Why are Nuclear Weapons use full to military forces?

Black Sabbath

They are strategically useful in that they make a country much less likely to attack you because they know they will be destroyed by your nuclear weapons.

Matthew R

Nuclear weapons act as a deterrent against a massed attack, and are not intended to be used in a small conflict. Their potential use makes an enemy think twice about attacking, knowing that there are nuclear weapons at the ready to be used to subdue enemy forces and annihilate an enemy's ability to wage war.

murky303

1) Nuclear weapons allow small countries or military forces to defeat larger forces or countries, all other things being equal. This is why the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Europe had many nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

The Soviet Union and its allies (the "Warsaw Pact") badly outnumbered the US and its allies and several times during the Cold War had planned to invade Western and Central Europe. NATO's nuclear weapons prevented the Soviets and their allies from doing this, because these weapons could destroy large formations of Soviet troops and tanks before they could move very far into Western Europe.

This is known as the "counterforce" role of nuclear weapons - being able to kill the other guy's military forces. It's also called "nuclear warfighting" and until very recently was something that the US had announced its intention to go away from being able to do. Israel and some other nuclear powers may have a major investment in being able to use nuclear weapons to kill the enemy's military.

2) Nuclear weapons also are able to destroy cities efficiently. This was the strategic, "countervalue" role of nuclear weapons, being able to destroy cities, industry, other non-military targets of the enemy.

The countervalue role of nuclear weapons allowed the Soviets and the US (and their respective allies) to threaten to destroy each others' homelands in the event of a war. This became known as the "mutually assured destruction" (or MAD) policy in its most extreme form, when both countries supposedly refrained from all but the least effective defenses against being bombed with nuclear weapons.

The current policy conflict between Russia and the United States stems from the United States' policy of building antimissile systems to destroy incoming nuclear weapons; the Russians feel that this affects the policy of "mutually assured destruction" around which they have designed their nuclear arsenal.

Apparently the Cold War never ended as far as the current Russian leadership is concerned, because ANY US or European ability to destroy incoming Russian nuclear missiles is something the Russians view as threatening and unacceptable.

This indicates that the Russians at some point in the indefinite future wish to be able to threaten countervalue attacks against Europe and the US as part of their foreign policy. The Russians want very badly to go back to Mutually Assured Destruction. They want to treat our cities and our civilian population as hostages to ensure that we behave the way that they want us to behave.

3) Nuclear weapons can be useful specifically in destroying enemy nuclear weapons. I covered this earlier as part of the counterforce role, but treaties we signed with the Soviets (now the Russians) prevented us from developing nuclear weapons to destroy a potential enemy's nuclear weapons until very recently.

For example, we withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty so we could develop non-nuclear ways of destroying incoming nuclear weapons - after Iran and other countries began developing nuclear weapons. We now have a moderately effective arsenal of anti-ballistic missiles which can intercept and destroy enemy missiles at several points in their path from launcher to our own cities or military targets. Even our guided missile ships can kill some incoming nuclear weapons if they are on ballistic missiles, using ordinary chemical explosives.

If we used nuclear weapons on these anti-ballistic missiles, they would be able to kill enemy missiles much more efficiently.

However, there are problems with this use of nuclear weapons. We couldn't strike enemy missiles in the upper atmosphere over our own or friendly nations' territory because this would cause an effect known as "electromagnetic pulse" (EMP) that would destroy computers, radios, car engine ignition components and electrical power equipment over huge areas.

The Russians have threatened to use nuclear weapons in precisely this way against us during negotiations over our antimissile installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. This would be a way of using nuclear weapons that did not kill people directly but would send us back to a technological point before the development of computers.

4) There is also something known as "radiological warfare" in which nuclear weapons are used not for their ability to blow things and people apart physically, but to create radiation that would hurt or kill people and animals.

"Dirty bombs" in their simplest form are just chemical explosives that scatter radioactivity not created by nuclear weapons around. This is the most likely way terrorists would use radioactivity because it's the easiest.

"Enhanced radiation weapons," also known as "neutron bombs" are special kinds of nuclear weapons that don't create much blast or heat but do create huge amounts of radiation for a brief period, killing the people under where they go

Michael G

Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.) it is the best deterrent in the world and has prevented the cold war from developing into world war 3. The theory being that one side cannot destroy the other without being destroyed themselves. This is why Russia is so concerned about America's missile defense program and various European countries getting involved with it.
In other words, the main reason to have nuclear weapons is so nobody can use nuclear weapons against you. Unless they are prepared to accept the same fate.

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