“We all know that the atomic bomb is very dangerous; since it could be used against us, we should be ready for it! Remember to duck and cover, kids. Duck and cover like your pal Bert the Turtle and you’ll be safe!”
This is an extract from a 1951 civil defence film. The film featured “Bert the Turtle” — a shy, anthropomorphic reptile — and a softly spoken but unmistakably American narrator. It gave safety instructions to school children about what to do in the aftermath of an atomic explosion. Films like this were shown across the world, New Zealand included. Your grandparents probably saw one. They probably mimicked Bert’s “duck and cover” in the same way we practise fire drills.
Today, turtles like Bert have no place in New Zealand schools. Since David Lange’s famous “uranium breath” quip at the Oxford Union in 1985, Kiwis have put the nuclear issue in the country’s “problem solved” box. Nukes are wrong, anyone who can’t see that is a fool and it’s just a matter of time before the rest of the world realises this and gives them up. These words are pretty much gospel from the Cape to Bluff.
Unfortunately, nearly a century after one of our own first split the atom, New Zealanders are living in a bubble. For the rest of the world, the nuclear issue is far from solved. In this article, I offer a glimpse into the horrifying nuclear clusterfuck that faces the planet. This piece is dedicated to anyone who watched The Dictator or The Interview and wondered — even for a second — “what’s really going on with all those bombs?”
So, first things first, an instruction manual for all of you wannabe dictators (I’m looking at you, politics undergraduates). How do you build an atomic bomb?
Nuclear Bomb Recipe
You need two things to build an atomic bomb: radioactive isotopes and a delivery system. Either a bunch of highly enriched uranium isotope 235 or a pinch of the manufactured element plutonium will work. Plutonium doesn’t occur naturally and must be reprocessed from used uranium. But don’t let that put you off — plutonium produces a more powerful chain reaction (the more powerful the reaction, the bigger the bang) and is the most popular road to a bomb. Uranium is pretty ubiquitous. Most nations have at least some naturally occurring uranium ore. New Zealand prospected for it on the West Coast in the 1950s. However, you need highly specialised equipment to extract and enrich the isotopes, and even more is needed to reprocess it into plutonium.
Turning your isotopes into a detonable device is the easier side of the nuclear equation. You can purchase most of the required kit on the legitimate arms market. The Saudis, for example, have plenty. Just grab a few million greenbacks and head down to one of the dozens of yearly arms expos in Abu Dhabi.
With uranium all over the place and weapons systems easy to get hold of, you’d think building a bomb would be a cakewalk. However, plenty of countries have tried and failed. Libyan despot Muammar al-Qaddafi discovered the hurdles of trying to build a bomb when it cost him over $500 million and took 30 years to build a device. In 2001 he turned over to the international community a hodge-podge of bits and pieces. Turns out, Qaddafi had — in nuclear terms — bought the wing mirrors of a Porsche, the keys to a Ferrari, the engine of a Honda and the chassis of a Fiat. He had then asked a team of underpaid, under-qualified scientists to assemble everything.
The assembly problem isn’t unique to Libya. Argentina — on its own nuclear quest — bought the work of a scam artist. An Austrian scientist, Ronald Richter, tricked Argentinian dictator Juan Perón into thinking he knew the secrets of nuclear fusion. The confidence trickster was given the keys to his own island and a generous personal stipend. Yet Richter knew next to nothing about nuclear physics — but he did know how to play on the mind of the Argentinian president. Years later he was unveiled as a fraud.
Finally, in 1993 and to the alarm of the international community, it was discovered that Saddam Hussein had bought a veritable mountain of nuclear kit. Fortunately, he’d set his incompetent (but nasty) security chief to work on the project. Poor management meant that Iraq botched its shot at a bomb.
The State Of Play
The world has more than 16,000 nuclear weapons, so clearly some countries have managed to build a bomb. So far, nine states have nuclear weapons: Israel, India, the US, Russia, Pakistan, North Korea, France, the UK and China.
Aside from the cost, aspirant nuclear states face other challenges. A highly complex web of international regulations aims to reverse the spread of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the keystone. 196 countries are party to the treaty, which pledges to limit proliferation and reduce the number of nuclear weapons. It is the most widely ratified arms control treaty in the world and is often held up as a symbol of international peacebuilding.
So, with such widely recognised international law in place, why are we worried?
Nuclear Terrorism
One of the biggest worries is terrorism. Since 9/11, stopping terrorist nuclear proliferation has been a key foreign policy goal of the US, the UN and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). But, to be honest, they needn’t worry. As we learnt from Qaddafi, Saddam and the Argentinians, it’s hard to build nuclear bombs. If a state with enormous industrial resources can’t construct a bomb, it seems unthinkable that a motley crew of piratical nutjobs could.
Thanks to its highly successful media campaign, IS looks like some new and horrifying beast revelling in its own bloodlust. In reality, IS is best understood as part of a wider pattern of non-state terrorism stretching back thousands of years. Since the 1950s, terrorists and nuclear bombs have coexisted. Terrorists have never managed to construct anything close to a viable atomic weapon. The technology required is prohibitively expensive.
The real concern is not that the IS will build a nuke but that it might either get hold of “loose nukes” or buy them. The nuclear black market became an area of real concern after rogue scientist AQ Khan stole nuclear plans from Europe and sold them to his native Pakistan as well as North Korea, Libya and Iran. The nuclear black market is the focus of intense global intelligence gathering. IS would really struggle to find a seller of nuclear tech today, let alone import and use it. “Loose nukes” are much more worrying. Developing nations struggle to police their nuclear facilities and may be unable to repel a smash-and-grab assault on them. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see IS try something like this on Pakistan’s creaking and bloated nuclear infrastructure. Or perhaps Iran’s …
Iran
If we are to believe the rhetoric of some commentators in the United States, Iran represents the greatest nuclear threat to the world today. Although nuclear weapons are fundamentally incompatible with Muhammed’s core teachings, the Islamic Republic has slowly developed the capability to enrich uranium. On the last count, Iran could enrich to 20 percent, well beyond the 2–3 percent threshold for civilian purposes, but still shy of the 90–95 percent needed for weapons grade. After a horrendous and protracted war with neighboring Iraq from 1980 until 1988, Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini wrote in a private letter that in extremis his country would need to rely on “nuclear or atomic weapons”.
Until recently, Iran’s nuclear weapons intent (or lack thereof) was an international sideshow. Extensive economic sanctions were levelled at the country in the 1980s, and the problem was set aside. A once vibrant economy was ostracised from international markets and experienced hyper-instability domestically. Iran has bottomed out at -10 percent GDP growth four times since 1980, primarily because of international pressure.
A few months ago, however, the stand-off between Iran and the international community began to thaw. In July, the US completed a deal with Iran that — at least rhetorically — forestalls nuclear weapons development by capping uranium enrichment at 20 percent. The deal is set to last 10 years and imposes international inspections and the threat of “snap-back sanctions”.
Given the trials and tribulations of the Iranian nuclear project — particularly the extensive costs — you could well ask what the point was. The answer is fairly simple. The Iranian revolution has never been secure. Domestic dissenters, regional rivalries and international opprobrium beleaguered the Islamic Republic from its inception. George Bush Jnr compounded this when he fingered Iran as a member of the “Axis of Evil”. The US proceeded to chase the Taliban out of Afghanistan, pull down gold statues of Saddam in Baghdad, and abandon Gaddafi to rebel forces. Iran’s clerics must have wondered when their time would come.
Basically, for ageing despots and autocrats who live in palatial opulence and subject their citizens to atrocities intolerable in the twenty-first century, a nuclear bomb is the ace in the hole. The threat of nuclear war is too great a deterrent for the US to attempt a regime change. This is probably the best way to understand Iran’s approach to nuclear weapons — as regime insurance.
Speaking of regime insurance …
North Korea
North Korea is the nation most synonymous with nuclear weapons. More than any other country — Iran included — North Korea (or, more correctly, the Kim dynasty) leans on the bomb for political survival.
North Korea began developing nuclear weapons in the 1980s when its Chinese and Soviet allies turned Janus-faced. The Chinese and Soviets moved closer to South Korea, isolating their belligerent little North Korean brother. After an abortive attempt to bring North Korea back into the global community in 1993, North Korea ratcheted up its nuclear programme. It left the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003. It tested its first nuclear device in 2006. Since then it has increased its plutonium production and its ability to deliver a device. North Korea is estimated to have somewhere between five and 20 nuclear devices.
North Korea’s bombs are part of a concerted strategy of regime insurance. The Kims use the threat of the bomb to keep international busy-bodies away and to symbolise the nation’s strength to its own people. North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is the ultimate propaganda tool. North Korea regularly demands recognition at the highest echelons of international power. It often insists on negotiating bilaterally with the US on nuclear issues. At the same time, the Kims denigrate millions of starved, deluded North Koreans by showing off their nuclear brawn in the streets of Pyongyang.
Nuclear bombs are only part of North Korea’s survival strategy. Stringent sanctions and capital regulations in place since the early 1990s have starved the country of hard currency. But the country has found canny workarounds to the trade blockade. Until recently, North Korea produced billions of dollars in counterfeit US currency. A 2008 sting on Asian financial institutions used as a front to channel North Korea’s fake currency put a stop to this (we think). In response, Pyongyang’s opium production exploded. By collectivising farms and forcing peasants to cultivate poppies, North Korea has rapidly replaced Afghanistan as the hub of the world heroin trade.
It would be no surprise to hear of Kim Jong Un dining with the world’s most wanted drug lords and gangsters. The nation needs cash to survive. The worry is whether North Korea’s thirst for hard currency will ever become so insatiable that it sells nuclear secrets. Some evidence suggests it has already colluded with Iran on this front. Perhaps it’s just a matter of the right price.
Yet even if the world manages to avoid nuclear terrorism, disarm North Korea and keep Iran from the bomb, the nuclear problem won’t disappear.
Global Zero?
August this year was the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima. Increased cries for total disarmament came in the wake of memorial services across the world. Global Zero has been the most vocal. Global Zero is a transnational organisation aiming to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world from 16,000 to — you guessed it — zero. Aside from New Zealand’s own very active wing, Global Zero has many highly respected and surprising supporters, such as Henry Kissinger, the twentieth century’s own Machiavelli.
Global Zero’s aim is certainly noble. However — setting aside the difficulty of getting everyone to voluntarily and permanently give up nuclear weapons — we need to make sure that a world without nuclear weapons would indeed be safer. We can’t unlearn the facts of nuclear fission or fusion. If a third world war broke out, we could logically expect belligerents to engage in an arms race to nuclear capability. What then? The first state to develop the bomb would have an overwhelming incentive to strike — possibly through nuclear force — at their rival’s nuclear infrastructure. Paradoxically, it could be that nuclear war is more likely in a disarmed world.
Disarmament is an important objective. But disarmament alone won’t necessarily make the world safer. Unless — by some divine intervention — we experience a global bout of amnesia that wipes out all nuclear know-how, the threat of nuclear war will be ever-present. The real cure is creative ways of reducing the incentives for war. Peace will result in disarmament, not the other way around.
That is, provided there’s a world to save …
Climate Change
The planet faces two primary human-caused threats. One is climate change, the other is nuclear war. Climate change threatens famine and floods as the world adjusts to human-driven changes in the atmosphere. And even a “minor” nuclear “skirmish” in South Asia (which seemed probable in the 90s) would plunge the planet into irreversible nuclear winter. These spooky futures might appear, at face value, unrelated. Look deeper, however, and there’s an intractable dilemma.
We must divest from fossil fuels to avoid climate change. Nuclear energy is cleaner and cheaper (but it’s still not perfect). Some nations — France, for example — have made nuclear energy the cornerstone of national energy production. Overall, this is good for the planet, and more and more countries see nuclear as a real alternative to fossil fuels.
The problem is that the technology that produces nuclear energy is barely a stone’s throw from weaponry. Specialists call nuclear kit “dual-use” technology. You can use the same tech to illuminate lightbulbs or exact genocide.
It seems we are stuck on the horns of a dilemma. A viable alternative to fossil fuels is within reach. Yet it holds the key to our own destruction. But what can we do about it?
New Zealand
Remember little green New Zealand? Ipukarea of PM David Lange and scientist Ernest Rutherford. Despite long being in the thick of global nuclear issues, 30 years after the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, Kiwis have put nuclear issues to the back of their minds.
I concede that we Kiwis seem to face more pressing foreign policy concerns. For starters: why we are letting in only a few hundred and not a few thousand Syrian refugees? What will happen with our trade with China currently shitting its financial pants? What will happen when our big dirty real estate bubble bursts? How can we support our Pasifika neighbours to develop ways to adapt to climate change? These questions all require a great deal of thought. That said, it’s best not to forget that we remain a pudgy, sweaty (male) finger-press away from Armageddon.
I don’t want my children to have to watch Bert the Turtle in school. New Zealand has a seat on the UN Security Council, giving us an unprecedented opportunity to bring key issues onto the international agenda. We only have until 2016, so how can we use this opportunity to untangle the nuclear clusterfuck?
We should push for tighter international export controls on nuclear material. We should ensure international weapons inspections agencies are well funded. We should use our seat as a soapbox to admonish nuclear powers for not reducing their stockpiles. We should support (and not side-step, as the Hon Murray McCully did in 2012) the idea of a new global convention on nuclear weapons to supersede the rather elderly Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which turns 50 in 2018. We should work to make nuclear weapons obsolete by helping the world become a more peaceful, secure place to live.
Most of all, we should talk about the issue. Let’s pick a fucking flag, then get back to doing what Kiwis do best. We excel at leading on the big international issues, nuclear weapons included. So, let’s do that.