Labs Compete to Build New Nuclear Bomb 949
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that two labs are currently competing to design the first new nuclear bomb in twenty years. The new bomb was approved as a part of the 2006 defense spending bill. From the article: 'Proponents of the project say the U.S. would lose its so-called "strategic deterrent" unless it replaces its aging arsenal of about 6,000 bombs, which will become potentially unreliable within 15 years. A new, more reliable weapon, they say, would help the nation reduce its stockpile.'"
Re:Strangelove (Score:1, Interesting)
It seems like we're been getting a lot more comments referencing Dr Strangelove [amazon.com] in the last few stories that even remotely deal with human annihilation. Who would have thought that this quaint Cold War comedy would become so popular on a "News for Nerds" site where everyone is interested in the cutting edge of new technology.
fate of the old nukes? (Score:2, Interesting)
This leads me to two questions. Forgive me if they're stupid, but:
(1) what happens when a bomb becomes "unreliable"?
and
(2) how will the existing/"old" bombs be disposed of?
Re:I wonder who is the target (Score:3, Interesting)
Only thinking about today's threats is a shortsighted way to run your military, we've already paid a price for not thinking beyond the USSR. There isn't another superpower around today, but what about 20 years from now?
Having 6000 nuclear bombs does not mean you are going to use 6000 nuclear bombs. Its about survivability. The more bombs you have, and the more spread out they are, the less likely it is than an enemy can neutralize them all in a preemptive strike. You can destroy every inch of the continental US, but some submarine somewhere is going to make you pay.
Simply having nuclear weapons is not an effective deterrent in itself. Having many of them, in so many locations that you couldn't possibly destroy them all before being destroyed yourself, is a great deterrent. Mutually Assured Destruction, if you nuke the United States, you will be annihilated. It won't work on someone who is willing to sacrifice his entire country and all of his people (potentially Iran), but it'll work on everyone else.
Yes and no (Score:5, Interesting)
But it gets better. Instead of U-238, you can surround the fusion stage with "salt", a non-radioactive isotope that is transmuted into a highly radioactive isotope from the resulting neutron bombardment. The most infamous candidate is Cobalt-59. In a fission-fusion-fission bomb with the last "fission" stage omitted and a Cobalt-59 jacket substituted, the neutron flux will turn most of it into Cobalt-60 and the blast will scatter it across the land. Cobalt-60 is very unique, in that it puts out enough gamma rays to be very lethal (as in you *will* die if exposed to it for longer than a month or so. Not die as in die of cancer 20 years from now--you'll succumb to radiation poisoning), yet it has a relatively long half-life--around five years.
In another thread someone joked that nuclear weapons were passe--that we should be moving on to antimatter or something. Trust me, nuclear is quite scary enough. Depending on the wind conditions, a single bomb could quite literally destroy all life on the east coast of the USA. Make no mistake about it, if we really wanted to we could build enough Cobalt bombs to destroy all life on the planet. We take comfort in the fact that we're not crazy enough to do something like that, but I am not entirely convinced that Iran is similarly sane. MAD (Mutually Assured Distruction) worked against the relatively rational, aetheistic Soviets... but now we're up against cultures and ideologies that glorify martyrdom and kamikaze attacks to a ridiculous degree. I'm really not sure what's going to happen, but I feel most people in this country have become far to complacent, far too comfortable with the idea of nuclear weapons that everyone has but no one uses.
Let me hasten to say that on the other end of the spectrum are the retards who become hysterical every time the word "radiation" or "nuclear" is mentioned (fun fact--a single coal power plant pumps more radioactive particles into our atmosphere and water supply in a year than the three mile island accident), but we shouldn't forget that in the wrong hands, these weapons have very real potential as doomsday devices.
WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
The United States should be more focused on fighting 'conventional' (specifically urban and desert) warfare than nuclear warfare. The fact that there is currently no superpower poised to take over the world makes these relics of the Cold War era obsolete both in technology and in practice. They simply aren't needed. If even half of the USA nuclear stockpile were to be dismantled tomorrow, there would still be more than enough deterrent to wipe out any prospective enemy that might arise in the foreseeable future. As it stands, America has the power to blow most all countries on the planet to kingdom come and have some left over for the Martians, too.
Nuclear weapons have their purpose, but to have so many is insane. Deterrence is fine; Hell, even tactical nuclear weapons are fine, but why so many? And why bother researching more into the subject? The only possible plus I can see to research into new nuclear weaponry is to reduce the amount of radioactivity left over from the blast (or to increase the rate at which it dissipates or decays). Aside from that, it's still just new technology to do the same thing.
I say that if keeping the stockpile is that important, then just dismantle the ones that are ready to fall apart, and upgrade/repair the newer ones. Saves a lot of time, effort, and money.
Nuke design's not physics, its COMP-SCI 'surety' ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Really.
A W87 warhead (our last and greatest warhead from 1987), is a bitch to open and reservice the tritium. That part should have been made a tad easier, but opening a warhead is MEANT to be a monumental puzzle. tritiums half life is short enough that the damned things are useless without recharge after 15 or so years.
In fact... to set off a nuke (w87) its mainly designed to mistrust rogue theft even if using really clever computer hackers.
If you DO MANAGE to get all three launching keys (15 digits total) (Class-F its called I believe) (one key is merely in-flight key, or vessel key)
it cannot be detonated by lightning, fire, or explosive shock, however it can disintegrate itself if casing compromised or tampering detected. The explosive used in the fission component of the bomb (fission-fusion design obviously) is a special newer type of explosive resistant to fire, and lightning, but before critical temperatures can be reached the bomb immolates itself to destroy most components, though the housing will rupture and the "enriched goodies" could be harvested and utilized in a new-from-scratch weapon
To detonate :
It needs to be spinning about its central axis at a specific range of RPMS to detonate.
It needs to be increasing barometric pressure to detonate (simulating descent trajectory).
It needs to sense a specific airspeed flowing past the w87 warhead.
It needs to armed (yield set, keys set, timers set) a certain amount of time to detonate.
Its casing monitor needs to not detect atmospheric oxygen within (evidence of tampering) though pure nitrogen used in drilling entry could thwart that single test.
It needs to not sense large amounts of magnetic "ferrous" material nearby (unconfirmed).
All circuitry boards (three or so, totally uncoupled) need to pass tamper checks of runtime code on firmware, and some other paltry stuff.
There are a few other clever sensors in it.
But nuke design of ultra high tech SDAMS (small micro nukes similar to w87, but with negligible fusion litium payload) is all about SURETY, not physics.
Physics was completed and reached state of the art in late 1980s.
Everything about SDAMS and generic multiple warhead ballistic W87 design is anout anti-computer hacking. ALL OF THE HARD STUFF is about how to make it impossible for even an expert from being able to hack one up and use it in a non-ballistic manner.
SDAMS are even more of a bitch as they are Abrams "tank shell" style weapons used for all manner of non ballistic purposes, including dam-busting, bunker busting, building demolition, etc.
SDAMS are slated for use in upcoming invasion of Iran to get at the enrichment centers that are all 600 feet underground (no daisy-cutter or modern MOAB can cause harm at 600 feet deep, only a SDAM or reduced yield w87.
But SDAMS have no axis spin to thwart, have no barometric pressure to thwart, have no restriction on detecting ferrous metal in environment, have no airspeed safety... in fact an SDAM has so few safety mechanisms, its practically a terrorist weapon in an of itself in my opinion. and of course it fits neatly inside a classy looking anodized metallic Zero-Halberton brief case.
The fed program want surety design... not physics design. They want DRM. DRM for nuke logic boards. And Even the xbox360 was hacked in a week.
I am shocked that the posts here do not realize this fact at the time I posted this.
Re:Not a true increase in stockpile (Score:3, Interesting)
Thats just not possible, not for any nuclear yield anyway. Its possible to destroy them and explode the high explosive charge and spread radioactive debris around but you just cannot set one off properly without a certain sequence of events with very precise timing and order.
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally, the stability of the US government is much greater [fundforpeace.org] than that of Iran.,/p>
Interesting list, I notice all the states in the green (best) section of the list do NOT have nuclear weapons.
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:4, Interesting)
If you wonder why Iran mistrusts the US, look up the US's role in the ouster of Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah. How would the US feel about a foreign country that had supported a coup to replace your elected president with a dictatorial monarch? (Not that there's much difference at the moment, but that's a different flame war).
Re:Nuke design's not physics, its COMP-SCI 'surety (Score:1, Interesting)
The physics of the task aren't in the bomb's favor. If you've got a bunker X feet underground and the US develops a bomb that can destroy it at that depth, then the solution for the enemy is to dig a very slightly deeper bunker. The relation between bomb yield and vulnerable depth isn't linear. Furthermore, if the enemy was vaguely smart and dug its bunker in solid rock, the warhead won't be able to burrow very deeply before exploding, further reducing its usefulness. (If you really want to destroy a deeply buried targed, put a drill rig on top of it, then drop the bomb down the hole. That might, however, be messy if, say, Iran objects to you drilling in to its bunker.)
The only thing that makes sense to me is that the US wants these bombs because they'll be easier to use, and that's only desirable if the US wants to use them. The public rationalizations and arguments behind these weapons don't make sense to me in any other context, and many of them don't seem to make sense at all. These weapons aren't for making the world safer; they're for starting a nuclear war.
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:5, Interesting)
After 9/11, Pakistan freaked out and began to lock the locks on their nuclear arsenal. A year afterward, reports that Pakistan had been helping North Korea develop nuclear weapons comes out. In international speak this says, 'we are unstable (we have security concerns regarding our nuclear arsenal), we crave war (peaceful nations don't share nuclear secrets with countries that are technically still at war) and we still have not taken steps to prevent a nuclear exchange despite these serious concerns (they're fighting a grudge that has lasted for half a century, armed with nukes and bedding with known terrorist groups.)'
India is just as bad. Pakistan border both Afghanistan AND Iran, two of the most unfriendly nations currently (remember all those reports about Al Qaeda reportedly escaping into India through the mountains?), so India is paranoid of the radicals/terrorists/refugees that have recently come into Pakistan. If the reports about Pakistan helping North Korea develop nuclear weapons is true, this could set nuclear talks back DECADES. In international speak this says, 'we are paranoid of Pakistan launching a first strike/pre-emptive attack against us (Pakistan has fewer nukes so they would want to do this to minimize damage in a nuclear counter-attack), we believe Pakistan is socially and politically unstable due to recent events (U.S. invasion of Afghanistan) and we do not believe that the international community would come to our aid in a serious confrontation (the U.N. is still in a pissing match against the U.S. for invading Iraq, North Korea has everyone second-guessing their intelligence agencies to avoid another "Iraq has WMDs!" fiasco and Iran has everyone kicking the crap out of each other trying to figure out what to do without losing their precious oil/without military action/without having the U.S. go off on its own again).
Re:I wonder who is the target (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, right. Tell that to Saddam Hussein.
I'm not going to bother digging out the links, but take a few minutes to google "petrodollar" and "petroeuro" and read up on it. Notice what happens to countries that consider selling oil for something other than dollars. Iraq--invasion on trumped up charges. Venezuela--attempted coup with US backing. Iran?
"the US maintains its stockpiles of nuclear weapons solely to serve as a deterrent against other nations, while Iran's leadership has publicly and repeatedly declared that Israel should not exist as a state and has funded terrorist acts in order to remove it - it may very well use nuclear weapons in a first-strike effort against Israel [...]"
Oh, "we've got that bomb and that is good 'cause we love peace and motherhood?" [aol.com]
Iran's Ayatollah Khameini has explicitly stated that using nuclear weapons is against Islamic rules. [juancole.com] Believe him or not, but remember that the US has explicitly stated that "all options are on the table" and has not explicitly ruled out a nuclear first strike.
Well, one good thing, though. The United States of America has never funded terrorists [wikipedia.org]. We fund "freedom fighters." Big difference.
"And for a third, Iran's government maintains a stranglehold over its people - the people are fairly Westernized as the region goes, and they are interested in legitimate democracy. [...] Finally, the stability of the US government is much greater than that of Iran. The chances of Iran's government collapsing at some point in the future, relegating their nuclear weapons to whoever can get their hands on them first, are significant."
Okay, okay. Now I'm a bit confused.
The reason the current leaders of Iran are in power is because of their stranglehold over their citizens. If it were up to their citizens, they'd throw the bums out and have a legitimate democracy. So, in other words, the biggest threat to "stability" in Iran is...the forces of democracy? And these people might get ahold of nuclear weapons?
Parable... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:fission to fusion (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm, no. A fusion bomb is called a staged thermonuclear weapon. It uses a plutonium trigger to ignite a fusion reaction. The yield of the weapon is adjusted by manipulating the amount of deuterium injected into the weapons core milliseconds before the trigger is set off. It is in reality a fission bomb augmented with fusible hydrogen.
Fission bombs typically yield in the kilo-ton range. They produce fallout of radioactive decay products (radioactive strontium, iodine, etc) and unspent plutonium. They also create what is known as an electro-magnetic pulse which is deadly to computers and electronics.
H-bombs are every bit as dirty as fission bombs. They yield in the mega-ton range. As they are souped-up fission bombs, they have similar fall-out. As the fusion reaction is much more energetic than a fission reaction, there are even worse effects. If the H-bomb hits the ground, ordinary materials- dirt, bricks, motor, etc- is irradiated causing even more problems. The gamma-flash of an h-bomb will kill any exposed persons for a radius of many miles. The optical flash will blind anyone looking in its direction for 10s of miles. EMP effects from H-bombs are equally impressive creating massive power, electronic and computer disruptions.
The biggest h-bomb ever set off was ~50 megatons by the Russians on a small island off Kamchatka. That particular bomb could theoretically yield as much as 100 megatons. They toned it down for testing purposes.
There was a big difference in the design philosophy between nukes of the US and USSR. American missile technology was much more precise than the Soviets with the early ICBMs so the US made smaller, cleaner warheads. The Soviets on the other hand designed their nukes for the biggest possible bang. Although Soviet missile accuracy improved in the late 70s and 80s, their warheads were essentially the same- big, honking H-bombs.
Another type of nuke was designed in the 70s called a neutron warhead. It was designed not for its explosive potential but the ability to cause a deadly pulse of radiation which would kill all humans (I've always wanted to work that into a conversation somehow.) who aren't in hardened shelters. This is a very "clean" but ghoulish weapon designed in anticipation of a super-power conflict in Europe. [Since Europeans were tired of being bombed flat, I suppose being zapped like a frog in a microwave was an easier sell.]
As an old Cold Warrior era fossil, I hate nukes. They suck in every conceivable way. They are NOT a warrior's weapon. They are weapons of indiscriminate murder killing warrior and innocent alike. Their cost is obscene considering all the other uses that money could be put too.
IMHO there is no such thing as a good nuke, only the ones necessary to make retaliation to an attack suicidal.
It seems reasonable that another redesign would try to produce more efficient fusion bombs
The nukes that are being considered are small: 20-60 kilotons. NOT fusion weapons. They are essentially bunker busters on steroids.
which is only a good thing.
I don't think it's a good thing at all. Creating a small, battlefield nuke makes using one more likely.
Nukes aren't battlefield weapons. They are political weapons. Using one could start a chain reaction that no one could possibly predict.
Thermonuclear weapons 101 (Score:4, Interesting)
There are essentially two nuclear bombs within a thermonuclear weapon. There is a fission bomb and a fusion bomb. The fission bomb is needed to detonate the fusion part.
The fission part, at one end of the bomb casing, consists of an initiator (neutron generator), a sphere of fissile material (plutonium), and a neutron reflector (IIRC, natural uranium tamper) all wrapped in a spherical set of explosive lenses. The entire fission device is a sphere. The fusion part is behind a radiation shield, and is cylindrical. Coming through this shield is an enriched uranium "spark plug" that goes from the fission bomb and up the centre of the cylinder of fusion fuel. The fusion fuel is a solid fuel - lithium deuteride.
Around this cylinder of fusion fuel is a natural uranium tamper. Then there is a layer of polystrene, and the bomb casing. So essentially you have a cylinder that consists of bomb casing, polystyrene, natural uranium tamper, lithium deuteride and the highly enriched uranium 'spark plug'.
The sequence of events in detonation is that the explosive lenses are detonated around the fission first stage. This causes the contents of the spherical fission stage to implode - increasing the density of the fission bomb. When it is assembled into a critical mass, the initiator is fired, which fires neutrons into this highly compressed mass of plutonium. It starts to fission. The goal of the design is to keep this mass assembled for as long as possible - the longer you can keep the critical mass assemble before the nuclear reaction blows it apart, the better the efficiency.
The fission bomb is now emitting a significant amount of prompt radiation. Most of this won't reach the fusion part just yet because of the radiation shield. However, X-rays are now vaporizing the polystyrene wrapping the cylinder of fusion fuel. This enormously compresses the tamper, the lithium deuteride and the spark plug into a tiny fraction of its original volume. At the same time, the spark plug starts fissioning. Basically, a bomb the size of the Nagasaki bomb is being used to crush this cylinder of fusion fuel. The fusion reaction starts taking place. Again, the bomb is designed to keep all this stuff assembled for long enough that a significant fusion reaction can occur - and this time is measured in tens of nanoseconds. Finally, the fusion reaction's energy starts the natural uranium tamper fissioning - the third stage - adding yet more power to the explosion.
All this has to be exquisitely timed or you just spread some radioactive material around rather than start a nuclear reaction. If one of the explosive lenses in the fission device explodes a couple of nanoseconds late, the bomb won't go off.
Eventually (eventually, as I said, is measured in nanoseconds) the energy liberated starts to disassemble the bomb, and the reaction completes. By the time the bomb casing has started to break apart, the nuclear reaction has finished.
As you can see, there are several stages to this reaction. Any fault in the bomb will mean it either won't detonate at all or will "fizzle" (in this instance, a "fizzle" means only enough energy to blow up, say, Long Island). Various components in the bomb degrade - the electronics, the explosives and the plastics. If any degrade sufficiently it's likely the bomb simply won't go off at all.
Re:Nuke bunker busting depth - and heat (Score:1, Interesting)
600 feet is indeed hard to penetrate even with a low yield configured w87 or a SDAM, and only devastated by a genuine 1 Mt EPW.
Heat increases 5 degrees Fahrenheit every hundred feet in most mining.
600 feet could be as hot as 30 degree warmer than topside.... barely tolerable heat on equipment (capacitors on circuit boards) and human personell, but such situations are airconditioned.
a crater is formed if the fireball is within 1/10th of its radius above ground. No need to penetrate the earth, though effectivity does increase dramatically if as close as possible, and infact if a few meters into the earth. Our current earth-penetrating weapon (EPW) is a W83 warhead in a modern EPW delivery mechanism that can burrow a few meters into the ground before it explodes. In fact, the physical effect is astonishing. Penetration of a few meters increases the underground destructive effects by more than a factor of twenty.
2,000 % more destructive yield.
Amusingly... a 1.2 megaton B83 in its EPW delivery shell can crush underground bunkers to a depth of about 1000 feet.
Notice that a 1.2 megaton burst obviously does very little to military grade extreme depth bunkers!
A micro nuke SDAM is 1Kt to 8 kt and designed to burn clean.
Here is a photo of the fury of a mere 8 kiloton explosion (placed below waterlevel)
http://www.vce.com/cgi-bin/Images/AtomicArt/umbre
stunning... eh?
but 8kt would barely cause true damage to properly designed installation 600 feet below surface.
But any yield can be configured. Any yield is possible in hbombs, is all based on how much lithium-6 deuteride is placed at the other end of the foam spacer-shaper on the side opposing the fission core primer..
Imagin a yield of 64.0 kt per kg of lithium-6 deuteride !!!
fission of ANY material known is less than 17.8 kt per kg. Fusion is pretty sweet! For tinier masses, dusion of pure deuterium yields 82.2 kt/kg, but costs more for the materials.
Imagine.. a true SDAM is possible to be in briefcase configured with up to 400 kt yield... but never is designed for that or configured as such, nor trusted in a human ported format.
For all the fury and power of "small nukes" in pretty explosive photos such as the link i provided above of a 0.008 megaton blast... 0.008 megatons would rock a bunker but not devastate the hardware within.
The amount of heat-exchange for air conditioning (typically using covert heat exchange coils buried close to surface) would be huge if tunneling deeper than 600 feet.
The side of a granite mountain reduces the heat issue of regular mining depth, but increases creation costs greatly too.
600 feet is actually infuriating... its a pesky "Ha Ha Ha" to anyone who wants to attack it.
But Iran WILL eventually be dealt with. Despite it being 10 times mightier than Iraq. The reason... the USA is foolishly on Israels side of this unwinnable Jihad.
In fact 911 was 100% caused only due to us hardware (US helicopters flown by israel) used in weekly mass murders in paestine in July and August of 2001. There would have been no war if we were not pals with Israel, or at a minimum... gave them money to buy non-USA military hardware.
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:1, Interesting)
It's simplistic and self-fulfilling to point out Western hypocrisy as a reason why the West shouldn't dissuade Iran from going down the nuclear path. But sometimes in life, one has to engage in hypocrisy for everyone's good. The world does not need any more nuclear weapons than already exist, and anything we can do to dwindle the current amount is a good thing.
Stopping the increase in nuclear weapons stockpiles has its petty and cynical political justifications, but at heart, it's for the best. Because life and the planet are what is truly at stake, not the nations of America, Iran, Europe, and Russia.
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't make fun of rednecks to feel better about myself (I feel fine, thank you, I don't need to measure my self-worth against anyone else), I make fun of them because they deserve to be made fun of. That whole "culture" is about being proud of being an ignorant fool. It's about preferring "likable" over "competent". It's when being perceived as a good guy by others (going to church, putting flags everywhere, ...) becomes more important than actually being a good guy. This behaviour is certainly not exclusive to Americans, it's just that's it's so incredibly obvious in their case.
You're right that there are a lot of people around the world who like the US, but there are not a lot of people who like how the US behaves itself in the world.
You're not American, yet you claim that the average citizen in your country is more concerned about criticizing the US than about their own issues ? Where do you live ?
Lotsa gotchas!: Count 'em: (Score:4, Interesting)
Excuse me if I'm cynical, but couldnt this just be another way of keeping the bomb-builders employed and busy? Isnt there something more useful they could be doing, like fusion research?
Re:So now it's official (Score:4, Interesting)
If you think of everything in a modern day perspective, then it easy to find fault with most things that every country has done. We can rant 'n rave about how bad nuclear weapons are, because they are; we have 60 years of hindsight to teach us why. Someone, and by some I'm referring to the political and military leadership in the 1940's, that had never seen the destruction wrought by an atomic bomb would have a difficult time comprehending its power.
Unfortunately, the past is unchangeable. If you'd don't want the US to have nuclear weapons, then get involved with your government, write your congressmen, start a movement. Do something about it!
Or, you could just make jokes or bitch about it on
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:2, Interesting)
Just because the UN has lofty goals, doesn't mean it is an effective institution. Lets not forget that China was sitting with veto powers in the Security Council during the Tiananmen Square massacre. The UN is a nice idea, but it is structured to avoid offending anyone, so when anything serious happens, the UN sits on it's hands until it's all over.
Re:Remember Iran: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, getting little things like "facts" wrong tends to be a common theme amongst those who take pleasure in blaming the US for everything.
Incorrectly stating a date is not "facts", it's details. When it happened is not relevant to this debate. But I'm not defending someone elses post, nor should it be valid critism of the central point here.
The UK came up with the plan and pursued it, the US agreed to assist. So why, pray tell, is the US the country being blamed?
Who said the UK wasn't to blame? It was the UKs idea but "agreed to assist" grossly downplays the USA's involvement. The CIA did most of the work, managed by Americans.
Ofcourse, the revisionist historians who see this as some blatant power-grab, or the removal of a "democratic" regime for political purposes, all fail to acknowledge the realities of that time period.
How much hypocracy can you get in one sentance? You refer to the time period (start of the cold war); how could this be anything other than a "power grab"? It's a power grab if the soviets take the country and it's exactly the same when you do it. The entire cold war was one big power grab; the later invention of the ICBM changed all that of course. Back then, power was territory. Turkey, Afganistan, Cuba, they all had conflicts due to these cold war power grabs. They also had short-range missles stationed on them, pointing at the enemy. But hey, the US had the Iranian peoples best interest in mind all along, right?
Back then Global Communism under a totalitarian USSR was much more threatening and terrifying than the prospect of a Global Islamist Caliphate is today.
Bull. This is before the legacy of Stalin. Prior to that asshat, there was no reason to fear Communism. The fact that you capitalise "Global Communism" suggests that you disagree with me on this for ideological reasons. If Stalin wanted to promote Communism, he'd have been better off never being born!
By the way, there is no threat of a "Global Islamist Caliphate". Never was. All we have here is a bunch of people screaming "get out of my country" then after 40 years of that some fly some planes into some buildings. They have no desire to take over the world. They don't want the whole world to be islamic (well, a couple do, but we have our own Christian equivalents in Fallwell etc). Their goals are clear and stated every other month. Get out of the middle east. Stop dicking around with their goverments. Stop supporting repressive brutal dictatorships. Never once have I seen Al Qaida say "global islam" or anything along those lines.
A revolution in an Iran increasingly leaning towards communism (and sharing a border with the USSR) was a logical way to avoid more intense warfare later on. And, as history shows, NATO nations won the Cold War without having to fight much.
Complete conjecture. Would Iran being communist be any worse than the current state of affairs? Without a time machine we cannot answer that. I'd argue that the cold war turning into real war was always unlikely, due to the M.A.D. brought about by the nukes. The 1953 revolution in Iran is largely responsible for the anti-US feeling over there. It could be argued that the majority of terror has roots in this event.
As for the rest of your nonsense, the time for diplomacy in Iraq came and passed in the 1990's. Sadam survived one war, years of inspections and negotiations, followed by years of sanctions. Negotiating any more at that point was sheer lunacy.
No, thinking that invading was an improvement was lunacy. I'll argree that the situation was pretty dire over there with Saddam in charge. But I'd like to see anyone make a convincing argument that the current situation is better. Or that it will be better in five years. You do realise that we are now there forever? We have built 15 or so permament bases. Most of the US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia (long term deterent stationing) have been moved to Iraq. And the his
Re:Bear in mind... (Score:3, Interesting)
As I understand it, their logic is:
US has nukes, ergo the US is bad. More nukes, more bad.
But nukes in the hands of an unstable middle eastern state = (somehow) justifiable comeuppance for that nasty USA?
Teh?
Humanity has been struggling to develop, as fast as possible, better and more efficient ways of killing each other NONSTOP since they figured out tool use. To suggest that somehow we're now suddenly 'enlightened' enough to stop doing this is either a staggering level of naivete or (more probably) an overoptimistic judgment of how much more 'advanced' we are than our Cro-Magnon ancestors.
War is FOR KEEPS. There are no 'reset' buttons, no 'extra games', and no 'do over'. War is (now) about murdering another state's people until that state either collapses or does what you want. That's horrible, that's barbaric, and in some cases it IS regrettably necessary (and you can argue about varying levels of who decides what's 'necessary', of course). But the fact remains that when you fight a war, you want to cause as little harm to your own people, generally by causing the maximum harm to the enemy. [As a side argument, the US *did* use nukes on Japan for precisely this simple reason: we had them, we could use them, and there were reasonable arguments that it might end the war, so we did. End of story, morally. Some might say that the casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed to prevent the much greater general slaughter of an invasion of the Home Islands. Some others might say 'better two Jap cities than 1 battalion of US soldiers'. Whatever your justification, we DID use them, they DID end the war almost immediately. To ignore that and then cry about the US being the only country to use nukes is nothing but political disingenuity.]
So when you're talking about nuclear weapons, there is no 'fair'. It's not sandlot baseball, where if only your team has gloves, it's only 'fair' that you either play without or share with the other team. If you can keep something like this devastating technology limited (prefereably to yourself; failing that, to your friends; failing that to your friends and enemies with whom you have an 'understanding'), that's an unalloyed 'good'. We're not talking about 'fair', merely 'good'.
As a wise man once said "If you're in a fair fight, your tactics suck."
If you feel morally repelled by the idea that "we" have something that "they" don't, I can only breathe a sigh of relief that you have utterly no policy-making responsibility. Again, we're not talking candy, comic books, or toys - we're talking about the capability of killing each other. I can trust me. I have no problem if I have a gun and you don't, because I know I'm only going to use it as a last resort. Now yes, this may give YOU an incentive to get your own gun - and me a very good reason to prevent you. The question is of course, how badly do I want to prevent you getting one? Between two people with complex motivations and history, this model is hard enough; between two states with an antagonistic history and a propensity toward violence? It's a complicated problem whose variables are approaching the infinite.
Now, consequently, let me point out that I certainly don't feel that Iran has any MORAL obligation not to seek nuclear weapons. It IS hypocritical for the US to take some injured tone about Iran, but I suppose simply saying baldly "Yes, we have them, and we don't want anyone ELSE to have them if we can help it," is just entirely too Realpolitik for your average civilian (particularly for the pantywaists that see geopolitics as some sort of theory exercise or amusing game).
(Likewise, we are under no moral requirement to allow them to develop same, however.) As a signatory of the NNPT, the ethical thing would have been for them to simply withdraw (there is a mechanism for that). They are only
Re:Not a true increase in stockpile (Score:2, Interesting)
It's a dishonest offer because he's an Islamist nutjob who wants to annihilate the Great Satan (also known as Modern Civilization) because of some divine inspiration that he received from the Quran, or from his ass. Nuclear weapons are very much needed in this world, and I don't see how the situation will ever change. If nobody stops Iran from acquiring nuclear capability, then somebody is going to get nuked.
Get people arguing about the wrong thing (Score:3, Interesting)
The administration was afraid sanctions would (continue to) unravel, were afraid of an incident in the no-fly zone if the Iraqis, after hundreds of failed attempts, shot down an American pilot, and the administration took a terrifyingly uninhibited interpretation of the previous administration's "regime change" policy. A few people articulating a vision of a domino theory of democracy to reshape the Middle East.
The war was not about WMD.
Wolfowitz let this slip in July 2003: '"I'm not concerned about weapons of mass destruction," Wolfowitz told a group of reporters traveling with him. "I'm concerned about getting Iraq on its feet. I didn't come (to Iraq) on a search for weapons of mass destruction." ' and ' "the decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons...." '
The mindshare taken up by debate over WMD keeps people's eyes off the ball.