Page 3 - Mar Apr 2021-REV

Assessing the Environmental
Assessing the Environmental

Risk of the Ground Based
Risk of the Ground Based

Strategic Deterrent
Strategic Deterrent

Nebraskans for Peace recently submitted ception provided by mobile sea- and air- curity and resiliency of the global ecosys-
the following statement to the Air Force based systems. In the late 1970s and early tem. As University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Ground Based Strategic Deterrent Test ’80s, the built-in vulnerability of land- researchers have shown (“Nuclear Weap-
Program: Environmental Assessment/ based missile deployment was openly ons in a Changing Climate: Probability,
Overseas Environmental Assessment acknowledged. Sometime later, however, Increasing Risks, and Perception”, Adam
in response to their request for public that vulnerability got inverted by nuclear Liska, et al., Environment Magazine,
comment about the move to modernize planners into a hideous ‘strategic advan- 2017, https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/
the U.S. nuclear arsenal. tage’, who reasoned that enemies would cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&conte
need to ‘waste’ precious warheads from xt=bseliska), even a limited nuclear strike
There’s a grim irony in the timing their limited WMD arsenals to destroy could precipitate a worldwide “nuclear
of this “Environmental Assessment” for autumn”: throwing up such a cloud of
the “Ground Based Strategic Deterrent” dust, smoke and debris that the sun would
that cuts to the core of the entire proposed While the very existence be dimmed and global temperatures and
nuclear arsenal ‘modernization’ program. of nuclear weapons poses precipitation levels would drop, leading
At the very moment our planetary eco- to global crop failure and the collapse of
system is being uncontrollably assailed an existential threat to our food system.
by a devastating global pandemic and Instead of spending $100-200 bil-
an escalating climate crisis, the U.S. life on earth, land-based lion on an imprudent and precarious
Government (to the tune of $1 Trillion) modernization of the land-based leg
is actively embarked on heightening the ICBMs constitute the of the nuclear triad, endangering the
human-made peril of nuclear annihila- most vulnerable leg of planet’s ecosystem (and our global food
tion. production and distribution system), and
Given their respective biological the U.S.’s deterrent triad. compromising our national security (by
and geophysical natures, the coronavi- flouting the United Nations just-enacted
rus and the climate crisis may never be these solitary silos (deployed in remote, Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
fully subject to human management and sparsely populated areas) before these Weapons), the U.S. should be earnestly
control. The threat of nuclear holocaust, weapons could be launched in retaliation. pursuing negotiations with the other
however, is a problem strictly of our own Essentially, in this contest of missile at- nuclear states to abolish these Weapons
making. It’s a peril we are inflicting on trition, land-based ICBM targets would of Mass Destruction. In the interest of
ourselves—and on the natural world that be intended to ‘draw fire’—depleting the national, economic and environmental
supports us. In terms of sheer harm to the enemy’s stockpile while enhancing the security, the Department of Defense
environment, what more instantaneous strategic dominance of the U.S.’s sea- and should decommission—rather than
cataclysm (short of an asteroid strike) air-based legs. ‘modernize’—the land-based ICBM leg
can be imagined than that of nuclear Apart from treating the Nebraska of the nuclear triad.
war? Any purported ‘environmental’ as- Panhandle (and the rest of the Warren Air Nebraska is already a nuclear ‘bulls-
sessment of the Ground Based Strategic Force Base area) as militarily ‘expend- eye’ as the headquarters of U.S. Strategic
Deterrent must, accordingly, take into able’, such a war-fighting strategy— Command at Offutt Air Force Base in
account the program’s intended purpose should a nuclear conflict erupt—does Bellevue. Continuing to weaponize the
and projected effects. incalculable damage environmentally. state’s Panhandle only further imperils
While the very existence of nuclear Our entire region of the country would the people and environment of Ne-
weapons poses an existential threat to life become an uninhabitable wasteland. But braska…
on earth, land-based ICBMs constitute the ‘fallout’ would reach far beyond the And, as we’re now learning, the very
the most vulnerable leg of the U.S.’s de- U.S. heartland. A nuclear exchange of Earth itself.
terrent triad. As fixed-point targets easily even modest scale would endanger the se-
identifiable from Google Maps, ICBM
silos are ‘sitting ducks’, lacking the de- MARCH/APRIL 2021 NE REPORT, P. 3