A Treatise on Nuclear Weapon Development in II [OOC]

[Valipac]

I began writing this thread to clear up a number of misconceptions about nuclear weapons and their usage in the context of this forum.

For starters, let me list the nations in real life that are widely believed to possess nuclear weapons.

Nation:	Population:
USA	306 million
Russia	141 million
UK	61 million
France	65 million
Pakistan	166 million
India	1.165 billion
North Korea	29 million
Israel	7 million
China	1.3 billion
South Africa*	48 million

* = has dissassembled nuclear arsenal

By quickly glancing over the list, you should notice that only 3 nations, the USA, China, and India, have populations above 175 million. That people claim, as is common occurrence on II, that you can not have nukes below 200 million people is simply preposterous. Establishing a rule at 100 million would seem equally silly, given the number of nations with populations below that milestone that have nuclear weapons now or have had them in the past. You reach 50 million, and there are still 3 nations that contain or contained nuclear weapons.

Israel, I am sure, you will discount because they received allied assistance. However, what about North Korea? Surely, being isolated from the rest of the world, they developed their nuclear weapons on their own. You claim they spend excessively on their military, but so do most nationstates. In fact, most nationstates spend more on their military, because they have the ability to do so by being a first world nation. A larger economy means more revenue, which in turn leads to more military funding, at least on this forum. And what about South Africa? Before discarding their nuclear weapons, they had proven that a nation under 50 million could successfully develop nukes.

For my final exhibit, I call upon the CIA.

Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Special National Intelligence Estimate, CIA, 23 August 1974, SNIE 4-1-74, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB240/snie.pdf, retrieved on 2008-01-20

The fact of the matter is, a population size can not easily be determined for when it is best to "allow" other nations to have nukes. Enough real life precedent exists that setting a limit can not be adequately backed up. On another note, the general type of person launching nuclear weapons at everyone is not going to understand when you tell them they can't have nukes. Quite simply, if a nation is going to launch all of their nukes at the world, telling them that they don't have nukes isn't going to help. Rather, then they assume that they can just invade every nation on earth as long as they do it conventionally, or they will just ignore you. This defeats the whole point of telling them that they can't have nukes.

Instating a rule such as "you can not have nukes below x million" only prohibits roleplayers such as myself who know what we are doing yet have less citizens than x million from using nuclear weapons. No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to keep the most inexperienced players from claiming that they have nuclear weapons anyways. These nations godmod in so many other ways that you should not be paying any attention to them anyways, so it is beyond me why you nitpick about their usage of nukes so much.

If you have a population of 5 million with the average economy and military spending of a NS nation, there is no reason to believe that you could not possess nuclear weapons.

That doesn't excuse you for acting completely unrealistically by launching them at everyone or by claiming you had over 9000, but it doesn't mean you should be limited by inaccurate assessments by various members of the NationStates community. Read the stickies, don't godmod, and improve your writing skills, and no one will care whether you have nuclear weapons or not.

In addendum, the fact that a NationStates economic calculator might say that you spend 0 dollars on Defense should not be taken seriously. Economic calculators should be used as a guideline for determining national GDP, and from there you can determine your own budget based on what tax rate you RP with and how much of that is devoted to the military. Things such as the calculator draw only from answered issues, and they allow for completely unrealistic budgets such as a 100% tax rate, 80% to Defense. Even if the calculator shows that there is a 0% budget, it should be assumed that one would RP with a military budget, thus allowing them to have nuclear weapons and a military.

[Leistung]

The population "rule", I find, was in place to dissuade the sorts of RPers who come here for 1 day, nuke the world, then forget about NS. Of course, since they're just going to do that anyways, I never quite got the point.

[Birkaine]

Missing China. Fail.

[Valipac]

Missing China. Fail.

Whups yeah XD

[Leistung]

Real China = Taiwan, amirite

[Birkaine]

Lol population "13 million billion"? as in 13.000.000.000.000.000 citizens? I doubt even China has that much people.

In any case, my idea is to limit the nuke yield to population rather than wheter or not you have the bombs, since there's so many noob nations around that claim to have built a 40MT device on their fist try.

[Tolvan]

It is worth noting that two of the smallest nations on the list, Isreal and South Africa, did so with considerably foreign support. Israel was given, and stole considerable nuclear tech from the US and South Africa was widely rumored to have recieved help from Israel in its own nuclear program.

However, I agree with your position that arbitrary population caps are foolish and I don't consider them valid unless the mods make it an "official" rule one day. Of course, given that 90% of posts or threds where nuclear weapons are used are full of fail anyways, it's kind of a moot point and very few RPers can use nuclear weapons with any sort of realism anyway.

[Oseato]

The most recent issue with $0 Defense budget was a nation that claimed to have 20,000,000 troops and was actively invading another country. That was the issue at hand, not that he can't possibly have a military.

As for the nuclear weapons, I think it was more to keep every nation and their mother from launching nuclear weapons right out of the blocks. No one wants to see a small new nation launching nuclear weapons at anyone and anything.

[Valipac]

As for the nuclear weapons, I think it was more to keep every nation and their mother from launching nuclear weapons right out of the blocks. No one wants to see a small new nation launching nuclear weapons at anyone and anything.

And yet it happens anyways. Like I said, the way to stop them isn't by telling them they can't have nukes, it's by showing them how to do it the right way.

[Oseato]

And yet it happens anyways. Like I said, the way to stop them isn't by telling them they can't have nukes, it's by showing them how to do it the right way.

You have a good point. However, it isn't easy to teach someone how to RP, and even less so when they are overeager to fire off a nuke.

[Daehanjeiguk]

In general, I don't think that most NSers would in principle reject the idea of some 5 million populated country owning a nuclear arsenal. What they (and I) would object to is the blatant disregard for thought to develop these weapons, to maintain, and to use them reasonably. NS is more about the RP than the NSEconomy stats - so if you can craft a good tale about how your state came to being (reasonably), I doubt that most people would object to a rationally constructed state, no matter what or how it was created. Of course, I think in general, more NSers would have respect for the people who start with pre-paleolithic tribes and develop them all the way to post-apocalyptic realities, but who has time to do that anyway?

[Cosmicchaos]

And yet it happens anyways. Like I said, the way to stop them isn't by telling them they can't have nukes, it's by showing them how to do it the right way.

You have a good point. However, it isn't easy to teach someone how to RP, and even less so when they are overeager to fire off a nuke.

I agree my nation is small (and incapable of producing Nukes) But some even smaller nations (7 at last count) have managed to "manufacture " Nuclear bombs (or so they tell me)
I have been "nuked" more times than i could care about

[Valipac]

And yet it happens anyways. Like I said, the way to stop them isn't by telling them they can't have nukes, it's by showing them how to do it the right way.

You have a good point. However, it isn't easy to teach someone how to RP, and even less so when they are overeager to fire off a nuke.

I agree my nation is small (and incapable of producing Nukes) But some even smaller nations (7 at last count) have managed to "manufacture " Nuclear bombs (or so they tell me)
I have been "nuked" more times than i could care about

You've hardly been here a few months. If you've been nuked at all, then frankly I don't know what to tell you. Secondly, you have 250 million people. The United States population when they developed the first nuclear bomb was in the area of 150 million people. I don't know why you think that your nation is incapable of producing nuclear weapons.

[Bears Armed]

Canada had some nuclear weapons when its population was around 20-25 million, acquired from the USA or UK, but has since given them up...

[Daehanjeiguk]

You have a good point. However, it isn't easy to teach someone how to RP, and even less so when they are overeager to fire off a nuke.

I agree my nation is small (and incapable of producing Nukes) But some even smaller nations (7 at last count) have managed to "manufacture " Nuclear bombs (or so they tell me)
I have been "nuked" more times than i could care about

You've hardly been here a few months. If you've been nuked at all, then frankly I don't know what to tell you. Secondly, you have 250 million people. The United States population when they developed the first nuclear bomb was in the area of 150 million people. I don't know why you think that your nation is incapable of producing nuclear weapons.

Some nations don't want nukes... let's keep that in mind too.

[Valipac]

Some nations don't want nukes... let's keep that in mind too.

This is quite true. However, he does not claim this, rather, he says he is "incapable" of producing them.

[The Fanboyists]

May I suggest that Stickying may be in order?

[Valipac]

May I suggest that Stickying may be in order?

I'd rather the thread didn't get stickied, too much clutter for noobs to read isn't always good. A link provided at the bottom of the current sticky would be nice though.

[Daehanjeiguk]

Some nations don't want nukes... let's keep that in mind too.

This is quite true. However, he does not claim this, rather, he says he is "incapable" of producing them.

perhaps that is part of the RP?

[Cosmicchaos]

If i diverted my resources to produce Nukes my nation would go Bankrupt
We talked about the population factors but Economics plays an important role in achieving nuclear weapons producing capabilities
Pakistan needed large funds from China,North Korea has a weak economy and still went(goes)on with its nuclear program and a large proportion of its population is malnourished and impoverished

[Valipac]

If i diverted my resources to produce Nukes my nation would go Bankrupt
We talked about the population factors but Economics plays an important role in achieving nuclear weapons producing capabilities
Pakistan needed large funds from China,North Korea has a weak economy and still went(goes)on with its nuclear program and a large proportion of its population is malnourished and impoverished

For a nation of 200+ million, the 500-600 million dollars necessary to produce a nuclear weapon is almost trivial.

[Beth Gellert]

Possibly worth noting that the figures in the CIA source probably refer to dollar values in the 1970s, and the equivalent figure today would be rather higher, but in principle I am largely in agreement with the OP. In reality, Sweden could have developed a nuclear arsenal years ago, largely on its own, if it wanted to, and has a population barely equivalent to that of a three or four day old NS account.

Anyone who would come to NS for one day and nuke everybody has no interest in any rules that may be put in place anyway, and the only thing that prevents anybody from nuking the world is the ability of individual players to choose what they do and do not pay attention to In Character.

[Beth Gellert]

If i diverted my resources to produce Nukes my nation would go Bankrupt
We talked about the population factors but Economics plays an important role in achieving nuclear weapons producing capabilities
Pakistan needed large funds from China,North Korea has a weak economy and still went(goes)on with its nuclear program and a large proportion of its population is malnourished and impoverished

For a nation of 200+ million, the 500-600 million dollars necessary to produce a nuclear weapon is almost trivial.

Presumably it is felt that the cost of developing and maintaining a significant nuclear programme is currently prohibitive. He could develop a few low-yield bombs on the cheap, a la North Korea, but making a viable deterrant and keeping it operative is another matter, or its likely that nobody would have been much interested in the SALTs. Given these considerations, it may be that nobody in his nation would support the more modest (but still politically significant in terms of the hospitals it could build, tax rebates it could grant, etc) outlay necessary to obtain a totally useless bomb-for-a-bomb's-sake.

[Cosmicchaos]

Possibly worth noting that the figures in the CIA source probably refer to dollar values in the 1970s, and the equivalent figure today would be rather higher, but in principle I am largely in agreement with the OP. In reality, Sweden could have developed a nuclear arsenal years ago, largely on its own, if it wanted to, and has a population barely equivalent to that of a three or four day old NS account.

Anyone who would come to NS for one day and nuke everybody has no interest in any rules that may be put in place anyway, and the only thing that prevents anybody from nuking the world is the ability of individual players to choose what they do and do not pay attention to In Character.

That is Right

[Valipac]

If i diverted my resources to produce Nukes my nation would go Bankrupt
We talked about the population factors but Economics plays an important role in achieving nuclear weapons producing capabilities
Pakistan needed large funds from China,North Korea has a weak economy and still went(goes)on with its nuclear program and a large proportion of its population is malnourished and impoverished

For a nation of 200+ million, the 500-600 million dollars necessary to produce a nuclear weapon is almost trivial.

Presumably it is felt that the cost of developing and maintaining a significant nuclear programme is currently prohibitive. He could develop a few low-yield bombs on the cheap, a la North Korea, but making a viable deterrant and keeping it operative is another matter, or its likely that nobody would have been much interested in the SALTs. Given these considerations, it may be that nobody in his nation would support the more modest (but still politically significant in terms of the hospitals it could build, tax rebates it could grant, etc) outlay necessary to obtain a totally useless bomb-for-a-bomb's-sake.

Quite, however, my point is that the poster is hardly incapable of having nuclear weapons. There are logical reasons why a nation might not want to have their own nuclear program, however, if he chose to pursue one, he could in fact have one.