{"id":7463,"date":"2010-09-27T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-26T22:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=7463"},"modified":"2010-09-25T16:47:48","modified_gmt":"2010-09-25T14:47:48","slug":"nuclear-detonation-fifteen-scenarios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/09\/nuclear-detonation-fifteen-scenarios\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Detonation: Fifteen Scenarios"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many people are complacent about nuclear weapons.\u00a0 They would prefer to deny the nuclear threat and put nuclear dangers out of their minds.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this is a dangerous approach to a serious threat to humanity. There are many ways in which a nuclear detonation could take place, including accident, miscalculation and intentional use.\u00a0 Any use of nuclear weapons, including by accident or miscalculation, could lead to the destruction of a city as occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.\u00a0 Further, a nuclear weapon detonation could trigger a retaliatory response leading to nuclear war and even broader devastation, including the annihilation of complex life on the planet.\u00a0 Listed below are 15 possible scenarios for a nuclear detonation.\u00a0 These are 15 arguments against complacency and for engagement in seeking a world without nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. False Alarm<\/strong>:\u00a0 A false alarm triggers a decision to launch a nuclear attack.<\/li>\n
  2. Unauthorized Launch<\/strong>: Launch codes are obtained by hackers, espionage agents or coercion and used to launch high alert forces.\u00a0 This could involve the physical takeover of a mobile missile, or the use of codes obtained via pre-delegation.<\/li>\n
  3. Accidental Nuclear War<\/strong>:\u00a0 An accidental launch leads to an escalation into a nuclear war.<\/li>\n
  4. Control and Communications failure<\/strong>:\u00a0 A rogue field commander or submarine commander falls out or deliberately puts himself out of communications with his central command and launches a nuclear attack on his own authority.<\/li>\n
  5. \u201cDr. Strangelove\u201d Nuclear War<\/strong>:\u00a0 The launch of a nuclear attack by a rogue field or submarine commander leads to a retaliatory strike that escalates into a nuclear war.<\/li>\n
  6. A Terrorist Bomb<\/strong>:\u00a0 A terrorist group obtains nuclear materials and creates an unsophisticated nuclear device or obtains a bomb and succeeds in detonating it in a large city.<\/li>\n
  7. Terrorist Bomb Triggers Nuclear War<\/strong>:\u00a0 A terrorist nuclear attack is disguised in such a way as to appear to come from another nuclear weapons state, leading to a \u201cretaliatory strike\u201d that escalates into nuclear war.<\/li>\n
  8. Preemptive Attack<\/strong>:\u00a0 Believing one\u2019s country to be under nuclear attack or about to be under such attack, a leader of a nuclear weapon state launches a preemptive nuclear attack.<\/li>\n
  9. Preventive Nuclear War<\/strong>:\u00a0 A nuclear weapons state launches an unprovoked nuclear attack against another country perceived to pose a future threat.\u00a0 An example would be the use by Israel of a small tactical nuclear weapon against deeply buried nuclear facilities in Iran.<\/li>\n
  10. Escalation of Conventional War<\/strong>:\u00a0 India and Pakistan, for example, engage in further conventional war over Kashmir.\u00a0 The conflict escalates into a nuclear exchange of approximately 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons, resulting in potentially a billion deaths.<\/li>\n
  11. Military Parity<\/strong>:\u00a0 In a conventional war, Russia defaults to nuclear weapons due to its deteriorating conventional military capability.<\/li>\n
  12. Irrational Leader<\/strong>:\u00a0 An unstable and paranoid leader, fearing attack and\/or regime change, launches a nuclear attack against perceived adversaries.\u00a0 There are no democratic controls.<\/li>\n
  13. Rational Leader<\/strong>:\u00a0 A leader, making what he deems to be rational calculations, launches a nuclear attack against perceived adversaries to assure the survival of his country.\u00a0 There are no democratic controls.<\/li>\n
  14. Prompt Global Strike<\/strong>:\u00a0 The US proceeds with plans to place conventional weapons on some of its inter-continental ballistic missiles.\u00a0 When launching one of these missiles, it is mistaken for a nuclear-armed warhead, resulting in a retaliatory nuclear attack.<\/li>\n
  15. Intentional Nuclear War<\/strong>:\u00a0 Tensions and conflict between major nuclear powers mount, leading to an intentional nuclear war.\u00a0 Civilization is destroyed and complex life on Earth is ended.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    _________________________<\/strong><\/p>\n

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Go to Original \u2013 wagingpeace.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Many people are complacent about nuclear weapons. They would prefer to deny the nuclear threat and put nuclear dangers out of their minds. Unfortunately, this is a dangerous approach to a serious threat to humanity. There are many ways in which a nuclear detonation could take place, including accident, miscalculation and intentional use. Any use of nuclear weapons, including by accident or miscalculation, could lead to the destruction of a city as occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weapons-of-mass-destruction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}