Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Abolition

  • From Arms Control to Abolition: Global Action for a Nuclear Weapons Free World

    During the Cold War, nuclear arsenals were rationalized on the basis of deterrence, and the nuclear weapons states developed military strategies of mutual assured destruction (MAD). Since it was recognized that attacks and counter-attacks with nuclear arsenals would be without precedent in their destructiveness, even to the point of destroying human civilization and most life on Earth, the acronym MAD seemed particularly appropriate. During the Cold War period, leaders tried to bring some modicum of sanity to an otherwise insane situation by engaging in arms control discussions and occasionally reaching agreements regarding the control of nuclear arsenals.

    The two most important arms control agreements during the Cold War were reached in the 1960s. The first was the Partial Test Ban (PTB) Treaty, which was signed and entered into force in 1963. This treaty prohibited nuclear testing in the oceans, atmosphere, and outer space. The PTB was achieved under considerable pressure from citizens throughout the world who objected to the dangerous health effects associated with atmospheric nuclear testing. Among the leaders in the protest against atmospheric nuclear testing were Linus Pauling, the great scientist, and his wife Ava Helen Pauling, who organized a petition signed by 9,235 scientists, which Pauling delivered to U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold on January 15, 1958. The document was entitled, “Petition to the United Nations Urging that an International Agreement to Stop the Testing of Nuclear Bombs Be Made Now.”

    The PTB did not put an end to nuclear testing, and thus to the development of new and more efficient nuclear weapons. Rather, it resulted in moving nuclear testing underground. In this sense, the treaty was more an environmental treaty than an arms control treaty. The only thing that the treaty disarmed was public outrage at the health risks related to atmospheric nuclear testing. The treaty contained the promise of “seeking to achieve the discontinuance of all test explosions of nuclear weapons for all time,” which was widely recognized as a critical step in ending the nuclear arms race. Unfortunately, the goal of ending nuclear testing remained essentially dormant for the next 33 years until a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was finally adopted by the United Nations and opened for signatures in 1996.

    The second important arms control agreement during the Cold War was the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. This treaty sought to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials to states not in possession of nuclear arsenals as of January 1, 1967. The treaty recognized two classes of states: nuclear weapons states (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China), and non-nuclear weapons states (all other states). The nuclear weapons states agreed not to transfer nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials to the non-nuclear weapons states, and the non-nuclear weapons states agreed not to receive or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials.

    When the NPT was negotiated, the non-nuclear weapons states recognized the unequal nature of the treaty, and argued for two concessions from the nuclear weapons states. First, nuclear energy for peaceful purposes was described in the treaty as an “inalienable right,” and nuclear weapons states promised to help the non-nuclear weapons states in developing nuclear power plants. Second, the non-nuclear weapons states objected to the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” created by the treaty, and negotiated Article VI of the treaty which called for good faith negotiations to achieve a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, nuclear disarmament, and general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Article VI of the NPT, despite its carefully crafted language, is one of the most important, if not the most important, of all commitments made by nuclear weapons states in arms control agreements.

    In exchange for not attempting to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, the non-nuclear weapons states had a reasonable expectation under Article VI that the nuclear weapons states would proceed with good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament, to rid the world of the terrible threat of nuclear holocaust. Until the end of the Cold War, however, the nuclear weapons states had made scant progress toward nuclear disarmament, and were widely viewed by states from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) as being in violation of their Article VI commitment. In fact, at the end of the Cold War, the strategic nuclear arsenals of the nuclear weapons states were considerably larger than they were when the NPT was signed in 1968.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, the rationale for retaining nuclear arsenals has evaporated. Deterrence was always a questionable theory, but without the threatened attack of an enemy, it clearly makes no sense at all. Nuclear weapons can be more clearly recognized in the aftermath of the Cold War as “instruments of genocide” that serve no reasonable purpose. Since the end of the Cold War, increasing pressure has mounted for the nuclear weapons states to fulfill the promise under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    START I, START II, and START III

    Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in the early 1990s resulted in two treaties agreeing to the reduction of the numbers of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the United States and former Soviet Union. START I, which was signed by Presidents Gorbachev and Bush in 1991, called for reductions to approximately 6,500 deployed strategic weapons on each side. START II, signed by Presidents Bush and Yeltsin in 1993, called for further reductions of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 3,000 to 3,500 on each side by January 1, 2003. START II was ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1996, but has yet to be ratified by the Russian Duma, many members of which have expressed deep concerns over the U.S.-led efforts to expand NATO eastward. In September 1997, the U.S. and Russia agreed to extend the date for achieving START II reductions for five years to the end of 1997.

    However, even if START II is successfully completed, there will still be as many deployed strategic nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the two major nuclear weapons states as there were when the NPT was signed in 1968. This has led many of the non-aligned states to question the sincerity and good faith of the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their Article VI promises.

    Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin have had preliminary discussions regarding START III, and have suggested that this agreement could reduce nuclear arsenals to 2,000-2,500 deployed strategic nuclear weapons on each side by the year 2007. This advance, however, is uncertain due to the Russian opposition to the proposed expansion of NATO. Even more significant is that the proposed START III agreement is simply more incrementalism. It lacks a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, and simply reduces the overkill ratio to a somewhat lower level. It is consistent with maintaining the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” indefinitely. It misses the tremendous opportunity that currently exists to move from arms control to abolition.

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference

    A NPT Review and Extension Conference was called for by the terms of the treaty 25 years after the treaty entered into force. The purpose of this conference, which was held in 1995, was to determine whether the treaty should be extended indefinitely or for a period or periods of time. The nuclear weapons states, which saw the treaty as advantageous to themselves, argued for an indefinite extension of the treaty. Many non-aligned states, though, questioned the good faith of the nuclear weapons states, and suggested that the treaty should be extended for periods of time and re-extended contingent upon sufficient progress toward fulfillment of the Article VI promise of nuclear disarmament.

    At the conference the nuclear weapons states and their allies (primarily the NATO states) exerted considerable pressure on the non-aligned states and finally prevailed in having the treaty extended indefinitely. However, at the insistence of the non-aligned states, certain non-binding agreements were attached to the indefinite extension which called for, among other steps, the following:

    “(a) The completion by the Conference on Disarmament of the negotiations on a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty no later than 1996. Pending the entry into force of a Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, the nuclear-weapon States should exercise utmost restraint;

    “(b) The immediate commencement and early conclusion of negotiations on a non-discriminatory and universally applicable convention banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, in accordance with the statement of the Special Coordinator of the Conference on Disarmament and the mandate contained therein;

    “(c) The determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon States of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons, and by all States of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    Abolition 2000 Global Network

    At the NPT Review and Extension Conference, an Abolition Caucus — composed of representatives of citizen action groups from throughout the world — was organized to share information and to join in lobbying the delegates. From this caucus an 11-point plan, calling for nuclear weapons abolition was drafted and agreed to. This document was called the Abolition 2000 Statement. The Statement called for a treaty by the year 2000 for the prohibition and elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework.

    The Abolition 2000 Statement became the basis for the establishment of the Abolition 2000 Global Network, which has now grown to over 700 citizen actions groups from six continents. It is a dynamic citizen network committed to the goal of achieving a nuclear weapons free world.

    The World Court Project

    The World Court Project (WCP) was initiated by three major international citizen action groups: the International Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), and the International Peace Bureau (IPB). The purpose of the project was to obtain an opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Through intensive lobbying of delegates to the World Health Organization and the United Nations General Assembly, the WCP was successful in having both of those bodies request an opinion from the Court.

    The question posed by the World Health Organization (WHO) focused on use of nuclear weapons: “In view of the health and environmental effects, would the use of nuclear weapons by a State in war or other armed conflict be a breach of its obligations under international law including the WHO Constitution?” The question posed by the General Assembly also included the threat of use: “Would the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circumstance be permitted under international law?”

    The Court received considerable written and oral argument from states. On July 8, 1996, the Court issued its opinion on the question posed by the U.N. General Assembly. At the same time, the Court declined to issue an opinion on the question posed by WHO, stating that their question failed to meet the criteria of arising within the scope of WHO’s activities. In response the General Assembly, the Court issued a 37 page opinion, and each of the 14 judges on the Court issued a separate statement with the opinion. The Court found that any threat or use of nuclear weapons must conform with the principles and rules of international humanitarian law. This means that nuclear weapons cannot be threatened or used in such a manner as to fail to discriminate between civilians and combatants, and that they must not cause unnecessary suffering to combatants. Based primarily upon this finding, the Court then found that any threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal.

    The Court was unable to determine, however, whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be legal or illegal “in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake.” The Court’s opinion went a long way toward shutting the door on the threat or use of nuclear weapons, but it left open this narrow possibility in the case of the very survival of a state. Some of the judges pointed to the irony of leaving open the possibility of using nuclear weapons in conditions in which the survival of a state was at stake, since such use could result in escalation endangering the survival of all life.

    Given what the Court found to be an ambiguity in international law involving an “extreme circumstance of self-defence,” it reviewed Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and concluded: “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.” The Court’s ruling on the Article VI commitment clarifies that nuclear disarmament must be complete, that it must be disarmament “in all its aspects,” and that it is not tied to conventional disarmament or other security issues.

    The nuclear weapons states have argued that the Court’s opinion is advisory only, and they have not acted on it. While the opinion is, in fact, advisory in nature, it is still the pronouncement of the highest Court in the world on an issue of utmost importance. The significance of the opinion has not been lost on the states in the non-aligned movement that have been pressing for complete nuclear disarmament. Nor has the significance of the opinion been lost on citizen action groups around the world, such as the Abolition 2000 Global Network, that have been pressing the case for the abolition of nuclear arsenals.

    The Canberra Commission Report

    In response to French nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, the Australian government established a prestigious commission of eminent individuals to examine the case for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Participants in the Commission included General Lee Butler, a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command; Robert McNamara, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense; Michel Rocard, a former French Prime Minister; Field Marshall Micheal Carver, a former British Chief of Defence Staff; Jacques Cousteau, the late ocean explorer and advocate for future generations; and Joseph Rotblat, founder and president of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and the 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate.

    The Report of the Canberra Commission stated: “Nuclear weapons pose an intolerable threat to humanity and its habitat, yet tens of thousands remain in arsenals built up at a time of deep antagonism. That time has passed, yet assertions of their utility continue…. A nuclear weapon free world can be secured and maintained through political commitment, and anchored in an enduring and binding legal framework.”

    The Report called for some immediate steps to reduce the nuclear threat:

    • Taking nuclear forces off alert;
    • Removal of warheads from delivery vehicles;
    • Ending deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons;
    • Ending nuclear testing;
    • Initiating negotiations to further reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals; and
    • Agreement amongst the nuclear weapons states of reciprocal no first use undertakings, and of a non-use undertaking by them in relation to the non-nuclear weapon states.

    These steps would take us a long way toward reducing the immediate risks of nuclear warfare, but as yet the nuclear weapons states have resisted their implementation. The only exception is the signing of the CTBT and, even in this case, at least one of the nuclear weapons states, the United States, is continuing to conduct “sub-critical” nuclear tests which undermine the spirit of the treaty.

    The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

    A Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was finally opened for signatures in September 1996, but it has yet to enter into force and the procedures for entry into force make it unlikely that this will occur. Entry into force requires the ratification of all 44 nuclear capable states, and India has made it clear that it will not sign or ratify the treaty so long as there is no firm commitment by the declared nuclear weapons states to the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. India’s position is that it is unwilling to give up the option of conducting nuclear tests in a world in which the declared nuclear weapons states, which have already tested extensively, refuse to make a firm commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals and thus continue to rely upon them for their security. While India has been widely criticized for this position, one must admit that this position is not without logic.

    The CTBT has been marred by the insistence of the U.S. that “sub-critical” tests fall within the framework of the treaty. The U.S. has already begun a series of such tests, and it is likely that other nuclear weapons states will follow its lead. The U.S. is also planning a Stockpile Stewardship Program, on which it plans to spend some $45 billion over the next ten years. This program includes the development of new and expensive structures for laboratory testing of nuclear weapons. Again, it is likely that other nuclear weapons states will follow the U.S. lead by continuing to test by other means that circumvent the spirit if not the letter of the CTBT.

    The Statement by International Generals and Admirals*

    In December 1996 some 60 retired generals and admirals from around the world issued statements calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. U.S. Generals Lee Butler and Andrew Goodpaster issued a statement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Their statement called for “pursuit of a policy of cooperative, phased reductions with serious commitments to seek the elimination of all nuclear weapons.”

    As a separate statement, 58 of these retired generals and admirals argued “the continuing existence of nuclear weapons in the armories of nuclear powers, and the ever present threat of acquisition of these weapons by others, constitute a peril to global peace and security and to the safety and survival of the people we are dedicated to protect.” The generals and admirals called for the following three steps:

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

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

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

    A Nuclear Weapons Convention

    In December 1996 the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution (51/45M) expressing appreciation to the International Court of Justice for responding to its request. It underlined the Court’s unanimous conclusion that an obligation exists “to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.” The resolution called for “commencement of multilateral negotiations in 1997 leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear weapons convention prohibiting the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing for their elimination.”

    In order to demonstrate that drafting a nuclear weapons convention was a technically feasible possibility, two citizens action groups — the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP) and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) — prepared a draft model Nuclear Weapons Convention. This draft was made public in April 1997 at the PrepCom for the NPT Review Conference.

    From Arms Control to Abolition

    Arms control has been a method of maintaining strategic balance between the key nuclear weapons states, while at the same time maintaining the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” In other words, arms control has been in part a dangerous game to maintain special privilege played at the precipice of nuclear holocaust. It has been a game of high stakes, both financially and militarily. In the end, it caused the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the jury is still out on what its ultimate effects will be on the United States, the one nation that has used nuclear weapons in warfare.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, it is now a particularly propitious time to move forward with the abolition of nuclear weapons. To do so will require a change in mindset of decision-makers in the nuclear weapons states, many of whom seem determined to hold on to their nuclear arsenals. The International Court of Justice has spoken on the obligation to achieve complete nuclear disarmament. The Canberra Commission has offered positive proposals for eliminating the immediate threat. The international generals and admirals have argued the case for the security benefits of eliminating nuclear arsenals.

    Citizen action groups around the world have joined together in the call for achieving a treaty by the year 2000 calling for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons within a timebound framework. They have called for achieving this treaty by the year 2000 so that the people of the world can enter the 21st century with a treaty in place leading to the elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework.

    Unfortunately, the leaders of the nuclear weapons states do not seem to have heard or understood the arguments for eliminating their nuclear arsenals. They are expending their efforts on arms control proposals, like the CTBT, which they try to evade in practice. These leaders do not seem to have grasped that this is not a game, and that “superiority” cannot be realized by arsenals of genocidal weapons. They are still thinking in old ways that are no longer appropriate in the Nuclear Age. Their thinking could pull us into the vortex of nuclear conflagration, by accident or design.

    Einstein argued that “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” The new way of thinking that Einstein called for must take into account the tremendous destructive power of the “instruments of genocide” in the arsenals of the nuclear weapons states. If we oppose genocide, we must also oppose basing our security on nuclear weapons.

    When enough people speak out and demand that government leaders change their ways of thinking, then these leaders will change. Until enough people demand such change, government officials will likely continue to tread old paths of the mind. We need a united effort of people everywhere to demand that the goal of a nuclear weapons free world be realized, and that we enter the 21st century with a treaty in place that will lead to elimination of nuclear weapons within a timebound framework.

    Bibliography

    Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons 1996, United Nations General Assembly, A/51/218, 15 October 1996

    Model Nuclear Weapons Convention 1997, Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, New York

    Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons 1996 National Capital Printers, Canberra, Australia [http://www.dfat.gov.au/dfat/cc/cchome.html]

    Evan, William and Ved Nanda (eds.) 1995 Nuclear Proliferation and the Legality of Nuclear Weapons, University Press of America, Inc., Lanham, Maryland

    Pauling, Linus 1983 No More War!, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York

    Roche, Douglas, Unacceptable Risk: Nuclear Weapons in a Volatile World 1995 Project Ploughshares and Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Ontario

    Rotblat, Joseph, et.al. (eds.) A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World Desirable? Feasible? 1993 Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado

    Ruggiero, Greg and Stuart Sahulka (eds.) 1996 Critical Mass, Voices for a Nuclear-Free Future, Open Media, Westfield, New Jersey

    INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE ADVISORY OPINION

    ON THE LEGALITY OF THE THREAT OR USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

    July 8, 1996 Paragraph 105. For these reasons, THE COURT,

    (1) By thirteen votes to one, Decides to comply with the request for an advisory opinion;

    In Favour. President Bedjaoui; Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Guillaume, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Koroma, Vereshchetin, Ferrari Bravo, Higgins;

    Against: Judge Oda.

    (2) Replies in the following manner to the question put by the General Assembly:

    A. Unanimously, There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any specific authorization of the threat or use of nuclear weapons;

    B. By eleven votes to three, There is in neither customary nor conventional international law any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the threat or use of nuclear weapons as such;

    In Favour: President Bedjaoui; Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Oda, Guillaume, Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Vereshchetin, Ferrari Bravo, Higgins;

    Against: Judges Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma.

    C. Unanimously, A threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that is contrary to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations Charter and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51 is unlawful;

    D. Unanimously, A threat or use of nuclear weapons should also be compatible with the requirements of the international law applicable in armed conflict, particularly those of the principles and rules of international humanitarian law, as well as with specific obligations under treaties and other undertakings which expressly deal with nuclear weapons;

    E. By seven votes to seven, by the President’s casting vote, It follows from the above-mentioned requirements that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law,

    However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake;

    IN FAVOUR: President Bedjaoui; Judges Ranjeva, Herczegh, Shi, Fleischhauer, Vereschetin, Ferrari Bravo;

    AGAINST: Vice-President Schwebel; Judges Oda, Guillaume, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma, Higgins.

    F. Unanimously, 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.

    Done in English and in French, the English text being authoritative, at the Peace Palace, The Hague, this eighth day of July, one thousand nine hundred and ninety-six, in two copies, one of which will be placed in the archives of the Court and the other transmitted to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

    (Signed) Mohammed Bedjaoui, President.

    (Signed) Eduardo Valencia-Ospina, Registrar.

    President Bedjaoui, Judges Herczegh, Shi Vereshchetin and Ferrari Bravo append declarations to the Advisory Opinion of the Court.

    Judges Guillaume, Ranjeva and Fleischhauer append separate opinions to the Advisory Opinion of the Court.

    Vice-President Schwebel, Judges Oda, Shahabuddeen, Weeramantry, Koroma and Higgins append dissenting opinions to the Advisory Opinion of the Court.

  • Ending the Nuclear Weapons Era

    The Nuclear Age

    The Nuclear Age began on a quiet stretch of desert in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. Robert Oppenheimer, a principal scientist in the effort to create the atomic bomb, is reported to have recalled this line from the Bhagavad Gita, “I am become death, the shatterer of worlds.” Just three weeks after the first test, a second atomic bomb was exploded, this time over the city of Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima became death. Three days later, on August 9, 1945, Nagasaki became death. Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists were, indeed, shatterers of worlds.

    The Nuclear Age was conceived in fear and born with destructive impulse. The atom bomb was developed to protect its creators; it was used to destroy their enemies. It remains to be seen whether it will also destroy its creators. For the first time in history, humankind had created a tool powerful enough to destroy itself. Thus, we should be sobered by our own invention, and warned by Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But as a species we seem to be neither sufficiently sobered nor warned.

    In the name of national security, a mad race to develop nuclear arsenals took place between the United States and the former Soviet Union. It drained the treasuries of these countries, and cast a dark shadow on the souls of their inhabitants. With scientific genius, these so-called superpowers (and ethical weaklings) improved the power and efficiency of their nuclear devices. Their leaders believed that national security justified threatening to kill hundreds of millions of innocent people that were called “the enemy.”

    On each side, the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction was pursued with intensity of purpose. This is the atmosphere into which most of the world’s people now living have been born and raised. This is the Nuclear Age.

    Einstein warned that “the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” How are we to respond? How are we to change our thinking? How are we to avoid the catastrophes that lurk not only in the shadows of the Nuclear Age, but in our Congresses, our Parliaments, our Diets, our Dumas, our very hearts?

    The Nuclear Age was born from the destruction of World War II. The atomic bombs were the final exclamation points on a world crazed with killing. From this same frenzy and turmoil of war came other creations more hopeful. From the ashes of World War II came the United Nations, an organization dedicated to preventing the “scourge of war,” which twice in the lifetimes of the U.N.’s creators had brought “untold sorrow to mankind.” The United Nations was viewed as a place where representatives of nations could gather to resolve the world’s problems with civility rather than bombs. On occasion, it has succeeded in dramatic and more subtle ways, but on many other occasions it has failed to prevent wars from erupting.

    It is a great irony of history that in the three-day period between the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, representatives of the U.S., U.K., USSR and France met in London to sign the treaty establishing the International Military Tribunal to hold Nazi leaders accountable for crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. At this Tribunal held in Nuremberg and at other international tribunals, the principle of individual accountability was upheld against the leaders of the defeated Axis powers. The concept of individual accountability under international law was given broad support by the United Nations General Assembly, but it has taken root in the succeeding half century far more slowly than its dangerous sibling, the bomb.

    In the Nuclear Age, there has been a fearful acceleration of the struggle between the forces of violence and the forces of reason, between brutality and civility, that have been woven through human history. But the tools have changed as have the stakes of the outcome. In the Nuclear Age, the most awesome tools of violence, nuclear weapons, threaten the continuation of our species. The forces of reason include a place of global dialogue, the United Nations, and the concept that all individuals, even national leaders, must be held accountable for acts constituting crimes under international law. The struggle continues. The outcome remains uncertain.

    The Past Decade

    The world has changed dramatically since the mid-1980s. As 1985 began, the nuclear arms race was at its zenith. The U.S. under President Reagan was pressing ahead with development of Star Wars, a space-based missile defense system. It appeared that the U.S. and USSR were on the verge of entering an even more dangerous chapter of the nuclear arms race in which costly new defensive systems would stimulate the deployment of even more lethal offensive systems. The nuclear weapons states seemed fully committed to pursuing their nuclear weapons programs no matter what the cost.

    In the midst of those dark days, a bright light of sanity appeared. Some, like Helen Caldicott, have described it as a miracle. Mikhail Gorbachev, the new leader of the Communist Party of the USSR, declared a moratorium on all nuclear tests on August 6, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. He invited the U.S. to join in the moratorium, but the U.S. continued to test.

    The year 1985 ended with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Accepting the award for IPPNW, its

    co-founder, Dr. Bernard Lown, stated, “Combatting the nuclear threat has been our exclusive preoccupation, since we are dedicated to the proposition that to insure the conditions of life, we must prevent the conditions of death. Ultimately, we believe people must come to terms with the fact that the struggle is not between different national destinies, between opposing ideologies, but rather between catastrophe and survival. All nations share a linked destiny; nuclear weapons are the shared enemy.”

    Early in 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev called for the abolition of all nuclear weapons by the year 2000. His dramatic proposal was not met with particular interest by the other nuclear weapons states.

    In the Spring of 1986 an accident occurred at Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which spewed some 50 million curies of radiation into the environment. The Chernobyl accident demonstrated an often overlooked facet of the Nuclear Age: it is not only our warlike technologies that threaten humanity; our so-called peaceful technologies can also cause devastation to life and property.

    In the Fall of 1986 Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev held a summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland. The two presidents seriously discussed the possibility of abolishing nuclear weapons, but the talks ultimately failed due to Reagan’s refusal to abandon his plans to develop a space-based missile defense system. The utterly impractical plan to provide a shield against missile attack prevented agreement on creating a nuclear weapons free world. The nuclear arms race between the U.S. and USSR continued, but with less intensity. Gorbachev had challenged the West to end the dangerous nuclear arms race, and there was growing pressure in the West to respond.

    In 1987 the U.S. and USSR entered into an agreement to establish Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers, providing a direct communications link that would be used to exchange information on ballistic missile tests and other matters. Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty in December 1987, eliminating all land-based missiles held by the two countries with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles. For the first time in the Nuclear Age an entire class of nuclear weapons was eliminated. This Treaty entered into force on June 1, 1988.

    By Fall 1990 the last Pershing II missiles were removed from Germany. By mid-1991 the new American President George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), providing for the elimination of almost 50 percent of the strategic nuclear warheads carried by ballistic missiles. In 1991 both Bush and Gorbachev were making promises of further unilateral reductions in their nuclear arsenals. Bush announced the cancellation of controversial nuclear weapons programs, and the withdrawal of all remaining army and navy tactical nuclear weapons worldwide. Gorbachev announced the elimination or reduction of a range of tactical nuclear weapons on land, sea and air, and promised to exceed the START I requirements by reducing the number of Soviet strategic warheads to 5,000 within seven years. He also initiated a new moratorium on nuclear testing.

    While nuclear arms negotiations were proceeding, a sea change in international politics was occurring. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. The Soviet Union was disintegrating, and would cease to exist by Christmas 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the USSR, ending nearly 75 years of communist rule. The nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union ended up in the control of Russian President Boris Yeltsin. It would be necessary to reach agreements with Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus with regard to control of the nuclear warheads left on their territories. All subsequently agreed to transfer their nuclear arsenals to Russia and join the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states.

    In 1992 George Bush and Boris Yeltsin reached an agreement on a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), this one calling for a reduction by each side to 3,000-3,500 strategic nuclear warheads by the year 2003. Bush stated, “The nuclear nightmare recedes more and more.” Yeltsin, addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress said that nuclear weapons and the Cold War “turned out to be obsolete and unnecessary to mankind, and it is now simply a matter of calculating the best way and the best time schedule for destroying them and getting rid of them.”

    Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference

    Despite these achievements, ridding the world of nuclear weapons has proven to be more difficult than President Yeltsin suggested. Three major events that occurred in 1995 demonstrate the problems involved. The first of these major events was the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference, which was held in April and May at the United Nations in New York. This Conference was called for in the 1970 Treaty to decide whether the Treaty should be extended indefinitely or for a fixed period or periods. Four of the five declared nuclear weapons states (U.S., U.K., France, and Russia), argued for indefinite extension of the Treaty. With indefinite extension, other states would remain obligated indefinitely not to develop nuclear arsenals, while the nuclear weapons states would continue their special status of possessing nuclear weapons. The U.S. lobbied particularly hard for this, beginning its lobbying efforts nearly two years in advance of the Conference. The fifth declared nuclear weapons state, China, adopted a more neutral posture that was more conciliatory to non-nuclear weapons states. China indicated its willingness to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, contingent upon all other nuclear weapons states doing so.

    In advance of the Conference, a number of citizen action groups, including the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, lobbied for extension of the Treaty for a series of fixed periods that would be tied to a commitment by the nuclear weapons states to the total elimination of their nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. We argued that the nuclear weapons states had promised in the NPT to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” The Treaty had entered into force in 1970, but during the following 25-year period the nuclear weapons states had increased rather than decreased the size of their nuclear arsenals, as well as substantially improving them qualitatively. Therefore, an indefinite extension of the Treaty would be the equivalent to giving a blank check to states that had not fulfilled their past promises.1

    A group of non-aligned countries held out against an indefinite extension of the Treaty, but in the end the nuclear weapons states prevailed and the Treaty was extended indefinitely. However, the price for achieving this was the adoption of a set of Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Among these were:

    “(a) The completion by the Conference on Disarmament of the negotiations on a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty no later than 1996. Pending the entry into force of a Comprehensive-Test-Ban Treaty, the nuclear-weapon States should exercise utmost restraint;

    “(b) The immediate commencement and early conclusion of negotiations on a non-discriminatory and universally applicable convention banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices in accordance with the statement of the Special Coordinator of the Conference on Disarmament and the mandate contained therein;

    “(c) The determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon States of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal of eliminating those weapons, and by all States of general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”2

    These commitments were non-binding, but they set clear standards by which the behavior of the nuclear weapons states could be measured. Yet, within days of making these commitments, the Chinese conducted a nuclear weapons test, and just over a month later French President Jacques Chirac announced that the French would conduct a series of eight nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific.

    French Testing

    French testing was the second of the major events in 1995 related to the struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Despite protests from throughout the world and in France, where over 60 percent of the population opposed the tests, the French conducted six nuclear weapons tests on the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa. The most important lesson to be drawn from the French testing is that one leader of a nuclear weapons state can set his will against the people of the world, including his own people. On this occasion, Jacques Chirac unilaterally led the French government in a series of nuclear tests. In the future, a leader of a nuclear weapons state may decide, against the will of the people, to use nuclear weapons as a means of attack. This is a reality of the Nuclear Age. The decision to use nuclear weapons is not subject to a democratic process. The weapons themselves are an obscene concentration of power that undermine democracy.

    French testing also showed the extent of opposition to nuclear weapons throughout the world. Protests came not only from citizens groups, but from many governments. As a direct result of their anger over French testing, the Australian government established the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. In announcing the formation of the Commission, the then Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, said, “Some years ago a commission of this type would have been a theoretical exercise. But the end of the Cold War means that we can seriously envisage a concrete program to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.”3

    For the first time a country in the Western alliance was taking steps at the government level to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Canberra Commission, composed of 17 eminent government leaders, scientists, disarmament experts, and military strategists from throughout the world, held its first of four meetings in January 1996. The Commission’s members included British Field Marshal Michael Carver, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

    The Commission released its report on August 14, 1996. It found “that immediate and determined efforts need to be made to rid the world of nuclear weapons and the threat they pose to it.” The Report continued, “The proposition that nuclear weapons can be retained in perpetuity and never used defies credibility. The only complete defense is the elimination of nuclear weapons and assurance that they will never be produced again.” The Committee called for an unequivocal commitment by the nuclear weapons states to a nuclear weapons free world and the following immediate steps:

    • Take nuclear forces off alert
    • Remove warheads from delivery vehicles
    • End deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons
    • End nuclear testing
    • Initiate negotiations to further reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals

    Achieve agreement amongst the nuclear weapons states of reciprocal no first use undertakings, and of a non-use undertaking by them in relation to the non-nuclear weapon states. 4

    World Court Opinion on the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons

    The third event in 1995 related to ridding the world of nuclear weapons was the oral arguments at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. At these hearings, which were initiated at the request of the World Health Organization and the United Nations General Assembly, the nuclear weapons states argued that the threat or use of nuclear weapons was a political rather than a legal question and, therefore, the Court should not issue an advisory opinion. The nuclear weapons states went further, and argued that if the Court did decide to issue an advisory opinion it should find that the weapons themselves were not inherently illegal. The majority of states presenting positions to the Court argued that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law.

    The Court issued its advisory opinion on July 8, 1996.5 It found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons was generally illegal under international law and that the nuclear weapons states were obligated to complete negotiations on nuclear disarmament. The Court was unable to reach a conclusion on whether or not the threat of use of nuclear weapons for self-defense would be legal in the extreme circumstance when the survival of the state was at stake.

    The decision of the Court will have far-reaching effects for the future of nuclear weapons and for the future of humanity. The opinion that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal under international law gives strong support to the advocates of a nuclear weapons free world and puts the governments of the nuclear weapons states under increased pressure to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    In December 1995, Joseph Rotblat, a former Manhattan Project scientist, and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs shared the Nobel Peace Prize. In his Nobel Lecture, Professor Rotblat stated, “As for the assertion that nuclear weapons prevent wars, how many more wars are needed to refute this argument? Tens of millions have died in the many wars that have taken place since 1945. In a number of them nuclear states were directly involved. In two they were actually defeated. Having nuclear weapons was of no use to them. To sum up, there is no evidence that a world without nuclear weapons would be a more dangerous world. On the contrary, it would be a safer world.”6

    Also in December 1995 the nations of Southeast Asia created a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone throughout Southeast Asia.

    The year 1995 ended with the United Nations General Assembly passing a resolution calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. The resolution called upon the nuclear weapons states “to undertake step-by-step reduction of the nuclear threat and a phased programme of progressive and balanced deep reductions of nuclear weapons, and to carry out effective nuclear disarmament measures with a view to the total elimination of these weapons within a time-bound framework.”7 The resolution was opposed by the same nuclear weapons states and their allies that had fought so hard at the NPT Review and Extension Conference for an indefinite extension of that Treaty.

    In April 1996 the Treaty of Pelindaba was signed creating an African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. With the signing of this treaty nearly the entire Southern hemisphere had designated itself as nuclear weapons free.

    The Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva drafted a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The CD, however, was unable to reach consensus on the Treaty due to India’s demand that the nuclear weapons states make a commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals within a time-bound framework.

    Australia took the draft CTBT to the U.N. General Assembly, and in special session on September 10, 1996, the General Assembly adopted the Treaty by a vote of 158 to 3 with 5 abstentions and 19 members absent. The Treaty was opened for signatures on September 24, 1996. All five declared nuclear weapons states have signed the Treaty. However, to enter into force the Treaty requires the signatures and ratifications of all 44 nuclear capable countries, including India. India has made it clear that it will neither sign nor ratify the Treaty until the nuclear weapons states have made the commitment to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    The Twenty-First Century

    As we approach the twenty-first century, the struggle continues between those who would rely upon nuclear weapons to provide for their national security and those who would abolish these weapons of indiscriminate mass murder. More than anything else, the issue seems to be one of privilege within the international system. The nuclear weapons states are comfortable with their privileges in the current two-tier system of nuclear “haves” and “have nots.” The “haves” appear willing to cut back their arsenals, to eliminate underground nuclear tests (but not laboratory testing), and to make promises about “the ultimate goal” of eliminating nuclear weapons. They appear unwilling, however, to make a commitment to eliminating their nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework.

    In essence, the nuclear weapons states are resisting giving up what they perceive to be their privileged status within the structure of the international system. Of course, there is a huge blindspot in their strategy of attempting to maintain their special status. In the last analysis, other states will do as the nuclear weapons states do, not as they say. If, as the behavior of the nuclear weapons states demonstrates, nuclear weapons are deployed to provide security in a dangerous world, then other states will eventually turn to this form of security. The result will be an even more dangerous world.

    Finding a Way Out

    But there is a way out. More than half the world sees it, and has called for the elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. Eventually the nuclear weapons states also will be forced to see it. A nuclear weapons free world is in the interests of all people on Earth, and all those who will follow. This includes the interests of the nuclear weapons states. In fact, their reliance on nuclear weapons is the main threat to their own security.

    Nuclear weapons are a test for humanity. If we can control and eliminate these and other weapons of mass destruction that threaten our common future, it is possible for humanity to join in common purpose to solve other pressing problems confronting us, such as eliminating poverty, protecting human rights, and safeguarding the environment from pollution and over-exploitation.

    In the Nuclear Age, humanity must grow to meet the new responsibilities that it has created for itself. The new way of thinking that Einstein called for is perhaps not so new. It may be as old as the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you. It may be as simple as attempting to view the world from an imagined vantage point of a perceived opponent or of future generations. It may be as simple as Joseph Rotblat said in concluding his Nobel Laureate Address, “Remember your duty to humanity.”

    But most likely it will not be this simple. Ending the nuclear weapons era will require dedication, sustained effort, and mass education. It will require the commitment of millions of individuals who believe that humanity is worth saving, that the future is worth preserving. It will require an optimism that refuses to give way to despair. It will require hope. It will require friendship. It will require sacrifice.

    Between 1985 and the present there has been substantial progress in reducing the world’s nuclear arsenals. It is not too much to hope that we could enter the new millennium with a treaty in place committing the world to the elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. It is our challenge to make this vision a reality.

    Other Nuclear Age Issues

    I have focused attention primarily on nuclear weapons and the need for their abolition. But this is far from the whole story of the Nuclear Age. Nuclear weapons are only the most prominent, dramatic, and dangerous development of the Nuclear Age. There are many other issues that require the attention of society. Without going into detail, I wish to mention some of these.

    1. The environmental impacts of nuclear technology. During the Cold War, nuclear weapons were produced with only minimal concern for the environment. Today leaking storage tanks and inadequate methods of waste storage are major problems that need to be remedied. It will require hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up behind the weapons producers.

    Many nuclear submarines carrying nuclear weapons have suffered accidents and gone down at sea. Others have been purposefully dumped at sea after their useful life has ended. As the nuclear materials in the sunken reactors and weapons breach their containments, the ocean environment will be threatened.

    Even today there is no adequate answer to the question of how to dispose of long-lived radioactive wastes. The best that scientists can suggest at this time is monitored, multi-barrier retrievable storage. This is not a permanent solution. It simply puts off a long-term solution to a later date; it recognizes that we don’t know enough to attempt a permanent solution that will affect thousands of generations in the future. There are hundreds of nuclear power plants scattered throughout the world. Each of these plants produces high level radioactive wastes in the process of boiling water to generate electricity. The costs of attempting to shield these wastes from the environment for thousands of years have not been adequately assessed. Proceeding with the development of nuclear power plants without having an adequate answer to the problem of nuclear waste storage reflects an arrogance almost as great as using the power of the atom to create weapons that place humanity’s future in jeopardy.

    2. The role of science in society. The Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear bomb was the first great project of corporate science put at the disposal of the nation-state. Corporate science and nationalism have proven to be a dangerous combination. They have given us both nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants.

    Scientists have been rewarded for their efforts by receiving a special status in modern societies, a status reserved for medicine men, healers, and spiritual leaders in more primitive societies. Alvin Weinberg, a prominent nuclear scientist, has spoken of the need for a “nuclear priesthood” to be the guardians of nuclear materials in the future, and to pass on their knowledge from generation to generation. This is a heady proposition, that society should become beholden to those with special knowledge to protect thousands of future generations from the potential harm of radioactive materials and to keep these materials from the hands of terrorists.

    Scientists as a group and as individuals have rarely exercised responsibility for their discoveries. Rather than providing cautious advice, they have often been overly optimistic about society’s ability to manage and control the products of their knowledge. Of course, scientists, like other humans, cannot foresee the ways in which their discoveries might be used. They can, however, draw a line at working on improving or testing weapons of mass destruction or at developing industries that have dangerous waste products that cannot be contained with certainty.

    3. Secrecy and democracy. The Nuclear Age brought forth elaborate measures to maintain secrecy with regard to the development and improvement of nuclear weapons. Such measures were believed to be necessary to prevent the spread of knowledge about making nuclear weapons, but they did not succeed. Today the knowledge of how to make a nuclear weapon is widespread. Even undergraduate college students have demonstrated a grasp of this knowledge, which they have been able to discover from scientific literature available to the public. It is widely acknowledged that terrorists would be able to develop nuclear weapons perhaps crude weapons, but nonetheless nuclear weapons if they were able to get their hands on bomb-grade nuclear materials.

    Secrecy in the Nuclear Age has expanded beyond technological considerations to encompass policy decisions and information that governments find embarrassing. The revelations, for example, that the U.S. government conducted secret experiments with radioactive materials on hospital patients and prisoners without their consent has come to light decades after the experiments took place.

    The real danger of secrecy is that it undermines democracy. Citizens in democracies cannot make intelligent choices about their societies if they are lacking the requisite information. Just as we have accepted that informed consent is necessary in a medical context regarding our bodies, we must apply the same principle to decisions of the body politic.8 If citizens are not informed of government decisions because they are taking place behind a wall of secrecy, then citizens have lost control of their political process and, therefore, of their future.

    In the Nuclear Age the only way that individuals in governments can be held accountable for their acts is by transparency: open decisions openly arrived at. Citizens should demand that if government actions cannot be done in full public view, they shouldn’t be done.

    4. International cooperation. The power of our technologies, most dramatically represented by nuclear technology, has globalized many of the problems we face. These problems include the transportation and storage of nuclear wastes, the safety of nuclear power plants, the diversion of nuclear materials from the nuclear fuel cycle for weapons, the prevention of nuclear terrorism, and the inspection and verification of disarmament agreements.

    National boundaries are largely permeable. National governments cannot prevent people, pollution, projectiles (missiles), or ideas from crossing their borders. Thus, sovereignty is eroding in the face of technological advances. Information travels the world instantaneously. Electronic communications make events anywhere in the world available instantaneously to people everywhere. The spread of pollutants by accident or design, including radioactive pollutants, has a slower migration, but is equally without respect for national borders.

    In the Nuclear Age there are problems that can only be solved at the global level. Among these are problems of transboundary pollution, transportation of hazardous wastes, proliferation of nuclear weapons, and protection of the common heritage of humankind (the oceans, the atmosphere and outer space). These problems cannot be solved by any one nation or group of nations; they can only be solved by global cooperation. They force us to recognize our common humanity and our common future. Global cooperation, through the United Nations and its affiliated agencies, is the key to providing for our common security. However, there is much that needs to be done to transform the United Nations into an institution that is democratically empowered to meet the challenges that confront it.

    5. The power of the individual. The greatest threat to the future of humanity in the Nuclear Age may not be nuclear weapons or nuclear waste. It may be the lack of compassion, commitment and vision of individuals, including our leaders, in the global community. Apathy is disempowering. We must overcome it by education that opens our eyes to the threats that confront us if we fail to take required actions.

    There is only one place in the universe that we know of where life exists, and it is our Earth. As far as we know, we humans are life’s fullest expression of intelligence to date. Visitors from another planet, were they to exist and were they to visit us, might not think so. We are not doing so well in managing our planetary home. But we can change this. It is within our power as individuals to do so. We can make the world a better place. We can fulfill our responsibility to future generations to pass on the planet, intact, to the next generation. We must begin from where we are, with an awareness of the dangers and challenges of the Nuclear Age. We must not be silent nor passive. We must stand up and act for a safer and saner world, a better tomorrow. By our actions, we must restore a sense of hopefulness about our common future.

    If Gandhi could lead the Indian subcontinent to independence from Britain and Nelson Mandela could spend 27 years in prison and come out to end apartheid in South Africa and become president of that country, each of us can also play a role in changing the world. We may not all be Gandhis or Mandelas, but we can play a role in meeting the challenges of the Nuclear Age. Each of us can make a difference.

    Conclusion – Two Ways Out

    Knowledge gained cannot be unlearned, but we can manage and control our dangerous technologies. The genie of knowledge may not fit back into the bottle. There is no reason, however, that the most dangerous tools created with that knowledge cannot by agreement be dismantled and systems established to prevent these tools from being recreated. It is within our power to end the nuclear weapons era, if not the Nuclear Age. Whether or not we will succeed will depend upon the clarity of our vision and the steadiness of our commitment.

    There are only two ways out of the Nuclear Age. One is by death and destruction, by nuclear conflagration, by Nuclear Winter, by the poisoning of our life support systems. Few would consciously choose this path, but many of our decisions, based on national rather than global priorities, have led us in this direction. There is, however, a second option, and that is to affirm without reservation that the power of life is greater than the power of death. Technology is already breaking down barriers between nations. Education and spiritual grounding in the miracle of Creation must now provide the basis for breaking down the barriers in our minds that separate us. We are one humanity. We share one Earth.

    If we awaken to who we truly are not only Americans, not only Russians, not only Japanese, not only Indians, but above all citizens of Earth then our choices will be clear, and we will do everything within our power to preserve this extraordinary planet and its abundant forms of life. Our first step forward on this path will be our absolute commitment to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, the only weapons capable of destroying the future of human life on this planet. In achieving this goal, we will know what we are truly capable of accomplishing, and we will get on with the serious problems of creating cultures that are committed to liberty, justice, human dignity, and ecological integrity.

    Notes

    1. See Krieger, David and Bas Bruyne, “Preventing Proliferation By Nuclear Weapons Abolition, Supporting a Limited Extension of the NPT,” Global Security Study No. 20, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, September 1994.

    2. “Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament,” 1995 Review and Extension conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, NPT/CONF. 1995/L.5, 9 May 1995.

    3. “Commission for a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World,” Press Release of Australian Government, November 27, 1995.

    4. Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, August 14, 1996, p. 4.

    5. “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” International Court of Justice, General List No. 95, July 8, 1996.

    6. The Nobel Lecture given by The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate 1995 Joseph Rotblat, Oslo, December 10, 1995. Copyright The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm 1995.

    7. United Nations General Assembly, A/C.1/50/L.46/Rev.1, 14 November 1995.

    8. See Hull, Diana, “Informed Consent: From the Body to the Body Politic,” in Krieger, David and Frank Kelly (Editors), Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age, Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1988

    * David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Chaining the Nuclear Beast

    When I became a private citizen and a businessman two and one-half years ago, it was my intention to close the journal of my military career and never to reopen it…. My decision to step back into public life is prompted by an inner voice I cannot still, a concern I cannot quiet. I am compelled by a growing alarm, born of my former responsibilities, and a deepening dismay as a citizen of this planet, with respect to the course of events governing the role of nuclear weapons after the Cold War.

    Over the last 27 years of my military career, I was embroiled in every aspect of American nuclear policy making and force posturing, from the councils of government to military command centers, from cramped bomber cockpits to the suffocating confines of ballistic missile submarines I have certified hundreds of crews for their nuclear mission and approved thousands of targets for potential nuclear destruction. I have investigated a dismaying array of accidents and incidents involving strategic weapons and forces. I have read a library of books and intelligence reports on the former Soviet Union and what were believed to be its capabilities and intentions…and seen an army of “experts” proved wrong. As an advisor to the President on the employment of nuclear weapons, I have anguished over the imponderable complexities, the profound moral dilemmas, and the mind-numbing consequences of decisions which would invoke the very survival of our planet.

    Seen from this perspective, it should not be surprising that no one could have been more relieved than was I by the dramatic end to the Cold War. The reshaping of Central Europe, the democratization of Russia, and the rapid acceleration of arms control agreements were miraculous events SQ events that I never imagined would happen in my lifetime. Even more gratifying was the opportunity as the Director of Strategic Plans and Policy for the United States’ military forces, and then as commander of its strategic nuclear forces, to be intimately involved in recasting our defense posture, shrinking our arsenals, and scaling back huge impending Cold War driven expenditures. Most importantly, I could see for the first time the prospect of restoring a world free of the apocalyptic threat of nuclear weapons.

    Over time, that shimmering hope gave way to a judgment which has now become a deeply held conviction: that a world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons.

    The concern… which compels me to speak frankly… is that the sense of profound satisfaction with which I departed my military career has been steadily eroded in the ensuing months and years. The astonishing turn of events which brought a wondrous closure to my three and one-half decades of service, and far more importantly to four decades of perilous ideological confrontation, presented historic opportunities to advance the human condition. But now time and human nature are wearing away the sense of wonder and closing the window of opportunity. Options are being lost as urgent questions are marginalized, as outmoded routines perpetuate Cold War habits and thinking; and as a new generation of nuclear actors and aspirants lurch backward into the dark world we so narrowly escaped without a thermonuclear holocaust.

    What, then, does the future hold? How do we proceed? Can a consensus be forged that nuclear weapons have no defensible role, that the political and human consequences of their employment transcends any asserted military utility, that as weapons of mass destruction, the case for their elimination is a thousand-fold stronger and more urgent than for deadly chemicals and viruses already widely declared illegitimate, subject to destruction and prohibited from any future production?

    I believe that such a consensus is not only possible, it is imperative, and is in fact growing daily. I see it in the reports issuing from highly respected institutions and authors; I feel it in the convictions of my colleagues on the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons; it finds eloquent voice in the Nobel prize awarded to Joseph Rotblat and Pugwash; and a strident frustration in the vehement protests against the recent round of nuclear tests conducted by France.

    Notwithstanding the perils of transition in Russia, enmities in the Middle East, or the delicate balance of power in South and East Asia, I believe that a swelling chorus of reason and resentment will eventually turn the tide. As the family of mankind develops a capacity for collective outrage, so soon will it find avenues for collective action. The terror-filled anesthesia which numbed rational thought, made nuclear war thinkable and grossly excessive arsenals possible during the Cold War is gradually wearing off. A renewed appreciation for the obscene power of a single nuclear weapon is taking a new hold on our consciousness, as we confront the nightmarish prospect of nuclear terror at the micro level.

    Where do we begin? What steps can governments take, responsibly, recognizing that policy makers must always balance a host of competing priorities and interests?

    First and foremost is for the declared nuclear states to accept that the Cold War is in fact over, to break free of the attitudes, habits and practices that perpetuate enormous inventories, forces standing alert and targeting plans encompassing thousands of aimpoints.

    Second, for the undeclared states to embrace the harsh lessons of the Cold War: that nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous, hugely expensive, militarily inefficient and morally indefensible; that implacable hostility and alienation will almost certainly over time lead to a nuclear crisis; that the strength of deterrence is inversely proportional to the stress of confrontation; and that nuclear war is a raging, insatiable beast whose instincts and appetites we pretend to understand but cannot possibly control.

    Third, with respect to present and prospective arms control agreements given its crucial leadership role, it is imperative for the United States to undertake now a sweeping review, led by the President, of nuclear policies and strategies. The Clinton administration’s 1993 Nuclear Posture Review was an essential but far from sufficient step toward rethinking the role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War world. While clearing the decks of some pressing force structure questions, the Review purposefully avoided the large policy issues. However, the Review’s justification for maintaining robust nuclear forces as a hedge against the resurgence of a hostile Russia is in my view regrettable from several respects. It sends an overt message of distrust in an era when building a positive security relationship with Russia is arguably the United States most important foreign policy concern. It codifies force levels and postures completely out of keeping with the profound transformation we have witnessed in world affairs. And, it perpetuates attitudes which inhibit a willingness to proceed immediately toward negotiation of greatly reduced levels of strategic arms.

    Finally… I want to record my strong conviction that the risks entailed by nuclear weapons are far too great to leave the prospects of their elimination solely within the province of governments. Highly influential opinion leaders like yourselves can make a powerful difference in swelling the tide of global sentiment that the nuclear era must end. I urge you to read the one page statement from the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons…. Better still, read the Commission Report in full, reflect on its recommendations, communicate with influential colleagues and with the Canberra Commissioners. Take an active role in debating and supporting the practical steps we set forth in our Report, such as taking nuclear weapons off a hair trigger alert and placing the associated warheads in secure storage.

    These are steps which can be taken now, which will reduce needless risks and terminate Cold War practices which serve only as a chilling reminder of a world in which the principal antagonists could find no better solution to their entangled security fears than Mutual Assured Destruction.

    Such a world was and is intolerable. We are not condemned to repeat the lessons of forty years at the nuclear brink. We can do better than condone a world in which nuclear weapons are enshrined as the ultimate arbiter of conflict. The price already paid is too dear, the risks run too great. The nuclear beast must be chained, its soul expunged, its lair laid waste. The task is daunting but we cannot shrink from it.

    The opportunity may not come again.

  • Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons

    Introduction

    The two nuclear fission bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki each released nearly 4,000 times as much explosive energy as chemical high explosive bombs of the same weight. Together they killed more than 200,000 people. The energy released by the splitting of the atomic nuclei in the cores of these bombs was more than 10 million times the energy released by rearrangements of the outer electrons of atoms, which are responsible for chemical changes. For an instant after detonation of the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki, an amount of explosive energy equivalent to a pile of dynamite as big as the White House was contained in a sphere of plutonium no bigger than a baseball.

    This is why, a short time later, Albert Einstein said: “The splitting of the atom has changed everything, save our mode of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Suddenly the destructive capacity accessible to humans went clear off the human scale of things.

    About 10 years later this destructive capacity jumped dramatically again when the United States and the Soviet Union developed hydrogen bombs. By the 1970s, there were five announced members of the nuclear club, and the total number of nuclear warheads in the world had increased to some 60,000.

    Since 1964, when China tested its first nuclear explosive, further horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons has been secret or ambiguous or both. India tested a nuclear explosive in 1974, but claimed that is was strictly for peaceful purposes, and has consistently denied that it has any nuclear weapons. Although its government has never admitted that it has nuclear weapons, there is little doubt that Israel has been accumulating a growing stockpile since the 1960s. South Africa announced that it had made a half-dozen or so nuclear weapons, starting in the 1970s, but that it now has eliminated them. Other countries strongly suspected of having at least one nuclear weapon, and the capacity to make more, include Pakistan, North Korea, and Iraq. Commitments have been made by Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to turn over to Russia all nuclear weapons on their territories for dismantling. Ukraine completed this transfer on June 1, 1996.

    The immense potential destructive capacity of uranium and plutonium can also be released slowly as energy that can serve the peaceful needs of humans. It took about 10 years after the first nuclear bombs were exploded for nuclear energy for peaceful purposes to begin to be practical. Nuclear power has expanded considerably in the last 30 years or so. The two technologies-for destructive uses and for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy-are closely connected. I’ll discuss these connections in some detail in this paper.

    Facing the realities of the Nuclear Age as they have become evident these past 50 years has been a difficult and painful process for me, involving many changes of heart in my feelings about nuclear weapons and nuclear power since I first heard of nuclear fission on August 6, 1945. I started with a sense of revulsion towards nuclear weapons and skepticism about nuclear power for nearly five years. Then I worked on and strongly promoted nuclear weapons for some 15 years. In 1966, in the midst of a job in the Pentagon, I did an about-face in my perception of nuclear weaponry, and have pressed for nuclear disarmament ever since. My rejection of nuclear power, because of its connection with nuclear weapons, took longer, and was not complete until about 1980.

    Since that time I have been persistent in calling for the prompt global abolition of all nuclear weapons and the key nuclear materials needed for their production. Since all of the more than 400 nuclear power plants now operating in 32 countries produce large quantities of plutonium that, when chemically separated from spent fuel, can be used to make reliable, efficient nuclear weapons of all types, I have also found it necessary to call for phasing out all nuclear power worldwide. To accomplish this while being responsive to the environmental disruption caused by continued large-scale use of fossil fuels, I also find it necessary to call for intense, global response to opportunities for saving energy and producing what is needed from renewable sources directly or indirectly derived from solar radiation. I shall try in the rest of this paper to explain briefly the convictions that have led me to join others in making these calls with great urgency.

    Latent Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

    There are many possible degrees of drift or concerted national actions that are short of the actual possession of nuclear weapons, but that can account for much of what has to be done technically to acquire them. Harold Feiveson has called such activity “latent proliferation” of nuclear weapons.1 A national government that sponsors acquisition of nuclear power plants may have no intention to acquire nuclear weapons; but that government may be replaced by one that does, or may change its collective mind. A country that is actively pursuing nuclear power for peaceful purposes may also secretly develop nuclear explosives to the point where the last stages of assembly and military deployment could be carried out very quickly. The time and resources needed to make the transition from latent to active proliferation can range from very large to very small. Inadequately controlled plutonium or highly enriched uranium, combined with secret design and testing of non-nuclear components of nuclear warheads, can allow a nation or terrorist group to have deliverable nuclear weapons within days, or even hours, after acquiring a few kilograms or more of the key nuclear weapon materials.

    Contrary to widespread belief among nuclear engineers who have never worked on nuclear weapons, plutonium made in nuclear power plant fuel can be used to make all types of nuclear weapons. This “reactor grade” plutonium has relatively high concentrations of the isotope Pu-240, which spontaneously releases many more neutrons than Pu-239, the principal plutonium isotope in “weapon-grade” plutonium. In early nuclear weapons, such as the plutonium bomb tested in New Mexico in 1945, and then used in the bombing of Nagasaki, use of reactor grade plutonium would have tended to cause the chain reaction to start prematurely. This would lower the most likely explosive yield, but not below about 1 kiloton, compared with the 20 kiloton yield from these two bombs. Since that time, however, there have been major developments of nuclear weapons technology that make it possible to design all types of nuclear weapons to use reactor grade plutonium without major degradation of the weapons’ performance and reliability, compared with those that use weapon grade plutonium.2 These techniques have been well understood by nuclear weapon designers in the United States since the early 1950s, and probably also for decades in the other four declared nuclear weapon states.

    Reactor grade plutonium can also be used for making relatively crude nuclear explosives, such as might be made by terrorists. Although the explosive yields of such bombs would tend to be unpredictable, varying from case to case for the same bomb design, their minimum explosive yields could credibly be the equivalent of several hundred tons or more of high explosive.3 Such bombs, transportable by automobile, would certainly qualify as weapons of mass destruction, killing many tens of thousands or more people in some locations.

    All nuclear weapons require plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Some use both. The required amounts vary considerably, depending on the desired characteristics and on the technical resources and knowhow available to those who design and build the weapons. Estimates of the maximum total number of U. S. nuclear warheads and of the total amount of plutonium produced for those warheads correspond to an average of about 3 kilograms of plutonium per warhead.4 The minimum amount of plutonium in a nuclear explosive that contains no highly enriched uranium can be significantly smaller than 3 kilograms.

    Nuclear power plants typically produce a net of about 200 kilograms of plutonium per year for each 1,000 megawatts of electric power generating capacity. Some 430 nuclear power plants, with combined electrical generating capacity of nearly 340,000 megawatts, are now operating in 32 countries. The plants account for about 7% of total primary energy consumption worldwide, or about 17% of the world’s electrical energy. Total net annual production of plutonium by these plants is nearly 70,000 kilograms, enough for making more than 10,000 nuclear warheads per year. 5

    So far about four times as much plutonium has been produced in power reactors than has been used for making nuclear weapons-about 1 million kilograms, most of which is in spent nuclear fuel in storage, compared with about 250,000 kilograms for weapons.6

    Nearly 200,000 kilograms of plutonium have been chemically separated from spent power reactor fuel in chemical reprocessing facilities in at least 8 countries (Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States).7 This is typically stored as plutonium oxide that can relatively easily be converted to plutonium metal for use in nuclear explosives.

    Research and test reactors can also produce significant amounts of plutonium that, after chemical separation, can be used for making nuclear weapons. This has apparently been the route to nuclear weapons followed by Israel and started by North Korea.

    Although use of highly enriched uranium in nuclear power plants has been sporadic and rare, substantial quantities have been used for R&D purposes-as fuel for research and test reactors, and in connection with development of breeder reactors. Principal suppliers have been and now are the five declared nuclear weapon states. It has been estimated that the world inventory of highly enriched uranium for civil purposes is about 20,000 kilograms.8

    Although this is dramatically smaller than the more than 1 million kilograms of highly enriched uranium associated with nuclear weapons, it may be extremely important to some countries that are secretly developing the technology for making nuclear weapons.

    Facilities for enriching uranium in its concentration of the isotope U-235 to the levels of a few percent needed for light water power reactor fuel can be used for further enrichment to high concentrations used for making nuclear explosives. The technology for doing this is proliferating, both in terms of the numbers of countries that have such facilities, and in the variety of different ways to carry out the enrichment.

    The continuing international spread of knowledge of nuclear technology related to nuclear power development is an important contributor to latent nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the people who have become experts in nuclear technology, whether for military or civil purposes, could be of great help in setting up and carrying out clandestine nuclear weapon design and construction operations that make use of nuclear materials stolen from military supplies or diverted from civil supplies, perhaps having entered a black market.

    An example of highly advanced latent nuclear weapon proliferation is the nuclear weapons development program that started in Sweden in the late 1940s. It remained secret until the mid-1980s, when much detail about the project started becoming publicly available. It included hydronuclear tests of implosion systems containing enough fissile material to go critical but not enough to make a damaging nuclear explosion. The objective of the Swedish nuclear bomb program was to determine, in great detail, what Sweden would need to do if the government ever decided to produce and stockpile nuclear weapons.9 I have no reason to believe that Sweden has ever made that decision. I would not be surprised, however, if many other countries with nuclear reactors or uranium enrichment facilities that could be used to supply needed key nuclear materials have secretly carried out similar programs of lesser or perhaps even greater technical sophistication than Sweden’s.

    Bombardment of Nuclear Facilities

    Another type of latent proliferation that I find especially worrisome is the possible bombardment of nuclear facilities that thereby would be converted, in effect, into nuclear weapons. Military bombardment or sabotage of nuclear facilities, ranging from operating nuclear power plants and their spent fuel storage pools to large accumulations of high level radioactive wastes in temporary or long term storage, could release large quantities of radioactive materials that could seriously endanger huge land areas downwind. Electric power plants and stored petroleum have often been prime targets for tactical and strategic bombing, and sometimes for sabotage. In the case of operating nuclear power plants, core meltdowns and physical rupture of containment structures could be caused by aerial or artillery bombardment, truck bombings, internal sabotage with explosives, or by control manipulations following capture of the facility by terrorists. For orientation to the scale of potential radioactive contamination, consider strontium-90 and cesium-137, two especially troublesome fission products with half-lives of about 30 years. The inventories of these radionuclides in the core of a typical nuclear power plant (1,000 electrical megawatts) are greater than the amounts released by a 20 megaton H-bomb explosion, assuming half the explosion energy is accounted for by fission.

    Inventories of dangerous radioactive materials can be considerably greater in a waste or spent fuel storage facility that has served the needs of many nuclear power plants for many years. In some cases it may not be credible that chemical explosives could release large fractions of such materials and cause them to be airborne long enough to contaminate very large areas. In such situations, however, the explosion of a relatively small nuclear explosive in the midst of the storage area could spread the radioactive materials over huge areas.

    Perhaps the greatest extent of latent proliferation of nuclear weapons is represented by nuclear power fuel cycle facilities that can become enormously destructive nuclear weapons by being bombed by military forces or terrorists.

    Can the Nuclear Power-Nuclear Weapon Connections Be Broken?

    Given the rapidly increasing rate of worldwide latent proliferation of nuclear weapons, what can be done to assure that it does not lead to considerable surges in active proliferation of nuclear weapons?

    Shifts from latent to active nuclear weapon proliferation may be detected or discouraged by application of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) nuclear diversion safeguards. IAEA safeguards are applied to parties of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that are not nuclear weapons states. But the IAEA has authority only to inspect designated (or in some cases suspected) nuclear facilities, not to interfere physically to prevent a government from breaking its agreements under the treaty if it so chooses. Furthermore, a major function of the IAEA is also to provide assistance to countries that wish to develop nuclear power and use it. Thus the IAEA simultaneously plays two possibly conflicting roles-one of encouraging latent proliferation and the other of discouraging active proliferation.

    As we have seen, a nation’s possession of plutonium, whether in spent fuel or chemically separated, or its possession of highly enriched uranium or of facilities capable of producing it, need not depend on a government’s decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Such a decision might be made secretly or openly at any time government leaders conclude that threats to their security or ambitions of conquest warrant breaking safeguard agreements; at that point they can quickly extract the key nuclear materials needed for a few or for large numbers of nuclear weapons.

    Various proposals have been made for developing nuclear power in forms that are less prone to diversion of nuclear materials for weapons than present nuclear power systems. None of these proposals avoid the production of substantial quantities of neutrons that could be used for making key nuclear materials for nuclear weapons, however. And none avoid the production of high level radioactive wastes, the permanent disposal of which is still awaiting both technical and political resolution. Furthermore, such concepts, once fully developed, would require decades for substitution for the present types of nuclear power systems.

    Increasing alarm about global climatic instabilities caused by continued release of “greenhouse gases,” particularly carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels, has stimulated many advocates of nuclear energy to propose widescale displacement of fossil fuels by nuclear power. Such proposals would require building thousands of new nuclear power plants to achieve substantial global reduction in combustion of fossil fuels. This would greatly compound the dangers of destructive abuse of nuclear energy.

    In short, the connections between nuclear technology for constructive use and for destructive use are so closely tied together that the benefits of the one are not accessible without greatly increasing the hazards of the other.

    This leaves us with a key question: If nuclear power technology is too dangerous – by being so closely related to nuclear weapon technology – and fossil fuel combustion must be reduced sharply to avoid global climatic instabilities, what can humans do to meet their demands for energy worldwide?

    Efficient Use of Renewable Energy

    The economically attractive opportunities for using energy much more efficiently for all end uses in any of the wide variety of human settings are now so widely set forth that they need no further elaboration here. Although such opportunities generally exist for use of all kinds of energy sources, their detailed nature can depend on the specific type of energy provided for end use.10

    Among the many possibilities for economical renewable energy is hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water, using solar electric cells to provide the needed low voltage, direct current electrical energy. Recent advances in lowering the production costs and increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic cells make it likely that vigorous international pursuit of this option could allow production and distribution of hydrogen for use as a general purpose fuel, at costs competitive with the cost of natural gas.11

    Solar electric cells can also supply local or regional electric power for general use, using generators or fuel cells fueled with stored hydrogen, or pumped hydrolelectic storage, or windpower to meet electrical demands at night, on cloudy days, or in winter. Using such energy storage or windpower makes it possible to provide and use hydrogen to meet all local demands for energy in any climate.

    A common criticism of direct use of solar energy for meeting most human demands for energy results from a belief that the areas required are so large as to be impractical. This criticism is generally not valid. An overall efficiency of 15%, in terms of the chemical energy stored in hydrogen divided by the total solar radiation incident on the ground area used by solar cell arrays, is likely to be routinely achievable with flat, horizontal arrays. At a world annual average insolation rate of 200 watts per square meter, the total area required to meet the entire present world demand for primary energy of all types (equivalent to an annual average of about 10 trillion watts) would be about 0.4 million square kilometers. This is less than 0.4% of the world’s land area-much less than the annual fluctuations in the area devoted to agriculture, and comparable to the area used for roads. Even in Belgium, with perhaps the world’s highest national energy consumption rates per unit land area and lowest solar radiation availability, present demands could be met by solar hydrogen systems covering less than 5% of the country’s land area. Vigorous response to cost-effective opportunities for saving energy could lower considerably the land area requirements for solar energy anywhere.

    A Global Shift From Fossil and Nuclear Fuels to Renewable Energy

    Consider the benefits of a rapid worldwide shift from dependence on fossil fuels and nuclear power to vigorous pursuit of opportunities for using energy much more efficiently and providing that energy from renewable sources.

    If nuclear power is phased out completely, it will become possible to outlaw internationally the possession of any key nuclear weapon materials, such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium that can sustain a fast neutron chain reaction, along with any facilities that could be used for producing them. This would not require a global ban on basic research in nuclear physics nor the use of selected, internationally controlled accelerators for production of radionuclides for medical and industrial applications.

    A global ban on materials capable of sustaining nuclear explosive chain reactions would make it unnecessary to distinguish between alleged peaceful uses of these materials and uses that could be threatening. It would greatly increase the likelihood that violations of a ban on all nuclear weapons would be detected technically and by people who can report violations of the ban, without having to determine the intended uses of the materials and production facilities.

    A complete phaseout of nuclear power would help focus the world’s attention on safeguarding nuclear materials and safe, permanent disposal of all the nuclear wastes and spent nuclear fuel, separated plutonium, or other stockpiles of nuclear weapon materials that had been produced before nuclear power is completely phased out. All such materials could be internationally secured in a relatively small number of facilities while awaiting ultimate safe disposal. Although the quantities of these materials are already very large, applying the needed safeguards to them would be much easier than in a world in which nuclear power continues to flourish worldwide. The job would be finite, rather than open-ended. The costs of safe, environmentally acceptable, permanent disposal of nuclear weapon materials and nuclear wastes-costs that are now unknown, but are very large-would be bounded.

    Concerns about safety and vulnerability of nuclear power plants and their supporting facilities to military action or acts of terrorism would disappear.

    In anticipation of a phaseout of nuclear power and sharp curtailment of combustion of fossil fuels, research, development, and commercialization of renewable energy sources could be greatly accelerated by a shift of national and international resources toward them and away from dependence on nuclear power and fossil fuel systems that are inherent threats to human security and our global habitat.

    Global Nuclear Abolition

    It troubles me more deeply than I can express that my country continues to be prepared, under certain conditions, to launch nuclear weapons that would kill millions of innocent bystanders. To me, this is preparation for mass murder that cannot be justified under any conditions. It must therefore be considered as human action that is out-and-out evil. The threat of nuclear retaliation also is a completely ineffectual deterrent to nuclear attack by terrorists or leaders of governments that need not identify themselves or that are physically located in the midst of populations that have no part in the initial attack or threat of attack. In short, we humans must find alternatives to retaliation in kind to acts of massive and indiscriminate violence.

    These alternatives must focus on ways to deter use of weapons of mass destruction by determining who is responsible for such attacks or threats of attack, and bringing them to justice.

    One hangup that many people have with global nuclear weapon abolition anytime soon is that nuclear technology is already too widely dispersed to allow accurate and complete technical verification of compliance, using currently available verification methods. Another widespread hangup is that malevolent national leaders might threaten to use secretly withheld or produced nuclear weapons to force intolerable demands on other countries if they did not face certain devastating nuclear retaliation to carrying out such threats.

    I agree that no conceivable global verification system or international security force for identifying and arresting violators of an internationally negotiated and codified legal framework for globally banning nuclear weapons and nuclear power can be guaranteed to deter violation of the the ban. But this is a property of any law governing human beings. The question is not about achieving perfect global security against nuclear violence. The question is: Which would be preferred by most human beings-a world in which possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons is allowed for some but forbidden for others, or one in which they are completely outlawed, with no exceptions?

    I believe the time has come to establish a global popular taboo against nuclear weapons and devices or processes that might be used to make them. The taboo should be directed specifically at any action – by governments, non-government enterprises, or individuals – that is in violation of international laws specifically related to nuclear technology.

    I also propose that as the taboo is formulated and articulated vigorously worldwide, both informal and formal negotiations of an international nuclear abolition treaty start immediately in the relevant United Nations organizations. Why not adopt a formal goal of completing the negotiations and the codification of the associated laws and regulations before the start of the next millennium? I would also join others now pressing for actions that would complete the process of actual global nuclear abolition no later than 2010.

    As is the case for many examples of bringing violators of popularly supported laws to justice, there should be frequent official and popular encouragement, including various kinds of major rewards, of “whistleblowers” who become aware of violations and report them to a well-known international authority. Such whistleblowers should also be well protected against reprisals by the violators, including even authorities of their own country’s government. Such actions may be even more important in filling verification gaps than technical verification procedures implemented by an international authority.

    In conclusion, I now have new and strong feelings of hope about the future of humankind. We are collectively facing new choices. We can continue to apply those cosmic forces -which we discovered how to manipulate 50 years ago-to feed the destructive competitive power struggles among humans. Or we can join together to reject those immensely powerful forces-that are much easier to use to destroy than to build-and reach out together to embrace the energy from our sun, which has for a very long time sustained all life on Earth.

    REFERENCES

    1. Harold A. Feiveson and Theodore B. Taylor, “Alternative Strategies for International Control of Nuclear Power,” in Nuclear Proliferation-Motivations, Capabilities, and Strategies for Control, Ted Greenwood, H. A. Feiveson, and T. B. Taylor, New York: McGraw Hill, 1977, pp. 125-190. 
    2. J. Carson Mark, “Explosive Properties of Reactor Grade Plutonium,” Science and Global Security, 1993, Volume 4, pp.111-128. 
    3. J. Carson Mark, Theodore B. Taylor, Eugene Eyster, William Merriman, and Jacob Wechsler, “By What Means Could Terrorists Go Nuclear?” in Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, Paul Leventhal and Yonah Alexander, eds. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington
    Books, 1987, pp. 55-65. 
    4. See, for example, David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993, pp. 25-35. 
    5. Ibid, pp. 71-83. 
    6. Ibid, pp. 196-209. 
    7. Ibid, p. 90. 
    8. Ibid, p. 148. 
    9. Lars Wallin, chapter in Security With Nuclear Weapons? Regina Cowen Karp, Ed., Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, London: Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 360-381.
    10. See, for example, Thomas Johansson, Henry Kelly, Amulya K. N. Reddy, and Robert Williams, eds. Renewable Energy, Washington: Island Press, 1993.
    11. See, for example, J. M. Ogden and R. H. Williams, Solar Hydrogen: Moving Beyond Fossil Fuels, Washington: World Resources Institute, 1989.

     

  • Denuclearization of the Oceans: Linking Our Common Heritage with Our Common Future

    Introduction

    The oceans were nuclearized shortly after the era of nuclear weapons began in 1945. On July 1, 1946, while still negotiating the internationalization of atomic energy at the United Nations, the United States began testing nuclear weapons at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. Nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific continued through January 1996, when French President Jacques Chirac announced an end to French testing in the region.

    In the 1950s, the United States again led the way in nuclearizing the oceans with the launching of a nuclear powered submarine, the Nautilus. The Nautilus and other nuclear submarines could stay submerged for long periods of time without refueling and cruise throughout the world. During the Cold War the U.S., former USSR, UK, France, and China developed nuclear submarine fleets carrying ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Some of these nuclear powered submarines with their multiple-independently-targeted nuclear warheads were and remain capable of single-handedly attacking and destroying more than one hundred major cities. These shadowy creatures of mankind’s darkest inventiveness remain silently on alert in the depths of the world’s oceans, presumably ready and capable, upon command, of destroying the Earth.

    Our oceans are a precious resource to be shared by all humanity and preserved for future generations. It carries the concept of “freedom of the seas” to absurd lengths to allow those nations with the technological capacity to destroy the Earth to use the world’s oceans in so callous a manner.

    Accidents aboard nuclear submarines have caused a number of them to sink with long-term adverse environmental consequences for the oceans. In addition to accidents, many countries have purposefully dumped radioactive wastes in the oceans.

    With regard to proper stewardship of the planet, it is time to raise the issue of denuclearizing the world’s oceans. To fail to raise the issue and to achieve the denuclearization of the oceans is to abdicate our responsibility for the health and well-being of the oceans and the planet.

    Nuclearization of the Oceans

    Nuclearization of the oceans has taken a variety of forms. The primary ones are:

    1. the oceans have served as a medium for hiding nuclear deterrent forces located on submarines;

    2. nuclear reactors have been used to power ships, primarily submarines, some of which have gone down at sea with their nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons aboard;

    3. increasing use is being made of the oceans for the transportation of nuclear wastes and reprocessed nuclear fuels;

    4. the oceans have been used as a dumping ground for nuclear wastes;

    5. atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, particularly in the Pacific, has been a source of nuclear pollution to the oceans as well as the land; and

    6. underground nuclear weapons testing, such as that conducted by France in the South Pacific, has endangered fragile Pacific atolls and caused actual nuclear contamination to the oceans as well as risking a much greater contamination should the atolls crack due to testing or future geological activity.

    The problems arising from nuclearization of the oceans can be viewed from several perspectives.

    From an environmental perspective, issues arise with regard to nuclear contamination in the oceans working its way up through the food chain. The biological resources of the oceans will eventually affect human populations which are reliant upon these resources.

    The threat of nuclear contamination has diminished with regard to nuclear testing, which has not taken place in the atmosphere since 1980. Moreover, the nuclear weapons states have committed themselves to a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which they have promised to conclude by 1996. This treaty, if concluded, will end all underground nuclear testing.

    The dumping of high-level radioactive waste material was curtailed by the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by the Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, which entered into force in 1975. A later amendment to this Convention prohibited ocean dumping of all radioactive wastes or other radioactive matter. However, exemptions authorized by the International Atomic Energy Agency and non-compliance remain a concern. Problems can be anticipated in the future when radioactive contaminants already dumped in canisters or contained in fuel or weapons aboard sunken submarines breach their containment.

    Increased use of the oceans to transport nuclear wastes and reprocessed nuclear fuel (between Japan and France, for example) has substantially increased the risk of contamination. Coastal and island states that are on the route of the transportation of nuclear materials stand high risks of contamination in the event of an accident at sea. International law regarding the transportation of hazardous material must be strengthened and strictly enforced by the international community to prevent catastrophic accidents in the future.

    From a human rights perspective, inhabitants of island states in the Pacific have suffered serious health effects and dislocation as a result of atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons testing. In response to assurances by France that their underground testing in the South Pacific is entirely safe, the islanders in Polynesia and throughout the Pacific have retorted: If it is so safe, why isn’t it being done in France itself? The response of the French government has been that French Polynesia is French territory, highlighting the arrogance and abuse that accompanies colonialism.

    Human rights issues also arise with regard to maintaining a nuclear deterrent force that threatens the annihilation of much of humanity. The Human Rights Committee stated in November 1984 in their general comments on Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, i.e., the right to life, that “the production, testing, possession, deployment and use of nuclear weapons should be prohibited and recognized as crimes against humanity.” The deployment of nuclear weapons on submarines, therefore, arguably constitutes a crime against humanity, and thus a violation of the most fundamental human right, the right to life.

    From a security perspective, the nuclear weapons states argue that having a submarine-based deterrent force assures their security. Thus, to varying degrees, each of the nuclear weapons states maintains strategic submarines capable of causing unthinkable destruction if their missiles were ever launched. (See Appendix.) Viewed from the self-interests of nearly all the world’s population-except the nuclear weapons states whose leaders appear addicted to maintaining their nuclear arsenals -the continued reliance on nuclear deterrence, at sea or on land, poses a frightening threat to continued human existence.

    In 1972 the Seabed Agreement prohibited the emplacement of nuclear weapons on the seabed, ocean floor, or subsoil thereof. This agreement prohibited what was already deemed unnecessary by the nuclear weapons states; placing nuclear weapons on submarines made them less vulnerable to detection and destruction than placing them on or beneath the seabed or ocean floor. The oceans continue to be used by the nuclear weapons states as an underwater shadow world for their missile carrying submarines.

    The United States alone currently has 16 Trident submarines, each carrying some 100 independently targeted nuclear warheads. Each Trident submarine has a total explosive force greater than all the explosive force used in World War II, including at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Britain, with the help of the United States, is replacing its older class of Polaris SSBNs with a fleet of four Trident submarines. France currently has five strategic missile submarines with four more of a superior class to be commissioned by 2005. Russia has over 35 strategic missile submarines with an estimated capacity of 2,350 nuclear warheads. China has two modern ballistic missile submarines. Its Xia class submarine carries twelve 200 kiloton nuclear warheads.

    The total destructive force that day and night lurks beneath the oceans is a chilling reminder of our technological capacity to destroy ourselves. That this threat was created and is maintained in the name of national security suggests a collective madness that must be opposed and overcome if, for no other reason, we are to fulfill our obligation to posterity to preserve human life.

    An ongoing responsibility resides with the nuclear weapons states to fulfill the obligations set forth in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” At the NPT Review and Extension Conference in April and May 1995, the treaty was extended indefinitely after extensive lobbying by the nuclear weapons states. At the same time the nuclear weapons states promised to enter into a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996, and to engage in a “determined pursuit” of the ultimate elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

    Protecting the Common Heritage

    The Law of the Sea Treaty enshrines the concept of the oceans as the common heritage of [hu]mankind. Maintaining the oceans as a common heritage demands that the oceans be protected from contamination by nuclear pollutants; that they not be used in a manner to undermine basic human rights, particularly the rights to life and to a healthy environment; and that the oceans not be allowed to serve as a public preserve for those states that believe their own security interests demand the endangerment of global human survival.

    It is unreasonable to allow our common heritage to be used to threaten our common future. Deterrence is an unproven and unstable concept that is being tested on humanity by a small number of powerful and arrogant states that have turned nuclear technology to its ultimate destructive end. In order to link the common heritage with our common future, the large majority of the world’s nations advocating an end to the threat of nuclear annihilation should seek to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention by the year 2000 that eliminates all nuclear weapons in a time-bound framework. The prohibition and conversion of strategic ballistic missile submarines must be part of this accord. Perhaps this will be the final step in achieving a nuclear weapons free world.

    Life began in the oceans and eventually migrated to land. We must not allow the oceans to continue to provide a secure hiding place for nuclear forces capable of causing irreparable damage to all life. This is an inescapable responsibility of accepting the proposition that life itself, like the oceans, is a common heritage that must be protected for future generations.

     

    ——————————————————————————–

    APPENDIX: NUCLEAR POWER AT SEA*

    A. Nuclear Weapons

    UNITED STATES

    Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

    Active: 16 Building: 2

    Trident: 16 + 2

    There are presently 16 Trident submarines in operation, eight at Sub-Base Bangor and eight at Sub-Base Kings Bay. The schedule is to complete one submarine per year for a total of 18 with the final one becoming operational in 1997.

    In September 1994 it was announced in the Pentagon’s “Nuclear Posture Review” that the Trident force would be cut from 18 to 14. The submarines to be retired are still under review but are believed to be the four oldest in the fleet. They will be preserved, however, in mothballs until the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) II Treaty is fully implemented in 2003.

    These submarines carry 24 missiles each. The submarines are armed with Trident-1 missiles (C-4) and the Trident-2 (D-5). In 1991 all strategic cruise missiles (Tomahawks) were removed from surface ships and submarines.

    The C-4 can carry up to eight 100 kiloton Mark-4/W-76 Multiple Independently-targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRV). There are currently 192 Trident-1 missiles deployed in eight Trident submarines based at Bangor, Washington with a total of 1,152 Mk-4 warheads. Four of these submarines are to be deactivated and the remaining four are to be converted to carry Trident-2 missiles. Plans are to then base seven of the 14 submarines on each coast.

    The D-4 can carry up to 12 MIRV with Mark-4/W-76 100-kT warheads, or Mark-5/W-88 300-475-kT warheads each. Under START counting rules, a limit of 8 reentry vehicles (RV) was set, but this may be further reduced to four or five if START II is implemented. About 400 Mk-5/W-88 warheads for the Trident-2 missiles were produced before they were canceled because of production and safety reasons. Two new Trident subs fitted with D-4 missiles will be delivered by 1997.

    Under the START Treaties, warheads that are reduced do not have to be destroyed. According to the Nuclear Posture Review the current plan is to remove three or four warheads per missile from Trident Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) to meet the START II ceiling of 1,750 SLBM warheads. Plans are to reduce the C-4 to 1,280 warheads and the D-4 to 400. These warheads will be kept in storage and if it is determined that the SLBMs need to be uploaded, the Pentagon can reuse them.

    RUSSIA

    Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

    Active: 39 Building: 0

    The Russian navy is divided into four fleets: the Baltic, Northern, Black Sea and the Pacific. In the Northern and the Pacific fleets, the primary issue is of what to do with the estimated 85 retired nuclear submarines. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, it is believed that over half of their nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine fleet has been withdrawn from operational service. These ships are currently moored at various bases with their reactors still on board. The number is growing faster than the money available to remove and store the fuel elements and decontaminate the reactor compartments. Since 1991, there has been a lack of funds to operate the fleet. Consequently, few of the submarines listed as active have actually been at sea.

    In response to President Bush’s September 27, 1991 decision to remove tactical nuclear missiles from ships, President Gorbachev announced that six SSBNs with 92 SLBMs (presumably five Yankee Is and a single Yankee II) were to be removed from operational forces. Russian Fleet Commander Adm. Oleg Yerofeev reports that as of October 20, 1991 all tactical nuclear weapons were removed from the Northern and Pacific fleet ships and submarines.

    The January-February, 1993 issue of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reports that Russia intends to stop building submarines in its Pacific yards within the next two to three years. Russian President Boris Yeltsin made this announcement during a November 1992 visit to South Korea.

    The Russian (CIS) SLBM stockpile is estimated to be at: 224 SS-N-18 Stingray armed with three warheads at 500-kT, 120 SS-N-20 Sturgeon with ten 200-kT warheads, and 112 SS-N-23 Skiff missiles with four 100-kT warheads. Total warheads are believed to be about 2320.

    According to Pentagon officials, Russia has already reduced its patrols to a single ballistic missile submarine. In contrast, the U.S. Navy continues to patrol with a dozen or so submarines at a time.

    NATO names are used in this listing. Russian names are given in parentheses.

    Typhoon (Akula) Class: 6

    The Typhoon carries 20 SS-N-20 Sturgeon missiles, with six to nine MIRV 200-kT nuclear warheads. The Typhoon can hit strategic targets from anywhere in the world. There are plans to modernize the Typhoons to carry an SS-N-20 follow-on missile which would have improved accuracy. All the Typhoons are stationed in the Northern Fleet at Nerpichya. One was damaged by fire during a missile loading accident in 1992, but has since been repaired.

    Delta IV (Delfin) Class: 7

    The Delta IV carries 16 SS-N-23 Skiff missiles, with four to ten MIRV 100-kT nuclear warheads. These ships are based in the Northern Fleet at Olenya.

    Delta III (Kalmar) Class: 14

    The Delta III is armed with 16 SS-N-18 Stingray missiles. There are three possible modifications for the Stingray. (1) three MIRV at 200-kT, (2) a single 450-kT, (3) seven MIRV at 100-kT. Nine ships are in the Northern Fleet and five are in the Pacific Fleet.

    Delta II (Murena-M) Class: 4

    The Delta II has 16 SS-N8 Sawfly missiles with two possible modifications. The first is with a single 1.2 MT nuclear warhead, the other is with two MIRV at 800-kT. This class of submarine is no longer in production. All four are stationed in the Northern fleet at Yagelnaya and are believed to have been taken off active duty.

    Delta I (Murena) Class: 8

    The Delta I carries 12 SS-N-8 Sawfly missiles, armed with either a single 1.2 MT nuclear warhead or two MIRV 800-kT. Three ships are stationed in the North and the other five are in the Pacific. One of these ships may be converted into a rescue submarine. As with the Delta II’s, all of these ships are believed to have been taken off active duty.

    UNITED KINGDOM

    Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

    Active: 4 Building: 2

    Vanguard Class: 2 + 2

    The Vanguard-class is modeled on the United States Trident submarine. It carries 16 Trident II (D-5) missiles with up to eight MIRV of 100-120-kT nuclear warheads. The D-5 can carry up to 12 MIRV but under plans announced in November 1993 each submarine will carry a maximum of 96 warheads. The U.K. has stated that it has no plans to refit their Tridents with conventional warheads, insisting on the nuclear deterrent.

    Resolution Class: 2

    The Resolution-class was initially fitted with 16 Polaris A3 missiles with three multiple reentry vehicles of 200-kT each. Beginning in 1982, the warheads were replaced under the “Chevaline Program.” The Chevaline is a similar warhead, but contains a variety of anti-ballistic missile defenses. The two remaining submarines in this class are both scheduled for decommission.

    CHINA

    Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

    Active: 1 Projected: 1

    Intelligence on Chinese nuclear submarines is extremely limited. Experts disagree on whether there is one or two SSBNs in the Chinese fleet. A new class of SSBN is expected to begin construction in 1996 or 1997.

    Xia Class: 1 or 2

    The Xia carries 12 Julang or “Giant Wave” CSS-N-3 missiles armed with a single 200-300-kT nuclear warhead. Approximately 24 of these missiles have been deployed. An improved version of this missile is currently being developed.

    Golf Class (SSB): 1

    Although the Golf is not nuclear driven, it is armed with ballistic missiles. The submarine is outfitted with two Julang missiles.

    FRANCE

    Strategic Missile Submarines (SSBN)

    Active: 5 Building: 3 Projected: 1

    In 1992 France announced that it would cut the number of new Triomphant-class SSBNs under construction from 6 to 4. Robert Norris and William Arkin of the Natural Resource Defense Council estimate that France will produce 288 warheads for the fleet of four submarines, but with only enough missiles and warheads to fully arm three boats. It is estimated that France has 64 SLBMs with 384 warheads.

    Triomphant Class: 0 + 3(1)

    The first submarine of its class, Le Triomphant, recently began conducting trials in the sea and is scheduled to depart on its first patrol in March 1996. The other ships are expected to be operational by 2005. The Triomphant-class is armed with 16 M45 missiles with 6 multiple reentry vehicles (MRV) at 150-kT. There are plans to later refit the submarines with the more powerful M5 with 10-12 MRV around 2010. Testing for these new missiles were recently conducted at the Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls.

    L’Inflexible Class: 5

    L’Inflexible is armed with 16 Aerospatiale M4B missiles with six MRV at 150-kT. The French navy has 80 SLBMs deployed on its five submarines. This class of ships is based at Brest and commanded from Houilles. They patrol in the Atlantic Ocean and the Norwegian and Mediterranean Seas. The minimum number of submarines always at sea has been reduced from three to two.

    B. OTHER NUCLEAR POWERED SHIPS

    UNITED STATES

    Attack Submarines (SSN)

    Active: 86 Building: 4 Projected: 1

    Permit Class: 1
    Benjamin Franklin Class: 2
    Narwhal Class: 1
    Los Angeles Class: 57 + 2
    Sturgeon Class: 25
    Seawolf Class: 0 + 2(1)

    The Seawolf was launched in July 1995, and is scheduled to be commissioned in May 1996.

    Aircraft Carriers (CVN )

    Active: 6 Building: 3

    Nimitz Class: 6 + 3

    Guided Missile Cruisers (CGN)

    Active: 5

    Virginia Class: 2
    California Class: 2
    Brainbridge Class: 1

    RUSSIA

    Cruise Missile Submarines (SSGN)

    Active: 19 Building: 1 Projected: 1

    Echo II Class (Type 675M): 3
    Oscar I (Granit) Classes: 2
    Oscar II (Antyey): 10 + 1(1)
    Charlie II (Skat M) Class: 3
    Yankee Sidecar (Andromeda) Class: 1

    Attack Submarines (SSN)

    Active: 51 Building: 6 Projected: 1

    Severodvinsk Class: 0 + 3(1)
    Sierra II (Baracuda) Class: 2
    Akula I (Bars) Class: 4
    Akula II (Bars) Class: 8 + 3
    Sierra I (Baracuda I) Class: 2
    Alfa (Alpha) Class: 1
    Victor III (Shuka) Class: 26
    Victor II (Kefal II) Class: 3
    Victor I (Kefal I) Class: 2
    Yankee Notch (Grosha) Class: 3

    Battle Cruisers (CGN)
    Active: 4

    Kirov Class: 4

    UNITED KINGDOM

    Attack Submarines (SSN)

    Active: 12 Projected: 5

    Trafalgar Class: 7 + (5)
    Swiftsure Class: 5

    CHINA

    Attack Submarines (SSN)

    Active: 5 Building: 1
    Han Class: 5

    Nuclear attack submarines are believed to be a high priority for the Chinese, but due to high internal radiation levels, production has been suspended.

    FRANCE

    Attack Submarines (SSN)

    Active: 6 Projected: 1

    Rubis Class: 6 + (1)

    The nuclear attack submarine Rubis collided with a tanker on July 17, 1993 and has had to undergo extensive repairs. On March 30, 1994 the Emeraude had a bad steam leak which caused casualties amongst the crew.

    Aircraft Carriers (CVN)

    Active: 0 Building: 1 Projected: 1

    The nuclear powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle was launched in 1994, it is expected to be commissioned in July 1999.

  • Nuremberg and Nuclear Weapons

    The principal message of the Nuremberg trials is that individuals are responsible for what they do, and will be held accountable for committing serious crimes under international law. At Nuremberg, these serious crimes included crimes against peace (that is, planning, preparing for, or participating in acts of aggressive warfare), war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

    One of the great ironies of history or perhaps it is not such a great irony is that the Charter establishing the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was signed on August 8, 1945. That was just three months after the German surrender. More importantly, it was just two days after the first nuclear weapon was used in warfare on the city of Hiroshima, and one day prior to a nuclear weapon being used on the city of Nagasaki. The nuclear weapon used on Hiroshima, with an equivalent force of some 15 kilotons of TNT, killed some 90,000 people immediately and some 140,000 by the end of 1945. The bomb dropped on Nagasaki, with an equivalent force of some 20 kilotons of TNT, killed some 40,000 people immediately and some 70,000 by the end of 1945.

    It has been pointed out that the number of people who died immediately from the use of each of these nuclear weapons was less than the number of people who died in Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945 as a result of U.S. bombing raids. This number is estimated at approximately 100,000. The major difference between the Tokyo bombings and those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that the former took nearly a thousand sorties to accomplish, while the destruction of the latter two cities took only one bomb each.

    I think it is reasonable to speculate that if the Germans had had two or three atomic bombs, as we did at that time, and had used them on European cities prior to being defeated in the Second World War, we would have attempted to hold accountable those who created, authorized, and carried out these bombings. We would likely have considered the use of these weapons on cities by the Nazi leaders as among the most serious of their crimes.

    The irony of history, of course, is that the Germans did not develop nor use atomic weapons, and thus this issue never came before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, or before any other international tribunal. The record of the past 50 years reflects the consequences of this lack of accountability, namely, the nuclear arms race pursued by the United States and the former Soviet Union, which lasted until the end of the Cold War in approximately 1990.

    The question which I want to address is not whether war crimes were committed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Under the rules of international humanitarian law they were, and they were also committed by the bombings of London, Coventry, Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo. The primary targets of all these bombings were civilians, and the indiscriminate killing of civilians has always in modern times been understood to be a clear violation of the laws of war.

    Nuclear Weapons and International Law

    The more relevant question has to do with where we stand today. Not long ago, on July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice in the Hague issued an opinion on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. Actually, two questions were placed before the Court for advisory opinions. The first question, posed by the World Health Organization in May 1993, asked: “In view of the health and environmental effects, would the use of nuclear weapons by a state in war or other armed conflict be a breach of its obligations under international law?”

    The second question, put to the Court by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December 1994, asked: “Is the threat or the use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances permitted under international law?”

    The International Court of Justice found that the question asked by the World Health Organization, as a legal question, fell outside the scope of activities of the organization, and thus declined to accept jurisdiction. On the question posed by the United Nations General Assembly, however, the Court did find jurisdiction, and issued an advisory opinion.

    In a multi-part answer to the question, the Court found the following: “…that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law.

    “However, in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake.”

    In reaching this opinion, the Court dramatically reduced the possible circumstances in which nuclear weapons could be threatened or used in conformity with international law. The Court left open only the slim possibility of legality under “an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake.” Even in this circumstance, the Court did not say that such use would be legal; it said only that it could not determine legality under these conditions. Judge Bedjaoui, the president of the Court, said in his declaration upon releasing the Court’s opinion, “I cannot insist strongly enough on the fact that the inability of the Court to go beyond the statement it made can in no way be interpreted as a partially-opened door through which it recognizes the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons.”

    Judge Bedjaoui went further to describe nuclear weapons as “blind weapons” that “destabilize, by their very nature, humanitarian law, the law of distinguishing in the use of weapons.” He continued, “Nuclear weapons, absolute evil, destabilize humanitarian law in so far as the law of the lesser evil. Thus, the very existence of nuclear weapons constitutes a great defiance (challenge) to humanitarian law itself…. Nuclear war and humanitarian law seem, consequently, two antithesis which radically exclude each other, the existence of one necessarily supposing the non-existence of the other.”

    Where does this leave us today? Although the opinion of the Court is an advisory opinion, it is the most authoritative statement of international law on this question, and must be taken seriously. Thus far, however, there have been no statements made by any of the declared or undeclared nuclear weapons states indicating that they plan any changes in their nuclear policies as a result of the Court’s opinion.

    Individual Accountability

    We know what the Principles of Nuremberg tell us about individual accountability. The primary principle is that “Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.” The fact that there is no penalty for the act under internal law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law. Nor does the fact that the person acted as a Head of State or as a responsible government official relieve that person of responsibility. Nor does the fact that the person acted pursuant to superior orders, so long as a choice was in fact possible to him, relieve him of responsibility.

    It was the United States, along with the U.K., France, and Russia, that created the Nuremberg Principles after the Second World War by holding Nazi and other Axis leaders accountable for their crimes under international law. I submit that if we want to create a world community that lives under international law in the 21st Century, we must apply the Nuremberg Principles to one and all, equally and without prejudice. That means we must apply these Principles to ourselves as well as to others. If the threat or use of nuclear weapons is, in fact, illegal under international law in virtually every conceivable circumstance, then we must act accordingly and neither use nor threaten the use of these weapons. Instead, we must dismantle our nuclear arsenal subject to agreement with other nuclear weapons states. In the meantime, we must explain to all military personnel with responsibilities for nuclear weapons the criminality under international law attendant to the threat or use of these weapons.

    Military organizations must operate under the law, and that clearly includes the international law of armed conflict. If military organizations do not operate under the law, then are they any better than state-organized thugs? It was for violating the laws of war at My Lai that Lt. Calley was tried and convicted. Lt. Calley’s crimes, terrible though they were, would pale in comparison to the crime of again using nuclear weapons on cities filled with innocent people.

    The International Court of Justice added to their opinion a clarification of Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Court unanimously found 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.”

    The Court has clearly indicated that the nuclear weapons states have an obligation to negotiate in good faith not only for nuclear disarmament, but for nuclear disarmament “in all its aspects” and to bring these negotiations to a conclusion. In the aftermath of the Cold War, we have been moving far too slowly to attain this goal. It is a necessary goal so that no other city will ever again have to face the consequences of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the future of humanity will not be jeopardized.

    The Need for a Permanent International Criminal Court

    Even if the threat or use of nuclear weapons is unlawful under international law, however, there currently exists no tribunal where persons committing such acts can be brought to account. One of the great shortcomings of the current international institutional structure is the lack of a permanent International Criminal Court. Two Ad Hoc Tribunals have been created by the United Nations Security Council one for the former Yugoslavia and one for Rwanda. The jurisdiction of both of these tribunals, however, is limited by time and space. It is perhaps ironic that while the effects of nuclear weapons are unlimited by either time or space, the jurisdiction of our international criminal tribunals is so limited.

    Were nuclear weapons to be used by accident or design, the consequences would be horrible beyond our deepest fears. Nazis and other war criminals were convicted and punished in part for bringing human beings to the incinerators of the Holocaust. Nuclear weapons may be conceived of as portable incinerators portable crematoria, if you will that bring incinerators to the people. In my view, the silence of the American, Russian, British, French, and Chinese people in the face of these potentially genocidal or omnicidal weapons is as disquieting as the silence of the Germans in the face of Nazi atrocities. Yet none of the people in countries possessing nuclear weapons today are facing the same fearful authoritarian rule that the Nazis imposed upon the Germans during World War II.

    For many, perhaps most, people in nuclear weapons states today, nuclear weapons are not perceived as a critical issue. They are largely ignored. However, if they were to be used again, I think future historians if there were any would be very critical of our lack of commitment to ridding the world of these terrible weapons.

    We have the opportunity, in fact the responsibility under the Nuremberg Principles, to speak out against these genocidal weapons, but for the most part we do not do so. We must break the silence that surrounds our reliance upon these weapons of mass destruction. A hopeful sign recently occurred at the State of the World Forum in San Francisco when General Lee Butler, a former commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, broke his personal silence and made a ringing plea to abolish nuclear weapons. “We can do better,” he said, “than condone a world in which nuclear weapons are enshrined as the ultimate arbiter of conflict. The price already paid is too dear, the risks run too great. The nuclear beast must be chained, its soul expunged, its lair laid waste. The task is daunting but we cannot shrink from it. The opportunity may not come again.”

    It is within our grasp to end the nuclear weapons era, and begin the 21st Century with a reaffirmation of the Nuremberg Principles.

    Steps That Need To Be Taken

    1. The following confidence building measures proposed by the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons:

    • Taking nuclear forces off alert;
    • Removal of warheads from delivery vehicles;
    • Ending deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons;
    • Initiating negotiations to further reduce United States and Russian nuclear arsenals; and
    • Agreement amongst the nuclear weapons states of reciprocal no-first-use undertakings, and of a non-use undertaking by them in relation to the non-nuclear weapons states.

    2. International agreement by the year 2000 on a Nuclear Weapons Convention that, under strict international control, would eliminate all nuclear weapons within a reasonable period of time and prohibit their possession.

    3. The establishment by treaty of a permanent International Criminal Court to hold all individuals, regardless of their rank or nationality, accountable for acts constituting crimes under international law. Considerable progress has been made in preparing such a treaty at the United Nations. It may be hoped that this treaty will be ready to be opened for signatures in 1998, and certainly by 1999 when a third International Peace Conference is convened in the Hague.

  • On the Abolition 2000 Statement

    Introduction

    The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review and Extension Conference in April and May 1995 provided an opportunity for the nuclear weapons states to commit themselves to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. These states, however, were unwilling to make this commitment, and were intent only on the indefinite extension of the NPT.

    Many citizen action groups gathered at the Conference viewed the position of the nuclear weapons states on indefinite extension as the equivalent of an indefinite extension of the status quo, one that provided special nuclear status to the five declared nuclear weapons states (U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China). These citizen action groups from throughout the world formed themselves into an Abolition Caucus. From this Caucus came the Abolition 2000 Statement calling for “definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons.”

    This Statement became the founding document of the Abolition 2000 Network. This Network has now grown to over 600 citizen action groups on six continents. These groups are actively working in ten working groups to accomplish the 11-point program. The Statement is set forth below.

    Abolition 2000 Statement

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

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

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

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

    1) Initiate immediately and conclude by the year 2000 negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Abolition Convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Analysis

    The Abolition 2000 Statement was a major achievement of the citizen action groups supporting the elimination of nuclear weapons at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference. It has provided a point of focus and agreement for these citizens groups from throughout the world.

    The 11-point program to be implemented by the nuclear weapons states is discussed below.

    1. Initiate immediately and conclude by the year 2000 negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Abolition Convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework, with provisions for verification and enforcement.

    Entering into a Nuclear Weapons Convention by the year 2000 is the key point in the Statement. This doesn’t mean that all nuclear weapons will be eliminated by the year 2000. It means that the commitment to their total elimination will be made in the form of a treaty, similar to the treaties that have outlawed biological weapons (Biological Weapons Convention, 1972) and chemical weapons (Chemical Weapons Convention, 1995) by the year 2000. The opportunity should not be missed to begin the new millennium with a commitment to a nuclear weapons free world. The year 2000 is a turning point for humanity, a point by which we should leave behind us forever the threat of nuclear annihilation.

    In a footnote to the Abolition 2000 Statement, some direction for the proposed Convention is provided: “The Convention should mandate irreversible disarmament measures, including but not limited to the following: withdraw and disable all deployed nuclear weapons systems; disable and dismantle warheads; place warheads and weapon-usable radioactive materials under international safeguards; destroy ballistic missiles and other delivery systems. The Convention could also incorporate the measures listed above [that is, points 2 through 11 of the Statement] which should be implemented independently without delay. When fully implemented, the Convention would replace the NPT.”

    Joseph Rotblat, the 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate, has been calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar in form to the Chemical Weapons Convention, for many years. In his Nobel Lecture, he argued, “Entering into negotiations does not commit the parties. There is no reason why they should not begin now. If not now, when?”1

    The nuclear weapons states did not begin negotiations toward a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons in 1995. Instead, they succeeded in having the Non-Proliferation Treaty extended indefinitely with very few conditions. It is not too late, however, to complete negotiations for a new treaty by the year 2000. We must encourage them to begin; we must demand that they begin. As Professor Rotblat states with simple eloquence: “If not now, when?”

    Professor Rotblat continued his Nobel Lecture with an appeal to the nuclear weapons states: “So I appeal to the nuclear powers to abandon the out-of-date thinking of the Cold War and take a fresh look. Above all, I appeal to them to bear in mind the long-term threat that nuclear weapons pose to humankind and to begin action towards their elimination. Remember your duty to humanity.”2

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

    It has been argued by distinguished military leaders and security analysts that nuclear weapons have no other purpose than to deter a nuclear attack.3 If nuclear weapons states accept this position, then it should not be difficult for them to make a pledge not to be first to use nuclear weapons. If all states agreed not to use nuclear weapons first, this would be equivalent to a pledge not to use these weapons. Yet, at present, only China has made an unconditional pledge not to use nuclear weapons first.

    A similar point was also made by Professor Rotblat in his Nobel Lecture. “Several studies, and a number of public statements by senior military and political personalities, testify that except for disputes between the present nuclear states all military conflicts, as well as threats to peace, can be dealt with using conventional weapons. This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack. All nuclear weapons states should now recognize that this is so, and declare in Treaty form that they will never be the first to use nuclear weapons. This would open the way to the gradual, mutual reduction of nuclear arsenals, down to zero.”4

    The Abolition 2000 Statement calls for nuclear weapons states to go beyond a no first use pledge, and make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons. However, even if nuclear weapons states would agree to an unconditional “no first use” pledge, that would be an important step forward.

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

    The nuclear weapons states promised a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. This promise was made again in the non-binding agreement that supplemented the decision to extend the NPT indefinitely in 1995. This agreement committed the nuclear weapons states to completing a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996. On September 10, 1995 the CTBT was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and was opened for signatures on September 24, 1956. It has been signed by over a hundred countries including the five declared nuclear weapons states. India, however, has said that it will not sign the Treaty until the nuclear weapons states commit themselves to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, and India’s ratification of the Treaty is required for the Treaty to enter into force.

    The Treaty agreed upon will still allow for laboratory and sub-critical tests. Thus, it cannot be expected to be fully successful in “precluding nuclear weapons development by all states.” To do this, the Treaty would have had to go beyond prohibiting underground nuclear weapons tests, and have prohibited testing in all environments, including the nuclear weapons laboratories.

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

    In the Non-Proliferation Treaty the nuclear weapons states promised to pursue good faith negotiations for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date. Clearly, to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems at this point would be in violation of that promise. It would also be unnecessary and provocative. The nuclear weapons states have already begun the process of withdrawing and disabling nuclear weapons systems. Missiles have been removed from their silos, and destroyed with much fanfare. This process needs to continue, and should not be undermined by the deployment of any new or additional nuclear weapons systems.

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

    Far too much weapons-usable nuclear material already exists in the world. It takes only a few pounds of plutonium to produce a nuclear weapon, and perhaps 20 pounds of highly enriched uranium. While the required amounts of weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium needed to make nuclear weapons can be measured in pounds, the stockpiles of these materials can now be measured in metric tonnes.

    As of 1990, globally there was some 250 metric tonnes of plutonium in the military sector, of which 178 tonnes was in nuclear warheads. There was some 1300 metric tonnes of highly enriched uranium in the military sector, including 810 tonnes in warheads. In the civilian sector, there was over 600 metric tonnes of plutonium and 20 tonnes of highly enriched uranium. Of the civilian sector plutonium, 532 tonnes was in spent reactor fuel, and thus not readily converted to weapons use without reprocessing.5

    A study by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War pointed out that “Operation of nuclear power plants is rapidly increasing the world’s stocks of civilian plutonium. The cumulative stock of plutonium discharged from reactors worldwide is projected to reach about 1,400 metric tonnes at the end of the year 2000 and about 2,100 metric tonnes at the end of 2010.”6

    If we are to have any hope of ending the nuclear weapons era, we must gain control of all weapons-grade radioactive materials. The first step in doing this is to halt the production and reprocessing of such materials. To be effective, this must be done in both the military and civilian sectors.

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

    To end the nuclear weapons era, all weapons-usable nuclear materials must be accounted for, monitored, and protected against diversion. The study by the International Physicians on this subject stated, “Present arrangements for controlling fissile material are clearly inadequate. They place no limits on any of the fissile material activities of the nuclear-weapons states. They limit the civilian fissile material activities of some small and relatively weak states on a discriminatory, ad hoc basis, while allowing more powerful states to accumulate large amounts of fissile material.”7

    To be effective in controlling weapons-usable fissile materials, all states must be subject to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards. The most powerful states, including the nuclear weapons states, can no longer reserve for themselves the special “privilege” of keeping their nuclear weapons materials outside the bounds of international inspections and controls.

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

    To stop the further development of new nuclear weapons systems will require an end to researching, designing, developing and testing nuclear weapons in every way, including in laboratory experiments. When the French conducted a series of nuclear tests in the South Pacific in 1995 and early 1996, the reason they gave for doing so was to gather information for future laboratory tests. The U.S. has said all along that it is planning to conduct non- nuclear tests and, in fact, is planning to spend many billions of dollars in building new, sophisticated, and expensive equipment for future nuclear testing. The only way to close this loophole is by international agreement and international monitoring of nuclear weapons laboratories and test sites. The test sites themselves should be closed down. The former Soviet test site in Kazahkstan, and the French test site in Polynesia have both been closed. The only remaining test sites are in Novaya Zemlya (Russia), Lop Nor (China) and Nevada (U.S. and Britain).

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

    Since the Abolition 2000 Statement was adopted in April 1995, nuclear weapons free zones have been established for Southeast Asia and Africa. Following the completion of a series of six French nuclear weapons tests on the Pacific atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa, the U.S., U.K. and France have all agreed to abide by the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. A treaty signed in December 1995 by Southeast Asian countries declares an area stretching from Myanmar to the west, Philippines in the east, Laos and Vietnam in the north and Indonesia in the south as a nuclear free zone. The Treaty of Pelindaba, signed in Cairo in June 1996, made Africa a nuclear weapons free zone. These zones, covering most of the Earth’s southern hemisphere, prohibit the development, manufacturing, acquisition, possession, testing, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons within the designated areas. What they have not prohibited is transit of nuclear weapons by submarines and surface ships through international waters in their regions.8

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

    On July 8, 1996, the International Court of Justice in the Hague rendered its opinion on the illegality of nuclear weapons.9 The Court concluded that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles of humanitarian law.” It also declared 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.”

    The Court found, however, that in “view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal,” that it was unable to reach a definitive conclusion with regard to “an extreme circumstance of self-defense, in which the very survival of a state would be at stake.” Thus, the Court left open only the slimmest possibility of an exception to the general illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons.

    Based on the Court’s decision, Commander Robert Green, a retired Officer of the British Royal Navy and a member of the World Court Project that promoted the World Court decision, said, “With this remarkable decision, I could never have used a nuclear weapon legally. This places a duty on the military to review their whole attitude toward nuclear weapons, which are now effectively in the same category as chemical and biological weapons.”

    10. Establish an International Energy Agency to promote and support the development of sustainable and environmentally safe energy sources.

    One of the important missing agencies in the international system is an International Sustainable Energy Agency that promotes and supports development of sustainable and environmentally safe forms of energy. The sun provides a virtually inexhaustible source of energy. Further development of the technology to harness the sun’s energy in a cost-effective manner must become a major international priority as well as technologies to develop wind, tidal, and biomass resources. An International Sustainable Energy Agency could oversee these efforts.

    If such an Agency succeeds in its mission, it will not be necessary for states to rely upon the continued use of energy from nuclear reactors, thereby eliminating a major source of the radioactive materials that endanger human and other life forms and that could be reprocessed for use in the creation of nuclear weapons.

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

    Citizens and non-governmental organizations have a role to play in planning and monitoring the process of eliminating nuclear weapons. This is not a job for governments alone. Citizens and citizen action groups have been active and creative in calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. There will undoubtedly be ways in which individual citizens and groups of citizens can play a role in advancing the cause of a nuclear weapons free world.

    The President of the NPT Review and Extension Conference, Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, praised the work of NGOs in that Conference and called for a more active role by these groups in the three preparatory meetings leading up to the next NPT Review Conference in the year 2000.

    Citizen groups from all over the world could begin now to inventory all nuclear materials in their country or region, thereby educating themselves about local hazards and providing a genuine service to the international community.

    The Nuclear Weapons Convention working group of the Abolition 2000 Network has been meeting to draft a treaty that takes into consideration all of the elements enumerated in the Abolition 2000 Statement.

    Joseph Rotblat has called for an active role for citizens from throughout the world in monitoring compliance with a Nuclear Weapons Convention. In addition to technological verification of compliance, he has called for what he calls “societal verification.” Professor Rotblat has the following to say about “Societal verification”:

    As the name implies, all members of the community would be involved in ensuring that a treaty signed by their own government is not violated. The main type of societal verification is what we call `citizen reporting.’ Underthis, every citizen would have the right and the duty to notify an office of theinternational authority in the country about any attempt to violate the treaty. In order to be effective, this right and duty would have to be written into the national law of the country.

    “We propose that whenever we have an international treaty but particularly relating to nuclear weapons it should contain a specific clause demanding that all the signatory states enact this type of law, and so make it the obligation of the citizens to carry out this task. We believe that this would be particularly effective in the case of nuclear weapons, partly because people instinctively abhor nuclear weapons, and partly because in almost every country there are anti-nuclear campaigns. We are convinced there will be enough people in every country who will make sure that the treaty is not being violated.10

    Conclusion

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

    This conclusion juxtaposed the demand of the nuclear weapons states for an indefinite and unconditional extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty with the need for a definite and unconditional commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons states prevailed at the NPT Review and Extension Conference in getting an indefinite extension of the Treaty. Whether the initiators of the Abolition 2000 Statement will prevail in attaining the “definite and unconditional abolition of nuclear weapons” will depend upon how many committed individuals throughout the world will work together to achieve this goal.

    The Abolition 2000 Statement provides a guideline for actions to be taken to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. The primary responsibility for taking these actions lies with the nuclear weapons states, but the responsibility for assuring that the nuclear weapons states take these actions lies with citizens. Each of us has a role to play.

    __________________

    Notes

    1. Rotblat, Joseph, “The Nobel Lecture Given by the Nobel Peace Laureate 1995 Joseph Rotblat,” The Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 1995.

    2. Ibid.

    3. See, for example, “A Four-Step Program to Nuclear Disarmament” by the Henry L. Stimson Center, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 52, No. 2, March/April 1996, pp. 52-55.

    The report states: “The only necessary function for nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear threats to the population and territory of the United States, to U.S. forces abroad, and to certain friendly states.”

    Members of the Stimson Center project include General Andrew J. Goodpaster, General William F. Burns, General Charles A. Horner, and General W. Y. Smith.

    4. Rotblat, Op. cit.

    5. Albright, David, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker, World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, p. 197.

    6. Thompson, Gordon, “Opportunities for International Control of Weapons-Usable fissile Material,” International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, ENWE Paper #1, January 1994, p. 7.

    7. Thompson, op. cit. p. 10.

    8. See, Krieger, David, “Denuclearization of the Oceans: Linking Our Common Heritage with Our Common Future,” Global Security Study, No. 21, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, March, 1996.

    9. Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” July 8, 1996.

    10. Rotblat, Joseph, “The Feasibility of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World,” Global Security Study, No. 16, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, August 1993.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Nuclear War: The Perspectives of a Planetary Astronomer

    https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/wagingpeaceseries/sagan.pdf

  • Building a Peaceful World

    The end of the Cold War and recent arms reduction agree ments are encouraging signs for peace. In order to fur ther help in building a peaceful world, this paper identifies five major peace forces. In this paper, we attempt to show why these five modern forces are major factors for peace and how they can be used by policy makers in building a sustainable peaceful world. The five factors are equally significant and closely interrelated and have a cumulative impact.

    As with the force of gravity, we are little aware of the forces for peace until they are called to our attention. To better understand and use them we need to think about them on a large-scale and long-term basis.

    Peace Force No. 1 DEMOCRACY *

    Democracy is a powerful force for peace because there has never been a war between independent freely-elected democracies.1 Therefore, if all of the countries of the world became democracies, it is possible we could have a world without war.

    Not only do democracies not fight one another, they fight many fewer wars than nondemocracies. All nations that were independent from 1950 through 1991 and did not change from democracy to nondemocracy or vice versa during the study period were assessed. It was found that only 23 percent of the democracies compared with 72 percent of the nondemocracies were involved in foreign wars. It was also found that there were no internal wars or coups in the democracies, while 90 percent of the nondemocracies had internal wars or violent military coups.2

    R. J. Rummel in his five volume study was able to rigorously show further that not only do democracies not fight one another but that democracies are far less violent than other governments. He wrote, “Of the more than 119 million victims of genocide, killed in cold blood in our century, virtually all were killed by nondemocracies, especially totalitarian ones.” 3

    It is encouraging, therefore, to know that the number of democratic countries in the world has grown from none two centuries ago to a majority (89) now. In addition, there are 32 countries in transition. 4

    Examples of how to help more countries become democratic:

    • Providing economic aid to poorer countries can im prove their economic well-being. In general, as the health, ed u ca tion and economic well-being of a country’s citizens improve, the probability of the nation becoming a democracy increases.5
    • In a 1991 retreat, leaders of the 50-nation Common wealth promised to promote democracy and just gov ern ment. This is a weak commitment, and an effort should be made to have all nations link foreign aid to the human rights records of developing countries, as Britain and Canada have indicated their intent to do. 6
    • Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto proposes an association of emerging democracies. She suggests that an association could share political experience to help members develop democratic methods and exert moral pres sure on nations that violate human rights. 7
    • The U.S. Congress has created and funded the Na tion al Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-private group, to openly help the growth of democracies. This organization and similar organizations have been more effective in helping countries develop democractic governments than the covert and violent activities of the CIA. 8

    *Democracy, in the Studies cited here, includes only independent countries whose legislative bodies and head of government are elected by majority vote from two or more opposing choices by secret ballot, where there is freedom of speech.

    Peace Force No. 2 EQUITABLE COMMERCE

    International trade and investments can be a force for peace if they are based on long-term fairness and mutual trust. If international trade is based on economic exploitation or is based mostly on arms trade it can be a force for war as described in the latter part of this section.

    Modern mass marketing is a powerful force for peace because such commerce is much more profitable when the world is peaceful. Continental markets are much more ef fi cient for mass marketing than small, divided ones. Modern commerce, because of its highly technical nature, can require dependable, long-term, large-scale commitments.

    Most of us are unaware that prosperous modern day living is dependent upon international trade and in vest ment for a vast array of parts for use in agriculture, industry, medicine, communication, and computers. For example, probably few people are aware that British farmers only produce enough food by themselves to support 12 million of Britain’s 56 million people. 9 The research costs and risks of creating and using new highly technical products has become so great that companies look to long-term in ter na tion al partnerships to carry out the work.

    International investments, built on international trade, are a further force for harmony. A vast number of large and small businesses are involved in foreign investments and no one likes to lose their investments. In order to illustrate how large international investments have become, consider the amount invested in the United States by 1990 by the fol low ing countries: Britain, $108 billion; Japan, $83 billion; Neth er lands, $64 billion; Germany, $28 billion; France, $20 billion; and Switzerland, $17 billion. 10

    Paralleling the growth of modern commerce in the world has been the development of vast regions that are at peace with each other. For example, in the 1800s the growing area of internal peace on the North American continent paralleled the growth of railroads as they made mass marketing possible. The growing zone of internal peace started in the Northeast and moved south then westward as large scale trade grew.

    Having a large area, such as the North American continent, with no battles within any of its parts is new to the long history of the world. For instance, prior to the current long peace, the United States fought nearly 2,000 battles in its first hundred years. And now there have been no battles fought on the North American continent for more than 100 years. 11

    The large zone of peace in North America was no accident. It is significant that ethnic and religious groups that are fighting one another in various parts of the world generally are not fighting one another where they live together in more economically developed areas, e.g. North America, Western Europe, Australia.

    Since World War II, there has been an explosive increase in global trade. World trade has increased more than 10 times.12 As world commerce has grown, the number of countries at peace with each other has grown accordingly. Countries at peace with each other for the past 40 years or longer include Canada, the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Japan, Tai wan, Australia, New Zealand and the countries of Western Europe. All of these countries have developed a high level of commerce among themselves.

    A peaceful world can be built with the already large number of countries with no wars between them. These countries do not even have a threat of war between them. Where they share a common border, the borders are unarmed and they share in a well-established common defense system.

    Examples of how to increase the growth of equitable commerce:

    • Most wars since World War II have occurred in developing countries where the people have few of the necessities to sustain life and are desperately poor. Some modern large-scale farming uses vast land-holdings to operate. To meet this need, giant corporations have acquired many small farms leaving local people with little. For example, in Honduras 67 percent of the population are limited to only 12 percent of the arable land. Nearly 61 percent of the population is malnourished.13 In such situations, if large corporations fail to understand and meet local needs, the danger of civil unrest and war is increased.
    • Economic depressions can drive desperate people in severely depressed countries to support leaders who promise extreme measures, e.g. Hitler. Current efforts to help the Soviet Union economically reflect this concern.
    • International trade agreements can help build friendly relations between countries if they are fair. Hostility is generated if the agreements are not fair, like allowing com panies in some countries to sell for less by ignoring uncon trolled pollution of the environment, paying starvation wages, maintaining unhealthy and unsafe plants. 14
    • Howard Brembeck in his book, The Civilized Defense Plan, tells how nations can collectively use international trade sanctions and/or incentives to cooperatively build security systems against threatening nations. 15

    Peace Force No. 3 WORLDWIDE COMMUNICATION

    A shrinking world allows the public to better observe, un der stand, and respond to global dangers. Today, what seems commonplace, such as daily watching and par tic i pat ing in world events, would not have been possible a few decades ago. Due to rapid growth in the number of television sets, communication satellites, computers, fax machines and tele phones, significant events around the world can be seen, heard, or read about daily by hundreds of millions of people. Jet airplanes allow travel to most places in the world within hours, making it easier to talk directly to others.

    Turner Cable News Network (CNN), with its reporters throughout the world, provides TV news to millions of people around the globe, around the clock. It gives everyone the same basis for discussion by providing the same information at the same moment. CNN has compelled rivals to increase live coverage of international news. This situation allows viewers greater opportunity to form their own opinions of world events.16 World news, however, can still be misleading at times, such as during the Gulf War when large-scale slaughter was shown mostly as a video game.

    The worldwide communication growth pace is in creasing. For example, starting November 1991 World Ser vice Tele vi sion (sponsored by BBC) began beaming news daily into 38 Asian countries with a combined population of 2.7 billion. 17 In India people bought six million TV sets in 1988, up from only 150,000 a decade before. 18

    Examples of how global communication can be a force for peace:

    • The world can see and act against common security threats. Acts of aggression, such as Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, can be seen by hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. This allows nations to respond to aggressive acts early. For example, more than 100 nations quickly joined in supporting political and economic sanctions, through the United Na tions, against Iraq. This was the largest number of nations in history to support economic sanctions at one time. 19
    • The world is an open stage. It is increasingly difficult for autocratic leaders to keep their people isolated from world events. For instance, the efforts of the leaders of the 1991 Soviet coup to control information failed. The Soviet people kept informed of events through cellular phones, fax machines, satellite television, international broadcasts and pocket radios, as well as computers reproducing messages for the public.
    • Worldwide communication can help the growth of democracy. An understanding of freedom is being spread to people who are not now free because TV allows them to see people in other countries experiencing freedom. As businessmen, government leaders, students and tourists travel between countries, they can observe various types of freedom and techniques of self-government.
    • The global public can respond together to worldwide dangers, e.g. ozone depletion, global warming, radiation fall out, etc.

    Peace Force No. 4 REDUCING MILITARISM

    Militaristic nations, those with an excessive arms build-up, are far more likely to go to war. Newcombe and Klaassen found, from 1950 to 1978, that nations with the greatest military expenditures as a percentage of per capita income were 30 times more likely to be involved in an international war than other countries. 20

    Iraq illustrates how a nation’s excessive arms build-up can be a warning signal. In 1984, long before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Iraq was spending a far larger part of its national income for the military (42 percent) than any other country in the world. 21 “Between 1981 and 1988, Iraq purchased an estimated $46.7 billion worth of arms and military equip ment from foreign suppliers, the largest accumulation ever of mod ern weapons by a Third World country.” 22

    Military forces have established an influential political base throughout the developing world. They represent the largest single element in most government bureaucracies and the largest financial resource. They provide the visible trappings of prestige for political leaders, civilian or military: the req ui site honor guards, jet aircraft, helicopters, etc. They have a direct line to the world of wealth and business, the arms-producing corporations that are both beneficiaries of government lar gesse and contributors to political power. And they deal in matters of national security which can be made secret and inaccesible both to the public and to any of the usual checks and balances within the government. Countries under military control have suffered three times as many wars and 19 times as many deaths as in the rest of the Third World countries. 23

    Examples of how reducing militarism can help the growth of peace:

    • The less money developing countries spend on weapons the more chance they have to improve their standard of living, education, and health as well as to become a democracy. In a detailed comparison of 142 countries, it was found that when military spending is high, socio-economic well-being lags.24 In much of the developing world, military expenditures are almost four times the investment for health care and twice that for education.25
    • Among 142 countries in 1987, the United States was number one in military expenditures, military technology, military bases, military training of foreign forces, military aid to foreign countries, naval fleet, combat aircraft, nuclear reactors, nuclear warheads and bombs and nuclear tests, while at the same time, the U.S. ranked 18th in infant mortality rate, 13th in maternal mortality rate, and 18th in population per physician.26
    • While democracies do not fight one another, some de moc ra cies have strong militaristic tendencies. In the last decade, seven of the world’s ten top merchants of offensive weapons, mass destruction weapons parts and weapons fa cil i ties were Western democracies. In 1990, the U.S. was the world’s top weapons supplier. Since World War II there have been over 170 wars and conflicts, mostly involving countries which rely on foreign suppliers for their military needs. 27 De moc ra cies can do much for peace by reducing their sale of arms.

    Peace Force No. 5 COOPERATIVE SECURITY

    Robert McNamara, former U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961-1968, said “[W]e should strive to move toward a world in which relations among nations would be based on the rule of law, a world in which national security would be supported by a system of co op er a tive security, with conflict resolution and peace-keeping functions performed by mul ti lat er al in sti tu tions – a reorganized and strengthened United Nations and new and expanded re gion al organizations, in clud ing an Asian counterpart.” 28

    The role of the U.N. is being forced to change from keeping peace to making peace, as more conflicts continue to erupt, more aid is delivered and more elections are monitored. With 13 current U.N. peacekeeping operations and over 52,000 U.N. troops and police officers on site, the added costs are threatening the U.N.’s continued scope of operations, unless delinquet members pay back dues immediately and make provisions to adequately fund the expanding needs. Also since in the past many worthy peacekeeping resolutions were vetoed by the major powers, the limination of this provision should be seriously coonsidered in the light of present day conditions.

    Randall Forsberg writes, “The end of the Cold War represents a turning point for the role of military force in international affairs. At this unique juncture in history, the world’s main military spenders and arms producers have an unprecedented opportunity to move from confrontation to cooperation. The United States, the European nations, Japan, and the republics of the former USSR can now replace their traditional security policies, based on detterence, nonoffensive defense, nonproliferation, and multilateral peacekeeping. In fact, they have already taken early steps in this direction.”

    Since the end of the Cold War, coun tries are be gin ning to put more em pha sis on work ing through the United Na tions. It is encouraging that the percentage of Americans who think the U.N. is doing a good job has risen from 28% in 1985 to 78% in December 1991.31

    Examples of how to increase cooperative security:

    A great stride forward in civility, human rights and co op er a tive security will occur as nations together create an In ter na tion al Criminal Court addressing these concerns. The atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein and those in the former Yugoslavia have rekindled interest in such a court. A working group of the U.N. International Law Commission has recently released a report in which it rec om mends that an International Çriminal Court ‘be es tab lished by a Statute in the form of a treaty.’ 32 The value of an International Criminal Court would be its clear message that the in ter na tion al community is committed to enforcing in ter na tion al law, and that all individuals, no matter how high their position, will be held accountable for crimes under in ter na tion al law.

    Continued emphasis should be given to the U.N. resolution declaring the l990s the Decade of In ter na tion al Law. This resolution embraces four main purposes: (a) to promote acceptance and respect for principles of in ter na tion al law; (b) to pro mote means and methods for the peaceful settlement of disputes between States, in clud ing resort to and full respect for the International Court of Justice; (c) to en cour age the progressive development of in ter na tion al law and cod i fi ca tion; and (d) to encourage the teaching, study, dissemination and wider ap pre ci a tion of international law. 33

    The increased use of cooperative security will be assisted by the further growth of the other peace forces described in this paper. The more nations work together in cooperative security, the less will be the burden for all countries involved and the more secure will be each cooperating country.

    Ultimate Goal

    In order to build a sustained peaceful world, we need to consider the basic requirements of humanity. Dr. Hanna Newcombe, in a comprehensive paper, describes the fol low ing basic needs of humanity.

    • The world’s population has to be balanced with a sustainable healthy global environment.
    • All people need democractic governments with basic freedoms assured. If all countries in the world were freely elected democracies, a world without war is possible.
    • A decent standard of living and quality of life is needed for all people, including those in the poorest countries. It is difficult to build a prosperous and peaceful world if there are gross inequalities between people.

    Dr. Newcombe points out that there are upper limits to the world’s physical resources and some sharing will be required. She says, however, there are no limits in the mental realm, and scientific advances can help us meet our long-term basic needs. 34

    Conclusion

    It is sometimes said that due to hate, fear, greed and corruption there will always be war. The fact that the North American continent, with nearly 300 million people living together from all parts of the world, has had no wars between any of its people for more than 100 years demonstrates that war is not inevitable. Up until the end of World War II there was never a year free of war in Europe 35 and since then there has not been a war in Western Europe. Yugoslavia is in Eastern Europe.

    This paper discusses five major forces that make for peace and the ways we can improve them so that we can better build a peaceful world. Much more research needs to be done. The amount of money spent on peace-fostering research by the U.S. government has been less than one percent of what has been spent on research to make weapons more deadly.36 The amount spent in the world for peace research is similarly small compared with the amount spent upon weapons de vel op ment.

    There remains a serious need for more research in the area of building a peaceful world. The more rigorously it can be demonstrated through research how peace-fostering activities and institutions add to our security, the more likely there will be more funds to support these activities and institutions.
    *Dean Babst is a retired government scientist and Coordinator of the Accidental Nuclear War Prevention Project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Bud Deraps is a member of the Board of Directors of the Lentz Peace Research Laboratory, St. Louis, Missouri.

    Acknowledgments

    For valuable suggestions to earlier drafts of this paper, we wish to thank: Dr. William Eckhardt, Lentz Peace Research Laboratory, Dunedin, Florida;. Jennifer Glick, Fourth Freedom Forum, Goshen, Indiana; Charles W. Jamison, Esq., Santa Barbara, California; Dr. Hanna Newcombe, Director, Peace Research Institute, Dundas, Canada; Dr. R. J. Rummel, Professor of Political Science, Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu; Dr. Leonard Starobin, Editor, World Peace Report, Elkins Park, Penn ylvania; Dudley Thompson, Grass Valley, California.

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    21. Babst, Dean V. and Hardy, Marc. “Positive Power Of Trade,” Background Paper No. 1, Fourth Freedom Forum, July 1991.

    22. “Why can’t Arabs rescue Kuwait?” Sacramento Bee, 25 January 1991 (Quote from Michael Klare’s book, American Arms Supermarket, University of Texas Press)

    23. Sivard, Ruth L. World Military And Social Ex pen di tures, 14th Edition, World Priorities, Washington, D.C., 1991, p. 19.

    24. Ibid, p. 27.

    25. “We Arm the World: U.S. is Number One Weapons Dealer,” The Defense Monitor, Center for Defense In for ma tion, Wash. D.C.Vol. XX, No.4, 1991, p. 3.

    26. Sivard, op. cit. p 46.

    27. The Defense Monitor, Vol. XX, No.4, op. cit, pp. 2 & 3.

    28. McNamara, Robert S. “The Changing Nature of Global Security And Its Impact On South Asia,” Address to the Indian Defense Policy Forum, New Delhi, India on Nov. 20, 1992 published by Washington Council on Non-Pro lif er a tion, Washington D.C., Dec. 1992.

    29. Lewis, Paul. “Peacekeeper Is Now Peacemaker,” New York Times, 25 Jan. 1993.

    30. Forsberg, Randall. “Defense Cuts and Cooperative Se cu ri ty in the Post-Cold War World,” Boston Review, May-July 1992.

    31. Kay, Alan F., et. al. Perception of Globalization, World Structures and Security, Survey #17, Americans Talk Se cu ri ty, Washington, D.C. 25 Nov. – 2 Dec. 1991.

    32. “Report of the Working Group on the Question of In ter na tion al Criminal Jurisdiction,” Report of the In ter na tion al Law Commission, U.N. General Assembly Sup ple ment No. 10 (A/47/10), p. 144.

    33. U.N. General Assembly resolution 44/23, 17 November 1989.

    34. Newcombe, Hanna. “Pax Democratia: Reaching the High Plateau,” paper presented at International Peace Re search Association, Kyoto, Japan, 26-31 July 1992.

    35. Sorokin, Pitrim A. Social and Cultural Dynamics, Vol.III, American Book Co., N.Y., N.Y., 1957.

    36. Babst, Global Security Study No. 10, op. cit.