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Do any fringe groups have the ability to attack with nuclear weapons?

PlanetJosh

PlanetJosh

Golden Member
This question could be brought up in numerous other threads but since it's now another thread we'll see. A fringe group could be a country like North Korea which is an evil fringe to many or most western countries. Or it could be a buddy with a country like Russia.

I just want to know if fringe groups don't have the technical ability or if they're afraid of being nuked in retaliation. The material from their bomb can be traced to them. So is the main thing just Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD? Seems like something else is behind it and I'm trying to figure it out.
 
Gen 1 nuclear weapons are incredibly simple (like treeshade mechanic simple), and you can make them simpler with a dirty bomb. The gatekeepers are a) availability of nuclear material, b) the ability to refine said material to make it more powerful, and c) the ability to make large quantities of anything related to nuclear weapons without anyone finding out.

The above aside, there's virtually zero chance that the breakup of the USSR didn't result in at least one broken arrow incident, there's probably a few 'floating around'.
 
Fenixgoon said:
*rubs eyes* this isnt a gettyroad thread?

Osiris addressed it well enough. I can't anything more informative
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If it was a gettyroad thread we would by hearing about how people want the police to have nuclear weapons because the police are the authority figures and that's what people want after they read the gospel of Marky Mark.

And a random neo-nazi school board member would be Trump's VP choice because that's what white people want or some shit.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
Gen 1 nuclear weapons are incredibly simple (like treeshade mechanic simple), and you can make them simpler with a dirty bomb. The gatekeepers are a) availability of nuclear material, b) the ability to refine said material to make it more powerful, and c) the ability to make large quantities of anything related to nuclear weapons without anyone finding out.

The above aside, there's virtually zero chance that the breakup of the USSR didn't result in at least one broken arrow incident, there's probably a few 'floating around'.
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That's what's in the back of my mind too, if they could pull it off they would've done it by now. Hence no nuclear WW3 so far. How sad. Sorry, that sad bit was just some Armageddon humor.
 
The one thing I could imagine is Russia smuggling one out the back door, not necessarily directing where it's going to be used specifically (except not on Russian soil) but simply just to stir the pot with total deniability, another slight of hand if you will, Putin excels at navigating the fallout of chaos.
 
PlanetJosh said:
That's what's in the back of my mind too, if they could pull it off they would've done it by now. Hence no nuclear WW3 so far. How sad. Sorry, that sad bit was just some Armageddon humor.
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In most situations, nukes are more useful unused than used. Only fanatics would just use one for anything other than existential self defense.
 
One of the truly spectacular outcomes of the Gulf War 1 was the overwhelming victory helped convince Libya to voluntarily give up its nuke program, which exposed the Pakistani/North Korea nuke technology pipeline, which also eventually indirectly exposed the Syrian weapons program - which Israel took care of when little Bush wouldn't.

That directly removed 2 extremely high risk sources of loose nukes that could have easily fallen into hands of fanatics.
 
Dirty bombs are the bigger concern for non-state entities. Steal spent fuel, load it in a truck with fertilizer/diesel, boom, mutli-billion dollar clean-up required.
 
cytg111 said:
The one thing I could imagine is Russia smuggling one out the back door, not necessarily directing where it's going to be used specifically (except not on Russian soil) but simply just to stir the pot with total deniability, another slight of hand if you will, Putin excels at navigating the fallout of chaos.
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So the bomb would be ready to detonate by entering a code? Like in the movie Broken Arrow with John Travolta. He can enter a code on the bomb control box to start a countdown. If any tech people can explain if that's t's how a bad guy or whoever would do it. Oh just noticed IronWing described a method for it.
 
Absolutely no expert, but I would have thought 'dirty bombs' and bio-weapons were a bigger threat when it comes to "non-state actors".

Seems to me there's a general logic to technological advancement that implies greater-and-greater destructive capability will become available to ever-smaller-scale groups over time. In much the same way that the potential killing power of small-arms has increased over time.

And unfortunately there seems to be no corresponding reduction in the level of individual lunacy present in the human population.
 
IronWing said:
Dirty bombs are the bigger concern for non-state entities. Steal spent fuel, load it in a truck with fertilizer/diesel, boom, mutli-billion dollar clean-up required.
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Wouldn't this have been done by now? This is really getting my hopes up 🙂 But seriously, I am not a fanatic. No really, how come this hasn't happened yet?
 
Fenixgoon said:
It's almost like there are innumerable 3-letter-agencies who try to prevent this sort of thing from happening...
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If they are trying that implies no assurances of success every time. So maybe fate is part it like fate is preventing a nuclear holocaust until the right time whenever that is. I know that sounds more like religion than science.

Anyway I'm still wondering and searching for how to interpret this whole thing. Fate vs factual evidence gathering and on it goes.
 
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PlanetJosh said:
If they are trying that implies no assurances of success every time. So maybe fate is part it like preventing a nuclear holocaust until the right time whenever that is. I know that sounds more like religion than science.

Anyway I'm still wondering and searching for how to interpret this whole thing. Fate vs factual evidence gathering and on it goes.
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we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on national security to more or less guarantee success.

fate is just a belief with no evidence. much like faith. science, on the other hand, relies on empirical observation, experimentation, understanding, and a constant testing of ideas and theories.
 
PlanetJosh said:
If they are trying that implies no assurances of success every time. So maybe fate is part it like fate is preventing a nuclear holocaust until the right time whenever that is. I know that sounds more like religion than science.

Anyway I'm still wondering and searching for how to interpret this whole thing. Fate vs factual evidence gathering and on it goes.
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You got a weird fetish for mushrooming the planet.
 
PlanetJosh said:
This question could be brought up in numerous other threads but since it's now another thread we'll see. A fringe group could be a country like North Korea which is an evil fringe to many or most western countries. Or it could be a buddy with a country like Russia.

I just want to know if fringe groups don't have the technical ability or if they're afraid of being nuked in retaliation. The material from their bomb can be traced to them. So is the main thing just Mutual Assured Destruction or MAD? Seems like something else is behind it and I'm trying to figure it out.
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The problem said fringe group would face is nearly every nation state regardless of current alignment would have an existential interest in cooperating to exterminate any such group.

Also, said nation states are very powerful, very well armed, very well financed, and have no need to operate in secret.


Lastly, said nation states would not be above using questionable methods against said group. Example: The USA could return uncooperative suspects to origin* countries for questioning by local authorities. We are talking about a missing nuke after all. Ends suddenly start justifying means pretty quickly.


*oh, the suspect seems to have had multiple passports. How convenient one of them is for Saudi Arabia. Odd he doesn't know Arabic, but it is not like the questioners don't know English.
 
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[DHT]Osiris said:
Gen 1 nuclear weapons are incredibly simple (like treeshade mechanic simple), and you can make them simpler with a dirty bomb. The gatekeepers are a) availability of nuclear material, b) the ability to refine said material to make it more powerful, and c) the ability to make large quantities of anything related to nuclear weapons without anyone finding out.

The above aside, there's virtually zero chance that the breakup of the USSR didn't result in at least one broken arrow incident, there's probably a few 'floating around'.
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Even the US has lost a few nukes. Sum of All Fears was a good book/movie related to terrorist finding a lost nuke.
 
PlanetJosh said:
Wouldn't this have been done by now? This is really getting my hopes up 🙂 But seriously, I am not a fanatic. No really, how come this hasn't happened yet?
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There's a good chance it almost has, this is one of those things the gen pop wouldn't have been made aware of.
 
cytg111 said:
You got a weird fetish for mushrooming the planet.
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Does it show? Well I've been posting here for years so I guess it does show at bit by now.

Don't forget there's an acceptable way of looking at it which lots of nice people believe. Like the movies we watch about nuclear war that say we should not let our science go out of control and cause WW3.

Lots of us here like those kind of messages from our favorite movies like the Terminator series. It's not fanatical it's just conveying that feeling from those movies to others on internet social media or in person or by other means.
 
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Fenixgoon said:
we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on national security to more or less guarantee success.

fate is just a belief with no evidence. much like faith. science, on the other hand, relies on empirical observation, experimentation, understanding, and a constant testing of ideas and theories.
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How does one deal with the billions of people in almost every country who believe it's their fate to have taken a path? For example the billions who say it's their fate to have a family, to send a son or daughter to a particular college, to work in a profession, to attend a concert, to hike on a mountain, to join the military to fight against nuclear threats. And so on.

And you can probably see where I'm headed and it's that our lives may have been saved a number of times from nuclear war by a kind of mystic fate. Not saying it's god or the gods. Some sentient universal force perhaps. Which you may think is silly but there's still the billions of people to answer too as I described above.
 
PlanetJosh said:
How does one deal with the billions of people in almost every country who believe it's their fate to have taken a path? For example the billions who say it's their fate to have a family, to send a son or daughter to a particular college, to work in a profession, to attend a concert, to hike on a mountain, to join the military to fight against nuclear threats. And so on.

And you can probably see where I'm headed and it's that our lives may have been saved a number of times from nuclear war by a kind of mystic fate. Not saying it's god or the gods. Some sentient universal force perhaps. Which you may think is silly but there's still the billions of people to answer too as I described above.
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It is my fate to bring peace to the earth with giant glowing mushrooms!

The warm, radiant glow . . .
 
PlanetJosh said:
Wouldn't radiation work better than radiant in this situation?
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the Holy Blessing comes later . . . first we bask in the Holy Light. Perceive the majesty in its fullness as it permanently etches its glory in our retinas. For all other light will be unholy, unworthy, and we will exist separate from it for the rest of our days time remembering that most Holy Light.
 
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