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The Man Who Literally Saved the World
99luftballon writes "Today is an important anniversary for Russian hero Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet missile commander who saved the world from nuclear destruction in 1983. Sadly there are plenty of other examples of this kind of thing. How long will we keep getting lucky?"
To make up for my horrible over-cliched joke above, let me just say that this guy deserves to be an international hero, and there's a much better article than the TFA about him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov on the wiki. Another example is Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Alexandrovich _Arkhipov) who stood up to a superior officer during the Cuban Missle Crisis and convinced him not to launch a nuclear weapon.
It's kind of lame to say to someone who literally saved the world, but thanks guys.
henry -- the human evolution news relay
Here's number 21 - Pakistan and India were both considering using nuclear weapons during the Kargil conflict of 1999. Fortunately, the United States persuaded Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan to order a withdrawal.
Here's the Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
See this graph.
End transmission.
"The USSR, when it existed, several times suggested getting rid of all nuclear weapons. The US rejected their proposals."
This never happened. I don't even have to cite a source on this one. I would like to point out that at least as current as Yeltsin, Russia still had a first strike nuclear doctrine. Russia's nuclear arsenal has dwindled rapidly, however due to economic issues and the hard work of Senator Lugar and his Nunn-Lugar Cooperative which has been using US tax dollars to PAY the Russians to disarm (on fo the few use of my tax dollars I approve of). Russia's current nuclear arsenal is used as deterrant towards China, North Korea, and Iran (cited from Jane's and CDI)
" The nuclear non-proliferation treaty requires that nuclear powers work towards nuclear disarmament. The US rejects all proposals calling for nuclear disarmament."
The NNP Treaty actually has three parts: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear tech. Part one allows for all of the then current nuclear powers to remain so. Those nations just happen to be the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council. The rule states that those nations will not give the technology to any other nation and will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear nation (although France, the US, and Britain have recently said "rogue states" are fair game.). Part two deals with disarmament. The US has decreased it's stockpile considerably and continues to do so. The Bush administration was the first to try and reverse this although they seem to have had that idea squashed in Congress. The NNP specifically states that disarmament is voluntary and any nation may opt out for a time if they have a perceived threat that necessitates it. I, and a hell of a lot of my fellow citizens, think we do. The idea of the treaty was to reduce pressure on other nations to develop their own weapons in response to perceived "pressure" from nuclear powers to do so. It has worked so far but more needs to be done. To say the US has not reduced it's stockpile is bull, however.
" Presently, 4 of the Central Asian *stan countries are organizing to declare themselves a "nuclear free zone" forbidding all nuclear weapons from their territory. What country is working diplomatically and is pressuring them to scuttle the nuclear free zone idea? The US."
The Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (CANNWFZ) is being opposed by the US, France, and the UK on grounds that four of the nations are part of the 1992 Tashkent Collective Security Treaty with Russia which requires Russian nuclear weapons to be used in the event of ANY hostilities as aid to those nations. The CANWFZ specifically allows that treay to stay put. So even though those nations agree to not develop or deploy nuclear on their soil, they are, by proxy, armed with nuclear weapons. It's a have "your cake and eat it, too" situation. The nations involved with the treay are in the lousy position of possibly pissing off both Russia and the US which are both working partners in the region. I do believe this will be resolved as some concessions where made just this year with the treaty and that the US will sign on, but only after tensions with Iran, a neighboring nation, subside a little. The US has signed three other NWFZ treaties and is, at least in spirit, for the idea.
"Considering the US has the most nuclear weapons, engages in the most wars, threatens non-nuclear countries with nuclear weapons, other countries have an incentive to develop nukes. The ironic thing is that only the US has hundreds of thousands of Marines that can be deployed and a strong worldwide military deployment capability -- eliminating nukes will not weaken that capability."
You are mostly correct in the beginning of that statement. By most estimates, Russia still has the most nuclear weapons. The US has more ICBM's. Russia lacks delivery methods for most of it's arsenal, though. There is a real effort and pressure to reduce our stockpile not only of nuclear but of chemical weapons as well. I
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
World War II went nuclear, so at least one.
I must have missed when someone on this thread supported the idea of nuclear winter with a peer-reviewed scientific article.
Probably because there is some general acceptance of the idea. But that wasn't my point anyway, my point was citing disreputable sources does nothing to bolster one's arguments.
In any case that deficiency is easily addressed:
Turco RP, Toon OB, Ackerman TP, Pollack JB, Sagan C (1983) 'Nuclear winter: global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions', Science 222:1283-1292
Covey C (1987) 'Protracted climatic effects of massive smoke injections into the atmosphere', Nature 325:701-703
Warner F, and collaborators (1987) 'Severe global-scale effects of nuclear war reaffirmed', Environment 29:4-5 & 45
A B Pittock, K Walsh and J S Frederiksen (1989) 'General circulation model simulation of mild nuclear winter effects', Climate Dynamics Vol 3 No 4 pp 191-206
If on the other hand you want something that doesn't necessarily support the idea (at least not to the extent proposed by Turco et al, here a review of the literature that forms the chapter of a book:
William A. Kerr (1999), 'Nuclear winter, possible environmental effects', in Environmental Geology, Springer Verlag, p448-449
From the abstract to that chapter:
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke