Nuclear threat looms large

By Rizwan Asghar
July 17, 2016

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 Israels 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-TestBan 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 worlds 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 worlds 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 Koreas leader,
Kim Jong Un, is getting away with his lunatic behaviour because North
Koreas missile and nuclear programmes have been allowed to operate for
so long. Quite alarmingly, North Koreas 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 USs 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. Lets wake up before
it is too late and lets stop terrorists from planning a nuclear nightmare.
Email: rizwanasghar5@unm.edu