Nuclear Weapons

N

ninjafreak89

New Member
I start this topic today to see if someone can answer my question and to see what people think. I have heard that the entire world has enough nuclear bombs to blow up the world seven times over. Why do we continue to build such weapons when we can only blow the world up once? Tax payers money is being spend on weapons that will lead to end of the world when actually nuclear weapons should be limited to the bare minimum or not at all. What does humankind gain from building bombs that can kill every single being on the planet and that end up being stored away?

(This may be an overrated topic and/ or over used but please reply any thoughts you may have. Thank you.)
 
I'm pretty sure the United States is not building any more nuclear weapons and haven't been for awhile. The US is actually downgrading the number of Nuclear weapins we have, and the only reason to build a new warhead would be to replace and outdated warhead already in service.

In theory though, we are able to build 1 bomb that would destroy the entire planet because of the amount of force plus fallout leading to nuclear winters.... but nobody has done it yet.
 
Russia follows US in small nukes plan. 03/10/2003. ABC News Online


Russia Follows US in Small Nukes Plan - Kyodo News


Russia has announced it will consider the restricted use of small nuclear weapons to deal with regional conflicts and international terrorism in the future.

Russia's Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, has submitted a revised doctrine to President Vladimir Putin, outlining the plans for modernising the country's military force.

Observers say the Russian plan to use small nuclear arms mirrors the United States' declared strategy of being prepared to deploy its own low-yield nuclear weapons in a restricted way.

Since the September 11 attacks, the US has been conducting research and development of so-called mini-nukes, aimed at destroying underground facilities of terrorist groups.

A Russian military doctrine announced in 2000 also spelled out Moscow's assumed right to the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons.

--Kyodo
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Comment on article: Russia follows US in small nukes plan

by Steven Starr, October 3, 2003


This is another significant step towards nuclear proliferation and nuclear war, with the US again leading the way.

The Bush administration has attempted to portray the so-called mini-nukes as a quasi-conventional weapon that can be used without the danger of massive radioactive fallout. This is a deliberate lie, because even a 0.1 kT weapon must be detonated several hundred feet below ground to contain the blast. There is simply no way to do this; the warhead will detonate less than 100 feet below the surface of the target and create a very radioactive cloud which will kill anything that it comes in contact with.

Yet the US Congress and media have gone along with the development of these weapons, and have chosen to ignore the reality of what they are creating. The few "objective" stories I have seen about mini-nukes have uniformly failed to mention that the new generation of smaller ("usable") nuclear weapons will be dirty nuclear weapons. The evidence for this criticism is based upon the results of US nuclear tests conducted in Nevada -- it is not theoretical. These tests were in fact done to precisely calculate the depths needed to contain nuclear explosions. Mini-nukes will create surface blasts which contaminate large areas with deadly radioactive fallout.

Not only does this violate the letter and spirit of the NPT, but it also brings us closer to a time when the distinction between nuclear and conventional forces will be distinctly blurred. The apparent willingness to deploy nuclear munitions on a "pre-emptive" basis will only have the effect of speeding up the proliferation process

Although the enemies against which a "nuclear bunker-buster" might be used would probably not have a nuclear arsenal
with which to respond, it is not a given that nuclear war could be ruled out in the event other NWS would choose to side with the nation receiving the strike. Beyond that, it would certainly invite a nuclear retaliation of some sort, whether it be a suitcase bomb or a huge device planted in a hold of a ship.

Steven Starr
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http://www.chatarea.com/BdGTactical.m3013664

In one example, the scientists discuss the blast needed to destroy a shallowly buried enemy bunker.

A typical weapon in the current U.S. arsenal can be accurately delivered within about 300 feet of its target. To destroy such a bunker, that requires a blast equivalent to about 15 kilotons of TNT.

The scientists say that would spread deadly radiation over a five-mile radius.

By delivering the weapon more accurately - within 30 feet - they say a blast of only one-half kiloton would be enough to destroy the bunker. The radiation zone would be reduced to a little more than a mile.

The question today is whether such new highly accurate low-yield weapons can be achieved with modifications to existing weapons or by designing entirely new ones.

[/quote]
 
Smaller nukes????? Geez, something you wouldn't want to leave in an unsecured area.
Almost like the bombs used in starship troopers. The novel not the crappy movie!
 
ninjafreak89 said:
I start this topic today to see if someone can answer my question and to see what people think. I have heard that the entire world has enough nuclear bombs to blow up the world seven times over. Why do we continue to build such weapons when we can only blow the world up once? Tax payers money is being spend on weapons that will lead to end of the world when actually nuclear weapons should be limited to the bare minimum or not at all. What does humankind gain from building bombs that can kill every single being on the planet and that end up being stored away?

(This may be an overrated topic and/ or over used but please reply any thoughts you may have. Thank you.)
Click to expand...

Well, it's just the gift that keeps on giving. Everyone wants to catch up to the "first kid on the block to own one". I served in the middle of the Cold War and was stationed on Nike Hercules bases which were converted to nuclear warheads in 1963. I can tell you that the planet won't be destroyed by a "blast" from a nuke. Most delivery systems are designed to burst at an altitude which will disperse as much of the heat and radioactive particles as possible over a targeted country or even continent. This assures that the jet stream and other atmospheric conditions will kill every living organism on earth, land, and sea. I guess Humankind doesn't want to think of the consequences because the thoughts are too horrible to dwell on. Given that scenario, tactical nukes are looking better all the time.
 
You cannot wipe out the planet with nuclear weapons, there just aren't enough. You can do significant damage if you send enough in one area, but consider how large the surface of the planet is and how many nukes we have now, it wouldn't work out. Take the cold war scenario where if the soviets and nato were to nuke each other. All the beligerent countries involved would collapse as well as any country they supported. With all the UN security council members nuked, the dictators of the world are free to go crazy on each other. There would be a huge impact on the global economy with mass famine virtually everywhere. And all those volatile areas of the world like pakistan and the mid east would fall into anarchy. You see, the threat isn't so much the damage of the weapons which would kill over a half a billion at least if this occured, but the resulting vacuum of power that would leave much of the developing world in chaos. Why would anyone target a nuke at new zealand, the weapons were meant to be used on the other nuclear powers, not nuclear free states.
 
well i'm told that 7 were targeted at NZ during the cold war and another 15 at australia.

both have deepsea ports, uranium mines, military facilities etc. during the cold war we three (australia, NZ and the US ) were part of a mutual defence pact...ANZUS,now fallen through because we won't allow nuclear armed or powered vessels in our waters.
 
Also if I recall we are getting rid of some nuclear weapons. However getting rid of,in the military, means replacing with bigger and better ones.
 
i forgot we NZ guys on this forum. What i meant is that these days why would you hit new zealand, like chewie says there's no real alliance anymore. But in the cold war anyone that was more or less a US ally would receive nukes, but not now.
 
WarMachine said:
You cannot wipe out the planet with nuclear weapons, there just aren't enough. You can do significant damage if you send enough in one area, but consider how large the surface of the planet is and how many nukes we have now, it wouldn't work out. Take the cold war scenario where if the soviets and nato were to nuke each other. All the beligerent countries involved would collapse as well as any country they supported. With all the UN security council members nuked, the dictators of the world are free to go crazy on each other. There would be a huge impact on the global economy with mass famine virtually everywhere. And all those volatile areas of the world like pakistan and the mid east would fall into anarchy. You see, the threat isn't so much the damage of the weapons which would kill over a half a billion at least if this occured, but the resulting vacuum of power that would leave much of the developing world in chaos. Why would anyone target a nuke at new zealand, the weapons were meant to be used on the other nuclear
powers, not nuclear free states.
Click to expand...

Don't forget the Nuclear Winter theory. I'm not sure I buy it but some scientists are convinced that it would happen.
 
I doubt that it would last for more than a few months at most. In heavily hit areas you would get a lot of soot and debris in the air for awhile, but that would eventually clear up. A lot of nukes going off at once can do some damage to the atmosphere, but a sustained nuclear winter effect wouldn't be realistic either, i think we're just overestimating the destructiveness of these weapons on a global scale and should remember that they were meant to do damage to wide areas like cities, not change the atmosphere. We've had thousands of nuke tests above ground and that alone had a minimal effect. I'm not saying nuclear weapons aren't powerful, they are extremely powerful where they hit. It just doesn't make sense that they were to adversely effect the atmosphere beyond where they were targeted.
 
Yea, the areas that are covered with debris and smoke would notice a large drop in temeperature. But i don't think it would be so bad as to send the planet into a cooling trend. The skies would have to be filled with debris to have a global effect, i think something like nuclear winter would happen to areas that were hit with powerful weapons. But megaton bombs wouldn't use yields of more than 50 mtons in a war. I think 100 mtons has only been done during tests because of the size of the bomb would make it difficult to deploy. For it to have a global impact you would have to hit cities all over the world in places like africa, south america, and south asia and the other continents. With even the more profilific cold war nukes you'd be hard pressed to start a huge nuclear winter by deploying all your nukes everywhere, there is just too much sky and not enough bombs. But it would definitely affect the areas that were hit in varying severity depending on the direction of the wind and climate.
 
Personally I see no point in having a nuclear bomb, (poof) you explode one, fallout travels on teh upeer wind currents to teh next few countries or states in line, millions of people are killed.
( the following is a bit extreme but it makes a point)

(poof) you just exploded the biggest and best nuclear bomb in history,(1) the atmosphere rips off the planet, (2) the crust of the earth cracks, (3) all life as we know it ends.
(4) the aliens watching us think how stupid we were as a species.
 
The fallout from one nuclear warhead is minimal. People often assume that missiles have the same effect as Chernobyl. This is incorrect simply due to the amount of radioactive material involved. That's not to say that those in the immediate area won't recieve a harmful or lethal dose of radiation. Most often fatal within the month. But unless you're talking about a full scale nuclear war, radiation is limited. Even in the event of a nuclear war, 99% of all radioactive material would decay within the first month.

As for nuclear winter, in a full scale nuclear war it's going to happen. 7,000 missiles with anywhere from 3 to 12 nuclear warheads each. Putting that much dust in the air is going to cause something akin to a very large volcanic explosion. As happened in medieval Europe, you would have a year with no summer. Or possibly even multiple years.

Lastly, part of the reason for having so many nuclear missiles in the cold war was because of failure rates and to make sure that you had enough to retaliate in the event that the other side caught you with your pants down. For the Soviets the missile reliability was horrible, at one point the Soviets estimated that in the event of a nuclear war, no more then 25% of their weapons would deploy correctly.
 
OK I can aggree with that, but why did we have enough on ecah side to blow up the entire world?
Was it politics? or the fact that one guy had to have more toys than the other guy?
 
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