Mirko Molteni March 23, 2022
The balance of terror today is different than that Cold War. The total number of nuclear warheads has declined in the last 30 years, as has the destructive power. But nuclear proliferation, that is, the number of countries that have such weapons, has increased. Advances in the accuracy of rocketcarrying missiles mean that there is no longer a need for superbombs like those of the 1960s, but rather less powerful warheads. But the smaller size of nuclear arsenals increases the danger of their use. There is a risk of miscalculations, since an initial, even limited, use of nuclear weapons can result in the adversary responding with more powerful bombs, triggering the climb to ultimate destruction. The first bombs were weak, but enough to destroy a city.
The bombs that the Americans dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to force Japan to surrender unleashed forces of 12 and 20 kilotons, with one kiloton being equivalent to a thousand tons of conventional explosives. In 1949, the USSR tested its first atomic bomb, breaking the United States monopoly. The two great powers were joined by France, Great Britain and China, whose arsenals remained smaller. The first leap in quality was the transition from simple nuclear fission devices to the thermonuclear weapon, also known as the “Hbomb” or hydrogen, consisting of two bombs in one. A first mechanism implements the fission of uranium or plutonium nuclei and develops the energy necessary to trigger, in a second mechanism, the nuclear fusion of materials such as lithium deuteride, a process that, like in the sun and stars, develops enormous energy , which forces hydrogen nuclei and fuse into helium nuclei.
THE BOMB Czar The first thermonuclear bombs were bulky and very powerful and were measured in megatons, bearing in mind that 1 megaton equals 1000 kilotons. The most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated Tsar Bomba Soviet in 1961 it was dropped from a Tu95 bomber over the arctic island Novaya Zemlia and developed 57 megatons. The fireball of the device, called “Pikadon“, from the Japanese “lightningthunder” in memory of Hiroshima, reached a diameter of 4.6 km and was calculated that in a populated area it would destroy buildings up to a distance of 35 km from the epicenter and cause burns to people in the Free to a distance of 58 km. Most Cold War strategic bombs were of lower power, ranging from 1 to 20 megatons, but each was still capable of devastating an area comparable to a few Italian provinces during the During the Cold War, the Soviet Union had 40,000 warheads and the United States had 24,000. Today, after the disarmament treaties, Russia is down to 6,400 warheads and the US is down to 4,000. Power is also down. Ballistic missiles carry more warheads, and 500 kilotons rarely reach 12 megatons .One would rather distribute the force better than deliver single powerful blows that waste energy.Di e miniaturization has meant that in recent decades even small bombs with The American B61 flying bomb, which is only 3.6 meters long, could contain an Hbomb, but the B61 has an adjustable power of at least 0.3, depending on the target Kilotons up to 10, 45 and at most 340 kilotons.
That the radius of destruction of today’s “nuclear weapons” is again similar or slightly higher than that of Hiroshima, with a “picadon” between 200 and 600 meters wide and destruction on the ground extending over a radius of 1 to 5 km, can be attributed to the to convey the message that these weapons are viable and that such clashes can be “won”. This undermines the concept of deterrence, according to which nuclear weapons should only be used to deter others from using them. After all, countries like France and Great Britain have deterrent arsenals, and the British in particular have for several years limited themselves to the only Trident D5 missiles supplied to them by the United States and are moving to submarines. And if China remains a mystery, claiming to have only 300 warheads like the British and French but suspected by the US to have as many as 1,500, Israel, India, Pakistan and Korea have gradually joined the ” Atomic Club “registered. North, increasing uncertainties.