As President, would you use a nuclear weapon?

Yes, and as we all know, any effort to allow any other type of person to also fight is PC social engineering and will lead to the destruction of entire country.

 

Starting to look like it doesn't it ?

America isn't the super power that it was back in 2008.

 

It's not the only part of the job and it's not only as blatant and immediate. Even in the simplest terms, a leader who launched a pre-emptive strike to protect some of their citizens could well be following a path that puts all of their citizens at even greater risk.

The dehumanisation is in your ability to deem citizens of any nation other than your own entirely valueless.

Exactly the same thing that would happen to the leader who launched the pre-emptive strike. Let's be clear here; we can debate what the "right" answer to the question is all night but it's undeniable that in a western democracy, the leader is politically doomed regardless.

 

I'm sure you can cobble together some self-serving scenario where this is true.
However, the -immediate- risk is clear and present; the President has a responsibility to act in defense of the nation from that risk.

There's a difference between judging people "valueless" and judging your own people to have a greater value.

If he orders the strike, he'll be pulled form the White House by an angry mob and lynched?

 

Yep, no non-white male straight Christians in the military pre-2008.

 

Correction, no openly gays, drag queens or transgenders in the military pre-2008.
And they still had urinals on warships.

 

Because if you can't stand up to pee, you can't fight! Only penises can shoot missiles or drop bombs!

I'm so glad your thinking will be dead within 20-25 years. Your authoritarian moralizing and bigoted judgementalism has no place in society.

 

No army has won on the battlefield using political correctness.

 

Except for the US Army in 83, 89, 91, 94, 99, 01, and 03.

The British Army in 91, 94, 99, 01, and 03.

The Israeli Army in...

Do I need to continue? By your very bigoted definition of PC, dozens of armies are won on the battlefield.

 

so now you're telling me I "have enough information" when I clearly asked specific questions that would have a dramatic influence on the decision... now you're telling me I can't use existing technology america possesses in its nuclear arsenal... you see why I said this entire thread is nothing more than pure bull(*)(*)(*)(*)... you're not using REALISTIC conditions and scenarios to apply your analogy too, you're just making (*)(*)(*)(*) up to steer the answers to what you want... I mean you don't even reply with the ENTIRE message people post, you selective edit even sentences down to specific words, all so you can avoid the challenge and realization you're full of (*)(*)(*)(*)...

 

In your scenario, the attack has yet to happen. It would be less than 30 minutes for a nuclear bomb from either China or Russia to hit The United States. If I have 30 minutes or more, that means the potential opposing side has yet to fire and we still have time to communicate or take needed countermeasures.

I would be working multiple angles. This including have intelligence further verified, alerting countermeasures to intercept any possible launch, when appropriate and if time giving have my cabinet contact our allies about the potential nuclear strike, as I'm sure they too, would like to prevent all out nuclear war and may take interest in their own countermeasures (all hands on deck), and finally with time permitting, I'd have an open line to our potential adversary, hoping to set a tone of deterrent.

However, if they shoot it off, the interception would be a primary goal, as well as having the emergency broadcast. There maybe panic, but keeping silent regarding an income nuclear bomb, will save no one, as opposed to the possibility of having people take proper shelter, where available. It will also bring to notice our neighboring nations, Mexico and Canada to brace themselves too, as well as our international allies who may not yet be aware (though it's likely by the time they are).

If interception is unsuccessful, I should by now have the complete support of most of the international community to retaliate, as oppose to shooting off first and risk having everyone around use rain hell fire down on us.

 

Yawn.
Feel free to stop posting on this topic.

 

It’s your scenario. Regardless of whether the first strike was to prevent an enemy launch (and regardless whether that reasoning was believed around the world), any use of a strategic nuclear weapon on a populated area by any actor would trigger massive world-wide response and in the current international political environment, how that response went would be impossible to predict. The point is that the decision to launch or not would have consequences far beyond the lives of the people immediately under threat (on both sides) and any competent leader would have to consider that wider picture in reaching their decision.

Yes, but if you gave other people any value, that value would be part of the consideration. The fact you don’t care which or how many non-Americans would be killed to defend some Americans can only mean you grant all non-Americans no value of significance at all.

There is also some practical consequence of this since it’s perfectly possible for the US President to have to decide whether to launch a nuclear strike to defend other countries from attack.

That has to be a possibility. You get riots when a single black criminal is shot by a police officer. Who knows what the reaction to millions of people being killed by a President might be. We’ve never encountered such an immediate and extreme situation to know. It would certainly play a massive role in all politics following. Just look at the state of the current Presidential campaign. If Clinton had been part of an administration which had launched a nuclear strike, regardless of the circumstances or the target, don’t you think it would be a major component of the general political spin and propaganda machines? Benghazi and Iraq would pale in to insignificance by comparison.

 

I chose no because I would like to never have to use one, but this being a yes or no question is unfair.

I would do everything I could never to use one, but if we were threatened with being hit with one I would definitely have my finger on the trigger to return the favor.

 

The use of no such weapon is under consideration.

Certainly, the world would respond
However, every world leader, and every honest person, understands the necessity of a head of state acting to protect the lives of his citizenry: these same people would be appalled that any head of state would refuse to act in defense of same.

None of which in any way necessitates a decision tree that ends with "Let them nuke San Diego".

Who says it isn't?
I mean, other than you.

A far smaller probability than that attached the decision to let a million or so Americans die in a flash of white light when it could have been stopped.

 

this guy constantly posts garbage threads with limited information purpose to force people to make a choice, when most people as I demonstrated in my responses would required FAR more information to make the decision, and then when you beg him to add in the additional details like I did, he just pretends that couldn't possible be a factor in the scenario presented or be a potential option... basically he just wants to present an unrealistic scenario to force you to pick what he wants... I mean I presented him with options our military has today, and he rejected that as an option, despite it being a present actual option... we modify the yield on the war head to only affect the site we are targeting, yet he foofoo's that as not possible in this chance, yet the ship we're launching from would have to set the yield before launching anyhow, so its a requirements in the process they set a yield or it launches with no yield, so if we can now dial the yield we want we can control the radius he wants to force upon us... and then to suggest we could launch missiles without the enemy seeing us launching, and in kind, launching all their weapons ahead of schedule, or what if they have 100 nukes like I asked him to pick a number, and we only target the one site, why wouldn't they launch from the other 99 left to america... this is why many of his threads are garbage...

 

I still don't understand Obama's crusade to have men and women pee together

 

Who knows, he could be like Bill Clinton and trying to clear a path so he can go into the women's bathroom to sneak a peak or two.

 

That would make the most sense.

 

no. I would, "hire Mr. Trump" and tell him to go and make a Good, capital deal to make us money with our Commerce Clause.