The Guardian calls for NATO to declare war on Russia
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You've basically defined MAD out of existence. Basically, you've stated that because no party actually wants destruction, nuclear weapons will never be used, and thus the different parties can freely attack each other with conventional weapons without MAD ever being an issue. As the Cold War showed, however, that isn't how MAD works. Instead, MAD means that neither party will ever risk a direct confrontation because the consequences of even a small conflict could lead to MAD, and no one wants to take that risk.
The corollary to mutual assured destruction is that Russia can use a nuke in a regional war not involving a nuclear power because they know no power will retaliate for fear of triggering full out nuclear war.
What keeps them from using in a regional war is social pressure from other peer countries. They won't use a nuke in Ukraine because other countries would see it as crossing the Rubicon and isolate them (also Ukrainians are basically Russians).
But if the West almost totally isolates Russia so they can only trade with China or 3rd world shitholes, then this pressure is gone and they can freely use nukes.
Stalin and Mao didn't care in Korea.
MacArthur to want to nuke at least the Chinks (or more exactly their airfields and bridges near the border), but he was removed for that.
Nuclear powers also directly fought in Vietnam (chiefly the air war over North Vietnam). Again nothing happened.
If by directly you mean covertly and constantly lying about it sure
Uhh no.
Yes, nukes cancel out and conventional weapons are still able to be used.
Yes, it is actually.
Not true at all. Look at the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy was willing to start launching air attacks on Cuba. Khrushchev backed down because he realized Castro was a lunatic who was saying he was totally happy to die to take down America. That was a unique situation and MAD STILL worked because the Russians didn't want to die, so they backed down.
The Russians acted in escalatory ways plenty of times in the Cold War, and in some cases so did the US. MAD proved itself time and time again to work because nobody was willing to launch 1st out of fear of retaliation.
MAD also prevented chemical weapons from being used in WW2.
YOUR formulation means that Russia can just keep invading everyone and nobody will ever do shit because they fear Russia's nukes and are frozen with fear. That's not only a load of shit, it would INCENTIVIZE Russia to act very aggressively with its nukes and to even use them since it could see how afraid of them everyone else was.
You're underappreciating the brinkmanship behind MAD. A NATO attack brings us much closer to it than an invasion of Ukraine. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a better analog of the former, which is why it was resolved without conflict and doesn't support your point. The Cold War was just invasion after invasion with the 2 main contenders always in the corner or fighting lesser opponents. Russia actually can just keep invading "everyone", like America did, until NATO says "raise you" or pre-empts them.
In the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Soviet and Chinese pilots flew missions using their own aircraft against US pilots, and fought them directly.
Stop pretending that it didn't happen, or that if we had American "volunteers" flying F22s over Ukraine and blowing the shit out of Russians, that would be any different than what the USSR did to us in the Cold War.
Stop pretending what didn't happen? You didn't even attempt to actually process what I wrote. You can take the man out of Reddit...
It was rather Che than Castro.
There were instances of chemical warfare in WWII, especially in China. (Biological too.)
No it was Castro. Nobody gives a shit about Che. He wasn't the leader. Please consult the wikipedia at least before you "correct" me.
It was Che who was excited about actual nuclear war.
Castro's slogan "socialism or death" didn't really shorten to "death".