All Bets Are ON

[Eugene Leitl]

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Stephen D. Williams wrote:

> We already have 'Poor Mans Nukes', i.e. FAE (Fuel Air Explosives), which
> we've been using frequently lately.

FAEs are big and heavy, nukes are compact. This involves the logistics of
delivering it to remote parts of the world, and how small your weapon
platform can be. Also, FAEs are useless is you want to nuke a city via
ballistic delivery, which is very difficult to protect against.

>   FAE's take the place, to a large extent, of tactical nukes with none
> of the political or actual fallout.

It depends on the target type. FAEs are useless for deep bunkers, all they
do is a big pressure wave on the surface.

> Talking about using actual nukes, which I disagree with but I'm not
> irrational about either, is likely a red herring to both scare potential
> and actual enemies and to be a bargaining chip.

If you threaten me with nukes I do one thing: I make my own, lots of them.
This is called deterrence. Anyone talking about first use of nukes in war
theatre deserves a taste of the same. Plus, lowering the threshold for
nuke use is Bad Idea.

More nukes in the world more readily used --> Major Bad Idea.