So next time you hear the US say “Iran: you can’t have nukes,” think about how well we’re meeting our side of the treaty and getting rid of all of our nukes in an expeditious manner…

Yes…because destroying a cave system that took millions of years to form is much more conventional than two guys, two knives, one outcome.

To my knowledge, the cave system isn’t destroyed– that would permanently conceal valuable records that were hidden in the caves. What happens is the oxygen is sucked out of the cave to fuel the explosion, suffocating the victims and preserving paper and electronic records. In other words, your precious cave system is preserved.

As for using them against masses of troops…and troop followers…and the surrounding countryside…and any nearby town, village, or city. No use of nuclear weapons can escape killing a large number of civilians. The radius is simply too large.

In situations where you have massive amounts of troops (e.g. the India-Pakistan border) the camps are extremely large and built away from large civilian concentrations that a nuclear strike to a camp would not kill an inordinate number of civilians.

The Taliban weren’t the only ones in those caves. We just don’t talk about everyone else who used them.

The Taliban were not living in the natural cave system itself. Rather, the Taliban were (and are) living in artificial caves built to act as bunkers.

To further quote the article:

The good news is that the global arsenal of nuclear warheads has shrunk with the fall of the Soviet Union. The bad news is that nations continue to seek them. Pakistan went nuclear in ‘98, and arms control experts worry that North Korea already has the bomb and that Iran is working to build one. About 20 other nations possess the technology to build a nuclear weapon. And attempts to smuggle fissle material across borders suggests that terrorists are also in the market.

Yeah — the so-called ‘Bunker Busters’. Apparently they don’t work — but they keep pumping money into development. The last I heard was about when you did, Ben.

Janene

Nuclear Disarmerment treaties have also fallen by the wayside, thanks to our new leadership. Also we’re making more now…also thanks to our new leadership. I don’t have a link (I read it in hard copy several years ago), but there was at least on research project in the US dealing with mini-nukes. This was in the Washington Post, I’ve heard nothing else about it.

Has the US reduced its nuclear arsenal at all since becoming the sole Super Duper Power? I’m under the impression that it hasn’t. But then I haven’t really been tracking this.

The total number of warheads worldwide peaked in the mid eighties at ~80,000 (Russia: 45,000 U.S: 32,000)

Today, the count is:

Russia: 16,000
U.S.: 10,350
China: 400
France: 350
U.K.: 200
Israel: 200
Pakistan: 24-48
India: 30-35
North Korea: 6-8(?)
——
TOTAL: ~27,560

Obscene, no doubt, but a reduction of nearly 70%.

From National Geographic article “Living with the Bomb” (Aug ‘05 - whole article not available on line, check your local library)

Daisy Cutters were used in Afghanistan.

http://www.nd.edu/~techrev/Archive/Spring2002/a8.html

or so this page says.

There are addition tactical uses for nuclear weapons other than leveling cities. For instance, in Afghanistan, there was much discussion about using nuclear warheads in cave destroying operations. Nuclear weapons have the advantage of sucking the oxygen out of caves inside of a very large radius.

Yes…because destroying a cave system that took millions of years to form is much more conventional than two guys, two knives, one outcome.

As for using them against masses of troops…and troop followers…and the surrounding countryside…and any nearby town, village, or city. No use of nuclear weapons can escape killing a large number of civilians. The radius is simply too large. The Taliban weren’t the only ones in those caves. We just don’t talk about everyone else who used them.