At Least It's Not a Nuclear Weapon....

I found this interesting after writing about why scientists after WWI did not impose a moratorium on scientific research for military purposes. Obviously today a great deal of effort goes into controlling and preventing countries from acquiring the science, materials and expertise needed to assemble a nuclear weapon. What happens when "conventional" weapons become just as destructive as nuclear weapons though?

Enter Russia.

This week Russia tested the most powerful conventional weapon in history. A bomb with the capabilities for similar destruction of a nuclear weapon, but without any of the environmental side effects (ie radiation) that comes with a nuclear weapon. It even is complete with its own mushroom cloud. Basically, besides the technical aspects of the bomb, it is exactly like a nuclear weapon (minus the environmental destruction). Reading the brief article and a few others about the subject it seems there is an understanding within politicians, scientists, and military leaders that nuclear weapons are perceived as bad because of the long term environmental damage they cause. One Russian official says, "At the same time, I want to stress that the action of this weapon does not contaminate the environment, in contrast to a nuclear one". I do not know where politicians can view a nuclear weapon (this new bomb is pretty much a nuclear weapon) as a usable military weapon only because there is no long term environmental damage. Throughout history this seems to have been the case. World War II and the fire bombing of Dresden and Tokyo are examples of horrific actions with "conventional weapons" few people in the public know of today. Yet, everyone knows of nuclear weapons and the terror associated with them.

I just cannot comprehend how the development of a "conventional nuclear bomb" could be allowed when the development of nuclear weapons is such a hot button issue. So, if North Korea or Iran wanted to create a bomb similar to Russia's would we allow them to do so?

I don't know just really confused why a country would invest so much money (I'm assuming large sums of money were necessary) to sidestep a technicality to create a nuclear weapon. ANYWAYS, here's the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070912/wl_nm/russia_bomb_dc_5