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Nuclear weapons
for sale
There are four former
Soviet
Republics vith nuclear
weapons
THE BREAK-I OF the Soviet Inion into its constituent republics, along with the attempts of Iraq to build a nuclear bomb. have highlighted the question of nuclear proliferation. The collapse of Stalinism. which represents a victory for imperialism, will lead to an unequalled level of instability in post-world war two international relations. The Gulf war itself would probably not have taken place under the 'old world order'.
This is happening at a time when hardly a dent has been made in the nuclear arsenals. East and West. The cuts made so far have been largely cosmetic and any future reductions in inter-continental missiles will depend on the willingness of the individual former soviet republies to comply.
The spread of nuclear weapons could come from individual states developing their own technology or from the export of hardware and expertise from other nuclear powers. The first route is long. difficult and expensive as the experience of Iraq has demonstrated. It is first necessary to produce sutficient weapons-grade uranium for a bomb. about 20 kilogrammes This form of uranium, called the 235-isotope. is only found mixed with much larger quantities of uranium 238. which is not suitable for bombs.
The process of separating the two forms of uranium is slow and expensive. The modern way of doing this is to use a centrituge. The Iraqis, however, were using a calutron which is oldfashioned technology: used to
by Pete Dickenson
makt the Hiroshima bomb. It involves accelerating particles of uranium through a magnetic field where the lighter 235-isotope follows a slightly different path to the heavier uranium- 238. It is then possible to collect the two separatel!:
After the material has been collected. which might take years for one bomh, it is necessary to detonate the explosion and to control the shape of the uranium with conventional explosives. This has to be done so that a chain reaction occurs and the bomb doesn't fizzle out. Modern detonators are based on micro-electronics and it would be very difficult for a country with limited technical resources to design one from scratch. There have been press reports that the Iraqis acquired a detonator from an existing nuclear power.
Most 'unofficial nuclear powers like India and Brazil built up stocks of weapons grade material through civil nuclear power programmes and got the expertise to build a bomb by recruiting statf who had worked in the nuclear industry in the West. This was probably combined with the acquisition' of key components manufactured by d leading nuclear power.
After a working bomb has been made it is still necessary to find a way of dropping it. Only the leading powers have intercontinental missiles, other countries have to use aircratt or short-range missiles like the Iraqi Scuds. Aircraft are vulnerable to missile attack and Scud-type missiles are inaccurate. urrel
TO DATE THESE technical ditticulties have held back the proliferation of nuclear weapons. although there are now probab- Iy a dozen countries with a secret nuclear capacity: including Israel and South Africa. The collapse of the Soviet Union will change this situation. There are four republics with nuclear weapons, Russia. Ukraine. Belorussia and Kazakstan. The capabilities of these nuclear powers are of a different order of magnitude to the ex-colonial nuctear states. The bombs developed by Pakistan or Brazil are fission devices. like the ones dropped on Japan. They use the energy released in splitting the atom. The weapons in the Soviet rep. ublics on the other hand are hydrogen, or fusion bombs. They are based on the release of energ. when atomic particles are fused together to form i nev nucleus, and are many hundreds of times more powerful than an atomic or fission bomb.
The delivery systems are totally different as well. The technological gap between the U'SA and the V'SSR was at its smallest in the missile field. The Soviet I'nion developed inter-continental missiles with multiple independently targeted warheads. These can be launched from the ground or from submarines. The only difference with the American version is that the! are slightly less accurate. hitting a target within 200 metres instead of 20 metres.
The US government is trying to stop the proliferation of the massive Soviet arsenal to nonnuclear states. and Yeltsin is attempting to concentrate all the nuclear weapons on Russian soil. Formal agreements have been reached between the four nuclear republics to move strategic and tactical missiles to Russia. The strategic missiles are
inter-continental long-range.
weapons, the tactical weapons could be short-range missiles or nuclear artillery shells for use on the battlefield
At the moment it is impossible to know how far the republican leaders intend to honour the agreement to move their arsen-
Science Notes
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als to Russia. There are 28.000 nuclear weapons. the majority of which are small tactical sostems, and in the dislocation and chaos, amidst the growing national tensions between the republics, some of them could be lost.
There are two aspects to proliteration. The first is the export of technology and the second the export of expertise. In the long run, the second presents the greatest danger, since the possession of knowledge is decisive in the final analysis. For example, warheads need constant attention to keep them effective. Plutonium devices contain other elements apart from plutonium to increase their power, such as tritium. It has a half-lite of only twelve years, which means ever! year appoximately 5%% of it decays into helium gas and has eventually to be replaced. Some of the plutonium also decays into an americium.
called element which then reacts with the remaining plutonium producing heat. which damages the electronic circuits and the conventional explosives which are present. This can seriously affect the working of the bomb which is very sensitive to the correct operation of the explosives, is was mentioned previously The former Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow made sure that the key workers at nuclear installations outside Russia were ethnic Russians. Without their help it would be difficult to carry out the complex mainten ance detailed above or to operate the missile systems. There is. however, a question mark over the loyalty of the Russian military technicians to the new Russian state. Many senior Russian ofticers, tor example. have chosen to serve with the | krainian army.
Moreover. even if the non- Russian republics cannot eventually maintain complete warheads, they could still sell indiridual components. There will be huge economic pressures on them to sell items such as detonators or quantities of plutonium It is estimated that there are over one million scientists and technicians working on nuclear weapons or in nuclear facilities in the former Soviet I'nion. About +.000 of these have the expertise to make a warhead. although it is unlikely that one individual could do so. There have been press reports already that senior scientists at the top research centre. the nuclear Kurchator Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow, have been approached by Libya. They were offered $2.000 a month. which is not a lot by Western standards but represents more than 200 times the current average salary in Russia. The story may be partly black propaganda by the U'S against Gaddafi. but app. roaches like this will undoubtedly take place.
The EC has pledged s65m and the $ S25m to develop prog rammes to keep redundant nuc lear scientists in the country. But these sums will probably be Nuclear rescarch inadequate.
and warhead production was done mainly in closed cities. many of which were in the reg ion around the !ral mountains. These cities had no names. just numbers. although some had populations of several hundred thousand. The working conditions were relatively good and the scientists were a privileged elite. They will take a lot of persuading to stay in what could become remote ghost towns. IT WOULD BE wrong to exagg Nuclear presidents'
crate the dangers of a regional Kravchik, nuclear war taking place as a Ukraine, and result of this proliferation. but Yelstin, Russia.
the chances of it happening will undoubtedly increase. The I'S can still exert enormous political pressure on most ex-colonial countries and will do so. tearing the revolutionary conseq uences of the wave of revulsion that would sweep the globe in the event of a nuclear strike. But on the other hand. the nightmare scenario of a regional nuclear war between client states escalating into a superpower confrontation has disappeared. The imperative of 'S imperialism to prevent a 'small nuclear war will not be as overwhelming as betore. The! will certam!! not prevent a war for humanitarian reasons. The nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in world war two were meant as a warning to Stalin not to try to overrun the whole of Europe. and not to speed the end of the Pacific war as they claimed.
The instability in world relations after the collapse of Stalinism will create new situations where the planet could again be devastated be nuclear weapons used in regional conflicts. The working class is the only force which can halt the threat of a MIR C125 new slide into barbarism.
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