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?
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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.
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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.
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.
__________________
“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."
-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.
Last edited by Omega Vision on Aug 14th, 2011 at 12:04 AM
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)
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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.
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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?
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Last edited by Tzeentch on Aug 14th, 2011 at 07:13 AM
__________________ Recently Produced and Distributed Young but High-Ranking Political Figure of Royal Ancestry within the Modern American Town Affectionately Referred To as Bel-Air.
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.
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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!
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.
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) and if so who will initiate it? 
Aug 13th, 2011 11:26 PM
