Los Alamos's New Project: Updating America's Aging Nuclear Weapons (apnews.com) 192
During World War II, "Los Alamos was the perfect spot for the U.S. government's top-secret Manhattan Project," remembers the Associated Press.
"The community is facing growing pains again, 80 years later, as Los Alamos National Laboratory takes part in the nation's most ambitious nuclear weapons effort since World War II." The mission calls for modernizing the arsenal with droves of new workers producing plutonium cores — key components for nuclear weapons. Some 3,300 workers have been hired in the last two years, with the workforce now topping more than 17,270. Close to half of them commute to work from elsewhere in northern New Mexico and from as far away as Albuquerque, helping to nearly double Los Alamos' population during the work week... While the priority at Los Alamos is maintaining the nuclear stockpile, the lab also conducts a range of national security work and research in diverse fields of space exploration, supercomputing, renewable energy and efforts to limit global threats from disease and cyberattacks...
The headline grabber, though, is the production of plutonium cores. Lab managers and employees defend the massive undertaking as necessary in the face of global political instability. With most people in Los Alamos connected to the lab, opposition is rare. But watchdog groups and non-proliferation advocates question the need for new weapons and the growing price tag... Aside from pressing questions about the morality of nuclear weapons, watchdogs argue the federal government's modernization effort already has outpaced spending predictions and is years behind schedule. Independent government analysts issued a report earlier this month that outlined the growing budget and schedule delays.
"A hairline scratch on a warhead's polished black cone could send the bomb off course..." notes an earlier article.
"The U.S. will spend more than $750 billion over the next 10 years replacing almost every component of its nuclear defenses, including new stealth bombers, submarines and ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in the country's most ambitious nuclear weapons effort since the Manhattan Project."
"The community is facing growing pains again, 80 years later, as Los Alamos National Laboratory takes part in the nation's most ambitious nuclear weapons effort since World War II." The mission calls for modernizing the arsenal with droves of new workers producing plutonium cores — key components for nuclear weapons. Some 3,300 workers have been hired in the last two years, with the workforce now topping more than 17,270. Close to half of them commute to work from elsewhere in northern New Mexico and from as far away as Albuquerque, helping to nearly double Los Alamos' population during the work week... While the priority at Los Alamos is maintaining the nuclear stockpile, the lab also conducts a range of national security work and research in diverse fields of space exploration, supercomputing, renewable energy and efforts to limit global threats from disease and cyberattacks...
The headline grabber, though, is the production of plutonium cores. Lab managers and employees defend the massive undertaking as necessary in the face of global political instability. With most people in Los Alamos connected to the lab, opposition is rare. But watchdog groups and non-proliferation advocates question the need for new weapons and the growing price tag... Aside from pressing questions about the morality of nuclear weapons, watchdogs argue the federal government's modernization effort already has outpaced spending predictions and is years behind schedule. Independent government analysts issued a report earlier this month that outlined the growing budget and schedule delays.
"A hairline scratch on a warhead's polished black cone could send the bomb off course..." notes an earlier article.
"The U.S. will spend more than $750 billion over the next 10 years replacing almost every component of its nuclear defenses, including new stealth bombers, submarines and ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in the country's most ambitious nuclear weapons effort since the Manhattan Project."
Off course (Score:2)
I always assumed a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile built in the U.S. would have a guidance system that could keep it on course even after hitting a MiG or a frozen chicken. Sadly, it seems I was overly optimistic.
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That quote is entirely FUD, to make you afraid, so you will comply.
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This claim is utter nonsense.
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The missiles are stated as 50 years old, so they may be purely ballistic. By being ballistic they get fired off into a trajectory by a guided rocket but once released it goes where the winds take it. These are strategic weapons, intended to take out large targets with large explosions, they are not some precision weapon. The path they take is even in the name, intercontinental ballistic missile. This is the realm of "close only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear ordnance". Even if the U
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Not even that. Even ballistic missiles can still be steered in descent.
For reference, take GBUs [wikipedia.org]. These are essentially unpropelled bombs that have "steering fins" that allow them to adjust their drop path. These things are hardly a new development, they have been in use since WW2 [wikipedia.org].
So just because "onze ze rocketz are up", we still care "where ze come down". And we can guide them.
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You forgot one: government work.
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"A hairline scratch on a warhead’s polished black cone could send the bomb off course."
This is bullshit. Anyone who EVER had as much as dabbled in rocketry knows it.
Rockets aren't exactly the most stable of delivery vehicles. And then there is wind. There is a reason for these gimballed thrusters that allow you to nudge the rocket in one direction or another. A scratch on a warhead doesn't mean jack shit.
Re: Off course (Score:2)
I think he's talking about the warhead as the entire re-entry vehicle, and not the actual bomb inside. And a scratch on the front of it likely would effect accuracy a little, but it shouldn't have any real effect unless it's done with an axle grinder or something.
On a ballistic missle each of the MIRVs needs to be able to survive reentry to Earth at very high speed.
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Not even that. The cone shroud only matters on the way up, and the way up is powered. With a rocket that has to compensate for far, far more severe problems like wind than a damn scratch in the nose cone. Unless that "scratch" is big enough to compromise the integrity of the cone, there is no effect on the trajectory whatsoever.
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"A hairline scratch on a warhead’s polished black cone could send the bomb off course." I always assumed a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile built in the U.S. would have a guidance system that could keep it on course even after hitting a MiG or a frozen chicken. Sadly, it seems I was overly optimistic.
I always assumed the accepted CEP range of 200m for a Minuteman III landing on target provided plenty of justification to dismantle a bullshit excuse like "hairline scratch" to justify taxpayer spend.
Not to mention that nuke being dropped is probably flanked by another few dozen. As if "off course" is gonna really matter.
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Sure that's why there are another 5-6 others headed to the same target area.
The Cold War warrior types didn't take any chances when it came to their ability to destroy all life.
Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
That there are still people who think you can just wish away nuclear weapons.
Similar to how a gun is just a tube with a projectile and an explosive, a nuclear weapons is 1940s tech. Just saying "let's not use these anymore" is going to disarm you, but not anybody else.
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I hope they never get used, at the same time, I wish that the US has the most advanced version available that could obliterate anyone.
And I wish for the same for Russia, China, India, Britain, France...
Nukes are a surefire way to keep even the most insane loonie in check. Because everyone who starts a war thinks they'll win it, preferably easily. Even Hitler thought he would win WW2. And he would not have started it knowing "if I do, I'll go to hell in a handbasket".
Re: Amazing (Score:2)
The problem is that nuclear weapons are really only useful if you've already been nuked, or the enemy plans to literally kill all of you.
In a conventional fight they don't serve much purpose against someone else with a decent amount of nukes.
Most countries given the choice between being conquered and dying but taking out a large chunk of the enemy with them, but the enemy likely still existing afterwards would choose life.
Even the worst case, it's expected the US wouldn't lose more than 40 million people i
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Nukes are only useful to avoid a conventional fight because both sides fear the escalation to nuclear.
Once the fight is on, nukes are a liability because once one side notices that they will lose and that there is no hope of winning anymore, they might decide to at least make sure that everyone loses.
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Putin most of all cannot use nukes. We've seen the state his army is in. Now ponder how insane the embezzlement and corruption would be in a branch of service where anyone involved could think with good reason that these things will NEVER EVER see any kind of action.
Also, using nukes would isolate him completely. China would instantly drop him like a hot potato simply because they know that no later than then it's him or the US. And they will choose the US. Because otherwise, their economy is shot. Lukashen
Sure, more cores... (Score:2)
Because the world is currently more unstable.
72 years old and my crowning philosophical realization is that we are simply not an adequately intelligent species for viability. But they got that Senate dress code problem worked out to the satisfaction of primate preening.
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https://www.space.com/37157-po... [space.com]
"4. Intelligent life self-destructs. Whether via weapons of mass destruction, planetary pollution, or manufactured virulent disease, it may be the nature of intelligent species to commit suicide, existing for only a short time before winking out of existence."
To that list we could now add, people above some level of comfort come to the view that procreation is just too much of a hassle to bother with.
Should have continued AGM-131 missile (Score:3)
I think they made a huge mistake by discontinuing the AGM-131 SRAM II missile in the early 1990's. SRAM II would likely have replaced most of our gravity drop nuclear bombs and allowed any delivery plane attack the target with far less chance of having to deal with local air defenses.
'Going to end looking like the intro to Space 1999 (Score:2)
Can you imagine (Score:5, Insightful)
if we spent this kind of money to address climate change? We might have a chance to avert a catastrophe as great as nuclear war.
Biggest hypocrites (Score:2)
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Have you taken even a moment to learn anything these countries the United States "bullies". They're some of the worst human rights offenders on the planet and you're going on about how entitled these people are to have nuclear weapons.
I mean, please forgive us Americans for not getting along with countries who not only deprive their own people of democracy but torture and kill their own citizens for offences that wouldnt even be illegal in any civilized country. How insensitive of us!
Hairline scratch? (Score:2)
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be better to slowly disarm nukes.
In abstract? Yeah, though it's very hard to keep mid 1940s tech out of people's hands forever. In practice a world in which Xiping, Kim Jong Un and Putin have nukes, but we don't is not one I'd relish living in.
Though given how fast plutonium cores decay and how poorly maintained even Russia's military trucks are, I'd be surprised if they didn't have a very high dud rate.
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It only takes 1 and an entire city and surrounding areas are a radioactive molten wasteland.
Since they have several thousand warheads, it is a good assumption they can still end civilization all by themselves if only 10% of them work.
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"[Putin] also believes that the NATO alliance isn't actually strong and is always on the verge of collapse."
WTF? (No, I am not doubting you!)
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I'm doubting both of his statements.
What is the basis for believing Putin thinks NATO is always on the verge of collapse?
I've seen no Putin actions that follow that idea. He has been very careful to not directly confront NATO and trigger article 5. Big talk, no action. Made barely a peep about Finland joining.
What is the basis for stating Putin always escalates?
In Ukraine he pulled back and consolidated instead of pushing forward when the initial attack failed.
And why would he throw a single nuke anyway?
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More than that, whether he uses one or more than one, the response would be the same: a mushroom cloud rising over a Russian city courtesy of a US Navy ballistic missile submarine hiding in a few hundred square miles of ocean, undetected until after it's too late.
If he uses more than one, there will be more than one mushroom cloud rising over Russian cities. And our shit is much more likely to work than theirs. And he knows it. Even if he was to survive, his country would not, and the best case scenario
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:4, Insightful)
More than that, whether he uses one or more than one, the response would be the same: a mushroom cloud rising over a Russian city courtesy of a US Navy ballistic missile submarine hiding in a few hundred square miles of ocean, undetected until after it's too late.
That's not actually how the US would fight a nuclear war. We employ a counterforce [wikipedia.org] strategy. The probable response to a single nuke employed against a NATO Ally would be the destruction of whatever Russian unit(s) launched that nuke. The plan for an all out nuclear war would be to destroy the Russian military, beginning with their nuclear forces.
Countervalue [wikipedia.org], i.e., going after cities directly and deliberately, that's a war crime, and it hasn't been part of the American doctrine for decades. There are some cities that are uncomfortably close to military targets, in America, think of Honolulu (Pearl Harbor), Seattle (Bremerton Naval Base), or Arlington/Washington (the Pentagon and White House). You probably don't want to be in those cities during a nuclear war.
Most targets are in the middle of nowhere. You can look up the locations of our ICBMs, it's public knowledge, on Wikipedia of all places. They're surrounded by farmland. If you were a Russian General, are you going to waste your finite number of missiles on cities, or go after the weapons that can come back at you? One of the stated purposes of those missile fields is to serve as a "sponge" for inbound enemy missiles. Kinda sucks if you're the farmer with the Minuteman silo on your property but it won't led to millions of causalities if Russia takes it out.
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On that farmer: iirc they get paid a nice chunk of cash to have a silo on their land in exchange for being a first strike target so it's not all bad. A pretty good deal as long as no one decides to destroy the world and being some other random place and surviving may not be the ideal plan in the aftermath, anyway. Sometimes dead is better.
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That Putin always escalates [themoscowtimes.com] is just a character trait at this point.
He backed down like a little bitch during the Wagner Group rebellion. Killed some of those responsible a few months after the fact, Putin certainly holds a grudge, but in the moment he backed down. The US is a tad bit more powerful than a mercenary army full of ex-cons, hard to believe Putin would try to walk up the escalation path with us, unless he felt the US President was a weakling.
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The intention was still there - you launched a missile that was detected by satellites coming from a known launch site for nuclear weapons. That is all it would take - the intention of using a weapon of mass destruction against a NATO country. That means before we know it's a dud, there's already going to be hundreds of missiles that are probably NOT duds flying to various locations across Russia from Wyoming and North Dakota, as well as from unspecified locations in various oceans from ballistic missile
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They will be promptly replaced by people with the same ideas, probably worse. Someone will fill the power vacuum, and he won't be a peaceful leader.
For an assassination to work, you need to be able to plant your own puppet government after that, and back it up with enough force if you want it to stay, and even with that, there is no guarantee that it will last.
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Oh, we absolutely already have those. A lot of our warheads are "dial-a-yield" devices that allow you to set an intended yield before deployment - from somewhere in the handful-of-kiloton range to hundreds of kilotons each. And, our missile crews are rated on how many yards they miss the "target" (usually a barrel on a concrete pad with a bullseye painted on it for humor) when that target is on an atoll in the south Pacific, and the crew being rated is sitting at a launch test and training facility thousa
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Good news: it's not a binary position.
We don't need a few thousand warheads. The only justification for a few thousand warheads is that "the other guys" have a few thousand warheads too. And we're both paying hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain devices that can end human society "just in case" "the other guys" have an exceptionally bad day.
Arms reduction treaties, even in times of severe disagreement between "us" and "the other guys" should still be enforced, should still be negotiated, and should
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, if you can convince Russia to go back to nuclear disarmament instead of developing submarine-sized autonomous nuclear torpedoes and bringing Project Pluto to life, be my guest. The US would love a new mutual nuclear disarmament treaty.
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Insightful)
True. For no reason at all the US suddenly quit several treaties after several decades. Nope, no reason at all. Nothing to do with the Russians cheating or anything else. Nope, nope, nope, just evil USA at it again.
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Withdrawal from the ABM treaty was much earlier, in the George W. Bush administration. The reason given for that had been to allow the US to develop ballistic missile defense ("SDI"). The Russian response to the US dropping out of the ABM treaty was to drop out of the START-II treaty reducing the number of nuclear weapons. Since the US did not in fact go on to deploy missile defense, dropping out of the ABM treaty ended up being a pointless move.
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason the Trump administration gave for quitting the INF treaty was that the Russians had violated the treaty by deploying 9M729 cruise missiles (aka "SSC-8"). Evaluating whether this is true is beyond my capabilities.
The real reason both Moscow and Washington wanted out of the INF was that China is not a party to it. By some accounts, over 80% of China's missiles would be outlawed under the INF treaty. China is now up-arming on strategic nukes and fun fact, they aren't party to any strategic reduction treaties either, nor will they take part in the confidence building measures (e.g., authorized overflights and on-site inspections) that the US and Russia have been doing since the 1970s.
Global disarmament was already on life support due to tensions between Russia and the West. It will be dead within a decade if someone can't find a way to bring China into an updated framework. Even if the US was inclined to ignore their arms buildup, the Russians sure as hell won't, no matter how much lip-service they give in public to being BFFs.
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Name a country that would if they had it.
I'll wait.
LIke it or not somebody has to be the top dog. I'd much prefer the United States and a vassalized Europe to be that top dog rather than Putin's Russia or Xi's China. Do they make mistakes? Absolutely -- but I'll take American mistakes over Chinese intentional actions any day.
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Informative)
That maybe but according to https://www.nti.org/atomic-pul... [nti.org], China is gaining fast and refuses talks over them.
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly? There has never been a weapon in history that caused so many wars to not be fought as this one. It's pretty easy to convince even a raving lunatic that NOT starting a war is a good idea when the outcome is almost certainly that he'll croak.
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Perhaps.
Now point to how many of those 3,300 ICBMs we really need to convey such an anti-raving lunatic deterrent, because I kinda doubt it's wipe-the-planet-30-times-over needy.
When it comes to the dire warning that came from a sitting President some 60 odd years ago about the Military Industrial Complex, Eisenhower wasn't concerned about the MIC stepping up to the nuke bar to have a deterrent or two. He was worried about those drunks getting shitfaced on Greed and firing up a fucking distillery. Which t
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Eisenhower was probably the last decent president the US had. Funny that it was a general...
What he said about the MIC is absolutely right, but I'd be more concerned about conventional arms and their eternal greed than when it comes to nukes. Nukes are not really a great weapon system, they're great at being a deterrent of using them. Conventional arms are far more likely to convince some megalomanic idiot that he has all the things he needs to win a war. In a nuclear war, the winner would only be the secon
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Well... when Eisenhower gave his farewell address in 1961, US defense spending was 9.16% of GDP. Now it's 3.1%. In other words the share of output going to defense is now much closer to nothing than to the level it was at, at that time.
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You might remember that back in the 1950s and 1960s, the US actually fought very actively in wars?
And I don't mean "send some troops somewhere to distract from domestic problems", I mean actual WARS.
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I hope we aren't headed for a war in Taiwan though. It's worrying how many people are talking like it's inevitable.
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When it comes to warmongering, the only real metric is pointless lives lost.
Any other metric only serves to justify more warmongering and more spend with bullshit number gaming.
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Emperor Hirohito would like to have a nukes vs. conventional discussion with you.
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When WW2 started, nobody had any idea about nuclear weapons. So Japan and Germany were like "yeah, let's give that a shot... literally". Even after the 2 nukes, the Japanese military wanted to continue the fight, that's why Hirohito actually directly addressed the people (something that was considered IMPOSSIBLE at the time, the Tenno would NEVER speak to mere mortals, hard to understand for someone who is not Japanese what it meant that the Tenno directly spoke to them). The interesting bit was that that t
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Yes but at the end seeing one major city go poof wasn't evidence enough. We had to do a second to make the point.
And yet Tokyo had higher death tolls from conventional bombing which had no apparent impact on Japanese decision making. Despite the bombing campaign they were all set to fight to the death even though it was super clear they were going to lose a conventional fight on the mainland.
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I have a feeling the calculus went about like this: with conventional bombing, lots of people die and there's lots of indiscriminate damage being done, but it's possible to have assets survive, and you can do some serious damage to the enemy in taking down their planes with anti-aircraft fire because it takes hundreds of planes to do that kind of damage and they have to fly somewhat lower in order to hit the targets they're aiming for. They wanted to buy time hoping for an opportunity, and the price they w
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It also was no nuclear war. What we had there was one side being able to eliminate the other side.
What we had, was a means to an end. It was merely unfortunate that it was used against an opponent that does not surrender easily, which they had three days to do so after watching the first bomb drop. It is fortunate that it only took a second one to convince them they needed to.
This isn't war, this is a beat down.
Pearl Harbor was quite the beat down too. And this was war. World War. Ignorantly enough our second one, so can't exactly say we were "new" to the concept.
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Surprise attacks are quite conventional.
In this context, conventional only means non-nuclear (or bio or chemical). Bombs, bullets, that sort of thing = conventional.
As far as should they have done it? It was a long shot at best. Gambled hard and lost big time.
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They took a gamble that if the United States got gut-punched hard enough, we'd back off and let them continue their nationalistic expansion in the western Pacific even at the cost of our own American colonialism in the Phillipines.
They lost that bet. In about the biggest way they could. But it was a reasonable bet to take - I have a hard time thinking that the American public would react in the same way post-Vietnam draft, and post Afghanistan / Iraq. But I could be wrong.
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The flip side is one lunatic leader can trigger Armageddon.
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Lunatic leaders are very rarely suicidal. They tend to have all the amenities they want at their disposal and are hellbent on keeping them. The average lunatic leader has enough delusions of grandeur to think that they are god's gift to humanity.
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> Lunatic leaders are very rarely suicidal.
I wouldn't bet on that.
> have all the amenities they want at their disposal and are hellbent on keeping them
They got their position by being aggressive, not by being satisfied. They may eventually crave a new gambit.
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Unfortunately, you can't bank on crazy. It becomes a lot easier to go "all-in" on a lunatic morality-need-not-apply low-percentage high-risk chance if the other alternatives lead to 100% probability of the end of your illustrious reign combined with the introduction of a small lump of copper-jacketed lead into your skull at high velocity, or a 6x10 cell and bad food for the rest of your life after a long and very public, very humiliating, legal proceeding.
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This is true... so far. We've made it... almost one whole human lifetime! It's a pittance, especially with the number of close calls that placed the prospect of annihilation into the hands of one or two men. It doesn't give much assurance for the next 100 years, or 50,000 years, or million years, or however long we'd like the human race to persist. For the record, dinosaurs lasted 165 million years and
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Europe had a period of peace for 77 years now. I challenge you to find ANY other period in recorded history where there was no war on this continent (aside of a civil war) for that long.
Proxy wars existed long before the advent of Nukes. We just didn't give as much a fuck about them because we, too, had war going on locally.
Re:How about winding down instead ? (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and by the way, the US independence war was such a proxy war. Between France and England. France sent "instructors" and "technical assistance" to equip and train the revolutionaries against a British colonial army.
Sounds familiar?
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And don't forget we got a really cool statue as a tourist attraction, too!
A pretty good deal overall for the rebels.
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And the US didn't even leave a token of appreciation in Seoul.
What cheapskates.
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All the half-American kids left behind should count for something.
Every sperm is sacred!
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That's ok, the war isn't over yet - it's only a cease-fire armistice. We still have time to order something nice for them on Amazon Prime.
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Just because the French sent us assistance doesnt make our Revolutionary War a proxy war. While the French certainly did send us help (and cheers to them for that!) as far as I understand it it wasnt all that much and didnt really effect the outcome of the war in any big way. It's not like they were sending us giant shipments of guns and canons.
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as far as I understand it it wasnt all that much and didnt really effect the outcome of the war in any big way
You couldn't be more [wikipedia.org] wrong [wikipedia.org] about that. No French intervention means Cornwallis and his army escape and re-enter the conflict somewhere else (probably New York City). Best case, the war drags on several more years and regardless of who wins the toll in blood and treasure would be higher for both sides. Worst case, the revolution is snuffed out and we're part of Canada today, eh?
It's ironic that one of of the Royal Navy's few (you can count them on one hand) defeats in the 18th and 19th Centuries was the
Illustration of Long Peace (Score:2)
Europe had a period of peace for 77 years now.
The best illustration I've seen of it is this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The whole thing should be seen, but the "long peace" starts at 13:25. It could use an update for Ukraine, but who's blaming that on nukes (vs. lack of nukes)?
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I would blame that on a lack of nukes. Ukraine handed its nukes back to Russia for a promise of peace.
We now know what a Russian promise is worth.
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I recall a kerfluffle in the Balkans in the mid-1990s. Are you only counting Northern Europe?
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That's the civil war I mentioned. You might remember that the countries that produced were formally known as Yugoslavia.
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Europe, not so much. It was peaceful until last year when Russia invaded Ukraine.
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That's why I said 77 years.
Ok, 76 years and 9 months. Satisfied?
Re: How about winding down instead ? (Score:2)
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If you're not counting the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 or the invasion of Cyprus in 1974 (with occupation ongoing to this day), can we also discount the French invasion of Spain in 1823 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 and claim 1815 to 1914?
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To claim 1815 to 1914 you'd also have to exclude various Schleswig wars and the Austrian-Prussian war and the Italian unification wars... aside of various uprisings and independence wars that could technically be considered like the Czechoslovakia invasion...
Quite frankly, if you compare the list of wars between the Napoleonic wars and WW1 and the time between WW2 and today...
Re: How about winding down instead ? (Score:2)
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And everyone responding to you has got it wrong. To engage in war is, like anything else, a cost-benefit analysis. In other words, how much can I gain by killing my neighbor, and what's it going to cost me? A perfect example of this is the only time that nuclear weapons were used. The Japanese government had made a ch
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The Japanese government had made a choice that dying while killing it's opponent was a better alternative route, and was prepared to fight to the last civilian in an invasion of the Japanese islands. What the nuclear weapons did was change the analysis: Japan would die to the last civilian and NOT get a chance to kill it's opponent. Thus their calculus changed, and they came to the negotiating table.
You're overlooking Operation August Storm [wikipedia.org], which many historians say came as the bigger shock to Japanese policymakers than the atomic bombings, and likely deserves an equal (some say greater) amount of the credit for finally convincing them to lay down arms.
Operation Starvation [wikipedia.org] is also little remembered by historians and would have led to their surrender by 1946 at the latest, without the atomic bombings or Soviet invasion.
In hindsight, the use of the bombs was not morally defensible, and even at the ti
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So you think the Soviets didn't invade Germany because there was so much EU/USSR trade?
Seriously?
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In 20 years, we had two global-scale wars where tens of millions died with conventional weapons alone. At the end of that second one, that's when nukes came on the scene.
In the subsequent almost 80 years, we haven't had any conflicts anywhere near that scale due to fear of escalation to using nuclear weapons. The two greatest things to come out of the absolute nightmare of World War 2 was the establishment of the United Nations (which, while far from perfect, has also been an effective force for preventin
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It would be better to slowly disarm nukes.
Well, that should be easy since the US only has one of them (according to the Slashdot headline).
Hard sell. (Score:2)
Los Alamos National Laboratory is an R&D lab for the US Department of Energy. This means you either have to present a convincing logical argument to the US Congress and have them agree (which is impossible because so many members are certifiable) or you can convince everyone that is qualified would have to refuse which would require great personal sacrifice.
You would have a much better chance of convincing a few people working on the project to sabotage the plutonium cores so that they don't pose an act
Re: How about winding down instead ? (Score:2)
Re: How about winding down instead ? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Right. Why can't we all just love each other! I'm sure Putin and Un would be all over that one.
Re: (Score:2)
I get it. I really do. Less nukes is better. But China is rapidly growing its nuke pile and they got absolutely no interest in arms control or disarmament. And our old treaties with Russia are dead. Until the 3 major nuke powers sit down at the table
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, to the government leadership, everyone should be identical in speech to Beijing anyway. All these outlier regions and ethnic groups are just an embarrassment to their image. Newer generations actually seem to use pinyin for typing and choosing characters, which becomes a cycle such that as pinyin for typing becomes more common it causes others to want to use it to, and input systems relying on more efficient methods drop to the wayside. It's like Qwerty winning out over Dvorak, but with a big mix o