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  • For Nuclear Sanity

    This article was first published by the Transnational Institute

    President Barack Obama’s April 5 speech in Prague calling for a world free of the scourge of nuclear weapons is a major foreign and security policy initiative that deserves applause. If he pursues its logic through to the end with the same since rity and passion with which he outlined his commitment “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”, he could be the first United States President to go beyond nuclear arms control and to put nuclear weapons elimination on the global agenda. That would mark a turning point for strategic thinking the world over and open up new avenues through which to seek security.
    This remains a big “if”. Obama has not yet worked out the doctrinal, strategic and practical consequences of his fundamental premise that a secure world without nuclear weapons is both possible and desirable. His speech only outlines some necessary steps but without specifying their sequence or time frame, numbers (of weapons to be de-alerted or destroyed), the roles of different actors, the function of legally binding treaties, and so on.
    But Obama has stated some premises upfront and emphasised their moral-political rationale in a way no major global leader has done in recent years. Thus, he said, “the existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War”; these are “the ultimate tools of destruction”, which can erase the world “in a single flash of light”. The global non-proliferation regime is in crisis and “the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up”; soon, “we could reach the point where the centre cannot hold”.
    “We are not destined,” said Obama, “to live in a world where more nations and more people possess [nuclear weapons]. Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable.” Logically, fighting fatalism means putting “an end to Cold War thinking” and reducing “the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy”.
    This sets Obama miles apart not just from George W. Bush but also from Bill Clinton. Obama is effectively reversing a long tradition beginning with the Ronald Reagan presidency towards either a hardening of the U.S. nuclear posture, or the development of new weapons such as “Star Wars”-style ballistic missile defence (BMD), itself premised on even more dangerous doctrines than that of nuclear deterrence, which is fatally flawed.
    Thus, the U.S. has failed, even two decades after the Cold War ended, to move beyond relatively paltry reductions in its nuclear arsenal through the Moscow Treaty of 2002. Under Bush, it refused to take 2,200 weapons off “launch on warning” alert. The U.S. military establishment wants to develop a Reliable Replaceable Warhead for existing ones, find new uses (for example, bunker-busting) for old weapon designs, and has yielded to pressures from the nuclear weapons laboratories to modernise and refine existing armaments and do experimental work on fusion weapons at the expensive National Ignition Facility.
    Bush was not only obsessed with perpetuating America’s nuclear superiority. He gave it a particularly deadly edge through BMD deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, thus exacerbating tensions with Russia and destabilising strategic balances worldwide. Bush also blurred vital distinctions between conventional and nuclear weapons, unsigned the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
    Bush’s BMD programme will militarise and nuclearise outer space, in which the U.S. seeks “full-spectrum” dominance. His paranoid response to the September 11 attacks resulted in the worst-ever fiasco in the history of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at its important review conference in 2005, liquidating all the significant gains made at the 2000 review.

    Obama promises to change course, radically. He has spoken more boldly and honestly in favour of a nuclear weapons-free world than any other U.S. President in decades. He has gone further than any other in acknowledging that the U.S. bears a “moral responsibility” for nuclear disarmament because it is the only power to have used the horror weapon. This speaks of exemplary moral clarity, as does his statement that the U.S. must take the lead on disarmament. However, that cannot be said about four other propositions in Obama’s speech. First, he betrays an unpardonably naive faith in nuclear deterrence: “Make no mistake. As long as [nuclear] weapons exist, the U.S. will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary.…” He also believes in extended deterrence – deploying nuclear weapons in non-North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries.
    This column has dissected the fallacy of nuclear deterrence far too often to warrant further comment other than that it is a fallible, fragile and unreliable basis on which to premise security (via a balance of terror). It involves unrealistic assumptions about capabilities and doctrines, symmetrical perceptions by adversaries of “unacceptable damage” means, and the complete absence of miscalculations and accidents – 100 per cent of the time.
    Second, Obama continues to repose faith in BMD – he congratulated the Czech for their “courage” in hosting it – although he qualifies his support by saying BMD must be “cost-effective and proven”. This ignores BMD’s primitive, as-yet-premature status in intercepting missiles, and worse, the danger of escalating military rivalry to uncertain and risky levels where an adversary could feel tempted to neutralise a putative BMD advantage by amassing more missiles or launching wildcat strikes.
    Third, Obama, like Bush and Clinton, makes a specious distinction between responsible/acceptable/good nuclear powers (the Big Five-plus-Israel-plus-India-plus-non-Taliban-Pakistan) and irresponsible/dangerous ones (Iran, North Korea). This permits double standards and detracts from the universal urgency of abolishing all nuclear weapons. Obama’s endorsement of Bush’s Proliferation Security Initiative – unilateral interception at sea of suspect nuclear-related materials – follows from this.
    Finally, Obama believes that disarmament may not be achieved in “my lifetime”. Such pessimism is unwarranted. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s thoughtful plan for global nuclear disarmament, presented to the United Nations General Assembly in 1988, set a 15-year timeline for complete nuclear elimination. This is realistic – if the U.S. and the international community musters the will for an early disarmament initiative.
    If Obama effects deep cuts in U.S. nuclear weapons through the promised Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia this year, and launches a drive for banning nuclear testing and ending fissile production worldwide, the momentum can be accelerated, especially if U.S. policy shifts to no-first-use. After all, even the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – George P. Schulz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn – believe that nuclear weapons abolition can be achieved in the foreseeable future.
    Obama’s speech provides an opportunity to all those who believe in complete nuclear weapons elimination, a cause kept alive by the peace movement, a coalition of states, and several expert commissions. India too professes a commitment to this goal and must seize this opportunity.

    India’s lukewarm response
    Regrettably, Indian policymakers have extended a lukewarm, if not cold, welcome to Obama’s speech. So fearful are they of pressure on India to sign the CTBT that they are clutching at straws. One such is Obama’s statement that “my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the CTBT”. This is different from what he wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before he was sworn in: “I will work with the U.S. Senate to secure ratification of [CTBT] at the earliest practical day, and then launch a major diplomatic initiative to ensure its entry into force.” (The letter was suppressed by South Block.)
    Indian policymakers are also reportedly relieved that Obama has not reiterated his letter’s reference to India’s “real responsibilities – [including] steps to restrain nuclear weapons programmes and pursuing effective disarmament when others do so”. They are also pleased that Obama has appointed Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat Congresswoman, as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security rather than Robert Einhorn, described by India’s nuclear hawks as “an ayatollah of non-proliferation”.
    Such timidity is unbecoming of a nation that claims to be proud of its pro-disarmament record and has pledged to fight for a nuclear weapons-free world. India opposed the CTBT in 1995-96 not for its intrinsic flaws or demerits but because it wanted to test nuclear weapons. Having done so in 1998, India should sign and ratify the treaty. Even Arundhati Ghose, who famously declared that India will not sign it “not now, not ever”, now says that she sees no problem with its signature. This may show a deplorable level of cynicism, but it is nevertheless a ground for correcting course and returning to the disarmament agenda.
    Logically, this includes several steps such as the CTBT, Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, regional nuclear risk-reduction and restraint measures (including forswearing missile test-flights and keeping delivery vehicles apart from warheads) and, of course, deep cuts in nuclear weapons by all the nuclear weapons states, beginning with the U.S. and Russia.
    India must boldly seize the initiative by updating the Rajiv Gandhi plan, opposing BMD and proactively arguing for rapid strides towards the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Here lies the litmus test of India’s commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world and of its creative and principled diplomacy.

    Praful Bidwai is a journalist and author living in India.

  • Not a Weapon of Choice

    This article was originally published in the Times of India

    On Sunday, North Korea launched a long-range missile which Pyongyang described as a success but US experts said had been a failure. Of greater historical significance was the speech delivered the same day in Prague by US president Barack Obama. During the Democratic primary campaign last year, Hillary Clinton famously declared that both Senator John McCain and she had actual job experience to qualify to be commander-in-chief. All that Obama had done, by contrast, was to deliver one speech in Chicago opposing the Iraq war.

    As we know, Clinton fatally underestimated the power of speech. Obama at his best combines linguistic eloquence and powerful oratory with substance and gravitas. On Sunday, he addressed one of the most critically important topics of our day that literally has life and death implications for all of us, wherever we may be.

    The dream of a world free of nuclear weapons is an old one. It is written into the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which balances the prohibition on non-nuclear states acquiring these weapons with the demand on the five NPT-licit nuclear powers Britain, China, France, Russia and the US (N5) to eliminate their nuclear arsenals through good-faith negotiations. Considering that the NPT was signed in 1968 and came into effect in 1970, the N5 have not lived up to their bargain.

    The dream has been kept alive by many NGOs, a coalition of like-minded countries and a plethora of international blue ribbon commissions. A major difficulty is that the abundant “zero nuclear weapons” initiatives have been stillborn because of zero follow-up and a failure to address real security concerns.

    If we examine the geostrategic circumstances of the existing nuclear powers, the two with the least zero security justification for holding on to any nuclear weapons are Britain and France. Nor can North Korea justify nuclear weapons on national security grounds. It seems to play a nuclear hand as a bargaining chip, the only one it has. Israel’s security environment is harsh enough with many in its neighbourhood committed to its destruction to make its reliance on nuclear weapons understandable. Pakistan will not give up its nuclear weapons while India still has them. India’s main security benchmark is not Pakistan but China. Neither China nor Russia will contemplate giving them up for fear of the US. This is why the circuit-breaker in the global nuclear weapons chain is the US.

    Obama’s speech acknowledged this. The US cannot achieve the dream on its own, he said, but it is prepared to lead based on the acknowledgement of its special moral responsibility flowing from being the only power to have used atomic weapons. He thus lays down the challenge to others to follow. And he outlines concrete follow-up steps that are practical, measurable and achievable.

    Obama’s strategy is to map out a vision and then outline the roadmap to achieve it. These include ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiated way back in 1997; a new treaty banning fissile material; reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy; and a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia that is bold and legally binding. Washington will also host a global summit on nuclear security within one year.

    Such measures by the N5 must be matched by robust action against the proliferation threat. At the very least, Obama reclaims the moral high ground for Washington to pursue a vigorous and robust non- and counter-proliferation strategy. More resources and authority for institutions like the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Proliferation Security Initiative will be provided. Countries leaving or breaking the NPT must face real and immediate consequences. An international fuel bank could be created to assure supply to countries whose interest is limited to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. All vulnerable nuclear material around the world for example, loose nukes in Russia will be secured within four years. Black markets like A Q Khan’s will be broken up, trade in nuclear materials detected and intercepted in transit, and financial tools used to disrupt dangerous trade.

    Obama is right in saying that reaching the goal will require patience and persistence. But he may be wrong in saying that it may not be achieved in his lifetime. He should set down the marker for achieving it by the end of his second term if re-elected. Without a deadline, no one will work to make it happen; rather, they will retreat into the vague formula of “yes, some day, eventually”.

    Obama may also be mistaken in pinning faith on the global regime centred on the NPT which, he said, “could reach the point where the centre cannot hold”. The NPT is already a broken reed, with far too many flaws, anomalies, gaps and outright contradictions. For example, the promise that those who break the rules must be punished cannot be enforced against India. The India-US civil nuclear agreement, however justified and necessary, breaks NPT rules. A new clean nuclear weapons convention might be a better goal to pursue.

    That’s a minor quibble. More important is the broad sweep of Obama’s commitment, based on national interest and personal conviction, to freeing us from the fear of nuclear weapons.

    Ramesh Thakur is founding director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada.
  • A 100-Day Nuclear Disarmament Agenda: President Obama Scores High

    A 100-Day Nuclear Disarmament Agenda: President Obama Scores High

    At the end of 2008, following President Obama’s election but prior to his inauguration, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation put forward “A Nuclear Disarmament Agenda for President Obama,” focusing on his first 100 days in office (100-Day Agenda). During his campaign for the presidency, candidate Obama had spoken about a nuclear weapons-free world being in the interests of America and the world. The Foundation put forward the 100-Day Agenda to encourage President Obama to keep the issue of nuclear disarmament high on his agenda. The Foundation urged the president to act boldly and take a number of steps during his first hundred days in office. The steps that were proposed were divided into three categories: public commitment, bilateral engagement, and global action.

    President Obama has, in fact, acted quickly and boldly on a nuclear disarmament agenda. He assumed office on January 20, 2009 and almost immediately posted on the www.whitehouse.gov website a series of steps that he and Vice President Biden intended to take on nuclear policy issues. These fell into three areas: secure loose nuclear materials from terrorists, strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and move toward a nuclear free world. In the latter area, it stated, “Obama and Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it.”

    President Obama met for the first time with Russian President Dimitriy Medvedev in London on April 1, 2009. Following their meeting, the two presidents issued a Joint Statement in which they reaffirmed “that the era when our countries viewed each other as enemies is long over….” They pledged their resolve “to work together to strengthen strategic stability, international security, and jointly meet contemporary global challenges, while also addressing disagreements openly and honestly in a spirit of mutual respect and acknowledgement of each other’s perspective.”

    They discussed “nuclear arms control and reduction” and made a number of specific pledges, including “working together to fulfill our obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and demonstrate leadership in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world.” Article VI of the NPT contains the treaty’s nuclear disarmament obligation. The two presidents also committed their countries “to achieving a nuclear free world,” while recognizing that this would be a “long-term goal.”

    A few days later, on April 5, 2009, President Obama spoke in Prague, devoting his speech almost entirely to “the future of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.” President Obama called this an issue that is “fundamental to the security of our nations and to the peace of the world.” In his speech, he struck a moral tone, unusual for a US president when discussing US responsibilities. “[A]s the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon,” he said, “the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” He recognized that the US cannot succeed in achieving nuclear disarmament alone, but that it can lead. The speech was historic in accepting moral responsibility for nuclear disarmament and setting forth a commitment for US leadership to achieve a world without nuclear weapons. President Obama took a far different approach to nuclear disarmament than had been seen from the two most recent past presidents, Clinton and Bush, who had preceded him in office.

    Below in bold are the major points made in the Foundation’s 100-Day Agenda on Nuclear Disarmament. Following each point there is an indication of what President Obama has said regarding it. As can be seen, most of the 100-Day Agenda has been fulfilled, although there are some points that he has not spoken to or that raise some concerns. These include his indication that the timeframe for achieving a world without nuclear weapons may be a long one, perhaps not in his own lifetime; his emphasis on nuclear deterrence in the interim, although without indicating who is being deterred; and his general support for nuclear power, which is likely to draw societal subsidies away from truly sustainable forms of energy and make a world without nuclear weapons far more difficult to achieve.

    Three specific issues called for in the 100-Day Agenda that President Obama failed to address were a policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons; specific numbers related to the next round of bilateral reductions with the Russians; and a timeframe for convening the other nuclear weapons states to negotiate further reductions. It is not necessary that any of these be achieved within President Obama’s first hundred days in office, but they would be valuable and, in the case of numbers related to the next round of reductions, will be essential to address as the US and Russia proceed with their bilateral negotiations.

    On balance, President Obama’s oft-stated commitment to a world without nuclear weapons appears genuine and he is off to a strong start in his first 100 days in office. Perhaps most important, he has changed the tone of US nuclear policy, so that the US has become a leader for nuclear disarmament rather than the principal obstacle to its achievement, as it was under the Bush administration.

    Public Commitment

    Make a major foreign policy address, affirming US commitment to initiate a global effort to achieve a world with zero nuclear weapons. (Speech in Prague on April 5, 2009: “[T]he United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it. So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” WhiteHouse.gov website: “Obama and Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it.”)

    Deemphasize reliance on nuclear weapons in US military policy. (Speech in Prague: “To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same.”)

    Commit to not developing new nuclear weapons. (WhiteHouse.gov website: “[Obama and Biden] will stop the development of new nuclear weapons….”)

    Seek Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. (Speech in Prague: “To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.”)

    Launch a major global initiative to assure control of all nuclear weapons and the material to construct them. (Speech in Prague: “So today I am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. We will set new standards, expand our cooperation with Russia, pursue new partnerships to lock down these sensitive materials.”)

    Points of concern

    Timeframe: The president offered no timeframe for achieving “a world without nuclear weapons.” Rather, he stated in Prague, “I’m not naïve. The goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence.” Shifting direction again, he said, “But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, ‘Yes, we can.’”

    Deterrence: Following his commitment to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in national security strategy, he stated in Prague, “Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies….” He leaves it unclear, however, which potential adversaries require being deterred. He also makes a common error in equating deterrence with defense.

    No First Use: The president talked about reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security strategy, but made no commitment to a policy of No First Use. Such a policy would mark a major change of course in US nuclear policy, and would be the surest way to deemphasize reliance on nuclear weapons. If all countries committed to No First Use, and backed this up with appropriate nuclear policies, the possibility of any use would be dramatically reduced.

    US nuclear weapons in Europe: President Obama emphasized US commitment to NATO, while making no reference to removing the US nuclear weapons currently stored in five NATO countries.

    Missile defenses: President Obama framed missile defenses in Europe as being set up against a potential attack from Iran, although these defenses are still perceived by the Russians to threaten them with a US first-strike potential. The president said in Prague, “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.” Of course, “cost effective and proven” may be a very large, if not impossible, hurdle for the missile defense program to achieve.

    Bilateral Engagement

    Open negotiations with Russia on a range of nuclear policy issues. (Speech in Prague: “To reduce our warheads and stockpiles, we will negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians this year. President Medvedev and I began this process in London, and will seek a new agreement by the end of this year that is legally binding and sufficiently bold. And this will set the stage for further cuts….”)

    Negotiate to take both sides’ ballistic missiles off high alert status. (WhiteHouse.gov website: “[Obama and Biden will] work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert….”)

    Negotiate extending the verification provisions of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). (Joint Statement by President Medvedev and President Obama, April 1, 2009: “We agreed to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding treaty.”)

    Agree to the verifiable reduction to under 1,000 nuclear weapons each (deployed and reserve) by the end of 2010. (“WhiteHouse.gov website: “[Obama and Biden will] seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material….” Joint Statement by President Medvedev and President Obama: “We committed our two countries to achieving a nuclear free world, while recognizing that this long-term goal will require a new emphasis on arms control and conflict resolution measures, and their full implementation by all concerned nations.”)

    Points of concern

    Reductions: The president referred to reducing the size of nuclear arsenals when he stated in Prague, “But we will begin the work of reducing our arsenal.” He gave no specifics, however, on what level of reductions could be expected. Currently both countries are obligated under the SORT agreement to lower their nuclear arsenals to between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed strategic weapons by the year 2012. Whatever next step is agreed upon by the two leaders should be bold and substantially lower than the existing agreement and should include all nuclear weapons, not only those that are deployed and strategic.

    Global Action

    Organize to convene a meeting of all nuclear weapons states prior to the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to negotiate a new treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons. (Speech in Prague: After calling for further cuts in US and Russian arsenals, President Obama stated, “…and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.”)

    Additional promises for global action (not in the NAPF 100-Day Agenda)

    Strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Speech in Prague: “Together we will strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a basis for cooperation…. We need more resources and authority to strengthen international inspections. We need real and immediate consequences for countries caught breaking the rules or trying to leave the treaty without cause. And we should build a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation.” WhiteHouse.gov website: “Obama and Biden will crack down on nuclear proliferation by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.”)

    Convene a global meeting of states to cooperate in preventing nuclear terrorism. (Speech in Prague: “[W]e must ensure that terrorists never acquire nuclear weapons…. We should start by having a Global Summit for Nuclear Security that the United States will host within the next year.”)

    Ban the production of weapons-grade fissile materials. (Speech in Prague: “And to cut off the building blocks needed for a bomb, the United States will seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in state nuclear weapons.” WhiteHouse.gov website: “Obama and Biden will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material.”)

    Create a global ban on intermediate-range missiles. (WhiteHouse.gov website: “[Obama and Biden will] set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global.”)

    Points of concern

    Timeframe: President Obama gave no indication of when he would move to convene all nuclear weapons states in negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

    Nuclear energy: President Obama supported the right of countries, including Iran, to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy “with rigorous inspections.” It remains questionable, however, whether even with rigorous inspections it will be possible to create an impermeable wall between nuclear energy and weapons.

    Ban on missiles: While calling for a ban on intermediate-range missiles, President Obama fails to mention long-range missiles, the kind of missiles more likely to be used by many of the existing nuclear weapons states.

    In his first 100 days, President Obama has set forth a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, begun negotiations with Russia on a new treaty to replace the START I agreement that expires in December 2009, and provided the first indications that the US will seek to involve all nuclear weapons states in negotiations to create a world without nuclear weapons. Committing to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world is the first step toward achieving the goal. President Obama has done this. The next steps are developing a full plan to achieve the goal and implementing that plan. Developing and implementing such a plan will no doubt be extremely difficult, but it is not impossible and this work must begin.

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

  • Obama’s Nuclear Challenge

    This article was originally published in The Nation

    “So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” President Obama said at the open-air rally in Prague on April 5. With these words came a change in the global air, as if a window had been opened a crack in a dark room that had been sealed shut for decades. On only two previous occasions had an American president proposed the abolition of nuclear arms. The first was Truman’s proposal at the United Nations in 1946 to place all nuclear technology under international control and devote it entirely to peaceful purposes, and so to strangle the nuclear age in its cradle. Stalin’s Soviet Union, bent on developing the bomb, would not agree.

    The second was the summit meeting at Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986, where President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev came within an ace of agreeing to full nuclear disarmament. Their bid foundered on Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which he would not give up and Gorbachev would not accept. Thereafter the pronuclear consensus was restored. Its chief assumption, embodied in the doctrine of deterrence, was that safety from nuclear weapons paradoxically depended on their continued presence. Unremitting readiness to carry out genocide and worse had somehow been accepted as an inescapable commitment of even the greatest civilizations.

    Obama’s words disrupted this collective suicidal trance. He placed his commitment in an appropriate context: Prague had been the scene of Czech protests against Soviet domination, and Obama saluted those “who helped bring down a nuclear-armed empire without firing a shot.” The reference was doubly fitting. In the first place, the popular movement broke the spell of omnipotence that had surrounded the totalitarian empire. Like the bomb, the Soviet Union had been shielded by a reputation of immovability. The resistance movements in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere, using the “power of the powerless,” in the phrase of Václav Havel, gave the lie to this illusion. They revealed the possibility of “the impossible” and made it happen. Obama acknowledged the parallel with nuclear disarmament when he took note of those “who hear talk of a world without nuclear weapons and doubt whether it is worth setting a goal that seems impossible to achieve,” and, advising Czechs to remember the lessons of their Velvet Revolution, declared fatalism “a deadly adversary.”

    In the second place, it was that same resistance, together with Gorbachev’s perestroika, that by ending the cold war opened the clearest path to nuclear disarmament since 1946. Now that the rivalry that had been used to justify the threat of annihilation had been liquidated, might it be possible to eliminate the weapons that posed that threat? Might this “impossible” thing also be possible? The first three post-cold war presidents passed up the opportunity. Obama has seized it.

    Unfortunately, as soon as he announced the goal of abolition, he added that it would not “be achieved quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime.” With those words, the crack of the window seemed to narrow, the moral gloom thickened and the fatalism he had just renounced settled in again. Sighs of relief were almost audible among the upholders of the pronuclear consensus. As The Economist noted, “The world may never get to zero. But it would help make things a lot safer along the way if others act in concert. If North Korea and Iran can keep counting on the protection of China and Russia in their rule-breaking, progress will be all too slight.” In other words, a likely insincere commitment to abolition is to be a new talking point in stopping others from joining the nuclear club, which, for its part, will go on as before.

    A further sentence in Obama’s speech gave support to such views. Speaking of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the president said, “The basic bargain is sound: countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them.” But moving toward disarmament is not the same as disarming. It is one thing to say to the world, “We all must do without nuclear weapons,” and quite another to say, “You must do without nuclear weapons, and we will keep 1,500 of them for as long as we are all alive.” In the latter case, the abolition commitment would become one more layer of hypocrisy in a situation already overloaded with it. But after more than sixty years of deceptive promises, the countries that do without nuclear weapons will not accept a “bargain” that gives a new lease on life to a double standard they already reject.

    These fears are mitigated by the agenda of measures Obama announced as first steps toward abolition. A wish list of arms controllers of recent years, they include ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; negotiating a fissile material cutoff treaty; negotiating mutual cuts in nuclear warheads with Russia, perhaps to a level of 1,500 or 1,000; and fortifying the NPT. These proposals would be welcome in any context, but they take on added meaning when viewed as way stations on a journey to a nuclear-weapons-free world. Most interesting, perhaps, was Obama’s promise to host a Global Summit on Nuclear Security in the next year. Will it concentrate solely on nonproliferation or acknowledge the indispensable link between that goal and full nuclear disarmament? The answer, of course, will not depend on Obama alone. He has brought the nuclear dilemma back into public view. But his vision is a work in progress, a ground of contention on which all who desire disarmament are invited to exert themselves.

    Was Obama’s speech historic? Not yet. It was an invitation to participate in history. It will be historic if we make it so. Obama says he is prepared to postpone abolition until he has died. He is 47. I wish him long life. Let us free the world of nuclear weapons while he is still among us.

    Jonathan Schell is is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at The Nation Institute and teaches a course on the nuclear dilemma at Yale. He is the author of The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger.

  • First Iran, Now Arabs Going Nuclear: An Interview with Richard Falk

    This interview was originally published on Al-Jazeera

    There is renewed effort to engage Iran on its nuclear programme. Washington has expressed willingness to hold direct talks with Tehran, which marks a dramatic shift between the policy of Barack Obama, the US president, and his predecessor George Bush.

    The emphasis on dialogue comes as North Korea signals that it is restarting a nuclear plant that produces arms-grade plutonium, and Arab nations are importing nuclear technology and assistance at an unprecedented pace.
    Al Jazeera spoke to Richard Falk, the chair of the board at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, about Iran’s nuclear programme, its effect on regional Arab ambitions for nuclear power, and whether the Middle East will enter a nuclear arms race.

    The following are excerpts from the interview:
    Al Jazeera: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, recently announced the opening of a nuclear fuel plant, and stressed Iran’s ability and right to enrich uranium. However, he also welcomed constructive dialogue with the US and other powers. What motives are behind his statements? f

    Falk: I think it is difficult to assess the motives behind this kind of Iranian public initiative. It may be connected with domestic politics – the eflection campaign there – where Ahmadinejad is trying to present himself as a leader who has restored Iran’s stature and that this stature is associated symbolically with a robust nuclear programme.

    It may also be a signal that though Iran seems receptive to resuming some kind of negotiations about their nuclear programme … this shouldn’t be made too easily.

    It could be that this is part of a bargaining strategy by indicating that they already have enrichment capabilities and if they were to curtail them they would have to be given quite a bit in exchange.

    Are Arab states pursuing nuclear programmes due to growing energy demands or does the perceived threat from Iran’s apparent capability to develop nuclear weapons play a role?

    Often in these kinds of decisions the true motives are disguised and the public explanations are presented in the most acceptable, least provocative form.

    I think that is the case here. Most of the rationale for these expanded nuclear energy programmes are almost always related to domestic factors, increasing electricity demand and the expense of importing energy.

    It is hard not to believe, given the geopolitical climate in the region – not only Iran, but the Iraq war and other factors like Israel’s nuclear capabilities – that the geo-strategic factors have not entered into the motives of all these countries going in that direction.
    Of course, they are also imitating one another. There is a sense that if you don’t move in this direction you are acknowledging you are subordinate or marginalised in the region.

    There is also a prestige element at work. It is extremely hard to read the hierarchy of motives. In the background it is probably the way in which India and Pakistan evolved their nuclear programmes.

    They developed over time and as a result, India began to be taken seriously as a world power when it crossed the nuclear threshhold.

    Will the Middle East witness a race for nuclear technologies?

    The background of all of this is the abandonment by the Arab countries of their earlier mission of seeking a nuclear-free region that are directed at weapons and combining it with regional security.
    Perhaps it is an interpretation that Israel is never going to go along with the idea of a nuclear-free Middle East.

    And now that Iran is at least a latent nuclear weapons state, it doesn’t make any sense to proceed in that direction anymore, rather to the extent that strategic considerations are at work.

    It seems that the leading Arab countries think that they need to have their own long-term security. It should be a contingency option for them.

    Arab leaders have implied that Israel does not want to see Arab countries acquire nuclear technology and has thwarted their efforts to advance their programmes.

    As you suggested, the evidence over the years is that Israel becomes very nervous when any of the Arab countries move in directions that could challenge its regional military superiority.

    Though that is sort of a remote prospect, the manner in which Israel views its relationship with its neighbours is such that it has consistently opposed arms sales of any kind or of enhancement of their potential capabilities.

    Maybe Israel would prefer to see the Arab countries energy-dependent rather than energy-independent. I think it is consistent with the kind of regional hegemonic ambition that Israel both defensively and offensively assert.

    Thirty years ago you called for a total renunciation of nuclear power in exchange for other pollution-free energy sources. Obama has also pledged to create a nuclear-free world. But is it too late?

    I think it is already too late. A number of elements make it too late.

    The first of which is this sense that alternative energy is indispensable for dealing with the limitations on oil supply and in the face of increasing demand for oil and gas, combined with considerations for climate change and combined with the fact that there is a sufficient commitment on the part of a sufficient number of important states that it is just implausible to think that this kind of total de-nuclearisation can occur.

    The only thing that might give it a renewed possibility is another Chernobyl-type accident. Or several Chernobyls which would highlight the other aspect of developing nuclear energy – what you do with the waste and a variety of related things.

    Jordan wants to maintain their right to enrich uranium under the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But the UAE has unilaterally given up theirs to prove their peaceful intentions to advance their programme. Should Arab countries be allowed to enrich uranium?

    The US geopolitical discipline in relation to nuclear energy and weapons has faced a two-tier view of international legitimacy. Some countries are allowed to have the weapons and other countries are not.

    Of the ones that are, most say that the others are not allowed to come close to the threshhold. At the same time, from the perspective of the international law regime embodied by the NPT, it was supposed to be consistent with having the complete benefits of peaceful uses, including the option to develop the nuclear fuel cycle.

    You have a much stricter regime geopolitically than you do legally. The UAE is trying to conform to the geopolitical discipline or reality by assuring the world its nuclear energy programme is accepting international inspection and forgoing the option to reprocess nuclear fuel or have the enrichment capability.

    I suppose the UAE is trying to make itself look like the optimal actor of how to ensure the energy security transition beyond the petroleum age. They also have the resources to pull off the kind of programme there.

    Is it fair for ‘nuclear weapons states’ to tell others they cannot produce weapons without stripping down their own nuclear arsenals?

    The fascinating fact is that they have been able to successfully for 45 years convince most of the actors in the world that they are better off going along with nonproliferation charades, rather than repudiating them.

    It is based on this whole pervasive double standard that is embedded in the whole idea of nuclear nonproliferation and what I call the mind game that has been successfully played by the nuclear weapons states that makes us believe that the danger comes more from those who don’t have the weapons, rather than those who have the weapons.

    Nuclear weapons states have not fulfilled the Article Six pledge of nuclear disarmament. It was unanimously affirmed in the advisory opinion of the world court of the legality of nuclear weapons.

    It was divided on the issues of use, but unanimous on obligation to seek in good faith and I think they have not acted in good faith and fulfilled the real bargain. Therefore non-nuclear states, from a legal point of view, would be quite entitled to say they are no longer bound either.

    Is it in the interest of these states, particularly Israel and the US, to work toward military de-nuclearisation?

    I would think it is in Israel’s long term interest. It is particularly pertinent to the region because there are several dimensions of unresolved conflict, one important adversary posses a rather formidable nuclear weapons capability, others, particularly Iran have clearly latent potential.

    So if one is thinking from the perspective of conflict avoidance or war prevention, it could seem that one is at a point where it would make a lot of sense to exert that kind of political pressure.
    Israel talks a lot about attacking Iran, but that is filled with uncertainty and probably would generate a very strong backlash in the region and possibly even in the US and Europe. They stand to gain a lot by a reliable process of regional regulation, security, system of mutual non-aggression.
    In that sense it exposes the unwillingness of the US to press Israel in the way it would press other countries, which is illustrative of another aspect of these double standard in nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

    Richard Falk is Chair of the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Bridging the Vision and the Corridors of Power

    A world free of nuclear weapons has been the dream of all humanity ever since those dreaded weapons first made their appearance on the global scene. However, there has always been a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between such dreams and aspirations and the thought processes that operate in the corridors of power. There they are dismissed as visionary and idealistic, for the world of realpolitik operates on power and not on ideals.

    The speech of President Obama in Prague on April 5th 2009 has built a significant bridge between the world of aspiration and the world of power. Here, from the world’s most exalted seat of power, has come a call for an end to this menace which threatens the future of humanity, imperils all civilization and jettisons the values painfully built up over millennia of thought and sacrifice.

    The message that leaps forth from the heart of humanity for the abolition of these weapons has never struck an answering chord from the wielders of nuclear power. The conviction with which President Obama emphasizes America’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons sends rays of hope radiating through the entire world community.

    For more than sixty years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki the world has been appalled by the unprecedented power of nuclear weapons to produce human suffering on a scale never visualized before. Attila and Genghis Khan pale into insignificance as perpetrators of cruelty when compared to the bomb. Yet this weapon which violates every canon of humane conduct and humanitarian law has continued to be protected by those who have it and to be sought after by those who do not, while the voice of protest passes muted and unheard.

    The easier accessibility of the necessary knowledge to put together a crude nuclear weapon grows by the day, and far from humanity being able to remove from its horizons this threat to its very existence, the world permits the danger from this source to keep growing day by day, month by month and year by year. Now more than ever before, there is an imperative need for humanity to jettison this danger to its very survival and the survival of all that it holds dear. As the President so rightly observes, the risk of a nuclear attack has increased. Indeed it has increased to the point where we need urgent action to eliminate it in the next few years rather than the next few decades.

    Possessors of the nuclear weapon have propagated the myth that the possession of the nuclear weapon has kept us free from nuclear war for over sixty years, when on the contrary it has brought us near to total destruction time and again. The erection of the Berlin wall 1948, the Suez crisis 1956, and the Cuban missile crisis 1962 are but a few of a series of occasions when good fortune rather than good judgment saved humanity from catastrophe. As President Obama has so rightly observed, “generations have lived with the knowledge that their world could be erased in a single flash of light”.

    These are reasons why President Obama’s speech needs to be greeted world wide with hope, support and admiration. Affirmative steps are urgently required from the power centres of this world if the desired result is to be achieved. The US call is a great expression of world leadership in one of the most important calls to action we have witnessed in recent times.

    When the 20th century dawned there was a universal hope that the mistakes of the previous century of war would be left behind and that a brand new century of peace could be planned. That hope was bungled and humanity made a sorry mess of the 20th century which became the bloodiest century on record.

    With the dawn of the 21st century there was likewise a universal yearning for a century of peace. We have however entered it on a note of war and if we do not correct our course, we will have no 22nd century to put our house in order. If the 20th century was our century of lost opportunity the 21st is our century of last opportunity, because no other century has commenced with humanity having the power to destroy itself and all its achievements over the centuries.

    It is in the next few years that we need to put our affairs in order on the nuclear front, because as President Obama has observed the risk of nuclear attack has gone up. Indeed the nuclear danger grows from day to day. A number of different causes induce this urgency. Among these are:

    • The growth in the number of nuclear powers
    • The growth in the number of states seeking nuclear power
    • The increase in the power and spread of terrorist groups
    • The proliferation of the necessary knowledge to make a nuclear weapon
    • The easy availability of materials necessary to put together a nuclear weapons with tens of thousands of tons of uranium being discharged from hundreds of nuclear reactors across the world
    • The lack of a comprehensive record even by the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, of such material and the trafficking in such material
    • The ever present possibility of nuclear accidents with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in storage and many of them in readiness for use
    • The launch on warning capability LOWC of several countries, with hair trigger devices set to detect incoming objects and respond to them within minutes, if not seconds
    • The increase in the number of mini-wars raging throughout the world which could attract the intervention of more powerful participants
    • The increasing disregard for international law in the world community
    • The increasing number of flashpoints of international tensions
    • The continuing disregard of international law and international obligations by the nuclear powers
    • Continued research on and improvement of nuclear weapons
    • The difficulty of maintaining nuclear stockpiles, inventorising them, storing them and policing them
    • The increasing number of suicide bombers now available for carrying out desperate projects

    The International Court of Justice unanimously pronounced in 1996 that 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. There can be no weightier pronouncement on international law than a unanimous decision of the International Court of Justice. Any nuclear power that disregards this decision is a violator of international law. President Obama’s call for action is an important step towards upholding the integrity of international law.

    For all these reasons President Obama’s statement is a landmark event on the international scene. It gives hope where earlier there was total resignation to the inevitability of a world dominated by nuclear weapons. It shows that the human spirit can rise triumphant against seemingly insuperable obstacles. It shows that we still enjoy the possibility of visionary and humanitarian world leadership.

    As President Obama has observed the United States as the only power to have used the nuclear weapon “has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavour alone, but we can lead it, we can start it”

    Here is a clarion call to action which cannot but induce hope and happiness in all who have lived so long under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. It sends a thrill of optimism into the hearts of those who have despaired at the insensitivity that prevails in high places on such cardinal issues on which the world has long waited for global leadership.

    In short, the Prague speech was an outstanding statement by an outstanding leader on an issue of seminal importance to the human future. The least that can be done is for all people of goodwill across the world to give their whole hearted support to this magnificent new initiative to work towards a world which will live once more without the nuclear weapon hanging like the sword of Damocles over the human habitat, human civilization, human values and humanity itself.

    Christopher Weeramantry is the former Vice President of the International Court of Justice and a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council.

  • Obama and Medvedev on Nukes

    This article was originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus

    Committing the United States and Russia “to achieving a nuclear free world,” Presidents Obama and Medvedev issued a joint statement breathtaking in its positive tone. It marks an astonishing shift from the hostile policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations and offers new hope to a world weary of the endless nuclear arms race. Their statement concludes:

    We, the leaders of Russia and the United States, are ready to move beyond Cold War mentalities and chart a fresh start in relations between our two countries… Now it is time to get down to business and translate our warm words into actual achievements of benefit to Russia, the United States, and all those around the world interested in peace and prosperity.

    There are 25,000 nuclear weapons on the planet, all but 1,000 of them in the United States and Russia. Obama and Medvedev agreed to immediately pursue verifiable reductions in their massive nuclear arsenals, and instructed their negotiators to have a plan by this July for replacing the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), due to expire in December. A treaty signed by Bush and Putin in 2002 called for reductions to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by 2012, but under Bush’s insistence made no provision for verification. If START expires in December without a follow-up treaty, there would be no legally binding system for verification. Obama and Medvedev qualified their commitment to a nuclear-weapons-free world by describing it as a long-term goal, requiring “a new emphasis on arms control and conflict resolution measures, and their full implementation by all concerned nations.”

    The two leaders affirmed the importance of the Six-Party Talks and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and, in a marked shift of rhetoric for the United States, recognized that under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program,” while still needing “to restore confidence in its exclusively peaceful nature.” They pledged to work together to combat terrorism and cooperate on “stabilization, reconstruction and development” in Afghanistan.

    Nuclear Energy

    The major portion of their statement deals with nonproliferation measures including the need “to secure nuclear weapons and materials, while promoting the safe use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” Since every nuclear reactor is a potential bomb factory, achieving the safe use of nuclear energy is probably the one part of their proposal that is least likely to succeed. Attempts to control the fuel cycle and the production of bomb-making materials, while spreading the “benefits” of nuclear power, are doomed to fail. Consider all the countries that developed nuclear weapons through their civilian nuclear programs: North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, and Libya (which recently gave up its nuclear weapons program).

    More promising was their statement to implement the G-8’s St. Petersburg Global Energy Security Principles, “including improving energy efficiency and the development of clean energy technologies.” But with Obama repeatedly calling for “clean coal” technology, it remains to be seen whether that commitment will provide any real benefit.

    Missile Defense as Spoiler

    The positive Obama-Medvedev agenda for a new U.S.-Russian relationship was marked by several caveats and possible pitfalls where the parties agreed to disagree. Most significant was their acknowledgement that “differences remain over the purposes of missile defense assets in Europe.” It would be tragic if cooperation once again failed because of the hegemonic U.S. drive to dominate and control the earth from space. In a sense, we have now come full circle to the time of the Reagan-Gorbachev 1986 summit in Reykjavik, when negotiations for the total abolition of nuclear weapons collapsed because Reagan wouldn’t give up U.S. plans for a Strategic Defense Initiative to dominate space.

    Clinton similarly rejected opportunities to take up Putin’s proposal to cut our nuclear arsenals to 1,000 warheads. After Russia’s ratification of START II and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 2000, Putin called for new talks to reduce long-range missiles from 3,500 to 1,500 or even 1,000, upping the ante from the planned levels of 2,500 warheads. This forward-looking proposal was accompanied by Putin’s stern caveat that all Russian offers would be off the table if the United States proceeded to build a National Missile Defense (NMD) in violation of the ABM Treaty. Astoundingly, U.S. diplomatic “talking points” leaked by Russia to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists revealed that Clinton was urging Russia it had nothing to fear from NMD as long as Russia kept 2,500 weapons at launch-on-warning, hair-trigger alert. Rejecting Putin’s offer to cut to 1,000 warheads, the United States assured Russia that with 2,500 warheads it could overcome a NMD shield and deliver an “annihilating counterattack!” If the Clinton administration had instead embraced Putin’s plan, the United States and Russia would have been able to call all nuclear weapons states to the table — even those with arsenals in the hundreds or fewer — to negotiate a treaty to ban the bomb.

    Bush unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, pursuing U.S. plans “to dominate and control the military use of space, to protect U.S. interests and investments,” as set forth in the U.S. Space Command’s Vision 2020 mission statement and the Rumsfeld Commission Report of 2000. Current schemes to plant missile and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic could well derail real progress for nuclear abolition once again. The recent fall of the Czech government, partially in response to massive public opinion and demonstrations against the Czech radar base, should give Obama pause.

    Meanwhile, Russia and the United States aren’t talking about a reduction to 1,000 warheads but have instead compromised at 1,500 warheads. Russia is unwilling to discuss lower cuts without also dealing with missile defense.

    Looking at NATO

    Finally, the two presidents called for the revitalization of the NATO-Russia Council, the strengthening of European security, and U.S. participation at a Conference on Afghanistan convened by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an alliance organized by Russia and China. One of the major sticking points in the U.S.-Russian relationship, NATO has expanded right up to Russia’s borders and even invited former Soviet Republics Ukraine and Georgia to join the rusty Cold War alliance. In a public statement issued only three days after the Obama-Medvedev declaration, Mikhail Gorbachev reminded the world that the United States, together with Western Germany and other western nations, had promised after Germany’s reunification in 1990 that “NATO would not move a centimeter to the east.” The West’s failure to honor this promise led to deteriorating relations with Russia.

    As NATO completed its 60th anniversary meeting in Strasbourg, tens of thousands of peace protesters called for its dismantlement. It will take an enormous grassroots effort to make good on the Obama-Medvedev vision for a nuclear-weapons-free world, and to help them reach their goal to “translate our warm words into actual achievements of benefit to Russia the United States, and all those around the world interested in peace and prosperity.”

    Alice Slater is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s New York representative and a founding member of Abolition 2000.

  • The Unthinkable Becomes Thinkable: Towards the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

    The meeting of US and Russian presidents has prompted us to speak out about the global abolition of nuclear arms. The urgency can hardly be exaggerated: nuclear weapons may come into the possession of states that might use them as well as stateless terrorists—creating new threats of unimaginable proportion.

    A noble dream just several years ago, the elimination of nuclear arms is no longer the idea of populists and pacifists; it is now a call of professionals—politicians known for their sense of realism and academics for their sense of responsibility.

    An inspiration to discuss a world free from nuclear peril came from a statement by four US statesmen, two Democrats and two Republicans. In ‘A World Free of Nuclear Weapons’ (Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007), former US secretaries of state George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, former defence secretary William Perry, and former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Sam Nunn proposed several measures in pursuit of this goal. A year later, in another article expanding their initiative, they used this metaphor: “[T]he goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is like the top of a very tall mountain. From the vantage point of our troubled world today, we can’t even see the top of the mountain, and it is tempting and easy to say we can’t get there from here. But the risks from continuing to go down the mountain or standing pat are too real to ignore. We must chart a course to higher ground where the mountaintop becomes more visible” (WSJ, Jan. 15, 2008).

    These words provoked an avalanche of support from leading figures on the British political scene, from Italian politicians from the left, centre and right, and eminent figures on the German political scene, whether Social Democrats, Christian Democrats or Liberals.

    In January 2009, 130 world politicians and scientists gathered in Paris to sign the Global Zero Declaration. Elsewhere, the governments of Australia and Japan established an International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament. Leading research centres in all corners of the globe are working on reports to provide arguments for a political decision on the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

    We are now adding our voice from Poland, a country tested by the atrocities of World War II, and familiar with the nuclear threats of the Cold War period. A country heavily affected by the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.

    This growing concern mirrors the perception of new threats and risks. The invention of nuclear weapons—which served the goal of deterrence during the Cold War, with the world divided into two opposing blocks—answered the needs and risks of the time. Security rested on a balance of fear, as reflected in the concept of mutual assured destruction. In that bipolar world, nuclear weapons were held by only five global powers, permanent members of the UN Security Council.

    Today the global picture is different. Sparked by the Solidarity movement in Poland, the erosion of communist systems in Central and Eastern Europe led to our region’s new “Springtime of the Peoples”. With the Warsaw Pact dissolved and the Soviet Union disintegrated, the bipolar world and its East-West divide vanished. And the hope for a better future came to our hearts.

    An order based on the dangerous doctrine of mutual deterrence, was not, however, replaced with a system founded on cooperation and interdependence. Destabilization and chaos followed, accompanied by a sense of uncertainty and unpredictability. Nuclear weapons are now also held by three states in conflict: India, Pakistan and Israel. Given the development of the nuclear programmes in North Korea and Iran, both these countries may also become nuclear-weapon states, and there is a real danger that this group may further expand to include states where governments will not always be guided by rational considerations. There is also the risk that nuclear weapons may fall into the hands of non-state actors, such as extremists from terrorist groupings.

    We share the view that an effective non-proliferation regime will not be possible unless the major nuclear powers, especially the USA and Russia, take urgent steps towards nuclear disarmament. Together, they hold nearly 25,000 nuclear warheads—96% of the global nuclear arsenal.

    It gives us hope that US President Obama recognizes these dangers. We note with satisfaction that the new US administration has not turned a deaf ear to voices from statesmen and scientists. The goal of a nuclear-free world was incorporated in the US administration’s arms control and disarmament agenda. We appreciate the proposals from the UK, France and Germany. Russia has also signaled recently in Geneva its readiness to embark upon nuclear disarmament.

    Opponents of nuclear disarmament used to argue that this goal was unattainable in the absence of an effective system of control and verification. But today appropriate means of control are available to the international community. Of key importance are the nuclear safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The world must have guarantees that civilian nuclear reactors will not be used for military purposes – a condition for non-nuclear-weapon states’ unrestricted access to nuclear technologies as proposed recently Prime-Minister Brown in his initiative on A global nuclear bargain for our times. This is specially urgent at the present time, with the search for new energy sources and a “renaissance” of nuclear power.

    The 2010 NPT Review Conference calls for an urgent formulation of priorities. The Preparatory Committee will meet in New York this May, and this is where the required decisions should be made. The main expectations are for a reduction of nuclear armaments, a cutback in the number of launch-ready warheads (de-alerting), negotiations on a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, and other means of strengthening practical implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, especially its universal adoption.

    The time has come for a fundamental change in the proceedings of the Geneva-based Disarmament Conference. It has for years failed to meet the international community’s expectations.

    We share the expectation expressed by the academics, politicians and experts of the international Warsaw Reflection Group, convened under auspices of the Polish Institute of International Affairs in co-operation with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) that consideration should be given to the zero option as a basis for a future multilateral nuclear disarmament agreement. The Group’s report, Arms Control Revisited: Non-proliferation and Denuclearization, elaborated under chairmanship of Adam D.Rotfeld of Poland and drafted by British scholar Ian Anthony of SIPRI was based on contributions made by security analysts from nuclear powers and Poland as well as from countries previously in possession of nuclear weapons (South Africa) and countries where they had been stored: post-Soviet armouries were located in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The fact that these new states were denuclearized as part of the Safe and Secure Disarmament programme provides a valuable lesson.

    Today we have to set the process of gradual nuclear disarmament in motion. It will not produce results overnight but would give us a sense of direction, a chance to strengthen non-proliferation mechanisms, and an opportunity to establish a global, cooperative non-nuclear security system.

    The deadliest threat to global security comes from a qualitatively new wave of nuclear proliferation. The heaviest responsibility is shouldered by the powers that hold the largest arsenals. We trust that the presidents of the USA and Russia, and leaders of all other nuclear powers will show statesmanlike wisdom and courage, and that they will begin the process of freeing the world from the nuclear menace. For a new international security order, abolishing nuclear weapons is as important as respect for human rights and the rights of minorities and establishing in the world a governance based on rule of law and democracy.

    This article was originally published in Polish in the Gazeta Wyborcza on April 3, 2009

    Aleksander Kwaśniewski was Polish president between 1995 and 2005; Tadeusz Mazowiecki was prime minister in the first non-communist government of Poland (1989-1990); Lech Wałęsa, leader of the Solidarity movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1983), was Polish president between 1990 and 1995.

  • Imagine There’s No Bomb

    There has never been a better time to achieve total nuclear disarmament; this is necessary, urgent and feasible. We are at the crossroads of a nuclear crisis. On the one hand, we are at an alarming tipping point on proliferation of nuclear weapons, with a growing risk of nuclear terrorism and use of still massively bloated arsenals of the worst weapons of terror. On the other, we have perhaps the best opportunity to abolish nuclear weapons.

    For the first time, a US president has been elected with a commitment to nuclear weapons abolition, and President Barack Obama has outlined a substantive program to deliver on this, and shown early evidence that he is serious. He needs all the support and encouragement in the world. We do not know how long this opportunity will last. Unlike the last one, at the end of the Cold War, it must not be squandered. An increasingly resource- and climate-stressed world is an ever more dangerous place for nuclear weapons. We must not fail.

    Like preventing rampant climate change, abolishing nuclear weapons is a paramount challenge for people and leaders the world over – a pre-condition for survival, sustainability and health for our planet and future generations. Both in the scale of the indiscriminate devastation they cause, and in their uniquely persistent, spreading, genetically damaging radioactive fallout, nuclear weapons are unlike any other weapons. They cannot be used for any legitimate military purpose. Any use, or threat of use, violates international humanitarian law. The notion that nuclear weapons can ensure anyone’s security is fundamentally flawed. Nuclear weapons most threaten those nations that possess them, or like Australia, those that claim protection from them, because they become the preferred targets for others’ nuclear weapons. Accepting that nuclear weapons can have a legitimate place, even if solely for “deterrence”, means being willing to accept the incineration of tens of millions of fellow humans and radioactive devastation of large areas, and is basically immoral.

    As noted by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission headed by Dr Hans Blix: “So long as any state has nuclear weapons, others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain, there is a risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. And any such use would be catastrophic.” The only sustainable approach is one standard – zero nuclear weapons – for all.

    Recent scientific evidence from state-of-the-art climate models puts the case for urgent nuclear weapons abolition beyond dispute. Even a limited regional nuclear war involving 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs – just 0.03 per cent of the explosive power of the world’s current nuclear arsenal – would not only kill tens of millions from blast, fires and radiation, but would cause severe climatic consequences persisting for a decade or more. Cooling and darkening, with killing frosts and shortened growing seasons, rainfall decline, monsoon failure, and substantial increases in ultraviolet radiation, would combine to slash global food production. Globally, 1 billion people could starve. More would succumb from the disease epidemics and social and economic mayhem that would inevitably follow. Such a war could occur with the arsenals of India and Pakistan, or Israel. Preventing any use of nuclear weapons and urgently getting to zero are imperative for the security of every inhabitant of our planet.

    The most effective, expeditious and practical way to achieve and sustain the abolition of nuclear weapons is to negotiate a comprehensive, irreversible, binding, verifiable treaty – a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) – bringing together all the necessary aspects of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. Such a treaty approach has been the basis for all successes to date in eliminating whole classes of weapons, from dum-dum bullets to chemical and biological weapons, landmines and, most recently, cluster munitions.

    Negotiations should begin without delay, and progress in good faith and without interruption until a successful conclusion is reached. It will be a long and complex process, and the sooner it can begin the better. We agree with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the model NWC developed by an international collaboration of lawyers, physicians and scientists is “a good point of departure” for achieving total nuclear disarmament.

    Incremental steps can support a comprehensive treaty approach. They can achieve important ends, demonstrate good faith and generate political momentum. Important disarmament next steps have been repeatedly identified and are widely agreed. They remain valid but unfulfilled over the many years that disarmament has been stalled. The 13 practical steps agreed at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review conference in 2000 should be upheld and implemented. They include all nuclear weapons states committing to the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals; entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; negotiations on a treaty to end production of fissile material; taking weapons off extremely hazardous high alert “launch on warning” status; and negotiating deep weapons reductions. But at the same time a comprehensive road map is needed – a vision of what the final jigsaw puzzle looks like, and a path to get there. Not only to fit the pieces together and fill the gaps, but to make unequivocal that abolition is the goal. Without the intellectual, moral and political weight of abolition as the credible and clear goal of the nuclear weapon states, and real movement on disarmament, the NPT is at risk of unravelling after next year’s five-yearly review conference of the treaty, and a cascade of actual and incipient nuclear weapons proliferation can be expected to follow.

    Achieving a world free of nuclear weapons will require not only existing arsenals to be progressively taken off alert, dismantled and destroyed, but will require production of the fissile materials from which nuclear weapons can be built – separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium – to cease, and existing stocks to be eliminated or placed under secure international control.

    The International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament announced by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Kyoto last June and led with Japan is a welcome initiative with real potential. It could most usefully direct its efforts to building political momentum and coalitions to get disarmament moving, and promote a comprehensive framework for nuclear weapons abolition.

    Australia should prepare for a world free of nuclear weapons by “walking the talk”. We should reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our own security policies, as we call on nuclear weapon states to do. To ensure that we are part of the solution and not the problem also means that the international safeguards on which we depend to ensure that our uranium does not now or in the future contribute to proliferation, need substantial strengthening and universal application. Our reliance on the “extended nuclear deterrence” provided by the US should be reviewed so that Australian facilities and personnel could not contribute to possible use of nuclear weapons, and we anticipate and promote by our actions a world freed from nuclear weapons. Canada championed the treaty banning landmines, or Ottawa Treaty; Norway led the way on the cluster munitions with the Oslo Convention. Why should the Nuclear Weapons Convention the world needs and deserves not be championed and led by Australia and become known as the Canberra (or Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane) Convention?

    This article was originally published in The Age

    Malcolm Fraser is the former prime minister of Australia. Sir Gustav Nossal is a research scientist. Dr Barry Jones is a former Australian Labor government minister. General Peter Gration is a former Australian Defence Force chief. Lieutenant-General John Sanderson is former chief of the army and former governor of Western Australia. Associate Professor Tilman Ruff is national president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War Australia.

  • President Obama Calls for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    President Obama Calls for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    In a remarkable speech for any American leader, President Obama, speaking in Prague on April 5, 2009, provided new hope for a world free of nuclear weapons. “I state clearly and with conviction,” he said, “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” He told his audience that America, as the only country to have used nuclear weapons, “has a moral responsibility to act.”

    For many years the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been calling for US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world, based on the understanding that if the US does not lead, significant progress will not be possible. For the past two presidencies this leadership has been largely lacking. During the George W. Bush presidency, the US was the leading obstacle to nuclear disarmament. Now, with President Obama, there is a dramatic shift and the goal of US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world that once seemed far distant, if not impossible, appears at hand.

    President Obama’s speech in Prague was a world changing moment, a promise of unprecedented historical change on the most profoundly dangerous issue confronting not only America but the world. In this speech he recognized the imperative for our common security of eliminating nuclear weapons and of America’s unique moral responsibility to lead this effort.

    He made it clear that while America cannot do it alone, it will lead by its actions. He called for “concrete steps,” including reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy and urging other nuclear weapons states to do the same, reducing the number of nuclear weapons in its arsenal, working aggressively for US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, seeking a new treaty to end production of fissile materials for weapons, strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty, creating an international fuel bank to reduce the risks of proliferation, assuring that nuclear weapons will not be acquired by terrorists, leading an international effort to gain control of vulnerable nuclear materials throughout the world within four years, and hosting a Global Summit on Nuclear Security within the year.

    President Obama recognized that a world without nuclear weapons “will not be reached quickly.” He cautioned that such a world may not occur within his lifetime, and that achieving it will require “patience and persistence.” But this was not a speech about timeframes or deadlines. It was a speech setting forth a much needed vision and providing a promise of US leadership. He has taken an important step toward the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world by articulating this vision and committing to work toward it. Now a more comprehensive plan must be formulated and implemented.

    With the political will that President Obama has provided, it is possible that we could move far more rapidly toward a world of zero nuclear weapons than could previously be imagined. Political will and US leadership have been the most significant missing elements for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. Now that these elements are in place, we may be surprised by how quickly the planning and implementation process can proceed toward the total global elimination of these unconscionable weapons.

    President Obama is a man of great vision, a leader that sees beyond the horizon. When he encounters a problem requiring change, he addresses it and proposes solutions. His leadership on the issue of a nuclear weapons-free world comes none too soon. In his speech, he has faced the threat of nuclear weapons squarely. The vision and the initial steps toward achieving it that he has articulated deserve our strong support.

    As President Obama noted, there will be many who will say that it cannot be done. But these naysayers cannot steal the future from those who seek a world free of nuclear threat or those committed to building a world at peace. The President will need the American people standing with him and saying, “Yes, we can.”

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