75 years after Hiroshima, should nuke use be a war crime?

[Plzen]

Well a ground or underground burst creates a bigger risk of fallout, still ground bursting an efficient one that burns most its fission fuel off in the explosion will not create that much long term fallout. Unless you ground burst it in a uranium mine. Most soil does not have a substantial amount of radioactive materials in it.

I don't at the moment have a table of neutron cross-sections with me, but I feel fairly confident in saying that if there's soil at the site of a nuclear explosion, it's going to be irradiated even if it wasn't radioactive to begin with.

[Purpelia]

Well, that. Or it just means that they groundbursted it. Which would be pretty normal for a tactical weapon.

Even a ground bursting atomic weapon wouldn't leave much long term fallout. You'd get more immediate poisoning though.

[Novus America]

Well a ground or underground burst creates a bigger risk of fallout, still ground bursting an efficient one that burns most its fission fuel off in the explosion will not create that much long term fallout. Unless you ground burst it in a uranium mine. Most soil does not have a substantial amount of radioactive materials in it.

I don't at the moment have a table of neutron cross-sections with me, but I feel fairly confident in saying that if there's soil at the site of a nuclear explosion, it's going to be irradiated even if it wasn't radioactive to begin with.

You can only irradiated something by having unstable radioactive elements lying around.
So you only irradiated soil by introducing said elements with your bomb, or already having radioactive elements in the soil. But an efficient nuclear bomb leaves relatively little long term elements lying around.

You cannot turn stable non radioactive elements radioactive with a nuclear bomb.

[Plzen]

You cannot turn stable non radioactive elements radioactive with a nuclear bomb.

The site of a nuclear explosion has high neutron flux. If neutrons interact with non-radioactive materials with significant neutron absorption cross-sections, the isotope composition of the material may change, and the newly-produced isotopes may be radioactive even if the original isotopes were not.

A nuclear explosion also generates large quantities of other high-energy particles whose interactions with non-radioactive matter I'm less familiar with, but I would not be surprised if some of those interactions also result in the creation of radioactive isotopes.

[Novus America]

You cannot turn stable non radioactive elements radioactive with a nuclear bomb.

The site of a nuclear explosion has high neutron flux. If neutrons interact with non-radioactive materials with significant neutron absorption cross-sections, the isotope composition of the material may change, and the newly-produced isotopes may be radioactive even if the original isotopes were not.

A nuclear explosion also generates large quantities of other high-energy particles whose interactions with non-radioactive matter I'm less familiar with, but I would not be surprised if some of those interactions also result in the creation of radioactive isotopes.

Changing the composition of a a stable element is highly unlikely to happen from a nuclear bomb. Although neutrons are released, it is in a mostly in a very quick burst. Not an ongoing exposure which is usually required.

Nuclear fallout is almost entirely from fission fuel that did not properly breakdown.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Chemical weapons generally can’t annihilate entire cities in the blink of an eye.

Some conventional weapons can annihilate cities. A very large conventional weapon can do more damage than some smaller nuclear ones.

And their are acceptable possible uses, sure as a last resort, but sometime you might you have no better alternative.

And actually many nuclear weapons are quite accurate and not that huge. The massive multi megaton unguided gravity bombs of the past are past.

You can even use a nuclear bomb in an application that kills nobody. Missile defense. Blowing up a small nuclear weapon in space does not hit civilians.

Nuclear depth bombs also pose a negligible risk to civilians. Of course either should be avoided except as a last resort because of risk of retaliation, but still the issue is much more complicated.

Nuclear bombs are not all massive unguided counter value bombs.

I’m on my phone atm cuz I’m playing Stellaris so bare with me pls.

1. Apart from MOABs, FOABs and Daisy Cutters, I don’t know of any conventional munition than can do anything even remotely close to annihilating an entire, an even then, they still can’t annihilate entire cities, maybe several square blocks but that’s about it. Beside, I’m not talking about low-kt warheads either, those hardly exist anymore apart from dial-a-yield weapons.

2. Outside of all-our global nuclear war where someone’s already fired the first salvos, I see no acceptable use of nuclear weapons, not even on the tactical level.

3. W87, W78, Topol, Yars, etc warheads on ICBMs can still go upwards of 375kt-500kt to 1mt (on Topol at least), still enough bang to blink most small to mid-sized cities out of existence and utterly devastate large ones.

4. EMP Power outrages from those kind of used would still cause thousands of deaths.

5. Do we even use nuclear depth charges anymore?

6. Still large enough to cause massive countervalue damage, even a 500kt warhead targeted at a counterforce target adjacent to a city will still kill a bunch of people.

[Novus America]

Some conventional weapons can annihilate cities. A very large conventional weapon can do more damage than some smaller nuclear ones.

And their are acceptable possible uses, sure as a last resort, but sometime you might you have no better alternative.

And actually many nuclear weapons are quite accurate and not that huge. The massive multi megaton unguided gravity bombs of the past are past.

You can even use a nuclear bomb in an application that kills nobody. Missile defense. Blowing up a small nuclear weapon in space does not hit civilians.

Nuclear depth bombs also pose a negligible risk to civilians. Of course either should be avoided except as a last resort because of risk of retaliation, but still the issue is much more complicated.

Nuclear bombs are not all massive unguided counter value bombs.

I’m on my phone atm cuz I’m playing Stellaris so bare with me pls.

1. Apart from MOABs, FOABs and Daisy Cutters, I don’t know of any conventional munition than can do anything even remotely close to annihilating an entire, an even then, they still can’t annihilate entire cities, maybe several square blocks but that’s about it. Beside, I’m not talking about low-kt warheads either, those hardly exist anymore apart from dial-a-yield weapons.

2. Outside of all-our global nuclear war where someone’s already fired the first salvos, I see no acceptable use of nuclear weapons, not even on the tactical level.

3. W87, W78, Topol, Yars, etc warheads on ICBMs can still go upwards of 375kt-500kt to 1mt (on Topol at least), still enough bang to blink most small to mid-sized cities out of existence and utterly devastate large ones.

4. EMP Power outrages from those kind of used would still cause thousands of deaths.

5. Do we even use nuclear depth charges anymore?

6. Still large enough to cause massive countervalue damage, even a 500kt warhead targeted at a counterforce target adjacent to a city will still kill a bunch of people.

Actually although the US does not, Russia still has low yield type tactical nuclear weapons. Sure not many conventional bombs can, but the point remains you can still kill more people with conventional weapons in certain circumstances.

Actually the firebombing of Tokyo did more damage than either nuke. The difference was that using just one plane instead of hundreds is of course less resource demanding, but still nuclear weapons do not guarantee more deaths. Sure pound for pound the nuclear weapons release far more energy but nobody actually has near the amount of nukes that the have conventional weapons.

We do not have nuclear depth charges anymore as far as I am aware, but we should bring them back given the Russian weirdness with that Poseidon thing.

Point is though nuclear depth changes pose negligible risk to civilians. Thus proving that certain nuclear weapons usage poses limited risk to civilians.

But sure there is still a major risk to civilians with many uses, which is why those usages should be a last resort.

But it would be crazy not to use your nuclear weapons as a counterforce attack if you are attacked first, despite the damage as you would have no other real option.

Please note I recognize nuclear weapons are very destructive and dangerous. I am not supporting using them now, or ever using them lightly, just pointing out in certain extreme scenarios their uses might be justified.

[Cisairse]

Okay…and? So what? It's a war crime. What does calling it a war crime do? What does it change?

It's a lot easier to prosecute the culprits if they lose if there's still any semblance of a functioning society of law and order in the aftermath? I guess I see your point.

And even then, what do you mean by "prosecute"?

[Organized States]

Some conventional weapons can annihilate cities. A very large conventional weapon can do more damage than some smaller nuclear ones.

And their are acceptable possible uses, sure as a last resort, but sometime you might you have no better alternative.

And actually many nuclear weapons are quite accurate and not that huge. The massive multi megaton unguided gravity bombs of the past are past.

You can even use a nuclear bomb in an application that kills nobody. Missile defense. Blowing up a small nuclear weapon in space does not hit civilians.

Nuclear depth bombs also pose a negligible risk to civilians. Of course either should be avoided except as a last resort because of risk of retaliation, but still the issue is much more complicated.

Nuclear bombs are not all massive unguided counter value bombs.

I’m on my phone atm cuz I’m playing Stellaris so bare with me pls.

1. Apart from MOABs, FOABs and Daisy Cutters, I don’t know of any conventional munition than can do anything even remotely close to annihilating an entire, an even then, they still can’t annihilate entire cities, maybe several square blocks but that’s about it. Beside, I’m not talking about low-kt warheads either, those hardly exist anymore apart from dial-a-yield weapons.

Air Force guy here. Conventional munitions annihilated 70-80% of North Korea's buildings during the Korean War and Operation Meetinghouse torched a mass of Tokyo that was significantly more than one city block. Incendiares remain the weapon of choice in targeting of urban areas, which outside of Syria, has very rarely occurred in this century with the advent of precision weapons.

While you are correct that MOABs, FOABs, and Daisy Cutters are indeed large munitions, they're not very effective against hardened targets and likely wouldn't be employed against urban targets. Not exactly an apples to apples comparison in terms of destructive potential in destroying cities.

[Ansarre]

So show me the proof for this!!!! The problem with that request is that there isn't any. It's another one of the many lies made up about Israel.

It’s not a lie. It definitely exists. And it’s not a bad thing. Not everything is a “lie”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

I read the Wiki. You linked it already. It doesn't prevent any actual proof that the Samson Option is a real thing. All it does is talk about Israel's nuclear weapons program and cites people who speculate that must mean they want to nuke everybody. It's funny how out of all of the countries that possess nuclear weapons, the only one that's accused of being so selfish as to take the entire world down with them is the Jewish state. Just a coincidence though! Samson option totally isn't an anti-semitic dogwhistle!