- Dear Jeff,
-
- I was reading the news the other day, and I noticed an
article that reported the Bush boys are seeking to start up new research
on small tactical Nukes in the 1 to 5 kiloton yield range. Hmm, I thought,
what could be behind a move like this?
-
- Some 30 or more years ago, the US developed small nukes
for use in standard field combat operations. These were designed for use
with mobile short range missiles, in otherwise conventional warfare situations.
They were more or less abandoned when the think tank boys figured out
that there was no way to prevent escalation to all out nuclear war once
the Ruskies or Chinese began to retaliate with similar weapons.
-
- What has changed in the equation since then? Well for
one thing, Russia is no longer the number two power in the world. China
is, and India is next in line after that. Russia is running a poor fourth
on a good day. But that is not the main event in the nuclear threat game.
The Cray computers long ago modeled the outcome of a thermonuclear war,
where both sides traded large arsenals, and the climate models consistently
predicted Nuclear Winter as the only outcome, even if only a few dozen
major devices were used.
-
- As a side note, plutonium, the favorite material for
making triggers for Nukes, is a highly toxic, and expensive material to
produce and control. It is definitely not plentiful enough to supply the
inflated numbers of bombs that the US and the USSR boasted of for decades.
Additionally, Rocky Flats and Oak Ridge, the only two facilities in the
US for processing plutonium or Tritium, have been closed down.
-
- Plutonium, unlike Uranium, has a fairly short half life,
and that means the triggers must be replaced often if they are to work
when the soldiers want them to work. Since the amount of Plutonium used
to make triggers is just over critical mass, and cannot be much over it
or it would detonate spontaneously, the actual triggers for all the bombs
are about the same size.
-
- So, where are these going to come from if the tactical
nuke program is re-started? That is problematical until you think about
how the Bushies want to take ALL manufacturing off shore. Japan has the
worlds only functional fast breeder reactor, and it makes lots of plutonium.
China, Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan, France, etc. still have refineries
and plutonium processing plants. This is curious, and suggests an area
for further research. Anyone on line here want to look into this?
-
- Given these limits on the building of triggers, what
are the Strategic implications of research and or deployment of "Tactical"
nukes? What jumps out at me right away is that large nukes put a lot of
dust into the stratosphere, where it circulates globally, blocking sunlight,
and spreading fallout. Small nukes on the other hand, are localized phenomenon.
They pollute yes, but not on the same scale, because the fireball is smaller,
and does not rise as high, so the dust and fallout are also localized.
-
- While the large multi-megaton devices will destroy very
large cities at one go, the drawbacks are obvious. A series of small devices,
well spread out, and targeted in a pattern over time would be just as effective
in destroying large targets, but without the Nuclear Winter and world wide
fallout threats. Is this what is on the minds of those nasty little boys
in the White House with their hands on everybody's Nukies?
-
- I advise all readers to write to their congress persons
and Senators to seek to kill funding for Tactical Nuclear Devices, and
to halt further underground testing in Nevada now.
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