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Because every nuclear power developed their own enrichment processes and bomb technology, their bombs have different isotope ratios in the fallout. It's possibl
by ggreer 2y ago
Because every nuclear power developed their own enrichment processes and bomb technology, their bombs have different isotope ratios in the fallout. It's possible to analyze the fallout to determine where the bomb came from. That might not tell you who is responsible (as the weapon may have been stolen), but it would at least tell you which country's nuke it was.[1][2]
Also, one nuke isn't as destructive as you might think. If you play around with nukemap, you can see that a 50 kiloton warhead detonated in Chicago would be the worst attack in US history, but the city would not be gone. Around 5% of the population would be killed and another 7% would be injured.[3] Remember that the two cities that were nuked took about 10 years to rebuild, and that was in a country that had lost most of its infrastructure and manpower in a devastating world war.
1. https://trace.tennessee.edu/ijns/vol2/iss3/6/ https://trace.tennessee.edu/ijns/vol2/iss3/6/
2. https://www.science.org/content/article/surprise-nuclear-strike-heres-how-well-figure-out-who-did-it https://www.science.org/content/article/surprise-nuclear-str...
3. https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=50&lat=41.8699304&lng=-87.6363659&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&casualties=1&ff=50&psi=20,5,1&zm=13 https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=50&lat=41.8699304&ln...
- tolien 2y ago> Because every nuclear power developed their own enrichment processes and bomb technology, their bombs have different isotope ratios in the fallout. It's possible to analyze the fallout to determine where the bomb came from. That might not tell you who is responsible (as the weapon may have been stolen), but it would at least tell you which country's nuke it was. A major plot point of Tom Clancy's A Sum of All Fears is exactly this. A bomb gets lost by the Israelis and acquired by terrorists (Arab nationalists in the book, neo-Nazis in the film) and detonated in Baltimore with the intention of starting a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union. It turns out the fissile material was made at Oak Ridge, crisis averted, tea^Wcoffee and medals in Washington.
- tptacek 2y agoWho's going to deploy a 50kt warhead? A DF-5A (I think the mainstay of the Chinese arsenal?) would kill just about half the population of Chicago, and that percentage is reduced by the geographical size of the city of Chicago (everybody in the parts of Chicago that people think of as "Chicago" would be dead). The fireball alone would take out Northwestern University in Evanston and Brookfield Zoo out in the western suburbs. Essentially everybody in Chicago would be gravely injured. Even North Korea's tests have run into the hundreds of kilotons. Nobody's shooting Chicago to wound. If a nuclear missile hits us, we're not rebuilding.
- ggreer 2y agoThe linked article is about a backpack nuke. My comment was responding to the possibility of a terrorist group smuggling a tactical nuke or dirty bomb into the country. I was correcting some common misconceptions about such a scenario. I was obviously not talking about a nuclear exchange with China involving DF-5A ICBMs.
- tptacek 2y agoFair enough!
- hollerith 2y ago>The fireball alone would take out Why would the fireball touch the ground? The attacker could destroy twice as much stuff by choosing an air burst.