Nuclear weapons are insanity. Why does Kansas City keep producing them? | Opinion

Did you know our metropolitan area hosts the Kansas City National Security Campus, a federal facility that produces 80% of the mechanical and electronic components of our country’s nuclear weapons? It employs more than 7,000 people and has a budget of over $1 billion per year. But we are manufacturing our doom.

Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction. Two were dropped on Japan in World War II, almost 80 years ago. In August 1945, a weapon equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT obliterated Hiroshima, and one equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT destroyed Nagasaki. More than 100,000 people were immediately incinerated. Many thousands more deaths followed because of radiation poisoning.

Today’s nuclear weapons are much more powerful. As outlined in a new book, “Nuclear War — A Scenario” by Annie Jacobsen, World War III could begin with a 1 megaton weapon launched from North Korea targeting the Pentagon in Washington D.C. One megaton is equivalent to 1 million tons of TNT.

Jacobsen describes the scientifically known horror when this weapon hits ground zero, referring to a 9-mile-diameter Ring 1 and a 15-mile-diameter Ring 2:

“Ring 1 is a holocaust. … Casualties are near 100%, with everyone dead or dying.” Five minutes later, within Ring 2, “the vast majority of those not already dead are in the process of dying from third-degree burns.” More than 5 million Americans live within 15 miles of the Pentagon. Most would be incinerated by a single present-day nuclear weapon.

Nine nations possess nuclear weapons: China, France, Great Britain, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States. Every year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists sets its Doomsday Clock countdown to midnight to warn the public how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making. On Jan. 28, it was set at 89 seconds to midnight, the closest it has been in its history.

What do these weapons of mass destruction, which we must hope are never used, cost the American taxpayer? According to the July 2023 Congressional Budget Office’s Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces 2023-2032 report, we will spend $52 billion on nuclear weapons in fiscal year 2023, and $756 billion over the period from 2023 to 2032.

Given a U.S. population of about 340 million, this is more than $600 per person for 2023, and almost $8,900 per person for 2023 to 2032. Given a Kansas City area population of about 2.2 million, our share is over $336 million for 2023 and almost $4.9 billion for 2023 to 2032.

If you want real security, work for the abolition of all nuclear weapons from our planet. Without nuclear weapons, the United States still would have absolute military superiority over every country on Earth, and the protection of the great oceans to our east and west.

If we hold onto nuclear weapons, most world cities face potential incineration within about an hour’s time. The resulting soot would lift into the stratosphere, circling the Earth and resulting in global nuclear winter, mass starvation and extinction of all life on the planet.

The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force on Jan. 22, 2021, after ratification by 50 countries. It is the first international treaty that totally bans anything to do with nuclear weapons, and mandates care for populations and environments affected by nuclear testing. Seventy-three countries have now ratified or acceded to the treaty. None of the nine nuclear powers has supported it.

The Back from the Brink coalition at preventnuclearwar.org and the Warheads to Windmills coalition at warheadstowindmills.org are working to lessen the danger we face in the existence of nuclear weapons, and to convert nuclear weapons spending to deal with climate change and human needs.

Nuclear weapons are insanity. If you want real security, work for their abolition. Let’s stop facing potential incineration now.