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Comment by th0ma5 | Hacker News Reader

I remember a TedX talk where a gentleman said a dirty bomb is probably about the best even a small rogue nation state could hope to pull off as nuclear weapons are such a pain to deal with you really have to have the resources of a very large country to even start: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AeodWP0B-pw

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Was this before or after North Korea, with an economy around the size of Botswana or Afghanistan, assembled a nuclear arsenal?

What arsenal? I was thinking they blew up all the devices that were ever made, never demonstrated a portable device, and also destroyed all their facilities in the course of the doing this.

US and S. Korean officials estimate that North Korea has about 60 nuclear weapons, and can manufacture about 6 per year at present.

US officials also estimated there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

TBF there had been a programme. It was defunct, and the evidence of continuance was weak, and it was a totally manufactured crisis, but they had been on the hunt. In no way does this justify the war, and subsequent events.

> evidence of continuance was weak

That's a funny way of saying that we had interviews from the general that ordered the destruction of the program that all WMD had been destroyed after the Iran-Iraq war.[1]

I'd add that counter-evidence of continuance was strong if you're going to include that at all.

[1] http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/iraq_defector/kamel_transcript...

I'm not sure why you would consider a interview with an Iraqi General strong evidence. Either way while I agree that the US claims were fabricated, he was also demonstrably incorrect in claiming that there were none

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middlee...

It was only declassified in 2015, but WMDs were discovered in Iraq circa 2005 by Operations Avarice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_des.... There are counterarguments against the validity of Operation Avarice’s discoveries in justifying the Iraq War, although I admittedly don’t know much about the topic.

I feel like people selling left over devices from the Iran-Iraq war was reported in the media well before 2015.

Right, it's like oh Reagan gave them "WMDs" in the 80s, so we know they have "WMDs".

I hadn’t noticed they were from the Iran-Iraq war, thank you for pointing that out.

Except North Korea blew up their mountain base housing them.

No, it didn't. They don't store their nukes in the test tunnels.

*with the help of Pakistan

It's not the size of your economy, it's how you use it.

(North Korea spends ~22% of their GDP on their military.)

In fairness to him, North Korea's nukes are not that much better than dirty bombs and aren't super high-yield. N. Korea also has total control of the economy because it is communist, so can starve her citizens to fund bomb construction. That said, your point is good.

Does any one have a real idea to denuclearize rogue nations (N. Korea, Iran, Pakistan, etc.)? All I've seen is both the Trump and Obama administrations saying very nicely "please, please denuclearize" and imposing sanctions. Problem being, bad nations don't care about their citizens. Could some one please propose a method to force denuclearization by an unwilling nation? Or at least prevent them getting more?

In 2006 North Korea had a nuke little better than a dirty bomb. These days, in 2019, they've got a 250 kt thermonuclear bomb.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas...

Arguably had a 250kt device, judging by seismic data, although they may have killed a lot of people involved by detonating it? I'm just going by what is in the linked articles from Wikipedia, although the Wikipedia articles themselves don't mention it as it hasn't been independently announced as such by any non media organization.

How is Pakistan a rogue nation?

there is an official definition of "rogue state" but it's an inherently political term, hard to have an unbiased discussion over who is and is not a rogue state.

pakistan does present a bit of a problem for the rest of the world. they have over a hundred nukes and a very tense relationship with their neighbor, india. it's somewhat unstable and ISI has had some questionable (to say the least) dealings with terrorist groups. definitely not a combination that makes other countries very comfortable.

With all respect, it's actually just your opinion then. Because the same reasons can be given for any nuclear nation, even more so about US. Just as I feel the US is more "rogue" these days (trump, warmongering, very questionable activity with certain groups, in certain regions etc) compared to Pakistan (very stable democracy right now) or India.

I'm not arguing whether pakistan or the US are "rogue nations". as I said, it's a political term. all countries do dirty things to advance their interests. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a small country caught between US and russian interests (eg, syria).

that said, there are some legitimate concerns about the pakistani nuclear arsenal. the pakistani government has been either unable or unwilling to suppress the extremist militias inside its borders. it's not unreasonable to fear that these people might be able to steal a nuke. if an american or french nuke is used, it is almost certainly by the order of a democratically elected president. doesn't make much difference to the people who would die, but it's a much less destabilizing situation.

Back in the 80s, I had no particular dog in the Cold War. But it did terrify me that the US and the USSR were both effectively threatening to destroy human civilization, if one of them attacked the other.

It still terrifies me, when I think of it. But far less so, for good reason or not.

Between silos and submarines, thousands of nuclear warheads out there ready to go right now at a moments notice. The entire complex system antiquated and built/maintained by the lowest bidder to boot. So far we are very very lucky.

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