Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

  • Message to Youth

    [February 4, 2016]

    You are not required
    to kill on command, to wear
    a uniform, to camouflage yourself,
    to place medals on your chest, to check
    your conscience at the door, to march
    in unison, to bear the burden of the body count.

    You are not required
    to pledge allegiance to the flag, to sing
    patriotic songs, to distort history,
    to believe lies, to support leaders when
    they are wrong, to turn a blind eye
    to violence, or to be cheerleaders for war.

    You are required
    to love, to live with compassion, to be kinder
    than necessary and to seek the truth
    in the time allotted to you.

  • Twelve Possible Names for World War Three

    [January 27, 2016]

    The Great Fire War.

    The Long Afternoon War.

    The End of Civilization War.

    The Unwanted War.

    The Failure of Deterrence War.

    The Ice Age Trigger War.

    The No Heroes War.

    The Mutant Creation War.

    The Dark Skies War.

    The Unending Fall-Out War.

    The Green Glow of Defeat War.

    The War of No Winners.

  • Controlling the Media, Narrowing the Conversation

    The mainstream media has great power to influence the public conversation about national and international policies. Not only are they able to choose the news and opinion pieces that they feature in their newspapers and news broadcasts, but they also choose the slant they put on the news and which letters they run in response to their articles.

    I recently responded with letters to two articles in The New York Times. Since the paper chose not to print either of these letters, I am sharing them on the websites of alternative media, including the website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (wagingpeace.org).

    My first letter concerns North Korea’s fourth nuclear test on January 6, 2016.

    In “Stopping North Korea’s Nuclear Threat” (January 8, 2016), the authors argue, “North Korea’s leaders still believe that nuclear weapons will prevent others from attacking them…This is fanciful.”  But is it?  Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi both gave up their respective country’s nuclear weapons programs and their countries were subsequently attacked and they were overthrown and killed.  These are inducements to nuclear proliferation that have not been lost on the North Korean regime.

    The best way to assure that nuclear weapons are not transferred or used by North Korea or by any of the other nuclear-armed countries, is for all nine of them to negotiate in good faith for complete nuclear disarmament.  The U.S. can’t assure the success of these negotiations, but it can use its convening power to initiate and lead them.  All nine nuclear-armed countries need to be at the table and have their voices heard.  Unless this happens and the negotiations are successful, no one in the world will be secure.

    The second letter concerns the planned modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

    U.S. security officials, past and present, are taking positions on the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, as reported in “As U.S. Modernizes Nuclear Weapons, ‘Smaller’ Leaves Some Uneasy” (January 11, 2016).  What is glaringly absent from their arguments, however, is the U.S. legal obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for complete nuclear disarmament.  The modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal (and its delivery systems and infrastructure) directly violates the treaty obligation to end the nuclear arms race and will also spur other nuclear-armed countries to modernize their nuclear arsenals.  Further, the failure to negotiate for complete nuclear disarmament encourages nuclear proliferation, which could lead to nuclear terrorism and nuclear war.

    Nuclear modernization, expected to exceed $1 trillion, not only violates our legal obligations under the NPT, but diverts billions away from providing food, shelter, education and health care to those in need.  Nuclear modernization will benefit only the arms merchants and is a trapdoor to nuclear catastrophe.

    If the United States does not recognize its own responsibility for nuclear weapons proliferation and fulfill its obligations for nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it should expect countries such as North Korea to pursue their nuclear options.  Further, if the U.S. continues to modernize its nuclear arsenal rather than fulfill its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is making not only nuclear proliferation more likely, but also nuclear war and nuclear terrorism.  These are issues that deserve a hearing and a conversation among the American people, especially in this election year when we are electing, arguably, the most powerful leader in the world.  His or her views on nuclear policy must be part of our national debates.  The lack of a national conversation about U.S. nuclear policy adversely affects the security of every American and every citizen of the world.

  • You Are Not One But Many

    Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Your deep voice still hangs in the air,
    Melting the cowardly silence.
    You are the one standing solidly there
    Looking straight in the face of violence.

    You are the one who dreams
    That this nation will honor its creed.
    You are the one who steps forward.
    You are the one to bleed.

    You are not one but many
    Unwilling to cower or crawl.
    You are the one who will take no less
    Than a world that is just for all.

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

  • North Korea: How Many Wake-Up Calls Will It Take?

    North Korea has been sounding alarms since it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003.  Its latest wake-up call in early 2016 was its fourth nuclear test.  This time it claimed to have tested a far more powerful thermonuclear weapon, although seismic reports do not seem to bear this out.

    North Korea has been roundly condemned for its nuclear tests, including this one.  To put this in perspective, however, the U.S. has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, continues to conduct subcritical nuclear tests, has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, is in breach of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, regularly tests nuclear-capable missiles, and plans to spend $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear arsenal.  The U.S. and the other nuclear-armed countries are quick to point fingers at North Korea, but slow to recognize their own role in fanning the flames of nuclear catastrophe.

    What does an awakened world actually mean?

    As the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have repeatedly warned, “We must abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.”  This will require good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race and achieve nuclear zero.  And these negotiations must be convened and led by the US and Russia, the two most powerful nuclear-armed countries in the world.

    If we are not awakened by North Korea’s latest test, what will it take?  What other, louder alarm is necessary for the world to come together and work toward achieving nuclear zero before nuclear weapons are used again and we all become victims of a war from which humanity will never awaken?

  • Join Us in Working for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    2015 has been a strong and eventful year for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    We have:

    • Supported the Marshall Islands (and their legal team) in their courageous lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries;
    • Supported the nuclear agreement with Iran;
    • Encouraged President Obama to fulfill the Prague Promise for a world free of nuclear weapons that he initiated in 2009;
    • Opposed the planned $1 trillion expenditure on the “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal;
    • Reached more than 5,000 people through our Peace Leadership Program;
    • Expanded our membership to 75,000 people;
    • Reached more than 1,000,000 people through our social media outreach (find us on Facebook and Twitter);
    • Hosted anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott for the 2015 Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future;
    • Played an active role at the ninth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty;
    • Participated in activities marking the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings;
    • Honored Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow with our 2015 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award;
    • Helped to organize an International Youth Summit on Nuclear Weapons Abolition in Hiroshima;
    • Been a steady voice for Nuclear Zero;
    • Played an influential role in the lives of 12 college interns who will carry with them into the world the spirit of peace and justice;
    • and much more.

    With your help we can make 2016 an even stronger and more eventful year. We have a great team in place for 2016. Please be a part of that team, working for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons. Stand up! Speak out! Join in!

    Together we can build a more peaceful world and end the nuclear weapons threat to all humanity.

  • Estamos viviendo al borde de un precipicio nuclear

    Con las armas nucleares,  ¿que podría salir mal? La respuesta es corta: Todo.

    Las armas nucleares podrían ser lanzadas por accidente o error de cálculo. Ya ha habido varias “por poco” debido a advertencias falsas que casi provocan lanzamientos reales, lo que muy probablemente hubiera dado lugar a una represalia. Estas falsas advertencias son mucho más peligrosas para EE.UU. y Rusia sabiendo que cada lado mantiene cientos de armas nucleares en alerta, listas para ser lanzadas en cualquier  momento al darse la orden para hacerlo.

    La mera posesión de armas nucleares y el “prestigio” en la comunidad internacional asociado a dicha posesión es un incentivo para la proliferación nuclear. Actualmente hay nueve países con armas nucleares. ¿Cuánto más peligroso sería el mundo si en su lugar fueran 19, 29 o 99 naciones?

    Las armas nucleares tratan de ser justificadas por una hipótesis sobre el comportamiento humano conocida como la disuasión nuclear. Se arguye que una nación (con o sin armas nucleares) no atacará a otra si hay la amenaza de represalia nuclear. Pero la disuasión nuclear no es infalible y no proporciona protección física. La seguridad que ofrece es totalmente psicológica. Falla si un lado no cree que la otra parte realmente efectuaría una represalia nuclear. Falla si uno de los  lados no es racional. Es un error en el caso de que un grupo terrorista entre en posesión de armas nucleares, y al no tener un territorio, no se pueden tomar represalias en su contra y, además, podrían ser suicidas.

    La disuasión nuclear puede proporcionar una débil, incierta y poco fiable protección contra otros estados, pero no ofrece ninguna contra los terroristas. Por lo tanto, los terroristas en posesión de dichas armas son la peor pesadilla de cualquier estado, incluyendo a los poseedores de estos fatídicos arsenales.

    Ante tales peligros, tiene sentido tratar de reducir los arsenales nucleares al menor número posible de armas (con la meta de  cero) para que las que queden puedan ser vigiladas con mayor eficacia y evitar que caigan en las manos de grupos terroristas.

    También es cierto que el Tratado de No Proliferación Nuclear (TNP) obliga a los 190 países del tratado a negociar de buena fe sobre las medidas eficaces para poner fin a la carrera armamentista en fecha próxima y lograr el desarme nuclear completo. La obligación de negociar de buena fe para el desarme nuclear también se aplica a los cuatro países con armas nucleares que no son parte del TNP (Israel, India, Pakistán y Corea del Norte) a través del derecho internacional consuetudinario.

    Ya que está claro que mucho podría salir mal con las armas nucleares, incluyendo que algunas caigan en manos de terroristas, es sorprendente que haya tanta complacencia en torno al tema. Esta complacencia es alimentada por la apatía, el conformismo, la ignorancia y la negación. Sin la participación ciudadana, empujando a los líderes políticos para que actúen, es probable que el mundo será testigo de la pesadilla del terror nuclear, ya sea ocasionada por un país o por terroristas en posesión de armas nucleares. La apatía y la negación tienen el potencial de corroer y disolver nuestro futuro común.

    Por el momento, los nueve países con armas nucleares tienen planes para modernizar sus arsenales, a pesar de la inmoralidad, ilegalidad y desperdicio de los recursos involucrados en hacerlo. Tan sólo EE.UU. está planeando gastar mil millones de millones de dólares en la modernización de su arsenal nuclear en los próximos tres decenios. ¿Dónde está la lógica de estas acciones cuando hay tantas necesidades humanas incumplidas?

    Las armas nucleares no son la solución a nuestros problemas, y plantean el espectro de la devastación de la civilización y el destino de la especie humana. ¿Que podría salir mal? ¿No deberían los ciudadanos simplemente ignorar los peligros nucleares y dejarlos en manos de los líderes de los países con esas armas?  Eso sería una simple continuación del status quo y no habría ninguna solución.

    Debemos reconocer que estamos viviendo al borde de un precipicio nuclear con todos los peligros antes mencionados. En lugar de confiar en la disuasión y seguir modernizando los arsenales nucleares, tenemos que presionar a nuestros líderes políticos para que cumplan con nuestras obligaciones morales y legales para negociar de buena fe la prohibición y la eliminación de las armas nucleares. Es decir, tenemos que liberarnos de nuestra absurda complacencia y comprometernos por lograr un mundo cero nuclear.

    Este artículo fue publicado originalmente por Truthout.

    Vaya aquí para la versión inglés.

    David Krieger es Presidente de Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Rubén D. Arvizu es Director para América Latina de Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • We Are Living at the Edge of a Nuclear Precipice

    With nuclear weapons, what could possibly go wrong? The short answer is: Everything.

    Nuclear weapons could be launched by accident or miscalculation. There have already been several close calls related to false warnings nearly leading to actual launches, which would most likely have led to retaliatory responses. These false warnings are all the more dangerous for the US and Russia knowing that each side keeps hundreds of nuclear weapons on high alert, ready to be launched in moments of an order to do so.

    David KriegerThe mere possession of nuclear weapons and the prestige in the international community associated with such possession is an inducement to nuclear proliferation. There are currently nine nuclear-armed countries. How much more dangerous would the world become if there were 19, 29 or 99?

    Nuclear weapons are justified by a hypothesis about human behavior known as nuclear deterrence. It posits that a nation (with or without nuclear weapons) will not attack a nation that threatens nuclear retaliation. But nuclear deterrence is not foolproof and it does not provide physical protection. The security it provides is entirely psychological. It fails if one side does not believe that the other side would really engage in nuclear retaliation. It fails if one side is not rational. It fails in the case of a terrorist group in possession of nuclear weapons that does not have territory to retaliate against and additionally may be suicidal.

    Nuclear deterrence may provide some weak, uncertain and unreliable protection against other states, but it provides no protection against terrorists. Thus, terrorists in possession of nuclear weapons are any state’s worst nightmare, including nuclear-armed states. In light of such dangers, it would make sense to seek to reduce nuclear arsenals to the lowest possible number of weapons (on the way to zero) so that any that remained could be more effectively guarded and kept from the hands of terrorist groups.

    It is also true that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) requires the 190 parties to the treaty to negotiate in good faith for effective measures to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to achieve complete nuclear disarmament. The obligation to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament also applies to the four nuclear-armed countries that are not parties to the NPT (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) through customary international law.

    Since it is clear that much could go wrong with nuclear weapons, including some weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, it is surprising that there is so much complacency around the issue. This complacency is fuelled by apathy, conformity, ignorance and denial. Without citizen engagement, pushing on political leaders to act, it is likely that the world will witness nightmarish nuclear terror, either of the state variety or that actually brought about by terrorists in possession of nuclear weapons. Apathy and denial have the potential to corrode and dissolve our common future.

    For the present, the nine nuclear-armed countries all have plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals, despite the immorality, illegality and waste of resources involved in doing so. The US alone is planning to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades. Where is the humanity in seeking to devote resources to improving nuclear weaponry and delivery systems when there are so many human needs that are going unfulfilled?

    Nuclear weapons are not a solution to any human problem, and they raise the specter of the devastation of civilization and the doom of the human species. What could possibly go wrong? Shouldn’t good citizens just ignore nuclear dangers and leave them in the hands of whoever happens to be leading the nuclear-armed countries? That would actually be a continuation of the status quo and would be no solution at all.

    We must recognize that we are living at the edge of a nuclear precipice with the ever-present dangers of nuclear proliferation, nuclear accidents and miscalculations, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war. Instead of relying on nuclear deterrence and pursuing the modernization of nuclear arsenals, we need to press our political leaders to fulfill our moral and legal obligations to negotiate in good faith for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons. That is, we need to break free of our acidic complacency and commit ourselves to achieving a nuclear zero world.

    This article was originally published by truthout.

    Click here for the Spanish version.

  • Paris: War Is Not the Answer

    The attacks on innocents in Paris on November 13, 2015 were horrifying crimes, filling the city with grief and uniting people throughout the world in solidarity with the victims and with France.  These attacks were cold-blooded murders of innocent people, clearly crimes deserving punishment.  But when crimes are used as the impetus for war, the crimes and grief are multiplied and the toll of innocents increases to become the norm.  Surely, we must cry havoc, but we must also be wary of letting loose the dogs of war.

    The attacks in New York on September 11, 2001 were also unspeakable crimes.  These attacks also stirred the sympathy and solidarity of the world, in this case for the United States, until the U.S. answered the attacks by letting loose the snarling dogs of war, first against Afghanistan and then against Iraq, a country having nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.  The leaders who perpetrated these wars also caused untold sorrow and death of innocents.  While perpetrators of the attacks in New York, including Osama bin Laden, have been tracked down and captured or killed, those U.S. leaders who committed the worst of the Nuremberg crimes, crimes against peace, particularly in Iraq, have never been brought to justice.

    It was the illegal U.S. war against Iraq, at least in part, that gave birth to ISIS and stoked its smoldering resentment and aggression against the West, and yet those who perpetrated this war still walk free.  And crimes within these wars, such as the bombing of the Doctors without Borders hospital in Kunduz (Afghanistan), still continue.  Unfortunately, we cannot roll back time or erase bad decisions by U.S. leaders, but we can learn from those bad decisions.  The West, particularly France, can seek out the perpetrators of the Paris crimes and bring them to justice.  Crimes demand justice for the victims, not warfare that will only create more victims in an ongoing loop of vengeance and retaliation.

    The challenge today is to find a means of ending this loop of vengeance and retaliation.  This will require acting morally, legally (under international law), and pragmatically (by not inflaming more deaths of innocents and more violence).  This is a great challenge, which will require a new way of thinking, based on avoiding wars rather than perpetuating them.  It will require righting many of the wrongs that the West has inflicted on the Middle East, including ending the long-standing injustices that have been brought to bear on the Palestinians.  It will require the West curbing its hunger for cheap oil from the Middle East.  It will require finding a means of cutting off sources of funding for ISIS, which allow it to pursue war and support terrorism.

    It is also clear that the West cannot fight terrorism with nuclear weapons.  These devices of mass annihilation are not suitable for stopping crimes associated with terrorism.  On the other hand, if the number of nuclear weapons in the world is not dramatically reduced (on the way to zero) and bomb-grade fissionable materials not brought under secure safeguards, terrorists will end up with nuclear or radiological weapons.  This could lead to disasters almost beyond comprehension.  Terrorists in possession of nuclear weapons will not be subject to nuclear deterrence.  They are suicidal, and they do not have territory to retaliate against.  Thus, nuclear deterrence won’t work against them.  If we don’t want to witness or be victims of nuclear terrorism, it is now past time to begin negotiating seriously to create a Nuclear Zero world, as we are required to do under international law.

    The terrorist acts in Paris were a terrible tragedy, but war is not the answer.  In solidarity with the people of France, we must seek justice, not war, if we are to end the cycle of violence that threatens us all and undermines our common humanity.

  • The Fate of Humanity

    The fate of humanity and that of all other inhabitants of the planet rests far too comfortably in the hands of a small number of national leaders (currently all male) who have the self-ordained authority to launch nuclear weapons. They hold in their hands the fate of every man, woman and child on the planet. On one sunlit morning or afternoon any one of these powerful individuals could launch his country’s nuclear weapons, triggering retaliatory responses. The skies would darken with the ash and soot rising from burning cities and create a nuclear winter. Even a small nuclear war could cause a nuclear famine, leading to the deaths by starvation of some two billion of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

    Those with the power and control over nuclear weapons could turn this planet, unique in all the universe in supporting life, into the charred remains of a Global Hiroshima. Should any leader hold so much power? Should we be content to allow such power to rest in any hands at all?

    Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein painted the starkness of our dilemma six decades ago in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    Humanity has a choice to make. We can continue with business as usual, standing in the dark shadows of apathy, conformity, ignorance and denial, or we can take action to abolish nuclear weapons. Doing nothing all but assures that nuclear weapons will spread to other countries and eventually again be used by accident or design. Doing all we can to move the world to Nuclear Zero is our only chance to save the planet and assure a human future. We can start by changing apathy to empathy, conformity to critical thinking, ignorance to wisdom, and denial to recognition of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. The time is short and what is at risk is all we love and treasure.