The Myth of Nuclear Necessity

[J.K. Gregg]

[WizardfromOz]

Well I agree myth 1 and myth 2 are absolutely false. History has always had a problem with defining itself from public memory. Stop people on the street and they will say - yes the bomb stopped the war. Read history and you find it was the Russian invasion.

Myth 3 is a little harder because he does not define what he means by war, or what sort of war the bomb was meant to stop. Small bush wars and proxy wars were always going to be fought, that was the point of the founding of the UN. It is total war like we saw in WW1 and WW2 the bomb was tasked with stopping, and we have to agree it worled.

Myth 4 - see my comments on myth 3

Myth 5 - I confess I can not figure out what he is talking about.

[Professor]

Myth 1 - Wrong - The Soviets declared war on Japan at 11pm (local) on August 8. We had already dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and were 12 hours from doing so on Nagasaki. The Japanese government made the decision to surrender on August 10. While the prospect of a war with the Soviets was certainly unappealing, they were less than 36 hours into their campaign in Manchuria when the Japanese cabinet decided to surrender. The bombs made them surrender.

Myth 2 - Wrong - America "lost" the Vietnam war. Why? Not because we lost too many soldiers. Because the images of "baby killers" and it being an unpopular war. Tactically and strategically, the US was actually winning the war when popular sentiment forced us to start cutting back (see Tet Offensive - which was a military success, but public opinion loss).

Myth 3 - The "what" wars? Sure, I guess they were important to those who fought them. But they weren't exactly "theater wide" wars. While one cannot categorize all wars BEFORE nukes into either limited conflicts (between 2 opponents), theater conflicts (between several countries) or world wars (between most of the known/civilized world), one can certainly do so AFTER nukes. I can think of only 1 semi-theater-wide war (Yom Kippur, and perhaps 7-days war). Almost all of the rest have been between 2 sides or exceedingly limited in scope.

[The Dharma Bum]

The so-called "long peace" is definitely a myth.

[WizardfromOz]

[J.K. Gregg]

Well, and then there is the democratic peace theory.

[John Galt]

the pax americana is in part because of america's nuclear arsenal, but it's mostly because america has taken upon itself the role of the protector. europe's military budgets are so small because they rely on america which spends a ton of money on it's military. this is because europeans are savages who will revert to their primitive forms at a moment's notice so they need to be kept in check by civilized people

[Mr.Bill]

IMO he's wrong in Myths 1-4...

As for 5 maybe I'm reading it wrong but it sounds like in #5 Wilson himself is contradicting 3 and 4.

[WizardfromOz]

[WizardfromOz]