When you consider how Communism works, and how aggressive it is, it's pretty obvious to me that the ONLY way to dissuade communist states from attacking is nuclear annihilation.
Even then, I don't even think you need MAD. I think a competant military with tactical nuclear weapons is still plenty effective at dissuading aggression from larger powers.
It's funny that I should mention Tropico so regularly, but it's a good point. Tropico's setting is based off of how Island nations, particularly in the Caribbean, had to survive the cold-war period dealing with the US and USSR. Well, the US isn't necessarily the good guy, and can get pretty demanding. The USSR isn't really better either, they just have different objectives. Both will overthrow you if they want, and if they can't overthrow you, both will send a task force down and invade. They will constantly press for an advantage over you if you don't build a strong military and try to placate everyone. That pressure only stops when you add a military base of one of the factions on your island, or by arming your island with nukes. The nukes don't actually threaten DC or Moscow, but they do threaten their fleets.
In the Falkland Islands conflict, Argentina had the General Belgrano sunk. IIRC Nearly 2,500 people died. The majority of all lives lost were from one ship. This loss was so destabilizing that it's not unreasonable to argue that collapsed the will of the government and people to fight and the embarrassment of the loss of the war meant that the government lost it's legitimacy and was overthrown. ONE. SHIP.
Anti-ship missiles are something that terrifies modern navies because of how effective they are at this point. The Falklands proved that. Argentina fucked up, but there's a real chance the British could have suffered the same fate if the Argentinian Exocet missile or anti-ship bombs had functioned better. The British lost a cruiser, but they could have just as easily lost a carrier or several troop transports. There was a real risk that both countries could have lost thousands of lives, more than even lived on the island. If the British had lost a carrier or a troop transport, Margret Thatcher's government would have been destroyed.
In the "Millennium Challenge" war games scenario, a USMC General was tasked with being Opposition Forces against an American naval task force, basically designed to mimic an invasion of Iran. However, he was ordered to basically roll over and fail. He decided to reject this, and trained his forces to attack the USN with targeted suicide boats, anti-ship missile fire, and again: troop transports; combined with a preemptive strike. The USN lost badly in the exercise. Total loss of the American carriers, and a sinking of several other ships and troop transports, with only some ground gained on the shore by the Americans. Yes, his forces were exhausted, but casualty estimates for the American forces were several thousand in a single day. He was ordered to do the exercise as intended, and then dismissed for embarrassing the Pentagon, but his point was clear. A competent and aggressive enemy could cause a catastrophic loss to the US military, even with limited and archaic technology. The political ramifications of the bloodiest day in American history resulting from a lost carrier, after the order of an offensive war on a minor nation shouldn't need to be stated. See: Argentina above.
Well, the same thing can work for tactical nukes. Iran has the advantage of having a very large military for it's size. But if you can't field such a military, you need force multipliers. If you are a minor nation, and a great power has sent a carrier task force, or even an armored column to your shores/border; a few tactical nuclear warheads could cause thousands, or tens of thousands of casualties, and quickly dissuade most aggressors. Your enemy would work to attempt other avenues of attack both economically and diplomatically, but a physical invasion would be stopped dead in it's tracts because of the politically unacceptable losses. If there was any dissent in their military that such an invasion was unwarranted, you could even be looking at a demoralized military or even a military coup.
If the first day of the invasion costs 10,000 dead on the invading force, there will be very little political will to keep pressing.
While I agree with your overall point, I would just like to say that from what I understand, he was put on blast for a lot more than going rogue. We are talking stuff like boats carrying missiles bigger than them, the kamikazes exceeding their own buoyancy with how many explosives they were carrying, motorcycle messengers that would have to be moving at light speed to do what they were doing, the whole shebang.
But like I said, the general point you are making is a good one, and even if he achieved the results through copious amounts of bullshit, the results would indeed speak for themselves. Its also part of why I think Taiwan would be even more able to hold off an attack than Ukraine is (since it has a pretty extensive anti-ship missile network, with further backing from the Japanese).
In the end, it remains true: No matter how much we think we have changed history, the only true way to ensure peace and the survival of your nation is through superior firepower.
When you consider how Communism works, and how aggressive it is, it's pretty obvious to me that the ONLY way to dissuade communist states from attacking is nuclear annihilation.
Even then, I don't even think you need MAD. I think a competant military with tactical nuclear weapons is still plenty effective at dissuading aggression from larger powers.
It's funny that I should mention Tropico so regularly, but it's a good point. Tropico's setting is based off of how Island nations, particularly in the Caribbean, had to survive the cold-war period dealing with the US and USSR. Well, the US isn't necessarily the good guy, and can get pretty demanding. The USSR isn't really better either, they just have different objectives. Both will overthrow you if they want, and if they can't overthrow you, both will send a task force down and invade. They will constantly press for an advantage over you if you don't build a strong military and try to placate everyone. That pressure only stops when you add a military base of one of the factions on your island, or by arming your island with nukes. The nukes don't actually threaten DC or Moscow, but they do threaten their fleets.
In the Falkland Islands conflict, Argentina had the General Belgrano sunk. IIRC Nearly 2,500 people died. The majority of all lives lost were from one ship. This loss was so destabilizing that it's not unreasonable to argue that collapsed the will of the government and people to fight and the embarrassment of the loss of the war meant that the government lost it's legitimacy and was overthrown. ONE. SHIP.
Anti-ship missiles are something that terrifies modern navies because of how effective they are at this point. The Falklands proved that. Argentina fucked up, but there's a real chance the British could have suffered the same fate if the Argentinian Exocet missile or anti-ship bombs had functioned better. The British lost a cruiser, but they could have just as easily lost a carrier or several troop transports. There was a real risk that both countries could have lost thousands of lives, more than even lived on the island. If the British had lost a carrier or a troop transport, Margret Thatcher's government would have been destroyed.
In the "Millennium Challenge" war games scenario, a USMC General was tasked with being Opposition Forces against an American naval task force, basically designed to mimic an invasion of Iran. However, he was ordered to basically roll over and fail. He decided to reject this, and trained his forces to attack the USN with targeted suicide boats, anti-ship missile fire, and again: troop transports; combined with a preemptive strike. The USN lost badly in the exercise. Total loss of the American carriers, and a sinking of several other ships and troop transports, with only some ground gained on the shore by the Americans. Yes, his forces were exhausted, but casualty estimates for the American forces were several thousand in a single day. He was ordered to do the exercise as intended, and then dismissed for embarrassing the Pentagon, but his point was clear. A competent and aggressive enemy could cause a catastrophic loss to the US military, even with limited and archaic technology. The political ramifications of the bloodiest day in American history resulting from a lost carrier, after the order of an offensive war on a minor nation shouldn't need to be stated. See: Argentina above.
Well, the same thing can work for tactical nukes. Iran has the advantage of having a very large military for it's size. But if you can't field such a military, you need force multipliers. If you are a minor nation, and a great power has sent a carrier task force, or even an armored column to your shores/border; a few tactical nuclear warheads could cause thousands, or tens of thousands of casualties, and quickly dissuade most aggressors. Your enemy would work to attempt other avenues of attack both economically and diplomatically, but a physical invasion would be stopped dead in it's tracts because of the politically unacceptable losses. If there was any dissent in their military that such an invasion was unwarranted, you could even be looking at a demoralized military or even a military coup.
If the first day of the invasion costs 10,000 dead on the invading force, there will be very little political will to keep pressing.
While I agree with your overall point, I would just like to say that from what I understand, he was put on blast for a lot more than going rogue. We are talking stuff like boats carrying missiles bigger than them, the kamikazes exceeding their own buoyancy with how many explosives they were carrying, motorcycle messengers that would have to be moving at light speed to do what they were doing, the whole shebang.
But like I said, the general point you are making is a good one, and even if he achieved the results through copious amounts of bullshit, the results would indeed speak for themselves. Its also part of why I think Taiwan would be even more able to hold off an attack than Ukraine is (since it has a pretty extensive anti-ship missile network, with further backing from the Japanese).
In the end, it remains true: No matter how much we think we have changed history, the only true way to ensure peace and the survival of your nation is through superior firepower.