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:
Poll: The Nuclear bomb and The hydrogen bomb
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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]
I don't really know if thats an accurate bow to draw though; in WWI, each side was convinced of their own superiority and strategy (Schliefen Plan etc.)verindae said:
Those armies were in fact, not deterrents at all. If anything, the large armies were a reason to fight. France, for example, had been itching for an excuse to snatch back Alsace-Lorraine since the Franco-Prussian conflict barely 30 years earlier.
In fact, Prussia's (specifically Bismarck's) unification of Germany and complex treaty and alliance system had bled the steam-release, regular conflict out of European society; the break before WWI had given the chance for every nation and it's wife to arm themselves up the wazoo, and they were all keen as mustard to test their new ways to kill people out in real battle.
Modern superpowers realise that a nuke, if it is theres, ours, or some other dudes, has just the same ability to fuck shit up, royally.
The key word is "terror". All that's needed to create terror is for some shit to blow up and kill a few people. Now you can do that with an IED that costs $50, or you can piss about with trying to buy radioactive stuff on the black market. The reason why 9/11 was so damn successful is that people got so obsessed about dirty bombs and all this other theoretical nonsense that they missed the incredibly low-budget attack happening right under their noses.Cowabungaa said:
Yeah, the dirty bomb leaves a residue and the effect lasts longer. That's not really important from the point of view of the people blowing shit up. They just want to blow some shit up, go to heaven and have sex with virgins. Adding the nuclear element is just a bunch of fucking about that gets in the way of the action. It's possible, but it's not convenient, and for a bunch of guys in caves making pistols with their bare hands, convenience is everything.
There is no logical reason for anyone to ever use a nuclear weapon ever.
We don't bomb civilians any more.
'But what if a terrorist gets one?'
What of it? Would we bomb his home country? Killing millions of innocents and risking global annihilation, probably not even killing the guy who bombed us.
Seriously, I don't think anyone hates the west enough to nuke it, and even if they did, there is no moral justification for killing innocents by way of revenge.
We don't bomb civilians any more.
'But what if a terrorist gets one?'
What of it? Would we bomb his home country? Killing millions of innocents and risking global annihilation, probably not even killing the guy who bombed us.
Seriously, I don't think anyone hates the west enough to nuke it, and even if they did, there is no moral justification for killing innocents by way of revenge.
Whilst it's fair and accurate to point out that the Triple Entente / Triple Alliance situation was a good deal more complicated than the supposed stalemate of 2 opposing forces, I was trying to convey a sense, admittedly by a somewhat inaccurate historical generalisation, that the M.A.D theory people have about nuclear weapons does not preclude their use.Armitage Shanks said:
If there's a better analogy to draw please point it out because I can't think of one for the life of me
