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The Nuclear Weapons Thread: Deterring You Since 1945
President Rex
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THE NUCLEAR THREAD
A blinding flash. A telltale mushroom cloud. And an invisible shroud of deadly radiation...
In the minds of most people atomic energy represents the rawest form of power harnessed by man. When researching how to build the first atomic bomb some scientists working on the project did not know its destructive potential. Some believed that one weapon alone would be enough to crack the earth in two. The awesome power of the Trinity test caused Oppenheimer - a scientist on the Manhattan Project and observer of the test - to recall the Bhagavad Gita:
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one... Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
Today the raw explosive force of some nuclear weapons has been surpassed by fuel air bombs and bunker busters, but the nuclear mythos lives on. The world houses thousands of stockpiled weapons. Decades of political maneuvering and fear-mongering have bred a public well-aware of the destructive power of nuclear weapons.
Years of poor storage and lackluster security drive public suspicion that former Soviet bloc states cannot properly handle the copious amounts of warheads. While in other parts of the world - such as North Korea and Iran - dictators and power-hungry regimes have brought us back to the 1950s state of mind with their nuclear aspirations.
A Brief History of Nuclear Developments
For years scientists had theorized the potential explosive power of the atom. By the 1930s German scientists were well underway towards developing a functioning weapon - but material shortfalls and experience gaps held them back. By 1941 the US government - convinced of the feasibility of a weapon and prompted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor - began dedicated research into nuclear weapons. By 1942 Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project. The project would utilize some of the United States' most brilliant minds and a fortune in resources to fully weaponize the energies trapped in the atom.
On July 16th, 1945 the group of scientists successfully detonated a nuclear device. This Trinity Test violently thrust the world into the nuclear age.
Less than a month later on August 6th the United States dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima, Japan. Days later on the 9th another was dropped on Nagasaki. Although the Japanese soon capitulated, the US government feared the Iron Curtain that the USSR's Stalin was closing around Eastern Europe. Production of nuclear material continued, as did testing.
Through the use of espionage and ongoing research the Soviet Union soon had the technical know-how to build and detonate its own weapons. Their program developed further by trading technical expertise for raw materials with China. On August 29th 1949 the Soviet Union successfully tested its first weapon in the First Lightning test.
The UK soon independently tested their own bomb off the shores of Western Australia in 1951. Continued testing and refinement led the US to the development of more powerful detonators, leading to the so-called "hydrogen bomb" and the testing of the first prototype - Ivy Mike - in 1952.
The US and Russia spent much of the 1950s trying to gauge the effects of nuclear weapons, while also trying to intimidate eachother with larger or more effective bombs. US highlights include Operation Teapot (used to determine the effects of nuclear weapons on residential infrastructure), Operation Upshot-Knothole (among other things, tested various weapon designs including nuclear artillery).
Many Soviet tests' goals mimicked the Americans', but during the voluntary test ban of 1959 and 1960 they developed the king of bombs, the Tsar Bomba. This test jumpstarted proliferation, leading the US and USSR to each stockpile thousands of weapons.
Although initially nuclear weapons could only be delivered via bomber, by the 1950s and 1960s the creation of the ICBM and advanced strategic doctrine to the point that neither nation dared attack the other. Both nations were kept in check by the MAD doctrine; a doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" - that if one nation used their weapons, the other would too and both would be destroyed.
The French tested their first weapon in 1960. The Chinese came in 1964.
On July 16th, 1945 the group of scientists successfully detonated a nuclear device. This Trinity Test violently thrust the world into the nuclear age.
Less than a month later on August 6th the United States dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima, Japan. Days later on the 9th another was dropped on Nagasaki. Although the Japanese soon capitulated, the US government feared the Iron Curtain that the USSR's Stalin was closing around Eastern Europe. Production of nuclear material continued, as did testing.
Through the use of espionage and ongoing research the Soviet Union soon had the technical know-how to build and detonate its own weapons. Their program developed further by trading technical expertise for raw materials with China. On August 29th 1949 the Soviet Union successfully tested its first weapon in the First Lightning test.
The UK soon independently tested their own bomb off the shores of Western Australia in 1951. Continued testing and refinement led the US to the development of more powerful detonators, leading to the so-called "hydrogen bomb" and the testing of the first prototype - Ivy Mike - in 1952.
The US and Russia spent much of the 1950s trying to gauge the effects of nuclear weapons, while also trying to intimidate eachother with larger or more effective bombs. US highlights include Operation Teapot (used to determine the effects of nuclear weapons on residential infrastructure), Operation Upshot-Knothole (among other things, tested various weapon designs including nuclear artillery).
Many Soviet tests' goals mimicked the Americans', but during the voluntary test ban of 1959 and 1960 they developed the king of bombs, the Tsar Bomba. This test jumpstarted proliferation, leading the US and USSR to each stockpile thousands of weapons.
Although initially nuclear weapons could only be delivered via bomber, by the 1950s and 1960s the creation of the ICBM and advanced strategic doctrine to the point that neither nation dared attack the other. Both nations were kept in check by the MAD doctrine; a doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" - that if one nation used their weapons, the other would too and both would be destroyed.
The French tested their first weapon in 1960. The Chinese came in 1964.
Proliferation, Politics and Policing
The US, USSR, UK, France and China would be the primary signatories for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968. These NPT signatories would also be the permanent members on the UN's security council (the USSR eventually being replaced by Russia). Efforts to reduce the individual nations' ability to destroy eachother came in the form of the first SALT treaty in 1969.
Effective reduction in the number of nuclear weapons around the world would not occur until the 1990s and the negotiation of the START treaties, beginning with START 1 in 1991. Despite these reductions, proliferation has continued in the form of new nuclear states.
Although not actually tested (in underground detonations) until 1998, Pakistan had developed weapons in the 1970s. This was in response to India's Smiling Bhudda test in May of 1974. In 2009 Kim Jong Il's autocratic North Korean regime successfully tested its own nuclear weapon, once again bringing the threat of nuclear annihilation racing to the forefront of politics.
Although Israel has never confirmed the possession of nuclear weapons, it's suspected of having them. Similarly, Western democracies dread Iran's nuclear aspirations.
Effective reduction in the number of nuclear weapons around the world would not occur until the 1990s and the negotiation of the START treaties, beginning with START 1 in 1991. Despite these reductions, proliferation has continued in the form of new nuclear states.
Although not actually tested (in underground detonations) until 1998, Pakistan had developed weapons in the 1970s. This was in response to India's Smiling Bhudda test in May of 1974. In 2009 Kim Jong Il's autocratic North Korean regime successfully tested its own nuclear weapon, once again bringing the threat of nuclear annihilation racing to the forefront of politics.
Although Israel has never confirmed the possession of nuclear weapons, it's suspected of having them. Similarly, Western democracies dread Iran's nuclear aspirations.
List of Nuclear Tests
List of States with Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear Testing Videos and Documents
CONELRAD - Audio from the Atomic Age
The Doomsday Clock
1945-1998 (by Isao Hashimoto) (a map of all nuclear weapon detonations to 1998 Artist page at the CTBTO))
Bert the Turtle
"Operation Cue"
So this thread is for all things related to nuclear weapons.
Are they awesome? Deadly? ...Very loud?
Is North Korea moments away from nuking Seoul and how might the US/China retaliate?
Are they in the hands of Iranians right now? Do we need to worry about an Israeli state with nuclear weapons now? Or possibly 15 years in the future when they decide to ironically devolve into a fascist state?
Are Pakistan's weapons safe now? Are they safe if the government takes a few more steps towards a radicalized theocracy?
Does it matter if the US and Russia even disassemble their weapons if other nations are just going to be making nukes instead? With such a globalized economy, does anyone who can work a computer even fear a nuclear exchange between the US and Russia or China?
Why does that monkey have a stick with a charge of dynamite hung on it? And why is it harassing a large, anthropomorphic turtle?
President Rex on
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Now they just fill me with dread and awe, pretty consistently, but I don't fear nuclear holocaust: no-one wins has been a pretty good deterrent, and the biggest threat has only ever been the perception that the other guy has launched against you.
That said, I'd feel a whole fuck load happier if mankind were on a bunch of self-sufficient planets, rather then 1.
I find it interesting, reading books and other media from the...roughly the 50's through the 80's, how prevalent the fear of nuclear annhilalation was, and the effects of that on those generations. The threat hasn't really receded at all, it hasn't gone anywhere, but we in the west don't seem to have a similar single fear that hovers behind everything. Terrorism, feh. Climate change, we're stuck with it, buy a zodiac. etc. we seem kind of inured to a crappy future, but not one where everything is wiped out.
Lots of people in the middle east thread seemed to think nuclear weapons are actually a good thing.
Not enough face palm.
But they are. If you nobody has nuclear weapons, and you acquire them, you become safer. If some have nuclear weapons, and you can acquire them, you become safer. If everybody has nuclear, and you can acquire them, you become safer. Even if the world as a whole becomes less safe, the best bet is to be someone with nuclear weapons.
13 Days makes me tear up. The idea that we got that close to really, seriously, fucking with our future messes with my head.
To go with what The Cat said though, we've gotten pretty used to the idea of impending disaster that, through seemingly no effort beyond surviving, we'll avoid the worst case scenario of. Which is, somewhat the problem - we don't live long enough to see the consequences of our circumstance.
Just surviving get you through a lot, provided individually our leaders make the right choices at the most critical moments. But really, that should not fill you with any type of assurance as to your children's survival.
We really should be able to do better.
O_o
Why is it acceptable to talk about human rights in terms of universal and individual impact, but on nuclear weapons - which can wipe out both universal and individual human rights like, well, life - a narrow assessment of national security threat will do. He didn't ask why countries do it. He asked why some people seem to think it's a good idea. It patently isn't.
Also: you're wrong. The differing probabilities of deploying a nuclear weapon along the spectrum from an elected leader of a democratic state with a free press and which is a bought-up member of the international community (minimal to zero) to a delusional, self-deifying, ailing dictator who has demonstrated no concern for even his own people and has indoctrinated his entire nation with a narrative of existential struggle through perpetual war (slightly higher) makes the entire 'rational actor' analysis a bit shaky. And the best bet isn't to be someone with nuclear weapons when the entire rationale of nuclear strategy is that everyone with nukes ends up getting nuked. If a nuclear conflict does kick off, I think South Africa is going to look at their recent leap in the world rankings and feeling pretty smug about giving up the bomb. But you're welcome to move to a nuclear Iran if you like, I'm sure things will turn out much better for you there.
I would have thought that anyone who has read anything about the literally hundreds of incidents which brought the US and USSR to the brink of nuclear conflict during the Cold War, the various quotes such as from McNamara in the previous thread which attributed the lack of nuclear war largely to luck, or hell, just anyone who had seen Thirteen Days, might have a faint inkling that nuclear capability isn't exactly to be toyed with.
But apparently the lesson some people have learnt is that because it didn't happen that time, then it definitely won't happen this time either. Awesome.
So while I may not want them to have nukes, it doesn't surprise me terribly when countries that the US have a history of fucking with, like Iran, feel unsecure.
I would agree with this. This guy has studied the issue in great detail, and determined that
and that there's still a very high chance of major nuclear warfare in our lifetimes.
So, classic prisoner's dilemna basically. It also stands to reason that if you have nuclear weapons and your enemies don't, you'd be safter to nuke them before they can get them.
I strongly disagree. You have to presuppose a major world conflict between nuclear powers, and there's simply no realistic trigger. Russia and the US aren't going to go to war over the Caucasus, nor with China over Taiwan.
The realistic dangers are between Iran and Israel - nations where the stakes are sufficiently low to make the fighting fierce.
I completely understand why Iran etc want nuclear weapons, what I'm perplexed by is why some people seem to condone it. The correct response to the Umbrella Corporation developing the T-virus is not to make your own. It's a Bad Thing. Bad Things do not somehow become Good Things just because of an argument about the fairness of who owns them.
*cough* Pakistan / India...
And if you've talked to an Israeli anytime, well, ever, you should realise that they don't exactly see the stakes as being low. In fact, they see the stakes as being about their existence, which is sort of stratospheric. The way Iran is going under Ahmadinejad, they aren't far behind.
That might have something to do with the fact that Israel is the only nuclear power where not only the government, but the entire population and country are being regularly threatened with extinction. That and the fact that others have tried before and nearly succeeded.
I'd bet that focuses the mind somewhat.
This is a disingenuous analogy.
Biological weapons are an entirely different kettle of fish to nuclear or chemical weapons, which are very different to each other.
I wasn't discounting them, but I don't know enough about them except that their dispute is very complicated but also very localized (there are also deployment limits).
My point about about the stakes though is that both nations are microcosms. If either disappeared in nuclear fire tomorrow, we would grieve, but it would be a loss on such a scale as to be incomprehensible and we would also get over it. It would not be the end of human life as we know it. It wouldn't even be a significant end to civilization as we know it.
The US and USSR would have been. It is unlikely civilization could have continued as we know it, and the technological progress of the human species would be irreparably set back. There would be no overseas people to buy better technology from anymore.
This isn't really the case with these smaller nations.
Yes, they are.
But the analogy is about the effect, not the composition. The effect of nuclear power and strategy as it stands at the moment is that both sides (if nuclear powers) who engage in nuclear war end up suffering massive losses. The destruction is either uncontrollable or barely controlled by the number of weapons available. So: everyone dies.
That's a lot closer to the effect of the T-virus, whether it's chemical, biological, or anything else.
I still don't like it. The zombie virus is still not nuclear weapons, and is still not practical biological weapons.
All these things are grossely different to each other - deal with the subject matter at hand - it's comprehensible enough. The analogy is presumptuous of the audience's understanding and IMO irrelevant, since otherwise we get to spiral into a discussion of how zombie's aren't actually a particularly deadly threat until a script writer makes them one.
Whereas that 2.5km vaporization range is very real.
You really need to look into projections of where the world economy is going. India is hardly a minor nation, and for size it has a population equivalent to Russia, almost 4 times the size of the US and is likely to over-take China in somewhere in the second quarter of the century. That is also assuming that India and Pakistan can go to war without China (and to an extent, the US) becoming involved, which is far from a given considering the geopolitics of the region.
These are big players, and I think you're being a little Eurocentric in assuming that civilisation as we know it couldn't continue without the US / USSR, but civilisation as we know it (which is moving towards China / India) would continue with the small matter of the sub-continent being eliminated. Besides, the original statistic was a 10% chance of a child today dying early from nuclear war. With over 1.5 billion people involved, I think India / Pakistan would contribute significantly to that...
(Consider this comprehensible discussion of the subject at hand)
PS The T-virus analogy wasn't entirely serious, but the point was: unilateral Bad Things don't suddenly become multilateral Good Things because someone thinks it's unfair that only one person has one.
Pakistan doesn't have enough warheads to annihilate India, but enough to make it not worthwhile.
5 major cities won't get a government re-elected, but the world will continue.
The fear of a US/USSR conflict was that almost every major city would be annihilated, and as a result significant fallout contamination would spread across large parts of the globe.
By far the biggest issue would be the consequent annihilation of the major minds and institutions driving technological innovation of the 21st century though, and the presumed involvement of the NATO powers in any such exchange (which would complete the elimination of modern civilization - at least at the time).
China's modern foreign policy can be roughly summarized as "we just don't want it getting back to us" - which pretty thoroughly explains NK.
EDIT: Also "economic recession" and "end of civilization as we know it" are VERY different things. At the time a NATO/USSR conflict seemed plausible, the outcome would be the effective destruction of nearly every major manufacturing and research institution on the planet, not to mention the associated minds which represent their institutional knowledge and the poisoning the lands which supported them.
Losing India and Pakistan might screw up outsourcing and investment, but we would hardly lose institutional knowledge to any great degree. You would still be able to buy technology from other places, and we would still be able to rescue survivors with international effort. This is not a situation which a NATO/USSR conflict expected, because everybody was either dead or trying to just barely survive.
All of which is fine if you assume that the international power balance over the next half-century (life-time of a child born today) is going to stay exactly the same as it is today. Which, as the past half-century, or hell even the past week suggest, is not the smartest bet to make.
In other words: if India, Indonesia and China are 3 of the 4 upcoming powers of the 21 century (which pretty much everyone agrees they are) you'd be a fool not to acknowledge the potential for some kind of NATO / Warsaw Pact regional tensions evolving in Asia.
Maybe not but I've seen no reason to think that nuclear weapons are causing significant problems, or lack thereof would solve the ones we have. The Cold War may have fucked up the world, but it taught us how to live with WMDs and not annihilate ourselves - there's no putting that cat back in the bag. A world without nuclear weapons is just asking for someone to build some and hold the rest of us to ransom.
There are other ways that a nuke could be used also. A smaller regional conflict like you mentioned, a terrorist act, or a major nation just getting pissed off and deciding to show its might. Those add up in his calculations also. Granted, when I looked at his paper it seemed like there was a lot of guesswork involved by him.
Rigorous Scholarship
I like to think that every university with a physics department has a nuclear weapons program.
The tough part is refining the material needed for a bomb. The technology is pretty high tech and only comes from a few companies, which tend to be strictly monitored by various intelligence agencies.
The fear of nuclear terrorism is kind of overblown. Even the most troublesome countries like Iran, North Korea and Pakistan aren't eager to hand over their nukes to outsiders. Not least because they've only got a couple dozen nukes, at most. I'm sure terrorists tried to buy weapons from places in the former USSR. But, nukes don't have a very long shelf-life if you don't maintain them. They're full of volatile and decaying compounds and chemicals that need to be replaced often. I imagine Russian mobsters have sold terrorist groups "bombs" that were either something else (a Soviet era conventional torpedo, say) or that had long-since decayed to harmlessness.
Rigorous Scholarship
This I am aware of - it's why initiatives like nuclear disarmament between Russia and the US are a good idea if only from a cost-saving perspective. Huge stockpiles chew up a tonne of money in maintaining their readiness - which is the only point of having them. A nuke you can't launch is very quickly useless.
You'd have to admit though, that the specter of nuclear terrorism is pretty bad though. If one, improbable weapon were detonated on American soil, what would happen politically? 9/11 led to Afgahnistan (justified, and probably a decent idea) and Iraq (not justified, and hugely mismanaged at best).
It's pretty terrifying to think what might happen with a populace that had experience nuclear terrorism.
But, my office is about 2 blocks from the White House, so I'd have a pretty good chance of being vaporized in any such attack. Which is kind of good news/bad news for me, I guess.
Rigorous Scholarship
Quite possibly the most horrendously frightening television programme ever developed, much more haunting than most horror films could ever dream to be.
On the lighter side of things, up to 1998 UK nuclear bombs were armed with a tumbler lock, commonly seen on bike locks.
Even today, Vanguard submarine commanders can launch their nukes without authorisation from the government. Apparently this is a safeguard against rogue launches - it was seen that a prime minister authorising the launch of nukes without due cause was more likely than a sub captain doing so.
Wait, what? That doesn't make sense at all. They still have to launch if the prime minister orders them to do that, right? So all that does is add together the possibility that a prime minister OR a sub captain could make a stupid decision. Not to mention, there's a lot more sub captains than prime ministers.
In a practical sense, if any leader tells you to push the button, you always have the option not to though.
If things have gone to hell, it would generally be better if you didn't anyway.
Pinball parts to the Libyans?
The prime minister has to relay orders through the Chief of the Defence Staff, whose ultimate loyalty is to the commander-in-chief, the monarch. In addition the PM can fire the Chief of the Defence Staff, but not appoint a new one, which is the monarch's job.
Ooh that brings up something I've been thinking of for a while. It's the real problem I see with MAD. If you're the sub captain, and you're told that your country has just been nuked and we need to retaliate against the Russians or whoever, would you do it?
Me, personally, I don't think I would. Nuking them back wouldn't bring back the lives of everyone who has already died. It seems like just pointless vengeance, since most of the people in that country didn't cause the war and don't deserve to die.
But then, if the other side knows that you feel that way, they might just go ahead and launch a first strike, knowing that they're safe from retaliation. So , for MAD to work, you need to have military led by bloodthirsty assholes who really want to nuke the enemy, and are just looking for an excuse to do so. That's why I don't trust MAD as a solution for long-term safety.
The chances of a nuclear armaggedon are pretty low now. But some sort of regional nuclear war that kills some number of millions of people has become more likely since whackadoodle countries have started getting their own nukes. The governments of places like North Korea and Iran aren't rational actors to the same extent as the old Soviet politburo, or the Chinese leadership. Dealing with them during a crisis would be much more difficult.
This is an incredibly... simplistic... view. Nuclear sub captains are highly educated and have gone through numerous psychological and security checks to make sure they're pretty much the opposite of a "bloodthirsty asshole." But, they also take very seriously the notion of civilian control over the military and will not substitute their judgment for that of the President, except in extreme cases.
Rigorous Scholarship
Seriously... Can you imagine what it's like to be walking around with one of the keys that ends the world?
This thread is electrical. But I required a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 giga- *beep beep*
Look out!
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Way to miss the point. My point was that MAD doesn't work, the way it's currently structured. It requires a sort of lapse in logic to make it work.
But MAD does work....
I mean you'd have to be pretty much blind to the last 50 years of human history to claim otherwise.