For all of the bleating by the Neocon Gods of War, who are advocating going into Ukraine and squaring off with the Red Army, one should consider this: Toe-to-toe confrontations by nuclear armed powers are rare because rational people know full well that once shooting starts, things can spin out of control very fast and in a very bad way.
India and Pakistan have twice come close to war since both nations acquired nuclear weapons (both times were caused by Pakistani acts of war). A nuclear war between those two nations might ultimately kill over a billion people around the world, far more than the 12-20 or so million dead from the initial attacks.
Think of that for a second. A short war between a second-rate and a fourth-rate military powers could quickly kill almost as many people as who died in the First World War. As much as some of the neo-con chickenhawks might poo-poo the Russian military, which has only recently begun upgrading its conventional forces from what was left over from the Soviet Union, not too many people are scoffing at Russia's nuclear forces.
Which is why when nuclear-armed countries start throwing their weight around, they are careful to pick fights with other countries which don't have nuclear weapons.
Which may also be why, given China's rather aggressive stance of late, one should not be surprised to find out that Japan has gone nuclear in a very quick fashion.
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4 comments:
Both Japan and South Korea have the technological capability to build nuclear weapons but have not done so because the United States has promised to go nuclear against anybody who attacks them with nuclear weapons. South Korea could have a nuclear weapon within approximately 18 months time, it would take approximately 48 months for Japan to have a nuclear weapon due to the need to first build a graphite-moderated or heavy water reactor then import and irradiate sufficient U-238 into Pu-239 (South Korea already has heavy water reactors plus native deposits of U-238).
Note that Japan's light-water reactors are relatively useless for this purpose, which is why I've been amused at the freakout over Iran's light-water reactor. Light-water reactors require a significant percentage of U-235 in the fuel (usually 5-8%), which in turn reduces Pu-239 yield, and require short-cycling to extract the Pu-239 before it gets irradiated into non-fissile elements. It really isn't practical to use light water reactors to build nuclear reactors, the amount of reprocessing and cycling needed would make it take longer than just building the heavy water or graphite-moderated reactor, already.
*isn't practical to use light water reactors to build nuclear weapons*. Sigh. I wish Blogger's "preview" function actually worked. (It doesn't, not with the theme you've selected).
I changed it. Is this any better?
This is a test of your comment theme. Testing 1 2 3. Turns out I was wrong about Japan not having sufficient plutonium to build nuclear weapons. Turns out they've been accumulating plutonium from their "research reactor" for years. Obama just convinced them to turn over a few hundred pounds of that plutonium to the US, but they still have thousands of tons of plutonium scattered all over the place. Okay, let's see if the preview function works now... Yep. It works. Freakin' Blogger. Always breaking things. That's why I ended up moving to Wordpress, I got sick and tired of the fail.
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