"Can a Country Win a Limited Nuke War?" Topic

Other: No. It's not a viable strategy.

In WWII, the two bombs were dropped on a Japan that was looking for a way to surrender. Making these things into the bogeymen that they were not was that excuse.

I think most modern countries would react the other way. You would probably see the international community actually do something in response instead of saying things and putting in a half-hearted effort.

This is a tough one. If Russia launched a single small yield nuke on a city in Ukraine (let's say Mariupol), what would we do? Send a strongly worded diplomatic note? Cut off Russian from world economic affairs? Retaliate with a strike on a similar sized Russian city?

From Russia's point of view, they may think it's not much of a downside. We're probably not going to declare war on Russia and start a worldwide thermonuclear exchange.

I doubt the US would start a wider war over Chemical weapons or a single tactical nuke.

The question is can a limited nuclear war be won. An actual war utilizing nuclear weapons would lead to planet wide contamination, no matter what the results of the war. Chernobyl contaminated a huge swath of Eastern Europe, and it wasn't even near the power of even one of the WW2 bombs. The effects of a war using nuclear weapons would be spread far across the globe, contaminating and eventually killing tens to hundreds of millions, and making large parts of the planet uninhabitable for a long time. I think the best answer is no, as there are no winners in a nuclear war.

Don't think so – as an example, a potential Indo-Pakistani war

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Green Dragon +1

Watched a YouTube video where the "experts" suggested that Russia would use a small tactical nuke, but the USA only has much larger nukes -- things would quickly escalate… I tend to agree, it would likely get out of control very quickly.

No one wins, we all lose, as a planet. Cheers!

youtu.be/dcgJB_Qf2rg

Start at about 1:00 for the nuclear discussion.

The USA has a lot of nuclear options not known to the public, as do other nuclear countries. The totality of nuclear weapons in the world is the great unknown of this world.
Also, some of the smaller nuclear armed countries that believe the big arsenals are about to launch may decide to get theirs launched. Why take a chance they may be destroyed before they can be used to destroy the regional enemy(s)? Also, if the big arsenals start, they must attack all other potential nuclear enemies. "In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is King." Basically, it's an all or none scenario. AND, all the big arsenals know this. :^)

Win – Probably not.
Survive-Maybe, and that would count as a win.

Even a limited nuclear exchange would have international political environmental and cultural ramifications that would make both sides in such an event regret the entire incident for decades after.