Inventor of the neutron bomb passes away

[Phidippides]

Samuel Cohen, inventor of the neutron bomb in 1958, passed away.  According to the article, he advocated the adoption of the neutron bomb but it didn't really catch on.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101202/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_samuel_cohen

What do you think?  Why has the neutron bomb not caught on?  For ethical reasons?  Should it have caught on in lieu of the hydrogen bomb?

[scout1067]

If I remember right, the Neutron Bomb did not catch on because it took too long for its major effects to take hold and thus it was essentially militarily useless.

[Aetheling]

"It's the only nuclear weapon in history that makes sense in waging war. When the war is over, the world is still intact" 
"The most sane weapon ever devised"
S.T.Cohen

Condemned for making nuclear warfare more likely...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11903795

[scout1067]

I dont know, I like the idea of a bomb that kills everybody but leaves the infrstructure intact.  I can think of a few places I would be willing to use them, most of them in desert locales.

[Aetheling]

I dont know, I like the idea of a bomb that kills everybody but leaves the infrstructure intact.  I can think of a few places I would be willing to use them, most of them in desert locales.

That's what they tried in Rwanda in 1994: kill people, save infrastructures ... so everything should keep running as usual; except that the planners lost !

[scout1067]

I don't particularly care if the infrastructure remains usable, and I certainly do not want my proposed target areas to continue to function.  The effectiveness of genocide depends on ones point of view.  Now, I am not advocating genocide here, my original response was tongue in cheek. 

However, if a person or group is going to engage in genocide then they need to be willing to see it to its logical conclusion, I don't know that I would ever be prepared to go that far.  I am much more comfortable with applying the old cliche about bombing a group back to the stone age than I am about attempting to kill every man, woman, and child in a target group.

Looked at as a technology, the Neutron bomb is a pretty neat invention.  If it does work as advertised I don't know why it would not be employed.  It seems to present an elegant solution to the dilemma of post exchange radioactive contamination.  Perhaps they are deployed and we don't know about it.  Maybe we should ask Julian Assange, he seems to have access to just about every piece of classified US information around. 

[Phidippides]

I can only conjecture as to the arguments.  Pro-neutron: less costly in the end since no infrastructure repair, lower negative effects of war, conquered nations are not given an added burden; Anti-neutron: use is more likely because of pro-arguments, does not force people to look at the destruction of war.

[scout1067]

Maybe it is my profession that colors my judgement but it seems to me that people who have never been war sure spend a lot of time talking about the horrors of something of which they have no experience.  When faced with a potential enemy isnt it a pretty straightforward calculation that it is better to fight them in there house than in our own?  Maybe it is just the Neanderthal in me coming out though.