Rick Raw: Danger of Nuclear War Still Looms–Accidents and Terrorists are A Real Threat

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

During the nuclear arms race in the 1950s and 60s, the threat of global thermonuclear war was a real danger to humankind’s existence. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, their nuclear stockpile of over 15,000 ICBMs was under unstable security. The United States intervened and assessed the threat. The U.S. and Russia signed an agreement to insure that their nuclear stockpile was secure, with international inspections.

So, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and forgot about the danger of nuclear war. Then on January 25, 1995, Russian radar mistook a Norwegian-U.S. scientific rocket for a possible attack on Moscow. Then President Yeltsin, a man with a reputation for being drunk 24/7, was notified and given five minutes to decide how to respond.

Shockingly, we came within 2 minutes of Yeltsin pressing the button to launch a fusillade of Russian ICBMs toward targets in America. This would have set off DEFCON 1, an automatic retaliatory launch of our missiles to Russia. Thankfully, it didn’t happen because Yeltsin picked up the red phone and called our President. That was a day he was not too drunk to think clearly.

This incident underscored the danger of having over 25,000 nuclear missiles in the world. 95 % are in the arsenals of the United States and Russia. Just this past week, the START Treaty limiting the number of U.S. and Russian warheads expired. Nuclear arms negotiators in Geneva have not been able to work out the details of a follow-up treaty.

Indeed, it’s time to strive for serious nuclear disarmament. The nuclear nations club is expanding, with Iran on the brink of developing a Nuclear warhead to fit on a medium range missile to deliver it. Israel and the United States will not let that happen for obvious reasons. The real worry is either an accident like in 1995, or terrorists obtaining a small nuclear suitcase-sized nuclear device.

Arms dealers have been caught by Interpol trying to sell components to assemble just such a weapon. A so called "dirty-bomb" is more of a real possibility. That is a conventional bomb loaded with radioactive shrapnel that could contaminate a city and kill thousands of people. The radioactive debris is easy to obtain from the millions of tons of nuclear waste stored in vast underground facilities all over the globe.

Just a nuclear missile exchange between the United States and Russia would be catastrophic. Now, all nuclear warheads are so called "thermo" nuclear size, which means they are essentially hydrogen class weapons measured in the megatons of TNT The first nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima was in the kiloton range, equal to thousands of tons of TNT.

Today’s nuclear warheads are enhanced with hydrogen isotopes, greatly increasing its megaton power. Each American ICBM is equipped with ten megaton sized warheads-- each aimed at separate targets in Russia. And visa versa for Russia. These H-bombs make the first A-bomb dropped in war look like a firecracker by comparison.

Everyone knows that avoiding a nuclear war is paramount to saving humankind from itself. We shutter at the thought of the aftermath of one exchange of nuclear weapons on the globe. When today’s thermonuclear bombs explode, they send out a large electromagnetic pulse, that fries all electrical grids and electronics.

Our whole infrastructure is controlled by computers and would be rendered useless. After the attack, the people who were not killed in the initial explosions would die slowly of radiation sickness, disease, or starvation.

The January 1995 scare was fifteen years ago. However, Russia and the United States still maintain 2,000 warheads on top of ICBMs on high alert ready to be launched in 15 minutes and to destroy each other’s cities 30 minutes later. They are set on automatic launch if the computerized sensors detect an incoming threat–DEFCON 1.

Then there are the nuclear missile armed submarines cruising deep under the oceans of the world with secret orders in case of a nuclear war. They would launch from under the sea to their preprogrammed targets.

We must encourage President Obama to initiate new nuclear arms reduction talks with the nuclear nations. The START Treaty should be reratified with new guidelines.
The threat of a nuclear war is still a clear and present danger to the world and it will be until we eliminate nuclear weapons from the Earth. As long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a real possibility of an accident or terrorists possessing this destructive force.