Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

  • US Nuclear Posturing Has Adversaries Gearing Up, Not Standing Down

    This article was originally published on March 3, 2018, by The Hill.

    In Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ preface to the 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), he describes its purpose as “to ensure a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent that protects the homeland, assures allies and, above all, deters adversaries.” These are worthy goals, but likely impossible to achieve so long as nuclear weapons exist.

    Of course, it is preferable that nuclear weapons be safe in the sense that they will not detonate accidentally, and that they be secure in the sense that they cannot be stolen by others or triggered by a cyber attack. These are basically physical problems which can be engineered and guarded against, although surely not perfectly.

    Despite the desire to achieve perfection, it is not possible for humans to do so, as demonstrated through the years of the Nuclear Age by many accidents, miscalculations and close calls.

    The biggest problem with a nuclear deterrent force arises from any attempt to determine its effectiveness. How can possessors of nuclear weapons assure that their nuclear weapons are effective in providing a deterrent to another nuclear-armed country? The answer is that they cannot do so in any physical sense.

    The nuclear deterrent force of a country relies instead on creating psychological barriers. If a nuclear deterrent force is effective in protecting a country and its allies, an adversary would refrain from attacking due to fear of retaliation. Since nuclear deterrence operates at the psychological level, one can never be sure it is effective. Or, it may only appear to be effective until it fails and failure could be catastrophic.

    Mattis also refers to a “credible” nuclear deterrent. Presumably, to be effective, a nuclear deterrent force would need to be credible to an adversary, but credibility is also a psychological term. It encompasses not only the size and power of a nuclear arsenal, but a belief in a particular leader’s willingness to actually use the nuclear weapons should deterrence fail.

    It is interesting that in the 2018 NPR (the Trump NPR), as with previous NPRs, there is allowance for the possible failure of nuclear deterrence. This should not be reassuring to anyone. Mattis ties the need to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal to the credibility of the nuclear deterrent force. He also ties credibility to “ensuring that our diplomats continue to speak from a position of strength on matters of war and peace.”

    The 2018 NPR points the finger at Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Russia and China are accused of modernizing their nuclear arsenals, making it necessary for the U.S. to do the same. It points out that Russia, in addition to its seizure of Crimea, has military strategies reliant on nuclear escalation. It talks about China “expanding its already considerable forces,” but fails to mention that China has a policy of minimum deterrence and has made a pledge of No First Use of nuclear weapons.

    Nor does the 2018 NPR mention that both Russia and China have reacted to the U.S. placing missile defense installations strategically near their borders, or that this has only been possible due to the 2002 U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which severely limited ABM deployments.

    Despite the promising interactions between North and South Korean athletes at the 2018 Winter Olympics, Trump has imposed tough sanctions on North Korea and upped his threats toward the country. Personalizing his message, Trump menacingly stated, “If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go to Phase 2. Phase 2 may be a very rough thing. May be very, very unfortunate for the world.” This is the dangerous and threatening rhetoric of a madman.

    Trump has also failed to certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, leaving open the possibility of killing the deal and increasing the odds of yet another war and Iran’s return to its previous nuclear program.

    Mattis concludes his preface to the Trump NPR by acknowledging the vital role played by U.S. servicemen and civilians “in maintaining a safe, secure, and ready nuclear force.” The fact that the U.S. nuclear deterrent force is “ready” is not necessarily a blessing and should be of little comfort to Americans or anyone else. We are all part of “the world” that Trump is threatening to punish if North Korea does not submit to his will. He should be impeached now, before he does something “very, very unfortunate for the world.”

    The 2018 NPR calls for new and smaller nuclear weapons, those that would make it easier to cross the barrier into nuclear war. The NPR also chooses to keep all three legs of the nuclear triad: intercontinental ballistic missiles, bomber aircraft and submarine launched ballistic missiles.

    There can be little doubt that the U.S. nuclear posture will spur other nuclear-armed countries to do the same, thus assuring new arms races and increased nuclear dangers ahead. One has to wonder if the expensive and provocative technological modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and other nuclear policies set forth in the 2018 NPR will be what takes us from the Nuclear Age back to the dark ages.

  • My Lai

    It is a name
    every American
    should know.

    Five hundred four
    Vietnamese villagers
    slaughtered

    by American troops
    that day in My Lai
    fifty years ago.

    Lt. Calley was given
    house arrest,
    then pardoned by Nixon.

    No one went to prison
    for the massacre
    of children, women, old men.

    That’s what happens
    in war, they say.
    That’s what they say.

    David Krieger
    March 2018

  • Miyoko Matsubara

    I heard from friends in Hiroshima that Miyoko Matsubara left this world on February 9th. She was a very gentle and dedicated hibakusha, who came several times for extended periods to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara to practice her English and polish the presentation of her experience as an atomic bomb survivor. She was 13 years old when the atomic bomb destroyed her city. Like so many other survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, she was traumatized by the experience and wanted to assure that no other people or cities suffered the trauma and tragedy that she and her city had.

    Miyoko had a deep commitment to peace and to spreading the central message of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Never Again! She was particularly enthusiastic about sharing her message with young people, and spoke often in school classrooms. I can readily recall her smiling face, and I remember clearly the humility she expressed in her deep bows.

    I think that everyone who knew her was enriched by her enthusiasm, sincerity and friendship. May she rest in peace.

    Here is a poem I wrote about her many years ago:

    She bowed deeply.  She bowed deeper than the oceans.  She bowed
    from the top of Mt. Fuji to the bottom of the ocean.  She bowed so deeply and
    so often that the winds blew hard.

    The winds blew her whispered apologies and prayers across all the
    continents.  But the winds whistled too loudly, and made it impossible to hear
    her apologies and prayers.  The winds made the oceans crazy.  The water in
    the oceans rose up in a wild molecular dance.  The oceans threw themselves
    against the continents.  The people were frightened.  They ran screaming from
    the shores.  They feared the white water and the whistling wind.  They
    huddled together in dark places.  They strained to hear the words in the wind.

    In some places there were some people who thought they heard an
    apology.  In other places there were people who thought they heard a prayer.

    She bowed deeply.  She bowed more deeply than anyone should bow.

  • Nuclear Abolition: A Sisyphean Task?

    David KriegerNuclear weapons threaten everyone and everything we love and cherish.  Why do we accept and tolerate these intolerable weapons?  Every thinking person on the planet should stand against these omnicidal weapons and work for their elimination.

    Nine leaders in nine countries have their fingers on the nuclear button.  These leaders place the future of civilization and most complex life at risk by their misplaced faith in and reliance upon the reliability of nuclear deterrence.  They believe that with enough nuclear weapons of the right size, and by threatening to use them, they will be secure from nuclear and non-nuclear attacks.  This is not the case.  Nuclear deterrence has never guaranteed a nation’s security and has come close to failing on many occasions.  It could fail on any given day, and yet we place the very future of our species on the untested hypothesis that nuclear deterrence will not fail catastrophically.

    In the 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Trump administration takes full ownership of U.S. nuclear policy.  The NPR calls for spending vast resources ($1.7 trillion) over the next three decades to modernize the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal.  It also calls for creating smaller and more usable nuclear weapons, and threatening use of these weapons in a wide variety of circumstances, including as a response to a strong conventional attack or a cyber-attack.  The U.S. has also been deploying missile defenses near the Russian border, triggering a dangerous defensive-offensive cycle; in essence, a new nuclear arms race.

    Other nuclear-armed countries are also in the process of “modernizing” their nuclear deterrence posture, contributing to new nuclear arms races while putting nuclear disarmament on the proverbial shelf.  The world continues to grow ever more dangerous, and yet these nuclear dangers are often met by leaders and the public alike with widespread ignorance and apathy.

    In January, the people of Hawaii were given a serious scare when a technician with the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency sent a false warning that a ballistic missile attack was inbound to the state.  The emergency message, which was not corrected for 38 minutes, called on residents of Hawaii to seek immediate shelter, and warned, “This is not a drill.”  Many Hawaii residents took this warning seriously and called loved ones to say what they thought was a final goodbye.

    In late January, the scientists at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight.  This is the closest the clock has been to its metaphorical midnight indicator of global catastrophe since 1953, at the height of the Cold War.

    At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we believe that the nuclear dangers of our time must be met with the engagement and resistance of people everywhere, demanding an end to the Nuclear Age by means of negotiating the abolition of nuclear weapons.  Actions based on such negotiations pose some risks, but not the risks of destroying civilization and ending the human species. The negotiations must be phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent.  This approach to negotiations will allow for building confidence at each stage.

    Abolishing nuclear weapons is one of the greatest challenges of our time, but it is not impossible.  It demands “political will” by leaders of the nuclear-armed countries, which currently is sorely lacking.  To achieve this political will, the people must awaken and demand it of their leaders.  No matter how difficult and seemingly Sisyphean the task, we must never give up.  At NAPF, we will continue to accept the challenge, and to educate, advocate and organize to meet it.  We will never give up until we realize the goal of a Nuclear Zero world.

  • Progress Toward Nuclear Weapons Abolition

    David Krieger

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been working to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life for 35 years.  We were one of many nuclear disarmament organizations created in the early 1980s, in our case in 1982.  Some of these organizations have endured; some have not.

    We were founded on the belief that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age, that nuclear weapons must be abolished, and that the people of the world must lead their leaders to achieve these goals.  As a founder of the organization, and as its president since its founding, it now seems an appropriate time to look back and reflect on the changes that have occurred over the past 35 years.

    1. War and Peace. Although there has not been an all-out world war since World War II, international terrorism may be viewed as a world war taking place in slow motion, and points to the continuing need to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.  From a different perspective, those countries in possession of nuclear weapons may themselves be viewed as terrorists for their implicit, and sometimes explicit, threats to use nuclear weapons against their adversaries.  Also, there have been many proxy wars between the U.S. and Russia (formerly Soviet Union).
    2. Dramatic reductions. While nuclear weapons have not been abolished, there have been dramatic reductions in their numbers.  By the mid-1980s, there were some 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world.  Now the number is under 15,000, a reduction of 55,000.  This is positive movement, but there are still more than enough nuclear weapons in today’s nuclear arsenals to destroy civilization many times over and to send the planet spiraling into a new Ice Age.
    3. People leading. There are some signs that the people are leading their leaders on issues of peace and disarmament.  One of these is the July 2017 adoption of the new United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  This treaty was spearheaded by non-nuclear weapon states in cooperation with the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a campaign composed of more than 450 civil society organizations, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  ICAN was recognized for this achievement with the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
    4. Proliferation. In the early 1980s, there were six nuclear-armed countries: the U.S., Soviet Union (now Russia), UK, France, China and Israel.  Now there are nine nuclear-armed countries, adding to the first six India, Pakistan and North Korea.  The proliferation of nuclear weapons, although limited, raises the odds of nuclear weapons use.  In addition to these nine nuclear-armed countries, the U.S. still keeps approximately 180 nuclear weapons on the soil of five European countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey.
    5. Curtailing nuclear testing. In the early 1980s, there was widespread nuclear testing, but today nuclear testing is almost nonexistent.  North Korea is the only country still conducting physical nuclear tests, although some countries, including the U.S., continue to conduct subcritical nuclear tests and computer simulation tests.
    6. Cold War. The Cold War ended in 1991, causing many people to think the dangers of nuclear weapons had ended, but this is far from the reality of the Nuclear Age, in which nuclear detonations could occur by accident or miscalculation, as well as by intention, at any time.
    7. Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In 1995, the NPT was indefinitely extended, despite the failure of the parties to the treaty, particularly the five original nuclear-armed countries, to fulfill their Article VI obligations to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament.
    8. Ignorance. Many people alive today know little to nothing about the dangers of nuclear weapons, not having lived through the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the frequent atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, the duck and cover drills that were conducted in schools, or civil defense drills.  Many younger people do not recognize the seriousness of the continuing nuclear threat, or else believe that the threat is limited to countries such as North Korea or Iran.
    9. Thermonuclear monarchy. In the 1980s and still today, we live in a world in which very few people in each nuclear-armed country are authorized to order the use of nuclear weapons.  Thus, these individuals hold the keys to the human future in their hands.  This has been described by Harvard professor Elaine Scarry as “Thermonuclear Monarchy.”
    10. Survivors. The survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as hibakusha, have grown older and fewer in number.  Their average age is now above 80 years.  They are the true ambassadors of the Nuclear Age, and their testimony remains critical to awakening people to the nuclear threat to all humanity, and to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.

    Over the past 35 years, there have been significant reductions in nuclear weapons and nuclear testing, but there are more nuclear-armed countries now than then.  There is still widespread ignorance and apathy about nuclear dangers.  Despite this, civil society organizations, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, are making progress by working with non-nuclear weapons states.  The most recent example of this is the adoption by the United Nations of the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  The civil society organizations working in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons will be instrumental in encouraging countries to sign and ratify the treaty for its early entry into force, which will occur 90 days after the fiftieth ratification of the treaty is deposited with the United Nations.

    Despite having gone more than seven decades without a nuclear war since the first atomic weapons were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there are no guarantees that these horrendous weapons will not again be used, by accident or design, on any given day. The nuclear-armed countries continue to rely upon the human-created theory of nuclear deterrence to avert a nuclear war.  This is a shaky foundation on which to base the future of civilization and of the human species.  Although some progress has been made toward eliminating nuclear weapons, it is not sufficient.  Far more people need to awaken to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and to demand an end to the nuclear era.  We would be wise to listen to the hibakusha and abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).  His most recent book is Portraits: Peacemakers, Warmongers and People Between.           

  • With Nuclear Weapons, Evacuation Is Not an Option

    This article was originally published by The Hill.

    My wife and I and other members of our family have been living through the nightmarish disaster that struck our community of Montecito. First came the fire and then came the floods.

    The fire, named the Thomas Fire, turned out to be the biggest in California history. At one point, it reached the top of the road where we live, and the firefighters, with some help from the shifting direction of the winds, were able to hold the line. The firefighters were heroic.

    The Thomas Fire burned in the hills above Montecito, CA in December 2017. Photo copyright by Rick Carter.

    We were under mandatory evacuation from our home for 12 days, and then were evacuated from the place we were staying as the evacuation zone was expanded. The fire roared on in the backcountry, continuing to spew ash from the dry brush and trees it was consuming.

    Throughout the area, people were wearing masks to keep from breathing in the ash. The sky was a sickening yellow-gray. It looked and felt like we were survivors of a nuclear attack. We were living with apprehension day to day, glued to the news, except when the electricity went out.

    The fire was finally brought under greater control, and we were allowed to return to our homes. But a few weeks later, the expectation of heavy rains and possible flooding caused us to again be put under mandatory evacuation. We left our home again, thinking this would be a short and easy evacuation and we would soon be able to return. This was not the case.

    The floods overwhelmed our community, causing treacherous debris flows, at least 21 deaths, and hundreds of destroyed homes. Our community looked like a war zone. Trees were uprooted and, along with huge boulders, had been swept down from the fire-denuded mountains and fallen upon our quiet community of Montecito. The rescue workers were again heroic.

    Now we wait for the teams of utility workers to get the various utilities up and running. For the time being, electricity, gas and water are all turned off. The disaster of it all looms large in my mind. The results were not predictable. Lives and homes were lost in both the mandatory and voluntary evacuation zones. Death and destruction did not discriminate. Nature only did what nature does. It was mostly beyond our control.

    I have thought so many times during this double disaster of the song lyrics, “there but for fortune go you or go I.” So many close calls for so many people. So many fateful decisions. For some, so much pain and grief, and for others so much relief.

    While still evacuated and feeling the pain of our community’s disaster, news came that on Jan. 13 a worker at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency accidentally released an Emergency Alert warning that a ballistic missile was inbound to the state and that the people should seek immediate shelter. The alert emphasized, “THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” It was all too believable.

    People scurried to be with loved ones or to call them to tell them they loved them and to say goodbye. The threat seemed very real, but the solution offered by the authorities was ridiculous. Shelter does not protect against thermonuclear weapons.

    Nothing protects against thermonuclear weapons: not shelter, not nuclear deterrence, not missile defenses.

    Thirty-eight minutes later came the message that the warning had been a “false alarm.” This is yet another reminder that accidents happen and humans are fallible, even in the best designed systems.

    In our community, we have been living through radical uncertainty from forces of nature. But we also live daily with the radical uncertainty of nuclear survival, which is not a force of nature, but rather a man-made threat. It is a threat entirely of our own making, and it can be remedied by facing it and doing something about it, namely convening the nuclear-armed countries to negotiate the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of these weapons. And, as a step prior to this, or simultaneously, to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which includes prohibitions on the development, deployment, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.

    Also, during the period of evacuation and devastation of our community, a copy of the newly drafted U.S. Nuclear Posture Review was leaked. The review calls for a “safe, secure and effective” nuclear deterrent force. But nuclear weapons are not safe or secure by their nature, and it doesn’t really matter how safe and secure the U.S. nuclear forces are, if another country’s nuclear arsenal is not.

    The greatest issue, though, arises with “effective” nuclear deterrent force. This falls into the category of radical uncertainty. No one can claim a deterrent force is effective, because it is always subject to failure. If it were clearly effective, missile defenses would not be needed. Neither would civil defense drills and warnings.

    In addition, the draft Nuclear Posture Review calls for modernizing the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal at great cost; for the development of new, smaller, more usable nuclear weapons; and for using nuclear weapons against a wide range of non-nuclear attacks against the U.S. and its allies. These steps will provoke other nuclear-armed countries, as well as potential proliferators, to follow our lead.

    I would hate to see the catastrophe experienced by our community played out on a global nuclear battlefield, but that is the direction in which the world is heading. The time ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity is now, before it is too late. The draft Nuclear Posture Review should be scrapped and replaced with the commitment to take nuclear weapons off high alert status; to implement pledges of No First Use; and to commit to negotiate to achieve the only number that makes sense in a nuclear context: Zero.

    With nuclear weapons, evacuation is not an option.

    David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and has served as its president since 1982.

  • Ten Nuclear Wishes for the New Year

    This article was originally published by Counterpunch.

    1) That Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s past will not become any other city’s future.

    2) That the new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will get at least 50 ratifications and enter into force.

    3) That there will be no further proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries.

    4) That no insane leader will initiate a nuclear war and leaders of nuclear-armed countries will stop taunting each other.

    5) That nuclear deterrence will be recognized for the fraud that it is.

    6) That there will be no accidents or miscalculations leading to nuclear catastrophe.

    7) That the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will engage in good faith negotiations, as the treaty requires, for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

    8) That there will be no cyber-attacks on nuclear weapons systems, leading to the launch of nuclear weapons.

    9) That the nuclear weapons states will halt their plans to spend hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars to modernize their nuclear arsenals.

    10) That people everywhere will realize the necessity for peace in the Nuclear Age and will demand that their governments seek peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

  • Decoding Donald

    This article was originally published by Counterpunch.

    The future of the world and of humanity is at the mercy of a lunatic.  His name is Donald Trump, and he alone has access to the U.S. nuclear codes.  Before he does something rash and irreversible with those codes, it is imperative to decode Donald, taking the necessary steps to remove this power from him.

    Trump tweeted on December 16, 2016: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”

    What good would a greatly strengthened and expanded nuclear capability do for the U.S.?  We can already end civilization and most life on the planet with the use of our nuclear arsenal.  The U.S. has nearly 7,000 nuclear weapons, with more than 1,500 of them deployed and ready for use.  By comparison, North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un, the subject of much of Trump’s venom, have only 10 to 15 nuclear weapons.  But those have Trump worried enough to go to the United Nations and threaten to totally destroy North Korea should that country threaten the U.S.

    How many more nuclear weapons does Trump think are needed to keep Kim Jong-un at bay?  The truth is that the U.S. already has more than enough nuclear weapons to deter North Korea, assuming they need to be deterred at all.  What North Korea actually appears to want is a small nuclear arsenal capable of deterring the U.S. from invading its country, overthrowing its regime, and killing its leaders.  Since North Korean leaders believe they face an existential threat from the U.S., a greatly expanded U.S. nuclear arsenal won’t change the current equation.

    Nor will more and strengthened nuclear weapons change the equation between the U.S. and Russia, China, or any other nuclear-armed country.  It will just start a new nuclear arms race, which will benefit only the arms merchants while making the world far more dangerous.  Trump doesn’t seem to understand this.  His ignorance about foreign and nuclear policy is appalling and frightening.

    Further, the world won’t come to its senses about nuclear weapons on its own and without leadership.  Earlier this year, in July, 122 non-nuclear weapons countries adopted a new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.  It was a great step forward.  But, unfortunately, none of the nine nuclear-armed countries participated, and the U.S., UK and France issued a joint statement saying they would never sign, ratify or ever become parties to the treaty.  Such is Trump’s leadership, moving the world toward doomsday. These countries, led by the U.S., appear to love their nuclear weapons and treat them as a security blanket, despite the fact that these weapons provide no security to their possessors.  In fact, nuclear weapons paint a bull’s eye target on the citizens of countries possessing nuclear weapons.

    Trump is exactly the type of person who should not be anywhere near the nuclear codes.  He is not calm, thoughtful, deliberate, cautious, or well-informed.  Rather, he is erratic, thin-skinned, narcissistic and self-absorbed.  He takes slights personally and likes to punch back hard.  He could be insulted and backed into a corner, and decide that nuclear weapons are the solution to what he takes to be taunting behavior.  He could be awakened at 3:00 a.m., and make a hasty decision to launch the U.S. nuclear arsenal instead of a tweet.

    The world’s best hope is that the military men surrounding Trump, particularly Secretary of Defense Mattis, would recognize any order from Trump to launch nuclear weapons as an illegal order and refuse to carry it out.  In addition, it should be recognized by Congress that Trump is mentally unstable and unfit for office, and that they must take the necessary steps to remove him from the presidency before it is too late.  Impeachment would be the best way to decode Donald.

  • Veterans Day Again

    David Krieger“The one thing I never want to see again
    is a military parade.”  — Ulysses S. Grant

    We’ve seen far too many military parades
    with their missiles, marching bands
    and mechanized young men.

    We’ve witnessed enough high-stepping
    soldiers in their polished black boots
    marching to the sounds of brass.

    Spare us the old men dressed in uniforms
    with their sorrowful hats and sewn-on patches.
    Spare us the slippery words of politicians.

    Let’s return to basics: On Armistice Day
    the soldiers laid down their arms on the 11th hour
    of the 11th day of the 11th month.

    The survivors had had enough of war.
    The 11th hour is here again, the sky clear blue.

  • Nobel Peace Prize for ICAN’s Nuclear Weapon Ban Is Spot On

    This article was originally published by The Hill.

    The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize does not go to a politician or political leader. In fact, it does not single out any individual. Rather, it goes to a campaign, the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), composed of more than 450 civil society organizations in some 100 countries around the globe. It goes to a broad base of civil society organizations working in coalition to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.

    In this sense, the award goes to the extraordinary people (“We, the People…”) throughout the world who have stepped up to end the threat to all humanity posed by the nearly 15,000 nuclear weapons still remaining on the planet.

    In announcing the award to ICAN, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated, “The organization is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

    ICAN was launched in 2007. It worked with many of the world’s countries in organizing three conferences on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. These meetings took place in Oslo, Norway (2013), in Nayarit, Mexico (2014) and in Vienna, Austria (2014). At the Vienna conference, Austria offered a pledge to the countries and civil society representatives in attendance. When it was opened for signatures to other countries, it became known as the “Humanitarian Pledge.” The pledge has now been formally endorsed by 127 countries.

    After laying out the threats and dangers of nuclear weapons in the Humanitarian Pledge, the pledge concluded: “We pledge to cooperate with all relevant stakeholders, States, international organizations, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movements, parliamentarians and civil society, in efforts to stigmatize, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences and associated risks.”

    In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to an ICAN-supported resolution to negotiate a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. These negotiations took place in March, June and July of 2017 at the United Nations in New York. On July 7, 2017, 122 countries adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty banning nuclear weapons was opened for signatures on September 20, 2017. So far, 53 countries have signed the treaty and three have ratified it. It will enter into force 90 days after the 50th country deposits its ratification of the treaty with the United Nations.

    ICAN has accomplished a great deal in moving the world forward toward banning and eliminating nuclear weapons. It has helped states articulate the dreadful humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use. In doing so, it has worked with survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and also with countries that suffered from nuclear testing, such as the Marshall Islands.

    ICAN also spearheaded the drafting and adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and is currently working on getting countries to sign and ratify the treaty so that it can enter into force.

    ICAN stands in stark contrast with those national leaders and their allies who possess nuclear weapons and have been unwilling to give up their claim on them for their own perceived national security. But ICAN is on the right side of history, because those with nuclear weapons threaten the future of civilization, including their own populations.

    ICAN well deserves the Nobel Peace prize. The campaign is effective. It is youthful. It is hopeful. It is necessary. May the Nobel Peace Prize propel it to even greater accomplishments. And may it awaken people everywhere to the threat posed by nuclear weapons, and the need to ban and eliminate them.

    David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The Foundation has been a partner organization of ICAN since 2007.