Poll: Nuclear Weapons

[Bulletinmybrain]

Australia needs it to fall back on. If other countries realize Australia has the power of the atom under it's belt then that will be a great deterrent. Though it could also annoy many countries but Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world anyway.

14th.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

To your questions about a highly trained small force against a larger horde of ill-trained conscripts it is also difficult to say. in the end i would assume the horde would win but that depends on terrian ect. think like the higly trained germans against the russian horde in WW2 once the vets were dead germany was shoved back to berlin by the Russian Horde

It comes down to the terrian and objectives of both sides, a highly trained force is more suited for hit and run attacks not full frontal attacks where your men are most likley to die, good valuable men. hit and running relies on the terrian to be effective. The only ace the aussies have are there training but a bullet cares not for experiance and training it will kill you just as it would a conscript, then theres combat fatigue effectivly runing your armies effectiveness.

look at it like a swarm of ants attacking a lion.

i dont see why your worrying anyway the places that are habitable can be defended and as for the rest of that open space, its bloody INHABITABLE!, there not gonna sit nice and comfy in a hostile desert are they? your countries perfect for small forces, you know the land and can go in, strike them and run. apply IRA or desert rats as an example of the effectivness of hit and running. they can hardly run after you and take you out since there so large, they dont have the supplies or organisation to field such a large army. to transport food, water, ammo and fuel to an army large enough to take australia's superior navy and army would be a nightmare, then they have to cross the bulk of australia crossing what i assume is inhabiltable as you say it is to get to the habitable south of Australia, it cant be done size is not a virtue in australia

Supply lines... they have the means to feed millions of people in their own country so no reason they couldn't feed those armies while they set up tent cities. Then it is a waiting game, as long as they are bringing in more then they are losing each day then they will win by shear numbers alone. Not to bad mouth my favourable form of tactics, one which our elite forces do so very well at that, but if they can afford to lose ten or twenty men to ever one of our then we are screwed.

Which is why I asked the question: How do we prevent it coming to that to begin with, should we lose the support from our bigger stick wielding allies?

Not saying that an elite force can be thrown away all so we can hug nukes in our... well non-basements... or something.
Why can't we have both?

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Dear colonials,

You are hereby prohibited from producing nuclear weapons by the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So do not, less you wish the hammer of doom to descend upon you're picturesque and quaint little nation,

Yours sincerely,

Great Britain, America, France, Germany, China, Russia.

PS. You are permitted to annex New Zealand, if you should wish.

 

[Calax]

Nukes, and their deterrence abilities are kind of like having a loaded gun in a hostage situation, at a certain point you have to make a decision to either follow through and "kill the hostage"/Fire the nuke, or watch the deterrent effect of your bluff fall flat on it's face while the authorities move in and disarm you.

 

[InifniteWit]

I say let there be nukes. And as many need be.

Because, personally on the scale of WMDs.....getting nuked is probably one of the more preferable ways to go...compared to say...a biological/neurological weapon.

Getting nuked is probably also less painful overall then when Nature decides its had enough and takes off the kid gloves.

And nukes aren't even that strong compared to other types of weaponry anymore. Sure there is radiation....but in sheer destruction and loss of life, we've got better then that.

The thing about neurological/biological weapons is that they kill millions of people but leave infrastructure intact. Nuke however zap everything in the area, factories, farms, hospitals, what have you. They also leave said area uninhabitable.

 

[DrX_1030]

well you are members of the commonwealth just as canada is, so if u were to get invaded youd have lots of allies comming to the rescue, and secondly id imagine that your millitary would be highly specialized for fighting on your own soil, so i wouldnt worry about invasion to much.

 

[zirnitra]

...why would anyone invade Australia? Yep you really need a nuclear arsenal to protect all those millions of acres of baron hostile uninhabitable land and millions of sheep.

Save your money us brits and yanks who have city's with more inhabitants than your entire nation will look after you guys if you ever get in a pickle.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

ofcourse australia should, you wouldn't want to feel left out when the nuclear holocaust happens now do you ?

 

[ChocoFace]

I don't know how much of a place I'm in to say, not living there myself, but I don't know that it's really necessary. They seem to make you more of a target than anything (see: North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, etc.) And:

Open up a map and look at the size of Australia and how much of that land is uninhabitable.

If so much is uninhabitable and there's so little room, why would they want to invade at all? And, if I'm not mistaken, you're referring to Indonesia, or a combination of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, neither of whom have more than about 20% [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure] of Australia's military spending, despite the fact that Indonesia does have a larger military by number. Also, Australia is a member of the UN, and is allied with entities such as the United States, Germany, and the UK; all of whom would be willing to come to Australia's aid.

I'm not saying that places like the UK and the US deserve to have nukes and Australia doesn't, but if you can get by without them, shouldn't you try? Wouldn't a few less nuclear weapons in the world be a good thing? Just look at the Cold War and what almost happened due largely to "preemptive stockpiling"

Exactly what i was thinking.

 

[RufusMcLaser]

I shouldn't bother. It seems to me the RAN and RAAF still have enough clout to keep you safe from your Near Abroad. As long as the ANSUS treaty [http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1952/2.html] remains in effect there's little need for an aboriginal, er, indigenous Australian program. I hope.

 

[hebdomad]

To be quite honest, The Australian defence force is quite capable of stopping any attack from just about any other country in its region. It is one of the best trained and equipped in the world. Also with allies like US of A, Britain, and half of the worlds uranium on its turf, the likely hood of invasion is very slim.

Nuclear weapons would only inflame and damage relations, and could see other nations in the area acquiring nuclear weapons.

Australia could easily develop nuclear weapons. We have the testing grounds, reactor technology, and no shortage of uranium. Its just not diplomatic to do so.

Though, I do how believe that the amount of nuclear weapons on ether side of the world is just right. The reason why we having such a long period of peace in the world is because super powers can't fight without destroying each other totally (unlike say seventy odd years ago).

 

[Zykon TheLich]

If you did get nukes it would be like Britain's nuclear situation, we have them but America has the codes so we need their permission to fire (Apparently).

Where did you hear that? As far as I was aware we had complete control over our nuclear deterrent, only the missiles are of american manufacture:

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/E2054A40-7833-48EF-991C-7F48E05B2C9D/0/nuclear190705.pdf

 

[sneakypenguin]

I don't think anyone in any country should have nuclear weapons. If humans weren't backstabbing bastards I would say we should destroy all of our stockpiles, except for the fact that, of course, anyone with a stockpile wouldn't have the guts to destroy all of it.

Except for France apparently, which has, or so Wikipedia says, the third largest nuclear stockpile in the world (under the US and Russia) and are currently destroying it.

Quick question why do you believe no one should have nukes? Do you not think they prevent war? IMO MAD kept ww3 from happening during the cold war.

 

[mattttherman3]

Nuclear wepons are not needed in this world, because eventually they will be used and that will be the end of the world as we know it, with only the rich and the government leaders to live through that, and it would just repeat itself eventually until the world is actually destroyed.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

IMO MAD kept ww3 from happening during the cold war.

No, this guy stopped WW3 from happening during the cold war: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

 

[new_age_reject]

Personally I don't think nukes are the best option, more trouble than they're worth. I think a highly funded and well trained military and police force would get the job done with much less hassle.

The Skill vs numbers argument is a interesting one, the sort I was hoping this thread would generate cause I don't have an answer for it. Would a more elite armed forces, of which Australia has some of the best trained soldiers in the world, defeat a much greater hoard of untrained conscripts. I for one don't want to see it tested, but the question is one I have pondered many a time.

No reason we can't have both elite forces and nukes though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
This is prove of the idea that skill > numbers.

 

[Jinx_Dragon]

Kill > numbers is still debatable. There are many incidences where dog fighters, slaves with whatever cutting blade was trusted to them, have stormed and over come fully equipped and trained regiments through numbers alone. Like wise the reverse is true, where a better trained but smaller force have held off a greater amount of numbers.

Long Tan comes to mind for me.

The question was: would nukes be a good deterrent to prevent a war from happening in the first place if we couldn't rely on our allies for our defence.

There has been a good lot of replies as to how they might inflame a situation, but no real world example exists of a nation being invaded while in possession of nuclear weapons. That is why I still believe it is a deterrent, as no leader is willing to attack knowing it would cost them millions of their own people. More importantly, that they would likely be part of those casualties.

 

[Laughing Man]

If you did get nukes it would be like Britain's nuclear situation, we have them but America has the codes so we need their permission to fire (Apparently).

Where did you hear that? As far as I was aware we had complete control over our nuclear deterrent, only the missiles are of american manufacture:

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/E2054A40-7833-48EF-991C-7F48E05B2C9D/0/nuclear190705.pdf

Indeed, the Uk government has control over our own nuclear weapons. All I can gather is that at someone point he's heard that the Trident Nuclear missiles are made in America and some how assumed that that means they have control over the launch codes. Actually the reality is that the entire section of the boat (SSBN Sub) that houses the nuclear missiles is American made it is then just tacked on to the British built part. The weird thing is that they use imperial and we use metric so all the missiles control surfaces use different measurement values to the rest of the boat.

 

[pigmonkey]

this is probably a really stupid idea but why doesn't austrailia just pretend to have nukes? that way you get the same deterrent effect without the hassle or moral issues associated with actually haveing them. who knows mabye some contries are doing this already.

 

[Social Pariah]

It certainly is cheaper to not bother making them, and just tell everyone you have, paranoia will do the rest at little or no cost, just dress some kangaroos up as nuclear silos.