Can you think of anything that might have changed from 1945 to 1981 in terms of geopolitics, such that the use of nuclear weapons by the United States might have led to some sort of global thermonuclear war? In other words- and, excuse me, I'm not very familiar with the history here- was there some other nuclear "superpower" that was around during the 1980s which could, quite easily, destroy all major American population centers, and by all indications would if the U.S. used nuclear weapons against it? And did this other superpower develop its nuclear capability before 1945, or after 1945?
And might there have been some difference in the power of nuclear weapons between Fat Man/Little Boy and those deployed in the early 1980s? That could also make a difference, here.
Any insight here would be greatly appreciated- otherwise it sounds like a really dumb idea to discourage using nuclear weapons against Russia in the 1980s, and I don't know why anybody might want to make that harder.
First and foremost consider who you're up against. All those lovely people in Russia, China, NK, ..., are kept at bay precisely because they know why US ICMBs are named "Minuteman." If you put a speed bump in the way of retaliation, you'll only embolden them. Fighting against an impotent, incapable, and snared opposition is anyone's dream. Why do you think China so casually runs concentration camps today, right now? And Russia so casually annexed territory of a foreign country - which, btw, handed over their nukes to Russia in exchange for protection.
"Ignoring the fact that the value of the use of atomic bombs against Japan is heavily debated to this day..."
The dimensions of the planet is also heavily debated, but that doesn't change the facts of it. The two nukes ended the war then and there, Japan capitulated without a single soldier setting foot on the mainland. Only someone to whom empathy is an alien concept and completely out of his mind can argue that invasion would have been better. If you have the imagination, picture yourself in a boat en route to certain death, you and millions like you, having to fight for every strand of grass against an enemy that considers their (unseen) emperor a god for which they will gladly die for, because it's honorable.
>Put on a grafana dashboard where he can track how
> many millions soldiers that would cost as well.
Besides... the drawn out and bloody WW, taken all the exhaustion, considering who they were up against, the cost of it...
> Being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield.
There is no lack of counterexamples that you could google, but as policy and as most soldiers' morals, protecting civilians - from both sides - is as paramount to us as the Prime Directive is to Picard.
What nation do you represent that "being a civilian doesn't grant you special plot shield"? I thought that was standard military procedure to avoid civilian casualties since at least the second world war.
In Afghtanistan, the Taliban represented well under 1% of the population(1). In WWII 31% of the German population, and 9% of the American population, were in military service. Those are just two very different wars, fought at very different scales.
A good example of this is in WWII it seems that it was fairly common for planes to strafe farmers and their equipment when they got an opportunity(3). In Afghanistan this would be incredibly counter productive, as so few Afghans were actually fighting. But in WWII? When a full 1/3rd of the population is in the military - and much of the rest is working in the industries necessary to keep the military running - ethics aside, it's easy to see how anything that reduced food supplies would have a direct effect on the effectiveness of the military.
1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban - reports 60k Taliban / 37 million Afghtanistan population = 0.16%
2) http://historynet.com/what-percentage-of-the-population-serv...
3) https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/3nla50/allie...
Do you consider someone that puts together IEDs for someone else to deploy an untouchable person that your need to leave alone? This person is unarmed, he's not a combatant, he's no threat to you, he just googled how to put a bunch of stuff together.
I know for myself, that if i find myself in the middle of a war i don't believe in, i'd pick my shit up and leave immediately, go anywhere else. I wouldn't just stay where i am, coding my web apps next to a goddamn bomb factory or HQ of some kind in complete denial of my surroundings, the current situation, and reality itself, while bombs are being air mailed to said factory/HQ next to me. But if chose to stay either because i want to be part of that war or am simply clueless, i can't blame anyone but me for the situation i find myself in.
Many of the Arab families in the area have a dozen children per wife, and live off agriculture, herding, or have workshops, bakeries, and the like. None of these people could even move their families, much less their livelihoods.