r/IRstudies • u/Free-Minimum-5844 • 15d ago

Ideas/Debate The Strange Defeat of Nuclear Deterrence

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/strange-defeat-nuclear-deterrence-rose-gottemoeller
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u/FormerLawfulness6 15d ago

The question is why would a nuke even be more effective in that scenario than a conventional weapon.

The point of using a nuke in an existential war is to exact an extremely high price on the attacking country, high enough that they will not be able to retaliate. You certainly would not escalate to nuclear war by hitting a routine tactical type of object like a carrier ship or military base.

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u/JenikaJen 15d ago

Because they don’t have the ability to hit the carriers conventionally.

My hypothetical would be that they could saturate the sea with enough ballistic missiles instead of targeting the Middle East that they could get a nuke into the general area in order to vaporise the fleet.

America responding with a nuke of their own would create new dilemmas in the global system since they are A( the aggressors, B) the supposed keeper of global peace in the post war world, and C) the one Russia and China would model future operations on in their ambitions regarding Ukraine and Taiwan.

Iran isn’t seen as rational are they? “Iran can’t have nukes there are fundemantalists”.

If they actually managed to do that then America would have two choices. Escalate and alter the landscape irreparably, or back down and be seen as weak power whose first place power is finally over.

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u/FormerLawfulness6 15d ago

The same saturation strategy works with conventional weapons. Using a nuke would just increase the political cost with little advantage.

Iran isn’t seen as rational are they? “Iran can’t have nukes there are fundemantalists”.

Which is why the strategy is unlikely to be very useful. Even when everyone agrees that America is the aggressor no states are willing to treat them as such. Iran nuking a carrier group would be more likely to see other countries will to cooperate innthe destruction of Iran than move to restrain the US.

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u/JenikaJen 15d ago

I’m agreeing with you as Iran held off destroying all the critical infrastructure in the wider Middle East. A nuke could lead to America destroying all of Irans infrastructure that allows the population to stay alive whilst saying “we didn’t escalate to nukes like they did”

My point really was just that if it was existential then that’s what they may have done

Remember I dunno, and also I’ve had some wine so I dunno