Many people are complacent about nuclear weapons. They would prefer to deny the nuclear threat and put nuclear dangers out of their minds. Unfortunately, this is a dangerous approach to a serious threat to humanity. There are many ways in which a nuclear detonation could take place, including accident, miscalculation and intentional use. Any use of nuclear weapons, including by accident or miscalculation, could lead to the destruction of a city as occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Further, a nuclear weapon detonation could trigger a retaliatory response leading to nuclear war and even broader devastation, including the annihilation of complex life on the planet. Listed below are 15 possible scenarios for a nuclear detonation. These are 15 arguments against complacency and for engagement in seeking a world without nuclear weapons.
- False Alarm: A false alarm triggers a decision to launch a nuclear attack.
- Unauthorized Launch: Launch codes are obtained by hackers, espionage agents or coercion and used to launch high alert forces. This could involve the physical takeover of a mobile missile, or the use of codes obtained via pre-delegation.
- Accidental Nuclear War: An accidental launch leads to an escalation into a nuclear war.
- Control and Communications failure: A rogue field commander or submarine commander falls out or deliberately puts himself out of communications with his central command and launches a nuclear attack on his own authority.
- “Dr. Strangelove” Nuclear War: The launch of a nuclear attack by a rogue field or submarine commander leads to a retaliatory strike that escalates into a nuclear war.
- A Terrorist Bomb: A terrorist group obtains nuclear materials and creates an unsophisticated nuclear device or obtains a bomb and succeeds in detonating it in a large city.
- Terrorist Bomb Triggers Nuclear War: A terrorist nuclear attack is disguised in such a way as to appear to come from another nuclear weapons state, leading to a “retaliatory strike” that escalates into nuclear war.
- Preemptive Attack: Believing one’s country to be under nuclear attack or about to be under such attack, a leader of a nuclear weapon state launches a preemptive nuclear attack.
- Preventive Nuclear War: A nuclear weapons state launches an unprovoked nuclear attack against another country perceived to pose a future threat. An example would be the use by Israel of a small tactical nuclear weapon against deeply buried nuclear facilities in Iran.
- Escalation of Conventional War: India and Pakistan, for example, engage in further conventional war over Kashmir. The conflict escalates into a nuclear exchange of approximately 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons, resulting in potentially a billion deaths.
- Military Parity: In a conventional war, Russia defaults to nuclear weapons due to its deteriorating conventional military capability.
- Irrational Leader: An unstable and paranoid leader, fearing attack and/or regime change, launches a nuclear attack against perceived adversaries. There are no democratic controls.
- Rational Leader: A leader, making what he deems to be rational calculations, launches a nuclear attack against perceived adversaries to assure the survival of his country. There are no democratic controls.
- Prompt Global Strike: The US proceeds with plans to place conventional weapons on some of its inter-continental ballistic missiles. When launching one of these missiles, it is mistaken for a nuclear-armed warhead, resulting in a retaliatory nuclear attack.
- Intentional Nuclear War: Tensions and conflict between major nuclear powers mount, leading to an intentional nuclear war. Civilization is destroyed and complex life on Earth is ended.