Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Disarmament

  • President Obama Needs Friends on Nuclear Weapons

    This article was originally published by Embassy Magazine

    When President Barack Obama chairs a summit of the UN Security Council Sept. 24 on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, a new and exciting moment will have arrived in the long struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons. This unprecedented event gives Canada a rare political opportunity to obtain several political goals with one stroke.

    We must understand how high the stakes are in this new round of the nuclear poker game. Unlike his predecessors, President Obama has moved nuclear disarmament to the centre of US foreign policy. He said in his Prague speech in April that he has a “commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” He has re-launched nuclear negotiations with Russia, stated that he will “aggressively pursue” US ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), started work on a verifiable fissile material ban, and announced he will host a global summit on nuclear security next spring.

    All this will prepare the US for a leadership role at the 2010 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, preparations for which have already been energized by the stunning U-turn in US nuclear diplomacy. From being the biggest obstacle to nuclear disarmament, the US, under Obama, is poised to become a vigorous proponent.

    The nuclear weapons abolition movement sees news rays of hope.

    But wait a minute. A landmine is waiting to trip up Obama. The nuclear defenders, led by the military-industrial complex and their Congressional spokespersons, are by no means succumbing to the aspirations of their president. They are determined that the US maintain what they call a “safe, secure, effective and reliable nuclear deterrent.”

    Former US defense secretary Jim Schlesinger is trying to frame the all-important US Nuclear Posture Review, now being brought up to date, around the concept of “extended deterrence.” The US, it is argued, needs an effective, if smaller, nuclear arsenal to counter a nuclear threat anywhere.

    This means that the US would keep its nuclear weapons to protect not only itself but its allies who do not possess nuclear weapons. In other words, so the argument goes, the US would be weakening itself and also letting down its friends if it gave up its nuclear weapons. If Schlesinger & Co. can get “extended deterrence” written into the new Nuclear Posture Review, scheduled for publication in December, this will stop Obama cold in his quest for a nuclear weapons-free world.

    The nuclear defenders have already signalled that they will not oppose US ratification of the CTBT if they get “extended deterrence” codified. This will allow them to modernize US nuclear arsenals indefinitely through lab work rather than explosive testing. They think this “carrot”—CTBT ratification—will be enough to get the US safely through the 2010 NPT Review.

    A huge fight is looming because Obama knows he cannot be left in an incoherent position: calling for a nuclear weapons-free world while the US modernizes its nuclear arsenal on the supposed grounds that it must do so to protect its allies. This is but a perpetuation of the two-class nuclear world and is completely unsustainable in the 21st century.

    There is only one way to prevent North Korea and Iran and any other aspiring nuclear state from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that is through a global, verifiable ban on all nuclear weapons. Putin of Russia and Singh of India, to name just two of the other leaders of nuclear powers, understand this and are ready to move to comprehensive negotiations toward a global ban. In Obama, we see for the first time the abolition of nuclear weapons moving from aspiration to the strategic centre.

    This final dismantling of the Cold War architecture will be a Herculean task. Fearmongers who pretend nuclear weapons bring security will shout from the rooftops. Though such former US officials as Henry Kissinger and George Schultz have given their support to the abolition of nuclear weapons, they have been countered by others, such as Richard Perle and Sen. John Kyle, who are urging the US to keep nuclear weapons “for the foreseeable future.”

    In short, Obama, no matter how well motivated, cannot bring us to a nuclear weapons-free world alone. In addition to powerful domestic support, he needs strong international backing. The countries that are friends of the US—those very states that are said to be depending on the US nuclear umbrella—now need to speak up and blow away the phony “extended deterrence” argument. This brings us to Canada.

    A nuclear weapons-free world has always been a value and a goal of Canada. We have been prevented from fully exercising that value because of the need to support the US, which until now has always wanted to maintain its nuclear stocks. Suddenly, the Obama moment gives Canada an opening to demonstrate its seriousness in nuclear disarmament.

    The Harper government must be urged to recognize the importance of this moment. Sadly, the government seems tongue-tied. There is no program of work, no clear-cut statements from political leaders, and indeed the last round of UN voting showed Canada clinging to negative votes on time-bound measures for nuclear disarmament.

    To me, this is politically incomprehensible. This is the very moment that Canada should be openly and loudly supporting the president of the United States (a posture that otherwise Canadians are accustomed to). Obama desperately needs the help of his friends. Let us give it to him. When Harper meets with Obama on Sept. 16 in Washington, the Canadian leader should put this support high on the agenda.

    There’s plenty of support in Canada for the prime minister to move: 280 recipients of the Order of Canada have called for international negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would be a verifiable treaty on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons; four major peace groups (Canadian Pugwash, Science for Peace, Physicians for Global Survival and Voice of Women) are planning a “Zero Nuclear Weapons” forum at Toronto City Hall Nov. 13-14 where the keynote speaker will be the pre-eminent author Jonathan Schell; the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is scheduling a major meeting in Ottawa in January.

    Besides this public support, there are a couple of other political points the government might consider. If Canada wants to reject any overtures from the US and NATO to extend our combat role in Afghanistan beyond 2011, how better to match this rejection than with whole-hearted support for Obama’s nuclear disarmament plans. And then there’s the matter of Canada wanting a seat on the UN Security Council. Would there be a better demonstration of our sense of international responsibility than playing a serious role with Obama and other like-minded states in working actively to make a reality the vision of a world without nuclear weapons? In politics, that’s called win-win.

    Douglas Roche is a former senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament. He is chairman emeritus of the Middle Powers Initiative.

  • The Hawkish Case for Nuclear Disarmament

    This article was originally published by the Los Angeles Times

    Last week, peace activists around the world commemorated the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arguing that nuclear weapons should be abolished so that such destruction will never be repeated. Their call for peace through disarmament has traditionally been a rallying cry of the left. In fact, the peace sign, that ultimate icon of 1960s war protests, is actually a rendering of the semaphoric symbols for the letters “N” and “D”: “Nuclear Disarmament.”
    Conservatives, by contrast, have put their faith in “peace through strength,” an ancient notion made fresh during the Cold War by Ronald Reagan. Which is why, in April, when President Obama outlined his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, the right reacted with incredulity, as if he had suggested pacifying the Taliban with a group hug. Newt Gingrich, for one, called the president’s disarmament speech a “fantasy.”
    As the president moves to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal in concert with Russia’s and implement new arms control measures, the allegedly foolish goal of disarmament has become an obvious target for hawks hoping to undermine the president’s agenda. But if the abolition of nuclear weapons is a fantasy, it’s one that ought to excite the country’s hawks as much as its doves.
    Traditionally, military power was measured in relative, not absolute, terms, meaning that your security was a function not of how many weapons you had, but of how many more you had than your enemy. The advent of nuclear weapons skewed that calculation. Because it would take only a few nuclear weapons to destroy a civilization, the atomic bomb became an equalizer for Davids confronting Goliath-sized enemies.
    During the Cold War, one could argue that that dynamic helped the U.S. because Warsaw Pact forces outnumbered NATO’s. But today, with the specter of rogue-state nuclear programs, it’s more likely that we are the ones who would be deterred. For example, would we have waged Operation Desert Storm (let alone Operation Iraqi Freedom) if Saddam Hussein had been able to strike New York or Washington with a nuclear weapon? Probably not. Our half-trillion-dollar-a-year military can, in essence, be defanged by any dictator with a handful of A-bombs.
    That is a remarkable waste of America’s incredible conventional superiority. Our fleet of stealth fighters and bombers can establish air dominance in virtually any scenario, allowing us to obliterate an adversary’s military infrastructure at will. At sea, our fleet is larger than the next 17 navies combined and includes 11 carrier battle groups that can project power around the globe. (By contrast, few of our potential adversaries field even a single carrier.) All in all, the U.S. accounts for just shy of half the world’s defense spending, more than the next 45 nations combined. That’s six times more than China, 10 times more than Russia and nearly 100 times more than Iran.

    Yet despite potential flash points with nations such as Russia (over Georgia) or China (over Taiwan), it would be lunacy to engage in combat with either because of the risk of escalation to a nuclear conflict. Abolishing nuclear weapons would obviously not make conflict with those states a good idea, but it would dramatically increase American freedom of action in a crisis. That should make hawks, with their strong faith in the efficacy of American military power, very happy. Indeed, if anyone opposes disarmament, it should be our rivals.
    American conservatives cling to our arsenal as though it gives us great sway over foreign countries. Yet when our conventional power has proved insufficient, nukes have done little to augment our influence abroad.
    In the early years of the Cold War, when we had a nuclear monopoly, the Soviet Union reneged on promises made at Yalta and solidified its control over Eastern Europe. In 1949, despite our assistance to the Kuomintang, the Chinese Communists took over the mainland and formed the People’s Republic, and the following year they stormed across the Yalu River and into the Korean War even though our atomic arsenal could have wiped out their cities as easily as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Years later, the bomb did nothing to prevent, shorten or decide the Vietnam War. And, of course, nukes have provided no assistance in stabilizing Iraq or Afghanistan. Today, they threaten us far more than they protect us: Nuclear terrorism is the greatest threat we face, but our own nuclear arsenal cannot protect us from an attack.
    Nuclear weapons do deter states from attacking us with nuclear weapons — and few would suggest that we unilaterally give up our arsenal while others retain theirs. But, oddly, it is here that conservatives seem to doubt the utility of nuclear weapons more than their counterparts on the left. Whereas many liberals and realists believe that Iran could be deterred if it built the bomb, conservatives are far less sanguine, insisting that a nuclear Tehran is an unacceptable threat. They too understand that the U.S. arsenal is no guarantor of security, and that even a handful of nuclear weapons in enemy hands threatens to neuter our conventional advantage.
    Of course, we’re a long way from disarmament. But, today, beyond the small number of weapons each nuclear state can justify as a credible deterrent, every additional weapon represents only a greater risk — of theft, accident or unauthorized use. Which is why the president’s efforts to reduce the U.S. and Russian arsenals, ban nuclear testing and prevent the further production of fissile material are so valuable. Each of these measures will help protect the U.S., and if they bring us closer to disarmament, then that is a cause for celebration by hawks and doves alike.

    Peter Scoblic is executive editor of the New Republic and author of “U.S. vs. Them: Conservatism in the Age of Nuclear Terror.”

  • 64 Years and Counting

    This editorial was originally published by Asahi Shimbun on August 6, 2009

    This summer has special significance for Hiroshima and Nagasaki in that it is the first since U.S. President Barack Obama gave his landmark speech in Prague in April to declare that the United States will “take concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons.”

    It is enormously significant that Obama said the United States, as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, has “a moral responsibility to act.” But this is not the only reason why his Prague speech was so galvanizing.

    In this age of globalization, the world is becoming increasingly interdependent. A nuclear explosion in any major city in the world would not only kill a great number of people but also bring the global economic system to the brink of collapse. The consequences would be the same whether it was a nuclear strike or a terrorist attack.

    The argument that nuclear deterrence is more effective in securing stability around the world still enjoys considerable support among the nuclear powers and their allies. But succumbing to the allure of nuclear deterrence could result in the acceleration of nuclear proliferation. The world is also facing a real danger of nuclear arms falling into the hands of terrorists. If that nightmare becomes reality, the risks would be immeasurable.

    What must be done? Shouldn’t we come up with a new security strategy to move toward a nuclear-free world? That is the question posed by Obama.

    On Obama’s initiative, it has been decided that leaders of the United Nations Security Council member countries will meet on Sept. 24 to discuss nuclear issues. No pre-emptive nuclear attacks

    Creating a security framework that doesn’t rely on nuclear arms will require formulating and implementing a broad array of policies. We have a raft of proposals for countries that have nuclear arsenals. In particular, we want them to work on spreading the “nonnuclear umbrella.”

    The idea is that nuclear powers will pledge not to use nuclear weapons against any nonnuclear countries that are part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). If this is established as a global rule, nonnuclear parties of the treaty could significantly reduce their risks of coming under nuclear attack. This is how the nonnuclear umbrella works.

    Expanding the nonnuclear umbrella would help decrease the role of nuclear weapons and lead to a substantial reduction in the number of nuclear weapons in the world. This approach, which would contribute to both arms reduction and global security, should be promoted as much as possible while Obama is in office.

    There are many ways to expand the nonnuclear umbrella. One would be a Security Council resolution that bans nuclear attacks against nonnuclear countries in the NPT camp. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has said that it is possible for the Security Council permanent members, which are all nuclear powers, to guarantee they will not use nuclear arms to attack countries without nuclear capability. Such a Security Council resolution should be adopted as soon as possible.

    A second way would make use of nuclear-free zone treaties. There are treaties on nuclear-weapon-free zones for five regions–Latin America, the South Pacific, Africa, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. The treaty for Africa has not yet come into force. Each of these treaties comes with a protocol that commits the nuclear powers to refraining from nuclear attacks against the treaty participants.

    Only the nuclear-free zone treaty for Latin America, however, has been ratified by all the five original members of the nuclear club–the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. The nonnuclear umbrella should be established as an obligation under international law through efforts to put the treaty for Africa into effect as soon as possible and to have the nuclear powers ratify all the protocols to those treaties.

    A third way would be for nuclear-armed nations to declare that they will not stage pre-emptive nuclear strikes and thereby confine the role of their arsenals to deterrence to nuclear attacks from other countries. Since nonnuclear countries cannot stage nuclear attacks, such declarations by nuclear-capable nations would spread the nonnuclear umbrella drastically.

    The Japanese government is cautious about the United States vowing not to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes. North Korea has conducted nuclear tests, and the reclusive regime may have biological and chemical weapons as well. Japan’s position is that the option of a pre-emptive nuclear strike by the United States should be left open to deter Pyongyang from using those weapons.

    However, the credibility of Japan’s nonnuclear diplomacy would be badly damaged if Tokyo emphasizes the importance of nuclear deterrence too much and obstructs Obama’s efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and promote nuclear disarmament. Even if it wants to keep nuclear deterrence intact for the time being, Japan should adopt a policy of promoting the nonnuclear umbrella. Nuclear-free zone in Northeast Asia

    One worthwhile idea would be a nuclear-free zone treaty for Northeast Asia. Japan and South Korea could take the initiative by signing such a treaty first and putting it into force. If the United States, China and Russia all ratify a protocol that bans them from launching nuclear attacks against Japan and South Korea, a nonnuclear umbrella would be raised for the region.

    North Korea should be able to join the treaty for protection under the nonnuclear umbrella after it abandons its nuclear program and returns to the NPT. This prospect would give North Korea a strong incentive to abandon its nuclear ambitions and help bolster regional stability.

    It is also vital to deal with China’s rapid military buildup. During the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue meeting in Washington in July, Obama underlined the importance of bilateral cooperation. He cited the denuclearization of North Korea as one such policy challenge, saying neither Washington nor Beijing has an interest in a nuclear arms race in East Asia. “A balance of terror cannot hold,” he said in his speech at the conference.

    The U.S. and Chinese economies are rapidly become entwined. Their relations are completely different from those between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Back then, the two superpowers could have destroyed the other’s industry without suffering much damage to its own economy. Integrating China into arms reduction

    Japan should understand the reality of the U.S.-China relationship and propose a plan for enhancing regional stability while curtailing the role of nuclear arms in Northeast Asia. The Japan-U.S. security alliance should evolve from the current security architecture based primarily on nuclear deterrence into a platform for broader cooperation to expand the nonnuclear umbrella and enhance arms control in the region. That would give a big boost to efforts to engage China in nuclear disarmament efforts.

    The problem of nuclear proliferation in the world is linked closely to regional and religious conflicts. India and Pakistan have both carried out nuclear tests. Israel is widely regarded as a virtual nuclear power. Iran is continuing with its program to enrich uranium. Regional or religious conflicts are behind all these examples of nuclear proliferation.

    Pushing these countries into giving up their nuclear ambitions will require tenacious efforts to resolve the conflicts and convince them that they only endanger themselves by possessing nuclear arsenals.

    As the only country to have come under nuclear attack, Japan should make greater contributions to such diplomatic efforts.

    Asahi Shimbun is Japan’s leading newspaper.

  • In the Shadow of Hiroshima

    On 6 August 1945, in total disregard of the basic tenets of science and civilization, the first Atom Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which created a new war paradigm: destroy an entire city. On 9 August, the second atom bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki. The sole purpose of creating the nuclear war science was to destroy and dominate other human beings. The law of war was, for 5000 years human history, not to attack unarmed civilians. Women, children, the sick and wounded were always protected. There were thousands of wounded war victims and the sick in Hiroshima and Nagasaki hospitals. Tens of thousands of unarmed citizens irrespective of gender, class, race, region and religion were killed instantly. This law of warfare was violated by a technically advanced nation that claimed, “In God We Trust” and swore by the Christian morality.

    Today, in spite of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there are about 26,000 nuclear warheads mostly in the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia. Also, there are up to 2,000,000 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). It takes just 15-24 kilograms of HEU to make a nuclear bomb. There are 28 countries with the capacity to build at least one bomb and 12 countries with the capacity to make 20 bombs. Moreover, all “peaceful” nuclear power reactors add to ‘spent’ fuel which can be reprocessed to produce weapons grade plutonium. According to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, some 500,000 kilograms of plutonium is presently in global stockpiles. This is a threat to world peace and security.

    The dilemma of our Nuclear Age is that while “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself,” according to George Bernard Shaw. Today, we recall the heroic act of Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov who was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his opposition to nuclear weapons. But it was his whistle blowing against the nuclear arms race that guided Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the Cold War to an end. Dr. Sakharov had challenged the power of the state in the cause of world peace. In the history of science, the role of Sakharov proved decisive in defending human rights and civilization.

    My country, India, is committed to a No First Use doctrine, but that does not prevent some reckless enemy or terrorist from striking first with a nuclear bomb. Pakistan’s nuclear program is India-specific and there is possibility of a Pakistani bomb falling in the hands of jihadis. Therefore, the Indian establishment considered it prudent to go for a “credible nuclear deterrence policy,” which intends to survive an initial atomic attack and be ready for an overwhelming retaliatory nuclear strike. Our credible nuclear deterrence is in place with the “specialized forces to tackle nuclear threat in all its dimensions”. But Indian Parliament has not debated the nuclear policy. Nor has there been any national debate, or any popular anti-nuclear campaign in the country. The patriotism of any whistleblower is questioned and no scientist can speak the truth.

    But by building the credible nuclear deterrence, we are repeating the folly of the Cold War pundits who in 1950s regarded nuclear weapons as the currency of power. By 1985, Moscow and Washington both had stockpiled 50,000 nuclear warheads with total Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) capability ten times over. However, by the 80s, concerned scientists established the Nuclear Nights and Nuclear Winter paradigm, declaring that “a nuclear war cannot be fought, nor can it be won.” But the Nuclear Non-Proliferation policy posed a complex and costly problem of decommissioning and safe keeping of thousands of useless but life-threatening nuclear warheads.

    Historically, Hiroshima remains a sad reminder of misuse of science. Science became identified with death and destruction. “We, scientists, have a great deal to answer for,” lamented Nobel Peace Prize recipient the late Joseph Rotblat. It is also a sad reality that the most civilized citizens around the globe still support the nuclear arms race. Admittedly, the scientists’ fraternity cannot live in isolation free from chauvinistic effects when the public and the political leaders think of nuclear weapons in terms of old warfare. But nuclear weapons have the potential of total destruction of all nations. As David Krieger of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation rightly says, “One bomb could destroy one city. A few bombs could destroy a country and a few (more) dozen nuclear bombs could reduce civilization to total ruins.” In a nuclear war there will be no victor, no vanquished.

    On this day of Hiroshima and Nagasaki let us remind ourselves that nuclear weapons are not selectively discriminatory. In fact, they are inclusively destructive to all –life irrespective of gender, caste, creed, race, region or religion. Still the mad nuclear arms race is high on the agenda of most super-patriots and religious fanatics. Concerned scientists have, therefore, appealed to the political leaders and governments of all colors and creed to give up the nuclear weapons.

    This Hiroshima day, we welcome the news that the U.S. President Barack Obama and the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have signed an agreement to further reduce the stockpiles of nuclear warheads. President Obama is expected to support the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and strengthening the United Nations.
    It was George Santayana, the philosopher who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” On this Hiroshima Day, we call upon the leaders of India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea to desist the nuclear temptation. We also appeal to the Indian Parliament to declare the entire South Asian sub-continent a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.

    Professor Dhirendra Sharma is author of India’s Nuclear Estate and Convener of Concerned Scientists and Philosophers.

  • Ease Their Pain

    This article was originally published in the Ottawa Citizen

    On Aug. 6, 2002, I had the privilege and responsibility of representing UN secretary general Kofi Annan at the ceremony commemorating the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. The event is at once haunting, sombre and soul-cleansing. Some 40,000 people assemble in the sultry heat to recall the searing, dazzling blast that announced the birth of the atomic age with the death of a hundred thousand people at one stroke and the horror-filled stories of the larger number of survivors.

    There is a word in Japanese, hibakusha (“explosion-affected people”), that describes the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Truly the living envied the dead. As of last year, there were just over a quarter million hibakusha recognized by the Japanese government. On March 24 this year, the government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi as a double survivor. In Hiroshima on a business trip on Aug. 6, 1945, he decided to return home to Nagasaki the day before it too was bombed on Aug. 9. There are times when belief in karma (loosely translated as destiny) becomes a comforting solace.

    The A-bomb was developed during the Second World War at the top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico by a group of scientists brought together in the Manhattan Project under the directorship of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Canada’s National Film Board has made an excellent documentary, called The Strangest Dream, about the only scientist to resign from the Manhattan Project, the Nobel Peace Laureate Joseph Rotblat.

    The bomb’s first successful test, Trinity, was carried out on July 16 at the White Sands Missile Range. Witnessing that, Oppenheimer famously recalled the sacred Hindu text the Bhagavad Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendour of the mighty one.” Of course, birth and death are symbiotically linked in the cycle of life. So Oppenheimer recalled too the matching verse from the Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

    The same duality is omnipresent in every aspect of Hiroshima. The Aug. 6 ceremony is incredibly moving and indelibly poignant. The cenotaph memorializing the bombing is set in a beautiful peace park that was designed shortly after the war by Kenzo Tange, one of Japan’s most famous postwar architects. (Coincidentally, he was also the architect for the United Nations University building in Tokyo, where I worked for almost a decade.) The names of the atomic bomb victims are inscribed on the arc-shaped cenotaph which stands atop a reflecting pool. Every year on Aug. 6, the living gather there to atone for the dead.

    The park is framed at one end by the Atomic Bomb Dome, a structure that survived the blast in skeleton form and today functions as one of the most iconic and recognizable images of the horrors of atomic weapons, and a potent rallying point for the anti-nuclear peace movement. It has been inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. At the other end of the park is the Peace Museum that houses various memorabilia and displays. Again, it is difficult not be shocked into contemplation of human folly and our capacity to inflict pain on one another by many of the images and items, for example spectacles that fused onto facial bones in the intense heat of the radiation.

    For world leaders going to certain countries in Europe, it is obligatory to visit sites like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, pay respects to the victims lest we forget, and offer silent prayers for their souls. I am yet to understand what it is about western culture that holds leaders back from the same gesture to a common human history when they visit Japan. I was told that no serving U.S. leader has ever visited Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Would such a visit raise unnecessary controversy by suggesting penance? Is it not possible to recognize and honour a defining event in human history without implying guilt? Will the “yes we can” president dare to break the taboo and act on his dream of a world free of nuclear weapons and nuclear dread?

    We tend to remember the consequences of what others do to us, and so grievance festers. We know why we did what we did to others, and so that becomes justified, and we are puzzled that the others should still bear a grudge. It is rare to find former enemies join in common atonement of a shared human tragedy.

    Yet that surely is what Hiroshima symbolizes, and it is in the recognition of our common humanity that we shall find redemption. The citizens of Hiroshima, in rebuilding their city, have consecrated it as a testimonial to social resilience, human solidarity and nuclear abolition.

    Then there is the beautiful story of the cranes. Sadako Sasaki, two when she was exposed to the Hiroshima bombing, fell ill in 1954 and was diagnosed to be suffering from leukemia. Serene in the belief that folding 1,000 paper cranes would fulfil her wish for a normal life, she was still short of the magic number (she had the time but not the paper) when she died on Oct. 25, 1955. Friends completed her task and 1,000 cranes were buried with her. As her story spread, a children’s peace monument was built in the Peace Park from funds donated from across the country. By now around 10 million cranes are offered annually before her monument, where she stands with her arms fully stretched overhead holding up a giant, stylized folded paper crane.

    Hiroshima, once again a beautiful, scenic and thriving city, lives by three codes: To forgive and atone, but never to forget; never again; and transformation from a military city to a city of peace.

    The sacred Buddhist text The Dhammapada tells us:

    We are what we think

    All that we are arises with our thoughts

    With our thoughts we make the world.

    Thursday, as we mark the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, let us join together in turning our thoughts to the three inspiring principles that symbolize death, destruction and resurrection. What we need is a multi-phased roadmap to abolition that prioritizes concrete immediate steps in the first couple of years such as introducing more robust firewalls to separate possession from use of nuclear weapons; further significant cuts in existing nuclear arsenals and a freeze on production of fissile materials in the medium term of up to three years; a verifiable and enforceable new international nuclear weapons convention within a target timeframe of about five years; and their total and verified destruction in 10 to 20 years.

    By these actions shall we release the souls of the atomic dead, ease the pain of the hibakusha, and liberate ourselves from bondage to a weapon that does not increase our net security but does diminish our common humanity.

    Ramesh Thakur is director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and a distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario.

  • My Plan to Drop the Bomb

    The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 marked an end and a beginning. The close of the Second World War ushered in a Cold War, with a precarious peace based on the threat of mutually assured destruction.
    Today the world is at another turning point. The assumption that nuclear weapons are indispensable to keeping the peace is crumbling. Disarmament is back on the global agenda – and not a moment too soon. A groundswell of new international initiatives will soon emerge to move this agenda forward.
    The Cold War’s end, twenty years ago this autumn, was supposed to provide a peace dividend. Instead, we find ourselves still facing serious nuclear threats. Some stem from the persistence of more than 20,000 nuclear weapons and the contagious doctrine of nuclear deterrence. Others relate to nuclear tests—more than a dozen in the post-Cold War era, aggravated by the constant testing of long-range missiles. Still others arise from concerns that more countries or even terrorists might be seeking the bomb.
    For decades, we believed that the terrible effects of nuclear weapons would be sufficient to prevent their use. The superpowers were likened to a pair of scorpions in a bottle, each knowing a first strike would be suicidal. Today’s expanding nest of scorpions, however, means that no one is safe. The Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States—holders of the largest nuclear arsenals—recognize this. They have endorsed the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, most recently at their Moscow summit, and are seeking new reductions.
    Many efforts are underway worldwide to achieve this goal. Earlier this year, the 65-member Conference on Disarmament—the forum that produces multilateral disarmament treaties—broke a deadlock and agreed to negotiations on a fissile material treaty. Other issues it will discuss include nuclear disarmament and security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states.
    In addition, Australia and Japan have launched a major international commission on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. My own multimedia “WMD—WeMustDisarm!” campaign, which will culminate on the International Day of Peace (21 September), will reinforce growing calls for disarmament by former statesmen and grassroots campaigns, such as “Global Zero.” These calls will get a further boost in September when civil society groups gather in Mexico City for a UN-sponsored conference on disarmament and development.
    Though the UN has been working on disarmament since 1946, two treaties negotiated under UN auspices are now commanding the world’s attention. Also in September, countries that have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will meet at the UN to consider ways to promote its early entry into force. North Korea’s nuclear tests, its missile launches and its threats of further provocation lend new urgency to this cause.
    Next May, the UN will also host a major five-year review conference involving the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which will examine the state of the treaty’s “grand bargain” of disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. If the CTBT can enter into force, and if the NPT review conference makes progress, the world would be off to a good start on its journey to a world free of nuclear weapons.
    My own five-point plan to achieve this goal begins with a call for the NPT Parties to pursue negotiations in good faith—as required by the treaty—on nuclear disarmament, either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification. Disarmament must be reliably verified.
    Second, I urged the Security Council to consider other ways to strengthen security in the disarmament process, and to assure non-nuclear-weapon states against nuclear weapons threats. I proposed to the Council that it convene a summit on nuclear disarmament, and I urged non-NPT states to freeze their own weapon capabilities and make their own disarmament commitments. Disarmament must enhance security.
    My third proposal relates to the rule of law. Universal membership in multilateral treaties is key, as are regional nuclear-weapon-free zones and a new treaty on fissile materials. President Barack Obama’s support for US ratification of the CTBT is welcome — the treaty only needs a few more ratifications to enter into force. Disarmament must be rooted in legal obligations.
    My fourth point addresses accountability and transparency. Countries with nuclear weapons should publish more information about what they are doing to fulfill their disarmament commitments. While most of these countries have revealed some details about their weapons programs, we still do not know how many nuclear weapons exist worldwide. The UN Secretariat could serve as a repository for such data. Disarmament must be visible to the public.
    Finally, I am urging progress in eliminating other weapons of mass destruction and limiting missiles, space weapons and conventional arms — all of which are needed for a nuclear-weapon-free world. Disarmament must anticipate emerging dangers from other weapons.
    This, then, is my plan to drop the bomb. Global security challenges are serious enough without the risks from nuclear weapons or their acquisition by additional states or non-state actors. Of course, strategic stability, trust among nations, and the settlement of regional conflicts would all help to advance the process of disarmament. Yet disarmament has its own contributions to make in serving these goals and should not be postponed.
    It will restore hope for a more peaceful, secure and prosperous future. It deserves everybody’s support.

    Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations.
  • Five Proposals for Advancing President Obama’s Nuclear Disarmament Agenda

    Five Proposals for Advancing President Obama’s Nuclear Disarmament Agenda

    “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” — Barack Obama

    1. A No First Use commitment will deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons in US security policy. This should be reflected in the new US Nuclear Posture Review, which is currently in progress. More than any other step the US could take, this will demonstrate to the world the US commitment to Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    2. De-alert nuclear arsenals, which remain on high alert status as a relic of the worst threats of the Cold War era. Negotiate in the current arms talks with Russia to take all nuclear weapons off high alert status. Understanding human fallibility, put the gift of increased time between the possibility of misperception or miscalculation and nuclear war.

    3. Expand the concept of nuclear security for the Global Summit on Nuclear Security. We applaud President Obama for taking the initiative to convene this summit in March 2010. It provides an opportunity for states to go to the heart of nuclear security issues. All states are endangered by any state’s nuclear arsenal. It is not sufficient to focus only on nuclear terrorism. It is necessary to focus also on existing nuclear arsenals and potential proliferation. The bottom line is that nuclear security will require nuclear weapons abolition. We propose that each participating state come to the table with its own Roadmap to Abolition and open a dialogue on achieving a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

    4. Support a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (MENWFZ) to prevent a regional nuclear arms race. The pursuit of a MENWFZ was promised when the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was indefinitely extended in 1995. Now, nearly 15 years later, there has been no progress. At the same time, nearly every country in the region seeks nuclear power programs, moving them closer to weapons programs. If double standards are not ended, Israel not challenged on its nuclear arsenal, and a MENWFZ not achieved, the region may see substantial nuclear proliferation, dramatically diminishing the prospects for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.

    5. Repeat the themes of the President Obama’s Prague speech in the United States. Bring home to all Americans, and particularly our national security establishment, that a world free of nuclear weapons is not a fantasy and that the US is committed to pursuing this goal with a sense of urgency. Continue to make the case to Americans that nuclear weapons do not and cannot provide for our security and we will be far safer and more secure in a world free of nuclear weapons.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a councilor on the World Future Council.

  • The Joint Understanding: Disappointing Progress on Nuclear Disarmament

    President Obama raised expectations for achieving a world without nuclear weapons when he said in Prague on April 5, 2009, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” But he only succeeded in moving the world a very small fraction of the way toward this goal when he met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow on July 6, 2009 to announce the outcome thus far of US-Russian negotiations on nuclear disarmament. A Joint Understanding signed in Moscow by the two presidents gave little cause for celebration for those who share President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

    Until now, the two presidents had not revealed the numbers they had in mind for nuclear arms reductions. The Joint Understanding, however, provided these numbers for the first time. “Within seven years after this treaty comes into force, and in future, the limits for strategic delivery systems should be within the range of 500-1,100 units and for warheads linked to them within the range of 1,500 to 1,675 units,” the statement said. These numbers cut the size of the strategic delivery systems by about a third and the deployed strategic warheads to just slightly below levels set by Presidents Bush and Putin in 2002.

    The agreement deals only with strategic offensive weapons, making no provisions for non-strategic or tactical weapons, which are left outside the count. These may prove to be the most worrisome and uncontrollable of the weapons. The agreement also makes no provisions for warheads held in storage. The two presidents dealt separately with missile defense forces in Europe, which the Russians have vehemently opposed, agreeing to carry out a joint threat assessment and make recommendations.

    It is expected that the new arms agreement will be finalized before the end of 2009 and will replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expires December 5, 2009. This means that the new numbers set forth in the Joint Understanding will not need to be achieved before 2016, which would coincide with the end of a potential second Obama administration.

    In addition to the slow progress in reductions of warheads, the Joint Understanding also fails to deal with other important issues, such as the dangers of the weapons remaining on high alert status, pledges of No First Use of the weapons, or a commitment to achieving a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of the weapons.

    The Joint Understanding is a step in the right direction, but it is a step far smaller than might have been hoped. It is a step that is unlikely to indicate to the non-nuclear weapons states parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that the nuclear weapons states are fulfilling their obligations for good faith negotiations for a world free of nuclear weapons. Now that the numbers are revealed, it appears that the US and Russia are not making major strides, but rather creeping very slowly, even reluctantly, toward President Obama’s vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear weapons remain the only weapons that could destroy US or Russian cities and threaten the future existence of the two countries. Since neither US nor Russian nuclear weapons can deter non-state extremists, there is zero tolerance for these weapons getting into the hands of such extremist groups. It is highly unlikely that the level of reductions that they now envision can assure that these weapons will not end up in the hands of extremists committed to doing harm to either country or to other countries.

    While surely this is only a first step in nuclear disarmament efforts by the two leaders, President Obama needs to press harder for more serious reductions in nuclear arms, reductions that will be sufficient to bring the other nuclear weapons states to the table to collectively seek a world without nuclear weapons. On the positive side, the two presidents are discussing having a global nuclear summit in 2010. Such a summit would allow for additional perspectives, those from nuclear as well as non-nuclear weapons states, to be placed on the table for a larger discussion of nuclear threats and security.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a councilor on the World Future Council.

  • Kicking the Nuclear Habit

    This article was originally published by the History News Network

    With President Barack Obama and other world leaders now talking about building a nuclear-free world, it is time to consider whether that would be a good idea.

    Six reasons for supporting nuclear abolition are particularly cogent.

    The first is that nuclear weapons are morally abhorrent. After all, they are instruments of widespread, indiscriminate slaughter. They destroy entire cities and entire regions, massacring civilian and soldier, friend and foe, the innocent and the guilty, including large numbers of children. The only crime committed by the vast majority of victims of a nuclear attack is that they happened to live on the wrong side of a national boundary.

    The second reason is that nuclear war is suicidal. A nuclear exchange between nations will kill millions of people on both sides of the conflict and leave the survivors living in a nuclear wasteland, in which—as has been suggested—the living might well envy the dead. Even if only one side in a conflict employed nuclear weapons, nuclear fallout would spread around the world, as would a lengthy nuclear winter, which would lower temperatures, destroy agriculture and the food supply, and wreck what little was left of civilization. As numerous observers have remarked, there will be no winners in a nuclear war. The third reason is that nuclear weapons do not guarantee a nation’s security. Despite their nuclear weapons, the great powers over the decades became entangled in bloody conventional wars. Millions died in Korea, in Algeria, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and numerous other lands—including large numbers of people from the nuclear nations. As the leaders of the nuclear powers learned, their nuclear arsenals did not help them a bit in these conflicts, for other peoples were simply not cowed by their nuclear might. Nuclear weapons simply weren’t useful. Nor has the vast nuclear arsenal of the United States protected it from terrorist assault. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men—armed only with box cutters—staged the largest terrorist raid on the United States in its history, in which some 3,000 people died. Of what value were U.S. nuclear weapons in deterring this attack? Of what value are they now in “the war on terror”? Given the fact that terrorists do not occupy territory, it is difficult to imagine how nuclear weapons can be used against them, either as a deterrent or in military conflict. The fourth reason is that nuclear weapons undermine national security. Of course, this contention defies the conventional wisdom that the Bomb is a “deterrent.” And yet, consider the case of the United States. It was the first nation to develop atomic bombs and, for some years, had a monopoly of them. But in response to the U.S. nuclear monopoly, the Soviet government built atomic bombs. And so the U.S. government built hydrogen bombs. Whereupon the Soviet government built hydrogen bombs. Then the two nations competed in building guided missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads, and on and on. Meanwhile, other nations built and deployed their nuclear weapons. And, each year, all these nations felt less and less secure. And they were less secure, because the more they threatened others, the more they were threatened in return! Moreover, as long as nuclear weapons exist there remains the possibility of accidental nuclear war. Over the course of the Cold War and in the years since then, there have been numerous false alarms about an enemy attack that have nearly led to the launching of a nuclear response with devastating potential consequences. Furthermore, nuclear weapons can end up being exploded in one’s own nation. For example, in the summer of 2008 the top officials of the U.S. Air Force were dismissed from their posts because, thoughtlessly, they had allowed U.S. flights with live nuclear weapons to take place over U.S. territory. The fifth reason is that, while nuclear weapons exist, there will be a temptation to use them in wars. Waging war has been an ingrained habit for thousands of years and, therefore, it is unlikely that this practice will soon be ended. And as long as wars exist, governments will be tempted to draw upon their stockpiles of nuclear weapons to win them. Admittedly, nuclear armed nations have not used nuclear weapons for war since 1945. But this reflects the development of massive popular resistance to nuclear conflict, which stigmatized the use of nuclear weapons and pushed reluctant government officials toward arms control and disarmament agreements. But we cannot assume that, in the context of bitter wars and threats to national survival, nuclear restraint will continue forever. Indeed, it seems likely that, the longer nuclear weapons exist, the greater the possibility that they will be used in a war. The sixth reason is that, while nuclear weapons remain in national arsenals, the dangers posed by terrorism are vastly enhanced. Terrorists cannot build nuclear weapons by themselves, as the creation of such weapons requires vast resources, substantial territory, and a good deal of scientific knowledge. The only way terrorists will attain a nuclear capability is by obtaining the weapons or the materials for them from the arsenals of the nuclear powers—either by donation, by purchase, or by theft. Therefore, as long as governments possess nuclear weapons, the potential exists for terrorists to secure access to them. What, then, is holding us back from nuclear abolition? Certainly it is not the public, which poll after poll shows in favor of building a nuclear-free world. Even many government leaders now agree that getting rid of nuclear weapons is desirable. The real obstacle is the long-term habit of drawing upon the most powerful weapons available to resolve conflicts among hostile nations. This habit, though, has proved a deeply counter-productive, irrational one—worse than smoking, worse than drugs, worse than almost anything imaginable, for it places civilization on the brink of destruction. It is time to kick it—and create a nuclear-free world.

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

  • North Korea Nuke Test Makes Nuclear Abolition More Important Than Ever

    This article was originally published by YES! Magazine

    North Korea’s nuclear testing heightens and underlines the dangers of a world in which nuclear arms are spreading.

    The news media treats the North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a story of a bad actor threatening international security, giving it the sort of attention rarely given to calls for constructive action to eliminate the danger of nuclear weapons. In particular, the frayed Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is seldom mentioned, nor the obligation contained in the treaty for the nuclear powers, including the U.S., to eliminate nuclear stockpiles.

    The contrast hits home in Hiroshima, Japan, the first city attacked with an atomic bomb. Just eight days before the North Korean test, the city’s daily newspaper, the Chugoku Shimbun, released an appeal from 17 Nobel Peace Prize laureates for citizens and governments to act for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Outside of Japan, the laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration has received almost no media attention.

    When North Korea held its nuclear test, however, Hiroshima immediately became a media stage, and legitimately so: Citizens gathered in an outdoor protest. At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, a clock tracking the number of days since the world’s last nuclear test, which had been approaching 1,000, went back to one. Reporters sought out aging survivors for their comments. Suzuko Numata, an 85-year-old interviewed by Japan’s Mainichi newspaper from her bed at a home for the elderly, raised the real issue looming behind the North Korean test: a world in which nuclear weapons continue to be seen by some nations as something to be sought rather than as a threat to all humans.

    Just days before the Nobel Prize winners’ declaration, one of the signers, International Atomic Energy Authority head Mohamed ElBaradei, told the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper that existing agreements on nonproliferation are out of date and that he fears big growth in the number of nuclear powers. The story received at best limited attention, despite ElBaradei’s prominence and expertise.

    Then, there are the admirable efforts of some of the most prominent former U.S. national security leaders to generate momentum for a non-nuclear world. The group includes former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn. They did get space on the Wall Street Journal to write about their ideas, twice. Until recently, however, one was more likely to come across any details of their undertaking in a progressive magazine like YES! than in the main news media. But, as Shultz told YES! Magazine’s editor Sarah van Gelder for the summer 2008 edition, his group was engaging with leaders from all of the nuclear powers, including officially unacknowledged possessor Israel.

    Shultz said, “The Nonproliferation Treaty in Article 6 says that those who don’t have nuclear weapons will have access to nuclear power technology and they won’t try to get nuclear weapons, and those who do have nuclear weapons will phase down their importance eventually to zero. People are looking for governments to live up to that treaty.”

    More recently, though, the group received considerable media attention, because they met with President Barack Obama in the White House to endorse the vision for a nuclear-free world he unveiled in Prague earlier this spring. By speaking out, Obama has begun to make nonproliferation a more appealing story to a wider spectrum of the media.

    Certainly, the Nobel Peace Prize groups’s spearhead Mairead Maguire, ElBaradei, the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Yunus, and the rest of their group hope Obama can begin to make a difference. The head of Chugoku Shimbun’s Hiroshima Peace Media Center, Akira Tashiro, wrote the appeal, which was revised before publication to take account of Obama’s speech in Prague.

    The appeal’s timing was designed to fall a year ahead of a U.N. conference to review the treaty, including the duty of nuclear states to work towards disarmament. The 2005 review failed to produced substantive agreement, but observers say that the presence of the Obama administration has improved the atmosphere at a just-completed preparatory conference for 2010.

    For the treaty’s future, North Korea, Iran, or other states with nuclear ambitions are no more than half the problem. The Nobel laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration says, “We are deeply troubled by this threat of proliferation to non-nuclear weapon states, but equally concerned at the faltering will of the nuclear powers to move forward in their obligation to disarm their own nations of these dreadful weapons.”

    In the same YES! edition as the Shultz interview, author Jonathan Schell wrote of the potential for a safer world if the nuclear powers would bargain to give up their bombs in exchange for enforceable promises by others to stay out of the nuclear business.

    In sorting through the likely reasons behind North Korea’s nuclear test this week, David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Peace Age Foundation, came to a related point: “North Korea’s nuclear testing is a manifestation of a deeper problem in the international system, that of continuing to have a small group of countries possess and implicitly threaten the use of nuclear weapons for deterrence or any other reason.”

    In an interview, Tashiro said he hoped that Americans would support nuclear disarmament on the grounds—expressed by Shultz, Kissinger, and others—of the threat created by proliferation and the potential for terrorists to acquire nuclear materials. But, to come to that conclusion, Americans need more information on the issue than they usually receive.

    Even with Obama talking about ending nuclear weapons, he and other nations’ leaders will need the support of an informed, engaged public if they are to create meaningful progress toward nuclear disarmament. In their conclusion, the declaration signers say, “As Nobel Peace laureates, we call on the citizens of the world to press their leaders to grasp the peril of inaction and summon the political will to advance toward nuclear disarmament and abolition.” That idea resonates in Hiroshima, a city that tries to make a better future out of horrible suffering. Perhaps as the world comes to terms with the dangerous possibilities of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran, the obligations of the current nuclear power to work towards abolition will get the attention required for action.

    Joe Copeland wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Joe, who is part of the online news startup Seattle PostGlobe, is a visiting researcher at the Hiroshima Peace Institute on a Fulbright grant for journalists. While in Japan, he has a blog at www.hiroshimastories.com. The views are his own.