Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: US Nuclear Weapons Policy

  • Simulated Attack Reveals Security Flaws at Livermore

    A recent mock terrorist infiltration conducted at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), located near San Francisco, showed that fissile material necessary for building nuclear weapons was not hard to obtain. In Building 332, the faux-invaders found access to approximately 2,000 pounds of weapons-grade uranium and deadly plutonium, a surplus bountiful enough to build at least 300 nuclear weapons. The simulated attack also revealed problems with the lab’s hydraulic system which controls the Gatling gun responsible for protecting the facility.

    Voices from Capitol Hill, across party lines, called the incident “an embarrassment to those responsible for securing the nation’s nuclear facilities,” and called for immediate steps to correct the lab’s major security weaknesses. Danielle Brian, Executive Director of the Project on Government Oversight, explained the danger of allowing terrorists access to the wealth of nuclear materials at Livermore. She argued that terrorists willing to sacrifice their lives would not need to escape the lab safely with apprehended fissile materials. “They could simply detonate it as part of an improvised nuclear device on the spot.” With nearly seven million residents within 50 miles of the lab, the possibility of such a detonation has led many experts to urge the lab to choose a more remote location for nuclear material.

    The laboratory undergoes staged attacks annually, and the faux foes are timed to see how much damage real invaders could inflict. Can the attackers evade the lab’s security system just in time to build a “dirty bomb” for immediate detonation? Can they hold off the lab’s armed guards long enough to quickly construct a rudimentary device with a destructive capability akin to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or, would it be best to simply rush past the out-of-order Gatling gun and leave the lab altogether, fissile materials in tow, to use a nuclear device in the heart of San Francisco?

    Located above an irrigation canal, less than two miles from elementary schools, a pre-school, a middle school, a senior center, and a major highway junction, Livermore’s security defects have invigorated opposition to the storage of nuclear weapons materials at the lab. Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CARES, a nuclear weapons watchdog group, argued that the fissile materials at Livermore “simply cannot be made safe and secure.” She explained that the Livermore community, consisting of 81,000 residents, strongly desires that the plutonium and highly enriched uranium be moved elsewhere.

    The stores of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium across the street are not the only thing inducing anxiety among Livermore’s residents. The lab’s security system, assuming that its components are in working order, also serves to stir unease in the suburban homes nearby. The laboratory’s Gatling guns, which were purchased by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) just after the Department of Energy approved doubling the lab’s plutonium storing capacity, each release the force of a dozen armed guards, firing 4,000 rounds per minute and taking down targets up to a mile away. Former Administrator of the NNSA, Linton Brooks, explained that the guns “leave no doubt about the outcome” in the event of a military-style air or ground attack on the lab.”

    Kelley, of Tri-Valley CARES, referred to “children on bicycles and skateboards … people walking their dogs,” along the western perimeter of the lab, and questioned the transformation of the science laboratory into a fortified arsenal, prepared for military style attacks. In a residential neighborhood, she argued, “you can’t just indiscriminately open fire.” The Gatling guns are supposed to be tested regularly, and no explanation has been given for their malfunction.

    While the security failures exposed at Livermore seem unacceptable to most, many experts believe that many more exist, and remain undiscovered due to inherent flaws in the “force-on-force” simulated attacks. The mock intrusions generally occur at night or on weekends when the lab’s employees are safe at home and not susceptible to hostage-taking, and when the defenders are given advance notice of the attack. The staff-free corridors of the laboratory during these simulations do not give the defenders accurate practice at securing the lab, as they do not have to distinguish their firing between innocent bystanders and intruders. The “force-on-force” exercises also do not assess the lab’s capability of withstanding an attack from a rogue aircraft passing along one of the flight paths to or from one of the nearby airports.

    In a press release on the newly exposed security flaws, the Department of Energy (DOE) explained that the “force-on-force” simulation revealed both positive aspects of the security system and others “requiring corrective action.” A spokesperson told Time that the DOE does not believe the nuclear materials at Livermore are at risk, but is “interested in examining any deficiencies.”

    As long as there are those who seek access to the US’ stores of plutonium and uranium at Livermore, and those who build their lives on the suburban streets around the lab, perhaps the DOE should examine the prospect of transplanting its fissile material fortress, rather than waiting for new deficiencies to emerge, or simulated failures to become real tragedies.

    Rachel Hitow is the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Washington, DC Intern.

  • Support the Czech Hunger Strikers

    On May 13th, Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar began a hunger strike in Prague. They are asking for respect for the expressed will of 70% of the people of the Czech Republic and that a democratic referendum be held to determine whether or not to install a U.S. military base on Czech territory. “We have tried almost everything, but our government has failed to listen to us,” says Tamas.
    The U.S. government, as part of its global so-called “Missile Defense” initiative, is planning to install a radar base in the Czech Republic, despite the opposition of the overwhelming majority of the Czech people. Although it is presented as a defense system against possible attacks from non-existent Iranian missiles, the “Missile Defense” system is, in fact, a first strike weapon. It is a tool for global dominance which represents the first step towards U.S. weaponization and control of space. It is seen by the Czech Republic’s neighbor and former Cold War ally, Russia, as a threat and a provocation, which is spurring Russia to engage in a new arms race with the United States.
    For over two years, citizens in the Czech Republic have repeatedly expressed their opposition to the proposed base through mass demonstrations, opinion polls, and petitions, yet the Czech government has refused to allow a public debate on the issue. Time is now running out, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to travel to Prague in June to sign the agreement between the two countries.
    We can show our support for the hunger strikers as we call upon our own government to end its plans for the “Missile Defense” project, which endangers the peace and co-existence of people worldwide. While a military base in the Czech Republic would be located thousands of miles away from the U.S., it would have major implications for people around the United States and the world.

    Leslie Cagan is National Coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (www.unitedforpeace.org).

    Here’s what you can do:
    1) Add your name to the more than 99,000 people who have already signed the online petition – and then encourage others to sign on as well: http://www.nonviolence.cz You can also read messages of support that have come in from around the world at http://www.nenasili.cz/en/723_messages-of-support
    2) Throughout Europe groups have been demonstrating their support for the hunger strikers – as well as their opposition to the U.S. “Missile Defense” initiative. Find out more about these activities: http://nenasili.cz/en/1081_campaign-in-europe
    3) Make sure your member of Congress knows about your opposition to the radar base in the Czech Republic, and to the whole “Missile Defense” initiative. Click here to see a letter that Congressman Dennis Kucinich recently wrote in support of the hunger strikers.
    4) Forward this message to others in your networks!

  • A Treaty to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

    Article first appeared on the History News Network

    Although few people are aware of it, there has been considerable progress over the past decade toward a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons.

    For many years, there had been a substantial gap between the pledges to eliminate nuclear weapons made by the signatories to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 and the reality of their behavior. To remedy this situation, in 1996 the New York-based Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy—the U.S. affiliate of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms—began to coordinate the drafting of a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention. Formulated along the lines of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1997, this model nuclear convention was designed to serve as an international treaty that prohibits and eliminates nuclear weapons.

    Although the late 1990s proved a difficult time for nuclear arms control and disarmament measures, the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, joined by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Network of Engineers Against Proliferation, continued its efforts. Consequently, in 2007, these organizations released a new model treaty, revised to reflect changes in world conditions, as well as an explanatory book, Securing Our Survival.

    In 1997, like its predecessor, this updated convention for nuclear abolition was circulated within the United Nations, this time at the request of Costa Rica and Malaysia. In addition, it was presented at a number of international conclaves, including a March 2008 meeting of non-nuclear governments in Dublin, sponsored by the Middle Powers Initiative and by the government of Ireland.

    Although the Western nuclear weapons states and Russia have opposed a nuclear abolition treaty, the idea has begun to gain traction. The Wall Street Journal op-eds by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have once again placed nuclear abolition on the political agenda. Speaking in February 2008, the U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, condemned the great powers’ “refusal to negotiate or discuss even the outlines of a nuclear-weapons convention” as “contrary to the cause of disarmament.” Opinion surveys have reported widespread popular support for nuclear abolition in numerous nations—including the United States, where about 70 percent of respondents back the signing of an international treaty to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons.

    Of course, it’s only fair to ask if there really exists the political will to bring such a treaty to fruition. Although Barack Obama has endorsed the goal of nuclear abolition, neither of his current opponents for the U.S. presidency has followed his example or seems likely to do so. John McCain is a thoroughgoing hawk, while Hillary Clinton—though publicly supporting some degree of nuclear weapons reduction—has recently issued the kind of “massive retaliation” threats unheard of since the days of John Foster Dulles.

    Furthermore, the American public is remarkably ignorant of nuclear realities. Writing in the Foreword to a recent book, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security, published by the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, the Western States Legal Foundation, and the Reaching Critical Will project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (www.wmdreport.org), Zia Mian, a Princeton physicist, points to a number of disturbing facts about contemporary U.S. public opinion. For example, more Americans (55%) mistakenly believe that Iran has nuclear weapons than know that Britain (52%), India (51%), Israel (48%), and France (38%) actually have these weapons.

    Although the United States possesses over 5,700 operationally deployed nuclear warheads, more than half of U.S. respondents to an opinion survey thought that the number was 200 weapons or fewer. Thus, even though most Americans have displayed a healthy distaste for nuclear weapons and nuclear war, their ability to separate fact from fiction might well be questioned when it comes to nuclear issues.

    Fortunately, there are many organizations working to better educate the public on nuclear dangers. In addition to the groups already mentioned, these include Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Federation of American Scientists, Faithful Security, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. And important knowledge can also be gleaned from that venerable source of nuclear expertise, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

    But there remains a considerable distance to go before a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons becomes international law.

    Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book, co-edited with Glen H. Stassen, is Peace Action: Past, Present, and Future (Paradigm Publishers).

  • New Leaders and Policies are a Cause for Hope

    Article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on March 8, 2008

    We are in a period of dramatic political transition. The U.S. presidential election is just one part of an unusual simultaneous change in global leadership. Combined with two other political developments, they could lead to sweeping change in policies governing the 26,000 nuclear weapons in the world today.

    By early 2009, four of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (France, Britain, the United States and Russia) will have new leaders. Other key states, including Iran and Israel, may also. Several already have made the switch – South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

    The rise of so many new leaders less wed to past policies brings the possibility that some, perhaps many, could adopt new policies to dramatically reduce many of the nuclear dangers that have tormented governments for decades. They would not need new policies if the old ones were working. But they are not.

    The second big development is the collapse of current U.S. nuclear policy. Bush administration officials were openly contemptuous of their predecessors who had negotiated security arrangements that treated all nations equally. In their view, there were good proliferators, like India, and bad proliferators, like Iraq. The former got trade deals, the latter would be eliminated. The Iraq War was the first implementation of this radical regime change strategy. It proved fatally flawed. The Iraq threat was inflated. Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear weapons, and Iran and North Korea, the two other states targeted as the “axis of evil,” accelerated their nuclear programs after the invasion. Efforts to coerce them into surrender or collapse failed.

    Globally, terrorist threats grew while programs to secure loose nuclear weapons languished. The rejection and neglect of international treaties weakened U.S. security and legitimacy. Today, most of the proliferation problems the administration inherited have grown worse.

    The emergence of new policies is the third critical development, and they come from an unlikely source: veteran cold warriors who helped build the vast U.S. nuclear weapons complex. With two prominent op-eds in The Wall Street Journal in the past 14 months, former Democratic defense secretary William Perry, former Democratic senator Sam Nunn, and former Republican secretaries of state George Schulz and Henry Kissinger have laid out a plan for “a world free of nuclear weapons.”

    It is not just words. They have started a policy movement including seminars, in-depth studies and, just this month, an international conference in Oslo, Norway. Their efforts have garnered the backing of 70% of the living former national security advisors and secretaries of state and defense, including James Baker, Colin Powell, Melvin Laird and Frank Carlucci.

    The political world is responding. The new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged last month, “We will be at the forefront of the international campaign to accelerate disarmament amongst possessor states, to prevent proliferation . . . and to ultimately achieve a world that is free from nuclear weapons.”

    While Sen. John McCain has not addressed this issue in any detail, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says “we need to change our nuclear policy and our posture.” He embraces the vision of a nuclear weapon-free world and marries it to practical proposals to negotiate deep reductions in arsenals and ban long-range missiles like those Iran and others want to build. He pledges to virtually eliminate nuclear terrorism by leading “a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years,” something the Bush or Clinton administrations did not.

    Together, these developments indicate that a rare policy window is opening. Nothing is guaranteed, and much work will be required of many. But with new leaders, a new vision and a new activism, this might be a moment when changes seem not just possible but probable.

    Joseph Cirincione is president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation focused on nuclear weapons policy. He is the author of “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.”

  • US Leadership for Global Nuclear Disarmament

    US Leadership for Global Nuclear Disarmament

    “The road from the world of today, with thousands of nuclear weapons in national arsenals to a world free of this threat, will not be an easy one to take, but it is clear that US leadership is essential to the journey and there is growing worldwide support for that civilized call to zero.” Thomas Graham Jr. and Max Kampelman

    There will be no substantial progress on nuclear disarmament without the active participation and leadership of the United States. I recognize that many countries and individuals throughout the world are rightly skeptical of US leadership after nearly four decades of noncompliance with Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, and particularly after the past seven years of US nuclear policy under the Bush administration.

    But on the issue of nuclear disarmament, there is no choice. If the US does not lead on nuclear disarmament, no substantial progress will be possible, mainly because without US leadership, Russia will not move and this will block the UK, France and China from taking significant steps.

    The US has thus far been the limiting factor in progress on nuclear disarmament. It has promoted nuclear double standards and it has provided leadership in the wrong direction, toward long-term reliance on nuclear arms. In 15 votes on nuclear disarmament issues in the 2007 United Nations General Assembly, the US cast a negative vote on every one of the resolutions.

    The US has engaged in a preventive war against Iraq, based on the now undisputed lie that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. The US has threatened Iran because it pursues uranium enrichment. At the same time, the US has supported the transfer of nuclear technology to nuclear-armed India, shielded Israel’s possession of nuclear arms, and sought to replace every thermonuclear warhead in its own arsenal with more “reliable” weapons.

    The issues I mention are just the tip of the iceberg, but they demonstrate how nuclear weapons deeply undermine democracy. A small group in power, even a single leader, such as Mr. Bush, can thwart both US and global opinion on nuclear disarmament and, in a worst case, plunge the world into a devastating nuclear war by accident, miscalculation or design.

    Kissinger, Shultz, Perry, Nunn and other US foreign policy elites have awakened to the dangers that continued reliance on nuclear weapons pose to the United States. They understand that such reliance makes nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism more likely, threatening the cities of the US, its European Allies and others. They understand that deterrence no longer works (if it ever really did) and cannot be relied upon, particularly in the case of extremists in possession of nuclear weapons.

    A new US president will be chosen in November. There will be change. The new president will need to hear from the American people and from people throughout the world. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are partnering with other groups throughout the world to present the new president with one million signatures on an Appeal calling for US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world. The Appeal calls specifically for the new president to take the following steps:

    • De-alert. Remove all nuclear weapons from high-alert status, separating warheads from delivery vehicles;
    • No First Use. Make legally binding commitments to No First Use of nuclear weapons and establish nuclear policies consistent with this commitment;
    • No New Nuclear Weapons. Initiate a moratorium on the research and development of new nuclear weapons, such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead;
    • Ban Nuclear Testing Forever. Ratify and bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
    • Control Nuclear Material. Create a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty with provisions to bring all weapons-grade nuclear material and the technologies to create such material under strict and effective international control;
    • Nuclear Weapons Convention. Commence good faith negotiations, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons;
    • Resources for Peace. Reallocate resources from the tens of billions currently spent on nuclear arms to alleviating poverty, preventing and curing disease, eliminating hunger and expanding educational opportunities throughout the world.

    For all of these points, and others that could be added, political will is more critical than technological skill. The possibility of US leadership on nuclear abolition will be greatly enhanced if the US government is pressured from abroad. The US government needs to hear from its friends. It needs to be pressured by its friends. If NATO continues to buckle under and go along with US opposition to nuclear disarmament due to US pressure, and that of the UK and France, it only enables their nuclear addiction.

    We have a saying in the US, “Friends do not let friends drive drunk.” US nuclear policy endangers not only other drivers. It endangers the world. It is time to take away the keys. This can only be done by friends who care enough to act for the good of the drunk and the good of others on the road.

    An additional benefit to strong public pressure for nuclear weapons abolition by US allies is that it helps those of us in the US that are seeking to move our own government to take responsible action on this issue. The opening for US leadership created by the Kissinger-Shultz group can be bolstered by strong statements from US friends abroad. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Appeal to the Next President will also be furthered by such support. And, of course, it will matter greatly who is chosen as the next president. Friends from abroad can help us to choose wisely by emphasizing the decisive importance of US leadership for global nuclear disarmament.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the Executive Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.

  • StratCom Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska

    Stories about the transformation U.S. Strategic Command has undergone since 9/11 have been dribbling out for years. But just recently have we gotten a clearer picture of what these changes portend.

    In October 2002, when the U.S. Space Command was shifted to StratCom, nobody could have imagined that in six months the “shock and awe”bombing campaign on Iraq would originate from Omaha. But with 70 per cent of the missiles and smart bombs used in that pre-emptive attack guided from space, StratCom directed what Air Force Secretary James Roche termed the “the first true space war.”

    Then, in August 2003, the “Stockpile Stewardship Committee” overseeing StratCom’s nuclear arsenal held a classified meeting at StratCom to plot the development of a new generation of crossover nuclear weapons — so-called “bunker busters” — that could be used in conventional military conflicts. The “firewall” between nuclear and conventional war-fighting was being smashed down, and StratCom was swinging the hammer.

    And who could have guessed in December 2005, when revelations about the warrantless wiretapping program became public, that this National Security Agency operation had StratCom fingerprints? But the NSA, under StratCom’s new mission of “Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance,” had been made a StratCom “component command,” and the NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden (who now heads the CIA), was carrying out this constitutionally suspect activity.

    It’s been nearly three years since the story broke that Vice President Dick Cheney ordered StratCom to draw up plans for an air- and sea-based attack on Iran. Under its “Prompt Global Strike” and “Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction” missions, the Omaha headquarters is now charged with attacking any place on earth — within one hour — on the mere perception of a threat to America’s national security. The war on terror is being waged from StratCom, and the next war the White House gets us into (whether with Iran or a geopolitical rival like China) will start in Nebraska.

    With all the missions it’s now got in its quiver, you can hardly open a newspaper anymore without reading about a StratCom scheme.

    The current flap with Russia over the proposed missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic — that’s StratCom’s handiwork. The command picked up its “Integrated Missile Defense” mission in 2003 after the Bush/Cheney administration pulled out of the ABM Treaty. And those Eastern European installations — which the Russians warn are reigniting the Cold War — will be added to the network of international bases already under StratCom’s command.

    But from reading the news accounts, you’d never know the command was involved. StratCom’s name is never mentioned.

    Or who realized that, when a U.S. Predator drone fired a missile killing al-Qaida commander Abu Laith al-Libi in Pakistan this past January, StratCom did everything from supplying the intelligence to helping fly the unpiloted vehicle? That incident dramatized how easily StratCom — with its new war-fighting authority — can skirt the law. According to an Associated Press story, the missile attack infringed on Pakistan’s national sovereignty, meaning international law may have been breached. But with the free hand it’s been granted, 60 minutes from now, StratCom could have started a war and Congress wouldn’t even have had a clue.

    This is not our fathers’ StratCom.

    Gone are the days when Strategic Command simply controlled America’s nuclear deterrent, and its doomsday weapons were only to be used as a last resort. Since 9/11, StratCom has gone from “never supposed to be used” to “being used for everything.” Likening the changes that have occurred at the command to a tsunami, former astronaut and current StratCom Commander Kevin Chilton brags that StratCom today is “the most responsive combatant command in the U.S. arsenal.”

    It’s now also the most dangerous place on the face of the earth.

    And hardly anybody knows it.

    StratCom’s well-publicized shootdown of the spy satellite, however, may have finally shown the world just how menacing the command has become. Barely a week after the United States repudiated a treaty proposal to ban space weapons at a U.N. Conference on Disarmament, StratCom shot down the satellite — using its “missile defense” system. And the message this shootdown sent to the world struck with all the force of an anti-satellite missile. Despite the innocuous name, missile defense is now understood to be an offensive weapon by which the United States (in the language of the administration’s national space policy) means to “dominate” space …

    And whoever controls space controls the earth.

    Operating like some executive-branch vigilante, StratCom has just launched a new arms race — because you can bet Russia and China will never surrender the heavens without a fight.

    What’s equally worrisome, though, is that StratCom is now hourly making a mockery of our system of congressional checks and balances. And if Congress can’t rein in StratCom, can anyone?

    Tim Rinne is the state coordinator of Nebraskans for Peace, the nation’s oldest statewide peace and justice organization. Nebraskans for Peace will co-sponsor an international conference April 11-13, 2008 in Omaha about the threat StratCom poses.

  • Understanding a Trillion

    Understanding a Trillion

    This is the way to understand a trillion. Begin by counting 1,2,3…one number each second, and count each second around the clock. In 12 days, you will reach one million. Keep counting. In 32 years, you will reach one billion. Admittedly, this is an impossible task, far beyond our capacities for concentration and focus, not to mention sleep deprivation.

    The really hard part, though, is that to reach one trillion would require counting for 32,000 years. It would require organizing the next 1,280 generations to continue the 24 hour counting in 32 year shifts. This would require passing the baton to future generations for more than three times the span of civilization from its roots in Mesopotamia to the present.

    Now consider that the world is spending over $1.2 trillion annually on military expenditures, and the United States is spending more than half of this amount on its military and its wars. Or consider this: the United States alone has spent some $7.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems since 1942. To count to $7.5 trillion would require counting for the next 240,000 years, through 9,600 generations. And our militarism has created in the US alone $9 trillion in debt which, along with our militarism and nuclearism, is our legacy to future generations.

    David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

  • Comments on Complex Transformation

    Comments delivered in Madison, WI on February 16, 2008

    I am grateful for this opportunity to comment on the Department of Energy’s proposed changes in the United States Nuclear Weapons complex. I speak both as a citizen and as a historian who has published extensively on America’s more than sixty-year encounter with nuclear weapons.

    The Department of Energy’s proposal focuses exclusively on narrow technical detail. I think it is important to place this proposal in a larger context. First of all, note the choice of language. The DoE’s goal is to “modernize” our nuclear-weapons complex. Certainly all would agree that “modernization” is a good thing. Right?

    Further, underlying the proposal is an unspoken assumption: that nuclear weapons production and stockpiling will continue to be a central aspect of American public policy into the foreseeable future. This represents a further embedding of nuclear weapons into the very core of our nation’s economy, culture, and strategic policy. There is no hint of a commitment to eliminating these terrible weapons, but rather this proposal simply assumes their permanence, and at a level of thousands of weapons—a total that would have appalled all Americans when the first atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in 1945, if they could have foreseen what lay ahead.

    Further, this proposed reconfiguration of the nation’s nuclear-weapons program must be viewed in the larger context of America’s overall nuclear-weapons policies over the years, and specifically the policies of the current administration. In fact, the assumption of this proposal that nuclear-weapons will remain a permanent part of the U.S. military arsenal is part of a larger pattern of government policies that pays lip service to nuclear disarmament, while in fact contributing to proliferation worldwide and dangerously worsening what used to be called the nuclear balance of terror—a term that remains all too appropriate today.

    • The current administration has worsened the danger of proliferation. The United States continues to supply Israel with military hardware and billions of dollars in aid each year, despite the fact that Israel secretly developed and stockpiled nuclear weapons in defiance of stated U.S. policy, and has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
    • This administration has entered into a highly controversial agreement to supply nuclear know-how and technology to India, despite India’s development of nuclear weapons in defiance of international nonproliferation agreements, its refusal to open all its nuclear facilities to inspection, and its refusal to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
    • This administration has given billions in aid to Pakistan, despite Pakistan’s development and testing of nuclear weapons, and despite the role of Pakistan’s top atomic scientist, A. Q. Khan, in secretly giving vital weapons-making information to other countries.
    • This administration has continued to push for the development of earth-penetrating nuclear weapons, the socalled “bunker buster” missiles, despite congressional opposition, and in violation of the spirit of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, by which the nuclear powers pledged to work in good faith for nuclear disarmament—not for developing new weapons systems.
    • Above all, the current administration has pursued the development and deployment of anti-missile missiles, a legacy of the socalled Strategic Defense Initiative, popularly called “Star Wars,” launched by President Ronald Reagan twenty five years ago. In addition to setting up anti-missile launch sites in Alaska and California, the administration now proposes further deployment in Poland and the Czech Republic, stirring fierce opposition from the Russian government, which is now threatening to target these sites with its own missiles.

    Russia’s reaction is entirely predictable, since the whole history of the nuclear arms race makes clear that an escalation by one side, whether labeled “offensive” or “defensive,” inevitably triggers a counter-move by the other side, leading to further escalation. Further, in taking this step, the Bush Administration abandoned the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which had acknowledged the dangerously destabilizing effects of trying to develop a defense against missile attack. If such a system were ever actually deployed and proven to be workable, it would mean that the nation deploying the system could then safely launch a nuclear attack without fear of retaliation. The administrations anti-missile program is not only dangerous and unwise strategically, it is technologically unfeasible and a massive waste of money. As has often been noted, trying to shoot down a missile with another missile is the equivalent of trying to stop a bullet with another bullet. Test after test has resulted in failure, even when the timing of the target-missile’s firing and its trajectory were fully known! What are the chances of successfully destroying a missile fired at an unknown time, and on an unknown trajectory? Nevertheless, the current Bush administration has poured billions into this unwise and unworkable program. In the first Bush budget, spending on missile-defense hit nearly $8 billion. Despite a series of failed tests, the administration requested a staggering $9.3 billion for fiscal year 2007, the highest in the program’s history and more that the total 2006 budgets for the National Park Service, the Food and Drug Adminstration, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives, the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities, and the administration’s highly touted Millennium program to combat poverty and disease in Africa. In its final budget, released in February 2008, the Bush administration requested a staggering $10.4 billion for the Missile Defense Agency, plus nearly $2 billion more for missile-defense related projects buried in other parts of the budget. The “Star Wars” scheme that Reagan sprung on the nation out of the blue in 1983 is now an embedded Pentagon program, the Missile Defense Agency, with its own entrenched bureaucracy, powerful corporate interests that stand to profit, and lobbying muscle to secure billions in new funding year after year, whatever the record of failure. The whole depressing “Star Wars” story offers a classic example of how a dangerous, misguided, and technologically unworkable program can become lodged in the bureaucracy, and take on a life of its own. In 2006, President Bush told a California audience, “Technology will once again make this country the leader of the world, and that’s what we’re here to celebrate.” When it comes to nuclear weapons, the answer is not technology, but a renewed national commitment to eliminate them from the earth—not just from “rogue states” or designated enemy nations, but eliminating them entirely.

    Much of my research has looked at the shifting rhythms of Americans’ response to nuclear weapons and the shifting fortunes of the anti-nuclear movement. What I’ve found is a pattern of upsurges of grassroots opposition to nuclear weapons, followed by a calculated government effort to neutralize that opposition. The first antinuclear movement came right after World War II, amid a massive wave of fear and revulsion against a single bomb that could destroy an entire city and snuff out hundreds of thousands of human lives in an instant. This first surge of anti-nuclear activism was blunted, however, as government propaganda hailed the promise of “the peaceful atom,” and whipped up fears of a communist takeover as the Cold War began. The second wave of grassroots antinuclear activism came in the later 1950s and early 1960s, as deadly radioactive fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests posed a terrifying danger to public health, especially the health of the most vulnerable—babies taking in radioactive poisons with their mother’s milk. This surge of activism was blunted with the signing of the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. That treaty did not end nuclear tests, but it put them underground, out of sight, and the antinuclear movement soon faded. The third wave of grassroots antinuclear activism came in the early 1980s, in reaction to the Reagan administration’s nuclear build-up, belligerent Cold War rhetoric, and renewed focus on civil defense in a possible nuclear war. As public alarm mounted, millions of Americans rallied to the Nuclear Weapons Freeze campaign, the brainchild of Randall Forsberg, who died prematurely last October. Some veterans of that campaign are here today. The government, in the person of President Reagan, blunted that campaign with the 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative, with its deceptive promise of using America’s technological prowess to build a secure shield against nuclear attack. The whole idea was strategically dangerous and fatally flawed technologically, but it served its immediate political purpose. Reagan shifted the terms of the debate, and the nuclear freeze movement collapsed. We now stand at another crossroads. Attention to the global danger of nuclear proliferation and the massive nuclear arsenal still held by the United States, Russia, and other nations has been diverted since 9/11 by a very selective attention to the nuclear danger posed by two specific nations, North Korea and Iran. That danger is real, but it is part of a far larger danger to our planet itself—a danger in which the United States itself is deeply implicated. But while attention to the true nature of the nuclear threat has been blunted by propaganda, a profound movement for change is sweeping the nation. This may, indeed, be a propitious moment for a new surge of grassroots anti-nuclear activism by a new generation. Through determined effort by concerned citizens, we may be poised once gain to confront the threat the whole world faces from the horrendous new power of destruction that our government, in our name, unleashed on the world on August 6, 1945.

    Paul Boyer is the Merle Curti Professor of History Emeritus as the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of By the Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (1985) and Fallout: A Historian Reflects on America’s Half-Century Encounter with Nuclear Weapons (1998).

  • Wisconsin elected Officials Speak Out Against Building New Nuclear Weapons

    On Saturday, February 16th at a citizens’ hearing at the Capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. Senator Russell Feingold, U.S. Representative Tammy Baldwin, State Senator Frederick Kessler, and State Senator Mark Miller made statements opposing current U.S. nuclear weapons policy and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed nuclear weapons complex transformation.

    At a citizen hearing co-sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, experts, representatives of state and federal government, members of the general public, and citizen groups addressed the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed $150 billion plan to revamp the industrial infrastructure responsible for building and maintaining U.S. nuclear weapons.

    Under the National Environmental Policy Act, DOE is required hold hearings around the country in the communities near nuclear weapons facilities. Madison was not one of those chosen communities, but the decision to build new nuclear weapons threatens all Americans. This hearing was a chance for Wisconsin to have a voice on the future of US nuclear weapons.

    A shorter, edited video of the hearing along with written testimony will soon be available on www.wagingpeace.org. If you would like to see the full version, go to www.wiseye.org/wisEye_programming/ARCHIVES-FEB08.html#evt_080216_cnf_nukes.

    For more information on this event, or for assistance in setting up a citizens’ hearing in your area, contact Nick Roth, Washington DC Office Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at (202) 543-4100 x.105 or nroth@napf.org.

  • “Our Goal is Perfection”

    “Our Goal is Perfection”

    On August 30, 2007, six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto the wings of a B-52 aircraft and flown from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. It was a major error in the handling of nuclear weapons, leading to various investigations and the replacement of the commander of Minot Air Force Base. The new commander, Colonel Joel Westa, commented, “Our goal in this line of work is not to make errors. Our goal is perfection. It’s one of those missions where the tolerance is very low for error. In fact, it is zero.”

    Colonel Westa sounds like a well-meaning fellow, but perhaps someone should explain to him that humans are prone to errors, not only of judgment but of memory and inadvertence. For example, on the same day that Colonel Westa was professing that there is zero tolerance for error, February 12, 2008, the US Secretary of Defense, surely not purposefully, slipped on ice outside his home and broke his humerus, the bone connecting the shoulder to the elbow. Accidents occur.

    Even Edward Teller, father of the H-Bomb, recognized, “Sooner or later a fool will prove greater than the proof even in a foolproof system.” With 26,000 nuclear weapons still in the world and 3,500 of these weapons still on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments, and with policies of launch on warning in effect in the US, Russia and other nuclear-armed states, there is unfortunately fertile ground for proving Teller right about the fool proving greater than the proof.

    Mikhail Gorbachev, who had his finger on the nuclear button for many years and who called in the mid-1980s for the abolition of nuclear weapons, offered sage advice when he stated “that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.”

    Perfection is not possible, but it is possible to abolish nuclear weapons. Our choices are to play Russian Roulette with the human future, seeking an impossible standard of perfection for all possessors of nuclear weapons, or to recognize the wisdom in Gorbachev’s words and eliminate the overwhelming danger posed by these weapons by eliminating the weapons themselves.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.