PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT

TRUMP/PUTIN GIVE WORLD WORST CHRISTMAS PRESENT

- MORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS



Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have jointly just given the World the worst Christmas present it could ever have. On the same day, one in a tweet, and one in a speech, have committed to 'strengthening' their massive nuclear forces.

The arms control community has already expressed its extreme alarm at the prospect.

Russia and the US each currently has some 7,000 nuclear weapons, a considerable diminution from the times of the last cold war, and each maintains just under 1000 land – based ICBMs in a status in which they can be launched in a few minutes.

The use of even a fraction of these forces (most likely on each other) would end civilisation as we know it (something that could be achieved by the use of as few as 5 large nuclear weapons in space above continental landmasses).

The growing tensions between the US/NATO and Russia are already leading to a situation in which the risk of a civilisation-ending nuclear exchange between the two is considered by expert opinion to be as high, or possibly higher, than during the cold war. Nuclear risk experts worldwide have called for common-sense measures to be taken to reduce nuclear risk so that the greatest potential threat to the survival of civilisation and to humans as a species does not eventuate. Trump and Putin together seem determined to risk everything humans value for their own egos.

The world has already 'come to its senses' (to use Trumps words) on nuclear weapons: 123 governments recently voted for a process to begin in 2017 that will outlaw nuclear weapons. Its time the nuclear weapon states came to their senses and stopped threatening the rest of the world (and themselves) with destruction of everything that is important. They need to begin with sensible risk reduction measures including No First Use and lowering the alert status of silo-based missiles, and proceed, as the world is demanding, to the complete elimination of nuclear arsenals.

John Hallam
61-411-854-612
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