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US nuclear weapons testing can forever scar a nation.Just ask Marshall Island
- Johnny555 1y agoThis article is in response to Trump's declaration that the USA is starting nuclear weapons testing, the the energy secretary clarified that these are "non-critical" tests, i.e. they are testing the non-nuclear parts of the weapon but will not be causing any nuclear explosions. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd26yxxx3lo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd26yxxx3lo "These are not nuclear explosions," Wright told Fox News on Sunday. "These are what we call non-critical explosions." "Americans near historic test sites such as the Nevada National Security Site have no cause for concern," Wright said. "So you're testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry, and they set up the nuclear explosion."
- Finnucane 1y agoWe've been doing sub-critical component tests at the NNTS since the end of full-scale testing. So Wright is attempting to make it sound like there won't really be a change of policy, but with these guys who knows. It's not like Il Douche has any clue what he's talking about.
- ourmandave 1y agoSay and do anything they can think of to delay the Epstein bomb from going off.
- IAmBroom 1y agoEven money that they simply set off some M80 on the White House lawn, and tell him that was a nuke test.
- School-Cotton 1y ago*the Marshall Islands
- stronglikedan 1y ago*nation. Just while we're at it
- otikik 1y agoJust ask Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- shagmin 1y agoCould take this a couple different ways. Aren't those cities flourishing today?
- voidfunc 1y agoSure but it scarred the Japanese culture permanently.
- anticodon 1y agoIt seems young Japanese doesn't even know who bombed their country. US controls most of the world media: they can highlight or hide any fact, or inculcate whatever interpretation.
- Jtsummers 1y agoUS media doesn't particularly hide the fact of the US bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer was released just two years ago, to pick one recent and prominent example of the US not hiding the facts.
- gregbot 1y agoCould you expand on what exactly you mean by “scarring” a culture?
- psunavy03 1y agoAsk the orders of magnitude more of Americans and Japanese people who weren't slaughtered in a ground invasion. Or starved to death in the mass famines a blockade would have caused. And all their descendants. Sometimes wars require the least shitty of a menu of shitty choices.
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- WillPostForFood 1y agoUS atmospheric testing ended over 60 years ago. Underground testing doesn't "scar a nation". If nuclear deterrence relies on functional weapons, an underground test every few decades seems prudent. The last test was 1992. This article is fearmongering.
- hypeatei 1y ago> If nuclear deterrence relies on functional weapons I don't think it does. No one will mess with you if you merely have one bomb let alone the US which has 5k+ warheads and a triad of delivery mechanisms. Blowing up nuclear bombs anywhere for "testing" purposes is stupid.
- WillPostForFood 1y agoHow do you know they work? We haven't tested one in 33 years. Are you still confident after 50 years? 75 years? We all see the problems with aging physical infrastructure - bridges collapsing, dams failing. If you are relying on nuclear weapons as the primary deterrent to stop major wars, they need to work, and people need to know and believe they work. The cost is negligible.
- hypeatei 1y agoWhat does testing one nuke say about the thousands of nukes you have stockpiled? The point is: having a nuclear weapon is already a major deterrent and no one is going to poke your buttons to find out if they work or not. Doing a test detonation doesn't move the needle at all. > The cost is negligible Environmentally, not at all neglible. Financially, probably since we fund our military more than anyone else.
- Finnucane 1y agoI guess it depends on what you mean by 'scar'. Certainly the NNTS looks plenty scarred by the hundreds of subsidence craters left behind by the tests. Only once in a while would there be a leak like the Baneberry test in 1970. And plenty of the folks working in the test area were 'scarred', by radiation sickness, leukemia, etc.
- bpodgursky 1y agoI don't think the US should test nuclear weapons unless other countries do first, but this is pointless fearmongering. The tests are all underground now! There are no scars!
- Arubis 1y agoEven underground tests executed _with the explicit intention_ of improving PR for nukes polluted groundwater and vented rads to the atmosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
- stronglikedan 1y ago> this is pointless fearmongering of course it is, it's CNN
- Simulacra 1y agoBy that logic we have crossed that point visa-via North Korea.
- FridayoLeary 1y agoThat's shocking. Nuclear fallout must have been well understood by the 1950s. Back then people in general were far more ignorant of risks and assessing potential risks then today but they weren't foolish. How could they have been so negligent?
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- briandw 1y agoRestarting testing is a bad idea. However this is a false equivalence. H-Bombing an island nation isn't the same as testing. Underground testing in the middle of nowhere NM has very little consequence to anyone. Restarting testing is unnecessary and a very bad precedent to set, but The Marshall Islands have nothing to do with it.
- teachrdan 1y agoI think your point is missing the big picture. The US starting testing again -- even underground -- would likely start other countries testing again, at least some of which would happen aboveground.
- WillPostForFood 1y agoat least some of which would happen aboveground No reason to think this is true, All the major powers (US, Russia, China) have extensive underground testing capacity. All the recent powers have only done underground testing (Pakistan, India, North Korea). China was the last country to do an above ground test, in 1980, the 22 tests they've done since then were all underground.
- kingkawn 1y agoHow do we know that underground testing has little consequences if all the sites are national security zones. What we do know is that the underground geology is likely permanently compromised, at least within any meaningful time frame, and all nearby aquifers and other water deposits are poisoned for all intents and purposes into the distant future. These tests are ecological horrors that are unnecessary and destructive.
- nradov 1y agoI agree that restarting nuclear weapon testing is a bad idea but Russia has already taken that step by conducting several test flights of the 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear powered cruise missile. It isn't a bomb, but flying an unshielded open cycle nuclear engine is in some ways even worse. https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-ukraine-nuclear-missile-trump-ukraine-1bde7246084003a9a20c873360ebeed5 https://apnews.com/article/russia-putin-ukraine-nuclear-miss...
- maxdo 1y agoWe don’t know what will be done but this is scary . We don’t like it. Content of article behind a paywall
- PeterStuer 1y agoThis is not US specific. Ask the people of French Polynesia how they feel about French nuclear weapons testing etc.
- lawlessone 1y agoAre the French restarting testing?
- xoxxala 1y agoMap of every nuclear explosion (over 2000) since 1945: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auRQg7AaE-U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auRQg7AaE-U
- joshstrange 1y agoThe land/water distinction (or lack thereof) could use some work. I spent way too long trying to figure out what I was looking at before I released we were zoomed all the way out and the dark blue was land while the light blue was water. Reminds me of this scene from Arrested Development https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/28b0326d-cba4-4d26-8c54-977f04b7e3f2 https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/28b0326d-cba4-4d26-8c54-977f04b...
- foofoo12 1y agoFrom US documentary back in the day: https://youtu.be/wqdRIt1EnkY?si=J3Ntmgyx6P66RpJt&t=217 https://youtu.be/wqdRIt1EnkY?si=J3Ntmgyx6P66RpJt&t=217 "The Marshales caught by fallout got 175 wrenchons of radiation. These are fishing people, savages by our standards. So a cross-section was brought to Chicago for testing. The first was John, the mayor of Rangala Battle. John, as we said, is a savage, but a happy aminable savage."
- Joker_vD 1y agoHow about asking Las Vegas instead? It's pretty close to Nevada Test Site, isn't it?
- mothballed 1y agoAn interesting side effect of the US testing and association with Marshall Islands is that they were offered entry in the compact of free association, allowing Marshalese citizens mostly free travel and work rights to come to the USA and work and reside without a visa. Which offers . And vice versa, US citizen can live and work indefinitely in Majuro without visa. About as many Marshallese live in USA as on the islands.
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- Simulacra 1y agoI think restarting LIMITED testing is necessary to stay on top of technology and safety. Testing bombs is a BAD idea, but I'm not opposed to affirming the nuclear package and delivery systems are still viable and advancing in safety and all forbid for use.