Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky recently said in a video that he wants NATO to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against Russia, if at all the coalition wants to deter Putin’s forces. As per Zelensky, a preemptive nuclear strike by NATO will eliminate the possibility of a Russian nuclear attack against Ukraine.
NEW – Ukraine's Zelensky calls on NATO to launch "preemptive strikes" against Russia to "eliminate the possibility" of a Russian nuclear strike.pic.twitter.com/gj6mSRZfFF
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) October 6, 2022
Before Zelensky, the Russian government has already used the N-word in the context of NATO and Ukraine. Back on the Indian subcontinent, our belligerent neighbour uses the N-word rather frequently. Pakistani politicians love to casually throw around the fact that they have nuclear weapons and they would love to deploy them against India. There is a chubby, eccentric dictator sitting in North Korea practically on a pile of Nuclear weapons (thanks to Pakistan), and he keeps threatening to throw them at his neighbours too.
All in all, the world seems to be so accustomed to casual mentions of the words nuclear strike, nuclear bombs, ballistic missiles etc that it seems to have almost forgotten that when the last time nuclear bombs were actually used in war, two cities in Japan were flattened in a matter of seconds. 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and 74,000 people died in Nagasaki, and here we are talking about the immediate death numbers. For decades after, people in those areas suffered the ills of radiation exposure. Leukaemia, breast, lung and thyroid cancer kept affecting the survivors for decades. Deformed children were born to women for years. So much so that there is a Japanese word for people affected by radiation, ‘Hibakusha’.
Little Boy and Fat Man, the 2 bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, are rather puny compared to the doomsday bombs of today. Visual Capitalist had done a comparison for easy understanding.
Compared to the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which produced energy equivalent to only 15 and 21 Kilo Tons of TNT, today’s hydrogen bombs contain far more destructive power. USA’s Castle Bravo is 1000 times more destructive than Little Boy, and Russia’s Tsar Bomba is more than 3 times more destructive than Castle Bravo.
What happens after the bombs are dropped?
Modern hydrogen bombs employ a combination of fusion and fission reactions, generating far more energy than atomic bombs that work by employing just fission reactions.
As per reports, modern hydrogen bombs can trigger fusion and fission reactions that will instantly elevate the temperature of their blast radius to the equivalent of that at the centre of the sun. At ground zero, this will mean instant death. Anyone on the ‘ground zero’ will be dead instantly before they even realise anything. Air bombs are said to have a larger blast radius than ground bombs.
Fireball, then shockwave
The blast generates energy that flattens buildings and infrastructure for miles around, and that happens within seconds too, not giving people any time to react. Falling debris can kill millions of people if the target of the weapon is a large city. Within a radius of a few miles, everything is flattened and burned. As the blast energy rises upwards, planes can fall off the sky too.
As roads are blasted away, railway tracks are uprooted and communication is incinerated, this makes it impossible for any aid to reach the areas. Moreover, any persons luckily alive from the immediate aftermath of the blast will be covered in radioactive dust, needing decontamination. The shockwave is so intense that it can cause lung damage, ear damage and internal bleeding in areas outside the immediate blast zone. Even the people hiding in bomb shelters may die of suffocation because lack of oxygen and CO poisoning, says ICAN.
Radioactive fallout
After the incineration, comes the more sinister ‘radioactive fallout’. The energy released by the bomb blasts radioactive material far away and upwards. The modern N weapons are capable of blasting radioactive material up into the stratosphere. People who are in the nearby areas, again we are talking millions when the target is a large city, will suffer radiation poisoning and may die within weeks. Any survivors will be at risk of cancer all their lives.
Nuclear winter and climate catastrophe
ICAN also says that the use of even less than 1% of the current global nuclear arsenal will likely trigger global level climate disruptions. A report published by The Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists says that even just 50 bombs the size of Fat Boy can usher in conditions worse than the ‘Little Ice Age’, a period roughly between 1300 and 1850 where average global temperature fell by 3.6 degrees F, destroying crops, causing famines and facilitating plagues.
Who owns how much
Approximately 90% of the global nuclear arsenal lies with Russia and the USA, around 5000 warheads each, as per FAS data. India and Pakistan have 160-165 warheads each. China, The UK, North Korea, France and Israel own the rest.
Why nuclear weapons?
When USA detonated the first bomb, it proved to the world that it now possess the power to bring an unfathomable level of destruction on its enemy, triggering an arms race in the world where powerful nations realised that the only thing that will deter an attack by a nuclear weapon is, a nuclear weapon. The use of nuclear weapons lies in them not being used. As the devastation of 1945 is now a minor example of what could happen now, in case of a nuclear war, the threat hanging in the air is what keeps nations from resorting to fire their warheads. India’s arsenal is what ensures its safety in a hostile neighbourhood with China and Pakistan on either sides.
North Korea manages to keep its neighbours on their toes and sends a silent message to USA that if it tries to interfere, things can go very bad for South Korea. Basically it is a situation where a group of powerful bullies point powerful guns at each other and carry on trade and diplomacy knowing very well that any one of them pulling the trigger may kill them all.
Nuclear power: God’s power in human hand
Nuclear power is immense. As all things great, it can either bring massive catastrophe or can be used responsibly to benefit humankind in countless ways. Research shows that a single 1-inch pellet of Uranium can produce energy equivalent to 1 ton of coal or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, or 149 gallons of oil.
A uranium fuel pellet, roughly the size of your finger tip, creates as much energy as one ton of coal or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. pic.twitter.com/BgM6ZF5xwt
— U.S. Department of Energy (@ENERGY) July 25, 2020
Nuclear power can be our path to prosperity, and answer to global climate change, because it can be a reliable source of energy for hundreds of years to come. The same power, when made into weapons of mass destruction instead of energy generating reactors, can annihilate us all in a mushroom cloud.
As conflicts rage across the world for politics interests of a few entities, nations need to realise that we are basically sitting on a pile of explosives. As PM Modi recently told to Putin, this is not the age of war. May the leaders who hold political power to take decisions realise the weight of their words and choose diplomacy, dialogues and cooperation instead of threatening to blow everything up.
