Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Blog

Thank You Vasili Arkhipov, the Man Who Stopped Nuclear War

This article was originally published by The Guardian’s Comment Is Free.

If you were born before 27 October 1962, Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov saved your life. It was the most dangerous day in history. An American spy plane had been shot down over Cuba while another U2 had got lost and strayed into Soviet airspace. As these dramas ratcheted tensions beyond breaking point, an American destroyer, the USS Beale, began to drop depth charges on the B-59, a Soviet submarine armed with a nuclear weapon.

The captain of the B-59, Valentin Savitsky, had no way of knowing that the depth charges were non-lethal “practice” rounds intended as warning shots to force the B-59 to surface. The Beale was joined by other US destroyers who piled in to pummel the submerged B-59 with more explosives. The exhausted Savitsky assumed that his submarine was doomed and that world war three had broken out. He ordered the B-59’s ten kiloton nuclear torpedo to be prepared for firing. Its target was the USS Randolf, the giant aircraft carrier leading the task force.

If the B-59’s torpedo had vaporised the Randolf, the nuclear clouds would quickly have spread from sea to land. The first targets would have been Moscow, London, the airbases of East Anglia and troop concentrations in Germany. The next wave of bombs would have wiped out “economic targets”, a euphemism for civilian populations – more than half the UK population would have died. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s SIOP, Single Integrated Operational Plan – a doomsday scenario that echoed Dr Strangelove’s orgiastic Götterdämmerung – would have hurled 5,500 nuclear weapons against a thousand targets, including ones in non-belligerent states such as Albania and China.

What would have happened to the US itself is uncertain. The very reason that Khrushchev sent missiles to Cuba was because the Soviet Union lacked a credible long range ICBM deterrent against a possible US attack. It seems likely that America would have suffered far fewer casualties than its European allies. The fact that Britain and western Europe were regarded by some in the Pentagon as expendable pawn sacrifices was the great unmentionable of the cold war.

Fifty years on, what lessons can be drawn from the Cuban missile crisis? One is that governments lose control in a crisis. The worst nightmare for US defence secretary Robert McNamara was the unauthorised launch of a nuclear weapon. McNamara ordered that PAL locks (Permissive Action Links) be fitted to all ICBMs. But when the PALs were installed, the Strategic Air Command had all the codes set to 00000000 so that the locks would not impede a quick launch in a crisis. Nuclear weapons security will always be a human issue – at all levels. On one occasion, Jimmy Carter, the sanest of US presidents, left nuclear launch codes in his suit when it was sent to the dry cleaners.

The cold war has ended, but the thermo-nuclear infrastructures of the US and Russia are still in place. And the risk of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers remains very real. In 1995 Russian early warning radar mistook a Norwegian weather rocket for a ballistic missile launched from an American submarine. An emergency signal was sent to President Yeltsin’s “Cheget”, the nuclear suitcase with launch codes. Yeltsin, presumably with vodka close at hand, had less than five minutes to make a decision on a retaliatory strike.

“As long as nuclear weapons exist, the chances of survival of the human species are quite slight.” Every study of long-term risk analysis supports Noam Chomsky’s claim. Ploughshares estimates there are 19,000 warheads in the world today, 18,000 of which are in the hands of the US and Russia. Whatever the exact numbers, the American/Russian nuclear arsenals are the only ones capable of totally destroying all human life. As security analysts Campbell Craig and Jan Ruzicka point out: “Why should Iran or North Korea respect non-proliferation when the most powerful states lecturing them possess such enormous arsenals?”

Most of all, the Cuban missile crisis showed that the weapons themselves are the problem. Britain is now in pole position to lead a “nuclear disarmament race”. In a 2009 letter to the Times, Field Marshal Lord Bramall and Generals Lord Ramsbotham and Sir Hugh Beach denounced Trident as “completely useless”. Ditching the system may be a no-brainer for the generals, but not for politicians afraid of a public opinion that equates nuclear weapons with vague notions of “being strong”. And yet getting rid of Trident would gift the Treasury a windfall of more than £25bn – enough to finance a million affordable homes.

The decision not to start world war three was not taken in the Kremlin or the White House, but in the sweltering control room of a submarine. The launch of the B-59’s nuclear torpedo required the consent of all three senior officers aboard. Arkhipov was alone in refusing permission. It is certain that Arkhipov’s reputation was a key factor in the control room debate. The previous year the young officer had exposed himself to severe radiation in order to save a submarine with an overheating reactor. That radiation dose eventually contributed to his death in 1998. So when we raise our glasses on 27 October we can only toast his memory. Thank you, Vasya.

October 27, 2012
Daniel Ellsberg and 14 Nuclear Protestors Are Victorious in Federal Court

This article was originally published by Reader Supported News.

Federal Magistrate judge Rita Federman last Wednesday allowed the U.S. government to dismiss all trespassing charges against the “Vandenberg 15,” a group of citizens who in February conducted a civil disobedience action at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The group was attempting to stop a testing of the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile that later reached a target in the Marshall Islands (without a nuclear warhead). The group was urging the base commander to stop the testing of thermonuclear warhead delivery vehicles and to eliminate land-based missiles in the U.S.

The Vandenberg 15 included prominent leaders of the anti-nuclear movement – Daniel Ellsberg, a former Pentagon nuclear weapons strategist, (who also released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971); Father Louis Vitale, a Franciscan monk and co-founder of the Nevada Desert Experience; Cindy Sheehan, founder of the Gold Star Families for Peace, whose son, Casey, was killed in the Iraq war; and David Krieger, president of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), member of Veterans for Peace, etc.

Attorney Matthew Umhofer stated, “Ultimately the government did the right thing to dismiss this case, because they had no real trespassing issues. It is the highest form of patriotism for my clients to petition their government, and they were acting within their rights, and did not trespass as charged. Truly, they are the true patriots, because these nuclear weapons can threaten our national security.”

Daniel Ellsberg commented on the need for both presidential candidates to consider “dismantling the Minuteman III missiles, to secure the safety of the world, but also the safety of this country. President Obama should take the step and dismantle by next month.”

Currently, the United States has 450 Minuteman III missiles (with thermonuclear warheads) on high-alert in silos in North Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Ellsberg has emphasized in the past that the danger of having these land-based missiles in the U.S. because of the fragility of the worldwide first-strike warning systems, which under time of crisis could launch the nuclear missiles under a ‘use them or lose them’ logic, thus causing an accidental nuclear war.

Father Louis Vitale stated, “We are still calling on the immediate stop to the use of the Minuteman III missiles, as they are terrible weapons.”

NAPF president David Krieger emphasized, “This is an absolute victory for all people, not just the people who protested, but all people. Nuclear weapons are the enemy of all humanity, as nuclear weapons are the negation of life on this planet. Humans must show we are more intelligent or we could become extinct. The U.S. needs to lead the way, and the true victory will be when all nuclear weapons are abolished.”

Carolee Krieger, also one of the Vandenberg 15, clarified, “Daniel Ellsberg has said that if only three hundred nuclear weapons were used worldwide it would cause such smoke and debris in the stratosphere, blocking the sun, that the world would experience famine, starvation. We should use our brains and consider the horrible consequences that could befall us all.”

In a phone interview after the court’s decision, Ellsberg pointed out, “After the presidential elections, and before the inauguration, Congress will be having discussions about military budgets and nuclear weapons. Secretary of Defense Panetta has stated recently that the first on his list to cut in the military budget [in the event of sequestration] will be the 450 Minuteman III missiles in the U.S. That implies to me that they are not necessary to our national security.

“In addition, General Cartwright, former commander of the Strategic Command (StratCom), who had the Minuteman III missiles under his command, has stated that the U.S. should get rid of these Minuteman III missiles, as their deployment could endanger our country.

“I think President Obama should immediately take a limited step by taking the Minuteman III missiles off deployment, not just off high-alert. He would have his own secretary of defense, and the former head of StratCom, by his side in this decision.”

Ellsberg noted that the issue of false arrests, and First Amendment protections, ultimately led the U.S. government to dismiss the case. He emphasized, “Of course, our criticisms of the U.S. government’s dangerous and reckless actions to have a rehearsal for a holocaust (by testing these missiles) was the focus of the case. There is just no ‘strategic purpose’ to have or deploy these land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and I am saying this strongly, as my former job at the Pentagon was to judge ‘strategic worth’ of nuclear weapons. They should have been dismantled 40-60 years ago, for the safety of the U.S. and the world.”

All of the Vandenberg 15 would have faced hefty fines from the courts for their protest, except Father Louis Vitale, who would have faced jail time because of his previous arrests at other nuclear actions, including at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Before becoming a Franciscan monk, Father Vitale flew planes for the Air Force in the 1950s. There is another missile test scheduled for November 14 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, yet none of the Vandenberg 15 have committed to protest this next testing of the missiles.

October 25, 2012
Standing Together for Our Common Future
David Krieger delivered these remarks at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 29th Annual Evening for Peace on October 21, 2012.

I want to begin with a poem. I wrote this poem for the International Day of Peace, but I think it works well for our Evening for Peace.

On this day, like any other,
soldiers are killing and dying,
arms merchants are selling their wares,
missiles are aimed at your heart,
and peace is a distant dream.

Not just for today, but for each day,
let’s sheathe our swords, save the sky
for clouds, the oceans for mystery
and the earth for joy.

Let’s stop honoring the war makers
and start giving medals for peace.

On this day, like any other,
there are infinite possibilities to change
our ways.

Peace is an apple tree heavy with fruit,
a new way of loving the world.

Our theme tonight is “Standing Together for Our Common Future.” We all share in the responsibility for our common future. Our challenge is to stand together to assure the best possible future for our children and grandchildren. This is a global challenge; and it should be a universal desire.

The Nuclear Age is just 67 years old. During this short time, we humans have created, by our technological prowess, some serious obstacles to assuring our common future. Climate change, pollution of the oceans and atmosphere, modern warfare and its preparations, and nuclear dangers are at the top of any list of critical global problems. None of these dangers can be solved by any one country alone. It no longer takes just a village. It takes a world. And within that world it takes, if not each of us, certainly far more of us.

Let me share with you how Archbishop Tutu, a Foundation Advisor and one of the great moral leaders of our time, describes nuclear weapons. He says, “Nuclear weapons are an obscenity. They are the very antithesis of humanity, of goodness in this world. What security do they help establish? What kind of world community are we actually seeking to build when nations possess and threaten to use arms that can wipe all of humankind off the globe in an instant?”

At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we work to abolish nuclear weapons – insanely destructive weapons that cannot be used, or even possessed, without violating the most basic legal and moral precepts. Nuclear weapons threaten civilization and our very survival as a species. And yet, 50 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russia still keep some 2,000 of these weapons on high-alert, ready to be fired in moments of an order to do so.

The weapons have not gone away, nor have the dangers they pose to humanity. There are still 19,000 of them in the world. Ninety-five percent of these weapons are in the arsenals of the US and Russia. The remaining five percent are in the arsenals of seven more nuclear weapon states.

Nuclear weapons do not protect us. Nuclear weapons are not a defense; they are only good for threatening retaliation or committing senseless acts of vengeance.

The use of nuclear weapons is beyond the control of any country. Let me illustrate this by telling you about Nuclear Famine. Scientists modeled a relatively small nuclear war in which India and Pakistan were to use 50 nuclear weapons each on the other side’s cities. The result of this war would be to put enough soot from burning cities into the upper stratosphere to reduce warming sunlight to the point that we would experience the lowest temperatures on Earth in 1,000 years. This would result in shortened growing seasons and crop failures, leading to starvation and Nuclear Famine killing hundreds of millions of people, perhaps a billion, throughout the world.

Let me emphasize that this would be the consequence of a small nuclear war using less than half of one percent of the world’s nuclear explosive power. And, it would be a regional nuclear war, over which the US could not exert any control. It would nonetheless be a war with global consequences for all of us.

All of this is serious and sobering. But, you may ask, what can we do about it?

At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are focusing on collective action and collective impact, in which the whole – each of us standing together – is greater than the sum of its parts.

We are also pursuing legal action related to breaches of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by the US and other nuclear weapon states parties to the treaty. The treaty calls for the pursuit of negotiations in good faith for effective measures related to a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, to nuclear disarmament and for a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Since the Treaty entered into force in 1970, it would be hard to argue 42 years later that there has been a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date. Nor has there been serious nuclear disarmament or a treaty on general and complete disarmament.

Our current education and advocacy work reaches and mobilizes our 57,000 members who join in taking action for our common future. We plan to expand this number exponentially across the world. We hope that you will all join us in this mission to assure the human future.

Tonight we stand together with the people of the Marshall Islands, a country that was part of the Trust Territory of the United States after World War II. The Marshall Islanders are easygoing and friendly people. They put their trust in the United States, but we abused that trust by testing nuclear weapons on their territory. We began that atmospheric nuclear testing in 1946, when we were the only country in the world with nuclear weapons, and we continued testing there for 12 years until 1958.

We tested 67 times in the Marshall Islands, using powerful nuclear and thermonuclear weapons – the equivalent explosive power of having tested 1.7 Hiroshima bombs each day for 12 years. On March 1, 1954, we tested our largest nuclear bomb ever, code-named Bravo, which had the power of 15 million tons of TNT.

We irradiated many of the people of the Marshall Islands, causing them death, injury and untold sorrow. Many had to leave their home islands and live elsewhere. Many have suffered cancers and leukemia, and the illness and death has carried over into the children of new generations of Marshall Islanders.

These are the tragic effects of a world that maintains, tests and relies upon nuclear weapons. In this world, our human rights are threatened and abused by nuclear weapons, as the Marshallese have experienced first-hand.

As a traditional island nation, the Marshallese enjoyed a self-sufficient sustainable way of life before nuclear weapons testing. Now, they struggle to uphold basic human rights:
- to adequate health and life.
- to adequate food and nutrition.
- to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
- to enjoyment of a safe, clean and healthy sustainable environment.
In September of this year, the Foundation’s representative in Geneva spoke to the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of the Marshall Islanders. He stated: “NAPF aligns itself with the UN Special Rapporteur’s suggestion that the international community, the United States, and the Government of the Marshall Islands must develop long-term strategic measures to address the effects of the nuclear testing program and specific challenges in each atoll. As such, it is imperative that the U.S. government and the international community implement human rights measures to provide adequate redress to the citizens of the Marshall Islands.”

In other words, it is the responsibility of the United States and other nuclear weapon states to clean up the radioactive trail of dangerous debris and redress the suffering and human rights abuses they have left behind in their pursuit of ever more powerful and efficient nuclear arms.

The man we honor tonight, Senator Tony de Brum, was a child when the US nuclear testing was taking place in his islands. Born in 1945, he personally witnessed most of the detonations that took place, and was nine years old when the most powerful of those explosions, the Bravo test, took place.

He went on to become one of the first Marshall Islanders to graduate from college and focused on helping his people to extricate themselves from the legacy of US nuclear testing in his island country. He has dedicated his life to helping his people and to working to assure they are fairly compensated for the wrongs done to them by nuclear testing. He has served his people in many ways – as a parliamentarian and former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Health and the Environment. He currently represents Kwajalein in the Parliament and is the Minister in Assistance to the President.

Like others who have suffered and witnessed the suffering caused by nuclear weapons, he has a larger vision: that what happened to his people should not happen again to any other people or country. I’ve known Tony de Brum for many years. He is an untiring leader of his people, deeply engaged in seeking justice. He is a man with a vision of creating a more decent and peaceful future for all humanity.

Senator Tony de Brum is a dedicated Peace Leader, and tonight we are pleased to stand with him and the people of the Marshall Islands as we honor him with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2012 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.
October 21, 2012
2012 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award Acceptance Speech

It is with profound gratitude and humility that I receive this coveted Distinguished Peace Leadership Award 2012. I wish to thank Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for the great honor.

I am aware that in receiving this award, I am following in the footsteps of some of the most gallant and respected notables of our century – among them, His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the late King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, Jacques Cousteau, Walter Cronkite and many other distinguished champions of peace.

I am truly humbled to be following the lead of such exceptional human beings. With their contributions to world peace and harmony they have touched and influenced many of us gathered this evening and impacted the lives of many more around the world.

My life was deeply traumatized by the nuclear legacy of the United States in the Marshall Islands. My public career has been shaped by the nuclear insult to my country and the Marshallese people. I have endeavored to make my modest contribution to peace by bringing their story to the world through all opportunities available to me.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I have been a student of the horrific impacts of the nuclear weapons testing program for most of my life. I served as interpreter for American officials who proclaimed Bikini safe for resettlement and commenced a program to repatriate the Bikini people who for decades barely survived on the secluded island of Kili. I accompanied the American High Commissioner of the Trust Territory just two years later to once again remove the repatriated residents from Bikini because concentrations of strontium and cesium had exceeded safe limits and their exposure had become too high for the established US government’s health standards.

I was also personally involved in the translation of the Enewetak Environmental Impact Statement that declared Enewetak in the western Marshall Islands safe for resettlement. In a television interview on CBS Sixty Minutes I expressed my concern to Morley Safer at the time by describing the military public relations efforts associated with the Enewetak clean-up as a dog-and-pony show. Today, for the most part the atoll remains unsafe for human habitation.

Later, during negotiations to terminate the trust territory arrangement mandated by the United Nations and assigned to the United States, we discovered that certain scientific information regarding Enewetak was being withheld from us because, as the official US government memorandum stated, “the Marshallese negotiators might make overreaching demands” on the United States if the facts about the extent of damage in the islands were known to us.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

The Marshall Islands’ close encounter with the bomb did not end with the detonations themselves. In recent years, documents released by the United States government have uncovered even more horrific aspects of this burden borne by the Marshallese people in the name of international peace and security. US government documents prove in no uncertain terms that its scientists conducted human radiation experiments on Marshallese citizens and American servicemen assigned to our part of the world. Some of our people were injected with or coerced to imbibe fluids laced with radioactive substances. Other experimentation involved the purposeful and premature resettlement of people on islands highly contaminated by the weapons tests to study how human beings absorb radionuclides either from their foods or from their poisonous environment.

Much of this human experimentation occurred in populations either exposed to near lethal amounts of radiation, or to “control” populations who were told they would receive medical “ care” for participating in these studies to help their fellow citizens. At the conclusion of all these studies, the United States still maintained that no positive linkage could be established between the tests and the health status of the Marshallese. Just in the past few years, a National Cancers Institute study has predicted a substantively higher than expected incidence of cancer in the Marshall Islands resulting from the atomic tests.

Throughout the years, America’s nuclear history in the Marshall Islands has been colored with official denial, self-serving control of information, and abrogation of commitment to redress the shameful wrongs done to the Marshallese people. The scientists and military officials involved in the testing program picked and chose their study subjects, recognized certain communities as exposed when it served their interests, and denied monitoring and medicinal attention to subgroups within the Marshall Islands.

I remember well their visits to my village in Likiep where they subjected every one of us to tests and invasive physical examinations the United States government denied ever carrying out. In 1978 as a representative on the negotiations with the United States, we raised the issue requesting that raw data gathered during these visits be made available to us. United States representatives responded by saying that our recollections were juvenile and could not possibly reflect the realities of the time.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

While a resolution of the status question was eventually reached, the issue of damages and personal injury from the testing remain a matter of contention between our two countries to this day. The unresolved aspect of the agreement remains the question of damages and personal injury claims yet to be addressed. Attempts to resolve these outstanding issues through the Compact of Free Association between our two countries as well as through the United States court system have been unsuccessful.

The courts have invoked the statutes of limitation while the administration contends that the circumstances of the claims do not constitute provable differences from knowledge based on which the agreements in 1986 were reached. We do not deny signing an agreement. We do admit though that this was based on information provided us by the United States contending that the damages were as they described in various studies presented to us to justify the adequacy of nuclear compensation and purported to describe in full the true damages caused by the tests.

In order to break this impasse we would require evidence which has been declared top secret by the United States to which the public has no access. It is interesting to note that the United States has expressed strong interest to bring the nuclear issues with the Marshall Islands to closure. We have responded that there can be no closure without full disclosure.

Further the United States Government tells us, our government is now responsible for nuclear claims, stemming from what is called the espousal provision of the Compact of Free Association. That basically says, we have settled all claims and should any new ones arise, the Government of the Marshall Islands will be responsible and liable. Ironically, the only other time in the history of the United States where ‘espousal’ was used to squelch claims was in the settlement to release the hostages in Iran.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

Last month in Geneva, the 21st Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted the Independent Special Rapporteur’s report, which in short, found that the US nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands resulted in both immediate and continuing effects on the human rights of the Marshallese. The adopted report also sets forth a set of far reaching recommendations, among them, under subparagraph (f); “Guarantee the right to effective remedy for the Marshallese people, including by providing full funding for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal to award adequate compensation for past and future claims, and exploring other forms of reparation, where appropriate, such as restitution, rehabilitation and measures of satisfaction; including, public apologies, public memorials and guarantees of non- repetition; and consider the establishment of a truth and reconciliation mechanism or similar alternative justice mechanisms.”

How far the United States government will act on these recommendations remains uncertain. In spite of all that has occurred in this relationship, the American people will not find a better friend than the people of the Marshall Islands.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

I accept this high honor you bestow upon me this evening in the name of my country, my fellow citizens, and all who have in one way or another contributed to the understanding of the Marshallese nuclear plight.

I accept it on behalf of Lijon Aknelang and the Almira Matayoshi of Rongelap Atoll, who passed away recently but were never discouraged in their fight to find peace and justice. I dedicate it to the mothers of Rongelap whose shameful treatment by American scientists violated all acceptable norms of human decency and respect. I accept it on behalf of Senator Jeton Anjain and his brother Mayor John Anjain, who exposed the dark secrets of the experimentation on the Rongelap people. This honor I share with Mayor Anjain’s son, Lekoj Anjain who became the first recognized leukemia victim of nuclear tests. I accept this honor on behalf of the Marshallese Traditional Leaders, especially Iroijlaplap Jebro Kabua and Anjua Loeak, who made lands under their stewardship available for the humane resettlement of displace nuclear nomads. I accept it on behalf of Marshallese community leaders who petitioned in vain to stop the tests through avenues known to them, both directly to the United States and to the United Nations. I accept on behalf of Senator Ishmael John of Enewetak who fought to his death to bring justice to the people of his home who to this day remain unable to resettle their ancestral lands and whose atoll continues to store nuclear wastes including plutonium.

I would be remiss if I did not include the many friends throughout the world who have contributed to our knowledge of the dangers of nuclear weapons and the clear and present danger they are to the universe as we know it. I accept it on behalf of all Marshallese whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by the horrific effects of the nuclear test. But most of all, dear friends, I accept on behalf of my granddaughter Zoe, who, as a brave young four year old, battled with leukemia for two very difficult years, and is now declared healthy enough to return to school and live a normal life. For this I will always be thankful to God and His Mercy.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

For the use of our country in the maintenance of what is called an unquestionable military supremacy over the world, Kwajalein Atoll, which is my parliamentary constituency, has been tasked to bear the burden. I therefore dedicate this honor to the people of Kwajalein whose continuing sacrifice of providing the home of their forefathers for the “preservation of international peace and security” continues to this day and for the next seventy-four years.

The Marshall Islands are by no means the only ones who have experienced a taste of nuclear horror. The people of Hiroshima and Nakasaki, Kazakhstan, Chernobyl, Fukushima, and French Polynesia have had first-hand experience. The 67 nuclear events in the Marshalls, equivalent to 1.7 Hiroshima shots every day for 12 years came complete with physical displacement, nuclear illness, birth anomalies, alienation of land, massive destruction of property, injury and death. But perhaps the most hurtful of all was official denial and secretive cover up and refusal to accept responsibility on the part of the perpetrators.

The Marshall Islands were also subject to years of expensive clean up and rehabilitation of land and habitat which fell far short of restoring the lands and sites to any productive use. In certain parts, repatriation will not be possible for at least 12,000 years. And that’s only from testing.

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned is that any way you look at it, nuclear weapons and the horrific destruction they bring, whether in war or in experimentation, leave permanent and irreversible damage to man and nature. All things surrounding nuclear weaponry threaten life on our planet and perhaps even our universe. It is not good for men and women, boys and girls, and dogs and cats. It is harmful to trees and to plants we eat. It poisons fish and wildlife. It makes our world less, not more, secure.

If the lessons of the end of World War II, and the lessons of all the tests conducted since then have not been learned then we must learn them. If the experiences of laboratory exposure, also denied, are not part of our learning pathway, then they must be added. If we do not take the message of nuclear survivors to heart, then we will have to soften our hearts. Nuclear weapons threaten us, they do not protect us. No matter where they are located or deployed, one push of a red button could be the end of life as we know it. That is not a chance worth taking.

If we continue to imagine any kind of a benefit being derived from the fact that the atomic powers are now armed to the teeth, then the sacrifice of all we have cited in this brief message tonight will have been in vain. Enlightened modern leaders of the world have not been blind to this fact of life. It is just that they have yet to put the matter of the nuclear race to rest.

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,

Barely forty-eight hours ago we were in India at the 11th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity where 193 countries, both governments and non-government organizations, met to discuss the accelerated decline in the integrity of the environment and its genetic resources. Also debated were programs and efforts to address the unsustainable global development direction and the dangers that it poses to the world.

As in nuclear disarmament efforts, we have a situation where world leaders fully understand the problem, are aware of the solutions, but cannot decide who should go first. There is no question that if civilization does not keep global warming under 2 degrees C by 2050, this effort to protect mother earth will be in vain. I am confident that the entire membership of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is familiar with the issue and knows what must be done to avoid climate chaos. But like nuclear disarmament, the world know the problem, it knows the solutions, but lacks the collective political will to execute.

As a small islands developing state, the Marshall Islands, and its neighbors are among the most ecologically vulnerable areas on the planet. We are actively working with other Pacific Islands to ensure that ocean resources in the region are governed and protected from exploitation. As a nation whose single most important productive sector and key export is in fisheries, the state of the world’s oceans and fish stocks and how these vital resources are being exploited remains on the list of our immediate priorities.

Recently, the Marshall Islands, in partnership with Palau and Micronesia, has undertaken a feasibility study for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion or OTEC technology, which uses the deep ocean temperature differential to generate electricity, water and other marketable by-products. If successful, OTEC will turn the Marshall Islands and its neighbors from oil-dependent basket case economies into net exporters of renewable energy. On this score we salute the enlightened efforts on sustainable energy in which our friends in California have been admirably proactive.

The Marshall Islands cannot afford to wait for global movement on climate change. Barely two meters above sea level, the stakes are a bit high here. And having had our share of displaced populations, we do not see moving elsewhere as a viable option. We are partnering with our neighbors in Micronesia in examining alternative financial mechanisms for economic security and earlier this month held a workshop in the islands on the subject of Debt for Adaptation Swap on Climate Change. This promises to be an innovative means of dealing with nonperforming governmental development loans of the recent past.

The Micronesia Challenge is a partnership of island states of the North Pacific to jointly set aside for protection and conservation substantial areas of their individual and collective territories. In addition, Palau, the state of Kosrae in Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands have declared a total ban on fishing and finning of Sharks in their economic zones, effectively creating the world’s largest shark sanctuary. We are taking these extraordinary steps as proud stewards and protectors of some of the world’s richest and most diverse ecosystems. We want to leave our planet intact for the benefit of our children, and their children’s children.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been stalwart in its mission of nuclear disarmament and the elimination of the nuclear threat to man. For the nearly two decades I have been associated with its efforts, I can attest to its diligence and dedication to marshal its resources to promoting peace and harmony in a nuclear free world. That goal is pure in its intent, necessary in pursuit, and is the only option through which we can leave a world where healthy children and a healthy environment can live in harmony, now and forever.

For whatever is remaining of my life, I pledge to follow this dream that one day we can rid the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons and that peace can be achieved not by what harm we can do to each other, but by what good we can do together.

I share in this award, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, and recognize with gratitude those who have walked with me in this journey of life. I want to thank most especially my wife and my best friend, Rosalie, and our three daughters – Doreen, Dolores and Sally Ann for always standing by my side and supporting me, even when the odds were overwhelming. My dad, my brothers and sisters and the numerous people who have made it possible for me to be recognized and honored, I wish to express to you my deepest gratitude and kamolol (mahalos).

For me, the work to address the plight of all affected peoples continues with renewed determination. We owe it to the nuclear victims and the nuclear survivors, but most importantly we owe it to the future generations of our planet.

Yokwe and God Bless you all.

October 21, 2012
Opening Statement

(The Vandenberg 15 – which includes Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, Father Louis Vitale, John Amidon and me – protested the launching of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the early morning hours of February 25, 2012. As we sought to deliver a message to the Base Commander calling for a cancellation of the test missile launch, we were arrested for trespass. All 15 defendants pleaded innocent to the charge. We had gone to Vandenberg Air Force Base to exercise our first amendment rights to protest an illegal act on the part of the government. The prosecution sought to limit the trial to the narrow issue of trespass, while we sought to put nuclear weapons and US nuclear weapons policy on trial. On the opening morning of the trial, the government moved to dismiss all charges and the Court granted the government’s motion. The case against the Vandenberg 15 was dismissed. It was a small but significant victory for the people. The real victory will come when nuclear weapons are abolished, which will happen when the people awaken to the threat posed by these insane weapons and demand of their leaders to lead the way to a world free of nuclear weapons. This is the statement I had planned to give as my Opening Statement.)

Your honor, the protest that occurred at Vandenberg Air Force Base on February 25, 2012 was legal. There was no crime of trespass.

Right and Duty of Citizens to Report a Crime or Suspected Crime

There is a right to speak out in the performance of our duties as citizens. For example, one has a right and a duty to speak out against voter fraud. Or, if one sees a policeman commit a crime or learns that a policeman is about to commit a crime, there is a right and a duty to inform his superior at the police department. If one were arrested for trespass at the county elections office or at the police station when trying to report a crime or suspected crime, one’s right to free speech – protected by the first amendment to our Constitution – would be violated.

Such a violation of first amendment rights would have a chilling effect on other citizens seeking to exercise their rights as citizens under the first amendment.

One of the great gifts given to us by our forefathers is the right to speak out in protest of governmental acts and to petition our government for redress of grievances. In fact, it is both a right and a non-delegable duty. For example, a citizen is not required to go to the city council before reporting a crime to the chief of police.

Your honor, I am not speaking about the defense of necessity, but about the rights, as well as responsibilities, of citizens under the first amendment to the United States Constitution.

Legitimate Business

The government alleges that it read a “Declaration Advisement Prior to Removal to Non-Barred Persons.” It is a Declaration that I never heard at Vandenberg Air Force Base, nor is it to be heard on all the hours of DVDs that were provided by the government. In this Declaration Advisement are the words, “Individuals without legitimate business on Vandenberg Air Force Base will not be permitted to enter or remain within the geographical confines of this installation.” But those of us who walked toward the kiosk at Vandenberg on the evening of February 25, 2012 did have legitimate business – we were exercising our first amendment rights to report a suspected crime to the Base Commander and to petition the Base Commander to cancel the planned test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

In my own case, I was trying to deliver to the Base Commander, or her subordinate, a booklet written by General George Lee Butler, a former commander-in-chief of the United States Strategic Command. General Butler, who was once in charge of all US strategic nuclear weapons, stated, “Nuclear weapons are the enemy of humanity. Indeed, they’re not weapons at all. They’re some species of biological time bombs whose effects transcend time and space, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants for generations to come.”

This is an important statement for several reasons. First, it was made by a former commander-in-chief of the US Strategic Command. Second, it implies what should be obvious to all – that nuclear weapons are biological time bombs, and thus illegal. Third, it makes clear that nuclear weapons affect not only present generations, but future generations as well – in other words, our children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren and so on.

Regarding nuclear deterrence theory, General Butler stated, “Nuclear deterrence was and remains a slippery intellectual construct that translates very poorly into the real world of spontaneous crises, inexplicable motivations, incomplete intelligence and fragile human relationships.” He was saying, in effect, “don’t rely upon nuclear deterrence for protection – it is only a ‘slippery intellectual construct.’”

I hold the same belief that General Butler expressed. I thought that the Base Commander would be more likely to believe this relevant information from General Butler than from me. In fact, on the evening we were arrested at Vandenberg, I handed the booklet to the young airman who handcuffed me without seeking to ascertain the legitimacy of my business at Vandenberg. Despite my telling the airman that I brought the booklet for the Base Commander, he returned it to one of the other members of the public who was there that evening but was not arrested.

Your honor, before my arrest, no one asked me why I was there. No one at Vandenberg sought to ascertain whether my business there was legitimate or not. This was the case for all the individuals arrested that evening at Vandenberg. So, how could Vandenberg personnel have lawfully arrested us when they never sought to inquire about the legitimacy of our business there?

The Government’s Breaches of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

According to the US Constitution, treaties are the supreme law of the land. Article VI, Section 2 of the Constitution states: “This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” (Emphasis added.)
The United States signed and ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The treaty entered into force in 1970. Therefore, it is part of the “supreme law of the land.” Under Article VI of this treaty, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Your honor, the United States is in breach of its obligations under Article VI of the NPT. It has not pursued negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the arms race at an early date. It has not pursued negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament. And it has not pursued negotiations in good faith on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

The test launching of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Vandenberg only underlines our government’s failures to live up to our obligations under the NPT, its breaches of the treaty, and its lack of good faith. Each of the 450 Minuteman III missiles deployed by the US carries a powerful thermonuclear weapon – many times more powerful than the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These missiles are kept on high alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They are highly accurate, but also easy to target. In a time of crisis, there is incentive to “use them or lose them.” They are first-strike weapons that could be launched in response to a false warning of attack.

Your honor, all of this is important information for the Base Commander at Vandenberg to understand and for the American people to understand.

Criminal Activity

Is the launching of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg a criminal act? These missiles carry thermonuclear weapons when they are in their silos on high alert. The test launching of these missiles is a threat to other countries – a reminder that we can attack them with nuclear weapons. Just as murder is a crime, the threat to murder someone is also a crime. In the case of nuclear-armed missiles, the threat is to kill millions of people, perhaps hundreds of millions of people. A US nuclear attack against another country would almost certainly result in a counter-attack against the American people.

Self-Defense

The US government is engaging in conduct that bit by bit will lead to nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, nuclear war and to the destruction of the human race. As a member of the human race, I have a right to defend myself and my family. Do I and my fellow defendants have a right to believe that Minuteman III tests, such as the test launch from Vandenberg on February 25, 2012, put us, our families and our fellow Americans in danger? Or perhaps the question can be put this way: Would a reasonable person, knowing that nuclear weapons are capable of destroying civilization and most complex life, believe there was danger from the continued muscle-flexing behavior of testing nuclear-capable Minuteman III missiles? And further, would a reasonable person take steps to nonviolently alert proper authorities to the risks this conduct creates?

There Was No Trespass

The place of protest must have a reasonable physical proximity to where the protest can be heard. Vandenberg designated a protest area where protesters can only be seen by people in vehicles passing by rapidly.

It is easily observable that the public can access the property that Vandenberg deems to be its exclusive jurisdiction. Members of the public walk and drive on that property routinely, going to the Vandenberg Visitor Center and to the kiosk where cars are stopped.

We went to Vandenberg to peacefully exercise our first amendment rights, speak to the Base Commander or transmit information to her, and warn our fellow citizens of the dangers of such launches of missiles that are ordinarily armed with thermonuclear weapons.

In walking toward the kiosk, seeking to exercise our first amendment rights, we were doing no more than members of the public do every day at Vandenberg.

There was no barrier to our walking on this road toward the kiosk until Air Force personnel formed a human barrier in front of us. If there was a line on the road, it was not clear and it was not a barrier. We stopped when we were told to stop. Then, rather than being asked if we had legitimate business at Vandenberg, we were immediately apprehended and arrested.

Your honor, the Commander and personnel at Vandenberg sought to make us criminals where there was no crime. In fact, if there was a crime, it was a crime on the part of those who would threaten others with the massive annihilation of which nuclear-armed missiles are capable. The defendants had legitimate business at Vandenberg. We were exercising our rights, as well as our responsibilities, as citizens under the first amendment of the United States Constitution.

We were saying to our government that nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are tools of annihilation. We cannot continue treating them as business as usual. We must stop this recklessness and madness before we and those who follow us on this planet, suffer – by accident or design – the terrible consequences of nuclear war.

October 17, 2012
The Missile Crisis that Never Went Away

This article was originally published by Truthdig.

Fifty years after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russian nuclear confrontation continues. Both nations still keep a total of approximately 800 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), armed with more than 1,700 strategic nuclear warheads at launch-ready status, able to be launched with only a few minutes warning.

The US now has 450 land-based Minuteman III missiles that carry 500 strategic nuclear warheads. As their name implies, they require at most several minutes to be launched. The US also has 14 US Trident submarines and normally 12 are operational. Each Trident now carries about 96 independently targetable warheads and 5 Tridents are reportedly kept in position to fire their missiles within 15 minutes. This adds another 120 missiles carrying 480 warheads that qualify as being “launch-ready”.

The missiles and warheads on the Trident subs have been “upgraded” and “modernized” to make them accurate enough for first-strike weapons against Russian ICBM silos. Missiles fired from Trident subs on patrol in the Norwegian Sea can hit Moscow in less than 10 minutes.

Russia is believed to have 322 land-based ICBMs carrying 1,087 strategic nuclear warheads; at any given time, probably 900 of these are capable of being launched within a few minutes warning. Many of the Russian ICBMs are more than 30 years old. According to a former high-ranking Soviet officer, the commanding officers of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces have the ability to launch their ICBMs directly from their headquarters, by-passing all lower levels of command.

The Russians also have nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles kept at launch-ready status, although Russian subs are not always kept in position to launch (unlike the US Tridents). Missiles launched from Russian submarines on patrol off the US East Coast can, however, hit Washington, D.C., in about 10 minutes.

The combined explosive power of US and Russian launch-ready nuclear weapons is roughly equivalent to 250 times the explosive power of all the bombs exploded during the 6 years of World War II. It would require less than one hour for the launch-ready weapons to destroy their targets.

Both the US and Russian presidents are always accompanied by a military officer carrying “the nuclear football” (called cheget in Russia), a communications device resembling a lap-top computer, which allows either president to order the launch of his nation’s nuclear forces in less than one minute. Both nations still have officers stationed in underground ICBM command centers, sitting every moment of every day in front of missile launch-consoles, always waiting for the presidential order to launch.

For decades, hundreds of US and Russian ICBMs have been kept at high-alert primarily for one reason: fear of a surprise attach by ICBMs or SLBMs. Since a massive nuclear attack will surely destroy both the ICBMs and the command and control system required to order their launch, the military “solution” has always been to launch their ICBMs before the arrival of the perceived attack. And once an ICBM is launched, it cannot be recalled.

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, both the US and Russia developed and deployed highly automated nuclear command and control systems, which work in conjunction with a network of early warning systems and their nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The possession of this complex integrated network of satellites, radars, computers, underground missile silos, fleets of submarines, and bombers give both nations the capability and option to launch most of their ICBMs upon warning of attack.

This creates the possibility of an accidental nuclear war triggered by a false warning of attack. During peacetime, when political tensions are low, conventional wisdom has it that there is essentially no chance that a false warning of nuclear attack could be accepted as true. However, during an extreme political crisis, or after the advent of military hostilities, such a false attack warning could become increasingly likely and vastly more dangerous.

ICBMs remain out of the sight and the minds of most Americans, yet all the necessary military ingredients for Armageddon remain in place. And despite past presidential announcements that another Cuban Missile Crisis is “unthinkable,” it certainly remains possible.

It is naïve to assume that we will never again be in a military confrontation with Russia – particularly when US/NATO forces and US nuclear weapons remain stationed near Russian borders in Europe, and we continue to surround Russia with missile defense facilities in the face of military threats against these facilities from the Russian president and top Russian military leaders.

In March, 2012, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote to one of us (in a personal letter), “One cannot help agreeing to the conclusion that the deployment of missile defense system at the very borders of Russia, as well as upbuilding the system’s capabilities increase the chance that any conventional military confrontation might promptly turn into nuclear war.”

What happens if NATO collides with Russia somewhere in Georgia, Kaliningrad or perhaps Ukraine, shots are fired and Russia decides to carry out its threats to take out US/NATO Missile Defense installations? What happens if the US should have a president who considers Russia the US’s number one geopolitical foe?

For many years it has been standard Russian military procedure to preemptively use nuclear weapons in any conflict where it would be faced with overwhelming military force, for example, against NATO. The Russians oddly call the policy nuclear “de-escalation,” But it would be better described as “limited nuclear escalation. It was developed and implemented after the US broke its promise not to expand NATO eastward (following the reunification of Germany) and NATO bombed Serbian targets.

The Russian “de-escalation” policy presumes that the detonation of nuclear weapons upon the opposing side will cause them to back down; it is essentially a belief that it is possible win a nuclear war through the “limited” use of nuclear weapons. But in the case of NATO, the war would be fought against another nuclear power.

Suppose that NATO responds instead with its US tactical nuclear weapons now based in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey)? Once an exchange of nuclear weapons takes place, what are the chances that the war will remain “limited”?

US and Russian strategic war plans still contain large nuclear strike options with hundreds of preplanned targets, including cities and urban areas in each other’s nation. As long as launch-ready ICBMs exist, these plans can be carried out in less time than it takes to read this article. They are plans that spell disaster for both countries and for civilization.

Cooperation, rather than conflict, still remains possible. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov writes, “Despite the growing hardship we do not close the door either for continuing the dialogue with the US and NATO on missile defense issues or for a practical cooperation in this field. In this respect we find undoubtedly interesting the idea of a freeze on US/NATO deployments of missile defense facilities until the joint Russian-US assessment of the threats is completed.”

This could be an important step towards lowering US-Russian tensions, which continue to revolve around their more than 60-year nuclear confrontation. Ending this confrontation can prevent the next Missile Crisis. Another important step would be the elimination of first-strike ICBMs that continue to threaten the existence of our nation and the human race. This would increase the security of the American people, even if it were done unilaterally.

The US and Russia remain obligated under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue negotiations in good faith on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. Fifty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, it is well past time to conclude these negotiations. No issue confronting humanity is more urgent than bringing such negotiations to a successful conclusion and moving rapidly to zero nuclear weapons.

October 16, 2012
Creating the Conditions and Building the Framework for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

2012_10_10_kane_unoda.pdf

October 10, 2012
Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis at Fifty

Fifty years ago this month, the world teetered on the precipice of a nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union during the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis. We were fortunate to have survived that crisis, thanks largely to the restraint shown by President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev.

Now, fifty years later, there is no immediate crisis such as that in 1962 over Soviet nuclear-armed missiles being placed in Cuba. There are, however, still some 19,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine nuclear-armed nations: the US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Approximately 95 percent of these weapons are in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Some 2,000 of them are kept in a state of high alert, ready to be immediately launched upon an order to do so at any moment of any day or night.

Although the Cold War ended more than 20 years ago, the possibilities for crisis are still with us. NATO has expanded to the Russian borders, despite US promises not to do so, and has begun placing missile defense installations near the Russian borders. Despite US and NATO assurances to Russia that these installations are to protect against an Iranian missile launch, Russian leaders view these installations as undermining their strategic deterrent force by making them vulnerable to a first-strike attack. They have said that they will target these US missile defense installations.

In another US-Russian confrontation over Georgia, such as occurred in 2008, or some other regional dispute, it is possible that tensions could rise to the point of nuclear crisis between US and Russian military forces. Of course, this would be crazy, but it is far from impossible. What would make the world safer? What might we expect from national leaders who should have learned from how close the world came to nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

First, for the US and NATO to make Russia a partner in any missile defense plans focused on Iranian missiles. Second, for the US to remove its approximately 180 remaining tactical nuclear weapons located in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey). Third, for the US and Russia to take seriously their legal obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race at an early date, for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects and for a treaty on general and complete disarmament.

We know now that a regional nuclear war would have global consequences. Atmospheric scientists have modeled a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in which each side used 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. Such a war would put enough soot from burning cities into the upper stratosphere to reduce warming sunlight for a decade, lowering surface temperatures on earth to the lowest levels in 1,000 years. This would result in shortened growing seasons, crop failures and famine that would kill hundreds of millions of people, perhaps a billion, throughout the world.

The scientific modeling showed that there would be a Nuclear Famine, and it would be triggered by using less than half of one percent of the world’s nuclear explosive power. Such a famine could be initiated not only by India and Pakistan, two countries that have been to war over Kashmir on several occasions, but by any of the Nuclear Nine. The US and Russia could each trigger a far more devastating Nuclear Famine by a nuclear attack on the other side’s cities, an attack which would be suicidal even if the other side did not respond in kind.

When thinking about nuclear weapons and their dangers, we would do well to remember the words of General George Lee Butler, former commander-in-chief of the United States Strategic Command, responsible for all US strategic nuclear weapons: “Nuclear weapons give no quarter. Their effects transcend time and space, poisoning the Earth and deforming its inhabitants for generation upon generation. They leave us wholly without defense, expunge all hope for survival. They hold in their sway not just the fate of nations but of civilization.”

Nuclear weapons do not protect us. Rather, they make us vulnerable to annihilation. It is relatively easy to put them out of our minds, but to do so is to evade our responsibility as citizens of the world and of nuclear-armed countries. Nuclear weapons imperil our common future – they imperil our children and their children and all children of the future. They imperil all we hold dear. We must speak out for a world without nuclear weapons. It is a moral and legal imperative and we would be well advised to act now before we are confronted with the equivalent of another Cuban Missile Crisis.

October 1, 2012
Interview with Bruce Blair: 50 Years After Cuban Crisis, New Nuclear Dangers, Dilemmas

On Oct. 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy addressed millions of Americans by television to declare that Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba were unacceptable and tantamount to an act of war. Among those watching was Bruce G. Blair, a high school student in Kankakee, Illinois. Within a few years, the reality of the Cold War would become even more immediate to Blair. In the early 1970s, while in the U.S. Air Force, he volunteered for the job of strategic missile launch control officer, and for three years his vantage point to watch the Cold War unfold was deep underground at a Strategic Air Command center in Montana. As a wing commander, he had general authority to supervise the use of as many as 200 Minuteman ICBM missiles.

In the 1980s, Blair earned a Ph.D. in operations research from Yale, and later served as a senior fellow in foreign policy studies with the Brookings Institution. In 2000, he became president of the World Security Institute, which promoted arms control to policymakers and the media. Now considered one of the foremost experts on nuclear weapons in the world, Blair in 2008 co-founded Global Zero, a world initiative that’s pushing for phased multilateral disarmament. The organization has received encouragement by President Obama, and its basic ideals are endorsed by 300 world leaders. Over 450,000 people have signed on as Global Zero members.

In a wide-ranging interview to mark the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dr. Blair talked exclusively to NAPF about current nuclear perils facing all nations, and how certain risks have receded, grown, or changed over the past half century. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion.

Kazel: In terms of alert status and the speed at which war might break out, it seems remarkable that it took seven days from the time President Kennedy saw the photographs of the missiles in Cuba until SAC actually went to DEFCON 2 [just short of war]. Today we tend to think of presidents having to respond to a potential nuclear threat in about 10 minutes, correct?

Blair: I think that we certainly did have an early-warning apparatus in place in 1962 that was designed to provide immediate warning of any attack that was underway. We had a system in place, though it was cumbersome and slow, and not at all streamlined to insure some major nuclear response to a major nuclear attack against the United States.

We were pretty close to a hair-trigger, launch-ready configuration back in those days, but over the last many decades we streamlined the command-and-control and early-warning network and primed the weapons themselves, and the crews that manage and launch those weapons, for very, very rapid reaction…

What’s really changed is by the 1970s, both the Soviet Union and the United States had adopted a posture that was designed to detect the first signs of preparation of nuclear weapons or their actual use, to allow the leaders of those countries to make immediate decisions on the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons, and to carry out those decisions within minutes. Or, if not preemptive, then at least…to launch [their] weapons on tactical warning of a potential incoming strike…

There’s just been a revolution in surveillance, reconnaissance, mainly from space, and we’ve become the “surveillance country of the world.” Now, the Russian system also evolved in a very sophisticated way, but in the 1990s, as everyone knows, suffered this economic calamity and it has not yet really recovered from the loss of its capabilities in surveillance and many other aspects of nuclear force capability.

So we today could detect a kind of set-piece [carefully premeditated] move by Russia to deploy weapons in some place like Cuba. It’s inconceivable that a country could relocate nuclear weapons to another country without detection.

I would emphasize that certainly the United States and the Soviet Union evolved their postures to a launch-ready configuration that remains in place today despite the end of the Cold War, and that technically the two sides are entwined in a hair-trigger dynamic that is inherently dangerous. If for some reason we find ourselves embroiled in another confrontation with each other, that hair-trigger posture presents a very serious risk to both sides — and to the world — in terms of the possibility of an inadvertent or accidental or mistaken launch based on false warning.

So the world is no safer today, certainly, than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In fact [it’s more dangerous] from the standpoint of this hair-trigger dynamic.

What’s really dramatically deteriorated in terms of nuclear danger to the world has been the proliferation of nuclear weapons: the emergence of new states with significant nuclear arsenals, in particular Pakistan but also North Korea and growing arsenals in South Asia and Northeast Asia and potentially in the Middle East, with the prospect of these materials for the weapons, or the weapons themselves, falling into the hands of bad actors – including, possibly, terrorists.

The set piece, the major nuclear state-to-state scenario that is of concern to me, would be between the United States and China.

Kazel: Could you elaborate on that?

Blair: It used to be a bipolar world of U.S.-Soviet bloc confrontation that involved large nuclear arsenals on the two sides, and the whole question for many decades during the Cold War was how stable was that bipolar relationship. It clearly turned out to be dangerous, but we survived it. Unfortunately after the end of the Cold War, we saw the Soviet Union collapse and Russia become kind of a country that was not in complete control of its nuclear arsenal. We saw China emerge as a rising power that began throwing its weight around.

So now the United States views China as a potential replacement of Russia in the nuclear equation. There are [confrontation] scenarios between the United States and China that you can imagine, that you can’t imagine in the U.S.- Russia case — for example, conflict over Taiwan being the clearest tinderbox in Asia between the United States and China.

Kazel: And yet China has far fewer nuclear weapons, and the ones they do have are not on hair-trigger alert?

Blair: Right, Chinese nuclear weapons, at least to the best of my knowledge, have not involved mating up warheads to delivery vehicles, to missiles and submarines and bombers, on a daily basis. But that would happen in a crisis, and in a crisis there are hundreds of Chinese nuclear weapons and there are plenty of scenarios in which the United States and China could be at loggerheads.

China clearly is emerging in the Pentagon as the next designated enemy, with a great deal of planning and targeting work going on oriented to China, while the [diminished] focus on Russia has led to a fairly dramatic decrease in the number of Russian targets in our war plan compared to China.

Kazel: How has the ascendance of China affected the willingness of U.S. military and nuclear planners to even consider de-alerting our weapons or further deep cuts in our arsenal to the point that Global Zero advocates?

Blair: The problem with China, and frankly all the other countries that are acquiring nuclear weapons – Pakistan, India, Israel, potentially Iran, North Korea – is that we have no history of a nuclear relationship with those countries. We have no history of negotiating nuclear arms reduction agreements with them. We don’t even have any dialog with China on this question, to speak of. We have very little transparency.

The rules of the road have not been set in the nuclear arena except with Russia, and so we are back in kind of a Cuban Missile Crisis phase in our nuclear relationships with countries like China. We have to figure out how to stabilize those relationships and engage with those countries in ways that allow us to go forward with arms reductions…

So Global Zero, as its next highest priority in the next couple of years, calls for the United States and Russia to continue their bilateral reductions but also calls for China and the other nuclear countries to be brought into this process, so that we can begin – if President Obama is re-elected – the first-in-history multilateral negotiations to cap, freeze, proportionally reduce, and otherwise constrain the nuclear arsenals of all the countries.

Kazel: You mentioned the possibility of future multilateral talks but you tempered it by saying “if President Obama is reelected.” I know your organization has a great ideological friend in him, although he hasn’t endorsed your specific timetable for disarmament. Mitt Romney is perceived as trying to be tougher towards Russia and has called it our “No. 1 geopolitical foe.” Does the success of the disarmament movement hinge on having a friend in the White House?

Blair: The history of nuclear arms reduction agreements has been a history spearheaded by Republicans. The SALT agreement was a result of Nixon’s détente with the Soviet Union, the START agreement was begun by Reagan and finished by [George H.W.] Bush, then we got the Moscow agreement under Bush 2. So there is a legacy here for Republican support.

Now it sort of fell apart during the New START treaty deliberations in the U.S. Senate, and there has been sort of a breakdown in that legacy. Romney does seem to fall outside this tradition and seems to be under the misimpression that Russia is our No. 1 foe. He came out strongly against the New START treaty in a very flawed analysis that he published back then, and he seems to be under the influence of very hard-line figures in his orbit of consultants who have almost an innate problem in cooperating with Russia.

But a lot of this is politics and a lot of it will have to yield to reality — and reality is that the United States and Russia have reset their relationship after it reached its low ebb in 2008. We have had growing cooperation across the board with Russia and that cooperation, that common ground, is not something that any president of the United States, Republican or Democrat, would set aside. So I would expect that if there is a President Romney that he will moderate his views, he will recognize the potential benefits of cooperation with Russia across the board, including in the nuclear arena.

Also keep in mind the grass-roots arms control movement flourished during Republican administrations. I mean, the largest demonstration against nuclear arms occurred in the 1980s when President Reagan was running the show. There’s also the potential that Global Zero would actually gain some support and momentum in the event of a Romney presidency that ramped up nuclear tensions with Russia.

Kazel: In your 1993 book, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War, you focused largely on the danger that missiles could be armed quickly and launched quickly and how that didn’t match the political reality of the post-Cold War era. But the book didn’t really advocate or even envision a time when all nuclear forces would be abolished. How did you evolve from supporting technical changes in command-and-control structures to being an outright supporter of nuclear abolition?

Blair: That’s a good question. I believed through the end of the Cold War that the United States would continue to maintain a nuclear arsenal in the name of strategic stability and mutual deterrence, and that the Soviet Union would do the same thing…

The United States and Russia…had a very good relationship in the early ‘90s. I mean we were almost allies. The euphoria, particularly on the Russian side over the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the optimism of a new relationship between the two countries, was just extraordinary and very upbeat. And so I, at the end of the Cold War, came to believe that it was possible to eliminate nuclear weapons.

But at the same time we had a long way to go and I thought we should focus on the problems of the hair-trigger posture and the continuing dangers that existed in the command-and-control system and the deficiencies of nuclear safeguards against unauthorized launch. So I worked on those issues very hard during the 1990s. But I really didn’t know how you would get to zero. No one had taken it seriously to have worked up any kind of a technical roadmap for how you would get it to zero. There’s still not a mountain of good, solid research on how you get to zero from where we are today.

So I thought one of the ways of getting to zero was to get weapons off alert and to put them increasingly into reserve status and to relegate nuclear weapons to the back burner of military capabilities. And when you do that, the military planners discount them in an age of growing, non-nuclear, conventional weapons sophistication. During the 1990s, I could even imagine conventional weapons would replace nuclear weapons in many of the missions. So I was sort of approaching it through the back door: Let’s downplay the importance of nuclear weapons, get them off alert, and then they will just sort of drop out of the war plans.

[Then came] the proliferation of nuclear weapons during the ‘90s with India and Pakistan coming out of the closet, and then North Korea, and 9/11 with the obvious danger of proliferation, and “loose nukes” in Russia in the ‘90s. You know, all of that added up in my mind to a case for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. So you just had to ask the question in the 1990s and into the 2000s, certainly after 9/11, do you feel the United States would be better or worse off living in a world without any nuclear weapons?

I think the obvious answer to that question is that yes, we would be safer. As I go around the world for Global Zero, [meeting] supporters around the world, including very senior people from governments with nuclear weapons, I find increasingly that they also answer the question with that answer – that their country would be safer without any nuclear weapons on the planet. That includes countries like India now.

Kazel: Having taken the position that abolition is the best way to go, have you been disappointed over the past four years over the lack of progress under the Obama administration? An analysis by Jonathan Pearl of the Strategic Studies Institute [in the U.S. Army War College] said: “Contrary to popular belief, the general approach being advanced today by the Obama administration is strikingly similar to mainstream proposals of the past 65 years: arms control and nonproliferation now, disarmament at an undetermined point in the future. Meanwhile, numerous factors continue to militate against abolition, including a growing Pakistani arsenal and new sources of instability in the Middle East. Indeed, just as the perceived need for abolition may be growing, so may the difficulty of achieving it.”

Blair: Well, no one ever expected this to be easy, and we’re pushing this agenda at a time when there are just overwhelming problems in the world. I think that President Obama has been seriously sidetracked over the last couple of years by world events. I think in the first two years of his administration, he made step-by-step progress…moving us concretely toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. In the last two years, we’ve been sidetracked, and of course we have the political season that’s further sidetracked any bold moves in this arena.

But I would expect that if he is reelected, that he will revive this agenda, that [he could even] convene the first-in-history multilateral negotiations involving all the nuclear weapons countries to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons. Just getting that process started would be an amazing legacy for the president.

I think where President Obama sort of dropped the ball a bit was he really didn’t organize the government to develop a plan for the elimination of nuclear weapons. And so it remains a goal that is more rhetorical than it is concrete.

Kazel: Even if he’s sympathetic to your goals, how can something like the Global Zero agenda coexist with the long-range plan for modernizing our warheads and delivery systems, which the government seems to be locking into place for the next 10 years? The Stimson Center says modernization will cost $352 billion or more over the next decade, including B61 nuclear bombs. How can your goals happen at the same time the administration is committing to this kind of long-term upgrade?

Blair: (long pause) Well, I think he is going to have to come to terms with this question, because these are really 50-year decisions that are coming down the pike here for all three legs of the nuclear Triad. So we don’t want to be investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons systems that we want to scrap in the next 10 to 20 years, or whenever the time frame that the President might imagine nuclear abolition may be possible…Global Zero has called for the elimination of the land-based leg of the nuclear Triad on the U.S. side [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles], and so it’s a question that has to be confronted. If it’s not, then we will sort of drift along with business as usual.

Kazel: Can it be argued that modernization is necessary because the command and control systems, as well as the weapons themselves, are sort of crumbling — that if we don’t modernize them, your worst fear will be realized, that these systems will be vulnerable to seizure by terrorists or that somehow they’ll break down and malfunction?

Blair: Well, there’s obviously a certain minimum amount of investment that you have to make in maintenance and security…You identify deficiencies that need to be fixed. One area that is of profound concern to me is deficiencies in protections against cyber warfare that may leave some of our weapons and our command-and-control system vulnerable to exploitation by unauthorized people. That’s a whole brave new world that needs to be addressed, and as long as we have nuclear weapons we need to find deficiencies in their control and safety. And that takes money, obviously.

But Global Zero supports a time frame for the elimination of nuclear weapons. We can debate how long that should be, but it’s not 100 years, OK? And, it’s not really 50 years. We think that the time frame ought to be realistically on the order of 20 years. Maybe it’s 25. But it’s not taking us out to 2080. And 2080 is the year in which the next generation of U.S. strategic submarines is supposed to last.

So in other words, what the next administration needs to do is say to itself, let’s say it’s President Obama, “If we were to think about eliminating nuclear weapons in the next 20 to 50 years, or 20 to 30 years…what would be the implications – for our nuclear complex, for the modernization or investment in things like the plutonium factory at Los Alamos? What would be the implications for our forces, our submarines, our bombers, our land-based rockets and their modernization, and what would be the implications for arms control? Give me a plan that allows me to pursue zero [nuclear weapons] over the next 20 or 30 years with plenty of flexibility. In case we’re not able to achieve it through the arms control process and it take us longer, I need to have a plan that insures that we still have a viable nuclear arsenal during this period.”

These are choices and trade-offs that can’t just be managed by business as usual.

Kazel: It seems many nuclear weapons opponents think the answer to that is the U.S. and Russia participating in a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a set of agreements that would officially outlaw nuclear bombs and create an agenda for how that can be achieved. Is that a dream, or something that can happen someday?

Blair: A Nuclear Weapons Convention would be a phase of the Global Zero [plan]. The first step is to get all the relevant countries into a dialog and negotiation. So the first goal would be to have multiple countries decide the size of their arsenals, and other characteristics of their arsenals, let’s say five years from now. They negotiate where they would be five years after that. And then at some final stage they would agree to a Nuclear Weapons Convention that would have a requirement to go to zero. It would be a universal agreement applying to all countries, and would have mechanisms of verification and enforcement built into it that really have teeth. So I see a Convention as being essential at some stage.

Kazel: Have you heard of any officials, any politicians on any side, who support a Convention?

Blair: None that come to mind. But we do hear politicians – [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, [Prime Minister Dmitry] Medvedev, and the Obama Administration have all talked about how the next phase of nuclear arms reduction should be multilateral. So that’s the first big step into that arena.

Kazel: On another point, how quickly and how effectively can the superpowers communicate with each other during a crisis? You make the point in your writings that all bets are off during a crisis, that the usual logic and expectations of what any side might do can’t be predicated accurately then. The “Hotline” was established during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then it was expanded during the Reagan years, but other proposals to really ramp up communications mechanisms between the U.S. and Russia seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Blair: This isn’t the area that needs our primary attention. This issue, of miscommunication, of lack of adequate emergency mechanisms [for] communications and consultations – these are problems that largely are huge problems in other parts of the world. For example, India and Pakistan have a long way to go. The United States and China have a long way to go because we don’t have any tradition of transparency in arms control.

There’s big opportunities for misunderstanding between the United States and China, and all these other countries that are acquiring nuclear weapons are in the very early stage of evolving these kinds of mechanisms between themselves and their primary adversaries, whether it’s in the Middle East or South Asia or Northeast Asia…I think that Israel and Iran, for example, could easily get into a nuclear war if Iran got nuclear weapons, because of this [communication] problem.

Kazel: What represents a greater danger, Iran getting nuclear weapons or Israel attacking those weapons?

Blair: Well, if Israel attacks those weapons it will be a conventional attack. If Iran gets those weapons, the possibility of actual use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East grows exponentially. I think [that is] just an unacceptable outcome.

But I also believe that Iran is committed to getting nuclear weapons, because as long as regime change is its most serious worry, it feels it needs nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent. So there’s a long way to go with diplomacy with Iran to reach a stage where Iran feels it doesn’t need nuclear weapons.

It’s a very complex picture in all of these regions that are [acquiring nuclear weapons]: how to come to terms with their security concerns without nuclear weapons. So that’s the agenda of Global Zero. We think that the universal elimination of nuclear weapons is really the only solution. So that if Iran has to give them up, Israel gives them up, as well. And if Israel gives them up, then by gosh, Iran also has to give them up, in the context of a broader disarmament process.

September 27, 2012
United Nations General Assembly: Resolutions on Nuclear Weapons Issues Adopted from 2001-2011

2012_zaitsu_unga_votes.pdf

September 25, 2012