Nuclear threat looms large

“Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during

the cold war – and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger”

– William J Perry

Something changed forever when the first nuclear device was detonated in the desert of New Mexico on July 16, 1945. As the 71st anniversary of that fateful event fell yesterday, there is an awful lot to worry about the uncertain future of more than seven billion people in the world today.

Many observers believed that the end of the cold-war era would help the world move towards the goal of global nuclear disarmament. The opposite has turned out to be true. In fact, the threat of a nuclear weapon being used today is greater than ever before.

The technical expertise to develop nuclear weapons or produce fissile material – uranium-233, uranium-235, and plutonium-239 – is available to a large number of states and non-state actors. The continued existence of nuclear black markets where nuclear weapons designs and fissile material could be acquired makes the doomsday clock tick closer to nuclear midnight.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, disarmament advocates have seen more failures than successes. In 2005, the United Nations World Summit could not go even one step further toward non-proliferation and disarmament. The failure of the 2015 NPT review conference was another wake-up call to the reality that, despite all the excessive rhetoric, the Obama administration would go to any lengths to protect Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the Middle East.

The prospects for the next review conference also look bleak. Several multilateral agreements on disarmament and non-proliferation, like the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), have not yet entered into force.

Even if we accept the nuclear deterrence theory as valid, it is about time we answered the ‘how many nuclear weapons are enough’ question. Today, nine nuclear-armed nations possess more than 15,000 nuclear weapons.

A single nuclear weapon would cause catastrophic damage to an extent that has not been seen in the past seven decades. Ten nuclear weapons would cause destruction, the like of which has never been seen on this earth. The use of a hundred nuclear weapons would totally change the face of this planet, wiping out a large proportion of the world’s population.

Countries like Pakistan and India have absolutely no moral or strategic justification to expand their nuclear capabilities. This is completely insane. The international community must continue to pressurise the governments in both Pakistan and India to declare a moratorium on further production of nuclear weapons or fissile material for military purposes, in addition to improving transparency regarding the exact quantities of fissile material in their possession.

The global non-proliferation regime, currently, faces two major challenges: the proliferation of nuclear weapons both horizontally and vertically, and the threat of nuclear terrorism. Iran has been made to retreat from the nuclear path at least for the next fifteen years but North Korea continues to strengthen its offensive nuclear weapons capability.

Over the past few years, Seoul, the South Korean capital, has been held hostage by thousands of North Korean artillery shells and missile batteries, which can flatten the entire city, killing millions of innocent civilians. North Korea is said to have the world’s largest artillery force and Seoul is only 40 miles from the border. Some experts even claim that North Korea could wipe Seoul off the map in less than two hours using rockets and conventional artillery.

It does not take a rocket scientist to understand that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is getting away with his lunatic behaviour because North Korea’s missile and nuclear programmes have been allowed to operate for so long. Quite alarmingly, North Korea’s stockpile, if left unchecked, would grow to fifty nuclear weapons by 2020. A nuclear North Korea has not only significantly threatened regional security, but has also undermined the legitimacy of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Similarly, advancement or modernisation of existing weapons technologies has raised concerns about the future of non-proliferation efforts. According to the Federation of American Scientists, “all the nuclear-armed states have ambitious nuclear weapon modernization programs… that appear intended to prolong the nuclear era indefinitely.”

US nuclear modernisations programme, along with the deployment of ballistic missile defence (BMD) in Europe remains a major obstacle to negotiating further cuts to US-Russian nuclear stockpiles. Thousands of American and Russian nuclear missiles could be launched accidently in a span of a few minutes. But very little is being done to reduce these threats.

Lastly, the world has yet to wake up to the reality that the threat of terrorists getting nuclear weapons is more acute than it seems. During a recent conference in the US, this writer had the opportunity to be part of a policy discussion on nuclear terrorism.

A retired US Army official, who spoke to this writer on condition of anonymity, said that if terrorists succeeded in exploding an improvised nuclear device in one of the US’s major metro cities, it would be very difficult for the US to desist from launching a full-scale attack once it traces back the origin of material used by terrorists.

Facing such a dire threat, it behoves all nuclear weapon states, particularly Pakistan, India and the Russian Federation, to ensure the maximum possible security of nuclear weapons or materials in their possession.

To overcome these broader challenges, it is time for disarmament activists across the globe to breathe new life into the efforts to revive global nuclear non-proliferation efforts and open the door to a nuclear weapons free world. Efforts to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate nuclear weapons should be focused at all stages of nuclear fuel cycle. Let’s wake up before it is too late and let’s stop terrorists from planning a nuclear nightmare.

Email: rizwanasghar5@unm.edu