Nuclear proliferation and nuclear responsibility…
Nuclear technology is with us to stay…well, as long as we don’t destroy the Earth! On one hand, we have the frightening scenario of a nuclear exchange; on the other, we have the possibility that nuclear power plants can contribute as alternate energy sources. Somewhere between these polar opposites, one finds nuclear medicine. I’m a person that believes that nuclear technology is not inherently good or bad, but human scientists and engineers who handle it need to ensure its safety. More than most technologies, human error can have devastating consequences.
The reactor problem in Japan is one egregious example. That region might require millennia to recover. The same can be said for Chernobyl. Estimates are all over the board. Both cases are examples of human complacency, stupidity, and terrible miscalculations. For Japan’s case, one can ask: Who would build a reactor close to a fault line? We do! California is one of the most active earthquake areas in the world, yet there are reactors on the California coast. The one on the Hudson in New York State only seemed to have the problem that the river provides an easy access. I rode by it on a tour to West Point—I didn’t see any special security arrangements. Moreover, an earthquake did occur not long ago. I was writing when the room started swaying and felt like I had returned to my youth in Santa Barbara.
There are old reactors and new reactors. The latter are deemed safer. I hope so. We want them strong enough to survive earthquakes and tsunamis. We also want them to be impervious to terrorist attacks. I’d make them so impervious that terrorists would choose other targets (chemical storage tanks, cruise ships, the Meadowlands at Super Bowl time?). And then there’s the question of the nuclear waste. What do we do with it? Where should it be stored? That lasts a long time.
Even nuclear medicine has nuclear waste. In The Midas Bomb, I contemplate a dirty bomb, one that would spread radioactive waste around an area in a city with conventional explosives. Terror can be achieved without much devastation. A recent case in Mexico shows how a little ignorance can go a long way, even by accident. Radioactive waste has WMD potential in the evil minds of terrorists. Handling it is just as safe as materials used in making chemical WMDs.
Real nukes are different. They’re not so simple to prepare, maintain, or detonate. But the proliferation of these weapons among unstable countries—China, North Korea, Pakistan, India, and even Israel—produces situations where terrorists can acquire bombs and the technicians necessary to explode them. Imagine the Taliban controlling Pakistan’s nukes or a far right-wing Israeli group stealing a few weapons. You can even imagine it happening in the U.S.!
Recently, various incidents have occurred where USAF personnel, ones responsible for the nation’s nukes, have made serious mistakes that compromise the nation’s nuclear arsenal. This brings me to nuclear responsibility. This is key for nuclear weapons, obviously. The best way to control the irresponsible handling of nukes is to eliminate them. That’s hard to do among the nuclear children (the countries I’ve named) when the nuclear grownups (Russia, the U.S., and NATO countries) haven’t done so. As a matter of national pride, countries strive to have their own nuclear arsenal (Pakistan and India are two such countries in conflict, and Iran is on its way there), so that more nuclear weapons are created as others are destroyed.
Rogue nations and terrorist groups can take short cuts to possessing a nuclear arsenal by stealing them. Stockpiles exist that aren’t very well guarded although the number, age, and location of these weapons are generally classified. My new novel, Aristocrats and Assassins, looks into some of the scary possibilities. Again, the more countries that have their own arsenal, the more personnel available to these nations and groups to arm and detonate such weapons, even if they are old and semi-mothballed. Because we live in a world where the detonation of just one weapon by a terrorist group is considered a major coup, there is no room for error, yet we seem to bury our heads in the sand.
In an uncertain future, nuclear weapons don’t make sense. In Soldiers of God (soon to have an ebook second edition), Colombia and Venezuela haggle over oil rights in the plains area on the border of the two countries. Negotiations go to hell and a nuclear exchange occurs. Sci-fi? Farfetched? Yes and maybe. I create in this novel that bridges between “The Clones and Mutants Series” and “The Chaos Chronicles” a world where China’s model of fascist-capitalism becomes prevalent in what we now call the Third World. Paranoid psychos who mimic China’s current leaders would have many reasons to develop a nuclear arsenal. And it will only become easier with time.
The nuclear grownups, especially the U.S., Russia, and NATO, should lead the way in nuclear disarmament. As Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed, having those deadly weapons around creates the temptation to use them. From a Pentagon point of view, even tactical nukes are efficient. We tend to consider them simple deterrents, but they’re far from simple. Moreover, they distract from the possible positive uses of nuclear technology. Decreased nuclear proliferation and increased nuclear responsibility must be achieved before we can morph nuclear technology into something that leads human beings to a bright future instead of the dark one of Armageddon.
And so it goes….
