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Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

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Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#101

Post by mantas »

vkou wrote: post #58
mantas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main purpose of nuclear bomb is to deter nuclear attack by ensuring MAD. We should strive for a world where nobody has a chance to use nuclear bomb. And, currently, a handful of countries having them is the best way to ensure that. If all countries claim to destroy their nuclear bombs and never ever make a new one, would you trust all of them?

> The main purpose of nuclear bomb is to deter nuclear attack by ensuring MAD. We should strive for a world where nobody has a chance to use nuclear bomb. And, currently, a handful of countries having them is the best way to ensure that. Why is a handful of countries having nuclear bombs the best way to ensure that? Why not two dozen countries having nuclear bombs? Neither Ukraine nor Iraq would have been invaded if…

I don't see much difference between handful and a dozen or two. Or maybe my English as second language is failing me..

It'd be definitely interesting to see Ukraine and Iraq conflicts unfold while they had nuclear weapons. I'd be all for giving nuclear weapons to every single country if that'd stop wars in the future. But I'm afraid some asshats would start blackmailing others and those would bend over. And we'd be back at square 1.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#102

Post by mantas »

clarkmoody wrote: post #74
mantas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main purpose of nuclear bomb is to deter nuclear attack by ensuring MAD. We should strive for a world where nobody has a chance to use nuclear bomb. And, currently, a handful of countries having them is the best way to ensure that. If all countries claim to destroy their nuclear bombs and never ever make a new one, would you trust all of them?

> And, currently, a handful of [governments] having them is the best way to ensure that. Until it isn't. But then it's too late to try anything different. > If all [governments] claim to destroy their nuclear bombs and never ever make a new one, would you trust all of them? I don't trust statements from governments, as a general rule.

> Until it isn't. But then it's too late to try anything different.

We had that for a brief period of time. US was the only one with the nuclear bomb. Would they have used it on Japan if they had a chance to retaliate?

> I don't trust statements from governments, as a general rule.

I guess we agree governmental disarmament agreements wouldn't work..

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#103

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

vkou wrote: post #58
mantas wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main purpose of nuclear bomb is to deter nuclear attack by ensuring MAD. We should strive for a world where nobody has a chance to use nuclear bomb. And, currently, a handful of countries having them is the best way to ensure that. If all countries claim to destroy their nuclear bombs and never ever make a new one, would you trust all of them?

> The main purpose of nuclear bomb is to deter nuclear attack by ensuring MAD. We should strive for a world where nobody has a chance to use nuclear bomb. And, currently, a handful of countries having them is the best way to ensure that. Why is a handful of countries having nuclear bombs the best way to ensure that? Why not two dozen countries having nuclear bombs? Neither Ukraine nor Iraq would have been invaded if…

Because superpowers are more likely to fight proxy wars or use indirect methods, while smaller countries are more likely to fight with real boots on real territory supported by real explosions.

The reality is that if a superpower wanted to launch a sneak nuclear attack on another superpower, it could be done to great effect without missiles or bombers, and without necessarily giving away the identity of the aggressor.

The fact that it hasn't been done either suggests lack of imagination or lack of willingness - or perhaps both.

As for small countries - it's debatable if nukes would have saved Iraq or the Ukraine, because any small country using nukes on a superpower is likely to do more damage to itself than the superpower.

But this is largely a sideshow in 2017. As we're currently discovering, infowar and weaponised social media are a much cheaper and more efficient way to wage proxy war than nukes or terrorism are.

Nukes are almost obsolete now that it's so ridiculously easy to persuade a country to destroy its own political stability and self-confidence with covert funding of fringe extremism, supported by weaponised social media.

And if that's not enough to do the job, direct hacking of infrastructure remains an option.

The West is well behind the curve on defending against both. As and when the next war starts - if it hasn't already - the reliance on nukes as a deterrent is going to become one of those "And this is what they were doing on until the new reality hit" chapters in future history books.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#104

Post by cmiles74 »

Animats wrote: post #66

This wasn't really that big a deal. By the Minuteman era, warheads were safe against fires and crashes. Nuclear weapons from several B-52 bombers hit the ground hard in crashes without a nuclear explosion. (Sometimes the implosion charges did go off, but not symmetrically, as is needed to get implosion.) The Minuteman missile itself had a solid fuel engine. This was nowhere near as bad as the incident described in "C…

Supposedly static electricity could trigger the detonator in a nuclear weapon. There was a near accidental ignition during the development of "the Gadget" and my understanding is that the ignition system was virtually unchanged for decades.

https://books.google.com/books?id=lJ6JDQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA41&ots=...

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#105

Post by hangonhn »

Xixi wrote: post #100
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, the US didn't launch a campaign that ended in the NK ruler's death before they had nukes, either...

Quite true. Though western countries didn't attack Gaddafi before he gave up nuke either. The speculation I've heard (on radio, so I cannot paste a link) is that NK analysis is roughly: NK's regime is safe as long as China sees it as useful (probably using NK as some sort of buffer state against US), but sooner or later that support will end. Then only nuclear weapons will ensure NK's regime survival. It's rational,…

Not saying the hypothesis you put forward is wrong but I've heard a very convincing complementary one:

Kim's goals are:

1. Survival of the Kim leadership 2. Reunification of Korea

To achieve the latter (and also the prior), he needs to remove the US from intervening in any conflict on the Korean peninsula. If he had a credible threat to any major US city, then the US would have to weight the freedom of S. Korea vs. the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#106

Post by valuearb »

knappe wrote: post #54

I recently finished Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety [0]. I can't recommend the book enough for how eye opening it really is into how blasé we have been with nuclear weapons. We've been reckless and by all accounts it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident (there have been a few, just not on our own soil). The number of close calls is just astounding. Fur…

Have we been reckless?

We've never had a serious accident. So maybe it's not luck, maybe there are a lot of controls that actually work well.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#107

Post by abandonliberty »

batter wrote: post #84
abandonliberty wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey it's not all bad, we managed to convince Ukraine to destroy their nuclear weapons and it worked out really well for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

It worked so 'well' that it lost part of it's territory. From Budapest Memorandum Wiki: 'The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.' Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow: http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotte…

Yes, I was being facetious.

However, some are arguing that this view is incorrect - there's a paper linked on the wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine#De...

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#108

Post by aduitsis »

Xixi wrote: post #91
hangonhn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear weapons wouldn't have help Gaddafi anyways. He didn't have a working weapon nor a reliable way to delivering it. Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people? There's an illusion of the utility of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons might be OK if you want to destroy masses of conventional armies or destroy the ability of…

Had Gaddafi developed a working nuclear bomb with the necessary delivery mechanism, would France/UK/US have launched a campaign that ultimately ended with his death? We will never know, only speculate, but North Korea is betting that the answer to this question is "no".

Here's a long but interesting read:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-risk-of-nu...

The answer you are referring to is explicitly mentioned.

Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed

#110

Post by hinkley »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #39
saagarjha wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, isn’t Beryllium toxic? I was under the impression that you don’t want to be around it.

The alloy form used for tools is only hazardous in powdered form It's fine to machine as long as you're making actual chips (how do you think they make all those tools for the oil industry).

If I had to guess I would have said CNC equipment in an oil bath...
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