Rethinking Nuclear Weapons - Pragmatic solutions to nuclear weapons

I realized this morning that I’m the conservative here.

I want to argue that the rules and laws of war still apply. That the traditional truths about killing civilians in war have not been invalidated. It’s the people who argue that nuclear weapons won the war in the Pacific that are the radicals. They are arguing for something radically new.

If you look at the history of destroying cities you find that there’s almost no instance of someone destroying a city and thereby winning a war. Across two thousand years of written history there isn’t a single credible case of city annihilation leading to surrender.

This means that those who argue that nuclear weapons won the war in the Pacific bear the onus of proving that the world is different than it was in the past. This is a tall order. There are … Read More »