Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Disarmament

  • Open Letter to President Obama

    OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA:
    Fulfill the Prague Promises of Nuclear Disarmament

    Dear Mr. President:

    As you approach your final year in office as President of the United States, I write to urge you to take critical steps to fulfill the promises of nuclear disarmament set forth in your 2009 Prague speech.

    You stated, “…I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  There can be no doubt that America and all other countries would be more secure in a world without the overarching threat of nuclear devastation.  You also stated in the Prague speech, “…as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.  We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.”

    These were wise words, speaking to the critical role of the United States in leading the world out of the nuclear age, as we led it into the nuclear age.  With a little over a year remaining in your final term, it is important for you to take action that would lead toward a nuclear-free world.

    Please consider the following steps:

    1. Fulfill the U.S. obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by providing leadership to convene good faith negotiations among the world’s countries for an end to the nuclear arms race, including modernization of nuclear arsenals, and for complete nuclear disarmament.
    1. Take all U.S. nuclear weapons off high-alert status.
    1. Declare a U.S. policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons.
    1. Complete the job of securing all weapons-grade nuclear materials throughout the world.
    1. Speak out and educate the American people about the dangers and lack of security inherent in nuclear deterrence policies, as well as the provocative and offensive capabilities inherent in missile defense policies.

    You could set the world on a fast-track course for nuclear zero.  You are approaching the end of your opportunity as President to do this.  Judging from your Prague speech, you know it is the right thing to do.  Don’t miss this chance, leaving open the very real possibility of foreclosing the future through nuclear war by accident or design.  You have a unique opportunity to secure this victory for all humanity, or at the least set it in motion by your leadership in the final year of your presidency.

    You, and only you, can do this.

    Respectfully,

    David Krieger, President
    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • Time for Nuclear Sharing to End

    This article was originally published by Open Democracy.

    It was already announced some years ago, but last week Germany woke up to the fact that new US nuclear weapons are actually going to be deployed at its base in Büchel. Frontal 21, a programme on the second main TV channel reported last Tuesday that preparation for this deployment was due to begin at the German air force base. The runway is being improved, perimeter fences strengthened, new maintenance trucks arriving and the Tornado delivery aircraft will get new software.

    It is a little known fact: Germany (and four other European countries) host nuclear weapons as part of NATO “nuclear sharing”. This means that in a nuclear attack the US can load its bombs onto German (or Belgian, Italian, Turkish and Dutch) aircraft and the pilots of those countries will drop them on an enemy target. This arrangement pre-dates the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which explicitly disallows any transfer of nuclear weapons from a nuclear weapon state to a non-nuclear weapon state, thus undermining the spirit of the treaty.

    This new nuclear bomb – the B61-12 – is intended to replace all its older versions and be able to destroy more targets than previous models. It is touted by the nuclear laboratories as an “all-in-one” bomb, a “smart” bomb, that does not simply get tossed out of an aircraft, but can be guided and hit its target with great precision using exactly the right amount of explosive strength to only destroy what needs to be destroyed. Sound good?

    Not to us – a guided nuclear bomb with mini-nuke capability could well lower the threshold for use. And the use of any kind of nuclear weapon would lead to the use of more nuclear weapons – this we know from the policies and planning of all nuclear weapon states. It has already been well established by three evidence-based conferences in recent years on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons that any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences.

    This new “magic bomb” is not yet with us. It is still being developed and is planned to be deployed in five years time, if there are no more delays. The development of the B61-12 – euphemistically called a “Life Extension Programme” although it is a full redesign not just an update – has fortunately taken longer than intended, giving us more time to convince European leaders what a bad idea it is to deploy new nuclear weapons in Europe.

    The debate is already under way in the “host” countries, most prominently in the Netherlands where the parliament has already voted not to task the new F35 aircraft with a nuclear role. However, the Dutch government is not listening. The German Bundestag voted in 2010 to get rid of the B61, and the government was nominally in favour, but after the change of government in 2013, Foreign Minister Steinmeier put the decision on ice, quoting the new security situation.

    Yet the current confrontation between NATO and Russia needs deescalation, not rearmament. Sending a signal to Russia that NATO is modernising its European infrastructure and deploying new high-tech bombs is bound to elicit a reaction. Even as we write, reports are coming in that Russia will respond by withdrawing from the INF-Treaty, basing SS-26/Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad (didn’t they already do that?) and targeting Germany with nuclear weapons.

    And what will be the NATO response to all of those threats? When will this escalation become hysteria and the first ‘shot across the bows’ start a nuclear war? Nuclear deterrence is the archetypal security dilemma. You have to keep threatening to use nuclear weapons to make it work. And the more you threaten, the more likely it is that they will be used.

    This is the moment where nuclear weapon-free countries need to call out for a ban on nuclear weapons to stop this madness. It is also the right time for nuclear co-dependents, like Germany, to make up its mind to give its nuclear dependency up.

    Deploying new nuclear weapons is forbidden by the NPT, which obligates its members to end the arms race. The transfer of nuclear weapons from the US to Germany and any plans to do so also undermine the NPT. As a responsible member state of this important treaty, it is time to denounce nuclear weapons and to join the international community of nuclear weapon-free countries that is signing the ‘Humanitarian Pledge’, calling for the legal gap to prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons to be closed. Time for Germany to show some real leadership for nuclear disarmament.

  • After the Iran Nuclear Agreement: Will the Nuclear Powers Also Play by the Rules?

    When all is said and done, what the recently-approved Iran nuclear agreement is all about is ensuring that Iran honors its commitment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) not to develop nuclear weapons.

    But the NPT—which was ratified in 1968 and which went into force in 1970—has two kinds of provisions.  The first is that non-nuclear powers forswear developing a nuclear weapons capability.  The second is that nuclear-armed nations divest themselves of their own nuclear weapons.  Article VI of the treaty is quite explicit on this second point, stating: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    What has been the record of the nuclear powers when it comes to compliance with the NPT?

    The good news is that there has been some compliance.  Thanks to a variety of nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements negotiated among the major nuclear powers, plus some unilateral action, the world’s total nuclear weapons stockpile has been reduced by more than two- thirds.

    On the other hand, 45 years after the NPT went into effect, nine nations continue to cling to about 16,000 nuclear weapons, thousands of which remain on hair-trigger alert.  These nations not only include the United States and Russia (which together possess more than 90 percent of them), but Britain, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.  If their quarrels—of which there are many—ever get out of hand, there is nothing to prevent these nations from using their nuclear weapons to lay waste to the world on a scale unprecedented in human history.

    Equally dangerous, from the standpoint of the future, is that, these nations have recently abandoned negotiating incremental nuclear disarmament agreements and have plunged, instead, into programs of nuclear weapons “modernization.”  In the United States, this modernization—which is projected to cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years—will include everything from ballistic missiles to bombers, warheads to naval vessels, cruise missiles to nuclear weapons factories.  In Russia, the government is in the process of replacing all of its Soviet era nuclear weapons systems with new, upgraded versions.  As for Britain, the government has committed itself to building a new nuclear-armed submarine fleet called Successor, thereby continuing the nation’s nuclear status into the second half of the twenty-first century.  Meanwhile, as the Arms Control Association recently reported, China, India, and Pakistan “are all pursuing new ballistic missile, cruise missile, and sea-based delivery systems.”

    Thus, despite the insistence of the nuclear powers that Iran comply with the NPT, it is pretty clear that these nuclear-armed countries do not consider themselves bound to comply with this landmark agreement, signed by 189 nations.  Some of the nuclear powers, in fact, have been quite brazen in rejecting it.  Israel, India, and Pakistan have long defied the NPT—first by refusing to sign it and, later, by going ahead and building their own nuclear weapons.  North Korea, once a signatory to the treaty, has withdrawn from it.

    In the aftermath of the Iranian government’s agreement to comply with the treaty, would it not be an appropriate time to demand that the nuclear-armed nations do so?

    At the least, the nuclear nations should agree to halt nuclear weapons “modernization” and to begin negotiating the long-delayed treaty to scrap the 16,000 nuclear weapons remaining in their arsenals.  Having arranged for strict verification procedures to ensure that Iran does not develop nuclear weapons, they should be familiar with procedures for verification of their own nuclear disarmament.

    After all, isn’t sauce for the goose also sauce for the gander?

    [Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany.  His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at UAardvark?]

  • Golden Rule Peace Boat Arrives in Santa Barbara

    For Immediate Release

    Contact: Gerry Condon:  206.499.1220
                  Sandy Jones:      805.965.3443

    Golden Rule Peace Boat Arrives in Santa Barbara
    Sailing for a Nuclear-Free World

    SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The historic Golden Rule peace boat, restored by Veterans For Peace, will dock in Santa Barbara late Wednesday afternoon on September 2, during her voyage from San Diego en route to her homeport, Eureka, on California’s northern coast. There will be a press conference covering the arrival on Thursday, September 3 at 2:00 p.m. on the steps of the Maritime Museum at the boat harbor (113 Harbor Way).

    In 1958, the 30-foot ketch and its Quaker crew helped to ignite an international movement to stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons when they attempted to sail into a nuclear test zone in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). The Golden Rule is now sailing again to promote a nuclear-free world. Over the next ten years, she will carry her message of peace around the United States and possibly throughout the world.

    The Marshall Islands suffered catastrophic and irreparable damages when the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear tests on their territory between 1946 and 1958. These tests had the equivalent power of exploding 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years. The devastating impact of these nuclear detonations to the health and well-being of the Marshall Islanders and their land continues to this day. Last year, the RMI initiated the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits, seeking to hold the nuclear-armed nations to their obligations under international law to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament.

    “Nuclear weapons are still with us and the threat of nuclear war is very real,” said the Golden Rule’s Captain Ron Kohl of San Diego. “We are dismayed that the U.S. government plans to invest $1 trillion over the next 30 years upgrading its nuclear arsenal, instead of reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons, as called for in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and consultant to the Marshall Islands in their lawsuits, said, “The Golden Rule and her first crews have historical significance in courageously sailing into nuclear test sites in the Pacific. Today, the Golden Rule sails for a nuclear-free world under the leadership of Veterans for Peace and deserves the support of people everywhere.”

    The Golden Rule will be welcomed by the Santa Barbara Chapter of Veterans For Peace and members of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The ship will arrive in Santa Barbara in the late afternoon on Wednesday, September 2 and stay several days. She will be available for public viewing and possible sails, as well. There will be a press conference covering the arrival on Thursday, September 3 at 2:00 p.m. on the steps of the Maritime Museum at the boat harbor (113 Harbor Way).

    “We appreciate that many Santa Barbara friends and supporters are offering assistance,” said Captain Ron Kohl.  “There is a real magic to this boat that brings all kinds of people together.

    #                                              #                                              #

    For more information, or to interview the crew, please contact Gerry Conlon at 206.499.1220.

    You can follow the progress of the Golden Rule and make donations at www.vfpgoldenruleproject.org

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982. Its mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders. The Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations and is comprised of individuals and groups worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • Sunflowers: The Symbol of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    Sunflowers are a simple miracle. They grow from a seed. They rise from the earth. They are natural. They are bright and beautiful. They bring a smile to one’s face. They produce seeds that are nutritious, and from these seeds oil is produced. Native Americans once used parts of the sunflower plant to treat rattlesnake bites, and sunflower meal to make bread. Sunflowers were even used near Chernobyl to extract radionuclides cesium 137 and strontium 90 from contaminated ponds following the catastrophic nuclear reactor accident there.

    Now sunflowers carry new meaning. They have become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. This came about after an extraordinary celebration of Ukraine achieving the status of a nuclear free state. On June 1, 1996, Ukraine transferred to Russia for dismantlement the last of the 1,900 nuclear warheads it had inherited from the former Soviet Union. Celebrating the occasion a few days later, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States met at a former nuclear missile base in the Ukraine that once housed 80 SS-19 missiles aimed at the United States.

    The three Defense Ministers planted sunflowers and scattered sunflower seeds. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said, “With the completion of our task, Ukraine has demonstrated its support of a nuclear weapons free world.” He called on other nations to follow in Ukraine’s path and “to do everything to wipe nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth as soon as possible.” U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations.”

    This dramatic sunflower ceremony at Pervomaisk military base showed the world the possibility of a nation giving up nuclear weapons as a means of achieving security. It is an important example, featuring the sunflower as a symbol of hope. The comparison between sunflowers and nuclear missiles is stark—sunflowers representing life, growth, beauty and nature, and nuclear armed missiles representing death and destruction on a massive, unspeakable scale. Sunflowers represent light instead of darkness, transparency instead of secrecy, security instead of threat, and joy instead of fear.

    The Defense Ministers were not the first to use sunflowers. In the 1980s a group of brave and committed resisters known as “The Missouri Peace Planters” entered onto nuclear silos in Missouri and planted sunflowers as a symbol of nuclear disarmament. On August 15, 1988, fourteen peace activists simultaneously entered ten of Missouri’s 150 nuclear missile silos, and planted sunflowers. They issued a statement that said, “We reclaim this land for ourselves, the beasts of the land upon which we depend, and our children. We interpose our bodies, if just for a moment, between these weapons and their intended victims.”

    Which shall we choose for our Earth? Shall we choose life or shall we choose death? Shall we choose sunflowers, or shall we choose nuclear armed missiles? All but a small number of nations would choose life. But the handful of nations that choose to base their security on these weapons of omnicide threaten us all with massive uncontrollable slaughter.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, many people believe that the nuclear threat has ended, but this is not the case. In fact, there are still more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nine nuclear-armed countries. These countries have given their solemn promise in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970, to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament, but they have not acted in good faith. It is likely that until the people of the world demand the total elimination of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states will find ways to retain their special status as nuclear “haves.” Only one power on Earth is greater than the power of nuclear weapons, and that is the power of the People once engaged.

    This article was originally published on March 12, 1998. This version was revised on August 21, 2015.

  • Humanize, Not Modernize

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is now in its 33rd year of working for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.  We seek these goals for the people of today, and also for those of the future, so that they may have a healthy planet to live on and enjoy.

    Science and technology have brought great benefits to humanity in the form of health care, communications, transportation and many other areas of our lives.  An average person alive today lives a better and longer life than did kings and nobles of earlier times.  Yet, science and technology have not been universally positive.  They have also given us weapons capable of destroying civilization and most complex life on the planet, including that of our own species.

    In the Nuclear Age, our technological capacity for destruction has outpaced our spiritual and moral capacity to control these destructive technologies.  The Foundation is a voice for those committed to exercising conscience and choosing a decent future for all humanity.

    childrennature3The Foundation continues in its role as consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in its courageous Nuclear Zero lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed Goliaths.  The Marshall Islanders, who have been victims of US nuclear testing, know the pain and suffering caused by these weapons.  Their lawsuits seek not compensation, but to assure that the nuclear-armed countries fulfill their obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms at an early date and to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.  We are proud to stand with the RMI in these lawsuits that seek an end to the nuclear weapons era.

    There is no way to humanize weapons that are inhumane, immoral and illegal. These weapons must be abolished, not modernized.  And yet, all nine nuclear-armed countries are engaged in modernizing their nuclear arsenals.  The US is leading the way, planning to spend more than $1 trillion on upgrading its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades.  In doing so, it is making the world more dangerous and less secure.  The US could lead in humanizing rather than modernizing by reallocating its vast resources to feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, providing safe drinking water, assuring an education for the poor, as well as cleaning up the environment, shifting to renewable energy sources and repairing deteriorating infrastructure.

    Join us in making the shift from modernizing nuclear arsenals to humanizing the planet.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.

  • Are Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements of Any Value?

    Confronting the BombThe recent announcement of a nuclear deal between the governments of Iran and other major nations, including the United States, naturally draws our attention to the history of international nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. What accounts for their advent on the world scene and what have they accomplished?

    Ever since 1945, when the atomic bomb was built and used by the U.S. government in a devastating attack upon Japanese cities, the world has lived on the brink of catastrophe, for nuclear weapons, if integrated into war, could cause the total destruction of civilization.

    To cope with this ominous situation, the Truman administration, in 1946, turned to promoting the world’s first nuclear arms control agreement through a U.S. government-crafted proposal, the Baruch Plan. Although the Baruch Plan inspired enthusiasm among nations friendly to the United States, America’s emerging rival, the Soviet Union, rejected this proposal and championed its own. In turn, the U.S. government rejected the Soviet proposal. As a result, the nuclear arms race surged forward, with the Soviet government testing its first nuclear weapons in 1949, the U.S. government testing additional nuclear weapons and expanding its nuclear weapons stockpile, and the British government scrambling to catch up. Soon all three nations were building hydrogen bombs―weapons that had a thousand times the destructive power of the atomic bombs that had annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    But this escalation of the nuclear arms race, combined with growing popular protest against it in the United States and around the world, led to new international efforts to forge a nuclear arms control agreement. In 1958, the Eisenhower administration joined the governments of the Soviet Union and Britain in halting nuclear weapons testing and began serious negotiations for a test ban treaty. In 1963, the Kennedy administration, along with its Soviet and British counterparts, negotiated and signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere.

    In subsequent years, Democratic and Republican presidents, anxious to reduce nuclear dangers and to pacify a restive public, uneasy about nuclear weapons and nuclear war, signed numerous nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. These included: the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Lyndon Johnson); the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the SALT I Treaty (Richard Nixon); the SALT II Treaty (Jimmy Carter); the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (Ronald Reagan); the START I and START II treaties (George H.W. Bush); the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (Bill Clinton); the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (George W. Bush); and the New START Treaty (Barack Obama).

    These agreements helped dissuade the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations from developing nuclear weapons. Many nations had the scientific and technological capability to build them, and in the early 1960s it was assumed that they would do so. But, given the new barriers, including international treaties banning further nuclear testing and discouraging nuclear proliferation, they refrained from becoming nuclear powers.

    Nor was this the only consequence of the agreements. Even the small number of nuclear nations agreed not to develop or to maintain particularly destabilizing nuclear weapons and to reduce their nuclear stockpiles substantially. In fact, thanks largely to these agreements, more than two-thirds of the world’s nuclear weapons were destroyed. Also, to enforce these nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, extensive inspection and verification mechanisms were developed.

    Perhaps most significant, nuclear war was avoided. Wouldn’t that nuclear catastrophe have been more likely to occur in a world bristling with nuclear weapons―a world in which a hundred or so nations, many of them quite unstable or led by fanatics, could draw upon nuclear weapons for their armed conflicts or sell them to terrorists eager to implement their fantasies of destruction? Only the NRA or a similarly weapons-mad organization would argue that we would have been safer in such an environment.

    To be sure, nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements have always had their critics. During the debate over the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, Edward Teller―the prominent nuclear physicist who is sometimes called “the father of the H-bomb”―told U.S. senators that “if you ratify this treaty . . . you will have given away the future safety of this country.” Phyllis Schlafly, a rising star in conservative politics, warned that it would put the United States “at the mercy of the dictators.” A leading politician, Barry Goldwater, spearheaded the Republican attack upon the treaty in the Senate and during his 1964 presidential campaign. Nevertheless, there turned out to be no adverse consequences of the treaty to the United States―unless, of course, one views the rapid decline of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear confrontation as an adverse consequence.

    Placed in the context of over a half century of nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, the Iran nuclear deal does not seem at all outlandish. Indeed, it seems downright practical, merely ensuring that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is implemented in that major nation. Toward this end, the agreement provides for Iran’s sharp reduction of its nuclear-related materials that, potentially, could be used to develop nuclear weapons. Moreover, this process will be accompanied by extensive monitoring and verification. It is hard to imagine what more today’s critics could want―except, perhaps, another unnecessary Middle East war.

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).

  • A Nuclear Weapons Ban Emerging

    United NationsEvery moment of every day, all of humanity is held hostage by the nuclear nine. The nine nuclear nations are made up of the P5 permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and their illegitimate nuclear wannabes Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan spawned by the mythological theory of deterrence. This theory has fueled the nuclear arms race since its inception wherein if one nation has one nuclear weapon, its adversary needs two and so on to the point that the world now has 15,700 nuclear weapons wired for immediate use and planetary destruction with no end in sight. This inaction continues despite the forty-five year legal commitment of the nuclear nations to work toward complete nuclear abolition. In fact just the opposite is happening with the U.S. proposing to spend $1 trillion dollars on nuclear weapons modernization over the next 30 years fueling the “deterrent” response of every other nuclear state to do likewise.

    This critical state of affairs comes as the 189 signatory nations to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) concluded the month long Review Conference at the U.N. in New York. The conference was officially a failure due to the refusal of the nuclear weapons states to present or even support real steps toward disarmament with an unwillingness to recognize the peril that the planet faces at the end of their nuclear gun and continuing to gamble on the future of humanity. Instead presenting a charade of concern, blaming each other and bogging down in discussions over a glossary of terms while the hand of the nuclear Armageddon clock continues to move ever forward.

    The nuclear weapons states have chosen to live in a vacuum, one void of leadership. They hoard suicidal nuclear weapons stockpiles and ignore recent scientific evidence of the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons that we now realize makes these weapons far more dangerous than we thought before. They fail to recognize that this evidence must be the basis for prohibiting and eliminating them.

    Fortunately there is a powerful and positive response coming out of the NPT Review Conference. The Non-Nuclear Weapons States representing a majority of people living on the planet frustrated and threatened by the nuclear nations have come together and demanded a legal ban on nuclear weapons like the ban on every other weapon of mass destruction from chemical to biologic and including land mines. Their voices are rising up. Following a pledge by Austria in December 2014 to fill the legal gap necessary to ban these weapons, 107 nations have joined them at the U.N. this month committing to do so. That means finding a legal instrument that would prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons. Such a ban will make these weapons illegal and will stigmatize any nation that continues to have these weapons as being outside of international law.

    Costa Rica’s closing NPT remarks noted, “Democracy has not come to the NPT but Democracy has come to nuclear weapons disarmament.” The nuclear weapons states have failed to demonstrate any leadership toward total disarmament and in fact have no intention of doing so. They must now step aside and allow the majority of the nations to come together and work collectively for their future and the future of humanity. John Loretz of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons said, “The nuclear-armed states are on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of morality, and the wrong side of the future. The ban treaty is coming, and then they will be indisputably on the wrong side of the law. And they have no one to blame but themselves.”

    “History honors only the brave,” declared Costa Rica. “Now is the time to work for what is to come, the world we want and deserve.”

    Ray Acheson of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom says, “Those who reject nuclear weapons must have the courage of their convictions to move ahead without the nuclear-armed states, to take back ground from the violent few who purport to run the world, and build a new reality of human security and global justice.”

  • Who Are the Nuclear Scofflaws?

    This article was originally published by History News Network.

    Lawrence WittnerGiven all the frothing by hawkish U.S. Senators about Iran’s possible development of nuclear weapons, one might think that Iran was violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    But it’s not. The NPT, signed by 190 nations and in effect since 1970, is a treaty in which the non-nuclear nations agreed to forgo developing nuclear weapons and the nuclear nations agreed to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons. It also granted nations the right to develop peaceful nuclear power. The current negotiations in which Iran is engaged with other nations are merely designed to guarantee that Iran, which signed the NPT, does not cross the line from developing nuclear power to developing nuclear weapons.

    Nine nations, however, have flouted the NPT by either developing nuclear weapons since the treaty went into effect or failing to honor the commitment to disarm. These nine scofflaws and their nuclear arsenals are Russia (7,500 nuclear warheads), the United States (7,100 nuclear warheads), France (300 nuclear warheads), China (250 nuclear warheads), Britain (215 nuclear warheads), Pakistan (100-120 nuclear warheads), India (90-110 nuclear warheads), Israel (80 nuclear warheads), and North Korea (10 nuclear warheads).

    Nor are the nuclear powers likely to be in compliance with the NPT any time soon. The Indian and Pakistani governments are engaged in a rapid nuclear weapons buildup, while the British government is contemplating the development of a new, more advanced nuclear weapons system. Although, in recent decades, the U.S. and Russian governments did reduce their nuclear arsenals substantially, that process has come to a halt in recent years, as relations have soured between the two nations. Indeed, both countries are currently engaged in a new, extremely dangerous nuclear arms race. The U.S. government has committed itself to spending $1 trillion to “modernize” its nuclear facilities and build new nuclear weapons. For its part, the Russian government is investing heavily in the upgrading of its nuclear warheads and the development of new delivery systems, such as nuclear missiles and nuclear submarines.

    What can be done about this flouting of the NPT, some 45 years after it went into operation?

    That will almost certainly be a major issue at an NPT Review Conference that will convene at the UN headquarters, in New York City, from April 27 to May 22. These review conferences, held every five years, attract high-level national officials from around the world to discuss the treaty’s implementation. For a very brief time, the review conferences even draw the attention of television and other news commentators before the mass communications media return to their preoccupation with scandals, arrests, and the lives of movie stars.

    This spring’s NPT review conference might be particularly lively, given the heightening frustration of the non-nuclear powers at the failure of the nuclear powers to fulfill their NPT commitments. At recent disarmament conferences in Norway, Mexico and Austria, the representatives of a large number of non-nuclear nations, ignoring the opposition of the nuclear powers, focused on the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. One rising demand among restless non-nuclear nations and among nuclear disarmament groups is to develop a nuclear weapons ban treaty, whether or not the nuclear powers are willing to participate in negotiations.

    To heighten the pressure for the abolition of nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament groups are staging a Peace and Planet mobilization, in Manhattan, on the eve of the NPT review conference. Calling for a “Nuclear-Free, Peaceful, Just, and Sustainable World,” the mobilization involves an international conference (comprised of plenaries and workshops) on April 24 and 25, plus a culminating interfaith convocation, rally, march, and festival on April 26. Among the hundreds of endorsing organizations are many devoted to peace (Fellowship of Reconciliation, Pax Christi, Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Veterans for Peace, and Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom), environmentalism (Earth Action, Friends of the Earth, and 350NYC), religion (Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Unitarian Universalist UN Office, United Church of Christ, and United Methodist General Board of Church & Society), workers’ rights (New Jersey Industrial Union Council, United Electrical Workers, and Working Families Party), and human welfare (American Friends Service Committee and National Association of Social Workers).

    Of course, how much effect the proponents of a nuclear weapons-free world will have on the cynical officials of the nuclear powers remains to be seen. After as many as 45 years of stalling on their own nuclear disarmament, it is hard to imagine that they are finally ready to begin negotiating a treaty effectively banning nuclear weapons―or at least their nuclear weapons.

    Meanwhile, let us encourage Iran not to follow the bad example set by the nuclear powers. And let us ask the nuclear-armed nations, now telling Iran that it should forgo the possession of nuclear weapons, when they are going to start practicing what they preach.

  • The 2015 State of the Union Address: A Major Omission

    When President Obama first took office he was deeply concerned about nuclear disarmament. In 2009, in a speech in Prague he had this to say about nuclear weapons:

    Today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up. More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. Black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy, build or steal one. Our efforts to contain these dangers are centered on a global non-proliferation regime, but as more people and nations break the rules, we could reach the point where the center cannot hold.

    He also said at Prague:

    So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. (Applause.) I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, “Yes, we can.” (Applause.)

    us-presidential-sealWe might well ask not only what happened to “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” but what happened to President Obama’s commitment?

    In President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address, the only mention of nuclear weapons was in relation to the agreement the Obama administration is seeking to negotiate with Iran. The President promised to veto any additional sanctions placed on Iran, which he said would undermine the negotiations between the US and Iran to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. President Obama also expressed considerable concern for the dangers of climate change, a clear danger to the environment and the future. But there was no mention in the State of the Union of “America’s commitment” to nuclear disarmament.

    President Obama’s early concerns for nuclear disarmament led to his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, but he seems to have given up his pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons. He does so to the detriment of all Americans and all people of the world. Nuclear weapons are equal opportunity destroyers – women, men and children. Under Obama’s leadership, America is setting a course to modernize its nuclear infrastructure, weapons and delivery systems. Not only is the expected price tag for the US nuclear modernization program expected to exceed $1 trillion over the next three decades, but such a program endangers all Americans rather than providing them with security.

    In a recent article in The Nation, Theodore Postol, a MIT professor emeritus of science, technology and national security policy, argued, “No rational actor would take steps to start a nuclear war. But the modernization effort significantly increases the chances of an accident during an unpredicted, and unpredictable, crisis – one that could escalate beyond anyone’s capacity to imagine.” Postol concluded, “In a world that is fundamentally unpredictable, the pursuit of an unchallenged capacity to fight and win a nuclear war is a dangerous folly.”

    Mr. President, we live in an unpredictable world, but it is predictable based on history that nuclear weapons and human fallibility are a dangerous and highly flammable mix. Nuclear weapons, including our own, threaten all Americans and all humanity. Don’t give up on the essential quest for a Nuclear Zero world, which you seemed so eager to achieve upon assuming office.