Justus For All

As science (technology) continues to advance, it becomes easier each day for someone to build a garage nuclear bomb. Maybe even buy one off ebay in the near future. So perhaps this is an issue of science afterall since science is what drives one aspect of the threat.

gary
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org

Science can answer questions about what we can do in a scientific manner, but it is unsuitable for questions of what we should do. Of course scientists like anyone can opine on such things, but science and scientific knowledge doesn’t convey any particular moral wisdom.

Probability falls under the domain of science. The clock is just an analog tool for displaying that probability. They didn’t say we should bomb North Korea, Invade Iran, or any such political statement, so I’m still not sure how you think they stepped beyond their area of expertise.

gary

This is not an excerise in probability modeling. They built no models, they have no formulas that they base this on. Beyond that, most of the scientists involved don’t have any particular expertise in predicting whether, for example, a nuclear exchange will take place or not. Of course, that expertise isn’t ’science’ in the first place.

This is psuedo-science, plain and simple. And I believe that psuedo-science, especially when engaged in by reputable scientists, damages the entire institution of science itself. Being a big fan of science and progress, I don’t like that.

Good points. So ignoring for a moment the concerns about the messenger, do you think the message is right?

gary

Depends on how you define ‘doomsday.’ I don’t think that we have been in any real danger of a massive nuclear exchange since the end of the cold war. I also don’t think that global warming, even the more drastic estimates of it, would constitute a ‘doomsday’ on that scale.

Are we closer to a nuclear attack of any sort then we were in 2002? Perhaps. Continuing failure to deal with N. Korea and Iran both present good reasons to worry. However, in 2002 the world (and I expect these scientists did as well) thought that Saddam had WMD and a clandestine nuclear program, so in that sense we are safer.

I find the nuclear weapons and global warming to be a not very useful mixture in counting down to ‘doomsday,’ especially since if the former happens, the latter won’t. If we were going to include global warming in this count, why not also talk about avian flu or other possible pandemics? Certianly it is quite likely that we will see some pandemic in the next few decades that will kill more than global warming will. Of course, it is quite unlikely that a pandemic will result in ‘doomsday,’ even millions of deaths, while horrid, wouldn’t end the world.

Part of what annoys me about this is contained in your very question. What is the ‘message’ here? It isn’t clear at all.

I generally agree with your points, but there are two other factors I can think of that need to be mentioned when evaluating the threat:

1) The USSR broke up relatively recently, possibly throwing thousands of nukes into the black market (although it only takes one).

2) The natural progression of technology means that each new day makes it easier for a terrorist to put together a nuclear weapon in his garage. So while mindless, technology is working against us.

If I had to bring this entire nuclear threat issue down to the point of defining a solution, I would say the most important thing we could do is to drastically reform the United Nations. Clearly the existing organization is mostly dysfunctional when it comes to nuclear proliferation and generally promoting world peace.

gary

Certainly point one hasn’t changed since 2002, so that is reflected in this most recent move. So far, there is not evidence at all of any of the former Soviet Arsenal reaching the black market.

As for point two, since it is still impossible for a terrorist to put together a nuclear weapon in his garage, I am not sure why you say it is easier. Iran is having trouble, and is still probably at least couple of years away from obtaining them and they are a nation state with not inconsiderable resources and have devoted vastly more than just a garage to do this. While I think technological change is going to yeild some big dangers in WMD production on a small scale, what we really need to be looking at is biological (and to a lesser extent chemical) rather than nuclear for these dangers.

As for reforming the U.N., I don’t think that is possible, my solution is to set up a competing group, that would work partially within the U.N. environment, of Democratic Nations. Here are a few posts I have made on the subject.

Regarding evidence of nuclear arsenals reaching the black market, I’m not so sure about that…
http://www.janes.com

I haven’t studied the subject much, but at least some sources differ with your take on that subject.

As for the garage idea, that all depends on what they’re building. If they’ve already acquired components and/or the nuclear material, it may not be the same thing as what Iran is attempting to do. Besides, I’m not convinced that Iran is any more capable of the task than Iraq was (hard to know).

On your UN point, I very much agree. And I thought you did a very nice job in that earlier post. I’ve been working on this exact subject, the idea of a replacement organization. Here’s my own proposal…

http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org

gary

The janes article talks about weapons that have made it to the black market, which is a certainty. A whole lot of soviet military equitment has been lost/stolen. On the narrower question of nuclear weapons though, there is no evidence that this has ever happened.

As for the ‘build it yourself’ nuclear weapon, sure if you already have everything you need you can build one reletively easily. Our ‘technological advances’ haven’t made getting fissile material any easier though, in some ways it is probably harder. Certainly though Iran is as capable as Pakistan is of building a weapon, and no one questions that they have one. Indeed, Iraq was also ‘capable’ after the Gulf War it was estimated that the Iraqi program was about a year away before it was shut down as a result of this war, closer then western intelligence had guessed. So Iraq as a nation could indeed have built a nuclear weapon. Doing it secretly is harder of course, and apparently they decided not to try during the sanctions period, which our intelligence services got wrong.

I will check out your link.

Searches of the internet on this subject are not comforting. this for instance. This may not fit your definition of “evidence”, but this isn’t the only post you’ll find and while you certainly wouldn’t want to believe everything you believe on the internet, common sense tell me that the odds are not insignificant. And it only has to happen ONCE.

I look forward to your feedback on my UDN website…

gary

Once again, fissile materials themselves are not weapons. Certainly some fissile material may be missing but my recollection is that most estimates are that the total is far less then would be needed to construct a single nuclear weapon (dirty bombs are popular, and certainly nasty enough but not the same thing.)

That is not to say that the nuclear arsenal and fissile material of the former Soviet Union is not an issue. It is, and it is something we should be concerned about. At this time though, it is highly unlikely that even a single weapon or enough material to make a single weapon has made it to the black market. While this is a continuing concern, it isn’t a reason to panic. And of course, this situation hasn’t changed much (in fact has gotten slightly better) since 2002 when the clock was last moved. It cannot be part of the reason for the latest change.

Dave,

Interesting news story today…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070125/ap_on_re_eu/uranium_sting

gary
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org