Nuclear War = Nuclear Winter: Stockholm Peace Research

[TonyGosling]

The danger of a future nuclear winter
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Sunday 13 September 2015 10:30AM (view full episode)
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/the-danger-of -a-future-nuclear-winter/6758122

If you thought the threat of nuclear conflict ended with the Cold War, think again.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute there are currently around 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with approximately 1800 of them kept in a state of ‘high operational alert’.

Perhaps even more worrying, is the fact that all nine nuclear-possessing nations, are either upgrading their existing nuclear weapons systems or working to develop new ones, according to SIPRI.

Earlier this year, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s latest round of talks all but collapsed, with analysts warning a new form of international agreement is needed to keep developments in check.

So how serious is the risk of a future nuclear conflict? And, given international tensions, is any hope of disarmament completely off the table?

[TonyGosling]

Swedish declaration on the elimination of nuclear weapons
Ingvar Carlsson, former Prime Minister of Sweden, Karin Söder, former Foreign Minister of Sweden, Hans Blix, former Foreign Minister of Sweden, Rolf Ekéus, SIPRI Chairman and Chairman of the Swedish Pugwash network
http://www.sipri.org/media/newsletter/essay/april10

Nuclear weapons kill immediately and kill over time. They cause devastation and environmental disaster. Twenty-five years ago a UN scientific commission warned that even a limited use of existing nuclear weapons could result in a nuclear winter over large areas over the earth. Recent findings conclude that such temporary climate change could cause the death of many millions of people. Massive use of existing nuclear arsenals would destroy all life on earth, a global suicide.

The legality of nuclear weapons has been addressed by the International Court of Justice in 1996, which held that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law. The matter of launching a nuclear attack is thus a question of law and morality and a threat to the survival of mankind. Consequently the same is true also for threat of using nuclear weapons.

This has not prevented the nuclear weapon states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States—and the four other states in possession of nuclear weapons—India Pakistan, Israel and North Korea—from claiming a right to make use of their nuclear weapons.

Although many political leaders and experts on security both within and outside these states admit that no political purpose could justify the use of nuclear weapons with all the consequences that such action would have, it appears that all nuclear weapon possessors insist that they need to maintain their nuclear weapon capability to be able to threaten another state with retaliation in the case of a attack from that state.

To the bilateral function of deterrence—a mutual assured destruction—there must be added the notion of extended deterrence, which implies assurances by the USA to its allies world-wide that a nuclear attack on any one of them would result in a nuclear retaliation against the attacker. Thus, in the global security equation a set of states under a nuclear umbrella must be identified in addition to the states possessing nuclear weapons.

Another extension of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence flows from the calculated doctrinal ambiguity about what a state possessing nuclear weapons considers an attack meriting retaliation by nuclear weapons. The UK, France, Russia and the USA have explicitly granted themselves the option to use nuclear weapons to respond to attacks using chemical or biological weapons.

The concept of deterrence embraced by the nuclear weapon states has the unhappy implication that it not only encourages continued possession by the established nuclear weapon powers but also breeds proliferation by additional states and discourages steps towards weapon reductions—ultimately elimination.

The reasons for the possession of and reliance on the deterrence of nuclear weapons was challenged in a path-breaking essay published in 2007 in the Wall Street Journal by four senior US statesmen—former US secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of Defense, William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn. They declared that the end of the cold war had made the doctrine of deterrence obsolete between the two major nuclear weapon states, the USA and Russia. They recognized that, although the deterrence could remain relevant for many states to threats from other states, even in such situations reliance on nuclear weapons was increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.

With all that in mind we conclude with the four US statesmen that only the elimination of nuclear weapons could provide an adequate guarantee against their use.

In the essay in 2007 and in two following complementing articles in the Wall Street Journal, one in January 2008 and the other in January 2010, Shultz, Kissinger, Perry and Nunn developed a broad strategy to achieve a World Free of Nuclear Weapons. To that end they proposed a number of concrete steps both to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons technology and to reduce existing nuclear arsenals. Their fundamental idea is that without the vision of elimination, the necessary actions will not be seen as fair and without these actions the vision will not be seen as attainable.

We fully endorse the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons as presented by the four US statesmen. At the same time we encourage and support concrete and practical steps towards achieving that aim.

The steps we recommend are similar to the 13 steps outlined in the 2000 NPT Review Conference final document, resulting from the successful work of the New Agenda Coalition (NAC) in negotiations with the nuclear weapon states. The 13 steps have later been adjusted and elaborated on by the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Commission in its report 2006. The NAC states—Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden—are once more well placed to play an important role in the upcoming NPT Review Conference in May this year. Their engagement is essential to mobilize the large majority of the parties to the NPT, the members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), to exercise their worldwide influence in matters of non-proliferation significance.

The most important immediate task in the diplomatic field should be to create conditions for a constructive outcome of the NPT Review Conference in May this year. Here the USA has to take the lead.

In his important speech in Prague last year President Obama endorsed the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons. In this context a first step should be to reduce the more than 21 000 nuclear warheads still held in Russia and the USA two decades after the end of the cold war. Progress in their negotiations on an agreement to succeed the now expired 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) is important to bring their deployed strategic nuclear forces to lower numbers as well as to preserve a fully functional verification regime for monitoring their respective forces. However, this marks only a beginning step. Russia and the USA should now be encouraged to verifiably eliminate the nuclear warheads withdrawn from deployment.

The two sides should also seriously engage in negotiations on limiting and ultimately eliminating non-strategic nuclear weapons, starting with transferring them from deployed status and putting them in centralized, highly protected storage. To diminish mutual suspicions and the risk of accidental use, the two governments should be encouraged to change the posture of deployed nuclear weapons to increase warning time and to take the weapons off alert posture.

The three other legally recognized nuclear weapon states—the UK, France and China—should be engaged in discussions on reductions. The matter of verification of nuclear weapon reduction and elimination should be tackled early, addressing both technology and questions of how to deal with weapons material in secure and safe manners.

As regards multilateral treaty arrangements, the immediate and most urgent task is to bring the landmark 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force. Of the nuclear weapon states, France, the UK and Russia have already ratified the agreement. Now it is the turn of the US Senate to give advice and consent to the CTBT. In the article in the Wall Street Journal in January 2010 the four statesmen presented a number of proposals to facilitate ratification of the treaty by the Senate. It is likely that once the US ratifies, China and several other states will follow.

The establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East was called for already in the resolution on the Middle East adopted by the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference as an integral element of the decision to indefinitely extend the duration of the NPT. Such a zone would provide an indispensable framework for simultaneously addressing concerns about possible nuclear ambitions in the greater Middle East as well as the suspected nuclear arsenal possessed by a regional state not party to the NPT.

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, which showed its capacity when negotiating the Chemical Weapons Convention and the CTBT, should now get down to speedily negotiate a treaty on the verifiable halting of the production of fissile material for weapons and address the issue of existing stocks of such material in a manner which should be fair and equitable to all states. In the interim, as a step toward promoting transparency and irreversibility, all of the nuclear weapon states should undertake to declare and verifiably eliminate their excess military fissile material holdings.

An important element of non-proliferation is the control of the enrichment process and of the activities of separation of plutonium from spent reactor fuel. In this context the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) must have a role to play with its established safeguard system. That system can and should be strengthened through the ratification by all states of the Additional Protocol, which provides the IAEA inspectors with more effective tools for monitoring compliance with safeguards agreements.

Proposals for the development toward a multilateralized fuel cycle are needed. Tangible progress in the field of nuclear disarmament would help to make such a treaty more equitable to non-nuclear weapon states joining. To be viable and acceptable it would also need to be universal and subject all states to the same verification.

In multilateral nuclear disarmament regulated in international legal instruments, verification is of the essence. The strengthening of the IAEA safeguards will be crucial but it is far from enough. One could consider setting up an international expert committee tasked to identify the problem in all its aspects. In addition to the methods agreed upon in the bilateral US–Russian negotiations and the experiences of inspections in Iraq, the experts could make use of the results of the joint British–Norwegian work on nuclear verification. The forum, for detailed negotiations could be the CD in Geneva. The Security Council should systematically be kept informed about the progress in the CD, given that the Council in its resolution in September 2009 on President Obama's initiative made clear that nuclear disarmament and proliferation are elements of international peace and security and thus the responsibility of the Council and of the United Nations.

The risk of nuclear confrontation in Europe should be diminished and eliminated by the intensification of the consultations and negotiations on a broader dialogue on security in Europe.

The Canberra Commission stated in 1996 that as long as nuclear weapons exist they sooner or later will be used. It would not be wise to allow passivity test the validity of that statement. Science has provided humanity for the first time in its existence with a capability to self-destruction.

The question now is if we have the collective will and wisdom to step out from the shadow of annihilation and transform the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons into reality.

[TonyGosling]

Try the Nuke Map!
http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

[TonyGosling]

Various conflicts being brought up tonuclear simmering point
Deliberately

According to a 2002 estimate by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), a worst-case scenario in an Indo-Pakistani nuclear war could result in eight to 12 million fatalities initially, followed by many millions later from radiation poisoning. More recent studies have shown that up to a billion people worldwide might be put in danger of famine and starvation by the smoke and soot thrown into the troposphere in a major nuclear exchange in South Asia. The resulting “nuclear winter” and ensuing crop loss would functionally add up to a slowly developing global nuclear holocaust.
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010.pdf

http://www.salon.com/2016/04/08/nuclear_winter_on_a_planetary_scale_th e_biggest_threat_to_mankind_virtually_no_one_is_talking_about_partner/

[TonyGosling]

On the 8th Day - Nuclear Winter Documentary (The Natural World BBC 1984)

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCTKcd2Ko98
''On The 8th Day'' is chilling, a result entirely consistent with its aim. The one-hour documentary explores the possible ecological and atmospheric consequences of nuclear war, particularly as they would be expressed in a ''nuclear winter.'' Darkness would shroud the Northern Hemisphere; temperatures would fall. The planet would survive, but not as a hospitable place.
''On the Eighth Day'' was originally produced for the BBC as part of the series The Natural World, and aired in the United States on cable station TBS on January 14, 1985.

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Chomsky: Nuclear War More Likely Today Than During Cold War

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Noam-Chomsky-Warns-Nuclear-War- Is-More-Possible-Today-20160207-0035.html

U.S. linguist, analyst, intellectual and writer Noam Chomsky warned that a nuclear war is more imminent today than during the Cold War as the Pentagon expands its 800 bases around the globe in an attempt to dominate the world.

Chomsky said he believes a nuclear war would be something highly irrational, but could happen due to an accident or a human error.

“The threat of a nuclear war is greater today than during the Cold War,” he said in an interview published by La Jornada on Sunday. “The risk of a nuclear war is concentrated in the proliferation of incidents involving armed forces of nuclear powers.”

He continued saying, “Russia is the main pebble in the shoe of the Pentagon's world domination because it has an enormous military system.”

The linguist argued that the “problem is that both Russia and the United States are increasing their military systems acting as if war were possible, which is part of a collective madness.”

China mainly has a policy of defense and does not posses a huge nuclear program, although it's possible they will increase its military capabilities in light of the world tensions, he added.

“The United States has 800 military bases around the world and invests in armed forces as much as the rest of the world combined,” he noted.

“War has been very close to breaking out on various occasions,” he said, recalling the incident that occurred when Ronald Reagan was president and the Pentagon decided to put the Soviet armed forces to the test by carrying out simulated attacks against the then Soviet Union.

“What happened was that the Russians took this very seriously,” he said. “In 1983, when the Soviets automated their defense systems and detected a U.S. missile attack.”

He explained that protocol in place in situations like these is to go directly to the highest command and launch a counter-attack.

“However, there was a person in charge of transmitting that information, Stanislav Petrov, who decided it was a false alarm, and thanks to that we are here today talking about it," he told La Jornada.

Chomsky highlighted the fact that there are dozens of false alarms every year.

“Currently, acts of provocation by the United States are constant. NATO is carrying out military maneuvers 200 meters away from the Russian border with Estonia,” he said.

If other countries acted with the same irresponsibility as Washington, a war would have already broken out, Chomsky said.

He said even before it was the United States, the country was a society of colonizers, when they began eliminating Indigenous populations, destroying many First Nations.

WATCH: Noam Chomsky on the Laura Flanders Show

In 1898, the United States began its imperialist activities by taking over Cuba and then invading the Philippines, murdering a couple hundred thousand people.

He went on to criticize the one-party system in his country.

“Our country has only one political party, the party of corporations and businesses, which are divided into factions: Democrats and Republicans,” he said.

He said the parties' original forms and traditions had "suffered a complete mutation during the neoliberal period.”

“There are the modern Republicans who call themselves Democrats, while the older Republican organization was completely eliminated, because they both made a transition to the right during the neoliberal period, just as it happened in Europe. The result is that the new Democrats lead by Hillary Clinton have adopted the old Republican programs,” he said.

Finally, he blamed the United States for the crises affecting the Middle East.

“Scarcely 15 years ago we did not observe the types of conflict that we see today in the Middle East. It's a consequence of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which is the worse crime of the century,” he charged.

WATCH: Electing the President of an Empire

[Whitehall_Bin_Men]

Chomsky: Nuclear War More Likely Today Than During Cold War

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Noam-Chomsky-Warns-Nuclear-War- Is-More-Possible-Today-20160207-0035.html

U.S. linguist, analyst, intellectual and writer Noam Chomsky warned that a nuclear war is more imminent today than during the Cold War as the Pentagon expands its 800 bases around the globe in an attempt to dominate the world.

Chomsky said he believes a nuclear war would be something highly irrational, but could happen due to an accident or a human error.

“The threat of a nuclear war is greater today than during the Cold War,” he said in an interview published by La Jornada on Sunday. “The risk of a nuclear war is concentrated in the proliferation of incidents involving armed forces of nuclear powers.”

He continued saying, “Russia is the main pebble in the shoe of the Pentagon's world domination because it has an enormous military system.”

The linguist argued that the “problem is that both Russia and the United States are increasing their military systems acting as if war were possible, which is part of a collective madness.”

China mainly has a policy of defense and does not posses a huge nuclear program, although it's possible they will increase its military capabilities in light of the world tensions, he added.

“The United States has 800 military bases around the world and invests in armed forces as much as the rest of the world combined,” he noted.

“War has been very close to breaking out on various occasions,” he said, recalling the incident that occurred when Ronald Reagan was president and the Pentagon decided to put the Soviet armed forces to the test by carrying out simulated attacks against the then Soviet Union.

“What happened was that the Russians took this very seriously,” he said. “In 1983, when the Soviets automated their defense systems and detected a U.S. missile attack.”

He explained that protocol in place in situations like these is to go directly to the highest command and launch a counter-attack.

“However, there was a person in charge of transmitting that information, Stanislav Petrov, who decided it was a false alarm, and thanks to that we are here today talking about it," he told La Jornada.

Chomsky highlighted the fact that there are dozens of false alarms every year.

“Currently, acts of provocation by the United States are constant. NATO is carrying out military maneuvers 200 meters away from the Russian border with Estonia,” he said.

If other countries acted with the same irresponsibility as Washington, a war would have already broken out, Chomsky said.

He said even before it was the United States, the country was a society of colonizers, when they began eliminating Indigenous populations, destroying many First Nations.

WATCH: Noam Chomsky on the Laura Flanders Show

In 1898, the United States began its imperialist activities by taking over Cuba and then invading the Philippines, murdering a couple hundred thousand people.

He went on to criticize the one-party system in his country.

“Our country has only one political party, the party of corporations and businesses, which are divided into factions: Democrats and Republicans,” he said.

He said the parties' original forms and traditions had "suffered a complete mutation during the neoliberal period.”

“There are the modern Republicans who call themselves Democrats, while the older Republican organization was completely eliminated, because they both made a transition to the right during the neoliberal period, just as it happened in Europe. The result is that the new Democrats lead by Hillary Clinton have adopted the old Republican programs,” he said.

Finally, he blamed the United States for the crises affecting the Middle East.

“Scarcely 15 years ago we did not observe the types of conflict that we see today in the Middle East. It's a consequence of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which is the worse crime of the century,” he charged.

WATCH: Electing the President of an Empire

[TonyGosling]

SIPRI: Global Military Spending ‘Highest Since Cold War’
WRITTEN BY STOP THE WAR ON 14 MAY 2019. POSTED IN NEWS & COMMENT
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/3364-sipri-global-mil itary-spending-highest-since-cold-war

US, China, Saudi Arabia top list of nations, as $1.82 trillion spent on defence worldwide in 2018, says think-tank

"US military spending rose for the first time in seven years to reach $649bn, leaving it still by far the world's biggest spender."

Global military expenditure reached its highest level last year since the end of the Cold War, mainly fueled by increased spending by the United States and China, the world's two biggest economies, a leading defence think-tank has said.

In its annual report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said overall global military spending in 2018 hit $1.82 trillion, up by 2.6 percent on the previous year.

That is the highest figure since 1988, when such data first became available as the Cold War began winding down.

US military spending rose for the first time in seven years to reach $649bn, leaving it still by far the world's biggest spender. It accounted for 36 percent of total global military expenditure, nearly equal to the following eight biggest-spending countries combined, SIPRI said.

China, the second-biggest spender, saw military expenditure rise five percent to $250bn last year, the 24th consecutive annual increase.

"In 2018, the US and China accounted for half of the world's military spending," Nan Tian, a researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure (AMEX) programme, said.

US President Donald Trump has committed to a strong national defence, despite reducing troop numbers in conflict zones such as Syria and Afghanistan. His defence spending request to Congress this year is the largest ever in dollar terms before adjustment for inflation.

"The increase in US spending was driven by the implementation from 2017 of new arms procurement programmes under the Trump administration," Aude Fleurant, the director of the SIPRI AMEX programme, said in a statement.

Rising Tensions
Saudi Arabia, which is leading a military coalition battling Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen, remained in third place at $67.6bn, in spite of spending cuts of more than six percent compared with 2017, followed by India and France.

India's spending rose for the fifth consecutive year, mainly driven by tensions with China and Pakistan, according to the think-tank.

The top five spenders accounted for 60 percent of global military spending.

Russia slipped to sixth place, spending an estimated $61.4bn, marking the first time the European nation was not among the top five since 2006.

The other top 10 spenders were Britain, Germany, Japan and South Korea.

Pakistan, which came to the brink of war with neighbouring India earlier this year in the aftermath of a suicide attack on an Indian paramilitary convoy in the disputed Kashmir region, spent $11.4bn, an 11 percent increase.

"The tensions between countries in Asia as well as between China and the US are major drivers for the continuing growth of military spending in the region," said Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher with the SIPRI AMEX programme.

According to SIPRI, military spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen in all regions since 1999.

It said that six of the 10 countries where military spending was estimated to account for the highest portion of GDP - also labelled as the military burden - were in the Middle East.

They included Saudi Arabia at 8.8 percent, Oman at 8.2 percent, and Israel at 4.3 percent.

NATO Target
Trump has criticised some of Washington's NATO allies in Europe, especially Germany, for failing to meet the alliance's spending target of 2 percent of GDP.

SIPRI data showed military spending equalled 1.2 percent of GDP in Germany - Europe's largest economy - last year, based on GDP estimates for 2018 from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Britain and France, the two other largest economies in Europe, spent 1.8 percent and 2.3 percent of GDP respectively on defence in 2018.

Military expenditure by all 29 NATO members amounted to just over half of global spending, SIPRI added.