DIYSwede. Once in a social science course that I took I was asked what I thought about the ramifications of the nuclear arms race and the build up of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
I told the Proff this all depends on which country you are wanting a perspective on.
From the stand point of the USA it means a lot of jobs for 1000s of well paid people. and economic growth. From the stand point of a country such as the soviet Union remember this was in the early 70s at the time. It will ultimately become an unsustainable drain due to the structure of their government and economic distribution system. in the USA many development technologies will spin off into civilian life.
the best thing about the build up is that while both super powers know full well neither is going to attack the other since both need each other to maintain some semblance of balance on the global scale. without the 2 superpowers showing a fake bluster and continual chest beating others will get the idea they too could be a super power but probably not with the same level of willingness not to use them.
I said besides someday someone will figure out these massive missiles might even be of use without their warheads to boost payloads into space.
So guess what it turned out I was right to a large extent in more ways that I could have possibly known or understood back then.
Brezhnev and Gorbachev could never have been called stupid but their philosophies were as flawed as Stalin's but I think they might have been puppets just like many of the US presidents have been.
But geo political discussions are better left to forums other than here
An interesting thing about semi mobile nuclear power generation is if it were possible to be made safe enough and transportable enough to be viable they would be an excellent solution to supplying temporary or supplemental power overloaded sections of the grid in any part of the world. or in the eventual eminent EMP taking out the grid Not saying an EMP would necessarily be planetary born either. These mobile reactors could be stored off line then transported to where they were needed and instead of half or the whole world being thrown back into the 1600s for possibly years it would only become what could almost be called a minor hiccup in history.
I'm all for it just like I am all for figuring out how to.
raise weapons grade plutonium into a much higher grade and figuring out how to utilize that as a better nuclear propulsion fuel than is currently used on some space craft.
Imagine creating a fuel that is 10,000 fold more efficient than current so powerful that the very fuel can be utilized to provide a means of providing its own shielding with in a multipolar magnetic field. then as simple crystal vacuum bottle could shield any stray radiation.