PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

13 AUG 2017

PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT

http://www.pndnsw.org.au/

HYSTERIA OVER DPRK NUKES A SELF – FULFILLING DISASTER

AUSTRALIA MUST NOT BLINDLY FOLLOW US

The hysteria over the nuclear program of the DPRK is rapidly becoming a self – fulfilling disaster, with Donald Trump leading the US and possibly the world needlessly into the abyss. Australia should not follow it there: Rather, we should offer some rationality in a situation that requires above all, a calm look at what is real, and a realistic understanding of the likely consequences of conflict with the DPRK.

While foreign minister Julie Bishop and PM Malcolm Turnbull made welcome appeals for calm a couple of days ago, Australia's statements that it would stand by the side of the US without asking hard questions about whether military action was a good idea or in any way needful, are entirely unhelpful. Australia is not obliged to follow the United States down any road no matter how lunatic, and no matter how much our own security is compromised by doing so.

The DPRK has on the one hand, the worlds smallest, least advanced, and least reliable, nuclear arsenal. It may or may not have the ability to hit US mainland cities (and by extension, targets in Australia.) It almost certainly has the ability to hit Guam, Seoul, and Tokyo, potentially causing hundreds of thousands if not millions, of casualties. It may have between 10 and 30 10-20Kt warheads, possibly a few more.

Against it is ranged the USA, with the worlds second-largest nuclear arsenal (Russia has a number of hundreds of warheads more. Both have around 7000 much larger warheads than the DPRK.), a highly reliable and accurate delivery system, and a fully operational nuclear 'triad'.

A nuclear exchange between the US and Russia would be in every sense, the 'end of the world', with an immediate body – count of up to 1-3 billion.

A nuclear exchange between the US and the DPRK will, if the DPRK really has that capability, still kill up to millions of people, depending if the DPRK can actually hit US cities, or Seoul and Tokyo. Even without nuclear weapons altogether, the DPRK can cause colossal casualties from massed artillery strikes on Seoul.

War of any kind with the DPRK is thus best avoided. At a minimum it will kill hundreds of thousands, at the worst, millions.

But the use of nuclear weapons by the US and Russia, or the US and China, could kill over a billion, collapse what we call 'civilization', and place question-marks over human survival.

Australia could, instead of making supine statements about supporting the US in its madness, take a leadership role in making peace between the US and the DPRK – and indeed that's exactly what we should be doing.

And while we are doing that, and if we all get out of this alive, we should be not only be signing and ratifying the Nuclear Prohibition Treaty when it becomes open for signature next month at the UN, but urging the US and it allies to do likewise.

Please.

Lets hope that a month down the track we are all still here, and in a position to do so. It's a survival priority.

John Hallam

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