Addressing the UN General Assembly, the US president defended the war against Iran, saying it stopped Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon. He predicted a future deal and warned of severe consequences if diplomacy fails.
Which is actually worse. That’s saying both “they’re just small nukes” and “they can’t attack back”. No, it’s not MAD in the case with Iran, but the point was once we start using things like that, we’ll find reasons to excuse it and use them again elsewhere, and MAD will be tested at some point if that happens. We shouldn’t even be having this kind of debate. We seemed to understand that for a while, but now it’s like “well, tactical nukes are different”.
Which is actually worse. That’s saying both “they’re just small nukes” and “they can’t attack back”. No, it’s not MAD in the case with Iran, but the point was once we start using things like that, we’ll find reasons to excuse it and use them again elsewhere, and MAD will be tested at some point if that happens. We shouldn’t even be having this kind of debate. We seemed to understand that for a while, but now it’s like “well, tactical nukes are different”.