Soak up Nuclear Sponge knowledge on anniversary of atomic bombings of Japan

Eighty-five seconds. 

That’s less than the average commercial break on American broadcast and cable television.

It is also how close we are to nuclear Armageddon, according to a Jan. 27 announcement from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the metaphorical Doomsday Clock.

As USA TODAY reporters Doyle Rice and Janet Loehrke wrote, “The human race is at its closest point yet to destroying itself.”

The Doomsday Clock was created in 1947, two years after an American B-29 bomber called the Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima, Japan, in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II.

To be exact, the attack happened on Aug. 6, 1945, and it was followed by “Fat Man” destroying Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945.

These bombs, which were the only times atomic weapons were used during warfare, forced Japan’s surrender on Aug. 14, 1945, leading to the end of the war.

However, nuclear weapons remain.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons says nine countries in the world have nuclear weapons, amounting to 12,331 nuclear warheads worldwide. Of these, the United States has 5,277, and Russia has 5,459.

The US Federal Civil Defense Administration’s Bert the Turtle would be shaking in his shell right now, probably forgetting to tell us how to “duck and cover.”

According to the University of Maryland School of Public Policy’s Center for International Security Studies, the United States has a nuclear triad, which consists of land-based ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and air-delivered cruise missiles and gravity bombs.

Thanks to the Cold War, the United States adopted a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy called Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD.

According to the BBC, MAD means having so many nukes that a country could survive a first-wave nuclear strike and strike back with an attack that undoubtedly leads to the destruction of the attacker.

A nuclear arsenal would survive a first-wave attack thanks to a sacrificial lamb, or a target the enemy has to hit in hopes of taking out as many warheads as possible.

For the United States, this target is the land-based missiles of our nuclear triad, which are sitting in underground bunkers called missile silos.

As Tom Z. Collina, an expert on nuclear weapons, missile defense, and nonproliferation, wrote for Defense One in 2017, “these intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, are not meant to be launched, ever. Not even in a nuclear war. Their primary mission is to be destroyed in the ground, along with all the people that live anywhere near them. Their main purpose is to ‘absorb’ a nuclear attack.”

It’s called the Nuclear Sponge.

It works because it exists to draw, or absorb, fire away from more densely populated areas of the United States.

Other nuclear-capable countries know where the missile silos are. They can be seen via satellite images and other intelligence-gathering activities.

These ICBM-equipped silos are in sparsely populated areas of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, and North Dakota.

If some lunatic decided to roll the dice and fire at the missile silos, the United States would have a decision to make: launch the missiles before the attack arrives and destroy the enemy, or wait and let them be destroyed underground.

The president would have only about 10 minutes to decide, and a person wants to be sure the attack is real.

Computer glitches have caused false alarms, and no one wants World War III to start over a software update.

Even so, millions of people would be impacted by a strike on the Nuclear Sponge.

According to an extensive, five-part reporting project by a team of journalists at USA TODAY, there are 450 nuclear missile silos in the United States, all of which are located in the Great Plains and Mountain West areas of the country.

Immediately following a strike, all living creatures nearby would be killed. 

However, that’s only the beginning.

Any nuclear attack would also result in radioactive fallout that could irradiate hundreds of communities across the United States. 

According to the USA TODAY team, the weather conditions at the time of the strike would determine which communities would be hit with fallout. 

That means any state neighboring an area that is part of the Nuclear Sponge could be flooded with fallout, which, as the USA TODAY team reported, “can cause severe illness and death, depending on the duration and severity of a person’s exposure.”

Based on weather conditions, cities like Denver or Chicago could be hit with fallout, and Detroit and Buffalo, New York, could face evacuation orders.

That’s a long way away from the sponge.

So, on the anniversary of atomic bombs being dropped on Japan, it is worth knowing about the Nuclear Sponge.

Just remember, despite what Bert the Turtle told us, the old Cold War strategy of “Duck and Cover” won’t save you.

Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is a native of Canton, a resident of McPherson County, and a media researcher and educator. He can be contacted with questions or comments via his website at www.toddvogts.com.

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