Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, October 14, 2006
I am not using this blog much because I use the course site messageboard so heavily. But...
The facts on the UK's 'Trident' nuclear missle submarines, since this came up in the lecture and seems to have created a lot of jaw-dropped amazement when it was mentioned as an aside, are that each boat can carry 16 missiles, with a minimum of three and a maxium of 10 independently targeted warheads. Each of the warheads is big enough to destroy a large city or, perhaps, a region - though many may be targetted at military bases as well.
The missles have in effect unlimited range, though they may depend on US communications and targeting satellites and therefore could not be used against the USA (who supplied the technology) and, possibly, can't be fired without US permission in the form of a 'dual key' control (this is a secret - Trident is in theory an 'independent' force under the non-proliferation treaty and so it could in theory be used against the USA, but nobody beleives that could ever happen).
The maximum number of cities which could in theory be destroyed by the Trident force is 640 and (unlike the putative N. Korean force) these missiles can hit everywhere on the planet. Experts estimate the UK in practice maintains 'only' 200 warheads which are ready to fire at any one time. Obviously in the run up to some sort of war, production could be increased towards capacity.
(My feeling is that dictators like having a few nuclear bombs and really big old fashioned missiles (the ones with tail fins and everything) because they look really great as the central attraction in the annual jack-boot military parade. Saddam used to have dozens of these riddiculous Jules Vernes rockets (Soviet Army Surplus Scuds) on display - look where they got him.)
I can only find statistics for the largest 300 cities in the world. The 300th largest is Detroit, with just under 1 million. The total population of these 300 cities is about 600 million people (but this includes many cities in the US and its NATO allies and SEATO allies, including the UK. The next 300 cities might have smaller populations than this.
It is reasonable to conclude that the UK Trident force alone could destroy every single town or settlement in a medium-sized country like Iran, for example, if it were used in this way. Even if Korea or Iran were able to manufacture hundreds of nuclear bombs, they would not have a weapons system (like Trident) to launch them in any great numbers. It is no good having a nuclear hand grenade. What counts are the missiles and the satellites to guide them. Only the Americans (and to a lesser extent now the Chinese and Indians - the Russians are falling way behind) have these. The Koreans would have to use crude rockets with internal guidance (like the clumsy Scuds used by Saddam in Gulf War One) these would land just anywhere and the effect would be more like a very bad nuclear accident than an effective military strike. Such a thing might kill a few million and be an attrocity of massive proportions, but it wouldn't knock the country out of the war. The whole thing about nuclear weapons is that the people you fire them at are really going to be very, very angry so you have to be very sure you are going to knock them out completely before hitting the button.
Getting back to the UK's Trident boats... I would guestimate the maximum number of people who could theorectically be killed instantly by the British nuclear force used to maxium effect would be about 1000,000,000 people - old, young, people in hospitals, refugees - all without discrimination - or about a quarter of the entire world population.
Of course many more would die later (including many in the UK itself) of radiation sickeness, disease, economic collapse, climate change (nuclear winter) stavation, preadation and infrastructure collapse. But Britain's nuclear bombs (which do exist) are not 'weapons of mass destruction'. Those are the facts, pretty much.
The facts on the UK's 'Trident' nuclear missle submarines, since this came up in the lecture and seems to have created a lot of jaw-dropped amazement when it was mentioned as an aside, are that each boat can carry 16 missiles, with a minimum of three and a maxium of 10 independently targeted warheads. Each of the warheads is big enough to destroy a large city or, perhaps, a region - though many may be targetted at military bases as well.
The missles have in effect unlimited range, though they may depend on US communications and targeting satellites and therefore could not be used against the USA (who supplied the technology) and, possibly, can't be fired without US permission in the form of a 'dual key' control (this is a secret - Trident is in theory an 'independent' force under the non-proliferation treaty and so it could in theory be used against the USA, but nobody beleives that could ever happen).
The maximum number of cities which could in theory be destroyed by the Trident force is 640 and (unlike the putative N. Korean force) these missiles can hit everywhere on the planet. Experts estimate the UK in practice maintains 'only' 200 warheads which are ready to fire at any one time. Obviously in the run up to some sort of war, production could be increased towards capacity.
(My feeling is that dictators like having a few nuclear bombs and really big old fashioned missiles (the ones with tail fins and everything) because they look really great as the central attraction in the annual jack-boot military parade. Saddam used to have dozens of these riddiculous Jules Vernes rockets (Soviet Army Surplus Scuds) on display - look where they got him.)
I can only find statistics for the largest 300 cities in the world. The 300th largest is Detroit, with just under 1 million. The total population of these 300 cities is about 600 million people (but this includes many cities in the US and its NATO allies and SEATO allies, including the UK. The next 300 cities might have smaller populations than this.
It is reasonable to conclude that the UK Trident force alone could destroy every single town or settlement in a medium-sized country like Iran, for example, if it were used in this way. Even if Korea or Iran were able to manufacture hundreds of nuclear bombs, they would not have a weapons system (like Trident) to launch them in any great numbers. It is no good having a nuclear hand grenade. What counts are the missiles and the satellites to guide them. Only the Americans (and to a lesser extent now the Chinese and Indians - the Russians are falling way behind) have these. The Koreans would have to use crude rockets with internal guidance (like the clumsy Scuds used by Saddam in Gulf War One) these would land just anywhere and the effect would be more like a very bad nuclear accident than an effective military strike. Such a thing might kill a few million and be an attrocity of massive proportions, but it wouldn't knock the country out of the war. The whole thing about nuclear weapons is that the people you fire them at are really going to be very, very angry so you have to be very sure you are going to knock them out completely before hitting the button.
Getting back to the UK's Trident boats... I would guestimate the maximum number of people who could theorectically be killed instantly by the British nuclear force used to maxium effect would be about 1000,000,000 people - old, young, people in hospitals, refugees - all without discrimination - or about a quarter of the entire world population.
Of course many more would die later (including many in the UK itself) of radiation sickeness, disease, economic collapse, climate change (nuclear winter) stavation, preadation and infrastructure collapse. But Britain's nuclear bombs (which do exist) are not 'weapons of mass destruction'. Those are the facts, pretty much.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Saturday, October 07, 2006
This is an excellent commentary about the role of news on television, by a great American artist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snmllnY7-jI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snmllnY7-jI
Friday, October 06, 2006
People have been emailing and phoning me about the tabloids. I've not set myself up particularly as the world's greatest expert on this subject, but I previously did what amounts to a blog on tabloids for BBC news online. It was called Amazing Tales from Planet Tabloid. You can see it at this link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1061181.stm
I used to plough through a great pile of newspapers and get these mad stories. I love this sort of stuff, which reminds me of 18th century journalism - something that Jonathan Swift might have written about, or generic Tall Tales From Ye Guienas and Ye New Worlde - mermaids, one-legged giants, cities paved with gold, ships wreck by gigantic squids, etc, etc.
An e-mailer ask whether I think tabloids are a 'good thing'. My answer is 'yes' and 'no'. Perhaps they are bad in good way; or good in a bad way. I'm not sure. Also my opnion, which is not really worth that much, on this subject changes from moment to moment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1061181.stm
I used to plough through a great pile of newspapers and get these mad stories. I love this sort of stuff, which reminds me of 18th century journalism - something that Jonathan Swift might have written about, or generic Tall Tales From Ye Guienas and Ye New Worlde - mermaids, one-legged giants, cities paved with gold, ships wreck by gigantic squids, etc, etc.
An e-mailer ask whether I think tabloids are a 'good thing'. My answer is 'yes' and 'no'. Perhaps they are bad in good way; or good in a bad way. I'm not sure. Also my opnion, which is not really worth that much, on this subject changes from moment to moment.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Re: persecuted journalists (previous lecture). Sudanese Al Jezeera journalist held in Guantanamo bay accused without evidence or trial of being 'Osama Bin Laden's cameraman'. Fascinating and sickening radio documentary.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/np79a/?focuswin
Re: Hunter S Thompson. Tuesday evening's Front Row (Radio Four) had an interview with Ralph Steadman about Hunt's suicide last year: "He just could not stand the idea of living in Bush's America". And Hunter was a redneck conservative gun-nut libertarian republican. Very depressing...
You can hear the interview on the BBC radio four Play Again facility - navigate to Front Row (Tuesday).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/pip/np79a/?focuswin
Re: Hunter S Thompson. Tuesday evening's Front Row (Radio Four) had an interview with Ralph Steadman about Hunt's suicide last year: "He just could not stand the idea of living in Bush's America". And Hunter was a redneck conservative gun-nut libertarian republican. Very depressing...
You can hear the interview on the BBC radio four Play Again facility - navigate to Front Row (Tuesday).
Changing Journalism
I've created this blog on google mainly so I can access and post comments on other google blogs.
I've been blogging for seven years at Westminster Journalism (http://www.westminsterjournalism.co.uk) which is a fairly hefty website with a blog-like message board at its core.
I lecture and write about journalism (amongst other things) and I am going to use this blog to bring things to the attention of students and readers alike.
I've been blogging for seven years at Westminster Journalism (http://www.westminsterjournalism.co.uk) which is a fairly hefty website with a blog-like message board at its core.
I lecture and write about journalism (amongst other things) and I am going to use this blog to bring things to the attention of students and readers alike.
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