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Of course, because with European countries having their own nuclear deterrence, neither the USA nor the current US government's handlers in the Kremlin can blackmail them into submission anymore.
Only upvotes, no questions?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative
The USSR collapsed because they invested in weapons and not civilian infrastructure. This is another space race, another SDI.
Putin doesn't control Trump but the US controls EU politicians. The US don't need nukes to influence Europe. Wasting engineers on those nukes prevents them from developing better batteries and other critical infrastructure and prevents the population from demanding an end to the more direct influence.
The EU doesn't produce CPUs or memory. That's a much bigger threat.
Having a credible nuclear deterrent is existential. We've seen attack after attack from countries armed with nuclear weapons only against ones that don't.
For now.
And if you look at India and Pakistan, it's not true anymore.
India and China had also battled, but with fists, to avoid escalation.
In any case it is a catch 22. Developing a star shield will hold the EU back in robotics, AI and microelectronics to a point that nothing will be left to defend.
But the US are contemplating to use tactical nukes against China, with the idea that China wouldn't escalate to strategic nukes to avoid their complete destruction. So nukes alone won't deter, at least not the US.
Don't forget that the US already control the politicians and, with their social networks, also the votes. There won't be war between the US and the EU because the US will get what they want. But the EU will fight when the US asks for support. No nuke can prevent that participation.
India and Pakistan only proves that nuclear states can still end up in conflict between each other. Nukes being in the calculation is very likely to still incentivize de-escalation between the two of them just like your example of India and China.
Both Russia and (still to lesser extent for now) USA are now adversaries of Europe and we can't afford to have adequate deterrence for both. Having to engage in wars against one of those would set Europe back far more than developing a nuclear capability at home.
You'll find no agreement with me about Americans controlling European politicians beyond what is caused by precisely the fact that we're dependent on them for our defense and in no insignificant part because of the US nuclear umbrella. When it comes to things like social networks I'm definitely all for moving away from that to European digital sovereignty.
It does, but much less if the US or China can take down ICBMs. The hard part is not the bomb but the delivery.
So it appears. If Trump would really oppose EU goals why don't we try to influence American voters? Why have we remained silent about project 2025 when it could have changed the election? Why don't we finance a free social network?
Why are you sure?
there's no reason to think the extremely difficult problem of intercepting nuclear ICBMs with the kind of reliability required has or will be solved anytime soon. The thing about nukes it that you don't really want to let even one through because of the devastating results and you can look at the current events in the middle east to see that while there are interceptors they don't have anything close to 100% reliability.
But you don't really mind either.
People have risked more for less.
I don't know that people have ever risked millions of lives like that as would be the case here.
Nobody knew if the atmosphere would burn when the first bomb was tested.
The US did some maneuvers, including the Cuba crisis, that could have triggered nuclear war.
Global warming puts humanity and nature as we know it at an existential risk.
The housing crisis could have led to the collapse of the world economy which would have risked huge famines.
WW2
Keeping the risks of smoking or soft drinks secret.
Outsourcing pharmaceutical production lines to China.
Yeah sorry I don't think any of these are comparable to knowing that as a direct consequence within hours of your decision it is likely that a major city will get hit and that will kill millions instantly. The first one is also false in all but the weakest possible sense of it never being possible to really know whether anything at all including pink elephants bursting out won't happen before you've done something new.
I believe the actual picture also is a lot more bleak when it comes to successful defense. Interceptor success rate is fairly low, time is limited and no major breakthroughs are predicted for future versions. They're not presented as ever being useful for defending against a near-peer adversary launching a full scale attack.
The men responsible for it took it serious:
https://nautil.us/the-day-oppenheimer-feared-he-might-blow-up-the-world-355603
yes they considered it early on and deemed it impossible. Bethe commented later on the anecdote: "There was never any possibility of causing a thermonuclear chain reaction in the atmosphere… Ignition is not a matter of probabilities; it is simply impossible."
https://www.inverse.com/science/did-oppenheimer-really-worry-about-setting-the-atmosphere-on-fire
Good to know. Unfortunately that doesn't change that people in power are willing to risk many lives.
With a space shield, they don't press a button to start nuclear war. They simply have the option to conquer Europe conventionally, knowing that Europe has to settle because they can't threaten severe consequences with their nuclear weapons.
Having robots to defend us would be much more helpful than a nuclear bomb.
Again, such a space shield capable of stopping a nuclear response to any meaningful degree from a major western power does not and isn't going to exist anytime soon with the level of technology currently available. It's just as much BS now as it was when Reagan announced his SDI. Only thing that does is a limited and somewhat unreliable system that can protect against very limited strikes as might happen if a terrorist actor managed get control of a few nuclear ICBMs.
How many more can the EU get within 10 years?
In addition to the credible deterrence France has, Germany actually already stockpiles highly enriched uranium that would be enough for hundreds of advanced warheads. Sweden is also well positioned to get to nuclear missiles in just a few years with a concentrated effort.
What's your source for that?
This is the latest German declaration to the IAEA: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/infcircs/1998/infcirc549a2-26.pdf
The former could be used for breakthrough in just a few months. The latter would take maybe 1-2 years to process first.
You were right, I looked it up, Germany could create a nuclear threat. Though if Germany starts would the US not intervene?
Germany has 3000 tSWU per year enrichment capacity.
https://fissilematerials.org/facilities/enrichment_plants.html
About 300 SWU are needed for 1kg weapons-grade, 85%, uranium.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urantrennarbeit
So 10,000 kg can be created per year.
Additionally the research HEU can be anything as low as 20% U235. So maybe 300kg 85% can be extracted from the research material for a quick start.
Uranium 235 critical mass is 50kg, but reflectors can lower that to what looks like 10kg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass
So Gernany could have 1,000 warheads in a year. But then it is almost useless if Russia already cannot win a conventional war and the US don't have to win a war to influence German policies.
How is the USA going to contain China? The way they behave suggests to me that they plan on withstanding a nuclear attack.
How many reactors does the EU have to breed plutonium?
How many uranium sources do exist that the US cannot convince to sanction the EU?
How many years does it take to create the nukes for a full scale attack?
Nukes are a nice idea but for the coming years they won't be there to solve any problem. The EU has to focus on resolving the conflicts with reason.
I've seen nothing that suggests USA plans to withstand a nuclear attack from China. I wouldn't expect them be either because they can't.
How exactly the capability can be developed when adversaries don't want you to is certainly something that needs to be thought about. One part of the puzzle is France that has been signaling they are willing to provide a nuclear umbrella for Europe and just announced some partner countries as well as the expansion of their stockpiles.
I of course don't disagree that conflicts need to be resolved with reason if possible but developing a nuclear deterrence doesn't exclude doing that.
They have given up respecting other countries. Once China has surpassed the USA how will they be able to keep allies?
The US are going to lose their power unless they fight China. Would they fight China if China could erase them?
Or they could just be incompetent when it comes to geopolitics just like they are on so many other issues. There's a lot that they're doing that just isn't defensible rationally. Tariffs, vaccination and medical research, driving away the educated immigrants, energy independence....
That entirely depends on requirements.
Are a valid strategy and were the preferred solution to balance trade when the decision had to be made in the past. Unfortunately I don't remember the name to look for on Wikipedia.
Madness but could also be crowd control. They got the support of the vaccine crowd and split them off the left leaning independent thinkers.
Same with immigrants in general. It's bad for the economy. But they got ICE and there are no news about an actually happening brain drain.
Can't push independence if they want all countries to be dependent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory
If Trump would blunder away American dominance the intelligent people and the billionaires would have pushed for an impeachment.
In a world of hybrid wars and deception I don't believe in stupidity without hard proof.
Look, you're welcome to think Trump is a very stable genius that is actually playing 4D chess with all this. I don't think I'm interested in continuing the discussion in that case though.
I don't think that Trump is that genius. I just think that Trump's behaviour can't be used to believe in an incompetent US.
The Trump administration's policies are Trump's policies. There is no US separate from that. I think that should be very clear to anyone who has watched how much he has reshaped the federal government in a year.
JD Vance shows the influence of Thiel. Why should there be no influence on other positions?