Obsession: Islam's War Against The West

[Hurkyl]

10 wouldn't kill *us* all, but it could wipeout a large number, a very large number depending on where they were targeted. 10 fairly 'small' ones, ie <10 megaton, could wipeout the majority of American/European Civilisation. Europe by targeting all important cities in Europe

But there would never just be *10* set off... It would escalate most probably

Fine. You agree that 10 nukes would not wipe out the human race, and thus LightbulbSun is just fearmongering.

I ought to ask you the same question I asked him: do you have reason to believe what you have said?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This references an official list of known active nuclear stockpiles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons

Hurkyl, is it your position that we can safely use a nuke or two, or ten, and not set off a wider nuclear conflict?

 

[turbo]

We may be about to find out. Once the Stennis carrier group is deployed in the Persian Gulf, Israel is likely to preemptively attack Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities, and then if Iran makes any response that involves the US forces, Bushco gets its new war. I hate to be a pessimist, but I have no faith in the current administration's ethics or morality. That second carrier group is there for a reason, and this administration has demonstrated that they favor war over diplomacy hands-down.

 

[Hurkyl]

Hurkyl, is it your position that we can safely use a nuke or two, or ten, and not set off a wider nuclear conflict?

My position is that LightbulbSun and Anttech have offered no reason to believe that the detonation of ten nuclear missiles is sufficient to wipe out the human race, or even half of American/European civilisation.

 

[Gokul43201]

There were models developed in the 70s and 80s for doing fatality estimates. The rough impression I've got is that a 5-10 Mt explosion will take out the entire population of a large city (of about 5 million people or thereabouts). So, ten of these will nearly decimate the population of a medium sized country like the UK or France.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

My position is that LightbulbSun and Anttech have offered no reason to believe that the detonation of ten nuclear missiles is sufficient to wipe out the human race, or even half of American/European civilisation.

Sure, with the exception of the Soviet doomsday bomb, which was never built, nothing that I have ever heard would suggest that ten nukes are sufficient to wipe us all out. In fact, there have been plenty of above ground detonations.

Number of above ground detonations:
Country / detonations / year / total yield
United States 216 1945-1962 153.8 mt
U.S.S.R. 214 1949-1962 281.6 mt
United Kingdom 21 1952-1958 10.8 mt
France 46 1960-1974 11.4 mt
P.R.C. 23 1964-1980 21.5 mt
South Africa 1 1979 0.003 mt
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/atest00.html

So there have been 521 above ground detonations with a combined yield of ~480 Megatons. However, many of those tests involved relatively low yields. The largest bomb ever detonated was the Tsar Bomb at 50 mt., and codenamed... Ivan.

However, I don't think anyone can provide evidence to suggest that limited nuclear war is possible. The only examples would be from WWII, and no one but us had the bomb. Also, a runaway escalation of events was always a hallmark of cold war scenarios.

It is also important to remember that air bursts do not create nearly the problem that a ground level burst would.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This thread is full of completely erroneous claims. Believing that terrorists are actually threatening us interiorly is as ridiculous as the communism phobia that plagued the country more than 40 years ago. Interestingly, today's neoconservatives use the same methods than their predecessors used during the cold war era - that is inducing fear of being attacked in the population in order to gain support. 9/11 is not an attack, its retaliation. Failing to make a distinction is fatal to our relationships with the Middle-East.

On what do you base your claim? I have listened to this evil US crap from the ME my entire life, and it has certainly gotten worse; much worse. I agree that US policy and the military industrial complex have been a big part of the problem, but that doesn't change the realities we face today.

I have wondered if there really is a threat, as many say, but I'm not about to leap to the conclusion on faith alone that this is all a ruse. Are you saying that no one seeks to use a nuke or a biological weapon as a form of retaliation? Granted, the Bush admin has used fear mongering to further their political cause, but that doesn't suggest that no threat exists.

Retaliation, attack, it is rather a matter of symantics, don't you think? Also, how long have the Sunnis and Shia been going at it? If we change our policies tomorrow, when would we no longer be targets for terrorists?

Also, it is not possible in retrospect to claim that the Soviets wouldn't have attacked had they calculated that victory was possible. We were both trapped by the power of our own arsenals.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

There were models developed in the 70s and 80s for doing fatality estimates. The rough impression I've got is that a 5-10 Mt explosion will take out the entire population of a large city (of about 5 million people or thereabouts). So, ten of these will nearly decimate the population of a medium sized country like the UK or France.

Here is some good infomation that I posted in another thread.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/7906/

 

[trajan22]

I noticed that you stated that "...air bursts do not create nearly the problem that a ground level burst would." I would like to note that this would create an emp pulse that could(if detonated at the right height) possibly wipe out the entire electronic infrastructure of North America. This could be nearly as catastrophic as a city being wiped out.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The problem with a ground burst is that when materials are exposed to the core of the explosion, they become highly radioactive fallout. This is why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were "reasonably safe" [meaning mainly long term effects; see links above] after the detonation - they were air bursts.

But, secondary concerns are certainly noteworthy.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

This is interesting.

Abstract
We use a modern climate model and new estimates of smoke generated by fires in contemporary cities to calculate the response of the climate system to a regional nuclear war between emerging third world nuclear powers using 100 Hiroshima-size bombs 5 (less than 0.03% of the explosive yield of the current global nuclear arsenal) on cities in the subtropics. We find significant cooling and reductions of precipitation lasting years, which would impact the global food supply. The climate changes are large and longlasting because the fuel loadings in modern cities are quite high and the subtropical solar insolation heats the resulting smoke cloud and lofts it into the high stratosphere, 10 where removal mechanisms are slow. While the climate changes are less dramatic than found in previous “nuclear winter” simulations of a massive nuclear exchange between the superpowers, because less smoke is emitted, the changes are more longlasting because the older models did not adequately represent the stratospheric plume rise.

http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/acpd/6/11817/acpd-6-11817_p.pdf

One-hundred Hiroshima sized bombs would be 1300 kt, or 1.3 mt - one small bomb by today's standards.

 

[LightbulbSun]

Do you have a reason to think that, or are you just fearmongering?

I'm not fearmongering. I don't know why you're implying such accusations on me.

 

[Hurkyl]

This is interesting.


http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/acp/acpd/6/11817/acpd-6-11817_p.pdf

One-hundred Hiroshima sized bombs would be 1300 kt, or 1.3 mt - one small bomb by today's standards.

Hrm, that sounds like the paper backing one of the articles I was reading. Recall that the estimate of the effect on the climate is not due to the tonnage: it's due to the amount of soot created by the fires that would presumably be running rampant through the targetted cities and nearby forests. It's unclear to me how the amount of fire created by one 1500kt bomb compares to the amount of fire created by 100 15kt bombs.

 

[Hurkyl]

I'm not fearmongering. I don't know why you're implying such accusations on me.

Just an implication? I thought I was being rather explicit. I'll try harder next time.

Well, what was the point of making stuff up in post #66? I generally consider exaggeration to make something sound worse than it really is a form of fearmongering.

 

[Anttech]

I ought to ask you the same question I asked him: do you have reason to believe what you have said?

The reason I said it Hurkyl, is believe it or not, because I believe it to be true... Nuclear Bombs today are city killers, (and the rest). 10 Bombs would probably end civilization in Europe as we know it...

Plus if 10 were dropped on Europe. I can tell you, the UK and France would hit back at whoever did it.. Causing a nuclear War.. Which general means end of the world as we know it...

 

[Anttech]

My position is that LightbulbSun and Anttech have offered no reason to believe that the detonation of ten nuclear missiles is sufficient to wipe out the human race, or even half of American/European civilisation.

Nice spin, so you wouldn't think that having:

London
Paris
Rome
Amsterdam
Brussels
Athens
Budapest
Moscow
Warsaw
Frankfurt

Nuked wouldn't wipe out the majority of European *civilization* ? I suppose those cities are irrelevant to what makes us European? Ignoring the fact that at least 3 of those cities have populations reaching 20 Million within the fallout zone of a 10Megaton yield Nuclear attack (its probably 4, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Moscow)...

I never said anything about killing 50% of the population, but I have no doubt that 10 Nuclear Bombs dropped on European Cities would Effect European Civilisation so drastically that i would consider it wiping it out.

 

[Anttech]

Well, what was the point of making stuff up in post #66? I generally consider exaggeration to make something sound worse than it really is a form of fearmongering.

What would you call when someone Purposefully(?) lumps your opinion with another that isn't yours? Like in post #74

 

[LightbulbSun]

Just an implication? I thought I was being rather explicit. I'll try harder next time.

Well, what was the point of making stuff up in post #66? I generally consider exaggeration to make something sound worse than it really is a form of fearmongering.

It was my OPINION. I forgot to put "in my opinion." I'm not a nuclear weapons expert so I can't back up my opinion with any factual evidence. If I came off as fearmongering then I apologize because that was not the intent of my post. I still don't believe justifying even a small nuclear war is a wise decision to make.

 

[Hurkyl]

What would you call when someone Purposefully(?) lumps your opinion with another that isn't yours? Like in post #74

In that particular example, I call it answering a question.

Plus if 10 were dropped on Europe. I can tell you, the UK and France would hit back at whoever did it.. Causing a nuclear War.. Which general means end of the world as we know it...

Okay, but it was the ensuing nuclear war that ended the world, not those 10 bombs.

Nice spin

Huh?

, so you wouldn't think that having:

London
Paris
Rome
Amsterdam
Brussels
Athens
Budapest
Moscow
Warsaw
Frankfurt

Nuked wouldn't wipe out the majority of European *civilization* ?

No. Of course, I'm assuming that, for example, "87 square kilometers of Paris and 551,608 square kilometers of uncivilized territory" is a grossly inaccurate description of France.

 

[Anttech]

No. Of course, I'm assuming that, for example, "87 square kilometers of Paris and 551,608 square kilometers of uncivilized territory" is a grossly inaccurate description of France.

Perhaps you need to go learn what the word civilization means