(no subject)

[webofevil]

A tip to aspiring hawkish politicians, think tanks, arms dealers etc: when playing mood music, try and keep it in the same key.

"From a secrecy standpoint, it's like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture," [Teal Group analyst] Aboulafia said. "But I'm sure they can sell it to someone who can get some kind of information out of it." [Defense News]

Alternatively, they're just now putting the finishing touches to their own nuclear weapon. Which is it?

Hat-tip: The Angry Arab

Comments

[drplokta]

Nuclear weapons were cutting-edge technology in the 1940s. By modern standards, they're barely more advanced than ox-carts.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

Nukes are cutting edge for the 1960s, not 1940s.

The 1940s 1st gen nukes were huge and needed so much fissile material that they nearly bankrupted even the US to produce them. Only with some of the 1950s developments (particularly getting past the Pu240 problem) could there really be proliferation outside of the US & USSR.

Even India and Pakistan's tests (look up "Smiling Buddha" in the HEW archives) relied on computational modelling that didn't exist _anywhere_ until the 1960s.

The difficulty with Iran is that their enrichment technology is 1980s, maybe 1990s, and that's good enough for an oil state with deep pockets and the state will to build a whole lot.