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Early last October the Nobel Prize committee announced that it was awarding Barack Obama the Peace Prize for his “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” At the same time, in counterpoint to that news, it was reported that the director of India’s 1998 nuclear testing program had called for new tests. That move provoked fears of escalation, in case it motivated Pakistan and China to recommence testing and made it even harder for the U.S. to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Although some 150 countries have ratified the treaty, neither the U.S., China nor India has yet done so.
The chair of India’s Atomic Energy Commission has stated that his nation does not need to carry out any more tests; one can only hope that India’s policy makers agree and that by the time this essay appears, the world will not yet have taken one more step toward the brink.
Such news underscores that nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation won’t be going away soon. On January 13 and 14 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is hosting in New York City its first annual Doomsday Clock Symposium, where a decision regarding the setting of the minute hand on its famous Doomsday Clock will be made. The clock has served for nearly 65 years as an international symbol of the level of risk that the world faces from nuclear weapons and, more recently, from all potentially globally destructive technologies.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I am co-chair, along with physicist Leon Lederman, of the board of sponsors of the Bulletin, a group formed by Albert Einstein in 1946, with J. Robert Oppenheimer as its chair. But my purpose here is not to promote the Bulletin itself but rather what it stands for.
No issue carries more importance to the long-term health and security of humanity than the effort to reduce and, perhaps one day, rid the world of nuclear weapons. The U.S. can and should take a leading role in this effort, but until recently, President Obama’s verbiage aside, our actions have done far too little to encourage this goal, and quite frankly we have too often discouraged it.
We live in a dangerous world, and actions by countries such as Iran and North Korea need to be monitored carefully, but the response should be commensurate with the threat.
President Obama was correct to end the planned installation of a missile defense system in Poland, not merely because Iran does not possess ICBMs capable of carrying nuclear warheads but because the proposed missile defense system, a mirror of the flawed one currently installed in the U.S., does not work and never has. Commissioning an unworkable defense against a nonexistent threat, especially when such a system in Eastern Europe clearly increased other international tensions with Russia, made no strategic sense. The mobile short-range missile defense system proposed as an alternative is more likely to function against any actual threat from Iran.
Still, President Obama’s hopes for a nuclear-free world cannot be met if we continue to act as if the U.S. should have an unfettered monopoly on such weapons. How can we expect other countries to show restraint when we have not yet ratified the CTBT, even though we can verify compliance effectively and our own nuclear arsenal does not need testing? How can we hope for a safer world when the U.S. and Russia have between them more than 10,000 nuclear weapons, with perhaps 1,000 still on trigger alert, despite the absence of any credible, justifying threat?
We have lived in a world where nuclear weapons have not been used against a civilian population in more than 60 years. I am not optimistic that this nuclear truce will last another 60. But until we honestly recognize the threat and minimize the opportunity and motivation for governments or terrorist organizations to carry out such an act, we continue to increase the odds that it will one day happen. As Einstein said 65 years ago, after the explosion of the first nuclear weapon, “Everything has changed, save the way we think.” We need to take his words to heart now more than ever.
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11 Comments
Add CommentThis article is a really good plea for sensible thinking about nuclear weapons. Alas it is also loopy. I mean how can any sensible American think that Iran is or will be a nuclear threat to the US. It is deja vu and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction all over again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever I do believe that Iran's ambition is to build a viable nuclear weapon and delivery system and that its constant procrastinations are made in order to achieve this at the least cost to itself.
If/when it achieves this goal the Middle East could became a very dangerous place with Israel and Iran facing each other with nuclear weapons.
Well it's not ticking fast enough. Somebody needs to fire one off or get off the pot already, or the threat is indeed meaningless, and since the threat is any nuclear programs only practical end, well, better get button-pushing. I can think of no better target than [anywhere in] the middle east.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoomsday Clock! My Ass.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeen watching this thing since '67. Never been less than 11:59:58 and still...? Nothin'
When the hell you gonna blow something up? All rattle--no action.
Scare mongers. Here's one real threat for you: IRS Audit. Much better chance of that than Nuclear Annihilation.
On the other hand, think of the precious lives we need to protect! Think of the peaceful billions of people and their constructive, lives, who strive to achieve for the good of all life, so selflessly and nobly, the bold promise of our planets future is in their hands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, screw this stupid species. If they've reached the point of smartitude that they're discovering the secrets of the atomic and subatomic forces, and still 99 percent of them are engaged in lives no more advanced than the simplest of animals, eat, breed, die, with no regard to the world around them, well, then they are truly simple animals, and deserve what they get, when their discovery blows up in their faces upon colliding with their barbaric ways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, perhaps nuclear winter will wipe out just enough of the population that only the most adaptable will survive, and yet another narrowing of focus in the currently sprawling, cesspool of the human genome will emerge again, trimming the fat of our species. Fitter, happier, more productive...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr perhaps I shouldn't have so much chianti.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear war cannot make us extinct, but nuclear bombs can protect us from giant asteroid or comet impact. Global warming can make us extinct. Lawrence M. Krauss needs to get these 2 threats into the correct perspective because he is generating needless fear of perfectly safe nuclear energy. Nuclear energy can save us from global warming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't be impatient for the first use of a nuclear weapon in anger since 1945. Time is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are a whole long string of mega-disasters that are absolutely sure to come along eventually, and one or more nuclear wars will be inevitable too. Conservatives tend to think more about the practical problems of surviving a mega-disaster than liberals do, and are much more likely to make actual preparations, which is kind of surprising given that liberals generally have higher education levels and consider themselves to be soooo much smarter.
Anyhow, I will share with you the distilled right-wing wisdom on the subject of short-term survival, which means up to one year in a condition in which no electrical grid is up anywhere, no fuel trucks come to your local gas station, no food is in the supermarkets, and calling 9-1-1 does nothing most of the time, leaving you basically having to solve all your security and medical emergencies on your own.
The survivalist list for this is the 5 G's--gasoline, God, groceries, guns, and gold. In my house I have a sixth G, for generators converted to run on household natural gas, which is likely to be a more dependable utility than grid electricity. We had all better pray that our local water company stays in business, but if it doesn't make sure you have a means of purifying water.
Long-term emergencies will take more of all of the above, especially food. If you research the problem and are reasonably intelligent, it isn't that hard to have a 7-year supply of food that will keep your family alive, if not exactly fat and happy.
The simple but expensive plan isto buy a couple pallets of military style Meals Ready to Eat, or MRE's. These things are so calorie packed you only need to eat one a day for basic survival, so figure 365 for a year for one person. A family of four will need about 10,000 of them for seven years, which would cost $30K if you can buy in bulk.
Probably most people will want to go the much cheaper route and buy beans in hundred pound sacks, canned goods, dehydrated foods of all kinds, enough junk like popcorn, bottled wine, spirits, hard candies, coffee beans, medicines and peanut butter to keep life interesting. If you want a first class lifestyle build your own granary and fill it up with hard durum wheat. Be sure to have a grinder for that and the coffee beans. Don't forget baking soda and yeast. Also seeds for the garden and learn how grow spuds. If you can support chickens and goats you will be in fat city
John von Neumann's Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) policy prevented nuclear holocaust at the height of the cold war. It's all or nothing proposition. Either all countries disarm or MAD scientists and politicians will always have a reason to stockpile nuclear weapons. As Dr. Strangelove said in the classic movie, nuclear holocaust can be prevented by assuring that any nuclear aggression will lead to unstoppable and complete destruction of all parties. Good luck!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn von Neumann’s Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) policy prevented nuclear holocaust during the height of the cold war. It’s all or nothing proposition. Either all countries disarm or MAD scientists and politicians will always have a reason to stockpile nuclear weapons, no matter how irrational. That’s whole point of the MAD policy – nuclear holocaust can be prevented by assuring that any nuclear aggression will lead to unstoppable and complete destruction of all parties. It seems to me that would only work if all the players are rational. Good luck!
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