I have to wonder whats going through the heads of the people who come up with this stuff. Do we really need larger bombs? Is there a point to this? Why not spend the money that was put into the project into something useful. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/international_russia_bomb_dc I love the last part, "fight international terrorism in any circumstance and in any part of the world" So are they saying that instead of rooting out terrorists the way the us is doing by sending in troops, that they would rather just bomb the entire area?
This is why I hate anything like this. THey test it and try and appeal to people under the pretence of safety. This weapon is unfeasible to use but will scare people of the possibility, and personally thats something I don't want. Any peace achieved by fear isn't peace.
It's hardly an unfeasible weapon tbh. Nuclear weapons are a little unfeasible because they are so destructive and polluting, not to mention the international repercussions. This is a bomb which doesn't pollute. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's better than a nuke. If we have to have incredibly destructive weapons, they may as well be clean(ish).
Well by unfeasible I mean that they won't use it in any of the current hotspots in the world. If its as destructive as a nuclear bomb then I can't think of anywhere in the world where the area of effect wouldn't include a lot of innocent people.
Thisis rather worrying tbh, esp after all the "Bears" trying to piss on us, with something like this they could make a rather large mess but not render the area complete useless for the half life of the nuke. Of course with statements like: (see below) maybe they could use it to "evoporate" some of the land fill sites we have over here Quite why they had to invent something so destructive I will never be able to fathom, I can't remember where I heard it, im pretty sure it was a film... but someone coined the phrase "MAD; there is a perfect acronym if I ever heard one." The reason being is MAD stands for Mutualy Assured Destuction. Is this really what the human race has come to?
exactly, we've been going about stopping global warming the wrong way. instead of trying to remove our depandancy on oil and gas we should make our bombs cleaner. well if someone is going to kill me I want to make sure that they die too! (note the sarcasim)
I'm sure there's a research committee out there somewhere in a weapons lab who are tasked with coming up with weapons which are more or equally destructive to a small nuke without being as polluting. It's always been the idea to "improve" your weapons by making them lighter, easier to use, cheaper or more destructive. [edit] Come on, that's not what I mean. I mean there's no sense in polluting the world with high levels of radioactive waste where necessary.
You'll find all technologically-advanced troops call in air support as soon as they come across any opposition. The only time ground troops are used is in crowded cities (and even then air support is usually available, dude) or to find the opposition in the first place. MAD worked, one big thing in its favour, but against low-technology opponents it doesn't apply. Why do you think North Korea wants nukes?
Exactly. If current Western foreign policy has taught the Middle East and N. Korea one thing, it is that weapons of mass destruction keep you safe from American invasion. Just compare the policies towards China, N. Korea and Pakistan against those towards Afghanistan and Iraq. Why do you think the US is so worried about Iran's nuclear ambitions?
I'm all for it. Better than turning huge areas into uninhabitable wasteland. At least if a device such as this is used it will mean that reconstruction can immediately begin. Of course, I am a pacifist and in an ideal world we wouldn't have any superweapons (or indeed any weapons at all), but I'm also a realist. Humanity in general will never stop fighting one another. People will therefore always develop weapons. This therefore is a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. My only worry has already been raised above - it would be awful if the fact that this weapon does not damage the environment in the way a nuke does means that it is deployed more readily. point of information - that's not how that works. The half life is the time it takes for the radioactivity to drop by 50%. Obviously, if an area has been hit by a nuclear bomb, it will continue to be useless until the levels of radioactivity drop to a safe level - the length of time this will take is dictated by the half life, but it will be many times longer. AH
when it goes of it will fill cities with bunny rabbits and everyone's hair will become long, greasy and covered in flowers. The Hippie Bong Bomb. (I'm ill, you'll have to forgive my writings.)
But isn't that a problem? Nukes are barely used, whereas these might be used more often due to the lack of fallout etc.
The firebombing of Tokyo in WW2 killed more people in one raid than Hiroshima; Right/Wrong discussion re Hiroshima >> Right/Wrong discussion re firebombing.
Although clean nukes sound very nice, I think replacing nukes with clean bombs would be very bad. Nukes are weapons that should never be used, if you take away the ability of these super weapons to render an area inhospitable and "survivors" of the bomb mutated for several generations, then MAD won't work so well. It's not really all that new either, it's just a FAB on a bigger scale really. But the death toll caused by radioactive fallout of Hiroshima makes it the biggest killing bombing run ever. People are still dieing today from it's after effect