> Zero Powers wrote: Why wouldn't the policy of mutually assured destruction
> work for us the way it did to prevent full-scale nuclear war?
In 1946 Edward Teller's group realized that there is no theoretical
limit to how large a nuclear fusion device could be made. One could
theoretically nuke the entire earth with one such weapon, in which
case there was no need to haul it elsewhere. It came to be known
as the backyard weapon, effective only in scaring away would be
invaders. We could imagine some wacko dictator announcing that
there were hungry nanoassemblers squirrelled away within her borders,
and so she was immediately dismantling her military. Would an
invader chance it? spike
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