From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Mar 19 2003 - 15:31:20 MST
On Thu, 20 Mar 2003, avatar wrote:
> If the true menace is not scuds carrying anthrax to a dozen people but
> nuclear weapons on ICBMs killing tens or hundreds of millions, then tell
> me: what are the Russian generals telling their political masters right
> now? Their nuclear weapons are largely in storage, not destroyed.
I'll take issue with a couple of points here -- the "true menace" is
not the nuclear weapons. Sure the landing of 100+ ICBMs would ruin
the U.S. but the odds of that are pretty darn low compared with the
possibility of even a single nuclear weapon being blown up by terrorists
in NY or L.A. harbor. But those events while certainly horrible will
not "destroy" the U.S.
Many of the weapons in Russia *are* being disassembled -- it would be
interesting to have a real "factual" discussion as to what extent they
are being stored vs. disassembled. But even if they are being disassembled
you still have the problem of *what* to do with the nuclear material.
The best numbers I've got suggest that Russia has 1050 tons of highly
enriched uranium and 160 tons of plutonium. Note those figures are *TONS*!
Given an average of 15 kg of HEU and 3.2 kg of Pu/warhead that translates
to enough material for ~120,000 weapons (the U.S. isn't far behind with
enough material for ~75,000 weapons).
Even if you "disassemble" the warheads -- the material will still be
around for clever terrorists to smuggle out of Russia -- either for
the purposes of creating dirty bombs or real atomic weapons.
The fellow who made up the saying "May you live in interesting times"
didn't know the half of it.
> Will this scupper Bush's "gentleman's agreement" to increase the number
> of stored nuclear weapons?
I think the U.S. is paying Russia to gradually disassemble the weapons
but that still doesn't solve the long term problem of what to do with
the fissile material they contain.
> Will Russia, unable to equal America technologically, return to power
> through simple hydrogen bombs?
They know they have more fissile material than we do. They also know
that their rockets may be a bit more reliable at this point. I don't
think they feel it necessary to restart the cold war.
> Will China suddenly be happy with North Korea having the bomb?
Well, N.K. probably has the bomb, and certainly has missiles that
can deliver them to parts of China. The question is what will
China's response be to N.K. having lots of bombs?
> Pushing around a small country that doesn't threaten you, just to
> demonstrate how big you are, and in the face of opposition from the
> equal largest military force in the world (Russia), can only be a dumb
> thing.
I don't notice Russia rushing to defend the actions of N.K. China is
also sitting on the fence. At some point both are going to need to decide
whether they are dealing with a reliable nation or one being run by
a fruitcake.
Robert
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