The increased risk of nuclear war was the sobering conclusion of remarks at a January 24 Global Minnesota event by Tom Hanson, the Diplomat in Residence at the Alworth Institute for International Affairs at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and a retired Foreign Service Officer.[1]
According to Hanson, we are now engaged in a extremely dangerous new arms race with a high risk of nuclear war. The U.S. is developing what it calls the Prompt Global Strike (PGS), which is a hypersonic, precision-guided, controllable-yield nuclear missile that can be delivered anywhere in the world within one hour.[2]
Moreover, just this past December, the U.S. confirmed that Russia has developed an undersea drone that can carry an enormous nuclear warhead that is capable of traveling underwater at speeds up to 56 knots to distances of to 6,200 miles and of submerging to depths of 3,280 feet. Russia calls the system “Ocean Multipurpose System ‘Status-6.” [3]
Others have sounded this alarm.
William J. Perry, U.S. Secretary of Defense (1994-97), last July said, “Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.” One of the many reasons for his assessment is both the U.S. and Russia are enhancing their existing nuclear arsenal and developing long-range cruise missiles that can be armed with conventional or nuclear warheads.[4]
General Sir Richard Shirreff, who served as Nato’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe between 2011 and 2014, said that an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – all Nato members – was a serious possibility and that the West should act now to avert “potential catastrophe”.[5]
On January 26, 2017, the Union of Nuclear Scientists advanced its doomsday clock 30 seconds to make it only 2.5 minutes to midnight, the closest it has been to that fateful hour since 1953. Two of the group’s officials said, “In 2016, the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come to grips with humanity’s most pressing threats: nuclear weapons and climate change.”[6]
“Making matters worse,” they said, “the [U.S.] now has a president who has promised to impede progress on both of those fronts. . . . Mr. Trump’s statements and actions have been unsettling. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding and even deploying the American nuclear arsenal. He has expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus on global warming. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or reject expert advice related to international security.”
Other reasons for the change in the clock are the following:
- “North Korea’s continuing nuclear weapons development, the steady march of arsenal modernization programs in the nuclear weapon states, simmering tension between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, and stagnation in arms control.”
- More specifically, “Russia is building new silo-based missiles, the new Borei class of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and new rail-mobile missiles as it revamps other intercontinental ballistic missiles. The [U.S.] is moving ahead with plans to modernize each part of its triad (bombers, land-based missiles and missile carrying submarines), adding capabilities, such as cruise missiles with increased ranges.”
- “Doubt over the future of the Iran nuclear deal . . . in the Trump administration.”
- “Deteriorating relations between the [U.S.] and Russia, which possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.”
Conclusion
I was unaware of these recent technological reasons to be more fearful of a nuclear war. But I share the Union of Nuclear Scientists’ concern about Donald Trump’s having his finder on the nuclear button. As expressed in other posts, I believe that he is so uninformed about so many issues and so temperamentally impulsive and insecure that he could push the nuclear trigger at the slightest perceived personal or national insult.[7]
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[1] Hanson’s analysis of the world order will be covered in a subsequent post.
[2] Prompt Global Strike, Wikipedia; Cong. Research Service, Conventional Prompt Global Strike and Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues (Feb. 24, 2016).
[3] Mizokami, Pentagon Confirms Russia Has a Submarine Nuke Delivery Drone, Pop Mech. (Dec. 8, 2016); Gertz, Russia has tested a nuclear-capable drone sub that could pose a strategic threat to US, Bus. Insider (Dec. 8, 2016).
[4] Hallin, The World, at the Brink of Nuclear War: “It is Only by Chance that the World has Avoided a Nuclear War,” Global Research (July 27, 2016).
[5] Cooper, Nato risks nuclear war with Russia ‘within a year,’ warns senior general, Independent (May 18, 2016).
[6] Krauss & Titley, Thanks to Trump, The Doomsday Clock Advances Toward Midnight, N.Y. Times (Jan. 26, 2017).
[7] Why Is Donald Trump Disparaging the Intelligence Community?, dwkcommentaries.com (Jan. 9, 2017); Comment: Other Observers Identify Trump’s Character Flaw, dwkcommenataries.com (Jan. 9, 2017); Comment: Another Columnist Nails Trump’s Character, dwkcommentaries.com (Jan. 10, 2017); Conservative Columnist George Will Condemns Donald Trump, dwkcommentaries.com (Aug. 8, 2016). Now New York Times’ columnist Charles Blow makes this explicit by calling Trump a compulsive liar: Blow, A Lie by Any Other Name, N.Y. Times (Jan. 26, 2017).
