Nuclear Weapons ?

Be like Nutella

Anyone want to start a serious discussion about Nuclear Weapons ?

history / risks / facts / challenges / future / usefulness etc..


Nuclear Tipping Point / The Nuclear Security Project


http://www.nucleartippingpoint.org/film/film.html


http://www.nuclearsecurityproject.org/

I don't represent them but I agree with their efforts...the movie's OK but these guys are committed.


I'll get the ball rolling with a couple mad facts..

The Peak number of nuclear weapons in the world was 70,000 in 1986.... I'm not sure as to whether this was the number missiles etc including ICBMS which contain multiple warheads...and the facts about this are ambiguous in that 'Hanford' where most Plutonium for US weapons was produced is said to have produced enough Plu for 60,000 weapons...yet all other sources say the US Peak stockpile was around 32,000 so I'm assuming stockpile means weapons which includes multi warhead weapons like ICBMs...

25 years later...and now there's said to be approx 25,000 weapons out there....

thats a 66% reduction in 25 years through the efforts of various politicians and the signing of treaties such as S.T.A.R.T.

So can it be done? Can countries work together to reduce to Zero....is Zero so unlikely ?

Do we NEED nuclear weapons? Afterall...MA.D. stopped war between USSR and USA? sort of....complicated logic I suppose...

johngalway

I actually believe that the world is a safer place when reasonable people are in control of nuclear weapons in the world. The worlds largest conflicts, AFAIK, happened just before the nuclear age. There have been many, many conflicts since "the bomb(s)" were dropped on Japan at the end of WW2, but not like before.

helimachoptor

Agree with Johnny, we wont see a large scale WW again, becuase if any of the major powers get involved and they think they're losing they'll go nuke happy and they know that once they do that their country will be obliterated.

Jcarroll07

Nuclear weapons do one thing very well they deter "the big guys from attacking the big guys". That why we haven't had a major war with the major countries pitted directly agents each other science WW2.

It's when the nuks are no longer able to deter that you have a problem and every one will wish that they were never invented.

The nuclear weapons have only been used twice in combat. As a result they ended a war and because of every ones fear of them they have been no major conflicts involving major powers since.

smcgiff

Unfortunately, due to a statistical Chance of a sociopath being in power or a religious fundamentalist I think the senselessness of MAD is not as reassuring as it once was.

Also, it doesn't really matter if even all the nukes were got rid of you can't get rid of the invention. Hope I'm wrong but would not be surprised to see nukes used in my lifetime. Dirty bomb in US, middle east, or India/Pakistan.

Jcarroll07

smcgiff wrote: »

Unfortunately, due to a statistical Chance of a sociopath being in power or a religious fundamentalist I think the senselessness of MAD is not as reassuring as it once was.

Also, it doesn't really matter if even all the nukes were got rid of you can't get rid of the invention. Hope I'm wrong but would not be surprised to see nukes used in my lifetime. Dirty bomb in US, middle east, or India/Pakistan.

if it is an individual group of religious fundamentalist religious mad men then they are unlike to have a large amount of nuks and will unlikely destroy the world but would cause a huge amount of damage. But MAD i think can still stop major nuclear and conventional wars between the major powers. But there is always a chance that some thing weird like the norway rocket incident in 1995 might happen and a finger could press the button. Then we are all in trouble

Jcarroll07

smcgiff wrote: »

India/Pakistan.

forgot to say. That india and pakistan is one place that would really worry me when it come to the use of nuclear weapons. Not sure about india but give pakistan the excuses to use them and they will or there is a high chance of it anyway.

Manach

I'd be worried that some secular fruitcake group would acquire a mini-nuclear weapon, of the type developed by the US and use it to achieve their aims by terror.

smcgiff

Manach wrote: »

I'd be worried that some secular fruitcake group would acquire a mini-nuclear weapon, of the type developed by the US and use it to achieve their aims by terror.

No. No you don't.

Manach

Yes. Being a historian, I've a passing familiarity with the French revolution and the period of the "Terror".

johngalway

With regards to groups using nuclear weapons. I think that's a massive risk for them. Most groups want and need to survive to keep their ideas alive. Should one choose to use a nuclear weapon I think the results for them would be a complete wipe out of their organization and any supporters providing technical or financial means.

A book that's been out quite a while, but I've just finished is "Against all enemies" by Richard A. Clarke. It is quite informative on the options available to Western Governments should they choose to become "serious" about destroying the likes of Al Qaeda.

Not to say it could never happen. But, I think taking the long view it'd be too much of a risk for them.

Manach

A good non-fiction book on how Western powers might deal with "rogue" states which have nuclear weapons is "The Challenge of Nuclear-armed Regional Adversaries by David A. Ochmanek". I think this is available as a free pdf from the publisher.

Be like Nutella

Jcarroll07 wrote: »

forgot to say. That india and pakistan is one place that would really worry me when it come to the use of nuclear weapons. Not sure about india but give pakistan the excuses to use them and they will or there is a high chance of it anyway.

Yeah agree

India's got a much bigger better army and is pissed off with Pakistan about terrorism... if another mumbai bombing event happens it's plauisble India might just bale into Pakistan to destroy terrorist groups and Pakistan would have a seriously itchy Nuke trigger finger should that happen...especially seeing as they couldn't win a conventional war under any circumstances.

Somebody said once
' they shoulda built 3 bombs.... nagasaki, hiroshima..and the other for all the scientists involved in inventing the bomb! '

The 'well the bomb has prevented large scale conventional wars since WW2' is intriguing logic.... and seems to be true looking backwards..but the fact that the two super powers very nearly swung nuclear digs at eachother more than once kinda ruins that logic in that they genuinely did get very close...and if it had kicked off the destruction would have been somewhere between biblical and extinction...which wouldn't be the case with NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO THROW AT EACHOTHER.

so the choice is...in this logic... a world with nuclear weapons....in todays case.... we got US, Russia, Pakistan, India, China, France, UK, Israel, N.Korea and maybe Iran soon enough (hope I didn't leave anyone out : ) where you have the risk of obviously nuclear war in the case of Israel and Iran....Pakistan India and China US...say...PLUS the whole...what if a terrorist gets enough Plutonium OR gets their hands on a suit case nuke that may be out there on the black market etc..
OR
a world of advanced conventional weapons such as Raptors and aircraft carriers and subs with cruise missiles etc.. at least war is slower and uglier and you gotta get closer and there's more time to think etc etc.. Is there not a case that at least in that scenario...the chances of large conflicts leaving nuked scorched contaminated land/food web for millenia and millions dead within hours/days is much smaller? makes war a more difficult decision IF not a M.A.D. one.

I'd have to say I'd take the non-nuclear world any day.... no nuclear power no nuclear weapons please.... nuclear power kinda sucks and
...end rant : ).....Oh yeah forgot ..screw you Einstein !!

Merch

Manach wrote: »

I'd be worried that some secular fruitcake group would acquire a mini-nuclear weapon, of the type developed by the US and use it to achieve their aims by terror.

who are these secular fruit and nuts?
mini nukes? what type? mini as in size or yield?

"use it to achieve their aims by terror" the US or the secular fruit and nuts?
I think the way to achieve your aims is to have a weapon, threaten its use but dont actually use it, which i suppose is terror. Unless the aim is to detonate a weapon to destroy a place/populace.

There is no need for the amount of N weapons that exist, but so long as decommisioning renders the material useless as a weapon in case of theft or useable as a feul and not just deteriorating and polluting the environment. Its probably cost effective to deactivate them, I'd put money they are looking for excuses to reduce the numbers, the ongoing maintenance, technical,infrastructure,personnel, must be phenomenal.

I never see any of the big 3-5-7 giving up N weapons, it just gives them that edge that they cannot have conventionally.

Manach

This was answered by by second post on the subject. Given how much religious fundamentalism madmen is tossed about in other posts, care to ask the posters who raised them similar questions?

Merch

Isnt secular non religious, so do you mean non secular or are you referring to the big boys with N weapons??

OS119

Be like Nutella wrote: »

...end rant : )...

it was a rant, and avoided logic.

the nuclear genie cannot be put back in the box - its like the wheel - its outhere, everyone with a reasonable degree in Physics has the theoretical knowledge to make one, and any country with a nuclear power plant isn't far from being able to construct a nuclear device - indeed most university physics labs could build one if they could get hold of the materials.

everyone knows how effective they are, and everyone knows how cheap they are: the UK's defence budget is around £35bn, about a billion or so of which is spent on its nuclear capability. its important to note however that this is the 'whole capability cost' - the 4 SSBN's, the additional ASW capability that protecting the SSBN's requires etc - not the actual cost of building, maintaining and delivering a nuke.

the UK uses about the most expensive (though effective) method possible of deploying its nukes, spends about 3% of its defence budget on them, yet they are its ultimate deterent, and unlike the other 97% of its defence budget, the thing that means that no country on earth is going to pick a real, serious fight with the UK.

you'd have to be really, really dumb to ignore the economics of that statement.

nukes are hear to stay - whining about them is like complaining about the wheel or moaning about plastic.

Manach

Merch wrote: »

Isnt secular non religious, so do you mean non secular or are you referring to the big boys with N weapons??

I'm perhaps explaining myself poorly. I'd refer to non-state actors having nuclear weapons. I'd use the term secular (non religious), as it is a way of contrasting religious terrorism and also I think that this term was used in a book I read on the subject: "Inside Terrorism" by Hoffman (AFIAR). The author pointed out that a majority of terrorist incidents in the late 20th did not involve fundamentalist motivations. However, he did mention that there was a definite increase in religious fundamentalism as a source of such incidients and he reckoned that on balance they (fundamentalism orgs) might be more inclined to use WMD such as nuclear weapons as a means of achieving their aims.

Lemming

The concept of MAD and the intervening years since the middle of the 20th century do add compelling weight to the argument that deterrence has been an evective straight-jacket on major conflicts since the inception of the nuclear weapon.

To add to that, if you consider the very nature of what nuclear weapons are designed to do .... they are not "tactical" weapons, designed to kill an enemy's armies. They are designed to do one thing; rip the heart of country by destroying entire cities or regions. There's your economy gone, recruitment for emergency and military service gone, what emergency services a country has left are stretched beyond breaking point, etc. That an airfield gets taken out, or a garisson barracks is a bonus in all of the above.

Whilst we've got the argument of MAD to deter wars, there is a growing concern (imo) in the recent US research & development efforts into low-yield 'tactical' nuclear weapons such as bunker busters. The risk is that in pursuing this new line of weapons, deploying them may seem "acceptable" despite the fact that you are still deploying nukes. Then you'll have an eventual rise in what is considered 'acceptable' and before youi know it, we're back to dealing with "conventional" nukes.

OS119

Lemming wrote: »

...Then you'll have an eventual rise in what is considered 'acceptable' and before youi know it, we're back to dealing with "conventional" nukes.

they've been with us for 40 years - people think that the cold war was all about 200kt nukes whacking London and New York, but it wasn't - from the late 60's every army in Europe had a significant nuclear capabilty in its tactical systems.

the first regiment i went to in Germany expected to use over 60 nuclear weapons in its first engagement - not that it expected to survive that engagement - the weapons were all in the 'tactical' range and would have detonated about 20km from where were located, and all would have been fired at moving military targets, possibly with some fixed points like bridges thrown in. that regiment was by no means unique - i've heard suggestions of over 2000 low-yeild detonations in Germany within 24hrs of either a WARPAC WMD attack, or a WARPAC incontained breakthrough.

they are with us, and have been with us for a dogs age - they are nothing new.

Be like Nutella

Think they're was a tactical nuclear cannon thing called a Davy Crokett decades ago which could be fired by 3 guys like a large mortar system... recoiless rifle... Maybe .4 KT... issue was that it couldn't fire the bloody thing far enough to keep you safe.

Yeah ya can't uninvent the wheel I agree and there is some pointless whining done about nukes... but... That's not to say that reducing the number of warheads and making existing stockpiles and fissile material safe isn't massively important.... If a jihadist organisation had a nuke I think they would've used it by now... Hard to argue otherwise... and as far as 'anyone with scarcely Physics degree could make a bomb' ..... That is simply untrue.... You could throw together some sort of dirty bomb but a thermonuclear bomb? No chance... Takes a lot of different skills and you can't test... So how woukd you know if its gona work? takes time and more money than a terrorist organisation would have.. and either way you need a few kilo of plutonium which even A Q Kahn couldn't get ya... I'm not sure it's as easy as Tom Clancy made it.

A world where US, Russia and China have 200 nukes each is a lot safer than a world where they have 3000 nukes each.


I think I read somewhere that a flash happened in Australia maybe early 90's that is considered more than likely to have been a detonation... apparently the main suspect was a Japanese cult!!! Not messin... Sounds like complete bull**** ... Check it out...

Be like Nutella

http://m.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/2005/RAND_RB165.pdf

OS119

Be like Nutella wrote: »

...a world where US, Russia and China have 200 nukes each is a lot safer than a world where they have 3000 nukes each...

it certainly isn't - when you throw anti-ballistic missile defence systems into the mix, its quite possible that all of those countries could survive, or at least think they could survive, a full nuclear exchange - and therefore win it.

all of those countries know that they could not survive 3000 warheads, so they steer well clear of any situation where those 3000 warheads might come their way at mach 20. when you get to 200 warheads, and you think you have a chance, you might be tempted to go for it.

overkill is underated.

Lemming

OS119 wrote: »

they've been with us for 40 years - people think that the cold war was all about 200kt nukes whacking London and New York, but it wasn't - from the late 60's every army in Europe had a significant nuclear capabilty in its tactical systems.

...

they are with us, and have been with us for a dogs age - they are nothing new.

You're quite right, and yes my first thoughts when someone mentions nukes is ICBMs getting friendly with other nations cities. And it's probably the biggest terror factor in the use of nukes; the absolute certainty that you,your family, your neighbour, your city, your region will get vaporised in the blink of an eye.

I phrased my earlier comment poorly - the joys of deadlines in work and hasty posts. What I meant to comment on was the fact that the USA, under the Bush (jnr) administration (Rummesfeld, Wolfowitz, et al.) resumed significant R&D efforts on tactical low-yield weapons in direct contravention of various non-proliferation treaties, and that now we run the risk of the 'acceptability' of such weapons gaining ground again after being buried alongside the demise of the cold war and the sheer paranoid insanity that surrounded it.

Incidentally, fascinating to hear about the regiment deployed to West Germany. Do you mind my asking which unit it was? Also, what was the general sentiment of the men in the unit in knowing that they had already been written off as expendable before anyone started lobbing nukes about?

DoesNotCompute

Be like Nutella wrote: »

I think I read somewhere that a flash happened in Australia maybe early 90's that is considered more than likely to have been a detonation... apparently the main suspect was a Japanese cult!!! Not messin... Sounds like complete bull**** ... Check it out...

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Banjawarn_station

Also of interest, the South Atlantic Flash incident: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/South_Atlantic_Flash

Be like Nutella

" it certainly isn't - when you throw anti-ballistic missile defence systems into the mix, its quite possible that all of those countries could survive, or at least think they could survive, a full nuclear exchange - and therefore win it.

all of those countries know that they could not survive 3000 warheads, so they steer well clear of any situation where those 3000 warheads might come their way at mach 20. when you get to 200 warheads, and you think you have a chance, you might be tempted to go for it. "

I don't know. That sounds like you're saying... If, there is nuclear weapons, and there obviously is, then it is better that the large powers that be have huge arsenals of them so as to limit any situation where war and therefore nuclear war seems at any stage a winnable venture...

Is it not a fact... that America and Russia nearly went to war at least once which would have definitely escalated to, if not began with, nuclear strikes and therefore all out nuclear war involving at the time two arsenals equaling more than 50,000 weapons many hundreds of which were guaranteed to pass eachother in space and come down on every major urbanisation and militarily and civilizationally important location in both countries.... was that not a severe conceptual possibility during the Cuban missile crisis ? and if so.. was that not in a scenario where both powers had massive arsenals in fact so massive that most would consider it unlikely that any country will ever have as massive an arsenal as existed in the hands of Russia and America during this period?
The theory of M.A.D. can be used to explain why it didn't actually kick off, retrospectively, but it is still a fact that they came very close... at least once officially and by genuine accounts another couple of times due to complexity and fallibility.

Reducing the threat level, the nuclear hair trigger factor between the two big powers... progressively over time, turning weapons into fuel, treaties and verifying reductions could perceivebly achieve a massive reduction in global warhead stockpiles AND reverse some countries efforts to join the nuclear party... Who wouldn't want that?
Is the argument ... that fewer warheads in a world that CANT ever completely get rid of nukes creates MORE risk of actual nuclear conflict ?? Is that actually the argument?? I don't agree... maybe because I don't trust as much in the absolute limit some think M.A.D. imbues into the game theory in question...because I think the human factor negates the failsafe others think it inherently and INEVITABLY commands... and also maybe because the actual events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demand we at least do our best to work towards a zero nuke point in the future as unlikely... even approaching impossible that may seem.

If you had the power to click your fingers and remove all nuclear weapons from the world... Would you?

Be like Nutella

Everything you'd need to know to understand the actual risk of terrorists making or getting a nuclear bomb is covered in this report by RAND. Whether you love or hate think tanks like RAND it's well researched, and unambiguous.

http://m.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/documented_briefings/2005/RAND_DB458.pdf

OS119

Lemming wrote: »

...Incidentally, fascinating to hear about the regiment deployed to West Germany. Do you mind my asking which unit it was? Also, what was the general sentiment of the men in the unit in knowing that they had already been written off as expendable before anyone started lobbing nukes about?

it was 32 (Heavy) Regiment, Royal Artillery - and we thought it was funny.

we didn't think we were all going to die in a big flash because were were expendable, rather that we had to be close to the enemy in order to do our jobs - and being close to the enemy, and lobbing nukes at him, was likely to provoke an immediate and significant reaction.

personally i'm not so concerned about the 'conventionalisation' of low-yeild nukes - the whole principle has been to turn a 'city-busting' weapon into a precisely targetted, militarily applicable weapon that you could only use within the same 'big war' ROE's that would apply to conventional weapons.

so, for instance - would i be concerned if the RN used a low-yeild warhead to destroy an Argentine naval task force headed towards the Falklands? not really - that task force is going to be attacked anyway, lots of Argentine sailors are going to die because of those attacks, so does it really matter if they die because their formation is attacked in a 12hr runnning engagement by Torpedoes, Tommahawk Cruise Missiles, Paveway Bombs and Sky Shadow stand-off missiles or in one big flash by a 15kt Trident warhead?

in such an engagement there's no 'collateral damage' - some Cod might get cooked prematurely - but, IMV, there's no moral impediment to using one weapon or another as long as both would do the job, and neither inflict casualties that wouldn't be caused by using another method of attack anyway.

my own view is the real question is under what conditions are you prepared to use violence - any violence - and cause suffering to other human beings in order to achieve your policy objectives, and how much risk of non-intentional casualties you are willing to run in causing suffering or death to those who you have deliberately targetted . i personally think that is much bigger issue than which type of weapon you decide use to actually kill your enemy.

twinytwo

bombs dont win wars anymore... its all about economics.

um7y1h83ge06nx

I was talking to a fascinating man last night, my girlfriend's grandfather, always a man for good stories.

Don't worry I'm getting somewhere on topic, he had a story about an interesting part of Nuclear weapons history.

At one stage he was an engineer with Marshall Engineering around Cambridge, England. They were (and still are I think) a big contractor to the RAF, involved in design and servicing.

He mentioned he spent a good bit of time working on the RAF V bombers (Valiant, Viktor and Vulcan) as well as their predecessor, Canberra. Anyway, one day a Vulcan had landed for a service and they began working on it. After a while they noticed their watches had stopped working and they began to feel slightly ill. Upon further investigation they found out the plane had recently returned from Christmas Island where it had dropped a nuke as part of the British nuclear testing program, so some fallout residue was left on the outside of the plane.

Cue the plane getting towed down a field and the work crew were given a week off to recover. Good old health and safety in the old days! :eek:

Lab_Mouse

here's a clip off youtube of all the nuclear bombs(recorded ones I might add) that have gone off.

notice how opposing countries get in a nuke race with each other,they are just testing them mind you:)

and listen with the sound off too:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY