Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Disarmament

  • Did Hiroshima Awaken the President?

    This article was originally published by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance.

    There was a lot of talk leading up to President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima, much of it speculating on what he would or should or would not or should not say. I was interviewed by print and television reporters, and that seemed to be the first question out of the box, usually in the context of “Apologize for the bomb?” My answer to that was easy. Having been to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and having hosted hibakusha— survivors of the bombings—half a dozen times or more, I quickly noted that I never heard any request for an apology. For those who were there, and who lived to reflect on that horrific moment, it was never about the past, except insofar as the past informs the present and future. Their request was not for regret, but for commitment; they asked that we join them in making “Never again!” a guarantee by abolishing nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.

    Now the Presidential visit is history. He made a pretty good speech, though Senator Edward Markey’s op-ed about preaching temperance from a barstool warrants even more attention.

    The one thing I feel certain of is that the speech Obama delivered in Hiroshima is among the least important things he did there. At least I hope that is so. If I had been asked to advise the president on his priorities, my top three would have been: Look, Listen, and Feel.

    Look. The visual power of Hiroshima, the physical presence of the dome, the before and after diorama and artifacts in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the charred schoolgirl’s lunch tin with carbonized rice cannot be fully realized from pictures or descriptions. Like standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, one can only completely comprehend the scope in person. In the case of Hiroshima, the scene is the opposite of grandeur. But it should be faced.

    Listen. The stories of the hibakusha, told on video and in person, are compelling. They remind everyone who listens that the atomic bomb was not simply an amazing technological achievement or a powerful military weapon; it was a monstrous destroyer of lives and histories and families and pets and culture and hope. It’s use ushered in the nuclear age, when humankind not only stepped into a new technological era, but into a new moral era. Now we are inescapably aware of what we are capable of, and with that knowledge comes a moral imperative—one we have yet to fully, appropriately, and morally meet.

    Feel. The enormity of Hiroshima and the devastating power of the stories can be numbing. Facing Hiroshima means facing something deeply dark in our souls—not just our national soul, but our human souls. I want the weight of Hiroshima to bear down on President Obama; I want him to feel it when he gets back to Washington, DC and sits down to look at his daughters across the breakfast table. I want, at least one morning, for him to notice his watch 8:15, and to think, “It was just this time of day…”

    I am hopeful that the President has done all of these things. He did stand in Hiroshima and acknowledge that he saw it firsthand. He listened. He met with hibakusha, two gentlemen, and spoke privately with them, hugged one of them. And if the catch in his voice when he spoke of children was any indication, he felt the truth of the Bomb. I believe he will look at Sasha and Malia and see in their eyes the hope of the future.

    And it is what he does then, not what he did in Hiroshima, that will be the most important thing.

    If he himself experiences the moral awakening he called for in Hiroshima, he can set in motion the eventual disarmament he so fondly speaks of. He can declare it is not okay anymore to say “maybe not in my lifetime.” He can announce he is abandoning plans for a new $15 billion thermonuclear bomb manufacturing plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (yes, it’s true—$3 billion has already been spent on the design). He can tell the weaponeers at Lawrence Livermore Lab to stop working on a new warhead for the Long Range Stand-Off cruise missile, and he can tell the pentagon to shut down the LSRO program.

    These first steps would be the first significant actions of this president toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Everything else has been to “reduce the danger,” or to discourage nuclear proliferation, all the while embracing nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of defense policy for the US. The new bomb plant, and the ongoing upgrades and modifications of US warheads, have launched a new global nuclear arms race. Undoing that will take action, not words.

    Taking these bold steps would send a powerful message to the rest of the world, one we promised more than 40 years ago in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Simply put: we are not just talking about a world free of nuclear weapons, not just determined to have one some day—we are going there now. Other nations would follow, because nuclear weapons are as irrational to them as they are to us.

    Who would oppose the President? Some right-wing hawks, no doubt, who think the best foreign policy for the United States is to bully the world into doing things our way. But not all of them—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Sam Nunn, William Perry, almost every living former National Security Adviser, hundreds of Generals and Admirals around the globe, including the former head of NATO’s Strategic Forces, General Lee Butler, and General James “Hoss” Cartwright, four star Marine general who served as Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Charles Horner, four star Air Force general. All of these men have called for the United States to take concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament. They are not Pollyannas. They understand the risks and rewards of nuclear weapons more than most people on the planet; their careers have required them to contemplate policy and use in practice, and not just in theory.

    So, what I want from my President now is this: take some time to let Hiroshima sink in. And then use your new knowledge as the platform from which you step out to walk the walk, leading us toward a world free of nuclear weapons, the world of Never Again.

  • The End of the OEWG may be the Beginning of a Prohibition Treaty

    Today there are approximately 1,800 nuclear weapons posed on high alert, ready to be launched in minutes. The radical contingency of our world due to these weapons of mass annihilation necessitates action.

    On Friday, over 50 countries and over 30 international organizations concluded two weeks worth of negotiations at the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG).These meetings discussed how to create a world free of nuclear weapons. By the end of the OEWG, it was clear that a majority of countries supported a new legal instrument prohibiting nuclear weapons.

    The Chair of the OEWG will produce a report on the last two weeks of negotiations, which will be released in late July or early August. The negotiations will likely continue on August 16, 17 and 19, with informal sessions held before August.

    Setsuko Thurlow
    Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Photo courtesy of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

    On May 4, Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of Hiroshima, recalled how 360,000 innocent civilians became victims of one of the two worst forms of indiscriminate violence in human history. After a blinding flash of light, Setsuko remembered the “[d]ead and injured people were covering the ground. Some were made naked by the blast. They were bleeding, burned, blackened and swollen; unrecognizable as human beings.” For the NGO Wildfire, the measure of success for the OEWG is whether participants can tell Setsuko Thurlow that they did everything they could to create a world free of nuclear weapons.

    Working Paper 36, signed by 126 countries, calls on the OEWG to recommend urgent pursuit of a new legal instrument in disarmament. Many of these countries are supporting negotiations for a treaty or ban prohibiting nuclear weapons. The creation of this instrument would strengthen Article VI of the NPT, stigmatize nuclear weapons, broaden the disarmament fora and would bring democracy to disarmament.

    A prohibition treaty would reorient “the locus of power in nuclear disarmament diplomacy away from the agency of nuclear-armed states, their relationships with each other, and their capacities to resist changes to their nuclear arsenals, doctrines and postures” said Nick Ritchie, from the University of York, on Wednesday, May 11. Wildfire believes that creating this instrument would allow states to look Setsuko Thurlow in the eyes and say that they did everything they could.

    Wildfire
    Richard Lenane of Wildfire at the Open Ended Working Group. Photo courtesy of ICAN.

    Sadly, some countries missed Wildfire’s mark. On Thursday, Belgium stated that “my country, at this point in time, cannot subscribe itself to the statement that nuclear weapons should never be used under any circumstances.” Many other states claimed that their national security was predicated on their nuclear umbrella.

    These states, the so-called Progressive Approach states, want the OEWG to recommend the same step-by-step building blockage approaches that have been recommended for decades. Mexico noted on Thursday that the Progressive Approach recommendations are not bad, they are just not enough. The Progressive Approach seeks ratification of the CTBT, a fissile material cutoff treaty and they want the NPT to be the forum for all nuclear disarmament talks.

    On Wednesday, Germany claimed that the status quo has created a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads by 80% since their Cold War height. But today there are still over 15,000 nuclear weapons, each with the potential to eviscerate entire cities in seconds. Further, the world is entering a new arms race.

    As Mexico noted on Tuesday, United States is currently advancing plans to spend a trillion dollars modernizing its nuclear triad.The United States intends to field over 1,000 new Long Range Standoff cruise missiles, create a new B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bomb, create a successor for the B2 bomber, develop a substitute to the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, make the Ohio class submarines nuclear capable, and further enhance its nuclear weapons infrastructure.

    Russia is also engaged in strategic nuclear modernization. Russia is acquiring eight Borei-class ballistic missile submarines, modernizing its TU-160 Blackjack bombers and is half way through a decade long plan to produce over four hundred ICBMs and SLBMs.

    Similarly, India and Pakistan are developing a sea-based leg of their nuclear arsenals. China is seeking assured retaliation through modernization and North Korea is testing and advancing its own nuclear capabilities.

    The Progressive Approach did not stop these developments.But there is good news.The OEWG ended with clear majority support of a ban on nuclear weapons. On Friday, Palau stated that a prohibition treaty has reached a “critical mass.” Novel approaches like a prohibition treaty are necessary to turn the tide of modernization.

    A prohibition on nuclear weapons should be seen as an utmost priority. Stigmatizing nuclear weapons would bolster the existing nuclear disarmament regime. It could serve as a crucial compliment to the NPT and future negotiations for a CTBT and FMCT.  A prohibition treaty would be a substantial next step towards a world free of the nuclear threat.

  • Promoting Security in the 21st Century

    The Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) for nuclear disarmament is holding sessions this week at the United Nations Office in Geneva. States are gathering to discuss the steps necessary to create a world free of nuclear weapons. The OEWG will submit a report summarizing the discussions and agreed recommendations to the UN General Assembly for consideration. On Thursday, the OEWG discussed the role of nuclear weapons in the security context of the 21st century.

    Ecuador stated that nuclear weapons were a Sword of Damocles that hangs “over all human survival.” Mexico spoke out against nuclear modernization projects, claiming that these plans increase the likelihood of eliminating humanity entirely. Ireland noted that nuclear command and control structures have failed cyber probes. Palau said that “a nuclear armed world will always be a world on the brink of catastrophe.” These states all argued that a ban treaty that prohibits nuclear weapons would bolster national and global security and should be recommended to the UN General Assembly by the OEWG.

    Meanwhile, the so-called ‘Progressive Approach’ countries rejected a ban treaty and reiterated their commitment to maintaining nuclear weapons for “national security.” Hungary likened denying the security value of nuclear weapons to denying climate change. Perhaps the most revealing intervention came from Bulgaria, claiming that it “cannot at this point in time subscribe itself to the statement that nuclear weapons should never be used under any circumstances.” Bulgaria’s approach is perplexing. Bulgaria both claims to want a world free of nuclear weapons and to reserve ability of some states to use these weapons of indiscriminate violence. Instead of living in a world constantly threatened by nuclear war, South Africa proposed that we create a world free of nuclear weapons to promote a very basic right to life. South Africa believes that “there can be no right hands for wrong weapons.”

    Poland, which also backs the ‘Progressive Approach’, stated that it must rely on nuclear weapons not because it wants to, but because it has to. Poland cited fears of Russian aggression and border conflicts. Egypt responded, claiming that it faced significant security concerns in the Middle East and yet it is not under the protection of a nuclear umbrella. Jamaica and Egypt both questioned why they should not pursue nuclear weapons. After all, they argued, if nuclear weapons promote security then proliferation should be encouraged.

    General John Cartwright, a guest speaker during the session Thursday, responded by saying something rather insightful. He stated that Jamaica does not need nuclear weapons to have a deterrent because Jamaica has military alliances and other non-nuclear capabilities. Notably, General Cartwright said that deterrence theory was based off of “circular logic.” Egypt noted that the origins of deterrence theory predate nuclear weapons. From the outset, nuclear weapons were not even created for deterrence. Still, some countries do not understand that deterrence can exist without the risks posed by the world’s most dangerous weapons.

    Nuclear weapons represent an unparalleled violence. They threaten the existence of seven billion global citizens at every moment. The likelihood of accidental or intentional nuclear war is rising as nuclear weapons modernization projects seek to make nuclear weapons more usable. Further, nuclear weapons do not even provide an adequate response to the security threats posed by the 21st century. Countries simply can not nuke non-state actors.

    As Palau stated, security cannot and must not be predicated on the basis of illegitimate weapons. The best way to attain a world without these illegitimate weapons is to ban them. The “Progressive Approach” countries claim to not support a ban for rather perplexing reasons. Estonia argued that it did not support a ban treaty because it would not affect the disarmament regime. Immediately after, Estonia said that a ban treaty would undermine the NPT by pushing the nuclear weapons states away from future negotiations.

    This argument, that a ban treaty would do nothing and simultaneously would undermine the NPT, has been repeated many times by the so called “Progressive Approach” countries. The reality is quite the opposite. As Mexico stated, a ban treaty would strengthen the NPT, not weaken it. A ban treaty is directly in the spirit of Article VI of the NPT. A ban treaty would help foster international norms and laws against the possession and use of nuclear weapons.

    Countries advocating for the ‘Progressive Approach’ do not intend to make positive contributions to the OEWG, which is tasked with taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations to achieve a world without nuclear weapons. Their repeated demands that nuclear weapons are required for their national security are a clear demonstration of where their allegiances lie. These countries are sadly not committed to the goals of the OEWG, to Article VI of the NPT and to codified international law prohibiting the use or the threat of use of nuclear weapons.

    Joseph Rodgers is currently in Geneva, Switzerland attending the OEWG. He has worked on nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation and waste issues for the Arms Control Association, Tri-Valley CAREs, The Committee to Bridge the Gap, and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Joseph is pursuing a masters degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey.

  • A Tale of Two Securities

    This article was originally published by Reaching Critical Will.

    How can an approach to global security built on the threat of mass annihilation be compatible with a 21st century understanding of international cooperation, asked Austria during a rather surreal debate on Thursday. A handful of states that include nuclear weapons in their security doctrines extolled their perception that these weapons afford them security and stability and must be maintained by “responsible” states until some distant future date when the “conditions” for nuclear disarmament are “correct”. This aggressive articulation of support for the indefinite retention of nuclear weapons seems to have been sparked by a more vocal and assertive display of support for the prohibition of these weapons. As the commencement of negotiations towards a treaty banning nuclear weapons gains traction, these nuclear apologists have—rather unwisely—begun escalating and entrenching their support for maintaining weapons of terror.

    Fear mongering from the weapons supporters

    Perversely, although with apparent sincerity, states supporting the continued existence of weapons of massive, indiscriminate violence sought to argue that in fact it is those supporting a prohibition that are acting irresponsibly, threatening the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and fuelling polarisation in the international community.

    Belgium, Canada, Estonia, Hungary, Republic of Korea, and Poland all gave a version of accounts in which banning nuclear weapons is destabilising and where pursuit of the decades-old failed step-by-step approach is the only “effective” way forward. They all asserted that a prohibition treaty would upset the international order in varying ways, with Poland claiming it would “destroy the NPT system” and Hungary comparing prohibition supporters to climate change deniers because they “ignore the security dimensions of nuclear weapons”.

    “This is not a game,” warned Poland. “Our lives and our future are at stake.”

    A dangerous game

    The sake of our lives and future is exactly why nuclear weapons must be outlawed and eliminated. It is the wielding of nuclear weapons that is destabilising. It is the perpetuation of the idea that nuclear weapons afford security that is irresponsible. It is, as Mexico said, the doctrine of deterrence that undermines the NPT and the broader multilateral system.

    Any peace that we have experienced in the past 70 years is because of our efforts towards collective security in spite of, not because of, nuclear weapons, argued Ambassador Lomonaco of Mexico. Nuclear weapons “force states into an automatically adversarial relationship in which they threaten each other with the most destructive technologies of violence we have been able to develop as human beings,” remarkedThomas Nash of Article 36 speaking on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

    The real challenge to the NPT comes not from prohibiting nuclear weapons but from failing to fulfil NPT commitments. This includes the commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons, but also, as Switzerland noted, commitments to transparency, de-alerting, and reducing the role of nuclear weapons in security doctrines—commitments that many states railing against the prohibition claim to support and yet have failed to implement.

    A nuclear weapon ban treaty will not undermine the NPT. It only undermines a perverse conception of the NPT as an instrument that confers legitimacy on nuclear weapons for the five states recognised as possessors under that Treaty and for their allies who include the potential use of those weapons in their security doctrines.

    Whose security is it anyway?

    The crux of the problem is not polarisation “caused” by the majority of states seeking to prohibit nuclear weapons. Rather the problem is the entrenched position of a minority of nuclear-armed and allied states that is fundamentally incompatible with international law and generally accepted moral principles. The problem is not that the majority of states ignore the security dimensions of nuclear weapons but that the minority does not seem to believe that humanity is a prerequisite for genuine, sustainable security. State security, in their view, is seen as distinct from and apparently more important than a much broader concept of security that as Austria’s Ambassador Hajnoczi includes the environment, economics, and human beings, among other things. As Mr. Nash said, “security is not security without humanity.”

    This false binary privileges those seeking to maintain an imbalanced, discriminatory set of international relationships in which nuclear weapons are a symbol of power. Ms. Shorna-Kay Richards of Jamaica questioned why these states would wilfully posit nuclear weapons as instrumental to their security, asking why then should all countries not pursue nuclear weapons.

    A number of other reasonable questions for these states remained unanswered at the end of the debate. Why, if they are so convinced of the perceived security benefits of nuclear weapons, would they want ever to get rid of them? How can they say with certitude that nuclear weapons bring stability and security in one breath and in the next say they are committed to nuclear disarmament? How can they claim that they want peace and security yet perpetuate the existence of and reliance upon weapons of mass destruction? Why are these countries even party to the NPT, if threatening the use of nuclear weapons is so useful for security?

    A crisis of faith

    The nuclear-supportive states in the room seeking to disrupt efforts towards a prohibition came across at times a bit like believers that the sun revolves around the earth having their entire worldview put into question. It is as if they have deemed nuclear weapons as critical to their survival, to the extent they no longer recognise that their security is interdependent with the security of other countries. In saying that they are being threatened by aggressive states undertaking exercises on their borders, they seem not to recognise the perceptions of their own actions by the states they fear. These perceptions of aggression of course go both ways and nuclear weapons lock these relationships into a highly negative dynamic from which it is very difficult to escape. These states also missed the opportunity of today’s debate to address what Austria, Brazil, and many others have described as a suicidal policy of nuclear deterrence. Instead they overlooked the risks and consequences of nuclear weapons and asserted that their security concerns are being ignored.

    The majority of states, which reject nuclear weapons and are seeking to prohibit them, do not ignore this minority’s perceived security concerns. They are trying to change their perspective – seeking the paradigm shift that many have said is essential to move those states out of their current nuclear-armed security tangle. The reality that is denied in the dogma of nuclear weapons is that, as Ms. Eunice Akiwo of Palausaid, they are immoral, they are inhumane, and soon they will be illegal. In this context, it is irresponsible for these states to claim that prohibiting nuclear weapons will be destabilising. Rather they should redouble their efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their own security doctrines and stop seeking to undermine the positive developments towards a legally-binding instrument that strengthen the global norm against nuclear weapons and increase international security for all.

  • Negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Ban

    The Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) for nuclear disarmament is holding sessions this week at the United Nations Office in Geneva. States are gathering to discuss the steps necessary to create a world free of nuclear weapons. The OEWG will submit a report summarizing the discussions and agreed recommendations to the UN General Assembly for consideration.

    The OEWG is unique in a number of ways. First, all states currently participating do not possess nuclear weapons. All states possessing nuclear weapons chose not to attend. Second, civil society groups can make interventions on the floor. Civil society groups do not have to be as tactful as states, and their participation has contributed to a lively debate on the floor.

    On Tuesday, Austria announced that 126 states are supporting working paper 36, which calls for filling a ‘legal gap’ by moving forward with nuclear disarmament negotiations. This gap, Austria suggests, should be filled with a legally binding treaty or instrument that bans nuclear weapons. On Monday, Costa Rica stated that a ban treaty that pushes for the total elimination of nuclear weapons is the most viable path forward. Nicaragua said that a ban treaty must prevent the modernization of both nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon testing, implying that the ban must include computer testing. On Tuesday, Mexico claimed that vital elements of this ban treaty should prohibit the possession, acquisition, stockpiling, development, transfer, stationing, deployment, modernizing, and financing of nuclear weapons.

    A ban treaty would be a substantial step forward for the nuclear disarmament regime. However, a select few states at the OEWG claim that a ban treaty would be ineffective, or worse, would undermine the existing international disarmament regime entirely. These countries are presenting flawed arguments against a ban and suggesting alternatives that will merely continue the 46 years of stalling on the nuclear disarmament issue.

    Canada, Japan, Latvia, Poland and Belgium stated that a ban may undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which they believe is the bedrock for the disarmament regime and has created progress. These countries could not be further from the mark. By speaking out against a ban on nuclear weapons, these states demonstrate their lack of commitment to Article VI of the NPT, which commits all signatories to pursue nuclear disarmament.  In the words of Ireland, “The best way to strengthen the NPT is to fulfill the NPT.”

    Hungary believes that a ban treaty would stigmatize nuclear weapon states, preventing them from participating in future negotiations. While a ban treaty would stigmatize nuclear weapon states, possession of the world’s most dangerous weapons should be stigmatized. 46 years after the entry into force of the NPT, there are still over 15,000 nuclear weapons. As Jamaica noted on Monday, these weapons threaten “the very survival of humanity.” Stigmatizing nuclear weapon states could be the push necessary for serious disarmament negotiations among states possessing nuclear weapons.

    Canada argued on Tuesday that now is not the right time for a ban on nuclear weapons because there is a lack of political will from nuclear weapon possessing states. In its working paper, Canada argues that the disarmament community should “focus not on differences but on common ground by identifying concrete and practical ‘building blocks’” to reach a world without nuclear weapons. Only when global zero becomes “within reach” would “additional legal measures for achieving and maintaining a world without nuclear weapons” be viable. In their words, “significant work remains ahead of us before we attain this point.”

    Canada’s strategy, called the “progressive approach,” would maintain the status quo. This strategy will not eliminate nuclear weapons. The idea that the international community should wait for states possessing nuclear weapons to garner political will to get rid of their own weapons is absurd. This strategy has not worked for 46 years and it is not likely to work now. The OEWG presents an opportunity to create real progress on disarmament by starting the process of banning nuclear weapons. The so-called “progressive approach,” which argues that a ban on nuclear weapons would be detrimental, is actually regressive.

    All of these states arguing against a ban are diverting attention from a substantive and productive working group. They are discussing stopping nuclear terrorism, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the creation of a fissile materials treaty. But as the Los Alamos Study Group noted, these measures are not international disarmament measures – they are nonproliferation measures. Since they are not disarmament measures, the OEWG is not the appropriate forum for these issues.

    The creation of a treaty banning nuclear weapons is a vital next step to achieving a world without nuclear weapons. This treaty would not only strengthen the existing disarmament regime and codify important norms against nuclear weapons, but it would also broaden the regime. As a clear majority of countries agree, a ban can and should be recommended by the OEWG.

    Joseph Rodgers is currently in Geneva, Switzerland attending the OEWG. He has worked on nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation and waste issues for the Arms Control Association, Tri-Valley CAREs, The Committee to Bridge the Gap, and the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. Joseph is pursuing a masters degree in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey.

  • Message of Support to the Stop Trident Demonstration in London

    Stop Trident

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is happy to support the tens of thousands of people in the streets of London demanding “Stop Trident” and an end to nuclear weapons worldwide. There is simply no excuse for the British government to go ahead with replacing the Trident nuclear weapons system. We know very well the extreme costs — financial, moral and environmental — that nuclear weapons bring. Thank you for standing up for current and future generations in Britain and around the world who would suffer greatly if a Trident replacement were produced and, even worse, used.

    In less than two weeks – starting on 9 March – the International Court of Justice will hear oral arguments in a lawsuit filed by the Marshall Islands against the United Kingdom. The lawsuit claims that the UK is in breach of existing international law through its refusal to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

    Thank you for all you are doing to Stop Trident, prevent the further modernization of nuclear weapons, and achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • What Would a Nuclear Ban Mean in the U.S.?

    greg_melloA ban treaty would be the natural culmination of the decades of brilliant civil society work that have brought us to this point.

    Such a treaty would be voluntary and non-coercive, yet ever more normative as more countries joined.  It would grow in importance only in the most democratic manner. It would affect nuclear arsenals in an indirect and therefore flexible manner, and only according to the evolving unique security circumstances of each state. It would not conflict with any existing or future disarmament or nonproliferation agreement or treaty, but rather would support them all. It would not add new obligations for NPT non-nuclear weapon states that are not in nuclear security relationships, which is most of the countries in the world. All these states have nothing to lose in a ban — apart from whatever nasty forms of leverage some nuclear weapon states (like the U.S.) and their allies might try to apply.

    A ban would stimulate and empower civil society in many countries, with benefits across humanitarian issues.

    Here in the U.S., a ban treaty would tremendously empower everything we are doing against nuclear weapons. I would like to explain this further because many people think that a ban would have no effect on U.S. policy, given that the U.S. won’t sign it.

    Nuclear policy in the U.S. is not made in a smooth, top-down, confident manner. There are many reversals and problems. The nuclear weapons establishment has many adversaries inside government and outside, not least its own bureaucrats and fat-cat contractors, who struggle to hide the scandals and ongoing fiascos. Key mid-career people are quitting early at facilities we know from job frustration, taking their knowledge and experience with them. Retirements left one plant (Y-12) without knowledge of how to make a critical non-commercial material at industrial scale. At the only U.S. nuclear weapons assembly plant, in Texas, snakes and mice infest one or more key buildings, which date from World War II. Rain comes through the roofs and dust through the doors. In Oak Ridge, huge pieces of concrete have fallen from ceilings and deep cracks have appeared in a structural beam in a key building. All this infrastructure may, or may not be, fully replaced. It is contested in many cases, difficult, and expensive.

    At Los Alamos, the main plutonium facility has been largely shut down for almost three years because of inadequate safety and staffing. Approximately seven attempts have been made since 1989 to construct a new factory complex for producing plutonium warhead cores — all have failed.  It might just be that nuclear weapons production, in the final analysis, is not compatible with today’s safety and environmental expectations and laws. Transmission of nuclear weapons ideology and knowledge under these conditions is a difficult challenge.

    A growing ban would reach deep into the human conscience, affecting everything, including career decisions. It would affect corporate investments as well as congressional enthusiasm for the industry. I have spoken with nuclear weapons CEOs who know it is a “sunset” field with only tenuous support in the broader  Pentagon, despite all the nuclear cheer-leading we see. Modernization of the whole nuclear arsenal is very likely unaffordable, even assuming current economic conditions hold (they won’t).

    A ban would also affect the funding, aims, and structure of the U.S. nonprofit universe and think-tank “ecosystem,” as well as media interest and coverage.

    Beyond all this, I believe a ban would also help decrease popular support in the U.S. for war and war expenditures in general. Why? There is a tremendous war-weariness in the U.S., right alongside our (real, but also orchestrated) militarism. A growing ban on nuclear weapons would be a powerful signal to political candidates and organizations that it is politically permissible to turn away from militarism somewhat, that there is something wrong with the levels of destruction this country has amassed and brandished so wildly and with such deadly and chaotic effects. Ordinary people here in the U.S. are seeing greater and greater austerity and precarity. They work extremely hard and have less and less to show for it. Polls (decades of them) show the public has never really supported the scale of nuclear armaments we have. One 1990s poll disclosed that most Americans think we have more than ten times fewer warheads than we actually do, more like the U.K., France, and China! Our economy is in bad shape and our infrastructure is visibly declining, sometimes with fatal results. A ban could help this benighted country recognize its folly, at least to some degree. It would be a wake-up call signalling that widely-held U.S. assumptions about our place in the world might need just a teensy bit of adjustment.

    I hope this helps fill in the picture somewhat for those far away who may not see why a ban would be powerful here in the U.S.

    The case for such a simple, totally flexible, and powerful treaty, with relatively low diplomatic cost for most states, is to our eyes unassailable.

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Ambition and the US Presidential Campaign

    Robert DodgeWith the news of North Korea testing another nuclear weapon its leadership continues the fallacy of nuclear deterrence promoted by the nuclear powers of the world. This action by North Korea must be condemned just as the continued possession of nuclear weapons by all of the nuclear states. This action is against the growing international consensus for a universal treaty banning all nuclear weapons and making their possession illegal just as chemical and biological weapons have been prohibited.

    In a year of U.S. presidential elections, where is the voice of reason? Who among the candidates or media has spoken to the legal obligations of the United States and all nuclear powers to work in good faith for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Particularly in view of the current climate science confirming that a small regional limited nuclear war using only ½ of 1 percent of the global nuclear arsenals has the potential to cause the deaths of more than 2 billion people from the ensuing climate change following such a war. Who has the courage to speak the truth and put forth a plan to eliminate these weapons?

    Where is the media in it’s investigative obligation and engagement of dialogue on this issue in the campaign. Outlets like PBS continue to cover the arms race and modernization of our Trident submarines, each with the potential for the above scenario many times over, as though it is an acceptable outcome of global doomsday if they are activated. This is accepted without question as a fait accompli. We must ask the candidates if they are actually aware of this science and if so under what circumstance they are ready to end life as we know it becoming defacto suicide bombers. For it would be only a matter of time before the global climatic effects of such a use would result in our own deaths. There can be no doublespeak in this response. You are either in favor of the status quo with existing arsenals that drive the arms race and promote nations like North Korea to develop their own capabilities or you work in earnest to eliminate these weapons.

    Time is not on our side. The chance of accidental or intentional nuclear war is placed by probability theorists at 1% per year or more. A child born today is not likely to reach their 30th birthday without some nuclear event occurring in their world. Is this the world we want for our children and grandchildren?

    The candidates and the media must overcome their cowardice in addressing this issue at this critical time.

    We must demand answers to these questions about the greatest imminent existential threat to our world. We cannot rely on the hope that someone else will take care of this or the notion that I cannot make a difference. In our democracy each of us has a duty and responsibility to be informed and to take action.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

    Robert Dodge is a family physician practicing full time in Ventura, California. He serves on the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles serving as a Peace and Security Ambassador and at the national level where he sits on the security committee. He also serves on the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions. He writes for PeaceVoice.

  • Former U.S. Defense Secretary Warns of Nuclear War, Nuclear Terror

    Although peace activists know it well, the average American is “blissfully unaware” that the likelihood of a nuclear attack inside U.S. borders has markedly increased for two reasons: serious deterioration in relations between American officials and their Russian counterparts and potential development by terrorists of improvised nuclear technology.

    William Perry
    Former U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Perry.

    That was the warning delivered in November by William Perry, former U.S. secretary of defense, who told attendees in Chicago at the annual Clock Symposium sponsored by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that intensified public information campaigns will be essential to enlighten a citizenry that’s become complacent and ignorant about the rising threat of catastrophe.

    “Our first steps today must be education and activism,” said Perry, who led the Defense Department under President Bill Clinton between February 1994 and January 1997. Perry, 88, is now a professor emeritus at Stanford University, where he also is a senior fellow at the university’s Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute.

    The political relationship between the U.S. and Russia, nearly 24 years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, has become just as hostile as it was during the Cold War, Perry told an audience of mostly scientists and students at the University of Chicago.

    “How in the world could this have happened?” Perry asked, recalling that in the period following the fall of the USSR, American and Russian officials were amicable enough to jointly dismantle about 8,000 nuclear weapons, hold many diplomatic meetings and even engage in joint peacekeeping exercises.

    To some extent, Perry blamed today’s Russian government leaders for producing soured relations. Russia has violated Ukrainian boundaries and embarked on a new, major build-up of its ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) forces, nuclear submarines, and nuclear-capable bombers, he said, even as the U.S. is engaged in major, long-term modernization of its own nuclear technology.

    Russian leaders, in addition, have made reckless statements regarding their government’s ability to use nuclear weapons as a tool of power, Perry said. Government-backed Russian news agency chief Dmitry Kiselyov, he recalled, said in 2014 that his nation “could turn the U.S. into radioactive ash.”

    The statement was broadcast on TV, with Kiselyov situated in front of a photo of a mushroom cloud; it was a response to cautions from the Obama Administration that the Russians mustn’t try to annex Crimea.

    Later in 2014, Perry said, President Vladimir Putin boasted that his country was “one of the most powerful nuclear nations” and should not be interfered with militarily. He indicated that Russia could rely on tactical nuclear weapons to counterbalance threats to its interests in Eastern Europe.

    Perry also criticized Russia’s apparent rejection of a no-first-use policy governing strategic use of nuclear weapons. The Russian military more than 20 years ago said it might use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that posed an existential threat to the country, negating a longstanding no-first-use doctrine espoused by Soviet leaders. More recent remarks by Russian leaders, though, have seemingly reconfirmed that officials no longer believe no-first-use has value for Russia today amid strained relations between Washington and the Kremlin. [It should also be noted that the U.S. government has never espoused a no-first-use doctrine.]

    But it’s not only Russian officials who are liable for the current deep freeze in relations with the U.S., Perry said. American policy since the end of the Cold War has not always produced trust, he suggested, starting with what he called “premature expansion” by NATO in the period after the demise of the Soviet Union. East Germany joined NATO in 1990 after Germany was reunified, and three former Warsaw Pact nations, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland, were invited to join NATO in 1997. They did so in 1999. Since 2004, nine other Eastern European countries have joined NATO.

    “Part of the problem we’ve brought on ourselves,” Perry said.

    Furthermore, Perry was critical of the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, which forced that treaty to be terminated. Because it wished to pursue a National Missile Defense program, the George W. Bush Administration declared it would no longer participate in the treaty, which had banned signatories from building systems to intercept and destroy nuclear weapons delivered to targets via ballistic missiles. Russian leaders say they fear and oppose U.S. ABM programs and plans.

    Many in the Russian government now believe that American leaders are seeking to foment counter-revolution against Russian interests around the world, as well as supporting factions in Russia that oppose Putin, Perry said. These fears, together with a dismal Russian economy that seems to have little chance for recovery in the near future, have engendered “ultra-nationalism” in Putin’s actions and speech that conceivably could lead to war between the U.S. and Russia — and even a nuclear exchange in a worst-case scenario, he said.

    “The danger is that he [Putin] may overplay his hand and blunder into a war, and a war nobody wants,” he said.

    The United States and Russia must try to reopen “serious dialogue” to find peaceful diplomatic solutions and address nuclear issues, Perry said. At the very least, American and Russian scientists need to have unofficial discussions about how to reduce existential threats to the world’s future — a practice that was much more common in past decades, he said.

    The alternative will be a new nuclear arms race, which Perry said the U.S. and Russia stand at the brink of already, and also a risk that the two powers may once again turn to nuclear tests.

    “We have to stop drifting to a nuclear arms race and testing,” he said.

    Even more probable and alarming than a major war between nuclear-armed nations, Perry said, is the prospect of a terrorist organization such as ISIS obtaining nuclear materials. He said that these materials conceivably are “within reach” of these organizations, considering the amount of unprotected fissile material in the world. A so-called “crude” bomb constructed by terrorists, though unsophisticated by modern standards, would probably still have the destructive power of the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima, he said.

    Perry showed a brief video that depicted what might occur if such a weapon were to be detonated by terrorists on the ground in Washington, D.C. The new video will eventually be used to show high school and college students, in a very dramatic way, the stark reality of the effects of a nuclear explosion on government functioning and everyday life. It was commissioned by the William J. Perry Project, an educational initiative he founded in 2012 in connection with the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative.

    In the movie, which Perry narrated live from the lectern, a “rogue group” of citizens from an unnamed nuclear nation manages to  improvise a single, compact uranium bomb and transport it in a crate by airplane — under the guise of agricultural equipment — to a Dallas airport. The box is then shipped to a warehouse in Washington, D.C. and driven in a van by a terrorist down Pennsylvania Avenue. Midway between the U.S. Capitol and the White House, the bomb is exploded.

    About 80,000 people die instantly.

    The dead include the president, vice president, speaker of the house, secretary of defense, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and 320 members of Congress. The president pro tempore of the Senate is later sworn in as the new commander in chief in a hospital.

    In the scenario, terrorists declare in a radio message that they will set off five more nuclear bombs — one every week — in unspecified cities, until various political demands are met. Panic seizes the nation and people try to evacuate cities.

    Meanwhile, Wall Street trading is halted. The U.S. economy plunges. Widespread rioting occurs in urban areas. Martial law is declared there, and National Guardsmen move in and start shooting looters. The video depicts civil liberties effectively being ended, as the military sets up “concentration camps” to hold those who are feared to be dangerous.

    “This is my nuclear nightmare, essentially,” Perry said after presenting the video, which had evoked tears from some audience members while it was being played.

    The Clock Symposium is held annually by the Bulletin to discuss grave threats to the survival of the planet, and in recent years speakers have focused both on nuclear weapons and global warming. The metaphorical clock is used by the organization as a symbol to be adjusted every year to depict the relative danger to humanity, with midnight representing doomsday.

    The Doomsday Clock now stands at 3 minutes to midnight. The minute hand was set two minutes closer to midnight at the beginning of 2015; it had stood at 5 minutes to midnight in 2014. The Bulletin said the change reflected unabated global climate change together with efforts by several nations to both modernize and enlarge their nuclear arsenals. The farthest the clock has been from midnight was in 1991, when the U.S. and USSR signed the START Treaty; the minute hand was set to 17 minutes to midnight.

    The next position of the clock hands is expected to be announced in January.

    Perry told symposium attendees that he felt a U.S.-Russian nuclear war that would cause the end of civilization is now “very unlikely still, though possible.” But he said that if the Doomsday Clock were adjusted based solely on the basis of the danger of nuclear terrorism, he would set it to 1 to 2 minutes to midnight.

    Also at the Bulletin’s symposium, Gareth Evans, former foreign minister of Australia and co-chair of the 2010 International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation, warned that the world’s biggest peril is that any nation with nuclear weapons might see one or more of them launched due to error or accident, causing a regional nuclear war. “It really is only a matter of time before weapons are used,” he said.

    That such a calamity has not happened already, he said, is “a matter of sheer, dumb luck.”

    Evans, who is now chancellor of the Australian National University, said abolition of nuclear weapons wherever they exist must remain the long-term goal of world leaders, even if the goal appears very elusive now.

    “The main game in all of this…is not peaceful uses, or nuclear security, or nonproliferation, but outright nuclear disarmament–the complete elimination from the face of the Earth of the most indiscriminately inhumane weapons ever invented,” he said. “The basic argument first articulated by the Canberra Commission in 1996 remains compelling: So long as any country has nuclear weapons, others will want them; so long as any country has nuclear weapons, they are bound one day to be used, by accident if not by design; and any such use will be catastrophic for life on this planet as we know it.”

    The key role of experts such as nuclear scientists in today’s world is to refute arguments about nuclear deterrence that are once again being used to justify proliferation and modernization, even though such deterrence theories make little practical sense anymore, Evans said.

    “It is not just a moral argument–as important as the reborn humanitarian movement now is–that has to be mounted against nuclear weapons,” he said. “Nor a financial argument, though the extraordinary opportunity cost of nuclear programs–in terms of other desirable expenditure foregone–might appeal to some hardheads. What policy makers need to be persuaded about are the rational, strategic arguments against nuclear weapons: that in fact they are at best of minimal, and at worst of zero, utility in maintaining stable peace.”

    ###

    Robert Kazel is a Chicago-based writer and was a participant in the 2012 NAPF Peace Leadership Workshop.

  • I operated Britain’s nuclear weapons and Jeremy Corbyn is right to oppose Trident

    An open letter from Commander Robert Green to Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK Labour Party. The letter was originally published by Pressenza.

    Dear Jeremy,

    robert_greenAs a former operator of British nuclear weapons, I support your rejection of Trident replacement.

    I write as a retired Royal Navy Commander. I have served my country in the crew of a Buccaneer nuclear strike aircraft with a target in Russia, and subsequently on Sea King anti-submarine helicopters equipped with nuclear depth-bombs.

    Here are my reasons, in response to some of the pro-nuclear advocates’ arguments.

    1) ‘Britain cannot afford to risk its national security, lose credibility amongst its allies, and leave France as the sole European nuclear power.’

    The Government, Ministry of Defence, RN and public face a reality check regarding the defence budget.

    Respected commentators are expressing growing concern about the mismatch between ambition and austerity; and Trident replacement is set to be the single-largest procurement programme of the next decade.

    The Strategic Defence and Security Review should expose how vulnerable it is, especially when placed alongside the Government commitment to complete both super-carriers, and equip and keep operational one of them. As RUSI’s Malcolm Chalmers observed in his recent report Mind The Gap, the constraints “will make the exercise of a clear-headed strategic intellect vital to the management of defence.”

    Yet the late Sir Michael Quinlan admitted to Lord Hennessy: “Every British government has needed to find intellectual clothing for what has always been a gut decision never to allow France to be the sole European nuclear power.”

    When weighed against the gravity of the implications, how rational and responsible is this? Besides, was not this decision rendered hollow once the ‘independent British deterrent’ came to depend upon a US-leased missile system, US software in the fire control system, US targeting data and satellite communications? This trumps any purile ‘Little Englander’ political posturing about the French.

    US officials have warned that if Britain asks the US to provide a replacement system for Trident, it will become “a nuclear power and nothing else.” So would it not be wiser to turn the current defence budget crisis to advantage, and exploit the opportunity cost to provide a far more tangible, useful and credible key defence diplomacy and conventional deterrence role?

    The US and UK would not to have to sustain the fiction of UK nuclear independence; and the UK government would be seen to have truly enhanced its special relationship as closest US ally, rather than nuclear vassal.

    2) ‘Britain’s ultimate security depends upon an aggressor being in no doubt that retaliation will be assured and catastrophic to their country in general and their leadership in particular.’

    As for this macho ritual ‘nuclear test’ of British political leadership, the reality is that no Prime Minister would have to ‘press the button’. That dirty work is delegated to the Commanding Officer of the deployed Trident submarine. And back when I was in a nuclear crew of a Buccaneer strike jet or Sea King anti-submarine helicopter, we were given that dreadful, suicidal responsibility.

    The current UK political leadership’s threat to use UK Trident therefore requires the four submarine crews to be prepared to commit nuclear terrorism, risking them being branded as guilty of the Nazi defence against war crimes.

    Furthermore, nuclear deterrence is a disingenuous doctrine, because it is militarily irrational and not credible, for reasons set out in my book Security Without Nuclear Deterrence.

    3) ‘Since 1945 nuclear deterrence has prevented war and provided stability between the major powers.’

    The Soviet motive in occupying Eastern Europe was to create a defensive buffer zone and ensure that Germany could never threaten them again. Soviet archives show that NATO’s conventional capability and soft power were seen as far more significant than its nuclear posture.

    Nuclear deterrence meant that nuclear war was avoided by luck. We have come perilously close to nuclear war on several occasions:

    • Cuban missile crisis 1962;
    • Exercise Able Archer miscalculation 1983;
    • Russian misidentification of a Norwegian meteorological research rocket 1995.

    Also, it prolonged and intensified the Cold War.

    As for stability, the reality is that nuclear deterrence stimulates arms racing – and some 1,500 US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons remain at dangerously high alert states, especially with the reckless nuclear posturing over Ukraine.

    4) ‘The 1996 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice did not conclude that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be unlawful, especially when a nation’s survival is at stake.’

    The Court, under heavy pressure from the three NATO nuclear weapon states, did not specifically pronounce on the legal status of nuclear deterrence.

    However, it determined unanimously that any threat or use of nuclear weapons must conform to international humanitarian law, and confirmed that the principles of the law of armed conflict apply to nuclear weapons.

    The envisaged use of even a single 100 kiloton UK Trident warhead could never meet these requirements.

    5) ‘The number of states acquiring nuclear weapons has continued to grow.’

    This is a direct consequence of the P5’s use of nuclear weapons as a currency of power; and their modernisation plans flout their obligation under Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to get rid of their arsenals.

    For the 184 states which have made a treaty commitment to renounce nuclear weapons, the UK’s moral authority is compromised by its nuclear posture.

    6) ‘There was no international impact when South Africa and Ukraine abandoned nuclear weapons.’

    Neither qualified as a recognised nuclear weapon state. The UK was the third state to detonate a nuclear weapon, and is one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (known as the P5). British anti-nuclear breakout, therefore, would be a sensational game-changer.

    7) ‘No benefit would flow from a UK decision not to replace Trident.’

    Seizing this moment to take the initiative would enable the Government genuinely to claim this was in line with its commitment under NPT Article 6, and to be a ‘force for good in the world’, from which it would reap massive kudos and global respect – for example, Britain would retain its P5 status.

    The opportunity cost for the RN would be immediately measurable; and the Army and RAF would no longer resent the RN’s preoccupation with a militarily useless irrelevance.

    Sincerely,

    Commander Robert Green, Royal Navy (Retired).

    Robert Green served in the Royal Navy from 1962-82. As a bombardier-navigator, he flew in Buccaneer nuclear strike aircraft with a target in Russia, and then anti-submarine helicopters equipped with nuclear depth-bombs. On promotion to Commander in 1978, he worked in the Ministry of Defence before his final appointment as Staff Officer (Intelligence) to the Commander-in-Chief Fleet during the 1982 Falklands War. He is now Co-Director of the Disarmament & Security Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand.