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Edward Teller: Father of the Hydrogen Bomb
pigrabbitbear writes "Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, had a thing for nuclear bombs. He wanted them bigger, smaller, faster, used in ways that no one had thought of before or since, and always more of them. He suffered no fools, and though he would be more vilified than any other American scientist in the 20th century, he always dismissed his critics as lacking in common sense or patriotism. Amid Cold War paranoia and fears of the Soviet nuclear program, the stakes were simply too high: for the free world, building the most powerful weapon in history was a matter of life and horrible death."
The fact is that without the atomic bomb, WWIII most certainly would have happened between the West and the USSR. The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki raised the stakes of another general war between the remaining Great Powers so enormously that a war like WWII would no longer be possible.
As horrible as these weapons are, they stopped the most terrible war the world would have ever known.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If Iran ever dared to use such a weapon against anyone, it would be the last thing it ever did. China and Russia will tolerate the Ayatollahs to a point, but to actually launch an attack against anyone else, that would be intolerable even by their standards. All support would end instantly and Israel and the United States would be given carte blanche to deal with Iran as they chose. The Iranian airforce and navy would be wiped out, most of its military installations of any size would be destroyed, it would be left with an army and a bunch of poorly armed Basij who are only useful as cannon fodder, except the cannons would be bombing from 40,000 feet. I suspect the Ayatollahs' regime wouldn't last a month. The regular army, who has no great love for the Basij or the Revolutionary Guard, would probably arrest or just simply start shooting them, because the very few nuclear weapons that Iran would have would be useless, or worse than useless, once the necessary infrastructure to launch attacks was crippled or turned to slag.
The fact is that as nasty as an attack by a second rate power like Iran would be, it's not something that could be repeated. Places like North Korea and Iran do not have the resources to build vast stockpiles of nukes. Once the oil dries up, they won't even be able to afford to maintain what they've built by that point.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
the rules of MAD are still in place i think. nuke anyone at all, and you're as good as nuked yourself.
countries with nukes are diverse enough that you couldn't bomb one ideology without pissing off some nuclear power. we have communists (China), mafia states (sadly Russia), capitalist states (USA, UK), social democracies (France, sort of), Islamic states (Pakistan), and India which is kinda a bit of everything. then there's Israel... the whole political spectrum in all it's shades of madness and reason have nukes.
They will build the bombs and they will use the bombs, no, they won't bomb anyone, but rather, they will use the bombs they have accumulated to blackmail the world
Blackmail the world into... ...not invading them? ...letting them build nuclear bombs? ...letting their politicians be dicks and say outrageous things?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Not necessarily. Suppose Iran used a nuke against North Korea?
If Israel sees a missile launched from any of the nuclear sites in Iran, I doubt they're going to wait to see where it's aimed before striking with all they've got.
Not necessarily. Suppose Iran used a nuke against North Korea? Would the world approve or disapprove?
You're missing the point.
The point is:
Why in the world would Iran want to nuke anyone? It makes absolutely zero military sense Do you really think Ahmadinejad or the Ayatollahs are that stupid?
Well... if it was an existential threat to their system, their power and even possibly their lives, they might well launch.
And wouldn't they have ever right to?
The Soviets had their empire, there was no need to nuke NATO unless something drastically changed, but be aware, at least some of the Soviet military leaders were known to have believed a nuclear war was winnable.
Just as many Americans also believed. Yet a nuclear war never did happen. Why is that?
Now take Iran, which is probably a lot less pragmatic than the Soviets were
Why? Because our government and their friends want you to believe so? Do you really think Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs have maintained control for so long by being stupid? Do you really think they want to "end it all" and be nuked into oblivion, which would be the clearly inevitable result of using a nuke against another country?
The problem is, the Iranian people don't have any practical control over their government at all. [...] In Iran, the government doesn't have checks and balances, it has a blank check to do whatever it wants, as long as the Supreme Leader signs it.
Just like the United States!
In the US, the President would likely be obeyed if he ordered a retaliatory launch, but if it was for something other than pure defense, he might well find himself disobeyed
Ever heard of "plausible deniability"? It's a product of U.S. politics! Of course the President can't just launch nukes at will. But if the missile detection system malfunctions, as it is later determined, signalling an incoming attack, and the President orders an all-out retaliatory strike based on this data......well, who can blame him right?
Because of this:
What separates them is intent. Teller knew full well he was designing the weapons to end industrial civilization. Teller was deliberately designing stuff to kill people.
Thomas Midgley Jr. didn't know when he was developing the things he was developing that they were anything other than helpful to society.
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Just to add a point about China and Russia. I don't know what is the stance of China with respect to Iran, but before the Russian elections last week Putin published enormous "letter" outlining his platform and very clearly stating his opinions about all kinds of domestic and international issues. On the subject of Iran the message was clear - Russia will not tolerate Iran with nuclear weapons, period. However Russia will not lightly agree on military intervention as a "solution"; in fact they will oppose it at every turn. "Reasons for this position" - asks Mr. Putin - "look what happened everywhere where there was an intervention".
Hard to argue against, isn't it?
Yes, we think Ahmadinejad and the ayatollahs are that stupid. Plainly.
Next question.
Fat chance they'd get any of that.
If they started blackmailing, the political position of their remaining allies would quickly become totally untenable. They could give hints, saying "well... we'd like to have more influence on the security council... nudge nudge wink wink"... but that's about it.
As a deterrent to actually invading them when they start shooting dissidents in lots of 10000, now that is quite another matter. It would be very effective in doing exactly that - which is why a nuke is a bad thing mostly for the Iranians themselves, and not so much anyone else.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
You're being irrational. Suicide bombers are employed as a last resort against a technically superior enemy. I'm sure that if you go back in time, you'll find that all major religions have had suicidal fighters in one way or another. It has nothing to do with religion.
The fact that you conclude that the communists "undoubtedly wanted to wipe out their enemies" just shows how narrow you're thinking about this. The tragedy of an arms race like in the cold war is that both sides are building weapons out of fear of an attack. It's madness.
No. IAANP and that is hollywood fiction.
Rules of MAD don't apply to Islamic regimes the same way that they did to Communists. Sure, the Communists (Soviets & Chinese) were evil, but they were at least rational about it - while they undoubtedly wanted to wipe out their enemies, they themselves wanted to survive. Which is why deterence worked during the Cold War. During that time, there were a lot of espionage & terrorist acts pulled off by the NKVD/KGB, but how many suicide bombings does anybody remember that the Soviets did?
...
How short the memories.
During the Cold War the hysteria-mongers routinely argued that the Communists could not be deterred because they cared nothing for human life - arguments trotted out for this view were the tens of millions of deaths in the Stalinist and Maoist purges and engineered famines, the way life was literally thrown away in Gulags, and in WWII how millions of Soviet soldiers were carelessly sacrificed for negligible battlefield effect (and the same with Chinese and North Korean soldiers a few years later, and North Vietnamese and Cambodian soldiers decades after that). Various quotes by Lenin were commonly repeated (some of them fictitious*) to show the utter ruthlessness, and that their messianic belief in the inevitable victory of Communism made them indifferent to the possibility of nuclear war since Communism would survive.**
And most of the statements about Communist behavior were true. But a big difference is it was never the leadership, the state itself that was put at risk. Nuclear weapons change that completely. That alone makes the whole claim completely invalid.
*The favored fake quote, often repeated was this one: "What does it matter if three-fourths of the world perish, if the remaining one fourth are good communists?" attributed to Lenin.
**Counter-evidence, like Stalin's decision not to seize West Berlin, Khruschev's hasty back-down in Cuba, and the striking intolerance to taking casualties in the 1980s after the Afghanistan invasion were ignored.
This "Islamists are insane and are not afraid of nuclear war" is just a retread of the same Cold War tripe.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj