The Nuclear Threat E-Book

Jamal Qaiser

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 310

Beschreibung

The Nuclear Threat comes from two directions. Firstly, as a result of a possible catastrophe, a maximum conceivable accident that can be assumed, in the peaceful use of nuclear power for energy supply. Secondly, from a likely military escalation to nuclear war. As different as both scenarios are, the consequences can be similarly devastating. In addition, there is the yet unresolved question of "where to dispose of radioactive waste". This question is still unresolved, not only in Germany, but around the globe.   Nevertheless, a renaissance of nuclear power is imminent for several reasons. New mini-reactors promise energy right where it is needed - and big money for investors. The commercial exploitation of nuclear fusion is on the verge of a breakthrough. So far, all nuclear reactors have "only" worked with nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion, which is many times more powerful, has so far only been used in two places: in the sun and other stars, and in atomic bombs. Moreover,  there is the foreseeable use of nuclear power in the forthcoming conquest of space, for example to supply energy to settlements on the moon and Mars. Above all, the Damocles sword of military use is hovering in the face of new types of weapons from drones with artificial intelligence and killer satellites in space. The escalation of the conflicts between the United States of America, Russia and China makes The Nuclear Threat as topical today as it was during the Cold War.

Leseprobe

"In reality, there are atoms and the void."

Democritus

“I was against it on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

"I don’t know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Albert Einstein

"A Third World War could be the end of civilisation."

Vladimir Putin

“Nuclear power was never designed for commercial electricity generation; it was aimed at nuclear weapons. That is why nuclear electricity has been and will continue to be uneconomical. Further, nuclear energy is by no means ‘clean.’ Its radioactivity will endanger humans and the natural world for over one million years."

Christian von Hirschhausen

Contents

Preface

Allegedly banished danger returns

Beware: the inconceivable is conceivable

Discovery of radioactivity

First experiments on radioactivity

Concepts in transition

First civil use of nuclear energy

Nuclear power in Germany since 1957

Accidents and disasters lead to phase-out

German nuclear power and war in Ukraine

The nuclear apocalypse

"Little Boy" and "Fat Man" kill several hundred thousand

Tsar Bomba: most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated

Cuban Missile Crisis – world on the brink

Fear of the Apocalypse

Disarmament phase-out

Total annihilation

The United Nations is powerless

The impotence of international organisations

The war triumvirate

Missiles against China – and back

China no longer rules out FIRST nuclear strike

The Arab Atom

Rude tone instead of constant appeasement

Is nuclear terrorism conceivable?

Chancellor warns against nuclear war

Russia shuffles up Europe

The Russian worldview

Perestroika and Glasnost

Putin's dream of Great Russia

Struggle for Ukraine began in 2004

UN appeals to OSCE remain futile

Crimea: Part of Russia since Catherine the Great

Home of the Black Sea Fleet

Russia seizes Syria

Four decades of Assad

UN plan for Syria

Private mercenaries on the rise

Russia's charm offensive in Africa

Putin's world history spin for children

Operation "Iron Fist"

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Germany soft-pedals with Russia

Ukrainian-Western offensive

Germany gears for war

It is all about gas and money

America's "sacred obligation"

Ukraine's national and presidential courage

Comedian, corrumpist, war hero

All but China vote against Russia

"Alliance Treaty" between China and Russia 2022

Vladimir Putin: "The weak get beaten"

Putin captures German hearts

Bounty on Vladimir Putin's head

Warmonger Joe Biden

Many weapons generate much war

Ukraine not Russia's last point of call

UN: world in nuclear peril

The peaceful use of nuclear energy

From Minister of Nuclear Energy to Nuclear Phase-Out Act

More than 400 nuclear reactors in 32 countries

USA: world nuclear champion

Russia: nuclear exporter

China: more clean energy instead of nuclear power

France relies on nuclear industry

Nuclear Power? No Thanks!

Solar energy alternative to nuclear power

From the APO to the Greens

Organised resistance to nuclear power

Brokdorf and Gorleben as symbols of resistance

EU: European Green Deal

How the EU wants to make nuclear power green

Germany versus France

Fear of the supply gap

Germany's climate problem year 2021

How a nuclear power plant works

Reactor types – an overview

Setbacks upon setbacks

New generations of mini power plants

Mini nuclear power plants

TerraPower

Rolls-Royce among nuclear power plants

Nuclear startups NuScale and Okli

Compact reactors with more or less risk

Thorium: latest craze

Floating nuclear power plants

What to do with the nuclear waste?

Waste separation for half an eternity

Safe underground for a million years

Iodine tablets against radioactivity

Hopeless search for a repository?

Federal company for radioactive waste disposal

Symbols for eternity

Hot as the sun: nuclear fusion

1917: Genesis of nuclear fusion

United States, France, South Korea and China

ITER – A global European project

The Tokamak Principle

China makes "Artificial Sun" shine

Gates' and Google's nuclear fusion investment

High-temperature superconductor as key

Peaceful use of hydrogen bomb principle

German experimental reactor Wendelstein 7-X

Nuclear power in space

Nuclear power on the moon

Arms race in space

Ronald Reagan's Star Wars

Artemis Accords: USA calls the space shots

US Space Force takes off

Orion's space patrol

Secret "Space Plane" X-37B

NATO alliance also valid in space

China gets in on the act

Celestial space palace

Moon Goddess meets Moon Rabbit

China's space dream bigger than Enterprise

Risk management and disasters

Chernobyl

WANO and INES for more safety

Fukushima

Contaminated oceans

How much radiation is tolerable?

Impact mitigation instead of total avoidance

Outlook

Misconceptions of the past

Black swans ahead

Manifesting the inconceivable

About the authors

Jamal Qaiser

Marc Ruberg

Books published by Diplomatic Council (English)

About the Diplomatic Council

References and Notes

Preface

The nuclear threat comes from two directions: firstly, as a result of an MCA, the maximum conceivable accident to be assumed in the peaceful use of nuclear power for energy supply, and secondly, from a military escalation to nuclear war. As different as both scenarios are, the consequences for those affected can be equally devastating, in the worst case even for all humanity. For this reason, both aspects are presented separately in this book in their own chapters – although there are definitely overlaps. For example, nuclear fusion, once the epitome of terror as atomic bomb technology, is rapidly striving towards peaceful use for energy supply. Another chapter is dedicated to the growing mountain of nuclear waste because radioactive waste has accumulated for many years to one of the greatest problems of humanity, without a practicable solution in sight. In addition, this book deals with the use of nuclear power in space, because it can be assumed that the conquest of space in the coming decades will open a new chapter for humanity, in which nuclear energy will play an essential role. The space venture, as well as a new generation of particularly safe nuclear power plants, are an example of how the use of nuclear energy clearly illustrates the "dual use" principle: the technology can be used for good as well as for evil. It is up to humankind to decide which side of the coin to choose.

Allegedly banished danger returns

The planned nuclear phase-out in Germany is intended to banish the danger of a nuclear power plant accident, at least in this country. Likewise, with the end of the Cold War, the danger of a nuclear war seemed to be largely banished. But in both fields, peaceful use for energy production and military use, the nuclear threat is again growing from year to year in the field of tension between the USA, China and Russia. Why is that? There are a number of reasons.

Nuclear power indeed holds the promise of a clean energy supply – as long as no serious accidents occur. New technologies, new market players, the pursuit of a rapid phase-out of fossil energy sources, the fear of bottlenecks in energy supply, the discussion about the classification of nuclear power as a "green energy form" by the European Union, the need for nuclear reactors for energy supply in the upcoming conquest and colonisation of space – all these factors have made the peaceful use of nuclear energy, which has been frowned upon for many years, particularly in Germany, "socially acceptable" again.

Nuclear power as a military threat has mainly to do with the escalation of the conflict between the USA, still the sole superpower today, and the emergence of the People's Republic of China as an equal superpower. Since the spring of 2022, it has also become clear that Russia is by no means willing to back down as a nuclear power. At the latest since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the spectre of a nuclear war has resurged. After all, 90% of nuclear weapons are in the hands of the United States and Russia – the two hostile powers in the conflict in Eastern Europe. 1 According to research conducted by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute SIPRI, both countries are running comprehensive and costly programmes to modernise their nuclear warheads, carrier systems and production facilities.

According to SIPRI, the same applies to the other nuclear-weapon states, i.e. Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. They have all developed or stationed new weapon systems, or at least announced this.

In view of these developments, a current examination of the nuclear threat is indispensable, with both scenarios: the possible derailment in peaceful use and the nightmare of a nuclear war.

Beware: the inconceivable is conceivable

In this light, we have authored this book as a warning. It is a warning that the inconceivable is still possible and – worse yet– that the inconceivable can also occur in the worst case. Turning a blind eye to danger and trusting that "things will not get so bad" cannot be a strategy for our future. In view of the threat posed by nuclear power, whether by military action or by a grave maximum conceivable accident during peaceful use, it is imperative to take the path of maximum safety: we must do everything we can to prevent the worst.

Jamal Qaiser, Marc Ruberg

Discovery of radioactivity

In order to understand the potential of the nuclear threat, it is essential to address nuclear power. Nuclear energy is not "only" about the unspeakable explosive force but far beyond that about radioactive radiation. Therefore, in this chapter a tour d'horizon is given to introduce the topic and to place the present and future discussion in its context.

First experiments on radioactivity

Around 1890, the first experiments on radioactivity were conducted. Antoine Henri Becquerel and Marie and Pierre Curie were the first scientists to study nuclear reactions. The Curie couple coined the previously unknown term radioactivity. It describes the property of unstable atomic nuclei to emit ionising radiation. The atomic nucleus thereby converts into another nucleus with the emission of particles or changes its state with the release of energy, whereby radioactive radiation is produced. These can be alpha (helium nuclei), beta (electrons) or the particularly penetrating gamma rays (electromagnetic radiation). 2

Atomic species with unstable nuclei are called radionuclides. These occur completely independently of humans in nature; radioactive substances find numerous applications, for example in nuclear medicine or in archaeology for age determination using the radio-carbon method.

Uranium(named after the planet Uranus) is the most common raw material for the operation of nuclear power plants. It is a heavy metal that is "naturally" radioactive and decays predominantly under the emission of alpha rays. By the way, uranium is not dangerous for humans because of its relatively low radiation, but because of its chemical toxicity: ingested in high doses over a longer period of time, it can permanently damage blood, bones and kidneys. Uranium is not only found everywhere in the Earth's crust but is also available in huge quantities in the oceans.

What is worth mentioning is the half-life, i.e. the period in which the radioactive radiation halves, because this factor has a decisive influence on a risk assessment. For example, the half-life of the uranium isotope 234 is 245,000 years. Against this background, it is to be understood that the German legislation for radioactive waste requires safe storage for more than one million years (!).3

To explain a little chemistry: Isotopes are atomic species whose nuclei contain the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. They therefore represent the same chemical element but have different weights. Naturally occurring uranium consists of about 99.3 percent of the isotope uranium-238 and 0.7 percent of uranium-235. The latter is not only cleavable by thermal neutrons but is, in addition to the extremely rare plutonium-239, the only known naturally occurring nuclide which is capable of a nuclear cleavage chain reaction. It is therefore used as a primary energy source in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons (including plutonium-239 in weapons). 4 All uranium isotopes are radioactive.

Global production of uranium in 2019 was about 53,656 tonnes. Major producing countries are Australia, Canada, Russia, Niger, Namibia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, South Africa and the United States of America. Consumption is estimated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to be between 93,775 and 121,955 tonnes by 2030 as a result of the construction of new nuclear power plants. 5 According to estimates of the IAEA, the environmental organisation Greenpeace and the nuclear industry the existing uranium reserves will last for between 20 and 200 years for energy production. 6

However, in order to use uranium to generate energy for humans, it is not sufficient to simply store it, but instead nuclear fission is required, in which an atomic nucleus is decomposed into two or more smaller nuclei with the release of energy. This nuclear fission should not be confused with nuclear fusion, in which several smaller atomic nuclei are brought together to form a larger atomic nucleus.7

In 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Straßmann discovered the so-called induced nuclear fission of uranium, which was explained theoretically by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch in 1939. At that time it became clear that a so-called chain reaction is possible because several further neutrons are released during each nuclear fission triggered by a neutron. 8

At first, these findings were used for military research during the Second World War. As part of the Manhattan Project, Enrico Fermi achieved the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in a nuclear reactor in Chicago (Chicago Pile-1 or CP-1) on 2 December 1942. While the goal of the Manhattan project led by Robert Oppenheimer was achieved with the first successfully fired atomic bomb on 16 July 1945 (Trinity test), a German research group led by Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker did not succeed in developing a functioning nuclear reactor until the end of the war. 9 If this development under the name "uranium project" had been successful in the Third Reich, the world would probably be under German rule today.

Concepts in transition

In 1899, the physicist Hans Geitel was one of the first to coin the term atomic energy for the phenomena occurring in connection with radioactive decay processes. Later, the synonyms nuclear energy and nuclear power were added.

The use of these terms has undergone a political-ideological shift. In the 1950s, Franz Josef Strauß was Federal Minister for Nuclear Affairs. A conference with high-ranking scientists held in Geneva in 1955 was called the International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy and became known in the German media as the Atomic Conference. As a result of this conference, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was founded in 1957. The Lobby Association of German companies interested in the technology was founded in 1959 as the German Atomic Forum. In the following decades, proponents of the technology distanced themselves from the prefix atom and used only nuclear in Germany. At the same time, a shift from atomic to nuclear occurred in the English-speaking world. The reason is the undesirable association with the increasingly negative concept of the atomic bomb; the technical-physical justification emphasises that the relevant processes take place in the nucleus, and not in the entire atom, the chemical properties of which are determined by the atomic shell. Critics, on the other hand, retained the prefix atom both in its own designation "nuclear power opponents" and in slogans such as "Nuclear power? No thanks!" They also continued to refer to nuclear energy and nuclear power plants, abbreviated to NPP. 10

The synonym atomic nuclear energy was adopted in the first period of technical use 11 (the name of the Atomic Ministry was changed to the Federal Ministry for Nuclear Energy in 1961) and is still used today as a term under nuclear law, for example, in the State Committee for Nuclear Energy.12

First civil use of nuclear energy

After the Second World War, military research was continued and the civilian use of nuclear energy was developed at the same time. At the end of 1951, the experimental reactor EBR-I (Experimental Breeder Reactor) in Idaho produced electricity from nuclear energy for the first time. 13 The first power plant for the large-scale production of electrical energy was commissioned in 1954 with the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant near Moscow. It was the world's first commercially used nuclear power plant. 14

On 17 October 1955, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom opened the Calder Hall Nuclear Power Plant on the north-west coast of England, which is considered to be the first commercial nuclear power plant. The Queen declared: "It is with pride that I now open Calder Hall, Britain’s first atomic power station to provide us with all the electricity we need without having to use coal or oil." In fact, however, the plant did not primarily produce electricity, but rather plutonium for the Windscale reactor located in the immediate vicinity, in which plutonium has been extracted since 1950 for the construction of atomic bombs. The moral dilemma of "dual use", the possibility of using a technology for peaceful and military purposes, has thus played a decisive role in nuclear power from the very beginning and is still responsible for an ambivalent relationship of many people to this technology of the future or of the devil, depending on one's point of view. Among the guests of honour in Calder Hall was also the German Federal Defence Minister Franz Josef Strauss, an advocate of the nuclear armament of the recently newly founded Federal Republic of Germany.15

Nuclear power in Germany since 1957

In Germany, the first research reactor was put into operation in Garching near Munich in 1957. In 1961, the Kahl Nuclear Power Plant was the first German nuclear power plant to feed 15 megawatts (MW) of electricity into the West German power grid. 16 In 1966, the Rheinsberg Nuclear Power Plant began operation in the former GDR. 17

The expansion of nuclear energy in the Federal Republic of Germany at this time was not because there was an energy shortage but was primarily due to the commitment of state authorities. On the other hand, energy utilities have acted for many years "as a brake on the implementation of nuclear energy". 18 The conspicuously strong state interest can be explained by the fact that in the early years the decisive impetus for the German nuclear energy programme was to create the option of nuclear armament. While German nuclear policy initially focused on the heavy water reactor as a continuation of the nuclear project during the Nazi era, in the 1960s the more favourable American concept of the light water reactor was adopted, which was then interpreted as a "victory of economists over technicians". 19

However, this imitation of the Americans posed a number of problems for Germany: In view of the US's status as a nuclear power, the civilian American reactors were chosen in such a way that they benefited from the military uranium and plutonium facilities, which meant that a seamless transition to military technology was a basic prerequisite for the development of the reactor there. Therefore, the suitability of American reactor technology for Germany was questionable as far as it would have made Germany a non-nuclear power for all time.

In the 1960s, numerous other nuclear power plants were built with significantly higher capacity. The Gundremmingen Nuclear Power Plant, which went into operation in 1966, had an output of 250 megawatts. In the 1970s, especially after the first oil crisis in 1973, the construction of nuclear power plants was expedited. These reactors, such as block B of the Biblis Nuclear Power Plant, produced about 1.3 gigawatts (GW). In the wake of the anti-nuclear protests against the construction of the Wyhl Nuclear Power Plant in Germany in 1975, there was greater opposition to the civilian use of nuclear energy. There were also strong protests against the construction of the Brokdorf and Grohnde nuclear power plants in the 1970s and 1980s.

Accidents and disasters lead to phase-out

Criticism of nuclear power was intensified and aggravated, in particular, by the severe reactor accident at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant near Harrisburg (USA) on 28 March 1979, during which a partial meltdown occurred for the first time.20

On 26 April 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurred, during which, after a meltdown, large quantities of radioactivity also went down in Western Europe. As a result, criticism of the use of nuclear energy has risen sharply, particularly in Europe. In 2000, under pressure from the Federal Government, Germany passed the "Act on the Orderly Termination of the Use of Nuclear Energy for the Commercial Generation of Electricity", which decided to phase out the commercial use of nuclear energy by around 2020. 21

Although two nuclear power plants were taken off the grid by 2005 as a result, in 2010 the German government decided to extend the operating lives of German nuclear power plants by up to 14 years. This decision was politically and socially highly controversial from the outset, with resistance intensifying after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan since March 2011. The serious accident in Fukushima had shown that the light water reactor, which is widespread all over the world, does not always meet the safety requirements. In response, the Federal Government announced a three-month nuclear moratorium in March 2011; finally, the nuclear consensus decided to phase out nuclear power by 2022, and the eight oldest nuclear power plants were immediately shut down.22

German nuclear power and war in Ukraine

At the turn of the year 2021/22, three other German nuclear power plants were taken off the grid, namely the reactor in Gundremmingen on the Danube, Grohnde on the Weser and Brokdorf on the Elbe. Grohnde had produced more than 400 terawatt hours of electricity since its commissioning in 1984 – a world record that came to an end in 2021.23 For the three remaining German nuclear power plants, Emsland, Neckarwestheim 2 and Isar 2, the end of operation in 2022 was planned 24 – until Russia invaded Ukraine in the spring of 2022 and, as a result of the subsequent sanctions policy, the energy supply in Germany came under pressure after Russia had curbed gas supplies. This development, which was considered unpredictable, led to a political call for an extension of the duration of the remaining nuclear power plants, for example by Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner.25 Business associations called on the Federal Government to impose an energy moratorium: "In plain language, this means that the state-imposed phase-out of coal must be suspended immediately and the remaining nuclear power plants must remain on the grid beyond the end of the year. Otherwise, there is a real risk of a nationwide blackout. A highly industrialised economy such as Germany needs a reliable energy supply with the highest degree of independence."26

However, the three German power generators E.ON, RWE and EnBW refused to extend the lifetimes of their nuclear power plants. 27 At the same time, the Minister of Economic Affairs, Robert Habeck, who was in office in 2022, made it clear that he considered it unlikely that the three remaining nuclear power plants in Germany would continue to operate. The preparations for their shutdown had already progressed to such an extent that the power plants "could only continue to be operated with the highest safety concerns and possibly with fuel supplies that had not yet been secured".28 Nevertheless, it was certainly a political sensation that a Green Party minister of all people even considered the continued operation of nuclear power plants in Germany. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz also refused to extend the terms due to the situation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 29 In the summer of 2022, however, a majority of the German population of at least 56 per cent voted in favour of an extension in a nationwide survey. 30 The fear of having to freeze in the winter of 2022/23 because of the lack of gas supplies from Russia was apparently greater than the fear of a nuclear accident.

The energy groups RWE, Vattenfall, E.ON/Preussen Elektra and EnBW, which had invested in German nuclear power plants for decades, were compensated with a sum of 2.43 billion euros as part of the phase-out. 31 The decommissioning of a nuclear power plant has by no means brought an end to the problems associated with its shutdown, as demonstrated by the dismantling of the nuclear reactor in Biblis, which had already been taken off the grid in 2011. More than ten years later, in 2022, they were still looking for a landfill for the residual waste, a total of around 340,000 tons of waste. A particularly problematic part was the so-called "clearance measurement", which in the case of Biblis concerns about 10,000 tonnes. The term means that, according to measurements, the radioactive radiation emitted by this part is so minimal that there is no health risk. But it was practically impossible to find a community with a landfill that trusted these measurement results and agreed to take the supposedly "clean" nuclear scrap.32

Thus, Germany is probably free of active nuclear power plants in the future. 33 This would seem to mean that, before the mid-2020s, Germany would have finally said goodbye to a technology that, at around the same time, many nations around the globe consider having a particularly promising future. This is crucially related to the German fear of the maximum conceivable accident with countless deaths and irreparable damage for an exceedingly long time, but also to the primal fear of nuclear power resulting from the atomic bombings of the Second World War and the nuclear threat to the world during the Cold War.

The nuclear apocalypse

The development of atomic or nuclear weapons technology began during the Second World War. On 16 July 1945, the USA conducted the first nuclear weapons test. To end the Second World War in Asia, US President Harry S. Truman had issued the so-called Potsdam Declaration on 26 July 1945 on behalf of the United States, the Republic of China (today's Taiwan) and the United Kingdom (the United Kingdom), calling on the Japanese leadership to surrender immediately and unconditionally, adding the threat:

"The full application of our military power, backed by our resolve, will mean the inevitable and complete destruction of the Japanese armed forces and just as inevitably the utter devastation of the Japanese homeland".34

"Little Boy" and "Fat Man" kill several hundred thousand

When Japan did not respond, the USA dropped the atomic bombs "Little Boy" on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 and "Fat Man" on Nagasaki on 9 August 1945; to date, these remain the only uses of nuclear weapons in a war. The explosions wiped out around 100,000 people instantly, almost all of them civilians. Another 130,000 people died of consequential injuries by the end of 1945. In the next few years, quite a few more died – a total of about a quarter of a million people.35

Six days after the second bombing, the Japanese Emperor Hirohito announced the end of the "Great East Asian War" with the speech of 15 August. With the surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945, the Second World War also ended in Asia, after it had already been over in Europe since 8 May 1945 with the surrender of the German Wehrmacht.36

With the use of the atomic bomb, the USA made it clear that it was not only capable of more or less destroying every country on this planet, but that it also had the determination to do so. This doctrine may have faded somewhat into the background today, but it is certainly not forgotten by most political actors around the globe.

Tsar Bomba: most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated

The USSR developed nuclear bombs from 1949 onwards. On 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated thus triggering the largest synthetic explosion in human history. The mushroom cloud of the hydrogen bomb rose 67 km, which is almost eight times higher than Mount Everest, the highest mountain on our planet. The detonation was still visible from more than 1,000 km away, as shown by video recordings released by Russia for the first time at the end of 2021.37

It was therefore clear that it should not be left to the US alone to gain dominance around the globe by means of nuclear power, which could be exploded anywhere in the world. During the Cold War there was an arms race, at the zenith of which the two enemy sides together owned around 70,000 nuclear warheads. Towards the end of the Cold War, their joint nuclear arsenal had the explosive power of more than 800,000 Hiroshima bombs.38

Incidentally, the Tsar Bomba was the last above-ground nuclear bomb test, after which the nuclear powers undertook to test their arsenals of terror only underground. To date, more than 2,000 nuclear tests have been conducted by eight states worldwide. The USA and the Soviet Union or Russia have conducted 85 percent of these. Since 1992, the US has maintained a nuclear test moratorium. The Soviet Union or Russia last ran tests in 1990, Great Britain in 1991. India tested a nuclear weapon back in 1974. France ran a final series in 1995, China in 1996, followed by India and Pakistan in 1998, and finally North Korea between 2006 and 2017. 39 The 528 tests in the atmosphere, underwater, on the Earth's surface and in space have led to radiation exposure on Earth, which according to calculations at the University of Munich is responsible for more than three million cancer deaths worldwide.40

Cuban Missile Crisis – world on the brink

On 17 April 1961, communist Cuba, located just outside the gates of the United States of America, was attacked from Guatemala by some 1,300 Cuban exiles in an attempt to depose the Cuban government under Fidel Castro and return the island to Western influence led by the USA. In fact, the aggressors acted with the covert support of the US intelligence agency CIA, as became clear afterwards. But first, the US was brazen enough to deny any involvement in the invasion before the United Nations General Assembly. It was not until days later that US President John F. Kennedy took responsibility for what his administration saw as a failed action; Fidel Castro remained in power. It was a political debacle beyond compare.41

Out of the probably justified fear of another US-backed attack, Fidel Castro pursued Cuba's rapprochement with the Soviet Union. A kind of "showdown" in the Cold War occurred in October 1962, when the USSR wanted to station Soviet medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba, i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the USA. It was a reaction to the previous stationing of US Jupiter medium-range ballistic missiles on a NATO base in Turkey, directly on the border with the Soviet Union.42

Fear of the Apocalypse

This was too much for John F. Kennedy: the US president threatened to use nuclear weapons. The imminent danger of half the world, or even the entire world, being annihilated by nuclear war never seemed so acute as during the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that time, medium-range nuclear missiles were considered the "non-plus-ultra", because unlike the intercontinental missiles already available, they could reach enemy territory before the enemy was able to initiate defensive measures or launch a counterattack.

But both the leadership of the USSR and the USA shied away from the apocalypse of a nuclear world war. It would have been the third and probably also the last world war of humankind. Finally, it was agreed that the Soviet Union would renounce stationing missiles on Cuba and that, in return, the USA would guarantee not to conduct any further attack on the island. Only after a considerable delay did the USA withdraw its medium-range ballistic missiles from Turkey so as not to look like the loser in the Cuban Missile Crisis.43

Both the USA and the USSR drew consequences from this near annihilation of the world. Nuclear power was taken out of the hands of the military and placed directly under the authority of the respective head of government. Since that time, the codes for launching US nuclear weapons have been kept in a briefcase to which only the US president has access; the procedure in Russia has been similar ever since. In 1963, the so-called "hot wire" was established, a direct telex connection between the seats of government of both countries, to enable rapid contact in the event of a crisis and to be able to avert an escalation through immediate negotiations. In addition, bilateral negotiations on arms control were initiated.44

Thus, the Cuban Missile Crisis led to a gradual policy of détente between the two superpowers. For a long time, this phase was characterised by arms-limiting negotiations and agreements such as SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) or INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) – mind you, always between the United States, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union, on the other.45

Disarmament phase-out

In autumn 2018, the US government startled the world by announcing that the United States would withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). The bilateral agreement between the USA and the Soviet Union concluded on 8 December 1987, which came into force indefinitely on 1 June 1988, provided for the destruction of all land-based missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 km. Since this included both short and medium range nuclear missiles, there was also talk of a "double zero solution". The two states undertook not to build any new missiles with this target radius and to dismantle all existing weapon systems of this type down to the last missile.

Incidentally, the United Nations has nothing to do with the disarmament of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles; the INF Treaty is a purely bilateral treaty between the two major nuclear superpowers. Strictly speaking, since the Second World War, the UN has made little or no contribution to one of the most important issues in world politics – nuclear weapons. Whenever it comes to existential issues for their own countries, the superpowers have always preferred to negotiate directly with each other.

Total annihilation

When it comes to potential annihilation of the Earth by nuclear weapons, the United Nations traditionally has not had much to say. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed on 1 July 1968 by the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom, and later by France and China, and entered into force on 5 March 1970. This was in the middle of the Cold War and during the arms race between the two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union.

The UN served as a forum for talks on nuclear issues. As early as 1961, Ireland had proposed in the UN General Assembly to ban the proliferation of nuclear technology and in the same year, US President John F. Kennedy also declared before the United Nations: "Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness". The doctrine of nuclear deterrence, i.e. to respond with a nuclear strike and blow up the world in the event of an attack of any kind by the other side, had lost credibility. The balance of terror that had been effective up to then also harboured the danger that nuclear weapons would fall into the hands of other states or even terrorists. In the meantime, more than 190 states have joined the agreement, which is certainly of great symbolic importance but factually insignificant, because most of the signatories do not possess any nuclear weapons at all and the commitment not to acquire any in the future only serves to shed light on what is beyond the planning or reach of these countries. What is crucial is that the five official nuclear powers obtained this status by having detonated a nuclear weapon before 1 January 1967 and then pledged "to conduct negotiations in good faith on a treaty for general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control".