[ RadSafe ] Proliferation

[garyi at trinityphysics.com]

Hi Mike,

You make some excellent points, but I must say that any culture that embraces suicide 
bombing, using their own children as carriers, definitely falls into the category of "They are 
just crazy enough to do it!"  

Remember, I am not talking about having their children taken from them by force.  No, I am 
talking about parents who have a celebration prior to the bombing.  Just think about that for a 
second.  What would they do if they had a nuclear weapon?  North Korea is one thing, but 
Islamic terrorism is entirely different.  But I do agree with you that biological or chemical 
agents are the more serious threat.   

If there were a button that would make every non-muslim head in the world suddenly 
explode, I promise you that we would find quite a few people who would fight each other to 
be able to push it first.

And that is your happy thought for the day.  :)

-Gary Isenhower


On 9 Jul 2008 at 10:50, Brennan, Mike  (DOH) wrote:

------snip--------------

The second reason I think the proliferation risk is overstated is that
EVEN IF a country is successful in making a, or even several, atomic
weapons, they will find what the US and USSR found: they aren't very
useful.  They lack flexibility.  If the other side has them, too, you
can use them to kick over the game board, but you can't use them to
win the game.  The claim, "They are just crazy enough to do it!" is
perhaps over used when the correct phrase is more like "I haven't
bothered to try to figure out their reasoning."  Both the US and USSR
were guilty of that during the Cold War.

The third reason is that, frankly, the world is safer with the "rogue
nations" spending their resources on nuclear weapons research than it
is with them pursuing other things, such as biological or chemical
weapons. North Korea trying to make a nuclear weapon is scary; North
Korea trying to resurrect small pox is terrifying.  A country giving a
terrorist organization a nuke is bad; a country giving a terrorist
organization the same dollar-value of a top-grade nerve gas is worse.

So why am I saying this?  I believe that as new reactors are proposed
around the world, the anti-nuke faction will take every opportunity to
overstate dangers.  I believe that responsible people, especially
those in the rad community, should be prepared to point out the
weaknesses in those arguments, especially if we are called upon by the
media to comment.