What if Israel had nuclear weapons? A thought experiment...

[MineralMan]

Wouldn't it be the only nation in the Middle East with them? Wouldn't neighboring countries have some concerns about that?

Oh, wait...Israel almost certainly does have nuclear weapons.

So, what if the United States had them, or France, or the UK? Or even India and Pakistan? Having a bordering nation with nuclear weapons is kind of a scary thing, I'd think, if you didn't have some of your own, and still scary, even if you did.

Why can't we simply agree to get rid of the damned things? Now, that would warrant a Nobel Peace Prize, I think. I'm not a big fan of nuclear weapons, I guess.

[clarice]

1. Well said. nt

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. Somebody posted a list of the countries with them.

I was surprised to see that even after the disbanding of the USSR, Russia still has more nuke warheads than the US does. The US and Russia each had an order of magnitude more such than any other country on the list.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. I thought we both had around 8,000 down from 20,000

with the Russians having about two hundred more...

Without even getting into the quality of the missiles I think the two hundred missile difference is meaningless...

[Scootaloo]

30. Russia has 8,000, the US has 7,300, according to Ploughshares estimates

http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report

and people think the oil industry gets kickbacks? The uranium industry is selling water to fish at this point.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

31. Thank you...The seven hundred missile difference is fairly meaningless...

[Scootaloo]

32. There's nothing that thousands can accomplish that fifty couldn't

Imagine the costs! Of maintaining these things, of keeping them secure, of keeping the people around who can work on them, of all the land it takes to house them, and of course the replenishment of stocks after old ones are decommissioned.

Every cent of it is being snatched out of the mouth of a hungry child. All so we can claim to be able to annihilate everything on the planet a few dozen times more than the next-best can.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

34. It's been a long time since I immersed myself in the subject...

But I saw a 60 Minutes Special that some of the technology that is used to maintain those missiles are from the 60s and 70s...

[Calista241]

40. If MAD was not the dynamic between the US and USSR, or between any other country and their enemy...

Eventually, given few enough nuclear weapons, a demented leader may consider a nuclear war to be "winnable." Some other considerations may come into play, like strategic surprise, incapacitating the enemy's leadership at a critical moment, whatever.

While I sincerely hope and pray nuclear weapons are never used, i don't see global powers like the US, Russia and eventually China ever downsizing their inventory to where another party may consider an exchange acceptable losses.

[MineralMan]

5. I didn't include Russia and China.

What I remember is crawling under my desk at school and my father building a fallout shelter under our home in California. I remember the Conelrad triangles on my first transistor radio and shelter signs on public buildings, for all the good they'd do.

I didn't like them then, and I don't like them now. They would all be unnecessary in a civilized world. I'm for CIVILization, not Civil Defense, really. It's a real pity that we can't have that.

[Matrosov]

4. Nukes for me, not for thee n/t

[MineralMan]

6. So it seems, eh?

Kind of like candy. If one kid has some, the rest want some, too. Even if it rots your teeth.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. Or alternatively...

Kind of like being in a gang...If the other gang is packing, you want to be packing too...

[MineralMan]

10. Indeed.

We're a warlike species, it seems. Always quarreling over territory and so forth.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. My buddy always used to say that instead of folks turning their swords into ploughshares...

My buddy always used to say that instead of folks turning their swords into ploughshares they will use those ploughshares to beat their enemies over the head with.

[hifiguy]

21. Yet the fundies deny our common ancestry with great apes

who behave in just the same way. The connection could not be more clear.

[Matrosov]

8. Only the good guys get to have nukes

Of course, who determines who the good guys are? The ones who already have the nukes, it seems.

I'm somewhat surprised the conservatives are so against the idea of Iran having nukes, considering they're also the first to argue that everyone should have a gun on them 24/7, because an armed society is supposedly a polite society. Following that logic, there'd be no more war if every country had a stockpile of nukes.

[MineralMan]

11. We are the good guys. That's what everyone says,

no matter who they are. Uff da!

[Stardust]

24. In Gallup Poll (from January 2014): The Biggest Threat To World Peace Is America

In their annual End of Year poll, researchers for WIN and Gallup International surveyed more than 66,000 people across 65 nations and found that 24 percent of all respondents answered that the United States “is the greatest threat to peace in the world today.” Pakistan and China fell significantly behind the United States on the poll, with 8 and 6 percent, respectively. Afghanistan, Iran, Israel and North Korea all tied for fourth place with 4 percent.

http://www.ibtimes.com/gallup-poll-biggest-threat-world-peace-america-1525008

We're Number One! We Are Awesome!!

[guillaumeb]

9. What if ..........Canada wanted nuclear weapons as a safeguard

against the US?

Considering the US invaded Canada during your revolution, again in 1812, and threatened an invasion around 1848, Canada would certainly be justified in wanting nuclear weapons to defend against future US aggression.

I know that Pakistan would probably help Canada in the quest for nuclear weapons. Purely for defense of course.


http://study.com/academy/lesson/54-40-or-fight-slogan-history-significance-quiz.html

[MineralMan]

20. Well, there you are. Blame Canada!

[Angleae]

28. Well, they did invade us with Nickelback and Justin Bieber.

[Maedhros]

33. "We must rid ourselves of all things Canadian!"

&ei=hxEfVYm4B5HboATPkoKAAg&psig=AFQjCNFsqENIWKau0H4nq1EKp9LovDBApg&ust=1428185863237915

[guillaumeb]

36. what will you put on your pancakes?

Velveeta?

[awoke_in_2003]

38. You know that Vermont...

is in the US, right? We produce plenty of maple syrup.

[guillaumeb]

39. true

but my family was in Quebec in 1605. We taught Vermonters how to tap trees for syrup.

[guillaumeb]

35. we also gave you

Joni Mitchell,
Gordon Lightfoot,
Ian and Sylvia Tyson,
Neal Young,
the Band,
the Rankins,
Celine Dion,
and Raffi.

Plus maple syrup and hockey.

Almost forgot Margaret Atwood

[Calista241]

41. That's IT! Celine Dion!!!! Are you serious!!

Time to invade Canada and stop them from sending us people like the Beebs and Ted Cruz.

[guillaumeb]

44. yes celine

but I personally prefer her in French

PS Cruz renounced his citizenship.

[Calista241]

46. Once a Canadian, always a Canadian.

That way we can blame someone else for all our problems.

[guillaumeb]

47. why do you hate Celine Dion?

You wrote, and I must agree,
"Once a Canadian, always a Canadian."

I live in the Chicago area now, but my heart will always be in Quebec.

for you and your Dion phobia:

[Maedhros]

43. I love Canada!

Lived in Edmonton from 1991-1995 while working on my doctorate at the U of A. Tried to immigrate, but didn't have enough points

And Rush is my favorite band...

[awoke_in_2003]

37. It's not even a real country anyway. nt

[cloudbase]

29. We ought to nuke 'em.

Just a friendly way of saying thanks for that Bieber fellow.

[guillaumeb]

48. just saw your post

my belated response:

[jeff47]

12. Because not everyone would agree to do so and they're easy to make.

Sure, if you want a fusion weapon that's hard to do. Or if you want to use as little material as possible, that's hard to do.

But if you just want to make a mushroom cloud, you put 20kg of U235 in one place. In a few milliseconds it will go boom all by itself.

So everyone agrees to dismantle them, and then someone breaks the agreement or makes one for blackmail-style purposes. And then we're back to MAD.

[MineralMan]

19. They're reasonably easy to make, but not that easy.

First, you have to have the U235, or Plutonium. Not so easy to come by, really. A gun-type bomb is a pretty easy thing to make, I suppose, but the process is somewhat dangerous, really. An implosion-type bomb is considerably more difficult.

It's not unknown technology, of course, but the devil's in the details and that's a little harder to obtain.

So, not as simple to make as you might think.

[F4lconF16]

27. Agreed.

It's not the easiest thing to do. I think the hard part would be ensuring governments like ours didn't just do so in a black site project somewhere.

[LeftishBrit]

14. I remember as a kid just wanting bomb demolition people to go around and destroy every nuclear bomb

in the whole world.

Tom Lehrer (1964): Who's Next?

First we got the bomb, and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Who's next?

France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears,
They can't wipe us out for at least five years.
Who's next?

Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white.
Who's next?

Egypt's gonna get one too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense.
Wants one in self defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb.
Who's next?

Luxembourg is next to go,
And (who knows?) maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb.
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?

[MineralMan]

16. Yup. I remember feeling the same way. I got sick of being told

I needed to be afraid. I used to have dreams where I was looking South toward Los Angeles in the middle of the night and saw a huge flash in the sky. I had that dream many times as a child. It sucked. We lived about 50 driving miles from L.A. Less as the neutrons fly.

[John1956PA]

15. Tom Clancy's "The Sum of All Fears" (1991) is based on this premise.

In the novel, one of the nuclear bombs gets loose in the 1973 war, is unearthed after decades, and is given to a terrorist group operating out of a cave in the Mid-East.

[arely staircase]

17. kick nt

[MineralMan]

18. Thanks for the kick!

[mylye2222]

22. Israel already has nuclear weapons

They created it more than 20 years ago in secret with the help of France.

[MineralMan]

23. Uh, yes. I said that in the body of the post.

It's a rhetorical question. Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. Israel doesn't admit it, though. Sometimes, reading an entire post is worth the effort.

[Comrade Grumpy]

25. Why, it would be a threat to Middle East peace and stability.

It could start a nuclear arms race.

And Israel might feel especially emboldened to attack its neighbors.

Oh.

[Dont call me Shirley]

26. Nor I, Mineral Man

"It seems the Peace symbol surfaced on letters from the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War in its original form as early as March 1958. Bertrand Russell was a member of this committee and, through his writings, has left us with an unmistakable history of when, where and who created the Peace Sign. Here are quotes from letters Bertrand Russell wrote in response to H. Pickles from Lichthort Verlag who wrote to complain that the peace symbol was a death symbol because the arms pointed downwards. Russell's reply: ``I am afraid that I cannot follow your argument that the ND badge is a death-symbol. It was invented by a member of our movement as the badge of the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War, for the first Aldermaston March. It was designed from the naval code of semaphore, and the symbol represents the code letters for ND. To the best of my knowledge, the Navy does not employ signallers who work upside down.''

So there you have it, the Navy code of semaphore is the flag signalling system. The letters"
D is a person holding one flag in each hand, one straight up one straight down, as if a continuous vertical lin
N is a person holding two flags downward and outward at a 45* degree angle from legs"

http://www.peaceday.org/pcsign.htm

Sorry I don't have diagrams or photos. I can't get my iPad to copy them anymore.

[phantom power]

42. Exactly.

[2banon]

45. Israel has had several hundred nuclear missiles for several years now.