New US-Russia Arms Treaty

[mookydooky]

Some good news for once. The US and Russia have agreed to cut down the nuclear arsenal to about 1700-2200, down from the 6000 allowed by START I. Here's a link.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/751179.asp?pne=msn

[dimmreaper]

I reckon that's a good thing, not much since in wasting money maintianing arms that will never be used . . .

[Lionfish]

Originally posted by dimmreaper
I reckon that's a good thing, not much since in wasting money maintianing arms that will never be used . . .

Has "NEVER" ever come back to bite you in the arss

[Random Nonsense]

Im surprised! i wouldnt think the russians have much faith in america for keeping agreements what with the star wars thing! ah well, 2000 nuclear weapons could still make things nice and toasty!

[Hamzter]

Yeh, what the heck were they planning on doing with 6000 nuclear weapons? To be honest, cutting down from 6000 to 2000 of em doesn't make a darn bit of difference, they can still kill every single person on the planet with that lot. The real breakthroughs will be when they start to destroy enough so that nobody can wipe out entire countries at once.

[Random Nonsense]

Originally posted by Hamzter
Yeh, what the heck were they planning on doing with 6000 nuclear weapons? To be honest, cutting down from 6000 to 2000 of em doesn't make a darn bit of difference, they can still kill every single person on the planet with that lot. The real breakthroughs will be when they start to destroy enough so that nobody can wipe out entire countries at once.

thats when it gets dangerous. not quite such a bad thing then, u can nuke someone, and they cant wipe u out, so go for it...

now that there are nukes, there will probably always be enough to insure MAD is the result of launching! the USA is the only country to use atomic weapons in a war, and that was only because they could... when MAD is gone, people will be prepared to use the things again, and i think having a stockpile that will never be used is better than having a few that may be used.

[Hamzter]

Yeh, couple of good points there. There will be some government that will try to be sneaky and keep a 'few' of them, and take the other countries by suprise by firing them all. Each government will probably have had the same idea infact, and so everyone ends up dead anyway when everyone fires theres.

I suppose that until there are security sytems that can disarm missiles in flight, there'll be nukes.

[mookydooky]

There is no way 4000 nukes can kill everyone on the planet. 4000 nukes won't kill everyone in the USA, let alone the world. Nukes are not as powerful as people think, and the world is a much bigger place than people think. A 1 megaton nuke (an average nuke) will kill pretty much everyone within 12 square miles. There will be varying amounts of injury and death beyond the 2 mile radius from ground 0. The following link will explain it.

http://pbs.vicinity.com/pbs/blast.hm...=U.S.&x=6&y=15

Even assuming that a 1 megaton nuke will kill everyone within a 150 square mile area (which it won't), you would need 266 nukes just to kill everyone in the State of New York, and you still have 49 states to go. Of course after the 266 nukes hit, New York would probably glow in the dark for the next million or so years, but I would think they would put up an "Off Limits" sign somewhere.

Anyway, I hate nukes as much as the next guy. I'm afraid though, the MAD scenario has been over for a long time now. In the event of a nuclear war, there WILL be a winner. Humanity loses out big time, but someone will be around to raise a flag.

[mrpcman]

Originally posted by mookydooky
There is no way 4000 nukes can kill everyone on the planet. 4000 nukes won't kill everyone in the USA, let alone the world. Nukes are not as powerful as people think, and the world is a much bigger place than people think. A 1 megaton nuke (an average nuke) will kill pretty much everyone within 12 square miles. There will be varying amounts of injury and death beyond the 2 mile radius from ground 0. The following link will explain it.

http://pbs.vicinity.com/pbs/blast.hm...=U.S.&x=6&y=15

Even assuming that a 1 megaton nuke will kill everyone within a 150 square mile area (which it won't), you would need 266 nukes just to kill everyone in the State of New York, and you still have 49 states to go. Of course after the 266 nukes hit, New York would probably glow in the dark for the next million or so years, but I would think they would put up an "Off Limits" sign somewhere.

Anyway, I hate nukes as much as the next guy. I'm afraid though, the MAD scenario has been over for a long time now. In the event of a nuclear war, there WILL be a winner. Humanity loses out big time, but someone will be around to raise a flag.

I'm far from an expert on this, but wouldn't the radiation from those nukes kill us all slowly within a much larger radious?

[mookydooky]

Originally posted by mrpcman



I'm far from an expert on this, but wouldn't the radiation from those nukes kill us all slowly within a much larger radious?

To which radiation are you referring to? The radiation from the initial blast will be over in milliseconds and dissipate beyond 7 miles to near nothing.

Radiation from fallout is a little more complicated. It depends on weather. Casualties from radioactive fallout could be very high if people don't get out of the way, or don't have enough time to get out of the way. You would think though, after a nuke goes off, people would kind of move upwind to avoid the fallout.

People would be affected to varying levels from fallout radiation. Assuming a 15MPH wind, those about 100 miles or less downwind would be pretty much die if they don't get out of the way. People beyond that would probably suffer from early incidences of cancer or immune disease. There are hotspots of cancer all over southwest USA from nuclear testing. Incidences of thyroid cancer are something like 100 times the norm near Chernobyl.

This however, is not the same as killing everyone one the planet. People die earlier, but people died earlier in the 19th century too. The hope is that people will get to reproduce before they die.