Codes For Armageddon: A New President To Hold Nuclear Launch ‘Football’ (Baltimore Sun)…David Wood, Nov 30, 2008
…What awaits the new commander in chief is the weighty responsibility of defending the United States – and a nasty brew of nuclear weapons problems that range from the threat of terrorist attacks to potential new regional and superpower arms races. Iran and North Korea are rushing headlong toward building nuclear arsenals. And the main arms reduction treaty with Russia expires next year.
According to a report last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency, 439 nuclear power reactors currently are operating in 30 countries, with 36 plants under construction.
The increased nuclear activity “naturally increases the risk that nuclear material could be diverted to make nuclear weapons,” IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the United Nations. This year alone, the IAEA has investigated 250 incidents involving the loss or theft of nuclear or radioactive material. Much of it is never recovered, he said.
Senior U.S. intelligence officers, asked to weigh the risks that will dominate the next 15 years, noted that the spread of nuclear material and weapons technology is accelerating. They said a number of weak regimes, like North Korea, might acquire and then lose control of nuclear weapons. They listed new ways that might tempt actual use of nuclear weapons, for example in low-yield blasts or high-altitude detonations to cripple enemy communications.
Given these trends, they said in the recent report, the risk of nuclear war in the near future, “although remaining low, is likely to be greater than it is today.”
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