Good column by Con Coughlin in the Daily Telgraph, "The West can't let Iran have the bomb":
[External Link]
Good details on the bomb program.
Mark
Ottawa
If North Korea lobbed a 'low yield', 'tactical' nuclear weapon over the DMZ to take out an American nuclear missile installation targetted at Pyongyang, would the response be conventional or nuclear?
While we're making inane WWII comparisons, the only difference between a 5KT yield nuclear weapon and the one that hit Hiroshima is a factor of 3 and 600 meters of altitude.
Maybe a more recent comparison would help. Pakistan tested its first nuclear weapon in 1998, the yield was 9KT.
In what world could you possibly be living that detonating a 5KT nuclear bomb is an entirely different league than 'actual' nuclear weapons?
Dara: US nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1992 (or maybe December 1991)--so can you come up with another excuse for Kim Jong-il lobbing one south?
[External Link]
[External Link]
Mark
Ottawa
It was hypothetical Mark, North Korea wouldn't bother developing a tactical nuclear weapon because they know that it would never be considered 'tactical' if they ever used it. It would rightly be considered a WMD attack regardless of yield.
For the sake of argument, how about a South Korean reactor producing enriched uranium that the North says is for a renewed nuclear weapons program?
Oops, substitute "enriched uranium" for "plutonium".
Posted at 2006-04-11 14:15:34 [PermaLink]A useful counter-weight to the New Yorker and Washington Post stories by William Arkin (no fan of the Bush administration) of the Washington Post--who has uncovered a lot of relevant facts.
[External Link]
Mark
Ottawa
More facts from William Arkin:
[External Link]
Mark
Ottawa
Dara doesn't do "facts". Keep it hypothetical, please.
Posted at 2006-04-12 08:54:40 [PermaLink]BM, if you were following along you'd see that Mark's facts have nothing to do with what I was saying. My point was that 'tactical' nuclear weapons are not different enough from 'actual' nuclear weapons to be distinguishable to anyone but the people pressing the launch button or rationalizing their right to use them.
Mark dodged the hypothetical question because he knows that I'm right. The articles he linked to are good, but deal with strategic planning for war with a nuclear armed Iran, not using 'tactical' nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country. Every war games simulation discussed by Arkin assumes that Iran is a nuclear power. Presently, and in the context of the original post, it is not.
Speaking of facts vs. hypothetical, what exactly do you think all the press regarding Iran's ongoing "secret nuclear weapons program" is?
Dara: The lowest yield US nuclear weapon currently is 0.3kt. That is 16 times less than the 5kt you mention. The damage from that would be much less than the sort you suggest.
[External Link]
Mark
Ottawa
Dara: Sorry--it was Paul who raised the 5kt example.
Mark
Ottawa