Two Minutes to Midnight (2019)

From the April 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the 1980s I was not alone in having recurring nightmares of a nuclear Armageddon which might leave the survivors envying the dead. The Cold War upheld a doctrine of ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD) as a fragile protection against the use of weapons which would kill many millions of people. The government issued a booklet, Protect And Survive, giving chilling advice about how to act when the time for nuclear conflict came, and CND responded with ‘Protest And Survive’. The film, When The Wind Blows, based on Raymond Briggs’ book (and featuring music from David Bowie, amongst others) was a moving and powerful satire on the fear we lived with. The women of Greenham Common camped by the RAF base there in protest at its arsenal of nuclear weapons. Some of us voiced the view then, as now, that the terrifying drive toward war was a basic feature of the form of society which exists, and could only be dealt with by changing the basis of society.

That view was almost universally mocked by the pragmatists who prefer piecemeal reform. As a result, here we are, forty years later, and the threats facing humanity are even worse. The Trump administration has withdrawn from the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987 to limit nuclear proliferation, opening the possibility of a new arms race and the prospect of the US preparing for war with China. Against this background, Theresa May’s Defence Secretary, a hideous caricature of a war-monger in the form of former fireplace salesman Gavin Williamson, declared an intention to send warships to frighten China. Unsurprisingly, days later, China indicated it was pulling out of trade talks with Britain. So much for the Brexiteers’ diplomacy in wooing new trading partners to replace Europe.

In February last year, this same Gavin Williamson dined with Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of a former Putin minister, in exchange for £30,000 to Tory funds. Brexit, says Williamson, ‘has brought us to a great moment in our history’, when we must be ready to deploy ‘hard power’ against those who ‘flout international law’. In addition he wants to build two British military bases, one in Asia and the other ‘in the Caribbean’. They are to ‘strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass’. This little weasel is in the worst tradition of jingoistic speechifying to send innocent millions to their deaths. He wants to ‘enhance our lethality’. What a shameful blot on the face of humanity he is.

Talking of lethality, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists states in its longstanding and highly respected ‘Doomsday Clock’ report for 2019: ‘Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention. These major threats—nuclear weapons and climate change—were exacerbated this past year by the increased use of information warfare to undermine democracy around the world, amplifying risk from these and other threats and putting the future of civilization in extraordinary danger.’ Since 1947 they have calculated the level of risk of nuclear apocalypse, and set a nominal clock each year, on which midnight represents peak danger, and midday would be safety. They now put this clock at two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been. The report is written by a panel of the world’s most senior and accomplished scientists and analysts across all fields, the height of intelligent expertise, and this is their collective conclusion.

Clifford Slapper

Dear Theresa . . . (2019)

From the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Theresa . . . 

Apparently, at exactly 11.00 pm on Friday 29 March 2019, Brexit will descend upon us. I am wondering whether I should stay up and watch it as I do when there is a total eclipse. If a deal is not struck by this time then hell-fire and damnation is forecast to rain down upon the people of the British Isles, as alluded to by the ignominious EU President, Donald Tusk. I suspect that, if I wake up on Saturday morning 30 March to total darkness, it is much more likely to be due to the onset of Nuclear Winter than a failure to renegotiate a variance of the Irish Backstop.

I was wondering if, in all the hoo-hah and razzmatazz of Brexit, you have had the chance to consider the latest development on our path to Nuclear Armageddon. In case you haven’t I’ll just remind you. Your partner in crime, The Donald, has given notice that the United States will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, claiming that Russia has violated the terms of the Treaty, whereas Russia claims that the United States violated the terms of the Treaty first. I love an adult conversation, don’t you, especially when the outcome may well determine the survival of our planet.

As a result of the dispute over the INF Treaty Russia has announced the reactivation of its Perimeter System which was de-commissioned following the end of the Cold War; that is the first Cold War ending in 1991, not the current one. The Perimeter System is a nifty little arrangement to counter the United States posture of First Use of nuclear weapons by anticipating that such a pre-emptive strike could destroy Russia’s command and control systems; in which case a cluster of SS17 ICBMs will launch automatically on detection of seismic activity, compatible with that caused by a nuclear explosion. As these Russian SS17 missiles fly over the nuclear armed ICBMs in their silos they will transmit a launch signal to them. If the United States doesn’t already have a similar defence system no doubt it will feel it prudent to build one and, hey presto, planetary annihilation without any need for fallible human intervention!

I find it strangely reassuring, in a psychotic sort of way, that MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – has been fully restored after faltering in recent decades and without even the need for a mad man or mad woman to press the button. Given that the UK is a major player in this ultimate game of chicken with its – soon to be dazzlingly new – Trident nuclear submarines I hope you will find time to give this matter a few minutes of your attention amid the Brexit fever. From our perspective we in the Socialist Party have a rather simple solution. We advocate a world devoid of imperialism, nationalism and all sabre-rattling murderous manifestations of warfare which emanate from such pathologies: a world where there are no nation states, no borders and no private property, where resources are held in common for the benefit of all; which will leave very few things to fight over.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Hart

Ask the general (1988)

The Running Commentary column from the April 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

After the intoxication of the INF Treaty comes the hangover of reality. The record has recently been put straight by NATO's Supreme Commander (and you can't get much higher than that in the business of managing a mass murder machine) General John Galvin, who advises against any misconceptions about the effect of the Treaty which, he says, will remove only about three or four per cent of the nuclear inventory. Whatever gap this may leave, the General is engaged in trying to plug by bringing NATO's battlefield nuclear weapons up do date. At the same time the British government is planning a £2 to £3 billion long-term costing for a new nuclear stand-off missile for the Tornado bomber, as another way of plugging the gaps left by the INF.

These facts indicate that, in spite of the blast of publicity which came with its signing, the INF Treaty will leave the world anything but nuclear-free. After all, nuclear arms did not happen by accident, out of an unconnected nothing. They were in the direct line of succession of capitalism's state organised means of murder and destruction (what, we wonder, will be next in the line?). The bomber aircraft which emerged from World War One were succeeded at the end of 1939-45 by the guided missile and the rocket. then in their infancy but holding the awful prospect of refinement and fitment with nuclear warheads.

This doleful state of affairs, in which a substantial amount of human energy, knowledge and resources is poured into manufacturing devices with the sole use of blowing us all up, is the inevitable consequence of a social system based on the class monopoly of the means of life. Capitalism produces its wealth for profitable sale; its relentless drive is for the accumulation of capital. This means that it is a society of competition, which at its fullest involves a massive, world-wide clash between the super powers armed with the most destructive weapons available.

The case that capitalism causes war and that war gives rise to the means of destruction. which must inexorably get more and more powerful, seems too straightforward for the anti-nuclear campaigners, who prefer to think that the weapons can be eliminated without doing anything about their cause. So imperfect an understanding of this social system must cause a vulnerability to misconceptions, of the sort which CND constantly offer as viable policy. That is why they celebrated the INF Treaty as the harbinger of a new age of peace and freedom from fear.

In reality, the powers of capitalism will not surrender their capacities to damage, perhaps destroy, each other at so casual a wriggle of pens on pieces of paper. They will not so easily dismantle the arsenals they have so painstakingly, so expensively, accumulated. They remain deadly rivals; the world is still a place of tension, under threat of the ultimate holocaust.

After the false euphoria of the INF Treaty, that is the reality. Ask General Galvin.