New CBS TV Series Making Nuclear War Thinkable And Great Fun For Everyone

Tapio Erola wrote:
Interesting factoid: Largest bombs were built during the cold war,
when biggest deliverable bombs (aside test/prestige gadget(s) like
"Tsar Bomba") reached 10-15 Megatons.

I thought that, at 20 Mt, the SS-20 was not exceptionally large?

mawa

P.S.: I wanted to spell "exceptionally" with two Ns, there. That's what
you get from living in a French-speaking environnement.

Eric Chomko wrote in message
ups.com...

Fred J. McCall wrote:
Curly Surmudgeon wrote:

:On Sat, 23 Sep 2006 21:55:09 -0700, ashleyglynn wrote:
:
: Indeed, but I'm not seeing the debate about the plausibility of
: _either_ being very well grounded in reality. Furthermore, the
: question: "Is nuclear war survivable?" is in general already
answered,
: and the answer is a resounding "YES" because we actually fought one
in
: 1945.
:
:Here is your error, the earth has never suffered a nuclear war. You
:twist events to further reduce the damage which will result from a
nuclear
:war.

Are you ready for the ignorance? Here it comes....

:In 1945 two _atomic_ bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Did
:you not attend history class in Junior High? A nuclear bomb is orders
of
:magnitude more powerful and leaves some really nasty **** on the ground
:for many generations making it essentially inhabitable.

Wrong. You have confused 'nuclear bomb' with 'thermonuclear bomb'. A
'nuclear bomb' may be either fission or fusion (ie, atomic or
thermonuclear). If you're going to be snotty, you should at least
strive to be correct.

Thermonuclear weapons, while they typically are an order of magnitude
or more more powerful than fission weapons do *NOT* leave any more
"really nasty **** on the ground for generations" than atomic weapons
do. If you build a three-stage weapon, those can leave some nasty
stuff around, but it's the same sort of stuff an ordinary atomic bomb
leaves around.

I recall reading at one point that a wholesale nuclear exchange
between the US and the USSR would have left about 3/4 of the US
population dead, around half the USSR population dead, and something
like 4 extra cancer deaths per 1,000 people for a generation or so.
The Southern Hemisphere goes largely untouched except for the extra
cancers.

Sorry to break it to you, but that's 'survivable'.

And the reference for that is? Does this mean you're an advocate of
limited nuclear war?

As long as the deaths are limited to other people........


Eric


--
"Rule Number One for Slayers - Don't die."
-- Buffy, the Vampire Slayer

Joseph Michael Bay wrote:
Right, yes, the nuclear vs. atomic distinction is a false one[1], but
it's perfectly correct to call the dropping of a couple of 20 kiloton
bombs a "nuclear war", when even euphemisms like "limited nuclear
exchange" assume much higher-yield weapons used by, you know, both sides.

A nuclear war is any war in which nuclear weapons are used. If you
want, you could alter that definition to mean a war in which nuclear
weapons are used _by both sides_, but even then it would be fairly
simple to come up with "survivable" and even "winnable" nuclear war
scenarios.

For instance, if America had used _six_ 20-40 kiloton bombs and the
Japanese two during World War II, it would have been a _two-sided_
nuclear war, but it is difficult to see how America could have avoided
winning the war, even if the Japanese managed to deliver those two
bombs to Pearl Harbor and San Francisco (by suicide submarine, I'd
guess).

The point I was making is that, obviously, there are some nuclear war
scenarios which _are_ winnable, some which are survivable by at least
one combatant, some which are survivable by the human species, and some
which are not survivable by the human species. There is a _range_ of
possible nuclear war scenarios, and simplifying it to imagine that once
any nuclear bombs go off, the World Is Doomed, is unrealistic, silly,
and more of a way of AVOIDING thinking about the problems involved.

- Jordan

Eric Chomko wrote:
And the reference for that is? Does this mean you're an advocate of
limited nuclear war?

By what logic is pointing out that some nuclear wars are winnable, or
survivable, _advocating_ nuclear war? I will also point out that many
injuries are survivable; that doesn't mean that I'm an advocate of
getting injured.

I will say that, in the long run, nuclear weapons are going to become
Just Another Kind of Weapon, and some _other_ weapon will eclipse them
as the Cursed Harbinger of Ultimate Doom in the popular imagination.
The history of warfare should make that obvious.

Sincerely Yours,
Jordan

Mike Schilling wrote:
"Jordan" wrote in message
oups.com...

So, you don't actually have an alternative policy to propose?

Carrot and stick was working reasonably well until Bush took the carrot away
and started the name-calling.

How was it "working reasonably well?" North Korea was eating the
carrots and continuing to construct its atomic bombs anyway. Why will
offering North Korea more carrots somehow magically induce compliance?

Acting less irrational would help get South
Korea back on board as well.

Holding North Korea responsible for obeying the terms of treaties that
it has already signed is "irrational?" That's an ... interesting ...
view of international treaty obligations. Are we as free to violate
treaties at will, in your view? And if everyone can simply violate
treaties at will with no repercussions, not even to their
trustworthiness (since you implicitly argued that we are "irrational"
to consider North Korea untrustworthy for violating those treaties),
what's the point of signing them?

- Jordan

Mike Schilling wrote:
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...

Well, if by "working reasonably well," you mean North Korea developing
nukes in defiance of the treaty that was signed with Bill Clinton,
then...I guess.

A practice they stopped as soon as Bush started calling them names and
making empty threats?

No, they didn't. But then, at least Bush called a spade a spade and
stopped pretending that North Korea was obeying her treaty obligations
when she wasn't. This is useful, because it means that the _public_
now knows not to trust North Korea in the future, which will make any
future payment of tribute to the North Koreans more politically
difficult, even under a successor President.

- Jordan

Mike Schilling wrote:
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...

Just what do you think would have made them stop?

Something they want more than they want nukes, which, after all, do them no
good except for the attention they brings and whatever they can trade them
for.

Such as ... ?

Furthermore, once North Korea agreed to trade the dismantling of their
nuclear weapons program in return for this Magic Wonder Thing, what
reason do you have to believe that North Korea would abide by the
agreement? After all, they didn't the last TWO times they signed such
treaties ... is the Magic Wonder Thing somehow enchanted to force Kim
Jong Il to obey the treaty, and how?

- Jordan

Rand Simberg wrote:
On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 02:19:00 GMT, in a place far, far away, "Mike
Schilling" made the phosphor on my

A practice they stopped as soon as Bush started calling them names and
making empty threats?

Just what do you think would have made them stop?

And a rhetorical question.

Just what kind of idiot are you?

I would gather that he's Charlie Brown, who really believes that _this
time_ Lucy will hold the football for him and let him kick it all the
way downfield to the peaceful disarmament of North Korea.

- Jordan

Mike Schilling wrote:
"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...

Yes, to continue to oppress their own people at others' expense,

And this requires nukes? Idiot.

Apparently it _does_ require nukes, because if North Korea didn't have
nukes, would you be arguing that we should pay tribute to them?

And Rand seems to grasp the point that you for some reason can't, which
is that North Korea has already made nonproliferation agreements
_twice_ and broken them twice, which means we would have to be
_complete_ "idiots" to offer them MORE tribute in return for yet
another agreement which they would almost certainly break yet again.

and
continue to develop a commodity that terrorists all over the world are
slavering for.

Because they won't be irradiated down to bedrock if a nuke used by a
terrorist is traced to them, and there are no equally lucrative, less
suicidal things they can make.

Apparently not, since North Korea seems to be focusing on the
manufacture of weapons (in general, _including_ nuclear weapons) to the
exclusion of even growing enough food to support its own populace.

Oh, but they're so evil-evil-axis-of-evil-evil that none of this would occur
to them.

Double idiot.

Mike, are you truly ignorant of the nature of Kim Jong Il or his
regime? They are probably the _most_ evil of any in human history,
with the possible exception of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. They make the
Russian Soviets or German Nazis look like nice cuddly teddy-bears by
comparison; it is the good fortune of the world that Kim Jong Il is
limited to controlling a fairly minor Power, a good fortune that Kim
obviously hopes to change by acquiring a nuclear arsenal to play with.

Rand Simberg _gets_ this; you seem to have spent your life in a happy
little bubble of pink wonderfulness in which Kim Jong Il and his regime
are _normal_, the victim of mean evil right-wing propaganda.

So calling him an "idiot" for thinking them to be "evil" does not
display your own intelligence in any very favorable light.

- Jordan

El Puerco wrote:

Not to go Alan Alda all over your asses but is it possible that the two of
you are actually in agreement here? Clearly, nukes don't help NK oppress
their people directly. What they might do is give NK protection against
sanctions/interventions if someone decides that the oppression must stop.

Oh, more than that. They give Kim Jong Il a credible threat that he
can make and get tribute to avoid executing. With this tribute
("humanitarian aid") he can get just enough food and other goodies to
his armed supporters to enable him to remain in power.

Without it, he'd be up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

Which is why we should cut out the last bits of it, and watch him go
down.

- Jordan