Yeah, I guess that would be, y'know, the best possible outcome. But it always ends up that people have to die, or at least be threatened, before people want to talk.Astoria said:
Poll: The Nuclear bomb and The hydrogen bomb
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would be nice if caps were put on nuclear development so that nuclear power may only be used as fuel, but every country should invest in anti missile defense systems and long range radar so that they may be able to react to an illegal nuke flying to their borders.
but if a nuke is detonated OVER a city, we would be fucked anyways, the EMP blast of a nuke going off in the sky would wipe out most of the U.S's computers and power grids, not to mention a dirty bomb fallout.
but if a nuke is detonated OVER a city, we would be fucked anyways, the EMP blast of a nuke going off in the sky would wipe out most of the U.S's computers and power grids, not to mention a dirty bomb fallout.
First World War: 2 vast opposing armies each acting as the others deterrent (specifically Britain, France and Russia opposing Germany and Austro-Hungary)Armitage Shanks said:
Today: Opposing nuclear arsenals each acting as a deterrent to others
I can't be the only one who noticed that parallel surely?
I would say that the problem is that the Nukes were invented in the first place. Like Oppenheimer said: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds". But since we don't have a time machine or a neuralizer, the damage is already done. Having seen what happened to Japan in 1945 I believe that (hopefully) the countries with nukes know what they're doing if they actually intend to start a nuke war. The lives of every human being in the world should not be in the hands of anyone, be it the president of the president of the Unites States or Kim Jong Il.
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Hear hear! I hope the leaders of the world have as much sense as you do BonsaiK.BonsaiK said:
And with those the invention of nuclear powerplants, which has starved off coal/oil use by many years and hopefully will give many more years of energy.Phenom828 said:
Nukes are an unfortunate weapon. It's massive destructive power that can be obtained relatively effortlessly. When I say that, I mean that if the US (or other superpower) needed a nuke immediately, they could most likely come up with one within 24 hours (assuming they had none in reserve).
It's possible to limit the number of nukes each nation has, but the science behind them will be around regardless of regulation. This isn't something we can suppress or destroy, it's something we will need to control. Nuclear deterrence is a fundamentally flawed reasoning. The world would be better off without nukes, but realistically it is something that we will have to deal with.
Nuclear power is probably the most significant hurdle the human race will face anytime soon.
It's possible to limit the number of nukes each nation has, but the science behind them will be around regardless of regulation. This isn't something we can suppress or destroy, it's something we will need to control. Nuclear deterrence is a fundamentally flawed reasoning. The world would be better off without nukes, but realistically it is something that we will have to deal with.
Nuclear power is probably the most significant hurdle the human race will face anytime soon.
You do realise for that to work, they'd need an unfeasable and unhidable number of nukes. Sure, you could hold the world to ransom but then you'd have the might of virtually every other country blowing you to shit. Trust me, it would be mutually assured destruction for them even if we didn't have nukes.Pararaptor said:
That and if they did fire they could say goodbye to their economy too since everybody else would just stop trading with them.
I think nuclear bombs bring peace because everyone is too scared of each other's bombs to attack them.
Yeah nuclear powerplants are really good to have around. Really, I mean, they provide clean electricity and have no emissions.Boris Goodenough said:
I only have 2 problems with it. 1) What do you do with the nuclear waste with a half-life of 40,000 years?
And 2) Uranium is a little[footnote] understatement[/footnote] more rare than oil, and breaking it is really difficult and dangerous. So it's quite possible we'll run out fuel for our nuclear plants before we run out of oil.
Anyway, sorry about the rant, this thread was about nuclear weapons...
Ideally noone should have nukes, they have no practical use because their destruction is beyond our grasp of things, not only do they cause unbelievable amounts of destruction they also poisons the environment for decades to come.
But people are not much more then mad rabid dogs, and the only way to keep peace is to have a growling standoff where noone has the upper hand and they all fear eachoters power.
And on that note USA trying to enforce a non-nuke worldwide law is laughable, because they only want others to stand down while pointing their guns at everyone, or better yet building a counter-nuke shield under their control to gain absolute dominance... this coming from the only country who is not shy on using nukes.
Luckily there are still countries out there that don't bend over and maintain the standoff, as we will need it until evolution sways out primitive side.
But people are not much more then mad rabid dogs, and the only way to keep peace is to have a growling standoff where noone has the upper hand and they all fear eachoters power.
And on that note USA trying to enforce a non-nuke worldwide law is laughable, because they only want others to stand down while pointing their guns at everyone, or better yet building a counter-nuke shield under their control to gain absolute dominance... this coming from the only country who is not shy on using nukes.
Luckily there are still countries out there that don't bend over and maintain the standoff, as we will need it until evolution sways out primitive side.
I'd say "dirty bombs" are still very attractive for terrorists. You only need a small amount of radioactive material (which probably isn't that hard to get on the black market) and probably a lot less technical expertise. Sure it doesn't have the kaboom a proper nuke has, but the sole purpose of it ain't so much blowing something up but rather irradiating a certain area. Might not be enough to create The Zone or anything, but you bet your ass a huge area getting evacuated, quarantined and cleaned by scary people in hazmat suits is going to make an impression.BonsaiK said:
As for the rest, yeah, you're right, they're pretty worthless nowadays.
I doubt dirty bombs will ever be used by terror cells, I don't see why they would go to the hassle. Getting hold of radioactive material is either expensive, a pain in the ass, or both. Storing it until it's time to use it is a real *****. Terrorists probably couldn't be bothered, a conventional bomb that just sends bits of shrapnel everywhere has essentially the same net "terror" effect and is a hell of a lot easier to smuggle to wherever you want to detonate it.Cowabungaa said:
I see other people have attempted to explain the concept of "MAD"(that's mutually assured destruction) to you, but I'm going to try again anyway.e2density said:
The Cold War stayed a cold war BECAUSE of nukes. If we didn't have them, it's likely that conventional war between Russia and the US would have broken out, resulting in massive casualties for both sides. Instead, because we both had nukes, no one wanted to strike first, for fear of nuclear retaliation. Therefore, nuclear bombs prevented war, and saved countless lives.
But, yeah, just go ahead and replace all that with "errbody needs nukes NAOW" if that's easier for you. It's basically the same idea, right?
It doesn't matter if a country has nucular weapons or not it didn't stop argentina *a country without nukes* invading the falkland islands which belong to the UK *a nation with nucular weapons* what made the argentine goverment shit their collevtive pants at the time was flying a long range bomber over the country itself and blowing up Argentina's main battle ship with one of our submarines. At the end of the day my nations nukes will sit and gather dust for years to come thanks to our no strike first policy.
The development of much more destructive weapons have ensured that wars have become a rarity. Imagine if the carnages of WW1 and WW2 with conventional weapons had continued today. Imagine the amount of resources we would pool into the pointless venture.
Nukes might seem bad, but they've prevented much more evil than they have caused.
Nukes might seem bad, but they've prevented much more evil than they have caused.
Of course sharpnel doesn't have the same net effect. Thing with radiation is that it lasts and the clean up will leave a humongous impact on the people not to mention the psychological impact it has compared to your average bomb, not everyone can make the distinction between a dirty bomb and a proper nuke. Say you detonate a regular bomb in a vital business center of a country. It's impact will only last a short while. The damage is quickly repared and a relatively small area is affected (unless you make a plane topple a huge skyscraper). Say you detonate a dirty bomb in the same business center and you've pretty much shut it down for a good while.BonsaiK said:
I doubt that for the really high echelon terrorist groups getting and storing relatively light radioactive material is that difficult. Again, you won't see a Chernobyle-like disaster, but terrorists don't need that anyway. It's taken seriously to boot. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb#Possibility_of_terrorist_groups_using_dirty_bombs]