ext_36450 ([identity profile] underlankers.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] talkpolitics2013-01-02 04:23 pm
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This can't end well at all:

http://thediplomat.com/2013/01/02/pakistans-new-nuclear-problem/?all=true

So nowadays Pakistan, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to revive the old tactical nuke concept of the Cold War, and showing that its problem is not the absence of balls (brains, yes, balls no) is using US plans for WWIII with the USSR to justify this. Leaving aside that the USA did not use tactical nuclear weapons (and for that matter that Pershings and the like were not tactical nuclear weapons, but strategic), the reality is that Pakistan is a huge, impoverished, unstable country riddled by religious fanaticism. It has already fought the only war in modern times where two nuclear powers went to war directly, not via proxy. Tactical nuclear weapons were considered a bad idea by the superpowers in an age when calmly planning out a war that could have only ended civilization in nuclear fire was all the rage.

Now the idea is once again being revived by a country which again has collapsed once, and is appealing to plans for the end of civilization as we know it as a justification. Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn how they're justifying it, I see only bad things coming out of this.

What say you?

[identity profile] malasadas.livejournal.com 2013-01-03 12:29 am (UTC)(link)




[identity profile] terminator44.livejournal.com 2013-01-03 12:43 am (UTC)(link)
Huh. I thought they already had such weapons. After all, they couldn't hope to stop an Indian invasion by conventional means.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2013-01-03 03:48 am (UTC)(link)
I do wonder what other species has such a propensity for self-destruction (and the first person who suggests lemmings I will slap with a fish).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxrWz9XVvls

LJ has gone nuts with iframe tags on me :(
Edited 2013-01-03 03:52 (UTC)

[identity profile] papasha-mueller.livejournal.com 2013-01-03 08:39 am (UTC)(link)
Pakistan itself seemed to be a good idea to Brits only.
They screw up everything they can before being kicked off, you know.

[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-01-03 08:45 am (UTC)(link)
You may find this interesting...

http://vixra.org/pdf/1106.0009v1.pdf

Seems that you may be able to drive a Deuterium-tritium fusion reaction, without the use of a fission element.

The resulting ka-boom would be small by H-Bomb standards but very clean (little to no fallout) just some x-rays, gamma-rays, and free-floating neutrons.

...and seeing as our current efforts of stoping nuclear proliferation are based on preventing Uranium enrichment. Anything that allows you to skip/ignore that particular step is an enabling technology.

That said, there is still a lot of blank space between "working theory" and "working prototype"

[identity profile] chron-job.livejournal.com 2013-01-03 03:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I figured the "Stop proliferation by preventing Uranium enrichment" concept had its days numbered when first I heard about Laser Enrichment back in the mid 90's, and the theoretical possibility of an enrichment plant that would fit in a small apartment (minus gas inputs and outputs)

Come to think of it, GE just got its first license to start processing via SILEX back last September.

[identity profile] sophia-sadek.livejournal.com 2013-01-03 06:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Tactical nukes were present during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Each Soviet sub had a tactical nuke torpedo for use in blasting US ships out of the troposphere. Fear of a conventional conflict going nuclear is one of the things that got JFK to cool his jets when his advisers where champing at the bit to invade Cuba.

Pakistan has been a problem since it was created as a wedge to divide the Indian sub-continent. It presents more of a threat to regional stability in that part of the world than any other nation. A significant degree of that threat can be chalked up to American foreign policy.