TL: DID YOU KNOW ...[Nuclear Weapons at Sea Factsheet] SO: Greenpeace (GP) DT: 1990 Keywords: factsheets nuclear weapons navy us ussr risks nfs greenpeace gp safety / That nuclear weapons are carried into port cities all over the world by naval ships? That while the US and Soviet Union are talking about cutting nuclear weapons ON LAND, they are improving their nuclear weapons AT SEA? That almost one-third of all nuclear weapons are now based at sea? Source: Greenpeace (GP) Date: 1990 Imagine a nuclear war fought at sea. Many naval strategists do. The oceans are the most dangerous place to put nuclear weapons. A nuclear war at sea would devastate the oceans, and inevitably spread to land. A nuclear accident on a ship in harbor could cause thousands of deaths and make the surrounding community uninhabitable. But while the US and the Soviet Union talk about reducing their land-based nuclear weapons, they are building new naval nuclear weapons, without any negotiations in sight. Over 16,000 nuclear weapons are already on the ships and submarines of the US, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China. Each of these countries plans to put more nuclear weapons at sea, soon. There are almost 550 nuclear reactors aboard the vessels of these five navies - over half the world's total nuclear power reactors. These reactors are nuclear disasters waiting to happen. One of them, aboard the Soviet icebreaker Lenin has already had a "meltdown," releasing enormous amounts of radioactivity into the environment. Ships with nuclear weapons aboard are a public danger in port, and a global danger at sea. The nuclear arms race is not going away. It is going out to sea. NAVAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS -- A GLOBAL DANGER There are two types of nuclear weapons at sea. There are STRATEGIC nuclear weapons, based on submarines and designed to destroy large targets (for example, cities) from long distances. And there are NON-STRATEGIC or WARFIGHTING nuclear weapons, designed for short-range ocean combat. Warfighting nuclear weapons include anti-submarine weapons, anti-ship weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, and nuclear bombs dropped by aircraft. THE MOST HAZARDOUS PLACE. In the last ten years, the nuclear arms race has moved out to sea. But the oceans are the most hazardous place to put these weapons: 1) LAND-BASED nuclear weapons are often based in remote locations, far from populated areas. SEA-BASED nuclear weapons are brought into the middle of harbor cities and towns in approximately 120 countries each year -- bringing large populations into needless danger. 2) At sea, the danger of unauthorized or accidental use of nuclear weapons is much greater than on land. Naval commanders have greater autonomy to use nuclear weapons than their army or air force counterparts. The US Navy's nuclear weapons, for example, lack critical safety features that are found on other types of nuclear weapons. 3) Nuclear weapons on ships are sent into areas of high tension --like the Persian Gulf -- where they can, even accidentally, turn a conventional conflict into a nuclear war. The accidental shooting in the Persian Gulf of an Iranian airplane by USS Vincennes in July 1988 shows how "impossible" accidents can actually happen. Even during the daily operations of navy weapons, the frequent fires, collisions, accidents and dangerous maneuvers create extraordinary hazards for nuclear weapons. 4) The most hazardous new naval weapons are sea-launched cruise missiles (SLCMs). They are small, highly accurate, and can be used as both warfighting and strategic nuclear weapons. The new US SCLM, called the Tomahawk, and the new Soviet SLCMs, the SS-N-21 and the SS-N-24, are bringing the naval arms race to a frightening level of high-technology. 5) Naval nuclear weapons make up the "invisible" side of the arms race, and are usually ignored in arms control talks. Warfighting naval weapons, for example, are the only category of nuclear weapons not subject to current, past, or even anticipated negotiations. In short, naval nuclear weapons are without critical safety features, carried into the most dangerous regions of the world, and ignored at the arms control table. They are today's danger and tomorrow's disaster. NUCLEAR WARHEADS AT SEA. U.S. USSR UK FRANCE CHINA Strategic 5,312 3,602 128 256 26 Non-strategic: Cruise missiles 150 500 0 0 0 Aircraft bombs 1,450 0 50 36 130 Anti-submarine weapons 1,760 1,400 140 0 0 Anti-air weapons 300 260 0 0 0 Naval artillery 0 100 0 0 0 Coastal missiles 0 100 0 0 0 TOTAL 8,792 5,962 318 292 156 Source: William M. Arkin, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Sept. 1988 NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS AT SEA. On October 3, 1986, an explosion ripped through a nuclear missile aboard a Soviet "Yankee" class submarine, while it was near Bermuda in the Atlantic. At least three crewmen died. Three days later, the submarine sank to the bottom of the ocean -- carrying with it 32 nuclear weapons and two nuclear reactors. This incident is only one of hundreds of nuclear accidents among the five nuclear navies. In spite of the extraordinary danger of these accidents, little or nothing is revealed to the public about these calamities. We know there has been at least one reactor meltdown at sea; as many as a dozen nuclear reactors abandoned on the ocean floor; and as many as one hundred nuclear missiles lost in the oceans. According to the US Navy, there were 630 nuclear weapons "incidents" and "accidents" aboard its ships from 1965 to 1985. The Soviet nuclear navy, according to U.S. government sources, has had over 200 accidents on its submarines in the last ten years. And the British Navy reported 712 nuclear power incidents and accidents on Royal Navy submarines from 1962 to 1978, an average of one every eight days. Spreading the Nuclear "Allergy"- A Sign of Hope =============================================== In 1985, two Western allies - Iceland and New Zealand - decided to ban ships that carry nuclear weapons from their harbors. Since then, activists and political leaders in many other countries have tried to make their own nations "allergic" to nuclear weapons - taking a stand against the arms race by rejecting port calls by nuclear-armed ships. Many nations, like Denmark, Spain, Japan, and Norway, already have laws against bringing nuclear weapons into their countries - but these laws are regularly broken when nuclear-armed ships are allowed into their ports. If these and other nations simply enforced their own laws against nuclear weapons, the momentum of the arms race could be broken. In many other countries, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, and Sweden, visits by nuclear-armed warships have sparked popular protests and sometimes strikes by dockworkers. In 1988, for example, the HMS Ark Royal, a British aircraft carrier armed with nuclear bombs, was met by protestors when it came to Hamburg, West Germany in March; in June, it was turned away from Valetta, Malta, when dockworkers blocked the harbor with an 80,000 ton tanker; and in October, it was unable to dock in Melbourne, Australia, when the Seaman's Union refused to assist it because it carried nuclear weapons. More and more, these actions against nuclear weapons at sea are part of an international movement - a movement of people and governments determined to spread the nuclear "allergy" and remove nuclear weapons from the oceans. The Greenpeace Nuclear Free Seas Campaign ========================================= In July 1987, Greenpeace launched a new international campaign to stop the nuclear arms race at sea. Since then, Greenpeace has run a vigorous campaign in 14 countries in Europe, North America, and the Pacific - publishing new research on the naval arms race, lobbying politicians, and conducting non-violent direct actions against the US, Soviet, and British navies. The goals of the Nuclear Free Seas campaign are: =============================================== 1) To inform the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons at sea; 2) To foster the "nuclear allergy" by encouraging non-nuclear nations to establish and enforce laws banning ships that carry nuclear weapons. 3) To have naval nuclear weapons included in disarmament negotiations, so they can be eliminated; 4) To see an end to all provocative naval strategies, and promote common security in the oceans for all nations. What You Can Do =============== Protest port calls by nuclear-armed ships in your area (see below); Ask local authorities what they will do if there is a nuclear accident on a ship in your area; Contact Greenpeace for more information.