I am disappointed to hear that two companies are competing to design new nuclear weapons. Slashdot.

The Nuclear Issue

Nuclear weapons are terror weapons by definition. There is no nuclear explosion that could go off in an effective area that will not kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of civilians in the process of its use. Nuclear weapons aimed at urban centers are murderbombs. AKA terror. A nuclear weapon is too large on a modern battlefield to be truly effective. Smart bombs and prayer are much more effective.

We have conventional weapons that are as effective as small nuclear weapons. The Vietnam era daisycutter has an effective diameter of over one kilometer. What target will not be destroyed by a one kilometer explosion? Or any series of them? Bunkers deeper than 1000 meters. I'm just going to have to ask you to build a better burrowing missile for that instead of a better bomb. What good is anything buried under 1000 destroyed meters of earth during war? I can think of nothing. The only difference between a nuclear bomb and two daisycutters is radiation liability.

Nuclear weapon research is expensive, exotic, toxic, and is socially unusable. Will it upgrade our existing nuclear deterrent, which we have pledged to eliminate? No. Conventional nuclear weapons are as deadly as ever, and we still have the power to wipe out life on earth. That power does not belong in the hands of mankind. It belongs in God's hands and no one else's. Reduce our military spending, reducing our nuclear payload. Reduce our military inefficiency and reduce our need for a military by increasing other forms of insurance of goodness.

Proposals by Hans Blix and other NNP proponents correctly identify nuclear weapons for their high terror potential and military uselessness, except in armageddon. In no reasonable scenario are defensive nuclear capabilities indispensible.