The nukes we have are useless for real warfare. They're designed for Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and very dirty in terms of fall out, prompt radiation, etc. There is a class of nuclear weapon called "RRR" (forgot what it stands for). This class of nuclear weapon is the opposite of the "neutron bomb", viz. a neutron bomb is optimized to produce lots of prompt radiation and is dirty. The main mechanical difference in these different weapons is in the tamp, i.e. a conventional thermonuclear weapon uses a U-238 tamp or casing for the bomb can. I think(?) a neutron bomb uses a beryllium tamp. I'm not sure but I think an RRR uses a tungsten tamp (someone correct me on this if I'm wrong). IMHO we need to cut a deal with the Russians to significantly reduce our nuclear weapons inventory. The nuclear weapons that we would have remaining should all be converted over to RRR class weapons mounted in non-MIRVed maneuverable reentry vehicles. These weapons would be built with the intent of actually using them (like little boy and fat man).

People quite correctly recoil in horror at the prospect of using nuclear weapons against a rogue state. However look at the alternative situation: The total losses surrounding the recent disaster were around $30 billion with about 4600 casulties. We are obligated to provide a military response of some sort. However even a small war with conventional weapons costs about $100 billion with casulties typically in the thousands (our low casulties in the Persian Gulf war was a pathological case resulting from Schwarzkopf's extreme skill against the amazing incompetence of the Iraqis). With RRR weapons we could keep our single war costs under a billion dollars with no casulties.

Gary