How many Nukes do you need?

[welsh]

So should there be more or less disarmament?
How many times do we need to nuke the world to oblivion?

Nuclear disarmament

The fewer the better

Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Something the nuclear powers owe the rest of the world

THOUGH not yet a breakthrough, the news from the proliferation front this week was brighter. Javier Solana, the European Union's quasi-foreign minister, flew to Iran with an extraordinary offer. If the mullahs agreed to suspend their nerve-jangling nuclear enrichment and reprocessing, they would be granted not only various economic rewards but their first chance for more than two decades to hold direct talks with America. If they refuse, they may face sanctions in the UN Security Council. For once, the mood music from Washington and Tehran was almost harmonious (see article).

It would be nice if the US didn't have to nuke Iran. Although they were total pricks in the World Cup.
I think the ref was afraid he'd get a Fatwa on his ass.

But making the world safer from nukes is not a job just for the suspected proliferators. The official nuclear powers—America, Russia, Britain, France and China—need to acknowledge something they like to forget: that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was to some extent erected on a fiction.

In return for nobody else joining their club, the five promised to work to get rid of their nuclear weapons, as part of a process of general disarmament. That seems as far off now as it ever was (see article). And the belief among many governments that the five are not holding up their end of the bargain exposes them to charges of hypocrisy, adds to the NPT's woes and makes it harder to encourage the three treaty outsiders—India, Pakistan and Israel—to curb their nuclear arsenals.

Why get rid of your little nuke arsenal when the big nuke arsenals don't disappear?

With the best will in the real world, everyone knew that getting rid of nuclear arms was never going to be easy. What counts for governments who understand this is that the nuclear haves find ways of moving purposefully in the right general direction. As the cold-war negotiations showed, curbing arms races and cutting nuclear tallies (even to numbers far from zero) is in the interests of all, the haves included. It still is, for the same reason that these weapons have been around for so long: the world is an unpredictable place. America and Russia are these days not the post-cold-war chums they once hoped to be. America and China, though conscious of the need to rub along peaceably, suspect each other's intentions, especially over Taiwan. All could be drawn into regional rivalries in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia if these turn overtly nuclear. The dangers should not be exaggerated. But tighter controls make for a safer world, come what may.

Don't forget, the nuclear clock has not stopped ticking.

What can and can't be done
That means pushing nuclear numbers as low as possible. By 2012 America and Russia have agreed they will deploy no more than 1,700-2,200 strategic warheads each, down two-thirds from the number in 2002, when their agreement was sealed. Yet of the realistic threats facing both countries, including from a still growing Chinese arsenal, there are none that could not readily be deterred by a lot fewer. And if Russia would cut its thousands of tactical nuclear weapons, America could get rid of the few hundred it still keeps. Meanwhile, both have plans to modernise their remaining weapons. It would help avoid any danger of a new arms race if newer warheads meant fewer too.

But is this really a good thing?

If overall nuclear numbers can be driven down further, Britain and France also need to put their weapons on the negotiating table. As for China, it is the most secretive of the official five. In cold-war times it used to say breezily that it would join arms-control talks with the other nuclear powers when America and Russia cut their arsenals by half. When they did, China fell silent. Yet more transparency over its nuclear plans could help draw India and Pakistan into a more stabilising web of constraint in a dangerous neighbourhood.

Of course if China decides to arms race.... that would be pretty crappy. Especially if Taiwan becomes the US's Cuba.

Meanwhile, America's refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (China has not ratified it either) makes it hard to press India, Pakistan and Israel to do so. A treaty banning the production of fissile material for bombs has been stuck in the UN's Conference on Disarmament for a decade. Though India claims to support such a treaty, its weapons plans clearly count on the impasse continuing. America unwisely missed a chance to make a fiss-ban a condition of its recent proposed controversial deal with India on civilian co-operation.

Tighter stewardship of fewer nuclear weapons and the technologies and materials that go into them will not, on its own, usher in a nuclear-free world. But to most these would be welcome steps that could help turn the recent chain reaction of suspicion and rivalry that is damaging the NPT into one that could improve the security of all. That is surely the least that the official nuclear powers owe the rest.

Note fewer missiles also means more vulnerability to a first strike. Nuke deterrence works only if the other side knows that they cannot survive a war even if they launch first.

Is disarmament such a good thing?

 

[welsh]

Admin means you can double post-

How many nukes?

Nuclear disarmament

The long, long half-life

Jun 8th 2006
From The Economist print edition

The five countries officially recognised as having nuclear weapons are all committed to giving them up. Why don't they?

“I FELT as if there had been an earthquake beneath my feet,” was Margaret Thatcher's recollection of the 1986 Reykjavik summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. What shocked Britain's “iron lady”, astonished the watching world and startled the summiteers themselves was how close the leaders of the hitherto battling superpowers had seemed to come to agreeing to give up all their nuclear weapons.

Yes, but it was all bluff.
SDI.

The heady moment passed. Yet why should the vision of nuclear disarmament have seemed so shocking? Why does achieving it still seem so far away? And what, if anything, might make its prospects brighter in future?

Although they seem to be objects of desire for such countries as Iran and North Korea, nuclear weapons are supposed to be on their way out. The five officially recognised nuclear powers—America, Russia, Britain, France and China—are all legally committed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to good-faith negotiations “on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear-arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”. All who sign the NPT are also treaty-bound to pursue “general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”.

Some believe it is quixotic to expect much nuclear disarmament until all non-nuclear countries have started to turn their swords, tanks, missiles and chemical and biological weapons into ploughshares. Nuclear weapons, they note, helped keep a peace of sorts during the cold war (a nuclear war fought between such powerfully armed adversaries would have been tantamount to mutual suicide). So there is no reason to believe today's world would be safer without the bomb, say the sceptics.

Thus the big question- do nuclear weapons keep the world safer or less stable?

And does it depend on who holds them?

Others would ban the bomb and damn the consequences. Anti-nuclear campaigners have long argued that nuclear weapons are not just legally destined for the scrapheap (a judgment upheld by the International Court of Justice in 1996), but morally abhorrent, too, and uniquely so. Moreover, if it would be immoral to use them (the court split on that), say the disarmers, it would be immoral to threaten to use them—so hanging on to them, even as a deterrent of last resort, is unacceptable.

Nuclear disarmament has never been adopted as a practical policy by any of the nuclear five. But they did agree in principle in 1995 that steps towards that end should not have to await disarmament of the more universal sort. That is because their promises are part of a bargain that lies at the heart of the non-proliferation treaty. The treaty recognises that five countries have nuclear weapons (all had them before 1970, when the NPT came into force, though France and China signed it only in 1992), but obliges them to give them up eventually. For their part, the have-nots have agreed not to seek nuclear weapons, but can in return expect help in developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

But the bargain is now looking shaky. Though the NPT is all but universal, the three countries that have refused to join it—India, Pakistan and Israel—are now nuclear-armed. India's bomb tests in 1998, and then Pakistan's, dashed hopes that nuclear weapons would simply fade into post-cold-war irrelevance.

IF the big 5 don't disarm, why should the others?

Of cheats and profiteers
Confidence in the NPT itself has also been undermined. North Korea claims to have pulled out in 2003, having been caught cheating twice, and says it has built several bombs. Iran claims not to want any, but lied for 20 years to inspectors about its uranium and plutonium activities (which can be used for generating electricity, or abused for bomb-making), leading many to suspect that its intentions are far from peaceful. Both tapped a well-stocked nuclear blackmarket, centred on Pakistan's former chief nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, that also supplied Libya and possibly others.

A report this month from an international commission led by Hans Blix, who directed weapons inspections in Iraq before the 2003 war, blames the strains on the continuing sharp division between the haves and the have-nots: unless the nuclear powers show themselves more ready to give up their weapons, it argues, others will try to crash the club. The commission calls for a world summit at the UN to give a new push to disarmament, non-proliferation and efforts to prevent terrorists getting weapons of mass destruction.

Certainly, the NPT's five-yearly reviews have become bad-tempered affairs. The disarmers blame the nuclear powers, particularly America. The Bush administration, they claim, is reneging on promises made by all the nuclear five. It refuses to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which all five have signed, though China too has yet to ratify it. America supports a treaty to end the production of fissile materials, such as highly enriched uranium and plutonium, for bomb-making, but without an international inspection effort, preferring to rely instead on members policing each other. America has also been making plans for new bombs.

Might disarmament by any or even all of the nuclear five affect the calculations of an Iran or North Korea—let alone India, Pakistan or Israel? Most nuclear politics is about regional rivalries. And in a “nuclear-free” world, or even one with very few bombs, successful cheating would be at even more of a premium.

Which is another problem- to disarm one has to be sure the other guys are also disarming- transparency.

But transparency also means insecurity if you reveal your secrets and your enemy doesn't reveal his.

That said, the haves do provide a fig-leaf for those who want a bomb of their own. India has in the past been candid about its hopes of using its nuclear status to win it a permanent seat on the UN Security Council alongside the official nuclear five. Yet at the same time the actions of those who would bend, break or reject the treaty make it easier for existing weapons states to hang on to their nuclear toys.

If these do not seem auspicious times for nuclear disarmament, what of the NPT promises? The old nuclear-arms race between America and Russia had virtually ended even before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and since then nuclear stockpiles have shrunk dramatically. So long as such weapons exist at all, countries that have them will want to maintain their safety, reliability and effectiveness—all the more so as their numbers shrink. Accordingly, all of the nuclear five have modernised the weapons they have kept, or are thinking of doing so. That offends disarmers.

Of course if you don't modernize the risk of accidents increases. But if you do modernize, the action can be seen as provocative.

The cuts have nonetheless been deep. During the cold war America and Russia had thousands of nuclear warheads: America built 70,000 between 1945 and 2000, the Soviet Union 55,000. Under the Moscow treaty signed in 2002, George Bush and Vladimir Putin agreed to reduce their countries' arsenals to 1,700-2,200 deployed strategic warheads apiece by 2012 (see table 1). Neither side has an interest in restoring cold-war numbers, and Russia would have found it economically crippling to try. Disarmers and arms-control purists, however, dislike the Moscow treaty because it has no verification provisions. Neither side, they point out, is obliged to destroy the warheads taken out of service. And in theory the deep cuts required could be reversed after 2012.

Yet they could also go deeper still. Russia now claims to rely more on nuclear weapons (including tactical ones that America has all but abandoned) for its defence, to make up for deficiencies in its cash-strapped armed forces. That is troubling, but does not preclude further reductions, since potential targets are fewer. Critics did not like the Bush administration's plans for research into nuclear bunker-busters when they were announced a few years ago. But Congress has cut the funds. America is also working on a “reliable replacement warhead”, more robust and easier to maintain than its predecessors, for use in its remaining arsenal. If it works, though, the number of non-deployed warheads kept as spares could be sharply cut.

Note- nukes are cheap. So the Russians rely on tactical nukes instead of armored divisions.

Britain and France, like America and Russia, have been cutting, too. Of the official five, China is the only one still adding to its nuclear force, albeit from a low base.

Nor have the official nuclear powers simply sat smugly on their bombs. Extended deterrence, the readiness to shelter non-nuclear allies under a friendly nuclear umbrella, has helped keep proliferation in check—hence Mrs Thatcher's alarm when it looked as though Reagan was about to strip NATO of American nuclear protection. Of the countries that could have built a bomb (see table 2), many simply chose not to try. Others over the years had their arms twisted, mostly by America.

The disarmament ayatollahs
For all that, officials in the firing line complain that no matter how low America and the others go, the “disarmament ayatollahs” will never be satisfied. Well, they would be if the number were zero, comes the riposte, and that is the number that the nuclear five have committed themselves to, one day, under the NPT. Let's get going.

If no one will ever disarm to 0 then why disarm?

Here the difficulties arise. Most governments recognise that the nuclear powers are not simply going to give up their weapons. The basic know-how needed to build a bomb is by now 60 years old, and cannot be disinvented. Nor does the experience of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention, which outlaw these weapons, offer great reassurance. Of those that have signed these conventions (and not all countries have), several are suspected of cheating.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council, supposedly the place of final resort to deal with threats from all types of weapons of mass destruction, has proved feeble in dealing with those who break treaties. Iraq ran rings round it for much of the 1990s. North Korea has cheated and flounced out of the NPT, so far without penalty. Now Iran is proving another difficult test.

Given this experience, few governments, whether reluctant or enthusiastic disarmers, have ever bent their minds to working out whether it might be feasible to get rid of the bomb safely. All seem to prefer to trade well-worn slogans.

Signs of seriousness might start with renewed attempts to tackle the threats to peace and security that drive regional arms races. They would also have to include efforts to work towards the creation of zones that would be free of weapons of mass destruction. The Middle East and South Asia would be two early candidates.

Work has been going on since the early 1990s to secure nuclear materials in Russia and other ex-Soviet countries, but the effort would need to be stepped up and extended worldwide. The attempts to block illicit transfers of nuclear materials and technology would have to be intensified. Surplus weapons would need to be dismantled more speedily. And some way would have to be found to reassure the have-nots that the haves were reducing the role, as well as the numbers, of nuclear weapons in their defence policies.

Difficulties, and more difficulties
Even many a nuclear enthusiast would agree that such steps would make today's world safer. But much more would be needed to make tomorrow's world safe for the much deeper cuts in nuclear weapons that might precede their total abolition.

One idea for binding nuclear and non-nuclear states into a web of controls and reassurance is a Nuclear Weapons Convention, along the lines of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions, setting out progressive steps towards an eventual ban. These would need to include obligations not to develop, test or produce new weapons; a transitional moratorium on use; a timetable for dismantling weapons; an obligation on all states to prevent the transfer of nuclear skills and materials; and a programme for converting or shutting down completely all weapons-related facilities. As with UN Resolution 1540, which obliges governments to pass laws to prevent weapons of mass destruction and related materials reaching terrorists, the rules would have to apply not just to states, but to companies and individuals as well.

The practical difficulties in negotiating such a convention would be enormous. Just look at the complexities involved in bringing the CTBT into force. In all, 44 countries with nuclear-power or research reactors, including India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, must ratify the treaty before it can take effect. It is not just America's reluctance that is causing the delay—though, as the Blix commission rightly says, that ratification would trigger others.

The next logical bit of legal scaffolding for a nuclear-freer world would be a fissile-material ban. In theory almost every country supports such a ban (though some, like India, might not mind if the talks dragged on for years). The nuclear five are all thought to have stopped producing uranium and plutonium for weapons; only China refuses to say so publicly. But talks in the UN Conference on Disarmament have stalled over efforts to press America into space and disarmament discussions. Verification concerns are another blow. America argues that a credible verification regime for the treaty would be too costly and intrusive for anyone to accept.

Its' always the Chinese.

Others disagree. But if governments are ever to generate the will to consider steps towards a nuclear zero, the devil at each stage will be in such verification technicalities. The lower the numbers go, the greater the need for confidence that all are indeed cutting their weapons as promised.

All weapons states have experience of dismantling warheads and disposing of their innards. But doing that to the satisfaction of all without unintentionally giving away weapons secrets would need careful preparation (so far only the British government has published thoughts on how this might be done). The difficulties affect not only the nuclear states. All other states that have produced potentially weapons-usable uranium and plutonium would have to account for what they had done with the stuff too. Only relatively small quantities—not more than 25 kilos of highly enriched uranium, or eight kilos of plutonium—are required for a bomb.

Such accounting is not easy. South Africa had secretly built several bombs and then dismantled them before joining the NPT in 1991. It had every reason to co-operate fully with the inspectors, but still found it hard to account for every last scrap of material. The inspectors faced other problems in Iraq in the 1990s, when Saddam Hussein deliberately sought to deceive them. And not just America, Russia, Britain, France and China, but also India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—and others that have fallen under suspicion of weapons dabbling—would have to be cajoled to allow fine-tooth-comb inspections.

Countries that have signed the NPT also have the right (so long as they keep its anti-proliferation rules) to enjoy the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy, a right Iran claims justifies its uranium and plutonium “fuel-making”. But beyond a certain point—one that Iran is rapidly approaching—the only difference between a civilian and a military nuclear programme is one of intent. Given that difficulty, a report last year on “Universal Compliance” by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank in Washington, DC, wondered whether even fuel-making for nuclear reactors would be feasible in a world without nuclear weapons.

Putting it another way, can disarmament ever work in a world where potentially weapons-usable technologies are scattered around with civilian labels on them? Ways are being explored—through market mechanisms, international fuel banks and the like—to ensure that countries with civilian nuclear reactors can receive reliable supplies of fuel without the need to make it themselves. Proliferation-safer (none is entirely secure) reactor designs are also being developed. Yet solutions to many of these problems will be many years in coming.

And that's the thing- the further the genie gets out of the bottle, the more difficult it is to capture him.

Chemicals, bugs and missiles, too
Human ingenuity may yet find answers to these technical questions. But could a transition to a nuclear-freer world be safely managed, politically and militarily?

Since verification will never be flawless, a consensus would have to be forged and then relied on to enforce better compliance with the NPT, a test ban, a fissile-materials control regime, and the conventions banning both chemical and biological weapons. For if these supporting treaties cannot be upheld, there is little chance that a nuclear ban will ever be considered. NPT outliers will also have to be prevailed upon not just to halt but to roll back their weapons production. And a moratorium on the use of nuclear weapons is unlikely to inspire confidence without one on missile testing—and the eventual elimination of missiles from arsenals too.

Then there is the problem of what would constitute zero. Some argue that a residual nuclear capability would always be needed to defend against a breakdown in controls and a break-out by one or more countries. In an imperfect world, deterrence of some sort would be necessary, if only to avoid making it safe for the sort of mass conventional warfare that blighted the first half of the 20th century. But how might this be done, and by whom?

Without convincing answers to such questions, nuclear disarmament, a dream for some, looks more like a nightmare to others. There are incremental steps that can be taken towards that goal. But simply demanding it, without a readiness to tackle the practical problems raised by it, ensures that it will never happen.

Would it be better if we lived in a world of conventional warfare without nukes?

 

[calculon000]

With so many little nations wanting nukes so they can inflate their perceived greatness, it would seem that it would be near impossible to convince them to abandon their ambitions.

 

[Ghoullove]

I have an idea . Turn these countries into parking lots if they do not comply with a cease and desist order. These little pissant states should not ever have nuclear capability or the abiltity to make a Holy Bomb of Armageddon.

 

[calculon000]

Well, the USA was the only country who actually nuked someone. Who are they to tell anyone what they can have regarding nuclear technology?

 

[Milo]

I have an idea . Turn these countries into parking lots if they do not comply with a cease and desist order. These little pissant states should not ever have nuclear capability or the abiltity to make a Holy Bomb of Armageddon.

Are you joking? look what a mess the war in Iraq is, the last thing we need is to go to war with the entire world. esp. when several world leaders have a red phone in reach... a move like that would be the downfall of the US

 

[c0ldst33ltrs4u]

esp. when several world leaders have a red phone in reach

Didn't you mean red buttons or something? As far as I know the red phone is a direct line between two heads of state, originally between the president of the USA and the leader of the USSR, meant to ensure quick and reliable communication between the two during crisis situation so that Fallout might be at least postponed.

As for the nukes: seing how the all mighty nuke is the ultimate big stick until now I think everybody wants one and they are willing to go almost to any lengths to obtain it. We can't just make them disappear and we can't just 'erase' the technology of manufacturing such weapons from our reality so all we can do is make sure they remain just a threat, a deterrent.
How many? Well one common sense answer would be no more than you can maintain, meaning that if one wants to own a nuke he should first ask himself if he can afford to keep it in top shape and secure. By top shape I mean you have to make sure it does not leak, or accidentally go off, so the question would be if you can afford the maintenance costs. As for the secure part, you have to make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands and that the launch does not depend on just one man.
IMO the nuke is just unfair and unsuited for the moral development stage of humanity, too much destruction potential and too little brains... If I could wave a magic wand and make them all go away I would but sadly that is not possible so we have to make our lemonade as sweet as possible....
Does anyone remember the episode of The Simpsons with the magic monkey hand?

 

[Lord 342]

Very interesting topic indeed.
Arms treaties are useless. There will always be someone willing to break them for his own benefit. Any responsible nation should have nukes if they can support them (The previous poster had good definitions of this, actually). They are a great equalizer. Anyone notice how, as nuclear and other weapons technologies advance, the scale of wars goes down? Sure we've been in Iraq longer than WWII, but as many people have died in that long in Iraq as died in any given minute of WWII. Many times that number died the first ~20 seconds of D-day. Nukes make people not want to go to open war rather than encourage it. Believe it or not they are a good thing. Without M.A.D and the like, we may have ended up in a war with the USSR. It's hard to see for the face of it, but the world is better with nuclear weapons.

 

[Milo]

esp. when several world leaders have a red phone in reach

Didn't you mean red buttons or something? As far as I know the red phone is a direct line between two heads of state, originally between the president of the USA and the leader of the USSR, meant to ensure quick and reliable communication between the two during crisis situation so that Fallout might be at least postponed.

I'm quite sure that the red phone is a direct line from the president to military leaders to "OK" the launch of a nuclear weapon. There is no "Big Red Button" that's just movie nonsense.

 

[Wooz]

Americans.

My new form of entertainment.

 

[EyeMaster7]

Nukes make people not want to go to open war rather than encourage it. Believe it or not they are a good thing. Without M.A.D and the like, we may have ended up in a war with the USSR. It's hard to see for the face of it, but the world is better with nuclear weapons.

A safer world with nuclear weapons? What if the Nazis have discovered the atomic bomb in 1938? Or another nation dominated by a madman capable of anything to win a war?

 

[Paladin Solo]

Well, the USA was the only country who actually nuked someone. Who are they to tell anyone what they can have regarding nuclear technology?

So you'd rather have every country in the world owning nukes?

The U.S. knows first hand (but not as first as the Japs) of the devastation the weapons can cause when used against populations. So here we are, downsizing our arsenal, and telling others to do the same, and that ticks you off because you're not an American, or because you want more nukes?

The less nukes in the world, American or not, the better. Nuclear Deterence is too dangerous of a stick to wave around. Or am I the only one that is glad that nuclear war hasn't happened yet and hopes it will never happen? I mean, I know we're all fans of the game Fallout, but I seriously doubt we're all Vault Dwellers in the making.

Anyways. I'm not saying the U.S. is so benevolent as to know what it's doing and you should follow. I'm just saying, the less nukes, the better.

 

[SuAside]

So you'd rather have every country in the world owning nukes?

no, but cant you agree that the "if you try to get nukes, we'll kick your ass"-approach is kinda stupid?

the treaty not to tell other countries how to make nukes makes sense. it slows down the spreading.

but do you REALLY think that you can stop countries from making their own nukes with limited outside help if they really want to? isn't that their own problem? of course it poses a possible security threat, but do you believe you can stop it from happening?

you cant go Team America: World Police on everyones ass the entire time... especially not after constantly using double standards, bringing discrediting yourself.

Nuclear Deterence is too dangerous of a stick to wave around.

which is obviously why the US really needs those 5300 nukes.

it doesnt sell well coming from a country with the most nukes in the world & that constantly violates treaties.

 

[Paladin Solo]

the treaty not to tell other countries how to make nukes makes sense. it slows down the spreading.

I agree.

but do you REALLY think that you can stop countries from making their own nukes with limited outside help if they really want to? isn't that their own problem? of course it poses a possible security threat, but do you believe you can stop it from happening?

I think some hard, dedicated diplomacy on a multi-national level can stop it, and if it can't, can contain it, eventually to the point of decreasing the threat over time if it can't be stopped initially.

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

Just laugh, if you wish.

What if the Nazis had discovered the atomic bomb in 1938 ?

Well the world would be a different place to live. The bombs would have been used against USA, this is obvious, to repel the Allied invasion in western front, the Russian would have been divided into two nations, the western, and the eastern, and the WWII would have been "won" by the United Germanin Nations(all their allies), and the newly intergraded China-Kazakhstan-Mongolia-SiderianRussian(east wards from Ural); to form the Kharn Coalition.
The World Social Economy Center could have been stricken by an Norwegian/Australian terrorist group called The Basis.
The middle-east could be a peaceful place to live.
There would be 1 700 000 000 people in USA-Canada and only a one rich man.
The world would have such things as a computer OS called Mikroweich Fenster XP.
I would write quite fluently german.
Pla, pla, pla...

 

[Jebus]

As long as them damn Muricans get their nukes out of Belgium. Their launch base here makes Belgium a target - and hence subject to the whims of American foreign politics. And you know you can't trust those...

 

[Lazarus Plus]

Re: Just laugh, if you wish.

Well the world would be a different place to live. The bombs would have been used against USA, this is obvious, to repel the Allied invasion in western front, the Russian would have been divided into two nations, the western, and the eastern, and the WWII would have been "won" by the United Germanin Nations(all their allies), ...

Such a ridiculous theory. Not just because the Nazis were nowhere near a bomb by '45 in real history, but the supposition that the USA would be bombed by the Germans... HOW? I suppose on carriers they never built using bombers that didn't exist.

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

Such a ridiculous theory. Not just because the Nazis were nowhere near a bomb by '45 in real history..

If you read the history correctly, you can see that the germans wouldn't have really needed a bomb in Europe, thought maybe against England, cause there was too many GERMANS in Europe.

USA would be bombed by the Germans... HOW? I suppose on carriers they never built using bombs that didn't exist.

Such an American way of thinking, "Because we did it this way, every one else has to do it the way we did it." Well there are at least two other possibilities;
1) With a sub, you bring it close enough, and then set it to explode.
2) Or the variant 4 of the V2 in a Cuban island. / the model doesn't exist, I hope.