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posted by martyb on Friday January 26 2018, @01:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-read-this-VERY-quickly dept.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) has set the Doomsday Clock to "two minutes to midnight" to reflect fears of a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, as well as the failure of world leaders to address climate change and other factors. The clock is now set as close to doomsday as it was in 1953:

The team of scientists singled out a series of nuclear tests by North Korea. They dramatically escalated tensions on the Korean peninsula and led to a war of words between North Korea and the US.

The BAS also referred to a new US nuclear strategy that was expected to call for more funding to expand the role of the country's nuclear arsenal. Rising tension between Russia and the West was also a contributing factor.

The "weakening of institutions" around the world in dealing with major global threats - including climate change - was another major concern, the scientists said. They also mentioned US President Donald Trump's "unpredictability", pointing to his often controversial tweets and statements.

We're back, baby!


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 26 2018, @01:28PM (30 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday January 26 2018, @01:28PM (#628248) Homepage Journal

    Ignorant grandstanding bullshit for political purposes.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @01:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @01:39PM (#628250)

    The fetus was mocking me, from the safety of the womb. Little did it know, I tricked into such that replaced with pure feces. Now it's my time to rape! I'll turn this into a file cabinet fetus! Utilize like this! Utilize like this! Utilize like this! Utilize like this! Utilize like this!

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday January 26 2018, @02:27PM (23 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Friday January 26 2018, @02:27PM (#628264)

    I'm generally a mostly disinterested fan of the Doomsday Clock, and irreversible catastrophic climate change should certainly be acknowledged, but unless I've been grossly misinformed a nuclear war with North Korea shouldn't really register on it.

    Nuclear war with the Soviet Union was one thing - we both had huge arsenals and large webs of allies so that any missile exchange would was likely to trigger an almost immediate global exchange as everybody made sure the people who destroyed them wouldn't be any better off. North Korea though probably has only a few missiles, and no real allies. I suppose there's a chance China would get involved in a nuclear exchange, but it seems rather unlikely as they're a lot more friendly with us than NK, not to mention upwind.

    It would certainly suck for NK, but would probably be an acceptable outcome for China, who supposedly props them up mostly to avoid dealing with the refugees from a political collapse. And NK would be unlikely to land more than a few missiles in the US - which would suck for wherever it hit and have some fallout issues for a while, but unless they're using salted nukes it's a limited problem. Even with salted nukes the immediate problem would be confined to North America, and probably mostly the western US.

    So a really bad day, but hardly Doomsday.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Friday January 26 2018, @02:41PM (5 children)

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday January 26 2018, @02:41PM (#628268) Journal

      Nuclear war with the Soviet Union was one thing - we both had huge arsenals and large webs of allies so that any missile exchange would was likely to trigger an almost immediate global exchange as everybody made sure the people who destroyed them wouldn't be any better off.

      Why are you using the past tense? Those huge arsenals still exist. And are still on alert. And now think what happens if a system misinterprets a missile to NK as a missile to Russia …

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2, Disagree) by frojack on Friday January 26 2018, @05:57PM (3 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Friday January 26 2018, @05:57PM (#628367) Journal

        Why are you using the past tense?

        He's using the past tense because the US and Russia have both substantially reduced their nuclear arsenals from previous highs.
        Probably more than enough to make each country un-inhabitable, but no longer enough to end life on earth.

        https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat [armscontrol.org]

        The key figures are in the bottom most graphic. But the US and Russia have less than 2000 warheads deployed. The number stockpiled
        doesn't matter because neither side will survive long enough to use those.

        Expectations are that less than 1000 from each side would land due to some launchers being taken out before they could launch,
        failures to perform, delivery vehicle intercept, etc.
        Would suck to live in either country, but much of the world would survive, including most of europe, and the southern hemisphere.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:16PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @08:16PM (#628480)

          He's using the past tense because the US and Russia have both substantially reduced their nuclear arsenals from previous highs.
          Probably more than enough to make each country un-inhabitable, but no longer enough to end life on earth.

          No, just human life on earth. And if you think it would only affect 2 countries, you are insane. 2000 warheads is enough to kill billions.

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 26 2018, @11:08PM (1 child)

            by frojack (1554) on Friday January 26 2018, @11:08PM (#628608) Journal

            If all those billions were targeted perhaps. But there aren't a billion people in the US and Russia combined.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
            • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:04PM

              by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:04PM (#628854) Journal

              One nuclear reactor goes bad (Chernobyl) and its effects were felt throughout Europe, affecting livestock, crops and milk production, polluting water supplies etc. 2000 warheads would probably affect the entire planet, although the worst affected areas would be those that had been targeted. Not the end of civilisation as we know it perhaps, but enough to cause the death of millions of people outside the participating countries.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday January 26 2018, @07:45PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 26 2018, @07:45PM (#628460)

        if a system misinterprets a missile

        Round two of "this ain't the USSR we're talking about" is the NK delivery vehicle is likely to be a ship of some sort perhaps pulling into Diego Garcia or some west coast port, and the USA delivery vehicle is likely to be a manned bomber.

        Neither side would be doing the cold war silo launch thing.

    • (Score: 2) by ledow on Friday January 26 2018, @03:47PM (3 children)

      by ledow (5567) on Friday January 26 2018, @03:47PM (#628294) Homepage

      US nukes NK.
      NK dies but gets off one last response.
      NK launches one missile towards all the countries that DIDN'T retaliate against the US, that it doesn't like or that happen to be close by.
      Their retaliations do the same if there's a single bit of confusion over "who shot first", where it came from, what the cause was, etc.
      Global thermonuclear war.

      P.S. to hit NK, you would have to NOT hit SK, China and Russia, i.e. dead-center and perfectly-calculated fallout.
      They won't take kindly to a huge irradiated cloud killing hundreds of thousands of their people.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Friday January 26 2018, @06:08PM (2 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Friday January 26 2018, @06:08PM (#628377) Journal

        NK launches one missile towards all the countries that DIDN'T retaliate against the US,

        Said single missile falls harmlessly into the sea or is shot down.

        Radiation cloud drifts to North America on prevailing winds. Slight excess in cancers is measured for a few years.
        The hopelessly pessimistic WHO predicted 4000 EVENTUAL deaths due to Chernobyl in 2005 within 20 years.
        13 years on, and this is NOT happening.

        5 SEPTEMBER 2005 | GENEVA - A total of up to 4000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.
        As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.

        http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/ [who.int]

        The US would not hit NK with a nuke, because of this very reason.
        The radiation deaths, while vastly over stated, would do more damage to the US than to NK. Especially crop damage (unsalable food supply).

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:27AM

          by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 27 2018, @08:27AM (#628764) Journal

          Of course "died because of" != "can be directly attributed to".

          For example, if someone got cancer because of the radiation. Good luck finding out the cause of that specific case of cancer.

          --
          The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:14PM

          by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:14PM (#630345)

          The US would not hit NK with a nuke, because of this very reason.

          You mean USA-launches-first? I think there are plenty of reasons to assume the USA wouldn't launch first, but I don't think such long-term consequences would deter a nuclear response if NK launched on the US. That's sorta the point of MAD, no?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday January 26 2018, @04:15PM (2 children)

      by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday January 26 2018, @04:15PM (#628305) Homepage Journal

      If it was attacked first

      But if NK starts the war China said they'd be on their own

      --
      Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @10:32PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 26 2018, @10:32PM (#628593)

        ♫ would I lie to you baby would I lie to you baby ♪

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 26 2018, @11:39PM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 26 2018, @11:39PM (#628623) Journal

          Actually, I think China would be true to their word. China would make a lot of political and economic capital out of it, after the fact, but they probably wouldn't interfere with the rain of fire. They WOULD be ready with a counterstrike, if they happened to be hit, of course. That is, they wouldn't be caught unawares, nor would they sit idly by. Military retaliation would be off the table, unless, and until, our side fucked up.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 26 2018, @04:31PM (8 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 26 2018, @04:31PM (#628313) Journal

      I'm generally a mostly disinterested fan of the Doomsday Clock, and irreversible catastrophic climate change should certainly be acknowledged, but unless I've been grossly misinformed a nuclear war with North Korea shouldn't really register on it.

      I'm more concerned about the war than the mostly hypothetical climate change. We can always adapt to either, but there's a good chance with a nuclear war, even one that appears to start small with limited participation from the rest of the world, for things to balloon out of hand.

      For example, the First World War which is thought to have killed 15-20 million people started with an assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and ballooned greatly from there. A war which starts small may not stay small.

      It's not just a matter of crazy leaders who tweet too much too. For example, consider this paper [mitpressjournals.org] discussing the tactics of hitting North Korea nuclear weapons infrastructure with small, tactical nukes. Figure 3 shows the difference between hitting 5 hypothetical sites (they don't actually expect important infrastructure to be there, they made a supposedly educated guess for the simulation) with normal nukes (455 kton yield) and well-directed tactical nukes (0.3 kton yield). With the big weapons and a bad wind pattern, the fallout can cover South Korea and southern Japan, causing casualties in countries allied with the US.

      Meanwhile with the small tactical nukes (and a different wind pattern that conveniently keeps the colored irradiated regions in North Korea), the fallout regions are far smaller. While the paper may well be exaggerating the effectiveness of the second approach, it remains that there's a lot less fallout, real and political, from using this class of nuclear weapons than from the larger ones. This indicates that the game has changed.

      Rather than debate the motives of this particular paper (perhaps it's in good faith, perhaps it's cover for someone's plan to attack North Korea), let's consider the big message - namely, that it indicates that a small nuclear war has a much smaller initial cost to its use than it would have had a few decades ago with less efficient nuclear weapons, poorer targeting systems, and worse satellite intelligence. Eventually, someone will use them (such as a fight between a superpower and a small, nuclear-armed country).

      North Korea with its particularly loathsome and aggressive behavior may well be a transition to an era where nuclear weapon use has become normalized.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 26 2018, @06:18PM (4 children)

        by frojack (1554) on Friday January 26 2018, @06:18PM (#628382) Journal

        Meanwhile with the small tactical nukes (and a different wind pattern that conveniently keeps the colored irradiated regions in North Korea), the fallout regions are far smaller. While the paper may well be exaggerating the effectiveness of the second approach, it remains that there's a lot less fallout, real and political, from using this class of nuclear weapons than from the larger ones. This indicates that the game has changed.

        Exactly. Open that door and it becomes available to all nuke holders. Pakistan hits India. Iran hits Israel, (yes both sides have them - regardless of what they claim).

        Once anyone cedes the moral high ground, the tactical nuke will be the got-to-have weapon for every threatened state.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday January 26 2018, @06:40PM (3 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 26 2018, @06:40PM (#628401) Journal

          Once anyone cedes the moral high ground, the tactical nuke will be the got-to-have weapon for every threatened state.

          I'm more concerned about the counters to the tactical nuke. The tactical nuke is relatively nondestructive when it comes to nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. For example, North Korea has a counter to the use of nuclear weapons by the US or South Korea in the massed artillery pointed at Seoul.

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday January 26 2018, @11:18PM (2 children)

            by frojack (1554) on Friday January 26 2018, @11:18PM (#628613) Journal

            North Korea has a counter to the use of nuclear weapons by the US or South Korea in the massed artillery pointed at Seoul.

            True, but that artillery is defeated within an hour or two at most. MOAB was made for this.
            But lacking that, any standard air support makes this an unlikely tactic.

            What you have to worry about is nuclear artillery.
            If the NK ever had any old Soviet versions, they could make their own easier than making rockets.

            At the end of the Cold War, Russia followed the United States lead and deactivated its nuclear artillery units in 1993. By 2000, Russia reported that nearly all nuclear artillery shells and missile warheads had been destroyed. But the Kim Family has been around a long time.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:54AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 27 2018, @02:54AM (#628678) Journal

              True, but that artillery is defeated within an hour or two at most.

              By what? Even tactical nukes and MOAB aren't that effective against hundreds or thousands of deeply dug in positions. You would need a bunch of them and something to deliver them. In Iraq both in the Gulf War and the Iraqi invasion, with much better visibility for air to ground combat, it took several days to obtain uncontested air superiority. That would be needed for the MOAB because MOAB can only be dropped by the B-52 which doesn't do well against relatively modern air defenses. Meanwhile the B-2 can only be flown out of specialized hangars. Apparently, Guam has those now, but that's still several hours between sortie.

              What you have to worry about is nuclear artillery.

              Or chemical and biological weapons. They're not as effective as nuclear weapons for killing people in a targeted, but they are adequate for indiscriminate killing of civilians.

            • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:17PM

              by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday January 30 2018, @02:17PM (#630351)

              that artillery is defeated within an hour or two at most.

              Absolutely not. They have a huge volume of conventional artillery pieces, many of them concealed. There's no way on Earth you'd take them all out in good time with airstrikes. If it came to it, Seoul would be obliterated. There's no question about this.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday January 26 2018, @08:08PM (2 children)

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 26 2018, @08:08PM (#628477)

        For example, the First World War which is thought to have killed 15-20 million people started with an assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire

        Nah nah nothing to do with that. The root cause of WWI was the leadership, culture, political geography, and national boundaries of Europe were pre-industrial, but here's all this industrial era stuff rolling around like locomotive deployment of troops and machine guns and submarines and tanks and the Russians are industrializing and expanding.

        If you want a less "root" cause the pre-industrial era ottoman and austro-hungarian empires were dead men walking on the verge of collapse and disintegration and everybody wanted a piece of the corpse(s) and everyone figured the best way to get a piece of the action was to go in shooting, because, well, frankly that usually worked pretty well, pre-industrially anyway, mostly.

        ballooned greatly from there

        It wasn't an accident it was the whole purpose of the exercise. It was the old guard vs the new revolutionaries and millions on all sides begging for an excuse to start shooting.

        Thats the problem with the analogy. So... NK itchy trigger finger because for 50 years they've been extorting the region with tantrums and "sure would be a shame if war broke out, so how about you send a few train loads of food to us and we'll extort you next year?"

        There's nothing new or revolutionary or civilization wide going on. Just the usual extortion game thats getting old and too dangerous to keep playing.

        Watch what Trump does not what he says... we have examples of recent presidents party to assassination, think of Vince Foster, for example. Or maybe Seth Rich. There's bluster as a negotiating technique and then there's bloodthirsty psychopaths. Both have recently (currently) been in charge. I prefer Trump's bluster, personally. Someone like Clinton would have been more likely to politely cuck on TV, but nuke NK anyway. Trump ironically sounds scarier but is less likely to do something stupid and bloodthirsty based on past examples (like say decades of business activity, or a year of presidential behavior).

        Eventually, someone will use them (such as a fight between a superpower and a small, nuclear-armed country).

        Almost certainly the next nuclear war will be between India and Pakistan and its hard to call a country a superpower when most of its citizens are still street-shitting. With a side dish of maybe the middle east will fight first. But I'd take a bet on India/Paki nuclear war before middle east. Its too easy for superpowers to "Afghanistan" a small country, nuke or no. Or Soros-funded "color revolution"

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:38AM (1 child)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 27 2018, @04:38AM (#628717) Journal
          And that couldn't happen here? How about the US (and possibly Europe) taking on the role of the Ottoman and Astro-Hungarian empires. China and India taking up roles as the up and comers. I think you see where I'm going with this. It's not particular unstable right now, but right now isn't going to continue forever. And the future may well look like the lead up to the First World War.
          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:07PM

            by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:07PM (#630502)

            However, "wanting a slice of the pie" and "using nuclear weapons" are relatively incompatible. Nobody wants radioactive pie, so the only reason to nuke it is if your enemies have already claimed the pie and you don't see any realistic way to get any yourself. AND you are willing to risk your enemies nuking you in retaliation for spoiling their pie.

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 26 2018, @05:06PM

      by Freeman (732) on Friday January 26 2018, @05:06PM (#628337) Journal

      Assuming, NK launched a nuke at the USA and we didn't intercept, because nothing is ever perfect. Then, we actually responded with Nukes of our own and No One else decided to retaliate for spread of fallout, etc. from our Nukes and / or misinterpretation of our intentions and / or just wanted an excuse to launch on us. Sure, it wouldn't possibly come close to being a Doomsday scenario. We'd just nuke them and be done with it, but that's a very slippery slope. The USA is the only country to have actually used Nuclear Weapons against an enemy. It would definitely be in the World's best interest to have learned from our past mistakes with Nuclear Weapons. Nuclear Weapons are the closest we've come to literally being able to destroy the entire planet with the press of a button. Let's not use them anymore, please. I like breathing clean fresh air. The smell of everything burning with a side of radiation sickness isn't my idea of a good time.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday January 26 2018, @06:32PM (1 child)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday January 26 2018, @06:32PM (#628392) Journal

    Regardless of where you stand on the Doomsday clock you have to admit that a dick-measuring contest between Trump and Kim Jong-Un will leave nobody satisfied.

  • (Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 26 2018, @11:20PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 26 2018, @11:20PM (#628614) Journal

    Yeah - my thoughts as well.

    WTF does N. Korea have, anyway? They have some shitty missiles, that mostly just fall into the ocean, if they don't blow up on launch. One of their tests has been claimed to be capable of intercontinental ballistic flight. I'm not so very sure of that. Warheads? Those people are doing something different with their warheads. I've read a few articles, indicating our side's surprise that N. Korea has done this, but has not done that, and the yields just aren't right - blah blah blah. All over my head, but I thought it was interesting. Basically, all we've ever seen or heard, are secret explosions deep underground. Can they even mount a nuke on a missile?

    So, shitty missiles, unproven warheads, and a very limited economy, what does that give us? At most, they can launch five or ten missiles at us? And, how many are really a threat?

    North Korea is most certainly NOT the USSR or the 1950's and '60's. The USSR was a credible threat to life on earth. North Korea, not so much. At most, they bloody our nose. Maybe give us a concussion. They can't kill us off.

    Doomsday clock needs to be tended by an acolyte of the Grim Reaper.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @09:38AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @09:38AM (#628779)

    As someone who lived through the (plausible) false alarm in Hawaii, fuck you most sincerely, The Mighty (coward) Buzzard!