What is more likely? US lost or US laundered?
Can't answer? Thought experiment time. Replace US with the president from your opposite party. What happens now? Lost or laundered?
Can't answer? Thought experiment time. Replace US with the president from your opposite party. What happens now? Lost or laundered?
Do you think presidents can smuggle a nuclear warhead across borders with a donkey or something? Reagan couldn't even manage to sell weapons to fund a bunch of terrorists under the table.
The logistics being so extreme and involving so many people is evidence against loss, not for it. Also, the US placing nukes in a place that only a few silent people are aware of is not a crime.
> Do you think presidents can smuggle a nuclear warhead across borders with a donkey or something?
Do you think they can lose them down the kitchen sink drain, or accidentally leave them in a cab?
Nobody from the B-47 crew has ever been heard from again, and nobody, anywhere saw the plane ever again.
And in your world this is more likely than a plane crashing in the Med?
I’d go with lost.
"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
"Oops, I accidentally left a briefcase full of classified documents on the bus. Honest mistake, I swear!"
Oldest trick in the book, innit?
It's probably harder to lose something than steal it because stealing implies there's another party to remove it from the location it was lost at.
Best use of it is in your personal life with family, friends, retail worker in your local grocery shop etc.
(I don't think it applies here though)
Actually, that frequently is malice, but it's malice on the part of the grocery shop, not the individual worker.
Proposed addendum: never attribute to personal malice what can be adequately explained by institutional malice.
Makes me feel safer anyway since the bomb would be out of commission.
So these bombs, if found, they aren’t just pull the pin and chuck it to detonate, right? would they even pose a risk of found by a civilian?
Particularly, the tritium used in boosted nuclear weapons has a half life of just over 12 years. Furthermore all Pu-239 cores have some Pu-240 contamination that undergoes spontaneous fission, the neutron flux from which probably degrades other components of the bomb over time.
After 50 years, only 6% of tritium remains from the initial 100%. Any weapon using tritium (boosted fission bombs and hydrogen bombs) would likely fail to work.
Chemical explosives that initiate nuclear detonation also degrade. Successful weapon function requires an extremely precise initial chemical explosion, not likely to be possible with a 50 year old bomb.
edit - Ninjaed by MichaelCollins
The CIA would be my personal first guess