(no subject)

[sophiaserpentia]

This is probably old news to some of you.

"WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to lift a ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons in the United States.

"A provision repealing the 10-year-old ban was included in the 2004 national defense authorization bill, which the Senate committee passed Friday."

from US Senate committee agrees to lift ban on development of small-scale nukes

Comments

[arcanum-dogma.livejournal.com]

does this mean that the EU can come in and kill a bunch of civvies while looking for illicit nuke testing sites?

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Well, that seems to be the accepted international protocol now for removing a nation's weapons of mass destruction. So, maybe.

missing something perhaps but

[seraphimsigrist.livejournal.com]

maybe Im missing something but, well and
taking the intention of the post to be reflexively
critical, which also can be wrong, but are
not small nuclear weapons a good idea in some
ways compared to large ones?
it would certainly be a specific sort of situation
where a conventional weapon would not work and
a large nuclear weapon not needed, but I should
think that of situations where conventional weapons
were not sufficient there could easily be one where
a weapon producing little radioactivity and limited
destruction could be enough and would it not be nice
to have that option?
of course then there comes the question of wisdom in
use...and yet just on one hand of what could be
a judgement in another way...every weapon from the
bow and arrow on requires that...
this not at all as arguing about it but because
it seems an interesting question in some way.
about which also probably I am ill qualified to have
an opinion, but who is?
+Seraphim.

Re: missing something perhaps but

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I can see your point -- I suppose if I had to choose between having the US military using a large nuke vs. using a small nuke, a small nuke would be better. But to my mind the idea of "acceptable nuclear weapons" is a step in the wrong direction. I'd just as soon see my leaders invest more energy in peaceful means of achieving their goals than convincing themselves they have the right to achieve goals by filling the rest of the world with terror.

phew! The cold war's back! i missed it so.

[canonfire.livejournal.com]

"We'll meet again.
Don't know where. Don't know when.
But I know we'll get together some sunny day."

Re: missing something perhaps but

[donwulff.livejournal.com]

The traditional doctrine says that WMD's, and nuclear weapons in specific, act as a deterrent threat. They're never intended to be used, that would be unthinkable (Except for USA in Nagasaki & Hiroshima, I guess, but I digress;). The development of smaller nuclear bombs is a clear detraction from this policy. Saying that developing smaller nuclear bombs is okay because then you have option to not use the big ones is akin to saying that letting killers run free is okay because it might prevent serial killings. (Hmm, lost train of that comparision...) You might argue that the smaller nuclear bombs are still intended as a deterrent - after all, conventional bombing runs have killed more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the MOAB creates nearly similiar explosion effect as the smallest nukes, and most importantly conventional bombs don't create fallout and contaminated areas to worry about. But even if you argue that the current adminstration with their adjusted nuclear first strike doctrine doesn't intend to use them, the threshold for their use has certainly been lowered for all future adminstrations/contingencies.