By Bharat Dogra*
NEW DELHI, India | 24 February 2024 (IDN) — Although the extremely high risks associated with nuclear weapons are widely recognized, it appears from the conduct of policy by some highly educated policy makers in recent times that they do not appear to give adequate and proper attention to the levels of extreme risks involved here, and this is reflected in their recklessly risky policies which take the world very close to the possibility of nuclear war.
Such policies were very visible in the context of some now rightly discredited policy makers of the Biden administration and their close allies whose military support for Ukraine at times took such forms that the risk of a direct war between Russia and the USA or Russia and NATO increased during these times to unacceptably high levels.
In this context it is useful if some of the top scientists and experts come forward to spread greater awareness of what exactly can be involved in a nuclear attack so that people are adequately informed regarding the consequences of nuclear warfare and there can be greater mobilization of people and the peace movement to prevent reckless policy makers from going too far ahead in brinkmanship and increasing risks of nuclear war.
A timely and welcome initiative has been taken by Prof Theodore Postol who has written an article titled ‘What would happen if a Russian nuke detonated over your city’.
The writer, who is Prof Emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security at MIT, is primarily addressing US and western readers and so he speaks of the threat to the people of US, but he is of course concerned, as he also writes, that the victims could be in Russia, or Ukraine or elsewhere.
The title of his article could also have been — ‘What would happen if a Russian city is detonated by American nukes’ — and much of the information and possibilities mentioned here would remain relevant. The issue really is how the entre humanity and in fact all forms of life are threatened in the most horrible way by the possibility of nuclear war and the article of Prof Postol s very relevant in this context.
Professor Postol starts his article (published in the Responsible Statecraft on February 19, 2025 by saying, “The war in Ukraine has served as a reminder to the general public that both Russia and the U.S. have massive nuclear weapons arsenals and that they continue to pose an existential threat to human civilization, and perhaps even to our very survival on the planet.”
He then reminds his readers, “Keep in mind that a single Russian Sarmat or SS-18 intercontinental missile carries ten 800-kiloton bombs, and the Russian intercontinental missile arsenal can launch about 400 of those bombs within minutes of a launch command. Let’s focus here on the effects of a single 800-kiloton nuclear detonation at a height of about one mile above an American city.”
As Prof Postol tells us, the detonation of this nuclear weapon would release the near explosive equivalent of a million tons of TNT within 100 millionths of a second. The temperature inside the explosion will reach roughly 100 million degrees Celsius, about five times that of the center of the sun. Within a millionth of a second, the explosive energy heats the surrounding air to a million degrees, creating a “fireball” of superheated air with an inner pressure of tens of millions of pounds per square inch.
This fireball initially expands at about one million miles per hour, and within a second becomes a bubble of hot air of about one mile in diameter. As this superheated air-bubble expands to its maximum diameter, its edges push against the surrounding air, producing a compressed blast wave of enormous power and extent.
Prof Postol further tells us that at ranges nearer to the detonation, heating effects will be so intense, that human flesh would burn explosively into carbon, and asphalt on the streets would melt and, in some cases, vaporize. Bottom of Form
At that point, the resulting fires over an area of between 100 and 150 square miles on Earth would efficiently heat large volumes of air near and above the ground. The energy released by this mass fire would be 15 to 50 times greater than the energy produced by the nuclear detonation.
Further Prof Postol informs his readers that at the edge of the fire zone, the winds would be powerful enough to uproot trees of several feet in diameter and suck people from outside the fire into it, fill city streets with flames and firebrands, break in doors and windows, and cause the fire to jump, sometimes hundreds of feet, swallowing anything not already violently combusting.
In addition, Prof Postol says, this ferocious “hurricane of fire” would also be accompanied by the release of large amounts of potentially lethal toxic smoke and combustion gases, creating an environment of extreme heat, high winds, and toxic agents in target areas. Even those seeking in shelters in basements of massive buildings would likely suffocate from fire-generated gases or be cooked alive as their shelters heated to oven-like conditions. Buried, unburned material from collapsed buildings throughout the fire zone could burst into flames when exposed to air — even months after the firestorm had ended.
Speaking about another impact. Prof Postol says that as the nuclear debris cloud rises, it will drag with it the radioactive isotopes produced during the detonation of the nuclear weapon. Some very small fraction of these radioactive materials would be falling to the ground within the hours following the nuclear attack, and since the activity of these materials is so high, they will produce radiation on the ground near and downwind of the target area that will be lethal within hours to exposed individuals.
Thus, it is evident from this description by a renowned expert on this issue that in the case of a single such attack for millions of people there will be no escape from a very painful death and in addition the living conditions of a very large area will be destroyed for a very long time for not just human beings but for most forms of life. Hence clearly perhaps the highest priority should be to avoid nuclear war no matter what happens, and the effort should be avoid getting anywhere close to this. There should be systems in place to ensure this, nationally and internationally. The ultimate solution, of course. can be only in the form of almost complete elimination of nuclear weapons and in fact elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.
*Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children and A Day in 2071. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Original link: https://countercurrents.org/2025/02/top-scientist-warns-against-the-existential-threat-of-nuclear-weapons/
Photo source: Countercurrents
