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The\u00a0resolution<\/a>\u00a0\u201cNuclear War Effects and Scientific Research,\u201d sponsored by Ireland and New Zealand and co-sponsored by 30 countries, was submitted in mid-October at the\u00a0UN General Assembly\u2019s First Committee on Disarmament and International Security. The effort includes establishing an independent panel of scientific experts tasked with reviewing and commissioning relevant studies and publishing a comprehensive report that includes future research needs relating to the impacts of nuclear war.<\/p>\n Not every country sees a need for a new study.<\/p>\n The United Kingdom, France, and Russia did not provide official statements explaining their votes against the resolution at the United Nations. \u201cNuclear war would have devastating consequences for humanity. We don\u2019t need an independent scientific panel to tell us that,\u201d a UK Foreign Office spokesperson told<\/a>\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>, adding, \u201cThe UK remains fully committed to its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The resolution does not advance this cause.\u201d (Article 6 of the NPT\u00a0includes<\/a>\u00a0disarmament-related obligations of the five nuclear weapons states, as well as all non-nuclear weapons states.)<\/p>\n Zia Mian, a physicist at Princeton University and one of the most active proponents of the UN resolution, disagrees. \u201cThere was a UN study on nuclear war in the 1960s, another one in the 1970s, and then one in the 1980s, and nothing since,\u201d Mian told the\u00a0Bulletin<\/em>. This happened \u201cdespite decades of scientific work on these issues and the great changes that have taken place in nuclear arsenals, global society, and economy,\u201d he recently\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0in an article for\u00a0First Committee Monitor<\/em>, an independent outlet providing analyses on the UN General Assembly First Committee on Disarmament and International Security.<\/p>\n In 1985, the General Assembly adopted a\u00a0resolution<\/a>\u00a0in which it requested the Secretary-General to carry out a study on the climatic and potential physical effects of nuclear war, including nuclear winter. The\u00a0study<\/a>, published in 1988, confirmed that nuclear winter and other climatic effects of nuclear war pose an extreme danger to all countries, even those far from the nuclear explosions.<\/p>\n The new UN study will\u00a0examine<\/a>\u00a0\u201cthe physical effects and societal consequences of a nuclear war on a local, regional and planetary scale, including, inter alia, the climatic, environmental and radiological effects, and their impacts on public health, global socioeconomic systems, agriculture and ecosystems, in the days, weeks and decades following a nuclear war.\u201d For Alan Robock, a climatologist at Rutgers University and a leading scientist in the study of the impacts of nuclear war who helped develop the science of nuclear winter since the 1980s, \u201cthis will be the most comprehensive study ever on this subject.\u201d<\/p>\n In a 2023 study, the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine concluded that there is a significant knowledge gap about the effects of nuclear war among the US military and policymakers. The study\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that because the Defense Department\u2019s nuclear war consequence models, which define the US strategic thinking on nuclear war, focus on \u201cprompt effects and military objectives,\u201d they result in \u201ca partial accounting of the consequences leading to a limited understanding of the breadth of the outcomes.\u201d The National Academies committee concluded: \u201cThere is a need to improve the understanding of less-well-understood physical effects of nuclear weapons (such as fires; damage in modern urban environments; electromagnetic pulse effects; and climatic effects, such as nuclear winter), as well as the assessment and estimation of psychological, societal, and political consequences of nuclear weapons use.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is hard to imagine a longer list of shortcomings in understanding the effects of using nuclear weapons,\u201d Mian\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in a recent article for\u00a0Scientific American<\/em>.<\/p>\n The National Academies is currently working on a\u00a0similar study<\/a>\u00a0of the potential environmental effects and socio-economic consequences that could unfold in the weeks to decades following nuclear wars. But Mian and Robock aren\u2019t convinced that the National Academies study is sufficient. \u201cIt\u2019s a more limited study [than the newly-mandated UN study],\u201d Robock told the\u00a0Bulletin<\/em>. \u201cThe [National Academies\u2019] study mandate is to assess only nuclear winter-related effects, and it excludes radioactive fallout and other effects,\u201d Mian further explains.<\/p>\n They also wonder why the study, which was mandated by Congress in 2020 and had its last meeting in May, has still not published its consensus report yet. \u201cIt has been going on for years and is currently way overdue,\u201d Robock said.<\/p>\n Robock worries the National Academies\u2019 effort may be used by some to discredit decades of research on the long-term impacts of nuclear war, referring to \u201cseveral members from the US nuclear establishment, who have testified to the committee that the environmental effects have been overblown and should be ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n During the second committee meeting on May 23-24, 2023,\u00a0Christopher Yeaw<\/a>, the associate executive director of the National Strategic Research Institute, a research center sponsored by US Strategic Command,\u00a0testified<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cFor nuclear deterrence, I would say that we wouldn\u2019t want to give the impression to adversaries like Russia and China that we have so much concern over environmental prospects of nuclear weapons deployment that we are self-deterred. So we want to be careful not to come near to that line. If they feel that we are self-deterred, because we don\u2019t want to engage in any nuclear deployment ever, regardless of their nuclear deployment because of environmental effects, then deterrence, I think, would be undermined at that point. And so there\u2019s a little bit of caution there.\u201d<\/p>\n To Robock, this testimony equals to saying that if the US nuclear establishment \u201cacknowledged the horrific impacts of nuclear war, their theory of deterrence would fail, so that it is in their interest to pretend that they can actually use nuclear weapons to threaten enemies in spite of the damage it would do to our country and the rest of the world.\u201d In other words, a study that closely examines the long-term effects of nuclear war may not be welcome by those countries relying on nuclear deterrence for their strategic posture.<\/p>\n China, however, saw the situation differently by being the only nuclear-armed state to vote in favor of the UN resolution last week. \u201cChina achieved its objective of presenting itself as a more responsible nuclear power compared to others, which may alleviate some international pressure on it to explain its nuclear expansion and join arms control talks,\u201d Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an expert on China\u2019s nuclear doctrine, said, adding, \u201cWhile unlikely to prompt immediate changes in China\u2019s nuclear or arms control policy, the resolution could have a positive impact over the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n China is expected to send an expert to the UN scientific panel on the effects of nuclear war. \u201cThis science-based, expert-led process may provide a counterbalance to the increasingly secretive and military-dominated nature of China\u2019s internal nuclear policy deliberation,\u201d Zhao told the\u00a0Bulletin<\/em>.<\/p>\n Mian hopes an independent UN study will also offer a counterbalance in the US nuclear policy debate. \u201cThis new study could lead to a more fully informed and inclusive 21st-century global debate on how much and how little everyone\u2014including the nuclear-armed states themselves\u2014actually knows of the catastrophic large-scale, long-term human, environmental, ecological, economic, and societal impacts of using nuclear weapons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Robock sees the upcoming UN study as a strategic effort toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide. \u201cThe UN report will be important to inform the world of the potential catastrophic impacts of a nuclear war, which could kill most of the people on the planet due to famine from the environmental impacts on agriculture,\u201d he explains. \u201cThis report will speed up the adoption of [the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons] by the nations that have still not signed and ratified it.\u201d<\/p>\n No country that possesses nuclear weapons has signed or ratified the nuclear ban treaty.<\/p>\n Ahead of the vote last week, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon\u00a0called on all nations<\/a>\u00a0to support the resolution for a new UN study. \u201cIt is imperative that we update our knowledge on how nuclear conflict would devastate our environment, our economies, and our very existence.\u201d<\/p>\n