Soaring, Cryptography, and Nuclear Weapons

Martin Hellman sends in a pointer to his essay that uses analogies from cryptography and the sport of soaring in an attempt to draw people in to thinking about the risks of nuclear weapons. Quoting: "... I did a preliminary risk analysis which indicates that relying on nuclear weapons for our security is thousands of times more dangerous than having a nuclear power plant built next to your home." Hellman is best known as co-inventor (with Diffie and Merkle) of public key cryptography, and has worked for over twenty-five years to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons. He is also a glider pilot with over 2,600 logged hours. Hellman adds, "Readers needing a break can go to some photos of the Sierra Nevada mountains taken from my glider."

Comments

Am I the only one...

[AKAImBatman]

...who's takeaway from the article is that we need to build more nuclear plants?

Must have been a stack overflow somewhere. /BOFH reference

Re:Am I the only one...

[bugeaterr]

...who's takeaway from the article is that we need to build more nuclear plants?

America does need to build more nuclear plants.
The rest of the world is because it is safe and clean.

Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, need you name more?

Yes, you do.

Even reasonable environmentalists are considering nuclear.

Re:Am I the only one...

[repvik]

And the reasonable environmentalists might be right. Technology might possibly have developed over the last 20+ years.
We're afraid of technology that had flaws in its infancy. Maybe humanity has learned, and possibly improved technology since then?

Re:Am I the only one...

[Free the Cowards]

It's even worse than technology that had flaws in its infancy. Chernobyl is the only serious civilian power-generation reactor accident. And Chernobyl had a tremendously bad design that never would have been approved in the West, even in the period when everything nuclear was considered to be good, and what killed it was a horribly conceived experiment run by idiots that never would have been allowed in the West, again not even during that optimistic period.

It's great to take lessons from Chernobyl, but it's wrong to take away the lesson that nuclear power is dangerous.

Re:Am I the only one...

[Free the Cowards]

My understanding is that the ridiculously thick containment structure around the TMI reactor (the lack of which is one of Chernobyl's unforgivable flaws) would have saved the day anyway. And things have improved since then, my point was merely that it wasn't bad even to begin with.

Waste becomes much less of a problem if you reprocess the fuel. We don't do that in the US because our nuclear policy is completely idiotic. But there's no rational reason not to do it.

The general public seems to think that coal power is pretty acceptable, even though its toxic waste, vastly more than is ever produced by any nuclear plant, goes straight into the air and the population's lungs. But somehow the prospect of burying a miniscule amount of nuclear waste is considered to be vastly worse than breathing in vaporized mercury around the clock. It boggles the mind.

Re:Am I the only one...

[Chris Burke]

Waste becomes much less of a problem if you reprocess the fuel. We don't do that in the US because our nuclear policy is completely idiotic. But there's no rational reason not to do it.

One of the brightest moments for McCain in the debates (for me obviously) was when he said he supported nuclear fuel reprocessing. Obama isn't against nuclear in principle; I hope he will be open to the idea of reprocessing instead of letting the red herring issue of nuclear proliferation that caused Carter (a nuclear physicist!) to ban breeder reactors.

The general public seems to think that coal power is pretty acceptable, even though its toxic waste, vastly more than is ever produced by any nuclear plant, goes straight into the air and the population's lungs. But somehow the prospect of burying a miniscule amount of nuclear waste is considered to be vastly worse than breathing in vaporized mercury around the clock. It boggles the mind.

That's because of tremendous ignorance about even the basics of radiation, such as the longer the half life, the lower the radioactivity. And that while high levels of radiation are of course very bad, something with a half life of ten thousand years isn't necessarily more poisonous than something that isn't radioactive at all. Oh and of course there's the general fear-mongering of all things radioactive since the dawn of the atomic age, perpetuated by Hollywood myths where even in the distant future any nuclear reactor is a single leaky coolant pipe away from nuclear detonation.

Whereas inhaling the byproducts of coal power plants has been an American tradition for over a century. So nobody thinks about how bad it really is.

He's a fool.

[tjstork]

The thing is, if you all don't have nuclear weapons, and I covertly do, I win.

Dangers...

[Notquitecajun]

If the dangers from owning your own nukes are so serious, why haven't we destroyed the world yet - even with some of the so-called religious fundamentalist whackos that people are so afraid of in the White House?

Honestly, all this fear running around and western democracies - and the Russians - are the ONLY ones who have managed them responsibly. We haven't blown the world up, and the worst are some "near misses" which didn't produce anything. Shoot, we're farther away now from nuclear war between major powers than we have been since before the Cold War.

Point fingers at Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and their ilk. Leave the rest of us out of it. They're the nuclear "powers" to be afraid of, and we should raise defenses against their armament which are overwhelming - not detente.

which brings us to iranian proliferation

[circletimessquare]

pro-israel or anti-israel

pro-usa or anti-usa

you should be against iranian proliferation

there's this weird alien line of thought out there that goes like this: "if the usa has nukes, why shouldn't iran?"

what that thought represents is tribal nationalistic thinking trumping common sense

common sense holds that NO ONE should have nukes. so proliferation is bad, for whomever. the most logical approach to iranian proliferation then is this: "i am against iran having nukes, AND i am against the usa having nukes"

but this whole "i support iran having nukes, to balance out the usa" is a level of stupidity beneath respect

Re:which brings us to iranian proliferation

[commodoresloat]

The reason is that these countries are, ostensibly, sane, although I am beginning to wonder about Russia. Iran is ruled by a bunch of fanatics that believe in fairy tales and are attempting to bring about the return of the 12th Imam. The countries on your list have not used nukes, excepting the US pre-understaing-much-about-the-long-term-impact. We haven't since.

Yes you're right the US is the only country that has ever used nukes, and though we haven't done so since, it's pretty clear the reason had nothing to do with restraint on the part of the United States -- it is well documented, for example, that Eisenhower and Nixon both considered using nuclear weapons in China and North Vietnam. So as far as using nukes, perceived "sanity" does not seem to be the major deterrent. In fact, the major deterrent seems to be nukes in the hands of our enemies. As far as whether Iran is "sane," I would suggest you look at what they've done, not just the idiotic religious rhetoric of the country's titular leaders. Iran simply has not behaved aggressively in international affairs. They have not invaded their neighbors despite their sabre-rattling towards Israel (though Iraq invaded Iran in 1980). The Iranian military is no joke, to be sure, and nukes will make it more powerful, but that is really a major concern only for anyone unwise enough to attempt to invade Iran. Pakistan's and India's governments are also filled with millenarian fundamentalists (and, hell, we've had quite a few of those in power here in the United States as well!) but the fact is that when the chips are down, these states have acted like states, and have not used their nuclear weapons "irrationally." I see no reason to believe Iran would.

All that said, I am still against a nuclear Iran; I just don't think we can realistically do much more than we are already doing about it. Get the UN to castigate them, sure; encourage government reform, definitely; but if you think invading Iran is going to help anything you are living in an absurd fantasy land with John McCain.

what the hell do you win?

[commodoresloat]

The whole point of nuclear weapons is to overtly have them; if your possession of them is truly "covert," you don't win a damn thing. Even Israel's nuclear program was an open secret for years because it allowed them to gain the effects of deterrence without openly proclaiming that they had a nuclear arsenal. But nobody seriously believed they didn't have one.

Re:what the hell do you win?

[couchslug]

"The whole point of nuclear weapons is to overtly have them; if your possession of them is truly "covert," you don't win a damn thing. "

Touch one off on an enemy center of gravity without them knowing it was you, and you can win a bunch if the object is to disable the enemy.

Re:risk analysis Vs.real world

[Duradin]

I think, perhaps, the person you quoted meant invasions by the military forces of actual countries.

It'd be more of an infiltration of the US by illegal aliens than an invasion. Invasions are rather obvious and hostile affairs.

Non-state actors aren't the target of MAD policies. They generally don't care what sort of destruction they face. A state, on the other hand, has to worry about the continuance of the state.

Psycho with a nuke: not deterred by MAD.
Rogue state with a nuke: leaders still probably not deterred by MAD.
Developed stable state with a nuclear arsenal: welcome to club MAD.

Plus I'm quite sure most (by surface area) of the US would be quite willing (and eager) to sink both coasts into the ocean to quell a fifth column threat.

exactly right

[circletimessquare]

the principle of MAD (mutually assured destruction) worked in the cold war between the usa and the ussr because russian leaders did not want to see dead russian children and american leaders did not want to see dead american children

meanwhile, iran is a theocracy

the deeply religious believe the afterlife is a glorious reward for the righteous, an eden. in its war with iraq, iran sent children with little wooden keys around their necks to clean up minefields. the keys were the keys to heaven. how is a death a deterent for those who see death as a reward? how do you deter iranian leaders when they think dead iranian children are in a better place?

a theocracy with a bomb should give everyone a special pause

iran with the bomb is different and unique when considering any other country that currently has the bomb

iran really should not get the bomb. no theocracy should