Report Card for Donald Trump

[SomeGuy]

(01-27-2017, 03:00 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(01-24-2017, 05:31 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: I don't think they preclude a more conventional conflict a little later on, and I don't think that conflict would necessarily escalate to a full-on nuclear exchange.  Probably wouldn't, really, for much the same reason the Korean War didn't.

No.  There was no nuclear capability in the modern sense during the Korean War.  Fusion-based explosions had just been achieved, but had not yet been weaponized.  Fission bombs existed, but could only be delivered to the USSR by bomber.  They could not be delivered to the US because the Russians did not, as yet, have a delivery system.   Red China did not have the bomb, but the US lacked the many hundreds of atomic bombs that would be necessary to completely destroy China (or Russia).  The fact is, non of the belligerents at the time had the capability to go nuclear in a big way. I would not use Korea as an example.

Yeah, Dave already dinged me on it, and I conceded the example.  I think the larger point stands, in the sense that it is wholly possible for the major powers to engage in a conventional conflict without having an incentive to trade queens, as it were, and a substantial incentive (vis megadeath of their respective populations) not to.