I have thought about the nuclear missile/bomber/etc issue. Do you think that nukes are a deterrent to nukes?
Yes they can be if both sides do no want to be nuked. If one side does not care then no.
For example Castro told the Soviet leader Khrushchev that if he and his country needed to be sacrificed (nuked) to teach the US a lesson, he was okay with that. It was not bravado, because the US did not even know of the communication at the time.
The following day the Soviets removed nuclear weapons from Cuba.
Just as I imagine some others, perhaps many in the Middle East would be perfectly fine with being nuked to Allah's paradise if they got to take the right infidels with them.
Well, in fairness, how many more missiles does our current nuke inventory deter vs only having 20 or 30?
I don't think many people realize exactly what a nuclear war consists of. Nuclear weapons are more than simply offensive weapons, and there is many different types:
There is some that are for use as aerial defense. If an enemy missile or jet is inbound in the air a nuke can be used to knock it down, even if it misses by a good margin. A fighter squadron can use nukes against an enemy fighter squadron, turning large misses into kills, or to destroying incoming enemy missiles from miles away.
They can be used to cause implosion of submarines underwater, creating large pressure waves underwater, where explosives are very powerful. Consider a stick of dynamite that would not cause damage from 20 feet away in the air will kill fish in a large radius underwater. Explosive forces are magnified underwater, and the speed of sound which many shock waves slow to and travel at is much faster.
They can be detonated at high altitude to wipe out electronics of entire nations. A single nuke that at ground level would only take out a single city can destroy the unshielded electronics of almost the entire United States at high altitude. Destroying the vehicles, computers, internet, radios, TV, most forms of communication of entire large nations for only the cost of a single or relatively few nuclear weapons.
They can be used as area denial weapons, combined with certain elements or "salted" certain types of nuclear weapon designs are designed to sacrifice power to instead leave very deadly radioactive debris that makes it deadly to inhabit and area for years. Forming uncrossable barriers.
The common layman term is the "cobalt bomb" though cobalt is not the only potential salting material.
Other types of nuclear weapons are designed to create no blast, and almost no fallout to simply kill living things, leaving most buildings and other things completely unharmed. Allowing resources, factories, enemy vehicles etc to be cleared, and then the resources to be utilized by the attacker.
The common layman term is normally "nuetron bomb".
Such weapons usually have a low effective range for a nuclear weapon, so many are necessary for certain strategies.
Nukes can intentionally be detonated high over a defenders own nation to destroy incoming ICBMs or an entire fleet of enemy aircraft. Sacrificing the unshielded electronics of portions of the nation to keep from being destroyed.
The anti satellite potential of nuclear weapons, even those that miss by a good margin would be very powerful form a tactical perspective. In an age where many people and weapon guidance systems rely on GPS, the destruction of GPS and most communication satellites could cripple opponents for at least some time before reorganization and widespread implementation of other technologies.
Some can even be constantly shot and detonated in certain regions at regular intervals to keep aircraft, troops and many vehicles from crossing the area. Creating a nuclear fence so to speak
Such a fence would take a very large stockpile of weapons to keep operational, 100s or 1,000s of times more than to simply nuke 100s or 1,000s of times the area one time.
Don't have enough and the strategy is not even available to your nation. So you can actually have a valid logic to have more nukes than necessary to take out the entire world many times, simply to allow various strategies that require nuking the same areas many times. Such as the creation of nuclear fences.
Then of course there is the giant thermonuclear ones, intended to destroy the largest area with blast effects, which is usually what people think of when they hear the term "nuclear weapon". They make up only a small portion of the many types of nuclear weapons, though obviously the type with the biggest fear factor for civilians.
There is many other uses.
I hope thier eventual widespread use is beyond my lifetime, but the strategic possibilities in a tactical war are much more extensive and complex than simply submitting to mutual destruction like people envisioned throughout the cold war. Unfortunately they will likely be accompanied by lab created super disease which target both food crops and man in the form of biological weapons, when Superpowers resume fighting again in no limits conflicts. Diseases worse than anything in nature, genetically engineered, and such diseases are known to have been created by the US and Russia.
We have not seen such a no limits conflict since World War 1, considering they did not even employ the chemical weapons available during WW2 on any side.
Just coming into contact with other people in such a scenario would mean potential exposure to such diseases.
