Aren’t these countries close enough that any single sided nuclear strike would destroy both of them? Like Seoul is on the border
The whole basis of the cold war was MAD (mutually assured destruction).
IE: If you are stupid enough to nuke us, we will wipe you off the map as well.
So, this is no different to the US. UK, France, Russia, China, India and Pakistan having nukes.
Ok but if Russia nukes DC, and the US doesn’t retaliate, Russia doesn’t have problems. If North Korea nukes Seoul and South Korea doesn’t retaliate North Korea suffers massively because they just nuked their border and a lot of their arable land. This is more like a threat of nuclear exchange between France and Germany but without Flanders being mined to hell and back
Ok but if Russia nukes DC, and the US doesn’t retaliate
What are you talking about? There is no way under god’s green earth that would ever be true. The USA’s whole nuke program is all about beingable to retaliate, even if the contenintal USA has been wiped off the map.
That is the whole point of the nuclear triad.
This is more like a threat of nuclear exchange between France and Germany but without Flanders being mined to hell and back
When East Germany existed, France’s policy was to nuke Germany to stop a the USSR if they did invade.
I was referring to geography not geopolitics. No fucking shit america would end life on earth if someone launched a nuke near us. But Seoul doesn’t need be able to retaliate for North Korea to have very good incentive not to nuke it because it’s on their border
Apparently OP has never heard of “boomers”. Russia could nuke every square inch of America flat and we’d still have subs splattered all over the oceans launching MIRVs.
Nuclear weapons in the current era of mutually assured destruction are strictly a deterrent, only useful in a hypothetical retaliatory strike but not as a realistic offensive weapon. The hypothetical situation where this would hypothetically be used would be after Seoul has fallen to the enemy and defeat is inevitable. By having such an ability, this makes it very unattractive for any enemy to try to conquer and fortify Seoul or put any existential pressure on South Korea by any means, since doing so enables the use of a retaliatory nuclear strike, since in such a hypothetical situation there is no chance of regaining Seoul left for South Korea to worry about. Therefore, as a consequence, Seoul is protected in a very material sense by a weapon that will never have to be used in any actual strike ever.
They may only be a deterrent but they continue to be an extremely convincing and effective one.
India and Pakistan: one of us! one of us! one of us!
