Anyone see that McDonalds is hiring a manager of diplomatic relations to “join its Federal Government Relations team in Washington, DC. The successful candidate will serve as an ambassador for the McDonald’s Brand with the diplomatic community, relevant U.S. foreign policy government agencies, and third-party stakeholders. “ Ah i love the smell of empire in the morning and it smells like French fries. 🍟
It’s entirely possible Iran could develop working nuclear weapons without ever setting off a full nuke in a test. The science is very well understood - it’s just a matter of designing the shaped conventional explosive for the implosion mechanism and that can be tested with non-fissile U-238. This seems to be more or less the kind of thing they’ve done at Los Alamos since the 90s. Full nuclear tests are as much a form of diplomatic signaling (“check your seismograph to see what we can do now”) as they are of performance tests.
Unless they're planning on using nukes for something other than deterrence, which seems extremely unlikely, they'd want to perform a test as soon as they had a working warhead to demonstrate a counterstrike capability. That's what North Korea did for exactly the same reason.
John Bolton (the Man Who Is Never Wrong) claims North Korea could transfer a nuclear warhead to Iran within 72 hours. I am going to one up Bolton and assume without evidence and purely on the basis of conjecture that a transfer has already happened (e.g. Given the 20+ year close collaboration between Iran and North Korea in the development of missile technology, their status as part of the "Axis of Evil", North Korea's estimated 50+ weapons stockpile, and shared concerns regarding the U.S. and its allies). I could see an advantage in having the capacity without announcing it. An announcement might fuel proliferation in the region and encourage Israeli efforts to use a first strike against the location assumed to house the weapons. Additionally, this kind of an announcement would make it nearly impossible to ever lift economic sanctions. The fact that Iran has demonstrated the ability to launch a missile system capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and hit Israeli soil, might achieve a similar level of deterrence without incurring a more paranoid response from Israel.
What I meant to say is that they can design the bomb assembly itself without weapons-grade nuclear material. That doesn’t mean they will have a fully functioning bomb though, as under IAEA inspections they’ve only been able to enrich their Uranium to ~60% and something like 90-95% is needed to actually have a working bomb. So, should they decide to go ahead and enrich their uranium to weapons-grade, they could have the bomb assembly ready to go immediately.
how hard is it exactly to "enrich uranium" to weapons grade? hear it talked about a lot but never really explained. everything seems to suggest it's a rather long and difficult process, but is that actually true?
It’s particularly difficult because it requires separating fissile U-235 from non-fissile U-238 which can’t be done chemically - so they have to be separated by mass which is especially difficult since their masses vary only slightly. The process is usually done with a complex series of centrifuges where one feeds into the next - it’s the main economic bottleneck and the US/Israel have put a considerable amount of effort into sabotaging Iranian centrifuges in particular. However, while I can’t back this up with hard numbers, it looks a lot like enriching 0.3% naturally occurring U-235 into 60% is a lot harder than going from 60% to 90%. The sense I get from commentators is that the latter can be done in a few weeks to make enough fuel for a bomb.
Oddly, there’s not a lot of analysis out there on Iranian plutonium production, which is the standard for most modern nuclear powers (both enriched Uranium and Plutonium can be used to make a working bomb - Hiroshima had a Uranium bomb while Trinity/Nagasaki were Plutonium). Getting weapons grade plutonium at scale seems to be easier since it’s produced from bombarding the more common U-238 with neutrons then chemically separating out the Plutonium and doing comparatively less enrichment afterward, but for whatever reason you just don’t see much reporting on Iranian plutonium.
Iran doesn't have a plutonium reprocessing facility. It would be difficult for them to build one without being detected and that would be a tacit declaration that they're weaponizing their nuclear program.
interesting thanks! and I suppose another question I have is the whole topic of 'tactical nukes'. Isn't the idea with those that often they're not particularly radioactive because they're designed to produce a less gigantic explosion and cause less long lasting contamination... in that case are they something which still requires the fully enriched uranium / plutonium? i.e. could we surmise that at their current level iran could already have some major 'tactical' warheads which could do serious damage while nevertheless still falling short of a hiroshima type bomb?
You could also probably run tests with non-weapons grade, fairly sub-critical uranium or plutonium where you set off the “nuke” then measure the amount of radiation released from the sub-critical fission reaction and compare that to expectations. Once you have confirmation that the non-critical fission reaction proceeds as intended, you can then be fairly certain that with a weapons-grade core you would get a full detonation.
Anyway sorry I’m high and studied physics/worked in a nuclear physics lab in college. Danny would actually know the lab - it’s CENPA located between the north campus dorms and U-Village.
Yeah idk man this performative strikes bs is taking some calculus level calculations. Hopefully no one miscalculates. I like how Zelensky even made it about him, “you guys should have protected us by shooting the missiles and drones in our territory like you did for Israel.” 😞
everything seems to indicate it was just a few small drones. one analysis i saw suggests this may even be the US doing something minor and then announcing it straight away as the israeli attack to put israel in an awkward position where they don't feel they can / need to go ahead with their full attack. see also supposed israeli missile debris found in iraq 100s of km from the border with iran, apparently of the type they use as practice ammo for the patriot system, so not something they would actually shoot directly at iran. so looks an awful lot like doing whatever they can to give the image of an attack having happened and then hyping it up, without actually doing anything. a real problem israel has is that attacking iran directly with their jets is not exactly easy, something they've planned years for, and so they run the risk of revealing the entire plan to iran just for some minor face saving retaliation like this... not ideal, especially after just having also revealed to iran a full map of their anti-missile defence strategy and battery locations lol
one weird thing with israel is not only hiding their casualties, but also at the same time *only* announcing bedouin casualties. not just with this bedouin girl but many previous times they'll say ah yeah these rockets from gaza somehow only injured bedouins or foreign workers, never any israeli jews
Anyone see that McDonalds is hiring a manager of diplomatic relations to “join its Federal Government Relations team in Washington, DC. The successful candidate will serve as an ambassador for the McDonald’s Brand with the diplomatic community, relevant U.S. foreign policy government agencies, and third-party stakeholders. “ Ah i love the smell of empire in the morning and it smells like French fries. 🍟
It’s entirely possible Iran could develop working nuclear weapons without ever setting off a full nuke in a test. The science is very well understood - it’s just a matter of designing the shaped conventional explosive for the implosion mechanism and that can be tested with non-fissile U-238. This seems to be more or less the kind of thing they’ve done at Los Alamos since the 90s. Full nuclear tests are as much a form of diplomatic signaling (“check your seismograph to see what we can do now”) as they are of performance tests.
Unless they're planning on using nukes for something other than deterrence, which seems extremely unlikely, they'd want to perform a test as soon as they had a working warhead to demonstrate a counterstrike capability. That's what North Korea did for exactly the same reason.
John Bolton (the Man Who Is Never Wrong) claims North Korea could transfer a nuclear warhead to Iran within 72 hours. I am going to one up Bolton and assume without evidence and purely on the basis of conjecture that a transfer has already happened (e.g. Given the 20+ year close collaboration between Iran and North Korea in the development of missile technology, their status as part of the "Axis of Evil", North Korea's estimated 50+ weapons stockpile, and shared concerns regarding the U.S. and its allies). I could see an advantage in having the capacity without announcing it. An announcement might fuel proliferation in the region and encourage Israeli efforts to use a first strike against the location assumed to house the weapons. Additionally, this kind of an announcement would make it nearly impossible to ever lift economic sanctions. The fact that Iran has demonstrated the ability to launch a missile system capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and hit Israeli soil, might achieve a similar level of deterrence without incurring a more paranoid response from Israel.
What I meant to say is that they can design the bomb assembly itself without weapons-grade nuclear material. That doesn’t mean they will have a fully functioning bomb though, as under IAEA inspections they’ve only been able to enrich their Uranium to ~60% and something like 90-95% is needed to actually have a working bomb. So, should they decide to go ahead and enrich their uranium to weapons-grade, they could have the bomb assembly ready to go immediately.
how hard is it exactly to "enrich uranium" to weapons grade? hear it talked about a lot but never really explained. everything seems to suggest it's a rather long and difficult process, but is that actually true?
It’s particularly difficult because it requires separating fissile U-235 from non-fissile U-238 which can’t be done chemically - so they have to be separated by mass which is especially difficult since their masses vary only slightly. The process is usually done with a complex series of centrifuges where one feeds into the next - it’s the main economic bottleneck and the US/Israel have put a considerable amount of effort into sabotaging Iranian centrifuges in particular. However, while I can’t back this up with hard numbers, it looks a lot like enriching 0.3% naturally occurring U-235 into 60% is a lot harder than going from 60% to 90%. The sense I get from commentators is that the latter can be done in a few weeks to make enough fuel for a bomb.
Oddly, there’s not a lot of analysis out there on Iranian plutonium production, which is the standard for most modern nuclear powers (both enriched Uranium and Plutonium can be used to make a working bomb - Hiroshima had a Uranium bomb while Trinity/Nagasaki were Plutonium). Getting weapons grade plutonium at scale seems to be easier since it’s produced from bombarding the more common U-238 with neutrons then chemically separating out the Plutonium and doing comparatively less enrichment afterward, but for whatever reason you just don’t see much reporting on Iranian plutonium.
Iran doesn't have a plutonium reprocessing facility. It would be difficult for them to build one without being detected and that would be a tacit declaration that they're weaponizing their nuclear program.
interesting thanks! and I suppose another question I have is the whole topic of 'tactical nukes'. Isn't the idea with those that often they're not particularly radioactive because they're designed to produce a less gigantic explosion and cause less long lasting contamination... in that case are they something which still requires the fully enriched uranium / plutonium? i.e. could we surmise that at their current level iran could already have some major 'tactical' warheads which could do serious damage while nevertheless still falling short of a hiroshima type bomb?
You could also probably run tests with non-weapons grade, fairly sub-critical uranium or plutonium where you set off the “nuke” then measure the amount of radiation released from the sub-critical fission reaction and compare that to expectations. Once you have confirmation that the non-critical fission reaction proceeds as intended, you can then be fairly certain that with a weapons-grade core you would get a full detonation.
Anyway sorry I’m high and studied physics/worked in a nuclear physics lab in college. Danny would actually know the lab - it’s CENPA located between the north campus dorms and U-Village.
Fuckin hell guys. Israel just hit Iran back. 🙄
"Producer’s note: This was recorded on Thursday, April 18, before Israel’s strike on Iran, hence us releasing this earlier than usual."
The eye roll wasn’t for you lmao 😜 but for the strikes. This escalation ladder is getting out of hand
I accept the eye roll
Yeah idk man this performative strikes bs is taking some calculus level calculations. Hopefully no one miscalculates. I like how Zelensky even made it about him, “you guys should have protected us by shooting the missiles and drones in our territory like you did for Israel.” 😞
everything seems to indicate it was just a few small drones. one analysis i saw suggests this may even be the US doing something minor and then announcing it straight away as the israeli attack to put israel in an awkward position where they don't feel they can / need to go ahead with their full attack. see also supposed israeli missile debris found in iraq 100s of km from the border with iran, apparently of the type they use as practice ammo for the patriot system, so not something they would actually shoot directly at iran. so looks an awful lot like doing whatever they can to give the image of an attack having happened and then hyping it up, without actually doing anything. a real problem israel has is that attacking iran directly with their jets is not exactly easy, something they've planned years for, and so they run the risk of revealing the entire plan to iran just for some minor face saving retaliation like this... not ideal, especially after just having also revealed to iran a full map of their anti-missile defence strategy and battery locations lol
one weird thing with israel is not only hiding their casualties, but also at the same time *only* announcing bedouin casualties. not just with this bedouin girl but many previous times they'll say ah yeah these rockets from gaza somehow only injured bedouins or foreign workers, never any israeli jews
Time is a fickle goddess