Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Non-Proliferation

  • What is Next After the Latest Nuclear Tests? A Review of Nuclear Armament by the Trustees’ Committee of the Campaign “Abolish Nukes – Start with Ourselves”

    Dortmund, Germany

    (The Campaign is member of the Abolition 2000 Network and consists of 42 German organisations.)

    On the 11th and 13th May of this year India has conducted nuclear test explosions, followed suit by Pakistan detonating nuclear devices of their own on the 28th and 30th May. The design of the devices and the according statements of the respective governments confirm previous suspicions that India and Pakistan are now both to be counted among the nuclear armed states. Both states have weapons systems at their disposal well capable of delivering nuclear warheads.

    The Trustees’ Committee of the Campaign “Abolish Nukes – Start with Ourselves” states the following position on this issue:

    We categorically disapprove of the possession, storage and use, including testing, of weapons of mass destruction as well as the threat of their use, no matter what the rationale for justifying otherwise. We specifically make reference to the legal assessment by the International Court of Justice who declared in July 1996: The use of and the threat to use nuclear weapons constitute a general violation of international law.

    In contrast to the statements issued by the established nuclear powers USA, France, Russia, Great Britain, and China we do not confine our criticism to India and Pakistan as if these two were the only ones suddenly in possession of nuclear weapons in this world. Rather do the nuclear powers and some of the non-nuclear states allied with them share responsibility that India and Pakistan were able to acquire the appropriate nuclear and weapons technologies with which they now have turned into nuclear armed states on their own. Furthermore are we not satisfied with purely demanding that India and Pakistan immediately now sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty because

    • nuclear weapons would neither be dismantled nor outlawed
    • the treaty does not ban computer simulated and sub-critical testing of nuclear weapons
    • only two of the long standing-nuclear armed states, France and Great Britain, have ratified the treaty, leaving doubts about the seriousness of the intentions of the remaining three states.

    We see absolutely no chance of success in demanding that India and Pakistan sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty now, knowing that both have refused to do so for decades.

    Alarming Situation in South East Asia

    Nevertheless, we see at the same time that the decade old volatile situation on the Indian subcontinent has arrived at an extremely dangerous boiling point, now that all the parties in the immediate geographic vicinity – China, India and Pakistan – are capable to launch nuclear weapons. Admittedly, the respective governments in New Delhi and Islamabad have issued assurances to consider their atomic weapons “only” for a defensive role and not for a nuclear first strike. Yet, we are deeply concerned for several reasons:

    1. History has taught us that “defence” is a term that lends itself for some heavy stretching. The reason is that the trigger event for military defence action is subject to the subjective perception and judgement of one party. This holds particularly true if a conflict has already extremely escalated as in the case of the Kashmir region. It applies even more so with antagonists who like the current governments of India and Pakistan are locked in a deep rooted animosity towards each other’s ideological and here particularly religious beliefs. The capacity to rationally assess the intentions of the respective other is dangerously degraded by one’s own pattern of perception.

    2. A defence concept that encompasses nuclear weapons, even if it is as yet only a declared intention, means nothing less than that the opponents are entering the hazard level of nuclear warfare. We do not – even with a public denial of first-use intentions provided – share those notions of security that consider a system based on nuclear deterrence a stabilising factor.

    3. The precarious economic situations in India as well as Pakistan constitute a major factor of internal destabilisation for both. The adverse effects could still increase drastically if even more resources urgently needed for economic recovery were to be diverted to an already overdimensioned military budget. The Indian government has already gone ahead and decided to increase military spending with the Pakistani government expected to follow suit.

    4. Should the international economic sanctions imposed against both India and Pakistan start to take effect things will go from bad to worse. Both countries may feel driven towards compensatory arrangements which may have, for example, Pakistan transfer nuclear arms technology and the corresponding weapons systems to Iran. This, in turn, could trigger a chain reaction in the Near and Middle East which would on the one hand immediately bring the de facto nuclear power Israel into the nuclear gamble and on the other hand also inspire more states in the region to rise to nuclear power status.

    5. The ramifications of trying to establish a balance of nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan would be fatal and destabilising not only for the states directly afflicted but would reach beyond the confines of the region: a chain reaction of newly arising nuclear states and more nuclear arms racing in other regions would be the likely results.

    The Global Connection

    The entire problem is aggravated by the fact that so far no effort is being made to turn to appropriate mechanisms or institutions for conflict solving. A key reason for that is rooted in the attitude of the former nuclear monopolist states:

    • by enforcing an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1995 those states have made an effort – proved futile now by India and Pakistan – to divide the world into two classes of states: those who have nuclear weapons and those who do not, where the former five preferred to have the privilege of exclusive membership in the first group reserved for themselves. That was one of the reasons for India and Pakistan, who liked to see complete nuclear disarmament negotiated, not to join the treaty. The position of the established nuclear powers was duly reflected at the Preparatory Committee Meeting for the next NPT Review Conference where it was particularly the USA which saw to it that the motion of a great number of member states to make far-reaching disarmament steps an imperative were blocked.
    • To safeguard their previous nuclear arms monopoly the USA have developed a “Counterproliferation Strategy” intended to keep others from obtaining nuclear weapons and including as a last resort even the threat of nuclear punishment. NATO has adopted something similar for itself. At the same time NATO will not definitely rule out that nuclear weapons may under certain circumstances (subject to definition by NATO) be stationed on the territories of its new and future member states. Notwithstanding, all NATO member states have ratified the NPT.
    • Ever since the Warsaw Pact was disbanded the previous nuclear monopolist states have not acted to seize the political opportunities that arose out of the collapse of the confrontation between the two antagonistic systems. Case in point is the START II agreement designed to cut down the nuclear long range arsenals of Russia and the US. Not even this treaty could be implemented because the Russian parliament has not ratified it yet. Even after the International Court of Justice in its already referred to assessment has clearly ruled nuclear weapons a clear violation of international law and at the same time assigned a collective responsibility for nuclear disarmament to all states, there was as little reaction from the nuclear powers as there was to the resolution of last year’s UN-General Meeting demanding to start negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention. Arriving at the same conclusion, the currently convening Conference on Disarmament in Geneva states clearly that the former nuclear monopolist powers pursue a policy of refusal on the subject of disarmament, especially evident in their refusal to approve of an ad hoc committee of this sole UN body on disarmament which would deal directly with the issue of nuclear disarmament.
    • This policy goes along with efforts to modernise one’s own nuclear weapons systems. The dismantling of obsolete systems in favour of modernisation is often sold as “disarmament” whereas the sub-critical tests performed for instance by the USA after (!) having ratified the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty clearly indicate modernisation. An important point to remember is that the existing nuclear weapons remain on alert status and that NATO and Russia both uphold a nuclear first strike option under their respective military strategies.
    • The present demands that India and Pakistan enter immediate negotiations on mutual nuclear disarmament remain untrustworthy and thus dishonest as long as those demanding are themselves not willing to put their own nuclear stockpiles up for disposal in multilateral negotiations. Likewise contradictory remains a type of attitude exhibited by India’s leadership who on the one hand keep urging repeatedly for total global disarmament as Indian governments have been doing for decades now, but on the other hand believe in backing their demands by achieving equal footing with the nuclear monopolist powers.

    It is obvious now that the NPT is not an effective means to stop nuclear proliferation and achieve a total disarmament down to zero. This treaty is not capable to provide a cornerstone for global security as it leaves the five formerly established nuclear powers unaffected and does not safeguard against the possibility of conducting nuclear developments for military purposes under the cover of civilian programmes. In a disturbing manner the current events in India and Pakistan demonstrate once more how urgent and imperative it is to take action well beyond what the traditional approach of a supposed non-proliferation policy suggests is necessary.

    A New Nuclear Disarmament Policy

    As we principally stand up for a different understanding of security policy and a comprehensive ban of all nuclear weapons we know ourselves in the company not only of hundreds of non-governmental organisations worldwide like those working together in the “Abolition 2000” network but in the company of a great many of governments as well.

    We are convinced that any kind of security concept has to measure up to the criteria of sustainability. From this follows clearly that in the nuclear age security can no longer be defined in purely military terms. Security in our terms refers to a secure prospect for human beings for a humane and unthreatened existence and not to the well-being of military structures and ‘defence’ contractors. In view of the severe escalation of the international situation it is not productive to come up with ambitious schemes with only long-term prospects of realisation without offering short-term concepts for immediately extinguishing the smouldering nuclear fire.

    1. India and Pakistan have followed the lead of the nuclear five. The five have to consider this anytime they direct demands and suggestions at India and Pakistan. This means in concrete terms: any steps demanded from Pakistan and India must likewise be achieved by the nuclear five themselves, otherwise any such suggestions are bound to fail.

    2. There were will be no meaningful way avoiding bloodshed out of this crisis unless the nuclear five immediately initiate some dramatic changes in their nuclear military policies: as first steps towards restoring their international credibility they should unconditionally lift the alert status off their nuclear armed units and they should jointly issue a statement bound by international law to drop for an unlimited time all options of a nuclear first strike.

    3. As permanent members of the UN Security Council the nuclear five share a special responsibility. Concerning the situation on the Indian subcontinent this responsibility demands that these members of the Security Council develop a system of mutual, non-nuclear political security assurances to offer India and Pakistan a way to reverse their mutual threat mechanisms step-by-step. Picking up on the concept of the Asian Regional Security Forum (ARF) of the ASEAN member states the objective should be to develop a security concept tailored to the specific situation in South Asia along the lines of the OSCE and under premium participation of all parties involved (no “imposing” of concepts). This model should be based on the principles of dialogue, confidence building measures, and mutual non-military security assurances. Economic sanctions constitute a violation of these principles: they have to be lifted immediately.

    4. The very issues of controversy focusing on the Kashmir region urge to bring in the United Nations and the International Court of Justice as mediators. Concrete objective must be to establish a regional security constellation that offers everybody involved more gain from a political settlement than from further military, – and perhaps even nuclear – action.

    5. Along with it, the political dimension of disarmament strongly suggests a fundamental break in the military nuclear policies of the established as well as the recent nuclear armed states. Otherwise, the latest developments, having led to the emergence of two new nuclear powers, may encourage other nuclear ‘threshold’ states to follow the path taken by India and Pakistan. As a short-term prospect to set the stage for truly preventive negotiations we urge to immediately approve of setting up an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament at the UN Conference on Disarmament. The need to start such negotiations is now more pressing than ever.

    6. Both Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and NPT have to be revised accordingly. The first treaty is scheduled for reviewing in 1999, the second one in the year 2000. On that occasion the Test Ban Treaty should have amendments added to it to outlaw computer simulated and subcritical testing. The revised treaty should be ratified by all signatory states until 1999. The disarmament obligation in article VI of the NPT has to be fulfilled in compliance with a definite time-bound frame down to zero.

    7. Following the lead of already existing treaties, the prospects for setting up zones free of weapons of mass destruction need to be put on the agenda for negotiations. Predisposed areas are in the Near and Middle East including the still undeclared nuclear state Israel, in Central Europe, and on the Indian subcontinent.

    8. All negotiating approaches must navigate along definite and binding timetables.

    Demands on German Politics

    We advise the forthcoming (*) German government bound to be elected in the fall of this year to start in advance to re-evaluate the foundations of the previous security policy. We are not content making a general reference that we expect the future German government to evaluate the above proposed alternative concepts in an affirmative and constructive manner. We ask the next German government outright to provide a timetable with specific deadlines for:

    • eliminating the nuclear capacity of the German armed forces with suitable conversion actions and abandoning the principle of “Nuclear Sharing”
    • expelling all nuclear weapons still located on German soil for return to their respective countries of origin
    • principally outlawing both the use and the utilisation of weapons-grade and highly enriched uranium granting no exemptions for research
    • making a strong case against the separation of plutonium off spent fuel rods and its use in reactors
    • pushing for a revision of the NATO treaty using its leverage as a NATO member state to definitely deny NATO any option to station nuclear weapons on the territories of new or future member states
    • making a strong argument using its weight as a leading EU- and WEU member state to have no nuclear elements included in the future European “Common Foreign and Security Policy” (CFSP)
    • promoting setting up a “Central Europe Nuclear Weapons Free Zone ” backed by binding treaties.

    We are fully aware that German federal governments have on too many occasions in the past ignored the peace promoting non-military proposals and demands of non-parliamentarian forces. We are calling attention to the fact that at the same rate as the economic and social conditions deteriorate any government grows more dependent on a consensus on security policy with the very people who have voted them into office. The levels of military expenditure disproportionate to any conceivable threat and based on an outdated understanding of security have made it clear to anybody willing and able to see: there is no consensus on security policy. As far as nuclear weapons are concerned this has been impressively confirmed by a FORSA survey commissioned by the German chapter of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). The results published on the 2nd June 1998 indicate that 87% of those questioned like to see the nuclear armed states “getting rid of their own nuclear weapons as soon as possible”, 93% consider nuclear weapons an outright violation of international law and another 87% share the view that nuclear weapons stationed on German soil “ought to be removed right away”.

    The German Federal Government should jointly with other non-nuclear states launch an initiative in the United Nations to push for the immediate start of negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention.

    Since a sustainable concept of security cannot be reduced to the sole issue of nuclear weapons we advise the next German government to establish a national “Round Table on Alternative Security”. This forum should have forces both inside and outside the administration and independent scientists working together to design a new security policy consensus for Germany that will replace military concepts of security with a civilian understanding of security aligned along the real needs of people.

  • United States Policy and Nuclear Abolition

    An address to the Olaf Palme Institute in Stockholm, Sweden

    You are certainly aware that the United States is committed under Article VI of the Non Proliferation Treaty to work in good faith for nuclear disarmament. You are probably also aware that last year President Clinton approved a policy that nuclear weapons would remain the cornerstone of U.S. security for the indefinite future. It is very difficult to reconcile these conflicting positions. Disarm or maintain a massive nuclear war fighting capability? It is impossible to do both. My purpose here is to explain why President Clinton made his decision, what it means to prospects for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and what can be done to promote progress toward a non-nuclear world.

    First, let me tell you why I am here to advocate the abolition of nuclear weapons. I have been personally involved with these engines of destruction since the beginning of the nuclear era. 42 years ago I was a pilot prepared to destroy a European target with a bomb that would have killed 600,000 people. 20 years ago, as the Director of U.S. Military Operations in Europe, I was the officer responsible for the security, readiness and employment of 7,000 nuclear weapons against Warsaw Pact forces in Europe and Russia, weapons which could never defend anything – only destroy everything. My knowledge of nuclear weapons has convinced me that they can never be used for any rational military or political purpose. Their use would only create barbaric, indiscriminate destruction. In the words of the Canberra. Commission, “Nuclear weapons create an intolerable threat to all humanity…”

    Now, to address the reasons for President Clinton’s decision concerning the U.S. nuclear posture. When the nuclear era opened in the U.S. the atom bomb was seen as a source of immense national power and as an essential contribution to efforts to thwart any expansionist efforts by Stalin’s Soviet Union. It was also seen by the United States Army, Navy and Air Force- as the key to service supremacy. The newly autonomous Air Force under General Curtis LeMay saw atomic warfare as its primary raison d’etre and fought fiercely for the dominant role in U.S. atomic plans. The Army and Navy feared that without atomic weapons in their arsenals they would become irrelevant adjuncts to strategic air power.

    This interservice rivalry led to the rapid proliferation of nuclear missions. Without going into needless detail, each service acquired its own arsenal of nuclear weapons for every conceivable military mission: strategic bombardment, tactical warfare, anti-aircraft weapons, anti-tank rockets and landmines, anti-submarine rockets, torpedoes and depth charges, artillery shells, intermediate range missiles and ultimately intercontinental range land and sea-launched ballistic missiles armed with multiple, thermo-nuclear warheads.

    The Soviet Union, starting more than 4 years behind America, watched this rapid expansion of our war fighting weapons with shock and fear and set out to match every U.S. capability. Despite the obvious fact that the USSR lagged far behind, alarmists in the Pentagon pointed at Soviet efforts as proof of the need for ever more nuclear forces and weapons and the arms race continued unabated for 40 years. During this wasteful dangerous competition the United States built 70,000 nuclear weapons plus air, land and sea-based delivery vehicles at a total cost of $4.000 billion dollars.

    As the Soviets’ arsenal grew, Mutual Assured Destruction became a fact and the two nations finally began tenuous arms control efforts in the 1960’s to restrain their competition. This effort was accelerated in the mid-1980 as a result of world-wide fears of nuclear war when President Reagan spoke of the Soviet

    Union as the “evil empire” and doubled U.S. military spending. Unfortunately, the excesses of the nuclear arms race had created an extremely powerful pro-nuclear weapons establishment in the United States. This alliance of laboratories, weapon builders, aircraft industries and missile producers wielded immense political power in opposition to nuclear disarmament proposals. Abetted by Generals and Admirals in the Pentagon this establishment was able to turn arms control efforts into a talk-test-build process in which talks went slowly and ineffectually while testing and building went on with great dispatch. This same establishment remains extremely powerful today and explains why the United States’ continues to spend more than $28,000 million dollars each year to sustain its nuclear war fighting forces and enhance its weapons despite the formal commitment in the Non-Proliferation Treaty to take effective measures leading to nuclear disarmament. Pressure from the establishment is the primary reason why in November, 1997, President Clinton decreed in Presidential Decision Directive #60 that nuclear weapons will continue to form the cornerstone of American security indefinitely. This directive also set forth a number of other policies that are directly contrary to the goals of non-proliferation and nuclear abolition. He reaffirmed America’s right to make first use of nuclear weapons and intentionally left open the option to conduct nuclear retaliation against any nation, which employs chemical or biological agents in attacks against the United States or its allies. He went on to direct the maintenance of the triad of U.S. strategic forces (long range bombers, land-based ICBM’s and submarine-based SLBMs) at a high state of alert which would permit launch-on-warning of any impending nuclear attack on the U.S. This is the dangerous doctrine, which puts thousands of warheads on a hair trigger, thereby creating the risk of starting a nuclear war through misinformation and fear as well as through human error or system malfunction.

    Finally, his directive specifically authorized the continued targeting of numerous sites in Russia and China as well as planning for strikes against so-called rogue states in connection with regional conflicts or crises. In short, U.S. nuclear posture and planning remain essentially unchanged seven years after the end of the Cold War. The numbers of weapons are lower but the power to annihilate remains in place with 7,000 strategic and 5,000 tactical weapons.

    This doctrine would be bad enough alone but it is reinforced by continued efforts to extend and enhance the capabilities of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. A major element of this process is benignly labeled the Stockpile Stewardship Program costing more than $4, 100 million per year to maintain weapons security as well as test and replace weapon components to insure full wartime readiness of approximately 12,000 strategic and tactical bombs and warheads. In March the U.S. Air Force dropped two B61-11 bombs from a B-2 bomber on a target in Alaska to complete certification of a new design for earth penetrating weapons, clear proof of U.S. intentions to improve its nuclear war fighting capabilities.

    Furthermore, the Los Alamos National Laboratory recently resumed the manufacture of plutonium triggers for thermo-nuclear weapons while the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is preparing a new capability called the National Ignition Facility where conditions within an exploding nuclear device can be simulated Supplemented with continuing sub-critical explosive tests in Nevada and extremely sophisticated computer modeling experiments, this new facility will give the U.S. means not available to other signatories of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to develop and validate new nuclear weapons designs.

    To give even more evidence of the power of the pro-nuclear establishment, the U.S. will decide this year -on how and when to resume the production and stockpiling of tritium, the indispensable fuel for thermo-nuclear explosions. The fact is that the military has enough tritium on hand today for all of its weapons until the year 2006 and enough for 1,000 warheads and bombs at least until the year 2024. To invest thousands of millions of dollars for unneeded tritium is a waste of precious resources undertaken solely to placate and reward the nuclear establishment. It is particularly alarming and discouraging to see the United States investing heavily to perpetuate and increase its nuclear war fighting capabilities when only three years ago it was the dominant force promoting indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). To encourage support for extension the U.S. led in the formulation of the important declaration of “Principles and Objectives For Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.” More clearly than Article VI of the NPT itself, this statement reaffirmed commitment to: “The determined pursuit by the nuclear weapons states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons…” This renewed and strengthened pledge to reduce nuclear capabilities offered as an inducement for non-nuclear states to agree to extension of the NPT makes the current U.S. nuclear program an affront to all of the signatories. It is not only a direct violation of both the letter and spirit of the NPT; it is a provocation, which jeopardizes the goal of non-proliferation. The clear message is that the foremost nuclear power regards its weapons as key elements of security and military strength, a signal, which can only stimulate other nations to consider the need to create similar capabilities.

    What must those who favor nuclear abolition do to counter this threat to non-proliferation? First, as individuals and as organizations, we must redouble our efforts at home to publicize the dangers created by as many as 35,000 weapons still ready for use in the world. A broadly based global demand by all non-nuclear states that the nuclear powers must live up to the letter and spirit of the NPT extension agreement should precede the first review conference in the year 2000. A call for worldwide public demonstrations on the order and magnitude of those, which supported the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980’s, should be made. The nuclear powers must not be permitted to dictate the results of the review conference in the same manner the United States dominated the 1995 extension conference.

    The message to be stressed is that it is illogical and unrealistic to expect that five nations can legally possess and threaten to use nuclear weapons indefinitely while all other nations are forbidden to create a nuclear capability. Pressure to break-out of the Non Proliferation Treaty is further intensified because one of the nuclear powers is actively developing new, more threatening weapons and pronouncing them essential to its future security.

    A good strategy is to follow the lead of the 62 Generals and Admirals who signed an appeal for nuclear abolition in December of 1996. We stated that we could not foresee the conditions, which would ultimately permit the final elimination of all weapons, but we did recognize many steps, which could be safely begun now to start and accelerate progress toward the ultimate goal.

    As a first step toward nuclear disarmament, all nuclear powers should positively commit themselves to unqualified no-first use guarantees for both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. Their guarantees should be incorporated in a protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the review conference in 2000.

    Concurrently, the process of actual reduction of weapons should begin with the United States and Russia. They should proceed immediately with START III negotiations, particularly since the implementation of START II has been delayed for four years. Even with the delay Russia cannot afford all of the changes required under that Treaty and has suggested willingness to proceed with additional reductions because far deeper reductions by both sides would be less costly.

    At the same time, both nations should agree to take thousands of nuclear warheads off of alert status. This action would reduce the possibility of a nuclear exchange initiated by accident or human error. Once fully de-alerted, warhead removal (de-mating) should commence and the warheads stored remotely from missile sites and submarine bases. Verification measures should include international participation to build confidence between the parties.

    Disassembly of warheads under international supervision should begin in the U.S. and Russia. When a level of 1,000 warheads is reached in each nation, Great Britain, France and China should join the process under a rigorous verification regime. De facto nuclear states, including Israel, should join the process as movement continued toward the complete and irreversible elimination of all nuclear weapons. Finally, an international convention should be adopted to prohibit the manufacture, possession or use of nuclear explosive devices just as current conventions proscribe chemical and biological weapons. All fissile material should be safely and securely stored under international control.

    Verification of this entire process could best be accomplished by U.N. teams formed and operating in accordance with principles developed by UNSCOM teams operating in Iraq today. This model provides a precedent already accepted by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the nuclear powers.

    None of these progressive steps will happen until the community of nations comes together to make the United States understand that non-proliferation will ultimately fail unless the U.S. abandons its delusion that nuclear superiority provides long term security. Even when the dangers of this delusion are understood, progress toward the complete, final abolition of nuclear weapons will be painfully slow. Nevertheless, the effort must be made to move toward the day that all nations live together in a world without nuclear weapons because it is clear that our children cannot hope to live safely in a world with them.

     

  • European Parliament Resolution on sub-critical nuclear testing

    The European Parliament,

    – having regard to its previous resolutions on nuclear non-proliferation,

    A. whereas sub-critical nuclear tests were carried out by the United States on 2 July 1997 and on 18 September 1997 at the Nevada Test Site, and whereas the US plans to carry out four more such tests before September 1998,

    B. noting that the US Government has presented the tests as necessary to ensure the safety and reliability of its existing nuclear arsenal, but also noting that critics of the programme claim that the tests also can be used to create new types of warheads as well as to upgrade existing ones,

    C. whereas no international verification exists on whether the tests are in fact sub-critical and therefore in compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT),

    D. whereas the tests may not be against the letter of the CTBT, but still violate the spirit of the treaty and place in jeopardy its entry into force by creating a “crisis of confidence”,

    E. whereas sub-critical tests and new weapons development risk reinforcing India and Pakistan in their refusal to sign the CTBT, thus blocking its entry into force, and also reinforcing opposition to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), especially in these two nations,

    F. noting that at least 15 countries, including Norway, Indonesia, Mexico, Malaysia and Iran, as well as the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and 46 members of the US Congress, have publicly expressed their concern about or opposition to these tests,

    G. whereas all EU Member States signed the CTBT after it was opened for signature in September 1996,

    H. whereas states who have signed the CTBT are bound to “refrain from any action that could defeat its object and purpose”, by definition of the Vienna Convention on Treaties,

    1. Reaffirms its support for the CTBT and its request for early ratification of the treaty, and calls on all Member States to act promptly,

    2. Calls on the US Government to halt the series of sub-critical tests and calls on all governments to refrain from carrying out such tests;

    3. Calls on the US Government to issue an official declaration stating that the tests in no way form part of a new weapons design programme, and that new nuclear weapons design does not form part of US policy,

    4. Calls for increased transparency on-site as well as additional confidence-building measures, in order to allay international concern over possible CTBT violations,

    5. Calls on the Council to adopt a joint action under Article J.3 of the Treaty on European Union, to promote signature and ratification by other states, and to include all necessary assistance to enable other states to comply with the provisions of the treaty, particularly the establishment of an effective global verification regime,

    6. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission and the President and Congress of the United States of America.

  • The Risks of Nuclear Deterrence: From Superpowers to Rogue Leaders

    National Press Club

    Thank you, and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Dorene and I are honored by your presence and gratified by your welcome. Although we are now proud residents of Nebraska — note the obligatory display of home team colors — Dorene and I feel very much at home in this city. I see many familiar faces in this audience, which makes the moment all the more special.

    I have two roles to serve this afternoon, both very much akin to the events marking my appearance here just over a year ago. As your speaker, I intend to address two matters that go to the heart of the debate over the role of nuclear weapons: why these artifacts of the cold war continue to hold us in thrall; and the severe penalties and risks entailed by policies of deterrence as practiced in the nuclear age.

    But first, it is my privilege to announce a compelling addition to the roster of distinguished international figures who have joined their voices in calling publicly for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Last year General Goodpaster and I unveiled a list of some 60 retired generals and admirals from a host of nations who declared their strong conviction that the world would be better served by the total elimination of these weapons. Today, at a press conference following my remarks, Senator Alan Cranston and I will present the names of more than one hundred present and former heads of state and other senior civilian leaders who have signed their names to a powerful statement of common concern regarding nuclear weapons and who have endorsed a reasoned path toward abolition.

    The willingness of this extraordinary assembly to speak so publicly and directly to these issues is very much in keeping with what I have experienced since I became engaged in the abolition debate some two years ago. I have met legions of remarkable men and women from every corner of the earth who have labored long and patiently in this cause. Their ranks have now been swelled by tens of millions of citizens of our planet who reject the prospect of living in perpetuity under a nuclear sword of Damocles.

    My purpose in entering the debate was to help legitimize abolition as an alternative worthy of serious and urgent consideration. My premise was that my unique experience in the nuclear weapons arena might help kindle greater antipathy for these horrific devices and the policies which justify their retention by the nuclear weapon states. My purpose this afternoon is to share with you the abiding concern I harbor about the course of the debate. I accepted the press club invitation because I believe this forum is well suited to speak to that concern. In so doing, I intend to render a much more explicit account than I have given to date of the lessons I have drawn from over thirty years of intimate involvement with nuclear weapons.

    Permit me, however, to preface my remarks by postulating that with respect to legitimizing the prospect of abolition, there is much to applaud on the positive side of the ledger. Nuclear issues now compete more strongly for the attention of policy makers and the media that often shapes their interest. Converts are being won on many fronts to the propositions that these issues matter, that nuclear arsenals can and should be sharply reduced, that high alert postures are a dangerous anachronism, that first use policies are an affront to democratic values, and that proliferation of nuclear weapons is a clear and present danger. I am persuaded that in every corner of the planet, the tide of public sentiment is now running strongly in favor of diminishing the role of nuclear weapons. Indeed, I am convinced that most publics are well out in front of their governments in shaking off the grip of the cold war and reaching for opportunities that emerge in its wake.

    Conversely, it is distressingly evident that for many people, nuclear weapons retain an aura of utility, of primacy and of legitimacy that justifies their existence well into the future, in some number, however small. The persistence of this view, which is perfectly reflected in the recently announced modification of U. S. nuclear weapons policy, lies at the core of the concern that moves me so deeply. This abiding faith in nuclear weapons was inspired and is sustained by a catechism instilled over many decades by a priesthood who speak with great assurance and authority. I was for many years among the most avid of these keepers of the faith in nuclear weapons, and for that I make no apology. Like my contemporaries, I was moved by fears and fired by beliefs that date back to the earliest days of the atomic era. We lived through a terror-ridden epoch punctuated by crises whose resolution held hostage the saga of humankind. For us, nuclear weapons were the savior that brought an implacable foe to his knees in 1945 and held another at bay for nearly a half-century. We believed that superior technology brought strategic advantage, that greater numbers meant stronger security, and that the ends of containment justified whatever means were necessary to achieve them.

    These are powerful, deeply rooted beliefs. They cannot and should not be lightly dismissed or discounted. Strong arguments can be made on their behalf. Throughout my professional military career, I shared them, I professed them and I put them into operational practice. And now it is my burden to declare with all of the conviction I can muster that in my judgement they served us extremely ill. They account for the most severe risks and most extravagant costs of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation. They intensified and prolonged an already acute ideological animosity. They spawned successive generations of new and more destructive nuclear devices and delivery systems. They gave rise to mammoth bureaucracies with gargantuan appetites and global agendas. They incited primal emotions, spurred zealotry and demagoguery, and set in motion forces of ungovernable scope and power. Most importantly, these enduring beliefs, and the fears that underlie them, perpetuate cold war policies and practices that make no strategic sense. They continue to entail enormous costs and expose all mankind to unconscionable dangers. I find that intolerable. Thus I cannot stay silent. I know too much of these matters, the frailties, the flaws, the failures of policy and practice.

    At the same time, I cannot overstate the difficulty this poses for me. No one who ever entered the nuclear arena left it with a fuller understanding of its complexity nor greater respect for those with whom I served its purposes. I struggle constantly with the task of articulating the evolution of my convictions without denigrating or diminishing the motives and sacrifice of countless colleagues with whom I lived the drama of the cold war. I ask them and you to appreciate that my purpose is not to accuse, but to assess, to understand and to propound the forces that birthed the grotesque excesses and hazards of the nuclear age. For me, that assessment meant first coming to grips with my experience and then coming to terms with my conclusions.

    I knew the moment I entered the nuclear arena I had been thrust into a world beset with tidal forces, towering egos, maddening contradictions, alien constructs and insane risks. Its arcane vocabulary and apocalyptic calculus defied comprehension. Its stage was global and its antagonists locked in a deadly spiral of deepening rivalry. It was in every respect a modern day holy war, a cosmic struggle between the forces of light and darkness. The stakes were national survival, and the weapons of choice were eminently suited to this scale of malevolence.

    The opposing forces each created vast enterprises, each giving rise to a culture of messianic believers infused with a sense of historic mission and schooled in unshakable articles of faith. As my own career progressed, I was immersed in the work of all of these cultures, either directly in those of the western world, or through penetrating study of communist organizations, teachings and practices. My responsibilities ranged from the highly subjective, such as assessing the values and motivation of Soviet leadership, to the critically objective, such as preparing weapons for operational launch. I became steeped in the art of intelligence estimates, the psychology of negotiations, the interplay of bureaucracies and the impulses of industry. I was engaged in the labyrinthian conjecture of the strategist, the exacting routines of the target planner and the demanding skills of the aircrew and the missilier. I have been a party to their history, shared their triumphs and tragedies, witnessed heroic sacrifice and catastrophic failure of both men and machines. And in the end, I came away from it all with profound misgivings.

    Ultimately, as I examined the course of this journey, as the lessons of decades of intimate involvement took greater hold on my intellect, I came to a set of deeply unsettling judgements. That from the earliest days of the nuclear era, the risks and consequences of nuclear war have never been properly weighed by those who brandished it. That the stakes of nuclear war engage not just the survival of the antagonists, but the fate of mankind. That the likely consequences of nuclear war have no politically, militarily or morally acceptable justification. And therefore, that the threat to use nuclear weapons is indefensible.

    These judgements gave rise to an array of inescapable questions. If this be so, what explained the willingness, no, the zeal, of legions of cold warriors, civilian and military, to not just tolerate but to multiply and to perpetuate such risks? By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestation?

    These are not questions to be left to historians. The answers matter to us now. They go to the heart of present day policies and motivations. They convey lessons with immediate implications for both contemporary and aspiring nuclear states. As I distill them from the experience of three decades in the nuclear arena, these lessons resolve into two fundamental conclusions.

    First, I have no other way to understand the willingness to condone nuclear weapons except to believe they are the natural accomplice of visceral enmity. They thrive in the emotional climate born of utter alienation and isolation. The unbounded wantonness of their effects is a perfect companion to the urge to destroy completely. They play on our deepest fears and pander to our darkest instincts. They corrode our sense of humanity, numb our capacity for moral outrage, and make thinkable the unimaginable. What is anguishingly clear is that these fears and enmities are no respecter of political systems or values. They prey on democracies and totalitarian societies alike, shrinking the norms of civilized behavior and dimming the prospects for escaping the savagery so powerfully imprinted in our genetic code. That should give us great pause as we imagine the task of abolition in a world that gives daily witness to acts of unspeakable barbarism. So should it compound our resolve.

    The evidence to support this conclusion is palpable, but as I said at the outset of these remarks for much of my life I saw it differently. That was a product of both my citizenry and my profession. From the early years of my childhood and through much of my military service I saw the Soviet Union and its allies as a demonic threat, an evil empire bent on global domination. I was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force as the cold war was heating to a fever pitch. This was a desperate time that evoked on both sides extreme responses in policy, in technology and in force postures: bloody purges and political inquisitions; covert intelligence schemes that squandered lives and subverted governments; atmospheric testing with little understanding or regard for the long term effects; threats of massive nuclear retaliation to an ill-defined scope of potential provocations; the forced march of inventive genius that ushered in the missile age arm in arm with the capacity for spontaneous, global destruction; reconnaissance aircraft that probed or violated sovereign airspace, producing disastrous encounters; the menacing and perilous practice of airborne alert bombers loaded with nuclear weapons.

    By the early 1960’s, a superpower nuclear arms race was underway that would lead to a ceaseless amassing of destructive capacity, spilling over into the arsenals of other nations. Central Europe became a powder keg, trembling under the shadow of armageddon, hostage to a bizarre strategy that required the prospect of nuclear devastation as the price of alliance. The entire world became a stage for the U. S. – Soviet rivalry. International organizations were paralyzed by its grip. East-West confrontation dominated the nation-state system. Every quarrel and conflict was fraught with potential for global war.

    This was the world that largely defined our lives as American citizens. For those of us who served in the national security arena, the threat was omnipresent, it seemed total, it dictated our professional preparation and career progression, and cost the lives of tens of thousands of men and women, in and out of uniform. Like millions of others, I was caught up in the holy war, inured to its costs and consequences, trusting in the wisdom of succeeding generations of military and civilian leaders. The first requirement of unconditional belief in the efficacy of nuclear weapons was early and perfectly met for us: our homeland was the target of a consuming evil, poised to strike without warning and without mercy.

    What remained for me, as my career took its particular course, was to master the intellectual underpinning of America’s response, the strategic foundation that today still stands as the central precept of the nuclear catechism. Reassessing its pervasive impact on attitudes toward nuclear weapons goes directly to my second conclusion regarding the willingness to tolerate the risks of the nuclear age.

    That also brings me to the focal point of my remarks, to my purpose in coming to this forum. For all of my years as a nuclear strategist, operational commander and public spokesman, I explained, justified and sustained America’s massive nuclear arsenal as a function, a necessity and a consequence of deterrence. Bound up in this singular term, this familiar touchstone of security dating back to antiquity, was the intellectually comforting and deceptively simple justification for taking the most extreme risks and the expenditure of trillions of dollars. It was our shield and by extension our sword. The nuclear priesthood extolled its virtues, and bowed to its demands. Allies yielded grudgingly to its dictates even while decrying its risks and costs. We brandished it at our enemies and presumed they embraced its suicidal corollary of mutual assured destruction. We ignored, discounted or dismissed its flaws and cling still to the belief that it obtains in a world whose security architecture has been wholly transformed.

    But now, I see it differently. Not in some blinding revelation, but at the end of a journey, in an age of deliverance from the consuming tensions of the cold war. Now, with the evidence more clear, the risks more sharply defined and the costs more fully understood, I see deterrence in a very different light. Appropriated from the lexicon of conventional warfare, this simple prescription for adequate military preparedness became in the nuclear age a formula for unmitigated catastrophe. It was premised on a litany of unwarranted assumptions, unprovable assertions and logical contradictions. It suspended rational thinking about the ultimate aim of national security: to ensure the survival of the nation.

    How is it that we subscribed to a strategy that required near perfect understanding of an enemy from whom we were deeply alienated and largely isolated? How could we pretend to understand the motivations and intentions of the Soviet leadership absent any substantive personal association? Why did we imagine a nation that had survived successive invasions and mindnumbing losses would accede to a strategy premised on fear of nuclear war? Deterrence in the cold war setting was fatally flawed at the most fundamental level of human psychology in its projection of western reason through the crazed lens of a paranoid foe. Little wonder that intentions and motives were consistently misread. Little wonder that deterrence was the first victim of a deepening crisis, leaving the antagonists to grope fearfully in a fog of mutual misperception. While we clung to the notion that nuclear war could be reliably deterred, Soviet leaders derived from their historical experience the conviction that such a war might be thrust upon them and if so, must not be lost. Driven by that fear, they took herculean measures to fight and survive no matter the odds or the costs. Deterrence was a dialogue of the blind with the deaf. In the final analysis, it was largely a bargain we in the west made with ourselves.

    Deterrence was flawed equally in that the consequences of its failure were intolerable. While the price of undeterred aggression in the age of uniquely conventional weaponry could be severe, history teaches that nations can survive and even prosper in the aftermath of unconditional defeat. Not so in the nuclear era. Nuclear weapons give no quarter. Their effects transcend time and place, poisoning the earth and deforming its inhabitants for generation upon generation. They leave us wholly without defense, expunge all hope for meaningful survival. They hold in their sway not just the fate of nations, but the very meaning of civilization.

    Deterrence failed completely as a guide in setting rational limits on the size and composition of military forces. To the contrary, its appetite was voracious, its capacity to justify new weapons and larger stocks unrestrained. Deterrence carried the seed, born of an irresolvable internal contradiction, that spurred an insatiable arms race. Nuclear deterrence hinges on the credibility to mount a devastating retaliation under the most extreme conditions of war initiation. Perversely, the redundant and survivable force required to meet this exacting test is readily perceived by a darkly suspicious adversary as capable, even designed, to execute a disarming first strike. Such advantage can never be conceded between nuclear rivals. It must be answered, reduced, nullified. Fears are fanned, the rivalry intensified. New technology is inspired, new systems roll from production lines. The correlation of force begins to shift, and the bar of deterrence ratchets higher, igniting yet another cycle of trepidation, worst case assumptions and ever mounting levels of destructive capability.

    Thus it was that the treacherous axioms of deterrence made seemingly reasonable nuclear weapon stockpiles numbering in the tens of thousands. Despite having witnessed the devastation wrought by two primitive atomic devices, over the ensuing decades the superpowers gorged themselves at the thermonuclear trough. A succession of leaders on both sides of the east-west divide directed a reckless proliferation of nuclear devices, tailored for delivery by a vast array of vehicles to a stupefying array of targets. They nurtured, richly rewarded, even reveled in the industrial base required to support production at such levels.

    I was part of all of that. I was present at the creation of many of these systems, directly responsible for prescribing and justifying the requirements and technology that made them possible. I saw the arms race from the inside, watched as intercontinental ballistic missiles ushered in mutual assured destruction and multiple warhead missiles introduced genuine fear of a nuclear first strike. I participated in the elaboration of basing schemes that bordered on the comical and force levels that in retrospect defied reason. I was responsible for war plans with over 12,000 targets, many struck with repeated nuclear blows, some to the point of complete absurdity. I was a veteran participant in an arena where the most destructive power ever unleashed became the prize in a no holds barred competition among organizations whose principal interest was to enhance rather than constrain its application. And through every corridor, in every impassioned plea, in every fevered debate rang the rallying cry, deterrence, deterrence, deterrence.

    As nuclear weapons and actors multiplied, deterrence took on too many names, too many roles, overreaching an already extreme strategic task. Surely nuclear weapons summoned great caution in superpower relationships. But as their numbers swelled, so mounted the stakes of miscalculation, of a crisis spun out of control. The exorbitant price of nuclear war quickly exceeded the rapidly depreciating value of a tenuous mutual wariness. Invoking deterrence became a cheap rhetorical parlor trick, a verbal sleight of hand. Proponents persist in dressing it up to court changing times and temperaments, hemming and re-hemming to fit shrinking or distorted threats.

    Deterrence is a slippery conceptual slope. It is not stable, nor is it static, its wiles cannot be contained. It is both master and slave. It seduces the scientist yet bends to his creation. It serves the ends of evil as well as those of noble intent. It holds guilty the innocent as well as the culpable. It gives easy semantic cover to nuclear weapons, masking the horrors of employment with siren veils of infallibility. At best it is a gamble no mortal should pretend to make. At worst it invokes death on a scale rivaling the power of the creator.

    Is it any wonder that at the end of my journey I am moved so strongly to retrace its path, to examine more closely the evidence I would or could not see? I hear now the voices long ignored, the warnings muffled by the still lingering animosities of the cold war. I see with painful clarity that from the very beginnings of the nuclear era, the objective scrutiny and searching debate essential to adequate comprehension and responsible oversight of its vast enterprises were foreshortened or foregone. The cold light of dispassionate scrutiny was shuttered in the name of security, doubts dismissed in the name of an acute and unrelenting threat, objections overruled by the incantations of the nuclear priesthood.

    The penalties proved to be severe. Vitally important decisions were routinely taken without adequate understanding, assertions too often prevailed over analysis, requirements took on organizational biases, technological opportunity and corporate profit drove force levels and capability, and political opportunism intruded on calculations of military necessity. Authority and accountability were severed, policy dissociated from planning, and theory invalidated by practice. The narrow concerns of a multitude of powerful interests intruded on the rightful role of key policymakers, constraining their latitude for decision. Many were simply denied access to critical information essential to the proper exercise of their office.

    Over time, planning was increasingly distanced and ultimately disconnected from any sense of scientific or military reality. In the end, the nuclear powers, great and small, created astronomically expensive infrastructures, monolithic bureaucracies and complex processes that defied control or comprehension. Only now are the dimensions, costs and risks of these nuclear nether worlds coming to light. What must now be better-understood are the root causes, the mindsets and the belief systems that brought them into existence. They must be challenged, they must be refuted, but most importantly, they must be let go. The era that gave them credence, accepted their dominion and yielded to their excesses is fast receding.

    But it is not yet over. Sad to say, the cold war lives on in the minds of those who cannot let go the fears, the beliefs, and the enmities born 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.

    What better illustration of misplaced faith in nuclear deterrence than the persistent belief that retaliation with nuclear weapons is a legitimate and appropriate response to post-cold war threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. What could possibly justify our resort to the very means we properly abhor and condemn? Who can imagine our joining in shattering the precedent of non-use that has held for over fifty years? How could America’s irreplaceable role as leader of the campaign against nuclear proliferation ever be re-justified? What target would warrant such retaliation? Would we hold an entire society accountable for the decision of a single demented leader? How would the physical effects of the nuclear explosion be contained, not to mention the political and moral consequences? In a singular act we would martyr our enemy, alienate our friends, give comfort to the non-declared nuclear states and impetus to states who seek such weapons covertly. In short, such a response on the part of the United States is inconceivable. It would irretrievably diminish our priceless stature as a nation noble in aspiration and responsible in conduct, even in the face of extreme provocation.

    And as a nation we have no greater responsibility than to bring the nuclear era to a close. Our present policies, plans and postures governing nuclear weapons make us prisoner still to an age of intolerable danger. We cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it. We cannot hold hostage to sovereign gridlock the keys to final deliverance from the nuclear nightmare. We cannot withhold the resources essential to break its grip, to reduce its dangers. We cannot sit in silent acquiescence to the faded homilies of the nuclear priesthood. It is time to reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason and the rightful interests of humanity.

     

  • Thirteen Million Voices for Abolishing Nuclear Arms

    More than thirteen million Japanese citizens have signed a petition calling for the abolition of the world’s nuclear arsenals in what may be the greatest outpouring of support ever for creating a nuclear weapons free world. The petition is part of a global campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons called Abolition 2000, an international network of over 900 citizen action groups in 74 countries.

    The signatures in Japan were collected in just three months, from November 1997 to January 1998, by members of the Soka Gakkai, a Japanese Buddhist organization long active on disarmament issues. On February 21, 1998, at a ceremony at the Memorial Hall of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the signatures will be presented to David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a leader in the Abolition 2000 campaign. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is the International Contact for the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.

    “These signatures represent voices of the common people, people in Japan who know the devastation caused by nuclear weapons,” said Krieger. “The people are tired of waiting, they are tired of excuses. The Cold War is long over, and they want an end to the nuclear threat. They understand that the only way to do this is to eliminate nuclear weapons. They are sending a message to the rest of the world, and particularly to the leaders of the nuclear weapons states.”

    According to Krieger, notice of the petition campaign will be provided to the leaders of all nuclear weapons states, and to delegates to the Preparatory Committee meeting of the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference which will take place in Geneva from April 27 through May 8, 1998. Krieger also said that plans are being made to pass the 13 million signatures supporting Abolition 2000 to Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, and to Jayantha Dhanapala, the newly appointed UN Under-Secretary General for Disarmament.

    “The nuclear weapons states are currently stalled in efforts to fulfill their promise in the Non-Proliferation Treaty to eliminate their nuclear arsenals,” said Krieger. “We are hopeful that these 13 million plus voices for nuclear weapons abolition will get them moving. There are still some 36,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and the only number that makes sense for humanity is zero.”

    The Abolition 2000 International Petition calls for ending the nuclear weapons threat, signing an international treaty by the year 2000 to eliminate nuclear weapons within a fixed time period, and reallocating resources from military purposes to meeting human needs and assuring a sustainable future.

    Petition drives are continuing in Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, Netherlands, United Kingdom, the United States and other countries. The petition can be signed on the Worldwide Web at www.wagingpeace.org.

  • Nuclearism and Its Spread to Asia

    Introduction

    At its core, nuclearism is the belief that nuclear weapons and nuclear power are essential forms of progress that in the right hands will protect the peace and further the human condition. Nuclearism is a dangerous ideology — as dangerous as the technologies it has unabashedly and unreservedly promoted. In this belief system, “the right hands” have generally been synonymous with one’s own country, and “to further the human condition” has generally been synonymous with benefit to oneself, one’s country or one’s corporation. The key elements of nuclearism are:

    1. The belief that nuclear weapons keep the peace, and are a necessary evil. 2. The belief that nuclear power is a safe, reliable and inexpensive source of energy, and that the nuclear power industry is an absolute good. 3. The belief that, despite the expansion of the nuclear power industry, the diversion of nuclear materials from the nuclear fuel cycle to military uses can be prevented.

    The ideology and the technologies it has supported have created extraordinary dangers for all life on Earth. While the dangers posed by nuclear weapons are potentially more immediate and cataclysmic in scope, the insidious dangers posed by nuclear power reactors and their radioactive waste products are now already harming humankind, other forms of life, and the environment and this threat will continue for thousands of generations. Believers in nuclearism, to the extent that they acknowledge these dangers, argue that nuclear technology brings benefits that more than compensate for its inherent dangers.

    The dangers of nuclear technology may be summarized as follows:

    1. Nuclear deterrence is only a theory. It may fail causing many times more casualties and suffering than were experienced at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 2. Nuclear weapons may be used by accident or miscalculation as well as by intention. The nuclear destruction of one city by one bomb could result in millions of deaths and casualties. A large-scale nuclear exchange could result in the annihilation of humankind and most other forms of life on Earth. 3. Nuclear weapons or the materials for making them may find their way into the hands of terrorists or irrational leaders of countries. 4. Nuclear power reactors are subject to catastrophic failures such as occurred at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union and nearly occurred at Three Mile Island in the United States. Such failures could occur as a result of accident, human error, terrorist activity, or destruction by an enemy in time of war. 5. The spent fuel storage pools located at nuclear power reactors are particularly vulnerable to the release of radioactive materials as a result of terrorist or military attack. 6. Accidents occurring during the transportation of nuclear materials by highway, railway, ship, or air could result in hazardous releases of radioactive materials. 7. No long-term means of storage of radioactive waste materials currently exists to protect the environment and human health against the dangers of radiation release.

    Despite these dangers, the proponents of nuclearism have succeeded in many countries in obtaining large amounts of public funding to support the development, testing, deployment, and maintenance of nuclear weapons and/or the development and subsidization of the nuclear power industry. The costs of nuclear technology have included:

    1. Over $8 trillion spent on nuclear weapons and delivery systems by the nuclear weapons states over the past half century. 2. The diversion of generations of scientists and technologists to work on weapons of mass destruction rather than on projects of positive value to humankind. 3. The widespread contamination of the environment by radioactive pollutants created in the process of building and testing nuclear warheads over a fifty year period. Cleanup costs are estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars, and it is understood that some areas of contamination will never be adequately restored to safe use. (In the United States, such areas are referred to as “national sacrifice zones.”) 4. Nuclear power reactors, once thought to be relatively inexpensive to build, now cost some $5 billion per 1000 megawatt reactor. This cost has priced nuclear reactors out of competitiveness in the United States despite enormous government (that is, taxpayer) subsidies. 5. Radioactive wastes generated by the military and nuclear power industry will need to be stored to prevent environmental pollution and subsequent health problems for tens of thousands of years. The bulk of this burden will fall to future generations.

    In this paper, I will review the development of nuclearism in the West, its roots in military technology, its linkage to commercialism, attempts to place a boundary between the military and peaceful uses of nuclear technology, and the spread of nuclear weapons to Asian countries. I will then review the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its reference to nuclear energy as an “inalienable right,” return to the nuclearist view that nuclear weapons are a necessary evil and nuclear power an absolute good, and discuss the need for new thinking about nuclear technologies, as called for by Albert Einstein. I will then review nuclearism in Asia, global nuclearism, and finally the pressing need and important opportunity that now exists to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

    Nuclearism Is a Western Ideology

    Nuclearism is an ideology that originated in the West. The primary proponents of nuclearism have been the United States, Britain, France, and the former Soviet Union (now replaced by Russia). The “East-West” struggle of the Cold War described the division of Europe with Western Europe and the United States on one side of the divide, and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union on the other side. Both sides were proponents of nuclearism. Both sides believed that their nuclear deterrent forces prevented nuclear war and thereby kept the peace. Despite a lack of objective evidence that there was a causal connection between nuclear arsenals and the absence of a nuclear war, each side credited its expanding nuclear arsenal with keeping the peace. To underline this, the United States during the Reagan presidency named some of its powerful nuclear armed missiles “peacekeepers.”

    Both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants are products of the West. Nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and the ideology of nuclearism developed in the West and have spread throughout the world.

    Nuclearism Originated As a Military Technology

    Nuclear weapons were developed by the United States with the aid of European refugee scientists during World War II. The initial impetus for the U.S. effort was the fear that the Germans might develop similar weapons, and that these weapons would be necessary to deter the Germans from using theirs. However, by the time that the first U.S. nuclear weapons were developed, the Germans had already surrendered without having succeeded in developing a nuclear weapon.

    The first U.S. nuclear weapon test took place on July 16, 1945 at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The war in the Pacific was still going on at that time, although the United States was aware that the Japanese were seeking to negotiate terms of surrender.(1) Just three weeks after the initial successful test of the weapon, it was used at Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945, and three days later at Nagasaki, Japan. At Hiroshima some 90,000 persons, mostly civilians, were killed immediately, and a total of some 140,000 persons died as a result of the bombing by the end of 1945. At Nagasaki some 40,000 persons, again mostly civilians, were killed immediately, and a total of some 70,000 persons died as a result of the bombing by the end of 1945. The suffering of the survivors, the hibakusha, continues to the present. The people of Japan were the first victims of this powerful new technology.

    The decision to use the newly developed weapon against the Japanese was made by U.S. President Harry Truman. When Truman received confirmation of the “success” of the use of the nuclear weapon dropped at Hiroshima, he is reported to have said, “This is the greatest day in history.”(2) One can imagine that the response to the devastation and mass killing of civilians was viewed somewhat differently in Japan.

    In the United States certain myths developed around the use of nuclear weapons.(3) The weapons were credited with ending the war and saving American lives. They were, therefore, generally perceived in a positive light. In Japan, these weapons were seen from the perspective of the victims, and the Japanese developed what has been described as a “nuclear allergy.” At the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park it says, “Never again! We shall not repeat this evil.”

    With these tragic events the United States brought the world into a new era, the Nuclear Age. Its hallmark was a determined effort that involved the subordination of science and technology to military purpose. The effort resulted in harnessing the power of the nucleus of the atom, and releasing a destructive force far greater than had previously been possible by manmade means. The Nuclear Age was born of a scientific enterprise with a military purpose — the creation of nuclear weapons — that was organized, funded and controlled by government. In this new age the destruction of cities by a single weapon became not only a possibility, but a reality. The destruction of humankind became imaginable and possible.

    Nuclearism and Commercialism

    While nuclearism may have begun as a military-based ideology, it soon also developed a commercial aspect related to the use of nuclear reactors to generate electric power. Thus, nuclearism became an ideology with two intertwined aspects, one aligned with military ends and one aligned with peaceful ends. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower took the lead in promoting the peaceful applications of nuclear energy for generating electricity with his “Atoms for Peace” speech at the United Nations in 1953.(4)

    The promise of “Atoms for Peace” was virtually free and unlimited electric energy to power the world and provide the benefits of electric energy to the poor of the Earth. From this technology of death would come, Eisenhower prophesied, electricity so inexpensive that it would not need to be metered. It was the promise of something too good to be true, and in fact it was not true. It was the promise of creating virtually free electrical power for everyone everywhere. Nuclearism, like a modern alchemy, promised to convert the evil of a city-destroying weapons technology to a tool for powering the future.

    The promise of nuclear power would prove to be largely hyperbole based upon wishful thinking or outright fraud. The hope and dream of “Atoms for Peace” became, however, a central tenet of the ideology of nuclearism. By adopting this tenet of nuclearism, developed states were able to shift to taxpayers the financial responsibility for research and development of the so-called peaceful atom. Huge taxpayer subsidies authorized in the United States, Western European nations, and later Japan made possible the development and implementation of the nuclear power industry.

    The nuclear power industry continues to operate in the United States only due to Congressional legislation, the Price-Anderson Act, which transfers the majority of liability for a major accident from the corporations operating nuclear power plants to the taxpayers. Even so, there has been no nuclear power plant built in the United States since the early 1970s. In the early 1970s, the U.S. nuclear industry was forecasting 1000 nuclear power plants for the country by the year 2000. Today, however, there are only 110 such plants, and there are no plans to build more.

    Costs have been the major roadblock to the continued expansion of nuclear power in the United States. Initially it was estimated that the capital costs for building a 1000 megawatt nuclear power plant would be a few hundred million dollars. By the early 1970s the costs had risen to approximately $5 billion per reactor.

    In true Cold War competitive style, the former Soviet Union raced ahead with its version of the “peaceful atom” by building nuclear power plants that would prove to be among the most dangerous in the world. This was dramatically demonstrated by the major accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This accident had serious consequences in Ukraine, Belarus, many parts of Europe, and even the United States.(5)

    Nuclearism Draws an Artificial Boundary Between Military and So-Called Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy

    Advocates of nuclearism have generally tried to walk a narrow line between the military and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. On the one hand, they have sought to contain the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states. On the other hand, they have tried to promote the spread of nuclear energy to other states for research and commercial purposes. Since the knowledge of how to construct nuclear weapons is readily available and the nuclear materials needed for this purpose may be derived from the nuclear power industry, advocates of nuclearism needed to establish at least a facade of control over the nuclear power industry. They accomplished this goal through the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), charged with promoting nuclear energy internationally while providing safeguards against diversion of nuclear materials for weapons purposes. It is, of course, a clear conflict of interest to give promotional functions to a regulatory agency.

    The Spread of Nuclear Weapons

    The United States would have preferred to have maintained its early monopoly over nuclear technology. It was recognized from the outset, however, that this would not be possible. The U.S. scientific establishment badly miscalculated the length of time it would take the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons. Truman was advised that the development of nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union could take some twenty years, and in fact it occurred in just four years.

    The very first resolution of the United Nations General Assembly called for the creation of an Atomic Energy Commission that would develop a plan for the elimination of atomic weapons from national armaments.(6) But early efforts and proposals to achieve international control of nuclear weapons failed, and by July 1946 the United States, then the only nuclear weapons state in the world, began an atmospheric testing program in the Pacific. Radioactivity from the testing spread throughout the world, but brought the greatest harm to the people of the Pacific.

    Until 1949, when the former Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon, the U.S. remained the sole nuclear weapons state in the world. From 1949 forward, until the end of the Cold War, the United States and former Soviet Union vied with each other for “nuclear supremacy,” a concept that some would define as beyond the bounds of reason. These two states would subsequently be joined by the United Kingdom, France, and China as declared nuclear weapons states. China tested its first nuclear weapon in 1964, and became the first Asian nation to possess nuclear weapons. A decade later, in 1974, India tested its first nuclear weapon, which it claimed was only for peaceful purposes. Subsequently, Pakistan is thought to have developed a nuclear weapons capability. Israel is the third of the threshold or undeclared nuclear weapons states.

    China is thought to have developed its nuclear weapons capability in response to being threatened by nuclear weapons by the United States during the Korean War in 1954 and again during the crisis in the Taiwan Straits in 1958.(7) India is thought to have developed its nuclear weapons capability in response to China doing so, and Pakistan is thought to have developed its capability in response to India doing so. Thus, there have been security concerns that have led to the spread of nuclear weapons into Asia. China did not want to find itself, as had Japan, the victim of nuclear weapons delivered by the United States or later by the Soviet Union. India feared the possibility of attack by China; Pakistan feared the possibility of attack by India. This is the faulty logic of deterrence, which has grave built-in dangers.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty: An “Inalienable Right” to Nuclear Energy?

    It was the general understanding by the U.S., former USSR, and the UK that the spread of nuclear weapons created a more dangerous world. These states considered it acceptable and reasonable that they would maintain their nuclear arsenals, but believed it to be too dangerous for other countries to follow their lead in developing and maintaining such arsenals. This led these leading nuclear weapons states to initiate the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was opened for signatures in 1968 and entered into force in 1970.(8) This treaty created two categories of states, those that had nuclear weapons prior to January 1, 1967, and all other states. In the category of nuclear weapons states were the United States, former Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and China. France and China, however, did not become parties to the NPT until the early 1990s.

    In the NPT, non-nuclear weapons states pledged not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, while nuclear weapons states pledged not to transfer nuclear weapons or otherwise help non-nuclear weapons states to develop nuclear arsenals. On its face, this would appear to be an uneven and perhaps even unreasonable bargain. The nuclear weapons states, however, did sweeten the offer by agreeing in Article VI to have good faith negotiations on a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, on nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. The nuclear weapons states also agreed that they would help other countries develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes; the treaty even refers in Article IV to peaceful nuclear energy as an “inalienable right.” Thus, in attempting to halt the spread of nuclear weapons to other states, the treaty actually promotes the use of nuclear technology for generating energy. The dual purpose nature of nuclear technology has opened a back door to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and a number of countries have sought to walk through it.

    India and Pakistan were both able to develop their nuclear weapons through nuclear reactor programs that were purportedly being used for peaceful purposes. Iraq also came close to developing nuclear weapons in this way. What is needed to accomplish this, in addition to nuclear reactors for energy or research purposes, are facilities for enriching uranium or separating plutonium from spent fuel. Two countries in Asia with this capability are North Korea and Japan. North Korea is thought to possess enough plutonium for constructing one or two nuclear weapons. Japan has some 13,000 kilograms of weapons-usable plutonium, enough to potentially manufacture more than a thousand nuclear weapons.(9) South Korea and Taiwan have tried to acquire the necessary plutonium reprocessing technologies to develop nuclear weapons, but they have been kept from doing so by the United States.

    Nuclearists View Nuclear Weapons as a Necessary Evil and Nuclear Power an Absolute Good

    In the ideology of nuclearism, nuclear weapons are accepted as a necessary evil to maintain the peace. This evil, however, can only be tolerated in certain countries that can be trusted to control the weapons. Nuclear weapons were seen by the West as a threat in the hands of the former Soviet Union, but at least it was understood that they would take necessary steps to control their weapons. The disintegration of the former Soviet Union is viewed by many as a serious danger to world security due to the potential spread of nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials to unstable national leaders or terrorists. Apparently, though, it has not been considered a serious enough danger by the United States and its allies to make the control of nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union a matter of highest priority with appropriate funding. Some funding has been provided, but the amounts are insufficient to the nature of the danger.

    In the view of nuclearists, world peace can be maintained by nuclear arms, which would be used only as a last resort. This intention, of course, could dramatically fail if weapons from the nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union or any other state fell into the hands of unstable national leaders or terrorists.

    It is also the view of nuclearists that nuclear power is an absolute good. They envision world markets being expanded by building highly capital intensive nuclear power plants throughout the developing world. It is a vision that encompasses the entire world, bringing the promise of nuclear power to rich and poor countries alike. It is unfortunately a vision that primarily benefits its promoters while bringing serious dangers to all who accept the technology.

    The public relations arm of the nuclear power industry, including the International Atomic Energy Agency, has painted the promise of safe, reliable, and inexpensive energy in glowing terms (pun intended), while skimming over the high capital costs, the need for huge subsidies, the danger of accidents, the added risks of nuclear weapons proliferation, and the unsolved problems of nuclear waste storage. These are the considerations borne from experience that have dampened enthusiasm for nuclear energy in the United States, Sweden, and other technologically advanced countries. The nuclear power industry has painted a picture of the benefits of nuclear energy that has attracted substantial interest from developing countries, many in Asia — countries that are eager to light their cities with this high-tech solution that they believe will be cheap and environmentally benign. Beneath the surface of the glittering promises, there is some sense that dangers are lurking, but these are easily overlooked in the hope of a quick fix for economies badly in need of inexpensive energy sources.

    Need for New Thinking

    Einstein, who had at first encouraged Franklin Roosevelt to establish a U.S. government project to develop nuclear weapons, was utterly distraught by what had occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He warned, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Einstein’s reflection remains the central challenge of the Nuclear Age.

    What will it take to change our modes of thinking with regard to nuclearism? One source of encouragement is that nuclearism does not seem to be an ideology with widespread support among the people of the world. It appears to be largely concentrated among those who stand to profit from it, and their supporters in government.

    The nature of nuclearism has been revealed in starker terms in the aftermath of the Cold War. Despite the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the end of communism as a state ideology in Russia, the West has continued to rely upon nuclear arsenals and to pursue policies of maintaining these arsenals, although at lower levels than in the Cold War period. But these arsenals do not assure global security, and many experts have argued that the breakup of the former Soviet Union has created serious dangers of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of unstable national leaders or terrorists.

    In the West, nuclearism and militarism have forged a strong link. Most Western European countries have become partners of the United States, Britain, and France in relying upon nuclear weapons for security. Russia has also been reliant upon its nuclear arsenal, and recently has announced that it has adopted a first-use doctrine, similar to that of NATO countries, if it is threatened by attack.(10) Eastern European countries, that formerly fell under the Soviet nuclear umbrella, are now seeking to join NATO and place themselves under the NATO nuclear umbrella. NATO recently voted to admit Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.

    This proposed expansion of NATO has placed Russia on the defensive, and could have the result of stopping all progress in the reduction of nuclear armaments. The nationalistic Russian Duma may not ratify START II if NATO is expanded eastward closer to Russia’s borders. George Kennan, an elder statesman of United States foreign policy and former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, has referred to the expansion of NATO as “the most fateful error in U.S. policy in the entire post Cold War era.”(11)

    The linkage of nuclearism and militarism has had huge financial implications. The United States alone has spent some $4 trillion on its nuclear arsenal and its delivery and command and control systems since the early 1940s. The former Soviet Union is thought to have spent nearly a like amount, which ultimately was a key factor in its economic collapse and disintegration.

    Nuclearism in Asia Today

    There is some hope, albeit slim, that from the geographic East, from Asia, there will be leadership for an end to nuclearism. The Japanese people, as the most prominent victims of nuclearism, have always opposed nuclear weapons. Their government, however, has been content to rely upon the U.S. nuclear umbrella, and has also accumulated many tons of weapons-grade plutonium that could be fashioned into a sophisticated nuclear weapons arsenal. The Japanese government has also built up a substantial nuclear power industry to reduce Japan’s reliance on imported oil. The Chinese have always had a better position on nuclear disarmament than their Western counterparts. The Indians and the Pakistanis argued for a universal commitment to complete nuclear disarmament in connection with the drafting of a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, but they were rebuffed by the West.

    Can Asian nations resist the temptations to nuclearism? Are they already too Westernized? Or, is there some aspect of Asian culture that is capable of rejecting nuclearism and leading the world back from the insane policies that were pursued during the Cold War and that continue to be relied upon today? These questions are worth exploring throughout Asia. If they can awaken new possibilities to dull the gleaming but false promises of nuclearism, they may help reverse recent historical trends that have the world on a collision course with disaster. A review of nuclearism in major Asian nations follows.

    China

    The major nuclear weapons state in Asia is China, which is thought to have some 400 nuclear weapons, of which some 250 are thought to be strategic weapons.(12) The remaining 150 weapons are thought to be tactical weapons for battlefield use. Since China’s nuclear weapons program has been conducted in great secrecy, it is possible that the size of their arsenal is considerably larger. It remains a relatively small arsenal, however, by comparison with those of the United States and Russia, which are each thought to currently contain some 10,000 nuclear weapons.(13)

    China has always said that it would not be the first to use nuclear weapons. It is the only one of the declared nuclear weapons states to make this pledge. China has also repeatedly called for nuclear disarmament, and said that it would go to zero nuclear weapons if the other nuclear weapons states would do so as well. There is no reason to doubt that China is serious about these pledges as they would appear to be strongly in their interests given the size of the U.S. and Russian arsenals.

    China also appears intent upon expanding its nuclear energy program. Today it has three nuclear power plants, and has expressed intentions of expanding to 100 nuclear power plants by the middle of the next century.(14)

    Japan

    Japan relies upon the U.S. nuclear “umbrella” for its defense. The close relationship that has existed between the U.S. and Japan in the post World War II period has allowed the U.S. to adopt a very lenient posture toward the Japanese accumulation of weapons-grade plutonium. While Japan does not have nuclear weapons, it has the materials, technological capability, and facilities to produce them rapidly in large numbers. This capacity has been referred to as “virtual deterrence.”(15)

    The Japanese government has consistently expressed its three non-nuclear principles — that it will not manufacture, nor possess, nor allow the bringing in of nuclear weapons. In actual fact, however, the position of the government with regard to future Japanese possession of nuclear weapons seems to be more ambiguous than the position of the Japanese people, which is solidly opposed to Japan becoming a nuclear weapons state.

    In Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, the state renounces the right to make war:

    “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.

    “In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”(16)

    Despite this Constitutional provision, however, Japan now has the third largest military expenditures in the world, behind only the U.S. and Russia. Japan is now spending some $50 billion per year on its military.(17) It has a very highly trained and well equipped military force, which it calls its “Self-Defense Forces.”

    Japan also has the largest concentration of nuclear power reactors in Asia with 53 units. These reactors supply some 28 percent of Japan’s energy. Japanese officials are seeking to increase this amount to 42 percent by 2010 in an effort to reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil and gas.(18) The Japanese have been developing fast-breeder reactors, which produce more nuclear fuel than they consume. This has provided the rationale for the country to accumulate large amounts of plutonium that could also be used for weapons. The Japanese have developed reprocessing facilities that give them the capability to produce weapons-grade plutonium. They also have agreements with France for the French to reprocess their spent fuel and provide them with reprocessed plutonium.

    A series of accidents at nuclear power plants over the past few years, including one at the Monju fast-breeder reactor, have undermined confidence in nuclear power among the people of Japan. This confidence was also undermined by the Kobe earthquake, and the knowledge that Monju and other reactors were built on earthquake faults. The Japanese government has tried to allay fears about nuclear power with a cartoon character, “our little friend Pluto,” who tells children that plutonium is safe enough to drink.(19)

    There is a growing anti-nuclear movement in Japan directed against nuclear power plants. In August 1996 Japanese voters in Maki, about 200 miles from Tokyo, participated in the first referendum in Japan on building a nuclear power plant. The Maki voters overwhelmingly rejected the plant with 61 percent voting against it.(20)

    The Japanese people have always strongly opposed nuclear weapons. In the international community the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have remained powerful and eloquent spokespersons for the victims of the bombings in those cities.

    North Korea

    North Korea, like Japan, has reprocessing facilities to create weapons-grade plutonium. It also has indigenous uranium supplies. It is thought that North Korea may have developed 12 to 15 kilograms of separated weapons-grade plutonium, enough for one or two nuclear weapons. Concern over this possibility led to an agreement in December 1995 in which North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two 1000 megawatt light water nuclear reactors, to be financed by Japan and South Korea, and various other incentives.

    A top level defector from North Korea was recently quoted as saying that “North Korea could turn the capitalist South into a sea of flames and scorch Japan in a nuclear attack.”(21)

    South Korea

    South Korea has an active nuclear power program with ten reactors generating over 9000 megawatts of electricity. Forty percent of its electricity is provided from these plants. There are plans for an additional 15 reactors in the future.(22) South Korea has tried since the 1970s to acquire uranium enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing facilities which would give it the capability to develop nuclear weapons, but it has been forestalled in these efforts by the United States.

    For many years the U.S. is thought to have maintained tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea, but it is now believed that these weapons have been withdrawn. Of course, the continued U.S. military presence in South Korea creates the possibility that nuclear weapons could be used in a potential conflict with North Korea.

    Taiwan

    Taiwan, like South Korea, has an active nuclear power program, and has tried to acquire facilities for uranium enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing, but has not been successful in doing so. Also like South Korea, it has the technological competence to develop nuclear weapons if it obtained the materials to do so. Given its uneasy relationship with China, Taiwan would probably like to have a nuclear deterrent force against China’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

    Taiwan meets one-third of its energy needs by means of nuclear power. It has six nuclear power plants supplying some 5,000 megawatts of electricity.(23)

    India and Pakistan

    The Indian subcontinent presents one of the greatest dangers of nuclear war. Although both India and Pakistan deny it, they are both thought to have nuclear arsenals. India tested a nuclear device in 1974, and is thought to have a few dozen nuclear weapons. Pakistan has never tested a nuclear weapon, but is thought to possess a similar number or somewhat less than India. Both countries consider the other an enemy, and they have clashed many times over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

    India has ten nuclear power reactors generating less than 2000 megawatts of electricity, while Pakistan has only one nuclear power reactor generating 125 megawatts of electricity. In 1991 the two countries signed an agreement not to preemptively strike each other’s nuclear facilities.(24)

    Global Nuclearism

    Nuclearism in Asia is clearly embedded in global nuclearism. It cannot be separated out and treated for its symptoms without also treating the systemic disease of global nuclearism. It is certain that China will not give up its nuclear arsenal while the U.S. and Russia retain their arsenals. Nor will Japan give up its nuclear option while China retains its nuclear weapons. The same is true of India, and it is equally certain that Pakistan will not give up its nuclear weapons capability while India maintains its capability. It is fair to say that Asian nuclearism has been a reaction to the West. The United States demonstrated what may be viewed as the “usefulness” of nuclear weapons in warfare and its willingness to use these weapons. But it is a far different scenario to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear armed opponent that is already virtually defeated, as the U.S. did in Japan, than it is to use nuclear weapons against an opponent in possession of nuclear weapons or one that could quickly develop a nuclear weapons arsenal.

    It is becoming abundantly clear that nuclear weapons can serve only one reasonable purpose, and that is to deter another state from using nuclear weapons. Once one state has used nuclear weapons against a nuclear armed opponent or the ally of a nuclear armed opponent, retaliation is likely, and this would make any first use untenable. If the only purpose of nuclear weapons is deterrence, then it is clear that as long as any state has nuclear weapons other states will want to maintain theirs or acquire such weapons as a means of deterrence. Therefore, there are only two choices: proliferation and eventual use of nuclear weapons, or the elimination of all nuclear weapons. General Lee Butler, the former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, has found that a world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons.(25) How are we to proceed in this direction?

    Achieving a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    In 1994 the United Nations General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, for an advisory opinion on whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons was permitted under international law under any circumstances. Oral hearings on this question were held at the end of 1995. The three declared Western nuclear weapons states (U.S. UK, and France) and Russia all argued before the Court that the Court should decline to answer the question but, if it did choose to answer, it should find that under certain circumstances the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be legal. Some NATO allies of these nuclear weapons states supported their position. China chose not to participate in the hearings.

    Many non-aligned states argued before the Court that the threat or use of nuclear weapons should be considered illegal under all circumstances. They argued that international humanitarian law did not permit any use of nuclear weapons because such law prohibited the use of excessively injurious weapons (and surely nuclear weapons fit this category) and that nuclear weapons cannot distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. Nuclear weapons, in fact, have been targeted at civilian populations in policies known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

    After receiving written and oral testimony from states, the Court deliberated extensively, and released its opinion on July 8, 1996.(26) The Court found unanimously that the rules of international humanitarian law apply to any threat or use of nuclear weapons. They also found in a split vote, decided by the President of the Court, that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be illegal under the international law of armed conflict. The Court indicated that it was unable to determine one way or the other whether or not the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be allowed in an extreme case of self-defense in which the very survival of a state would be at stake. With regard to this point, the President of the Court, M. Bedjaoui stated in his separate declaration, “I cannot sufficiently emphasize the fact that the Court’s inability to go beyond this statement of the situation can in no manner be interpreted to mean that it is leaving the door ajar to recognition of the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.”(27) He also referred to nuclear weapons as the “ultimate evil.”(28)

    The Court also interpreted Article VI of the NPT to the effect that the nuclear weapons states are under an obligation to complete good faith negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. The Court stated: “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.”(29)

    Responding to the Court’s opinion, the United Nations General Assembly expressed its appreciation to the Court and called for the good faith negotiations to begin in 1997 for a Nuclear Weapons Convention to prohibit and eliminate all nuclear weapons.(30) (See Appendix A.)

    Thus far, the nuclear weapons states have ignored the Court and the United Nations General Assembly. But the pressure is building around the world to force the nuclear weapons states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. In December 1996, 58 generals and admirals from 17 nations released a statement calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. They stated: “We, military professionals, who have devoted our lives to the national security of our countries and our peoples, are convinced that the continued existence of nuclear weapons in the armories of nuclear powers, and the ever present threat of acquisition of these weapons by others, constitute a peril to global peace and security and to the safety and survival of the people we are dedicated to protect.”(31) The generals went on to urge that “long-term international nuclear policy must be based on the declared principle of continuous, complete and irrevocable elimination of nuclear weapons.”(32) (See Appendix B.)

    At the NPT Review and Extension Conference in 1995, representatives of citizen action groups from around the world gathered in New York to lobby the delegates for nuclear abolition. An Abolition Caucus was formed and drafted an important statement known as the Abolition 2000 Statement. (See Appendix C.) This statement calls for the nuclear weapons states to enter into a treaty by the year 2000 to eliminate nuclear weapons in a timebound framework. Based upon this statement an Abolition 2000 Global Network was formed that now has participation by over 700 citizen action groups around the world. It is a growing citizens movement advocating the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.(33)

    A Sunflower Story

    In June 1996 Ukraine, which had inherited nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union, transferred the last of its nuclear warheads to Russia for dismantlement. The defense ministers of Ukraine and Russia met with the Secretary of Defense of the United States at a former Ukrainian missile base which once housed 80 SS-19 missiles aimed at the United States. They celebrated the occasion by scattering sunflower seeds and planting sunflowers. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry said: “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would insure peace for future generations.”(34)

    The sunflower has become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. It is a simple symbol that powerfully suggests the difference between a flower that is bright and beautiful and whose seeds provide nutrition on the one hand, and a missile that is armed with nuclear warheads that can incinerate the inhabitants of entire cities on the other hand. There should be no doubt that the sunflower is the right choice. It represents life rather than death, and the sun’s abundant radiant energy that can be used to benefit rather than destroy humanity.

    Conclusion

    Momentum is building throughout the world for the abolition of nuclear weapons. It is necessary to counter the logic of death and destruction, the logic of the Cold War that ended many years ago, with a logic of hope for the future of humanity. If we are to give hope meaning in our time, we must seize the opportunity afforded by the end of the Cold War and move surely and rapidly to denuclearize our planet. Asia has an important role to play in this movement, which must be primarily a movement of people that will become so powerful that no government can stand in its way. Opposition to nuclearism provides an opportunity for humanity to unite around a common theme of assuring a future for our children and grandchildren. The time to act is now. There is far too much to do that is positive rather than to continue to spend our human, our scientific, and our financial resources on weapons of mass annihilation and nuclear power reactors that create radioactive poisons that will endanger the Earth for thousands of generations. Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have been enough of a lesson for the world to learn. There is no need to wait until more cities are added to this unfortunate list. East and West, North and South face the common problem of nuclear terror. We can end that terror once and for all if enough of us will stand up, speak out, and demand an end to nuclearism. It is time to reject both nuclear weapons and the dangerous technology of nuclear energy with which weapons production is so intimately intertwined.

    * Paper prepared for conference, “Human Security and Global Governance,” sponsored by the Toda Institute, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 5-8, 1997. The author would like to thank Lori Beckwith for her research assistance.

    ** David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He can be contacted at Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, PMB 121, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1, Santa Barbara, CA 93108-2794; Fax: 805 568 0466; Web Site: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com.

    ENDNOTES

    1. See, for example, President Truman’s personal journal, July 18, 1945. “Stalin had told P.M. [Prime Minister Churchill] of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in….”

    2. Wyden, Peter, Day One, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984, p. 289. Also quoted as “It is the greatest thing in history” in Udall, Stuart L., The Myths of August, New York: Pantheon Books, 1994, p. 23.

    3. For a good review of these myths, see: Udall, Stuart L., The Myths of August, New York: Pantheon Books, 1994.

    4. Speech given by Dwight Eisenhower to the United Nations General Assembly, December 8, 1953.

    5. Yaroshinskaya, Alla, Chernobyl, The Forbidden Truth, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. See also “Chernobyl spawns crisis in Belarus,” by Angela Charlton, The Honolulu Advertiser, March 26, 1996.

    6. United Nations General Assembly Resolution I (1), January 24, 1946.

    7. Mack, Andrew, Proliferation in Northeast Asia, Washington D.C.: Henry L. Stimson Center, Occasional Paper No. 28, July 1996, p. 6.

    8. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 729 UNTS 161.

    9. Mack, Andrew, Op. Cit., p. 2.

    10. “Russia Adopts ‘First Strike’ Nuclear Tactic,” Santa Barbara News Press, May 26, 1997.

    11. Kennan, George, “A Fateful Error, Expanding NATO Would Be a Rebuff to Russian Democracy,” New York Times, February 5, 1997.

    12. “British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Forces,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 1996, p. 64.

    13. Arkin, William M. and Robert S. Norris, “Nuclear Notebook,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 1997 and May/June 1997.

    14. Farley, Maggie, “Asia and the Atom: Willing and Wary.” Los Angeles Times, July 4, 1996.

    15. Mack, Andrew, Op. Cit., p. 17.

    16. Asai, Motofumi, “Japan at the Crossroads: ‘Redefinition’ of the U.S.-Japan Security System,” Pacific Research, May 1996, p. 11.

    17. Mann, Jim, “Clinton Second Term Resembles Ike Redux,” Los Angeles Times, May 21, 1997.

    18. Watanabe, Teresa, “In Historic Vote, Japanese Town Rejects Nuclear Plant,” Los Angeles Times, August 6, 1996.

    19. Farley, Maggie, Loc. Cit.

    20. Watanabe, Teresa, Loc. Cit.

    21. “Defector Suggests N. Korea Has Atom Arms, Paper Says,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 1997.

    22. Farley, Maggie, Loc. Cit.

    23. Pollack, Andrew, “Reactor Accident in Japan Imperils Energy Program.” New York Times, February 24, 1996.

    24. Kapur, Ashok, “Western Biases,” The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 1995.

    25. General Lee Butler speaking at the National Press Club, Washington D.C., December 4, 1996.

    26. “Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons,” United National General Assembly A/51/218, October 15, 1996.

    27. Ibid., 40.

    28. Ibid., 42.

    29. Ibid., 37.

    30. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 51/45 M, December 10, 1996.

    31. “Statement on Nuclear Weapons By International Generals and Admirals,” December 5, 1996.

    32. Ibid.

    33. For more information on Abolition 2000, contact the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at PMB 121, 1187 Coast Village Road, Suite 1, Santa Barbara, CA 93108-2794; (805)965-3443; e-mail: wagingpeace@napf.org. Information is also available on Worldwide Web at www.napf.org.

    34. “Sunflower Seeds Sown at Ukrainian Missile Site,” New York Times International, June 5, 1996.

     

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    Appendix A

    United Nations General Assembly Resolution 51/45M on Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons December 10, 1996

     

    Recalling its resolution 49/75 K of 15 December 1994, in which it requested the International Court of Justice to render an advisory opinion on whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons is permitted in any circumstances under international law,

    Mindful of the solemn obligations of States parties, undertaken in article VI of the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, particularly to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament,

    Recalling its resolution 50/70 P of 12 December 1995, in which it called upon the Conference on Disarmament to establish an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament to commence negotiations on a phased programme of nuclear disarmament and for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework,

    Recalling also the Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament adopted at the 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and in particular the objective of determined pursuit by the nuclear weapon states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons,

    Recognizing that the only defence against a nuclear catastrophe is the total elimination of nuclear weapons and the certainty that they will never be produced again, Desiring to achieve the objective of a legally binding prohibition of the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, threat or use of nuclear weapons and their destruction under effective international control,

    Reaffirming the commitment of the international community to the goal of the total elimination of nuclear weapons and welcoming every effort towards this end, Reaffirming the central role of the Conference on Disarmament as the single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum,

    Noting the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by the General Assembly in its resolution 50/245 of 10 September 1996,

    Regretting the absence of multilaterally negotiated and legally binding security assurances from the threat or use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states,

    Convinced that the continuing existence of nuclear weapons poses a threat to all humanity and that their use would have catastrophic consequences for all life on Earth.

    Expresses its appreciation to the International Court of Justice for responding to the request made by the General Assembly at its forty-ninth session;

    Takes note of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, issued on 8 July 1996 (A/51/218);

    Underlines the unanimous conclusion of the Court that “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”;

    Calls upon all States to fulfill that obligation immediately by commencing multilateral negotiations in 1997 leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination;

    Requests the Secretary-General to provide necessary assistance to support the implementation of the present resolution;

    Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-second session an item entitled “Follow-up to the Advisory Opinion on the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons.”

    Sponsors:

    Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belize, Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Lesotho, Libyan, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Samoa, San Marino, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, Uruguay, Viet Nam and Zimbabwe

     

    Appendix B

    Statement On Nuclear Weapons By International Generals And Admirals December 5, 1996

     

    We, military professionals, who have devoted our lives to the national security of our countries and our peoples, are convinced that the continuing existence of nuclear weapons in the armories of nuclear powers, and the ever present threat of acquisition of these weapons by others, constitute a peril to global peace and security and to the safety and survival of the people we are dedicated to protect.

    Through our variety of responsibilities and experiences with weapons and wars in the armed forces of many nations, we have acquired an intimate and perhaps unique knowledge of the present security and insecurity of our countries and peoples.

    We know that nuclear weapons, though never used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, represent a clear and present danger to the very existence of humanity. There was an immense risk of a superpower holocaust during the Cold War. At least once, civilization was on the very brink of catastrophic tragedy. That threat has now receded, but not forever-unless nuclear weapons are eliminated.

    The end of the Cold War created conditions favorable to nuclear disarmament. Termination of military confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States made it possible to reduce strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, and to eliminate intermediate range missiles. It was a significant milestone on the path to nuclear disarmament when Belarus, Kazakhastan and Ukraine relinquished their nuclear weapons.

    Indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995 and approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the U.N. General Assembly in 1996 are also important steps towards a nuclear-free world. We commend the work that has been done to achieve these results.

    Unfortunately, in spite of these positive steps, true nuclear disarmament has not been achieved. Treaties provide that only delivery systems, not nuclear warheads, will be destroyed. This permits the United States and Russia to keep their warheads in reserve storage, thus creating a “reversible nuclear potential.” However, in the post-Cold War security environment, the most commonly postulated nuclear threats are not susceptible to deterrence or are simply not credible. We believe, therefore, that business as usual is not an acceptable way for the world to proceed in nuclear matters.

    It is our deep conviction that the following is urgently needed and must be undertaken now:

    First, present and planned stockpiles of nuclear weapons are exceedingly large and should now be greatly cut back;

    Second, remaining nuclear weapons should be gradually and transparently taken off alert, and their readiness substantially reduced both in nuclear weapons states and in de facto nuclear weapons states;

    Third, long-term international nuclear policy must be based on the declared principle of continuous, complete and irrevocable elimination of nuclear weapons.

    The United States and Russia should-without any reduction in their military security-carry forward the reduction process already launched by START-they should cut down to 1000 to 1500 warheads each and possibly lower. The other three nuclear states and the three threshold states should be drawn into the reduction process as still deeper reductions are negotiated down to the level of hundreds. There is nothing incompatible between defense by individual countries of their territorial integrity and progress toward nuclear abolition.

    The exact circumstances and conditions that will make it possible to proceed, finally, to abolition cannot now be foreseen or prescribed. One obvious prerequisite would be a worldwide program or surveillance and inspection, including measures to account for and control inventories of nuclear weapons materials. This will ensure that no rogues or terrorists could undertake a surreptitious effort to acquire nuclear capacities without detection at an early stage. An agreed procedure for forcible international intervention and interruption of covert efforts in a certain and timely fashion is essential.

    The creation of nuclear-free zones in different parts of the world, confidence-building and transparency measures in the general field of defense, strict implementation of all treaties in the area of disarmament and arms control, and mutual assistance in the process of disarmament are also important in helping to bring about a nuclear- free world. The development of regional systems of collective security, including practical measures for cooperation, partnership, interaction and communication are essential for local stability and security.

    The extent to which the existence of nuclear weapons and fear of their use may have deterred war-in a world that in this year alone has seen 30 military conflicts raging-cannot be determined. It is clear, however, that nations now possessing nuclear weapons will not relinquish them until they are convinced that more reliable and less dangerous means of providing for their security are in place. It is also clear, as a consequence, that the nuclear powers will not now agree to a fixed timetable for the achievement of abolition.

    It is similarly clear that, among the nations not now possessing nuclear weapons, there are some that will not forever forswear their acquisition and deployment unless they, too, are provided means of security. Nor will they forego acquisition it the present nuclear powers seek to retain everlastingly their nuclear monopoly.

    Movement toward abolition must be a responsibility shared primarily by the declared nuclear weapons states- China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, by the de facto nuclear states, India, Israel and Pakistan; and by major non-nuclear powers such as Germany and Japan. All nations should move in concert toward the same goal.

    We have been presented with a challenge of the highest possible historic importance: the creation of a nuclear- weapons-free world. The end of the Cold War makes it possible.

    The dangers of proliferation, terrorism, and new nuclear arms race render it necessary. We must not fail to seize our opportunity. There is no alternative.

    Signed,

    CANADA Johnson, Major General V. (ret.) Commandant, National Defense College DENMARK Kristensen, Lt. General Gunnar (ret.) former Chief of Defense Staff FRANCE Sanguinetti, Admiral Antoine (ret.) former Chief of Staff, French Fleet GHANA Erskine, General Emmanuel (ret.) former Commander-in-Chief and former Chief of Staff, UNTSO (Middle East), Commander UMFI (Lebanon) GREECE Capellos, Lt. General Richard (ret.) former Corps Commander Konstantinides, Major General Kostas (ret.) former Chief of Staff, Army Signals INDIA Rikhye, Major General Indar Jit (ret.) former military advisor to UN Secretary-General Dag Hammerskjold and U Thant Surt, Air Marshal N. C. (ret.) JAPAN Sakoijo, Vice Admiral Naotoshi (ret.) Sr. Advisor, Research Institute for Peace and Security Shikata, Lt. General Toshiyuki (ret.) Sr. Advisor, Research Institute for Peace and Security JORDAN Ajelilat, Major General Sahfiq (ret.) Vice President Military Affairs, Muta University Shiyyab, Major General Mohammed K. (ret.) former Deputy Commander, Royal Jordanian Air Force NETHERLANDS van der Graaf, Henry J. (ret.) Director Centre Arms Control & Verification, Member, United National Advisory Board for Disarmament Matters NORWAY Breivik, Roy, Vice Admiral Roy (ret.) former Representative to NATO, Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic PAKISTAN Malik, Major General Ihusun ul Haq (ret.) Commandant Joint Services Committee PORTUGAL Gomes, Marshal Francisco da Costa (ret.) former Commander-in-Chief, Army; former President of Portugal RUSSIA Belous, General Vladimir (ret.) Department Chief, Dzerzhinsky Military Academy Garecy, Army General Makhmut (ret.) former Deputy Chief, USSR Armed Forces General Staff Gromov, General Boris, (ret.) Vice Chair, Duma International Affairs Committee, former Commander of 40th Soviet Army in Afghanistan, former Deputy Minister, Foreign Ministry, Russia Koltounov, Major General Victor (ret.) former Deputy Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Larinov, Major General Valentin (ret.) Professor, General Staff Academy Lebed, Major Alexander (ret.) former Secretary of the Security Council Lebedev, Major General Youri V. (ret.) former Deputy Chief Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Makarevsky, Major General Vadim (ret.) Deputy Chief, Komibyshev Engineering Academy Medvodov, Lt. General Vladimir (ret.) Chief, Center of Nuclear Threat Reduction Mikhailov, Colonel General Gregory (ret.) former Deputy Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Nozhin, Major General Eugeny (ret.) former Deputy Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Rokhilin, Lt. General Lev, (ret.) Chair, Duma Defense Committee, former Commander Russian 4th Army Corps Sleport, Lt. General Ivan (ret.) former Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Simonyan, Major General Rair (ret.) Head of Chair, General Staff Academy Surikov, General Boris T. (ret.) former Chief Specialist, Defense Ministry Teherov, Colonel General Nikolay (ret.) former Chief, Department of General Staff, USSR Armed Forces Vinogadov, Lt. General Michael S. (ret.) former Deputy Chief, Operational Strategic Center, USSR General Staff Zoubkov, Rear Admiral Radiy (ret.) Chief, Navigation, USSR Navy SRI LANKA Karumaratne, Major General Upali A. (ret.) Silva, Major General C.A.M.M. (ret.) USF, U.S.A. TANZANIA Lupogo, Major General H.C. (ret.) former Chief Inspector General, Tanzania Armed Forces UNITED KINGDOM Beach, General Sir Hugh (ret.) Member U.K. Security Commission Carver, Field Marshal Lord Michael (ret.) Commander-in-Chief of East British Army (1967-1969), Chief of General Staff (1971-1973), Chief of Defense Staff (1973-1976) Harbottle, Brigadier Michael (ret.) former Chief of Staff, UN Peacekeeping Force, Cyprus Mackie, Air Commodore Alistair (ret.) former Director, Air Staff Briefing UNITED STATES Becton, Lt. General Julius (USA) (ret.) Burns, Maj. General William F. (USA) (ret.) JCS Representative, INF Negotiations (1981-88), Special Envoy to Russia for Nuclear Dismantlement (1992-93) Carroll, Jr., Rear Admiral Eugene J. (USN) (ret.) Deputy Director, Center for Defense Information Cushman, Lt. General John H. (USA) (ret.) Commander, I Corps (ROK/US) Group (Korea) (1976-78) Galvin, General John R., Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (1987-1992) Gayler, Admiral Noel (USN) (ret.) former Commander, Pacific Horner, General Charles A. (USAF) (ret.) Commander, Coalition Air Forces, Desert Storm (1991) former Commander, U.S. Space Command James, Rear Admiral Robert G. (USNR) (ret.) Odom, General William E. (USA) (ret.) Director, National Security Studies, Hudson Institute Deputy Assistant and Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (1981-1985), Director, National Security Agency (1985-1988) O’Meara, General Andrew (USA) (ret.), former Commander, U.S. Army Europe Pursley, Lt. General Robert E. USAF (ret.) Read, Vice Admiral William L. (USN) (ret.) former Commander, U.S. Navy Surface Force, Atlantic Command Rogers, General Bernard W. (USA) (ret.) former Chief of Staff, U.S. Army; former NATO Supreme Allied Commander (1979-1987) Seignious, II, Lt. General George M. (USA) (ret.) former Director Army Control and Disarmament Agency Shanahan, Vice Admiral John J. (USN) (ret.) Director, Center for Defense Information Smith, General William Y. (USAF) (ret.) former Deputy Commander, U.S. Command, Europe Wilson, Vice Admiral James B. (USN) (ret.) former Polaris Submarine Captain

    Appendix C

    Abolition 2000 Statement April 25, 1995

    Statement of the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Abolition Caucus at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference

    A secure and livable world for our children and grandchildren and all future generations requires that we achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and redress the environmental degradation and human suffering that is the legacy of fifty years of nuclear weapons testing and production.

    Further, the inextricable link between the “peaceful” and warlike uses of nuclear technologies and the threat to future generations inherent in creation and use of long-lived radioactive materials must be recognized. We must move toward reliance on clean, safe, renewable forms of energy production that do not provide the materials for weapons of mass destruction and do not poison the environment for thousands of centuries. The true “inalienable” right is not to nuclear energy, but to life, liberty and security of person in a world free of nuclear weapons.

    We recognize that a nuclear weapons free world must be achieved carefully and in a step by step manner. We are convinced of its technological feasibility. Lack of political will, especially on the part of the nuclear weapons states, is the only true barrier. As chemical and biological weapons are prohibited, so must nuclear weapons be prohibited.

    We call upon all states(particularly the nuclear weapons states, declared and de facto(to take the following steps to achieve nuclear weapons abolition. We further urge the states parties to the NPT to demand binding commitments by the declared nuclear weapons states to implement these measures:

    1) Initiate immediately and conclude by the year 2000 negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a time- bound framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.*

    2) Immediately make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

    3) Rapidly complete a truly comprehensive test ban treaty with a zero threshold and with the stated purpose of precluding nuclear weapons development by all states.

    4) Cease to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems, and commence to withdraw and disable deployed nuclear weapons systems.

    5) Prohibit the military and commercial production and reprocessing of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

    6) Subject all weapons-usable radioactive materials and nuclear facilities in all states to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards, and establish a public international registry of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

    7) Prohibit nuclear weapons research, design, development, and testing through laboratory experiments including but not limited to non-nuclear hydrodynamic explosions and computer simulations, subject all nuclear weapons laboratories to international monitoring, and close all nuclear test sites.

    8) Create additional nuclear weapons free zones such as those established by the treaties of Tlatelolco and Raratonga.

    9) Recognize and declare the illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons, publicly and before the World Court.

    10) Establish an international energy agency to promote and support the development of sustainable and environmentally safe energy sources.

    11) Create mechanisms to ensure the participation of citizens and NGOs in planning and monitoring the process of nuclear weapons abolition.

    A world free of nuclear weapons is a shared aspiration of humanity. This goal cannot be achieved in a non- proliferation regime that authorizes the possession of nuclear weapons by a small group of states. Our common security requires the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Our objective is definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons.

    * The convention should mandate irreversible disarmament measures, including but not limited to the following: withdraw and disable all deployed nuclear weapons systems; disable and dismantle warheads; place warheads and weapon-usable radioactive materials under international safeguards; destroy ballistic missiles and other delivery systems. The convention could also incorporate the measures listed above which should be implemented independently without delay. When fully implemented, the convention would replace the NPT.

  • Hans Bethe’s Appeal to Scientists to Cease Work on Nuclear Weapons

    On the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Hans Bethe, a senior Manhattan Project scientist, issued the following statement.

    As the Director of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos, I participated at the most senior level in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic weapons.

    Now, at age 88, I am one of the few remaining such senior persons alive. Looking back at the half century since that time, I feel the most intense relief that these weapons have not been used since World War II, mixed with the horror that tens of thousands of such weapons have been built since that time – one hundred times more than any of us at Los Alamos could ever have imagined.

    Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.

    Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons – and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.

  • Resolution 715 (1991) on Iraq

    Adopted by the Security Council at its 3012th meeting

    The Security Council,

    Recalling its resolutions 687 (1991) of 3 April 1991 and 707 (1991) of 15 August 1991, and its other resolutions on this matter,

    Recalling in particular that under resolution 687 (1991) the Secretary-General and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were requested to develop plans for future ongoing monitoring and verification, and to submit them to the Security Council for approval,

    Taking note of the report and note of the Secretary-General (S/22871/Rev.1 and S/22872/Rev.1), transmitting the plans submitted by the Secretary-General and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency,

    Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations,

    1. Approves, in accordance with the provisions of resolutions 687 (1991), 707 (1991) and the present resolution, the plans submitted by the Secretary-General and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (S/22871/Rev.1 and S/22872/Rev.1);

    2. Decides that the Special Commission shall carry out the plan submitted by the Secretary-General (S/22871/Rev.1), as well as continuing to discharge its other responsibilities under resolutions 687 (1991), 699 (1991) and 707 (1991) and performing such other functions as are conferred upon it under the present resolution;

    3. Requests the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out, with the assistance and cooperation of the Special Commission, the plan submitted by him (S/22872/Rev.1) and to continue to discharge his other responsibilities under resolutions 687 (1991), 699 (1991) and 707 (1991);

    4. Decides that the Special Commission, in the exercise of its responsibilities as a subsidiary organ of the Security Council, shall:

    (a) Continue to have the responsibility for designating additional locations for inspection and overflights;

    (b) Continue to render assistance and cooperation to the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, by providing him by mutual agreement with the necessary special expertise and logistical, informational and other operational support for the carrying out of the plan submitted by him;

    (c) Perform such other functions, in cooperation in the nuclear field with the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as may be necessary to coordinate activities under the plans approved by the present resolution, including making use of commonly available services and information to the fullest extent possible, in order to achieve maximum efficiency and optimum use of resources;

    5. Demands that Iraq meet unconditionally all its obligations under the plans approved by the present resolution and cooperate fully with the Special Commission and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency in carrying out the plans;

    6. Decides to encourage the maximum assistance, in cash and in kind, from all Member States to support the Special Commission and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency in carrying out their activities under the plans approved by the present resolution, without prejudice to Iraq’s liability for the full costs of such activities;

    7. Requests the Committee established under resolution 661 (1990), the Special Commission and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop in cooperation a mechanism for monitoring any future sales or supplies by other countries to Iraq of items relevant to the implementation of section C of resolution 687 (1991) and other relevant resolutions, including the present resolution and the plans approved hereunder;

    8. Requests the Secretary-General and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to submit to the Security Council reports on the implementation of the plans approved by the present resolution, when requested by the Security Council and in any event at least every six months after the adoption of this resolution;

    9. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

  • Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)

    The States concluding this Treaty, hereinafter referred to as the Parties to the Treaty,

    Considering the devastation that would be visited upon all mankind by a nuclear war and the consequent need to make every effort to avert the danger of such a war and to take measures to safeguard the security of peoples,

    Believing that the proliferation of nuclear weapons would seriously enhance the danger of nuclear war,

    In conformity with resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly calling for the conclusion of an agreement on the prevention of wider dissemination of nuclear weapons,

    Undertaking to co-operate in facilitating the application of International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards on peaceful nuclear activities,

    Expressing their support for research, development and other efforts to further the application, within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards system, of the principle of safeguarding effectively the flow of source and special fissionable materials by use of instruments and other techniques at certain strategic points,

    Affirming the principle that the benefits of peaceful applications of nuclear technology, including any technological by-products which may be derived by nuclear-weapon States from the development of nuclear explosive devices, should be available for peaceful purposes to all Parties to the Treaty, whether nuclear-weapon or non-nuclear-weapon States,

    Convinced that, in furtherance of this principle, all Parties to the Treaty are entitled to participate in the fullest possible exchange of scientific information for, and to contribute alone or in co-operation with other States to, the further development of the applications of atomic energy for peaceful purposes,

    Declaring their intention to achieve at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race and to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament,

    Urging the co-operation of all States in the attainment of this objective,

    Recalling the determination expressed by the Parties to the 1963 Treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water in its Preamble to seek to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time and to continue negotiations to this end,

    Desiring to further the easing of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States in order to facilitate the cessation of the manufacture of nuclear weapons, the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles, and the elimination from national arsenals of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery pursuant to a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,

    Recalling that, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, States must refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations, and that the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security are to be promoted with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources,

    Have agreed as follows:

    Article I

    Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, or control over such weapons or explosive devices.

    Article II

    Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.

    Article III

    1. Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfilment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Procedures for the safeguards required by this Article shall be followed with respect to source or special fissionable material whether it is being produced, processed or used in any principal nuclear facility or is outside any such facility. The safeguards required by this Article shall be applied on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere.

    2. Each State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to provide: (a) source or special fissionable material, or (b) equipment or material especially designed or prepared for the processing, use or production of special fissionable material, to any non-nuclear-weapon State for peaceful purposes, unless the source or special fissionable material shall be subject to the safeguards required by this Article.

    3. The safeguards required by this Article shall be implemented in a manner designed to comply with Article IV of this Treaty, and to avoid hampering the economic or technological development of the Parties or international co-operation in the field of peaceful nuclear activities, including the international exchange of nuclear material and equipment for the processing, use or production of nuclear material for peaceful purposes in accordance with the provisions of this Article and the principle of safeguarding set forth in the Preamble of the Treaty.

    4. Non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty shall conclude agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet the requirements of this Article either individually or together with other States in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Negotiation of such agreements shall commence within 180 days from the original entry into force of this Treaty. For States depositing their instruments of ratification or accession after the 180-day period, negotiation of such agreements shall commence not later than the date of such deposit. Such agreements shall enter into force not later than eighteen months after the date of initiation of negotiations.

    Article IV

    1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

    2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.

    Article V

    Each Party to the Treaty undertakes to take appropriate measures to ensure that, in accordance with this Treaty, under appropriate international observation and through appropriate international procedures, potential benefits from any peaceful applications of nuclear explosions will be made available to non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty on a non-discriminatory basis and that the charge to such Parties for the explosive devices used will be as low as possible and exclude any charge for research and development. Non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty shall be able to obtain such benefits, pursuant to a special international agreement or agreements, through an appropriate international body with adequate representation of non-nuclear-weapon States. Negotiations on this subject shall commence as soon as possible after the Treaty enters into force. Non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty so desiring may also obtain such benefits pursuant to bilateral agreements.

    Article VI

    Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

    Article VII

    Nothing in this Treaty affects the right of any group of States to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories.

    Article VIII

    1. Any Party to the Treaty may propose amendments to this Treaty. The text of any proposed amendment shall be submitted to the Depositary Governments which shall circulate it to all Parties to the Treaty. Thereupon, if requested to do so by one-third or more of the Parties to the Treaty, the Depositary Governments shall convene a conference, to which they shall invite all the Parties to the Treaty, to consider such an amendment.

    2. Any amendment to this Treaty must be approved by a majority of the votes of all the Parties to the Treaty, including the votes of all nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty and all other Parties which, on the date the amendment is circulated, are members of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The amendment shall enter into force for each Party that deposits its instrument of ratification of the amendment upon the deposit of such instruments of ratification by a majority of all the Parties, including the instruments of ratification of all nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty and all other Parties which, on the date the amendment is circulated, are members of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Thereafter, it shall enter into force for any other Party upon the deposit of its instrument of ratification of the amendment.

    3. Five years after the entry into force of this Treaty, a conference of Parties to the Treaty shall be held in Geneva, Switzerland, in order to review the operation of this Treaty with a view to assuring that the purposes of the Preamble and the provisions of the Treaty are being realised. At intervals of five years thereafter, a majority of the Parties to the Treaty may obtain, by submitting a proposal to this effect to the Depositary Governments, the convening of further conferences with the same objective of reviewing the operation of the Treaty.

    Article IX

    1. This Treaty shall be open to all States for signature. Any State which does not sign the Treaty before its entry into force in accordance with paragraph 3 of this Article may accede to it at any time.

    2. This Treaty shall be subject to ratification by signatory States. Instruments of ratification and instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America, which are hereby designated the Depositary Governments.

    3. This Treaty shall enter into force after its ratification by the States, the Governments of which are designated Depositaries of the Treaty, and forty other States signatory to this Treaty and the deposit of their instruments of ratification. For the purposes of this Treaty, a nuclear-weapon State is one which has manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to 1 January 1967.

    4. For States whose instruments of ratification or accession are deposited subsequent to the entry into force of this Treaty, it shall enter into force on the date of the deposit of their instruments of ratification or accession.

    5. The Depositary Governments shall promptly inform all signatory and acceding States of the date of each signature, the date of deposit of each instrument of ratification or of accession, the date of the entry into force of this Treaty, and the date of receipt of any requests for convening a conference or other notices.

    6. This Treaty shall be registered by the Depositary Governments pursuant to Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations.

    Article X

    1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country. It shall give notice of such withdrawal to all other Parties to the Treaty and to the United Nations Security Council three months in advance. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events it regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.

    2. Twenty-five years after the entry into force of the Treaty, a conference shall be convened to decide whether the Treaty shall continue in force indefinitely, or shall be extended for an additional fixed period or periods. This decision shall be taken by a majority of the Parties to the Treaty.1

    Article XI

    This Treaty, the English, Russian, French, Spanish and Chinese texts of which are equally authentic, shall be deposited in the archives of the Depositary Governments. Duly certified copies of this Treaty shall be transmitted by the Depositary Governments to the Governments of the signatory and acceding States.

    IN WITNESS WHEREOF the undersigned, duly authorized, have signed this Treaty.

    DONE in triplicate, at the cities of London, Moscow and Washington, the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight.

    Note:
    On 11 May 1995, in accordance with article X, paragraph 2, the Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons decided that the Treaty should continue in force indefinitely (see decision 3).