Many Here Among Us Think Nuclear War Is but a Joke

Many Here Among Us Think Nuclear War Is but a Joke

by Kary Love

?886 words

Too many are copacetic about nuclear weapons. That nukes have not been used since Nagasaki leads them to conclude their use is so insane they will not be used, so everything is fine. The reality is far different, and the India-Pakistan conflict may lead to the first use since Nagasaki for a simple reason: Pakistan has a declared policy of “use ‘em rather than lose ‘em” and India’s conventional military superiority could give Pakistan as few as five minutes to launch or lose their “nuclear umbrella.” During the fog of war the potential for error is great.

A detailed study of potential nuke conflicts including Pakistan-India concludes the fact India did not cross line of control (LoC) in their last war enabled Pakistan to avoid using its nukes: however, should that factor not be present, Pakistan has a use or lose problem. Analysts Mark Bell and Julia MacDonald write:

“The key danger of nuclear use was seen by participants on both sides to be Pakistan’s deliberate first use rather than uncontrolled or unauthorized nuclear use. As mentioned above, a key dynamic of the conflict was India ensuring that its forces did not cross the LoC to avoid provoking Pakistan’s deliberate first use of nuclear weapons. ” 

Some take comfort from the fact India and Pakistan “only” have about 170 nuclear weapons each. Others rely on movie portrayals where nukes are used for “good” and the heroes and all the world survives and moves on to more shopping. These erroneous perceptions, divorced from reality, are feeble reeds upon which to gamble the future of humanity.

The reality is that even a partial exchange of nuclear detonations by India and Pakistan would be devastating, a full exchange would alter the human world. In addition to the initial detonation of a “mini-sun” at the location of use, cooking many in the blast zone, the spread of deadly radiation would be swept up into the atmosphere and spread the poison around the world causing disease for decades. A potential exists for a “nuclear winter” effect where crop production decrease alone could contribute to starvation not only locally but across the Mideast and South Asia. Should a full nuclear exchange occur the negative consequences are magnified worldwide.

The foregoing assumes the conflict would be contained locally, but that is no guarantee as China is allied with Pakistan and India with Russia, raising questions such as, should the allies take advantage of any war to advance their interests in the region or to gain leverage over their neighbor going forward? Even if China or Russia are not drawn into the conflict openly, they are unlikely to avoid using openings that result to their perceived advantage—their uneasy relations and proximity augur in favor of exploitation. Any such exploitation increases the potential for the war to spread.

Imaging the fallout of a nuclear war between Pakistan and India invites too many horrors to contemplate. Their region, already war torn, is likely to convulse further with increased human suffering there. Equally concerning is the elimination of the frayed international consensus that nuclear weapons use is forbidden. Once breached, who can say what follows?

Recent warlike proclamations from India and Pakistan give additional reason for concern. The current unraveling of International Law and the UN add to the concern. The failure of the US to lead on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and in fact to take the lead in deploying “more and more useable” nuclear weapons leads in the wrong direction. The frail legal framework internationally is mirrored by the decline of the rule of law domestically in the United States. Together these trends weaken any legal impediment to use of nuclear weapons, where previously heads of states using same, and their enablers, would have feared war crimes trials and possibly execution and imprisonment, but immunity and impunity to law is now proclaimed by many “statesmen.”

One can hope that the trend towards outlawism can be reversed in the face of this threat and that statesmen will awaken and come forward to demand implementation of the NPT.

With 191 States parties, it is the most widely adhered to treaty in the field of nuclear non-proliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and nuclear disarmament. Under the NPT, non-nuclear-weapon States parties have committed themselves not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices while nuclear-weapon States parties have committed not to in any way assist, encourage or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State party to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

The NPT represents the only binding commitment in a treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States. Opened for signature in 1968, the Treaty entered into force, thus becoming domestic U.S. law, in 1970. Under the US Constitution such a treaty is part of the “supreme law of the land.” On 11 May 1995, the Treaty was extended indefinitely.

Perhaps it is ironic that the threat of nuclear war could energize the American people to demand its leaders live up to their duty to enforce, rather than disregard, the Constitution, treaty and laws, and reverse the decay now manifest against the “rule of law.” The law may be imperfect, it may be weak, but it is vastly preferable to nuclear war. And that is no joke.

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Kary Love, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Michigan attorney who has defended nuclear resisters in court for decades.