SAFER WORLD? STOP NUCLEAR WEAPONS NOW !

BY
CLETUS A. LANSHIMA
 WHAT MAKES A SAFER WORLD?
MAN : Minimal or absence of: Physical, Psychological, and Emotional harm.
NATURAL RESOURCES: Minimal or no harm/pollution/destruction of: Air, Water, Soil,
Animals and Ozone layer.
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: Minimal or no pollution/destruction of: Wilderness,
Oceans, Rivers, and Deserts.

 HOW SAFE IS THE WORLD?

To answer this IMPORTANT question, we need to take a look at these ten Cases.
CASE 1
TERRORISM: McLaughlin and Muncie (2009) in the Sage Dictionary of Criminology
defined terrorism as “ an essentially pre-meditated political act, with the intention
to inflict serious injury on the civilian population and to influence government
policy by creating an atmosphere of fear and threat, generally for a political,
religious or ideological cause’’
The 21st century, now in its second decade has witnessed an increase in the
number of terrorist groups and terrorist activities. Unfortunately, these terror
groups now have cells, chains, and networks in all habitable regions of the world.
• TERRORIST GROUPS
1. Al-Qaeda – Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, cells/chains and networks in Europe,
Africa, Asia, North America.
2. Aleph (Old name: Aum Shinrikyo) – Japan
3. Al-Shabaab – Somalia, Kenya.
4. Ansar al-Islam – Northern Iraq.
5. Aryan Nations – Active in the United States with Hq in Hayden Lake, Idaho.
6. Boko Haram - Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon.
7. Christian Identity Movement (CIM) – United States, Australia, Canada.
8. Dutch Jihadis - Netherland, Germany.
9. HAMAS - Isreal.
10 Harakat ul-Mujahedin - Pakistan
11. Hiab-u-Mujahideen - Kashmir, India.
12. Hezbollah - Lebanon, Syria.
13. Islamic State (IS) - Iraq, Syria.
14. Jaish-e-Muhammad - Pakistan.
15 Jemaah al-Islamiya - Indonesia, Southeast Asia.
16. Lashkhar-e-Tayyba - Kashmir, India, Pakistan.
17. Sikh groups: Dashmesh (Active in India, Germany and Canada); Dal Khalsa (Active in
India, Pakistan and Germany); and Babbar Khalsa ( Active in India, Germany and
Canada).
18. The Black Widows (Chyornyye Vdovy in Russia) - Chechnya, Russia.
CASE 2
In 2006, the Blacksmith Institute initiated the first-ever list of
the world’s worst polluted places, those locations, where
pollution severely impacts human health, particularly the health
of children. The list included:
Linfen, China.
Dzerzhinsk, Russia.
Ranipet, India.
Haina, Dominican Republic.
Kabwe, Zambia.
Rudnaya Pristan, Russia.
Norilsk, Russia.
Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan.
La Oroya, Peru.
Chernobyl, Ukraine.
CASE 3
In 2007, Blacksmith Institute estimated that 16 of the 20
most polluted cities in the world are in China.
CASE 4
The detonation of NUCLEAR bombs on the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 has had devastating
effects and serious humanitarian consequences on these
cities. The effects are still there almost 70 years after.
CASE 5
More than 70 % of the world’s uranium is mixed on the
lands of indigenous peoples in Australia. Large volumes of
waste tailings result in long-lasting radioactive and chemical
pollution. No uranium mine anywhere in the world has been
fully cleaned up after mining has finished.
CASE 6
In Canada, mining and logging operations create a major environmental damage,
a process that directly affects the health and well-being of indigenous people
(White, 2008:57).
CASE 7
Cumulative impact of multiple sources of pollution due to high number of
factories in one area (such as places along the US-Mexican border where there are
over 2000 factories).
CASE 8
‘Scorched earths in Norway, defoliated jungles in Vietnam, ignited oil fields in
Kuwait, emptied marshes in Southern Iraq – the environment is often both a
victim and a tool of armed conflict’ (Weinstein, 2005:698).
CASE 9
In the United States, the quest for natural resources imposes specific health and
environmental risks on peoples such as Native Americans who reside near some
of the richest mineral deposits and other natural resources such as uranium and
low-sulphur coal (White, 2008:57).
CASE 10
The Niger-Delta part of Nigeria has suffered serious environmental degradation
(e.g. oil spillage on land & water) due to oil exploration and this has had
devastating humanitarian consequences on the people in that region.
 WHAT IS THE GREATEST DANGER TO WORLD SAFETY IN THE 21ST CENTURY?
Answer = Nuclear Weapons
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Nuclear weapons are WMD that possess enormous destructive power derived from
nuclear fission or combined fission and fussion reactions. Nuclear weapons pose a
threat to environment and human survival. They release vast amounts of energy in the
form of BLAST, HEAT, and RADIATION. These will also trigger agricultural collapse.

Blast – Kills people close to source (ground zero)

 Causes lung injuries
 Ear damage
 Internal bleeding
 People sustain injuries from collapsing buildings and flying objects.

Heat - Everything close to ground zero is vaporized

 Severe burns
 Ignites fires over a large area
 Giant firestorm
 Kills people in underground shelters due to lack of oxygen
 Carbon monoxide poisoning.
Radiation – Releases ionizing radiation – particles and rays given off by
radioactive materials
At High Doses: Kills cells; Damages organs; Causes rapid death
• At Low Doses: Damages cells; Cancer; Genetic damage, Mutation.
• In human beings, it causes: Most types of leukaemia; Blood cancer.
• Solid cancers: thyroid, lung, breast cancers
• Increased rates of leukaemia and thyroid cancer among exposed children
• Increased rates of solid cancers rises after about 10 years
• Increased risk persist throughout one’s life
• Radiation exposure heightens the risk of hereditary effects in future
generations
• Radiation exposure occurs externally (from particles in the air, water, and
soil)
• Radiation exposure occurs internally (from breathing, eating and drinking)
• Many radioisotopes are concentrated in plants and animals, and thus food
chain.
Agricultural Collapse: The smoke and dust from a limited nuclear war would
cause:
• Abrupt drop in global temperatures and rainfall by blocking up to 10% of
sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface.
• Global cooling that would shorten growing seasons, threatening agriculture
worldwide.
• Increases in food prices would make food inaccessible to hundreds of millions
of the poorest people in the world.
• Those malnourished already, just a 10% decline in food consumption would
result in starvation.
• Conflict over scarce resources would be rife.
• If the entire global nuclear arsenal were used, 150 million tonnes of smoke
would be emitted into the stratosphere, resulting in a 45% global reduction in
rainfall and average surface cooling of -7 to -8 oC
• . By comparison, the global average cooling at the depth of the last ice age
more than 18,000 years ago was -5 oC.
• Prolonged and severe depletion of the ozone layer and have a devastating
impact on human and animal health.
• Substantial increases in ultraviolet radiation that will increase skin cancer
rates, crop damage and the destruction of marine life.
• NUCLEAR NATIONS: United States, Russia,
Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, India, France,
China, Britain.
• NATIONS THAT HOST US NUCLEAR WEAPONS:
Belgium, Germany, Italy,
Netherlands,
Turkey.
• OTHER NATIONS IN NUCLEAR ALLIANCES:
Albania, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece,
Hungary, Iceland, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain.
• PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Nine countries today possess well over 19,000

nuclear weapons, around 2,000 of which are
kept on hair-trigger alert – ready for use
within minutes.
• ABOUT PROLIFERATION
 Nuclear weapons proliferation has occurred and is no doubt still
occurring. Although the cost of building a nuclear bomb is still quite
high, ACCESS to nuclear materials and the technological skills to
develop such weapons have become much less restricted (Combs,
2013).
 Backpack nukes and other small-scale tactical nuclear weapons have
made it to the black market in arms sales (Combs, 2013).

• RISK ASSESSMENT: COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF WMD

 The table below is a part of an assessment developed by Leonard Cole,
based on studies produced by the US Congress’ Office of Technology
Assessment, and supported by other literature comparing WMDs.
 The table offers insights into the relative effectiveness of these four
types of weapons, comparing how difficult they are to produce and to
acquire: their cost of production; the difficulty of their delivery or
dispersal; and the “worst-case” scenario of consequences in their use.
The weapons are compared on a scale of 1 to 5 in each category, with
1 denoting “lowest or least” and 5 representing “highest or most”.
 Characteristics of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Biological Chemical Radiological Nuclear

Complexity of Production 2 3 1 5

Cost of Production 2 3 3 5

Difficulty of Acquisition 2 2 2 5

Difficulty of Delivery or Dispersal 1 2 1 4

Worst-Case Consequences 5 4 4 5

SOURCE: Combs (2013).

The comparisons make a strong case, however, for the need to expend considerable efforts to
prepare for, and if possible, prevent terrorist attacks utilizing NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
 THE FEASIBLITY OF NUCLEAR WEAPON USE BY TERRORISTS

• Several types of nuclear weapons may be feasible for use by terrorists in the twenty-first century:

• A small plutonium device requiring at least 2.5 kilograms of plutonium, is constructed with a core
made of a sphere of compacted plutonium oxide crystals in the centre of a large cube of semtex (or
one of the other new, powerful explosives). The bomb, when complete, would weigh about a ton and
would require at least a van or a truck to get it to the target (Combs, 2013).

• A home-produced or stolen nuclear device of moderate size, about 10-15 kilotons, detonated in a
major city would destroy several square miles of territory and cause up to 100,000 casualties (Combs,
2013).

• If terrorists obtained 60 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU), they could make a nuclear
explosive similar to the ‘Little Boy’ atomic bomb that levelled Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World
War II (Glazer and Hippel, 2008).

• A nuclear bomb produced from nuclear waste need not be the best made, or foolproof – it need only
work to some extent, to make the political point of the terrorists.

• If a terrorist group were openly responsible for a bomb, it would have a much greater capacity to
evade reprisal and thus a greater likelihood to use such a weapon, given the chance.
• Osama Bin Laden made clear, his desire for nuclear weapons for use against the United States and its
allies, calling the acquisition of WMDs a religious duty, and referring to the need to inflict a
“Hiroshima” on the United States (Bunn and Wier, 2008).
• Material found in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan proved that the group had
downloaded information on nuclear weapons, including crude designs, and tried
to recruit nuclear weapon scientists to work with them (Combs, 2013).
• Included in the documents acquired by the Times relating to nuclear physics was a
chart depicting a portion of the periodic table of elements dealing solely with
radioactive materials. This portion, according to John Large, a British nuclear
consultant, ‘contained all of the elements needed if one were constructing a dirty
bomb’ (Combs, 2013).
• Clearly, this group at least is strongly motivated to acquire and use nuclear
weapons in terrorist attacks today (Combs, 2013).
• The black market for weapons has had, since the demise of the Soviet Union,
incidents in which small, backpack nuclear devices, and even devices as small as
landmines, were for sale (Combs, 2013).
• ‘…leaders of International Community have expressed their concern about the
possibility of a group engaged in terrorism or a “rogue state” acquiring such fully
manufactured devices (Combs, 2013).
• The number of potential supplies of nuclear weapons technology continues to
expand. Countries such as North Korea, once dependent on external help from
other nations in crafting a nuclear weapons program, enjoy a vigorous missile-and
technology-export business with a number of Middle Eastern countries, including
Iran, Pakistan, and Syria (Combs, 2013).
 CONCLUSION
• The catastrophic humanitarian impact of nuclear
weapons cannot be overemphasized. It is therefore
important to understand that we live in danger. But
most importantly, we need to put in place a powerful
legal ban on nuclear weapons. The most effective,
expeditious and practical way to achieve and sustain
the abolition of nuclear weapons would be to
negotiate a comprehensive, irreversible, binding,
verifiable treaty – a global nuclear disarmament treaty
(GND-TREATY). It is the only way to make our world
safer.
THANK YOU.