[Tanny (OP)]

As discussed in other threads, nuclear weapons pose the most pressing immediate threat to modern civilization.  Everything built by generations over a 1,000 years could all be gone with breath taking speed.  What will it take to get us to focus fully on this threat? 

It seems logic, reason and facts are insufficient, because everyone has already known about the threat for decades, and still the topic receives relatively little attention.  As example, nuclear weapons barely received mention in the recent presidential campaign here in the U.S.

Will terrorists solve our lack of focus problem by setting off a small nuke somewhere?  Is such an act actually our best hope of avoiding a large exchange between major powers, likely a game over event?

Even a relatively small nuclear detonation would receive massive media coverage all across the world, which would likely go on around the clock for months or longer.  That which is now a distant abstraction would suddenly become very very real to billions of people as mass carnage imagery was relentlessly pumped in to every home across the planet.

As unthinkable as this solution is, would it be preferable to continuing to drift along in sleepy complacency until that inevitable day when a financial crisis or some other unexpected event triggers conflict between the major powers? 

[LB7]

I don't know but it is possible to destroy France with 100 people in one night and without weapons. It is easy : destroy the high voltage transformers in substations around Paris. It needs 6 months to build one HV tranformer, difficult to transport, only one factory in France (JST Lyon), 30 factories in the world. The goal is to destroy the economy after burn more and more HV transformers. Without electricty: no light, no heating, no water, etc.

Look at this document:

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42795.pdf

And in french:

http://echelledejacob.blogspot.fr/2014/09/talon-dachille.html

IRA tried to do that around London but the police arrest them before.

A HV tranformer explode when it is in short circuit (under tension), the oil inside will flow and then burn.

After the economy, the civil will be very closed and after the nuclear plants will finish the work. So, I don't know what you called "save the world" but I think it is the contrary in short time. Maybe you consider long time and after 1Sv/year all around the Earth for many years all population will transform DNA and with a lot of suffer and a lot of pain maybe some people could be like survivors and maybe it is a chance, but I think it is better to use technology and try to change DNA in a lab: less pain for people !

[evan_au]

Will terrorists solve our lack of focus problem by setting off a small nuke somewhere?

Politics has very little to do with reality.
- An external threat is something that a politician can use to get people working in "fight or flight" mode rather than intellect. And Donald Trump is strong on the "fight".
- It doesn't matter that today's threat is often from thinly dispersed terror groups rather than massed armies crossing continents
- Or from small states with a couple of weapons on medium-range missiles rather than large states with of tens of thousands of weapons on ICBMS, submarines and long-range aircraft

I think it's likely that a terrorist organisation igniting one nuclear weapon would be taken as an excuse to build up nuclear stockpiles, rather than reduce them.

nuclear weapons barely received mention in the recent presidential campaign here in the U.S.

I think it was there, in the bellowed "Make America great again!", and the urge to update the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

See: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trumps-2016-campaign-ideas-2015-6?r=US&IR=T

There is a suspicion that people who like big cars, big guns and big missiles are compensating for deficiencies elsewhere.

[Tanny (OP)]

I think it's likely that a terrorist organisation igniting one nuclear weapon would be taken as an excuse to build up nuclear stockpiles, rather than reduce them.

That's a real possibility, agreed.  But not the only one.  As example, huge nuclear stockpiles are worthless against terrorist groups.   I do agree the situation would be unprecedented and that no one can confidently predict what would happen.  It is however not that hard to predict what will eventually happen if we keep sleepily drifting along in the status quo.

I think it was there, in the bellowed "Make America great again!", and the urge to update the US nuclear weapons stockpile.

Good point.  But let's remember that Trump may not still be in office in just three years.  He may die in office.  He may be impeached.   In any case, the real power behind the throne are the people who voted for Trump.  Change their minds, and Trump will instantly change his, as he is rather famous for doing.

There is a suspicion that people who like big cars, big guns and big missiles are compensating for deficiencies elsewhere.

Indeed, it's surely no coincidence that guns operate very much like penises, and that it's mostly men who are interested in them.  I've never owned a gun, so obviously I'm not suffering from any deficiency!  But wait, I'm 65 now, maybe I should get a gun after all??    

[smart]

Any nuclear attack is essentially an act of terror.

And the concept of "terrorism" is a social mnemonic to exert pressure on our global leaders to reduce civil rights by increasing "security".

I don't believe the mass HYSTERIA and HYPE on "terrorism" may save our planet from pollution nor from global tyranny.

I bet only a brain dead sucker will want to save the world with a nuclear attack. In reality, the real issues on this planet needs to be addressed by SCIENCE only.

This forum is not a proper place to discuss about the hegemony of FEAR, which is totally unscientific and strongly influenced by a minority of FOOLS who just cannot accept that PEACE, LOVE, and HAPPINESS should drive humanity out of the bliss of IGNORANCE.