It probably prevents armed warships from attacking them. It doesn't, as you correctly point out, prevent guerilla warfare.
replyThis is part of why we help defend Israel, to constrain wars to conventional means.
replyIn the first Gulf War, we placed the Patriot batteries around Israel, as they said that if an Iraqi biological or chemical SCUD attack hit Tel Aviv, they would vitrify Baghdad.
Having nukes doesn't prevent _anyone_ from attacking you, but it does constrain those attacks to conventional means. And what if you pulled off a decapitation attack against Tel Aviv? Well their fleet of nuclear capable subs would make you pay.
So should the US defend North Korea in case of a conflict with South Korea?
replyThanks for pointing this out. I hear people say this over and over, if Iran only had nukes it would be safe to continue propagating terrorism as it has been doing. It’s obviously wrong, as you point out. Russia has nukes. India has nukes. Having nuclear weapons doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want, if anything it brings a higher level of scrutiny. A nuclear Iran would be a serious problem for many and that’s why it’s so critical to make sure that doesn’t happen, not just for Israel but the entire planet.
replyThere's only one country that has repeatedly attacked its neighbors and has decided to occupy and seize land from two of them while actively calling for and carrying out strikes in many others all in the last two years.
replyIt ain't Iran.
Iran effectively controlled Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq through its proxies and puppet regimes. Right, it didn't annex territory, but it complete subjugated these countries and their population to their goals.
replyExcept none of that ever happened. That's an exaggerated, racist attempt to hand-wave away the realities behind several distinct countries.
replyMaybe it is scale.
replyMaybe Nukes do not prevent terrorism, or gorilla warfare.
Having Nukes would prevent a large strike from another state, like what US just did.
Nobody is doing this large scale of bombing on any of the nuclear powers.
My totally unsubstantiated conspiracy theory is that several of those are sitting in shipping containers in the US and Europe, and that is part of the reason that their interests drive all western foreign policy, despite their open hostility to their 'allies'.
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