Jawayria Malik
Nuclear technology is no longer new, and therefore more difficult to keep from spreading. Contrary to this, the United States tries hard to keep nuclear weapons away from countries “it” considers foes. Such behaviour toward other countries cannot engender cooperation rather makes perfect sense that threatened states would be scrambling to develop nuclear weapons not so they can fire them, but so they can also enjoy the benefits of deterrence. Rightly so, otherwise there are countries without nukes – Iraq, Libya and Syria – that were invaded and ruined by the US.
According to Barry Posen, Director of MIT’s Security Studies Program, the U.S. has its guns pointed at aspiring nuclear weapons states in a way that makes them feel even less secure. Further more he adds that, “I worry about not nuclear weapons in the hands of states, but nuclear weapons that are not in the hands of states. I worry about nuclear weapons that are lost, nuclear weapons that are stolen, nuclear weapons that are poorly aligned, and nuclear weapons that are sold off the back of trucks.” These concerns related to safety and security are undeniably valid. The more developed a country is; higher is the responsibility of safety and security of its nuclear Armageddon.
Russia currently possesses 7300 nuclear weapons and the US has 7100. Together these armaments make about 93% of all nuclear weapons on earth. More nukes means more chances of failure of weapon system and their safety as well as the people behind their operation. It also means heightened risk of a weapon falling into the hands of terrorists. For a record only, there are an estimated 700 and known thirty-two nuclear weapons accidents referred to as “Broken Arrows” (refer to an accidental launch, firing, detonation, stealing or loss) in the US alone. Ironically, several are still missing to-date including one of two powerful thermonuclear bombs it accidentally dropped and nearly detonated over North Carolina.
During the cold war era, the US missed at least eight fully-explosive bombs, plus another nine that contain other radioactive substances – mostly depleted uranium. Moreover, on 29 August 2007, under the careful watch of the Bush and Cheney administration, 6 thermo-nuclear 150 kilo-ton nuclear warheads went missing. Well! what role these weapons in question would have played in the planned nuclear terror attack in Dallas, Texas, on 6 February 2011 is unknown but Barksdale Air Force Base, where the nukes were last seen, is roughly 100 miles from Dallas, Texas.
In an extensive report by the Center for Public Integrity, the investigative journalism outlet found that America’s eight nuclear weapons labs and plants and two sites that offer them support are rife with safety problems, but the corporations that run them face minimal penalties when accidents occur. In 2011, a worker at Sandia National Laboratories incorrectly turned a valve that unleashed an explosion that could have killed him another co-worker. The nuclear weapons lab, this subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, had two more incidents during the three years the Department of Energy investigated the 2011 explosion. All were tied to poor safety protocols.
Most recent in the list is Center for Public Integrity’ (CPI) report about stealing of plutonium and cesium from the officials’ car when they stayed overnight at a hotel. The security officials from the Department of Energy (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory had driven to San Antonio in March 2017 to collect nuclear materials from a research laboratory. They had in their possession radiation detectors and disks of plutonium and cesium to calibrate the devices to ensure they would collect the right materials from the laboratory. It must be noted that Plutonium is one of the most dangerous substances in existence. It was the main ingredient of the infamous Fat Man atomic bomb which killed 70,000 in Nagasaki during World War Two. Radioactive cesium can also be used in “dirty” radioactive bombs. The rare material is highly toxic and carcinogenic, and it only takes seven pounds of plutonium to make a nuclear warhead. It is worrisome that after more than a year stolen material has not been recovered.
The US administration or western media refusing to report the such nuclear thefts or mishaps does not mean the stolen nukes or material are not in the hands of “terrorists” waiting to be used on Live TV.
The US Nuclear weapons are guarded with many safety measure but above mentioned nuclear material theft and mishaps are a proof that human error or corruption is always a possibility. So none of the security and safety precautions is infallible in a country like US and that too more easily as rest of the world remains dagger drawn towards smaller nuclear states.
You can build the world’s smartest, most seemingly foolproof machine, and it will still contain flaws. In the case of nuclear weapons systems, such flaws run the risk of accidental launch, detonation, and incredible loss of life. It would be more sane, if Mr. Trump shift his focus from outpacing the world in nuclear arms but strengthening safety ring around existing arsenal to save the world from nuclear catastrophe.
