U.S. pact transforms India's role in nuclear club

The nuclear ambitions of India, the Middle East States, and North Korea convince me that the United States needs to continue refining its own nuclear weapons technology.

First, the Reliable Replacement Warhead development program I believe is a good idea. The concept of designing and building simple, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons that can be scaled up in yield if necessary seems prudent.

Second, the possibility of directed energy nuclear weapons such as a nuclear bomb pulsed x-ray laser concept should be considered. I believe open literature on the subject was available during the 1980s at the height of the SDI program, referred to in public slang as the “Star Wars” program. The concept involves the excitation of the energy levels within the atoms of exotic isotopic materials by a nuclear explosion whereupon the materials would produce a narrow beam of x-rays in the nanoseconds before the materials were reduced to a plasma state. Rumors indicate that such a program may have had limited success but may also have been a diversionary tactic to though off Soviet research agendas. If such devices can be effectively designed, one such device with numerous lasing rods could in theory destroy almost the entire in-flight supply of enemy nuclear warheads in one feld-swoop. The caveat is that the device could only be used once, since the intense heat and ionizing radiation of the nuclear weapon trigger would ionize the device on the scale of nanoseconds.

Third, the possibility of directed energy or axially biased blasts from nuclear weapons appeared in mainstream news media reports during the late 1970s and early 1980s within magazines at least within the United States. Accordingly, perhaps a large portion of the blast energy could be directed downward into a target in an airburst in such a manner that the target would receive a much higher concentration of blast energy as well as heat energy, and thermal radiation but wherein the surrounding populated civilian areas would suffer a reduced level of destruction.

Fourth, the tailoring of the primary initial energy emissions from nuclear devices has at the very least been proposed and in some cases researched, a good example of which is the so-called neutron bomb which emits about 85 percent of its energy in the form of neutron flux as apposed to only about 5 to 10 percent for a conventional nuclear weapon. A neutron bomb of a paltry one kiloton in yield could accordingly induce certain fatalities within a range of up to 1.5 kilometers from the blast center, even for those otherwise protected within the confines of armored vehicles such as main battle tanks and within reinforced buildings. Depending on the fissionable or fissionable and fusionable materials used in the construction of a nuclear device as well as the inclusion of any surrounding energy absorbing materials and/or depending on the altitude of detonation, nuclear weapons can be designed to emit greater or lesser degrees of gamma rays, hard x-rays, soft x-rays, ultra violate and visible light, as well as lower frequency radiation such as electromagnetic pulse frequencies.

Fifth, the levels or radioactive fallout can be tailored for greater or lesser destructive effects on human beings and other animals such as live-stock. Certain isotopes of various elements can be included within the nuclear device, wherein, upon neutron capture and other transmutative processes produced as a result of the fusion fragment and/or fission fragment capture of the former, longer lived or short lived radioactive fallout species can be produced. Short lived fallout, for example, that is tailored to produce intense high energy particle or gamma ray emissions can be useful for short term lethality effects within the area exposed to the fallout. Longer lived intense energy emitters can be produced as fallout in cases where it is desired to deny the enemy safe haven after a nuclear attack. Note that some of the proposed short half-live transformed precursor materials have a half life ranging from hours to only a few days, thus effecting the area exposed to fallout in such a manner that those unprotected would suffer certain death. Other radio-isotopes such as an isotope of Cobalt, have a have life of roughly 5 years but emit high energy gamma rays thus denying habitability of an effected region for many years.

Sixth, the idea of pure fusion weapons is an area of interest by U.S. nuclear weapons scientists because of the potentially much less radioactive fallout that would be produced for a device with a given yield, but also, because such devices would be or could be made much more compact and/or with optionally lower yields. A softball size pure fusion weapon that had a mass of one kilogram, but wherein 90 percent or more of its mass would undergo fusion, could have a yield of at least 160 kilotons, which is about 15 times the yield of the device that leveled Hiroshima.

Other applications and additional types of nuclear weapons can probably be developed including devices based on principles that have not been discovered yet. The nuclear genie is out of the bottle and cannot be put back in. But we can manage our nuclear technology in a safe and responsible manner.

Although I am a conservative Catholic, I have no qualms about the utility of maintaining a nuclear deterrence and a strong defense. Terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda certainly would like to acquire nuclear weapons and although I am not speaking for the Catholic Church, I believe, if I am not mistaken, that even the Pope has spoken on the potential problems or serious issues that could in sue if, say, the U.S. were to unilaterally abandoned all of its nuclear weapons in a world where proliferation of such weapons seems to becoming out of control.