The CTBT and the US

This week, the CTBTO is holding a weeklong conference on the CTBTO and the progress being made to ratify the CTBT.  Simultaneously, there is an education program being held both in Geneva and online.  I am one of the participants, and already I have learned so much about the CTBTO and the delegation processes. Part of the course is a simulation of the Executive Council Deliberations over an On-site Inspection Request.  I was selected to be a part of the representative team for Columbia. 

The CTBT is the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 10, 1996, but it has not entered into force because eight Annex-2 states have not ratified the treaty.  They are the United States, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel, North Korea, China, and Iran.

Once the CTBT is ratified and becomes part of international law, the UN will be able to monitor the world.  If a state violates the CTBT the executive council has been set up for a democratic process to order on site inspections. 

It is the interest of the United States to ratify the CTBT because the United States has already ceased nuclear testing.  The US now uses computers to run calculations and virtual tests that are just as effective as actual tests.  If the US took a leading role in getting the rest of the other states to ratify the treaty, the risk of other states gaining nuclear weapons would be eliminated almost entirely.  The United States also has even more reason to ratify the CTBT since Russia has already done so.  Russia has the second most nuclear weapons in the world.  Russia tested the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated called the Tsar Bomba in 1961. 

This is the most supported nuclear treaty in the world.  The US and others continue to obstruct it.  The US needs to begin working with the international community instead of opposing it.  For the rest of the week, I will be learning more about how the CTBT is practically carried out.  I will also be taking part in the Executive Council simulation.  I hope to learn a lot this week.  Around a hundred other participants from around the world will be joining me.  Perhaps through education and awareness, support can spread for this important treaty.

Nuclear Weapons in the Cyber Era

For the last 50 years, an outside force has never threatened the United States’ nuclear weapons safety.  The United States has always employed large security forces, secure/remote facilities, and strict protocols.  However, in recent years, and especially recent months, the U.S. and its allies have come under increased cyber attack.  For example, in the summer of 2012, alleged Iranian hackers destroyed 30,000 computers of the Saudi Aramco Company.  Chinese hackers have stolen information on important defense projects from defense contractors.  The designs include the PAC-3, THAAD, and the Navy’s Aegis ballistic-missile defense system.  Also schematics on the F/A-18 fighter jet, the V-22 Osprey, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter and the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship were stolen.  If these systems were compromised, how long until the U.S. nuclear weapons complex is compromised?  Perhaps it already has been. 

Many analysts are worried about the American banking system or the power grids.  However, I can’t think of a worse situation than if our nuclear weapons were hacked.  A nuclear power plant’s controls could be compromised and next thing we know the US has its own Chernobyl.  The US infected the Iranian nuclear industry with a virus called Stuxnet that severely hindered their progress in 2010.  Is the US immune to this type of attack?  In this age of Internet attacks, any country or group can theoretically attack the United States from a laptop.  These recent escalations in Internet attacks should signal world governments that the need for nuclear disarmament is even more imperative.  If a terrorist organization can’t build their own device, then they can just use one that already exists by hacking the controls or falsifying reports of an attack.  Studies done have shown that the US nuclear arsenal is indeed vulnerable to a cyber attack.

Technology advances at an incredible rate in this age.  Defense systems cannot keep up with the evolving capabilities of offensive tools.  Simply making the US arsenal no longer fire ready would prevent hackers from firing one of our nuclear warheads.  The Cold War is over.  Shifting the US’s nuclear arsenal to be able to address the threats of this age is imperative.  We do not need to be ready for an impending attack from the USSR.  Those days are gone.  We must now be wary that our security systems are all vulnerable.  We must protect ourselves from our own systems as much as from foreign attackers.  Now it seems nuclear weapons and power plants are liabilities.  Deterrence will not work in the Internet age.

Brooks Troiani is an intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/world/middleeast/us-helps-allies-trying-to-battle-iranian-hackers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/hackers-lay-claim-to-saudi-aramco-cyberattack/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/confidential-report-lists-us-weapons-system-designs-compromised-by-chinese-cyberspies/2013/05/27/a42c3e1c-c2dd-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEUQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Ficnnd.org%2FDocuments%2FJason_Fritz_Hacking_NC2.doc&ei=Ok3cUfnEI8GyiQLcioDQCA&usg=AFQjCNFAs4EbcxYDGaPj0AszFzb0w2ev3g

Why Current Deterrence Theory is Wrong

The main argument given against the idea of nuclear abolition is that the “genie is out of the bottle,” and the only thing that keeps more countries from getting nuclear weapons is threatening them with nuclear weapons.  However, Iran and North Korea stand as stark evidence that this is simply not true.  Nation-states will develop nuclear weapons in response to being threatened by nuclear weapons.  In an age where the nuclear armed states can invade any non-nuclear country without drastic consequences, threatened states see that in this mindset, it only makes sense to arm oneself.  The US was able to invade Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  I would argue the only reason why the US hasn’t invaded Iran is because Russia and China have threatened retaliation.  Russia invaded Afghanistan in the 80s.  China took over Tibet.  The message the nuclear powers have been sending the rest of the world over the last 50 years is that if you do something we don’t like, and you don’t have a nuclear arsenal, then we can invade you.  Therefore, the logical conclusion is that in reality deterrence leads to proliferation because it creates a mindset in which nuclear weapons are the source of power and therefore necessary.  This is disastrous in an age where terrorists are no longer bound by national barriers.  It is dangerous in a world that is currently fraught with instability and popular unrest.  

Currently, President Obama and President Putin have agreed to lower their arsenals by a third more.  While this looks like a step in the right direction, it is not really progress.  Let me tell you why.  Both Russia and the US are modernizing their nuclear arsenals.  They are spending billions of dollars on making the nuclear weapons more deadly (as if blowing up an entire city-sized area isn’t deadly enough), more difficult to shoot down with missiles, and faster (missiles that can hit a target in 4 minutes rather than ten).  So really while they lower the number of overall warheads, all they are really doing is retiring the old warheads and actually creating a new stockpile of deadlier ones.  I must ask why the US needs to spend billions of dollars on making the deadliest weapons in human history deadlier.  It is almost laughable.  I mean how accurate does a nuclear missile need to be?  If you get within a mile of your target you will still vaporize it.

For example, the old WWII nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are 80 times weaker than our smallest nuclear warhead now.  Our smallest nuclear warhead completely annihilates a 1.7 mile radius around the detonation spot.  Most buildings and all living things in this area are wiped out instantly.  They get off lucky.  Then within a 2.7 mile radius from the blast (or 1 mile outside of the instant death area) all buildings except for steel structure are gone, fifty percent of living things are instantly killed, the other  fifty percent is mortally burned or wounded and will die within the coming minutes, hours, or days after the blast.  At a 4.7 mile radius from the blast center (or 2 miles outside of the last damage radius), all houses are destroyed by the blast wave, an estimated five percent of the population is instantly killed, forty-five percent are injured, all have been exposed to toxic levels of radiation.  They will most likely die slowly and painfully of radiation poisoning.  At a 7.4 mile radius (or roughly 3 miles from the last damage radius) there is still blast damage but only twenty-five percent of the population is injured.  After this point there is less damage from the blast itself, however every living thing within thirty miles from the blast center has been exposed to lethal doses of radiation.  They will die within days, and that area will be uninhabitable for ten years.  Within ninety miles, all living persons will die of radiation poisoning, also within days.  Within 160 miles, people will show symptoms of radiation poisoning: hair loss, white blood loss, nerve damage.  The elderly, the young, and the sick will die.  Finally within 250 miles from the blast center, radiation poisoning will occur, though most will live.  Also, the land will be safe to inhabit within three years.  This is the effect of both the US and Russia’s smallest nuclear warhead.  In another report, this time on a terrorist nuclear attack on New York City estimates that there would be 800,000 people killed, and 900,000 people injured.  Those are the effects of the smallest warheads.  If anything bigger is used the results are dramatically worse.  The fact remains if ever a nuclear attack were to occur on any city the results would be horrifying.  While deterrence may have prevented a nuclear attack from another country, no amount of nuclear weapons can prevent a terrorist from acquiring a nuclear weapon. 

How do you prevent a terrorist from getting a nuclear warhead?  Well one way is to keep nuclear weapons in secure facilities.  However, countries like Pakistan and India have questionable security, and the US can’t regulate their security.  Also, in Pakistan’s case, if government rule was to break down, nothing would stop terrorist groups from gaining access to those weapons.  However, if the nuclear powers come to an agreement to set a date for virtual disarmament, boost the power of the IAEA to regularly inspect and regulate nuclear programs in all countries, and agree to support the enforcement of the agreement through UN military force and sanctions then the disarmament could be permanent. This is quite a lot to ask from most of the nuclear powers.  However, I believe that security from nuclear attack should trump sovereignty in this instance.  If there is no enforcement, then there is no punishment for failing to make good on disarmament.  Once countries disarm, it would be very easy to make sure no country starts arming again because creating weapon’s grade plutonium is a lengthy, expensive, and fairly obvious endeavor.  Think about it; no terrorist organization has been able to make one because doing so requires building huge facilities and employing experts who are under surveillance.  Even North Korea, the most secretive country in the world, didn’t keep their nuclear weapons development a secret.  As long as the IAEA and various intelligence agencies do their jobs, no country could get away with making a nuclear weapon. 

So why is it likely that this idea won’t come to fruition?  First of all, the belief in nuclear deterrence is accepted as fact by both parties in Washington and Moscow.  Second, there is still little trust for the Russians in Washington DC.  The good news is that Russia is not our enemy anymore, and this mentality could be changed through effort.  For some reason, many politicians in America and Europe still see Russia as a country to fear instead of work with.  The truth is the moment America takes off its Cold War goggles and views Russia in a new way is the moment in which nuclear disarmament talks will actually bear fruit.  If the two countries with the largest nuclear arsenals and worst nuclear track records start transparently and honestly disarming, is when the rest of the world will see that a commitment to a nuclear-free world is actually possible.  Current deterrence ideology has failed.  However, I believe that if the world is transparently disarmed and then honestly regulated, nuclear weapons development can be deterred.

Sources:

Nuclear affects estimations come from: http://www.nationalterroralert.com/nuclear/

New York City scenario: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Example/Example1.shtml

Brooks Troiani is an intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

The Legal Issues of Nuclear Weapons

          Rule one of Customary International Humanitarian Law (March 2005) quotes: “The parties to conflict must at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants. Attacks may only be directed against combatants.”  A few rules down, rule twelve, declares that indiscriminate attacks are intolerable: prohibited.  Because most international law is the product of treaties, naturally cavities remain.  These cavities create dangerous ambiguity in how entities engage one another during armed conflict.  To curb this, customary international humanitarian law is in place as a set of 161 rules, implied and accepted as law by all recognized nations-states.  The rules as demonstrated above, predominantly focus on the protection of civilians and combatants during international and non-international armed conflict.

As we all should recognize, nuclear weapons cannot distinguish between personnel; they cannot be controlled after firing. This was/is the primary reason for conventions against the use of chemical weapons and cluster munitions.  The importance of customary international law is its potential to deter and mitigate the catastrophic implications that nuclear weapons present. If they cannot be effective in nuclear disarmament, then customary international law has failed its purpose.  However, when we open up the newspaper and flip to a page that discusses nuclear contentions, there is hardly if any serious discourse on the legal ramifications that nuclear weapons present.