Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

  • Message to the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition

    Greetings to all participants in the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition.

    You are engaged in the most critical task of our time, seeking a way out of the Nuclear Age, a very brief period in human history, but an incredibly dangerous one. Human civilization, so painstakingly created over thousands of years, could be destroyed in an afternoon of nuclear exchange, which could occur by accident, miscalculation or design. There would be no winners of that exchange, only losers, and the greatest losers would be the people of the future, including the youth of today. It is clear that nuclear weapons threaten all we love and treasure.

    International Youth Summit for Nuclear AbolitionNuclear weapons should never have been created, but they were. They should never have been used on cities, but they were. There should never have been widespread nuclear testing, but there was. Nor, should there ever have been an insane arms race, but there was. Today, we have far fewer nuclear weapons than at the height of the nuclear arms race in the mid-1980s, but those that remain still endanger us all.

    There is only one power strong enough to abolish nuclear weapons, and that is the power of the people acting with engaged hearts. Nuclear weapons are powerful devices. They can kill, maim, and cause massive destruction. But they are no match for the human heart, which has the power of love, compassion, understanding, empathy and cooperation. The human heart is an instrument even more powerful than nuclear bombs, warheads, and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

    To the power of the human heart can be added the power of the human mind to have a vision and strategies and tactics to reach agreed upon goals. Your task is to awaken your generation to the challenges posed by nuclear weapons and to engage their hearts, as well as their minds, in ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life.

    I have great faith in you, and I wish you all success in your important gathering. You are leaders for the common good on this most important of all issues. I encourage you to do your utmost and to never give up.

    David Krieger
    President
    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    This message was sent to the participants in the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition, which took place on August 30, 2015.

  • Sunflowers: The Symbol of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    Sunflowers are a simple miracle. They grow from a seed. They rise from the earth. They are natural. They are bright and beautiful. They bring a smile to one’s face. They produce seeds that are nutritious, and from these seeds oil is produced. Native Americans once used parts of the sunflower plant to treat rattlesnake bites, and sunflower meal to make bread. Sunflowers were even used near Chernobyl to extract radionuclides cesium 137 and strontium 90 from contaminated ponds following the catastrophic nuclear reactor accident there.

    Now sunflowers carry new meaning. They have become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. This came about after an extraordinary celebration of Ukraine achieving the status of a nuclear free state. On June 1, 1996, Ukraine transferred to Russia for dismantlement the last of the 1,900 nuclear warheads it had inherited from the former Soviet Union. Celebrating the occasion a few days later, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States met at a former nuclear missile base in the Ukraine that once housed 80 SS-19 missiles aimed at the United States.

    The three Defense Ministers planted sunflowers and scattered sunflower seeds. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said, “With the completion of our task, Ukraine has demonstrated its support of a nuclear weapons free world.” He called on other nations to follow in Ukraine’s path and “to do everything to wipe nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth as soon as possible.” U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations.”

    This dramatic sunflower ceremony at Pervomaisk military base showed the world the possibility of a nation giving up nuclear weapons as a means of achieving security. It is an important example, featuring the sunflower as a symbol of hope. The comparison between sunflowers and nuclear missiles is stark—sunflowers representing life, growth, beauty and nature, and nuclear armed missiles representing death and destruction on a massive, unspeakable scale. Sunflowers represent light instead of darkness, transparency instead of secrecy, security instead of threat, and joy instead of fear.

    The Defense Ministers were not the first to use sunflowers. In the 1980s a group of brave and committed resisters known as “The Missouri Peace Planters” entered onto nuclear silos in Missouri and planted sunflowers as a symbol of nuclear disarmament. On August 15, 1988, fourteen peace activists simultaneously entered ten of Missouri’s 150 nuclear missile silos, and planted sunflowers. They issued a statement that said, “We reclaim this land for ourselves, the beasts of the land upon which we depend, and our children. We interpose our bodies, if just for a moment, between these weapons and their intended victims.”

    Which shall we choose for our Earth? Shall we choose life or shall we choose death? Shall we choose sunflowers, or shall we choose nuclear armed missiles? All but a small number of nations would choose life. But the handful of nations that choose to base their security on these weapons of omnicide threaten us all with massive uncontrollable slaughter.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, many people believe that the nuclear threat has ended, but this is not the case. In fact, there are still more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nine nuclear-armed countries. These countries have given their solemn promise in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970, to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament, but they have not acted in good faith. It is likely that until the people of the world demand the total elimination of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states will find ways to retain their special status as nuclear “haves.” Only one power on Earth is greater than the power of nuclear weapons, and that is the power of the People once engaged.

    This article was originally published on March 12, 1998. This version was revised on August 21, 2015.

  • Humanize, Not Modernize

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is now in its 33rd year of working for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.  We seek these goals for the people of today, and also for those of the future, so that they may have a healthy planet to live on and enjoy.

    Science and technology have brought great benefits to humanity in the form of health care, communications, transportation and many other areas of our lives.  An average person alive today lives a better and longer life than did kings and nobles of earlier times.  Yet, science and technology have not been universally positive.  They have also given us weapons capable of destroying civilization and most complex life on the planet, including that of our own species.

    In the Nuclear Age, our technological capacity for destruction has outpaced our spiritual and moral capacity to control these destructive technologies.  The Foundation is a voice for those committed to exercising conscience and choosing a decent future for all humanity.

    childrennature3The Foundation continues in its role as consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in its courageous Nuclear Zero lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed Goliaths.  The Marshall Islanders, who have been victims of US nuclear testing, know the pain and suffering caused by these weapons.  Their lawsuits seek not compensation, but to assure that the nuclear-armed countries fulfill their obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms at an early date and to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.  We are proud to stand with the RMI in these lawsuits that seek an end to the nuclear weapons era.

    There is no way to humanize weapons that are inhumane, immoral and illegal. These weapons must be abolished, not modernized.  And yet, all nine nuclear-armed countries are engaged in modernizing their nuclear arsenals.  The US is leading the way, planning to spend more than $1 trillion on upgrading its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades.  In doing so, it is making the world more dangerous and less secure.  The US could lead in humanizing rather than modernizing by reallocating its vast resources to feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, providing safe drinking water, assuring an education for the poor, as well as cleaning up the environment, shifting to renewable energy sources and repairing deteriorating infrastructure.

    Join us in making the shift from modernizing nuclear arsenals to humanizing the planet.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.

  • Reflections on the 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings

    On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing some 90,000 people immediately and another 55,000 by the end of 1945.  Three days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing some 40,000 people immediately and another 35,000 by the end of 1945.

    David KriegerIn between these two bombings, on August 8, 1945, the U.S. signed the charter creating the Nuremberg Tribunal to hold Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Under well-established international humanitarian law – the law of warfare – war crimes include using weapons that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants or that cause unnecessary suffering.  Because nuclear weapons kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary suffering by radiation poisoning (among other grotesque consequences), the U.S. was itself in the act of committing war crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki while agreeing to hold its defeated opponents in World War II to account for their war crimes.

    Those who doubt this conclusion should consider this hypothetical situation: During World War II, Germany creates two atomic bombs and uses them on British cities, killing tens of thousands of civilians.  Under such circumstances, can you imagine the Nazi leaders who ordered these attacks not being held accountable at Nuremberg for these bombings of civilian targets?

    The U.S. has always publicly justified its use of atomic weapons against Japan on the grounds that they ended the war sooner and saved American lives, but did they?  Many key U.S. military leaders at the time didn’t think so, including Admiral William Leahy and General (later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower.

    Admiral Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff and the top U.S. official presiding over meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in his 1950 memoir based on his contemporaneous notes and diaries, “[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender….”  He went on, “[I]n being the first to use it, we…adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

    General Eisenhower reported in his memoir a discussion with Secretary of War Henry Stimson, during which he was told of plans to use the atomic bombs on Japan.  Eisenhower wrote, “During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him [Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives….”

    In the decades that followed the atomic bombings in 1945, the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in an insane nuclear arms race, reaching some 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world by the mid-1980s.  Despite many accidents, miscalculations and international crises, nuclear weapons have not been used again in warfare.  Today there are still approximately 16,000 in the arsenals of nine countries, with over 90 percent of these in the possession of the U.S. and Russia.  Some 1,800 nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired within moments of an order to do so.  Most of these weapons are many times more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Nuclear weapons do not make the U.S. or the world more secure.  On the contrary, they threaten civilization and the human species.  Fortunately, steps may be taken to eliminate this threat.

    The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty obligates its parties, including the U.S., to engage in negotiations in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament.  In a 1996 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice interpreted this obligation as follows: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    Because these negotiations have yet to take place, one small and courageous country, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries at the International Court of Justice and in U.S. federal court, seeking court orders for these countries to fulfill their obligations under international law.

    On the 70th anniversary of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is past time for the U.S. to change course.  Rather than pursue current plans to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal, the U.S. should lead the world in negotiations to achieve the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  This would make the world safer.  It would also recognize the criminal nature of these weapons and show respect for the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many of whom have worked tirelessly to assure that their past does not become someone else’s future.

    This article was originally published by Truthout: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32073-the-us-should-eliminate-its-nuclear-arsenal-not-modernize-it

  • Twelve Worthy Reasons Not to Waste Billions Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

    1. It is not sane, sensible or rational.

    2. It will not make the U.S. or the world safer or more secure.

    3. It is provocative activity that will trigger existing nuclear-armed countries to modernize their nuclear arsenals and result in new nuclear arms races.

    David Krieger4. It demonstrates U.S. commitment to nuclear weapons rather than to nuclear weapons abolition.

    5. It will make nuclear weapons appear more reliable and accurate and therefore more usable.

    6. It is not necessary for purposes of nuclear deterrence.

    7. It sends a strong message to non-nuclear-armed countries that nuclear weapons have perceived military value, and thus creates an inducement to nuclear proliferation.

    8. It breaches the U.S. obligation in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith on effective measures to end the nuclear arms race at an early date.

    9. It breaches the U.S. obligation in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith on effective measures for nuclear disarmament.

    10. It is an immoral waste of resources that are desperately needed for meeting basic human needs for food, water, shelter, education and environmental protection.

    11. Despite the $1 trillion price tag already proposed for U.S. nuclear weapons modernization over the next three decades, as with most “defense” plans, original budgets are generally vastly underestimated.

    12. Benefits of U.S. nuclear weapons modernization will go overwhelmingly to enrich “defense” contracting corporations and their executives.

  • The Nuclear Age at Seventy

    The first explosion of a nuclear device took place at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Just three weeks later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima and three days after that on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The new weapons had devastating power, killing approximately 100,000 people immediately in the two cities and another 100,000 people by the end of 1945.

    David KriegerSince these bombings brought the world into the Nuclear Age, the human future and that of other forms of life have been at risk. Never before did humankind have the power to destroy itself, but that completely changed in the Nuclear Age. By our own scientific and technological cleverness, we humans had created the means of our own demise. Our technological capacity for destruction had exceeded our spiritual capacity to work together and cooperate to end the threat that these weapons posed to our common future. 

    After the bombings of the two Japanese cities, the United States almost immediately entered into a nuclear arms race with itself. In 1946, when the US was the only nuclear-armed country in the world, it began atmospheric nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, then a United Nations Trust Territory that the US had agreed to administer. The US broke the bond of trust by testing 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, with an explosive power equivalent to detonating 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years. 

    In the decades that followed, other countries would develop nuclear arsenals. These included: the USSR (now Russia), UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. On numerous occasions the nuclear-armed countries came close to using nuclear weapons by accident, miscalculation or design. The most serious of these near disasters was the Cuban Missile Crisis, which went on for 13 days in 1962, while the world stood on the brink of nuclear war. 

    At the height of the nuclear arms race in 1986, there were more than 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world. There were more nuclear weapons than there were targets for them. With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the number of nuclear weapons began to fall and since then the world, primarily the US and Russia, has shed over 50,000 nuclear weapons. 

    Today there are approximately 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with over 90 percent in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Some 1,800 of these remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired within moments. These are still insane numbers, with species- ending potential. Yet, strangely, most people on the planet do not think much about nuclear dangers. 

    One group of people, though, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, still think a lot about these dangers. These survivors, or hibakusha (as they are known in Japan), have witnessed the horrors of nuclear weapons at close hand. They have seen the death and destruction caused by the relatively small nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They speak out with the moral certainty that they do not want their past to become anyone else’s future. 

    All nine nuclear-armed countries are engaged in modernizing their nuclear arsenals. Together they are spending $100 billion annually on them. The US alone is planning to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades on modernizing its nuclear arsenal. It is a waste of precious resources that should be reallocated to meeting human needs for food, water, shelter, healthcare, education, a clean environment and repaired infrastructure. 

    The grand bargain of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is that the non-nuclear-armed states agreed not to acquire nuclear weapons, and the nuclear-armed states agreed to negotiate in good faith for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. The goal is a level playing field, with no countries possessing nuclear weapons. The problem with the bargain is that the nuclear-armed countries are not holding up their end. 

    Lawsuits against all nuclear-armed nations To set this right, the Republic of the Marshall Islands has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries, calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to declare them in breach of their obligations and order them to commence the promised negotiations. Because the US is such an important player and does not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, a separate lawsuit was brought against it in US federal court. 

    If the people of the Marshall Islands can demonstrate such boldness and courage, so can the rest of us. It is time for action to demand a nuclear weapons-free world. It is time to challenge hubris with wisdom, and complacency with compassion. Nuclear weapons are powerful, but the human heart is more powerful. As Pope Francis said, we need a “conversion of hearts.” 

    It is time to join with the hibakusha in demanding a world free of nuclear weapons. The world has waited for 70 years to end the nuclear weapons era. The next decades may not be so kind to humanity. We must act now, while we still can, to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life.

    This article was originally published by the Hiroshima Peace Media Center.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). 

  • NAPF Activities and Accomplishments

    The vision of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is “a just and peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons.” The Foundation’s mission is “to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, and to empower peace leaders.” The Foundation has been designated as a consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council and named by the United Nations as a Peace Messenger Organization. It has been nominated four times for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    Untitled 4

    Some of the Foundation’s most important current activities and accomplishments include:

     

    • Consulting with the Republic of the Marshall Islands in bringing its lawsuits in the International Court of Justice in The Hague and in US federal court for breaches by the nuclear-armed countries of their obligations to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law.
    • Building a consortium of civil society organizations from throughout the world in support of the Marshall Islands Nuclear Zero lawsuits and garnering significant national and international media attention to the obligations of the nuclear-armed countries, their breaches of those obligations and the lawsuits based on those breaches.
    • Empowering peace leaders throughout the US and abroad through our outstanding Peace Leadership Program that reaches some 3,000 people annually through lectures and workshops.

    Other important ongoing activities and accomplishments of the Foundation include:

     

    • Shining light on the importance of Peace Leadership, through our annual Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and other awards to some of the world’s greatest peace leaders.
    • Establishing a world-renowned Advisory Council, which includes, among other prominent peace leaders, the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Daniel Ellsberg and Helen Caldicott.
    • Co-founding Abolition 2000, a network of over 2,000 organizations and municipalities seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons, and providing early leadership to the network.
    • Inspiring Soka Gakkai youth from Hiroshima to gather more than 13 million signatures on the Abolition 2000 International Petition, which called for ending the nuclear weapons threat, signing a new treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, and reallocating resources from maintaining nuclear arsenals to meeting human needs.
    • Participating in, organizing informational panels for, and distributing briefing papers at the five-year review conferences of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the preparatory conferences that take place between review conferences.
    • Awarding a $50,000 prize for the best proposal for using science for constructive purposes, which led to the creation of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES), and then working together with INES on many conferences and programs.
    • Co-founding the Middle Powers Initiative, a coalition of seven international civil society organizations that work closely with middle power governments to put pressure on the nuclear-armed countries to move toward abolishing their nuclear weapons.
    • Creating the Sadako Peace Garden on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and holding an annual public event there each year on or about August 6th to remember Sadako of the thousand cranes and all innocent victims of war, while rededicating ourselves to achieving peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.
    • Hosting an International Law Symposium that led to the establishment of a coalition to create a United Nations Emergency Peace Service (UNEPS), which could act as a first responder for stopping genocides, wars, human rights abuses and help to alleviate the suffering caused by natural disasters.
    • Convening an International Law Symposium on the dangers of nuclear deterrence and issuing the “Santa Barbara Declaration: Reject Nuclear Deterrence, An Urgent Call to Action.”
    • Initiating the annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future, and bringing outstanding thinkers and speakers – including Noam Chomsky, Dame Anita Roddick, Commander Robert Green and Robert Jay Lifton, among others – to our community to present the annual lecture.
    • Publishing timely and relevant information on the need to abolish nuclear weapons by key leaders in the abolition movement in the forms of books, book chapters, pamphlets, briefing papers, articles and letters to the editor in key media.
    • Creating and publishing a monthly online newsletter, The Sunflower, which provides regular and timely updates on nuclear weapons-related activities and issues.
    • Providing our members with the means to communicate with government officials on key nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation issues through our Action Alerts.
    • Bringing artistic expression to issues of peace and nuclear abolition through our annual Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards that “explore and illuminate positive visions of peace and the human spirit,” and publishing the winning poems.
    • Educating many students at the University of California about the relationship of the University to the US nuclear weapons laboratories (the UC provides management and oversight to the weapons labs).
    • Continuing a vital student internship program, providing an opportunity for exceptionally bright and motivated students from around the US and abroad to contribute to the Foundation’s work program while learning about our issues and organization.

    While much that the Foundation does and accomplishes is set forth above, there is also much that is intangible, such as working daily for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and reaching countless people throughout the world with our messages. Every day, our efforts, large and small, are building an institution of strong integrity and credibility to confront the unprecedented threats to humans and other forms of life posed by nuclear weapons and to work steadily on the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Missile Defense: A Dangerous Game

    <This letter to the editor was published by the Santa Barbara News-Press on June 13, 2015.>

    Thank you for publishing the important front-page article on June 1, “Major flaws revealed in U.S. anti-missile nuclear defense.” It confirms the unreliable nature of missile defenses. Despite the fact that U.S. missile defenses are flawed and unreliable, however, we are placing them close to the Russian borders, provoking Russia to maintain and modernize its offensive missiles.

    David KriegerRussia views U.S. missile defenses as we would view their missile defenses were the situation reversed — as part of an offensive first-strike scenario, since these “defensive” missiles are capable of shooting down the remaining Russian offensive missiles that would survive a U.S. first-strike attack. The best way to understand the situation and the Russian perspective is to imagine the concerns of U.S. political and military leaders if Russia were placing missile defenses on the Canadian and Mexican borders with the U.S.

    The 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was meant to prevent such defensive-offensive cycles of nuclear arms escalation by limiting the number of missile defense installations that could be deployed. However, the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from this treaty in 2002 under President George W. Bush. This unilateral treaty abrogation by the U.S. and our resultant continued deployment of missile defenses has undermined our legal and moral obligations to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and pursue further nuclear weapons reductions with Russia.

    We are playing a very dangerous game of nuclear roulette, with the missiles pointed at humanity’s heart. This game is based upon an illogical, faith-based reliance on nuclear deterrence — the threat of massive, omnicidal nuclear retaliation. If such a threat were effective (which it isn’t), what would be the purpose of missile defenses, other than enriching “defense” corporations?

    If you think your family is protected by nuclear deterrent threats, think again. If you think your family is protected by missile defenses, think yet again.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • El gran acuerdo, no lo es tanto

    Traducción de Rubén Arvizu. 

    Click here for the English version.

    David KriegerEl Tratado de No Proliferación Nuclear (TNP) tiene dos propósitos principales y juntos forman un gran acuerdo. En primer lugar, el tratado busca prevenir la proliferación de armas nucleares a otros países.   En segundo lugar, el tratado busca nivelar el campo de juego por la búsqueda de negociaciones de buena fe para poner fin a la carrera de armamentos nucleares en fecha cercana y lograr el desarme nuclear. El objetivo del gran acuerdo, en otras palabras, es un mundo sin armas nucleares.

    ‪En su mayor parte los estados del tratado que no poseen armas nucleares están cumpliendo con las reglas y no desarrollan o adquieren armas nucleares. Sin embargo, una nación – Estados Unidos – ha colocado sus armas nucleares en los territorios de cinco países europeos que no poseen armamento nuclear (Bélgica, Alemania, Italia, Países Bajos y Turquía), y acordó entregar las armas a estos países en caso de guerra.  EE.UU., también ha colocado a todos los países de la OTAN, además de Australia, Japón, Corea del Sur y Taiwán bajo su “paraguas nuclear”. En conjunto, estos países son conocidos como los países comadreja, no nucleares en  nombre, pero no en la realidad.

    Además, se ha producido la proliferación nuclear fuera del TNP. Tres países que nunca se unieron al TNP desarrollaron arsenales nucleares (Israel, India y Pakistán), y Corea del Norte se retiró del tratado y ha desarrollado armas nucleares. A pesar de toda esta  multiplicación nuclear real, la atención se ha centrado principalmente en la posibilidad de que Irán desarrolle armas nucleares, a pesar de que Irán parece estar dispuesto a tomar todas las medidas necesarias, incluyendo inspecciones imprevistas, para asegurar al mundo que no busca este armamento.

    Es la otra cara del gran acuerdo, sin embargo, donde las cosas realmente se complican. Los cinco países con armas nucleares que son parte del TNP (Estados Unidos, Rusia, Reino Unido, Francia y China) parecen más cómodos trabajando juntos para mantener y modernizar sus arsenales nucleares que lo que hacen para cumplir con sus obligaciones de desarme en virtud del tratado. Su estrategia común parece ser “armas nucleares para siempre.”

    EE.UU., planea invertir $1 billón de dólares en la modernización de su arsenal nuclear en las próximas tres décadas, y también es en gran parte responsable de los programas de modernización de Rusia y China, como consecuencia de la retirada unilateral de la Anti-Misiles Balísticos (ABM) en 2002 y la colocación de defensas de misiles terrestres y marítimos cercanos a las fronteras de Rusia y China. Ya que las defensas de misiles también pueden ser parte de un plan integrado para lanzar ataques primeros, Rusia y China pueden sentirse obligados a mantener la eficacia de su fuerza de disuasión nuclear mediante la mejora de sus fuerzas ofensivas para contrarrestar las defensas antimisiles de Estados Unidos. El evitar este tipo de escaladas defensiva-ofensiva fue el propósito primario del Tratado ABM. Uno puede tener mejor idea de esto imaginando la respuesta de Estados Unidos, si las defensas de misiles rusos fueron colocadas en la frontera canadiense y misiles chinos fueron situados en la frontera con México.

    Los participantes en el TNP acaban de terminar un mes de negociaciones para su novena conferencia de cinco años de revisión. La conferencia terminó en un fracaso sin un acuerdo sobre un documento final para guiar el trabajo de las partes en los próximos cinco años.  EE.UU., el Reino Unido y Canadá se negaron a apoyar una conferencia para comenzar a negociar una zona de Oriente Medio libre de armas nucleares y otras armas de destrucción masiva que tendrá lugar el primero de marzo de 2016. Esta conferencia, prometida cuando el TNP se prorrogó indefinidamente en 1995, se ha aplazado anteriormente y ahora ha sido postergada una vez más.

    Incluso si había habido un consenso sobre un documento final de la conferencia de revisión del TNP de 2015, al final, no se obtuvo un documento decisivo o satisfactorio. Los países con armas nucleares pasaron su tiempo en las reuniones minando las disposiciones en materia de desarme a las que habían hecho previamente un “compromiso inequívoco”. Los estados con armas nucleares y los estados” comadreja”, a pesar de sus protestas, no parecen actuar seriamente en mantener sus compromisos para lograr el desarme. Cada vez más, los Estados sin armas nucleares y las organizaciones de la sociedad civil están llegando a la conclusión de que los países con armas nucleares no están actuando de buena fe y, en consecuencia, no se está cumpliendo el gran acuerdo.

    Un resultado positivo y esperanzador de la conferencia, sin embargo, es que los Estados no poseedores de armas nucleares pueden estar hartos de los países que las poseen y actuar con valentía para seguir adelante en un nuevo camino hacia el desarme nuclear. Más de 100 países han aprobado el Juramento Humanitario, iniciado por Austria, para trabajar por un nuevo instrumento jurídico para prohibir y eliminar las armas nucleares, tal como se ha hecho para las armas químicas y biológicas, las minas terrestres y las bombas de dispersión. Este instrumento legal podría tomar la forma de un nuevo Tratado de Prohibición de las Armas Nucleares.

    También en el lado positivo y esperanzador son las demandas audaces y valientes de Cero Nuclear presentadas por la República de las Islas Marshall en contra de los nueve países nucleares en la Corte Internacional de Justicia de La Haya y por separado contra EE.UU. en una corte federal. Estas demandas afirman que los Estados poseedores de armas nucleares se encuentran en violación de las disposiciones en materia de desarme del TNP y del derecho internacional consuetudinario, y buscan desagravio por mandato judicial ordenando a los países con armas nucleares iniciar y participar en negociaciones de buena fe para un desarme total. Un panel lateral muy concurrido en la conferencia de revisión del TNP presentó una actualización sobre el estado de los procesos judiciales.

    Estamos conmemorando el  año 70 en que se utilizaron armas atómicas sobre las ciudades japonesas de Hiroshima y Nagasaki. Todavía hay más de 16.000 armas nucleares en el mundo. Esto ya es demasiado. Ha llegado el momento de abolir esta amenaza antes de que causen un daño irreversible a la civilización, a la especie humana y todas las otras formas de vida. Se lo debemos a nosotros mismos y a las futuras generaciones, romper nuestras cadenas de complacencia y demostrando que el corazón humano comprometido es más poderoso inclusive que las más  mortíferas armas de destrucción masiva.

    *David Krieger es Presidente de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation y autor de CERO: El caso de la abolición de las armas nucleares. 

    *Rubén Arvizu es Director para América Latina de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation y Embajador del Pacto Climático Global de Ciudades.

  • Grand Bargain Is Not So Grand

    The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has two major purposes and together they form a grand bargain. First, the treaty seeks to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries.  Second, the treaty seeks to level the playing field by the pursuit of negotiations in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to achieve nuclear disarmament. The goal of the grand bargain, in other words, is a world without nuclear weapons.

    David KriegerFor the most part the non-nuclear weapon states parties to the treaty are playing by the rules and not developing or acquiring nuclear weapons. However, one country – the United States – has stationed its nuclear weapons on the territories of five European countries otherwise without nuclear weapons (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey), and agreed to turn these weapons over to the host countries in a time of war. The US has also placed all NATO countries plus Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan under its “nuclear umbrella.” Collectively these countries are known as the weasel countries, non-nuclear in name but not in reality.

    In addition, there has been nuclear proliferation outside the NPT. Three countries that never joined the NPT developed nuclear arsenals (Israel, India and Pakistan), and North Korea withdrew from the treaty and developed nuclear weapons. Despite all of this actual nuclear proliferation, attention seems to be primarily focused on the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons, even though Iran appears to be willing to take all necessary steps, including intrusive inspections, to assure the world that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.

    It is the other side of the grand bargain, though, where things really break down. The five nuclear-armed countries that are parties to the NPT (US, Russia, UK, France and China) appear more comfortable working together to maintain and modernize their nuclear arsenals than they do to fulfilling their disarmament obligations under the treaty. Their common strategy appears to be “nuclear weapons forever.”

    The US, which plans to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades, is also largely responsible for the modernization programs of Russia and China as a result of unilaterally withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002 and placing land- and sea-based missile defenses close to the Russian and Chinese borders. Since missile defenses can also be part of an integrated plan to launch first-strike attacks, Russia and China may feel compelled to maintain the effectiveness of their nuclear deterrent by enhancing their offensive forces to counter US missile defenses. Avoiding such defensive-offensive escalations was the purpose of the ABM Treaty in the first place. One can get a better sense of this by imagining the US response if Russian missile defenses were placed on the Canadian border and Chinese missile defenses were placed on the Mexican border.

    The parties to the NPT just completed a month of negotiations for their ninth five-year review conference. The conference ended in failure without agreement on a final document to guide the work of the parties over the next five years. The US, UK and Canada refused to support a conference to begin negotiating a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction to take place by March 1, 2016. This conference, promised when the NPT was extended indefinitely in 1995, has been put off previously and now it has been put off yet again.

    Even if there had been consensus on a final document from the 2015 NPT review conference, however, it would not have been a strong or satisfactory document. The nuclear-armed parties to the treaty spent their time at the meetings watering down the disarmament provisions to which they had previously made an “unequivocal undertaking.” The nuclear-armed states and the weasel states, despite their protestations, don’t seem serious about keeping their commitments to achieve nuclear disarmament. Increasingly, the non-nuclear weapons states and civil society organizations are coming to the conclusion that the nuclear-armed countries are not acting in good faith and, as a result, the grand bargain is not being fulfilled.

    A positive and hopeful outcome of the conference, though, is that the non-nuclear weapon states may be sufficiently fed up with the nuclear-armed countries to act boldly to push ahead on a new path to nuclear disarmament. More than 100 countries have now endorsed the Humanitarian Pledge, initiated by Austria, to work for a new legal instrument to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons, just as has been done for chemical and biological weapons and for landmines and cluster munitions. This legal instrument could take the form of a new Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.

    Also on the positive and hopeful side are the bold and courageous Nuclear Zero lawsuits filed by the Republic of the Marshall Islands against the nine nuclear-armed countries in the International Court of Justice in The Hague and separately against the US in US federal court. These lawsuits seek declaratory relief, stating that the nuclear weapon states are in violation of the disarmament provisions of the NPT and of customary international law, and seek injunctive relief ordering the nuclear-armed countries to initiate and engage in negotiations in good faith for total nuclear disarmament. A well-attended side panel at the NPT review conference provided an update on the status of the lawsuits.

    This is the 70th year since nuclear weapons were used on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are still over 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Enough is enough. It is time to abolish these weapons before they cause irreversible damage to civilization, the human species and other forms of life. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations of life on Earth to break our chains of complacency and demonstrate that the engaged human heart is more powerful than even nuclear arms.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the author of ZERO: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.