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A comment on The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers. Parent comment

Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers by mcv on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @04:10PM (#11904957)
Serious yes, but nuclear, surely not? If the US would use nuclear retaliation after a conventional attack (or more likely, a conventional defense, because nobody sane would attack a US carrier unless it posed an immediate threat) I think that would violate all doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons.

The entire official nuclear policy of every single nuclear power (as far as I'm aware) is that they will only use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or an existential threat. Officially. I believe Putin stated at some point that he would not consider the use of small tactical nukes to be nuclear escalation (if Russia does it), but I would expect the US to be better than that.

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Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers by jonknee on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @06:53PM (#11906004)
I can't imagine a scenario where our carrier fleet is in imminent danger that doesn't qualify as an existential threat. We haven't faced that since WW2 and Japan did end up on the receiving end of nuclear arms.

US carriers carry over 5,000 sailors, having one taken out would be almost unimaginable (a one time event with more US deaths than the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined).

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Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers by emp_zealoth on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @08:22PM (#11906428)
You might want to step back and just reconsider how riddiculous it sounds. 5000 soldiers over millions of civilians? Really? Existential threat would be invasion force / bombing run / missile strike coming to continental US territories. Anything else is just "they took our toys"
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Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers by mcv on Wednesday June 15, 2016 @06:41PM (#11912687)
I don't think you know what "existential threat" means. It means your home country itself is in danger. Losing a single carrier only slightly reduces the US's ability to project force around the globe. But even with all carriers gone (not something that's ever going to happen), it would still be folly to attack the US on its own soil.
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Re:The U.S. Navy’s Big Mistake: Building Tons of Supercarriers by dragonwriter on Tuesday June 14, 2016 @06:56PM (#11906023)
> The entire official nuclear policy of every single nuclear power (as far as I'm aware) is that they will only use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack or an existential threat. Officially.

The US has never had such an official doctrine, nor to my knowledge has any of the other major nuclear powers.

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