Obama Calls For Nuke-Free World 705
jamie points out news that President Obama has put out a call for a world free of nuclear weapons at a speech in Prague today. He acknowledged that it was a long-term goal, perhaps not something that can be accomplished in his lifetime, but promised to encourage the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty. According to the BBC, he also stated his desire to "negotiate a new treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons," and to hold a global summit within the next year to work out agreements for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Obama said, "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it." His speech came less than a day after North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket.
Re:And nuclear power? (Score:4, Informative)
It won't.
There are many reactor designs (CANDU in particular) that don't require any enrichment at all. What he's talking about is no longer producing highly enriched U235 and/or PU239.
Of course, that's great and all, but there are already fairly sizable stockpiles of both within the established nuclear powers.
He's either posturing or pipe-dreaming.
Re:And nuclear power? (Score:2, Informative)
The answer is, unfortunately, depended on installed base technologies.
The ancient, prototype nuclear plant (the ones installed all over the western world in the 1950's and 1960's) DO require the very same enrichment cycle that nuclear weapons require.
The new types of reactors. Pebble bed, light water, what have you, don't require any kind of enrichment cycle (but would, in the US and all over Europe and Russia, require replacing most, if not all, existing facilities). Dropping the enrichment cycle would also rob us of the production of medical isotopes, which would become prohibitively expensive to produce. It would also end research into new "very high atomic number" isotopes, and will rob us of any knowledge of the higher stable islands in the periodic table.
The problem with this knowledge is that is makes it VERY hard to explain what Iran is doing with enrichment facilities and light water reactors, which have other advantages such as increased efficiency and, above all, price. You see, Iran doesn't need enrichment for power, and yet they ARE enriching ... Since they're not doing it for power (and they sure as hell are not spending 40% of the country's budget on producing medical isotopes they don't know how to use) ... there can be only a single conclusion.
However I will leave it to people for whom reality is more important than fantasy to decide what exactly said conclusion is. Especially considering that Iranian engineers participated in North Korea's missile test. The missile test that occured moments before Obama announced he would kill the one defence America's got that's proven to work : the ability to retaliate in kind.
There is a positive note to make though : despite all the hype, any realistic quantity of nukes is not capable of taking out America's military. That would take something near a million nukes, and would require enveloping America, and several other nations, for weeks in nuclear blasts, something impossible to do with less than several hundred thousand nukes.
Therefore despite their reputation, any nukes Iran or North Korea might fire, in the belief that America would be prevented from retaliating, would not really prevent that. America would, obviously, be left with only one choice : have American soldiers conquer a few of their cities and commit massacres the "old fashioned" way. It would cost untold numbers of casualties, but there would be no other options.
You see, despite all the idiocy surrounding nukes, they were intended to lessen bloodshed and force enemies to use other external politics than war.
They worked. On at least three enemies (Japan, USSR and Korea). Destroying nukes will not improve the world, it will bring back the civil wars and constant open conflicts like WWI and WWII. They will bring back the need for national armies to massacre civilians, just like they did before the 1950's.
Of course, considerations like that are too much reality for anyone who's ever believed an Al Gore (or Obama) speech.
Re:Ahem. (Score:5, Informative)
It's a touch harder than that. First you need that highly enriched uranium, which means you'll need a reactor, reprocessing facilities and some way to refine your U238-rich Uranium into weapons grade U235. You'll also need a few other metals while you're there, such as Beryllium. Then once you have all of that, and assuming someone hasn't bombed your facilities in the mean time, you have to "smash them together" in just the right way: too fast and they'll fly apart before they reach criticality, too slow and the mass will not be compressed enough: either will lead to a fizzle.
Which is exactly what happened to North Korea by the way. Apparently even after decades of research and development, smacking to bits of metal together is pretty hard to do right.
Re:Yet another example of incompetence (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Nice idea, but way before it's time (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Yet another example of incompetence (Score:3, Informative)
Re:no guns (Score:2, Informative)
This will work just like the UK banning hand guns, now the only people with hand guns are bad guys AND they all know the law abiding citizens aren't armed. Also once we get rid of all our nukes, then the bad guys get to turn the tables on us and say okay if we see you guys trying to build any nuke we're gonna nuke you.
Yeah, and we all now how big the UK's gun problems are:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/britain-records-18-fall-in-gun-deaths-1232069.html [independent.co.uk]
And although I am in favour of banning guns and a reduction of nuclear weapons I don't think it's a comparable analogy.
Re:Don't go to war with the US unless.... (Score:2, Informative)
I disagree that China would have no chance to win conventional a war against USA. They can easily mobilize half a billion soldiers.
Re:Rhetorical Question ... (Score:3, Informative)
>No one will give up their trump card.
South Africa and Ukraine did so in the past.
Re:Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nuke Free Only Until When (Score:3, Informative)
while being so self-righteous you have forgotten a couple of things.
first of all, the taliban you yanks are hunting now are the same taliban you yanks were funding and calling heroes and freedom fighters 25 years ago.
second, thanks to your intervention in yugoslavia, albanian cutthroats have murdered lots of serbs and tried to invade macedonia.
third, not american military leadership has prevented the nazis, the russians have. americans preferred to sit on their collective arses until it was sure that russians would win the war and then they went in to steal the laurels.
not to mention all other crazy dicatorships you you yanks funded. so yes, please keep your "help" to yourself.
because with friends like you, who needs enemies?
Re:Pandora only comes out of the box... (Score:3, Informative)
Pandora is the owner of the box, she wasn't what came out of it.