Nuclear Winter First Strike Read online

  Some new research has also examined the human impacts of nuclear winter. Researchers simulated agricultural crop growth in the aftermath of a hundred-weapon India-Pakistan nuclear war. The results were startling. The scenario could cause agriculture productivity to decline by around twenty to sixty percent for several years after the exchange.

  The studies looked at major staple crops in China and the United States, two of the largest food producers. Other countries and other crops would likely face similar declines. Following such crop declines, severe global famine could ensue. One study estimated the total extent of the famine by comparing crop declines to global malnourishment data. When food becomes scarce, the poor and malnourished are typically hit the hardest. This study estimated two billion people would be at risk of starvation. And this is from the hundred-weapon India-Pakistan nuclear war scenario. A larger nuclear exchange involving the U.S., China, or Russia would have more severe impacts because the payloads are much larger.

  This is where the recent research stops. To the best of my knowledge there have been no current studies examining the secondary effects of famines, such as disease outbreaks and violent conflicts due to societal collapse.

  There is also a need to examine the human impacts of ultraviolet radiation. That would include an increased medical burden due to skin cancer and other diseases. It would also include further losses to the agriculture ecosystems because the ultraviolet radiation harms plants and animals. At this time, we can only make educated guesses about what these impacts would be, informed in part by research surrounding enormous volcanic eruptions.

  A note on the impact on humanity, we can look to society’s reaction to recent political events. Imagine what U.S. cities would look like if the triggering event for protests and riots was based on lack of food. The social unrest would quickly spread into suburban areas as the have-nots would search for sustenance from those who might have it.

  When analyzing the risk of nuclear winter, one question is of paramount importance: Would there be long-term or even permanent harm to human civilization? Research shows nuclear winter would last ten years or more. Would the world ever be able to come back from the devasting loss of billions of lives?

  Carl Sagan was one of the first people to recognize this point in a commentary he wrote on nuclear winter for Foreign Affairs magazine. Sagan believed nuclear winter could cause human extinction in which case all members of future generations would be lost. He argued that this made nuclear winter vastly more important than the direct effects of nuclear war which could, in his words, kill only hundreds of millions of people.

  Sagan was, however, right that human extinction would cause permanent harm to human civilization. It is debatable whether nuclear winter could cause human extinction. Rutgers professor Alan Robock, a respected nuclear winter researcher, believes it is unlikely. He commented, “Especially in Australia and New Zealand, humans would have a better chance to survive.”

  Why Australia and New Zealand? A nuclear war would presumably occur mainly or entirely in the northern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere would still experience environmental disruption, but it would not be as severe. Australia and New Zealand further benefit from being surrounded by water which further softens the effect.

  This is hardly a cheerful thought as it leaves open the chance of human extinction, at least for those of us north of the equator. Given all the uncertainty and the limited available research, it is impossible to rule out the possibility of human extinction. In any event, the possibility should not be dismissed.

  Even if people survive, there could still be permanent harm to humanity. Small patches of survivors would be extremely vulnerable to subsequent disasters. They certainly could not keep up the massively complex civilization we enjoy today. In addition to the medical impact, the destruction of the power grid, the heartbeat of most nations, would likely occur due to the electromagnetic pulse generated by the nuclear detonations. It would take many years to rebuild the critical infrastructure ruined by the blasts.

  It would be a long and uncertain rebuilding process and survivors might never get civilization back to where it is now. More importantly, they might never get civilization to where we now stand poised to take it in the future. Our potentially bright future could be forever dimmed, permanently.

  Nuclear winter is a very large and serious risk. In some ways, it doesn’t change nuclear weapons policy all that much. Everyone already knew that nuclear war would be highly catastrophic. The prospect of a prolonged nuclear winter means that nuclear war is even more catastrophic. That only reinforces policies that have long been in place, from deterrence to disarmament. Indeed, military officials have sometimes reacted to nuclear winter by saying that it just makes their nuclear deterrence policies that much more effective. Disarmament advocates similarly cite nuclear winter as justifying their policy goals. But the basic structure of the policy debate unchanged.

  In other ways, nuclear winter changes nuclear weapons policy quite dramatically. Because of nuclear winter, noncombatant states may be severely harmed by nuclear war. Nuclear winter gives every country great incentive to reduce tensions and de-escalate conflicts between nuclear-capable states.

  Nation-states that are stockpiling nuclear weapons should also take notice. Indeed, the biggest policy implication of nuclear winter could be that it puts the interests of nuclear-capable nations in greater alignment. Because of nuclear winter, a nuclear war between any two major nuclear weapon states could severely harm each of the others. According to intelligence sources, there are nine total nuclear-armed states with Iran prepared to breakthrough as the tenth. This multiplies the risk of being harmed by nuclear attacks while only marginally increasing the benefits of nuclear deterrence. By shifting the balance of harms versus benefits, nuclear winter can promote nuclear disarmament.

  Additional policy implications come from the risk of permanent harm to human civilization. If society takes this risk seriously, then it should go to great lengths to reduce the risk. It could stockpile food to avoid nuclear famine, or develop new agricultural paradigms that can function during nuclear winter.

  And it could certainly ratchet up its efforts to improve relations between nuclear weapon states. These are things that we can do right now even while we await more detailed research on nuclear winter risk.

  Against that backdrop, I hope you’ll be entertained and informed by this fictional account of the world thrust into Nuclear Winter. God help us if it ever comes to pass.

  Real-World News Excerpts

  U.S. EXPLODES TEST H-BOMB; EYEWITNESS TELLS BLAST FURY

  ~ Los Angeles Examiner, November 5, 1952

  The blast expanded in seconds to a blinding white fireball more than three miles across (the Hiroshima fireball had measured little more than one-tenth of a mile) and rose over the horizon like a dark sun. The crews of the task force, thirty miles away, felt a swell of heat as if someone had opened a hot oven, heat that persisted long enough to seem menacing. “You would swear that the whole world was on fire,” one sailor wrote home.

  Swirling and boiling, glowing purplish with gamma-ionized light, the expanding fireball began to rise, becoming a burning mushroom cloud balanced on a wide, dirty stem with a curtain of water around its base that slowly fell back into the sea.

  The wings of the B-36 orbiting fifteen miles from ground zero at forty thousand feet heated to ninety-three degrees almost instantly.

  In a minute and a half, the enlarging fireball cloud reached 57,000 feet; in two and a half minutes, when the shock wave arrived at the Estes, the cloud passed 100,000 feet.

  The shock wave announced itself with a sharp report followed by a long thunder of broken rumbling.

  RUSSIANS SPEED UP CUBA BASES, U.S. PREPARING FURTHER ACTION

  ~ The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 28, 1962

  Nuclear missiles near full operational capability.

  The White House said late Friday that a nuclear missile build-up in Cuba is continu
ing at a rapid pace, “apparently … directed to achieving full operational capability as soon as possible.”

  The statement was clearly aimed at warning the Soviets the United States is able to keep watch on their activity in Cuba.

  It described the scene at missile sites indicating the Russians had not slowed their attempt to establish ballistic missile launching platforms, despite President Kennedy’s declaration that existence of those sites has brought on the crisis.

  INDIA SETS OFF NUCLEAR DEVICE

  ~ NY Times, May 19, 1974

  India conducted today her first successful test of a powerful nuclear device.

  The surprise announcement means that India is the sixth nation to have exploded a nuclear device. The others are the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China.

  A brief Government statement said that India's Atomic Energy Commission had carried out “a peaceful ‘nuclear explosion’ experiment.” The underground blast took place “at a depth of more than 100 meters,” or about 330 feet, the statement said.

  In exploding the device, India was entirely within her rights in international law, Government officials said.

  NORTH KOREA WITHDRAWS FROM NUCLEAR TREATY

  ~ UK Guardian, January 10, 2003

  The North Korean nuclear-weapons crisis intensified today as Pyongyang announced it is withdrawing from the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

  Under the treaty, North Korea was barred from making nuclear weapons, but said it was pulling out of it today with immediate effect, blaming US aggression for its decision.

  North Korea warned the United States against taking retaliatory military action, saying it would "finally lead to the third world war". However, the regime routinely issues such inflammatory comments.

  The North Korean government said in a statement carried on KCNA, its official news agency: "We can no longer remain bound to the Nonproliferation Treaty, allowing the country's security and the dignity of our nation to be infringed upon.”

  NORTH KOREA ALLEGEDLY HELPING IRAN BUILD NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  ~ The Independent, May 29, 2015

  An Iranian dissident group said Thursday a delegation of North Korean nuclear weapons experts was in Iran in April visiting a heavily guarded secret military site, presumed to be a nuclear weapons development facility.

  The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which exposed the existence of a key Iranian nuclear weapons facility in 2002 and significant, illicit Iranian nuclear weapons developments since then, said this was the third visit to Iran in 2015 by a North Korean delegation.

  Also, citing confidential information from sources inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, research and aerospace agencies, said in a statement another group of North Korean nuclear weapons experts is slated to return to Iran in June.

  Iran’s hardline government has repeatedly said it is pursuing a nuclear program for peaceful purposes. But the deputy director of NCRI’s Washington-based U.S. office said the group has uncovered what he called a “big, big, red flag”.

  During North Korea’s third nuclear weapons test in February 2013, according to NCRI, Iran’s top nuclear experts traveled to Pyongyang to observe the trial.

  Epigraph

  No war really comes unexpectedly. The drums are beating long before a single shot is fired.

  ~ Margaret Case Harriman, Author

  It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

  ~ U.S. President John F. Kennedy

  If we don’t end war, war will end us.

  ~ H. G. Wells, English Writer

  The survivors of a nuclear holocaust will envy the dead.

  ~ Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Soviet Union

  After great trouble for humanity, a greater one is prepared

  The Great Mover renews the ages:

  Rain, blood, milk, famine, steel and plague,

  In the heavens fire seen, a long spark running.

  ~ Nostradamus, Century II, Quatrain 46

  Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would be an unprecedented human catastrophe.

  ~ Carl Sagan, Planetary Scientist and Author

  Death and the strong force of fate are waiting.

  There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon

  When a man will take my life in battle, too.

  ~ Homer, The Iliad

  Alea iacta est.

  The die has been cast.

  ~ A Roman General to Julius Caesar as he prepared to lead his army across the Rubicon River

  Nuclear Winter I

  First Strike

  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

  Until there wasn’t.

  And so it begins …

  Prologue

  Early October

  Isfahan, Iran

  For more than a decade, he’d been simply referred to as Agent L, short for Lightning. His true identity had exploded along with the Ford Explorer he’d been driving as several pursuit vehicles chased him out of Algeria following the assassination of a Libyan target. Those in pursuit reported seeing the fireball, together with the driver’s side door sailing through the air until it crashed into a storefront forty feet away. The oily black cloud of smoke spewed out of the carcass of the Explorer, the flames hungrily devouring anything flammable.

  The pursuers reveled in their victory as they verily confirmed that the famed Mossad agent had been forever dispatched to the Gates of Hell. Israel privately mourned the loss of its prized operative, who’d led a team with no name designation on many operations on behalf of the Jerusalem government. Their own satellite reconnaissance confirmed no one could have survived the blast.

  There was no memorial service for Agent L. His code name was retired forever, along with his moniker—Lightning. He was presumed dead by everyone.

  Yet here he was leaning against a stucco wall on the streets of Isfahan, a city of two million, located in central Iran. Isfahan, a word meaning half the world, was the cultural center of Iran. Its elaborate mosques, adorned with ancient mosaic tiles and remarkably well-preserved calligraphy, added to the beautiful hardscapes found throughout the city.

  Isfahan was also the location of the Islamic Republic’s largest nuclear assembly and production plant. Over Israel’s continued objections, appeasement policies from Western governments resulted in Iran’s nuclear weapons program proliferating. That, coupled with technological assistance from Russia and North Korea, resulted in the rogue nation pulling even with their sworn enemy to the west—Israel.

  Israel had made it known for decades that Iran was approaching a red line, a line in the sand that couldn’t be crossed. Now, Iran, with its ninety nuclear warheads, was on par with the Israelis. At the United Nations, the Israeli prime minister made his feelings on the burgeoning Iranian nuclear arsenal loud and clear. Enough was enough.

  That was three weeks ago. Agent L, who lived in a Greek villa overlooking the Mediterranean, had received a packet of materials and an offer. A lucrative offer. Payable in an incredible amount of untraceable bitcoin. His employers never revealed their true identity. But for a seasoned intelligence operative like himself, all indicators pointed in a single direction. A nation he’d done work for in the past. One whose offers bore a marked resemblance to this one.

  Only, this was the largest compensation package he’d ever been presented. The task was a difficult one, to be sure, but not beyond his capabilities. He would have to go it alone, which was his preference. The result when, not if, he was successful would be a tremendous ancillary benefit to the nation he loved.

  A throng of pedestrians shuffled their way along the sidewalks of a small road that led to the nuclear enrichment facility on the outskirts of the city. Nearby, an annual arts fair had commenced that morning, complete with musicians vying for patrons’ attention and vendors who were hawking everything from balloons for the kids to delectable treats for adults.


  The afternoon was blustery and warm for early October. A balmy breeze that swept down the dirt-covered streets of the ancient city reminded him of Tel Aviv, where he was born. He shielded his eyes from the sun to watch the tops of the decrepit palms rustling as though they were applauding the performers nearby.

  Agent L glanced over his shoulder as a flatbed loaded with crates bound by heavy-duty straps lumbered along the rough road toward him. The driver, who was partially blinded by the sun, seemed to be having a rough time choosing the appropriate gear as he prepared to leave the city limits. He revved the engine, and the truck’s exhaust spewed out a black trail of diesel as it trundled past him.

  Just ahead, by prearrangement, a cart led by the most stubborn donkey in Isfahan awaited the truck’s approach. Just a moment before the truck’s arrival, a man led the cart into the roadway. The driver blared his horn in anger and swerved to the left, careening onto the sidewalk. Several pedestrians stepped back from the truck’s path in time to avoid being run down.

  “Moron!” the driver exclaimed through his open window. “Move that ass. And yours, too!”

  Agent L didn’t hesitate. He rushed across the street during the chaos and easily closed on the rear bumper of the truck within seconds. While all eyes, including the driver’s, were on the braying donkey, Agent L deftly climbed up the back of the truck, hurled himself over the steel gate, and rolled between the crates until he was hidden.