Weapons as deterrents of war

Senthil wrote

For example, if we were to take a peek into history, we would come to a conclusion there have been groups or even nations that have risked possible annihilation by either resisting more powerful armies or even trying to provoke a fight between themselves and a nation with much greater firepower then them. Take for example the terrorists. In pursuing what they are doing, terrorists and nations that harbor terrorists often run the risk of being completely annihilated by the nuclear arms and other high tech weaponry of its more powerful adversaries. And as we have seen, many of these weapons which are supposed to act as deterrents have failed to do its job and have been used in combat and subsequently taken the lives of many terrorists and innocent civilians alike.

So, having said that, we can now realize that having a bigger gun doesn't necessarily mean that it will prevent conflicts between a small power and a bigger power. Which means that more people will end up getting killed by this weapon anyways.

There is a modern example of a nation going to war with an opponent that would almost certainly crush it without much effort - Iraq under Saddam Hussein vs the USA. You probably think this is ammo against the idea that WMDs are effective deterrents of war.

They probably still are (WMDs are deterrents of war), at least when you actually have governments that either genuinely care for its people, or that is duty bound to serve the best interests of its people. When one is democratically elected at the pleasure of the people, one wouldn't commit too many actions that would remove one from office.

Of course it becomes tricky again when you have people that ultimately only cares about themselves. Armies have fought just to keep the political status-quo AKA just because I still want to be king, my subjects shall die defending my political power. Leaders of such description may after all, just let bombs incinerate their people.

So are WMDs a good war deterrent? They sure are when leadership is sane.

If you know you would lose an arm or an eye, rationally you wouldn't get into the fight.
Some of us would just still charge in and lose our lives, these are like Saddam.

Obviously WMDs don't work against terrorists. If they really do care for their people, they would have spared their women and children by not hiding among them after launching a rocket attack. They probably just want these meat shields dead to fuel more hate against their opponents.