nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope

At Nagasaki Memorial, Guterres Cautions of Nuclear Disaster Risk

 https://www.miragenews.com/guterres-cautions-of-nuclear-disaster-risk-at-1062602/ 09 Aug 23

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for countries to recommit to eliminating nuclear weapons in his message to mark the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki, observed on Wednesday.


“We mourn those killed, whose memory will never fade. We remember the terrible destruction wrought upon this city and Hiroshima. We honour the unrelenting strength and resilience of the people of Nagasaki to rebuild,” he said.

New arms race

Yet despite the terrible lessons of 1945, humanity is now facing a new arms race as nuclear weapons are being used as tools of coercion, he noted.

He said weapons systems are being upgraded, and placed at the centre of national security strategies, making these devices of death faster, more accurate, and stealthier at a time of division and mistrust among countries and regions.

“The risk of nuclear catastrophe is now at its highest level since the Cold War,” he warned.

“In the face of these threats, the global community must speak as one. Any use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable. We will not sit idly by as nuclear-armed States race to create even more dangerous weapons.”

Strengthening disarmament efforts

Mr. Guterres stressed that disarmament is at the heart of his Policy Brief on a New Agenda for Peace, launched last month. It calls on Member States to urgently recommit to pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons, and to reinforce the global norms against their use and proliferation.

“Pending their total elimination, States possessing nuclear weapons must commit to never use them. The only way to eliminate the nuclear risk is to eliminate nuclear weapons,” he said.

The Secretary-General added that the UN will continue working with world leaders to strengthen the global efforts towards disarmament and non-proliferation, including through the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

NPT talks have been taking place at the UN in Vienna this month and will conclude on Friday. The treaty entered into force in 1970 and aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and further the goal of nuclear disarmament.

Tribute to survivors

Mr. Guterres also paid tribute to the survivors of the atomic bombings, known as hibakusha. He said their powerful and harrowing testimonies will forever serve as a reminder of the need to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

“I have pledged to do everything in my power to ensure that the voices and testimonies of the hibakusha continue to be heard,” he said.

He called on young people – the world’s future leaders and decision makers – “to carry their torch forward”, saying “we can never forget what happened here. We must lift the shadow of nuclear annihilation, once and for all.”

August 10, 2023 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Another Washington declaration: U.S. nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula

Foreign Policy Research Institute, Joseph Su 9 Aug 23

  • On July 18, the USS Kentucky docked in South Korea, marking the first visit by a potentially nuclear-armed US submarine since the 1980s on the heels of North Korean missile launches.
  • After North Korea conducted a record amount of missile tests in 2022, South Korea has become increasingly worried about the nuclear threat and sought further nuclear security guarantees with the United States, signing the Washington Declaration to increase deployments of US strategic assets on the peninsula.……….

Sending Kentucky to Korea 

On July 18, 2023, the USS Kentucky, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, docked in Busan, South Korea. The USS Kentucky is one of 14 Ohio-class submarines tasked with conducting nuclear deterrence patrols and carries up to 20 Trident II D5 nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. This visit marks the first port call by a nuclear-capable submarine since the 1980s and the 1991 decision to withdraw US nuclear forces from the Korean Peninsula.

…………………………………………………. The USS Kentucky is an Ohio-class submarine that joined the fleet in 1983 and continues to carry the United States’ nuclear forces at sea. Equipped with 20 launch tubes for the Trident II D5 missile which carries on average four nuclear warheads per missile, a single Ohio submarine could carry a nuclear payload 1,100 times more powerful than the two bombs combined that were dropped in 1945, even abiding by treaty limitations………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.fpri.org/article/2023/08/another-washington-declaration-us-nuclear-weapons-on-the-korean-peninsula/

August 10, 2023 Posted by | South Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. group marks 1945 atomic bombings, at interfaith service in Hiroshima, urges abolishing nuclear weapons and building better world

Catholic Review, August 9, 2023, HIROSHIMA, Japan (OSV News) — On the 78th anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., and the Pilgrimage of Peace delegation from their archdioceses participated in an interfaith prayer ceremony and a peace memorial ceremony.

“It was hard to fathom that with just one bomb, this entire city along with some 140,000 people died as a result, far more than the tens of thousands gathered this morning to remember them,” Archbishop Etienne wrote on his blog about the interfaith ceremony at the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound that was led by the Hiroshima Prefecture Federation of Religions.

Since the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, many more people have died from radiation poisoning and other illness because of the bomb, and survivors (hibakusha) still carry physical and psychological wounds, the archbishop said.

“All of this was on my heart as we prayed together in this site of so much devastation, suffering and death,” he said.

During the service, several Shinto priests approached the altar with branches and reeds and bowed, followed by dozens of other dignitaries and religious leaders. Archbishops Etienne and Wester read the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi as a reminder for all to be instruments of peace.

The Pilgrimage of Peace seeks to establish relationships with the bishops of Japan to work toward abolition of nuclear weapons, while “expressing our heartfelt sorrow for the devastating experiences endured by their nation,” according to the official pilgrimage site.

After the interfaith service, the Seattle/Santa Fe delegation walked to Hiroshima Peace Park for the annual Peace Memorial Ceremony, attended by more than 5,000 people from more than 110 nations. Speakers included the mayor and governor of Hiroshima and Japan’s prime minister. A representative shared words from the secretary general of the United Nations, and two young children read the Children’s Commitment to Peace.

The children, Archbishop Etienne said, “reminded us of simple and necessary things all of us can do to build a better world.”

The Peace Bell rang at 8:15 a.m. to mark the moment the bomb dropped on the city, followed by a moment of silence.

At nearby Gion Catholic Church, parishioners welcomed the delegation for a homemade lunch and played a short documentary about the Jesuit priests serving in Hiroshima on the day of the bombing. Their diaries detailed the experience of the blast, the indescribable heat, the black rain and the countless people trapped in buildings that went up in flames.

Led by Jesuit Father Pedro Arrupe, the Jesuit novitiate at Nagatsuka — located about three miles from the blast site — was immediately turned into a clinic housing more than 70 people that day. The home was soon overwhelmed with injured people, many with horrendous burns and bleeding, who made their way up the hill to the novitiate, Archbishop Etienne recounted.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… The prelate opened his Aug. 5 address by expressing “profound regret and sorrow for the atomic bombings that destroyed your beautiful cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

“Sadly, those atomic bombs were developed and built within my archdiocese. I stand before you today, humbly assuring you that while we can never know the full extent of your pain, we do wish to join our hearts with yours in a compassionate embrace of mutual regret,” Archbishop Wester said. “But even more so, I plead that we join together to make certain that these weapons will never be used again.”

He urged the “hibakusha” — the surviving victims of the atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings — to “continue to provide the world with their painful testament for the needed abolition of nuclear weapons.” He called on the Japanese public to “press their national political leadership to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, as the Vatican has done.”

To that end, he called for ongoing dialogue on nuclear disarmament, emphasizing this dialogue must be “respectful, rooted in prayer, based on nonviolence, and centered in the hope and belief that nuclear disarmament is achievable.”

It is not enough that we become instruments of peace, as important as that is,” Archbishop Wester said. “No, we must take up the cause of worldwide nuclear disarmament with an urgency that befits the seriousness of this cause and the dangerous threat that looms over all of humanity and the planet. I call upon all of us to take up the challenge of nuclear disarmament by engaging in the vital discussion and work that will lead to concrete action steps toward this noble goal.”

This story was written by Northwest Catholic, the magazine and website of the Archdiocese of Seattle.

Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, are both blogging about the Pilgrimage of Peace delegation in Japan. Their blogs can be found, respectively, at https://www.archbishopetienne.com and https://express.adobe.com/page/OQYvRXbV4lLr4. The Seattle Archdiocese’s website has daily updates on the pilgrimage: https://archseattle.org/about-the-archdiocese-of-seattle/archbishop-etienne/pilgrimage-of-peace.

August 10, 2023 Posted by | Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

We don’t need nuclear cruise missiles at sea

Washington Post, By the Editorial Board, August 9, 2023 

When the Cold War ended more than 30 years ago — and a coolheaded realism still existed in both U.S. political parties about the dangers of expanding nuclear stockpiles — President George H.W. Bush removed cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads from America’s ships and submarines. Bush’s move was a prudent step for nuclear stability. In 2013, President Barack Obama retired the nuclear cruise missiles permanently.

Or so we thought. This month, as House and Senate conferees begin to iron out differences between the two chambers on a nearly $900 billion Pentagon spending bill for next fiscal year, both the House and Senate armed services committees want to place a new generation of nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles (known as SLCM-Ns) back on Navy vessels. That would be a mistake……………………….

putting SLCM-Ns aboard attack submarines would complicate the mission of those vessels, which are charged with hunting enemy vessels. They would take up limited launch-tube space needed for anti-submarine warfare and require the Navy to recertify crew members for nuclear operations. Carrying nuclear cruise missiles would also limit the subs’ participation in allied naval exercises as well as their ability to make port calls and maintenance stops in countries that don’t welcome nuclear platforms in their harbors. This goes for surface ships as well and helps explain why the Navy opposes the missiles’ return.

Another reason to forgo SLCM-Ns: They are destabilizing. Cruise missiles fly low, under radars, and at much higher speeds than a generation ago. That combination reduces warning times to minutes and would force our rivals in Moscow and Beijing to match the capability. Returning these weapons to our arsenal would also lead other nations — Iran comes to mind — to hurry their development.

Then there is the cost-benefit crunch. A new generation of SLCM-Ns (and their warheads) would cost roughly $10 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and perhaps much more to make them operational at sea. Conferees should weigh that price tag against the three systems the United States already has in place to deliver tactical nuclear weapons……………………………………………………..

The Pentagon is set to undergo a broad modernization of its nuclear triad that is expected to cost $756 billion, if not more, over the next 10 years. The Editorial Board has said that some of those moves make sense while others could be slowed, or even halted, without endangering our security. But bringing back shorter-range nuclear weapons, especially those removed for good reason decades ago, would prove both expensive and dangerous. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/09/nuclear-weapon-sea-launched-cruise-missile-slcmn/

August 10, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukrainian counteroffensive ‘highly unlikely’ to succeed, US officials tell CNN

 https://www.rt.com/russia/581006-ukraine-counteroffensive-unlikely-success/ 8 Aug 23

Reports from the battlefield have become increasingly “sobering,” one US Congressman has told the network

Kiev’s Western backers are losing faith in the ability of the Ukrainian military to penetrate Russian defenses and turn the tide of the conflict, US and other Western officials told CNN on Tuesday.

“[The Ukrainians are] still going to see, for the next couple of weeks, if there is a chance of making some progress. But for them to really make progress that would change the balance of this conflict, I think, it’s extremely, highly unlikely,” an unnamed “senior Western diplomat” told the American broadcaster.

Illinois Representative Mike Quigley, a Democrat who recently met with US commanders in Europe, described their briefings as “sobering.”

“We’re reminded of the challenges [the Ukrainians] face,” he said, adding that “This is the most difficult time of the war.”

Ukraine launched its long-awaited counteroffensive against Russian forces in early June, assaulting multiple points along the frontline from Zaporozhye to Donetsk regions. However, the Russian military had spent several months preparing a dense and multi-layered network of minefields, trenches, and fortifications, which the Ukrainian side has thus far failed to overcome.

Advancing through minefields without air support, Ukraine’s Western-trained and NATO-equipped units have suffered horrendous casualties, losing 43,000 troops and 4,900 pieces of heavy weaponry in just over two months, according to the most recent figures from the Russian Defense Ministry.

“[The] Russians have a number of defensive lines and [Ukrainian forces] haven’t really gone through the first line,” another anonymous Western diplomat told CNN. “Even if they would keep on fighting for the next several weeks, if they haven’t been able to make more breakthroughs throughout these last seven, eight weeks, what is the likelihood that they will suddenly, with more depleted forces, make them?”

Despite the best efforts of Ukraine’s armed forces chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, to convince the US that “the initiative is on our side,” officials told CNN that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky could soon be pushed to sue for peace if progress remains stalled.

A senior US military official predicted that Kiev would rely more and more on piecemeal strikes within Russia – like the recent drone attacks on Moscow – to compensate for its shortcomings on the battlefield. The Kremlin has drawn similar conclusions from these attacks, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov declaring last week that Kiev was launching “terrorist strikes” as “acts of desperation” to distract from its failing counteroffensive.

August 10, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Target China

The UNZ Review, MIKE WHITNEY • AUGUST 3, 2023

The Biden Administration is implementing a plan to draw Taiwan into a direct military confrontation with the People’s Republic of China. The plan bears many similarities to the strategy that was used in Ukraine where Russia was goaded into invading the country in response to emerging threats to its national security. In this case, Beijing is expected to react to mounting challenges to its territorial integrity by US proxies and their political allies operating in Taiwan. These incitements will inevitably lead to greater material support from the United States which has stealthily worked behind the scenes (and in the media) to create a crisis. 

The ultimate objective of these machinations, is to arm, train and provide logistical support for Taiwanese separatists who will spearhead Washington’s proxy war on China. According to a number of independent reports, there is already growing operational collaboration between the Taiwanese Army and US Armed Forces. That collaboration will undoubtedly deepen after hostilities break out and the island is plunged into war.

The plan to confront China militarily was outlined in the 2022 National Security Strategy in which the PRC was identified as “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge” who expressed its “intent to reshape the international order.” This NSS analysis was followed by an explicit commitment to prevail in the struggle to control the “Indo-Pacific” region which “fuels much of the world’s economic growth and will be the epicenter of 21st century geopolitics.”...(“No region will be of more significance to …everyday Americans than the Indo-Pacific.”) Biden’s NSS emphasizes the critical role the military will play in the impending confrontation with China: “We will…modernize and strengthen our military so it is equipped for the era of strategic competition with major powers”… “America will not hesitate to use force to defend our national interests”.

Drawing China into a Taiwan quagmire is the first phase of a broader containment strategy aimed at preserving America’s top spot in the global order while preventing China from becoming the region’s dominant economy. The plan also includes economic, cyber and informational elements that are designed to work in concert with the military component. In its entirety, the strategy represents Washington’s best effort to roll-back the clock to the heyday of the unipolar world order when America set the global agenda and the United States had no rival.

Trouble in Taiwan

Taiwan is not a country. Taiwan is an island off the coast of China much like Santa Catalina is an island off the coast of California. No one disputes that Santa Catalina is part of the United States, just as no one disputes that Taiwan is a part of China. The issue was settled long ago, and the US agrees with the results of that settlement. For all practical purposes, the issue has been resolved.

The United Nations does not recognize Taiwan’s independence nor do the 181 countries that have established diplomatic relations with China. In fact, the UN adopted a General Assembly Resolution back in 1971 acknowledging the “People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government representing the whole of China.”

The One-China policy explicitly relates to the status of Taiwan. Taiwan is part of China, that’s what the One-China policy means. Nations that want to have relations with China must agree on the status of Taiwan; it is the foundational principle upon which all relations with China are based. The issue is not debatable. One can either accept that ‘Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory’ or take their business elsewhere. There is no third option.

The United States claims that it is committed to the One-China policy. In their recent visits to Beijing, all three senior-level officials from the Biden Administration (Anthony Blinken, Janet Yellen and John Kerry) publicly stated their unwavering support for the One-China policy. This is an excerpt from an article at Forbes:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the U.S.’ position on its One China policy as he met with China’s leader Xi Jinping Monday, saying it does not support Taiwanese independence and that containing China’s economy was not an American goal….

Blinken said the U.S. held a “One China” policy and does not support Taiwanese independence, but is concerned about China’s “provocative actions” along the Taiwan Strait. Blinken Tells Xi Jinping U.S. Does Not Support Taiwanese Independence, After Meeting To Quell Tensions, Forbes

President Joe Biden has also stated his support for the One-China principle on many, many occasions, which is what you would expect since it is the official position of the United States government. Here’s a short recap on the issue from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

The US made the following commitments to China regarding the one-China principle in the three China-US joint communiqués.

In the Shanghai Communiqué released in 1972, the US explicitly stated that “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position”.

In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations released in 1978, the US clearly stated that, “The Government of the United States of America acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China”.

In the August 17 Communiqué released in 1982, the US unequivocally stated that “In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations on January 1, 1979, issued by the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the United States of America, the United States of America recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, and it acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China”, and that “it has no intention of infringing on Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, or interfering in China’s internal affairs, or pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan’”. (China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The western media would like their readers to think there is some “gray area” here and that the issue regarding China’s sovereign territory has not been settled. But—as we have shown—it has been settled. Taiwan is China. We must assume therefore that the media is being intentionally misleading in order to garner support for an “independence” movement that serves only one purpose; to legitimize the arming and training of US assets and insurgents that will be used in a bloody conflagration with China. In truth, the United States is laying the groundwork for a proxy-war on China, and Taiwan has been designated as the frontlines in that war. The independence movement is merely the cover Washington has chosen to conceal its real objectives.

This is why Taiwan has become a flashpoint in US-China relations. This is why numerous US-led delegations have visited Taiwan expressing their tacit support for Taiwan independence. This is why Congress has allocated millions of dollars to provide lethal weaponry for the Taiwanese military. This is why the US Navy has sent warships through the Taiwan Strait and conducted massive military drills on China’s perimeter. This is why Washington continues to provoke Beijing on the one issue that it is most sensitive. All of these incitements were conjured-up with one goal in mind: War with China. This is from Politico:

The Biden administration announced a $345 million weapons package for Taiwan on Friday, the first tranche in a total of $1 billion the U.S. has allotted to be transferred directly from Pentagon stockpiles to the island this year…..………………………………………………..

Repeat: “The move is sure to anger China.”

Indeed, the move was designed to anger China. That was clearly the point. But, why? Why is Washington challenging China on an issue on which there is virtually universal agreement?

Two reasons come to mind:

  1. To goad China into overreacting and thus alienating itself from its allies and regional trading partners.
  2. To turn public opinion against China by portraying the country as a violent aggressor that poses a clear threat to its neighbors.

Here’s more from the World Socialist Web Site:

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Preparing for war with China, US provides $345 million in arms to Taiwan, 

Imagine if China sent millions of dollars of lethal weapons to a budding secessionist movement in Texas. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

And, ask yourself this: Haven’t we seen this drill before? Didn’t this same scenario unfold in Ukraine following the CIA-backed coup in 2014 after which the US armed and trained Ukrainian forces to dig-in and provoke hostilities with Russia?……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Let’s summarize:

  1. The Indo-Pacific is now America’s top foreign policy priority because that is the area that will experience the most growth
  2. The US will lead with its military and with the allies who share US interests
  3. “We will…modernize and strengthen our military” to prevail in our “strategic competition with major powers.”
  4. America’s Number 1 enemy is China; “the PRC presents America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge ….The PRC is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it…”
  5. “The post-Cold War era is over” but the United States is prepared to preserve the “rules-based order” whatever the cost in blood and treasure.

This is America’s foreign policy in a nutshell. US leaders and their globalist allies are fully committed to prevailing in today’s great power struggle with Russia and China. They have a clear grasp of the objectives they want to achieve and they are prepared to risk anything, including nuclear war, to achieve them. Any developments in Taiwan must be seen through the lens of Washington’s geopolitical ambitions which are clearly driving events.…. more https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/target-china/

August 9, 2023 Posted by | China, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Bypasses Gender Parity

“If there is one takeaway from Christopher Nolan’s recent film “Oppenheimer,” it is that the nuclear field has been male-dominated from the very start,”

participants in nuclear negotiations perceive that the field has rewarded characteristics, expertise and experiences that are more commonly associated with men, such as toughness, seriousness, risk-taking and military-training.

Such negotiations would be enhanced, and have more possibility for success, if they broadened the ‘diplomatic tool-box’ to also include ‘feminine’ approaches of flexibility, compromise, multi-faceted problem solving, compassion and human interaction (focusing on the people involved and not just the topics),

InDepthNews, By Thalif Deen  https://indepthnews.net/campaign-for-nuclear-disarmament-bypasses-gender-parity/

UNITED NATIONS. 6 August 2023 (IDN) — The United Nations has been a vociferous and longstanding advocate of gender empowerment in its political, social and economic agenda characterized by 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including poverty and hunger eradication, quality education, human rights and climate change.

In her 23 July presentation, titled Gender inclusivity and approaches to enhance the NPT Review Process, Vanessa Lanteigne, a Rotary Peace Fellow and representative of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), pointed out that in 2019, 76% of heads of delegations to the NPT were men, and that since 2000, all of the Presidents/Chairs of the NPT Prep-Coms have been male and only one President of an NPT Review Conference has been a woman.

She proposed that NPT institute targets for gender inclusion in State Parties’ delegations, with sanctions for imbalanced delegations similar to those applied by Inter-Parliamentary Union for its assemblies.

Lanteigne also noted that a fully-realized gender equality requires that issues, views, and approaches relating to characteristics associated with masculinity and femininity are both fully represented in security frameworks.

She cited the assessment by Ireland in its working paper Gender in the Non-Proliferation Treaty that the NPT Review process has traditionally taken a ‘one -dimensional security approach to addressing nuclear weapons, in terms of the issues which are prioritised’.

She proposed that the NPT establish a subsidiary body to explore nuclear non-proliferation, risk-reduction and disarmament issues in a broader security framework of common and human security incorporating gender, peace, diplomacy, conflict resolution and international law.

Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director at Western States Legal Foundation, told IDN it is completely obvious that women and gender non-conforming people are grossly under-represented in the NPT process.

“And it’s a matter of common sense that people of all genders should be equal partners in making decisions as consequential as the future of nuclear weapons”, she said.

It is also possible that establishing policies like the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s targets for gender balance in States Parties’ delegations to the NPT—enforced, if necessary, by voting sanctions, could help lead the way to improvements in gender equity in delegations’ home countries, said Cabasso, who co-founded the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.

However, when talking about how to challenge the seemingly intractable centrality of nuclear threats as an instrument of global domination, she argued, having equal participation in the discussion by all genders will not solve the problem.

“What is needed is a fundamental transformation in the mindset, values, and practices of the institutions that continue to place the construct of “national security” above the increasingly pressing need for universal “human security,” declared Cabasso.

Shampa Biswas, Judge & Mrs. Timothy A. Paul Chair of Political Science and Professor of Politics at Whitman College, Washington told IDN “It is appalling that we are still talking about gender parity in 2023!”.

“If there is one takeaway from Christopher Nolan’s recent film “Oppenheimer,” it is that the nuclear field has been male-dominated from the very start,” she pointed out.

However, although many fields have made great strides toward gender inclusivity, the nuclear policy-making field still remains woefully behind, said Biswas, is an international relations theorist specializing in postcolonial theory and nuclear politics.

“If we are serious about nuclear disarmament, it is imperative that we diversify the field in substantial ways to include voices that can draw attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons from a variety of perspectives and help redefine the meaning of security away from its masculinist, militarist connotations”.

Women’s voices, she said, are critical to that endeavor.

“I support the idea of instituting targets for more gender-inclusive delegations but wish there was a way to do this via incentives rather than penalties,” declared Biswas.

In her 23 July presentation on further strengthening the review process of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Lanteigne said the NPT Review process would be enriched, strengthened and made more effective by elevating gender inclusivity and approaches because we could then access a full range of security approaches to our global challenges. 

Gender inclusivity and approaches mean firstly that different sexes (male, female and nondeterminate) are included equitably in decision-making processes and leadership positions within the security sector.

And secondly, that diverse gender perspectives, issues and approaches to peace and security are meaningfully incorporated in order to utilize a more diverse, comprehensive and holistic security framework. Integrating these two principles that will support Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which, “stressed the importance of ‘equal participation and full involvement’ of women and the need to increase [women’s] role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution”.

Meanwhile, Sustainable Development Goal 5 focuses on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls. 

There are indicators that state parties are not only aware and willing to work towards gender equity and inclusion but are actively referencing and promoting it on their own.

At the 2019 PrepCom more than 20 statements were made on behalf of over 60 State Parties addressing the importance of gender perspectives to the NPT, Lanteigne said.

Three papers were submitted directly related to nuclear issues and gender, and eight working papers included references to the links.

Reviewing policies to support equal access to participation is important because it is correlated with improved organizational efficiency and innovative capacity by including more diverse expertise resulting in creative solutions and sustainable developments.

But a gender-inclusive approach should be supplemented by gender-diverse analyses as well. Gender equality requires that issues, views, and approaches relating to characteristics associated with masculinity and femininity are both fully represented in security frameworks.

Research reports that participants in nuclear negotiations perceive that the field has rewarded characteristics, expertise and experiences that are more commonly associated with men, such as toughness, seriousness, risk-taking and military-training.

Such negotiations would be enhanced, and have more possibility for success, if they broadened the ‘diplomatic tool-box’ to also include ‘feminine’ approaches of flexibility, compromise, multi-faceted problem solving, compassion and human interaction (focusing on the people involved and not just the topics), she argued.  

An example of a gender-inclusive approach which could hold lessons for the NPT Review Process comes from the Inter-Parliamentary Union Gender Partnership Group which was instituted to ensure that gender-diverse perspectives were incorporated and that the inclusion of women was not just a numerical representation but holistic in terms of representing security approaches more often associated with women.

Other examples of gender-inclusive principles and approaches can be found in the feminist foreign policies adopted by Canada, Germany, Ireland and Sweden among others.

These political steps forward, though, remain at risk of being rolled back like in the case of Sweden by succeeding governments highlighting the need to institutionalize the importance of gender in international organizations and procedures.  

“We propose that the NPT establishes a subsidiary body to explore nuclear non-proliferation, risk reduction and disarmament issues in a broader security framework of common and human security incorporating gender, peace, diplomacy, conflict resolution and international law.”

“This broader framework of common and human security will be beneficial to giving gender-diverse perspectives opportunities to participate in conflict resolution and security fields to ensure that inclusivity is fully and substantively implemented and symbolic tokenism is avoided.” [IDN-InDepthNews]

August 9, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war, women | Leave a comment

Democracy Needs Healthy Debates About War And Peace

To top it all, the Pentagon has never passed a financial audit! It’s the only major federal agency that hasn’t passed an audit, despite getting more discretionary dollars than any other. That means that we don’t know where our tax money is going. 

Who benefits from this lack of transparency? Exactly who you’d think — contractors who profit off war. Around half of the military budget goes to for-profit contractors who make excessive profits at the expense of taxpayers and peace.

by EDITOR, August 7, 2023  https://scheerpost.com/2023/08/07/democracy-needs-healthy-debates-about-war-and-peace/

Congress spent the last “military spending” debate rehashing the culture wars — not the nearly $1 trillion Pentagon budget itself.

By  Jyotsna Naidu / OtherWords

If there’s one thing that should be subject to rigorous debate and the will of the people, it’s decisions about war and peace. Unfortunately, that’s not what we got with the huge military policy bill recently passed by the House and Senate.

Somehow, the annual National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA — which can bring war or peace, and which now costs nearly $1 trillion — never sees much serious debate in Congress about those issues.

Before this year, the NDAA passed easily for 61 years straight. The process is intentionally rushed. Hundreds of amendments are filed and voted at once, leaving little room for serious discourse.

This year was a partial exception. Lawmakers did debate the bill, which passed the House only narrowly. But they debated all the wrong things. 

Representatives provoked hate with countless culture war amendments. Ignoring issues of war and peace, far-right members of Congress debated cutting funding for service members’ abortions and diversity programs on military bases.

Here’s what they should have discussed.

In 2021, the Congressional Budget Office published a report detailing three ways to cut military spending by $1 trillion over 10 years without compromising national security. Instead, Congress has given the military even more money each year.

This year, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) called to shift $100 billion of the defense budget toward urgent domestic needs. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a similar amendment in the Senate, which would have cut the Pentagon budget by 10 percent.

An American Friends Service Committee poll released earlier this year showed 56 percent of Americans would support cutting military spending to reinvest in those funds in public programs. 

And amendments efforts would have exempted troops’ pay and benefits from any cuts, targeting the bloated military contractorsinstead.

In the House, the amendment was never allowed for debate — and never got a vote. In the Senate, the Sanders amendment got just 11 votes.

To top it all, the Pentagon has never passed a financial audit! It’s the only major federal agency that hasn’t passed an audit, despite getting more discretionary dollars than any other. That means that we don’t know where our tax money is going. 

Who benefits from this lack of transparency? Exactly who you’d think — contractors who profit off war. Around half of the military budget goes to for-profit contractors who make excessive profits at the expense of taxpayers and peace.

With these robber baron-like profits, contractors have funded think tanks to produce favorable research and “expert” mediacommentary supporting higher military budgets — while lobbying politicians to keep spending on contractors. 

In the House, this year’s NDAA lost its usual broad bipartisan support because of Democrats’ opposition to its far-right culture war amendments, not because there was suddenly political will to address war spending. The Senate simply passed the NDAA without the controversial amendments. 

Culture wars aside, we can’t let lawmakers go back to idly voting for pro-war and pro-contractor interests.

I do have hope. People are already winning when they fight. In 2016, for example, activists successfully pressured the Massachusetts company Textron to stop producing cluster munitions, which disproportionately hurt civilians.

And as the congressional opposition to those nasty amendments showed more recently, lawmakers can still respond to public pressure. The onus is now on us to demand our lawmakers have a real democratic debate on war, peace, and the military budget.

Democracy is at stake.

August 9, 2023 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Carcinogens found at Montana nuclear missile sites as reports of hundreds of cancers surface

The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen in samples taken at a Montana missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses

By TARA COPP Associated Press, August 8, 2023  https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/carcinogens-found-nuclear-missile-sites-reports-hundreds-cancers-102087696

WASHINGTON — The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centers at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses.

A new cleanup effort has been ordered.

The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a release Monday. In those samples, two launch facilities at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana showed PCB levels higher than the thresholds recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency.

PCBs are oily or waxy substances that have been identified as a likely carcinogen by the EPA. Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a blood cancer that uses the body’s infection-fighting lymph system to spread.

In response, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, has directed “immediate measures to begin the cleanup process for the affected facilities and mitigate exposure by our airmen and Guardians to potentially hazardous conditions.”

After a military briefing was obtained by The Associated Press in January showing that at least nine current or former missileers at Malmstrom were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare blood cancer, the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine launched a study to look at cancers among the entire missile community checking for the possibility of clusters of the disease.

And there could be hundreds more cancers of all types, based on new data from a grassroots group of former missile launch officers and their surviving family members.

According to the Torchlight Initiative, at least 268 troops who served at nuclear missile sites, or their surviving family members, have self-reported being diagnosed with cancer, blood diseases or other illnesses over the past several decades.

At least 217 of those reported cases are cancers, at least 33 of them non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

What’s notable about those reported numbers is that the missileer community is very small. Only a few hundred airmen serve as missileers at each of the country’s three silo-launched Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile bases any given year. There have been only about 21,000 missileers in total since the Minuteman operations began in the early 1960s, according to the Torchlight Initiative.

For some context, in the U.S. general population there are about 403 new cancer cases reported per 100,000 people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma affects an estimated 19 of every 100,000 people annually, according to the American Cancer Society.

Minutemen III silo fields are based at Malmstrom, F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

Missileers are male and female military officers who serve in underground launch control centers where they are responsible for monitoring, and if needed, launching fields of silo-based nuclear weapons. Two missileers spend sometimes days at a time on watch in underground bunkers, ready to turn the key and fire Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles if ordered to do so by the president.

The Minuteman III silos and underground control centers were built more than 60 years ago. Much of the electronics and infrastructure is decades old. Missileers have raised health concerns multiple times over the years about ventilation, water quality and potential toxins they cannot avoid as they spend 24 to 48 hours on duty underground.

The Air Force discovery of PCBs occurred as part of site visits by its bioenvironmental team from June 22 to June 29 in the Air Force’s ongoing larger investigation into the number of cancers reported among the missile community. During the site visits a health assessment team collected water, soil, air and surface samples from each of the missile launch facilities.

At Malmstrom, of the 300 surface swipe samples, 21 detected PCBs. Of those, 19 were below levels set by the EPA requiring mitigation and two were above. No PCBs were detected in any of the 30 air samples. The Air Force is still waiting for test results from F.E. Warren and Minot for surface and air samples, and for all bases for the water and soil samples.

August 9, 2023 Posted by | health, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Reducing the risks of nuclear war — the role of health professionals

By – Kamran Abbasi, Parveen Ali, Virginia Barbour, Kirsten Bibbins‐Domingo, Marcel GM Olde Rikkert, Andy Haines, Ira Helfand, Richard C Horton, Bob Mash, Arun Mitra, Carlos A Monteiro, Elena N Naumova, Eric J Rubin, Tilman A Ruff, Peush Sahni, James Tumwine, Paul Yonga and Chris Zielinski

Med J Aust || doi: 10.5694/mja2.52054, 7 August 2023

In January 2023, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 s before midnight, reflecting the growing risk of nuclear war.1 In August 2022, the UN Secretary‐General António Guterres warned that the world is now in “a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War”.2 The danger has been underlined by growing tensions between many nuclear armed states.1,3 As editors of health and medical journals worldwide, we call on health professionals to alert the public and our leaders to this major danger to public health and the essential life support systems of the planet — and urge action to prevent it.

Current nuclear arms control and non‐proliferation efforts are inadequate to protect the world’s population against the threat of nuclear war by design, error, or miscalculation. The Treaty on the Non‐Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) commits each of the 190 participating nations “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control”.4 …………………………………………

Any use of nuclear weapons would be catastrophic for humanity. Even a “limited” nuclear war involving only 250 of the 13 000 nuclear weapons in the world could kill 120 million people outright and cause global climate disruption leading to a nuclear famine, putting 2 billion people at risk.7,8 A large‐scale nuclear war between the USA and Russia could kill 200 million people or more in the near term, and potentially cause a global “nuclear winter” that could kill 5–6 billion people, threatening the survival of humanity.7,8. Once a nuclear weapon is detonated, escalation to all‐out nuclear war could occur rapidly. The prevention of any use of nuclear weapons is therefore an urgent public health priority and fundamental steps must also be taken to address the root cause of the problem — by abolishing nuclear weapons.

The health community has had a crucial role in efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear war and must continue to do so in the future.9 In the 1980s the efforts of health professionals, led by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), helped to end the Cold War arms race by educating policy makers and the public on both sides of the Iron Curtain about the medical consequences of nuclear war. This was recognised when the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IPPNW (http://www.ippnw.org).10

In 2007, the IPPNW launched the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which grew into a global civil society campaign with hundreds of partner organisations. A pathway to nuclear abolition was created with the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, for which the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize……………………………………………………………..

We now call on health professional associations to inform their members worldwide about the threat to human survival and to join with the IPPNW to support efforts to reduce the near‐term risks of nuclear war, including three immediate steps on the part of nuclear‐armed states and their allies: first, adopt a no first use policy;12 second, take their nuclear weapons off hair‐trigger alert; and, third, urge all states involved in current conflicts to pledge publicly and unequivocally that they will not use nuclear weapons in these conflicts. We further ask them to work for a definitive end to the nuclear threat by supporting the urgent commencement of negotiations among the nuclear‐armed states for a verifiable, timebound agreement to eliminate their nuclear weapons in accordance with commitments in the NPT, opening the way for all nations to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons…………….. more https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2023/219/5/reducing-risks-nuclear-war-role-health-professionals

August 9, 2023 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, health, weapons and war | Leave a comment

As Threat Remerges, Global Community Must Speak as One, Commit to Nuclear-Free World, Secretary-General Says on Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing

7 Aug 23  https://press.un.org/en/2023/sgsm21898.doc.htm

Following is UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message, delivered by Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu, at the seventy-eighth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in Hiroshima, Japan, today:

Nearly eight decades ago, a nuclear weapon incinerated Hiroshima.  Yet as anyone who has visited knows, the memories never fade.  The A-Bomb Dome, the Cenotaph and the dauntless hibakusha are constant reminders of the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons.

For 78 years, the city of Hiroshima and the hibakusha have worked tirelessly to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again.  During my visits to Hiroshima, my meetings with the brave hibakusha — the human face of nuclear cataclysm — have never failed to move and inspire me.  They are a potent symbol of forgiveness, hope and resilience.  They have transcended tragedy.

I pledge to support them as they continue sharing their accounts — the terror, the pain, the incalculable loss, and above all, the lesson of what happened here on 6 August 1945.  World leaders have visited this city, seen its monuments, spoken with its brave survivors and emerged emboldened to take up the cause of nuclear disarmament.

More should do so, because the drums of nuclear war are beating once again.  Mistrust and division are on the rise.  The nuclear shadow that loomed over the cold war has re-emerged.  And some countries are recklessly rattling the nuclear sabre once again, threatening to use these tools of annihilation.

In the face of these threats, the global community must speak as one.  Any use of nuclear weapons is unacceptable.  We will not sit idly by as nuclear-armed States race to create even more dangerous weapons.  That’s why disarmament is at the heart of the recently launched policy brief on a New Agenda for Peace.

The Agenda calls on Member States to urgently recommit to pursuing a world free of nuclear weapons and to reinforce the global norms against their use and proliferation.  Pending their total elimination, States possessing nuclear weapons must commit to never use them.  The only way to eliminate the nuclear risk is to eliminate nuclear weapons.

The United Nations will continue working with global leaders to strengthen the global disarmament and non-proliferation regime, including through the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Eliminating nuclear weapons remains the United Nations highest disarmament priority.  We will not rest until the nuclear shadow has been lifted once and for all.  No more Hiroshimas.  No more Nagasakis.

Disarmament is not some utopian dream.  Disarmament is the only pathway to a safer and more secure world for all.  The United Nations is proud to stand with the people of Hiroshima and the hibakusha to keep alive the memory of what happened here and the lessons humanity must learn if we are to secure a more peaceful tomorrow.  We look forward to working with the people of Japan in this essential effort.

August 9, 2023 Posted by | politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine attacks Donetsk with cluster munitions – local authorities

5 Aug 23,  https://www.rt.com/russia/580884-donetsk-cluster-shelling/

Civilian targets were affected by Saturday night’s shelling, local officials have said

Ukrainian forces have reportedly fired cluster munitions into Donetsk city, striking a private residence, a university and other civilian targets.

Four rounds of 155mm cluster bombs were fired into the center of the city on Saturday night, triggering fires in three districts, the Joint Center of Control and Coordination (JCCC) for the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said. The cluster munitions reportedly exploded in the air. 

The Donetsk University of Economics and Trade was on fire after the shelling, the Mayor of Donetsk Aleksey Kulemzin said in a Telegram post. Fires also were reported in apartment buildings.

The shelling comes after at least three people were killed and ten injured by a Ukrainian bombardment on Monday. The shelling killed another civilian in a nearby town, the JCCC said.

Cluster munitions have been banned by more than 100 countries because of their devastating effects on civilians. Cluster shells are typically designed to open up in midair and release tens or even hundreds of submunitions that can saturate a large area with explosives. They tend to have a high failure rate, creating risks to civilians from unexploded munitions for potentially decades after a conflict ends.

Donetsk and other Donbass cities have been under constant Ukrainian attacks which have claimed numerous civilian lives since 2014, when the region broke away from Kiev after a Western-backed coup in the Ukrainian capital. Over the years, Ukraine’s military established heavily fortified positions around the cit. The attacks intensified after the launch of Moscow’s military operation against Kiev in February 2022, leaving scores of civilians killed and delivering major damage to infrastructure.

The Donetsk People’s Republic became part of Russia last October together with the People’s Republic of Lugansk and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions, following referendums in which the local populations voted overwhelmingly in favor of the move.

August 9, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Zelensky fears peace pressure from West – NYT

6 Aug 23  https://www.rt.com/news/580879-zelensky-fears-western-pressure-for-peace-talks/—

The Ukrainian president has reportedly told his diplomats that benefactors may push for a negotiated truce with Russia

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is reportedly worried that Western nations may ramp up pressure to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia, ending a bloody conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Kiev’s troops in just the past two months.

“As furious battles raged across the front lines of Europe’s bloodiest war in decades, Mr. Zelensky told his ambassadors on Wednesday that things would grow even more difficult as pressure was likely to build in the coming months to find a negotiated path to peace,” the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The Ukrainian president described Wednesday’s gathering in Kiev with diplomats as an “emergency strategy session” heading into this weekend’s Ukraine peace summit in Saudi Arabia, the newspaper said. “The meeting is the starting point of what is expected to be a major Ukrainian diplomatic push in the coming months to try to undercut Russia.”

Zelensky told his ambassadors that they must use every available tool – “official and unofficial, institutional and media, cultural diplomacy and the power of ordinary human sincerity” – to convince both allies and neutral nations that “the only road to a lasting peace is complete Russian defeat,” according to the report.

However, many of the nations attending the summit in Saudi Arabia have resisted US pressure to take sides in the crisis, seeing the conflict as a “contest between superpowers” in which they want no part. “This is not only a conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” said Celso Amorim, an adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Speaking remotely on Saturday at the Saudi-hosted summit, he added: “This is also a chapter in the longstanding rivalry between Russia and the West.”

Russian officials have argued that Kiev’s Western backers are only prolonging the bloodshed in Ukraine by continuing to send billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the former Soviet republic. More than 43,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since Kiev began a counteroffensive in the Donbass region in early June, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were reportedly near a peace deal at talks hosted by Türkiyein March 2022, a little more than a month after the conflict began. “After we pulled troops back from Kiev, as we promised,” Ukrainian leaders “threw it all away, into the garbage dump of history,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with African leaders in July.

August 9, 2023 Posted by | Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Rapid Dragon: the US military game-changer that could affect conventional and nuclear strategy and arms control negotiations

Bulletin, By George M. Moore | August 4, 2023

The United States Air Force recently announced the successful test of its Rapid Dragon system in a major Pacific exercise.[1] This followed an earlier successful test during an exercise in Norway in late 2022.[2]

………………..In standard English, Rapid Dragon converts cargo aircraft into weapons carriers that can deploy cruise missiles (and potentially other standoff or self-defense weapons) by releasing them on pallets via the planes’ rear cargo ramps. Such a system makes a cargo aircraft into the equivalent of a bomber. Potentially the cargo aircrafts’ weapons load is limited only by how many pallets will fit in the cargo bay.

………………………………………………………The potential to develop Rapid Dragon so it can deliver nuclear weapons does not seem to have received any attention. The AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) is nuclear capable and currently deliverable by the B-52. It appears that nothing would prevent the Rapid Dragon deployment of the ALCM, turning any cargo aircraft capable of using Rapid Dragon into a nuclear delivery aircraft.

The potential to use Rapid Dragon for nuclear weapons delivery (and eventually this will occur) will create new issues when serious nuclear weapons limitation resume. 

……………………………………..The potential for nuclear launch from cargo aircraft creates new tactical problems that could affect survivability and deterrence concepts. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………

more https://thebulletin.org/2023/08/rapid-dragon-the-us-military-game-changer-that-could-affect-conventional-and-nuclear-strategy-and-arms-control-negotiations/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter08072023&utm_content=NuclearRisk_RapidDragon_0804202

August 9, 2023 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Oppenheimer’ the movie versus our nuclear reality

In a thermonuclear war, assuming the combatants maintained a so-called “second strike” capability to retaliate fully if hit first, there would be no winners — only losers.

BY HARLAN ULLMAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR – 08/07/23  https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4140178-oppenheimer-the-movie-versus-our-nuclear-reality/

Seventy-eight years ago, the first atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. About 200,000 Japanese were initially killed. 

The summer blockbuster “Oppenheimer” tells this story from the perspective of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the technical director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, New Mexico, that built the bomb. But the movie does not tell the whole story, depriving the public of a broader understanding of the impact of the arrival of the nuclear age.

The movie omits how and why the actual decision to use these weapons was made and, despite Oppenheimer’s great regret about becoming a “destroyer of civilization,” that would become relevant only after the first hydrogen bomb was detonated in 1952.

The White House meeting to use these weapons lasted about an hour. The alternative was to continue the war and invade the Japanese home islands. But Operation Downfall, the invasion plan, estimated at least a million Allied casualties and many times that for the Japanese given their history of suicidal resistance. Hence, there was little debate on dropping the bombs. [Ed. these interpretations are questioned by many historians, with claims that the Japanese were already ready to surrender]]

After the “Little Boy” bomb leveled Hiroshima, the Japanese war cabinet voted to continue fighting. But when “Fat Man” destroyed Nagasaki, home to Japan’s largest Christian population and about 400 prisoners of war, the war cabinet was deadlocked. The emperor broke the deadlock. Japan would surrender unconditionally. The reason was “shock and awe.”

People could understand how thousands of plane bombing raids could cause vast amounts of death and destruction. But one bomb from a single bomber creating that carnage was inconceivable. The Japanese also did not know how many atomic weapons the U.S. possessed and assumed the worst. Hence, from suicidal resistance, Japan was shocked and awed into total capitulation.

The damages from the atomic bombings and Japanese deaths were expected to be no greater than the firebombing raids on Japanese and German cities. Tokyo and Nagoya,  Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin had been continuously firebombed. The Japanese battleship “Haruna” was also firebombed. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died in those incidents, perishing in infernos as deadly as those caused by the atom bombs, many more than were initially killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Enola Gay was the single B-29 that bombed Hiroshima. The nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in the 20 kiloton range. One kiloton had the explosive equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT. Hence, the two atom bombs each had the power of 40,000 tons of TNT and were generated by nuclear fission — that was splitting atoms using uranium-235 and plutonium-239.

Then, nuclear weapons were seen as more powerful extensions of conventional weapons requiring fewer delivery systems. The future debate over the 1949 U.S. defense budget and the supercarrier versus the B-36 largely rested on the assumption that nuclear weapons were not existential to society. 

But the thermonuclear age changed the nature of war, confirming Oppenheimer’s worst fears. For the only time in history, war was existential. In a thermonuclear war, assuming the combatants maintained a so-called “second strike” capability to retaliate fully if hit first, there would be no winners — only losers. And “boosted” fission would greatly increase the power of nuclear weapons.

A thermonuclear weapon is based on fusing atoms. The power of the first hydrogen bomb was about 10 megatons. A megaton is the equivalent of 1 million tons of TNT, or potentially, 1,000 times larger than a nuclear weapon.

B-29s could carry a 20-ton payload. Two thousand B-29s carried the combined explosive power of one 20 kiloton A-bomb. But a 20 megaton hydrogen bomb would have required 2 million B-29s to impose the same level of damage.

Whether or not Oppenheimer had the foresight to recognize the consequences of thermonuclear war, he certainly opposed developing those weapons. However, the nuclear genie was long out of the bottle. If the U.S. had not proceeded, the Soviet Union almost certainly would have, as Moscow had stolen many of our nuclear secrets, of which the “super bomb” was one.

But the question that Oppenheimer posed about weapons threatening humanity is more relevant today. Unlike the Cold War, China no longer believes, as Mao did, that “to have a few [atom bombs] is just fine.” Along with the U.S. and Russia, there could be three nuclear superpowers.

Britain, France, India, Pakistan and North Korea likewise are nuclear-armed as is Israel, which still has not confirmed its status. A number of states could go nuclear, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and, to the dismay of the U.S. among others, Iran. 

What can be done to prevent armageddon? That may be the looming strategic question of the coming decades.

August 8, 2023 Posted by | weapons and war | 1 Comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »