As much as I like shitting on the US, I think all of the comments here are forgetting that this wouldn’t be a 1v3. It would be a world war. There would be no winners.

“I think we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might,” he added. “Where you have technological parity but moral disparity, the actual disparity is much greater than people think.”

What kind of reality does this guy live in? Like every adversary he mentions has either adopted a "No First Use" Policy or officially states that nuclear weapons are only to be used when the very existence of the state is threatened via a conventional military force or when being attacked by nuclear weapons. Contrast this to the US which "'reserves the right to use' nuclear weapons first in the case of conflict" or the UK which reserves the right to use nuclear weapons against "rogue states" (source: wikipedia article detailing all the above mentioned first use policies). How can you claim to have any moral superiority when your fucking bloc has these murderous policies in place? The western bloc has enshrined first use into its official policy and then this guy claims that only the adversaries of the West are determined to use nuclear weapons. The hypocrisy is beyond me.

“I think we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might,” he added. “Where you have technological parity but moral disparity, the actual disparity is much greater than people think.”

There's a moral disparity alright, but it's not the US who has the moral high ground.

we’re in an age when nuclear deterrent is actually less effective because the West is very unlikely to use anything like a nuclear bomb, whereas our adversaries might,” he added. “Where you have technological parity but moral disparity, the actual disparity is much greater than people think.”

See. I don't think the deterrent was ever meant to be a response to tactical nuclear weapons. They were meant to be a way to make sure that if World ending strategic nuclear weapons were fired against cities, that the response would be absolute.

I wholesale believe that western countries with strategic nuclear weapons would return fire against an attack in our direction. Just as it looked in wargames.

No we're not going to destroy the world if Russia or any other adversary uses tactical nuclear weapons. We have much more proportionate responses.

Or, maybe I'm just misreading it?

I realize this is Lemmy so it is a race to make the most edgelord anti-US comment. I would be remiss if I didn't remind people of the shocking naivety of this mentality.

It seems many on this board believe that the US would get destroyed, western values would be undermined and some magic communist utopia would just naturally arise the world over in the aftermath. Wrong.

The conflict being described here would be a world war in which multiple large scale nuclear strikes would be deployed. Whatever country you are shitposting from wouldn't be immune from first order effects, let alone follow-on effects of such a disasterous exchange. Millions would die. You would be better off perishing in the initial salvos than struggling to survive in whatever Mad Max scenario your country devolves into in the resulting hellscape of nuclear fallout, zero international deterrence, likely cessation of emergency services on a local level, and all non local supply chains and communication channels being broken.

So, be careful what you wish for, and don't hasten the day.