Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Abolition

  • Nuclear Weapons: The Goal is Zero

    David KriegerNuclear weapons release vast amounts of energy.  They do this by breaking apart the bonds of the atom, but this is not all they break apart.  They also break apart the bonds of our relationships with the Earth, with other forms of life and with the future.  This is part of the nuclear fallout that occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and has continued through the Nuclear Age.


    Nuclear weapons are capable of destroying cities, as was demonstrated by the US attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  We know that the destructive capacity of these weapons does not end there.  They are also capable of destroying countries and civilization as we know it.  The philosopher John Somerville coined the term “omnicide” to describe the potential destructive capacity of nuclear weapons – the death of all.  In the Nuclear Age, our destructive capacity has moved from homicide to genocide to omnicide. 


    In considering the fallout of nuclear weapons, we might ask: what have these weapons done to our psyches?  The destructive potential of our nuclear inventions transcends the death of an individual or group and shows us a glimpse of the death of all.  For those of us willing to look, this is a fearful view into the abyss, a darkened world of incineration and shadows, a world barren of life.  Although nuclear weapons bring us close to the precipice of such a world, most of us choose to avert our eyes and our minds from grasping the reality.  We gamble the human future on the judgment and human fallibility of political and military leaders.  This strikes me as a very bad bet. 


    It is argued that no weapon ever created has been discarded until another, more powerful weapon has taken its place.  But with nuclear weapons we do not have this luxury.  Nuclear weapons force us to put aside our childish and tribal ways of solving conflicts.  They push us to higher levels of maturity.  We cannot continue our old ways and survive in a nuclear-armed world. 


    Ten Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons


    Let me share with you ten reasons to abolish nuclear weapons:


    1. They are long-distance killing machines incapable of discriminating between soldiers and civilians, the aged and the newly born, or between men, women and children.   As such, they are instruments of dehumanization as well as annihilation.


    2. They threaten the destruction of cities, countries and civilization; of all that is sacred, of all that is human, of all that exists.  Nuclear war could cause deadly climate change, putting human existence at risk. 


    3. They threaten to foreclose the future, negating our common responsibility to future generations.


    4. They make cowards of their possessors, and in their use there can be no decency or honor.  This was recognized by most of the leading generals and admirals of World War II, including Dwight Eisenhower, Hap Arnold, and William Leahy. 


    5. They divide the world’s nations into nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” bestowing false and unwarranted prestige and privilege on those that possess them. 


    6. They are a distortion of science and technology, siphoning off our scientific and technological resources and twisting our knowledge of nature to destructive purposes.  


    7. They mock international law, displacing it with an allegiance to raw power.  The International Court of Justice has ruled that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal and any use that violated international humanitarian law would be illegal.  It is virtually impossible to imagine a threat or use of nuclear weapons that would not violate international humanitarian law (fail to discriminate between soldiers and civilians, cause unnecessary suffering or be disproportionate to a preceding attack). 


    8. They waste our resources on the development of instruments of annihilation.  The United States alone has spent over $7.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems since the onset of the Nuclear Age.


    9. They concentrate power in the hands of a small group of individuals and, in doing so, undermine democracy.


    10. They are morally abhorrent, as recognized by virtually every religious organization, and their mere existence corrupts our humanity. 


    New START


    In December 2010, the US Senate voted 71-26 to ratify the New START agreement with Russia.  It was a struggle to obtain the requisite two-thirds majority of the Senate needed for ratification, but in the end enough Republicans joined with the Democrats to assure the treaty’s ratification.  With previous strategic arms reduction treaties, however, the votes for ratification were largely bipartisan, reflected by overwhelming majorities. 


    The New START agreement was described by Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, as “vital to national security.”  The treaty has four important benefits. 


    First, it will reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons on each side to 1,550 by the year 2017.  This is about a one-third reduction from the 2,200 agreed to in the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).  However, there are some accounting irregularities that were agreed to in New START, such as counting each bomber plane as having one nuclear weapon even though it could carry up to 20. 


    Second, it will reduce the number of delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons to 800 total, with an upper limit of 700 of these deployed. 


    Third, it will put inspectors back on the ground in both countries to verify compliance with the treaty.  There have been no inspections since December 2009, when the START I agreement expired. 


    Finally, it will hopefully keep the US and Russia moving forward on reducing their arsenals still further in the years to come.  A failure to ratify the New START agreement would have been disastrous for US-Russia cooperation.


    Despite the important benefits of the treaty, however, it should not be forgotten that it still leaves the US and Russia with 1,550 deployed strategic weapons each, more than enough to destroy the world many times over.  It also does not place limits on the shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons or the strategic nuclear weapons held in reserve.  These issues will be on the agenda of future US-Russia negotiations.


    There was also a heavy price pledged by President Obama for obtaining Republican votes for the treaty, approximately $185 billion over the next ten years.  About $85 billion will go to the modernization of the nuclear infrastructure in the country and the modernization of the US nuclear arsenal.  Another $100 billion will go to improving the delivery vehicles to carry the nuclear weapons.  These expensive improvements to US nuclear forces cast reasonable doubt on the seriousness of the US commitment to nuclear disarmament.


    The Republicans were also able to extract a promise from President Obama regarding missile defenses.  As a candidate for President in October 2007, Obama said, “I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.”  In an effort to get the New START agreement ratified, President Obama wrote in December 2010 to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “…as long as I am President, and as long as the Congress provides the necessary funding, the United States will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies and partners.”  Candidate Obama had it right that missile defense systems were “unproven.”  President Obama had it wrong that such systems are “effective.”  In recent months, two missile defense tests from Vandenberg Air Force base have been admitted failures with no intercepts, and these were simple tests without multiple attack missiles or decoys.


    New START is only what it says – a start.  The only stable number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero, and this must be our goal.  The way to get to zero is through a negotiated Nuclear Weapons Convention, a new treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  A Nuclear Weapons Convention will require leadership from the US and other countries.  Leaders must be pushed from below.  In effect, the people must lead their leaders.  Achieving the goal of Zero must start with each of us.


    Implementing Change


    The path to achieving change in the Nuclear Age starts with the implementation of some traditional means for bringing about change: conscience, compassion, courage, cooperation, creativity and commitment.  


    Conscience is the voice inside that distinguishes right from wrong, and moves us to take action for what is right.  It is a capacity that is uniquely human.  We can recognize right from wrong and choose our course.  With conscience there is always choice.


    Compassion is the force of love put into action.  Along with poet John Donne, we must recognize that we are “a part of the continent, a piece of the main.”  We must care for the Earth and all its inhabitants.  Compassion does not recognize borders.  We all share a common Earth.  We are all created equal.  We are all diminished by nuclear threats or any other threats to the well-being of people anywhere. 


    It takes courage to think differently, to break away from the group-think of the tribe.  It takes courage to express compassion and to embrace the world.  It takes courage to wage peace rather than war. 


    Cooperation is needed to solve the world’s great problems.  There is no significant global problem – war, abuses of human rights, environmental degradation, climate change, nuclear threat – that can be solved by any one nation alone.  It takes not only a village, but a world to bring about the changes that are needed.


    Creativity is also essential to change.  It will take new and creative ways of thinking to prevent the ultimate catastrophe to ourselves and our fellow inhabitants of Earth.  Einstein said prophetically, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”  We must change our modes of thinking, and replace the old patterns with new ones.  We must become world citizens and peace leaders.


    Commitment will keep you going when the goal seems distant and the obstacles seem overwhelming.  No great goal is easy to attain, but some goals – and I would place the abolition of nuclear weapons among these – are challenges that cannot be ignored or cast aside.  The future, which cannot speak for itself and has only our voice, deserves our commitment.

  • An Ottawa Process for Nukes?

    2010_12_31_ware_ottawa.pdf

  • A Silly Dream?

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.


    David KriegerA note recently came to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation that said: “Are you folks out of your minds?  The nuclear genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back in.  Shortly even non-state actors will have nukes!  Quit wasting your time on this silly dream.”  The author of the note, to his credit, signed his name, and also indicated that he is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. 


    The colonel poses a critical question: Are we out of our minds to believe that change is possible and that humans might find a way to cooperate to eliminate the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity (and other forms of life)?  Perhaps we are, but it seems to me that the future of civilization, the human species and other complex forms of life are worth the effort.  The Nuclear Age is distinct from the periods that preceded it in having the capacity to end most complex life, including human life, on the planet.  Fighting for the elimination of nuclear weapons is also the fight for human survival and for the rights of future generations.  I’ve always believed that we have a choice: nuclear weapons or a human future.  Along with the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I believe it is unlikely that both are possible.


    Next, the colonel asserts that “[t]he nuclear genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back in.”  I suppose this means that the knowledge of how to create nuclear weapons exists and cannot be erased.  Granted, the knowledge now exists.  The challenge is whether countries will choose to eliminate nuclear weapons in their common interest, or whether they will be paralyzed by fear into failing to try.  Knowledge alone is not sufficient to make nuclear weapons.  Scientific and engineering skills are also needed, as are nuclear materials.  There may not be a foolproof method to assure the elimination of nuclear weapons, but there is also no foolproof method to assure that existing nuclear weapons will not be used in a nuclear war that could kill billions of people and destroy civilization. 


    The question is: which is a safer path for humanity?  On the one hand, to seek the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons and effective international safeguards on nuclear materials; or, on the other hand, to continue the status quo of having the world divided into a small but increasing number of nuclear “haves” and a far larger number of nuclear “have-nots”?  I would place my bet on working for the elimination of the weapons, the same path chosen by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and Ronald Reagan.  According to his wife, Nancy, President Reagan “had many hopes for the future, and none were more important to America and to mankind than the effort to create a world free of nuclear weapons.” 


    The colonel seems to like the odds of continuing with the status quo, even though he recognizes that “[s]hortly even non-state actors will have nukes!”  This is most likely true and it poses an enormous problem for the US and other nuclear armed countries, if we fail to bring nuclear weapons and the materials to make them under strict and effective international control.  All of the thousands of nuclear weapons in the US arsenal can’t deter a terrorist organization in possession of a single nuclear weapon.  You can’t credibly threaten retaliation against an organization or individuals that you can’t even locate.


    “Quit wasting your time,” the colonel admonishes, “on this silly dream.”  But all dreams may seem silly before they are realized.  Mohandas Gandhi had a dream of an independent India.   It must have seemed silly to Winston Churchill and other British leaders at the time.  Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream of racial equality.  Perhaps it seemed silly to many.  Nelson Mandela dreamed of an end to apartheid in South Africa.  During his 27 years in prison, this dream must have seemed silly to the white power structure in South Africa. 


    There are dreams of justice and equality that must seem silly to many.  There are dreams of alleviating poverty and hunger, and dreams of educational opportunity for all children.  There are even dreams of eliminating war.  It is not silly to fight for a better future, and certainly not silly to fight to assure the future itself. 


    For me, a New Year is a new beginning and always brings hope.  I will continue to choose hope and to fight for the dream of peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons.  Achieving these goals is the great challenge of our time, and on their success depend the realization of all other goals for a more just and decent world.

  • New Momentum for Nuclear Abolition: Opportunities and Obstacles

    On this tenth anniversary of the Indian Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, launched in the wake of India’s nuclear tests and Pakistan’s entry into the nuclear club as well, the world is facing ever new dangers in the nuclear age, even as these growing perils spark burgeoning new demands for nuclear disarmament across the globe. Perhaps the most unexpected call, which kicked off much of the current avalanche of new campaigns, initiatives, and projects for nuclear abolition, was an article in the Wall Street Journal, “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons” in January 2007, when four rusty cold warriors, led by Henry Kissinger together with Sam Nunn, William Perry and George Schultz warned of the dangers of terrorism and nuclear proliferation and called for nuclear disarmament.


    Their article inspired a whole series of statements around the world by former military and government officials, echoing their call for a nuclear weapons free world, essentially providing  the political cover for President Obama’s Prague speech in April, 2009, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama pledged “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”– although adding that it might not be reached “in my lifetime.” His Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton subsequently misquoted him, noting that “the President has acknowledged we might not achieve the ambition of a world without nuclear weapons in our lifetime or successive lifetimes.” And then Clinton pushed the ball even further down the road, speaking about the new START Treaty with Russia, foreseeing “a goal of a world someday, in some century, free of nuclear weapons.”


    After the initial statement of Kissinger and company, the group was tagged by various journalists and pundits as “the four horsemen”, perhaps ironically unaware that the biblical reference in the New Testament to the four horsemen of the apocalypse, is to a quartet of mythical marauders representing evil, war, famine and death.  The following year, in 2009, the world welcomed a Five Point Action Plan for Nuclear Disarmament urged by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon   which included the goal of a Nuclear Weapons Convention or framework of agreements to eliminate nuclear weapons.


    Ban Ki-moon’s proposal validated at last the largely unheralded efforts of civil society, which immediately after forming the Abolition 2000 Network at the 1995 Non-proliferation Treaty Review and Extension conference (NPT), extending the 25 year old  NPT’s expiration date indefinitely,  called for negotiations on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons by the year 2000. The Network’s Working Group of lawyers, scientists, and policymakers drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, submitted by Costa Rica to the UN as an official document. As the millennium approached, Abolition 2000 then enrolled over 2000 members in 95 countries and kept its name, despite the failure of negotiations to materialize. Fifteen years later, the nuclear weapons convention is an idea whose time has come, with calls for negotiations arising from every part of the globe.


    The Kissinger crew noted the growing power of campaigns and initiatives including grassroots pressure on America’s NATO allies, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway for NATO to remove U.S nuclear weapons now stationed in Europe under NATO’s “nuclear sharing” policy, calls to revive the Rajiv Gandhi Plan for Nuclear Disarmament, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Global Zero, the expanding Parliamentary Network for Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament, the Mayors for Peace approaching  5,000 member cities, together with leaders around the world clamoring for negotiations to begin on a treaty to ban the bomb.  They issued a second statement one year later in 2008, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World” .  Clearly walking back from their earlier call, they warned of a “nuclear tipping point” demanding better measures to prevent nuclear terrorism and more secure controls on nuclear material and the nuclear fuel cycle, while bemoaning the fact that:
    In some respects, the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is like the top of a very tall mountain. From the vantage point of our troubled world today, we can’t even see the top of the mountain, and it is tempting and easy to say we can’t get there from here. But the risks from continuing to go down the mountain or standing pat are too real to ignore. We must chart a course to higher ground where the mountaintop becomes more visible.


    Of course, Civil Society had no difficulty seeing the top of the mountain and was proposing to reach it by urging that negotiations begin on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, just as the world had done for chemical and biological weapons, and landmines and cluster bombs as well.  It wasn’t as if the world had never banned a class of weapons before. With a third article this year by Kissinger and his colleagues, their lack of good faith is apparent. Titled “How to Protect Our Nuclear Deterrent”, they emphasize the importance of maintaining the credibility of the US nuclear deterrent by supporting  the Congressional drive to undercut, with a multi-billion dollar modernization program for the nuclear weaponeers, the modest START treaty  negotiated by Obama and Medvedev. 


    The treaty would cut deployed weapons in their massive arsenals of about 23,000 nuclear bombs, from 2,200 each to between 1,500 and 1,675. There are 1,000 nuclear bombs, in total, in the remaining nuclear countries—UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea. START would also cut strategic bombers and land- and sea-based missiles from 1,600 each to 800. US mid-term elections with Republican control of the Congress and a diminished Democratic Senate majority,  may scuttle START’s ratification, leaving both countries without the ability to resume mutual inspections and verification of their nuclear activity which ended when the old START treaty expired in December 2009. Disturbingly, the international committee of the Russian Duma has rescinded its recommendation that Russia ratify START, pending US action, in light of the disappointing US elections results and the steep price tag the Republicans have attached to buy their votes for ratification.


    Since Russia and the US still have more than 10,000 weapons, START is only a modest step forward but one that is essential to demonstrate US and Russia willingness to tackle the unconscionable numbers of bombs in their arsenals. It was a difficult negotiation, hedged with caveats on missile defenses. The Russians are alarmed at US efforts to surround Russia with a ring of missile ”defenses”, seeking to site missile and radar bases in Poland, the Czech Republic, Rumania, Bulgaria and Ukraine, right up to the Russian border. Indeed, these START negotiations echoed the tragic lost opportunity at the Reagan-Gorbachev 1986 Reykjavik summit when negotiations for the total abolition of nuclear weapons collapsed because Reagan wouldn’t give up plans for a Strategic Defense Initiative to dominate space.


    Obama submitted START to the Senate for ratification attached to a Faustian bargain with the military-industrial-scientific-congressional complex for an additional $80 billion in new nuclear weapons testing and modernization and funding for a plutonium- pit bomb factory at Los Alamos, a uranium processing plant at Oak Ridge, and a new manufacturing facility for non-nuclear bomb parts in Kansas City—spreading the evil largesse across the whole continent– as well as an additional $100 billion for delivery systems—planes, submarines and missiles for launching nuclear bombs by air, sea and land.


    Obama also assured Congress that nothing in the START treaty would preclude the US from developing offensive missile “defenses” and its planned “prompt global strike” weapons systems,  an integral part of US plans to dominate and control the military use of space.  In October, the US and Israel were the only countries to abstain on a UN Resolution against the weaponization of space. This was actually an improvement in the US position since up to now it was the only country to vote NO on the resolution. The US has consistently blocked consensus on voting for negotiations on a draft treaty, submitted to the UN by Russia and China, to ban weapons in space.


    While the U.S. and its allies have been excoriating Pakistan for blocking consensus on proposed negotiations to cut off the production of fissile materials for “weapons purposes”, no countries are holding the U.S. to account for blocking consensus on keeping weapons out of space.  Pakistan is still playing catch up to produce nuclear materials while the other nuclear powers all have excess tons of highly enriched uranium(HEU) and plutonium(PU) from both military and civilian production. There are about 1600 tons of HEU and 500 tons of PU on our planet, enough to produce more than 120,000 nuclear weapons!


    Enacting the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty now, without moving rapidly on nuclear disarmament as well, would give an advantage to older more technologically advanced nuclear weapons states which already have excessive surpluses of bomb making materials.  And it is also an exercise in futility. By calling for the cut- off of fissile materials production only for “weapons purposes” without cutting off the production of materials such as plutonium and highly enriched uranium for so called “peaceful purposes”, the treaty would be no more than a leaking sieve as hundreds of tons of bomb-making material would continually be churned out in civilian reactors in more than 40 countries around the world.


    India was well aware of discriminatory nuclear legislation when it refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970 because the treaty provided that five existing nuclear weapons states, the US, UK, Russia, France and China, need only negotiate in “good faith” for nuclear disarmament while all the other countries of the world had to promise not to acquire nuclear weapons.  India proposed unsuccessfully that a nuclear abolition treaty for all nations be negotiated and then went on to develop its own nuclear capabilities, acquiring the bomb in 1974. In 1988 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi proposed “An Action Plan for Ushering In a Nuclear-Weapon Free and Non-Violent World Order” which was totally ignored by the U.S although Russia expressed some interest in the plan.


    Every year since 1996, the UN General Assembly votes on a resolution to commence negotiations leading to the conclusion of a Nuclear Weapons Convention based on the 1996 decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 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”. At the 2010 NPT Review Conference, a host of countries spoke in support of negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention and proposed a meeting in 2014 to discuss the path forward. Although the meeting proposal was blocked in the final document, the nuclear weapons states for the first time agreed to include a reference to negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention although the language was watered down considerably from the first draft.  Significantly, a unique provision in the outcome document affirmed, for the first time, the need for all States to comply with International Humanitarian Law under which the ICJ held that nuclear weapons are generally illegal. This provides new possibilities for action by non-nuclear weapons states to shift from the usual “step by step” approach of arms control to legislating an outright prohibition of nuclear weapons as illegal under international law, as was done with landmines and cluster bombs.


    There were 140 nations who made statements supporting negotiations on a nuclear weapons convention at the NPT Review, including one nuclear weapons state —China.   And when the annual resolution came to a vote in the UN First Committee of the General Assembly this fall, three nuclear weapons states, China, India, and Pakistan supported the call for negotiations.   Once again, the U.S. attempted to put the brakes on when Rose Gotmoeller, US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Verification and Compliance, in remarks at the UN, belittled the prospects for a nuclear weapons treaty urging “a pragmatic step-by-step approach rather than the impractical leap of seeking to negotiate a nuclear weapons convention or the pointless calls for convening a fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament, for which there is no international consensus.”


    In October, 2010, Obama test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile 5,000 miles away from California to Guam and conducted the first “sub-critical” nuclear test since 2006, 1,000 feet below the desert floor, exploding plutonium with chemicals, without creating a chain-reaction. This was the 24th test in a program started by Clinton who tried to buy the support of the military-industrial-scientific–congressional complex for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty which they later reneged on anyway. There were seven billion dollars a year for computer-simulated nuclear tests coupled with sub-critical tests and new laboratory infrastructure, which the Doctor Strangeloves contended were essential to maintain the “safety and reliability” of the arsenal.  Which brings us back full circle to the justification Obama claims for his pay-off to Congress to get START ratified.  Furthermore, the UK and France, emulating the worst in US policy, have just announced a “cost saving” plan to combine efforts and build a brand new joint  nuclear weapons laboratory in France, to test– surprise, surprise– the “safety and reliability” of their arsenals.


    Small wonder that a new statement in October 2010 by a Russian quartet of military and government officials, led by Yevgeny Primakov, asserted that many countries, including “a widespread belief in Russia” believe that their “nuclear potential is a key element of great power status.” Asserting that nuclear disarmament requires “greater confidence among nations, along with greater international security and stability” and referring to inequalities in “armaments, anti-ballistic missile defense, conventional weapons, strategic non-nuclear weapons as well as space militarization plans”, they conclude that to achieve nuclear disarmament “we must reorganize international life on more civilized principles and according to the demands of a new century.”
    President Obama, in his Prague speech, characterized nuclear terrorism as “the greatest danger we face”. Yet Nobel economist Thomas Schelling, who applies game theory to the study of conflict and cooperation  recently described the exceedingly low probability of terrorists ever getting their hands on enough illicit nuclear material to build a bomb. Far more dangerous and terrifying is the more than 3500 nuclear bombs, mounted on missiles and ready to fire within minutes which the US and Russia still aim at each other. Just this year we had reports of computer failures in the US that put 50 nuclear weapons out of commission, a UK Trident nuclear submarine running aground in the mud off the coast of Scotland, and six nuclear bombs mistakenly flown without knowledge of the commanders across the country from North Dakota to Louisiana. A US Defense Department report noted that between 1950 and 1980 there were 32 airplane crashes with nuclear bombs aboard, Luckily none of them ever exploded, although two of them, in Palomares, Spain and Thule, Greenland, spewed plutonium on the ground which had to be cordoned off and contained. Not to mention the incredibly close call when a Norwegian weather satellite went off course in 1983  and was interpreted by the Russians as a possible nuclear attack which a wise commander, Stanislav Petrov, on duty in the nuclear bunker, decided heroically, against orders, and to the great good fortune of the world, to disregard.
    Furthermore, we are creating much greater danger in our efforts to secure and lock down radioactive bomb material.  Rather than containing the toxic poisons in sturdy, above-ground concrete casks, which last for hundreds of years, under guns, gates and guards, we are actually transporting our lethal legacy through populated areas over roads, rail and seas, from the four corners of the earth back to reprocessing facilities. The US and Russia are using the highly enriched uranium they transport, for example, which was spread around to 28 countries during the atoms for peace program for research reactors, in reprocessing facilities where they are blended down for fuel for so called “peaceful nuclear power plants” now in the planning stages for exponential growth in a “nuclear renaissance” around the planet, about to spread their radioactive poisons into the air, water, and soil, while giving ever more nations the reactor- generated capacity to make nuclear bomb material.  
    Even if these materials are never used in a nuclear bomb, they are already causing death, destruction and illness in the communities where the uranium is mined, milled, processed and in the environs surrounding nuclear power plants. A German study found an increased incidence of childhood cancer and leukemias in communities with nuclear reactors. A recent study by Russian scientists published by the New York Academy of Medicine found nearly one million people died from the 1986 Chernobyl accident,  contrary to corrupted reports from the World Health Organization which has a collusive agreement with the nuclear-industry dominated International Atomic Energy Agency to submit its health findings on radiation issues to the IAEA before they can be made public. The two agencies habitually underreport the true extent of the carnage caused by this lethal technology.


    Moreover, while the Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees every member the right to the “peaceful” use of nuclear technology, the US and its allies are picking which countries can exercise that right—it’s OK for Japan, but not for Iran. In the past few years, there has been an explosion of planned  nuclear power plants in many new countries, including Egypt, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Turkey, Indonesia, Vienam Algeria, Burma, and others who want to get in under the wire before the nuclear “haves” preclude them from freely accessing the whole panoply of technology for the nuclear fuel cycle.  Indeed the US just made a deal with the United Arab Emirates that they would not enrich uranium in return for US technical assistance on civilian nuclear power, but Jordan is balking at making the same agreement. This is a recipe for chaos. The top of the mountain beckons.  It’s time for a moratorium on any further development of nuclear weapons or nuclear power. The sun, wind, tides, and geothermal heat can readily supply humanity with all its energy needs. In the words of the visionary thinker and architect, Buckminster Fuller:


    We may now care for each Earthian individual at a sustainable billionaire’s level of affluence while living exclusively on less than 1 percent of our planet’s daily energy income from our cosmically designed nuclear reactor, the Sun, optimally located 92 million safe miles away from us.


    Building on the burgeoning support for a nuclear weapons convention, civil society, together with parliamentarians and Mayors are exploring possibilities for various governments to put together a like-minded group of governments to  begin an “Ottawa” or “Oslo” process, the way the world was able to ban landmines and cluster bombs. Blocked by consensus rules at the UN, the governments of Canada in the case of landmines, and Norway in the case of cluster bombs, joined in partnership with civil society and like-minded governments to negotiate those landmark treaties. Eventually many of the hold-out countries signed on.


    Who will take the lead for organizing the talks for a nuclear weapons convention? Over one hundred nations spoke in favor of the nuclear weapons convention at the NPT. And there are three nuclear weapons powers, China, India, and Pakistan on the record in support of those negotiations in a UN Resolution. Perhaps in the 21st century, it is time for Asia to take the lead. If a country like Norway, or Switzerland or Austria, which have spoken in favor of negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention, were to host such a conference, having the three Asian powers in attendance would send a powerful signal to the world that the time has come to ban the bomb. Certainly India, with the Rajiv Gandhi plan has already given much thought to this critical dilemma.  


    Even if the other nuclear weapons states were to sit out the negotiations, eventually world opinion would catch up with them and they would have to join in. In the meantime, the steps for moving forward, for dismantlement, verification, monitoring, inspection, handling of nuclear materials, insurance against breakout, additional research, and administration of the treaty could be discussed and debated. Much of this has already been proposed in the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, which can be reviewed, together with commentary on its various provisions, at http://www.icanw.org/securing-our-survival  NOW IS THE TIME FOR ACTION!


    After 65 years it’s time to retire the bomb.

  • Nobel Summit: Final Declaration on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

    The undersigned Nobel Peace Laureates and representatives of Nobel Peace Prize organizations, gathered in Hiroshima on November 12-14, 2010, after listening to the testimonies of the Hibakusha, have no doubt that the use of nuclear weapons against any people must be regarded as a crime against humanity and should henceforth be prohibited.

    We pay tribute to the courage and suffering of the Hibakusha who survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and honour those that have dedicated their lives to teaching the rest of the world about the horrors of nuclear war. Like them, we pledge ourselves to work for a future committed to peace, justice and security without nuclear weapons and war.

    “Nuclear weapons are unique in their destructive power, in the unspeakable human suffering they cause, in the impossibility of controlling their effects in space and time, in the risks of escalation they create, and in the threat they pose to the environment, to future generations, and indeed to the survival of humanity.” We strongly endorse this assessment by the International Committee of the Red Cross, three times recognised with the Nobel Peace Prize for its humanitarian work.

    Twenty-five years ago in Geneva, the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” There has been some substantive progress since then. The agreements on intermediate range nuclear forces (INF); strategic arms reductions (START); and unilateral and bilateral initiatives on tactical nuclear weapons, have eliminated tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. We welcome the signing by the United States and Russia of the New START treaty and the consensus Nuclear Disarmament Action Plan that was adopted by the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

    Nevertheless, there are still enough nuclear weapons to destroy life on Earth many times over. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the possibility of their use for acts of terrorism are additional causes for deep concern. The threats posed by nuclear weapons did not disappear with the ending of the Cold War.

    Nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented, but they can and must be outlawed, just as chemical and biological weapons, landmines and cluster munitions have been declared illegal. Nuclear weapons, the most inhumane threat of all, should likewise be outlawed in keeping with the 2010 NPT Review Conference final document, which reaffirmed “the need for all States at all times to comply with applicable international law, including international humanitarian law”.

    Efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons must proceed along with measures to strengthen international law, demilitarize international relations and political thinking and to address human and security needs. Nuclear deterrence, power projection and national prestige as arguments to justify acquiring and retaining nuclear weapons are totally outdated and must be rejected.

    We support the UN Secretary General’s five point proposal on nuclear disarmament and proposals by others to undertake work on a universal treaty to prohibit the use, development, production, stockpiling or transfer of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon technologies and components and to provide for their complete and verified elimination.

    • We call upon heads of government, parliaments, mayors and citizens to join us in affirming that the use of nuclear weapons is immoral and illegal.

    • We call for the ratification without delay of the START agreement by the United States and Russia and for follow-on negotiations for deeper cuts in all types of nuclear weapons.

    • We call on all nuclear weapon possessor states to make deep cuts in their existing arsenals.

    • We call on the relevant Governments to take urgent steps to implement the proposals agreed on in the 2010 NPT Review Conference Final Document towards realising the objectives of the 1995 resolution on the Middles East.

    • We call on China, the United States, Egypt, Iran, Israel and Indonesia to ratify, and on India, Pakistan and North Korea to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that has already been ratified by 153 nations so that the Treaty can be brought into full legal force.

    • We call on nations to negotiate an universal treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, in partnership with civil society

    To ensure that the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki never reoccur and to build a world based on cooperation and peace, we issue this call of conscience. We must all work together to achieve a common good that is practical, moral, legal and necessary – the abolition of nuclear weapons.

  • The Moral Challenge of a Nuclear-Free World

    This article was originally published by the Wall Street Journal.

    This May, delegations from more than 180 countries gathered in New York, at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, to discuss how to free the world from nuclear weapons. Despite the positive momentum that flowed from President Barack Obama’s 2009 speech on the issue in Prague, there was enormous pressure on the conference. With a spirit of cooperation and flexibility from all delegates, however, the conference lived up to its expectations.

    As foreign ministers, we draw two conclusions from this. First, it is remarkable that all delegates agreed on the conference’s action plan, which includes various new and important commitments on nuclear disarmament as well as concrete measures to implement the 1995 Middle East Resolution, which called for the a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the region. We should do everything possible to implement this agreement.

    Our second conclusion is that the agreement is extremely fragile.

    Without an intensive concerted effort, states will not honor it. The irreconcilable views expressed throughout the conference-on such issues as the Iranian nuclear program and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s rules for how signatories withdraw-will not fade away.

    ØPrior to the conference, major nuclear-weapons states took some remarkable steps. The U.S. and Russia agreed to further cut their strategic nuclear weapons. The U.S. also presented a new approach in its Nuclear Posture Review, published in April, which provided strong negative security assurances (that is, assurances that it would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states).

    We welcome and support the Obama administration’s commitment to achieving a world without nuclear weapons and strengthening nuclear security. Together with nuclear-weapons states, including the U.S., we are ready to discuss how to reduce the role of nuclear weapons-by, for example, committing to possess them only for the purpose of deterring others from using them. Even if nuclear states cannot immediately agree to abandon their nuclear weapons, they can take practical measures to reduce clear and present risks.

    It is also necessary to make the possession of nuclear weapons unattractive. North Korea and Iran must understand that acquiring nuclear weapons in contradiction of their nonproliferation obligations would never be tolerated and would not elevate their status in the international community.

    Like climate change, nuclear disarmament raises the question of whether mankind can feel a sense of responsibility across national borders and generations. Nuclear disarmament asks whether mankind can act to reduce the risks of self-destruction posed by “God’s fire.” We should never forget how human beings and buildings vanished in the tremendous flash of light and heat in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 65 years ago. This is a global issue that tests our sense of responsibility and morality.

    Morality has recently played an important role in bringing about the success of treaties on land mines and cluster munitions. It is thus no coincidence that the Final Document of May’s conference cited the need for states to comply with international humanitarian law.

    Some may ask themselves why Japan and Germany are seeking to pursue nuclear disarmament with such vigor when both countries rely on the United States for nuclear deterrence. Our countries have long been advocates of disarmament. Since re-emerging from total devastation in the second world war, both countries have pursued a peaceful and stable world and the total elimination of nuclear weapons. It is in such a shared conviction that we find a common role. And we believe that pursuing nuclear disarmament is the path that will most reliably minimize nuclear risks and enhance international security.

    The 21st century will be about managing our planet. History will remember favorably those countries that respond with a sense of global responsibility. Let us set upon the realistic and responsible path towards a world without nuclear weapons. It is a moral responsibility.

  • Nuke U: How the University of California Is Helping to Blow Up the World

    This article was originally published by The Bohemian.

    On my way to the Los Alamos National Laboratory a few years ago, I found it listed in a New Mexico phone book—under “University of California.”

    Since the early 1940s, UC has managed the nation’s top laboratories for designing nuclear bombs. Today, California’s public university system is still immersed in the nuclear weapons business.

    Sixty-five years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, the University of California imprimatur is an air freshener for the stench of preparations for global annihilation. Nuclear war planners have been pleased to exploit UC’s vast technical expertise and its image of high-minded academic purpose.

    During most of WWII, scientists labored in strict secrecy at the isolated Los Alamos lab in the New Mexico desert, making possible the first nuclear weaponry. After the atomic bombings of Japan, UC continued to manage Los Alamos. And in 1952, when the government opened a second nuclear bomb generator, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory east of San Francisco, UC won the prize to manage operations there, too.

    A few years into the 21st century, security scandals caused a shakeup. UC lost its exclusive management slots at Los Alamos and Livermore, but retained major roles at both laboratories.

    In mid-2006, the Los Alamos lab went under a new management structure, widened to also include Bechtel and a couple of other private firms. A year later, a similar team, likewise including UC and Bechtel, won a deal to jointly manage Livermore.

    At Los Alamos, I learned that the new management team was, legally speaking, an LLC, a limited liability corporation. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the concept of “limited liability” for managers of a laboratory that designs nuclear weapons.

    Weird, huh? But not any stranger than having the state of California’s top system of higher education devoted to R&D for designing better ways to blow up the planet.

    Yes, those laboratories do some nifty ecological research and other laudable things. But nuclear weapons remain central to the labs’ mission. And, lofty rhetoric aside, the federal government is pouring billions more dollars into the continuous high-tech pursuit of nuclear weapons “modernization.”

    Last spring, the White House announced plans for this decade that include investing $80 billion “to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex”—in addition to “well over $100 billion in nuclear delivery systems to sustain existing capabilities and modernize some strategic systems.”

    In fact, the U.S. government is now on a jag to boost spending for its nuclear arsenal. As the Livermore-based organization Tri-Valley CAREs noted weeks ago, “the 2011 budget request for nuclear weapons is the largest in our nation’s history; bigger than under George W. Bush and a whopping 40 percent higher than the amount spent for nuclear weapons activities on average during the Cold War.”

    Credit where due: the UC-managed laboratories for nuclear bombs have been on the cutting edge of digital advancement. Their record recalls a comment from Martin Luther King Jr., who noted the proliferation of “guided missiles and misguided men.”

    When I interviewed Los Alamos press officer Kevin Roark, he explained that “this laboratory has been at the forefront of computing research and development” from the Manhattan Project days of slide rules and punch cards to the lab’s present-day computers, with one able to do upwards of 100 trillion calculations per second.

    An official website of the University of California boasts that “UC has been involved in the management of these laboratories since their inception—a relationship spanning seven decades—as a public service to the nation.” With a lab on the UC Berkeley campus included in the mix, “the three laboratories have a combined workforce of more than 21,000 and operate on federally financed budgets totaling more than $4 billion.”

    For sure, there’s plenty of money sloshing around to reward the masters—and academic servants—of the nuclear weapons industry. But should the University of California be managing laboratories that design the latest technologies for nuclear holocaust? 

  • Peace Declaration

    In the company of hibakusha who, on this day 65 years ago, were hurled, without understanding why, into a “hell” beyond their most terrifying nightmares and yet somehow managed to survive; together with the many souls that fell victim to unwarranted death, we greet this August sixth with re-energized determination that, “No one else should ever have to suffer such horror.”

    Through the unwavering will of the hibakusha and other residents, with help from around Japan and the world, Hiroshima is now recognized as a beautiful city.  Today, we aspire to be a “model city for the world” and even to host the Olympic Games.  Transcending the tortures of hell, trusting in the peace-loving peoples of the world, the hibakusha offer a message that is the cornerstone of Japan’s Peace Constitution and a beacon to the world.

    The results of the NPT Review Conference held this past May testify to that beacon’s guiding influence.  The Final Document expresses the unanimous intent of the parties to seek the abolition of nuclear weapons; notes the valuable contribution of civil society; notes that a majority favors the establishment of timelines for the nuclear weapons abolition process, and highlights the need for a nuclear weapons convention or new legal framework.  In doing so, it confirms that our future depends on taking the steps articulated by Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the more than 4,000 city members of Mayors for Peace, and the two-thirds of all Japanese municipalities that formally supported the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol.

    That our cry of conscience, the voice of civil society yearning for a future free from nuclear weapons, was heard at the UN is due in large measure to the leadership of His Excellency Ban Ki-moon, who today has become the first UN Secretary-General to attend our Peace Memorial Ceremony.  President Obama, the United States government, and the 1,200-member U.S. Conference of Mayors also wielded their powerful influence.

    This ceremony is honored today by the presence of government officials representing more than 70 countries as well as the representatives of many international organizations, NGOs, and citizens’ groups.  These guests have come to join the hibakusha, their families, and the people of Hiroshima in sharing grief and prayers for a peaceful world.  Nuclear-weapon states Russia, China and others have attended previously, but today, for the first time ever, we have with us the U.S. ambassador and officials from the UK and France.

    Clearly, the urgency of nuclear weapons abolition is permeating our global conscience; the voice of the vast majority is becoming the preeminent force for change in the international community.

    To seize this unprecedented opportunity and actually achieve a world without nuclear weapons, we need above all to communicate to every corner of our planet the intense yearning of the hibakusha, thereby narrowing the gap between their passion and the rest of the world.  Unfortunately, many are unaware of the urgency; their eyes still closed to the fact that only through luck, not wisdom, have we avoided human extinction.

    Now the time is ripe for the Japanese government to take decisive action.  It should begin to “take the lead in the pursuit of the elimination of nuclear weapons” by legislating into law the three non-nuclear principles, abandoning the U.S. nuclear umbrella, legally recognizing the expanded “black rain areas,” and implementing compassionate, caring assistance measures for all the aging hibakusha anywhere in the world.

    In addition, the Prime Minister’s wholehearted commitment and action to make the dreams of the hibakusha come true would lead us all by 2020 to a new world of “zero nuclear weapons,” an achievement that would rival in human history the “discovery of zero” itself.  He could, for example, confront the leaders of the nuclear-weapon states with the urgent need for abolition, lead them to the table to sign a nuclear weapons convention, and call on all countries for sharp reductions in nuclear and other military expenditures.  His options are infinite.  

    We citizens and cities will act as well.  In accordance with the Hiroshima Appeal adopted during last week’s Hiroshima Conference for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons by 2020, we will work closely with like-minded nations, NGOs, and the UN itself to generate an ever-larger tidal wave of demand for a world free of nuclear weapons by 2020.

    Finally, on this, the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing, as we offer to the souls of the A-bomb victims our heartfelt condolences, we hereby declare that we cannot force the most patiently enduring people in the world, the hibakusha, to be patient any longer.  Now is the time to devote ourselves unreservedly to the most crucial duty facing the human family, to give the hibakusha, within their lifetimes, the nuclear-weapon-free world that will make them blissfully exclaim, “I’m so happy I lived to see this day.”

  • Address at Hiroshima Peace Park

    Hiroshima no minasama konichiwa. Ohayo gozaimasu.

    We are here, on hallowed ground, to see, to feel, to absorb and reflect.

    I am honored to be the first UN Secretary-General to take part in this Peace Memorial Ceremony on the 65th anniversary of this tragic day. And I am deeply moved.

    When the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was one year old. Only later in life, could I begin to understand the full dimension of all that happened here. As a young boy, I lived through the Korean War. One of my earliest memories is marching along a muddy road into the mountains, my village burning behind me. All those lives lost, families destroyed — so much sadness. Ever since, I have devoted my life to peace. It has brought me here today.

    Watakushiwa sekai heiwa no tameni Hiroshima ni mairimashita.

    We gather to pay our solemn respects to those who perished, sixty-five years ago, and to the many more whose lives forever changed. Life is short, but memory is long.

    For many of you, that day endures, as vivid as the white light that seared the sky, as dark as the black rains that followed. To you, I offer a message of hope. To all of you, I offer my message of peace. A more peaceful world can be ours. You are helping to make it happen. You, the survivors, who inspired us with your courage and fortitude. You, the next generations, the young generation, striving for a better day.

    Together, you have made Hiroshima an epicentre of peace. Together, we are on a journey from ground zero to Global Zero ? a world free of weapons of mass destruction. That is the only sane path to a safer world. For as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will live under a nuclear shadow.

    And that is why I have made nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation a top priority for the United Nations – and put forward a five-point plan.

    Our moment has come. Everywhere, we find new friends and allies. We see new leadership from the most powerful nations. We see new engagement in the UN Security Council. We see new energy from civil society. Russia and the United States have a new START treaty. We made important progress at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington last April, which we will build upon in Korea.

    We must keep up the momentum. In September, I will convene a high-level meeting in support of the work of the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations. We will push for negotiations towards nuclear disarmament. A Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. A Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Disarmament education in our schools — including translating the testimonies of the survivors in the world’s major languages. We must teach an elemental truth: that status and prestige belong not to those who possess nuclear weapons, but to those who reject them.

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    Sixty-five years ago, the fires of hell descended upon this place. Today, one fire burns, here in this Peace Park. That is the Flame of Peace ? a flame that will remain lit until nuclear weapons are no more. Together, let us work for that day ? in our lifetime, in the lifetimes of the survivors. Together, let us put out the last fire of Hiroshima. Let us replace that flame with the light of hope. Let us realize our dream of a world free of nuclear weapons so that our children and all succeeding generations can live in freedom, security and peace.

    Thank you. Domo arigato gozaimasu.

  • Countdown to Zero: Your Role in Getting There

    In the Nuclear Age, the potential exists to end civilization and destroy complex life on Earth.  In the 20th century, we moved from homicide to genocide to the potential for omnicide – the death of all.

    A new documentary film, Countdown to Zero, by the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, stresses one core principle of the Nuclear Age: The only safe number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero.  Nuclear weapons do not make us safer; they leave us standing on the precipice of nuclear catastrophe.

    What is still needed, however, is a sense of urgency and a plan to get from where we are, in a world with some 20,000 nuclear weapons, to zero.  

    President Obama, who favors a world without nuclear weapons, says, “This goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime.”  Secretary of State Clinton has says that the goal may be reached “in some century.”  

    In the meantime, the US continues to rely upon nuclear weapons for its security and continues to spend more than $50 billion annually on its nuclear weapons program, including modernizing its nuclear arsenal.  The US plans to spend $80 billion on improving the US nuclear weapons infrastructure over the next decade and $100 billion on improving nuclear weapons delivery vehicles.  That does not seem like a serious path to zero.  It seems instead like a path for maintaining nuclear “superiority.”

    The problem with nuclear weapons is not just that terrorists or rogue states may acquire and use them.  The problem is that any state has nuclear weapons, including the nine states that currently do: US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.   Nuclear weapons in any hands, including our own, pose a significant threat to humanity.

    A plan to get to zero nuclear weapons will require negotiations on a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  Such good faith negotiations are a requirement of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Other indicators that the US is serious about achieving zero nuclear weapons would include:

    1. Ceasing to provide special favorable treatment to parties outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), such as the US-India Nuclear deal.
    2. Ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and urging other countries to do so, so that the treaty may enter into force.
    3. Stopping to press for strategic advantage – weapons modernization, missile defenses, space weaponization, global strike force, etc.
    4. Recognizing publicly the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal as a starting point for achieving a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East.
    5. Taking all nuclear weapons off a quick-launch or launch-on-warning posture.
    6. Adopting a policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons, with no exceptions, changing the current policy of reserving the right to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states not in compliance with the NPT.

    Getting to zero will require US leadership and a sense of urgency.  How is that to happen?  In the way any significant change has always occurred; it will require the people to lead their leaders.  That means that each of us has a role to play.

    We can start by supporting ratification of New START, the new agreement between the US and Russia, lowering the number of nuclear weapons on each side to 1,550 each.  This is a step in the right direction.  It is a necessary step, but not sufficient. 

    Here are three steps you can take today to become part of the ongoing solution:

    First, educate yourself.  Sign up at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s website, www.wagingpeace.org, to receive our free monthly newsletter, The Sunflower.

    Second, take action.  Go to www.wagingpeace.org/goto/action to participate in the Foundation’s Action Alert Network.

    Third, educate others.  Speak out and be a force for ending complacency on this most critical of all issues confronting humanity.  Encourage others to see Countdown to Zero and to also sign up for The Sunflower and the Action Alert Network at www.wagingpeace.org.