Aikichi
Kuboyama,
forty years of age
on March 1, 1954.
Chief radio operator
on the Lucky Dragon.
When the nuclear fallout
from the Bravo test
contaminated
your ship
you were not so lucky.
You were the first Japanese victim
to die
from an H-Bomb test.
You prayed to be the last victim,
but it was not
to be.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
A recent news story in the Global Security Newswire stated, “Top U.S. military leaders are personally reaching out to missileers at the Montana base that has become ground zero for an Air Force probe into exam cheating.” It went on, “Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Saturday called six launch officers during their shifts at underground launch control centers, according to a Pentagon press story. Speaking on the phone calls for roughly an hour, the defense chief voiced his assurance that the launch officers were up to the task of carrying out the U.S. nuclear mission, said Pentagon officials.” (Hagel, Air Force Brass Reach Out to Montana Missile Officers, GSN, February 4, 2014)
One can only imagine what was said in those morale building talks.
Hagel: Howdy, missileer, this is Chuck. How’s everything down in your bunker?
Missile Launch Officer: Just fine, sir, lit up like a shopping mall. Chuck who?
Hagel: The Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel.
MLO: Nice of you to call, sir. I wasn’t expecting it. Are you calling to give the order to turn my key?
Hagel: No, nothing like that. I just want to check in with you and see how your morale is doing.
MLO: My morale is sky high, sir.
Hagel: You’re not taking drugs, are you?
MLO: Not now, sir. I’m studying up for my next proficiency test.
Hagel: I hope you know that you’re doing this country a great service.
MLO: By studying for my proficiency test?
Hagel: Well, there’s that, but I’m proud of you for being willing to turn your key when ordered and attack our enemies.
MLO: Thank you, sir. I’m ever vigilant, waiting for my orders.
Hagel: That a boy. Of course, we hope those orders will never come, but we must be ready 24 hours a day.
MLO: Yes, sir, I couldn’t be readier. I dream about being able to blow up the world.
Hagel: That may be carrying it just a bit too far.
MLO: Gotcha, Chuck, I don’t really dream about it. Maybe I daydream about it sometimes. But I’m ready to do it, for my country.
Hagel: That’s the spirit, young man. It sounds like your morale is just fine.
MLO: Just give me the orders, and I’ll be ready.
Hagel: What could I do to boost your morale even higher?
MLO: Maybe you could have some movies for us while we’re on duty. It gets awfully boring down here.
Hagel: Why not? What’s your favorite movie, son?
MLO: Dr. Strangelove, sir. It’s the favorite of all the missile launch officers.
Hagel: Son, it’s been good talking to you.
MLO: And perhaps some munchies with the movies.
Hagel: As I said, it’s been good talking with you.
MLO: And allow us to bring dates into the bunkers for the movies.
Hagel: That’s not going to happen.
MLO: And perhaps an occasional visit by the president or first lady.
Hagel: That’s unlikely.
MLO: Sir, you’re wrecking my morale.
Hagel: I’ve got to get on with my next call.
MLO: I don’t feel like studying anymore.
Hagel: Please, son.
MLO: Call again any time.
This article was originally published by Truthout.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Nuclear weapons are monstrous – obscene – explosive devices that have no function other than to threaten or cause mass annihilation. They kill indiscriminately and cause unimaginable suffering. The world knows well the death, destruction and lingering pain caused by these weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons could end civilization and have no place in a civilized society. Nukes are nuts!
Nuclear weapons are very effective killing devices. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated that a single, small nuclear weapon is capable of destroying a city and causing mass death and suffering beyond any society’s capacity to cope with such a humanitarian tragedy. The City of Hiroshima 2013 Peace Declaration, issued 68 years after a single atomic weapon destroyed the city, reflected on the effects of the US atomic bomb: “Indiscriminately stealing the lives of innocent people, permanently altering the lives of survivors, and stalking their minds and bodies to the end of their days, the atomic bomb is the ultimate inhumane weapon and an absolute evil.” Nuclear weapons corrupt our humanity. Nukes are nuts!
Atmospheric scientists inform us of what would happen in a relatively small regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan, in which each side used 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. It would result in putting enough soot into the upper stratosphere to restrict warming sunlight, shorten growing seasons and cause crop failures leading to global nuclear famine and the deaths by starvation of some 2 billion people. Nukes are nuts!
The possibility of nuclear famine is horrendous, but even more terrifying would be an all-out nuclear war, which could send the planet into another ice age and make precarious the continued existence of human life. Nuclear weapons threaten not the planet itself, for the planet can recover after hundreds of thousands of years. They threaten the human species and all other forms of complex life. The nuclear-armed countries are playing Russian roulette with the human future. Nukes are nuts!
In November 2013, the Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement passed a resolution on “Working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons: Four-year action plan.” The council reiterated “its deep concern about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, including the unspeakable human suffering that their use would cause and the threat that such weapons pose to food production, the environment and future generations.” Nukes are nuts!
By any measure, the possession, threat or use of nuclear weapons is immoral and exceedingly dangerous. Continued reliance on these weapons of mass annihilation by the nine nuclear-armed countries encourages nuclear proliferation and keeps open the door for terrorists to obtain nuclear arms. A nuclear war could be initiated by accident, miscalculation or design. Nukes are nuts!
Those of us privileged to be alive on the planet now have responsibilities to be good stewards of the planet and its varied life forms, and to pass the planet on intact to new generations. What kind of stewards are we? Are we fulfilling our responsibilities to future generations of humans who are not yet here to speak for themselves? Nukes are nuts!
Is it not extreme hubris for the leaders of nuclear-armed states to assert that the manufacture, possession, deployment, modernization, threatened use and use of these weapons, capable of omnicide, the death of all, can be controlled by human beings without proliferating to other countries or being used by accident or design, putting at risk all that we treasure, including the future of the human species? Nukes are nuts!
Nuclear weapons are creations of the human mind that came into being through political decisions and scientific and technological expertise. While these weapons are products of human invention and effort, our human capacity to control the destructive uses of this technology, by means of law or morality, has been grossly inadequate. We need to change our mindsets about nuclear weapons. They do not protect us but, rather, bring us to the precipice of catastrophe. Nukes are nuts!
Humanity cannot afford a sequel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must learn from our past and assure that nuclear weapons and nuclear war are not our legacy to the future. Nukes are nuts!
This article was originally published by Truthout.
Find out more about Nukes are Nuts at www.nukesarenuts.org.
You are in a unique position of leadership to influence today’s youth to achieve a better tomorrow for America and the world. I am writing to enlist your help in educating young people to understand the survival challenges that face humanity in the 21st century.
Education is driven by values. Young people must learn to live with reverence for life, as did Albert Schweitzer, and to support equitable and nonviolent solutions to social problems, as did Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Young people must be imbued with compassion, commitment and courage. They must learn to use their imaginations to find creative and cooperative solutions to the great issues of our time. And they must find joy in the process and take time to celebrate the miracle of living on the only planet we know of in the universe that supports life.
Since the onset of the Nuclear Age our powerful technologies, developed by human ingenuity, have put our societies and humanity itself at grave risk.
Albert Einstein observed, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” We need all elements of society, and especially college and university students who are inheriting our world and the responsibility for its stewardship, to take steps to avert such catastrophe.
Today, we are confronted not only by the ongoing peril of nuclear devastation, but also by the threats posed by climate change, pollution of the oceans and atmosphere, poverty, hunger, homelessness, war and other forms of violence, often senseless violence. All of these threats are caused by human behavior and are subject to human solutions.
Some young people are largely ignorant of these threats. Others are apathetic. Still others are despairing and alienated. In this sense, they reflect the larger society.
Young people need to be better educated on the critical survival issues that confront humanity. They need to realize that, with social action, change is possible and there is hope for a more decent future. With action comes hope, and with hope comes action. It is a reinforcing cycle of change.
We cannot wait for young people to become the leaders of tomorrow. They must step up and fill the leadership vacuum that currently exists in solving the urgent threats of our time. This will require education in the humanities, focused training for putting positive values into practice, and for developing the skills needed to influence the course of events in our interconnected world.
They must come to understand that all great global threats can only be solved globally. No single country, no matter how powerful, can diffuse these threats acting alone. Thus, young people must form bonds across borders.
Today’s young people have far worthier challenges than to become cogs in corporate machines. They have the opportunity and the choice to change the world to make it more just and peaceful, a world in which all people can live with dignity and recognition of the basic human rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This must be complemented with a Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities.
Your leadership as a college or university president can influence today’s students to walk the path toward a far more decent tomorrow. I urge you to add this to your list of responsibilities and to make your college or university a part of the solution to humanity’s most challenging problems.
One way to begin the process would be to institute a required class for all students on “Global Survival 101,” which would cover all the great issues that confront humanity in the 21st century. It would raise the following questions: What are the great threats that currently confront humanity? What can be done about them? How will each student make a difference in creating a better tomorrow?
We also have a Peace Leadership Program at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which provides peace leadership trainings. A curriculum has been developed and tested at the University of San Diego and other college campuses. You can find out more about this program at www.wagingpeace.org.
If there are ways in which you are already addressing the issues I’ve raised in this letter or plan to do so going forward, I would be very happy to know of such initiatives.
Thank you for caring.
***This article was originally published by Truthout.
The alarm is sounding.
Can you hear it?
Can you hear the bells
of Nagasaki
ringing out for peace?
Can you feel the heartbeat
of Hiroshima
pulsing out for life?
The survivors of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
are growing older.
Their message is clear:
Never again!
Wake up!
Now, before the feathered arrow
is placed into the bow.
Now, before the string
of the bow is pulled taut,
the arrow poised for flight.
Now, before the arrow is let loose,
before it flies across oceans
and continents.
Now, before we are engulfed in flames,
while there is still time, while we still can,
Wake up!
This article was originally published by Truthout.
In the early morning hours of December 17, under cover of darkness, the Air Force launched a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base. It was a test of a nuclear-capable missile. Despite the claims of the Air Force, such tests do not make us safer or more secure — only more terrifying to others, and when it comes to nuclear weapons we should be terrifying ourselves. These are weapons that could destroy civilization, and yet we have the hubris to play Russian roulette with them and continue to do so more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War.
As General Lee Butler, former commander of the US Strategic Command, said, “Nuclear deterrence was and remains a slippery intellectual construct that translates very poorly into the real world of spontaneous crises, inexplicable motivations, incomplete intelligence and fragile human relationships.” We would do well to pay attention to General Butler and get on with the hard and urgent work of negotiating to achieve Nuclear Zero globally, as we are required to do under international law.
Following the test launch, Lt. Colonel Thomas Vance said, “The test launch is one demonstration of the professionalism and pride all members of Team Malmstrom take in executing our mission.”
The Air Force seems excessively proud of its ability to have “successfully launched” the nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. Is it pride in their ability to obey orders and carry out a mission fully capable of ending civilization should they be called upon to launch nuclear-armed Minuteman III missiles? The Air Force views its test launches as providing “data to ensure a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent.” But neither the Air Force nor anyone in authority can assure that nuclear deterrence will be safe, secure or effective.
Nuclear deterrence itself only provides a hypothesis about human behavior, the hypothesis being that if one threatens to totally destroy another, the other country will refrain from attacking. This hypothesis requires, at a minimum, rational political leaders, and not all political leaders behave rationally at all times and under all circumstances.
Test launches of ICBMs do not make nuclear weapons safe, secure or effective. The capability to conduct murderous retaliation does not make us safe, should not make us feel secure, and is not effective in protecting us. Rather than protecting Americans, the Air Force is conducting test launches that are provocative, encourage nuclear proliferation and call into question the seriousness of the United States to fulfill its obligation to pursue negotiations in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.
This article is the introduction to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Annual Report.
In 1945 the first nuclear weapon was tested and, within weeks, the next two nuclear weapons were used by the United States on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
By 1986 there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, nearly all in the arsenals of the US and USSR.
Today there are just over 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world,
which means that, since the mid-1980s, the world has shed some 50,000 nuclear weapons. That’s progress, but it’s far from sufficient.
There are still some 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert in the US and Russian arsenals. These weapons are accidents waiting to happen.
Atmospheric scientists tell us that, in a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which 50 nuclear weapons from each side were exploded on the other side’s cities, enough soot would be put into the stratosphere to block warming sunlight, shorten growing seasons, and cause crop failures leading to a billion deaths by starvation globally. Nuclear famine is only part of the havoc that a “small” nuclear war would cause.
Zero is the only safe number of nuclear weapons on the planet. It is what the human future requires of us. For the sake of the seven billion inhabitants of our planet, for everyone who matters to each of us, for everything that matters to each of us, we must strive for and achieve Nuclear Zero.
Another necessary number is One, because each one of us has the power to make a difference with our voice, our actions and our support. When a dedicated portion of the seven billion Ones on the planet are joined together and motivated, they can achieve any great and necessary goal, including Nuclear Zero.
At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are committed to providing Peace Leadership that emphasizes the Power of One in achieving Nuclear Zero.
Nelson Mandela is a man I admired greatly and consider to be one of the great peace leaders of our time. He lived with dignity and treated others with respect. I think that is a high tribute for any person. He was a true human being, in the fullest sense of being human. He did his part to leave the world a better place than the world of racism and apartheid into which he was born. When he came out of prison after 27 years and had the chance for vengeance, he chose kindness and nonviolence. When he became president of his country, he was the president of all the people of South Africa.
To celebrate the life of Nelson Mandela is to recognize that individuals can make a difference in our world, despite hardships and the seeming impossibility of creating change. He lived with courage, compassion and commitment, and he did lead the way to changing the world for the better. He was not perfect, but he brought beauty to the world and showed us a glimpse of what we are all capable of being by living with high ideals and decency. Few will accomplish what he did in his lifetime, but his was a life that should be inspiring and hopeful to us all.
The Fifth Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was held November 2-4, 2013 in Nagasaki. Citizens of Nagasaki continued their tradition of convening such Global Citizens’ Assemblies, which they have held every few years since the year 2000. I have been privileged to have been a participant and speaker in all five meetings as an invited guest of the city of Nagasaki, and to have participated in the drafting of all the Nagasaki Appeals.
The 2013 Nagasaki Appeal is an extraordinary document. It reflects the spirit of Nagasaki, the second of two atomic bombed cities on the planet, and the desire of its atomic bomb survivors to assure that Nagasaki remains the last city ever to suffer such a tragedy. I believe the Appeal should be read by every citizen of Earth and studied by young people everywhere. I’d like to share with you some of its highlights.
The Appeal begins with good news and bad news. It points out that over 50,000 nuclear weapons have been eliminated in the past quarter century (good news), but that 17,000 remain, only a small number of which could end civilization and most life on Earth (bad news). It expresses concerns that repeated delays by the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their commitment to nuclear disarmament under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “has discredited the nonproliferation regime and may destroy it.” Such a consequence would indeed be very bad news.
The Appeal takes note of the nuclear power accident at Fukushima, Japan in March 2011: “The fear and suffering of Fukushima citizens for their health and life renewed our recognition of the danger of radioactivity, whether from nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. The experiences of Fukushima and the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have shown us that the effects of nuclear disasters are uncontrollable in time and space.”
Despite “daunting challenges,” the Appeal finds there are reasons for hope, among which is the renewed international attention to the devastating humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. It also found that reliance upon nuclear deterrence for national security is “delusional,” in a world in which human security and global security are threatened by nuclear weapons.
The Appeal calls for a series of concrete actions, including commencing negotiations on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons; the US and Russia taking unilateral and bilateral nuclear disarmament measures; phasing out of reliance on nuclear weapons in the security policies of all countries; having greater citizen participation in nuclear abolition campaigns; establishing new nuclear weapon-free zones; aiding the victims of Fukushima; and learning the lesson that humanity cannot continue to rely upon nuclear energy any more than it can rely upon nuclear weapons.
The Appeal also offers some specific advice to the Japanese government based upon its special responsibilities as the world’s only country to be attacked with nuclear weapons. These responsibilities include: coming out from under the US nuclear umbrella; providing leadership to achieve a nuclear weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia; demonstrating leadership for nuclear weapons abolition; and seeking and welcoming international assistance in controlling the radiological crisis at Fukushima.
The participants in the Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly pledge to continue “utmost efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.” It is a necessary goal for humanity and for the future. It is the great challenge that confronts all of us living on the planet in the Nuclear Age. Nagasaki is doing its part to lead the way. They need our voices and our commitment to succeed.
NAPF President David Krieger delivered this speech at Soka University of America on November 16, 2013.
I’m very pleased to be back at Soka University of America. I have high respect for educational institutions, such as yours, that promote world citizenship. I’ve also witnessed the outstanding efforts that have been made in the past by the youth of Soka Gakkai International.
A Journey of Hope
In 1997, I spoke in Tokyo to an international group of Soka Gakkai youth. In doing so, I told them about an Abolition 2000 International Petition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The petition called for ending the nuclear weapons threat by, for example, de-alerting nuclear arsenals; signing an international treaty by the year 2000 to eliminate nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework; and reallocating resources from military purposes to assuring a sustainable future.
A few days after my talk to the Soka Gakkai youth, I was told that, led by the youth of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these young people and their friends were determined to gather one million signatures on the Abolition 2000 Petition. I thought this was a large and ambitious number and was very happy that they had made this commitment. By the time they were finished, though, they had vastly exceeded their initial goal, gathering over 13 million signatures in a matter of only a few months.
On that trip to Japan, I had the pleasure of meeting Soka Gakkai International President Daisaku Ikeda in Yokohama. It was a memorable meeting, as we watched together a most impressive cultural festival with performers from many countries. The next year I was invited back to Japan to symbolically accept the 13 million signatures for transmittal to the United Nations. On that trip, I visited Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa. I had the chance to personally thank the young people who had participated in the signature-gathering campaign. I called my trip through Japan a “Journey of Hope,” hope because of the diligent efforts and promising action of young people.
Choosing Hope
At the end of that trip, when meeting with President Ikeda in Okinawa, we decided to do a dialogue on choosing hope. The dialogue took over a year to complete. It was published in Japanese in the year 2000, and two years later in English with the title, Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age. In that dialogue, President Ikeda and I exchanged ideas about peace, nuclear weapons and hope. Among the areas of our agreement are the following:
Peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age. The creation, possession, modernization, testing, proliferation, threat and possible use of nuclear weapons make peace essential. Nuclear weapons have the potential to destroy civilization and end complex life on Earth, including human life.
Nuclear weapons are an absolute evil and must be abolished. This conclusion builds on the 1957 Declaration of Josei Toda, the second president of Soka Gakkai. Nuclear weapons kill indiscriminately. They are illegal and immoral. Their effects cannot be contained in time or space. They threaten the human future.
Peace must be pursued actively. It must be waged with a similar intensity, commitment and courage as the waging of war. The nonviolence of peace does not imply passivity.
To achieve peace and abolish nuclear weapons, young people must lead the way. Today’s youth are the future of humanity. If they desire peace and a future free of nuclear threat, they must stand up, speak out and demand peaceful solutions to conflict and the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Choosing hope is critical to any great goal, including the abolition of nuclear weapons. We all have a choice. We can choose hope or allow ourselves to fall into despair. Hope gives rise to action, and action reinforces hope. The opposite of hope is despair, which gives rise to inaction. Thus, we encourage all people, and particularly young people, to choose hope and act upon it.
There are three important C’s: compassion, commitment and courage. Meaningful change in our world requires individuals who live lives of compassion, commitment and courage.
One must never give up. All difficult goals require perseverance. Giving up on peace, nuclear weapons abolition, or any difficult goal is not an option if we want to create a more decent and loving world.
To achieve the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world will require all of the above and more. It will also require: understanding what nuclear weapons really are and the danger they pose to humanity; delegitimizing nuclear weapons for all countries of the world with no exceptions; recognizing the important role of the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the hibakusha; and developing a new universal ethic for the 21st century.
Understanding What Nuclear Weapons Really Are: Nukes Are Nuts
They are not ordinary weapons of war. They are insanely powerful devices of mass annihilation. They cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants, making them both immoral and illegal. Further, they do not protect their possessors; they only make possible mass murder of innocent people. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate suicide note to the planet. They are uncivilized tools of vengeance that have no place in a civilized world. Nukes are nuts.
Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons
Political and military leaders of some countries believe that nuclear weapons have legitimate military purposes. They are short-sighted and mistaken. Weapons of mass annihilation can have no legitimacy. A simple test is this: If nuclear weapons are legitimate for one country, why shouldn’t they be considered legitimate for all countries? The same leaders who advocate legitimacy of these weapons for their own countries would be horrified at the prospect of doing the same for all countries.
Importance of Hibakusha
No group of people can reach the hearts of their fellow humans and make clearer what these weapons really are than the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is why their words and their pleas are so important. They have lived with the pain of those fateful and deadly bombings. They have sounded the warning. Because hibakusha are growing older and becoming fewer, their message to the world, and particularly to young people, is even more precious and comes with a greater sense of urgency. I urge young people to reach out to hibakusha, learn from them, and help in conveying their message to the world; make their understanding about the need to abolish nuclear weapons also your own message to the world.
Nuclear weapons endanger all of us. In the crisis of shared danger, comes the opportunity for shared action to overcome that danger. The hibakusha and civil society organizations are helping to lead the way out of the Nuclear Age. They are leading, but the leaders of the nuclear weapons states are not yet demonstrating the political will to follow or to lead themselves.
New Universal Ethic
Nuclear weapons could render the planet uninhabitable for humans and other complex forms of life, but the planet itself would survive the worst we could do. It is not the planet that is endangered; it is we humans.
I believe we humans need a new ethic to see us safely through and out of the Nuclear Age. For me, this new universal ethic would have the following elements:
Reverence for life. This is the central philosophy of Albert Schweitzer. It requires us to care for our fellow humans and for all creatures. We must be kind and good stewards of the planet.
Earth citizenship. We owe our allegiance to the Earth and to people everywhere. Our problems are global and our solutions must be global as well.
Universal human rights, including the sacred right to peace. All humans are entitled by virtue of being human to the basic rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the United Nations has declared, there is also a sacred right to peace.
Universal human responsibilities. With rights come responsibilities, including each generation’s responsibility to pass the planet on intact to new generations.
Nuclear weapons are incompatible with these ethical foundations. As the ultimate mass killing device, they are the antithesis of reverence for life. They divide countries and their inhabitants into nuclear haves and have-nots. They are an assault on human rights and life itself, and their possession and threat of use are a violation of our responsibilities to humankind as a whole and to future generations.
Nuclear Zero
In 1945 the first nuclear weapon was tested by the United States. Within a few weeks the US then used two nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying those cities and killing and injuring their inhabitants. This was followed by a nuclear arms race, which reached its peak by 1986 with 70,000 nuclear weapons on the planet. Since then, the numbers have declined significantly, and today there are just over 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mostly in the arsenals of the US and Russia. This is still far too many, since one nuclear weapon can destroy a city and only 100 nuclear weapons used in a regional war between India and Pakistan could cause a Nuclear Famine leading to two billion deaths worldwide. The only number of nuclear weapons on the planet that makes sense is Zero. Our urgent goal must be a safe passage from where we are to Nuclear Zero.
On the path to Nuclear Zero, I would encourage bold actions to engage the nuclear-addicted states (those with nuclear weapons) and the nuclear-dependent states (those that rely upon the nuclear umbrella of nuclear-addicted states). The concerned citizens of these states, along with the citizens of the nuclear-free states, must form a bond to push for change. The status quo is no longer acceptable. The sense of urgency and the speed of change toward Nuclear Zero must intensify for the common good.
A Summit of Youth
I believe it must be young people, following in the moral footsteps of the hibakusha, who must lead the way. How are you to do it? I can only point you in the direction that you need to travel. You must forge a new path, one not yet cleared in the Nuclear Age. The path must be forged in the belief that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil and in the spirit of waging peace. It must be traveled boldly and with the confidence that the future belongs to those who follow their dreams for a better tomorrow.
I strongly support Daisaku Ikeda’s proposal for a Nuclear Abolition Summit in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2015. It is a bold and hopeful proposal. If the nuclear weapon states (the nuclear-addicted states) and the nuclear-dependent states won’t participate, though, I suggest making it a Summit of Youth from around the world to come together to join forces for a world free of nuclear weapons. Invite the non-nuclear weapons states (the nuclear-free states) to come to the Summit to initiate negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.
Let’s get to work banning nuclear weapons, with or without the nuclear weapon states. They cannot hold out indefinitely when confronted with the energy and passion of the youth of the world. One thing that seems certain to me is that the youth of the world are a more powerful force than even the most powerful nuclear warheads. Let the young people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima lead the way, starting with a Youth Nuclear Abolition Summit in 2015.
Our Best Hope
Our best hope for the human future is to unite in our support of the abolition of nuclear weapons. National security must give way to planetary security through the acts of individuals joining together with compassion, commitment and courage. To these we can add two more C’s – creativity and cooperation. We need to awaken from our slumber and be the noble people we are capable of being. We need leadership from the survivors of the atomic bombings and from the youth of Nagasaki and Hiroshima who support them. We actually need leadership from all youth of all countries. When nuclear weapons are abolished, it will be time for a new “C” – celebration. We can celebrate our gift to ourselves and to the future of humankind.
Why Work to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
I will conclude with 12 reasons for working to abolish nuclear weapons.
We can change the world in important and necessary ways.
We can take a giant step forward for humankind.
We can join with others in demonstrating good stewardship of the planet.
We can take control of our most dangerous technology.
We can help shape a more decent common future.
We can end the threat of omnicide posed by nuclear weapons.
We can uphold international law for the common benefit.
We can lead the way toward ending war as a human institution.
We can meet the greatest challenge confronting our species.
We can put compassion into action and action into compassion.
We can help to protect everything in life that we love and treasure.
We can pass on a more secure world to our children and grandchildren and all future generations.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.