Hiroshima mon amour
* Precipitate nuclear war
* Re-engage with the ice age
* Strike out at heatstroke
* Spread radiation throughout the nations
All this talk about boiling the planet is beginning to feel a touch unimaginative. Perhaps there is as much collateral in cooling things down a notch. As shown by the decades of concerted effort ploughed into global warming, changing the planet’s temperature requires patience. Yet it is often forgotten that man has already mastered how to engineer complete climate change overnight. At the push of a button, in fact. Raise your glasses to the nuclear winter, the quickest way of all to truly f**k the planet.
The Japanese city of Hiroshima illustrated that the planet could survive the fallout of a single atomic device. But one should never underestimate man’s ingenuity when it comes to engineering ways to liquidate each other, and atomic bombs have become bigger and better and more numerous than ever before.
New, sophisticated climate simulations reveal that even a relatively low-key nuclear spat will trigger a chain of events from which the planet will struggle to recover. Those monitoring the studies were deeply troubled by the global impact arising from even a modest squabble between two countries that involved nukes. Scientists discovered that 5 million tonnes of soot would be spewed into the atmosphere, inducing a 1.25°C fall in the average temperature at the earth’s surface. The planet’s life source, the sun, would be dimmed for more than a decade. In this twilight world of ubiquitous frosts, entire harvests would fail. The planet’s major breadbaskets would struggle. The coup de grâce involves a gaping hole in the ozone layer above Europe caused by gases emitted in the nuclear exchange. Ultraviolet rays stream through the tear in the earth’s protective layer, killing crops and frazzling the seas.
Your objective is to engender the most abrupt climate change in recorded history. To achieve such a scenario, go for the burn by precipitating another Cold War. Anglo-Russian relations are so deliciously brittle it seems neglectful not to take maximum advantage. There is no better target for a full-on nuclear scrap than the vast state beyond the former Iron Curtain. Russia possesses almost 5 per cent of the world’s arsenal, the majority of devices seventy times the strength of the one jettisoned by B-29 bomber Enola Gay above Japan that defining summer morning. Of Russia’s estimated 16,000 nuclear warheads, 7,200 are fully operational. Less than a tenth of Russia’s arsenal would be sufficient to trigger a nuclear winter.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which once saw Russia and Britain agree to gradually disarm, has unravelled. Britain has ordered a new £25 billion nuclear-weapon programme with warheads that promise a hundred times as much deadliness than the lump that fell from the Enola Gay. Russia, meanwhile, is considering suspending any further reduction of its huge nuke stockpile. For the first time in decades the spectre of a nuclear winter is back. The Cold War proved itself to be a lot of hot air from frosty diplomats. This time around things will be different – the Cold War to end all wars, a conflict to end in downright desolation.
When tensions are running high, it only needs something minor to induce global calamity on a grand scale. History proves that the death of a single man can, in the right context, be sufficient to induce global catastrophe. The 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary triggered repercussions that would guarantee the death of millions. Once again, the stage is set. The plan starts in Moscow and ends in meltdown.
Furthermore, we already have a working model for the potentially enormous planetary carnage the death of a single man can yield. Alexander Litvinenko. Relations between Britain and Russia deteriorated in tandem with the former KGB spy’s health as he lay dying in a London hospital in late 2006. Scotland Yard and government officials were adamant that Litvinenko was secretly fed Polonium 210 in a sushi bar by Russian Secret Service FSB agent Andrei Lugovoi, possibly on the orders of the Russian state. Moscow insisted that Lugovoi had been framed by the British security services. Within months, Kremlin officials warned it was prepared to aim nuclear missiles at European cities for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Not to be outdone, British intelligence claimed that Russian spies in the UK were busy committing acts of espionage. It was all bubbling nicely out of hand when, at the beginning of the year, Russia’s military chief of staff General Yuri Baluyevsky thrust his sallow, pudgy features towards the state cameras to make clear (as if anyone needed reminding) that Russia was getting a bit cross. Moscow, he declared, was prepared to use nuclear weapons. Pre-emptively. Against anyone. Bull’s-eye.
All we now need is another Litvinenko-style death to light the touch paper. The victim must be Russian and their murder must occur in Moscow. Ideally, they should be linked to the FSB spy agency, although it doesn’t have to be a senior figure. The murder must be mysterious. Think Georgi Markov, the Bulgarian dissident murdered in 1978 by being jabbed with a poisonous umbrella in London – although this time the Kremlin rather than the Houses of Parliament will frame the skyline.
Contacting a hitman is surprisingly straightforward. They can be tracked down through middle-men in Russia or through British-based expat communities. In a country where business is frequently settled by shady practices, rogue assassins are far from rare. A guaranteed hit, according to sources, should require no more than 500,000 roubles. Take care to pay in sterling. That way, the death can be traced back to Britain. Set up a false email account. Following the death, send oblique messages alleging that British security services ordered the murder. Try and include details that only an insider could know about the incident.
With the job done, sit back and watch the action unfold. Recent events indicate a certain inevitability to proceedings. As they follow the sterling and email trail, the Russian spy service will react with time-honoured aggression. A round of tit-for-tat follows, with expulsion of diplomats from respective embassies. Diplomatic relations between Whitehall and the Kremin collapse within days. As hostilities spiral out of control, a neurotic Russian media reports that Britain, backed by the US, is considering launching a military strike. Moscow ups the ante. General Baluyevsky, paler than ever, reiterates his threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Except that, this time around, he specifically mentions the UK. He cites British-backed US plans to erect a missile defence shield across Eastern Europe as evidence that London’s intention all along was to provoke Russia.
Once again, Gordon Brown insists his government played no part in what Russia has termed ‘state-sponsored terrorism’. Later that day, in a briefing to international journalists, Whitehall officials make a welcome error. They remind the assembled hordes that Lugovoi has still to be brought to justice for the murder of Litvinenko. The briefing mistakenly suggests that renewed efforts to extradite Lugovoi for trial will be forthcoming. For those crammed inside the Kremlin, it is a tacit admission of a revenge murder. Russia goes the whole damn way. It presses the button. Whoosh. Several hundred thermonuclear warheads are unleashed towards Europe. Britain responds. On the few high streets that survive, sales of thermals and winter jackets (real fur-trim de rigueur, naturally) go through the roof.
Without wishing to spoil the party, a note of caution must be sounded. What if Russia resists pressing the button? What if the Kremlin loses its bottle, putting the planet and millions of its people before political expediency? Such a depressing scenario leads us to the DIY route. More ‘atomic autumn’ than ‘nuclear winter’, it is still worthy of consideration. The first step is to get hold of the ingredients, chiefly weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, and centrifuges which can manipulate normal uranium to the levels required for a nuclear bomb. Exact designs and centrifuge-production plans are known to be knocking around, thanks largely to a chap called Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Creator of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, Khan is the best in the business. His network supplies the full caboodle – the nuclear materials, the technology, and the expertise to build a nuclear bomb from scratch. Don’t worry that he is under house arrest in Islamabad; his huge clandestine network is still, according to intelligence documents, very much active. When, in 2004, he testified to selling nuclear weapons and materials to Iran and Libya, among others, many thought his empire was finished. But intelligence briefings reveal that ‘most of Khan’s accomplices remain free’. What is less well known is that at least four major figures in this shady network are thought to be British. Legal reasons prevent their identities being revealed, but they are super-rich and well known in the murky world of international arms smuggling. At least one once worked for the British government, licensing foreign arms deals, before being enticed by the profits to be made from dabbling in nukes. All four can be tracked down with minimal digging, their contact details available in the public domain.
But be careful. Approaches will be carefully vetted and potential partners must do more than re-mortgage. Facilitating nuclear war is a pricy business. One of Khan’s associates was paid £2 million in commission just to help organize a deal. On the plus side, other bribes might not be required. Many countries have yet to introduce a law banning the trading of nuclear-related technology and few customs officers are briefed on what constitutes the technical equipment required to build an atomic bomb.
Even if the DIY route fails and Russia holds steady, there is still ample cause for optimism. There have never been more states able to invoke man-made climate change overnight. Between twenty to thirty more are currently racing to develop a nuclear capability. Who knows quite what Iran is up to? Pakistan, meanwhile, is building a new heavy water reactor capable of producing enough material for up to fifty nukes a year. The UN’s High Level Panel on Threats concludes that, rather than a reduction in atomic weaponry, the world is in fact embroiled in a ‘cascade of proliferation’. If that were not cause for celebration in itself, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies concedes that attempting to control the trade in nuclear technology is a ‘daunting task’. Russia may, after all, lose conviction, but sooner or later a man-made climate that doesn’t rely on carbon-dioxide emissions will prevail.
* International agreements to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons are not only honoured, but signed by all countries.
Not a prayer.
* Rogue state acquires nuclear capability and strikes major world city. Plausible.
* Britain halts development of its new nuclear-weapon programme, Trident, saying it sets a shoddy example to the world. Preposterous.
* Regional nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India, or Taiwan and China destabilizes global ecosystem. Distinct possibility.
* US continues to build huge missile shield across Eastern Europe. Russia threatens a nuclear strike. It presses the button. Conceivable.
Likelihood of nuclear winter in next half-century: 69%