On February 10, my social justice group – nuclear weapons, had an interview with Derek Johnson who is the head of Global Zero which is an organization focused on eliminating all nuclear weapons. They plan to make an agreement which eliminates all nuclear weapons by the year 2045 or before.

His work really interested me and made me wonder how they plan to eliminate all weapons by 2045. We first asked him about the background of his company and his journey which started at Global Zero in 2010. Global Zero used to be focused on rallying global leaders and other people so the threat of nuclear weapons is widely known across the world. Global Zero thinks it’s logical to eliminate all nuclear weapons. When he took over, he started a new approach to rally people who don’t have as much power as global leaders because it’s their job to make people think about this topic and realize the damage it can do so that they can take actions toward the disarmament of nuclear weapons. The feedback he received was mostly people telling him that his goal was never going to be achieved by eliminating all nukes but his response was the fact that over the course of the last 30 years, the amount of nuclear weapons 30 years ago(70,000) has reduced by 80% to roughly 13,000.

Then we asked him about how he planned for all 9 countries with nukes to get rid of them. He told us that it was a 4 step process. Russia and the U.S. possess around 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons(around 5,000 each). His theory is that if you can get the U.S. and Russia to keep working to reduce the amount of nuclear weapons, countries will also eliminate their weapons but this won’t happen if Russia and the U.S. only get rid of a few hundred weapons, the other countries won’t do anything because the 2 countries with the most nukes have practically done nothing eliminating only a few hundred.

Global Zero’s plan is to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2045 so we asked him about a potential nuclear war happening before 2045. He said that every day, there is a risk, that isn’t very high, but there’s still a risk. But then he talked about current threats like in Ukraine and how the chances will keep increasing if countries are careless. Another thing that we thought would be a problem is the loss of jobs because if there aren’t anymore nuclear weapons, wouldn’t the people working with them lose their jobs? He responded to this and he’s prepared for the people who will lose jobs. He said that there aren’t many people working to build nukes anyways but for the people that are, their work will be useful when there aren’t any nuclear bombs such as making sure that no nuclear bombs are being made after all are eliminated. Then we asked him about non-nuclear countries obtaining nuclear weapons. He said that it is a concerning matter that he should care about but there isn’t much he can do. There are many countries who can build a nuclear bomb but decide not to but can pull out of treaties to make nuclear bombs so he plans to get rid of nukes before they get in the wrong hands.

He also told us about how the public has influenced government decisions of nuclear weapons. In 2005 protesters who demanded change and the U.S. president at the time, Ronald Reagan, and Russian president, Vladimir Ivashkowhich were notified and this led 30 years of progress.

This interview, I learned a lot about how the public can protest and make a change in eliminating nuclear weapons and his work was really interesting. He has planned for multiple inconveniences in Global Zero’s plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons and has a plan to make all countries get rid of their nuclear arsenal. We learned a lot about Global Zero and how we can make a change.

Read more

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.

Read more

On February 5th, my group and I had an online interview with James Acton who is a nuclear physicist who works at the Carnegie Endownment. James is the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is an expert on hypersonic weapons and he has published multiple books on nuclear weapons.

One of the first things James told us about was about the Danger of escalation. He told us that small and minor escalations could lead to a nuclear war. He gave the example of if a country is losing a convential war, they might use nuclear weapons to to terrify the other side into backing down. Nuclear weapons could also be used in war as a response to misinterpreted warnings. These things really stuck out to me because it’s really scary, knowing that at any time, countries can easily launch a nuclear weapon when they want to, wether if it’s because they misunderstood something and there isn’t a good reason to launch a weapon, or to just launch a weapon because they’re losing a war. Realizing that your own life and millions(possibly billions) of others’ lives is at risk just by one person’s command is terrifying.

Next we asked him about current threats. We asked him about Crimea and the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons if Ukraine invade Crimea. He said that it worried him because it was quite possible that Ukraine decide to invade the Russia held Crimea. Then he told us about the chance of a nuclear retaliation if Ukraine do invade Crimea. He said that there’s a 20-25% chance that they do launch a nuke if Crimea gets invaded by Ukraine. This also really scared me because it may not sound like it at first but 25% is a really large chance that they do use nuclear weapons. This may stop Ukraine from deciding to invade Crimea but with all the help they’re getting from NATO, it’s very possible that they do.

Although Russia seems like a large nuclear threat, which it is, North Korea is also a nuclear threat that isn’t talked about as much because of the war in Ukraine. We asked him for his opinions on this. He said that the situation in North Korea is worrying because of the chance of a North Korean provocation that gets out of hand. He came back to the idea of small escalations leading to a large-scale nuclear war.

We then started asking him about an accidental nuclear launch through nuclear command systems and the possibility of that happening. He said it’s not probable and there’s a very low chance of an accidental nuclear launch/war happening but it’s still worth worrying about because of misinterpreted warnings. An example he gave was in a conventional war, if a country worries about other countries and satellites in orbit and attacks them, the other country might take that as a nuclear threat and respond to them with the use of nuclear weapons. They may look at their satellites being shot down as a potential nuclear escalation which could trigger the use of nuclear weapons in a war.

Then we talked more about disarmament and how countries carry out a nuclear ban. Countries are constantly destroying and creating new nuclear weapons. Weapons are constantly being taken apart or being put together. The dismantling of nukes isn’t an easy process. It’s hard to ban nuclear weapons because although they’re extremely scary, countries can use them to deter a potential threat from other countries. Countries are less likely to go to war because of nuclear weapons and the chance that a country uses them in war. If you did however want to carry out a nuclear ban(which is a long term goal), he told us that you would need some sort of verification. You need to make a strong national law and make new security without nuclear weapons. The choice seems obvious but is pretty hard. Without them, countries are more likely to go to war but with them, there is a constant threat to the lives of everyone on Earth.

Read more

On January 27th, 2023, the nuclear weapons group with me, Ajev, Tyler, and Erick had the chance to get a tour of the UN building led by Daniel Prins. He has worked at the United Nations for over 15 years now and is the Chief, Security Sector Reform, Department of Peace Operations at the United Nations; he previously was the Chief of the Office for Nuclear 

We got to the UN building and met Daniel outside at around 9:00. We had to go through security, and when we were through, Daniel told us about the land the UN building was on and its history. The land that is now occupied with the UN building was previously a slaughterhouse owned by the Rockefeller family, and they decided to donate their 16 acres of land for the United Nations headquarters. The United Nations headquarters is geographically located in America, but it doesn’t belong to either America or New York. There aren’t NYPD police; instead, there are UN police, and the laws of the United States do not apply when you go to the UN headquarters. Even though it is located in America, it doesn’t belong to America and is the property of the world.

After we entered the UN building, Daniel brought us to the UN meeting room, but we were only there for a few minutes and we had to leave because they had to have all the seats checked for an upcoming meeting because it was Holocaust Memorial Day. Down the hall, he brought us to the disarmament room, where we saw landmines on display. There are also multiple kinds of land mines, such as ones that, if you step on them, blow up, and others that wouldn’t blow up but would cut off your legs, making it so that you were stuck there. There were also ones that wouldn’t react if you stepped on them, and they needed large and heavy vehicles, such as tanks, to explode them. There was a treaty made to stop the use of land mines, but some countries didn’t agree to that and can still use them.

The next part of the tour was about another weapon, and a treaty was made to remove all of them. These were chemical weapons or gases. These were extremely effective and would kill people who inhaled them in only a few seconds. However, this backfired a lot. There were some chemical weapons where you couldn’t see the smoke and wouldn’t know it was there. When you threw one of these, you couldn’t predict the direction of the wind, so sometimes the chemicals would come back and kill the person who threw it, as well as fellow allies. Sometime the wind would just push it in a totally different direction, and it wouldn’t affect anyone. A treaty was made for this that prohibits the use of chemical weapons and gases during war.

Another part of the disarmament room contained nuclear weapons. Daniel’s work with nuclear weapons was to prevent or slow down the increase in nuclear weapons. The TPNW (The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons) makes it so that countries can’t test or use nuclear weapons except for a few select countries consisting of America, France, Russia, China, and Britain. Countries that didn’t sign this treaty can possess nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan, but the countries that did agree to it besides the 5 I listed can’t test or make nuclear weapons. After the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world believed that the only way to prevent a nuclear attack from happening again was to stop making and testing them, but this is extremely hard.

Not every country has to listen to someone when they say to stop making nuclear weapons, which is why treaties such as the TPNW were made. Other treaties were made, and one even made it so that you couldn’t test or store nuclear weapons on satellites in space. We saw the destructive damage the atomic bombs did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the people there, and nuclear weapons are thousands of times more powerful than those.

After looking at the nuclear section of the disarmament room, Daniel brought us to an area with a table and a few chairs (which were a gift to the UN), and we had the chance to interview him. The interview lasted around 15-20 minutes because he had to go to a meeting, but I still learned a lot. He explained how, if a country launched a nuclear weapon, it could use certain tactics to avoid punishment.We also asked him about the nuclear threat posed by some countries and the US’s relations with other nuclear-weapons states.

During the tour and the interview, my group and I learned a lot, and I’m really glad we got this opportunity. I’m also looking forward to doing more research on nuclear disarmament.

Read more

On Friday, January 20th, and Friday, January 27th, my social justice group with Erick, Tyler, Ajev, and myself interviewed Lawrence Bullock. Lawrence worked in the nuclear bomb launch zones, and his job was to clean the nuclear weapons. I had originally thought that there were 2 people in the missile silos to launch the missile but it turns out that there is a third person behind both of them ready to shoot one or both of them if either of them show any hesitation to launch the bomb.
 
Lawrence told us that every 48 hours, there would be a shift change, and that when he went down there, he wouldn’t go back up for 2-3 days. The conditions didn’t seem that bad, even though they couldn’t go up for multiple days. He had to wake up at 4 a.m. every day he was in the missile silos and get to work. There was a gym, a kitchen, a place to sleep, and the place where they worked. Although the conditions inside seemed nice, Lawrence said that the civilians outside would make it stressful for him and other people because the civilians would know who was in there and when they were in there, and they would protest because they didn’t want nuclear weapons on their soil, and then Lawrence said how they didn’t see the people who worked in the silos as allies but rather as occupiers of their space.

The process of launching a nuclear weapon seemed pretty controlled from the way Lawrence described it. First, authorization from the President of the U.S. had to come in via flash traffic messages or coded messages. The launch is commanded by a captain or lieutenant who reports to a brigade commander, who then reports to a two-star general, and it’s controlled by a NATO commander, who is mostly going to be a four-star U.S. general. Lawrence said that they only take orders from a U.S. general who gets orders from the president. It seems complicated but also under control, and Lawrence said that he didn’t see a nuclear weapon being launched accidentally.

In Russia, their nuclear launch policy is different. If Putin says launch, they launch, but in America, when the President wants to launch, he’s only going to do it if he is advised by his commanders. Russian missiles are also more worn out and less up to date than U.S. missiles. In Russia, Lawrence said that there isn’t really any reason for them to launch a nuclear weapon because the only thing stopping Russia from taking over Ukraine is the rest of the world, and using a nuclear weapon would cause many difficulties and make it look like Russia is using their last resort because they are losing. Ukraine is getting help from the rest of the world, though. They recently got sent tanks from the U.S., which sent M-1 Abrahms, but it will take many months for them to arrive in Ukraine, and it’s also harder to maintain them because they run on jet fuel, which is more expensive, and the tanks won’t be of use for a long period of time since they don’t arrive for many months. Ukraine has been getting assistance from many countries, and Lawrence said that Russia could launch a nuclear weapon if they were losing terribly because they thought they would run over Ukraine, but Ukraine got what they wanted. Russia probably won’t because they know the consequences of launching a nuclear attack and the problems it would cause.

The amount spent and the amount they got paid depended on the presidents. Lawrence said that you would get more funding if the president was a Republican because Republicans believe that having a stronger military is better. When Ronald Reagan was president, the U.S. spent a lot of money to get high-tech equipment and worked to develop the military. Democrats on the other hand are trying to undercut the military and take money away from funding and to spend less money on the military. When Jimmy Carter was president, he wanted more democracy in the country and worked to form treaties instead of improving the military as much. Both examples of presidents believed that different things would benefit the country, and the amount spent was different because one thought that a stronger military would benefit the country and the other thought that a country with a strong democracy would be better.

Lawrence gave a lot of information in both interviews, and I was able to learn a lot from him. Our first interview was pretty successful, and even though the second one with him wasn’t as long, I still learned a lot from him. There is still a threat to society from nuclear weapons, but they haven’t been used in a pretty long time and hopefully won’t be used again. This was an amazing opportunity to get to interview someone who worked right next to nuclear weapons, and I learned a lot from him.

Read more