Nuclear Arms and Weapons in General

[brimstoneSalad]

You don't actually need a larger stockpile than the other army. You just need enough to destroy them; which isn't actually that much.

At that point, would it not become more of a "who presses the button first"?

No, not really.

Even if you could figure out where their launch sites are, they could launch before your missiles ever reached them. ICBMs are fast, but they're not lasers, they still take around 30 minutes to get where they're going.

Detection is a very robust and affordable technology.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

You don't actually need a larger stockpile than the other army. You just need enough to destroy them; which isn't actually that much.

I did some brief research and found two sources which stated the following:

The average land area of a country, based on the land area comprising the earth is approximately 767,731 square kilometers (296,422 square miles) - slightly smaller than Turkey but much larger than Chile or Zambia.

So assuming that the countries are this size, do you know how much it would cost to have enough nuclear arms to obliterate the enemy? Furthermore, could this money be allocated to anti-missile research or to the building of fallout shelters as a peaceful alternative?

Links
http://geography.about.com/od/lists/a/a ... ountry.htm
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-country-size

[brimstoneSalad]

So assuming that the countries are this size, do you know how much it would cost to have enough nuclear arms to obliterate the enemy?

You don't need to obliterate them entirely. Hit the top ten biggest cities, and there's not any reasonable recovery from something like that.
There's no need to kill everybody to ensure there is no winner in the exchange.

[Kyron]

Even if you could figure out where their launch sites are, they could launch before your missiles ever reached them. ICBMs are fast, but they're not lasers, they still take around 30 minutes to get where they're going.

Hmm, very true.

So assuming that the countries are this size, do you know how much it would cost to have enough nuclear arms to obliterate the enemy?

It costs around $85,000 to create a single nuclear missile itself. (Now that we have the technology and experience.)
Each nuclear blast would effect roughly 30 miles per missile. That's 9883.33 missiles to cover the average country land-mass (according to the figures you sent me), which would cost around $840,083,333.33
That's excluding the launch-sites, employees, and other resources needed to actually use these things. Plus, there are ongoing costs to maintaining and refurbishing nuclear missiles as they have a fairly short lifespan before you actually use them.

[http://www.nationalterroralert.com/nuclear/]
[http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/ask/ ... -cost.html]

Furthermore, could this money be allocated to anti-missile research or to the building of fallout shelters as a peaceful alternative?

Yes.

You don't need to obliterate them entirely. Hit the top ten biggest cities, and there's not any reasonable recovery from something like that.
There's no need to kill everybody to ensure there is no winner in the exchange.

True.

[brimstoneSalad]

Furthermore, could this money be allocated to anti-missile research or to the building of fallout shelters as a peaceful alternative?

Fallout shelters aren't practical. You can only save a very, very small number of people that way. Infrastructure costs for anything that could survive a nuclear blast are insane.

Also, imagine trying to evacuate a city into fallout shelters in thirty minutes. Not going to happen. (Cities are the reasonable target). A fallout shelter is fine for the countryside, since it doesn't have to be so hardened against a close range blast.

You could try to decentralize your population, and prevent city growth. That's incredibly inefficient, though. You're sacrificing massive amounts of infrastructure and economic efficiency for the eventuality of a nuclear attack. Your country wouldn't be able to compete on any level with others.

The best method with a civilized enemy is diplomacy, but unfortunately you have to be on equal footing (or at least be able to threaten them) before you can really negotiate anything reasonable.

Iran is lucky that the U.S. & allies (Russia and China) in this are all so reasonable.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Furthermore, could this money be allocated to anti-missile research or to the building of fallout shelters as a peaceful alternative?

Yes.

Considering what brimstoneSalad said about anti-missile research would this be a safe alternative? Are fallout shelters any good? I imagine for smaller amounts of strikes they would be a good investment, but when your country faces annihilation I'd imagine they'd become worthless.

[Kyron]

Considering what brimstoneSalad said about anti-missile research would this be a safe alternative? Are fallout shelters any good? I imagine for smaller amounts of strikes they would be a good investment, but when your country faces annihilation I'd imagine they'd become worthless.

Fallout Shelters are not designed to withstand a nuclear blast if it's smack-bang in the center of it.. But honestly, what is? They're designed to protect you from the fallout. The radioactivity, flying debre, etc. They are a smart investment whether you own Nuclear Weapons (and are relying on the assumption that the enemy is sane.) or not. However, if you own a missile defense system, you're probably not going to need to invest that much into fallout shelters..

A decent fallout shelter can cost between $40,000 to $80,000.

[garrethdsouza]

Apart from America, pretty much every country has done exactly that after getting nuclear weapons. Apart from tests,nothing to anyone else. It's more for deterrence of invasions etc imo.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Fallout Shelters are not designed to withstand a nuclear blast if it's smack-bang in the center of it

Oops! I apologize for my ignorance!

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Would being allies with a nation with a nuclear arsenal be superior to having them yourself?