Marching Toward the Mushroom Cloud
On the origins of the end and how our blind spots could take us there
At present, nine nation states hold nuclear weapons technology and the ability to facilitate their use. There are approximately 15,000 nuclear warheads throughout the world and between 9,000-10,000 of these are held by the United States and Russia.
While stockpiles have fallen since the cold war era highs where upwards of 75,000 nuclear weapons existed, changing factors including weapons technology and accessibility, vertical proliferation, and political and social unrest have all worked to increase the chances of the weaponry being deployed either accidentally or with intent. The nature of this risk and our inability to erect meaningful safeguards against it are two present day ethical and political blind spots deserving of more attention.
A broad view on the topic of nuclear risk may best start with a nod to the nature of the technology itself. The origin story is remarkable. From uncovering the power associated with the human manipulation of godly subatomic particles, to Einstein’s warning letter to Roosevelt, to Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project, the plot could be the stuff of science fiction in some parallel universe. The potential destructive power of these weapons, particularly in their present form, can be hard to contemplate. Let us try for a moment.
Nuclear weapons are measured in TNT equivalents to standardize and compare their relative strength and destructive capacity. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima registered at 15 kiloton equivalents. Following its detonation nearly 600 meters above the ground (a strategy used to maximize the bomb’s impact), 75,000 people were killed by the primary blast and subsequent firestorms and another 70,000 were injured. In a sinister twist of fate, after being dropped, the bomb veered off course from its original target due to wind, and detonated over a surgical clinic instead of a bridge nearly 250 meters away. As a result of the bombing, over 90% of doctors and nurses in the city were killed.
The bomb used in Nagasaki clocked in at around 21 kiloton equivalents. Despite being a larger bomb than the one deployed in Hiroshima, its impacts are thought to have been mitigated in part due to the local mountainous range, thought to have insulated many from the blast. Estimates vary but some 40,000 people are likely to have been killed as a result of the attack. That low estimate is roughly 13 times the number of people killed on 9/11. One report characterized the impacts of the bombing in stark terms, commenting on the state of Nagasaki: "like a graveyard with not a tombstone standing."
These bombings mark the first and only time weapons of this caliber have been deliberately used against human populations. While their impacts were devastating, they represent the modest end of the spectrum with regards to the size and destructive capacity nuclear states have today.
The largest documented nuclear detonation happened in late October 1961 when the Russians tested Tsar Bomba (Russian for “King of Bombs”). Tsar Bomba came in at a staggering 50, 000 kiloton equivalents; this is a bomb approximately 3,300 times more powerful than the one dropped in Hiroshima. Following its detonation, Tsar Bomba destroyed a village nearly 60 kilometers away. The blast radius is terrifying after considering what detonation of such a bomb would look like in downtown Manhattan or Toronto or London.
The remarkability of the scientific feat associated with the discovery of nuclear fission technology and its practical application was pronounced. Uncovering one of the fundamental keys to fundamental matter came with excitement but also with fear. On the one hand lie the potential outcomes for unlimited renewable energy and all that would portend for humanity. On the other hand rested the horrors realized in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the thought of this capability reaching the poor-intentioned among us.
On the point of potential horrors, when it comes to mitigating the odds of nuclear war, certain principles have done the heavy lifting since the inception of the bomb some 77 years ago. The theory of mutually assured destruction provides an incentive structure against use for those states holding the weaponry. In addition to this flavor of game theory, policy work aimed at halting nuclear proliferation, or the number of state actors with weapons, has remained a priority to many in powerful decision making roles around the world. These measures rely on rationality and error-free systems but these variables are not constants in the world we live in today.
Even if complete mitigation of risk and error is unlikely, there are changes worth chasing in this arena. Along these lines, the American nuclear deployment structure should itself be reconsidered. America relies on a triad of nuclear weapons that can be deployed from the land, air, and sea. When it comes to strategic realities, it is the land-based ICBM installations that pose the most risk.
For one, they are installed in locations on the ground and so are higher value targets from the point of view of any willing adversary. Under the right circumstances and under the duress or war or miscommunication or error, some of these adversaries could become trigger happy. The land-based installations may at some point become too attractive of a target to resist.
Land based ICBMs also pose poor risk ratios for decision makers in America. Consider an alert being raised indicating that a large-scale nuclear attack on the continental United States was underway. In this situation, enemy combatants would be extremely likely to begin by targeting our known nuclear installations on the ground. In turn, a President would have mere minutes to analyze the situation and decide whether to launch the ICBMs before losing them outright.
The problem with this system is that intelligence is remarkably unreliable and often speculative in nature. There are well-documented accounts of close calls with respect to the deployment of nuclear weapons based on faulty intelligence and technology.
The account above is not merely hypothetical. At one point during the cold war a member of a North American defense command team received computerized notification that 200 ICBMs were being launched at the United States by the Soviet Union. The message was reiterated to the President’s National Security Advisor before officials realized the computer had reported the incoming missiles in error. The advisor was minutes from waking the President who would then have had to decide on a response.
In another example of a bizarre but consequential close call, a suspected intruder was visualized climbing a fence at a military installation in America. A worker at the installation activated an emergency response system but accidentally initiated the wrong response key which then activated nuclear-armed military aircraft. It would later turn out that the intruder at the gate was in fact a bear wandering around the area’s perimeter.
Given the issues with our nuclear infrastructure and security, as demonstrated by these terrifying examples, as well as other concerns around cyber security, artificial intelligence, and arrogant and irrational human intelligence, we face exceptional levels of risk we seem unwilling to acknowledge.
On this point, former US Defense Secretary William J. Perry has transitioned into a beacon for education, and he has chosen to do so in the twilight of his life. It is his belief that we are in fact living in the riskiest period of time we have ever lived through with respect to the nuclear threat.
And it is not just Perry who is concerned. The ‘doomsday clock’ , a theoretical risk tool developed in response to the first bomb’s construction, uses time to midnight as a proxy for how close we are to destroying our own world.
Given our current political norms, the lack of technological safeguards, the haphazard policies nuclear nations have erected, and other variables, the clock now sits at 100 seconds to midnight. This represents the greatest level of threat it has recorded since its inception in 1947. When you look around in society at this moment, it is hard to see any tangible or rational reaction to the nature of the threat as quantified by the experts who study it.
The state of affairs at present is bleak to be sure. At the same time we must acknowledge the appreciable changes we have made towards mitigating risk. For example, we have made strides in decreasing the odds of nuclear terrorism, an idea Perry himself has conceptualized as his nuclear nightmare. Under the Obama administration, gains were happily made in securing fissile material stockpiles around the world. When it comes to the risk of non-state actors using nuclear weaponry, this work matters.
We have also made progress in diplomacy and the history of the START treaties is an advance worth reflecting positively on. The new START treaty between Russia and America, purposed to decrease the number of strategic weapons in play, in addition to implementing tighter inspection and oversight regimes, extends through 2026.
Given the current and shifting geopolitical landscape we find ourselves in with Russia, a new deal seems unlikely at the moment. But despite concerns around START’s future, and its limitation in reducing overall risk per se, it still serves as a notable example of our ability to have meaningful dialogue and advance collective interests, even with our adversaries.
Despite some good intentions on the part of those in high offices around the world, nuclear weapons risk is something the public is not focused on. In a mind-bending way we are collectively stumbling towards potential catastrophe and seem almost anesthetized to its implications. One interesting reason for this may simply be the times. In the cold war, the culture was saturated with nuclear-related propaganda. Schools completed drills on nuclear strike response, television and cinema gravitated towards doomsday scenarios, and the geopolitics of nuclear war and negotiation dominated media headlines and the public conscience.
But in the intermittent decades, our attention has shifted, and it has dispersed. A new generation of citizens is moving towards the power mantel in society but has not lived through the torment of a more mainstream and accessible nuclear threat. The lack of media and public attention to the issue is illusory to some degree given what many experts believe about risk and how it has actually worsened over time despite our public disinterest.
In the end, not all existential risks are created equal and when it comes to nuclear risk, perhaps more than any other threat our species faces, the common denominator is cemented in the complex dynamics of human behavior.
The problem, as highlighted above, is perhaps best viewed as one of inattentiveness. A rational person faced with the facts of nuclear risk would concede the issue and move to take it more seriously. But inattentiveness reigns supreme when it comes to causes that are not immediately front and center or interacting with the day to day of existence. We have lived for decades through the risk we have created, and this has delivered us a level of confidence we have no business claiming or celebrating.
Solutions to the inattentiveness problem can be discovered. Exposing the broader public to the issue, and the facts as they exist, will not necessarily lead to large scale reductions in risk but such exposure and education is likely necessary in order for large scale risk reduction to occur.
There are many debates we must have on topics related to nuclear first strike policy, the nature of presidential sole authority, and the degree to which we invest in deterrence and security. In order to make tangible progress here and connect it with risk reduction, we are going to need an informed and invested public.
At the end of the day, the future really is up to conscious and organized people. Some estimate that trillions of human beings are still yet to be born and the assumptions needed to reach projections of this kind are hardly unreasonable.
If we claim to care about those who will come after us, the ethical imperative to tread carefully when it comes to the monsters we create, whether biological or nuclear in nature, is paramount.
Let us hope we wake up and reverse the direction of our march toward the mushroom cloud. And let us hope we redirect our gaze toward rationality.