Mounting World Tension​—The Causes

In September 1979, a United States satellite monitored a bright double flash near South Africa. Such a flash is characteristic of a nuclear explosion. Was South Africa testing nuclear weapons? The South African government denies it, but South Africa has never signed the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Israel is another nonsigner of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Back in 1974 the president of Israel stated: “It has always been our intention to provide the potential for nuclear weapons development. We now have that potential.”

Nor is that all. “Administration intelligence specialists believe that in five years a variety of nations, including Taiwan, South Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina, could join the six or seven existing members of the so-called ‘nuclear arms club,”’ reports the New York Times.

What is especially ominous about the coming decade is not merely the almost inevitable spread of atomic weapons, but the countries to which those weapons will likely spread. Many of these nations consider themselves to be surrounded by powerful enemies. “States that feel beleaguered, such as Israel and Taiwan, tend increasingly to view an atomic-weapon capability as the ultimate deterrent to any attack from hostile forces,” observes U.S. News & World Report. Such nations could hardly be counted upon to use nuclear restraint in a crisis.

Can nuclear proliferation be stopped? It is doubtful. There is just too much plutonium around from which bombs can be made, and the know-how to make the bombs is easily obtainable. A recent report of the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation panel gloomily implied “that there is no technical solution to the problem of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to countries which do not now have them.”​—Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Where did all the plutonium come from? “So far, a total of 100,000 kilograms of plutonium, in an unprocessed state, has been accumulated from civilian nuclear reactors,” SIPRI points out. It only takes a few kilograms of plutonium to make a bomb like the one that destroyed Nagasaki! As developing countries turn to atomic energy in an oil-short world, they wind up with the basic stuff of atomic bombs as a by-product.

Could a developing country really build an atom bomb if the plutonium were available? In 1978 a United States college student made headlines by designing a workable atomic bomb from declassified documents available to anyone for $25. Experts agreed that the bomb “would have a very good chance of working.” If an undergraduate could do it, why couldn’t an underdeveloped country?

Cooperation or Confrontation?

Experts are warning that a world with more nuclear nations will be increasingly unstable, “a world of considerable fears and deep uncertainty,” as nuclear proliferation specialist Joseph Nye of Harvard puts it. A check on this instability would be increased cooperation between the superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Is such cooperation likely? In a world of scarce resources, many feel it is not.

The United States now imports over 40 percent of its petroleum. Many American allies must import even larger percentages​—90 percent in the case of France and 97 percent for the Federal Republic of Germany. These nations have made it clear that they are willing to risk war in order to protect their oil supplies. The result? Oil-producing areas of the globe, such as the Persian Gulf, are witnessing intense military rivalry between the superpowers​—a very dangerous situation.

Commenting on the danger of World War III starting in the Middle East, Richard Falk observed that “general wars in the past have always occurred when a great power tries to compensate for economic and political decline by recourse to decisive military means.”​—The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1979.

In other words, trying to solve economic problems with military buildups leads to war. A recent example was the Japanese “solution” to the American embargoes on vital oil supplies in 1941. “Dismay at the embargo drove the Japanese naval command . . . into collusion with the army’s extremism.” (Encyclopædia Britannica) The result? Pearl Harbor.

Can the world afford another Pearl Harbor?

Oil is not the only thing on which the United States is short. “Imports account for more than half of the sources of 23 strategic materials consumed by U.S. industry,” says U.S. News & World Report, adding: “What’s worse, most of these minerals come from politically unstable countries in sub-Saharan Africa.” The U.S. must import 89 percent of its platinum (used in processing crude oil), 90 percent of its chromium (used in armor for tanks) and 98 percent of its manganese (used in making high-strength alloys). Each vital commodity in short supply represents a potential conflict, should the supply be threatened.

Shortage No Surprise to Some

Before World War II, the United States produced more petroleum than the rest of the world’s countries put together. At that time it was common to speak of America’s limitless mineral wealth. Few people foresaw that in several brief decades America would be unable to supply her needs for most strategic materials. Careful students of the Bible, however, saw trouble coming.

In the book “Your Will Be Done on Earth,”a published back in 1958, the Soviet Union was identified with the “king of the north,” mentioned in Daniel chapter 11. “The king of the south,” also mentioned in that chapter, was identified with the so-called free world, led by the United States and Great Britain. This chapter of Bible prophecy describes a competition between these two symbolic kings, in this language:

“And in the time of the end the king of the south will engage with him [the king of the north] in a pushing, and against him the king of the north will storm with chariots and with horsemen and with many ships . . . And he [the king of the north] will actually rule over the hidden treasures of the gold and the silver and over all the desirable things of Egypt.”​—Dan. 11:40, 43.

What did this mean? The book “Your Will Be Done on Earth” made this very interesting Bible-based prediction over 22 years ago:

“How far the king of the north will have got when he reaches his ‘time of the end’ the future alone will tell. But he is predicted to gain control over the treasures of gold, silver and all the precious things of this commercialized, materialistic world, including oil.”​—Page 303.

Today the Soviet Union is one of the very few industrialized nations that does not need to import oil. The Soviet Union also controls vast deposits of the very strategic minerals that the “king of the south” needs desperately. No wonder world politics in recent years have been characterized by a “pushing” match between the superpowers!

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 9]

If a college student could develop a workable atomic bomb, why couldn’t even a small country do the same?