Word: lownes
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...Lown believes that the general public does not understand the full implications of the government's policy shift. "As long as there was deterrence, there was time to respond," he says. It now takes 30 minutes for a missile set off by the U.S. or the USSR to hit the other, but if the two countries have pre-emptive policies. "Any suspicion of an attack leaves little time to think through the nature of an attack...
...loss of detente is another issue which concerns the IPPNW, although Lown emphasizes that the group tries to avoid politics as much as possible. Fear and competition between America and the USSR have escalated the arms race--a fact that the IPPNW would like to reverse by education as to the final consequences of such escalation. "In 1972 we had a chance to outlaw MIRVs. The Russians, who did not have them, wanted to ban them, but we didn't. Now we have to build MX missiles because their MIRVs are threatening us." Lown says, stressing that this spiral could...
...addition, the growth of the two superpowers' nuclear stockpiles makes it difficult for both the U.S. and the USSR to persuade other countries not to acquire their own, Lown says, adding that many nations now want their own bomb for status and "a national macho image." Six contries now have nuclear bombs--U.S. USSR, China, India, Great Britain, and France, South Africa and Israel are suspected of having tested bombs, and Pakistan, Iraq and Libya and Argentina are waiting in the wings...
...Lown envisions several scenarios which could provoke a nuclear attack. A crisis in the Middle East leading to the polarization of the U.S. and the USSR...a deliberate act of any government with nuclear capabilities...or simple error...
...alone, 1365 American military personnel with access to nuclear weapons were removed for drug addiction, including LSD, Lown says, quoting information readily available in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists...