Just Say NO to Nukes

This is a revised posting. My original post ended by saying “Just Say NO to Nukes.” I changed it now to put it in the heading. Most people, when you they hear “nuclear bomb” or “atom bomb” they think that are all talking about the same thing. It has been many years now since the so called end of the so-called cold war. I say so called since to millions of dead human beings it was not a cold war at all.

An entire generation is about to reach adulthood and not understand the nature of that long horrible stand off. They may even think the stand off is over. Clearly nobody really understands the variety of weaponry that still exists by the thousands. I don’t think even the President could tell you the difference between the Hiroshima bomb and the bombs of today.

So here is a little education. First of all the Hiroshima bomb and the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki, were “fission” bombs. They were atomic bombs. They used a lot of TNT to split plutonium atoms apart and release all that pent up energy. When people talk about suitcase bombs, or North Korean nukes, or the theoretical bomb that might be made in Iran they are probably talking about that kind of bomb.

Today in the arsenals of Russia and the US there are very few atom bombs. The standard US weapon is the 20mt fusion bomb. These bombs are really two bombs in one. The first bomb is a fission bomb that triggers the far larger and more destructive, if you can believe this, fusion reaction. In other words modern first world weapons use Hiroshima bombs a fuses.

The Hiroshima bomb that killed 60 thousand people in the blink of an eye was also pretty much of a dud. Only 1.4% of the fissial material actually did the job. The Nagasaki bomb was a little less of a dud at 15% fission. A modern thermonuclear weapon is thousands of times more destructive than the little atom bombs of WWII. That is why most people who understand the nature of these weapons are all opposed to them.

The Russians, in the late 1950’’s, built and detonated a 100mt bomb dubbed Tsar Bomba “king of bombs” The scientists were so worried about potential aftereffects of the test that they replaced 50% of the core with lead so that it only achieved 50mts. The US has never admitted to producing any weapons that powerful. And really they don’t need to. A 20mt bomb is just about as destructive and is a lot smaller. They are also more accurate.

To make matters worse most all the 20megatoners are loaded in missiles that hold up to10 20mt fusion bombs. In order to destroy a nation the size of the US or Russia only one or two missiles would really be needed to wreak unspeakable havoc. Currently both nations have arsenals in the thousands. Far more than would be needed to destroy the world many times over. Furthermore these weapons are not only in land based silos but at least 50% of the US arsenal is on continuously moving and practically undetectable submarines. This gives the US a first strike capability of killing any nation without that nation knowing what hit it or giving it any time at all to respond. Russia is similarly armed.

If the US so desired it could in a mater of minutes, not an hour or two, but minutes, take out the entire nation of North Korea or Iran., or both simultaneously. All it would take would be two subs and two missiles.

This is the real threat to civilization. This is going to continue to be an ever present danger to mankind and we all need to keep talking so that no one has time to do the unthinkable. Of course Bin Laden and his kind, both Muslim and Christian, and atheist for that matter, would be willing to do it. Democracies must refrain from using a terrorist bomb to justify a global nuclear war. The retaliation to such a provocation would be worse than the initial attack itself and solve nothing.

We have to pressure all first world governments to do a better job at locking down and securing materials that could fall into the hands of the insane. We can do it but it is going to take a conscious effort to wish to live.