"David Windhorst" wrote in message
...


Kevin Brooks wrote:

snip





No, the term "suitcase nuke" became a common (and misunderstood) term
when
Alexander Lebed came out with his since-discredited claims that the
GRU/KGB
had built numerous very small devices that could supposedly fit into a
briefcase/suitase size satchel and of which some number were supposedly
unaccounted for. One congressional committee even saw an extraordinary
"mockup" of this fantastic "weapon". None of this has ever panned out as
being based in real fact.

Brooks

Given the old Soviet propensity of duplicating, or attempting to
duplicate, so many Western weapons systems, if only on the principle
that if we had it they'd better have it too because even if they
couldn't immediately see the utility of the system in question, no need
to take chances (i.e., they couldn't afford to foster a "suitcase gap")
-- how likely is it that they _wouldn't_ have developed such a device?

Being as we have seen no cridible evidence that they did (and we have seen
photos, accounts, etc., of their nuclear weapons developments since the fall
of the Soviet Union), and knowing that they did indeed have some problem
providing the materiel for all of the warheads they *did* want, the burden
of proof is on those who are claiming they did have these things. So far,
Lebed and his followers have been long on talk, short on proof.

Brooks


David Windhorst