August 7, 2002

12:37 PM

"The old doctrine was that nuclear weapons were far too big and nasty to use, and now they've moved towards developing nuclear weapons they can actually use". On the aniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, does the development of 'low-yield nukes' threaten to blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear warfare.
posted by gravelshoes (29 comments total)

If they were in fact low-yield, and the radiation effect was minimal, why not? The big bugaboo about using nukes has always been that they gave off assloads of radiation, with lots of staying power, so you weren't just bombing something, you were rendering the entire area uninhabitable for decades, maybe centuries plus giving everyone within 100 miles downwind thyroid cancer. PLUS when all the nukes you have are ICBMs, setting one off starts a chain of events that could land the entire planet hot, airless and full of corpses, which is no one's idea of victory.

But... if you had a small nuclear bomb that wasn't dirty and that wouldn't provoke reciprocal MUD reactions from the various other nuclear powers... well, then it's just another kind of bomb, isn't it? No different than, say, the fuel-oil aerosol daisy cutters used in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Realistically, this is a clean backpack nuke they're talking about. Prior to '89, setting one off would provoke nuclear response from the USSR. But today...? I would certainly want the commanders in the field to have absolutely no other solution, but if that was the case I don't see that using a clean baby tactical nuke for a job that specifically required it would be out of the question.

This, obviously, does not mean I advocate using them for tree removal. The right tool for the right job, and the jobs requiring such firepower would be rare indeed. But otherwise - so long as the radiation effect was ameliorated - I'd say use them.
posted by UncleFes at 12:54 PM on August 7, 2002

that's "reciprocal MAD reactions." Gah, sorry.
posted by UncleFes at 12:55 PM on August 7, 2002

The big bugaboo about using nukes has always been that they gave off assloads of radiation, with lots of staying power, so you weren't just bombing something, you were rendering the entire area uninhabitable for decades, maybe centuries plus giving everyone within 100 miles downwind thyroid cancer.

After the Hiroshima bombing it was safe to return to the blast zone (ok, with some precautions) within the week and that was a VERY dirty (ie. inefficient) bomb by todays standards
posted by cmdnc0 at 1:05 PM on August 7, 2002

The sad truth is that it's probably a tossup who uses low-yield nukes first: the US, somewhere else, or somebody else, in the US. And no, I don't think that if we refuse to consider it, our enemies will, too. But I certainly doubt that in the present circumstances we would kill 20,000 Iraqis to get to Saddam Hussein.
posted by coelecanth at 1:05 PM on August 7, 2002

I've never really understood the mystical fear and dread people have about nuclear weapons. It's are really just a very efficient bomb. Until now they were pretty much useless in a field combat situation because their use -- even for low-yield tactical weapons -- was a political situation, and by the time authorization was granted to use them, the tactical situation would probably have changed.

I guess it's because people envision the 50 megaton "city buster" bombs rather than the 10 or 15kt "tactical" weapons. An FAE (Fuel Air Explosive, or thermobaric explosive) is just as devastating as a low-yield nuke, and we've used those weapons dozens of times since the late 1960's.
posted by mrmanley at 1:08 PM on August 7, 2002

if you had a small nuclear bomb that wasn't dirty and that wouldn't provoke reciprocal MUD reactions from the various other nuclear powers... well, then it's just another kind of bomb, isn't it?

I agree with you, but I wonder how much the stigma surrounding nuclear weapons -- even low-yield "clean" nukes -- would hinder their effectiveness as practical conventional weapons.

I imagine the use of low-yield nuclear weapons would cause the same intense political backlash that the use of genetically modified crops causes. Even if scientists could produce irrefutable evidence that no harm was caused by producing and eating genetically modified crops, many people would still be very uneasy with it.

Same holds true with nuclear weapons. No matter how much science reduces the traditional horrors of these weapons, the key word here is "nuclear," and that's what people are going to focus on.
posted by TBoneMcCool at 1:11 PM on August 7, 2002

I think the advantage would be that the tremendous heat could destroy WMDs deep under....Bagdad; wouldn't that be the advantage over conventional explosives?
posted by ParisParamus at 1:11 PM on August 7, 2002

within the week and that was a VERY dirty

Benefits of an airburst. But still they have elevated cancer rates even today, don't they?

A dirty nuke employed at ground level would irradiate the local geography, was my thinks. I could be wrong though.
posted by UncleFes at 1:14 PM on August 7, 2002

So, where is the line between the tactical low-yield nukes that you are all so fond of and the bad-boy high-yield nukes that we should never use? Does it depend on how far underground the enemies of America have dug themselves?
posted by Fabulon7 at 1:16 PM on August 7, 2002

Keep in mind that in Iraq today, people are still complaining about the NON-radioactive depleted uranium tank shells we used in 1991. I mean, you can't make a nuclear weapon clean enough to allay people's fears about radiation.
posted by coelecanth at 1:18 PM on August 7, 2002

F7: It depends on the job at hand. For bunker hunting, best just to nail the cave-opening and seal the door. But I think the limit of "low-yield" hovers at around 100kt.
posted by UncleFes at 1:19 PM on August 7, 2002

As an aside to all this talk of low-yield nukes, I'm reminded of PBS's blast mapper, which has been mentioned and discussed on MeFi on more than one occasion. The PBS site charts the effects of the old-fashioned high-yield nukes on any map location of your choice.
posted by TBoneMcCool at 1:28 PM on August 7, 2002

Surely the point is that there is no "line" between low- and high-yield nukes, and therefore noplace to stop once nukes start being used. I use a dinky little 1KT bomb, you respond with a 5KT, I see you and raise you, and before you know it we're up to the city-busters. I'm often suspicious of slippery-slope arguments, but here I think it's justified: we really don't want more Hiroshimas.
posted by languagehat at 1:37 PM on August 7, 2002

For those that called me a paranoid freak when I alluded to this on the Democrats on the Rise post: hah!

One of my biggest fears about these low-yield nukes is that they are "gateway" nukes. See the DEA's argument for shooting pot-smokin' hippies. (If they can use it, why can't I?)

Also, CANCER. Cancer is on the rise. Most studies try to take a single factor, such as hormones in beef and milk, and find a causal relationship. While those studies have yielded some definitive correlations, I believe it's the wide variety of carcinogens building up in our environment that can, and should, be collectively blamed.

So basically, if we already have to worry about the air we breath, the water we drink, the produce we eat, even the fucking UV rays streaming down through our damaged ozone layer, why, WHY do we have to actively add one more source of cancer?
posted by zekinskia at 1:39 PM on August 7, 2002

In regards to the radiation effect being minimal - from the article:

Such an assertion contradicts scientific studies about the short- and long-term consequences of radiation resulting from a nuclear blast - even from a low-yield weapon striking a deep-underground bunker. According to William Peden, a Greenpeace expert, even a small nuclear weapon would kill thousands, and thousands more would suffer from burns, radiation sickness, blindness and other injuries leading to genetic deformities - as happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A weapon of five kilotons or even one kiloton - the Hiroshima bomb, regarded today as tiny, was 15 kilotons - would be extremely dangerous, precisely because the military would regard it as "usable", Peden says.
posted by mooseindian at 1:47 PM on August 7, 2002

"if we already have to worry about the air we breath, the water we drink, the produce we eat, even the fucking UV rays streaming down through our damaged ozone layer, why, WHY do we have to actively add one more source of cancer?"

Alternatively, if you're already that worried about everything, what's one more?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:50 PM on August 7, 2002

100 kilotons is hardly low-yield. After all, small towns in Western Germany are usually about ten kilotons apart.

In my opinion, general-purpose tactical nuclear weapons have outlived their usefulness, at least for the US. Their big advantage was that they would allow NATO to repel an invasion of Europe by a superior conventional Warsaw Pact force; these days the US has the vastly superior conventional forces.

The bunker-busting stuff seems more reasonable to me, but even now we're working on conventional weapons for that purpose as well.
posted by jaek at 1:56 PM on August 7, 2002

...we really don't want more Hiroshimas.

Look, if someone wants to level a city to nothing but smoke and ash, what's the difference if they do it with one big bomb or a full week of shelling? I guess in the latter, the people might have a chance to flee... I suppose that's a better option.
posted by Witty at 1:59 PM on August 7, 2002

jaek: small towns in Western Germany are usually about ten kilotons apart

am i missing something here? I thought kilotons just refered to the equivalent weight of tnt required to mimic a given blast?
posted by pots at 2:02 PM on August 7, 2002

languagehat: yes, I think this is exactly the point. The development of nuclear weapons of below 5 kilotons (I think) was prohibited by treaty during the cold war for precisely this reason. This agreement now seems to have gone out the window along with much of the cold war deterent argument.

combined with the recent changes in nuclear postures (designed in part to accomodate the possible use of such 'mini nukes') I am not optimistic on this nuclear anniversary.

a nuclear weapon can never be 'clean', and as a result, it cannot be 'precise' either.
posted by gravelshoes at 2:06 PM on August 7, 2002

This site may ruin your hard-on for low-yield nukes. The days of the Davy Crockett are long gone.
posted by euphorb at 2:08 PM on August 7, 2002

Pity that the enormous sums spent on the research and development to create these nightmare devices wasn't instead spent on feeding and educating people.

'Course, who can make an honest buck off doing the "right thing?" And what oh what ever would remain to entertain our "Military Disneyland" friends, who think these U.$. military toys are just big props for an action-adventure flick?
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:18 PM on August 7, 2002

According to William Peden, a Greenpeace expert

I want a new expert.
posted by insomnyuk at 2:19 PM on August 7, 2002

Should we pass out TLDs to the populace we bomb then?
posted by Lord Chancellor at 2:26 PM on August 7, 2002

What if a form of MAD still exists? If the major nuclear powers got together and reached the following consensus: "We will not use nukes unless attacked. However, the use of nukes is so destructive and threatening, if *anyone* uses so much as a single nuclear bomb aggressively against their hated neighbor, any one of us may be inclined to completely, utterly and absolutely wipe out every single living person in the aggressor nation."
Say, for example, India and Pakistan were going to get into it, so we send Richard Armitage to both with this ultimatum. "If either side uses a nuke, the user will be utterly destroyed. Maybe we will even use neutron bombs so that we can give your "hated enemy" all of your possessions after you are dead. You don't just lose, you lose it all."

Of course, I'm just talking hypothetically.
posted by kablam at 4:10 PM on August 7, 2002

The most brilliant facet of this will be what it brings in the future. It seems we're really great at building weapons that get adopted by our enemies (not necessary the ones we built them to destroy in the first place). Now we'll figure out a way to destroy any underground bunkers, like the one that our fearless leader ran to in Nebraska on 9/11.

Al-Qaeda have learned how to use our stinger anti-aircraft missile launchers with great effectiveness. I suppose we're a long way from having an enemy who could launch bomber runs into our territory, right?

Keep pushing the envelope.
posted by Busithoth at 4:23 PM on August 7, 2002

Neat idea, kablam, but I fear someone would try to call the bluff, and someone might balk at obliterating all the innocent civilians in the "aggressor" nation, who after all are just pawns of the thugs in power, eh?

Pity that the enormous sums spent on the research and development to create these nightmare devices wasn't instead spent on feeding and educating people.

There's the rub. The trouble is that when all this got started, we were worried about our very survival (if the Nazis or Japanese got nukes first, we were gonna be toast).

In such circumstances, food and education are luxuries that are not affordable to people who (believe they) are fighting for their very survival.
posted by beth at 4:24 PM on August 7, 2002

But Beth, what if it's not a bluff?
The US, Russia, China, France and Britain would not use nuclear weapons with any concern at all for the conflict at hand (i.e. India v. Pakistan), but for the greater concept of stopping the idea that there "can be a limited nuclear war."

What I mentioned about using a neutron weapon is what could be called a "saving grace." The people and animals will be utterly wiped out, but the buildings and artifacts will remain, so that mankind will not not be diminished by the loss of what made a people great, just the people themselves.

Or, as the saying goes, "every 100 years, all new people."

But art is forever.
posted by kablam at 8:07 AM on August 8, 2002

Ah, so our nation is adopting the Nelson Doctrine; "Gotta nuke somethin'"...
posted by GriffX at 11:34 AM on August 8, 2002