
Firing of Los Alamos political scientist spurs criticism - leephillips
http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2014/08/updated-firing-los-alamos-political-scientist-spurs-criticism
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debt
"It goes on to argue that nuclear deterrence is not effective and that nuclear
weapons should be eliminated for a host of political, military, humanitarian,
and environmental reasons."

Not having read the actual(and now classified) article by Doyle, can anyone
summarize the "political, military, humanitarian, and environmental reasons"?

EDIT: Whoops here's the original article:
[http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/survival/sections/2013-9...](http://www.iiss.org/en/publications/survival/sections/2013-94b0/survival
--global-politics-and-strategy-february-march-2013-3db7/55-1-02-doyle-a88b)

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AnonNo15
Those are interesting bits:

"Maintaining its current arsenal of over 10,000 nuclear warheads costs the
United States approximately $31 billion annually."

"Firstly, the force is too big. Without the need to target Russia’s strategic
forces there simply are not enough plausible aim-points in the world for US
nuclear weapons that would require 1,500–2,000 operationally deployed
warheads. For example, in an extreme crisis, perhaps 50–100 nuclear weapons at
most would be needed to threaten devastation on Iran, North Korea or China. "

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fintler
After a quick skim of the article, the following stood out to me as things
that could make discussion with Russia more difficult:

"the US strategic community continues to perceive Russia as a potential
adversary"

"no country other than Russia has the capability to preempt the launch of US
forces by destroying a significant portion of them on the ground"

also, this is interesting, but not as much:

"with the possible exception of North Korea, the strength of whose rudimentary
nuclear-weapons capabilities remains unknown"

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jqm
Is anyone surprised that a person publicly advocating a reduction in weapons
is unwelcome at a place where a large number of people derive their livelihood
from making weapons?

For the record I agree with the guy. We (in the US) spend far too much on
military gear and endeavors I think and it is both unnecessary and
destructive.

But when you bite the hand that is feeding you and everyone around you.....you
can expect to get slapped.

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PhantomGremlin
If Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, would they still control Crimea?
Would there be so many thousands of Russian troops massing outside their
borders? Would there be so many Russian special forces operating in their
country?

Maybe. But I bet, right now, most leaders in Ukraine wish they still had them.

OTOH, do most ordinary Ukrainian citizens wish their country still had nuclear
weapons? Perhaps not.

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Kroem3r
if Ukraine had retained the nuclear weapons, they would have been the Russian
weapons, and Ukraine would not have been flirting with the EU/NATO sphere, etc
... your implication is tempting, but does not include all the story

