The
first half of the 20th century hosted an amazingly gifted generation
of physicists. Foremost among them was Enrico Fermi, but even a genius runs a
risk of observation bias. In 1934 he attempted to create transuranic elements
(or at least heavier isotopes) by bombarding uranium atoms with neutrons. Instead
he split the atoms, but since he wasn’t looking for fission products he didn’t
see them. He was unaware of what he had done though he later berated himself
for not having seen what was going on immediately. Not until December 1938 did
Hahn, Strassmann, and Meitner in Berlin recognize that uranium was splitting in
similar experiments. The delay is sometimes called the 5-year-miracle. Had
Fermi noticed and pursued fission in 1934, World War 2 would have been an
atomic war – not just by the US at the very end but by all the major players.
Horrific as that war was, that would have been worse. It was not the last time
the world got lucky with nuclear weapons.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 we ultimately were saved by the well-justified fears of President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev. (I wrote briefly of my own childhood recollections of that episode, by the way, on my short story site: 22 October.) Throughout the Cold War there was a healthy dread of nuclear war that underlay the public psyche and limited the escalation of confrontations among the major powers. The term “existential threat” gets tossed around lightly these days, but nuclear weapons really did pose a threat to the existence of civilization. We understood that. They still do. I’m not so sure we still understand it. The nuclear club today openly consists of the US, UK, Russia, France, China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. Israel does not acknowledge possessing nukes though everyone assumes it has them. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons in 1989, the only country ever to do so.
The end of the Cold War has brought complacency. Only a handful of fringe preppers build fallout shelters anymore. Nuclear weapons are regarded as big sticks no one ever will swing in anger since to do so would be suicide. Don’t be so sure. Only China has a stated no-first-use policy – and no one believes it. All other powers reserve the right to use them if the existence of the state is at stake. The most likely scenario for a nuclear exchange is the field use of a tactical weapon by a nuclear power that is losing a conventional war. The intent would be to “escalate to deescalate” – to scare the other side into negotiating a settlement. It might work, but it just as easily could turn rapidly into mutual escalation instead. More than one war has begun with a miscalculation. A return to a healthy dread will make that a little less likely with nukes.
Open air testing of nuclear weapons between 1945 and 1974 was reckless in any number of ways. Fallout proved to be more of a problem than anticipated, and some of the particles traveled far. Iodine 131, for instance, has a half-life of 8 days. This isn’t very long, but it was long enough for the isotope to be deposited on grass hundreds of miles from the Nevada test site, be eaten by cows, concentrated in milk, and then absorbed by the thyroid of milk drinkers. Other radionuclides are less metabolically active but are dangerous for longer, e.g. strontium 90 and cesium 137, which have half-lives of 30 years. On a global scale the level of exposure from testing was relatively minor, but cancer risks from radiation exposure are cumulative, so they did count for something. For populations nearby the test sites they counted a lot, especially when there were accidents. The 1954 Castle Bravo thermonuclear test at Bikini, for example, at 15 megatons was triple the anticipated yield. In consequence, a wide area in the Pacific was unexpectedly contaminated by fallout including a Japanese fishing boat, the crew of which received lethal doses.
During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 we ultimately were saved by the well-justified fears of President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev. (I wrote briefly of my own childhood recollections of that episode, by the way, on my short story site: 22 October.) Throughout the Cold War there was a healthy dread of nuclear war that underlay the public psyche and limited the escalation of confrontations among the major powers. The term “existential threat” gets tossed around lightly these days, but nuclear weapons really did pose a threat to the existence of civilization. We understood that. They still do. I’m not so sure we still understand it. The nuclear club today openly consists of the US, UK, Russia, France, China, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. Israel does not acknowledge possessing nukes though everyone assumes it has them. South Africa dismantled its nuclear weapons in 1989, the only country ever to do so.
The end of the Cold War has brought complacency. Only a handful of fringe preppers build fallout shelters anymore. Nuclear weapons are regarded as big sticks no one ever will swing in anger since to do so would be suicide. Don’t be so sure. Only China has a stated no-first-use policy – and no one believes it. All other powers reserve the right to use them if the existence of the state is at stake. The most likely scenario for a nuclear exchange is the field use of a tactical weapon by a nuclear power that is losing a conventional war. The intent would be to “escalate to deescalate” – to scare the other side into negotiating a settlement. It might work, but it just as easily could turn rapidly into mutual escalation instead. More than one war has begun with a miscalculation. A return to a healthy dread will make that a little less likely with nukes.
Open air testing of nuclear weapons between 1945 and 1974 was reckless in any number of ways. Fallout proved to be more of a problem than anticipated, and some of the particles traveled far. Iodine 131, for instance, has a half-life of 8 days. This isn’t very long, but it was long enough for the isotope to be deposited on grass hundreds of miles from the Nevada test site, be eaten by cows, concentrated in milk, and then absorbed by the thyroid of milk drinkers. Other radionuclides are less metabolically active but are dangerous for longer, e.g. strontium 90 and cesium 137, which have half-lives of 30 years. On a global scale the level of exposure from testing was relatively minor, but cancer risks from radiation exposure are cumulative, so they did count for something. For populations nearby the test sites they counted a lot, especially when there were accidents. The 1954 Castle Bravo thermonuclear test at Bikini, for example, at 15 megatons was triple the anticipated yield. In consequence, a wide area in the Pacific was unexpectedly contaminated by fallout including a Japanese fishing boat, the crew of which received lethal doses.
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| Blast effect of a low yield (16 kiloton) fission bomb on a wood frame house at 1100 meters. "Annie" test 1953. |
Yet, the tests did serve one unintended useful purpose. They were absolutely terrifying. Maybe setting one off now and then on the surface would worth the health risks if only to remind ourselves still to be terrified of them. After all, using a single nuke in anger would do more harm than all of the tests combined. The tests would remind us to think twice about playing chicken with the devices or with those who wield them.
Marianne Faithfull – What
Have They Done to the Rain
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