That’s been the case since the beginning of the Cold War.

Exactly. The president can say that, but it doesn't mean that it means anything.

Kind of ironic coming from the person who would be personally creating the armageddon. How about just don't do it and it won't happen?

Do you really think the US President would shoot first? Or, are you saying that if someone else launches first, we should just take it and not retaliate?

> Do you really think the US President would shoot first?

There’s another option. The US making another country so fearful of regime change or destruction that they fire first. And the US has repeatedly attempted and accomplished regime change, several times resulting in the death of the former leader of the country.

Also, yes. The US would fire first if it were losing a conventional war, which of course would be unlikely in the next few decades. We’ve already seen that the US did use nukes to avoid losses invading the Japanese mainland.

The US has accomplished regime change in weak (politically unstable) non-nuclear countries. The only threat of regime change Russia faces is internal.

The idea that the US would use nuclear weapons in response to losing a conventional war is not well founded. One would not necessarily consider Vietnam nor Afghanistan as conventional wars, but they were lost, and nuclear strike did not happen.

I don't really see any likelihood for the US using nuclear weapons in a _deliberate_ first strike outside of parts of the continental US being invaded and occupied.

> One would not necessarily consider Vietnam nor Afghanistan as conventional wars, but they were lost, and nuclear strike did not happen.

The US wasn’t being invaded and didn’t need to continue the war to prevent a future invasion in those cases. Whereas Japan would’ve continued the war and brought it back to the US mainland eventually.

> Whereas Japan would’ve continued the war and brought it back to the US mainland eventually.

This is simply ahistoric.

Japan was on the brink of loss and everyone knew it (including the entire Japanese chain of command), the main sticking point was the conditions of surrender and the Japanese were deluded (partially by the US, intentionally or not) into thinking Russia could get them more favourable surrender conditions. These delays, combined with what seems to be at least some wish to show America's might, lead to the bombings.

No reputable historian would make the argument that in 1945 it was remotely likely that Japan would not lose the war irrespective of the bomb, let alone Japan actually invading the US. If the US had explicitly stated they would not try the royal family for war crimes and keep the 帝 (emperor) alive, Japan would've surrendered (this is literally the only important condition they wanted, and it's what the US was planning on doing anyway).

If you'd like to watch a very long video explaining the events leading up to the bombings with a very detailed timeline: https://youtu.be/RCRTgtpC-Go

The WW2 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki predate any real nuclear doctrine. I don't think they are particularly informative of nuclear doctrine today. And yes, as the other poster says, Japanese invasion of the continental US is an absurdly unrealistic proposition - even if Japan had achieved all of its wartime objectives.

> The US has accomplished regime change in weak (politically unstable) non-nuclear countries. The only threat of regime change Russia faces is internal.

And yet many senior political figures in the US repeatedly call for regime change, coup, uprising, and worse. Why do those things?

It's called sabre rattling. There's a reason it's done by senior political figures and not from the officially recognized leadership. There's a difference from the person in charge and those tasked with advise & consent roles.

Many senior political figures in the US repeatedly call for regime change, coup, uprising, and worse...

... to happen in the US, and nobody nukes them either.

>we should just take it and not retaliate?

Clinton made that type of proclamation when he was in office, and the conservatives went nuts about it. It's really the only way to not escalate to total global devastation.

they did it before! twice!

I'm pretty sure the Japanese (at Pearl Harbor) and Germans shot first.

irrational: false equivalency

  nukes <> conventional weapons

Why not? We have conventional weapons today that are more destructive than those two nuclear bombs unleashed over Japan. They were quite small bombs by todays standards. You are equally dead no matter what the explosive material is.

Lookup No first use doctrine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use

Kinda relies on the other parties also not doing it.

Rhetoric is an essential component of nuclear deterrence. You need to convince the enemy that you have the resolve and capability to retaliate, even if you don't/won't.