How many nukes would it take to make the colonies surrender?

Have you not hear of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction? That has been such a “successful” policy lunatics have not used a nuke on an enemy in almost 70 years.
I believe the Kanamit came up with it to prevent spoilage.

@Darth_Algar “The colonies” is a perfectly understandable term. To any civilization located more than about 340 light years distant from our Sun that would be the logical name for our nation.

Surrender to what? Or to simply fight back?

A terrorist bomb would be destructive but not provide anything to surrender to.

A nuclear attack by a rogue nation would be met with overwhelming retaliation upon a single instance of an attack.

And, to answer your question without confusing it with the reality of nuclear warfare, there are many in parts of the US who would not be troubled much by the destruction of much of the Northeast. And others who would not be troubled by wiping out a swath from Kansas and Texas all the way to the Atlantic.

@zenvelo
”Surrender to what?”
An alliance of nations to defeat the Fourth Reich during World War 3. All your nuclear capabilities have already been destroyed, and the Allies are now contemplating a large scale land invasion of the continent, which would possibly cost the lives of millions of allied soldiers, or to force a surrender by a series of nuclear attacks on major population centres.

1½

@ragingloli At that point there would be nothing and no one left to surrender, and no Allies to invade a destroyed radioactive land mass filled with ash.

You never fight the next war the way you fought the last. You would have to rely on targeted drone strikes and cyberwarfare.

The United States is too big, and its citizens are too well armed, for any standing army to hold. Surrender would not work.

To get pass the MAD quotient; let’s say somehow a nation managed to colonize the Moon, getting most of their best and brightest up there. Let’s further speculate they developed nukes or equivalent and decided to take down the US. We Yankees will never surrender, too ornery, pig-headed and prideful. Even if the government capitulated, every thug, security officer, cop, deer hunter, etc. with a gun will take to the hills and wage a guerrilla war.

@zenvelo
”And, to answer your question without confusing it with the reality of nuclear warfare, there are many in parts of the US who would not be troubled much by the destruction of much of the Northeast. And others who would not be troubled by wiping out a swath from Kansas and Texas all the way to the Atlantic.”
So you are saying, at least 2 nukes?

@filmfann
@Hypocrisy_Central
So you are saying, the entire population has to be annihilated?

^ So you are saying, the entire population has to be annihilated?
Eventually those too willful to give up will be eliminated, the ones left will tow the line and do as they are told to stay alive; better to be a live coward than a dead hero.

How about a nice game of chess?

So, you haven’t seen Red Dawn ? (the original, not the crappy remake).

Wolverines Forever ! !

I don’t think there would be a ‘surrender’.

@Hypocrisy_Central I’d rather be a dead hero if there’s a chance it will keep anyone from ‘towing the line’. And you assume that the willful will be the ones that lose the war? And if they do, might it be because so many chose to live as cowards than die as heroes?

Japan once said they would never invade America because there’s a gun behind every tree. Now that we have a large population of living cowards, I guess they don’t have to worry about that anymore :)

@Sinqer
So you are saying that all the German and Japanese civilians in WW2, that would have thrown themselves against the allied invaders with improvised weapons, would have been heroes?

The advantage to bombing is that it creates tremendous cost that damages the economy. A few atomic bombs and there would be no money to pay the merchants of war. The disadvantage, as others have mentioned, is the loss of land and its contents for the victor’s use for decades if not centuries.

@ragingloli It would take a lot more than two to do what I described, and what I am saying is those acts would not move the rest of the country to surrender. Besides, the UK would be left to a couple of hermits on Sark.

So you are saying, the entire population has to be annihilated?

I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.

@filmfann
So you disagree with the concept of “mutually assured destruction”?

@Sinqer Japan once said they would never invade America because there’s a gun behind every tree.
Thanks to our 2nd Amendment people try to take away.

MAD is a threat to anyone considering attacking us. Would I implement it? I would try and find a better way without surrendering.

@ragingloli When there is an aggressor (someone attempting to force their will on another) and a defender (the victim of an aggressor), generally the aggressor is not considered a hero. You’re asking if I would consider the aggressors heroes? Yes and no.