The war with North Korea

[totalburnout]

Originally posted by Blanco@May 9 2005, 03:08 PM
Much like Bush has done over the past four years?

[post=497043]Quoted post[/post]​

***Bush has had North Korea as a large part over the past four years. More happened in the last four years then the entire time following the first 5 years after the end of the Korean War. ...i'm not sure where you were going on this one.


I still feel like the war was a bumblefuck to begin with, just like the war in iraq, and the war in vietnam. Wars that we were supposed to crush our enemies and wound up getting our asses handed to us.


My grandfather got drafted into North Korea and it wasn't enough that the enemy was shooting at him, friendly fire had to catch him near the heart as well.

 

[Citizen_Insane]

Originally posted by New2TheCarScene+May 10 2005, 09:14 AM-->

Citizen_Insane

@May 9 2005, 12:27 PM
If they have nukes, we won't attack. They could, and probably will use nukes on the US if we attack them. If Bush attacks them, I dont care if its the middle of the semester, I'm out of here.

[post=496981]Quoted post[/post]​

We and China are the only nations capable of launching nukes overseas. Basically no one except for China can deliver a nuke here via a launcher, it would have to be shipped over and then detonated.

Years until they develope such a sophisticated missile delivery system, unless they have the funds to buy the information from China to build one

[post=497353]Quoted post[/post]​

Do you recall that about 2 years ago, NK released info saying that they had missiles capible of reaching the west coast? So yeah, they already have that missile technology.

 

[asmallsol]

So russia with their space program doesn't have missile technology to reach us. Umm think you might be wrong on that one.

 

[E_SolSi]

Originally posted by asmallsol@May 10 2005, 11:48 AM
So russia with their space program doesn't have missile technology to reach us. Umm think you might be wrong on that one.

[post=497368]Quoted post[/post]​

russia had and still has plenty of nukes capable of hitting pretty much any point in the US

 

[totalburnout]

Originally posted by asmallsol@May 10 2005, 10:48 AM
So russia with their space program doesn't have missile technology to reach us. Umm think you might be wrong on that one.

[post=497368]Quoted post[/post]​

Laughable. You don't piggy back a nuclear missile on the back of a space ship.


Russia sold off most of their missiles, thats probably why North Korea has nukes now and thats certainly why in recent years countries in the middle east have miraculously come up with nuclear missiles when a year prior they didn't have the technology to build one.


Russia is a poor nation. Does it have the technology to create a missile silo capable of launching nukes overseas? Possibly... but does it currently have one capable of launching overseas built? All reports I've seen say no.

**edit - I just researched a little bit and an article that was written on May 1st says that Russia is in the process of developing unstoppable missiles. They don't mention if the delivery system is sophisticated enough to deliver a missile overseas, which has always been the most difficult task...hence why we dropped the bombs over Japan and didn't launch them.
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/03/01/min...rmissiles.shtml


Blanco, once again Kerry was a fruitloop and did not address the issue of North Korea. His stance may have been that they were of greater threat than Iraq but he had no foreign policy plan that was anything significant aimed at the North Koreans. Bush HAS been in North Korea working for the past four years, Kerry didn't mention a damn thing that he would have done with North Korea and if he did he didn't have a plan and budget created to do so. My statements remain that North Korea has been a problem since before the Korean war and this was just a boiling pot ready to happen. I think Bush addressed the issue better than Kerry would have. "Hippie."

 

[Sabz5150]

Originally posted by New2TheCarScene@May 10 2005, 11:46 AM

Laughable. You don't piggy back a nuclear missile on the back of a space ship.

You don't. Not you can't.

Russia sold off most of their missiles, thats probably why North Korea has nukes now and thats certainly why in recent years countries in the middle east have miraculously come up with nuclear missiles when a year prior they didn't have the technology to build one.

Sold off most.

Saddam miracously had nuclear missiles, didn't he? Pakistan? Well they are our allies aren't they? Bush has some strange bedfellows.

Russia is a poor nation. Does it have the technology to create a missile silo capable of launching nukes overseas? Possibly... but does it currently have one capable of launching overseas built? All reports I've seen say no.

All the reports you saw pointed to Saddam having those mean ol WMD's, too. Just because they are poor doesn't mean they don't have silos left over. I don't think you can sell an underground missile silo.

Blanco, once again Kerry was a fruitloop and did not address the issue of North Korea. His stance may have been that they were of greater threat than Iraq but he had no foreign policy plan that was anything significant aimed at the North Koreans. Bush HAS been in North Korea working for the past four years, Kerry didn't mention a damn thing that he would have done with North Korea and if he did he didn't have a plan and budget created to do so. My statements remain that North Korea has been a problem since before the Korean war and this was just a boiling pot ready to happen. I think Bush addressed the issue better than Kerry would have. "Hippie."

Then why did we step in that big pile of quicksand called Iraq? If his stance was that NK was a far greater threat than Iraq, then why did we waste so much of our resources on them?

Kerry did mention his plan for NK. It happened to be just multilateral talks but hey, it's better than saying "We don't wanna talk to you and we can kick your ass."

Besides, if there was a country going around conquering other nations and changing their governments based upon lies, wouldn't you like to have a bit of insurance?

Or should you just sell every gun you own because even though there are bad people running around doing crooked shit, you shouldn't need to have weapons.

 

[asmallsol]

More nuclear info regarding missile range


Although they are considered allies, Britian has missle range of about 7500 miles. Distance from New York to London England is about 3500 miles and 5500 miles from London to LA.

Also,

it would have to be shipped over and then detonated.

and is that so improbable? Look at how much coke and weed get smuggled into this country everyday. A softball size of nuclear matterial is all that is needed to fuel an entire warhead. In December 1994 Czech police seized more than eight pounds of highly enriched uranium in a parked car on a side street. The security of the former USSR arsanel is pathetic. As quoted from a washington Post article "In 1993 U.S. officials used ordinary bolt cutters to snip off the padlock that was the only security at an abandoned Soviet-era facility containing enough HEU for 20 nuclear weapons."

Suicide bombers are not really affraid of dieing, and are not really the easiest people to pick out of a crowd. If they were, we wouldn't have an Iraq death toll of over 1600 US soldiers.


edit, since once i posted mine, two more came in. You can't compare our actions in Japan with techonology of today. We did that 60 years ago. And to say a space program has nothing to do with delivering nuclear weapons is just foolish. Why do you think we had a space race. It wasn't so we could jump around on the moon. It was to show that we could launch a large object into space and have it return where we wanted it to. And to say they sold all or even most of there nuclear weapons is also stupid. Russia still has thousands of nuclear weapons that can reach us. Even if they have 1% of there orginal stock pile, it is enough to destroy every living thing in the the world.

 

[totalburnout]

"Then why did we step in that big pile of quicksand called Iraq? If his stance was that NK was a far greater threat than Iraq, then why did we waste so much of our resources on them?"

Read, that was Kerry's stance, not Bush's.


My stance is Kerry wouldn't have done a thing about either.



Obviously, regardless of whether or not the nation is poor they can more than likely poor together more than enough money to pay for black market weapons. The people may be poor but thats not always the case for the government and certainly not the case for all the people. There's always going to be filthy rich people when there's starving masses. If you have enough money you can buy anything.


As far as Russia's missiles, like I said I'm sure they still have some and I just posted an article that was made on the first of this month in the Moscow news about nukes. My point was that Russia sold off most of their missiles on the black market when the Soviet Union broke, of the ones left over they decommissioned most and I'm sure they kept some. It was my stance that I didn't think they had a missile launcher capable of launching a nuke overseas built already. Its possible that ones built and its probably that they have knowledge to build one if one isn't already built but with their finnacial troubles I don't think Russia was so interested in attacking the United States anymore so they really have no need for a transatlantic nuclear missile.

Either way, as seen on 9/11 any idiot can fly into the United States and do damage. My point wasn't that some nation couldn't fly over here and drop a nuke from a plane but if it was a large scale attack for a plane to make it all the way over to the United States and drop a bomb is unlikely.

There's not going to be any nuclear fallout, the United States isn't going to fall to a major attack, time will tick on so don't get your panties in a bunch was my point.

 

[totalburnout]

Originally posted by asmallsol@May 10 2005, 12:01 PM
More nuclear info regarding missile range


Although they are considered allies, Britian has missle range of about 7500 miles. Distance from New York to London England is about 3500 miles and 5500 miles from London to LA.

Also,

it would have to be shipped over and then detonated.

and is that so improbable? Look at how much coke and weed get smuggled into this country everyday. A softball size of nuclear matterial is all that is needed to fuel an entire warhead. In December 1994 Czech police seized more than eight pounds of highly enriched uranium in a parked car on a side street. The security of the former USSR arsanel is pathetic. As quoted from a washington Post article "In 1993 U.S. officials used ordinary bolt cutters to snip off the padlock that was the only security at an abandoned Soviet-era facility containing enough HEU for 20 nuclear weapons."

Suicide bombers are not really affraid of dieing, and are not really the easiest people to pick out of a crowd. If they were, we wouldn't have an Iraq death toll of over 1600 US soldiers.

[post=497414]Quoted post[/post]​

Listen, on any given day anything can happen.

Britain would never attack us, they depend on us finnacially. The reason why there even is an America is because of a conquest for natural resources that the island nation lacked. I'm talking about enemies here. Furthermore, I don't think any nation on a large scale basis is so moronic to attempt to be the aggressor and attack the United States. Terrorists attack us, fanatic groups do, but an entire country? ...no.

My point is its not probable and even if it were its not going to be a huge problem.

Yes they can fly a plane over and detonate a dirty bomb, a nuclear bomb, whatever the hell they so please but guess what thats not going to be a large scale attack (comparatively to the amount of people we have in the US) that is going to make the United States crumble. Even with 9/11 being the greatest terrorist attack ever, 3000 people out of millions in New York City alone were killed. ...that is terrible but its a drop in the bucket and certainly isn't going to bring the United States to collapse.

 

[Sabz5150]

Originally posted by New2TheCarScene@May 10 2005, 12:04 PM
My stance is Kerry wouldn't have done a thing about either.

This is better from Bush how? All he's done is piss off the world and I'm not suprised that we have missiles pointed at us.

Obviously, regardless of whether or not the nation is poor they can more than likely poor together more than enough money to pay for black market weapons. The people may be poor but thats not always the case for the government and certainly not the case for all the people. There's always going to be filthy rich people when there's starving masses. If you have enough money you can buy anything.

Sounds like the United States, sans the black market weapons.

As far as Russia's missiles, like I said I'm sure they still have some and I just posted an article that was made on the first of this month in the Moscow news about nukes. My point was that Russia sold off most of their missiles on the black market when the Soviet Union broke, of the ones left over they decommissioned most and I'm sure they kept some. It was my stance that I didn't think they had a missile launcher capable of launching a nuke overseas built already. Its possible that ones built and its probably that they have knowledge to build one if one isn't already built but with their finnacial troubles I don't think Russia was so interested in attacking the United States anymore so they really have no need for a transatlantic nuclear missile.

Just because the remainder of their missiles aren't pointed at us doesn't mean that they don't have a need for them. Our missiles are not pointed at anybody in general but we have quite a few of them.

Either way, as seen on 9/11 any idiot can fly into the United States and do damage. My point wasn't that some nation couldn't fly over here and drop a nuke from a plane but if it was a large scale attack for a plane to make it all the way over to the United States and drop a bomb is unlikely.

There's not going to be any nuclear fallout, the United States isn't going to fall to a major attack, time will tick on so don't get your panties in a bunch was my point.

As seen on 9/11 when we ignore warnings we get burned. These days, you don't need a plane to get a nuke in the US. Doesn't have to be a missile.

As for us not falling to a major attack... only time will tell. Even the greatest civilizations fall. Romans, Egyptians, we see their remains in museums. Never say that our civilization is so great that it will never fall.

 

[E_SolSi]

Originally posted by New2TheCarScene@May 10 2005, 12:46 PM
They don't mention if the delivery system is sophisticated enough to deliver a missile overseas, which has always been the most difficult task...hence why we dropped the bombs over Japan and didn't launch them.

[post=497402]Quoted post[/post]​

rissia has had ICBMs (InterContinental Balistic Missiles) for YEARS. whether or not they have devices that can reach the US is not even a question. they do.
it is currently estimated by the CDI that russia has about 756 nuclear missiles with a range of at least 10,000km... this does not include nuclear missiles launched from submarines that generally have a range between 6500 - 8300km, or bombs dropped from airplanes)

http://www.cdi.org/issues/nukef&f/database/nukearsenals.cfm

and the reason we used airplanes and dropped them on japan was
a.) they were nuclear BOMBS (bombs get dropped out of planes, thats just how they work)
b.) we didnt have ICBMs in WWII

 

[reckedracing]

As for us not falling to a major attack... only time will tell. Even the greatest civilizations fall. Romans, Egyptians, we see their remains in museums. Never say that our civilization is so great that it will never fall.

i would be truly shocked if the US was still around in its present state in a mere 200 years...

the wealthy/upper class can only go so long before the rest of the people realize they are being sold out...

this gov't was made "by the people, for the people", but in reality its always been "by the wealthy, for the profit of the wealthy"

one day people will open their eyes...

 

[xj0hnx]

Originally posted by reckedracing@May 10 2005, 06:31 PM
but in reality its always been "by the wealthy, for the profit of the wealthy"

[post=497434]Quoted post[/post]​

No, not really just a lot of the time, it was founded with the people in mind.

 

[totalburnout]

Wait, wait, wait.

ALL OF YOU got ahead of yourselves.

I didn't say that the United States didn't sans the black market.

Bush has pissed off the world meaning who exactly? Middle Easterners have hated the United States for years before Bush started war. There's been a problem with North Korea since BEFORE the Korean War.

And I know the United States will eventually fall one day, I'm sure every nation will break down and decay eventually. History repeats itself and as already pointed out it happened to all the other great empires. However, we as a country are a newborn country during a modern time, we're still thriving and SOME of our barbaric ways have changed. There will always be fighting and conflict in the world, but their is far less fighting in current times. For someone to believe that the United States is going to fall to some bumfuck unorganized country that can't do anything other than terrorist/guerilla warfare attacks and can't rally a large scale attack is foolish.

My point as I stated before was do not worry. So we just added Great Britain and Russia to the list along with China that can launch a large nuclear missile transatlantic or pacific. We already have defense systems to shoot missiles down. If a nation sends people over to detonate a bomb, its going to suck but oh well. We dropped two bombs on Japan and they survived, their greatness and size is no where near that of the United States. The only threatening nation we truly have to fear could ever mount a large scale attack at this very second is China. Every other nation is either not large enough in numbers or does not have the weapons to facilitate what it would take.

 

[totalburnout]

Originally posted by reckedracing@May 10 2005, 12:31 PM


i would be truly shocked if the US was still around in its present state in a mere 200 years...

the wealthy/upper class can only go so long before the rest of the people realize they are being sold out...

this gov't was made "by the people, for the people", but in reality its always been "by the wealthy, for the profit of the wealthy"

one day people will open their eyes...

The United States is an infant nation for you not to believe that it will be still intact in 200 years is foolish I believe. You're correct that it won't be in the present state because times will have changed but you can't stop time.

You're all failing to see that the United States in current times is thriving and doing the best ever for itself. There has to be a huge decline before anyone can even think we as a nation would fall.


And I pose the question to you, before the government how were the people with wealth treated? People came to this country chasing the American dream and many achieved it. This has happened before we established a government and continues to happen after the government was established so how can it be "by the wealthy, for the profit of the wealthy"? The government doesn't repress the people or hold them back from making their coin. Of course the rich are going to get richer because they have the means to do so, its called investments...you cannot invest until you already have the money to do so. The big names will continue to make the money and pass them down through the generations but thats just how old money works, theres plenty of new money stories.

 

[asmallsol]

You once again (like any other one of Hondaswaps political threads) have gone way off tangent, and are pulling up facts out of no where and you try and connect dots where there are none.

We dropped two bombs on Japan and they survived, their greatness and size is no where near that of the United States.

Little boy nuclear yield was 15 - 16 Kt, and Fat Man yield was 21 Kt

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Med/Lbfm.html

the ss-18 Satan rocket is a capable to carry 10 warheads, each resulting in 750kt nuclear yield.

The SS-18 Mod 6 - R-36M2 "Voivode" was capable of carrying one 20 megaton yeild warhead.

http://www.cdi.org/issues/nukef&f/database....html#ss18satan

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/icbm/r-36m.htm

Now you can't compare the earliest nuclear bombs to the later nuclear missiles of the cold war. That’s like comparing a sniper rifle from the civil war to one of today and saying "well the in the civil war, the highly train snipers weren't that accurate so the snipers of today probably are too"

Those links also show you exactly what russia has.

Treaties that were signed when Clinton was in office to reduce the amount of nuclear warheads in the world were set up and limited russia to 2200 strategic warheads by 2012. Currently, Russia has Russia currently deploys 585 operational ICBMs.

http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=ma05norris

We already have defense systems to shoot missiles down.

And where exactly is this system? Bush has spent Billions on this system and its only in its early development stage. There has been plenty of tests done, many unsuccessful. Experts have even said that the defense system would only protect against small attacks from rouge nations, and would never be able to face against some nation like China or Russia. Canada has already said they will be not take part in this foolish system. The system needs 10+ more years to even be halfway functional.

 

[reckedracing]

The United States is an infant nation for you not to believe that it will be still intact in 200 years is foolish I believe. You're correct that it won't be in the present state because times will have changed but you can't stop time.

first you call me foolish then you agree with me? either accept it all, or accept none... i said it would not be in its present state, did i not?

and just look at the federal budget and try and extrapolate a bit, its not too hard...
how many years do you honestly think it will be before the US dollar becomes worthless, just like what happened in russia, or in japan during their market crash?
Bush wants SS to be dumped into the market to bump up stock values, then all the big guys get out and the little people are left holding the tab, very similar to enron... (*cough* cheney)

You're all failing to see that the United States in current times is thriving and doing the best ever for itself. There has to be a huge decline before anyone can even think we as a nation would fall.

a huge decline can happen in less than 5 years... less than one year, one catastrophic event would completely destroy the stability of the US...

And I pose the question to you, before the government how were the people with wealth treated? People came to this country chasing the American dream and many achieved it. This has happened before we established a government and continues to happen after the government was established so how can it be "by the wealthy, for the profit of the wealthy"? The government doesn't repress the people or hold them back from making their coin. Of course the rich are going to get richer because they have the means to do so, its called investments...you cannot invest until you already have the money to do so. The big names will continue to make the money and pass them down through the generations but thats just how old money works, theres plenty of new money stories.

lets consider the "founding fathers" of this great country...
the revolution was started (one main reason) because of taxation without representation... do you think tom dick and joe cared who got their tax money? or do you think it was the rich "forefathers" that wanted to keep their money...?
all the founding fathers were looking after their own interests and just pulling the commoners along for the ride... they needed someone to fight for them right?

and speaking of these forefathers... we have BECOME what they were fighting against... the US is hated around the globe for its foreign policy, which basically represents that of imperialist britian during the 1600 and 1700's...
the IMPERIALIST US is not waging war, and making huge profits from their "colonies of occupied lands" for the common man... all the spoils of war go into the coffers of the huge corporations which basically run this country through wealth and power... but who pays for the war? that would be the US taxpayers... just today congress approved another, ANOTHER 82 BILLION for the war, try and find a total figure of costs to date, and then try and find a figure estimating the future monetary costs... then figure on top of that the additional costs besides dollars... i do believe it could be just enough to bankrupt the treasury(oh wait, thats already happened) and it could very potentially lead to drastic change of life in the united states as you know it...

the ss-18 Satan rocket is a capable to carry 10 warheads, each resulting in 750kt nuclear yield.

The SS-18 Mod 6 - R-36M2 "Voivode" was capable of carrying one 20 megaton yeild warhead.

damn, i thought cluster bopmbs were bad enough, but nuclear cluster bombs? that justy scares the shit out of me...
how many planets do you think developed great civilizations which just ended up destroying themselves due to their own greed/selfishness?

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by reckedracing@May 10 2005, 04:48 PM
ANOTHER 82 BILLION for the war, try and find a total figure of costs to date, and then try and find a figure estimating the future monetary costs... then figure on top of that the additional costs besides dollars... i do believe it could be just enough to bankrupt the treasury(oh wait, thats already happened) and it could very potentially lead to drastic change of life in the united states as you know it...

[

[post=497588]Quoted post[/post]​

I have to say man. Good job making your point.....But just like churches, the government to me shouldn't be ran like a business.

 

[totalburnout]

Originally posted by Blanco@May 10 2005, 07:09 PM
To add to that. The SS-18 "Satan" has a 20 megaton warhead and is capable of destroying most of New York State. It will take less than five seconds to reprogram any Russian or American ICBM's to their original, cold war, cooridinates.

[post=497566]Quoted post[/post]​

Yes, New York State... even though loses would be huge it would not cause the collapse of the nation.

What is your point here?


I acknowledged we can be attacked and also acknowledged that there is nothing to fear. We could have been attacked on any day in the past, today is no different but the fact remains that there would have to be a lot more than one attack and a lot more successful detonations all across the United States to bring the nation to the ground. It just is not feasible.

 

[totalburnout]

Originally posted by reckedracing@May 10 2005, 07:48 PM
first you call me foolish then you agree with me? either accept it all, or accept none... i said it would not be in its present state, did i not?

What I got out of your statement was that you were eluding to the nation being torn and broken in pieces. Other then that, I pointed out the obvious that one cannot stop time nor change so the country is different now than it was a minute ago.

and just look at the federal budget and try and extrapolate a bit, its not too hard...
how many years do you honestly think it will be before the US dollar becomes worthless, just like what happened in russia, or in japan during their market crash?
Bush wants SS to be dumped into the market to bump up stock values, then all the big guys get out and the little people are left holding the tab, very similar to enron... (*cough* cheney)

Great depression anyone? Anyone at all? Yeah, seems like we turned around and thrived in the years post depression.

Japans market crash? Who's thriving now?

Russia? They'll be fine in a few years and as long as they find a niche and are productive they'll once again thrive.

Having a fallout for 5-10years in the grand scheme of things is nothing.

I just feel like you're all doomsdayers here and only look at the present.

a huge decline can happen in less than 5 years... less than one year, one catastrophic event would completely destroy the stability of the US...

Like say 9/11? Seems like we recovered or are almost fully recovered. Even if the infastructure is destroyed, so long as we have the knowledge and means to rebuild then life will go on.

People may call this 'unstable' but its nothing that will bring the nation to the ground.

lets consider the "founding fathers" of this great country...
the revolution was started (one main reason) because of taxation without representation... do you think tom dick and joe cared who got their tax money? or do you think it was the rich "forefathers" that wanted to keep their money...?
all the founding fathers were looking after their own interests and just pulling the commoners along for the ride... they needed someone to fight for them right?

...exactly. The commoners were the men that fought for "no taxation without representation", obviously they believed in the idea that was created by the entrepeneurs of the country because they certainly fought for it. It wasn't as if the rich man forced them to fight, they fought for themselves.

Theres a town in pennsylvania that is one of the oldest towns in America named after my ancestors. My ancestors were blue collared workers that were more than happy to fight for their independence so I can speak for them. I don't know who you're speaking for when you act as if the commoners didn't want independence as well. Everyone was in it for themselves, because thats what we do as people...look out for number one.

and speaking of these forefathers... we have BECOME what they were fighting against... the US is hated around the globe for its foreign policy, which basically represents that of imperialist britian during the 1600 and 1700's...
the IMPERIALIST US is not waging war, and making huge profits from their "colonies of occupied lands" for the common man... all the spoils of war go into the coffers of the huge corporations which basically run this country through wealth and power... but who pays for the war? that would be the US taxpayers... just today congress approved another, ANOTHER 82 BILLION for the war, try and find a total figure of costs to date, and then try and find a figure estimating the future monetary costs... then figure on top of that the additional costs besides dollars... i do believe it could be just enough to bankrupt the treasury(oh wait, thats already happened) and it could very potentially lead to drastic change of life in the united states as you know it...

You mean Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were not the men that created foreign policy and lived overseas working with other nations? You mean that those founding fathers didn't proclaim that we were to be more or less the big brother of the world and help other countries around the world? ...because I think they did and I think thats exactly where foreign policy is at today, except you'll all sit here and bitch about it. "Lets only care about the ourselves, screw everyone else" has been the general sentiment of many, specifically on this message board. That goes against the policy by which our forefathers intended. So with that in mind, I think you're wrong that foreign policy today isn't what the forefathers would have wanted because I think its pretty near what they intended.

damn, i thought cluster bopmbs were bad enough, but nuclear cluster bombs? that justy scares the shit out of me...
how many planets do you think developed great civilizations which just ended up destroying themselves due to their own greed/selfishness?

Of course nukes and cluster bombs are scary if you're the specific target but if a nation strikes NYC then you're going to be fine over in California. To attack the United States and bring it to its knees, there would need to be attacks on atleast two major fronts - east and west but also hitting the large cities that produce much of the machinery up in the North and the ones down in the South. We would have to be attacked from all directions pretty much simultaneously. What nation has the numbers to mount this kind of attack? China? Yes, they probably could attack us and win if we were unprepared but who else? Russia? Russia doesn't have the money, numbers, nor support in the current times to mount that sort of attack...maybe back when the Soviet Union existed.

As for how many other planets developed great civilizations...I hope you were kidding.