I was thinking of a different substance, actually, but I didn't mention it because I did not feel like getting the kind of snotty replies that its mention inevitably evokes from the legions of armchair Einsteins who love to demonstrate the scope of their knowledge (and generally succeed). Sorry about that, I've a hard time resisting the urge to damn with faint praise when it avails itself.
Anyway, I realize that scads of Internet "experts" insist that there's less than nothing to it, but frankly -- and, call me what you will -- I find that I have more confidence in someone like Sam Cohen, "father of the neutron bomb", who most definitely does take this stuff seriously.
So, in short, no, I don't think that the issues with tritium are necessarily a show-stopper.
[skipping over a bunch of "conventional wisdom"]
Al-Qaeda would have to obtain a lot of tritium--much more than the weapon itself requires (because tritium exfiltrates through almost any container wall--it's hydrogen, after all
Sorry, I just don't buy that. I don't buy it, because I can buy it -- for maybe fifty bucks or so, for a set of Trijicon pistol sights. Seems like plain ol' glass will contain it for years.
Oops!
--and because some would decay to helium during a covert transit. They would need to be able to separate out any helium that accumulated during transit. They would have to have operatives in place who could service the weapon (i.e., place the tritium in the "zipper" and replace the tritium gas reservoir--and those aren't exactly the sorts of skills that are readily available out there).
You will pardon me for mentioning that this sounds like a pile of ridiculous tripe. You make it sound like a nuclear weapon is something as volatile as an ounce of dry ice, which must be used before you blink and it's gone.
There is plenty of time for an al-q POS to take a bit of Tritium -- properly contained and sealed by his friendly rogue ex-sov scumbag -- and then transport it through our sieve-like "border" to his waiting compadres.
There's a time and a place for "whistling past the graveyard", but... OK, sorry, I lied. There isn't a time or a place for it -- thus, this isn't the time or the place for it. So please don't insult our collective intelligence by painting a rube-goldberg picture of a situation so bloody impractical that it'd be a stretch to even consider our military being able to deal with such funky materials. I mean, a nuclear missile sub, spending months at sea -- and yet, having to return home to make a "run for the border" to load up on another five minutes worth of Tritium? LMAO! Puh-LEEZE! Go peddle that crap somewhere else, OK? No offense, nothing personal, but LOL! (When I read such desperate script-reading, I have to wonder if I've engaged one of those folks who "posts for a living", or, if it's merely someone on a personal quest, fixated on imposing his wishes for how he'd like it to be, by pushing his stuff on the forum via use of the typewritten counterpart to the "command voice." LOL on wheels!)
One way or another, the weapon has to have some maintenance done on it--and that requires an infrastructure to do so (even if it's only once).
Anything that a KGB operative can be trained to do, an al-q operative can be trained to do -- especially if he's got a former KGB operative in tow.
The rest of your stuff is such a poorly attempted effort at reframing the topic via a flop of a non sequitur that I won't embarrass you further by deconstructing it.
LMAO, Good one.
No, it's a precision instrument containing volatile and radioactive components of varying life spans. A lot of effort was expended during the Cold War to to make nuclear weapons less reliant on ongoing maintenance--with only partial success. They were stored in controlled environments (something else terrorists would be unlikely to have), and they still required ongoing maintenance to be ready for use. To bring one back from unusability to usability will require a fair amount of equipment.
What I am saying is that, once the terrorists have a nuclear weapon, the clock is running, and goes to zero in a few months unless they can take it to a maintenance depot for some IRAN work.
Three months may seem like a long time to us, but for someone trying to move around the globe undetected, it's a normal timeline.
There is plenty of time for an al-q POS to take a bit of Tritium -- properly contained and sealed by his friendly rogue ex-sov scumbag -- and then transport it through our sieve-like "border" to his waiting compadres.
The tritium is still decaying the entire time. Very minute amounts of helium will absorb a lot of neutrons (we had devices that failed to generate any nuclear yield in testing due to helium contamination). This isn't an issue in pistol sights, so I can understand your unfamiliarity with the subject.
Like I said, every three months or so, the zipper and the tritium reservoirs needed replacement. Now, you can hypothetically have Team A with the nuke, and Team B with the tritium, but with two teams on the road for one nuke, you're doubling your risk of getting caught, betrayed, in an accident, found out by Echelon or the next "Able Danger," or pulled over for speeding through some podunk burg and the sheriff asking "what's that thingamajig in the trunk," and so on--to deliver one nuke. Better to just get a nuke brand new from the depot right before you need it and issue it to one team.
I mean, a nuclear missile sub, spending months at sea -- and yet, having to return home to make a "run for the border" to load up on another five minutes worth of Tritium?
First, those warheads are stored in a controlled environment for the duration of the patrol. Second, the maximum patrol time is about 90 days (in other words, about three months--remember the tritium?). Third, the warheads go right back to the maintenance facility as soon as the submarine docks. Fourth, they aren't fractional-crit suitcase weapons that absolutely depend on boosting to generate enough neutrons. Fifth, supposedly reliable operational warheads gave us some nasty surprises throughout the Cold War in terms of reliability (one Poseidon warhead zero-yielded after it was taken off of a submarine following a two-month patrol). I am worried about whether the Stockpile Stewardship Program can really maintain our current weapons as advertised, given that we were still learning things about warhead aging right up to the end of nuclear testing.
Anything that a KGB operative can be trained to do, an al-q operative can be trained to do -- especially if he's got a former KGB operative in tow.
KGB operatives didn't pull maintenance on nukes.