On the brink of nuclear war

In a season when the world traditionally affirms its quest for peace, it is surreal that nuclear war appears imminent. But for once Filipinos can heave a sigh of relief that US military bases are no longer part of our landscape.

For the people in our region, life is becoming increasingly precarious as the United States and North Korea agree on one crucial point: The potential for nuclear conflict increases daily and the only question is when.

As a result, the armed forces of the United States, South Korea and Japan are on war footing. Since US defense readiness conditions (Defcon) are classified, it is reasonable to assume that America is now at Defcon 2, the level for a probable nuclear conflict.

To resolve the brewing crisis, the United States has three options. The first, as President Donald Trump threatens, is a preemptive strike to decapitate North Korea’s nuclear capability. But Pentagon war planners admit there is no guarantee that Pyongyang’s arsenal would be totally destroyed, allowing the communist regime to devastate Seoul, Tokyo and Washington with retaliatory strikes. The second option is for the White House to continue its thuggish tweets to Kim Jong-un and ramp up the economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, China and the United Nations. The third is to recognize that North Korea has done nothing to merit its destruction, save for its ambition to join the world’s nuclear club.

Starting a nuclear war is suicidal, and Kim Jong-un understands this. The fact that North Korea has developed weapons of mass destruction indicates not only extraordinary technological competence but also a powerful sense of logic. Far more important, it understands that it would not survive a second strike by the United States. Thus, it is entirely pointless for Pyongyang to initiate a nuclear war that it has no hope of winning or surviving.

With Pyongyang’s growing capability to hit major cities on the American continent, the conventional thinking is that the United States must now resort to force—which, of course, is a false premise. The rational option is for Washington to accept Pyongyang’s nuclear capability as fait accompli and begin constructing a new policy of containment and deterrence against Kim Jong-un’s regime. After all, the United States has learned to live with nuclear powers such as Russia, China and Pakistan—all considered foes or unstable states at one point or other.

There is enormous hypocrisy in America’s effort to curb North Korea’s nuclear aspirations. Pyongyang’s nuclear tests, in fact, are models of discretion compared to US experiments. The United States, which produced some 70,000 nuclear weapons from 1946 to 1990 alone, has been incredibly reckless, irresponsible, inhumane, and criminal in conducting nuclear tests. Two examples will suffice:

From January 1951 to January 1956, the United States exploded a total of 49 nuclear bombs in its Nevada proving grounds. These included a dirty plutonium device which registered the largest nuclear explosion on US soil. Plutonium has a half-life of over 20,000 years, and if inhaled it is one of the deadliest elements known to humans. Linus Pauling, the Nobel scientist, publicly asserted that 1 percent of children born in Nevada one year after the tests would have serious birth defects. To this day, the impact of those tests remain classified.

Between 1946 and 1954, the United States conducted 105 atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, detonating an estimated yield of 210 megatons. In the worst radiological disaster in US history, the Castle Bravo nuclear accident on March 1, 1954, inflicted radioactive contamination on the inhabitants of nearby atolls. Wind shear and ocean currents carried radioactive traces to Japan, India and Australia, and even to parts of Europe and the United States.

It is high time Washington cast aside protocol and moral pretensions. It must negotiate directly with Pyongyang. The gravest danger now, as Scott D. Sagan points out, is that North Korea, South Korea and the United States will stumble into a catastrophic war that none of them wants.

Rex D. Lores (rxdlores@gmail.com) is a member of Philippine Futuristics Society.