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Will nuclear disarmament happen in our lifetime (I mean using current standards and discounting possible medical breakthroughs that make people live longer ) and if so who will initiate it?

Must it begin with the countries with the nuclear weapons, or will it start from without, among non-nuclear nations, non-nation groups/organizations?

Generally, change does not occur unless/until something catastrophic occurs. In this case, another country getting nuked (my guess: Israel or a European country). Then you'll see the big crackdown.

not unless they become obsolete

Shields?
Lasers?
Better antimissile missles?

The closest parallel to atomic weapons before the invention of atomic weapons would probably be battleships/dreadnoughts.

They never got banned, they just became obsolete.

Now obviously that's a pretty imperfect comparison, but I think there is some parallel.
Originally posted by Mindship
Shields?
Lasers?
Better antimissile missles?
I think its entirely possible that nuclear weapons won't be made obsolete by invention of better countermeasures but rather by a superior alternative.

To extend the battleship comparison, battleships weren't phased out because weapons were made that could absolutely render them ineffective (though their effectiveness was diminished by naval airpower and submarines), rather because aircraft carriers represented a superior investment for big navies because having a hundred armed planes is much more versatile and potent than a ship with lots of big guns.

In this case I can see things like space-borne kinetic missiles making nuclear weapons unattractive because you could cause enormous damage without rendering an area uninhabitable for a century.

Let's make nuclear missiles obsolete by coming up with even better, more efficient ways to obliterate each other!


I'm thinking dreadnought<nukes<nuclear dreadnoughts<Death Star (Moon lasers)

Total disarmament is impossible. If one person doesn't disarm it would give them a huge advantage and everyone knows this so they don't trust anyone else. Minimum, there would be secret stockpiles.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Total disarmament is impossible. If one person doesn't disarm it would give them a huge advantage and everyone knows this so they don't trust anyone else. Minimum, there would be secret stockpiles.
I can understand that. Even if I think its very backward, cynical logic.

What I can't really understand is why any country needs more than a hundred of them.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
I can understand that. Even if I think its very backward, cynical logic.

What I can't really understand is why any country needs more than a hundred of them.

Obviously you don't have many enemies.

I did a calculation on nuclear missiles and the destruction they would cause.

It didn't end up being that often quoted, "destroy the world 7 times over" figure.

Still, they would cause lots of damage. But it's not as bad as some people say.


Vacuum bombs are in the area of low-yield nuclear weapons. But they just aren't powerful enough to replace nukes.

Did your maths match the conclusion in this article by any chance? I've always liked that article.

edit- Hmmm. Link's not working right.

Well, the article I was trying to look you to is the first suggestion they make at the top. "How many atomic bombs will it take to destroy the world?

My math did not include fallout due to the uncertainty.

Lemme see if I can find it.


Edit = Meh. No luck. I don't feel like searching anymore. It was in the MVF.


Double edit - Wait, I found it:

Originally posted by dadudemon
There are between 27,000 and 28,000 nuclear weapons. Damage radius yields would be between 3.5 and 17.5 miles.

Find the area of the 'low-end': 38.5 square miles. Multiply that by the number of nukes, low-end: 1,039,081.8 square miles.

Square mileage of earth's land: 148,940,000 km2 = 57,506,055.6 square miles. Or about 55 times the land area destroyed by the low-end estimate.


But what about the high end?

One bomb would have a damage radius of 962.1 square miles.

That's 26,939,157.0 square miles for the 28,000 nukes. Or about 2.1 times the land area.


The nuclear fallout from either end of the scenario would make almost every square on earth irradiated and unlivable. This is how we know that no human would survive (after the first day, pretty much every last inch of the surface of the earth would be covered by 500 or more rads) and 400 rads in one hour is a "fatal dose." 4500 rads in an "acute" period is a lethal dose.

Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
Did your maths match the conclusion in this article by any chance? I've always liked that article.

edit- Hmmm. Link's not working right.

Well, the article I was trying to look you to is the first suggestion they make at the top. "How many atomic bombs will it take to destroy the world?
Lol:

"My U.S. History teacher told us that if 8 nuclear bombs went off at roughly the same time, it would kill 95% of life in planet Earth."

I really want to know what science (if any) that's based on, and why a US History teacher is supposed to be a credible authority on this subject.

Fear mongering?

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Lol:

"My U.S. History teacher told us that if 8 nuclear bombs went off at roughly the same time, it would kill 95% of life in planet Earth."

I really want to know what science (if any) that's based on, and why a US History teacher is supposed to be a credible authority on this subject.

It could kick up nitrogen dioxide into the atmosphere if it created enough long burning fires?

Not sure about that obviously.

see, the problem with nuclear disarmament is that with the exception of America, Russia and maybe China, most nuclear nations have weapons for more regional political reasons. Britain, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, these nations, regardless of how many individual weapons they have, don't have the infrastructure to engage in nuclear war at anything close the the strategic capacity that Russia or America have. Iran, for as much as a nuke might be a way to keep America or Israel from performing military operations against them, rather allows Iran to extend its influence by taking that option off the table.

I guess I shouldn't say it plays not military strategic role, just more that, by having a nuclear weapon, you can extend your regional political power essentially without fear of reprisal. America's continuing war in Pakistan, however, shows this might not be entirely true, but those are weird circumstances. I'd just say, most nuclear armed nations, or nations that want nukes, have them for reasons besides engaging in nuclear warfare,

For real disarmament then, that political reality would be taken off the table. And sure, we can talk about space weapons or whatever, but compared to the North Korean or even French/British nuclear military capacity, both America and Russia might as well be space weapons. The degree to which America/Russia have first strike, 2nd strike, survivability, automaticity, etc built into their nuclear strategic planning is unlike anything else on the planet. Nuke or not, the military battlefield isn't leveled between America and Iran, even if they did have a delivery system that could reach America.

The only thing that would make nuclear weapons, as they exist today (ie: as large missiles/bombs with huge payloads), obsolete would be a 100% effective missile shield that applied equally to all nations (even then, traditional bombs would still be relevant in geopolitics). Even if there were simply just "more-powerful-than-nuke" type weapons, the destructive power of nuclear bombs will probably make that technology a part of military arsenals for a long time.

Maybe not but I will fight for it until the end.

Yes, as soon as they find some bigger or more devastating weapon to replace the nukes

You mean like weather weapons?? You could attack someone and nobody would ever know it was you, they'd just blame it on the weather! Btw I don't think we'll ever be free of nuclear weapons, but anything is possible!

Originally posted by Bicnarok
Yes, as soon as they find some bigger or more devastating weapon to replace the nukes I think we've reached the point in geo-politics where there isn't really a point in trying to design weapons any more powerful than a nuclear weapon. An insane megalomaniac might have a use for bomb that could destroy like an entire country with one blast, or something, but that would be incredibly impracticable so far as winning a war.

Unfortunately, I do not believe it will ever happen. I wish it could but I don't see how it is possible.

agreed, but arms racing arent ending. if nuclear warfare is off the table because of mutually assured destruction, then the tendency becomes the pursue of weapons that allow crippling an opponent's economic and administrative capacities such as crops/industry/telecommunications/energy etc.