Tuesday 21 February 2023

Will theThird World War be nuclear?

Nuclear or Nucular? Same result.

The last President Bush had a habit of mispronouncing the word Nuclear. If there is ever an actual hostile firing of these weapons between or among nations, we are toast - nuclear OR nucular.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has raised the prospect of a Nuclear war again. We can only hope not. The world would become quite uninhabitable if many of these exploded. I think it is safe to say that if one nation targets another who also has weapons, it will be like a snowball fight between countries. Snow forts won't exist.

We have become almost blasé to national disasters for years. There are many causes: fire; hurricanes and tornadoes; floods; tsunamis; and recently once again earthquakes. It is worth doing a search for what has been written and the horrible visuals recorded when Fat Man and Little Boy were exploded by America over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was hell on earth.

Now remember that these were crude and small atomic devises. Today the nuclear arms race has produced bombs that are more powerful by factors of 10. They have also been perfected. Their use on Japan has been debated many times. It did bring Japan - who had vowed to continue the war in the Pacific - to its heels months after Germany had already surrendered. This was also after prolonged fire bombing of hundreds of Japanese cities which did even more damage to buildings and people than the two big ones. We can only be thankful that Germany did not acquire the knowhow before the U.S.A. although they were trying.

There are very eerie similarities between the Ukraine situation and the last two world wars. Some are: growing economic crises and the differences between rich and poor; scapegoats being named to justify acts of war; despots in control of powerful nations; desire for the expansion of borders which are illegal land grabs; nations forming sides and alliances.

Today there are some major differences that make these times worse. As mentioned, the weapons are capable of destroying the planet and its people.
Britain is no longer a big player but IS and she has not made her position clear. North Korea and Iran could jump in. India's position is not clear either but by proximity siding with China would be very attractive, especially economically.

Adding to all of that, the American people are getting tired of being the world's police officers and paying fortunes to others. American politics is in turmoil and getting worse. Some people in other nations were overjoyed at 9/11. Many would like to see America with a bloody nose.

The one hope is that the madmen in power today have seen what would happen in a nuclear exchange. They would not be immune themselves.

Perhaps one of the worst ironies is this: Mankind and science is learning more about the power of the atom and the sun. New energy sources are being researched and tried. China claims to have new hypersonic glide vehicles that travel at Mach 5 and with much greater efficiency.

So just when all of this knowledge and power should be combined so that future generations can travel to distant heavenly bodies, it would be a shame if it were all used to target and destroy each other. We will become just another distant sphere probably covered in dust and water with a radioactive atmosphere that would kill any alien visitors who managed to leverage their own technology to reach us after we failed.

#thebrewsterblock

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