Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Articles by David Krieger

  • Daisaku Ikeda’s Perseverance and Passion for Peace

    David KriegerDaisaku Ikeda is a man with a great heart and a great vision for humanity’s future.  I admire not only his passion for peace, as expressed in his annual Peace Proposals, but also his perseverance.  He does not give up.  He has a deep well of creativity.  His words have power because he is a man of conviction and action.


    This year’s Peace Proposal is titled, “Toward a World of Dignity for All: the Triumph of the Creative Life.”  I share a passion for the world Daisaku Ikeda envisions, a world of dignity for all.  I once rewrote the US Pledge of Allegiance as a World Citizens’ Pledge.  It said, “I pledge allegiance to the Earth and to its varied life forms; one world, indivisible, with liberty, justice and dignity for all.”  We should not be satisfied until the least among us is able to live a life of dignity.


    Daisaku Ikeda has correctly highlighted the importance of the eight Millennium Development Goals.  These goals are not sufficient, but they are necessary steps on the path to “dignity for all.”  If they are to be fulfilled, we must stop spending so lavishly on the world’s military forces and transfer a reasonable percentage of these resources toward ending poverty and disease while promoting education, environmental protection and the rights of women.


    I agree strongly with Daisaku Ikeda about leadership: in the “absence of international political leadership, civil society should step in to fill the gap, providing the energy and vision needed to move the world in a new and better direction.” 


    In recent weeks, we have seen wonderful examples of tens of thousands of people in Middle East countries taking to the streets and providing the leadership to oust dictators and demand new governments capable of assuring dignity for all citizens.  These citizen leaders have inspired each other and people throughout the world with their courage, compassion and commitment.


    The goal of abolishing nuclear weapons should be high on the agenda for achieving human dignity.  These weapons, with their implicit threat of indiscriminate mass murder, devalue the human species by their very existence.  They have also taken precious financial and human resources from human development goals. 


    I agree with Daisaku Ikeda’s perspective that “it is necessary to thoroughly challenge the theory of deterrence upon which nuclear weapons possession is predicated.”  Nuclear deterrence is a theory of human behavior, and it has many flaws that could result in the catastrophic use of nuclear weapons.


    Recently, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held a conference on “The Dangers of Nuclear Deterrence.”  Out of that conference, we created a “Santa Barbara Declaration,” a call to action to reject nuclear deterrence.  The Declaration lists eight major problems with nuclear deterrence and states, “Nuclear deterrence is discriminatory, anti-democratic and unsustainable.  This doctrine must be discredited and replaced with an urgent commitment to achieve global nuclear disarmament.  We must change the discourse by speaking truth to power and speaking truth to each other.”


    Nuclear weapons have no place in a world that values human dignity.  My great goal in life is to see these weapons totally abolished.  This would represent a change of heart and orientation for humanity.  It would mean that we had come together in common cause to assure that these weapons could not destroy the civilizations we have so painstakingly built and maintained over many millennia. 


    I concur with Daisaku Ikeda and his mentor, Josei Toda, that nuclear weapons represent an “absolute evil,” one that cannot be tolerated if we are to fulfill our responsibility to ourselves and to future generations.  Ikeda points out that standing between our existing world and a world free of nuclear weapons are “walls of apathy.” 


    Our great challenge today is to break down these walls of apathy and replace them with gardens of creativity.  Upon such creativity can be built a shining world of “dignity for all,” one in which nuclear weapons exist only as a historical memory and powerful lesson about humanity’s capacity to overcome great threats by joining hands in common purpose.

  • The Eighth Anniversary of the Iraq War

    David KriegerOn this eighth anniversary of the Iraq War, I feel a deep sense of sadness mixed with anger, along with regret for what might have been.  We’ve had eight years of futile war in Iraq and nearly ten years of the same in Afghanistan.


    Following September 11, 2001, the world stood with the US.  We had a choice then: to respond legally, morally and with wisdom; or, like a helpless giant, to flail out with our vast arsenal of weapons.  To our shame, our leaders, then and now, have taken the latter course. 


    Before this war began, many of us marched for peace.  People all over the world marched for peace, but peace was not to be.


    Dick Cheney said, “We will be greeted as liberators.”


    Donald Rumsfeld said, in effect, that the war would pay for itself: “The bulk of the funds for Iraq’s reconstruction will come from Iraqis – from oil revenues, recovered assets, international trade, direct foreign investment….”


    George W. Bush said, we will attack “at a time of our choosing.”  He dismissed the United Nations, saying “The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities.  So we will rise to ours.”  He chose to attack Iraq on the evening of March 19, 2003, and he did so with shock and awe, but without legality under international law. 


    Less than two months later, Bush dressed up in a flight suit, landed on the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, stood under a sign that said “Mission Accomplished,” and boasted with his usual shortsightedness, “In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”  The people of the world will have prevailed when Mr. Bush is on trial at the International Criminal Court.
     
    The result of our Global War on Terror is that we have spent more than $780 billion on the Iraq War and more than $387 billion on the Afghanistan War, a total of over $1.167 trillion.  These wars have cost California $147 billion, and have cost our 23rd Congressional District $2.6 billion.  These numbers grow by the day.  Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, has predicted that the total cost of the war in Iraq to the Federal government and to society will conservatively exceed $3 trillion.


    It is long past time to end this drain of our resources, which might have gone instead of war and massacre to support the poorest among us, to schools, to health care, and to improve our infrastructure. 


    The Global War on Terror, along with other excesses of capitalism, including massive fraud, has resulted in some 400 families in the US having assets exceeding those of the poorest 50 percent of Americans, some 155 million people.  Four hundred families versus half our population.  And many of our political representatives have fought for tax breaks for the very rich, while seeking to end the collective bargaining rights of the unions for public employees – teachers, nurses, firefighters and policemen.  This is just plain wrong.  But it is what we have become as a nation.


    Across this nation, people still haven’t connected the dots to understand the toll war takes on our society.


    Of course, the money wasted is only a part of the outrage that has weakened our country.  More importantly, some 4,500 American soldiers have died in Iraq. Of these, 4,300 Americans died since George Bush dressed up in his flight suit and gave his victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln.  But the death toll of Americans is dwarfed by that of Iraqis.  By some estimates, more than a million and a half Iraqis have died in the Iraq War.  Four million have been displaced from their homes.


    In Afghanistan, 1,498 American soldiers have died and 2,361 total coalition forces have died.  In 2010 alone, 2,777 civilians died in Afghanistan.  Of these, 1,175 were children and 555 were women.


    It is tempting to say that they all died because George Bush lied.  But George Bush’s lies were only one factor.  They also died because so many good Americans were silent in the face of these wars.  They also died because, in the case of Afghanistan, Barack Obama escalated the war and made it his own.


    Let me conclude with a poem I wrote about the war, titled “Worse than the War.”



    WORSE THAN THE WAR


    Worse than the war, the endless, senseless war,
    Worse than the lies leading to the war,


    Worse than the countless deaths and injuries,
    Worse than hiding the coffins and not attending funerals,


    Worse than the flouting of international law,
    Worse than the torture at Abu Ghraib prison,


    Worse than the corruption of young soldiers,
    Worse than undermining our collective sense of decency,


    Worse than the arrogance, smugness and swagger,
    Worse than our loss of credibility in the world,
    Worse than the loss of our liberties,


    Worse than learning nothing from the past,
    Worse than destroying the future,
    Worse than the incredible stupidity of it all,


    Worse than all of these,
    As if they were not enough for one war or country or lifetime,
    Is the silence, the resounding silence of good Americans.


    When will we say that we’ve had enough?  When will America try to regain its conscience, its soul, its decency and its honor?  When will we become a force for peace in the world?  The answer is: It’s up to us!  It’s up to us to take back our country and put it on the path to peace.

  • A Final Wakeup Call?

    David KriegerOur hearts go out to the people of Japan who are suffering the devastating effects of one of the most powerful earthquakes in the past one hundred years, followed by a devastating tsunami.  Thousands are dead, injured and missing, and hundreds of thousands have been left homeless, many with limited food and water. 


    The greatest danger to the people of Japan, however, may lie ahead in the unfolding disaster of the damaged nuclear power plants at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station located 130 miles north of Tokyo.  Already, substantial radiation has been released from the fires, explosions and partial meltdowns of the radioactive fuel rods in these plants, brought about by loss of coolant in the reactor cores and the spent fuel pools.  The containment shells surrounding several of the reactors have been breached, allowing for the release of radiation into the environment.


    High radiation levels at the plants have resulted in reducing the work force trying to contain the radiation releases to skeleton crews, volunteers who are putting their own lives in jeopardy for the common good.  Keijiro Matsushima, an 82-year-old survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, commented, “It’s like the third atomic bomb attack on Japan.  But this time, we made it ourselves.”


    The amount of radioactive material in the crippled reactors at Fukushima Daiichi dwarfs the amount in the Chernobyl plant, which 25 years ago had the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.  Residents have been told to evacuate from a 12-mile radius of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plants, and told to stay indoors in a further 7-mile radius.  The United States has warned its citizens in Japan to stay beyond a 50-mile radius of the damaged power plants.  Many countries are helping their citizens to leave Japan altogether. 


    The major lessons to be drawn from the tragedy in Japan are: first, nature’s power is far beyond our ability to control; second, the nuclear industry, in Japan and elsewhere, has arrogantly pushed ahead with their dangerous technology, wrongly assuring the public there is no reason for concern; third, the reassurances of self-interested nuclear “experts” are not to be trusted; and fourth, the nuclear power plant failures in Japan are a final wake-up call to replace nuclear power with safe, sustainable and renewable forms of energy.


    There are 440 commercial nuclear reactors in the world.  Of these, the US has 104, nearly twice as many as Japan’s 55 nuclear power reactors.  Of the US reactors, 23 are of the same or similar design as those that are failing in Japan.  President Obama’s 2012 budget calls for $36 billion in loan guarantees to subsidize new nuclear power plants. 


    California, known for its propensity for earthquakes, has two nuclear power plants: one at Avila Beach, north of Santa Barbara; and one at San Onofre, between Los Angeles and San Diego.  Both plants are located near major fault lines.  The Diablo Canyon power plant at Avila Beach is situated near the San Andreas and Hosgri fault lines.  The San Onofre plant is located less than a mile from the Cristianitos fault line.  Diablo Canyon is designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and San Onofre to withstand a 7.0 magnitude earthquake.  Japan’s 9.0 magnitude earthquake has demonstrated, however, that the force of earthquakes can dramatically exceed expectations.


    Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors 1 and 2 made the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s list of top ten nuclear power sites with the highest risk of suffering core damage from an earthquake.  Living in Santa Barbara, downwind from those reactors, we should be worried.  The millions of people who live and work in New York City, within the evacuation range of the Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant, should also be worried because that plant is listed as number one on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s highest risk sites.


    We know that we humans cannot control earthquakes.  Nor can we control tsunamis or other natural disasters.  What we can control are our decisions about the use of technology.  We can say “No” to technologies that are catastrophically dangerous.  From my perspective, this would include any technologies that require an unattainable level of human perfection to prevent massive annihilation.  As we have seen in Japan, natural disasters and nuclear power plants are a potentially deadly mix.  The dangers grow even deadlier when human error is added to the equation. 


    In addition to their potential for catastrophic accidents, nuclear power plants are subject to deliberate attacks by terrorists or during warfare.  After more than half a century, there also remains no long-term solution for the storage of highly radioactive nuclear wastes, which will threaten future generations for many times longer than human civilization has existed.  Of critical concern as well, nuclear power plants use and create the fissile materials that can be used to make nuclear weapons.


    Mother Nature has given us a deadly warning that it is past time to end our reliance on nuclear power and invest instead in solar power, the only safe nuclear reactor that exists – 93 million miles from Earth.  The question is: Will the disaster in Japan open our eyes to the need for change, or will we be content to continue to tempt fate and simply hope that we do not become the next place on the planet where nuclear power fails catastrophically?

  • Nuclear Deterrence: Impeding Nuclear Disarmament

    David KriegerIn an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, published on March 7, 2011, four former high-level US policy makers – George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn – focused their attention on nuclear deterrence.  They concurred that deterrence based on nuclear weapons is precarious, could destroy civilized life and raises enormous inhibitions against employing nuclear weapons.  They concluded that the US and Russia were “lucky” that nuclear weapons were not used during the Cold War, and asked: “Does the world want to continue to bet its survival on continued good fortune with a growing number of nuclear nations and adversaries globally?” 


    The four former policy makers argued that “nations should move forward together with a series of conceptual and practical steps toward deterrence that do not rely primarily on nuclear weapons or nuclear threats to maintain international peace and security.”  Their first step is to recognize that “there is a daunting new spectrum of global security threats” and that an “effective strategy to deal with these dangers must be developed.”  Their second step is to realize that reliance on nuclear weapons encourages or excuses nuclear proliferation.  Their third step is to cease the deployment of US and Russian nuclear arsenals in ways that “increase the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon, or even a deliberate exchange based on a false warning.” 


    So far, so good.  Their fourth step, however, seems to be a non sequitur: “[A]s long as nuclear weapons exist, America must retain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear stockpile primarily to deter a nuclear attack and to reassure our allies through extended deterrence.”  The former policy makers had just reviewed the great dangers of relying upon nuclear deterrence, and then followed this by indicating the need for America to rely upon nuclear weapons for deterrence, including nuclear deterrence “extended” to US allies.  They also left unstated what uses the US nuclear stockpile might have other than deterring a nuclear attack.  It appears the former policy makers have chosen a “safe, secure and reliable” nuclear arsenal over a safe and secure citizenry.  Nuclear weapons undermine the possibility of a safe and secure citizenry.  As conceived, the modernization of US nuclear forces would also be expensive and provocative and would limit the possibilities for nuclear disarmament.  I’ve often wondered what is meant by a reliable nuclear arsenal: One with sufficient capacity to annihilate a potential enemy down to the last child?


    The four former policy makers do say that the US and Russia “must continue to lead the “build-down” and “must begin moving away from threatening force postures and deployments.”  But such leadership is needed not only for the “build-down,” but also to envision a world with zero nuclear weapons and to commit to doing what is necessary to achieve that vision. 


    In their fifth step, the group of four recognizes that “nuclear weapons may continue to appear relevant” to some nations.  They thus see the need to “redouble efforts” to resolve regional confrontations and conflicts.  Insightfully, they find, “A world without nuclear weapons will not simply be today’s world minus nuclear weapons.”  They demonstrate a lack of urgency, though, in suggesting that “over time” the US and its allies can work together to make changes to extended deterrence.


    The group of four concludes, “Moving from mutual assured destruction toward a new and more stable form of deterrence with decreasing nuclear risks and an increasing measure of assured security for all nations could prevent our worst nightmare from becoming a reality, and it could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations.”


    Just a few weeks before the publication of this Wall Street Journal article on nuclear deterrence by George Shultz and his colleagues, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation convened a conference in Santa Barbara on “The Dangers of Nuclear Deterrence.”  The conference concluded with a Santa Barbara Declaration: “Reject Nuclear Deterrence: An Urgent Call to Action.”  The Declaration states, “Nuclear deterrence is discriminatory, anti-democratic and unsustainable.  This doctrine must be discredited and replaced with an urgent commitment to achieve global nuclear disarmament.  We must change the discourse by speaking truth to power and speaking truth to each other.”  In other words, we cannot find nuclear deterrence “precarious” on the one hand, and seek to modernize America’s nuclear forces under the guise of keeping them “safe, secure and reliable” on the other hand. 


    The Santa Barbara Declaration concluded, “Before another nuclear weapon is used, nuclear deterrence must be replaced by humane, legal and moral security strategies.  We call upon people everywhere to join us in demanding that the nuclear weapon states and their allies reject nuclear deterrence and negotiate without delay a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of all nuclear weapons.”  The goal must be a world without nuclear weapons, and reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence remains a major impediment to achieving that goal.

  • The Ultimate Weapon of Terrorism

    Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapon of terrorism, whether in the hands of a terrorist organization or those of the leader of a country.  They are weapons of mass annihilation that kill indiscriminately – men, women and children.  Most people fear the possibility of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorist organizations, but never stop to consider that in any hands they are terrorist weapons. 


    Given the terrorist nature of nuclear weapons and their capacity to destroy civilization, what makes them acceptable to so many people?  Or, at a minimum, what makes so many people complacent in the face of nuclear threats?  These are questions I have grappled with for many decades.  


    The acceptability of nuclear weapons is rooted in the theory of nuclear deterrence, which its proponents argue has kept and will keep the peace.  This theory is based upon many assumptions concerning human behavior.  For example, it assumes the rationality of political and military leaders.  It seems quite evident that not all leaders behave rationally at all times and under all circumstances.  The theory requires clear communications and the threat to use nuclear weapons in retaliation must be believed by opposing leaders, but as we know communications are not always clear and misperceptions may inform beliefs.


    There is a “madman” theory of nuclear deterrence.  It posits that to be truly believable, the leader of a nuclear armed state must exhibit behavior that appears sufficiently insane to lead opposing leaders to believe that he would actually use the weapons.  Thus, insanity, or at least the impression of it, is built into the system.  At a systems level, can anyone doubt that the reciprocal threats of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) were truly mad, as in insane?


    Another aspect of deterrence theory is that it requires a territory against which to retaliate.  Thus, the theory is not valid in relation to a non-state terrorist organization.  If a country has no place to retaliate, there can be no nuclear deterrence.  If a terrorist organization acquires a nuclear weapon, it will not be deterred by threat of nuclear retaliation.  This places a fuse on the nuclear threat, and means that there must be zero tolerance for a non-state terrorist organization to acquire a nuclear capability.


    There should also be zero tolerance for states to possess nuclear weapons.  I am not limiting this observation to states that seek to develop nuclear arsenals.  I mean all states and, most importantly, those already in possession of nuclear weapons.  Current nuclear arsenals may be used by accident, miscalculation or intention.  And so long as some states possess nuclear weapons and base their security upon them, there will be an incentive for nuclear proliferation.


    Widespread nuclear complacency is difficult to understand.  Most people are aware of the tremendous damage that nuclear weapons can do, but perhaps feel reassured that the weapons have not been used since 1945.  The weapons are largely out of sight and out of mind.  It is also possible that people feel impotent to influence nuclear policy and thus defer to experts and policy makers.  This is unfortunate because until large numbers of people assert themselves on the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, the countries with nuclear weapons will continue to rely upon them to their peril and to the world’s peril.


    The New START agreement between the US and Russia is a modest step forward in reducing the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons on each side to 1,550 and the number of deployed delivery vehicles to 700.  The greatest value of the treaty may be in restoring inspections of each side’s nuclear arsenal by the other side.  But these steps provide only meager progress.  At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation we advocate the following next steps forward:



    • Reducing the total number of nuclear weapons – strategic, tactical and reserve – to under 1,000 on each side. 

    • Making a binding commitment to “No First Use” of nuclear weapons and to never using nuclear weapons under any circumstances against non-nuclear weapon states. 

    • De-alerting all nuclear weapons so that there will be no use by accident, miscalculation or in a fit of anger. 

    • Placing limits on missile defense systems and banning space weapons. 

    • Commencing multilateral negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would ban all nuclear weapons worldwide in a phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent manner.

    These steps would be indications that the immorality, illegality and cowardice of threatening to use nuclear weapons were being met with a seriousness of purpose.  It is not necessary for ignorance, apathy and complacency to dominate the nuclear arena.  With due regard for the sanctity of life and for future generations, we can do better than to live with such inertia.  We can eliminate a weapon that threatens civilization and human survival; we can move to zero, the only stable number of nuclear weapons.  This is the greatest challenge of our time, a challenge that we must respond to with engagement and persistence.  It is time to replace Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with Planetary Assured Security and Survival (PASS).

  • Ten Serious Flaws in Nuclear Deterrence Theory

    David KriegerNuclear deterrence is the threat of nuclear retaliation for a proscribed behavior, generally an attack upon the threatening state.  The theory of nuclear deterrence posits that such threat, if perceived as real and likely to cause sufficient devastation, will prevent an attack or other proscribed behavior from occurring. 


    The desire for a nuclear deterrent existed even before nuclear weapons were created.  Refugee scientists from Europe, concerned about the possible development of German nuclear weapons during World War II, encouraged the United States to explore the use of uranium for building nuclear weapons.  Albert Einstein was among the scientists who urged President Roosevelt to initiate a program to explore the feasibility of creating such weapons as a deterrent to the use of a German nuclear weapon, should the Germans succeed in their quest.  After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he would consider this to be one of the great mistakes of his life.


    By the time the United States succeeded in developing nuclear weapons in July 1945, Germany was already defeated.  The US used its powerful new bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  In doing so, it sent a nuclear deterrent message to other states, particularly the Soviet Union, that the US possessed nuclear weapons and was willing to use them.  This would spur on the secret Soviet nuclear weapons program to deter future use of the US nuclear arsenal.  Other states would follow suit.  Britain and France developed nuclear arsenals to deter the Soviets.  China developed nuclear arms to deter the US and the Soviets.  Israel did so to assure its independence and deter potential interventions from the other nuclear weapon states.  India developed nuclear weapons to deter China and Pakistan, and Pakistan to deter India.  North Korea did so to deter the US.


    One steady factor in the Nuclear Age has been the adherence of the nuclear weapon states to the theory of nuclear deterrence.  Each country that has developed nuclear weapons has justified doing so by the pursuit of nuclear deterrence.  The security of not only the nuclear weapon states but of civilization has rested upon the reliability of the theory of nuclear deterrence.  Vast numbers of people throughout the world believe that nuclear deterrence contributes to the security of the planet and perhaps to their personal security and that of their family.  But does it?  What if nuclear deterrence is a badly flawed theory?  What if nuclear deterrence fails?  What if political and military leaders in all nuclear weapon states who have treated nuclear deterrence theory as sacrosanct and imbued it with godlike, but unrealistic, powers of protection are wrong?  The future itself would stand in grave danger, for the failure of nuclear deterrence could pose an existential threat to humanity. 


    As a former commander of the US Strategic Command, General George Lee Butler was in charge of all US nuclear weapons.  After retiring from the US Air Force, General Butler critiqued nuclear deterrence, stating that it “suspended rational thinking in the Nuclear Age about the ultimate aim of national security: to ensure the survival of the nation.”  He concluded that nuclear deterrence is “a slippery intellectual construct that translates very poorly into the real world of spontaneous crises, inexplicable motivations, incomplete intelligence and fragile human relationships.”


    As volcanoes often give off strong warning signals that they may erupt, so we have witnessed such signals regarding nuclear arsenals and the failure of nuclear deterrence theory over the course of the Nuclear Age.  Nuclear arsenals could erupt with volcano-like force, totally overwhelming the relatively flimsy veneer of “protection” provided by nuclear deterrence theory.  In the face of such dangers, we must not be complacent.  Nor should we continue to be soothed by the “experts” who assure us not to worry because the weapons will keep us safe.  There is, in fact, much to worry about, much more than the nuclear policy makers and theorists in each of the nuclear weapon states have led us to believe.  I will examine below what I believe are ten serious flaws in nuclear deterrence theory, flaws that lead to the conclusion that the theory is unstable, unreliable and invalid.


    1. It is only a theory.  It is not proven and cannot be proven.  A theory may posit a causal relationship, for example, if one party does something, certain results will follow.  In the case of nuclear deterrence theory, it is posited that if one party threatens to retaliate with nuclear weapons, the other side will not attack.  That an attack has not occurred, however, does not prove that it was prevented by nuclear deterrence.  That is, in logic, a false assumption of causality.  In logic, one cannot prove a negative, that is, that doing something causes something else not to happen.  That a nuclear attack has not happened may be a result of any number of other factors, or simply of exceptional good fortune.  To attribute the absence of nuclear war to nuclear deterrence is to register a false positive, which imbues nuclear deterrence with a false sense of efficacy.


    2. It requires a commitment to mass murder.  Nuclear deterrence leads to policy debates about how many threatened deaths with nuclear weapons are enough to deter an adversary?  Are one million deaths sufficient to deter adversary A?  Is it a different number for adversary B?  How many deaths are sufficient?  One million?  Ten million?  One hundred million?  More?  There will always be a tendency to err on the side of more deaths, and thus the creation of more elaborate nuclear killing systems.  Such calculations, in turn, drive arms races, requiring huge allocations of resources to weapons systems that must never be used.  Leaders must convince their own populations that the threat of mass murder and the expenditure of resources to support this threat make them secure and is preferable to other allocations of scientific and financial resources.  The result is not only a misallocation of resources, but also a diversion of effort away from cooperative solutions to global problems.


    3. It requires effective communications.  In effect, nuclear deterrence is a communications theory.  Side A must communicate its capability and willingness to use its nuclear arsenal in retaliation for an attack by adversary B, thereby preventing adversary B from attacking.  The threat to retaliate and commit mass murder must be believable to a potential attacker.  Communications take place verbally in speeches by leaders and parliamentary statements, as well as news reports and even by rumors.  Communications also take place non-verbally in the form of alliance formations and nuclear weapons and missile tests.  In relation to nuclear deterrence, virtually everything that each side does is a deliberate or inadvertent form of communication to a potential adversary.  There is much room for error and misunderstanding.


    4. It requires rational decision makers.  Nuclear deterrence will not be effective against a decision maker who is irrational.  For example, side A may threaten nuclear retaliation for an attack by adversary B, but the leader of side B may irrationally conclude that the leader of side A will not do what he says.  Or, the leader of side B may irrationally attack side A because he does not care if one million or ten million of his countrymen die as a result of side A’s nuclear retaliation.  I believe two very important questions to consider are these: Do all leaders of all states behave rationally at all times, particularly under conditions of extreme stress when tensions are very high?  Can we be assured that all leaders of all states will behave rationally at all times in the future?  Most people believe the answer to these questions is an unqualified No.


    5. It instills a false sense of confidence.   Nuclear deterrence is frequently confused with nuclear “defense,” leading to the conclusion that nuclear weapons provide some form of physical protection against attack.  This conclusion is simply wrong.  The weapons and the threat of their use provide no physical protection.  The only protection provided is psychological and once the weapons start flying it will become clear that psychological protection is not physical protection.  One can believe the weapons make him safer, but this is not the same as actually being safer.  Because nuclear deterrence theory provides a false sense of confidence, it could lead a possessor of the weapons to take risks that would be avoided without nuclear threats in place.  Such risks could be counterproductive and actually lead to nuclear war.


    6. It does not work against an accidental use.  Nuclear deterrence is useful, if at all, only against the possibility of an intentional, premeditated nuclear attack.  Its purpose is to make the leader who contemplates the intentional use of a nuclear weapon decide against doing so.  But nuclear deterrence cannot prevent an accidental use of a nuclear weapon, such as an accidental launch.  This point was made in the movie Dr. Strangelove, in which a US nuclear attack was accidentally set in motion against the Soviet Union.  In the movie, bomber crews passed their “failsafe” point in a training exercise and couldn’t be recalled.  The president of the United States had to get on the phone with his Soviet counterpart and try to explain that the attack on Moscow that had been set in motion was just an accident.  The Americans were helpless to stop the accident from occurring, and so were the Soviets.  Accidents happen!  There is no such thing as a “foolproof” system, and when nuclear weapons are involved it is extremely dangerous to think there is.


    7. It doesn’t work against terrorist organizations.  Nuclear deterrence is based upon the threat of retaliation.  Since it is not possible to retaliate against a foe that you cannot locate, the threat of retaliation is not credible under these circumstances.  Further, terrorists are often suicidal (e.g., “suicide bombers”), and are willing to die to inflict death and suffering on an adversary.  For these reasons, nuclear deterrence will be ineffective in preventing nuclear terrorism.  The only way to prevent nuclear terrorism is to prevent the weapons themselves from falling into the hands of terrorist organizations.  This will become increasingly difficult if nuclear weapons and the nuclear materials to build them proliferate to more and more countries.


    8. It encourages nuclear proliferation.  To the extent that the theory of nuclear deterrence is accepted as valid and its flaws overlooked or ignored, it will make nuclear weapons seem to be valuable instruments for the protection of a country.  Thus, the uncritical acceptance of nuclear deterrence theory provides an incentive for nuclear proliferation.  If it is believed that nuclear weapons can keep a country safe, there will be commensurate pressure to develop such weapons. 


    9. It is not believable.  In the final analysis, it is likely that even the policy makers who promote nuclear deterrence do not truly believe in it.  If policy makers did truly believe that nuclear deterrence works as they claim, they would not need to develop missile defenses.  The United States alone has spent over $100 billion on developing missile defenses over the past three decades, and is continuing to spend some $10 billion annually on missile defense systems.  Such attempts at physical protection against nuclear attacks are unlikely to ever be fully successful, but they demonstrate the underlying understanding of policy makers that nuclear deterrence alone is insufficient to provide protection to a country.  If policy makers understand that nuclear deterrence is far from foolproof, then who is being fooled by nuclear deterrence theory?  In all likelihood, the only people being fooled by the promised effectiveness of nuclear deterrence theory are the ordinary people who place their faith in their leaders, the same people who are the targets of nuclear weapons and will suffer the consequences should nuclear deterrence fail.  Their political and military leaders have made them the “fools” in what is far from a “foolproof” system.


    10. Its failure would be catastrophic.  Nuclear deterrence theory requires the development and deployment of nuclear weapons for the threat of retaliation.  These weapons can, of course, be used for initiating attacks as well as for seeking to prevent attacks by means of threatened retaliation.  Should deterrence theory fail, such failure could result in consequences beyond our greatest fears.  For example, scientists have found in simulations of the use of 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons in an exchange between India and Pakistan, the deaths could reach one billion individuals due to blast, fire, radiation, climate change, crop failures and resulting starvation.  A larger nuclear war between the US and Russia could destroy civilization as we know it. 


    The flaws in nuclear deterrence theory that I have discussed cannot be waved aside.  They show that the theory has inherent weaknesses that cannot be overcome.  Over time, the theory will suffer more and more stress fractures and, like a poorly constructed bridge, it will fail.  Rather than staying docilely on the sidelines, citizens of the nuclear weapon states must enter the arena of debate.  In fact, they must create the debate by challenging the efficacy and validity of nuclear deterrence theory. 


    After these many years of accepting nuclear deterrence theory as valid and unimpeachable, it is time to awaken to the reality that it could fail and fail catastrophically.  The answer to the risks posed by nuclear deterrence theory is not to shore up an inherently flawed theory, but to take a new path, a path leading to the elimination of all nuclear weapons from the planet.  This is not an impossible dream and, in fact, the risks of taking this path are far less than maintaining nuclear arsenals justified by an unstable and unproven theory.  But for this dream to be realized, citizens will have to raise their voices, challenge their leaders, and refuse to be docile in the face of the overwhelming threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity.

  • Forty Reasons to End War

    David KriegerThe brutality.


    The children.


    The deaths of civilians.


    The dreams destroyed.


    The hand-to-hand combat.


    The herd mentality.


    The high altitude bombing.


    The horror.


    The apathy.


    The ignorance.


    The indecency.


    The jingoism.


    The land mines.


    The defoliants.


    The lies. 


    The long distance killing machines.


    The loss of life.


    The loss of limbs.


    The loss of compassion.


    The madness.


    The manipulation.


    The mothers.


    The mushroom cloud.


    The needless slaughter.


    The patriotic songs.


    The pious politicians.


    The profiteers.


    The propaganda.


    The refugees.


    The ruined lives.


    The smart bombs.


    The stereotyping.


    The stupidity.


    The suffering.


    The suppression of reason.


    The toll on our souls.


    The trauma.


    The medals dripping from the chests of generals.


    The rewriting of history.


    The waste, the terrible waste.

  • Remembering Eisenhower’s Farewell Address

    President Eisenhower's farewell addressJanuary 17, 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to the nation in which he warned of the dangers of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex.  I think he would be shocked to see how this influence has grown over the past half century and how it has manifested in the country’s immense military budgets, the nuclear arms race, our permanent war footing, the failure to achieve meaningful disarmament, and the illegal wars the US has initiated.  In addition to all of this, there is the influence of the military-industrial complex on the media, academia, the Congress and the citizenry.  It has also ensnared US allies, like those in NATO, in its net.  Eisenhower believed that the only way to assure that the military-industrial complex can be meshed “with our peaceful methods and goals” is through “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry.”


    Eisenhower was 70 years old when his term as president came to an end.  He had been a General of the Army and hero of World War II, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces Europe, and for eight years the president of the United States.  His Farewell Address was, above all else, a warning to his fellow Americans.  He stated, “The conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.”  He worried about what this conjunction would mean in the future, famously stating, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.  The potential for misplaced power exists and will persist.”


    Eisenhower feared that this powerful complex would weaken democracy.  “We must never,” he said, “let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”  He felt there was only one force that could control this powerful military-industrial complex, and that was the power of the people.  In Eisenhower’s view it was only “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” that was capable of defending the republic “so that security and liberty prosper together.”


    What kind of report card would President Eisenhower give our country today if he could come back and observe what has transpired over the past 50 years?  For starters, I believe he would be appalled by the enormous increase in influence of the military-industrial complex.  Today the military receives over half of the discretionary funds that Congress allocates, over $500 billion a year for the Department of Defense, plus the special allocations for the two wars in which the country is currently engaged.  The Department of Defense budget does not take into account the interest on the national debt attributable to past wars, or the tens of billions of dollars in the Energy Department budget for nuclear arms, or the funds allocated for veterans benefits.  When it is totaled, the US is spending over a trillion dollars annually on “defense.”


    Surely Eisenhower would be dismayed to see how many national institutions have been drawn into and made subservient to the military-industrial complex, which some would now refer to as the military-industrial-Congressional-academic-media complex.  Every district in Congress seems to have links to the complex through jobs provided by defense contractors, putting pressure on Congressional representatives to assure that public funds flow to private defense contractors.  At the same time, academia and the mainstream media provide support and cover to keep public funds flowing for wars and their preparations.


    Near the end of his speech, Eisenhower lamented that he had not made greater progress toward disarmament during his time in office.  He said, “Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.”  It was true then, and remains so today.  He continued, “Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.  Because this need is so sharp and apparent, I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment.”  Indeed, there was reason for his disappointment, since the number of nuclear weapons in the US arsenal increased under his watch from approximately 1,400 in 1953 to over 20,000 in 1960.  I suspect that he would be even more disappointed today to find that the US has not been more proactive in leading the way toward disarmament and particularly nuclear disarmament since the end of the Cold War.


    Fifty years ago, Eisenhower feared the threat that nuclear war posed to the world and to our country, and expressed his desire for peace: “As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war – as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years – I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.”  He recognized that much remains to be done to “reach the goal of peace with justice.”  That was true when Eisenhower made his Farewell Address and it remains true today.


    We would do well to reflect upon the deeply felt concerns of this military and political leader as he retired from public service.  He prayed “that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.”  That was his vision, and he passed the baton to us to overcome the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex.   Our challenge is to exercise our power as citizens of a democracy and to use that power to attain a more peaceful and nuclear weapons-free world.

  • Poverty, Tax Breaks and Militarism

    David KriegerOne of the key lessons learned by the United States during the Vietnam War was that conscription leads to middle class discontent with war.  Middle class parents joined their college-age children in protesting an illegal and brutal war.  Ultimately, these protests made the continuation of the war untenable.  A popular protest chant among college students of the era was, “Hell No, we won’t go.”


    The political and military establishment in the country found a solution to the problem of middle class protest by doing away with conscription and moving to an all volunteer military force.  As long as there was high enough unemployment and lack of affordable higher education, the military would have a large pool of young people to draw upon for its force, and foreign wars could be pursued without fear of widespread protest.  Middle class children (and, of course, upper class children) could go to college and then into the workplace undisturbed, and their parents would not be concerned or frightened by the possibility of their children being conscripted into the military in a time of war. 


    The system has worked reasonably well to dampen protest of foreign wars, even a war as egregiously illegal and needless as the war against Iraq.  As volunteers, the soldiers are more pliable and less inclined to protest even the repeated deployments to war zones that they have endured.  With rare exceptions, the soldiers seem to believe they are acting patriotically in carrying out orders, without questioning whether the wars themselves are either beneficial or legal. 


    While the country spends a great amount of money on its military forces (about one-half of the discretionary funds that are allocated annually by the Congress), this does not necessarily extend to protecting the soldiers themselves.  There have been reports of inadequate body armor for the troops, prompting communities to hold fundraising events to secure the funds to provide such protection to individual soldiers. 


    Among the lures that the military uses to fill its recruiting quotas are the promises of job security and future educational benefits.  Thus, for poorer members of the society, both jobs and educational opportunities are available through enlistment in the military.  Of course, these are only attractive to those who cannot attain them by other means.


    Recently, Simon Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, was interviewed about Obama’s proposed “compromise” with the Republicans to extend tax cuts for the top two percent of Americans.  Johnson said, as other economists have, that this deal, if enacted, would add substantially to the national debt while providing very little stimulus to the economy in return.  He recommended, as a far better alternative plan for stimulating the economy, to put the majority of the $900 billion it would cost, mostly for tax breaks for the very rich, into education.  On purely economic grounds, the funding for education, with its attendant job creation, is a far better investment in society than tax breaks for the very rich.


    But if education and job opportunities for the poorest elements of our society were available through non-military governmental incentives, perhaps impoverished young people would reject the education and job incentives offered through the military.  They would not have to risk their lives in war to get the educational and job opportunities that middle and upper class children have handed to them.  Don’t we owe all young members of our society equal access to education and the workplace, which in essence provides them with equal opportunity? 


    War should be a last resort for society.  By doing away with conscription, we have made it possible for it to be a first resort.  But we do so by structuring our society so that the poor must go through the gauntlet of the military (and in recent years also repeated tours of duty in war zones) in order to get their opportunity for higher education and gainful employment.


    If the current compromise legislation on the extension of the Bush-era tax breaks for the very rich goes through, it will be largely on the backs of the poor.  For the political class promoting this compromise, it will also have the side benefit of assuring enough poverty and unemployment so that the military will have no problem in recruiting soldiers for the ongoing wars of choice that continue to burden our society and our economy.

  • Changing the Climate of Complacency

    David KriegerRepresentatives of governments and civil society organizations are gathered in Cancun to take action on the climate change that is threatening our beautiful but beleaguered planet.  The changes, which are resulting in global warming, pose extremely dangerous threats to quality of life and even survival for people today and in the future.  We must heed the warnings of scientists who are examining this phenomenon and change our habits with regard to fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions.  We must dramatically lower our fossil fuel consumption and our carbon imprint on the planet and this must be undertaken immediately and seriously by the over-industrialized nations that are the worst energy and resource abusers.


    There is another way in which the term “climate change” may be used.  That is, to refer to “climate” in the sense of “ambiance.”  There is a strong need to change the climate of our thinking, specifically the passive acceptance of the abuse of our planet and its myriad species, including our own.  In this sense, humanity lives far too much in a “climate” of ignorance and indifference.  We have organized ourselves into consumer societies that demonstrate little concern for our responsibilities to the planet, to each other and to the future.


    There are many ongoing problems in the world that deserve our awareness and engagement.  The fact that these problems receive insufficient attention and action speak to the change of climate that is needed.  Many of these problems were identified in the eight Millennium Development Goals: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality; reducing child mortality; reducing maternal mortality; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and establishing a global partnership for development. 


    While these major problems on our planet are not adequately addressed, the world is wasting more than $1.5 trillion annually on its military establishments.  Many states are attempting to create military security at the expense of human security.  The poor people on the planet are being marginalized while countries use their scientific resources and material wealth to produce ever more deadly and destructive armaments.  In a climate of complacency, the military-industrial complexes of the world fulfill their gluttonous appetites while the poor and politically powerless of the Earth are left to suffer and die. 


    At the apex of the global order, the countries that emerged victorious in World War II anointed themselves as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.  They continue to flaunt international law by their reliance upon nuclear weapons and by failing to engage in good-faith negotiations for the elimination of these weapons as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Because these countries behave as though their power and prestige are built upon these weapons of mass annihilation, other countries seek to emulate them.  Nuclear proliferation is thus encouraged by the very states that seek to set themselves apart with these weapons.


    Large corporations that stand to profit from a “renaissance” of nuclear power are promoting large nuclear energy projects as an alternative to using fossil fuels.  They are trying to make nuclear power appear to be green.  But they have not solved the four major problems with nuclear power: the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation; the failure to find any reasonable solution to storing the nuclear wastes, which will threaten the environment and humanity for tens of thousands of years; vulnerability to terrorism; and propensity to dangerous accidents. 


    If the large global corporations have their way, the Earth will become home for thousands of nuclear power plants, nations will seek to protect themselves with nuclear weapons (an impossibility), the threat of nuclear annihilation and global warming will continue to hang over our collective heads, extreme poverty in its many manifestations will persist, and we will follow either a slow path to extinction or a rapid one. 


    This is why we must change the climate of indifference and complacency that currently prevails upon our planet.  We humans have the gifts of consciousness and conscience, but these gifts must be used to be effective.  We must become conscious of what threatens our common future and we must care enough to demand that these threats be eliminated.  The only force powerful enough to challenge the corporate and military power that is leading us to catastrophe is the power of an engaged global citizenry.  This remains the one truly great superpower on Earth, but it can only be activated by compassion and caring. 


    If we do not care enough about the future to engage in the fight to save our species from catastrophe and our planet from omnicide, we need only to continue our complacency and leave the important decisions about protecting the environment and human life to powerful corporations and the world’s militaries.  They have a plan, one based upon dangerous technologies and plunder.  Their plan is shortsighted, designed to further enrich the already overly rich.  To be silent is a vote for their plan. 


    As Albert Camus, the great French writer and existentialist, wrote in the immediate aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing: “Our technical civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests. Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging.  This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments – a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.” 


    Let us stand with Camus in waging peace.  Let us stand with Camus in choosing reason.  Let us raise our voices and choose peace and a human future.  Let us fulfill the responsibility of each generation to pass the world on intact to the next generation.  We may be the only generation that has faced the choice of silence and annihilation, or engagement and rebuilding the paradise of our exceedingly precious planet, the only one we know of in the universe that supports life.