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Rising to the Challenge of Peace

It is very special to be back in Nagasaki, a city dedicated to peace. In the Nuclear Age peace has become our most important challenge. Our task is to rise to that challenge. My hope is that each of you will become the peace leaders that our troubled world so badly needs.

Let me share with you a poem I wrote, which I believe describes, at least in part, the situation today.

War is Too Easy

If politicians had to fight the wars
they would find another way.

Peace is not easy, they say.
It is war that is too easy –

too easy to turn a profit, too easy
to believe there is no choice,

too easy to sacrifice
someone else’s children.

Someday it will not be this way.
Someday we will teach our children

that they must not kill,
that they must have the courage

to live peace, to stand firmly
for justice, to say no to war.

Until we teach our children peace,
each generation will have its wars,

will find its own ways
to believe in them.

War is Too Easy

If politicians had to fight the wars they would find another way. Peace is not easy, they say. It is war that is too easy – too easy to turn a profit, too easy to believe there is no choice, too easy to sacrifice someone else’s children. Someday it will not be this way. Someday we will teach our children that they must not kill, that they must have the courage to live peace, to stand firmly for justice, to say no to war. Until we teach our children peace, each generation will have its wars, will find its own ways to believe in them. As long as someone else’s children can be sacrificed on the altar of war, wars will continue. The US war in Iraq was not sanctioned by the United Nations and is outside the boundaries of international law. It was a war sold to the American people and the people of the world on the basis of the imminent threat of Iraq’s use of weapons of mass destruction, and yet no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Many more American soldiers have now died in Iraq since Mr. Bush announced the end of the major combat operations on May 1, 2003 than died in the so-called major combat phase of the war, and yet no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and injured in the war, and perhaps tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers. The web site Iraqbodycount.org, which provides information on reported civilian casualties, reports that some 7,900 to 9,700 Iraqi civilians have died in the war. That is some two-and-a-half to three times the number of innocent civilians that died in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and yet no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Would you join me in a moment of silence for the innocent victims of this war and of all wars.

Peace

There is a Roman dictum, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” This has been diligently followed for over 2,000 years. It has always resulted in more war. We need a new dictum: “If you want peace, prepare for peace.” This is our challenge.

I’d like to share some ideas that I believe are important in a discussion about peace. These ideas can be organized using the letters that form the word “peace.”

1. Perspective

The Nuclear Age began only 58 years ago, a mere nanosecond in geological time. Scientists tell us that the universe began 15 billion years ago, in the immensely distant past. We can conceive of the life of the universe as a 15,000 page book, with each page representing a million years. In this book, the “Big Bang” would occur on page one and then thousands of pages would represent the expansion of the universe and the creation of stars. The Earth would have been formed around page 10,500. The beginning of life on Earth, the first single-celled creatures, would have occurred on about page 11,000. And then over the next 4,000 pages, you could read about life developing. Only three pages from the end of this 15,000 page book would our human ancestors appear. It would not be until the last word on the last page of the book that human civilizations would appear. The Nuclear Age would fall in the period – the punctuation mark – of the last sentence of the last page of the history of the universe. So, in the development of the universe, of all that has preceded us in time and on this planet, the Nuclear Age is infinitesimally tiny, and yet it is incredibly important for it is the funnel through which we must pass to move into the future. For the first time in history, a species (homo sapiens) has developed technology capable of destroying itself and most of life on the planet. We need this perspective of our place in time and geological history to have a sense of how extraordinarily rare and precious we are.

2. Education

We are all born as blank slates. We are unformed and uninformed. It is only by education that we develop our views and prejudices. It is only by education that we draw boundaries that include some and exclude others. Education shapes our view of the world. We can educate for peace or for war. We can educate to create critical thinkers or to create individuals who will charge into battle or support wars without thinking. Our education largely determines our willingness to fight in wars (or to send others to fight), or to fight for peace. At the outset of the Nuclear Age, Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of the 20th century, observed, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” If we are to avoid this “unparalleled catastrophe,” which continues to hang over our heads, we must educate ourselves and in turn educate others about upholding human dignity for all and finding alternatives to violence. It is helpful in this sense to look to the lives of great peace heroes, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela and Linus Pauling. Also among the great peace educators and leaders of our time is your president, Daisaku Ikeda. We must also educate for global citizenship, for the shared responsibility of passing on the planet and life on the planet intact to the next generation. Arundhati Roy, the great Indian writer and activist, has said this about nuclear weapons, whether or not they’re used: “They violate everything that is humane; they alter the meaning of life. Why do we tolerate them? Why do we tolerate the men who use nuclear weapons to blackmail the human race?” It is a question of education. These men and these weapons should not be tolerated.

3. Appreciation

We live in an amazingly beautiful world, and each of us is a miracle. Have you ever stopped to consider what a miracle you are? All the things that we take for granted are such miracles: that we can see this beautiful earth, its trees and streams and flowers; that we can hear songs, that we have voices to speak and sing; that we can communicate with each other; that we can form relationships and can love and cherish each other; that we can walk and breathe and do all the incredible things we take for granted. If we can learn to appreciate how miraculous we truly are, perhaps we can also appreciate that each of us is equally a miracle. How can one miracle wish to injure or kill another? The gift of life must be rooted in appreciation, which will give rise to compassion and empathy.

4. Choice

We all have a choice about what we do with our lives. We can devote our lives to accumulation of material things, which is culturally acceptable, or we can set our sights on fulfilling more compassionate goals aimed at building a peaceful world. The Earth Charter, a wonderful document that was created with input from people all over the world, begins with these words: “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future.” But humanity will not choose by a vote. The choice will be made by the individual choices of each of us. Each choice matters. The Earth Charter further states: “The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life.” In 1955, Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, a leading 20th century philosopher and social critic, issued a manifesto in which they concluded: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.” The two most powerful images that emerged from the 20th century were the mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion and the view of Earth looking back from outer space. The mushroom cloud represents universal destruction, while the view of Earth from space represents the unique and solitary beauty of our planet, the only planet we know of that harbors life, in a vast, dark universe. These images represent polar opposite possibilities for humanity’s future. Which will we choose? We each have the power of choice.

5. Engagement

We need to become personally involved in the issues of our time, and find our own ways to work for a peaceful future. Among the important ways in which we can engage are by speaking out and making our presence felt for a peaceful world. That means opposing policies of violence and war. It means standing up for the human dignity of everyone, everywhere. We must create a world that works for all and we must begin where we are, but our vision and our outreach must be global. We must ask more of our leaders, and we must demand better leaders. We ourselves must become the leaders who will change the world. The most important change has always come from below and from outside the power structure. We must become world citizens. This means citizens of a polity that does not yet exist. By our commitment and our vision we can create the structures and institutions that will give rise to a Federation of the Peoples of Earth. We must transform the United Nations into such a federation, and give life to the International Criminal Court, which will hold all leaders accountable for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. To fight for peace is to fight for life and the future of our species and our planet. Our engagement and our endurance are essential to our human survival.

My Hope for You

My hope for you is that you will choose peace in all of its dimensions. I believe that the place to begin is by choosing hope. It is your belief that you can make a difference that will allow you to make a difference. Put aside despair, apathy, complacency and ignorance, and simply choose hope. It is the first step on the path to peace. Saint Augustine said, “Hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to change them.” There is nothing wrong with anger against injustice and you will certainly need courage to be a non-violent warrior for peace. You, the youth of Kyushu, and particularly of Nagasaki, have special responsibilities to fight for a nuclear weapons free world and to assure that no other city ever suffers the fate that this city suffered on August 9, 1945. You must go forth from Nagasaki and take the message of the hibakusha to the world: “Human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.” Today I visited the powerful peace statue, a symbol of Nagasaki, in which the right hand of a God-like figure points up toward the atomic bomb and the left hand is extended palm down in a gesture of peace. The sculptor, Seibo Kitamura, wrote these words: “After experiencing that nightmarish war, that blood-curdling carnage, that unendurable horror, who could walk away without praying for peace?” We need you to pray for peace and also to struggle for the triumph of humanity over these weapons of utter destructiveness. May you be bold, may you be creative, may you be persistent, and may you prevail!

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is the co-author with Daisaku Ikeda of Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age and the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future. This speech was delivered in Nagasaki to Soka Gakkai youth on November 25, 2003.

November 25, 2003
2003 Nagasaki Appeal 2nd Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
In the first years of the 21st century the prospects of nuclear weapons proliferation and use have dramatically increased. As the last city to suffer a nuclear attack, Nagasaki is committed to reversing this dangerous trend and making progress towards a nuclear weapons-free world.

The 21st century began with a chain reaction of violence and retaliation. In September 2001 terrorist attacks took place in the United States. The Afghan war followed, and then the Iraq War began in March 2003 on the pretext that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration has reviewed its nuclear posture and promoted new policies for nuclear weapons use. Also, North Korea is conducting brinkmanship diplomacy using nuclear weapons development as a lever. We find that the intentions of various countries to give a new role to nuclear weapons will considerably hinder any progress towards their elimination.

In this context, we global citizens have gathered again in the A-bombed city of Nagasaki three years after the 1st Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, in order to listen to the heartfelt pleas of Hibakusha and to be inspired by the enduring passion of the Nagasaki citizens’ commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons.

After 58 years, many Hibakusha continue to suffer from secondary illnesses caused by nuclear radiation, in addition to their initial physical injuries and emotional trauma wrought by the atomic bomb. Also, the second and third generation Hibakusha live in constant fear for their health. While enduring these hardships, they have sustained their efforts to develop strategies and build a movement to realize the elimination of nuclear weapons. Hibakusha have not been passive victims. They have critically analyzed, exposed hidden intentions and harshly criticized, as follows, the arguments put forward by those in authority who justify the possession and development of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapon states have tried to obscure the true nature of nuclear weapons by hiding them within the phrase ‘weapons of mass destruction’. They argue that non-proliferation is a priority and reject nuclear disarmament. Especially, the US has undertaken research to develop small nuclear weapons and ‘bunker busters’, and is preparing for the resumption of nuclear tests, using the pretext of the ‘war against terrorism’. They imply that small nuclear weapons are merely extensions of conventional weapons, thus lowering the barrier to their use. Do they think that they now have free reign to do anything they want in the name of the so-called ‘war against terrorism’? This thinking will undoubtedly be imitated by other countries bringing with it the spread of nuclear weapons to even more countries. How can a country strengthen its own nuclear arsenal, while seeking to prevent nuclear proliferation by others? Moreover, where is the commitment by the nuclear weapon states to ‘an unequivocal undertaking $B!D(B to the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals’ adopted at the NPT Review Conference in May 2000? The US has acted in bad faith, and has violated the spirit of this commitment by pursuing new nuclear weapons.

We global citizens strongly feel that all nuclear weapon states, declared and undeclared, and those countries that rely on the nuclear umbrella of others, should honestly and sincerely answer these direct questions from Hibakusha. Whatever justifications are offered by the nuclear weapon states, the weapons must be denounced as illegal and immoral by the people of the world.

After three days of intense discussions in Nagasaki, we found hope in the constant resolve of the Hibakusha and in the vigor of today’s youth. As global citizens, we sincerely appeal to the people of the world to:
- Call for an end to the cycle of violence and retaliation; now is the time to delegitimize war.
- Ensure that nuclear war will be prevented, especially in the flashpoints of the Middle East, South Asia and Northeast Asia, including the Korean Peninsula.
- Establish nuclear weapon free zone or areas free of weapons of mass destruction as a contribution to the prevention of nuclear wars and further nuclear proliferation.
- Stop the trend towards the development of new types of nuclear weapons, policies for their use, missile defenses and weaponization of space.
- Support those raising their voices in protest across the world and especially in the United States.
- Continue building a large international citizen movement to abolish nuclear weapons in anticipation of the NPT Review Conference to be held in New York in 2005.
- Press governments to adopt concrete steps to achieve nuclear abolition so that the 2005 NPT Conference will be an epoch-making event.
We are greatly encouraged by the decision of the Mayors for Peace to initiate an ‘Emergency Action Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons’. Its success depends on civic activities in cities all over the world. We urge citizens to cooperate with their mayors to forge strong international support for this campaign at the 2005 NPT Review Conference. In order to achieve this, international solidarity with Nuclear Free Local Authorities is vital.

We believe that Japan, as the only A-bombed nation, has a special role to play. We fear that a tendency among Japanese politicians to blindly accept nuclear weapons has increased. We must continue to listen to the urgent pleas of Hibakusha to end dependence on nuclear weapons and to exert credible leadership for nuclear abolition in the international community.

Finally, in anticipation of the 2005 NPT Review Conference and the 60th anniversary of the US atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, we call on citizens everywhere to work with their political leaders in national and local governments to create strong public support for banning nuclear weapons for all time.
November 24, 2003
Toward The 2005 Non-Proliferatioin Treaty Review Conference

The State of the World

As we move toward the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, the world is experiencing increased extremism and instability. The extremism has manifested in the form of significant attacks by clandestine international terrorist organizations, such as those on 9/11, and acts of retaliation by powerful states that may or may not be directly related to the initial assaults. Neither the terrorists nor the state leaders involved have demonstrated reasonable regard for established rules of international law.

In the background of this clash between extremist organizations and governments lurks the ever present danger of the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. The possibility of course exists that groups like al Qaeda could somehow acquire nuclear weapons from a sympathetic state or from criminal elements. Should such a group attain nuclear weapons it is unlikely they could be deterred from using them, particularly since they have no fixed location that could be threatened with retaliation in accord with the theory of deterrence.

At the same time, the United States has put in place policies that appear to lower the barriers to the use of nuclear weapons. The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review calls for contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against seven countries, including at least four that are non-nuclear weapons states. It is also declared US policy to use nuclear weapons against chemical or biological weapon stores or in retaliation for the use of these weapons.

With its doctrine of preventive war, the US administration is undermining the system of international law set in place after the Second World War “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” It has chosen a path of unilateralism and “coalitions of the willing” over multilateral approaches in accord with international law. The US government is further undermining international law by its failure to support many existing treaties and by its active opposition to the creation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) to hold leaders accountable for the most egregious crimes under international law.

The Role of the NPT

The NPT was established primarily to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to states other than the first five nuclear weapon states. The treaty was the brainchild of the US, UK and Russia, who believed that the world would be a safer place if they, along with France and China, controlled the world’s store of nuclear weapons. It was largely a self-serving proposition, not one that offered much inducement for other countries to sign off on nuclear weapons. The NPT bargain contained two elements that presumably benefited the countries that agreed to give up their right to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons. First, the treaty promised them assistance in developing the “peaceful” uses of nuclear energy, going so far as to describe nuclear power as an “inalienable right.” Second, the treaty had provisions that the nuclear weapons states would engage in “good faith” negotiations for nuclear disarmament and called for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date.

The NPT was put forward in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. The non-nuclear weapons states are undoubtedly wondering when the “good faith” negotiations by the nuclear weapons states will begin and why the United States in particular still seems intent on developing new nuclear weapons, such as mini-nukes and “bunker busters.”

At the 2000 NPT Review Conference the parties to the treaty adopted by consensus a Final Document that contained 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. These steps included the ratification of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the preservation and strengthening of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, and called for the nuclear weapons states to take unilateral as well as multilateral steps to achieve nuclear disarmament. It also called for greater transparency with regard to nuclear arsenals and for making irreversibility a principle of nuclear weapons reductions. On virtually every one of these commitments, the US, under the Bush administration, has shown bad faith. It is demonstrating that US commitments are not likely to be honored and that the most powerful country in the world finds nuclear weapons useful and is attempting to make them more usable.

Iraq, Iran and North Korea

In his 2001 State of the Union Address, President Bush described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an Axis of Evil. In 2002 he began mobilizing US troops in the Middle East and threatening Iraq. In March 2003 he initiated a preventive war against Iraq, which his administration justified on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to the US. In the aftermath of the initial combat phase in Iraq, despite extensive searching, no weapons of mass destruction have been located in Iraq.

Observing the US threats and attacks against Iraq might well have led Iran and North Korea to pursue nuclear weapons programs aimed at deterring US aggression. At this point, North Korea has withdrawn from the NPT, as is its legal right, and Iran is cooperating with inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Six nation talks (US, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia) have been going on to try to resolve the impasse over North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT and its declared intention to develop a nuclear arsenal. The CIA estimates that North Korea may currently have one or two nuclear weapons and the materials to make another six or so weapons in the short-term. North Korea is asking for the US to provide it with a non-aggression pact as the price for giving up its nuclear ambitions. It is a small price. The US has vacillated on whether to do this, but recently has indicated its willingness to give informal assurances. It remains unclear whether such assurances will be sufficient to bring North Korea back into the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state.

Current Problems with the NPT

In addition to North Korea’s withdrawal from the treaty, there are other problems. First, its promotion of nuclear energy and nuclear research create the ever-present possibility of countries using the nuclear materials to develop clandestine nuclear weapons programs. Second, it lacks universality and the countries that have refused to join (India, Pakistan and Israel) have all developed nuclear arsenals and have thus, in a sense, been “rewarded” for not joining. Third, there are many unfulfilled commitments, particularly the nuclear disarmament commitments by the nuclear weapons states, which give the appearance that these countries are just making empty promises that they have no intention of keeping.

There has been virtually no progress on any of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference. It is difficult for the non-nuclear weapon states to view this in any way other than as a sign of bad faith on the part of the nuclear weapons states.

The Role of NGOs

Given the state of the world and the current problems with the NPT, it seems appropriate for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the disarmament area to question the value of the treaty. What good is a treaty in which the most powerful states do not fulfill their obligations or keep their promises? There is no doubt that the behavior of the nuclear weapon states, and particularly the US, have undermined the value of the NPT and raised serious questions about it in the minds of many observers.

The New Agenda Coalition (NAC) states have made a diligent effort to get the NPT back on track with their resolutions in the United Nations, but they have been stonewalled by the US and most of its allies. The Middle Powers Initiative, a coalition of eight international non-governmental organizations, has attempted to support and promote the positions of the NAC throughout the world. Through these efforts, they achieved a slight crack in the stone wall when Canada, a NATO member, voted in support of the NAC resolution in the First Committee of the United Nations in November 2003.

NGOs will likely continue to support and promote the efforts to make the parties to the NPT live up to their obligations, but at the same time are undoubtedly disheartened by the ongoing failure of the nuclear weapon states to meet their obligations or even show minimal good faith. In the years since the NPT was extended indefinitely in 1995 and despite the end of the Cold War, there has been no substantial progress toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.

NGOs must choose the points of greatest importance and leverage, and stress these in their activities.

First, it is long past time for the nuclear weapon states to provide legally binding security assurances to the non-nuclear weapon states.

Second, there should be no regression on the moratorium on nuclear testing.

Third, there should be far tighter controls of nuclear materials in all states, including the nuclear weapon states.

In a November 3, 2003 statement to the UN General Assembly, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA, called for “limiting the processing of weapon-usable material (separated plutonium and high enriched uranium) in civilian nuclear programmes – as well as the production of new material through reprocessing and enrichment – by agreeing to restrict these operations exclusively to facilities under international control.” In light of the increasing dangers of proliferation, it is amazing that such a proposal was not implemented long ago. It is a minimum acceptable standard for what must take place immediately if proliferation to both other states and terrorists is to be prevented. NGOs should certainly support this proposal.

NGOs should also press for nuclear weapon free zones in the Middle East, Northeast Asia and South Asia. These are dangerous hotspots where the development of nuclear weapons has threatened regional stability and security. To achieve these goals will require concessions by the nuclear weapons states and faster movement toward fulfilling their disarmament obligations under the NPT. A primary activity of NGOs should be to expose the hypocrisy of the nuclear weapon states and try to develop stronger anti-nuclear sentiments among the populations of these countries and translate such sentiments into political power.

At the moment there are not many hopeful signs, but one that stands out is 2020 Vision: An Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons by the World Conference of Mayors for Peace. This innovative campaign, spearheaded by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, calls for the 2005 NPT Review Conference to launch “a negotiating process committed to adopting a comprehensive program for progressive and systematic elimination of nuclear weapons by the next NPT Review Conference in 2010,” and then actually eliminating these weapons over the following decade. It is time-bound program that picks up the baton from Abolition 2000.

I would encourage NGOs to help promote the effort of the World Conference of Mayors for Peace. NGOs must not give up because, in effect, this would be giving up on humanity’s future. That is what is at stake and that is why our work to support the NPT promise of the total elimination of nuclear weapons is so essential.

David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). This speech was given on November 23, 2003 at the 2nd Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

November 23, 2003
Cold War Comeback? The nuclear threat from within

Originally Published in the San Francisco Chronicle

With mounting casualties in Iraq and other news of the war dominating headlines, it’s no wonder that President Bush’s drive for a revolutionary breed of new nuclear weapons has gone largely unnoticed. Since Bush first came to office and presented the so-called Nuclear Posture Review, it has been clear that this White House has a dramatically different view of nuclear weapons compared with previous administrations.

The Nuclear Posture Review actively sought to find new uses for nuclear weapons, emphasized pre-emptive military action and shortened the timeline to restart nuclear tests in Nevada. The Bush administration has been actively pursuing new nuclear weapons that are explicitly for use on the battlefield. These tactical weapons — the powerful “bunker buster” Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and “mini-nukes” less than 5 kilotons — turn the notion of strategic deterrence on its head and create a world in which nuclear weapons are seen as legitimate offensive alternatives.

Neither of these weapons was asked for by the Pentagon. They were not driven by a real threat. They will not make the United States any safer. Instead, the administration’s actions are having the opposite effect by erasing the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons. Russia has already indicated that it will develop new “tactical” weapons in response, and no one doubts our enemies will follow suit.

This is a major departure from where we were as a country only a few years ago and deserves serious debate. Do we want a world in which the United States is spurring a new global arms race with our own development of a new generation of nuclear weapons? Or do we want a world in which the United States, confident in the proven deterrence of our existing nuclear stockpile and the success of our conventional forces in every conflict since the Cold War, is able to lead the world in preventing the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons?

At the same time the administration is hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it is paving the way to test nuclear weapons in Nevada and reigniting America’s nuclear weapons industry. This is like throwing gasoline on a fire.

What is perhaps most troubling is that the intense desire for these new weapons is fueled by ideology rather than a national security need. A recently leaked classified report by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board recommended pursuing new nuclear weapons, writing that the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator “has been requested, but much more needs to be done,” in spite of the fact that the Department of Defense has “neither clear requirements nor persuasive rationale for changing the nuclear stockpile.”

In fact, the administration’s two main arguments — that new nuclear weapons are needed so American scientists can think and excel and that the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is needed to defeat terrorists — don’t stand up to scrutiny. The utility of bunker-busting nuclear weapons is highly questionable. Even the most powerful nuclear weapons cannot destroy every bunker, as there is virtually no limit to how deep enemies can tunnel. They will never surgically destroy targets, offer no guarantee of destroying chemical and biological agents without releasing them into the atmosphere and hinder our ability to gain valuable reconnaissance in the bunkers by making them radioactive. Moreover, even a 1-kiloton nuclear bomb — many times smaller than the warheads under consideration for a bunker-buster — would kill tens of thousands of civilians if detonated in an urban area.

These are not theories in a vacuum. Congress recently repealed the decades-old law forbidding research and development of nuclear weapons smaller than 5 kilotons and soon will provide millions of dollars for researching nuclear bunker-busters. Simply put, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, America is back in the business of developing new nuclear weapons.

A handful of my congressional colleagues and I tried to counteract the push for new nuclear weapons, but we were defeated by near-unanimous Republican support for the administration. I am gravely concerned that our minor successes in requiring the administration to provide a long-term plan for our nuclear weapons stockpile pales in comparison to what is to come on this perilous path.

We should learn from history. Nearly half a century ago, President Eisenhower rejected the counsel of advisers who wanted a new variety of nuclear weapons they said would allow the United States to fight a winnable nuclear war. Eisenhower responded, “You can’t have this kind of war. There just aren’t enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.” As we have seen in Afghanistan and Iraq, our conventional weapons can do the job. There is no military, scientific or strategic reason to go nuclear at this time — and every reason not to.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, sits on the House Armed Services Committee and is a leader on nonproliferation.

November 18, 2003
Livingstone says Bush is ‘Greatest threat to life on planet’

Originally Published in independent.co.uk

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, launched a stinging attack on President George Bush last night, denouncing him as the “greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen”.

His provocatively timed comments, on the eve of Mr Bush’s arrival in London tonight, threaten to create severe embarrassment for the Prime Minister. They also come with talks under way on whether to re-admit Mr Livingstone to the Labour Party before his five-year exile ends.

Although he made his many differences with the Government on a range of issues clear, he reserved his strongest comments for the American President in an interview with The Ecologist magazine.

The President’s three-night trip, which will culminate on Friday with a visit to the Prime Minister’s Sedgefield constituency, has sparked a flood of protests from those opposed to his foreign policy. But Mr Livingstone’s outburst makes him one of the most high-profile and explicit of his critics.

Mr Livingstone recalled a visit at Easter to California, where he was denounced for an attack he had made on what he called “the most corrupt and racist American administration in over 80 years”. He said: “Some US journalist came up to me and said: ‘How can you say this about President Bush?’ Well, I think what I said then was quite mild. I actually think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen. The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction.”

Mr Livingstone, who is holding a “peace party” for anti-war groups in City Hall tomorrow, added: “I don’t formally recognise George Bush because he was not officially elected. So we are organising an alternative reception for everybody who is not George Bush.”

He said he supported stronger links between European Union countries only because he wanted to see a powerful bloc emerge to rival the United States. “The American agenda is sweeping everything before it, and although it’s not perfect, the EU is better on environmental issues. It’s a less rapacious form of capitalism.”

The Mayor said he had viewed Labour’s 1997 election manifesto as a “load of old guff they’d come out with because they didn’t want to upset the Daily Mail” that would rapidly be ditched. “I was amazed when it transpired that Blair had been serious,” he said.

Accusing Mr Blair of suffering from a “background problem”, he said: “There is nothing in his past that was radicalising. He wasn’t interested in all the great student activities, the radical campaigns.

“He did not get involved in politics until the 1970s, when the high point was passed. So you have someone of the summer of ’68 generation who actually wasn’t part of it.”

On GM foods, he said: “If the Government ignores public opinion, then civil disobedience on this issue is legitimate, as long as it’s not violent.

“But the most important thing that affects a government is not peaceful protest, but fear of the ballot box.

The Mayor’s comments will infuriate Downing Street at a time when No 10 is examining ways of bringing Mr Livingstone, who was expelled from the Labour Party for standing as an independent in the London mayoral elections of 2000, back into the fold.

AS THE PRESIDENT PREPARES TO VISIT SEDGEFIELD, TONY BLAIR’S CONSTITUENCY, WILL HE BE WELCOME?

Chris Lloyd, political editor of The Northern Echo: “The paper is Bush neutral and he has a right to visit but equally, the people here have a right to demonstrate. I hope he gets to see all, or at least some of those protests and I hope Mr Blair will explain what they are about because that’s what friends are for. Despite Mr Bush’s unpopularity, there is a frisson of excitement because nothing of this magnitude has ever happened there.”

Lucy Hovvels, vice-chairwoman of Sedgefield constituency and Labour councillor in Trimdon: “I’ve had local people asking where they can get Union Jacks and American flags because they think it’s an exciting and historic visit. I really believe Bush will get a warm welcome in Trimdon and the mood is one of excitement. We have the two most important people in the world coming to us – no one would otherwise know where Trimdon is.”

Richard Wanless, co-ordinator of the ‘Sedgefield Against War’ protest: “The visit is a massive security risk and for those living in the area, it jeopardises our safety. No matter where he goes, there will be protests from London to the North-east to make sure he knows he is not welcome. To me, he is a war criminal that has illegal occupation of Iraq. To add to the insult, there are families here who lost their children to the war.”

The Rev Martin King, rector of Sedgefield: “A lot of people here are very angry with the way the US administration is putting itself above the law. One person in my congregation said if President Bush wanted to look around the church, he would be welcome because it is a place for sinners, but he hoped his henchmen would leave their ironware at the door. His policies are very unwelcome in the region – I have not heard anyone voicing support for him.”

Martin Callanan, Conservative MEP for Sedgefield: “The visit is hugely beneficial for the area. Most of the security threat to the people in Sedgefield will be represented by left-wing demonstrators. And how would we feel if our Prime Minister, whatever his political party, was treated similarly in another part of the world? It was Blair’s decision to send our troops to Iraq, so those who are anti-war should not take it out on Bush.”

Martin McTague, former chairman of the North-east Regional Federation of Small Businesses: “It will put Sedgefield on the map and benefit the image of the North-east. Our business community is often viewed as a backwater and this will redress some of the old stereotypes. Because this is Blair’s constituency, a security risk is always there. The fact that Bush will be with him increases that risk but it is a notional increase.”

November 18, 2003
JFK on Nuclear Weapons and Non-Proliferation
Originally Published in Carnegie Analysis

In honor of the memory of President John F. Kennedy, we present below some of his most important comments on the dangers inherent in the possession of nuclear arms and his proposals for stopping the spread of the the most deadly weapons ever invented.

“There are indications because of new inventions, that 10, 15, or 20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of the Presidential office in 1964. This is extremely serious. . . I think the fate not only of our own civilization, but I think the fate of world and the future of the human race, is involved in preventing a nuclear war.” Third Nixon-Kennedy Presidential Debate, October 13, 1960

“The deadly arms race, and the huge resources it absorbs, have too long overshadowed all else we must do. We must prevent the arms race from spreading to new nations, to new nuclear powers and to the reaches of outer space.” State of the Union Address, January 30, 1961

“In the thermonuclear age, any misjudgment on either side about the intentions of the other could rain more devastation in several hours than has been wrought in all the wars of humanity.” Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961

“Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Men no longer debate whether armaments are a symptom or a cause of tension. The mere existence of modern weapons–ten million times more powerful than any that the world has ever seen, and only minutes away from any target on earth–is a source of horror, and discord and distrust. Men no longer maintain that disarmament must await the settlement of all disputes–for disarmament must be a part of any permanent settlement. And men may no longer pretend that the quest for disarmament is a sign of weakness–for in a spiraling arms race, a nation’s security may well be shrinking even as its arms increase.

For fifteen years this organization has sought the reduction and destruction of arms. Now that goal is no longer a dream–it is a practical matter of life or death. The risks inherent in disarmament pale in comparison to the risks inherent in an unlimited arms race.

In short, general and complete disarmament must no longer be a slogan, used to resist the first steps. It is no longer to be a goal without means of achieving it, without means of verifying its progress, without means of keeping the peace. It is now a realistic plan, and a test–a test of those only willing to talk and a test of those willing to act.

Such a plan would not bring a world free from conflict and greed– but it would bring a world free from the terrors of mass destruction. It would not usher in the era of the super state–but it would usher in an era in which no state could annihilate or be annihilated by another.

But to halt the spread of these terrible weapons, to halt the contamination of the air, to halt the spiraling nuclear arms race, we remain ready to seek new avenues of agreement, our new Disarmament Program thus includes the following proposals:
- First, signing the test-ban treaty by all nations. This can be done now. Test ban negotiations need not and should not await general disarmament.
- Second, stopping the production of fissionable materials for use in weapons, and preventing their transfer to any nation now lacking in nuclear weapons.
- Third, prohibiting the transfer of control over nuclear weapons to states that do not own them.
- Fourth, keeping nuclear weapons from seeding new battlegrounds in outer space.
- Fifth, gradually destroying existing nuclear weapons and converting their materials to peaceful uses; and
- Finally, halting the unlimited testing and production of strategic nuclear delivery vehicles, and gradually destroying them as well.”
  Address Before the General Assembly of the United Nations, New York City, September 25, 1961
“World order will be secured only when the whole world has laid down these weapons which seem to offer us present security but threaten the future survival of the human race. That armistice day seems very far away. The vast resources on this planet are being devoted more and more to the means of destroying, instead of enriching human life but the world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution.”State of the Union Address, January 11, 1962

“Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.” Report to the American People on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba, October 22, 1962

“I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security–it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.” Commencement Address at American University, June 10, 1963

“Eighteen years ago the advent of nuclear weapons changed the course of the world as well as the war. Since that time, all mankind has been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on earth. In an age when both sides have come to possess enough nuclear power to destroy the human race several times over, the world of communism and the world of free choice have been caught up in a vicious circle of conflicting ideology and interest. Each increase of tension has produced an increase of arms; each increase of arms has produced an increase of tension.

Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness. Negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. For the first time, an agreement has been reached on bringing the forces of nuclear destruction under international control-a goal first sought in 1946 when Bernard Baruch presented a comprehensive control plan to the United Nations.

A war today or tomorrow, if it led to nuclear war, would not be like any war in history. A full-scale nuclear exchange, lasting less than 60 minutes, with the weapons now in existence, could wipe out more than 300 million Americans, Europeans, and Russians, as well as untold numbers elsewhere. And the survivors, as Chairman Khrushchev warned the Communist Chinese, “the survivors would envy the dead.” For they would inherit a world so devastated by explosions and poison and fire that today we cannot even conceive of its horrors. So let us try to turn the world away from war. Let us make the most of this opportunity, and every opportunity, to reduce tension, to slow down the perilous nuclear arms race, and to check the world’s slide toward final annihilation.

I ask you to stop and think for a moment what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament. There would only be the increased chance of accidental war, and an increased necessity for the great powers to involve themselves in what otherwise would be local conflicts.

If only one thermonuclear bomb were to be dropped on any American, Russian, or any other city, whether it was launched by accident or design, by a madman or by an enemy, by a large nation or by a small, from any corner of the world, that one bomb could release more destructive power on the inhabitants of that one helpless city than all the bombs dropped in the Second World War.” Address to the American People on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, July 26, 1963
November 17, 2003
Armageddon Back on the Table

U.S. ratchets up debate on `usable’ nuclear weapons
Critics fear fallout from Bush cadre’s pro-nuke strategy

Originally Published by the Toronto Star

Since nuclear bombs exploded on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the possibility of an atomic Armageddon has made the use of such cataclysmic weapons unthinkable.

But after the election of President George W. Bush, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the word “nuclear” has been creeping back into the vocabulary of American policy, reaching for a respectability that until recently was thought gone for good.

Lobbying Congress for funds to research and develop new nuclear weapons, Bush has opened the back door to the doctrine of a “fightable” nuclear war, one in which the use of small or limited nuclear weapons would be possible or even desirable to defeat ruthless and unconventional enemies.

“Nuclear programs are a cornerstone of U.S. national security posture,” said Congress’ Armed Services Committee, which recently backed the allocation of $400 billion (all figures U.S.) for national defence in the coming year.

Both critics and supporters of developing “usable” nuclear weapons agree that the path from the laboratory to the launching pad is a long and difficult one.

But since the Bush administration presented its radical “Nuclear Posture Review” in March, 2002, pro-nuclear officials have been pushing steadily ahead toward developing weapons that will cross the line that separates conventional from unconventional warfare, threatening half a century of disarmament negotiations, treaties and taboos.

This month, the Senate endorsed an Energy and Water Appropriations Bill allocating $7.5 million to research on nuclear “bunker-buster” bombs and $10.8 million to plans for nuclear “pit” facilities to produce triggers for new nuclear bombs. Both sums were reduced from totals originally requested by Bush officials.

A final environmental study is being prepared to determine how and where the pits should be manufactured.

Crucial to the administration’s hopes for developing a new generation of nukes was the repeal in May of a 1993 ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons — those with a force of less than 5 kilotons, or 5,000 tonnes of TNT.

The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, by comparison, was approximately 15 kilotons.

“A one-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York and eject one million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air,” says California Senator Diane Feinstein, an opponent of usable nuclear weapons.

The development of any new nuclear arms would require testing. And as early as June, 2001, Bush also signalled that he might consider ending an 11-year moratorium on underground nuclear blasts.

He called for a scientific review of the Nevada test site that resulted in shortening the time it would take to restart nuclear test explosions from 36 months to no more than 18 months from the time an order to resume nuclear testing is given.

And although the Bush administration has so far made little progress in promoting the development of “mini nukes” that could be used against enemy forces, the influential Defence Science Board that advises the Pentagon has thrown its weight behind them.

In a leaked report, due to be tabled in the next few months, the board urges the development of lower-yield weapons that would have more battlefield “credibility” than the more powerful current nuclear bombs.

The rationale of the pro-nuclear supporters is clear: After Sept. 11, America is fighting an unpredictable enemy that must be attacked and eradicated by any possible means.

“As seen in Afghanistan, conventional weapons are not always able to destroy underground targets,” said the Armed Services Committee, which backed the new nuclear policy.

“The United States may need nuclear earth penetrators (bunker-busters) to destroy underground facilities where rogue nations have stored chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.”

Keith Payne, the Pentagon’s civilian liaison with the U.S. Strategic Command, which plans how a nuclear war could be fought, has for a decade promoted the idea of usable nukes.

Payne believes the lessons of the 1991 Gulf War included the discovery that Scud missiles might elude attack. In a 1999 paper on the future of American nuclear weapons, he wrote: “If the locations of dispersed mobile launchers cannot be determined with enough precision to permit pinpoint strikes, suspected deployment areas might be subjected to multiple nuclear strikes.”

Other pro-nuclear theorists say a new generation of fightable nukes might have a deterrent effect on the kind of enemies America now faces: guerrilla groups and unpredictable terrorists.

“All we have left is nuclear use and pre-emption, so that something a little bigger, with a little more bite, does not emerge as the next threat against our security and values,” says Barry Zellen, publisher of the electronic security bulletin, SecureFrontiers.com.

“Our willingness to go beyond deterrence to a more pro-active strategy of nuclear use might just end up achieving what we wanted in the beginning: successful deterrence of further aggression and terror against us, now and in the future.”

Opponents of nuclear weapons fiercely disagree. They shudder at the thought of crossing the line between fighting a conventional and nuclear war, once considered unthinkable. And they argue that such a move would promote, rather than deter terrorism.

One of the most troubling aspects, critics say, is the “creeping respectability” of arms that have been considered beyond the pale of defence policy.

“It creates the image of `clean’ nuclear weapons,” says Brice Smith of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

“We can use them without all the old Cold War anxieties about total destruction. A lot of psychology is involved here and it includes the very powerful idea of being able to defeat attempts to use chemical and biological weapons against us.”

However, experts say, usable nukes would be far from environmentally safe. Bunker-busting bombs would explode close to the surface of their targets, spreading radioactivity through an explosion of dust and causing the death of tens of thousands of people if dropped on urban areas.

It is also likely, says Smith, that the explosions would spread deadly chemicals or bioagents, rather than destroying them.

And, critics argue, the political fallout from threatening to use, let alone using, such weapons would be dangerous to the United States and its Western allies.

Apart from inciting terrorism, such a policy would create deeper cynicism about Washington’s disregard for international treaties on nuclear weapons, convincing countries like Iran and North Korea that Washington is applying double standards when it insists they halt efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

The Bulletin Of The Atomic Scientists, which monitors nuclear peril worldwide, last year moved its Doomsday Clock forward two minutes, to seven minutes to midnight, citing the Bush administration’s failure to change its Cold War nuclear-alert practices while authorizing its weapons labs to work on the design of new nuclear arms.

“Terrorist efforts to acquire and use nuclear and biological weapons present a great danger,” concluded George Lopez, the Bulletin’s board chairman.

“But the U.S. preference for the use of pre-emptive force rather than diplomacy could be equally dangerous.”

Historian and Kennedy-era political adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr., put it more flamboyantly.

“Looking back over the 40 years of the Cold War,” he wrote in The New York Review Of Books, “we can be everlastingly grateful that the loonies on both sides were powerless. In 2003, however, they run the Pentagon, and preventive war — the Bush doctrine — is now official policy.”

Those who follow the progress of the new nuclear doctrine say its resurgence signals the comeback of its backers, a pro-nuclear cadre that has for years urged a more aggressive approach to both domestic and military nuclear policy.

The cadre includes Vice-President Dick Cheney, who urged planning for nuclear strikes against Third World “enemy” countries as secretary of defence in the first Bush administration; Payne, who wrote a doctrine of fightable nuclear war; and Pentagon threat-reduction chief Stephen Younger, a director of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory and one of the first scientists to promote the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.

With an influential group of lobbyists working closely with the White House, it appears highly likely that plans to produce a new generation of nuclear weapons would go forward if Bush wins a second term.

However, there is trepidation in the ranks of both Republican and Democratic parties about such a development.

Congress has so far made sure that funding is limited to the exploratory stages of the project and that millions rather than billions of dollars have been allocated

“By seeking to develop new nuclear weapons,” says Senator Feinstein, “the United States sends the message that nuclear weapons have a future battlefield role and utility. That is the wrong direction and, in my view, will only cause America to be placed in greater jeopardy in the future.”

The opposition is unlikely to weaken the pro-nuclear cadre’s resolve, however.

“What you’re seeing is a thoughtless strategy being pursued under cover of the war on terrorism, by people who always wanted to do this,” says arms-control expert William Arkin of Johns Hopkins University’s Institute of Advanced International Studies.

“Now, they’re in a position to seize their chance.”

Critics say a new arms race is on the horizon and they predict the effect on global security to be gloomy, as resentment escalates toward the United States for its double standard of developing nuclear weapons, while insisting that others desist.

In the United States, says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, “there is a creeping respectability of nuclear weapons.”What Bush has done is emphasize that there are not only bad weapons out there, but bad people with bad weapons.

“Then, the line becomes blurred, because he’s implying that responsible states are entitled to possess and even use the same kinds of weapons.

“In fact, these are all weapons of mass terror, and we should never forget that.”

Copyright 1996-2003. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

November 16, 2003
There Is Something In this World that Does Not Love an Empire

Acceptance speech upon receiving the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2003 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, November 15, 2003

I am honored to be honored, and especially in the company of David Krieger and Richard Falk, who are for me true heroes of the nuclear age.

I want to talk about violent and nonviolent means of change. We gather in a dark time. Our country, in what seems to me a wrong turn of truly epic proportions, has turned to force, to violence as the mainstay of its policy, not only abroad but at home as well, menacing and constricting constitutional freedom at home, while approaching the world with a drawn imperial sword. And yet I want to speak of something hopeful.

I think that in the twentieth century, we witnessed the bankruptcy of violence, broadly speaking. You all probably know the saying “War is the final arbiter.” It means that if you want to find the powerful ones in a given situation, look for the people with the guns. Or, in the words of Max Weber, who really spoke not just for a tradition of thought as long as history but also for a common-sense understanding, “politics operates with very special means, namely power backed up by violence.”

Or as Vladimir Lenin said, “Great problems in the life of nations are decided only by force.” This was thought to be true in revolution, and obviously, all the more so in war. Indeed, I’d say that the conviction that force was always the final arbiter was not in truth so much an intellectual conclusion as a tacit assumption on all sides—the product not of a question asked and answered but of one unasked.

I want to question the truth of this assertion. I argue, in fact, that force, always a tragedy for both user and the one upon which it is used, has become less and less effective in deciding political matters. Indeed, the history of the twentieth century, I argue, holds a lesson for the twenty-first. It is that in a steadily and irreversibly widening sphere, violence, always a mark of human failure and bringer of sorrow, has now also become dysfunctional as a political instrument.

The domain of force has been squeezed on two sides. First, at the top of the system, has come the nuclear revolution, which, by rendering war between the greatest powers unthinkable, has ruled out the kind of global war that twice broke out in the twentieth century. The paralyzing influence of nuclear arms extends far below the superpower level, deep into the realm of conventional war, helping to render conventional war between fully fledged nation-states a rare thing compared to earlier times.

Those of you familiar with the work of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation know what this nuclear stalemate meant and still means: that our species stood, and still stands, on the brink of its annihilation. And you know too what solution this Foundation recommends, and that I recommend, too: Get rid of those weapons, get rid of them in Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India, but also in China, Russia, France, England and, yes, here in the United States. As John Kennedy said to his good friend, the British Ambassador Ormsby Gore, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, “Our world will never make any sense until we get rid of these things.” His insight, born as the responsibility for the future of the United States and the whole human species bore down upon him in that mortal crisis is as critical for the twenty-first century as it was for the twentieth, even more so. And it holds true, of course, for all the weapons of mass destruction.

And yet, this evening I’m not going to talk more about that great, necessary, common sense objective of our time. For it seems to me that if you propose to get rid of something—in this case, weapons of mass destruction, which stand at the apex of the structures of force, you need something to replace it with. What’s wonderful is that even in the midst of the twentieth century something began to appear—not perhaps a full-fledged answer, but the beginnings of the answer, the foundations.

If at the superpower level, political matters cannot be decided by force, something else has to decide—and something else did decide with the Cold War, for example. What was that something? This brings me to the pressure on warfare—or, more specifically, on imperial conquest—from the other side, the underside, so to speak. If we look at the recent history of empire, surely the most notable fact is that all of the empires that stood at the beginning of the twentieth century–the British, the French, the Dutch, the German, the Portuguese, and so forth—have all gone under the waves of history. The same is true of the fascist empires that arose in the nineteen-thirties.

There is something in this world that does not love an empire.

The great pioneer was of course Mohandas Gandhi, who began his campaign against imperial rule at the beginning of the twentieth century. Surprisingly, he found hope in religious faith. Reversing centuries of tradition, which had taught that God was to be sought above all in monasteries and desert places, he said of his pursuit of God, “If I could persuade myself that I should find Him in a Himalayan cave, I would proceed there immediately. But I know that I cannot find Him apart from humanity.” The aim of his life would be to “see God,” but that pursuit would lead him into politics. “For God,” he said, reversing centuries of tradition in a phrase, “appears to you only in action.”

Gandhi overcame the suspicion that if spiritual energies were released into the political world, the result would be more destructive than constructive. We don’t need to go beyond September 11th to see how true that is. Or, we can look to our own religious fundamentalists who look forward to something called “the rapture,” in which the faithful will be flown up to heaven while everyone else perishes.

What Gandhi offered was two essential correctives: he insisted that a spiritualized politics must be nonviolent. And also that it must be tolerant. He insisted on something else, though, that is equally important. He declared—I would say discovered—that not only should the power of government depend on the consent of the people but that it actually did so, and that was true of dictatorships as well as democracies.

We know the result, although it took a long time: the British were forced to quit India. We may wonder, though, whether it was restricted to India. The end of the Soviet Union gives an answer. The activists who brought down that leviathan seemed to rediscover—but also to remodel and vary—Gandhi’s scheme.

Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident, and later president of the Czech Republic, spoke of “living in truth”—the title of an essay he published in 1978. Living in truth stood in opposition to “living in the lie,” which meant living in obedience to the repressive regime. Havel wrote: “We introduced a new model of behavior: don’t get involved in diffuse general ideological polemics with the center, to whom numerous concrete causes are always being sacrificed; fight ‘only’ for those concrete causes, and fight for them unswervingly to the end.”

Why was this “living in truth”? Havel’s explanation constitutes one of the few attempts of this period, or any other, to address the peculiarly ineffable question of what the inspiration of positive, constructive nonviolent action is. By living within the lie, that is, conforming to the system’s demands, Havel says, “individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.” A “line of conflict” is then drawn through each person, who is invited in the countless decisions of daily life to choose between living in truth and living in the lie.

Living in truth—directly doing in your immediate surroundings what you think needs doing, saying what you think is true and needs saying, acting the way you think people should act—is a form a protest, Havel admits, against living in the lie, and so those who try to live in truth are indeed an opposition. But that is neither all they are nor is it the main thing they are. That is to say, if the state’s commands are a violation deserving of protest, the deepest reason is that they disrupt this something—some elemental good thing, here called a person’s “essential existence”—that people wish to be or do for its own sake, whether or not it is opposed or favored by the state or anyone else.

Havel rebels against the idea that a negative, merely responding impulse is at the root of his actions. He rejects the labels “opposition” or “dissident” for himself and his fellow activists. Something in him craves manifestation. People who so define themselves do so in relation to a prior “position.” In other words, they relate themselves specifically to the power that rules society and through it, define themselves, deriving their own “position” from the position of the regime. For people who have simply decided to live within the truth, to say aloud what they think, to express their solidarity with their fellow citizens, to create as they want and simply to live in harmony with their better ‘”self,” it is naturally disagreeable to feel required to define their own, original and positive “position” negatively, in terms of something else, and to think of themselves primarily as people who are against something, not simply as people who are what they are.

For Havel, this understanding that action properly begins with a predisposition to truth has practical consequences that are basic to an understanding of political power: Under the orderly surface of the life of lies, therefore, there slumbers the hidden sphere of life in its real aims, of its hidden openness to truth. The singular, explosive, incalculable political power of living within the truth resides in the fact that living openly within the truth has an ally, invisible to be sure, but omnipresent: this “hidden sphere.” Thus in 1978 did he foresee the downfall of the Soviet Union.

Now you may wonder why, in the United States of 2003, I’m talking about Mohandas K. Gandhi in the early 1900s and Vaclav Havel in the 1970s. In the first place, the two historical events I have cited were not marginal. These were the two greatest empires of the time. The British empire was the one on which the sun was supposed never to set. But it did set. And the most important reason was probably the nonviolent resistance organized by Gandhi.

The Soviet empire was no detail of the twentieth century. Who would have thought that that colossus, with its immense nuclear arsenal, its Red Army, its KGB, all of those instruments of force in the hands of a totalitarian state, would melt away one fine day like the morning dew? And who would have thought that this would happen substantially without violence? Who would have thought it? Well, Havel thought it and Lech Walesa, the electrician who led the Solidarity trade movement, thought it, and they did it. “We did it,” Lech Walesa told a Joint Session of the US Congress, “without breaking a single pane of glass.”

I could give many more examples. I think all democratic activism is of this character. This is what I hope can turn around the policies of the United States. But also every empire that was standing at the beginning of the twentieth century had fallen by its end. And that goes for the fascist empires—the Japanese and the German—that arose at mid-century.

There is something in this world that does not love an empire.

There is another aspect of this business that is close to home. Revolution without violence, of the kind that occurred in India and the Soviet Union—and also in Spain, Greece, Portugal, the Philippines, Serbia, and any number of other countries that I can mention—has tended, much more than the violent kind to lead to liberal democratic rule. What is democratic rule, after all, including the American Republic, but a means of governing oneself without violence—of transferring power without tank fire at the local television station, without torture in the basement?

So these two things go together. The one is a good solid foundation for the other. A third thing goes with them, though this is less developed—something very familiar: simply the gradual strengthening and thickening of the rule of law, in the form of agreements, treaties, international organizations, governmental and otherwise. These are the counterpart in international affairs of nonviolent revolution at the level of the street and liberal democracy at the level of the national state.

I mentioned the nuclear dilemma. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 182 countries have agreed to do without nuclear weapons. The treaty provides in its Article VI that the existing nuclear powers should join the 182 in living without nuclear arms.

If I’m right that the nonviolent political power—sometimes called people power—is at the bottom of both the collapse of the world’s empires in the twentieth century and is a promising new foundation for democratic government, then what a colossal error it is for the United States to get back into the imperial business. For it does seem to me that the United States is indeed engaged now in the enormous folly of seeking to reinvent imperialism for the twentieth century.

The spread of democracy is a wonderful thing—if I’m right it is a necessary foundation for peace—and it can happen. But it cannot be advanced by force, and still less by the creation of a new empire, an idea that is as unworkable as it morally mistaken. Empire, the embodiment of force, violates equity on a global scale. No lover of freedom can give it support. It is especially contrary to the founding principles of the United States.

“Covenants, without the sword, are but words,” Hobbes said. Since then, the world has learned that swords without covenants are but empty bloodshed. Can cruise missiles build nations, in Iraq or elsewhere? Does power still flow from the barrel of a gun—or from a B-2 bomber? Can the world in the twenty-first century really be ruled from 35,000 feet? Modern peoples have the will to resist and the means to do so. Imperialism without politics is a naive imperialism. In our time, force can win a battle or two but politics is destiny.

Perhaps you have read the news this morning. In Baghdad over the last several weeks there have been a series of devastating explosions. Now again today there have been explosions, but this time the American command has announced that we are the ones doing it.

But these explosions cannot build democracy–not in Iraq and not in the United States, where democracy is also in danger.

The point I want to leave you with is not only that violence is futile, but that the antidote and cure—nonviolent political action, direct or indirect, revolutionary or reformist, American or other—has been announced. May we apply it soon to our troubled country and world.

November 15, 2003
Then and Now

PLOTLINE: A small network of ideologues in positions of power beyond their due are intent upon reshaping the world on their terms. Their existence revolves around a black and white reality; a world of perfect days ever threatened by perfect storms. Frustrated with intelligence experts who forecast partly cloudy skies in the atmosphere of international relations, they conjure rogue intelligence to justify stormy international arrogance. They flood media with propaganda. Winds of fear shift the public mood. Hearts of nations harden. Conflicts simmer. Military budgets explode.

Sound familiar? While the plot and the actors are the same, the stage is different. In late 1975, a small group of conservatives across the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government were convinced that America’s military strength was falling behind the Soviet war machine. Out of this group — known as “the cabal” — came the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), a group of like-minded ideologues who contended that CIA analysts had chronically understated the threat posed by the Soviet Union, and thus that U.S. military spending levels were dangerously low.

At the request of then-CIA chief George H.W. Bush, the Committee was brought in to develop an alternative assessment of the CIA’s raw intelligence. The resulting report — known as the Team B assessment — wildly overestimated Soviet military capability, and led to dire warnings to U.S. policymakers and the public. President Ford’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger condemned the report.

But one of the assessment’s primary promoters acquired what he needed. That man was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the same Rumsfeld who championed the war on Iraq nearly 30 years later based upon overblown conclusions from his rogue Office of Special Plans. Saying back then that “no doubt exists about the capabilities of the Soviet armed forces” Rumsfeld and his allies used the report to undercut nuclear arms control negotiations for years to come, and to lay the groundwork for procurement of a wide range of new weapons systems, including the MX missile.

MX was designed to thwart the first-strike threat of the Soviet Union. It called for a basing system in which hundreds of missiles — each one capable of destroying scores of Soviet cities and vaporizing millions of human beings — would be transported continuously on tracks crisscrossing my home state of Utah and other surrounding states. It was called the “shell game” basing system: by employing thousands more decoys on the same tracks, it was thought, the Russians would not be able to wipe out the real missiles. In the view of its champions, the MX missile system might also have served the purpose of focusing Soviet nuclear firepower into the heart of the West, away from the more populated East.
To realize this crazy scheme, some astonishing feats of engineering would have been required: more concrete than was used to create the entire U.S. interstate highway system; rivers, reservoirs and aquifers watering five states would have been tapped; some of the world’s most beautiful national parks would have been destroyed, and sacred American Indian lands violated.

In short, Rumsfeld’s MX would have destroyed America’s West in a twisted effort to save it, transforming an oasis of ancient natural beauty into the biggest labyrinthine wasteland, by far, of the many wastelands our children now inherit from their fearful, militaristic ancestors.

But today’s growing opposition to Rumsfeld’s obscene vision of international policy can take heart: my father, along with scores of other citizens across the West, mounted a grass-roots campaign 25 years ago. They brought the MX battle into the streets, synagogues, churches and schools. Students, teachers, parents, bishops, workers, cowboys and sisters took the debate to neighbors and news stations across the West. And after four years of fighting, they brought down Rumsfeld’s monster, and the insanity of policy by brass was revealed.

As we witness the same old cold warriors regurgitate the same old insanities, as they shred international accord while cheerleading international democracy, as they spark nuclear arms races while decrying nuclear proliferation, we can take heart: true power always remains with the people willing to exercise it, and ordinary people have beaten back powerful barbarians in the past.

If students, teachers, parents, bishops, workers, cowboys and sisters — and those few politicians who remember their responsibilities — remember the power granted them by the founders of this great nation, we can and will do so again in 2004.

*Joseph P. Firmage is Chairman & CEO of The ManyOne Network

November 13, 2003
The Krakow Initiative: Another Blow from Bush

On May 31, 2003 in the royal castle of Wawel, Krakow, during a state visit to Poland, U.S. President George W. Bush, delivered another forceful blow. This latest onslaught is part of the hegemonic strategy of absolute domination that the Bush administration has assumed in its efforts to consolidate a unipolar vision of the world that the international community rejects with certain timidity but, with a few exceptions, has ended up accepting in real life.

Significantly, little is known and even less has been commented on in relation to the so-called “Krakow initiative” or, more formally, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), in principle aimed at halting the trafficking and increase in weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In formalizing his proposal, Bush’s explanation was as follows: “The greatest threat to peace is the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. And we must work together to stop proliferation …. When weapons of mass destruction or their components are in transit, we must have the means and authority to seize them.”

Although he attempted to cloak his words in the rhetoric of legality, the U.S. president promoted and continues to promote a dependent mechanism used by Washington, outside the confines of the United Nations, to control international air space and maritime routes. Initially, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom responded to the call, emphasizing, according to an official statement from the White House released on September 4, 2003, “the need for proactive measures to combat the threat from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

The goal, to be sure, appears worthy of approval. In practice, however, other nations — Brazil, China, Canada, Russia, South Korea, India, and Pakistan, for the time being, have expressed their concern that the United States seeks to use an instrument of such a scope to strengthen its supremacy in the production of cutting-edge nuclear, ballistic, biological, and chemical technology and to control global transportation routes.

If the PSI is indeed concretized as conceived by Bush and his strategists, Washington will monopolize espionage, the interception of ships on the high seas and aircraft in international air space, and multilateral control devices, all under the pretext of the simple suspicion that WMD or their components could be in transit.

The countries that openly oppose the U.S. proposal have pointed to the danger of a quite flexible interpretation of the legal basis for intercepting international transport, as understood by Washington. A first consequence would be the displacement of other producers of weapons and chemical, biological and nuclear products, in favor of the U.S. industrial complex.

According to the interpretation offered by the Bush administration, almost all cutting-edge technology products can be used in the production of WMD and for the same reason, they can be subject to confiscation by the United States and its allies. This immediately and directly threatens compliance with purchase-sale contracts worldwide and with free international trade, which would become a virtual monopoly of large U.S. corporations and, to a lesser extent, Washington’s European and Asian partners.

The threat of bioterrorism, for example, which has still not thus far been concretized in specific incidents, has allowed Washington to unilaterally impose much stricter measures of control over foodstuffs and agricultural products exported to the United States and its allied or nearby countries. This, in reality, is an instrument of pressure on exporter countries, which contradicts the norms of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

In this sense, the law on bioterrorism that is expected to be approved next October is, from the point of view of the Latin American countries, a new and virtually impenetrable barrier to the development of free international trade in agricultural products. This measure, coupled with the U.S. government’s protectionist measures, will sooner than later, cause the collapse of the economies in the region.

To be sure, no one can have doubts on the importance of strengthening measures to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and in this sense, Bush’s initiative is aimed in the right direction. However, the way in which its functioning has been structured moves away from such real and desirable objectives, to become an element of hegemonic domination.

The principles that should prevail in the Proliferation Security Initiative should respect international law and the system of norms accepted within the framework of the United Nations. Otherwise, the blow to world legality will be devastating and perhaps definitive.

*The author is President, Latin American Circle for International Studies (LACIS).

November 11, 2003