A few of those and you're probably talking end of the world. Can't imagine that much radiation is good to everybody.
So how many can you take out.
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A few of those and you're probably talking end of the world. Can't imagine that much radiation is good to everybody.
Radiation fallout isn't actually the biggest danger with a large scale nuclear exchange, it's the nuclear winter. Basically it would cause temperatures to drop, reduction in sunlight and all the crops in first world countries would fail and they would be unable to be regrown for multiple years, that essentially wipes out most of the third world because if the first world is starving then the will be no food aid. Then you have the issue of mass rioting/anarchy/looting in first/second world countries, and hello Mad Max.
Well, the USA our ally developed them first. The Russians figured it out from stealing the USA's research. The UK was working in partnership with the USA already and was getting them regardless. France - another ally developed them next. So really it would be more accurate to say that others have them because we do. The USA, after all, is the only nation in history to actually drop a nuclear bomb on an enemy. Twice, in fact. On urban centers. After Germany had already surrendered and after Japan was no longer a threat to them. Yep, I'm pretty happy to say it's the other way around.
Specifically a war between the USSR and America/NATO was prevented by nuclear weapons, free market Capitalism was directly at war with Communism for many years, the one thing that stopped us going directly to war with China and/or Russia was nuclear weapons. Which of the above prevented that particular conflict if it wasn't nuclear weapons? I would say it was the realisation of the people in charge that both countries would be annihilated by nuclear weapons that stopped escalation and direct conflict.
Soldato
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Dropped a 20t Dave Crocket on Camden Town, resulting in 2700 fatalities and approximately 1280 injuries, and many, many ruined pairs of corduroy trousers and thick framed glasses. 
Take that, Hipsters. 
Take that, Hipsters. 
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Nope, USA didn't want us to have them at all. Theres a documentary about that (Equinox, a very british bomb) and the info I'll stick into a spoiler so its doesnt clog up the page.
After Hiroshima and Nagasaki revealed the existence of the atomic bomb to the world, Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee published a detailed account, prepared by his Conservative predecessor Winston Churchill, of the United Kingdom's participation in developing the bomb. On 8 August 1945 Attlee sent a message to President Harry Truman in which he referred to themselves as "heads of the Governments which have control of this great force". For the next year he attempted to persuade Truman to grant access to information which the British believed they deserved given their involvement.
The Americans disagreed. Manhattan Project head Leslie Groves had excluded British scientists from participating in the manufacturing of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, contrary to the intentions of his government for close cooperation, for security reasons. Postwar spy scandals in both countries increased American concerns over atomic secrecy. More importantly, Truman hoped to establish international control over atomic weapons, and sharing information with even a close ally like Britain might have made such controls impossible. Nonetheless, the Americans' refusal to share information, formalised by the McMahon Act of 1946 restricting foreign access to US nuclear technology, shocked and disappointed the British
The Americans disagreed. Manhattan Project head Leslie Groves had excluded British scientists from participating in the manufacturing of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, contrary to the intentions of his government for close cooperation, for security reasons. Postwar spy scandals in both countries increased American concerns over atomic secrecy. More importantly, Truman hoped to establish international control over atomic weapons, and sharing information with even a close ally like Britain might have made such controls impossible. Nonetheless, the Americans' refusal to share information, formalised by the McMahon Act of 1946 restricting foreign access to US nuclear technology, shocked and disappointed the British
Japan still would have cost thousands of lives on both sides continuing the war, which is why it is argued that the second bomb saved lives. They refused to surrender after the first one dont forget.
It's not really possible to have an effective shield that would have a perfect success rate against a strategic strike from the likes of Russia, America, China, Britain or France. You could potentially intercept missiles fired by the likes of Iran and North Korea, but they'd very quickly be satured by MIRVs equipped with counter measures. These missiles don't go in a straight trajectory for instance, they do circles and spirals and are going at many times the speed of sound, plus they have active counter measures, and there would be dozens or hundreds of them. I mean a submarine could fire them a couple of dozen miles off the coast or something, good luck defending your entire air space and coast line.
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Indeed, exactly the reason trident is the only nuke we still have.
Japan was still a threat and had no intention of not being, had it not been for the introduction of nukes the war would have gone on much longer and cost millions more lives, killing thousands instead of millions still isn't a good outcome but it is a better outcome. Never forget that even after being nuked twice and then invaded by the USSR Japan still didn't want to surrender, it was only faulty intel that suggested a nuclear strike on Tokyo was imminent that finally convinced them to surrender (by split decision).
In actuality the Japanese were already in peace talks and there was talk of a surrender, America used the atomic bombs so they could force a surrender quickly before the Red Army arrived as it was worried it would have to give up Japanese territory post war to the USSR.
No there was talk of a truce (by the Japanese and rejected by the allies) and talk of surrender (by the allies and rejected by the Japanese), it's not the same thing. Like I said even after two nuclear attacks and the intervention of the USSR (who were worried Japan would surrender after a third thus denying them a place at the negotiating table) Japan still refused to surrender. Things only changed after faulty intel convinced them the US was readying a nuclear attack on Tokyo, and even then the decision to surrender was split, requiring the emperor himself to personally advocate for surrender.
Even nuclear winter is probably going to be less severe than the versions often banded about which amongst other things are calculated from the big old multi megaton bombs which had significantly more capability to produce widespread firestorms and stratospheric injection than today's typical 100-300kt war heads. Also a lot depends on time of year and weather patterns, etc. many of the scenarios being based on worst case conditions - in reality the global effect would likely be something like a moderately more severe and longer lasting version of "the year without summer" than the making the world globally totally uninhabitable type scenarios.
It would be idiotic to concentrate that amount of power into too small a number of countries - if one was to suffer say catastrophic financial collapse or something like that where they couldn't maintain the capability or some other domestic or natural catastrophe you'd end up with an unbalanced distribution of that power. At the same time you don't want uncontrolled proliferation either.
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508k deaths dropping the Tsar on my house.
Fun tool, this
damn, you got a lot of lodgers :-/
You cannot credibly claim that Japan was a threat to the USA by this point in the war. They were beaten and on the outs and both sides knew it. The claim that bombing two Japanese cities saved lives is contingent on a belief that the USA had to invade and occupy Japan. It did not have to. It used nuclear weapons to demonstrate their power to the USSR and to gain control of Japan at less cost to itself. Not to save lives.
Proposing a truce is "peace talks" as Roar87 correctly stated. The fact that it's not the total domination that the USA wanted does not make them not. The fact is that the USA continued the war when peace was an option, and did so by the most horrific means of dropping nuclear bombs on two Japanese cities.
You can, because even though they had been beaten back they were not "out", it's not like you can just beat back the enemy then call it quits and go home, they will just rebuild. They refused to surrender, letting them regroup/rebuild as they were attempting would have been stupid.
That's because it did, the only other alternative was bombing them until they surrendered, which was made easier with nuclear weapons (which ironically were less lethal to the Japanese than a conventional bombing campaign or an invasion would have been).
Yes but it's not surrender.
Germany were refused a truce and they didn't even attack the USA, why should Japan be given special treatment. Imagine if the allies had fought up to Berlin and Hitler had come out and said "good game guys, okay we quit, you all go home and let us rebuild our military yeah, we promise to investigate these 'war crimes' allegations properly
". Do you think the allies would/should have agreed? Japan was no different, their choice was surrender or be made to surrender, and rightly so.
Not big enough. Need one for the entire planet.