Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Ramesh Thankur

  • Ease Their Pain

    This article was originally published in the Ottawa Citizen

    On Aug. 6, 2002, I had the privilege and responsibility of representing UN secretary general Kofi Annan at the ceremony commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The event is at once haunting, sombre and soul-cleansing. Some 40,000 people assemble in the sultry heat to recall the searing, dazzling blast that announced the birth of the atomic age with the death of a hundred thousand people at one stroke and the horror-filled stories of the larger number of survivors.

    There is a word in Japanese, hibakusha (“explosion-affected people”), that describes the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Truly the living envied the dead. As of last year, there were just over a quarter million hibakusha recognized by the Japanese government. On March 24 this year, the government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi as a double survivor. In Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, he decided to return home to Nagasaki the day before it too was bombed on Aug. 9. There are times when belief in karma (loosely translated as destiny) becomes a comforting solace.

    The A-bomb was developed during the Second World War at the top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico by a group of scientists brought together in the Manhattan Project under the directorship of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Canada’s National Film Board has made an excellent documentary, called The Strangest Dream, about the only scientist to resign from the Manhattan Project, the Nobel Peace Laureate Joseph Rotblat.

    The bomb’s first successful test, Trinity, was carried out on July 16 at the White Sands Missile Range. Witnessing that, Oppenheimer famously recalled the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendour of the mighty one.” Of course, birth and death are symbiotically linked in the cycle of life. So Oppenheimer recalled too the matching verse from the Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

    The same duality is omnipresent in every aspect of Hiroshima. The Aug. 6 ceremony is incredibly moving and indelibly poignant. The cenotaph memorializing the bombing is set in a beautiful peace park that was designed shortly after the war by Kenzo Tange, one of Japan’s most famous postwar architects. (Coincidentally, he was also the architect for the United Nations University building in Tokyo, where I worked for almost a decade.) The names of the atomic bomb victims are inscribed on the arc-shaped cenotaph which stands atop a reflecting pool. Every year on Aug. 6, the living gather there to atone for the dead.

    The park is framed at one end by the Atomic Bomb Dome, a structure that survived the blast in skeleton form and today functions as one of the most iconic and recognizable images of the horrors of atomic weapons, and a potent rallying point for the anti-nuclear peace movement. It has been inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. At the other end of the park is the Peace Museum that houses various memorabilia and displays. Again, it is difficult not be shocked into contemplation of human folly and our capacity to inflict pain on one another by many of the images and items, for example spectacles that fused onto facial bones in the intense heat of the radiation.

    For world leaders going to certain countries in Europe, it is obligatory to visit sites like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, pay respects to the victims lest we forget, and offer silent prayers for their souls. I am yet to understand what it is about western culture that holds leaders back from the same gesture to a common human history when they visit Japan. I was told that no serving U.S. leader has ever visited Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Would such a visit raise unnecessary controversy by suggesting penance? Is it not possible to recognize and honour a defining event in human history without implying guilt? Will the “yes we can” president dare to break the taboo and act on his dream of a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear dread?

    We tend to remember the consequences of what others do to us, and so grievance festers. We know why we did what we did to others, and so that becomes justified, and we are puzzled that the others should still bear a grudge. It is rare to find former enemies join in common atonement of a shared human tragedy.

    Yet that surely is what Hiroshima symbolizes, and it is in the recognition of our common humanity that we shall find redemption. The citizens of Hiroshima, in rebuilding their city, have consecrated it as a testimonial to social resilience, human solidarity and nuclear abolition.

    Then there is the beautiful story of the cranes. Sadako Sasaki, two when she was exposed to the Hiroshima bombing, fell ill in 1954 and was diagnosed to be suffering from leukemia. Serene in the belief that folding 1,000 paper cranes would fulfil her wish for a normal life, she was still short of the magic number (she had the time but not the paper) when she died on Oct. 25, 1955. Friends completed her task and 1,000 cranes were buried with her. As her story spread, a children’s peace monument was built in the Peace Park from funds donated from across the country. By now around 10 million cranes are offered annually before her monument, where she stands with her arms fully stretched overhead holding up a giant, stylized folded paper crane.

    Hiroshima, once again a beautiful, scenic and thriving city, lives by three codes: To forgive and atone, but never to forget; never again; and transformation from a military city to a city of peace.

    The sacred Buddhist text The Dhammapada tells us:

    We are what we think

    All that we are arises with our thoughts

    With our thoughts we make the world.

    Thursday, as we mark the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, let us join together in turning our thoughts to the three inspiring principles that symbolize death, destruction and resurrection. What we need is a multi-phased roadmap to abolition that prioritizes concrete immediate steps in the first couple of years such as introducing more robust firewalls to separate possession from use of nuclear weapons; further significant cuts in existing nuclear arsenals and a freeze on production of fissile materials in the medium term of up to three years; a verifiable and enforceable new international nuclear weapons convention within a target timeframe of about five years; and their total and verified destruction in 10 to 20 years.

    By these actions shall we release the souls of the atomic dead, ease the pain of the hibakusha, and liberate ourselves from bondage to a weapon that does not increase our net security but does diminish our common humanity.

    Ramesh Thakur is director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario.

  • Not a Weapon of Choice

    This article was originally published in the Times of India

    On Sunday, North Korea launched a long-range missile which Pyongyang described as a success but US experts said had been a failure. Of greater historical significance was the speech delivered the same day in Prague by US president Barack Obama. During the Democratic primary campaign last year, Hillary Clinton famously declared that both Senator John McCain and she had actual job experience to qualify to be commander-in-chief. All that Obama had done, by contrast, was to deliver one speech in Chicago opposing the Iraq war.

    As we know, Clinton fatally underestimated the power of speech. Obama at his best combines linguistic eloquence and powerful oratory with substance and gravitas. On Sunday, he addressed one of the most critically important topics of our day that literally has life and death implications for all of us, wherever we may be.

    The dream of a world free of nuclear weapons is an old one. It is written into the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which balances the prohibition on non-nuclear states acquiring these weapons with the demand on the five NPT-licit nuclear powers Britain, China, France, Russia and the US (N5) to eliminate their nuclear arsenals through good-faith negotiations. Considering that the NPT was signed in 1968 and came into effect in 1970, the N5 have not lived up to their bargain.

    The dream has been kept alive by many NGOs, a coalition of like-minded countries and a plethora of international blue ribbon commissions. A major difficulty is that the abundant “zero nuclear weapons” initiatives have been stillborn because of zero follow-up and a failure to address real security concerns.

    If we examine the geostrategic circumstances of the existing nuclear powers, the two with the least zero security justification for holding on to any nuclear weapons are Britain and France. Nor can North Korea justify nuclear weapons on national security grounds. It seems to play a nuclear hand as a bargaining chip, the only one it has. Israel’s security environment is harsh enough with many in its neighbourhood committed to its destruction to make its reliance on nuclear weapons understandable. Pakistan will not give up its nuclear weapons while India still has them. India’s main security benchmark is not Pakistan but China. Neither China nor Russia will contemplate giving them up for fear of the US. This is why the circuit-breaker in the global nuclear weapons chain is the US.

    Obama’s speech acknowledged this. The US cannot achieve the dream on its own, he said, but it is prepared to lead based on the acknowledgement of its special moral responsibility flowing from being the only power to have used atomic weapons. He thus lays down the challenge to others to follow. And he outlines concrete follow-up steps that are practical, measurable and achievable.

    Obama’s strategy is to map out a vision and then outline the roadmap to achieve it. These include ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiated way back in 1997; a new treaty banning fissile material; reducing the role of nuclear weapons in US national security strategy; and a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia that is bold and legally binding. Washington will also host a global summit on nuclear security within one year.

    Such measures by the N5 must be matched by robust action against the proliferation threat. At the very least, Obama reclaims the moral high ground for Washington to pursue a vigorous and robust non- and counter-proliferation strategy. More resources and authority for institutions like the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Proliferation Security Initiative will be provided. Countries leaving or breaking the NPT must face real and immediate consequences. An international fuel bank could be created to assure supply to countries whose interest is limited to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. All vulnerable nuclear material around the world for example, loose nukes in Russia will be secured within four years. Black markets like A Q Khan’s will be broken up, trade in nuclear materials detected and intercepted in transit, and financial tools used to disrupt dangerous trade.

    Obama is right in saying that reaching the goal will require patience and persistence. But he may be wrong in saying that it may not be achieved in his lifetime. He should set down the marker for achieving it by the end of his second term if re-elected. Without a deadline, no one will work to make it happen; rather, they will retreat into the vague formula of “yes, some day, eventually”.

    Obama may also be mistaken in pinning faith on the global regime centred on the NPT which, he said, “could reach the point where the centre cannot hold”. The NPT is already a broken reed, with far too many flaws, anomalies, gaps and outright contradictions. For example, the promise that those who break the rules must be punished cannot be enforced against India. The India-US civil nuclear agreement, however justified and necessary, breaks NPT rules. A new clean nuclear weapons convention might be a better goal to pursue.

    That’s a minor quibble. More important is the broad sweep of Obama’s commitment, based on national interest and personal conviction, to freeing us from the fear of nuclear weapons.

    Ramesh Thakur is founding director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada.

  • No Nukes, No Proliferation

    The rising anxieties about nuclear weapons are rooted in two major and parallel developments: a renaissance of nuclear power and a resurgence of old-fashioned national security threats that supposedly had ebbed with the end of the Cold War.

    After the well publicized accidents at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986, opposition to nuclear power was so strong that many reactor plants were shut down, plans for new ones were canceled and virtually no new reactor was built over the past decade. With the spiraling price of oil caused by a spike in demand and disruptions to supply, the economics of nuclear power has changed. With the accelerating threat of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, the balance of environmental risk has shifted. Adding technological developments, the politics of constructing and operating nuclear power reactors has also altered.

    The net result is plans for building several reactors to add to the 435 reactors in 30 countries that provide 15 percent of the world’s electricity today. Asia will account for 18 of the 31 planned new reactors. The spurt in Chinese and Indian demand is a function of booming economic growth and population. In Japan and South Korea interest in nuclear power arises from lack of indigenous oil and gas resources and the desire for energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

    This throws up three clusters of concern:

    • How do we ensure that the plants are operated with complete safety?
    • How do we secure the plants against theft, leakage and attacks of weapons-sensitive material, skills and knowledge?
    • How do we build firewalls between civilian and weapons-related use of nuclear power?

    These concerns extend also to the international trade in nuclear material, skills and equipment. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, observed in 2004 that “Nuclear components designed in one country could be manufactured in another, shipped through a third, and assembled in a fourth for use in a fifth.”

    The challenge on the national security front is fourfold. First, the five Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty-licit nuclear powers–Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States–have ignored their NPT obligation to disarm. Instead they are busy enlarging, modernizing and upgrading their nuclear arsenals and refining nuclear doctrines to indicate retention and expanded use of these weapons for several decades yet. The lesson to others? Nuclear weapons are indispensable in today’s world and becoming more useful for dealing with tomorrow’s threats.

    Second, three states outside the NPT–India, Israel and Pakistan–have been accepted, more or less, as de facto nuclear weapons powers.

    Third, as an intergovernmental agreement, the NPT doesn’t cover nonstate groups, including terrorists, who might be pursuing nuclear weapons. The turmoil in Pakistan, with President Gen. Pervez Musharraf playing the “loose nukes” card to retain U.S. backing, highlights the related danger of links between rogue elements of security forces and extremists.

    Fourth, some countries may be cheating on their NPT obligations and seeking nuclear weapons by stealth. The drumbeats of war being sounded in Washington on Iran bring back memories of 2002-03. This is a story we’ve heard before. We didn’t like the ending the first time and are unlikely to like it any better the next time round.

    The disquieting trend of a widening circle of NPT-illicit and extra-NPT nuclear weapons powers in turn has a self-generating effect in drawing other countries into the game of nuclear brinksmanship. The renaissance of nuclear power cannot be explained solely by the interest in nuclear energy for civilian uses.

    What might be the solution? Of the 27,000 nuclear weapons in existence today, 12,000 are deployed and ready for use, with 3,500 on hair-trigger alert. To begin with, some practical and concrete measures are long overdue: Bringing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force; negotiating a verifiable fissile materials treaty; retrenching from launch-on-warning postures, standing down nuclear forces. That is, reviving, implementing and building on agreements for reducing the role, readiness and numbers of nuclear weapons in defense doctrines and preparations.

    But these amount to tinkering, not a bold and comprehensive vision of the final destination. What we need are rules-based regimes on the principles of reciprocity of obligations, participatory decision-making and independent verification procedures and compliance mechanisms.

    U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., declared, “America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.” In January, three former U.S. secretaries of defense and state–George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger–and Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, called on Washington to take the lead in the abolition of nuclear weapons. The national security benefits of nuclear weapons, they argued, are outweighed by the threats posed to U.S. security by uncontrolled proliferation.

    The symbiotic link between nonproliferation and disarmament is integral to the NPT, the most brilliant half-successful arms control agreement in history. The number of countries to sign it–188–embraces virtually the entire family of nations. But the nuclear arsenals of the five NPT nuclear powers expanded enormously. With almost four decades having elapsed since 1968, the five NPT nuclear powers are in violation of their solemn obligation to disarm, reinforced by the advisory opinion of the World Court in 1996 that the NPT’s Article 6 requires them to engage in and bring to a conclusion negotiations for nuclear abolition.

    Despite this history and background, a surprising number of arms control experts focus solely on the nonproliferation side to demand denial of technology and materiel to all who refuse to sign and abide by the NPT, and punishment of any who cross the threshold. The term “nonproliferation ayatollahs” is applied pejoratively to them. The latest episode in this long-running and tired serial is the United States, Britain and France threatening Iran with war to stop it from acquiring–not using, merely acquiring–nuclear weapons. From where do the leaders of nuclear-armed Britain and France derive the moral authority to declare that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable?

    Nuclear weapons could not proliferate if they did not exist. Because they do, they will. The policy implication of this logic is that the best guarantee of nuclear nonproliferation is nuclear disarmament through a nuclear weapons convention that bans the possession, acquisition, testing and use of nuclear weapons, by everyone. This would solve the problem of nonproliferation as well as disarmament. The focus on nonproliferation to the neglect of disarmament ensures that we get neither. If we want nonproliferation, therefore, we must prepare for disarmament.

    Too many, including the government of Japan, have paid lip service to this slogan, but not pursued a serious program of action to make it a reality. The elegant theorems, cogent logic and fluent reasoning of many authoritative international commissions, including the Tokyo Forum, have made no discernible dent on the old, new and aspiring nuclear powers. A coalition between nuclear-armed and nonnuclear countries, led perhaps by India–which has crossed the threshold from a disarmament leader to a hypocritical nuclear power–and Japan, the only country to have suffered an atomic attack, might break the stalemate and dispel the looming nuclear clouds.

    Time is running out for the hypocrisy and accumulated anomalies of global nuclear apartheid. Either we will achieve nuclear abolition or we will have to live with nuclear proliferation followed by nuclear war. Better the soft glow of satisfaction from the noble goal realized of nuclear weapons banned, than the harsh glare of the morning after of these weapons used.

    Ramesh Thakur, distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Canada, is the author of The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge University Press, 2006).