Blog
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De-Alerting and the Nuclear Weapons Convention
Signatories to the NPT took a small but significant step toward the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world in May 2010 when they agreed that: “All States need to make special efforts to establish the necessary framework to achieve and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.”. The most significant step was in December 2010 at the General Assembly, 65th plenary meeting, 8 December 2010, 133 yes, 28 no, 23 abstain for the vote of the Convention: ” The General Assembly Calls once again upon all States immediately to fulfill that obligation by commencing multilateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination”.
Results for nuclear weapon States : China (yes), France (no), Russia (no), UK (no), US (no), India (yes), Pakistan (yes), Israel (no).
The Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) also committed in the 2010 NPT Final Document to “Consider the legitimate interest of non-nuclear-weapon States in further reducing the operational status of nuclear weapons systems in ways that promote international stability and security.”. And most significant is the vote on de-alerting at the UN General Assembly with only 3 votes “no” by France the UK and the US.
So the NWS have resisted any commitment to go further in either area – i.e. to immediately de-alert and remove all nuclear weapons from high operational readiness or to commence negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention in the near or intermediate future. This resistance is linked to their continuing reliance on nuclear deterrence, and a mistaken belief that nuclear deterrence would be jeopardized by de-alerting existing nuclear weapons systems.
Progress on de-alerting and NWC negotiations could be enhanced by promoting them not as the immediate end to nuclear deterrence, but as processes which lower the role of nuclear weapons gradually while simultaneously strengthening strategic stability.
In this context, progress on de-alerting will make NWC negotiations more feasible. Equally, the initial exploration by NWS of the legal, technical and political elements of a nuclear-weapons-free regime (achieved through a NWC) will generate greater confidence in the possibility of security without nuclear deterrence, making the immediate de-alerting of nuclear weapons more palatable.
There are many reasons to focus on de-alerting in the short term while simultaneously considering and promoting NWC negotiations.
The U.S. and Russia, with 95% of the world’s nuclear weapons, still maintain high-alert postures which permit each of their Presidents to order the launch of more than 1000 strategic nuclear warheads in a matter of a few minutes. Both nations remain frozen in their Cold War nuclear confrontation, constantly poised to unleash massive nuclear forces in response to a perceived nuclear attack from the other side.
Fear of a surprise nuclear attack is what causes leaders in the nuclear weapon states to keep their nuclear forces ready to “Launch On Warning” of attack. Although both the US and Russia deny that they would employ a “Launch On Warning” strategy, it is clear that they retain the capability and option to do so.
The maintenance of launch-ready, high-alert nuclear weapons allow these two states to almost instantly initiate an accidental nuclear war though technical or human error, miscalculation, madness or stupidity. This is true, because a false warning of attack – believed to be true – has the potential to trigger a nuclear “retaliation” which in fact would be a nuclear first-strike.
High-alert nuclear postures create a universal fear of impending nuclear incineration, and thereby prevent any fundamental change in the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. As long as nuclear forces remain on high-alert, the elimination of nuclear weapons remains impossible and accidental nuclear war remains possible.
The Nuclear Weapon States must accept that an instant nuclear strike is not a fundamental component of deterrence. Such a change in mindset would open the way to a variety of practical steps which would prevent a nuclear launch.
The current high-alert postures in the US and Russia, which in reality are supported by an unofficial policy of Launch On Warning, could be changed, without any risk, to an official policy of No Launch Before Detonation (NLBD). Under NLBD, the launch of nuclear forces in response to a warning of nuclear attack, comprised only of electronic data from Early Warning Systems, would be prohibited. The launch of nuclear forces could not then be triggered by a false warning generated by cyberwarfare, a failure of technical systems, computer hackers, or the launch of non-nuclear warheads carried by strategic missiles.
NLBD could be almost immediately instituted via Presidential decree (without negotiation, legislation, and minimal expense) and should be used as a confidence building measure as part of a de-alerting process. Accidental, unauthorized or unintended nuclear war caused by a false warning of nuclear attack would become impossible through this simple change in policy.
The actual elimination of high-alert forces would make it physically impossible to launch upon electronic warning of attack. There are many possible ways to de-alert nuclear weaponry in a verifiable, stepwise manner, which are on record and require only sufficient political will to implement.
While the U.S. and Russia choose to maintain high-alert postures (and the Launch-On-Warning capabilities that high-alert weapons confer), none of the other NWS (whose nuclear arsenals number in the hundreds of weapons) maintain states of high operational readiness. China has never had high-alert weapons, France and England have each made conscious decisions not to maintain ground-based launch-ready nuclear forces. Furthermore, it has been reported that U.K nuclear forces require days to launch, and French nuclear forces require some hours to fire. Such a change, if made to US and Russian nuclear arsenals, would do much to remove the threat of an accidental apocalypse from the global agenda. The French and UK militaries should be encouraged to talk to their US and Russian counterparts with the aim of persuading them of the merits of a similar change in posture.
For France and the UK, missiles could be removed from submarines without altering a policy of minimal deterrence. The international context does not need a possibility of rapid nuclear strike from either of these two Nuclear States. In case of terrorist attack (generally considered to constitute the most likely danger of producing a nuclear detonation), a nuclear retaliation from a submarine is absolutely not appropriate. No nuclear strike is appropriate for a non-state sponsored terrorist attack.
The real change required here is a change of mindset, of imagination and spirit. Nuclear war should no longer be held up as the instant solution for “national security”, especially when our best scientists warn that nuclear war can end human existence. Our “security” depends primarily upon our ability to understand the problems we face in common; we are a single species threatened with imminent nuclear extinction.
De-alerting is the first step of the Convention. Without de-alerting the Convention is impossible to be accepted. The change of mindset is the first step for the abolition of nuclear weapons. De-alerting makes this change.
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An Open Letter to Graduates
Dear Graduates,
Having received a college degree, you are among the 6.7 percent of the world’s most educated elite. If your education has been a good one, you are likely to have more questions than answers. If your education has been mediocre, you are likely to think you have more answers than questions.
Did you have a chance in college to ponder these questions: What does it mean to be human? Why are we here on Earth? What are the greatest goals one can pursue in life? What are the keys to a happy and fulfilled life? If you didn’t, it’s not too late.
You may have taken many introductory courses during your college years, but was there a course on Global Survival 101? If not, you may not be prepared to make a difference in ending the great dangers to humanity in the 21st century.
Do you know how many nuclear weapons there are in the world? Do you know which countries possess them? Do you know what nuclear weapons do to cities? Do you know whether these weapons are legal or illegal under international law? Do you know whether they could end civilization and the human species?
Do you know about the Nuremberg Principles, those that were derived from the tribunals at Nuremberg that held the Nazi leaders to account after World War II? Do you know that these principles apply not just to Nazi leaders, but to all leaders who commit heinous crimes under international law? Do you know what those crimes are?
Have you studied the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Do you know to whom these rights apply? Do you know that these rights encompass economic and social rights as well as political and civil rights?
Do you know that we all live on a single fragile planet and that we humans are the caretakers and stewards of this planet, not only for ourselves, but for future generations yet unborn?
Do you realize that you are about to enter a world of vast inequities, as measured in money, health and happiness? Do you understand that throughout the world there are more than a billion people who are malnourished and go to bed hungry every night? Can you comprehend that in our world there are still 25,000 children who die daily of starvation and preventable diseases?
Does your education lead you to believe that money will buy happiness? It may buy fancy material things, and even status, but it is unlikely that it will buy happiness or fulfillment in life. Caring for others and living with compassion, commitment and courage offers a far surer path to a fulfilled and happy life.
Graduating from college is a commencement, not an ending. It is a commencement into responsibility for one’s society and one’s world. Exercising this responsibility is a daily task, a necessary and never-ending task. It is a task that will require further education, outside the college classroom, but inside the multiversity of life.
The world needs to change. We cannot continue to teeter on the precipice of nuclear and ecological disasters. We cannot continue to exist divided into those who live in abundance and those who live in scarcity. We cannot allow the greed of the few to overwhelm the need of the many. We cannot continue to exploit the planet’s finite resources, in effect, stealing from the future. We cannot continue to draw lines on the planet and separate ourselves into warring factions.
For the world to change, new peace leaders and change makers will be needed. The first and most important questions you must ask yourself in your new role as graduates are these: Will I be one of the peace leaders and change makers, devoting myself to building a better world? Or, will I choose to be detached and complacent in the face of the 21st century’s social, economic, political and military threats to humanity?
As the little prince, in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book by that name, stated so clearly, “It’s a matter of discipline…. When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet.” Look around. Our beautiful planet needs a lot of tending.
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The Anti-Nuclear Mountain Is Being Scaled
A three-week global speaking tour has convinced me that the world is moving into a new stage in the long quest to eliminate nuclear weapons. Weakened government ideology in support of nuclear weapons is now colliding with chronic deficits and other economic realities that make them unaffordable.
I found this a consistent theme in meetings with senior government officials in China, India, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom. In the discussions surrounding my lectures to university students, think tanks and civil society groups, it became clear to me that the intellectual case for nuclear deterrence is crumbling. Even in NATO headquarters in Brussels, where my arguments for nuclear disarmament in past visits were greeted by the derisory comment, “mission impossible,” the response this time could be characterized as “mission maybe.”
In addition to speaking on the themes of my book, How We Stopped Loving the Bomb, I presented a new brief, “A Global Law to Ban Nuclear Weapons,” prepared by the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI) and containing a central message: “It is urgent to seize the present opportunity, and to begin, soon, collective preparatory work leading to enactment of a universal, verifiable and enforceable legal ban on nuclear weapons.”
MPI has drafted a UN resolution, which would request the UN Secretary-General to convene a diplomatic conference in 2014 to negotiate a global ban on nuclear weapons. But governments are balking at such “swift action,” and it may be that the best that can be obtained at the moment is agreement to have an Experts Group advise on steps that could lead to a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
The reluctance by governments to actually start working comprehensively on at least preparations for a convention, which would be a global treaty, appears on the surface to be yet another rebuff to nuclear disarmament advocates. “It’s like a bucket of cold water thrown on us,” an activist in London complained. But a physician of long experience likened the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons to the early days of the anti-smoking campaign when the scorn of smokers evolved into a new societal attitude against smoking.
My world tour showed me that the anti-nuclear weapons campaign is following the classic lines of other great social movements, such as the end of slavery, colonialism and apartheid: at first, the idea is dismissed by the powerful, then when the idea starts to take hold, it is vigorously objected to until, by persistence, the idea enters the norm of public thinking and laws start to be changed.
The emerging campaign to abolish nuclear weapons does not follow a straight path. In China, I was told that the government is ready to engage in multilateral negotiations but first wants to see more progress in bilateral agreements between the US and Russia, which hold the lion’s share of the 20,000 nuclear weapons in existence. In India, the public takes pride in their new acquisition of nuclear weapons in the mistaken belief that they would be of some use in the continuing conflict with Pakistan, but senior political officials are looking for a way to get global negotiations started. In Russia, officials told me that US plans for a missile defence system in Europe along with other aspects of American military dominance, such as the weaponization of space, are an impediment to further agreements to lower the level of nuclear weapons.
All governments make excuses for resisting collaborative efforts for a global ban. Even in Norway, Sweden and Germany, three countries thought to have progressive policies, the bureaucracies are sluggish, playing an “After you, Alphonse” game of delaying the definitive action of calling a conference to start working on a ban. The UK officials I talked to conceded the merits of the MPI brief (and even invited me back), but are locked into temporary growth of their unaffordable Trident nuclear system by a combination of political pressures from the right wing and the felt need for coherence with the US and France.
Governments around the world today are relying on obfuscation to make their case for the retention of nuclear weapons. The ideology that drove the escalation of nuclear weapons in the Cold War is long gone, younger officials are coming into status positions, and pragmatics are starting to determine how to maintain security without spending the $100 billion a year now devoured by the nuclear weapons industry for weapons whose use has been ruled out on military, political and moral grounds. Only the building of a global law, as was effected to ban chemical and biological weapons, remains to be done to free humanity from the spectre of mass destruction.
The nuclear mountain is high indeed. Scaling it is not for the faint-hearted. But a historic shift in attitudes is under way. And that shift is being hastened by the gradual recognition that the processes of globalization, which are elevating the standard of living for millions upon millions of people, should not be jeopardized by the squandering of money on military “junk.”
One unforgettable sight caught, for me, what the nuclear struggle is all about. In Shanghai one evening, I stood on the walkway along the Bund. On one side was the array of graceful 19th-century buildings, lit in soft amber colours. Then, turning, I saw across the river a dazzling spectacle of new skyscrapers garishly lit with flashing electronic signs. The old China and the new. The contrast is startling.
The new world, unfolding before our eyes, has huge problems, such as feeding the people and stopping pollution. It’s starting to realize it doesn’t have the time, or the money, to continue stock-piling nuclear weapons.
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State Violence and Killing Is Not the Answer
OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE
PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
FROM: MAIREAD CORRIGAN MAGUIRE, NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE.
20th JUNE 20ll.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,
‘STATE VIOLENCE & KILLING IS NOT THE ANSWER’
As you know, on lst May, 20ll, the NATO forces tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the Libyan Head of State, Moammer Gadaffi. This attempt to assassinate the Libyan Head of State under US Army law, was a war crime and punishable as an International crime in its own right. During the attack by NATO forces one of President Gadaffi’s sons, and three of Gadaffi’s grandchildren were killed by NATO forces.
The following day, 2nd May 20ll, the extra-judicial killing and assassination of Osama Bin Laden, and killings of a woman and two men who were with him, by the US Navy SEALs, continued the State Terrorism of the US Government. After the assassination you, Mr. President, addressed the media and attempted to make acceptable the idea that such violence is just and acceptable. Do you and your Government and Allies who support you, really believe that the vast majority of men and women around the world have lost all sense of what is right and what is wrong? Do you really believe that we have all abandoned all sense of decency and ethical values exchanging them in support of your endorsed illegal, killing of unarmed civilians? Do you really believe we will all remain silent whilst under your warrior leadership the US Government and its allies dismantle basic human rights and international laws, so long fought for by brave, courageous men and women (including Americans) replacing these with extrajudicial killings, torture and assassinations?
Three months into the French, English, Italian led NATO/US campaign (never sanctioned by US Law) and shamefully agreed by U.N. (who identified the purpose of the operation to be for the protection of citizens!) people of conscience are horrified to hear that, yet again, on l9th June, NATO has carried out more air attacks on Libya, killing 15 unarmed civilians, including women and children.
After 9/ll the whole world shared the grief of the American people, and many hoped that those who carried out such horrendous acts would be brought to justice through the Courts. We were moved by many of the families who lost loved ones on 9/ll when they started ‘Families for a peaceful tomorrow’ and called for justice not revenge. However, violence and revenge was the chosen path of the US Government and its Allies, who for ten years embarked on a path of violence and war. In this time over 6,000 USA soldiers have needlessly died and countless thousands injured physically and mentally. Wars in Iraq (over l million Iraqis killed) and Afghanistan (over 50,000 Afghans killed) were carried out by the US in their pursuit of vengeance. The US-led so-called ‘war on terrorism’ in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan has ‘terrorised’ unarmed civilians by carrying out aerial bombardments, night raids, death squads, extra-judicial killings and drone attacks killing many unarmed civilians, including women and children, and tragically they continue to this day.
In a world struggling to birth a new consciousness, it is not incredulous that the best the US Government, NATO and its allies can offer as a model to world citizens, is the outdated example of violence, militarism, and war, destroying humans and their environment?
I believe real change and leadership is coming from the people’s movements and what is happening around the world amongst the masses of extra-ordinary men and women rising up, mostly peacefully and non-violently, in country after country for human dignity, equality, freedom and democracy and against violence, oppression, injustice and war, is the real force for change. We all take great hope and inspiration from the ‘Arab Spring’ and join in solidarity with our courageous Arab brothers and sisters in working for change.
A new dawn, a new age of civilization is coming. It will be an age of solidarity, of each person dedicated to ‘protective love’ of each other and our World. It will be an age of nonviolent evolution which shows we can solve our problems as the human family by peaceful means not by violence, nuclear weapons and war.
The peoples of the world are sending a clear message to you Mr. President, to NATO, and all our Governments, and armed opposition groups, that there will be no military solutions to these ethnic/political/economic problems, but only through ending occupations (USA -Iraq/Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine) declaring ceasefires (Libya, etc.,) and entering into dialogue and negotiations with all parties to the conflicts, can we begin to solve these problems, the roots of which are inequality and injustice.
Mr. President, you came into office promising change and gave the world hope. You lit the passion in the hearts of many men and women longing for change, for dialogue and negotiation, to move beyond destructive militarism, nuclear weapons and war. That passion remains in the heart of humanity as can be seen in the mass nonviolent movements for social and political change taking place around the world. Will you, Mr. President, take this great opportunity in human history and help lead ,the world to a new beginning, so we can in the words of the late President John F. Kennedy ‘begin again the quest for peace?’
Yours in Peace,
Mairead Corrigan Maguire
(Nobel Peace Laureate) -
Why the Pentagon Papers Matter Now
This article was originally published by Reader Supported News.
The declassification and online release Monday of the full original version of the Pentagon Papers – the 7,000-page top secret Pentagon study of US decision-making in Vietnam 1945-67 – comes 40 years after I gave it to 19 newspapers and to Senator Mike Gravel (minus volumes on negotiations, which I had given only to the Senate foreign relations committee). Gravel entered what I had given him in the congressional record and later published nearly all of it with Beacon Press. Together with the newspaper coverage and a government printing office (GPO) edition that was heavily redacted but overlapped the Senator Gravel edition, most of the material has been available to the public and scholars since 1971. (The negotiation volumes were declassified some years ago; the Senate, if not the Pentagon, should have released them no later than the end of the war in 1975.)
In other words, today’s declassification of the whole study comes 36 to 40 years overdue. Yet, unfortunately, it happens to be peculiarly timely that this study gets attention and goes online just now. That’s because we’re mired again in wars – especially in Afghanistan – remarkably similar to the 30-year conflict in Vietnam, and we don’t have comparable documentation and insider analysis to enlighten us on how we got here and where it’s likely to go.
What we need released this month are the Pentagon Papers of Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan, Yemen and Libya). We’re not likely to get them; they probably don’t yet exist, at least in the useful form of the earlier ones. But the original studies on Vietnam are a surprisingly not-bad substitute, definitely worth learning from.
Yes, the languages and ethnicities that we don’t understand are different in the Middle East from those in Vietnam; the climate, terrain and types of ambushes are very different. But as the accounts in the Pentagon Papers explain, we face the same futile effort in Afghanistan to find and destroy nationalist guerrillas or to get them to quit fighting foreign invaders (now us) and the corrupt, ill-motivated, dope-dealing despots we support. As in Vietnam, the more troops we deploy and the more adversaries we kill (along with civilians), the quicker their losses are made good and the more their ranks grow, since it’s our very presence, our operations and our support of a regime without legitimacy that is the prime basis for their recruiting.
As for Washington, the accounts of recurrent decisions to escalate in the Pentagon Papers read like an extended prequel to Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s War, on the prolonged internal controversies that preceded the president’s decisions to triple the size of our forces in Afghanistan. (Woodward’s book, too, is based on top secret leaks. Unfortunately, these came out after the decisions had been made, and without accompanying documentation: which it is still not too late for Woodward or his sources to give to WikiLeaks.)
In accounts of wars 40 years and half a world apart, we read of the same irresponsible, self-serving presidential and congressional objectives in prolonging and escalating an unwinnable conflict: namely, the need not to be charged with weakness by political rivals, or with losing a war that a few feckless or ambitious generals foolishly claim can be won. Putting the policy-making and the field realities together, we see the same prospect of endless, bloody stalemate – unless and until, under public pressure, Congress threatens to cut off the money (as in 1972-73), forcing the executive into a negotiated withdrawal.
To motivate voters and Congress to extricate us from these presidential wars, we need the Pentagon Papers of the Middle East wars right now. Not 40 years in the future. Not after even two or three more years of further commitment to stalemated and unjustifiable wars.
Yet, we’re not likely to get these ever within the time frame they’re needed. The WikiLeaks’ unauthorised disclosures of the last year are the first in 40 years to approach the scale of the Pentagon Papers (and even surpass them in quantity and timeliness). But unfortunately, the courageous source of these secret, field-level reports – Private Bradley Manning is the one accused, though that remains to be proven in court – did not have access to top secret, high-level recommendations, estimates and decisions.
Very, very few of those who do have such access are willing to risk their clearances and careers – and the growing possibility (under President Obama) of prosecution – by documenting to Congress and the public even policies that they personally believe are disastrous and wrongly kept secret and lied about. I was one – and far from alone – with such access and such views, as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs in the Pentagon in 1964-65. (My immediate boss John T McNaughton, Robert McNamara’s primary assistant on Vietnam, was another; as documented in the recent publication of his personal diary.)
I’ve long regretted that it didn’t even occur to me, in August 1964, to release the documents in my Pentagon safe giving the lie to claims of an “unequivocal, unprovoked” (unreal) attack on our destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf: precursors of the “evidence beyond any doubt” of nonexistent WMDs in Iraq, which manipulated Congress, once again, to pass the exact counterpart of the Tonkin Gulf resolution.
Senator Morse – one of the two senators who had voted against that unconstitutional, undated blank cheque for presidential war in 1964 – told me that if I had provided him with that evidence at the time (instead of 1969, when I finally provided it to the senate foreign relations committee, on which he had served): “The Tonkin Gulf resolution would never have gotten out of committee; and if it had been brought to the floor, it would have been voted down.”
That’s a heavy burden for me to bear: especially when I reflect that, by September, I had a drawer-full of the top secret documents (again, regrettably, not published until 1971) proving the fraudulence of Johnson’s promises of “no wider war” in his election campaign, and his actual determination to escalate a war that he privately and realistically regarded as unwinnable.
Had I or one of the scores of other officials who had the same high-level information acted then on our oath of office – which was not an oath to obey the president, nor to keep the secret that he was violating his own sworn obligations, but solely an oath “to support and defend the constitution of the United States” – that terrible war might well have been averted altogether. But to hope to have that effect, we would have needed to disclose the documents when they were current, before the escalation – not five or seven, or even two, years after the fateful commitments had been made.
A lesson to be drawn from reading the Pentagon Papers, knowing all that followed or has come out in the years since, is this. To those in the Pentagon, state department, the White House, CIA (and their counterparts in Britain and other Nato countries) who have similar access to mine then and foreknowledge of disastrous escalations in our wars in the Middle East, I would say:
Don’t make my mistake. Don’t do what I did. Don’t wait until a new war has started in Iran, until more bombs have fallen in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, Libya, Iraq or Yemen. Don’t wait until thousands more have died, before you go to the press and to Congress to tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes or internal projections of costs and dangers. Don’t wait 40 years for it to be declassified, or seven years as I did for you or someone else to leak it.
The personal risks are great. But a war’s worth of lives might be saved.
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Nuclear Weapons: 20 Facts They Don’t Want You to Think About
Nuclear arsenals: who wants them? – A coterie of politicians.
Why do they want them? – For the illusion of power and to feed their egos.
How do they keep them? – By fostering a culture of fear.
How do they do that? – By positing a Threatening and Unknown Future.
There are 5 primary nuclear weapons states (and four others from proliferation). The politicians of these 5 nuclear states put the future of the citizens of all the other 187 states of the UN at risk as well as their own citizens because of their insistence in keeping their nuclear arsenals.
In no case have the citizens been asked if they want these arsenals.
The reason these politicians want these Armageddon weapons is because they believe it gives them stature and power; makes them players; gets their feet under the top table. For this perceived personal benefit they are prepared to put the survival of the human race at risk.
Nuclear arsenals are the ruthless tools of power-fixated individuals.
In order to keep their arsenals, these individuals must keep the citizens in ignorance. We have a vague dread of these things and what they can do. Humanity has a residual group memory of the unspeakable suffering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But this is very scary. We don’t want to think about it. And that suits the power junkies just fine. Ignorance is power – for the junkies – but not the citizens.
If the truth about nuclear weapons was known there would be millions demonstrating in cities round the world. The arsenals would be dismantled. (By ‘known’ is meant really known; not just an idea in our heads. Known in the way we know a loved person has died or we have been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease).
The effects of nuclear explosions on people defy the imagination and our ability (and willingness) to contemplate such degrees of human suffering. But how can we make rational judgements if we do not face the nightmarish facts?
Reciting facts will not ensure the necessary degree of knowing. But it is a start – the basis for critical evaluation.
So here are 20 facts they don’t want you to think about:-
- There are at least 23,000 nuclear weapons (1) in existence: sufficient to wipe out the entire human population of the planet many times over.
- Of the 23,000 nuclear weapons in existence around 2,500 are on High Alert (2). This means they are ready to be launched at a moment’s notice.
- The missiles delivering nuclear weapons to their target travel at faster than 1000 miles in 4 minutes (3).
- The only way our armed forces have of knowing if a nuclear attack is in progress is through an electronic early warning system. This system, like all electronic systems, is subject to malfunction.
- When the electronic warning system signals that a nuclear attack is in progress the military chiefs of staff have a matter of minutes to decide if the warning is true or false.
- If the chiefs of staff instruct the Prime Minister/President that an attack is in progress he has a matter of minutes to decide if this information is reliable and to press the button launching a retaliatory strike.
- Central London would be utterly destroyed by a single megaton bomb (4).
- One such bomb would, due to the blast alone, cause 98% deaths from Westminster to the City of London and from Lambeth to Marylebone (4).
- A modelled attack on Detroit (5) (when the population was 1.32 million) predicted that a single 1 megaton bomb exploded above the city would cause up to 630,000 deaths and injuries from blast alone. 83% of the population would be immediately killed or injured. Many of the remaining population would die or suffer terribly from the effects of radioactive fallout.
- One 5 megaton nuclear bomb has as much explosive power as all the explosives used in the second world war (6).
- If a nuclear power station or nuclear waste disposal site were the target of a nuclear attack it has been estimated that the resulting contamination would cover an area nearly 3 times that of Wales (7).
- Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki referred to the pain and suffering as ‘indescribable’ and ‘hell on earth’. Eventually some survivors of Hiroshima arrived in hospital elsewhere. Such was their degree of suffering that when a nurse entered the ward they screamed for her to kill them (8).
- There have been various crises since 1945 when the world came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war. Our luck will run out. The system is held primed at all times.
- In one crisis a single man saved the world from destruction. If Stanislav Petrov, in 1983 had told his Russian superiors that his electronic monitors were signalling a massive nuclear attack from the US there would have been a global nuclear war (9). He did not tell them and the signals turned out to have been due to a malfunction.
- A nuclear war would cause a blanket of particles in the atmosphere that would blot out the sun’s rays and result in the death of the vegetation on which life depends. This would be in addition to the death to people, animals and plants caused by the explosive power, the radiation and the shockwaves.
- Each of the weapons carried on the UK Trident submarine is 7 times more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb which killed 140,000. The UK Trident submarine carries 16 Trident missiles. Each missile can contain 3 No. 100 kiloton weapons. A single submarine is designed to carry over 300 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
- The nuclear weapons on a single Trident submarine can destroy over 40 million people (extrapolating from Hiroshima).
- The UK nuclear arsenal alone has the destructive power to destroy over 80% of the 195 capital cities of the world (10, 11).
- We in the UK have 4 Trident submarines; our ally, the US, has 14 (12).
- Trident renewal will cost the taxpayer 97 thousand million pounds yet it is totally useless in opposing any real existing threat (13).
We ignored the threats from the banking system until the first banks started to collapse. Then we took emergency action.
We are behaving in the same way with the immeasurably more dangerous nuclear weapons arsenals. If we wait till the first nuclear weapons are launched no emergency action will help the millions of dead and dying. Our power-obsessed politicians will have done their irretrievable worst.
1. http://www.abolition2000uk.org/Blackaby%208%20final%20complete%20with%20cover.pdf
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-alert_nuclear_weapon
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:James_Kemp/Trident_missile
4. Based on medact report ‘The medical consequences of nuclear weapons’, http://www.medact.org/content/nuclear/Medical%20Consequences%20of%20Nuclear%20Weapons%2007.pdf
5. Medact report, p21
7. Medact report, ‘The medical consequences of nuclear weapons’
8. See film ‘White |Light, Black Rain’ by Japanese director Steven Okazaki and book ‘Hibakusha’ by George Marshall and Gaynor Sekimori
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
10. http://geography.about.com/od/countryinformation/a/capitals.htm
11. http://www.abolition2000uk.org/Blackaby%208%20final%20complete%20with%0cover.pdf
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(missile)
13. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/peace/trident-costs-are-running-out-control-20090917
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How Many Nuclear Weapons Still Threaten Humanity?
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is one of the most authoritative institutes in the world on issues of war and peace. The recently-released 2011 SIPRI Yearbook provides estimates of the number of nuclear weapons in the world. It finds that only four countries have deployed nuclear warheads, by which it means warheads placed on missiles or located on bases with operational forces. Two of these countries are the US and Russia, which have 2,150 and 2,427 deployed nuclear weapons, respectively. Under the terms of the New Start agreement, ratified in 2010, each country is required to reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 by the year 2017. The other two countries with deployed nuclear weapons, according to SIPRI, are the UK with 160 deployed weapons and France with 290 deployed weapons.
The total number of deployed nuclear weapons in the world stands at 5,027 in 2011. Of these, SIPRI estimates that some 2,000 are kept on high operational alert, ready to be fired within moments of an order to do so.
In addition to its deployed nuclear weapons, the US has 6,350 additional weapons for a total of 8,500. Russia has 8,570 additional weapons for a total of 11,000. The UK has an additional 65 weapons for a total of 225. France has an additional 10, for a total of 300. Four other countries have only non-deployed nuclear weapons, according to SIPRI: China with 240; India with 80-100; Pakistan with 90-110; and Israel with 80.
SIPRI does not list North Korea among the countries having a stockpile of nuclear weapons, although relatively small nuclear devices have been tested by North Korea in 2006 and 2009. SIPRI acknowledges that there is a widespread belief that North Korea has separated enough plutonium for a small number of nuclear weapons, but indicates there is controversy over the amount of plutonium they have separated and the yield of their nuclear tests. They also point out that “doubts persist about whether North Korea has the design and engineering skills needed to manufacture a fully functional operational nuclear weapon.” It seems highly likely to me, however, that North Korea possesses a small number of nuclear weapons and is the ninth nuclear weapon state.
Between 2010 and 2011, the US reduced its nuclear stockpile from 9,600 to 8,500. During the same period, Russia reduced its stockpile from 12,000 to 11,000. While the US and Russia were reducing their arsenals, the UK, France, China and Israel were holding steady at lower levels. India and Pakistan, on the other hand, were increasing the sizes of their arsenals: India from 60-80 to 80-110, and Pakistan from 70-90 to 90-110. Overall, the total number of nuclear weapons in the world decreased from 22,600 to 20,530.
The trends are these: modest reductions by the US and Russia, indicating a continuing commitment to maintaining their nuclear arsenals at a relatively high level of overkill; no reductions by the UK, France, China and Israel, indicating a continuing commitment to retaining their arsenals at current levels, at least until more substantial progress in reductions is made by the US and Russia; and increases in the arsenals of India and Pakistan, indicating a continuing nuclear arms race in South Asia.
The modest reductions made by the US and Russia and the further reductions agreed to by the two countries in the New START agreement are offset by their commitments to modernizing their nuclear arsenals and improving their systems of delivery. A SIPRI media statement pointed out that “both countries currently are deploying new nuclear weapon delivery systems or have announced programs to do so, and appear determined to retain their nuclear arsenals into the indefinite future.”
Regarding India and Pakistan, the SIPRI statement pointed out that they “continue to develop new ballistic and cruise missile systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons” and that both countries “are also expanding their capacities to produce fissile material for military purposes.” Other experts have done simulations of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan with 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons and have estimated that it could lead to a blocking of sunlight and lowering of temperatures, causing widespread drought and crop failure, resulting in some one billion deaths around the world.
While there are some ten percent fewer nuclear weapons in the world from 2010 to 2011, it is not time to breathe a sigh of relief at what has been accomplished. The overall trend is toward fewer nuclear weapons, but weapons and delivery systems that are more highly modernized – what the US refers to for itself as a “safe, secure and effective nuclear stockpile.” In reality, the only type of stockpile that will meet the criteria of being “safe, secure and effective” will be a global stockpile of zero nuclear weapons. Any number other than zero will continue to present unacceptable risks to humanity. What is needed now is a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, for the “safe, secure and effective” elimination of all nuclear weapons. The US and Russia, the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals, should be providing the leadership to achieve this goal.
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Our Salvation Requires that We Grasp the Danger of Nuclear Weapons
This article was originally published by Project Syndicate.
One of the most dispiriting features of today’s international debates is that the threat to humanity posed by the world’s 23,000 nuclear weapons – and by those who would build more of them, or be only too willing to use them – has been consigned to the margin of politics.
U.S. President Barack Obama did capture global attention with his Prague speech in 2009, which made a compelling case for a nuclear weapon-free world. And he did deliver on a major new arms-reduction treaty with Russia, and hosted a summit aimed at reducing the vulnerability of nuclear weapons and materials to theft or diversion.
But nuclear issues still struggle for public resonance and political traction. It would take a brave gambler to bet on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the U.S. Senate any time soon.
The film “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Academy Award, led to a Nobel Prize for Al Gore, and attracted huge international attention to the disastrous impact of climate change. But “Countdown to Zero,” an equally compelling documentary, made by the same production team and making shockingly clear how close and how often the world has come to nuclear catastrophe, has come and gone almost without trace.
Complacency trumps anxiety almost everywhere. Japan’s Fukushima disaster has generated a massive debate about the safety of nuclear power, but not about nuclear weapons. Fear of a nuclear holocaust seems to have ended with the Cold War.
Indeed, Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem an eternity ago; new nuclear-weapons states have emerged without the world ending; no terrorist nuclear device has threatened a major city; and possession of nuclear weapons, for the states that have them, seems to be a source of comfort and pride rather than concern or embarrassment. With only a handful of exceptions, the current generation of political leaders shows little interest in disarmament, and not much more in non-proliferation. And their publics are not pressuring them to behave otherwise.
Few have worked harder to shake the world out of its complacency than four of the hardest-nosed realists ever to hold public office: former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. In a series of opinion articles over the last five years, they have repeatedly sounded the alarm that the risks of nuclear weapons outweigh any possible usefulness in today’s security environment. Moreover, they have called for a complete rethinking of deterrence strategy, in order to minimize, and ultimately eliminate, reliance on the most indiscriminately destructive weapons ever invented.
Last week in London, the “gang of four” convened a private meeting with leading think-tank researchers and a worldwide cast of some 30 former foreign and defense ministers, generals, and ambassadors who share their concern and commitment. But our average age was over 65, and the limits of our effectiveness were neatly described by former British Defense Minister Des Browne: “People who used to be something really want to tackle this issue. The trouble is that those who are something don’t.”
No quick fix will turn all this around. Getting the kind of messages that emerged from the London meeting embedded in public and political consciousness is going to be slow boring through hard boards. But the messages demand attention, and we simply have to keep drilling.
The first message is that the threat of a nuclear weapons catastrophe remains alarmingly real. Existing global stockpiles have a destructive capacity equal to 150,000 Hiroshima bombs, and in handling them there is an omnipresent potential for human error, system error, or misjudgment under stress.
Pakistan versus India is a devastating conflict-in-waiting, and North Korea and Iran remain volatile sources of concern. We know that terrorist groups have the capacity to engineer nuclear devices and would explode them anywhere they could; we simply cannot be confident that we can forever deny them access to the fissile material they need to fuel them.
The second message is that Cold War nuclear-deterrence doctrine is irrelevant to today’s world. So long as nuclear weapons remain, states can justify maintaining a minimum nuclear-deterrent capability. But that can be done without weapons on high alert, and with drastically reduced arsenals in the case of the U.S. and Russia, and, at worst, at current levels for the other nuclear-armed states.
The third message is that if the existing nuclear powers sincerely want to prevent others from joining their club, they cannot keep justifying the possession of nuclear weapons as a means of protection for themselves or their allies against other weapons of mass destruction, especially biological weapons, or conventional weapons. Indeed, the single most difficult issue inhibiting serious movement toward disarmament – certainly in the case of Pakistan versus India, and Russia and China versus the United States – are conventional arms imbalances, and ways of addressing them must rise to the top of the policy agenda.
The final message is that neither piecemeal change nor sloganeering will do the job. Nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, counter-terrorism, and civil nuclear-energy risk reduction are inextricably connected, and they call for sustained commitment around a comprehensive agenda, and detailed argument. Sound bites and tweets are an unlikely route to nuclear salvation.
Kissinger is no idealist icon. But he’s always worth listening to, and never more so than with respect to the question that he has been asking for years: When the next nuclear-weapons catastrophe happens, as it surely will, the world will have to respond dramatically. Why can’t we start right now?
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Nuclear Insanity
This article was originally published by the Deccan Chronicle.
Fukushima has raised, once again, the perennial questions about human fallibility and human frailty, about human hubris and man’s arrogance in thinking he can control nature. The earthquakes, the tsunami, the meltdown at Japan’s nuclear power plant are nature’s reminders of her power.
The scientific and industrial revolution was based on the idea that nature is dead, and the earth inert matter. The tragedy in Japan is a wakeup call from Mother Nature — an alarm to tell us she is alive and powerful, and that humans are powerless in her path. The ruined harbours, villages and towns, the ships, aeroplanes and cars tossed away by the angry waves as if they were tiny toys are reminders that should correct the assumption that man can dominate over nature — with technology, tools and industrial infrastructure.
The Fukushima disaster invites us to revisit the human-nature relationship. It also raises questions about the so-called “nuclear renaissance” as an answer to the climate and energy crisis. President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Arjun Makhijani, speaking at Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, said that “nuclear renaissance” would need 300 reactors every week and two-three uranium enrichment plants every year. The spent fuel would contain 90,000 bombs of plutonium per year if separated. Water required would be 10-20 million litres per day.
Following the Fukushima disaster, China, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines are reviewing their nuclear power programmes. As Alexander Glaser, assistant professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, observes, “It will take time to grasp the full impact of the unimaginable human tragedy unfolding after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, but it is already clear that the proposition of a global nuclear renaissance ended on that day”.
Across India, movements are growing against old and new nuclear power plants. Nuclear power plants are proposed at Haripur (West Bengal), Mithi Virdi (Gujarat), Madban (Maharashtra), Pitti Sonapur (Orissa), Chutka (Madhya Pradesh) and Kavada (Andhra Pradesh).
The 9,900 MW Jaitapur nuclear power plant, consisting of six nuclear reactors in Madban village, Ratnagiri district, Maharashtra, will be the world’s largest nuclear power plant if built. French state-owned nuclear engineering firm Areva and Indian state-owned operator Nuclear Power Corporation of India signed a $22-billion agreement in December 2010, to build six nuclear reactors in the presence of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President, and Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister.
In the light of expected surge in orders following the France-India agreement, Areva started to hire 1,000 people a month.
Jaitapur is a seismically sensitive area and is prone to earthquakes. Yet, there is no plan for the disposal of 300 tonnes of nuclear waste that the plant will generate each year. The plant will require about 968 hectares of fertile agricultural land spread over five villages that the government claims is “barren”.
Jaitapur is one of many nuclear power plants proposed on a thin strip of fertile coast land of Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts — the estimated combined power generation will be 33,000 MW. This is the region that the Government of India wanted to be declared a world heritage site under the Man and Biosphere programme of Unesco. Villagers of the Konkan region have been protesting against the nuclear plant. They have formed Konkan Bachao Samiti and Janahit Seva Samiti and have refused to accept cheques for the forced land acquisition. Ten gram panchayats have resigned to protest the violation of the 73rd Amendment.
Jaitapur has been put under prohibitory orders and more than five people cannot gather. On April 18, 2011, policemen fired at protesters who were demonstrating against the proposed Nuclear Power Park at Jaitapur. One died and eight others were seriously injured. The 2,800 MW nuclear plant planned at Fatehbad, Haryana, involves the acquisition of 1,503 acre of fertile farmland. Eighty villages are protesting; two farmers have died during protests.
A nuclear power plant is planned in Chutkah, Madhya Pradesh, where 162 villages were earlier displaced by the Bargi dam. Forty-four villages are resisting the nuclear power plant. Dr Surender Gadakar, a physicist and anti-nuclear activist, describes nuclear power as a technology for boiling water that produces large quantities of poisons that need to be isolated from the environment for long durations of time. Plutonium, produced as nuclear waste, has a half life of 240,000 years, while the average life of nuclear reactors is 21 years. There is so far no proven safe system for nuclear waste disposal. Spent nuclear fuel has to be constantly cooled, and when cooling systems fail, we have a nuclear disaster. This is what happened at nuclear reactor 4 at Fukushima.
The focus on fossil fuels, CO2 emissions and climate change suddenly allowed nuclear energy to be offered as “clean” and “safe”. But as a technology, nuclear power consumes more energy than it generates if the energy for cooling spent fuel for thousands of years is taken into account. In India, the costs of nuclear energy become even higher because nuclear power plants must grab land and displace people. The Narora nuclear plant in Uttar Pradesh, which is a mere 125 km from Delhi, displaced five villages. In 1993, there was a major fire and near meltdown in Narora.
The highest cost of nuclear energy in India is the destruction of democracy and constitutional rights. Nuclear power must undermine democracy. We witnessed this during the process of signing the US-India Nuclear Agreement. We witnessed it in the “cash for votes” scandal during the no-confidence motion in Parliament. And we witness it wherever a new nuclear power plant is planned. Physicist Sowmya Dutta reminds us that the world has potential for 17 terra watt nuclear energy, 700 terra watt wind energy and 86,000 terra watt of solar energy. Alternatives to nuclear energy are thousand times more abundant and million times less risky. To push nuclear plants after Fukushima is pure insanity.