Nuclear Logic?

[BBKing]

Can't do that - they'd turn off the electricity supply!

[Stuart W]

Originally Posted by BBKing

And dirty bombs, as we know, aren't really that scary*. The 'suitcase nuke', in the sense of a suitcase-sized city-destroyer, are the myth.

I cant even begin to comment on how scary dirty bombs are.... ask anyone from Chernobyl!

As for suitcase sized bombs, ask yourself a couple of questions....

1: What is the fourth protocol about? (to save you googling, it's an agreement not to sneak small nukes in to citys and detonate them)
2: Uranium less than half the size of a dime was used in Nagasaki.

Simple fact is, you CAN build small nuclear devices if you really want to.

[TheNorm]

Originally Posted by Stuart W

... Uranium less than half the size of a dime was used in Nagasaki....

Uranium was used in Hiroshima, plutonium in Nagasaki.

Also, to achieve critical mass, a grapefruit-sized lump would be nearer the mark. Of course, this might have cost a dime back then.

[Pierre]

Nuclear devices are small anyway.

It's just the big rocket they're sat on that makes them look big.

Anyway, I'm struggling to see where this thread is going, what are people saying here that we should, or shouldn't have them.

I'm firmly in the should camp.

[TheNorm]

I think people are making the point that there are hazards associated with keeping a nuclear arsenal in addition to those associated with their use as military weapons.

I'm with Pierre, now that we have them we can't get rid of them. Until everyone else does, of course.

[Stuart W]

Originally Posted by TheNorm

Uranium was used in Hiroshima, plutonium in Nagasaki.

Also, to achieve critical mass, a grapefruit-sized lump would be nearer the mark. Of course, this might have cost a dime back then.

Yup, my bad.... not much difference in effect from the point of view of the local residents though.

Critical mass.... grapefruit.... nonsence.

[BBKing]

Nuclear devices are small anyway.

Not especially, unless you like holding lumps of raw plutonium. It's the bits round them that counts.

The question the pro-nuke guys need to answer is why it's so good to have them? If you have to use them, it's too late, if you don't have them to use the effect is the same anyway, absent deterrent, which doesn't work the way it used to. Is the cost worth it when you consider what else you could do with the money and effort? Put it into nuclear decommissioning talks with the other nuclear powers, like in the 80s? Why did that go out of fashion anyway? Rather a good idea, you can tell because the neo-cons *hated* it.

[NitroNutter]

Or make it look like one shoot ones' own gun @ ones' self, or as close to that as one can get, and which is far more likely to be the way it goes.

[Xaccers]

Originally Posted by BBKing

I thought that had been mythbusted? Just because a Russian says he'll sell you something doesn't mean he's telling the truth. Plenty of conmen came out of the Cold War.



The French *were* in NATO and obviously engage in exercises with NATO countries, since most of their neighbours are in it, even Luxembourg. They did, however, pull out of the full on military aspect many years ago in a cloud of Gallic hauteur. The main consequence of this is that they don't let NATO troops deploy to their soil or supply troops for NATO missions, plus their completely independent nuclear deterrent.

However, one of the five military bigwigs/warlords who made this rather alarming statement is French (the others are a Yank, Boche, Cloggie and Rosbif), which implies it's a political rather than military statement. Mr. Sarkozy, on the other hand, is currently flying round the world giving people nuclear reactors.



OTAN of course is NATO in French, but the Belgians count as French speaking, as do the Canadians. NATO's SHAPE HQ is in Belgium, of course, moving there after the French withdrawal so you can actually guard it with NATO troops, which the French of course wouldn't allow on their soil.

The other surprising omission from NATO is Austria, which is after all buying Eurofighters. Perhaps they're a little reluctant after the last time one of their boys tried to show a bit of military leadership.

I think I covered France's situation with:

Being cheese eating surrender monkeys, they only deal with the political side of NATO rather than the dangerous bits.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by BBKing

The question the pro-nuke guys need to answer is why it's so good to have them? If you have to use them, it's too late, if you don't have them to use the effect is the same anyway, absent deterrent, which doesn't work the way it used to. Is the cost worth it when you consider what else you could do with the money and effort? Put it into nuclear decommissioning talks with the other nuclear powers, like in the 80s? Why did that go out of fashion anyway? Rather a good idea, you can tell because the neo-cons *hated* it.

It's a show of strength.

Whilst I agree that, at the moment, the prospect of any nuclear attack from another state is small, and most likely would come from a terrorist organisation (possibly backed by a rogue state).

That does not mean this would always be the case. I would not fancy surrendering our nuclear capability just as the likes of Iran are set about acquiring it.

Also any rogue state the sponsered a nuclear attack could do so knowing that we could not respond in a similar manner. At least if we suffered a terrorist attack and discovered it sponsored by a rogue state we could retaliate.

Having nuclear capability will always make otheres think twice.

In a time when our Army is at it lowest level of numbers, our Navy is on its knees and our most advanced plane is actually 30years out of date. I'm happy to have it.

[TheNorm]

Originally Posted by Pierre

It's a show of strength.....

Yes. If country A gives up their nuclear deterrent unilaterally, then what is to stop country B holding them to ransom? "Agree to our demands, or we will flatten your capital city in 45 minutes." No thanks.

[BBKing]

f country A gives up their nuclear deterrent unilaterally, then what is to stop country B holding them to ransom? "Agree to our demands, or we will flatten your capital city in 45 minutes."

Or, to put it another way, get nukes and you're safe. Seems to be a recipe for proliferation. Iran, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Indai and Iraq (who only pretended to after 1991) seem to be acting perfectly logically, particularly given that, from their point of view, they're dealing with unstable, irrational people armed with WMDs and apparently now the desire to use them.

Oh, and that report from the NATO Generals? Neoconservative stooges, it turns out. There's some small print that says:

"to assist in the writing process, the authors were joined by Benjamin Bilski, who lectures in philosophy at the Faculty of Law of the University of Leiden in the Netherlands; and by Douglas Murray, an author and Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion in Westminster."

Murray wrote something called 'Neoconservatism - Why We Need It', which rather gives the game away. The thing about neocons is that they're always hysterical about some Great Threat and always wrong about it. File under WPB.

There's more:

The report by the five former NATO generals was financed through "generous sponsorship" of the Dutch Noaber Foundation. The foundation is the private fiefdom of the Christian fundamentalist Paul Baan, a failed 1990s "new market" entrepreneur.

Kerching. Another tick in the neo-con box. Bilski, as it turns out, is another Dutchman who has previous for smearing Islam, the current neocon Great Threat. I think I spot a pattern here.

I therefore conclude that it's a propaganda front designed to con people into
accepting a NATO that's pro-actively imperialist and designed to wage the kind of Great War For Civilisation that the neocons have been having wet dreams about for years (full of all sorts of usual neocon rubbish about 'lack of public will' and 'resolve'). They did have the US Army earmarked for the job, but that appears to be broken, so they want ours as well, and if we give it to them they'll break it too.

Get stuffed, I say, the reason there's a lack of public will is that the only time the neocons got to run policy unchecked was in Iraq, where it's so startlingly successful that the US is having to do deals with nationalist Islamic parties full of ex-Baathists in order to prop up the central government run by parties set up in Iran to export the 1979 theocratic revolution to Iraq. Not a great track record, really.

[Xaccers]

Neocon? Is that like "PC Brigade" and "Tree hugging liberal" where it's actually all in someone's mind, and they grab at events to try and back it up?
NATO operations in Iraq? Don't recall any. NATO operations in Afghanistan? Are the Germans and a few of the other NATO members actually actively fighting or are they in relatively safe areas out of harms way?

[TheNorm]

Originally Posted by BBKing

Or, to put it another way, get nukes and you're safe. Seems to be a recipe for proliferation. ....

Yes, but what is the alternative? Unilateral disarmament, then cross-fingers and hope that Iran doesn't build a thermonuclear device?

Once you have "learned" the technology, you cannot "unlearn" it (unless a better, more advanced technology overtakes it).

[BBKing]

Neocon? Is that like "PC Brigade" and "Tree hugging liberal" where it's actually all in someone's mind

Short answer: No.

Long answer: The existence of something called 'Neoconservatism - Why We Need It' is the giveaway, unless you can point me to someone somewhere at some point writing 'PC-Gone-Mad-Woolly-Liberalism - A Really Good Idea', in which case my birthday's coming up and I could do with a good laugh. Neoconservatism is a movement with leaders, philosophers, strategic aims and a solid footprint on the planet you can go and look at (it's the smoking one full of wreckage where Iraq used to be). It's also an ideology that, like all ideologies, prizes loyalty, fanaticism and obedience above rationalism, evidence-based decision making and independence of thought (any display of the inverse characteristics is grounds for expulsion and denunciation).

Ideologies are *always* dangerous - liberalism, being defined as the absence of ideology, is the only sensible choice if you like the idea of individual freedom. Ideologies also like the idea of nice, clean Year Zeros where you can start from scratch, so giving them nuclear weapons and carte blanche to use them first is therefore like giving Amy Winehouse the keys to the crack den. Just Say No.

Neoconservatism comes out of things like the American Enterprise Institute, rags like the Weekly Standard and the Free Republic, and of course Fox News, is perfectly blatant and up-front about its aims and desires and has adherents and advisors at high levels in Europe, America, Australia and the Middle East (well, Israel, anyway), in both main UK parties (and a lot of ex-Trots, proving that you can't trust an ideologue anywhere), the British press (hi, Rupert), plus has a nice line in supplying oxygen thieves like John Bolton who crop up *everywhere* (such as Simon Mayo's show on Radio Five Live a few months back) advocating Bombing Iran Now Or Preferably Yesterday.

It's not a conspiracy theory if you can *see* it (and its effects), which is why I keep asking people to prove the 'PC Brigade' exist. No one has yet produced any compelling evidence*, although my door is always open.

So, are you intimating that neoconservatism doesn't exist, despite the obvious evidence of people describing themselves as neoconservatives acting in public in ways commensurate with a neoconservative political position? That sounds dangerously like a conspiracy theory to me ('just because you saw them blast off, film the trip to the Moon and come back with some moon rock doesn't mean it wasn't filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood').

* I'd accept any evidence of powerful, well-funded, organised groups ruthlessly dedicated to banning inoffensive pastimes like conkers or songs about pigs, or Christmas. Sounds a bit silly expressed like that, doesn't it? If you had a brigade, surely you'd do something a bit more challenging with it? Or alternatively, you'd want a bit more tangible success at the banning, since none of those have been banned.