Category: Nuclear Abolition

This is the transcript of a talk given by Jennifer Simons at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s symposium “The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero: Changing the Discourse” on October 25, 2016. The audio of this talk is available here. For more information about the symposium, click here.

  

I am deeply appreciative of the invitation to participate in this Conference, and to speak on Promising Initiatives for Changing the Discourse.  I want to thank you, David, for the opportunity, and commend you and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for your commitment, your Foundation’s stability, its unflagging energy – staying the course since 1982 – in order to advance the agenda for a nuclear free world.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, I imagine, like The Simons Foundation, was an initiative in response to the immense growth of the US nuclear arsenals in the 1980’s – a concrete expression of outrage and an urgent desire to do something about it.

The numbers are now down from the obscene number in the 1980s of some seventy thousand, to approximately fifteen thousand, three hundred and fifty.   Yet, not only has the pace of elimination significantly lessened, the nuclear weapons states, disregarding their commitments to disarm, are upgrading their arsenals and infrastructure and planning for their indefinite retention.

The danger, therefore, to humanity still exists.  In fact the current dangers are considered to be greater than during the Cold War. [1]

Our task remains as urgent – or is, perhaps, more urgent than in the 1980s when the Cold War provided some stability. [2]

Russia has, not only been flaunting its nuclear capability, but is now breaking the former sacrosanct separation between nuclear and conventional warring.   In retaliation to the global outrage about Russia’s aerial bombardment of Aleppo, Russia has moved its nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to Kalingrad, and as well, has withdrawn from three bi-lateral nuclear disarmament treaties between the US and Russia.

With the end of the Cold War, hopes for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons were high and at the turn of the century these high expectations remained.  Promising initiatives, like the New Agenda Coalition, pressured the Nuclear Weapons States to fulfil their legal obligation to disarm; and were successful at the 2000 NPT Review Conference with the achievement of commitments, in Article VI, of thirteen steps to disarmament.

These hopes were dashed by the failure of the 2005 Conference, yet rose again in 2010 when crucial language  – the “catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons” – was accepted as part of the 2010 NPT Review Conference document. [3]   This changed the discourse and set the stage for, what seemed to be, the most promising initiative for achieving the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

This new language in the 2010 NPT gave fresh life to the issue; and provided a new dimension for action and led to the three global conferences in Oslo, Nayarit and Vienna on the Humanitarian Consequences of Nuclear Weapons.

This, in turn, led to the  UN Resolutions   in 2012  and 2015 [4]  to convene  Open-Ended Working Groups.[5][6]

The outcome of these conferences was that, on September 28^th, a group of participating states introduced a draft UN General Assembly Resolution calling for the convening, in 2017, of a two-day UN conference to “negotiate a legally-binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading toward their total elimination.”

While on the one hand this is the most momentous event since the Reykjavik Summit at which Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev – to the horror of their military bureaucracies – agreed to eliminate all their nuclear weapons. [7]  On the other hand, like Reykjavik, it will not lead to a nuclear-weapon-free world because there would be no regulations for elimination of nuclear weapons, and the critical elements of their irreversible, verifiable and transparent destruction would be left for future negotiations.

It does, however, hold some promise.  As John Burroughs has pointed out “a prohibition treaty would have the beneficial effect of erecting a further barrier to the spread of nuclear weapons.”   It could “strengthen non-proliferation obligations. It could perhaps “prohibit the development of nuclear weapons” or “prohibit the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium.” If nothing else, it would reinforce the norm against nuclear weapons use.[8]

The glaring weakness of this ban treaty initiative is that the nuclear weapons states have, not only refused to participate in the process, but, in fact, have outright rejected it.   These are the states with the weapons.  And it is only through their agreement that they will rid themselves of their arsenals and sign a treaty eliminating and prohibiting nuclear weapons.

Nuclear disarmament cannot – and will not – move forward without the participation of the states with the weapons.    It is essential, therefore, to close the gap, to change the discourse – to seek appropriate engagement rather than to attack  – so that this engagement with the nuclear weapons states encourages them to get on with the process of eliminating their arsenals, and within a time-bound framework.

I do not agree with – or in any way  – support the nuclear weapons states non-compliance with their NPT commitment and their disregard of the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion.

Although he has not been successful, I do support President Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and his efforts to accomplish this.  He said “we cannot succeed in this endeavour alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.”  And this is what he has attempted to do – to work with Russia on bi-lateral cuts to their arsenals as the first step forward, paving the way to multilateral negotiations which will lead to a nuclear weapon free world.

For this reason it is my view that Global Zero is the most promising initiative because it does change the discourse.  Its mission is to centre on, and to work with, the nuclear weapons states.  Global Zero has developed a foundational plan – a practical time-bound, phased, step-by-step process to zero; and formulates policies, strategies and recommendations for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.  Global Zero engages with governments, both nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapons states to advocate for these measures.

The organization, launched in Paris in 2008, is a nonpartisan, international community of three hundred influential political, military, business, civic and faith leaders backed by some half a million citizens worldwide; and  the organization continues to build “a truly global disarmament movement  from the grassroots to the highest levels of government, firmly rooted  in critical nuclear weapons regions.

Global Zero has met with extraordinary success.  The organization has attracted much attention from the global media which brought the nuclear disarmament issue, not only to the attention of the public again, but also to governments, their parliaments and Congresses. And some fifty international and national non-governmental organizations have supported and promoted Global Zero and its initiatives in various ways since its inception. [9]

Its greatest success to date has been its interaction and positive reception in direct dialogue with governments at the highest level, with Global Zero leaders meeting in Foreign Affairs and State Departments, “advancing policies and political strategies” for the reduction of their nuclear arsenals “and to eventually engage in multi-lateral negotiations for elimination and prohibition.” [10]

Global Zero’s foundational document is its Action Plan – a practical four-phase blueprint of concrete steps, which includes a negotiated and signed legally binding international agreement for verified dismantlement of all nuclear arsenals and the elimination of all nuclear weapons by 2030.   This plan is compatible with Point 1 of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s Five-Point plan for nuclear disarmament. [11]

Global Zero has an on-going wealth of Commission Reports delineating essential interim steps, based on the Action Plan, in order to further its goal of a nuclear weapons free world.

The Global Zero Commission members are drawn from former senior, influential, knowledgeable leaders from the political and military realms in key countries; and undertake in depth research, analysis and recommendations which they present in “high-level outreach and direct dialogue with governments.”

The Commission issued a report at the Munich Security Conference in 2012 on NATO-Russian Tactical Nukes calling for the United States and Russia to remove all of their tactical nuclear weapons from combat bases on the European continent.

Another, in 2012, was the Global Zero U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission Report – Modernizing U.S. Nuclear Strategy, Force Structure and Posture.  The Report called for the U.S. and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 900 weapons each.  This would pave the way to bring other nuclear weapons countries into the multilateral nuclear arms negotiations.

In July of that year, Global Zero was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate regarding the report and the implications of its recommendations for the defence budget.  These recommendations included de-alerting, increased warning and decision time in the command and control systems, eliminating all tactical nuclear weapons and reducing the US arsenal from a triad to a dyad, by eliminating the silo-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

Global Zero briefed senior Russian officials on this Report at a conference in Moscow, and at meetings with Senior Russian Foreign Affairs officials.

The Report was endorsed by The New York Times and the recommendations reverberated across the U.S.  – some of which were seized upon by NGOs for their furtherance.  For example, Ploughshares Fund offered grants to NGOs to undertake – under the Ploughshares umbrella – a project to eliminate the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

In 2014, Global Zero formed a Nuclear Risk Reduction Commission.  In October of that year at the UN, in a First Committee Side Event, Co-Founder, Bruce Blair previewed the Commission’s risk analysis and other findings.  And in 2015, at the NPT Review Conference, the Commission Report was released recommending a number of US-Russia bi-lateral steps to reduce risks, including de-alerting, and multi-lateral steps to stabilize the world’s Nuclear Force Postures. The Report was well-received, with one government committing to take the recommendations forward in a predominantly government – or Track One-and-a-half –meeting.[12]

The Risk Reduction Commission Report also fed into the Humanitarian Consequences Conferences and the UN-mandated Open-Ended Working Groups; and its “authoritative validators” of risks provided a critical foundation for the Open Ended Working Groups’ Reports.

There is no doubt that Global Zero is a major influence on the nuclear disarmament agenda.  It is unfortunate that Russia has declined, at the moment, to engage in further bilateral cuts to its arsenals.  President Putin ignored the 2013 offer made by President Obama to cut to a thousand weapons each, and the process is currently stalled.

The Global Zero Action Plan timetable will not be far off schedule, however, if Russia changes course and re-engages within a few years.   This is not unlikely! Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Vitaly Churkin, in a recent interview said the “current situation is unlike the Cold War in that Russian and American diplomats today speak regularly and manage to accomplish things they can agree upon,” and stressed that he would like to “get back to normal in our relations.” [13]

According to Russia’s Global Zero Leaders and Commission members, this sentiment is echoed in Russia; and Global Zero is poised  – with the lines of communication and engagement open – ready to move forward at the first signs of détente.

The resumption of bi-lateral cuts will depend, also, on the outcome of the US election, both in the White House and the Congress.  President Obama’s offer of bilateral cuts to one thousand (1,000) still stands and Hillary Clinton has committed to this proposal. It is to be hoped, if she becomes President, that she will honour this commitment.

The final Presidential Debate demonstrated that the nuclear issue is on her mind because, in her critique of her opponent’s inability to handle the so-called “nuclear button,” she cited the Global Zero-initiated letter signed by ten nuclear launch officers.

And if the Democrats form a majority in the Senate, the possibilities are high for not only a resumption of bi-lateral cuts, but too, for positive change in United States Nuclear policy.   Russia’s participation in the process though, will depend on the United States taking into account some of its concerns – missile defense for one, for example.

During this current period of tense relations between Russia and United States, Global Zero continues to formulate and promote essential steps in the process: for example, the promotion of No First Use as a global norm which, without the risk of a first strike, would provide confidence that no state is under attack and, as Bruce Blair says, would undermine Deterrence Policy.

No First Use would also have “huge implications for the U.S. Nuclear program”.  It would “reduce the risks of accidental or unauthorized use, eliminate launch of warning, and thus rationalize de-alerting.  It would also “provide the rationale for the elimination of tactical nuclear weapons and the land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missile force, and save the United States about 100 billion dollars.[14]

An important component of Global Zero is its campaign – its online social media program and its on-ground grassroots campaign in US, which is currently taking advantage of the US election gatherings; and also its global Annual Bike around the Bomb program and its international Action Corps.   This awareness-raising, however, is not delivering enough of a critical mass to prompt leaders in the Nuclear Weapons States to action.

The most difficult issue with which we nuclear disarmers grapple is how to bring to the streets the numbers, protesting nuclear weapons, which we saw – and many of us were part of – in the 1980s:  the five million in Europe, the one million in New York and the huge marches elsewhere around the globe, which caused Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev to want to do something about it:  And the earlier march in New York against nuclear testing which caused President Kennedy to act.  This is a question that troubles me.

How can we awaken the public to the dangers of which they do not seem to be aware?  How can we encourage millions of people – people enough so that their representatives in democratic parliaments and congresses will do something about it?  Governments are not convinced by moral arguments, by invoking the devastating consequences to humanity.  So unless there is a huge groundswell of public opinion, nothing will change.

It is disappointing that the International Court Justice and the U.S. Court declined jurisdiction for the Marshall Islands suit – though I understand that it is still alive and before the U.S. Court of Appeal. The initiative held some promise for change, gained the attention of the media and raised the issue in the public domain, so I do hope the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Nuclear Zero campaign on the Marshall Islands intends to continue; and turn its focus to an educational campaign on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonations, centered on schools, universities, parent-teacher associations, community centers and places of worship.

Who wants to suffer the fate of the Marshall Islanders – to live with the horror, and horrific effects, of nuclear destruction and it radioactive fallout?  Who wants to die from the myriad of fatal cancers?  What person, what parent or grandparent, wants to be the parents or grandparents of “monster babies” – of entities looking like bunches of grapes, or babies like jellyfish with no bones and transparent, so their brains and beating hearts are visible for the few days before they die?

The United States was responsible for this! Presented to the public as a personal perspective and from the perspective of moral responsibility, it could be an effective motivator in the United States.

It is past time to wake up America to those sixty-seven nuclear bomb tests on the Marshall Islands. The focus of the consequences of nuclear weapons use is, and has been, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Not enough attention has been paid to the victims of nuclear tests.  [15]

The Marshall Island tests were a crime against humanity of a magnitude far greater than the crimes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When the United States tested on the Marshall Islands the devastating consequences to human beings of nuclear detonations were known.  The US government, the Pentagon, the US scientists, the medical researchers sent to Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the blasts, knew about the incineration, the deaths, the consequences of fallout, radiation sickness, the maiming, the bleeding, and the fatal cancers.

But it is not just about tests, or nuclear war – both are currently unlikely – it is about the risks and dangers that come with possession: it is about the eighteen hundred nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert and targeted for immediate launch; the accidental, malicious or mistaken launch, nuclear accidents; the inadequate command/control and warning systems; and hackers penetrating these systems which are highly automated.  It is about inadequate security of fissile materials and warheads, both of which terrorists have been attempting to acquire.

I am in full agreement with the Conference title, The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero: Changing the Discourse, but there is no fast track.  The catalyst for a fast track, however, could be an accidental, malicious or unauthorized detonation of a nuclear weapon in the United States.  This would be so devastating that we do not want this, and this is what we are attempting to prevent.

Therefore every initiative that brings attention to the issue and raises awareness of the danger holds promise and is important.  It is slow, steady, dedicated work and we must continue to seek appropriate avenues for chances of success in weaning the nuclear weapons states from these inhumane weapons.

---

Endnotes

[1] 1, 800 nuclear weapons of these weapons on hair-trigger alert and targeted for immediate launch.  There is no guarantee that India and Pakistan will not engage in a war and, as well, Pakistan’s command and control systems are not considered secure.  The risks are high from accidental, malicious or mistaken launch; from inadequate command/control and warning systems; and of hackers penetrating these systems which are highly automated.  There is also the possibility of hackers “spoofing an attack which would set off an automated retaliatory response. We are at risk because of inadequate security of fissile materials and warheads, both of which terrorists have been attempting to acquire.

[2] Earlier this month, German Foreign Minister, Frank Walter Steinmeier, spoke of his dismay at “the collapsing relations between the West and Russia” and said that it is “a fallacy to think that this is like the Cold War.  The current times are different and more dangerous.”  Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, believes that there is “considerable danger of a military confrontation between Russia and the West.” ^[2]   Mikhail Gorbechev echoed these concerns several days later.

[3] The 2010 Review Conference of the NPT gave specific focus – inter alia – to this issue in its consensual conclusions and recommendations for follow-on actions (2010 Action Plan) by expressing “its deep concern at the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons […] reaffirm(ing) the need for all States at all times to comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law”. Moreover, the 2010 NPT Review Conference resolved in Action 1 of the 2010 Action Plan that “All States parties commit to pursue policies that are fully compatible with the Treaty and the objective of achieving a world without nuclear weapons.”

[4] 2012 (67/56) and 2015 (L.13.Rev)

[5] The first “to develop proposals to take forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations for the achievement and maintenance of a world without nuclear weapons”; and the second,   “to address concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions, and norms that will need to be concluded to attain and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.”

[7] October 1986

[8], Changing the Landscape: The U.N. Open-Ended Working Group on Nuclear Disarmament, John Burroughs, The Simons Foundation Fellow, The Simons Foundation Briefing Paper, September 2016, www.thesimonsfoundation.ca.  My emphasis.

[9] While Global Zero has not yet become a household word, it has come to refer –  not just to the organization, – but as well, to become the signifier of a nuclear- weapon-free world in the same way that Brexit is universally known as the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union.

[10] Matt Brown email letter September 8, 2016

[11] Phases 1 and 2 of the Action Plan call for bilateral action on the part of the US and Russia – to agree to each reduce their arsenals to 1,000 by 2018 and to further reductions to 500 warheads each by 2021.  The U.S. and Russia would ratify a bi-lateral accord and require the other nuclear weapons states to commit to a cap on their existing stockpiles and to participate in multilateral negotiations for proportionate reductions of their stockpiles following the Russian and US reductions to 500 each until 2021. The Action Plan requires “a rigorous and comprehensive verification and enforcement system is implemented, including no-notice, on-site inspections, and strengthened safeguards on the civilian nuclear fuel cycle to prevent diversion of materials to build weapons.”

Phase 3 of Action Plan requires all “the world’s nuclear-capable countries negotiate and sign a Global Zero Accord: a legally binding international agreement for the phased, verified, proportionate reduction of all nuclear arsenals to zero total warheads by 2030. [compatible with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s 5-point plan for nuclear disarmament]

And Phase 4 “The phased, verified, proportionate dismantlement of all nuclear arsenals to zero total warheads is complete by 2030. The comprehensive verification and enforcement system prohibiting the development and possession of nuclear weapons is in place to ensure that the world is never again threatened by nuclear weapons.”

[12] 2015 the Global Zero Commission on Nuclear Risk Reduction — led by former U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James E. Cartwright and comprised of international military experts — issued a bold call for ending the Cold War-era practice of keeping nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.

The Commission’s extensive report calls for (1) an urgent agreement between the United States and Russia to immediately eliminate “launch-on-warning” from their operational strategy, and to initiate a phased stand down of their high-alert strategic forces, beginning with taking 20% of both countries’ nuclear forces off launch-ready alert within one year and 100% within 10 years; and (2) a longer-term global agreement requiring all nuclear weapons countries to refrain from putting nuclear weapons on high alert

[13] A Senior Envoy’s take on Relations with the United States: ‘Pretty Bad’, NY Times, October 18^th, 2016

[14] James E. Cartwright and Bruce G. Blair, “End the First-Use Policy for Nuclear Weapons,” The New York Times, 15/08/2016Bruce Blair letter (email) September 13, 2016

[15] Since 1954, the people of the Marshall Islands have engaged in “a lifelong battle for their health and a safe environment.”  The radioactive fallout destroyed the lives of many – with deaths from leukaemia, brain tumours, thyroid and other forms of fatal cancers.  Their food sources were destroyed – staple crops, like arrowroot, disappeared completely; the fish were radio-active and instantly caused blisters, terrible stomach problems and nausea.

The radioactive fallout from the nuclear testing has affected the health of three generations so far – and has definitely jeopardized the lives of future generations.  The consequences have been the inability to reproduce and the birth of severely deformed babies – entities – because in many cases they do not resemble human forms.  There were no words in the Islanders’ language to describe these “monster” babies – some with two heads – so they described them as “octopuses,” “apples,” “turtles” and “jellyfish babies” who lived for a day or two – with no bones and transparent – their brains and beating hearts visible

This is the transcript of a talk given by Elaine Scarry at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s symposium “The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero: Changing the Discourse” on October 25, 2016. The audio of this talk is available here. For more information about the symposium, click here.

Well, like all of you, I’m exhilarated and honored to be here. And my own emphasis is on the fact that key features of democracy are absolutely incompatible with nuclear weapons. The result of that is that during the nuclear age, these key features of democracy have simply been allowed to atrophy. In fact, they’ve come to seem ridiculous. But the good news is that were we to bring those key features of democracy back, we would be able to eliminate nuclear weapons, because they are mutually exclusive. And if you’re going to have these back in place, you can’t have the nuclear weapons.

So, we know that nuclear weapons cause profound injury to every living creature on earth and to the surface of the earth itself. As we heard yesterday, the new research on nuclear winter shows that if a tiny fraction of the current arsenal, not 1% but one one-hundredth of 1% is used, 44 million people will die on the first afternoon and 1 billion people will die in the first month. But in addition to that incredible physical injury, there is also, even before the weapons are used, a profound civic injury. Nuclear weapons have eliminated the right of self-defense. The right of self-defense isn’t just one right among many rights. It’s the right that underlies our constitution of any government, and it’s a right underlying many of our other rights.

For example, the right of free speech gives us many things. But one thing that it does is enhance our ability to defend ourselves. Nuclear weapons, of course, do not allow anybody in this country or any other country, with the possible exception of Switzerland that has an elaborate shelter system, to defend itself in any way. The second thing that we’ve really lost is the right of mutual aid. Any study of cities, even, for example, a recent study by Suzy Schneider and her colleague in the Netherlands showing what would happen if Rotterdam were hit with a Hiroshima-size bomb. It shows that the number of injuries is much greater than anyone can repair.

For example, they would expect 10,000 severe burn injuries just among survivors, and the Netherlands only has 100 burn beds. I first thought that was shockingly low. Mass General, which is a major hospital in Boston, has seven burn beds. So, there’s no resources for dealing with any kind of use of a nuclear weapon. As the Red Cross has said, “If even one city is hit, their worldwide resources can’t deal with it.” And the loss of mutual aid, I mean, that’s our… The texture, that’s the fabric of our relations with one another, knowing we could help one another, and that is gone.

As we know, the huge architecture, which is a genocidal architecture, it has no other purpose but this act of massacre, 90% of it, over 90% has been put in place by Russia and the United States. This is a chart made by a committee in Nagasaki. All the icons from the black-out on your left are Russia; all the icons on the black-out on your right are the United States. And as the legend tells you, you have to take each icon and multiply it by five, because there was no way of representing the actual numerical catastrophe that is there. And of course, this is the bulletin clock at the center of their graph, showing that it’s three minutes to midnight.

Now, the purpose of international law and national law is, of course, to prevent such injuries. But if people have lost the right of self defense, they’ve also lost the voice to make themselves heard. And just a quick reminder of that is the 1995 International Court of Justice case, in which 78 countries asked that nuclear weapons be declared illegal. And that included Islamic countries such as Qatar, and it included countries that didn’t yet have nuclear weapons, such as North Korea and India, both of whom said, “If you don’t declare them illegal, we have to get them.” And those countries called on all kinds of international protocols.

In our own country, in a joint statement of the Department of Defense and Department of State, as you probably know, argued that having nuclear weapons, threatening to use nuclear weapons, using nuclear weapons, and using nuclear weapons first does not violate the Geneva protocols, St. Petersburg, the Hague Conventions, the conventions against genocide. Yes, millions of people will die, but the intention, they argued, would not be to eliminate a religious or an ethnic group. It did not violate the conventions on ozone layer and the environment, etcetera, etcetera.

So, the laws are in place to address the fact that we as human beings, as public health physicians, have pointed out, are pretty good at narrative compassion. But we have a hard time with statistical compassion. It’s hard for us to understand numbers like billions and millions. International law and national law solves the problem of statistical compassion by saying, “It doesn’t matter whether you can empathize with these people or not. There’s certain injuries you’re not allowed to do. It doesn’t matter whether you can picture North Koreans or have any understanding of who they are. There’s certain things you’re not allowed to do.”

So, my own emphasis is on the national laws, which can be used hand-in-hand with the international laws and the other kinds of accords going on. And that’s in the book, ‘Thermonuclear Monarchy’. And essentially, it’s showing that the key provisions of our own constitution and of constitutions as they were understood in ‘Social Contract Theory’ by Hobbes and Locke, and even before that. Many centuries of thinking about contract are made primarily to be impediments on the act of going to war. Yes, constitutions have many phrases and many provisions, but the two key provisions in our own Constitution and in other constitutions are two brakes on going to war. The first one is the requirement for a Congressional declaration of war, and since the invention of nuclear weapons, we haven’t had a single Congressional declaration of war. Not in Korea, not in Vietnam, not in all our invasions of Panama, Haiti, former Yugoslavia, etcetera, and that’s not a coincidence.

If presidents know that, as Nixon said, “I can go into the next room, pick up a phone, and in 25 minutes 70 million people will be dead.” If presidents know they have that power, it can seem to them preposterous that merely to invade another country they have to go to Congress. As the elder George Bush said, “In order to kick Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, I didn’t have to go to Congress and get some old goat’s permission.” That was a quotation from him.

Now, if you actually look at the… And the other provision that’s been made a mockery of in the nuclear age is the Second Amendment, which I hope I’ll get time to talk about, but I’m gonna be concentrating on Congress. If you look at the quality of deliberations in the five cases where the United States has had a declaration of war, which is the War of 1812, the War of 1846, the Mexican-American War, the 1898 Spanish-American War, and World War I and World War II, and contrast the quality of deliberation, which is extremely high, the quality of deliberation with the utter lack of deliberation in presidential decisions about going to war, you see why in addition to simply being law-abiding and being constitutional, it’s crucial that this provision be brought back. And we think of the Cuban Missile Crisis as a time when we came closest to nuclear war, but we know that in 1954 Eisenhower seriously considered using atomic weapons in the Taiwan Straits Crisis. He did so again in 1959 in Berlin. We know that JFK three times, according to Robert McNamara, came within a hair breath of all-out nuclear war. So not once, but three times.

We know that LBJ, that Lyndon Johnson considered using nuclear weapons against China to prevent China from getting a nuclear weapon. And Nixon has said that he considered using them four times. Now, what does considering mean? Does it mean a flash going through like a marquee that just goes and disappears? No. It means something much more serious than that. In Nixon’s case, the written record suggests that he sent 18 B-52s loaded with nuclear weapons over Russia towards Vietnam in a faint, but a very dangerous kind of bluff. There is much to say about the contrast between the quality of Congressional deliberations and the quality of presidential deliberations, starting with the fact that when Congress deliberates, it’s open to the public. When the president deliberates, we find out 30 years later. That’s why in the list enumeration I just gave you of presidential contemplation of nuclear weapons, I had to stop at Nixon, because we’re only going to get… There’s this big time lag. But I’m just going to concentrate on one because of the shortage of time.

The lack of dissent in any kind of presidential deliberation and the elaborate dissent in testing that goes on in Congress. Members of Congress consider themselves equal to one another. They are equal to one another. Therefore, they try to test each others’ arguments. Maybe they don’t always have great motives, maybe they’re just showing off. That’s fine. Whatever motive they have for coming up with an alternative explanation to test the reality of the proposition that that country over there did something so bad that we’re now going to go to war against them. There is no equivalent dissent in the presidential deliberations. I read through the papers of both the Taiwan Straits Crisis and the 1959 Berlin Crisis. Here’s the closest thing there was to an act of dissent in the first of those two deliberations, and I’m using the word ‘deliberation’, I should be using a different word. Because it’s not deliberation, for the simple fact that it’s a hierarchical structure, and hierarchical structures can be good for doing some things, like commanding an army once the war is underway. It’s not a good structure for determining whether you’re going to go to war.

The closest thing to an act of deliberation is Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey says, “I just want to ask a question. Are we going to have a hard time explaining to the American people why islands with names they don’t know like Quemoy and Matsu were so important that we dropped an atomic bomb?” Eisenhower immediately scolds him. “A mere look at the maps on the wall will convince you of the strategic importance of these islands, and of dissent.” Secretary Humphrey doesn’t say, “Yeah, but you said something simpler two weeks ago,” which Eisenhower had. Nobody else says, “I had kind of the same question,” and so forth. Now, if we fast forward to 1959, Eisenhower, I should say, in the ’54 Taiwan Straits Crisis, believed he would be impeached if he used an atomic weapon. He says repeatedly, “Because I would be going over the Congress without their consent, I could be impeached, but I’m willing to be impeached if I need to do it.”

By 1959, he seems to have decided that if he just invites a sprinkling of people from Congress to the meeting, maybe it’ll count as Congressional authorization. At any rate, the single moment that’s close to an act of dissent or an act of testing is Senator Fulbright saying, “I just want to make sure I understand what we’re saying here. Are we saying that the GDR could take out the roads in West Berlin and that we might begin to repair that road, and then an East German soldier might shoot a rifle at our repairman, and then we would drop an atomic bomb?” Eisenhower says, “We’re not exactly sure of the steps that would lead to the dropping of the atomic bomb, but we know that one thing is true, that once the crisis is underway, there’s no chance to stop and talk to the UN about it.” So in other words, he doesn’t say, “Senator Fulbright, have you lost your mind? Of course we will not use an atomic weapon against somebody firing a rifle.” He says, “We don’t exactly know the circumstances that will lead to that.”

This kind of provision is absolutely crucial, and starting with the fact that there’s a clear set of sentences on the table that everyone understands is the focus of their deliberation. “Be it enacted by Senate and House of Representatives here assembled, we do hereby declare war.” There’s no equivalent set of sentences in the presidential deliberation, there’s no vote. There’s a conspicuous vote in the case of Congress, everybody has to give their name and vote. We know for all of history that Jeannette Rankin voted no against going to war against Germany and against Japan. The record will stand, there’s no kind of equivalent. And these… I’ll skip the right to bear arms right now, except to say that just as Congress has been made to look like a dead institution once it gave up this huge power, the most important power there is, as Justice Story said in the 19th century, the responsibility for going to war, so in the atomic age, the right to bear arms has looked like a kind of confused and disgraceful provision. The point of the right to bear arms is to say, “However much military power we have, whether zero or a great deal, it’s got to be equally distributed among all of us, because it is the whole population’s responsibility to ratify or not ratify the Congressional declaration of war.”

And if that seems like a militaristic provision, realize that it’s been something that has been celebrated by not only militarists like Mirabeau in the French Revolution, but by pacifists. Gandhi said, “Of all the evil deeds committed by England against India, the worst is the disarming of the population. Give us back our arms, and then we’ll tell you whether we’re going to use them or not.” And of course, Gandhi’s position at that point in his life would be, “We’re not going to use them.” But you don’t even have the power to insist on pacifism if you have no control over the military arsenal. And I said at the outset that… Oh, I should say that if you look at the Constitution, the only thing that requires this double location, other than war making, is constitution making. If you’re going to change the Constitution, you have to have the assembly voting, both houses, and then you have to have a ratification by the population. The same is true of constitutional law, you have to have the authorization from the Congress and then the ratification by the states.

And just to show you how this works, there have been over 5,000 amendments proposed in Congress and only 27 have passed, so it’s a tremendous impediment kind of structure. The Constitution does not want to impede the ratification of judges, it does not want to impede people going to the library, it does not want to impede people love making, it does not want to impede education. It wants to impede one thing, going to war, and we’ve just jettisoned the provisions that do that. And I mentioned at the outset that there are equivalent provisions in the constitutions of some of the other nuclear states, France, India and Russia, which I can come back to, and it’s also the case that when you go to social contract theory, you see these same two gates, the parliament and the population invoked as crucial.

This is a quotation that I very much like from Locke in the second treatise where he quotes, it’s nearly illegible there, Caligula saying that… I’m sorry, where he quotes an observation that Caligula wished that the people had but one neck, that he might dispatch them all at a blow, which is exactly the situation we’re in. “We’re not in a democracy, we’re not even in a governance structure if you’ve got an arrangement, an architecture that allows a tiny number of men in any country to dispatch all of civilization.” Now, that’s the theoretical part of my talk, and we agreed that he would give me a five minute warning, so I could just tell you the concrete part. So here’s the concrete part, and maybe you’ll think of better ways of making this concrete.

My brother, Joe Scarry, and I went to Congress in early September and met with 10 people, three of them in the House of Representatives, we met with the representatives themselves, and seven in the Senate. We asked for two things, first to have a formal hearing on presidential first use in the Congress. All of them were extremely receptive to that idea. They thought it was fresh and creative. We proposed that they actually bring in former presidents to testify, like Clinton and Carter and the two Bushes, etcetera, about how close they had come, etcetera. And there’s one big problem with it. As you may know, you have to be in the majority party in order to institute a formal hearing. So that will await the… With luck, we’ll have a Democratic House, and then it can be instituted. If that doesn’t happen, then they suggested that we could begin to work with some of the possible Republicans to see if they would initiate it.

The second thing we proposed was that they become part of a law case where Congressional plaintiffs would be litigants. And the legislative assistants of the Senators listened, I think, with interest. The people in the House didn’t just listen with interest, they jumped right on and said, “Yes, and could… ” And we had proposed we’d come back in December. “No, particularly if Trump gets elected, come back in November, let’s begin this.” And other people, Kennette Benedict from the Bulletin, former executive director has agreed to be part of this legal team. Owen Fiss, who is a constitutional lawyer at Yale, will be part of the legal team. I’m hoping some of you can suggest other people who would be helpful. Of course, the momentum for that is in part driven by the fear of Donald Trump, even though, as we heard yesterday there’s almost equal reason, or maybe equal reason to be afraid of Hillary Clinton.

This is the transcript of a talk given by Richard Falk at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s symposium “The Fierce Urgency of Nuclear Zero: Changing the Discourse” on October 25, 2016. The audio of this talk is available here. For more information about the symposium, click here.

Well, let me begin by saying how grateful I am to David, Rob and Rick, in particular, for bringing us together for this really very exceptional set of discussions. I think it’s been invaluable. Not so much I think that it led us to understand the issues differently, but I think it attuned us to the general challenges that are embedded in this effort to move from discourse to action, and to diagnose what the disease is. There’s a Burmese slogan, “Disease unknown, cure unknown.” And I think it’s essential in framing hope in a way that doesn’t lead to false hopes, that we are explicit about how to diagnose what it is we’re trying to overcome. And in that sense, we need to understand what sorts of action, what sorts of initiatives can be useful within the historical circumstance that we’re in. And there’s no question that it’s as dangerous as anything that has existed, certainly since the end of the Cold War. If you doubt that, you might read the current issue of The Economist, which has the cover story on Putinism, and has a long leader editorial in which it depicts the risks of a nuclear confrontation, but puts all the onus of the blame for creating this situation on Russia. There’s no self-scrutiny in terms of the West and the provocative deployments and other kinds of initiatives that it’s taken. But it is a very, I think, vivid indicator that this very influential journal would highlight the nuclear dangers at this moment in time.

I think that there’s no question that in order to be effective in a political context, there has to be a grounding of hope, that one has to hope that valuable initiatives are both practical and lead toward the goals that we seek to attain. I’m sometimes disturbed by the discourse of hope, because I think it looks too facilely at what seems to be acceptable within the Beltway, or to governmental sources at the moment, what one can do. And I feel we, especially if we’re trying to change the discourse among the citizenry, among the young, within the media, that we have to start from a very strong ethical repudiation of any link between security and nuclear weapons. I think it’s not a rational issue. As long as you keep it on a rational plane of being dangerous or imprudent, there are always counter-arguments.

In other words, on the plane of rationality, you may persuade yourself and your friends, but it won’t have an impact on the consensus that I think has persisted ever since nuclear weapons were developed, that the best one can hope for is an effective non-proliferation regime reinforced by trying to avoid vulnerability to accidents, miscalculations and the like. In other words, prudent nuclearism has been the prevailing consensus, not only on the part of the US, but on the part of all the nuclear governments. And I feel that unless we clearly repudiate that consensus, we will not create the foundation for a genuine movement to eliminate nuclear weapons. So what I’m really trying to express is the ethical imperative that really should lead to self-scrutiny about the fact that we’ve been threatening the annihilation of tens of millions of people for decades. You know, it’s the point that E. P. Thompson made a long time ago, about a culture of exterminism, that you don’t have to use the weapons, you don’t have to threaten them, but even to base your security on the idea that you might use them is so deeply immoral and incompatible with the values of a civilized society, that it seems to me one important contribution would be to acknowledge that ethical imperative.

I’ve also tried to stress my feeling that unless arms control measures, these sort of step-by-step approach, or incremental approach, or risk-reduction approach, that that’s, as Rob, I think, pointed out very well, we’ve been waiting 47 years for Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to be implemented, and despite the unanimous call by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, it completely, there’s a Teflon effect. There’s no, we are no nearer that goal. And what has happened is that you have two types of non-proliferation regimes. You have the explicit Treaty, which contains Article VI, and the withdrawal clause in Article X, and then you have the geopolitical regime that excludes those Articles.

Iran has no option to withdraw from the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty without facing the prospect of aggressive war against it, and it certainly can’t invoke the Article X, which gives states the option to withdraw if they feel their security is threatened. And Iran and North Korea both have extremely good deterrence arguments in support of acquiring nuclear weapons. So it seems to me very important that while seeking a prudent posture toward the risks that presently exist, that they be contextualized in a, by reference both to the ethical imperative and to the need to transform our understanding of stability and security. And so that, where do you go with that, and it seems to me it provides the foundation for relevant pedagogy, for educating the kinds of audiences that we need to mobilize if we’re really to challenge the kind of prudent nuclearism that has prevailed for so long.

And I feel, finally, that it’s important not to succumb to the liberal ideology, which Judith alluded to in her presentation, about the good being the enemy of the best. What I feel here, is that the, if you call arms control the good, it’s the friend of the unacceptable, because it stabilizes what should be repudiated. And therefore, it’s not the path, it’s a very difficult challenge, because you obviously don’t want to act imprudently, and so you want to encourage prudence. But at the same time it’s a Faustian bargain. If the prudence is achieved at the cost of stabilizing nuclearism, and that’s what’s happened, in my view, over the whole period where nuclear weapons have existed.

Richard Barnett wrote a book in the 1960s called ‘Who Wants Disarmament’, it was a time when both the US and the Soviet Union were putting forth proposals that seemed to indicate a commitment to a general and complete disarmament but preceded by total nuclear disarmament. And he shows in that book very clearly that that wasn’t the real policy, the stated policy was not the real policy of either side, and that this was a kind of peace propaganda, which disguised the deeper engagement with what I’ve been calling ‘prudent nuclearism’, that that was the real policy. And part of prudent nuclearism is as rigorous a non-proliferation regime as is geopolitically possible, that combination of events.

So, let me end by trying to say that I think that we need to see whether there is a consensus on these ideas. In our drafting group discussions, there’s been a certain tension between saying, “Let’s focus on what seems feasible and necessary in the present context without raising these underlying issues,” and the view that I’m associated with or express that says, “Unless you raise the underlying issues you will get more of the same.”