Hacker News Reader

Comment by ben_w | Hacker News Reader

Or 3, he's bluffing.

I'm not sure which of 1 and 2 is least-bad. All depends on downstream consequences, because we're already past the point where everyone's looking at Trump (not just in Iran but also, and we already had this to an extent with Putin attacking Ukraine) and thinking they need a credible deterrent. OTOH, the USA getting suckered into a drawn-out war with Iran in the same way Russia is with Ukraine may be good for almost everyone else, because an exhausted USA is a manageable threat, in a way that the current USA almost certainly isn't.

View on HN

2 is almost unimaginably worse.

Nuclear explosives are good. They are very good, as in, "the invention of fire" good. Once the cat is out of the bag on First Use, militaries around the world will put them in operational planning for literally anything that can carry 100kg and needs to strike a hard or spread out target.

That's assuming this conflict doesn't immediately escalate, which is not a given by any stretch.

At the start of WW1 everyone thought that Europeans would hold themselves to proper civilized weapons to use against Proper People. Then someone brought in the weapons reserved for colonized peoples - i.e. "half-people" - and found they work real good on Proper People as well. Uncorking nuclear first use will be like the introduction of the machine gun to the world of war, except every bullet is the most powerful device made by Man.

Breaking the first use taboo - for goddamn Iran of all people - would probably be the worst decision in human history.

Oh, I'm quite sure. 2 is far worse.

2 is hundreds of thousands dead at a minimum. 1, even at its worst, would not come close to that. Worse, 2 breaks the "no actual use since Nagasaki" moratorium that has held for 80 years. Once it's broken, how long until the next use? Until Russia decides it can just start nuking cities in Ukraine, say?

1 is least bad. Maybe not for Iran, but for the world. If Trump re-opens Pandora's box, there is much less to hold back other nuclear powers in similar circumstances. The US has lost some dozen troops in this war, Russia has lost hundreds of thousands in its. Why should Russia restrain themselves if the US president goes mental? Our world becomes much, much more dangerous if Trump becomes unable to control himself.

> Our world becomes much, much more dangerous if Trump becomes unable to control himself.

I think we're well past that point.

It can always get worse. Trump ordering nuclear strikes will make it much worse than it has been been so far, by a large margin

I meant that we are past the point where Trump is in control of himself.

Trump using nukes on Iran would essentially give Putin the green light to do the same in Ukraine. And then all bets are off after that.

Unfortunately, since the time you made this comment, B52s have been seen leaving the UK. I'm tired, boss.

> I'm tired, boss.

I know what you mean. I guess we'll all find out in a few hours what the payloads are, given that while B-52s are nuclear-capable, that's not the only thing they're used for.

And I guess also, when it is a pick-one dichotomy, whether the USAF obeys either their orders or their oaths.

Just to call it out now that it's happened: it was 3, he was bluffing, and he just folded. The US is halting operations. Iran still holds de facto control over the straight. Trump himself even called out Iran's previous 10-point plan (which, among other things, demands reparations!) as the basis for negotiation.

To wit: the war appears to be over. Iran won.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com