Can never be won and must never be fought

First of 2 parts

THE unseen coronavirus brought us into hiding and nearly paralyzed our modern world. Scientific advancement was caught by surprise and took a year to control what remains to be a puzzling organism that killed millions and disrupted economies on a global scale.

Modern humanity survived a pandemic, which should have taught lessons from a century ago.

But will humanity survive a nuclear war?

In 1985 then US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorvachev were quoted jointly saying that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” It remains as true as it was then. The price of nuclear escalation is a planetary suicide, with no winners at all.

With what is going on, we cannot help but talk about it, not to say that nuclear conflict is around the corner. But it is always wise to understand what could happen. Look back as if we have never learned. Look forward as if it is a cause of anticipatory alarm.

Origin of science of extinction

A discovery by nuclear physicists in a laboratory in Berlin, Germany, in 1938 made the first atomic bomb possible, after Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission.

On Dec. 28, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project to bring together various scientists and military officials working on nuclear research. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic bomb during World War 2. The project was started in response to fears that German scientists had been working on a weapon using nuclear technology since the 1930s.

Much of the work in the Manhattan Project was performed in Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb” who in 1943 gathered about 200 of the best scientists in the field to live and work there. They designed two bombs, one using uranium (called “Little Boy”) and one using plutonium (“Fat Man”).

Oppenheimer was running a piece of Hindu scripture in his mind while he was witnessing the first detonation of the nuclear weapon: “Now I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” He knew, as everyone did, that the world would not be the same again.

Sad lessons of history

Atomic bombs have been used only twice in war — both times by the United States against Japan at the end of World War 2, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 1945. On record, 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 73,000 in Nagasaki died instantaneously or within five months due to the nuclear blast, intense radiant heat from the fireball and ionizing radiation. Within 1 km from ground zero, people were carbonized by heat rays. Those up to 1.5 km away suffered flash burns with skin peeling off. Those inside the building were reduced to white bones as flesh vaporized due to intense heat. Survivors suffered acute radiation sickness. Many later died of cancers. It was a nightmare which memories live on.

Anti-nuke protests they never heard

After the atomic bombs were exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Albert Einstein made this statement: “The time has come now, when man must give up war. It is no longer rational to solve international problems by resorting to war. Now that an atomic bomb can destroy a city, we can see that we must now make use of man’s powers of reason in order to settle disputes between nations.” Scientists continued the call to end wars. Foremost were Linus Pauling and Albert Schweitzer.

But science, under the direction of the superpowers, went on. The US tested its first hydrogen bomb in November 1952, and the Soviet Union followed suit in August 1953. On Sept. 1, 1961, the Soviet Union resumed nuclear testing in the atmosphere and announced plans for detonating a 50-megaton nuclear bomb. On March 1, 1962, the US resumed nuclear tests in the atmosphere.

There are nine nuclear armed states that we know, arranged according to the number of nuclear warheads: Russia, United States, China, France, United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel, North Korea. The US provides a “nuclear umbrella,” or guarantee of defense, to its nonnuclear allies, among them the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) plus Australia, Japan and South Korea. Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy and Turkey have several hundred US nukes on their soil as part of their membership of NATO. In 2022, of the 12,700 known nuclear warheads in nine countries worldwide, close to 90 percent belong to the US and Russia. The decline was noted from 70,300 in 1986. Varying data is caused by the secrecy of the real inventory and status of the weapons.

To date, Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for a nuclear strike after “aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened.”

A treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons started in 2017 and entered into force in January 2021 with 92 signatories and 68 state parties, to date, but none of the nine countries with nuclear weapons (among them the United States) are signatories. These countries are not bound by it if they do not sign it.

Churches, socio-civic organizations, and nations have joined science in calling to disengage these weapons of mass destruction. But the hegemons among nations seem to find security and supremacy in keeping them.

To be concluded on Friday, March 17