Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: US Nuclear Weapons Policy

  • Modernizing the Opportunities for Nuclear War

    Lawrence WittnerA fight now underway over newly-designed U.S. nuclear weapons highlights how far the Obama administration has strayed from its commitment to build a nuclear-free world.

    The fight, as a recent New York Times article indicates, concerns a variety of nuclear weapons that the U.S. military is currently in the process of developing or, as the administration likes to say, “modernizing.”  Last year, the Pentagon flight-tested a mock version of the most advanced among them, the B61 Model 12.  This redesigned nuclear weapon is the country’s first precision-guided atomic bomb, with a computer brain and maneuverable fins that enable it to more accurately target sites for destruction.  It also has a “dial-a-yield” feature that allows its handlers to adjust the level of its explosive power.

    Supporters of this revamped weapon of mass destruction argue that, by ensuring greater precision in bombing “enemy” targets, reducing the yield of a nuclear blast, and making a nuclear attack more “thinkable,” the B61 Model 12 is actually a more humanitarian and credible weapon than older, bigger versions.  Arguing that this device would reduce risks for civilians near foreign military targets, James Miller, who developed the nuclear weapons modernization plan while undersecretary of defense, stated in a recent interview that “minimizing civilian casualties if deterrence fails is both a more credible and a more ethical approach.”

    Other specialists were far more critical.  The Federation of Atomic Scientists pointed out that the high accuracy of the weapon and its lower settings for destructiveness might tempt military commanders to call for its use in a future conflict.

    General James E. Cartright, a former head of the U.S. Strategic Command and a retired vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that possessing a smaller nuclear device did make its employment “more thinkable.”  But he supported developing the weapon because of its presumed ability to enhance nuclear deterrence.  Using a gun as a metaphor, he stated:  “It makes the trigger easier to pull but makes the need to pull the trigger less likely.”

    Another weapon undergoing U.S. government “modernization” is the cruise missile.  Designed for launching by U.S. bombers, the weapon—charged William Perry, a former secretary of defense—raised the possibilities of a “limited nuclear war.”  Furthermore, because cruise missiles can be produced in nuclear and non-nuclear versions, an enemy under attack, uncertain which was being used, might choose to retaliate with nuclear weapons.

    Overall, the Obama administration’s nuclear “modernization” program—including not only redesigned nuclear weapons, but new nuclear bombers, submarines, land-based missiles, weapons labs, and production plants—is estimated to cost as much as $1 trillion over the next thirty years.  Andrew C. Weber, a former assistant secretary of defense and former director of the interagency body that oversees America’s nuclear arsenal, has criticized it as “unaffordable and unneeded.”  After all, the U.S. government already has an estimated 7,200 nuclear weapons.

    The nuclear weapons modernization program is particularly startling when set against President Obama’s April 2009 pledge to build a nuclear weapons-free world.  Although this public commitment played a large part in his receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize that year, in succeeding years the administration’s action on this front declined precipitously.  It did manage to secure a strategic arms reduction treaty (New START) with Russia in 2010 and issue a pledge that same year that the U.S. government would “not develop new nuclear warheads.”  But, despite promises to bring the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification and to secure further nuclear arms agreements with Russia, nuclear disarmament efforts ground to a halt.  Instead, plans for “nuclear modernization” began.  The president’s 2016 State of the Union address contained not a word about nuclear disarmament, much less a nuclear weapons-free world.

    What happened?

    Two formidable obstacles derailed the administration’s nuclear disarmament policy.  At home, powerful forces moved decisively to perpetuate the U.S. nuclear weapons program:  military contractors, the weapons labs, top military officers, and, especially, the Republican Party.  Republican support for disarmament treaties was crucial, for a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate was required to ratify them.  Thus, when the Republicans abandoned the nuclear arms control and disarmament approach of past GOP presidents and ferociously attacked the Obama administration for “weakness” or worse, the administration beat an ignominious retreat.  To attract the backing of Republicans for the New START Treaty, it promised an upgraded U.S. nuclear weapons program.

    Russia’s lack of interest in further nuclear disarmament agreements with the United States provided another key obstacle.  With 93 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons in the arsenals of these two nations, a significant reduction in nuclear weapons hinged on Russia’s support for it.  But, angered by the sharp decline of its power in world affairs, including NATO’s advance to its borders, the Russian government engaged in its own nuclear buildup and spurned U.S. disarmament proposals.

    Despite these roadblocks, the Obama administration could renew the nuclear disarmament process.  Developing better relations with Russia, for example by scrapping NATO’s provocative expansion plan, could smooth the path toward a Russian-American nuclear disarmament agreement.  And this, in turn, would soften the objections of the lesser nuclear powers to reducing their own nuclear arsenals.  If Republican opposition threatened ratification of a disarmament treaty, it could be bypassed through an informal U.S.-Russian agreement for parallel weapons reductions.  Moreover, even without a bilateral agreement, the U.S. government could simply scrap large portions of its nuclear arsenal, as well as plans for modernization.  Does a country really need thousands of nuclear weapons to deter a nuclear attack?  Britain possesses only 215.  And the vast majority of the world’s nations don’t possess any.

    Given the terrible dangers and costs posed by nuclear weapons, isn’t it time to get back on the disarmament track?

  • North Korea’s Nuclear Ambition and the US Presidential Campaign

    Robert DodgeWith the news of North Korea testing another nuclear weapon its leadership continues the fallacy of nuclear deterrence promoted by the nuclear powers of the world. This action by North Korea must be condemned just as the continued possession of nuclear weapons by all of the nuclear states. This action is against the growing international consensus for a universal treaty banning all nuclear weapons and making their possession illegal just as chemical and biological weapons have been prohibited.

    In a year of U.S. presidential elections, where is the voice of reason? Who among the candidates or media has spoken to the legal obligations of the United States and all nuclear powers to work in good faith for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Particularly in view of the current climate science confirming that a small regional limited nuclear war using only ½ of 1 percent of the global nuclear arsenals has the potential to cause the deaths of more than 2 billion people from the ensuing climate change following such a war. Who has the courage to speak the truth and put forth a plan to eliminate these weapons?

    Where is the media in it’s investigative obligation and engagement of dialogue on this issue in the campaign. Outlets like PBS continue to cover the arms race and modernization of our Trident submarines, each with the potential for the above scenario many times over, as though it is an acceptable outcome of global doomsday if they are activated. This is accepted without question as a fait accompli. We must ask the candidates if they are actually aware of this science and if so under what circumstance they are ready to end life as we know it becoming defacto suicide bombers. For it would be only a matter of time before the global climatic effects of such a use would result in our own deaths. There can be no doublespeak in this response. You are either in favor of the status quo with existing arsenals that drive the arms race and promote nations like North Korea to develop their own capabilities or you work in earnest to eliminate these weapons.

    Time is not on our side. The chance of accidental or intentional nuclear war is placed by probability theorists at 1% per year or more. A child born today is not likely to reach their 30th birthday without some nuclear event occurring in their world. Is this the world we want for our children and grandchildren?

    The candidates and the media must overcome their cowardice in addressing this issue at this critical time.

    We must demand answers to these questions about the greatest imminent existential threat to our world. We cannot rely on the hope that someone else will take care of this or the notion that I cannot make a difference. In our democracy each of us has a duty and responsibility to be informed and to take action.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

    Robert Dodge is a family physician practicing full time in Ventura, California. He serves on the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles serving as a Peace and Security Ambassador and at the national level where he sits on the security committee. He also serves on the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions. He writes for PeaceVoice.

  • American Casualties of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Program

    When Americans think about nuclear weapons, they comfort themselves with the thought that these weapons’ vast destruction of human life has not taken place since 1945—at least not yet. But, in reality, it has taken place, with shocking levels of U.S. casualties.

    This point is borne out by a recently-published study by a team of investigative journalists at McClatchy News. Drawing upon millions of government records and large numbers of interviews, they concluded that employment in the nation’s nuclear weapons plants since 1945 led to 107,394 American workers contracting cancer and other serious diseases. Of these people, some 53,000 judged by government officials to have experienced excessive radiation on the job received $12 billion in compensation under the federal government’s Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. And 33,480 of these workers have died.

    How could this happen? Let’s examine the case of Byron Vaigneur. In October 1975, he saw a brownish sludge containing plutonium break through the wall of his office and start pooling near his desk at the Savannah River, South Carolina nuclear weapons plant. Subsequently, he contracted breast cancer, as well as chronic beryllium disease, a debilitating respiratory condition. Vaigneur, who had a mastectomy to cut out the cancer, is today on oxygen, often unable to walk more than a hundred feet. Declaring he’s ready to die, he has promised to donate his body to science in the hope that it will help save the lives of other people exposed to deadly radiation.

    Actually, workers in nuclear weapons plants constitute only a fraction of Americans whose lives have been ravaged by preparations for nuclear war. A 2002 report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services maintained that, between 1951 and 1963 alone, the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons—more than half of it done by the United States—killed 11,000 Americans through cancer. As this estimate does not include internal radiation exposure caused by inhaling or swallowing radioactive particles, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research has maintained that the actual number of fatal cancers caused by nuclear testing could be 17,000. Of course, a larger number of people contracted cancer from nuclear testing than actually died of it. The government study estimated that those who contracted cancer numbered at least 80,000 Americans.

    Who were these Americans? Many of them were “downwinders”—people whose towns and cities were located near U.S. nuclear testing sites and, thus, were contaminated by deadly clouds of nuclear fallout carried along by the wind. During the 1950s, the U.S. government conducted close to a hundred atmospheric nuclear explosions at its Nevada test site. Nearly 30 percent of the radioactive debris drifted over the towns to the east, which housed a population of roughly 100,000 people. The residents of St. George, Utah recalled that a “pink cloud” would hang over them while they worked amid the fallout, walked in it, breathed it, washed their clothes in it, and ate it. “Even the little children ate the snow,” recalled one resident. “They didn’t know it was going to kill them later on.”

    During subsequent decades, leukemia and other cancer rates soared in the counties adjoining the Nevada test site, as they did among the 250,000 U.S. soldiers exposed to U.S. nuclear weapons tests. From the standpoint of U.S. military commanders, it was vital to place American soldiers close to U.S. nuclear explosions to get them ready to fight in a nuclear war. Subsequently, as many of these soldiers developed cancer, had children with birth defects, or died, they and their family members organized atomic veterans’ groups to demand that the federal government provide medical care and financial compensation for their suffering. Today, atomic veterans receive both from the federal government.

    Uranium miners comprise yet another group of Americans who have suffered and died from the U.S. nuclear weapons program. To obtain the uranium ore necessary to build nuclear weapons, the U.S. government operated thousands of uranium mines, often on the lands of Native Americans, many of whom worked as miners and died premature deaths. The U.S. Public Health Service and the National Institute for Public Safety and Health conducted studies of uranium miners that discovered alarmingly high rates of deaths from lung cancer, other lung diseases, tuberculosis, emphysema, blood disease, and injuries. In addition, when the uranium mines were played out or abandoned for other reasons, they were often left as open pits, thereby polluting the air, land, and water of the surrounding communities with radiation and heavy metals.

    This American nuclear catastrophe is not only a matter of the past, but seems likely to continue well into the future. The U.S. government is now beginning a $1 trillion program to “modernize” its nuclear weapons complex. This involves building new nuclear weapons factories and labs, as well as churning out new nuclear weapons and warheads for firing from the air, land, and sea. Of course, if these weapons and their overseas counterparts are used, they will destroy the world. But, as we have seen, even when they are not used in war, they exact a dreadful toll—in the United States and, it should be noted, in other nations around the world.

    How long are people going to tolerate this nuclear tragedy?

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany.  His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at UAardvark?

  • Open Letter to President Obama

    OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA:
    Fulfill the Prague Promises of Nuclear Disarmament

    Dear Mr. President:

    As you approach your final year in office as President of the United States, I write to urge you to take critical steps to fulfill the promises of nuclear disarmament set forth in your 2009 Prague speech.

    You stated, “…I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  There can be no doubt that America and all other countries would be more secure in a world without the overarching threat of nuclear devastation.  You also stated in the Prague speech, “…as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.  We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it.”

    These were wise words, speaking to the critical role of the United States in leading the world out of the nuclear age, as we led it into the nuclear age.  With a little over a year remaining in your final term, it is important for you to take action that would lead toward a nuclear-free world.

    Please consider the following steps:

    1. Fulfill the U.S. obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by providing leadership to convene good faith negotiations among the world’s countries for an end to the nuclear arms race, including modernization of nuclear arsenals, and for complete nuclear disarmament.
    1. Take all U.S. nuclear weapons off high-alert status.
    1. Declare a U.S. policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons.
    1. Complete the job of securing all weapons-grade nuclear materials throughout the world.
    1. Speak out and educate the American people about the dangers and lack of security inherent in nuclear deterrence policies, as well as the provocative and offensive capabilities inherent in missile defense policies.

    You could set the world on a fast-track course for nuclear zero.  You are approaching the end of your opportunity as President to do this.  Judging from your Prague speech, you know it is the right thing to do.  Don’t miss this chance, leaving open the very real possibility of foreclosing the future through nuclear war by accident or design.  You have a unique opportunity to secure this victory for all humanity, or at the least set it in motion by your leadership in the final year of your presidency.

    You, and only you, can do this.

    Respectfully,

    David Krieger, President
    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • Humanizar, no modernizar

    Traducción de Rubén Arvizu.

    Click here for the English version.

    La Nuclear Age Peace Foundation celebra ahora 33 años de trabajar por la paz y por un mundo libre de armas nucleares. Buscamos estas metas para la gente de hoy, así como también para las del futuro. Para que todos podamos tener un planeta sano para vivir y disfrutar.

    La ciencia y tecnología han traído grandes beneficios a la humanidad en la forma de mejorar la salud, las comunicaciones, el transporte y muchas otras áreas de nuestras vidas. Una persona promedio en la actualidad tiene una vida mejor y más larga que la de reyes y nobles de épocas anteriores. Sin embargo, la ciencia y la tecnología no siempre han sido universalmente positivas. También nos han dado armas capaces de destruir la civilización y la vida más compleja en el planeta, incluyendo a nuestra propia especie.

    En la Era Nuclear, nuestra capacidad tecnológica para la destrucción ha superado nuestra capacidad espiritual y moral para controlar estas tecnologías destructivas. Nuestra Fundación es una voz para todos aquellos comprometidos con el ejercicio de la conciencia y la elección de un futuro decente para toda la humanidad.

    NAPF continúa en su papel de consultor de la República de las Islas Marshall (RIM) en sus valientes demandas de Cero nuclear contra los nueve Goliats que poseen ese armamento.  Los isleños de las Marshall, que han sido víctimas de las pruebas nucleares de Estados Unidos, conocen muy bien el dolor y el sufrimiento causado por esas pruebas. Sus demandas no buscan compensación monetaria, sino asegurar que los países con armas nucleares cumplan con sus obligaciones en virtud del derecho internacional del Tratado de No Proliferación Nuclear y las  negociaciones internacionales de buena fe para poner fin a las armas nucleares en una fecha próxima y así lograr el desarme nuclear en todos sus aspectos. Estamos orgullosos de apoyar a la RIM en estas demandas justas y necesarias.

    No existe forma de humanizar las armas que son inhumanas, inmorales e ilegales. Ellas deben ser abolidas, no modernizadas. Y, sin embargo, los nueve países con armas nucleares están involucrados en la modernización de sus arsenales nucleares.  EE.UU. está a la cabeza, y planea  gastar más de 1 billón de dólares en la mejora de este arsenal en los próximos tres decenios. Con este paso, está haciendo  que el mundo sea más peligroso y menos seguro.

    EE.UU. podría ser líder en la humanización en lugar de  la modernización mediante la reasignación de sus vastos recursos para alimentar a los hambrientos, los sin techo, proporcionando agua potable, asegurando una educación para los pobres, así como la limpieza del medio ambiente, el cambio a fuentes de energía renovables y reparando la infraestructura deteriorada.

    Únete a nosotros para hacer el cambio de en lugar de modernizar los arsenales nucleares, humanizar el planeta.

    David Krieger es Presidente de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    Rubén Arvizu es Director para América Latina de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Reflections on the 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings

    On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing some 90,000 people immediately and another 55,000 by the end of 1945.  Three days later, the United States dropped another atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing some 40,000 people immediately and another 35,000 by the end of 1945.

    David KriegerIn between these two bombings, on August 8, 1945, the U.S. signed the charter creating the Nuremberg Tribunal to hold Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Under well-established international humanitarian law – the law of warfare – war crimes include using weapons that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants or that cause unnecessary suffering.  Because nuclear weapons kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary suffering by radiation poisoning (among other grotesque consequences), the U.S. was itself in the act of committing war crimes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki while agreeing to hold its defeated opponents in World War II to account for their war crimes.

    Those who doubt this conclusion should consider this hypothetical situation: During World War II, Germany creates two atomic bombs and uses them on British cities, killing tens of thousands of civilians.  Under such circumstances, can you imagine the Nazi leaders who ordered these attacks not being held accountable at Nuremberg for these bombings of civilian targets?

    The U.S. has always publicly justified its use of atomic weapons against Japan on the grounds that they ended the war sooner and saved American lives, but did they?  Many key U.S. military leaders at the time didn’t think so, including Admiral William Leahy and General (later President) Dwight D. Eisenhower.

    Admiral Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff and the top U.S. official presiding over meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in his 1950 memoir based on his contemporaneous notes and diaries, “[T]he use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender….”  He went on, “[I]n being the first to use it, we…adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

    General Eisenhower reported in his memoir a discussion with Secretary of War Henry Stimson, during which he was told of plans to use the atomic bombs on Japan.  Eisenhower wrote, “During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him [Stimson] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives….”

    In the decades that followed the atomic bombings in 1945, the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in an insane nuclear arms race, reaching some 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world by the mid-1980s.  Despite many accidents, miscalculations and international crises, nuclear weapons have not been used again in warfare.  Today there are still approximately 16,000 in the arsenals of nine countries, with over 90 percent of these in the possession of the U.S. and Russia.  Some 1,800 nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired within moments of an order to do so.  Most of these weapons are many times more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Nuclear weapons do not make the U.S. or the world more secure.  On the contrary, they threaten civilization and the human species.  Fortunately, steps may be taken to eliminate this threat.

    The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty obligates its parties, including the U.S., to engage in negotiations in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament.  In a 1996 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice interpreted this obligation as follows: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    Because these negotiations have yet to take place, one small and courageous country, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries at the International Court of Justice and in U.S. federal court, seeking court orders for these countries to fulfill their obligations under international law.

    On the 70th anniversary of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is past time for the U.S. to change course.  Rather than pursue current plans to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal, the U.S. should lead the world in negotiations to achieve the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  This would make the world safer.  It would also recognize the criminal nature of these weapons and show respect for the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many of whom have worked tirelessly to assure that their past does not become someone else’s future.

    This article was originally published by Truthout: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32073-the-us-should-eliminate-its-nuclear-arsenal-not-modernize-it

  • Twelve Worthy Reasons Not to Waste Billions Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

    1. It is not sane, sensible or rational.

    2. It will not make the U.S. or the world safer or more secure.

    3. It is provocative activity that will trigger existing nuclear-armed countries to modernize their nuclear arsenals and result in new nuclear arms races.

    David Krieger4. It demonstrates U.S. commitment to nuclear weapons rather than to nuclear weapons abolition.

    5. It will make nuclear weapons appear more reliable and accurate and therefore more usable.

    6. It is not necessary for purposes of nuclear deterrence.

    7. It sends a strong message to non-nuclear-armed countries that nuclear weapons have perceived military value, and thus creates an inducement to nuclear proliferation.

    8. It breaches the U.S. obligation in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith on effective measures to end the nuclear arms race at an early date.

    9. It breaches the U.S. obligation in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith on effective measures for nuclear disarmament.

    10. It is an immoral waste of resources that are desperately needed for meeting basic human needs for food, water, shelter, education and environmental protection.

    11. Despite the $1 trillion price tag already proposed for U.S. nuclear weapons modernization over the next three decades, as with most “defense” plans, original budgets are generally vastly underestimated.

    12. Benefits of U.S. nuclear weapons modernization will go overwhelmingly to enrich “defense” contracting corporations and their executives.

  • Strategic Thought: Lee Butler on Nuclear Policies, Past and Present

    This is the third in a series of articles from Robert Kazel’s interview with Gen. Lee Butler. To read the first article in this series, a longer interview with Gen. Lee Butler, click here. To read the second article in the series, click here.

    On why nations amass nuclear arsenals:

    It’s almost a testosterone-driven calculation: “At what point am I still the biggest guy on the block?” One of the terrible things that happened in the Nuclear Age was the possession of nuclear weapons became a validation of national manhood. That sent a terrible message. It makes you “count” more amongst your national brethren.

    You can marshal all the arguments in the world with respect to effects on the climate, number of people killed [due to ecological damage], etc. But none of that is going to make a dent in the fact that nations like India and Pakistan view their nuclear arsenals as measures of their manhood, pure and simple. That’s what, in their eyes, gave them international stature. That’s what, in their eyes, commanded respect. Quite frankly, they don’t [care] about the consequences of these weapons. The most insidious part is, given the fact that they live side-by-side and they have no warning time, they are almost driven to a posture of pre-emptive strike. And the targets for their relatively imprecise weapons are cities. The worst possible situation.

    Maybe someday there will be leaders of those two nations who say, “What in the world have we done?” I said to India’s nuclear-weapons community in Bangalore, “The first thing that happened when you became a nuclear-capable state is that you became a nuclear target. How did that increase your security?” I didn’t get an answer for that.

    On Barack Obama:

    President Obama himself is quite extraordinary [as a proponent of nuclear abolition]. He was studying these questions as a college student. He came to the conclusion, a very long time ago, as to precisely what we’ve been talking about—that nuclear weapons, as a practical matter, are an unacceptable form of warfare. So he was predisposed to make further reductions, which he’s done. New START was quite an achievement. I think that’s as much as could have been done at that point, given that he’s not a unilateral actor.

    On U.S.-China relations:

    Does the fact that China is a nuclear-weapons-capable nation pose a threat to the vital interests of the United States? Only if we regard them as an enemy. Britain has nuclear weapons. France has nuclear weapons. Do we view them as threats? No. We have a long history of amicable relations. So, no, I don’t view China as a threat to our survival. Is there any element of our relationship that could conceivably lead to some sort of nuclear exchange?

    A lot of people would disagree. They’d say, look what they’re doing—they’re modernizing their military forces. Look what they’re doing in the fishing grounds of the South China Sea and elsewhere. As a very long stretch, there’s the question of Taiwan. It’s always been the thorn in the side [of our relationship]. But I think any nation in this world today is far more constrained in their actions than they were a half century ago, when might always could make right and if you wanted to go seize something, you just went and did it. Today I think that for whatever quarrels we might have with China, there’s a far greater likelihood that they can be settled in other courts of arbitration than to imagine we might somehow end up in nuclear war.

    I would [want to] know exactly what their nuclear capabilities were, what kind of forces they have, where they were based. But that’s a different matter from considering them an enemy.

    On U.S. “missile defense” technologies:

    Gen. Butler with Russian military officers
    In 1993, the Cold War had thawed and Butler (far right) hosted a delegation of top Russian military officers at his U.S. Strategic Command headquarters near Omaha.

    I watched the convoluted history of “Star Wars” evolve from the very beginning, when President Reagan became enamored with Edward Teller’s brainchild. Here we were, embarked on an enterprise that was entirely open-ended in terms of cost and aspiration, and for which I had the unfortunate task of developing some sort of military objective that made sense. It became very apparent that this was nothing more than the quintessential, cosmic, technological hot biscuit popping out of the oven that captured the fancy of the leader of the free world. And all of a sudden, we’re off and running with really no clear path, and hundreds of billions of dollars at stake. I came to the conclusion that it was a pipedream from the very beginning. There was no way we could ever erect a leak-proof antiballistic missile system for the United States.

    It also was counterproductive from the standpoint of what it said to our allies: “Well, we’re OK, so good luck.” If we were really serious about protecting the coalition nations that subscribed to us as their protector, we would have imagined this on a global scale. [Yet] it was hard enough to do it on a national scale, and it ultimately proved undoable. But in the process, we alienated Russia once more, at a time when more than anything else we needed to be cultivating relations at the end of the Cold War.

    We just sort of continually jabbed our finger in their eye, and at the end of the day it cost us the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty and the expenditure of a lot more money. I guess what we have to show for that is a very limited capability against a very small-scale, prospective missile attack from a North Korea, for example. It gives a measure of comfort to think, I guess: Kim Jong-un might just wake up one day and decide to kick one off to Hawaii or wherever he’ll be able to reach—maybe the shores of some outer Alaskan island? And that we might have some prospect of shooting it down? I view that as highly unlikely.

    [Russian leaders] see it as a threat. Their principle force is their land-based missile force. It always has been. For us to proceed with a system that…appeared to threaten them, from their viewpoint was one more thing that said we’re not serious about having a good relationship.

    On missteps by the U.S. after the Cold War:

    The first thing I would have done would have been to begin standing down NATO—wean European nations off of U.S. largesse and have them begin to take responsibility for their own national security. The Warsaw Pact dissolved. The failure to dismantle the alliances of the Cold War was a huge mistake. I smile when I hear people today say, “Well, thank God we’ve got NATO, because we’ve got Putin.” I think we got Putin because we didn’t dismantle NATO, along with the whole attitude that we adopted with regard to Russia: kind of “kick ’em while they’re down.”

    There may be a so-called “fog of war,” but there’s a fog of peace, as well, where you still can’t see with any clarity exactly who you’re dealing with, and the belief systems that have built up on both sides, and how impenetrable the mythology has become. [Our post-Cold War posture toward Russia] was an enormous strategic blunder. We’re still paying the price for it.

    I expect more of our senior leaders. I expect them to see the larger picture, and play for the longer game. The longer game was establishing sound, cordial relationships with Russia to shepherd them into the realm of democratic government. Instead, the whole thing just went off the rails. In the process, arms control got lost. I was just horrified by all that, and really dismayed. The loss of momentum in nuclear arms control was the greatest price. You only have a short period of time to capitalize on those kinds of opportunities. The door closes.

  • Mediation Questionnaire

    The Republic of the Marshall Islands filed a Mediation Questionnaire at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, April 9, 2015. To read the pdf document, click here.

  • Vandenberg ICBM Tests Are Not Innocuous

    Regarding the second ICBM test from Vandenberg within a week, it has become tedious to read time after time that the tests “are a visible reminder to both our adversaries and our allies of the readiness and capabilities of the Minuteman III weapon system.”

    We certainly know by now that these missiles, when armed with nuclear weapons, can destroy cities and, in a nuclear war, contribute to human extinction.  We also know that nuclear deterrence is only a hypothesis about human behavior that has not and cannot be proven to be effective.  In the 70 years of the Nuclear Age there have been many close calls when nuclear deterrence came close to failing.

    General Lee Butler, a former commander-in-chief of the US Strategic Command, who was once in charge of all US strategic nuclear weapons, has said, “Nuclear deterrence was and remains a slippery intellectual construct that translates very poorly into the real world of spontaneous crises, inexplicable motivations, incomplete intelligence and fragile human relationships.”

    General Butler’s wisdom makes the colonels from Vandenberg who are quoted sound like naïve school children.  Of course, these officers are only doing their job and repeating a simplistic message about the value of nuclear deterrence.  Unfortunately, their perspective endangers the lives of all school children, and the rest of us, now and in the future.

    There are more reasons to oppose ICBM tests from Vandenberg than that they are too expensive and violate treaty agreements, although these are certainly valid.  The tests are a waste of resources and they violate US obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race at an early date.

    Other reasons include: attempting to justify the “use them or lose them” nature of the Minuteman III missile force; the incentives for proliferation that US missile testing provide; the dangers to Santa Barbara County due to the proximity of Vandenberg; and the immorality of threatening to use nuclear-armed missiles that together could result in billions of deaths of humans and other forms of life.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has a new booklet entitled, “15 Moral Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons,” available on its website.

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