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  • What Has Prevented Nuclear War

    This article was originally published on the History News Network

    One of the great questions of the modern world is: Why has nuclear war not occurred since 1945?

    The conventional answer is that, thanks to fear of mutual destruction, nuclear weapons have “deterred” nuclear war. And yet, this answer fails to account for some important developments. Since 1945, nuclear powers have not waged nuclear war against non-nuclear powers. Furthermore, if nuclear weapons prevent nuclear war, it is hard to understand why nuclear powers have signed disarmament agreements or have worried (and still worry) about nuclear proliferation.

    An alternative explanation for nuclear restraint is that public opposition to nuclear war has caused government officials to step back from the brink. After all, peace groups have agitated vigorously against nuclear war and opinion polls over the years have shown that the public has viewed nuclear war with revulsion—two factors that government leaders have viewed with alarm. In addition, there is substantial evidence that underscores the decisive role of public pressure.

    In 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman had launched the atomic bombing of Japan without apparent moral qualms or influence by the public (which knew nothing of the government’s atomic bomb program). This use of nuclear weapons, Truman declared jubilantly, was “the greatest thing in history.” Consequently, five years later, when the Korean War erupted, there could well have been a repeat performance in that bloody conflict. Certainly, there seemed good military reasons for the use of nuclear weapons. On two occasions, U.S. troops were close to military defeat at the hands of non-nuclear powers. Also, there was no prospect of a nuclear counterattack by the Soviet Union, which was not participating directly in the war, had only recently developed an atomic bomb, and lacked an effective delivery system for it.

    But, thanks to burgeoning antinuclear sentiment, employing the atomic bomb in the war had become politically difficult. U.S. intelligence reported that, in Britain, there existed “widespread popular alarm concerning the possible use of the A-bomb.” From the State Department’s specialist on the Far East came a warning that use of the Bomb would cause a “revulsion of feeling” to “spread throughout Asia. . . . Our efforts to win the Asiatics to our side would be cancelled and our influence in non-Communist nations of Asia would deteriorate to an almost non-existent quantity.” Paul Nitze, the chair of the State Department’s policy planning staff, argued that, in military terms, the Bomb probably would be effective. But using it would “arouse the peoples of Asia against us.” Ultimately, then, political considerations overwhelmed military considerations, and Truman chose to reject calls by U.S. military commanders, such as General Douglas MacArthur, to win the war with nuclear weapons.

    The Eisenhower administration, too, began with a breezy sense of the opportunities afforded by U.S. nuclear weapons, promising “massive retaliation” against any outbreak of Communist aggression. But it soon came up against the limits set by popular loathing for nuclear war. According to the record of a 1956 National Security Council (NSC) meeting, when the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other administration officials called for greater flexibility in the employment of nuclear weapons, the President responded: “The use of nuclear weapons would raise serious political problems in view of the current state of world opinion.” The following May, countering ambitious proposals by Lewis Strauss (chair of the Atomic Energy Commission) and the Defense Department for nuclear war-fighting, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told another NSC meeting, according to the minutes, that “world opinion was not yet ready to accept the general use of nuclear weapons. . . . If we resort to such a use of nuclear weapons we will, in the eyes of the world, be cast as a ruthless military power.” Dulles predicted, hopefully, “that all this would change at some point in the future, but the time had not yet come.” Although the Secretary of Defense renewed his pleas for use of nuclear weapons, Dulles remained adamant that the United States must not “get out of step with world opinion.”

    The Kennedy administration also found its options limited by the public’s distaste for nuclear war. A late 1960 Defense Department report to the President-elect, recalled one of its drafters, argued that “the political mood of the country” weighed heavily against developing a U.S. “`win’ capability” for a future nuclear war. This fear of the public response also tempered administration policy during the Cuban missile crisis, when Kennedy—as Secretary of State Dean Rusk recalled—worried about “an adverse public reaction,” including “demonstrations, peace groups marching in the streets, perhaps a divisive public debate.” In addition, even in conflicts with non-nuclear powers, U.S. policymakers felt it necessary to rule out nuclear war thanks to the stigma attached to it by the public. A nuclear power, Rusk explained years later, “would wear the mark of Cain for generations to come if it ever attacked a non-nuclear country with nuclear weapons.”

    The Vietnam War provided a particularly attractive opportunity for the U.S. government’s use of its nuclear might. Here, once more, U.S. military forces were engaged in a war with a non-nuclear nation—and, furthermore, were losing that war. And yet, as Rusk recalled, the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations deliberately “lost the war rather than ‘win’ it with nuclear weapons.” McGeorge Bundy, who served as the national security advisor to Kennedy and Johnson, maintained that the U.S. government’s decision to avoid using nuclear weapons in the Vietnam conflict did not result from fear of nuclear retaliation by the Soviet and Chinese governments, but from the terrible public reaction that a U.S. nuclear attack would provoke in other nations. Even more significant, Bundy maintained, was the prospect of public upheaval in the United States, for “no President could hope for understanding and support from his own countrymen if he used the bomb.” Looking back on the war, Richard Nixon complained bitterly that, had he used nuclear weapons in Vietnam, “the resulting domestic and international uproar would have damaged our foreign policy on all fronts.”

    And so it went in the following decades. Even the remarkably hawkish officials of the Reagan administration came up sharply against political realities. Entering office talking glibly of fighting and winning nuclear wars, they soon confronted a worldwide antinuclear uprising, undergirded by public opinion. In April 1982, shortly after a Nuclear Freeze resolution began wending its way through Congress, the President began declaring publicly: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” He added, on that first occasion: “To those who protest against nuclear war, I’m with you.” Cynics might argue that Reagan’s rejection of nuclear war was no more than rhetoric. Nevertheless, rhetoric repeated often enough inhibits a policy reversal. And, in fact, although the Reagan administration sponsored wars in numerous places, it does not appear to have factored nuclear weapons into its battle plans. Kenneth Adelman, who directed the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency for most of the Reagan years, claimed that he “never heard anyone broach the topic of using nuclear weapons. Ever. In any setting, in any way.”

    Thus, evidence certainly exists that public pressure has prevented nuclear war. Where is the evidence that nuclear weapons have done so?

    Dr. Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

  • The Joint Understanding: Disappointing Progress on Nuclear Disarmament

    President Obama raised expectations for achieving a world without nuclear weapons when he said in Prague on April 5, 2009, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” But he only succeeded in moving the world a very small fraction of the way toward this goal when he met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow on July 6, 2009 to announce the outcome thus far of US-Russian negotiations on nuclear disarmament. A Joint Understanding signed in Moscow by the two presidents gave little cause for celebration for those who share President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

    Until now, the two presidents had not revealed the numbers they had in mind for nuclear arms reductions. The Joint Understanding, however, provided these numbers for the first time. “Within seven years after this treaty comes into force, and in future, the limits for strategic delivery systems should be within the range of 500-1,100 units and for warheads linked to them within the range of 1,500 to 1,675 units,” the statement said. These numbers cut the size of the strategic delivery systems by about a third and the deployed strategic warheads to just slightly below levels set by Presidents Bush and Putin in 2002.

    The agreement deals only with strategic offensive weapons, making no provisions for non-strategic or tactical weapons, which are left outside the count. These may prove to be the most worrisome and uncontrollable of the weapons. The agreement also makes no provisions for warheads held in storage. The two presidents dealt separately with missile defense forces in Europe, which the Russians have vehemently opposed, agreeing to carry out a joint threat assessment and make recommendations.

    It is expected that the new arms agreement will be finalized before the end of 2009 and will replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expires December 5, 2009. This means that the new numbers set forth in the Joint Understanding will not need to be achieved before 2016, which would coincide with the end of a potential second Obama administration.

    In addition to the slow progress in reductions of warheads, the Joint Understanding also fails to deal with other important issues, such as the dangers of the weapons remaining on high alert status, pledges of No First Use of the weapons, or a commitment to achieving a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of the weapons.

    The Joint Understanding is a step in the right direction, but it is a step far smaller than might have been hoped. It is a step that is unlikely to indicate to the non-nuclear weapons states parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that the nuclear weapons states are fulfilling their obligations for good faith negotiations for a world free of nuclear weapons. Now that the numbers are revealed, it appears that the US and Russia are not making major strides, but rather creeping very slowly, even reluctantly, toward President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear weapons remain the only weapons that could destroy US or Russian cities and threaten the future existence of the two countries. Since neither US nor Russian nuclear weapons can deter non-state extremists, there is zero tolerance for these weapons getting into the hands of such extremist groups. It is highly unlikely that the level of reductions that they now envision can assure that these weapons will not end up in the hands of extremists committed to doing harm to either country or to other countries.

    While surely this is only a first step in nuclear disarmament efforts by the two leaders, President Obama needs to press harder for more serious reductions in nuclear arms, reductions that will be sufficient to bring the other nuclear weapons states to the table to collectively seek a world without nuclear weapons. On the positive side, the two presidents are discussing having a global nuclear summit in 2010. Such a summit would allow for additional perspectives, those from nuclear as well as non-nuclear weapons states, to be placed on the table for a larger discussion of nuclear threats and security.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a councilor on the World Future Council.

  • Kicking the Nuclear Habit

    This article was originally published by the History News Network

    With President Barack Obama and other world leaders now talking about building a nuclear-free world, it is time to consider whether that would be a good idea.

    Six reasons for supporting nuclear abolition are particularly cogent.

    The first is that nuclear weapons are morally abhorrent. After all, they are instruments of widespread, indiscriminate slaughter. They destroy entire cities and entire regions, massacring civilian and soldier, friend and foe, the innocent and the guilty, including large numbers of children. The only crime committed by the vast majority of victims of a nuclear attack is that they happened to live on the wrong side of a national boundary.

    The second reason is that nuclear war is suicidal. A nuclear exchange between nations will kill millions of people on both sides of the conflict and leave the survivors living in a nuclear wasteland, in which—as has been suggested—the living might well envy the dead. Even if only one side in a conflict employed nuclear weapons, nuclear fallout would spread around the world, as would a lengthy nuclear winter, which would lower temperatures, destroy agriculture and the food supply, and wreck what little was left of civilization. As numerous observers have remarked, there will be no winners in a nuclear war. The third reason is that nuclear weapons do not guarantee a nation’s security. Despite their nuclear weapons, the great powers over the decades became entangled in bloody conventional wars. Millions died in Korea, in Algeria, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and numerous other lands—including large numbers of people from the nuclear nations. As the leaders of the nuclear powers learned, their nuclear arsenals did not help them a bit in these conflicts, for other peoples were simply not cowed by their nuclear might. Nuclear weapons simply weren’t useful. Nor has the vast nuclear arsenal of the United States protected it from terrorist assault. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men—armed only with box cutters—staged the largest terrorist raid on the United States in its history, in which some 3,000 people died. Of what value were U.S. nuclear weapons in deterring this attack? Of what value are they now in “the war on terror”? Given the fact that terrorists do not occupy territory, it is difficult to imagine how nuclear weapons can be used against them, either as a deterrent or in military conflict. The fourth reason is that nuclear weapons undermine national security. Of course, this contention defies the conventional wisdom that the Bomb is a “deterrent.” And yet, consider the case of the United States. It was the first nation to develop atomic bombs and, for some years, had a monopoly of them. But in response to the U.S. nuclear monopoly, the Soviet government built atomic bombs. And so the U.S. government built hydrogen bombs. Whereupon the Soviet government built hydrogen bombs. Then the two nations competed in building guided missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads, and on and on. Meanwhile, other nations built and deployed their nuclear weapons. And, each year, all these nations felt less and less secure. And they were less secure, because the more they threatened others, the more they were threatened in return! Moreover, as long as nuclear weapons exist there remains the possibility of accidental nuclear war. Over the course of the Cold War and in the years since then, there have been numerous false alarms about an enemy attack that have nearly led to the launching of a nuclear response with devastating potential consequences. Furthermore, nuclear weapons can end up being exploded in one’s own nation. For example, in the summer of 2008 the top officials of the U.S. Air Force were dismissed from their posts because, thoughtlessly, they had allowed U.S. flights with live nuclear weapons to take place over U.S. territory. The fifth reason is that, while nuclear weapons exist, there will be a temptation to use them in wars. Waging war has been an ingrained habit for thousands of years and, therefore, it is unlikely that this practice will soon be ended. And as long as wars exist, governments will be tempted to draw upon their stockpiles of nuclear weapons to win them. Admittedly, nuclear armed nations have not used nuclear weapons for war since 1945. But this reflects the development of massive popular resistance to nuclear conflict, which stigmatized the use of nuclear weapons and pushed reluctant government officials toward arms control and disarmament agreements. But we cannot assume that, in the context of bitter wars and threats to national survival, nuclear restraint will continue forever. Indeed, it seems likely that, the longer nuclear weapons exist, the greater the possibility that they will be used in a war. The sixth reason is that, while nuclear weapons remain in national arsenals, the dangers posed by terrorism are vastly enhanced. Terrorists cannot build nuclear weapons by themselves, as the creation of such weapons requires vast resources, substantial territory, and a good deal of scientific knowledge. The only way terrorists will attain a nuclear capability is by obtaining the weapons or the materials for them from the arsenals of the nuclear powers—either by donation, by purchase, or by theft. Therefore, as long as governments possess nuclear weapons, the potential exists for terrorists to secure access to them. What, then, is holding us back from nuclear abolition? Certainly it is not the public, which poll after poll shows in favor of building a nuclear-free world. Even many government leaders now agree that getting rid of nuclear weapons is desirable. The real obstacle is the long-term habit of drawing upon the most powerful weapons available to resolve conflicts among hostile nations. This habit, though, has proved a deeply counter-productive, irrational one—worse than smoking, worse than drugs, worse than almost anything imaginable, for it places civilization on the brink of destruction. It is time to kick it—and create a nuclear-free world.

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).
  • 2009-10 Action Plan

    2009-10 Action Plan

    (In June 2009 the Board of Directors of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation adopted the following five-point Action Plan to guide the Foundation’s work through the end of 2010. We provide it here to share the focus of the Foundation’s work with our members and supporters. Thank you for caring and for your support of the Foundation’s continuing efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, strengthen international law, and empower new peace leaders. – David Krieger, President, NAPF)

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation seeks a world free of nuclear weapons. We believe that nuclear arms reductions and the stabilization of nuclear dangers are not ends in themselves, but must be viewed in the context of achieving the total elimination of nuclear weapons. This is required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Court of Justice. It is a matter that affects the future well-being, even survival, of the human race. In this light, the Foundation is pursuing a five-point program with tangible goals that it seeks to accomplish over the next 12 to 18 months. These goals will guide our efforts in providing leadership toward achieving a world without nuclear weapons. They are consistent with President Obama’s pledge regarding “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

    1. Support a meaningful replacement treaty for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the United States and Russia, which expires in December 2009.

    The only treaty that provides for verification procedures for nuclear disarmament measures between the US and Russia is the 1991 Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty. This treaty expires in December 2009. Under President Obama’s leadership, the US and Russia have embarked upon negotiations for a replacement treaty. The Foundation will press for a replacement treaty that has deep and verifiable reductions in the number of nuclear weapons on each side, one that reduces the high-alert status of the weapons on each side, and one that includes a legally binding commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons. To this end, we will seek to form a coalition of like-minded organizations to put forward recommendations for a new treaty, to educate the public on the importance of such a treaty, and to lobby the Senate for the treaty’s ratification.

    2. Secure a No First Use commitment from the United States.

    President Obama has called for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, but he has not referred to the possibility of making a legally binding commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons. We believe that such a commitment would be an essential step in downplaying the role of nuclear weapons in military strategy. We will educate the public and lobby the Obama administration to make a legally binding commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons and to seek such commitments from other nuclear weapons states.

    3. Achieve US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

    The US has signed but not ratified the CTBT. President Obama has said, “To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.” The Foundation will work with other national organizations to achieve Senate ratification of the treaty.

    4. Promote a broad agenda for President Obama’s proposed Global Summit on Nuclear Security.

    President Obama has pledged to hold a Global Summit on Nuclear Security within the next year. He has called for this Global Summit in the context of preventing nuclear terrorism. We will seek to broaden the agenda of this Summit to include a full range of nuclear security issues beyond only the issue of nuclear terrorism. This would include consideration of the security risks of the current nuclear arsenals and the need to open negotiations on a treaty banning all nuclear weapons. The Foundation will engage in public education, including interviews and op-eds, and networking with other organizations to lobby the Obama administration.

    5. Strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by assuring a successful NPT Review Conference in 2010.

    The NPT is at the heart of efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The treaty also requires the nuclear weapons states to engage in good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. We believe that the key to achieving the goals of the NPT rests upon the commitment of the nuclear weapons states to take meaningful actions to achieve their Article VI nuclear disarmament obligations. Following the 2009 Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the five nuclear weapons states parties to the treaty, (US, Russia, UK, France and China), also known as the P5, issued a joint statement in which they said, “Our Delegations reiterate our enduring and unequivocal commitment to work towards nuclear disarmament, an obligation shared by all NPT states parties.” These P5 states expressed their commitment to a new US-Russian agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty and to the entry into force of the CTBT, as well as negotiations for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. We believe that their case for strengthening the NPT will be far more persuasive if they also join in assuring a broad agenda for a Global Summit on Nuclear Security and join in making legally binding commitments to No First Use of nuclear weapons. Thus, the prospects for a successful NPT Review Conference in 2010 will be considerably enhanced if the first four points of the Foundation’s action plan are successful.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a councilor on the World Future Council.

  • A Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone

    A Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone

    The Middle East has been and remains one of the most volatile and violent regions of the world. It is a region, however, that could grow exponentially more dangerous with a nuclear arms race. Although Israeli leadership sticks to the ambiguous refrain that it will “not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East,” it is widely understood that Israel has 100 to 200 nuclear weapons.

    In1981, an unfinished Iraqi nuclear research reactor, Osirak, was destroyed by Israel, and in 2007, Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor, both on the grounds that these facilities would contribute to nuclear weapons development. Iraq was attacked and its regime toppled by the US in 2003 on the false grounds that it had a nuclear weapons program.

    Iran is currently enriching uranium that could be used for a nuclear weapons program. Other countries in the region, including Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, have the potential to become nuclear weapons states.

    Neither the initiation of a war nor military attacks against nuclear facilities is a sustainable way of maintaining the nuclear dominance of one state in the Middle East. The current imbalance can only be resolved by nuclear proliferation with the potential for nuclear conflagration or by the achievement of a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.

    When President Obama spoke recently in Cairo, he said, “It is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is…about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.”

    The good news is that every country in the Middle East, with the sole exception of Israel, is a party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the parties to this treaty agreed in 1995 to exert their utmost efforts to establish a “Middle East zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.” The bad news is that this commitment was made 14 years ago, and to date there has been no progress.

    It does not bode well for the region or the world that Israel remains outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel’s status as a non-party to the treaty and its possession of nuclear weapons is provocative to the other countries in the region. It is also clear that the United States is employing double standards in continuing its silence about Israel’s nuclear weapons, while at the same time seeking sanctions against Iran, a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, for its uranium enrichment program.

    Applying double standards is a dangerous game that is likely to end in a breakdown of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, regional nuclear proliferation and possible nuclear war. It is a path, as President Obama emphasized, that we do not want to travel. This path will only become more probable and dangerous if action is not taken now to prevent it. There are many more countries in the Middle East that are now seeking to develop nuclear energy programs, which could provide a backdoor entrance to becoming nuclear weapons states.

    What is needed is US leadership in support of regional negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East. Such negotiations were the reasonable expectation of the states in the region in 1995 when they voted for the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones already cover the territory of most of the Southern hemisphere of the globe, including in Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and Africa. Recently a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone was established. These Zones have worked well to promote regional security and diminish the dangers of regional nuclear arms races.

    A Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone will be advantageous for all countries in the region, including Israel and Iran. No country will have the insecurity of worrying about a possible nuclear war in the region, which would be destructive for all concerned.

    American leadership in this effort will be critical. It is an essential step toward achieving President Obama’s stated goal of “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” A possible venue for opening discussions on this important security issue is the Global Summit on Nuclear Security that President Obama pledged to convene within the next year. Progress on achieving a regional ban on nuclear weapons in the Middle East will also help assure success at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2010, and move the world closer to the goal of zero nuclear weapons.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a councilor on the World Future Council.

  • A Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    Two years have passed since George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn revived the idea of a nuclear weapon-free world. In the meantime, leaders from many other countries have joined in. President Obama has done the same. They have all referred to concrete measures that can bring us closer to the goal.

    The four American leaders underlined the relationship between vision and action: “Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible”. To create such a dynamic interplay, we have to be serious both about the vision and about the measures. We call on all to do so, as strongly as we can.

    The goal must be a world where not only the weapons, but also the facilities that produce them are eliminated. All fissile materials for military ends must be destroyed, and all nuclear activities must be subject to strict international control.

    The United States and Russia, which together account for more than 90 per cent of the world’s arsenals, must take the first steps. They should reduce their arsenals to a level where the other nuclear weapon states may join in negotiations of global limitations. All agreements must be balanced and verifiable and provide enhanced security at lower levels of arms. While reductions are going on, mutual deterrence will remain a basic principle of international security.

    All types of nuclear weapons – also the tactical ones – must be included in the negotiations. We urge Russia, which has big arsenals of tactical weapons, to accept this.

    Today, there is the risk that nuclear weapons will proliferate to more states as well as to non-state actors and terrorist networks. The latter want nuclear weapons in order to use them. Together with the US and many other countries, Norway has participated in programmes to control and destroy nuclear materials and ready-made weapons. A major increase in the funding for such programmes is urgently needed.

    Establishment of missile shields should be avoided, for they stimulate rearmament. Nuclear powers which do not have such shields will seek countermeasures to maintain their retaliatory capabilities. Others fear that for those who have a shield, it will be easier to use the sword. Ongoing missile defence plans and programmes should therefore be subordinated to the work for comprehensive nuclear disarmament.

    While new negotiations are set in motion, existing agreements must be maintained. That goes for the INF Treaty, which eliminated intermediate-range systems from Europe, and for the CFE agreement on conventional force reductions that was concluded as the Cold War drew to an end. Also, it goes for the American-Russian presidential initiatives of 1991/92 on withdrawal and elimination of American and Russian tactical weapons. Above all, it goes for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which is currently under pressure. In connection with next year’s review conference for the NPT, it is important to reconfirm the validity of the principles on which it is built: non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Holding the chair of the seven-nation initiative, Norway may contribute to the successful conclusion of this conference.

    This article was originally published in Norwegian by Aftenposten

    Odvar Nordli, Gro Harlem Brundtland, KåreWilloch and Kjell Magne Bondevik are former Prime Ministers of Norway. Thorvald Stoltenberg is a former Foreign Minister of Norway.

  • Excerpts from President Obama’s Speech in Cairo

    Following is the section of President Obama’s speech in Cairo dealing with nuclear issues. To watch a video of the full speech, click here.

    The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

    This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran’s leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

    It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America’s interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.

    I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America’s commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation – including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.

  • North Korea Nuke Test Makes Nuclear Abolition More Important Than Ever

    This article was originally published by YES! Magazine

    North Korea’s nuclear testing heightens and underlines the dangers of a world in which nuclear arms are spreading.

    The news media treats the North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a story of a bad actor threatening international security, giving it the sort of attention rarely given to calls for constructive action to eliminate the danger of nuclear weapons. In particular, the frayed Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is seldom mentioned, nor the obligation contained in the treaty for the nuclear powers, including the U.S., to eliminate nuclear stockpiles.

    The contrast hits home in Hiroshima, Japan, the first city attacked with an atomic bomb. Just eight days before the North Korean test, the city’s daily newspaper, the Chugoku Shimbun, released an appeal from 17 Nobel Peace Prize laureates for citizens and governments to act for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Outside of Japan, the laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration has received almost no media attention.

    When North Korea held its nuclear test, however, Hiroshima immediately became a media stage, and legitimately so: Citizens gathered in an outdoor protest. At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, a clock tracking the number of days since the world’s last nuclear test, which had been approaching 1,000, went back to one. Reporters sought out aging survivors for their comments. Suzuko Numata, an 85-year-old interviewed by Japan’s Mainichi newspaper from her bed at a home for the elderly, raised the real issue looming behind the North Korean test: a world in which nuclear weapons continue to be seen by some nations as something to be sought rather than as a threat to all humans.

    Just days before the Nobel Prize winners’ declaration, one of the signers, International Atomic Energy Authority head Mohamed ElBaradei, told the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper that existing agreements on nonproliferation are out of date and that he fears big growth in the number of nuclear powers. The story received at best limited attention, despite ElBaradei’s prominence and expertise.

    Then, there are the admirable efforts of some of the most prominent former U.S. national security leaders to generate momentum for a non-nuclear world. The group includes former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn. They did get space on the Wall Street Journal to write about their ideas, twice. Until recently, however, one was more likely to come across any details of their undertaking in a progressive magazine like YES! than in the main news media. But, as Shultz told YES! Magazine’s editor Sarah van Gelder for the summer 2008 edition, his group was engaging with leaders from all of the nuclear powers, including officially unacknowledged possessor Israel.

    Shultz said, “The Nonproliferation Treaty in Article 6 says that those who don’t have nuclear weapons will have access to nuclear power technology and they won’t try to get nuclear weapons, and those who do have nuclear weapons will phase down their importance eventually to zero. People are looking for governments to live up to that treaty.”

    More recently, though, the group received considerable media attention, because they met with President Barack Obama in the White House to endorse the vision for a nuclear-free world he unveiled in Prague earlier this spring. By speaking out, Obama has begun to make nonproliferation a more appealing story to a wider spectrum of the media.

    Certainly, the Nobel Peace Prize groups’s spearhead Mairead Maguire, ElBaradei, the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Yunus, and the rest of their group hope Obama can begin to make a difference. The head of Chugoku Shimbun’s Hiroshima Peace Media Center, Akira Tashiro, wrote the appeal, which was revised before publication to take account of Obama’s speech in Prague.

    The appeal’s timing was designed to fall a year ahead of a U.N. conference to review the treaty, including the duty of nuclear states to work towards disarmament. The 2005 review failed to produced substantive agreement, but observers say that the presence of the Obama administration has improved the atmosphere at a just-completed preparatory conference for 2010.

    For the treaty’s future, North Korea, Iran, or other states with nuclear ambitions are no more than half the problem. The Nobel laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration says, “We are deeply troubled by this threat of proliferation to non-nuclear weapon states, but equally concerned at the faltering will of the nuclear powers to move forward in their obligation to disarm their own nations of these dreadful weapons.”

    In the same YES! edition as the Shultz interview, author Jonathan Schell wrote of the potential for a safer world if the nuclear powers would bargain to give up their bombs in exchange for enforceable promises by others to stay out of the nuclear business.

    In sorting through the likely reasons behind North Korea’s nuclear test this week, David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Peace Age Foundation, came to a related point: “North Korea’s nuclear testing is a manifestation of a deeper problem in the international system, that of continuing to have a small group of countries possess and implicitly threaten the use of nuclear weapons for deterrence or any other reason.”

    In an interview, Tashiro said he hoped that Americans would support nuclear disarmament on the grounds—expressed by Shultz, Kissinger, and others—of the threat created by proliferation and the potential for terrorists to acquire nuclear materials. But, to come to that conclusion, Americans need more information on the issue than they usually receive.

    Even with Obama talking about ending nuclear weapons, he and other nations’ leaders will need the support of an informed, engaged public if they are to create meaningful progress toward nuclear disarmament. In their conclusion, the declaration signers say, “As Nobel Peace laureates, we call on the citizens of the world to press their leaders to grasp the peril of inaction and summon the political will to advance toward nuclear disarmament and abolition.” That idea resonates in Hiroshima, a city that tries to make a better future out of horrible suffering. Perhaps as the world comes to terms with the dangerous possibilities of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran, the obligations of the current nuclear power to work towards abolition will get the attention required for action.

    Joe Copeland wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Joe, who is part of the online news startup Seattle PostGlobe, is a visiting researcher at the Hiroshima Peace Institute on a Fulbright grant for journalists. While in Japan, he has a blog at www.hiroshimastories.com. The views are his own.

  • Another Nuclear Anniversary

    Once upon a time making nuclear bombs was the biggest thing a country could do. But not any more; North Korea’s successful nuclear test provides rock-solid proof. This is a country that no one admires.

    It is unknown for scientific achievement, has little electricity or fuel, food and medicine are scarce, corruption is ubiquitous, and its people live in terribly humiliating conditions under a vicious, dynastic dictatorship. In a famine some years ago, North Korea lost nearly 800,000 people. It has an enormous prison population of 200,000 that is subjected to systematic torture and abuse.

    Why does a miserable, starving country continue spending its last penny on the bomb? On developing and testing a fleet of missiles whose range increases from time to time? The answer is clear: North Korea’s nuclear weapons are instruments of blackmail rather than means of defence. Brandished threateningly, and manipulated from time to time, these bombs are designed to keep the flow of international aid going.

    Surely the people of North Korea gained nothing from their country’s nuclearisation. But they cannot challenge their oppressors. But, as Pakistan celebrates the 11th anniversary of its nuclear tests, we Pakistanis — who are far freer — must ask: what have we gained from the bomb?

    Some had imagined that nuclear weapons would make Pakistan an object of awe and respect internationally. They had hoped that Pakistan would acquire the mantle of leadership of the Islamic world. Indeed, in the aftermath of the 1998 tests, Pakistan’s stock had shot up in some Muslim countries before it crashed. But today, with a large swathe of its territory lost to insurgents, one has to defend Pakistan against allegations of being a failed state. In terms of governance, economy, education or any reasonable quality of life indicators, Pakistan is not a successful state that is envied by anyone. Contrary to claims made in 1998, the bomb did not transform Pakistan into a technologically and scientifically advanced country. Again, the facts are stark. Apart from relatively minor exports of computer software and light armaments, science and technology remain irrelevant in the process of production. Pakistan’s current exports are principally textiles, cotton, leather, footballs, fish and fruit.

    This is just as it was before Pakistan embarked on its quest for the bomb. The value-added component of Pakistani manufacturing somewhat exceeds that of Bangladesh and Sudan, but is far below that of India, Turkey and Indonesia. Nor is the quality of science taught in our educational institutions even remotely satisfactory. But then, given that making a bomb these days requires only narrow technical skills rather than scientific ones, this is scarcely surprising.

    What became of the claim that the pride in the bomb would miraculously weld together the disparate peoples who constitute Pakistan? While many in Punjab still want the bomb, angry Sindhis want water and jobs — and they blame Punjab for taking these away. Pakhtun refugees from Swat and Buner, hapless victims of a war between the Taliban and the Pakistani Army, are tragically being turned away by ethnic groups from entering Sindh. This rejection strikes deeply against the concept of a single nation united in adversity.

    As for the Baloch, they deeply resent that the two nuclear test sites — now radioactive and out of bounds — are on their soil. Angry at being governed from Islamabad, many have taken up arms and demand that Punjab’s army get off their backs. Many schools in Balochistan refuse to fly the Pakistani flag, the national anthem is not sung, and black flags celebrate Pakistan’s independence day. Balochistan University teems with the icons of Baloch separatism: posters of Akbar Bugti, Balaach Marri, Brahamdagh Bugti, and ‘General Sheroff’ are everywhere. The bomb was no glue.

    Did the bomb help Pakistan liberate Kashmir from Indian rule? It is a sad fact that India’s grip on Kashmir — against the will of Kashmiris — is tighter today than it has been for a long time. As the late Eqbal Ahmed often remarked, Pakistan’s poor politics helped snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Its strategy for confronting India — secret jihad by Islamic fighters protected by Pakistan’s nuclear weapons — backfired terribly in the arena of international opinion. More importantly, it created the hydra-headed militancy now haunting Pakistan. Some Mujahideen, who felt betrayed by Pakistan’s army and politicians, ultimately took revenge by turning their guns against their sponsors and trainers. The bomb helped us lose Kashmir.

    Some might ask, didn’t the bomb stop India from swallowing up Pakistan? First, an upward-mobile India has no reason to want an additional 170 million Muslims. Second, even if India wanted to, territorial conquest is impossible. Conventional weapons, used by Pakistan in a defensive mode, are sufficient protection. If mighty America could not digest Iraq, there can never be a chance for a middling power like India to occupy Pakistan, a country four times larger than Iraq.

    It is, of course, true that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons deterred India from launching punitive attacks at least thrice since the 1998 tests. Pakistan’s secret incursion in Kargil during 1999, the Dec 13 attack on the Indian parliament the same year (initially claimed by Jaish-i-Muhammad), and the Mumbai attack in 2008 by Lashkar-i-Taiba, did create sentiment in India for ferreting out Pakistan-based militant groups. So should we keep the bomb to protect militant groups? Surely it is time to realise that these means of conducting foreign policy are tantamount to suicide.

    It was a lie that the bomb could protect Pakistan, its people or its armed forces. Rather, it has helped bring us to this grievously troubled situation and offers no way out. The threat to Pakistan is internal. The bomb cannot help us recover the territory seized by the Baitullahs and Fazlullahs, nor bring Waziristan back to Pakistan. More nuclear warheads, test-launching more missiles, or buying yet more American F-16s and French submarines, will not help.

    Pakistan’s security problems cannot be solved by better weapons. Instead, the way forward lies in building a sustainable and active democracy, an economy for peace rather than war, a federation in which provincial grievances can be effectively resolved, elimination of the feudal order and creating a society that respects the rule of law.

    It is time for Pakistan to become part of the current global move against nuclear weapons. India — which had thrust nuclearisation upon an initially unwilling Pakistan — is morally obliged to lead. Both must announce that they will not produce more fissile material to make yet more bombs. Both must drop insane plans to expand their nuclear arsenals. Eleven years ago a few Pakistanis and Indians had argued that the bomb would bring no security, no peace. They were condemned as traitors and sellouts by their fellow citizens. But each passing year shows just how right we were.

    Pervez Hoodbhoy teaches nuclear physics at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan.

  • Toxic Link: The WHO and the IAEA

    This article was originally published in The Guardian‘s Comment Is Free

    Fifty years ago, on 28 May 1959, the World Health Organisation’s assembly voted into force an obscure but important agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations “Atoms for Peace” organisation, founded just two years before in 1957. The effect of this agreement has been to give the IAEA an effective veto on any actions by the WHO that relate in any way to nuclear power – and so prevent the WHO from playing its proper role in investigating and warning of the dangers of nuclear radiation on human health.

    The WHO’s objective is to promote “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health”, while the IAEA’s mission is to “accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world”. Although best known for its work to restrict nuclear proliferation, the IAEA’s main role has been to promote the interests of the nuclear power industry worldwide, and it has used the agreement to suppress the growing body of scientific information on the real health risks of nuclear radiation.

    Under the agreement, whenever either organisation wants to do anything in which the other may have an interest, it “shall consult the other with a view to adjusting the matter by mutual agreement”. The two agencies must “keep each other fully informed concerning all projected activities and all programs of work which may be of interest to both parties”. And in the realm of statistics – a key area in the epidemiology of nuclear risk – the two undertake “to consult with each other on the most efficient use of information, resources, and technical personnel in the field of statistics and in regard to all statistical projects dealing with matters of common interest”.

    The language appears to be evenhanded, but the effect has been one-sided. For example, investigations into the health impacts of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine on 26 April 1986 have been effectively taken over by IAEA and dissenting information has been suppressed. The health effects of the accident were the subject of two major conferences, in Geneva in 1995, and in Kiev in 2001. But the full proceedings of those conferences remain unpublished – despite claims to the contrary by a senior WHO spokesman reported in Le Monde Diplomatique.

    Meanwhile, the 2005 report of the IAEA-dominated Chernobyl Forum, which estimates a total death toll from the accident of only several thousand, is widely regarded as a whitewash as it ignores a host of peer-reviewed epidemiological studies indicating far higher mortality and widespread genomic damage. Many of these studies were presented at the Geneva and Kiev conferences but they, and the ensuing learned discussions, have yet to see the light of day thanks to the non-publication of the proceedings.

    The British radiation biologist Keith Baverstock is another casualty of the agreement, and of the mindset it has created in the WHO. He served as a radiation scientist and regional adviser at the WHO’s European Office from 1991 to 2003, when he was sacked after expressing concern to his senior managers that new epidemiological evidence from nuclear test veterans and from soldiers exposed to depleted uranium indicated that current risk models for nuclear radiation were understating the real hazards.

    Now a professor at the University of Kuopio, Finland, Baverstock finally published his paper in the peer-reviewed journal Medicine, Conflict and Survival in April 2005. He concluded by calling for “reform from within the profession” and stressing “the political imperative for freely independent scientific institutions” – a clear reference to the non-independence of his former employer, the WHO, which had so long ignored his concerns.

    Since the 21st anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster in April 2007, a daily “Hippocratic vigil” has taken place at the WHO’s offices in Geneva, organised by Independent WHO to persuade the WHO to abandon its the WHO-IAEA Agreement. The protest has continued through the WHO’s 62nd World Health Assembly, which ended yesterday, and will endure through the executive board meeting that begins today. The group has struggled to win support from WHO’s member states. But the scientific case against the agreement is building up, most recently when the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) called for its abandonment at its conference earlier this month in Lesvos, Greece.

    At the conference, research was presented indicating that as many as a million children across Europe and Asia may have died in the womb as a result of radiation from Chernobyl, as well as hundreds of thousands of others exposed to radiation fallout, backing up earlier findings published by the ECRR in Chernobyl 20 Years On: Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident. Delegates heard that the standard risk models for radiation risk published by the International Committee on Radiological Protection (ICRP), and accepted by WHO, underestimate the health impacts of low levels of internal radiation by between 100 and 1,000 times – consistent with the ECRR’s own 2003 model of radiological risk (The Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses and Low Dose Rates for Radiation Protection Purposes: Regulators’ Edition). According to Chris Busby, the ECRR’s scientific secretary and visiting professor at the University of Ulster’s school of biomedical sciences:

    “The subordination of the WHO to IAEA is a key part of the systematic falsification of nuclear risk which has been under way ever since Hiroshima, the agreement creates an unacceptable conflict of interest in which the UN organisation concerned with promoting our health has been made subservient to those whose main interest is the expansion of nuclear power. Dissolving the WHO-IAEA agreement is a necessary first step to restoring the WHO’s independence to research the true health impacts of ionising radiation and publish its findings.”

    Some birthdays deserve celebration – but not this one. After five decades, it is time the WHO regained the freedom to impart independent, objective advice on the health risks of radiation.

    Oliver Tickell is author of the book Kyoto2.