Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Disarmament

  • Time to Wake Up

    Time to Wake Up

    In this season of the 61st anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, it is noteworthy that there are still 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. These weapons are in the arsenals of nine countries, but over 95 percent of them are in the arsenals of just two countries: the US and Russia. These two countries each actively deploy some 6,000 nuclear weapons and keep about 2,000 on hair-trigger alert.

    The political elites in the US seem to think this is fine, and that they can go on with nuclear business-as-usual for the indefinite future. Not a single member of the US Senate has called for pragmatic steps leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons, including negotiations for nuclear disarmament as required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    US leaders are living within a bubble of hubris that is manifested in many ways, flagrant examples of which are the pursuit of an illegal war in Iraq, and opposition to joining the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto accords on global warming. Underlying their policies is the attitude that US military and economic power gives them the right to violate international law at will and pursue a unilateral path of force when it suits their fancy. We citizens are being held hostage to their major errors in judgment, which in the Nuclear Age could result in the destruction of the country and much of civilization.

    Rather than working to reduce the nuclear threat, US nuclear policy is promoting nuclear proliferation. A recent example is the proposed US-India nuclear deal, in which the Congress appears prepared to change its own non-proliferation laws in order to sell nuclear materials and technology to a country that never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and secretly developed nuclear weapons. US leaders must have their heads deeply buried in the sand if they fail to grasp that this will spur an even more intense nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent and be viewed as hypocritical by the vast majority of the non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    In the 2006 Hiroshima Peace Declaration, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba pointed out that the US Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution in June “demanding that all nuclear weapons states, including the Untied States, immediately cease all targeting of cities with nuclear weapons.” Of course, this would be a good beginning, but nuclear weapons have little use other than to target cities or other nuclear weapons. They are, after all, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

    The World Court found the threat or use of nuclear weapons to be illegal. Most churches have been vocal about their immorality. These weapons detract from security rather than add to it. A recent international commission report on weapons of mass destruction, Weapons of Terror, concluded: “So long as any state has [weapons of mass destruction] – especially nuclear arms – others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.”

    Why are we not appalled by the myopia and arrogance of our political leadership for disastrous policies such as those that ignore the obligation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects? We should be asking: How do individuals who support these insane policies rise to such high office? We should also be asking: Why do ordinary Americans not care enough about their survival to change their leadership?

    A large part of the answer to the first question is that the system is broken and far too dependent on large cash contributions to buy television ads. Insight into an answer to the second question may be found in the recent Harris Poll (July 21, 2006) that reported that 50 percent of US respondents still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the US invaded that country in March 2003. One opinion analyst, Steven Kull, described such views as “independent of reality.” That is how it is for many Americans and their political leaders in this 61st year of the Nuclear Age. Living with such purposeful ignorance is a recipe for disaster.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • Towards a Nuclear Free World

    If someone holds a classroom full of children hostage with a machine gun, threatening to kill them unless his demands are met, we consider him a dangerous, crazy terrorist. But if a head of state holds millions of civilians hostage with nuclear weapons, many consider this as perfectly normal. We must end that double standard and recognize nuclear weapons for what they are: instruments of terror.

    On July 8, 1996, the World Court declared the threat or use of nuclear weapons contrary to international law and unanimously called on all states to conduct negotiations leading to complete nuclear disarmament.

    Treaties have been concluded to ban biological and chemical weapons. Why has an agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons eluded us for so long? If Hitler had used nuclear weapons and lost the war, they would have been outlawed as cruel and inhuman long ago.

    But because they were first used by the victorious side in a war considered just, they have enjoyed an undeserved aura of legitimacy. Over the last fifty years, many flawed arguments have been put forward intended to justify the policy of nuclear deterrence.

    It has been asserted, for example, that nuclear weapons have helped prevent war. Yet the five declared nuclear powers have been involved in eight times as many wars on average since 1945 as the non-nuclear countries. Some credit nuclear weapons with having prevented nuclear war, which is preposterous: without nuclear weapons, there could not possibly be any nuclear war. At the peak, the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals had a destructive power nearly 10,000 times all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or, as President Carter said in his farewell address, one World War II every second for a slow afternoon.

    It is conceivable that the threat of nuclear retaliation may help deter a deliberate attack, but not every war begins that way.

    When tensions are high, events may escalate out of a small incident, and it is sometimes hard to say who did what first.

    Relying on the threat of mutual destruction to deter war is as if we sought to prevent traffic accidents by packing our car with dynamite, putting a trip wire around it and telling everyone, “Don’t hit my car, or it will explode and kill you!” (and me too, of course). This should deter others from hitting me intentionally, but the slightest accidental collision would be fatal.

    On numerous occasions, we came close to a nuclear catastrophe, due to misinformation, misunderstandings, or computer errors.

    During the Cuban missile crisis, the United States was ready to retaliate against the Soviet Union if Castro had shot down American observation planes, convinced that he did so on Soviet orders. That could easily have escalated out of control. In fact, Khrushchev had ordered Castro to stop shooting at American planes, but Castro ignored his orders. Fortunately, no plane was hit.

    As long as the nuclear powers insist on the right to keep their arsenals, some other countries will be tempted to acquire nuclear weapons, too. Once terrorists get hold of nuclear weapons, they may not shrink from using them. Unless we eliminate nuclear weapons, it is only a question of time until they are used, whether deliberately or by accident. We are playing Russian roulette with our future.

    Despite decades of government propaganda, US and British polls have found repeatedly that up to 85 percent of voters are in favor of eliminating all nuclear weapons. We must tell the leaders of the nuclear nations that we reject our role as involuntary nuclear hostages. The abolition of nuclear weapons requires a popular movement, in the same way as the abolition of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid came about only after sustained public pressure.

    Some grant we might be better off if nuclear weapons had never been invented, but argue that now that we know how to make them, we cannot disinvent them, and therefore have to live with them as long as civilization exists. It is true that we cannot disinvent nuclear weapons, but nobody has disinvented cannibalism either, we simply abhor it. Can’t we learn to abhor equally the thought of incinerating entire cities with nuclear weapons

     

    Dietrich Fischer is Academic Director of the European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria (www.epu.ac.at) and Co-Director of TRANSCEND (www.transcend.org), a peace and development network.

  • Avoiding a Russian Arms Disaster

    Hurricane Katrina drove home the staggering devastation that disasters — natural or man-made –can inflict. Meanwhile, July’s attacks on the London Underground reminded us terrorists can still strike major world cities. Now imagine the two joined together: terrorists, armed with weapons of mass destruction, unleashing Katrina-scale chaos and death in the heart of a U.S. city.

    Such attacks are hardly unthinkable. Roughly half of Russia’s weapons-grade nuclear materials are poorly protected. In the small Russian town of Shchuch’ye, nearly 2 million shells of VX and sarin nerve gas — each lethal enough to kill 85,000 people — lay stacked in chicken cooplike structures. The September 11 commission said al Qaeda has pursued getting and using these weapons as a “religious obligation” for more than a decade.

    Fortunately, unlike hurricanes, much can be done to prevent this nightmare from becoming real. One of our first and best lines of defense is the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, created by former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, and Sen. Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican. Since 1992, the program has eliminated thousands of Russian nuclear warheads, missiles, submarines and bombers.

    But in recent years, a set of burdensome congressional restrictions has marred the program and led to a series of disruptive stop-and-start cycles. Key projects vital to America’s security have ground to a halt for months on end because, for example, Russian human-rights obligations were not met or the paperwork to waive them was not completed.

    Congress now has the chance to end such dangerous disruptions once and for all. Mr. Lugar, decrying those misplaced priorities, introduced language to repeal all the restrictions, which the Senate embraced by an overwhelming, bipartisan 78-19 vote in July. But until the full Congress approves it, CTR’s vital efforts remain in danger, from both a national security and a business perspective.

    Danger of delay: Current restrictions carry real costs on the ground. In mid-2002, all new CTR projects — including security upgrades at 10 nuclear weapons storage sites — stalled for four months because the conditions could not be certified. Destruction of the Shchuch’ye stockpile was delayed some 15 months from 2001 to 2003 for similar red-tape reasons.

    Such stoppages not only prolong threats to America, they also endanger the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars already invested in Shchuch’ye and other projects. So long as the conditions remain, these dangerous disruptions are inevitable.

    Wasted resources: In a yearly drama, defense staffers and intelligence analysts must spend thousands of hours assessing Russian compliance with CTR restrictions — even when it is immediately clear Russia cannot meet them. Nor can the president simply waive the conditions without first submitting to this annual exercise in foregone conclusions.

    Abetting such delays or allowing concerns like human rights, however important, to threaten human existence massively is the height of folly. We not only agree with Mr. Lugar that, during a war on terror, these artificial barriers “are destructive to our national security”; we see them undermining one of the best investments our country can make.

    CTR, simply is good security on the cheap. At an annual cost of as little as one-tenth of 1 percent (0.001) of the Pentagon budget, the program has deactivated and helped guard 6,760 Russian nuclear warheads. It has upgraded security to the Shchuch’ye depot and similar sites. It also helped remove all nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

    Today, CTR continues upgrading security and aiding accounting of nuclear weapons transportation and storage. It also works to destroy biological weapons production facilities and lock down pathogen collections in Russia and the former Soviet republics.

    CTR’s largest current project, eliminating the Shchuch’ye stockpile, will rid us of all 2 million of those weapons — and cost each American roughly the same as a large latte.

    Nor is this money “foreign aid”: More than 80 percent of CTR funds go to five U.S. prime contractors that dismantle and destroy these weapons.

    The risk of a Katrina-scale terrorist attack with Russian weapons is too critical to tolerate any delays to these crucial efforts. Congress must act and free us to meet what President Bush calls “the greatest threat before humanity today.”

    Ted Turner is chairman of Turner Enterprises in Atlanta. Stanley A. Weiss is chairman of Business Executives for National Security, of which Mr. Turner is a member.

  • North Korea Deal: Better Late Than Never

    The welcome nuclear framework agreement with North Korea signed in Beijing yesterday is a belated triumph of pragmatism over ideology, and suggests a way ahead on a deal with Iran.

    The preliminary deal provides an outline for a more detailed agreement to be negotiated between North Korea and the other five parties – the United States, Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan — to the still precarious nuclear talks. The main elements of the deal are essentially the same as the agreement nearly concluded at the end of the second Clinton term, and gift wrapped for the first Bush administration.

    President Bush and his most influential advisors spent the next five years denigrating that deal, and dissing Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, who favored it. The basic concept, “more for more,” combined greater concessions from the North (verified abandonment of its nuclear weapons and program) in exchange for broader security guarantees and economic ties and assistance from the United States and others, including a no-attack pledge from Washington and an affirmation of South Korea’s non-nuclear status.

    It has taken a combination of the grind of war in Iraq and the devastation of Katrina, plus a Secretary of State who knows how to play the inside game, finally to turn this around. The major changes in the US position commit Washington to nothing. The agreement includes but does not endorse Pyongyang’s stance on its nuclear rights: “The DPRK stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” It also makes an open ended statement about the possibility of future talks on suspended plans to build a proliferation-resistant reactor for the North: “The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor [sic] to the DPRK.”

    Despite the vague nature of these commitments, they were a bitter pill for the Bush administration, which has opposed the very idea of negotiations with the North, or with Iran. The administration’s motto has been: better to ignore bad behavior than risk being perceived as rewarding it. The ignorance-is-bliss policy rests on the false premise that regime change was in the offing in both North Korea and Iran. Both of these regimes, however, have turned out to be durable. The cost of waiting Kim Jong-Il out has been as many as a half dozen more nuclear weapons which, hopefully, now will be dismantled. Time is also the enemy in Iran, where bureaucratic momentum continues to build for a nuclear program supported by “hardliners” and “reformers” alike.

    The hope now is that the administration’s low-cost concessions to North Korea will be applied to Iran to stanch its nuclear program. Now, however, the administration and the EU 3 will have to deal with a new Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is tilting Iran’s policy to the east, and seems less willing to compromise to gain favor with Europe or the United States.

    Lee Feinstein is senior fellow and deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. An international lawyer and specialist in national security affairs, he was Principal Director of Policy Planning under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and a senior advisor for peacekeeping policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Feinstein’s areas of specialization include weapons of mass destruction, international law and institutions, and foreign policy process. He has written widely on US foreign policy and national security and co-directed the CFR-Freedom House Task Force on Enhancing US Relations with the UN.

  • The Role of US Nuclear Weapons New Doctrine Falls Short of Bush Pledge

    A nuclear draft doctrine written by the Pentagon calls for maintaining an aggressive nuclear posture with weapons on high alert to strike adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), pre-emptively if necessary.

    The doctrine, the first formal update since the Bush administration took office, is entitled “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations”[1] and has been strongly influenced by the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and other directives published by the Bush administration since 2001. A final version is expected later this fall.

    The draft doctrine and editing comments were freely available on the Internet until recently, providing a rare glimpse into the secret world of nuclear planning in the post-Cold War era.

    Foremost among the doctrine’s new features are the incorporation of pre-emption into U.S. nuclear doctrine and the integration of conventional weapons and missile defenses into strategic planning. The Bush administration claims that it is significantly reducing the role of nuclear weapons.

    Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the updated doctrine falls far short of fulfilling the administration’s claim. Instead of reducing the role of nuclear weapons, the new doctrine reaffirms an aggressive nuclear posture of modernized nuclear weapons maintained on high alert. Conventional forces and missile defenses merely complement—instead of replace—nuclear weapons.

    The new doctrine continues the thinking of the previous version from 1995 in its reaffirmation of nuclear deterrence. It differs in three other key elements: the threshold for nuclear use, nuclear targeting and international law, and the role of conventional and defensive forces.

    What’s New?

    The importance of the new doctrine is less about what it directs the military to do, and more about what it shows U.S. nuclear policy has become. It has changed considerably from the 1995 version. A new chapter has been added on theater nuclear operations, a discussion of the role of conventional and defensive forces, and an expanded discussion on nuclear operations.

    The addition of a chapter on theater nuclear operations reflects the post-Cold War preoccupation of U.S. nuclear planners on finding ways of deterring regional aggressors (i.e., rogue states) armed with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. It also reflects a decade-old rivalry between the regional combatant commanders and U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) over who “owns” regional nuclear-strike planning.

    Yet, the new doctrine’s approach grants regional nuclear-strike planning an increasingly expeditionary aura that threatens to make nuclear weapons just another tool in the toolbox. The result is nuclear pre-emption, which the new doctrine enshrines into official U.S. joint nuclear doctrine for the first time, where the objective no longer is deterrence through threatened retaliation but battlefield destruction of targets.

    Another highly visible change is the incorporation of a discussion of the role of conventional weapons and defensive forces into the sections describing the purpose, planning, and employment of nuclear forces. What is most striking is the extent to which conventional and defensive capabilities are woven into the fabric of nuclear planning.

    Reaffirmation of Deterrence

    In the foreword to the 2001 NPR report, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that the review “puts in motion a major change in our approach to the role of nuclear offensive forces in our deterrent strategy.” In Rumsfeld’s testimony to Congress and numerous statements made by other officials, the Bush administration portrayed the NPR as reducing the role of nuclear weapons, lowering the readiness requirement for the nuclear forces, and increasing the role of non-nuclear and missile defense capabilities.

    Yet, the “major change” in the role of nuclear weapons is difficult to find in the new doctrine. Instead, the new nuclear doctrine presents an emphatic defense for nuclear deterrence with sustaining and modernizing nuclear forces maintained on high alert. “To maintain their deterrent effect,” the doctrine states, “U.S. nuclear forces must maintain a strong and visible state of readiness…permitting a swift response to any no-notice nuclear attack against the United States, its forces, or allies.”

    For the authors of the new doctrine, the logic behind such an aggressive posture is simple: military strength automatically strengthens deterrence. Therefore, stronger nuclear capabilities also benefit national security. Indeed, defending the nation against its enemies is best achieved, the new nuclear doctrine declares, through “a defense posture that makes possible war outcomes so uncertain and dangerous, as calculated by potential adversaries, as to remove all incentives for initiating attack under any circumstances.”

    This nuclear dogma is by no means new to deterrence theory, but the new nuclear doctrine fails to explain, even illustrate, why deterrence necessarily requires such an aggressive nuclear posture and cannot be achieved at lower levels without maintaining nuclear forces on high alert. A deterrence posture can also be excessive, with capabilities far beyond what is reasonably needed. Threatening nuclear capabilities may in theory deter potential enemies but may just as well provoke other countries and undercut other vital aspects of U.S. foreign policy. The end result may be decreased security for all.

    Nor does the new nuclear doctrine spell out why the Pentagon ultimately settled on the force that it did. It says that the basis of its decision is a vague and unspecific invention called “capability-based planning” that the Pentagon says “focuses on the means and how adversaries may fight; not a fixed set of enemies or threats.” This hardly seems to be a new development, as U.S. military planning has always focused on how adversaries might fight. Even capability-based planning must identify a set of enemies and threats that is, for all intents and purposes, fixed. Still, the new doctrine repeats the NPR’s decision that a force level of 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed strategic warheads is “the lowest possible number” that the United States can maintain while maintaining a credible deterrent. Just how the 1,700-2,200 warhead level was decided remains a mystery.

    The mystery is even greater because the Pentagon claims that the force-sizing is “not driven by an immediate contingency involving Russia.” Yet, in 1996 when STRATCOM examined force structure options in preparation for the 1997 Helsinki agreement—when Russia was an immediate contingency—the bottom-line force level was also 2,000 warheads.[2] Keith Payne, who co-chaired the Deterrence Concepts Advisory Group that drafted the NPR and subsequently served as deputy assistant secretary of defense from 2002 to 2003, recently explained:

    In general, the NPR’s recommended force structure and number of deployed nuclear warheads was calculated to support not only the immediate requirements for deterrence, but also to contribute to the additional goals of assuring allies and friends, dissuading potential opponents from choosing the route of arms competition or military challenge, and providing a hedge against the possible emergence of more severe, future military threats or severe technical problems in the arsenal.[3]

    The only item on that list that is new, and only partially so, is “dissuading potential opponents from choosing the route of arms competition or military challenge.” Deterring enemies, assuring allies, and hedging are all elements of U.S. nuclear planning that are as old as the post-Cold War era; the first two are even as old as the nuclear age itself.

    Even so, under the headline “New Thinking for a New Era,” the new nuclear doctrine describes capability-based planning as “a major break from Cold War thinking” that “allows the United States to take the lead in reducing nuclear stockpiles rather than rely on protracted arms control negotiations.” That claim overlooks the first Bush administration’s Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991 and 1992, both of which took the lead without protracted negotiations well before the current Bush administration presented its “new thinking.” The claim also overlooks that not one of the strategic nuclear reductions announced by the 2001 NPR was conceived by the Bush administration. All, without exception, implemented decisions made in the 1990s.

    Lowering the Bar for Nuclear Use

    So what does the Pentagon mean when it refers to capability-based planning? One indication comes from the claim made in the new nuclear doctrine and by government officials during the past couple of years that a major break has occurred in nuclear planning. A break does seem to have occurred but is not about reducing the role of nuclear weapons. Granted, the number of weapons have been reduced, but the major break is about transforming nuclear plans and capabilities to enable destruction of targets anywhere in the world more efficiently. In that transformation lays a subtle belief that nuclear deterrence will fail sooner or later, and before it does, U.S. nuclear forces and war plans need to be ready and capable of striking, even pre-emptively.

    The signs of this development are evident throughout the new nuclear doctrine in its description of the need for responsive nuclear forces that can “rapidly respond” to threats anywhere. It even defines a new category of nuclear planning, Crisis Action Planning, as “the time-sensitive development of joint operations plans and orders in response to an imminent crisis.” It is different from highly structured Deliberate Planning and flexible Adaptive Planning:

    Crisis action planning follows prescribed crisis action procedures to formulate and implement an effective response within the time frame permitted by the crisis. It is distinct from adaptive planning in that emerging targets are likely to have no preexisting plans that could be adapted. Success in engaging these types of targets depends heavily upon the speed with which they are identified, targeted, and attacked.

    The basis for this drive for speed and responsiveness is the perception of the threat that faces the United States and its allies in the 21st century. It has become almost a mantra in national security discussions and analysis to portray today’s multipolar security environment as more unpredictable and dangerous than even the Soviet threat during the Cold War. The new nuclear doctrine enshrines that hype into nuclear doctrine.

    Although today’s threats from “rogue” states and terrorists are serious indeed, it is healthy to keep in mind, especially when discussing nuclear weapons policy, that they are on a completely different scale than the global nuclear standoff that characterized the Cold War. Then, the human race and life on the planet was held at nuclear gunpoint for four decades, only 30 minutes away from global annihilation. Today’s nuclear strategy often operates on a far different scale: incorporating the far more limited threat from hostile states and even terrorists.

    Yet, the new doctrine ignores this distinction and instead lowers the crisis intensity level needed to potentially trigger use of U.S. nuclear weapons by replacing “war” with “conflict.” The change may seem trivial, but its implication is important and deliberate. The change was proposed by STRATCOM, which explained that “[r]eplacing the word ‘war’ with ‘conflict involving the use of’ emphasizes the nature of most conflicts resulting in use of a nuclear weapon. Nuclear war implies the mutual exchange of nuclear weapons between warring parties—not fully representative of the facts.”

    During the Cold War, a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union would have involved both countries launching nuclear weapons at each other. Yet, in the post-Cold War era a conflict may involve only one or a few nuclear weapons being used and not necessarily by both warring countries in an exchange. The new doctrine predicts that terrorists and “rogue” states armed with weapons of mass destruction “will likely test U.S. security commitments to its allies and friends.”

    To be sure, some parts of this approach are not new: the 1995 doctrine also considered a role for nuclear weapons against terrorists despite serious questions about the credibility of such a role. Put together, however, the rhetoric in the new doctrine indicates that military planners anticipate that U.S. nuclear weapons might be used in much less intense crises than envisioned previously.

    For example, the new nuclear doctrine states that an adversary might detonate a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere to damage U.S. military electronic equipment with a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse. Whatever the adversary use might be, the new nuclear doctrine makes it clear that the United States will not necessarily wait for the attack but pre-empt with nuclear weapons if necessary. It identifies four conditions where pre-emptive use might occur:

    • An adversary intending to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S., multinational, or allies forces or civilian populations.

    • Imminent attack from an adversary’s biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy.

    • Attacks on adversary installations including weapons of mass destruction; deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons; or the command and control infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies.

    • Demonstration of U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use.

    The previous doctrine from 1995 did not describe specific scenarios where the United States might use nuclear weapons pre-emptively, but the new doctrine enshrines the Bush administration’s pre-emption policy into official U.S. nuclear doctrine. It acknowledges that “the belligerent that initiates nuclear warfare may find itself the target of world condemnation” but adds that “no customary or conventional international law prohibits nations from employing nuclear weapons in armed conflict.” In other words, the Pentagon seems to conclude the United States is legally free to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively if it chooses.

    The End of “Nonstrategic”

    The pre-emptive nuclear options are included in the chapter on theater nuclear operations, which traditionally have been associated with nonstrategic nuclear weapons (those with shorter range). The 1995 doctrine described the theater (local or regional) mission with nonstrategic nuclear weapons as a means of controlling escalation by linking conventional forces to the full nuclear retaliatory capability of the United States. By contrast, strategic weapons historically have included weapons of intercontinental range.

    The separation has always been somewhat blurred, but the new nuclear doctrine does away with a separate theater role for nonstrategic nuclear forces. Instead, it assigns all nuclear weapons, whether strategic or nonstrategic, support roles in theater nuclear operations. The theater mission will be further detailed in “Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Theater Nuclear Planning” (Joint Pub 3-12.1), a secret subdoctrine scheduled for publication by the Pentagon sometime after the release of the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.

    Military officials have argued for years that there are no nonstrategic nuclear weapons; all nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era should be seen as strategic because all nuclear use is strategic in nature. Yet, the language in the new doctrine and the elimination of a specific regional role for nonstrategic nuclear weapons hint of a deeper shift: strategic nuclear weapons have increasing regional (theater) roles as nonstrategic nuclear weapons are reduced and guidance and doctrine demand new missions against the capabilities of rogue states and nonstate actors.

    The increasing incorporation of strategic weapons from the global-intensity level into smaller regional conflicts means that the operational distinction between strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons is being blurred. In a regional deterrence scenario against an adversary armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, all nuclear weapons can be battlefield weapons or strategic weapons, depending on the circumstances. The U.S. pre-emption or retaliation could utilize a B61 nuclear bomb deployed in Turkey or a strategic warhead launched from a Trident submarine patroling near Japan.

    This doctrinal shift has already progressed to the point that STRATCOM has drawn up and implemented a new global strike plan for the use of nuclear and conventional forces in regional scenarios. The new strike plan, called Contingency Plan (CONPLAN) 8022, was first put into effect in late 2003, less than a year after the White House issued National Security Presidential Directive 17, its strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction. CONPLAN 8022 makes operational the Bush administration’s pre-emption policy and the new nuclear doctrine codifies it.

    The Role of Conventional Weapons

    Another new element of the nuclear doctrine is the role of advanced conventional weapons in strategic planning. This was one of the central pillars of the 2001 NPR, and the new doctrine states that “targets that may have required a nuclear weapon to achieve the needed effects in previous planning may be targeted with conventional weapons.” The doctrine describes how “integrating conventional and nuclear attacks will ensure the most efficient use of force and provide U.S. leaders with a broader range of strike options to address immediate contingencies.”

    Yet, in the same breath the document cautions that “some contingencies will remain where the most appropriate response may include the use of U.S. nuclear weapons.” The objective is still assured destruction of facilities, and it seems clear that the conventional capabilities need to evolve considerably before conventional weapons will be capable of significantly replacing nuclear weapons in the war plans. Indeed, in an acknowledgement that “there are few programs to convert the NPR vision to reality,” the Pentagon in April established a task force aimed in part at better integrating the new triad of nuclear, conventional, and defensive capabilities. Four and a half years after the Bush administration announced its “major change” to strategic targeting, the incorporation of conventional weapons still appears marginal at best.

    Part of the impediment appears to be the challenge of incorporating sufficient accuracy into the two ballistic missile legs of the nuclear triad. The explosive power of conventional weapons also is inherently inferior to the yield of even the smallest nuclear warheads in the stockpile. “It’s more than just precision,” STRATCOM Commander General James Cartwright told Inside the Pentagon in April 2005. “I can’t generate enough [conventional explosive] energy for some of these targets to destroy them. So I’m not leading you down a path that I can get rid of nuclear weapons.”

    Also, there is the issue of command and control for conventional strategic forces. The line of command for nuclear strikes has evolved over many decades, but how will it work when a non-nuclear weapon is used in a strategic strike against an adversary’s nuclear weapons facility? The Air Force, which maintains nuclear ICBMs and bombers, pointed out during the editing of the new nuclear doctrine that, although the president and secretary of defense are required to approve all nuclear targeting, they do not necessarily approve conventional targeting.[4] Presumably, the Bush administration will want to close that hole to ensure 100 percent control of strategic strikes and ensure that other nuclear powers do not misinterpret the intention.

    Finally, but equally important, merging nuclear and conventional warheads on ballistic missiles or on strategic platforms has serious implications for crisis stability. A nuclear-weapon state being attacked by a conventionally armed ballistic missile early in a conflict may conclude that it is under nuclear attack and launch its own nuclear weapons. Merging nuclear and conventional capabilities seems to be a recipe for disaster.

    Missile Defenses

    The second pillar of the 2001 NPR was the role of active defenses in strategic planning, and the new doctrine incorporates the new mission. The previous doctrine from 1995 also described the contribution of missile defense, but this issue is expanded in the new doctrine. Instead of describing how missile defenses can be used to protect people from missile strikes, however, the new doctrine appears to focus on how missile defenses can enhance the survivability of nuclear forces and increase offensive capabilities.

    Focusing on protecting nuclear forces rather than people might not seem so cynical if not for the Bush administration’s emphasis on protecting people in its justification for withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and securing congressional funding for the multibillion-dollar missile defense program. In December 2001, when preparing to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, President George W. Bush stated:

    I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government’s ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks…. Defending the American people is my highest priority as commander in chief, and I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses.[5]

    In stark contrast with the president’s priority, the new doctrine describes missile defense as a tool to protect military forces. The doctrine only mentions defense of the population three times and always in a secondary role, after protection of military forces.

    Moreover, the doctrine states that one objective of protecting military forces is to enhance U.S. offensive nuclear strike capabilities. STRATCOM planning seeks to integrate U.S. and allied offensive and defensive forces, the doctrine explains, “in order to exploit the full range of characteristics offered by U.S. strategic nuclear forces to support national and regional deterrence objectives.”

    In an operational scenario, limited or insufficient missile defense capabilities could force U.S. decision-makers into a corner where they would have to choose between saving Los Angeles or Vandenberg Air Force Base.

    Nuclear Targeting and International Law

    The new nuclear doctrine’s deepening of the commitment to regional targeting beyond nuclear facilities, and lowering the bar for when nuclear weapons could be used—even pre-emptively—raise important questions about nuclear targeting and international law. During the editing process of the new nuclear doctrine, a debate was triggered among the different commands over which term to use for different types of targeting. Of particular concern was the legal status of countervalue targeting, a targeting methodology that was included in the 1995 nuclear doctrine:

    Countervalue targeting strategy directs the destruction or neutralization of selected enemy military and military-related activities, such as industries, resources, and/or institutions that contribute to the enemy’s ability to wage war. In general, weapons required to implement this strategy need not be as numerous or accurate as those required to implement a counterforce targeting strategy, because countervalue targets generally tend to be softer and unprotected in relation to counterforce targets.[6]

    During the editing of the new doctrine, STRATCOM declared that it had decided that “countervalue targeting violates” the Law of Armed Conflict. The command therefore suggested changing “countervalue” to “critical infrastructure targeting.” In explaining its decision, STRATCOM stated:

    Many operational law attorneys do not believe “countervalue” targeting is a lawful justification for employment of force, much less nuclear force. Countervalue philosophy makes no distinction between purely civilian activities and military related activities and could be used to justify deliberate attacks on civilians and non-military portions of a nation’s economy. It therefore cannot meet the “military necessity” prong of the Law of Armed Conflict. Countervalue targeting also undermines one of the values that underlies Law of Armed Conflict—the reduction of civilian suffering and to foster the ability to maintain the peace after the conflict ends. For example, under the countervalue target philosophy, the attack on the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 could be justified.[7]

    Other military commands did not agree with the name change. The argument from European Command was that countervalue should not be changed to critical infrastructure because countervalue has an institutionalized and broadly understood meaning in the academic literature on nuclear warfare and in international security studies in general. “If in doubt on this point,” European Command argued, “insert the word ‘countervalue’ in any electronic search engine and note how many ‘hits’ appear that are directly relevant to nuclear policy.”[8]

    In the end, the commands could not agree and the term “critical infrastructure targeting” was withdrawn to end the discussion. Yet, the term “countervalue” also disappeared and is no longer included in the new nuclear doctrine. The issue was dropped, although targeting appears to continue, and simply changing the terminology obviously does not change the illegal targeting itself.

    To be fair, the new nuclear doctrine emphasizes U.S. abhorrence of unrestricted warfare and U.S. adherence to laws of war. Yet, if the intention of mentioning international law is that it matters, then the doctrine notably ignores that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 1996 ruling on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons could not reach agreement (it was a split vote) that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is lawful, even in an extreme circumstance of self-defense where the very survival of a state is at stake. The ICJ did agree unanimously that international law does not authorize even the threat of use of nuclear weapons.[9] These important nuances are ignored by the new doctrine.

    Conclusion

    Although there has been extensive public debate on whether to build new or modified nuclear weapons, there has been essentially no debate about the doctrine that guides the use of nuclear weapons and influences future requirements. This is ironic given the considerable interest in the Bush administration’s policy on pre-emption. As a result, the rewriting of the nuclear doctrine has occurred with essentially no public debate.

    Still, the doctrine and editing documents reveal a significant contradiction between the Bush administration’s public rhetoric about reducing the role of nuclear weapons and the guidance issued to the nuclear planners. Although the overall number of warheads is being reduced, the new doctrine guiding planning for the remaining arsenal reaffirms an aggressive posture with nuclear forces on high alert, ready to be used in an increasing number of limited-strike scenarios against adversaries anywhere, even pre-emptively. The new doctrine appears to be precipitated by anticipation among military planners that deterrence will fail and U.S. nuclear weapons will be used in a conflict sooner or later.

    For the nuclear planners, it seems so simple: deterrence must be credible, and the way to make it more credible is to increase the capabilities and number of strike options against any conceivable scenario. Ironically, a decade and a half after we should have escaped this nuclear deterrence logic of the Cold War, the planners cling to these old business practices. Instead of drastically reducing the role of nuclear weapons, as the Bush administration told the public it would do, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism seem to have spooked the administration into continuing and deepening a commitment to some of the most troubling aspects of the nuclear war-fighting mentality that symbolized the Cold War.

    US Nuclear Weapons Guidance, War Plans

    The updated Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations reflects how combatant commanders have translated the administration’s attempts to reshape U.S. nuclear policy into operational guidance for military forces. It comes nearly five years after the completion of the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in December 2001 and represents the first revision of basic nuclear doctrine in a decade. The list below describes some of the major milestones that led to the new doctrine and their significance. [1]

    2001

    May: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publishes the Strategic Defense Review. This document, among other things, sets “requirements for the number and types of weapons in the stockpile.”

    December 31: Rumsfeld forwards the NPR report to Congress.

    2002

    June: The White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 14, “Nuclear Weapons Planning Guidance.”

    September 14: The White House issues NSPD 17, “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The document states that “[t]he United States will make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including potentially nuclear weapons—to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.”

    September 17: The White House issues the “National Security Strategy of the United States.” The document provides the first official public articulation of a strategy of pre-emptive action against hostile states and terrorist groups developing weapons of mass destruction.

    October 1: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues a new nuclear supplement to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan for fiscal year 2002, which translates White House guidance into specific military plans.

    December 10: The White House releases “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” the unclassified version of NSPD 17. The wording in NSPD 17 of using “potentially nuclear weapons” is replaced with “all of our options.”

    December 16: The White House issues NSPD 23, “National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense,” which orders withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and construction of a national ballistic missile defense system.

    2003:

    January 10: Bush signs Change 2 to the Unified Command Plan, which, in addition to maintaining nuclear strike plans, assigns four additional missions to U.S. Strategic Command: missile defense planning, global strike planning, information operations, and global C4ISR (Command, Control, Computers, Communication, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance).

    March: Rumsfeld issues to Congress “Nuclear Posture Review: Implementation Plan, Department of Defense Implementation of the December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review Report.” The document formally implements the decisions of the 2001 NPR.

    2004

    March 13: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues the “National Military Strategy of the United States,” including the classified Annex B (Nuclear). The document translates the National Security Strategy into specific guidance for military planners.

    April 19: Rumsfeld issues the Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy. The document states in part that “ U.S. nuclear forces must be capable of, and be seen to be capable of, destroying those critical war-making and war-supporting assets and capabilities that a potential enemy leadership values most and that it would rely on to achieve its own objectives in a post-war world.”

    May: The White House issues NSPD 34, “Fiscal Year 2004-2012 Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan,” which “directs a force structure through 2012” and cuts the total stockpile “almost in half.”

    May: The White House issues NSPD 35, “Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization,” which authorizes the military to continue deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

    December 31: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues a new nuclear supplement to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan for fiscal year 2005, codifying new global strike and theater nuclear operations guidance and implementing the 2004 Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy.

    2005

    January: In a letter to U.S. Strategic Command, Rumsfeld tasks the command with spearheading the Defense Department’s efforts to combat weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

    January 10: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues Global Strike Joint Integrating Concept, Version 1, for conducting global strike operations during the “seize the initiative” phase of a conflict (“seconds to days”). Targets include WMD production, storage, and delivery capabilities, critical command and control facilities, anti-access capabilities (radars, surface-to-air missile sites, theater ballistic missile sites), and adversary leadership.

    Fall 2005: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to publish Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.

    ENDNOTES

    1. A chronology of nuclear weapons guidance issued by the Bush administration is available at http://www.nukestrat.com.

    Hans M. Kristensen is co-author of the World Nuclear Forces appendix to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Yearbook and a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    ENDNOTES

    1. The draft doctrine might be slightly different from the final doctrine, although at this late stage any changes are expected to be cosmetic. Copies of the new doctrine, previous versions, and editing comments are available at http://www.nukestrat.com.

    2. See U.S. Strategic Command, “Post-START II Arms Control,” 1996 (partially declassified).

    3. Keith B. Payne, “The Nuclear Posture Review: Setting the Record Straight,” Washington Quarterly 28, no. 3 (Summer 2005), p. 147.

    4. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 16, 2004, p. 59.

    5. The White House, “Remarks by the President on Missile Defense,” December 13, 2001.

    6. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 15, 1995, p. II-5.

    7. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Joint Staff Input to JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations (Second Draft),” April 28, 2003, pp. 34-35.

    8. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 16, 2004, pp. 67-69.

    9. International Court of Justice, “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” July 8, 1996, items A and E (advisory opinion).

  • Statement of an Atomic Veteran 60 Years After the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki

    My name is Eduardo Pablo Zaragoza and I am 79 years-old. I was born and raised in a coal mining community, Dawson, in Northern New Mexico. Life with my family was good. I had wonderful parents, and four sisters and two brothers, a harmonious family in every way. I liked school and excelled at sports.

    In January, 1945, when I was 17 years-old, I joined the Navy. I served in the South Pacific on the USS Wayne, an attack amphibious transport. Our first destination was Guam, where we unloaded Navy personnel and Marines who were replacement troops. We then went on to Saipan, where we picked up the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines of the 2nd Division, who were to be the occupation forces in Nagasaki.

    On September 23, 1945, we anchored in Nagasaki Harbor, then loaded small boats with Marine troops, and transported them onto land. I spent four days in Nagasaki. As our boat was landing, I saw steel ships, burned up and destroyed, in the water. Everywhere I looked everything was destroyed, melted. I also saw a horrible sight: many, many bloated bodies floating on the water. These were the bodies of dead Nagasaki citizens who had died in the days and weeks after the bomb was dropped. The Japanese people had disposed of them in the water. I could not believe what I saw! Even today I can still see the bloated bodies floating in the harbor.

    Once ashore in Nagasaki, we walked all over the place and we saw the devastation of the city and its inhabitants. I was numb. At 17 years of age, I could not take it all in! It was overwhelming. It didn’t help that we soldiers were in no way prepared by the Navy for what we would see there in Nagasaki. I walked all around. They allowed us to walk up to one mile from the hypocenter. Everything was burnt to the ground, burnt material everywhere. The only buildings I remember seeing left standing were a church and a hospital. Besides us U.S. military, there were also Japanese crews cleaning up the debris. As I looked around, I saw many imprints of bodies in the cement where charred bodies had been removed. I could smell flesh all over the place. To my amazement, I also saw the shadows of people who had been vaporized by the bomb. All over the city, Japanese vendors were selling rice balls with sardines to anyone who would buy it from them. I can still remember the smell of the rice with sardines.

    My first day in Nagasaki, I walked through the hospital there which housed the victims of the bomb. I walked through two wards: one for men and one for babies and children. It seemed to me they were all dying. The nurses were removing maggots from the patients’ burnt and rotting flesh. The men were crying out in agony, reaching out to me, moaning and pleading with me in their language, a language I did not know at all. All the time I was thinking, “They want me to help them. What can I do? I can do nothing!” I was shocked to see so many children badly burned and bandaged, in so much pain and dying. I have thought about this horrible scene over and over in my mind for 60 years. I try to forget it, but I can’t. I still see people in that hospital, even today remembering their faces, their burned bodies, reaching their hands out to me, as though it was yesterday.

    I was honorably discharged in 1966. I came back a changed man. I have experienced depression and PTSD my whole life since then. Ever since my discharge from the Navy, I have had awful nightmares, flailing my arms, thrashing in bed. I hear the children crying and I go outside the house to look for them, but they are not there. In other nightmares, I see the bodies all bloated in the water. And that has stayed with me all these years.

    The bomb on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb. I have read much about the effects of radiation on the body, especially the lifelong effects of expose to Plutonium. I have experienced all of these medical conditions which are designated by the VA on their list of conditions caused by exposure to radiation: hemorrhaging nostrils (a few days after leaving Nagasaki), severe tonsillitis (2 years after Nagasaki), non-malignant thyroid disease, subcapsular cataracts, prostate cancer, diabetes, chronic fatigue and anemia.

    I have also read that Plutonium, an incredibly dangerous substance, settles in men’s testes. Doctors have told me that my wife, Lily’s illnesses could be attributed to the radiation I received in Nagasaki. She has experienced cervical cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and kidney shutdown. Lily suffered 3 miscarriages and we had one stillborn baby. Of our 4 children, all but one died at a young age. Jose Maria, our son, lived only 24 hours. The doctor said he had incredibly delicate skin. Our son, Ron, died at 32, ending his long ordeal with myasthenia gravis. Our daughter, Rita, also was afflicted with myasthenia gravis, and died at the age of 45. Our doctor told us that it is extremely rare for two members of the same family to have the disease. Our only living child, daughter, Theresa, has had thyroid cancer.

    To anyone who would say that our family just experienced more than our share of “bad luck” with all of these medical problems, I would point out that Lily’s and my parents lived to a ripe old age and there is no history of cancer, birth defects or serious disease in either of our families. Radiation is the weapon that keeps on killing through one’s lifetime, and our family sadly has found this to be true over these many years.

    What I want people to know about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki is that it never should have happened! I would like the people to know that it is so hard to live a happy life after you’ve gone through something like this. You have to actually see it to comprehend it. I went through it, I’ve lived it, and to this day, after 60 years, I still carry radiation in my body. As far as I know, there’s no medical cure for it.

    And I know the Japanese people have really suffered from these nuclear bombings that they experienced, up to today. There’s many, many Japanese who are worse off than I am. They have severe medical problems, cancers and so many different diseases that were caused by the radiation, and keloids from the horrible burns all over their bodies. The Japanese survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have really, really suffered, including those people who went back into the city to look for their relatives, and were contaminated by the radiation. Some of these people lived 1 year, 2 years, 5 years. And those who have survived, the Hibakusha, are still having medical problems caused by nuclear radiation 60 years ago.

    It seems to me that the Japanese now want the people all over the world to know how bad this experience was. The Japanese want people to unite to stop all of these governments from making any more nuclear weapons, because they know that most of the people in the world are for stopping the governments from making nuclear weapons.

    Right now, the United States has the biggest supply of bombs, and especially here in Albuquerque, where we have more than 2,400 nuclear bombs stored at Kirtland AFB. And Sandia and Los Alamos labs are thinking of making a more powerful bomb, a bomb that penetrates deep into the ground. What we have to do is unite and see if we can stop them from proceeding and getting these powerful, powerful bombs. And if we unite, I know that we can stop them.

    We want the United States government, and all governments, to stop producing any more weapons of mass destruction, because if they don’t, our future generations will suffer like the Hibakusha of Japan. It’s a crime to leave this inheritance for our children and our grandchildren. May they live in peace.

  • Sir Joseph Rotblat: A Legacy of Peace

    Joseph Rotblat was one of the great men of the 20th century. He was a man of science and peace. Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1908, he was one of those rare individuals who, like Rosa Parks or Nelson Mandela, comes to an intersection with history and courageously forges a new path. In Joseph’s case, the intersection with history arrived in 1944 while he was working on the Manhattan Project, the US project to develop an atomic bomb.

    Joseph had worked as a scientist toward the creation of an atomic weapon, first in the UK at the University of Liverpool and then at Los Alamos, New Mexico. When he learned in late 1944 that Germany would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, he believed there was no longer reason to continue work on creating a US bomb. For him, there was only one reason to create an atomic weapon, and that was to deter the German use of such a weapon during World War II. If the Germans would not have an atomic weapon, then there was no reason for the Allies to have one. Joseph was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds.

    He was the last living signer of the 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto, one of the great documents of the 20th century, and he often quoted its final passage: “We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open for a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    He was convinced that countries needed to abolish nuclear weapons and he devoted his life to achieving this goal, as well as the goal of ending war as a human institution. Just prior to his 90th birthday, he said that he still had two great goals in life. “My short-term goal,” he said, “is the abolition of nuclear weapons, and my long-term goal is the abolition of war.”

    Joseph was for many years the General Secretary of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and later served as president of the Pugwash Conferences. In his work with Pugwash, he was instrumental in bringing together scientists from East and West, so that they could find common ground for ending the Cold War with its mad nuclear arms race. In 1995, Joseph and the Pugwash Conferences were joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

    He began his Nobel acceptance speech by saying, “At this momentous event in my life…I want to speak as a scientist, but also as a human being. From my earliest days I had a passion for science. But science, the exercise of the supreme power of the human intellect, was always linked in my mind with benefit to people. I saw science as being in harmony with humanity. I did not imagine that the second half of my life would be spent on efforts to avert a mortal danger to humanity created by science.”

    In his speech, he reasoned that a nuclear weapon-free world would be safer than a world with nuclear weapons, but the danger of “ultimate catastrophe” would still exist. He concluded that war must be abolished: “The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than compulsion; if in the process we learn to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task.”

    When Joseph came to Santa Barbara in 1997 to receive the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership, I asked him, “What gives you hope for the future?” He responded, “My hope is based on logic. Namely, there is no alternative. If we don’t do this [eliminate nuclear weapons and engender more responsibility by scientists as well as citizens in general], then we are doomed. The whole existence of humankind is endangered. We are an endangered species now and we have to take steps to prevent the extinguishing of the human species. We owe an allegiance to humanity. Since there is no other way, then we must proceed in this way. Therefore, if we must do it, then there is hope that it will be done.”

    Earlier this year, Joseph made an appeal to the delegates to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, held in May at the United Nations in New York. “Morality,” he wrote, “is at the core of the nuclear issue: are we going to base our world on a culture of peace or on a culture of war? Nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral: their action is indiscriminate, affecting civilians as well as military, innocents and aggressors alike, killing people alive now and generations as yet unborn. And the consequence of their use could bring the human race to an end.” He ended his appeal with his oft-repeated plea, “Remember your humanity.”

    I visited Joseph at his home in London just a few months ago. He had been slowed down by a stroke and was disturbed that he wasn’t able to be as active as he’d been accustomed. But his spirit was strong, and he was still smiling and looking forward. He was as committed as ever to his dual goals of achieving a world without nuclear weapons and without war – goals to which he had devoted the full measure of his energy, intellect and wisdom.

    Joseph has left behind a strong legacy of peace. It is our job now to pick up the baton that he carried so well and passionately for so long, and continue his legacy.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and the Deputy Chair of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (www.inesglobal.org).

  • The Political Rehabilitation of Joseph Rotblat

    By the time of his death, which occurred on August 31, 2005, Joseph Roblat was a revered figure. A top nuclear physicist, Rotblat received—among many other honors and awards–a British knighthood and, together with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (an organization that he had helped to found), the Nobel Peace Prize (1995). As the president of the Pugwash conferences recalled: “Joseph Rotblat was a towering figure in the search for peace in the world, who dedicated his life to trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and ultimately to rid the world of war itself.”

    But Rotblat’s steadfast support for nuclear disarmament and peace did not always receive such plaudits, as I discovered when I conducted two interviews with him and did extensive research in formerly secret British government records.

    Born in Warsaw in 1908, Rotblat moved to Britain in 1939, where he became a promising young physicist. During World War II, when he feared that Nazi Germany might develop the atomic bomb, he came to the United States to work on the Manhattan Project, America’s own atomic bomb program that he—like many other scientists—hoped would deter Germany’s launching of a nuclear war. But, in late 1944, when Rotblat learned that the German bomb program had been a failure, he resigned from the Manhattan project and returned to London to engage in nonmilitary work. This decision, taken for humanitarian reasons, plunged him into hot water with the authorities. Shortly after telling his U.S. supervisor of his plan to leave Los Alamos, he was accused by U.S. intelligence of being a Soviet spy. The charge, totally without merit, was eventually dropped.

    Back in Britain, Rotblat engaged in peaceful research and, in the postwar years, helped to organize the Atomic Scientists’ Association (ASA), which drew together some of that country’s top scientists. Much like America’s Federation of American Scientists, the ASA promoted nuclear arms control and disarmament. However, British government officials, then more interested in building nuclear weapons than in eliminating them, looked askance at its activities. In 1947-48, when the ASA organized an Atomic Train to bring the dangers of nuclear weapons (and the supposed benefits of peaceful nuclear power) to the attention of the British public, Prime Minister Clement Attlee objected strongly to plans for government cooperation with it. In March 1948, when Rotblat invited Attlee to visit the Atomic Train during its stay in London, the foreign secretary and the defense minister advised the prime minister to reject the offer, which he did.

    Rotblat’s relations with the British government continued on a difficult course in the 1950s. Working closely with the philosopher Bertrand Russell, Rotblat signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of July 9, 1955, which warned nations that if they persisted in their plans for nuclear war, civilization would be utterly destroyed. This venture, in turn, led to the Pugwash conferences—so named because they began in 1957 at a private estate in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Designed to bring together scientists on both sides of the “iron curtain” for serious, non-polemical discussions of the nuclear menace, these conferences were low-key operations, with little publicity outside of scientific circles. Nevertheless, British officials were deeply suspicious of the Pugwash conferences and of Rotblat, who did most of the organizational work for them and, in 1959, became Pugwash secretary-general.

    Convinced that “the Communists” wanted to use the 1958 Pugwash conference “to secure support for the Soviet demand for the banning of nuclear weapons,” the British Foreign Office initially sought to promote an attitude of skepticism toward it. But, when Rotblat asked J.D. Cockcroft, a member of Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority, to suggest who might be invited to it, Cockcroft and the Foreign Office decided that a better strategy would be to go with the flow and arrange for the participation of a staunch proponent of the British government’s position in the meeting, which they did.

    Although one British diplomat noted that the conference “passed off quietly enough, and not too unsuccessfully from our point of view,” the British government remained on guard. Learning of plans for another Pugwash conference, in Vienna, the Foreign Office warned of the possibility “that this will be more dangerous from our point of view than its predecessors.” Communist participants might launch “a major propaganda drive against nuclear weapons,” and “the organizing committee consists of Lord Russell and Professor Rotblat.” From the British government’s standpoint, the Pugwash conferences were little better than “Communist front gatherings.”

    But British policy gradually began to shift, as the government grew more interested in nuclear arms controls. Asked by Rotblat if he would like to join the advisory body of the British Pugwash committee, Cockcroft referred the matter to the Foreign Office, which responded that he should do so, as it would help prevent Pugwash from “being exploited for propaganda purposes.” Although the Foreign Office did not think he should attend the next Pugwash conference, in Moscow, during 1960, it reversed course that summer and urged him to recruit additional politically reliable scientists to attend. Indeed, it now sought to take over the Pugwash movement for its own purposes. In response to a suggestion by Cockcroft, a Foreign Office official opined that “it would be most helpful if the Royal Society could be persuaded to sponsor British participation . . . and if this were to lead to the winding up of the present Pugwash Committee.”

    But the plans for a takeover failed. When the British government suggested topics for Pugwash meetings and more government officials who should be invited to them, Rotblat resisted, much to government dismay. In October 1963, a Foreign Office official complained that “the difficulty is to get Prof. Rotblat to pay any attention to what we think. . . . He is no doubt jealous of his independence and scientific integrity.” Securing “a new organizer for the British delegation seems to be the first need, but I do not know if there is any hope of this.”

    Nonetheless, despite lingering resentment at Rotblat’s independence and integrity, the British government had arrived at a positive appraisal of the Pugwash conferences. As a British defense ministry official declared in January 1962: Pugwash was “now a very respectable organization.” When the Home Office, clinging to past policy, advised that Pugwash was “a dirty word,” the Foreign Office retorted that the movement now enjoyed “official blessing.” Explaining the turnabout, a Foreign Office official stated that “the process of educating” Soviet experts is “bound to be of some use to us.” Furthermore, “we ourselves may pick up some useful ideas from our own scientists . . . and are not likely to be embarrassed by anything which they suggest.” Finally, “if there is ever to be a breakthrough, it is not inconceivable that the way might be prepared by a conference of this kind.”

    In fact, there soon was a breakthrough: the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963—a nuclear arms control measure that the Pugwash conferences played a key part in generating. The British government had no doubt about the connection, and in 1964 it honored Rotblat with a CBE—Commander of the British Empire—for his organization of the Pugwash conferences.

    And so it goes. Today’s dangerously peace-minded heretic is tomorrow’s hero. Abraham Lincoln—that staunch critic of the Mexican War—became America’s best-loved President. Robert LaFollette—reviled and burned in effigy for his opposition to World War I—emerged as one of this nation’s most respected senators. Martin Luther King, Jr.—condemned for his protests against the Vietnam War—is now honored as this country’s great peacemaker.

    Perhaps today, when governments promise us endless military buildups and wars, opposition politicians should take note of this phenomenon.

    Lawrence S. Wittner, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is Professor of History at the State University of New York at Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press). He is a member of POTUS, HNN’s presidential history/politics blog.

  • Overcoming the Obstacles to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    As we gather in this historic location to observe the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my first thoughts turn to the hibakusha. I pay my respect to these brave people who have suffered so much and who have taught the world. The stories of the hibakusha must never be lost. Future generations must understand the reality of nuclear weapons. They must continue to learn from these brave people who overcame Armageddon and chose the path of life. The hibakusha rejected retaliation and embraced reconciliation as their guiding force. That is a lesson for the ages.

    I also wish to pay my deepest respect to Mayor Akiba for his world-wide leadership in building Mayors for Peace into a vibrant organization in the campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The 20/20 Vision Campaign, articulated so brilliantly by Mayor Akiba, has provided new hope for all those who desire to live in a nuclear weapons-free world. I congratulate the people of Hiroshima for having selected such an outstanding world figure to represent their interests. I pledge today the continuing support of the Middle Powers Initiative for Mayor Akiba and the Mayors for Peace campaign.

    * * *

    The framework for a nuclear weapons-free world is coming into view even as the daily news seems discouraging. It is perhaps paradoxical that a light can be seen, by those with vision, even in the darkness of the moment.

    My experience tells me that it is reasonable to hope for, and to work for, a world beyond the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a parliamentarian, diplomat and educator, I have worked on nuclear disarmament issues for more than 30 years. I understand the lassitude and obstinacy of governments all too well. But I also see the developments taking place in civil society where increasing numbers of highly informed and deeply committed activists are cooperating with like-minded governments to get things done to improve human security. The Anti-Personnel Landmines Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the new surge of government commitment to Official Development Assistance have come about because of civil society’s input into government machinery.

    We stand on the threshold of the construction of a viable plan for a nuclear weapons-free world resulting from the active cooperation of knowledgeable leaders of civil society working with those politicians and officials of like-minded governments who truly want to move forward.

    The day will arrive when either nuclear weapons abolition takes effect or the world will be devastated by a nuclear attack. One or the other will happen. No person, informed on the gravity of the situation, can deny it.

    * * *

    Dear friends, the eyes of the world are on Hiroshima today. It is our task to ensure that political decision-makers stay focused on solving the problems at the epicenter of Hiroshima. We must have national policies that ban the production, deployment and use of nuclear weapons by countries in all circumstances for all time. There can be no more equivocation. We must project our message for all to hear: nuclear weapons are immoral, they are illegal, they are the ultimate evil. No civilized person can any longer defend the possession of nuclear weapons. They must be banished from the face of the earth.

    We who are assembled here today must gather new energy for our struggle. It is not yet too late to prevent a nuclear catastrophe – the third use of nuclear weapons. But the hour is late. The nuclear weapons States refuse to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Proliferation of nuclear weapons is occurring. Nuclear weapons have become part of war-fighting strategies. Terrorists seek nuclear weapons. The Second Nuclear Age has begun. This is the message we must get out to all those who think the nuclear weapons problems went away with the end of the Cold War.

    Let us take heart as we renew our work today. We who stand for the abolition of nuclear weapons are not some isolated minority. Unthinking politicians may try to marginalize us. But we are part of a growing majority. An international poll of citizens in 11 countries showed that 86 percent of people either strongly agree or agree to some extent that all nations should sign a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. In Japan, the figure was 97 percent. The people of Japan want the abolition of nuclear weapons. We must tell the Government of Japan to work harder to obtain what the Japanese people so ardently desire.

    In the United States, 76 percent of the people favour a treaty to ban all nuclear weapons. Yet the government of the United States stands today as the biggest obstacle to nuclear disarmament. I make that statement as a Canadian, a next-door neighbour of the United States, one who has lived among and loves the American people. But my parliamentary and diplomatic experience has shown me how the present Administration of the U.S. is undermining the rule of law. By refusing to accept today the commitments made in 1995 and 2000 to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the government of the U.S. is weakening the non-proliferation regime. They have the ill-conceived idea that they can reserve to themselves the right to continued possession of nuclear weapons while proscribing their acquisition by other countries.

    We must say clearly to the U.S.: you cannot have a two-class world on nuclear weapons. You owe it to humanity to work with other countries in a constructive manner to negotiate the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. As Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, I approach this work in a positive and constructive spirit, not one of recrimination. I want to help the U.S. understand that, together, the world community can build the architecture to provide security in a nuclear weapons-free world.

    I am announcing today that the Middle Powers Initiative will sponsor an “Article VI Forum” for like-minded States to start work on identifying the legal, political and technical requirements for the elimination of nuclear weapons. We will invite senior representatives of 28 countries to a special meeting in early October at the United Nations to specify steps that could be taken unilaterally, bilaterally, regionally and multilaterally to enhance security without relying on nuclear weapons. This process may well produce the outline of how negotiations, as called for in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reinforced by the International Court of Justice, can proceed. A framework for negotiations could be started. The Article VI Forum, with its ongoing work, will, of course, pay attention to non-proliferation issues, but the focus will be principally on nuclear disarmament issues, which are at the true center of the nuclear weapons crisis.

    The MPI cordially invites the Government of Japan to join the Article VI Forum. Membership in the Forum, in the opening stages, will be confined to like-minded non-nuclear weapons States. They need to spend some time working together and allow their creativity and commitment to surface. At some point in the new deliberations, the nuclear weapons States interested in joining a new process to fulfil their Article VI commitments could be invited to join.

    All of this work is intended to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty so that negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons will not only be pursued but concluded. I see this work as a direct contribution to the Mayors for Peace campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Convention to come fully into effect by 2020. The immediate steps of Mayors for Peace to stimulate productive work at the United Nations First Committee and to get talks started early in 2006 is highly commendable. Governments must begin to work together on specific issues leading to nuclear disarmament, as Mayors for Peace has stated. It is the duty of middle power states to lead the way. The Article VI Forum would help them to fulfil this function.

    The MPI work in building some momentum through having like-minded States concentrate on preparing the way for a nuclear weapons-free world and the Mayors for Peace work in driving the First Committee work forward go hand-in-hand. Together, the Middle Powers Initiative and Mayors for Peace can contribute to progress. We can show all the nuclear weapons States that the world can work together in addressing this greatest of all security problems. However, MPI and M4P cannot do this alone. Much will depend on public backing and political support for these new initiatives. A rising public demand for nations to get on with negotiating and implementing a Nuclear Weapons Convention to ban the production and deployment of all nuclear weapons may take hold in the future. The work of Mayors for Peace, with its growing and extensive network around the world, could stimulate that demand.

    It can be expected that one or more of the nuclear weapons States will resist and continue to claim that it still needs nuclear weapons. But such claims would have less and less credibility in a world where the architecture for security without nuclear weapons became better understood and where the universal norm against the possession of nuclear weapons was growing in stature.

    * * *

    Let us always remember: we have the historical momentum for the abolition of nuclear weapons on our side. The Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International Court of Justice, the votes of the majority of nations are all calling for an “unequivocal undertaking” and systematic progress towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. The proponents of nuclear weapons have been reduced to ridiculous arguments to justify nuclear retention. Not only are nuclear weapons immoral and illegal, they are devoid of any intellectual standing. Those who defend nuclear weapons should be laughed at – as one day they will, when humanity discovers it has the strength to overcome the merchants of evil. Future generations will look back on our time and say without hesitation that nuclear weapons were an anachronism, the obsession of old men trapped in the past. It will be a source of wonder to future generations how humanity ever tolerated the means to its own mass destruction.

    It is our job to work towards this future of enlightenment. The people of the world want us to succeed in building true human security. We must feel confident that we can do the job. We must know that we can respond to our historical calling. We must be forever determined to build a nuclear weapons-free world. Hiroshima gives me that strength and hope.

    Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., a former Canadian Senator, is Chair of the Middle Powers Initiative and serves on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council. Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C. is the recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership.

  • Nagasaki Peace Declaration 2005

    Today the bells of Nagasaki echo in the sky, marking 60 years since the atomic bombing. At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, a single atomic bomb was dropped from an American warplane, exploding in this same sky above us, instantly destroying the city of Nagasaki. Some 74,000 people were killed, and another 75,000 wounded. Some of the victims never knew what happened. Others pleaded for water as death overtook them. Children, so burned and blackened that they could not even cry out, lay with their eyes closed. Those people who narrowly survived were afflicted with deep physical and mental wounds that could never be healed. They continue to suffer from the after-effects of the bomb, living in fear of death.

    To the leaders of the nuclear weapons states: Nuclear weapons must never be used for any reason whatsoever. This we know from painful experience. For sixty years we have repeated our plea, “No more Hiroshima! No more Nagasaki!” International society has also been exerting effort for the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests and the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones. In 2000, the nuclear weapons states themselves promised an “unequivocal undertaking” for the “elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

    Nevertheless, at the end of the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons held at United Nations headquarters in May of this year, no progress was achieved. The nuclear weapons states, and the United States of America in particular, have ignored their international commitments, and have made no change in their unyielding stance on nuclear deterrence. We strongly resent the trampling of the hopes of the world’s people.

    To the citizens of the United States of America: We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, is your security actually enhanced by your government’s policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new “mini” nuclear weapons? We are confident that the vast majority of you desire in your hearts the elimination of nuclear arms. May you join hands with the people of the world who share that same desire, and work together for a peaceful planet free from nuclear weapons.

    To the government of Japan: Our nation deeply regrets the last war, and our government has supposedly resolved not to engage in actions that might lead to the tragedy of war again. The peaceful ideals of our constitution must be upheld, and the threefold non-nuclear principle of neither possessing, manufacturing, nor allowing nuclear arms within our borders must be enacted into law without delay. The efforts of concerned countries for nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula, combined with the concomitant results of the threefold non-nuclear principle, will pave the way for a Northeast Asia nuclear-weapon-free zone. We urge you to adopt a stance that does not rely upon the “nuclear umbrella,” and to take a leading role in nuclear abolition.

    We would also point out that the atomic bomb survivors have become quite elderly. We further call upon the Japanese government to provide greater assistance to those who continue to suffer from the mental anguish caused by the bombing, and to extend sufficient aid to survivors who now reside overseas.

    Here in Nagasaki, many young people are learning about the atomic bombing and about peace, and are engaged in activities that they themselves have originated. To our young people: Remember always the miserable deaths of the atomic bomb victims. We ask each of you to earnestly study history and to consider the importance of peace and the sanctity of life. The citizens of Nagasaki stand behind your efforts. May you join hands with the world’s citizens and NGOs, that the bells of peace will ring loud and clear in the sky over Nagasaki.

    Today, as we mark 60 years since the atomic bombing, we pray for the repose of the souls of those who died, even as we declare our commitment, together with Hiroshima, never to abandon our efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the establishment of lasting world peace.

    Iccho Itoh Mayor The City of Nagasaki