MAD and WMD

[SonOfAlexander]

I know that the main ideal behind preventing nuclear war is this:

Everyone either has nukes, or is friends with a country that does. That way, no-one will nuke anyone becuase they're afriad of being hit by the return. So no-one kills any one.

That's MAD - Mass Assured Destruction. But I think there's more to it than that.

Weapons of Mass Destruction - WMD - , let's not forget, have hundreds of times more megatons of power (equivalent to 1,000,000 tons of TNT) than Little Man and Fat Boy, or is it Little Boy and Fat Man? Anyway, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima by Enola Gay was far less powerful than most modern nukes - and in the modern era nukes are plentiful.

So I'm going to propose a scenario. Suppose that a megalomaniac idiot takes over any European country. Or, in fact, any country really. But I'll say it's in Europe just to 'speed things up', as Europe is filled with lots of small, volatile countries.

This person realises how weak the EU and UN are, and does a Hitler/Mussolini, ignoring the 'LON'. He invades the negihbouring country and has quite a bit of success. His army of tanks, well armed troops (with say Steyr AUGs or M16s, rather than AK47s) and air forces quickly smash through this country.

What would the UN do?

I think they would worry their arses off, spending days and nights in councils trying to work it out, and all the while this country is falling. They think about a nuclear attack, but the offending country still holds plenty of nukes. But nukes are meant to prevent people stepping out of line like this - so would they use them?

Would they be prepared to wipe out large parts of Euope, destroying millions of homes and treasures and natural beauties - this ould still be ANYWHERE in the world - and also be prepared to have other countries, say France and Germany nuked too?

[Barbarian Nobility]

depends, why is the use of nukes a foregone conclusion? Using nukes against a fellow nuclear power leads to MAD. If the aggressor nation is invading a non-nuclear weaker power than what use does it have for nukes?

So far as the U.N. is concerned, if the country was say, Russia invading the baltic states and Poland im sure the U.N./NATO would take military action. If the country was Russia invading say, Georgia, i think the U.N. would sit there going 'do do dodododo do do do-do do do dodododo do do do-do do dodo do-do do dodo do-do dododododododododo-do do-do' and so on and so forth.

[Gromovnik]

depends, why is the use of nukes a foregone conclusion? Using nukes against a fellow nuclear power leads to MAD. If the aggressor nation is invading a non-nuclear weaker power than what use does it have for nukes?

So far as the U.N. is concerned, if the country was say, Russia invading the baltic states and Poland im sure the U.N./NATO would take military action. If the country was Russia invading say, Georgia, i think the U.N. would sit there going 'do do dodododo do do do-do do do dodododo do do do-do do dodo do-do do dodo do-do dododododododododo-do do-do' and so on and so forth.

I know a country much more experienced in invading...

[Barbarian Nobility]

I know a country much more experienced in invading...

And watch how quick the U.N. was to send them an angry letter

What the world needs out of the U.N. is a little less of this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And a little more of this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But i think while there are countries with veto powers in the U.N. (and thus completely likely to veto any decision they find unfavourable) it will be nothing but a farsical clown circus with the political pull of a hen-pecking fishwife with a dough roller

[Babur]

And watch how quick the U.N. was to send them an angry letter

What the world needs out of the U.N. is a little less of this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And a little more of this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But i think while there are countries with veto powers in the U.N. (and thus completely likely to veto any decision they find unfavourable) it will be nothing but a farsical clown circus with the political pull of a hen-pecking fishwife with a dough roller

we're all going to be ruled by the UN one day if one believes conspiracy theories

[Ahlerich]

not getting the question.
a country with or without nukes would not attack a country or ally of a country with nukes. i guess thats what you guys call MAD

so the only scenario not covered here is a nuke nation invading a non nuke nation without strong allies with nukes and in that case no nuclear war would arise.
if europe would be invaded like in your exapmle the invader would get hit hard at home with nukes so its the classical MAD. or did i miss something.

i cant find anything to think about here

[clandestino]

So I'm going to propose a scenario. Suppose that a megalomaniac idiot takes over any European country.

More likely he will take over USA, they are already one step from it, the guy after Obama will be some fundamental christian millieniarist who will try to speed up Armagedon and coming of Messiah by droping nukes all around the world.

[Psychonaut]

More likely he will take over USA, they are already one step from it, the guy after Obama will be some fundamental christian millieniarist who will try to speed up Armagedon and coming of Messiah by droping nukes all around the world.

Yeah, okay.

The country thats gonna do it is obviously N. Korea......or Iran. Kim Jong Ill is out of his mind.

[Nik]

Adding some facts into the mix:
- The only european countries with nukes are Great Britain and France, and to have matters deterioate to a level were a coup or extreme right take over would take a drastic turn of events, probably having other ramifications like countries shoring up their defences as well.
- No western european army is currently strong enough to wage a conventional war alone, and the center europoean ones are to poor to take on a neighboring state.
- As all official nuclear powers expect INdia and Pakistan are permanent members of the security council, the UN could do nothing, as the offending country could easily veto any action taken against it. The worrying part would start earlier (a permament security member getting unstable), and would be shared from Washington to Moscow.

Sorry, but your Scenario shows a fundamental lack of understanding of the UN institutions and the current state of internationl nuclear affairs.
- The UN in general is not an executive power, it would have to draft a mandate, and get a coalition of nation states to carry this mandate out (what happened in Korea and the Gulf war 1991)

[Lysimachos11]

That's MAD - Mass Assured Destruction.

Sorry for nitpicking but it's actually Mutually Assured Destruction. All participants are able to destroy the other, because of such large amounts of nuclear weapons that even a first strike cannot neutralize the enemy state.

So I'm going to propose a scenario. Suppose that a megalomaniac idiot takes over any European country. Or, in fact, any country really. But I'll say it's in Europe just to 'speed things up', as Europe is filled with lots of small, volatile countries.

This person realises how weak the EU and UN are, and does a Hitler/Mussolini, ignoring the 'LON'. He invades the negihbouring country and has quite a bit of success. His army of tanks, well armed troops (with say Steyr AUGs or M16s, rather than AK47s) and air forces quickly smash through this country.

What would the UN do?

I think they would worry their arses off, spending days and nights in councils trying to work it out, and all the while this country is falling. They think about a nuclear attack, but the offending country still holds plenty of nukes. But nukes are meant to prevent people stepping out of line like this - so would they use them?

Would they be prepared to wipe out large parts of Euope, destroying millions of homes and treasures and natural beauties - this ould still be ANYWHERE in the world - and also be prepared to have other countries, say France and Germany nuked too?

NATO already came up with the answer for such a scenario. IIRC after the Cuba crisis it became evident that all-out nuclear war might start over relatively small conflicts. This led to the successor of MAD-strategy: Flexible Response Strategy.

Flexible Response started with the assumption that smaller conflicts would start with conventional weaponry. In case of a Soviet attack on Western Germany, Flexible response had three stages:
Direct Defence: Conventional defence against a conventional Soviet attack (expected to lead to Soviet victory).
Deliberate Escalation: If Soviet forces were winning the conventional war, NATO would start the use of tactical nuclear weapons, thereby escalating the conflict to a nuclear one.
General Nuclear Response: If the Soviets responded with nukes, it would be clear the conflict would sooner or later escalate to all out nuclear war, so nuclear weapons would be used without restriction: leading to the MAD scenario.

The strategy provided NATO with more flexibility in dealing with for example renegade allies such as the European madman you proposed. Instead of having the only option of all-out nuclear war, actions on a lower level were now possible.

PS it's also on Wikipedia, I put it there .

[Theseus1234]

The UN is a useless bureaucratic obstacle and it can and will not do anything. I think Britain, France, USA, and Russia would want to save their nuke supplies and try to fight the threat using good old fashioned warfare

[Delta228]

What would the UN do?

A US led "coalition" would invade and cluster the country in question. End of story.

[Visna]

I know that the main ideal behind preventing nuclear war is this:

Everyone either has nukes, or is friends with a country that does. That way, no-one will nuke anyone becuase they're afriad of being hit by the return. So no-one kills any one.

That's MAD - Mass Assured Destruction. But I think there's more to it than that.

Weapons of Mass Destruction - WMD - , let's not forget, have hundreds of times more megatons of power (equivalent to 1,000,000 tons of TNT) than Little Man and Fat Boy, or is it Little Boy and Fat Man? Anyway, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima by Enola Gay was far less powerful than most modern nukes - and in the modern era nukes are plentiful.

So I'm going to propose a scenario. Suppose that a megalomaniac idiot takes over any European country. Or, in fact, any country really. But I'll say it's in Europe just to 'speed things up', as Europe is filled with lots of small, volatile countries.

This person realises how weak the EU and UN are, and does a Hitler/Mussolini, ignoring the 'LON'. He invades the negihbouring country and has quite a bit of success. His army of tanks, well armed troops (with say Steyr AUGs or M16s, rather than AK47s) and air forces quickly smash through this country.

What would the UN do?

I think they would worry their arses off, spending days and nights in councils trying to work it out, and all the while this country is falling. They think about a nuclear attack, but the offending country still holds plenty of nukes. But nukes are meant to prevent people stepping out of line like this - so would they use them?

Would they be prepared to wipe out large parts of Euope, destroying millions of homes and treasures and natural beauties - this ould still be ANYWHERE in the world - and also be prepared to have other countries, say France and Germany nuked too?

Something about the Europe irks me. The whole original purpose of the EU was, apart from both helping and controlling Germany, was to make the countries involved so inter-dependant that the cost of a war would outweigh benefits. And this has been a massive success. Europe has had peace for longer than at any other time in history. Apart from some wars in the Balkans and a bit of Russian muscle-flexing in Georgia and the few clashes between Greece and Turkey of course. So perhaps, coming to think of it, a better way to put it would be that the vast majority of Europe has had peace for longer than at any time in history. And that both the rise of what has become the EU and the potential complete destruction that would follow should the Cold War have gone hot have helped along in that.
All that said, if a memberstate in NATO is attacked that action will invoke the NATO Charter's Article 5. And NATO will, in accordance with it's Charter, restore peace and security in the western hemisphere and the Atlantic area. With UN blessing of course.
Outside Europe it's a whole other issue. Saddam was not allowed to invade Kuwait, while there was close to no problem with Ethiopia invading Eritrea in 1998.

[Comrade the Colonel]

Well, if one side is losing badly I am sure they will be the first to use nukes.