F. George McDuffee wrote in
:

The genie is out of the bottle and he ain't going back. Closest
historical analog I see is the introduction of the firearm. In
large sizes it rendered the castles obsolete and in the small
sizes it rendered the knight-in-armor obsolete, directly leading
to the demise of manorialism and the rise of royal
nationalism/mercantielism. The bigger the country or the bigger
the city, the bigger the target.

I believe it was the crossbow that ended feudal times not the firearm. Once
the average Joe could make an armour piercing weapon in his hovel, it was
all over for the knights.

The trick with nukes isn't just figuring out how to make one that will go
off. It's making one that you can deliver. Think of the device as a precice
and finicky scientific instrument. It's one thing to build it in place and
detonate it. It's all together another thing to build one that will
withstand multiple g-loads at launch, fly a huge distance, and hit the
target. A fission bomb is heavy relative to its yield. Manufacturing a
working hydrogen bomb is a very complex undertaking. Either one would be
difficult to deliver.

The suitcase bomb scenario is possible, but only at a very small yield, say
70 tons. The effect would be more psychological than it would "mass
destruction" wise. Though it would certainly make a mess and irradiate a
fairly large area.

There are few countries that could pull off the manufacture of such a
device. Then they would have to get it here undetected, and it would have
to work. In theory it's possible, but is it plausible? Every year that goes
by brings the technology closer to those who want it but can't put it
together. Helping them along with advanced machine tool technology isn't
very smart IMO. But it's probably unavoidable.

--

Dan