NUCLEAR SAFETY | CONSIDERING CONFLICT
Nuclear safety in time of crisis or war
Nuclear facilities can make tempting targets for combatants during periods of conflict and the on-going hostilities in Ukraine bring those fears to the fore. To date, reactor containments have not been deliberately targeted in Ukraine or Russia, but those nations with a nuclear development programme would be wise to consider the possibility
By: Dr SA Bennett, Lecturer in Risk Management at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom
IN 1985, AT THE HEIGHT of the Cold War, foreign policy and nuclear expert Bennett Ramberg published a paperback titled Nuclear Power Plants: An Unrecognised Military Peril, whose subject – the targeting of nuclear installations by a protagonist to secure a tactical or strategic advantage – the Russia-Ukraine War has made relevant. Ramberg made several observations about nuclear power
plants (NPPs) in time of war, including that: ● The targeting of NPPs in time of war has the potential to influence an opponent’s behaviour, providing, of course, the opponent values the lives of its soldiers and citizens and productivity of its farmland. When interstate relations sour, NPPs invite coercive engagement.
● By bombing NPPs, an aggressor could render uninhabitable vast tracts of land. Targeting a reactor containment with, for example, ballistic or cruise
missiles would, if the containment was breached, create a radiological weapon or dirty bomb. Ramberg noted a steady improvement in the accuracy of munitions.
● Bombing NPPs could see significant numbers of soldiers and civilians killed or immobilised. Observed Ramberg: “Major reactor accident consequences models suggest that contamination resulting in deaths within sixty days could extend forty miles downwind in very stable weather”.
● By bombing the NPPs of a neighbouring state, the aggressor nation would risk poisoning its own soldiers, civilians and land. Radionuclides released during the 1986 Chornobyl fire contaminated farmland across Europe. Professor Ulrich Beck, in his celebrated book Risk Society, framed radionuclide contamination as an inter- generational, transnational hazard.
Above: It has been claimed that Kyiv mounted a drone strike on Russian soldiers billeted at the Zaporizhzhia NPP 38 | October 2023 |
www.neimagazine.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49
