Kendall Stanley: The threat continues
The movie “Oppenheimer” flings you back in time to the development of the atomic bomb, used twice on Japan and marking the start of the nuclear age. And the specter of the ongoing nuclear menace.
Once out of the lamp, the evil genie has spread around the world.
The New York Times is looking at the nuclear age and how scary the future looks.
As Times editorial page editor Kathleen Kingsbury explained it, “The threat of nuclear war has dangled over humankind for much too long. We have survived so far through luck and brinkmanship. But the old, limited safeguards that kept the Cold War cold are long gone. Nuclear powers are becoming more numerous and less cautious. We’ve condemned another generation to live on a planet that is one grave act of hubris or human error away from destruction without demanding any action from our leaders. That must change.”
Nuclear warfare was once a bilateral affair — we had our nukes, the Soviet Union had theirs. We finally arrived at a state called mutually assured destruction — no one would use the nuclear weapons because we each had enough warheads to incinerate the entire world. It worked, as I’m still able to compose this and you are capable of reading it.
And yet, even with the knowledge that nuclear proliferation was unwise, other countries jumped into the nuclear realm.
The nuclear “club” as it is called now includes the U.S. and Russia, India and Pakistan, China and North Korea, Israel and France and Great Britain and South Africa.
No one knows the thoughts of the North Koreans. Russia’s Putin has suggested Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and India and Pakistan saber-rattle on occasion with their stockpiles. Others – Poland, Japan and Saudi Arabia – have also wondered if they should join the club.
Just what we need, more countries with nuclear weapons.
Times opinion writer W.J. Hennigan wrote about how the world has come closer to the nuclear brink. While a nuclear confrontation seems unimaginable, Hennigan said the opposite is true, it is not imagined enough.
And countries are beginning consider how to deal with a nuclear incident. Hennigan notes, “If it seems alarmist to anticipate the horrifying aftermath of a nuclear attack, consider this: The United States and Ukraine governments have been planning for this scenario for at least two years.
“In the fall of 2022, a U.S. intelligence assessment put the odds at 50-50 that Russia would launch a nuclear strike to halt Ukrainian forces if they breached its defense of Crimea. Preparing for the worst, American officials rushed supplies to Europe. Ukraine has set up hundreds of radiation detectors around cities and power plants, along with more than 1,000 smaller hand-held monitors sent by the United States.
“Nearly 200 hospitals in Ukraine have been identified as go-to facilities in the event of a nuclear attack. Thousands of doctors, nurses and other workers have been trained on how to respond and treat radiation exposure. And millions of potassium iodide tablets, which protect the thyroid from picking up radioactive material linked with cancer, are stockpiled around the country.
“But well before that — just four days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, in fact — the Biden administration had directed a small group of experts and strategists, a “Tiger Team,” to devise a new nuclear “playbook” of contingency plans and responses. Pulling in experts from the intelligence, military and policy fields, they pored over years-old emergency preparedness plans, weapon-effects modeling and escalation scenarios, dusting off materials that in the age of counterterrorism and cyberwarfare were long believed to have faded into irrelevance.”
If that doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you there are few things in life that could be more apocalyptic.
Hennigan went on to describe what would happen if a nuclear weapon was detonated. You can find it on The New York Times.
It is a gruesome reminder of the incredible power a nuclear weapon can unleash.
If you want another take, read “Hiroshima” by John Hersey.
Suffice it to say, with modern nuclear weapons, nothing survives.
We have apparently not learned a thing about nuclear annihilation over the past 79 years. One could argue the morality of using nuclear weapons to end World War II but once used the technology was there and there was no way to unlearn it.
As part of their look at nukes nowadays, the Times also wrote a story that not only gives you pause but can stop you dead in your tracks — there is one and only one person responsible for launching nuclear missiles and weapons.
One. The president of the United States.
Not the military. Not Congress. Not the Department of Defense.
No, just the president.
And given the speed of current missiles, the president would have about 15 minutes to decide a course of action.
Told you it would stop you dead in your tracks.
Go out to The New York Times to read their take on Confronting a New Nuclear Age.
In Oppenheimer’s time he wondered if the world would end after the nuclear test. It didn’t but that’s little solace now.
— Kendall P. Stanley is retired editor of the News-Review. He can be contacted at kendallstanley@charter.net. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily of the Petoskey News-Review or its employees.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Kendall Stanley: The threat continues
