History, Politics And Current Affairs

Its interesting to note that mad, homicidal aggressive dictators tend to get very tame sane cautious ones as soon as they split atoms. Whatever their motivations and intents, the mechanics of how nuclear weapons work dictate that mad dictators become sane dictators very quickly. After all its not much fun dictating if one's country is a radioactive trash pile and you're one of the ashes. China, India and Pakistan are good examples. One of the best examples of this process at work is Mao Tse Tung. Throughout the 1950s he was extraordinarily bellicose and repeatedly tried to bully, cajole or trick Khruschev and his successors into initiating a nuclear exchange with the US on the grounds that world communism would rise from the ashes. Thats what Quemoy and Matsu were all about in the late 1950s. Then China got nuclear weapons. Have you noticed how reticent they are with them? Its sunk in. They can be totally destroyed; will be totally destroyed; in the event of an exchange. We had a Chinese Officer here once on exchange (billed as a "look what we can do" session it was really a "look what we can do to you" exercise). We got the standard line about how the Chinese could lose 500 million people in a nuclear war and keep going with the survivors. So we got out a demographic map (one that shows population densities rather than topographical data) and got to work with pie-cutters using a few classified tricks. We got virtually the entire population of China using only a small proportion of the US arsenal. Our guest stared at the map for a couple of minutes then went and tossed his cookies into the toilet bowl. The only people who mouth off about using nuclear weapons and threaten others with them are those that do not have keys hanging around their necks. The moment they get keys and realize what they've let themselves in for, they get to be very quiet and very cautious indeed.

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 7:41 pm Stuart, peace be upon him, told a story about about some Chinese visiting the place he worked and commenting about the idea that there are too many Chinese to kill. Stuart and his coworkers did calculations and found that with a small percentage of the US nuclear arsenal at the time could kill just about everyone in China. I want to say he said something later about it essentially be a full Trident load: 24 missile with 8 W88 warheads each but I can't be sure.

Its interesting to note that mad, homicidal aggressive dictators tend to get very tame sane cautious ones as soon as they split atoms. Whatever their motivations and intents, the mechanics of how nuclear weapons work dictate that mad dictators become sane dictators very quickly. After all its not much fun dictating if one's country is a radioactive trash pile and you're one of the ashes. China, India and Pakistan are good examples. One of the best examples of this process at work is Mao Tse Tung. Throughout the 1950s he was extraordinarily bellicose and repeatedly tried to bully, cajole or trick Khruschev and his successors into initiating a nuclear exchange with the US on the grounds that world communism would rise from the ashes. Thats what Quemoy and Matsu were all about in the late 1950s. Then China got nuclear weapons. Have you noticed how reticent they are with them? Its sunk in. They can be totally destroyed; will be totally destroyed; in the event of an exchange. We had a Chinese Officer here once on exchange (billed as a "look what we can do" session it was really a "look what we can do to you" exercise). We got the standard line about how the Chinese could lose 500 million people in a nuclear war and keep going with the survivors. So we got out a demographic map (one that shows population densities rather than topographical data) and got to work with pie-cutters using a few classified tricks. We got virtually the entire population of China using only a small proportion of the US arsenal. Our guest stared at the map for a couple of minutes then went and tossed his cookies into the toilet bowl. The only people who mouth off about using nuclear weapons and threaten others with them are those that do not have keys hanging around their necks. The moment they get keys and realize what they've let themselves in for, they get to be very quiet and very cautious indeed.

viewtopic.php?p=477&hilit=Chinese+targeting#p477

David Newton wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 11:19 pm

Rocket J Squrriel wrote: ↑Fri Jan 30, 2026 7:41 pm Stuart, peace be upon him, told a story about about some Chinese visiting the place he worked and commenting about the idea that there are too many Chinese to kill. Stuart and his coworkers did calculations and found that with a small percentage of the US nuclear arsenal at the time could kill just about everyone in China. I want to say he said something later about it essentially be a full Trident load: 24 missile with 8 W88 warheads each but I can't be sure.

Its interesting to note that mad, homicidal aggressive dictators tend to get very tame sane cautious ones as soon as they split atoms. Whatever their motivations and intents, the mechanics of how nuclear weapons work dictate that mad dictators become sane dictators very quickly. After all its not much fun dictating if one's country is a radioactive trash pile and you're one of the ashes. China, India and Pakistan are good examples. One of the best examples of this process at work is Mao Tse Tung. Throughout the 1950s he was extraordinarily bellicose and repeatedly tried to bully, cajole or trick Khruschev and his successors into initiating a nuclear exchange with the US on the grounds that world communism would rise from the ashes. Thats what Quemoy and Matsu were all about in the late 1950s. Then China got nuclear weapons. Have you noticed how reticent they are with them? Its sunk in. They can be totally destroyed; will be totally destroyed; in the event of an exchange. We had a Chinese Officer here once on exchange (billed as a "look what we can do" session it was really a "look what we can do to you" exercise). We got the standard line about how the Chinese could lose 500 million people in a nuclear war and keep going with the survivors. So we got out a demographic map (one that shows population densities rather than topographical data) and got to work with pie-cutters using a few classified tricks. We got virtually the entire population of China using only a small proportion of the US arsenal. Our guest stared at the map for a couple of minutes then went and tossed his cookies into the toilet bowl. The only people who mouth off about using nuclear weapons and threaten others with them are those that do not have keys hanging around their necks. The moment they get keys and realize what they've let themselves in for, they get to be very quiet and very cautious indeed.

viewtopic.php?p=477&hilit=Chinese+targeting#p477

Unfortunately the Russians seem to have lost that memo now. They haven't used them obviously, but they've been extraordinarily free in making stupid, bombastic threats and then utterly failing to carry them through.

Some of those Russians could very usefully witness an atmospheric nuclear initiation to sober them up and shut them up.