This reminds me of a couple things: The move "Payback" where the crime boss Carter is deciding what to do with problem of Porter "if you don't understand something, get rid of it". Then we have the icon gun show bumper sticker "There is no problem that can't be solved with the use of high explosives"
I submit that those who don't understand the problem, just want to "get rid of it"; how is just a trivial detail. Since it is a big problem, they need a bigger explosive, aka: "nuclear bomb".
The bottom of the GOM is like a bowl of pudding, and the pressure is greater than anything the Russians ever experienced. Furthermore, the best evidence they care to reveal to us to date is that the pipe is/has deteriorated and we are looking at the equivalent of an undersea oil dam break. The Soviets allegedly did this on land (since when did we start trust Soviet propaganda movie shorts?) to crimp a pipe. In the GOM there isn't much of pipe to crimp shut, its more of matter of not creating new openings for the oil to come out. What is your solution when all the nuke does is destroy whatever stability in the sea floor there might be holding back this oil and instead create hundreds of larger faults for the oil to gush through?
There are only two things I see in common here: Oil and Communists. We can continue to talk about nukes, but I would change the discussion only on where the nuke is to be applied.
Well put!!
Not to mention the pipe is on the New Madrid fault and imagine the earthquakes a nuke could set off!