Category: Nuclear Disarmament
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Bringing Purpose to Bear on Nuclear Arms
Recently, a friend sent me a copy of Admiral Hyman Rickover’s 1982 Morgenthau Memorial Lecture. The lecture, given under the auspices of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, was entitled, “Thoughts on Man’s Purpose in Life.” In the lecture, Rickover, who died in 1986 but remains widely respected for his role in building the US nuclear navy, spoke of “some basic principles of existence, propounded by thinkers through the ages….” Among these, he focused on responsibility, perseverance, excellence, creativity and courage, and he called for these to be “wedded to intellectual growth and development.”
I agree with the admiral on his choice of principles to give purpose to one’s life. If one can live by these principles, his or her life is likely to be purposeful. Yet, I think that Admiral Rickover missed an important point, which is: what one does with one’s life matters. Rickover chose to focus his professional activities on the development of a nuclear navy. In the questions following his speech, he was asked: “How can we equate nuclear weapons and warfare with moral and ethical values?”
He had a ready answer:
“I do not know why you point at nuclear weapons alone when moral and ethical issues are involved. Weapons of themselves are neither moral nor amoral; it is their use that raises the moral and ethical issue. In all wars man has used the best weapons available to him. Gunpowder made wars more deadly. Nuclear weapons are merely an extension of gunpowder. Therefore, it is not the weapon, but man himself. One can be just as dead from an axe as from a bomb. The issue is whether man is willing to wage war to carry out the moral, ethical, or other values he lives by. If history has any meaning for us, it shows that men will continue to use the best weapons they have to win. Throughout history, even when men have established leagues to prevent war, they have nevertheless resorted to it. Utopia is still beyond the horizon. Above all, we should bear in mind that our liberty is not an end in itself; it is a means to win respect and dignity for all classes of our society.”
In this statement, I think Rickover is wrong. Weapons are not morally neutral, particularly those that kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary harm. Nuclear weapons, which are capable of massive infanticide, genocide and the ultimate transgression, omnicide, the death of all, go far beyond an extension of gunpowder. They are a threat to the continuation of civilization and advanced life on the planet, including human life. This is why we cannot be satisfied with projecting the past (history) into the future. We must radically change our approach to security and create a future in which human survival is assured.
When asked if he had any regrets “for helping create a nuclear navy,” Rickover replied: “I do not have regrets. I believe I helped preserve the peace for this country. Why should I regret that? What I accomplished was approved by Congress—which represents our people. All of you live in safety from domestic enemies because of the police. Likewise, you live in safety from foreign enemies because our military keeps them from attacking us. Nuclear technology was already under development in other countries. My assigned responsibility was to develop our nuclear navy. I managed to accomplish this.”
However, in testimony the same year before Congress, Rickover said:
“I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. That’s why I am such a great exponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war. Unfortunately limits — attempts to limit war have always failed. The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has available.”
Admiral Rickover further remarked: “Every time you produce radiation, you produce something that has a certain half-life, in some cases for billions of years. I think the human race is going to wreck itself, and it is important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.” (Economics of Defense Policy: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., Pt. 1 (1982))
Jimmy Carter said in a 1984 interview with Diane Sawyer that Admiral Rickover had told him:
“I wish that nuclear power had never been discovered…. I would forego all the accomplishments of my life, and I would be willing to forego all the advantages of nuclear power to propel ships, for medical research and for every other purpose of generating electric power, if we could have avoided the evolution of atomic explosives.”
Of course, we did not avoid “the evolution of atomic explosives,” but this does not mean that we are condemned to live with these weapons forever. That is up to us. I believe that a purposeful life, in Admiral Rickover’s terms (but not in his actions), would bring responsibility, perseverance (more than one would think necessary), excellence, creativity and courage to bear upon the most serious threat confronting humanity, that of nuclear annihilation. Humans in the past have risen to the challenge of abolishing slavery. Now a common purpose of humanity must be to abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us. This will require replacing ignorance and apathy with focused concern and active engagement.
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Admiral Noel Gayler: Dispelling Nuclear Illusions
Adm. Noel Gayler, a World War II Navy pilot who later rose to the rank of four-star admiral and served as Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Command in the 1970s, died on July 14 at the age of 96. Adm. Gayler was one of the most prominent US military leaders to publicly call for the abolition of nuclear weapons and put forward a proposal to achieve this goal.
Adm. Gayler’s proposal, published in December 2000 by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, presents a sober assessment of the dangers that nuclear weapons pose to humanity and calls for the total elimination of these weapons. His assessment was influenced by viewing Hiroshima from the air only six days after its devastation on August 6, 1945 by a US nuclear weapon. He also witnessed the atmospheric testing of thermonuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands in the 1960s.
In his proposal, Adm. Gayler dispels some common illusions concerning the military value of nuclear weapons. These include:
- Physical defense against nuclear weapons is possible;
- Nuclear weapons can be used in a sensible manner;
- Nuclear disarmament imperils our security; and
- Nuclear deterrence is an effective defense.
“With these illusions dispelled,” Adm. Gayler stated, “it becomes evident that nuclear disarmament works to the advantage of every power. Only in this way can the world be made safe from unprecedented murder and destruction.”
The central thesis of Adm. Gayler’s proposal is that US and global security would be vastly enhanced by the total elimination of nuclear weapons. The proposal states, “An irony is that in developing and using nuclear weapons, we, the United States, have done the only thing capable of threatening our own national security.”
Adm. Gayler’s proposal involves the delivery of all nuclear weapons to a central point, where they would be irreversibly dismantled. Adm. Gayler’s passing provides an appropriate moment to revisit his vision and proposal to achieve a nuclear weapon-free world.
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A Proposal for Achieving Zero Nuclear Weapons
by Admiral Noel Gayler, US Navy (Ret.)*, December 2000
It is conceded by all hands that we stand at some continuing risk of nuclear war. The risk is possibly not imminent, but it is basically important above all else — for survival. The Defense and Energy Departments together have made promising starts to reduce possession of nuclear weapons, but far more and much faster action is needed.
Credible report has it that weapons are adrift, potentially available to irresponsible regimes and to terrorists. Independent development by them is not needed to establish threat. The peculiar characteristic of nuclear weaponry is that relative numbers between adversaries mean little. When a target country can be destroyed by a dozen weapons, its own possession of thousands of weapons gains no security. Defense against ballistic missiles is infeasible. What is more, it is irrelevant. Half a dozen non-technical means of delivery are available, in addition to cruise missiles and aircraft.
The recognized and awful dangers of other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological, do not compare to nuclear, despite their vileness. On the tremendous and incredible scale of killing, the others are retail as compared to the nuclear’s wholesale; but there need not be competition since all can be — must be — addressed concurrently.
Drafting a successor to the nuclear arms treaty is purportedly underway. If START III repeats the mistakes of the past, it may well bog down into haggling over relative numbers. More productive can be a process continuing toward total nuclear disarmament, the only way in which both we and the world may be truly secure from nuclear destruction.
An irony is that in developing and using nuclear weapons, we, the United States, have done the only thing capable of threatening our own national security. We have comparatively weak and friendly neighbors to the north and south, control of the seas, and a powerful air and combat-tested armed forces. We are proof that this in no way diminishes the need, as the world’s single greatest power, for Army, Navy, Air, and Marines capable not only of our own defense, but of intervention abroad in the interest of peace and human rights. These forces do not come into being overnight, but need to be continually developed and supported. The argument for a nuclear component is no longer valid. The time is now for a concrete proposal that meets the problem. Process, as opposed to negotiating numbers, is the basic principle of the proposal that I suggest. It is nothing less than drastic: the continuing reduction to zero of weapons in the hands of avowed nuclear powers, plus an end to the nuclear ambitions of others.
The proposal: Let weapons be delivered to a single point, there to be dismantled, the nuclear material returned to the donors for use or disposal, and the weapons destroyed. This process, once underway, will be nearly impossible to stop, since its obvious merits, political and substantive, will compel support. The “single point” may well be a floating platform, at sea, in international waters. A handy platform can be an aircraft carrier that has been removed from “mothballs” and disarmed, yet capable of steaming to the desired location and operating support aircraft and ships to handle heavier loads. Living quarters for personnel, ships company, and disarmament processors, would be integral, as would be major protected spaces.
The US, of course, is the obvious source of a carrier, but there could be international manning, following the precedent of NATO. This would make the American ship politically palatable to the participants and Russia would be handled sensitively. Obvious and major advantages of security, inspection, availability, timing, and cost would ensue. Those regimes and groups not initially participating can be put under enormous pressure to join. Any remaining recalcitrant can be disarmed militarily, this time with a concert of powers. The need for persuasion and understanding of the participating powers is, of course, fundamental, and probably the most difficult requirement to meet. To meet this need of public understanding and consequent action, domestic and foreign, will require that we dispel some common illusions, such as:
- Is physical defense against nuclear weapons possible? No. What’s more, it’s irrelevant. A half dozen non-technical means of delivery avail.
- Can nuclear weapons be used in any sensible manner? No. This includes “tactical.”
- Does nuclear disarmament imperil our security? No. It enhances it.
- Is deterrence of nuclear or other attack by threat of retaliation still possible? No. The many potential aggressors are scattered — even location unknown. No targets!
With these illusions dispelled, it becomes evident that nuclear disarmament works to the advantage of every power. Only in this way can the world be made safe from unprecedented murder and destruction. It remains to take the necessary actions. They are feasible and imperative.
Admiral Noel Gayler (US Navy, Ret.) was a four-star admiral and served as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC). He was responsible for nuclear attack tactical development and demonstration of nuclear attack tactics to the Chairman and Joint Chiefs.
- Physical defense against nuclear weapons is possible;
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We All Share the Duty to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons
This article was originally published by the Sydney Morning Herald.
If international law as an institution is to have any relevance, it must apply to critical issues. Nuclear weapons do not fall beyond its scope – indeed they pose its most critical test.
These instruments of terror, through their ordinary use, cause indiscriminate human suffering on an unimaginable scale. They violate fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, as well as treaties protecting human rights and the environment.
Their continued existence in the thousands undermines the very notion of the rule of law, reinforcing instead a system of rule by force, whereby a small number of nations threaten to inflict mass destruction on others – and themselves to boot – to achieve political objectives.
Fifteen years ago today, the International Court of Justice – the highest legal authority in the world – declared it illegal to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons, and ruled that all nations have a duty to eliminate their nuclear forces, whether or not they are parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Today there are more than 20,000 nuclear weapons across the globe with an average explosive yield 20 to 30 times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. Roughly 2000 are maintained on high-alert status – ready to wreak havoc at any moment by accident or design.
A single nuclear bomb, if detonated on a large city, could kill millions of people. No effective humanitarian response would be possible, with most medical infrastructure in the city destroyed and any outside relief efforts severely hampered by high levels of radioactivity – a silent, scentless, invisible and persistent killer.
The only sane path is to eliminate these monstrous weapons from all national arsenals without delay. Nuclear disarmament is not just an option; it is mandated by international law. But nuclear powers and their allies, including Australia, are resisting progress towards abolition.
A comprehensive convention banning the nuclear bomb is long overdue. Australia should drive the international push for negotiations – just as the Labor Party promised it would do prior to winning government in 2007.
Similar agreements have been concluded to outlaw and eliminate other categories of weapons deemed by the international community to cause unacceptable humanitarian harm – from biological and chemical weapons to land mines and cluster bombs. All of these treaties have changed state practice and resulted in meaningful disarmament.
The New START agreement recently concluded by Russia and the United States is a move in the right direction, but it will only result in modest cuts to the two nations’ sizeable arsenals. The three other NPT nuclear weapon states – Britain, France and China – have little to show in terms of actual disarmament, and nothing much has been done to bring Israel, India and Pakistan into a multilateral disarmament process.
In spite of the support declared by some nuclear-armed states for “a world free of nuclear weapons”, all are investing heavily in the modernisation of their nuclear forces – which is incompatible with the requirements of international law.
In 2011 they will spend an estimated $100 billion between them bolstering their nuclear arsenals. This sum is equal to the UN regular budget for 50 years. According to the World Bank, an annual investment of just half that amount – between $40 and $60 billion – would be enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals to end extreme poverty worldwide.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons revealed this May through FOI laws that the Future Fund – which invests Australian taxpayers’ money – has holdings worth $135 million in 15 companies that manufacture nuclear weapons for the US, Britain, France and India.
These investments hamper disarmament efforts and go against the Future Fund’s own stated policy not to invest in companies involved in economic activities that are illegal in Australia or contravene conventions to which we are a party. The Fund should divest from these companies, just as it has, commendably, divested from companies that produce land mines and cluster munitions.
So long as Australia continues to claim the protection of US nuclear weapons, its credibility as a disarmament advocate will be greatly diminished. With a US president sympathetic to the cause of disarmament, the time is ideal for Australia to adopt a nuclear-weapon-free defence posture and begin contributing meaningfully towards nuclear abolition.
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The Anti-Nuclear Mountain Is Being Scaled
A three-week global speaking tour has convinced me that the world is moving into a new stage in the long quest to eliminate nuclear weapons. Weakened government ideology in support of nuclear weapons is now colliding with chronic deficits and other economic realities that make them unaffordable.
I found this a consistent theme in meetings with senior government officials in China, India, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom. In the discussions surrounding my lectures to university students, think tanks and civil society groups, it became clear to me that the intellectual case for nuclear deterrence is crumbling. Even in NATO headquarters in Brussels, where my arguments for nuclear disarmament in past visits were greeted by the derisory comment, “mission impossible,” the response this time could be characterized as “mission maybe.”
In addition to speaking on the themes of my book, How We Stopped Loving the Bomb, I presented a new brief, “A Global Law to Ban Nuclear Weapons,” prepared by the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI) and containing a central message: “It is urgent to seize the present opportunity, and to begin, soon, collective preparatory work leading to enactment of a universal, verifiable and enforceable legal ban on nuclear weapons.”
MPI has drafted a UN resolution, which would request the UN Secretary-General to convene a diplomatic conference in 2014 to negotiate a global ban on nuclear weapons. But governments are balking at such “swift action,” and it may be that the best that can be obtained at the moment is agreement to have an Experts Group advise on steps that could lead to a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
The reluctance by governments to actually start working comprehensively on at least preparations for a convention, which would be a global treaty, appears on the surface to be yet another rebuff to nuclear disarmament advocates. “It’s like a bucket of cold water thrown on us,” an activist in London complained. But a physician of long experience likened the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons to the early days of the anti-smoking campaign when the scorn of smokers evolved into a new societal attitude against smoking.
My world tour showed me that the anti-nuclear weapons campaign is following the classic lines of other great social movements, such as the end of slavery, colonialism and apartheid: at first, the idea is dismissed by the powerful, then when the idea starts to take hold, it is vigorously objected to until, by persistence, the idea enters the norm of public thinking and laws start to be changed.
The emerging campaign to abolish nuclear weapons does not follow a straight path. In China, I was told that the government is ready to engage in multilateral negotiations but first wants to see more progress in bilateral agreements between the US and Russia, which hold the lion’s share of the 20,000 nuclear weapons in existence. In India, the public takes pride in their new acquisition of nuclear weapons in the mistaken belief that they would be of some use in the continuing conflict with Pakistan, but senior political officials are looking for a way to get global negotiations started. In Russia, officials told me that US plans for a missile defence system in Europe along with other aspects of American military dominance, such as the weaponization of space, are an impediment to further agreements to lower the level of nuclear weapons.
All governments make excuses for resisting collaborative efforts for a global ban. Even in Norway, Sweden and Germany, three countries thought to have progressive policies, the bureaucracies are sluggish, playing an “After you, Alphonse” game of delaying the definitive action of calling a conference to start working on a ban. The UK officials I talked to conceded the merits of the MPI brief (and even invited me back), but are locked into temporary growth of their unaffordable Trident nuclear system by a combination of political pressures from the right wing and the felt need for coherence with the US and France.
Governments around the world today are relying on obfuscation to make their case for the retention of nuclear weapons. The ideology that drove the escalation of nuclear weapons in the Cold War is long gone, younger officials are coming into status positions, and pragmatics are starting to determine how to maintain security without spending the $100 billion a year now devoured by the nuclear weapons industry for weapons whose use has been ruled out on military, political and moral grounds. Only the building of a global law, as was effected to ban chemical and biological weapons, remains to be done to free humanity from the spectre of mass destruction.
The nuclear mountain is high indeed. Scaling it is not for the faint-hearted. But a historic shift in attitudes is under way. And that shift is being hastened by the gradual recognition that the processes of globalization, which are elevating the standard of living for millions upon millions of people, should not be jeopardized by the squandering of money on military “junk.”
One unforgettable sight caught, for me, what the nuclear struggle is all about. In Shanghai one evening, I stood on the walkway along the Bund. On one side was the array of graceful 19th-century buildings, lit in soft amber colours. Then, turning, I saw across the river a dazzling spectacle of new skyscrapers garishly lit with flashing electronic signs. The old China and the new. The contrast is startling.
The new world, unfolding before our eyes, has huge problems, such as feeding the people and stopping pollution. It’s starting to realize it doesn’t have the time, or the money, to continue stock-piling nuclear weapons.
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What Nuclear Weapons Teach Us About Ourselves
Nuclear weapons are the most fearsome and destructive killing devices yet created by the human species. They have the capacity to destroy cities, countries and civilization. Yet, although these weapons give rise to some concern and worry, most humans on the planet are complacent about the inherent dangers of these weapons. It is worth exploring what our seeming indifference toward these weapons of mass annihilation teaches us about ourselves, and how we might remedy our malaise.
1. We are ill-informed. We appear to go about our daily lives with a self-assured degree of comfort that we will not be affected by the dangers of the weapons. We need more education about the extreme dangers and risks posed by nuclear weapons.
2. We are tribal. We divide ourselves into national tribes and identify with our own tribe while demonizing “the other.” We need to be more global in our thinking. We need to think as members of the human species, not as members of a national tribe.
3. We are self-serving. We see our own nuclear weapons and those of our allies as being positive and useful, while we view the nuclear weapons of our enemies as being negative and harmful. We need to realize that nuclear weapons, as instruments of indiscriminate mass destruction, are illegal, immoral and dangerous in any hands, including our own.
4. We are arrogant. We seem to take perverse pride in our cleverness at having created such overwhelmingly powerful weapons. We need to take pride in constructive uses of our science-based technologies, and recognize the inherent dangers and immorality of their destructive uses.
5. We are pathological. We rely for our protection upon these weapons that threaten to kill millions of innocent civilians. We need to realize that true security cannot be based upon the threat of mass murder of innocents.
6. We are deluded. We believe that we will not survive threats from “the other” if we do not rely upon these weapons of mass annihilation for our security. We need to engage “the other” in dialogue until we realize that our common humanity supersedes our differences, and our common future demands our unity.
7. We are reckless. We are willing to bet the human species and the human future that we can keep these weapons under control. We need to stop playing Russian roulette with the human future.
8. We are foolish. We trust our leaders to act responsibly, so as to keep nuclear weapons under control. We need to realize that this is too great a responsibility for any person and that all leaders do not act responsibly at all times.
9. We are timid. We do not challenge the status quo, which gives rise to such extreme dangers. We need to confront the challenges posed by nuclear weapons and give voice to our legitimate fears of the weapons themselves.
10. We are adolescent. As a species, we have not matured to the point of taking responsibility for, and directly confronting, the nuclear threat to ourselves and future generations. We need to grow up and take responsibility to assure our common future for ourselves and generations yet unborn.
Individually and collectively, we are threatened by nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries. If we fail to act expeditiously to abolish these arsenals, the consequence is likely to be nuclear weapons proliferation to other countries and eventually their use. The question that confronts humanity is: Can we end the nuclear era and ensure our survival as a species? To do this, we will need to change our thinking about the weapons and about ourselves. I think this is what Albert Einstein was alluding to when he said, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Preventing such catastrophes must begin with changing our thinking, followed by engaging in actions to end the danger. Species-wide threats must be faced with species-wide awareness and engagement.
The further question that awaits an answer, assuming we can change our modes of thinking, is whether we are sufficiently powerful to control and eliminate the threats posed by the weapons. Individually we are not and nationally we are not. But collectively and globally we have the potential to assert a constructive power for change that is far greater than the destructive power of the weapons themselves.
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Dysfunctional Disarmament
As the United Nations Conference on Disarmament begins a seven-week session in Geneva, its future is on the line. Whereas countries and civil-society initiatives are on the move, the Conference has stagnated. Its credibility – indeed, its very legitimacy – is at risk.
The “CD,” as it is informally known, has long served as the world’s only multilateral forum for negotiating disarmament. Its many impressive accomplishments include the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Much of this progress was achieved during the Cold War, proving that it is possible to create global legal norms even in times of deep political division.
Yet today, all is not well at the CD. It operates under a consensus rule, and its member states have different priorities. Some want negotiations on nuclear disarmament; others want to ban the production of fissile material for weapon purposes; and still others insist that such a treaty should also cover existing stocks. Some want a treaty on security guarantees for non-nuclear-weapon states to assure them against the threat or use of nuclear weapons; others want a treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space.
But, instead of compromise and the give-and-take of good-faith discussions, there has been paralysis. There was a brief glimmer of hope in 2009, when the sense of paralysis led the Conference to consensus on a program of work. Unfortunately, that agenda was never implemented. As a result, the CD has failed to make any substantive progress for 15 years. We simply must not let one lost decade turn into a second.
The CD’s future is in the hands of its member states. But the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda is too important to let the CD lapse into irrelevancy as states consider other negotiating arenas. Last September, I convened a high-level meeting at the UN to consider ways to revitalize the CD’s work and to advance multilateral disarmament negotiations.
The participants – who included dozens of foreign ministers – were unanimous in stressing that membership of the CD is a privilege. So is the consensus rule. Just one or two countries should not be able to block the organization’s work indefinitely.
The message was clear: no more business as usual. The CD’s member states must recognize that the Conference’s future is at a critical juncture. Continued stalemate increases the risk that some like-minded countries might take up the matter elsewhere.
After all, the deadlock has ominous implications for international security; the longer it persists, the graver the nuclear threat – from existing arsenals, from the proliferation of such weapons, and from their possible acquisition by terrorists.
I have urged the CD to adopt an agenda based either on the consensus that was forged in 2009, or on an alternative arrangement. Upon my request, the UN’s entire membership will take up the matter in a first-of-its-kind General Assembly meeting this July. That schedule makes the CD’s current session crucial to its future.
Reaffirming the CD’s agenda offers the prospect of renewed negotiations on disarmament issues. Prior agreement on the scope or outcome should not be a precondition for talks – or an excuse to avoid them – but rather a subject of the negotiations themselves.
The current stalemate is all the more troubling in view of recent momentum on other disarmament tracks, including last year’s successful NPT Review Conference and heightened attention to nuclear security. With the world focused so intently on advancing disarmament goals, the CD should seize the moment.
Shakespeare once wrote that “there is a tide in the affairs of men.” The tide of disarmament is rising, yet the CD is in danger of sinking. And it will sink unless it fulfills its responsibility to act.
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Nuclear Disarmament Education
What is nuclear disarmament education?
The short answer to this question is that it is education that either reports on or promotes nuclear disarmament. Reporting on nuclear disarmament is journalistic. It tells what has happened, is happening or is expected to happen in the nuclear disarmament field. Reporting on nuclear disarmament is the way the subject might be handled in a college classroom or in a news article. It provides historical perspective, but often a nationalistic one.
The promotion of nuclear disarmament is far more difficult and also far more important. It involves attempting to shift mindsets and cultural frameworks. There are many myths about nuclear weapons that must be overcome before one can effectively promote nuclear disarmament.
Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons
1. The use of nuclear weapons ended World War II. (Their use coincided with the end of World War II, but did not cause it. The Japanese surrendered because the Soviet Union entered the war against them.)
2. Nuclear weapons have prevented war since their creation. (Again, causality is an issue. Despite nuclear weapons, there have been many wars since their creation.)
3. No country will actually use nuclear weapons. (Countries have come very close to using nuclear weapons, by accident or design, on many occasions.)
4. Nuclear weapons make a country more secure. (Arguably, nuclear weapons make a country far less secure. All countries with nuclear weapons are targeted by the nuclear weapons of other countries.)
5. Nuclear weapons are effective for deterrence. (Nuclear deterrence is only a theory. It is not proven, and it may fail catastrophically.)
Before people will support nuclear disarmament, they must be educated to believe that nuclear disarmament is in their interest. Some people must be moved from their support for nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence to support for nuclear disarmament. Other people, probably a far larger category, must be moved from complacency to support nuclear disarmament. Education must be aimed at overcoming ignorance and apathy to awaken and engage people in action for nuclear disarmament. In this sense, education must also be advocacy.
Much nuclear disarmament education comes from governments and political leaders, and it is quite limited in its vision. It seeks incremental steps in arms control rather than disarmament or abolition. Arms control can be viewed as a way to maintain nuclear arms at somewhat lower levels. I prefer to talk and write about reasons to oppose or abolish nuclear weapons.
Ten Reasons to Oppose Nuclear Weapons
1. They are long-distance killing machines incapable of discriminating between soldiers and civilians, the aged and the newly born, or between men, women and children. As such, they are instruments of dehumanization as well as annihilation.
2. They threaten the destruction of cities, countries and civilization; of all that is sacred, of all that is human, of all that exists. Nuclear war could cause deadly climate change, putting human existence at risk.
3. They threaten to foreclose the future, negating our common responsibility to future generations.
4. They make cowards of their possessors, and in their use there can be no decency or honor. This was recognized by most of the leading US military leaders of World War II, including General Dwight Eisenhower, General Hap Arnold, and Admiral William Leahy.
5. They divide the world’s nations into nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” bestowing false and unwarranted prestige and privilege on those that possess them.
6. They are a distortion of science and technology, siphoning off our scientific and technological resources and twisting our knowledge of nature to destructive purposes.
7. They mock international law, displacing it with an allegiance to raw power. The International Court of Justice has ruled that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal and any use that violated international humanitarian law would be illegal. It is virtually impossible to imagine a threat or use of nuclear weapons that would not violate international humanitarian law (fail to discriminate between soldiers and civilians, cause unnecessary suffering or be disproportionate to a preceding attack).
8. They waste our resources on the development of instruments of annihilation. The United States alone has spent over $7.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems since the onset of the Nuclear Age.
9. They concentrate power in the hands of a small group of individuals and, in doing so, undermine democracy.
10. They are morally abhorrent, as recognized by virtually every religious organization, and their mere existence corrupts our humanity.
These ten reasons to abolish nuclear weapons attempt to change a person’s mindset to become receptive to seeking the abolition of these weapons.
How can we engage in nuclear disarmament education?
Disarmament education generally takes place in the public arena, and thus is often dominated by the narrow and self-interested views of political leaders. In a world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” it is often the nuclear “haves” that dominate the debate. But it is the nuclear “have-nots,” along with civil society that see the dangers of nuclear weapons most clearly and who promote nuclear disarmament.
Let me describe some of disarmament education activities of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an organization that I helped to found 28 years ago and where I have served as president since its founding. Here are some of the educational activities we engage in to make the case for nuclear disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons:
1. Appeals, Declarations and Petitions (our latest Declaration is the Santa Barbara Declaration – Reject Nuclear Deterrence: An Urgent Call to Action)
2. Newspaper opinion pieces and magazine articles
3. Books, book chapters and briefing booklets
4. Websites (WagingPeace.org and NuclearFiles.org)
5. A monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower
6. Public lectures and other events
7. Essay and video contests
8. Poetry contests
9. Peace leadership awards
10. An Action Alert Network
11. Peace leadership trainings
You can find out more about these educational activities and sign up for them at www.wagingpeace.org.
The task of nuclear disarmament education is clearly not an easy one, but it is a necessary one. Nuclear disarmament will require an informed public, and an informed public will require education to stir them from their ignorance and apathy. To accomplish this will continue to require a great deal of creativity, as well as insistence and persistence to move both the public and political leaders to action. Civil society organizations are in the vanguard in this critical educational effort.
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Turning the Dream of a Nuclear-Free World Into a Reality
This article was originally published by The Hill.
Two years ago, President Obama spoke out for universal nuclear disarmament in Prague, saying that America would seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons “clearly and with conviction.” Similar statements came from Russian President Medvedev and other world leaders, culminating in September 2009 in an unprecedented UN Security Council meeting attended by the 15 members’ heads-of-state that resolved to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.
There has been some progress since this meeting; however, gains do not measure up to the goals set by the world’s leaders. There is the dream … and then there is the reality.
Russia and the US each retain thousands of nuclear warheads – more than 20,000 overall.
Then there are the smaller nuclear weapon states: China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and the UK – all of whom, with the exception of the Europeans, appear to be increasing their nuclear forces. And then there are the nuclear wannabees: Iran first in line, Syria next, perhaps Burma third, all being helped by North Korea.
While we can argue whether the world has moved forward or backward since the Prague declaration, it clearly remains a long way from realizing the dream. What should we do?
It is past time to ditch the piecemeal, open-ended arms control approach that the nuclear weapon states have pursued for decades. Here’s a straight-forward proposal to get things moving.
What if Presidents Obama and Medvedev appeared jointly before the UN General Assembly at its session this September and introduced a resolution determining that the possession of nuclear weapons is a crime against humanity, and calling all nuclear weapon states to commit themselves unequivocally to their elimination by a date certain?
This would go beyond establishing the Ought: nuclear weapons should be abolished. It would criminalize the possession of such weapons – immediately for most nations, somewhat later for the states currently possessing them. Such a resolution should also take the critical new step of directing the Security Council to figure out the How. The Council would be directed to establish a committee to negotiate within the coming year the detailed terms of the agreement.
A special committee is necessary as key states, such as Brazil, India, and Japan, which either have nuclear weapons or advanced nuclear technologies, but are not permanent members of the Security Council, would have to take part in the negotiations if the results are to be considered legitimate. The committee should not be so large that it is incapable of serious discussions, however, and, importantly, no member state should have a veto over its actions and decisions.
There already exists a UN agency charged with such matters, the Committee on Disarmament (CD), but as any member-state has the right to veto any of the CD’s decisions, even a decision to take up an agenda item, it has been unable to hold substantive discussion for the past 14 years. The new committee should operate by majority, or reasonable super-majority, vote. In the end, all states will retain a veto in that they will each choose whether or not to sign and ratify the disarmament treaty that results from the committee’s deliberations, but they should not be permitted to stand in the way of its completion.
No doubt some of the nuclear weapon states will refuse to take part in the negotiation; the drafting should go ahead anyway. No doubt, once completed, some, perhaps many, states will refuse to sign or ratify the treaty. The US and Russia could begin to implement it anyway.
The point is to begin to disarm on a clear timetable, showing people and officials in all nations that the leading nuclear powers are serious about their commitment, thereby strengthening efforts to secure nuclear materials and to stem proliferation, and creating strong pressures for others to follow suit.
Many will say this path is too risky. We say to stay on the current path is suicidal.