Oddbean new post about login | logout #politics #hypothesis I don't think Israel has nuclear weapons. Strategic nuclear weapons are a deterrant, but they are never useful in actual use (you would be retaliated against with nukes too). So I think they want the deterrance value without the cost. In order to make sure Iran believes Israel could nuke them, they arranged a fake US intelligence leak confirming that Israel has nukes. But that leak is clearly fake because the white house and Israel both confirmed it and the news media ran with it... if it was a true leak they would have denied it and covered it up. I haven't heard this theory out there anywhere, so I'm putting it out there.
may be the first conspiracy theory from you that actually makes sense.
In addition, the reason the US has a "special relationship" with Israel and always defends Israel no matter what is not because the US is entirely run by Jews (although there are a lot of them with a lot of power), but because Israel and the US made a secret deal --- the US convinced Israel not to develop nukes, and in exchange the US would always defend them. I don't have any security clearance or any special knowledge. This is pure hypothesis.
no mate that was Russia that convinced Ukraine to give up their nukes ( which Ukraine already had ) and Russia in exchange promised to protect Ukraine we know how well that went Israel would never agree to anything that stupid and as a Jew i can assure you we absolutely run US from top to bottom
Yes it happened with Ukraine too. I hypothesize that a lot of such deals were made with the aim of stopping nuclear proliferation. The theory could extend to the idea that Russia has a deal with Iran to not build nukes, in exchange for Russia defending Iran (The US couldn't do that with Iran since Israel and Iran are at odds and the US couldn't promise defense to both sides.... well they could in secret like the UK always did I guess).
here is the hole in your theory - it was Jews who invented the nuclear weapons and it was Jews who used them against Japan Jews can convince idiots to give up the nukes but Jews would never give them up themselves because we are all about that genocide it is possible that Israel didn't have nukes when they "leaked" that they did, but i don't believe Jews would ever voluntarily give up on the idea of mass murder without mass murdering women and children who are even we ? it is what defines us
the Jewish identity has 3 parts: 1 - Usury 2 - Genocide 3 - Playing the Victim watch the movie Oppenheimer - it is actually fairly decent
i mean you really think a race of evil goblins that was waging a war on humanity for thousands of years finally invented the ultimate weapon in 1945 test-used it on Japanese who had nothing against the Jews, but then decided to just give it away to gentiles whom Jews hate and leave none for themselves and 80 years later still not have these weapons while actively waging war against the entire middle east ... i take back what i said about this being your first theory that makes sense. on second thought it makes no sense.
i know how you take pride in being a contrarian and always coming up with the most absurd takes on every subject but ... maybe you're taking this too far LOL.
Well the theory goes that Israel developed nukes and keeps it a secret because the US will stop all military aid as per the international non proliferation agreement. Either is entirely plausible, which is what Israel wants, whatever the truth is about it. Do we have nukes? You decide. It's scary to enemies, on the one hand they get the deterrent without developing them, on the other they have them but still get US aid.
Yes. Either way could be the case as either way puts them in a good position, and the ambiguity makes that position even better.
Their no-denial-no-confirm policy comes from the 60's, before Iran was the enemy. When was the leak? Also, the US did an interesting experiment: they paid (well) two physics professors, competent but with no nuclear physics experience, to stop whatever they were doing and design a A-bomb using only public info. In two years, they had a functional design on paper, missing only workable engineering details. So, if Israel is unable to build A-bombs, it must be due to lack of will, $, or industrial capacity, and not lack of knowledge. And keeping subs on the sea with no nuclear missiles would be an expensive way to bluff. But who knows?
Stoping the proliferation of nuclear weapons is of strategic interest to all countries with active nuclear weapons programs irrespective of whether or not Iran was a threat in the 60s or if Israel had a specific target for it's nukes. I'm not saying Israel doesn't have the ability to build nukes, of course they do, as does Iran. I'm saying they voluntarily stopped and took a deal from the US to not continue in exchange for a secret defense agreement.... but they didn't shut down the program, they just froze it, so they could continue if that deal somehow ever fell apart and as leverage to force the US to keep defending them. But it's just a hypothesis. Everybody in all political camps seems to think Israel has nuclear weapons, so it is a minority hypothesis. This last week's intelligence leak gave it a bit more credibility though which is why I mention it now.
even if not true, your hypothesis has the merit of rethinking 'estabilished facts'. It is clear that lack of knowledge is not the problem. Also, although Israel never had the hability of run something on the original Manhattan Project scale, the industrial effort of building an A-Bomb become much smaller with tech advances and experience. Building a bomb in the 60's must have been much easier than in the 40's, and quite more difficult than today. So, the most relevant issue to answer "could Israel build A-bombs' in the 60's" is: given 60's tech, how much industrial effort, $ and U ore would be needed to build a few dozens of bombs? Would that be achievable or it looks like a bluff? I do not know enough to answer. Today Iran has all the drama with centrifugues, cyber attacks and so on. It is not THAT easy. Iran is relatively competent. Do you know it is on top 30 countries in robotics papers? https://www.researchgate.net/figure/RESEARCH-OUTPUT-BY-COUNTRIES-ON-ROBOTIC-TECHNOLOGY_tbl2_324829090
I recently heard Iran is world #1 in ultra high performance concrete. I guess for their bunkers they need it to defeat bunker buster munitions, and also they get a lot of earthquakes.
yeah an atom bomb is the most primitive nuclear device - simpler than a nuclear reactor and simpler than a hydrogen bomb if USSR could build a hydrogen bomb WAY back in the day and Florida can run nuclear reactors then i am sure Israel could easily build an atom bomb considering they have a history of stealing US military secrets and some of the most advanced Tech corporations like Intel have offices in Israel ... it's possible that they don't have nukes but like you said they could easily get them if they wanted