{"id":2792,"date":"2019-11-03T00:34:45","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T00:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/?p=2792"},"modified":"2019-11-25T22:27:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-25T22:27:10","slug":"nuclear-threat-resetting-the-doomsday-clock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/nuclear-threat-resetting-the-doomsday-clock\/","title":{"rendered":"The nuclear threat: resetting the doomsday clock"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On\n the morning of 13 January 2018 a message was broadcast by the emergency\n alert system over television, radio and mobile phones to the people of \nHawaii. The message stated that there was an incoming ballistic missile \nthreat and advised residents to seek shelter, ending with: \u2018this is not a\n drill.\u2019 It seems the Hawaiian alert systems are stuck in a time-warp of\n the atomic age. Even back then the idea of \u2018taking shelter\u2019 was futile \nunless in a blast-proof underground concrete bunker and then the \nfirestorm would probably incinerate, or asphyxiate, the occupants. Those\n who were unlucky enough to survive would either suffer a slow and \nagonising death by radiation poisoning or else face the prospect of an \nimpoverished existence in a dystopian landscape. Hawaii\u2019s emergency \nalert system is a throwback to the US public information film of the \n1950s: Duck and Cover<\/em>.\n The film depicted children sheltering under their school desks from a \nnuclear attack and at the time was accompanied by similarly ludicrous \npropaganda in other countries, including the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n atom bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in \n1945 \u2013 affectionately named: \u2018Little Boy\u2019 and \u2018Fat Man\u2019 by the \nperpetrators \u2013 instantly killed 100,000 Japanese people. An additional \n100,000 died of injuries and radiation poisoning in the following \nmonths. But these bombs are akin to peashooters compared to the much \nmore powerful hydrogen bomb, invented in the 1950s, which packs a punch \nhundreds of times greater than its smaller cousin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex Wellerstein\u2019s Nukemap model (nuclearsecrecy.com\/nukemap\/\n ) illustrates this bigger punch, by allowing the user to choose the \nlocation and size of the hydrogen bomb in a simulated detonation. I \nchose London as my target and selected the biggest bomb from the drop \ndown menu; known as the \u2018Tsar Bomba;\u2019 produced in Soviet Union times, it\n weighs in at a whopping 100 Megatons (100,000 Kilotons) which makes it \naround 7000 times the size of the US atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Or,\n put another way, this single bomb exceeds the total explosive capacity \nof all munitions used during WWII by a factor of twenty. The result of \nthe simulation indicated that 18 million people would be caught in the \nblast covering a radius stretching north to Cambridge and south to \nBrighton; of which around 6 million would be killed instantly and a \nfurther 6 million would suffer substantial injuries. The model helpfully\n clarifies that such casualties do not include the effects of radiation \nwhich are apparently too difficult to estimate. In such circumstances \nadvising children to shelter under their school desks is not really \ngoing to cut the mustard as a strategy for survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nYet this kind of \nasinine propaganda is on the march again today. The madmen in charge of \nthe asylum are busy overlaying a new, and even madder doctrine, on the \ntraditional one of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The original MAD \napproach is grounded in the less than reassuring logic that no country \nwould launch a nuclear attack on another nuclear state because the \nretaliatory response would be assured and would lead to its own \nannihilation. This tenuous logic is still the basis of \u2018nuclear \nstrategy\u2019 and is predicated on the rational behaviour of those world \nleaders with their finger on the nuclear button. When one considers the \ncurrent cohort of world leaders such an assumption would seem to have a \nrather flimsy foundation. But now the nuclear powers want to have their \ncake and eat it too. Whilst their main posture towards each other is \nstill MAD, they are now promulgating a secondary and seemingly \ncontradictory approach. Led by the United States, the assertion is that a\n nuclear war is not only \u2018survivable,\u2019 but also \u2018winnable\u2019; amidst talk \nof tactical and battlefield nuclear weapons and smart nukes in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSounding the alarm bells<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\n mechanism for alerting the public to the nuclear threat was conceived \nin 1945 by the Chicago group of scientists \u2013 Compton, Oppenheimer and \nothers, who were part of the Manhattan Project \u2013 and who, ironically, \ncreated the atomic bomb in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every\n year since 1945 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set the hands of \nthe Doomsday Clock to represent the imminence of Nuclear Apocalypse \naccording to conditions prevailing at the time. In recent years the \nclock has been calibrated to take into account the other existential \nthreat to the world; that of climate breakdown\/ecological collapse. \nCurrently the hands of the Doomsday Clock are at two minutes to \nmidnight, indicating that the world is on the brink of self-immolation; \nthe closest it has been since 1952 when the first hydrogen bombs were \ntested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At\n the peak of the MAD doctrine it was estimated that there were 40,000 \nnuclear weapons in the world; mainly held by the United States and \nRussia, but also by Israel, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan,\n China, North Korea and the NATO \u2018nuclear-sharing states\u2019 of Germany, \nBelgium, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey; these latter countries holding \nthem under the auspices of the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe \u2018peace dividend\u2019\n at the end of the Cold War in 1991 \u2013 which led to the decommissioning \nof thousands of nuclear weapons \u2013 was short lived, although the actual \nnumbers are still down from the peak. Today it is estimated that there \nare around 14,500. 13,000 of these are held by the US and Russia, with \nclusters dotted around the other nuclear powers, including the UK in the\n form of the Trident deterrent; soon to be upgraded at a cost estimated \nto be as high as \u00a3200 billion over the lifetime of the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apart\n from the developing sophistication of nuclear weapons and their \nincreased killing capacity, the posture towards them is also changing in\n the direction of becoming more trigger-happy. The US has always \nmaintained its right to launch a first strike, in addition to its \n\u2018launch on warning\u2019 policy. With the continuing deterioration in \nrelations between the nuclear powers the others are upping the ante as \nwell. China has recently responded to heightened tensions with the US by\n putting its nuclear arsenal on high alert by combining its missiles and\n warheads, which were previously kept separate. Russia who, in common \nwith the US, already has several thousands of its nuclear weapons on a \nhair trigger has resurrected a new version of its \u2018Dead Hand\u2019 system \nwhich was believed to have been disabled at the end of the Cold War. \nDead Hand involves an automatic and massive launch of Russia\u2019s nuclear \nweapons in the event of censors picking up seismic vibrations indicative\n of an incoming nuclear attack. Some pundits have heralded this system \nas making the world safer by increasing the \u2018deterrent effect\u2019. \nPresumably they are unaware of the event in 1983 when the electronic \nmonitors being watched by Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer, detected \nincoming nuclear missiles launched from the United States. This was at a\n time of high tension between the two nuclear powers following the \nshooting down of a South Korean airliner which had strayed into Soviet \nair space. Petrov decided to contravene orders by not reporting the \nincident to his superiors which, had he done so, would probably have \nprompted a retaliatory strike by the Soviet Union, leading to all out \nnuclear war. It turned out it was a false alarm caused by an unusual \nalignment of sunlight filtering through high altitude clouds over North \nDakota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nA first strike posture is contrary to various aspects of international law, including: the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva\n Conventions, The Hague Conventions, the UN Charter, and the Universal \nDeclaration of Human Rights. But such legal niceties provide no brake on\n the bellicose rhetoric of the leaders of the nuclear powers. In 2016 \nPrime Minister Theresa May assured parliament that she was ready to \npress the nuclear button, taunting the leader of the opposition, Jeremy \nCorbyn for dithering over the issue. Trump regularly spews inane \nutterances on Twitter, such as those aimed at the \u2018Little Rocket Man\u2019 of\n North Korea saying that: \u2018my nuclear button is much bigger than Kim\u2019s \nand my button works!\u2019. He also threatened Iran, a country of 83 million \npeople, with \u2018obliteration\u2019 if it ever crossed America. Trump \narticulated his overall stance on nuclear weapons during his \npresidential campaign as: \u2018You want to be unpredictable.\u2019 Now in office \nhe is presiding over an unprecedented programme of renewal and expansion\n of nuclear weaponry under his Nuclear Posture Review; including the \ncreation of the sixth arm of the US military, in the form of Space Command, to take warfare into the new frontier of space. The other nuclear states are embarked on tit-for-tat expansion and modernisation of their nuclear arsenals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\n all these cunning developments in nuclear warfare will amount to \nnothing if the Nuclear Winter thesis, postulated by a group of climate \nscientists, proves to be valid. They assert that a relatively\n small number of nuclear explosions will create a massive firestorm \nwhich would suck up a dust cloud into the stratosphere, blotting out the\n sun\u2019s rays for years to come and thus ending all life on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The end of the era of nuclear warfare restraint<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n August 2019 the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) expired \nwhich, since 1987, has banned the stationing of short and intermediate \nnuclear missiles \u2013 such as Cruise and Pershing \u2013 in Europe. In October \n2018 the US signalled its intention to withdraw from the treaty and \nRussia quickly followed suit; each side accusing the other of breaches. \nThis amounts to the final unravelling of over a dozen treaties that have\n limited the expansion of nuclear arsenals over the past half century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n United States has led the way in the shredding of the treaty \ninfrastructure, beginning with its withdrawal from the Anti-ballistic \nMissile Treaty in 2002 and, more recently, its abandonment of the Joint \nComprehensive Plan of Action; the multilateral agreement that imposed \nconstraints on Iran\u2019s nuclear program. The only treaty of any \nsignificance remaining is the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), \nwhich currently places limits on certain categories of nuclear weapons \nheld by Russia and the United States. This expires in 2021 and has \nlittle prospect of being renewed. President Putin has repeatedly \nexpressed a wish to renew START, but President Trump has described it as\n a: \u2018one sided deal\u2019 and a: \u2018bad deal\u2019 and the two leaders have no plans\n to engage in negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), established in 1968, is still \nextant but of questionable value given that the new nuclear states, such\n as Israel, India and Pakistan, refuse to participate in the treaty and \nNorth Korea simply withdrew from it in order to embark on its nuclear \nweapons programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\n will be the first time since the 1980s that the world will be in an \nunregulated nuclear weapons environment. Add to all of these regressive \ntrends the array of other factors creating instability in the \ngeo-political situation and it is surprising that the Doomsday Clock is \nset as far away as two minutes to midnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What prospects for peace?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\n are many conciliatory parties urging the nuclear powers to resume \nnegotiations in order to set limits on their nuclear arsenals but, in \nthe current febrile atmosphere, the prospect of them being listened to \nis slim. In any case the treaty approach of containment did little to \nreduce the risk of the world\u2019s annihilation by nuclear warfare given the\n huge scale and destructive power that remained, even after such \nlimitations were imposed. The treaties were at best a sticking plaster \nand at worst created a soporific effect and a normalisation of the \nnuclear threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nNuclear War represents the pinnacle of violent warfare but it is one of degree, rather than difference in kind. From\n its inception in 1904 the Socialist Party has opposed all wars as a \nmatter of principle. Confronted with the call to war \u2013 and flying in the\n face of almost every other party calling itself \u2018socialist\u2019 \u2013 the \nSocialist Party has never capitulated to the jingoistic rhetoric of \nnationalism. We have always stated our unambiguous opposition to war. We\n regard war as the manifestation of conflict between competing factions \nof the capitalist class, fighting over the spoils of territory, \nresources, markets and trade routes; the cost of such conflict being \nsuffered by the working class in the form of death, misery and \nprivation. It follows that war is an inherent characteristic of the \ncapitalist system and will only be eradicated when the death cult of \ncapitalism is ended. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Socialism\n would comprise a world-wide community where there would be no \nnation-states. There would be no ownership of either property, \nterritory, or natural resources. There would be no markets and no need \nto compete for resources to sustain life because these would be freely \nprovided according to need. In such a society war would be redundant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThe only war that \nsocialists are interested in fighting is the class war; with the aim of \nbringing it to a swift end by non-violent means through the ballot box, \nthus relegating the concept of war to the history books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIM HART<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From November 2019 <\/a>Socialist Standard article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the morning of 13 January 2018 a message was broadcast by the emergency alert system over television, radio and mobile phones to the people of Hawaii. The message stated that there was an incoming ballistic missile threat and advised residents to seek shelter, ending with: \u2018this is not a drill.\u2019 It seems the Hawaiian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2792"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2792\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}