Safeguards, Non-Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Energy

Chapter 8 SAFEGUARDS, NON-PROLIFERATION AND PEACEFUL NUCLEAR ENERGY © M. Ragheb 9/2/2021 “Stalemate, Hello, A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of Chess?” War Games movie, 1983. “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” “It is dangerous to unmask images, since they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them.” Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulation” “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” Albert Einstein “For nothing can seem foul to those that win.” William Shakespeare "Simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones.” “Among competing hypotheses, the one that makes the fewest assumptions should be selected.” “It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer.” Occam’s Razor Principle, William of Ockham, Medieval philosopher. “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes.” Isaac Newton “Whenever possible, substitute constructions out of known entities for inferences to unknown entities.” Bertrand Russell “If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments [if] one suffices.” Thomas Aquinas “If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.” Sun Tzu, The Art Of War "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." Winston Churchill 8.1 INTRODUCTION According to Article VI of the Non Proliferation Treaty, NPT: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” The plot of the movie War Games in 1983 involves a slacker hacker, played by actor Matthew Broderick who starts playing the game “Global Thermonuclear War” with “Joshua”, a Department of Defense (DoD) supercomputer that has been given partial control by DoD of our the USA’s nuclear forces at NORAD. The game prompts Joshua, who has been programmed to win games, to trick DoD into authorizing Joshua to launch an attack on the Soviet Union so that Joshua can win the game. The hacker and the professor that programmed Joshua realize that the only way to prevent Joshua from attacking is to teach “him” that no one can “win” global thermonuclear war. The insanity is that the people who created the game “Global Thermonuclear War” thought it could be won. Joshua races through thousands of scenarios and ends his plan to win the “Global Thermonuclear War” game by attacking the Soviet Union when he realizes that “the only winning move is not to play.” In January 2015, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its "Doomsday Clock" to 3 minutes to midnight. The last time it was set to that time was in 1983, when the USA-Soviet Union relations were at their iciest point. The only other time when the situation was worse occurred in 1953, when the clock was set to 2 minutes to midnight, as the USA exploded its first thermonuclear device in October 1952. Unchecked climate change and the nuclear arms race resulting from the modernization of huge nuclear arsenals pose "extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity”, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists [14]. In November 2014, Russia announced that it would boycott the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit in the USA. In December 2014, the USA Congress voted, for the first time in 25 years, not to approve funding to safeguard nuclear materials in the Russian Federation. Russia terminated cooperation in almost all aspects of nuclear security after two decades of cooperation [14]. Russia and the USA are modernizing their nuclear arsenals, and NATO recently announced that it was rethinking its nuclear strategy. Russia is accused of using the so-called “Hybrid Warfare,” from propaganda to cyber warfare and funding and supporting separatists with clandestine military operations. Risky encounters between Eastern and Western troops, especially in the air, are becoming more and more common [14]. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 2015: "Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth.” Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth. Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads—thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty—ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization." A sober assessment of the status of the nuclear safeguards and proliferation regimes is attempted. The argument is here made that under the present status of these regimes; nuclear weapons have become obsolete and unusable, leading to a discernible shift in threat and security considerations. In this context we discuss the application of the decision theory Lanchester Law developed by the English engineer Frederick Lanchester based on the study of air battles during the First World War. As of May 2010, the USA possessed 5,113 nuclear warheads in its strategic stockpile, an 84 percent reduction from a peak of 31,255 warheads in 1967 during the Cold War period. Earlier, the USA and the Soviet Union had accumulated a total of about 50,000 nuclear devices. Because of the futility of the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine that these weapons supported, the end of the Cold War, their becoming obsolete with the advent of precision munitions, their upkeep cost and their deterioration by age, they agreed to dismantle parts of their obsolete nuclear arsenals. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) calls for cutting the nuclear warhead count from around 9,000 per side to 6,000 per side. This was followed by the START II Treaty aimed at eliminating multiple-warhead, land-based missiles, would further reduce the strategic-weapons arsenals to 3,500 per side. The USA has withdrawn all short-range and naval nuclear weapons formerly stored outside its borders. Russia says it no longer target the USA with Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). The USA President Barack Obama and Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev signed a successor to the 1991 START treaty in April 2010 at Prague, the Czech Republic. Both countries’ nuclear arsenals will be cut by another 30 percent, to 1,550 warheads each, leaving either side with plenty of devices to incinerate most major population centers on Earth. Yet, hesitation and failure by the nuclear power states to abide by their commitment to gradually reduce then totally eliminate their nuclear weapons stockpiles is creating an incentive for some potential newcomers aspiring to join the nuclear club. They reason that what is beneficial for the security of the nuclear weapons states should be also suitable for them. The “axiom of proliferation” states that as long as some states cling to the possession of nuclear weapons, others will also seek to acquire them. According to “catastrophe theory,” serious nuclear disarmament is apparently waiting for some event that would stir action toward the eventual goal of humanity to eliminate nuclear weapons. An analogy is advanced of a village fully aware about the need to build gates along railroad tracks that pass through it, remaining inactive then spring into action until the time that one of its residents is hit by a passing train. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957 as an autonomous inter-governmental organization in the United Nations (UN) family of organizations, to coordinate among nations the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The UN itself was created after the Second World War to prevent and resolve conflicts and to promote disarmament. Since atomic weapons were used in warfare against Japan, the world's community has determined that they should not be used again and a vision for a nuclear weapons-free world dominates the political scene worldwide. Article II of the IAEA statutes states that: “The International Atomic Energy Agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the World. It shall ensure, so far it is able, that assistance provided by it or at its request or under its supervision or control is not used in such a way as to further any military purpose.” Parties to the treaties met in 1995 at the Fifth NPT Review and Extension Conference, and decided on the indefinite extension of the Treaty and adoption of the Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.

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