Nowhere to hide from a nuclear war

The year 2024 began on a grim note. It inherited all the geopolitical ailments of the previous year. And now on top of that, it seems a Cold War era anxiety is back: The threat of nuclear annihilation.

After the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, NATO and the Western European countries put out everything to defeat Russia. In response, in February 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to "suspend" the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) — even though the treaty does not have such a suspension mechanism. 

Then, in March, he declared, "Russia is ready for nuclear war." In October 2023, Russia's Duma voted to withdraw Moscow's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 

And finally, on 21 May this year, Russia began the first stage of tactical nuclear weapons drills, involving the most-modern Iskander and Kinzhal missiles, in areas bordering Ukraine. 

In response, the West is getting even more belligerent. French President Emmanuel Macron opined that France's nuclear weapons should be part of the European defence debate. On 22 May, the day after Russia began its nuclear missile drill, France carried out its first test firing of an updated nuclear-capable missile, which can be fired from fighter jets. 

It seems that on our current path, nuclear war is inevitable. So much so that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has reset the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight — the nuclear annihilation. It is the closest the clock has ever been to midnight. The nine countries with nuclear weapons have 12,500 warheads in total, enough to destroy the world many times over. 

The Doomsday Clock warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making, primarily nuclear weapons. The concept of the Doomsday Clock originated in 1947 as a way to warn the public about the danger of nuclear weapons as the US and the USSR were headed for a nuclear arms race. 

Nuclear bomb kick-started the Cold War arms race

The nuclear age began before the Cold War. The American Manhattan Project was driven by the fear of a German atomic bomb, but Germany decided in 1942 not to make a serious effort to build one. 

However, in an extraordinary display of scientific and industrial might, the US made two bombs ready for use by August 1945. Germany was defeated by then, but President Harry S Truman decided to use the bomb against Japan. He dropped the bombs in order to intimidate the Soviet Union, without really needing them to bring the war to an end. 

His primary purpose was surely to force Japan to surrender, but he also believed that the bomb would help him in his dealings with Joseph Stalin. That latter consideration was secondary, but it confirmed his decision. 

Whatever Truman's motives, Stalin regarded the use of the bomb as an anti-Soviet move, designed to deprive the Soviet Union of strategic gains in the Far East and more generally to give the US the upper hand in defining the postwar settlement.

Later, the US also considered using nuclear weapons as a means to bring about the end of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world saw how close nuclear destruction really was. And all this began when Truman decided to bomb Japan to proudly declare to the world that they are the new superpower. 

Cold War 2.0

Now, it seems like we have gone back to the days of the Cold War, when deception, concealment, and suspicion was the name of the game. 

And there seem to be three nuclear superpowers now. 

China, the new kid on the block, is pursuing a nuclear force build-up on a scale and pace unseen since the US-Soviet nuclear arms race that ended in the late 1980s. China, which a few years ago had about 200 nuclear warheads, now is believed to have more than 500 and to be aiming for more than 1,000 by 2030, compared to the 1,550 deployed warheads of the US and Russia.

Over the issue of Taiwan, China is openly threatening a military intervention. It would inevitably end in a nuclear war between China, the US, and their respective allies. Moreover, China's rapid nuclear expansion, shrouded in secrecy, adds an unpredictable dimension to this unfolding crisis. 

The development of new hypersonic missiles and the supposed 'carrier-killer missiles' have significantly increased the risk. 

The nuclear threat next door

Southern Asia — India, Pakistan and China — is the only place on earth where three nuclear-armed states have recently engaged in violent confrontations along their contested borders.

Leaders in China, India and Pakistan have always viewed their nuclear arsenals primarily as tools of deterrence, less for practical warfighting than to convince adversaries of the extraordinary costs that a war would risk. 

India and Pakistan are two bitter rivals who may also start a nuclear war right across our border. Fear, hatred and other emotions can cloud human judgement, especially in the heat of a crisis when information is imperfect and communication difficult. 

If a nuclear war ever breaks out, Bangladesh will be an inevitable victim of that war. Allied countries on both sides would start launching missiles at one another, starting World War III. 

As much as 34.1 million people could die, and another 57.4 million could be injured, within the first few hours of the start of a nuclear war between Russia and the US triggered by one low-yield nuclear weapon, according to a new simulation by researchers at Princeton's Science and Global Security programme. Now imagine what may happen with the 12,500 warheads. 

Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the machine gun, declared, "Only a general who was a barbarian would send his men to certain death against the concentrated power of my new gun." But send them they did. 

Scientists have predicted how a nuclear war would destroy the world. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has shown that a nuclear winter caused by the war would make the winters longer and summers disappear. Rainfall would diminish and food production would crash.

After a nuclear war, especially if the countries that produce the food were part of the nuclear exchange, there may simply be no more fuel, fertiliser, or machine parts, because there will be no more oil refineries, ports, and other essential infrastructure left, damaging global food production even more. Humanity will be set back centuries. 

Nuclear weapons are the most destructive, inhumane, and indiscriminate weapons ever created. Both in the scale of the devastation they cause and in their uniquely persistent, spreading, genetically damaging radioactive fallout, they are unlike any other weapons. A single nuclear bomb that detonates over a large city could kill millions of people. 

Therefore, the only way to survive nuclear roulette is to stop playing and move beyond war. Today, it is necessary for survival.