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US, Russia Reach Nuclear Arsenal Agreement
Peace Corps Library writes "The United States and Russia, seeking to move forward on one of the most significant arms control treaties since the end of the cold war, announced that they had reached a preliminary agreement on cutting each country's stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons, effectively setting the stage for a successor to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), a cold war-era pact that expires in December. Under the framework, negotiators are to be instructed to craft a treaty that would cut strategic warheads for each side to between 1,500 and 1,675, down from the limit of 2,200 slated to take effect in 2012 under the Treaty of Moscow (PDF) signed by President George W. Bush. The limit on delivery vehicles would be cut to between 500 and 1,100 from the 1,600 currently allowed under Start. Perhaps more important than the specific limits would be a revised and extended verification system that otherwise would expire with Start in December. The United States currently has 1,198 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based missiles and bombers, which together are capable of delivering 5,576 warheads, according to its most recent Start report in January, while Russia reported that it has 816 delivery vehicles capable of delivering 3,909 warheads. 'We have a mutual interest in protecting both of our populations from the kinds of danger that weapons proliferation is presenting today,' said President Obama."
Actually the problem with nuclear warheads is that they're supposed to destroy an enemy's capability of war - they're not meant to simply destroy lives. Putin, after all, prefers to use proxy countries for that.
The problem is that a nuclear weapon is actually quite limited. A 10 megaton nuclear warhead will only destroy all infrastructure within a circle of 200-300 meters. Especially things like roads and rails are very, very hard to destroy, yet they are the backbone of a country's military efforts, since they represent the supply lines. If you cut supply lines to an army, you have won the war. That's what nuclear weapons would in reality be used for : creating a (tiny) zone of inaccessible land between an army and it's supporting country or bases.
Btw: The effects of a nuclear warhead decrease with the square of the distance (at best), or with the third power of the distance. A 100 megaton nuclear warhead only increases the destruction distance by a factor of 2. A 250 megaton warhead (the largest in existence) will only destroy a bunker when exploded less than 500 meters from it's walls. A 250 megaton warhead, will only destroy a modern office building at less than a kilometer.
Therefore, to transform a tiny, rural city with some 2000 inhabitants into permanent wasteland you'd need a 100 megaton bomb. A hiroshima bomb would simply not do the job (completely). To destroy a city like New York, you need more than a few thousand 250 megaton devices.
And another salient detail : fallout may be deadly, or at least a carcinogen to humans, it really helps plants and animals grow. Some plants are capable of directly harnessing radiation from radioactive decay. Another observation : It will not lead to three-eyed fish, or even slight mutations in all but the largest possible animals. Sensitivity to fallout is directly proportional to the size of the animal (and the way of contamination : ingesting radioactive material is worse than sleeping on it). Humans are simply too large and too sensitive a system to take much fallout, but cats will take amazing amounts without breaking a sweat. Mouse, rats and others are all but unkillable by radiation.
Nuclear weapons aren't the world-ending devices their reputations claim them to be. Nor do they totally destroy the environment. They are certainly not capable of changing the world into barren wasteland, no matter how many are fired.
Yes, "certain" standards. Forgetting to say "God bless the separation of Church and State", sure, 10 points from Gryffindor. Invading the fuck out of a sovereign nation that posed no threat at all, direct or indirect, to the USA, not so much trouble.
Tell a big enough lie, or start a big enough war, and no one dares call you on it. You're a Statesman.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The idea was that Israel should be removed from the map. Israel is a country, a country that in certain quarters is regarded as illegitimately occupying arab lands. You could quite easily remove Israel from the map without hurting a single inhabitant. It's merely the reverse of its creation. Of course the Israelis wouldn't stand still and let that happen so there probably would be a war. But the Iranian president did not suggest wiping out every Israeli, just getting rid of Israel as an entity.
And the holocaust is not a scientific fact, it is a historical fact.
Maybe you should wipe the spittle off your chin now, you look silly.
Funny how anyone who dares to post anthing other than positive comment about Israel gets modded down isn't it?
Face it - in the US it is still a tremendous advantage to be a white man.
:P). It bothers me that I can't have those opinions because of my ethnicity, it doesn't matter what other people who happened to share my ethnicity believed... I am an individual.
Observe the ugly face of reverse racism.
Yes you are better liked by racists, but they're morons... I'm not sure that's an advantage. I'd rather have them insult me right away and demonstrate their ignorance then let me wait years to find out they are ignorant.
A lot of what is attributed to racism these days is just anger. If I get angry and I want to say the most hurtful thing I can think of sometimes it will be racial... hopefully I'd know about your real flaws before hating you but people are reactionary.
I am from Canada, white, colourblind and a believer in Eugenics (though I think we don't know enough to know what traits to breed for... we'll let the women figure it out
Statistics apply to groups, not to individuals... the solution to the opportunities provided by coming from money can only be solved by something resembling "Brave New World", yea we could go there... but lets not. I like meeting individuals.