Obama Calls For Nuke-Free World

jamie points out news that President Obama has put out a call for a world free of nuclear weapons at a speech in Prague today. He acknowledged that it was a long-term goal, perhaps not something that can be accomplished in his lifetime, but promised to encourage the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty. According to the BBC, he also stated his desire to "negotiate a new treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons," and to hold a global summit within the next year to work out agreements for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Obama said, "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it." His speech came less than a day after North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket.

Comments

Re:And nuclear power?

[nhtshot]

It won't.

There are many reactor designs (CANDU in particular) that don't require any enrichment at all. What he's talking about is no longer producing highly enriched U235 and/or PU239.

Of course, that's great and all, but there are already fairly sizable stockpiles of both within the established nuclear powers.

He's either posturing or pipe-dreaming.

Re:Ahem.

[Vanders]

Really though, nuclear technology isnt that hard. Take 2 pieces of near-critical U235 and smack them together.. Hell, we could have Soulskill clap them together.

It's a touch harder than that. First you need that highly enriched uranium, which means you'll need a reactor, reprocessing facilities and some way to refine your U238-rich Uranium into weapons grade U235. You'll also need a few other metals while you're there, such as Beryllium. Then once you have all of that, and assuming someone hasn't bombed your facilities in the mean time, you have to "smash them together" in just the right way: too fast and they'll fly apart before they reach criticality, too slow and the mass will not be compressed enough: either will lead to a fizzle.

Which is exactly what happened to North Korea by the way. Apparently even after decades of research and development, smacking to bits of metal together is pretty hard to do right.

Re:Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

[phantomcircuit]

Actually the vast majority of the active arsenal are W88 and W78 warheads which are 475kt and 100kt respectively. The missiles have multiple warheads, but each warhead is less than a megaton.

Re:Nuke Free Only Until When

[dunkelfalke]

while being so self-righteous you have forgotten a couple of things.
first of all, the taliban you yanks are hunting now are the same taliban you yanks were funding and calling heroes and freedom fighters 25 years ago.

second, thanks to your intervention in yugoslavia, albanian cutthroats have murdered lots of serbs and tried to invade macedonia.

third, not american military leadership has prevented the nazis, the russians have. americans preferred to sit on their collective arses until it was sure that russians would win the war and then they went in to steal the laurels.

not to mention all other crazy dicatorships you you yanks funded. so yes, please keep your "help" to yourself.
because with friends like you, who needs enemies?