How does the revolution suppose to work?

[Hexen]

I've been thinking about this lately, how does the revolution suppose to work?

Of course my best guess would be workers seizing control of the factories, wallstreet, military bases, government buildings, etc perhaps? Of course my biggest question is, how do we draw the line between 'peaceful' and 'violence'? Perhaps the workers should be armed to defend themselves from the traitor working classes (police, military, etc) or can they be seized without firing a single shot?

Of course is there any thoughts of this matter?

[The Red Star Rising]

Peaceful coups would be like the forced abdication of the German monarchy, essentially the powers that be realize that the fight has lost before it has even begun and gives up the ghost in the hope of avoiding bloodshed. This entails mass and sudden protests, strikes that paralyze the body of the current state and business community, and the police and military deciding that they support the people rather than their prior masters. This is the ideal outcome obviously though I only see this happening locally on a per nation basis, mostly in the more casualty averse nations such as western Europe rather than globally (try imagining the Kim dynasty surrendering peacefully). Weapons of course would probably be needed as an assurance but it would be wise to not fire the first shot. Let the powers that be damn themselves or give up amiably.

Violent revolution obviously would be a bloodsoaked mess and it's success would depend on the support of at least some of the military. Belief in the cause won't stop a Tank from grinding you under it's treads or a bomber pegging you in the face with one metric ton of guided explosives. For a violent revolution to succeed, all the modern panoply of war would be needed. That means warships, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and of course Nuclear weapons. The risk is that many states such as France have a policy that if they are about to fall under violent assault, they will unleash their full nuclear arsenal to ensure nobody wins. This makes seizure of Nuclear weapons crucial. Revolution doesn't mean much if we inherit a world of radioactive dust and ash in the process.

I'm much more fond of the former for many reasons.

[Hexen]

Violent revolution obviously would be a bloodsoaked mess and it's success would depend on the support of at least some of the military. Belief in the cause won't stop a Tank from grinding you under it's treads or a bomber pegging you in the face with one metric ton of guided explosives. For a violent revolution to succeed, all the modern panoply of war would be needed. That means warships, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and of course Nuclear weapons. The risk is that many states such as France have a policy that if they are about to fall under violent assault, they will unleash their full nuclear arsenal to ensure nobody wins. This makes seizure of Nuclear weapons crucial. Revolution doesn't mean much if we inherit a world of radioactive dust and ash in the process.

Of course I was also thinking about asking, "what would we do to all those Nuclear (including Biological and Chemical) Weapons in a post-revolutionary society?"

Of course as for what you said about Paris's policy, I think it would be insane for them to unleash their full nuclear arsenal just because their getting overthrown by revolutionaries I mean where are they going to point the weapons to first of all? Of course I think it actually means if a another nation attacked them especially with nuclear weapons and they respond accordingly which such a scenario is extremely unlikely because if anything else, nukes are mostly used as a deterrent against invaders.

[The Red Star Rising]

Of course I was also thinking about asking, "what would we do to all those Nuclear (including Biological and Chemical) Weapons in a post-revolutionary society?"

Of course as for what you said about Paris's policy, I think it would be insane for them to unleash their full nuclear arsenal just because their getting overthrown by revolutionaries I mean where are they going to point the weapons to first of all? Of course I think it actually means if a another nation attacked them especially with nuclear weapons and they respond accordingly which such a scenario is extremely unlikely because if anything else, nukes are mostly used as a deterrent against invaders.

WMDs would likely be reduced in stockpilage. Biological WMDs may be retained for study (under *careful* surveillance) so that proper defenses can be readied in case of any stockpiles counter-revolutionaries may have squirreled away. Chemical weapons are more likely to be outright destroyed, there's no peacetime usage for them. Radiological weapons are highly overrated in terms of actual threat (the main damage they do is in causing panic in people ignorant of radiation's effects, now they would cause a great tragedy if detonated in a populated area, but they're nowhere near as dangerous as a straight nuclear weapon) and their radioactive agent can be easily taken and used as radiological fuel for space probes and the like. Nuclear weapons do have some peacetime use, mostly for space programs such as asteroid defense. Stockpiles would likely be greatly reduced as we would only produce them on need. Short of an alien invasion there is no usage for them that requires thousands of them on hand in a world where MAD is no longer an issue. Even asteroids would give us years in advance to prepare.

Paris' policy was initially formed in response to the threat of the Soviet Army overruning France (it likely would have in a conventional war given the vastly superior force the Soviets had to bear on the West/East German border), it believed that the chances of a D-day style operation succeeding against the USSR were too slim to hold out on American aid. Thus the alternative of "fuck you all, you're going down with me" was made. France built up it's arsenal to be large enough to ensure that any potential enemy (whether it was America stabbing it in the back, the Chinese, the USSR, or Alien space bats) would be crippled by it's strike so that France would never undergo the shame of occupation again.

Depending on how the French government responds to revolutionary armies advancing on Paris, it may very well decide to destroy the frame-work of modern living by nuking the centers of revolutionary activity. This is most likely if the revolution comes from outside. Israel is believed to have a similar policy, though for them it's believed that the Sampson option entails targeting everyone who has wronged the Jewish people in the past (Germany, Eastern Europe, Spain, so on), the holy cities of Islam and the centers of the Islamic world, and the pillars of the world (Washington D.C, London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, and so on). Essentially saying that in the case of any perceived second Holocaust, Israel would rather not go quietly into the night.

A commonality is that both nations with such policies have suffered a tremendous deal in the recent past. These are policies designed to ensure that these nations will never relive anything even vaguely reminiscent of the trauma of the 1940s. They are ultimately tantamount to responding to an eviction by burning down the whole neighborhood out of spite, but they're not without reason. They're still some of the most shockingly callous policies however. Although none are as amusing (if also latently horrifying) as Britain's nuclear security system that involves a single bike lock (no codes, no two keys, no nothing) and the trust in an English Gentleman's honor that he won't be a naughty boy with his multi-kiloton warheads. In defence of a policy that, should anyone less dutybound be in a commanding position with said nukes, the Royal Navy had this to say. "It would be invidious to suggest... that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders."

But Britain is no stranger to some rather odd ideas concerning the power of the atom.