Worse than Useless: Nuclear weapons

Nuclear Insecurity, by
Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky*
FROM sept/oct Foreign Affairs:

" Summary: The Bush administration has adopted a misguided and dangerous nuclear posture. Instead of recycling antiquated doctrines and building a new generation of warheads, the United States should drastically reduce its nuclear arsenal, strengthen the international nonproliferation regime, and move toward the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons. "

Did anyone else see (on TV) the some what exagerated, but stong anti-nuclear bomb fiction "Last Best Chance" ? (Terrorist steal highly enriched uranium, make two simple gun-type bombs, transported in pickup trucks. They set them off simulatneously to trick and trigger US and Russia into mutual retaliation / WWIII. Who they are is not clear, but would be good plan for Moslem extremists to create the world they want.)
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*Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky is a particle physicist and Director Emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He worked on the Manhattan Project from 1943 to 1945 and served as a Science Policy Adviser to Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter.

 

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I don't know why you say nukes are useless? They're really good at blow up things and people. See? Useful.

Baron Max

 

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Are all of the other nuclear armed countries willing to do the same thing? If not then things should remain as is.

 

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What is your estimate of technical civilivation's "half life" if things remain as they are?

 

What is it if we dispose of all nukes but then are attacked by another nation that has them?

 

Bleeding heart, doo-gooder liberals don't like to think about such consequences as that. They live in their own perfect little world ...where everyone is nice and kind and thoughtful and..... They don't even want murderers to go to prison 'cause prisons ain't very nice. ...LOL!

Baron Max

 

Man that was one intelligent statement there. The need for nukes will remain as long as somebody else has them, period. most Liberals arent stupid, please dont empower the notion that most conservatives are.

 

So then everyone, every single country should have nukes?

 

No, but if you think that all the countries in the world are going to actually get rid of this power and countries that dont have them dont want them then you are naive.

it gives them huge amounts of power

If you only have fists to fight with how likely would you be to attack some guy with a gun?

 

In that case, all countries that do not have a nuke should be given one immediately; that will make everyone safe.

 

I think instead of nukes we could just send our prisoners to countries we hate.

 

Did I say it would make anyone safer? It most certainly doesnt, but it gives the leaders of those nations what all those in power want, more power. Nukes are certainly not going to go away in our lifetime, and even if some huge conflict happenedand everyone realized the horrible nature of these weapons and agreed to get rid of them, do you think they really would? As long as we have war nukes will exist, at least until something more horrible is created.

 

Who is advocating that? I think Wolfgang wants at least 1% of the amount used annually to develop and test them (in computers, mainly now days) to be spent on learning how to get a global reduction under secure controls. If not his current position - that is mine.

BTW, you did not answer my question, so I will repeat it and give my estimate:

What is your estimate of technical civilivation's "half life" if things remain as they are?

It is only a wild guess, but I'd say 50 years. - I.e. you will not have adult grand children if you are young.

 

I couldn't even guess because I can't predict the future and no one can. Those that think they can predict future events have never won any lotteries that I'm aware of, are you? No one that predicts the future has ever even come close to preventing a plane crash, accident, flood, or other problem that has arisen. People can't predict the weather correctly for tomorrow and you want me to predict the future of this question.

 

Na it's a classic guns or butter decision. Nuke production/maintenance/upgrading is very very expensive. What is the point of scaring the shit out of the world, if the cost to do so is to mess up your own economy, possibly environment(mishap)? U.S, Russian have more than enough, way more than enough. I can understand maintaining enough nuke to push a threshold argument in diplomatic circles, but at some point it is counter productive.

 

Still ducking the question, I see. No one asked for an infalable prediction. -I only asked for an "estimate" to get you to think about the "unthinable." Despite you "question avoiding smoke screen", I am sure you make estimates about the future every day.

If you get in your car, don't always carry heavy coat, wear boots, and carry an umbrela, etc. - You can not live without estimating what will happen in the unknown future. You just find the above non-sense, diverson, smoke screen, convient way to avoid my the request for your estimate.

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50 years, 100 years 10,000,000 years who cares its jsut wild speculation, its not a smoke screen he just doesnt want to answer a pointless question.

 

For "Joe American tax payer" but not if you are part of the "military/ industrial complex."

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:bawl:

 

Then agrue it is a pointless question.

We make estimates of many unknowable things of much less importance -such as who will win next years supper bowl etc.

All our planning is based on estimates of what will happen in the future. Some things are much more important than others. On a personnel level things like should I exercise, eat gravy soaked potatoes etc are important. On an national level, there are few things more important to think about that the control of nuclear poliferation. I admit few like to think about this problem -head in the sand is the preferred position - but it certainly is not a pointless question. I asked in perhaps foolish hope of forcing him to think about it - extract head from sand.

 

I highly doubt people who lead governments base their decisions off of "how long before we kill oursevles" at least id hope they would take that kind of persepctive