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Identifying Nuclear Scientists Willing To Sell Their Knowledge
Harperdog writes "This is an interesting piece on U.S. programs most people don't know about: programs to identify and win over nuclear scientists who might be willing to sell their know-how to non-nuclear countries. Fascinating discussion, and points to the alleged Russian scientist who is reported to have sold information to Iran. How could he have been stopped?"
Someone please explain: why should he have been stopped?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
It's being shown time and again that strong countries do not get attacked. All countries need to understand that it is really in their best interest to get nuclear weapons fast. Libya made a huge mistake for example, so did Iraq. I think at some point Iran will have their weapon - good for them.
Good for them. They should get as many as they can possibly put their hands on. You get fucked in the ass if you can't fight back, that's what we really know today, everything else is bullshit.
Once they've sold their knowledge, they can be identified, sometimes.
Keeping the knowledge from spreading isn't possible - eventually it will become commonplace. The challenge is making the raw materials and weapons grade nuclear material out of the hands of those who would misuse it.
A similar problem exists with bioweapons - eventually the knowledge to make them will become commonly available. The differences there are that raw materials for bioweapons are far easier to obtain, the equipment needed is far less expensive than for nukes, and the potential damage of bioweapons is far worse.
Lack of knowledge isn't what prevents most countries from building a nuclear bomb, lack of uranium and plutonium is.
I would bet 100% of nuclear scientists are willing to sell their secrets. So the identification is the easy part.
The only question is: at what price? One will spill for a drink at the hotel bar, the other only when offered critical medical services for his sick child.
There was nothing close to believable evidence for most of the "damning" allegations in the report, no sufficient information to justify taking them seriously even while reading the 20 odd pages. Most of the report was based on stuff that was shown by "one member state", and it happens to be the same member state that manufactured "evidence" for the war against Iraq. Excuse me if I delegate it to the trashcan without more extraordinary and unambiguous evidence than a table in yellow, orange and red.
From the rest of the report it was only evident that a) Iran has not succeeded in buying weapons tech or plans, b) Iran does not even have the fundamental science to develop weapons and c) all their efforts invariably end up in a brick wall.
Finally, while I keep hearing these scary stories about everyone and their dog develop nuclear weapon based on Russian know-how, it is, as a Russian combinator would say, a medical fact that ALL non-NPT nuclear programs except the Chinese are based either on US or NATO expertise.
Will we get a break from these scary, but largely baseless stories?
Gotta love how the real world is a lot different from TV..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive
Instead of letting this culture/nation, Iran, Naturally develop their science to a high level, nuclear weapons, allowing them to flourish much as the USA has..
the US and the big guys on the anti nuke front are actively SQUELCHING the scientific advancement of Iran .. Pushing them further into the past because USA et al wont alllow them to develop naturally (or however iran develops..russian scientists or not)
I personally find it reprehensible that a nation would fight so hard to stifle the scientific understanding and development of a nation/culture/anyone.
The Reverse Prime Directive!! Don't let them get Warp technology! ITS DANGEROUS!
Give up your nuke program in exchange for normalized relations. Didn't work out so well for Gaddafi.
If he was employed, he wouldn't have been tempted to sell the information.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Did the identify the CIA as being a source of nuclear proliferation to Iran?
Just as the US (and British) bullied the Japanese in the 1920s and '30s, limiting the number of battleships they could have, bullying the Iranians about nukes will simply push them into the aircraft carrier equivalent for the 21st Century.
Ultimately, we can probably beat them in a war, or, at least, turn the livable parts of Iran into radioactive glass, but can we really block every single every avenue of damage to the US without turning the whole nation into even more of a gulag, with the attendant impact on innovation and productivity?
I teach on a Nuclear Reactor physics masters course. We teach students from all over the world - I've had Saudi and Iranian students in the past. Everyone who graduates our course could have a decent stab at building a bomb. Why is this myth that the physics of constructing a nuclear weapon is a well kept secret? You could teach yourself, easily, from publicly available materials.
The countries that the US and allies want to prevent from acquiring weapons are only held back by the lack of availability of the fissile materials. The physics is well known and the engineering is fairly straightforward.
This fact is often forgotten. But the estimates at the time were running at ~2 million soldiers and ~10 million civilians dead in case of conventional invasion of Japan. And of course, Russians would probably have been there in time to "help" with invasion and occupation and raping and pillaging and they would have turned the occupied areas into puppet communist regimes as in europe.
So nuclear bombs were bad, but not nearly as bad as conventional war would have been. OTOH there are people claiming peace could have been achieved at that point without conventional or nuclear war (by granting the emperor immunity), but given that even after nuclear bombs there nearly was a coup to continue the war, this is doubtful.
--Coder
when the Pakistani guy was selling the technology he stole from the Netherlands left, right and center?
According to a BBC documentary I saw a few years back there were at least 4 cases where the CIA asked to "deal with him" and was forbidden because at the time the US wanted to empower Pakistan against India which has become “dangerously socialist”.
So, under the approving eye of the west the dear doctor did sales pitches in Libya, Iran, Iraq, Syria and god knows where else. For more than a decade. Well done!
To summarize:
1. The nuclear powers have no moral right to deny development of nuclear weapons to any nation, especially since the most prominent member of the club is the only one that actually used them against civilians.
2. Fight the “red menace” by funding and training religious fanatics, allow them to build the bomb and then come back to squash them later. Win-win!
3. Lie your pants off in case they did not actually manage to build the bomb.
4. Invade
5. Profit
The matter of putting the knowledge of building an atomic bomb ando actually producing an atomic bomb is a wholly different matter. The facilities to make one are enormous. Before Neils Bohr was aware of the Manhattan Project he stated the opinion that ( I am paraphrasing) making an atomic was theoretically possible but to make one you would have to make a factory the size of an entire nation. When he later became a member of the Manhattan Project he toured the facilities and then stated (again I am paraphrasing)... I said that making an atomic bomb would require a factory the size of an entire nation and that is exactly what you have done! (He was probably talking about a nation the size of Denmark, his home.)
Granted, the knowledge of how to build an atomic bomb is easy to master. In fact, it is easier to prematurely detonate a "Little Boy" type bomb than to actually deliver one to a target and THEN have it go off. An implosion type bomb ("Fat Man") is much safer as far as premature detonation. There still is the high explosive component of such a bomb which can go off prematurely. The chances that the resulting conventional explosion will cause a nuclear explosion is quite small. The explosion would be like a "dirty bomb" going off.
PS. If you are interested in the history behind the Manhattan Project, I highly recommend reading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Richard Rhodes. It is easy reading and I understand that it is fairly accurate.