Nuclear Weapons Are the Solution to a Problem that Doesn't Exist Right Now. 
Spoke Sunday February 1 with the precise Stephen Younger, author "The Bomb: A New History," re the 64 years since the Trinity test at Los Alamos July 16, 1945 and how nuclear weaponeering has adapted to the profound political twists of the Cold War and after. Steve
Younger spent his life's work at Los Alamos in R&D, and is now a Woodrow Wilson fellow. He aimed to write a book that could be acceptable to the censors (because of his security classification) and can be read by everyone. Nuclear proliferation is the most threatening news these days, with the Pakistan and North Korea proliferators selling the technology of enrichment and bomb-making and warhead building to rogue states such as Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and reportedly Sudan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and more (South Africa and Myanmar are not excluded). However the challenge I learned from Steve Younger was not the rogues, since they build crude and derivative bombs, but rather the superstates of America and Russia and China and how they think about their weapons. The two categories of targets for superstates are called countervalue and counterforce. These categories are divided into soft targets, hard targets, and superhard targets. The US, according to Steve Younger, only has counterforce
targetting. A counterforce soft target would be an Army base of an Air Force base, which is best attacked with multiple small weapons rather than one large bang. A counterforce hard target would be a bunker unde a government building, siuch as the facilities said to be under the White House or the Pentagon. A superhard target is rare, and when I brought up what I'd heard about a city built under the Ural mountains, Steve said he could not speak to it. At the same time, our adversaries the Russians are said to have countervalue targetting, which is a remnant of the Cold War (right, the Russian nuclear weapon museum in Moscow). Soft countervalue targets are cities and ports and rivers. Hard countervalue targets are Washington buildings and other government centers. What this means today, with thousands of weapons in both camps still in place, is that America can wipe out Russia's ability to destroy our cities, and that Russia is defenseless from an American strike, whether it comes first or last. Our nukes are for a scenario that does not now exist. At the same, our nukes are not for a problem that does exist, which is the rogues (or the PRC) launching false flag operations.
Nukes in the 21st Century.
Steve Younger identifies five strategic positions for the status of nuclear weapons by the superstates in this century. Abolitionist, which is obvious, and may be the intent of the new Obama administration. Minimalist, which is to keep several hundred warheads that provide deterrence but not victory. Maximalist, which is "never met a weapons system we didn't like," and approximates the present status of nuclear forces as the US upgrades and Russia tries to compensate for its weak research and long short-changing of its rocket and bomber forces. (Did you know the reason there has been weak demand on uranium mines the last twenty years, and why the price has fallen so low, is because so much material is available from decommissioned nuke weapons in Russia and the US?) And then there is what Steve Younger calls the moderate position, which is two thousand weapons a side, all upgraded and locked and loaded, all counterforce weapons.
India and Pakistan.
None of these credible positions speak to the nightmare scenario of the countervalue targetting in place by the sworn blood enemies of Pakistan and India.
Are US and RU Nooks hard wired?
Is missile RU00125rj34 directed at midtown Manhattan?
Is missile USAF654bgd23 aimed at a power station in Novosibirsk?
Or
Does the President or PM direct the missile crew with the target he wants to destroy?
I just finished reading Physics for Future presidents, good section about Nuclear weapons, and how difficult it is to make a maximalist bomb.
If bomb quality material were stolen, krytons and other hardware would be needed, very sophisticated hardware.
If a Nuk-you-lahr bomb were stolen from Russia, the electronics will not work without correct codes. One would assume only Senior Russian Military and the PM posess these codes.
China, NK, PAK, India? Doubtful they have similar chain of command controls. Rumours US DoD has been sharing coding/encryption technology with our competitors, this is a good thing. A bomb falling into the wrong hands may be useless if it cannot be used. It may make the thieves sterile or very ill.
Rogue Nooks can be easily used to make a dirty bomb. A DB would cause minimal, if any short term deaths. Nightly News programs and internet rumour mills would scare every environmentalist, and a few Liberal Arts majors.
Clearly, nukes cannot be used by casual thieves - like cars can be used by carjackers. The more immediate danger, it seems to me, is the dirty bomb less than carefully assembled in the chop shops of the world and just as hastily shipped to wherever people are apt to panic most. It'll then be the panic that destroys - like a patient being told he has cancer; he then goes up to the roof and jumps. This strategy has been used successfully before with regard to our financial markets.
There are obviously other ways to induce panic. These may be just as effective as (the threat of) nukes. "Global warming" is one; economic meltdown, another; a well-placed bullet; EMP's; biological terror; etc. Look for such attacks first, before considering a scenario involving the ultimate fireball.
Then there's Obama’s campaign pledge to (unilaterally?) disarm. What's up with that? Could it be that our leadership is panicking already?
By the way, don't look for India or Pakistan to panic. Both are patriots first and foremost. They'll slug it out until "the last man standing".
EMPs are very hard to produce as well, you need for the device to be really high up in the sky to be effective.
Panic only works when there is a lack of communication, our communications networks are redundant and diverse. The protocols that run the Internet were designed to survive global atomic warfare.
Financial markets are always prone to panics, Iceland's government has fallen, others will follow. If there is real value, markets recover.
The most recent panics were the SARS epidemic in Toronto and Asia.
-Wisdom
The US is the biggest dealer in nuclear arms technology both legal and illegal. Plame tried to stop nuclear arms technology being sent to Iran. Bush/Cheney screwed her over and Iran got the plans anyway.
The US gave I-srael/Pakistan/India nuclear technology.
If President Obama is true to his word, (it would be nice if does happen), we could have a nuclear free world. Besides Russia and the USA have far worse technology in their tool box then messy nuclear bombs.
I have a brother in law... let's call him Sam.
He has spent 14 years getting educated in some of the best universities found in the land. I am an ingrate living in a tent. I have seen some schools from the street.
Talking with him over the Holidays, we spoke of world events. I was astounded to learn that he believes that subversives (you know, THEM PEOPLE) in the US government instigated, performed, and manipulated the events of September 11, 2001. He has been my BIL for 6 years. He has a Master's Degree. He is very samrt and is working on obtaining another degree.
In disbelief, I double checked to make sure I had heard correctly and so I asked "DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT?" and he said " Yes, I do... check it out. Do some research and you'll see what I'm talking about."
Well, needless to say, I realized that his sister probably thought the same thing he did and never told me her true feelings about America. Guess whaat, I was right. I'm going to divorce her, even though, you know she's okay in my book.
"The names have been changed to protect the innocent"
A book...worth a look.
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Warday
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday
So we are having the reverse of the Star Wars initiated by Reagan in the 1980's. So lets look at the eye of the tiger from Survivor
new grassroots movement called Tiger, which draws together a range of disaffected residents from Russia's far east. Tiger is the kind of organisation that the Kremlin particularly fears, a civil rights movement with no political allegiance.
Looking at Wikipedia EYe of the Tiger was followed by Steve Miller's Abracadbra maybe those are Obama's magic words and charm. and the Human Leagues "Don't you want me Baby. and the answer is no to the UN , Davos and the stimulus package.
The recession has created divisions in the Kremil and the naked capitalist suggests that there is unrest in China. Everyone is looking for Obama to lead and he is a follower (of polls) and not a leader.
The reverse of Star Wars= Test of missile firing never gets off the ground and explodes shortly after ignition flooding the world...
Tigers in the East don't give a damn about much.
Steve Miller has nukes and says he doesn't because Abracadabra they have a way of disappearing.
Nobody "Wants you, baby" but, they do want some of that nakid Kremil stimulus... UNNNNN Davos!!! You Capitalist You!!!
It is unfortunate that scientific research has, like so much else, become politicized. I'd like a genuinely realistic appraisal of the nuclear winter scenario.
My layman's hunch? That if one or two supervolcanoes can radically alter Terrestrial climate, then hundreds or thousands of nuclear detonatons over cities could have the same affect. That would mean at best a "population bottleneck," and human extinction at worst. For a brilliant fictional account of such a world, read Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."
I haven't had a chance yet to listen to the podcast in which Mr. Batchelor talks to Mr. Younger. I wonder what the latter's take is on how a regional nuclear war between Indian and Pakistan might alter the biosphere.
Do we know for certain, without a doubt, undeniably, that Iran's symbol for world monotheism and justice actually fully escaped gravity? The newsreel stopped at what appeared to be about 123 meters after takeoff to the off we go into the wild blue yonder. I just wonder...
Is this that communication satellite they've been promising for so long that will broadcast Dr Pepper konok nok prayer times through the jihadists loudspeaker of hope? Does it compensate for different time zones around the globe? If it does, then we can expect alot of interruptions during the day and, I guess, nighty nights, too.
This thing was launched in darkness and shone a pretty light.
"It worked." (Oppenheimer said after witnessing the first atomic detonation).
He also said:
"The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country."
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
India and Pakistan almost had a nuclear war in the early 90's. However cooler heads prevailed and they didnt nuke each other.
America, I mean I-srael, is so concerned about Iran having nukes whereas Pakistan is the real powderkeg. Mossad was involved in the falseflag event in November and got Indian agents trying to frame Pakistan for another conflict. It didnt work.
If India nukes Pakistan then I would expect civil unrest in India.
Einstien said that the Third World War would be done by sticks and stones. I can't believe we are the same precipice again of another nuclear war. I-srael is darn determined to have hegemody in the Middle East. Either everyone is nuke free or every country has nukes. Bombing Iran is insane.