containing nuclear tech

[dc82]

with recent news concerning nuclear technology, i was thinking - shud civ somehow reflect it? everything from nuclear arms control to even the building of nuclear plants and pursuit of nuclear technology (which can be traded to other countries) - in fact, perhaps an embargo in civ4 cud be applied not just to resources, but technology as well, since the ability to trade tech has always been a big issue.

but yeah, perhaps modern diplomacy cud be set in which food, gold, etc. cud be traded for NOT pursuing certain technologies. this is now much easier to do, since the tech tree has been restructured that different paths r set and ages have been eliminated. anyways, just a thought.

 

[apatheist]

Diplomacy should include arms control agreements. Nuclear weapons would be a subset of that.

 

[joethreeblah]

Diplomacy should include arms control agreements. Nuclear weapons would be a subset of that.

It would be cool if maybe only 50% of the countries could get the nuke tech through research, and everyone else would have to purchase nuclear weapons from other people, but you could have nuke embargos against people.

That way you could have some kind of desperate country selling their nukes to rogue nations or maybe helping someone fight an enemy.

 

[apatheist]

There are many, many countries in the world that are capable of building a nuclear bomb. Pretty much any nation in Europe, Australia, Japan, S. Korea, S. Africa, Brazil, and Canada could build the bomb if they wanted to. They just don't want to (right now). In Civilization, you can limit the spread of weapons by controlling the trade of uranium and by making them really expensive. Some have suggested that there be a such thing as manufactured goods in addition to strategic natural resources; perhaps one such manufactured item would be the equipment for making nuclear weapons. There would be limitations on manufacturing those items (cost, resources, etc.) that would further raise the cost of then building a bomb.

 

[dc82]

well rite now the issue is that nuclear power/plant technology, the precursor to nuclear weapon tech can be traded or supplied by those nuclear-capable nations - what we see in the world today is the us trying to convince nations like russia and china to limit or stop altogether the trading of nuclear technology to countries like iran and n.korea. it'd be interesting if civ can more accurately portray that, since it's a big issue today.

 

[moose7603]

About your topics about containing and the possibility of selling nuclear technology. Australia and South Korea already have nuclear weapons. The DOE maintains three nuclear sites in South Korea as well as one in Melbourne Australia. We put nukes in SK for defense purposes against North Korea and at the time the Soviet Union. One idea i might add is to have this option available. Say your the more advanced and richer nation and you want to help defend your close ally. You can sell them nukes very cheaply or simply hand them over to them for no price. I would see that as a mutaul defense kind of thing and I would like to see that available.

On a side note to earlier. The US government maintains that we do not have nukes in Korea, but the DOE has three nuke facilities and has never said otherwise.

 

[Albow]

There are nukes in Melbourne Aust???? Where did you get that info from??

 

[apatheist]

Even if his assertion is true, that doesn't mean the Australians and Koreans have nukes, since those are American weapons he is describing. There's no point to having nuclear weapons on Australia, though. Nor, really, is there a point to having them in South Korea. With ICBMs and SLBMs, there's not so much need for geographical proximity. It's not as though the United States needs to worry about a crippling first strike from North Korea like the USSR. Besides, having sophisticated US nuclear weapons in S. Korea just increases the danger if 1 million North Koreans come swarming across the 38th parallel since they could get captured.

 

[dc82]

the nations that have offically announced nuclear weapons include the us, uk, france, russia, russia, pakistan, india, and china. nations that abandoned nuclear weapons include argentina, brazil, s. africa, libya, algeria, belarus, ukraine, and kazakhstan. suspected nuclear nations include n.korea, israel, iran, and "iraq" (i'll leave that one to ur own intepretation).

the biggest worry now is that nuclear weapons, even one falls to the hands of what the us finds irresponsible, such as "rogue" states like iran or n.korea. nuclear technology can be passed or stolen by terrorists, or can trigger a nuclear escalation or situation in another part of the world (which can have devastating consequences)

 

[JavalTigar]

I just think that the Manhattan Project should be treated like a small wonder.

Thereby requiring all civs to build it so they can make nukes.This would be the nuclear weapons testing that we are so worried about in N.Korea. If in game you got a meassage thru your intel network that Mali was starting to build The Manhattan Project, you know its time for some type of action.

 

[Urederra]

I don´t think that building a nuclear weapon is so difficult. If the americans made it back in the 1940´s, any first world country can make it nowadays.

My understanding is that building an A-bomb is as easy as putting two chunks of enriched uranium each one of subcritical mass (too lazy to google which isotope is used and what is the critical mass) in two different compartments of the bomb and a conventional explosive that explodes and joins the two chunks together, surpassing the critical mass. Then, when the critical mass is surpassed, the nuclear explosion happens. it could be more complicated than that, but not that much. The problem for some countries is to buy and enrich the uranium.

I am sure that Australia, south Korea, Argentina or Brazil have the technology to make an A-bomb.

 

[toft]

It would be cool if one could negotiate a maximum amount of nukes one could have...

 

[JavalTigar]

Urederra: As a former navy nuclear engineer, I worked on nuclear reactors but I do have a understanding of the things necessary to create a nuclear device.

The device you describe would basically be a dirty bomb. It takes some serious work and engineering to generate a weapon of great yield and keep it from blowing up for no damn reason. Plus enriching the U-238 and developing the implosive sphere is a challenge with a decent price tag.

All of this would be represented by the small wonder. By your reasoning right after the Enola Gay made its fateful run, the British could have run right out and built one. This is exactly how it is treated in Civ 1-3, and it appears so in cIV. I would only hope this is fixed by civ 5.

 

[HamaticBabylon]

It would be cool if one could negotiate a maximum amount of nukes one could have...

No. Nuclear proliferation is much better.

 

[Urederra]

Urederra: As a former navy nuclear engineer, I worked on nuclear reactors but I do have a understanding of the things necessary to create a nuclear device.
.

Thank you for your expert opinion, Nice signature, by the way.

 

[Nobody]

technology. Australia and South Korea already have nuclear weapons. The DOE maintains three nuclear sites in South Korea as well as one in Melbourne Australia.

got a link, i didnt think Australia had any stationed there, What would be the sense in that, Unless its a ICBM base, but they would stick that in the desert, if america wanted to have them aimed at indonesia then darwin is the place, if they want to aim at New Zealand tasmania is the place. Plus australia is anti-nuclear not as anti-nuclear as new zealand but they dont like the things

 

[I am the Future]

Australia and South Korea already have nuclear weapons.

Dosn't Australia have a law against nuclear wepons being in the country?

My understanding is that building an A-bomb is as easy as putting two chunks of enriched uranium each one of subcritical mass (too lazy to google which isotope is used and what is the critical mass) in two different compartments of the bomb and a conventional explosive that explodes and joins the two chunks together, surpassing the critical mass. Then, when the critical mass is surpassed, the nuclear explosion happens. it could be more complicated than that, but not that much. The problem for some countries is to buy and enrich the uranium.

Seems very similair to the one in the "Manhattan Project" (A 1980's movie where a 17 year old make a nuclear wepon for a science fair)

But it wouldnt create anything like the explosion in Hiroshima. Sounds like a terrorist radiation bomb thingy

 

[Colonel]

But it wouldnt create anything like the explosion in Hiroshima. Sounds like a terrorist radiation bomb thingy

Actually what he described is rougely the basic design principle of the "Little Boy" A-Bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima.

To sort of get the idea, you basically have two sub critical masses of fissionable material all it takes for these to create a massive nuclear explosion is trigger, ie standard explosives. This is actually the basic anybody with the right material idiot proof plan, you can't really screw up even if you have very basic understanding of Nuclear physics.

Just a note, the explosions at Hiroshima(15KT) and Nagisaki(22KT) were extremely small and weak compared to the kinds of bombs today(15MT), of cource the bombs today are thermonuclear and alot more advanced allowing for such mass destruction

As for the the topic at hand, I think the first couple of nations in any game wether it be AI or Human should have a vested intrest to keep smaller weaker nations from attaining such power. For example if say Human player gets nukes first followed closely by Country B and C the two most powerful countries then they should attempt to horde there supplies for nuclear weapons so other smaller nations dont have the ability to threaten it.

 

[dc82]

i think one difficulty that civ had in highlighting the huge interaction concerning nuclear technology is that, well obviously living in modern times, it's become a day-by-day issue where, today n. korea cud be obeying rules, tomorrow it decides to research nuclear tech, the next day iran and russia send some help and the day after china, the us and france co-erce n.korea to abandon their project. the problem is that, even tho civ-years do pass more slowly in the later centuries compared to the beginning, even at with a yearly increment, time still feels like it's going too quick - transport ships take years to cross an ocean, a war still takes decades to wage as it takes a year to move marines one tile. it's hard to capture the daily intricacies of our modern diplomacy, esp. concerning nuclear tech with that kind of time table.

 

[apatheist]

Dosn't Australia have a law against nuclear wepons being in the country?

I think you mean New Zealand. The ANZUS treaty used to be a 3-way treaty between Australia, New Zealand, and the USA. In 1984, there was a dispute between the USA and New Zealand about nuclear-powered/-armed US warships coming to NZ, so that part of the treaty lapsed. It is now a treaty binding the USA and Australia together and Australia and New Zealand, but not (directly) the USA and New Zealand.