Category: Non-Proliferation

The Treaty Wreckers

In just a few months, Bush and Blair have destroyed global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons.

Saturday is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The nuclear powers are commemorating it in their own special way: by seeking to ensure that the experiment is repeated.

As Robin Cook showed in his column last week, the British government appears to have decided to replace our Trident nuclear weapons, without consulting parliament or informing the public. It could be worse than he thinks. He pointed out that the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston has been re-equipped to build a new generation of bombs. But when this news was first leaked in 2002 a spokesman for the plant insisted the equipment was being installed not to replace Trident but to build either mini-nukes or warheads that could be used on cruise missiles.

If this is true it means the government is replacing Trident and developing a new category of boil-in-the-bag weapons. As if to ensure we got the point, Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, announced before the leak that Britain would be prepared to use small nukes in a pre-emptive strike against a non-nuclear state. This put us in the hallowed company of North Korea.

The Times, helpful as ever, explains why Trident should be replaced. “A decision to leave the club of nuclear powers,” it says, “would diminish Britain’s international standing and influence.” This is true, and it accounts for why almost everyone wants the bomb. Two weeks ago, on concluding their new nuclear treaty, George Bush and the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh announced that “international institutions must fully reflect changes in the global scenario that have taken place since 1945. The president reiterated his view that international institutions are going to have to adapt to reflect India’s central and growing role.” This translates as follows: “Now that India has the bomb it should join the UN security council.”

It is because nuclear weapons confer power and status on the states that possess them that the non-proliferation treaty, of which the UK was a founding signatory, determines two things: that the non-nuclear powers should not acquire nuclear weapons, and that the nuclear powers should “pursue negotiations in good faith on … general and complete disarmament”. Blair has unilaterally decided to rip it up.

But in helping to wreck the treaty we are only keeping up with our friends across the water. In May the US government launched a systematic assault on the agreement. The summit in New York was supposed to strengthen it, but the US, led by John Bolton – the undersecretary for arms control (someone had a good laugh over that one) – refused even to allow the other nations to draw up an agenda for discussion. The talks collapsed, and the treaty may now be all but dead. Needless to say, Bolton has been promoted: to the post of US ambassador to the UN. Yesterday Bush pushed his nomination through by means of a “recess appointment”: an undemocratic power that allows him to override Congress when its members are on holiday.

Bush wanted to destroy the treaty because it couldn’t be reconciled with his new plans. Last month the Senate approved an initial $4m for research into a “robust nuclear earth penetrator” (RNEP). This is a bomb with a yield about 10 times that of the Hiroshima device, designed to blow up underground bunkers that might contain weapons of mass destruction. (You’ve spotted the contradiction.) Congress rejected funding for it in November, but Bush twisted enough arms this year to get it restarted. You see what a wonderful world he inhabits when you discover that the RNEP idea was conceived in 1991 as a means of dealing with Saddam Hussein’s biological and chemical weapons. Saddam is pacing his cell, but the Bushites, like the Japanese soldiers lost in Malaysia, march on. To pursue his war against the phantom of the phantom of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, Bush has destroyed the treaty that prevents the use of real ones.

It gets worse. Last year Congress allocated funding for something called the “reliable replacement warhead”. The government’s story is that the existing warheads might be deteriorating. When they show signs of ageing they can be dismantled and rebuilt to a “safer and more reliable” design. It’s a pretty feeble excuse for building a new generation of nukes, but it worked. The development of the new bombs probably means the US will also breach the comprehensive test ban treaty – so we can kiss goodbye to another means of preventing proliferation.

But the biggest disaster was Bush’s meeting with Manmohan Singh a fortnight ago. India is one of three states that possess nuclear weapons and refuse to sign the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The treaty says India should be denied access to civil nuclear materials. But on July 18 Bush announced that “as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states”. He would “work to achieve full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India” and “seek agreement from Congress to adjust US laws and policies”. Four months before the meeting the US lifted its south Asian arms embargo, selling Pakistan a fleet of F-16 aircraft, capable of a carrying a wide range of missiles, and India an anti-missile system. As a business plan, it’s hard to fault.

Here then is how it works. If you acquire the bomb and threaten to use it you will qualify for American exceptionalism by proxy. Could there be a greater incentive for proliferation?

The implications have not been lost on other states. ” India is looking after its own national interests,” a spokesman for the Iranian government complained on Wednesday. “We cannot criticise them for this. But what the Americans are doing is a double standard. On the one hand they are depriving an NPT member from having peaceful technology, but at the same time they are cooperating with India, which is not a member of the NPT.” North Korea (and this is the only good news around at the moment) is currently in its second week of talks with the US. While the Bush administration is doing the right thing by engaging with Pyongyang, the lesson is pretty clear. You could sketch it out as a Venn diagram. If you have oil and aren’t developing a bomb (Iraq) you get invaded. If you have oil and are developing a bomb (Iran) you get threatened with invasion, but it probably won’t happen. If you don’t have oil, but have the bomb, the US representative will fly to your country and open negotiations.

The world of George Bush’s imagination comes into being by government decree. As a result of his tail-chasing paranoia, assisted by Tony Blair’s cowardice and Manmohan Singh’s opportunism, the global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons has, in effect, been destroyed in a few months. The world could now be more vulnerable to the consequences of proliferation than it has been for 35 years. Thanks to Bush and Blair, we might not go out with a whimper after all.

Originally published by the Guardian.

August 2, 2005
US Nuclear Hypocrisy: Bad For The World

Every five years the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meet in a review conference to further the non-proliferation and disarmament goals of the treaty. This year the conference ended in a spectacular failure with no final document and no agreement on moving forward. For the first ten days of the conference, the US resisted agreement on an agenda that made any reference to past commitments.

The failure of the treaty conference is overwhelmingly attributable to the nuclear policies of the Bush administration, which has disavowed previous US nuclear disarmament commitments under the treaty. The Bush administration does not seem to grasp the hypocrisy of pressing other nations to forego their nuclear options, while failing to fulfill its own obligations under the disarmament provisions of the treaty.

The treaty is crumbling under the double standards of American policy, and may not be able to recover from the rigid “do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do” positions of the Bush administration. These policies are viewed by most of the world as high-level nuclear hypocrisy.

Paul Meyer, the head of Canada’s delegation to the treaty conference, reflected on the conference, “The vast majority of states have to be acknowledged, but we did not get that kind of diplomacy from the US.” Former UK Foreign Minister Robin Cook also singled out the Bush administration in explaining the failure of the conference. “How strange,” he wrote, “that no delegation should have worked harder to frustrate agreement on what needs to be done than the representatives of George Bush.”

What the US did at the treaty conference was to point the finger at Iran and North Korea, while refusing to discuss or even acknowledge its own failure to meet its obligations under the treaty. Five years ago, at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, the parties to the treaty, including the US, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. Under the Bush administration, nearly all of these obligations have been disavowed.

Although President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, the Bush administration does not support it and refused to allow ratification of this treaty, which is part of the 13 Practical Steps, to even be discussed at the 2005 review conference. The parties to the treaty are aware that the Bush administration is seeking funding from Congress to continue work on new earth penetrating nuclear weapons (“bunker busters”), while telling other nations not to develop nuclear arms.

They are also aware that the Bush administration has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to pursue a destabilizing missile defense program, and has not supported a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, although the US had agreed to support these treaties in the 13 Practical Steps.

The failure of this treaty conference makes nuclear proliferation more likely, including proliferation to terrorist organizations that cannot be deterred from using the weapons. The fault for this failure does not lie with other governments as the Bush administration would have us believe. It does not lie with Egypt for seeking consideration of previous promises to achieve a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. Nor does the fault lie with Iran for seeking to enrich uranium for its nuclear energy program, as is done by many other states, including the US, under the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would no doubt be preferable to have the enrichment of uranium and the separation of plutonium, both of which can be used for nuclear weapons programs, done under strict international controls, but this requires a change in the treaty that must be applicable to all parties, not just to those singled out by the US.

Nor can the fault be said to lie with those states that, having given up their option to develop nuclear weapons, sought renewed commitments from the nuclear weapons states not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. It is hard to imagine a more reasonable request. Yet the US has refused to relinquish the option of first use of nuclear weapons, even against non-nuclear weapons states.

The fault for the failure of the treaty conference lies clearly with the Bush administration, which must take full responsibility for undermining the security of every American by its double standards and nuclear hypocrisy.

The American people must understand the full magnitude of the Bush administration’s failure at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. This may not happen because the administration has been so remarkably successful in spinning the news to suit its unilateralist, militarist and triumphalist worldviews.

As Americans, we can not afford to wait until we experience an American Hiroshima before we wake up to the very real dangers posed by US nuclear policies. We must demand the reversal of these policies and the resumption of constructive engagement with the rest of the world.

David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and the Deputy Chair of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (www.inesglobal.org). He has written extensively on nuclear dangers.

May 31, 2005
In the Spirit of Einstein: Scientists Advancing Nuclear Weapons Abolition

In 1955, fifty years ago and ten years after the harsh inception of the Nuclear Age at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein issued an appeal, known as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. It is the last public document signed by Einstein before his death. In addition to Russell and Einstein, the document was signed by nine other prominent scientists. The appeal warned that powerful new nuclear weapons raised the possibility of “universal death” in an all-out war, and called for the renunciation of war itself. “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?” The appeal concluded: “Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

Over the ensuing decades of the Cold War and beyond it, many scientists and citizens throughout the world have grown complacent in the face of continuing nuclear dangers. The Cold War may have ended in the early 1990s, but nuclear dangers to humanity have not abated. In some respects, the dangers have increased. Among the scientists who have banded together to educate the public and offer constructive solutions to the nuclear dangers that threaten humanity are those who are or have been associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (Pugwash) and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES).

Many scientists have been involved in both organizations. Pugwash, which grew directly from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, began in 1957 and has tended to work in more closed circles of scientists in the hopes of being viewed by governments as more trustworthy. Pugwash shared the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize with its founder, Sir Joseph Rotblat. INES, by contrast, which was established at a large scientific meeting in Berlin in 1991, has been far more open to interactions with other civil society organizations and with the general public. One of the principal aims of INES has been to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. This aim has been carried out by an extraordinarily dedicated group of scientists, engineers and experts in the INES project, the International Network of Scientists and Engineers Against Proliferation (INESAP). In the remainder of this article, I will discuss INESAP’s activities that have sought to move beyond the Non-Proliferation Treaty and other efforts to halt proliferation and to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

INESAP was formed in 1993 by three young German scientists: Wolfgang Liebert, Martin Kalinowski and Juergen Scheffran. From its inception, the network focused on the central issue of the Nuclear Age: achieving total nuclear disarmament. The principal objectives of INESAP are “to promote nuclear disarmament, to tighten existing arms control and non-proliferation regimes, [and] to implement unconventional approaches to curbing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to controlling the transfer of related technology.”

The founding conference of INESAP took place in Germany in August 1993, and was entitled, “Against Proliferation: Towards General Disarmament.” Some 50 scientists, engineers and other experts from 20 countries participated. In 1994, INESAP established a Study Group on non-proliferation, called “Beyond the NPT,” referring to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The work of the Study Group led to the publication of a document in early 1995, “Beyond the NPT: A Nuclear Weapon-Free World.” The document was prepared by some 50 authors from 17 countries, including soon-to-be Nobel Peace Laureate Joseph Rotblat.

Among the conclusions of this study were that the Non-Proliferation Treaty was insufficient to control nuclear proliferation, and that the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of this treaty should be followed by multilateral negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention. The document proposed that the parties to the treaty, along with the few states still outside the treaty, should begin immediate negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a framework treaty for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Executive Summary of “Beyond the NPT” stated, “In its Final Document the NPT Review and Extension Conference should, in its call for decisive steps towards a NWFW [nuclear weapons-free world], include a mandate for the Conference on Disarmament to start negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC). The pattern has to be that which has already been set by the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) – a total ban.”

The 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference was held at United Nations headquarters in New York. It was one of the most important meetings in the then 25-year history of treaty and may turn out to be one of the significant events of the Nuclear Age, with broad implications for the future of civilization. At issue during the conference was whether the treaty should be extended indefinitely or for periods of time. The United States and other nuclear weapons states were strong supporters of indefinite extension, their goal being to prevent nuclear proliferation while maintaining the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” Many civil society organizations, along with some non-nuclear weapons states, argued against indefinite extension on the basis that it would be like giving a blank check to parties (the nuclear weapons states) who were notorious for overdrawing their accounts and could not be trusted to keep their promises.

The essential bargain of the NPT was that non-nuclear weapons states would not develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, and the nuclear weapons states would cease the nuclear arms race and engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. From the perspective of the non-nuclear weapons states, the treaty was never meant to establish permanent nuclear double standards, making nuclear weapons acceptable for the small minority while prohibiting them to the vast majority.

INESAP was a leader among the civil society organizations at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference pressing the point that preventing proliferation was not sufficient and that it was necessary to move expeditiously toward a nuclear weapons-free world. In cooperation with other leading international organizations, INESAP sponsored a two-day forum on the abolition of nuclear weapons, based upon its study, “Beyond the NPT: A Nuclear Weapon-Free World.” The INESAP forum provided an opportunity to present a variety of proposals on how to attain a nuclear weapons-free world and for civil society representatives from around the world to debate strategies for moving forward.

The NPT Review and Extension Conference ended with a victory for the nuclear weapons states and a sound defeat for humanity. The treaty was extended indefinitely with no further requirements that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their obligations under the treaty to achieve nuclear disarmament. Having achieved the indefinite extension of the treaty, the nuclear weapons states showed no inclination to proceed with negotiations for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, as INESAP had proposed.

The outcome of the NPT Review and Extension Conference created a strong reaction by civil society organizations and an increased determination among them to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons. INESAP and other civil society groups coalesced to form Abolition 2000, a global network for the abolition of nuclear weapons, which has now grown to over 2,000 organizations and municipalities throughout the world.

In 1996, a year after the conclusion of the NPT Review and Extension Conference, civil society organizations played a significant role in bringing the issue of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court. The ICJ issued an opinion in which the court unanimously declared: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

By 1997, INESAP, along with two other important international organizations – the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) – put forward a comprehensive text for a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention. The text, relying heavily on the technical information provided by INESAP, provided for a system of societal and technical verification that would make it possible for the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligation under international law for the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals. This would not only make the world far safer, but would be the only truly effective way to assure against nuclear proliferation. The Model Nuclear Weapons Convention was introduced to the United Nations as a discussion paper by Costa Rica in 1997.

Since then, INESAP has continued its efforts to promote a Nuclear Weapons Convention. In a 1999 Briefing Paper (No. 7/1999), it explored the question, “Has the Time Come for the Nuclear Weapons Convention?” During that same year, INESAP continued its collaboration with IALANA and IPPNW in producing a book: Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. In the year 2000, INESAP put out an edited book on Global Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The book, emphasizing scientific expertise, provides analysis of the deadlock in achieving progress on the elimination of nuclear weapons and on the means of overcoming the obstacles.

The Model Nuclear Weapons Convention has provided a basic tool for the global nuclear abolition movement. It has been used over the years by Abolition 2000 and its constituent organizations as an example of how countries, if they had the political will to do so, could proceed toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. Most recently, the model convention has been used by the Mayors for Peace, led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in their Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons. This campaign calls for negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention to commence in 2005, to be completed by 2010, and for the elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2020.

In 2000, INESAP organized a workshop entitled “Abolition of Nuclear Weapons” at the Stockholm Congress of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility. Intensive discussions at this meeting gave rise to a new INESAP program, initiated in cooperation with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, to explore the control and elimination of missile technologies for warlike purposes. The project, Moving Beyond Missile Defense, has held four international conferences over the past five years, in Santa Barbara, Shanghai, Berlin and Hiroshima, focusing on regional and global issues of nuclear disarmament and missile control.

Einstein warned, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” The scientists, engineers and other experts associated with INESAP have worked to bring about such a change in thinking. They have exemplified a commitment to social responsibility by raising their voices to warn of continuing dangers and by using their scientific and technical expertise to propose solutions to the gravest danger confronting humanity. They carry on in the tradition of truth and courage exemplified by Albert Einstein.

David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and the Deputy Chair of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (www.inesglobal.org). He is a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.

May 20, 2005
Erosion of Nonproliferation Treaty

As the review conference of the Nonproliferation Treaty convenes in New York this month, we can only be appalled at the indifference of the United States and the other nuclear powers. This indifference is remarkable, considering the addition of Iran and North Korea as states that either possess or seek nuclear weapons programs.

In the run-up to the conference, a group of “Middle States” had a simple goal: “To exert leverage on the nuclear powers to take some minimum steps to save the nonproliferation treaty in 2005.” Last year this coalition of nuclear-capable states – including Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and eight NATO members – voted for a new agenda resolution calling for implementing NPT commitments already made. Tragically, the United States, Britain and France voted against this resolution.

Preparatory talks failed even to achieve an agenda because of the deep divisions between nuclear powers that refuse to meet their own disarmament commitments and the non-nuclear movement, whose demands include honoring these pledges and considering the Israeli arsenal.

Until recently, all American presidents since Dwight Eisenhower had striven to restrict and reduce nuclear arsenals – some more than others. As far as I know, there are no present efforts by any of the nuclear powers to accomplish these crucial goals.

The United States is the major culprit in this erosion of the NPT. While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons, including antiballistic missiles, the earth-penetrating “bunker buster” and perhaps some new “small” bombs. They also have abandoned past pledges and now threaten first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

Some corrective actions are obvious:

The United States needs to address remaining nuclear issues with Russia, demanding the same standards of transparency and verification of past arms control agreements and dismantling and disposal of decommissioned weapons. With massive arsenals still on hair-trigger alert status, a global holocaust is just as possible now, through mistakes or misjudgments, as it was during the depths of the cold war. We could address perhaps the world’s greatest proliferation threat by fully securing Russia’s stockpiles.

While all nuclear weapons states should agree to no first use, the United States, as the sole superpower, should take the lead on this issue.

NATO needs to de-emphasize the role of its nuclear weapons and consider an end to their deployment in Western Europe. Despite its eastward expansion, NATO is keeping the same stockpiles and policies as when the Iron Curtain divided the continent.

The comprehensive test ban treaty should be honored, but the United States is moving in the opposite direction. The administration’s 2005 budget refers for the first time to a list of test scenarios, and other nations are waiting to take the same action.

The United States should support a fissile-materials treaty to prevent the creation and transport of highly enriched uranium and plutonium.

The United States should curtail development of the infeasible missile defense shield, which is wasting huge resources, while breaking our commitment to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty without a working substitute.

Act on nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, an increasing source of instability. Iran has repeatedly hidden its intentions to enrich uranium while claiming that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. This explanation has been given before, by India, Pakistan and North Korea, and has led to weapons programs in all three states. Iran must be called to account and held to its promises under the Nonproliferation Treaty. At the same time, we fail to acknowledge how Israel’s nuclear status entices Iran, Syria, Egypt and other states to join the community of nuclear-weapon states.

If the United States and other nuclear powers are serious about stopping the erosion of the Nonproliferation Treaty, they must act now on these issues. Any other course will mean a world in which the nuclear threat increases, not diminishes.

Jimmy Carter is a former president of the United States and founder of the Carter Center in Atlanta. This comment was distributed by Tribune Media Services for Global Viewpoint.

Originally published by the International Herald Tribune

May 2, 2005
At the Unholy Altar of Nuclear Weapons

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 35th anniversary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was supposed to lead to a nuclear-weapons-free world. Both anniversaries remind us of the stark dangers nuclear weapons still pose to the world.

It is a moment of intense diplomatic challenge for Canada, a country at the centre of the debate over the future of nuclear weapons. That debate will take place at the NPT Review conference May 2-27 at the United Nations.

In recent years, Iran, Libya and North Korea have pursued illegal nuclear programs with the assistance of a secret Pakistani network.

A high-level U.N. panel recently warned: “We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the Non-Proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation.” It is truly shocking that the public seems oblivious to the 34,000 nuclear weapons still in existence, most of them with an explosive power several times greater than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The NPT was obtained through a bargain, with the nuclear-weapons states agreeing to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear weapons and share nuclear technology for peaceful purposes in return for the non-nuclear states shunning the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Adherence to that bargain enabled the indefinite extension of the treaty in 1995 and the achievement of an “unequivocal undertaking” in 2000 toward elimination through a program of 13 Practical Steps.

Now the United States is rejecting the commitments of 2000 and premising its aggressive diplomacy on the assertion that the problem of the NPT lies not in the nuclear-weapons states’ own actions, but in the lack of compliance by states such as North Korea and Iran.

Brazil has put the issue in a nutshell: “One cannot worship at the altar of nuclear weapons and raise heresy charges against those who want to join the sect.”

The whole international community, nuclear and non-nuclear alike, is concerned about proliferation and wants strong action taken to ensure that Iran and North Korea do not become nuclear weapons states.

But the new attempt by Washington to gloss over the discriminatory aspects of the NPT, which are now becoming permanent, has caused the patience of the members of the non-aligned movement to snap.

They see a two-class world of nuclear haves and have-nots becoming a permanent feature of the global landscape. They see the U.S. researching the development of a new, “usable” nuclear weapon and NATO, an expanding military alliance, clinging to the doctrine that nuclear weapons are “essential.”

Compounding the nuclear risk is the threat of nuclear terrorism, which is growing day by day. It is estimated that 40 countries have the knowledge to produce nuclear weapons and the existence of an extensive illicit market for nuclear items shows the inadequacy of the present export control system.

The task awaiting the 2005 review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is to convince the nuclear-weapons states that the only hope of stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to address nuclear disarmament sincerely.

This is precisely the stance taken by foreign ministers of the New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden), who recently wrote:

“Nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament are two sides of the same coin and both must be energetically pursued.”

The New Agenda, which showed impressive leadership at the 2000 NPT review in negotiating the 13 Practical Steps with the nuclear weapons states, is now clearly reaching out to other middle-power states to build up what might be called the “moderate middle” in the nuclear weapons debate.

Eight NATO states — Belgium, Canada, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway and Turkey — voted for the New Agenda resolution at the U.N. in 2004, an action that effectively built a bridge between NATO and the New Agenda. The new “bridge” shows that a group of centrist states may be in position to produce a positive outcome for the 2005 NPT review.

Here is where Canada can shine.

In 2002 and 2003, Canada was the only NATO nation to vote for the New Agenda resolution. That was an act of courage, for Canada likes the “good company” of its alliance partners when it takes progressive steps. But the action was rewarded in 2004 when seven other NATO states joined Canada.

I recently held meetings with the governments of some of these key countries — Germany, Norway, The Netherlands and Belgium — to discuss how to make a success of the NPT review conference. These countries look to Canada, as an important centrist state, to maintain its leadership position in upholding the integrity of the disarmament and non-proliferation goals of the NPT.

When I was in Europe, news came of the Canadian government’s decision not to join in the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence system.

This move won the unanimous admiration of the officials I talked to. Clearly, they would like to work with Canada in proposing workable solutions to the NPT crisis.

For Canada, working in a collegial manner with other centrist states is much easier to do than the action it boldly took in confronting the U.S. alone on missile defence.

In the present political climate, no “grand solution” is possible. Rather, a set of incremental steps could be achieved if the moderate middle states use their influence to convince the U.S. that it is in American interests to protect the NPT’s ability to curb would-be nuclear proliferators.

These steps include: the start of negotiations for a ban on the production of fissile materials; the striking of a new committee at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to deal with nuclear disarmament questions; the U.S. and Russia taking their strategic nuclear weapons off “alert” status, and beefing up the ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that nuclear fuels for civilian purposes are not diverted to nuclear weapons.

This is a modest program. Many nuclear weapons abolitionists will not be satisfied with it, for it falls far short of negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.

The world is a long way from obtaining such a treaty, which would need a strong verification system to ensure the safe elimination of all nuclear weapons. But the interim program would at least save the NPT.

By working diligently and diplomatically with key NATO states and the progressive New Agenda states, Canada can live up to its own values of making the world safe from the spread of nuclear weapons.

Douglas Roche is the former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and Senator Emeritus in Alberta. He is chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative.

Originally published by the Toronto Star.

April 19, 2005
Santa Barbara Nuclear Activist Leader Honored at Gala

Six people whose efforts have made significant contributions to the world’s environment, including Santa Barbaran David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, were honored by Global Green USA at a gala ceremony Friday in Beverly Hills.

Global Green is the U.S. affiliate of Green Cross International, which aims to push the world toward more sustainable and safer use of its resources. The American group’s annual Millennium Awards recognize those who contribute professionally to that goal by addressing environmental and social problems.

Besides Mr. Krieger, others honored were actors and environmental advocates Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick; Sally Lilienthal, founder and president of Ploughshares Fund; Fred Buenrostro, CEO of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System; and Rob Feckner, president of the CalPERS board.

“We hope the awards inspire others to take similar paths and encourage our honorees to shine even brighter in their respective fields,” said Matt Petersen, president and CEO of Global Green USA.

Mr. Krieger, who received the International Environmental Leadership Award, has been a leader in the effort to abolish nuclear weapons. Global Green noted that he helped found several international coalitions, including Abolition 2000; the Middle Powers Initiative; and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, based in Germany.

Mr. Krieger founded the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and has served as its president since 1982. A graduate of the Santa Barbara College of Law, Mr. Krieger also serves as a judge pro tem for the local Superior Court.

The link between green concerns and abating the nuclear threat was embodied by the ceremony’s keynote speaker, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who asked that world leaders adopt a treaty guaranteeing clean water and sanitation.

“We were able to solve the nuclear arms race because of . . . political will,” he said before the awards banquet. “Today we don’t see that political will. But I think it will emerge that leaders will have to address this problem.”

Dwindling water supplies and political resistance have hampered efforts to bring fresh water to slum dwellers around the world, Mr. Gorbachev said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Mr. Gorbachev, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led the Soviet Union for six years until its 1991 collapse, founded Green Cross International in 1993.

Originally published by the Santa Barbara News Press

April 16, 2005
Vanunu Faces New Prison Term

The travails of Mordechai Vanunu continue.

Last week, the Israeli government indicted the former nuclear technician on 22 counts of violating restrictions it had imposed upon him last April. A hearing date has not yet been announced.

During the past year Vanunu has openly defied the Israeli authorities. Indeed, on the very day, last spring, when he completed his 18 year sentence for treason, Vanunu walked out of Ashkelon prison to the cheers of his supporters and immediately violated the government’s restrictions by issuing a press statement on the nuclear issue.

Who would have guessed that this brave man would not only survive 18 years in a 6X9 foot windowless cell, eleven and a half of them in solitary confinement, not to mention near-continuous harassment by his handlers, but would emerge unbowed and unbroken, as plucky as ever? Vanunu’s resiliency is amazing.

He has made it known that he wishes to leave Israel, settle in the US, and have a life. Yet, Mordechai has also refused to be muzzled. He is blessed with the gift of gab, and during the last year, in numerous interviews with the world press, he has been an articulate spokesperson for a nuclear-free Middle East. Vanunu has warned of the grave perils of a nuclear disaster. He has called upon the Israeli government to sign the NPT, open the country’s nuclear sites to IAEA inspection, close down the aging and unsafe Dimona reactor, and take immediate steps in concert with other states in the region to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ). Vanunu has also roundly condemned Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

All of this has alarmed the Sharon government. At a time when Israel’s leaders have been threatening war on Iran for its alleged (but unproven) secret nuclear weapons program, the last thing they need is this pest Vanunu going around blabbing about Israel’s enormous arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Mordechai is the mite under their skin, the irritant that keeps them scratching at the nuclear rash. Obviously, they want to make him go away (permanently) by putting him back in a cell. Out of sight (as in forever) and especially out of earshot of the world press. Will they succeed? Will the world stand idly by while they bury Vanunu a second time?

The day before his indictment, Mordechai and several other peace activists spoke at a press conference in Jerusalem, organized by Rayna Moss of the Committee to Free Vanunu. Mordechai said: “I did not seek to harm Israel, but rather to warn of an enormous danger. I do not seek to harm Israel, now. I want to work for world peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. I want the human race to survive.”

He continued: “I’d like to address world leaders here for the Holocaust Museum ceremony. They have come to commemorate the Jewish holocaust which took place 60 years ago, but they must acknowledge that the threat of a future holocaust is the nuclear holocaust.”

Other speakers included Moss; Dan Ellsberg, former Pentagon insider who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers; attorney Jennifer Harbury (from the US), author and director of the STOP Torture Campaign; and also Fredrik Heffermehl, a Norwegian author/attorney who is the Vice President of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms.

The Israeli government claims that despite Vanunu’s 18 years in prison he remains in possession of nuclear secrets, and for this reason is still a threat to Israel’s security. The claim is bogus, as Dan Ellsberg pointed out in his statement: “Mordechai Vanunu has no secret information. He has one huge secret which he revealed on April 21 last year. That after 18 years of imprisonment and solitary confinement and mistreatment a person can still come out sane, articulate, compassionate. This is the secret that no regime wants its citizens to know.” He then added, “Mordechai is a prophet, and the scriptures say that prophets are never appreciated in their own country.”

Ellsberg called on Israel to lift the restrictions on Vanunu: “At the time of the American revolution, when we freed ourselves from the British empire, we didn’t retain any of their laws and regulations. The time has come for…Israel to also free itself from the State of Emergency regulations of the British Empire.”

Israel has no first amendment and no Bill of Rights. The restrictions imposed upon Vanunu (prohibiting him from traveling abroad, contacting foreign citizens and media, and controlling his movement inside Israel) are based on the 1945 State of Emergency Regulations introduced by the British during the period of the Mandate. Since 1948 Israel has continued to operate under this antiquated legal structure, which allows the Israeli government to penalize individuals without trial, indefinitely. The regulations are used frequently to detain Palestinians. Nor have Israel’s courts challenged the system. For example, in July 2004 Israel’s Supreme Court rejected Vanunu’s appeal of his restrictions.

Evidently, the Sharon government was not listening to Ellsberg. The very next day they indicted Vanunu, though at this juncture it remains uncertain whether they intend to use the court process, i.e., put Vanunu on trial, or apply the draconian emergency regulations.

If there is a silver lining, here, it is the likelihood that Israel’s leaders, in their limitless arrogance, may overreach. They seem perpetually on the brink. Vanunu has been nominated again this year for the Nobel Peace Prize, and who knows? The Nobel committee may yet redeem its many recent blunders by actually doing something noble. If Israel continues to harass Vanunu, he might get it…

That would surely touch off an explosion in the Sharon government louder than a Sahab-III missile.

(Thanks to the Campaign to Free Vanunu for details used in preparing this report. A special thank you to Rayna Moss.)

Mark Gaffney is the author of Dimona, the Third Temple, a pioneering 1989 study of the Israeli nuke program. Mark’s latest is Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes, released last spring by Inner Traditions Press.

March 24, 2005
Does the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Have a Future?

This May, the United Nations will be holding a review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a key nuclear arms control and disarmament agreement to which 188 countries are now parties.

Originally proposed by the U.S. and Soviet governments, the NPT was signed at the United Nations in 1968 and went into force in 1970. Under its provisions, non-nuclear nations agreed to renounce the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed nations agreed to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons through good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. In this fashion, nations on both sides of the Cold War divide signaled their intention to halt the nuclear arms race and move toward a nuclear-free world.

For decades, there was substantial progress along these lines. Non-nuclear nations refrained from building nuclear weapons. And the nuclear powers signed a series of important nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties: the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; two Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties; the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty; two Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties; and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. At times, they even reduced their nuclear forces unilaterally. As a result, by the late 1990s, no additional nations belonged to the nuclear club, while the number of nuclear weapons deployed by the nuclear nations or in their stockpiles declined dramatically.

Starting in 1998, however, the nuclear arms race began to revive. Determined to place their nations within the ranks of the nuclear powers, the governments of India and Pakistan exploded their first nuclear weapons that year. Since then, they have engaged in dangerous and mutually threatening nuclear buildups. Other non-nuclear nations, including North Korea, took the first steps toward going nuclear, though the extent of their progress along these lines remains uncertain.

The nuclear powers also began to abandon their NPT commitments. In 1999, the U.S. Senate stunned much of the world, including U.S. allies, by rejecting ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Taking office in 2001, the administration of George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the ABM Treaty, opposed ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, began deployment of a missile defense system, pressed for the development of new U.S. nuclear weapons, and abandoned negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Responding sharply to U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty and U.S. plans for missile defense, the Russian government announced its intention to deploy a new generation of nuclear missiles. And China might not be far behind.

Why has there been a reversal of earlier progress toward a nuclear-free world?

A key factor behind the turnabout is the decline of popular pressure for nuclear disarmament.

Rival nations–and before their existence, rival territories–have always gravitated toward military buildups. This is based on the assumption–what might be called the “old thinking”–that national security is best achieved through military strength. Not surprisingly, then, in a world of competing and sometimes hostile nations, governments are tempted to develop nuclear weapons to secure what they consider their “national interests.” Thus, beginning during World War II and continuing during the Cold War, a growing number of rival governments commenced developing powerful nuclear arsenals.

Fortunately, however, the nuclear arms race of the Cold War era inspired widespread public resistance–resistance that took the form of mass movements for nuclear disarmament, feisty antinuclear marches and rallies, and public critiques of nuclear weapons by religious bodies, scientists, and cultural leaders. Polls found public opinion strongly opposed to nuclear buildups and nuclear wars. As a result, governments were pushed, often reluctantly, into agreements for nuclear arms control and disarmament.

But, since the end of the Cold War, the mass nuclear disarmament movements of the past have declined dramatically and public concern about nuclear weapons has dwindled. Furthermore, much of the lingering public concern has been manipulated by cynical government officials to bolster their own policies—as when the Bush administration exaggerated the Iraqi government’s readiness to wage nuclear war in order to justify its invasion of Iraq. Thus, freed of the constraint of popular pressure for international nuclear disarmament, governments gradually jettisoned their NPT commitments.

The situation, however, may be changing once more. Just as the nuclear arms race of the Cold War era inspired massive popular protest, the reviving nuclear arms race of recent years is beginning to generate substantial public opposition.

Much of this public opposition is crystallizing around the May 2005 NPT review conference at the United Nations, where nuclear and non-nuclear nations almost certainly will condemn one another for reneging on their treaty commitments. United for Peace and Justice (the major peace coalition in the United States), along with Abolition 2000 (a group focused on the nuclear issue), is laying plans for a nuclear abolition march and rally in New York City on May 1, the day before the review conference convenes. Noting that the NPT is “in serious disarray,” the organizers of these events have called for “a massive demonstration” to “demand global nuclear disarmament and an end to nuclear excuses for war.” Large antinuclear meetings and other related events are taking shape in numerous American cities, with prominent speakers drawn from political, academic, and cultural life.

International organizations are also focusing their efforts on the NPT review conference. Stressing the importance of the gathering, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War is mobilizing for it as part of a Campaign for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free 21st Century. Mayors for Peace, an organization of top municipal officials from more than 600 cities around the world, has become particularly active in pressing the case for nuclear abolition. Headed by Hiroshima’s mayor, Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayors for Peace will be sending a substantial delegation to the NPT review conference for this purpose.

Thus, at this time of widespread uncertainty about the future of the NPT–and, more broadly, about the future of nuclear arms control and disarmament–there are signs that popular pressure is developing to put the world back on track toward nuclear disarmament. Whether this pressure will prove powerful enough to save the NPT remains to be seen. But there is certainly movement on this front. Fortunately, in the most dangerous of circumstances, people have a tendency to rise to the occasion.

Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition (Stanford University Press).

Originally published by the History News Network

March 21, 2005

Nobel Laureates Appeal for Nuclear Disarmament

February 17, 2005

Letter from Jack Steinberger:

I have pleasure in enclosing a copy of a Nobel Laureates statement that has been drafted by the Abolition Now Campaign at my initiation. I am deeply concerned that in this year of the 60 th Anniversaries of the atomic bombings the world stands at the brink of a renewed nuclear crisis of incalculable proportions. All of us need to speak out before it is too late. In May the world’s governments will gather at the United Nations in New York to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This statement is a call for them to use this opportunity to begin serious negotiations to rid the world of nuclear weapons once and for all. Led by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign is mobilising support from all sectors of society worldwide for this goal. Nobel Laureates can add to this growing campaign by publicly identifying themselves with this call for sanity.

Please consider adding your name to this statement which will be circulated widely to the press, governments and citizen groups in the run up to the NPT. It is planned to release this statement on March 5 th, the anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty entering into force in 1970. If you would like more information about the Mayors for

Peace Emergency Campaign and Abolition Now please look at the website at www.abolitionnow.org or contact Monika Szymurska at monika@abolitionnow.org.

We are approaching Nobel Laureates from each discipline, not just peace laureates. In this Einstein Year it is clear that all of us have a responsibility to speak out for the highest aspirations of humanity for a peaceful future. Thank you for reading this letter and for considering the statement.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Steinberger Nobel Physics Laureate 1988

The continued reliance of some states on nuclear arsenals, with tens of thousands of times the destructive power of that unleashed upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaves our children and grandchildren under the constant threat of annihilation. All people, including those in the nuclear weapons states themselves, would be more secure in a world without nuclear weapons.

Every possible effort must be made not only to prevent additional states from acquiring nuclear weapons, but also to ensure that these instruments of ultimate terror do not fall into the hands of those who might use them to perpetrate acts of unthinkable mass destruction.

This goal can only be achieved through the global elimination of all the nuclear weapons currently in the possession of the nuclear weapon states, and by the securing of all fissile materials under a system of international controls.

The nuclear weapon states are obligated to achieve global nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Yet, the NPT is in danger of collapse because the nuclear weapons states have spent more than 30 years evading its fundamental principal: that non-proliferation and disarmament must go hand in hand.

As Nobel Laureates in peace, science, medicine, economics and literature, we call upon the US and the other nuclear weapons states to commence the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, starting now.

We call upon all Heads of State to begin negotiations immediately on the complete prohibition of nuclear weapons and to set a timetable for their total elimination by the year 2020. We call upon all Heads of State to attend to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations in New York in May 2005.

We call upon all states that may be considering the acquisition of nuclear weapons to abandon this perilous course and to insist instead upon a nuclear weapons-free world as the only basis for national and global security.

Finally, we call upon civil society to join with the Mayors for Peace, led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in their Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons and with civil society organizations around the world that have come together to demand “Abolition Now!”

Let our legacy be securing for our posterity a future free from the threat or use of nuclear weapons.

To endorse the statement, please send your name and affiliation to Monika Szymurska at monika@abolitionnow.org or call (212) 726-9161

For more information about the Abolition Now! Campaign, visit www.abolitionnow.org

March 18, 2005

Our Greatest Threat: The Coming Nuclear Crisis

When the first atomic bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it could hardly have been imagined that nearly sixty years later 34,145 nuclear weapons would be in existence. In a long career as a parliamentarian, diplomat, and educator, I have come to the conclusion that the abolition of nuclear weapons is the indispensable condition for peace in the twenty-first century. Yet progress toward that goal has been halted.

In May a conference of the 188 signatory nations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will be held in New York City to put a spotlight on this problem. A huge march is planned for May 1. Advocates of nonproliferation will once again try to draw attention to the immorality and illegality of such weapons. But will the eight nations that possess nuclear weapons-the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel-actually take steps toward eliminating their arsenals?

The prognosis is not good. The preparatory meetings for the May conference ended in failure, with nonnuclear nations objecting to the intransigence of the nuclear-weapons states, noting how a world of nuclear haves and have-nots is becoming a permanent feature of the global landscape. The United States insists that the problem is not with those who possess nuclear weapons, but with states, such as Iran and other nations, trying to acquire them. To which Brazil responded: “One cannot worship at the altar of nuclear weapons and raise heresy charges against those who want to join the sect.” Faced with this stalemate, the NPT is eroding, and an expansion of the number of states with nuclear weapons, a fear which produced the NPT in 1970, is looming once more.

Any discussion of the elimination of nuclear weapons inevitably raises questions of the feasibility of such action. How is an architecture of security to be built without nuclear weapons? How can states be prevented from cheating and how can such weapons be kept out of the hands of terrorists? A wide range of military, scientific, and diplomatic experts, notably the Canberra Commission established in 1996, have tried to provide answers to these urgent questions.

First, the case for a nuclear weapons-free world is based on the commonsensical claim that the destructiveness of these weapons is so great they have no military utility against a comparably equipped opponent. Historically, nuclear weapons have been used as a deterrent. But even as a deterrent they pose too great a risk. Few doubt that the longer weapons are maintained, the greater the risk of use, or that possession by some states causes other nations to acquire them, reducing the security of all.

Second, the elimination of such weapons will not be possible without a new architecture of security based on an adequate verification system. The components of a reliable verification system are coming into place, beginning with the inspection system maintained by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the monitoring system maintained by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, which has the capacity to detect the most minute nuclear test explosions. On-site inspections of suspect materials will have to be part of the disarmament process (the United States and Russia already do this in the case of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987).

“Trust but verify,” President Ronald Reagan famously said. Verification is essential, but the demand for a perfect verification regime is little more than an excuse for not seeking a reduction in nuclear weapons. Perfect security is not possible. Inevitably, some risk will have to be accepted if the wider benefits of a nuclear weapon-free world are to be realized. Not the elimination of risk but an evaluation of comparative risks is the rational approach to take. It is much more dangerous for the world to stay on its present path. Compared to the risks inherent in a world bristling with nuclear weapons, the risks associated with whatever threat a cheating state could assemble before it was exposed are far more acceptable.

No one is advocating unilateral disarmament; that would be an unthinkable policy for the United States. Rather it is in the interests of the United States-and all other nations-to heed the directive of the International Court of Justice and pursue comprehensive negotiations leading to the gradual elimination of nuclear weapons. Such a program would take many years to implement. Many confidence-building measures would be needed. How long disarmament takes is not the most important thing; what is critical is that the major states show the rest of the world they are heading in that direction. Otherwise, the NPT, which entails a legal obligation to pursue negotiations in good faith, will become a mockery. This is the nub of the present dilemma.

In 1995, on its twenty-fifth anniversary, the NPT (virtually every country in the world except India, Pakistan, and Israel has signed the treaty) was indefinitely extended. In agreeing to that extension, the nuclear powers made three promises: a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would be achieved; negotiations to ban the production of fissile material would be concluded; “systematic and progressive efforts globally” to eliminate nuclear weapons would be made. None of these promises has been kept.

When the NPT was reviewed in 2000, all the states were again able to find common ground and, by consensus, made an “unequivocal” commitment to eliminating nuclear weapons through a program of “Thirteen Practical Steps.” Subsequently, the nuclear powers faltered again and bitterness set in.

The United States is in the forefront of the current stalemate. Its commitment to the consensus of 2000 was made under the Clinton administration. When President George W. Bush was elected, the United States position regressed: the ABM Treaty was abandoned and the administration turned its back on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), two of the thirteen steps agreed to in 2000. Moreover, in 2001 the administration conducted a nuclear posture review, which made clear that nuclear weapons remain a cornerstone of U.S. national-security policy. The review outlines expansive plans to revitalize U.S. nuclear forces, and all the elements that support them.

The Bush administration has also speculated about specific scenarios where the use of nuclear weapons may be justified: an Arab-Israeli conflict, a conflict with China over Taiwan, a North Korean attack on South Korea, and an attack on Israel by Iraq or another neighbor. This new policy, in contradiction of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, means that for the first time the United States will threaten the use of nuclear weapons against countries that do not themselves possess such weapons. Under President Bush, the United States is actually widening the role of nuclear weapons in defense policy far beyond deterrence. The administration is promulgating a policy that would retain a stockpile of active and reserve nuclear weapons and weapons components for at least the next fifty years.

Among the current nuclear powers, the U.S. position is particularly aggressive, but it is by no means alone in its determination to hold onto nuclear weapons or to expand their strategic role in military policy. On November 17, 2004, President Vladimir Putin of Russia confirmed that his country is “carrying out research and missile tests of state-of-the-art nuclear missile systems” and that Russia would “continue to build up firmly and insistently our armed forces, including the nuclear component.” The United Kingdom, France, and China are all busy modernizing their nuclear arsenals. Similarly, NATO adheres to its stated policies that such weapons are “essential.”

More and more states now treat nuclear weapons as part of a war-fighting strategy, not strictly as a deterrent. Nuclear weapons have become embedded in nations’ military doctrines. This shift in the rationale for keeping nuclear weapons is what characterizes our deepening crisis.

Another aspect of this crisis is the specter of nuclear terrorism. “Nothing could be simpler,” was the assessment of the eminent physicist Frank von Hippel, on the capacity of terrorists to obtain highly enriched uranium and improvise an explosive device with power equal to the Hiroshima bomb. If the 9/11 terrorists had used a nuclear bomb, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers would have perished. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that at least forty countries have the capability to produce nuclear weapons, and criticizes the failure of export control systems to prevent an extensive illicit market in nuclear items. The disappearance, by theft or otherwise, of nuclear materials from Russia is well established. The threat of nuclear terrorism is on the mind of every official I know. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA, says the margin of security today is “thin and worrisome.”

In 2004, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1540, requiring all states to take measures to prevent nonstate actors from acquiring or developing nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Similarly, the Proliferation Security Initiative of the United States seeks to interdict on the high seas the transfer of sensitive nuclear materials. And the G8 countries have allocated $20 billion over ten years to eliminate some stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Russia.

These steps are by no means sufficient. The fact remains that the proliferation of nuclear weapons cannot be stopped as long as the most powerful nations in the world maintain that nuclear weapons are essential for their own security.

Of course, Iran and any other hostile state must be stopped from acquiring such weapons, and inspection and verification processes must be stepped up with more funding and personnel. But a one-dimensional approach that attempts to stop proliferation while ignoring meaningful disarmament will never work.

The New Agenda Coalition, a group of states (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden) pressing the nuclear-weapons states to fulfill their disarmament obligations, offers some hope. The coalition has been gathering political momentum. A recent UN resolution proposed by the group was supported by eight NATO states, including Germany and Canada. That resolution, calling on the nuclear powers to cease activities leading to “a new nuclear arms race,” identifies priorities for action: universal adherence to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the early implementation of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; reduction of nonstrategic nuclear weapons and ending development of new types of weapons; negotiation of an effectively verifiable fissile-material treaty; establishment of a subsidiary body to deal with nuclear disarmament at the Conference on Disarmament; and compliance with principles of transparency and verification.

Even though this resolution was mild compared to the regular demands of groups such as the Non-Aligned Movement, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France voted against it. China voted for the resolution and Russia abstained.

Can the NPT be saved? Will civil society groups, whose protests have been rather mild compared to the vigorous activities of the 1980s, now start clamoring for government action? Will those who maintain that nuclear weapons are deeply immoral and a blot on God’s creation now be heard?

These are questions posed by the present crisis. Another key question is how religious leaders will react to the realization that nuclear weapons are-apparently-here to stay.

In 1982, Pope John Paul II sent a message to the Second Special Session on Disarmament:

In current conditions, “deterrence” based on balance, certainly not as an end in itself but as a step on the way toward a progressive disarmament, may still be judged morally acceptable. Nonetheless, in order to ensure peace, it is indispensable not to be satisfied with the minimum which is always susceptible to the real danger of explosion.

In short, deterrence as a permanent policy is not morally acceptable. The American bishops’ 1983 Pastoral Letter on War and Peace took up this theme. It argued for a strong “no” to nuclear war, declaring that a nuclear response to a conventional attack is “morally unjustifiable.” Moreover, the bishops expressed skepticism that any nuclear war could avoid the massive killing of civilians. Only a “strictly conditioned moral acceptance of nuclear deterrence” is possible. The nuclear weapons states have ignored the bishops’ admonitions as well as those of many other religious groups.

A well-considered moral argument must be heard once again that the circle of fear perpetuated by those with a vested interest in maintaining nuclear weapons is a trap from which humanity must escape. The alternative does not bear thinking about.

Copyright © 2004 Commonweal Foundation

March 11, 2005