As speculation mounts that Kim Jong-un and Trump could meet this month, analysts say Pyongyang will continue to see nuclear weapons as a matter of survival
North Korea’s launch last week of a missile from a naval destroyer elicited an uncharacteristically prosaic analysis from the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. The launch was proof, he said, that arming ships with nuclear weapons was “making satisfactory progress”.
But the test, and Kim’s mildly upbeat appraisal, were designed to reverberate well beyond the deck of the 5,000-tonne destroyer-class vessel the Choe Hyon – the biggest warship in the North Korean fleet.
His pointed reference to nuclear weapons was made as the US and Israel continued their air bombardment of Iran – a regime Donald Trump had warned, without offering evidence, was only weeks away from having a nuclear weapon.
Not just north Korea, the whole world can see what happened to Ukrain after they gave up their nukes in exchange for a protection deal, mutually assured destruction is the only way to keep your country safe
That had to be the biggest takeaway every country had to have gotten over the last couple of years.
Proximity bias of Europoors.
What is happening in Gaza and Iran is much worse. Iran is a 3,000 years old civilization while Ukraine is a fragment of USSR, 30 years old.
Humans have inhabited Ukraine since 32,000 BC. - Wikipedia
Ukraine, the official country, is just some lines drawn on a map. The people, the culture, the history has been around for thousands and thousands of years.
As if the Ukrainians aren’t a culture and people going back thousands of years. What odd bigotries you have.
reinforce North Korea’s view
I think you mean conclusively prove North Korea’s view to be correct
Yeah, they’ve already figured that out.
We live in times, when if you don’t have a weapon of mass destruction, you cannot be safe. This is like having a gun in neighborhood.
Shit, Trump’s illegal Iran war convinces me pretty strongly that a nuclear weapons program is the only way to keep my fucking apartment secure from the despotic motherfucker. Kick in my door and millions go boom, bitch!
…that sounds ridiculous, and it is! But that’s the kind of world this sadistic, brain-rotted buffoon is trying to create. And for some reason Republicans seem to think that’s just great! Less than two dozen of them could end this nightmare if they cared. But they don’t. How many more are going to die for these bastards?
Well the UN definetly isnt guaranteeing it. Who can blame the north Koreans and others for having nukes as deterrence?
And not just North Korea’s.
Just like Putin is the best NATO marketer, Trump is the best nuclear weapon marketer.
Since Putin attacked Ukraine half a dozen European countries are considering their own nuclear arsenal separate from US nuclear sharing. Sweden, Germany, Ukraine, Italy, Poland, Netherlands, Denmark.
If they have a bigger brain they would make a bigger stockpile with more capable strike capability. Having global nuclear reach is the only way to have sovereignty in 2026.
Instead of using our combined resources to elect, better governments, and what not we could just make nukes. The poor will be starving still but we will have nukes.
Yes, sir, when I look around and see a deteriorating global peace, the first thing I think is nuclear proliferation. It’s like clearly humans can handle more destructive power and need to be threatening each other on a more existential scale.
If they have a bigger brain they would make a bigger stockpile with more capable strike capability. Having global nuclear reach is the only way to have sovereignty in 2026.
It should be the goal of all politically unstable countries to control nukes. Fuck feeding your population or dealing with internal corruption. Just do nukes!
You spend your life building a beautiful home. Right when you pay the mortgage off and finish the last detail…a drunken maniac busts in the door, shoots you, and moves into your former home. And he just gets away with it because there’s no cops in your town.
Or, more concretely, you build a magnificent culture, industry, society, and economy. You invest in your people and technological innovation. You turn your nation into an economic powerhouse. Then the neighboring country, who put all of their more limited resources into the military, storms across the border and takes over your little paradise. Now you’re still paying the tax levels of a Nordic welfare state, but all of the money just goes into the pockets of the warlords and oligarchs of the mafia state that just conquered you.
If they have a brain they will never relinquish their nukes. Not just because of the US either.
Because they’re such a good use of national resources. They sit around costing money being a clear and present danger to all. Marvelous idea.
Costs less than defending your land with conventional weapons and lives.
As long as you plan on nuking someone I guess. Have you ever seen the infographic from the Cold War when everyone launches their nukes? Mutually assured destruction ringing any bells? What kind of sovereignty do you expect to have of your nuclear wasteland?
The future comes down to one thing - management.
In science, we prefer observational to speculative evidence.
That’s the overwhelming message of the 20th and 21st centuries. If you don’t have nukes then the US or Russia is gonna mess with you. Get nukes.
Secretly get nukes.
All but impossible, the major players keep an eye on all the things necessary for nuclear weapons.
Just do what Pakistan did and make a publicized nuclear team and nuclear infrastructure that acts as the fall guy for the real nuclear team and real infrastructure.
Also probably maybe have a government and military that isn’t susceptible to espionage.
Actually, Canada got in on the ground floor and we have everything we’d need. They say we’re about two months out at any given time, going the plutonium route.
Then again, we’re pretty used to the luxuries of not being an isolated pariah state.
It seems that’s what Iran was doing actually. They enriched uranium up to 60%. Bomb grade is 90%. But there’s really no reason to enrich that high except to make nukes. And nuclear enrichment is not a linear thing. Half the work is just to get to 5% enrichment.
It seems they designed their program to be right on the edge of nuclear breakout. In retrospect, they probably should have gone straight for the bomb.
You guys aren’t quite as turnkey as, say, Japan. They’ve got reprocessing and rocket production from JAXA and really would have to just put together an implosion device.
TIL.
Delivery would be an issue for sure. Then again, if the potential target is America “guys on quads” would work. If the target isn’t America, America will do it for us. Edit: Because they own the Western hemisphere, and we’re their bitch.
As an American I sincerely hope that’s true, though I’d wager most of the people within “guys on quads” distance are pretty sympathetic to the effects our federal government is having on old allies.
Uh, so other side of the border from me is red state Montana. Anyway, I think the idea is you load it onto something else once it’s in and take it to an actual target. It’s just a long border that’s hard to seal perfectly.
If there’s a note of disbelief in there, I’d like to point out America has nukes and uses them as a deterrent the same way. Like, whether proliferation is morally justified, of if we should just accept our fate in that scenario, is a serious question we should ask, but you don’t really have a moral highground about it. Obviously I’m not saying killing people is cool, and we know 2/3 of Americans didn’t ask for any of this.
Am Canadian. Want nukes.
I’m an American. I want nukes. Not for my country, me specifically. We should legalize the private ownership of nuclear bombs!
Am German. We can definitely be trusted with nukes.
I think the lesson here is no one can be trusted with nukes, which is why I want them.
That’s because nukes ARE the only path to security lmao. As soon as the first one was tested, and then fuck me used against civilians everyone watching jnmed understood this.
It sucks, and I would much prefer a world without nuclear weapons, but this is reality unfortunately. If you have nukes, you have leverage without ever having to use them
we were working toward a way for a world without nukes. building an economy so interconnected that going to war with another country destroys your economy too. but that shit is fragile. i didn’t think it was this fragile tho.
Too bad that ideology drove wealth inequality which empowered populism which empowered fascism which destroyed the interconnected economy. Neoliberalism was never a solution to peace.
who said an interconnected economy needs to be neoliberal?
…The great project you were referring to was a neoliberal one…
It just needs someone with power and without any fucking knowledge of economics but thinking the opposite.
The economy in the USA can still get a lot worse!
This is the plot of metal gear
Metal gear?!
!
I heared this.
used against civilians
Uhhhh…
I don’t quite know how to break it to you but:
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There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.
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Killing civilians was the norm in WW2, every war before that, and the vast majority of every war since.
Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.
Firebombings which still had a higher kill count in Japan than both nukes combined.
The entire point of a nuke, is that all it takes is a single one to wipe out entire square miles of a city. There’s no way to do that without civilian casualties, and it’s only a matter of time until one gets thru defenses.
However if you compare the nukes used in Japan to current nukes, they now cover a lot more than 1 city…
Yeah, and conventional attacks have also evolved past just dumping napalm from a balloon…
Or attaching small moltovs to bats and releasing them.
Like, nukes getting bigger is better as a dettertent.
That’s the entire point of a deterrent.
Where we fucked up, is who we entrusted the buttons to.
There’s no other way to use a nuke, they cover too wide an area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
Like, if the nukes on Japan wouldn’t have been dropped, it would have had to be more firebombing and then a ground invasion.
The nuclear strikes on Japan represented a political decision taken by the United States, aimed squarely at the Soviet Union; it was the first strike in the Cold War.
In August 1945, the USSR was preparing to invade Japan to overthrow its ruling fascist regime, which had been allied with Nazi Germany – which the Soviet Red Army had also just defeated in the European theater of the war.
Washington was concerned that, if the Soviets defeated Japanese fascism and liberated Tokyo like they had in Berlin, then Japan’s post-fascist government could become an ally of the Soviet Union and could adopt a socialist government.
The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, therefore, were not so much aimed at the Japanese fascists as they were aimed at the Soviet communists.
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/08/07/atomic-bombing-japan-not-necessary/
Ah yes the Soviets were right about to checks notes start building an invasion fleet and beat the US in the race to Tokyo, thus checks notes again singlehandedly defeat fascism around the globe
That’s some interesting alternative history you’re reading there
Not sure what youre talking about, or how any of that follows.
The simple fact is that the notion that the US did not need to nuke Japan is a well-respected position among historians.
Admiral William Leahy, Truman’s chief of staff, put it this way: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to barbarians of the Dark Ages. Wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”
https://www.wagingpeace.org/were-the-atomic-bombings-necessary/
https://www.historyonthenet.com/reasons-against-dropping-the-atomic-bomb
Alperovitz further highlights that the Japanese had initiated peace envoy missions as early as September 1944, reaching out to figures like Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek by December 1944 and engaging with the USSR in April 1945. That the Japanese were interested in negotiating a peace was well known. Moreover, the Americans knew that there was a potential for a surrender without necessitating an invasion as early as April 1945, provided there was clarity in the surrender terms.
The argument that the bombings prevented the necessity of an invasion is undermined by the very cities that were chosen to be bombed. It is now known that as many as nine atomic bombs were proposed to be used tactically against Japanese military targets as part of a planned — though never authorized — invasion. That two of those bombs were ultimately used against cities of no particular military value is evidence that plans for an invasion had already been abandoned by August of 1945.
The potential for a massive confrontation between the Red Army and the Kwantung Army in Manchuria introduced the prospect of the Soviets seeking equal participation in subsequent conflict-ending talks. This would have positioned them to assert a stronger claim over the region, resulting in gains that could far exceed their initial claims to territories lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. Consequently, the atomic bomb, instead of being used tactically, evolved into a strategic weapon of terror intended to jolt Japan into immediate surrender.
Of course, they could have chosen to spend several hundred thousand soldiers instead.
But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there
But I’m laughing harder at your other notion that the soviet ubermenschen were right about to swim across the Sea ofJapan and the US had to cheat to beat them there
Again, not sure what youre talking about, or how this follows. The only person bringing this idea is you.
Perhaps you need to check your le epic notes again.
Yeah must have been some other you that posted that the USSR was about to invade Japan
Modern tactical nuclear warheads have yields up to the tens of kilotons, or potentially hundreds, several times that of the weapons used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
They could be dialed down lower, but even a “small” tactical nuke is bigger than what got dropped on Japan.
It is not a “bunker buster” type of munition.
And I have no idea what you’re second rambling source is trying to say.
They could be dialed down lower, but even a “small” tactical nuke is bigger than what got dropped on Japan.
It’s not about size, it’s how you use it. For example, a tactical nuke could potentially be used at sea to destroy a fleet. Depending on where the fleet is, this could potentially be done with no direct civilian casualties.
And I have no idea what you’re second rambling source is trying to say.
Really? It’s pretty clear cut: the Americans dropped the nuke to primarily rule out Soviet influence as opposed to being a decisive means to end the war. This isn’t even a fringe opinion among historians these days - I’m surprised you haven’t heard this take.
Militarily Japan was finished (as the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that August showed). Further blockade and urban destruction would have produced a surrender in August or September at the latest, without the need for the costly anticipated invasion or the atomic bomb. As for the second bomb on Nagasaki, that was just as unnecessary as the first one. It was deemed to be needed, partly because it was a different design, and the military (and many civilian scientists) were keen to see if they both worked the same way. There was, in other words, a cynical scientific imperative at work as well.
I should also add that there was a fine line between the atomic bomb and conventional bombing – indeed descriptions of Hamburg or Tokyo after conventional bombing echo the aftermath of Hiroshima. To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.
Even if used “correctly”, it can still cause significant collateral damage. I wouldn’t normalize even the use of tactical nuclear weapons, as it’s only one degree of separation away from use on civilian centers. I can see the justification now…“(insert group) terrorists have set up tunnels underneath the civilian population center! We must nuke the city!”
Depending on where the fleet is, this could potentially be done with no direct civilian casualties.
And huge environmental damage leading to indirect death and suffering at a wide scale…
It’s pretty clear cut: the Americans dropped the nuke to primarily rule out Soviet influence as opposed to being a decisive means to end the war
No, that’s from an opinion on a random website it doesn’t prove anything, just tells you the authors opinion…
Your new one agrees with me at least:
To regard Hiroshima as a moral violation is also to condemn the firebombing campaign, which was deliberately aimed at city centres and completely indiscriminate.
But I didn’t bother reading more than you quoted.
Genuine question: before today, had you ever heard of the take that the US didnt need to nuke Japan - given Soviet advancements and Japan’s military crumbling?
Yep, anytime it comes up a shit ton of .ml accounts all keep insisting it wasn’t necessary even tho the alternative would have caused more deaths and a shit ton more human suffering while ignoring that it fucking worked even when the Japanese government considered imprisoning the emperor to prevent him from surrending before the bombs were used.
That’s what people don’t get, Japan wasn’t going to surrender. The military had seized control and would 100% continue fighting to the last person, the only thing that stopped them was showing that continuing to fight would leave all of Japan a barren rock.
The complete destruction of their island was the only thing that would have worked.
But as sure as I just said that, it’s all hypotheticals and guesses, no one really knows how much it would have taken without nukes, but every indication is it would have taken a lot.
You don’t know me so you would have no way of knowing this about me, but yes I am very familiar with all the tradeoffs and decision making in this part of WW2 around ground assault vs nukes and continued bombing etc 🙌
I am very familiar with all the tradeoffs and decision making
Another Godzilla connoisseur, I see.
You clearly believe so…
But that’s not the impression one gets from the words you type.
✌️
I’d better not express what impression I’m getting from your words, dude.
I get paid a lot to be right and say it in ways powerful idiots understand.
Not having to be polite is a relief valve, but it doesn’t mean the information is incorrect.
The smallest “tactical nuke” is orders of magnitude bigger than what was used in Japan and even at their lowest settings would snowball into environmental catastrophe.
You can’t contain an atomic blast. Even what’s left is irradiated and now nuclear waste. Especially any kind of metal, which is probably going to be whatever you nuke.
Being smaller just means idiots are more likely to use them.
Sounds like you get paid to shove your head up your ass, dude.
Nice.
Whoa you must be like so rich. How much do you make
Weird…
I thought the peace sign emoji meant you were done.
How directly civilians are targeted and how formally varies quite a bit, actually, even in ancient wars.
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Checks and balances.
I know that it’s an unpopular opinion, but I firmly believe that we were at least marginally safer when the USSR was still a superpower acting as a check on American fuckery.
Once the USSR fell, US went masks off on the international stage because they had no reason to pretend to be the good guys anymore.
They convinced all their allies to disarm themselves, and then went full “nice country here…shame if something happened to it” the moment they were the only big dog left.
The world can’t re-arm itself fast enough as far as I’m concerned.
Once the USSR fell
For a brief time with Yeltsin at the helm.
Better to have it and not need it. You can only have respect when your facing someone at an equal level of power and respect. Clearly even if some administration does have love for your people the next administration might not.
yea just like joe biden confirmed it when he supplied the funds/weapons to annihilate gaza, just like obama annihilated libya, just like dubya annihilated iraq
Cool, except Trump and Putin don’t think rationally. What makes you think nukes are a deterrent from them trying to imperialize? It might stop them short term but not for long.
Aim directly at Mar-A-Lago.
Hell, you don’t even need a nuclear payload for that.
here’s the thing about narcissists. they only care about themselves. not stuff, not people, not morals or ethics or laws or anything.
as long as he’s alive, that’s all he cares about.
the only way to truly scare a narcissist is to take the most important thing from them of all.
public attention.
Nuclear weapons fall pretty solidly in the category of “things that can hurt a narcissist”. Trump is certain he can be protected from conventional attacks. If someone REALLY wants to nuke the president, however, he’d have to get EXTREMELY lucky to avoid it.
I think you underestimate the intelligence services that are dedicated to his safety.
they would see plans of a nuke months before they would see some psycho with a gun that decides on a whim that “today’s the day”.
They have nuclear resistant planes and can keep the president in the air indefinitely during a nuclear strike. The guys right trump has no deterrents. Nukes are an irrational deterrent for irrational people. You could launch 100 nukes on the USA and we’d still invade your country an hour later lmao
The point isn’t to kill him, just to destroy his golf course.
Sadly, that’s a lesson I’ve already learned from war in Ukraine. Before it I had "hope"s and "might"s about civilization. Now I have a substantial amount less
I sincerely don’t give us 50 years. We will almost certainly destroy ourselves. Whether that’s by war, economic or environmental collapse, or otherwise, we’re speed running it on all fronts.
I used to hold so much hope for humanity. It feels so naive now.
If it makes you feel any better, we will probably survive and restart the cycle.
True. Perhaps a better way of mentally framing it might be that modern society is but one of many temporary states, not the end all be all of humanity and life on Earth in general. Still sad. We could be so much more.
Anyone who didn’t learn that lesson from Ukraine is a fucking idiot
They had nukes, and gave them away after assurances if Russia invaded they’d be defended.
Instead we left them out to dry and started another war instead
And Libya before Ukraine. Gaddafi complied with the West’s demands to dismantle his country’s nuclear program. In return for his cooperation, the US and NATO later backed rebel groups and had his government overthrown. This ultimately resulted in him being raped in the ass with a bayonet.
We did send them aid. And then the administration changed. My point is, I agree. You should never trust someone else with your own protection. Ukraine got a major economic boon from disarming. And soft protection but donating to the local police force doesn’t really help in when someone decides to walk into your house anyway.
We did send them aid.
We pledged armies…
30 years ago Ukraine was the 3rd largest nuclear superpower in the world.
They didn’t trade that for a couple crates of old ARs and malfunctioning body armor
Ukraine got a major economic boon from disarming.
Completely wiped out by the multiple Russian invasions…
They traded real security for comfort, and comfort always can be taken away.
It’s almost impossible to get real.security, look at Iran.
Like, there’s no rational reason for a sovereign country not to be developing their own nukes these days. And that’s dangerous
Yeah, I don’t disagree. That’s what happened. They confused economic power with defense. Maybe if it wasn’t putin they were trying to stop it would have been better for them.
They essentially traded a gun for a job and a restraining order. But also consider that the economic ties they gained by giving up their nukes. Bought them time and capital to build up their own military power enough to fight off Russia decades years later. They may not win this, but at the time the only thing they had were nukes.
Ukraine made the choice to try to build itself up more. I don’t fault them for that. Geopolitics is a messy 4-D chess game.
You just can’t really predict individual elements. When they declared independence putin was just a little shit stain and the billionaires in Russia were still fighting among each other to secure wealth and power.
At the time, Ukraine giving up it’s nukes fast tracked it to the 1st world. Yeah, it sucks that it played out this way. But it wasn’t on its face a bad plan.
If they had a 40 year old nuclear arsenal and matching tech they might not be at war right now, but they also probably wouldn’t be Ukraine either.
but at the time the only thing they had were nukes.
Wildly incorrect…
Like just look at any map, Ukraine was the front line to Europe, think about how much military is built up in Texas because it’s a border. Ukraine had a shit ton of all types of weaponry when the USSR dissolved
Weapony that the former USSR had claim to and would have been a justification for intervention. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I know the nuances of the fall of the USSR. I was 3. But I can see enough to know that at the time, Ukraine made the smart play for the foreseeable future. In 1994. In hindsight, it should have held its nukes. In the moment, throwing down that sword gave it a seat at the world table.
Weapony that the former USSR had claim to and would have been a justification for intervention.
Hate to break it to ya…
But after the dissolution of the USSR, there wasn’t anymore USSR.
Russia had claim to those weapons, just like the nukes.
Ukraine kept the conventional equipment, and gave up the nukes back to Russia instead.
This isn’t a hypothetical, this is what happened, and if you don’t know what happened, it’s hard to trust you on hypotheticals. Youre making them without all the facts
Look, I’m not really into how hot you’re being about this. Little nitpicking like that doesn’t strike me as good faith discussion. Especially when I haven’t exactly been adverse to a few of your points. If you want to talk, cool, if you want to argue, scroll on.
Thank you.
They had nukes
They had nukes under a Moscow-aligned government. They surrendered those nukes to win trade concessions from their Western partners.
Had they keep their weapons, they’d have had a much larger contingent of Russian military personal in the country for the next 30 years.
Instead we left them out to dry
We’ve sent them hundreds of billions of dollars in military hardware, mercenary staff, and logistical support.
They’re losing the war because NATO underestimated the offensive capability of the Russian military, especially over an enormous front line. Not because they lack raw firepower.
What do you think would have happened after Russia crossed into the Donbas over cross border shelling? Would Zelensky have responded by… nuking half the Oblast? Or are you suggesting everyone should start flinging nukes at each other’s capital cities?
Surplus 90s equipment and lack of 21st century AMRAAMs is not a serious effort to back Ukraine.
They didn’t even give the F-16s until it was literally too late to make a difference.
I still remember a horrendous reddit article post of everyone championing Ukraine receiving a measly couple hundred ATGMs fom the UK as if that was going to do anything against Russia.
If the US was serious about their offer, they would have provided several squadrons of aircraft, training, the new AIM-260, muntions, etc etc.
While Ukraine was drowning in technology transfer blocks, they shipped all of that stuff to Israel no questions asked.
And for money mind you. Ukraine was still able to fund those purchases at the time.
If the US was serious about their offer
As of early 2026, the U.S. has allocated approximately $175 billion to $188 billion in total, covering military, financial, and humanitarian aid related to the war in Ukraine. Of this, roughly $66.9 billion to $69 billion has been specifically dedicated to security assistance and military aid.
That’s more than the entire GDP of Ukraine when the war broke out.
I still think they’re loosing because Elon musk is a piece of shit. He hobbled their counter offensive that might have given them the breathing room to end the war. War is a collection of key moments and he stuck his dick in the gears during one of them when he shut down starlink
He hobbled their counter offensive
He extended state-of-the-art telecommunications on contract from the US, then yanked it back because he wanted more money. Which is what private industry always does, the moment they see an opportunity to squeeze someone for extra juice.
I’m personally of the opinion that the NATO block doesn’t want this war to end, because they see it as a way to bleed both Ukraine and Russia until they’re weak enough to re-colonize. This is part of a much broader pattern of NATO fumbled support for Ukraine, such that Russians can pursue a minimal advance while Ukrainians keep jumping into the meat grinder trying to slow it down.
War is a collection of key moments
The most glaring moment, for me, was the Prigozhin lightning raid on Moscow. Russian high command was in chaos. The front line was depleted of reinforcements. Ukraine… didn’t advance an inch.
After that, I was convinced Ukraine was never intended to win this fight.
Budapest Ignorandum
