What we owe to the A-Bomb

As to where I first came across a recommendation for Richard Rhodes’ books on Nuclear bombs, my memory fails me. But few books I have read stretched me like “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” and “Dark Sun” have. For someone who prides himself on being able to read a 500-page novel in less than a day, 6 weeks to finish a 600 page book was a humbling experience.

I just finished Dark Sun yesterday, thanks to the long CNY weekend and am looking forward to reading the final book in this trilogy – Arsenals of Folly. A few ideas have been fermenting ever since I read the first book so here goes:

1. My mental history of the atomic bomb was largely shaped by newspaper accounts and famously Einstein’s E=MC2 equation. I had always believed that nuclear energy had been developed for peaceful purposes by the scientists and somehow the military establishment had twisted it to create weapons. It was a tremendous shock to me to discover that it was in fact quite the opposite – the scientists involved in this field early on (such as Leo Szilard) actually approached the military, fairly aggressively to convince them of the military potential of this new discovery. Civilian uses – atleast on a large scale never entered the picture, until much later.

This has to be understood in the context of when all of this research was going on – at the height of World War II, with Nazi Germany triumphant across all of Europe and Russia on the verge of collapse. Equally interesting in contrast, is the tremendous ethical conflict that the scientists heading up the atomic energy program in the US wrestled with when it came to developing H-bombs in the years following the World War.

2. The amount of everyday technology that arose from the atomic bomb and H-bomb programmes is simply staggering. I had heard of how stuff like Teflon and composite fibres were a spin-off from the space shuttle program. Here’s a partial list of what the atomic bomb programme gave us – Electro-magnetic separation (that lead to particle accelerators), Gas diffusion technology, high speed X-ray photography, Geiger counters (well duh), micro-chemistry, monte carlo simulations. Entire fields of science sprang up from this one endeavour. Also worth noting, the complex calculations required for initial H-bomb research almost directly resulted in advances in computer technology.

3. The impact of espionage at a nation-state level is simply staggering. Consider this – in 1943, a scientific paper authored by the then-head of Russia’s atomic energy programme predicted that it would take 15 years for Russia to develop and test an atomic bomb. In 1949, Russia detonated it’s first atomic bomb (Joe-1) which was in every way, identical to the Fat Man bomb dropped over Nagasaki. The only reason that Russia managed to shave 9 years off it’s original estimate was espionage – the incredibly detailed design documents passed by Klaus Fuchs. If there was an object lesson in the power of espionage, this is it.

4. Something that became very clear to me by the time I put down the first book in the series is only referred to in passing by the author at the end of Book 2 – although the basic principles are well known, the sheer effort involved in weaponizing this technology means that this will always be the preserve of nations. It’s easier and more effective for terrorists to make use of low-tech weapons like car-bombs, hijacked plans or even nerve gas. In effect, what the author is saying (and what I believe too) is that all the fear-mongering about terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons or atleast dirty bombs is vastly overblown.

Let’s consider the prototypical rogue nuclear weapon scenario shall we? Terrorist gets hold of portable nuclear weapon – in popular media, suitcase bombs.. more realistically, tactical bombs such as nuclear artillery shells. Let us be clear – just getting your hands on a nuclear artillery shell does not mean that it can be detonated like any other explosive device. After WW II, the bulk of Los Alamos’s efforts went towards “hardening” these weapons. In essence, what they came up with was two safeguards – one, the weapon would not arm prematurely and two, it would not detonate prematurely ((This is apart from the entire nuclear Command&Control structure as well as things like PAL locks on larger devices)) . In the case of a nuclear artillery shell, that would mean the warhead would not arm till a certain distance/time after launch and would only detonate provided certain criteria of speed, rate of descent and altitude were met. For a terrorist to actually overcome all of these safeguards, would require reverse-engineering the entire weapons system. Even if the terrorists managed to subvert a team of nuclear scientists to their cause, this is no trivial task.

The other scenario tossed around is of the dirty bomb – terrorists achieving a partial nuclear detonation. AFAIK, there is no such thing as partial nuclear detonation. Most nuclear bombs today are implosion weapons ((The other design is a “Gun” bomb, which is large, unwieldy and not very efficient)) : a small amount of Plutonium 239, surrounded by a large mass of mildly radioactive U235 is compressed by high explosives detonated simultaneously, which causes the chain reaction to start. Now unless the terrorist actually achieves that micro-second control over the explosive detonation- what you get is a relatively standard chemical explosive detonation spraying chunks of mildly radioactive U235 around. It’s worth noting that an accident did happen at the beginning of the Korean War, when a plane carrying an early US A-bomb crashed and exploded, causing the explosives to detonate. But the lack of a simultaneous detonation stopped a chain reaction. Imagine that, a fully armed A-bomb was ignited but did not actually become an A-bomb.

Given these challenges and low chance of success, why would a terrorist bother with nuclear weapons? Indeed – the same hawks who forced tens of billions of dollars to be spent on nuclear weapons when it was clear that the USSR was nowhere near the US brought the war right to the terrorist’s doorstep – where he has the advantage of terrain, cover and supply lines. The same factors were at play in Vietnam and we all know how that ended.