The nuclear threat is underestimated

At the beginning of the jubilation, the joy that two bombs were enough to end a world war. The first hit on 6. August 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima. You will come to the destination list, because hardly allied prisoners of war were detained in the area. The second arrived three days later, Nagasaki. Nazi Germany had surrendered already. Otherwise you would remember today, possibly in the Berlin of the horrors of nuclear war.

From the horrors the world learned anything in a long time. Finally, there were journalists who were on the way. The editor-in-chief of the magazine "New Yorker" was angry about the fact that in the Reports only the story of the greatest military invention of all time was described. The victims were but. He sent the Pulitzer prize winner John Hersey Hiroshima. Hersey researched the stories of six Survivors.

The terror closer to home: A TV crew and soldiers, to observe the 22. April 1952 nuclear test in Nevada. Photo:

On 31. August 1946, printed by the New Yorker in a special edition, the Text took up the entire newspaper. Thus, the discussion about morality, rationality, and responsibility in times of a weapon that can at any time mean the end of mankind began. These days, the Text offers itself to the reading. It is not only the end of the INF Treaty, and the back swing of tensions between the two nuclear giants Russia and the USA. China is upgrading. And also in Israel, the UK, France, Pakistan and India, research is conducted on new systems and worked on new warheads, mobile launchers, and the question of whether cyber weapons can cripple the opponent's Arsenal before the launch. You can make a new bet not equip even prevent it. It has already begun.

Yeltsin's surprising proposal

Alone for the modernization of the U.S. Arsenal in the next ten years, 494 billion dollars planned. Russian President Vladimir Putin leads fond of films from "invincible" new Intercontinental ballistic missiles and hypersonic weapons, to fly with Mach 20. Russia is back, is the message. For Hardware, the words come. You don't sound like moderation. In the White house a President who prides himself to sitting, he has the biggest nuclear button directly on the Desk. His colleague in the Kremlin, said in October, in the case of a nuclear attack, the attacker would die "easy" and the Russians "as a Martyr to Paradise". Two macho men to command the largest nuclear arsenals in the world.

It seems to be long ago, when a Russian President named Boris Yeltsin to Washington came and it was Bill Clinton took whether or not the boldness of a proposal from the language. "We should get rid of our nuclear case," said Yeltsin on 27. September 1994. "What to do, my military assistant then?" Clinton asked. Yeltsin: "you go back to the Air Force or Navy." Clinton: "I haven't thought of yet."

the presidents of the two major nuclear powers, is worn until today, the suitcase for immediate use afterwards.

the presidents of the two major nuclear powers, is worn until today, the case for the immediate use afterwards, Armageddon is always just a few steps away. And yet, the former proposal for those times of reason, which have alternated in the nuclear age with times of unreason. The reason is the reason that no other bomb used in the war, none of them has been stolen by terrorists or accidentally ignited. It is the reason why the world, in spite of this existential threat so lucky.

at the beginning it was different. In the Korean war-considered US military, Beijing, Shanghai, Moscow, and Stalingrad to extinguish. Two months after the wall was built, the Soviets detonated the largest ever used in a bomb. It was eight meters long, two meters in diameter and weighed more than 20 tons.

almost-war, Cuban missile crisis

A year later, the Cuban missile crisis broke out, and almost such warheads had been detonated. Arthur Schlesinger, speechwriter to John F. Kennedy, later said that there Would have been at the time, supporters of the later so popular concept of "preventive war" in the White house, it would come to disaster. It's the Scare with the almost war that led to the first Considerations about arms control. Tests were prohibited by the nuclear non-proliferation Treaty, conceived and ratified, the politicians like Franz Josef Strauss, first of all, as a "Versailles of cosmic proportions" reviled. The lock-up agreement prevented that the half of the world military armed. In return, the atom promised powers for disarmament.

image range: Mururoa – France radiant heritage

After the Cuban missile crisis, the world moved once again, dangerously close to the edge of a nuclear war, this Episode is almost forgotten. Only just been released from the former KGB archives in Ukraine comprehensive stocks. Describe the nuclear Paranoia of the Soviet Union in the early eighties. The then General Secretary, Yuri Andropov, was convinced that the U.S. planned a first strike. The secret services were instructed to keep to the signs for a war on the look-out, about the hoarding of blood. In Berlin, you can still witness, such as Werner Grossmann, the former head of the HVA, the foreign spying of the Stasi.

Once Grossmann was scolded in Moscow. He had reported that there were no signs of an attack. Grossmann had a spy high up in the Nato, he would have, if a war would have been planned. "But you were convinced. They were not dissuaded," recalls Grossman. Andropov afraid of the protocols, demonstrate applied particularly to the later by the INF Treaty abolished the medium-range missiles. They needed only six minutes to Moscow.

Reagan from the Film impressed

The reason was, but again, it is connected with the name of Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. The former Hollywood actor was deeply impressed, as he looked so like 100 million people in the U.S. in 1983, the movie "The Day After". By the described fate of Survivors in Kansas after a nuclear war, the Americans saw their own possible fate. The opened their eyes. The contract is for "Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces" (INF) projects was not the biggest breakthrough, and at the same time, the beginning of a series of other bold Disarmament.

But now we are again in the middle of, in the times of unreason. China is upgrading, a new world power is growing, and thus a nuclear force threatens to measure between the three States.

The times of reason, were always those in which bold and farsighted politicians recognized their responsibility.

Never the Frustration of those countries that decided voluntarily to a nuclear-armed, as big. 122 of them have now joined a project, the outlaws, the gun. You have lost the trust of the nuclear powers to their Central commitment under the nuclear non-proliferation want to keep the Treaty and to the disarmament effort. That was already before the INF agreement was terminated. At the Federal foreign office in Berlin, a Dossier warning of the complete collapse of the arms control architecture is circulating since months. It seems, as the memory was, what the bomb is, and what efforts are needed to back up in times of your existence, the Survival, after a long period of peace in oblivion. If the Germans are discussing today about upgrading, what is meant is usually that of Diesel. "The Vision of a world free of nuclear weapons must be more than just hot air," warns the Diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of Munich security conference.

The times of reason, were always those in which bold and farsighted politicians recognized their responsibility. Where you do not want to be intoxicated, but were afraid of the terrible Power in their hands. Never before it was so big and so useless time, such as in the nuclear age, Henry Kissinger said. And the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, described once how he was able to days not to sleep, after he had been inaugurated, what is everything in the Arsenal.

It is missing the pressure of the population

Sometimes, Trump and Putin as once Reagan and Gorbachev sound. As Trump was not a President, he spoke in an Interview about the horrors of the "nuclear global warming" and called this the worst threat to the world. The Whole thing was "scary". Putin was asked in his annual press conference, what he have to say that in Russian kitchens more often the word "war". It is very a pity, that there is a tendency to the horrors of nuclear war, said Putin.

The times of reason followed, often to a dangerous escalation, and were always closely connected with a large concern of the people. And with the requirement to disarm, to keep Mass to tame the horrors of the Atom at least. Today, it looks about the former US Secretary of defense William Perry, you don't get the politicians enough pressure from their people because they realize how big the actual risk.

Unfortunately, have shown the past few days now, how big she is.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 08.02.2019, 10:37 PM