Nuclear weapons scare the bejeesus outta me

[blue]

Seriously, we have the capability to wipe out our own species.

Does anyone think we won't use them eventually? Our track record as a race alone indicates it will happen.

As more and more third world countries acquire them, nutjobs with a few bucks buy them on the black market from the broke former soviets, technology alone guarantees some idiot somewhere will at least build and use a "dirty bomb".

Maybe it will just be a regional conflict, most likely between Pakistan & India. Or god help a holocaust between us & the Chinese.

Does anyone even worry about this anymore? The end of the cold war is not exactly a good thing. I think the generation before ours (speaking for some of us) was terrified of it as a real possibility.

I don't worry about it on a daily basis, but my world view is different because of the very real implication. Imagine how different things might be if we didn't have the capability to almost wipe out the entire planet.

For those who grew up tall and proud...in the shadow of the mushroom cloud.

[wolf]

I do agree that use of a nuclear weapon (by someone other than us) is a real possibility.

North Korea scares the hell out of me, as do China and Pakistan. Even Israel having the bomb makes me uneasy. What's justification to us is different

Russia in chaos is/was our greatest threat ... their record keeping wasn't all that good at the best of times (height of the Soviet system) and has pretty much gone to shit in the aftermath of fall of the Iron Curtain. There are a lot of loose nukes out there, available, one must assume, to the highest bidder.

Not sure why no one has had the balls to use one yet. Seems like a terrorist slam dunk. I don't think there's any prohibition against it in the Koran ...

[wolf]

Oh ... if you have HBO On Demand ... check the "Documentaries" section and make sure you watch "Atomic Ed".

[Undertoad]

Well this is why Libya's decision probably makes Iraq worth it. We found a lot of shit out when going into Libya and the biggest thing was that nations no longer need a "nuclear program" to go nuclear. They just buy the parts from various countries and no need to have a "program", no need to have international nuclear inspectors around to monitor what you do.

China sold plans to Pakistan and Pakistan put those plans on the market. Pakistan sells you the plans and one part, Malaysia sells you another part, Iran sells you the fissionable material, and suddenly fuckin' Libya can go nuclear. So the shit may already have hit the fan and we don't know it.

WaPo February via Belmont Club, who is the most pessimistic blogger on nukes:

Investigators have discovered that the nuclear weapons designs obtained by Libya through a Pakistani smuggling network originated in China, exposing yet another link in a chain of proliferation that stretched across the Middle East and Asia, according to government officials and arms experts. ...

The packet of documents, some of which included text in Chinese, contained detailed, step-by-step instructions for assembling an implosion-type nuclear bomb that could fit atop a large ballistic missile. They also included technical instructions for manufacturing components for the device, the officials and experts said.

"It was just what you'd have on the factory floor. It tells you what torque to use on the bolts and what glue to use on the parts," one weapons expert who had reviewed the blueprints said in an interview. He described the designs as "very, very old" but "very well engineered."

[Undertoad]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._qaida_nuclear

SYDNEY, Australia - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.

In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market.

It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place.

U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed that al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.

In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment to maintain or use them.

"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said `Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia, contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the interview.

"They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.

[tw]

Let's not forget that the single source of nuclear black market trade is a closest American ally - doing so while it was an American ally. Pakistan is the common source of this trade in nuclear weaponry while Pakistan is simultaneously portrayed as an America ally. Fidel Castro was not pushing the stuff. Neither were Somolian warlords. Even Libya was not marketing - was only a customer. This trade was ongoing with knowldege of the George Jr administration - who said nothing.

[Elspode]

I keep forgetting that ultimately, all the evil in the world is America's fault...

[Undertoad]

Nor did Clinton, nor Bush before him because they believed that Pakistan's operations were diplomatic.

[tw]

Any nuclear weapon designed for use in a conventional war will only make nuclear war more likely. Furthermore, the environmental problems left by such a weapon should make that weapon unrealistic. And yet this George Jr administration has no problem with expanding the use of nuclear weapons even as bunker busting bombs - a bomb only for conventional warfare:
The Troubling Science of Bunker-Busting Nuclear Weapons

Forbid other nations from expanding the worldwide nuclear stockpile but at the same time make weapons that can more easily turn a conventional war into a nuclear one? A double standard. Either he opposes expanded use of nuclear weapons or he endorses it. Or he make decision only based only on a self serving agenda.

A president that fears use of nuclear weapons would not promote a nuclear bunker busting bomb.

[Elspode]

If memory serves me, the research into nuke bunker busters was carried on under previous administrations.

This is a military policy issue, not a political issue, and certainly not the exclusive province of the current president.

Oh, and just for the record, I'm no fan of GWB, and do not plan on voting for him in November, lest someone think I'm defending him.

[tw]

Many previous administrations had studied nuclear bunker busters. One even studied a sea level canal across Nicaragua - the prlmoter, Edward Teller, saying radiation would not be a problem. But the current administration is doing more than just studies. That is the problem. No other administration found nuclear munitions as viable for bunker busting. This Geroge Jr administration apparently does not appreciate the problem.

[Elspode]

I guess that we'll know the answer to this one when they've been put into production, or, God forbid, used.

[Torrere]

Originally posted by tw
Many previous administrations have studied nuclear bunker busters. One even studied making a sea level canal across Nicaragua - the promoter, Edward Teller, said that radiation would not be a problem. The problem is that the current administration is doing more than just studies. No other administration found nuclear munitions as viable for bunker busting as this one. George Bush Jr's administration apparently does not appreciate the radiation problem.

Is this the same administration that was lambasted for the 'Mother of All Bombs'; that unwieldy pallet of convential bomb used in situations where a highly accurate tactical nuke would be the most effective tool?

[edit: definite article 'the' made into a restrictive 'that']

[ladysycamore]

Originally posted by blue58
Does anyone even worry about this anymore? The end of the cold war is not exactly a good thing. I think the generation before ours (speaking for some of us) was terrified of it as a real possibility.

I remember watching "The Day After", and being scared shitless at the possibility. I even went on a local (Baltimore) TV talk show (that was co-hosted by none other than Oprah, so you know this is old!), to debate the issue of nuclear weapons.

The possibility still scares me. I even had a small panic attack about it for a few days after 9/11...I was expecting to see the flash in the sky, and then the big mushroom cloud...anytime I heard a heavy rumbling at night, I was ready to jump out of my skin (turns out, it was only the patrol planes flying nearby).

I have no idea why I reacted like that, but it subsided after a couple of days (although when regular planes started flying again, I had to look up).

[tw]

Originally posted by Torrere
Is this the same administration that was lambasted for the 'Mother of All Bombs'; that unwieldy pallet of convential bomb used in situations where a highly accurate tactical nuke would be the most effective tool?

Did you read the Union of Concern Scientist analysis? Highly accurate nuke is inferior to highly accurate conventional weapon - during a non-nuclear war. Some additonal reasons why are not even explained in the UCS report but should be quite obvious to the reader.