View Full Version : Nuclear Weapons
Roguish Lawyer
08-13-2006, 13:10
I don't think there are many people out there who question our use of nuclear weapons against Japan in WWII. Although Hiroshima and Nagasaki were countervalue attacks (i.e., not focused on military targets), they forced Japan to surrender and avoided the need for us to invade.
Under what circumstances, if any, should the United States use nuclear weapons other than in response to a nuclear attack? Does anyone think nuclear weapons could be used effectively in the current conflict?
:munchin
My picks are
USA vs Doomsday meteorite
USA vs Spy satellites
USA vs communications networks EMP bomb's use small nuke's http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb2.htm
USA vs Mexican border if its radioactive no one will cross it.
But if we want to play with the thought, then perhaps i could see them being used to make a statement. Either in a case where something truely outragerous took place, like terror attacks using gas or other unconventional weapons against US civilians, or maybe even if Iran got a tad too pesky with their own nuclear program.
But as we can all agree using any sort of nuclear weapon is opening a can of worms.
It would probably also take the world of terror to an entirely new level too, with terrorist hitting anything, with anything, just to provoke another response to bring whoever used the nukes another shitstorm from the rest of the diplomatic world.
Though, personally, i think making a glas-desert out of the middle east would be an easy solution to the problems we are facing currently - carpet-bombing with nukes, now thats a concept :D
Goggles Pizano
08-14-2006, 15:00
If history serves me that can was opened August 6, 1945.
Large chem/bio targets and hard and/or deeply buried targets (HDBT) are the main two targets in my opinion. Use the heat and radiation to kill the chem/bio targets and the shock to destroy HDBT targets. I don’t think nukes are of much use as an antiterrorism tool unless they are building these type of targets in the caves in Afghanistan or elsewhere. A possibility perhaps.
Of coarse you would only use a nuke when conventional means are not possible.
What we really need to do is transform the stockpile from the mutually assured destruction (MAD) mentality of the past to designs optimized for future targets like those above. Basically I think we need more weapons like the B61-11 and the now canceled RNEP but that’s a different subject.
My picks are
USA vs Doomsday meteorite
USA vs Spy satellites
USA vs communications networks EMP bomb's use small nuke's http://science.howstuffworks.com/e-bomb2.htm
USA vs Mexican border if its radioactive no one will cross it.
The border thing was an idea that MacArthur had for the Korean Peninsula. He wanted to use radioactive cobalt. Good for 60 years and no one would invade from the North.
I still think they'd cross the border and string the radioactive waste further inland. You'd know who came after the border was radioactive, the hospitals would have a few show up with radiation sickness and someone will have to pick up the tab.
But if we want to play with the thought, then perhaps i could see them being used to make a statement. Either in a case where something truely outragerous took place, like terror attacks using gas or other unconventional weapons against US civilians, or maybe even if Iran got a tad too pesky with their own nuclear program.
But as we can all agree using any sort of nuclear weapon is opening a can of worms.
It would probably also take the world of terror to an entirely new level too, with terrorist hitting anything, with anything, just to provoke another response to bring whoever used the nukes another shitstorm from the rest of the diplomatic world.
Though, personally, i think making a glas-desert out of the middle east would be an easy solution to the problems we are facing currently - carpet-bombing with nukes, now thats a concept :D
I know you're joking with the last comment. But to add to the rest of you're post.
I don't really think a legitimate use could be found for Counter-Terrorism/Un-Conventional Warfare. Using a nuclear device for anything other than a deterent and force projection is un-conventional. Additionally, it would wipe them out locally, but would further entrench them in their attacks on the big satan. How could you claim to be the sound of reason when you're irradiating a target and the surrounding area for the next 100 years.
Because terrorists use other countries to hide in you'd lose the compassion and support of the people, dooming those in the immediate vicinity with the increased risk of ailments and altered genetic structure to pass down to their kids. The land is lost and people are displaced, you've pissed off the locals that have little to live for and would stop at nothing to get a little payback for making them glow.
You've already seen how hard it is to fight a war with small arms and struggle to win the IO campaign against a terrorist force. Every bullet launched is another way for the terror propagandists to spin the story and win money, support and more true believers.
Here are two good reads on the subject. I have a TON more if you're interested.
http://www.fas.org/resource/01282005175922.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/la-ur-00-2850.pdf
x SF med
08-15-2006, 10:41
RL et al,
IMHO, the nuclear option is untenable, period. We are still seeing the aftereffects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the test sites around the world. Most people refuse to accept thaqt any nuclear detonation is a gift that keeps on giving - even the Neutron Bomb. We learned that the use of the 'ultimate weapon' does not deter future conflict, just escalates the possible/probable use of them in MAD situation. Even LY weapons are 'dirty', and will cause a response I don't think we could handle. Look at the Cold War - we built 'better' Nukes, they built 'better' Nukes - they fell, their infrastructure went to hell, and now there are untold 'missing' warheads and launch platforms... Sanity dictates that we not use Nukes, the response, even if conventional, would be devastating. BTW, I went through the schools (NBC and the other one) so this shit scares the hell out of me.
If we wait too long, Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon and in fact will have a program to build them themselves. With the recent talk from that crazy mullah, and that brinksman president of theirs why would we wait? And why would we waste thousands of American lives in a conventional attack? It would be the same prospect we faced with Japan, a fanatical enemy who is not only not afraid to die, but wants to die, in battle. Iran is a country tailor made for a nuclear strike. I don't think we should launch ICBMS though. Perhaps tactical nukes launched from aircraft to take our their nuclear capabilities and storage sites.
If we don't stop them from creating a nuclear weapons program, they will use nukes on Israel, you can take that to the bank. The sooner we deal with Iran the better because the longer we wait the more costly it will be.
I don't like it. No sane person would, but it is a brutal fact of the world. Ahmadinejad thinks he can hasten the appearance of the hidden imam as soon as he starts armegeddon.
I don't know if any of you read the bible, but revelations predicts the future, and everything seems to be lining up just like revelations said it would. I know that has been predicted for generations and maybe I'm wrong. But the stakes are so damn high, we have to deal with reality.
x SF med
08-29-2006, 15:26
Patriot-
Why go nuke to get at the Nukes - in your proposed scenario - conventional weapons would get the TGTs (smart weapons, bunkerbusters) and if the materiel for N weapons was there, you've created a dirty bomb anyway - why compound it by using an N weapon which, due to its power would just be compounded by said materiel on site and cover a larger NDWA with multiply irradiated fallout?
Do you understand the dispersion patterns and carry of the afterbalst contamination in an Nweapon scenario? Do you understand the implications, moral, ethical, physical, and political in the use of Nweapons?
Bud, we are not just talking a big stick of dynamite here, this ain't Wile E. Coyote's falloutless, Acme A-bomb - this is the real shit, with real consequences, real repercussions, and the possibility of tipping some of the fringers over the edge - who btw, may have their own Ndevices bought/stolen from former Soviet Republics....
Patriot, I wish I could change your name to Jingoist, or Dr. Strangelove.
***rant over*** now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
I think if an enemy is powerful and persistant enough to destroy us conventionally, and has all such intentions nukes would probably be used again. In this war it is too late. We already committed to conventional warfare, and it goes against the strategy of "winning hearts and minds" that has been adopted for this war. At times I get tired of this war, and I wish we would have just told non-insurgents to clear out so we could bombard the enemy with air strikes until there were no insurgents left. But as long as their relatives live they would be trying to get revenge. Which leads back to just wanting to blow them off the face of the earth.
That may sound cold and evil, but I get sick of hearing about all the children, soldiers, and non-combatants that get killed by IED with no end in sight. Now I will get my taste, and I'm not all that excited.
x SF med
08-30-2006, 11:15
I don't know if any of you read the bible, but revelations predicts the future, and everything seems to be lining up just like revelations said it would. I know that has been predicted for generations and maybe I'm wrong. But the stakes are so damn high, we have to deal with reality.
I forgot to ask this point yesterday - but according to this logic, you want to help speed along the end of the world by playing into Ahmadinejad's hand? Would you suggest that we are Gog or Ma'Gog, the Lion or the Phillistine?
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) does not sound like a tenable solution to anything. When God wants to end the world, He'll/She'll do it at the time of His/Her choosing. To borrow an idea from Islam - Mahktub, Insh'allah. (It is written, it's in God's hands.) Because we have harnessed the destructive power of the atom does not mean we have to use it - because if we do, even 1/2 way across the world, we will affect and effect more things than we can imagine - look again at the lingering after effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, multiply by 1000 and you have what we would wreak with a single 'modern' Nweapon. This is one situation where the "Bigger Hammer" theory is not going to work.
The Reaper
08-30-2006, 11:57
look again at the lingering after effects in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, multiply by 1000 and you have what we would wreak with a single 'modern' Nweapon. This is one situation where the "Bigger Hammer" theory is not going to work.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Killed by heat, blast, or radiation is no better or worse than being incinerated in a firestorm, by a thermobaric weapon, a fuel air explosive, or a VBIED. Dead is dead. We have allowed activists to attach some sort of stigma to the use of nukes. It is a merely a weapon, nothing more or less. The only issue is the matter of scale.
We have also disposed of most of the huge multi-megaton weapons whose development preceded today's much more accurate guidance systems. When your CEP is measured in miles, it might take several 10 MT weapons to assure destruction of a hardened missile silo that could easily be destroyed with a few KTs yield with a CEP of a few feet. Therefore the modification of the older large payload systems with MIRVs which permitted several much smaller warheads to be loaded into a single launch vehicle. We are not discussing deploying multi-MT weapons in any scenarios I have seen.
During the Cold War, we consistently refused to promise no first use of nukes, and regularly planned for the first strike engagement of small critical targets with tactical nuclear weapons. When the enemy has a capability you cannot destroy with your conventional forces, you have to examine the options for the remaining weapons you possess, regardless of how odious it might be.
Our enemies are not stupid. They have seen the effects of our air power and realize that if it is on the surface, we can destroy it. As they have gone deeper, they have reached the point where we can no longer assure destruction of these facilities with conventional weapons. Recent efforts to develop a tactical nuclear weapon to accomplish this have been decried in the liberal MSM, but should continue nonetheless. As long as our enemies think that we do not have the capability to attack them, or the will to, they will continue to develop their own weapons programs in HDBTs. THe sooner we make it clear that we have the means and intent to go after them, whatever means it takes, the sooner that we will find them much more tractable at the bargaining table. Till then, they have nothing to worry about.
We can strike them and their illicit programs in their country at our convenience, or we can wait till their weapons are developed, deployed on delivery systems, or passed to terrorists for their delivery to the CONUS. Personally, I would prefer to hit them on their turf and let them deal with the consequences rather than attempt to rebuild Manhattan after it gets hit, and figure out where the weapon came from/who to punish. It occurs to me that after you hit one HDBT with a nuke, the bloom of being a member of the nuclear club might come off the rose, and negotiations might be more fruitful if they were wondering who would be the next one hit.
Rest assured, our enemies will have no such compunctions about using those weapons on us in a first strike.
Just my .02, YMMV.
TR
Here is my two cents.
This country has spent a monumental fortune development, deployment and maintenance of our Nuke weapons program and we have only used two!!! I just don’t think all the whacko’s out there really and truly understand our restraint. On September the 12 I think we could have morally justified nuking who ever we wanted…Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Korea, Syrian or just about any one that was on “the list”. We should have picked one, called Russia and China to give them a heads up and then let the ICBM fly! By the end of September 13th there might have been a whole lot more nations coming to the US to discuss peace negotiation! Of course I could be wrong…but like Daddy always said, “Never send a man to do a neutrons job!”
x SF med
08-30-2006, 12:39
TR-
Agreed- tactical, low yield, subsurface, smart delivery detonations against hardened / deep targets is a feasible use of Nweapons. I had the pleasure of being on a Heavy Ruck Team, NBC School, yada yada... precision placement is the key, my argument is against the Glass Parking Lot crowd who believe that indiscriminate use, or blanket bombing with nukes will quickly end a conflict - it will, but with consequences beyond our control. With accurate, timely, and violent action against the deep / hardened targets, munitions factories etc. as noted above we do accomplish the goal of getting back to the negotiating table - some of our conventional stuff might work in this case, but we might have to escalate to the precision nukes - follow the same practices as you would in medicine - conservative start, then ramp up to the radically aggressive treatment.
Again, not anti-nuke, but anti blanket approach to the use of nukes.
One small point- don't let me die by radiation poisoning, give me a 9mm or .45 intracranial high speed lead injection if it looks like that's the case. Or, make sure I'm within the blast / concussion circle.
Here is my two cents.
This country has spent a monumental fortune development, deployment and maintenance of our Nuke weapons program and we have only used two!!! I just don’t think all the whacko’s out there really and truly understand our restraint. On September the 12 I think we could have morally justified nuking who ever we wanted…Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Korea, Syrian or just about any one that was on “the list”. We should have picked one, called Russia and China to give them a heads up and then let the ICBM fly! By the end of September 13th there might have been a whole lot more nations coming to the US to discuss peace negotiation! Of course I could be wrong…but like Daddy always said, “Never send a man to do a neutrons job!”Right on Brother :D
I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Killed by heat, blast, or radiation is no better or worse than being incinerated in a firestorm, by a thermobaric weapon, a fuel air explosive, or a VBIED. Dead is dead. We have allowed activists to attach some sort of stigma to the use of nukes. It is a merely a weapon, nothing more or less. The only issue is the matter of scale.
We have also disposed of most of the huge multi-megaton weapons whose development preceded today's much more accurate guidance systems. When your CEP is measured in miles, it might take several 10 MT weapons to assure destruction of a hardened missile silo that could easily be destroyed with a few KTs yield with a CEP of a few feet. Therefore the modification of the older large payload systems with MIRVs which permitted several much smaller warheads to be loaded into a single launch vehicle. We are not discussing deploying multi-MT weapons in any scenarios I have seen.
During the Cold War, we consistently refused to promise no first use of nukes, and regularly planned for the first strike engagement of small critical targets with tactical nuclear weapons. When the enemy has a capability you cannot destroy with your conventional forces, you have to examine the options for the remaining weapons you possess, regardless of how odious it might be.
Our enemies are not stupid. They have seen the effects of our air power and realize that if it is on the surface, we can destroy it. As they have gone deeper, they have reached the point where we can no longer assure destruction of these facilities with conventional weapons. Recent efforts to develop a tactical nuclear weapon to accomplish this have been decried in the liberal MSM, but should continue nonetheless. As long as our enemies think that we do not have the capability to attack them, or the will to, they will continue to develop their own weapons programs in HDBTs. THe sooner we make it clear that we have the means and intent to go after them, whatever means it takes, the sooner that we will find them much more tractable at the bargaining table. Till then, they have nothing to worry about.
We can strike them and their illicit programs in their country at our convenience, or we can wait till their weapons are developed, deployed on delivery systems, or passed to terrorists for their delivery to the CONUS. Personally, I would prefer to hit them on their turf and let them deal with the consequences rather than attempt to rebuild Manhattan after it gets hit, and figure out where the weapon came from/who to punish. It occurs to me that after you hit one HDBT with a nuke, the bloom of being a member of the nuclear club might come off the rose, and negotiations might be more fruitful if they were wondering who would be the next one hit.
Rest assured, our enemies will have no such compunctions about using those weapons on us in a first strike.
Just my .02, YMMV.
TR
+1!
I think that a nuclear response would be warrented if Hollywood tried to make "Broken Arrow 2"...:D
TR-
Agreed- tactical, low yield, subsurface, smart delivery detonations against hardened / deep targets is a feasible use of Nweapons. I had the pleasure of being on a Heavy Ruck Team, NBC School, yada yada... precision placement is the key, my argument is against the Glass Parking Lot crowd who believe that indiscriminate use, or blanket bombing with nukes will quickly end a conflict - it will, but with consequences beyond our control. With accurate, timely, and violent action against the deep / hardened targets, munitions factories etc. as noted above we do accomplish the goal of getting back to the negotiating table - some of our conventional stuff might work in this case, but we might have to escalate to the precision nukes - follow the same practices as you would in medicine - conservative start, then ramp up to the radically aggressive treatment.
Again, not anti-nuke, but anti blanket approach to the use of nukes.
One small point- don't let me die by radiation poisoning, give me a 9mm or .45 intracranial high speed lead injection if it looks like that's the case. Or, make sure I'm within the blast / concussion circle.
Thats exactly what I was saying before and you were giving me a hard time about it. I never proposed even using an ICBM, I said tactical nukes deliverd by aircraft, against their nuclear weapons producing capablitiy and storage sites.
x SF med
08-31-2006, 19:06
Apologies Patriot - I misread your statement, although I'm not sure I'd go against the N storage facilities with Nukes, production, yes.
incommin
08-31-2006, 19:24
Can the genie be put back into the bottle? I don't think so! Should the genie be used, as a last resort, to keep other genies from getting free? I think so!
Can the genie be put back into the bottle? I don't think so! Should the genie be used, as a last resort, to keep other genies from getting free? I think so!
Very well put, incommin!
x SF med
09-01-2006, 06:55
Very well put, incommin!
+1 Guess that's the point I was trying to make, but my CRS got in the way.