Day 8 of political science this semester is all about nuclear war. My professor began the lecture talking about how Putin’s recent speech threatened the usage of nukes if NATO sends its troops into Ukraine. War, as he describes it, is a condemnation of humanity. War just doesn’t make sense to my professor, killing for territory and to relive the glory of the Soviet Union is just wrong and nonsensical. He is, personally, very anti-war (sort of) and is hoping our generation will be different. After this he started the lecture.
We first learned about strategic bombardment, which is concerned with targeting the centre of an enemy rather than the periphery, you attack the capitals. This was a strategy from Giulio Douhet. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were brought up as examples of this strategy being utilized, yes Tokyo is the capital but it was already bombed to hell at the time so I guess the next best targets were those two cities. Apparently my professor visited Hiroshima and saw the site, so when he hears Putin talk about nukes he knows it’s serious. Before this section ended we learned about Massive Retaliation, AKA Mutually Assured Destruction. This led to the Russians (he never really refers to them as Soviets) developing their own arms to keep pace. Mutual assured destruction denies the enemy from achieving their goals and imposes huge costs. He then asked us if we were comfortable with countries having nuclear weapons, like the US. Do we trust Biden? No one really answered. There was then a tangent about hope North Korea has made itself very impenetrable, they cannot be messed with. He then told us that Ukraine used to have nukes too but they gave them away to Russia for safety guarantees. A student then made a joke that the deal was clearly violated by Putin and not upheld. My professor then said that he believes Ukraine should’ve kept its nuclear arsenal.
Next we learned about ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles. Im sure you all know much more about this weaponry than I do but what was said in class was: ICBMs have the capability of destroying humanity and civilization, the can have multiple war heads in jut one missile (MIRVs), and that ICBMs make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like playtime. He then mentioned the other acronyms: ALBM, ALCM, and SLBM, all different kinds of missiles. Next there was the differences between passive and active defence; passive meaning stuff like bunkers, he mentioned how political leaders and the billionaire class will be saved during nuclear fallout (yes, he used the term “billionaire class”); active defence is shooting down missiles, basically the “Iron Dome” which failed due to being overwhelmed by Hamas rockets. Then we looked at the targets of nukes: counter value targets and counter force. So counter value targets are your cities, communication hubs, intelligence areas too; counter force is related to the nuclear first strike, thats all we really went over. First strike is just if you want to win you have to hit first. He then gave an example scenario that if you were in a nuclear war with the US you would target Washington D.C. He then went on a tangent that the White House was very disappointing to see, in the movies it looks so clean and nice but in reality it is apparently located in a very shitty neighborhood. He then talked about how in the 70s and 80s the Americans developed a bomb that would kill all organic life while leaving buildings intact, this bomb was called the Neutron bomb. When people found out about this bomb there were mass protests against nuclear. Protesters in Germany became MPs and eventually formed the Green Party which was environmentalist and promoted peace. Nowadays the Green Party is less about peace but still focuses on the environment. Little do they know war is detrimental to the environment and continuing to support both Israel and Ukraine goes against their environmental values they supposedly have.
Next is limited nuclear war, which is fairly self explanatory: doing war with limited means. Nuclear weapons would be used only on the battlefield, so only tactical nukes, short range. Anyway he went on about Putin again, he seems absolutely terrified about nukes being used. A student asked if the reason America has so many military bases around the world is because they want to plant nukes there for potential use, my professor said no and the reason for those bases is promises of protection. He then mentioned how America has a Nuclear Umbrella over Canada… what? I don’t know how comfortable I feel about that, to be honest. I understand it’s supposedly for protection, but if we didn’t ally ourselves with the Americans so much we probably wouldn’t need this umbrella. Maybe I’m being overdramatic…
The last things we covered before the seminars were extended deterrence and minimum deterrence. Extended deterrence is what South Korea has, using nukes to deter attacks on allies; minimum deterrence is a country having the minimum ability to cause damage via nukes. Rationality, capability, credibility, and commitment are needed for proper deterrence. He then asked the class if Kim Jung Un was rational, no one really answered expect one student saying “it depends on your stance.” What did he mean by that? Maybe what your definition of rational is, I guess. The discussion didn’t goo further as we kicked off with seminars.
Tuning out the seminars is quite difficult for me. I tried to do so anyway because these seminars just can’t stop taking digs at the DPRK, China, Russia, etc. To me this whole thing is exhausting. Coming to school everyday is exhausting, and not because of the assignments.
I feel like I have to do extra work compared to other students because I am on my own. I cannot rely on fellow students or even my professors as my existence in this school is a contradiction. My being goes against what this university seems to stand for (see the library display) and I am unable to be my authentic self unlike my fellow students. They can be honest and have support but I can’t. If I spoke up in class against any misinformation/propaganda I would get clobbered. I can’t seek mentorship, proper mentorship, and support from my professors because if they knew they would pull away. I can only rely on myself and it’s so hard.
Yes, you all help me with whatever I ask so much and I appreciate it more than you could possibly know, but it’s different. I have no one in my physical vicinity and that sucks. Sure, I told my political science professor about how I wanted to teach Marxism, but thats as far as it can go, he doesn’t know more than that except for what I write in my papers. I see reactionary nonsense and know I have no one here in my corner. If students dogpiled me in class my professors would shut it down but that doesn’t stop them from doing it outside the class too. I can only be myself in secrecy and in my papers/assignments. That’s not feasible in the long term and it’s already taking its toll. I will graduate, but I wont come out unscathed. I’ll keep my head down to avoid physical harm, but the mental scars will be deep and prolonging, if that makes sense.
Anyway thats the end of my notes. Apologies for the personal rant at the end. If you’re curious about what transpired with the library display and what my professors had to say about it, look out for an update post in comradeship soon.
For those interested, one of the seminars was covering the paper “Beyond the pivot” by Kevin Rudd and it was the only seminar that had a proper and well thought out critique of the article.
Also, please feel free to point out any spelling/grammatical mistakes! My keyboard is ass and I want to make sure my posts aren’t too insane to interpret.