know of any civilized and developed semi first world country that allows for one single person to have total unquestionable control over their nuclear weapons.

The US doesn't have any restrictions in place.

 

The US doesn't have any restrictions in place.

Don't be so sure. Every, and I mean every soldier is duty-bound to question the legitimacy and legality of his/her orders. The world has already been saved at least once by such a person (a Soviet). It presents a conundrum that may not have an answer.

 

The idea is to get rid of the weapons in all countries, not just some.

And how does this work, exactly?

 

And how does this work, exactly?

Easy. Just shove the genie back in the bottle. Done.

 

Don't be so sure. Every, and I mean every soldier is duty-bound to question the legitimacy and legality of his/her orders. The world has already been saved at least once by such a person (a Soviet). It presents a conundrum that may not have an answer.

We can't trust a soldier to disobey a lawful order from a superior to save the world.

 

The US doesn't have any restrictions in place.

Yes it does according to the supreme law of the country, The Constitution and the powers it gives the President. The President of the USA can command use but he alone does not authorize use, there is absolute two man control for authorizing the execution of a launch order that starts with the Secretary of Defense down to the last civilian United States officer if the Secretary of Defense resigns or is fired. Options are given, he chooses. There are many things about the US nuclear policy (command and control) that are not public that deal with authorization and how the plans will be executed.

I do have a good idea how the system works because of this school at Nuclear Weapons Training Group Pacific.
*J-2G-0905 Sealed Authentication System/Emergency Action Procedures (SAS/EAP) TOP SEC
* Designates courses requiring initial PRP screening.

 

Yes it does according to the supreme law of the country, The Constitution and the powers it gives the President.

I hope everything I've read and heard is wrong and you are right.

https://www.snopes.com/2017/11/13/anyone-stop-trump-launching-nukes-answer-no/

 

I hope everything I've read and heard is wrong and you are right.

https://www.snopes.com/2017/11/13/anyone-stop-trump-launching-nukes-answer-no/

Headline grabbing BS. The real questions on Presidential authority are about a 'out of the blue' no imminent threat preemptive attack on a target that would be an illegal Act Of War. That would we be an illegal order that even Joe the soldier can disobey. The event of a nuclear attack (missiles in the air to the USA) against the United States would be completely different discussion.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/17/16656856/trump-congress-nuclear-weapons-war

One of the experts who testified at the hearing was Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University and a former special adviser on the National Security Council. I reached out to Feaver with two big questions: Can the president unilaterally launch a nuclear strike? And what are the checks in place to stop an unlawful order from the president?

Sean Illing
So there’s no magic lever the president can pull to send us into nuclear war, but I’m trying to imagine the contexts in which the president might give the order.

Peter Feaver
Well, there are two that come to mind. One is that the president is woken up in the middle of the night and told he has only 30 minutes or less to make a decision because we are under attack or about to be attacked, and of course that means hundreds if not thousands of people in the national security complex who've been monitoring world events and passed through various protocols have concluded this is what's happening, and we need an answer from the president. In that context, the system is designed to be able to carry out an order in that narrow time span, and he alone would have the legal authority to give that order if he's still alive.

The other scenario is that the president wakes the military up in the middle of the night and says, "Hey, I wanna do a nuclear strike," and in that setting, he would raise a lot of alarms throughout the chain of command. People would be saying, "Well, what is this? Why are we doing this?" It would require a lot more people to say, "Yes. This is the right decision."

 

But why can't I have nuclear weapons since I'm small and need to defend myself in the dark ally with every criminal having one?

If lawful people can't have one only the criminals will be armed. \m/

Rekt.

 

Headline grabbing BS. The real questions on Presidential authority are about a 'out of the blue' no imminent threat preemptive attack on a target that would be an illegal Act Of War. That would we be an illegal order that even Joe the soldier can disobey. The event of a nuclear attack (missiles in the air to the USA) against the United States would be completely different discussion.

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/11/17/16656856/trump-congress-nuclear-weapons-war

I just finished reading from that link and I thought it was very straightforward. I was actually going to post it myself only to find that you already have. I recommend reading it.

The issue raised by the TS, however, is not whether a US President can launch nuclear weapons "on his own", so to speak. As I read it, he is asking, essentially, what do people opposed to nuclear weapons hope to accomplish?

To that point, I would say - ask them.

Start here (and for an organization local to your listed country, here) and you can probably find plenty of mission statements and the like. Probably not "ban-worthy", but if you really want to know, that would be one way to find out. Unless you want the personal opinion of those in the Forum that believe as much and want to share their reasons.

 

Nuclear energy is great compare to oil, gas and coal. However the fact that we are killing nuclear scientist in other countries just because they know exactly what we know.

That is some ego.

 

I just finished reading from that link and I thought it was very straightforward. I was actually going to post it myself only to find that you already have. I recommend reading it.

The issue raised by the TS, however, is not whether a US President can launch nuclear weapons "on his own", so to speak. As I read it, he is asking, essentially, what do people opposed to nuclear weapons hope to accomplish?

To that point, I would say - ask them.

Start here (and for an organization local to your listed country, here) and you can probably find plenty of mission statements and the like. Probably not "ban-worthy", but if you really want to know, that would be one way to find out. Unless you want the personal opinion of those in the Forum that believe as much and want to share their reasons.

As a person who once had a very small part in a possible nuclear weapons release order I would be happy if they were eliminated. I'm opposed to nuclear weapons and if there was a plan that provided the same level of war deterrence with other nuclear power I would be for it 100% . The horrors (damage predictions with overkill from several bomb hits) contained in our small section of the attack plan was the stuff of nightmares.