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Originally Posted by Mr. Charlie
One only need look inside their heart to realise the answer is no.
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Hippy nonsense. Back that up with some facts.
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Originally Posted by Chula Vista
It's not humanity.
It's the ****ing idiots that are put into positions of power by the stupidity of the masses.
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Even they're human. If people weren't so weakminded and willing to be led, true, maybe not so many wars would be fought, or as easily. But we are, and that's a sad fact.
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Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth
well, i do think you have a point in that resources and territory are scarce. since they are scarce, competing tribes/states/companies/whatever are sort of destined to compete for them.
but i notice a trend in warfare where as our weapons technology becomes increasingly efficient and destructive, more and more restraint is being shown in using them. that's not to say that war is going away, at least not any time soon. but if you look at humanity's history, when wars were fought we had a tendency to wage total war on entire populations, slaughtering as many as we could and in many cases trying our best to wipe out the enemy entirely. it seemed like this sort of climaxed in the early 20th century, with europe and parts of asia and africa being completely decimated by all out warfare using increasingly deadly technology. the 2nd world war ultimately ended with germany being sacked and then eventually the united states nuking japan twice, the first and only time nukes have ever been used by any nation.
the following half a century was dominated by 2 major global powers (usa vs ussr) that had every incentive, reason and inclination to go to war. however, they ultimately didn't. they engaged in proxy wars and **** like that. but they never had an all out war. and i honestly think nukes are the main reason why.
similarly, i don't think the iranian regime has the genuine intention of using nukes to wipe israel off the map. i think they use that sort of rhetoric in their domestic politics, because like it or not, israel is severely hated by most muslims worldwide, and there is also quite a bit of antisemitism within the islamic community. so it's popular to attack them. but ultimately, what is in iran's best interest as a geopolitical force is to get nukes as a bargaining chip. it's just a simple fact that nukes give you increased geopolitical leverage. and yet typically, so far, they never seem to actually get used.
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Well yeah: it was called MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction): each side knew that in the event of the other launching their nukes they would do the same and most of the Earth would be destroyed. Only a madman would do that. Mind you, wasn't Nixon ready to use nukes to end the Vietnam War? I guess in the case of the Cold War though it really was a case of having the weapons as a deterrent, never actually intended to be used. Even the Cuban Missile Crisis was, I think, heavy sabre-rattling by Krushchev, a faceoff that luckily ended in a joint backdown. And that was really a reaction to Kennedy's siting of ballistic missiles in Turkey.
As for Iran, well I don't know: you'd wonder if they'd be so stupid as to nuke a country so close to them, but I wouldn't place any smart money on them not doing it if they could, or at least threatening to do so.