IP NOTES 11/29

#24 Nuclear (I): Science and Technology

I Destructiveness
lots of boomy.
during cold war, ~50,000 nuclear weapons built and armed
now, only ~6000 still at launch-ready status
lots and lots and lots of overkill
~150-200 bombs detonated in american cities yields ~180-200 million deaths in a week

II Effects (3)
1) killing
-heat and blast kills lots of people, melts everything

2) climate change
-nuclear winter, wooooo

3) radiation
-makes blast zones completely uninhabitable
-causes cancer, birth defects in survivors

III Science and Technology
Fission and Fusion
fission-> shit comes apart
fusion-> shit goes together

Uranium and Plutonium, Enrichment and Reprocessing
why the fuck is he talking about this shit
U235 is fissionable, but 99.7% of naturally occurring U is U238, so you have to enrich U238 into U235
Pu239 is the fissionable one, you have to enrich it as well

Reactors: Converters and Breeders
civil reactors- ~440 of them in the world
~6% enrichment of uranium is the result of using the reactors, also plutonium is created
Breeder reactor- produces more Plutonium than the Uranium it burns

IV Delivery Vehicles: Bombers + Ballistic Missiles
we developed intercontinental missiles shortly after WWII (middle of US to anywhere in Russia)
Ballistic Missiles also invented- you can blow the fuck out of anything, anywhere in the world, in <30 min
with Nuclear Weapons, the volume of violence has essentially reached the absolute
with ballistic missiles, the velocity of violence is essentially instantaneous

also, the accuracy revolution has happened, cause you need to hit silos DEAD ON to destroy them
-now, we can hit targets within the area of a football field
-boom. accurate boom.
-this makes preemptive war extremely attractive
the answer to this? the nuclear submarine
-essentially, a mobile nuke platform
-this is basically a secure second strike capacity

V Satellites
US develops reconnaissance and surveillance satellites
-this is extremely important, because the inside of the USSR is massive and its closed, so there's no real information from inside
now, recon satellites are good enough to see license plates on cars
this starts a 'transparency revolution'
-also has huge stability rising effects
-now, we can trust arms reduction things because we have visual verification

VI Computers, C3I, Pals
now, we've developed 'decapitation strikes'
-this is why we had a fully equipped command center in the air at all times, during the cold war

PALS- permission action link system
-basically, you need this huge 16 digit code to detonate a nuke
-separates the possession and ability to deploy nukes
-soviets really didnt have this. this leads to problems

VII Strategic Defense
can we shoot down nukes before they hit us?
jeez thats hard.
deterrence wasn't really enough for some people as a defense mechanism, they wanted an ACTUAL defense mechanism
problem why? because there are diminishing returns to scale on nukes. problem arises because if even ONE gets through, there's HUGE destruction
-after about 200 nukes, you've got basically total annihilation
-when you've got 15,000 launched at you, you're fucked no matter what.

VIII Proliferation
Pattern
started with US and USSR, UK and France felt threatened by USSR, so US helps them get nukes, and china gets threatened by USSR as well, so china gets them too
later, india and pakistan got them together (cause they hate each other with a passion), then israel, s. africa
Nuclear Overhang
well, if tiny countries like israel can get nukes, why doesnt everybody else? there's this huge gap between the potential nuclear states and the actual nuke states
Explanation