The real problem is the suicide sects, which is what I assume you meant.
0: http://nerdist.com/sex-nerd-sandra-30-harem-hottie/ (Interview with a former prostitute to the harem of the prince of Brunei. Alcohol is verboten in Brunei as a muslim country. Not only did the royals, other leaders and prostitutes do alcohol, they also did cocaine and everything else you can imagine)
He mentions a leader should only appear to be very pious.
Of course, there are claims that the book was seditionary; designed to mislead the powerful and create unrest.
The only two incidents I'm aware of where it got that close, one was stopped by an officer before it even got up the chain of command. The other got to Yeltsin, who made the very rational call to wait and see if there was an error before starting a nuclear war.
[1] http://nothingbuttherain.com/2013/08/12/lesson-2-rationality...
BUT the US government ran a study in the early sixties, called the "Nth Country Experiment" [2], that took a few recent physics PHDs and paid them to see if they could develop a design for a nuclear weapon. They surprised everyone by designing a credible implosion weapon. So it can be done. And the amount of available information and technology is better than fifty years ago.
The main challenge is simply the industrial process required to collect the fissionable material. That is why Iranians have centrifuges and why Stuxnet attacked those centrifuges. [1]
Fire bombing can (and has done) more damage to a city than a fission bomb.
Mass arson is possible, though not on the scale of firebombing. The US in WWII developed the idea of strapping incendiary bombs on bats and releasing them in a city, where they would roost in random buildings and start hundreds of small fires.
That said they're not that hard, and they get easier every day. At an anti-proliferation conference a few years ago Iran argued that any world-class university physics department probably has the capacity to build a nuclear weapon, and commentators agreed. Eventually it'll reach the point where a high school AP student could do it.
Edit: replaced neutrinos with neutrons
It's a very primitive device compared to a nuclear weapon, but it could have created an runaway nuclear reaction and do a ton of damage.
We are not in a nuclear war because US makes more profit based in the fear than in the use of the bombs. Don't play this "intolerant" game.
The bombs made clear that the US had the upper hand in warfare technology (and no scruples in taking advantage of it) and that action ended the war without additional casualties on US part.
The decision wasn't neither humane nor merciful , but from a rational point of view made a lot of sense.
It is worth noting that there is considerable debate among historians about the degree to which the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings influenced the Japanese decision to surrender. Hiroshima was attacked on 6th August and Nagasaki on the 9th, but the surrender wasn't announced until the 15th. Some historians see the Russian declaration of war and invasion of Manchuria as being equally or more significant [1].
[1] http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japa...
I would say atomic bombs were one of the many factors considered when finally giving up, but common US view of "hey we bombed them hard with our cool new toys, they craed their pants and gave up immediately" is not very accurate.
But either way -- you can say it was the right decision or the wrong decision -- it was hardly "for no reason".
There were a few quite moving interviews with veterans on Radio 4 this morning - including one with a chap who had fought in Europe and was, like many others, about to be shipped out to the Far East to help the US invade Japan.
He was, perhaps understandably, delighted to hear that Japan had been bombed.
Personally, I think the motivations for using the atomic bombs on Japan are complex and unclear - even with hindsight.
I find it atrocious, and possibly should have been avoided, but it's easy and convenient for us to sit in front of our laptops and pass judgement 70 years after the fact, without having first-hand experience of the situation at the time.
Personally, I think that any nation involved in the war, if they had been in the same position of the US, would have taken the same decision, but again it's easy to judge and theorize now.
Do you think that it's acceptable or "rational" as you put it to have people fried alive in furnaces or dissolved in acid?
Would you like to face a similar "rational" fate for you or your loved ones?
Hadn't been for the US and its allies emerged as victors in WWII, all of their political and military leadership would have been had their own Nuremberg trials a decades ago but they got it away with it for the simple fact that they prevailed over their enemies.
Like they say 'History is written by the victors'.
I, for one, am glad that the Allies won the war. The lesser of two evils.
Or we could light their cities on fire with bat bombs. War is hell.
That's very different than starting a nuclear war for the hell of it knowing your country will be totally destroyed as a result.
"Rational nations"? Get real. No nations are rational. Nations are driven by political systems that are driven by the emotions of the populations of those places. Are human emotions rational? Are human emotions more rational in Israel than they are in Ghana or North Korea?
the danger this day and age is that are some very irrational powers, possibly including leaders and the countries they represent, that, well, don't think the same.
Even India and Pakistan get along because neither side is governed by fanatical leadership. Likely the real danger comes from one of the more intolerant sects of Islam