Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

  • Día de la Tierra 2012

    Click here for the English version.


    David KriegerVivimos en un vasto universo con miles de millones de galaxias, cada una de ellas compuesta de miles de millones de estrellas. Nuestra casa es un pequeño planeta que gira en torno a un pequeño sol en una galaxia remota.   Se localiza a la distancia justa del sol, no es demasiado caliente ni demasiado fría para albergar vida.   Dispone de aire respirable, agua que es potable, y suelo apto para los cultivos.  En la inmensidad del espacio, es un objeto muy pequeño, al que el gran astrofísico y comunicador Carl Sagan se refería como un “punto azul pálido”.   Nuestra Tierra es el único lugar que conocemos que alberga vida.   Es la más preciada de las riquezas que podamos imaginar. 
     
    Uno podría pensar que cualquier criatura con cordura viviendo en este planeta reconocería su belleza y hermosura, y lo trataría con cuidado.  En el libro clásico de Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, El Principito, el príncipe dice: “Es una cuestión de disciplina. Cuando hayamos terminado de lavarnos y vestirnos cada mañana, hay que atender el planeta.”   Pero ese es un planeta imaginario con un pequeño príncipe imaginario.   En el planeta real que sustenta la vida, en el que habitamos, no hay suficientes de nosotros que ejerzan esta disciplina y traten a nuestro planeta con amoroso cuidado.
     
    Veamos cómo manejamos este tesoro único.Hemos permitido que el planeta se divida en ricos y pobres, donde pocas personas tienen miles de millones de dólares y miles de millones de personas tienen pocos dólares.   Algunos viven en la codicia, y la mayoría vive en la necesidad.   Hemos repartido el planeta en entidades que llamamos países y creado las fronteras que los países tratan de proteger.   Hemos creado las fuerzas militares en estos países, dándoles enormes recursos para prepararse para la guerra y la destrucción.   Los gastos militares mundiales exceden más de mil seiscientos millones de billones de dólares, mientras que cientos de millones de seres humanos viven sin agua potable, nutrición adecuada, atención médica y educación.
     
    Hemos explotado con avidez los recursos del planeta sin importarnos las generaciones futuras o el daño que causamos al medio ambiente. En lugar de utilizar la energía renovable del sol para proveer nuestras necesidades de energía, explotamos las entrañas de la Tierra por petróleo y lo transportamos a través del globo.   Hemos convertido gran parte del mundo en un desierto.   Hemos contaminado el aire que respiramos y el agua que bebemos.   En nuestro exceso, hemos empujado el planeta hacia el punto de no retorno en el calentamiento global, y luego argumentamos que el calentamiento global es una razón para construir más centrales nucleares.
     
    Continuamos aprendiendo de una manera trágica que los seres humanos somos criaturas falibles. Esa es la lección de nuestros recurrentes derrames de petróleo.   Es también la lección de los accidentes de Chernobyl hace un cuarto de siglo y en Fukushima hace un año.   Es una lección que necesitamos urgentemente aprender acerca de las armas nucleares, las armas que hemos estado muy cerca de utilizar en muchas ocasiones y dos veces usado intencionalmente. 
     
    Las armas nucleares matan directamente por la explosión, el fuego y la radiación. Las bombas nucleares usadas en Hiroshima y Nagasaki eran pequeñas en comparación con las armas termonucleares de hoy.   En los últimos años, hemos aprendido algunas cosas nuevas sobre la guerra nuclear.   Los científicos atmosféricos han modelado una hipotética guerra nuclear entre la India y Pakistán en la que cada parte utiliza 50 armas nucleares del tamaño de la de Hiroshima para devastar sus ciudades. Además de los efectos directos de las armas,habría importantes efectos indirectos sobre el medio ambiente.   El humo de las ciudades en llamas se elevaría a la estratosfera disminuyendo la luz del sol durante diez años, lo que reduciría las temperaturas medias de la superficie, afectando las temporadas de cultivo y dando lugar a una hambruna mundial que podría matar a cientos de millones de personas. 
     
    Ese sería el resultado de una guerra nuclear pequeña, utilizando menos del uno por ciento de las armas nucleares desplegadas operacionalmente en el planeta. Una guerra nuclear entre los EE.UU. y Rusia podría dar lugar a la extinción de la mayor parte de la vida compleja sobre la Tierra, incluyendo a nosotros los humanos   Al celebrar el Día de la Tierra de este año, 20 años después del fin de la Guerra Fría, los EE.UU. y Rusia aún mantienen cientos de misiles balísticos intercontinentales listos para ser lanzados en cualquier momento .
     
    Nosotros, los que estamos vivos hoy en día somos los custodios de este planeta para las generaciones futuras. Estamos fracasando en nuestra responsabilidad de heredarlo intacto.   Necesitamos una ética nueva terrestre que abarque nuestra responsabilidad de ser justos con los demás y con el futuro.   Necesitamos nuevas formas de educar a los que no se limitan a aceptar el status quo.   Es necesario cambiar nuestro patriotismo por un humanismo mundial. Necesitamos un nuevo enfoque de la economía sobre la base de lo que es verdaderamente valioso: la vida y las condiciones que la apoyan. 
     
    El Día de la Tierra tendrá su mayor valor si nos recuerda que debemos cuidar de ella durante todos los demás días del año, de forma individual y global. Tenemos que inspirar a la gente en todo el mundo, jóvenes y viejos por igual, con una visión de la belleza y las maravillas de la Tierra que ahora podemos disfrutar, restaurarla y preservarla para las generaciones futuras, si atendemos a nuestro planeta con la disciplina del pequeño príncipe.

  • Nuclear Zero: Getting to the Finish Line

    This article was originally published by Truthout.


    David KriegerAlmost five decades ago, I first visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It was 18 years after the atomic bombings flattened the cities, and the cities had returned to a kind of normalcy.  At the memorial museums, though, a very different perspective on nuclear weapons was presented than that taught in American schools.  It was the perspective from below the bombs – that of the victims – not the technological perspective of having created and used the bombs.


    Nuclear weapons are not simply a technological achievement, as the West has tended to portray them.  They kill indiscriminately – children, women and men.  They are not weapons of war; they are tools of mass annihilation.  No matter what we call them, they are not truly weapons, but instruments of unbridled mass destruction.  Their threat or use is illegal under international law.  Surely, their possession, like chemical or biological weapons, should be as well.  They are immoral, as has been concluded by all the world’s great religions.  And they have cost us dearly, in financial and scientific resources and in compromises of the soul.


    Three decades ago, in 1982, we founded the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  Its vision 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.  So we educate, advocate and empower – that’s what we do.  We speak out.  We are a voice of conscience.  We advocate for sane policies and for leadership to achieve a world without nuclear dangers.  Our goal is to educate and engage millions of people to move the world to nuclear disarmament and peace.


    We challenge bad theory, such as the theory of nuclear deterrence, a theory that justifies reliance on nuclear weapons, but has many faults.  For nuclear deterrence to work successfully, leaders of nuclear-armed states must be rational at all times and under all circumstances, particularly under conditions of stress when they are least likely to be rational.  Also, nuclear deterrence cannot deter those who have no territory to retaliate against or who are suicidal.  Thus, nuclear deterrence has no possibility of success against terrorist organizations.  To see one of many ways that deterrence can fail, I encourage you to watch the 1964 movie, Fail-Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet, based upon the 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler.


    The Foundation also challenges bad nuclear policies, including those that tolerate a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”  We believe that the ultimate consequence of this two-tier structure will be nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war.  We also advocate for nuclear policies that reduce risks and move us toward a world without nuclear weapons, policies such as security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states of: no first use of nuclear weapons; no launch on warning of nuclear attack; lowering the alert status of nuclear weapons; a comprehensive test ban treaty; and a fissile material cut-off treaty.  These are all elements of the critical goal of nuclear weapons abolition and must be viewed in that context.


    Scientists tell us that even a small nuclear war with an exchange of a hundred Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons, destroying cities and sending smoke into the stratosphere, could result in blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature, leading to massive crop failures and famine, resulting in some one billion deaths.  This would be the kind of nuclear war that could occur in South Asia between India and Pakistan.  A larger-scale nuclear war, fought with a few hundred thermonuclear weapons, the kind that could occur between the US and Russia, could destroy civilization and possibly cause the extinction of the human species and most other forms of complex life on the planet.  We all share a responsibility to assure there are no small- or large-scale nuclear wars, but as long as nuclear weapons exist in any substantial numbers, the possibility of nuclear war also exists.


    In October 1962, the world held its collective breath as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded.  The world was poised on the brink of a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR.  John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev managed to navigate those dangerous currents, but many of their advisors were pushing them toward nuclear war.  Decisions on all sides were made with only partial knowledge, which could have resulted in disaster.  Robert Kennedy’s eye-witness account of the crisis, Thirteen Days, is sobering reading.


    In 1982, the year the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was created, there was considerable concern in the world about nuclear dangers.  There were more than 60,000 nuclear weapons, nearly all in the arsenals of the US and USSR.  More than one million people gathered in Central Park in New York calling for a nuclear freeze.  Of course, they were right to do so.  The nuclear arms race was out of control, and the leaders of the US and USSR were not talking to each other.  An uncontrollable nuclear arms race coupled with a failure to communicate were and are a recipe for disaster.


    By 1986, the nuclear arms race reached its apogee with over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, nearly all in the arsenals of the US and USSR.  But by this time Mikhail Gorbachev had come to power in the USSR and was talking about abolishing nuclear weapons by the year 2000.  Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, who shared Gorbachev’s view about nuclear weapons, came heartbreakingly close to agreeing to abolish their nuclear arsenals at a summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986.  Their attempt to find their way to zero nuclear weapons foundered on the issue of the Strategic Defense Initiative, now commonly referred to as missile defense.  Reagan wanted it; Gorbachev didn’t.


    So, in 1986 there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world.  Since then, we have made progress in substantially reducing nuclear arsenals to the current number of under 20,000 worldwide, having shed some 50,000 nuclear weapons.  Of the 8,500 nuclear weapons in the US arsenal, about 3,500 are awaiting dismantlement and fewer than 2,000 are deployed, about the same number deployed in Russia.  The US and Russia have agreed that they will each reduce their deployed strategic weapons to 1,550 by the year 2017.  Neither country has conducted an atmospheric or underground nuclear weapon test since 1992 (other than underground subcritical nuclear tests in which the nuclear material does not reach the criticality necessary for a nuclear chain reaction). 


    We have made progress.  We are now on relatively positive terms with Russia, since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.  Through solid US negotiating, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus agreed to give up the nuclear arsenals that the former Soviet Union had left on their territories and to give these weapons over to Russia for dismantlement. 


    A significant event occurred in 1996 when US Secretary of Defense William Perry met with the Russian and Ukrainian Defense Ministers at a former missile base in Ukraine to plant sunflowers.  Secretary Perry said on the occasion, “Sunflowers in the soil instead of missiles will ensure peace for future generations.”  We adopted the sunflower as a symbol of a nuclear weapons-free world.  The sunflower symbolizes everything that a nuclear-armed missile is not, being natural, nutritious, healthy, beautiful, grounded in the earth and powered by the sun.


    We have come a long way, but we haven’t reached the finish line, which is a world without nuclear weapons.  The issue we face now is to educate decision makers and the public that the dangers of nuclear weapons have not gone away.  There are still many flash points of nuclear danger in the world: India-Pakistan, North Korea, the continued possession of nuclear weapons by the UK and France, the possession of nuclear weapons by Israel and the incentive for nuclear proliferation this creates in the Middle East, and the relationship of the nuclear energy fuel cycle to nuclear proliferation.


    The greatest problem related to nuclear weapons is not that Iran might develop such weapons.  It is that the countries with nuclear weapons are not taking seriously enough their obligations to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and achieve nuclear disarmament.  Nuclear weapons do not make their possessors more secure.  When a country has nuclear weapons or seeks to acquire them, that country will also be a target of nuclear weapons.  This goes for both the US and Iran, and for all other countries with nuclear weapons or seeking to develop them.  Nuclear weapons turn cities and countries into targets for mass annihilation.


    What shall we do to advance to zero?  In the spirit of Gorbachev and Reagan, the US and Russia must lead the way. They still possess over 95 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world.  It was recently revealed that President Obama has requested a study of reductions of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to three levels: 1000 to 1,100 weapons; 700 to 800 weapons; and 300 to 400 weapons.  This is significant.  It is worth advocating for US leadership to reduce the US nuclear arsenal to the lower level, to 300 nuclear weapons, as a next step.  But, of course, this would not be the desired end result.  First, it is not low enough; it is not zero.  It still would be more than enough to destroy civilization and potentially cause the extinction of complex life on the planet.  Second, it is unilateral; it must be bilateral and moving toward multilateral.


    At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we have never called for unilateral nuclear disarmament.  Going down to 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons would be a significant reduction, but it should be a joint endeavor with Russia. To get Russia to join us in this next step will require the US to move its missile defense installations away from the Russian border, so that Russia does not feel threatened by these defenses, particularly at lower levels of offensive weapons.  US officials tell Russia not to worry about these missile defense installations, but the Russians are wary.  It is easy to understand this, if one imagines the Russians placing missile defense installations on the Canadian border and telling the US not to worry.  Missile defenses, if they are needed, must be a joint project, just as reductions in the numbers of offensive nuclear weapons must be a joint project.


    The US and Russia must cooperate on continuing to pare down their nuclear arsenals for their own security and for global security.  At the level of 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons each, they would then be in a position of rough parity with the other nuclear weapon states and in a position to effectively negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  The number that matters most in the nuclear disarmament arena is zero. It is the most secure and stable number of nuclear weapons.  It must be achieved carefully and in phases, but it must be achieved for the benefit of our children, grandchildren and all future generations.

  • For Nuclear Security Beyond Seoul, Eradicate Land-Based ‘Doomsday’ Missiles

    This article was originally published by the Christian Science Monitor.

    David KriegerPresident Obama and other world leaders gathered at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea, this week to address threats posed by unsecured nuclear material. If Mr. Obama is truly concerned about nuclear safety, he should seriously consider doing away with the 450 inter-continental ballistic missiles deployed and ready to fire at Russia on a moment’s notice.

    Last month we were among 15 protesters who were arrested in the middle of the night at Vandenberg Air Force Base, some 70 miles north of Santa Barbara, Calif. We were protesting the imminent test flight of a Minuteman III inter-continental ballistic missile.

    The Air Force rationale for doing these tests is to ensure the reliability of the US nuclear deterrent force; but launch-ready land-based nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are the opposite of a deterrent to attack. In fact, their very deployment has the potential to launch World War III and precipitate human extinction – as a result of a false alarm.

    We’re not exaggerating. Here’s why: These nuclear missiles are first-strike weapons – most of them would not survive a nuclear attack. In the event of a warning of a Russian nuclear attack, there would be an incentive to launch all 450 of these Minuteman missiles before the incoming enemy warheads could destroy them in their silos.

    If the warning turned out to be false (there have been many false warnings), and the US missiles were launched before the error was detected, World War III would be underway. The Russians have the same incentive to launch their land-based missiles upon warning of a perceived attack.

    Both US and Russian land-based missiles remain constantly on high-alert status, ready to be launched within minutes. Because of the 30-minute flight times of these missiles, the presidents of both the US and Russia would have only approximately 12 minutes to decide whether to launch their missiles when presented by their military leaders with information indicating an imminent attack (after lower-level threat assessment conferences).

    That’s only 12 minutes or less for the president to decide whether to launch global nuclear war.  While this scenario is unlikely, it is definitely possible: Presidents have repeatedly rehearsed it, and it cannot be ruled out due to the graveness of its potential consequences.

    Russia came close to launching its missiles based on a warning that came Jan. 25, 1995. President Yeltsin was awakened in the middle of the night and told a US missile was headed toward Moscow. Fortunately, Yeltsin was sober and took longer than the time allocated for his decision on whether to launch Russian nuclear-armed missiles in response.

    In the extended time, it became clear that the missile was a weather sounding rocket from Norway and not a US missile headed toward Moscow. Disaster was only narrowly averted.

    Here is the really compelling part of the story: If all 450 US land-based Minuteman III missiles with thermonuclear warheads were ever launched at Russia – with many of the targets in or near cities, as now planned – most Americans would die as a result, along with most of humanity.  Our own weapons would contribute as much or more to these deaths in America and the rest of the globe as any Russian warheads launched.

    This is because smoke from the enormous nuclear firestorms created by even a “successful” US nuclear first-strike would cause catastrophic disruption of global climate and massive destruction of the Earth’s protective ozone layer, leading to global famine.

    Recent peer-reviewed studies, done by atmospheric scientists Alan Robock (Rutgers), Brian Toon (University of Colorado-Boulder), Richard Turco (UCLA) and colleagues, predict that such an attack would create immense firestorms that would quickly surround the planet with a dense stratospheric smoke layer.

    The black smoke would be heated by the sun, lofted like a hot air balloon, and would remain in the stratosphere for at least 10 years. There it would block and prevent a large fraction of sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface. The sharp reduction of warming sunlight would rapidly produce global Ice Age weather conditions. This would eliminate or dramatically reduce growing seasons for a decade and would likely cause the starvation of most or all humans.

    Along with other effects – including prolonged destruction of the ozone layer – most complex life on Earth could be destroyed. Scientists say the process would be similar to when an asteroid hit the Earth some 65 million years ago, raising a global dust cloud that reduced sunlight, lowering temperatures and killing vegetation. That caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and 70 percent of the Earth’s species.

    The cause of extinction in our case would not be an external, celestial event, but rather the launching of thermonuclear weapons we had created by our own cleverness, supposedly for our own security.

    The Minuteman III missile tests from Vandenberg Air Force Base are thus really tests of an American Nuclear Doomsday Machine.

    Nuclear weapons do not make the US or the world more secure. In particular, the Minuteman III missiles – land-based, vulnerable, on high alert, and susceptible to being triggered by a false alarm – make us less secure. Anyone who cares about humankind having a future should protest these tests and call for the elimination of all nuclear-armed inter-continental ballistic missiles as an initial step toward the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

    If the US did away now with its nuclear-armed land-based missile force, it would still have 288 invulnerable submarine-launched ballistic missiles (armed with approximately 1,152 warheads) to act as a retaliatory threat to nuclear attack. But it would no longer have tempting targets for the Russians to strike preemptively in a time of tension or in the event of a false warning of attack.

    It would still be imperative to reduce US (and Russian) total warheads to levels that do not threaten the possibility of causing human extinction.

    And even the smaller existing nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan threaten global disaster. Professor Robock and his colleagues have estimated that in a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in which each side used 50 Hiroshima-size bombs (each side now has more than that number), the smoke rising into the stratosphere could cause a global reduction of sunlight and destruction of ozone leading to crop failures and global famine.

    By comparison, the launch-ready thermonuclear forces of the US and Russia contain roughly 500 times the explosive power of the 100 atomic bombs of India and Pakistan.

    Now is the time for the people and nations of the world to stand up against the potential extinction of the human species and demand that political leaders pursue the path to zero nuclear weapons, a path mandated by the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Court of Justice. Until then, protest and civil resistance will be necessary.

    We should seek two principal goals: first, a commitment by the existing nuclear weapon states to forego launch-on-warning and first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances; and second, good faith negotiations for a new treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible, and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

    It is our hope that by committing nonviolent civil resistance, being arrested, going to federal court, and explaining our actions to the public, we will help to awaken and engage the American people on this issue of utmost importance to our common future.

  • 2012 Kelly Lecture Introduction

    David KriegerThis is the 11th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future.  The lecturer is Daniel Ellsberg, a true American hero.

    This lecture series honors the memory of Frank Kelly, a founder and senior vice president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  Frank had great optimism about the human future.  He thought that we humans were “glorious beings” and that we all deserve a seat at humanity’s table.

    Each year the Foundation invites a distinguished individual to deliver this lecture.  Past lecturers have included Richard Falk, Robert J. Lifton, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Dame Anita Roddick, Jakob von Uexkull and Francis Moore Lappe.

    Last year’s Kelly Lecturer was Commander Robert Green, who spoke on “Breaking Free from Nuclear Deterrence.”  The booklet of his lecture led to him being invited to address the British Trident Commission, where he argued that the UK should lead the way toward zero nuclear weapons by being the first country to eliminate its nuclear arsenal.

    Daniel Ellsberg is one of the greatest living Americans and citizens of the world.  He is a graduate of Harvard University with a B.A. and Ph.D. in Economics.  Between his undergraduate degree and his graduate studies, Dan spent three years in the U.S. Marine Corps.  He was a platoon leader, operations officer and rifle company commander.

    In his early career, Dan worked at the highest levels of the American government.  In 1959, he joined the RAND Corporation as a strategic analyst and consultant to the Defense Department and White House, focusing on problems of command and control of nuclear weapons, nuclear war plans and crisis decision-making.  In 1961, he drafted the guidance from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the operational plans for general nuclear war.  He was a member of two of the three working groups reporting to the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOM) during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

    In 1964, he joined the Defense Department as Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.  He worked on the escalation of the war in Vietnam.  The following year he transferred to the State Department to serve two years at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, evaluating pacification in the field.

    When Dan returned to the Rand Corporation in 1967, he went to work on the top secret McNamara study of US Decision-making in Vietnam, 1945-68.  This later became known as the Pentagon Papers.  Dan came to believe that this information was vital for the public to know and understand in evaluating the war in Vietnam.  In 1969, he photocopied the 7,000 page study and gave it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  In 1971, he gave the study to the New York Times, the Washington Post and 17 other papers.  For doing so, he was put on trial for 12 felony counts for which he faced a possible 115 years in prison.  The charges against him were dismissed based upon US government misconduct.

    Daniel Ellsberg is one of the brightest men I know and one of the most moral and courageous.  He is the recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and also the Right Livelihood Award, which is presented in the Swedish Parliament and known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”

    He is the author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.  He is working on a new book based upon his experiences as a US strategic nuclear policy analyst and their application to current US nuclear policy.  He serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • War Is Not Inevitable

    David KriegerThere have not always been wars; and there need not always be wars.  Before the onset of civilization, there may have been tribal skirmishes but there was not organized warfare between competing military forces. 


    It was not until agriculture allowed for societal specialization, hierarchy and the generation of a warrior class loyal to a military or political leader or social system that wars began in earnest.  Agriculture required defense of boundaries and crops.  Such defense required the specialization of a warrior class organized into military forces.  Such forces required organization and a willing youthful pool of potential soldiers.  But legitimate purposes of defense can also be turned to offensive uses.  Leaders throughout history have been adept at justifying aggressive war in terms of defense. 


    War is a byproduct of civilization, and it is made more likely by having distinct competing social entities, such as city-states or today’s nation-states.  In the 20th century, wars became global or nearly so.  In World War I, soldiers mostly slaughtered other soldiers.  In World War II, however, with the development of modern air warfare, cities and civilians became targets of warfare.  Some 20 million people were killed in WWI and some 50 million in WWII. 


    The technology of warfare has increased in sophistication and lethality.  WWII ended with the destruction of two unprotected Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by two US atomic bombs, one dropped on each city.  This opened a new era, the Nuclear Age, in which it became possible to destroy civilization and complex life, including human life, on the planet.  By our own cleverness, we humans have created instruments capable of destroying ourselves.  The creation of nuclear weapons has made the world too dangerous for warfare. 


    Warfare requires a high level of social organization, but peace requires an even higher level of social organization.  The United Nations Charter prohibits the use of force between nations except under very limited conditions of self-defense or when the Security Council authorizes the use of force.  Of course, this prohibition against the use of force has not been very successful, largely because the major powers have relied upon the law of force rather than the force of law. 


    We have created a situation in which either warfare or humanity is obsolete.  We humans can choose.  We can choose to put an end to warfare, or we can continue to run the risk of warfare putting an end to us.  This is the way that Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein put it in a 1955 statement calling for an end to warfare due to the power of thermonuclear weapons: “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.”


    But people must face this alternative.  Peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age.  It is both a right and responsibility.  The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can get on with the necessary task of abolishing nuclear weapons and building a warless world.  In doing so, we will free up vast resources that can be used to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals to end poverty, improve health, protect the environment and better the lives of people everywhere.


    Vaya aquí para la versión española.

  • Deep Cuts in the US Nuclear Arsenal Being Considered

    David KriegerThe Associated Press is reporting that the Obama administration is examining options for deep cuts in the US nuclear arsenal.  According to the report, the administration is considering options for three levels of cuts in deployed strategic nuclear weapons: 1,000 to 1,100; 700 to 800; and 300 to 400. 


    Any decrease in the size of the US nuclear arsenal would be a step in the right direction, but the lower level being considered would be a major step toward a world free of nuclear weapons.  It would also demonstrate to the world that the US is serious about achieving nuclear disarmament, as it is obligated to do under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  The same obligation applies to Russia, the UK, France and China. 


    Currently, under the New START agreement with Moscow, which entered into force in February 2011, the US and Russia are obligated to reduce their deployed strategic nuclear arsenals to 1,550 weapons each by 2017.  Moving the number downward to 300 to 400 would be a major game changer in lowering the risk of nuclear war, nuclear accidents, nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. 


    In his Prague speech in April 2009, President Obama expressed hope that America might lead the way toward a world free of nuclear weapons.  “I state clearly and with conviction,” he said, “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  He tempered this by indicating that it might not happen during his lifetime and that “patience and persistence” will be needed.  He has an opportunity now to take a major step during his time in office toward achieving this commitment.


    President Obama also pointed out in his Prague speech what nuclear weapons do: “One nuclear weapon exploded in one city — be it New York or Moscow, Islamabad or Mumbai, Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague — could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And no matter where it happens, there is no end to what the consequences might be — for our global safety, our security, our society, our economy, to our ultimate survival.” 


    Some will attack the President for being bold in seeking to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the US arsenal.  But boldness is needed, for there are many ways in which nuclear deterrence can fail, including its requirement of rationality in a real world of irrational leaders and terrorist extremists.  At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we applaud the President for considering these options for lowering the size of the US nuclear arsenal, and we encourage his boldness in moving to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons use by accident, miscalculation or intent.


    If President Obama is successful in reducing the size of the US nuclear arsenal to 300 to 400 weapons and bringing the Russians along with the US, this will leave the other seven countries in possession of nuclear weapons roughly at parity with between 100 and 300 nuclear weapons each.  This would be a strong place from which to launch multilateral negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  Such a Convention would be a great achievement for humanity and a gift to ourselves and the generations that will follow us on the planet.

  • War Over

    David KriegerIt was decided in Washington by someone
    wearing a suit and tie, perhaps suspenders,
    perhaps a bowtie.

    The war was declared over and thus
    it was — for us.  We pulled out our tired troops
    from one of the countries where we had been warring,

    leaving behind plenty of bullets and bombs
    for our proxies.  Despite our declaration of “war over”
    the war didn’t end at that certain moment,

    but went on without us while we sent our soldiers
    to fight in another, similarly senseless, war
    in another country.

    Other parties to the war kept fighting without us.
    In the mayhem that continued, we were hardly missed,
    even though we had set it all in motion years before.

    By the old rules, a country is supposed to declare war
    before it begins, but those are the old rules.
    By the new rules, made up as we go, we declare

    an end to war when we are through with it.  If only
    we could mesh the old and new, and the people, in chorus,
    would demand “war over” before it had begun.

  • Wishes for the New Year

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.


    David KriegerMay we embrace peace with justice.  May we speak for it and stand for it.  May we make our voices heard and our presence felt.


    May we awaken to the possibilities of our greatness if we stop wasting our resources on war and its preparation. 


    May we end all war in the new year.  Wars always end.  May we end them sooner and lessen the toll of death and suffering.  May we refrain from initiating new wars.


    May we dramatically reduce military spending and reallocate the funds to meeting social needs – the needs of the poor, the hungry, the homeless and those without health care.


    May we end the arms trade, and make pariahs of those who profit from it and from war.


    May we stop provoking a new nuclear arms race with the Russians by the expansion of NATO and deployment of missile defense installations up to their borders in Europe.


    May we recognize the omnicidal threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity and all life.  May we take these weapons off hair-trigger alert, declare and enforce policies of No First Use, and begin negotiations for a new treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of all nuclear weapons.


    May we uphold and strengthen human rights for all people in all places.  May we seek justice for the oppressed. 


    May we stop to appreciate the beauty and abundance of our amazing planet, our most important common heritage.  May we make it a healthy planet for all life by restoring the purity of its air and water, the lushness of its forests and the richness of its soil. 


    May we demonstrate a decent respect for the lessons of history and for all who have preceded us on our unique planet, the only one we know of in the universe that supports life.


    May we show by our actions that we take seriously our role as trustees of Earth for our children and their children and all children of the future – that they may enjoy a peaceful and harmonious life on our planetary home.

  • The End of Another War

    The Iraq War, from its outset, disgraced America by its flaunting of international law.  Now the war is over, but the disgrace, destruction and trauma live on. 


    After nearly nine years, America declared an end to the war and withdrew its last troops in December 2011, leaving behind a fortress embassy, mercenary guards and a country in shambles. There is no way to paint a happy or proud face on this war.  It was unnecessary.  It was illegal.  It was immoral.  And it was cruel.


    There was never a link between Iraq and 9/11 or between Iraq and al Qaeda.  Iraq had no program to develop weapons of mass destruction.  Our leaders were told this by the United Nations weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq.  When George W. Bush initiated the war against Iraq in March 2003, he did so with lies and a “shock and awe” attack on Baghdad.  He had no authorization from the United Nations Security Council. 


    During the nearly nine years the war dragged on, 4,487 American soldiers were killed and more than 32,000 were wounded.   By the Pentagon’s count, more than 100,000 Iraqis were killed and, by other counts, more than a million Iraqis died as a result of the war.  Some five million Iraqis were displaced from their homes. 


    America financed the war on credit, borrowing approximately $1 trillion to pursue it.  Some economists predict that the full costs of the war – with ongoing medical care for veterans and interest on the increase in the national debt due to the war – will run to three to four trillion dollars.  It is a war that is adding to our economic woes now and for which our children and their children will continue to pay far into the future. 


    It was Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell’s war, all individuals who bear the burden lightly.  In a just world, they would each have a place on the docket reserved for the worst criminal cases, for aggressive war – as pointed out at the Nuremberg tribunals – is the worst of crimes.  But this is not a just world.  It is a world where innocent children suffer for the arrogance of smug and mendacious leaders. 


    This war was possible because too many Americans are complacent and, without fully realizing what is at stake, are misled into war.  It was possible also because we have a volunteer military that can be manipulated and abused into committing the atrocity of aggressive war – what at the Nuremberg tribunals was called a “crime against peace.”


    When I think of the Iraq War, many different images come to mind, but two stand out: One is of George Bush’s clueless and self-satisfied smirk; the other is of the sad and frightened face of Ali Ismail Abbas, a 12-year-old Iraqi child who lost both of his arms and his father, his pregnant mother, his brother and 13 other members of his family in the war.  Here are two poems, written during the course of the war, one for Mr. Bush and one for Ali Ismail Abbas.





    GREETING BUSH IN BAGHDAD


    “This is a farewell kiss, you dog.”
      — Muntader al-Zaidi


    You are a guest in my country, unwanted
    surely, but still a guest.


    You stand before us waiting for praise,
    but how can we praise you?


    You come after your planes have rained
    death on our cities. 


    Your soldiers broke down our doors,
    humiliated our men, disgraced our women.


    We are not a frontier town and you are not
    our marshal.


    You are a torturer.  We know you force water
    down the throats of our prisoners.


    We have seen the pictures of our naked prisoners
    threatened by your snarling dogs.


    You are a maker of widows and orphans, 
    a most unwelcome guest.


    I have only this for you, my left shoe that I hurl
    at your lost and smirking face,


    and my right shoe that I throw at your face
    of no remorse. 


       David Krieger





    TO AN IRAQI CHILD


      for Ali Ismail Abbas


    So you wanted to be a doctor?


    It was not likely that your dreams
    would have come true anyway.


    We didn’t intend for our bombs to find you.


    They are smart bombs, but they didn’t know
    that you wanted to be a doctor.


    They didn’t know anything about you
    and they know nothing of love.


    They cannot be trusted with dreams.


    They only know how to find their targets
    and explode in fulfillment. 


    They are gray metal casings with violent hearts, 
    doing only what they were created to do. 


    It isn’t their fault that they found you. 


    Perhaps you were not meant to be a doctor.


       David Krieger





  • Vietnam Ambush

    This article was originally published by Truthout.


    David KriegerIn the 1960s, the United States of America conscripted young men into its military forces.  The head of Selective Service, which imposed conscription, was General Lewis B. Hershey.  Assisted by local Draft Boards, he gobbled up young men and put them in uniforms.  Then they were trained to kill.


    Most young men were edgy and wary about conscription, particularly after it became apparent that the military’s destination of choice was the jungles of Vietnam.  To receive a deferment and remain beyond the military’s clutches, one had to stay in college or graduate school.  Dick Cheney, one of the subsequent great warmongers of our time, successfully used college deferments to stay out of the military until he qualified for a marriage deferment and then a deferment for having a child.  He always managed to stay one step ahead of the military’s grasp.


    Other means of escaping being drafted into the military were failing one’s physical examination, claiming to be gay and conscientious objection.  All were difficult.  One rumor at the time was that if you drank enough Coke fast enough it would raise your blood pressure to the point you’d fail your physical.  This seemed more like an urban legend than fact.  Not many young men were secure enough to use homosexuality as a reason for staying out of the military, and the criteria for conscientious objection were rigid and based in traditional religious practices that objected to killing.  The truth was that most of us were naïve and hadn’t given much thought to avoiding military “service.”  That changed as the war in Vietnam heated up and expanded.


    The generation before us had fought in World War II, which seemed like a good war, pitting democracy against fascism (Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo).  More recently, there had been the war in Korea, which was touted as a fight for democracy against communism.  There was precedent for young men to go docilely into the US military and do its bidding.  And then, along came Vietnam, and Lyndon Johnson’s lies about the Tonkin Gulf incident and General William Westmoreland (“General Wastemoremen”) always seeing a light at the end of the tunnel – all he needed was more conscripts.


    The net of conscription ensnared many of us.  I was one.  Another was Daniel Seidenberg, Jr., who received his draft notice at the age of 19 in the winter of 1967.  He was just out of high school and was a surfer.  When his notice came, he thought about escaping to Canada, but, after visiting Canada, decided against it.  Instead, he joined the regular army, having been promised by the recruiter that he would not be sent to Vietnam.  Despite the promise, after being trained as an infantryman, he was sent to Vietnam.  He ended up with near-fatal head wounds that have left him disabled for life. 


    In 2010, Seidenberg published a book he wrote about his military experience in Vietnam.  The book, titled Vietnam Ambush, confirms the worst fears of those of us who didn’t go to fight in that needless, reckless and lawless war.  It is a well-written account of the war from the perspective of a soldier in the field.  It should be read by every young American who thinks war might be glorious.  In fact, it is a cautionary tale that should be read by young people throughout the world.  It takes the adventure and heroics out of war and tells it like it really is, a dirty business in which the old send the young to fight, kill and die in far-off lands – in the case of the Vietnam War, to fight in humid jungles, which US military planes were busy defoliating with the poisonous chemicals napalm and Agent Orange. 


    Here is how Seidenberg describes his dilemma as a US soldier in Vietnam on the opening page of his book:



    I was a combat infantryman in Vietnam.  We were shooting dice for our souls.  Our very spirits were on the line, if we survived.


    No one could say what we were fighting for.  The consensus was that our purpose was to simply survive it all.  I knew that merely surviving would not be enough.  I had to make sure that I survived with a clean conscience.


    What good is living, if you wind up hating yourself?  And I didn’t want to be responsible for any crimes.


    In a war fought entirely in cold blood, keeping a clean conscience was not easy.  Simply staying alive was not easy.


    Although today there is no longer conscription, there is instead a “poverty draft,” which makes the military an economically-attractive option for escaping poverty.  Being put into a killing zone makes it difficult to not become a killer, if only to stay alive oneself.  Should we allow ourselves to be used as tools in war?  Should we not fight against militarism and those who, like Dick Cheney, promote it?  Should we not refuse to subordinate our consciences to leaders who lie us into war? 


    Vietnam Ambush is a short book.  It is written in simple prose.  It tells the truth.  It reminds us that our society has corrupted its youth with war.  It reminds us that war steals from the young – their youth and their conscience.  It reminds us about the importance of having political leadership that is decent and truthful, not deceitful and dishonest.  It reminds us that war is not a game played on a field of battle; it has consequences that last for lifetimes.  War traumatizes young men and women.  It kills and maims soldiers and civilians alike.  It reminds us to choose peace.