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This question has been closed, the reason given is that it is off-topic and "too story based".

Minimum nuclear weapons required for deterrent?

The meta question cited to justify this is as follows:

Why is my question "Too Story Based" and how do I get it opened?

However... I don't understand why this is off-topic if the cited logic from meta is:

"only the person who is developing a plotline can decide how characters will act or the plots will develop"

This is clearly more objective. There's multiple ways to answer it, and a lot of material which can be cited to justify this. In fact many comments and answers already have provided evidence to back their arguments.

"Capabilities of characters within a world...are on-topic, but questions must focus on what is possible-"

To me, the question seems perfectly within this logic, as it asks for capabilities about what is possible. I do not understand how this could be misconstrue to be about whether a nation should use their deterrent or something like that?

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The question was quite fine for me.

Anyhow, from my limited understanding of the process, I think you could just rephrase the question along the lines of

In a fictional world that looks like ours, but where superpowers are not meddling too much in the affairs of other countries, there is a country that wishes to invest in a nuclear weapon deterrent, but it does not want to overspend because it is mostly farmland: how many bombs should it build?

This should sound more like worldbuilding for the stricter among the reviewers.

I hope it helps.

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  • $\begingroup$ +1 for suggesting fictional world where this makes more sense. $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Feb 14, 2018 at 18:14
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I didn't vote on this one, but you are asking about real world countries sand real world weapons. No room for fiction, your world is already built: ours. And if world is already set and built, is it hard to see why people think it is not worldbuilding?

Capabilities of characters within a world are on-topic - but this case is when new capabilities are added to a world. Add ability to see future to some characters and you have different world. Take weapons that are produced and you have the very same world.

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  • $\begingroup$ Interesting, I've seen some questions about alternative history which basically take a historical moment in time and ask "is this possible?" so I didn't see how my question was any different to those sorts of questions. Alas! $\endgroup$
    – user20787
    Feb 14, 2018 at 17:42
  • $\begingroup$ @inappropriateCode this is really grey area. As I wrote, I didn't vote. I considered voting, for the reasons I stated above, but I decided I'm not sure. $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Feb 14, 2018 at 17:47
  • $\begingroup$ Hmm. Should constraints have the same legitimacy as capabilities? Since that's what I was asking, if it was feasible or not. $\endgroup$
    – user20787
    Feb 14, 2018 at 17:50
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    $\begingroup$ Moved comment to an answer. $\endgroup$
    – NofP
    Feb 14, 2018 at 18:08

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