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Its not a test, its a practical application! Would the PNTBT have even mattered? According to wikipedia it banned all tests except those underground - which a

Its not a test, its a practical application! Would the PNTBT have even mattered? According to wikipedia it banned all tests except those underground - which arguably this excavation would have been.

kristopolous 6y ago
Sure. Both the USSR and the USA had "peaceful" nuclear programs until the 1996 PNE treaty, which banned those as well and was also when this canal project was declassified. Apparently calling something "Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy" was fooling nobody. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_National_Economy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_N.... The US, having a different style of humor, used the totally innocent sounding "Project Plowshares". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare Could you imagine someone taking these programs exclusively on good faith? "I don't see how placing hundreds of warheads near Moscow could possibly be related to first strike strategies. This all looks perfectly normal. Israel isn't America's Cuba in cold war politics, what kind of crisis could possibly arise from the placement of these warheads?" Some day our ancestors will find all this cold war stuff hilarious.
- VectorLock 6y ago
  Presumably the nuclear explosives are a bit less suspect when not attached to missiles or other launch devices. I guess Israel is in striking distance of Moscow.
  - kristopolous 6y ago
    Opening scene: American diplomat explaining worksite to UN inspectors, 1963: "You see, the 500 bomb stockpile is over here and the fleet of supply planes is way over there! We'd have to carry say this entire bomb All The Way over into that plane. Do you know how heavy that thing is? Besides, when has America dropped an atomic weapon on a city say within the past decade and a half? Right... These outlandish conspiracy theories; they hurt, they really do."
- wahern 6y ago
  The Cuban Missile Crisis precipitated a withdrawal of U.S. nuclear ballistic missiles from Turkey, but the U.S. kept its nuclear gravity bombs at Incirlik Air Base, which remain there today.[1] I don't think storing nuclear bombs in Israel would have been considered a substantial change in posture considering that Turkey, unlike Israel, actually bordered the Soviet Union. [1] See, e.g., https://cissm.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Nuclear_Bargain_TR_TNW%20-%20Goren.pdf https://cissm.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Nuclear_Ba... page 36, "Turkey has, without interruption, hosted American nuclear weapons since 1959"

Its not a test, its a practical application! Would the PNTBT have even mattered? According to wikipedia it banned all tests except those underground - which arguably this excavation would have been.

kristopolous 6y ago

Sure. Both the USSR and the USA had "peaceful" nuclear programs until the 1996 PNE treaty, which banned those as well and was also when this canal project was declassified. Apparently calling something "Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy" was fooling nobody. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_National_Economy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_N.... The US, having a different style of humor, used the totally innocent sounding "Project Plowshares". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare Could you imagine someone taking these programs exclusively on good faith? "I don't see how placing hundreds of warheads near Moscow could possibly be related to first strike strategies. This all looks perfectly normal. Israel isn't America's Cuba in cold war politics, what kind of crisis could possibly arise from the placement of these warheads?" Some day our ancestors will find all this cold war stuff hilarious.

VectorLock 6y ago
Presumably the nuclear explosives are a bit less suspect when not attached to missiles or other launch devices. I guess Israel is in striking distance of Moscow.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  Opening scene: American diplomat explaining worksite to UN inspectors, 1963: "You see, the 500 bomb stockpile is over here and the fleet of supply planes is way over there! We'd have to carry say this entire bomb All The Way over into that plane. Do you know how heavy that thing is? Besides, when has America dropped an atomic weapon on a city say within the past decade and a half? Right... These outlandish conspiracy theories; they hurt, they really do."
wahern 6y ago
The Cuban Missile Crisis precipitated a withdrawal of U.S. nuclear ballistic missiles from Turkey, but the U.S. kept its nuclear gravity bombs at Incirlik Air Base, which remain there today.[1] I don't think storing nuclear bombs in Israel would have been considered a substantial change in posture considering that Turkey, unlike Israel, actually bordered the Soviet Union. [1] See, e.g., https://cissm.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Nuclear_Bargain_TR_TNW%20-%20Goren.pdf https://cissm.umd.edu/sites/default/files/2019-07/Nuclear_Ba... page 36, "Turkey has, without interruption, hosted American nuclear weapons since 1959"