Comment by garethrees | Hacker News Reader

Comment by garethrees | Hacker News Reader

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The Tsar Bomba was an experimental weapon, but the United States had the B41, a three-stage thermonuclear weapon with a yield of 25 megatons. Four of these would have been as powerful as the Tsar Bomba; the U.S. manufactured 500 of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B41_nuclear_bomb

In the 1960s the U.S. Strategic Air Command ran a continuous airborne nuclear-armed patrol (Operation Chrome Dome), so there was probably a 25 megaton weapon in the air for much of that time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chrome_Dome

It's also worth remembering that the limiting factor on the yield of the Tsar Bomba was the carrying capability of the Tu-95. The Teller–Ulam design for thermonuclear weapons is scalable: you can keep adding stages as long as you have the uranium, plutonium and lithium to make them with. Edward Teller supposedly designed (or at least contemplated) a 10 gigaton bomb: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/09/12/in-search-of-a-big...

> Edward Teller supposedly designed (or at least contemplated) a 10 gigaton bomb

That guy was batshit crazy, pardon my French. I know that the Dr. Strangelove character was pretty much based on him, I know about and I partially understand the reasons behind the nuclear arms race, but when you read about plans like this you just start contemplating about the end of humans as a species.

How is he crazy? When nukes are on the table either you implement a MAD-like policy or you die in nuclear fire. There's no real middle ground with weapons this powerful. Its rational to support MAD. Thus far, its working. A lot of human warfare is on its face is crazy sounding, but has a rational backing.

>when you read about plans like this you just start contemplating about the end of humans as a species.

We called up the USSR and asked them to stop producing weapons on that scale. They laughed in our face. What exactly do you propose? Heck, the USSR's client states were motivated to nuke us without warning. Castro had a pretty big hard-on for launching nukes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/science/22nuke.html?_r=0

He wasn't convinced by the loss of life or anything. His Moscow handlers had to explain to him that the radioactive cloud would be bad for Cubans. Heck, the politburo was demanding WWIII from Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis.

Today, Russia maintains an openly published first strike policy on what it calles "tactical nukes." Essentially they say they can launch nukes whenever they feel like it and not consider it a MAD violation. So if Putin's conventional troops are losing, he just nukes the opposition. With madmen like Putin running nukes, MAD makes sense. Its the only thing that does.

> How is he crazy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller

"during Oppenheimer's trial he was the only member of the scientific community to state that Oppenheimer should not be granted security clearance"

"One of the most controversial projects he proposed was a plan to use a multi-megaton hydrogen bomb to dig a deep-water harbor more than a mile long and half a mile wide to use for shipment of resources from coal and oil fields through Point Hope, Alaska."

"Teller suffered a heart attack in 1979, and many observers[71] described him as blaming it on Jane Fonda"

"In the 1980s, Teller began a strong campaign for what was later called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derided by critics as "Star Wars," the concept of using ground and satellite-based lasers, particle beams and missiles to destroy incoming Soviet ICBMs."

A few megadeaths here-or-there.

The only thing missing from Dr Strangelove is having the uncontrollable hand. Yes, you can call him "just focused" if you prefer that. Let him "peacefully" dig in your backyard.

>One of the most controversial projects he proposed was a plan to use a multi-megaton hydrogen bomb to dig a deep-water harbor

Russians used nukes for mining. Its not magic. You can manage fall-out, risk, etc. Its not "crazy."

>"Teller suffered a heart attack in 1979, and many observers[71] described him as blaming it on Jane Fonda"

A 70+ year old man being a difficult curmudgeon? Say, it ain't so!

> Teller began a strong campaign for what was later called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

SDI made sense. We still have SDI. Now we call its "Strategic Missile Defense" and its our biggest counter against rogue nation nuke launches and other attacks. It also has Putin scared as he can't match it and is demanding we don't continue to build new sites in Eastern Europe out of desperation.

>The only thing missing from Dr Strangelove is having the uncontrollable hand.

I really wish more people understood the world from the lessons of history instead of caricutures from Hollywood movies.

> SDI made sense.

SDI could be said to plausibly make some kind of sense only in the context of the proposed broad national shield being propaganda to serve as (1) a tool to get the USSR to accelerate its spending in a way that would hasten its collapse, and (2) domestic political cover for more limited shields that would protect key military command and control sites.

If Teller's exuberant promotion of SDI was knowing participation in those propaganda efforts, then it was extremely dishonest but perhaps defensible as not completely nonsensical; on its face, however, it was nonsense.

> We still have SDI. Now we call its "Strategic Missile Defense" and its our biggest counter against rogue nation nuke launches and other attacks.

No, our biggest counter against rogue nation nuke launches is, and remains, a combination of assured destruction of any attacker and active steps to prevent undeterrable actors from gaining the capacity to make such attacks in the first place.

Strategic missile defense of any kind remains, and will for the forseeable future, an extremely limited tool, and far less than SDI was sold as by proponents like Teller.

> It also has Putin scared as he can't match it and is demanding we don't continue to build new sites in Eastern Europe out of desperation.

There's a whole lot I could say about this, but I'll let this suffice: you can't say in one post defend MAD with "With madmen like Putin running nukes, MAD makes sense", and then defend Strategic Missile Defense with the argument that it undermines mad and makes Putin scared and more aggressive.

If you buy the idea that MAD is rational, how can you also support SDI? Do you want a nuclear first strike to be a viable option?

The US actually used more nukes for mining then the russians. WAY more.

the russians had the more accidents, though. but the US also had it share of radioactive underground rivers as a result. there is a list on wikipedia

This article (which presumably includes mining related activities for both countries):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaceful_nuclear_explosion

puts the score at US: 28, USSR: 237.

Combining the 25 intensification and 22 storage explosions here presumably gets you past the US total of peaceful nuclear explosions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_Nati...

Are there more articles that you would suggest?

> SDI made sense. We still have SDI. Now we call its "Strategic Missile Defense" and its our biggest counter against rogue nation nuke launches and other attacks. It also has Putin scared as he can't match it and is demanding we don't continue to build new sites in Eastern Europe out of desperation.

You just basically said that SDI is destabilizing because it will take away MAD. I fail to see how supporting that is rational or sane.

> SDI made sense. We still have SDI. Now we call its "Strategic Missile Defense" and its our biggest counter against rogue nation nuke launches and other attacks. It also has Putin scared as he can't match it and is demanding we don't continue to build new sites in Eastern Europe out of desperation.

That sounds suspiciously like and end-run around MAD, which until close to 100% complete and accurate, seems like it serves to reduce the effectiveness of MAD as a method to prevent nuclear war.

All parties are developing SDI. Its the next arms race. If we stop, we lose MAD. If they stop, they lose MAD. We're a bit ahead, which isn't saying much considering its trivial to launch enough dummy warheads to outstrip our abilities and fool our interceptors. Whoever is doing better with interceptors loses out to the guy who is doing better with work-arounds. Not cut and dried, but having one deployed does save you from rogue nation launches and other scenarios that have nothing to do with MAD.

My hope is that this all gets too expensive and we all get rid of nukes entirely.

A few megadeaths here-or-there.

You'll note the suspicious absence of a third world war to follow the War to End All Wars and the one that came after it. Some argue that nuclear weapons are directly responsible for this desirable state of affairs.

The war to end all wars was the Great War, aka WW1.

Right, there are absolutely no wars going on right now.

There has been no large scale war between major powers since WWII, let alone between the world's leading superpowers.

I guess the scale of the war and whether it deserves the moniker of a World War depends on your geo-political perspective. Both U.S. and Russia, are involved in military operations all over the world, and it's a little silly to call that a "desirable state of affairs" just because they're not fighting each other.

Make no mistake, I'm not carrying water for Teller in this thread or defending Jane Fonda. I do think Teller was sort of a nutcase, and Fonda was definitely a traitor. Frankly we're all lucky to be alive after some of the crap that was done in the name of "strategic defense," and it's indeed tragic that countless victims of the superpowers' proxy wars can't say the same.

But deterring a third world war is not one of those things that's subject to moral relativism. You seriously need to spend some time talking with WWII vets, while we still have them with us.

We are currently living in the most peaceful time in human history. That's an objective fact based on annual deaths from warfare, not a subjective opinion or perspective.

Mostly peace is to peace what an electric chair is to a chair.

What are you, a bumper sticker?

We're seeing the lowest level of conflict in history and you're still unimpressed? Does it kill you that much to admit that MAD is working?

I think the difference is general mobilization vs a low intensity conflict.

Proxy-wars are arguable large scale wars between super powers.

I think a war is only large scale if it uses a significant portion of the participant's manufacturing abilities. There are no such wars currently.

I don't know why you were downvoted. There have been major wars in the past 25 years, the worst probably being the civil war in Congo. (5 million deaths)[1] Let us not even mention Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Liberia, Sierra Leone and presently, Yemen. But in some sense, if two G-7 countries are not fighting each other in their own soil, the war does not "matter". More and more you think, you realize that George Orwell was a prescient genius when he predicted low-level proxy conflicts in faraway regions as a way great powers will seek to maintain patriotic fervour.

It is true that nuclear weaponry might have avoided many direct wars between the nuclear powers, but it has not been an absolute guarantee. There has been a war directly involving nuclear powers - the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan. [2] Again, among present troubles, Ukraine and Russia both have nuclear weaponry, I suppose.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War

I don't know why you were downvoted.

S/he is being downvoted for being deliberately obtuse, if not outright trolling.

But in some sense, if two G-7 countries are not fighting each other in their own soil, the war does not "matter".

The G-7 countries (along with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council) are the ones who, when they go to war with each other, are EVERYBODY's problem. Every other kind of war is a local issue. It sounds heartless, but nobody in country U gives a hoot about 5 million deaths in an obscure civil war in country C. But if countries R and G get into it, the entire world sits up and takes notice, and for good historical reasons.

Again, among present troubles, Ukraine and Russia both have nuclear weaponry, I suppose.

One of the more awkward aspects of the Ukraine conflict is that Ukraine gave up their nukes willingly after the dissolution of the USSR, based on the promise that they would remain unmolested. So much for Russian promises.

Unfortunately, as long as dictators like Putin are around, we can't afford the risks of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Without MAD, we are all Ukrainians.

> Its rational to support MAD. Thus far, its working.

Since WWII, none of the countries not engaging in MAD (e.g., all those that lack the capacity to do so), including those with no nuclear-power allies, have been attacked with nuclear weapons. So, while none of those engaging in MAD has been either, there is no evidence that MAD is the reason for that. It's Lisa Simpson's tiger-repelling rock all over again.

That's beyond ridiculous. No one has been attacked by nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons have forced our leaders to resort to diplomacy, except when attacking countries that are too small to require nukes. This is, on the whole, a GOOD thing.

Eh, how does a 10Gt bomb support MAD? MAD is mutual assured destruction: it works because both sides have a comparable power. Equipping one side with 10Gt weapons when the other side has "only" 10Mt-level weapons isn't MAD, it's madness.

That is, unless your goal is not MAD at all, but the nuclear destruction of the other side by your side. A prospect that Teller didn't find too horrible, I guess.

> you implement a MAD-like policy or you die in nuclear fire

This assumes that some "other side" is willing to destroy 1/3 of the Earth just to "get you". A ludicrous supposition only believed by hawks and ideologues.

Edward wasn't crazy, he was just very focused.

As for Putin, weren't we doing much the same under GW when we decided we were going to ignore the ABM treaty?

BTW, the 10GT design was to be used for asteroid defence.

Edward should have won the Nobel prize, he succeeded in designing a weapon so horrible it has never been used in warfare.

You make it sound like the USA provides a textbook example of sanity and benevolent behavior.

> That guy was batshit crazy, pardon my French.

Pretty weak to call a brilliant man "batshit crazy" simply because his politics differ from your politics.

I think Teller was discussing at least once big bombs as a countermeasure against falling asteroid/comet threat. I guess you might actually need a gigaton bomb in a case like that?

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