Under the shadow of a NATO-Russia nuclear war, Hibakusha awarded Nobel Peace Prize
Oct 15, 2024
As Vladimir Putin deploys mobile missile launchers throughout the Siberian Taiga armed with Yars heavy duty ICBMs, while making nuclear threats and claiming that these forces have been placed on a higher level of alert (though this isn’t necessarily so), NATO seems intent on compounding what seems already threatening and dangerous enough with the performance of the annual Steadfast Noon nuclear exercises, in which NATO literally rehearses for the apocalypse. It seems that this year the exercise is more ‘real’ than previously.
Meanwhile – and highly appropriately given the level of the threat and the danger the world faces – the Hibakusha (Bomb Victims) group Nihon Hidankyo has been awarded this years Nobel Peace Prize for its work in spreading the word on the effects of nuclear weapons and in working for their abolition. A more appropriate and timely award is hard to imagine.
Newsweek reported on 7 Oct that Putin had ordered Russian missiles placed on higher alert. Video of mobile missile launchers rumbling out into the Siberian Taiga over remote roads from their garages was posted on Telegram.
An item in Pearls and Irritations Oct 11, by this author noted that placing Russian nuclear missiles on high alert (if indeed their alert status really has changed) is ‘a dangerous game’.
If the deployment of Yars missiles on mobile launchers in the Siberian Taiga (threatening enough if we also take account of the accompanying rhetoric) inches us toward an event sequence that would, if it should take place, end what we call ‘civilisation’ in its first milliseconds of EMP, kill up to 50% of all humans in about 90 minutes, and leave most of those who somehow survive to starve and freeze in the twilight of a nuclear winter – then the pursuit of a NATO nuclear exercise in which the dropping and the targeting of nuclear weapons is actively practiced, surely compounds the risk.
Russia’s deployment of its mobile YARS ICBMs was bad enough. 2 weeks worth of NATO nuclear exercises, in which NATO actively practices for the apocalypse, surely compounds that risk.
Colonel Daniel Bunch, director of NATO nuclear weapons operations, adds point to the potential risk, saying in a Finnish publication that this year’s exercise also has another clear difference from last years’ nuclear weapons exercises.
“- This year, the planes will deliver the weapon to the target”. “We’re looking at how to integrate that and what we can learn about maximising the performance of a very powerful aircraft,”
One can imagine how this reads in the Kremlin. About as cheerfully as the deployment of YARS mobile missiles reputedly on ‘high alert’ reads to NATO.
Back in 1983, NATO also practiced for the apocalypse, in an exercise known as ‘Able Archer’, in which commanders went through the procedures they would have had to go through to order the release of nuclear weapons. There was one slight glitch – The KGB was convinced it wasn’t an exercise but the real thing. Only the leakage of NATOs real battle plans to the Kremlin (showing it was indeed an exercise) and a last minute substitution of heads of state for underlings saved the world from nuclear war.
Russia’s deployment of an important segment of its nuclear forces, (assuming a real change of status has taken place which it may not have) combined with NATO’s nuclear exercises which will go on for a week starting Monday put the world closer to the brink.
The need for nuclear risk reduction measures such as No First Use, de-alerting and enhanced or resumed military to military communication has never been clearer, and the need for abolition never clearer.
Australia could do much both by vigorous advocacy of risk reduction and by joining the TPNW (Ban Treaty). Much has been promised and little or nothing achieved in this department.
Meanwhile, the well-deserved award of the Nobel Peace prize to the Hibakusha both puts the spotlight on nuclear weapons and their abolition, and on the suffering of nuclear victims, where it needs to be.
(Institutional Affiliations for Identification Purposes only)