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Comment by Lammy | Hacker News Reader

> their canal monopoly

An alternative is technically possible since Israel has contiguous territory between the Mediterranean and Red Sea: https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/the-us-had-a-pla...

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A plan which involves 520 nukes of 2 megatons each, putting it roughly in the same ball park as some of the Project Orion proposals.

I mean, you might accidentally solve the Middle East peace process if nobody wants to live there any more, but I don’t think it will be a popular solution to either that or the Suez monopoly…

Man the 60s were really a time of laissez-faire nuclear projects huh. I mean I'll be the first to say the pendulum has swung too far the other way but boy were they ever enthusiastic.

It seems that every time someone invents a new hammer, people use it to solve every problem, whether it's the right tool for the job or not. When viewed through the lens of hindsight, the advertisements are quite amusing.

In the 1890's it was "electricity." In the 1920's it was "radio." In the 1940's it was "radar." In the 1950's it was "atomic" everything. In the 1960's it as "space" this and "space" that. In the 1970's it was "jet." In the 1990's it was "cyber." Today, it's "blockchain" and "AI."

Some of it works. Most of it is snake oil. But people keep buying based on trendy keywords. People are just built that way.

Has blockchain solved a single problem yet?

How to get paid for Ransomware attacks?

It could but gatekeepers aren't happy.

Comparing blockchain to electricity and nuclear science is just depressing for me :/

They both consumed the lives of many of the smartest folks of the time :)

Studying nuclear engineering should be worthwhile. Studying power system engineering was.

Blockchains aren't.

Haha, yes, I'm known around here for sharing that view.

Today it's "lidar"

None of them ever happened AFAIK, but there were some crazy ideas.

The Soviets did use a few nukes to stop oil well fires!

Because another complex geopolitical nightmare is exactly what that region needs..

Wow this website is fucked up. Half way through reading this adfest it jumps to some other article and messes around with the browser history, even reader display wont prevent it.

Now I’ll never know whether they executed that plan or not.

Sorry, my bad. I never browse without uBO and didn't notice.

The straight of Tiran, and Aqaba are still largely under Egyptian control.

The straight of Tiran are open to all ship traffic. Last time Egypt tried to impose a blockade on them, Israel considered it as an act of war which resulted in the six day war (where Egypt lost control of all the Sinai peninsula up to the Suez Canal.

Aqaba is a Jordanian port.

For those curious, the list of books that cover the geopolitics of the Suez Canal (way before the current one) is extensive and include:

Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's Campaign for Peace

The Suez Crisis: The History of the Suez Canal’s Nationalization by Egypt and the War that Followed

1948: The First Arab-Israeli War

Read all three? Have a favourite?

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