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Comment by Shivetya | Hacker News Reader

Simple really. Rational nations led by rational leaders have had access to nuclear weapons. Both sides had one goal, to live, which means never really wanting to use them

the danger this day and age is that are some very irrational powers, possibly including leaders and the countries they represent, that, well, don't think the same.

Even India and Pakistan get along because neither side is governed by fanatical leadership. Likely the real danger comes from one of the more intolerant sects of Islam

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Even Iran and Saudi Arabia are pretty rational when it all comes down to it. The leaders are usually just pious on the surface - not even close to suicidal martyrs[0]

The real problem is the suicide sects, which is what I assume you meant.

0: http://nerdist.com/sex-nerd-sandra-30-harem-hottie/ (Interview with a former prostitute to the harem of the prince of Brunei. Alcohol is verboten in Brunei as a muslim country. Not only did the royals, other leaders and prostitutes do alcohol, they also did cocaine and everything else you can imagine)

This is reminiscent of Machiavelli's The Prince, which is a very interesting read far more nuanced than popular knowledge would imply.

He mentions a leader should only appear to be very pious.

Of course, there are claims that the book was seditionary; designed to mislead the powerful and create unrest.

It's not that simple at all. Several times systems and procedures were set up to trigger nuclear escalation, and even though those sytems and procedures indicating making an attack, the person who had the final say in doing so chose not to. Thsy didn't make that choice necessarily knowing about game theory or Nash equilibriums, they weren't following deliberately concieved national strategic policy. They just made a judgement call.

You don't need to know anything about game theory to say "hey, I don't want to start a nuclear war and think I should precede very cautiously."

The only two incidents I'm aware of where it got that close, one was stopped by an officer before it even got up the chain of command. The other got to Yeltsin, who made the very rational call to wait and see if there was an error before starting a nuclear war.

Rationality won't save us, according to McNamara[1]

[1] http://nothingbuttherain.com/2013/08/12/lesson-2-rationality...

I wonder, why are nuclear weapons so hard to build? is it possible that in a near future an average terrorist is able to build one?

They are hard to build because once the chain raction starts in the nuclear material, the resulting reaction tends to break up and disperse the nuclear material before the chain reaction progresses very far. It's called a fizzle. Fission bombs are designed with a wrap-around concave shaped charge of conventional explosive around the nuclear material. This is detonated as the critical mass of nuclear material is slammed together, and the compression wave from the conventional explosion holds the fissioning mass of nuclear material together long enough for the chain reaction explosion to complete. The engineering for this and the precise timing and controll of the detonation sequence is extremely hard.

My understanding is that the engineering for this can be done by someone who has studied the stuff, and uses publicly available materials. He or she does need to be competent but does not need to be Einstein. See John Aristotle Phillips. [0]

The main challenge is simply the industrial process required to collect the fissionable material. That is why Iranians have centrifuges and why Stuxnet attacked those centrifuges. [1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips

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

For a fission bomb yes, not s fusion (thermonuclear/hydrogen) bomb.

Fire bombing can (and has done) more damage to a city than a fission bomb.

But a terrorist can't fire bomb a city, but they can potentially build a fusion bomb.

A terrorist can't really build a fusion bomb, because you need a government to support the infrastructure. But the fear is not entirely unjustified because a government would be able to give the bomb to a terrorist who then uses it. Or perhaps a government employee might steal it (for bribes) and give to a terrorist. So I can imagine terrorist having a small fission bomb. But I cannot imagine an arrangement where a terrorist would acquire a fleet of B-29's that could be used to fire-bomb a city.

To build it from scratch yes, it's possible to build a primitive bomb from stolen refined plutonium. After the collapse of the soviet union, a lot of it went missing and there a dozen cases of people getting caught trying to sell it on the black market (and those are just the people that've been caught.)

Mass arson is possible, though not on the scale of firebombing. The US in WWII developed the idea of strapping incendiary bombs on bats and releasing them in a city, where they would roost in random buildings and start hundreds of small fires.

Getting the fissionables to make a bomb requires major industrial effort. And an "average terrorist" would only be able to build a gun assembly bomb like Little Boy, which requires a lot of uranium 235.

If we think fission. If we think fusion - you could build something nasty with tritium and deuterium with some depleted uranium as neutron deflectors ... but the ignition will be bitch ...

Edit: replaced neutrinos with neutrons

I think you mean neutrons - neutrino deflectors would be quite interesting...

They are quite easy to build. Finding pure enough fissile material is the hard part.

Nuclear weapons are hard to engineer [1]. Assembly requires a lot of expensive engineering resources and access to raw materials. By the time you've got the infrastructure together you're no longer an average terrorist, but more like a small state or maybe a corporation, and vulnerable to espionage or military disruption by other players. Terrorists are interested in using terror to achive

BUT the US government ran a study in the early sixties, called the "Nth Country Experiment" [2], that took a few recent physics PHDs and paid them to see if they could develop a design for a nuclear weapon. They surprised everyone by designing a credible implosion weapon. So it can be done. And the amount of available information and technology is better than fifty years ago.

[1] http://fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/design.htm

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

The ones in 1945 were prototypes with everything that implies. And fundamentally we don't build or use a lot of them, so they're slow to improve (think space rockets, not microchips).

That said they're not that hard, and they get easier every day. At an anti-proliferation conference a few years ago Iran argued that any world-class university physics department probably has the capacity to build a nuclear weapon, and commentators agreed. Eventually it'll reach the point where a high school AP student could do it.

I've always wondered about the Chicago Pile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1

It's a very primitive device compared to a nuclear weapon, but it could have created an runaway nuclear reaction and do a ton of damage.

https://www.ted.com/talks/irwin_redlener_warns_of_nuclear_te...

United States dumps two bombs with no reason in Japan and you are saying that only rational leaders and rational nations have access to nuclear weapons?

We are not in a nuclear war because US makes more profit based in the fear than in the use of the bombs. Don't play this "intolerant" game.

I´m neither American nor a fan of US foreign policy, but you seem to be overlooking the small fact that the US was at war with Japan at the time.

The bombs made clear that the US had the upper hand in warfare technology (and no scruples in taking advantage of it) and that action ended the war without additional casualties on US part.

The decision wasn't neither humane nor merciful , but from a rational point of view made a lot of sense.

That's why we celebrate, in August, the end of world war II. Not in May.

Today is the 70th anniversary of VE day and it's actually have quite a lot of coverage here in the UK given that there are other things happening today.

There were a few quite moving interviews with veterans on Radio 4 this morning - including one with a chap who had fought in Europe and was, like many others, about to be shipped out to the Far East to help the US invade Japan.

He was, perhaps understandably, delighted to hear that Japan had been bombed.

Personally, I think the motivations for using the atomic bombs on Japan are complex and unclear - even with hindsight.

I don't think the motivations were unclear at all: They were in a Total War where there was no distinction between military and civilian targets, and they had a new, powerful weapon; of course they were gonna use it. There was never a discussion as to whether use it or not. The immediate political effects of the bombs, if they were really the main factor in Japan's decision to surrender for instance, are indeed murky, though it was most probably Soviets entering the war that did it more than the bombs.

here in Europe, we celebrate 8th of May ;)

and frying people with nukes and condemning their offspring to a life of fatal deformities and diseases apologists like you are rational too, I guess ...

AFAIK those birth deformities have been greatly exaggerated, and are mostly (so-called urban) legends. For reference, see http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html

I beg you to look for the definition of "rational", and I take issue in you calling me an "apologist" without knowing anything about my ideas or positions.

I find it atrocious, and possibly should have been avoided, but it's easy and convenient for us to sit in front of our laptops and pass judgement 70 years after the fact, without having first-hand experience of the situation at the time.

Personally, I think that any nation involved in the war, if they had been in the same position of the US, would have taken the same decision, but again it's easy to judge and theorize now.

We can't do a lot about 70 years ago but hey, we can be against the irrational drone attacks and mass murderer of today that we are going to contest 70 years from now.

Hey "rational gentleman", do you realize that most of the victims of these US state sponsored terrorist attacks on Japan were poor civilians not even military personnel?

Do you think that it's acceptable or "rational" as you put it to have people fried alive in furnaces or dissolved in acid?

Would you like to face a similar "rational" fate for you or your loved ones?

Hadn't been for the US and its allies emerged as victors in WWII, all of their political and military leadership would have been had their own Nuremberg trials a decades ago but they got it away with it for the simple fact that they prevailed over their enemies.

Like they say 'History is written by the victors'.

I'm from a country defeated in the war, Romania, so I should be somewhat objective as "I" didn't "write" any history. Japanese atrocities are well documented, so it's not like the US was the only one doing awful things.

I, for one, am glad that the Allies won the war. The lesser of two evils.

As long as we're talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's worth pointing out that humanity's experience with the insidious effects of nuclear radiation had not yet been formed -- they began that day -- and that leaves the trade-off of "frying people with nukes" versus "shooting and/or exploding with regular bombs" look a lot more humane. (In either case assuming peace is not yet secured, obviously.)

Or we could light their cities on fire with bat bombs. War is hell.

In retrospect, it wasn't even necessary, given the sad state of the Japanese wartime economy -- the US wasn't very far from overwhelming them with conventional warfare. But such things are more obvious to leaders in retrospect, especially when they haven't been in a war mindset for years, fighting a string of incredibly nasty battles one island at a time before coming to the islands named 'Japan'....

But either way -- you can say it was the right decision or the wrong decision -- it was hardly "for no reason".

"...and that action ended the war..."

It is worth noting that there is considerable debate among historians about the degree to which the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings influenced the Japanese decision to surrender. Hiroshima was attacked on 6th August and Nagasaki on the 9th, but the surrender wasn't announced until the 15th. Some historians see the Russian declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria as being equally or more significant [1].

[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japa...

Heard this before, sounds reasonable (for non-expert). In 40's mentality in Japan, emperor was a god, and common citizens didn't matter a bit in war efforts. They were burning alive (tens of) thousands by carpet bombings on all major cities (also having many buildings built with wood helped spread fires), and it didn't move opinions of ruling elite a bit.

I would say atomic bombs were one of the many factors considered when finally giving up, but common US view of "hey we bombed them hard with our cool new toys, they craed their pants and gave up immediately" is not very accurate.

The other historically plausible motivation is that Truman wanted to display to Stalin as a deterrent against for soviet expansion into europe that a) they had the bomb b) they were not afraid to use it c) what effect it has on cities. Japan was at war against USA at the time and effects of firebombings with traditional planes and explosives were no less horrible in cost to human lives than the A-bombs so the morale of the whole thing is ambiguous.

Really, "with no reason"? There were plenty of reasons. You can debate whether they were good or bad, or justified what was done, but to just dismiss it all as "no reason" is ridiculous. Even people who think that dropping nuclear bombs on Japan was completely reprehensible will still say that there was a reason for it, like putting a fright into the Soviets.

So what? ISIS has a reason too.

So "no reason" is a phrase which destroys thoughts and makes us be content with not understanding people's motivations. I object to using it when it's so clearly wrong. And yes, I would just as strongly object to someone saying that ISIS beheads and rapes people for "no reason."

You can debate whether it was ethical to use them or not, but you can't say it was irrational. They were at war with the country and trying to use every advantage to end it as quickly as possible.

That's very different than starting a nuclear war for the hell of it knowing your country will be totally destroyed as a result.

What a bunch of colonialist garbage. You're probably Israeli, right?

"Rational nations"? Get real. No nations are rational. Nations are driven by political systems that are driven by the emotions of the populations of those places. Are human emotions rational? Are human emotions more rational in Israel than they are in Ghana or North Korea?

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