Nuclear deterrence

Nuclear weapons deter war.  A statement that gets used a lot, is it true though? At best it is questionable, at worst its an outright falsehood.

The fact that the powers that be have been using nuclear weapons in the form of Depleted Uranium: cannon shot the size of most peoples forearms made totally from uranium, that explodes on impact, penetrating artillery, tanks, buildings and troop transports, making anything it hits explode, leaving an aftermath of radioactive dust that causes death and radiation poisoning:
since before the first Gulf War and in every conflict onwards, in my opinion, nullifies that statement.

'Whooaa there,' I hear those amongst you who support nuclear detterence declare. 'What about the prolonged peace between NATO and the USSR?'

Ok, let's explore that, the theory goes, after WW2 if we didn't have nukes; then Russia invades the whole of Europe.

In the face of two world wars, the second wiping 20,000,000 Russians off the planet, 6,000,000 Polish, 7,000,000 Germans and 2,000,000 give or take for rest of Europe, with almost the same number wounded.

It seems unlikely to me that Stalin would have been able to find the men, let alone train and arm them to be in a fit state to take over Europe.

What evidence is there then that supports Russia eliminating western Europe's defenses without it turning into a replay of WW2? People say,  'they have a massive army, with a massive amount of Armour.'

Well so did Hitler and he wasn't able to conquer Europe, and that was with America and Russia helping him for the first few years, if he couldn't do it, how could Stalin have?

It took Stalin imposing an incredible amount of force and propaganda onto his people to get them to invade Germany in WW2, including shooting those who turned back, this was during war time and even then after the atrocities of the Nazi regime in Russia and Eastern Europe, the average Russian still did not want to invade Germany.

Historically it appears impossible to have a global war without the consent and participation of the majority of citizens. Given the choice between sitting on your farm, enjoying the good life, or being shelled, shot at, going crazy, losing body parts and at best becoming a mass murderer that survives; I'm pretty sure most of us would choice the farm.

This leads to governments using PR campaigns or propaganda to create the mentality needed for young men to want to give up their lives, and for their loved ones to encourage it.

An example of this is is the Order of The White Feather  founded by Admiral Charles Fitzgerald where young men were accosted by young women and given a white feather who then branded them as cowards.

This kind of public relations campaign worked well in the first half of the twentieth century, but now in the twenty first century, the age of communication and information?

 When over a million people marched against the invasion of Iraq. I don't think that any western government could pull the strings of nationalism to entice a generation to put their lives on the line in the same way.

This is why we see a public relations campaign of incredible complexity in garnering public opinion to support war.

All this is capable of doing is manufacturing consent for wars that are far off and fought by specialized troops who are much more than conscripts with a .30 cal.

It seems highly unlikely that a globally aware internet generation would be naïve enough to participate in mass scale war based on ideology or nationalism

Can you imagine the draft or national service being reintroduced in any of the western democracies?

So I think it's reasonable to say we live in a world where wars of nationality involving the big powers the G7 and G20 would be very hard to justify and start. Is that still true?

There isn't the public will, not because of Nuclear weapons, after all proxy wars have been being fought since almost directly after the second world war and with times where we came very close to using nuclear weapons, accidentally or with consideration, but because we have evolved;  Monty Python and Ecstasy have played a bigger part in maintaining peace than nuclear weapons in my eyes.

So why do I state that nuclear weapons make war more likely? For one, there are hawks in the world, the people who gave the orders to kill in any of the wars that have plagued this planet, all of them knowingly sent men to die, kill or destroy.

WW1 is a perfect example of leaders who were in the safety zone, sending millions to their death, they did this knowingly.

People with this mentality are still around, they are the ones who felt sanctions in Iraq were justified, despite Iraq complying with the UN mandate. Millions of lives lost for a political agenda.

These people, in my opinion, will use nuclear weapons if they felt the damage was acceptable, the use of depleted uranium is proof of this.

Secondly, with an increasingly robotized military we are fast approaching a time when consent of the many is no longer needed for a continental war.

In a situation where there has been considerable escalation of violence, in somewhere like Syria for example, if drones had been the bulk of the fighting force, with NATO and Russia being the actors in the scenario, the possibility of a tactical nuke becomes plausible.

Another possibility is if a terrorist organization does the same thing and maintains a high level of elusively, again the possibility of a tactical nuke is plausible and finally if a terrorist organization gets hold of a nuke, uses it and the origin of the nuke is discovered, it is plausible that nukes will be used on that nation. 

Do I feel safer with nuclear weapons in the equation? No, I think they make war easier and as we become more and more propagandized to accept nuclear weapons, such as depleted uranium, it isn't too big a step for the justification of tactical nukes.

In a world with the safe use of nuclear power, none of these scenarios are played out.

Is it realistic to expect the world's governments to give up the power they feel nuclear bombs give them?

It would undoubtedly take a huge leap of faith on the part of generally pretty paranoid people, but we can always hope.

My only aim in this blog is to put forward an alternative narrative to the one of nuclear deterrence creating peace, as I believe it is completely false and also in itself is a dangerous piece of propaganda that subtly propagates war. 

Ollie Bee

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