Image couresty Magnolia Pictures
By MATTHEW GRAY for The Toronto Globalist
Thirty seconds and twelve minutes (Amount of time for a briefing and amount of time for a decision by the President of the United States about a retaliatory nuclear response, respectively)
Two minutes (Time for 1,500 launch ready weapons to be launched from the United States)
Ten to twelve minutes (Time for all of the world’s launch ready weapons to be in the air)
Twenty eight minutes (Time from launch to impact of ICBMs fired from the Russian Federation to the United States)
Almost 100% (percentage of nuclear smugglers caught by chance alone)
23,000 (Number of nuclear weapons globally; this includes depth charges, warheads on ballistic missiles, free fall bombs, and air-to-air missiles)
60,000 (Peak number of nuclear weapons globally)
$6,883,000 (Estimated cost to construct a rudimentary fission bomb)
Source: Countdown to Zero
As quickly as the Cold War ended, the threat of a devastating nuclear exchange has disappeared from the collective consciousness. Yet it is now that a nuclear exchange is most likely, argues a new film called Countdown to Zero. The film recounts a speech to the United Nations General Assembly by John F. Kennedy in 1962,
Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.
The end of civilization may come by accident, miscalculation, or by madness. The film uses each of these to explain a current nostrum in nuclear politics; ‘accident’ would be technical failures of mechanisms used to control and detect launches, ‘miscalculation’ involves the nuclear powers misinterpreting a move by the other, and ‘madness’ is nuclear terrorism. Each of these present a grave threat to the future of civilization, and Countdown to Zero outlines the possibilities of each.
The production of the film was produced by the same people that were responsible for An Inconvenient Truth, and seems to give the audience all of the components necessary to incite action. It falls short of fear mongering, though some of the facts and numbers that the film presents are enough to budge even this reviewer to action. The ease with which nuclear incidents can occur “by madness” seem to provide the biggest threat to stability, and are the film’s most legitimate point. Inter-state nuclear exchanges would involve dire consequences for all actors involved, and no decision to strike or retaliate could be taken lightly by decision makers.
Terrorists do not have the same stakes in the game; they are truly international and do not have borders or interests in the same way that a state does. This is where the film hits hardest; the chances of detecting the fuel used in a nuclear weapon in transport are slim to none, and even a pair of graduate students can construct and acquire the components required for a weapon through commercial channels. The ease with which material can be acquired and components can be constructed suggests that a nuclear attack by terror groups is only a matter of time.
As with all documentaries of broad appeal, the film takes the approach of the layman, consulting people in the streets about how many weapons they think states should possess. Of course, the answer is always “None”. What would a political scientist say? Would a hardcore realist agree that nuclear détente can occur with staged reductions in arsenals?
The film also consults ‘nuclear insiders’, including former heads of state, who all seem to agree a world free of nuclear weapons is the only viable and stable scenario. Few would disagree with this statement, though many questions remain. Is it possible to force states to surrender technology that provides such national prestige? Can there be stability in a world without the trump card of nuclear weapons? Conversely, can a world where non-state actors can potentially acquire such weapons be a stable one?
Can shocking films such as Countdown to Zero push the public into action? The emptiness of the theatre in which the film premiered in Toronto suggests not.
Matthew Gray is the Editor-in-Chief of The Toronto Globalist, and is a third-year student studying International Relations & History.
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