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10/12/09
10/12/09
10/12/09
10/12/09
I would scream like a little girl.
10/12/09
10/12/09
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10/12/09
Danm, the Weekly World News was right! There is more than one. And this time it's out for revenge!
10/12/09
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10/12/09
12/10/08
12/10/08
12/10/08
12/10/08
12/10/08
ahhhh.....
12/10/08
12/10/08
I'm guessing earthquakes there would cause something like what happened in Chernobyl?
12/10/08
12/11/08
Iceland might have lower popular support, based on the fact that they are the sole nation in the entire world that spends absolutely nothing on military. On the whole, it makes a certain amount of sense. Any nation that's capable of staging an attack on them is capable of sending more than enough to completely overwhelm anything that they might be able to muster in their own defense. Much simpler to just invite one of the major powers to set up a base on their little island and use the threat of a very pissed off big-dog to keep any would-be invaders at bay.
12/10/08
12/10/08
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12/10/08
"NUKES" plural, funny how it's just aww only one nuke what a shame. The US dropped two nukes on two different cities. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the latter took much more lives than the Hiroshima bomb. It's funny how History has a way of downplaying atrocious events.
12/10/08
Drop two bombs: End war in less than a month, hundreds of thousands of civilians die.
Invade: War takes at least two more years, millions of troop casualties on both sides, at least a million civilians die. And perhaps Japan gets the bomb and uses it on us.
12/10/08
12/11/08
@-kXj-: The proliferation of nuclear weapons has also significantly curtailed the number of global war casualties. There are some very interesting graphs available for those wishing to educate themselves and are willing to look a bit.
War is the real atrocity. But, the reality is that sometimes it is necessary. If you think otherwise, you're a moron. You simply cannot reason with lunatics, terrorists, religious zealots, etc. (Although, waging war with the aforementioned whack-jobs out of convenience is good enough for me.)
12/11/08
Bon5ai does have some degree of a legitimate gripe in that Germany isn't even mentioned _anywhere_ on the chart. I mean, they did have a nuclear program at one point (that is, after all, where we got many of our original nuclar engineers, yes?), and there are a few other countries that are mentioned at the bottom as having started, and then abandoned, a nuclar program, even though they aren't represented on the chart itself.
@-kXj-:
For the purposes of the chart, only the first successful _test_ nuke counts. Neither of the two we dropped on Japan have any bearing on this. That being said, if I had to pick between this chart of nuclear proliferation, and the unstated companion chart of actual nuclar deployment, I'd much rather the latter be the one that stays exactly the way it is right now.
Back when we nuked Japan, we were the only nuclear power, so there really wasn't anything anyone could do in response. Now, however, there are far too many nuclar powers with far too much animosity towards other members of that exclusive club. Any nuclear detonation on an actual target at this point bears too much possibility of setting off a very short, very violent WWIII.
12/11/08
We can't know for certain exactly what would have happened without the use of nukes, but the fact that Japan stood toe-to-toe with China over centuries of armed conflict does suggest that they were unable to even comprehend of a situation that would result in them being forced to surrender to the US.
@eblingmis doesn't know why he chose his name:
Germany should be mentioned in text alone at the bottom of the chart. Hexagons appear to be reserved for nations that started, and then ended, their nuclear programs, but who received some level of assistance in the startup process from an existing nuclear power. Germany was doing it all on their own, so there's no doner power to tie them to. And since they never actually completed their nuclear program, neither can they be shown as a doner power.
12/11/08
Don't put too much of the blame on independant fringe groups. WWI was the result of a family squabble. At the time, most of Europe was tied to one royal family. Either the daughters got married to the throne, or the sons married their way onto the throne. And when WWI ended, the victorious European powers basically picked up where they left off, fully expecting that there would be another war somewhere down the line. They couldn't begin to comprehend how bad WWI was going to turn out until it happened, and even after it was over, they still couldn't anticipate how much worse WWII would be down the road. Only after that wrapped up were they really committed to the idea of not using war as a diplomatic tactic.