What would the US do if....

[BluffTHIS!]

I'm all for trying it out 3 miles over Tehran or Pyongyang to gather empirical data. We could then extrapolate the results to see if an entire continent could be put at risk.

[Brom]

The empirical evidence for these detonations exist. I can't remember exact dates but it was on a PBS special I saw. The US was conducting high altitude detonation tests in the south Pacific and ended up destroying electronics in much of the southern Pacific islands, Hawaii, and a good portion of the eastern coast of Australia, causing hundreds of millions in damage.

[lehighguy]

If nuclear weapons were used on the US, and we could identify the attacker, it would require a nuclear response.

If the attackers were a terrorist group whatever countries they operated out of would be subject.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
If this happened, the only purely logical response would be retaliation on a scale that would put everybody else in the world in the same boat as we were. That would be the only way I could forsee stopping the armies that would almost certainly be deployed to carve up the continental US.

[/ QUOTE ]

Step 1 would be to use our sub-based ballistic missiles to anihilate the country from which the EMP weapon was launched.

Step 2 would be to give a stern warning to all nations of the world that they too will be anihilated if they try to take advantage of the current situation.

Stu

[ACPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
My conclusions to date have been that a nuclear war with another superpower would not be winnable, but we damn sure could win one with Iran.


[/ QUOTE ]

In a nuclear exchange --- define win?

[Exsubmariner]

Win a nuclear exchange with Iran = Large portion of US economy, tax base, ability to make war firmly intact. Iran's economy, tax base, ability to make war completely destroyed.

[Brom]

[ QUOTE ]
If nuclear weapons were used on the US, and we could identify the attacker, it would require a nuclear response.

If the attackers were a terrorist group whatever countries they operated out of would be subject.

[/ QUOTE ]

How can you attack a country just because a terrorist group decided to launch their missiles from there? I'm talking from the point of view that the host country was not accomodating to the terrorists, and were probably largely unaware. If some terrorist group managed to launch one of the US's nukes at another country would that country be justified to nuke the US?

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
If some terrorist group managed to launch one of the US's nukes at another country would that country be justified to nuke the US?

[/ QUOTE ]

They would because they couldn't take the risk of a second strike. And any country that is supposedly so "unaware" of a group moving into and then launching ballistic missles from inside its borders can realistically expect no different response.

[lehighguy]

You are, to a certain extent, responsible for what happens in your country. Most of the hijackers were Saudi, but we haven't gone after Saudi Arabia. But 9/11 was not a nuclear attack.

The only way to make clear that such attacks will not be tolerated, and that nations have a responsibility to control what goes on in thier borders, is to raise the stakes so that our survival means thier survival.

[Rick Nebiolo]

In the eighties I remember we captured an "advanced" Soviet fighter jet that had vacume (sp?) tube electronics. There was laughter until some expert pointed out that the tubes were far more resistant to EMP.

~ Rick