Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChairmanPoo]

IMO North Korea is not untouchable *just* because of the nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons are the icing of a geopolitical cake full of clusterfuck.

[TempAcc]

Indeed, but the ability to hurl city obliterating death at a potentially global distance is something thats capable of changing the tone of conversations by itself. Even if there are several countermeasures in place in several parts of the world by now, those are still far from being a sure fire method of stopping a real attack.

Even if the major nuclear powers were behind this, I'd still be very doubtful of nuclear weapons just going poof (the good kind of poof).

[NullForceOmega]

This all seems, well, poorly thought out.  They don't have any of the nuclear powers backing it, and the UN by itself doesn't have any capacity to enforce the treaty, so it's basically relying entirely on goodwill from powers that will see no downside to ignoring the treaty entirely.

Also, if any of the nuclear powers DO sign, then you can be sure that they already have a replacement for nuclear weapons ready to be put into play.

[Sheb]

At the very least, it could provide more enforcement to prevent proliferation to non-nuclear states.

[TempAcc]

Now that you mention it, I do wonder how potential nuclear powers like India will react to this.

[smjjames]

Now that you mention it, I do wonder how potential nuclear powers like India will react to this.

'Potential'? India and Pakistan ARE nuclear powers, have been for decades. Sure, they don't have the numbers that the US and Russia have, but having nukes still makes them a nuclear power.

[Strife26]

At the very least, it could provide more enforcement to prevent proliferation to non-nuclear states.

I don't see much difference compared to the NPT.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

So everyone who didn't have toys got together and proclaimed that having toys was bad and that they didn't even want the toys that people had, just nobody could have toys. Period. As someone put it earlier, extremely fucking limp-wristed. I mean. Would a nuclear missile free world even be better? Yes, there's no less of a threat of instant annihilation, but in turn what is to stop people from going back to their war-mongering, imperialistic ways? I mean for real, let's not beat around the bush, the threat of nuclear missiles is a pretty good way to keep the peace. Sure, the MAD doctrine is a little outdated, but I'm sure that the mere existence of nukes has prevented at least one world war.

But that's just playing the devil's advocate--it certainly hasn't ended conflict entirely. In reality, getting rid of nuclear missiles has never been on the table. At least, not entirely. The times the world has leaned out over the abyss of nuclear annihilation whether through error or foolishness are more than enough to remind us of the power of nukes, but it's like asking a king to give up his power for X number of preposterous reasons. Escalation is inevitable. You have to be in the arms race to be competitive, the best the world can hope for--if it doesn't want to play "the game"--is to get whoever is playing to agree a balancing of the scales, which is nearly impossible as is.

[Parsely]

Gonna echo the fact that nuclear weapons prevent high intensity conflict. We had a taste of modern war in the first half of the 20th century where we had TWO world wars. That's what we've got to look forward to if disarmament goes through. It's not a coincidence that the countries that don't have nukes are the ones that are having wars fought on their land.

I seriously doubt that the UN will find this enforceable. Nukes are sticking around until anti-nuke weapons outstrip their development.

[Sheb]

Gonna echo the fact that nuclear weapons prevent high intensity conflict. We had a taste of modern war in the first half of the 20th century where we had TWO world wars. That's what we've got to look forward to if disarmament goes through. It's not a coincidence that the countries that don't have nukes are the ones that are having wars fought on their land.

I seriously doubt that the UN will find this enforceable. Nukes are sticking around until anti-nuke weapons outstrip their development.

1) The treaty doesn't apply on countries that didn't sign it, so there is nothing really to enforce.
2) The number and intensity of inter-country conflicts have been falling even for countries that don't have nukes.

[Parsely]

1) The treaty doesn't apply on countries that didn't sign it, so there is nothing really to enforce.

2) The number and intensity of inter-country conflicts have been falling even for countries that don't have nukes.

I see. And there aren't really any nations that don't belong to the UN that are known to have a significant arsenal, so I can see why this might actually go through. It's got to be all or nothing. I wouldn't discount the possibility of nations leaving the UN in order to keep their weapons, but on the other hand I can see why nations with imperialist ambitions would benefit from this.

That's really interesting. Source?

[Starver]

I don't think The Vatican is big enough to house even one nuke, and where would you put it?

They have a whole lot of Vaults for that kind of thing. I'm sure they could find a space for it between the canister of antimatter and the document proving that we are all just characters in The Sims...

ETR:

It took the US and its industrial and scientific might (Along with dozens of refugee scientists and Albert Einstein's encouragement) more than a year to build a relatively weak atomic bomb. Granted, this was in WWII, but no country is likely to rush the program that fast, nor could they do open tests like America could. Basically, it's almost impossible to sneak a nuclear test somewhere, because the seismic activity and radiation generated is highly noticeable, even when detonated underground.

Back then, it wasn't a (by others) tried and tested technology. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was previously untested¹, being not the type of device tested as Trinity and then used against Nagasaki. Just as they had twinges of doubt that Trinity might set the whole Earth's atmosphere into a chain reaction (enough to recalculate, just in case), they didn't actually know for sure that Little Boy was viable.

Now, everybody knows. A high-school physics book has enough details to make something work (assuming you have the materials) and a college-level one can probably even make it work decently enough that you don't have to 'risk' merely creating a massively dirty semi-conventional weapon with your various components.

Sure, to finesse a bomb (and to make it fit on the rocket you might have been building) needs tests. If you're happy to put it in a shipping container and slip it past your target's border security then that's just unnecessary.  Just remember that it's best to fire the hole over the plug (and into the tamper surround), if that's your chosen design. Or go with a hollow sphere in the 'implosion' type.


¹ There had been talk of using a bomb in an announced "non-combat" mission to where the Japanese could observe, without suffering losses but seeing its power, but the risks of announcing the test and it failing, or the Japanese launching an attack upon the demonstration bomber and causing failure by one means or another, was feared more than "dropping a dud" in the actual first-time attack.

[TheDarkStar]

iirc it took China one technician working overnight to assemble the core of their first atomic bomb (note: I can't find an online source for this but I'm pretty sure I read it in a book about nuclear proliferation written by some well-known scientist). It's not that hard. And of course North Korea did it.

And re: hidden testing: there was an atomic bomb test in the ocean south of South Africa that was never claimed and it might have been a joint Israel-South Africa test.

[sluissa]

iirc it took China one technician working overnight to assemble the core of their first atomic bomb (note: I can't find an online source for this but I'm pretty sure I read it in a book about nuclear proliferation written by some well-known scientist). It's not that hard. And of course North Korea did it.

And re: hidden testing: there was an atomic bomb test in the ocean south of South Africa that was never claimed and it might have been a joint Israel-South Africa test.

To be fair, China had over a decade of help with advisors from the Soviet Union helping them set up their processing facilities and even a prototype weapon shipped to them as an example. There's a difference between starting from scratch based only on idea and theory and having a working model sat in front of you to copy off of and people who'd done it before to ask for advice.

As has been said, despite the attempt to keep that sort of knowledge under wraps, there is enough public knowledge out there to give just about anyone with will and resources the ability to build a nuclear weapon. In the end it's all science anyway. Proven natural phenomena. You can cut the math out of a child's education but it doesn't make math disappear, they may still figure things out on their own.

[Loud Whispers]

1. Disarm all nuclear nations
2. Start WWIII
3. Nations involved seek weapons to end the war
4. Back to nuclear bombing