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These seem like pretty reasonable ways for them to be lost. Though the headline suggestion did give me a scary thought: if we do end up on a trajectory of socia

These seem like pretty reasonable ways for them to be lost. Though the headline suggestion did give me a scary thought: if we do end up on a trajectory of social collapse, most likely caused by ecosystem breakdown, then the resulting failed states could make it very easy for weapons such as these to get "lost".

deleted 4y ago
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Enginerrrd 4y ago
Yes, but they don't maintain efficacy for very long. The tritium bomb triggers have a short shelf-life. The radioactive material could be used for dirty bombs, but if there's societal collapse, I don't think such a tactic would have much of a useful place for anyone.
ffggvv 4y ago
you dont need ecosystem breakdown. could easily happen in pakistan right now
- tsol 4y ago
  Why Pakistan in particular? I would think a country like North Korea is the most likely candidate
  - User23 4y ago
    North Korea is a Chinese client state. The Chinese aren’t going to permit that.
  - deepdriver 4y ago
    Pakistan has a porous border with Afghanistan and thousands of its own armed extremists (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, Islamic State offshoots) who are frequently at odds with the government.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    North Korea seems more stable funnily enough
  - ffggvv 4y ago
    because they actually have a lot of those weapons and an extremely unstable/poor state.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  Vice reported this wild story of a Bulgarian black market weapons dealer selling a warhead from Pakistan in 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c4f4NJSB_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c4f4NJSB_4 edit: aside, it's amazing how badly they flubbed reading Cyrillic on the road signs in the opening minute.
whoooooo123 4y ago
Who needs nukes? Ukraine is currently being pumped full of billions of dollars of conventional weaponry, and the Westerners responsible admit that they have no idea where most of it is going. In fact much of it is supposedly turning up on the darkweb markets - which is to say that it's now possible for anyone with bitcoin to buy a Stinger missile. Think about that the next time you get on a plane.
- nso 4y ago
  Based on the amount of killed Russian units and destroyed Russian material I'd say tracking where it ends up is fairly simple. Supposedly.
  - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    Some mainstream news outlets estimate roughly 30% of the weapons we ship to Ukraine actually end up in the fight against Russia. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/arming-ukraine-cbs-reports/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/arming-ukraine-cbs-reports/ I tend to lean towards "there's no way to make a reasonable estimate at all" given the lack of oversight, as reported by other mainstream news organizations. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/us-weapons-ukraine-intelligence/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/us-weapons-ukraine-i... Unfortunately many are blinded to reality by their zealotry on the issue. Others understand the truth, but believe statements of objective reality that don't "support the effort" should never be uttered because it hurts the cause or "echoes Russian propaganda". The truth is that the "fog of war" is a very real thing in every conflict and it is foolish to make definitive statements one way or the other.
    - _kbh_ 4y ago
      > Some mainstream news outlets estimate roughly 30% of the weapons we ship to Ukraine actually end up in the fight against Russia. This statistic is from a sample size of 1, and comes from a single person working at a NGO and relates to _non-military_ aid early in the war. CBS is driving up clicks by posting fake news.
roywiggins 4y ago
You may be interested in the history of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, and what happened when the USSR broke up. There was something of a heroic, very secret effort to get the place more or less secured and reduce its proliferation risk. https://thebulletin.org/2013/08/into-thin-air-the-story-of-plutonium-mountain/ https://thebulletin.org/2013/08/into-thin-air-the-story-of-p... > Some of these tests—particularly tests involving plutonium—did not vaporize the material in a nuclear blast. It remained in tunnels and containers, in forms that could be recovered and recycled into a bomb. In addition, the Soviet Union discarded equipment that included high-purity plutonium that would have provided materials and information that could lead to a relatively sophisticated nuclear device if it had been found. > When scientists and military personnel withdrew from Kazakhstan following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they abandoned tunnels and bore holes filled with plutonium residue—enough plutonium, if fully reclaimed, for terrorists or a state to construct dozens of nuclear bombs. Between 1991 and 2012, scavengers looking for valuable metal and equipment from the former Soviet test site came within yards of the unguarded fissile material; in two cases the scavengers broke into the vessels used to contain some of the experiments, although there is no evidence that they removed any plutonium. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/plutonium-mountain-inside-17-year-mission-secure-legacy-soviet-nuclear-testing https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/plutonium-mountain-...
MichaelCollins 4y ago
I probably should have mentioned that the three I listed above aren't the three the headline is talking about. The three the article talks about were all assembled: one in Georgia (USA), one in Greenland, and one in the Philippine Sea.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Enginerrrd 4y ago

Yes, but they don't maintain efficacy for very long. The tritium bomb triggers have a short shelf-life. The radioactive material could be used for dirty bombs, but if there's societal collapse, I don't think such a tactic would have much of a useful place for anyone.

ffggvv 4y ago

you dont need ecosystem breakdown. could easily happen in pakistan right now

tsol 4y ago
Why Pakistan in particular? I would think a country like North Korea is the most likely candidate
- User23 4y ago
  North Korea is a Chinese client state. The Chinese aren’t going to permit that.
- deepdriver 4y ago
  Pakistan has a porous border with Afghanistan and thousands of its own armed extremists (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, Islamic State offshoots) who are frequently at odds with the government.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  North Korea seems more stable funnily enough
- ffggvv 4y ago
  because they actually have a lot of those weapons and an extremely unstable/poor state.
tomjakubowski 4y ago
Vice reported this wild story of a Bulgarian black market weapons dealer selling a warhead from Pakistan in 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c4f4NJSB_4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c4f4NJSB_4 edit: aside, it's amazing how badly they flubbed reading Cyrillic on the road signs in the opening minute.

whoooooo123 4y ago

Who needs nukes? Ukraine is currently being pumped full of billions of dollars of conventional weaponry, and the Westerners responsible admit that they have no idea where most of it is going. In fact much of it is supposedly turning up on the darkweb markets - which is to say that it's now possible for anyone with bitcoin to buy a Stinger missile. Think about that the next time you get on a plane.

nso 4y ago
Based on the amount of killed Russian units and destroyed Russian material I'd say tracking where it ends up is fairly simple. Supposedly.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  Some mainstream news outlets estimate roughly 30% of the weapons we ship to Ukraine actually end up in the fight against Russia. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/arming-ukraine-cbs-reports/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/arming-ukraine-cbs-reports/ I tend to lean towards "there's no way to make a reasonable estimate at all" given the lack of oversight, as reported by other mainstream news organizations. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/us-weapons-ukraine-intelligence/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/us-weapons-ukraine-i... Unfortunately many are blinded to reality by their zealotry on the issue. Others understand the truth, but believe statements of objective reality that don't "support the effort" should never be uttered because it hurts the cause or "echoes Russian propaganda". The truth is that the "fog of war" is a very real thing in every conflict and it is foolish to make definitive statements one way or the other.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    > Some mainstream news outlets estimate roughly 30% of the weapons we ship to Ukraine actually end up in the fight against Russia. This statistic is from a sample size of 1, and comes from a single person working at a NGO and relates to _non-military_ aid early in the war. CBS is driving up clicks by posting fake news.

roywiggins 4y ago

You may be interested in the history of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, and what happened when the USSR broke up. There was something of a heroic, very secret effort to get the place more or less secured and reduce its proliferation risk. https://thebulletin.org/2013/08/into-thin-air-the-story-of-plutonium-mountain/ https://thebulletin.org/2013/08/into-thin-air-the-story-of-p... > Some of these tests—particularly tests involving plutonium—did not vaporize the material in a nuclear blast. It remained in tunnels and containers, in forms that could be recovered and recycled into a bomb. In addition, the Soviet Union discarded equipment that included high-purity plutonium that would have provided materials and information that could lead to a relatively sophisticated nuclear device if it had been found. > When scientists and military personnel withdrew from Kazakhstan following the collapse of the Soviet Union, they abandoned tunnels and bore holes filled with plutonium residue—enough plutonium, if fully reclaimed, for terrorists or a state to construct dozens of nuclear bombs. Between 1991 and 2012, scavengers looking for valuable metal and equipment from the former Soviet test site came within yards of the unguarded fissile material; in two cases the scavengers broke into the vessels used to contain some of the experiments, although there is no evidence that they removed any plutonium. https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/plutonium-mountain-inside-17-year-mission-secure-legacy-soviet-nuclear-testing https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/plutonium-mountain-...

MichaelCollins 4y ago

I probably should have mentioned that the three I listed above aren't the three the headline is talking about. The three the article talks about were all assembled: one in Georgia (USA), one in Greenland, and one in the Philippine Sea.