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  • Maybe We Should Take the North Koreans at Their Word

    Shortly after North Korea exploded its second nuclear device in three years on Monday morning, it released a statement explaining why. “The republic has conducted another underground nuclear testing successfully in order to strengthen our defensive nuclear deterrence.”(1) If the Obama Administration hopes to dissuade Pyongyang from the nuclear course it seems so hell bent on pursuing, Washington must understand just how adroitly nuclear arms do appear to serve North Korea’s national security. In other words, perhaps we should recognize that they mean what they say.

    From the dawn of history until the dawn of the nuclear age, it seemed rather self-evident that for virtually any state in virtually any strategic situation, the more military power one could wield relative to one’s adversaries, the more security one gained. That all changed, however, with Alamogordo and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During the Cold War’s long atomic arms race, it slowly dawned on “nuclear use theorists” – whom one can hardly resist acronyming as NUTS – that in the nuclear age, security did not necessarily require superiority. Security required simply an ability to retaliate after an adversary had struck, to inflict upon that opponent “unacceptable damage” in reply. If an adversary knew, no matter how much devastation it might inflict in a first strike, that the chances were good that it would receive massive damage as a consequence (even far less damage than it had inflicted as long as that damage was “unacceptable”), then, according to the logic of nuclear deterrence, that adversary would be dissuaded from striking first. What possible political benefit could outweigh the cost of the possible obliteration of, oh, a state’s capital city, and the leaders of that state themselves, and perhaps more than a million lives therein?

    Admittedly, the unassailable logic of this “unacceptable damage” model of nuclear deterrence – which we might as well call UD – failed to put the brakes on a spiraling Soviet/American nuclear arms competition that began almost immediately after the USSR acquired nuclear weapons of its own in 1949. Instead, a different model of nuclear deterrence emerged, deterrence exercised by the capability completely to wipe out the opponent’s society, “mutually assured destruction,” which soon came to be known to all as MAD. There were other scenarios of aggression – nuclear attacks on an adversary’s nuclear weapons, nuclear or conventional attacks on an adversary’s closest allies (in Western and Eastern Europe) – that nuclear weapons were supposed to deter as well. However, the Big Job of nuclear weapons was to dissuade the other side from using their nuclear weapons against one’s own cities and society, by threatening to deliver massive nuclear devastation on the opponent’s cities and society in reply. “The Department of Defense,” said an Ohio congressman in the early 1960s, with some exasperation, “has become the Department of Retaliation.”(2)

    Nevertheless, those who engaged in an effort to slow the arms race often employed the logic of UD in their attempts to do so. “Our twenty thousandth bomb,” said Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the Manhattan Project that built the world’s first atomic weapons, as early as 1953, “will not in any deep strategic sense offset their two thousandth.” (3) “Deterrence does not depend on superiority,” said the great strategist Bernard Brodie in 1965.(4) “There is no foreign policy objective today that is so threatened,” said retired admiral and former CIA director Stansfield Turner in 1998, “that we would É accept the risk of receiving just one nuclear detonation in retaliation.”(5)

    Consider how directly the logic of UD applies to the contemporary international environment, to the twin nuclear challenges that have dominated the headlines during most of the past decade, and to the most immediate nuclear proliferation issues now confronting the Obama Administration. Because the most persuasive explanation for the nuclear quests on which both Iran and North Korea have embarked is, indeed, the notion that “deterrence does not depend on superiority.” Deterrence depends only an ability to strike back. Iran and North Korea appear to be seeking small nuclear arsenals in order to deter potential adversaries from launching an attack upon them – by threatening them with unacceptable damage in retaliation.

    Neither North Korea nor Iran could hope to defeat its most powerful potential adversary – the United States – in any kind of direct military confrontation. They cannot repel an actual attack upon them. They cannot shoot American planes and missiles out of the sky. Indeed, no state can.

    However, what these countries can aspire to do is to dissuade the American leviathan from launching such an attack. How? By developing the capability to instantly vaporize an American military base or three in Iraq or Qatar or South Korea or Japan, or an entire U.S. aircraft carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf or the Sea of Japan, or even an American city on one coast or the other. And by making it implicitly clear that they would respond to any kind of assault by employing that capability immediately, before it’s too late, following the venerable maxim: “Use them or lose them.” The obliteration of an entire American military base, or an entire American naval formation, or an entire American city, would clearly seem to qualify as “unacceptable damage” for the United States.

    Moreover, to deter an American attack, Iran and North Korea do not need thousands of nuclear warheads. They just need a couple of dozen, well hidden and well protected. American military planners might be almost certain that they could take out all the nuclear weapons in these countries in some kind of a dramatic lightning “surgical strike.” However, with nuclear weapons, “almost” is not good enough. Even the barest possibility that such a strike would fail, and that just one or two nuclear weapons would make it into the air, detonate over targets, and result in massive “unacceptable damage” for the United States, would in virtually any conceivable circumstance serve to dissuade Washington from undertaking such a strike.

    In addition, it is crucial to recognize that Iran and North Korea would not intend for their nascent nuclear arsenals to deter only nuclear attacks upon them. If the entire nuclear arsenal of the United States disappeared tomorrow morning, but America’s conventional military superiority remained, it still would be the case that the only possible military asset that these states could acquire, to effectively deter an American military assault, would be the nuclear asset.

    The “Korean Committee for Solidarity with World Peoples,” a mouthpiece for the North Korean government, captured Pyongyang’s logic quite plainly just weeks after the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003. “The Iraqi war taught the lesson that ‘the security of the nation can be protected only when a country has a physical deterrent force’”(6) Similarly, a few weeks earlier, just before the Iraq invasion began, a North Korean general was asked to defend his country’s nuclear weapons program, and with refreshing candor replied, “We see what you are getting ready to do with Iraq. And you are not going to do it to us.”(7)

    It really is quite a remarkable development. North Korea today is one of the most desperate countries in the world. Most of its citizens are either languishing in gulags or chronically starving. And yet – in contrast to all the debate that has taken place in recent years about whether the United States and/or Israel ought to launch a preemptive strike on Iran – no one seems to be proposing any kind of military strike on North Korea. Why not? Because of the mere possibility that North Korea could impose unacceptable damage upon us in reply.

    Perhaps the most remarkable thing about UD is that it seems every bit as effective as MAD. North Korea today possesses no more than a handful of nuclear warheads, and maintains nothing like a “mutual” nuclear balance with the United States. In addition, the retaliation that North Korea can threaten cannot promise anything like a complete “assured destruction.” To vaporize an American carrier group in the Sea of Japan, or a vast American military base in South Korea or Japan, or even an American city, would not be at all the same thing as the “destruction” of the entire American nation – as the USSR was able to threaten under MAD.

    And yet, MAD and UD, it seems, exercise deterrence in precisely the same way. Astonishingly, it seems that Washington finds itself every bit as thoroughly deterred by a North Korea with probably fewer than 10 nuclear weapons as it did by a Soviet Union with 10,000. Although UD hardly contains the rich acronymphomaniacal irony wrought by MAD, it appears that both North Korea and Iran intend now to base their national security strategies solidly upon it.

    There is very little reason to suppose that other states will not soon follow their lead.

    President Obama, of course, to his great credit, has not only made a nuclear weapon-free Iran and North Korea one of his central foreign policy priorities, he has begun to chart a course toward a nuclear weapon-free world. In a groundbreaking speech before a huge outdoor rally in Prague on April 5th, he said, “Today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” (Unfortunately, he followed that with the statement that nuclear weapons abolition would not “be achieved quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime,” suggesting that neither he nor the nuclear policy officials in his administration fully appreciate the magnitude and immediacy of the nuclear peril. Do they really think the human race can retain nuclear weapons for another half century or so, yet manage to dodge the bullet of nuclear accident, or nuclear terror, or a nuclear crisis spinning out of control every single time?)

    The one thing we can probably say for sure about the prospects for universal nuclear disarmament is that no state will agree either to abjure or to dismantle nuclear weapons unless it believes that such a course is the best course for its own national security. To persuade states like North Korea and Iran to climb aboard the train to abolition would probably require simultaneous initiatives on three parallel tracks. One track would deliver foreign and defense policies that assure weaker states that we do not intend to attack them, that just as we expect them to abide by the world rule of law they can expect the same from us, that the weak need not cower in fear before the strong. Another track would deliver diplomatic overtures that convince weaker states that on balance, overall, their national security will better be served in a world where no one possesses nuclear weapons, rather than in a world where they do-but so too do many others. And another track still would deliver nuclear weapons policies that directly address the long-simmering resentments around the world about the long-standing nuclear double standard, that directly acknowledge our legacy of nuclear hypocrisy, and that directly connect nuclear non-proliferation to nuclear disarmament.

    The power decisively to adjust all those variables, of course, does not reside in Pyongyang or Tehran. It resides instead in Washington.

    ——-

    (1) The Washington Post, May 25, 2009.

    (2) Quoted in Daniel Lang, An Inquiry Into Enoughness: Of Bombs and Men and Staying Alive (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), p. 167.

    (3) Quoted in Ibid., p. 38.

    (4) Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971 – first published in 1965), p. 274, quoted in Sarah J. Diehl and James Clay Moltz, Nuclear Weapons and Nonproliferation: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2002), p. 34.

    (5) Quoted in The Nation, Special Issue Containing Jonathan Schell’s interviews with several nuclear policy professionals and intellectuals, February 2/9, 1998, p. 40.

    (6) Quoted in Securing Our Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, Tilman Ruff and John Loretz, eds. (Boston: IPPNW, 2007), p. 37.

    (7) Don Oberdorfer, PBS, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, October 9, 2006, quoted in Jonathan Schell, The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), p. 141.

    Tad Daley is the Writing Fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the Nobel Peace Laureate disarmament advocacy organization. His first book, Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World, is forthcoming from Rutgers University Press in January 2010.

  • How To Reduce the Nuclear Threat

    Monday’s North Korean nuclear test was a dramatic reminder of the challenges to eliminating nuclear weapons world-wide. President Barack Obama has stated that he intends to pursue this goal while maintaining a reliable nuclear deterrent for the United States and its allies. But achieving nuclear abolition will likely require many years.

    Indeed, it is difficult to envision the necessary geopolitical conditions that would permit even approaching that goal. Unless the U.S. and its partners re-energize international efforts to lessen the present dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, they will never have the hope of reaching this long-term objective.

    An effective strategy to reduce nuclear dangers must build on five pillars: revitalizing strategic dialogue with nuclear-armed powers, particularly Russia and China; strengthening the international nuclear nonproliferation regime; reaffirming the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella to our allies; maintaining the credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent; and implementing best security practices for nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials worldwide.

    With thousands of U.S. and Russian warheads still deployed, the threat of a nuclear war through strategic miscalculation is not entirely removed. Thankfully, Russia has neither shown nor threatened such intent against the U.S. The two nations cooperated through much of the post-Cold War period on reducing nuclear arsenals and curbing nuclear proliferation. But given the recent chill in U.S.-Russia relations — a result of NATO expansion efforts and missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic — the relationship faces significant challenges.

    In order to “press the reset button” with Russia, in the words of Vice President Joe Biden, the U.S. needs to base strategic dialogue on the common interests of stopping nuclear proliferation, preventing nuclear terrorism, and ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The U.S. and Russia should conduct a joint threat assessment as a prerequisite to renewed arms control. In tandem, the U.S. and China should discuss their threat perceptions and seek greater cooperation on nuclear security and stability.

    The spread of weapons-usable nuclear technologies may push the world to a dangerous tipping point. North Korea — despite nearly universal opposition — has developed a small nuclear arsenal and on Monday demonstrated its capability with a successful nuclear test. Iran claims to be developing a peaceful nuclear program but this is hard to believe. Partly in response to Iran, other Middle Eastern states, like Turkey and Egypt, are beginning to develop nuclear-power programs.

    To prevent further proliferation, the Obama administration needs to leverage the next 12 months in the run-up to the May 2010 Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference. The U.S. must redouble global efforts to enact the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons, call for a ban on the production of fissile material for weapons, and provide sustainable resources to the International Atomic Energy Agency — the world’s “nuclear watchdog.”

    In the meantime, as Mr. Obama has stated, the U.S. should maintain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent for itself and its allies. This deterrent should be adequately funded and staffed with top-notch managers, scientists and engineers. The administration should also decide whether to replace existing nuclear warheads with redesigned warheads or to increase programs to extend their operational lives on a case-by-case basis, weighing heavily recommendations from the weapons lab responsible for the warheads in question.

    Another critical concern is the massive global stockpile of weapons-usable fissile material that could fuel thousands of nuclear explosives. The more states that have fissile material, the greater the chances of it falling into the hands of terrorists. Laudably, the Obama administration has committed to work with international partners to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. This ambitious agenda will require development of much better security practices and a cooperative effort among dozens of countries.

    The dangers of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism are real and imminent. Any serious effort to combat them will require the leadership of the United States.

    This article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal

    William Perry, a former secretary of defense, and Mr. Scowcroft, a former national security adviser, are the co-chairs of the Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Mr. Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is the project director.

  • North Korea’s Bomb Test Message

    David KriegerWhen a country tests a nuclear weapon, it is sending a message. It is not always clear, however, what that message is. In the case of the recent nuclear test by North Korea, some commentators have argued that the North Koreans are sending a “pay attention to me” message to the international community and particularly the United States. Other commentators have argued that the nuclear test was carried out for domestic purposes, to inspire the country with a display of technological prowess. A short statement from North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency suggests that both international and domestic audiences were relevant to the bomb testing message.

    The North Korean announcement indicated that the test had several purposes, including to “bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense”; “settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons”; “inspiring the army and people of the DPRK”; “contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country”; and “ensuring peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and the region around it….” These are worth examining.

    First, the rationale for virtually all nuclear tests by all states has been to bolster a country’s nuclear deterrent for the purpose of self-defense. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, all nuclear powers, have tested nuclear weapons in total more than 2,000 times. The US alone has tested over 1,000 times. That means that North Korea, which has conducted two nuclear tests, has tested one thousandth the number of times as the five recognized nuclear weapons states have tested and one five-hundredth the number of times the US has tested. It is, of course, dead wrong that deterrence provides a country with protection. In fact, it may lead to a country being attacked by nuclear arms.

    Second, learning more scientifically about the characteristics of nuclear detonations is another principal reason the nuclear weapons states have used to justify testing their weapons. The North Koreans are unusually blunt in stating that they are looking at problems arising from developing more powerful nuclear weapons. Their first test in 2006 had a force of about one kiloton. Their recent test had a force some four times greater, roughly one-third the power of the Hiroshima bomb.

    Third, the North Koreans sought to inspire their army and people with their bomb test. It is unfortunate, but true that nuclear tests seem to inspire and promote nationalism. When the Indians and Pakistanis tested in 1998, their respective populations came into the streets celebrating the “achievement.” The US inspired its people by conducting over 1,000 nuclear tests, including 67 atmospheric tests in the Marshall Islands, then US Trust Territories, the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb a day for 12 years.

    Fourth, the belief that nuclear tests contribute to defending the sovereignty of a country seems wildly wrong. It may send a message regarding deterrence capability, but it is more relevant that it now isolates a country and makes it a pariah state. This wasn’t always the case.

    Fifth, it is also far from assured that North Korea’s test and continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability will ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula and beyond. There may be an argument that nuclear weapons assured peace between the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War, but this remains unproven and not subject to proof.

    So taking the North Koreans at their word, they have done little more than demonstrate their technological prowess for domestic consumption and recaptured the attention of the world in a most negative way. President Obama responded to the latest nuclear and missile tests by saying that they posed “a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action.”

    North Korea’s nuclear test is pushing it deeper into isolation from the international community. The tests may play well at home, but not on the world stage. At the same time, North Korea’s justifications for its tests are no better nor worse than those of the other countries that have tested. They are modeling their testing behavior on the nuclear weapons states that went before them.

    The United States and other members of the United Nations Security Council, which are so strong in their condemnation of North Korea’s nuclear testing, are not doing enough to resolve important security issues with North Korea by diplomacy, the only sensible solution. Nor are the permanent members of the Security Council setting the right example by adhering to their own obligations under international law for “good faith” negotiations for total nuclear disarmament.

    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.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

  • A Roadmap to Abolition

    A Roadmap to Abolition

    A plan to achieve a world without nuclear weapons must be built upon a roadmap or outline of what needs to be accomplished. The principal concerns in moving to zero are that all nuclear weapons are accounted for, that the weapons are verifiably and irreversibly dismantled, that all states have confidence in the system, and that there is an effective way to stop potential cheaters. The roadmap will need a proposed timeframe, but one that is sufficiently flexible to allow for necessary verification and confidence building in the system. The roadmap will thus have to be built on a phased and transparent approach as well as one that is verifiable and irreversible.

    President Obama stated during his campaign for the presidency, “A world without nuclear weapons is profoundly in America’s interest and the world’s interest. It is our responsibility to make the commitment, and to do the hard work to make this vision a reality.” (1) He then went further in his Prague speech in April 2009, committing America “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” and setting forth a number of steps to move the world in this direction. (2)

    President Obama and others have suggested that the path to a world free of nuclear weapons could be a long one, beyond his own life. This is possible, but it could also happen much more rapidly with strong political will and leadership from the United States. The Roadmap proposed below suggests that the goal could be achieved within a timeframe of 10 to 17 years, that is, between 2019 and 2026. This is a goal that the United States cannot achieve alone, but that cannot be achieved without the United States. President Obama has provided a vision and the political will to begin the process in a serious way. He has made possible what has seemed impossible.

    The steps outlined by President Obama form the basis for Phase 1 of a Roadmap to Abolition. The three additional phases can take us to a world without nuclear weapons. If we take the year 2009 as the opening of Phase I, we can outline a world without nuclear weapons in four phases as follows:

    Phase 1 (1 to 2 years)

    US commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons. (Prague speech) (3)

    US and Russia begin bilateral negotiations on the reduction and elimination of their nuclear arsenals. (Joint Statement) (4)

    US and Russia complete negotiations on new START agreement, reducing the number of nuclear weapons in their respective arsenals to under 1,000 weapons, deployed and in reserve. The agreement must contain effective measures of verification, including challenge inspections. (In Prague speech, agreed to complete negotiations within 2009, but provided no details on numbers)

    US and Russia launch global effort to gain control of all loose nuclear weapons and materials. (Joint Statement)

    US host Global Summit on Nuclear Security and other measures to prevent nuclear terrorism. (Prague speech) Initiate negotiations at this Global Summit for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, banning research, development, manufacture, possession, threat or use of nuclear weapons. (5)

    Negotiate new global treaty to cut off production of nuclear weapons and weapons-grade materials. (Prague speech)

    Seek universal adherence to International Atomic Energy comprehensive safeguards, including the Additional Protocol. (Joint Statement)

    Provide the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with adequate resources to do provide comprehensive safeguards. (Prague speech)

    US and Russia convene arms reduction negotiations with the other three nuclear weapons states recognized in the NPT (UK, France and China).

    US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Prague speech)

    Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Joint Statement)

    Limitations on missile defense installations reinstituted.

    Phase 2 (3 to 5 years)

    The five NPT recognized nuclear weapons states agree to provide accurate and verifiable accounting of their nuclear arsenals and weapons-grade materials.

    US and Russia agree to reduce their nuclear arsenals to under 300 weapons each, deployed and reserve.

    UK, France and China agree to freeze production of nuclear materials and weapons and cut their arsenals in half, not to exceed 100 nuclear weapons each.

    The four non-NPT nuclear weapons states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) and all nuclear capable states agree to provide accurate and verifiable accounting of their nuclear arsenals and material.

    The four non-NPT nuclear weapons states agree to freeze production of nuclear materials and weapons and cut their arsenals to under 25 nuclear weapons each.

    The nine nuclear weapons states continue negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention banning the research, development, manufacture, possession, threat or use of nuclear weapons and prepare a draft treaty.

    Complete the required ratifications of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty so that it enters into force.

    Achieve universal adherence to IAEA comprehensive safeguards.

    Complete process for gaining control of all loose nuclear weapons and weapons-grade materials.

    Implement strict international controls on all weapons-grade nuclear materials and the technologies to create such materials.

    New treaty to cut off production of weapons-grade fissile materials enters into force.

    US-Russian agreement to ban intermediate-range missiles extended to become global ban on intermediate-range and long-range missiles.

    Phase 3 (3 to 5 years)

    Global conference held to complete and sign Nuclear Weapons Convention.

    Nuclear Weapons Convention ratified by all nuclear capable states and enters into force.

    US and Russia reduce their arsenals to under 100 weapons each, deployed and reserve.

    UK, France and China reduce their arsenals to under 25 weapons each.

    Non-NPT nuclear weapons states reduce their nuclear weapons to under 10 weapons each.

    Phase 4 (3 to 5 years)

    The end game: final steps are taken in accord with the Nuclear Weapons Convention to eliminate all nuclear weapons from the planet with sufficient safeguards and punishments for violators to assure that they will not be recreated.

    (1) “2008 Presidential Candidate Quotes,” Web site of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/menu/resources/surveys/2008_pres_cand/cand_quotes_page.php.

    (2) “Speech on Nuclear Issues delivered in Prague,” April 5, 2009, Web site of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation:   https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/2009/04/05_obama_prague_speech.php.

    (3) All reference to “Prague Speech,” refer to the citation in footnote 2.

    (4) All references to “Joint Statement,” refer to “Joint Statement by President Dmitriy Medvedev of the Russian Federation and President Barack Obama of the United States of America,” Web site of The Associated Press, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iVZVQZKurqCWMUl_tMQk8_IatXKAD979LOBG4.

    (5) The Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy/International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation created a Model Nuclear weapons Convention in 1997 and updated it in 2007.  The Model Nuclear Weapons Convention has been submitted to the United Nations by the Republic of Costa Rica and Malaysia.  See the Web site of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy: http://lcnp.org/mnwc/.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • 17 Nobel Peace Laureates Call for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    Sixty-four years ago, the horror of atomic bombs was unleashed on Japan, and the world witnessed the destructive power of nuclear weapons. Today, with just a year until the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference convenes at the United Nations in the spring of 2010, we, the undersigned Nobel Peace Laureates, echo U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and appeal to the leader of every nation to resolutely pursue this goal for the good of all.

    We find ourselves in a new era of proliferation. Despite the near universal ratification of the 1970 treaty, which binds states to nuclear disarmament, little progress has been made to fulfill this pact and eliminate nuclear weapons from our world. On the contrary, as the nuclear powers have continued to brandish their weapons, other nations have sought to produce their own nuclear arsenals.

    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.

    The fact that humanity has managed to avoid a third nuclear nightmare is not merely a fortunate whim of history. The resolve of the A-bomb survivors, who have called on the world to avert another Hiroshima or Nagasaki, has surely helped prevent that catastrophe. Moreover, the millions who have supported the survivors in their quest for peace, as well as the reality of our collective restraint, suggest that human beings are imbued with a better, higher nature, an instinct for inhibiting violence and upholding life.

    In the months leading up to the NPT Review Conference, this higher nature must rise to guide our efforts. Nations are now reviewing progress in the treaty’s implementation and mapping a path forward. For the first time in many years, the opportunity exists for genuine movement toward reducing and eliminating nuclear arms.

    As this process unfolds, world leaders will be faced with a stark choice: nuclear non-proliferation or nuclear brinkmanship. We can either put an end to proliferation, and set a course toward abolition; or we can wait for the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be repeated.

    We believe it is long past time for humanity to heed the warning made by Albert Einstein in 1946: ”The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”

    We know that such a new manner of thinking is possible. In the past ten years, the governments of the world, working alongside international institutions, non-governmental organizations, and survivors, have negotiated treaties banning two indiscriminate weapons systems: landmines and cluster bombs. These weapons were banned when the world finally recognized them for the humanitarian disaster they are.

    The world is well aware that nuclear weapons are a humanitarian disaster of monstrous proportion. They are indiscriminate, immoral, and illegal. They are military tools whose staggering consequences have already been seen in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the long-term impacts of those attacks. Eliminating nuclear weapons is indeed a possibility — more than that, it is a fundamental necessity in forging a more secure planet for us all.

    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. To fulfill a world without nuclear weapons, and inspire a greater peace among our kind, humanity must stand together to make this vision a reality.

    * This declaration was published by the Hiroshima Peace Media Center

  • Daisaku Ikeda’s 2009 Peace Proposal and the Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

    Daisaku Ikeda’s 2009 Peace Proposal and the Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

    Daisaku Ikeda has always been a staunch advocate of nuclear weapons abolition. In his 2009 Peace Proposal, his 27th annual Peace Proposal, Ikeda makes “sharing of efforts for peace toward the abolition of nuclear arms” one of the three major pillars he proposes “for transforming the current global crisis into a catalyst for opening a new future for humanity….” The other two pillars are “sharing of action through tackling environmental problems” and “sharing of responsibility through international cooperation on global public goods.” Ikeda makes a powerful case for humanity rising out of necessity to a new level of global cooperation to overcome the shared threats to our common future.

    As always, Ikeda’s view of nuclear weapons is unambiguous. He refers to these weapons, as did his mentor Josei Toda, as an “absolute evil.” He is clear that these weapons “are incompatible not only with the interests of national security but with human security.” This understanding forms the basis for his uncompromising commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    At the governmental level, Ikeda proposes action at three levels. First, he suggests the prompt convening of a US-Russia summit, at which “basic agreement for bold nuclear arms reduction plans could be reached” in advance of the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. I agree with him fully on this point, and it would seem that President Obama, who has already sent Henry Kissinger to Russia for preliminary talks, does as well.

    What might be accomplished at a US-Russia summit? I would argue for four needed outcomes. First, announce that the common goal of both countries is a world free of nuclear weapons. Second, agree as a next step toward this goal to reduce the arsenals of each side, deployed and reserve, to no more than 1,000 nuclear weapons by the year 2010. Third, commit to taking the nuclear weapons on both sides off hair-trigger alert. Fourth, extend the provisions of the 1991 START I agreement, which is set to expire in December 2009, so that its provisions for verification are retained.

    Ikeda’s second proposal for action at the governmental level is, building on the US-Russia agreements, to convene a five state summit for nuclear disarmament, composed of the five initial nuclear weapons states (US, Russia, UK, France and China). He sees their mandate being to create “a roadmap of truly effective measures to fulfill their disarmament obligation stipulated in Article VI of the NPT.” Thus, he seeks to keep the nuclear weapons states that are parties to the NPT focused on their obligation to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    The third Ikeda proposal for government action is pursuing the challenge of concluding a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC), a new treaty that would “comprehensively prohibit the use, manufacture, possession, deployment and transfer of nuclear weapons.” Ikeda realizes, though, that action by governments is unlikely to succeed in this effort without the involvement of civil society. “To realize an NWC,” he states, “it is vital that people of the world raise their voices and strengthen solidarity in the manner seen in the campaigns for the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but on an even greater scale.”

    Awakening the people of the planet to the peril that nuclear weapons pose to them and their loved ones may be the most important single effort that can be made by those of us currently inhabiting the planet. Thus, I am particularly encouraged by Daisaku Ikeda’s call for a People’s Decade for Nuclear Abolition. It is critical that people everywhere embrace this issue and take positive action for a world free of nuclear weapons. Governments have been too slow to act on their own, regardless of the dangers nuclear weapons pose to humanity and the human future.

    Even more enlightened governments, such as the Obama administration, need outspoken support from their citizens if they are going to meet the challenges of nuclear weapons abolition. With concerted global action during a People’s Decade for Nuclear Abolition, it may be possible to move governments with unprecedented speed so as to reach the goal set forth by the Mayors for Peace of a world free of nuclear weapons by the year 2020.

    Daisaku Ikeda’s 2009 Peace Proposal is an inspirational statement from a man who has chosen hope. Realizing the goals of the proposal for peace and nuclear abolition will require the active engagement of committed individuals and groups across the globe.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a Deputy Chair of the World Future Council.

  • Time to Ban the Bomb and the Reactor

    This speech was delivered to delegates at the 2009 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee at the United Nations

    With the world’s hopes newly raised by inspiring statements from prominent leaders urging the elimination of nuclear weapons, including pledges by Presidents Obama and Medvedev, to work for “a nuclear free world,” the recent establishment of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) could actually enable us to realistically fulfill the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s mission for nuclear disarmament. In January, Germany, together with Denmark and Spain, launched IRENA in Bonn with 75 nations who signed its founding statute. Since IRENA is the Greek word for peace, this auspicious initiative is particularly well-named as the Agency is designed to spread the fruits of clean, safe sustainable energy, enabling the planet to avoid nuclear proliferation and catastrophic climate change and assist developing countries to access the abundant free energy resources provided by our Mother Earth.

    IRENA precludes reliance on fossil, nuclear and inefficient traditional biomass energy. With an International Atomic Energy Agency, promoting dangerous and toxic nuclear power technology, and an International Energy Agency, founded during the 1970s oil crisis to manage the fossil fuel supply, IRENA’s launch could not have been timelier as the world wrestles with the twin crises of nuclear proliferation and global warming. We urge every nation to join IRENA by signing its founding statute and to forego or phase out deadly nuclear technology, whether for war or for peace.

    Throughout the years of this NPT process, we NGOs have warned states parties that the spread of nuclear energy spells disaster for efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons or to mitigate the impacts of climate change, threatening the very future of humanity’s existence. Distinguished physicians at these meetings have described for you the awful physical effects of carcinogenic pollution from nuclear power with increased cancer, leukemia, and birth defects in every community where nuclear reactors spew their lethal poisons into the air, water and soil. Since we last spoke to you, new German studies show a 60% increase in solid cancers and a 117% increase in leukemia among young children living near German nuclear facilities between 1980 and 2003.

    Indigenous leaders from around the planet have stood here and told you about the awful horrors wreaked on their communities from uranium mining. We reminded you of the creation story of the Rainbow Serpent, asleep in the earth, guarding over those elemental powers which lie outside of humankind’s control and how any attempt to seize those underworld elements will disturb the sleep of the serpent, provoking its vengeance: a terrible deluge of destruction and death. At the World Uranium Hearing, the world was warned that:

    The Rainbow Serpent has been wakened. Men turned into shadows, cancer, women giving birth to jellyfish babies, leukemia – since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, since the Bravo test in the Bikini Islands, and since the Chernobyl catastrophe in April of 1986, we know that the Rainbow Serpent doesn’t differentiate between uranium’s military and peaceful uses. Death is everywhere it touches. But what we perhaps don’t realize is that the destructive properties of uranium are unleashed the moment it’s mined from the ground.

    We have told you there is no known solution to the storage of nuclear waste which lasts for hundreds of thousands of years, spewing its silent poisons into our air, earth and soil, injuring not only the living, but unborn generations to come—our very genetic heritage. The United States, in 2009, cancelled 30 year-old plans to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain Nevada because it cannot safely contain the long-lived poisons that the nuclear industry lobbied to bury there for eons. After more than 60 years of ignorantly and mindlessly amassing huge quantities of toxic radioactive poisons, heedless of the consequences to earth’s biosphere, yet another Commission is to be appointed to yet again “study the issue”. We don’t have a clue! Rational behavior would demand we should stop making any more nuclear waste until, and if ever, we can figure it out!!

    In France, held up as the exemplar of a country enjoying the “benefits” of nuclear power, its nationally owned Areva, the largest nuclear corporation in the world, is plunged into debt. Its reprocessing center at La Hague has produced massive discharges of radiation into the English Channel and has over nine thousand containers of radioactive wastes with no safe place to go. In Japan, the costs from the earthquake last year that crippled seven reactors at Kashwazaki are still rising. In the UK, the Sellafield nuclear recycling plant is mired in debt and costly breakdowns.

    We have explained to you how the nuclear industry promotes false information about nuclear power’s ability to mitigate the effects of catastrophic climate disasters. Millions of dollars are spent in marketing campaigns to convince the public that nuclear power will prevent global warming. But the evidence is incontrovertible that nuclear power is the slowest and costliest way to reduce CO2 emissions. Financing nuclear power diverts scarce resources from investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Enormous sums spent for nuclear power would worsen the effects of global warming by buying less carbon-free energy per dollar, compared to investing those sums in sun, wind or efficiency. Nor is nuclear power carbon free. It uses fossil fuels for the mining, milling and processing of uranium, as well as for reactor decommissioning and waste disposition and depends on a grid usually powered by coal. It is unreliable in extreme weather conditions and needs back up power to prevent meltdown. In the summer of 2004, France had to shut down a number of reactors during an extreme heat wave.

    We have spoken to you of the folly of lusting for mastery of nuclear technology as a matter of “national pride”. This is holdover thinking from the 1960s when nuclear power developed in industrialized nations. Many scientists in developing countries were trained in nuclear technology as part of the Atoms for Peace programs in the US, Russia and Europe during the late 1950s and in the 1960s. Nuclear power growth stalled in the industrialized countries by the late 1980s, especially after the tragedies of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and as its economic burdens became clear. But by then the former young scientists were entrenched in running the industry and like their nuclear reactors were now middle aged and unwilling to let go of their positions of power.

    The nuclear renaissance was to be a passing on of the inheritance to the next generation but real world constraints are making this generation of new reactors even more problematic than the last and the nuclear baton is not likely to pass out of the existing “club”. The enormous cost and safety problems are still here. In the industrialized nations, the nuclear industry has great difficulty in recruiting nuclear engineers. Due to global shortages in nuclear reactor components it’s not possible for the world nuclear industry to build more that 10 reactors a year at most for the next decade. Because all of the operating reactors will have to be retired in that time, 1070 reactors would have to be built in 42 years, or about 25 reactors per year, in order for nuclear technology to lower carbon emissions of even one billion tons per year.

    In a “wedge” model which assumes that nuclear power could replace a portion of the energy used by coal fired plants, the effort expended would be insufficient to have even the smallest impact on climate change. And because the limited supply of production capacity to produce new reactors creates a seller’s market, the industry is much more likely to sell to countries with nuclear experience. This is due to the risks associated with inordinately long lead times for new construction, security and liability issues, and already existing infrastructure. Thus developing countries or countries with no nuclear industry will probably be rebuffed and are well advised to put their energy investments into much more reliable renewable sources

    Nevertheless, proposals to try to control civilian nuclear fuel production have sparked new interest in acquiring nuclear technology by countries that never wanted such technology before. A top-down, hierarchical, centrally controlled nuclear apartheid fuel cycle is being planned, creating a whole new class of nuclear “have nots” who can’t be trusted not to turn their “peaceful” nuclear reactors into bomb factories. It’s just so 20th century! These discriminatory proposals are doomed to fail. With the growing chorus of promising new calls for a nuclear free world, there is no need for any nation to have a virtual bomb in the basement. Far better to leap frog over this antiquated, poisonous 20th century technology and expend your financial and intellectual treasure on clean, safe renewable energy, averting the twin catastrophes of nuclear proliferation and radical climate change, while adding your nation’s voice to the growing numbers of world leaders demanding that negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition move forward.

    Critical energy investment choices must be made now if we are to prevent the looming climate calamity. Every thirty minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the earth’s surface to meet global energy demand for an entire year. Wind has the potential to satisfy the world’s electricity needs 40 times over and could meet all global energy demand five times over. The geothermal energy stored in the top six miles of the earth’s crust contains an estimated 50,000 times the energy of the world’s known oil and gas resources. Global wave power, tidal and river power are vast untapped stores of clean energy. IRENA is dedicated to supporting nations to develop and share the research and technology that will enable us to harness that abundant, free energy to secure the future of our planet.

    While the NPT guarantees to States which agree to abide by its terms an inalienable right to so-called peaceful nuclear technology, it is highly questionable whether such a right can ever be appropriately conferred on a State. During the Age of Enlightenment natural law theory challenged the divine right of kings. The United States’ Declaration of Independence spoke of “self-evident truth” that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights …to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Where does “peaceful nuclear technology” fit in this picture?!? Just as the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban abrogated the right to peaceful nuclear explosions in Article V of the NPT, we urge you to adopt a protocol to the NPT mandating participation in the newly launched International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) which would supersede the Article IV right to “peaceful” nuclear technology.

    Civil Society’s Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, now an official UN document, includes an Optional Protocol Concerning Energy Assistance which would phase out nuclear power and provide funding and assist nations to shift to non-nuclear sustainable energy sources. Universal enrollment in IRENA, coupled with a moratorium on new reactors and fuel production, while phasing out nuclear power by relying on safe, renewable energy, must become an integral part of the good faith negotiations required to eliminate nuclear weapons. We urge your enrollment and participation with IRENA. Since IRENA was launched in January with 75 countries, two new countries, Belarus and India have signed its Statute. NGOs will campaign for 100% universal participation in IRENA by the 2010 Review Conference. Please join us!! Add your nation to the list!! It’s time to give peace a chance!

    Alice Slater is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s New York representative.

  • United States Remarks to the 2009 NPT PrepCom

    Mr. Chairman, all me to elaborate on the concrete steps toward disarmament and the goals of the NPT’s Article VI outlined by President Obama in Prague. First, the United States and Russia will negotiate a new agreement to replace the strategic arms reduction treaty, which expires in just six month from now. The President said in Prague that: “We will seek a new agreement by the end of the year that is legally binding and sufficiently bold…. This set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapon states in this endeavor.”

    President Obama and Russian President Medvedev have instructed that the new agreement achieve reductions lower than those in existing arms control agreements, and that the new agreement should include effective verification measures drawn from our experience in implementing START. The Presidents have directed that talks begin immediately, and further charged their negotiators to report, by July, on their progress in working out a new agreement.

    Mr. Chairman, I head the American negotiating team in my capacity as Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation. My Russian counterpart and I held an initial meeting in Rome on April 24th, and we plan to reconvene in Moscow after the PrepCom concludes. I pledge my best efforts and those of other American negotiators to meet the follow-on START goals set by Presidents Obama and Medvedev.
    A message from President Barack Obama to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty PrepCom was read by Assistant Secretary of State and Verification, Compliance, and Implementation, Rose Gottemoeller (full quote): One month ago in Prague, I reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). As I said then, the United States believes that the NPT’s framework is sound: countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them, and all countries can have access to peaceful use nuclear energy.

    While we agree on this framework, we must strengthen the NPT deal effectively with the threat of nuclear weapons and terrorism. Action is needed to improve verification and compliance with the NPT and to foster the responsible and widest possible use of nuclear energy by all states.

    To seek peace and security of a world free of nuclear weapons, in Prague, I committed the United States to take initial steps in this direction. Through cooperation and shared understanding, I am hopeful that we will strengthen the pillars of the NPT and restore confidence n its credibility and effectiveness.

    I recognize that differences are inevitable and the NPT parties will not always view each element of the treaty in the same way. But we must define ourselves not by our differences, but by our readiness to pursue dialogue and hard work to ensure the NPT continues to make an enduring contribution to international peace and security.

    Again, please accept my thanks for your work on building a better, more secure future and my best wishes for a successful meeting.

    Rose Gottemoeller continues with US Statement (full quote): President Obama confirmed in Prague that the United States will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). We will also launch a diplomatic effort to bring on board the other states whose ratifications are required for the treaty to enter into force.

    President Obama also said that the United States will seek a new treaty that verifiably ends production of fissile materials intended for use in nuclear weapons—a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Such a Treaty would not only help fulfill our NPT Article VI commitments, but also could help avoid destabilizing arms races in South Asia and, by limiting the amount of fissile material worldwide, could facilitate the task of securing such weapons-usable materials against theft or seizure by terrorist groups.

    The negotiation of a verifiable FMCT is the top priority at the Conference on Disarmament. The CD has been unable to achieve a consensus on beginning negotiations to end the production of weapons-grade materials dedicated to use in nuclear weapons for far too long, and it is time to move forward. The United States hopes that its renewed flexibility on this issue will enable negotiations to start soon in Geneva. Pending the successful negotiation and entry into force of an FMCT, the United States reaffirms our decades-long unilateral moratorium on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. We call on all governments, especially the other nuclear weapon states, publicly to declare or reaffirm their intention not to produce further fissile material for weapons. Similarly, until CTBT enters into force, the United States will continue our nearly two-decade long moratorium on nuclear explosive testing. We call on all other governments publicly to declare or reaffirm their intention not to test.

    Rose Gottemoeller is the Assistant Secretary for Verification, Compliance, and Implementation for the United States and the United States representative to the 2009 NPT PrepCom.

  • Remarks to the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 NPT Review Conference

    Excellences, Ladies and Gentlemen,

    I am pleased to welcome you to the United Nations as we open this important third session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Review Conference of the States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

    For too long, the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agenda has been stagnating in a Cold War mentality.

    In 2005, the world experienced what might be called a disarmament depression. The NPT Review Conference that year ended in disappointment. The UN World Summit outcome contained not even a single line on weapons of mass destruction.

    Today, we seem to be emerging from that low point. The change has come in recent weeks. But it is unfolding against a backdrop of multiple threats that, while urgent, tend to obscure the urgency of the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda.

    The global economic crisis, climate change and the outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus are all reminders that we live in an interdependent world. They demand a full and forceful multilateral response. At the same time, nuclear weapons remain an apocalyptic threat. We cannot afford to place disarmament and non-proliferation on a backburner. Let us not be lulled into complacency. Let us not miss the opportunity to make our societies safer and more prosperous.

    Excellencies,

    I have been using every opportunity to push for progress. I discussed non-proliferation and disarmament with Russian President Medvedev and U.S. President Obama. I welcome the joint commitment they announced last month to fulfill their obligations under article VI of the NPT.

    I am particularly encouraged that both countries are committed to rapidly pursuing verifiable reductions in their strategic offensive arsenals by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding pact. I hope their example will serve as a catalyst in inspiring other nuclear powers to follow suit.

    Other developments also merit attention.

    On Iran, I encourage the country’s leaders to continue their cooperation with the IAEA with a view to demonstrating the entirely peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

    I also encourage them to re-engage in the negotiating process with the EU 3+3 and the EU High Representative on the basis of the relevant Security Council resolutions, and in line with the package of proposals for cooperation with Iran.

    With respect to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, despite the current serious challenges, I continue to believe that the Six-Party process is the best mechanism to achieve the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.

    I therefore urge the DPRK to return to these talks so that everybody can resolve their respective concerns through dialogue and cooperation, based on the relevant Security Council resolutions as well as multilateral and bilateral agreements.

    I also urge all states to end the stalemate that has marked the international disarmament machinery for too long. To strengthen the NPT regime, it is essential that the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty enters into force without further delay, and that the Conference on Disarmament begins negotiations on a verifiable fissile material treaty. I commend President Obama’s commitment to ratify the CTBT, and urge all countries that have not done so to ratify the Treaty without conditions.

    Hopes for a breakthrough on the deadlocked disarmament agenda have been building. We have seen a cascade of proposals. Elder statesmen, leaders of nuclear-weapon states, regional groups, various commissions and civil society representatives have elaborated proposals for slaying the nuclear monster.

    Their voices may be varied, but they are all part of the same rising chorus demanding action on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Concerns about nuclear terrorism, a new rush by some to possess nuclear arms, and renewed interest in nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels have only heightened the need for urgent action.

    Excellencies,

    The work you do in the next two weeks will be critical. You must seize the moment and show your seriousness.

    This preparatory session must generate agreements on key procedural issues and substantive recommendations to the Review Conference.

    The Review Conference must produce a clear commitment by all NPT states parties to comply fully with all of their obligations under this vital Treaty.

    I urge you to work in a spirit of compromise and flexibility. I hope you will avoid taking absolute positions that have no chance of generating consensus. Instead, build bridges, and be part of a new multilateralism. People understand intuitively that nuclear weapons will never make us more secure.

    They know that real security lies in responding to poverty, climate change, armed conflict and instability.

    They want governments to invest in plans for growth and development, not weapons of mass destruction.

    If you can set us on a course towards achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world, you will send a message of hope to the world.

    We desperately need this message at this time. I am counting on you, and I am supporting all of your efforts to succeed, now and at the Review Conference in 2010.

    Thank you.

    Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations. This address was delivered at the opening session of the Third Preparatory Committee of the 2010 NPT Review Conference at the United Nations in New York.
  • The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: A Time for Boldness

    The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: A Time for Boldness

    Today, nearly four decades since the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force, there are nine nuclear weapons states in the world and five of these are parties to the NPT. There are not as many nuclear weapons states today as was feared in the 1960s, but there are still nine too many. These nine states appear proud of their nuclear arsenals, when they should be shamed by the nearly unlimited indiscriminate destructive power that these weapons represent. Nuclear weapons of these states put at risk the future of the human species and most life on the planet.

    The NPT has a basic bargain. The non-nuclear weapons states agree not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons and, in return, the nuclear weapons states agree to pursue “good faith” negotiations for nuclear disarmament. All parties to the treaty agree that there is an “inalienable right” to the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. President Obama has referred to this “basic bargain” of the NPT as “sound.” He has called for establishing a structure capable of ensuring consequences for any country party to the treaty that breaks its rules.

    Up to now, however, the rules have only been brought to bear against the non-nuclear weapons states, those without nuclear weapons. It has not been possible, within the structure of the treaty, to enforce its rules against the countries that never signed it (Israel, India and Pakistan) or those that have withdrawn from the treaty (North Korea). There has also been a lack of enforcement of the treaty against the five nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty (US, UK, France, Russia and China).

    The NPT is the only treaty in which there is a legally binding commitment to nuclear disarmament. It provided the International Court of Justice with the legal basis to conclude: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    President Obama argued in Prague, “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons.” But it is not only the spread of nuclear weapons that must be prevented. It is also the research, development, manufacture, possession, threat and use of the weapons that must be prohibited. The attention of the world has largely focused on the proliferators or potential proliferators, such as North Korea or Iran. It is desirable to try to prevent proliferation by new states, but this is no more important than eliminating the arsenals of the existing nuclear weapons states. President Obama has, in fact, provided hope that the US is ready to lead in moving toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

    The United States was established because a colonial power sought to impose taxation without representation. How much worse is what is imposed on all humanity by the nuclear weapons states? It is the threat of destruction of cities, countries, civilization and the human species without representation. No one votes on our nuclear future. The best structure we have at the moment for controlling and eliminating nuclear weapons is the NPT, a treaty in which the people of the world deserve a voice.

    Representatives of civil society will gather at the United Nations in New York in May 2009 for the Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2010 NPT Review Conference. It is appropriate that they should make their voices heard among the delegates of the governments represented. It is also right that civil society representatives should be critical of measures taken there that fall short of the clear obligation of “nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.”

    So let this NPT meeting not focus on seeking sanctions for North Korea and Iran without also seeking unambiguous commitments from the nuclear weapons states to achieve the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Three critical questions face the parties to the NPT. Civil society as well as governments must demand answers to these questions.

    First, what is the plan of the NPT nuclear weapons states to move from 25,000 nuclear weapons to zero? Such a plan is overdue. If the nuclear weapons states are not prepared to offer such a plan, they should be requested to engage in the “good faith” negotiations required of them and to present an agreed upon plan next year at the 2010 NPT Review Conference.

    Second, how can the NPT be made universal? This question boils down to how can Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea, all non-NPT nuclear weapons states, be brought under its jurisdiction. If it is not possible to obtain the consent of these states to the rules of the NPT, then the United Nations Security Council needs to act to assure that these states will be bound by an agreed upon roadmap to rid the world of nuclear arms.

    Third, is it possible to achieve a world without nuclear weapons while at the same time promoting the spread of nuclear energy and, if so, what conditions would be required?

    The answers to these questions will have powerful implications for actually achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. As the delegates to the NPT Preparatory Committee meet at the United Nations, let us hope that they will do more than continue to posture and mark time. Nuclear weapons are genocidal, if not omnicidal, weapons. They threaten, but do not protect. Their use or threat of use is illegal under international law. We share a moral responsibility to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity. Now is the time for boldness.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a Councilor of the World Future Council.