Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Nuclear Disarmament

  • Preventing a Terrorist Mushroom Cloud

    The images of the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania are nightmare images of unspeakable horror that will forever be a part of our reality.

    Imagine, however, another nightmare — that of a mushroom cloud rising over an American city. This is a threat we can no longer ignore. Terrorists have demonstrated their willingness to attack US cities and the possibility of them doing so with nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out. After September 11th, citizens and leaders alike should be better able to understand the seriousness of the nuclear threat.

    The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were powerful warnings. They signaled that determined terrorists are prepared to sacrifice their lives to harm us, that future attacks could involve weapons of mass destruction, and that nuclear dangers are increasing because of terrorist activity.

    Our leaders have failed to grasp that our present nuclear weapons policies contribute to the possibility of nuclear terrorism against our country. We are simply not doing enough to prevent nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

    A US blue ribbon commission, headed by former Senate majority leader Howard Baker, has called for spending $3 billion a year over the next ten years to maintain control of the nuclear weapons, nuclear materials and nuclear scientists in the former Soviet Union. Yet, the Bush administration has proposed funding cuts for this program from $1.2 billion to $800 million next year.

    The Bush Administration’s primary response to the nuclear threat has been to push for a national missile shield costing billions of dollars, the technology of which is unproven, and which would at best be years away from implementation. A missile shield would likely do irreparable harm to our relations with other countries, countries that we need to join us in the fight against international terrorism.

    The mad nuclear arms race during the Cold War, and the paltry steps taken to reverse it since the end of the Cold War, have left tens of thousands of nuclear weapons potentially available to terrorists. Today there is no accurate inventory of the world’s nuclear arsenals or weapons-grade fissile materials suitable for making nuclear weapons. Estimates have it, however, that there are currently more than 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world. We simply don’t know whether these weapons are adequately controlled, or whether some could already have fallen into the hands of terrorists.

    Osama bin Laden claims to possess nuclear weapons. His claim is feasible. Former Russian Security Advisor Aleksandr Lebed has stated that some 80 to 100 suitcase-size nuclear weapons in the one kiloton range are missing from the Russian arsenal. This claim was reiterated by Alexey Yablokov, an advisor to former Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

    The Russian government has denied the claims of missing Russian nuclear weapons, but former US Deputy Energy Secretary Charles Curtis has expressed doubt about these assurances. According to Curtis, “We believe we have a full accounting of all of Russia’s strategic weapons, but when it comes to tactical weapons – the suitcase variety – we do not know, and I’m not sure they do, either.”

    More than ten years after the end of the Cold War we and the Russians still have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons each with a total of some 4,500 of them on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. Russia has been urging the US to move faster on START 3 negotiations to reduce the size of the nuclear arsenals in both countries, but US leaders had been largely indifferent to their entreaties.

    In November 2001, President Bush announced that the US was prepared to reduce its arsenal of long-range nuclear weapons to between 2,200 and 1,700 over the next ten years. President Putin indicated that Russia would make commensurate cuts. These steps are in the right direction, but they still indicate reliance on Cold War strategies of deterrence. They also do not address tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons, which are the most likely weapons to be used and to fall into the hands of terrorists.

    Large nuclear arsenals, measured in the thousands, on hair-trigger alert are Cold War relics. They do not provide deterrence against terrorist attacks. Nor could a missile shield have prevented the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, or protect against future nuclear terrorism.

    From the outset, the Bush administration’s foreign policy course has been based on unilateral US actions and indifference bordering on hostility to international law. Since September 11th, the administration seems to have recognized that we cannot combat terrorism unilaterally. A multilateral effort to combat terrorism will require the US to change its policies and embrace multilateral approaches to many global problems, including the control and elimination of all weapons of mass destruction.

    The global elimination of nuclear weapons can no longer be a back-burner, peace activist issue. It is a top-priority security issue for all Americans, and it will require US leadership to achieve.

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Welcoming the Disarmament Committee of the United Nations General Assembly

    Statement by Under-Secretary General Jayantha Dhanapala, October 8, 2001

    I begin by congratulating you, Mr. Chairman, upon your election to guide the work of this Committee. Your distinguished career equips you well for the tasks ahead — a career that, in the disarmament area, features your prominent role in the historic 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as your chairmanship of the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. I also congratulate the other members of the bureau and pledge the fullest support of the Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) in all your efforts to make this a productive session.

    On 10 September 2001, the Secretary-General issued his annual Message on the eve of what was to be the International Day of Peace. He urged people everywhere to “try to imagine a world quite different from the one we know.” He called on everybody to “picture those who wage war laying down their arms and talking out their differences.” He stated that this “should be a day of global ceasefire and non-violence.” And he closed with these words of hope: “let us seize the opportunity for peace to take hold, day by day, year by year, until every day is a day of peace.”

    The next morning, only an hour before the Secretary-General was planning to ring the Peace Bell, thousands of citizens from dozens of countries perished in acts of unmitigated brutality that defy description. The challenge now facing this Committee, as it convenes in the shadow of this dark and ominous cloud, is to confront these new and old threats to international peace and security. At this critical juncture — when the peoples of the world stand together in repudiating mass terrorism — we must all work together to build upon this remarkable display of unity. This is a time for cooperation, for reaffirming the rule of law, for recognizing common threats, and for acknowledging the extent to which our common security depends upon justice, fundamental human rights, and equitable development for all societies. For this Committee, it is particularly a time for reinforcing the roads and bridges leading to the fulfilment of multilateral disarmament commitments, while exploring new paths to reach the same destinations. It is, in short, a time to resume the work of realizing the vision described in the Secretary-General’s Message on the International Day of Peace.

    Only history will decide how much of a defining moment 11 September will be. But history will certainly not absolve us for failing to learn the lessons of this unspeakable tragedy. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his address on 1 October to the General Assembly, stated “While the world was unable to prevent the 11 September attacks, there is much we can do to help prevent future terrorist acts carried out with weapons of mass destruction.” For us in the disarmament community he set out several guidelines for future actions that I hope delegations will consider carefully.

    Some specific initiatives that merit serious consideration include:

    · First, the need to expand the membership of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, while strengthening controls over nuclear facilities and the storage and transportation of nuclear materials.

    · Second, the need for new efforts to negotiate a convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism — the recent terrorist attacks should add new urgency to these efforts.

    · Third, the need for a global database — based on publicly available material — on acts, threatened acts, or suspected acts of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. The Department for Disarmament Affairs is in contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on many of these issues and is prepared, if so mandated, to establish such a database.

    Mr. Chairman, the starting point for the work of this Committee must be the sobering realization that last month’s tragedy could have been so much worse had nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons been used. The objective facts require that we be neither alarmist sowers of panic, nor complacent do-nothings. We do, however, have a duty to protect innocent citizens throughout the world by reinforcing the multilateral disarmament regime. Many of the deadliest super-weapons remain difficult to manufacture due to the unique characteristics of their weapons materials, improvements in methods of detecting the production or testing of such weapons, and technical problems in converting dangerous materials into effective, deliverable weapons. The world community must do all it can to raise these hurdles, while strengthening the fundamental norms against the possession or use of such weapons. The best way to accomplish this is through the active pursuit of a robust disarmament agenda. Of one thing we must be clear — in the disarmament area there is no going back to business as usual.

    The agenda of this Committee has always been challenging, yet the tasks ahead are more critical than ever. Many of these challenges, however, existed well before the tragic events of 11 September. At the conclusion of its 37th session in Geneva last July, the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters concluded that “there currently exists a crisis of multilateral disarmament diplomacy.”

    The symptoms of that crisis — while numerous earlier in the year — are now self-apparent even to casual observers. We are witnessing a weakening of the basic infrastructure of disarmament — one of the eight priority areas in the United Nations work programme. This state of affairs — if allowed to continue — will threaten the very sustainability of disarmament as a means of enhancing international peace and security.

    Disarmament is facing difficult times. There is no doubt that its future rests heavily upon a strong level of understanding and support in civil society. Yet today we see signs of private foundations and other funding agencies moving out of the field of disarmament or reducing their commitments to this goal. As funding grows scarce — a problem aggravated by the turbulent global financial markets — key groups in civil society are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their work on disarmament issues. In academia, we find all too few articles in serious scholarly journals on disarmament per se and very few new doctoral dissertations that deal directly with disarmament. We find the news media focusing on the glare of current conflicts rather than the typically slow and incremental process of eliminating the weapons used in such conflicts — or eliminating the weapons that could even destroy the world. These trends must be reversed, and at a minimum, more funding made available to non-governmental groups working in the field of disarmament.

    On an inter-state level, we find few governments with offices specifically devoted to disarmament issues, and New Zealand still has the distinction of having the only minister of disarmament. We see a flourishing global arms market — the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimates the total value of arms transfers from 1993 through 2000 at around $303 billion — and almost 70 percent of these arms were imported by developing countries. Meanwhile, global military expenditures are again on the rise — amounting last year to an estimated $800 billion. This growth in the arms trade and military spending contrasts with the terms of Article 26 of the Charter, which refer to the least diversion of the world’s human and economic resources for armaments.

    At times it appears — certainly in terms of the United Nations budgetary procedures — that we are seeing instead the least diversion of resources for disarmament. It goes without saying that the smallest department in the United Nations is the Department for Disarmament Affairs, which is now seeking a modest increase in the 2002-2003 biennium budget that is before this session of the General Assembly. It is also not uncommon to read of financial problems and resource shortages in key treaty-based organizations like the IAEA and OPCW.

    Two of the classic diplomatic measures for advancing disarmament, non-proliferation, and anti-terrorism goals — export controls and sanctions — are now in dispute, based on claims that they are ineffective, discriminatory, or harmful to other global values. The utility and legitimacy of these mechanisms requires that these criticisms be addressed, with a view to reaching universally-agreed guidelines. The danger remains that without them, the world community would find itself confronted with a stark choice between ignoring gross violations of global disarmament and non-proliferation norms and having to defend such norms by force of arms.

    The treaties that constitute the global legal regime for disarmament are also seriously incomplete. None of the key treaties prescribing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction has universal membership, and un-documented allegations of non-compliance continue to be heard among the States parties, eroding confidence in the various treaty regimes. Many important treaties have still not entered into force, including START II and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), whose members will soon meet in New York to consider ways of accelerating the ratification process. With respect to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), many years of efforts to conclude a protocol to strengthen this key treaty have ended abruptly. The treaty’s next five-year Review Conference, scheduled to convene next month in Geneva, provides an opportunity to revisit this issue. It must not be missed.

    With regard to the NPT, while it is still too early to predict the fate of the “thirteen steps” to nuclear disarmament agreed at the NPT 2000 Review Conference, it is fair to say that delegates attending next year’s first Preparatory Committee meeting for the treaty’s 2005 Review Conference will certainly expect hard evidence of a good faith effort to implement each of these important goals.

    The elimination of landmines is another very important international disarmament activity, given that they continue to impede the development and security of populations in almost one third of the world’s countries. Last month, I attended the third annual meeting of the States parties to the Mine Ban Convention in Managua, Nicaragua, convened by the United Nations pursuant to Resolution 55/33 V. Despite the uncertainties of air travel at the time, the event was marked both by an impressive attendance of more than 90 states and by positive results that augur well for the future implementation of this convention. The second annual conference of States parties to Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) will take place later this year. It will consider several proposals addressing the scope of the convention, compliance issues, small calibre weapons and ammunition, anti-vehicle mines, and the problem of explosive remnants of war. The Secretary-General is committed to fulfilling his responsibilities as Depositary to both of these important legal instruments.

    The global legal regime is particularly underdeveloped in the fields of conventional weapons, small arms and light weapons, preventing an arms race in outer space, and missiles and other delivery vehicles for weapons of mass destruction. Some of these problems, however, have been getting increased attention in recent years. General Assembly Resolution 55/33 A has asked the Secretary-General to prepare a report, with the assistance of a panel of governmental experts, on the issue of missiles in all its aspects, and to submit this report to the General Assembly at its 57th session. China has introduced in the Conference on Disarmament a proposal for a treaty banning the deployment of weapons in space. The Programme of Action successfully adopted at the July 2001 Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects provides a blueprint for international cooperation that may eventually lead to binding international norms. A question remains: will the events of 11 September encourage States to consider once again the need to prohibit the transfer of military-grade small arms and light weapons to non-state actors?

    The chronic deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament — the world’s single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum — is another serious problem that demands an urgent solution, one that will be found only in the political will of Member States to begin negotiations. Perhaps the new spirit of cooperation that has been re-kindled by the events of 11 September will help to breathe new life into this vitally important international institution.

    Taken alone, any one of these obstacles would be a cause for concern, but taken together, they suggest that disarmament is facing a very difficult road ahead. The crisis that disarmament is facing in multilateral diplomacy may reflect a deeper crisis of the nation-state system as it copes with the new forces of globalization. Large-scale terrorist events, and the possession or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, are only two of a growing list of twenty-first century problems that are straining the capacities of political institutions that were developed in other historical contexts, while casting new doubts on the utility of attempting to solve such problems through the exercise of military might. As highlighted in the Millennium Declaration, the Road Map to implement that declaration, and the Secretary-General’s recent report on the work of the organization, the United Nations offers indispensable tools to address precisely such twenty-first century problems.

    Despite the difficult challenges ahead for international peace and security, disarmament remains an attractive alternative to both deterrence and military defensive measures as responses to these challenges. One of the most important contributions of the United Nations in this field comes in the gathering and dissemination of information about worldwide progress in achieving important arms limitation and disarmament goals. On behalf of Member States, the DDA maintains the Register of Conventional Arms, which keeps track of the production and trade of seven categories of major weapons systems. This year more than a hundred governments made submissions to the Register, the highest level of participation since the Register was created nine years ago.

    More Member States are also using the Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures — this year, nearly 60 have reported data using this instrument, almost double the average number from previous years. Last July, the States attending the United Nations Small Arms Conference assigned the DDA the responsibility of collating and circulating data on the implementation of the Programme of Action agreed at that conference. DDA’s role as the coordination centre in the Secretariat of all United Nations activities in the field of small arms was specifically welcomed in UNGA Resolution 55/33 F.

    As requested by the General Assembly, DDA is also working with a group of outside experts to prepare a study on disarmament and non-proliferation education that the Secretary-General will submit to the General Assembly at its 57th session. These experts have met twice this year and are making progress in identifying constructive initiatives at the primary, secondary, university and postgraduate levels of education, in all regions of the world. Through its many symposia, newsletters, databases, monographs, films, posters, brochures, lectures to student groups, intern and fellowship programmes, a regularly-updated web site, and its new 454-page annual United Nations Disarmament Yearbook — DDA is giving its educational responsibilities every bit of attention they deserve, despite the heavy strain on its limited resources.

    I would like to take this occasion to invite all members of this Committee to attend a special symposium on “Terrorism and Disarmament” that the DDA will host on the afternoon of 25 October, involving experts from the IAEA, the OPCW, and other institutions. This timely event will examine the specific contributions that disarmament can make in addressing global terrorist threats.

    Mr. Chairman, this Committee faces the difficult task of moving beyond the tears, the grief, and the anger from 11 September — and from all acts of terrorism in all countries — to the re-establishment of a just and stable foundation for international peace and security. The Committee must adhere to its long-standing priorities — it must keep its focus on discovering the ways and means of eliminating all weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. As the Secretary-General stated in his message last month to the General Conference of the IAEA, “Making progress in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament is more important than ever in the aftermath of last week’s appalling terrorist attack on the United States.” Though all terrorism is tragic and unacceptable, the United Nations must place its highest priority on eliminating threats that potentially affect the greatest number of people — threats to international peace and security — threats, in short, that arise from weapons of mass destruction.

    The Committee has before it many resolutions that point the way ahead in achieving this basic aim. As it considers these resolutions, Member States may also wish to consider in their deliberations some broader questions that concern the disarmament machinery of the United Nations. Recent events, combined with the current crisis in multilateral disarmament diplomacy, may also suggest that the time has come to re-visit the proposal to convene a Fourth Special Session of the General Assembly on Disarmament.

    There is one question, however, that surely does not belong on this agenda, and that is the question of whether the primary focus of this Committee should change from “disarmament” to merely the regulation or limitation of arms. There is of course an important need for efforts on both fronts. When it comes to weapons of mass destruction, there is no question that the world would be far better off pursuing the total and verifiable elimination of such weapons than in perpetuating the fantasy that their possession can be permanently limited to an assortment of exclusive, but by no means leak-proof clubs. By contrast, controls over conventional weapons are in general better pursued by transparent regulatory approaches that limit the numbers or characteristics of agreed weapons systems — approaches that are consistent with the inherent right of self defence in Article 51 of the Charter. Together, both approaches complement each other well in serving the common interest of international peace and security

    Much ground has already been tilled. In their Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the States parties reaffirmed their common conviction that “the total elimination of nuclear weapons is the only absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons” — and that includes a terrorist use of a nuclear weapon. Given the consequences of even a single use of a nuclear weapon, is international peace and security best preserved by partial or conditional guarantees, or by an absolute guarantee? The same question also applies to other weapons of mass destruction.

    It is not at all unrealistic or inappropriate for this Committee to keep its focus on the search for absolute guarantees, and the more it searches, the more it will return to disarmament — not regulation — as the solution for weapons of mass destruction. In addressing such weapons, the Committee should explore ways of bringing disarmament to the world, or of bringing the world to disarmament, but disarmament must be done. As members of this committee, ask not for whom the Peace Bell tolls. It tolls for you.

  • NAPF Response to the August 2001 Session of Study on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Education

    Contemporary definition of disarmament education and training: An American perspective

    Very little comprehensive education on disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons exists for students prior to entering college. Considering the natural audience of high school and the importance of reaching students at a young age, a focused curriculum for high school students would best serve the goal of creating a good foundation for lifetime commitment and involvement in these areas.

    In order that there be fuller participation in disarmament and non-proliferation from a wider variety of ages, races, classes, etc., the participants must be able to take ownership in the issue. This means that the terminology, access to information, and input credibility must exist in a more user-friendly version. The reason that younger generations are less invested in non-proliferation, disarmament and abolition is their lack of exposure to peace-oriented education. The standard American high school curriculum for history is chronicled from war to war, general to general, and battle to battle with little coverage of the pacifist contingency nor the strides made for humankind by nonviolent activists. In fact, they are generally dismissed as dangerous or destructive rather than principled, disciplined individuals trying to create dynamic changes toward equality and justice.

    Those with the greatest potential for power, our young people, are not treated as viable candidates in the process of peacemaking. Peacemaking itself is an afterthought, a hopeful goal once the objectives ridding the world of nuclear weapons, civil conflicts, and chemical and biological warfare have been attained. Peacemaking can no longer be viewed as tangential to disarmament, but must become the sustenance which propels the disarmament and non-proliferation movement. Nonviolence and education are not the goals at the end of the road; they are the road.

    Assessment of the current situation of disarmament and non-proliferation education

    Access to information on disarmament and non-proliferation is limited to a specific group of people, namely college and post-graduate students whose academic interests focus primarily on these topics. A program for educating a wider audience through high schools is limited in existence. Yet education on disarmament and non-proliferation should not be limited to the academic elite, but should be available to the rising voters and general public, because fundamentally the topics concern everyone. The well educated have a responsibility to widen the circle of public involvement in eliminating the threat of weapons proliferation, and this task mandates dialogue with young people. The nongovernmental organizations and academics must utilize high school venues and assist in classroom education for both teachers and students, being mindful of the current trends in American public education.

    Education in the United States is experiencing a period of review and increased “accountability” where teachers are disencouraged to explore curricula outside the standard material and adhere to rigid testing aimed to prove that students are learning. The standardized tests are largely disliked by teachers and administrators because of the limited practical knowledge they measure; these tests are indicative of whether or not students are learning how to be good test takers, rather than common sense thinkers. This phenomenon of multiple choice testing has many effects, both for classroom learning and for societal implications. First, teachers have little time to explore creative and diverse learning styles because the standardized tests cover specific information, the majority of which does not cover multi-dimensional thinking. Second, because of the time constraints of the school year and the financial incentives offered to teachers whose students succeed, teachers must rush through all the material to be covered on the examinations. Third, the current system of schooling school does encourage character development through service to others nor does it endear students to explore other contexts outside their own experiences, like becoming involved in any social movements or positive change for society.

    Thus, for young people to become active in disarmament and non-proliferation, they must first have the opportunity to come to some understanding and awareness that these two topics are global problems with personal implications. Students are not taught to be system-oriented, seeing the world as living organism and acknowledging the web of interconnections that span the globe. If our goal is to educate kids about disarmament and non-proliferation, then our first step is getting them to believe that our world is worth saving. The military now has direct access into high schools in America through programming called Channel One, which broadcasts “news” into schools for fifteen minutes every day. ROTC recruiters are allowed onto campuses, but conscientious objectors are thrown off school grounds. Specific classes in nonviolence education are few and far between in the United States, and many teachers are too overwhelmed with their current curriculum to believe that themes of peace and justice infused into their existing lesson plans could work.

    Furthermore, disarmament and non-proliferation are at the end of a long path of exploration into issues of economic and social justice. Schools must first provide kids with the tools to handle their own personal conflicts and more importantly must make the existing subject matter, and the way it is presented, less violent. Visual media shows terrorism, civil strife and full-scale war as a real-life video game. For students to have some ownership in the problem, they need to understand where the countries obtain their weapons, who profits, and who uses the weapons. We must not treat the loss of human life as the military does, calling it “collateral damage”. Education for young people on disarmament and non-proliferation has varying implications based on where it will be implemented, i.e. gun control laws in the United States require a unique strategy, as do the problems of disarmament in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

    Recommendation for promoting education

    First, we must make our American schools more nonviolent institutions. Nonviolence education should be a mandatory component in all high schools, and the corporations providing the “news” to ripe young audiences should be forced to remove any marketing by the military branches. Our classrooms are not corporate experiments. Additionally, nongovernmental organizations should utilize the “news” networks to encourage coverage of peace-friendly programming to an already captive audience. Second, nongovernmental organizations should interface the existing material on disarmament and non-proliferation and compile a “user-friendly” seminar, video and worksheet questionnaire as well as a framework for allowing student participation in this issue, i.e. how to write to a newspaper, congressperson, how to create press releases and petitions, and how to engage their creativity toward a positive goal. Fourth, students must be sent on study abroad delegations to experience firsthand effects of governmental policies on other countries. Other options for field trips are visiting sites of nuclear testing as well as the companies and factories where the many different weapons are produced, and touring countries whose young people actively participate in conflict. We need to encourage students to see a more complete, real picture of the problem rather than blaming the warring parties for their reliance on weapons to settle conflicts. American students need to know that the number one export in their country is weapons and that America sponsors nearly three-fourths of the ongoing conflicts worldwide.

    Examining pedagogic methods

    The Internet can be a powerful tool to relate stories and facilitate dialogue between students in different countries. Academics and nongovernmental organizations can serve as moderators for communication between cultures on the topics of disarmament and non-proliferation. In addition, the Internet may be used to display “video diaries” of firsthand experiences from students in regions like East Timor and Cambodia to enhance the personalization of distance learning. Through these “video diaries”, students in different countries can hear their counterparts’ stories in their own voices, making a more real connection between their cultures.

    The Internet can also be used to disseminate teacher training materials and resources while providing a network of educators who have elected to participate in disarmament and non-proliferation education. Through this network, teachers and administrators can secure guest speakers, classroom activities worksheets and background materials, and an array of videos for their students. Students and teachers may also pose questions directly to the nongovernmental organizations’ educational liaisons through email and online discussion forums.

    Recommendations for the United Nations Organizations

    If peace education toward the goals of disarmament and non-proliferation is to work, then adequate funding must be provided for its implementation. First, the United Nations can exert pressure on national governments to evaluate the compensation teachers receive for the demands of their jobs. Currently, the priorities of the government of the United States focus on war making and funding programs through the Department of Defense. Cushioning the budgets of the Department of Education and ensuring adequate grants for States and Local Municipalities will increase the viability as well as the legitimacy of disarmament and non-proliferation education. Second, the United Nations can suggest that nongovernmental organizations pertaining to disarmament and non-proliferation take their messages into school board meetings and classrooms, and provide classes at the college level for teachers-in-training as a part of a Credential program. Third, textbook writers and manufacturers must accept a new version of history, and nongovernmental organizations must begin consulting with writers of world and American history texts to ensure accuracy and fair and adequate coverage of nuclear and weapons-oriented themes. To acquire authenticity in the classroom, these ideas of disarmament and non-proliferation must be written and viewed in print by students.

    Introducing disarmament and non-proliferation in post-conflict societies: Aceh, Indonesia case study

    UNICEF currently funds a peace-building educational program in Banda Aceh, Indonesia for young people who have been exposed to war throughout their lives. This experimental program combines nonviolent theory with practical applications of peacemaking and disarmament. It provides a forum for people to tell their stories and heal from their experiences, as well as create for themselves a more peaceable society. Nonviolence trainers are currently conducting teacher trainings in Aceh, and beginning in early September, the teachers will begin classes for young people in the province.

    In addition, the concept of “peacekeeping forces” must be reevaluated to incorporate more than reassigning soldiers to forcibly keep the peace in a region. Peacekeepers must be unarmed as well as trained in conflict management and crowd dynamics. The concept of disarmament and non-proliferation must grow from citizen awareness to government and military implementation of more peaceable resolutions for global problems.

    *Leah C. Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Crisis and Opportunity

    In every crisis there is opportunity. But before the crisis can be converted to opportunity, it is necessary to recognize that the crisis exists. If we are unaware of the crisis, assign it too low a level of priority among our concerns, or are in denial about it, we cannot act to prevent it or turn it to opportunity.

    Humanity today faces more than one crisis. Among these are some that are familiar — the human population explosion, global warming, the depletion of the ozone layer, the pollution of our oceans and atmosphere, epidemic diseases such as AIDS, and the deleterious effects of poverty on the health, well-being and mortality of some one-third of the human species. Each of these crises present major problems for humanity. Most of them are interactive; they affect each other. If we were to address these problems in a coordinated way, we could perhaps save millions, perhaps billions, of lives, while creating better living conditions for humans everywhere.

    An important common characteristic of each of these crises is that none can be solved by any one country, no matter how rich and powerful. The most serious crises we face today are species-wide crises. The problems cannot be contained within national borders, nor can they be resolved without global cooperation. National sovereignty is an obstacle to the resolution of a global crisis. If today’s crises cannot be solved at the national level, then we must reconsider the manner of global organization that has sustained the world for the past four centuries. One opportunity inherent in these crises is that of shedding a rapidly deteriorating and increasingly obsolete form of social organization, the nation-state, a form of social organization that contributes to our malaise.

    The list of crises articulated above in not complete. There are many more. In fact, I have not yet listed what I consider the most important crisis facing humanity: the crisis of nuclear arms. The reason that I rank this one above all others is that it has the potential to bring swift and universal death to humanity and to most other forms of life. It has the potential to reverse the evolutionary process by destroying most higher forms of life. All of the other crises listed above, as well as others not listed, inflict their damage more slowly, thus leaving more time to resolve them. This does not mean, of course, that with each of these crises there is not a point of no return, a point at which the damage becomes irreversible. With nuclear arms, this point could be reached at any time, and there have been a number of occasions where humanity has nearly stumbled past the point of no return.

    One evening in 1995 Boris Yeltsin, then the President of Russia, was awakened in the middle of the night and told that Russian radar had detected a US missile launched from Norway at Moscow. Yeltsin was told that he had only a few minutes to decide whether Russia should retaliate. The missile could be aimed at destroying the Russian command and control system, and if Yeltsin did not act quickly it might not be possible to give the order to retaliate against the US after the nuclear detonation had occurred. Yeltsin hesitated and deferred his decision beyond the few minutes given him by the military command. It became clear that the missile was not aimed at Russia, and the world was spared a nuclear exchange.

    It was widely reported that Boris Yeltsin drank too much. The evening he was awakened in the night to decide on the fate of humanity, he might have been drunk. These are not the best of circumstances in which to decide humanity’s future. It is worth reflecting on our current global system of nuclear controls that would result in a man with a highly publicized drinking problem being in charge that evening of our common future. If Boris Yeltsin had acted more hastily and launched what he believed was a counter-attack at the United States, the United States would certainly have countered the Russian attack. The results are almost too catastrophic to contemplate. Tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people could have died that night. The survivors might have envied the dead.

    The fact that it didn’t happen that night or at any other time since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not mean that it could not happen with swift and massive destruction. That night in 1995 was not the only time that a close call with nuclear weapons occurred. The world came even closer to all-out nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. There are many other documented instances when the use of nuclear weapons has been contemplated. Today there are still some 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and the United States and Russia each maintain some 2,250 of these on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired on a moment’s notice. It is like sitting on a powder keg of dynamite and playing with matches. We are all in danger.

    Nuclear weapons pose a crisis to humanity of unprecedented magnitude. This crisis began some five and a half decades ago when nuclear weapons were created. In short succession nuclear weapons were used twice at the end of a terrible war. Since then they have been mostly sheathed, but have posed an ongoing and unprecedented threat to humanity. Most of humanity has been complacent in the face of this danger. This must change. We are facing an evolutionary test. We humans have created the means of our own demise as a species. We hold our fate in our own hands. Yet, our fears and our social organization into nations seem to be working against finding a solution to this test. Our first step must be to recognize that we are facing a crisis. Then we can explore our capacity to cooperate to find a solution – a solution that can turn the crisis into an opportunity. We have the crisis. It is up to us resolve it and find the opportunity inherent in it to create a better human future.

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Role of Civil Society

    There’s a very simple reason for focusing on the nuclear issue. Many, many issues are of supreme importance in one way or another, but if we blow ourselves up with nuclear weapon no other issue is really going to matter. Quite possibly there would be no other human beings left to be concerned about anything else.

    There are many obstacles to nuclear weapons abolition and many opportunities, too many to run through a laundry list. Let me just comment on a bare few. I think one of the major obstacles to advancing the cause of nuclear abolition lies in what Lee Butler calls the “nuclear priesthood,” people who have built their lives and their careers upon nuclear weapons or nuclear doctrine. They are spreading the gospel – and some of them are in very high and influential places – that we need nuclear weapons, and we need them forever.

    A Failure of Leadership

    Another obstacle lies in the present so-called “leadership.” Leaders today are under-creative, over-cautious, distracted by day-to-day demands. Their destinations are determined by polls that change and bounce around from day-to-day. Yes, polls do indicate that something like 85 percent of the American people and people in many other countries believe we should eliminate nuclear weapons. However, that is not a passionate conviction.

    People pay more attention to immediate matters that concern them in their lives in one way or another. They’ve become a little bit complacent. The Cold War is over. The Soviet Union vanished from the face of the Earth. President Clinton and President Yeltsin announced, with considerable fanfare, that we no longer target each other, which is symbolically pleasant but substantively doesn’t mean very much because we can re-target in a matter of seconds. There’s more likelihood now than during the more stable days of the Cold War that nuclear weapons will be used. Bill Perry, the former Secretary of Defense, said that it’s not a matter of if – it is a matter of where and when – weapons of mass destruction will be used.

    Ambassador Robert Gallucci negotiated nuclear weapons with North Korea and with Iraq. He is now the Dean of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, a very prestigious position. He recently made a speech – which got no attention anywhere – in which he flatly stated it is likely that a nuclear weapon will destroy an American city sometime in the next ten years.

    He described how it might happen. He said a “rogue state” fabricates a couple of nuclear weapons and turns them over to a terrorist organization. The terrorist organization sends one into Baltimore on a ship and takes another down to Pittsburgh in a truck. Then a message arrives in the White House: “Alteryour Middle East policies or on Tuesday you lose Baltimore and on Wednesday you lose Pittsburgh.” On Tuesday we lose Baltimore. “What does America do?” Gallucci asks. What does any nation do?

    Two hundred years ago in our country some giants emerged at a time that is very relevant to today. They did some remarkable things, achieved what most people felt was impossible. Their names were Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and a few others. Much more recently, also relevant to our time, a giant named Jean Monnet provided the leadership in Europe that has led to the development, now underway, of the European Union, and has brought peace to a part of Europe that was the origin of so many terrible, bloody wars.

    Leadership from Civil Society

    The world needs leaders like that on the world stage, but we can’t wait for them much longer. Perhaps they’re not in the wings. Perhaps it’s going to fall to civil society to provide the leadership and demand the leadership. Civil society should say to present leaders that they want them to truly lead and tell them the common people want uncommon acts. They are needed in our time.

    Civil society, represented by gatherings like this one, includes some truly remarkable people banding together in the cause of nuclear abolition. It may well provide the leadership in an imperceptible and almost virtually unseen way. This is the way leadership sometimes works and the leaders sometimes emerge. That sort of leader was described 2,000 years ago by Lao Tsu in the following words: “A leader is best when people barely know that he exists; less good when they obey and acclaim him; worse when they fear and despise him. Fail to honor people and they fail to honor you; but a good leader, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say we did this ourselves.”

    Reinvigorating Civil Society

    Two thousand years after those words were written, that could be civil society coming to life in our country and in our endangered world and in our endangered species. The people, for the most part, seem to be slumbering, or cynical, or angry, or overwhelmed by a sense of futility, inability, irrelevance. They are waiting for the opportunity to live in a different world and to help to make that world. That opportunity exists in a civil society. I think it is represented in what quite clearly seems to be a growing yearning for a greater meaning in life, for spirituality, for morality in a world that seems bereft of those characteristics at the present time.

    It is unworthy of what we call civilization to base today’s fleeting security needs on the threat of genocidal attacks, one upon another. This generation’s fleeting needs that put in jeopardy all generations waiting to come to their place on Earth is again unworthy of humanity. I believe that it’s going to take civil society, with emerging leaders like Lee Butler, to achieve what we must achieve. That’s the excitement of working in civil society.

  • A Proposal for Achieving Zero Nuclear Weapons

    It is conceded by all hands that we stand at some continuing risk of nuclear war. The risk is possibly not imminent, but it is basically important above all else — for survival. The Defense and Energy Departments together have made promising starts to reduce possession of nuclear weapons, but far more and much faster action is needed.

    Credible report has it that weapons are adrift, potentially available to irresponsible regimes and to terrorists. Independent development by them is not needed to establish threat. The peculiar characteristic of nuclear weaponry is that relative numbers between adversaries mean little. When a target country can be destroyed by a dozen weapons, its own possession of thousands of weapons gains no security. Defense against ballistic missiles is infeasible. What is more, it is irrelevant. Half a dozen non-technical means of delivery are available, in addition to cruise missiles and aircraft.

    The recognized and awful dangers of other weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological, do not compare to nuclear, despite their vileness. On the tremendous and incredible scale of killing, the others are retail as compared to the nuclear’s wholesale; but there need not be competition since all can be — must be — addressed concurrently.

    Drafting a successor to the nuclear arms treaty is purportedly underway. If START III repeats the mistakes of the past, it may well bog down into haggling over relative numbers. More productive can be a process continuing toward total nuclear disarmament, the only way in which both we and the world may be truly secure from nuclear destruction.

    An irony is that in developing and using nuclear weapons, we, the United States, have done the only thing capable of threatening our own national security. We have comparatively weak and friendly neighbors to the north and south, control of the seas, and a powerful air and combat-tested armed forces. We are proof that this in no way diminishes the need, as the world’s single greatest power, for Army, Navy, Air, and Marines capable not only of our own defense, but of intervention abroad in the interest of peace and human rights. These forces do not come into being overnight, but need to be continually developed and supported. The argument for a nuclear component is no longer valid. The time is now for a concrete proposal that meets the problem. Process, as opposed to negotiating numbers, is the basic principle of the proposal that I suggest. It is nothing less than drastic: the continuing reduction to zero of weapons in the hands of avowed nuclear powers, plus an end to the nuclear ambitions of others.

    The proposal: Let weapons be delivered to a single point, there to be dismantled, the nuclear material returned to the donors for use or disposal, and the weapons destroyed. This process, once underway, will be nearly impossible to stop, since its obvious merits, political and substantive, will compel support. The “single point” may well be a floating platform, at sea, in international waters. A handy platform can be an aircraft carrier that has been removed from “mothballs” and disarmed, yet capable of steaming to the desired location and operating support aircraft and ships to handle heavier loads. Living quarters for personnel, ships company, and disarmament processors, would be integral, as would be major protected spaces.

    The US, of course, is the obvious source of a carrier, but there could be international manning, following the precedent of NATO. This would make the American ship politically palatable to the participants and Russia would be handled sensitively. Obvious and major advantages of security, inspection, availability, timing, and cost would ensue. Those regimes and groups not initially participating can be put under enormous pressure to join. Any remaining recalcitrant can be disarmed militarily, this time with a concert of powers. The need for persuasion and understanding of the participating powers is, of course, fundamental, and probably the most difficult requirement to meet. To meet this need of public understanding and consequent action, domestic and foreign, will require that we dispel some common illusions, such as:

    • Is physical defense against nuclear weapons possible? No. What’s more, it’s irrelevant. A half dozen non-technical means of delivery avail.
    • Can nuclear weapons be used in any sensible manner? No. This includes “tactical.”
    • Does nuclear disarmament imperil our security? No. It enhances it.
    • Is deterrence of nuclear or other attack by threat of retaliation still possible? No. The many potential aggressors are scattered — even location unknown. No targets!

    With these illusions dispelled, it becomes evident that nuclear disarmament works to the advantage of every power. Only in this way can the world be made safe from unprecedented murder and destruction. It remains to take the necessary actions. They are feasible and imperative.
    *Admiral Noel Gayler (US Navy, Ret.) is a four-star admiral and served as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC). He was responsible for nuclear attack tactical development and demonstration of nuclear attack tactics to the Chairman and Joint Chiefs.

  • Open Letter to the Leaders of all Non-Nuclear Weapons States

    Your Excellencies:

    The outcome of the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which begins April 24, 2000 at the United Nations in New York, will play a significant role in determining the security of humanity in the 21st century. Your personal commitment to a successful outcome of this Review Conference is essential to strengthening nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, and thus to humanity’s future.

    The nuclear perils to humanity are not sufficiently widely recognized nor appreciated. In the words of writer Jonathan Schell, we have been given “the gift of time,” but that gift is running out. For this reason vision and bold action are called for.

    General George Lee Butler, a former Commander in Chief of all US strategic nuclear weapons, poses these questions: “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at the moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestation?”

    It is time to heed the warnings of men like General Butler, who know intimately the risks and consequences of nuclear war. The time is overdue for a New Agenda on nuclear disarmament. What is needed is commitment and leadership on behalf of humanity and all life.

    The heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty agreement is the link between non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The non-nuclear weapons states agree in the Treaty not to develop nor acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for the nuclear weapons states agreeing to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. The Treaty has become nearly universal and the non-nuclear weapons states, with a few notable exceptions, have adhered to the non-proliferation side of the bargain. The progress on nuclear disarmament, however, has been almost entirely unsatisfactory, leading many observers to conclude that the intention of the nuclear weapons states is to preserve indefinitely a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”

    At the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference many countries and non-governmental organizations challenged the nuclear disarmament record of the nuclear weapons states. They argued that to extend the Treaty indefinitely without more specific progress from the nuclear weapons states was equivalent to writing a blank check to states that had failed to keep their promises for 25 years. These countries and NGOs urged instead that the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty be linked to progress on Article VI promises of good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. Pressure from the nuclear weapons states led to the Treaty being extended indefinitely, but only with agreement to a set of non-binding Principles and Objectives that was put forward by the Republic of South Africa.

    These Principles and Objectives provided for:

    — completion of a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996;

    — early conclusion of negotiations for a non-discriminatory and universally applicable treaty banning production of fissile materials; and

    — determined pursuit by the nuclear weapons states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination.

    Progress toward these goals has been unimpressive. A CTBT was adopted in 1996, but has been ratified only by the UK and France among the nuclear weapons states. The US argues that the CTBT necessitates its $4.6 billion per year “Stockpile Stewardship” program, which enables it to design new nuclear weapons and modify existing nuclear weapons in computer-simulated virtual reality tests and “sub-critical” nuclear tests. Despite the existence of this provocative program, ratification of the CTBT by the US Senate was rejected in October 1999. The US and Russia continue to conduct “sub-critical” nuclear weapons tests. Negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty have yet to begin, and the “determined pursuit” promise has been systematically and progressively ignored by the nuclear weapons states.

    In its 1997 Presidential Decision Directive 60, the US reaffirmed nuclear weapons as the “cornerstone” of its security policy and opened the door to the use of nuclear weapons against a country using chemical or biological weapons. The US, UK and France have also resisted proposals by other NATO members for a review of NATO nuclear policy. Under urgent prodding by Canada and Germany, they did finally agree to a review of nuclear policy, but this will not be completed until December 2000, after the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    The US seems intent on moving ahead with a National Missile Defense plan, even if it means abrogating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which most analysts view as a bedrock treaty for further nuclear arms reductions. The US is also moving ahead with space militarization programs. In the US Space Command’s “Vision for 2020” document, the US proclaims its intention of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.”

    Russia has abandoned its policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons in favor of a policy mirroring that of the western nuclear weapons states. The START II agreement is stalled and is still not ratified by the Russian Duma. The date for completion of START II has, in fact, been set back for five years from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2007. Negotiations on START III are stalled.

    China is modernizing its nuclear arsenal. India and Pakistan, countries that have consistently criticized the discriminatory nature of the NPT, have both overtly tested nuclear weapons and joined the nuclear weapons club. Israel, another country refusing to join the NPT, will not acknowledge that it has developed nuclear weapons and has imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu for more than 13 years for speaking out on Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

    In the face of the intransigence of the nuclear weapons states, the warning bells are sounding louder and louder. These warnings have been put forward by the Canberra Commission, the International Court of Justice, retired generals and admirals, past and present political leaders, the New Agenda Coalition, the Tokyo Forum, and many other distinguished individuals and non-governmental organizations working for peace and disarmament.

    The future of humanity is being held hostage to self-serving policies of the nuclear weapons states. This is an intolerable situation, not only for the myopic vision it represents and the disrespect for the rest of the world that is implicit in these policies, but, more important, for the squandering of the precious opportunity to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to our common future.

    The more nuclear weapons in the world, the greater the danger to humanity. At present we lack even an effective accounting of the numbers and locations of these weapons and the nuclear materials to construct them. The possibilities of these weapons or the materials to make them falling into the hands of terrorists, criminals or potential new nuclear weapons states has increased since the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

    What is to be done? Will the 2000 NPT Review Conference again be bullied by strong-armed negotiating techniques and false promises of the nuclear weapons states? Or will the non-nuclear weapons states, the vast majority of the world’s nations, unite in common purpose to demand that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their long-standing promises and obligations in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty?

    Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is the greatest challenge of our time. We ask you to step forward and meet this challenge by demanding in a unified voice that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. As we stand on the threshold of a new century and millennium, we ask that you call upon the nuclear weapons states to take the following steps to preserve the Non-Proliferation Treaty and end the threat that nuclear weapons arsenals pose to all humanity:

    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • Publicly acknowledge the weaknesses and fallibilities of deterrence: that deterrence is only a theory and is clearly ineffective against nations whose leaders may be irrational or suicidal; nor can deterrence assure against accidents, misperceptions, miscalculations, or terrorists.
    • Publicly acknowledge the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons under international law as stated by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, and further acknowledge the obligation under international law for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.
    • Publicly acknowledge the immorality of threatening to annihilate millions, even hundreds of millions, of people in the name of national security.
    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Establish an international accounting system for all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials.
    • Sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, cease laboratory and subcritical nuclear tests designed to modernize and improve nuclear weapons systems, cease construction of Megajoule in France and the National Ignition Facility in the US and end research programs that could lead to the development of pure fusion weapons, and close the remaining nuclear test sites in Nevada and Novaya Zemlya.
    • Re-affirm the commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and cease efforts to violate that Treaty by the deployment of national or theater missile defenses, and cease the militarization of space.
    • Support existing nuclear weapons free zones, and establish new ones in the Middle East, Central Europe, North Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.
    • Set forth a plan to complete the transition under international control and monitoring to zero nuclear weapons by 2020, with agreed upon levels of nuclear disarmament to be achieved by the NPT Review Conferences in 2005, 2010 and 2015.
    • Begin to reallocate the billions of dollars currently being spent annually for maintaining nuclear arsenals ($35 billion in the U.S. alone) to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.
    • You have a unique historical opportunity to unite in serving humanity. We urge you to seize the moment.

    Sincerely,

    David Krieger

    President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    cc: Leaders of United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel

  • Statement by Senator Douglas Roche on the New Agenda Coalition Vote Taken Nov. 9, 1999 in the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security

    1. On November 9th, the U.N. First Committee adopted the New Agenda Coalition resolution with 90 yes votes, 13 no’s and 37 abstentions. Last year’s First Committee vote was 97-19-32. The heart of the resolution is contained in Operative Paragraph 1: “Calls upon the Nuclear Weapon States to make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear disarmament to which they are committed under Article VI of the NPT.”

    2. Four NWS (the U.S., Russia, the U.K., and France) again voted no and China repeated its abstention. In 1998 NATO, which then had 16 states, voted 0-4-12. This year, with 19 members, Turkey and the Czech Republic moved from no to abstention, while Hungary and Poland voted no. Thus the NATO count was 0-5-14. Though some states (e.g. Azerbeijan, Benin) dropped to abstention from last year’s yes, the effect of this was offset by 14 NATO states together sending a message to the NWS that progress must be made.

    3. The Explanations-of-vote contained revealing observations. The U.K. said the NAC resolution was incompatible with the maintenance of a credible minimum deterrence. France accused the NAC of having ulterior motives in challenging the right to self-defence. The U.S. said it had already given a “solemn undertaking” concerning Article VI of the NPT and why should it be asked to give more? Canada, which abstained, praised the resolution but added: “The nuclear-weapon states and their partners and alliances need to be engaged if the goals of the New Agenda resolution are to be achieved.” This was a tacit admission that the Western NWS (the NATO leaders) had tied Canada’s hands. Australia, which also abstained, said it did not want to challenge the sincerity of the NWS commitment to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

    4. It is disappointing that the leaders of the NATO countries could not bring themselves to vote that the Nuclear Weapon States make an “unequivocal undertaking” to engage without delay in negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. The present situation is truly alarming: the U.S. Senate has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the U.S. is preparing to deploy a missile defence system over the objections of Russia and China; India is preparing to deploy nuclear weapons in air, land, and sea; Pakistan, which has successfully tested nuclear weapons, is now ruled by the military; meaningful discussions at the Conference on Disarmament are deadlocked; the preparatory conferences for the 2000 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have failed; the Russian Duma has not ratified START II. The gains made in the past decade on reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons are being wiped out. Immense dangers to the world lie ahead if the present negative trends are not reversed.

    5. We have offered logic, law, and morality to government leaders as reasons for them to move forward on nuclear disarmament. We are tempted, at this moment, to despair that we will ever be heard. That is the wrong reaction. We are being heard as never before, and the proponents of the status quo are being forced to invent the most preposterous reasons to justify their slavish adherence to weapons that have justly been called “the ultimate evil.” We do not have the luxury of despair at this moment. We must continue, with all our growing might, to speak truth to power.

    6. It is disturbing to be thwarted by a residual Cold War mentality driven by the military-industrial complex that infects the political decision-making process with fears of an unknown enemy. It is myopic for NATO government leadership to live in fear of U.S. government retribution for voting to advance nuclear disarmament. It is an abrogation of governments’ responsibility to humanity to stare silently into the abyss of more nuclear weapons.

    7. But rage bounces off the shields of denial constructed by the powerful. It does little to berate government leaders. Those in governments and in civil society who have worked hard for the successful passage of the NAC resolution as a way out of looming catastrophe must be humble enough to recognize that there is still not a vibrant public opinion in our society against nuclear weapons. The public generally does not know enough about the present situation even to be in denial.

    8. The time has come to inject renewed energy into the nuclear weapons debate. The sheer force of this energy must penetrate the consciences of decision-makers in the powerful states and thus transfer the nuclear abolition debate into a whole new field of action. We must rise up above the political, economic, social and cultural blockages to abolition and infuse the societal and political processes with a dynamic of action. The approach I am calling for must be based on our overpowering love for God’s planet and all humanity on it. In this call to witness, we will find new confidence in our ability to overcome the temporary denial by politicians and officials who do not understand the power of this transformation moment in history.

    9. By coincidence, the NAC vote, in which the NWS are still showing their defiance, occurred on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall fell because enough people created a force for freedom that became unstoppable. The Wall of resistance to nuclear weapons abolition will also crumble when the non-nuclear allies of the U.S. demonstrate the courage that we must give them. Already there are signs, in the speculation that tactical nuclear weapons will be removed from seven NATO countries in Europe, that the NATO leadership is feeling this pressure.

    10. Our first task now is to give our complete support to the leaders of the New Agenda Coalition, telling them we will not cease our active support of their efforts. Our second is to gather more strength among the public so that even the most skeptical of leaders will feel a new heat on this issue. Our third is to be a witness in our own communities, each in our own way, to our unflagging desire to leave a world for humanity that will indeed be nuclear-weapons-free.

    * Senator Douglas Roche is Former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and Chairman, Middle Powers Initiative.

  • Our Own Worst Enemy

    The U.S and Russia have so many nuclear weapons that if used, either alone could destroy humanity. The Center for Defense Information said, “It is folly, verging on madness, to perpetuate the Cold War nuclear confrontation at levels that threaten the survival of human kind.” (1)

    How do we explain such a crazy situation? Consider the following. When thinking about nuclear weapons matters, it is much easier and less hideous to think about them in terms of numbers rather than the consequences of their use. As a result, consequence of use is generally ignored. In the arms reduction talks, the talks are in term of having equal numbers even if we can’t use them all.

    One way around the stalled nuclear arms reduction talks is to think about the relationship between the number of nuclear weapons and consequences of use. The following provides a guide for such thinking. The more nuclear weapons the greater the self-destruction.

    One Nuclear Bomb – One average size U.S. strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 25,000 trucks each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. One average size Russian strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 40,000 trucks each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. In order to give an idea of how destructive these warheads can be, compare them with the destruction created by the truck bombs that were exploded by terrorists in the NY World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City. Each terrorists truck bomb had about 10 tons of dynamite.(2)

    Twenty Nuclear Bombs – If 20 nuclear bombs, less than one percent of the nuclear weapons that the US and Russia each have set for hair trigger release, were used it would be enough to destroy each other. If one nuclear bomb hit Washington, D.C. it could vaporize Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and the Pentagon. If another nuclear bomb hit New York City it could vaporize the United Nations headquarters, communication centers for NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and the New York Stock Exchange. And that is only two of the twenty. Nuclear explosions would also leave the areas highly radioactive and unusable for years. Where the radioactive fallout from the mushroom clouds would land in the world would depend upon the direction of the wind and rain conditions at the time of the explosion.

    General Lee Butler USAF commanded the US Strategic Air Command until it was folded into the U.S. Strategic Command, which he then commanded until he retired. General Butler said, “That twenty nuclear weapons would suffice to destroy the twelve largest Russian cities with a total population of twenty-five million people – one-sixth of the entire Russian population and therefore that arsenals in the hundreds, much less in the thousands, can serve no meaningful strategic objective. From this prospective the START process is completely bankrupt. The START II ceiling of 3000 to 3500 operational warheads to be achieved by the year 2007 is wholly out of touch with reality.” (3)

    General Butler said,”It is imperative to recognize that all numbers of nuclear weapons above zero are completely arbitrary; that against an urban target one weapon represents an unacceptable horror.” (4)

    Four Hundred Nuclear Bombs – If 400 nuclear bombs, less than ten percent of the nuclear weapons the U.S. and Russia have set for hair trigger release, were used they could destroy everyone on earth. The late Dr. Carl Sagan and his associates, in their extensive studies of nuclear weapons use, found that a nuclear explosive force equal to 100 million tons of dynamite (100 megatons) could produce enough smoke and fine dust to create a Nuclear Winter over the world leaving few survivors. (5)

    A nuclear bomb blast can produce heat intensities of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Centigrade at ground zero. This could start giant flash fires leaving large cities and surrounding area burning with no one to fight them. The firing of 400 nuclear explosions can lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere – more than 100,000 tons of fine dust for every megaton exploded in a surface burst. If there were any survivors they would have to contend with radioactive fallout carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins, furans, and increased ozone burnout. (6)

    Actions That Can Be Taken

    General Butler USAF (Ret. 1994) said the world can immediately and inexpensively improve security by taking nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert. (7) This action should also provide a better atmosphere for reaching agreements in the arms reduction talks.

    There are very important positive forces at work for peace. Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for the past five years has been chairing the Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation. The Commission has grown into a bilateral government conglomerate, with officials at many levels working on problems of energy, health, agriculture, investment, space and the environment. (8)

    The way the U.S. and Russia are planning on working together during the transition to the year 2000 to guard against any false alerts that might be triggered by Y2K in the warning system, is also very encouraging. (9) Let us hope they can continue to work together after the first of the year until there are no more nuclear weapons.

    “There is no doubt that, if the people of the world were more fully aware of the inherent danger of nuclear weapons and the consequences of their use, they would reject them.” This conclusion appeared in the 1996 report of the Canberra Commisson on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a group of the world’s nuclear weapon experts. (10)

    The creation of a Consequence Study Center within the U.N., in which many countries share in the studies, could help everybody become more fully aware of the consequences of nuclear weapon use and better understand the need to rid the world of them.

    Notes and References

    1. Smith, Daniel; Stobhl, Rachel; and Carroll, Eugene E, “Jump-START: A way Ahead in Nuclear Arms Reduction,” The Defense Monitor, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5, 1999. Washiington, D.C.

    2. Babst, Dean V. “Preventing An Accidental Armagedon,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Sept. 1999.

    3. Butler, Lee. Talk at the University of Pittsburgh, May 13, 1999, p.12.

    4. Ibid.

    5. Sagan, Carl. The Nuclear Winter, Council for a Livable World Education Fund, Boston, MA, 1983.

    6. Ibid.

    7. Schell, Jonathan, “The Gift Of Time,” The Nation, 2/9, 1998, p.56.

    8. Lippman, Thomas W. “Gore Carves Unique Post With U.S.-Russia Collaboration,” Washington Post, Washington, D.C., March 14, 1998.

    9. Burns, Robert. “Russia, U.S. set Y2K missile vigil,” The Contra Costa Times, Sept. 11, 1999.

    10. Green, Robert D. “Zero Nuclear Weapons,” Middle Power Initiative, Cambridge. Mass., 1998, p. 8.

    *Dean Babst is a retired government research scientist and Coordinator of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Accidental Nuclear War Studies Program. In the development of this article, appreciation is extended for the helpful suggestions of David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Bob Aldridge who heads the Pacific Life Research Center, and Andy Baltzo, the Founder of the Mt. Diablo (California) Peace Center.

  • Interview with Hiro Takeda

    “… as hibakusha I think I have the responsibility inform people of the danger of the bomb, the radiation and the effect it has on human beings, because there are a lot of people still in Hiroshima who have suffering from the radiation. And as for my self I haven’t had anything serious but I have been going to the doctor ever since the dropping of the bomb.” (Hiro Takeda)

    Mr. Takeda was born in 1919. He was living with his mother and brother on the outskirts of Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped there on August 6, 1945. He is a hibakusha, a Hiroshima survivor. Stefania Capodaglio is the 1999 Ruth Floyd Human Rights intern at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation office in Santa Barbara. She spoke with Mr. Takeda during August 1999 about his experiences during and after the bombing of Hiroshima. Mr. Takeda is a US citizen and lives now in Southern California.

    Stefania Capodaglio: One thing that struck me about your description of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing at the Sadako Peace Day event in Santa Barbara this year is the vivid memory that you have of those days. I imagine it is a difficult process for you to awake to those memories. Please tell me a bit about what you remember of those days and what did you and your family do immediately after the dropping of the bomb.

    Hiro Takeda: In my memory it was one of my most frightful and horrendous experience I ever had in my life. Because when they bomb fell there was a big BOOM and then a flash in the BOOM. That is what they call PIKADUN (PIKA means flash). We did not know what kind of bomb was dropped and it was very, very powerful. Fortunately injured because I was sleeping and it pushed the ceiling up, it pushed the walls up. Fortunately we did not loose any windows because my mother had all the windows open because it was a very hot day. But the neighbors who had all the windows closed, the windows shattered and it blew the glass across the room. There were sliding doors and a lot of people got hurt on their head. We were lucky . We thought maybe the when the bomb fell we thought: What happened? Then towards afternoon, towards evening the whole city was in flame so I said: My God what is that! Then there was this awesome sight I ever seen : the whole city was all in flame and we just couldn’t comprehend , what was going on. And that evening my brother and I, we turned on the radio, the “Philco Radio” that we took with us from here (US) and it was a small radio with a short wave on that, but we never used that until we have used that radio because we were afraid , because if we were caught with the short wave being American who knew what would have happened.

    That night, on August 6th, my brother and I, were very very anxious of what was going on, so we turned on the radio and then we caught one of the stations in Australia, we caught the news and then they announced it was an A-bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima and we never heard about A-bomb and radiation. And then I understand ……will grow in the city… we were kind of shocked and just speechless. So what we did the following day, we saw a lot of people coming in a way from (away from) Hiroshima city. They were men all worried about their relatives, friends, and neighbors. So I got my mother on the back of my bicycle and we went out to the city. The first place we went to was the temple because they told us that all the victims were in the temples, shrines and schools. So this was the first place where we went to was the temple, and when we saw all these people they were languishing and disfigured, well my mother and I, we couldn’t even stand, we couldn’t even go forward, we were just frozen dead and we couldn’t believe what we saw and I don’t know, it was one of the most frightful sight I ever seen in a They were all just burned and I saw many many We went to the next place. It was the shrine and it was the same thing and then the school ground. There were 100 and 1000 of people all in classrooms all way along that of course almost all the buildings were quiet damaged because of the blast, but then there were in this room we went to, this room was full of dead people, and then in the other room there were people who were dying, we saw many of them dying in front of our eyes. Some of these things is something that hit me really hard, and still we couldn’t believe….I do not know how to say that!! Have we known that the radiation effect was dangerous we would have maybe been afraid to go even to the city, but we didn’t know anything about that. A-bomb, radiation, nothing! We never heard about that thing, so we were desperate trying to look for relatives, friends, and neighbors. And one of the next sight I saw and I think I have already mentioned that on August 6 Peace Day : a young lady standing, she was just standing with her burned skin that was peeling and she was…. I do not know how to describe her. The next thing that really hurt me, even now when I think about it and I cry is this young boy. I do not know how old he was but I couldn’t recognize him because his face was blown and it was just like a balloon. He was just crying “Mammy, Mammy” and then “water, water”, and then that pitiful and painful voice and I can’t still…..I’ll never forget that little boy!! And we didn’t know what to do, we wanted to do something but we just didn’t know what to do! And this was one of the most frightful experience I ever had: seeing a 100 a 1000 people all around the school ground. Some of the people were disfigured and when I saw them I thought they were in great pain. The people who died without having been identified by their relatives were cremated in the school ground. And these are sights that I think I’ll never forget as long as I live. I saw many movies about Hiroshima and the dropping of the A-bomb, but they were nothing compared to what I actually witnessed. A lot of people aren’t quite aware yet of how dangerous and harmful the story behind is.

    SC: The United States dropped the A-bomb on your country on August 6th, 1945. Do you hate the US for what it did to your country?

    HT: I don’t hate countries for doing that, but I have a grudge against President Truman for ordering that. But then an other thing is why did they have to drop the bomb knowing that 100 of thousands of innocent people would have died? Why couldn’t they drop the bomb in some place in a remote area to show them what powerful weapon they had instead of killing 140,000 innocent people? I know of a friend of mine, his sun whose name was Kasu (Kaso), they could never find him! And we lost quite a few of our neighbors. Five or six days later my brother and I went to look for our teacher who was like a second father. We were so concerned about him! To go to our teacher we had to cross the whole city and we had to go through the epicenter. We spent the whole day to go through the epicenter and the stench of death was all over the place, and finally, I don’t know how we ever managed to cross some of the bridges that were all destroyed, but somehow we managed to find the house. Of course it was completely destroyed, and the daughter was there at the house by herself and she said that her father died three days ago and he was cremated.

    SC: Do you believe that your personal witness could influence people and make them reflect more seriously about the atrocities committed with the dropping of the bomb?

    HT: I would think so! When I talked to the people about what I went through and all that, they were quiet astonished. Well when I talk to the people they try to understand or realize , and of course it is hard for them to even visualize or imagine what effect it had on the human being. They can say it was awful, horrible, but this doesn’t describe anything because there is no words in a dictionary to describe what I saw. They cannot imagine what happened, there are no words to describe what happened. When I tell people about that thing they say: Oh, this is awful!! This is something that we should be aware of and then try to prevent a nuclear war. And this is the only thing they can really do or say. So I have these wishes: at least try get along to each other and prevent war as much as we can. But this is something really difficult. Even right now there are some countries making nuclear warheads and I think about my grandson who have to through all that.

    SC: How do you think your memories and stories can best be shared with students and young people in order to increase their understanding of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons?

    HT: I made speeches at school, even in Japan, at the University in Tokushima and then at the Grammar School in Koku Kopu) and here in SB and I even made a speech in LA. I made these speeches at least to make them aware of how awful an A-bomb is, and of course a lot of students were shocked. But the students at the University in Tokushima they didn’t even know about the A-bomb and this was something surprising to me. I’m sure they heard about it but they didn’t know how much destructive it was or how much effect it had on human beings. So I believe that educating people in extent is a good I idea.

    SC: What do you think about Japanese and American military expenditures for conventional weapons and other sophisticated weapon’ technologies? Do you believe they are still useful after what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

    HT: If they could avoid using them it would be the best thing, but to prevent that is an other question. Because there is Pakistan, India, China and Korea that are still building them. To prevent an other country to launch a missile in a certain way is necessary, but to spend all that money on nuclear weapons is ridiculous because there are so many people who need to be helped, a lot of people who suffer for hunger. Why cannot they use the money towards helping the people instead of building arms? So sometimes I wonder if this is the right way to go!! But then when you see other countries building something like that because they are trying to attack or something like that, well it is a necessity, but then I hope they have at least something to prevent that thing to happen.

    SC: How do you see your role as an “hibakusha”?

    HT: Well I tried not to spread that I’m an hibakusha, but as hibakusha I think I have the responsibility inform people of the danger of the bomb, the radiation and the effect it has on human beings, because there are a lot of people still in Hiroshima who have suffering from the radiation. And as for my self I haven’t had anything serious but I have been going to the doctor ever since the dropping of the bomb. But I was lucky to be able to still survive and be able to tell people of my experience and I think this is one of my responsibilities.

    SC: If there is one lesson you could share with the next generation, what would it be?

    HT: Well I will simply tell them the truth and tell them how terrible the A-bomb is! I would like to tell them to have good relations with other countries, starting with their neighbors. And build friendship and understanding and prevent all these arguments. That’s all I have to say about this! I have been telling my children about the A-bomb and I’m sure they heard something else from their friends, so in this way you can make people aware of the danger of the A-bomb and then I’m sure they will do everything possible to work towards peace instead of trying to create more walls between countries.

    SC: What effect the bomb had on your family: your mother, your brother ..?

    HT: As far as the health my brother and my sister did pretty well, of course my sister she had some problems but then she is O.K.! It hurt my mother more than anything and I think my mother died because of the radiation. Because right after the A-bomb all the people were in the school and my mother used to go and help to cook and nurse these people not knowing the danger of the radiation and she was there every day. So it may affect her health in this way and of course she was very sad that she lost a very good friend in the A-bomb.