{"id":33363,"date":"2013-04-28T12:22:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-28T18:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/28\/nuclear-disarmament.html"},"modified":"2013-04-29T09:33:12","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T15:33:12","slug":"nuclear-disarmament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/04\/28\/nuclear-disarmament.html","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Disarmament"},"content":{"rendered":"
It may very well make sense for the UK to either eliminate or significantly downsize its nuclear weapons capacity. The US could very likely do the latter as well, though there are limits to reduction; at some point, the cost of maintaining any nuclear capability becomes flat; the overhead cost of logistics and staffing a boomer fleet requires a certain outlay whether it's 5 or 2, for example.<\/p>\n

My problem with a full disarmament scenario (whether talking about UK, as Stoss does, or the US) is that the logic is all based on assumptions that (a) we know how things are now, and there are few if any likely scenarios where being able to rain down nuclear armageddon on a given country makes any sense, and (b) the foreseeable future will be exactly the same. Current analyses of the motivations and capabilities current regime in Beijing, or Moscow, or Tehran, or Pyong-yang, or New Delhi, etc., are probably not as great as people would like them to be, and certainly no guarantee that a major change next Friday night might not radically alter the calculus.<\/p>\n

This sort of capability, once mothballed, is not at all easy to dig back up if circumstances change (see the issues with NASA and efforts to revisit non-shuttle manned space flight). Getting the technology rebuilt and<\/i> the practices reworked and<\/i> the support staff trained and<\/i> everything else can be a huge mess, something a short-term or even mid-term crisis would not allow. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The UK and US situations are more than a bit different in this question, though there are potentially more similarities than it seems. \u00a0But while there is clearly a case for downsizing nuclear fleets, I don't think the case has been made that there is one, yet, for full disarmament.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

Changing my mind on nuclear disarmament – Charlie’s Diary<\/a>
\n I’m a child of the 1970s and 1980s; I grew up under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. Prior to the end of the cold war in 1989-91, I don’t believe I ever lived more than 10 kilometres from a strategic…\n <\/p>\n

View this post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It may very well make sense for the UK to either eliminate or significantly downsize its nuclear weapons capacity. The US could very likely do the latter as well, though there are limits to reduction; at some point, the cost of maintaining any nuclear capability becomes flat; the overhead cost of logistics and staffing a … Continue reading “Nuclear Disarmament”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":130901,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/06\/17\/nuclear-weapons-in-dangerous-hands.html","url_meta":{"origin":33363,"position":0},"title":"Nuclear weapons in dangerous hands!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-Jun-16 10:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Via +The Onion:'According to an alarming new global risk report published Tuesday by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump may be just seven months away from acquiring nuclear weapons. \u201cA year ago, the threat didn\u2019t seem great enough to warrant serious concern, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11874,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/01\/13\/peace_man.html","url_meta":{"origin":33363,"position":1},"title":"Peace, man","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 13-Jan-08 2:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's the 50th anniversary of the Peace Symbol.\u00a0 Per Wikipedia: This forked symbol was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Britain, and originally, its...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/peace-sign.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14466,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/04\/07\/whatever-happened-to-blessed-are-the-peacemakers.html","url_meta":{"origin":33363,"position":2},"title":"Whatever happened to “Blessed are the Peacemakers”?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Apr-09 2:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama has raised the idea of trying to dramatically cut back the number of nuclear weapons in the world. Though couched in all sorts of caveats (continued work on missile defense vs. Iran, eschewing total disarmament, noting it's a goal unlikely to come to pass even in his lifetime, etc.),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Fourth Estate"","block_context":{"text":"Fourth Estate","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/fourth-estate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15963,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/09\/peace-prize-for-a-president.html","url_meta":{"origin":33363,"position":3},"title":"Peace Prize for a President","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Oct-09 1:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, let me just get it out of the way and say I think Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize is goofy. Not that I don't like Obama. Not that I don't think he's done some good things so far, including on the Peace front. But ... well, let's turn\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/nobel.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2770,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/24\/the_case.html","url_meta":{"origin":33363,"position":4},"title":"The Case","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 24-Sep-02 10:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"The UK has released its case for the danger posed by Iraq. 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Not only is it spooky-mysterious, but the association with nuclear weapons (both as used and as threatened) overshadows the whole field. \u00a0And, yes, there have been some bad incidents and there remain some unanswered questions about long-term waste\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33365,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33363\/revisions\/33365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}