By: Lizzie Furey,
on 3/13/2016
Notwithstanding the July 2015 P5+1 Vienna diplomatic agreement with Iran, Israel will soon need to forge a more comprehensive and conspicuous strategic nuclear doctrine, one wherein rapt attention is directed toward all still-plausible nuclear enemies.
The post Shaping Israel’s military nuclear doctrine appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Lizzie Furey,
on 10/3/2015
In world politics, preserving order has an understandably sacramental function. The reason is plain. Without minimum public order, planetary relations would descend rapidly and perhaps irremediably into a "profane" disharmony.
The post Israel’s survival amid expanding chaos appeared first on OUPblog.
By: ChloeF,
on 2/22/2013
Any discussion of North Korea’s nuclear program should begin with an understanding of the limited information available regarding its development. North Korea has been very effective in denying external observers any significant information on its nuclear program. As a result, the outside world has had little direct evidence of the North Korean efforts and has mainly relied on indirect inferences, leaving substantial uncertainties.
Moreover, because its nuclear weapons program wasn’t self-contained, it has been especially difficult to determine how much external assistance arrived and from where, and to assess the program’s overall sophistication.
That said, what is known is that Pyongyang has tested three nuclear devices: in 2006, 2009, and, of course most recently, on 12 February 2013. They have all had varying degrees of success, and North Korea has put considerable effort into developing and testing missiles as possible delivery vehicles.
February’s detonation of a “smaller and light” nuclear device — presumably, part of the plan to build a small atomic weapon to mount on a long-range missile — was the first test carried out by Kim Jong Eun, the young, third-generation leader, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. And while it always intriguing to speculate on who is running the show in North Korea, the finger generallyseems to point to the military.
Many foreign observers have come to believe the otherwise desperate, hungry population (and failing regime?) that make up North Korea’s secretive police state is best symbolized by its nuclear and missile programs. Which gives rise to the basic question: what, then, is Pyongyang’s motivation for its nuclear and missile programs? Is it, as Victor Cha once asked, for swords, shields, or badges?
In other words, are the programs intended to provide offensive weapons, defensive weapons, or symbols of status? In spite of prolonged diplomatic negotiations with Pyongyang officials over the past two decades, the question of motivation remains elusive.
Pyongyang’s interest in obtaining nuclear weaponry, beginning around the mid-1950s, has apparently stemmed in part from what it perceived as the US’s nuclear threats and concerns about the nuclear umbrella that protects South Korea. These threats, in turn, have pervaded North Korean strategic thought and action since the Korean War.
These actions may be gauged as offensive or defensive, but Pyongyang officials were at one point fearful of South Korea’s nuclear ambitions and later uncertain about the US emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons and its nuclear “first use” policy in defense of the South. These nuclear-armed additions included 280mm artillery shells, rockets, cruise missiles, and mines.
Against this backdrop, all of North Korea’s nuclear activities tend to focus on a single goal: preservation of the regime. Possessing nuclear weapons would diminish the US’s threat to the nation’s independence, but it could also reduce Pyongyang’s dependence upon China for its security.
North Korean officials, too, may feel that a small nuclear force offers some insurance against South Korea’s dynamic economic growth and its eventual conventional military superiority.
Pyongyang undoubtedly views its burgeoning nuclear arsenal as a symbol of the regime’s legitimacy and status, which would assist in keeping the Stalinist dynasty in power. Additionally enhanced status would, of course, assist in gaining diplomatic leverage.
Although the North Koreans have boasted about their nuclear deterrent’s ability to hold the US and it allies at bay, it is fairly clear that North Korea has vastly overstated its ability to strike, in part because of the limited amount of fissile material available to Pyongyang and also because of its inability to field a credible delivery option for its nuclear weapons.
The North Koreans have launched long-range ballistic missiles in 1998, 2006, 2009, and 2012, with limited success. By comparison, the US test fires its new missiles scores of times to ensure that they are operationally effective. North Korea would need many more tests of all the systems, independently and together, at a much higher rate than one every few years, to have confidence the missile would even leave the launch pad, let alone approach a target with sufficient accuracy to destroy it.
This was dramatically demonstrated on 13 April 2012, by the failure of the much-hyped effort to employ a three-stage missile, which would send a satellite into space. If the missile was, as Washington and Tokyo believed, a disguised test of an ICBM, the fact that it crashed into the sea shortly after launch illustrated that North Korea’s development and testing of missiles as possible delivery vehicles had miles to go.
Joseph M. Siracusa is Professor in Human Security and International Diplomacy and Associate Dean of International Studies, at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. Among his numerous books are included: Nuclear Weapons: A Very Short Introduction (2008) and A Global History of the Nuclear Arms Race: Weapons, Strategy, and Politics, 2 vols., with Richard Dean Burns (2013).
The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday!
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Image credit: North Korea Theater Missile Threats, By Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS.) Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The post North Korea and the bomb appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Lauren,
on 4/26/2011
On April 26, 1986, the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power station. Now, 25 years later, the current crisis in Fukushima is being called the “worst since Chernobyl.” Will we avoid another disaster? And further more, in another 25 years, how will we feel about nuclear energy?
Below a comprehensive article on Chernobyl by Philip R. Pryde, as it appears in The Oxford Companion to Global Change (Ed. David Cuff & Andrew Goudie). For further reading, I suggest looking to the newly published volume Nuclear Energy: What Everyone Needs to Know.
The most catastrophic accident ever to occur at a commercial nuclear power plant took place on April 26 , 1986, in northern Ukraine at Chernobyl (Chornobyl’ in Ukrainian). Intense radioactive fallout covered significant portions of several provinces in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation, and lesser amounts fell out with precipitation in numerous other European countries. The resultant health and environmental consequences are ongoing, widespread, and serious.
The Chernobyl power station is one of several such complexes built in Ukraine. At the time, it was believed that nuclear energy would entail negligible damage to the environment. Four other large nuclear power complexes have been constructed and Ukraine has a major uranium-mining complex and numerous research facilities.
The Chernobyl reactors utilize a graphite-moderated type of nuclear reactor (Russian acronym, RBMK), with a normal output of 1,000 megawatts. These units are water-cooled and employ graphite rods to control core temperatures. Each reactor houses 1,661 fuel rods that contain mainly uranium-238 plus much smaller amounts of enriched uranium-235. There are several dangers inherent in the design of RBMK-1000 reactors, including the ability of the operators to disengage safety controls, the lack of a containment dome, and the possibility that, at very low power levels, a rapid and uncontrollable increase in heat can occur in the reactor’s core and may result in a catastrophic explosion ( Haynes and Bojcun , 1988 , pp. 2–4).
This was what happened early in the morning of April 26 , 1986. A series of violations of normal safety procedures, committed during a low-power experiment being run on reactor number 4, resulted in a thermal explosion and fire that destroyed the reactor building, exposed the core, and vented vast amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. Pieces of the power plant itself were found up to several kilometers from the site of the explosion.
This radiation continued to be released into the atmosphere over a period of nine days, with the prevailing winds carrying the radioactive material initially in a northwesterly direction over northern Europe. The winds later shifted to the northeast, carrying fallout southwestward into central Europe and the Balkan peninsula. The overall result was significant radioactive fallout (mainly associated with rainfall) in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Germany (mainly Bavaria), the United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland. Lower levels of radioactive deposition were reported in Denmark, France, the Benelux countries, Greece, Ireland, Norway, Yugoslavia, and several other European nations (Medvedev 1990 , chap. 6). The republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were also directly in the path of the initial plume.
In the Soviet Union, the regions that received the highest levels of radioactive contamination were in the northern Ki
By: Lauren,
on 4/22/2011
The ongoing Japanese nuclear crisis underscores yet again the risks inherent in this essential energy source. But it should not divert nations from using or pursuing nuclear power to generate electricity, given the threat from climate change, the health hazards of fossil fuels, and the undeveloped state of renewable energy. Instead, the events at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant should turn more attention to ensuring that nuclear power plants meet the highest standards of safety and protection against natural disasters.
More than 30 nations have commercial nuclear power plants. A further two dozen are interested in having them, including several in earthquake risk areas such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey.
Some nations are pro-nuclear for energy security; some for prestige. Others, including Iran, have invested in nuclear power because they may want the capability to make nuclear weapons. These nations are seeking to acquire uranium enrichment or reprocessing technologies: useful either for producing fuel for peaceful nuclear reactors or fissile material for nuclear bombs.
Although some national leaders profess to be interested in nuclear energy because operating plants do not emit greenhouse gases, this is usually a secondary motivation. If it were their primary concern, nations would invest far more than they have in measures such as energy efficiency and solar and wind technologies.
The Japanese crisis has affected three important criteria: public opinion, safety and economic costs. Governments and utilities have had to grapple with these for decades. Now they must renew their efforts to finance expensive nuclear projects and ensure that existing and future nuclear plants maintain the highest standards — and must be seen to do so by the public.
Building nuclear power plants has always been expensive. For a large reactor with a power rating of 1,000 megawatts or greater, the capital cost ranges from US$4 billion to $9 billion depending on reactor design, financing charges, the regulatory process and construction time. The recent nuclear crisis is likely to change all of these, pushing up costs.
Contemporary plant designs — ‘generation III’ — have better safety features than the 1970s-era generation II designs for the Fukushima reactors, making them more expensive. Some, such as the AP1000 designed by the Westinghouse Electric Company, headquartered in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, have passive safety features that do not require technicians to activate emergency systems or electrical power to ensure safety after a mishap. Others, such as Paris-based Areva’s EPR, have advanced active safety systems designed to prevent the release of radioactive material to the environment. Further designs, such as the pebble-bed modular reactor, may prevent nuclear fuel from ever experiencing a meltdown. Concerns were raised about the Fukushima designs as early as 1972, the year after reactor unit 1 began operations. But the nuclear industry opposed shutting down such reactors because 32 were in operation worldwide — about 7% of the world’s total. Almost one-quarter of the reactors in the United States are of this type. The remaining plants of this design should undergo a thorough safety review and, as a result, some may need to close. Since the crisis began, several governments, including China, Germany and Switzerland, have called for increased scrutiny of their plants and a moratorium on plant construction until plant safety is assured. Germany has also shut down its seven oldest reactors.
But phasing out nuclear power worldwide would be an overreaction. It provides about 15% of global electricity and even larger percentages in certain countries, such as France (almost 80%) and the United States (about 20%). Eliminating nuclear power would lead to much greater
By: Lauren,
on 3/15/2011
This article was originally published by Foreign Policy on March 11, 2011.
Is nuclear power too risky in earthquake-prone countries such as Japan? On March 11, a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake shook Japan and caused widespread damage especially in the northeastern region of Honshu, the largest Japanese island. Nuclear power plants throughout that region automatically shut down when the plants’ seismometers registered ground accelerations above safety thresholds.
But all the shutdowns did not go perfectly. Reactor unit 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station experienced a mechanical failure in the emergency safety system. In response, officials ordered the evacuation of residents who live within two miles of the plant. Also, people living between two to 10 miles were ordered to stay indoors. The Japanese government described this order as a precautionary measure.
A worst-case accident would release substantial amounts of radioactive materials into the environment. This is unlikely to happen, but is still possible. Modern commercial nuclear power plants like the Fukushima plant use defense-in-depth safety measures. The first line of defense is fuel cladding that provides a barrier to release of highly radioactive fission products. Because these materials generate a substantial amount of heat, coolant is essential. Thus, the next lines of defense are to ensure that enough cooling water is available. The reactor coolant pumps are designed to keep water flowing through the hot core. But loss of electric power to the pumps will stop this flow. Backup electric power sources such as off-site power and on-site emergency diesel generators offer another layer of defense.
Unfortunately, these emergency power sources were knocked out about one hour after the plant shut down. Although it is unclear from the reporting to date, this power outage appears to have occurred at about the same time that a huge tsunami, triggered by the earthquake, hit that part of Japan.
Sustained loss of electric power could result in the core overheating and the fuel melting. However, three other backup systems provide additional layers of defense. First, the plant has batteries to supply power for about four hours. Second, the emergency core cooling system can inject water into the core. Finally, the containment structure, made of strong reinforced concrete, surrounds the reactor and can under even the most severe conditions prevent radioactive materials from entering the environment.
But the earthquake — the largest in the 140 years of recorded history of Japanese earthquakes — might have caused some damage to the containment structure. Japanese authorities announced that they will vent some steam from the containment structure to reduce the pressure buildup. This action may release small amounts of radioactive gas. The authorities do not expect any threat to the public.
Although a meltdown will most likely not occur, this incident will surely result in significant financial harm and potential loss of public confidence. For example, it was less than four years ago, in July 2007, when the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, Japan’s largest, suffered shaking beyond its design basis acceleration. The plant’s seven reactors were shut down for 21 months while authorities carefully investigated the extent of the damage. Fortunately, public safety was not harmed and the plant experienced no major damage. However, the government accepted responsibility for approving construction of the first reactor near a geological fault line, which was unknown at the time of construction. The
By: Michelle,
on 1/6/2011
A transnational peace activist for roughly half a century, Nigel Young has spent his life on the margins of political and state boundaries. Below Young reveals what he has learned to be a fine line between espionage and conflict research (i.e. “the perfect cover”).
By the time I first moved into peace research in 1963, I had become aware of the State’s interests (or often several States’ interests) in the anti-war movement: McCarthyist informers, Cold War agent provocateurs, intelligence sniffers, as well as plain opportunists, con-men, the confused, and mavericks – it was not only phone taps and men in macs. And then there were some odd characters in the peace movement itself, like Bertrand Russell’s secretary, R. Schoenman, and on the margins Pergamon Press’ Robert Maxwell, or the MP John Stonehouse in the U.K. The Quakerly dictum, “think the best of everyone you meet”, was certainly the one that many of us aspired to, but how many “strikes” before someone was out of the reach of trust and credibility? During the anti-draft movement in the U.S.A., the “plants” were obvious, their jeans and denim didn’t fit, they were awkward and not very with it, and their sunglasses were not cool. But they sowed mutual suspicion and that was enough. Many groups broke up. And during and after McCarthyism, in the 1960s, I directly experienced the entry of agents, often ex-military, into peace studies and action roles – not so much to gain information as much as to disrupt, divide and dismantle.
Those who work on the margins of states and boundaries – spies and peaceniks – have a lot in common. They sift the same information. They share not only their extra-national orientations, but their ambivalent loyalties and often the frontiers, or “walls” – around which they work in. I remember one occasion when a somewhat eccentric combat military officer, turned critic, turned journalist, turned researcher, (and temporary colleague) asked me, “But why would a spy be in peace research?” My response was immediate: “Because it is the perfect cover!” It’s one better than journalism, or refugee work, better than the U.N. and far better than the diplomatic corps. The genuine conflict researcher has legitimate roles in zones of conflict and violence and talks to both – or all sides – the IRA, the Brits, the Loyalist paras, the police, always “listening” carefully. The difference is between the overt (if still confidential) and the covert, the dissembler.
Of course, peace researchers are not free of their own agendas; even for more universal values. I made myself very unpopular in one North American University seminar by saying that I would have been sorely tempted to help Klaus Fuchs (the Atom Spy) escape if I was sure it could have helped nuclear disarmament. And I knew people who succumbed to similar temptations; or to covertly support one of the big battalions in a moment of crisis. Inevitably, transnational activism and study brought us into contact with senior military or ex-military, or intelligence – some as colleagues. Some turned for help to us; I still recall the unnameable high ranking North Vietnamese intelligence officer defecting (with my and others’ help) to Scandinavia, via embassies in Europe. It was he who had sought assistance. Very real, human, not an imagined ghost; he was desperate to tell his story, at length; though how much of it he told I’m not sure; but it had the passionate ring of authenticity and a plethora of details.
Most of us are caught up, one way or another
By: Lauren,
on 9/27/2010
The world’s total annual consumption of crude oil is one cubic mile of oil (CMO). The world’s total annual energy consumption – from all energy sources – is currently 3 CMO. By the middle of this century the world will need between 6 and 9 CMO of energy per year to provide for its citizens.
In their new book, Hewitt Crane, Edwin Kinderman, and Ripudaman Malhotra introduce this brand new measuring unit and show that the use of CMO replaces mind-numbing multipliers (such as billions, trillions, and quadrillions) with an easy-to-understand volumetric unit. It evokes a visceral response and allows experts, policy makers and the general public alike to form a mental picture of the magnitude of the challenge we face.
Here, Ripu Malhotra answers some questions we had about oil, energy, climate change, and more.
Q: What is the goal of your book, A Cubic Mile of Oil?
A: Raising literacy about energy in the general public. Meeting the global demand for energy is going to be a daunting challenge, and the way we choose to do it, namely the energy sources that we choose to employ will have a profound effect on the lives of millions of people. We have tried to provide an unvarnished look at the different energy sources so people can engage in an informed dialog about the choices we make. People have to be involved in making the choice, or the choice will be made for them.
Q: Why introduce a cubic mile of oil as another unit of energy? There are so many units for energy already.
A: True, there are way too many units of energy in use. Furthermore, different sources of energy are often expressed in different sets of units: kilowatt-hours of electricity, barrels of oil, cubic feet of gas, tons of coal, and so on. Each of these units represents a relatively small amount of energy, and in order to express production and consumption at a global or national scale, we have to use mind-numbing multipliers like millions, billions, trillions and quadrillions. To add to the confusion, a billion and a trillion mean different things in different parts of the world. It gets very difficult to keep it straight.
Q: Who coined the term CMO?
A: Hew Crane came up with this term. He was waiting in a gas line in 1973 when he began contemplating how much oil the world was then using annually. He made some guesses of the number cars, and the miles driven by each, etc., and came up with an estimate approaching a trillion gallons. How large a pool would hold that quantity, he next pondered. A few slide rule strokes later realized that the pool would have to a mile long, a mile wide and a mile deep—a cubic mile!
Q: What is your overall message?
A: Currently, the global annual consumption of oil stands at 1 cubic mile. Additionally, the world uses 0.8 CMO of energy from coal, 0.6 from natural gas, roughly 0.2 from each of hydro, nuclear, and wood for a grand total of 3 CMO. Solar, wind, and biofuels barely register on this scale; combined they produced a total of 0.03 CMO i
By: Rebecca,
on 4/12/2010
John Mueller is the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies and Professor of Political Science, Ohio State University. His new book, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism From Hiroshima To Al-Qaeda, argues that nuclear weapons have had little impact on history. Alt
hough they have inspired overwrought policies and distorted spending priorities, things generally would have turned out much the same if they had never been invented. In the original post below Mueller looks at why formal nuclear arms reduction agreements are unnecessary.
The popular notion that the path to nuclear arms reduction requires formal agreements of the sort recently signed by the United States and Russia needs reexamination. Instead of fabricating elaborate agreements about reducing arms, they should just to do it.
The cold war arms buildup, after all, was not accomplished through written agreement; instead, there was a sort of free market in which each side, keeping a wary eye on the other, sought security by purchasing varying amounts of weapons and troops. As requirements and perspectives changed, so did the force structure of each side.
The same process can work in reverse: as tensions decline, so can the arms that are their consequence. Reductions are more difficult when accomplished by formal treaties requiring that an exquisitely nuanced agreement must be worked out for every abandoned nut and bolt. A negative arms race is likely to be as chaotic, halting, ambiguous, self interested, and potentially reversible as a positive one, but arms reduction will proceed most expeditiously if each side feels free to reverse any reduction it later comes to regret.
Although the signing of formal disarmament agreements can have a useful atmospheric effect, the process itself tends to delay and clutter the process. The current agreement, for example, was slowed by the Russian effort to tie it into efforts to have the United States abandon missile defenses. The Russians held on to weapons they were apparently quite willing to give up only because the weapons could be used as bargaining chips in arms reduction negotiations. That is, there were more weapons around because a formal arms control negotiating apparatus existed.
With the demise of fears of another major war, many of the arms that struck such deep fear for so long are quietly being allowed—as the bumper sticker would have it—to rust in peace. Let it happen.
By: Rebecca,
on 12/29/2009
Saïd Amir Arjomand is Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies at Stony Brook University. He is the founder and president of the
Association for the study of Persianate Societies and the editor of the Journal of Persianate Studies. His new book, After Khomeini: Iran Under His Successors, is a subtle portrait of contemporary Iran. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, Arjomand traces the emergence and consolidation of the present system of collective rule by clerical councils and the peaceful transition to dual leadership by the ayatollah as the supreme guide and the subordinate president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the excerpt below Arjomand looks at Ahmadinejad’s nuclear policy.
Leader Khamenei’s promotion of the hardliners and their takeover of the Majles in 2004 and of the presidency in 2005 made the military-intelligence cartel dominant in foreign policy, setting the stage for a return to an aggressive foreign policy. The United States’ invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in the destruction of Iran’s strongest regional enemies, created unparalleled opportunities for Iran to expand its regional power. Exaggeration by revolutionary leaders of the foreign threat to strengthen their internal position is the typical pattern after revolutions. In the case of Ahmadinejad, he did not have to try very hard. The Bush policy of regime change gave Iran the incentive to push for nuclear development as a defense against the short-term regime change and the long-term U.S. nuclear threats.
In his first few months in office, Ahmadinejad launched an aggressive foreign policy in place of Khatami’s Dialogue of Civilizations. He firmly rejected the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict accepted by his two predecessors. In October 2005, as we have seen, he affirmed: “As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map,” and in December he made his bid to capture the Arab street for IRI by declaring the Holocaust a myth fabricated for the creation of Israel. The hardening of Iran’s opposition to Israel was fully in line with the Leader’s continued championship of the Palestinians to bolster his own bid to be the Leader of the world’s Muslims.
Ahmadinejad’s failed attempt to follow the example of the Prophet Muhammad in the “Year of the Prophet, “2006 to convert the world leaders was due to his idiosyncratic initiative and cannot be considered a hardliner policy. Nor did it enjoy the support of the hardliners. It was otherwise with his nuclear policy, however. The hawks in the Bush administration, after advertising a series of “covert” CIA operations against the IRI, officially announced their doctrine of regime change in 2002, hinting at times at Iran as the next in line in the months between the “axis of evil” speech and the invasion of Iraq. (The call for regime change in Iran was routinely repeated in 2003 after the Iraqi invasion as well.) Then came President George W. Bush’s baseless linking of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in his open-ended war on terrorism, and the justification of the invasion of Iraq based on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. It had at least one unnoted but disastrous consequence. The Iranians, in a state of heightened alert for their nationa
By: Rebecca,
on 7/15/2009
Douglas P. Fry’s book Beyond War looks at the essential nature of
humans and suggests that there may be a way out of our current cycle of violence. What could be more important? In the article below he looks at the North Korean nuclear crisis as an opportunity for change. To read more OUPblog posts by Fry click here.
The North Korean nuclear crisis may be a blessing in disguise if it re-awakens not only concerns about nuclear war but also action to disarm the nuclear time bomb. The North Korean tests can serve as a somber reminder of the ever-present danger of Armageddon, as long as nuclear weapons exist on our planet. If we are wise, we will treat the current nuclear crisis as a wake-up call. Nuclear weapons in the cellar do not make the house secure.
Most of us, leaders included, go out of our way “to forget” about nuclear weapons and the horrific threat they pose every person on the planet. As an anthropologist, I have learned that sometimes a person from afar who does not share the same worldview can go directly to the heart of the matter. I once was working in a rural village in southern Mexico, and one day a dirt-poor farmer asked me whether it was really true that my country had bombs so powerful that one explosion could destroy an entire city. I answered “yes” and explained that if one of these bombs was exploded 20 miles away over the state capital, we also would be incinerated even at this distance—or wish we had been. The man mused: “Why would anybody ever make a bomb like that?”
Ask this man, or for that matter your local extra-terrestrial, about the logic of having over 8,000 nuclear warheads on a planet of this size, and the answer will certainly be that Homo sapiens are not showing much sapience. How, exactly, are nuclear arsenals contributing to our safety and security? How, again, does nuclear proliferation make the world a safer place? In the name of true security for the people of this planet, it is time to outlaw, globally, these suicide devices.
Aside from putting us in the gravest peril, the care and maintenance of nuclear weapons also takes money away from true security needs. Millions suffer from medically treatable diseases and extreme poverty. We share a planet that is suffering ecologically from global warming, loss of biodiversity, and pollution of the oceans. No individual country or region can address these global challenges alone. We’re all in this together. Rationally, we have a huge incentive to cooperate and work together to solve these problems that threaten every nation’s and every person’s safety and security.
The Mardu people of Australia offer us a parable. Living in small bands that are spread out over the Western Desert, the Mardu are very aware that they need each other. The desert has little rainfall and moreover the rain is sporadic. One area may get rainfall one year and a different area may receive the precipitation the next year. The Mardu know their climate and realize that it makes no sense whatsoever to carve out a territory and try to exclude other groups. Instead, they reciprocally share access to food and water resources over time. They do not war or feud. They recognize that such fighting would be detrimental to long-term survival.
It’s a parable for the planet. Now that the North Korea nuclear crisis is rousing us from our slumber, it is time to take action for true security. We must rise to the challenge of getting rid of nuclear weapons–and ultimately do away with the practice of war itself. We also must work together to solve shared problems such as global warming, terrorism, poverty, and disease. These challenges threaten all of us. The Mardu would urge us to cooperate rather than fight, not merely because fighting is disruptive and harmful, but because it will not lead to security in an interdependent world.
