3 ms·

Dwight Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not

by pinko 3y ago

Dwight Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

credit_guy 3y ago
Yeah, yeah, yeah. People forget the context. Eisenhower said all this in the days after Stalin died, hoping to convince the new Soviet leadership to disengage from the arms race. It did not work. And Eisenhower had zero qualms about saying something and smoking something else: the US had about 500 nukes when Eisenhower became president and about 20000 when he stepped down.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. His administration built nukes, besides fitting with the administration's policy of massive retaliation, because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound. There is a thesis to be written (if not already existing) on how both Truman and Eisenhower viewed tactical nukes as, well, very large conventional weapons and potentially usable as such on the battlefield, while still viewing strategic nukes as something different. The thesis would deal with both presidents' military backgrounds affecting their opinions, and how being intimately involved with the discussion of just how much more powerful thermonuclear weapons are than fission weapons affected taking such a nuanced view, an ability that I think has been lost to later generations (I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed).
  - credit_guy 3y ago
    > The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea? > because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound. Yes, they are. Pound for pound. But when you get to 20000 nukes, and thousands of megatons, it stops being pound for pound. > I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed. I think you are right. If they knew, at least a few would realize that the US could downgrade 90% of its nukes from thermonuclear to fission bombs without diminishing their destructive power. The most numerous warhead in the US arsenal is W76-1, with a yield of 90 kT. It is obviously not know how much comes from the fission core, but it's unlikely that the core is smaller than the core of Fat Man, because of the lower limits of the critical mass of plutonium. The efficiency of the core is certainly much higher than the efficiency of the Fat Man, so it would not surprise me if half of the yield of a W76-1 came from the fission core. And since the destructive power of a bomb is ridiculously sublinear, the difference between a 45 kT and a 90 kT bomb is not that high. The US could retain about 300 fusion bombs, and convert the other few thousands into pure fission bombs and it could be able to fulfill whatever nuclear war goals there were to fulfill. And reduce the stockpile stewardship budget. And gain some moral high ground in the process. And, why not, move the world a bit closer to a world without nuclear weapons.
    - TMWNN 3y ago
      > > The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. > Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea? No. The Eisenhower cut of the defense budget occurred in spring 1953, right after his inauguration. It was not known then that the armistice would occur that summer.

by pinko 3y ago

credit_guy 3y ago

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People forget the context. Eisenhower said all this in the days after Stalin died, hoping to convince the new Soviet leadership to disengage from the arms race. It did not work. And Eisenhower had zero qualms about saying something and smoking something else: the US had about 500 nukes when Eisenhower became president and about 20000 when he stepped down.

TMWNN 3y ago
The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. His administration built nukes, besides fitting with the administration's policy of massive retaliation, because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound. There is a thesis to be written (if not already existing) on how both Truman and Eisenhower viewed tactical nukes as, well, very large conventional weapons and potentially usable as such on the battlefield, while still viewing strategic nukes as something different. The thesis would deal with both presidents' military backgrounds affecting their opinions, and how being intimately involved with the discussion of just how much more powerful thermonuclear weapons are than fission weapons affected taking such a nuanced view, an ability that I think has been lost to later generations (I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed).
- credit_guy 3y ago
  > The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea? > because nukes are cheaper than conventional weapons, pound for pound. Yes, they are. Pound for pound. But when you get to 20000 nukes, and thousands of megatons, it stops being pound for pound. > I doubt 5% of today's politicians, let alone citizens, can explain the difference between fission and fusion bombs I'd be amazed. I think you are right. If they knew, at least a few would realize that the US could downgrade 90% of its nukes from thermonuclear to fission bombs without diminishing their destructive power. The most numerous warhead in the US arsenal is W76-1, with a yield of 90 kT. It is obviously not know how much comes from the fission core, but it's unlikely that the core is smaller than the core of Fat Man, because of the lower limits of the critical mass of plutonium. The efficiency of the core is certainly much higher than the efficiency of the Fat Man, so it would not surprise me if half of the yield of a W76-1 came from the fission core. And since the destructive power of a bomb is ridiculously sublinear, the difference between a 45 kT and a 90 kT bomb is not that high. The US could retain about 300 fusion bombs, and convert the other few thousands into pure fission bombs and it could be able to fulfill whatever nuclear war goals there were to fulfill. And reduce the stockpile stewardship budget. And gain some moral high ground in the process. And, why not, move the world a bit closer to a world without nuclear weapons.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    > > The first thing Eisenhower did after taking office was to cut the defense budget. > Yes. But aren't you forgetting something? Like the fact that the US was exiting the war in Korea? No. The Eisenhower cut of the defense budget occurred in spring 1953, right after his inauguration. It was not known then that the armistice would occur that summer.