Part One of Two Parts
While a hundred and thirty nations are meeting at the U.N. to discuss a permanent ban on all nuclear weapons, the nations which possess nuclear weapons, including the U.S. are boycotting the meetings. Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia have been reduced from tens of thousands of nuclear warheads at the height of the Cold War to thousands today. However, as diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Russia have deteriorated, both countries have announced plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize their nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
The new U.S. President, Donald Trump, finds himself confronting a number of escalating international problems regarding nuclear weapons, some of his own causing.
Over the past few years, Russia has been flying nuclear-capable bombers into other countries air spaces without notice and sailing nuclear submarines into other countries territorial waters without notice. Following the Russian seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine, NATO has been increasingly worried about Russia invading countries on her borders with Eastern European countries like the Baltic States. The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has publicly stated that if Russia and NATO got into a land war with conventional weapons, Russia would resort to tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield.
The new U.S. president has said that he thinks that NATO is obsolete and that if NATO members don’t spend more money on their own defense, the U.S. might not come to their aid in the face of Russian aggression. Now there are calls by some NATO member nations for NATO to acquire their own nuclear weapons which goes against U.S. policy to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. German is debating whether they should develop their own nuclear arsenal.
The Brexit vote that is taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union is causing a big political debate in the U.K. about the continued possession of nuclear missiles and nuclear submarines by the U.K. If Scotland votes to leave the U.K., then they will demand that the U.K. dismantle and remove their base for nuclear submarines that is located in Scotland.
China has been building artificial islands in the South China Sea where they claim ownership of waters that are also claimed by six other countries. The U.S. has been sailing U.S. navy vessels around in that area in defiance of Chinese territorial claims. China, in turn, is considering deploying nuclear subs with nuclear missiles on regular patrols in the area. Up to this point, China has kept tight control of their nuclear warheads but if they send out these submarine patrols, the warheads will have to be distributed to the subs and the captains of the subs will have to have the ability to launch them without permission from Beijing. China also has had a policy of keeping a small nuclear arsenal for deterrence purposes and a policy of not being the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. With the global nuclear situation in flux, they might decide to start expanding their nuclear arsenal and consider using tactical nukes in a conflict.
North Korea seems dedicated to building ICBM that could threaten U.S. cities. Kim il Un, the dictator in N.K. has threatened to use nuclear weapons to attack South Korea in response to war games being held by the U.S. and South Korea. The U.S. President has just announced that his military planners have suggested two possible responses to N.K. nuclear provocations. The first option would be to move U.S. nuclear weapons into S.K. in defiance of the U.S. stated goal of having a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. Any nuclear detonation on the peninsula would be disastrous. Citizens of both Koreas would be affected and millions of refugees would flood across the N.K. border with China which would not be able to cope with them. Millions would die of starvation and radiation poisoning. This humanitarian crisis would impact the entire world.
(Please read Part Two)
Doomsday Clock at two and a half minutes to midnight:
