Name: Ajax Vachher
Social Justice Group: Nuclear Weapons/Nuclear Proliferation
Date of Fieldwork: February 9, 2023
Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Jamie Kwong
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:
On February 9, my group mates and I left lunch early for an interview with Jamie Kwong. Jamie also works for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She is an expert on the situation in North Korea and she gave us a lot of information on current nuclear threats and treaties.
The first thing we asked her was about how she believed the west’s public opinion about the Russo-Ukraine war affected Putin’s probability to launch a nuclear attack. She proceeded to talk about how the general public’s views could affect nuclear issues. She said that the effects would be different in a democracy than in an authorization such as Russia. She said that if Putin does perceive the western public and influences their leaders, that could factor the decision Putin decides to make. The West constantly shares their opinion and helps Ukraine which just leads to a larger chance of Russia using nuclear weapons.
The next thing we asked about was the p5 process. The p5 process sits within the non-proliferation treaty which is the largest nuclear treaty(195 member states). In 1968, all the countries with nuclear weapons agreed to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons and all the non-nuclear states agreed to never pursue nuclear weapons. We know that this didn’t happen and that there are still countries with nukes. The 5 countries with nukes at the time – the p5(permanent members in security council), still had nuclear weapons even though they signed the treaty. The non-nuclear countries got angry that there were still countries with nukes because they agreed on something but it hadn’t happened.
We also asked her about the nuclear situation in North Korea and how alarmed U.S. citizens are about it. She told us about how the opinion on North Korea by the U.S. has changed a lot over time. It has spiked sometimes but the public was most scared when there was a lot of missile testing and military exercising. We also asked her about the effects of climate change from nuclear weapons. She told us a lot about the negative effects on the environment. After detonation, there is a lot of radiation exposure which not only can kill people and have long term effects on people, but it can also impact the environment. Submarine bases are facing rising sea levels and she told us about the chance of people’s homes getting flooded. She also talked about the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. People have obviously died, buildings have collapsed and there will be a lot of fire and debris even far from the explosion.
She gave us more information about her work and what she does in relation to nuclear disarmament but one thing she said at the end really stood out to me. “Young people need to be thinking about nuclear weapons and their impact.” She also talked about how we can make a change. These really stood out to me because they were saying that young people and people in general need to have an impact.
