The end result is very few (if any) people would die from the radiological effects. Of course, maybe the public would know better if Nader had done something useful and taken the nuclear challenge.
One - Practical implementations of Stirling Engines are rare. There are reasons for it that I am sure someone can explain. The elegant thermal cycle is well understood.
Fair enough. But they have been developed by NASA, and have been shown to be an effective way to produce quite a bit of power for not much radioisotope.
Radioisotopes are rather difficult to turn off.
This is the classic problem. You'd have to dissipate the excess energy in something like a heating coil or a mechanical fan. Dissipating about 30-40 watts shouldn't be too difficult, although it might get a smidge warm.
You propose as an option a square piston in the engine...the trouble with this is sealing and wear at the corners. Also, precision boring and turning operations can holder better part to part tolerances.
I've been curious as to whether this was a good design or not. Unfortunately, trying to get any *real* feedback has been worse than pulling teeth. Using a circular bore is certainly not out of the question. I only proposed a sqaure bore to reduce the footprint of the engine.
BTW, thanks for the feedback. I really do appreciate it.:-)
Really, you want to put plutonium, polonium, or other dirty bomb materials in the hands of the general public?
The dangers of these radioisotopes have been highly overrated. You'd do just as much damage by dispersing a lot of the toxic chemicals that are in today's batteries.
SRGs are a wonderful idea for military, for space, and for other heavily regulated and monitored uses (where RTGs are already used), but they're a horrible idea for the mass market.
As I said in my previous post, I'd be ecstatic if the military was the first market to use said batteries. Then they could stop worrying about how to power a soldier's equipment for 3 days, and start worrying about keeping his carry on food supplies large enough to keep up with his equipment.
There are a few valid possibilities for this incident:
1. It was the SR-71 Blackbird 2. It was an early test of the ScramJet before Regan declassified it. 3. They really were testing the Pulse Jet Engined Aurora
One is entirely possible. Two is just as likely, although it certainly has taken NASA a long time to replicate the same test. Three is difficult to imagine. If the US really did have such a craft back in the 80's, why hasn't it yet been declassified? The U-2, SR-71, F-117A, and B-2 projects were all Top Secret, black ops type stuff. And yet all of it was declassified within about a decade of its existence.
Sorry, I just can't believe that the government has been working on a top secret plane for this long, and all we have are a few rumors and photos of exhaust trails. The government just isn't that good at keeping secrets. Especially from a curious public.
Why is this marked as funny? I stated the same thing but with an explanation and diagrams of how it would work. Nuclear batteries (actually radioisotope batteries since there's no actual nuclear fission occurring) are a very real, very useful, and very ignored technology. RTGs are the first generation technology. SRGs (Stirling Radioisotope Generators) are second generation, and promise to be smaller, lighter, and more powerful.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Stirling Radioisotope Generators are the way to go. Even if we're just talking about ruggedized military gear as an initial market, batteries that last for 10-40 years is a HUGE advancement over what the US is using today. And with military gear becoming more and more power hungry, can we afford NOT to look into radio power generation?
I've seen the plane. I've seen it fly. Oh, and I could be wrong but I heard that the Internet might not always be the ultimate source for accurate information. By the way, the plane in question is handy because re-tasking satellites takes time and fuel, and those in charge prefer to only re-task if all other options are exhausted / unavailable.
Alright, I'll bite. What makes it fly then? Pulse Jet Engines? Those wouldn't make it out of the stratosphere. Anti-gravity engines? Nope, they don't actually work. As I responded to another poster, they are really just ion engines that use air as fuel. So what makes it fly? Nuclear Thermal Engines? Compressed LHOx?
The disappearances I speak of involve individuals being arrested in circumstances which tend to "avoid" any witnesses. The next stop for the person who is arrested might be any number of Federal prisons in a "no contact" ( aka solitary ) cell. The prisoner tends to get moved around a LOT, in order to avoid any guards or other prisoners becoming familiar with them.
[sarcasm]Welcome to national security.[/sarcasm] Well, you definitely aren't Black Ops, or this stuff wouldn't freak you out so much. And the government is very selective about who disappears and when. More often than not they'll attempt other tactics before resorting to a decade of imprisonment.
At least you're not trying to claim that "Men in Black" put a bullet in their heads.
I read the space.com article you referred to. Do a google search for "lifters". That's what I think they are.
Not bloody likely. Lifters work by ionizing the air around them, thus producing thrust. The problem comes in at the amount of thrust produced. You'd need Megawatts, possibly even Gigawatts of power to keep a ton or two in the air. Wasting power like that is pretty foolish when a rigid airship could get more lift for essentially zero energy output.
Imagine what you could do if you scaled that up a bit (okay, a lot) and powered it from an on-board nuclear reactor.
A multi-megawatt reactor is HEAVY. There's no chance in hell that someone would build a nuclear powered airship and only use the power to produce the Biefeld-Brown effect. You'd get WAY more thrust by using that same reactor to power nuclear thermal engines.
Wikipedia is very cool, but why do people keep linking to it as if it were athoritative proof of a point?
Because it usually condenses information that people already know. There are multiple sources out there that say the same thing, but why should I track down all of those when I can just point you to Wikipedia and let you use it as a starting point for your own research.
I could change the whole page to say "mostly harmless", "/\/\$ suxors" or "dude you're wrong!" because it's a publicly editable Wiki.
And it would get changed back a few moments after you hit the submit button. The editors are very careful to keep an eye on things and usually double check people's sources. If anything is questionable, they remove it or insert warnings about it.
although admittedly there are some external links at the bottom that may or may not lead to more athoritative sources.
These are often the sources that the editors pulled from.
There are several bases from which the Aurora is flown, for example.
I've been all over the Internet looking for information on the Aurora. The consensus at this point is that it doesn't exist. Or if it *did* exist, it was canceled and doesn't exist any more.
OTOH, there's evidence to suggest that the US has a secret stealth blimp for heavy lifting of various military cargos. The evidence tends to suggest that the blimp is what most of the delta wing sightings are, and that stories of "it zipping off in seconds" are fabricated information plants intended to confuse the public.
But it's not smart to play with these people. You could disappear and no one would ever see you again, alive or dead. Trust me, I know what I am speaking of.
Men in black helicopters and all of that? A "smoking man" maybe? Come on. The military is staffed by human beings. They might have some difficulty in deciding what to do with you, but they hardly make people "disappear". I'd be willing to bet that many of the super-curious have ended up being drafted as CIA or military intelligence agents.
Do NOT fuck with these people, if you care about your future.
Sage advice no matter *who* you're talking about. If you do something that pisses off someone powerful, they can derail your future in a hurry. Don't screw around unless you're willing to accept the consequences.
Area 51 is quite real. In fact, it's been declassified that many of our advanced fighter (e.g. SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Stealth Figher, U-2 Spy Plane, etc.) planes were developed there. More info on Wikipedia. Sorry, the government hasn't admitted to keeping little green men there.
the EU contains several members whose militaries are quite sufficient to kick the arse of any invader on home turf, including the US, by the way.
Ok, name an EU country capable of taking on the US. As far as I'm aware, we significantly outclass the entire European Union in naval tonnage, number of ground troops, number of tanks, and number of fighter planes. Some of the EU countries do have weapons that are slightly more sophisticated, but not to the degree of overcoming the US advantage.
Not to mention the fact that the UK and France are nuclear powers.
Which means? Having atomic bombs is one thing. Having Hydrogen and Neuton warheads is another. The US has the capability of wiping out any EU country with a relatively small number of bombs.
Of the 25 member states of the EU, only the UK is truly prepared to meet a serious military threat. And even then, they would be signficantly outclassed by even Russia's existing forces. Now if the entire EU got together and built a combined and strategically organized military, they might be a serious force to be reckoned with.
FWIW, Britain may keep a relatively small force, but they keep a well trained force that can at least operate and hold their own in a wide variety of tactical situations. I'm unaware of any other EU state that can make that same claim. And France's only Nuclear carrier is a far cry from the USS Enterprise, our first Nuclear carrier from the 50's.
Ack! Kids hit the submit button. I was trying to say, "That particular point was something I gleened from a very well done special on RADAR development. The rest of what I know of WWII was from hard research and a wide variety of print and media sources."
There's also evidence to suggest that he kidnapped and drugged his nearest competitor. Trust me, the latest elections are very reminicient of the Communist "elections".
That's a question of motivation. Of course any soldier, conscript or professional, fights harder when he's defending his homeland than when he's on some empire building mission.
It's not simply motivation. The war machine doesn't function if the people who are responsible don't run it. Right now the soldiers are drafted, but they often aren't payed and there's no reason for them to do much more than swab the decks and drink Vodka. Same with the scientists and engineers. Why should they develop weapons to destroy things? Russia doesn't really have much to offer them.
The previous choice for the people was to support the "glorious communist party" or live a poor life packed in a one room apartment with three other families. I should know. My wife is originally from Moscow.
This being the third time, perhaps we'd remember to bring winter clothing this time, though.;-)
No kidding. It just doesn't seem to get through people's heads that Russia can get COLD.;-)
Yes it is different. They have downsized a lot, and still a large part of their "active" arsenal is nothing but scrap metal. The few things that work are still 1970 level technology.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of the US stuff is also 1970's technology. F-14 Tomcats, Nuclear Carriers, Missile Subs, Abrams tanks, etc. are all old tech. The primary thing that has changed is the introduction of advanced computer control, GPS tracking, and massive sensor packages. Thus the US and EU would be far more effective in tracking and targeting, but Russia still has plenty of raw firepower. Not to mention that Russia has enough educated people to develop (*cough*copy*cough*) the computer technology and retrofit it into the old hardware.
Not with their current economy. Spending 30% of GDP on the military is not a usable long term scenario, as it will crash the economy.
This is true, and I hope it will keep Russia from getting any bright ideas. However, I would like to point to Napoleon and Hitler as examples of military masterminds who took advantage of a poor economic situation to impose a military state. Hitler was even named Time Magazine "Man of the Year" for having completely turned around the German economy!
No. There is no effective military countermeasure against guerilla warfare.
As I said, there are semi-effective measures. Remember, you're the one who mentioned the Turks and Serbians as a threat. If they did attack, they'd use Guerilla tactics instead of more traditional warfare. This would put an emphasis on the use of detection technology (both ground and air), securing borders (like with the US Coast Guard), and cutting off potential sources for their weapons (*gasp* How absolutely imperialist!). All of these require military technology and resources that the EU is not keeping around.
My original source was either the Discovery Channel or History Channel. I'm afraid I don't remember which at the moment. However, this link actually claims that the US and Britain had been working on the technology together long before the development of the MIT radlab.
The key thing to remember about WWII, however, is that Roosevelt wanted us in that war. The public considered it primarily a European problem, so aid was almost entirely secret. The Japanese attack on Perl Habor finally gave the President the excuse he needed. "A Day that will Forever Live in Infamy" was an easy sell to the American public.
Why? What's in it for China? They take a rebellious stance towards the US, but I don't see the sense in actually taking that to all-out war.
There's no reason to think that China would attack. As long as defenses stayed strong. However, if China felt it would be able to mount a decisive war that would gain them access to resources that they're lacking...
Now, a cold war, that's something else. We could very well be heading towards a cold war between China and the US, despite the currently reasonably warm trade relationships.
A Cold War is very much a prelude to a real war. Eventually someone is going to get an itchy trigger finger and start a conflict. Cooler heads may prevail (as with the Cuban Missile Crisis), but there's no guarantee when tensions are high.
No, the British took RADAR to the U.S. as a bargaining tool to bring them into the war
Not quite. The British DID invent RADAR, as I said before. And they DID bring the technology to the US. Without it, we wouldn't have had RADAR for a very long time. However, it was NOT a bargaining chip. Britain (including London) was under heavy attack from both the Luftwaffe and the V-1 flying bombs. With their infrastructure crumbling, Britain needed a secure and secret location to develop the technology. The US was the obvious choice, and Britain agreed to share the technology if they could develop it on American shores in concert with American scientists.
True, but I wasn't talking about the human toll, I'm talking about the large area of land that is no longer suitable for people to live on for a hundred years.
You could live in Chernobyl area now. People don't because you'd have a shorter life span (cancer being the primary killer). Keep in mind that some people have a higher tolerance for radiation produced by radioisotopes. Especially those who grow up in a radiation rich environment. Like Norway. (Norway currently has a higher natural background radiation level than Chernobyl does.)
What happens when there are only small parcels of land that ARE suitable for people to live on?
Last I checked, a large portion (majority?) of the US's food came from South America. While South America might be a theater of war for China vs. the US, the nuclear strikes would be on infrastructure in the States or China. Thus we would still have plenty of habitable land to grow things on. Even if we didn't we could resort to hydroponic food production.
That's certainly not how I understood it to be. It was my impression that the secondary effects of nuclear detonation were the really dangerous part, that the explosion, while capable of levelling a city, was not nearly as dangerous in terms of overall damage done.
Consider this for a moment: Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities. Why weren't they rendered uninhabitable? Atom Bombs are far dirtier than Hydrogen bombs.
1) A military buildup of russia would take on the order of decades, it's military is in complete ruins right now.
All of its gear still exists, and Russian males still have to join the military when they reach 18. Give Russia a reason and they could become a major power in short order.
2) Do *not* underestimate Putin. He is highly intelligent and an extremely sharp politician. He is opposed by very very powerful and ruthless oligarks and also often by the equaly powerful and even more ruthless russian mafia. Just managing to stay on top for years in these conditions requires extreme skill.
Ruthless he is. Intelligent he is not. Most of what he does is completely transparent and predictable. And he's very poor at actually getting the public to accept him. Putin's power comes almost entirely from his Mafia (i.e. KGB) connections and not his blinding intelligence. Probably a good thing though. Otherwise we'd have another Napoleon or Hitler on our hands. (Although Napoleon was WAY smarter than Hitler.)
3) What does Sweden have to do with this? It's a very small nation.
It's my favorite example of an EU nation that's disarming because it's politically popular. They've gutted their military so badly that they've apparently invented a word to describe the process! (Sorry, my friend in Sweden didn't tell me what the word was, just that it existed.)
And be so kind to cut the american bullshit, U.S. joined the war in November 1942 when it was already decided..
If you would be so kind, please don't spout bullshit when you're trying to call bullshit. It makes you look foolish. WWII started in September 1939. The US joined the war in December 1941. (You know, the whole "Perl Harbor: The Day that will Forever Live in Infamy" thing?) Germany wasn't defeated until May 1945, and Japan was defeated in September 1945.
Considering that Germany had attacked Russia in June of 1941, it seems unlikely that the war was decided by December. Especially since it dragged on until 1945! Not to mention that the US had been secretly assisting the British in R&D before Japan and Germany declared war on us.
So please, take your American hating bullshit elsewhere. Thank you, have a nice day.
That's complete and utter bollocks. Up until the early 1980:s they were perfectly capable of steamrolling europe. The only thing holding them back was NATO nukes as well as the questionable benefit of attacking in the first place, the world domination plans slowly dying out after Stalin died in 1953.
No, it's quite true. Russia's had a military force, but the only thing holding it up was the desire of the people to reap the rewards of becoming communists party members. Obviously there was some patriotism, but it was far from a deciding factor in anything but defense. There military is not much different than it was previously, except that it is lacking in willing manpower. If Russia were to revert to a military state, it's quite likely that you'd find that they have a rather fearsome military again.
Too bad they have no experience with Guerilla warfare...
Are you suggesting that blowing zillions of taxpayer money on star wars weaponry will help the EU fight a guerilla war then?
No, my point is that the decisions by EU countries to cut back on their militaries means that they will have no resources to fight any war that lands on their doorstep. The US has tremendous experience with Guerilla warfare and at least has semi-effective countermeasures. But the EU pretty much keeps some ground troops, a few super high tech planes and ships, and that's about it. Only the Brits would have a chance in hell of using their standing forces in any effective way against guerillas.
Consider the damage that chernobyl did to the surrounding area.
About 40 deaths from the initial boiler explosion and later fire fighting. A few thousand cases of Thyroid cancer due to radioactive Iodine and iodine deficiencies in the Russian/Ukrainian diet. Nearly all the cases were treatable, but there were a few deaths and shortened life-spans. Obviously, the quality of life for those with Thyroid cancer has gone down some.
Also, keep in mind that to my knowledge, an airburst thermonuclear explosion has never been attempted. Many of our nuclear warheads are 10,000 to 50,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We really don't know how widespread the destruction from these bombs would be.
Doesn't matter. Spreading the material more only weakens its effects. The real damage from a nuclear weapon is its initial explosion and radiation bursts. The remaining radioisotopes are not really significant in themselves.
No, IANA nuclear physicist, but I do have a few friends who are.
What of it? He's talking about a Nuclear Winter, we'd be back in the stone age very quickly.
Oh dear Lord. It's not like the entire population would suddenly "forget" all of its industrial technology. The core component that the Sun provides is energy. Believe it or not, we have a hell of a lot of experience with generating energy and surviving in harsh conditions. Humans are far more likely to revert to the stone age via laziness than from a global disaster.
Slashdot Mirror
BTW, a few links for you:
t -02d.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-blackmarke
http://www.llnl.gov/csts/publications/sutcliffe/
The end result is very few (if any) people would die from the radiological effects. Of course, maybe the public would know better if Nader had done something useful and taken the nuclear challenge.
One - Practical implementations of Stirling Engines are rare. There are reasons for it that I am sure someone can explain. The elegant thermal cycle is well understood.
:-)
Fair enough. But they have been developed by NASA, and have been shown to be an effective way to produce quite a bit of power for not much radioisotope.
Radioisotopes are rather difficult to turn off.
This is the classic problem. You'd have to dissipate the excess energy in something like a heating coil or a mechanical fan. Dissipating about 30-40 watts shouldn't be too difficult, although it might get a smidge warm.
You propose as an option a square piston in the engine...the trouble with this is sealing and wear at the corners. Also, precision boring and turning operations can holder better part to part tolerances.
I've been curious as to whether this was a good design or not. Unfortunately, trying to get any *real* feedback has been worse than pulling teeth. Using a circular bore is certainly not out of the question. I only proposed a sqaure bore to reduce the footprint of the engine.
BTW, thanks for the feedback. I really do appreciate it.
Really, you want to put plutonium, polonium, or other dirty bomb materials in the hands of the general public?
The dangers of these radioisotopes have been highly overrated. You'd do just as much damage by dispersing a lot of the toxic chemicals that are in today's batteries.
SRGs are a wonderful idea for military, for space, and for other heavily regulated and monitored uses (where RTGs are already used), but they're a horrible idea for the mass market.
As I said in my previous post, I'd be ecstatic if the military was the first market to use said batteries. Then they could stop worrying about how to power a soldier's equipment for 3 days, and start worrying about keeping his carry on food supplies large enough to keep up with his equipment.
There are a few valid possibilities for this incident:
1. It was the SR-71 Blackbird
2. It was an early test of the ScramJet before Regan declassified it.
3. They really were testing the Pulse Jet Engined Aurora
One is entirely possible. Two is just as likely, although it certainly has taken NASA a long time to replicate the same test. Three is difficult to imagine. If the US really did have such a craft back in the 80's, why hasn't it yet been declassified? The U-2, SR-71, F-117A, and B-2 projects were all Top Secret, black ops type stuff. And yet all of it was declassified within about a decade of its existence.
Sorry, I just can't believe that the government has been working on a top secret plane for this long, and all we have are a few rumors and photos of exhaust trails. The government just isn't that good at keeping secrets. Especially from a curious public.
Why is this marked as funny? I stated the same thing but with an explanation and diagrams of how it would work. Nuclear batteries (actually radioisotope batteries since there's no actual nuclear fission occurring) are a very real, very useful, and very ignored technology. RTGs are the first generation technology. SRGs (Stirling Radioisotope Generators) are second generation, and promise to be smaller, lighter, and more powerful.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Stirling Radioisotope Generators are the way to go. Even if we're just talking about ruggedized military gear as an initial market, batteries that last for 10-40 years is a HUGE advancement over what the US is using today. And with military gear becoming more and more power hungry, can we afford NOT to look into radio power generation?
I've seen the plane. I've seen it fly. Oh, and I could be wrong but I heard that the Internet might not always be the ultimate source for accurate information. By the way, the plane in question is handy because re-tasking satellites takes time and fuel, and those in charge prefer to only re-task if all other options are exhausted / unavailable.
Alright, I'll bite. What makes it fly then? Pulse Jet Engines? Those wouldn't make it out of the stratosphere. Anti-gravity engines? Nope, they don't actually work. As I responded to another poster, they are really just ion engines that use air as fuel. So what makes it fly? Nuclear Thermal Engines? Compressed LHOx?
The disappearances I speak of involve individuals being arrested in circumstances which tend to "avoid" any witnesses. The next stop for the person who is arrested might be any number of Federal prisons in a "no contact" ( aka solitary ) cell. The prisoner tends to get moved around a LOT, in order to avoid any guards or other prisoners becoming familiar with them.
[sarcasm]Welcome to national security.[/sarcasm] Well, you definitely aren't Black Ops, or this stuff wouldn't freak you out so much. And the government is very selective about who disappears and when. More often than not they'll attempt other tactics before resorting to a decade of imprisonment.
At least you're not trying to claim that "Men in Black" put a bullet in their heads.
I read the space.com article you referred to. Do a google search for "lifters". That's what I think they are.
Not bloody likely. Lifters work by ionizing the air around them, thus producing thrust. The problem comes in at the amount of thrust produced. You'd need Megawatts, possibly even Gigawatts of power to keep a ton or two in the air. Wasting power like that is pretty foolish when a rigid airship could get more lift for essentially zero energy output.
Imagine what you could do if you scaled that up a bit (okay, a lot) and powered it from an on-board nuclear reactor.
A multi-megawatt reactor is HEAVY. There's no chance in hell that someone would build a nuclear powered airship and only use the power to produce the Biefeld-Brown effect. You'd get WAY more thrust by using that same reactor to power nuclear thermal engines.
Wikipedia is very cool, but why do people keep linking to it as if it were athoritative proof of a point?
Because it usually condenses information that people already know. There are multiple sources out there that say the same thing, but why should I track down all of those when I can just point you to Wikipedia and let you use it as a starting point for your own research.
I could change the whole page to say "mostly harmless", "/\/\$ suxors" or "dude you're wrong!" because it's a publicly editable Wiki.
And it would get changed back a few moments after you hit the submit button. The editors are very careful to keep an eye on things and usually double check people's sources. If anything is questionable, they remove it or insert warnings about it.
although admittedly there are some external links at the bottom that may or may not lead to more athoritative sources.
These are often the sources that the editors pulled from.
There are several bases from which the Aurora is flown, for example.
I've been all over the Internet looking for information on the Aurora. The consensus at this point is that it doesn't exist. Or if it *did* exist, it was canceled and doesn't exist any more.
OTOH, there's evidence to suggest that the US has a secret stealth blimp for heavy lifting of various military cargos. The evidence tends to suggest that the blimp is what most of the delta wing sightings are, and that stories of "it zipping off in seconds" are fabricated information plants intended to confuse the public.
But it's not smart to play with these people. You could disappear and no one would ever see you again, alive or dead. Trust me, I know what I am speaking of.
Men in black helicopters and all of that? A "smoking man" maybe? Come on. The military is staffed by human beings. They might have some difficulty in deciding what to do with you, but they hardly make people "disappear". I'd be willing to bet that many of the super-curious have ended up being drafted as CIA or military intelligence agents.
Do NOT fuck with these people, if you care about your future.
Sage advice no matter *who* you're talking about. If you do something that pisses off someone powerful, they can derail your future in a hurry. Don't screw around unless you're willing to accept the consequences.
Area 51 is quite real. In fact, it's been declassified that many of our advanced fighter (e.g. SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Stealth Figher, U-2 Spy Plane, etc.) planes were developed there. More info on Wikipedia. Sorry, the government hasn't admitted to keeping little green men there.
the EU contains several members whose militaries are quite sufficient to kick the arse of any invader on home turf, including the US, by the way.
Ok, name an EU country capable of taking on the US. As far as I'm aware, we significantly outclass the entire European Union in naval tonnage, number of ground troops, number of tanks, and number of fighter planes. Some of the EU countries do have weapons that are slightly more sophisticated, but not to the degree of overcoming the US advantage.
Not to mention the fact that the UK and France are nuclear powers.
Which means? Having atomic bombs is one thing. Having Hydrogen and Neuton warheads is another. The US has the capability of wiping out any EU country with a relatively small number of bombs.
Of the 25 member states of the EU, only the UK is truly prepared to meet a serious military threat. And even then, they would be signficantly outclassed by even Russia's existing forces. Now if the entire EU got together and built a combined and strategically organized military, they might be a serious force to be reckoned with.
FWIW, Britain may keep a relatively small force, but they keep a well trained force that can at least operate and hold their own in a wide variety of tactical situations. I'm unaware of any other EU state that can make that same claim. And France's only Nuclear carrier is a far cry from the USS Enterprise, our first Nuclear carrier from the 50's.
Ack! Kids hit the submit button. I was trying to say, "That particular point was something I gleened from a very well done special on RADAR development. The rest of what I know of WWII was from hard research and a wide variety of print and media sources."
So let me get this straight... you are arguing from a position of: "Having watched the Discovery Channel, I think that..."
Hardly. That particular point was something I gleened from a very well done special on RADAR development.
There's also evidence to suggest that he kidnapped and drugged his nearest competitor. Trust me, the latest elections are very reminicient of the Communist "elections".
That's a question of motivation. Of course any soldier, conscript or professional, fights harder when he's defending his homeland than when he's on some empire building mission.
;-)
;-)
It's not simply motivation. The war machine doesn't function if the people who are responsible don't run it. Right now the soldiers are drafted, but they often aren't payed and there's no reason for them to do much more than swab the decks and drink Vodka. Same with the scientists and engineers. Why should they develop weapons to destroy things? Russia doesn't really have much to offer them.
The previous choice for the people was to support the "glorious communist party" or live a poor life packed in a one room apartment with three other families. I should know. My wife is originally from Moscow.
This being the third time, perhaps we'd remember to bring winter clothing this time, though.
No kidding. It just doesn't seem to get through people's heads that Russia can get COLD.
Yes it is different. They have downsized a lot, and still a large part of their "active" arsenal is nothing but scrap metal. The few things that work are still 1970 level technology.
I hate to break it to you, but a lot of the US stuff is also 1970's technology. F-14 Tomcats, Nuclear Carriers, Missile Subs, Abrams tanks, etc. are all old tech. The primary thing that has changed is the introduction of advanced computer control, GPS tracking, and massive sensor packages. Thus the US and EU would be far more effective in tracking and targeting, but Russia still has plenty of raw firepower. Not to mention that Russia has enough educated people to develop (*cough*copy*cough*) the computer technology and retrofit it into the old hardware.
Not with their current economy. Spending 30% of GDP on the military is not a usable long term scenario, as it will crash the economy.
This is true, and I hope it will keep Russia from getting any bright ideas. However, I would like to point to Napoleon and Hitler as examples of military masterminds who took advantage of a poor economic situation to impose a military state. Hitler was even named Time Magazine "Man of the Year" for having completely turned around the German economy!
No. There is no effective military countermeasure against guerilla warfare.
As I said, there are semi-effective measures. Remember, you're the one who mentioned the Turks and Serbians as a threat. If they did attack, they'd use Guerilla tactics instead of more traditional warfare. This would put an emphasis on the use of detection technology (both ground and air), securing borders (like with the US Coast Guard), and cutting off potential sources for their weapons (*gasp* How absolutely imperialist!). All of these require military technology and resources that the EU is not keeping around.
My original source was either the Discovery Channel or History Channel. I'm afraid I don't remember which at the moment. However, this link actually claims that the US and Britain had been working on the technology together long before the development of the MIT radlab.
The key thing to remember about WWII, however, is that Roosevelt wanted us in that war. The public considered it primarily a European problem, so aid was almost entirely secret. The Japanese attack on Perl Habor finally gave the President the excuse he needed. "A Day that will Forever Live in Infamy" was an easy sell to the American public.
Why? What's in it for China? They take a rebellious stance towards the US, but I don't see the sense in actually taking that to all-out war.
There's no reason to think that China would attack. As long as defenses stayed strong. However, if China felt it would be able to mount a decisive war that would gain them access to resources that they're lacking...
Now, a cold war, that's something else. We could very well be heading towards a cold war between China and the US, despite the currently reasonably warm trade relationships.
A Cold War is very much a prelude to a real war. Eventually someone is going to get an itchy trigger finger and start a conflict. Cooler heads may prevail (as with the Cuban Missile Crisis), but there's no guarantee when tensions are high.
No, the British took RADAR to the U.S. as a bargaining tool to bring them into the war
Not quite. The British DID invent RADAR, as I said before. And they DID bring the technology to the US. Without it, we wouldn't have had RADAR for a very long time. However, it was NOT a bargaining chip. Britain (including London) was under heavy attack from both the Luftwaffe and the V-1 flying bombs. With their infrastructure crumbling, Britain needed a secure and secret location to develop the technology. The US was the obvious choice, and Britain agreed to share the technology if they could develop it on American shores in concert with American scientists.
True, but I wasn't talking about the human toll, I'm talking about the large area of land that is no longer suitable for people to live on for a hundred years.
You could live in Chernobyl area now. People don't because you'd have a shorter life span (cancer being the primary killer). Keep in mind that some people have a higher tolerance for radiation produced by radioisotopes. Especially those who grow up in a radiation rich environment. Like Norway. (Norway currently has a higher natural background radiation level than Chernobyl does.)
What happens when there are only small parcels of land that ARE suitable for people to live on?
Last I checked, a large portion (majority?) of the US's food came from South America. While South America might be a theater of war for China vs. the US, the nuclear strikes would be on infrastructure in the States or China. Thus we would still have plenty of habitable land to grow things on. Even if we didn't we could resort to hydroponic food production.
That's certainly not how I understood it to be. It was my impression that the secondary effects of nuclear detonation were the really dangerous part, that the explosion, while capable of levelling a city, was not nearly as dangerous in terms of overall damage done.
Consider this for a moment: Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities. Why weren't they rendered uninhabitable? Atom Bombs are far dirtier than Hydrogen bombs.
1) A military buildup of russia would take on the order of decades, it's military is in complete ruins right now.
All of its gear still exists, and Russian males still have to join the military when they reach 18. Give Russia a reason and they could become a major power in short order.
2) Do *not* underestimate Putin. He is highly intelligent and an extremely sharp politician. He is opposed by very very powerful and ruthless oligarks and also often by the equaly powerful and even more ruthless russian mafia. Just managing to stay on top for years in these conditions requires extreme skill.
Ruthless he is. Intelligent he is not. Most of what he does is completely transparent and predictable. And he's very poor at actually getting the public to accept him. Putin's power comes almost entirely from his Mafia (i.e. KGB) connections and not his blinding intelligence. Probably a good thing though. Otherwise we'd have another Napoleon or Hitler on our hands. (Although Napoleon was WAY smarter than Hitler.)
3) What does Sweden have to do with this? It's a very small nation.
It's my favorite example of an EU nation that's disarming because it's politically popular. They've gutted their military so badly that they've apparently invented a word to describe the process! (Sorry, my friend in Sweden didn't tell me what the word was, just that it existed.)
Napoleon, Hitler? Who stopped them?
Russian winters, not Russian troops.
And be so kind to cut the american bullshit, U.S. joined the war in November 1942 when it was already decided..
If you would be so kind, please don't spout bullshit when you're trying to call bullshit. It makes you look foolish. WWII started in September 1939. The US joined the war in December 1941. (You know, the whole "Perl Harbor: The Day that will Forever Live in Infamy" thing?) Germany wasn't defeated until May 1945, and Japan was defeated in September 1945.
Considering that Germany had attacked Russia in June of 1941, it seems unlikely that the war was decided by December. Especially since it dragged on until 1945! Not to mention that the US had been secretly assisting the British in R&D before Japan and Germany declared war on us.
So please, take your American hating bullshit elsewhere. Thank you, have a nice day.
That's complete and utter bollocks. Up until the early 1980:s they were perfectly capable of steamrolling europe. The only thing holding them back was NATO nukes as well as the questionable benefit of attacking in the first place, the world domination plans slowly dying out after Stalin died in 1953.
No, it's quite true. Russia's had a military force, but the only thing holding it up was the desire of the people to reap the rewards of becoming communists party members. Obviously there was some patriotism, but it was far from a deciding factor in anything but defense. There military is not much different than it was previously, except that it is lacking in willing manpower. If Russia were to revert to a military state, it's quite likely that you'd find that they have a rather fearsome military again.
Too bad they have no experience with Guerilla warfare...
Are you suggesting that blowing zillions of taxpayer money on star wars weaponry will help the EU fight a guerilla war then?
No, my point is that the decisions by EU countries to cut back on their militaries means that they will have no resources to fight any war that lands on their doorstep. The US has tremendous experience with Guerilla warfare and at least has semi-effective countermeasures. But the EU pretty much keeps some ground troops, a few super high tech planes and ships, and that's about it. Only the Brits would have a chance in hell of using their standing forces in any effective way against guerillas.
Consider the damage that chernobyl did to the surrounding area.
About 40 deaths from the initial boiler explosion and later fire fighting. A few thousand cases of Thyroid cancer due to radioactive Iodine and iodine deficiencies in the Russian/Ukrainian diet. Nearly all the cases were treatable, but there were a few deaths and shortened life-spans. Obviously, the quality of life for those with Thyroid cancer has gone down some.
Also, keep in mind that to my knowledge, an airburst thermonuclear explosion has never been attempted. Many of our nuclear warheads are 10,000 to 50,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We really don't know how widespread the destruction from these bombs would be.
Doesn't matter. Spreading the material more only weakens its effects. The real damage from a nuclear weapon is its initial explosion and radiation bursts. The remaining radioisotopes are not really significant in themselves.
No, IANA nuclear physicist, but I do have a few friends who are.
What of it? He's talking about a Nuclear Winter, we'd be back in the stone age very quickly.
Oh dear Lord. It's not like the entire population would suddenly "forget" all of its industrial technology. The core component that the Sun provides is energy. Believe it or not, we have a hell of a lot of experience with generating energy and surviving in harsh conditions. Humans are far more likely to revert to the stone age via laziness than from a global disaster.