Dangers from Nuclear weapons: Physicists can help! US Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction

Dangers from Nuclear weapons:
Physicists can help!
US Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction
Frank N. von Hippel, Senior Research Physicist and
Professor of Public and International Affairs emeritus
Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University,
Japan Physical Society, 9 PM US ET, Tuesday, 21 March 2023

Transcript

1. Dangers from Nuclear weapons:
   Physicists can help!
   US Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction
   “Humanity remains one misunderstanding, one misstep, one miscalculation,
   one pushed button away from annihilation.”
   – UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, 28 September 2021
   Frank N. von Hippel, Senior Research Physicist and
   Professor of Public and International Affairs emeritus
   Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University,
   fvhippel@princeton.edu
   Japan Physical Society, 9 PM US ET, Tuesday, 21 March 2023
   

   View Slide

2. Outline
   Global stocks of nuclear warheads
   China’s buildup
   US and other nuclear-armed states are “modernizing”
   Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate and a global threat
   Dangers of accidental nuclear war
   Historical role of physicists as advocates for nuclear arms control
   Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction
   2
   

   View Slide

3. First Soviet test
   Cuban Missile Crisis
   End of
   Cold War
   End of Post-Cold War Relaxation
   Hiroshima-Nagasaki
   US
   Russia
   Total
   All others
   * Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nuclear Notebook, https://thebulletin.org/nuclear-notebook/
   Global stocks of nuclear warheads have declined but still
   ≈10,000 and we may be beginning a new buildup.
   3
   

   View Slide

4. Nuclear warheads are not weapons. Militarily, they are largely obsolete.
   US battlefield nuclear weapons: 20,000 in 1967  200 today.
   Precision-guided munitions are used for destroying tanks, ships, aircraft and missiles.
   Nuclear warheads are for terrorizing, but modern societies are vulnerable to
   pressure in less primitive ways: economic sanctions, computer hacking …
   4
   ≈100
   

   View Slide

5. China discovered in 2021 to be building up ~ 300 ICBM launch “silos”
   in context of confrontation with US over independence of Taiwan
   Beijing
   Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda, “China’s nuclear missile silo expansion: From
   minimum deterrence to medium deterrence,”
   https://thebulletin.org/2021/09/chinas-nuclear-missile-silo-expansion-from-
   minimum-deterrence-to-medium-deterrence/
   5
   (DF-41 ICBM can have 3 warheads
   ≈ 300 new silos
   

   View Slide

6. China’s buildup beyond a “minimum deterrent” may in part
   be due to concerns about the combined effects of a US first
   strike and ballistic missile defense against China’s surviving
   missiles (offense-defense arms race).
   6
   ?
   (+ 800 US nuclear cruise missiles
   and bombs for long-range bombers)
   

   View Slide

7. US is “modernizing” its nuclear “triad”
   • 400 new ICBMs carrying up to 1200 warheads
   • 12 new ballistic-missile submarines carrying up to 1500 warheads
   • 100 new bombers carrying up to ~1000 new nuclear-armed cruise missiles
   • ≈ 4000 new and refurbished nuclear warheads
   • Russia, France, UK, China also “modernizing.”
   Reagan-Bush
   Obama-Trump-
   Biden…
   1960 1980 2000 2020 2040
   15%
   10%
   5%
   % of DOD Budget
   ~$50 billion/yr
   (+$20 billion/yr
   for warheads)
   Eisenhower-
   Kennedy
   7
   

   View Slide

8. Consequences of All-out Nuclear War
   Risk = (Very large Consequences)x(Uncertain Probability)
   In 1961, US Strategic Air Command estimated its Single Integrated
   Operational Plan (SIOP) would kill 400 million people in the Soviet
   Union, China and E. Europe plus perhaps 200 million from
   radioactive fallout in W. Europe, Japan, South Asia.*
   US megatonnage today is 1/20 of 1961 but total deaths, including
   from starvation, after an all-out nuclear war could be billions.
   * Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine (Bloomsbury, 2017).
   8
   

   View Slide

9. Pu
   U
   Al
   High Explosive
   Modern strategic ballistic missile warhead
   Up to 8 warheads on a single missile
   (450,000 tons TNT equivalent each)
   Plutonium shell
   “Secondary”
   Nagasaki bomb
   (20,000 tons chemical explosive equivalent)
   Nagasaki implosion design was miniaturized and used as a trigger
   for much more powerful compact thermonuclear warheads.
   

   View Slide

10. Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate. Blast and Fire:
    One Russian warhead (30x Hiroshima) on Pentagon ≈ 1 million deaths
    11 km scaled Hiroshima
    firestorm radius (~Y1/2)
    Capitol
    White House
    Pentagon
    6 km scaled Hiroshima
    blast radius (~Y1/3)
    Beltway
    1
    0
    

    View Slide

11. * Major U.S. attack on Russian nuclear forces (The U.S. Nuclear War Plan: Time for a Change (1200 warheads)
    https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/us-nuclear-war-plan-report.pdf, 2001) Fig. 4.84.
    x ~4 for 2 weeks
    Lethal outdoors
    Radioactive Fallout: Most US warheads are aimed at Russian and Chinese
    nuclear weapons. Fallout from groundbursts on “hard” targets such as missile
    silos in Russia would cause ~10 million deaths. In addition, hundreds of
    “leadership” and “war-supporting-industry” targets are in urban areas.*
    Kazakhstan
    Submarine bases
    (dots are airbursts)
    

    View Slide

12. 65,000 warheads
    J. Coupe, C. G. Bardeen, A. Robock, O. B. Toon, “Nuclear Winter Responses to Nuclear War Between the United States and Russia,”
    Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2019) 124, 8522–8543. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JD030509
    Climate impact of a US-
    Russia nuclear war on the
    growing season if firestorms
    from ≈ 400 Megatons of nuclear
    explosions on cities loft
    ≈100 Megatons of sun-blocking
    black smoke to stratosphere
    (7-yr half-life).
    Most of North America,
    Russia, Europe, China, would
    experience Antarctic growing
    season (“nuclear winter”) during
    first two years.
    Congress has asked US National
    Academy of Sciences to evaluate
    these predictions. Could Japan
    also mount a review?
    Before
    After
    Length of growing season: 0 50 100 150 200 300days
    12
    

    View Slide

13. 13
    Lili Xia et al, “Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate
    disruption from nuclear war soot injection”, Nature Food, August 2022
    Starvation from 37 Megatons of soot in stratosphere
    Percentage deaths of national populations if international food trade
    halted and 50% of livestock feed converted to human consumption
    25-50%
    75-95%
    50-75%
    95-100%
    0-1%
    1-25%
    

    View Slide

14. Risk = (Probability)x(Consequences): accidental nuclear war:
    ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) are targetable and therefore in a
    launch-on-warning posture
    Russia’s ballistic missiles can reach US ICBM silos with ≤ 30 min. flight time.
    President’s decision time less than 10 minutes and depends on accurate information
    65,000 warheads
    14
    

    View Slide

15. Information is not always accurate
    Publicly known false alarms
    • 2 US:1979/80 (training tape, faulty chip),
    • 1 SU:1983 (sun reflection from cloud)
    Early-warning crews saved us from nuclear destruction, but their leaders
    were discharged because they took too long to confirm warnings were false.
    • In Europe, 1983, NATO command exercise programmed to end with
    simulated nuclear attack on E. Europe was taken as real by Soviet command.
    Nuclear bombs were loaded on Soviet fighter-bombers for preemptive attack.
    Nuclear threats in military crises
    • 1961 crisis over US access to W. Berlin. (Is Taiwan today’s W. Berlin?)
    • 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis occurred after US announcement during Berlin
    Crisis that US had “nuclear superiority.”
    • 2022 Putin threatened nuclear attack if NATO support for Ukraine becomes
    intolerable.
    A New risk: Possible hacking of nuclear command and control
    15
    

    View Slide

16. 16
    Nuclear-armed states
    Former nuclear-armed states
    Under US nuclear “umbrella”
    States in nuclear-weapon-free zones
    Other
    Global nuclear-weapon status
    (35% have joined 2017 Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons)
    

    View Slide

17. Physical scientists have tried and
    sometimes succeeded in making a difference
    Niels Bohr was the first
    During World War II, Bohr met separately
    with President Roosevelt and Prime
    Minister Churchill to urge them to consult
    with Stalin on the secret US-UK nuclear-
    weapon project.
    He hoped to prevent a post-war nuclear
    arms race.
    He failed but his concerns and activism
    inspired others.
    17
    

    View Slide

18. 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto and resulting Pugwash Conferences
    facilitated at least five important arms-control agreements
    (1963 Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty, 1972 Treaty Limiting Anti-Ballistic Missiles, 1972 Biological
    Weapons Ban, 1990 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe, and 1993 Chemical Weapons Ban)
    18
    S. Tomonaga,
    Nobel Prize 1965
    First Pugwash meeting in Canada, 1957
    [H. Yukawa (Nobel Prize, 1949)
    not in photo but attended]
    Pugwash and its leader, Joseph Rotblat, were awarded 1995 Nobel Peace Prize
    Joseph Rotblat
    C.F. Powell,
    Nobel Prize 1950
    Herman J Muller,
    Nobel Prize 1946
    Leo Szilard,
    

    View Slide

19. Of course, Not just physicists! 1982 mass movement to “freeze” nuclear
    arms race culminated in a million-person demonstration in New York and
    mass demonstrations in W. Europe against US intermediate-range missiles
    These uprisings changed Reagan’s mind and encouraged Gorbachev.
    19
    March to UN
    headquarters
    

    View Slide

20. But that was 40 years ago
    With end of Cold War, most of us believed danger of nuclear war ended.
    Activists moved to other issues – especially climate change.
    So did most members of U.S. Congress – except for those who have districts
    and states with nuclear weapons jobs. They supported continued funding.
    Now we must mobilize again to educate and empower those politicians
    interested in further reducing the threat from nuclear weapons.
    20
    

    View Slide

21. US Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction
    https://physicistscoalition.org
    Founded in 2020 with sponsorship of American Physical Society to help
    educate physicists and then have them help educate Congress about dangers of
    nuclear war and how the dangers can be reduced.
    ~850 US physicists, including graduate students.
    Have advocated:
    • For extension of New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (new START)
    (extended for 5 years till 2026 by Biden and Putin)
    • Against Trump Administration proposal to prepare to resume underground
    nuclear weapon tests (2021).
    • For a no-first-nuclear-use policy (blocked by united alliance of
    Congressional Republicans, the Pentagon and governments of Japan and
    other US allies)
    Physicists Coalition, now independent, is selecting more issues for advocacy
    starting with urging negotiations on a follow-on to US-Russia
    New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. 21
    

    View Slide

22. Additional Coalition Activities
    https://physicistscoalition.org
    22
    • Continual cycle of education of members on issues
    • Provide expertise to community and national nuclear arms control
    advocacy groups
    • Next generation fellowship: graduate students, post docs, Assistant
    Professors who apply to study an issue with a nuclear-weapon policy
    expert
    Chapters in universities to
    • Teach courses on nuclear-weapon issues
    • Develop sustained advisory relationships with Congressional offices
    Outreach to physicists in other countries (as in this session)
    Thank you for attending!
    

    View Slide