Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: US Nuclear Weapons Policy

  • Doomsday Clock May Finally Stop Ticking

    This article was published by InterPress Service and appeared on Commondreams.org

    UNITED NATIONS – The Barack Obama administration’s apparent resolve to take U.S. foreign policy in a new direction is creating ripples of hope for an enhanced U.N. agenda on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
    Observers and diplomats who are due to take part in a major meeting to discuss progress on the implementation of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) told IPS they had never before so optimistic about the U.N.-led negotiation process.

    “I think he [Obama] is sincere about what he is saying,” said David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an advocacy group that works closely with the U.N. “I think he is willing to stand up against the vested interests.”

     

    Many peace activists, like Krieger, believe that the threat of a possible nuclear catastrophe is not going to go away so long as the major nuclear powers remain reluctant to take drastic steps towards dismantling their nuclear arsenals.

    Countries that rolled back their weapons programs, as well as those that never produced such arms, have long been calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but the response they received from the major nuclear powers has always been disappointing. In addition to actions against the spread of nuclear weapons, the NPT requires the five declared nuclear states – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China – to engage in “good faith” negotiations for disarmament. Until now that task has remained elusive.

    The United States and Russia are the world’s largest nuclear weapon states. They possess no less than 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to Sipri, a Sweden-based think tank that tracks weapon production and export worldwide.

    Among others, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain about 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons.

    Critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for it not only failed to meet the NPT obligations, but also contributed, at great length, to block, and even derail, the international discourse on nuclear disarmament.

    The Ronald Reagan administration, for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear program in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.

    The Bush administration is held responsible by many for sabotaging the U.N. agenda on disarmament by its decision to abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and to install controversial missile defenses in countries located next to Russia’s borders.

    During the past eight years, the former U.S. administration also refused to endorse the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which is considered by experts an integral part of the international framework to achieve the goal of disarmament.

    “We have been through the dark ages,” Krieger told IPS. “It was a death plan for humanity.”

    During his two terms, Bush never spoke of nuclear disarmament. He rather fully supported the move to generate new kinds of nuclear weapons. In March 2007, his administration declared plans to make new kinds of nukes, a move considered as controversial by many.

    Bush argued that the existing warheads had become obsolete, but many experts saw his line of reasoning as out of step with reality because in their conclusion, the U.S. stockpile was already ‘safe and reliable’ for at least 50 years.

    At the time, many independent think tanks in Washington warned that such a move would prove provocative and counter-productive because countries like Iran and North Korea would use it as justification to possess nuclear weapons.

    In contrast to the Bush administration, however, the message from the new administration in Washington appears to be radically different.

    “A world without nuclear weapons is profoundly in America’s interest and the world’s interest,” said the new U.S. president in a recent statement. “It is our responsibility to make the commitment, and to do the hard work to make this vision a reality.”

    Currently, a coalition of peace advocacy groups is running a nationwide signature campaign to press Obama to take immediate, effective, and practical measures for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

    “Nuclear weapons could destroy civilization and end intelligent life on the planet,” said the campaign in a letter to Obama. “The only sure way to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war is to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”

    Krieger told IPS that so far over 50,000 people, including some Noble laureates, have signed the letter. He expects that by next month when the letter is due to be delivered to the White House, at least one million people would have endorsed it.

    An international group, known as “Global Zero,” is proposing deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, a verification and enforcement system, and phased reduction leading to the elimination of all stockpiles.

    Supporters of the Global Zero campaign includes many distinguished international figures and former statesmen, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger; former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci; former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; and Shaharyar Khan, a former Pakistani foreign minister.

    The launching in Paris follows 18 months of consultations among diplomats and military leaders and in effect established Global Zero as a participant in mobilizing efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Last July Obama said, “as long as nuclear weapons exist we will retain a strong deterrent,” but added in the same breath:” We will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.”

    According to unconfirmed reports, the Obama administration is already engaged in negotiations on the proposal to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to 1,000 in the first phase and that it is possible that the reaction from Moscow is likely to be positive.

    However, in Krieger’s view, that would happen only if the Obama administration takes a different position on the deployment of the U.S. missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, which Russia perceives to be a threat to its sovereignty.

    Building the missile defense systems has cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, although it’s still not clear that it would be especially effective.

    “The defense contractors in the United States will continue to put pressure,” he told IPS. “But he [Obama] has to understand that this system is not going to work.”

    While Krieger and many others seem satisfied with the gradual and phased reduction of nuclear weapons on both sides, some nuclear abolitionists remain skeptical about the outcome of such measures and would rather like to see dramatic results in a short span of time.

    “Cutting down to 1,000 nuclear weapons each? 1,000 are too many. It’s the same kind of slow process as it was during the cold war,” said Zia Mian, a nuclear physicist and peace activist at Princeton University. “It’s about restoring the process, not breaking away from the process.”

    Mian, who plans to attend the upcoming NPT preparatory meeting in May, added: “If Obama wants a real change, he must say: We are going to negotiate a treaty now to eliminate the nuclear weapons.”

  • Cut the Military Budget

    This article was originally published in the March 2, 2009 edition of The Nation

    I am a great believer in freedom of expression and am proud of those times when I have been one of a few members of Congress to oppose censorship. I still hold close to an absolutist position, but I have been tempted recently to make an exception, not by banning speech but by requiring it. I would be very happy if there was some way to make it a misdemeanor for people to talk about reducing the budget deficit without including a recommendation that we substantially cut military spending.

    Sadly, self-described centrist and even liberal organizations often talk about the need to curtail deficits by cutting Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs that have a benign social purpose, but they fail to talk about one area where substantial budget reductions would have the doubly beneficial effect of cutting the deficit and diminishing expenditures that often do more harm than good. Obviously people should be concerned about the $700 billion Congress voted for this past fall to deal with the credit crisis. But even if none of that money were to be paid back–and most of it will be–it would involve a smaller drain on taxpayer dollars than the Iraq War will have cost us by the time it is concluded, and it is roughly equivalent to the $651 billion we will spend on all defense in this fiscal year.

    When I am challenged by people–not all of them conservative–who tell me that they agree, for example, that we should enact comprehensive universal healthcare but wonder how to pay for it, my answer is that I do not know immediately where to get the funding but I know whom I should ask. I was in Congress on September 10, 2001, and I know there was no money in the budget at that time for a war in Iraq. So my answer is that I will go to the people who found the money for that war and ask them if they could find some for healthcare.

    It is particularly inexplicable that so many self-styled moderates ignore the extraordinary increase in military spending. After all, George W. Bush himself has acknowledged its importance. As the December 20 Wall Street Journal notes, “The president remains adamant his budget troubles were the result of a ramp-up in defense spending.” Bush then ends this rare burst of intellectual honesty by blaming all this “ramp-up” on the need to fight the war in Iraq.

    Current plans call for us not only to spend hundreds of billions more in Iraq but to continue to spend even more over the next few years producing new weapons that might have been useful against the Soviet Union. Many of these weapons are technological marvels, but they have a central flaw: no conceivable enemy. It ought to be a requirement in spending all this money for a weapon that there be some need for it. In some cases we are developing weapons–in part because of nothing more than momentum–that lack not only a current military need but even a plausible use in any foreseeable future.

    It is possible to debate how strong America should be militarily in relation to the rest of the world. But that is not a debate that needs to be entered into to reduce the military budget by a large amount. If, beginning one year from now, we were to cut military spending by 25 percent from its projected levels, we would still be immeasurably stronger than any combination of nations with whom we might be engaged.

    Implicitly, some advocates of continued largesse for the Pentagon concede that the case cannot be made fully in terms of our need to be safe from physical attack. Ironically–even hypocritically, since many of those who make the case are in other contexts anti-government spending conservatives–they argue for a kind of weaponized Keynesianism that says military spending is important because it provides jobs and boosts the economy. Spending on military hardware does produce some jobs, but it is one of the most inefficient ways to deploy public funds to stimulate the economy. When I asked him years ago what he thought about military spending as stimulus, Alan Greenspan, to his credit, noted that from an economic standpoint military spending was like insurance: if necessary to meet its primary need, it had to be done, but it was not good for the economy; and to the extent that it could be reduced, the economy would benefit.

    The math is compelling: if we do not make reductions approximating 25 percent of the military budget starting fairly soon, it will be impossible to continue to fund an adequate level of domestic activity even with a repeal of Bush’s tax cuts for the very wealthy.

    I am working with a variety of thoughtful analysts to show how we can make very substantial cuts in the military budget without in any way diminishing the security we need. I do not think it will be hard to make it clear to Americans that their well-being is far more endangered by a proposal for substantial reductions in Medicare, Social Security or other important domestic areas than it would be by canceling weapons systems that have no justification from any threat we are likely to face.

    So those organizations, editorial boards and individuals who talk about the need for fiscal responsibility should be challenged to begin with the area where our spending has been the most irresponsible and has produced the least good for the dollars expended–our military budget. Both parties have for too long indulged the implicit notion that military spending is somehow irrelevant to reducing the deficit and have resisted applying to military spending the standards of efficiency that are applied to other programs. If we do not reduce the military budget, either we accustom ourselves to unending and increasing budget deficits, or we do severe harm to our ability to improve the quality of our lives through sensible public policy.

     

    Rep. Barney Frank represents the 4th District of Massachusetts in Congress and is the Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
  • A New US Approach to Nuclear Disarmament

    A New US Approach to Nuclear Disarmament

    The states party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will hold a Preparatory Committee meeting in May 2009 for the 2010 NPT Review Conference. Many of the non-nuclear weapon states party to this treaty have been discouraged by the lack of progress by the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their obligations for nuclear disarmament. These countries will be looking for positive signs that the new president of the United States is committed to progress on the NPT Article VI promise of the nuclear weapons states for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    For the past eight years, under George W. Bush, the US has made scant effort to fulfill its NPT commitment to nuclear disarmament. In 2002, Bush pushed through a bilateral agreement with the Russians, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). The treaty calls for reductions in deployed strategic warheads from approximately 6,000 each to between 1,700 and 2,200 each by the end of the year 2012. It is a three page treaty with few details. The treaty places no limitations on reserve stockpiles and has no timeline and no provisions for either irreversibility or verifiability. On January 1, 2013 the treaty ends and, unless it is extended, both countries may redeploy their reserve weapons or new weapons to any level they choose. Bush also withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) in 2002, opening the door for deployment of ballistic missile defenses and space weaponization.

    The Bush administration developed contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries, including states thought to be non-nuclear weapons states at the time. In addition, the Bush administration threatened preventive use of nuclear weapons and sought continuously, albeit unsuccessfully, the development of new nuclear weapons with new functions. It also sought unsuccessfully to replace the existing nuclear weapons in the US arsenal with a new warhead it called the Reliable Replacement Warhead. The Bush administration also undermined the non-proliferation regime by its arm twisting in support of the US-India nuclear deal, which gave special nuclear preferences to a state that never joined the NPT and developed nuclear weapons outside the framework of the treaty. Overall, the Bush administration appeared more concerned with assuring the reliability of its nuclear warheads and the financial profits for US corporations on nuclear deals than it was with the security of the American people or the stability of the non-proliferation regime.

    With President Obama, the US has a new president who has repeatedly expressed a commitment to seeking a world free of nuclear weapons. Prior to his election, he stated, “I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.”

    Upon assuming office, Obama posted the following goals on the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov) under the category of Nuclear Weapons. First, securing loose nuclear materials from terrorists within four years and negotiating a global ban on production of new nuclear weapons material. Second, strengthening the NPT by cracking down on countries that proliferate by assuring that the treaty provide strong sanctions for proliferators. Third, moving toward a nuclear free world by working with Russia to take US and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert, and seeking dramatic reductions in the stockpiles of both sides’ nuclear arsenals and materials.

    Securing loose nuclear materials and prohibiting the development of new material will require global cooperation, as will strengthening the NPT. These steps, however, will be viewed by many nations through the prism of how successful President Obama is in achieving the goal of moving toward a nuclear weapons-free world, and their cooperation will be to varying degrees dependent upon how successful the US and Russia are in reaching agreement to dramatically reduce their nuclear arsenals.

    The May 2009 meeting of the NPT Preparatory Committee will take place shortly after President Obama completes his first 100 days in office. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we believe there are three steps the President should take in advance of that meeting to demonstrate his commitment to the goals of the NPT.

    First, he should publicly reaffirm his commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons. This could be as simple as indicating in a major speech his intention to follow through on the goals he has publicly expressed in previous speeches and on his White House website.

    Second, he should initiate bilateral negotiations with Russia to extend the 1991 Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START 1) so that its provisions, and particularly its verification provisions, will continue in force; agree to verifiable reductions in existing nuclear arsenals to under 1,000 nuclear weapons each (deployed and reserve) by the end of 2010; and take US and Russian nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.

    Third, President Obama should announce his intention to convene a meeting of all nuclear weapons states to initiate negotiations on a global treaty for the phased, verifiable irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework. This treaty, which would outlaw nuclear weapons, would be a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar to the already concluded Biological Weapons Convention and Chemical Weapons Convention.

    The first step of reaffirming his commitment to nuclear disarmament is desirable but not essential, since Obama has already given strong signals of his commitment. The second step of initiating bilateral negotiations with the Russians is not only desirable but essential, as this is the next venue in which significant progress can and must be achieved. The third step is also desirable, but may not be essential until tangible progress is announced resulting from US-Russian negotiations.

    To succeed in nuclear disarmament negotiations with the Russians, which would be strongly in the interests of the US, it will likely be necessary for the US to abandon its plans to place ballistic missile defenses in Europe. The Russians have long expressed concerns about US plans to deploy such defenses due to the potential first-strike advantage these defenses would provide. The Russians have also expressed concerns about the failure of the US to join other states in supporting a ban on space weaponization. The Russian concerns were met largely with a deaf ear and unsatisfactory explanations from the Bush administration. To make further nuclear disarmament attractive to the Russians will almost certainly require halting plans to deploy ballistic missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic and may also require the US to commit to banning the weaponization of space. The most satisfactory solution to these problems would be the reinstatement of the ABM Treaty and a global treaty banning space weaponization.

    In summary, the eight years of the Bush administration have left the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in a precarious state. To strengthen the treaty and assure its capacity to prevent further proliferation, it will be necessary to show progress toward nuclear disarmament. President Obama should continue to make declarative statements of his support for a world free of nuclear weapons. Such statements will signal to the world his intentions and will help educate the American people. But such statements, while important and perhaps necessary, are not sufficient.

    Prior to the next Preparatory Committee meeting of the NPT parties in May 2009, President Obama should initiate negotiations with the Russians on a range of nuclear disarmament issues, including removing nuclear weapons on both sides from hair-trigger alert; extending the START I agreement; and agreeing to move rapidly, dramatically and verifiably to reduce nuclear stockpiles of weapons and materials on both sides. To succeed in negotiations on nuclear disarmament with the Russians will require concessions from the United States regarding ballistic missile deployments and space weaponization. But these “concessions” will assure greater US security. Finally, after achieving progress in US-Russian nuclear disarmament, the president should convene the nuclear weapons states to initiate negotiations for a phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Congress and the American people must support and encourage the president in taking these steps. Should the president fail in the near term in achieving concrete results with the Russians, it could result in a breakdown of the non-proliferation regime, nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. All of these would undermine US and global security in ways we must seek to imagine and prevent.

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

  • Can President Obama Change Nukes Policy?

    Originally published at truthout.org

    What should the world expect from the new US president on the nuclear front?

    The question may sound distant and largely disconnected from the current context, where the financial crisis looms as his administration’s first priority. No one can be blamed, however, for raising it, as nuclear weapons form one of the main issues on which Barack Obama differentiated himself clearly from his rivals – during the battle for the Democratic nomination as well as the war for the presidency.

    Obama did so dramatically on August 2, 2007, when confronted with a query about use of the ultimate weapon in the war on terror and against proliferation. He declared: “I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance.” He then added: “Involving civilians.”

    Obama then said, “There’s been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.” That brought reactions bordering on ridicule. “It’s naive to say,” sneered a dismissive John McCain, “that we will never use nuclear weapons.” Hillary Clinton came out with a stronger-than-Republican rebuff: “”Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons. Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.”

    “Presidents,” she added for good measure, ” never take the nuclear option off the table.”

    As president now, will Obama keep the terrible option off the table? This and other questions of his nuclear outlook reflect more than ideal curiosity in regions on which the new president’s foreign policy focuses. In South Asia, one of such regions, the questions acquire added urgency.

    Before coming to the region with two nuclear-armed rivals, a little more about what Obama has let the world know so far about his mind on the weapons of mass destruction that provided only an excuse for war to his predecessor.

    In Obama’s inaugural address, the subject figured only in the sentence: “With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet.” He, however, had made clearer promises during the campaign.

    In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago in October 2007, he added his voice to an anti-nuke plan endorsed earlier by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the Cold War era, including Henry Kissinger. The group had wanted the US to start building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that had become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.” Obama set a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, adding that the US must greatly reduce its stockpile of nuclear arms as well.

    Speaking at Purdue University in Indiana in July 2008, he declared: “It’s time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons.” He added: “As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong deterrent. But we’ll make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.”

    The promises compelled attention because of the contrast they presented to what the world had been hearing from the White House. As a summary by the New York-headquartered Natural Resources Defense Council put it years ago: “The Bush administration assumes that nuclear weapons will be part of US military forces at least for the next 50 years. Starting from this premise it is planning an extensive and expensive series of programs to sustain and modernize the existing force and to begin studies for a new ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) to be operational in 2020, a new SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) and SSBM (surface-to-surface ballistic missile) in 2030, and a new heavy bomber in 2040, as well as new warheads for all of them.”

    Nuclear weapons were to continue to play a “critical role” because they possess “unique properties” that provide “credible military options” for holding at risk “a wide range of target types” important to a potential adversary’s threatened use of “weapons of mass destruction” or “large-scale conventional military force.” The neocon regime wanted a return of the US to nuclear testing, even as Bush promoted the idea of battlefield nukes like bunker-busters.

    Obama has never disowned the general declarations of his intent on nuclear disarmament, but has increasingly been couching it in anti-terrorist terms. A more detailed “foreign policy agenda” delineated on the White House web site cites terrorism as the top-priority target of his administration’s plan of action in this area.

    After recalling Obama’s record as a senator in taking congressional action to counter “the threat of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon and the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes,” the agenda states: “Obama and (Vice President Joseph) Biden will secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years. While working to secure existing stockpiles of nuclear material, Obama and Biden will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. This will deny terrorists the ability to steal or buy loose nuclear materials.”

    The agenda is silent on US fears of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into terrorist hands, but these continue to be voiced. Threats of American efforts to “take out” Pakistan’s nuclear arms have been heard, from time to time, ever since the fall of the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, presumed somehow to have made these weapons pilferage-proof. Apprehensions in that regard have been revived after David Sanger’s article earlier this month, based on his book, “The Worst Pakistan Nightmare for Obama.”

    Pakistan’s army and its civilian government have hastened to assure the US of the safety and security of their nuclear weapons. The Pakistani media have made clear a public resentment, which Islamabad could not officially articulate, over the implications of what are seen as Washington-Pentagon insinuations. Indignant note is made of the fact that, while there is panic over Pakistan’s weapons, India’s nuclear arsenal is not seen as a serious problem at all.

    The second task listed in the agenda – strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – has an India link, too. The agenda, however, takes no note of the blow that, according to the world peace movement, the US-India nuclear deal has dealt the treaty distinguished for its increasing brittleness over the years.

    Instead, the agenda says: “Obama and Biden will crack down on nuclear proliferation by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.” To many, the formulation would seem to reflect the false priorities that have weakened the “world nuclear order” that the NPT allegedly represents.

    The only way to strengthen the treaty would seem to lie in serious and sincere action by the leading nuclear powers on Article VI of the NPT. The provision, introduced under international pressure, says: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    The agenda, in fairness to its formulators, addresses this issue as well. Talking of the third task of the new administration on the nuclear weapons front, the document says: “Obama and Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it. Obama and Biden will always maintain a strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist. But they will take several steps down the long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons. They will stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take US and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the US-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global.”

    This, however, is easier said than done. A weighty Bush legacy of nuclear militarism is waiting to be lived down. Officially, the Obama administration is bound to an extent by the interim report of a bipartisan congressional commission, released as recently as last month, which talks about the US teetering “on the brink of losing the capability to maintain its nuclear weapons.”

    The new president cannot listen to this argument and make the nuclear leap he has promised. Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association offers a strikingly different counsel: “If Obama directs the Pentagon to conduct a congressionally mandated nuclear posture review on the basis of this ‘core deterrence’ mission, then Washington and Moscow could each slash their respective arsenals to 1,000 or fewer total warheads. This would open the way for Obama to fulfill his campaign pledge …”

    Obama faces a challenge to his drive for a change in the US nukes policy not only from the old policies he seeks to discard, but also from personalities whom he prefers to retain in the administration. Reports about a conflict of views on a crucial issue between him and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have not been officially rebutted so far. Gates continues to press for a reliable replacement warhead (RRW) program, while the president’s agenda (quoted above) asserts without ambiguity that the new administration “will stop the development of new nuclear weapons.”

    Obama has shown courage in acting for the closure of the Guantanamo torture chambers, in defiance of powerful defenders of “anti-terrorist” atrocities. Will he move forward towards nuclear disarmament in the face of inevitable opposition from the military-industrial complex?

  • President Obama and the Ballistic Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe

    Overview

    Will nuclear weapons remain a key instrument to reinforce American national security? The dawning of a new American leadership has aroused much curiosity within the international community: how will President Obama respond to the planned American ballistic missile defense system in Eastern Europe? This analysis seeks to answer the following questions concerning President Obama’s position on the ballistic missile defense (BMD) system and prospects on future Russo-American relations:

    • How has the BMD project redefined Russo-American relations?
    • Should this plan go ahead, what implications would it have on the international community?
    • How can President Obama maintain global stability?

    Background

    The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was followed by Eastern Europe’s hasty departure from Moscow’s periphery. To quickly integrate these former Soviet satellites under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) security umbrella, the Alliance initiated the Partnership-for-Peace program, which served as a stepping stone towards full NATO membership. This was seen as an aggressive encroachment into Russia’s immediate periphery and drastically tipped Eastern Europe’s delicate power balance. With clashing regional security interests and some 3,000 Russian and American nuclear weapons remaining on high (hair-trigger) alert, it has become ever so critical to revisit or replace major nonproliferation accords: the 1972 Antiballistic Treaty (from which President Bush withdrew in 2001), 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (suspended by Russia in 2007), 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (expires in December 2009), and 2002 Treaty of Moscow (scheduled to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles to 1,700 to 2,200 per country by 2012). Still, existing weaknesses of these accords paralyze the international community from eliminating nuclear weapons altogether: reduction cannot be reliably verified and the lack of a requirement to dismantle the weapons allows the U.S. and Russia to simply keep the weapons in storage.

    On the American side, while President Bill Clinton was hesitant about NATO’s eastward expansion, his successor’s defense policies considerably deteriorated Russo-American relations. In particular, President George W. Bush’s strong push of the BMD system in Eastern Europe has rekindled a dangerous Cold War mentality of distrust and rivalry. Despite fervent objections from the Russian side and European public leaders, NATO members meeting at the April 2008 summit reluctantly endorsed Washington’s controversial plan to install the BMD system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

    Even as U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) experts questioned its effectiveness, the Bush administration claimed that the missile shield’s “purely defensive capabilities” would allow the U.S. to respond to any potential attack on its chief ally, Europe, from “dangerous and unpredictable regimes” like Iran. President Bush explained in 2007, “Instead of spending decades trying to develop a perfect shield, we decided to begin deploying missile defense capabilities as soon as the technology was proven ready — and then build on that foundation by adding new capabilities as they matured.”1 Poland plans to host ten interceptor missiles in exchange for significant U.S. military assistance. The Czech Republic plans to host a related tracking radar system designed to identify and shoot down missiles. Tests and developments on the project are already costing $10 billion annually, the Pentagon’s largest procurement program.2

    As the BMD project progresses, Moscow has warned of retaliation. President Dmitrii Medvedev chose to postpone his State of the Union speech until the day after the U.S. presidential election to criticize America’s missile shield plan. In recent months, he has intensified the testing and mass production of advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles specifically designed to penetrate antiballistic shields such as the Bulava and Russian RS-24.3 More relevant is a proposal to install mobile Iskander missiles in Kalingrad, Russia’s southern enclave bordering Poland. Clearly, these weapons will be capable of destroying America’s proposed interceptor missiles in Poland. Furthermore, Medvedev plans to utilize radio equipment to intercept Washington’s planned defense system. Seeking to compromise, the Bush administration offered to allow Russian observers at the planned BMD sites, but President Medvedev swiftly rejected the offer.
    Again disregarding Russia’s opposition to the project, on December 5, 2008, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency tested its “largest, most complex” $120-150 million long-range ballistic missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California. This was the first remote launching of an expansively coordinated experimental project incorporating multiple systems from various branches of the armed forces. While the agency immediately declared success, claiming that “all its components performed as designed,” there were several notable deficiencies associated with the test. This missile test actually failed to “release countermeasures designed to try to confuse the interceptor missile like decoys or chaff to throw off an incoming interceptor.”4 Since these tests began in 2001, many have failed or been scaled back because of technical problems. Adding to these are the unpredictability of missile attacks and unreliability of a missile shield. This leads us to ask: how reliable are the Bush administration and MDA’s “successful” missile tests and are they worth an annual cost of $10 billion?5 Costs of the United States’ missile defense program in the past 25 years have accrued to at least $150 billion.6

    Analysis

    Russia remains committed to a “reactive” foreign policy. With the Kalingrad plan, President Medvedev aims to “neutralize – if necessary – the [American] anti-missile system”. Furthermore, he is confident in Russian technological superiority that would counter any incoming missile attack. He recently asserted that “the Americans will never be able to implement this scenario, because Russian strategic nuclear forces, including the Strategic Missile Forces, will be capable of delivering a strike of retribution under any course of developments.” To take this a step further, President Medvedev announced in early December a comprehensive upgrade of Russia’s missile program. New developments would include the RS-24 missiles specifically designed to counter space-based missile attacks as well as penetrate any missile shield.

    What explains Russia’s intensified reaction? Eastern Europe is strategically positioned at the heart of continental Europe. Washington’s increasingly intimate relations with Poland and the Czech Republic is seen as an intrusion into Russia’s “near-abroad” and traditional sphere of influence. Iran recently announced that it produced and tested missiles capable of hitting southern Europe, but experts remain skeptical as there is not much concrete evidence to support this claim. More notably, the ballistic missile plan explicitly targets space-based military weaponry, and with Russia as the only country with technological capability to develop such advanced weaponry, one could assume that the missile shield targets Russia.

    After European leaders heavily criticized Russia’s proposed missile plan in Kalingrad, both the Russian political and military leadership requested renewed Russo-U.S. relations and invited the new American leadership to engage in deeper dialogue and cooperation on European security. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has expressed renewed hope in cooperating with his new American counterpart, suggesting that new U.S. leadership would unfold a fresh chapter in Russo-American relations, “We very much hope that these changes will be positive. We are now seeing these positive signals.” Obama’s cautious stance on the ballistic missile defense plan has attracted much attention from the Russian leadership; he explains, “If we want the world to deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia must lead by example… We cannot and should not accept the threat of accidental or unauthorized nuclear launch.”7 While the Russian leadership anxiously awaits concrete actions, Prime Minister Medvedev also states, “If it’s not just words, if they are transformed into practical policy, we will respond accordingly…we will not do anything until America does the first step.”8

    Obama, throughout his presidential campaign, persistently reiterated two primary global concerns: nuclear terrorist attacks and nuclear weapons proliferation by rogue states. He envisioned the U.S. taking up global leadership to denuclearize to allow for “a world in which there are no nuclear weapons” and promised more commitment and funding towards nuclear nonproliferation, which he calls “the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world.” To move toward this nuclear-free world vision, the Obama administration hopes to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty aimed at reducing nuclear weapons and materials by limiting nuclear development, testing, and proliferation. In addition, the Obama administration has outlined plans to cooperate with Russia to remove thousands of nuclear weapons from operational readiness, or hair-trigger alert, to avoid the possibility of an accidental nuclear launch. To allow for an actual chance for a nuclear-free world, the President-elect staunchly believes that Russo-American cooperation is integral to leading a global effort.

    According to Obama, in the immediate future, any American unilateral nuclear disarmament would prove futile and enormously dangerous to American national security. 9 His foreign policy statement says, “As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong nuclear deterrent.”10 President Obama singles out “dangerous” regimes, notably Iran and Korea, whose nuclear missile developments could lead to a global nuclear catastrophe. Because of this, he acknowledges that a missile defense system would still serve as a vital security shield to strategic America’s European partners. However, the President urges against any “premature” deployment of the missile system but would support the missile plan only after “vigorous testing” has proven the system’s operational effectiveness. In the long run, he warns that such a plan would certainly produce highly undesirable implications on the entire international security regime with the American public bearing enormous financial costs for an experimental project whose capability remains far from able to guarantee Americans and its allies security from missile attacks.

    The claimed “success” of the December 5, 2008, test has produced serious implications for the progression of the BMD plan. Not only has it consolidated public support of the proposed missile shield, but it has already forced the new President into an awkward position and could effectively undermine his commitment to nuclear disarmament. To immediately withdraw the BMD plan, the President-elect would be criticized for appeasing to the Russian demands as well as neglecting to provide sustained support to NATO allies; some fear that such a move would drastically undermine American global leadership. This issue is especially delicate, so the Obama administration will have to develop strategic ways to cooperate with Russia.

    Future Outlook

    Should President Obama move forward with the BMD project:

    • The only real winners are Boeing and other major contractors from the military industrial industry, which are reaping enormous profits at the cost of American taxpayers’ money.
    • The current international structure would become dangerously destabilized. This would antagonize Russia, a crucial participant in global nonproliferation and disarmament, and retard two decades of moderate cooperation on nuclear issues.
    • Continued proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile defense would spur a new Cold War arms race with more sophisticated weaponry with the devastating possibility of a nuclear launch. This would prompt other countries to continue or start their own nuclear programs with nuclear weapons becoming strategic instruments of political leverage in international relations.
    • American unilateral security engagement would undermine European security. Instead of deterring, Washington’s active engagement with Eastern Europe would trigger a new arms race with Russia and others. Continental Europe could become a new target for attack by the United States’ adversaries.

    If President Obama stops the BMD project, the implications are as follows:

    • Much-needed resources could be diverted towards more strategic security measures to safeguard American and global security.
    • Reinforce American leadership and commitment to international security and nonproliferation through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and European Union.
    • President Obama could gain full support from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who has actively pushed for more funding for the State Department to substantially expand its diplomatic corps, cautious NATO expansion and engagement in the former Soviet satellites, and limited reliance on military defense.

    Conclusion When did nuclear deterrence ever deter? Paradoxically, America’s deeply ingrained confidence in nuclear deterrence has only accelerated the arms race. The national missile defense project has consistently exacerbated the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and pushed the international community to the brink of a dangerous arms race. The Bush administration’s “new deterrence” policy put at great risk the delicate power balance of the global community.11 The new presidency presents America a unique opportunity to reassess the missile defense plan. Russia’s top political and military leadership, Medvedev, Putin, and General Nikolai Marakov, have already extended their offer of engagement. President Obama has immense power to pursue wise, pragmatic, and strategic global leadership; these are some recommended strategies that he could take:

    1. Initiate regular, high-level dialogue to foster mutual understanding and cooperation with Russia.
    2. Revisit arms control treaties to make necessary changes to address newly emerging dangers of nuclear weaponry. This includes placing a limitation on nuclear stockpiles and the development and production of particularly dangerous weapons of mass destruction. To ensure their effectiveness, the U.S. and Russia would need to engage other nuclear powers, particularly Pakistan, India, and China.
    3. The U.S. could pursue a more multilateral strategy and engage with Moscow through the NATO-Russia Council. This would level the playing field and provide a more transparent forum for the engagement of all 26 members of NATO, in particular Poland and the Czech Republic.
    4. Collaborate with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to develop more strategic, pragmatic, capable, and cost-effective defense strategies which emphasize diplomacy and are detached from the military-industrial complex.

    Endnotes

    1. Bush, George W. (2007, October). Discussion of Global War on Terror. Speech presented at National Defense University, Washington, DC.

    2. Gordon, M. (May 2006). “U.S. Seeks antimissile shield to block Iran.” International Herald Tribune.

    3. Faulconbridge, G. (Dec 2008). “Russia Starts Production of New Ballistic Missiles.” Reuters.

    4. “Pentagon Says It Destroyed Missile In Test of Air Shield” (Dec 2008). Associated Press.

    5. “Obama’s challenge at the Pentagon” (Nov 2008). International Herald Tribune.

    6. “How to Pay for a 21st-century Military” (Dec 2008). New York Times.

    7. “The Candidates and Nuclear Nonproliferation”. Council on Foreign Affairs. <www.cfr.org>.

    8. Isachenkov, V. (Dec 2008). “Russia’s leaders optimistic about ties with US”. Huffington Post.

    9. White House Website <www.whitehouse.gov>.

    10. White House Website. <www.whitehouse.gov>.

    11. Colby, E. (Apr 2008). RAND Corporation. <www.rand.org>.

    Loan C. Pham is a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation intern and is pursuing a Masters degree in Global Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

  • The Dawning Age of Nuclear Zero

    This article was originally published on Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

    It is never clear to us why and how certain critical events reach a tipping point — that is how they fundamentally depart from the status quo. In the case of six decades of nuclear armament, that may be particularly true. But an argument can be made that we are at or near such a tipping point, a tipping point away from expanding nuclear arsenals and toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
    Two events in the United States bolster this argument. One was a proposal put forward by four moderate-to-conservative leaders — former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former Senator Sam Nunn, and former Defense Secretary William Perry — a year ago urging not just a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons, but their elimination as a class. This was seen by many at the time, particularly those familiar with the support these figures had given to new strategic weapons systems in the past, as a shift of historic importance.
    More recently, an international organization of public and private figures — once again including a number of Americans and others who had never been identified with disarmament causes in the past — called Global Zero announced its intention to press nuclear-armed nations to reduce, and then eliminate, their arsenals.
    The political landscape clearly is shifting in meaningful ways.
    The reasons for this shift are many and, in the case of particular individuals, probably unknowable. These may include matters of personal legacy, how one’s public career and values are viewed by history. They may include pragmatic considerations, that the longer existing nuclear powers maintain large stockpiles of warheads and delivery systems (missiles), the more likely it will be that less stable or even unstable nations, such as Iran and North Korea, develop their own capabilities. They may include military considerations: only doomsday scenarios include the use of nuclear weapons as a viable option. They may include the new reality of the changing nature of conflict and the transformation of war, that nation-state wars are declining sharply in probability and unconventional conflict involving stateless nations against whom nuclear weapons represent no deterrent are increasing.
    The reasons for the tipping point in opinion may ultimately get down to that most basic of human motives: the desire to leave a safer world for one’s children and future generations now overrides the often casual discussion of the political power once thought to be derived from weapons of ultimate mass destruction.
    Now faced with frightening economic consequences of unregulated market collapse and the prospects of a very long international economic recovery, a new Obama administration in Washington could well be looking at initiatives that bring increased security at little or no cost, or indeed that produce cost savings. Nuclear zero, elimination of nuclear arsenals, must be at the top of this list. It may be argued that the president must fix the economy first before anything else gains attention. This false argument assumes intelligent people can do only one thing, even one complex thing, at a time or that some talented economic people cannot carry out their project while other talented diplomatic people carry out quite another.
    Reasons and motives are incidental to opportunity. And now the opportunity exists, an opportunity not known for more than 60 years, to rid the world of its greatest menace. Eliminating all nuclear weapons will not be easy. It will require skilled and patient multinational diplomacy. It will require breakthroughs in verification. It will require a tolerable sacrifice of national sovereignty. It will most of all require an enormous amount of international purpose and good will. But it can be done. The principal requirement is political will and visionary political leadership. And it must be done. If not now, when?

     

    Gary Hart is a former US Senator from Colorado.

  • The Cost of Nuclear Security

    Seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, at a time when government officials and outside experts are expressing growing concern about the prospect of a nuclear 9/11, few members of Congress know how much the United States spends on nuclear security or where the money goes.

    When Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Energy-designate Steven Chu head into their Senate confirmation hearings Tuesday, they’ll face difficult questions about how the U.S. is addressing nuclear dangers. Although most lawmakers would rank nuclear threats at the top of their list of national security concerns, they won’t have sufficient or comprehensive information to work with. But Congress can fix this.

    Our report, the first public examination of open-source data, shows that the U.S. spent at least$52.4 billion on nuclear weapons and programs in fiscal 2008. This budget, which spans many agencies, not just the Defense Department, does not count related costs for air defense, anti-submarine warfare, classified programs or most nuclear weapons-related intelligence programs.

    The 2008 nuclear security budget exceeds all anticipated spending on international diplomacy and foreign assistance ($39.5 billion) and natural resources and the environment ($33 billion). It is nearly double the budget for general science, space and technology ($27.4 billion), and it is almost 14 times what the Energy Department allocated for all energy-related research and development.

    Although the size of the overall budget is troubling, another concern is that we spend so little on initiatives to minimize the risk of nuclear and radiological attacks. More than 17 years after the end of the Cold War, it may come as a surprise to most Americans that the U.S. still spends relatively large annual sums upgrading and maintaining its nuclear arsenal ($29 billion), developing ballistic missile defenses ($9.2 billion) and addressing the deferred environmental and health costs associated with more than 50 years of unconstrained bomb building and testing ($8.3 billion).

    More alarmingly, the government spends relatively little money locking down or eliminating nuclear threats at their source, before they can reach U.S. shores ($5.2 billion), or preparing for the consequences of a nuclear or radiological attack on U.S. soil ($700 million).

    As President-elect Barack Obama’s team heads into an enormously difficult budget season, it will need to propose expenditures that match policy goals and economic realities. How, one might ask Chu, can a Department of Energy that devotes 67% of its budget to nuclear weapons-related programs meet Obama’s plan to develop new and cleaner forms of energy?

    Clinton is already on the right track by reportedly seeking to expand the State Department’s role and fighting for a larger budget. State is the frontline agency tackling proliferation concerns with Iran and North Korea, shoring up a rocky relationship with Russia and pursuing cooperation with other states to secure nuclear materials and address the growing threat of nuclear terrorism. Clinton is right to insist that her agency receive more than half a percent ($241.8 million) of the total nuclear security budget.

    As both proliferation dangers and fiscal concerns grow, taxpayers will want to know that their government is getting the best returns on its nuclear security investments. But effective oversight of government nuclear security programs is impossible without complete and reliable scrutiny of their cost and impact, and such an accounting has never been available to decision makers.

    Congress can remedy this by requiring the executive branch to submit, as part of the annual budget request, an unclassified and classified accounting of all nuclear weapons-related spending. A senior White House official, perhaps within the congressionally mandated office to coordinate nuclear proliferation and counter-terrorism efforts, or the National Security Council, should be responsible for overseeing this exercise, in conjunction with key officials of the Office of Management and Budget and senior budget officials of key departments and agencies.

    Working outside of government and using publicly available data, we’ve proved that it is possible to provide a more comprehensive accounting of our nuclear security dollars.

    Implementing these recommendations would increase understanding and accountability, which would in turn lead to greater public support for crucial nuclear security programs and a more effective allocation of public resources. When combined with a new focus on nuclear issues, including the Obama administration’s forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review, these efforts would help ensure that political and financial priorities are properly aligned.

    The nuclear threat is changing, and as long as it grows, the United States needs to be prepared to address it — even in a time of austerity. That starts with knowing where the dollars go.

    This article was originally published in the Los Angeles Times

    Stephen I. Schwartz is the editor of the Nonproliferation Review at the Monterey Institute of International Studies; Deepti Choubey is the deputy director of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

  • Speedy Ratification of the Treaty Banning Cluster Weapons

    In a remarkable combination of civil society pressure and leadership from a small number of progressive States, a strong ban on the use, manufacture, and stocking of cluster bombs was signed in Oslo, Norway on 3 December 2008. However, all bright sunlight casts a dark shadow, and in this case the shadow is the fact that the major makers and users of cluster munitions were deliberately not there: Brazil, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, USA.

    Yet as arms negotiations go, the cluster bomb ban has been swift. They began in Oslo, Norway in February 2007 and were thus often called the “Oslo Process.” The negotiations were a justified reaction to their wide use by Israel in Lebanon during the July-August 2006 conflict. The UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC) working in southern Lebanon reported that their density there is higher than in Kosovo and Iraq, especially in built up areas, posing a constant threat to hundreds of thousands of people, as well as to UN peacemakers. It is estimated that one million cluster bombs were fired on south Lebanon during the 34 days of war, many during the last two days of war when a ceasefire was a real possibility. The Hezbollah militia also shot off rockets with cluster bombs into northern Israel.

    Cluster munitions are warheads that scatter scores of smaller bombs. Many of these sub-munitions fail to detonate on impact, leaving them scattered on the ground, ready to kill and maim when disturbed or handled. Reports from humanitarian organizations and mine-clearing groups have shown that civilians make up the vast majority of the victims of cluster bombs, especially children attracted by their small size and often bright colors.

    The failure rate of cluster munitions is high, ranging from 30 to 80 per cent. But “failure” may be the wrong word. They may, in fact, be designed to kill later. The large number of unexploded cluster bombs means that farm lands and forests cannot be used or used with great danger. Most people killed and wounded by cluster bombs in the 21 conflicts where they have been used are civilians, often young. Such persons often suffer severe injuries such as loss of limbs and loss of sight. It is difficult to resume work or schooling.

    Discussions of a ban on cluster weapons had begun in 1979 during the negotiations in Geneva leading to the Convention on Prohibition on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects — the “1980 Inhumane Weapons Convention” to its friends.

    The indiscriminate impact of cluster bombs was raised with the support of the Swedish government by the representative of the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva and myself. My NGO text of August 1979 for the citizens of the world on “Anti-Personnel Fragmentation Weapons” called for a ban based on the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration and recommended that “permanent verification and dispute-settlement procedures be established which may investigate all charges of the use of prohibited weapons whether in inter-State or internal conflicts, and that such a permanent body include a consultative committee of experts who could begin their work without a prior resolution of the UN Security Council.”

    I was thanked for my efforts but left to understand that world citizens are not in the field of real politics and that I would do better to stick to pushing for a ban on napalm — photos of its use in Vietnam being still in the memory of many delegates. Governments always have difficulty focusing on more than one weapon at a time. Likewise for public pressure to build, there needs to be some stark visual reminders to draw attention and to evoke compassion.

    Although cluster munitions were widely used in the Vietnam-Indochina war, they never received the media and thus the public attention of napalm. (1) The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research recently published a study on the continued destructive impact of cluster bombs in Laos noting that “The Lao People’s Democratic Republic has the dubious distinction of being the most heavily bombed country in the world” (2). Cluster-bomb land clearance is still going on while the 1963-1973 war in Laos has largely faded from broader public memory.

    The wide use by NATO forces in the Kosovo conflict again drew attention to the use of cluster bombs and unexploded ordnance. The ironic gap between the humanitarian aims given for the war and the continued killing by cluster bombs after the war was too wide not to be noticed. However, the difficulties of UN administration of Kosovo and of negotiating a “final status” soon overshadowed all other concerns. Likewise the use of cluster bombs in Iraq is overshadowed by the continuing conflict, sectarian violence, the role of the USA and Iran, and what shape Iraq will take after the withdrawal of US troops.

    Thus, it was the indiscriminate use of cluster bombs against Lebanon in a particularly senseless and inconclusive war that has finally led to sustained efforts for a ban. Cluster weapons were again used by both Georgia and Russia in the 5 days of the August 2008 conflict— a use which was totally unnecessary from a strategic point of view. This use in the Georgia-Russia- South Ossetia conflict proves that as long as such weapons are available to the military, they will be used with little thought of their consequence.

    The ban on cluster bombs follows closely the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction which came into force in March 1999 and has been now ratified by 152 States. Many of the same NGOs active on anti-personnel mines were also the motors of the efforts on cluster bombs — a combination of disarmament, humanitarian, and human rights groups.

    States signed the treaty on 3 December in Oslo where the negotiations began. If the momentum can be kept up, parliaments should ratify the treaty quickly, and it could come into force by mid-2009. It is important for supporters to contact members of parliament indicating approval of the ban and asking for swift ratification. A more difficult task will be to convince those States addicted to cluster bombs— the Outlaw Seven: Brazil, China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, USA. The ban may discourage their use by these States and the USA has a recent export ban on the sale of most cluster weapons, but a signature by them would be an important sign of respect for international agreements and world law. Pressure must be kept up for speedy ratification and for signature on those States outside the law.

    René Wadlow is Representative to the United Nations in Geneva for the Association of World Citizens.

  • Need Cash? Cut Nuclear Weapons Budget

    This article was originally published in the Boston Globe

    President-elect Barack Obama needs money. “To make the investments we need,” he said last week, “we’ll have to scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices, as well.”

    There is no better place to start than the nuclear weapons budget. He can cut obsolete programs and transfer tens of billions of dollars per year to pressing conventional military and domestic programs.

    Transfers to domestic programs will help jumpstart the economy. Military spending provides some economic stimulus but not as much as targeted domestic spending. This is one reason Representative Barney Frank has called for a 25 percent reduction in military budgets that have exploded from $305 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $716 billion in fiscal year 2009, including the $12 billion spent every month for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    We must, of course, spend what we need to defend the country. But a good part of the military budget is still devoted to programs designed for the Cold War, which ended almost 20 years ago. This is particularly true of the $31 billion spent each year to maintain and secure a nuclear arsenal of almost 5,400 nuclear weapons, with 1,500 still deployed on missiles ready to launch within 15 minutes.

    We can safely reduce to 1,000 total weapons, as recommended by Senator John Kerry and other nuclear experts. That reduction would save over $20 billion a year, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

    The reductions could be done without any sacrifice to US national security, particularly if the Russians did the same (as they indicated they’d be willing to do) either by a negotiated treaty or the kind of unilateral reductions executed by former presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

    The arsenal of 1,000 warheads could be deployed on 10 safe and secure Trident submarines, each with enough weapons to devastate any nation. In total, the smaller, cheaper arsenal would still be sufficient to destroy the world several times over. Further reductions would generate further savings over time.

    Additional savings are available in the related anti-missile programs created during the Bush administration. Total spending is now $13 billion a year – up from $4 billion in 2000. Bush and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld exempted the agency from the normal checks of Pentagon tests and procurement rules in an effort to institutionalize the program, locking in the next president. Obama will inherit half-built facilities in Alaska and California, along with plans to build new sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, but no assurance that the interceptors actually work -and a huge bill to pay. If Obama were to continue the program as is, he would spend an estimated $62 billion through 2012.

    In a congressional review of these programs, Representative John Tierney of Massachusetts concluded, “Since the 1980s, taxpayers have already spent $120 to $150 billion – more time and more money than we spent on the Manhattan project or the Apollo program, with no end in sight.” Tierney recommends refocusing the program to concentrate on defenses against the short-range weapons Iran and other nations currently field, and restoring realistic testing and realistic budgeting. Doing so could save $6 billion or more a year.

    Further savings can be found by stopping a planned expansion of nuclear weapons production facilities pushed by contractors and some government nuclear laboratories. The facilities would cost tens of billions of dollars and produce hundreds of new nuclear warheads. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates strongly backs the expansion. In a direct challenge to Obama’s plans to reduce nuclear weapons and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Gates said in October, “there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.” Obama will have to back him down or pony up billions to pay Gates’s nuclear tab.

    What will the new president do? He comes to office with a comprehensive nuclear policy that could save billions. Obama will now have to show that his new security team will implement the change he promised, not their own parochial agendas.

    Joe Cirincione is President of the Ploughshares Fund and author of “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.”
  • US Leadership for Global Zero

    US Leadership for Global Zero

    Barack Obama recognizes the importance for US and global security of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. His election opens the door to US leadership to achieve the goal of zero nuclear weapons.

    He has promised: “I will make the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide a central element of US nuclear policy.” He has also stated, “A world without nuclear weapons is profoundly in America’s interest and the world’s interest. It is our responsibility to make the commitment, and to do the hard work to make this vision a reality. That’s what I’ve done as a Senator and a candidate, and that’s what I’ll do as President.”

    All of us on our planet share in this responsibility. It is a responsibility to ourselves, to each other, and to future generations.

    The United States created and used nuclear weapons during World War II. They are the most powerful weapons ever created. A single nuclear weapon can destroy a city, as we know from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With today’s more powerful nuclear weapons, we can readily surmise that a few nuclear weapons could destroy a country, and a nuclear war could destroy civilization and threaten most life on the planet.

    Nuclear weapons are now in the arsenals of nine countries: the US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.

    Humanity’s challenge is to control and eliminate these weapons globally. Nuclear weapons are illegal, immoral, impractical and costly. We must keep the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons clearly before us: Zero nuclear weapons. Zero is both the safest and most stable number of nuclear weapons. But how do we move from a world with 26,000 nuclear weapons to global zero?

    We need to let the new US President know that Americans and people throughout the globe seek his leadership on this issue, reversing past US policy that has relied upon nuclear weapons and threatened their first use. We must call upon President-elect Obama to make his intentions known to the world, taking the following five steps to forge a path to a world free of nuclear weapons.

    First, make an unambiguous commitment on behalf of the United States to global zero and seek this commitment from all other nuclear weapons states. This is the simplest and most direct of the five steps and can be accomplished in a major foreign policy address.

    Second, pledge that the US government will deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons in military policy by taking the weapons off high alert status and by committing to No First Use of nuclear weapons, and seeking this commitment from all other nuclear weapons states. This will demonstrate to the world that the US commitment is more than mere rhetoric.

    Third, negotiate with the Russians, as a matter of high priority, major reductions in nuclear arsenals. Reach an agreement to reduce our respective nuclear arsenals to under 1,000 nuclear weapons, deployed and in reserve, by the year 2010. This agreement will likely require the US to abandon its plans for deployment of its unworkable and provocative missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

    Fourth, launch a major global effort to assure control of all nuclear weapons and the fissile materials to construct new nuclear weapons. This will be necessary for gaining confidence that a nuclear weapons-free world is attainable, particularly as the current nuclear weapons states move to lower and lower levels.

    Fifth, use the convening power of the United States to bring together the nine nuclear weapons states to negotiate a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention similar to the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons. When the existing nuclear weapons states have reached agreement, the Nuclear Weapons Convention should be opened for signature and ratification of all the world’s countries.

    With strong US leadership, the kind that Barack Obama has pledged, a nuclear weapons-free world could be achieved by the year 2020, and this should be the goal of those seeking a more secure world. It still would be far from a perfect world, but it would be a great triumph for humanity. It would pave the way to building a more peaceful and secure future for all inhabitants of earth.

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