Nuclear power projections: the unsustainable relativity of the atom

E = mc², everything is relative, a relative explosive, especially in our country. The ideas, numerous and relevant, are not as many as the electrons orbiting around an atom but surely, remaining in a geopolitical and geoeconomic context, able to offer elements for an analysis free of any connotation of part.

Electronic orbit 1 (uncomfortable): economy. Nuclear technology is expensive, especially if the principles concerning economies of scale are not taken into account; France docet: if the system is not based on a single reactor, but on a "photocopied" network of plants, the investment can fall within the terms of cost effectiveness, on the contrary, it can create an energy surplus ready for the market. The problems essentially concern the risks connected to the construction of the plants, their management and disposal of waste. Ratio and regulations underlying the construction of power stations are subject to the requirements issued by theInternational Atomic Energy Agency -IAEA, and enhance technological and structural developments. High tech it also concerns the disposal of waste that, if (rationally) managed by the State, can make management competitive, and the reduction of CO emissions². Last but not the least, nuclear energy does not depend on sources subject to price fluctuations, which remains relatively low. In short, this is a long-term investment, with a strict one startup but with an interesting prospect of amortization and revenues that, however, requires prerequisites: high engineering culture and broad political visions.

2 electronic orbit (short and culturally destructive): the renunciation tout court nuclear power not only involves economic and strategic consequences, but also makes a clean sweep of generations of engineers and scientists. The country that voluntarily renounces a Fermi or a Majorana, condemns itself to a humiliating dependence on third parties.

Electronic orbit 3 (misunderstood): geo-economics. In a context where the web gives degrees to honor, a broader analysis is either not carried out or is not understood. National productive and social activities, at all levels, are thirsty for energy. Even countries with "traditional" resources do not disdain the economic advantages offered by nuclear power, since the possession of means and capacities guarantees both a not indifferent economic return and a significant consideration in the regional geoeconomic context. A country that renounces to energy sources that are validly alternative to traditional ones, bound to the changing trend of the markets, is delivered to a subaltern and precarious dimension; the American sanctions on Iran should remind us of the dynamics of the balance of power between States and, above all, make our country reflect on the ways in which it was (benevolently?) authorized by the USA to enjoy the temporary exemption of restrictive measures imposed. Like it or not, it's a fact. Prerequisites for evaluation: the already mentioned political perspectives, some googolata less, a few hours of extra study.

Electronic 4 Orbit (unknown - hic sunt leones): geopolitics and strategy. It is closely connected to the third (even if it does not know). The members of the atomic club have expanded their strategic capacity with the acquisition of nuclear weapons, given also the technical ease with which to enrich the fissile fuel. The possession of an atomic weapon is both an expression of power, and a guarantee of being able to be considered interlocutors that are not to be underestimated at the table of international negotiations.

We complicate the picture. US and Russia hold about 93% of the bombs, along with France, China, Great Britain, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, but they have never admitted possession of atomic weapons.

Let's examine the main actors. The Russia he is devoting himself to the strategic armament program for a total investment of about 285 Billions of Dollars from the 2011 to the 2020. War spending is shrinking, given the trend in the oil market, but it has continued to pay attention to the speed, accuracy and quantity of conventional and non-conventional armaments. Moscow, therefore, does not exclude a nuclear response to a conventional attack, as it hypothesizes preventive and deep attacks for de-escalate the conflict using a single atomic weapon and making it detonate in order to create few damage with a minimum of fall out; for the Russians strategic deterrence is given by an overall view different from that of NATO, more sectoral and less attentive to cultural and political reliefs, less oriented towards the component "hybrid". Marina and Aeronautica, as already in the USA, are the points of diamond useful for the projection of power on multiple theaters; interesting about the presumed realization of the nuclear torpedo Poseidon¹ and the conservation of the nuclear triad formed by three groups of ballistic missile systems. Russia strikes back?

- USA, given the implementation of Russian weapon systems (which are fake or less), have set a return to nuclear power with the Nuclear Posture Review, or the development of low-yield atomic weapons, the so-called supplements from 2 Kilotoni, presumably mounted on Tomahawk of the Ohio Class Submarines. The inevitable involvement of civilians in any skirmish would in fact exceed any self-defense and self-defense hypothesis just war. We use Game Theory, where the two actors to contend for hegemony evaluate moves and strategies. Whether the Russians implemented their arsenal or not, from a mathematical point of view, NATO would have a negative; it would get a positive if, with an aggressive attitude, it induced a retreat. With a direct confrontation that would lead to Mutual Destruction, both would achieve a negative. Obviously we are simplifying: the reasoning should be applied strategic considerations - policies that can not consider the balance of Nash: everyone is bound to the choices of others, especially if you play for seconds. NATO, to achieve a perfect balance, will have to embody a strategy based on mutual rationality, which wants a mutual compromising position of withdrawal from the competition.

Electronic Orbit 5 (ignored): Geopolitics and Strategy in nearby areas. There are not a few countries interested in nuclear energy. THE'Egypt signed an agreement with Russia for the construction of two nuclear power plants and, at the same time, aimed at the creation of the El Dabaa Atomic Technical School², a center of high technical training. A significant decision for a country that, with the recent discoveries of gas fields, could have resolved most of its energy problems. Saudi Arabia ed United Arab Emirates they were not less; there Vision 2030 Prince Bin Salman predicts several low-energy research nuclear reactors, while Abu Dhabi is already building 4 power plants by South Korean companies. Nuclear power would enable the Saudi Kingdom to increase its exports of crude oil, meet domestic needs and, above all, guarantee security; Bin Salman himself did not rule out the development of nuclear weapons specular to those (in nuce?) Iranians, also taking into account the possible technological availability Pakistani, a real strategic depth.

The initiative therefore leads to two other regional actors: Israel, which holds nuclear capabilities and devices without having ever declared them, and theIran, penalized by the US sanctions and exit by the JCPOA and, in any case, committed to improving its missile capabilities and with increasing enrichment of uranium stocks. Israel, which follows the Begin Doctrine so no country in the region must possess weapons that allow it to challenge it, and that is a master in the application of the preventive attack principle³, look at the decisions of the American ally: an acceptance of Saudi nuclear capabilities would lead to similar requests from other potential antagonists (Turkey e Jordan). Perspectives change: for Israel theIran (with Hezbollah who indicated the sites of Dimona e Nahal Sorek as a target for an attack) is a lethal threat to the strategic US.

Last area actor la Turkey, which would have close relations with Russians and Japanese technicians to be able to equip nuclear capabilities and armaments independently of NATO. The news, reported by English journalistic sources⁴ and previously from The Worldwhere it is confirmed, it is not surprising: everything is part of Erdogan's policy of power and strategic depth, which wants an autonomous country that is able to deal with anyone, but certainly not yet able to sustain equal relations with the largest and most dated nuclear powers of the western bloc.

Electronic Orbit 6 (hearsay): Relatively distant countries. The North Korea it is no longer news, even if there is to be stressed the fact that it would have definitively abandoned neither the atomic program nor neglected the cooperation with Syria in the field of ballistic missiles: instability as (funny) usual. The Korean north defeat raises the revanchist spirit Japanese; international events are leading both to revising the Constitution and to recognizing the Self-Defense Forces as true FFAA, which some would like even with unconventional armaments. A hypothesis of this kind, like Turkey in the Mediterranean, would help to destabilize an already dense area of ​​relevant geopolitical actors, such as China, projected towards a nuclear-powered Blue Navy.

Electronic Orbit 7: Conclusions. Economy, strategy and state of international relations lead to consider the nuclear hypothesis, broad spectrum, not so impractical: politics of power and historical recourses, inserted in a multipolar and anarchic reality where it is shown that a state that wants nuclear will have , they tend towards evaluations in which finding a balance requires a rationality that is not always so evident. Moreover we wrote it at the beginning: E ​​= mc², everything is relative.