Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Non-Proliferation

  • Gorbachev and the US People-Uncelebrated Victories in the Struggle for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

    Originally Published in Science for Democratic Action, Volume 13, Number 1, March 2005

    Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is justly famous for inaugurating demokratizatsiya and glasnost in the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. His steadfast support for non-violence gave the people of Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union a chance for open discourse about government, trust, democracy, and freedom. President Gorbachev, in partnership with Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, gave hope to people everywhere that the world may get rid of nuclear weapons.

    But this essay is about what Mikhail Gorbachev is less known for. His actions also created conditions for a special demokratizatsiya and glasnost on nuclear weapons related questions in the United States. In turn, this caused a closure of most of the large U.S. nuclear weapons facilities in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In addition to raising the hopes of people in his own country, Gorbachev’s work also lifted a fear from the hearts and minds of the people of the United States, and enabled them to look at their own nuclear weapons establishment with fresh eyes.

    Gorbachev’s reach

    It started with the trip that Gorbachev made to Britain in December 1984, before he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.He was immediately recognized as a prospective leader of the Soviet Union. With his wife, Raisa, Mr. Gorbachev charmed Prime Minister Thatcher, known in British politics as the “Iron Lady.” She said that he was a man with whom she “could do business.”

    After Gorbachev became General Secretary, he talked about reducing nuclear dangers and eliminating the threat of nuclear war. He abandoned the language of confrontation and replaced it with cooperation. If Margaret Thatcher could do business with him, President Reagan could too.

    Gorbachev’s U.K. trip opened the door for the people of the United States to do business with their own government in a manner that no one anticipated. Instead of keeping their eyes fixed on the Soviet Union out of fear, more and more people began to look more closely at the nuclear contamination in their neighborhoods. Some courageous ones had done that before, as indeed, they had in the Soviet Union. But the nuclear weapons establishment had generally been able to silence them, get lawsuits thrown out of court, and cover its own actions in rhetoric of national security and propaganda about the Soviet threat.

    Starting at about the time of Gorbachev’s visit to Britain and for the rest of the 1980s, the numbers of people in the United States with questions about water and air pollution, radioactive waste, and nuclear safety risks due to aging nuclear weapons plants grew rapidly. In times past, public concerns would have quickly died out. But this time, local and national media, law enforcement officials, elected legislators, congressional committees, and even the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) paid more attention to environmental matters relating to nuclear weapons production than they ever had.

    Certainly, it was unthinkable during the Cold War that the FBI might become involved in raiding a nuclear weapons plant to look for evidence of environmental crimes.2 It may have been denounced as a communist plot within the U.S. government. For example, in 1954, when the Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, became heavily contaminated with fallout for the U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini, the then-Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission falsely said that it was a Red spy boat inside the prohibited test area.3

    But this time, because of Gorbachev’s refusal to use violence to suppress the hopes of the people in Eastern Europe, the zerozero Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty for intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and the warm relationship between Presidents Gorbachev and Reagan, the result was dramatically different. By the time the Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov said in 1987, upon the signing of the INF treaty, “I do think the winter of mistrust is over,” much more than the fear of the Soviet Union had lifted. The people were routinely discovering that their own government had—under cover of secrecy, with the aid of bad science, and in the frigid public fright of the Cold War—done them and their children a great deal of harm.

    An Ohio story

    Consider a nuclear weapons factory in southwestern Ohio, about 17 miles west of Cincinnati. It produced half a million tons of uranium metal mainly for use in U.S. plutonium reactors at Hanford and South Carolina. In December 1984 Lisa Crawford, who lives near the plant, heard that some wells in the area were contaminated with uranium. Until then, she and most others like her did not even know they were living near a nuclear weapons plant. It was called the Feed Materials Production Center and had a water tower painted in a red and white checkerboard pattern that resembled the logo of Purina, the famous pet food company. With cows grazing near it, many people thought it was a pet food plant. Others thought it produced paint because it was run by a subsidiary of National Lead Industries, which was a wellknown paint-maker at the time. But few knew it was a nuclear weapons plant. It is commonly known as the Fernald plant.

    In January 1985 there was uproar in this quiet part of Ohio, known for its conservative, anti-communist views. People wanted to know whose wells were contaminated. Tom Luken, the area’s representative in the U.S. Congress at the time, held a meeting there. Hundreds came. Lisa found out that her well was one of polluted ones. She had a young son. She made food with water from the well, and filled her backyard pool with it. She was very upset.

    As usual, the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment said the water was quite safe and there was no need to worry. But, unlike the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s, when most people trusted such assurances, Lisa and her neighbors did not. She was afraid her child might get cancer. (Thankfully, he is well). She did three things. First, she and her husband decided they were not going to have more children, a difficult and tragic way to make such a decision. Second, she got bottled water. Third, at the end of January 1985 she filed a tort lawsuit against the corporation that ran the Fernald plant for the government on behalf of her family and 14,000 other people who lived in the area. They claimed that the company, National Lead of Ohio, had been negligent and endangered their health and damaged their property. The U.S. government defended the lawsuit and paid all the expenses.

    There had been previous lawsuits regarding nuclear weapons issues. In fact, General Groves, who headed the Manhattan Project during World War II, was afraid of them as early as April 1945.4 For example, in the 1950s, shepherds had filed a lawsuit against the government claiming that thousands of sheep had died because of fallout. But representatives of the Atomic Energy Commission falsely told the court that it was not fallout. The case was dismissed. The judge found out in 1980 and wrote that the government had been “deceptive” and “deceitful” in its presentation of the evidence in the case.5 He reversed his decision and made one in favor of the shepherd. But the U.S. government appealed and prevailed.

    Lisa’s lawsuit succeeded where others had failed. Between 1985 and 1989 there was an enormous amount of local and national publicity about the Fernald plant. Lisa became a well-known figure in Ohio and other parts of the country. As part of the lawsuit, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research was retained to do an expert assessment of radioactivity releases from the plant. In 1989, Bernd Franke and I published the first independent assessment of radioactivity releases from a nuclear weapons plant. We concluded that the nuclear weapons establishment had done poor science, entered fraudulent data into official records, been negligent in operating the plant, and violated its own rules regarding radiation safety. We also concluded that the official estimates of uranium releases from the plant were much higher than what the government and its contractors had told the public. We estimated that releases of uranium had probably been more than 300,000 kilograms since the 1950s, compared to the government’s estimates in 1987 of 135,000 kilograms, revised in 1989 to 179,000 kilograms.6

    In April 2004 I asked Lisa whether Gorbachev’s becoming General Secretary and then President of the Soviet Union played a role in her thinking. She said it was not a direct influence. But she said it affected how she viewed the U.S. government’s criticism of the Soviet government. She specifically mentioned the Chernobyl accident. She said that she thought then that “the United States is horrified that the Soviets did not tell us for three days but they [the U.S. government] did not tell us [about Fernald] for thirty years.” It no longer worked for the U.S. government to point a finger at problems over there in the Soviet Union. It did not divert Lisa’s attention from the problem she was focused on—finding out about the pollution in her own neighborhood.7

    The government settled the lawsuit in June 1989 for $78 million. The money is mainly being used for providing medical monitoring to people. But there was another happy result. In July 1989, production at the Fernald plant was stopped forever. The combination of the Cold War winding down and the lawsuit and the scandals around radioactive pollution of air and water worked together to accomplish important progress in disarmament. The Fernald plant has been dismantled and the factory buildings have been torn down.

    Tank explosion risks

    June 1989 was an historic month in other ways as well. In that month the Soviet government admitted that a high-level waste tank had exploded in 1957 at Chelyabinsk-65 by filing a report about the accident with the International Atomic Energy Agency. I believe this was in response to a question about the accident that Dr. Bernard Lown had raised in a meeting in April 1989 with then-Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Schevernadze. That, too, had big implications for people working the United States. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had known about the accident since 1959. But, unlike so many other things, it took no propaganda advantage of it. Instead, it kept the matter secret, until its papers were revealed as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request by the nongovernmental organization Public Citizen in 1977. (A dissident Soviet scientist, Zhores Medvedev, had written about the accident in the West in 1976.)8

    I suspect that the Atomic Energy Commission did not want to admit that there was also a risk of tank explosion in the United States due to hydrogen build up because the official U.S. position continued to be that things were safe even after the CIA documents became public. But when the Soviet Union officially admitted in 1989 that there had been an explosion, one result was deeper NGO and Congressional investigations into the problems in the United States. The Department of Energy established its own panel on the high-level waste tanks at the Hanford site and steps were taken to reduce explosions risks. Concern about these risks helped ensure permanent closure of the last operating plutonium separation plant at Hanford in the early 1990s.

    FBI raid on Rocky Flats

    Perhaps the most dramatic event of June 1989 in this regard was the FBI raid on the Rocky Flats plant near Denver, a large scale factory for producing plutonium pits for nuclear weapons. Such a raid would have been unthinkable during the Cold War. But by 1989, there was daily publicity about safety issues in the nuclear weapons complex. There had been a Congressional investigation of human radiation experiments done by the U.S. government.More Congressional hearings were focused on health and safety. Before the mid-1980s, such hearings were mainly routine exercises to give more money for nuclear weapons establishment. The scandals multiplied.

    In this atmosphere, federal officials in the Department of Justice based in Colorado heard that illegal burning of plutonium-containing waste may be taking place at Rocky Flats. FBI headquarters in Washington took notice and ordered the raid. The Department of Justice convened a grand jury to investigate whether the corporation that ran the plant had committed environmental crimes. Production at the Rocky Flats plant was stopped.Deputy Energy Secretary W. Henson Moore went to Denver and admitted that the plant had been operated as if the nuclear establishment was above the law.

    In the late 1950s, the Rocky Flats Plant was producing about 10 plutonium pits every day. When production was stopped in 1989, the U.S. government fully intended to re-open it after fixing the safety and environmental problems. But Rocky Flats never re-opened. It will never again produce nuclear weapons. It has been dismantled, though the plutonium will remain for generations in the form of residual contamination.

    By 1989, the public feeling had grown strong that since the United States was arriving at agreements to reduce nuclear weapons, why should the people’s health be put at risk to operate unsafe nuclear weapons plants? The historic events that were occurring in Eastern Europe that are so well celebrated in history books found an echo in Colorado and elsewhere. The global importance of these local events is becoming clearer today than it was then.

    Uncelebrated victories

    The list of local events and concerns about health and environment that added up to an immense accomplishment for the elimination of nuclear weapons is long. All U.S. plutonium and tritium production reactors were closed in the same period. The large plutonium separation plant at Hanford in Washington State was shut. The plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb was made at Hanford. Many smaller facilities were also closed. When the United States stepped down so many large nuclear weapons plants in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it fully intended to resume production. Sometimes plants were shut from one day to the next, with material still in the production lines.

    The Soviet moratorium on nuclear testing that President Gorbachev initiated reverberated in the United States. The nuclear weapons establishment argued against making the moratorium into a U.S. law, but failed. (They did get the so-called stockpile stewardship program for nuclear weapons and a great deal of money for it as a consolation prize, however.) The moratorium was enacted into law and played a role in the achievement of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

    Of course, there have been severe reverses since the mid-1990s on many fronts including nuclear weapons. The U.S. Senate rejected ratification of the CTBT. The U.S. nuclear weapons establishment has created a new nuclear weapons doctrine that actually names target states, including Russia. It wants to build usable nuclear weapons called “robust nuclear earth penetrators” and mini-nukes.9 Money for design of nuclear weapons as well as maintaining a huge U.S. arsenal is flowing at levels higher than the average of the Cold War.

    But amidst this gloom there are accomplishments from the 1980s and 1990s that endure. Specifically, the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment does not have the capacity to mass manufacture nuclear bombs because Rocky Flats was the only large-scale plutonium pit manufacturing facility in the United States. Its production buildings have been torn down. The Department of Energy has proposed building a new large-scale factory for manufacturing plutonium pits, but it will take a decade or more to build. That gives peace and environmental advocates some time to organize a struggle to prevent it from being built.

    Unlike during the Cold War, it is now much more difficult for the nuclear weapons establishment to get the money for such a factory. Many Congresspersons recognize it is a dangerous proliferation provocation. Local concerns are also crucial. While some want the money and jobs that a new factory would bring, many more are opposed than would have been imaginable during the Cold War, even though we are in a period that resembles it in many ways. But this time the government cannot pretend that such a plant will pose no risks. It is required to publish risk estimates, which indicate that, over the life of the plant with a capacity of 450 plutonium pits per year, nine workers would die from their work.10 The nuclear weapons establishment has asked people not to worry because it is only a statistical estimate. But the public is skeptical. The idea that a little plutonium won’t hurt you finds few takers.

    The gains on nuclear testing are also likely to endure. The nuclear weapons establishment would like to resume testing. But this would be very difficult. During the late 1980s and the 1990s, a huge scandal emerged regarding the poisoning of much of the U.S. milk supply with iodine-131. At first, in the 1980s, it was about iodine- 131 emissions from the plutonium separations plants at Hanford. But the issue grew from there. In 1997, the National Cancer Institute released a study showing that iodine-131 releases from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing at Nevada had been 130 million curies, more than 15 times greater than the releases from the Chernobyl accident. The high fallout areas were spread out all over the country from Idaho and Montana to Kansas and Iowa to New York and Vermont. In the course of pursuing the Cold War, the nuclear weapons establishment poisoned much of the U.S. milk supply and did nothing to protect it. At the same time, declassified documents revealed that the government had provided secret data to Kodak and other photographic film companies so that they could take measures to protect film from becoming fogged as a result of fallout.

    Today, as the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment prepares to test again, the National Academy of Sciences is looking into whether people should be compensated due to the milk contamination and if so how many. A conservative senator, Bob Bennett, Republican from Utah, is playing a role in slowing down the rush for testing.According to his website he has proposed legislation that“will prevent the resumption of nuclear testing without approval by the Congress, extensive environmental and safety analysis, and open public involvement.”11 If this law is passed, it will be difficult or impossible for the United States to resume testing unless some other country does it first.

    Enduring accomplishments

    In October 1989, President Gorbachev told the world,“the Soviet Union has no moral or political right to interfere in the affairs of its East European neighbors. They have the right to decide their own fate.” This opened up the arena for the people of the United States to decide the fate of U.S. nuclear weapons plants. The tradition of vigorous citizen participation in the United States re-awakened with Gorbachev’s determination not to repeat the ghastly violence of the past. The combination has produced a result in reducing the nuclear weapons menace that has not been celebrated, but whose fruits we continue to enjoy.

    The world is undeniably going through a difficult time; war and violence are a constant theme. But the accomplishments of mothers and fathers concerned about their children and water and milk that resulted in a shut down of production at so many nuclear weapons plants and a moratorium on nuclear testing endure. They provide us with breathing room to secure the gains of those times for posterity and to continue to push for the complete elimination of all nuclear arsenals and weapons plants.

    1. Some of the research for this article was done as part of a book grant to Arjun Makhijani made by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The working title is Science of Death, Science of Life: An Enquiry into the Contrasts between Weapons Science and Health and Environmental Science in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex.
    2. See Wes McKinley and Caron Balkany, Esq., The Ambushed Grand Jury: How the Justice Department Covered Up Government Nuclear Crimes and How We Caught Them Red Handed. New York: Apex Press, 2004.
    3. Leo Strauss, as cited in Barton C. Hacker, Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing 1947–74. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1994. pp. 150 –151.
    4. Barton C. Hacker, The Dragon’s Tail: Radiation Safety in the Manhattan Project 1942–1946. Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1987, p. 85.
    5. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Radioactive Heaven and Earth: The health and environmental effects of nuclear weapons testing in, on, and above the earth. New York: Apex Press, 1991, Chapter 4.
    6. For more information on Fernald releases, see Science for Democratic Action vol. 5 no. 3 (October 1996). For information about flawed nuclear worker dose records, see Science for Democratic Action vol. 6 no. 2 (November 1997).
    7. Arjun Makhijani, Science of Death, Science of Life manuscript, Lisa Crawford interview.
    8. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Plutonium: Deadly Gold of the Nuclear Age. Cambridge, MA: IPPNW Press, 1992.
    9. See “The ‘Usable’ Nuke Strikes Back,” in Science for Democratic Action vol. 11, no. 4 (September 2003).
    10. See “Back to the Bad Old Days,” in Science for Democratic Action vol. 11, no. 4 (September 2003).
    11. Press release of U.S. Senator Bob Bennett, “Bennett Bill Halts Nuclear Testing Without Congressional Approval, Public Input,” September 7, 2004, online at http://bennett.senate.gov/press/record. cfm?id=225115.

  • Nuclear Folly

    According to recent news reports and as hinted in the president’s State of the Union Address, the neocons who dominate the Bush administration are gearing up for another pre-emptive military attack, this time upon Iran. The ostensible reason for such an attack is that the Iranian government is developing nuclear weapons.

    In fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which regularly inspects Iran’s nuclear operations, has not found any signs of nuclear weapons. Although the IAEA has reported that Iran has produced enriched uranium–which can be used for either civilian or military purposes–such production has been halted thanks to a November 2004 Iranian agreement with France, Germany, and Britain. Thus, although it is possible that Iran might produce nuclear weapons some time in the future, this is hardly a certainty. Nor is it clear that the Iranian government has ever planned to produce them.

    Ironically, in the midst of this delicate situation, the Bush administration is busy dismantling the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This treaty, signed in 1968 by officials of the United States and of almost all other countries, obligates non-nuclear nations to forgo development of nuclear weapons and nuclear nations to take steps toward nuclear disarmament. The Bush administration reveres the first obligation and wants to scrap the second.

    In late December 2004, news accounts quoted an administration official as saying that the final agreement at the NPT review conference in 2000–which commits the declared nuclear weapons states to an “unequivocal undertaking” to abolish nuclear weapons–is a “simply historical document,” which does not reflect the drastic changes in the world since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Thus, he said, the Bush administration “no longer supports” all of the thirteen steps toward disarmament outlined in the 2000 agreement and does not view it as “being a road map or binding guideline or anything like that.”

    For those who have followed the Bush administration’s nuclear policy, this position should come as no great surprise. The administration has not only abandoned efforts toward negotiating nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements with other nations, but has withdrawn the United States from the ABM treaty (signed by President Nixon) and refused to support ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (signed by President Clinton).

    It has also championed a program of building new U.S. nuclear weapons, including so-called “bunker busters” and “mini-nukes,” and of facilitating the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing. Only an unexpected revolt in Congress–led by Representatives David Hobson and Pete Viclosky, the Republican chair and ranking Democrat of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Committee–blocked funding for the Bush administration’s proposed new nuclear weapons in 2004. Political analysts expect the administration to make another effort to secure the funding this year.

    For the Bush administration and its fans, this evasion of U.S. obligations under the NPT makes perfect sense. The United States, they believe, is a supremely virtuous nation, and nations with whom it has bad relations–such as Iran–are “evil.” In line with this belief, the U.S. government has the right to build and use nuclear weapons, while nations it places on its “enemies” list do not.

    As might be expected, this assumption does not play nearly as well among government officials in Iran, who seem unlikely to fulfill their part of the NPT agreement if U.S. officials flagrantly renege on theirs. At the very least, the Bush administration is offering them a convenient justification for a policy of building Iranian nuclear weapons.

    Other nations have drawn this same conclusion. In the fall of 2004, Helen Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand, warned: “First and foremost we need to keep before us the essential bargain that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty represents. While we will willingly contribute to non-proliferation and counter-proliferation initiatives, those initiatives should be promoted alongside initiatives to secure binding commitments from those who have nuclear weapons which move us further towards the longer-term goal of nuclear disarmament.”

    Much the same point was made in early January 2005 by Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the IAEA. Calling upon all countries to commit themselves to forgo building facilities for uranium enrichment and nuclear reprocessing for the next five years, ElBaradei added: “We should not forget the commitment by the weapons states to move toward nuclear disarmament.”

    In fact, ElBaradei’s evenhanded approach to nuclear issues has angered the Bush administration, which is now working to deny him reappointment as IAEA director.

    The responsibility of all nations under the NPT will undoubtedly receive a good deal of discussion at the NPT review conference that will convene at the United Nations this May. Certainly it will be interesting to see how the Bush administration explains the inconsistencies in its nuclear policy.

    Unfortunately, by then we may well have another bloody military confrontation on our hands. Like the war in Iraq, it will be sold to us on the basis of the potential threat from a nation possessing weapons of mass destruction. And, also like the war in Iraq, it will be unnecessary–brought on by the arrogance and foolishness of the Bush administration.

    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.

  • Us Redesigning Atomic Weapons

    Worried that the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal is increasingly fragile, American scientists have begun designing a new generation of nuclear arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives, federal officials and private experts say.

    The officials say the program could help shrink the arsenal and the high cost of its maintenance. But critics say it could needlessly resuscitate the complex of factories and laboratories that make nuclear weapons and could possibly ignite a new arms race.

    So far, the quiet effort involves only $9 million for warhead designers at the nation’s three nuclear weapon laboratories, Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. Federal bomb experts at these heavily guarded facilities are now scrutinizing secret arms data gathered over a half century for clues about how to achieve the new reliability goals.

    The relatively small initial program, involving fewer than 100 people, is expected to grow and produce finished designs in the next 5 to 10 years, culminating, if approval is sought and won, in prototype warheads. Most important, officials say, the effort marks a fundamental shift in design philosophy.

    For decades, the bomb makers sought to use the latest technologies and most innovative methods. The resulting warheads were lightweight, very powerful and in some cases so small that a dozen could fit atop a slender missile. The American style was distinctive. Most other nuclear powers, years behind the atomic curve and often lacking top skills and materials, settled for less. Their nuclear arms tended to be ponderous if dependable, more like Chevys than racecars.

    Now, American designers are studying how to reverse course and make arms that are more robust, in some ways emulating their rivals in an effort to avoid the uncertainties and deteriorations of nuclear old age. Federal experts worry that critical parts of the arsenal, if ever needed, may fail.

    Originally, the roughly 10,000 warheads in the American arsenal had an expected lifetime of about 15 years, officials say. The average age is now about 20 years, and some are much older. Experts say a costly federal program to assess and maintain their health cannot ultimately confirm their reliability because a global test ban forbids underground test detonations.

    In late November, Congress approved a small, largely unnoticed budget item that started the new design effort, known as the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. Federal officials say the designs could eventually help recast the nuclear arsenal with warheads that are more rugged and have much longer lifetimes.

    “It’s important,” said John R. Harvey, director of policy planning at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the arsenal. In an interview, he said the goal of the new program was to create arms that are not only “inherently reliable” but also easier to make and certify as potent.

    “Our labs have been thinking about this problem off and on for 20 years,” Dr. Harvey said. “The goal is to see if we can make smarter, cheaper and more easily manufactured designs that we can readily certify as safe and reliable for the indefinite future – and do so without nuclear testing.”

    Representative David L. Hobson, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, praised the program in a speech on Thursday and said it could lead to an opportunity for drastic cuts in the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

    “A more robust replacement warhead, from a reliability standpoint,” Mr. Hobson said, “will provide a hedge that is currently provided by retaining thousands of unnecessary warheads.”

    But arms control advocates said the program was probably unneeded and dangerous. They said that it could start a new arms race if it revived underground testing and that its invigoration of the nuclear complex might aid the design of warheads with new military capabilities, possibly making them more tempting to use in a war.

    “The existing stockpile is safe and reliable by all standards,” Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said in an interview. “So to design a new warhead that is even more robust is a redundant activity that could be a pretext for designing a weapon that has a new military mission.”

    The reliability issue goes back to the earliest days of the nuclear era. At first, the bombs were huge and trustworthy. The first one, dropped in 1945, weighed five tons. The first deliverable hydrogen bomb, which made its debut in 1954, weighed four times as much and had hundreds of times the destructive power. It measured nearly 25 feet long from nose to tailfins.

    Over the decades, American designers worked hard to trim the dimensions.

    Small size was prized for many reasons. It meant that warheads could fit into cramped, narrow missile nose cones, which streaked to earth faster than blunter shapes and were less buffeted by winds during the fiery plunge, making them more accurate. It also meant that ships, bombers and submarines could carry more nuclear arms.

    By the 1970’s, warheads for missiles weighed a few hundred pounds and packed the power of dozens of Hiroshima-sized bombs. The arms continued to shrink and grow more powerful. The last one for the nation’s arsenal was built around 1990.

    Designers had few doubts about reliability because they frequently exploded arms in Nevada at an underground test site. But in 1992, after the cold war, the United States joined a global moratorium on nuclear tests, ending such reassurances.

    In response, the federal government switched from developing nuclear arms to maintaining them. It had its designers work on computer simulations and other advanced techniques to check potency and understand flaws that might arise.

    The cost of the nuclear program began at $4 billion a year. It is now more than $6 billion and includes a growing number of efforts to refurbish and extend the life of aging warheads.

    By the late 1990’s, top officials and experts began to openly question whether such maintenance could continue to stave off deterioration and ensure the arsenal’s reliability. As a solution, some called for a new generation of sturdier designs.

    The new program involves fewer than 100 full- and part-time designers and other experts and support staff, said Dr. Harvey, of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

    “There’s not a lot of hardware,” he added. “It’s mostly concept and feasibility studies that don’t require much fieldwork.”

    Dr. Harvey emphasized that the effort centered on research and not arms production. But he said the culminating stages of the program would include “the full-scale engineering development” of new prototype warheads. Both Congress and a future administration would have to approve the costly, advanced work, and an official said no decision had been made to seek such approval.

    The current goal of the program, Dr. Harvey said, is to “relax some of the design constraints imposed on the cold war systems.” He added that a possible area of investigation was using more uranium than plutonium, a finicky metal that is chemically reactive.

    He said the new designs would also stress easier manufacturing techniques and avoid hazardous and hard-to-find materials.

    “Our goal is to carry out this program without the need for nuclear testing,” Dr. Harvey said. “But there’s no guarantees in this business, and I can’t prove to you that I can do that right now.” Another official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the topic is politically delicate, said that such testing would come only as a last resort and that the Bush administration’s policy was to maintain the moratorium.

    The program, Dr. Harvey said, should produce a wide variety of designs. The Defense Department, which is participating in the effort, will help decide which weapons will be replaced, he said.

    “What we’re looking at now is a long-term vision,” Dr. Harvey said. “We’re tying to flesh this out and understand the path we need to be on, and to work with Congress to get a consensus.”

    Some critics say checking the reliability of the new designs is likely to require underground testing, violating the ban and inviting other nations to do the same, thereby endangering American security.

    Dr. P. Leonardo Mascheroni, a former Los Alamos scientist who is critical of the new program, said that it would require not only testing but also changes in delivery systems costing “trillions of dollars” because of its large, heavy warheads. Federal officials deny both assertions, saying the goal is to have new designs fit existing bombers and missiles.

    Dr. Mascheroni has proposed that federal designers make lighter, robust warheads and confirm their reliability with an innovative system of tiny nuclear blasts. That would still require a revision of the test ban treaty, he said in an interview, but it would save a great deal of money and avoid the political firestorm that would probably accompany any effort to resume full-scale testing.

    Robert S. Norris, a senior nuclear expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that advocates arms control and monitors nuclear trends, said too little was known publicly about the initiative to adequately weigh its risks and benefits, and that for now it raised more questions than it answered.

    “These are big decisions,” Mr. Norris said. “They could backfire and come back to haunt us.”

    Originally published by the New York Times

  • Seven Steps to Raise World Security

    Four months from now, in New York, the world will have a rare opportunity to make significant improvements in international security. The question is whether we will be smart enough to use it.

    In recent years, three phenomena have radically altered the security landscape. They are the emergence of a nuclear black market, the determined efforts by more countries to acquire technology to produce the fissile material useable in nuclear weapons and the clear desire of terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

    We have been trying to solve these new problems with existing tools. But for every step forward, we have exposed vulnerabilities in the system. The system itself – the regime that implements the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) – needs reinforcement. Some of the necessary remedies can be taken in May, but only if governments are ready to act.

    The opportunity in New York will come in the form of a conference. If that sounds like yet more bureaucracy – addressing nightmarish nuclear security scenarios with more meetings – I sympathise. But this is no ordinary conference. Every five years, the NPT Review Conference brings world leaders together to focus on combating the threat of nuclear weapons. All but four countries will participate as treaty members. Given the global nature of the threats, these four – India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – should also be encouraged to contribute their insights and concerns.

    With seven straightforward steps, and without amending the treaty, this conference could reach a milestone in strengthening world security. The first step: put a five-year hold on additional facilities for uranium enrichment and plutonium separation. There is no compelling reason to build more of these facilities; the nuclear industry has more than enough capacity to fuel its power plants and research centres. To make this holding period acceptable for everyone, commit the countries that already have the facilities to guarantee an economic supply of nuclear fuel for bona fide uses. Then use the hiatus to develop better long-term options for managing the technologies (for example, in regional centres under multinational control). To advance these ideas, I have engaged a group of international nuclear experts, and their proposals will be put forward at the conference.

    Second, speed up existing efforts, led by the US global threat reduction initiative and others, to modify the research reactors worldwide operating with highly enriched uranium – particularly those with metal fuel that could be readily employed as bomb material. Convert these reactors to use low-enriched uranium, and accelerate research on how to make highly enriched uranium unnecessary for all peaceful nuclear applications.

    Third, raise the bar for inspection standards by establishing the “additional protocol” as the norm for verifying compliance with the NPT. Without the expanded authority of this protocol, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s rights of inspection are limited. It has proven its value recently in Iran and Libya and should be brought into force for all countries.

    Fourth, call on the United Nations Security Council to act swiftly and decisively in the case of any country that withdraws from the NPT, in terms of the threat the withdrawal poses to international peace and security.

    Fifth, urge states to act on the Security Council’s recent resolution 1540, to pursue and prosecute any illicit trading in nuclear material and technology.

    Sixth, call on the five nuclear weapon states party to the NPT to accelerate implementation of their “unequivocal commitment” to nuclear disarmament, building on efforts such as the 2002 Moscow treaty between Russia and the US. Negotiating a treaty to ban irreversibly the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons programmes would be a welcome start.

    Last, acknowledge the volatility of longstanding tensions that give rise to proliferation, in regions such as the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, and take action to resolve existing security problems and, where needed, provide security assurances. In the Middle East, urge all parties to pursue a dialogue on regional security as part of the peace process. One goal of this dialogue would be to make the Middle East a nuclear-weapons-free zone.

    None of these steps will work in isolation. Each requires a concession from someone. But with leadership from all sides, this package of proposals will create gains for everyone. This opportunity will come again – in 2010. But given current trends, we cannot afford to wait another five years. As a UN panel put it recently: “We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation.” The stakes are too high to risk inaction.

    The writer is the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He writes here in a personal capacity.

    Originally published by the Financial Times.

  • Erosion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime

    I recently participated in a meeting on the Future of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, sponsored by the Middle Powers Initiative at The Carter Center in Atlanta. The Middle Powers Initiative is a coalition of eight international civil society organizations, two of which have received the Nobel Peace Prize. I represented the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at the meeting, one of the founding organizations. In addition to civil society representatives such as myself, the meeting hosted diplomats from many countries. Among the participants were Marian Hobbs, New Zealand’s Minister for Disarmament and Arms Control; Senator Douglas Roche of Canada, chair of the Middle Powers Initiative; Nobuyasu Abe, United Nations Under-Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs; Ambassador Sergio de Queiroz Duarte, Brazilian Ambassador and President-Designate of the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference; former US Ambassador Robert Grey Jr.; and Ambassador Rajab M. Sukayri of the Jordanian Foreign Ministry.

    The participants in the consultation were mindful of the recent United Nations Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. The Report, issued in December 2004, indicated that “the nuclear non-proliferation regime is now at risk because of lack of compliance with existing commitments, withdrawal or threats of withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to escape those commitments, a changing international security environment and the diffusion of technology.” The Report found, “We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation.”

    The Report further found that “if a simple nuclear device were detonated in a major city, the number of deaths would range from tens of thousands to more than one million. The shock to international commerce, employment and travel would amount to at least one trillion dollars. Such an attack could have further, far-reaching implications for international security, democratic governance and civil rights.” It was against this background of concern that the Atlanta meeting took place. Ambassador Duarte, who will preside over the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, said, “What we have to contend with at the 2005 Review Conference is a persistent and serious situation of erosion of confidence in the mechanisms of the NPT and on the ability of the instrument to survive the tests it has been put through.”

    Among the major issues that were discussed were the need for the Non-Proliferation Treaty to become universal by bringing in the three nuclear weapons states that are not parties to the treaty (Israel, India and Pakistan) and bringing back North Korea; for the nuclear weapons states parties to the treaty to fulfill their obligations for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament; for more effective safeguarding of nuclear materials and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency; and for some effective method of sanctions for violating the Treaty’s provisions.

    Former President Jimmy Carter, who spoke at the meeting, pointed out, “Prospects for this year’s discussions are not encouraging. I have heard that the [Preparatory Committee] for the forthcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty talks have so far failed even to achieve an agenda because of the deep divisions between the nuclear powers who seek to stop proliferation without meeting their own disarmament commitments, and the Non-Aligned Movement, whose demands include firm disarmament commitments and considerations of the Israeli arsenal.”

    President Carter also pointed to the contradictions in US nuclear policy. “The United States claims to be upholding Article VI,” he said, referring to the disarmament provision of the Treaty, “but yet asserts a security strategy of testing and developing new weapons [such as] Star Wars and the earth penetrating ‘bunker buster,’ and has threatened first use, even against non-nuclear states, in case of ‘surprising military developments’ and ‘unexpected contingencies.’”

    President Carter referred to another of the contradictions in the approach to nuclear non-proliferation in addressing the issue of Iran and the Middle East: “While the international community is justified in exerting strong pressure on Iran to comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, there is no public effort or comment in the United States or Europe calling for Israel to comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaty or submit to any other restraints. At the same time, we fail to acknowledge what a powerful incentive this is to Iran, Syria, Egypt, and other states to join the nuclear community.”

    There was a general sense at the meeting that the non-proliferation regime, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty that is its centerpiece, is eroding, and that some measure of success at the May 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is critical to the future of this regime. Right now the United States is choosing not to recognize the progress made at previous NPT Review Conferences on nuclear disarmament obligations. The Bush administration doesn’t want to be bound by promises made at the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences, promises that committed the nuclear weapons states to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, to make nuclear disarmament transparent and irreversible, and to an “unequivocal undertaking” to achieve complete nuclear disarmament.

    The US position is throwing the prospects for the 2005 Review Conference into disarray. There was a general sense at the meeting that unless the nuclear weapons states, including the United States, stand by their previous commitments, the prospects for assuring future efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation are dim. This is where we stand three months prior to the beginning of the 2005 Review Conference.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and a member of the International Steering Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.

  • On the Future of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

    FIRST, I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS MY PERSONAL GRATITUDE FOR THIS MIDDLE POWERS INITIATIVE TO PROTECT, OR REVIVE, THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY, WHICH IS DEEPLY WOUNDED AND WHOSE VERY LIFE IS THREATENED.

    FIVE YEARS AGO I MADE A SIMILAR SPEECH AT A SIMILAR MEETING IN THIS SAME PLACE, IN ADVANCE OF THE 2000 ROUND OF NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY DISCUSSIONS AT THE UNITED NATIONS. LATER, WITH YOUR HELP, I PREPARED AN EDITORIAL IN THE WASHINGTON POST OUTLINING THE PROBLEMS RELATING TO IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY.

    I READ THEM BOTH LAST NIGHT, AND IT IS DISTURBINGLY OBVIOUS THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO IMPROVEMENT OVER THE SITUATION AS IT WAS DESCRIBED IN OUR PREVIOUS MEETING. IN FACT, PROLIFERATION AND THE BEHAVIOR OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES WITH REGARD TO DISARMAMENT HAVE WORSENED OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS.

    I AM WILLING TO PREPARE ANOTHER EDITORIAL IF YOU THINK IT HELPFUL, AND WILL SAVE MY NOTES FOR POSSIBLE REPETITION IN 2010. HOPEFULLY, THERE WON’T BE A GLOBAL CATASTROPHE BEFORE THEN.

    A RECENT UNITED NATIONS REPORT STARKLY 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.”

    PROSPECTS FOR THIS YEAR’S DISCUSSIONS ARE NOT ENCOURAGING. I HAVE HEARD THAT THE PREPCOMM FOR THE FORTHCOMING NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY TALKS HAVE SO FAR FAILED EVEN TO ACHIEVE AN AGENDA BECAUSE OF THE DEEP DIVISIONS BETWEEN THE NUCLEAR POWERS WHO SEEK TO STOP PROLIFERATION WITHOUT MEETING THEIR OWN DISARMAMENT COMMITMENTS, AND THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT, WHOSE DEMANDS INCLUDE FIRM DISARMAMENT COMMITMENTS AND CONSIDERATION OF THE ISRAELI ARSENAL.

    THE MIDDLE POWERS INITIATIVE APPROACH REMAINS AN EFFORT TO BUILD A BRIDGE BETWEEN THE NEW AGENDA COALITION COUNTRIES ( BRAZIL, EGYPT, IRELAND, MEXICO, NEW ZEALAND, SOUTH AFRICA AND SWEDEN) AND THE EIGHT NATO STATES THAT VOTED LAST YEAR FOR A NEW AGENDA RESOLUTION CALLING FOR IMPLEMENTING COMMITMENTS ALREADY MADE TO THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY. TRAGICALLY, BRITAIN, FRANCE AND THE UNITED STATES ALL VOTED AGAINST THIS RESOLUTION.

    OUR COMMON GOAL IS SIMPLY STATED: “TO EXERT LEVERAGE ON THE NUCLEAR POWERS TO TAKE MINIMUM STEPS TO SAVE THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY IN 2005.” PROSPECTS FOR SUCCESS ARE NOT GOOD, BECAUSE OF THE DIRE STATE OF LONG-STANDING TEDIOUSLY NEGOTIATED INTERNATIONAL ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS AND THE PRESENT INDIFFERENCE AMONG NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES TO THEIR DECLINE OR DEMISE.

    ALL OF US AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, FROM EISENHOWER TO GEORGE BUSH, SR., WERE AVIDLY SEEKING TO RESTRICT AND REDUCE NUCLEAR ARSENALS – SOME MORE THAN OTHERS. THIS WAS ONE OF MY HIGHEST PRIORITIES. SO FAR AS I KNOW, THERE ARE NO SINCERE EFFORTS UNDERWAY BY ANY OF THE NUCLEAR POWERS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE CRUCIAL GOALS.

    THE MOSCOW TREATY WORKED OUT BETWEEN THE U.S. AND RUSSIA IN 2002 DID NOT MANDATE ANY MEANS OF VERIFICATION, AND “ARMS CUTS” NO LONGER REPRESENT CONFIRMED DISMANTLEMENT AND DISPOSAL BUT SIMPLE STORAGE, WITH RAPID REDEPLOYMENT UNDERSTOOD TO BE PERMITTED.

    THE UNITED STATES CLAIMS TO BE UPHOLDING ARTICLE VI, BUT YET ASSERTS A SECURITY STRATEGY OF TESTING AND DEVELOPING NEW WEAPONS RE STAR WARS AND THE EARTH PENETRATING “BUNKER BUSTER,” AND HAS THREATENED FIRST USE, EVEN AGAINST NON-NUCLEAR STATES, IN CASE OF “SURPRISING MILITARY DEVELOPMENTS” AND “UNEXPECTED CONTINGENCIES.”

    SOME CORRECTIVE ACTIONS ARE OBVIOUS:

    • THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO ADDRESS THE ISSUES LEFT UNRESOLVED FROM THE TREATY OF MOSCOW. IT SHOULD DEMAND THE SAME STANDARDS OF TRANSPARENCY, VERIFICATION AND IRREVERSIBILITY OF PAST ARMS CONTROL AGREEMENTS AND PLEDGE TO DISMANTLE AND DISPOSE OF ANY DECOMMISSIONED WEAPONS.
    • “NO FIRST USE” HAS NOW SLIPPED OFF THE AGENDA FOR ALL OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES. RUSSIA RENOUNCED THIS POLICY IN 1993 AND NATO CONTINUES TO RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DEPLOY NUCLEAR WEAPONS AS A CORNERSTONE OF ITS POLICY. THE COMMITMENTS AGAINST FIRST USE NEED TO BE RE-ADDRESSED AND HOPEFULLY REWRITTEN AS BOTH INDIA AND PAKISTAN HAVE FOLLOWED THE OLDER NUCLEAR POWERS AND RESERVED THE RIGHT TO STRIKE FIRST FOR THEMSELVES. WHILE ALL NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES SHOULD AGREE TO NON-FIRST USE, AS THE SOLE SUPERPOWER THE UNITED STATES SHOULD TAKE THE LEAD ON SUCH ISSUES.
    • THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO DE-EMPHASIZE THE ROLE OF ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN NATO AND POSSIBLY CONSIDER AN END TO THEIR DEPLOYMENT IN WESTERN EUROPE. DESPITE THE EASTWARD EXPANSION OF THE ORGANIZATION, NATO IS KEEPING THE SAME STOCKPILES AND POLICIES AS IT DID WHEN THE IRON CURTAIN DIVIDED THE CONTINENT, AN ODD STANDARD FOR THE WEST’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES TO BE SETTING.
    • BOTH AMERICA AND RUSSIA REMAIN ON HAIR TRIGGER ALERT STATUS. THIS IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO GLOBAL SECURITY AND DRASTICALLY INCREASES THE CHANCES OF AN ACCIDENTAL OR UNPROVOKED LAUNCH. WE MUST REMEMBER THAT A GLOBAL HOLOCAUST IS JUST AS POSSIBLE NOW, THROUGH MISTAKES OR MISJUDGMENTS, AS IT WAS DURING THE DEPTHS OF THE COLD WAR.
    • THE UNITED STATES NEEDS TO RETURN TO THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY, BUT IS UNFORTUNATELY MOVING IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. THE ADMINISTRATION’S 2005 BUDGET REFERS, FOR THE FIRST TIME, TO A LIST OF TEST SCENARIOS. THIS IS A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT TO SET; CHINA IS HOLDING OFF ON ITS DECISION REGARDING NUCLEAR TESTING FOLLOWING THE US SENATE’S FAILURE TO RATIFY, AND INDIA AND PAKISTAN ARE ALSO WATCHING AND WAITING.
    • THE ISSUE OF A FISSILE MATERIALS TREATY TO PREVENT THE CREATION AND TRANSPORT OF HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM (HEU) AND PLUTONIUM HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT. THE UNITED STATES SHOULD ALSO LEAD IN THE CREATION OF SUCH A TREATY WITH FULL VERIFICATION MEASURES.
    • THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INFEASIBLE MISSILE DEFENSE SHIELD (STAR WARS) HAS ALREADY WASTED A HUGE AMOUNT OF AMERICAN TAXPAYERS’ MONEY, IN ADDITION TO THE $40 BILLION SPENT ANNUALLY ON THE GENERAL DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THEIR DELIVERY SYSTEMS. THIS FAILED EXPERIMENT HAS BROKEN ITS COMMITMENT TO THE ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY WITHOUT REPLACING IT WITH A WORKING SUBSTITUTE.
    • AT A MUCH LOWER COST, WE COULD ADDRESS PERHAPS THE WORLD’S GREATEST PROLIFERATION THREAT BY FULLY SECURING RUSSIA’S STOCKPILES.

    NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION IS AN INCREASING SOURCE FOR INSTABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. 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 NEEDS TO BE CALLED TO ACCOUNT AND HELD TO ITS PROMISES UNDER THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY.

    • THE IRANIAN CASE ALSO REMAINS A PRIMARY EXAMPLE OF THE NEED TO BAN HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM FOR ANY PURPOSE. MEANWHILE, ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS STOCKPILE CONTINUES TO EXIST UNACCOUNTED FOR AND ITS REACTOR AT DIMONA IS NOT SUBJECT TO INSPECTION BY THE IAEA BECAUSE ISRAEL HAS NOT SIGNED THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY.

    WHILE THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IS JUSTIFIED IN EXERTING STRONG PRESSURE ON IRAN TO COMPLY WITH THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY, THERE IS NO PUBLIC EFFORT OR COMMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OR EUROPE CALLING FOR ISRAEL TO COMPLY WITH THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY OR SUBMIT TO ANY OTHER RESTRAINTS. AT THE SAME TIME, WE FAIL TO ACKNOWLEDGE WHAT A POWERFUL INCENTIVE THIS IS TO IRAN, SYRIA, EGYPT, AND OTHER STATES TO JOIN THE NUCLEAR COMMUNITY.

    THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT SUBJECT THAN THE ONE YOU ARE ADDRESSING, AND ILLOGICAL APPROACHES TO RESOLVING THE PROBLEM THREATEN WORLD PEACE. THE TRAGIC AND UNNECESSARY IRAQI INVASION WAS BASED ON FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF SADDAM HUSSEIN HAVING A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM, AND THE THREAT OF WAR IN KOREA IN 1994 WAS NARROWLY AVERTED AFTER KIM IL SUNG ANNOUNCED THE EXPULSION OF INTERNATIONAL INSPECTORS WITH THE PROSPECT OF REPROCESSING NUCLEAR FUEL. SINCE THEN, THE KOREAN SITUATION HAS DETERIORATED BADLY. MORE RECENTLY, HIGH OFFICIALS HAVE MADE PUBLIC INSINUATIONS OF AMERICAN OR ISRAELI MILITARY INTERVENTIONS IN IRAN.

    I USED THE WORDS “ILLOGICAL APPROACHES” BECAUSE THE LAUNCHING OR THREAT OF MILITARY INVASIONS BECOMES NECESSARY ONLY BECAUSE THE FIVE HISTORIC NUCLEAR POWERS, PAKISTAN, INDIA, AND ISRAEL REFUSE TO INITIATE OR RESPECT RESTRAINTS ON THEMSELVES WHILE, AS BRAZIL HAS DESCRIBED IT, “RAISING HERESY CHARGES AGAINST THOSE WHO WANT TO JOIN THE SECT.” THIS IS, INDEED, AN IRRATIONAL APPROACH.

    IN CLOSING, LET ME SAY THAT YOUR SUSTAINED, COURAGEOUS, AND SOMETIMES FRUSTRATING EFFORTS ARE OF VITAL IMPORTANCE. WE AT THE CARTER CENTER ARE EAGER TO HELP WITH YOUR WORTHY CAUSE.

    Jimmy Carter is former president of the United States. This speech was presented at a meeting of the Middle Powers Initiative, “Atlanta Consultation II: On the Future of the NPT,” held at The Carter Center, January 26-28, 2005.

  • New Year Message from Nobel Peace Laureate, Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat

    In November 2004 the world’s NOBEL PEACE LAUREATES came together to issue a Statement. It began:

    “Two decades ago, the world was swept with a wave of hope. Inspired by the popular movements for peace, freedom, democracy and solidarity, the nations of the world worked together to end the Cold War. Yet the opportunities opened up by that historic change are slipping away. We are gravely concerned with the resurgent nuclear and conventional arms race, disrespect for international law and the failure of the world’s governments to address adequately the challenges of poverty and environmental degradation.”

    Today in the aftermath of the terrible devastation following the Indian Ocean tsunami we see that yet again, in times of desperate need, the world’s nations can act together.

    I believe that the challenges that face the world today, of security, poverty and environmental crisis, as well as the new threat of terrorism, can only be met successfully through a united world working through the United Nations.

    One of the greatest challenges that will face the world in the next decade is the proliferation of nuclear weapons. At the United Nations in New York next May we can act together again to work towards the systematic elimination of these terrible weapons of mass destruction by undertaking to implement fully the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and create a nuclear-weapon-free world for future generations.

    In recognition of the importance of this event the Nobel Peace Laureates gave an undertaking:

    “As an immediate specific task, we commit to work for preserving and strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We reject double standards and emphasize the legal responsibility of nuclear weapons states to work to eliminate nuclear weapons. We are gravely alarmed by the creation of new, usable nuclear weapons and call for rejection of doctrines that view nuclear weapons as legitimate means of war-fighting and threat pre-emption.”

    It is my belief, and that of the Nobel Peace Laureates, that the nations of the world must work together again and with a strong civil society. This is the way toward a globalization with a human face and a new international order that rejects brute force, respects ethnic, cultural and political diversity and affirms justice, compassion and human solidarity.

  • UK’s Failure on Nuclear Obligation: Letter to the Times of London Editor

    Sir, You take Iran to task for stalling on nuclear agreements (leading article, November 24) and you conclude: “Iran wants to be taken seriously by the international community, yet does not take its international obligations seriously. One is not possible without the other.”

    How very true.

    All the five “recognised” nuclear states: USA, Russia, UK, France and China, have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and thus (under Article VI) committed themselves to the abolition of their nuclear arsenals.

    Yet they have done nothing to show that they take their international obligations seriously.

    The UK is formally committed to nuclear disarmament, but it will not implement it as long as other states keep nuclear weapons. In the institution designated to deal with this issue, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, nobody is taking the initiative. The subject has been stalled for years, and is not even put on the agenda.

    With the re-election of George W. Bush, his nuclear policy – which includes the development of new nuclear warheads and their first-use, even pre-emptively if need be – is very likely to be pursued, leading to a new nuclear arms race.

    An initiative to implement the NPT is urgently needed and, for the reason stated above, the UK should feel obliged to take it.

    Yours faithfully, JOSEPH ROTBLAT, (President Emeritus of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs), 8 Asmara Road, West Hampstead, NW2 3ST. pugwash@mac.com November 24

  • Civil Society Initiatives for Nuclear Disarmament

    Civil Society Initiatives for Nuclear Disarmament

    The fate of the world depends upon whether humankind will be able to eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenals. Nuclear weapons, designed to cause massive damage to large populations, are essentially city-destroying weapons, as was tragically demonstrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These weapons may be created in the hope that they will never be used, but this cannot be guaranteed. Once created, nuclear weapons are an ongoing threat to humanity and other forms of life. So long as these weapons exist, no leader can provide a guarantee that they will not be used.

    I keep on my desk a small booklet, published by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, with the words of General George Lee Butler, a former Commander of the United States Strategic Command. General Butler, who advocates abolition of all nuclear weapons, believes that humanity has been given a “second chance” by our Creator. Here is the perspective of this retired four-star general who now sees himself simply as “a citizen of this planet”:

    “Sadly, the Cold War lives on in the minds of men who cannot let go the fears, the beliefs, the enmities of the Nuclear Age. They cling to deterrence, clutch its tattered promise to their breast, shake it wistfully at bygone adversaries and balefully at new or imagined ones. They are gripped still by its awful willingness not simply to tempt the apocalypse but to prepare its way.

    “To them I say we cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it. It is time to reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason and the rightful interests of humanity.” 1

    These are powerful words, not the kind we are accustomed to hearing from politicians or military leaders. General Butler, an anomaly, is a retired air force officer, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, who once commanded the entire US strategic nuclear arsenal, and came away from this experience sobered by what he had learned. For a short time, General Butler spoke eloquently for a world free of nuclear weapons, his military background giving authenticity to his concerns.

    But there are few military men such as General Butler, and fewer still who have spoken publicly on this most important of all issues confronting humanity. For the most part, military leaders and politicians appear comfortable moving forward with only slight variations of the nuclear status quo. It appears that if there is to be change toward a world free of nuclear threat, the leadership must come from civil society organizations. These organizations face the challenge of awakening largely dormant populations within somnambulistic societies that seem content to sleepwalk toward Armageddon.

    Civil Society Leadership

    In the area of nuclear disarmament, the role of civil society leadership is critical. We obviously cannot depend upon political leadership, which is capable in our frenetic world of only dealing with problems as they become acute. There is a furious pace to politics that dulls the political imagination and often results in less than visionary leadership.

    There are two possible paths to awakening the political imagination on the issue of nuclear disarmament. The first and tragic possibility would be a sadly belated response to a nuclear detonation destroying a city, whether by accident or design, by a nuclear weapons state or by a non-state extremist group. The second would be by an effective campaign led by civil society that awakened and empowered the people of the planet to put sufficient pressure on their political leaders for them to take action as a political expedient without needing to engage their moral imaginations.

    Clearly the second option is far preferable to the first. The critical question is whether civil society organizations can actually provide the leadership to sufficiently awaken a dormant public to in turn move political leaders to take action.

    Why have civil society organizations and their followers not been successful in past campaigns calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons? Intrinsic psychological, political and social factors impede efforts to build a sustained and effective mass movement seeking this goal. A crude but accurate analogy can be made with the plight of a frog placed in a pot of lukewarm water and placidly treading water while the pot is gradually heated to a boil. Here are some of the reasons one could speculate that the frog (or our own species) fails to take the necessary action to save itself:

    • Ignorance. The frog may fail to recognize the dilemma. It may be unable to predict the consequences of being in water in which the temperature is steadily rising.
    • Complacency. The frog may feel comfortable in the warming water. It may believe that because nothing bad has happened yet (even though it has), nothing bad will happen in the future.
    • Deference to authority. The frog may believe that others are in control of the thermostat and that it has no power to change the conditions in which it finds itself.
    • Sense of powerlessness. The frog may fail to realize its own power to affect change, and believe that there is nothing it can do to improve its situation.
    • Fear. The frog may have concluded that, although there are dangers in the pot, the dangers outside the pot are even greater. Thus, it fails to take action, even though it could do so.
    • Economic advantage. The frog may conclude that there are greater short-term rewards for staying in the pot than jumping out.
    • Conformity. The frog may see other frogs treading water in the pot and not want to appear different by sounding an alarm or acting on its own initiative.
    • Marginalization. The frog may have witnessed other frogs attempt to raise warnings or jump out, and seen them marginalized and ignored by the other frogs.
    • Technological optimism. The frog may understand that there is a problem that could lead to its demise, but believe that it is not necessary to act because someone will find a technological solution.
    • Tyranny of experts. Even though the frog may believe it is in danger, the experts may provide a comforting assessment that makes the frog doubt its own wisdom.

    Identical challenges must be overcome if civil society initiatives are to be successful in moving the human population to action. Other challenges have to do with the mass media, which is not inclined to cede either time or authority to civil society leadership. Thus, the messages of those who often have little to say, but are in powerful positions, tend to dominate the media, while civil society organizations struggle for even modest media exposure.

    Civil Society Initiatives

    Indeed, there have been many courageous and ambitious civil society initiatives for nuclear disarmament over the period of the Nuclear Age. They have included marches, protests, appeals, policy recommendations and civil disobedience. I will discuss a few of these important initiatives that have occurred in the post Cold War period, although there are far too many for me to provide a comprehensive overview. Some of these outstanding initiatives have been Abolition 2000, The Middle Powers Initiative, the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, and the Turn the Tide Campaign of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    Abolition 2000, a global network of over 2,000 civil society organizations and municipalities, was formed during the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference by representatives of organizations that were disappointed with the manner in which the nuclear weapons states, particularly the United States , had manipulated the outcome of the Conference. Despite the serious lack of progress by the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their nuclear disarmament obligations to that point in time, the treaty was extended indefinitely. Abolition 2000 began with a Founding Statement, created by civil society representatives at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, which articulated its principles. 2 The strong points of Abolition 2000 were that it was broadly international, included many forms of expertise, was activist in its orientation, and was committed to complete nuclear disarmament. This network was largely responsible for bringing the terms “abolition” and “elimination” into the dialogue on nuclear disarmament. It moved the discussion from arms control to abolition.

    The initial goal of Abolition 2000 when it was formed in 1995 was to achieve an agreement for the total elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2000. When this agreement by governments proved impossible to achieve, despite Abolition 2000 having drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, the network decided to continue its abolition work, maintaining contacts within the global network with the more than 2,000 civil society organizations and municipalities that comprised the network.

    The Middle Powers Initiative (MPI) is a coalition of eight international civil society organizations. It was formed in 1998 to encourage middle power governments to promote a nuclear disarmament agenda. Only months after MPI’s formation, a group of middle power countries, calling itself the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), went public with a strong nuclear disarmament agenda. These countries were: Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden. 3 They have been active in promoting their agenda in the First Committee of the United Nations (Disarmament Committee) and at the meetings of the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They were instrumental in achieving the consensus adoption of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament in the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    MPI has given support to the New Agenda countries by convening high level consultations, sending delegations to many countries, including NATO countries and Japan , and publishing briefing papers in support of NAC positions and the preservation of the NPT. By its support of the NAC, the Middle Powers Initiative has tried to focus the attention and efforts of key civil society organizations to bring pressure to bear on the nuclear weapons states from friendly middle power governments. 4

    The Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, also known as Vision 2020, is a relatively recent campaign, having begun its work in 2003. The goal of the campaign is to press governments to begin negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons in 2005, to complete negotiations on this treaty by the year 2010 and to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. In a sense, this Emergency Campaign picks up from Abolition 2000, setting its target date for governments to complete negotiations just a decade further in the future than Abolition 2000. This Emergency Campaign has another important element. It is led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , two cities dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons, and is composed of mayors in over 600 cities. 5

    The Mayors for Peace participated in the 2004 Preparatory Committee meeting of the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, bringing 16 mayors and deputy mayors from 12 countries to New York to attend the meetings. They are planning to bring over 100 mayors and deputy mayors to the 2005 NPT Review Conference. There is no doubt that the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign is bringing important new energy to the global effort for nuclear disarmament. Abolition 2000 has created a special arm, Abolition Now!, to support the mayors campaign and that calls upon all countries to make public their plans for nuclear disarmament in accord with their treaty obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. 6

    A new and hopeful campaign focuses on the United States , the world’s most powerful state, because US leadership and support is essential for serious global progress on nuclear disarmament. The campaign, called Turn the Tide, is a project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. It seeks to inform and mobilize US citizens to participate in directing messages via the internet to their elected representatives on key nuclear weapons issues. The campaign utilizes sophisticated software to send action alerts and enables easy communications with key officials. 7

    The Turn the Tide Campaign is based on a 13-point Statement:

    • Stop all efforts to create dangerous new nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
    • Maintain the current moratorium on nuclear testing and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
    • Cancel plans to build new nuclear weapons production plants, and close and clean up the toxic contamination at existing plants.
    • Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No Use of nuclear weapons against any nation or group that does not have nuclear weapons.
    • Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nations possessing nuclear weapons.
    • Cancel funding for and plans to deploy offensive missile “defense” systems which could ignite a dangerous arms race and offer no security against terrorist weapons of mass destruction.
    • In order to significantly decrease the threat of accidental launch, together with Russia , take nuclear weapons off high-alert status and do away with the strategy of launch-on-warning.
    • Together with Russia , implement permanent and verifiable dismantlement of nuclear weapons taken off deployed status through the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).
    • Demonstrate to other countries US commitment to reducing its reliance on nuclear weapons by removing all US nuclear weapons from foreign soil.
    • To prevent future proliferation or theft, create and maintain a global inventory of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons materials and place these weapons and materials under strict international safeguards.
    • Initiate international negotiations to fulfill existing treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.
    • Initiate a moratorium on new nuclear power reactors and gradually phase out existing ones, as these are a primarily means for the proliferation of nuclear materials, technology and weapons; simultaneously establish an International Sustainable Energy Agency to support the development of clean, safe renewable energy.
    • Redirect funding from nuclear weapons programs to dismantling nuclear weapons, safeguarding nuclear materials, cleaning up the toxic legacy of the Nuclear Age and meeting more pressing social needs such as education, health care and social services.

    Conclusions

    For nearly 60 years, since the first nuclear test at Alamogordo , New Mexico , the world has been muddling through the nuclear dilemma. Despite the end of the Cold War, we are far from being secure from the nuclear threat. The threat today takes a different form, but is no less dangerous. In our divided world, there are terrible tensions and there is the possibility that nuclear weapons could end up in the hands of non-state extremists who would have no reservations about using them against the populations of many countries, including the nuclear weapons states. The irony of this is that none of the nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nuclear weapons states can provide an ounce of deterrence or security against such extremists.

    The only way to assure the security of the nuclear weapons states, or any state, from a nuclear attack, is to eliminate these weapons in a phased, orderly and verified manner and place the materials to make these weapons under strict and effective international control. This is the reality of our common nuclear dilemma, and getting this message through to the leaders of nuclear weapons states, particularly the United States, is one of the most critical challenges, if not the most critical challenge, of our time. Only with the success of civil society in meeting this challenge can we have a reasonable expectation, in General Butler’s words, to “reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason and the rightful interests of humanity.”

    David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the co-author of Nuclear Weapons and the World Court and may other studies of peace in the Nuclear Age.

    Butler , George Lee, “Ending the Nuclear Madness,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Waging Peace Series, Booklet 40, September 1999.

    See http://www.abolition2000.org

    Originally Slovenia was also a part of the New Agenda Coalition, but did not stay long in the coalition.

    See http://www.mpi.org

    See http://www.mayorsforpeace.org

    See http://www.abolitionnow.org

    See https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com

  • An Open Letter to the Regents of the University of California

    An Open Letter to the Regents of the University of California

    The decision that you make on whether or not to bid to continue managing and overseeing the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories transcends ordinary university business decisions; it is a decision of profound moral consequence. The question that must be confronted is whether or not an institution of higher education should be involved in the creation and maintenance of weapons of mass destruction.

    While nuclear weapons are intended primarily for deterrence, the concept of deterrence itself is based on an implied assumption that the weapons might be used. Are the Regents of the University of California willing to continue to affiliate the University with laboratories that research and develop nuclear weapons, recognizing that the mass destruction of human beings could result? Although it may not be the intent, the potential use of nuclear weapons and larger implications of the university’s involvement cannot be denied.

    Your decision has vast legal, as well as moral dimensions. In a 1996 opinion, the International Court of Justice found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be illegal if it violated international humanitarian law. This means that any threat or use of nuclear weapons that failed to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants or that caused unnecessary suffering would be illegal under international law. It is difficult to imagine any use of nuclear weapons that would not violate these rules of international humanitarian law.

    Although the actual decision to threaten or use nuclear weapons would be out of the hands of the University of California Regents and the scientists and technicians who contributed to the creation and maintenance of the weapons, the UC Regents and the scientists and technicians in the labs could be considered accomplices to future international crimes. The current work of the nuclear weapons laboratories in researching new and more usable nuclear weapons, such as “bunker busters” and low-yield nuclear weapons, also runs counter to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which calls for ending the nuclear arms race at an early date and for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

    The University of California justifies its relationship to the nuclear weapons laboratories as “a national service.” But this so-called “service” of designing and improving weapons of mass destruction is unworthy of a great university. In fact, the “service” the University of California has provided is a fig leaf of respectability to the making and maintenance of these genocidal weapons. Should these weapons be used and destroy large civilian populations, the role of the UC would certainly be viewed as a national disgrace rather than a national service.

    If the nuclear weapons laboratories would focus their talented scientists on limiting their nuclear weapons activities to the dismantlement of these weapons and to maintaining the safety and security (rather than reliability) of these weapons while awaiting dismantlement, their efforts could indeed be considered a national service, even an international service. But under the present circumstances in which the US is moving forward with new nuclear weapon designs that make these weapons more usable, the UC should opt out of providing management and oversight to the labs. As UC Regents, you should base your decision on moral considerations, consistent with international law.

    I urge you also to make your decision to withdraw from your past role in management and oversight of the nation’s nuclear weapons labs highly public. Doing so will influence the public and political discourse on the responsibility of the US to set an example in fulfilling obligations for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

    The University of California has a responsibility to pass on the accumulated knowledge of civilization to new generations. The continued engagement of UC in creating and maintaining weapons capable of destroying cities, civilization and most life on earth clearly contradicts the mission of the University, as well as its motto, “Let there be light.” There is no light in the creation of weapons of mass destruction, nor in the shroud of nuclear secrecy.

    I call upon you to take the high road and reconceptualize the national service of the University of California in terms of disarming and dismantling these terrible weapons of mass destruction, rather than creating and maintaining them. In 2005, the 60 th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 50 th anniversary of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and the 35 th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, I urge you to take a principled stand for the future of humanity. Your decision could help change the course of our nation and the future of civilization.

    David Krieger is a founder and the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). For more information on campaign to end the University of California ‘s involvement with the nuclear weapons laboratories, visit www.ucnuclearfree.org.