China's Emergence As A Global Superpower
- Thread starter Saint
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MetaKron: Light is correct on this matter. No working cobalt bomb has ever been constructed and not for lack of trying. They have been universally accepted as impossible and all governments have given up on the theory in exchange for greener pastures.
Been reading a bit too much Nevil Shute lately?
Been reading a bit too much Nevil Shute lately?
Impossible? What part of producing cobalt 60 by irradiating cobalt 59 with neutrons is impossible? What kind of bomb do you think I'm talking about here? I'm talking about a very dirty type of nuclear or thermonuclear device that is possible, but is so poisonous that to use it is suicide.
Here is a Federation of American Scientists report that includes estimates of the damage that can be done by one piece of cobalt of the kind that is used to irradiate food:Article They are talking about making the entire borough of Manhattan uninhabitable for years. This is just from using TNT to scatter a few pounds of the material.
I don't know how anyone could seriously say that these things are impossible to construct. You put a big honking piece of cobalt metal, alloy containing cobalt, or a cobalt compound next to a nuclear device and touch it off. If you can throw the weight and don't feel like refining the ore, just stuff your missile with the ore. So they don't set the atmosphere on fire. They don't have to. They do generate just about as much cobalt-60 as the missile or other transport can ship cobalt, and that can be a lot of tons of cobalt-60, when a few pounds can cause dangerous contamination of a thousand square kilometers. This stuff is so pernicious that if China sets one off in Kansas, it will make people sick in China.
Wiki Article
Google search for "cobalt bomb"
If Clockwork and Light don't understand that a cobalt device works by contaminating large areas of land with a powerful gamma emitter with a half-life of 5.27 years, that definitely hurts their credibility. This is not practical for someone intent on invasion but it would be practical for someone who would tolerate large losses of their own people to completely obliterate an opponent.
Here is a Federation of American Scientists report that includes estimates of the damage that can be done by one piece of cobalt of the kind that is used to irradiate food:Article They are talking about making the entire borough of Manhattan uninhabitable for years. This is just from using TNT to scatter a few pounds of the material.
I don't know how anyone could seriously say that these things are impossible to construct. You put a big honking piece of cobalt metal, alloy containing cobalt, or a cobalt compound next to a nuclear device and touch it off. If you can throw the weight and don't feel like refining the ore, just stuff your missile with the ore. So they don't set the atmosphere on fire. They don't have to. They do generate just about as much cobalt-60 as the missile or other transport can ship cobalt, and that can be a lot of tons of cobalt-60, when a few pounds can cause dangerous contamination of a thousand square kilometers. This stuff is so pernicious that if China sets one off in Kansas, it will make people sick in China.
Wiki Article
Google search for "cobalt bomb"
If Clockwork and Light don't understand that a cobalt device works by contaminating large areas of land with a powerful gamma emitter with a half-life of 5.27 years, that definitely hurts their credibility. This is not practical for someone intent on invasion but it would be practical for someone who would tolerate large losses of their own people to completely obliterate an opponent.
MetaKron said:
The article you refer to is correct but fails to mention that the "dirty" bomb it describes is NOT the cobalt bomb as it was originally envisioned which was to make a fission bomb that had a higher yield than the uranium-based atomic bomb. It was that research that both Clockwood and I were referring and that particular type of nuclear device. There are many ways to make dirty bombs, that is simply one way (and not necessarily the easiest).
Well, for the purposes of my thesis, the "higher yield device" is completely irrelevant. The most well-known "cobalt bomb" is the dirty bomb, cobalt irradiated, vaporized, and scattered by a nuclear device. The limit to the dirt is how many tons of cobalt or other salting material the attacker cares to add. I recommend zinc myself because it is cheap, common, and even though it's only half zinc-64, half of a hundred tons of zinc makes a hell of a lot of radioactive dust, and zinc-65 has a shorter half-life than cobalt-60.
Also, the Wiki article and others say that the original cobalt bomb was a salted bomb, a "dirty bomb" thought up by Leo Szilard. He did this in 1945.
Also, the Wiki article and others say that the original cobalt bomb was a salted bomb, a "dirty bomb" thought up by Leo Szilard. He did this in 1945.
China has many polution problems. Gets most of energy from coal, and these mines are killing about 3000 people every year. China is not much different for USA in the polution aspects when US was at similar stage of development. Polution always is a problem in rapid industrial development. You are making much too much of the water issue in China.
It is true that fresh water available per capita in china is not like that of Brazil, but mainly many people, not little water. For example, take the city of Harbin where the recent polution spill (factory explosions) is currently a problem. Harbin is much better known for the abundant water in its annual ice sculptures. Very very amazing - For a visual treat, see:
http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2003_hb_if.htm
It is true that fresh water available per capita in china is not like that of Brazil, but mainly many people, not little water. For example, take the city of Harbin where the recent polution spill (factory explosions) is currently a problem. Harbin is much better known for the abundant water in its annual ice sculptures. Very very amazing - For a visual treat, see:
http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2003_hb_if.htm
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Chris_Smith
Registered Senior Member
Yes indeed... and don't the US know it. Ah-hem! Oil... Cough - cough!
I'm just stating the facts: If we get involved in a war against China within the nex ten years, they could invade the west coast and keep going and not stop until the hit the Mississipi River.Clockwood said:
A good way to prevent that would be to recognize China's claim to Taiwan. I, personally, already have, as a precaution. :m:
Hapsburg said:
How would they get here? China ain't got no navy, ain't got no troop ships! They gonna' swim?
And even if they did have that damned many troop ships, are you saying that we don't have enough missiles and bombs to sink each and every ship out in the Pacific?
And you call those "facts"????? Do tell.
Hapsburg said:
But in doing so, you've denied Taiwan's claim to independence ...either way, you're recognizing one and denying the other. That's not very good international diplomacy, is it?
And recognizing China's claim to Taiwan will prevent them from invading the USA?? How so? Please explain that thought process.
Baron Max
crazy151drinker
Registered Senior Member
China cant even take over Taiwan....
All of their Military tech they either buy from the Russians or steal from the US. They are way behind.
All of their Military tech they either buy from the Russians or steal from the US. They are way behind.
crazy151drinker said:
I don't know about that. For example, I think ye're right that they could NOT invade/conquer militarily. However, a simple, but effective blockade could devastate Taiwan in a matter of days! And a blockade of civilian shipping would not be very difficult even for China's poorly equipped navy.
The big question, of course, is ....would the USA take MILITARY action against the blockade? That question isn't so simple. My guess is that the US would wait for the UN to give it's approval for a "war", even a limited one ...and the UN would take weeks, perhaps months to debate the issue. By then, of course, Taiwan would have already starved to death!
Baron Max
Good point. Let me revise that statement: IF they had a navy on par or large than the USN, they could possibly do that.Baron Max said:
Point being? I don't care about Taiwan. Fuck Taiwan. As far as I'm concerned, they are a province of china.
They won't execute me if I agree with them, if they happen to invade. That would be good for me.
Light said:
Would you like to try to calculate the number of plane-loads of supplies it might take to feed all of the people of Taiwan? Their food-producing capability is pretty damned small and limited.
Airplanes? How 'bout cheap Stinger-type missiles? How many commercial aircraft would risk such death and destruction to haul supplies into Taiwan?
How would they get the needed oil and coal to fire their generators? How long could/would the people last without electricity in today's world?
Baron Max
Baron Max said:
Granted, the population is about seven times that of Berlin during the airlift in the mid-1960s - but so has the cargo-carrying capacity of our military planes since then. In fact, it's grown tremendously! No doubt there would be stringent rationing but I believe it would be possible to do for some period of time.
Who would pay for it all? Where would all the food and supplies come from? Who would actually do it? I.e, I'd guess that only the USA would have the capability to do such a massive airlift ...would the taxpayers support that massive outlay of money?
And you forgot to address the issue of the Stinger missiles. Just a few of those suckers in Chinese ships just off the coast could be disasterous to big, ponderous cargo planes. How would you deal with that threat/blockade ...WITHOUT... going to war?
Baron Max
And you forgot to address the issue of the Stinger missiles. Just a few of those suckers in Chinese ships just off the coast could be disasterous to big, ponderous cargo planes. How would you deal with that threat/blockade ...WITHOUT... going to war?
Baron Max
Baron Max said:
For that first part, we've provided massive aid for other countries. The willingness would depend on the political/social climate when the time came.
Nope, didn't forget the missiles. I seriously doubt China would do that for two reasons. First, they need the US as a trading partner - a place to dump all their cheaply made products. Second, not only would they loose the market they need so much by doing that, they would be openly provoking a war - which they also don't want to do.
In short, they would have little to gain in comparison to what it would cost them. And they can see that. Their goal for a great many years into the future is to grow - not to get involved in an expensive war which would clearly cost them more ways than one. (Would WalMart want to declare war on their customers?
I think this is over stated and unlikely to remain true for long even if true today. You may not know China has the world's only magnetic levitated train in comercial service. Is graduating an order of magnitude more well trained engineers at all levels (often now eduacted by first-rank Western-trained professors they have imported (with their great dollar surpluses from trade). The next time US goes to moon, if ever with US budget and dollar problems, they will probably need to pass thru Chinese customs.crazy151drinker said:
On light's idea that China needs US to buy its goods, that is rapidly changing also as the masses move up the social economic ladder. Soon China will be hard pressed to supply domestic demand, holding great dollar reserves that they can dump to destroy US economy. Their internal market is not currently able to absorb all their productive capacity, so they sell and lend, even though they know their accumulated reserves in dollars will greatly depreciate. The dollar will fall when they decide that their populations are now rich enough to replace Americans, etc. as consumers. (With the socialists now in power in India, both China and India have strong central decision capacity.)
In China's case, US is giving (by living beyond its means) the economic gun to them to kill us. If I lived in Taiwan, I would be scared. US and China are at a military stand off, in that neither can use their nuclear IBMs, but China can collapse the US economy anytime it chooses. It does not even need to do the obvious (dump it dollars), although it is doing a little of that already by bidding too high for oil in the ground. (Better to lose a little money now, trading dollar reserves for oil reserves, instead of watch the dollars lose more value later.)
Whenever it wants to, China can pay $100 per barrel of oil coming out of the ground today. When they want to kill the US economically, they can just announce that they will create a “strategic oil reserve” and start doing this. Just the announcement will probably send oil above $100/ barrel and the dollar so rapidly down that oil producers will want payment in gold or ownership ao assets etc. Even friendly countries, will not hold most of their reserves in dollars that are rapidly losing value. The US is very dependent upon the private car, but few will be on the roads when gas is $20/gal. and then even jobs that have not already been exported will vanish as shops close because it is too expensive to drive to the shoping center, etc.
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