AHC: a country adopts a solely nuclear-based military doctrine

And a massive invasion--it would have to be massive, to secure a region with 5 million people--of part of your homeland doesn't put the entire nation at risk? Especially if the Japanese don't have a conventional military, there would be nothing stopping the Russians from moving south into Honshu. This is an existential threat to Japan, in any sense of the word.

Massive? We invaded Iraq with 150,000 and they had a military plus 30 million civilians. IIRC, you go with 100-1 civilian to force ratio to secure a place after its conquered so go with 50,000. What if the Russians stopped at that? Maybe the Japanese froze their assets over some issue so they take Hokkaido as negotiating leverage.

Should have used the Falklands as my example. Still, people are pretty quick to vaporize 10 million people.
 
Massive? We invaded Iraq with 150,000 and they had a military plus 30 million civilians. IIRC, you go with 100-1 civilian to force ratio to secure a place after its conquered so go with 50,000. What if the Russians stopped at that? Maybe the Japanese froze their assets over some issue so they take Hokkaido as negotiating leverage.

Should have used the Falklands as my example. Still, people are pretty quick to vaporize 10 million people.

And you're pretty trusting of a country that took over the Stans with a series of fait accomplis just like that. Actually, your trust is situational - you trust that they'd take Hokkaido and be happy, but you don't trust that they'd lose their invading army on Hokkaido without escalating to all-out nuclear war. Which is to say, you assume that they'd be willing to lose Moscow and Leningrad for Hokkaido. If that's not what you think, then they'd be well-advised to back down once their landing force goes up in a mushroom cloud. If they decide that they're gonna keep trying, then that's on them.
 
Massive? We invaded Iraq with 150,000 and they had a military plus 30 million civilians. IIRC, you go with 100-1 civilian to force ratio to secure a place after its conquered so go with 50,000. What if the Russians stopped at that? Maybe the Japanese froze their assets over some issue so they take Hokkaido as negotiating leverage.

Should have used the Falklands as my example. Still, people are pretty quick to vaporize 10 million people.

Iraq's military was nowhere near peer-competitor, nor was most of the population willing to fight to the death for it. So if the Soviets attacked Japan, which is nuclearly armed in this scenario, they'd definitely send lots of troops. They need to hold it from a major power, after all.
And yes, people are willing to kill tens of millions for hundreds of thousands. The US had massive retaliation, France had "Marchez de la Rhin, la Soleil est Bien" (or in English, "Get to the Rhine, Instant Sunshine"), while I'm pretty sure Britain's stance was if the Soviets got to the Channel, the nukes would fly. All of these (except for the US) were for populations of inferior quantity, and all of them had conditions that didn't even require the Soviets to be in their country to activate.
 
Iraq's military was nowhere near peer-competitor, nor was most of the population willing to fight to the death for it. So if the Soviets attacked Japan, which is nuclearly armed in this scenario, they'd definitely send lots of troops. They need to hold it from a major power, after all.

Nope. Japan has no military in this case so they only need enough to occupy, which is 100 to ratio. If Japan nukes them, there are suddenly a lot of nukes flying so its actually better to send few troops initially.

And yes, people are willing to kill tens of millions for hundreds of thousands. The US had massive retaliation, France had "Marchez de la Rhin, la Soleil est Bien" (or in English, "Get to the Rhine, Instant Sunshine"), while I'm pretty sure Britain's stance was if the Soviets got to the Channel, the nukes would fly. All of these (except for the US) were for populations of inferior quantity, and all of them had conditions that didn't even require the Soviets to be in their country to activate.

And all of these policies were subject to moral questioning if not full fledged moral opposition. Further, the US' massive retaliation policy was created when they had an overwhelming advantage in nukes. Once that advantage disappeared it changed to flexible response because they wanted to avoid exactly this.
 
And you're pretty trusting of a country that took over the Stans with a series of fait accomplis just like that. Actually, your trust is situational - you trust that they'd take Hokkaido and be happy, but you don't trust that they'd lose their invading army on Hokkaido without escalating to all-out nuclear war. Which is to say, you assume that they'd be willing to lose Moscow and Leningrad for Hokkaido. If that's not what you think, then they'd be well-advised to back down once their landing force goes up in a mushroom cloud. If they decide that they're gonna keep trying, then that's on them.

I was trying to give a hypothetical scenario where an important asset is taken but not one that is existential - perhaps the example is flawed. And if the Russian soldiers keep moving, well then it gets existential and nukes fly.

If people were actually this quick to adopt this thinking I daresay we would have nuked the Soviets in 1962, if not before then. I happen to think most people are not eager to have the blood of millions on their hands unless it is perceived as inevitable.
 
I was trying to give a hypothetical scenario where an important asset is taken but not one that is existential - perhaps the example is flawed. And if the Russian soldiers keep moving, well then it gets existential and nukes fly.

If people were actually this quick to adopt this thinking I daresay we would have nuked the Soviets in 1962, if not before then. I happen to think most people are not eager to have the blood of millions on their hands unless it is perceived as inevitable.

We had other options in 1962. The idea is that the country that does this, Japan was also just an example, doesn't. They'd ideally be somebody who doesn't have a lot of inessential interests and, even more so, not a lot of enemies. But if that all fails, then they could easily find themselves forced to make a limited demonstration of their willingness to actually use their arsenal, otherwise they'd be inviting a much larger encroachment later that would force them into an unlimited response. It's an ounce of prevention that hopefully wouldn't get out of hand.
 
We had other options in 1962. The idea is that the country that does this, Japan was also just an example, doesn't. They'd ideally be somebody who doesn't have a lot of inessential interests and, even more so, not a lot of enemies. But if that all fails, then they could easily find themselves forced to make a limited demonstration of their willingness to actually use their arsenal, otherwise they'd be inviting a much larger encroachment later that would force them into an unlimited response. It's an ounce of prevention that hopefully wouldn't get out of hand.

Which makes the case for how flawed the concept is. As you said, we had other options. So if a country takes away its other options, it is forcing itself into a situation where the only option is at best massively disproportionate, if not morally repugnant, and at worst totally destructive. And it leads to difficult circumstances when the challenge does not approach the moral level that equates to nukes.
 
Which makes the case for how flawed the concept is. As you said, we had other options. So if a country takes away its other options, it is forcing itself into a situation where the only option is at best massively disproportionate, if not morally repugnant, and at worst totally destructive. And it leads to difficult circumstances when the challenge does not approach the moral level that equates to nukes.

Well, I think you're too quick to absolve the other party in these hypotheticals. Aggression is right out under this model because it's disproportionate. But for national defense, the gloves are off, so where does the aggressor state get off being so reckless? Who's idiotic enough to think they can poke a nuclear power in the eye and get away with it? Terrorists, perhaps, but those can be handled by sufficiently competent law enforcement that I think would still be allowed. Anything heavier is courting war, and, well, also repugnant.
 
A better example would be if the Chinese landed troops in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Without an Air Force, navy, or other non-nuclear defense arms, the Japanese wouldn't really have any way to stop them or deter them from trying, and no one in their right mind is going to threaten nuclear war with China over a bunch of uninhabited rocks, fisheries and hydrocarbons or no.


What if they have a policy of using Nukes scaled for the occasion, stuff like nuclear tipped AAM, ALCMs, SAMs, Arty, etc.

So Chinese Troops land, then a JSDF 100kt ALCM blows them off that rock, and then announce a full strike is next on the next landing

Brinksmanship.

You just proved that you are nuts enough to follow thru with it.
 
Which makes the case for how flawed the concept is. As you said, we had other options. So if a country takes away its other options, it is forcing itself into a situation where the only option is at best massively disproportionate, if not morally repugnant, and at worst totally destructive. And it leads to difficult circumstances when the challenge does not approach the moral level that equates to nukes.

This is exactly the problem. A nukes-only military doesn't allow for escalation or de-escalation, they only have one option: let the nukes fly. You know and I know that there are different types of nukes, and a single tactical warhead is not the same as wiping out a city. But most people either don't know or don't care about that, and any nuclear release will be viewed the same way. We're not talking about thoughtful and measured opinions here.
 
Here's a hypothetical example of the flaw in this approach. Someone above suggested Japan as a candidate. Let's say Russian and Japan get into a dispute and let's say the Russians grab Hokkaido. Japan threatens millions of Russians and millions of their own citizens in a retaliatory strike in order to defend Hokkaido?

Bad example. Hokkaido is regarded as a very integral part of Japan and even an invasion limited to it could easily be mistaken as a stepping stone in a invasion of the whole of Japan, which is an existential threat to the Japanese state and would very much warrant a nuclear response. Plus it rather ignores the prospect of Japan limiting itself to just nuking the invasion fleet, since tactical nukes are a part of Massive Retaliation. Then it's in Russia's ballpark to decide if sacrificing 80 million of it's own citizens is worth taking revenge over a ill-conceived invasion attempt. The deterrence game doesn't necessarily end once the first nukes go off.

I rather think I brought up a better example in the Blunted Sickle thread where PDF was talking about how post-alt-WW2 the Entente will be relying on nukes to hold off the Soviets in Europe. He then added the following:

Outside Europe, they're in the familiar model of colonial small wars, and their participation here will be set by what they can afford (likely to be a bit more than OTL). Similarly, the Soviets can stir up trouble to some extent without risking nuclear retaliation.

To which I replied:

The room for the Soviets to stir up trouble outside of Europe is a lot higher because what happens outside Europe doesn't threaten Britain and France in the same way as what happens inside Europe. I mean, consider if the Soviets invade Iran while remaining quiescent in Europe. There is no way Britain and France's colonial forces could oppose such an invasion without getting smashed flat in a war they weren't designed for. That represents a threat to British and French economic interests in regards to the Iranian oil... but that is the only threat to their interests it represents. It doesn't represent a direct and existential threat to their homelands like a Soviet invasion in Europe does and the economic losses are ultimately annoyances, not anything crippling. Now we come to the same problem the US faced with massive retaliation once the Soviets were able to develop the means to effectively deliver weapons to the US: are the Anglo-French really going to sacrifice Paris and London for the sake of saving Tehran?

Similarly, consider if China goes red like OTL, develops nukes and ICBMs like OTL, and in the 70s or 80s seizes Hong Kong with or without Soviet backing. There is no way the Anglo-French could conventionally challenge the PLA on what is essentially their home turf to actually retake Hong Kong. Are the British honestly going to go nuclear over an old colony, potentially getting themselves killed or severely weakened over essentially nothing more then prestige?

This problem is also going to magnify if the Soviets develop the ability to project some of their conventional land forces power beyond their immediate border countries like they did OTL in the 70s/80s.

You know and I know that there are different types of nukes, and a single tactical warhead is not the same as wiping out a city. But most people either don't know or don't care about that, and any nuclear release will be viewed the same way.

However, many* of the people who actually matter when it comes to formulating nuclear strategy do understand the difference and they hold rather more nuanced views on the subject. The Russian concept of de-escalation strikes, for example, very much hinges on the fact that foreign decision makers would recognize the difference between a carefully selected and limited nuclear strike in certain situations as opposed to a full-scale, nation-killing bombardment. What the majority of people knows does not really factor into the response of the policymakers. Hell, what the majority of people want does not necessarily factor in to the response of the policymakers.

*Although this does probably exclude the current President of the United States given the thin level of intelligence and knowledge he's demonstrated.

There do remain two problems with a pure-nuclear defense. The first is when you get to issues that might be important to a country but not to the point of going nuclear, even in a limited matter. The number of issues where going nuclear, regardless of the scale, vastly outnumber those which do. The other problem is that even on those issues which are of such import, a pure nuclear defense leaves one open to things like salami tactics and the like. Not every threat comes in the form of an invasion...
 
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