Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Ray Acheson

  • ICAN Statement to the UN High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament

    ICAN Statement to the UN High Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament

    I’m speaking today on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. With 532 partner organizations in 103 countries, we are a truly global movement. We were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for our work with governments to bring to fruition the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

    We’re speaking here today as a voice of passion and persistence in the quest to make our world more secure, more just, and more equitable. For us, abolishing nuclear weapons is about preventing violence and promoting peace.

    Some say this is a dream, that we live in a time of uncertainty and change, that we can’t or shouldn’t try to eliminate nuclear weapons now. But when is there not uncertainty and change? It is the only constant in our world.

    What is true is that we live in a time where we spend more money developing new ways to kill each other than we do on saving each other from crises of health, housing, food security, and environmental degradation.

    What is also true is that after 73 years, we still live under the catastrophic threat of the atomic bomb.

    We should have solved this. We haven’t only because a small handful of governments say they have a “right” to these weapons to maintain “strategic stability”.

    It is neither strategic nor stable to deploy thousands of nuclear weapons, risking total annihilation of us all. It is neither strategic nor stable to spend billions of dollars on nuclear weapons when billions of people suffer from our global inability to meet basic human needs for all.

    And it is certainly neither strategic nor stable to reject and to undermine a treaty that prohibits these weapons.

    In July 2017, the most democratic body of the United Nations adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 122 governments supported the Treaty then. Now, they are signing and ratifying it. Significant progress has been made towards its entry into force. More will join today, at a special ceremony here in the UN. If you haven’t yet joined, we encourage you to do so. If you can’t do it today, do it tomorrow. Every new signature and ratification builds momentum for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    We know some of you are experiencing pressure not to sign or ratify this treaty, just as many of you were subjected to pressure not to support the development of the treaty, not to participate in negotiations, and not to vote for its adoption. The governments that espouse the “value” of the bomb don’t want this treaty to enter into force.

    This is because they already feel its power. They know what it means for their policies and practices of nuclear violence. It is already disrupting the financial flows needed to maintain the industry around nuclear weapons. Just today, ICAN campaigners visited BNP Paribas offices around the world to demand the bank divest from nuclear weapons.

    This treaty is about bolstering the rule of law and protecting humanity. No one is safe as long as nuclear weapons exist. The death and destruction they cause cut across border, across generations. They undermine the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. They undermine our commitments to preventing climate change, promoting peace and equality, and protecting human rights.

    This treaty is the new international standard on nuclear weapons. It compliments, but is not subordinate to, existing agreements aimed at controlling nuclear weapons. It goes further than any of these other instruments, making it clear that the possession of nuclear weapons is illegitimate, irresponsible, and illegal.

    We know there is more work to be done. We have proven, collectively, that we are not afraid of hard work. So to all those governments and activists listening: please keep at it. The world changes when people work together relentlessly to change it. Don’t give up. Stand strong, stand together, and make it clear that we are living in a new reality in which nuclear weapons are illegal and where the only option for any reasonable state is to reject and eliminate them.

    It’s time to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

    This statement was delivered by Ray Acheson on September 26, 2018.

  • Ray Acheson | In Her Own Words

    Ray Acheson | In Her Own Words

    Tell us about your journey in the field of nuclear disarmament? What drove you to this fight and what keeps you going?

    I came to antinuclear work through broader social justice activism. I was antiwar and antimilitarist in high school and university, joining protests against the Iraq war, the occupation of Palestine, and war profiteers. I also worked against the death penalty and for the abolition of prisons. I did my undergrad degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto and by chance, interned with a woman named Randy at her organization in Cambridge, MA, the Institute of Defense and Disarmament Studies. Randy had drafted the call for a nuclear freeze in the 1980s and was one of the leaders of the Nuclear Freeze Movement and a co-organizer of the march and rally for the nuclear freeze that drew a million people to Central Park in 1982. She taught me a lot about nuclear weapons and the antinuclear movement, and when I graduated from university I sought a position at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom working on disarmament, with the Reaching Critical Will program. That was 2005; I’ve been there ever since.

    I’ve been committed to antinuclear advocacy and activism because I see nuclear weapons as one of the ultimate symbols of injustice and hubris in our world, as well as a purveyor of catastrophic humanitarian suffering and environmental destruction. Nuclear weapons are possessed by a handful of governments that use them to dominate international relations. They have succeeded in controlling the academic and political discourse around these weapons, they have threatened other countries to bend to their will, they have tested these weapons thousands of times, mostly only on indigenous lands and communities, they extract the uranium from and bury the waste near vulnerable communities. Nuclear weapon policy and practice is racist, patriarchal, and dangerous, yet the tiny handful of governments that possess them have managed to control ideas about these weapons so that society has largely learned to live with them, and to believe they are necessary to maintain international peace. In reality, these weapons are maintaining the status quo for the most powerful, privileged countries on earth and put us all under the threat of annihilation. Confronting this set up, trying to change it, working collectively with activists and survivors and like-minded governments – this is what keeps me going. Working to abolish nuclear weapons, for me, is also about challenging patriarchy, racism, and militarism all at once.

    Briefly describe the relationship between patriarchy and nuclear struggles?

    There is the “ubiquitous weight of gender” throughout the entire nuclear weapons discourse and the association of nuclear weapons with masculinity described by Carol Cohn in her groundbreaking work on gender in nuclear weapons discourse. There is the denial of people’s—especially women’s—lived experiences of the weapons, that is, denial of others’ perceptions of reality. Such denial is characteristic of patriarchy and psychologically abusive relationships. The dominant discourse also attempts to justify and to link opposition to nuclear weapons to “womanhood” or “femininity” in order to belittle and marginalize antinuclear perspectives. All these complex dimensions are important to explore and expose.

    The connection between militarized/toxic masculinity and warfare creates and reinforces the widely observed gender stereotype, assuming men to be inherently violent and inclined to participate in violent acts. Men do constitute the majority of those committing violence and participating in armed conflict. But there is a distinct social history fostering this behavior, perpetuated by assumptions about masculinity and femininity and by the institutions and social structures influenced by these assumptions. When gender differential treatment of men becomes integral to political or military policy, it is difficult to change. Like institutional racism, it becomes part of the social fabric, continuously reinforced through practice, and so conditions the environment in which all disarmament negotiations take place.

    Within the context of nuclear weapons, the masculinity-warfare connection displays two key elements of gendered obstacles to denuclearizing security policy. First, the association of weapons and war as a symbol of masculine strength makes it harder to open up discussions about disarmament or collective security. Proponents of abolition are put down as unrealistic and irrational, as “emotional” or “effeminate”. In the last few years, some representatives of the nuclear-armed states have tried to argue that even talking about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons or calling for abolition is “emotional”. They refused to attend the humanitarian initiative conferences. They have argued that the topic is irrelevant to conversations about nuclear weapons. Overall, the gendered discourse around nuclear weapons has made it more difficult for heads of state, diplomats, and the military to envision or articulate different security structures that do not rely extensively on weapons and military might to “protect” the “nation” or its people.

    Why have women been so silenced in the fight for nuclear disarmament, especially considering their long history of involvement in this struggle?

    Women have been marginalized in pretty much any issue dealing with peace and security, or weapons and warfare. Women, and others not identifying as men, are vastly underrepresented in disarmament and arms control discussions and negotiations. At the same time, women have been at the forefront of the antinuclear movement. Women were leaders in the campaign to ban nuclear weapon testing in the United States, using powerful symbols such as a collection of baby teeth to show evidence of radioactive contamination. Women led the Nuclear Freeze movement in the 1980s, calling on the Soviet Union and the United States to stop the arms race. Women were leaders in the movement to ban nuclear weapons in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

    I think the disconnect between the high-level of women’s participation in activism against the bomb and low level of participation in government delegations or their silence/dismissal as non-experts is based on a very patriarchal approach to security and weapons issues described above in my answer to the second question. I think it’s also because of the technique of the patriarchy to deny lived experience, to consider the reality of lives and bodies as being “emotional” and as “non-expert”.

    When those flexing their “masculinity” want to demonstrate or reinforce their power and dominance, they try to make others seem small and marginalized by accusing them of being emotional, overwrought, irrational, or impractical. Women and other marginalized people have experienced this technique of dismissal and denigration for as long as gender hierarchies have existed. The denial of reason in someone else is an attempt to take away the ground on which the other stands, projecting illusions about what is real, about what makes sense or what is rational. One actor proclaims, “I am the only one who understands what the real situation is. Your understanding of is not only incorrect but also delusional—it is based upon a reality that does not exist.” It means putting self as subject and the other as object, eliminating their sense of and eventual capacity for agency.

    This is more than just an argument or a difference in interpretation. This is an attempt to undermine, discredit, and ultimately destroy the other’s entire worldview in order to maintain power and privilege. Objectification of others and control of reality, known as “gas lighting” in psychological terms, is as integral to patriarchy as it is to nuclear deterrence as a mechanism to maintain the current global hierarchy. When the majority of states, international and civil society organizations all say, “Nuclear weapons threaten us all and must be eliminated,” the nuclear-armed states say, “Nuclear weapons—in our hands—keep us safe and we must maintain them indefinitely.” When it is pointed out that they haven’t complied with their disarmament commitments, they claim that they have. They argue that they done all they can and now it up to rest of the world—those countries without nuclear weapons—to “create the conditions” for any further disarmament efforts. And it’s not just the reason or rationality of those supporting the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons that is denied. It is also the lived experience of everyone who has ever suffered from a nuclear explosion, or mining of nuclear weapons, or burial of nuclear waste.

    This isn’t just about silencing women. This is about silencing everyone who has an experience or feeling about nuclear weapons that contradicts the dominant narrative.

    Have you ever been silenced or ignored simply because you’re a woman? If  so, what did you do?

    Sure, all the time! But I just refuse to shut up. I keep writing, speaking, and inserting my views and the views of others I witness being silenced into the rooms and into the discourse.

    What does it mean to apply a gender lens to your work? Why is it so critical?

    Taking a human-focused approach to disarmament, and thereby challenging the dominant state-centered approach to international peace and security, was instrumental in establishing negotiations on the nuclear ban treaty. The humanitarian initiative, with its purposeful deconstruction of nuclear weapons as weapons of terror and massive violence, led to the majority of states being willing to negotiate the nuclear ban. An understanding of the gendered elements embedded in the discourse and politics of nuclear weapons will support the continued stigmatization of nuclear weapons and promotion of the new treaty.

    A gender perspective challenges governments and people to act on moral, ethical, humanitarian, environmental, legal, political and economic grounds without waiting for permission from those benefiting from the status quo—because that permission will never come. Humanitarian discourse intended to relieve multiple human suffering requires the recognition that nuclear weapons represent a constant threat of terror and that they perpetuate inequity between countries, with broader implications for humanity.

    Explorations of injustice help unmask their immorality. Within this more complex critique, gender analysis is crucial to illuminating and challenging the structures of power that impose injustice and deprivation and sustain nuclear weapons.

    Just as the humanitarian discourse undermines the perceived legitimacy of nuclear weapons, a gender analysis of nuclear discourse helps to deconstruct nuclear weapons as symbols of power and tools of empire. It can show that the enshrinement of nuclear weapons as an emblem of power is not inevitable and unchangeable but a gendered social construction designed to maintain the patriarchal order. As Carol Cohn, Felicity Ruby, and Sara Ruddick wrote in 2006, a gender analysis that highlights the patriarchy and social constructions inherent in this valuation of nuclear weapons helps to “multiply, amplify, and deepen” arguments for nuclear disarmament and question the role of a certain kind of masculinity of the dominant paradigm. Disarmament, sometimes cast by its detractors as a weak or passive approach to security, can instead be shown for what it is—rational, just, moral and necessary for our survival.

    Gender analysis also highlights the ways in which the possession and proliferation of nuclear weapons are silently underwritten and supported by an image of hegemonic masculinity, demonstrating just how dangerous and illusory an image of security produces. Being aware of the gendered meanings and characterizations embedded throughout the discourse and politics of nuclear weapons helps to “confront the traditionally constructed meanings and redefine terms such as ‘strength’ and ‘security’ so that they more appropriately reflect the needs of all people.” This kind of awareness can help us to understand and improve how we think, talk and act about weapons, war, and militarism in a broader sense.

    How has intersectionality impacted the field of nuclear disarmament? Did it impact the success of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons?

    The story of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—and why it could be achieved now—must also be seen in the much larger context of the broader global resistance to injustice and oppression. In the United States in 2017, we have had Native Nations Rise actions; protests at airports and strikes at bodegas to protect the rights of immigrants; Black Lives Matter actions and professional athletes taking a knee to protest police violence against people of color. Around the world there have been initiatives to protect LGBTQIA people, refugees, workers, the environment. The Women’s March and the #MeToo campaign have smashed through layers of silence, exposing specific men but also disrupting the culture of misogyny, sexism, harassment, assault, and abuse.

    Nuclear weapons are part of these bigger systems of patriarchy, racism, militarism, and capitalism—systems that have been challenged throughout history, and that are being challenged now in new ways, from new collectives of people around the world.

    Women and LGBTQIA people are leaders in ICAN and the broader antinuclear movement, challenging the normative discourses that traditionally allow certain perspectives to be heard. Women also played a leading role among the diplomats in the process to ban nuclear weapons, with some delegations to the negotiations even being comprised solely of women.

    People of color also played a leading role in the nuclear ban. The process was galvanized and led by the nonwhite world, both in terms of governments and civil society. ICAN campaigners from Brazil to Kenya to the Philippines were instrumental in advocacy while most of the governments involved in the process are also from the global south. Indigenous nuclear-test survivors from Australia and the Marshall Islands gave testimony during negotiations alongside Japanese atomic-bomb survivors. Nuclear-weapon policy has long been recognized as racist and colonial. Banning nuclear weapons meant taking a stand against these policies, working together at the United Nations where all countries are supposed to have an equal say.

    How do you measure success in the fight for equal representation regarding nuclear talks? Is success being realized?

    We can measure success with numbers, to some extent – how many non-male-identified people are participating, speaking, being treated as experts within disarmament discussions and negotiations? How many all-male and all-white panels are still happening? Are government delegations and civil society groups making an effort to include – in a meaningful way – the views of people of diverse gender and ethnic backgrounds?

    There is some success. A few governments have been working to ensure participation of women from the global south at certain meetings by running sponsorship programs. Some have pushed for language in outcome documents in disarmament for encouraging governments to ensure the “full, effective, and equal” participation of women (such as the NPT, the TPNW, and also the UN General Assembly and the UN Program of Action on small arms and light weapons). There is some understanding of the relevance of UN Security Council 1325, which includes promotion of women’s participation, as relevant to disarmament. But much more work is needed. Even in civil society coalitions, the leadership is still skewed towards white, western activists and groups. Understanding privilege and taking an intersectional approach to our work is imperative, and we need to do much more.

    What are you focused on next?

    I’m writing a book about the process to ban nuclear weapons! I’m also working to promote entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, to prevent the development of autonomous weapons with the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, and to stop the bombing of towns and cities and war profiteering by holding states accountable to international law. (And a few other things!)

    Bio

    A fierce advocate for gender equality, Ray Acheson works for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), one of the world’s longest-standing feminist peace organizations. At WILPF she serves as the Director of Reaching Critical Will, a program focused specifically on disarmament. Sitting on the ten-person international steering group, Acheson represents WILPF at the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Recently awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, ICAN and was recognized for a successful, intersectional campaign that led to the adoption of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. A champion for gender equity within disarmament, Acheson researches and writes about the important relationship between nuclear weapons and gender. Putting this research to practice, Acheson employs a invaluable gender lens in her fight for nuclear disarmament – a lens that provides her with hope for a future without the dangerous cycles of arms races and proliferation.

  • A Tale of Two Securities

    This article was originally published by Reaching Critical Will.

    How can an approach to global security built on the threat of mass annihilation be compatible with a 21st century understanding of international cooperation, asked Austria during a rather surreal debate on Thursday. A handful of states that include nuclear weapons in their security doctrines extolled their perception that these weapons afford them security and stability and must be maintained by “responsible” states until some distant future date when the “conditions” for nuclear disarmament are “correct”. This aggressive articulation of support for the indefinite retention of nuclear weapons seems to have been sparked by a more vocal and assertive display of support for the prohibition of these weapons. As the commencement of negotiations towards a treaty banning nuclear weapons gains traction, these nuclear apologists have—rather unwisely—begun escalating and entrenching their support for maintaining weapons of terror.

    Fear mongering from the weapons supporters

    Perversely, although with apparent sincerity, states supporting the continued existence of weapons of massive, indiscriminate violence sought to argue that in fact it is those supporting a prohibition that are acting irresponsibly, threatening the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and fuelling polarisation in the international community.

    Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Hungary, Republic of Korea, and Poland all gave a version of accounts in which banning nuclear weapons is destabilising and where pursuit of the decades-old failed step-by-step approach is the only “effective” way forward. They all asserted that a prohibition treaty would upset the international order in varying ways, with Poland claiming it would “destroy the NPT system” and Hungary comparing prohibition supporters to climate change deniers because they “ignore the security dimensions of nuclear weapons”.

    “This is not a game,” warned Poland. “Our lives and our future are at stake.”

    A dangerous game

    The sake of our lives and future is exactly why nuclear weapons must be outlawed and eliminated. It is the wielding of nuclear weapons that is destabilising. It is the perpetuation of the idea that nuclear weapons afford security that is irresponsible. It is, as Mexico said, the doctrine of deterrence that undermines the NPT and the broader multilateral system.

    Any peace that we have experienced in the past 70 years is because of our efforts towards collective security in spite of, not because of, nuclear weapons, argued Ambassador Lomonaco of Mexico. Nuclear weapons “force states into an automatically adversarial relationship in which they threaten each other with the most destructive technologies of violence we have been able to develop as human beings,” remarkedThomas Nash of Article 36 speaking on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

    The real challenge to the NPT comes not from prohibiting nuclear weapons but from failing to fulfil NPT commitments. This includes the commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons, but also, as Switzerland noted, commitments to transparency, de-alerting, and reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines—commitments that many states railing against the prohibition claim to support and yet have failed to implement.

    A nuclear weapon ban treaty will not undermine the NPT. It only undermines a perverse conception of the NPT as an instrument that confers legitimacy on nuclear weapons for the five states recognised as possessors under that Treaty and for their allies who include the potential use of those weapons in their security doctrines.

    Whose security is it anyway?

    The crux of the problem is not polarisation “caused” by the majority of states seeking to prohibit nuclear weapons. Rather the problem is the entrenched position of a minority of nuclear-armed and allied states that is fundamentally incompatible with international law and generally accepted moral principles. The problem is not that the majority of states ignore the security dimensions of nuclear weapons but that the minority does not seem to believe that humanity is a prerequisite for genuine, sustainable security. State security, in their view, is seen as distinct from and apparently more important than a much broader concept of security that as Austria’s Ambassador Hajnoczi includes the environment, economics, and human beings, among other things. As Mr. Nash said, “security is not security without humanity.”

    This false binary privileges those seeking to maintain an imbalanced, discriminatory set of international relationships in which nuclear weapons are a symbol of power. Ms. Shorna-Kay Richards of Jamaica questioned why these states would wilfully posit nuclear weapons as instrumental to their security, asking why then should all countries not pursue nuclear weapons.

    A number of other reasonable questions for these states remained unanswered at the end of the debate. Why, if they are so convinced of the perceived security benefits of nuclear weapons, would they want ever to get rid of them? How can they say with certitude that nuclear weapons bring stability and security in one breath and in the next say they are committed to nuclear disarmament? How can they claim that they want peace and security yet perpetuate the existence of and reliance upon weapons of mass destruction? Why are these countries even party to the NPT, if threatening the use of nuclear weapons is so useful for security?

    A crisis of faith

    The nuclear-supportive states in the room seeking to disrupt efforts towards a prohibition came across at times a bit like believers that the sun revolves around the earth having their entire worldview put into question. It is as if they have deemed nuclear weapons as critical to their survival, to the extent they no longer recognise that their security is interdependent with the security of other countries. In saying that they are being threatened by aggressive states undertaking exercises on their borders, they seem not to recognise the perceptions of their own actions by the states they fear. These perceptions of aggression of course go both ways and nuclear weapons lock these relationships into a highly negative dynamic from which it is very difficult to escape. These states also missed the opportunity of today’s debate to address what Austria, Brazil, and many others have described as a suicidal policy of nuclear deterrence. Instead they overlooked the risks and consequences of nuclear weapons and asserted that their security concerns are being ignored.

    The majority of states, which reject nuclear weapons and are seeking to prohibit them, do not ignore this minority’s perceived security concerns. They are trying to change their perspective – seeking the paradigm shift that many have said is essential to move those states out of their current nuclear-armed security tangle. The reality that is denied in the dogma of nuclear weapons is that, as Ms. Eunice Akiwo of Palausaid, they are immoral, they are inhumane, and soon they will be illegal. In this context, it is irresponsible for these states to claim that prohibiting nuclear weapons will be destabilising. Rather they should redouble their efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their own security doctrines and stop seeking to undermine the positive developments towards a legally-binding instrument that strengthen the global norm against nuclear weapons and increase international security for all.

  • How We Learned to Stop Playing With Blocks and Ban Nuclear Weapons

    Ray AchesonThis article was originally published by Reaching Critical Will.

    “It is in the interest of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances.” This is the view of the 155 states that endorsed the joint statement delivered by Ambassador Dell Higgie of New Zealand. “The only way to guarantee that nuclear weapons will never be used again is through their total elimination.”

    The majority of states and their publics share this view. It is only a handful of states, generally among the most wealthy in the world, that have consistently resisted progress in this area.

    Another 20 countries signed onto a separate statement calling on states to address the “important security and humanitarian dimensions of nuclear weapons.” Delivered by the Australian delegation, this statement suggested that working “methodically and with realism” is the way to “attain the necessary confidence and transparency to bring about nuclear disarmament.”

    By this, the 20 countries refer to the “step-by-step” or “building blocks” approach. As outlined by an all-male panel hosted by Japan and the Netherlands last week, the blocks include, among other things, entry into force of the Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty, negotiation of a fissile materials cut-off treaty, reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines, increasing transparency of and de-alerting nuclear forces, and arsenal reductions.

    Yet as the Irish delegation pointed out, these actions—while welcome to the extent that they lead to concrete disarmament—do not constitute implementation of article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Article VI calls for an effective multilateral framework for nuclear disarmament and the end to the nuclear arms race. “Until we put in place the framework,” argued Breifne O’Reilly of Ireland, “we all stand accused of failing to implement our NPT obligations.”

    It is the responsibility of all NPT states parties to pursue effective measures for nuclear disarmament. Yet supporters of the step-by-step or building blocks approach seem unwilling to put these “blocks” in place themselves. Some of them host US nuclear weapons on their soil, without acknowledging their presence. Most of these states include nuclear weapons in their security doctrines via NATO, which has not taken a collective decision to reduce the role of this weapon of mass destruction in its military doctrine.

    So far, none of these states have been open to articulating a clear legal prohibition against nuclear weapons, even though, as Costa Rica noted, the prohibition of weapons with unacceptable humanitarian impacts has typically preceded their elimination. The Irish delegation pointed out that without the clear prohibition against chemical weapons, these weapons would probably not now be so universally condemned and subject to a specified programme of elimination.

    Maritza Chan expressed Costa Rica’s willingness to join a diplomatic process to negotiate a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons, even if the nuclear-armed states are unwilling to participate. She argued that such a treaty would establish a strong legal norm against the use, possession, and deployment of nuclear weapons and represent a significant step towards their complete elimination.

    Palau’s delegation agreed with the utility of this approach, noting that such a treaty could compel states to reject any role for nuclear weapons in their military doctrines, prevent nuclear sharing, and prohibit investments in nuclear weapons production. The Thai delegation, among others, expressed a firm conviction that is time to “initiate negotiations on a legal instrument to comprehensively ban nuclear weapons.”

    The countries resisting this approach argue that the “security context” is not ripe for pursuing such an effective measure. Australia continues to demand that “we” need to address the security dimensions of nuclear weapon possession. The nuclear-armed states of course want to focus on their own perceived security interests. France asserted that disarmament cannot move forward if it “ignores” the “strategic context.” The United Kingdom argued that “we do not yet have the right political and security conditions for those without nuclear weapons to feel no need to acquire them, nor for those who do have them to no longer feel the need to keep them. Nor is it possible to identify a timeframe for those conditions.” The UK even argued that “nuclear weapons are not per se inherently unacceptable” and that they have “helped to guarantee our security, and that of our allies, for decades.”

    This is a dangerous narrative, noted Ireland. In effect, it makes an argument in favour of proliferation. “Every state on earth has a strategic context,” noted Mr. O’Reilly. Arguing that nuclear weapons are good for some is the same as arguing they are good for all. They either provide security or they don’t. Their consequences are either acceptable or unacceptable.

    The majority of states, international organisations, and civil society groups have articulated clearly that nuclear weapons do not provide security and that the consequences of their use are wholly unacceptable. There is no ambiguity here. But the narrative of “conditions” ensures that nuclear disarmament is perpetually punted down the road to some unknown, possibly unattainable future state of affairs in which the world is at peace and security is guaranteed through some other imagined means.

    Most states reject this utopian view. The majority considers the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons to be a key step in the pursuit of peace, global justice, and security for all.

    Some states have already put this approach into practice. Sweden’s delegation explained that it discontinued its nuclear weapons research and development programme in the 1960s because it believed that abolition was the safest option both for its people and for the rest of the world. Focusing on preconditions, Sweden argued, will not help overcome challenges nor uphold commitments.

    At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, Sweden noted, the nuclear-armed states committed themselves unequivocally to eliminate their nuclear arsenals without any preconditions. Today, however, the nuclear-armed states and their allies have retracted from this commitment and from any other that rejects the legality or utility of nuclear weapons. They continue to pursue a path that has proven incapable of addressing the core obligation to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    The continued stalemate in pursuing the “building blocks” specified by nuclear weapons dependent governments suits their interests only. It supports and even seeks to legitimise the continued possession of nuclear weapons by a select few. These states reject the most feasible, practical, and meaningful “building block” available under current circumstances—the prohibition of nuclear weapons—precisely because it would be an effective measure for nuclear disarmament.

    Yet at the same time, they insist they do not have a predetermined course for action. “Each step builds on past steps and provides a foundation for future action,” argued the US delegation. “The temporary inability to make progress in one area does not preclude progress in others or prevent us from putting in place the building blocks for a comprehensive approach to disarmament.”

    This is a compelling argument for pursuing a treaty banning nuclear weapons. While the nuclear-armed states and their allies resist negotiations on the comprehensive elimination of these weapons, the rest of the world can begin to establish the framework for this by developing a clear legal standard prohibiting these weapons for all. This will take courage. But it is a logical, feasible, achievable, and above all, effective measure for nuclear disarmament.

  • Nuclear Weapons and the Jobs Myth

    Ray Acheson delivered these comments at an event at the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) at a launch event for Ward Wilson’s book Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons.

    Thank you to UNODA for inviting me to be a discussant on this panel. And thank you to Ward for this new book.

    The basic myths that Ward addresses in this book are those that still capture the popular imagination. When talking to anyone not actively involved in the debate about nuclear weapons, if they are skeptical about getting rid of them it is because of at least one of these myths. Thus the style of the book, its accessibility and straightforward language and structure, will be extremely beneficial for any public discussion on nuclear weapons.

    By interrogating five myths, Ward provides a compelling case that nuclear weapons are useless. This begs a larger question: if nuclear weapons are useless why do they still exist? Why are these myths maintained—who benefits from them? Nuclear weapons must be useful for someone or something or else they wouldn’t still exist, they would have gone the way of the penny farthing.

    When considering the continued existence of nuclear weapons, we have to consider who is materially invested in these weapons—they are the ones who benefit from the perpetuation of the myths about nuclear weapons. Thus we need to look to the military-industrial complex, in particular the corporations that run the nuclear weapons laboratories and the politicians with these labs and corporations in their districts.

    This brings me to a myth that wasn’t included in Ward’s book but that is very important, especially in the US context, and that’s the myth of jobs.

    Corporations and politicians in the United States fight to keep the nuclear weapons budget very high, arguing that it is good for economic growth and in particular for jobs in their states. We saw this with the fight over ratifying New START in the US Senate, when the Obama administration had to commit to spend $180 billion over the next twenty years on modernizing nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and related facilities in order to get consent for ratification; and we’re seeing it again now in the fiscal cliff discussions where politicians with nuclear labs in their states are working to ensure that funding for the nuclear enterprise doesn’t diminish.

    But economic benefit is another myth about nuclear weapons. There are several problems with the “jobs” argument. First of all, as the Los Alamos Study Group has shown, nuclear spending is an extremely inefficient method of job creation. Government documents show that multi-billion dollar modernization programmes result in very few temporary working class jobs. Money spent on the high-cost skilled labour needed to maintained global stockpiles is akin to perpetual workfare for top-tier professionals and specialists; individuals from jobs categories that have lower unemployment rates and higher paychecks anyway. Thus military spending creates very few jobs for those most in need of work.

    Second of all, nuclear spending does not benefit communities or populations. Let’s take the case of New Mexico, which is home to two nuclear weapon labs (Los Alamos and Sandia) as well as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s National Service Center in Albuquerque, a nuclear waste disposal site, and four military bases.

    New Mexico’s economic status is distorted by military spending. The median income for the state is significantly skewed by the incorporation of figures from Los Alamos, the town where the key nuclear weapons lab resides. In a recent report, Los Alamos was found to have the highest concentration of millionaires in the United States. There are 885 millionaire households among the population of Los Alamos of around 18,000, giving the town an 11.7 per cent concentration of millionaire households. Yet outside of Los Alamos the state suffers from poverty. New Mexico has among the worst poverty rates in the United States (18.6 percent in 2010).

    In fact, as spending at the Los Alamos lab has increased, New Mexico’s per capita income rate has declined relative to other states and its income disparity has grown. As lab spending has increased, health and education rankings have decreased and violent crime rate and drug overdose rates have increased. Maintaining jobs at the Los Alamos lab requires a high military budget, which takes money from other federal programmes and incurs massive government debt, thus constraining the investments New Mexico can make in education, health, and infrastructure.

    So why does the myth of jobs and economic growth persist? Because money controls the message.

    In terms of New Mexico, campaign contributions flow from the nuclear weapons labs to the state’s congressional delegation, in quantities as great, or greater, as from any other source. In addition, among colleges and universities, the University of New Mexico is one the largest recipients of Pentagon money in the country. Thus former President Eisenhower’s farewell warning about “the acquisition of unwarranted influence … by the military industrial complex” reigns true today.

    Nuclear weapons are an addiction that needs to be overcome. Ward’s book is helpful for initiating discussion about a process of overcoming the addiction. He makes a compelling case for undermining many of the myths around nuclear weapons—compelling enough that he could have stronger prescriptions for action at the end.

    In particular, the book suggests that pursuing disarmament in the near-term could be destabilizing, which is puzzling in a book that convincingly argues that the nuclear weapons enterprise has been largely sustained on the basis of myth. In this connection, Ward’s arguments actually support a far stronger conclusion, which should hopefully be apparent to any careful reader. If we accept the claim that nuclear deterrence is a myth, we must accept that the same is true for the roles of nuclear weapons in maintaining so-called strategic stability. In light of this, a reasonable person could only conclude that nuclear abolition is both viable and realistic.

    Ray Acheson is Director of Reaching Critical Will, a project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.