4 ms·

It wasn’t a goal with achieving.

• philwelch 3y ago
  I disagree. Nuclear deterrence has prevented direct warfare between great powers for the longest period since at least the Roman Empire.
  • jonathankoren 3y ago
    Nuclear deterrence was perfectly capable with fission bombs
    • philwelch 3y ago
      I’m not sure it was. Hiroshima and Nagasaki (but especially Hiroshima) had outsized effects because of how Japanese cities were built of readily flammable materials at the time; incendiary bombing of Japanese cities was also far more effective than that of German cities. (Which is saying something because the German cities were very effectively bombed!) There’s disagreement over exactly how bad a major nuclear conflict would be, but everyone agrees that it would be significantly worse with an exchange of 500 kt thermonuclear warheads than with an exchange of 21 kt fission warheads. And the point of deterrence is to make that potential exchange as bad as possible.
      • pfdietz 3y ago
        One can make larger fission bombs, but they end up being very unsafe, since they contain several critical masses of material. I believe the UK made a 500 kT fission bomb. Fusion devices are smaller and safer to handle and, most importantly, are considerably cheaper per yield.