nuclear-war

HUMAN EXTINCTION BY NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST.

The risk of human extinction by nuclear holocaust is by no means negligible. If you think that I am exaggerating, read the quotes below from authoritative sources:-

The following quotes are from the book Global Catastrophic Risks edited by Nick Bostrom (Director of The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University) and Milan M, Cirkovic (Professor of Cosmology in The University of Novi Sad (Serbia), published by Oxford University Press, 2012 – Article:- The Continuing Threat of Nuclear War, by Joseph Cirincione (Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy at The Center for American progress):-

Page 382:- “In January 1995, a global nuclear war was almost started by mistake - - - - Russian military officials mistook a Norwegian weather rocket for a – - - - - ballistic missile. Boris Yeltsin - - - - HAD JUST A FEW MINUTES TO DECIDE IF HE WOULD PUSH THE BUTTON THAT WOULD LAUNCH A BARRAGE OF NUCLEAR MISSILES. Thankfully, he concluded that his radars were in error.” (My capitals.) (My comment:- If Putin had been in the same position - - - !!!??)

Page 389:- The author suggests that an all-out nuclear war could kill between 35 and 77 percent of The US population.

Pages 391 to 392:- The author discusses NUCLEAR WINTER (a side effect of nuclear war) which would “trigger massive crop failures - - - - could seriously disrupt the global climate for a decade or more.”

In the introduction to the above book, the editors Nick Bostrom (Director of The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University) and Milan M, Cirkovic (Professor of Cosmology in The University of Novi Sad (Serbia) tell us (page 21):- “Several other incidents have been reported in which the world, allegedly, was teetering on the brink of nuclear holocaust.”

The same book also contains the article – Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism; A Preventable Peril, by Gary Ackerman (Research Director of The National Consortium for The Study of Terrorism and responses to Terrorism) and William C. Potter. Here are some quotes from this article:-

Page 413:- The authors quote (Nobel Laureate) Luis Alvarez:- “if separated HEU is at hand it’s a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion - - - even a high school kid could make a bomb in short order.” - - - The authors then continue:- There are many potential sources of HEU for would-be nuclear terrorists.”

Page 404:- “The report followed the discovery by the AEC (The US Atomic Energy Commission) in 1965 that it could not account for a large quantity of weapons grade uranium at the US naval nuclear fuel plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania.”

Page 403:- “Asked in a closed Senate hearing room “whether three or four men couldn’t smuggle units of an (atomic) bomb into New York and blow up the whole city”, Oppenheimer (one of the original scientists who created the first atomic bomb) responded, “Of course it could be done, and people could destroy New York.” (Oppenheimer basically stated in this Senate hearing that there could be no certain defence against an attack of this kind,)

Page 423:- Graham Allison, author of one of the most widely cited works on the subject, offers a standing bet of 51 to 49 odds that - - - - there will be A TERRORIST NUCLEAR STRIKE WITHIN THE NEXT TEN YEARS. Allison gave such odds in 2004, and former US Secretary of Defense William Perry agreed, assessing the chance of a terror strike as even.” (My capitals.)

Page 441:- “It is difficult to find many reasons for optimism regarding the threat of high consequence nuclear terrorism. It is a GROWING DANGER and one that could result in enormously devastating - - - - - EVEN GLOBAL CONSEQUENCES.” (My capitals.)

The following quote is from Scientific American (magazine), issue for June 2014, page 65 – Article:- Nuclear Nada, by Michael Shermer:- “As Eric Schlosser reveals in his - - - - book Command and Control, THERE HAVE BEEN DOZENS OF CLOSE CALLS, FROM THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS TO THE TITAN 11 MISSILE EXPLOSION IN DAMASCUS, ARK.” (My capitals.)

The next series of quotes are from the book Our Final Century, by Professor Martin Rees, published by Arrow Books, 2004. (He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, appointed in 1995, and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010.)

Pages 26 to 27:- Rees quotes President Kennedy during The Cuban Missile Crisis – that the chance of nuclear war was “somewhere between one out of three and even.”

Regarding this crisis, Rees quotes Arthur Schlesinger Jr., one of Kennedy’s aides at the time - - - - “This was the most dangerous moment in human history.” Rees then quotes Robert McNamara (then US Secretary of Defence) - - - - “We came within a hairbreadth of nuclear war - - - the indefinite combination of human fallibility - - - - and nuclear weapons carries the very high probability of the destruction of nations.”

Page 44:- Rees quotes Nobel Physicist Luis Alvarez:- “With modern weapons-grade uranium - - - - terrorists would have a good chance of setting off a high yield explosion simply by dropping one half of the material onto the other half - - - - if separated U235 is to hand, its a trivial job to set off a nuclear explosion.”

Page 43:- Rees tells us that “Plutonium could be coated on the surface of a conventional bomb to make a “dirty bomb” ”

Pages 45 to 46:- Rees suggests that terrorists could hijack a large fully-fuelled jet and crash it into a nuclear power station. Rees suggests that the odds against such an event are in the region of ONE CHANCE IN A HUNDRED PER YEAR.” (My capitals and highlighting.) (My comment:- This means that, over a ten year period, the odds are one chance in ten; and over a twenty year period, the odds are one chance in five.)

Page 191:- “During The Cuban Missile Crisis, a Russian submarine was targeted by depth charges from a US warship. This submarine carried a nuclear armed torpedo, which could have been launched with the concurrence of three officers. Fortunately one officer, Vasily Arkhipov, held out against the pressure to launch the torpedo, thereby staving off an escalation that could well have run out of control.”

An article in The Guardian, Thursday May 12^th, 2022 – How Our Nuclear Fears Faded, by Daniel Immerwahr provides further information on this above incident – The captain of the submarine “ordered the torpedo readied. “We’re gonna blast them now! We will die, but we will sink them all” - - - the radio officer remembered him shouting - - - - would have almost certainly triggered nuclear retaliation. - - - - - Arkhipov talked the enraged captain down” (Apparently Arkhipov had previously seen radiation sickness at first hand, and this is why he was determined to avoid firing the nuclear missile.)

The following quotes are also from the above article:- “US general Thomas Power - - - - who led the US Strategic Air Command – responsible for nuclear bombs - - - - pressed often for pre-emptive strikes. - - - - UN - - commander Douglas McArthur requested “atomic capability”, later explaining that he’d wanted to drop “between 30 and 50 atomic bombs.” - - - - Eisenhower - - - - built up his country’s nuclear arsenal - - - his military advisors urged a preventative attack - - - - Russia has amassed - - - - nuclear weapons, and Putin has threatened to “USE THEM IF WE HAVE TO” - - - - If this (Ukranian war) continues, the RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR WILL BE “CONSIDERABLE”, Russia’s foreign minister has warned. “The danger is serious, real, and we must not underestimate it.”

From the same article:- Russia - - - - SHELLED EUROPE’S LARGEST NUCLEAR POWER PLANT at Zaporizhzhia (sic). The attack set part of the site aflame - - - Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy pointed out “If there is an explosion, it is the end of everything.” - - - - Already Russia HAS THREATENED NUCLEAR WAR MULTIPLE TIMES. - - - - Social media boils over with calls to action, and a poll found that more than a third of US respondents wanted their military to intervene “EVEN IF IT RISKS A NUCLEAR CONFLICT. - - - - - Using declassified documents, historians now understand HOW CLOSE WE CAME, MULTIPLE TIMES, TO SEEING THE (NUCLEAR) MISSILES FIRED.” (My capitals and highlighting.)

The following series of quotes are from the book The Shortest History of War, by Gwynne Dyer (whose twice weekly column on international affairs appears in 175 newspapers in 75 countries), published by Old Street Publishing, 2022. (My comment:- I would strongly recommend this book!)

Page 219:- “The warning time of an incoming (nuclear) strike might be as little as four minutes - - - - An all-out nuclear exchange - - if - - - - used on cities, creating perhaps a hundred simultaneous firestorms, we might find ourselves on the threshold of nuclear winter - - - - (Now quoting Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Imran Khan, in a speech to The UN General) – “When a nuclear-armed country fights to the end - - - it will have consequences for the world.” The author then comments:- “Getting through the rest of this century without the first-magnitude catastrophe of global nuclear war will require good management AND GOOD LUCK.” (My capitals.)

Page 233:- In any given year, there is only a tiny danger that another world war might begin AND PUT AN END TO HUMAN CIVILISATION. CUMULATIVELY, THOUGH - - - - THE DANGER IS EXTREME.” (My capitals and highlighting.)

Page 213:- “The ramshackle system we have designed to keep the peace WILL BE UNDER ACUTE STRESS.” (My capitals.)

Page 182:- The author quotes General Ferdinand von Senger und Etterlin, commander-in-chief, Allied Forces central Europe, 1982:- “It might even be that we use nuclear weapons from the outset - - - - the military is prepared to do it.”

Page 180:- The author quotes General Sir John Hackett:- “The assumption that you can control nuclear war is pure fantasy - - - - there will be A HIGH PROBABILITY OF EARLY AND STEEP ESCALATION INTO THE STRATEGIC ALL-OUT EXCHANGE THAT NOBODY WANTS.” (My capitals.)

Page 173:- “The basic physics of nuclear winter has been reaffirmed through several authoritative international technical assessments and numerous individual scientific investigation.”

Page 167:- “There were more than 50,000 nuclear warheads in the world.”

Page 159:- “Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that Israel was actively preparing to use its nuclear weapons during the first few panic-stricken days of its 1973 war with Egypt and Syria.”

Page 157:- The US has six or seven thousand thermonuclear bombs, ALL OF THEM DOZENS OF TIMES MORE POWEFUL THAN THE HIROSHIMA-SCALE BOMBS.” (My capitals.)

Page 152:- “The world - - - remains a SERIOUSLY DANGEROUS PLACE.” (My capitals.)

Page 3:- “Senior planning staffs in the largest military powers - - - - in their judgement, there is big trouble coming that CANNOT BE - - - - DEALT WITH BY NON-MILITARY MEANS.” (My capitals and highlighting.)

Pages 163 to 164:- (Discussing The Cuban Missile Crisis:- Nobody on the American side realised just how close they had come to a nuclear war. If Krushchev had not sent his proposal for a compromise, the US invasion would probably have gone ahead” Then the author quotes from the book The Fog of War, by Robert McNamara (then US Secretary of Defence):- It was SUBSEQUENTLY discovered “that 162 nuclear warheads - - - were on the island at the critical moment of the crisis.” McNamara asked President Castro whether he would have “recommended to Krushchev in the face of the US attack that he use them?” - - - Castro replied to this question by saying - - - “I DID recommend to Krushchev that they be used.”

Page 169:- “It came close to the actual use of nuclear weapons several times.”

Page 172:- The author quotes from an article in the journal Science, volume 222 – Article title:- The Long Term Biological Consequences of Nuclear War, by Paul R. Erlich et al:-

“The ecosystem effects - - - from a large-scale thermonuclear war could be enough to destroy the current civilisation in at least the Northern Hemisphere - - - there might be no human survivors in the Northern Hemisphere.”

The author (Dyer) continues:- suggesting that “ as few as one hundred one-megaton airbursts over one hundred cities” could cause nuclear winter “because the millions of tons of soot given off by burning cities would be a very powerful screening agent” (ie:- to screen out sunlight).

Page 171:- “A major nuclear exchange, the TTAPS group concluded, would cover at least the northern hemisphere, and perhaps the entire planet with a pall of smoke and dust THAT WOULD PLUNGE THE SURFACE INTO VIRTUAL DARKNESS FOR UP TO SIX MONTHS. IN THE CONTINENTAL INTERIORS, THE SURFACE TEMPERATURE WOULD DROP BY UP TO 40 DEGREES CENTIGRADE. - - - - In April 1983, a symposium of forty distinguished biologists concluded; Species extinction could be expected for most tropical plants and animals, and for most terrestrial vertebrates of north temperate regions.”

The following quotes are from the book Global Catastrophic Risks edited by Nick Bostrom (Director of The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University) and Milan M, Cirkovic (Professor of Cosmology in The University of Novi Sad (Serbia), published by Oxford University Press, 2012 – Article:-Super Volcanism, by Michael R. Rampino, Associate Professor of Biology at New York University.

Page 213:- The author discusses the effects of a “super volcano” that spread dust into the atmosphere, blocking out the sunlight. (This would have a similar effect to “nuclear winter”, and so his remarks are relevant to the risks of nuclear war.) “Collapse of agriculture as a result of the loss of one or more growing seasons - - - - - followed by famine - - - - - could devastate the major food growing areas of the world. For example, THE ASIAN RICE CROP COULD BE DESTROYED BY A SINGLE NIGHT OF BELOW-FREEZING TEMPERATURES DURING THE GROWING SEASON. - - - - and 3 to 4 degrees centigrade (temperature drop) WOULD HALT ALL CANADIAN GRAIN PRODUCTION.”