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What is more likely? US lost or US laundered? Can't answer? Thought experiment time. Replace US with the president from your opposite party. What happens now?
by rustqt6 4y ago
What is more likely? US lost or US laundered?
Can't answer? Thought experiment time. Replace US with the president from your opposite party. What happens now? Lost or laundered?
- missedthecue 4y agoI'm sorry but I can't even imagine my least favorite president of all time laundering an atom bomb
- pydry 4y agoCan you imagine a hostile nation paying some relatively low level military personnel to deliberately fuck up at a crucial point in time?
- spywaregorilla 4y agoSeems unlikely that you could pay off a low level military dude who has the capacity to personally steal an atomic weapon.
- pydry 4y agoLosing != stealing
- spywaregorilla 4y agoYou're going to pay someone a large sum of money to lose an atomic weapon? Why? It's probably harder to lose something than steal it because stealing implies there's another party to remove it from the location it was lost at.
- happyopossum 4y agoEspecially when “losing” that bomb (or in the case we’re discussing, 2 nuclear cores) also entails “losing” yourself and the entire crew of your B-47.
- tester756 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Belenko
- spywaregorilla 4y agoI feel like the implication was clearly that it was done on the sly. Outright defecting to the other country is quite a bit different from being paid to look the other way.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoLosing a bomb is pretty easy. It just requires a convergence of mistakes. Laundering it requires you make those mistakes happen and avoid anyone finding out you did it. I’d go with lost.
- RichardHesketh 4y ago^ This. Because: Hanlon’s Razor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor) "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI think Hanlon's razor goes out the window when you're talking about anything adjacent to spycraft and espionage. "Oops, I accidentally left a briefcase full of classified documents on the bus. Honest mistake, I swear!" Oldest trick in the book, innit?
- kayodelycaon 4y agoIt takes more than one person to lose a bomb. “Losing” a briefcase is much easier.
- hypertele-Xii 4y agoBut nobody did find out. The bombs are still missing.
- dbg31415 4y agoWould assume stolen by Russia or China… espionage to reverse engineer our tech to see if they could find flaws or exploits to reduce its effectiveness, or ideas to improve their own designs. Makes me feel safer anyway since the bomb would be out of commission. So these bombs, if found, they aren’t just pull the pin and chuck it to detonate, right? would they even pose a risk of found by a civilian?
- kayodelycaon 4y agoDepending on the age and composition of the bomb, it might not even be a viable weapon anymore. A lot of the early ones had pretty short shelf lives.
- spywaregorilla 4y agoIt almost certainly wouldn't work anymore. Plus after the initial batches they started making them tough to accidentally detonate.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoI don't think the basic Pu-239 / U-235 cores themselves degrade, those isotopes have extremely long half lives, but other components of the bombs certainly do. Particularly, the tritium used in boosted nuclear weapons has a half life of just over 12 years. Furthermore all Pu-239 cores have some Pu-240 contamination that undergoes spontaneous fission, the neutron flux from which probably degrades other components of the bomb over time.
- kayodelycaon 4y agoEarly weapons had a lot impurities in their fissionable materials, which significantly reduces shelf life.
- ridgeguy 4y agoI think a 50 year old "lost" bomb would be a radiological hazard at most. Nuclear weapons require upkeep. After 50 years, only 6% of tritium remains from the initial 100%. Any weapon using tritium (boosted fission bombs and hydrogen bombs) would likely fail to work. Chemical explosives that initiate nuclear detonation also degrade. Successful weapon function requires an extremely precise initial chemical explosion, not likely to be possible with a 50 year old bomb. edit - Ninjaed by MichaelCollins
- Barrin92 4y agoLost, by a mile (or potentially being a product of faulty inventory to begin with). The logistics involving nuclear weaponry are so extreme and involve so many people that something getting lost is more likely than some kind of crime. Do you think presidents can smuggle a nuclear warhead across borders with a donkey or something? Reagan couldn't even manage to sell weapons to fund a bunch of terrorists under the table.
- pessimizer 4y ago> The logistics involving nuclear weaponry are so extreme and involve so many people that something getting lost is more likely than some kind of crime. The logistics being so extreme and involving so many people is evidence against loss, not for it. Also, the US placing nukes in a place that only a few silent people are aware of is not a crime. > Do you think presidents can smuggle a nuclear warhead across borders with a donkey or something? Do you think they can lose them down the kitchen sink drain, or accidentally leave them in a cab?
- happyopossum 4y agoDid you read how these were lost? So in your world an entire B-47 crew disappeared in 1956 just so Eisenhower could “launder” a pair of nuke cores (not entire bombs) to <waves hands> somebody. Nobody from the B-47 crew has ever been heard from again, and nobody, anywhere saw the plane ever again. And in your world this is more likely than a plane crashing in the Med?
- khuey 4y agoAtomic bombs are useful for blowing stuff up (which requires detonating them) or threatening to blow stuff up (which requires other people knowing you possess them). "Laundering" a bomb that remains unknown for 50 years doesn't seem that useful.
- RichardHesketh 4y agoUnless it was taken apart by another state for research purposes…
- khuey 4y agoProbably easier to get your hands on some engineering documents than an entire bomb.
- MOARDONGZPLZ 4y agoSeems prima facie easy, but at least in the USA each part is certainly contained within a different special access program, and never the twain shall meet.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoAt least one country sees value in being deliberately ambiguous about possessing nuclear weapons.
- keyle 4y ago"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity..." -Hanlon's razor
- hackingthenews 4y agoI personally find this saying extremely overrated and damaging in many cases. Especially considering the pacifying effect it can have on attempting to undo certain injustices. Best use of it is in your personal life with family, friends, retail worker in your local grocery shop etc.
- sva_ 4y agoNever attribute to stupidity, that which can be adequately explained by economic incentives (I don't think it applies here though)
- hackingthenews 4y agoYes, thank you, I was in fact primarily (but not exclusively) thinking of economic incentives! I will use your phrasing from now on.
- a1369209993 4y ago> retail worker in your local grocery shop Actually, that frequently is malice, but it's malice on the part of the grocery shop, not the individual worker. Proposed addendum: never attribute to personal malice what can be adequately explained by institutional malice.
- hackingthenews 4y agoI agree. My guess is that institutional malice is fully explained by economic incentives 99% of the time. Which the version from the other comment cover: "Never attribute to stupidity, that which can be adequately explained by economic incentives"