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Nuclear Warhead Blueprints On Smugglers' Computers
imrehg links to a story at the Guardian which begins "Blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear warhead have been found in the computers of the world's most notorious nuclear-smuggling racket, according to a leading US researcher. The digital designs, found in heavily encrypted computer files in Switzerland, are believed to be in the possession of the US authorities and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, but investigators fear they could have been extensively copied and sold to 'rogue' states via the nuclear black market." Reader this great guy links to the New York Times article on the discovery, and asks "Given that
Khan's revelations were made in early 2004, does that mean it took the IAEA
1-2 years to brute-force the encryption?"
Probably because the story clearly says that the design in question belongs to Pakistan. All things considered, a Pakistani nuclear scientist would be in a better position to steal his country's secret rather than a US design. As a foreigner in the US he, and his agents, would not be allowed to see anything of that sort, not even close. But in Pakistan he'd be an insider, even if he officially is not involved, and then all kinds of things can be done.
The knowledge of how to build one small and light enough to fit on top of a missile is still closely held. That's the key point of this story, that a design was out there which a country with a missile program could use.
It's a kt.. you can pick up the ingredients to make a 1kt bomb from home depot. You won't need a team of nuclear scientists to do it, either.
If you want to level a city, you need at least 10s of kilotons and you need to detonate it at an altitude of about 2,000ft. And even then, you'd only be punching a hole in Manhattan, you'd need a 100kt bomb to level it.
A guy with a backpack bomb on, would likely only be able to carry about a 0.1kt bomb and detonating it at ground level would cause less damage than the Oklahoma City bombing.. and for that kind of bang there's cheaper ways to spend your bucks.
The whole "OMG Backpack Nuke!" hysteria is just a reflection of how poorly the average person understands anything with the word "nuclear" in it and immediately fears it.
You should know better.
How we know is more important than what we know.
That said, there's a lot of things I fear way more than a backpack nuke as modern-city-life-ending threats, such as ebola[1]. Even those "more likely" threats are remote, and the nuke attack is more movie plot than reality. However, it is not correct to say a man-portable nuke is not possible, when they have already existed for some time. Do you also not believe in weaponized smallpox?
[1] Ebola in different forms has been airborne (Virginia outbreak between monkeys) or highly fatal to humans (most other outbreaks). It's only a matter of time before a strain manages both.
Actually you can build a sub-machine gun in your garage ....AK-47 was designed in the 1940's and is so widely used because it is so easy to manufacture and maintain ....and the ammo is simple and easy to make as well ....
...
Nuclear weapons are a completely different matter the theory is (relatively) simple, but the practice is complicated, lengthy and requires a lot of technical expertise
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
...and if you notice almost all of the developments resulted in extremely small yields either by design or limitations of the delivery system. Most were a tenth of the yield of the bombs dropped on Japan. A small number were larger but most were 2kt or smaller. Many were in the >1kt range, meaning lots of terror, not too much for damage. Doubtful you could take out even a small city with it but could cause severe damage in a few city blocks and the terror factor would be a definite factor.
I was in Artillery in the Marines and was trained as a Nuke Tech. Our largest yield (circa 80-86, 155mm) was 2kt. It was designed for area denial. Not a lot of damage, but a lot of irradiation. The main reason they don't go higher is because you can't get the round far enough downrange to not get hit yourself with the blast or the radiation. They keep them small so that when you fire that thing 10-15 miles downrange there is little chance of the blast or the fallout/radiation coming back to hit you and your allies.
Yes, that one picture shows a small warhead, with a yield of 72tons and weight of 58kg. Hardly a city destroying capable device. The larger devices capable of destroying a small city were on the order of 4ft+ and 800+ lbs. Even the 2kt one I worked with was too large to realistically be man-portable.
Can you get a nuke into a backpack? Probably, but don't fool yourself that you will be able to destroy any cities with it and it is still going to be extremely heavy. You will be able to do something similar to 9/11 with such a device and cause a lot of terror, which might be the whole point. Of course, a dirty bomb might have the same effect and you need far less tech to actually get it to detonate.