Does Iran already have a nuclear weapon?
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, commenting on my last post about Iran, wonders if Iran already has a nuclear weapon and the result is policy blackmail.
Reynolds writes:
The loss of momentum in the war reminds me of something that I believe Napoleon (or maybe it was Talleyrand) said: “You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.” Much of the problem in Iraq comes from Iran, and we seem curiously unwilling to do much about it. I wonder — does Iran already have nuclear weapons, and are we being successfully blackmailed?
Iran has already implicitly played the “war” card in its diplomatic maneuverings — wargames in Iran and at the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian spokesmen have claimed that US troops in Iraq and the Persian Gulf are vulnerable (that’s the word I recall reading — it’s a euphemism for targets).
But as for already possessing useable nuclear weapons? I don’t think so. I said earlier this year that I thought Iran was at least 12 to 18 months away from producing a crude nuclear device — and I’ll stress again the qualifier “at least.” However, I don’t think anyone outside of Iran really knows– to say that intelligence is “closely guarded” is to engage in extreme understatement.. The egotists running the Iranian regime strike me as the kind of megalomaniacs who would tout the development of a nuclear device. At the same time, Iranian president Ahmadinejad isn’t the entire mullocracy, and the mullahs-in-charge haven’t demonstrated truly suicidal tendencies. Revealing a useable nuclear device changes the global and regional game from hide and seek, wink and deny, carrot and stick, shuck and jive, to blunt confrontation. Given this scenario — and I believe it to be more a statement of fact than “scenario”– Glenn’s “could be” isn’t so far out in terms of Iranian political behavior. What argues against it is US and Israeli behavior. If the US and Israel really believed Iran already had a nuke I think we’d hear about it. And let’s not lay it all on the US and Israel. France’s Jacques Chirac basically threatened Iran with French nuclear retailiation (Chirac’s January 2006 threat is couched as one responding to a nation which helped orchestrate a terrorist attack on French interests).
Moving on to Glenn’s point about the loss of diplomatic momentum: I think the Bush Administration is waiting for the EU-3 and UN diplomatic initiatives to either succeed (at this point, unlikely) or fail –and fail utterly (see this latest wiggle from France).
Iran is on the verge of overplaying the wink and deny, shuck and jive game. Dictators guys have a record for going too far. North Korea did in July– the mad missile volley got China to cast a pro-sanctions vote. Japan is building an anti-missile missile system, and may well seek offensive missiles. The stage is set for actually implmenting the “python strategy” or launching strikes to destroy NoKo’s nuclear capabilities.
In fact, it’s possible Iran has already overplayed its hand, and that was the Israeli-Hezbollah war.
I also think Iran fears “the Iraqi bulldog.” That term appeared in a cover story I wrote for the Weekly Standard in January 3, 2005.
An excerpt from that article:
Another acceptable End State [for Iraq, from the Coalition’s point of view] would be what a friend called “a too strong, bulldog Iraq.” Don’t dismiss the notion out of hand. Here are the attributes: “New Iraq” decides to rearm for offensive capability–and the French or Russians sell it weapons. Angry at perceived Syrian, Iranian, or Saudi interference, a brave new Iraqi government turns to regional assertiveness as a way of solidifying domestic support. The United States could live with this End State, but it would seriously frustrate attempts to spur political evolution in Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Iran’s dictators would use the Iraqi threat in the way they currently use “the American threat” – to justify harsh internal repression and thwart internal reform. I wrote that article in late November 2004 and was reporting on a conversation I had in Baghdad in August 2004. I think it’s possible an Iraqi bulldog could spur political reform– the rise of a predominantly Muslim Middle Eastern democracy capable of defending its interests at its borders and beyond could encourage Iranian reformers to take greater risks in confronting the mullahs.
Iraq, albeit slowly and painfully, is getting stronger politically and militarily. Soon it will have more than one mech division. Eventually it will have better tanks to go with its improving troops– and in any border confrontation its tanks and troops will enjoy US air support. Iraq is one reason Iran wants a nuke– to defend itself against a democratic Iraq that won’t put up with the old Middle Eastern game of tit for tat terror, sectarian and ethnic meddling, and autocratic maintenance.
Final thought: Iran and virtually every actor in the region (state or non-state) is already capable of producing a radiological bomb — ie, stuffing a conventional weapon with radioactive material and producing a “dirty” explosion. Setting off a dirty device, however, might be interpreted by, say, someone antsy like Jacques Chirac (ie, the January 2006 Jacques Chirac), as the equivalent of a nuclear terror attack.
UPDATE: Powerline discusses an article by Eli Lake (via the NY Sun). The operative thesis” reviving the “Middle East peace process” is a way to ”harden” diplomacy vis a vis Iran. Scott Johnson at powerline has doubts. Here’s a slightly different read: if and when the EU-3 and the UN sanction diplomatic initiatives fail, the US wants an alternative diplomatic route in place– a diplomatic alternative with a “Middle Eastern base” instead of European or UN-international.
Col. Bay: While Chirac is a slimey bastard, above all he is a French nationalist. This treath - I can’t recall France ever issuing any other - is deadly serious. I think Chirac - and other native white Frenchmen/women - are looking at the recent riots based on the Muslim slums which surround major French cities. The warning is mainly of the “Keep Your Filthy Hands Off” variety. The French want to have the option of a rapid clean up of the slums, Just In Case. And so, they will not put up with outside interference or support for their domestic terrorists. Or is Monday morning getting to me…
Comment by Good Ole Charlie — 9/18/2006 @ 10:43 am
Iraq convinced almost everyone that they had the bomb. I am wondering about Iran. They supposedly have 54,000 P2 centrifuges, which means they can possibly have 100 pounds of U235 in about a year. BUT they are also trying to buy heavy water. The only use for heavy water is to slow down the speed of neutrons. The usual way of building a bomb requires graphite in order to slow the speed of the neutrons necessary to create a chain reaction (Fermi’s discovery that made the atomic bomb possible). BUT And I mean BUT….heavy water allows the use of UNENRICHED uranium to achieve a chain reaction so that sophisticated fuel enrichment facilities like P2 centrifuges are not necessary. Why are they buying heavy water? Could it be that they ain’t got no P2s? I think they are bluffing.
Comment by Howard Veit — 9/18/2006 @ 10:50 am
I think Iran believes it has the USA checkmated. If we don’t move, Iran continues to build up its nukes, talk up its influence in the region, build support for taking out Israel, etc. If we don’t move, the EU gets more and more ineffectual and Israel gets more handcuffed by the UN. If we don’t move, they continue to contribute to the attrition in Iraq and wear down public opinion and energy here for escalating with them. If we do move, they cry out internationally about how the US is running amok with the Left here screaming that this is “just like Iraq”, with “no evidence of danger” and a “war of convenience” and so on. I think they also think they have the information war figured out a lot more than the West does. The press was a tool of Hezb’allah during the Lebanon conflict (some would say a willing tool), and has made zero adjustments in its staffing or policies to avoid a repeat in the next conflict. That propaganda war was totally won by the Arabs, even though they don’t own the media. I see no reason that the war with Iran would be different. Ahmadinejad doesn’t talk like a crazy person… he talks like a person who believes he is holding the cards and who believes we are not free to act, whether we want to or not. In general, Arabs (and Persians) are much more sophisticated and deeper thinkers than we give them credit for. If we view this like a chess match instead of a game of “Battleship”, we might see the board differently.
Comment by Keith — 9/18/2006 @ 10:51 am
A significant “radiological bomb” - generally called “Radiological Dispersal Device” (or RDD) - may not be quite what you think it is, in terms of impact, threat, etc. That is, what many consider to be RDD can contaminate a modest area, but it can generally be cleaned up or mitigated w/o great impact. An RDD that could even approach WMD status is a remarkably tough artifact to design and construct. Here is one source with its own links: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/dirty-bombs.html  ED NOTE: I agree that a radiological device isn’t a nuclear weapon. I’ve also been involved in contamination-estimation and decontamination exercises. I attended a three-month long nuclear and chemical defense course at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1974. In that course we went through a radiation “spill” exercise (involving a cargo vehicle carrying nuclear material) and the instructor included an explosion-fire scenario that spread radiological contaminants– much like the after-effects of a dirty bomb. Can the radiation be cleaned up and its effects minimized? Yes– but the job is touchy, to say the least. Today’s blog post really addresses the media impact –media scream of ”radiation” following a bomb attack. What is the political “fallout” of using this “gray area” device? Good comment, though. Thanks for making it.
Comment by jim — 9/18/2006 @ 10:55 am
Some sources reported that Iran may have purchased a nuclear bomb from A.Q.Khan’s network as long ago as the early 90’s. I believe it reportedly was one or two plutonium bombs. And thanks to NoKorean missile technology they may be able to match them up. It’s not inconceivable that the mullahs couldn’t wait until their assembly line was finished.
Comment by paul in va — 9/18/2006 @ 11:00 am
“Why are they buying heavy water?” Don’t quote me on it but I believe heavy water can be used as a moderator in a slow breeder reactor which allows the production of quite pure (weapons grade) PU239 from relatively low enrichment U235. They may be covering their bases, or they may be looking to the future when they will want to build Plutonium bombs, which I believe are smaller and/or more powerful. I doubt any heavy water would be used in a bomb itself, much more likely in the production of nuclear material for a bomb. High enrichment of U235, or production of relatively pure PU239, are the two avenues to building a nuclear bomb, I believe. Remember the US used two bombs during WW2? They were built as a hedge - one was a U235 gun-type (I think it was called “Little Boy”?) and the other was a PU239 implosion type (”Fat Man”?). So acquisition of centrifuges and heavy water at the same time certainly makes some sense.
Comment by Nicholas — 9/18/2006 @ 11:12 am
If Iran had a working nuke, it would explode it immediately, probably in its eastern desert, just as India and Pakistan did when they first got nukes. The propaganda value would be too great to resist. That’s why I don’t think they have one. I believe the Trinity, Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were the only active devices the US had when we exploded them in 1945, although others were certainly in the pipeline.
Comment by Robert Speirs — 9/18/2006 @ 11:20 am
National Defense University has an interesting paper on the ramifications of Iran’s nuke program: Reassessing the Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran (.pdf, 788kb). Appendix B is a good overview of the best guesses on Iran’s program (dated 2005). The earliest estimates were early 2007, but the consensus was a few years later:
Comment by Cecil Turner — 9/18/2006 @ 11:20 am
While living in Moscow Russia (1991) I heard all sorts of news bits about the Russian mafia selling all sorts of state secrets and weapons to Iran, Iraq, Syria and any other mid-east totalitarian regime who had money to burn. The CIA’s impotence allowed for all the under-the-table transactions to continue and it was a decade which passed before American even woke up from its slumber one clear September morning to the reality that we war was brought to us some time ago. In any case, based upon my own experiences why would I believe that Iran does not have such weapons? Iraq had the capacity to restart it’s program and was waiting for the Sanctions to be lifted why would Iran not have the same capacity given they were not under the thumb of UN sanctions. Come to think of it, at hte beginning of the war in Iraq wasn’t a Russian convoy discovered around and near the Syrian border?
Comment by syn — 9/18/2006 @ 11:37 am
Why are they buying heavy water? Maybe they want to jump directly to a thermonuclear bomb? You need deuterium for that, and heavy water is deuterium oxide.
Comment by Paul Dietz — 9/18/2006 @ 11:38 am
If I was hell-bent on developing nukes I think I would have purchased one or two first to help convince people I already had them and to defend myself from attack while I worked on my own.
Comment by rjschwarz — 9/18/2006 @ 11:47 am
I agree with Austin (and Israeli intelligence): a bomb in roughly a year or so. I linked to the article on my blog that dealt with that in another comment thread. The efficiency of the centrifuges in terms of Separative Work Units is subject to some debate, and that value determines the production of the 50,000 centrifuge cascade. The range of uncertainty would put the output from 150 to 500 kilograms of highly enriched (~95%) U-235 per year. At the higher SWU range, the 1,000 centrifuges the Iranians claim they plan to install by year’s end would be sufficient to have their first bomb sometime 2008. One technology that hasn’t received much scrutiny is laser enrichment. This is extremely sophisticated and I expect it is well beyond Iranian capability. So far as I know - and I haven’t kept abreast of the technology in some years - no one is currently running industrial-level uranium enrichment using lasers. According to the IAEA, the Iranians were conducting laboratory experiments with laser enrichment so they clearly know something about the technology. Put this in the for-what-it’s-worth category. Regarding heavy water - the posters are correct that it is an alterntive to graphite. Very pure graphite is required. The Germans in WW II, using impure graphite, mistakenly thought it was an unsuitable moderator. That’s why they went with heavy water. I expect that the Iranians found a source for large amounts of heavy water and that was an easy route for them to go. Anyone know who sold the Iranians heavy water? The Canadian CANDU power reactors use heavy water. A supplier of heavy water for CANDU’s might have been the seller.
Comment by Paul Hager — 9/18/2006 @ 12:08 pm
If the US and Israel really believed Iran already had a nuke I think we’d hear about it. If the CIA thought so we’d hear about it on the front page of the NYT.
Comment by dorkafork — 9/18/2006 @ 12:16 pm
My understanding is that an enriched uranium bomb is, by it’s nature, a large and heavy thing - the gun barrel design of the little boy bomb. A plutonium implosion bomb can be made much smaller. The heavy water is to produce plutonium from U-238 in a reactor. Plutonium can then be separated chemically, and used in a missile deliverable bomb. It’s possibe that Iran has purchased some small number of bombs. Iran has a mountain of money and endless desire. North Korea has bombs and endless hunger. They both have telephones. If Iran has nukes, I would expect they would NOT admit it. Internally, the Mullahs have the support of the millenials and islamists, not the suppressed, quiet majority. Once they claim to have the bomb their supporters would demand it’s immediate use on the various Satans around the world. If the mullahs refused, rightly fearing retaliation, they would be physically removed as apostates.
Comment by richard r — 9/18/2006 @ 12:44 pm
If Iran had a working nuke, it would explode it immediately, probably in its eastern desert, just as India and Pakistan did when they first got nukes. and While living in Moscow Russia (1991) I heard all sorts of news bits about the Russian mafia selling all sorts of state secrets and weapons to Iran and If I was hell-bent on developing nukes I think I would have purchased one or two first to help convince people I already had them and to defend myself from attack while I worked on my own. Is it possible Iran bought old USSR nukes, decided to detonate one as a demonstration, and had it fail?
Comment by JMHawkins — 9/18/2006 @ 1:17 pm
I read that the Iranians obtain tactical nukes from the Eastern Bloc in the early 90s.
Comment by Davod — 9/18/2006 @ 1:32 pm
If the CIA thought so we’d hear about it on the front page of the NYT. Sorry, dorkafork, but I disagree. The NYT only reveals secrets when doing so will undermine the war effort or harm the current administration. Proof that Iran has nukes would actually help justify action against that country, so you can count on the NYT to cover up such information in any way it can. And to smear and discredit anyone who does present it.
Comment by Harry — 9/18/2006 @ 1:35 pm
Nicholas, you are correct: “Little Boy” was the gun-type U235 bomb, “Fat Man” the Plutonium implosion bomb. Trinity was actually a test run of the plutonium implosion device. They were so sure Little Boy was going to work they didn’t bother testing it; Hiroshima was the test. (Scarcity of U235 had a lot to do with that too.) Getting Plutonium is a lot easier than getting U235; all you need is a nuclear power plant pumping out radioactive byproducts. The trouble is, Plutonium is a mutha to work with;
Fondling even small quantities is contraindicated, however….
More seriously, chemical and metalurgical quirks aside, the problem with making Plutonium bombs is keeping the damn things from going supercritical too quickly. Basically, if the supercritical mass isn’t brought together quickly and evenly enough, only a tiny fraction “blows up” scattering the vast majority of the fissile material in a deadly (but relatively small) fizzle. Hence, the need for an implosion design (requiring sophisticated scientific and engineering infrastructures, even by today’s standards) as opposed to the straightforward gun design. Real nuclear scientists feel free to chime in, but it seems that what you gain in ease of Plutonium acquisition, you more than lose in terms of actually putting a working device together.
Comment by Mark Poling — 9/18/2006 @ 1:39 pm
Why would Iran need a bomb to fend off a democratic Iraq? Putting aside for the moment the fact that the Iraqi constitution makes Sharia, something wholly incompatible with democracy, the supreme law of the land, Islam’s history shows us that all Islamic nations eventually succumb to the trap of “more/better/purer Islam” as the solution to their problems. Thus liberalism in Islamic nations is unstable. All Iran need do is wait and sooner or later (sooner, I’d bet) democracy in Iraq will crumble.
Comment by Bob Smith — 9/18/2006 @ 1:51 pm
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Pingback by NoisyRoom.net » Blog Archive » Does Iran already have a nuclear weapon? — 9/18/2006 @ 2:50 pm
Since the most reliable variable in a despot is unpredictability, the U.S. must use intelligence metrics that presume a more aggressive timetable for Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon because, unlike Kim Jong Il, Ahmadinejad has the greater potential for not only threatening Israel but exporting a weapon to a terrorist organization. Given America’s obvious vulnerabilities to an attack, by port or through the Canadian border, this must be taken very seriously, and I believe President Bush is keenly aware of the threat that a nuclearized Iran constitutes. That stated, the most serious and immediate problem we face in the U.S. is our internal political debate concerning this enemy. It should be axiomatic but apparently a large percentage of Americans, members of Congress, as well as majorities in our MSM, is not entirely convinced of the direness of our predicament. Since they’ve grossly underestimated the threat they cravenly seek political advantage, betraying an astounding willingness to compromise our national security to win control of Congress. That is our greatest vulnerability and it’s one we must aggressively work to isolate and control by making the case to sensible, mainstream Americans that this threat is very real and our predicament precarious. For a variety of editorials on this and related topics, please go to http://www.clearcommentary.com (see, in particular, the post concerning 9/11). Philip Mella, Editor ClearCommentary.com
Comment by Phiilp Mella — 9/18/2006 @ 4:26 pm
Re; Mr. Poling and plutonium bombs The real problem with the plutonium bomb is the exquisite technology necessary to set it off. The “trigger” is called an implosion device and it was this device that was stolen from Los Alamos by the Rosenberg ring(I know, Hall stole it). You need top technology to make one device and most likely the Iranians will have to buy these devices secretly on the open market, something that might not be possible. I still think they are bluffing, a guy with a pair of duces is scaring the hell out of the guy with four aces.
Comment by Howard Veit — 9/18/2006 @ 4:30 pm
Well, for what it’s worth, I think that the Iranians will go for the Deke Parsons Special, “Little Boy”. The Iranian leaders will gamble that with a gun-type bomb exploded in the desert, they can achieve India/Pakistan status instantly. Little Boy is rather simple, straightforward, 62-year old technology and simply requires the enriched Uranium, the machining, mettalurgy, and the brainpower to work the problem. That buys you street cred if you’re Ahmadhi-Nejad. Going the PU route is a whole lot more complex. PU kills people just by handling it. One of the Project Alberta scientists was killed when PU went critic in his hand. Took him a week to die. The PU is smaller than the U238, but Fat Man was a bigger, more complex bomb. Iranians need street cred first, sophisticated stuff later. Down the road, they can build H2 devices with enough PU. We lose the game unless we attack before they get Little Boy OR attack after their first explosion. Remember, their first explosion is probably 1/3rd of their arsenal, at least. Oh, and I hate to inform the airdales, but this will require a snatch and trash ground assault to go into Natanz and Bushehr and physically destroy the enrichment facilities. Then we get the heck out of Dodge before the Nationalist Insurgency begins. Or, we can withdraw to Baluchistan and start an Irredentist Movement (snickers…).
Comment by section9 — 9/18/2006 @ 6:32 pm
I’ve been wondering whether holes could be punched in the deeply buried Iranian facilities by ICBMs armed with an inert U238 warhead used as a kinetic weapon. Given what 12 lbs at 5000 fps can do to a tank, a couple of hundred lbs at 14,000 fps should make a pretty good mess for a good long way underground. Expensive option I know, but I submit that the targets are of sufficently high value to be worth it, particularly since the attack would be unstoppable and risk no pilots or very scarce and expensive B2s. How much does a Trident launch cost vs. a B2 anyway?
Comment by Ed Nutter — 9/18/2006 @ 7:03 pm
You really don’t need a Trident, just a commercial EELV, which will throw more stuff anyways. It’s not like the need to launch on warning is present with nations that have no ICBMs and no way of determining you’re about to launch anyways. They could fire an Atlas V out of Vandenburg and hit it with a penetrator weighing a dozen tons.
Comment by Harbl — 9/18/2006 @ 9:35 pm
Paul Hager:
I’m no expert on the industrial side, but as a chemist I don’t see why they’d need an external source. Heavy water enrichment is extremely low-tech, nothing like separating isotopes of heavier elements. All you need are a LOT of natural water (since D is only 0.015% of natural hydrogen, and you throw away a good deal of even that in the process), and plenty of energy to burn. Iran has both. You could do it piecemeal in small labs, make it really hard for the outside world to notice, and just pool fractions when you’re done. (Historical note: In WWII the Germans set up big heavy water factories in Norway, near sources of abundant hydroelectric power, which made it easier for British commandos and the Norwegian resistance to blow up big stashes. But I think if the Germans had been awash in fossil fuels there would have been no need to centralize their production like that.) Paul Dietz: I’d guess that a thermonuclear device is well down the road for Iran–from what I’ve read they’re much harder to develop, and anyway you need a working fission bomb first. Using heavy water for a fission reactor, which could be used to make plutonium while the world focuses on uranium enrichment, is the horses-not-zebras explanation.
Comment by JPS — 9/18/2006 @ 10:29 pm
I’m not sure thermonuclear bombs are ‘much’ harder to develop, although they do require a primary of at least a certain size, The US built one very soon after the technical breakthrough (the Teller-Ulam scheme) was invented. That invention has been public knowledge for some time. Perhaps some important details are still unavailable to the Iranians (opacity of materials at the relevant temperatures, for example) but computing power is much higher today, so some of that could be obtained without experimentation. One thing the Iranians will have a hard time obtaining is a robust delivery system. I’ve wondered if they might build a ‘doomsday’ bomb — a stationary, very large (multi-gigaton) scale thermonuclear device, intended to be set off to cause regional or global effects if they are attacked. Large thermonuclear devices may actually be not much harder (if at all harder) to develop than smaller ones — note the US started with a 10 MT bomb and mostly scaled down after than (the 15 MT explosion that irradiated those Japanese fishermen was intended to be only half that yield, but it ran away due to an unanticipated extra pathway in the chain of fusion reactions). One final comment, which I bring up when this topic comes around: heavy water may become much easier to obtain in the future. The Canadians have developed a water-hydrogen catalytic exchange technology (called CECE) that would make the marginal cost of stripping deuterium from an electrolytic hydrogen stream very low. Remember this the next time someone extols the virtues of a solar-hydrogen economy,
Comment by Paul Dietz — 9/19/2006 @ 6:32 am
Given that Iran is tucked pretty near to China, India and Russia, would we dare to use nukes? And if not, then how?
Comment by igout — 9/19/2006 @ 6:39 am
With respect to Paul Dietz’s comments about delivery devices, last year Iran tested an enhanced version of the Shahab 3 IRBM. According to Israeli sources, this missile should have a range of 1450 kilometers and is nuclear capable. The Shahab 4 will either be of this type or have a longer range. The Iranians are also testing solid fuel designs, though their deployment is farther in the future. In any case, Iran will have a deliver system for its nukes by the time they’re ready - again, my view is that it could be as early as next year. I agree with Dietz that a boosted fission bomb or a true thermo-nuke is probably not that much of a challenge for the Iranians. I wouldn’t be surprised if their first bomb were a thermo-nuke in the megaton range. Iran is not likely to be interested in the smaller strategic warheads favored by the U.S. Not only do they require more advanced technology, they’re not “city busters”, which are the kind of bombs that Iran will want. It’s true that, because of blast scaling, 5 well-placed 100 kiloton bombs can do more damage than a single one megaton bomb. However, the Iranians won’t be interested in efficiency - they’ll want to obliterate Israel with the fewest nukes possible. A handful of one megaton bombs would more than suffice.
Comment by Paul Hager — 9/19/2006 @ 8:15 am
If there is a successful “dirty bomb” attack on the US or Israel, then the world’s going to be holding its breath as they wait to see what happens. It would make a nuclear response all but certain, I think.
Comment by Harold C. Hutchison — 9/19/2006 @ 10:42 am
If fallout is the constraint, one could use very large bombs. A remotely-piloted 747 could carry a multi-hundred MT bomb; detonated at high altitude the fireball would not reach the ground but thermal radiation would cause destruction on a regional scale. Such large bombs could be mostly fusion (98+% of the energy from that) and I believe could be built with a neutron absorbing blanket to limit creation of 14C in the air.
Comment by Paul Dietz — 9/20/2006 @ 7:34 am
Re. BIG penetrators, So then Harbl et al, why not throw big pointy U238 rocks to mess with Iran’s nuke production? I’m not so smart that nobody else would have thought of this. Heinlein thought of it years before I was born! Does anyone know enough about the physics to predict whether it would work? Anyone noticed odd seismic waves that could be an impact within a half hour of a test launch from Edwards? Note that the the raison dete for Trident and Minuteman was that solid fuels were more reliable and hence more available on short notice vs an Atlas V. On the other hand an Atlas V could throw a bunch of those pointy rocks on an extended nuke production facility with reasonable accuracy given that we don’t know exactly where the goods are within the cave, though we do pretty much know where the cave is. Besides avoiding risk to our pilots, and the manifold benefits of NOT being the ones to initiate a nuclear attack, such an attack method would come pretty close to creating the “shock and awe” so bandied about during the ‘03 invasion of Iraq. Nobody, not even us, could stop such an attack. At best, our ABMs could throw kinetic projectiles off target. The main damage would be to underground facilities which we don’t have that many of anyway. How deep would Iran or Korea have to go to protect their stuff? What would it cost them? What would it cost us to modify our rocks to punch that much deeper?
Comment by Ed Nutter — 9/20/2006 @ 9:56 pm
SHIELDS UP - GO TO RED ALERT? Something to think about… HT Gates of Vienna Bad karma appears to be brewing again. Iranian President MAD has issued several letters to heads of state to convert to Islam. Some interpret this as a bad sign as prelude to a “defensive” attack. Several bloggers are ……
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