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Comment by breppp | Hacker News Reader

> If that was true, obviously they would have built one buy now. Being one year away from building would be non-urgency inducing.

Reread your parent comment, the concept of a threshold nuclear state is that they are constantly a month away, for years. That's the entire point, being effectively a nuclear state without holding a nuclear weapon

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Yeah, it's a form of nuclear deterrence, one that does not need an actual nuclear weapon to sort of, kinda work.

The problem I have with this doctrine is that if it's supposed to deter an opponent who already has a nuclear deterrent, they may decide their deterrent is not so deterring anymore and actively go and use it against you.

The whole idea of nuclear deterrence relies on all parties being rational and sensible about nuclear weapons use, but I don't see a lot of rationality in the current eventuality.

I mean, we all understand this. We also all understand that "Iran is one week away from a nuclear weapon" is a so-stupid-its-amazing-it-works wordgame that is intended to fool the general public into thinking "wow! Well we better go in NOW!", because without qualifiers, it sounds like "they are literally going to have a bomb in one week if we DON'T go in now". If, however, the talking heads on CNN explained this ("Iran has stopped one week short of obtaining a nuclear weapon, they are holding there as a form of nuclear deterrence"), then the public would (rightly) realize that this is not really any different from what the USA does. The USA has this whole convoluted "defcon" system where we go from "20 minutes away from a nuclear weapon" to "the nuclear weapon is headed for you now". Hmm, sounds like the same strategy, with different steps.

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