 Hello everyone. Welcome to another international capsule for the Shankar AAS Academy. Today we are looking at some new trends in the field of nuclear power and even nuclear weapons as a consequence of the recent developments till the emergence of climate change as a great danger to humanity and later the pandemic. We used to hear always about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust either deliberately or by accident. I just believe that the world was under the hood of a cobra. The cobra is the nuclear bombs and human beings were happily sitting under the cobra without realizing the dangers of it. But after the Cold War, there was a feeling that this has receded the danger of nuclear weapons used as receded. In fact, in 1991 Gorbachev said when he was receiving the Nobel Prize for peace that the possibility of a nuclear war has receded because both the United States and Soviet Union at that time, Russia had given up confrontation and they were engaged and even looking for cooperation. Later, then Barack Obama said that the United States was willing to give up nuclear weapons as an essential ingredient of security. There was even greater hope that it would be possible for us to have a global zero. A great movement was made in order to get the nuclear weapon states to give up their nuclear weapons gradually and slowly. In fact, Barack Obama himself said that this will not happen in my lifetime but it will happen in the future. So there was that kind of an expectation that for the time being, at least, the nuclear war will be avoided. And at the same time, there was a resurgence of nuclear power for peaceful purposes. And at that time, there was a feeling that nuclear power could be used for development purposes and therefore those members of the NPT who have signed the NPT were given assistance to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. But this aspect also in terms of the development of nuclear power for peaceful purposes suffered a setback with the accident at Fukushima. Several countries including Japan, Germany and France closed down many of their reactors and there was a movement towards elimination of nuclear power and replacing it with other energy sources like the wind, the solar, etc. So these were the two trends we saw before the Russia-Ukraine war. A feeling of comfort that nuclear weapons will not be used even though there are lots of threats here and there and it will be just for deterrence. And the other that the world is moving away from nuclear power because it is dangerous if there is an accident like Fukushima, God forbid, then there will be a big setback. So as a result, there was this certain comfort. But now what we are seeing is that the resurgence of nuclear power for peaceful purposes, people have forgotten the accident as it were, they feel more comfortable and people have started reviving reopening these reactors even Japan and France and Germany etc. Because India, Russia and China continued business as usual, we did not change our plans because our need for nuclear power was extremely great and we could not afford to close down our nuclear reactors. So this trend gave us a comfort on both these fronts. But for different reasons, these two have changed today. First, let us look at the nuclear weapons situation. When the year 2022 began, there was an unusual and unexpected declaration by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, China, France, Russia, UK and the US about their confidence that a nuclear war would be averted. It was a joint statement and they said, we affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought. As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons for as long as they continue to exist should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war. We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented. This was a Suomoto statement by the permanent members. It was not very clear why they came out with this statement. That was because of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review Conference had not taken place because of the pandemic and therefore they wanted to reassure the world who is depending on NPT as a source of peace to understand that the permanent five who are the custodians of most of nuclear power in the world will not use them. The purpose of the pledge was to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review so that the non-nuclear weapons states feel confident and this was in early January 2020. By the time it was February, soon after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, what they call a military operation, one of the permanent members of the Security Council was threatening to use nuclear weapons to secure its own security against nature. President Putin hinted at it several times. First there was a report that he is alerting the nuclear forces. Then it was said that it was being alerted only as a precautionary measure and later after the war did not go the way he intended. There was also talk of a use of nuclear weapons and since Russia appeared to be desperate, this threat seemed more real because initially Putin had said that he would start a war only if Ukraine had joined NATO but he did not wait for that and he still invaded. So now he says that it might deploy nuclear weapons on the borders of Finland and Sweden if they join NATO. So this is another new development. So the possibility of threatening countries with nuclear weapons or even using of it, that has emerged as a new possibility as against what was before. So they are certain that this will be only for deterrent purposes. Now it can be considered as a possibility, a remote possibility at that but this is a new dangerous situation that has emerged. Even more than that, a new purpose has been formed for nuclear weapons in the sense that some smaller or weaker states owning nuclear weapons helps to ensure that a large country would not attack them. The other argument, so first of all deterrence if you have a nuclear weapon the others will not attack you. So there is a sense that for security smaller countries need some kind of nuclear weapon not to use it but as a deterrent that is one reason, one development. The other is a feeling that if you do not have nuclear weapons you are vulnerable to attacks. Take the example of Iraq, take the example of Libya. They were both attacked because those who attacked them knew that they did not have nuclear weapons. Particularly in 2003 when the US forces invaded Iraq, they were absolutely certain because they had removed whatever nuclear material was there in the first World War. Similarly later Libya, they attacked because they knew Libya had nuclear weapons, had nuclear weapons, no nuclear weapons. But if you look at North Korea you will find that nobody has attacked them so far because Kim Jong-un had already learned his lessons as no one attacked him as the world knew that he had the nuclear weapons that his grandfather and his father had bequeathed to him. This is precisely why he did not accept the offer made by the United States that if he gave up the nuclear weapons his security will be guaranteed. He did not trust them and therefore he is using his nuclear capability as a kind of guarantee against conventional attack against him. And same story about Pakistan when Pakistan wanted to test in 1998 soon after India tested an American delegation went to Pakistan and told Pakistan not to test in retaliation for what India had done and if they did so the United States will guarantee their security for the future and that Pakistan also not accepted. So both the cases in Pakistan as well as in DPR claim a conventional attack is not likely because there is a danger of nuclear weapons being used. And so now people are arguing that maybe it is one way is to have some kind of a nuclear weapon capability. So as against a global zero that we are all thinking about now once it is deterrence and if you don't have that deterrence you may be attacked. That feeling has created some concern about more people wanting to have nuclear weapons. In this context we should remember also that after the war started Ukrainians were saying that they wished they had not given away their nuclear weapons when Ukraine became independent. This is true that more than 2000 warheads Soviet warheads were available in Ukraine and the solution was that these warheads would be returned to the Soviet Union or Russia because Russia is the successor state and Ukraine will become a non-nuclear weapon state. Similarly Belarus also had nuclear weapons. And now Ukraine is saying oh this was a mistake we made but historically it could not have been rights because Russia was a nuclear weapon state while Ukraine would have been a non-nuclear weapon state. So there was no possibility in the 1990s for them to retain their nuclear weapons. So did Belarus they also returned the nuclear weapons and today Belarus made some kind of a foolish decision and the parliament they said we are now a nuclear weapon state. Nobody will allow them to have those nuclear weapons back. So through an internal legislation they have made themselves a nuclear weapon state which is which is meaningless. So what I'm saying is that there is an emotional attachment to some kind of a nuclear capability as a security guarantee and this is something which is dangerous because these countries may eventually want to acquire this some way or the other. So that is one and in fact President Kennedy had said in the 60s that there will be at least 25 nuclear weapon powers in the course of the 20th century. But you know we have only nine five of course designated as nuclear weapon states then India, Pakistan, Israel. So these are countries which are presumed to have nuclear weapons but not recognized as such. So but Kennedy's prediction did not come true and one of the reasons for it was the NPT because most countries of the world except India, Pakistan, Israel signed the NPT as a guarantee because nuclear weapons promised. Nuclear weapon powers promise that they will also reduce their arsenals and also give support to non-nuclear weapon states to create nuclear power for peaceful purposes. But it looks now with this new trend that Kennedy's prediction may not be wrong but maybe just premature. So it is quite possible that there will be a race for developing nuclear weapons. So that is the aspect regarding the question of nuclear weapons. If you look at the nuclear power at its development there was a group of eminent experts convened by the director general of the IAEA in 2008 and I happened to be the executive director of that group. We held several meetings in Vienna and we came out with a document which predicted that nuclear power would be built over a period of time and by 2030 there will be a nuclear renaissance because in many countries more than 50 countries were knocking at the doors of the IAEA for technology support to use nuclear weapons starting from an X-ray machine to nuclear power stations. The only problem was money. The IAEA did not have the money to give to these countries but they were all aspiring to that and they were looking for resources as promised in the NPT to give these countries the capacity to produce nuclear power for electricity and others. So there was a great enthusiasm and we as a group having studied the various trends in different parts of the world we said that by 2030 there would be a nuclear power renaissance not nuclear weapon but nuclear power but this trend changed very recently primarily because of the threats to their energy security on account of the instability of the fuel market. Two things have happened one climate change has suggested reduction of use of fuel and there is in fact compulsion to reduce greenhouse emissions and therefore the major producers of nuclear energy reopened. Now what happened was soon after in 2011 there was the Fukushima accident as I mentioned earlier they had closed down several reactors so we thought that the nuclear power also is going to disappear and we will have other sources of energy. But now the trend has changed because of the threats to the energy security on account of the instability of the fuel market. So the major producers of nuclear energy reopened their reactors and enhanced their production capacity. For example France had about 85 percent of the energy capacity for nuclear power but they had gone down they had closed down some reactors but now they have opened them. France has announced that it would build up to 14 new nuclear reactors by 2050. Japan has reopened nuclear reactors and plans to build more. In China 20 new reactors will be built in the next five years. India has decided to come into construction of six new nuclear reactors very soon because we are expecting to get nuclear reactors from US and France which did not work out so far. So we decided to establish our own indigenous reactors six of them by 2027. Even the United States which had not built any nuclear unit for three decades will be commissioning two reactors in the near future. So the general estimate is that about 100 power reactors with a total of about 100,000 megawatts are on order or being planned. So in other words the nuclear renaissance that we anticipated in 2008 has now come in 2020. There is a tremendous emphasis on nuclear power for peaceful purposes. Of course this is the it is a victory of you know hope over experience because the experience of nuclear power because of the Chernobyl and Fukushima and other accidents the interest was lost but we feel that okay this is worth taking the risk because it is necessary to have nuclear power for development. So increase in nuclear power can also make a growing contribution to arresting the growth of carbon emissions global carbon emissions and thus reverse climate change. So the present trend is both for the sake of climate change because nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gas emissions and on the other hand that it will contribute to and also contribute to the energy security situation of the of the country. So but this this is only a hope because God forbid if there is another accident which we hope will not happen may it may mean an enormous loss of lives and damage to the human habitat and on the other hand any use of nuclear weapons however limited carries the risk of unpredictable consequences to mankind. But the truth of the matter is that the nuclear genie cannot be put back into the bottle as we had expected earlier. We had expected that the nuclear weapons will not be used and there will not be even a threat to use nuclear weapons because of the change in the atmosphere end of the Cold War more discussions on these matters and the possibility of a global civil. That was on the one hand and on nuclear power because of Fukushima and the other accidents they were getting reduced the nuclear power was being reduced and the emphasis was on other sources. But both these trends have changed now as a result first of the threat being made by some countries of the use of nuclear weapons which has alerted others because if one country has its finger on a nuclear trigger others will also want to make sure that they have a trigger to operate in an FNC. So the Ukraine war has generated that feeling of insecurity among those countries which have no nuclear capability and therefore we might see an urge for countries to somehow develop this and countries like Pakistan and DPRK etc will see cover under their nuclear capability and those who do not have it will start thinking that like Ukraine and Belarus maybe it would have been better for us to have this and they may try to get this from the western sources and as well as nuclear power is concerned because of the threat to the security of energy more and more nuclear reactors will be established and that will be wonderful both for climate change as well as for electricity around the world but the danger that lurks is a real danger and we are hoping that it will not happen and so both ways it has become the emergence of nuclear power both for war and peace has engendered a endangered humanity a little more after the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war but of course we can hope and pray that these things will not generate the kind of threat which is likely so but what I wanted to do was to just point to this practice this will be discussed this is being discussed internationally and you should be aware that these two trends are actually are actually posing a possible danger to humanity in addition to climate change and the pandemic thank you very much