Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

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Ukraine never had "control" of nukes. Russia was the sole producer/controller of nukes within the USSR. Those nukes were then deployed throughout the USSR, but the individual regions within the USSR never had any capability to independently launch or control those nukes. It would be akin to what will happen when the US eventually collapses and we have military bases and nukes scattered throughout the world.

Germany in that case will then briefly technically have nukes, but no ability to knowledge of how to launch or control them. Had Ukraine tried to hold onto those nukes and/or figure out how to launch them they would likely have been invaded by just about every country in the world, including the US, so they gave them up for a few bucks and some kind words.

And I strongly disagree about Iran. Pakistan is also an Islamic country (with its proper name being the Islamic Republic of Pakistan) and a nuclear power, and they haven't just decided to go nuke India who they have abysmal relations with. Religion does provide a different level of comfort with death (and Iran has a longgggggg history of enduring pain to expel invaders on top), but it does not just turn people into death cult members.

There's some irony in that if Iran had nuclear weapons their relations with Israel would likely have been much better. Because Israel wouldn't have been constantly attacking, assassinating, and otherwise doing everything they could to undermine the country. It's similar to how if North Korea didn't have nukes then South Korea, largely as a proxy of the US, would likely have been actively attacking them.

Islamism != Islam. Plenty of Muslims (most, thankfully) are not Islamists, including Pakistan. Pakistan also does not fund terror globally (though India says they do it locally) because they do not believe they go to heaven for killing Israelis. There are a number of Muslims, including the Supreme Leader, who do. My contention was not that any muslims would nuke Israel if they had a chance, most surely would not, but it's reasonable to believe Iran would. Hamas and Hezbollah would, and Iran would love to give them the opportunity.

South Korea was never going to attack North Korea because, as I mentioned, they had plenty of conventional weapons they could easily deliver to South Korea. They had mutually assured destruction before they even tried to get nukes, that's why they succeeded. Iran does not have that yet, and must be stopped before they do.

I do now know whether this was the right way to do it by any means, and I think it's a shame that the Obama-era deal was abandoned. I think we could possibly have gotten here through peaceful measures. But we did need to get to here.

Pakistan was historically one of the most active sponsors of terrorism worldwide. [1] Their activities over time have moderated, but again exactly as I was suggesting would happen with Iran - this is likely in large part because they're not a target of various offensive activities, precisely because they have nukes. Each time you attack a country and kill people, those friends, relatives, and parts of the unconnected population do not forget nor forgive. You create the radicalism you claim to fight against.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t...

Historically yes. They’ve since renounced it and seem to keep it confined to their region.

I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that fighting terrorism creates more terrorists than it kills, that’s just a thing people say and reality seems to show the opposite. We haven’t had waves of terror since gutting Al Queda, ISIS, etc. There’s neither research nor data to support it, people just like the way it sounds so they repeat it.

What about the Taliban? Fighting them for 20 years seemed to achieve absolutely nothing.

And Pakistan has also historically had nukes - they were first obtained in 1998. This [1] page offers a variety of data on terrorism. I recommend selecting the "terrorist attacks by region" graph as it illustrates it most clearly. At the time of 9/11, global terrorism was in its death throes. 9/11 was a Hail Mary by Bin Laden and it's been a resounding success. Global terrorism has exponentially skyrocketed since the war on terror.

And on top of this terror groups are now growing powerful enough to fully control their own countries. The Taliban now has rock solid control of Afghanistan (before the war on terror they had majority control, but were struggling against a powerful insurgency), Abu Mohammad al-Julani controls Syria and US propaganda is framing him as a moderate or reformer, but he's not. He had a $10 million bounty on his head as one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world, even as we started running propaganda for him, exactly as we did for [de facto] Al Qaeda(from which he came) before they came back to bite us later, exactly as he will. Then there's the Houthis who went from a political movement to an insurgency to now having near complete control of Yemen in spite of ongoing conflicts with Saudi Arabia and the US.

[1] - https://ourworldindata.org/terrorism

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