30 years sounds like a much more plausible timescale and I’d believe the $1TN cost figure too. More/bigger nukes would cost (even) more money of course. Assuming Obama started on his first day in office then we’re already 8 years in, so Trump would ‘only’ have to compress the remaining 22 years work down to 8 years to give himself the opportunity of ‘going out with a bang’. At best that’s going to triple the cost per year and in reality I fear it would be a good deal more expensive than that.
Of course the US has form here. Reagan won the cold war by spending so much on the military that the Russian effort to keep pace snapped their economy. Fortunately (for us) Gorbachev was in charge and he was enough of a grown-up to admit defeat gracefully and set about building an alternative societal model. Actually I don’t think that Putin is such a loose cannon that he would drop the big one in a fit of pique either. But he might respond with something a good deal dirtier and more painful than Gorbachev did.
It is a worry though when what was once clearly a joke seems to be becoming official policy
Here’s some more cheery fun. NUKEMAP calculates the blast radius for various yields of nuclear weapon over towns and cities across the world.
I just dropped a Dong-Feng 5 which is China’s current ICBM on Hemel Hempstead. Fireball radius of 1.84km, air blast of 12km and thermal radiation out to 25km. That’s Luton stuffed aswell. 100Mt over Birmingham looks like someone has taken a giant apple corer to the country.
There’s something similar near where I grew up. For a long time it was a playground rumour there were nuclear bombs under Kinver Edge. Not quite accurate, but there is a huge underground factory which made aircraft parts during WWII and was later repurposed as a top secret nuclear bunker. Drakelow tunnels is now the largest underground space open to the public. One day I’ll visit because it looks fascinating.
The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.’ That probability has not been reduced. The Clock ticks. Global danger looms. Wise leaders should act—immediately.