By Prof. Marc Pilisuk
Global Research, December 26, 2017
Url of this article:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/
During
time of mourning or fear of grave existential threats, the human
psyche is quite capable of denying and ignoring likely and imminent
dangers. President Trump raised the prospect of venturing into a nuclear
war with North Korea. It is essential that some of us counter this
propensity. In nuclear war there are blast, firestorm and radiation
effects and no first responders or infrastructure to assist the
survivors. This is the time to face the prevention of the unthinkable.
Nuclear Weapons
Until
the advent of the atomic bomb, war did not have the capacity to end,
for all time, the continuation of the human beings or to threaten the
continuity of life itself. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki produced the greatest immediate mass death from individual
weapons yet known. Within the first two to four months following the
bombings, the acute effects of the atomic bombings had
killed 90,000–146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000–80,000 in Nagasaki;
roughly half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day.
The threat of nuclear weapons has increased. This reality was expressed by President Kennedy:
Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or madness.[i]
Image on the right is Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry said,
“I have never been more fearful of a nuclear detonation than now—There is a greater than 50 percent probability of a nuclear strike on U.S. targets within a decade.”[ii]
Apocalyptic
dangers like this, that we know exist but still ignore, continue to
have an effect upon us. They push us away from a long-term connection to
our planet, pressing us to live for the moment as if each moment might
be the last.[iii]
Current
public attention has focused on the possibility of a nuclear weapon
attack by terrorists. The RAND corporation conducted an analysis to
examine the impacts of a terrorist attack involving a 10-kiloton nuclear
explosion in the Port of Long Beach, California.[iv] A set of strategic
forecasting tools were used to examine immediate and long term results.
It concluded that neither the local area nor the nation are at all
prepared to deal with the potential threat of a nuclear device brought
into the U.S. aboard a container ship. Long Beach is the world’s third
busiest port, with almost 30% of all U.S. imports and exports moving
through it.
The
report noted that a ground-blast nuclear weapon detonated in a shipping
container would make several hundred square miles of the fallout area
uninhabitable Such a blast would have unprecedented economic impacts
throughout the country and the world. As one example, the report noted
that several nearby oil refineries would be destroyed exhausting the
entire supply of gasoline on the West Coast in a few days. This would
leave city officials to deal with immediate fuel shortages and the
strong likelihood of related civil unrest. Blast effects would be
accompanied by firestorms and by long-lasting radioactive fallout, all
contributing to a collapse of local infrastructure. Impacts on the
global economy could also be catastrophic for two reasons: first, the
economic importance of the global shipping supply chain, which would be
severely hampered by the attack, and second, the well-documented
fragility of global financial systems.[v]
Image on the left is Robert McNamara
By
current standards a ten-kiloton nuclear explosion represents a
miniscule sample of the power of larger nuclear weapons now in the
arsenals of a growing number of countries. It is difficult even to
imagine what a larger nuclear strike would mean. Another former Defense
Secretary, Robert McNamara recalls his experience
during the Cuban missile crisis when the world came close to an exchange
of nuclear weapons launched by the U.S. and the Soviet Union against
each other. In his sober warning many Years later McNamara cited a
report by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear
War, describing the effects of a single 1-megaton weapon:
At
ground zero, the explosion creates a crater 300 feet deep and 1,200
feet in diameter. Within one second, the atmosphere itself ignites into a
fireball more than a half-mile in diameter. The surface of the fireball
radiates nearly three times the light and heat of a comparable area of
the surface of the sun, extinguishing in seconds all life below and
radiating outward at the speed of light, causing instantaneous severe
burns to people within one to three miles. A blast wave of compressed
air reaches a distance of three miles in about 12 seconds, flattening
factories and commercial buildings. Debris carried by winds of 250 mph
inflicts lethal injuries throughout the area. At least 50 percent of
people in the area die immediately, prior to any injuries from radiation
or the developing firestorm.ii
Had
the attack on the Twin Towers involved a 20-megaton nuclear bomb, blast
waves would have carried through the entire underground subway system.
Up to fifteen miles from ground zero flying debris, propelled by
displacement effects, would have multiplied the casualties.
Approximately 200,000 separate fires would have produced producing a
firestorm with temperatures up to 1,500 degrees. A nuclear bomb destroys
the fabric of water supplies, food, and fuel for transportation,
medical services, and electric power. Radiation damages destroys and
deform living things for 240,000 years.[vi]
There
is no reason to believe that a nuclear attack would involve only one
such weapon. Moreover, the illustrations above are for a nuclear bomb
much lower in destructive capacity than most bombs now available on
ready-alert status. These larger weapons are capable of what George
Kennan has considered to be of such magnitude of destruction as to defy
rational understanding.[vii] Such bombs, and others still more
destructive, are contained in the warheads of missiles, many capable of
delivering multiple warheads.
Following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapon stockpiles in excess
of what would be needed to destroy all of the world’s population have
been reduced. However, 31,000 nuclear weapons remain in the world—most
of them are American or Russian, with fewer numbers held by the United
Kingdom, France and China, India, Pakistan and Israel. Failure to end
the Cold War nuclear confrontation between Russia and the U.S. leaves
the two nations with more than 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads on
high-alert status. These can be launched in only a few minutes and their
primary mission remains the destruction of the opposing side’s nuclear
forces, industrial infrastructure, and political/military
leadership.[viii] We now have the capacity to destroy, for all time,
every person, every blade of grass, and every living thing that has
evolved on this planet. But has our thinking evolved to enable us to
prevent this from happening?
Our
voices need to be heard. First, we can urge our leaders to get Trump to
turn off the threats of nuclear war, whether by use of flattery or by
pressure from his own military advisors. Second, if we do survive the
moment one of the most important tasks is to block nuclear weapons
modernization. Nukes do not need to be tested for absolute yield in
order to serve as a deterrent. The improvement of destructive capability
has led to a nuclear race.
Modernization,
according to the CBO will cost $400 billion immediately and from $1.25
to $ 1.58 trillion over thirty years. Upgrades of nuclear weapons
designed for battleground use will challenge other nations to procure
them and invite the threshold for using nuclear weapons to be violated.
Now is the time to insist to our Congress that the modernization of
nuclear weapons be dropped from the national budget. This will buy some
time to heal a planet and human community under deep stress.
*Thanks to Kelisa Ball for assistance with editing and research.
Notes
[i] Kennedy, J. F. (1961, September). Address to the UN general assembly. The Miller Center, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia. Retrieved from http://millercenter.org/
[ii] McNamara, R.S. (2005). Apocalypse Soon. Foreign Policy Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.foreignpolicy.
[iii] Macy, J.R. (1983). Despair and personal power in the nuclear age. Philadelphia, PA: New Society.
[iv] Meade, C. & Molander, R. (2005). Analyzing the economic impacts of a catastrophic terrorist attack on the port of Long Beach. RAND Corporation. W11.2 Retrieved from
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Scientists Committee for Radiation Information (1962). The Effects of a Twenty-Megaton Bomb. New University Thought: Spring, 24-32.
[vii] Kennan, G.F. (1983). Nuclear delusion: Soviet American relations in the nuclear age. New York: Pantheon.
[viii] Starr, S. (2008). High-Alert Nuclear Weapons: The Forgotten Danger. SGR (Scientists for Global Responsibility) Newsletter, No.36, Retrieved from http://www.sgr.org.uk/
*Parts excerpted from The Hidden Structure of Violence: Who Benefits From Global Violence and War by Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Achord Rountree. New York, NY: Monthly Review, 2015.
Disclaimer: The contents
of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre
for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate
or incorrect statement in this article.Copyright © Prof. Marc Pilisuk, Global Research, 2017
