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Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

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Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#101

Post by openasocket »

lamontcg wrote: post #94
matthewdgreen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current government is going to weaken Western alliances. China is going to take Taiwan. Japan and South Korea are going to rapidly develop nuclear weapons programs. North Korea will increase the range of its missiles to reliably hit the entire US. The entire Middle East is going to nuclearize, with Iran first and then Saudi Arabia (the Trump white house was trying to arrange this last term, I suppose they'll succ…

> North Korea will increase the range of its missiles to reliably hit the entire US. Getting a ballistic missile to hit the continental US is the first of many problems they'll need to solve before I start losing any sleep. They also need to be able to hit a location accurately. And they need a hypersonic reentry vehicle capable of delivering a nuclear payload without disintegrating the bomb or prematurely burning up…

North Korea has successfully tested multiple missile launches on a lofted trajectory that demonstrated an intercontinental range. I believe both the hwasong 17 and 18 are capable of hitting the continental United States. Rentry vehicles have been demonstrated multiple times. Accuracy is a bit more of a concern, but with a thermonuclear weapon missing a city by 10 miles is still more than enough to cause millions of casualties.

The DPRK is absolutely a totalitarian, backwards, hermit kingdom. But we underestimate them at our peril.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#102

Post by titzer »

lamontcg wrote: post #94
matthewdgreen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current government is going to weaken Western alliances. China is going to take Taiwan. Japan and South Korea are going to rapidly develop nuclear weapons programs. North Korea will increase the range of its missiles to reliably hit the entire US. The entire Middle East is going to nuclearize, with Iran first and then Saudi Arabia (the Trump white house was trying to arrange this last term, I suppose they'll succ…

> North Korea will increase the range of its missiles to reliably hit the entire US. Getting a ballistic missile to hit the continental US is the first of many problems they'll need to solve before I start losing any sleep. They also need to be able to hit a location accurately. And they need a hypersonic reentry vehicle capable of delivering a nuclear payload without disintegrating the bomb or prematurely burning up…

> Those are incredibly difficult problems, and each one keeps getting worse.

Indeed, so hard that it took until 1957 for the US to master them....

Not trivialize the effort of making such rockets and reentry vehicles, but the North Koreans only have 6-10 countries to follow, at least two of which are semi-friendly to them and two more that they could crib tech from. Oh, and they have computers and it's not the 1950s anymore.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#103

Post by pknomad »

echelon wrote: post #82
killjoywashere wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Yalu River separates China and North Korea. General MacArthur sent US troops across the Yalu, which is what caused the Chinese to enter the Korean War, and led to most of the US casualties. Truman fired MacArthur for disobeying his order to stay on the Korean side of the Yalu. That was before the Chinese had nuclear weapons. The Korean peninsula has been under an armistice and not at peace for 70 years in large p…

> Truman fired MacArthur for disobeying his order to stay on the Korean side of the Yalu. Crazy to think that we might have had a world with a unified democratic Korea and no North Korea had this not happened. MacArthur was too cocky.

Yep. He wasn't the only one though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Almond

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#104

Post by option »

killjoywashere wrote: post #45

> engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself. THEY STILL DO!!!! This is what drives me nuts about our politics: so many people seem to think we can flirt with the sort of nationalism (1) that led us into WW…

you can’t have de-escalation from just one side. When one side has embraced facism, invades neighbors and does hybrid attacks against you the only path that does not lead to MAD is when you are so overwhelmingly stronger that they have no choice but back up or die.

The wars always start if and only if aggressor thinks that the they can “win” something over the force.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#105

Post by tehjoker »

zaik wrote: post #96
BurningFrog wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan could of course do it in secret, like others have.

In a complete disregard for the rule of law? Which other democratic countries with anti-nuclear constitution had a secret nuclear program?

Israel, though I don't think they have it in their constitution (they don't have a constitution).

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#106

Post by option »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #50
killjoywashere wrote: post #45

> engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself. THEY STILL DO!!!! This is what drives me nuts about our politics: so many people seem to think we can flirt with the sort of nationalism (1) that led us into WW…

The current government is going to weaken Western alliances. China is going to take Taiwan. Japan and South Korea are going to rapidly develop nuclear weapons programs. North Korea will increase the range of its missiles to reliably hit the entire US. The entire Middle East is going to nuclearize, with Iran first and then Saudi Arabia (the Trump white house was trying to arrange this last term, I suppose they'll succ…

The Ukraine lesson is simple - you are not independent if you don’t have nuclear weapons. If you want to be safe you should either have nuclear weapons or be in NATO.

This is a massive fail of world’s security and it is definitely not Trump’s fault. Blame horribly incompetent policies of Merkel, Obama, and Biden who are simply afraid of putin

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#107

Post by jltsiren »

zaik wrote: post #96
BurningFrog wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan could of course do it in secret, like others have.

In a complete disregard for the rule of law? Which other democratic countries with anti-nuclear constitution had a secret nuclear program?

Japan, among many other countries, subscribes to the idea that the milder law prevails. If an action was illegal but it was made legal after the fact, then it was legal. Similarly, an unconstitutional action can be made constitutional after the fact.

Constitutions are not supposed to be absolute constraints. They are not supposed to prevent a country from doing what is reasonable or necessary, as long as people are willing to accept that it was reasonable and necessary.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#108

Post by waveBidder »

option wrote: post #104
killjoywashere wrote: post #45

> engineers mused over whether there was anything to be done top stop a torrent of enemy missiles falling across the nation. These superweapons seemed to promise destruction on an overbearing scale, threatening the very existence of human civilization itself. THEY STILL DO!!!! This is what drives me nuts about our politics: so many people seem to think we can flirt with the sort of nationalism (1) that led us into WW…

you can’t have de-escalation from just one side. When one side has embraced facism, invades neighbors and does hybrid attacks against you the only path that does not lead to MAD is when you are so overwhelmingly stronger that they have no choice but back up or die. The wars always start if and only if aggressor thinks that the they can “win” something over the force.

You don't oppose someone recklessly gambling mass death by recklessly gambling mass death yourself, you just call their bluffs and maintain clear no-go lines.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#109

Post by option »

waveBidder wrote: post #108
option wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can’t have de-escalation from just one side. When one side has embraced facism, invades neighbors and does hybrid attacks against you the only path that does not lead to MAD is when you are so overwhelmingly stronger that they have no choice but back up or die. The wars always start if and only if aggressor thinks that the they can “win” something over the force.

You don't oppose someone recklessly gambling mass death by recklessly gambling mass death yourself, you just call their bluffs and maintain clear no-go lines.

What do you do when those lines are crossed? Like they have been repeatedly.

Re: Road signs to help people limit radiation exposure in contaminated areas

#110

Post by waveBidder »

killjoywashere wrote: post #68
ls612 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAD precludes total wars of national survival ala WW2. It does not at all preclude the sorts of cabinet wars that were fought between the European powers for centuries before Napoleon.

If we crossed the Yalu River today, do you think we'd be alive tomorrow to talk about it? Nuclear deterrence, as part of the taboo, prevents any nation from violating the sovereignty of a nuclear power. The only exception I know of is the Yom Kippur War, and if there is ever a person who never received a well-earned Nobel Peace Prize, it's Golda Meir.

China has a no first strike policy for now, so yes. Doesn't mean we'd have a good time though.
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