As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival
North Korea’s launch last week of a missile from a naval destroyer elicited an uncharacteristically prosaic analysis from the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The launch was proof, he said, that arming ships with nuclear weapons was “making satisfactory progress”.
But the test, and Kim’s mildly upbeat appraisal, were designed to reverberate well beyond the deck of the 5,000-tonne destroyer-class vessel the Choe Hyon – the biggest warship in the North Korean fleet.
His pointed reference to nuclear weapons was made as the US and Israel continued their air bombardment of Iran – a regime Donald Trump had warned, without offering evidence, was only weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.
“North Korea’s view”
Ha, yeah, it’s a NK thing. It’s everybody’s view.
Turns out the theory of Mutual Assured Destruction was invented by Kim Jung Un, as a spec of genetic material living in his father’s sperm that was still lodged in his grandfather’s scrotum.
This is the true unlimited power of Scientific Marxism.
The thought of the Great Leader is si magnificent it reverberates backwards through time!
His official government website states, or at least used to, that the very first time he played golf, he scored 18 hole-in-ones
That’s the overwhelming message of the 20th and 21st centuries. If you don’t have nukes then the US or Russia is gonna mess with you. Get nukes.
Secretly get nukes.
All but impossible, the major players keep an eye on all the things necessary for nuclear weapons.
Just do what Pakistan did and make a publicized nuclear team and nuclear infrastructure that acts as the fall guy for the real nuclear team and real infrastructure.
Also probably maybe have a government and military that isn’t susceptible to espionage.
Actually, Canada got in on the ground floor and we have everything we’d need. They say we’re about two months out at any given time, going the plutonium route.
Then again, we’re pretty used to the luxuries of not being an isolated pariah state.
It seems that’s what Iran was doing actually. They enriched uranium up to 60%. Bomb grade is 90%. But there’s really no reason to enrich that high except to make nukes. And nuclear enrichment is not a linear thing. Half the work is just to get to 5% enrichment.
It seems they designed their program to be right on the edge of nuclear breakout. In retrospect, they probably should have gone straight for the bomb.
Yeah, there’s an annoying amount of controversy over whether “Iran was trying to make a bomb”. It gets mixed answers from experts, because the literal answer is one thing, the effective answer is another, and there’s no way to explain it responsibly in a word or two.
Iran was/is trying to almost-but-not-quite get the bomb. Whether just going for it would of worked better or if the US would have stepped in sooner is an interesting question. It’s possible the Ayatollah wasn’t lying about having personal moral issues with it, though.
You guys aren’t quite as turnkey as, say, Japan. They’ve got reprocessing and rocket production from JAXA and really would have to just put together an implosion device.
TIL.
Delivery would be an issue for sure. Then again, if the potential target is America “guys on quads” would work. If the target isn’t America, America will do it for us. Edit: Because they own the Western hemisphere, and we’re their bitch.
As an American I sincerely hope that’s true, though I’d wager most of the people within “guys on quads” distance are pretty sympathetic to the effects our federal government is having on old allies.
Uh, so other side of the border from me is red state Montana. Anyway, I think the idea is you load it onto something else once it’s in and take it to an actual target. It’s just a long border that’s hard to seal perfectly.
If there’s a note of disbelief in there, I’d like to point out America has nukes and uses them as a deterrent the same way. Like, whether proliferation is morally justified, of if we should just accept our fate in that scenario, is a serious question we should ask, but you don’t really have a moral highground about it.
Obviously I’m not saying killing people is cool, and we know that 2/3 of Americans didn’t ask for any of this.
Am Canadian. Want nukes.
I’m an American. I want nukes. Not for my country, me specifically. We should legalize the private ownership of nuclear bombs!
Fun fact: thats why Eisenhower started Iran’s nuclear program. It was the ‘Atoms for Peace’ program. It was for peaceful purposes supposedly but we all know where developing nuclear capabilities will end up at.
I wonder how long it will take the EU to understand this
Ukraine found that out in 2022.
France knows, Poland knows and will probably be the first new nuclear power in the EU.
2014*
How on earth would a nuclear arsenal have benefited the Maiden Revolutionaries?
If anything, a nuclear armed Ukraine would have been invaded by Russia that much sooner.
If anything, a nuclear armed Ukraine would have been invaded by Russia that much sooner.
That’s generally not how nuclear deterrence works.
Also, 2014 was when Russia invaded Crimea
The nukes aren’t a deterrent if they’re manned by the colonizing entity.
And Russia invaded Crimea in response to the Maiden Revolution, which ousted a friendly government that was giving Russia easy access to the Crimean ports. Crimea hosts the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Imagine the US response if The Philippines or Japan installed a pro-China government.
Why did Russia not invade Poland then?
They also switched to a pro-west government and resulted in loss of naval facilities. They were also part of the Russian empire and the USSR.
Same thing happened to China, with multiple pro-west governments in their neigbours.
Also, we do know what happens in the case of the US. It happened with Cuba.
Powerful empires always seek to puppet their neigbours. There are only 2 things that effectively prevent that. Mutual Economic entanglement of open democracies and the threat of nuclear weapons.
Why did Russia not invade Poland then?
Russia doesn’t border Poland
That’s because nukes ARE the only path to security lmao. As soon as the first one was tested, and then fuck me used against civilians everyone watching jnmed understood this.
It sucks, and I would much prefer a world without nuclear weapons, but this is reality unfortunately. If you have nukes, you have leverage without ever having to use them
used against civilians
Uhhhh…
I don’t quite know how to break it to you but:
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There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.
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Killing civilians was the norm in WW2, every war before that, and the vast majority of every war since.
Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.
Firebombings which still had a higher kill count in Japan than both nukes combined.
The entire point of a nuke, is that all it takes is a single one to wipe out entire square miles of a city. There’s no way to do that without civilian casualties, and it’s only a matter of time until one gets thru defenses.
You don’t know me so you would have no way of knowing this about me, but yes I am very familiar with all the tradeoffs and decision making in this part of WW2 around ground assault vs nukes and continued bombing etc 🙌
I am very familiar with all the tradeoffs and decision making
Another Godzilla connoisseur, I see.
You clearly believe so…
But that’s not the impression one gets from the words you type.
✌️
However if you compare the nukes used in Japan to current nukes, they now cover a lot more than 1 city…
Yeah, and conventional attacks have also evolved past just dumping napalm from a balloon…
Or attaching small moltovs to bats and releasing them.
Like, nukes getting bigger is better as a dettertent.
That’s the entire point of a deterrent.
Where we fucked up, is who we entrusted the buttons to.
How directly civilians are targeted and how formally varies quite a bit, actually, even in ancient wars.
There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.
The nuclear strikes on Japan represented a political decision taken by the United States, aimed squarely at the Soviet Union; it was the first strike in the Cold War.
In August 1945, the USSR was preparing to invade Japan to overthrow its ruling fascist regime, which had been allied with Nazi Germany – which the Soviet Red Army had also just defeated in the European theater of the war.
Washington was concerned that, if the Soviets defeated Japanese fascism and liberated Tokyo like they had in Berlin, then Japan’s post-fascist government could become an ally of the Soviet Union and could adopt a socialist government.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, therefore, were not so much aimed at the Japanese fascists as they were aimed at the Soviet communists.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/08/07/atomic-bombing-japan-not-necessary/
Modern tactical nuclear warheads have yields up to the tens of kilotons, or potentially hundreds, several times that of the weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
They could be dialed down lower, but even a “small” tactical nuke is bigger than what got dropped on Japan.
It is not a “bunker buster” type of munition.
And I have no idea what you’re second rambling source is trying to say.
They could be dialed down lower, but even a “small” tactical nuke is bigger than what got dropped on Japan.
It’s not about size, it’s how you use it. For example, a tactical nuke could potentially be used at sea to destroy a fleet. Depending on where the fleet is, this could potentially be done with no direct civilian casualties.
And I have no idea what you’re second rambling source is trying to say.
Really? It’s pretty clear cut: the Americans dropped the nuke to primarily rule out Soviet influence as opposed to being a decisive means to end the war. This isn’t even a fringe opinion among historians these days - I’m surprised you haven’t heard this take.
Militarily Japan was finished (as the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that August showed). Further blockade and urban destruction would have produced a surrender in August or September at the latest, without the need for the costly anticipated invasion or the atomic bomb. As for the second bomb on Nagasaki, that was just as unnecessary as the first one. It was deemed to be needed, partly because it was a different design, and the military (and many civilian scientists) were keen to see if they both worked the same way. There was, in other words, a cynical scientific imperative at work as well.
I should also add that there was a fine line between the atomic bomb and conventional bombing – indeed descriptions of Hamburg or Tokyo after conventional bombing echo the aftermath of Hiroshima. To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.
Depending on where the fleet is, this could potentially be done with no direct civilian casualties.
And huge environmental damage leading to indirect death and suffering at a wide scale…
It’s pretty clear cut: the Americans dropped the nuke to primarily rule out Soviet influence as opposed to being a decisive means to end the war
No, that’s from an opinion on a random website it doesn’t prove anything, just tells you the authors opinion…
Your new one agrees with me at least:
To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.
But I didn’t bother reading more than you quoted.
Genuine question: before today, had you ever heard of the take that the US didnt need to nuke Japan - given Soviet advancements and Japan’s military crumbling?
Yep, anytime it comes up a shit ton of .ml accounts all keep insisting it wasn’t necessary even tho the alternative would have caused more deaths and a shit ton more human suffering while ignoring that it fucking worked even when the Japanese government considered imprisoning the emperor to prevent him from surrending before the bombs were used.
That’s what people don’t get, Japan wasn’t going to surrender. The military had seized control and would 100% continue fighting to the last person, the only thing that stopped them was showing that continuing to fight would leave all of Japan a barren rock.
The complete destruction of their island was the only thing that would have worked.
But as sure as I just said that, it’s all hypotheticals and guesses, no one really knows how much it would have taken without nukes, but every indication is it would have taken a lot.
Even if used “correctly”, it can still cause significant collateral damage. I wouldn’t normalize even the use of tactical nuclear weapons, as it’s only one degree of separation away from use on civilian centers. I can see the justification now…“(insert group) terrorists have set up tunnels underneath the civilian population center! We must nuke the city!”
Ah yes the Soviets were right about to checks notes start building an invasion fleet and beat the US in the race to Tokyo, thus checks notes again singlehandedly defeat fascism around the globe
That’s some interesting alternative history you’re reading there
Not sure what youre talking about, or how any of that follows.
The simple fact is that the notion that the US did not need to nuke Japan is a well-respected position among historians.
Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff, put it this way: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages. Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
https://www.wagingpeace.org/were-the-atomic-bombings-necessary/
https://www.historyonthenet.com/reasons-against-dropping-the-atomic-bomb
Alperovitz further highlights that the Japanese had initiated peace envoy missions as early as September 1944, reaching out to figures like Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek by December 1944 and engaging with the USSR in April 1945. That the Japanese were interested in negotiating a peace was well known. Moreover, the Americans knew that there was a potential for a surrender without necessitating an invasion as early as April 1945, provided there was clarity in the surrender terms.
The argument that the bombings prevented the necessity of an invasion is undermined by the very cities that were chosen to be bombed. It is now known that as many as nine atomic bombs were proposed to be used tactically against Japanese military targets as part of a planned — though never authorized — invasion. That two of those bombs were ultimately used against cities of no particular military value is evidence that plans for an invasion had already been abandoned by August of 1945.
The potential for a massive confrontation between the Red Army and the Kwantung Army in Manchuria introduced the prospect of the Soviets seeking equal participation in subsequent conflict-ending talks. This would have positioned them to assert a stronger claim over the region, resulting in gains that could far exceed their initial claims to territories lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Consequently, the atomic bomb, instead of being used tactically, evolved into a strategic weapon of terror intended to jolt Japan into immediate surrender.
Of course, they could have chosen to spend several hundred thousand soldiers instead.
But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there
But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there
Again, not sure what youre talking about, or how this follows. The only person bringing this idea is you.
Perhaps you need to check your le epic notes again.
Yeah must have been some other you that posted that the USSR was about to invade Japan
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we were working toward a way for a world without nukes. building an economy so interconnected that going to war with another country destroys your economy too. but that shit is fragile. i didn’t think it was this fragile tho.
It just needs someone with power and without any fucking knowledge of economics but thinking the opposite.
Too bad that ideology drove wealth inequality which empowered populism which empowered fascism which destroyed the interconnected economy. Neoliberalism was never a solution to peace.
who said an interconnected economy needs to be neoliberal?
…The great project you were referring to was a neoliberal one…
The economy in the USA can still get a lot worse!
This is the plot of metal gear
Metal gear?!
If they have a brain they will never relinquish their nukes. Not just because of the US either.
Because they’re such a good use of national resources. They sit around costing money being a clear and present danger to all. Marvelous idea.
Costs less than defending your land with conventional weapons and lives.
As long as you plan on nuking someone I guess. Have you ever seen the infographic from the Cold War when everyone launches their nukes? Mutually assured destruction ringing any bells? What kind of sovereignty do you expect to have of your nuclear wasteland?
The future comes down to one thing - management.
In science, we prefer observational to speculative evidence.
If you prefer observational evidence do some research on a proper nuclear counter and check out what happened to those USSR nukes.
OK well the USA will launch 3200 nuclear missiles at just about anything that threatens it with a nuclear missile. We will basically hit every known nuclear missile site and every related population center… so I guess when you are thinking about nuking the United States before they invade you…. Just know they will nuke the entire world and they will dump more nukes on you. Then you could create in a lifetime… that’s our actual nuclear doctrine
Works both ways, while the USA is thinking about invading another country with nuclear weapons they have to know that will lead to nukes from that country hitting their major cities which will probably make them think twice.
Then the discussion moves to pre-emptive strikes which have the same problem if the other country already has nukes. Eventually we end up in this situation where some might see even pursuing a nuclear weapons technology as justification for a war of aggression like we’re seeing in Iran so you certainly need to be careful during that phase but once you get there you’re in a much safer place than you used to.
The US is a big place, and we starve our citizens for fun. I don’t think the higher ups would care if you dropped a handful of bombs up.
A true nuclear deterrent is a combination of icbms and sub launched missles. A lot of them. I’m thinking 300 before I even start to get scared. 3,000 and I’m shitting bricks. If you build 3 nukes and think that will stop the USA from invading it’s just nonsense. They’d happily let those hit so they could glass their enemies and start the apocalypse.
You’re dealing with mad men.
Russia had about 10,000 of the biggest bombs in the world. Same doctrine just splatter anything close to being considered a friend of the US. So like it’s not having a nuke. It’s having enough nukes to outnuke the next guy and an survival plan for when your whole civilization turns to glass
they exist to prevent conflict at all because everyone knows the consequences of using them.
As I said to the other guy, I’m pretty sure the people in charge of the United States right now would happily let their people get hit by three nukes so they could new nuke you back. It’s a win win for them.
I’m not so sure about that since it’s still possible for them to hit stuff and people they care about even though they may not care about the country or its people in general.
And no doubt the S&P500 would tank so there’s that. Seems to be the one thing Trump cares about more than anything else.
With the administrations effort to collapse the value of the US dollar, I think we may be getting to the point where they stopped caring about the stock market gains too. Which would make them irrational actors. They already own most of the stock market anyway. They can crash the market and still control the companies.
They only prevent conflict if you have enough to annihilate your enemy. We have a full nuclear umbrella over the globe so no matter how many nukes you throw at us we are still going to be around to throw them back at you. 3 nukes won’t save you. 3,000 might?
There’s still a significant deterrent effect even if you’d “only” lose a few major cities worth while others stay around. There’s also potential for extended responses by other nuclear weapons states that further increase deterrence for such a scenario.
I’m trying to think of how Ukraine acquiring nukes would work with Russia? Do you think Ukraine having a nuke would deter Russia or would it make them an existential threat and have Russia nuke them? Let’s look at this from two different countries stand points and take the USA out of it for a second.
I mean its not a wrong view its either that or be a faithful servant of the west above your own citizens.
Instead of try to renovate or upkeep nuclear sites Ukraine gave them to Russia for assurances of protection by the Russia, the U.K, and U.S. Then Russia attacked them twice since then. It isn’t a “west” thing.
Dude who cares about North Korea. Just let them keep stealing from china that shit is funny to me.
That would be the sane assumption to make here. But remember, trump is not a rational actor. He might just invade NK just for shits and giggles. i think the only reason he hasn’t yet is because they don’t have enough oil / kim is his friend.
He wouldnt because israel doesn’t give a shit about NK.
His admin just has to tell him the Kim dynasty bought franchise rights to McDonalds and they are threatening American supplies of Big Macs. War by tomorrow morning.
Edit: That the above sentence is not the stupidest thing ever said and has even the smallest element of truth in it speaks very poorly about the age we are living in.
Wasn’t that kind of a given already considering how Russia is treating Ukraine right now?
As a completely irrelevant observer, yeah. Nukes are. If I was a leader of a people and we had one, I would never disarm.
Cool, except Trump and Putin don’t think rationally. What makes you think nukes are a deterrent from them trying to imperialize? It might stop them short term but not for long.
Aim directly at Mar-A-Lago.
Hell, you don’t even need a nuclear payload for that.
They have nuclear resistant planes and can keep the president in the air indefinitely during a nuclear strike. The guys right trump has no deterrents. Nukes are an irrational deterrent for irrational people. You could launch 100 nukes on the USA and we’d still invade your country an hour later lmao
The point isn’t to kill him, just to destroy his golf course.
here’s the thing about narcissists. they only care about themselves. not stuff, not people, not morals or ethics or laws or anything.
as long as he’s alive, that’s all he cares about.
the only way to truly scare a narcissist is to take the most important thing from them of all.
public attention.
Nuclear weapons fall pretty solidly in the category of “things that can hurt a narcissist”. Trump is certain he can be protected from conventional attacks. If someone REALLY wants to nuke the president, however, he’d have to get EXTREMELY lucky to avoid it.
I think you underestimate the intelligence services that are dedicated to his safety.
they would see plans of a nuke months before they would see some psycho with a gun that decides on a whim that “today’s the day”.
Not just north Korea, the whole world can see what happened to Ukrain after they gave up their nukes in exchange for a protection deal, mutually assured destruction is the only way to keep your country safe
Yes, not holding up that deal was the worst move in modern US diplomatic history. The Doomsday Clock was moved from 100 seconds to midnight up to 90 seconds to midnight because of it. The message is VERY clear: you will only be protected or respected if you can launch nukes.
That had to be the biggest takeaway every country had to have gotten over the last couple of years.
Proximity bias of Europoors.
What is happening in Gaza and Iran is much worse. Iran is a 3,000 years old civilization while Ukraine is a fragment of USSR, 30 years old.
Not even from Europe dumbass
Humans have inhabited Ukraine since 32,000 BC. - Wikipedia
Ukraine, the official country, is just some lines drawn on a map. The people, the culture, the history has been around for thousands and thousands of years.
As if the Ukrainians aren’t a culture and people going back thousands of years. What odd bigotries you have.
Your armchair must be comfy
Ukraine is far more older civilization than you think dumbass. Actually it’s older than russia.
This comment should win some kind of an award. How on earth could anyone think the history of Ukrainian culture began 30 years ago when a regime that itself had only existed for around 70 years fell apart?
And not just North Korea’s.
Just like Putin is the best NATO marketer, Trump is the best nuclear weapon marketer.
Since Putin attacked Ukraine half a dozen European countries are considering their own nuclear arsenal separate from US nuclear sharing. Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Denmark.
Putin attacking Ukraine has certainly played a part here but the big and much more impactful final push for this has been NATO members losing trust in the USA and its nuclear umbrella because of Trump. After all every one of these European nations except for Ukraine which is the only non-member was happy with the NATO guarantees for a very long time before this.
If they have a bigger brain they would make a bigger stockpile with more capable strike capability. Having global nuclear reach is the only way to have sovereignty in 2026.
It should be the goal of all politically unstable countries to control nukes. Fuck feeding your population or dealing with internal corruption. Just do nukes!
You spend your life building a beautiful home. Right when you pay the mortgage off and finish the last detail…a drunken maniac busts in the door, shoots you, and moves into your former home. And he just gets away with it because there’s no cops in your town.
Or, more concretely, you build a magnificent culture, industry, society, and economy. You invest in your people and technological innovation. You turn your nation into an economic powerhouse. Then the neighboring country, who put all of their more limited resources into the military, storms across the border and takes over your little paradise. Now you’re still paying the tax levels of a Nordic welfare state, but all of the money just goes into the pockets of the warlords and oligarchs of the mafia state that just conquered you.
Yea the Ukraine war is a real tragedy. But I don’t think the EU in America are afraid of Russian nukes. I think they’re addicted to Russian money.
If they have a bigger brain they would make a bigger stockpile with more capable strike capability. Having global nuclear reach is the only way to have sovereignty in 2026.
Instead of using our combined resources to elect, better governments, and what not we could just make nukes. The poor will be starving still but we will have nukes.
Yes, sir, when I look around and see a deteriorating global peace, the first thing I think is nuclear proliferation. It’s like clearly humans can handle more destructive power and need to be threatening each other on a more existential scale.
The biggest deterrent Iran had wasn’t nuclear. It was their proximity to the Straight of Hormuz, with the potential to shut down a fifth of global fossil fuel traffic.
Trump blew straight past that breaker. He wasn’t deterred because he did not give a shit.
That’s not to say Iran shouldn’t have developed a nuclear weapon. But there’s no reason to believe a Pete Hegseth/Israel Katz joint brain trust would have respected it
