[phon]

It should be noted that nuclear weapons weapons were used twice during a war that is almost universally thought of as 'conventional'. Furthermore, they were used against a state that arguably had ceased to act as a rational entity quite some time before August 6, 1945.

Later the increasing quantity and quality of nuclear weapons combined with the de-fusion of the underlaying technologies to a growing number of international actors in the 1950's and 1960's lead to the Soviets and Americans backing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty regiem. This was done to avoid an August 1914 Nuclear-Redux in which the super powers would be pulled into a full scale nuclear exchange. Thus the situation in the middle east today can be traced back to actions taken almost 50 years ago.

[chadgeidel]

Do you have any reading material that you could point to in regards to your comment about "the situation in the middle east"?

I'm not saying you are incorrect - actually the opposite is true (I believe this to be the case). I'm not much of a student of history and would like to educate myself.

Thanks.

[phon]

Sure thing.

Frist, the NPT is part of a larger system of treaties, alliances and agreements that grew during the Cold War and its aftermath. 'Cornerstones of Security: Arms Control Treaties in the Nuclear Era' (2003) by Thomas Graham and Damien J. Lavera is somewhat dry but exhaustive.

Secondly, here is an interesting over view of US Government thinking on weapons of mass destruction at the end of the cold war:

http://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1993/9341/9341.PDF

Finally, Nigel Ashton's 'The Cold War in the Middle East: Regional Conflict and the Superpowers 1967-73' covers the actions of many international actors in the middle east during the critical years during which the Non-Proliferation Treaty was put into effect.

With luck both of these books should be available via inter-library loan.

[adventureful]

I intentionally left out WW2 because only one nation on earth had nukes, and only at the end of the war. It's not a valid reference in a discussion about multiple countries having nukes and that acting as a form of peaceful standoff.

The point about conventional war is, for example, if India were stomping Pakistan in a conventional war, there would be an inflection point at which Pakistan would be willing to unleash nuclear war to stop India. History is a pretty consistent reminder about how irrational nations can be, there's nothing about nukes that prevents that.

Japan had not acted rationally for a very long time. They invaded China and slaughtered civilians by the tens of thousands. They initiated war against the the Ally powers and joined with Adolph Hitler. I'm not sure what your point in referring to that is however.

[barrkel]

I think the biggest propaganda coup of the US in recent years is convincing the world that "rogue", "terrorist" etc. groups are irrational. It justifies so much.