VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE – A test launch of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is scheduled for Wednesday, April 26, between 12:01 a.m. and 6:01 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The U.S. currently deploys some 400 Minuteman III ICBMs with nuclear warheads in silos spread across Colorado, Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.
The U.S. Air Force tested this Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile on February 20, 2016. Photo | U.S. Department of Defense
According to Air Force Global Strike Command, “The purpose of the ICBM test launch program is to validate and verify the effectiveness, readiness, and accuracy of the weapon system.”
Col. John Moss, 30th Space Wing commander said, “These Minuteman launches are essential to verify the status of our national nuclear force and to demonstrate our national nuclear capabilities.”
The test comes at a time of extraordinary tension between the U.S. and North Korea, with each side flexing its military muscle and making implicit and explicit threats.
David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, upon learning of the planned missile test, commented, “When it comes to missile testing, the U.S. is operating with a clear double standard: It views its own tests as justified and useful, while it views the tests of North Korea as threatening and destabilizing.” Krieger went on to note, “What is needed is diplomacy rather than military provocations. Threats, whether in the form of tweets, nuclear-capable aircraft carrier groups, or nuclear-capable missile launches, only increase the dangers to us all.”
# # #
If you would like to interview David Krieger or Rick Wayman, Director of Programs, please call the Foundation at (805) 965-3443.
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders. Founded in 1982, the Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations. For more information, visit wagingpeace.org.
This article was originally published by LA Progressive.
In recent weeks, the people of the world have been treated to yet another display of the kind of nuclear insanity that has broken out periodically ever since 1945 and the dawn of the nuclear era.
On April 11, Donald Trump, irked by North Korea’s continued tests of nuclear weapons and missiles, tweeted that “North Korea is looking for trouble.” If China does not “help,” then “we will solve the problem without them.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responded by announcing that, in the event of a U.S. military attack, his country would not scruple at launching a nuclear strike at U.S. forces. In turn, Trump declared: “We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. We have the best military people on earth.”
During the following days, the governments of both nuclear-armed nations escalated their threats. Dispatched to South Korea, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence declared that “the era of strategic patience is over,” and warned: “All options are on the table.” Not to be outdone, North Korea’s deputy representative to the United Nations told a press conference that “thermonuclear war may break out at any moment.” Any missile or nuclear strike by the United States would be responded to “in kind.” Several days later, the North Korean government warned of a “super-mighty preemptive strike” that would reduce U.S. military forces in South Korea and on the U.S. mainland “to ashes.” The United States and its allies, said the official statement, “should not mess with us.”
Curiously, this North Korean statement echoed the Trump promise during his presidential campaign that he would build a U.S. military machine “so big, powerful, and strong that no one will mess with us.” The fact that both Trump and Kim are being “messed with” despite their possession of very powerful armed forces, including nuclear weapons, seems to have eluded both men, who continue their deadly game of nuclear threat and bluster.
And what is the response of the public to these two erratic government leaders behaving in this reckless fashion and threatening war, including nuclear war? It is remarkably subdued. People read about the situation in newspapers or watch it on the television news, while comedians joke about the madness of it all. Oh, yes, peace and disarmament organizations condemn the escalating military confrontation and outline reasonable diplomatic alternatives. But such organizations are unable to mobilize the vast numbers of people around the world necessary to shake some sense into these overwrought government officials.
The situation was very different in the 1980s, when organizations like the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (in the United States), the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (in Britain), and similar groups around the world were able to engage millions of people in protest against the nuclear recklessness of the U.S. and Soviet governments―protest that played a key role in curbing the nuclear arms race and preventing nuclear war.
So why is there so little public protest today?
One factor is certainly the public’s preoccupation with other important issues, among them climate change, immigration, terrorism, criminal justice, civil liberties, and economic inequality.
Another appears to be a sense of fatalism. Many people believe that Kim and Trump are too irrational to respond to reason and too autocratic to give way to public pressure.
Yet another factor is the belief of Americans and Europeans that their countries are safe from a North Korean attack. Yes, many people will die in a new Korean War, especially one fought with nuclear weapons, but they will be “only” Koreans.
In addition, many people credit the absence of nuclear war since 1945 to nuclear deterrence. Thus, they assume that nuclear-armed nations will not fight a nuclear war among themselves.
Finally―and perhaps most significantly―people are reluctant to think about nuclear war. After all, it means death and destruction at an unbearable level of horror. Therefore, it’s much easier to simply forget about it.
Of course, even if these factors explain the public’s passivity in the face of a looming nuclear catastrophe, they do not justify it. After all, people can concern themselves with more than one issue at a time, public officials are often more malleable than assumed, accepting the mass slaughter of Koreans is unconscionable, and if nuclear deterrence really worked, the U.S. government would be far less worried about other nations (including North Korea) developing nuclear weapons. Also, problems―including the problem posed by nuclear weapons―do not simply disappear when people ignore them.
It would be a terrible thing if it takes a disastrous nuclear war between the United States and North Korea to convince people that nuclear war is simply unacceptable. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should already have convinced us of that.
Pres. Trump waited only three days before launching his attack on the Syrian airfield from which he believed a chemical weapons attack was launched. Particularly in the nuclear age, such rash behavior has serious, negative consequences for our national security that have been largely overlooked.
The mainstream media and most members of Congress treat the president’s belief that Assad was responsible as an established fact. A New York Times Editorial written just one day after the chemical weapons attack was headlined “A New Level of Depravity From Mr. Assad.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted, “I support both the action and objective of @POTUS’ strike against Syria to deter the Assad regime from using chemical weapons again.”
This rush to judgment is reminiscent of 1964‘s drumbeat to war in Vietnam and 2003’s in Iraq, both of which had disastrous consequences for our nation. Both were also later found to be based on false assumptions that had been accepted as unquestionable facts by most of the media and Congress.
Questions have been raised about the evidence presented by the administration, which will take time to assess. It did not make sense for Assad to launch a chemical weapons attack on civilians when he was gaining the upper hand militarily in Syria’s civil war. Such an attack was one of the few events that could cause the US to attack him, giving the rebels a motivation to possibly launch a false flag chemical weapons attack.
Theodore Postol, an MIT professor who previously had served as a scientific advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations, wrote a preliminary assessment which noted that one of the pictures used as evidence to prove that an airborne chemical weapons attack had taken place showed that the supposed bomb had been detonated by forces on the ground, not from the air.
It may turn out that Pres. Trump was right in his assessment, but there is also a chance that he attacked Syria on a false belief, killing people in the process. Congress should initiate an unbiased, bipartisan investigation to determine the facts, whichever way they lead.
Even if that investigation determines that Assad was responsible for the attack, Congress needs to consider other implications of the president’s behavior. Every time we attack another nation, we unwittingly encourage nuclear proliferation. Soon after Pres. Trump’s attack on Syria, North Korea put out a press release that stated, “Today’s reality proves that we should confront strength only with strength and that our choice was absolutely right in extraordinarily strengthening our nuclear armed forces.”
North Korea’s mistrust of the US is heightened because they feel we double crossed Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. In 2003, when Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons program, President Bush promised that his “good faith will be returned,” and asked other nations to find an example in Libya’s move. When the United States attacked Libya eight years later, resulting in Gaddafi’s brutal murder, North Korea released a statement which showed that they had learned a lesson from Libya, but not the one President Bush had intended. The North Koreans saw us as coaxing Libya “with such sweet words as guarantee of security” so that it dismantled its nuclear weapons program, after which we “swallowed it up by force.”
While Iran has been quieter, Pres. Trump’s attack on Syria strengthens the hands of Iranian hardliners who argue that the US cannot be trusted and only a nuclear deterrent will make Iran safe from the kind of American attacks suffered by Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad. Iran sees it as ironic that the US takes such strong action against a chemical weapons attack when the Reagan administration helped Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran even after it knew that Saddam was using chemical weapons against Iran.
A Congressional investigation should consider the impact of the above facts on American national security as well as dealing with the fundamental question of whether Assad was responsible for this chemical weapons attack. Acting out of anger has always been dangerous, and the nuclear age adds an ominous new dimension to rash behavior.
Congratulations to everyone who entered the 2017 Swackhamer Disarmament Video Contest. After much deliberation, the judges have decided on the following awards:
FIRST PRIZE
A World Built on a Box of Matches by Jonathan Blanton
SECOND PRIZE
2.5 Minutes Till Midnight by Jorge Sanchez
Trump may have acted with insufficient evidence as to whether the chemical weapons attack was actually the responsibility of Assad and the Syrian government. Would Syrian president Assad be foolish enough to launch a chemical attack against civilians, when a military response from the US would be possible, even likely? Peter Ford, a former UK ambassador to Syria, speaking on BBC Radio, said, “It doesn’t make sense that Assad would do it. Let’s not leave our brains outside the door when we examine evidence. It would be totally self-defeating as shown by the results…Assad is not mad.”
Critics of the US military response have suggested as a possible scenario for the chemical release in Idlib province that the Syrian government attack may have been a conventional bombing that exploded stored weapons in the possession of the Syrian rebels, which may have included chemical weapons.
Trump did not seek and obtain Congressional authorization for his act of war in attacking a Syrian Air Force base. Thus, the attack was illegal under US law. It is not the president’s prerogative to initiate attacks against sovereign nations without Congressional authorization. By acting without such Congressional authorization, Trump has placed himself and the presidency above the rule of law.
Trump did not seek and obtain authorization for his attack against Syria from the United Nations Security Council, as is required under international law. By failing to do so the US has put itself outside the boundaries of the UN Charter, which is also a part of US law, as well as other international law to which the US is bound.
Trump has further undermined US relations with Russia, and has harmed the chances of the US and Russia working cooperatively in resolving the Syrian conflict. Increased tensions between the US and Russia in Syria make conflict between these two nuclear powers more likely.
Trump has demonstrated to the world that in matters of war, as with tweeting, he is impulsive, shoots from the hip and is not constrained by US or international law. These characteristics are not generally accepted by other world leaders as being preferred qualities in a US president.
Trump’s impulsivity in ordering the attack sets a dangerous standard for someone in charge of the US nuclear arsenal. It demonstrates the extreme dangers of allowing a single individual to exercise control over a country’s nuclear arsenal.
Despite the illegality and inherent dangers of his military response, Trump seems to be getting a favorable reaction from the US media. Nearly all US mainstream media seems to have accepted the assumption that Assad was foolish enough to have launched a chemical attack, and have not questioned Assad’s responsibility for the chemical attack. It appears that neither the US government nor media have conducted a thorough investigation of responsibility for the chemical attack, which should have been done prior to a military response.
Referring to what changed with Trump’s ordering the missile strikes against Syria the evening before, a fawning Fareed Zakaria stated, “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States. I think this was actually a big moment….” Given Trump’s narcissism, this is the kind of positive response from pundits that is likely to keep him returning to impulsive and illegal uses of military force.
For his violations of US and international law in attacking Syria with 59 cruise missiles, it is highly likely that Trump will also be rewarded by the American people with an upward bump in his current ground-level job-approval rating. Too many Americans tend to like their presidents to be fast on the draw and follow the pattern of Ready, Fire, Aim.
David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of many books, including Zero: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.
Professor Peter Kuznick, Ph.D., and director Oliver Stone recently gave the prestigious Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future, presented annually by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara, California. Previous honorees (all of whom have addressed the dangers of nuclear weapons) have included Daniel Ellsberg, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Professor Noam Chomsky, Dennis Kucinich, and Robert Scheer.
Peter Kuznick is director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University and co-author (with Oliver Stone) of the 12-part documentary book and film series, “The Untold History of the United States.” Journalist Jane Ayers conducted several phone interviews with Professor Kuznick over the past month regarding his concerns about the Trump administration’s intention to add to the already existing trillion-dollar budget to modernize and increase the U.S. nuclear arsenals. Kuznick also focused on his serious concerns about the dangers of nuclear engagement with North Korea, Iran, Russia, and Isis by President Trump.
Peter Kuznick (right) delivered the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 16th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future on February 23, 2017, with Oliver Stone (center).
Q: As an expert on nuclear issues, what do you think about the current news that President Trump wants to expand U.S. nuclear arsenals to ensure being at “the top of the pack,” especially after Obama had already allowed a $1 trillion budget to be added to modernize all the nuclear arsenals?
Kuznick: There is no “top of the pack” when it comes to nuclear war. We know that any large scale use of nuclear weapons will be just as suicidal for the nation that strikes first as for the nation under attack – whether or not the latter retaliates. It will just take the citizens of the attacking nation a little bit longer before they feel the effects. Trump’s playground bully mentality reminds me of the kind of insane logic that fueled the Cold War. We are seeing it worldwide right now, with all nine nuclear nations modernizing their arsenals. The U.S., Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, Britain, France, North Korea – all of them are making their nuclear arsenals more precise, efficient, and deadly.
But, language aside, Trump’s statement about nuclear weapons is not that much different than Obama’s declaration in Prague in 2009 that helped win him the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama called eloquently for nuclear abolition, but he also indicated that the United States would be the last nation, not the first, to give up its nuclear weapons. The difference is that Obama was not a shallow, rash, impulsive person. Most of us trusted that he understood the consequences of nuclear war and was horrified by the thought of using nuclear weapons. But Trump saying he wants a more modern and efficient nuclear arsenal is terrifying precisely because he does seem so reckless and impulsive. Does anyone really sleep easily at night knowing that Trump has access to the nuclear codes and the ability to launch America’s nuclear arsenals? Does anyone really trust Donald Trump with the ability to end all life on this planet? I certainly don’t.
Q: Doesn’t “top of the pack” mentality increase the likelihood of all nuclear nations (and more non-nuclear nations) to respond by increasing their arsenals too? Doesn’t more buildup in the U.S. and/or Russia equate to more nuclear weapons worldwide, even possibly causing a reaction by terrorists? In his first address to Congress on Tuesday evening, President Trump stated he wants to “demolish ISIS … to extinguish this vile enemy from our planet.” Does this concern you that he might use nuclear options?
Kuznick: Trump reportedly asked what was the point of having nuclear weapons if we can’t use them. Most people would agree and conclude that we should eliminate the nuclear arsenal. Trump, however, draws a different conclusion. He, like Barry Goldwater and George W. Bush, wants to make them more useable. He said that if ISIS attacks the U.S., we should respond with nuclear weapons. He has also said that nuclear proliferation is fine. In fact, he stated that it was okay if Japan, South Korea, and even Saudi Arabia developed their own nuclear arsenals. He even went so far as to inveigh against the nuclear deal with Iran and threaten to tear it up his first day in office. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened.
In endorsing Trump, Bobby Knight, the former Indiana University basketball coach, declared, “Harry Truman, with what he did in dropping and having the guts to drop the bomb in 1944 [sic] saved, saved millions of American lives. And that’s what Harry Truman did. And he became one of the three great presidents of the United States. And here’s a man who would do the same thing, because he’s going to become one of the four great presidents of the United States.” Instead of Trump saying he wouldn’t do that or correcting Knight’s ignorance about the atomic bombings ending the war and saving ‘millions’ of American lives, Trump just gushed, “Such a great guy. Wow, how do you top that? You should be proud of him in Indiana.… That is a national treasure, OK?” I’m still vomiting from that exchange.
Q: Yes, I remember Knight stated that he has “the guts” to drop atomic bombs wherever there is a threat. Is this standard of having guts to use nuclear bombs the proper definition of a “good” president at this time in history, especially in these times of heightened global intensities?
Kuznick: No, just the opposite. We now understand that the 1980s studies of nuclear winter actually underestimated the danger of nuclear war and the threat to the continued existence of life on this planet. But those studies, which warned that the smoke and debris from the nuclear incineration of cities would block the sun’s rays causing global temperatures to plummet, were falsely and erroneously debunked by the 1980s equivalents of today’s ‘experts’ who deny man-made climate change.
The latest research shows that even a limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons were to be detonated would cause partial nuclear winter and the deaths of up to 2 billion people over the next decade. There are still approximately 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world and most are 7 to 80 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. Anyone who talks glibly about using nuclear weapons is a certifiable madman and should be locked up.
Q: Russia has 7300 nuclear warheads, and the U.S. has 6970 warheads. President Trump also is currently stating that he is the first to say that nobody should have nukes, but that the U.S. just can’t fall behind Russia. With the Obama $1 trillion budget for modernizing our nuclear arsenals in place right now, why is Trump wanting to add $54 billion to the military budget? Is all this modernizing budget just a major distraction/ploy that will sabotage the international demand for the nine nuclear nations to aggressively work towards disarmament?
Kuznick: Trump recently said that it would be fine to have an arms race with Russia. It would be fine for the arms manufacturers who used to be aptly called the ‘merchants of death’. But it wouldn’t be fine for the rest of us. As Hillary Clinton correctly pointed out, “Any man who can be provoked by a Tweet should not have his hands anywhere near the nuclear codes.” That would be true whether he had big hands or tiny ones.
The U.S. and Russia, between us, have 93 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. The U.S. spends on its military more than the next 10 nations combined. More military spending is the last thing this country needs. We should be spending that money on schools, housing, health care, roads, bridges, dams, museums, the arts, and scientific research. I would like to see us CUT $54 billion dollars from the military budget each of the next few years. It is absolutely shameful that the U.S. is the only major developed nation that doesn’t offer health care as a right to all its citizens.
Q: President Trump has stated he is “very angry” about North Korea’s recent testing of ballistic missiles. He emphasized the need for our allies (Japan and South Korea) to have the option to accelerate their own missile defense systems. In fact, he also wants to develop a state-of-the-art missile defense system to keep Iran and North Korea from attacking the U.S. What do you think about this?
Kuznick: No one outside of North Korea is happy about North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. I would love to see North Korea give up its nuclear weapons. But there is little chance of that happening right now. When the U.S. invaded Iraq, the official communication from North Korea stated that the U.S. would not have invaded if Saddam Hussein had had nuclear weapons. That’s how North Korea sees the world: they believe they need nuclear weapons to keep the U.S. and others from invading them and overthrowing their brutal regime.
So first we need to build trust and nudge them toward reform in a way that won’t heighten their paranoia. That won’t be easy to do, but we need to keep trying. We need to sign a treaty to officially end the Korean War – a war that has been over for 64 years. Using sanctions, threats, and other sticks with North Korea hasn’t worked. We need to collaborate with China to offer more carrots. There’s no guarantee that that would work, but it behooves us to at least make the effort. There is no other reasonable alternative and North Korea’s bellicosity only justifies further right-wing intransigence in Japan and South Korea.
Missile defense in Europe and Asia has been destabilizing on its own. Russia sees missile defense in Romania and Poland as targeted at them, not at Iran. The Chinese see the THAAD system in South Korea as part of a U.S. strategy for undermining the Chinese deterrent. We need to find ways to defuse tensions, not exacerbate them, in this dangerous world. The nuclear experts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists had very good reason to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock thirty seconds closer to midnight – the nearest the world has been to nuclear war since 1953. With the Trump presidency and the tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Syria, Ukraine, and the Baltics, the danger of war and ultimately nuclear war is very real.
Q: Since North Korea once again tested four more ballistic missiles a few weeks ago, do you think the U.S. response to deploy the anti-missile system, THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), will further enrage China?
Kuznick: The U.S. and North Korea are engaged in a very dangerous game of escalation right now. Each side uses the other’s threats and provocations as an excuse for further threats and provocations of its own. This can only end badly. North Korea’s latest simultaneous launch of four ballistic missiles has alarmed U.S. allies in the region, especially Japan and South Korea. The ability to simultaneously launch multiple missiles suggests that North Korea could overwhelm defensive measures that are being taken or contemplated. The vulnerability of missile defense has always been that it can be overwhelmed with offensive missiles and decoys. The U.S. began to install its THAAD missile system in South Korea recently, despite the fierce opposition of China and the concerted opposition of many inside South Korea. The U.S.-South Korean agreement on THAAD was made with President Park Geun-hye, who is now facing possible impeachment. Opponents say that it has never been adequately debated.
Chinese officials believe that deployment of THAAD in South Korea will weaken their nuclear deterrent and they threaten to retaliate. Right now, China has only around 260 nuclear weapons. They have decided not to build a vast nuclear arsenal like those maintained by the United States and Russia, but they could decide to increase the number they do have. To make matters worse, Abe and other Japanese leaders may use this as an excuse to increase military spending and to install their own THAAD systems, so everyone is ratcheting up their capabilities.
We know that Obama considered a preemptive strike on North Korea to destroy its nuclear weapons program but decided against it for various reasons. Who knows what Trump is cooking up? He says all options are on the table, which means also nuclear options. The situation grows more dangerous by the hour. Neither Kim Jong-un nor Donald Trump is known for statesmanship and restraint.
Q: Trump also criticized the recent Russian deployment of intermediate-range missiles, stating Russia was in violation of the 1987 INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty), an agreement between the U.S. and Russia to curtail the use of intermediate range nuclear missiles. Do you think he is correct in his complaints?
Kuznick: The U.S. has been charging since 2014 that the ground-launched cruise missiles Russia was developing were in violation of the INF Treaty. Now it claims Russia has actually begun deploying the missiles. Russia has made counter-charges about U.S. violations, which the U.S. dismisses as spurious. I take all such charges and counter-charges as serious at a time when there is so much tension and mistrust between the two nuclear behemoths. Don’t forget that the U.S. and Russia have nearly a thousand nuclear weapons pointed at each other on hair-trigger alert. Something must be done about that immediately.
Q: What do you think of President Trump stating that the New START international treaty is a “one-sided deal, just another bad deal”? Five nuclear nations are under international treaty mandated to head toward nuclear disarmament, not to regress. Does this flippant disregard for the New START treaty show Trump’s ignorance in continuing to discredit and undermine complex international nuclear treaties, especially this one signed by Obama, which limits both U.S. and Russia on the number of nuclear warheads they can possess?
Kuznick: This is another reckless move by Trump. The treaty limits both sides to 1,550 nuclear warheads by 2018. That is still well above the threshold for nuclear winter. If that number of weapons were detonated, most complex life forms on this planet would be eliminated. During Trump’s January 28th call with Putin, Putin raised the possibility of extending the 2010 treaty. Reuters reported that Trump had to pause the call to ask his aides what the New START treaty was. When he got back on the phone, he angrily denounced the treaty. U.S.-Russian relations still haven’t recovered from George W. Bush’s cancellation of the ABM Treaty. Now we have further provocation. Trump must be stopped on this before it’s too late.
Q: What is your opinion concerning the modernization of the nuclear arsenals? Is building new smaller, yet more powerful nukes just giving an appearance of having smaller numbers of nuclear weapons when in reality they will be more dangerous? Is this ‘less is more’ but more modern (more powerful) the smart way to go, or is it a strategy to avoid true change? Doesn’t the modernization category actually allow a country to get around the limits set by New START treaty?
Kuznick: The fact that Barack Obama committed the U.S. to a 30-year $1 trillion dollar nuclear modernization program is sufficient grounds for rescinding his Nobel Peace Prize. What was he thinking? This won’t make the U.S. safer, it will make the world more dangerous. The U.S. will be modernizing every category of nuclear weapons. It will make them more useable. That is a terrible legacy for a man who started out saying he wanted to eliminate nuclear weapons. Shame on him.
Q: What did you think of General Lee Butler, the last Commander in Chief of the U.S. Strategic Air Command, calling for nuclear abolition when he stepped down years ago?
Kuznick: General Butler has been a voice of sanity when it comes to nuclear arms. He has called for their abolition. He considers them “immoral and therefore anathema to societies premised on the sanctity of life.” He urgently wants to scrap land-based ICBMs, which he contends are anachronistic and dangerously vulnerable to preemptive attack. Like William Perry, George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, he believes that nuclear weapons are a scourge upon humanity that must be eliminated.
Q: In closing, President Trump has stated that he wants $54 billion added to the military budget, but he plans to cut non-military programs by the same amount. This includes environmental protections, at a time when climate change has been cited as a national security issue. Do you foresee an increase of nuclear threats if the effects of climate change increase tensions worldwide?
Kuznick: Trump’s assault on the environment is the flip side to his militarism. Both are crimes against the present and the future. Let’s encourage him to do something positive instead. He has said that he wants to improve relations with Russia. That would be a major step in the right direction. Let’s also see him reverse course on China. He has eased his rhetoric a bit on that.
In 1942, Franklin Roosevelt called for “four policemen” to guarantee the peace and stability of the postwar world. We may not need ‘policemen,’ and Britain’s day on the world stage has largely passed, but let’s see the U.S., Russia, China, and Germany work together to ease tensions and move the world down the path of peace and development. Other countries can join in that effort. Abolishing nuclear weapons and initiating a crash program to develop clean energy will be high on that agenda, as will be a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources. Oxfam’s recent report that the richest 8 people in the world have more wealth than the poorest 3.6 billion should also give a clear sign that we have a lot of work to do.
Jane Ayers has conducted interviews with world figures concerning global issues for the Los Angeles Times INTERVIEW page, and for the editorial page (Inquiry Interview) for USA Today. She is a regular contributor to Reader Supported News, and can be reached at JaneAyersMedia@gmail.com
A gift of peace: check out our online store for inspiring Mother’s Day gift ideas, including artful prints by Elizabeth Gallery. Please help us sustain our movement for peace and Nuclear Zero, and make a donation in honor of a mother in your life.
Perspectives
A Better Mousetrap? by David Krieger
Testimony of a Hiroshima Survivor by Fujimori Toshiki
Message to the UN Conference Negotiating a Nuclear Ban Treaty by Pope Francis
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy
U.S. Ambassador Leads Pro-Nuclear Protest Outside UN Ban Treaty Negotiations
Head of U.S. Strategic Command Opposes Vision of a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
Nuclear Insanity
Watch Hundreds of U.S. Nuclear Tests on YouTube
Nuclear Disarmament
Scientists Urge a Ban on Nuclear Weapons
U.S. Court Hears Oral Arguments in Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Disarmament Case
War and Peace
Russia Plans Cuts to Military Budget
Nuclear Modernization
U.S. to Reconsider Eventual Goal of Nuclear Disarmament
Resources
This Month in Nuclear Threat History
Toward a Fundamental Change in Nuclear Weapons Policy
Intensive Summer Program: Hiroshima and Peace
Marshall Islands Student Association Project
Foundation Activities
Letter in The New York Times
Video Featuring Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick
NAPF Participates in Ban Treaty Negotiations
Peace Poetry Contest Now Accepting Entries
Peace Literacy
Quotes
Perspectives
A Better Mousetrap?
by David Krieger
Albert Einstein noted, “Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.”
We humans have created the equivalent of a mousetrap for ourselves. And we’ve constructed tens of thousands of them over the seven decades of the Nuclear Age.
In the mid-1980s, the world reached a high of 70,000 nuclear weapons, with more than 95 percent of them in the arsenals of the United States and Soviet Union. Since then, the number has fallen to under 15,000. While this downward trend is positive, the world’s nuclear countries possess enough nuclear weapons to destroy the human species many times over.
I was 1 year and 4 months-old when the bomb was dropped. I was sick that day, so my mother was heading to the hospital with me on her back when the bomb was dropped. We were 2.3 km from the hypocenter. Fortunately, a two-story house between the hypocenter and us prevented us from directly being exposed to the heat. Yet, we were thrown all the way to the edge of the river bank. My mother, with me in her arms, managed to get to the nearby mountain called Ushitayama. Our family members were in different locations at the time of the bombing, but everyone escaped to the same mountain of Ushitayama, except for my fourth-elder sister. For many days that followed, my parents and my sisters kept going back to the area near the hypocenter to look for my fourth-eldest sister, who was missing. We never found her. We never found her body either.
In the meantime, I had my entire body covered with bandages, with only eyes, nose, and mouth uncovered. Everybody thought I would die over time. Yet, I survived. It is a miracle. I am here at the UN, asking for an abolition of nuclear weapons. I am convinced that this is a mission I am given as a survivor of the atomic-bomb.
Message to the UN Conference Negotiating a Nuclear Ban Treaty
by Pope Francis
If we take into consideration the principal threats to peace and security with their many dimensions in this multipolar world of the twenty-first century as, for example, terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, cybersecurity, environmental problems, poverty, not a few doubts arise regarding the inadequacy of nuclear deterrence as an effective response to such challenges. These concerns are even greater when we consider the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences that would follow from any use of nuclear weapons, with devastating, indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, over time and space. Similar cause for concern arises when examining the waste of resources spent on nuclear issues for military purposes, which could instead be used for worthy priorities like the promotion of peace and integral human development, as well as the fight against poverty, and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
We need also to ask ourselves how sustainable is a stability based on fear, when it actually increases fear and undermines relationships of trust between peoples.
U.S. Ambassador Leads Pro-Nuclear Protest Outside UN Ban Treaty Negotiations
On March 27, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley led a press conference in protest of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Toward Their Total Elimination. Ambassador Haley spoke briefly at the press conference along with UK Ambassador Matthew Rycroft and French Deputy Ambassador Alexis Lamek.
The United States strongly opposed the idea of negotiating a nuclear ban treaty when it was under discussion in 2016 during the Obama Administration. Staunch U.S. opposition to a ban treaty is now continuing under the Trump Administration.
Head of U.S. Strategic Command Opposes Vision of a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
Gen. John Hyten, head of United States Strategic Command, told reporters at the annual meeting of the Military Reporters and Editors Association that nuclear weapons make the world safer. Gen. Hyten said, “Can I imagine a world without nuclear weapons? Yes, I can. That’s a world I didn’t like.”
He criticized the effort underway at the United Nations to achieve a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, saying that nuclear weapons act as a deterrent and keep the peace.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has released dozens of videos showing U.S. nuclear weapons tests. The footage was captured from tests conducted from 1945 to 1962 in the Marshall Islands and Nevada. LLNL restored and declassified the films, many of which were deteriorating.
Dr. Gregory Spriggs, a weapons physicist in charge of the project at Livermore, said, “I think that if we capture the history of this and show what the force of these weapons are and how much devastation they can wreak, then maybe people will be reluctant to use them.”
Over 3,600 scientists have signed an open letter urging the United Nations to complete negotiations on a new treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. The open letter, which includes signatures of 28 Nobel laureates, states, “We scientists bear a special responsibility for nuclear weapons, since it was scientists who invented them and discovered that their effects are even more horrific than first thought.”
The open letter was organized by the Future of Life Institute, and was presented to Her Excellency Ms. Elayne Whyte Gómez of Costa Rica, President of the ban treaty negotiations at the United Nations.
U.S. Court Hears Oral Arguments in Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Disarmament Case
On March 15, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments from the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the United States in the Marshall Islands’ nuclear disarmament lawsuit. The RMI filed suit in 2014 against the United States for breaches of Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires good faith negotiations for an end to the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament.
Oral arguments before the three-judge panel centered around the United States’ preliminary objections, as opposed to the merits of the case. A ruling by the Ninth Circuit is expected in the coming months.
Russia appears to have planned a cut of over 25% to its military budget next year. Military news outlet IHS Jane’s calls this “the largest cut to military expenditure in the country since the early 1990s.” The cuts are likely due to a combination of the lower price of oil and Western sanctions against Russia.
After these cuts take effect, Russia’s total annual military budget will be roughly the same as the increase in the U.S. military budget proposed by President Trump ($54 billion).
U.S. to Reconsider Eventual Goal of Nuclear Disarmament
Christopher Ford, senior director on the National Security Council for weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation, told a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conference that the Trump administration is reconsidering the long-standing U.S. goal of eventual global nuclear disarmament.
Ford implied that because of the U.S. plans to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal and production infrastructure, “It’s not totally obvious that we can continue to have it both ways in that respect for the foreseeable future.”
History chronicles many instances when humans have been threatened by nuclear weapons. In this article, Jeffrey Mason outlines some of the threats that have taken place in the month of April, including the April 4, 1949 creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
For more information on the history of the Nuclear Age, visit NAPF’s Nuclear Files website.
Toward a Fundamental Change in Nuclear Weapons Policy
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is co-sponsoring a conference in Washington, DC on April 27 entitled “Toward a Fundamental Change in Nuclear Weapons Policy.” The conference will be convened by Soka Gakkai International-USA and will take place at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center.
Current realities call for a transformational change in nuclear weapons policy. This all-day conference will bring together scientists, policy experts, and religious leaders to discuss what must be done to pave the way for a nuclear weapons-free world.
The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. For more information and to register, click here.
Intensive Summer Program: Hiroshima and Peace
Hiroshima City University will offer its intensive summer program “Hiroshima and Peace” to students from abroad and in Japan. The course aims to share recent advances of peace studies and to underline the importance of world peace in our age.
The Hiroshima and Peace program provides participants with an opportunity to think seriously about the importance of peacemaking in the world. The program consists of a series of lectures by specialists in different fields related to peace studies, discussions, and several featured programs, including testimony from a survivor of the atomic bombing, visits to the Atomic-bomb Dome and Peace Memorial Museum, and participation in the Peace Memorial Ceremony on August 6th.
For more information about the course, click here.
Marshall Islands Student Association Project
The Marshall Islands Students Association (MISA) in Fiji is asking for members of the public to join them in solidarity as they urge Pacific leaders to prioritize Sustainable Development Goal 14.1 regarding land-based pollutants, which has been pushed to the chopping block by many technical agencies citing lack of data.
A dome located on Runit Island in Enewatak Atoll holds a portion of the most toxic and contaminated garbage generated by 67 nuclear and thermonuclear bomb tests conducted by the U.S. on Enewetak and Bikini Atoll. The rest of the fallout will remain spread across the islands for tens of thousands of years. This is not only a concern for the Marshall Islands, but one that concerns all in the region. Nuclear contamination does not respect any border or boundaries.
MISA is calling for submissions in solidarity through poetry, dance, art and photos. For more information, visit the MISA Facebook page.
Foundation Activities
Letter in The New York Times
The New York Times published a letter to the editor written by Rick Wayman, NAPF’s Director of Programs and Operations, on March 15. Wayman wrote the letter in response to a report about calls for Europe to develop its own nuclear arsenal.
He wrote in part, “Those in Europe arguing in favor of a continental nuclear arsenal are heavy on politics, but glaringly light on law and humanity.”
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 16th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future featured legendary Hollywood director Oliver Stone and Professor Peter Kuznick, co-authors of the internationally-acclaimed documentary The Untold History of the United States.
The event, entitled “Untold History, Uncertain Future,” took place on February 23 at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. A video of the event is now available to watch for free on YouTube. Click here for the video.
NAPF Participates in Ban Treaty Negotiations
Numerous representatives of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation participated in the first round of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Toward Their Total Elimination, which took place from March 27-31 at UN headquarters in New York. NAPF Director of Programs Rick Wayman chaired a side event on March 28 entitled “U.S. Nuclear Modernization Under President Trump: Implications for the Ban Treaty Process.”
Wayman also wrote an article for the Nuclear Ban Daily, a publication by Reaching Critical Will that was distributed to NGOs and delegates on each day of the negotiations. His article was entitled “‘Modernization’ Violates Every Likely Prohibition in Ban Treaty.” To read the article, click here.
Peace Poetry Contest Now Accepting Entries
April marks National Poetry Month. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s annual Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry contest is accepting entries through July 1, 2017. The awards encourage poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace and the human spirit. The Poetry Awards include three age categories: Adult, Youth 13-18, and Youth 12 & Under.
The contest is open to people worldwide. Poems must be original, unpublished, and in English.
For more information on the contest, including instructions on how to enter, click here. To read the winning poems from past years, click here.
Peace Literacy in an Age of Anger
NAPF Peace Leadership Director Paul K. Chappell recently visited Corvallis, Oregon, to deliver a workshop on Peace Literacy. The Corvallis Advocate published an article about Chappell’s Peace Literacy concept.
In her introduction of Paul K. Chappell at the Oregon State University (OSU) event, Allison Davis White-Eyes—OSU’s Assistant Vice Provost and Director of Diversity and Cultural Engagement—described how, “It has become more clear that we must find a way to speak to one another, to listen to one another [and] to reach across the great ideological divide of our country. The time is now.”
“Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread.”
— Pablo Neruda. This quote appears in the book Speaking of Peace: Quotations to Inspire Action, which is available for purchase in the NAPF Peace Store.
“There is no such thing as a limited nuclear war, and the United States should be seeking to raise the threshold for nuclear use, not blur that threshold by building additional so-called low-yield weapons.”
— Twelve U.S. Senatorsin a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
“We are going to be having an increase in the movements of weapons in coming years and we should be worried. We always have to assume the worst-case scenario when we are hauling nuclear weapons around the country.”
— Robert Alvarez, in a Los Angeles Timesstory about the troubled federal agency tasked with transporting U.S. nuclear weapons around the country.
This article was originally published in Reaching Critical Will’s Nuclear Ban Daily.
According to Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, who spoke at a side event in Conference Room B on Tuesday, all nine nuclear-armed countries are “modernizing” some or all aspects of their nuclear arsenals. This might go some way in explaining why many of these countries so vehemently oppose the good faith ban treaty negotiations that began this week in New York.
Taking as an example the United States’ actual and proposed modernization plans, every single likely prohibition contained in a nuclear ban treaty would be violated.
Stockpiling, possession, development, production, and deployment would all likely be prohibited under this treaty. Additional proposed prohibitions include the use, threat of use, transfer, testing, and financing.
It is plain to see how the first five elements listed would be violated by a “modernized” arsenal. But what about the rest?
The use and threat of use of nuclear weapons are implicit in the policy of nuclear deterrence. As President Trump is rumored to have asked about nuclear weapons, “If we have them, why can’t we use them?”
Transfer of nuclear weapons is a key to the modernization of the United States’ B61-12 nuclear bomb. Widely considered to be the world’s first “smart” gravity bomb, this “modernized” bomb, its guided tail fin kit and variable explosive yield would be transferred to the territories of five non-nuclear weapon states (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey) under the auspices of NATO.
There are many voices within the United States calling for a resumption of full-scale underground nuclear testing in Nevada. Some believe that it is desirable as a geopolitical message to foes such as North Korea. However, proposed U.S. nuclear modernization programs are introducing more and more uncertainty into the stockpile by combining different elements of different warheads into new weapons. These proposed combinations, which are becoming more and more exotic, have never been tested together. Once billions of dollars and years of work have been shoveled into the new warheads, pressure to conduct full-scale tests would be significant.
A prohibition on financing of nuclear weapons would cover financial or material support to public and private enterprises involved in any of the activities covered in the treaty. Predicted to cost at least $1 trillion over the next 30 years, such a prohibition would have meaningful impact. Even the nuclear weapon design labs in the United States are operated by for-profit entities. The companies currently involved in producing and financing nuclear weapons are well known thanks to the investigative work of PAX in their regular “Don’t Bank on the Bomb” reports.
While the nuclear-armed states are unlikely to join a ban treaty at its inception, codifying the illegitimacy and illegality of nuclear weapons into international law will be a significant step leading to elimination. Delegitimizing, slowing, and stopping the “modernization” programs of nuclear-armed states is of immediate importance, and is another reason why a ban treaty is urgently needed.
This message from Pope Francis was delivered to the opening session of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination on March 27, 2017.
To Her Excellency Elayne Whyte Gómez
President of the United Nations Conference
to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons,
Leading Towards their Total Elimination
I extend cordial greetings to you, Madam President, and to all the representatives of the various nations and international organizations, and of civil society participating in this Conference. I wish to encourage you to work with determination in order to promote the conditions necessary for a world without nuclear weapons.
On 25 September 2015, before the General Assembly of the United Nations, I emphasized what the Preamble and first Article of the United Nations Charter indicate as the foundations of the international juridical framework: peace, the pacific solution of disputes and the development of friendly relations between nations. An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are contradictory to the very spirit of the United Nations. We must therefore commit ourselves to a world without nuclear weapons, by fully implementing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, both in letter and spirit (cf. Addressto the General Assembly of the United Nations, 25 September 2015).
But why give ourselves this demanding and forward-looking goal in the present international context characterized by an unstable climate of conflict, which is both cause and indication of the difficulties encountered in advancing and strengthening the process of nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation?
If we take into consideration the principal threats to peace and security with their many dimensions in this multipolar world of the twenty-first century as, for example, terrorism, asymmetrical conflicts, cybersecurity, environmental problems, poverty, not a few doubts arise regarding the inadequacy of nuclear deterrence as an effective response to such challenges. These concerns are even greater when we consider the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences that would follow from any use of nuclear weapons, with devastating, indiscriminate and uncontainable effects, over time and space. Similar cause for concern arises when examining the waste of resources spent on nuclear issues for military purposes, which could instead be used for worthy priorities like the promotion of peace and integral human development, as well as the fight against poverty, and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
We need also to ask ourselves how sustainable is a stability based on fear, when it actually increases fear and undermines relationships of trust between peoples.
International peace and stability cannot be based on a false sense of security, on the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation, or on simply maintaining a balance of power. Peace must be built on justice, on integral human development, on respect for fundamental human rights, on the protection of creation, on the participation of all in public life, on trust between peoples, on the support of peaceful institutions, on access to education and health, on dialogue and solidarity. From this perspective, we need to go beyond nuclear deterrence: the international community is called upon to adopt forward-looking strategies to promote the goal of peace and stability and to avoid short-sighted approaches to the problems surrounding national and international security.
In this context, the ultimate goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons becomes both a challenge and a moral and humanitarian imperative. A concrete approach should promote a reflection on an ethics of peace and multilateral and cooperative security that goes beyond the fear and isolationism that prevail in many debates today. Achieving a world without nuclear weapons involves a long-term process, based on the awareness that “everything is connected” within the perspective of an integral ecology (cf. Laudato Si’, 117, 138). The common destiny of mankind demands the pragmatic strengthening of dialogue and the building and consolidating of mechanisms of trust and cooperation, capable of creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.
Growing interdependence and globalization mean that any response to the threat of nuclear weapons should be collective and concerted, based on mutual trust. This trust can be built only through dialogue that is truly directed to the common good and not to the protection of veiled or particular interests; such dialogue, as far as possible, should include all: nuclear states, countries which do not possess nuclear weapons, the military and private sectors, religious communities, civil societies, and international organizations. And in this endeavour we must avoid those forms of mutual recrimination and polarization which hinder dialogue rather than encourage it. Humanity has the ability to work together in building up our common home; we have the freedom, intelligence and capacity to lead and direct technology, to place limits on our power, and to put all this at the service of another type of progress: one that is more human, social and integral (cf. ibid., 13, 78, 112; Message for the 22nd Meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Agreement on Climate Change (COP22), 10 November 2016).
This Conference intends to negotiate a Treaty inspired by ethical and moral arguments. It is an exercise in hope and it is my wish that it may also constitute a decisive step along the road towards a world without nuclear weapons. Although this is a significantly complex and long-term goal, it is not beyond our reach.
Madam President, I sincerely wish that the efforts of this Conference may be fruitful and provide an effective contribution to advancing an ethic of peace and of multilateral and cooperative security, which humanity very much needs today. Upon all those gathered at this important meeting, and upon the citizens of the countries you represent, I invoke the blessings of the Almighty.
