The point of building nukes isn’t really to launch a nuke at someone, it’s to make others decide that attacking you is too risky. Missile defense isn’t perfect, so even if it probably would stop them, there’s still a risk one gets through, that someone would have to take into consideration before launching an attack. It’s even more a threat against Isreal, since they have less time to intercept, and even one missile getting through would destroy a comparatively larger fraction of the country, being that it’s fairly small.
Japan was nuked at a time when the realities around nuclear weapons (namely, the hostile nation having them too, or an ally of theirs) were different. The strategy around them is dramatically different now from then.
The point of building nukes isn’t really to launch a nuke at someone, it’s to make others decide that attacking you is too risky. Missile defense isn’t perfect, so even if it probably would stop them, there’s still a risk one gets through, that someone would have to take into consideration before launching an attack. It’s even more a threat against Isreal, since they have less time to intercept, and even one missile getting through would destroy a comparatively larger fraction of the country, being that it’s fairly small.
I think Japan would disagree with you on that one.
That’s certainly the case today, though. The only reason it wasn’t the case then was because only one nation had nukes.
Now that mutually assured destruction is a near guarantee, only seriously deranged people are eyeing the button.
Japan was nuked at a time when the realities around nuclear weapons (namely, the hostile nation having them too, or an ally of theirs) were different. The strategy around them is dramatically different now from then.