yes that is one way of looking at it, good point.
however, there is also the fact that war and fighting will never cease to exist as it is a part of human nature. whereras before, no matter how bloody a particular conflict was, mankind could only do so much damage to itself and the earth. there was never any threat to the actual survival of mankind and the natural world, and its ability to sustain life was only impacted in relatively small isolated spots that did not affect the well-being of the whole.
But that's exactly what I said! You just repeated what I said. There will always be wars; but there will never be wars between
major powers again. The rationale is very simple: the absolute annihilation caused by a nuclear war would preculde any major power from attacking another, because the motivation for war is political(conquering territory, furthering a politician's career, etc), and there is no political point in taking an action that will utterly annihilate you. Get it? This also means that
traditional warfare between major powers will never happen again, because war is war and you'll always use your most powerful weapon. My point is that traditional wars had their death tolls dramatically reduced since the invention of the fusion bomb, because it is now done only and exclusively between Third World states, which don't have much power to do much damage to each other anyway, or between a major power and a Third World state, which ends very quickly due to the fact that, althougfh the trditional powers will never fight traditional wars again against each other, they still have the power to wage traditional wars on a much grander scale than Third World states. For instance, England has enough I.C.B.Ms to destroy the World five times over, but it's navy was still strong enought to pummel Argentina into submission in less than one month in the Malvines War, resulting in a very low death toll. Thus: Major powers with I.C.B.Ms = far less death from
actual war. Cavalier got it; you didn't!
what we have now are weapons so powerful that they transcend every other considerable factor. it is true they do serve as a deterrent and thus reduce the sheer amount of conflicts that will take place, but at the same time WHEN such conflicts should occur (it is inevitable that at some point these things will be used again, simply because of human nature) then the devistating effect of a single conflict with these new weapons would be greater than the sum of all conflicts ever before their creation.
No, this is what you don't understand! Wars are started by men in positions of power/domination, the so-called alpha males, for a
reason. There is always a motivation behind it, which is based on a simple premisse: no matter how many people die, it will be worth if I am successful and comne out as a hero from it. They start wars because it furthers their status/dominance over other people. Their physical safety is garanteed, and if the country loses a traditional war, they will always need a leader to rebuild. Either way, the alpha wins. However, hydrogen bombs eliminate the incentive right at the core: the alpha thatg rules a major power realizes that attacking another power will result in his own physical extermination, or, at the very least, will leave hikm with no usable country to rule. Get it? The only ;posibility, as I see it, is if a psychopath takes power in a major power and has the authority to deploy them. Fortunately, this will never happen, because all the great powers are democratic, which means that the leaders are observed by the media and their power is strictly restricted. Now, if a Third World country acquires hydrogen bombs and have the I.C.B.Ms to deploy them, then that would be a different situation. India and Pakistan have the fission bomb, but I don't think they have fusion bombs, which are the real threatm, and much less so then the I.C.B.Ms to deploy them effectively. And you can be damn sure that the major powers will never allow primitivwe, superstitious nations, like Iran, to ever become a threat to them.
basically while they do act as deterrence, the complete elimination of warfare will never ever be realized, and this is the key thing to remember. considering this, the fact that the weapons now available can destroy all life on earth is really disturbing. the scale is completely different now. whereas before you could have tons of frequent individual wars which result in high casualty rates, nothing would change in the long run, everything would continue to exist. now all it will take is a SINGLE conflict to break out in which even 50 of these single weapons are used, and the whole world is fucked.
Once again, since people fight for something - you're not going to risk death for nothing -, it is unlikely that modern, democratic, rational societies, which control very strictly the masculine boasting of it's alpha males through the media, senate, high courts, etc, would allow them to attack another major power. The apocvalyptic nature of the hydrogen bomb takes away any gain possible from a war between two major powers, since that would immediately involve I.C.B.Ms and the apocalypse. Now, if George Junior is given free reign by the Senate, then that might be different. But even if he attacked Iran with nuclear weapons, the death toll would be much lower than that of a
traditional war between two major powers. The only think that concerns me is if the fanatic, Vladimir Jirinovski, takes power in Russia: they have threre times more nuclear bombs than the U.S, and their bombs - such as the Tsar Bomba - are up to ten times more powerful than anything the U.S have. Waht will happen with Russia in the next decades is the great question for mankind.
SUCKMYMUSCLE
