Imagine a bomb that could immediately kill upwards of 75,000 people, 125,000 more in the five years following the blast. That was in 1945. 

Now, imagine over 27,000 nuclear weapons, fifty of which could kill 200 million people – or the combined populations of Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Germany. 

Only 9 countries in the world are part of this ‘nuclear club’: Russia, USA, France, the UK, China, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea. Of these countries, only China has ruled out using its weapons except in response to a nuclear attack. Both the US and Russia keep a portion of their weapons on hair-trigger alert, able to be deployed in minutes. 

The use of nuclear technology in the world threatens global security and human survival: especially with the threat of terrorism. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei has expressed fear that “nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of extremist groups in Pakistan or Afghanistan.” Annually, quantities of fissile material or weapons-grade plutonium go unaccounted for. With the right instruments and technology, possibly made available by religiously fervent scientists, terrorists would be able to construct a crude nuclear bomb, with consequences far more devastating than those of September 11.

If nuclear weapons were banned worldwide, the US alone would spend $40 billion less per year. Britain could avoid replacing its nuclear submarines at the cost of $154 billion over the next three decades. $40 billion a year is roughly the same cost as universal access to basic education, healthcare, adequate food, clean water and safe sewers for the population of the entire world. 

186 countries worldwide don’t have nuclear weapons. While Australia is one of them, it functions as an ‘umbrella state’: having accepted a ‘security guarantee’ under the US nuclear shield, it lends infrastructure to the nuclear war machine. If nuclear weapons were abolished, more money would be available for humanitarian purposes, and the world be a more secure place. What is required for this to happen is a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty to ban and eliminate the nuclear bomb. The overwhelming majority of countries and people want such a treaty – in fact, China, India, North Korea and Pakistan have all expressed their support for such a convention. All that remains is for the ‘big boys’ to consider giving up their toys.

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