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Helen Caldicott | In Her Own Words

What got you started on the path to being a nuclear weapons abolitionist?

It began back when I was in my teens and read Neville Shute’s novel, On the Beach. It was about a nuclear holocaust that was set in Melbourne. At the end of the book, it was the end of the human race. That’s when I lost my psychological virginity – instead of being a teenager looking forward to the future and smelling the orange blossoms, I was from then on acutely aware that the world could end.

Then I entered medical school at age 17 and learned about radiation, genetics and biology. At that time, Russia and America were testing weapons in the atmosphere, polluting the northern hemisphere with radioactive fallout and I couldn’t for the life of me, as a young female medical student, understand what on earth these men were doing. Still to this day, I’m very aware that life on Earth could end any day.

When you were in Santa Barbara a few years ago to give the Foundation’s Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future, you mentioned Ronald Reagan. Given the current circumstances, I’m wondering if you care to comment on Trump?

You know it’s bad when you go to bed and wake up to something even worse. He should be removed from office—physically picked up and removed. But no one’s got the guts to stand up to him. I’m worried because there should be a huge revolution in America and people should be waking up and saying we want our children and descendants to survive and experience the beauty of life on Earth – or do we not care? We need people who will stand up and take on the powers with absolute morality and fearsome will.

How do you think we can get today’s youth more engaged in the nuclear abolition movement, specifically in the U.S.?

The problem is that it goes back to what Jefferson said: an informed democracy will behave in a responsible fashion. America is totally uninformed and all the young kids are on social media. They haven’t even talked to each other so they’re not informed, they’re not educated about what has happened to the planet and it’s very terrifying.

What worries you most about the world today?

We’re at a point now where we can’t be too radical. We’re the microbes that infect the earth and we either save it or we don’t. We’re heading towards annihilation with global warming and nuclear war and if you read what the corporations in America are doing, the military-industrial complex, selling weapons all over the world, and lots of other countries are into weaponization, too. I’ve never really said this before publicly, but as a physician, analyzing the data as we do with our patients, and taking everything into account to work out a prognostication, I’d say it’s grim.

But you must see some hope?

Really, the golden key to the future of survival is the women. We’re 52% of the world’s population. If we all rose up and said, Look you blokes, you’ve had your chance. Now we’re taking over because you’re heading us towards annihilation. That’s the golden key to survival, but most women don’t even know what’s going on. We need that ferociousness where the lion has to protect her cubs. It’s certainly inherent in every woman.

But how do we reach the average woman who is mostly consumed with just getting by, putting food on the table and gas in the car?

You’ve got to do it on a mass basis. The only way to do it is through mass media; it’s the only way. We’ve got to educate, engage and inform women so that they cast aside their apathy. It starts with a hash tag, a like, a re-tweet. And the media is forced to pay attention. Then and only then, will the ferociousness of the lion rise up to protect the world.

And finally, after a lifetime devoted to saving the planet, how do you spend your valuable time these days?

I’m 80 years old and I was going to write another book, “Why Men Kill and Why Women Let Them” and then I decided instead to immerse myself in the beauty of nature – the very thing I’ve always struggled to save.

When Helen Caldicott was a teenager, she read a book that would change her life. It was entitled On the Beach. Since then, Dr. Caldicott has devoted herself to educating the public about the medical hazards of the Nuclear Age and the changes in behavior necessary to prevent human and environmental devastation. She has awakened the world to the importance of reaching nuclear zero and to the need for organized action if we are to ensure a safe future for our children and grandchildren. Dr. Caldicott, a physician and former Harvard University professor of pediatrics, has written seven books, co-founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, founded Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament, and is the President of the Helen Caldicott Foundation for a Nuclear Free Future. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling – himself a two-time Nobel Laureate. The Smithsonian has named her one of the most influential women of the 20th Century.

February 1, 2019
El Presidente

Traducción de Rubén Arvizu. Click here for the English version.

No es el primer presidente estadounidense
que gobierna y desorienta con mentiras,
pero él astutamente es maestro en ello.

Con descaro se enfoca en si mismo,
alimenta su ego y se llena los bolsillos.
con corrupciones.

Hace el mundo seguro para sus sectarios
abriendo las aguas tenebrosas
del prejuicio.

Creando violentas olas
que al golpear a los pobres, despojan
de su honor a la Dama Libertad.

Grita “noticias falsas”
ganando así la atención de su público
como ningún anterior presidente.

Cada día trae nuevas deshonras,
sin embargo, de alguna forma él ha logrado
aferrarse.

Como todos los tiranos, él caerá.
La pregunta es: cuando eso ocurra, ¿tendremos
aún un país y un mundo?

January 29, 2019
The President

Not the first American president
to govern by lies and misdirection,
he is cunningly adept at it.

Brazenly focused on himself,
he feeds his ego and stuffs his pockets
with emoluments.

He makes the world safe for bigots,
opening wide the spigots
of prejudice.

Creating violent waves
that crash against the poor, he strips
lady liberty of her honor.

He shouts “fake news”
and stands to gain at the public trough
like no previous president.

Each day brings new disgrace,
yet somehow he has managed
to hold on.

Like all tyrants, he will fall.
Question is: when he does, will we
still have a country and a world?

Vaya aquí para la versión española

January 29, 2019
Martin Luther King and the Bomb

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Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the world’s great peace leaders. Like Gandhi before him, he was a firm advocate of nonviolence. In 1955, at the age of 26, he became the leader of the Montgomery bus boycott and two years later he was elected the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Within a decade he would receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 35. It came two years after he witnessed the terrifying prospects of nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

King’s Nobel Lecture, delivered in December 1964, is worth reviewing. He compared mankind’s technological advancement with our spiritual progress and found us failing to keep pace spiritually. He said, “There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple act of living together as brothers.”

The yawning gap between mankind’s technological advancement and spiritual poverty led King to draw this conclusion: “If we are to survive today, our moral and spiritual ‘lag’ must be eliminated. Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not proportionate growth of the soul. When the ‘without’ of man’s nature subjugates the ‘within,’ dark storm clouds begin to form in the world.” He found that mankind’s spiritual “lag” expressed itself in three interrelated problems: racial injustice, poverty and war.

When King elaborated on war, he spoke of “the ever-present threat of annihilation,” clearly referring to the dangers of nuclear weapons. Recognizing the dangers of denial, or “rejection” of the truth about the nuclear predicament, he went on, “A world war – God forbid! – will leave only smoldering ashes as a mute testimony of a human race whose folly led inexorably to ultimate death. So if modern man continues to flirt unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno such as even the mind of Dante could not imagine.”

King came to the following realization: “Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man’s creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world. In short, we must shift the arms race into a ‘peace race.’ If we have the will and determination to mount such a peace offensive, we will unlock hitherto tightly sealed doors and transform our imminent cosmic elegy into a psalm of creative fulfillment.”

One year to the day prior to his assassination on April 4, 1968, King gave a speech at the Riverside Church in New York City that was highly critical of the war in Vietnam. Many of his close advisors urged him not to speak out and to instead keep his focus on the civil rights movement, but he felt the time had come when silence is betrayal and chose to state his position. He put the Vietnam War squarely within his moral vision and spoke against it to the great displeasure of Lyndon Johnson and many other American political leaders. In addition to speaking his mind on the war, he also said that nuclear weapons would never defeat communism and called for reordering our priorities to pursue peace rather than war. He argued, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Were he still with us, there can be little doubt that King would be highly critical of America’s continuing wars since Vietnam, and its plan to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal. Since his death, the gap between our technological prowess and our spiritual/moral values has continued to widen. We would do well to listen to King’s insights and follow his vision if we are to have any chance of pulling out of the descending spiral leading to the nation’s “spiritual death.”

David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and has served as its president since 1982.

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January 15, 2019
In the Shadow of the Bomb: Poems of Survival, by David Krieger

This article was originally published by Global Poetry.

This is the third book of poetry by David Krieger I am reviewing. The first, Wake Up, was a warning call; the second, Portraits: Peacemakers, Warmongers and People Between, etched the personalities of doers and their deeds; and in the latest, In the Shadow of the Bomb, Krieger confronts us with the naked reality of The Bomb. The questions he raises are: What is the value of poetry in the face of weapons of mass annihilation? Can poems awaken us to the dangers of the Nuclear Age?

In fact, with each poetry collection, Krieger has been bringing us closer to the question of nuclear war and our survival. American President Trump, in fact, now pronounces America’s preparedness for an armed Space force. Krieger’s latest collection is about our hubris when a missile loaded with nuclear weapons is pointed at the collective head of humanity. Can we avert our eyes and pretend not to see? In the poem, ‘In Our Hubris’, Krieger asks: Have we given up on our common future? He wants the reader to react, resist, and awaken before it’s too late. Krieger’s work is unabashedly polemical, a nonkilling manifesto about the future, conscious of the contemporary history of the Western world.

His poem ‘When the Bomb Became Our God’ tells us how close we have come to meeting the fate we have been shaping for ourselves:

“When the Bomb became our God
We loved it far too much,
Worshipping no other gods before it.
When the bomb became our god
We lived in a constant state of war
That we called peace.”

In another poem, ‘People of the Bomb’, he observes:

“The bomb may have ended the war,
but only if history is read
like a distant star. If only the sky
had not turned white and aged.
If only time had not bolted to change course,
If only the white flags had flown before
the strange storm.”

In the section entitled, “What Shall We Call the Bomb Dropped on Hiroshima?” the poet asks:

“Shall we call it
The Beginning of the End or
The End of the Beginning?”

Of those two dreadful August mornings when the Atomic Bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he recalls the words of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with those awful things.” In that August 1945 history lesson, his insight doesn’t miss the evident racism of that dastardly act. On August 6th and August 9th, the two atomic bombs were dropped on civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. Ironically, between the dropping of those two atomic bombs, the U.S. signed the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal, agreeing to hold Nazi leaders accountable for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

‘Where did the victims (of nuclear attacks) go?’ The poet demands, and then answers:

“Where else would the victims go but first
into the air, then into the water, then into the grasses,
and eventually into our food?
What does this mean?
It means that we breathe our victims,
that we drink them and eat them, without tasting
the bitterness, in our daily meals.

In another poem, entitled, ‘Among the Ashes’, amidst the charred bodies in Hiroshima, a daughter recognizes the gold tooth of her mother:

“As the girl reached out
to touch the burnt body,
her mother crumbled to ashes
Her mother, vivid
in the girl’s memory, sifted
through her fingers, floated away.”

The poet’s hurt challenges our humanity: “How dared we do all that?”

“We are mighty. We take what we want
when we want, believing there is no accounting.”

In 1948, George Orwell wrote: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” In his poem, ‘Warning to Americans’, Krieger writes:

“Don’t look into the mirror, You may be frightened
by the raw redness of your jingoism. You may find
a flag tattooed on your forehead or on your chest.

….

Don’t mourn the loss of your freedoms. Remember,
Orwell warned this would come.
Your freedoms were not meant to last forever.

David Krieger, a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is so familiar with the history of his country, government and people that with poems about warring America, in the section, ‘Reflections of a Tragic History’, his poetry describes with a sense of irony how atomic weapons obliterated cities for the wrong reasons, carpet bombing and massacre of civilians done in the name of freedom and demonstrating technology might, sacrifice of children and slaughter of peasants for presidential lies. Searching for a silver lining, the poet concludes: “Is there no possibility that our hearts, like sad continents, / may reattach themselves to life?” Krieger coaxes his reader to, “Think, and Think Again” about the implications of looking at fellow humans as hajjis, gooks, savages…, they are humans not ‘the other’.

In ‘Rules of Engagement’, the poet points to how wars have continued to dehumanize American soldiers, reminding us of an incident in the Afghan war when three Afghans lay dead on their backs in the dirt, and the four young U.S. Marines in battle gear took to celebrate their victory urinating on them. That act, Krieger notes, was like holding up a mirror proclaiming – “this is who we are.”

“When we teach our children to kill, we turn them
Into something we don’t understand: ourselves.
Their lack of humanity is not different from ours.
We have not taught these young men to value life.
They teach us how little we do.
Why should they hold back when we have
taught them and sent them to kill other men —
men whose names they will never know?
If we are shocked by their disrespect for the dead,
we should consider our own for the living.”

In the section, ‘Oh War’, Krieger provides a narrative on archeology of war given by politicians, generals, and businessmen starting with distant beating of the drums exhorting the need for sacrifice from ‘Soldiers Fall’ to the deaths of ‘Children of War’, to singing of ‘War Crime Blues’:

“Have you heard the terrible news?
U.S. forces bombed a hospital in Kunduz.
It gives me a case of the wartime blues,
makes me shake with the war crime blues.
You can’t win a war, you can only lose.”

In another poem, the poet continues:

“War spreads
its sad red wings.

Soldiers fall
like white flowers
on a winter field.
They sink
in burning snow.”

The final part of the collection has about a dozen poems of hope and inspiration, challenging the reader to stand up and be counted — giving us reasons to end war. These are deeply moving poems of positivity. Some snippets:

Standing with Pablo

(“I have a higher duty to my conscience”. –Pablo Paredes)

“Like the three tenors, like three pillars,
there are three Pablos for peace:
Picasso, Neruda and Paredes.

….

The first painted Guernica, the second
wrote poems as an act of peace.
The third refused to fight in Iraq.

….

Pable Picasso painted the horrors of war.
Pablo Neruda wrote poems of love and decency.
Pablo Peredes refused to kill or be killed.”

I refuse

for Camilo Mejia

“I refuse to be used as a tool
of war, to kill on order,
to give my life for a lie.
I refuse to be indoctrinated
or subordinated, to allow the military
to define all I can be.”

David Krieger believes we have to elevate our moral and spiritual level to take control of our most dangerous technologies and abolish them before they abolish us. A great story teller, his poetry of survival asks us to awaken our passion to end the nuclear era, trying to ignite in us a love for life, encouraging us to pass the world on intact to new generation(s). Celebrating the possibility of a living planet, in his poem, ‘A Conspiracy of Decency’, his optimism shines:

“We will conspire to find new ways to say people matter.
This conspiracy will be bold.
Everyone will dance at wholly inappropriate times.
They will burst out singing non-patriotic songs.
And the not-so-secret password will be Peace.”

Like the Nobel Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote in 1913: “The small truth has words that are clear; the great truth has great silence”, Krieger believes that “Within the awful shattering chaos of war, lives a still and silent seed of peace.” The seed of our existence and essence. — A powerful collection of poems.

January 7, 2019

Sunflower Newsletter: January 2019

Issue #258 – January 2019

We have a lot of work to do in 2019. Your support makes our work possible. Would you make a gift to help us accomplish our goals this year?

Perspectives

A Message to Today’s Young People: Put an End to the Nuclear Weapons Era by David Krieger
Renew Arms Control, Don’t Destroy It by Andrew Lichterman and John Burroughs
Labor Sets the Right Course on Nuclear Disarmament by Gem Romuld
The Measured Normalization of a Nuclear State by Kumar Sundaram

Nuclear Proliferation

Russia Tests Hypersonic Missile
Trump Calls the Arms Race “Crazy”

War and Peace

U.S. to Reconsider Travel Ban to North Korea

Nuclear Waste

Trump Administration Breaks Agreement with California for Cleanup of Nuclear Meltdown Site

Nuclear Insanity

U.S. Strategic Command Tweets Bomb Threat on New Year’s Eve
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary is 31-Year Veteran of Boeing
U.S. Senator Bought Raytheon Stock Days After Pushing for Massive Military Budget

Resources

An Unsettled Year in Nuclear Weapons
Joint Statement of U.S. Civil Society Groups in Support of the Current Peace Process in Korea

Foundation Activities

Peace Literacy 2018 Highlights and 2019 Preview
NAPF Now Hiring 2019 Summer Interns
Women Waging Peace
Article in Gensuikyo Tsushin

Take Action

Thank the Senate for Invoking War Powers Resolution

Quotes

Perspectives

A Message to Today’s Young People: Put an End to the Nuclear Weapons Era

by David Krieger

Nuclear weapons were created to kill indiscriminately. That means women, men, children – everyone. Even during war, under the rules of international law, that kind of mass killing is illegal. It is also immoral.

As young people, you have a unique ability to influence today’s political and military leaders throughout the world to put an end to the nuclear era. For your own future, and that of all humanity, will you accept the challenge and join in advocating for a Nuclear Zero world?

To read more, click here.

Renew Arms Control, Don’t Destroy It

by Andrew Lichterman and John Burroughs

A hard-earned lesson of the Cold War is that arms control reduces the risk of nuclear war by limiting dangerous deployments and, even more important, by creating channels of communication and understanding. But President Donald Trump and his National Security Advisor John Bolton appear to have forgotten, or never learned, that lesson.

In late October, Trump announced an intent to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo subsequently stated that the U.S. will suspend implementation of the treaty in early February. While U.S. signals have been mixed, initiation of withdrawal at that point or soon thereafter appears likely.

To read the full op-ed at Inter Press Service, click here.

Labor Sets the Right Course on Nuclear Disarmament

by Gem Romuld

On the final afternoon of the recent 48th [Australian] Labor national conference, Anthony Albanese took to the podium to announce that a future Labor government will sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. He declared that “people who change the world are ones that are ambitious,” after three days of intense negotiations on nuclear policy among senior Labor parliamentarians.

It is beyond time for Australia to quit our role as nuclear enabler for the United States. The nuclear weapon ban treaty presents us with a persistent question; will we join the global majority and contribute to the consensus against these WMDs, or remain implicated in the nuclear threat?

To read the full op-ed in The Sydney Morning Herald, click here.

The Measured Normalization of a Nuclear State

by Kumar Sundaram

The passing year marked the 20th year of the May 1998 nuclear tests in Pokhran, the 10th year of the unprecedented exception from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) that the Indian government achieved in 2008, and the last effective year of the ultra-nationalist Modi government as it enters its lame-duck phase in early 2019.

The deceptive calm and seeming indolence on the part of the Indian government makes it easy to miss the details and the deeply worrying patterns of an unmistakable push for a massive nuclear weaponization and energy expansion that we should all be concerned about.

To read more, click here.

Nuclear Proliferation

Russia Tests Hypersonic Missile

On December 26, Russia announced a successful test of its Avangard hypersonic missile. The missile, which can travel 20 times the speed of sound, is designed to take an elusive path toward its target, thus nullifying the effect of any current missile defense system.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Russians were “forced” to develop the missile in response to U.S. President George W. Bush’s unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.

Bill Chappell, “Russia Will Deploy New Hypersonic Missile Systems in 2019, Putin Says,” NPR, December 27, 2018.

Trump Calls the Arms Race Crazy

In a December tweet, President Trump complained about the high cost of the arms race with Russia and China, calling it “uncontrollable” and “crazy.”

Trump wrote, “I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I,
together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a
meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race.”

Lolita Baldor, “Trump Complains About Cost of ‘Uncontrollable’ Arms Race,” Associated Press, December 3, 2018.

War and Peace

U.S. to Reconsider Travel Ban to North Korea

Stephen Biegun, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea, said that the United States will review its ban on travel to North Korea in order to help facilitate humanitarian aid shipments to the isolated country.

“I’ll be sitting down with American aid groups early in the new year to discuss how we can better ensure the delivery of appropriate assistance,” Biegun said.

U.S. sanctions against North Korea have been enforced so vigorously that aid groups have been unable to transfer cash for their daily operations in the North, or even take any metal objects there.

Choe Sang-hun, “U.S. Will Review Travel Ban on North Korea, Envoy Says,” The New York Times, December 19, 2018.

Nuclear Waste

Trump Administration Breaks Agreement with California for Cleanup of Nuclear Meltdown Site

The Trump Administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) has announced it intends to leave 98% of the contaminated soil in its area of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) not cleaned up, despite admitting that would violate the legally binding agreement it entered into with California in 2010.

The SSFL is one of the most contaminated sites in the state. It housed ten nuclear reactors, one of which suffered a partial nuclear meltdown and three others also experienced serious accidents. There was a plutonium fuel fabrication facility and a “hot lab” which cut up highly irradiated nuclear fuel shipped in from around the country. Radioactive and toxic chemical wastes were burned for years in open-air pits. There were tens of thousands of rocket engine tests. All of these activities and sloppy environmental practices resulted in widespread radioactive and toxic chemical pollution of soil, groundwater and surface water.

“Trump Administration Breaks Agreement With California for Cleanup of Nuclear Meltdown Site,” Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, December 19, 2018.

Nuclear Insanity

U.S. Strategic Command Tweets Bomb Threat on New Year’s Eve

The United States Strategic Command, the unified military force that controls the nation’s thousands of nuclear weapons, tweeted and then deleted a threat to drop something “much, much bigger” than the Times Square New Year’s Eve ball.

The bombs being dropped in the video accompanying the tweet were massive “conventional” bombs. However, Strategic Command is known for its control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Zachary Cohen and Barbara Starr, “U.S. Military Tweets, Deletes New Year’s Eve Message About Dropping Bombs,” CNN, December 31, 2018.

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary is 31-Year Veteran of Boeing

Patrick Shanahan, who was named acting Secretary of Defense after James Mattis resigned in December, previously worked for Boeing for 31 years before joining the Pentagon. Boeing makes billions of dollars each year from U.S. military contracts, including nuclear weapons.

Shanahan’s spokesperson Lt. Col. Joe Buccino said, “Under his Ethics Agreement, Mr. Shanahan has recused himself for the duration of his service in the Department of Defense from participating in matters in which the Boeing Company is a party.”

Given Boeing’s significant number of military contracts, this claim will likely prove to be untrue.

Ellen Mitchell, “Acting Defense Chief Recuses Himself from Matters Involving Boeing,” The Hill, January 2, 2019.

Senator Bought Raytheon Stock Days After Pushing for Massive Military Budget

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) bought between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in weapons manufacturer Raytheon just days after pushing for a record $750 billion military budget for Fiscal Year 2020.

After being questioned about why he made this purchase, Inhofe’s office said the senator contacted his financial adviser to cancel the transaction and instructed him to avoid defense and aerospace purchases going forward.

Lachlan Markay, “Sen. James Inhofe Bought Defense Stock Days After Pushing for Record Pentagon Spending—Then Dumped It When Asked About It,” The Daily Beast, December 12, 2018.

Resources

An Unsettled Year in Nuclear Weapons

John Mecklin, Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, compiled a list of eight articles published by the Bulletin in 2018 that convey the unsettled year that has passed.

In 2018, the world’s arms control architecture teetered on the brink of collapse as the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal and threatened withdrawal from the landmark Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Negotiations between the United States and North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear program stalled. And Hawaii went through 38 dreadful minutes of believing it was under nuclear missile attack.

To read Mecklin’s list, click here.

Joint Statement of U.S. Civil Society Groups in Support of the Current Peace Process in Korea

Over 150 civil society groups in the United States, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, issued a joint statement in support of the peace process in Korea. The statement says that, after more than six decades, it is time to end the Korean War. The war stopped in 1953 with an Armistice Agreement, but a peace treaty among the warring parties has never been signed.

To read the full statement in The Nation, click here.

Foundation Activities

Peace Literacy 2018 Highlights and 2019 Preview

In 2018, NAPF Peace Literacy Director Paul K. Chappell brought a transformative curriculum for a peace literate classroom, community, and culture to events in 16 states and five Canadian provinces. He spoke to more than 8,500 educators, students, and community leaders in more than 67 lectures and 19 workshops.

In 2019, Chappell will partner with dedicated educators around the country to bring professional development opportunities to teachers and administrators. He will also conduct many workshops and lectures for Rotary International chapters, and will co-teach an honors course on Peace Literacy with Oregon State University Professor Sharyn Clough.

To read the full update on Peace Literacy, click here.

NAPF Now Hiring 2019 Summer Interns

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is offering four paid summer internship positions in 2019 at its Santa Barbara office. Interns must have a demonstrated interest in gaining hands-on experience working with a non-profit educational and advocacy organization. Applications for these positions must be received by March 1, 2019.

For Summer 2019, we are hiring for four specific internship roles: Research and Writing Intern; Fundraising and Development Intern; Communications Intern; and Peace Literacy Intern.

For more information on each of these four roles, as well as application requirements, click here.

Women Waging Peace

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s online campaign, Women Waging Peace, highlights the outstanding work of women for peace and nuclear disarmament. Though progress is made every day, women’s voices are still often ignored, their efforts stonewalled and their wisdom overlooked regarding issues of peace and security, national defense, and nuclear disarmament.

Our fifth profile features Bonnie Jenkins, founder and President of Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS).

Click here to read our interview with Bonnie Jenkins.

The other women leaders profiled in this series thus far are Ray Acheson, Cynthia Lazaroff, Makoma Lekalakala, and Christine Ahn. Click here to see all the full Women Waging Peace series.

Article in Gensuikyo Tsushin

The Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Gensuikyo) invited NAPF Deputy Director Rick Wayman to write an article on California’s adoption of a resolution embracing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The article was translated into Japanese for distribution to Gensuikyo activists across Japan.

To read the full article in English, click here.

Take Action

Thank Senators for Invoking the War Powers Resolution

In December, the Senate voted 56-41 to stop U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. This is the first time the Senate has ever invoked the 1973 War Powers Resolution.

This war, for which the U.S. has supplied bombs, intelligence, and logistical support, has directly caused what the United Nations calls the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”
It is extremely important that we thank the 56 Senators who took action to end U.S. involvement in this disastrous war.

Click here to take action.

Quotes

“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased to worship life and obey the laws of life.”

— Lewis Mumford. This quote appears in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action, which is available to purchase in the NAPF Peace Store.

“We are small, but we can have a big impact.”

— Auckland Statement on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Click here to read the full statement.

“If the US responds to our initiative and pre-emptive efforts by taking reliable and corresponding practical action, our relationship will continue to progress at an excellent and great speed through the process of taking more concrete and groundbreaking measures.”

— Kim Jong-un, in a January 1, 2019 video message.

Editorial Team

David Krieger
Carol Warner
Rick Wayman

January 7, 2019

California Embraces Nuclear Disarmament
NAPF Deputy Director Rick Wayman wrote this article for Gensuikyo Tsushin, the newsletter of the Japan Council Against A & H Bombs. To see a scanned image of the article in Japanese, click here.

On August 28, 2018, California became the first state in the U.S. to declare its support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The treaty, negotiated in 2017 among the majority of the world’s nations and many NGOs, was adopted at the United Nations by a vote of 122-1. The efforts of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to achieve this treaty were recognized with the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

Under both the Obama and Trump administrations, the United States has been aggressively opposed to a treaty that would outlaw these cruel, indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction.

That’s why it’s such a big deal that California has taken a stand. About 12% of the U.S. population lives in California. The state has a long and proud history of setting positive legislative trends and kick-starting the process of change nationwide.

The Japanese government has also been opposed to the TPNW, ignoring pressure from hibakusha, activists, and scholars who believe that Japan’s reliance on the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” is improper.

Hundreds of municipalities around Japan have already encouraged the Japanese government to sign the TPNW. It is my hope that by sharing my story of how and why California adopted its resolution, more people throughout Japan will be inspired to get their local governments to speak out as well.

How It Began

In October 2017, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held its annual Evening for Peace, which that year honored Dr. Ira Helfand and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War for their decades of work for nuclear weapons abolition.

One of the members in the audience that evening was our local representative to the California State Assembly, Monique Limón. She was always generally supportive of our work, but had never indicated any particular interest in taking action to further nuclear weapons abolition.

Dr. Helfand’s talk that evening was very powerful. He discussed in great detail the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, and made it clear that the threat of nuclear weapons being used continues to be very real.

This shook many attendees to the core, and Assembly Member Limón was among them. She contacted us after the event to ask what she could do to help. Together with a couple of other NGOs, we created an informal group to consult with her office on the wording for a resolution in the California State Legislature.

What It Says

The California resolution, officially called “Assembly Joint Resolution 33,” is written in the traditional style of laying out background information with multiple “WHEREAS” statements, followed by several action points.

The action points in this resolution are strong, and are worth examining in closer detail.
1. “Resolved… that the Legislature urges our federal leaders and our nation to embrace the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and make nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of our national security policy.”
The TPNW has received some media attention in many countries around the world, but the U.S. mainstream media has been virtually silent about the treaty’s existence. Nuclear deterrence has been the centerpiece of U.S. national security policy for over seven decades. Making the first action point about both the TPNW and nuclear disarmament makes it clear that these are high priorities for the most populated state in the U.S.
1. Resolved, That the Legislature calls upon our federal leaders and our nation to spearhead a global effort to prevent nuclear war by renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first, ending the President’s sole, unchecked authority to launch a nuclear attack, taking U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, canceling the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons, and actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
This language comes directly from the Back from the Brink campaign, which lays out five common-sense steps that the United States should take to reform its nuclear policy. While these steps in and of themselves will not lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons, it is also a top priority to make sure that nuclear weapons are never again used.
1. Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate, to the Minority Leader of the Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, and to the Governor.
It is important that the resolution did not just get passed and filed away in an obscure record book. By sending the resolution to all of the national-level representatives, it ensured that they knew that the body representing nearly 40 million Americans has made a strong call for nuclear disarmament.

Why It Matters

For 50 years, the United States has been a part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This treaty has been remarkably successful at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries. But it has failed to compel the nuclear-armed nations to fulfill their obligation to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

In February 2018, the U.S. released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a document that publicly declares the United States’ positions and priorities around nuclear weapons. In the introduction to the NPR, and repeated later in the body of the document – and subsequently repeated in official statements the U.S. has made – the authors write, “We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.”

The glasses they are looking through are very, very dark. Because what they propose over and over in this document is a readiness and a willingness to use nuclear weapons, including to use nuclear weapons first. They unashamedly say that they are ready to resume nuclear testing in response to “geopolitical challenges.”

I dedicated my life to achieving the abolition of nuclear weapons after hearing two survivors of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima speak when I was 23, just before my two countries of citizenship – the U.S. and U.K. – invaded Iraq under the false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction.

To this day, some of the people I admire most in the world are hibakusha from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who openly share the unimaginable suffering imposed upon them when nuclear weapons were used on their cities. One of my personal and professional role models was Mr. Tony de Brum, who passed away last year from cancer, a fate that has befallen so many of his fellow Marshall Islanders following 12 years of brutal atmospheric nuclear testing by the U.S. I’ve spoken with nuclear testing survivors from many countries around the world, and their stories are real.

That is reality. To see the world as it is, we must look into their eyes.

Conclusion

To all of my friends in Japan, I understand the frustration of having a national government that refuses to take action for nuclear disarmament. In fact, as a dual national of the U.S. and UK, both of my national governments act in this shameful way. Even amidst this challenging circumstance, it is essential to persevere and not to be discouraged.

While the national governments of the U.S., UK, Japan, and other nuclear-armed and nuclear-allied countries continue to resist the valiant global effort to achieve nuclear abolition, we can find creative ways to make progress so that change on the national level is inevitable. Towns, cities, states, provinces, prefectures, trade unions, religious groups, and so many others have a responsibility to speak out in support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Never give up!
January 4, 2019
Bonnie Jenkins | In Her Own Words

Tell us about your professional journey working on nuclear issues.

I got started in this field in Washington D.C. while working as a Presidential Management Fellow. I’d received my Master’s in Public Administration and my Juris Doctorate degree. It was then that a mentor at the Pentagon in the International Law office asked me to a meeting where he was giving legal advice on strategic arms reduction.

It was my first exposure to anything about weapons of mass destruction and I was fascinated. I’d heard that if you wanted to work on arms control and nonproliferation for a U.S. delegation, you had to go to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, or ACDA.

So I joined ACDA and began working with a delegation that was negotiating a conventional weapons treaty. There weren’t a lot of women on that delegation and there certainly were not a lot of women of color. I was the only one in a substantive position in a room with more than 20 countries negotiating the treaty.

During my years at ACDA, I received my Master’s in International and Comparative Law. When I left ACDA, I worked on a few congressional commissions before returning to school to get my Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. After completing my dissertation, I joined the Ford Foundation and was there between 2005 and 2009. It was in January 2009 that I received a call to meet with then Senator Clinton who offered me a job as an Ambassador.

You have led delegations to Nuclear Security Summits and you were the U.S. Representative to the G7 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Mass Destruction. What was it like leading delegations and maneuvering in male-dominated international spaces like the Nuclear Security Summits?

When I started as an Ambassador in 2009, (it was a new position called Coordinator of Threat Reduction Programs that carried the level of Ambassador), there were a number of women experts that Secretary Clinton had brought into the field of WMD within the State Department. There is still more work to be done in this arena and the field is still very lacking in people of color. Unfortunately, when I left government in January 2017, there weren’t as many women represented in U.S. leadership roles on issues of WMD as when I arrived in 2009.

As far as how I maneuvered, I didn’t have a specific strategy. I just went to work every day and did my thing. I recognized the situation, but it wasn’t always on my mind. There were certainly times when I would feel it more than others. Generally, if you’re the different one in the room, you’re going to wonder about what you say and whether you’re making sense. You’re likely to second-guess yourself more than if you’re a person from the dominant culture or you’re a man in the room. I think men will say things and not worry if it makes sense or if they embarrass themselves – they just keep moving. Women tend to hesitate more before speaking and question whether they’re making sense. That kind of stuff just happens when you’re different, but you deal with it and keep going.

Many times, I made myself worry more than I needed to. I finally realized that I was worried about things that nobody else was even considering. I carried this burden of, Oh my God – I said something five hours ago, and I’m still not sure if I made the right statement. You realize how much society has made women and people of color feel that we’re not as good and we’re not as competent, even when we clearly are.

How have you seen gender and/or race impact the conversation or rhetoric used in formal talks such as chemical, biological and nuclear negotiations?

I wrote a blog focused on diversifying the voices and perspectives of nuclear nonproliferation. Interestingly, I received push back from someone saying, “This doesn’t really matter. All that really matters is that you have certain positions that you take.” It totally passed by the fact that there may be perspectives that could be reflected within policy that we still have yet to understand because we’ve never had significant voices of people of color or women in policy development. We don’t know if we might have taken a different position on things or adopted a different policy. Even if the end result is the same, the path may differ, resulting in better or different kinds of relationships with countries afterwards. I say this because I think people can hide behind the fact that nuclear is a ‘hard security issue’ and say that diverse perspectives don’t matter, but I don’t know if we’ve ever had a real chance to see them.

With President Trump’s handling of the North Korea situation, from the very beginning it was very much a masculine approach. In terms of the rhetoric – the things that were said, the way they were said – it was like two young boys attacking each other. This was a clear indication of a process that was not productive and only stopped when they started acting more mature. The process might have been different had there been women involved.

Having said that, what do you see as the biggest barriers to having more women engaged in these issues?

Well I think it’s having a gender lens. I’ve gone to events in Washington and was pleased to see many young women there from think-tanks, research institutions, and NGOs. Not so much from government. I think the biggest barrier will be whether that can be translated into women moving up the ranks, staying in the field and at the table as they mature in this field. This relies on women staying engaged, but a high percentage of women at events will likely not stay. This is partly because they may not be interested, or they may have children and face challenges to get back in the field. Then there’s the other side – will the established culture be one that makes women feel comfortable and one where they can make a difference? Will there be opportunities for them? Is it going to remain a field where the predominant white male culture ensures that it stays that way? During the Obama Administration, particularly the first four years, you saw a lot of women (“a lot” is relative) but now you see that progress moving backwards.

Certainly, you’re picking up that torch, with the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS), the organization you founded in December 2017. Why did you start WCAPS and what makes it so unique and important?

I’m thrilled to finally be able to do this work. There is such a need for hearing the voices of women of color in areas of peace and security, including nonproliferation issues. There’s a lot I can do to support that.

WCAPS is focusing on three areas: empowering young women – that’s the first thing. The second thing is strengthening the voices of women already in the field and giving them more exposure. The third is addressing the culture that limits the involvement of women, especially women of color.

Our mentorship program is a big part of empowering younger women. We also do podcasts and spotlights on women of color to give voice to women who are in this field. This also helps to empower young women because they get to see other women of color who are actually doing the work and are successful. These are women they would otherwise not hear about.

To address the culture, I host events with NGOs focused on really getting out there and letting other people, such as white men, see that there are women who work in this field and should be valued. Those events work to bring this discussion to NGOs that are still generally identified as “White Male Yale.” I hosted a conversation looking at women of color and peace and security and asking how can we redefine national security. I’m pleased with the way some think tanks and NGOs are making room for these discussions. It’s critical to bring these conversations to those who may not typically be having them.

How might your professional journey have been different, or had doors opened for you a bit more easily, if you had been able to have women of color as your mentors?

I’m a pretty driven person. Though I didn’t have the luxury of having women of color in my field that I could look up to, there were women of color in other fields that I saw as role models. There were also white men who were role models. I’ve been told by young people of color, not just women, that they shy away from this field because they don’t see people like themselves. They ask, “Why am I doing this when I should be working on civil rights?” or “I should be working on reducing police brutality.” There are things that might be closer to home for women and for people of color. If they’re committing to this field, it’s important to see that there are others in it who look like them.

That’s one of the reasons why one-third of my work is dedicated to helping people see and hear from women who are working on these issues. Folks can visit WCAP’s “Pioneers” page and read about the first African American or first Asian American Ambassador. This way, young women who I can’t reach directly can still be inspired.

There are many women who speak about applying a gender lens to nuclear issues or peace and security. Do you employ a gender and/or a race lens to your work?

I have two answers to that. I’m African-American and I’m also a woman. I grew up in the Bronx without much money and so I have a very different background from many people I work with. I am very conscious of who I am. When I approach an issue, I bring my identity with me. I don’t consciously say I’m going to apply a gender lens or a person of color lens because that’s naturally how I see things. I think that term applies more to people who need to actively incorporate that lens. For me, “gender lens” means that you’re looking at something and saying, how would this impact women differently than men. Or maybe suggesting we need to bring women in to include perspectives that are not just male.

You’ve been very intentional about working with youth. How do you view your role in supporting younger women looking to become meaningful change makers?

I feel very fortunate to have gotten where I am from where I started. I know that, particularly in my area of work, there aren’t a lot of women of color. There are, however, many women of color out there doing great things, but they’re just not getting attention. I feel it’s my responsibility to be a role model to young people, and to bring to the attention of young people, other women doing great work out there that go unseen. The mentorship program is very important, especially because I hear from women all the time that they don’t see people like themselves reflected professionally. For me it’s all about that.

We’re at such a speed change in U.S. policy regarding how we treat other countries, how we’re perceived by other countries and what we’re doing domestically. We’re making a lot of mistakes that are going to take a long time to fix. In addition to wanting to be a role model, I feel it’s our responsibility, as older Americans, to do what we can to make the right environment for the next generations. America is still great, but we have a lot of things we need to fix. Moving forward, we can be more realistic about who we really are as a country and stop trying to believe we’re so perfect. It’s okay not to have all the answers and its okay not to be the best in the world. You’re never going to fix yourself if you don’t know what your problems are.

This administration has done the exact opposite of what they said they would do. They were talking about “Let’s make America great again” and I think what they’ve shown is that America has always been great in some ways and has never been great in others. However, some people aren’t ready to hear it.

What were your keys to success?

Being open to new opportunities, being persistent, not giving up, believing in myself, being respectful to others, and being open but intentional at the same time. I’ve always said to myself, what is the next thing I want to achieve and how will I get there? Many things have happened that I wasn’t anticipating that have turned out great, but even then, I put myself in a position where things can happen, and I can see the unexpected as opportunities. Balancing the need to have direction with the need to be open to opportunities, and to be able to take those opportunities without being afraid to do so – that is key.

Bonnie Jenkins brings a world of experience to the field of Peace and Security. She is an expert on arms control and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. She served for nine years as legal adviser to U.S. ambassadors and delegations negotiating arms control and nonproliferation treaties during her time as a legal adviser in the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. She has been a legal adviser on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, among others. She has also served as U.S. legal adviser on relevant treaty implementing bodies, such as the CTBT Organization (CTBTO), and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). She also has over 20 years of military experience, serving as an Air Force Reserves Officer before joining the Naval Reserves, rising to the role of Lieutenant Commander and serving her last post at the U.S. Central Command.

Today Bonnie Jenkins is beginning a new venture as the Founder and President of the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS). WCAPS aims to inspire a new generation of diverse women leaders committed to having a role and a prominent voice in the field of Peace and Security – a voice that is needed now more than ever.

January 1, 2019
India’s (Im)modest Nuclear Quest in 2018: The Measured ‘Normalization’ of a Nuclear State?

The passing year marked the 20^th year of the May 1998 nuclear tests in Pokhran, the 10^th year of the unprecedented exception from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) that the Indian government achieved in 2008, and the last effective year of the ultra-nationalist Modi government as it enters its lame-duck phase early next year. An overall look at the nuclear-related developments in India in 2018 reveals no remarkable development this year – neither have any exceptional acquisitions or advancements been made by the government, nor has any massive anti-nuclear people’s mobilization taken place at the grassroots compared to the immediate post-Fukushima years. On all these counts, the observable surface-reality appears less remarkable than what most observers would have expected.

The 20^th anniversary of the nuclear tests remained rather low-key, at least in comparison to the chest-thumping frenzy and hyperbole that the Modi government has come to be known for. The release of a commemorative Bollywood movie, insipidly titled Parmanu(atom), was announced to coincide with the occasion, but it was silently and inexplicably postponed by a few weeks and the film remained a non-starter despite its over-dramatic nationalist treatment of the subject. While in his pre-election rallies prior to 2014, Narendra Modi had promised a radical alteration of India’s nuclear posture and the shunning of the country’s long-standing policies of ‘no-first-use’ and ‘minimum credible deterrence’ with regard to nuclear weapons, his government did not go beyond heightened nuclear rhetoric against Pakistan.

On the nuclear energy front, progress has been tediously slow and prospects for even the revised short and medium-term projections look grim although the government remains committed to pursuing both, imported and locally-designed nuclear plants. This year, the government announced an ambiguous nuclear plan for the year 2030 and beyond, which was widely perceived as a scaling down of its nuclear ambitions. Despite the NSG opening the doors of international nuclear supplies for India in 2008, and in effect, rewarding the country for its 1998 nuclear tests, not a single foreign-imported reactor construction, sanctioned since 2008, has started in India.

However, it is precisely this deceptive calm and seeming indolence on the part of the Indian government that makes it easy to miss out the details and the deeply worrying patterns of an unmistakable push for a massive nuclear weaponization and energy expansion that we should all be concerned about.

Even as the international gaze is set firmly on the increased nuclear instability owing to the misadventures of the American President vis-à-vis Russia, North Korea, and Iran on the one hand, and desperate attempts by the global nuclear industry to stage a comeback from perhaps its deepest crisis so far, by painting itself as an ‘urgent’ and ‘imperative’ solution to climate change, India is engaged in a steady albeit understated consolidation of its capacities and postures in terms of both, its civilian and military nuclear programs.

The Unquestioned ‘Normalization’ of a Nuclear State?

The uncharacteristic and confounding absence of hyped official celebrations of the 20^th anniversary of India’s nuclear weapons tests were met with an equal silence on the part of the political opposition and civil society. Surprisingly, the 2018 Pokhran anniversary did not occasion any protests by either the major left-wing parties or civil society groups. This however, can also be explained by the fact that the political opposition, activists and civil society in India have found themselves unremittingly firefighting other, more immediate issues that have hogged the limelight during the BJP government’s tenure – its gross mishandling of the economy and public offices as well as the havoc unleashed by Hindutva groups on the streets almost every other week on ever newer issues ever since Modi’s ascendance. However, this is definitely a reflection on the fact that nuclear weapons have fallen off the radar of public concern in India. In effect, this has meant an almost unquestioned and matter-of-fact acceptance of nuclear weapons and the relentless pursuit of a maximization of India’s nuclear capacities.

India has consistently expanded its missile program, both qualitatively and quantitatively and has tested as many as eight nuclear-capable delivery vehicles this year itself. Besides, India launched an ‘Advanced Area Defense (AAD) missile this year, capable of intercepting incoming missiles, which the government has claimed as part of the country’s home-grown missile defense system. India also operationalized the nuclear-armed submarine Arihant’s patrolling in the Indian Ocean. Observers have raised concerns about the Indian nuclear triad – land, sea and air-based nuclear capabilities further provoking Pakistan, which is already engaged in miniaturizing its nuclear arsenal to make it more ‘usable’, thus, fueling an arms race in South Asia. India also figured as among the key reasons for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moving its famed ‘Doomsday Clock’ closest-ever to midnight since its inception. However, the international response has been far more muted than the outcry on Iran and South Korea. This has also allowed India to maintain its low-key posturing as well as the government’s strategy to perpetuate the image of “good nukes” and a “responsible nuclear state”, which the US and other big powers have willingly and actively permitted India to adopt and proclaim. The Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has highlighted the very real dangers of such nuclear hypocrisy. Resultantly, the nuclear escalation in South Asia continues unabated and perhaps enjoys far more political consensus than in 1998 when nuclear weapons were tested by India and Pakistan. Questioning the nuclear arms and military build-up has also become rather perilous, since in recent years, civil society activists and dissenters of all shades have been unrestrainedly labeled ‘anti-national’ by the ruling BJP government on the flimsiest pretexts.

Besides the military nuclear sector, the nuclear power industry is also being steadily expanded by India even as it lags behind in terms of the ambitious announcements made earlier. Even as the global nuclear industry faces bankruptcies and terminal economic crises, the Indian authorities have used the opportunity in the most perverse manner. Rather than occasioning a serious rethink about the viability and risks of nuclear power, the situation has led the Indian government to ask the imperiled nuclear corporations in the West for technology transfers with the outrageous claim that these nuclear projects can be constructed by engaging private domestic companies, with absolutely no experience in nuclear construction. The French nuclear industry, now snowed under a steep decline, has been more than willing to oblige, and, Prime Minister Modi has announced ‘maximum localisation’ of the EPR design that has been questioned across the world and has been a crucial reason for the meltdown of Areva in France. This year, America’s GE also entered the Jaitapur project and signed strategic cooperation agreements with EDF and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL). This patch-work approach to salvage the world’s largest nuclear project and promote Modi’s ‘Make in India’ pitch has understandably raised serious concerns. Even as the future of the Jaitapur project on India’s western coast remains uncertain, the Indian government in December this year announced the completion of its land acquisition which has meant the forced eviction of villagers on ground and suppression of the local communities’ agitation by stick-and-carrot tactics. Despite losing their lands, the villagers continue to protest the loss of livelihoods and safety risks that the nuclear project has and will bring to them. This year in August, hundreds of people in the Jaitapur region courted voluntary arrest – ‘jail bharo’ as a form of protest.

Both the Kovvada and MithiVirdi project sites, allotted to the US corporations GE and Westinghouse since 2008 continue to figure in the government’s projections despite running into serious trouble. The ruling party’s own Chief Minister in the State of Gujarat has assured the people that the MithiVirdi project will never be started as the safety concerns and farmers’ protests are ‘legitimate’, and after GE’s exit from Kovvada, citing liability in 2015, the government has allotted the site to Westinghouse and the uncertainties of the ongoing negotiations have not stopped the Indian government from pushing ahead with land acquisition.

While the future of the US and French nuclear projects in India remains uncertain, Russia has come to India’s rescue. This year, the government signed design contracts with Russia for Units 5 and 6 of VVER reactors in Koodankulam and launched the construction of Units 3 and 4 despite glaring failures of Units 1 and 2. India has also signed a new nuclear deal with Russia for six more reactors at a new site that remains officially unannounced.

Given the complications of starting Western-imported nuclear projects, the Indian government seems to have shifted its focus to the domestically-built ‘indigenous’ Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). Last year, the government repackaged the plans for 10 such reactors with 700 MW capacity each. This year, excavation work has started in Gorakhpur and the government has continued land acquisition and environmental clearance efforts for Mahi-Banswara and pre-project activities in Chutka. The localised nuclear expansion has also included construction of more PHWRs in existing plants like Kaiga where the government recently conducted a farcical public hearing on the Environmental Impact Assessment report, which has been criticized by independent experts. Despite the generally slow growth of the nuclear sector, India has steadily increased its import of uranium fuel from Canada, Kazakhstan and other countries.

India’s nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities continue to grow quietly, under an otherwise grandiloquent and ultra-nationalist regime. And even though the nuclear power sector’s growth appears to be painfully slow, the Indian government has firmly set the country on a course of a full-spectrum technology-ownership in the nuclear sector, and, is using every available opportunity, including the decline of international nuclear industry, towards this grandiose ambition.

One might ask then, if it is by design that the Indian government ignores the attendant problems of an unrelenting pursuit of nuclear projects like the EPR, even as the horror of Fukushima continues to unfold before us, and whether, the growth of its nuclear sector, no matter how snail-paced, ensures a ‘legitimate’ and comprehensive growth of nuclear technology, which in turn provides India not just military wherewithal, but also diplomatic stature and the leverage to enhance its long-term power projection, as well as withstand any sanctions in the future in the event that the country conducts nuclear tests? As nuclear power in the present situation does not make sense on either financial or safety grounds, it is only this super-power ambition which is plausibly guiding India’s overall nuclear strategy. India’s chequered nuclear past is reason enough to believe so.

December 31, 2018
2019 Communications Intern
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is hiring a Communications Intern for Summer 2019.

Interns will join our dedicated team of seven staff at our Santa Barbara headquarters to work on meaningful projects that advance our mission of educating, advocating, and inspiring action for a just and peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons.

We don’t expect our interns to have detailed knowledge of the physics behind nuclear weapons, nor to have years of relevant work experience. What we are looking for are highly-motivated, enthusiastic individuals who are dedicated to our mission and who want to make a real, lasting difference in the world.

Our Communications Intern will assist in the Foundation’s marketing, branding, and communications efforts. Reporting to Sandy Jones, NAPF Director of Communications, the intern will be adept at effective messaging across multiple platforms, and a creative thinker that will assist in tackling one of humanity’s most pressing existential threats.

Projects will include:
- Monitoring and analyzing NAPF’s social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram;
- Managing the Foundation’s use of Google AdWords;
- Participating in different styles of communications, including email, video, in-person, and more;
- Contributing research, writing, and other content to special campaigns, such as Women Waging Peace.
Skills/Qualifications:
- Strong writer, not just in the academic sense, but also in the human sense;
- A thorough researcher;
- Social media savvy;
- Self-motivated to run with a project, taking something from start to finish;
- A strategic thinker, from a broad, bird’s eye view to down in the weeds.
For more details on our internship program and for application instructions, visit our Paid Internships page.

You can also view the position descriptions for our other summer internships:

Fundraising/Development Intern

Research/Writing Intern

Peace Literacy Intern
December 20, 2018