RANT: TOMORROW

 

TOMORROW (August 6) is the eightieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing by the United States, the first time a nuclear weapon was used in war. (The bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, was the last time such a weapon was used. So far.) Much has been written about these two Japanese cities, destroyed by America’s atom bombs, because they represent the ultimate of cautionary tales. If we treat nuclear weapons, of whatever size, as somehow ‘useable’ in a conflict, as tactical weapons that can draw a line in the sand to make your opponent stop and reconsider their actions, and if we assume such weapons can be contained on a battlefield and not spread to a broader, even a global, conflagration, then we are kidding ourselves. Escalation is almost guaranteed following a nuclear detonation, particularly if the other side is also a nuclear power. 

 

The BBC recently published an interesting article on a subset of victims of the Hiroshima bombing, namely Koreans living in the city at the time. Of Hiroshima's 420,000 people, 120,000 were Korean (IIUC the population statistics from the article). In addition, of the immediate dead following the detonation, which was some seventy-thousand people, 20% were Korean. 

Korean nationals were in Hiroshima as part of a conscripted work force or else they had come there to escape poverty in their homeland. Note: Korea had been a colony of Imperial Japan for some thirty years prior to WWII and tens of thousands of its citizens were dragooned into supporting Japan's war effort, in its factories and other sectors needing manpower. Following the bombing, the conscripts were given tasks like retrieving and burning the dead. This exposed them, disproportionately, to dangerous levels of radiation.

 

Granted, the dangers of radiation poisoning were not well known at the time, still the Koreans were treated as essentially slave labour before, during, and for a time, after the war. Many of the survivors returned home and many suffered the aftereffects of radiation exposure with higher rates of cancer, heart and kidney disease, etc. According to one survivor, a Mr. Shim:

 

“Koreans were second-class citizens – often given the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs… In the aftermath of the bomb, this distribution of labour translated into dangerous and often fatal work for Koreans in Hiroshima. Korean workers had to clean up the dead… At first, they used stretchers, but there were too many bodies. Eventually, they used dustpans to gather corpses and burned them in schoolyards. It was mostly Koreans who did this. Most of the post-war clean-up and munitions work was done by us." (BBC)

 

SCORES of returnees, including Mr. Shim, settled in Hapcheon, a small county in South Korea, dubbed “Korea’s Hiroshima” because so many survivors chose to live there. Long term studies of the survivors suggest higher than normal mortality rates when compared to Japanese survivors, and higher rates of disease and genetic disorders affecting their second and third generation descendants. Eighty years on and the peoples of two countries live with life altering effects stemming from the detonation of a single atomic bomb. Imagine the effects today’s nuclear arsenals would have on our cities should they ever be used.

👉Let’s hope that never happens.🙏

 

Cheers, Jake.

   

[The Day After and Threads are a couple of movies that should scare the pants off any viewer. Both depict life in a city following a nuclear attack. Hang on to yer knickers!]

 

 

 

RANT: NUKES AND NUTTS PART ONE

 

  

NEXT WEEK MARKS the eightieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 respectively, the only time nuclear weapons were used in wartime. Today, our planet hosts nine nations who have nuclear weapons in their arsenals. Five of those nations (Britain, China, France, Russia, United States) are signatories to the 1970 NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), along with 191 non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS). The four nuclear weapon possessing states (NWS) that are NOT signatories to the Cold War treaty are: India, Pakistan, North Korea (it left the NPT in 2003 to develop nuclear weapons) and Israel (undeclared). South Sudan is a NNWS that has also NOT signed the treaty.

Under the NPT, only the above five NWS are allowed to possess nuclear weapons since their stockpiles accrued prior to 1970 when the terms of the NPT came into force; the rest must comply with treaty obligations and pledge they will only develop technologies and facilities dedicated to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, eschewing the acquisition of nuclear weapons.* Signatories also agree NOT to share nuclear weapons technology with other states, nor transfer nuclear weapons outside their territories. Signatories to the treaty that violate its terms are subject to sanctions and political pressure from the UNSC (United Nations Security Council). To tamp down the spread of nuclear weapons, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) provides a clearing house for technical information and support for countries that develop civilian nuclear programs. The NPT also requires that treaty members open their nuclear facilities to inspection by the IAEA to ensure no nuclear material is diverted toward weapons production.

 

[On June 12, 1982, the largest protest in American history converged in New York, as an estimated one million protestors marched from Central Park to the United Nations to demand an end to nuclear weapons.]  

 

IN GENERAL, this system has kept in check the “horizontal” spread of nuclear weapons by offering assistance through commercial and financial organizations, and through the IAEA’s nuclear technology training programs. However, the  “vertical” spread of the ‘Big Five’ NWS in creating large stockpiles of warheads and bombs, leaves the NPT open to charges of hypocrisy and unfair treatment, where the ‘Big Five’ have capitalized on their early adoption of nuclear weapons to ‘corner the market’ on nuclear weapons technology, with the IAEA there to ensure certain technologies in nuclear energy production are withheld from signatory nations that might lead them to, for example, enrich uranium to weapons-grade purity. India objected to the closed nuclear ‘club’ and went ahead with its own program in the mid-1970s. Pakistan followed India, developing its nuclear weapons, also outside the NPT. It should be noted that nuclear weapons states are required to adopt policies that would decrease their stockpiles over time. During the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, the USSR and American caches of nuclear weapons were in the tens of thousands. The early SALT1 and SALT2 (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) treaties and the more comprehensive START and NewSTART (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) between the United States and the USSR (later Russia) brought nuclear armories of both countries down to roughly 5,200 warheads apiece, either deployed, in storage, or in the process of decommissioning.

 

FUN FACT: The NewSTART treaty was renewed during the Obama presidency in 2010, but is set to expire next year, unless Trump and his band of sad-sack clowns are foolish enough NOT to negotiate with the Russians for an extension to NewSTART. Without this treaty, there could very well begin a new arms race, and China—not a signatory to the treaty—may grow its own inventory of nuclear weapons to add to the mix. This is a very disturbing scenario, and one would think there would be growing public concern. But it is not on most people's radar. "Meep-meep!"

 

IN THE POST-WWII YEARS, the ‘Big Five’ nations¹ (Britain, China, France, Russia, United States) had economies large enough to establish both civilian and military nuclear programs.² They had emerged victorious from the war and called the shots from their position on the UN Security Council. Between themselves they established nuclear protocols and agreements. Imperfect treaties though all these were, nevertheless, they acted as a brake on a runaway arms race and promoted saner nuclear weapons arrangements. But times have changed, nine nations have nuclear weapons now and more may follow. We face the possibility that loose cannons in one or more governments may open the proverbial barn door, and we may not be able to close it, this time.

 

I SAW BY OPEN WINDOW

I saw by open window.

I saw a sky so blue.

I saw there in the distance

The line the bomber drew.

I heard the earth still breathing.

And then I heard it sigh.

I heard its heart stop beating,

Beneath an azure sky.

 

  

Cheers, Jake.  ____________________________________

 

* INTERESTINGLY, South Africa is the only country to have developed an indigenous nuclear weapons program and then given it up in 1990 to join the NPT. In the 1980s, apartheid SA developed several nuclear bombs (probably with help from Israel) to ward off the USSR which supported liberation movements inside South Africa like the ANC (African National Congress). Today, both countries are partners and founding members of the BRICS coalition. [How times change! Ed.]

 

1. The ‘Big five’ nations also happen to be the five permanent members of the powerful United Nations Security Council. Go figure.

 

2. Eighty years on from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the ‘secrets’ of building nuclear bombs and reactors is pretty much an open secret. There are some tricks-of-the-trade around enrichment processes and configuring nuclear warheads onto missiles that will fly, and so on. But many nations that have mature nuclear programs, like Canada for instance, could enrich U-235 to weapons-grade Pu but choose not to because of cost (it’s expensive to build nuclear weapons that have only one use (hopefully!) and that’s to sit in their silos. Whereas nuclear power stations can contribute to the economy by providing cheap³ electricity to run industries, etc. There are also treaty obligations as in the NPT, for instance, which come with penalties should the terms of the treaty be breached, not to mention complaints and diplomatic rows from concerned neighbours.

WHEN you enter the ‘club’, the rules of the game change, your international relationships change, and not necessarily for the better. For example, Israel has nuclear weapons—an open secret—but hasn’t formally declared itself a NWS. If it did NOT have nukes, it would have had to behave like a normal and relatively sane country, knitting together relations with its neighbours and coming to workable solutions internally on how to govern itself. I see nuclear weapons as a distorting factor in Israeli society and politics. Thus, Israel becomes a threat to its neighbours and moves like a wrecking ball through international law. It gets away with too many things it wouldn’t be able to, under normal circumstances. And that’s not good for anyone, including Israel.

 

FUN FACT: Following the June bombings of its nuclear facilities, Iran, suspicious that the IAEA leaked information to the Israelis about their nuclear program and the names of some of their scientists,  ordered the agency to leave. However, it remains a member of the NPT. Should it be attacked again, it will probably withdraw from the treaty and secretly work on a Bomb. It may then declare itself a Nuclear Weapons State or it may keep its status a secret, like Israel. MIT professor Ted Postol says for all intents and purposes Iran is ALREADY a NWS and should be treated as such, like all NWS are treated—with kid gloves. What a bizarro world we have!

 

3. I’m not so sure how ‘cheap’ nuclear power is when you factor in the humongous construction and maintenance costs, not to mention disposal of the highly radioactive waste, something NO ONE has yet found an answer. (Ship it to Mars, perhaps? Elon, what say ye?) There are approximately 440 reactors in 31 countries operating today. 

 

 

QUOTES: RACHEL CARSON

 

“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”  

―Rachel Carson

 

ARCTIC COUNCIL

 

SINCE WE ARE CURRENTLY up to our eyeballs in snow right now in my neck of the woods, in Ontario, Canada, I thought it might be a good time to revisit an issue I’ve touched on earlier, namely Arctic sovereignty and the work of the Arctic Council. With the high north changing at a rapid pace because of climate change, and the Arctic Ocean predicted to be ice-free in summer by 2050, it’s plain to see that the northern region of our planet will become a busy place in terms of transportation, trade and resource extraction. Like it or not (I personally don’t, but that’s neither here nor there), that's the trajectory we seem to be on. The Arctic Council’s role is to act as a facilitator for scientific and environmental research, as well as a forum for working groups to craft and present proposals to regulate commercial and nation-state activities in the north. For example, one of the earliest agreements, one that predates the establishment of the Arctic Council (1996), was the “Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programmes (AMAP). This 1991 initiative began gathering a wide range of environmental data on the effects of pollution, and the spread of industrial chemicals within the Arctic ecosystem. This data bank led to the disturbing discovery of the degree to which persistent organic pollutants (POPs) were being introduced into the Arctic on wind, water and through food chains from distant sources. It was discovered that POPs such as DDt, PCBs, and dioxins were being “bioaccumulated” in the fatty tissues, blood and milk of living organisms including, of course, native peoples and residents of the region, to the point where female Innuit* foetuses were deemed at risk. The cumulative work done by the Council led to the “Stockholm Convention” of 2001 being ratified in the United Nations.¹ Other initiatives of the council included establishing working groups whose work led to the ratification of international agreements like: the “Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna” (CAFF), the “Protection of Arctic Marine Environment” (PAME) and the “Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response” (EPPR) protocols. 

 

NEEDLESS TO SAY, the Council’s focus is on protecting the fragile Arctic biosphere from local and southern sources of pollution and environmental distress due to carbon-intensive commercial processes and, of course, climate change, where, in recent decades, it has been observed the Arctic is warming 4x as fast as the rest of the planet.)

  

“The Arctic Council is the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States, Arctic Indigenous Peoples and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues, in particular on issues of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic. It was formally established in 1996.

All Arctic Council decisions and statements require consensus of the eight Arctic States.” (Arctic Council)

 

INTERESTINGLY, the idea that an Arctic council or forum be established among the eight Arctic nations² to discuss issues and work on common interests and goals in the far north came about during the years of “Perestroika” and “Glasnost” (“restructuring” and “openness”) in the USSR (United Soviet Socialist Republics), and through the auspices of that country’s president, Michail Gorbachev. Recall the momentous time in the late 1980s when, under Gorbachev’s leadership, Russia reached out to the West, and to the United States in particular, opening its economy to Western investment and reforming its political structures to better align with emergent democratic values. And one of the ways he reached out was to propose that nations whose land mass fell within the Arctic Circle work together on a variety of environmental projects. Note: the changes in the Arctic—especially the advent of an ice-free Arctic Ocean during summer by the mid-21^st Century—were  well off the radar in the 1990s when the Council was formed. 

 

IN 1987, President Gorbachev gave a speech³ in the far-north port city of Murmansk on the need for the USSR to focus on environmental challenges in the Arctic and to work with other arctic nations in a collaborative and task-orientated manner. He even suggested making the Arctic region a Nuclear-Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ).⁴  [Not a bad idea if I do say so, myself! Ed.]

 

👉ALSO IN 1987, Gorbachev and the American president, Ronald Regan, signed the historic “Intermediate Nuclear Forces” treaty (INF) which banned an entire series of nuclear weapons, making Europe a much safer place with fewer nukes targeting European cities. Of course, Trump’s foolish walking away from the treaty in 2017, during his first term as president, is directly responsible for Russia’s recent deployment of hyper-sonic missile systems along its border to counter a possible siting of U.S. nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles in Europe, something the Russians would consider provocative and threatening. [Nukes are a particular bug-a-boo for Jake. Ed.]

 

👉POINT IS, in the 1990s, there were initiatives among the northern nations promoting real dialogue, scientific inquiry and a wide range of research projects. In so doing, the working groups provided their respective countries with data and background information so that legislation and binding agreements could be made between the member countries, like the “Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic” (2013) and the “Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Scientific Cooperation” (2017). 

👉MY REAL POINT here is: the more dialogue you have between countries, the better will be your understanding of those countries' needs and comfort zones. This, in turn, makes it more likely you will find compromise and accommodation and vectors of agreement when crafting together treaties and international agreements. And agreements in one area of engagement, often will lead to agreements in others. "Jaw, jaw. Not war, war," as Churchill said.

 

IN 1991, Canada proposed establishing a permanent advisory body for far north affairs with the eight Arctic countries as Permanent Members. As well, it lobbied for indigenous people’s organizations like the Innuit Circumpolar Council and the Saami Council to stand as “Permanent Participants” in any future Arctic Council, and going forward, indigenous voices were heard at every discussion forum of the Council, which was incorporated and signed into law in Ottawa, in 1996, as the "Ottawa Declaration". Up until then, there had been only ministerial links between the eight Arctic nations, coordinated through the “Rovaniemi Process” which is named after the Finnish city where the first meeting was held. Again, these were years when the Cold War was thawing and tensions between east and west were easing. And, going forward, of the eight "Permanent Members", Russia's participation in the Council’s working groups and governance forum was critical for accurate and complete scientific monitoring in the far north, and for designing protocols and agreements to better manage human impacts on the environment. It goes without saying, that the work of the Council would have been woefully incomplete without Russian input and support. After all, 53% of the Arctic coastline lies within the Russian Federation.

 

“[T]he Council still operates in the spirit of the Rovaniemi Process: the focus is in the environment, indigenous peoples sit in the main table, and the work concentrates on the working groups established during the process.  

(UArctic)

 

THERE are a number of countries from Europe and elsewhere (Japan, China, India) that are Permanent Observers at the Council. Periodically, they are invited to participate in projects and task forces of the Council's six "Working Groups". It should be noted there are NGOs and inter-governmental organizations that also have observer status at the Council: for example, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Red Cross Federation and the United Nations Environment Programme, among others.

 

Currently, there are approximately 130 “projects” the Council supports, “tackling issues from science, to shipping, to Indigenous youth suicide.” But since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the seven Council members have foolishly refused to cooperate with their Russian counterpart, impacting the ability of various working groups to complete their projects or to accurately compile their data. This unacceptable situation persists today, with a bare minimum of participation by Russia, which, BTW, has recently warned it may resign from the Council.  Of this possibility, Svein Vigeland Rottem, a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen Institute, says: “Technically speaking, there’s no ‘Arctic Council’ without Russia.”

   

SO, WHY HAVE I DONE a blog post on an organization that most people have never heard of? Well, because it’s a forum for communication and cooperation between nations around shared interests and areas of concern. You have working groups of marine biologists, geographers, geologists and so on, providing the Council's eight Permanent Members, who are ministers of state from their respective governments, with information and statistics from which they will craft their national protocols and international conventions and treaties like the International Maritime Organization’s regulatory “Polar Code”, and the important 2013 “Minamata Convention”  on mercury contamination which seeks to regulate the heavy-metal's spread into the environment.

 

EXCLUDING RUSSIA⁵ from the Arctic Council’s deliberations since the it launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine is another example of shortsightedness on the part of our politicians. Yes, the Arctic, like just about everywhere else these days, is becoming politicized to the nth degree and is a venue for both hard and soft power politics. But, is refusing to talk with Russia at a diplomatic level (or an Arctic Council level) a good idea? Even at the height of the Cold War, there were open channels of communication and diplomacy. A word to the wise: In an age of hypersonic missiles we can not afford any miscommunications. 

👉AND If we can’t remain engaged, talking with one another, sharing information and doing work on important issues of common concern—despite our differences—then we may be in for a whole lot of woe down the road.  

 

Cheers, Jake.____________________________________

 

* It should be noted that from the beginning indigenous inhabitants of the far north have been engaged as "Permanent Participants" in the Council’s deliberations, and continue to do so.  

 

1. “The Convention aims to reduce levels of POPs entering the environment over time by eliminating or restricting releases of POP industrial chemicals and pesticides, unintentionally produced POP by-products and stockpiles and POP wastes [that tend] to migrate long distances and accumulate in northern climates….” (Government of Canada) 

 

2. Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Denmark (Greenland), Russia, the United States. 

 

3. Note: The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant environmental disaster occurred in 1986 and may have prompted Gorbachev to broach the possibility of a mutual cooperation pact among the northern nations to work on shared environmental concerns. 

 

4. There are only a handful of NWFZs today: Antarctica, the seabed, outer space, Latin America and the Caribbean, and several others. I was interested to learn that Canada is NOT a NWFZ. In the past, Canada has hosted U.S. nuclear weapons, allowed testing of nuclear weapons delivery systems on its soil and allows nuclear armed naval ships to dock in its harbours. FUN FACT: While Canada is a signatory to the “Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty” (NPT), it has consistently voted against UN resolutions on expanding the “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” (TPNW). And while there are several cities in Canada that have declared themselves NWFZs, on an international level, toady Canada adheres to its NATO commitments, which entail the potential deployment of nuclear forces. As a middle-power that no longer punches above its weight, Canada should instead support efforts to ban nuclear weapons entirely, but our feckless leaders all fall in line and march to tunes from the American playbook. We might as well take that offer from President Trump and become the 51^st state. (Just sayin’.)

 

5. This may be too 'in the weeds', but I noted that since 2011, the Arctic Council requires new applicants for Observer status to:

 

"recognize Arctic States' sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the Arctic" and "recognize that an extensive legal framework applies to the Arctic Ocean including, notably, the Law of the Sea, and that this framework provides a solid foundation for responsible management of this ocean". (Wikipedia)

Yada-yada-yada, right? But consider the fact that northern Arctic States do have a shared "commons" whether we recognize it as such or use it poorly, or well, or at all. But the requirement that new Observer members to the Arctic Council recognize, in writing, the jurisdiction of "Arctic States" over this region does have some merit and sway in international law. Not much, but some. And for Canada, a middle-power with a long Arctic coastline, we might need all the help international jurisprudence can afford us in the coming decades, when the last of the polar bears finally drown and they open a KFC at the north pole. 

👉Being part of a smaller group of eight nations with shared interests in the far north, that can 'push back', to some extent, against other, non-Arctic nations and sub-national groups vis-a-vis the Arctic, might be to our advantage, going forward, if only for the sake of a bucket or two of the Colonel's best. Head's up! It's a big, bad world out there, kemosabe.