– We will soon reach the point where, for the first time since the Cold War, we see an increase in the number of nuclear weapons. It really is a dangerous loin, says Matt Korda. He has been involved in writing a recent report from the Peace Research Institute Sipri, in Stockholm. There, they warn that the world will upgrade its nuclear arsenals, for the first time in 35 years. In 1986, we had 70,000 nuclear weapons. Today around 12,705. But now that disarmament is about to turn around. – Very scary Tuva Krogh Widskjold is the leader of ICAN Norway. ICAN won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its work to abolish nuclear weapons. Tuva Widskjold is the leader of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) in Norway. She thinks the report is scary reading. – This report is very important. It is very frightening that there will be more nuclear weapons. The more we have, the greater the chance that things can go wrong. There may be accidents or misunderstandings that cause us to have an explosion, warns Widskjold. On the Nukemap website, you can see how large an area would be affected and how many would be killed by a nuclear attack on your hometown. For example, an attack with a medium-sized atomic bomb corresponding to the effect of 100 kilotons of dynamite against the center of Oslo would kill approximately 100,000 people and injure 188,000. This map taken from Nukemap shows the areas that would have been directly hit by a medium-sized atomic bomb that explodes in the air over Oslo. The entire center of Oslo would have been turned into firewood, burned down, and exposed to strong radiation. Photo: Alex Wellerstein / Nuclear secrecy Unlikely with new disarmament agreements For decades, the countries with by far the most nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia, have agreed on more agreements to disarm their arsenals. Today, the United States has 5428 warheads, Russia 5977. Cooperation between the two countries is now at its lowest point since the Cold War. The latest disarmament agreement expires in 2026, and many fear that there will be no more. Henrik Stålhane Hiim is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy (NUPI) with China and Russia as special fields. Photo: Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy (NUPI) – This has stalled, partly because the Americans want a new round of arms control to involve China. The Chinese have so far expressed very little interest in this. In addition, it is difficult to envisage new initiatives when tensions between Russia and the United States are so high, explains senior researcher at NUPI, Henrik Stålhane Hiim. Luck You’ve probably heard of the Cuba crisis. But did you know that in 1968 an American plane crashed at Thule Air Base in Greenland with four atomic bombs on board? A scientific rocket launches from Andøya rocket firing range in 1995. Photo: Terje Mortensen / NTB Or that Russia’s former president Boris Yeltsin in 1995 almost fired nuclear weapons when radar systems seemed to show that a missile was fired from Andøya in Norway? The “missile” was a research rocket that was to study the northern lights. According to an article by the French scientist Benoît Pelopidas, we can thank pure luck that none of our nuclear weapons have exploded by accident. Several times, technical errors and high voltages have led to nuclear weapons being close to being detonated. – We have far too much confidence that we can control nuclear weapons, Pelopidas writes. Many of the warheads we have are in stock, but the world still has more than 3,700 warheads that are ready for use at any given time. Vladimir Putin has threatened to do just that, should the West interfere too much in Ukraine. China, Iran and North Korea Another factor that makes Sipri scientists fear armaments is China. – China is upgrading its nuclear arsenal, quite significantly. We do not yet know how much they will expand, but we have seen that they have built something close to 300 missile silos in the desert in western China. We must expect that they will fill many of them with missiles, Hiim explains. Chinese military forces run trains through Beijing with DF-17 missiles. Dongfeng-17 are ballistic missiles that can be armed with nuclear warheads. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein / AP At the same time, North Korea is building more and more warheads and missiles, which can go further and further. The report estimates that the country led by Kim Jong-un now has 20 warheads, and has probably enriched uranium to build around 50 more. In addition, negotiations with Iran have capsized. According to US intelligence, the country is in theory only a few weeks away from being able to develop its own nuclear weapons. If they want to. Not necessarily new But rearmament is not necessarily a new development. – We have for many years seen a qualitative upgrade. This means that the nuclear weapon states have invested a lot in creating new types of nuclear weapons. At the same time, much of the disarmament we have seen has mainly been to destroy weapons that have already been taken out of use. Now we are almost done with it, and then we also see that there will be a quantitative build-up, explains coordinator for ICAN Norway Tuva Widskjold. In 1986, the then leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union met in Iceland. Reagan and Gorbachev agreed to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. Reagan and Gorbachev negotiate disarmament agreements in Reykjavík in 1986. Photo: Scott Stewart / AP – A nuclear war can not be won, and must never be fought, the two presidents said. As a result, about 80 percent of nuclear weapons were dismantled. From a peak of around 70,000, we are now down to 12,705. At the same time, the countries modernized their weapons, among other things by making missiles that can carry many warheads at the same time. The total destructive capacity of the United States, for example, continued to increase until the mid-2000s. In 2010, it was quite similar to what it was in 1986. An American Minuteman-3 missile is ready in a launch pad at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota in the USA in June 2014. Photo: Charlie Riedel / AP What can Norway do? Norway does not have nuclear weapons. As early as 1957, Einar Gerhardsen stated that it would not be relevant to have foreign weapons on Norwegian soil either. Many believe that nuclear weapons should be abolished. How to get there, there is a lot of debate about. Norway has long expressed itself in favor of arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. We are, among other things, a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty from 1970. Different ways to fight nuclear weapons Disarmament and weapons control: political processes, agreements and measures that set limits, regulate and reduce the development, production and deployment of nuclear weapons. Non-proliferation: aims to prevent the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons, with a focus on new countries not developing them. 191 countries have ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970. Prohibition of tests: The partial cessation agreement of 1963 prohibits nuclear tests and all other nuclear explosions (including for peaceful purposes) in the atmosphere, space and the sea. Prohibition: In July 2017, the UN General Assembly adopted an agreement banning states from developing, testing, producing and procuring nuclear weapons. The Prohibition Treaty In 2017, 86 countries in the world stated that in addition to gradual disarmament, nuclear weapons had to be banned. The map shows the 86 countries that have signed TPNW (green) and the nine countries with nuclear weapons (red). The result was a UN ban on nuclear weapons, known as TPNW. All parliamentary parties except the Conservatives, the Labor Party and the Green Party will sign the agreement. It will also 78 percent of Norway’s population. By 3 June, LO decided that they also support the ban. State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eivind Vad Petersson (Labor Party). Norway will participate as observers at TPNW’s first State Party meeting in Vienna from 21 to 23 June. Photo: Sturlason The government will not sign the agreement. – We maintain that the nuclear ban is incompatible with NATO membership. This is, for example, because the text of the treaty is largely incompatible with security cooperation with nuclear-weapon countries such as the United States, Great Britain and France, writes State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Eivind Vad Petersson, in an e-mail to news. Tuva Widskjold thinks this is wrong: – It is not true. It is to hide behind NATO, and not take responsibility for one’s own actions. There are no legal obligations in NATO that say that one can not agree to the UN ban on nuclear weapons. This is about political courage and will.
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