Atop Mt Charleston, jut 30 miles west of Las Vegas
Showing posts with label nuclear proliferation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear proliferation. Show all posts
Apr 8, 2023
May 9, 2018
Sep 3, 2017
Your Bomb Physics Lesson
I have only a low-end bonehead's understanding of this shit. Here's what I think is a fairly reasonable primer:
Small Men, Big Problems
A coupla things about North Korea.
First, it's been less than a full generation since North Korea came relatively close to being wiped out by famine.
Nobody knows for sure what the numbers are - estimates range from 250,000 to 4 million dead N Koreans. That's anywhere from 2% to 18% of the total population. By comparison, what do you suppose happens to this country if somewhere between 3 million and 52 million Americans died over a 5 year period?
Now, some good old fashioned Keynesian Stimulus can do wonders to help you recover from just about anything, so a massive investment in a nationalized push towards (eg) nuclear weapons would definitely boost the economy, but that assumes you have a shitload of credit or the ability to monetize your national debt, neither of which was available to North Korea in the 90s.
One of the big reasons for that famine was the loss of patronage. The Soviet Union cratered and cut their support. China stepped in, but they had their own problems with drought and shortages and lack of hard currency, so they had to bail too.
Anyway, N Korea gets practically nothing done without the help of a Patron State.
Second (to shorten the story), Putin makes out like a bandit if he stirs the shit in SE Asia.
And while he risks creating the monster - a deliverable H-bomb means never having to say, "Yessir, whatever you want, boss" - Uncle Vlad gets a net benefit just by pimping the chaos and looking for the opportunities.
First, it's been less than a full generation since North Korea came relatively close to being wiped out by famine.
Nobody knows for sure what the numbers are - estimates range from 250,000 to 4 million dead N Koreans. That's anywhere from 2% to 18% of the total population. By comparison, what do you suppose happens to this country if somewhere between 3 million and 52 million Americans died over a 5 year period?
Now, some good old fashioned Keynesian Stimulus can do wonders to help you recover from just about anything, so a massive investment in a nationalized push towards (eg) nuclear weapons would definitely boost the economy, but that assumes you have a shitload of credit or the ability to monetize your national debt, neither of which was available to North Korea in the 90s.
One of the big reasons for that famine was the loss of patronage. The Soviet Union cratered and cut their support. China stepped in, but they had their own problems with drought and shortages and lack of hard currency, so they had to bail too.
Anyway, N Korea gets practically nothing done without the help of a Patron State.
Second (to shorten the story), Putin makes out like a bandit if he stirs the shit in SE Asia.
And while he risks creating the monster - a deliverable H-bomb means never having to say, "Yessir, whatever you want, boss" - Uncle Vlad gets a net benefit just by pimping the chaos and looking for the opportunities.
Dec 23, 2016
Rachel
Maddow: The president making policy happens whenever the president speaks on a national security matter. https://t.co/Dd7sd2TZnc— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) December 23, 2016
So, Conway tries mightily to gloss it over but ends - as she always does - by saying, "Oops, Mr Trump didn't really mean that..." Which I'm sure will come as a great relief to all of us as we try to dig out from under the steaming pile of Trump's awesomeness.
Apr 28, 2014
Another Milestone
Well not quite yet.
Next year will be the 70th anniversary of Nuclear Weapons. Woohoo.
Here's a cool little animation by Isao Hashimoto that's just scary as fuck:
Next year will be the 70th anniversary of Nuclear Weapons. Woohoo.
Here's a cool little animation by Isao Hashimoto that's just scary as fuck:
Jun 8, 2012
Iran's Unclear Ambitions
From The Agonist today:
Over at Nuclear Diner, veteran Los Alamos nuclear engineer Susan Voss analyzes the amount of 20% enriched uranium Iran has made to date and concludes "The 98 kgs is more than needed for one core for TRR but a reasonable amount if the Iranians are planning on producing a batch of fuel for the TRR rather than producing it every 5-6 years when it is needed." It's exactly on par with the batch of three full fuel cores Argentina supplied Iran in 1992 which is estimated to run out this year.
So, it's probable that all the talk about this material being for bomb production is just warmongering hype.
Bonus: Gareth Porter talks to former top Iranian nuclear negotiator Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who tells Porter that France and Germany were prepared in spring 2005 to negotiate on an Iranian proposal to convert all of its enriched uranium to fuel rods, making it impossible to use it for nuclear weapons, but Britain vetoed the deal at the insistence of the United States.That last bit seems pretty important. I wonder why The US would want to make it nearly impossible for the French and the Germans to prevent the Iranians from getting the bomb(?) Hmmm.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)