Looking into the future

Unless you're familiar with nuclear weapons or fluent in physics you probably know almost nothing about nuclear weapons.  Hey, fair enough:  Why would you need to, eh?  I don't know jack about decor or raising kids, so we're even.

Unfortunately, knowing almost nothing about nuclear weapons leaves most Americans with no idea about what seem to me to be absolute certainties in our future--at least if current trends continue.  And as you probably guessed, I see no reason to believe those trends will NOT continue.  In other words, what follows is my take on the most likely future.

To begin: there are two kinds of "atomic bombs:" one uses uranium, the other uses a man-made element called plutonium.  The second kind of bomb requires incredible precision to build.  Plus, you have to have a nuclear reactor to make plutonium, and then separating plutonium from the deadly byproducts is astronomically difficult.

By contrast, making a uranium bomb is almost trivially easy:  literally, you can make uranium go boom by smashing two halves of a grapefruit-size sphere together.  Smashing fast is better, but it will even work by hand if the user is willing to die.  (Hand-held detonation would be inefficient but simple.)

Fortunately there's a big barrier to a uranium bomb:  It's the fact that only about one percent of all uranium atoms will do "fast fission."  Thus to make a bomb requires separating the small fraction of these atoms from the rest--a process called "enrichment."

If you pay attention to world events that might ring some bells.

No?  Not too surprising, cuz the Mainstream Media has pretty much ignored this.  Maybe they don't want ya to worry, perhaps.  Or maybe they want you to reserve your anger and concern for impeaching OrangeManBad.  Ah well...

One middle-eastern country has been enriching uranium for a decade or so now, in a facility deep under a mountain and protected by a 20-foot-thick roof of reinforced concrete--a combination designed to withstand any conventional attack.  Significantly, for decades the leaders of this same country have called the U.S. "the Great Satan" (they call Israel "the little Satan").  That country is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

What is this likely to mean?

Given the fact that Iran already has enrichment lines operating, and given the implacable hostility of Iran's theocrats to the U.S. and Israel, it's vitually certain that Iran will keep enriching uranium, until they acquire enough for a bomb--a "critical mass."  Then the question becomes, what do they do next?

During the Cold War the USSR had roughly 30,000 nuclear weapons--most far more powerful than an entry-level atom bomb.  Possible good sense aside, the main reason they never used them was that the U.S. had so many similar weapons that we could absorb a first strike and still have enough warheads left to obliterate the attacker.

This was an explicit strategy, called "mutual assured destruction."

Facing a U.S. that still has a couple of thousand bombs, you'd think that even if Iran managed to make a dozen warheads the mullahs of Iran wouldn't even think of starting a nuclear exchange with the U.S., right?  But consider a few points:

First, the mullahs could destroy a U.S. city without being identified as the aggressor.

Seriously.  They simply announce that one or two of their warheads have been "stolen."  Of course the U.S. would imcrease security, but a how long can that be sustained?  And if a warhead was detonated in, say, New York harbor, the mullahs would shrug:  "So sad, but you can't blame us for the acts of these unidentified terrorists.  And besides, it was probably done by the Israelis!"  (Imams have already claimed ISIS is actually a false-flag op by Israel.)

Second, given the eagerness of the Democrats to blame the U.S. for everything in the middle-east, does anyone seriously believe a Democrat president would retaliate?  Not likely.

Third:  Even if the U.S.  has a Republican president, does anyone seriously think the prospect of a U.S. nuke on Teheran would dissuade the mullahs?  Of course when retaliation came they'd just happen to be visiting other cities, but it's likely that the mullahs would regard the death of half of the residents of Teheran as a propaganda win.

So from what I see, unless Iran deposes its Islamic government, this is unlikely to end well.