GuitarBizarre

They're not going to nuke them - It would kill thousands if not millions of innocent people, completely cripple all international relations with at least 4 of the largest economies in the world, (China, South Korea, Russia, Japan) all of whom are members of G-20, and on top of that it would strain american relations with all other countries even further if they were shown to be willing to use nuclear weapons in modern warfare.

People really need to get over this idea that nukes are a practical weapon of war - They aren't. To even begin justifying their use requires someone willing to accept not only massive loss of life, but also massive loss of civilian life, on top of massive, almost irredeemable damage to the environment for hundreds or thousands of miles. Also people don't really understand how incredibly destructive these weapons really are.

Consider that the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion sent radioactive material high enough into the atmosphere that it travelled as far west as the UK. That explosion was, according to wikipedia, equivalent to 10 tons of TNT, or releasing 40GJ of energy. Its explosive radius was likely not more than a hundred meters. Almost all of the damage caused by Chernobyl was due to the massive amounts of radioctive products released.

In comparison, nuclear bombs are relatively "clean" but their destructive potential is completely insane.

Consider after Chernobyl that that the bomb used on Hiroshima released energy equivalent to 16kilotons of TNT - 67TJ - 1675 times larger an explosion than Chernobyl.

The "Fat Man" bomb used over Nagasaki on the other hand, yielded 88TJ of explosive energy.

These bombs decimated entire cities instantly. The fallout from their use continues to this day. While the areas were not intensely irradiated and returns to the area were possible after only 3 months, residual effects continue to this day, with radiation-related health problems still present 70 years later.

Now compare these early atomic weapons with what is now possible in an atomic weapon - The Tsar Bomba.

The Tsar Bomba was the largest nuclear device ever tested anywhere on earth. Its energy output was 240000TJ. Thats 3582 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb, which is itself 1675 times more destructive than 10 tons of TNT.

It was originally designed to be TWICE that powerful, but the yield was REDUCED to prevent it from contaminating huge areas with radioactivity, and also destroying the plane that dropped it.

That means that by "Nukes" you potentially mean "Bombs 599,985,000 times more powerful than 1 ton of TNT.". In terms of weapons in ACTUAL READINESS owned by the US military (Excluding any remaining classified), the most powerful is the B83 Nuclear Bomb, which is a "mere" 75 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb (So, equivalent to 12,562,500 tons of TNT). Unfortunately for everyone ever, the US apparently stockpiled 650 of these things.

Dropping nukes on anyone, anywhere, is simply not in any way a justifiable action, excepting if the alternative is complete, utter, and total annihilation. The fact North Korea is so desperate to develop these weapons should already have given you a clue as to how utterly, utterly insane it is to want to use them.

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