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Comment by rapind | Hacker News Reader

Everyone's about to get nukes now. What could go wrong.

You're not joking, a lot of people I talk to have gone from anti nuke to hard pro nuke. I can see the future having a lot more nukes in it now that there's no reliable world order to believe in.

I doubt Denmark will get nukes, nor am I sure I'd be in favor of nukes.

But I can see the argument that having the ability to nuke 50m Russians might deter them from attacking 5m Danes.

And I'd personally hate to sit in a trench. Which is a real risk if Russia attacks the Baltics and only half of NATO shows up.

So maybe we should get nukes and preposition them in the Baltics.

I'm sure our politicians wouldn't want to :)

> I doubt Denmark will get nukes, nor am I sure I'd be in favor of nukes.

Ideally, we'd have an EU military that takes control of nuclear weapons for example and automatically use them to retaliate when enemy nuclear weapons are launched against EU territory.

Yeah not with Orban or Fico involved, those are both hardened criminals involved in murders too. Subverting EU is their morning activity.

I'd say no EU country should rely on full defense from the rest, each big one should start on their own in hardcore mode: drones, more heavy drones, optic cable drones, drone swarms and then artillery, ammunition for it and air defense (probably the hardest), then the rest. Himars is cool tech but thats a very expensive tech to develop and certainly in current numbers doesn't affect outcome of war. License/buy tech from ukrainians since they have best hands one warfare experience from whole europe, setup manufacturing with them, helping them and ourselves. What should be shared ie nuclear stuff thats too much for a single country.

Silos with main manufacturing, copied elsewhere in smaller numbers. Defense can be good business, just look at US after WWII, not happy that we are heading in that direction but there is no other way if we want to keep freedom. I've grown up behind uron curtain oppressed by soviets cough cough russians, and let me tell you, many people died trying to escape to that freedom. Its invaluable once you don't have it, not to everybody but to many.

Disagree with the implication here and expect the opposite.

Ukraine peace (even an imperfect one) allows the US and Russia to work together to prevent Iran from getting a nuke. Ukraine won't get nukes in either scenario.

An ongoing war forces Russia to rely on Iran, limiting its ability to work with US (and China), on isolating its nuclear program.

DPRK nukes already exist and ROK is pressuring the US for permission for them (neither Biden or Trump want to give them).

I don't know of any other latent nuclear states.

DPRK redoubled its nuclear program and shut down disarmament talks when Kim saw Saddam Hussein get regime-changed after he willingly cooperated with UN inspectors to show that there were no WMDs. They realized that cooperating doesn't get you anywhere and the only insurance is through nukes.

Now Ukraine, which gave up its warheads, is seeing the same thing.

And even Canadians are starting to discuss a nuclear guarantee.

Yes, we are going to see more nuclear states. It may not happen overnight but the status quo won't hold either.

The implication is that nuclear proliferation is linked to the US pausing Ukraine aid.

That's a gross mischaracterization.

I'll bet you 10 to 1 that Ukraine won't end up with nukes.

Ukraine might not, at this point, because it may be too late for them under whatever heavy-handed peace deal gets imposed. It's all the other would-be Ukraines who are going to make nukes.

Finland, Poland, South Korea, Taiwan...

Better safe than sorry.

I'll buy you a beer if any of these regions have a nuke in 10 years.

Sounds good. See you in 2035!

How did you move the goalposts in three sentences?

Nuclear proliferation occurring does not require Ukraine in particular to be a country with nukes

Nanotuber is a bot

> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43264671

Anyone have any proposals to fight propaganda like this on forums in general?

I am no bot. Dang can reach out to confirm etc.

On the flip side, your comments have been incredibly disrespectful and flamewar-ish.

You may not know me as a person, and may be paranoid about bots etc. But that does not mean you can mistreat me.

AI can pass the Turing test, for observers of this interaction, don’t fall prey to the failure mode of the human mind where someone makes bold claims with no backing, but stated confidently as a way to hijack your perception of their correctness

Nanotuber has made several claims without evidence beyond this forums posts as backing claim. I have made the claim that Nanotuber is a bot without evidence beyond this forums posts as backing.

The Nanotuber account did not respond to my specific claims until I called out their lack of responding. The Nanotuber account also appealed to authority to the admins of this site by claiming I broke the rules on flame wars after I made the claim of being a bot, in a way to try and silence me by invoking admin action via reference to the rules of the forum

These are are all subtle ways of automatically manufacturing consent via AI bots that can now replicate tone of voice and semantics in text.

I’ll again repeat my request for anyone who comes across this thread. How do we combat these types of tactics?

Dude you need to go outside and touch grass.

Good luck.

Responding to what I thought the parent comment was saying.

I'll buy you a beer if a new state (besides Iran) gets nuclear weapons in the next 10 years.

> I don't know of any other latent nuclear states.

Japan is sometimes described as a "screwdriver turn away from a bomb". They've got the materials, the know-how, the civilian nuclear program, and the rockets... and the geopolitics to be interested.

Arguably, most developed nations are in the same boat in terms of being able to build a bomb in relatively short notice. The main challenge is probably that refining uranium is intrinsically a slow process.

I do wonder how many supposedly non-nuclear developed countries have secret small-scale refinement plants and the ability to assemble nuclear warheads in short notice. It is the sort of stuff that they wouldn't want their own populous to know, as it is controversial.

Any developed nation _with a well developed nuclear energy industry_ would be able to build a bomb with years of effort. There's a lot that goes into a bomb beyond refining (e.g. miniturization of warhead). And to deploy the bomb a ton of work to achieve the gold standard of a nuclear triad, plus build enough bombs to be survivable past an initial strike (to maintain deterrence).

If you learn of any countries with a secret program, let your local intelligence agency know. They monitor this closely, and intervene.

You don't generally need either miniaturization, nor a nuclear triad, nor MAD. Those are only a requirement if you are defending yourself against an adversary with a ton of nuclear weapons of their own and significant nuclear countermeasures.

If that is the case, then yes, it is going to take a massive investment to build and maintain that capability, which is the reason why most developed countries don't bother. But if you only want tactical nukes, it doesn't take that much.

I could not care less if e.g. Italy, Spain or Finland have developed nukes in secret. It would not surprise me one bit, either.

The countries and territories mentioned in the broader thread need much more than tactical nukes if they are going to seek nuclear deterrence. Russia invades Spain, Spain hits what exactly with a tactical nuke? Or are they nuking Catalina? I don't see the security argument here, maybe you can detail the security interest and the scenario?

That's a good point.

Both the ROK and Japan though are cases where the US "pivoting to Asia" from Europe would make them less, not more, likely to pursue such a breakout. And in both cases, their incentives has existed prior to Ukraine.

The ROK and Japan must both factor in the possibility of America not coming to their aid in a similar fashion.

That wasn't a super realistic consideration until a few weeks ago.

ROK and Japan have formal legal treaties. Ukraine does not.

This hasn't stopped ROK from thinking the Biden Administration wouldn't come to its aid if push came to shove.

I see your point but the effect is going to be much, much less "discrete" and more "diffuse" if at all.

I'll buy you a beer if ROK or Japan have a nuke in 10 years.

Biden also negotiated a deal which put refined nuclear material in Australia's hands

http://npr.org/2023/03/13/1163153801/biden-is-selling-u-s-nu...

This is nuclear powered (long range) submarines.

Yea, and he managed to get the Australians to switch from a nearly done deal with the French to our subs, and we used highly enriched uranium as fuel.

In a thread about Japan being a screwdriver turn away from having nukes, I think that a highly industrialized state getting handed a fuck ton of highly enriched uranium falls into the same category.

I mean, look at all the sabotage we’ve done to Iran in the form of sanctions or actual sabotage like Stuxnet just to stop their uranium enrichment facilities

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