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  • The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

    The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

    In this 60th anniversary year of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel Committee chose to again focus its award, as it had in 1985 and again in 1995, on abolishing nuclear weapons. The Nobel Committee announced that its Peace Prize for 2005 will go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei. Ten years ago, the Prize went to Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and ten years before that to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

    The Nobel Committee is right to focus on nuclear dangers and the need to abolish these weapons, and Mohamed ElBaradei has been courageous in speaking out for both sides of the non-proliferation bargain: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and achieving nuclear disarmament. He has repeatedly pointed to the hypocrisy of the nuclear weapons states for their double standards and their failure to move resolutely in fulfilling their nuclear disarmament obligations.

    ElBaradei has argued, for example, “We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security – and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.” For his outspokenness, he earned the wrath of the Bush administration, which tried unsuccessfully to block his appointment to a third four-year term at the IAEA.

    In making their announcement of the 2005 prize, the Nobel Committee stated: “At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime. At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA’s work is of incalculable importance.”

    Mr. ElBaradei is deserving of the Nobel for his clear and persistent challenge to the policies of the nuclear weapons states. The Nobel Committee, however, sends the wrong message to the world in making the award to the IAEA. The IAEA is an international agency that serves two masters. On the one hand, it seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. But, on the other hand, it seeks to promote nuclear energy. Although these dual goals are enshrined in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they are not compatible. The spread of nuclear reactors carries with it the potential for the spread of nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear reactors have always been, and remain, a preferred path to nuclear weapons. It was the path taken secretly by Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa. It is the path once pursued by Brazil, Argentina, Iraq and Libya, and which now raises concerns with Iran. It is the path that has made Japan a virtual nuclear weapons state.

    The Nobel Committee had another and, in my view, better choice before it than the IAEA to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. Also nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was the Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. By selecting Nihon Hidankyo, along with Mr. ElBaradei, the Committee could have chosen to shine a light on the hibakusha, the aging victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who have devoted much of their lives to seeking to assure that no one in the future will ever again suffer their fate.

    In a letter sent in December 2004, I wrote to the Nobel Committee: “As individuals and collectively, the hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have reflected the spirit of peace in turning their personal tragedies into an enduring plea to rid the world of these most terrible weapons of mass destruction. To honor them with the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize in the 60th anniversary year of the bombings would, in a sense, be to honor all victims of war who fight for peace, but it would have special meaning for the aging hibakusha. It would recognize the human triumph in their alchemy of turning despair and bitterness into hope on the path to nuclear sanity and disarmament.”

    Once again, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been passed over for the world’s most prestigious peace prize. When the Nobel Committee chooses to make its award to the hibakusha, it will be a sign that there is an expanding recognition that the only safe number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero and that the fate of the world depends upon eliminating these omnicidal weapons as rapidly as possible. It will also recognize the truth of the oft-repeated position of the hibakusha that “human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist,” and that we must eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us.

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of a recent book of peace poetry, Today Is Not a Good Day for War.

  • EPA Revised Standards Are Inadequate for Protecting Public Health

    Established in 1982, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan, education and advocacy organization that initiates and supports efforts to eliminate nuclear threats to humanity. With headquarters in California, the Foundation has a membership of thousands individuals across the United States, including in Nevada.

    On behalf of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and our members, I am here today to express our deep concern over the Environmental Protection Agency’s revised radiation protection standard for the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump in Nevada. We believe this revised radiation protection standard will fall far short of protecting public health and that it even disregards the agency’s own previous recommendations. If approved, this standard will ignore the scientific consensus on the health impact of radiation, as well as the many unresolved problems surrounding radioactive waste. It will set a terrible precedent; lowering the bar for radiation protection across the country.

    The Yucca Mountain project is a distinct danger to defenseless citizens – not just to this generation, but to thousands of generations to come who will be affected by this decision. In July 2004, a DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision found EPA’s previous standard – a 15 millirem per year radiation exposure limit for 10,000 years – to be illegal. According to the ruling, the standard EPA sets for Yucca Mountain must be consistent with a National Academy of Science (NAS) study on the subject, which recommended that the standard extend through the time of highest risk to the public, known as the “peak dose.” The Department of Energy estimates peak dose at several hundred thousand years.

    The EPA’s recently revised standard, however, fails to comply with the court ruling and the intent of the NAS recommendations. Instead of extending the 15 millirem per year limit through the time of peak risk, the EPA has proposed a two part standard – 15 millirem per year for 10,000 years, and then a 350 millirem per year standard thereafter (up to a million years).

    Such a standard is not scientifically justified, and would perhaps be the least protective radiation standard in the world. No other US or international radiation protection standard permits a dose of 350 millirems per year to individuals. In fact, EPA’s proposed standard is not even consistent with the agency’s own previous recommendations.

    Yucca Mountain is located on Native American land, belonging to the Western Shoshone by the treaty of Ruby Valley. The Western Shoshone National Council has declared this land a nuclear free zone and demanded an end to nuclear testing and the dumping of nuclear wastes on their land. We support the claims of the Western Shoshone to the sovereignty of their land, which they hold as sacred, and we believe that the revised radiation standard is a form of environmental racism that will disproportionately harm the lands and health of the Western Shoshone people.

    We are also concerned that Yucca Mountain sits above the only source of drinking water for the residents of Amargosa Valley. The aquifer below Yucca Mountain provides water to Nevada’s largest dairy farm, which supplies milk to some 30 million people on the west coast. Another casualty of EPA’s proposed rule is the Safe Drinking Water Act standard limiting radiation in drinking water to 4 millirem per year, which EPA would only enforce for the first10,000 years, but would then replace with the 350 millirem year all pathway exposure limit. Water is a precious resource, which will require more, not less, protection as time goes on. Yucca’s radioactive wastes will leak into the underlying drinking water aquifer, which will become the primary pathway for harmful doses to people downstream. The Safe Drinking Water Act standard should be applied to protect Yucca’s aquifer and the people downstream for as long as the high-level radioactive wastes remain hazardous, hundreds of thousands of years into the future.

    Yucca Mountain is also directly above an active magma pocket and is the third most seismically active area in the United States. In the past 25 years alone, over 600 earthquakes of 2.5 or greater on the Richter Scale have struck within 50 miles of Yucca Mountain. In 1992, a 5.6 quake cracked walls, shattered windows, and caused some one million dollars in damage to the Department of Energy (DoE) field office studying the site. On July 14, 2002, an earthquake registered a magnitude of 4.4 on the Richter Scale. It defies reason to expect that radioactive wastes will sit for tens of thousands of years undisturbed by unpredictable nature, or by human or technological errors in the design of the containment structure itself.

    The problem of what to do with high-level radioactive wastes warrants additional consideration and resources, including investigation of alternatives to Yucca Mountain. Instead of setting a new and very dangerous precedent for the storage of radioactive waste throughout the country in order to simply satisfy political pressures to license Yucca Mountain, the Environmental Protection Agency should fulfill its mission to protect human health and the environment. We ask you to withdraw this standard immediately, and propose a standard that is truly protective of public health and the environment for this generation and generations to come.

  • Our Global Cinderella

    The announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2005 has been awarded to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and to its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, should remind us of the crucial activities performed by the United Nations.

    The IAEA, of course, is the U.N. agency that has worked, with considerable effectiveness, to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Hundreds of nuclear facilities are monitored by the IAEA in over 70 countries. Among its other activities, it led the search for what the U.S. government claimed were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and, in 2003, reported that it could not verify the U.S. contention. If the Bush administration had listened to its advice rather than to that of individuals who lied and distorted the truth about such weapons, the United States would never have rushed into a bloody, expensive, and futile war in that land.

    But this is only a small part of the U.N. record. Consider the following:

    • The U.N. has vigorously promoted economic and social development in impoverished nations. UNICEF alone is active in 157 countries, pouring $1.2 billion a year into child protection, immunization, fighting HIV/AIDS, girls’ education, and other ventures.
    • The U.N. has sponsored free and fair elections, including monitoring and advice, in numerous lands, including Cambodia, Namibia, El Salvador, Mozambique, South Africa, Kosovo, and East Timor.
    • Since the General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the U.N. has fostered the enactment of dozens of comprehensive agreements on civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights.
    • Over the years, the U.N. has dispatched 60 peacekeeping and observer missions—16 of them currently in operation–to world trouble spots, saving millions of people from mass violence and war.
    • The U.N. assisted in negotiating some 170 peace settlements ending regional conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq war, civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the use of Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
    • The U.N. facilitated the decolonization of more than 80 countries, with almost a third of the world’s population.
    • Through its imposition of international measures ranging from an arms embargo to a convention against racially segregated sporting events, the U.N. played a key role in bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa and in transforming that country into a democratic nation.
    • Through the efforts of the U.N., more than 500 international treaties—on human rights, terrorism, refugees, disarmament, and the oceans—were enacted.
    • The U.N. has aided more than 50 million refugees fleeing war, famine, or persecution, including over 19 million of them—mostly women and children—who are today receiving food, shelter, medical aid, education, and repatriation assistance.
    • The U.N. sponsored world women’s conferences that set the agenda for advancing women’s rights, including the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which has been ratified by 180 countries.
    • The U.N.’s World Food Program, the world’s largest humanitarian agency, feeds some 90 million hungry people in 80 countries every year.

    And these are only some of the many accomplishments of the world organization.

    For Americans, this worldwide program is quite a bargain. The cost to every American of the regular budget of the United Nations is slightly more than $1 a year—less than the price of a soda. Actually, the cost is lower than it is supposed to be. U.N. budget contributions are calculated according to each nation’s share of the global economy which, in the case of the United States, is 34 percent. But the U.S. government has unilaterally set a cap on its contributions at 22 percent. By contrast, the Japanese pay closer to $2 per person. That $1 a year for the U.N. might also be compared to the annual cost of the U.S. military budget to every American man, women, and child: $1,600!

    Unfortunately, the U.S. government doesn’t appear to consider U.N. activities a bargain at all. In June 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation (H.R. 2745) mandating cuts to the U.S. contribution to the U.N. and blocking U.S. contributions to new U.N. peacekeeping missions if the world organization does not agree to a list of items dictated by Washington. More recently, similar legislation was introduced into the U.S. Senate (S. 1394 and 1383).

    Nor is such behavior limited to Congress. The Bush administration has also sought to undermine the U.N. By nominating John Bolton—a U.S. government official who repeatedly expressed contempt for U.N. operations–to serve as U.S. ambassador to the world body, President George W. Bush made this clear enough and, thereby, created a scandal of major proportions. When the choice of Bolton proved too much for even the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate to stomach, Bush gave Bolton the job through a recess appointment.

    In the context of the furor over Bolton’s nomination, one would have expected him to adopt a cautious, low-key approach at the U.N. Instead, however, Bolton threw months of delicate negotiations over the September 2005 U.N. summit conference into disarray by proposing more than 700 changes to what seemed to many countries to be a near-final agreement. Ultimately, the agreement unraveled, and a number of potential advances went down the drain.

    The Bush administration has been just as critical of the U.N.’s Mohamed ElBaradei, who, by talking of the responsibilities of the nuclear powers as well as the non-nuclear powers under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has refused to accept the U.S. government’s double standard as to nuclear weapons. As the New York Times reported on October 7: “Mr. ElBaradei won a third term as chief of the I.A.E.A. earlier this year despite opposition from Washington. He had overwhelming support from the rest of the world community.” Commenting on his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, ElBaradei was less direct about his difficulties with the U.S. government, but his meaning was clear enough. “The prize will strengthen my resolve and that of my colleagues,” he said, “to speak truth to power.”

    And so the Cinderella story of the United Nations continues. Despite the U.N.’s vital role in world affairs, the United States and—to a lesser extent—the other great powers are determined to keep it weak and impoverished. Unfortunately, in this case there is no Prince Charming to push past the wicked stepmother and stepsisters and reward Cinderella for her virtue. But, hopefully, the public, like the Nobel committee, recognizes that, despite the arrogant, self-interested, and reckless behavior of powerful nation-states, a global institution exists that serves all of humanity.

    Dr. Wittner, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press).

    Originally published by the History News Network.

  • American Debacle

    Some 60 years ago Arnold Toynbee concluded, in his monumental “Study of History,” that the ultimate cause of imperial collapse was “suicidal statecraft.” Sadly for George W. Bush’s place in history and — much more important — ominously for America’s future, that adroit phrase increasingly seems applicable to the policies pursued by the United States since the cataclysm of 9/11.

    Though there have been some hints that the Bush administration may be beginning to reassess the goals, so far defined largely by slogans, of its unsuccessful military intervention in Iraq, President Bush’s speech Thursday was a throwback to the demagogic formulations he employed during the 2004 presidential campaign to justify a war that he himself started.

    That war, advocated by a narrow circle of decision-makers for motives still not fully exposed, propagated publicly by rhetoric reliant on false assertions, has turned out to be much more costly in blood and money than anticipated. It has precipitated worldwide criticism. In the Middle East it has stamped the United States as the imperialistic successor to Britain and as a partner of Israel in the military repression of the Arabs. Fair or not, that perception has become widespread throughout the world of Islam.

    Now, however, more than a reformulation of U.S. goals in Iraq is needed. The persistent reluctance of the administration to confront the political background of the terrorist menace has reinforced sympathy among Muslims for the terrorists. It is a self-delusion for Americans to be told that the terrorists are motivated mainly by an abstract “hatred of freedom” and that their acts are a reflection of a profound cultural hostility. If that were so, Stockholm or Rio de Janeiro would be as much at risk as New York City. Yet, in addition to New Yorkers, the principal victims of serious terrorist attacks have been Australians in Bali, Spaniards in Madrid, Israelis in Tel Aviv, Egyptians in the Sinai and Britons in London.

    There is an obvious political thread connecting these events: The targets are America’s allies and client states in its deepening military intervention in the Middle East. Terrorists are not born but shaped by events, experiences, impressions, hatreds, ethnic myths, historical memories, religious fanaticism and deliberate brainwashing. They are also shaped by images of what they see on television, and especially by feelings of outrage at what they perceive to be the brutal denigration of their religious kin’s dignity by heavily armed foreigners. An intense political hatred for America, Britain and Israel is drawing recruits for terrorism not only from the Middle East but as far away as Ethiopia, Morocco, Pakistan, Indonesia and even the Caribbean.

    America’s ability to cope with nuclear nonproliferation has also suffered. The contrast between the attack on the militarily weak Iraq and America’s forbearance of a nuclear-armed North Korea has strengthened the conviction of the Iranians that their security can only be enhanced by nuclear weapons. Moreover, the recent U.S. decision to assist India’s nuclear program, driven largely by the desire for India’s support for the war in Iraq and as a hedge against China, has made the U.S. look like a selective promoter of nuclear weapons proliferation. This double standard will complicate the quest for a constructive resolution of the Iranian nuclear problem.

    Compounding such political dilemmas is the degradation of America’s moral standing in the world. The country that has for decades stood tall in opposition to political repression, torture and other violations of human rights has been exposed as sanctioning practices that hardly qualify as respect for human dignity. Even more reprehensible is the fact that the shameful abuse and/or torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib was exposed not by an outraged administration but by the U.S. media. In response, the administration confined itself to punishing a few low-level perpetrators; none of the top civilian and military decision-makers in the Department of Defense and on the National Security Council who sanctioned “stress interrogations” (a.k.a. torture) were publicly disgraced, prosecuted or forced to resign. The administration’s opposition to the International Criminal Court now seems quite self-serving.

    Finally, complicating this sorry foreign policy record are war-related economic trends. The budgets for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security are now larger than the total budget of any nation, and they are likely to continue escalating as budget and trade deficits transform America into the world’s No. 1 debtor nation. At the same time, the direct and indirect costs of the war in Iraq are mounting, even beyond the pessimistic prognoses of its early opponents, making a mockery of the administration’s initial predictions. Every dollar so committed is a dollar not spent on investment, on scientific innovation or on education, all fundamentally relevant to America’s long-term economic primacy in a highly competitive world.

    It should be a source of special concern for thoughtful Americans that even nations known for their traditional affection for America have become openly critical of U.S. policy. As a result, large swathes of the world — including nations in East Asia, Europe and Latin America — have been quietly exploring ways of shaping regional associations tied less to the notions of transpacific, or transatlantic, or hemispheric cooperation with the United States. Geopolitical alienation from America could become a lasting and menacing reality.

    That trend would especially benefit America’s historic ill-wishers and future rivals. Sitting on the sidelines and sneering at America’s ineptitude are Russia and China — Russia, because it is delighted to see Muslim hostility diverted from itself toward America, despite its own crimes in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and is eager to entice America into an anti-Islamic alliance; China, because it patiently follows the advice of its ancient strategic guru, Sun Tzu, who taught that the best way to win is to let your rival defeat himself.

    In a very real sense, during the last four years the Bush team has dangerously undercut America’s seemingly secure perch on top of the global totem pole by transforming a manageable, though serious, challenge largely of regional origin into an international debacle. Because America is extraordinarily powerful and rich, it can afford, for a while longer, a policy articulated with rhetorical excess and pursued with historical blindness. But in the process, America is likely to become isolated in a hostile world, increasingly vulnerable to terrorist acts and less and less able to exercise constructive global influence. Flailing away with a stick at a hornets’ nest while loudly proclaiming “I will stay the course” is an exercise in catastrophic leadership.

    But it need not be so. A real course correction is still possible, and it could start soon with a modest and common-sense initiative by the president to engage the Democratic congressional leadership in a serious effort to shape a bipartisan foreign policy for an increasingly divided and troubled nation. In a bipartisan setting, it would be easier not only to scale down the definition of success in Iraq but actually to get out — perhaps even as early as next year. And the sooner the U.S. leaves, the sooner the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis will either reach a political arrangement on their own or some combination of them will forcibly prevail.

    With a foreign policy based on bipartisanship and with Iraq behind us, it would also be easier to shape a wider Middle East policy that constructively focuses on Iran and on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process while restoring the legitimacy of America’s global role.

    Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

  • The Abandonment of International Law After 9/11

    Presentation to the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference 2005, Washington Convention Center, 801 Mt. Vernon Place, Washington D.C., September 21-24, 2005.

    The US Government has long adopted double standards when it comes to respecting international law, especially in the setting of national security issues. It promotes a generalized respect for the Rule of Law in world politics, is outraged by violations of international law by its enemies, and chooses selectively when to comply and when to violate. This pattern goes far back in American history, but it is convenient to take note of American violations of international law in the setting of the Vietnam War, as well as periodic interventions in Central and South America. I would argue that this pattern has long harmed America’s global reputation and capacity for leadership, as well as worked against its own national interest.

    It seems clear that the United States, and the American people, would have benefited over the years from a foreign policy carried out subject to the discipline of international law. If the US Government had abided by international law, the dreadful experience of the Vietnam War would not have occurred. More recently, an observation that will be discussed further below, upholding international law would have avoided the fiasco of the Iraq War. Contrary to popular belief, respecting the restraints of international law better serves the national interest than does an attitude, so prevalent since 9/11, that international law poses inconvenient obstacles on the path toward national security.

    It is important to understand that the restraints of international law have been voluntarily developed by sovereign states to protect their interests and values. Their intent is practical. It reflects the wisdom of centuries of diplomacy. International law is of particular importance in relation to uses of force in the course of foreign policy, and more generally issues relating to security, especially war and peace. The US Constitution declares in Article VI(2) that duly ratified treaties are ”the supreme law of the land.” This puts the key rules and principles of international law on a par with Congressional acts. The Supreme Court has ruled that in the event of an unavoidable clash between these two sources of legal authority, the last in time should prevail.

    Let me make the general point more strongly. In a globalizing world of great complexity it is in the interest of all states, large and small, that their relations be reliably regulated by international law. This observation underpins the daily operations of the world economy and many other aspects of international behavior, including maritime safety, environmental protection, tourism, immigration, disease control. The stability of international life depends on a closely woven fabric of law as the basis for almost all activity beyond the borders of a sovereign state.

    What is a cause for deepest current worry is that the United States has seemed to abandon this understanding of the relevance of law to the establishment of world order. This concern is not entirely new. It runs throughout the entire course of American history, but it has taken a serious turn for the worse during the Bush presidency, especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Even prior to the attacks, the foreign policy of the Bush administration disclosed its disdain for widely respected international treaties. The Bush White House contended that existing and pending treaties limited its military and political options. In the early months of the Bush presidency it announced its opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons testing, its unwillingness to submit the Kyoto Protocol regulating greenhouse gas emissions, defiantly withdrawing its signature from the Rome Treaty seeking the establishment of the International Criminal Court, and its intention to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Such a pattern of unilateralist hostility to international treaties and multilateral cooperation was unprecedented in American history. It led to a strong negative reaction at home and abroad. Normally friendly governments were clearly alarmed by this internationally disruptive behavior of the new American president. The repudiation of widely endorsed multilateral treaty arrangements that were generally viewed as important contributions to a peaceful world seemed contrary to common sense, as well as to the general wellbeing of the peoples of the world. These expressions of unilateralist approach did not involve violating existing international law, but rather expressed the ultra neoconservative attitude that multilateral cooperation in the security area was undesirable, limiting the capacity of America to take advantage of its status as the sole remaining superpower in the aftermath of the Cold War.

    Congress is also not exempt from blame on these counts. It was in Congress even before George W. Bush came to Washington that militarist pressures were brought to bear in such a way as to oppose beneficial multilateral treaty constraints on United States policy. The Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban in the Clinton years, as well as being so strongly opposed to the ICC and Kyoto Protocol that there was no prospect for such treaties to be approved by the required 2/3s vote if submitted for ratification. What mainly distinguished the Bush approach to international law from that of its predecessors were two developments: its alignment of the Executive Branch with an anti-internationalist set of policies that seemed oblivious to the benefits of international cooperation; and its avowedly ideological and emphatic repudiation of treaty instruments and the restraints of international law in order to express its own approach to foreign policy premised on military dominance and interventionary diplomacy. It was this posture by the Bush leadership that frightened world public opinion. Before 9/11 a rising crescendo of domestic and international opposition to the Bush policies led to mounting criticism, especially given Bush’s dubious electoral mandate in 2000.

    This concern and opposition has dramatically intensified outside the United States since 9/11 because the Bush White House has moved from its earlier hostility to multilateralism to its unwillingness to abide by fundamental international legal rules and standards that this country, along with other constitutional democracies, had previously accepted as a matter of course. These rules include humane treatment of prisoners taken during armed combat, unconditional prohibitions on torture and assassination of political opponents, and the duty to protect civilians in any foreign territory under occupation. The most important of all these legal restrictions on foreign policy is the rule of international law prohibiting non-defensive uses of force without a mandate from the UN Security Council. In his 2004 State of the Union Address President Bush told the Congress that the United States would never seek ‘a permission slip’ in matters bearing on its security. But it is precisely a permission slip that international law, and the UN Charter, requires. Such a requirement was written into the Charter largely at the behest of the US Government after World War II, seeking to bind the states of the world to a legal framework that forbade wars of aggression, what more fashionably has been recently called ‘wars of choice.’ German and Japanese leaders were sentenced to death at war crimes tribunals because they had recourse to aggressive wars, and acted without a permission slip.

    The Iraq War is a notorious example of a war of choice that violates this fundamental rule of international law. As such, according to the Nuremberg Principles embodied in general international law after the conviction of German leaders for their criminal conduct, constitutes a Crime Against Peace. The American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Justice Robert Jackson, famously said to the tribunal, “..let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn, aggression by other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.”

    This pattern of illegality continues to shock the conscience of humanity. American officials have strained to redefine ‘torture’ so as to permit what the rest of the world, and common sense, understand to be ‘torture.’ The abuse of prisoners detained in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere has severely damaged America’s reputation in the world, as well as undermined its struggle against those extremist enemies engaged in terrorism. Government lawyers and their supporters in society have argued in favored of assassinating suspects in foreign countries, and justified under the terminology of ‘rendition’ handing over suspects to foreign governments notorious for their reliance on torture as their preferred mode of interrogation. The detrimental impact of such American lawlessness on the protection of human rights has been documented in great detail by such respected organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.

    This record of abuse has badly tarnished America’s reputation as world leaders and limited the capacity of the government to get support for and cooperation with its anti-terrorist policies.

    It is notable to observe that the events of 9/11 produced a patriotic surge that has endowed the Bush administration with the freedom to embark on a foreign policy aimed at ‘geopolitical preeminence,’ and only incidentally concerned with the defeat of Al Qaeda and transnational terrorism. Such a priority was stated clearly before 9/11 in the report of the Project for a New American Century. And it was acknowledged subsequent to 9/11 in the important White House document entitled “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” (2002) In other words, violating international law, especially embarking on wars of aggression, has been integral to the realization of preexisting American global ambitions that were politically non-viable before 9/11. To sustain a climate of acquiescence within the United States it has been necessary to rely upon a manipulative politics of fear that has largely led to a suspension of criticism, including from the US Congress. In this crucial respect, the Congress is failing in its constitutional duties by not seeking to exert pressure on the Executive to uphold the Rule of Law by insisting on compliance with international law. Perhaps, the public outrage associated with the derelictions of governmental duty in the setting of Hurricane Katrina have finally opened a space for challenging the legitimacy of the present government, and holding the leaders to account. If the political will can be mobilized in Washington the blank check on government policy issued after 9/11 can at last be voided.

    But the neoconservatives in and around the White House seem unchastened. Despite the ongoing draining experience of the Iraq occupation, these foreign policy super-hawks are making belligerent noises that suggest the possibilities of further military adventures in the Middle East, targeting Syria first, and then menacing Iran. It is a sign of untamed and lawless militarism that the rightist columnist, Max Boot, writing in the LA Times on September 21, 2005, can argue that it is only targeting difficulties that make it impractical to strike at North Korea’s nuclear facilities from the air. Boot writes as if there are no legal or moral inhibitions on such aggressive uses of force at the whim of American leaders. If other governments were to adopt such a logic the world would quickly become an inferno of violence and extremism.

    It is and should be a requirement of a constitutional democracy in the 21st century that a government’s foreign policy, as well as its domestic behavior, be made subject to the discipline of law. In a globalized world the extension of law to international activity is in the national interest. It keeps our leaders from embarking on geopolitical ventures that are not supported by the citizenry if fully informed. American failures to abide by international law gives others a reciprocal right to violate their legal obligations, including in relation to Americans detained abroad as prisoners. What we see instead during the Bush presidency is a refusal to uphold the most fundamental obligations of international law that are binding on all sovereign states. We also believe that the willingness of American lawmakers and media to tolerate such illegality and criminality is a byproduct of the atmosphere that has followed from the 9/11 attacks. Because these attacks enabled the White House and Pentagon to pursue policies that their leadership favored before 9/11, but could not implement due to political obstacles, it becomes of immense practical importance to determine the authenticity of the official version of the 9/11 attacks and response. The readiness to plan the Iraq War as early as September 12, 2001 and the availability of the legislative draft that was to become the Patriot Act give every right for a vigilant citizenry to be suspicious. As suggested, in the aftermath of Katrina, and given the continuing ferocity of the Iraqi resistance to the American occupation, new political possibilities exist to challenge the Bush White House, and revamp American foreign and domestic policy, attending to the needs of the people, especially those who suffer in poverty while those around them wallow in obscene wealth.

    Finally, adherence to international law in matters of war and peace is in the interest of the American peoples and the peoples of the world. There may be humanitarian emergencies or dangerous threats of attack that might justify recourse to war as the UN Secretary General and the UN High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change both conclude, but recourse to war is only legally valid if it is authorized by the Security Council. America and the world will be better off when non-defensive warfare requires in every instance ‘a permission slip.’

    Let hope that American lawmakers can learn from Iraq and Katrina to work for the security and wellbeing of the citizenry and of the world, to reassess priorities, and to reaffirm the importance of adhering to international law and of respecting the human rights of all persons, both citizens and non-citizens, whether in detention within the country or beyond its sovereign borders.

    Richard Falk, chair of the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is the author of Religion and Humane Global Governance (Palgrave) and, most recently, The Great Terror War (Olive Branch). He is currently visiting professor of global studies at UC Santa Barbara.

  • North Korea Deal: Better Late Than Never

    The welcome nuclear framework agreement with North Korea signed in Beijing yesterday is a belated triumph of pragmatism over ideology, and suggests a way ahead on a deal with Iran.

    The preliminary deal provides an outline for a more detailed agreement to be negotiated between North Korea and the other five parties – the United States, Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan — to the still precarious nuclear talks. The main elements of the deal are essentially the same as the agreement nearly concluded at the end of the second Clinton term, and gift wrapped for the first Bush administration.

    President Bush and his most influential advisors spent the next five years denigrating that deal, and dissing Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, who favored it. The basic concept, “more for more,” combined greater concessions from the North (verified abandonment of its nuclear weapons and program) in exchange for broader security guarantees and economic ties and assistance from the United States and others, including a no-attack pledge from Washington and an affirmation of South Korea’s non-nuclear status.

    It has taken a combination of the grind of war in Iraq and the devastation of Katrina, plus a Secretary of State who knows how to play the inside game, finally to turn this around. The major changes in the US position commit Washington to nothing. The agreement includes but does not endorse Pyongyang’s stance on its nuclear rights: “The DPRK stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” It also makes an open ended statement about the possibility of future talks on suspended plans to build a proliferation-resistant reactor for the North: “The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor [sic] to the DPRK.”

    Despite the vague nature of these commitments, they were a bitter pill for the Bush administration, which has opposed the very idea of negotiations with the North, or with Iran. The administration’s motto has been: better to ignore bad behavior than risk being perceived as rewarding it. The ignorance-is-bliss policy rests on the false premise that regime change was in the offing in both North Korea and Iran. Both of these regimes, however, have turned out to be durable. The cost of waiting Kim Jong-Il out has been as many as a half dozen more nuclear weapons which, hopefully, now will be dismantled. Time is also the enemy in Iran, where bureaucratic momentum continues to build for a nuclear program supported by “hardliners” and “reformers” alike.

    The hope now is that the administration’s low-cost concessions to North Korea will be applied to Iran to stanch its nuclear program. Now, however, the administration and the EU 3 will have to deal with a new Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is tilting Iran’s policy to the east, and seems less willing to compromise to gain favor with Europe or the United States.

    Lee Feinstein is senior fellow and deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. An international lawyer and specialist in national security affairs, he was Principal Director of Policy Planning under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and a senior advisor for peacekeeping policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Feinstein’s areas of specialization include weapons of mass destruction, international law and institutions, and foreign policy process. He has written widely on US foreign policy and national security and co-directed the CFR-Freedom House Task Force on Enhancing US Relations with the UN.

  • The Role of US Nuclear Weapons New Doctrine Falls Short of Bush Pledge

    A nuclear draft doctrine written by the Pentagon calls for maintaining an aggressive nuclear posture with weapons on high alert to strike adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), pre-emptively if necessary.

    The doctrine, the first formal update since the Bush administration took office, is entitled “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations”[1] and has been strongly influenced by the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and other directives published by the Bush administration since 2001. A final version is expected later this fall.

    The draft doctrine and editing comments were freely available on the Internet until recently, providing a rare glimpse into the secret world of nuclear planning in the post-Cold War era.

    Foremost among the doctrine’s new features are the incorporation of pre-emption into U.S. nuclear doctrine and the integration of conventional weapons and missile defenses into strategic planning. The Bush administration claims that it is significantly reducing the role of nuclear weapons.

    Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the updated doctrine falls far short of fulfilling the administration’s claim. Instead of reducing the role of nuclear weapons, the new doctrine reaffirms an aggressive nuclear posture of modernized nuclear weapons maintained on high alert. Conventional forces and missile defenses merely complement—instead of replace—nuclear weapons.

    The new doctrine continues the thinking of the previous version from 1995 in its reaffirmation of nuclear deterrence. It differs in three other key elements: the threshold for nuclear use, nuclear targeting and international law, and the role of conventional and defensive forces.

    What’s New?

    The importance of the new doctrine is less about what it directs the military to do, and more about what it shows U.S. nuclear policy has become. It has changed considerably from the 1995 version. A new chapter has been added on theater nuclear operations, a discussion of the role of conventional and defensive forces, and an expanded discussion on nuclear operations.

    The addition of a chapter on theater nuclear operations reflects the post-Cold War preoccupation of U.S. nuclear planners on finding ways of deterring regional aggressors (i.e., rogue states) armed with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. It also reflects a decade-old rivalry between the regional combatant commanders and U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) over who “owns” regional nuclear-strike planning.

    Yet, the new doctrine’s approach grants regional nuclear-strike planning an increasingly expeditionary aura that threatens to make nuclear weapons just another tool in the toolbox. The result is nuclear pre-emption, which the new doctrine enshrines into official U.S. joint nuclear doctrine for the first time, where the objective no longer is deterrence through threatened retaliation but battlefield destruction of targets.

    Another highly visible change is the incorporation of a discussion of the role of conventional weapons and defensive forces into the sections describing the purpose, planning, and employment of nuclear forces. What is most striking is the extent to which conventional and defensive capabilities are woven into the fabric of nuclear planning.

    Reaffirmation of Deterrence

    In the foreword to the 2001 NPR report, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that the review “puts in motion a major change in our approach to the role of nuclear offensive forces in our deterrent strategy.” In Rumsfeld’s testimony to Congress and numerous statements made by other officials, the Bush administration portrayed the NPR as reducing the role of nuclear weapons, lowering the readiness requirement for the nuclear forces, and increasing the role of non-nuclear and missile defense capabilities.

    Yet, the “major change” in the role of nuclear weapons is difficult to find in the new doctrine. Instead, the new nuclear doctrine presents an emphatic defense for nuclear deterrence with sustaining and modernizing nuclear forces maintained on high alert. “To maintain their deterrent effect,” the doctrine states, “U.S. nuclear forces must maintain a strong and visible state of readiness…permitting a swift response to any no-notice nuclear attack against the United States, its forces, or allies.”

    For the authors of the new doctrine, the logic behind such an aggressive posture is simple: military strength automatically strengthens deterrence. Therefore, stronger nuclear capabilities also benefit national security. Indeed, defending the nation against its enemies is best achieved, the new nuclear doctrine declares, through “a defense posture that makes possible war outcomes so uncertain and dangerous, as calculated by potential adversaries, as to remove all incentives for initiating attack under any circumstances.”

    This nuclear dogma is by no means new to deterrence theory, but the new nuclear doctrine fails to explain, even illustrate, why deterrence necessarily requires such an aggressive nuclear posture and cannot be achieved at lower levels without maintaining nuclear forces on high alert. A deterrence posture can also be excessive, with capabilities far beyond what is reasonably needed. Threatening nuclear capabilities may in theory deter potential enemies but may just as well provoke other countries and undercut other vital aspects of U.S. foreign policy. The end result may be decreased security for all.

    Nor does the new nuclear doctrine spell out why the Pentagon ultimately settled on the force that it did. It says that the basis of its decision is a vague and unspecific invention called “capability-based planning” that the Pentagon says “focuses on the means and how adversaries may fight; not a fixed set of enemies or threats.” This hardly seems to be a new development, as U.S. military planning has always focused on how adversaries might fight. Even capability-based planning must identify a set of enemies and threats that is, for all intents and purposes, fixed. Still, the new doctrine repeats the NPR’s decision that a force level of 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed strategic warheads is “the lowest possible number” that the United States can maintain while maintaining a credible deterrent. Just how the 1,700-2,200 warhead level was decided remains a mystery.

    The mystery is even greater because the Pentagon claims that the force-sizing is “not driven by an immediate contingency involving Russia.” Yet, in 1996 when STRATCOM examined force structure options in preparation for the 1997 Helsinki agreement—when Russia was an immediate contingency—the bottom-line force level was also 2,000 warheads.[2] Keith Payne, who co-chaired the Deterrence Concepts Advisory Group that drafted the NPR and subsequently served as deputy assistant secretary of defense from 2002 to 2003, recently explained:

    In general, the NPR’s recommended force structure and number of deployed nuclear warheads was calculated to support not only the immediate requirements for deterrence, but also to contribute to the additional goals of assuring allies and friends, dissuading potential opponents from choosing the route of arms competition or military challenge, and providing a hedge against the possible emergence of more severe, future military threats or severe technical problems in the arsenal.[3]

    The only item on that list that is new, and only partially so, is “dissuading potential opponents from choosing the route of arms competition or military challenge.” Deterring enemies, assuring allies, and hedging are all elements of U.S. nuclear planning that are as old as the post-Cold War era; the first two are even as old as the nuclear age itself.

    Even so, under the headline “New Thinking for a New Era,” the new nuclear doctrine describes capability-based planning as “a major break from Cold War thinking” that “allows the United States to take the lead in reducing nuclear stockpiles rather than rely on protracted arms control negotiations.” That claim overlooks the first Bush administration’s Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991 and 1992, both of which took the lead without protracted negotiations well before the current Bush administration presented its “new thinking.” The claim also overlooks that not one of the strategic nuclear reductions announced by the 2001 NPR was conceived by the Bush administration. All, without exception, implemented decisions made in the 1990s.

    Lowering the Bar for Nuclear Use

    So what does the Pentagon mean when it refers to capability-based planning? One indication comes from the claim made in the new nuclear doctrine and by government officials during the past couple of years that a major break has occurred in nuclear planning. A break does seem to have occurred but is not about reducing the role of nuclear weapons. Granted, the number of weapons have been reduced, but the major break is about transforming nuclear plans and capabilities to enable destruction of targets anywhere in the world more efficiently. In that transformation lays a subtle belief that nuclear deterrence will fail sooner or later, and before it does, U.S. nuclear forces and war plans need to be ready and capable of striking, even pre-emptively.

    The signs of this development are evident throughout the new nuclear doctrine in its description of the need for responsive nuclear forces that can “rapidly respond” to threats anywhere. It even defines a new category of nuclear planning, Crisis Action Planning, as “the time-sensitive development of joint operations plans and orders in response to an imminent crisis.” It is different from highly structured Deliberate Planning and flexible Adaptive Planning:

    Crisis action planning follows prescribed crisis action procedures to formulate and implement an effective response within the time frame permitted by the crisis. It is distinct from adaptive planning in that emerging targets are likely to have no preexisting plans that could be adapted. Success in engaging these types of targets depends heavily upon the speed with which they are identified, targeted, and attacked.

    The basis for this drive for speed and responsiveness is the perception of the threat that faces the United States and its allies in the 21st century. It has become almost a mantra in national security discussions and analysis to portray today’s multipolar security environment as more unpredictable and dangerous than even the Soviet threat during the Cold War. The new nuclear doctrine enshrines that hype into nuclear doctrine.

    Although today’s threats from “rogue” states and terrorists are serious indeed, it is healthy to keep in mind, especially when discussing nuclear weapons policy, that they are on a completely different scale than the global nuclear standoff that characterized the Cold War. Then, the human race and life on the planet was held at nuclear gunpoint for four decades, only 30 minutes away from global annihilation. Today’s nuclear strategy often operates on a far different scale: incorporating the far more limited threat from hostile states and even terrorists.

    Yet, the new doctrine ignores this distinction and instead lowers the crisis intensity level needed to potentially trigger use of U.S. nuclear weapons by replacing “war” with “conflict.” The change may seem trivial, but its implication is important and deliberate. The change was proposed by STRATCOM, which explained that “[r]eplacing the word ‘war’ with ‘conflict involving the use of’ emphasizes the nature of most conflicts resulting in use of a nuclear weapon. Nuclear war implies the mutual exchange of nuclear weapons between warring parties—not fully representative of the facts.”

    During the Cold War, a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union would have involved both countries launching nuclear weapons at each other. Yet, in the post-Cold War era a conflict may involve only one or a few nuclear weapons being used and not necessarily by both warring countries in an exchange. The new doctrine predicts that terrorists and “rogue” states armed with weapons of mass destruction “will likely test U.S. security commitments to its allies and friends.”

    To be sure, some parts of this approach are not new: the 1995 doctrine also considered a role for nuclear weapons against terrorists despite serious questions about the credibility of such a role. Put together, however, the rhetoric in the new doctrine indicates that military planners anticipate that U.S. nuclear weapons might be used in much less intense crises than envisioned previously.

    For example, the new nuclear doctrine states that an adversary might detonate a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere to damage U.S. military electronic equipment with a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse. Whatever the adversary use might be, the new nuclear doctrine makes it clear that the United States will not necessarily wait for the attack but pre-empt with nuclear weapons if necessary. It identifies four conditions where pre-emptive use might occur:

    • An adversary intending to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S., multinational, or allies forces or civilian populations.

    • Imminent attack from an adversary’s biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy.

    • Attacks on adversary installations including weapons of mass destruction; deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons; or the command and control infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies.

    • Demonstration of U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use.

    The previous doctrine from 1995 did not describe specific scenarios where the United States might use nuclear weapons pre-emptively, but the new doctrine enshrines the Bush administration’s pre-emption policy into official U.S. nuclear doctrine. It acknowledges that “the belligerent that initiates nuclear warfare may find itself the target of world condemnation” but adds that “no customary or conventional international law prohibits nations from employing nuclear weapons in armed conflict.” In other words, the Pentagon seems to conclude the United States is legally free to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively if it chooses.

    The End of “Nonstrategic”

    The pre-emptive nuclear options are included in the chapter on theater nuclear operations, which traditionally have been associated with nonstrategic nuclear weapons (those with shorter range). The 1995 doctrine described the theater (local or regional) mission with nonstrategic nuclear weapons as a means of controlling escalation by linking conventional forces to the full nuclear retaliatory capability of the United States. By contrast, strategic weapons historically have included weapons of intercontinental range.

    The separation has always been somewhat blurred, but the new nuclear doctrine does away with a separate theater role for nonstrategic nuclear forces. Instead, it assigns all nuclear weapons, whether strategic or nonstrategic, support roles in theater nuclear operations. The theater mission will be further detailed in “Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Theater Nuclear Planning” (Joint Pub 3-12.1), a secret subdoctrine scheduled for publication by the Pentagon sometime after the release of the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.

    Military officials have argued for years that there are no nonstrategic nuclear weapons; all nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era should be seen as strategic because all nuclear use is strategic in nature. Yet, the language in the new doctrine and the elimination of a specific regional role for nonstrategic nuclear weapons hint of a deeper shift: strategic nuclear weapons have increasing regional (theater) roles as nonstrategic nuclear weapons are reduced and guidance and doctrine demand new missions against the capabilities of rogue states and nonstate actors.

    The increasing incorporation of strategic weapons from the global-intensity level into smaller regional conflicts means that the operational distinction between strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons is being blurred. In a regional deterrence scenario against an adversary armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, all nuclear weapons can be battlefield weapons or strategic weapons, depending on the circumstances. The U.S. pre-emption or retaliation could utilize a B61 nuclear bomb deployed in Turkey or a strategic warhead launched from a Trident submarine patroling near Japan.

    This doctrinal shift has already progressed to the point that STRATCOM has drawn up and implemented a new global strike plan for the use of nuclear and conventional forces in regional scenarios. The new strike plan, called Contingency Plan (CONPLAN) 8022, was first put into effect in late 2003, less than a year after the White House issued National Security Presidential Directive 17, its strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction. CONPLAN 8022 makes operational the Bush administration’s pre-emption policy and the new nuclear doctrine codifies it.

    The Role of Conventional Weapons

    Another new element of the nuclear doctrine is the role of advanced conventional weapons in strategic planning. This was one of the central pillars of the 2001 NPR, and the new doctrine states that “targets that may have required a nuclear weapon to achieve the needed effects in previous planning may be targeted with conventional weapons.” The doctrine describes how “integrating conventional and nuclear attacks will ensure the most efficient use of force and provide U.S. leaders with a broader range of strike options to address immediate contingencies.”

    Yet, in the same breath the document cautions that “some contingencies will remain where the most appropriate response may include the use of U.S. nuclear weapons.” The objective is still assured destruction of facilities, and it seems clear that the conventional capabilities need to evolve considerably before conventional weapons will be capable of significantly replacing nuclear weapons in the war plans. Indeed, in an acknowledgement that “there are few programs to convert the NPR vision to reality,” the Pentagon in April established a task force aimed in part at better integrating the new triad of nuclear, conventional, and defensive capabilities. Four and a half years after the Bush administration announced its “major change” to strategic targeting, the incorporation of conventional weapons still appears marginal at best.

    Part of the impediment appears to be the challenge of incorporating sufficient accuracy into the two ballistic missile legs of the nuclear triad. The explosive power of conventional weapons also is inherently inferior to the yield of even the smallest nuclear warheads in the stockpile. “It’s more than just precision,” STRATCOM Commander General James Cartwright told Inside the Pentagon in April 2005. “I can’t generate enough [conventional explosive] energy for some of these targets to destroy them. So I’m not leading you down a path that I can get rid of nuclear weapons.”

    Also, there is the issue of command and control for conventional strategic forces. The line of command for nuclear strikes has evolved over many decades, but how will it work when a non-nuclear weapon is used in a strategic strike against an adversary’s nuclear weapons facility? The Air Force, which maintains nuclear ICBMs and bombers, pointed out during the editing of the new nuclear doctrine that, although the president and secretary of defense are required to approve all nuclear targeting, they do not necessarily approve conventional targeting.[4] Presumably, the Bush administration will want to close that hole to ensure 100 percent control of strategic strikes and ensure that other nuclear powers do not misinterpret the intention.

    Finally, but equally important, merging nuclear and conventional warheads on ballistic missiles or on strategic platforms has serious implications for crisis stability. A nuclear-weapon state being attacked by a conventionally armed ballistic missile early in a conflict may conclude that it is under nuclear attack and launch its own nuclear weapons. Merging nuclear and conventional capabilities seems to be a recipe for disaster.

    Missile Defenses

    The second pillar of the 2001 NPR was the role of active defenses in strategic planning, and the new doctrine incorporates the new mission. The previous doctrine from 1995 also described the contribution of missile defense, but this issue is expanded in the new doctrine. Instead of describing how missile defenses can be used to protect people from missile strikes, however, the new doctrine appears to focus on how missile defenses can enhance the survivability of nuclear forces and increase offensive capabilities.

    Focusing on protecting nuclear forces rather than people might not seem so cynical if not for the Bush administration’s emphasis on protecting people in its justification for withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and securing congressional funding for the multibillion-dollar missile defense program. In December 2001, when preparing to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, President George W. Bush stated:

    I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government’s ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks…. Defending the American people is my highest priority as commander in chief, and I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses.[5]

    In stark contrast with the president’s priority, the new doctrine describes missile defense as a tool to protect military forces. The doctrine only mentions defense of the population three times and always in a secondary role, after protection of military forces.

    Moreover, the doctrine states that one objective of protecting military forces is to enhance U.S. offensive nuclear strike capabilities. STRATCOM planning seeks to integrate U.S. and allied offensive and defensive forces, the doctrine explains, “in order to exploit the full range of characteristics offered by U.S. strategic nuclear forces to support national and regional deterrence objectives.”

    In an operational scenario, limited or insufficient missile defense capabilities could force U.S. decision-makers into a corner where they would have to choose between saving Los Angeles or Vandenberg Air Force Base.

    Nuclear Targeting and International Law

    The new nuclear doctrine’s deepening of the commitment to regional targeting beyond nuclear facilities, and lowering the bar for when nuclear weapons could be used—even pre-emptively—raise important questions about nuclear targeting and international law. During the editing process of the new nuclear doctrine, a debate was triggered among the different commands over which term to use for different types of targeting. Of particular concern was the legal status of countervalue targeting, a targeting methodology that was included in the 1995 nuclear doctrine:

    Countervalue targeting strategy directs the destruction or neutralization of selected enemy military and military-related activities, such as industries, resources, and/or institutions that contribute to the enemy’s ability to wage war. In general, weapons required to implement this strategy need not be as numerous or accurate as those required to implement a counterforce targeting strategy, because countervalue targets generally tend to be softer and unprotected in relation to counterforce targets.[6]

    During the editing of the new doctrine, STRATCOM declared that it had decided that “countervalue targeting violates” the Law of Armed Conflict. The command therefore suggested changing “countervalue” to “critical infrastructure targeting.” In explaining its decision, STRATCOM stated:

    Many operational law attorneys do not believe “countervalue” targeting is a lawful justification for employment of force, much less nuclear force. Countervalue philosophy makes no distinction between purely civilian activities and military related activities and could be used to justify deliberate attacks on civilians and non-military portions of a nation’s economy. It therefore cannot meet the “military necessity” prong of the Law of Armed Conflict. Countervalue targeting also undermines one of the values that underlies Law of Armed Conflict—the reduction of civilian suffering and to foster the ability to maintain the peace after the conflict ends. For example, under the countervalue target philosophy, the attack on the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 could be justified.[7]

    Other military commands did not agree with the name change. The argument from European Command was that countervalue should not be changed to critical infrastructure because countervalue has an institutionalized and broadly understood meaning in the academic literature on nuclear warfare and in international security studies in general. “If in doubt on this point,” European Command argued, “insert the word ‘countervalue’ in any electronic search engine and note how many ‘hits’ appear that are directly relevant to nuclear policy.”[8]

    In the end, the commands could not agree and the term “critical infrastructure targeting” was withdrawn to end the discussion. Yet, the term “countervalue” also disappeared and is no longer included in the new nuclear doctrine. The issue was dropped, although targeting appears to continue, and simply changing the terminology obviously does not change the illegal targeting itself.

    To be fair, the new nuclear doctrine emphasizes U.S. abhorrence of unrestricted warfare and U.S. adherence to laws of war. Yet, if the intention of mentioning international law is that it matters, then the doctrine notably ignores that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 1996 ruling on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons could not reach agreement (it was a split vote) that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is lawful, even in an extreme circumstance of self-defense where the very survival of a state is at stake. The ICJ did agree unanimously that international law does not authorize even the threat of use of nuclear weapons.[9] These important nuances are ignored by the new doctrine.

    Conclusion

    Although there has been extensive public debate on whether to build new or modified nuclear weapons, there has been essentially no debate about the doctrine that guides the use of nuclear weapons and influences future requirements. This is ironic given the considerable interest in the Bush administration’s policy on pre-emption. As a result, the rewriting of the nuclear doctrine has occurred with essentially no public debate.

    Still, the doctrine and editing documents reveal a significant contradiction between the Bush administration’s public rhetoric about reducing the role of nuclear weapons and the guidance issued to the nuclear planners. Although the overall number of warheads is being reduced, the new doctrine guiding planning for the remaining arsenal reaffirms an aggressive posture with nuclear forces on high alert, ready to be used in an increasing number of limited-strike scenarios against adversaries anywhere, even pre-emptively. The new doctrine appears to be precipitated by anticipation among military planners that deterrence will fail and U.S. nuclear weapons will be used in a conflict sooner or later.

    For the nuclear planners, it seems so simple: deterrence must be credible, and the way to make it more credible is to increase the capabilities and number of strike options against any conceivable scenario. Ironically, a decade and a half after we should have escaped this nuclear deterrence logic of the Cold War, the planners cling to these old business practices. Instead of drastically reducing the role of nuclear weapons, as the Bush administration told the public it would do, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism seem to have spooked the administration into continuing and deepening a commitment to some of the most troubling aspects of the nuclear war-fighting mentality that symbolized the Cold War.

    US Nuclear Weapons Guidance, War Plans

    The updated Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations reflects how combatant commanders have translated the administration’s attempts to reshape U.S. nuclear policy into operational guidance for military forces. It comes nearly five years after the completion of the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in December 2001 and represents the first revision of basic nuclear doctrine in a decade. The list below describes some of the major milestones that led to the new doctrine and their significance. [1]

    2001

    May: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publishes the Strategic Defense Review. This document, among other things, sets “requirements for the number and types of weapons in the stockpile.”

    December 31: Rumsfeld forwards the NPR report to Congress.

    2002

    June: The White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 14, “Nuclear Weapons Planning Guidance.”

    September 14: The White House issues NSPD 17, “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The document states that “[t]he United States will make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including potentially nuclear weapons—to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.”

    September 17: The White House issues the “National Security Strategy of the United States.” The document provides the first official public articulation of a strategy of pre-emptive action against hostile states and terrorist groups developing weapons of mass destruction.

    October 1: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues a new nuclear supplement to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan for fiscal year 2002, which translates White House guidance into specific military plans.

    December 10: The White House releases “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” the unclassified version of NSPD 17. The wording in NSPD 17 of using “potentially nuclear weapons” is replaced with “all of our options.”

    December 16: The White House issues NSPD 23, “National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense,” which orders withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and construction of a national ballistic missile defense system.

    2003:

    January 10: Bush signs Change 2 to the Unified Command Plan, which, in addition to maintaining nuclear strike plans, assigns four additional missions to U.S. Strategic Command: missile defense planning, global strike planning, information operations, and global C4ISR (Command, Control, Computers, Communication, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance).

    March: Rumsfeld issues to Congress “Nuclear Posture Review: Implementation Plan, Department of Defense Implementation of the December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review Report.” The document formally implements the decisions of the 2001 NPR.

    2004

    March 13: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues the “National Military Strategy of the United States,” including the classified Annex B (Nuclear). The document translates the National Security Strategy into specific guidance for military planners.

    April 19: Rumsfeld issues the Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy. The document states in part that “ U.S. nuclear forces must be capable of, and be seen to be capable of, destroying those critical war-making and war-supporting assets and capabilities that a potential enemy leadership values most and that it would rely on to achieve its own objectives in a post-war world.”

    May: The White House issues NSPD 34, “Fiscal Year 2004-2012 Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan,” which “directs a force structure through 2012” and cuts the total stockpile “almost in half.”

    May: The White House issues NSPD 35, “Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization,” which authorizes the military to continue deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

    December 31: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues a new nuclear supplement to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan for fiscal year 2005, codifying new global strike and theater nuclear operations guidance and implementing the 2004 Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy.

    2005

    January: In a letter to U.S. Strategic Command, Rumsfeld tasks the command with spearheading the Defense Department’s efforts to combat weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

    January 10: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues Global Strike Joint Integrating Concept, Version 1, for conducting global strike operations during the “seize the initiative” phase of a conflict (“seconds to days”). Targets include WMD production, storage, and delivery capabilities, critical command and control facilities, anti-access capabilities (radars, surface-to-air missile sites, theater ballistic missile sites), and adversary leadership.

    Fall 2005: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to publish Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.

    ENDNOTES

    1. A chronology of nuclear weapons guidance issued by the Bush administration is available at http://www.nukestrat.com.

    Hans M. Kristensen is co-author of the World Nuclear Forces appendix to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Yearbook and a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    ENDNOTES

    1. The draft doctrine might be slightly different from the final doctrine, although at this late stage any changes are expected to be cosmetic. Copies of the new doctrine, previous versions, and editing comments are available at http://www.nukestrat.com.

    2. See U.S. Strategic Command, “Post-START II Arms Control,” 1996 (partially declassified).

    3. Keith B. Payne, “The Nuclear Posture Review: Setting the Record Straight,” Washington Quarterly 28, no. 3 (Summer 2005), p. 147.

    4. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 16, 2004, p. 59.

    5. The White House, “Remarks by the President on Missile Defense,” December 13, 2001.

    6. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 15, 1995, p. II-5.

    7. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Joint Staff Input to JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations (Second Draft),” April 28, 2003, pp. 34-35.

    8. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 16, 2004, pp. 67-69.

    9. International Court of Justice, “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” July 8, 1996, items A and E (advisory opinion).

  • On Eve of World Summit, Hurricane Bolton Threatens to Wreak Havoc on the Global Poor

    One of the truly heart-warming reactions to the suffering wrought by Hurricane Katrina is the response from the international community. The Red Cross received thousands of donations from individual foreigners—rich and poor—whose hearts went out to the victims. The governments of over 60 nations offered everything from helicopters, ships, water pumps and generators to doctors, divers and civil engineers. Poor countries devastated by last year’s tsunami have sent financial contributions. Governments at odds with the Bush administration— Cuba, Venezuela and Iran—offered doctors, medicines and cheap oil. The international response has been so overwhelming that the United Nations has placed personnel in the Hurricane Operations Center of the US Agency for International Development to help coordinate the aid.

    Unbeknownst to the US public, however, at the very time impoverished Americans are being showered with support from the world community, the Bush administration’s newly appointed UN ambassador, John Bolton, has been waging an all-out attack on the global poor.

    Tomorrow, September 14, over 175 heads of state will gather in New York for the World Summit. One of the major items on the agenda is global poverty. Back in 2000, 191 nations listened to the desperate cry of the world’s poor and developed a comprehensive list to eradicate poverty called the Millennium Development Goals. The goals, to be achieved by 2015, were to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, improve maternal health and reverse the loss of environmental resources. To achieve these ambitious goals, the rich countries made a commitment to spend 0.7 percent of gross domestic product on development. The upcoming Summit was supposed to review the progress toward achieving these goals.

    But even before the first world leader landed in New York, John Bolton threw the process in turmoil. In a letter to the other 190 UN member states, Bolton wrote that the United States “does not accept global aid targets”—a clear break with the pledge agreed to by the Clinton administration. (While some countries, including Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have already reached the aid target of 0.7 percent, the United States lags far behind, spending a mere 0.16 percent of its GDP on development.)

    Bolton wanted these goals to be eliminated from the document being prepared for the World Summit leaders to sign. In fact, Bolton stunned negotiators when less than one month before the Summit, he introduced over 500 amendments to the 39-page draft document that UN representatives had been painstakingly negotiating for the past year.

    The administration publicly complained that the document’s section on poverty was too long and instead called for greater focus on free-market reforms. But those free market reforms did not include encouraging corporations to promote the public good. On the contrary. Bolton wanted to eliminate references to “corporate accountability.” And he went even further, trying to strike the section that called on the pharmaceutical companies to make anti-retroviral drugs affordable and accessible to people in Africa with HIV/AIDS. Bolton’s message that corporate profits should take preference over social needs offers no comfort to the 30,000 poor who die daily from needless hunger and curable diseases.

    In another area that severely impacts the world’s poor—climate change— Bolton has been equally brutal. While Hurricane Katrina was lashing the Gulf states, Bolton was slashing the global consensus that “climate change is a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the world.” Not only did he attempt to wipe out any references to meeting any obligations outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, but he also stunned negotiators when, in the section on the UN’s core values, he tried to cut the phrase “respect for nature”.

    Finally, with global resources that could used to alleviate poverty instead going into the never-ending arms race, Bolton’s agenda moves us in the direction of an even more dangerous and violent world. He tried to eliminate the principle that the use of force should be considered as an instrument of last resort, slash references to the International Criminal Court and calls for the nuclear powers to make greater progress toward dismantling their nuclear weapons, and cut language that would discourage Security Council members from blocking actions to end genocide.

    John Bolton’s slash-and-burn style has convinced many global leaders that the US agenda is not to reform the United Nations but to gut it. In fact, Bolton even called for deleting a clause saying the United Nations should be provided with “the resources needed to fully implement its mandates.”

    The Bolton/Bush agenda reflects a misguided belief that absolute US sovereignty should take precedence over international cooperation. It also sends a message that the US government feels no responsibility towards—or compassion for—the world’s poor.

    UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged the United States to back down and reaffirm its support for the millennium development goals, goals that he says have been embraced by the whole world as a way to help poor people who want to live in dignity. Even U.S. allies like Tony Blair have stepped in to try to stop Bolton from wrecking the Summit.

    The outcry from the global community is forcing Bolton to back down on some of his more outrageous demands. But the Bolton/Bush agenda still refuses to seriously address the critical issues of our times, ranging from global warming to the arms race to grinding poverty. We citizens must demand that our government’s face to the international world not be that of a mean-spirited, aggressive bully but one that reflects the compassion and commitment to alleviating suffering and environmental devastation that the world has shown us in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

    Please take a moment to fax John Bolton at http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/actnow/bolton.html.

    Medea Benjamin is Founding Director of the international human rights group Global Exchange.

  • Leveraging the Anti-Nuclear Majority: How to Create a Serious Nuclear Disarmament Coalition (NDC)

    When Dryden penned the phrase “War is the trade of kings,”1he was simply coining a tragic truism of his day. Kingship was hereditary in 1691, and the king’s subjects did his bidding, in particular the waging of war. By 1961, with the growth of democracies and human rights, things were supposed to be different. Yet the “kings” of the modern era—the victors of WWII— were, and still are “trading in war,” still producing and profiting from all manner of weaponry designed to wound, dismember, blind, burn and kill enemy populations. And the trump card in their deck for the last sixty years has been nuclear weapons.

    Given how drastically the nature of war has changed, it is time question the lofty assumptions conveyed in Dryden’s dictum. Who still believes that modern war is capable of being honorably conducted by virtuous leaders? Is it not rather time to talk of a new kind of “trade,” based on peace? Robust foreign trade in a climate of peace may be, in fact, the “trade of the just,” as opposed to the trade of kings. And that very commerce, if wisely managed to further the goals of world peace and nuclear disarmament, could have a decisive effect in convincing the current “kings” of this world and their citizens that nuclear arms are no longer a useful asset.

    Today there are nine nation-states capable of “trading” in nuclear war. God help us if they ever do! They polish and prime their arsenals in the vain belief that such weapons will make them more secure, more prestigious, more “kingly” if you will. They fail to realize that nobody wins if there is even a single nuclear exchange. They seem unwilling to “lock down” and eventually give up their thermonuclear bombs—even under the strictest of controls.

    The possession of a nuclear arsenal, alas, has been seen as conferring special status within the United Nations on the oldest of the nuclearized states (the P5 in the Security Council: China, France, the Russian Federation, the U.K. and the USA). Their undeserved status has had the unfortunate effect of encouraging imitator-states, so that now there are four more in that club of dubious distinction (India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea). Other countries may be planning to join. The aim of this paper is to suggest strategies and methods that could be effective in convincing the nuclear-weaponized states, and any others that aspire to be such, that they would lose more than they gain by developing and/or maintaining their arsenals.

    In 1943, the year I was born, the world was at war; but at that time at least there were no nuclear weapons. Incendiary bombs were bad enough; yet there was still a limit to how much death and destruction a single bomb could visit on mankind. Ever since 1945, however, when I was two years old, I and my generation, and eventually my children’s and grandchildren’s generation— we have all been subject to a threat of almost Biblical proportion and resonance. We have been living—and still live—just minutes away from either inflicting or suffering the worst blasphemy, the worst insult to God’s creation, the most horrendous and indiscriminate waste of human life, and the most lethal and persistent poisoning of the environment that the world has ever known.

    The dream that I am sharing with you today is that we who are over 60 should be able to leave this world as free of nuclear weapons as it was when we entered it, so that those who are born in 2013, 2023, or 2033, will be able to look back over their lives and say:

    “Yes, I was born into a world with many problems, but nuclear war was not one of them. Thanks to a coalition of non-violent, visionary states back in the early 21 st century, with the ability to see thermonuclear weapons for what they really were, and the courage to stand up for sanity and our common humanity, the nuclear-armed states were persuaded to give up their reliance on those terrible weapons. Planet earth, our lifeboat in the vastness of empty, cold, and lifeless space, still faces many problems, but anti-population warfare with environmentally catastrophic weapons. thank God, is not one of them.”

    Some recent history—high notes and low notes

    The United Nations charter was already signed in San Francisco, on June 26, 1945, weeks before we entered the nuclear age by exploding the first atomic bomb, July 16, 1945. A few months after the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, the very first resolution of the UN General Assembly, meeting in London on January 24, 1946, called for “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.” It was passed unanimously… and nothing happened. Au contraire, within fifty years, the number of nuclear weapons in the superpowers’ arsenals had grown to more than 60,000. There still remain more than 30,000 today – equivalent in destructive force to some 200,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.

    General Assembly resolutions

    The UN General Assembly has continued, year after year, to pass a wide variety of passionate resolutions on the subject of nuclear weapons: how to limit their development, testing, and use; and how to achieve disarmament. A search that I conducted in September 2005 of the information system at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN, seeking General Assembly resolutions involving the keyword-phrase “nuclear weapons,” found 158 such documents online. They date mostly from 1983 forward. Given these results within just a twenty-year period, I would estimate that the member states of the UN have passed resolutions in the General Assembly to limit, reduce, or eliminate nuclear weapons on more than 200 occasions already, usually with a wide majority bordering on unanimity. (Later we shall review the pattern of voting.) But still no real progress toward a serious Nuclear Weapons Convention has been made at the UN. Alas, the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the UN in May 2005 was deeply disappointing, in that it “did little to tighten control over the spread of nuclear arms.”2

    UN Security Council resolutions

    Along with the 200-plus UN General Assembly resolutions, eloquent if weak, there have been at least seven Security Council resolutions on the subject of nuclear weapons (see Appendix A). They have generally dealt with specific issues of concern to the nuclear superpowers, like the behavior of India or Iraq. But none has hit home. None has resulted in the abandonment of thermonuclear weapons by any state that already had them. And none has prevented other states who were determined to acquire them from getting them. So much for the best efforts of UN diplomats. They can certainly sing the high notes, but they haven’t shattered any glass yet. The record shows that even the most sincere diplomatic efforts made at the UN, given its power structures and forums favoring the nuclear-armed states, have met with no significant nuclear disarmament successes.

    Non-governmental voices

    At the other end of the political gamut, we are hearing today more and more a chorus of “low notes,” that is, voices from grass-roots organizations like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,, Abolition 2000, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Mayors for Peace. They are part of a worldwide network of over thirty professional, civic, and non-governmental organizations – all with links to and from the wagingpeace.org Web site. They are doing great work to keep alive the conversation about the sacredness of human life and the utter waste and moral bankruptcy that building, storing, deploying, arming, and targeting nuclear weapons represents. But still, these groups are at best only raising awareness of a continuing problem and threat. By using words alone, even by speaking (as St. Paul says) with “the tongues of men and angels,” those of us who sing the “low notes” will probably never be able to persuade the nuclear-weaponized states, no matter how eloquently we speak, to collectively relinquish their supposedly sovereign right to stockpile and use weapons of mass destruction. So what will put those countries on a path to nuclear disarmament? How can we use appropriate leverage to make this dream a reality?

    A new kind of chorus

    The answer, I believe, lies neither in the “high notes” of UN diplomacy (always hampered by Security Council vetoes and the resistance of nuclear-armed states to any change in the status quo), nor in the “low notes” of grass roots mobilization alone. Rather, what we need to do is mobilize the already extant majority of nation-states, those 180-odd that are non-nuclear, in particular the 110 to 150 who consistently vote in favor of nuclear limitation and disarmament at the General Assembly. We need to encourage them to create their own worldwide coalition, celebrating and favoring their fraternal humanity and their restraint in “the trade of kings” in every conceivable peaceful way, and in like measure shunning and disfavoring for cause the nuclear-weapons-bearing states, their governments, and their business delegations, until they reform.

    If the anti-nuclear majority could be brought together to form an effective coalition—perhaps called the Nuclear Disarmament Coalition (NDC)—its member states could provide the crucial leverage needed to achieve real progress toward disarmament. They could create the necessary conditions worldwide (not just rhetorically, in the halls of the UN) that would make it manifestly less advantageous, less convenient, less acceptable, more troublesome, and patently more costly for the nuclear states to cling to their warheads than to get rid of them. Somehow the nuclear-weapons-free governments need to get organized, and to start seeing themselves in a new light: as the “most favored nations” of planet earth… as “the new common market” of planet earth.

    • They need to be encouraged to use every non-violent means at their disposal to confront any states that are out of line.
    • They need to be encouraged to dream up the most colorful, most provocative, most imaginative of non-violent means to discourage the nuclear-weapons-club states from renewing their membership in that club.
    • Keeping a nuclear weapons arsenal must come to be understood as:
      • no longer fashionable (imagine how the entertainment industry could help here!),
      • no longer economically advantageous (imagine having to pay more for everything if your country is not part of the NDC),
      • no longer the way to get ahead in the world (imagine your delegations and cultural and industrial exports being shunned),
      • no longer even socially acceptable (imagine not being invited to World conferences, fairs, and festivals!)

    Real progress in nuclear disarmament, I am suggesting, will only come quickly if the nuclear-weaponized states are persuaded, in the face of resounding worldwide public opinion, that it is in their own best interest to disarm and rejoin the rest of the world. The NDC states will need to make a convincing case of how serious they are about obtaining a safer world, and clearly outline the geopolitical and commercial realignments and consequences that will result if nothing is done.

    When I say “the rest of the world,” I’m talking about the true world majority in terms of:

    • sovereign states (182 vs. 9), and even
    • population (3.3 billion vs. 3.1 billion)(see Appendix B);
    • potential developing markets, and even access to
    • raw materials and essential commodities

    These are the very factors that will be most important for the stimulation of growing economies and for improving the standard of living of the world’s citizens in the years to come.

    On the subject of population: One should neither be unduly impressed nor discouraged over the coincidence of high-population countries and large nuclear weapons arsenals. It really has nothing to do with population. Nuclear weapons are usually a by-product of an overdeveloped military-industrial complex, coupled with a leadership living in fear, or needing to instill fear in order to be reckoned with. This is as true for tiny Israel and N. Korea as it is for giant Pakistan and India. It is possible, however, that the large populations of many nuclear countries currently assumed to be quietly favoring nuclear weapons will turn out to be the very vocal masses demanding disarmament from within. The more the merrier! This will be especially true if their imaginations can be fired by the dramatic steps the rest of the world might soon be taking to shun and disfavor nuclear-weapons-armed states.

    Economic Leverage

    One persuasive way to get the attention of rich nuclear countries may, in fact, be via their pocket books. When it comes to raw materials, the stuff that keeps the first world happy, the anti-nuclear majority of countries just might have a few cards to play.

    Petroleum and Natural Gas

    Only about a quarter of the world’s states, 46 of some 200-odd oil-producing states and protectorates, produce petroleum in quantities over 100,000 barrels a day. The top 46 producers (which include the 11 OPEC countries) account for nearly 75 million of the 76 million barrels produced daily. Saudi Arabia leads the world with 9 million bbl./day. Four of the nuclear-armed states—Pakistan (61,000 bbl), France (35,000 bbl), Israel (just 80 bbl) and North Korea (0)—are not in the league of major producers. Only the remaining five of nine nuclear-armed states are in that league: Russia, the U.S., China, the U.K., and India; but none is among OPEC’s eleven members. The five in question only produce collectively 22 million barrels/day—far from enough to meet their own needs. (See Appendix C)

    The point of this discussion is to make clear that leverage for serious progress towards nuclear disarmament in fact is in the hands of about 40 major, nuclear-weapons-free, oil-producing states at this time, and will continue to be for the next twenty years. A polite, principled, and firm confrontation of the few (the 9 nuclear-armed, oil-consuming states) by the many—the 40 major oil producing states, with the promise of graduated price hikes for any states that refuse to adhere to an NDC-approved nuclear disarmament timetable, would certainly get the attention of the nuclear-armed states and their citizens. It would become a tremendous internal political issue. (See also Appendix C for similar figures regarding natural gas supply and demand worldwide.)

    Coffee – 55 of the 56 countries that produce coffee worldwide are in the nuclear-weapons-free camp. The only exception is India,3 whose coffee production amounts to less than 4% of world production, and is largely consumed domestically. Imagine how the American, French, and British public would react if they woke up one morning to learn that the NDC states, which may include virtually every coffee producing country in the world, were instituting a new, dramatically higher price structure for coffee beans going to non-NDC states. Could Americans swallow that? How would they vote, if they had the ability to vote, on the one issue potentially keeping them from affordable and plentiful coffee every day?

    Critical and Strategic Minerals — Although the nuclear-armed states recycle varying proportions of chromium, cobalt, manganese and platinum group metals, they are almost completely dependent on imports for new supplies. World production of these metals is dominated by a few countries, including South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, none of which is part of the nuclear-armed camp. Here is an interesting table about rare metals used in jet fighter engines. It was produced by Doug Davidson, a scientist with the Biosphere 2000 project. I think the implications are clear enough.4

    Amount of Strategic Minerals Used in One Jet-Fighter Engine and Percentage Supplied by Imports
    Mineral Amount Used (in tons) Percent Imported
    Titanium 2.7 35
    Nickel 2.6 73
    Chromium 0.8 91
    Cobalt 0.5 93
    Aluminum 0.4 94
    Columbium 0.1 100
    Tantalum 3 pounds 90

    Commodities — According to figures published in the current CIA Factbook online,5 US commodity imports account for the following percentages of our consumption: agricultural products 4.9%, industrial supplies 32.9% (crude oil 8.2%), capital goods 30.4% (computers, telecommunications equipment, motor vehicle parts, office machines, electric power machinery), and consumer goods account for 31.8% (automobiles, clothing, medicines, furniture, toys).

    It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Nuclear Disarmament Coalition countries could decide to favor other NDC member states dramatically with their exports and pricing structures, and to do just the opposite in dealing with the nuclear-armed states that continue to hold out. The message to the few remaining states in the nuclear-armed club would be clear enough: Keeping nuclear weapons, besides being wholly unacceptable to the majority of your own country’s informed citizens, to the majority of the world’s citizens, and to the political leaders of the NDC, is bad for business, bad for trade, and will be detrimental to your supply of basic commodities.

    How might the Nuclear Disarmament Coalition get started?

    If it’s going to happen, I believe that it’s going to happen directly and multilaterally among interested states. We may continue for several more years to hear the “high notes” of UN resolutions, and the “low notes” of grassroots movements, but we probably won’t hear or see at the outset the “middle voices”—the quiet diplomacy that gets this movement started. As I have suggested in the attached one-page summary (Appendix E): “Imagine a non-nuclear host country inviting the foreign ministers of nearly all 180 other non-nuclear states to a meeting to create and celebrate a new alliance of countries fully committed to nuclear sanity and non-military dispute resolution.” Realistically the host country could be Ireland, Canada, Australia, Spain, Japan, or a Nordic country. It could even be France, the U.K., or India if one of them would kindly surprise the world soon by unilaterally ridding itself of its WMDs—a stunning possibility not to be ruled out!

    I see the job of those who may be moved to action by this scenario, if indeed we are able to make common cause on this strategy, to be one of quietly and credibly pitching this plan to a series of most-likely host countries, one at a time, until we find one who will take the ball and run with it. We could even raise money for the initial founding conference of the NDC. I’ll bet that quite a few private foundations and businesses would contribute significant sums to help launch this humanity-saving initiative.6 After all, a peaceful world will be much better for business than one that remains on the brink of nuclear desolation, with the Doomsday Clock teetering at a mere seven minutes to midnight.

    What about unanticipated consequences?

    Would a serious, proactive NDC provoke unacceptable or dangerous consequences?This is an interesting question, because aside from economic blockades at various times, there has never been the use of principled, consciously non-violent confrontation tactics on the world stage before, especially in support of something which is manifestly in the interest of all humankind. Here are some random thoughts on this subject:

    1. There could be nuclear isolationism. Isolationist elements in the nuclear-armed states could end up cheering that finally the rest of the world is separating itself from them. But when they began to encounter a divided and indignant world in which they themselves were in the decided minority, facing rationed coffee, heating oil and gasoline, I wonder if they wouldn’t reconsider their relative position, and ask themselves what they are really afraid of.

    2. There could be trade wars. The nuclear-armed states could arguably launch trade sanctions of their own against particular NDC states, including the freezing of assets, military threats, and outright seizure of terrain and resources in those states. I would never minimize the economic damage that the world’s largest economies could wreak. But I do not think that world public opinion and domestic public opinion will stand for selfish gunboat diplomacy in the 21 st century. The bitterness and the human cost of American adventurism in Vietnam and Iraq will not soon be forgotten.

    3. There could be accusations of blackmail. The nuclear-armed states could condemn NDC actions and threats as a form of blackmail, and “refuse to give in to blackmail” on principle, the merits of nuclear disarmament aside. It would be incumbent on the NDC states, therefore, to use the clearest possible language and the most persuasive communication models in waging its public relations campaign. It would need to make the world’s governments, media, and populations understand clearly its motives (the sacredness of life, human survival), and its methods: use of the very best models of non-violent resistance, as given to the world by none other than two current nuclear powers: India (Gandhi) and the USA (M. L. King).

    4. The UN could be undermined. In fact, an effective Nuclear Disarmament Coalition could certainly be well represented in the present UN General Assembly. It could use that forum to great advantage. But NDC-introduced resolutions would be non-binding, and would probably never fly in the Security Council. Whether a strong NDC would undermine the UN, sidestep the UN, or cause its transformation for the better is an open question.

    • It would not be the first time that the countries of the world acted multilaterally outside the UN, if it came to that. Many landmark international treaties and settlements have been made, in fact, bilaterally or multilaterally without UN auspices, and only later ratified by most other states with little or no direct UN involvement. The creation of Israel (1945), the crafting of the Antarctic Treaty (1956), the creation of Bangladesh (1971), and the Oslo Accords (1993) are cases in point.
    • The empowering of up to 180 non-nuclear nations to make the most of their common agenda for humanity by embarking on an ambitious program of foreign trade, cultural exchanges, joint scientific ventures, and international development could well lead them to create their own successor UN-like forum. It might be called the United Non-Nuclear Nations (UN2) or United Non-nuclear States (UNS). And UN2/UNS Headquarters could spring up in a nuclear-weapon-free host country. I would especially love to see the successor host country be France or the UK, after either one unilaterally disarmed, breaking with the “gang of nine.” Only then could it, in fact, take the lead in creating and hosting the NDC.

    The major nuclear-weapon-armed state that is first to rid itself of its arsenal would send a shock-wave of possibility-thinking and a challenge to geopolitical inherited widsom echoing ‘round the world. Its government would richly deserve the moral-leadership status among the nations that it would acquire. And if it capitalized on its leadership to create and host a genuinely proactive Nuclear Disarmament Coalition, it would reap enormous rewards in terms of international trade and good will. As the probable host to a new and reformed United Nations, it could well usurp the place of the United States as leader of the peace-loving world—a position to which the United States can no longer lay claim, considering its leadership in the conduct of overseas wars since the 1960s.

    Which countries would probably make up the NDC?

    On average there are about 110 to 150 countries whose UN representatives actually vote consistently in favor of most any resolution to limit, ban, or dismantle nuclear weapons. Appendix D conveys a sense of the voting records of those countries, showing how often they agree on this important matter. It also suggests which nuclear-armed states usually oppose the GA’s non-binding resolutions… if they bother to vote at all.

    Sample votes in G. A.:

    Resolution 55/33 R (2000), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Australia and Japan, was adopted 155-1 (India opposed), with 12 abstentions.

    Resolution 55/33 C (2000), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 154-3 (opposed by India, Israel, Pakistan), with 8 abstentions.

    Resolution 56/413 (2001), United Nations conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers in the context of nuclear disarmament, was adopted 115-7 (4 nuclear powers opposed, including USA, Israel, France, and the UK), with 37 abstentions.

    Resolution 59/76 (2004), A path to general and complete disarmament, was adopted 165-3 (UK and Russian Federation in favor! India & USA, against), with 16 abstentions (including China and Israel)

    Again, which countries would probably make up the NDC? No doubt all of the countries which regularly vote in favor of nuclear-weapons control and disarmament. These would be the core NDC member states.

    Have other international coalitions been working to eliminate nuclear weapons?

    There have been a few limited attempts in recent memory to organize both states and NGOs with a view to persuading the major nuclear-armed countries to work seriously toward disarmament. Perhaps the most significant of these on the geopolitical landscape has been The New Agenda Coalition, launched in Dublin in June 1998, with a Joint Declaration by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden (alas, Slovenia later withdrew in order to position itself for NATO membership). Its efforts have been endorsed by the European Parliament; a copy of that statement is available on the www.wagingpeace.org web site.

    In the NGO arena there have been two significant recent developments, each with impressive memberships, agendas, and Web presences:

    1. The Middle Powers Initiative. Through the Middle Powers Initiative, eight international non-governmental organizations (Global Security Institute, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, International Peace Bureau, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, State of the World Forum, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) have been able to work primarily with “middle power” governments to encourage and educate the nuclear weapons states to take immediate practical steps that reduce nuclear dangers, and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Middle power countries are politically and economically significant, internationally respected countries that have renounced the nuclear arms race, a standing that gives them significant political credibility. The campaign is guided by an International Steering Committee, chaired by Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., former Canadian Disarmament Ambassador.7

    2. The Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament (PNND) is dedicated to providing parliamentarians worldwide with up-to-date information on nuclear weapons policies and to helping parliamentarians become engaged in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament initiatives. PNND is a non-partisan forum for parliamentarians, nationally and internationally, to share resources and information, develop cooperative strategies and engage in nuclear disarmament issues, initiatives and arenas. It is a program of the Global Security Institute and is guided by the steering committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.8

    Have they made any significant progress in furthering nuclear disarmament? Certainly the awareness of the gravity of the situation among the general public has been raised by these efforts. Yet for all their wisdom, creativity, and passion, these coalitions (to my way of thinking) have still lacked the leverage necessary to move their crucial agenda forward. It is likely that they would align themselves with and support in a heartbeat any country that took the lead in organizing a Nuclear Disarmament Coalition.

    In Conclusion

    Strong medicine is desperately needed. A gesture to capture the world’s imagination is desperately needed, coupled with a new experiment in geopolitics: non-violent resistance among nation-states, on the international stage. That is what this paper is urging. Whether it begin with unilateral disarmament by one of the P5 states, or with an unprecedented organizing conference by the nuclear-weapons-free states, or with a carefully staged walkout by 190 states at the UN—something that is both dramatic and principled must be done to move our planet beyond its fatal complacency in the face of these awful weapons.

    Every single nuclear weapons on earth today was created by flawed human beings—men with strong minds and strong patriotic emotions, but utterly lacking in what Norman Cousins called “moral imagination.” We reject their legacy. The time has finally come to do away with it. A serious Nuclear Disarmament Coalition using strong, non-violent confrontation tactics will provide the leverage needed to accomplish this goal within a decade.

    Let me end by quoting what Joseph Rotblat said on this subject:

    “Morality,” he wrote, “is at the core of the nuclear issue: are we going to base our world on a culture of peace or on a culture of war? Nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral: their action is indiscriminate, affecting civilians as well as military, innocents and aggressors alike, killing people alive now and generations as yet unborn. And the consequence of their use could bring the human race to an end.” He ended his appeal with his oft-repeated plea, “Remember your humanity.”

    Humanity should be proud to have had a dissenting nuclear scientist like Rotblat. David Krieger’s recent tribute to his passing states, “When he learned in late 1944 that Germany would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, he believed there was no longer reason to continue work on creating a US bomb. For him, there was only one reason to create an atomic weapon, and that was to deter the German use of such a weapon during World War II. If the Germans would not have an atomic weapon, then there was no reason for the Allies to have one. Joseph was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds.”9

    What the world now needs is a dissenting nuclear state to take a moral stand like Rotblat: to disarm unilaterally, and to start a chain reaction of a whole new sort: a Nuclear Disarmament Coalition that will finally provide the practical leverage needed to persuade the few remaining nuclear powers to put down their nuclear swords and shields, convert them to plowshares, stop threatening humanity, and study war no more!

    Appendix A

    UN Security Council Resolutions on Nuclear Weapons (in reverse chronoloical order)

    7. Title: Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) [on non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/1540(2004) Vote Date: 20040428. Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    6. Title: Security Council resolution 1172 (1998) [on nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May 1998 and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May 1998] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/1172(1998) Vote Date: 19980606 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    5. Title: Security Council resolution 984 (1995) [on security assurances against the use of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon States that are Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/984(1995) Vote Date: 19950411 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    4. Title: Security Council resolution 825 (1993) [on the decision of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/825(1993) Vote Date: 19930511 Voting Summary: Yes: 013, No: 000, Abstentions: 002

    3. Title: Security Council resolution 707 (1991) [on Iraqi violation of Security Council resolution 687 (1991) with regard to inspection of its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capabilities] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/707(1991) Vote Date: 19910815 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    2. Title: Security Council resolution 487 (1981) [on the Israeli military attack on Iraqi nuclear facilities]. UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/487(1981) Vote Date: 19810619 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 0

    1. Title: Security Council resolution 255 (1968) [on measures to safeguard non-nuclear-weapon States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/255(1968) Vote Date: 19680619 Voting Summary: Yes: 010, No: 0, Abstentions: 005

    Source: Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN, UBISNET Bibliographic Information System. Search terms were “Security Council” and “Nuclear.” Date was Sept. 2005.

    Appendix B

    Populations in Nuclear-Armed Countries vs. Populations in Nuclear-Weapon-Free (potential NDC) Countries

    With China, India, and Pakistan currently in the nuclear-armed camp, one could well wonder whether the citizens of those states might actually outnumber citizens in the nuclear-free countries today. In fact they do not, but they come close. Here are the latest (9 August 2005) population figures from the online CIA Factbook. With a current world population of 6.4 billion, the nuclear cloud overshadows 3.1 billion; while 3.3 billion of earth’s inhabitants still live happily without the “protection” that such weapons afford.

    Nuclear-armed countries Population Nuclear-free countries

    China

    India

    United States

    Pakistan

    Russia

    France

    UK

    North Korea

    Israel

    1,306,313,812

    1,080,264,388

    295,734,134

    162,419,946

    143,420,309

    60,656,178

    60,441,457

    22,912,177

    6,276,883

    3,138,439,284

    180-odd

    nuclear-weapons-

    free

    countries account for a population of:

    3,308,026,699

    World population (Aug. 2005) = 6,446,465,983

    Appendix C

    The Growing Petroleum and Natural Gas Dependency of the United States

    The USA alone consumes nearly 20 million barrels of oil per day, so we depend on imports from OPEC. But we’ve got competition. While only 46 countries are producing more than 100,000 bbl/day, 70 countries are already consuming more than that each day… and China’s demand seems to be growing the fastest (see chart below). Those 70 countries’ economies require 74 million bbl/day every day, just to keep steady, with no increase in GDP. The eight most developed nuclear-armed powers (not counting N. Korea) together consume 33.4 million bbl/day of petroleum. As previously noted, they only produce 22 million bbl/day among themselves, and are not very good about sharing it.

    The projected dependence on external oil markets in the Asia-Pacific world alone should give us all pause as we contemplate a consumption vs. production table like this one, published in the Energy Information Adminis­tration’s International Energy Outlook 2005:

    Natural Gas

    Five of the states currently in the nuclear-weapons club are even less well endowed with natural gas than they are with petroleum. China, Pakistan, India, N. Korea, and Israel export zero natural gas, but collectively consume 75 billion cu. m. annually. Russia leads the world in the production and sale of this resource, exporting 171 billion cu m annually, followed by Canada, exporting nearly 92 billion. The United States by comparison, with its huge production and domestic consumption of gas (640 billion cu m. annually), only manages to export 11 billion cu m. One can already envision the U.S. developing a natural-gas dependency on foreign imports in the next few years,. Once again the suppliers could well be countries having a decided preference to trade with other nuclear-weapons-free states.

    Appendix D

    Select UN General Assembly Votes since 1998 on Nuclear Disarmament: How do the Votes Tally?

    [For]-[Against]-[Abstentions] Non-voters are not recorded.

    • Resolution 53/77 X (1998), Nuclear disarmament, sponsored by Myanmar on behalf of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement), was adopted, 110-41-18
    • Resolution 53/77 U (1998), Nuclear disarmament with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Japan, was adopted, 160-0-11
    • Resolution 53/77 Q (1998), Nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas, introduced by Brazil, was adopted 154-3 (France, USA, UK)-10
    • Resolution 53/77 W (1998), Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, introduced by Malaysia, was adopted 123-25-25
    • The New Agenda Coalition (NAC) , launched in June 1998, consists of seven States, Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa, and Sweden. At the 54th Session of the UN General Assembly, on 1 December 1999, a resolution (54/54 G) put forward by the NAC, “Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: the Need for a New Agenda,” was adopted by 111 votes to 13 with 39 abstentions.
    • Resolution 54/54 D (1999), Nuclear disarmament with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, spons. by Belgium, Japan, etc., was adopted 153-0-12
    • Resolution 54/57 (1999), on The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, was adopted 149-3 (opposed by Israel, USA, and Micronesia)-with 9 abstentions.
    • Resolution 54/63 (1999), for a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 158-0-6
    • Resolution 55/31 (2000), for the Conclusion of effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, was adopted 111-0, with 54 abstentions.
    • Resolution 55/33 C (2000), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 154-3 (India, Israel, Pakistan), with 8 abstentions. (Favorable votes were way up from 111 in 1999.)
    • Resolution 55/33 N (2000), Reducing nuclear danger, was adopted 110-45, with 14 abstentions.
    • Resolution 55/33 R (2000), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Australia and Japan, was adopted 155-1 (India), with 12 abstentions.
    • Resolution 55/36 (2000), aimed at averting the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, was adopted 157-3, with 8 abstentions. (Up from 149-3 in 1999!)
    • Resolution 55/41 (2000), for a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, sponsored by 74 nations, was adopted 161-0 with 6 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/24 N (2001), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, was adopted 139-3 (India, the USA, Micronesia against), with 19 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/24 O (2001), supporting preparatory work on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: 2005 Review Conference, was adopted 156-1 (India) with 3 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/24 R (2001), calling for Nuclear Disarmament, sponsored by 48 nations, was adopted 149-3 with 6 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/413 (2001), United Nations conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers in the context of nuclear disarmament, was adopted 115-7 (4 nuclear powers opposed, including USA, Israel, France, and the UK), with 37 abstentions.
    • Resolution 57/59 (2002), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, with its stronger language condemning nuclear weapons, was adopted 125-6 with 36 abstentions.
    • Resolution 57/78 (2002), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, was adopted 156-2 (India and the USA against), with 13 abstentions.
    • Resolution 58/35 (2003), to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, with its stronger language condemning nuclear weapons, was adopted 119-0 with 58 abstentions.
    • Resolution 58/50 (2003), for the reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, was adopted 128-4 (France, Russia, UK, and USA against), with 43 abstentions.
    • Resolution 59/64 (2004), Assuring non-nuclear-weapons states against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Pakistan and 20 other countries, adopted 118-0 with 63 abstentions.
    • Resolution 59/65 (2004), Verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons , was adopted 179-2 (Palau and the USA against), with 2 abstentions (Israel and UK).
    • Resolution 59/85 (2004), Calling for a nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas, sponsored by New Zealand, Costa Rica, and 34 other countries, adopted 171-4 (USA, UK, France, Palau) with 7 abstentions.
    • Resolution 59/76 (2004), a path to general and complete disarmament, was adopted 165-3 (UK and Russian Federation in favor! India & USA, against), with 16 abstentions (including China and Israel).

    Anti-nuclear votes at the UN General Assembly continue, with similar margins in favor (and patterns of opposition from the USA, Israel, India, China, etc.)

    Appendix E

    ONE-PAGE SUMMARY

    LEVERAGING THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MAJORITY: HOW TO CREATE A SERIOUS NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT COALITION (NDC)

    Imagine most of the 180-odd non-nuclear [10] states of the world, on their own, without the permission of the superpowers, being invited to create a serious coalition of progressive nations, proud to reject nuclear weapons, and committed to the worldwide elimination of all WMDs.

    Imagine a non-nuclear host country ( Ireland? Canada? Australia? Spain? Japan? a Nordic country?) [11] inviting the foreign ministers of nearly all 180 other non-nuclear states to a meeting to create and celebrate this new alliance of countries fully committed to nuclear sanity and non-military dispute resolution. This new, nonviolent diplomatic initiative might call itself something like the “Nuclear Disarmament Coalition” (NDC).

    Representing the majority of UN member states, the NDC could raise the stakes for nuclear disarmament at the UN dramatically. Acting both within the present UN and independently, from headquarters in a non-nuclear host country, the NDC states could take strong actions like the following to achieve their objectives:

    a. establish favorable trading agreements with other NDC states, and use their collective weight in international trade, markets, and raw materials to pressure nuclear states to abandon their WMDs;

    b. work collectively by all available economic, diplomatic, and cultural means (including grassroots mobilizing, and media blitzes) to isolate nuclear states, conceivably even using trade and air travel embargoes;

    c. in general force the issues of nuclear and other WMD disarmament and nonviolent dispute resolution in the interest of the world’s children and grandchildren—indeed, all humankind—by actively marginalizing the minority of states which still cling to these abominable relics of anti-population warfare.

    If the nuclear minority at the UN blocked serious efforts to accomplish nuclear lockdown and a timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons by a given date, NDC states could abandon the UN and create a successor diplomatic forum (perhaps called UN2, United Non-nuclear Nations). Full membership in the NDC and any successor forum would be offered only to nuclear weapons-free states, although nuclear-armed states could have observer status until they disarmed or began a NDC-monitored disarmament process. If successful, this initiative will lead the nuclear states to see the wisdom, indeed the urgency, of dismantling and destroying all nuclear weapons. It will ultimately induce them to join a new, more humane, more egalitarian world order, represented by the NDC (or UN2) charter—a diplomatic framework worthy of the 21 st century.

    Creative nonviolence is at the heart of this proposal. Direct diplomatic, trade, and cultural confrontation of the minority (eight, including Israel, India, and Pakistan—perhaps nine or ten if N. Korea and Iran go nuclear) by the majority (180) could be our best and last hope for leveraging world nuclear disarmament. Carefully orchestrated, strong, non-violent words and actions, such as boycotts and media blitzes, trade embargoes, and other forms of confrontation on the international arena could create conditions of intolerable isolation for any and all nuclear nations, including aspiring ones. But time is of the essence!

    Creating a new Nuclear Disarmament Coalition could send the necessary message to all actual and potential nuclear states: “Arm at your peril. You will lose more than you gain. The nations of the world will reject your goods, your services, and your leadership.” Were this all to occur, verifiable nuclear disarmament might be accomplished within five to ten years.

    Thomas Heck, Emeritus Professor Ohio State University Phone: (805) 692-1969

    1. King Arthur, act 2, sc. 2 (1691).

    2. See the UN Press release of 27 May 2005 at <http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/dc2969.doc.htm>

    3. Coffee production in the USA is negligible. According to the USDA, the US produced 170,000 bags of beans last year. Source: <http://www.fas.usda.gov/psd/complete_tables/HTP-table5-193.htm>

    4. Davidson’s paper is entitled “Critical and Strategic Minerals,” and is published online at <http://www.environmentaleducationohio.org/Biosphere/Case%20Studies/minerals.html>

    5. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/>

    6. One can think not only of well-funded American charities, like the Gates Foundation, the Google Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but also major international businesses and funds like Rotary International, OPEC, the Gulbenkian Foundation, and many UN-associated NGOs.

    7. Source: <http://www.middlepowers.org/mpi/archives/000122.shtml>

    8. Source: <http://www.gsinstitute.org/pnnd/about.html>

    9. David Krieger, “Sir Joseph Rotblat: A Legacy of Peace (1908-2005),” at <https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/2005/09/01_krieger_sir-joseph-rotblat.htm> (September 2005).

    10. Non-nuclear in this document refers only to nuclear weapons, not to nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

    11. The eventual host country could even be France, the U.K., or India if one of them would kindly surprise the world soon by unilaterally ridding itself of WMDs. (Imagine the consequences in terms of good will, media attention, and moral authority!)

  • Katrina, a Parallel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

    War does not determine who is right – only who is left – Bertrand Russell

    Among the different ways to describe the terrible destruction posed by Hurricane Katrina, several officials from Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as some anchormen from the media, have been making comparisons between this natural disaster and the one unleashed by man.

    The devastation, death and misery caused by a category 4 hurricane is undeniable. The extent of the damage is measured by hundreds of miles. The economic costs will be staggering. The loss of human life is always regrettable and in this case the numbers could climb into the thousands.

    The real figures will not be known for sometime. Undoubtedly, it will surpass the deaths during the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. But even considering a figure of 6 to 10 thousand, and that will hopefully be the maximum loss of life in this tragedy, there is no comparison with the immediate obliteration of more than 70,000 people in Hiroshima and some 40,000 in Nagasaki, with tens of thousands more to die in the aftermath.

    The powerful tsunami that devastated parts of Indonesia and the adjacent nations last December killed approximately the same number of people lost in the two Japanese cities.

    Let us not forget that the enormous power of a nuclear device demands a detonator equivalent to the energy generated by the atomic bombs used in 1945. If we are so speechless and numbed by the destruction caused by Katrina, what can we expect if our nightmares of a nuclear holocaust materialized?

    We are witnessing the serious consequences caused by the hurricane, among them the possible death of a very special city, New Orleans. Chaos and lawlessness escalates in the “Big Easy.” Countless people are tired, hungry and desperate. Shooting at helicopters trying to rescue survivors has even occurred. The law of the jungle descends upon one of the most beloved American cities.

    The fantasy world of Hollywood portrays disasters, space invasions and even nuclear wars. After the scenes of devastation, at the end, the sun shines again and a beautiful rainbow streams across the horizon. Life continues as usual.

    This false idea of security is harbored by the government that has plans for the “survival and continuation of government” after a nuclear war or terrorist attack. If the situation in Louisiana and Mississippi were to get dangerously out of hand, what would be the reality of a world AFTER a nuclear holocaust?

    Humans have perfected the art of killing. By our own inventions we could put an end to human existence and possible all other forms of life.

    Nature will continue banging on us, sometimes badly but it does not threaten to annihilate its own creatures. Unless a big comet hits us and sends us into oblivion as happened with the dinosaurs, the nuclear threat will continue to be the Damocles sword hanging over our heads.

    In the meantime, we could use the enormous resources currently going to preparations for nuclear war to make preparations against natural disasters and to help to repair the destruction caused by Katrina. Perhaps we can give New Orleans a new lease on life together with the other damaged areas.

    Ruben Arvizu is director for Latin America of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation