No one except outright tyrants would bomb civilian infrastructure or use nuclear weapons, subjecting millions of people to suffering.
Once serious nuclear weapons are used, everyone dies (to a first approximation), civilian or not. If I recall correctly, it takes about 100 megatons worldwide to casuse nuclear winter and collapse agricultural production.
During the Cold War, the US maintained a position of “strategic ambiguity” on the question of first use. Much of the logic around NATO at the height of the Cold War was based around a first-use nuclear response to overwhelming conventional invasion (see MC 14⁄13 staged responses). This was the full-scale, Dr Strangelove, batshit-insane “end of civilization” nightmare. Strategic ambiguity was retained around what would trigger each level of response, but the endgame was pretty much total annihilation. I believe France also maintained a separate posture of strategic ambiguity, and they always wanted to ensure a nuclear deterent that didn’t rely on NATO.
China and Russia both held official policies of “no first use”, but it’s uncertain that they would have actually stuck to that in the face of a massively overwhelming conventional invasion.
I want to be clear: The logic of nuclear deterence is just as insane as Dr Strangelove made it out to be. And you may choose to call NATO, the US and France “tyrants”! But they all had policy at least as dangerous as, “Well, we haven’t promised that we won’t trigger nuclear Armageddon and the death of billions if a large enough number of tanks roll across our borders. Do you feel lucky, punk?”
So as a Westerner, that’s a missing piece of the analysis for me. Taiwan has invested heavily in long-range cruise missiles and, in the past, secret nuclear programs. Presumably they had some theory of how they would use that capacity in the face of a massively overwhelming conventional invasion.
And just in case I haven’t made it clear, I think MAD is madness. I think even the people who coined the acronym knew that. But when a country is faced with overwhelming conventional invasion, I don’t think we can automatically rule it out.
Once serious nuclear weapons are used, everyone dies (to a first approximation), civilian or not. If I recall correctly, it takes about 100 megatons worldwide to casuse nuclear winter and collapse agricultural production.
During the Cold War, the US maintained a position of “strategic ambiguity” on the question of first use. Much of the logic around NATO at the height of the Cold War was based around a first-use nuclear response to overwhelming conventional invasion (see MC 14⁄13 staged responses). This was the full-scale, Dr Strangelove, batshit-insane “end of civilization” nightmare. Strategic ambiguity was retained around what would trigger each level of response, but the endgame was pretty much total annihilation. I believe France also maintained a separate posture of strategic ambiguity, and they always wanted to ensure a nuclear deterent that didn’t rely on NATO.
China and Russia both held official policies of “no first use”, but it’s uncertain that they would have actually stuck to that in the face of a massively overwhelming conventional invasion.
I want to be clear: The logic of nuclear deterence is just as insane as Dr Strangelove made it out to be. And you may choose to call NATO, the US and France “tyrants”! But they all had policy at least as dangerous as, “Well, we haven’t promised that we won’t trigger nuclear Armageddon and the death of billions if a large enough number of tanks roll across our borders. Do you feel lucky, punk?”
So as a Westerner, that’s a missing piece of the analysis for me. Taiwan has invested heavily in long-range cruise missiles and, in the past, secret nuclear programs. Presumably they had some theory of how they would use that capacity in the face of a massively overwhelming conventional invasion.
And just in case I haven’t made it clear, I think MAD is madness. I think even the people who coined the acronym knew that. But when a country is faced with overwhelming conventional invasion, I don’t think we can automatically rule it out.