earllogjam
Expert Member
The Case of the Missing H-Bomb
Soviet Nukes Missing
Arms Control Association: Arms Control Today: Russian Officials Deny Claims Of Missing Nuclear Weapons
Broken Arrow to Faded Giant - Lost Nuclear Weapons
Loose Nukes - Council on Foreign Relations
BBC News | AMERICAS | Fears over missing nuclear material
Plus, Iran and North Korea aren't exactly eager to publicize details of their nuclear weapons programs. I don't think Israel has even admitted to having the bomb, even though everyone knows that they do. There's no way to guarantee that they all get destroyed, and even if they did, there's no way to guarantee that new ones don't get produced. I have no problem with reducing the number of nuclear weapons, the less of them there are the less the chance that one will fall into the wrong hands, and mutually assured destruction isn't much of a deterrent to some crazy religious nut/terrorist. Getting rid of all of them, however, is unrealistic. It's not in the United State's interests to completely dismantle their nuclear arsenal when it can't be guaranteed that the entire world will do the same.
Also, I thought the Cold War was about "defeating Communism"- aka ensuring that the USA was the only remaining super-power in the world. When was it ever about dismantling nuclear weapons? Keeping huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons was part of the strategy used by both the USA and USSR in the Cold War, but since when were we building up our weapons stockpiles just so we could eventually dismantle them?
Really, Isreal has the bomb? Boy, the situation is scarier that I ever imagined if those articles are correct. We all are living in a definite false sense of security.
I'm not sure it is unrealistic to sniff out nuclear weapons in other countries and verify their existence. It would be similar to the ban on chemical and biological weapons which I believe we have enforced. The only reason why counties like N. Korea have nuclear weapons is because they are threatened by other countries that have nuclear weapons.
Most of the equimpment needed to make nuclear weapons is traceable and tracked. That is how we now tell who is making nuclear weapons. I would also imagine making dirty bombs would require special equimpment that can be traced and tracked. Working with radiation is not something you can easily hide. Coming from a layman, it seems like the making of these weapons would be easily detected, and confirmed simply by tracing the equipment needed, the radiation leakage and testing. Also there probably is a very finite number of scientists in the world that have the knowledge to make such a device - all of whom are probably known and tracked by our CIA. Most of the Soviet ones are now employed by our govenment.
The whole nuclear stockpile argument never made sense to me because why do we need to stockpile enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world 1000 times over? Nuclear weapons are not analogous to conventional weapons. After you have enough to destroy the entire world once having more does not make you any more powerful. I thought the reason for any war is to make the world a better place for the victors. The Cold War being no exception. Nuclear proliferation was the direct product of the Cold War. Wouldn't America and the world be a better place without nuclear weapons? Well, we've won and are we safer? Apparently not with the unresolved problem of nuclear weapons.