As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival
North Korea’s launch last week of a missile from a naval destroyer elicited an uncharacteristically prosaic analysis from the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The launch was proof, he said, that arming ships with nuclear weapons was “making satisfactory progress”.
But the test, and Kim’s mildly upbeat appraisal, were designed to reverberate well beyond the deck of the 5,000-tonne destroyer-class vessel the Choe Hyon – the biggest warship in the North Korean fleet.
His pointed reference to nuclear weapons was made as the US and Israel continued their air bombardment of Iran – a regime Donald Trump had warned, without offering evidence, was only weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.
We live in times, when if you don’t have a weapon of mass destruction, you cannot be safe. This is like having a gun in neighborhood.
Shit, Trump’s illegal Iran war convinces me pretty strongly that a nuclear weapons program is the only way to keep my fucking apartment secure from the despotic motherfucker. Kick in my door and millions go boom, bitch!
…that sounds ridiculous, and it is! But that’s the kind of world this sadistic, brain-rotted buffoon is trying to create. And for some reason Republicans seem to think that’s just great! Less than two dozen of them could end this nightmare if they cared. But they don’t. How many more are going to die for these bastards?
And not just North Korea’s.
Just like Putin is the best NATO marketer, Trump is the best nuclear weapon marketer.
If they have a bigger brain they would make a bigger stockpile with more capable strike capability. Having global nuclear reach is the only way to have sovereignty in 2026.
If they have a bigger brain they would make a bigger stockpile with more capable strike capability. Having global nuclear reach is the only way to have sovereignty in 2026.
If they have a brain they will never relinquish their nukes. Not just because of the US either.
Cool, except Trump and Putin don’t think rationally. What makes you think nukes are a deterrent from them trying to imperialize? It might stop them short term but not for long.
Aim directly at Mar-A-Lago.
Hell, you don’t even need a nuclear payload for that.
here’s the thing about narcissists. they only care about themselves. not stuff, not people, not morals or ethics or laws or anything.
as long as he’s alive, that’s all he cares about.
the only way to truly scare a narcissist is to take the most important thing from them of all.
public attention.
Nuclear weapons fall pretty solidly in the category of “things that can hurt a narcissist”. Trump is certain he can be protected from conventional attacks. If someone REALLY wants to nuke the president, however, he’d have to get EXTREMELY lucky to avoid it.
I think you underestimate the intelligence services that are dedicated to his safety.
they would see plans of a nuke months before they would see some psycho with a gun that decides on a whim that “today’s the day”.
Never thought I’d agree with North Korea but a broken clock is right twice a day I guess.
Fun fact: thats why Eisenhower started Iran’s nuclear program. It was the ‘Atoms for Peace’ program. It was for peaceful purposes supposedly but we all know where developing nuclear capabilities will end up at.
I mean, they’re not wrong, they could get away with a lot less without the nukes.
North Korea will fall to something other than invasion now. For example, things usually don’t go too well for female monarchs because the men around them are dicks.
That’s the overwhelming message of the 20th and 21st centuries. If you don’t have nukes then the US or Russia is gonna mess with you. Get nukes.
Secretly get nukes.
All but impossible, the major players keep an eye on all the things necessary for nuclear weapons.
Actually, Canada got in on the ground floor and we have everything we’d need. They say we’re about two months out at any given time, going the plutonium route.
Then again, we’re pretty used to the luxuries of not being an isolated pariah state.
You guys aren’t quite as turnkey as, say, Japan. They’ve got reprocessing and rocket production from JAXA and really would have to just put together an implosion device.
Am Canadian. Want nukes.
Am German. We can definitely be trusted with nukes.
I think the lesson here is no one can be trusted with nukes, which is why I want them.
Checks and balances.
I know that it’s an unpopular opinion, but I firmly believe that we were at least marginally safer when the USSR was still a superpower acting as a check on American fuckery.
Once the USSR fell, US went masks off on the international stage because they had no reason to pretend to be the good guys anymore.
They convinced all their allies to disarm themselves, and then went full “nice country here…shame if something happened to it” the moment they were the only big dog left.
The world can’t re-arm itself fast enough as far as I’m concerned.
Better to have it and not need it. You can only have respect when your facing someone at an equal level of power and respect. Clearly even if some administration does have love for your people the next administration might not.
Sadly, that’s a lesson I’ve already learned from war in Ukraine. Before it I had "hope"s and "might"s about civilization. Now I have a substantial amount less
I sincerely don’t give us 50 years. We will almost certainly destroy ourselves. Whether that’s by war, economic or environmental collapse, or otherwise, we’re speed running it on all fronts.
I used to hold so much hope for humanity. It feels so naive now.
If it makes you feel any better, we will probably survive and restart the cycle.
That’s because nukes ARE the only path to security lmao. As soon as the first one was tested, and then fuck me used against civilians everyone watching jnmed understood this.
It sucks, and I would much prefer a world without nuclear weapons, but this is reality unfortunately. If you have nukes, you have leverage without ever having to use them
we were working toward a way for a world without nukes. building an economy so interconnected that going to war with another country destroys your economy too. but that shit is fragile. i didn’t think it was this fragile tho.
Too bad that ideology drove wealth inequality which empowered populism which empowered fascism which destroyed the interconnected economy. Neoliberalism was never a solution to peace.
The economy in the USA can still get a lot worse!
It just needs someone with power and without any fucking knowledge of economics but thinking the opposite.
This is the plot of metal gear
Metal gear?!
!
I heared this.
used against civilians
Uhhhh…
I don’t quite know how to break it to you but:
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There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.
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Killing civilians was the norm in WW2, every war before that, and the vast majority of every war since.
Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.
Firebombings which still had a higher kill count in Japan than both nukes combined.
The entire point of a nuke, is that all it takes is a single one to wipe out entire square miles of a city. There’s no way to do that without civilian casualties, and it’s only a matter of time until one gets thru defenses.
How directly civilians are targeted and how formally varies quite a bit, actually, even in ancient wars.
However if you compare the nukes used in Japan to current nukes, they now cover a lot more than 1 city…
Yeah, and conventional attacks have also evolved past just dumping napalm from a balloon…
Or attaching small moltovs to bats and releasing them.
Like, nukes getting bigger is better as a dettertent.
That’s the entire point of a deterrent.
Where we fucked up, is who we entrusted the buttons to.
There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.
The nuclear strikes on Japan represented a political decision taken by the United States, aimed squarely at the Soviet Union; it was the first strike in the Cold War.
In August 1945, the USSR was preparing to invade Japan to overthrow its ruling fascist regime, which had been allied with Nazi Germany – which the Soviet Red Army had also just defeated in the European theater of the war.
Washington was concerned that, if the Soviets defeated Japanese fascism and liberated Tokyo like they had in Berlin, then Japan’s post-fascist government could become an ally of the Soviet Union and could adopt a socialist government.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, therefore, were not so much aimed at the Japanese fascists as they were aimed at the Soviet communists.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/08/07/atomic-bombing-japan-not-necessary/
Ah yes the Soviets were right about to checks notes start building an invasion fleet and beat the US in the race to Tokyo, thus checks notes again singlehandedly defeat fascism around the globe
That’s some interesting alternative history you’re reading there
Not sure what youre talking about, or how any of that follows.
The simple fact is that the notion that the US did not need to nuke Japan is a well-respected position among historians.
Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff, put it this way: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages. Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
https://www.wagingpeace.org/were-the-atomic-bombings-necessary/
https://www.historyonthenet.com/reasons-against-dropping-the-atomic-bomb
Alperovitz further highlights that the Japanese had initiated peace envoy missions as early as September 1944, reaching out to figures like Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek by December 1944 and engaging with the USSR in April 1945. That the Japanese were interested in negotiating a peace was well known. Moreover, the Americans knew that there was a potential for a surrender without necessitating an invasion as early as April 1945, provided there was clarity in the surrender terms.
The argument that the bombings prevented the necessity of an invasion is undermined by the very cities that were chosen to be bombed. It is now known that as many as nine atomic bombs were proposed to be used tactically against Japanese military targets as part of a planned — though never authorized — invasion. That two of those bombs were ultimately used against cities of no particular military value is evidence that plans for an invasion had already been abandoned by August of 1945.
The potential for a massive confrontation between the Red Army and the Kwantung Army in Manchuria introduced the prospect of the Soviets seeking equal participation in subsequent conflict-ending talks. This would have positioned them to assert a stronger claim over the region, resulting in gains that could far exceed their initial claims to territories lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Consequently, the atomic bomb, instead of being used tactically, evolved into a strategic weapon of terror intended to jolt Japan into immediate surrender.
Of course, they could have chosen to spend several hundred thousand soldiers instead.
But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there
But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there
Again, not sure what youre talking about, or how this follows. The only person bringing this idea is you.
Perhaps you need to check your le epic notes again.
Yeah must have been some other you that posted that the USSR was about to invade Japan
Modern tactical nuclear warheads have yields up to the tens of kilotons, or potentially hundreds, several times that of the weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
They could be dialed down lower, but even a “small” tactical nuke is bigger than what got dropped on Japan.
It is not a “bunker buster” type of munition.
And I have no idea what you’re second rambling source is trying to say.
They could be dialed down lower, but even a “small” tactical nuke is bigger than what got dropped on Japan.
It’s not about size, it’s how you use it. For example, a tactical nuke could potentially be used at sea to destroy a fleet. Depending on where the fleet is, this could potentially be done with no direct civilian casualties.
And I have no idea what you’re second rambling source is trying to say.
Really? It’s pretty clear cut: the Americans dropped the nuke to primarily rule out Soviet influence as opposed to being a decisive means to end the war. This isn’t even a fringe opinion among historians these days - I’m surprised you haven’t heard this take.
Militarily Japan was finished (as the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that August showed). Further blockade and urban destruction would have produced a surrender in August or September at the latest, without the need for the costly anticipated invasion or the atomic bomb. As for the second bomb on Nagasaki, that was just as unnecessary as the first one. It was deemed to be needed, partly because it was a different design, and the military (and many civilian scientists) were keen to see if they both worked the same way. There was, in other words, a cynical scientific imperative at work as well.
I should also add that there was a fine line between the atomic bomb and conventional bombing – indeed descriptions of Hamburg or Tokyo after conventional bombing echo the aftermath of Hiroshima. To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.
Depending on where the fleet is, this could potentially be done with no direct civilian casualties.
And huge environmental damage leading to indirect death and suffering at a wide scale…
It’s pretty clear cut: the Americans dropped the nuke to primarily rule out Soviet influence as opposed to being a decisive means to end the war
No, that’s from an opinion on a random website it doesn’t prove anything, just tells you the authors opinion…
Your new one agrees with me at least:
To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.
But I didn’t bother reading more than you quoted.
Genuine question: before today, had you ever heard of the take that the US didnt need to nuke Japan - given Soviet advancements and Japan’s military crumbling?
Yep, anytime it comes up a shit ton of .ml accounts all keep insisting it wasn’t necessary even tho the alternative would have caused more deaths and a shit ton more human suffering while ignoring that it fucking worked even when the Japanese government considered imprisoning the emperor to prevent him from surrending before the bombs were used.
That’s what people don’t get, Japan wasn’t going to surrender. The military had seized control and would 100% continue fighting to the last person, the only thing that stopped them was showing that continuing to fight would leave all of Japan a barren rock.
The complete destruction of their island was the only thing that would have worked.
But as sure as I just said that, it’s all hypotheticals and guesses, no one really knows how much it would have taken without nukes, but every indication is it would have taken a lot.
You don’t know me so you would have no way of knowing this about me, but yes I am very familiar with all the tradeoffs and decision making in this part of WW2 around ground assault vs nukes and continued bombing etc 🙌
I am very familiar with all the tradeoffs and decision making
Another Godzilla connoisseur, I see.
You clearly believe so…
But that’s not the impression one gets from the words you type.
✌️
I’d better not express what impression I’m getting from your words, dude.
I get paid a lot to be right and say it in ways powerful idiots understand.
Not having to be polite is a relief valve, but it doesn’t mean the information is incorrect.
The smallest “tactical nuke” is orders of magnitude bigger than what was used in Japan and even at their lowest settings would snowball into environmental catastrophe.
You can’t contain an atomic blast. Even what’s left is irradiated and now nuclear waste. Especially any kind of metal, which is probably going to be whatever you nuke.
Being smaller just means idiots are more likely to use them.
Sounds like you get paid to shove your head up your ass, dude.
Nice.
Whoa you must be like so rich. How much do you make
Weird…
I thought the peace sign emoji meant you were done.
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The situation Ukraine and Iran reinforced that position too. Ukraine believed that the US would have its back if it gave up its nukes
And Libia before
North Korea doesn’t understand that you must have something worth taking like oil before you need to build nukes to protect it
The United States dropped 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm in North Korea, more than what was spent on the entire Pacific Theater of WW2.
While I don’t doubt the US would drop that many bombs just to cause suffering, I don’t think it adds up financially if they didn’t want something.
what’s funny is that there’s more similarities to the Korean war and what’s happening in Iran than you might expect.
They do.
Not oil but minerals.
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The US slaughtered 20% of the country’s people. “Invasion” is putting it lightly.
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