Talk:Nuclear blackmail

I believe there are biased comments on the purposes of actual U.S. policies... Just needs to be a bit balanced. --Francisco Valverde 15:08, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The author of this article makes several claims related to the subject, including references to ambiguous examples, but offers no substantial evidence. Further, the author has phrased the article in a biased manner. With all due respect to the author, this article is in need of revision by those with more than a superficial understanding of "nuclear blackmail." --Adam King 04:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• I removed the bit about Israel & 1973 because I could not find any support for it other than on confirmed anti-semitic sites. If someone has any reputable evidence of this, then I would like to know, because it is interesting!Petey05 (talk) 06:07, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Would the U.S. strategy at the end of World War II be considered a type of nuclear blackmail? E.g. "Surrender unconditionally or we will start dropping atomic bombs on your cities until you do." Interestingly, that case actually ended in Japan calling America's bluff, resulting in the U.S. following through and attacking. After that point, if I am not mistaken, it turned into a real bluff, as the United States had no more functional atom bombs beside the two, and was relying on surrender. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.53.161.143 (talk) 01:35, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

The NYT article, “U.S. PAPERS TELL OF '53 POLICY TO USE A-BOMB IN KOREA”, is cited as evidence that Eisenhower “threatened” to use nuclear weapons to bring the Chinese to the negotiating table during the Korean War. However the article does not support this—it only mentions internal administration discussions and does not talk about public announcements or diplomatic threats to use nuclear weapons during the Korean War. The closest is an oblique statement to a third party that if an armistice didn’t materialize the US would engage in “stronger, rather than a lesser military exertion, and that this might well extend the area of conflict.” Ewilen (talk) 18:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

" Ali Magoudi, a psychoanalyst of French President François Mitterrand, claimed that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had threatened nuclear war against Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War to procure codes from France to disable Argentina's French-made missiles.[14] This claim has not been confirmed by either the French or British governments.[citation needed] "

After reviewing the source listed, I have come to realize that this portion of the article should probably be removed. To elaborate on that, the sole source used here is a Guardian article about a book which itself is a first hand account of the author's supposed time as a psychoanalyst for François Mitterrand. While that claim is in of itself generally absurd, the book also goes on to say that François Mitterrand told the author, and supposed psychoanalyst, that Margaret Thatcher threatened the use of nuclear weapons should he not comply with the demand of handing over codes for the destruction of some form of missile.

Now, I have also briefly searched for evidence to support Ali Magoudi's claim that he ever even was a psychoanalyst of François Mitterrand, and I have found none so far. I also haven't really found any evidence to support the claim that the French or British governments, or any members of said groups, have even mentioned this book, though they probably have. Now, as such, and, as stated before, I believe this portion of the article should be removed due to the seemingly unreliable nature of its sources and the possibly heavily unknown nature of the claim " supported " by said sources. It is entirely possible that I missed something, and that this might even be a well-known fact, and if it is, I do apologize. On the other hand though, I doubt that it is after reading this thread on Quora:

https://www.quora.com/Did-Margaret-Thatcher-really-threaten-to-nuke-Argentina-if-France-didnt-stop-selling-them-Exocet-missiles-in-1982

At the moment, this Wiki article uses citations that talks solely about "nuclear threats", with no mention of "nuclear blackmail". I have removed them. My edits mirrors the edits made by User:Horse Eye's Back back in April with the same reasoning.

It is original research to treat "threats" as synonymous to "blackmail", especially when the sources do not. Furthermore, using sources that only talks about threats, not blackmail, to supplement this Wiki article's content is synthesis. --Cold Season (talk) 15:50, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

The very first source in the article states "Jeff McMahan argues that nuclear blackmail involves the use of coercive nuclear threats to compel a country to do what it is morally at liberty not to do or to deter a country from doing what it is morally at liberty to do. so the statement that the sources do not treat the terms as being at least partially synonymous is simply not true. If established, cited sources indicate that nuclear threats are a form of nuclear blackmail, then it is neither WP:OR nor WP:SYNTH to include well cited content from those sources that refers to the same actions. Whether HEB was correct or incorrect back in April is irrelevant -- we're discussing it here, now -- but you're also misrepresenting their reasoning (which was cited as WP:UNDUE, not WP:OR). ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 16:02, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

I was literally the person who added the source by Jeff McMahan, so don't talk like I do not know what that source says. McMahan's text examines the distinctions of nuclear blackmail with other concepts. It does not say that nuclear threat is synonymous to nuclear blackmail, which you misrepresent (by ignoring the second half of that sentence). For instance, he also talks about how threats "in the attempt to prevent an unprovoked attack on one's homeland by threatening potential attackers with nuclear retaliation" is not considered blackmaill, as it does not meet those criteria.

Btw, I did not misrepresent the user's reasoning... I linked to eleven edits. --Cold Season (talk) 16:06, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

@Swatjester: I think its actually you who is misrepresenting me... The reasons given in the edit summaries for the various edits are "Last clean diff... That seems to be going beyond what the source said and doing a bit of OR... The source is also a working paper, we would need better." "the sources given don't seem to qualify that as nuclear blackmail" " same... The given sources don't support the inclusion here" "only one of those sources mentions blackmail" "Again the source does not describe this as blackmail" "again" "context needed, source does not make this claim themselves" "again the link to blackmail is OR" "no mention of blackmail in the given source" "Again no mention of blackmail" "the source is the tweet? Really?" and finally "undue." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:00, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Hadn't seen the prior edits -- they gave a diff, I was working from the diff given. I'm not at all convinced that this is OR, given that we adequately define what nuclear blackmail is and it's clearly not OR via SYNTH, but I'm not going to fight it further. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 18:12, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Lets just focus on the China one... How is that not OR? You say "This one also is well cited, and just because it does not explicitly use the words "nuclear blackmail" does not mean it is OR given that we've established China's usage of nuclear blackmail in other citations." but what you're describing while saying it isn't OR is literally OR. Using multiple sources to say something that none actually support individually is the definition of SYNTH, which is a form of OR. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:44, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

I already said I'm not fighting this further, but they do actually support them individually. It does not have to explicitly use the words "nuclear blackmail" to be referring to nuclear blackmail. What you're describing as WP:SYNTH is a classic example of Wikipedia:What_SYNTH_is_not. Summarizing information from a source and extrapolating new information from the source are two very different things; the former is never SYNTH. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 18:57, 4 August 2025 (UTC)