Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Abolition

  • Building Global Peace in the Nuclear Age

    Building Global Peace in the Nuclear Age

    In an age in which the weapons we have created are capable of destroying the human species, what could be more important than building global peace? The Nuclear Age has made peace an imperative. If we fail to achieve and maintain global peace, the future of humanity will remain at risk. This was the view of the preeminent scientists, led by Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, who issued the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955. They stated, “Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?” They continued, “People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.”

    With the end of the Cold War, nuclear dangers did not evaporate. Rather, new dangers of nuclear proliferation, terrorism and war emerged, in a climate of public ignorance, apathy and denial. Awakening the public to these dangers and building global peace are the greatest challenges of our time, challenges made necessary by the power and threat of nuclear arsenals.

    Peace is a two-sided coin: it requires ending war as a human institution and controlling and eliminating its most dangerous weapons, but it also requires building justice and ending structural violence. One of the most profound questions of our time is: How can an individual lead a decent life in a society that promotes war and structural violence?

    The answer is that the only way to do this is to be a warrior for peace in all its dimensions. This means to actively oppose society’s thrust toward war and injustice, and to actively support efforts to resolve disputes nonviolently and to promote equity and justice in one’s society and throughout the world. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.” We know, though, that it doesn’t bend of its own accord. It bends because people care and take a stand for peace and justice.

    If we are committed to building global peace in the Nuclear Age, we must say an absolute No to war, and we must demonstrate by our words and actions our commitment to peace. We must have confidence that our acts, though the acts of a single person, can and will make a difference. We must understand that we are not alone, although we may be isolated by a corporate media and a sea of indifference. It is our challenge to awaken ourselves, to educate others and to consistently set an example for others by our daily lives. To be fully human is to put our shoulders to the arc of history so that it will bend more swiftly toward the justice and peace that we seek.

    Humanity is now joined, for better or worse, in a common future, and each of us has a role to play in determining that future. Issues of peace and war are far too important to be left only to political leaders. Most political leaders don’t know how to lead for peace. They are caught up in the war system and fear they will lose support if they oppose it. They need to be educated to be peace leaders. Strangely, most political leaders take their lead from the voters, so let’s lead them toward a world at peace.

    If you are an educator, educate for peace. If you are an artist, communicate for peace. If you are a professional, step outside the boundaries of your profession and act like the ordinary human miracle that you really are. If you are an ordinary human miracle, live with the dignity and purpose befitting the miracle of life and stand for peace.

    This will not be easy. There will be times when you will be very discouraged, but you must never give up. You will find that hope and action are intertwined. Hope gives rise to action, as action gives rise to hope. The best and most reliable way to build global peace in the Nuclear Age is to take a step in that direction, no matter how small, and the path will open to you to take a next step and a next. In following this path, your life will be entwined with the lives of people everywhere.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.
  • Nuclear Weapon Abolition and Multilateral Negotiations

    Nuclear Weapon Abolition and Multilateral Negotiations

    In the six decades since the beginning of the Nuclear Age, despite the critical need, there have not been multilateral negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition. The closest to achieving such negotiations was the inclusion of Article VI in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which calls for “negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….”

    On the basis of NPT Article VI, a 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion unanimously stated, “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the parties to the treaty agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including “[a]n unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”

    These are clear directives and commitments to pursue multilateral negotiations for nuclear disarmament, but none have taken place. For ten years the Conference on Disarmament, the international community’s single multilateral negotiating body on disarmament issues, has been blocked by rules of consensus from making any progress.

    Even partial measures aimed at arms control have been blocked or diverted by nuclear weapons states. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), although opened for signatures in 1996, has not entered into force because all nuclear capable states must ratify the treaty for this to happen. As yet, the treaty has not been ratified by the US, China and Israel, and three nuclear weapons states – India, Pakistan and North Korea – have not yet even signed the treaty.

    A Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) has long been discussed as an important next step on the path to nuclear disarmament, and was included as one of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. In May 2006, the United States tabled a draft FMCT in the Conference on Disarmament, but one that contained no provisions for verification, making it largely meaningless. Nonetheless, it could provide a starting point for negotiations.

    In addition to their failure to negotiate nuclear disarmament in good faith, as called for by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and by the International Court of Justice, the nuclear weapons states have failed to take nearly all of the other steps called for in the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. The US scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to pursue missile defenses, and has failed to proceed with negotiating with Russia a third Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START III). In the bilateral Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) negotiated by the US and Russia, there are no provisions for transparency, verification or irreversibility as called for in the 13 Practical Steps.

    The failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations was noted in the 2006 report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, Weapons of Terror. The report stated, “The erosion of confidence in the effectiveness of the NPT to prevent horizontal proliferation has been matched by a loss of confidence in the treaty as a result of the failure of the nuclear-weapon states to fulfill their disarmament obligations under the treaty and also to honour their additional commitments to disarmament made at the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences.”

    The result of the failure of the NPT nuclear weapons states (US, Russia, UK, France and China) to pursue multilateral negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition has led to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the potential for even further proliferation. India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which never signed the NPT, have developed nuclear arsenals; and North Korea, which withdrew from the NPT in 2003, has announced its entry into the nuclear weapons club. Some 35 to 40 other countries are nuclear weapons capable and could decide in the future to develop nuclear arsenals.

    Israel does not publicly acknowledge its nuclear arsenal, but it is evident to all parties that they are a nuclear weapons state, and other Middle Eastern countries question why they should accept a second tier nuclear status. Proposals for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone have been consistently rebuffed or ignored by Israel and the US.

    In 1998, India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests and announced their nuclear weapons capacity to the world. These tests were greeted with elation in both countries, as if they were a badge of honor rather than dishonor. Both countries made clear over a long period of time that they were not prepared to be second class global citizens in a world of nuclear apartheid. Although, the nuclear tests were at first condemned, this condemnation has turned to acceptance. The US now seeks to change its own non-proliferation laws as well as the rules of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in order to provide nuclear technology and materials to India.

    Most recently, North Korea conducted its first nuclear weapons test, raising considerable alarm around the world. The North Korean test carries with it the potential for a dangerous nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia involving North Korea, Japan, South Korea and China. This would create a far more dangerous region and world.

    North Korea’s nuclear test should be setting off loud warning sirens. Instead of looking at their own obligations, however, the nuclear weapons states are only pointing a finger at North Korea, in effect looking only at the symptom and not the root of the problem. The root of the problem is the ongoing possession and reliance on these weapons of mass annihilation by the nuclear weapons states. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission stated what should be obvious to all: “So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.”

    Five countries of Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – recently established a Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (CANWFZ) in their region. They became the world’s sixth nuclear weapons-free zone, following Antarctica; Latin America and the Caribbean; the South Pacific; Africa; and Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the United States has expressed its opposition to this new treaty and is reportedly pressuring the United Nations and other international bodies to withhold their support of the treaty.

    The question that I would pose is this: What is the world to do when the governments of nuclear weapons states act immorally, illegally and dangerously in failing to fulfill their obligations for good faith negotiations to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons? This question is, of course, not easy to answer. We may seem largely powerless in the face of bad faith by the nuclear weapons states, particularly the United States. It may be difficult to see the way forward, but once we have seen the problem we have no choice but to keep trying.

    I don’t have an answer to this question. I believe it is one we must find together. I have faith that the answer will be found as we move forward, step by step. My fear is that the urgency of the situation does not seem to be recognized widely, and the many efforts that have been made to influence the nuclear weapons states seem to fall on deaf ears.

    I want to encourage us all to appreciate each other on this journey. Each of us who embrace this issue, embraces humanity. I want to express my deep appreciation to the Hibakusha of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and to the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima for their persistent efforts. And to the Mayors for Peace for their wonderful 2020 Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, as well as to my colleagues throughout the world in Abolition 2000 and the Middle Powers Initiative.

    On the barren landscape of nuclear arrogance and absurdity we must have faith that humans of goodwill will triumph over catastrophically dangerous technologies in the hands of national leaders with proven capacities to act in ways that are foolish, shortsighted and incompetent. That is a leap of faith that we have all taken. We know that we cannot trust the future of the human species to political or military leaders. We must be the leaders we have been waiting for, and we must prevail in awakening humanity to the cause of a nuclear weapons-free future. Despite the odds, we have no choice but to continue and to prevail. Given the clear record of human fallibilities, there is no place for nuclear weapons in our world, and no alternative to our efforts.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • Emerging from the Nuclear Shadow

    “At any given moment in history, precious few voices are heard crying out for justice. But, now more than ever, those voices must rise above the din of violence and hatred.”

    These are the memorable words of Dr. Joseph Rotblat, who for many years led the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a global organization working for peace and for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Rotblat passed away last year in August, the month that marked the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was 96. In the final phase of his life, he consistently voiced his strong sense of foreboding about the chronic lack of progress toward nuclear disarmament and the growing threat of nuclear proliferation.

    The startling development of military technology has entirely insulated acts of war from human realities and feelings. In an instant, irreplaceable lives are lost and beloved homelands reduced to ruin. The anguished cries of victims and their families are silenced or ignored. Within this vast system of violence — at the peak of which are poised nuclear weapons — humans are no longer seen as embodiments of life. They are reduced to the status of mere things.

    In the face of these severe challenges, there is a spreading sense of powerlessness and despair within the international community, a readiness to dismiss the possibility of nuclear abolition as a mere pipe dream.

    Peace is a competition between despair and hope, between disempowerment and committed persistence. To the degree that powerlessness takes root in people’s consciousness, there is a greater tendency to resort to force. Powerlessness breeds violence.

    But it was human beings that gave birth to these instruments of hellish destruction. It cannot be beyond the power of human wisdom to eliminate them.

    The Pugwash Conferences that were Rotblat’s base of action were first held in 1957, a year that saw a rapid acceleration in the nuclear arms race that came to engulf the entire planet. On Sept. 8 of the same year, my mentor, Josei Toda, issued a call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The day was blessed with the kind of beautiful clear sky that follows a typhoon, as Toda made his declaration at a gathering of some 50,000 young people in Yokohama:

    “Today a global movement calling for a ban on the testing of atomic or nuclear weapons has arisen. It is my wish to go further; I want to expose and remove the claws that lie hidden in the depths of such weapons. . . . Even if a certain country should conquer the world using nuclear weapons, the people who used those weapons should be condemned as demons and devils.”

    Toda chose to denounce nuclear weapons in such harsh, even strident, terms because he was determined to expose their essential nature as an absolute evil — one that denies and undermines humankind’s collective right to live.

    Toda’s impassioned call issued from a philosophical understanding of life’s inner workings: He was warning against the demonic egotism that seeks to bend others to our will. He saw this writ large in the desire of states to possess these weapons of ultimate destruction.

    The idea that nuclear weapons function to deter war and are therefore a “necessary evil” is a core impediment to their elimination; it must be challenged and dismantled.

    Because Toda saw nuclear weapons as an absolute evil, he was able to transcend ideology and national interest; he was never confused by the arguments of power politics. Today, half a century later, the language of nuclear deterrence and “limited” nuclear war is again in currency. I am convinced that Toda’s soul-felt cry, rooted in the deepest dimensions of life, now shines with an even brighter universal brilliance.

    If we are to eliminate nuclear weapons, a fundamental transformation of the human spirit is essential. Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than 60 years ago, the survivors have transformed despair into a sense of mission as they have continued to call out for nuclear abolition. As people living today, it is our shared responsibility — our duty and our right — to act as heirs to this lofty work of inner transformation, to expand and elevate it into a struggle to eliminate war itself.

    In 1982, as Cold War tensions mounted, the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) organized the exhibition “Nuclear Arms: Threat to Our World” at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. It toured 16 countries, including the Soviet Union and China and other nuclear weapons states. It was viewed by some 1.2 million visitors in total. SGI members also actively participated in the global Abolition 2000 campaign. The purpose of these and other efforts has been to arouse the hearts of people seeking peace.

    To further deepen this type of grassroots solidarity, I would like to call for the creation of a U.N. Decade of Action by the World’s People for Nuclear Abolition and for the early convening of a World Summit for Nuclear Abolition. Such steps would both reflect and support an emerging international consensus for disarmament.

    Needless to say, it is young people who bear the challenges and possibilities of the future. It would therefore be valuable to hold a gathering of youth representatives from around the world prior to the annual U.N. General Assembly, giving world leaders an opportunity to hear the views of the next generation.

    Affording young people such venues and opportunities to engage as world citizens is critical to building the long-term foundations for peace.

    Crying out in opposition to war and nuclear weapons is neither emotionalism nor self-pity. It is the highest expression of human reason based on an unflinching perception of the dignity of life.

    Faced with the horrifying facts of nuclear proliferation, we must call forth the power of hope from within the depths of each individual’s life. This is the power that can transform even the most intractable reality.

    To emerge from the shadow of nuclear weapons we need a revolution in the consciousness of countless individuals — a revolution that gives rise to the heartfelt confidence that “There is something I can do.” Then, finally, we will see a coming together of the world’s people, and hear their common voice, their cry for an end to this terrible madness of destruction.

    Daisaku Ikeda is president of Soka Gakkai International, and founder of Soka University and the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research. This column runs on the second Thursday of every month.
  • The Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

    The Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

    There are many serious problems confronting humanity, but none looms larger than the continuing dangers of nuclear weapons. We have entered the seventh decade since nuclear weapons were created and used on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During this period, the world has witnessed an insane nuclear arms race, in which the human species was threatened with annihilation. Despite the end of the Cold War more than 15 years ago, the threat has not gone away. The future of civilization, even the human species, hangs in the balance, and yet very little attention is paid to ending this threat. We are challenged, individually and collectively, to end this ultimate danger to humanity.

    Warnings

    Nuclear weapons unleash the power inside the atom. The creation of these weapons demonstrated significant scientific achievement, but left humankind faced with the challenge of what to do with them. Albert Einstein, whose theoretical understanding of the relationship of energy and mass paved the way for nuclear weapons, was deeply troubled by their creation. “The unleashed power of the atom,” he prophesied, “has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    By 1955, ten years after the first use of nuclear weapons, both the US and USSR had developed thermonuclear weapons, thousands of times more powerful than the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they had begun testing these weapons on the lands of indigenous peoples. Einstein continued his dire warnings. Along with philosopher Bertrand Russell, an appeal to humanity was issued called the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, signed also by nine other prominent scientists. They wrote: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    Other warnings from highly credible sources throughout the Nuclear Age sought to put the world on notice of the peril nuclear weapons posed to humanity. The most recent warning came from the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, also known as the Blix Commission after its chairman, former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix. Referring to weapons of mass destruction, the 2006 report stated: “So long as any state has such weapons – especially nuclear arms – others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.”

    With the serious dangers that nuclear weapons pose to the human future, it is curious that so many warnings, over so long a period of time, have gone unheeded. There are still some 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Some 97 percent of these are in the arsenals of the United States and Russia. Seven other countries also have nuclear weapons: the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. There are also countries such as Japan that are virtual nuclear powers, possessing the technology and nuclear materials to develop nuclear arsenals in days or weeks.

    What will it take to awaken humanity, and change its course? Many people think that this will not happen until there is another catastrophic use of nuclear weapons, but this would be an immense tragedy and a great failure of imagination. If we can imagine that another nuclear catastrophe is possible, shouldn’t we act now to prevent it?

    Nuclear weapons are often justified as providing security for their possessors. But it is clear that nuclear weapons themselves cannot provide protection in the sense of physical security. At best, they can provide psychological security if one believes that they provide a deterrent against attack. The United States is currently spending tens of billions of dollars to develop a missile defense system. The only reasonable interpretation of this expenditure is that US defense planners understand that deterrence is not foolproof and that it can fail. Of course, missile defenses are far from foolproof as well and can also easily fail. In fact, most scientists not being paid by the missile defense program believe that missile defenses will fail.

    The Shortcomings of Deterrence

    Deterrence has many shortcomings. For it to be effective, the threat must be accurately communicated and it must be believed. In addition, the opponent must care about the threat enough to alter its behavior. Deterrence won’t work when the threat is unbelievable, or when the opponent is suicidal or not locatable.

    If nuclear weapons cannot provide protection for a population, what other advantages do they offer? One possible answer to this question is prestige. Since the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council all developed nuclear weapons, it may seem to other states that nuclear weapons would contribute to their prestige in the world. This thought was given credence by the large-scale celebrations in the streets of India and Pakistan when these two countries tested nuclear devices in 1998.

    Whatever prestige nuclear weapons may confer comes with a heavy price. Nuclear weapons are costly and possessing them will almost certainly make a country the target of nuclear weapons.

    It seems reasonable to conclude that nuclear weapons serve the interests of the weak more than they do the powerful. In the hands of a relatively weak nation, nuclear weapons can serve as an equalizer. One has only to look at the difference in the way the US has treated the three countries that Mr. Bush incorrectly labelled as being part of an axis of evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The US invaded Iraq on the false charge of having a nuclear weapons program, is threatening Iran for enriching uranium, but has done little but bluster about North Korea, which is thought to have a small arsenal of nuclear weapons and recently tested long-range missiles, adding to the anxiety of many of its potential enemies.

    From the perspective of a powerful state, the worst nightmare would be for nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of non-state terrorist organizations, whose members were both suicidal and not locatable. This could create the ideal conditions for these weapons to be used against a major nuclear power or another state. The US, for example, would be relatively helpless against a nuclear-armed al Qaeda. The US would not be able to deter al Qaeda. Its only hope would be to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon or the materials to create one.

    Why Abolish Nuclear Weapons?

    Nuclear weapons undermine security. Under current circumstances, with so many nuclear weapons in the world and such an abundance of fissile materials for constructing nuclear weapons, the likelihood is that nuclear weapons will eventually end up in the hands of non-state terrorist organizations. This would be a disastrous scenario for the world’s most powerful counties, opening the door to possible nuclear 9/11s.

    In addition, nuclear weapons are anti-democratic. They concentrate power in the hands of single individuals. The president of the United States, for example, could send the world spiraling into nuclear holocaust with just one order to unleash the US nuclear arsenal. The undemocratic nature of nuclear weapons should be of great concern to those who value democracy and the participation of citizens in decisions that affect their lives.

    Nuclear weapons should also be viewed in terms of their consequences. They are long-range weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction. They destroy equally civilians and combatants, infants and the infirm, men and women. Viewed from this perspective, these weapons must be viewed as among the most cowardly ever created. By their possession, with the implicit threat of use that possession implies, nuclear weapons also destroy the souls of those who rely upon them.

    They are a coward’s weapon and their possession, threat and use is dishonorable. This was the conclusion of virtually all of the top military leaders of World War II, most of whom were morally devastated that the US used these weapons against Japan. Truman’s Chief of Staff William Leahy, for example, wrote about the use of atomic weapons on Japan: “I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

    Humanity still has a choice, in fact, it is the same choice posed in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. We can choose to eliminate nuclear weapons or risk the elimination of the human species. A continuation of the status quo, of reliance by some states on nuclear arsenals, is likely to result in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to others states and to terrorist organizations. The alternative is the elimination of nuclear weapons.

    What Would It Take?

    What would it take to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons? On the one hand, the answer to this question is “very little.” On the other hand, because of the resistance, complacency and myopia of the leaders of the nuclear weapons states, the answer may be a “great amount.”

    To move forward with the elimination of nuclear weapons would require compliance with existing international law. The International Court of Justice concluded in 1996: “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.” In the decade since the Court announced its opinion, there has been little evidence of “good faith” negotiations by the nuclear weapons states moving toward any reasonable conclusion.

    The negotiations that the Court describes as an obligation of the nuclear weapons states would need to move toward the end a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty setting forth a program for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons with appropriate measures of verification. With the political will to pursue these required negotiations, a treaty would not be a difficult task to achieve. What is lacking is the requisite political will on the part of the nuclear weapons states.

    A Special Responsibility, A Tragic Failure

    The United States, as the world’s most powerful country and the only country to use nuclear weapons in warfare, has a special responsibility to lead in fulfilling its obligations under international law. In fact, without US leadership, it is unlikely that progress will be possible toward nuclear disarmament. But rather than lead in this direction, the United States under the Bush administration has been the major obstacle to nuclear disarmament. It has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to pursue dreams of “star wars,” has opposed a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and in general has acted as an obstacle to progress on all matters of nuclear disarmament.

    The US has also pursued a double standard with regard to nuclear weapons. It has been silent on Israeli nuclear weapons, and now seeks to change its own non-proliferation laws to enable it to provide nuclear technology and materials to India, a country that has not joined the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has developed a nuclear arsenal. At the same time, the US has developed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against seven countries, five of which are non-nuclear weapons states, despite giving assurances that it would not use nuclear weapons against such states.

    What is tragic is that the American people don’t seem to grasp the seriousness of their government’s failure. They are lacking in education that would lead to an understanding of the situation. Their attention has been diverted to Iraq, Iran and North Korea, and they fail to see what is closest to home: the failure of their own government to lead in a constructive and lawful manner to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. “And thus,” in Einstein’s words, “we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    To bring about real change in nuclear policy, people must begin with a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and then they must speak out as if their lives and the lives of their children depended on their actions. It is unlikely that governments will give up powerful weapons on their own accord. They must be pushed by their citizenry – citizens unwilling to continue to run the risk of nuclear holocaust.

    A New Story

    We need a new story for considering nuclear dangers, a story that begins with the long struggle of humans over some three million years to arrive at our present state of society. That state is far from perfect, but few would suggest that it should be sacrificed on the altar of weapons of mass annihilation capable of reducing civilization to rubble.

    The first humans lived short and brutal lives. They were both predators and preyed upon. They survived by their nimbleness, more of body than mind, doing well if they lived into their twenties. Enough early humans were able to protect and nurture their infants in their hazardous environments that some of the children of each generation could survive to an age when they could themselves reproduce and repeat the cycle.

    Without these amazingly capable early ancestors, and those that followed who met the distinct challenges of their times and environments for many hundreds of thousands of generations, we would not be here. Each of our ancestors needed to survive the perils of birth, infancy, childhood and at least early maturity in order for each of us to have made it into the world.

    On the basis of the pure physical capacity to survive, we owe a debt to our ancestors, but with this debt comes something more. We each have a responsibility for helping to assure the chain of human survival that passes the world on intact to the next generation. In addition to this, we share an obligation to preserve the accumulated wisdom and beauty created by those who have walked the earth before us – the ideas of the great storytellers and philosophers, the great music, literature and art, the artifacts of humankind’s collective genius in its varied forms.

    All of the manifestations of human genius and triumph are placed in jeopardy by nuclear weapons and the threat of their use. Why do we tolerate this threat? Why are we docile in the face of policies that could end not only humanity, but life itself?

    Those of us alive today are the gatekeepers to the future, but the assumption of power by the state has left us vulnerable to the continuing threat of nuclear annihilation. The only way to be free of this threat is to be free of nuclear weapons. This is the greatest challenge of our time. It will require education so that people can learn to think about nuclear weapons and war in a new way. We will need organizational modes of collective action to bring pressure to bear on governments to achieve nuclear disarmament. Ordinary people must lead from below.

    The Role of Citizens

    Organizations working for nuclear disarmament – such as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Abolition 2000, the Middle Powers Initiative and the Mayors for Peace – can help give shape to efforts to put pressure on governments. But the change that is needed cannot be the sole responsibility of interest groups. Without the intervention of large numbers of people, we will go on with business as usual, a course that seems likely to lead to nuclear proliferation and further catastrophic uses of nuclear weapons. This is not a distant problem, nor one that can be shunted aside and left to governments.

    We who have entered the 21st century are not exempt from responsibility for assuring a human future. Japanese Buddhist leader Josei Toda called for young people to take the lead in pursuing nuclear disarmament. His proposal has great merit given the fact that it is their future and the future of their children that is imperiled by these weapons.

    Change occurs one person at a time. Each of us must take responsibility for creating a world free of nuclear threat. Noted anthropologist Margaret Mead offered this hopeful advice: “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

    In the end, the necessary changes cannot be left to governments alone. It is up to each of us. What can we do? I have five suggestions. First, become better informed. You can do this by visiting the website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at www.wagingpeace.org. Second, speak out, wherever you are. Talk to your family, friends, and other people around you. Third, join an organization working to abolish nuclear weapons, and help it to become successful. Fourth, use your unique talents. Each of us has special talents that can help make a difference. Use them. Fifth, be persistent. This is a tough job requiring strength and persistence.

    In working for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, you can be a force for saving the world. Being a nuclear weapons abolitionist will require all the courage and commitment of those who worked in the 19th century for the abolition of slavery. Abolishing slavery was the challenge of that time; abolishing nuclear weapons is the even more consequential challenge of our time

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • The Modern Nuclear Threat

    In Washington, DC, A 10 kiloton nuclear weapon, half the size of the one used in Nagasaki, has just been detonated next to the US Capitol. In less than a second, the Capitol Building, the congressional offices and everything within a quarter mile is enveloped in a fireball measuring at 7,000 degrees centigrade. The blast from the bomb travels in one direction across Massachusetts Avenue towards Union Station demolishing everything in its path. In the other direction it goes towards the Washington Monument. The area between Union Station and the Washington Monument is blanketed in fire. Fifteen thousand people are killed instantly. Soon, 15,000 severely wounded will overwhelm the local hospitals. In the coming months, many of those who did not perish in the initial bombing will succumb to the effects of radiation poisoning.

    Good Morning. Thank you for asking me to speak today. My name is Nickolas Roth. I am the Director of Research and Advocacy for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. What you just heard is the scenario that experts have developed if one of the smallest nuclear weapons available today is detonated in Washington, DC.

    The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a tragic chapter in the history of the human race. These bombings not only demonstrate the cruelty that humanity can inflict upon itself, but they also foreshadow a terrifying future if we do not halt nuclear proliferation and embrace nuclear disarmament. It has been 61 years since nuclear weapons were first used in war. I wish I could say that the world has learned the lesson that the survivors, the hibakusha, have been trying to teach us since then: The lesson that humans and nuclear weapons cannot coexist.

    Unfortunately, all evidence points to the contrary. The world is a far more dangerous place than it was 61 years ago. The world is a far more dangerous place than it was 10 or even 5 years ago. The likelihood that countries will seek nuclear weapons and the likelihood that countries will use nuclear weapons has increased.

    Today, I would like to give a very brief overview of the nuclear threat that we currently face. I will start by describing what would happen if a nuclear missile were detonated over Washington, DC. Then, I will explain how recent policy changes by the United States are putting a strain on arms control efforts. Finally, I will suggest ways the US can help minimize the probability of nuclear weapons use.

    To begin, nuclear weapons have become far more lethal since 1945. The 21 kiloton bomb used at Nagasaki is considered miniscule by modern standards. Today, there are thousands of missiles tipped with nuclear warheads hundreds of times more powerful. A full nuclear war would likely bring about the end of the human race. But, even the amount of suffering and destruction that would result from the detonation of just one of these nuclear weapons over a populated area is unprecedented. A book published in 2004, titled Whole World on Fire by Lynn Eden, details the heat and blast effects of a moderate-sized 300 kiloton weapon detonated over the Pentagon.

    It would create a fireball more than a mile in diameter producing temperatures of more than 200 million degrees Fahrenheit-about four to five times the temperature at the center of the sun.

    In Pentagon City, asphalt and metal would melt, paint would burn. Offices and cars would explode into flames. The blast wave would create 750 mile per hour winds tossing burning cars into the air.

    On the edge of the Potomac the fireball would be 5,000 times brighter than a desert sun at noon. It would melt the marble at the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. Four seconds after detonation, these structures would collapse from the blast wave that followed.

    On Capitol Hill, the House and Senate office buildings would burn. The blast would shatter exterior windows and level surrounding buildings.

    Within tens of minutes, everything within approximately three-and-a-half to four-and-a-half miles of the Pentagon would be engulfed in a massive fire. The fire would extinguish all life and destroy almost everything else.

    For decades, the international community has tried to prevent countries from causing this level of destruction. The cornerstone of these efforts has always been international agreements that encourage arms control. The most important of these is the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT has three key provisions. It guarantees countries the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful means. It prohibits the passing of nuclear weapons technology to, and the development of nuclear weapons by, non-nuclear weapons states. Most important, it requires countries with nuclear weapons to negotiate nuclear disarmament. The treaty establishes an effective framework discouraging more countries from developing nuclear weapons. When the treaty was signed in 1968, there were five nuclear weapons states. The NPT has not been perfect and currently there are nine, but without it there would likely be more.

    Today, the international anti-nuclear framework set forth in the NPT is unraveling. There are countries such as Israel, India and Pakistan that have never signed the treat, and developed large-scale programs. North Korea has broken away from the NPT in order to develop nuclear weapons. Iran may be in the early stages of a weapons program. These countries are endangering themselves and their neighbors, as are the original five nuclear weapons states.

    One of the most dangerous recent developments is in Russia. Russia is currently building up its own nuclear arsenal, in significant part, in response to a US missile shield. Recent articles in the Nation and Foreign Policy magazines have argued that, given the state of Russia’s infrastructure, such a build-up is extremely dangerous. The Russian government is not investing in proper safety mechanisms to prevent catastrophes such as accidental launches. There has already been a near miss. In 1995, the world came within minutes of nuclear Armageddon when the Russian early warning systems confused the launch of a Norwegian weather rocket with a preemptive nuclear attack by the United States. Boris Yeltsin had nuclear launch codes in front of him and would have retaliated had the mistake not been caught at the last minute. Russia’s early warning system has only further deteriorated since then. There are massive holes in its detection capabilities. Russian commanders rely on antiquated radar rather than satellite technology to detect possible launches.

    Together, the United States and Russia have 26,300 nuclear weapons. They possess the ability to carry out precision nuclear strikes anywhere in the world. They have hundreds of nuclear missiles on hair-trigger alert, pointed at each other, that could be fired in a matter of minutes. An accidental nuclear launch by Russia and the retaliatory response by the United States would result in the deaths of millions of people.

    But let’s not forget the biggest nuclear player and the destabilizing effect it has on non-proliferation regimes. In 2002, the United States placed increased emphasis on the role that nuclear weapons play in its foreign policy. The Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review states:

    1. Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies, and friends.
    2. Nuclear weapons can be used to achieve political or strategic goals.
    3. US policy now supports preemptive attacks, possibly nuclear, on countries with Weapons of Mass Destruction or hardened targets.

    The United States is relying now, more than ever before, on nuclear weapons. It also has lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. In the past five years, the Bush administration has ignored many important international arms control treaties. It has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits all forms of nuclear testing. It has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It has invested billions of dollars into a missile shield program; an action seen by many other countries as an aggressive gesture.

    In violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has attempted to develop nuclear weapons that can be used more readily in combat, such as the “bunker buster.” It has also attempted to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal with the implementation of the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program. Most recently, it has negotiated a “deal” with India that allows the exchange of nuclear technology.

    By steering around international treaties that encourage arms control, attempting to build new weapons and then seeking to use them for political or strategic goals, the United States is encouraging other countries to do the same. As more countries go down this road, the likelihood of nuclear weapons use will only increase.

    Although the only way to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again is through total disarmament, there are ways to stop proliferation and minimize the risk of nuclear weapons use. In order to be effective, these efforts must have the support of the United States. As the world’s most powerful nation in possession of thousands of nuclear weapons, and as the only country that has used nuclear weapons as an instrument of war, the United States is ethically obligated to pursue non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament. This effort must begin with the following three steps:

    1. Altering US current nuclear policy. The US must de-legitimize the idea that nuclear weapons are an effective way to achieve political or strategic goals by declaring that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons in war.
    2. Ratifying and complying with the provisions set forth in international treaties such as the Non Proliferation Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, and the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaties that promote non-proliferation and disarmament.
    3. Abandoning our policy of preemptive attacks, which further emboldens countries like Iran to pursue nuclear weapons.

    Despite the dangers that we now face and despite all that needs to be done to make the world a safer place, I am hopeful. I am hopeful because historically, anti-nuclear activism in the United States has been incredibly effective. Anti-nuclear activism was a significant factor in bringing an end to nuclear testing in the US and around the world. Activism was influential in slowing the nuclear arms build up in the 1980s. History has shown that our government listens to the public about nuclear weapons. If the people of the United States work together to tell our government that the creation and use of nuclear weapons is not acceptable, we can actually change nuclear policy to make the world safer. I strongly encourage you to find a way to get involved in anti-nuclear work.

    Nuclear weapons are the most significant threat to the future of the human race. As long as they exist, no human being is safe. Today, more and more countries are adopting dangerous nuclear policies. It is imperative that we pressure our government to bring the world back from potential nuclear anarchy. Only then, can we prevent proliferation and prevent future Hiroshimas and Nagasakis.

    Nick Roth is Director of the Washington, DC Office of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • Nagasaki Peace Declaration

    “What can people possibly be thinking?”

    At the close of the 61st year following the atomic bombings, voices of anger and frustration are echoing throughout the city of Nagasaki.

    At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed our city, instantly claiming the lives of 74,000 people and injuring 75,000 more. People were burned by the intense heat rays and flung through the air by the horrific blast winds. Their bodies bathed in mordant radiation, many of the survivors continue to suffer from the after-effects even today. How can we ever forget the anguished cries of those whose lives and dreams were so cruelly taken from them?

    And yet, some 30,000 nuclear weapons stand ready nonetheless to annihilate humanity.

    A decade ago, the International Court of Justice stated that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law, strongly encouraging international society to strive for the elimination of nuclear armaments. Six years ago at the United Nations, the nuclear weapon states committed themselves not merely to prevent proliferation, but to an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

    Nuclear weapons are instruments of indiscriminate genocide, and their elimination is a task that mankind must realize without fail.

    Last year, the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which 189 countries are signatories, ended without result, and no progress has been observed since.

    The nuclear weapon states have not demonstrated sincerity in their efforts at disarmament; the United States of America in particular has issued tacit approval of nuclear weapons development by India, and is moving forward with the construction of cooperative arrangements for nuclear technology. At the same time, nuclear weapon declarant North Korea is threatening the peace and security of Japan and the world as a whole. In fact, the very structure of non-proliferation is facing a crisis due to nuclear ambitions by various nations including Pakistan, which has announced its possession of nuclear arms; Israel, which is widely considered to possess them; and Iran.

    The time has come for those nations that rely on the force of nuclear armaments to respectfully heed the voices of peace-loving people, not least the atomic bomb survivors, to strive in good faith for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and to advance towards the complete abolishment of all such weapons.

    It must also be said that nuclear weapons cannot be developed without the cooperation of scientists. We would urge scientists to realize their responsibility for the destiny of all mankind, not just for their own particular countries, and to abandon the development of nuclear arms.

    Once again we call upon the Japanese government, representing as it does a nation that has experienced nuclear devastation firsthand, to ground itself in reflection upon history, uphold the peaceful intentions of the constitution, enact into the law the three non-nuclear principles, and work for establishment of a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, that the tragedy of war may not occur again. We also urge the Japanese government to provide greater assistance to aging atomic bomb survivors, both within Japan and overseas.

    For 61 years, the hibakusha atomic bomb survivors have recounted their tragic experiences to succeeding generations. Many have chosen not to hide the keloid scars on their skin, continuing to tell of things that they might rather not remember. Their efforts are indeed a starting point for peace. Their voices reverberate around the world, calling for the deepest compassion of those who are working to ensure that Nagasaki is the last place on our planet to have suffered nuclear destruction.

    The 3rd Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons will be held in October of this year. We invite people working for peace to span generations and national boundaries, and gather together to communicate. Let us firmly join hands and foster an even stronger network for nuclear abolition and peace, extending from Nagasaki throughout the world.

    We remain confident that the empathy and solidarity of all those who inherit the hopes of the hibakusha atomic bomb survivors will become an even more potent force, one that will surely serve to realize a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.

    In closing, we pray for the undisturbed repose of the souls of those who lost their lives in such misery, we resolve that 2006 should be a new year of departure, and we proclaim our commitment to continue to strive for the establishment of lasting world peace.

    Iccho Itoh was the mayor of Nagaski. [He died in April 2007]
  • Time to Wake Up

    Time to Wake Up

    In this season of the 61st anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, it is noteworthy that there are still 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. These weapons are in the arsenals of nine countries, but over 95 percent of them are in the arsenals of just two countries: the US and Russia. These two countries each actively deploy some 6,000 nuclear weapons and keep about 2,000 on hair-trigger alert.

    The political elites in the US seem to think this is fine, and that they can go on with nuclear business-as-usual for the indefinite future. Not a single member of the US Senate has called for pragmatic steps leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons, including negotiations for nuclear disarmament as required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    US leaders are living within a bubble of hubris that is manifested in many ways, flagrant examples of which are the pursuit of an illegal war in Iraq, and opposition to joining the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto accords on global warming. Underlying their policies is the attitude that US military and economic power gives them the right to violate international law at will and pursue a unilateral path of force when it suits their fancy. We citizens are being held hostage to their major errors in judgment, which in the Nuclear Age could result in the destruction of the country and much of civilization.

    Rather than working to reduce the nuclear threat, US nuclear policy is promoting nuclear proliferation. A recent example is the proposed US-India nuclear deal, in which the Congress appears prepared to change its own non-proliferation laws in order to sell nuclear materials and technology to a country that never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and secretly developed nuclear weapons. US leaders must have their heads deeply buried in the sand if they fail to grasp that this will spur an even more intense nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent and be viewed as hypocritical by the vast majority of the non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    In the 2006 Hiroshima Peace Declaration, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba pointed out that the US Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution in June “demanding that all nuclear weapons states, including the Untied States, immediately cease all targeting of cities with nuclear weapons.” Of course, this would be a good beginning, but nuclear weapons have little use other than to target cities or other nuclear weapons. They are, after all, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

    The World Court found the threat or use of nuclear weapons to be illegal. Most churches have been vocal about their immorality. These weapons detract from security rather than add to it. A recent international commission report on weapons of mass destruction, Weapons of Terror, concluded: “So long as any state has [weapons of mass destruction] – especially nuclear arms – others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.”

    Why are we not appalled by the myopia and arrogance of our political leadership for disastrous policies such as those that ignore the obligation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects? We should be asking: How do individuals who support these insane policies rise to such high office? We should also be asking: Why do ordinary Americans not care enough about their survival to change their leadership?

    A large part of the answer to the first question is that the system is broken and far too dependent on large cash contributions to buy television ads. Insight into an answer to the second question may be found in the recent Harris Poll (July 21, 2006) that reported that 50 percent of US respondents still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the US invaded that country in March 2003. One opinion analyst, Steven Kull, described such views as “independent of reality.” That is how it is for many Americans and their political leaders in this 61st year of the Nuclear Age. Living with such purposeful ignorance is a recipe for disaster.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • Towards a Nuclear Free World

    If someone holds a classroom full of children hostage with a machine gun, threatening to kill them unless his demands are met, we consider him a dangerous, crazy terrorist. But if a head of state holds millions of civilians hostage with nuclear weapons, many consider this as perfectly normal. We must end that double standard and recognize nuclear weapons for what they are: instruments of terror.

    On July 8, 1996, the World Court declared the threat or use of nuclear weapons contrary to international law and unanimously called on all states to conduct negotiations leading to complete nuclear disarmament.

    Treaties have been concluded to ban biological and chemical weapons. Why has an agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons eluded us for so long? If Hitler had used nuclear weapons and lost the war, they would have been outlawed as cruel and inhuman long ago.

    But because they were first used by the victorious side in a war considered just, they have enjoyed an undeserved aura of legitimacy. Over the last fifty years, many flawed arguments have been put forward intended to justify the policy of nuclear deterrence.

    It has been asserted, for example, that nuclear weapons have helped prevent war. Yet the five declared nuclear powers have been involved in eight times as many wars on average since 1945 as the non-nuclear countries. Some credit nuclear weapons with having prevented nuclear war, which is preposterous: without nuclear weapons, there could not possibly be any nuclear war. At the peak, the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals had a destructive power nearly 10,000 times all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or, as President Carter said in his farewell address, one World War II every second for a slow afternoon.

    It is conceivable that the threat of nuclear retaliation may help deter a deliberate attack, but not every war begins that way.

    When tensions are high, events may escalate out of a small incident, and it is sometimes hard to say who did what first.

    Relying on the threat of mutual destruction to deter war is as if we sought to prevent traffic accidents by packing our car with dynamite, putting a trip wire around it and telling everyone, “Don’t hit my car, or it will explode and kill you!” (and me too, of course). This should deter others from hitting me intentionally, but the slightest accidental collision would be fatal.

    On numerous occasions, we came close to a nuclear catastrophe, due to misinformation, misunderstandings, or computer errors.

    During the Cuban missile crisis, the United States was ready to retaliate against the Soviet Union if Castro had shot down American observation planes, convinced that he did so on Soviet orders. That could easily have escalated out of control. In fact, Khrushchev had ordered Castro to stop shooting at American planes, but Castro ignored his orders. Fortunately, no plane was hit.

    As long as the nuclear powers insist on the right to keep their arsenals, some other countries will be tempted to acquire nuclear weapons, too. Once terrorists get hold of nuclear weapons, they may not shrink from using them. Unless we eliminate nuclear weapons, it is only a question of time until they are used, whether deliberately or by accident. We are playing Russian roulette with our future.

    Despite decades of government propaganda, US and British polls have found repeatedly that up to 85 percent of voters are in favor of eliminating all nuclear weapons. We must tell the leaders of the nuclear nations that we reject our role as involuntary nuclear hostages. The abolition of nuclear weapons requires a popular movement, in the same way as the abolition of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid came about only after sustained public pressure.

    Some grant we might be better off if nuclear weapons had never been invented, but argue that now that we know how to make them, we cannot disinvent them, and therefore have to live with them as long as civilization exists. It is true that we cannot disinvent nuclear weapons, but nobody has disinvented cannibalism either, we simply abhor it. Can’t we learn to abhor equally the thought of incinerating entire cities with nuclear weapons

     

    Dietrich Fischer is Academic Director of the European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria (www.epu.ac.at) and Co-Director of TRANSCEND (www.transcend.org), a peace and development network.
  • Global Hiroshima

    Global Hiroshima

    Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic weapon, giving rise to the Nuclear Age, an era characterized by humankind living precariously with weapons capable of destroying the human species. Should the incredible dangers of nuclear weapons not have been immediately apparent from the destruction of Hiroshima and, three days later, of Nagasaki, throughout the Nuclear Age there have been repeated warnings of their unprecedented capacity for destruction. These warnings have come from scientists, military leaders, religious leaders and, occasionally, political leaders. Mostly, these warnings have fallen on deaf ears.

    Sixty-one years after the destruction of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 15 years after the ending of the Cold War, there are still some 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Over 95 percent of these are in the arsenals of the US and Russia, with some 4,000 of these kept on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. In addition, seven other countries now possess nuclear weapons: UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. All of the nuclear weapons states continue to improve and test missile delivery systems for their nuclear warheads.

    Throughout the Nuclear Age there have been accidents, miscalculations and near inadvertent nuclear wars. The closest we may have come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, tense days in which decision makers in the US and USSR struggled to find a way through the crisis without an escalation into nuclear exchange. In the 44 years since that crisis, despite other close calls, humankind collectively has relaxed and let down its guard against the dangers these weapons pose to all.

    It has been widely accepted that nuclear weapons are illegal and immoral because they are weapons of mass murder that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Ten years ago, the International Court of Justice concluded that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. Progress toward this goal has not been reassuring. No such negotiations are currently in progress. Most political leaders in the US are more concerned with the reliability of nuclear weapons than with finding a way to eliminate them.

    To safely navigate the shoals of the Nuclear Age, three key elements are needed: leadership, a plan, and political will. Only one country currently has the capacity to provide this leadership and that is the US. A spark of hope that such leadership might exist briefly flared during the Reagan presidency when Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev came close to an agreement on nuclear disarmament at their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Their good intentions faltered on the divisive issue of missile defenses. Since then, no high-ranking American political leader, including members of the Senate, has spoken out for a world free of nuclear weapons. President Bush’s leadership on the issue of nuclear disarmament has been non-existent and, in fact, has set up obstacles to achieving this goal.

    The years pass with the threat of nuclear Armageddon hanging over us, and we wait, seemingly in vain, for political leaders to emerge who are willing to make the abolition of nuclear weapons a high priority on the political agenda. We continue to wait for political leaders who will challenge the nuclear double standards, which assume that some countries can maintain nuclear weapons in perpetuity while other countries must be forever content to forego these weapons.

    We wait for political leaders who will advance a viable plan for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. Civil society has been able to devise a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, a draft treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, so certainly government leaders should be able to do so as well.

    After 61 years of the Nuclear Age, it seems clear that the political leaders needed to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world are unlikely to emerge from existing political systems and structures. These leaders will emerge only if ordinary people demand such leadership. The leaders will have to be led by the people toward assuring a future free of nuclear threat. Absent a sustained surge of political pressure from below, humanity will continue to drift toward increased nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and, finally, nuclear annihilation. The choice remains ours: a future free of nuclear threat or a global Hiroshima. The stakes could not be higher.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.
  • Your Role in Nuclear Weapons Abolition

    Your Role in Nuclear Weapons Abolition

    Future historians, looking back at our time, may be perplexed at humanity’s tepid collective response to nuclear weapons. Of course, if there are future historians, it will be a positive sign, for it will mean that humanity has survived the nuclear threat that has confronted the world since the onset of the Nuclear Age in the mid-twentieth century.

    Nuclear weapons, a human invention, make possible the end of civilization and the human species, along with most other life on the planet. In light of this threat, humanity has done very little to safeguard its future. Why, future historians may ask, has humankind been so slow and ineffective in its response to a threat of this magnitude? By examining this question now, we may encourage greater awareness of the threat and creative initiatives for overcoming the most serious dangers of the Nuclear Age.

    While nuclear weapons were created secretly in the US nuclear weapons program, the Manhattan Project, since then the threat has not been hidden, but rather quite open. In his first speech to the public after the use of the atomic bomb to destroy Hiroshima, US president Harry Truman thanked God that the bomb had come to America rather than to its enemies and prayed for divine guidance in its use. Since the use of the bomb and the ending of the Second World War appeared to have a causal relationship, many celebrated the advent and use of nuclear weapons.

    Others, grasping the destructive power and potential of nuclear weapons, after hearing of Hiroshima, immediately warned humanity of the peril it now faced. Albert Camus, the great French writer and existentialist, wrote in Resistance: “Before the terrifying prospects now available to humanity, we see even more clearly that peace is the only battle worth waging. This is no longer a prayer but a demand to be made by all peoples to their governments – a demand to choose definitively between hell and reason.”

    Within four years of the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States, the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons. In less than a decade from the destruction of Hiroshima, both the US and USSR went from fission bombs to fusion bombs, increasing the power of nuclear weapons a thousand-fold. Many scientists warned against the leap to thermonuclear weapons, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific leader of the Manhattan Project, but their warnings went unheeded.

    A seminal warning of scientists, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, was issued in 1955. It concluded: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    More than 50 years later, we live in a world of nuclear double standards, with one set of rules for the nuclear weapons states and another set of rules for the rest of the world. With the Bush doctrine of preventive war demonstrated against Iraq, it is little wonder that other countries named by him as part of the “Axis of Evil,” North Korea and Iran, would be interested in acquiring nuclear arms. In the case of these countries, the likelihood is that they seek nuclear weapons to deter a pre-emptive US attack against them, and would themselves be deterred from using their weapons by threat of retaliation.

    The longer states cling to nuclear deterrence for their security and the more states that acquire nuclear weapons, though, the more likely it is that nuclear weapons or the materials to make them will end up in the hands of terrorist organizations. Such organizations will not be subject to deterrence because they will not be locatable to retaliate against. This means that nuclear weapons will have more value and will be more likely to be used in the hands of terrorists than in the hands of states. This is the paradox of nuclear weapons: In addition to being immoral and illegal, they are more likely to undermine than enhance the security of powerful states.

    Most people, including the leaders of the nuclear weapons states, do not appear to understand this, and thus they cling tenaciously to these weapons that may prove to be the source of their own destruction. National leaders of the nuclear weapons states justify these weapons in terms of deterrence, but without being able to articulate who it is that they are deterring. In the end, they rationalize the weapons as necessary in the event that conditions were to change in the future. They fail to grasp that the only safe number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero. And they seem to believe that these weapons enhance their prestige in the world, because they are weapons possessed by powerful and once-powerful nations, including all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

    The only way in which this situation may change is by education and advocacy within the nuclear weapons states. The United States, as the strongest nuclear power and as the only country to have used nuclear weapons in warfare, has a special responsibility to lead the way toward a world free of nuclear weapons, but its leadership shows little inclination to do so. The Bush administration has shown contempt for international treaties to control and reduce nuclear arms and to prevent their proliferation. Among these treaties are the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which it has abrogated; the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which it refuses to submit to the Senate for ratification; and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament and is at the heart of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

    The US is following a breathtakingly hypocritical path with regard to nuclear weapons. It tells other nations not to develop these weapons, but seeks new designs for its own nuclear arsenal to make its weapons more reliable and serve specific functions, such as “bunker-busting.” It threatens sanctions against Iran for its uranium enrichment program, while promoting a nuclear deal with India, a known nuclear proliferator, which would provide India with US nuclear technology and allow India to have international safeguards on only some of its nuclear reactors and thereby increase the size of its nuclear arsenal even more rapidly than it is already doing. It threatens North Korea for developing nuclear weapons, but turns a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

    Our dilemma today is that there appears to be no way for the vast majority of humanity, which favor a world free of nuclear weapons, to bring pressure to bear on the leadership of the US and other nuclear weapons states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Nuclear weapons are cowardly because they kill indiscriminately and from a vast distance, but it is equally true that a significant percentage of humanity lacks the will and courage to confront the leaders of the nuclear weapons states about abolition of these weapons.

    The words “nuclear weapons” are flat and dull, and do not convey the horror that is the weapons themselves. People may not act unless they can empathize with the victims and potential victims of these weapons. Perhaps we have become flat and dull people, living only within the bubble of nationalism and losing touch with our humanity. To achieve change, more and more people are going to have to wake up to the great threats of the Nuclear Age and make the abolition of nuclear weapons a high priority in their lives.

    Once individuals do wake up, there is much they can do to educate themselves about nuclear weapons issues. A starting point is the website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, www.wagingpeace.org. At that website, one can find extensive background information on nuclear weapons issues; sign up for a free monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower, which provides regular updates on key nuclear issues; and join the Turn the Tide Campaign to receive regular action alerts to change US nuclear policy. To become involved internationally, visit the website of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (www.abolition2000.org) and the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Eliminate Nuclear weapons by the year 2020 (www.mayorsforpeace.org).

    Once you become educated on these issues, you can start spreading the word, changing from a passive member of a polity to an active force for peace. To abolish nuclear weapons, so essential for our common future, will require more from all of us and far less tolerance of political leaders who think that “business as usual” will get us through the Nuclear Age unscathed. A commitment to rid the world of nuclear weapons is a commitment to all life, including a future not yet born. It is nothing less than a solemn responsibility that all living humans share to pass the world on intact to future generations. We must not shirk that responsibility.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.