Countdown to Catastrophe E-Book

Nolan Blackwood

• Herausgeber: Revival Waves of Glory Books & Publishing
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

"Countdown to Catastrophe: Imagining a Nuclear Conflict" by Nolan Blackwood delves into the chilling and complex world of nuclear conflict narratives, with a special focus on South Asia. Through an examination of fiction and non-fiction, Blackwood explores why this region is often the centerpiece of apocalyptic scenarios, despite broader global implications. The book offers an incisive look at how the specter of nuclear warfare infiltrates our collective imagination, flattening complex geopolitical realities into stark, terrifying possibilities. Whether through literature, media, or policy discussions, "Countdown to Catastrophe" sheds light on the narratives that shape our understanding of potential nuclear disaster, making it an essential read for anyone interested in the cultural and psychological dimensions of global security.

Leseprobe

Countdown to Catastrophe: Imagining a Nuclear Conflict

Nolan Blackwood

Published by RWG Publishing, 2024.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

COUNTDOWN TO CATASTROPHE: IMAGINING A NUCLEAR CONFLICT

First edition. July 24, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 Nolan Blackwood.

Written by Nolan Blackwood.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Countdown to Catastrophe: Imagining a Nuclear Conflict

Historical Context of Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Fission and Fusion

Nuclear-Armed States

Humanitarian Consequences

International Treaties and Agreements

Limited Nuclear Exchange

Movies and Television

Fear and Anxiety

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities

Just War Theory

Emerging Technologies

Introduction to Nuclear Conflict

Key concerns: Though the above-stated obscurity generally questions the very feasibility and narrative practices regarding an event which could wipe out most, if not all, narrative subjects, this paper's specific concern is the why and how of South Asia featuring so prominently in such narratives. Unlike in technological or 'peace studies,' the central concern here, as in this entire special volume, is not the likelihood of conflict, nor the scope of destruction or short-term 'horizontal' or 'vertical' spread of Nazi-Germany-originated violence between sovereign powers. Various authorial and readership choices, ranging from personal experience to global news values, very often produce far more detailed grotesque fantasies of this one 2000-odd mile stretch of territorial human habitation than any other. The cartographic and resilience practices depicted in these fictions therefore are involved not just in post-hoc geopolitical fantasy but in the in-advance imagining of possible catastrophe in our age.

Broader context: The fear of nuclear conflict features prominently in global imagination in times of strife. The specter of nuclear winter temporarily flattens nuanced historical, geopolitical, and civilizational insurgent negotiations between societies into a stark, frightening image. Debates on nuclear deterrence and escalation make typically obtuse foreign-policy theories and jargon part of our global culture. 'The varieties of nuclear conflict' section on historical experience and future possibilities of nuclear war in A Fierce Domain, the memoir of post-apocalypse disaster-contributor Fred Kaplan, is as thorough and well-researched as many academic 'nuclear studies' papers. However, a casual perusal of visual, performance, and literary genres rarely elicits cohesive, consensus accounts of what such conflicts might look, sound, or feel like.

Historical Context of Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear weapons are a defining feature of the modern era. They were developed - first with governmental sponsorship, and later by additional states - during the Second World War, with the first explosion of a nuclear device occurring in New Mexico in 1945, and the first and to date only detonations of atomic weapons in wartime occurring over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The latter strikes, associated with hundreds of thousands of casualties, have come to be seen variously as causing Japan to surrender, as shortening the war, or as constituting war crimes, among other interpretations. Since 1945, an extended accord among a number of states has held wartime uses of nuclear weapons in check. Yet, proponents of the practice regard the bombs dropped on Japan as pivotal historical events; a number of these individuals have further argued that the bombings are preferable to the use of other tactics to win the Pacific war, including warfare previously engaged in by the US in order to establish aerial firestorms in both Japan and Germany. The bombings are interlinked with issues of terminated wars, statecraft, atomic diplomacy, and the nature of deterrence, among other considerations.

In the years after the Second World War, trillions of dollars were spent to develop tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, which, at the height of the Cold War, were delivered by major powers via warplanes, land-based missiles, submarines, and associated infrastructure. Yet, during this time period nuclear weapons were used in no other wars. At present, the US and its key allies, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea maintain nuclear arsenals, while the United Kingdom, France, and Israel are also believed to possess such arms, though this is unconfirmed in the case of the latter two. The field of nuclear weapons studies is directly related to understandings of modern history, including strategy, war, and peace, and broad interests including security studies, international relations, and other invested fields. These inquiries in turn subsume a number of historical, scientific, and mathematical considerations. The essay by Berreby and Peden comprising the present section focuses specifically on the question of how to examine imaginaries of nuclear conflict. This essay examines the history of those approaches.

The Science of Nuclear Weapons

On the very basic level, there are two fundamentally different types of destructive forces at the heart of thermonuclear weapons as opposed to conventional bombs: nuclear fission, which is the splitting of the nucleus of an atom into two lighter parts, is the main destructive force behind an atomic bomb; and nuclear fusion, which is the joining of the nuclei of two light atoms to produce a heavier atom (and also release enormous destructive energy), which powers a hydrogen bomb. Both reactions involve a redistribution of nuclear forces, resulting in the release of tremendous amounts of energy. A nuclear reactor is a fission weapon that is designed to produce less energy, so the produced energy can be extracted in a controlled manner to drive the turbines in a power plant.

To cause a nuclear fission, a weapon must start with the fuel in a super-critical state, that is with too much fuel to be constrained by the inertial forces. It is necessary to start the reaction very rapidly, before the fuel can be dispersed by the energy release. Modern fission weapons require implosion systems, in which high explosives are used to compress the fuel to densities of two to five times normal, as well as various combinations of blocks of reflector material, neutron generators, target shaping and in the case of some boosted weapons, cylinders of fusion fuel (deuterium-tritium). Fission explosions are started by an extremely rapid release of energy in an implosion system. Depending on how the different systems are designed to work, there are two major classes of nuclear weapons.