That's because you're idiotic so can't tell the difference between a dumb comment and a sensible one.
If "Iran" actually did throw a Nuke at the UK (which is what the questioner asked JC), every nation in the UN would immediately bomb (with more regular bombs) Iran until they surrendered. So why exactly do you want to literally slaughter a million Arabs unnecessarily due to an action of their unelected dictatorship?
Realize you're talking to a guy who used 'Hawking's doesn't speak well!' as a retort to someone who was using Trump's very poor grammar and speaking skills to say that Trump's not a genius.
Realize you're talking to a guy who literally said Trump has a genius level I.Q.
Getting rid of nukes is a pipe dream so she best stop dreaming. Did Corbyn explicitly state that he would? That would be interesting to know considering his other statement.
Yeah, that's what MAD entails, unfortunately. If they nuke you, you nuke them right off the face of the planet. In fact, it reminds me on how Europe was too gutless to stop Hitler before the onset of WW2 as that would have entailed the deaths of millions. Then millions died anyway.
__________________ And from the ashes he rose, like a black cloud. The Sin of one became the Sin of many.
That's not a fair assessment at all and I do think you know it.
"Nuking someone off the face of the planet" = would be insanity. eg Let's say crazy Kimmy where to get a nuke and N. Korea nukes downtown Honolulu. The US responding my launching 3-4 nukes at Pyongyang and then nuking every major military base in NK would result in three things, NK being taken out as a threat(the one good here), millions of dead NK innocents that had nothing to do with Kimmy's attack and an environmental disaster that would last generations and likely in time affect the US as well. Radiation travels, through the air and water. edit: Guess a fourth issues would be the risk of shady groups getting access to NK's arsenal and possible a nuke ending up on the black market.
The more sensible response would be to surgically strike NK with missiles, targeting their military bases, thereby neutering their ability to counter retaliate while minimizing civilians deaths and hitting every known bunker that Kimmy and his command circle would/could be hiding in with bunker-busters. After which, you send in the troops if need be, when NK is demoralized and it's army is shit.
Saying Europe was "gutless to stop Hitler" isn't all that fair either, the US also did it's fair share of not holding Germany to the accords of the treaty of Versailles and looking the other way when stories of Jews losing everything to the state and whatnot were popping up. You also have to remember that 1930's is not 2017. It was far easier for Hiitler to hide his expanding army, tanks and air force, especially considering the Nazi party had just about absolute control of Germany's press and were propaganda masters. Though even before Hitler rose to power the Germans were enacting plans to rearm themselves beyond the confines of the agreement.
Not necessarily cowardly, but a little on the optimistic side, to put it mildly.
He said he wouldn't use nukes in a retaliation to a nuclear attack or did I get that wrong?
Yeah, and look at how that worked out: they got to relive an even worse version of WW1 because they didn't have the stones to stand up to Hitler until it was too late. Corbyn would be proud.
__________________ And from the ashes he rose, like a black cloud. The Sin of one became the Sin of many.
That does make sense in a way. He more then likely wouldn't be able to "retaliate" if THEY hit the UK with Nukes First. Mainly because in the UK would probably be dead thus there would be NO ONE left to "retaliate".
Granted, if we're talking about N. Korea, this kind of an approach makes sense. Crazy Kimmy doesn't have more than a handful of nukes and his delivery systems are antiquated so he's ultimately not an existential threat. But even then, nuking NK military bases would still be an acceptable thing to do to make absolutely sure Kimmy has nothing hidden up his sleeve and can do no more damage to other countries in the region.
However, if we're talking about a serious opponent like Russia, a conventional response to a nuclear attack would be as good as rolling over and dying. And this is where I take issue with Corbyn: you can't just go out there and send a message like that to your potential enemies. You can't compromise MAD in a world like this, sad as it may be.
It's true that the US looked the other way when it came to Hitler, but it was ultimately up to Europe(France and the U.K., chiefly) to actually do something about Hitler, but they took the Jeremy Corbyn approach and Europe paid an immense price for it.
Also, make no mistake, everyone knew what Hitler was doing when it came to his military build-up. Spying and military intelligence existed in the 30's.
__________________ And from the ashes he rose, like a black cloud. The Sin of one became the Sin of many.
Why? America was by far the richest country in the world at that time, and by the mid-1930s France and the UK found themselves pitted against a Fascist Japan in the Far-east, Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy and nationalist agitation in their own Empires. The idea that France/UK could keep all those powers in check whilst fighting Hitler in a brutal war is ridiculous. That's one of the reasons why France and the UK didn't want to add yet another foe onto that list and opted for appeasement: their hands were already more than full.
Gross oversimplification. They were several reasons why European powers decided to appease Hitler. Keeping the peace for the sake of preventing mass death and destruction was No.1 for good number of people, but there were other reasons for doing so.
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure one of the prevailing assumptions was that Hitler was preparing to attack Soviet Russia, a country whose ideology Hitler declared as diametrically opposed to his own and that he wished to destroy. Hitler had also talked about his desire for Lebensraum/Living space in the East which would bring him in direct conflict with Russia. The West, of course, abhorred communism, and generally saw it as the greater threat. Therefore, appeasing Hitler for the time being was seen as an act of realpolitik. They would allow Hitler to get into a confrontation with Russia, thus distracting/weakening both of those threats and making a future confrontation far shorter.
Then there was the fact that Britain and France were not on war footing, and therefore any war would not be over quickly. A war would also exhaust the armies of Britain and France, leaving them more vulnerable against any future expansion by Russia (and the many other dictatorships waiting in the wings). What would be the point of a war against Hitler if it provided another despot the opportunity to expand and conquer countries? Then there was also what you call the 'Jeremy Corbyn approach'. The desire by many to prevent another catastrophic war that could cost the lives of millions. After the trauma that was WW1, this outlook was totally reasonable. And while it's easy to look back with benefit of hindsight and judge the actions of those who wanted diplomacy first, it wasn't really such an easy choice at the time.
Last edited by lazybones on Jun 30th, 2017 at 04:40 PM
You seem to be under the false impression that a nuclear strike would necessarily wipe out the UK, or any other country, on the first strike. There's this thing called 'second strike' and it is more or less the whole reason MAD works in the first place.
Actually, Nazi Germany and perhaps the Soviet Union were the only states that presented a direct and existential threat to the UK, France, and to an extent, the whole of Europe at the time. They chose to ignore/appease what was by far the largest and the most imminent threat for them at the time.
Reasons? Like what? The British desire to desperately hold on to its failing empire? Keeping peace with Hitler would only delay the inevitable and everyone with a functioning brain knew it, even back then.
But they had to have known Hitler would come for them before he came for Russia. It was a simple matter of strategy, geography and logistics.
And look how well it all turned out for them. All of their fears came to pass because they adopted the Jeremy Corbyn approach. They could have nipped Hitler in the bud and prevented a greater disaster. And don't tell me that hindsight is 20/20 because even at the time people, people like Winston goddamn Churchill, knew that shit was inevitably going to hit the fan. To quote the man himself: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”
__________________ And from the ashes he rose, like a black cloud. The Sin of one became the Sin of many.
Wrong. Imperial Japan was expanding in the far-East and threatened British colonies like Signapore and the Raj (jewel in the crown of the British Empire). French colonies in Indochina were also threatened. Then there was Italy, which had moved into Ethiopia and and had made moves into Southern Europe, which put it in a position to attack the Allies in the Mediterranean and North Africa.
And in regards to the Soviet Union, there is no 'perhaps' about it. The Soviet Union wielded a far larger military force than Nazi Germany, and its ideology of Communism was on a direct collision course with West. When Germany first started expanding, it really didn't seem like a greater threat. Propaganda efforts meant that a good many people admired Hitler, and the demands he made weren't all that outrageous, at first.
Again, the Soviet Union seemed much more dangerous at the time. Considerably larger army, more toxic ideology and speeding towards industrialisation.
Like having a bulwark against expansionist communism? Like preventing a war that would have given an open goal to other adversaries? Like buying time to put their countries on a war footing?
Well, yes. But they didn't know it was failing at the time. And keep in mind that the Empire gave Britain access to valuable resources and gave them a good deal of strategic advantages.
And you are, again, criticising with the benefit of hindsight.
Uh no, they didn't. Many people wanted to try diplomacy before rushing into bloodshed. The memory of the carnage of WW1 was still burned in many people's minds.
No, it wasn't. Hitler's primary target was Russia and Communism, the ideology which was diametrically opposed to Nazism. And I'm not sure why you see Hitler moving against the West as a matter of 'strategy, geography and logistics". The Ardennes Forest was seen as impassable for German tanks, and the Maginot Line was seen to be impenetrable. Of course, Germany did end up defeating France rather quickly, but that was a remarkable fluke and one that could not have possibly been predicted.
So again, you are unfairly judging British/French policy with the benefit of hindsight. It was hard to envisage how Germany could break through French lines so quickly, and Hitler's long-standing hatred of Communism made it unlikely that he would attack the West first. and expose his Eastern border to that threat.
Was there really any choice? I'm not seeing an opportunity when France/UK could have toppled Hitler. The Rhineland affair was too early and they simply weren't prepared. If France/UK made it clear they wanted to totally defeat and humiliate Germany, and depose Hitler with force, don't think there wouldn't have been bitter, bitter resistance. Every opportunity before 1939 seemed like too big a risk to take. The fact that they actually tried diplomacy, which actually bought us time to rearm and fight the War more effectively when it came, really isn't all that outrageous.
When, exactly? They could have confronted Germany early on in the Rhineland, but it would be very unlikely that France would have launched an effort to actually depose Hitler at that stage. They weren't on a war footing, and the public support simply wasn't there at all. Therefore, a confrontation at that point wouldn't have changed course all that much. Then there was the Austrian Anschluss, which likely did have support from the Austrian people and was permitted by Italy (now an ally of Germany, which would have made a war against Germany even more of a risk). Then later, there was the incident against Czechoslovakia, but many saw Czechoslovakia as rather distant and the Treaty of Munich as a decent compromise. And again, France and the UK had to weigh up the other threats waiting to strike at them across the globe, and the fact that they had not completed rearmament at that stage.
Yep, and he was seen as a bit of lunatic. We can say now confidently that Britain and France should have probably woke up and smelt the coffee. But back then, the idea that France/UK should strike at Germany was a serious dilemma, for a variety of reasons that have already been laid out.
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