Should WMD's exist, and do you support them?

[Thermodolia]

Nobody wants to go to war with a nation that's not afraid to use them.

Until a nation on equal footing starts a war.

Never happened with Nuclear weapons. MAD would come into play at that point

[Sovaal]

Weaponized Ebola here we come.

*Metro Last Light Flashbacks*

Ebola can't be weaponized.

Is of reference.

Still, weaponized diseases don't sound like fun.

[Sovaal]

Until a nation on equal footing starts a war.

Never happened with Nuclear weapons. MAD would come into play at that point

Yet you referenced bio and chemical weapons.
WRA was on the subject of bio and chem weapons, which you responded to.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Literally nothing good can come from such things.

Nobody wants to go to war with a nation that's not afraid to use them.

Do the ends justify the means?

[Thermodolia]

I know what happened in WWI and how bad it was. I still support biological and chemical weapons

For what purpose? Gas weapons have been shown to be ineffective, and they cause enormous suffering not at all proportional with any military objective. And biological weapons are just as likely to kill your own people.

If they are inefficient then they are useless. I also think the Geneva conventions are stupid. I'm not above playing dirty during a war. If that means dropping VX on some population centers so be it, we did it to Germany during WWII. Dresden was fire bombed into oblivion. Moral has to be broken.

[Thermodolia]

Never happened with Nuclear weapons. MAD would come into play at that point

Yet you referenced bio and chemical weapons.

So? We haven't dropped chemical weapons because the other guy would do the same. MAD is what keeps everyone in line.

[Washington Resistance Army]

Yet you referenced bio and chemical weapons.

So? We haven't dropped chemical weapons because the other guy would do the same. MAD is what keeps everyone in line.

Yeah when chemical weapons were the thing everyone kinda did drop them on each other.

[Myrensis]

On balance, I'd prefer a world where they didn't exist.

We'd probably have had another World War when the Cold War went hot, and it's entirely possible that India and Pakistan would have gone farther than border skirmishes, but still probably preferable to the risk of a war breaking out that will result in the extermination of significant portions of human life and catastrophic environmental damage.

But since there's no putting the genie back in the bottle, the deterrent of MAD is what we're left with.

[Sovaal]

Yet you referenced bio and chemical weapons.

So? We haven't dropped chemical weapons because the other guy would do the same. MAD is what keeps everyone in line.

You don't get MAD from chemical weapons.

[Thermodolia]

Nobody wants to go to war with a nation that's not afraid to use them.

Do the ends justify the means?

In war, international dealings, and when my nation is concerned yes. I'm a civic nationalist in case you haven't figured out.

[Purpelia]

So? We haven't dropped chemical weapons because the other guy would do the same. MAD is what keeps everyone in line.

Yeah when chemical weapons were the thing everyone kinda did drop them on each other.

Chemical weapons are a bad example though because they aren't really super deadly. Like, even the worst chemical weapons are wildly infective, difficult to store and deliver and actually quite easy to protect against if you know they are coming. And that's quite different than atomic bomb.

Really what makes atomic bombs so beautiful as a weapon of peace is that once you know they are coming there isn't much you can do about it because only one need get through to your insane presidential palace of evil and that's it.

[Victores]

No, I think we should destroy all nuclear weapons. If we had nuclear weapons how I can take over Eurasia and create a NatBol state. Afterwards we can rebuild nukes.

[Thermodolia]

So? We haven't dropped chemical weapons because the other guy would do the same. MAD is what keeps everyone in line.

Yeah when chemical weapons were the thing everyone kinda did drop them on each other.

We did the same with nukes. Once we figured out what they did we stopped doing it.

[Thermodolia]

So? We haven't dropped chemical weapons because the other guy would do the same. MAD is what keeps everyone in line.

You don't get MAD from chemical weapons.

Eh I think it fits

[Washington Resistance Army]

Yeah when chemical weapons were the thing everyone kinda did drop them on each other.

We did the same with nukes. Once we figured out what they did we stopped doing it.

Great, so we can keep nukes around as a deterrent and get rid of all other WMD's.

[Greater Cesnica]

No, I think we should destroy all nuclear weapons. If we had nuclear weapons how I can take over Eurasia and create a NatBol state. Afterwards we can rebuild nukes.

We are talking about real life.

[Sovaal]

Yeah when chemical weapons were the thing everyone kinda did drop them on each other.

Chemical weapons are a bad example though because they aren't really super deadly. Like, even the worst chemical weapons are wildly infective, difficult to store and deliver and actually quite easy to protect against if you know they are coming. And that's quite different than atomic bomb.

Really what makes atomic bombs so beautiful as a weapon of peace is that once you know they are coming there isn't much you can do about it because only one need get through to your insane presidential palace of evil and that's it.

Chemical weapons main negative effect is that they poison the land. There are still areas in France from WW1 that are near uninhabitable due to toxic chemicals.

[Purpelia]

We did the same with nukes. Once we figured out what they did we stopped doing it.

Great, so we can keep nukes around as a deterrent and get rid of all other WMD's.

Pretty much. Although I'd keep some stockpiles around simply for utility reasons like making sure we have enough to develop antidotes and protection measures or so that we can gas people if they get too uppity.

[Thermodolia]

We did the same with nukes. Once we figured out what they did we stopped doing it.

Great, so we can keep nukes around as a deterrent and get rid of all other WMD's.

I'm not against nukes. I'm against getting rid of any weapons that we can use to our advantage. But I'm against keeping inefficient and ineffective weapons.

[Purpelia]

Chemical weapons are a bad example though because they aren't really super deadly. Like, even the worst chemical weapons are wildly infective, difficult to store and deliver and actually quite easy to protect against if you know they are coming. And that's quite different than atomic bomb.

Really what makes atomic bombs so beautiful as a weapon of peace is that once you know they are coming there isn't much you can do about it because only one need get through to your insane presidential palace of evil and that's it.

Chemical weapons main negative effect is that they poison the land. There are still areas in France from WW1 that are near uninhabitable due to toxic chemicals.

Certainly, but they are basically worthless in the role of having a rocket full of them pointed at your enemies palace to scare him into being friendly.

[Pentagol]

They serve as a deterrent against the concept of total war between superpowers, but I don't see them as a logical military strategy unless the nukee will not concede to the nuker, specifically in a case where the nukee as no more possible military options to engage the nuker with, but refuses to heel, like in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Sovaal]

Chemical weapons main negative effect is that they poison the land. There are still areas in France from WW1 that are near uninhabitable due to toxic chemicals.

Certainly, but they are basically worthless in the role of having a rocket full of them pointed at your enemies palace to scare him into being friendly.

That's actually my point. They're useless for MAD but wonderful at polluting the land.

[Zanera]

After the tens of millions that were killed in WWII, I can appreciate MAD in a weird "at-least-we're-not-slaughtering-each-other-in-the-tens-of-millions-within-less-than-a-decade-in-a-war-between-major-powers" sort of way.

Railguns boi

I want to be equipped with railguns.

They're still experimental. Plus you don't really want to put an expensive-ass weapon on a ship that can be and was wrecked by a storm.
Plus I believe railguns require electricity, which means hooking you up with a nuke plant or something.
Which probably won't happen because you're prone to getting wrecked by storms.
What you need is a good hull-scrubbing.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

Not only should all forms of weapons of mass destruction exist, we should be greatly expanding and furthering our nuclear capabilities and constantly making bigger bombs. We should be testing them, too.

Why? -because MAD is the ultimate deterrent. Compared to WWII and prior, the arms race largely secured peace on earth in the Cold War, and it continues to secure peace against the USA and Russia. Regional and local skirmishes were the only acts of war that went on.

More importantly, the world has never been this peaceful. Even with ISIL and a step up in Syria, and even with full USA involvement, we are still in an era of peace compared to before WWII.
I believe that WMDs are the primary reason this is so.

Weapons of mass destruction are to be used only in defense. That is, a nuclear power should NEVER make the first move with a nuclear weapon.

They should only be deployed if struck first. The original atomic bombs against Japan were targetted and small enough to cause comparitively precise damage (and they literally saved tens of millions of lives as the alternative to Operation Downfall). Modern nukes cannot do that. Nukes are to deter other nukes, and to close in a way that is more humane than a full on invasion.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

For what purpose? Gas weapons have been shown to be ineffective, and they cause enormous suffering not at all proportional with any military objective. And biological weapons are just as likely to kill your own people.

If they are inefficient then they are useless. I also think the Geneva conventions are stupid. I'm not above playing dirty during a war. If that means dropping VX on some population centers so be it, we did it to Germany during WWII. Dresden was fire bombed into oblivion. Moral has to be broken.

The Geneva Conventions ban weapons and warfare that cause disproportional amounts of suffering. How much suffering are you OK with? VX gas in population centers... Simple war crimes. They kill innocents, they cause enormous suffering. How much suffering is a military objective worth? How much brutality? I fear you underestimate the torture these weapons can bring with their usage.

Also, just for a historical point: usage of chemical weapons generally does not break enemy morale. It just makes them hate you more. The terror bombing campaign over Germany got opposite results: soldiers just fought harder to defend their cities.