Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • How to Protect Our Nuclear Deterrent

    This article was originally published by the Wall Street Journal

    The four of us have come together, now joined by many others, to
    support a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to
    prevent their spread into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately to
    end them as a threat to the world. We do so in recognition of a clear
    and threatening development.

    The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how, and
    nuclear material has brought us to a tipping point. We face a very real
    possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into
    dangerous hands.

    But as we work to reduce nuclear weaponry and to realize the vision
    of a world without nuclear weapons, we recognize the necessity to
    maintain the safety, security and reliability of our own weapons. They
    need to be safe so they do not detonate unintentionally; secure so they
    cannot be used by an unauthorized party; and reliable so they can
    continue to provide the deterrent we need so long as other countries
    have these weapons. This is a solemn responsibility, given the extreme
    consequences of potential failure on any one of these counts.

    For the past 15 years these tasks have
    been successfully performed by the engineers and scientists at the
    nation’s nuclear-weapons production plants and at the three national
    laboratories (Lawrence Livermore in California, Los Alamos in New
    Mexico, and Sandia in New Mexico and California). Teams of gifted
    people, using increasingly powerful and sophisticated equipment, have
    produced methods of certifying that the stockpile meets the required
    high standards. The work of these scientists has enabled the secretary
    of defense and the secretary of energy to certify the safety, security
    and the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile every year since the
    certification program was initiated in 1995.

    The three labs in particular should be applauded for the success they
    have achieved in extending the life of existing weapons. Their work has
    led to important advances in the scientific understanding of nuclear
    explosions and obviated the need for underground nuclear explosive
    tests.

    Yet there are potential problems ahead, as identified by the
    Strategic Posture Commission led by former Defense Secretaries Perry and
    James R. Schlesinger. This commission, which submitted its report to
    Congress last year, calls for significant investments in a repaired and
    modernized nuclear weapons infrastructure and added resources for the
    three national laboratories.

    These investments are urgently needed to undo the adverse
    consequences of deep reductions over the past five years in the
    laboratories’ budgets for the science, technology and engineering
    programs that support and underwrite the nation’s nuclear deterrent. The
    United States must continue to attract, develop and retain the
    outstanding scientists, engineers, designers and technicians we will
    need to maintain our nuclear arsenal, whatever its size, for as long as
    the nation’s security requires it.

    This scientific capability is equally important to the long-term goal
    of achieving and maintaining a world free of nuclear weapons—with all
    the attendant expertise on verification, detection, prevention and
    enforcement that is required.

    Our recommendations for maintaining a safe, secure and reliable
    nuclear arsenal are consistent with the findings of a recently completed
    technical study commissioned by the National Nuclear Security
    Administration in the Department of Energy. This study was performed by
    JASON, an independent defense advisory group of senior scientists who
    had full access to the pertinent classified information.

    The JASON study found that the
    “[l]ifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades,
    with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using approaches similar to
    those employed in Life Extension Programs to date.” But the JASON
    scientists also expressed concern that “[a]ll options for extending the
    life of the nuclear weapons stockpile rely on the continuing maintenance
    and renewal of expertise and capabilities in science, technology,
    engineering, and production unique to the nuclear weapons program.” The
    study team said it was “concerned that this expertise is threatened by
    lack of program stability, perceived lack of mission importance, and
    degradation of the work environment.”

    These concerns can and must be addressed by providing adequate and
    stable funding for the program. Maintaining high confidence in our
    nuclear arsenal is critical as the number of these weapons goes down. It
    is also consistent with and necessary for U.S. leadership in
    nonproliferation, risk reduction, and arms reduction goals.

    By providing for the long-term investments required, we also
    strengthen trust and confidence in our technical capabilities to take
    the essential steps needed to reduce nuclear dangers throughout the
    globe. These steps include preventing proliferation and preventing
    nuclear weapons or weapons-usable material from getting into dangerous
    hands.

    If we are to succeed in avoiding these
    dangers, increased international cooperation is vital. As we work to
    build this cooperation, our friends and allies, as well as our
    adversaries, will take note of our own actions in the nuclear arena.
    Providing for this nation’s defense will always take precedence over all
    other priorities.

    Departures from our existing
    stewardship strategies should be taken when they are essential to
    maintain a safe, secure and effective deterrent. But as our colleague
    Bill Perry noted in his preface to America’s Strategic Posture report,
    we must “move in two parallel paths—one path which reduces nuclear
    dangers by maintaining our deterrence, and the other which reduces
    nuclear dangers through arms control and international programs to
    prevent proliferation.” Given today’s threats of nuclear proliferation
    and nuclear terrorism, these are not mutually exclusive imperatives. To
    protect our nation’s security, we must succeed in both.

    Beyond our concern about our own stockpile, we have a deep security
    interest in ensuring that all nuclear weapons everywhere are resistant
    to accidental detonation and to detonation by terrorists or other
    unauthorized users. We should seek a dialogue with other states that
    possess nuclear weapons and share our safety and security concepts and
    technologies consistent with our own national security.

  • Nuclear Hero’s ‘Crime’ was Making Us Safer

    Mordechai Vanunu — my friend, my hero, my brother — has
    again been arrested in Israel on "suspicion" of the "crime" of "meeting
    with foreigners." I myself have been complicit in this offense,
    traveling twice to Israel for the express purpose of meeting with him,
    openly, and expressing support for the actions for which he was
    imprisoned for over eighteen years. His offense has been to defy, openly
    and repeatedly, conditions put on his freedom of movement and
    associations and speech after he had served his full sentence,
    restrictions on his human rights which were a direct carry-over from
    the British Mandate, colonial regulations in clear violation of the
    Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Such restrictions have no place
    in a nation evincing respect for a rule of law and fundamental human
    rights. His arrest and confinement are outrages and should be ended
    immediately.

    My
    perspective on Mordechai and his behavior was expressed as well as I
    could do it today in the following op-ed published in 2004 on the day
    of his release from prison. I can only say that I would be proud to be
    known as the American Vanunu: though my own possible sentence of 115
    years for revealing state secrets was averted by disclosure of
    government misconduct against me which pales next to the Israeli
    misconduct in assaulting, drugging and kidnapping Vanunu in the process
    of bringing him to trial, let alone the eleven years of solitary
    confinement he was forced to endure.

    From the Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2004:

    Mordechai
    Vanunu is the preeminent hero of the nuclear era. He consciously risked
    all he had in life to warn his own country and the world of the true
    extent of the nuclear danger facing us. And he paid the full price, a
    burden in many ways worse than death, for his heroic act — for doing
    exactly what he should have done and what others should be doing.

    Vanunu's
    "crime" was committed in 1986, when he gave the London Sunday Times a
    series of photos he had taken within the Israeli nuclear weapons
    facility at Dimona, where he had worked as a technician.

    For
    that act — revealing that his country's program and stockpile were much
    larger than the CIA or others had estimated — Vanunu was kidnapped from
    the Rome airport by agents of the Israeli Mossad and secretly
    transported back for a closed trial in which he was sentenced to 18
    years in prison.

    He
    spent the first 11 1/2  years in solitary confinement in a 6-by-9-foot
    cell, an unprecedented term of solitary under conditions that Amnesty
    International called "cruel, inhuman and degrading."

    Now,
    after serving his full term, he is due to be released today. But his
    "unfreedom" is to be continued by restrictions on his movements and his
    contacts: He cannot leave Israel, he will be confined to a single town,
    he cannot communicate with foreigners face to face or by phone, fax or
    e-mail (purely punitive conditions because any classified information
    that he may have possessed is by now nearly two decades old).

    The
    irony of all this is that no country in the world has a stronger stake
    than Israel in preventing nuclear proliferation, above all in the
    Middle East. Yet Israel's secret nuclear policies — to this day it does
    not acknowledge that it possesses such weapons — are shortsighted and
    self-destructive. They promote rather than block proliferation by
    encouraging the country's neighbors to develop their own, comparable
    weapons.

    This
    will not change without public mobilization and democratic pressure,
    which in turn demand public awareness and discussion. It was precisely
    this that Vanunu sought to stimulate.

    Not
    in Israel or in any other case — not that of the U.S., Russia, England,
    France, China, India or Pakistan — has the decision to become a nuclear
    weapons state ever been made democratically or even with the knowledge
    of the full Cabinet. It is likely that in an open discussion not one of
    these states could convince its own people or the rest of the world
    that it had a legitimate reason for possessing as many warheads as the
    several hundred that Israel allegedly has (far beyond any plausible
    requirement for deterrence).

    More
    Vanunus are urgently needed. That is true not only in Israel but in
    every nuclear weapons state, declared and undeclared. Can anyone fail
    to recognize the value to world security of a heroic Pakistani, Indian,
    Iraqi, Iranian or North Korean Vanunu making comparable revelations?

    And
    the world's need for such secret-telling is not limited to citizens of
    what nuclear weapons states presumptuously call rogue nations. Every
    nuclear weapons state has secret policies, aims, programs and plans
    that contradict its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation
    Treaty and the 1995 Declaration of Principles agreed to at the NPT
    Renewal Conference. Every official with knowledge of these violations
    could and should consider doing what Vanunu did.

    That
    is what I should have done in the early '60s based on what I knew about
    the secret nuclear planning and practices of the United States when I
    consulted at the Defense Department, on loan from the Rand Corp., on
    problems of nuclear command and control. I drafted the Secretary of
    Defense Guidance to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the general nuclear
    war plans, and the extreme dangers of our practices and plan were apparent to me.

    I
    now feel derelict for wrongfully keeping secret the documents in my
    safe revealing this catastrophically reckless posture. But I did not
    then have Vanunu's example to guide me.

    When
    I finally did have an example in front of me — that of young Americans
    who were choosing to go to prison rather than participate in what I too
    knew was a hopeless, immoral war — I was inspired in 1971 to turn over
    a top-secret history of presidential lies about the war in Vietnam to
    19 newspapers. I regret only that I didn't do it earlier, before the
    bombs started falling.

    Vanunu
    should long since have been released from solitary and from prison, not
    because he has "suffered enough" but because what he did was the
    correct and courageous thing to do in the face of the foreseeable
    efforts to silence and punish him.

    The
    outrageous and illegal restrictions proposed to be inflicted on him
    when he finally steps out of prison after 18 years should be widely
    protested and rejected, not only because they violate his fundamental
    human rights but because the world needs to hear this man's voice.

    The cult and culture of secrecy in every nuclear weapons state
    have endangered humanity and continues to threaten its survival.
    Vanunu's challenge to that wrongful and dangerous secrecy must be
    joined worldwide.

  • Nuclear Terrorism: How It Can Be Prevented

    The recent furor over an unsuccessful terrorist attempt to blow up an airliner is distracting us from considering the possibility of a vastly more destructive terrorist act: exploding a nuclear weapon in a heavily-populated area.

    Such a disaster — which would kill hundreds of thousands of people — is not a remote possibility at all.  Although terrorist groups do not have the fissile material (that is, material capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction) necessary to build nuclear weapons on their own, they have been trying to obtain such weapons, either by purchase or theft, for decades.  According to the U.S.government, Osama bin Laden sought to acquire nuclear weapons at least since 1992.  Not only have there been dozens of thefts and sales of fissile material to potential terrorists (all of whom were supposedly arrested), but a significant number of nuclear weapons have been “lost” by nuclear-armed nations.  In addition, if either nuclear weapons or fissile material were available to overseas terrorists, it would not be very difficult to smuggle them into the United States.

    In 2004, when Dr. Graham Allison — founding dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former top Pentagon official — published his classic study, Nuclear Terrorism:  The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, he argued that if governments continued their past policies, a nuclear terrorist attack was inevitable.  The problem, as he saw it, reflected a combination of terrorist activity, the ease of smuggling weapons across U.S.borders, and the accessibility of nuclear weapons and fissile materials. 

    Unfortunately, not much has changed since that time.  Terrorism, of course, shows no sign of disappearing.  Even if the “war on terror” produced a significant decline in terrorism (which it shows no sign of doing) and even if proper intelligence and police work reduced the number of terrorist activities, some terrorist acts almost certainly would continue, as they have for centuries.  Furthermore, as we have seen in the case of immigration, securing U.S.borders is not an easy task, and perfect security seems unlikely to be obtained.   

    But what about the third leg of the problem:  the accessibility of nuclear weapons and fissile materials?  Not much has been done about this.  But a lot could be done.

    Allison focused particularly on securing fissile material.  As he put it:  “No fissile material, no nuclear explosion, no nuclear terrorism.  It is that simple.”  He explained:  “There is a vast — but not unlimited — amount of it in the world, and it is within our power to keep it secure.”  Actually, in recent years there has been a tightening up of governmental controls over fissile material.  Also, there has been significant interest by the U.S.government and others in negotiating a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.  During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain endorsed such a treaty, and since then both have spoken out in favor of it.

    Then, of course, there is the possibility of eliminating the vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons accumulated by nine nations.  At the moment, there are some 23,000 nuclear weapons in existence (mostly in Russia and the United States) — ripe pickings for any would-be mass murderer.  Any significant reduction in their number would significantly reduce the opportunities for nuclear terrorism.  And their elimination would wipe out these opportunities entirely.  To draw upon Allison’s phrasing:  no nuclear weapons, no nuclear explosion, no nuclear terrorism.

    Of course, there are other good reasons to eliminate nuclear weapons, as well, including the danger of nuclear war.  Doubtless this point will be on the minds of many government officials and citizens alike as the world prepares for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference this coming May, at the United Nations.  The U.N. conference will consider the treaty pledges of non-nuclear nations to forgo nuclear weapons and the treaty pledges of nuclear nations to divest themselves of these implements of mass destruction.

    Even so, the ongoing danger of nuclear terrorism provides yet another reason to rid the world of fissile material and its final, terrible product, nuclear weapons.  Let’s not forget that.

  • Origin, Nature and Current Size of Nuclear Weapons Programs

    Proliferation_Table.pdf

  • A Brief History of Nuclear Proliferation

    Proliferation_History.pdf

  • 2010: A Peace Odyssey?

    This article was originally published on Truthout.

    Another year brings another war, so it would seem. Already in the works beforehand, but now hastened by the Christmas “underwear bomber,” we are swiftly moving down a road that could lead straight to another front in the generational war without end. The al-Qaeda bogeyman rears its head, and we respond like clockwork. All aboard folks – next stop, Yemen.

    Is this really the most effective way to make national policy and decide the fates of others around the world? When a suggestible and misguided youth attempts an asinine act, does that mean we automatically must respond in kind with foolhardy actions of our own? This has led to disastrous effects already in the Global War on Terror, and equally troubling alterations in the fabric of society here at home. Simply put, if we let the terrorists dictate our course of action, then we have already lost the moral high ground and the upper hand in the larger conflict as well, as Patrick Cockburn suggests in a cogent essay on the situation in Yemen:

    “In Yemen the US is walking into the al-Qa’ida trap. Once there it will face the same dilemma it faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It became impossible to exit these conflicts because the loss of face would be too great. Just as Washington saved banks and insurance giants from bankruptcy in 2008 because they were ‘too big to fail,’ so these wars become too important to lose because to do so would damage the US claim to be the sole super power…. But the danger of claiming spurious victories is that such distortions of history make it impossible for the US to learn from past mistakes and instead to repeat them by intervening in other countries such as Yemen.”

    Consider that we are still embroiled in an escalating war in Afghanistan as a direct response to the events of 9/11. Iraq, of course, was folded into this “terror-response” logic by the Bush administration despite clear evidence to the contrary. Pakistan has now become the new Cambodia to Afghanistan’s Vietnam in the current war that echoes actions of the past. And, now, we have our sights set on Yemen as the next front, which Marwan Bishara contends will almost inevitably lead to disastrous effects that serve to exacerbate the conditions that yield terrorism:

    “[O]ver the last several months, Yemen has emerged as the latest front. Reportedly, the US air force has participated in the bombardment of several locations in Yemen and spent tens of millions of dollars. But since the Nigerian man was apparently trained in Yemeni camps that are less threatened than Afghanistan, one can expect this war front to be expanded sooner rather than later. Waging another war in or through Yemen could prove, as in Afghanistan, untenable as the country could descend into chaos. With war against the Houthis in the north, tensions with the secessionists in the south, and the regime’s tenuous hold on power, Yemen could implode.”

    If the United States is truly to be a global leader, we are setting a poor example through our war-making policies. We are essentially mere followers in this dynamic, letting the terrorists set the agenda and walking right into the response they expect and desire from us. Recall that up front it was al-Qaeda’s stated intention to bleed America’s moral and economic resources dry by provoking us into direct military interventions in Muslim nations. By choosing the retaliatory option, we are playing precisely into their hands, and thus relinquishing the mantle of leadership.

    Similar patterns have taken hold at home. On the heels of 9/11, a fundamental reorientation of the delicate balance between liberty and security ensued. Rights of privacy, due process, habeas corpus and presumed innocence have been lost, perhaps permanently, as the constitutional architecture of two centuries eroded under our feet. Now, following the botched Christmas attack, we are likely to see a ramping up of the security apparatus, including privacy-impinging actions such as pat-downs and full-body scans. Not to mention, of course, the commitment of more resources to continue fighting the war that the terrorists wanted to goad us into all along.

    It is a grim picture coming out of 2009, but the symbolic relief of calendar change can be a powerful curative. I would like to suggest that 2010 can become a critical turning point year toward peace and prosperity if we focus our energies positively and proactively. Here are just a few suggestions for moving in that direction and making the new year one that history will recall as the beginning of the end of a mindset that has plunged the world into perpetual warfare.

    The Peace Dividend: Whatever your views on war, one thing most people can agree on is the desire to live peaceful and productive lives. This includes the existence of an economy in which ordinary people can prosper and be assured of fairness in their wages, investments and expected contributions. The war ethos has shifted trillions of dollars from public to private coffers, and it has stimulated not economic growth, but a global recession. Ending war means more resources for education, health care, community development and environmental protection – all of which promise better prospects for a peaceful world than does the path we have been on until now.

    Cultural Exchange: The high-speed potential of both the Internet and international travel has opened up – perhaps for the first time in human history – the possibility of realizing a truly global society. This does not entail giving up autonomy or sovereignty, but asks only that we remain open to and appreciate the remarkable cultural diversity of our world. The more we become educated in this regard, learning about the myriad ways in which people everywhere share similar hopes and desires despite their unique cultures, the more we will opt for peace.

    Politics Is People: For too long we have abdicated control over our lives and fortunes to remote representatives who have failed to adequately protect and promote our interests. Party politics is passé at this point, with the clarity of insight that lobbyists and corporate concerns have essentially purchased a controlling interest in politicians of all stripes. The saving grace in our system is that “the people” retain the ultimate political power, despite repeated attempts to undermine this constitutional gift from our forebears. This power is electoral, but perhaps even more importantly, it is personal, with each of us asked to make numerous daily choices regarding how we will exercise it. Simply put, we can watch peace, purchase peace, eat peace, drive peace and learn peace if we have the will to do so. And, then, politics will have no choice but to follow.

    There are many more notions along these lines, which I will leave to your imaginations to develop and implement. The basic point is that we stand today at a critical juncture, and can ill afford to slide blithely back into apathy and torpor if we are to avert that proverbial iceberg sitting just ahead on our present heading. Let history record that 2010 was the year we steered clear and instead charted a new course for ourselves and the world toward peace in our time.

  • Become a Peace Leader and Change the World

    I’d like you to learn the skills to do something great in your life, to make a difference in the world by becoming a peace leader.  What could be a greater or more satisfying challenge than working to make the world more peaceful and just?

    Leadership begins with thinking big, with having dreams and goals that are larger than one person can accomplish.  Nearly all important goals may seem like impossible dreams until someone comes along and dreams them.  Leadership requires a vision of a better future and at least a rough idea of a plan to achieve the vision.  It requires convincing others that the vision is worth pursuing and the plan makes sense.  Leadership is about moving people to action.  It is best accomplished by persuasion and by setting the right example for others.  Leadership has the power of mobilization.  

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) Peace Leadership Program is organized and led by Paul Chappell.  Paul is a dynamic young leader who graduated from West Point in 2002 and served in the Army until 2009.  He is deeply committed to building a peaceful world and training new peace leaders.  He has written an important book, Will War Ever End? A Soldier’s Vision of Peace for the 21st Century (Weston, Connecticut: Ashoka Books, 2009).

    NAPF Peace Leadership Program seeks to train people to be leaders working for a more just and peaceful world.  At the Foundation, we believe that each of us has leadership potential that can be developed and put into practice.  What does it take to become an effective peace leader?  First, a passion to change the world.  Second, a commitment to work toward the needed change.  Third, the ability to inspire others to join in the effort.  Finally and above all, leadership requires persistence.  

    Achieving any great goal cannot be done overnight.  It takes hard work.  There will undoubtedly be obstacles that must be overcome.  Someone must hold the vision and inspire others by rolling up his or her sleeves and working to make progress.  Someone must lead.  Why not you?  

    I encourage you to learn more about the Foundation’s Peace Leadership Program by signing up for the program and learning the skills that will allow you to contribute to creating a better world.  The world is waiting for you!

  • 2010 to Be Key Year in Fight Against Nuclear Arms

    This article was originally published by Reuters

    Next year will be crucial for global nuclear non-proliferation efforts and all eyes will be on the United States and Russia to see if the two top atomic powers can reach a deal to reduce their arsenals.

    In April, U.S. President Barack Obama declared in a speech in Prague that the United States was committed “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” In September he chaired a meeting of the U.N. Security Council that unanimously supported this vision.

    Analysts and Western government officials say Obama’s ability to begin
    delivering on his promise will be tested next year when Moscow and Washington resume haggling on an arms reduction pact and again at a key U.N. nuclear arms conference in May.

    They say success of a month-long review of the troubled 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
    (NPT) will depend largely on whether U.S. and Russian negotiators can
    first agree on a successor pact to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction
    Treaty (START I).

    START I, signed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, officially expired on Dec. 5. Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said last week in Copenhagen that they would keep working for a deal in 2010.

    “The START follow-on agreement, which appears to be nearing a
    conclusion, won’t dramatically reduce arsenals on either side, but it
    will be an important demonstration of the will to move toward
    disarmament,” said Mark Fitzpatrick of the London-based International Institute For Strategic Studies.

    Fitzpatrick added that the “absolute deadline” for a new agreement was
    May, when the NPT review conference opens in New York. Otherwise it
    will “start off in a deep hole,” he said.

    The last NPT review conference in May 2005 ended in failure. Many delegates blamed the collapse on the the United States, Iran and Egypt, accusing them of forming an unholy alliance that divided delegations and wasted time bickering over procedure.

    They said the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush focused too much on the perceived atomic threats posed by Iran and North Korea while Tehran and other developing nations accused Washington and the other four nuclear powers of reneging on disarmament commitments.

    CONCERNS ABOUT IRAN AND NORTH KOREA

    If Russia and the United States can send the world a clear signal that they are serious about nuclear disarmament by getting a new pact to shrink their Cold War
    stockpiles, the NPT may get a new lease on life when its 189
    signatories gather to discuss ways of closing what some see as
    dangerous loopholes.

    The United States, Britain, France, Russia
    and China all have a special status under the NPT. They were allowed to
    keep their weapons but pledged to launch disarmament negotiations, a
    promise some non-nuclear weapons states say they have ignored.

    Western powers would like next year’s NPT review to agree on a plan of
    action for beefing up the treaty to make it harder for states like Iran
    and North Korea to acquire sensitive technology and the capability to
    produce nuclear weapons.

    But rich and poor nations have been at loggerheads for years. Poor states accuse the big powers of keeping a monopoly on nuclear technology and want that to end.

    Wealthy states worry about the threat of nuclear arms races in Asia and in the Middle East, where Israel
    is widely believed to have a nuclear arsenal although it has not
    acknowledged it. They fear that a renaissance of atomic energy
    worldwide will increase nuclear proliferation risks.

    Many NPT signatories would also like the review conference to call for universality of the treaty — meaning that Israel, Pakistan
    and India should be pressured to sign and get rid of any warheads they
    have. North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and tested nuclear
    devices in 2006 and earlier this year.

    NUCLEAR TEST-BAN TREATY

    Some analysts say it would be helpful for the Obama administration to
    resubmit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a pact that would
    ban all nuclear testing, to the Senate for ratification before the NPT review begins.

    Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, a U.S.-based peace and security foundation, said ratification of the treaty was viewed by most nations as “the litmus test of U.S. commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.”

    The CTBT was rejected by a Republican-dominated Senate in 1999. The Bush administration
    never resubmitted it because it did not want to subscribe to a treaty
    that would limit its future testing options, a position Obama has
    reversed.

    A U.S. official told Reuters Obama was already sounding out
    Senators to gauge support for the test-ban treaty and believed a
    bipartisan consensus was emerging in favor of ratifying it.

    The head of the CTBT organization in Vienna, Tibor Toth, told
    Reuters U.S. ratification would send a strong signal to the other eight
    countries that need to ratify the treaty for it to come into force —
    China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.

    “The U.S. ratification will be a game-changer,” Toth said.

  • Opportunity Lost: Obama in Oslo

    This article was originally published by Consortium News

    Whether
    Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize is not the point. He didn’t. The
    fact is he got it, and was gifted with the chance of a lifetime to make
    a classic speech on the politics of peace-making, a speech that in the
    glare of Nobel could have attained instant biblical standing.

    He failed miserably, producing a hodge-podge that resembled the work of a bright but undisciplined sophomore.

    He hoisted his petard on the classical
    “just war theory,” a theory that, properly understood, condemns his
    decision to send yet more kill-power into Afghanistan.

    This theory which is much misused and
    little understood is designed to build a wall of assumptions against
    state-sponsored violence, i.e. war. It puts the burden of proof on the
    warrior where it belongs.

    It gives six conditions necessary to justify a war. Fail one, and the war is immoral. The six are:

    (1) A just cause.
    The only just cause is defense against an attack, not a preemptive
    attack on those who might someday attack us. Obama flunked this one,
    saying our current military actions are “to defend ourselves and all
    nations from further [i.e. future] attacks.” President Bush speaks here
    through the mouth of President Obama.

    (2) Declaration by competent authority:
    Article one Section 8 of the Constitution which gives this power to the
    Congress has not been used since 1941. Congressional resolutions
    instead yield the power to the President.

    Obama: “I am
    responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to
    battle in a distant land.” Sorry. Not according to the Constitution.

    On top of that we are bound by treaty to
    the United Nations Charter. Article 2, Section 4 prohibits recourse to
    military force except in circumstances of self-defense which was
    restricted to responses to a prior “armed attack” (Article 51), and
    only then until the Security Council had the chance to review the
    claim.

    Obama fails twice on proper declaration
    of war. He violates the UN Charter by claiming the right to act
    “unilaterally” and “individually.” Again, faithful echoes of President
    Bush.

    (3) Right intention: This means that there is reasonable surety that the war will succeed in serving justice and making a way to real peace.

    Right intention is befouled by excessive
    secrecy, by putting the burdens of the war on the poor or future
    generations, by denying the right to conscientious object to soldiers
    who happen to know most of what is going on, and by a failure to
    understand the enemy’s grievances.

    Obama declares gratuitously:
    “Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their
    arms.” So all we can do is send soldiers to kill them? Really? What
    negotiations have been tried to find out why they hate us and not
    Sweden, or Argentina, or China?

    A pause for reflection might show that
    those and other countries are not bombing and killing civilians in
    three Muslim countries simultaneously. That could generate a little
    resentment. None of those countries not targeted by al Qaeda are
    financing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian lands in violation
    of UN resolutions.

    The processes of negotiation allow light to shine in dark corners. Realpolitik eschews the light.

    (4) The principle of discrimination, or non-combatant immunity.
    The science of war has made this condition so unachievable that only
    the policing paradigm envisioned by the UN Charter could ever justify
    state-sponsored violence.

    Police operate within the constraints of
    law, as a communitarian effort, with oversight and follow-up review to
    prevent undue violence. Obama’s allusion to “42 other countries”
    joining in our violent work in Afghanistan and Iraq mocks the true
    intent of the collective action envisioned by the UN under supervision
    of the Security Council.

    It is a mere disguise for our vigilante adventurism.

    (5) Last resort.
    If state-sponsored violence is not the last resort we stand morally
    with hoodlums who would solve problems by murder. Obama fails to see
    that modern warfare, including counterinsurgency, is not the last or
    best resort against an enemy that has four unmatchable advantages:
    invisibility, versatility, patience, and the ability to find safe haven
    anywhere.

    The idea of a single geographic safe haven
    is a myth and an anachronism reflecting the age of whole armies
    mobilizing in a definable locus.

    Obama’s speech showed no appreciation of
    the alternative of peace-making. A Department of Peace (which would be
    a better name for a revitalized and better-funded State Department)
    would have as its goal to address in concert with other nations
    tensions as they begin to build.

    Neglected crises can explode eventually
    into violence. This is used to assert the inevitability of war when it
    is only an indictment of improvident statecraft.

    (6) The principle of proportionality: Put
    simply, the violence of war must do more good than harm. In judging war
    the impact on other nations and the environment must also be assessed
    in the balance sheet of good and bad results.

    This is a hard test for modern warriors to
    pass. Victory in war is an oxymoron. No one wins a war: one side may
    lose less and may spin that as victory. Obama’s faith in the benefits
    of warring in three Muslim countries is delusional.

    President Obama in Oslo was more a
    theologian than a statesman. He gave a condescending nod to nonviolent
    power but his theology of original sin tilted him toward violence as
    the surest and final arbiter for a fallen humanity.

    It is “a pity beyond all telling” that the
    “just war theory” he invoked condemns the warring policies he
    anomalously defended as he accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace.

  • The Time Is Now

    We hold these truths to be self-evident: No one should live under the threat of nuclear annihilation, and it is our responsibility to ourselves and future generations to end this threat.

    This vision has been at the heart of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s work for 27 years as we have waged peace for a world free of nuclear weapons.

    Now a remarkable window of opportunity has opened. It offers a real chance to make progress toward the goal of eliminating the nuclear threat. To take advantage of this unique, historical moment, I ask you to give the Foundation financial support now to further its mission.

    The time is now. It is unprecedented that world leaders have embraced the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. New international agreements are being negotiated. Public support is vital to ensure the potential is realized. A strong grassroots effort is essential. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is uniquely placed to provide leadership for a new movement based on education and advocacy.

    The time is now.  The Foundation has never been stronger. Our membership has tripled to 31,000. Our new DVD featuring President Obama is proving very popular. Our Action Alert Network has channeled thousands of emails to elected officials in Washington, DC. And our Peace Leadership Program, under the direction of former US Army Captain and West Point graduate, Paul Chappell, is making it easy for volunteers to spread the message of nuclear weapons abolition in their own communities.

    The time is now. With 27 years of experience, wide-ranging expertise and a record of nonpartisan international action, the Foundation has both the capacity and credibility to seize this moment and to lead toward a safer, saner tomorrow for all people. But we need your donation now to leverage this opportunity to protect the world for future generations.

    Ending the nuclear threat remains the most critical issue facing humanity. Your help can and will make a difference. The time is now!