Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • The United States Is No. 1 – But In What?

    [Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany.  His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at UAardvark?]

    Lawrence WittnerAmerican politicians are fond of telling their audiences that the United States is the greatest country in the world.  Is there any evidence for this claim?

    Well, yes.  When it comes to violence and preparations for violence, the United States is, indeed, No. 1.  In 2013, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the U.S. government accounted for 37 percent of world military expenditures, putting it far ahead of all other nations.  (The two closest competitors, China and Russia, accounted for 11 percent and 5 percent respectively.)  From 2004 to 2013, the United States was also the No. 1 weapons exporter in the world.  Moreover, given the U.S. government’s almost continuous series of wars and acts of military intervention since 1941, it seems likely that it surpasses all rivals when it comes to international violence.

    This record is paralleled on the domestic front, where the United States has more guns and gun-related deaths than any other country.  A study released in late 2013 reported that the United States had 88 guns for every 100 people, and 40 gun-related deaths for every 400,000 people―the most of any of the 27 economically developed countries surveyed.  By contrast, in Britain there were 6 guns per 100 people and 1 gun-related death per 400,000 people.

    Yet, in a great many other areas, the United States is not No. 1 at all.

    Take education.  In late 2013, the Program for International Student Assessment released a report on how 15-year old students from 65 nations performed on its tests.  The report showed that U.S. students ranked 17th in reading and 21st in math.  An international survey a bit earlier that year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that the ranking was slightly worse for American adults.  In 2014, Pearson, a multinational educational services company, placed the United States 20th in the world in “educational attainment”―well behind Poland and the Slovak Republic.

    American healthcare and health fare even worse.  In a 2014 study of healthcare (including infant mortality, healthy life expectancy, and mortality from preventable conditions) in 11 advanced industrial countries, the Commonwealth Fund concluded that the United States ranked last among them.  According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. healthcare system ranks 30th in the world.  Other studies reach somewhat different conclusions, but all are very unflattering to the United States, as are studies of American health.  The United States, for example, has one of the world’s worst cancer rates (the seventh highest), and life expectancy is declining compared to other nations.  An article in the Washington Post in late 2013 reported that the United States ranked 26th among nations in life expectancy, and that the average American lifespan had fallen a year behind the international average.

    What about the environment?  Specialists at Yale University have developed a highly sophisticated Environmental Performance Index to examine the behavior of nations.  In the area of protection of human health from environmental harm, their 2014 index placed the United States 35th in health impacts, 36th in water and sanitation, and 38th in air quality.  In the other area studied―protection of ecosystems―the United States ranked 32nd in water resources, 49th in climate and energy, 86th in biodiversity and habitat, 96th in fisheries, 107th in forests, and 109th in agriculture.

    These and other areas of interest are dealt with by the Social Progress Index, which was developed by Michael Porter, an eminent professor of business (and a Republican) at Harvard.  According to Porter and his team, in 2014 the United States ranked 23rd in access to information and communications, 24th in nutrition and basic medical care, 31st in personal safety, 34th in water and sanitation, 39th in access to basic knowledge, 69th in ecosystem sustainability, and 70th in health and wellness.

    The widespread extent of poverty, especially among children, remains a disgrace in one of the world’s wealthiest nations.  A 2013 report by the United Nations Children’s Fund noted that, of the 35 economically advanced countries that had been studied, only Rumania had a higher percentage of children living in poverty than did the United States.

    Of course, the United States is not locked into these dismal rankings and the sad situation they reveal about the health, education, and welfare of its citizens.  It could do much better if its vast wealth, resources, and technology were employed differently than they are at present.

    Ultimately, it’s a matter of priorities.  When most U.S. government discretionary spending goes for war and preparations for war, it should come as no surprise that the United States emerges No. 1 among nations in its capacity for violence and falls far behind other nations in providing for the well-being of its people.

    Americans might want to keep this in mind as their nation embarks upon yet another costly military crusade.

  • 50 years after receiving Nobel Prize, do Martin Luther King’s peace prophecies still resonate?

    This article was originally published by the Associated Press.

    The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to much more than achieving racial equality. That goal, he said again and again, was inseparable from alleviating poverty and stopping war. And he reiterated this theme after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 50 years ago this week.

    “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war, that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality,” he said in his Nobel acceptance speech.

    “Sooner or later, all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace.”

    Half a century later, it’s obvious that enormous progress has been made toward overcoming racial discrimination — that King was right in his vision about race. Yet widespread poverty remains, in America and beyond, and bombs still fall as brutal wars rage on.

    Was King naive? Was his full vision simply unobtainable — do free markets require poor people to function, and will war always assert itself as a defining human habit?

    Is King’s Nobel vision relevant five decades later?

    Absolutely, insist some who study King’s life and philosophy. They say his racial proclamations and strategies, so controversial back then but now part of the American cultural canon, can and should apply to today’s stubborn issues of poverty and war.

    “I don’t think his vision has ever been more relevant,” says Paul Chappell, a West Point graduate who served in Iraq and now teaches and writes books about peace. “The problem is, people don’t realize how prophetic King was.”

    Chappell, the Peace Leadership Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which seeks a world without nuclear weapons, says a close examination of King’s life and work shows he predicted today’s protests over income inequality and trillions of war dollars drained from America’s budgets.

    “He realized that American military intervention is not only harmful to people around the world, it’s also harmful to the American people,” Chappell says.

    The peace prize for King, then just 35 years old, honored a Southern preacher whose philosophy, courage and oratory galvanized the civil rights movement, on whose behalf he said he accepted it. It gave a unique international recognition to the movement’s accomplishments at a pivotal time.

    The prize was announced on October 14, 1964, against a backdrop of the Civil Rights Act, whose passage earlier that year finally granted black Americans full citizenship. But it also came as the nation approached all-out war in Vietnam. King accepted the award in Oslo, Norway, on December 10, and the following day delivered the traditional Nobel lecture.

    In his remarks, King returned to a lifelong theme of describing a world where love and compassion could conquer poverty and conflict. His strategies were based on nonviolence — “the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to violence and oppression,” as he said in his speech.

    “The foundation of such a method is love,” he said.

    “The Nobel speeches really are neglected gems of how long-term progress against these evils requires a great commitment of mind and spirit and cooperation all rolled into one,” says the historian Taylor Branch, author of the definitive trilogy “America in the King Years.”

    “I don’t think he’s naïve,” Branch says. “I think he’s saying, if there’s hope, it’s through nonviolent cooperation and really applying it with courage and all your heart and your mind against the evils that still plague the world.”

    Branch says that even though dozens of countries are at war today, levels of global violence and large-scale casualties have been declining since the mid-20th century. By that measure, there has been progress toward King’s dream of peace.

    King used his Nobel lecture to expand on the connections between racism, poverty and war.

    “Each of these problems, while appearing to be separate and isolated, is inextricably bound to the other,” he said.

    Using nonviolence to achieve racial progress, King said, meant people “have taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others . It has meant that we do not want to instill fear in others or into the society of which we are a part.”

    That society is far bigger than America, King stated. It is the human family.

    “We have inherited a big house, a great ‘world house’ in which in which we have to live together — black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other,” King lectured.

    “This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men.”

    Some say love has nothing to do with it. “War is embedded in our very nature,” the influential scholar Edward O. Wilson wrote in his book “The Social Conquest of Earth,” which argues that humans have developed, biologically, a tendency to fight. Others argue that some income inequality is inevitable, since people have different capabilities.

    Yet there is the question of degree. Clayborne Carson, a history professor and director of Stanford University’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, says King had focused on the triple threat of racism, poverty and war since the earliest parts of his career.

    “You couldn’t solve one without solving the others,” Carson says in describing King’s view.

    In that context, today’s struggle against enduring poverty and war may reflect a resistance to King’s holistic approach: We followed King’s lead to push back racism, but haven’t yet tried to apply his methods of love and shared suffering to poverty and war.

    “If the distribution of wealth in America was less unequal, we wouldn’t see as many of these manifestations of racial conflict,” Carson says.

    The gap between the richest and poorest Americans has grown over the last 40 years, according to a February 2014 report by the liberal Economic Policy Institute. And the poverty rate, 15 percent in 2012, the most recent year available, hasn’t improved much since 1964, when it stood at 19 percent.

    King said in Oslo: “It is obvious that if man is to redeem his spiritual and moral ‘lag,’ he must go all out to bridge the social and economic gulf between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ of the world. Poverty is one of the most urgent items on the agenda of modern life.”

    Carson provided another example of King’s strategies being ignored: the idea that “if we just fight against these terrorists, terrorism will go away. One of the things King said is that the United States is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. We don’t see that in ourselves, we (think we) use violence for good.”

    Chappell, the soldier turned peacemaker, said King was ahead of his time in calling for solving international problems without war, because there are often no military solutions available today.

    “In purely military terms, look at Russia. There is no military option for us, because they have nuclear weapons,” Chappell said. “With ISIS, you have people from Britain and Turkey and probably the United States who want to join ISIS. It’s an ideology. How do you deal with this problem in a conventional military way?” ISIS is another name for the terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State.

    Observed King in his lecture: “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones.”

    “Violence ends up defeating itself,” he said.

    These were King’s thoughts 50 years ago as he sought to heal a nation fraught with centuries-old racial barriers and to safeguard a world with growing stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

    Today, as society continues to realize King’s racial dreams, perhaps there is still prophecy to be fulfilled in his Nobel talks.

    “Is it possible that the road he and his people have charted may bring a ray of hope to other parts of the world, a hope that conflicts between races, nations, and political systems can be solved, not by fire and sword, but in a spirit of true brotherly love?” Gunnar John, chairman of the Nobel committee, asked when giving King the peace prize.

    “It sounds like a dream of a remote and unknown future,” he said, “but life is not worth living without a dream and without working to make the dream reality.”

  • Peace Leadership at SGI in Washington, DC

    Paul Chappell at SGI in Washington, DC

    On September 16, 2014, NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell spoke at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of Soka Gakkai International as part of the SGI-USA Culture of Peace Distinguished Speakers Series. An international audience of over 200 people heard Paul Chappell discuss why peace is possible, the anatomy of violence, the evidence that humanity is not naturally violent but naturally peaceful, and the power of waging peace.

    Before the lecture, Chappell met with SGI student division members for a youth dialogue. Most were Japanese exchange students who attend George Mason University and peppered Chappell with questions on current world issues. He also explored with them the global search, among all people, for purpose, meaning, and belonging.

  • Sunflower Newsletter: October 2014

    Issue #207 – October 2014
    The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits are proceeding at the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal District Court. Sign the petition supporting the Marshall Islands’ courageous stand, and stay up to date on progress at www.nuclearzero.org.
    • Perspectives
      • U.S. Nuclear Policy: Taking the Wrong Road by David Krieger
      • Making the Connection: The People’s Climate March and the International Day of Peace by Bob Dodge
    • Nuclear Zero Lawsuits
      • Small Island Country Attempts to Hold Hegemon to Its Promises
      • Tony de Brum Speaks About Lawsuits
      • Hearing on U.S. Motion to Dismiss Scheduled for October 10
    • U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy
      • U.S. Plans Massive Nuclear Weapons Modernization Program
      • New Mexico Nuclear Dump in Extended Shutdown
    • Nuclear Arms Race
      • Russia Tests Nuclear Missile
      • U.S. Tests Nuclear Missile
    • Resources
      • This Month in Nuclear Threat History
      • Security Without Nuclear Deterrence
      • Tri-Valley CAREs Video Contest
      • ICAN Civil Society Forum
    • Foundation Activities
      • NAPF at Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference
      • Poetry Contest Winners
      • Rendez-Vous Ottawa
      • Evening for Peace
    • Quotes

     

    Perspectives

    U.S. Nuclear Policy: Taking the Wrong Road

    by David Krieger

    On September 21, 2014, the International Day of Peace, The New York Times published an article by William Broad and David Sanger, “U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms.”  The authors reported that a recent federal study put the price tag for modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal at “up to a trillion dollars” over the next three decades.

    All this emphasis on modernizing the nuclear deterrent force may be good for business, but ignores two important facts.  First, nuclear deterrence is only a hypothesis about human behavior that has not been and cannot be proven to work.  Second, it ignores the obligations of the U.S. and other nuclear-armed states to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

    To read more, click here.

    Making the Connection: The People’s Climate March and the International Day of Peace

    by Bob Dodge

    Climate change and world peace will each be highlighted on September 21, the International Day of Peace. In our nuclear armed, temperature rising, resource depleting world these issues are intricately related and represent the greatest threats to our planet. It is not coincidence that they be highlighted together. We must make the connection between peace on the planet and peace with the environment. Sunday’s Peoples Climate March will empower citizens the world over to demonstrate the will of the people and demand action as global leaders convene in New York on Tuesday for the U.N. Climate Summit.

    As our planet warms, causing severe droughts and weather conditions, crop losses at home and around the world, conflict ensues as competition for finite resources develops.  Entire populations and countries are at risk with rising sea levels. Climate change is a catalyst for conflict.

    To read more, click here.

    Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

    Small Island Country Attempts to Hold Hegemon to Its Promises

     

    Leslie Thatcher, editor of Truthout, interviewed NAPF President David Krieger about the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuits.

    The interview focuses on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the breaches of the NPT that are the basis for the lawsuits, the history of U.S. nuclear weapon testing in the Marshall Islands, and what individuals can do to support the courageous action of the Marshall Islands.

    Leslie Thatcher, “Small Island Country Attempts to Hold Hegemon to Its Promises,” Truthout, September 11, 2014.

    Tony de Brum Speaks About Lawsuits

    In an interview at the People’s Climate March in New York City, Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum explained why the Marshall Islands (RMI) is suing the nine nuclear-armed nations. According to de Brum, the lawsuits seek a “nuclear-free world,” one which RMI has a “moral and legal mandate” to pursue. “It is incumbent on us,” says de Brum, “to make a statement to the world and remind our development partners…to own up to their promises to reduce nuclear weapons.”

    To watch the video, click the link below.

    “Why We’re Suing Nuclear Nations – Interview with Tony de Brum,” YouTube / Ecological Options Network, October 1, 2014.

    Hearing on U.S. Motion to Dismiss Scheduled for October 10

    The first court hearing around the Nuclear Zero lawsuit filed by the Marshall Islands against the United States in U.S. Federal District Court is scheduled to take place on October 10 in Oakland, California. The hearing will address the Motion to Dismiss, filed by the United States in July 2014.

    For those interested in reading the background documents in this case, they are:

    U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

    U.S. Plans Massive Nuclear Weapons Modernization Program

     

    Since a deal was struck with Senate Republicans in 2010, the Obama administration has been ramping up the modernization of U.S. nuclear weapons programs, despite campaign promises to the contrary. The cost is projected to be up to $355 billion over the next decade. Many proposals have come up against obstacles, such as the discovery of a fault line underneath the proposed plutonium facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

    Beyond the refurbishing of nuclear weapon facilities, the Obama administration is also planning to build 12 new missile submarines, 100 new bombers, and 400 land-based missiles, all with nuclear capabilities. These proposed additions to the United States’ arsenal have been projected to cost up to $1.1 trillion dollars to complete. The size and scope of these nuclear projects have concerned officials inside and outside of the administration. Despite all of this, the Obama administration insists that its current course does not conflict with longstanding international legal obligations to negotiate and achieve total nuclear disarmament.

    William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms,” The New York Times, September 21, 2014.

    New Mexico Nuclear Waste Dump in Extended Shutdown

     

    The Department of Energy has announced that a nuclear waste facility in Carlsbad, New Mexico will remain closed until 2016. Known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the facility stores nuclear waste 2,000 feet underground in storage drums. In early February, a truck caught on fire in the underground component of the facility, causing workers to suffer from smoke inhalation.  Several days later, a faulty storage drum ruptured, spreading radiation throughout the facility. At least 22 workers were exposed to radiation. The site has been closed ever since, and the estimated costs before reopening are estimated to total over $500 million.

    John R. Emshwiller, “New Mexico Nuclear Waste Dump Expected to Remain Closed Until 2016,” The Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2014.

    Nuclear Arms Race

    Russia Tests Nuclear Missile

     

    Russia successfully tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting targets up to 5,000 miles away. This test was one of many conducted on the Bulava missile, and follows the trend of increased military activity since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine. The missile is capable of carrying 6-10 nuclear warheads of up to 100 times the explosive yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan.

    The 39-foot, 40-ton missile was successfully launched from a submarine in the White Sea to a target in Russia’s far east. Admiral Chirkov, Naval Commander-in-Chief, has stated that two more launches will be carried out in October and November of this year.

    “Russia Successfully Tests Nuclear Missile, More Planned: Naval Chief,” Reuters, September 10, 2014.

    U.S. Tests Nuclear Missile

     

    On September 23, the U.S. Air Force conducted a test launch of a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The missile was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It came two days after the International Day of Peace (Sept. 21) and three days before the official UN Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Sept. 26). Clearly this timing was meant to send a message, and it is not a message of peace.

    Though the Air Force Global Strike Command contends that the ICBM test launch program is to validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapon system, this test is yet another example of the continuation of decades of psychological and physical terror the U.S. has imposed upon the people of the Marshall Islands.

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a consultant to the Marshall Islands on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, commented, “The officials at Vandenberg say the purpose of the test is to ‘validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapons system.’ This means the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of a weapons system capable of destroying civilization. The Air Force is only doing its job: practicing for the destruction of the human species. Instead of launching missiles we should be leading negotiations to rid the world of weapons of mass annihilation.”

    “U.S. Nuclear Missile Test: Timing Is Everything,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, September 22, 2014.

    Resources

    This Month in Nuclear Threat History

     

    History chronicles many instances when humans have been threatened by nuclear weapons. In this article, Jeffrey Mason outlines some of the most serious threats that have taken place in the month of October, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and nuclear tests by many different countries.

    To read Mason’s full article, click here.

    For more information on the history of the Nuclear Age, visit NAPF’s Nuclear Files website.

    Security Without Nuclear Deterrence

     

    Commander Robert Green, Royal Navy (Ret.), has published an updated e-book version of his book Security Without Nuclear Deterrence.

    The nuclear-armed nations and their allies cite nuclear deterrence as the primary justification for maintaining nuclear weapons. Its fallacies must therefore be exposed and alternatives offered if they are to be eliminated.

    As a former operator of British nuclear weapons, Commander Green chronicles the history, practical difficulties and dangerous contradictions of nuclear deterrence. He offers instead more credible, effective and responsible alternative strategies to deter aggression and achieve real security.

    Click here for more information on the e-book, available through Amazon.com.

    Tri-Valley CAREs Video Contest

     

    Tri-Valley CAREs, a nonprofit organization based in Livermore, California, is holding a video contest entitled “Six Decades of Nuclear Bombs: Tell Us Why a Clean Environment Is Important to You.”

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is one of the United States’ two nuclear weapons design and research laboratories. Every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal was designed at either Livermore or Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.

    Operating this lab in Livermore, California for six decades has taken a serious toll on the local environment. In fact, the Lab has released over 1 million curies of radiation into the local environment (approximately the same amount that was deposited on the people of Hiroshima from the atomic bomb in 1945).

    Tri-Valley CAREs invites you to create a video in 2 minutes or less about the impacts of nuclear weapons on the environment in Livermore. Three cash prizes are available for the top videos.

    For more information, click here.

    ICAN Civil Society Forum

     

    The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has announced a Civil Society Forum to take place in Vienna, Austria on December 6-7. The forum will take place in advance of a government conference on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, also in Vienna.

    Representatives of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, along with many other campaigners, activists, experts, public figures and survivors, will gather to learn and to teach, to energize and be energized, to demonstrate our unity and to demand the end of the era of nuclear weapons. Over a packed but fun-filled two days, we will engage in discussions with the best and brightest voices in the humanitarian disarmament field, hear testimonies from inspirational individuals who know the meaning of courage, develop our campaigning and advocacy skills and, of course, get up to speed on the ins and outs of the humanitarian imperative to ban nuclear weapons.

    To learn more about the Civil Society Forum and to register, click here.

    Foundation Activities

    NAPF at Peace and Justice Studies Association Conference

     

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation will be well represented at the upcoming conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association. NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell will deliver a keynote address on the first day of the conference. NAPF Director of Programs Rick Wayman and social media consultant Shai Ford will present a workshop on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits.

    This year’s conference will take place at the University of San Diego on October 17-18. For more information, click here.

    Poetry Contest Winners

     

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has announced the winners of its annual Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards. The contest has three categories: Adult (over 18); Youth (ages 13-18); and Youth (12 and under).

    The contest encourages poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace and the human spirit. To read this year’s winning poems, click here. For more information on the 2015 poetry contest, click here.

    Rendez-Vous Ottawa

     

    Rendez-vous Ottawa will take place on October 25-26 at the University of Ottawa. The conference will introduce the global conversation about the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons to a North American audience and give participants the tools needed to spread the word and join the work towards a ban on nuclear weapons. Topics include the impact of nuclear weapons, our ability to respond to a nuclear detonation, legal and political roads to disarmament, the humanitarian approach to disarmament, campaigning skills and more.

    NAPF Director of Programs Rick Wayman will be a speaker at the event. For more information, click here.

    Evening for Peace

     

    On November 16, 2014, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation will host its 31st Annual Evening for Peace. This year’s Distinguished Peace Leader is Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the social justice organization CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange.

    Medea Benjamin has been on the front lines for thirty years, shining light on the struggles of the world’s innocent and poor.

    For more information about the Evening for Peace, click here or contact the Foundation at (805) 965-3443.

    Quotes

     

    “Over the last 23 years, we have shown that it is possible to live in peace and friendship without possessing a single nuclear warhead. Our weapon has been mutual trust and respect, transparency and confidence building.”

    — Erlan Idrissov, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, speaking on the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (September 26).

     

    “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall – think of it, always.”

    — Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), who was born on October 2. This quote is featured in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action, available in the NAPF Peace Store.

    Editorial Team

     

    Christian Hatchett
    David Krieger
    Carol Warner
    Rick Wayman

     

  • October: This Month in Nuclear Threat History

    October 3, 1952 – The first British nuclear test, code-named Hurricane, took place near the Monte Bello Islands off the northwest coast of Australia as a 25-kiloton warhead was exploded inside of the warship HMS Plym. This nuclear test was one of 315 nuclear test explosions conducted by the U.S., France, and the U.K. in the Pacific region during a half-century, 1946-96, according to a 2014 report by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).  (Source:  Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.” Washington, DC:  Center for Defense Information, 2002, p. 5.)

    October 5, 1960 – While visiting NORAD’s underground Colorado Springs headquarters as part of a public relations campaign extolling the Pentagon’s ability to defend against a Soviet nuclear attack, Peter Peterson, the executive director of Bell and Howell, the firm’s president Charles Percy, as well as IBM president Thomas J. Watson, Jr. were flabbergasted when U.S. Air Force personnel informed them that there was a 99.9 percent certainty that the Soviet Union had just launched a salvo of ICBMs at the U.S., triggering a DefCon 1 alert.  This false alert, one of many over the nearly seventy years of the nuclear era, occurred as a result of the new Thule Air Force Base, Greenland’s Ballistic Missile Early Warning System radars mistakenly identifying the rising moon over Norway as a spread of Soviet missiles.  (Source:   Eric Schlosser.  “Command and Control:  Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Incident, and the Illusion of Safety.”  New York:  Penguin Press, 2013, pp. 253-54; 542.)

    October 11-12, 1986 – President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (who later won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize) met at a strategic summit in Reykjavik, Iceland.  Although Reagan had espoused serious anti-communist rhetoric calling the Soviet Union “the focus of evil in the modern world” and joking that “we begin bombing Russia in five minutes,” by this time, even the 40th U.S. President, acknowledging the true horror of nuclear war as portrayed in the film The Day After, had actually stated that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”  In that spirit, the President surprised Gorbachev, when both men met alone with only their translators present without military and diplomatic aides in tow, by proposing that they eliminate all nuclear weapons.  Ultimately, Gorbachev’s insistence that the U.S. eliminate or curtail the space- and ground-based Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed “Star Wars” by the press) missile defense shield caused the President to backtrack on his offer.  An agreement for limits of 1,600 on strategic nuclear delivery systems and 6,000 on ICBM and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as well as air-launched cruise missile warheads was put off until the December 1987 Washington Summit.  (Source:  Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick.  “The Untold History of the United States.” New York:  Gallery Books, 2012.)

    October 16, 1964 – The People’s Republic of China exploded its first nuclear weapon, producing a yield of approximately 15 kilotons, at the Lop Nor test site on the Qinghai Plateau in Sinkiang Province.  Less than three years later, on June 17, 1967, the PRC tested their first thermonuclear device, a three megaton bomb dropped over the Lop Nor test site.  Sixteen years after their first nuclear test, China promised that their October 16, 1980 atmospheric test would be their last.  Like other members of the Nuclear Club, China’s atmospheric nuclear tests were responsible for serious negative global and regional health and environmental impacts, some of which have persisted to this day.  Thankfully, 34 years later, no other nation has exploded a nuclear weapon in Earth’s atmosphere thanks to arms control successes like the Limited Test Ban Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the latter of which the U.S. Senate (which voted to reject CTBT ratification by a vote of 51-48 on October 13, 1999) should ultimately ratify now that verification technologies have advanced to reliably detect any nuclear test cheaters.   (Source:  Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp.10, 12, 22.)

    October 22, 2013 – GOP fundraiser and billionaire Sheldon Adelson, speaking to a crowd at New York’s Yeshiva University, advised President Barack Obama to explode a nuclear warhead in Iran’s desert region in order to coerce that nation’s leaders in Tehran to halt uranium enrichment and alleged nuclear-bomb making.  Iran continues to insist that it is not interested in building nuclear weapons, but even if these declarations aren’t credible, negotiations are a much more peaceful and reasonable means to persuade Iran to curtail these activities.   In the past, nuclear brinksmanship and threats by the Nuclear Club members have often resulted in long-term dangerous, destabilizing asymmetrical responses by smaller nations as well as delaying or even preventing nuclear agreements from reaching fruition as in the case of North Korea.   (Sources:  Press reports from mainstream media such as the Washington Post and New York Times as well as alternative media such as Democracy Now.)

    October 23, 1994 – The U.S. and Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) signed an agreed framework to freeze the North Korean nuclear program and halt that nation’s withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.   Unfortunately, over the last 20 years, a series of setbacks have resulted in several North Korean underground nuclear tests and no end to nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula in the foreseeable future.  Comment:  A new nuclear agreement with Korea and a formal treaty ending the state of war that has existed since 1950 (that the Armistice of 1953 has not officially ended) between North and South Korea should be a paramount priority during the last two years of the Obama Administration.   (Source:  Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  The Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 3.)

    October 28, 1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis ended on this date.  “It was perhaps the most dangerous issue which the world has had to face since the end of the Second World War” according to then British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.  Today this is still true, with the possible exception of the 1983 NATO Able Archer exercise, interpreted by Soviet leaders as a military exercise disguising a nuclear first strike by the U.S.   During the very tense thirteen days of October 1962, the world came the closest it has ever come to thermonuclear war when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev secreted 42 SS-4 nuclear-tipped medium-range ballistic missiles (range: 1,200 miles) along with approximately 100 tactical nuclear warheads including nuclear torpedoes, cruise missiles, and short-range rockets to the island of Cuba.  Several times during the crisis, unexpected events like the Russian shoot down of a U.S. U-2 spy plane over the island or the U.S. Navy’s firing of depth charges at Soviet submarines, nearly triggered World War III.  Secret diplomacy between lower-level representatives of both nations helped President John Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev agree to finally end the stalemate and remove the Cuban missiles (along with a secret quid-pro-quo promise by Kennedy to remove obsolete Jupiter missiles from Turkey at a later date).  (Sources:  Michael Mandelbaum.  “The Nuclear Question: The U.S. and Nuclear Weapons, 1946-76.”  New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 129 and Robert L. O’Connell.  The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust.  in  Robert Cowley, ed. “What Ifs? of American History.”  New York:  Berkley Books, 2003, pp. 251-272.)

    October 30, 1949 – Led by Manhattan Project scientific director Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission (a forerunner to today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission) voted unanimously to oppose building hydrogen bombs as those weapons constituted, “a threat to the future of the human race.”  But President Truman and other atomic scientists like Edward Teller disagreed and pushed hard to beat the Soviets in the race to build a new, significantly more powerful generation of nuclear weapons.   The U.S. exploded its first H-bomb on November 1, 1952 and the Soviets on August 12, 1953.  (Sources:  Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick.  “The Untold History of the United States.”  New York:  Gallery Books, 2012 and Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.  “Arms Control Chronology.”  Washington, DC:  The Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 5-6.)

  • U.S. Nuclear Policy: Taking the Wrong Road

    David KriegerOn September 21, 2014, the International Day of Peace, The New York Times published an article by William Broad and David Sanger, “U.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms.”  The authors reported that a recent federal study put the price tag for modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal at “up to a trillion dollars” over the next three decades.  It appears that Washington’s military and nuclear hawks have beaten down a president who, early in his first term of office, announced with conviction, “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

    Many U.S. military leaders, rather than analyzing and questioning the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence to provide security, are acting as cheerleaders for it.  Rear Admiral Joe Tofalo, director of the Navy’s Undersea Warfare Division, recently pontificated, “For the foreseeable future, certainly for our and our children’s and our grandchildren’s lifetimes, the United States will require a safe, secure and effective strategic nuclear deterrent.  The ballistic nuclear submarine forces are and will continue to be a critical part of that deterrent….”  He went on to argue that all legs of the nuclear triad – bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine launched ballistic missiles – would be needed to “provide a strong deterrent against different classes of adversary threat.”

    Admiral Tofalo was backed up by Admiral Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, who argued, “In a world where our traditional adversaries are modernizing, emerging adversaries are maturing and non-state actors remain elusive and dangerous, we must get 21st century deterrence right…the reality is that an effective modernized nuclear deterrent force is needed now more than ever.”

    All this emphasis on modernizing the nuclear deterrent force may be good for business, but ignores two important facts.  First, nuclear deterrence is only a hypothesis about human behavior that has not been and cannot be proven to work.  Second, it ignores the obligations of the U.S. and other nuclear-armed states to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

    The U.S. and other nuclear-armed countries are gambling that nuclear deterrence will be foolproof rather than a game of chance, like nuclear roulette.  Rather than providing security for the American people, nuclear deterrence is a calculated risk, similar to loading a large metaphorical six-chamber gun with a nuclear bullet and pointing the gun at humanity’s head.

    The only foolproof way to assure that nuclear weapons won’t be used, by accident or design, is to abolish them.  This is what the generals and admirals should be pressing to achieve.  Negotiations in good faith for abolishing nuclear weapons are required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and by customary international law.  Since these obligations have not been fulfilled in 44 years, one courageous country, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries, seeking the International Court of Justice to order their compliance.  They have also brought a lawsuit specifically against the U.S. in U.S. Federal Court.

    Rather than showing leadership by fulfilling its obligations for ending the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament, the U.S. conducted a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test on September 23, just days after the International Day of Peace and days before the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons on September 26.  Such displays of arrogance, together with U.S. plans to spend some $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades, suggest that if the people don’t demand it, we may have nuclear weapons forever, with tragic consequences.

    You can find out more about the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits and support the Marshall Islands at www.nuclearzero.org.

  • New NAPF Annual Report Now Available

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has just published its latest Annual Report. This report is a bit different than years past; it outlines our programs and accomplishments in 2013, but also introduces our new major focus, the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, which was launched in April 2014.

    Click here or on the image below to download a copy of the annual report.

  • U.S. Schedules Minuteman III Missile Test: Timing is Everything

    For Immediate Release

    Contact:     
    Rick Wayman
    (805) 965-3443 or (805) 696-5159
    rwayman@napf.org

    Santa Barbara – The U.S. is set to launch a Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The launch is scheduled to take place in the early morning hours of Tuesday, September 23.

    The launch comes at a time of heightened tension between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine and NATO expansion. It also comes two days after the International Day of Peace (Sept. 21) and three days before the official UN Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Sept. 26). Clearly this timing is meant to send a message and it is not a message of peace.

    Though the Air Force Global Strike Command contends that the ICBM test launch program is to validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapon system, this test is yet another example of the continuation of decades of psychological and physical terror the U.S. has imposed upon the people of the Marshall Islands.

    Between the years of 1946 and 1958, the United States tested 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands resulting in immeasurable suffering and emotional physical trauma to the islanders. In April of this year, the Marshall Islands filed the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits against the U.S. and the eight other nuclear-armed nations, challenging them to fulfill their moral and legal obligations to begin negotiations to reach nuclear zero. For more information on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits visit nuclearzero.org.

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) and a consultant to the Marshall Islands on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, commented, “The officials at Vandenberg say the purpose of the test is to ‘validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of the weapons system.’ This means the effectiveness, readiness and accuracy of a weapons system capable of destroying civilization. The Air Force is only doing its job: practicing for the destruction of the human species. Instead of launching missiles we should be leading negotiations to rid the world of weapons of mass annihilation.”

    Further, Rick Wayman, Director of Peace Operations at NAPF stated, “That the U.S. has chosen this week to test – at a time of heightened tensions with Russia and the one day of the year dedicated to the total abolition of nuclear weapons – says it all. Instead of taking seriously its international legal obligations to negotiate for nuclear disarmament, the U.S. seems content to engage in a tit-for-tat nuclear arms race with Russia. This Minuteman III test is nothing more than the flexing of a horribly dangerous, unusable and totally unnecessary muscle.”

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    For further information, or if you would like to interview David Krieger, contact Rick Wayman at rwayman@napf.org or call (805) 696-5159.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – NAPF’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.  Founded in 1982, the Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations.  For more information, visit www.wagingpeace.org.

  • Making the Connection: The People’s Climate March and the International Day of Peace

    Robert DodgeThis article was originally published by Common Dreams.

    Climate change and world peace will each be highlighted on Sunday September 21, the International Day of Peace. In our nuclear armed, temperature rising, resource depleting world these issues are intricately related and represent the greatest threats to our planet. It is not coincidence that they be highlighted together. We must make the connection between peace on the planet and peace with the environment. Sunday’s Peoples Climate March will empower citizens the world over to demonstrate the will of the people and demand action as global leaders convene in New York on Tuesday for the U.N. Climate Summit.

    As our planet warms causing severe droughts and weather conditions, crop losses at home and around the world, conflict ensues as competition for finite resources develops.  Entire populations and countries are at risk with rising sea levels. Climate change is a catalyst for conflict. This is occurring the world over where 2/3 of global populations live on less than two dollars a day.

    No institution recognizes this connection and threat more than the U.S. military.  In the Pentagon’s 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, released on March 4, the Department of Defense notes: “The pressures caused by climate change will influence resource competition while placing additional burdens on economies, societies, and governance institutions around the world. These effects are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions—conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.” While Congress is paralyzed in climate deadlock by those who would rather play charades denying climate change for purely short sighted short term economic gains the problem marches critically forward. Climate change is a national and international security threat.

    According to retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni speaking on climate change, “We will pay for this one way or another. We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we’ll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives.”

    We have long known of the devastating annihilating potential of all-out nuclear war. Recent medical scientific and climatic reports have shown the humanitarian consequences of even a limited nuclear war using less than half of 1 percent of the global arsenals resulting in significant climatic change that would put 2 billion people at risk of dying from the global famine that would follow.

    Currently U.S. and international cities and governments are rapidly trying to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. While this is understandable it is analogous to someone whose house is flooding trying to mop up without turning off the water first. You can never get ahead of the situation. In climate change we must STOP the process before it is too late.  When medicine deals with public health threats we recognize that we must prevent what we cannot cure. We cannot cure the effects of climate change—we must prevent it!

    So while the military and government makes plans for the effects and conflicts resulting from climate change, the people are stepping up and demanding action to stop the process. There is no more critical time in this effort. We the people demand action. If you are concerned about either issue, you must be concerned about both issues. The future of our planet depends on it.

    Join us on this International Day of Peace in the Peoples Climate March. Make the connection. Demand peace with the planet for peace on the planet.

    To join activities in your area check http://peoplesclimate.org/.

  • Nuclear Savage: A Free Film Screening

    For Immediate Release

    Contact:     
    Sandy Jones
    (805) 965-3443
    sjones@napf.org

    Nuclear Savage: A Free Film Screening
    Learn the ugly truth about Project 4.1

    Santa Barbara – The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) is hosting a free screening of the 90-minute documentary, Nuclear Savage. The event will take place at 6:30 pm on Thursday, September 25, one day before the International Day to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. It will be screened at the Faulkner Gallery at the Santa Barbara Central Library (40 E. Anapamu Street).

    Nuclear Savage tells the searing story of the people of Rongelap in the Marshall Islands who, were exposed to radiation from dozens of U.S. nuclear weapon tests detonated between 1947 and 1962, including the massive Castle Bravo test that was over 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb exploded over Hiroshima. After failing to evacuate the Islanders for two days after Bravo, the U. S. government returned them to their atoll just three short years later to serve in a secret U.S. government experiment called Project 4.1 to see how residents of the Marshall Islands would respond long-term to a highly radioactive environment.

    Although commissioned by PBS and advertised for broadcast by network affiliates, the film has been abruptly pulled before each scheduled airing and has never been shown on U.S. television. Nuclear Savage has won numerous awards at film festivals around the world and has been shown frequently on Marshall Islands television.

    After the screening, a short Q and A session will be held with David Krieger, President of NAPF and Rick Wayman, NAPF’s Director of Peace Operations. They will also provide information on the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries. The event is free and open to the public.

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    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – NAPF’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders. Founded in 1982, the Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations. For more information, visit wagingpeace.org.