Interesting news story today…

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

gary
http://www.UnitedDemocraticNations.org

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.

I look forward to your feedback on my UDN website…

gary

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.

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

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.

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

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.

gary

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.