{"id":28143,"date":"2017-11-20T06:43:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T11:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28143"},"modified":"2017-11-20T06:43:17","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T11:43:17","slug":"doomsday-scenarios-the-uks-hair-raising-admissions-about-the-prospect-of-nuclear-war-and-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28143","title":{"rendered":"Doomsday Scenarios: the UK\u2019s Hair-Raising Admissions About the Prospect of Nuclear War and Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doomsday Scenarios: the UK\u2019s Hair-Raising Admissions About the Prospect of Nuclear War and Accident<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Photo by Toby Scott | CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has published several reports over the last few years. They discuss geopolitics and related themes, one of which is the likelihood of nuclear war or accident, including what it means for long-term survival.<\/p>\n

Experts say that even a so-called limited exchange or accident would be catastrophic. For example, a recent paper in Earth\u2019s Future<\/em><\/a>calculates that the most optimistic scenario of a \u201csmall,\u201d regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan would wipe out millions of people through famine and result in a nuclear winter. An exchange between the USA and Russia, for instance, could be even bigger and more devastating.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s ongoing \u201cAsia Pivot\u201d<\/a> encourages China to build up its arsenals. Proxy wars<\/a> in Syria and Ukraine with Russia and continuing tensions<\/a> with North Korea also increase the risk of brinkmanship and miscalculation between those nuclear powers.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s Role\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

By training rebels<\/a> in Syria and armed forces in Ukraine<\/a>, the UK is particularly responsible for contributing to escalating tensions. Britain remains one of the USA\u2019s closest allies and enjoys a \u201cspecial relationship\u201d with the US. It serves as a proxy for US Trident nuclear weapons systems. The UK\u2019s Vanguard submarines host US-supplied Trident II D5<\/a> Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. In 2016, a dummy ICBM was launched by the UK at a test target off the coast of Africa. It self-destructed and headed for Florida<\/a>, according to news reports. The event took place a time when the British government voted to upgrade<\/a>Trident in violation of Britain\u2019s Non-Proliferation Treaty<\/a> obligations and at a time when the newly-appointed Prime Minister, Theresa May (not yet elected), answered \u201cYes,\u201d<\/a> when asked by a member of Parliament if she would launch a nuclear missile and kill hundreds of thousands of civilians.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doomsday Scenarios: the UK\u2019s Hair-Raising Admissions About the Prospect of Nuclear War and Accident\u00a0 Photo by Toby Scott | CC BY 2.0 The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has published several reports over the last few years. They discuss geopolitics and related themes, one of which is the likelihood of nuclear war or accident, including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5493,581,17114,820,2080,862],"class_list":["post-28143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-counterpunch","tag-nuclear-war","tag-t-j-coles","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28143"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28144,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28143\/revisions\/28144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}