Originally Posted by whenurhappy
You just need to see some of the risible stuff from the New American Institute and other 'Right thinking' bodies to feel just a little bit uncomfortable.
If you'd tried, you couldn't have got your timing better
Originally Posted by Jollygreengiant64
How could you instigate a first strike with 300 small yield weapons? And if you wanted to retaliate, what damage could you seriously expect to deliver? Deterrent? Nope. Weapon? Barely better than a pea shooter against a serious enemy.
Avoiding your suggestion of "first strikes" (hmmm - decapitation)...
Let's see. Every major city, most large towns have massive casualties and are rendered economically useless. EMP effects frying all of your key infrastructure control, machinery, banking, finance, telecomms, bureaucratic record-keeping. All key military infrastructure destroyed. Medical infrastructure completely overwhelmed. Logistic infrastructure completely overwhelmed (remember folks, civilisation is only nine meals away). The choice of whether to go for groundburst or airburst, and the resulting fallout effects. Most critically of all (given that we've now seen inside several dictators' palaces) no way of making or buying new gold-plated taps, marble flooring, smartphones and designer clothing; no more luxurious living for the regime's hangers-on and "loyal supporters".
If you seriously think that's not a deterrent, and "no better than a peashooter", then you are a very strange individual indeed...