3 ms·

If a rogue nuke goes off in Manhattan, you probably won't die (though fallout patterns are no one's friend), but your life will get measurably worse, guaranteed

If a rogue nuke goes off in Manhattan, you probably won't die (though fallout patterns are no one's friend), but your life will get measurably worse, guaranteed. The damage isn't just physical, it's psychological and economic, and the ripple effects will reach you, and they will be serious. As far as making non-proliferation more difficult, this official documentation removes plausible deniability for several governments in condemning Iran's move towards nuclear weapons in private while remaining necessarily neutral in public. The effect isn't massive, but it is real, and it does matter.

jacquesm 16y ago
Chances of a rogue nuke going off in Manhattan are slight compared to New Delhi, Islamabad, Tel-Aviv or many other places. Moscow even...
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  I disagree with that (which city has been the target of the biggest, most dramatic terror attacks thus far?), but ok, fine, let's go with your list. What is most likely to be the source of a rogue nuke in any of those cities? One of the nations where the US is trying to avoid nuclear development or at the very least keep the stockpile under control.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    If this happens (and I hope it doesn't) it will likely be because of nuclear material that was lost in former Soviet Republic states and it will likely have very little to do the with the US or with non-proliferation agreements. If the US kept its secrets under wraps neither India or Pakistan would have the bomb in the first place, keeping things secret now is not going to put that genie back in the bottle. The US has been spied upon successfully by countless nations to get those secrets including Israel, Pakistan, India (Canada also implicated there), the Russians took care of most of the rest of them, China gave some help to Pakistan and North Korea. France developed its nuclear arsenal independently, the UK had a lot of help from the US. Non proliferation seems to mean: not to states not friendly to us. But in reality that translates to eventually the knowledge and the material will spread everywhere unless the production of the materials is halted. Which would mean a shut-down of all nuclear facilities, and that's a very difficult bridge to cross, it would cause a much stronger dependence on other fossil fuels. The irony of all this is that now Iran uses the 'power plant' figleaf to set up it's own nuclear facilities.

jacquesm 16y ago

Chances of a rogue nuke going off in Manhattan are slight compared to New Delhi, Islamabad, Tel-Aviv or many other places. Moscow even...

waterlesscloud 16y ago
I disagree with that (which city has been the target of the biggest, most dramatic terror attacks thus far?), but ok, fine, let's go with your list. What is most likely to be the source of a rogue nuke in any of those cities? One of the nations where the US is trying to avoid nuclear development or at the very least keep the stockpile under control.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  If this happens (and I hope it doesn't) it will likely be because of nuclear material that was lost in former Soviet Republic states and it will likely have very little to do the with the US or with non-proliferation agreements. If the US kept its secrets under wraps neither India or Pakistan would have the bomb in the first place, keeping things secret now is not going to put that genie back in the bottle. The US has been spied upon successfully by countless nations to get those secrets including Israel, Pakistan, India (Canada also implicated there), the Russians took care of most of the rest of them, China gave some help to Pakistan and North Korea. France developed its nuclear arsenal independently, the UK had a lot of help from the US. Non proliferation seems to mean: not to states not friendly to us. But in reality that translates to eventually the knowledge and the material will spread everywhere unless the production of the materials is halted. Which would mean a shut-down of all nuclear facilities, and that's a very difficult bridge to cross, it would cause a much stronger dependence on other fossil fuels. The irony of all this is that now Iran uses the 'power plant' figleaf to set up it's own nuclear facilities.