Posted on 06/14/2018 12:16:01 PM PDT by wmileo
New research argues that 100 nuclear weapons is the “pragmatic limit” for any country to have in its arsenal. Any aggressor nation unleashing more than 100 nuclear weapons could ultimately devastate its own society, scientists warn.
The study was published in the journal Safety on Thursday; it was co-authored by Michigan Technological University professor Joshua Pearce and David Denkenberger, assistant professor at Tennessee State University and director of Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED).
“The results found that 100 nuclear warheads is adequate for nuclear deterrence in the worst case scenario, while using more than 100 nuclear weapons by any aggressor nation (including the best positioned strategically to handle the unintended consequences) even with optimistic assumptions (including no retaliation) would cause unacceptable damage to their own society,” the scientists wrote.
There are approximately 15,000 nuclear weapons globally, according to the research, with the U.S. and Russia accounting for nearly 90 percent of that total. With nine nuclear weaponized countries, the paper argues for a disarmament proposal that would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world to 900 or less.
“100 nuclear warheads is the pragmatic limit and use of government funds to maintain more than 100 nuclear weapons does not appear to be rational,” the paper argues.
The scientists discuss the devastating global environmental impact that would occur when a country deploys more than 100 nuclear weapons.
This “environmental blowback” would involve a significant drop in global temperatures as soot from nuclear blasts prevents sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface. This, combined with reduced precipitation, could severely impact food production, experts warn, potentially resulting in mass starvation.
“If the agricultural productivity reverts to preindustrial yields because of a nuclear strike, most countries would not be able to feed themselves,” the study says.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Let’s say every country reduces it’s arsenal to 100 nukes.
If you take Russia vs U.S. that’s 2 nukes in each U.S. State on average and an equivalent amount of destruction in Russia. It would be terrible, but probably survivable. Not exactly the MAD we have now.
But what happens if China joins Russia? Now there’s twice the destruction possible on the U.S. but Russia and China each average half the destruction. The calculus changes significantly.
IMHO, this is part of the reason MAD worked. Once the U.S. and USSR were both able to annihilate each other several times over, it also meant they were able to annihilate the allies on the other side. So just as it didn’t matter much whether the USSR faced just the U.S. or the U.S. and all the NATO allies combined, they were just as screwed. Similarly, the U.S. facing the USSR or the USSR and China combined was pretty immaterial.
When everyone has more than enough nukes, nobody uses them. If you set the bar artificially low, you make their use more likely rather than less.
I just took a quick look at their study and they are not using realistic numbers nor did they even reference the many documents and testing results from real-world nuclear testing. They even failed to mention that the total ejecta from Mt. St. Helen’s was more than what our entire inventory of weapons could have created in an all-out attack against the Soviet Union.
I also took a quick look at their credentials and did not see where they had any real qualifications to really publish this drivel nor where they had any dealings with nuclear weapons effects and all the real-world studies that were performed in the 40s and 50s.
100 would make for a very bad day, fer sure.
The standard nuclear warhead in the U.S. is the W88, with about a half megaton yield. So 100 of these is only 50 megatons, which is about the size of the Tsar bomb. There was no ecological disaster from the Tsar bomb, although it did have some mild global effects.
“...would only take 100 nuclear weapons...”
Okay, so we’ll only use 99, then.
But 101 is just no go...
Also we would be not only grateful, but delighted to receive our daily ration of two slices of bread and our annual ration of one pound of meat, plus a few pounds of potatoes or rice.
Obesity will never exist again because the one-world government will not let us overeat. Everybody will be relatively healthy because anybody who got sick would just be pushed aside to die (too expensive to treat any illnesses, ya know).
We would all be joining hands and singing Kum-By-Ya eight hours a day. It would be Utopia!!
(I hope you see the sarcasm dripping from my words)
Yep, it's too make sure we have few enough that they can all be preemptively disabled.
Bing bing bing! We have a winner!
Whatever idiot who wrote this also is clueless about military tactics. For one minor example, in a serious conflict a lot of nukes could be destroyed before deployment.
The Defense Atomic Support Agency, or maybe the same agency with their earlier name, did not build a whole town but did build many structures, including simulations of a typical suburban street, along with a small "forest" of trees to study the effects of a nuclear detonation. Although you did include the term "perfect simulation" the tests performed were very good at allowing us to estimate the effects.
I do not want to parse words but these tests were above ground, not atmospheric. While we did do atmospheric testing most shots were performed either as ground bursts, air bursts, or above ground bursts.
Ground bursts are designated when the fireball touches the ground, air bursts are when the fireball does not touch the ground, and surface bursts are when the device detonates while itself is on the ground. At a certain altitude (I am too lazy to find my books to give the exact reference) it becomes a high altitude burst.
and here is the Michigan Tech article on report
This is not a scientific investigation but a lengthy opinion piece.
Exactly. It’s like arguing that army arsenals contain 1000 times as many bullets as needed kill most of an enemy. That isn’t the point. The arsenal has to be big enough so that you don’t run out of ammo at the point where the bullets are being used, the exigencies of supply and combat being accounted for. Ten 1ookT class weapons going off anywhere in the world would be a really bad day for all of us. The way to stop that is to make sure that the perp is going to have his last day on earth.
re: “Doomsday warning It would only take 100 nuclear weapons to wreak global devastation”
YAWNNNNNNNN!
I have known that fact since my ‘show and tell’ class report on atomic weapons in 1963.
Moot, since the world was plunged into nuclear winter when Saddam torched the Kuwaiti oil fields. Or so I was warned by Carl Sagan.
How many super volcanoes should a country be allowed to have?
Approximately 2000 nukes have been set off for testing, 219 of these were atmospheric tests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_testing
I was going to ask 100 nuc warheads of what size and explosive power?
I think we could get by with 105.6 nuclear weapons before the Earth was destroyed.
As soon as I read that, I don't need to know anymore about it.
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