Tag: Canada
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President Obama Needs Friends on Nuclear Weapons
This article was originally published by Embassy Magazine
When President Barack Obama chairs a summit of the UN Security Council Sept. 24 on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, a new and exciting moment will have arrived in the long struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons. This unprecedented event gives Canada a rare political opportunity to obtain several political goals with one stroke.
We must understand how high the stakes are in this new round of the nuclear poker game. Unlike his predecessors, President Obama has moved nuclear disarmament to the centre of US foreign policy. He said in his Prague speech in April that he has a “commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” He has re-launched nuclear negotiations with Russia, stated that he will “aggressively pursue” US ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), started work on a verifiable fissile material ban, and announced he will host a global summit on nuclear security next spring.
All this will prepare the US for a leadership role at the 2010 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, preparations for which have already been energized by the stunning U-turn in US nuclear diplomacy. From being the biggest obstacle to nuclear disarmament, the US, under Obama, is poised to become a vigorous proponent.
The nuclear weapons abolition movement sees news rays of hope.
But wait a minute. A landmine is waiting to trip up Obama. The nuclear defenders, led by the military-industrial complex and their Congressional spokespersons, are by no means succumbing to the aspirations of their president. They are determined that the US maintain what they call a “safe, secure, effective and reliable nuclear deterrent.”
Former US defense secretary Jim Schlesinger is trying to frame the all-important US Nuclear Posture Review, now being brought up to date, around the concept of “extended deterrence.” The US, it is argued, needs an effective, if smaller, nuclear arsenal to counter a nuclear threat anywhere.
This means that the US would keep its nuclear weapons to protect not only itself but its allies who do not possess nuclear weapons. In other words, so the argument goes, the US would be weakening itself and also letting down its friends if it gave up its nuclear weapons. If Schlesinger & Co. can get “extended deterrence” written into the new Nuclear Posture Review, scheduled for publication in December, this will stop Obama cold in his quest for a nuclear weapons-free world.
The nuclear defenders have already signalled that they will not oppose US ratification of the CTBT if they get “extended deterrence” codified. This will allow them to modernize US nuclear arsenals indefinitely through lab work rather than explosive testing. They think this “carrot”—CTBT ratification—will be enough to get the US safely through the 2010 NPT Review.
A huge fight is looming because Obama knows he cannot be left in an incoherent position: calling for a nuclear weapons-free world while the US modernizes its nuclear arsenal on the supposed grounds that it must do so to protect its allies. This is but a perpetuation of the two-class nuclear world and is completely unsustainable in the 21st century.
There is only one way to prevent North Korea and Iran and any other aspiring nuclear state from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that is through a global, verifiable ban on all nuclear weapons. Putin of Russia and Singh of India, to name just two of the other leaders of nuclear powers, understand this and are ready to move to comprehensive negotiations toward a global ban. In Obama, we see for the first time the abolition of nuclear weapons moving from aspiration to the strategic centre.
This final dismantling of the Cold War architecture will be a Herculean task. Fearmongers who pretend nuclear weapons bring security will shout from the rooftops. Though such former US officials as Henry Kissinger and George Schultz have given their support to the abolition of nuclear weapons, they have been countered by others, such as Richard Perle and Sen. John Kyle, who are urging the US to keep nuclear weapons “for the foreseeable future.”
In short, Obama, no matter how well motivated, cannot bring us to a nuclear weapons-free world alone. In addition to powerful domestic support, he needs strong international backing. The countries that are friends of the US—those very states that are said to be depending on the US nuclear umbrella—now need to speak up and blow away the phony “extended deterrence” argument. This brings us to Canada.
A nuclear weapons-free world has always been a value and a goal of Canada. We have been prevented from fully exercising that value because of the need to support the US, which until now has always wanted to maintain its nuclear stocks. Suddenly, the Obama moment gives Canada an opening to demonstrate its seriousness in nuclear disarmament.
The Harper government must be urged to recognize the importance of this moment. Sadly, the government seems tongue-tied. There is no program of work, no clear-cut statements from political leaders, and indeed the last round of UN voting showed Canada clinging to negative votes on time-bound measures for nuclear disarmament.
To me, this is politically incomprehensible. This is the very moment that Canada should be openly and loudly supporting the president of the United States (a posture that otherwise Canadians are accustomed to). Obama desperately needs the help of his friends. Let us give it to him. When Harper meets with Obama on Sept. 16 in Washington, the Canadian leader should put this support high on the agenda.
There’s plenty of support in Canada for the prime minister to move: 280 recipients of the Order of Canada have called for international negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would be a verifiable treaty on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons; four major peace groups (Canadian Pugwash, Science for Peace, Physicians for Global Survival and Voice of Women) are planning a “Zero Nuclear Weapons” forum at Toronto City Hall Nov. 13-14 where the keynote speaker will be the pre-eminent author Jonathan Schell; the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is scheduling a major meeting in Ottawa in January.
Besides this public support, there are a couple of other political points the government might consider. If Canada wants to reject any overtures from the US and NATO to extend our combat role in Afghanistan beyond 2011, how better to match this rejection than with whole-hearted support for Obama’s nuclear disarmament plans. And then there’s the matter of Canada wanting a seat on the UN Security Council. Would there be a better demonstration of our sense of international responsibility than playing a serious role with Obama and other like-minded states in working actively to make a reality the vision of a world without nuclear weapons? In politics, that’s called win-win.
Douglas Roche is a former senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament. He is chairman emeritus of the Middle Powers Initiative.
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War Beyond Earth is Not Inevitable
Canada’s major political parties are united in opposing the weaponization of space. It was principally the strength of this feeling that caused Canada to decline its closest ally’s invitation to participate in continental missile defence, seen by many as opening the way to weapons in space. The popular support for missile defence in Canada was lacking.
This was not the first time Canada said no to missile defence. Fifteen years earlier, a Conservative government rejected Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars. The technology on that occasion was impressive, the political pressures great, and the commercial advantages apparent.
Why does Canada make such seemingly perverse decisions?
One answer is that we are a nation of many cultures, directing attention outward. Such a nation is less likely to seek its security behind the walls of borders, or missile defence. The other part of the story is Canada’s commitment to a different sort of bulwark: international law. This is the key to Canadian attitudes on both missile defence and the weaponization of space. One should not claim this as pure virtue; it’s to be expected that the weak will favour law. It was not King John but the nobles who insisted on the Magna Carta (the nobles were right).
Today’s transformation of the world scene is as important as that of King John’s day. It stems from the fundamental question where current trends in weapons development are likely to extrapolate. To what secure outcome could they possibly lead? To each new weapon, there will always be a counter, and to each fear that gave rise to that weapon, a sequel. The most obvious sequel will be the spread of the weapon into the hands of our opponents. Technological dominance cannot endure. Prevention of the spread of weapons is regarded as an essential adjunct to their possession. But power alone will not prevent that spread. One also needs persuasion. And there lies the problem. How does one persuade others to behave differently from oneself?
Only the example of restraint can foster restraint; one can only have recourse to the restraint called law, if one acknowledges the supremacy of law. It is this realization that is slowly transforming the world. But too slowly.
In their respect for law, nations, like individuals, will always be deficient. But they cannot afford to be as deficient as today.
It would be difficult to envisage a better arena for restraint than space. It is a medium all share, since all border on it. Its worth can be judged from the global investment that has literally rocketed in a lifetime from zero to the order of a trillion dollars.
Hugely valuable, it is equally vulnerable. Nonetheless, it remains for the present protected only by custom and law. These are the instruments we must strengthen.
How far have we come?
Before Donald Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defence, he headed a bipartisan commission that warned that war in space was “a virtual certainty.” In its 2001 report, it argued, “We know from history that every medium – air, land and sea – has seen conflict. Reality indicates that space will be no different.” In a nuclear-armed world, this sort of argument from history is a counsel of despair, telling us that whatever can happen will.
The proponents of the argument do not despair; they offer the illusory hope of single-nation dominance. They urge the United States to claim the strategic high ground of space. But a large constituency is aware that a few per cent of the world’s population cannot forever dominate.
With that in mind, the United States joined with other major powers, as long ago as 1967, through the Outer Space Treaty, in embracing the obligation to use outer space “for the benefit ….. of all countries ….. [and as] the province of all mankind.” The impetus toward that agreement can be traced back still further to Dwight Eisenhower’s visionary 1958 proposal for banning weapons from space.
The norm against hostile acts against satellites was established more explicitly by the U.S.-Russian Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which for decades banned interference with another nation’s eyes or ears in space. The spirit of that agreement has been re-enforced by repeated resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly in support of the “Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space” (PAROS).
We have an opportunity today to move further in the direction of a regime of law in space, which would prohibit the testing and deployment of weapons, with all possible provisions for verification. There will be problems, but they are comparable with those we have addressed in preventing mayhem on our streets and piracy at sea. It is hard to believe that these problems will be more demanding than those we’ll face if we allow outer space to degenerate into a jungle.
Sixty years into the atomic age, we have not yet committed ourselves to restraint. Where outer space is concerned, the opportunity will not come again. Carpe diem.
Nobel laureate John Polanyi is a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto. This article is adapted from a speech Polanyi gave at a NPRI conference, Full Spectrum Dominance.
Originally published by Global and Mail.com (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050517.wcomment0518/BNStory/National/)
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At the Unholy Altar of Nuclear Weapons
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 35th anniversary of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was supposed to lead to a nuclear-weapons-free world. Both anniversaries remind us of the stark dangers nuclear weapons still pose to the world.
It is a moment of intense diplomatic challenge for Canada, a country at the centre of the debate over the future of nuclear weapons. That debate will take place at the NPT Review conference May 2-27 at the United Nations.
In recent years, Iran, Libya and North Korea have pursued illegal nuclear programs with the assistance of a secret Pakistani network.
A high-level U.N. panel recently warned: “We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the Non-Proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation.” It is truly shocking that the public seems oblivious to the 34,000 nuclear weapons still in existence, most of them with an explosive power several times greater than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The NPT was obtained through a bargain, with the nuclear-weapons states agreeing to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear weapons and share nuclear technology for peaceful purposes in return for the non-nuclear states shunning the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Adherence to that bargain enabled the indefinite extension of the treaty in 1995 and the achievement of an “unequivocal undertaking” in 2000 toward elimination through a program of 13 Practical Steps.
Now the United States is rejecting the commitments of 2000 and premising its aggressive diplomacy on the assertion that the problem of the NPT lies not in the nuclear-weapons states’ own actions, but in the lack of compliance by states such as North Korea and Iran.
Brazil has put the issue in a nutshell: “One cannot worship at the altar of nuclear weapons and raise heresy charges against those who want to join the sect.”
The whole international community, nuclear and non-nuclear alike, is concerned about proliferation and wants strong action taken to ensure that Iran and North Korea do not become nuclear weapons states.
But the new attempt by Washington to gloss over the discriminatory aspects of the NPT, which are now becoming permanent, has caused the patience of the members of the non-aligned movement to snap.
They see a two-class world of nuclear haves and have-nots becoming a permanent feature of the global landscape. They see the U.S. researching the development of a new, “usable” nuclear weapon and NATO, an expanding military alliance, clinging to the doctrine that nuclear weapons are “essential.”
Compounding the nuclear risk is the threat of nuclear terrorism, which is growing day by day. It is estimated that 40 countries have the knowledge to produce nuclear weapons and the existence of an extensive illicit market for nuclear items shows the inadequacy of the present export control system.
The task awaiting the 2005 review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is to convince the nuclear-weapons states that the only hope of stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to address nuclear disarmament sincerely.
This is precisely the stance taken by foreign ministers of the New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden), who recently wrote:
“Nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament are two sides of the same coin and both must be energetically pursued.”
The New Agenda, which showed impressive leadership at the 2000 NPT review in negotiating the 13 Practical Steps with the nuclear weapons states, is now clearly reaching out to other middle-power states to build up what might be called the “moderate middle” in the nuclear weapons debate.
Eight NATO states — Belgium, Canada, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway and Turkey — voted for the New Agenda resolution at the U.N. in 2004, an action that effectively built a bridge between NATO and the New Agenda. The new “bridge” shows that a group of centrist states may be in position to produce a positive outcome for the 2005 NPT review.
Here is where Canada can shine.
In 2002 and 2003, Canada was the only NATO nation to vote for the New Agenda resolution. That was an act of courage, for Canada likes the “good company” of its alliance partners when it takes progressive steps. But the action was rewarded in 2004 when seven other NATO states joined Canada.
I recently held meetings with the governments of some of these key countries — Germany, Norway, The Netherlands and Belgium — to discuss how to make a success of the NPT review conference. These countries look to Canada, as an important centrist state, to maintain its leadership position in upholding the integrity of the disarmament and non-proliferation goals of the NPT.
When I was in Europe, news came of the Canadian government’s decision not to join in the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defence system.
This move won the unanimous admiration of the officials I talked to. Clearly, they would like to work with Canada in proposing workable solutions to the NPT crisis.
For Canada, working in a collegial manner with other centrist states is much easier to do than the action it boldly took in confronting the U.S. alone on missile defence.
In the present political climate, no “grand solution” is possible. Rather, a set of incremental steps could be achieved if the moderate middle states use their influence to convince the U.S. that it is in American interests to protect the NPT’s ability to curb would-be nuclear proliferators.
These steps include: the start of negotiations for a ban on the production of fissile materials; the striking of a new committee at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to deal with nuclear disarmament questions; the U.S. and Russia taking their strategic nuclear weapons off “alert” status, and beefing up the ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure that nuclear fuels for civilian purposes are not diverted to nuclear weapons.
This is a modest program. Many nuclear weapons abolitionists will not be satisfied with it, for it falls far short of negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
The world is a long way from obtaining such a treaty, which would need a strong verification system to ensure the safe elimination of all nuclear weapons. But the interim program would at least save the NPT.
By working diligently and diplomatically with key NATO states and the progressive New Agenda states, Canada can live up to its own values of making the world safe from the spread of nuclear weapons.
Douglas Roche is the former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and Senator Emeritus in Alberta. He is chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative.
Originally published by the Toronto Star.
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Missile Counter-Attack Open Letter to US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice
Dear Condi,
I’m glad you’ve decided to get over your fit of pique and venture north to visit your closest neighbour. It’s a chance to learn a thing or two. Maybe more.
I know it seems improbable to your divinely guided master in the White House that mere mortals might disagree with participating in a missile-defence system that has failed in its last three tests, even though the tests themselves were carefully rigged to show results.
But, gosh, we folks above the 49th parallel are somewhat cautious types who can’t quite see laying down billions of dollars in a three-dud poker game.
As our erstwhile Prairie-born and bred (and therefore prudent) finance minister pointed out in presenting his recent budget, we’ve had eight years of balanced or surplus financial accounts. If we’re going to spend money, Mr. Goodale added, it will be on day-care and health programs, and even on more foreign aid and improved defence.
Sure, that doesn’t match the gargantuan, multi-billion-dollar deficits that your government blithely runs up fighting a “liberation war” in Iraq, laying out more than half of all weapons expenditures in the world, and giving massive tax breaks to the top one per cent of your population while cutting food programs for poor children.
Just chalk that up to a different sense of priorities about what a national government’s role should be when there isn’t a prevailing mood of manifest destiny.
Coming to Ottawa might also expose you to a parliamentary system that has a thing called question period every day, where those in the executive are held accountable by an opposition for their actions, and where demands for public debate on important topics such as missile defence can be made openly.
You might also notice that it’s a system in which the governing party’s caucus members are not afraid to tell their leader that their constituents don’t want to follow the ideological, perhaps teleological, fantasies of Canada’s continental co-inhabitant. And that this leader actually listens to such representations.
Your boss did not avail himself of a similar opportunity to visit our House of Commons during his visit, fearing, it seems, that there might be some signs of dissent. He preferred to issue his diktat on missile defence in front of a highly controlled, pre-selected audience.
Such control-freak antics may work in the virtual one- party state that now prevails in Washington. But in Canada we have a residual belief that politicians should be subject to a few checks and balances, an idea that your country once espoused before the days of empire.
If you want to have us consider your proposals and positions, present them in a proper way, through serious discussion across the table in our cabinet room, as your previous president did when he visited Ottawa. And don’t embarrass our prime minister by lobbing a verbal missile at him while he sits on a public stage, with no chance to respond.
Now, I understand that there may have been some miscalculations in Washington based on faulty advice from your resident governor of the “northern territories,” Ambassador Cellucci. But you should know by now that he hasn’t really won the hearts and minds of most Canadians through his attempts to browbeat and command our allegiance to U.S. policies.
Sadly, Mr. Cellucci has been far too closeted with exclusive groups of ‘experts’ from Calgary think-tanks and neo-con lobbyists at cross-border conferences to remotely grasp a cross-section of Canadian attitudes (nor American ones, for that matter).
I invite you to expand the narrow perspective that seems to inform your opinions of Canada by ranging far wider in your reach of contacts and discussions. You would find that what is rising in Canada is not so much anti- Americanism, as claimed by your and our right-wing commentators, but fundamental disagreements with certain policies of your government. You would see that rather than just reacting to events by drawing on old conventional wisdoms, many Canadians are trying to think our way through to some ideas that can be helpful in building a more secure world.
These Canadians believe that security can be achieved through well-modulated efforts to protect the rights of people, not just nation-states.
To encourage and advance international co-operation on managing the risk of climate change, they believe that we need agreements like Kyoto.
To protect people against international crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, they support new institutions like the International Criminal Court — which, by the way, you might strongly consider using to hold accountable those committing atrocities today in Darfur, Sudan.
And these Canadians believe that the United Nations should indeed be reformed — beginning with an agreement to get rid of the veto held by the major powers over humanitarian interventions to stop violence and predatory practices.
On this score, you might want to explore the concept of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ while you’re in Ottawa. It’s a Canadian idea born out of the recent experience of Kosovo and informed by the many horrific examples of inhumanity over the last half-century. Many Canadians feel it has a lot more relevance to providing real human security in the world than missile defence ever will.
This is not just some quirky notion concocted in our long winter nights, by the way. It seems to have appeal for many in your own country, if not the editorialists at the Wall Street Journal or Rush Limbaugh. As I discovered recently while giving a series of lectures in southern California, there is keen interest in how the U.S. can offer real leadership in managing global challenges of disease, natural calamities and conflict, other than by military means.
There is also a very strong awareness on both sides of the border of how vital Canada is to the U.S. as a partner in North America. We supply copious amounts of oil and natural gas to your country, our respective trade is the world’s largest in volume, and we are increasingly bound together by common concerns over depletion of resources, especially very scarce fresh water.
Why not discuss these issues with Canadians who understand them, and seek out ways to better cooperate in areas where we agree — and agree to respect each other’s views when we disagree.
Above all, ignore the Cassandras who deride the state of our relations because of one missile-defence decision. Accept that, as a friend on your border, we will offer a different, independent point of view. And that there are times when truth must speak to power.
In friendship, Lloyd Axworthy
Lloyd Axworthy is president of the University of Winnipeg and a former Canadian foreign minister.
(c) 2005 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
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An Open Letter to Vladimir Putin – Why?
The Russian agreement to the U.S.-initiated agreement to cut their strategic nuclear forces by two-thirds is astounding, given that this is playing directly into U.S. plans for global supremacy. For one thing, the U.S. is not going to actually destroy but only shelve the above cuts, at any time able to retrieve them from storage. The Russian nuclear military regime, on the other hand, is in shambles. Retrieval for them will be more difficult. At the same time, the Russians are actually requesting U.S. assistance to rationalize their nuclear regime, providing the U.S. with important intelligence data, such as the stored missile site.
But even worse, the basic motive of the U.S. in initiating these strategic missile cuts is to improve the effectiveness of their anti- ballistic missile defences, radically reducing the number of targets comprising a Russian attack on the U.S. Given the U.S. basic counterforce strategy, we are moving into a time when mutual assured destruction between the two major nuclear powers is becoming an American monopoly, altering the mutual to the unilateral. Do the Russians really believe that the land-based missile defences being constructed in Alaska and the new Northern Command are directed to an attack by Iraq?
The only possible rationale for the Russian position is that they are confident they can develop a variety of penetrating aids for their strategic missiles which will distract, confuse and overcome U.S. missile defences. We would then be entering a new dynamic of the nuclear arms race between anti-missiles and anti anti-missiles. Given the disarray of the Russian nuclear regime and their general economic problems, the latter may be a vain hope.
Thus we are left to conclude that the Russian position is inexplicable. They had the opportunity to tie strategic missile reductions in exchange for the U.S. to uphold the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Could it just have been the mighty U.S. dollar that denied them this option? For example, we know they desperately require assistance to clean up their vast nuclear reserves consisting of huge amounts of radioactive waste, large numbers of tactical weapons and stockpiles of weapons grade nuclear materials comprising an open invitation for accidents or acts of malice of one kind or another. Also we are witnessing an increasing U.S. presence in the former Soviet republics that surround Russia, at some future time representing a direct threat. And finally, we cannot understand Russia’s lack of response at being identified as one of the seven enemy states to be targeted with nuclear weapons in the U.S. 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, let alone the existing U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), a nuclear hit list against Russian targets of value. And surely they are aware of the U.S. first disarming strike policy.
Putin can still recoup a major diplomatic victory by supporting the forthcoming Space Preservation Treaty. Both Russia and China have expressed their opposition to the U.S. abrogation of the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972. Together Canada, Russia and China could have a very positive impact on the success of the Treaty. The Space Preservation Treaty, initiated by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), is being circulated to every nation state leader. It can be immediately signed and sent to the U.N. Secretary General’s office as Treaty Depositary, and ratified quickly.
The Space Preservation Treaty is an international companion to legislation introduced by Kucinich in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 3616, the Space Preservation Act of 2002, in January, 2002. Both the Treaty and the bill ban all space-based weapons and the use of weapons designed to destroy any object in space that is in orbit. It also immediately terminates research, development, testing, manufacturing, and deployment of all space- based weapons, but does not prohibit space exploration, R&D, testing, production, manufacturing and deployment of any civil, commercial or defense activities in space that are not related to space-based weapons, thus reserving space for the benefit of all living things on our small planet. This Treaty will also be verifiable. It requires that an outer space peacekeeping agency be established to monitor and enforce the ban.
The momentum of getting this Treaty supported and passed into law has begun, and this ban on space-based weapons can become reality in 2002. This world treaty will fill the legal void left by the abrogation of the ABM Treaty. It will replace the ABM Treaty. With the support of Canada, Russia and China a large majority of members of the United Nations would likely sign on to the Treaty, as most nation-state leaders have already expressed support for preserving space for weapons-free peaceful, cooperative purposes. The European Union (with the exception of Britain) are likely signatories. isolating the United States and exposing its unilateralism and contempt for the rest of the world is, in itself, a lofty goal. A possible change in the balance of power in the U.S. Congress at the end of 2002 and a strong contender for a president in 2004 devoted to strength through peace rather than the reverse, who could establish this Treaty as Universal Law and save the world from an inevitable nuclear catastrophe.
In conclusion, the Space Preservation Treaty is one of the most important initiatives of our time! It is truly worthy of our support. Let us all begin by moving Canada to be an early signatory.
For detailed information on the Space Preservation Treaty, contact the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) at www.peaceinspace.com, c/o Dr. Carol Rosin : e-mail: rosin@west.net or call 805-641-1999 (in the U.S.) or Alfred Webre JD MEd at info@peaceinspace.com or call 604-733-8134 (in Canada).
*F.H. Knelman received his doctorate in Engineering at the Imperial College of Science, University of London, U.K. He has enjoyed a long teaching career, having taught Liberal Studies of Science, York University, 1962-1967 and Director and Full Professor of Science & Human Affairs, Concordia University, 1967-1987. Dr. Knelman also taught Peace Studies at the Grindstone Island Peace School, Santa Barbara College, Langara College and Simon Fraser University. As well, he taught Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz and the University of Victoria. He is the author of over 500 articles, papers and studies on the subjects of common security, environment, energy and the social relations of science and technology, as well as many technical papers and numerous keynote addresses.Among his books are 1984 and All That, Wadsworth Publishing; Nuclear Energy: The Unforgiving Technology, Hurtig Publishers (1975); Anti-Nation: Transition to Sustainability, Mosaic Press (1979); Reagan, God and the Bomb, Prometheus Books (1985); America, God and the Bomb: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan, New Star Books (1987) and Every Life is a Story: The Social Relations of Science, Peace and Ecology, Black Rose Books (1999).
He is the recipient of many awards, among which are the World Wildlife Fund Prize, 1967, the World Federalists Peace Essay Prize (1970), the White Owl Conservation Prize (1972 – as Canada’s outstanding environmentalist), the Ben Gurion University Medal of Merit, 1983, the United Nations Association Special Achievement Award (Montreal) and a special award for meritorious service to the cause of common security by the Canadian Peace Research and Education Association in 1987. Dr. Knelman was awarded the Queen’s 1992 Commemorative Medal and, in 1994 the World Federalists of Canada “World Peace Prize.” In 1996 he was awarded the Environmental Lifetime Achievement Award by The Skies Above Foundation. He is also a lifetime member of the 500 Club of Rome.
Professor Knelman has a long history of involvement in environmental issues, spanning some forty years. He is associated with the founding of the earliest environmental Non-Government Organizations (ENGOs) in Canada, as well as being the founder of Scientists for Social Responsibility, Canada’s first scientific group concerned with environmental issues (1964). He is currently Vice- President and Founding Director of the Whistler Foundation for a Sustainable Environment. Dr. Knelman was attached to the Science Council of Canada on a major energy conservation study (Background Study #33). He is on the Advisory Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA and past Editor of The Health Guardian, a Journal of Alternative Medicine.
Dr. Knelman has conducted extensive research in energy/environment policy. He has been the keynote speaker at some twenty-five national and international conferences on these themes. In 1981 he was the special adviser on energy/environment to the State of California and an early consultant to the Federal Department of Environment, Ottawa, in the 1970’s. He was one of forty scientists in the world invited to a parallel conference at the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972. He co-authored a Nobel Prize Winner Declaration submitted to the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio.
Dr. Knelman is a founding member of the Canadian Peace and Education Association and writes a regular monthly column, “Our Nuclear Age” for the Vancouver-based journal “Outlook” and is a frequent contributor to several other journals.
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Canadians Are Ready to Fight, But Want Some Answers
Orginally Published in the Globe and Mail Metro**
Thanksgiving weekend brought Canadians face to face with the harsh reality of living in a post-Sept. 11 world. At a time traditionally set aside to join family and friends in quiet celebration of our blessings, we found ourselves as a charter member of a military operation against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden.
There is no more difficult decision for a government to make and people to accept than the commitment to fight. It calls for a clear declaration of support for our military personnel who are asked to do the fighting. That’s why it is strange that Parliament will not meet until next week.
The House of Commons should be convened immediately, not only as the forum through which Canadians can express their solidarity, but as a place where tough questions can be asked about the conduct and objectives of this military operation.
We all knew this battle was coming, but little clue was given as to the nature of Canadian involvement. Now that it is upon us, and promises to be a long-term engagement of a particularly tricky and complex kind, it is vital that there be a much better understanding of how this use of force will reduce the terrorist threat, what the consequences will be for the broader goal of instituting an international legal order, and whether Canada will do more than offer troops.
Both Prime Minister Jean Chretien and President George W. Bush spoke of a grand strategy involving diplomatic, humanitarian and financial efforts. But little is known about what this means and who will call the shots. The “coalition” members — including Canada — have yet to meet, other than through a series of bilateral telephone calls and visits to the White House. This strikes me as a hub-and-spoke arrangement, where direction comes from the centre with little input from the outside members. This is not a foundation for building an international partnership based on collective responsibility and contribution, nor one in which Canada can play an active creative role.
To use one example: This country has been at the forefront of establishing an international legal system to hold accountable those who commit crimes against humanity, including acts of terrorism. The construction of such a criminal system should be one of the prime goals of an anti-terrorist coalition. But the Bush administration has just endorsed a bill submitted by Senator Jesse Helms that would deny U.S. aid to any country that ratified the statute setting up the international criminal court. Hardly a position Canada should be supporting.
Then there is the problem of the humanitarian consequences of an attack against Afghanistan, where there is already a refugee disaster in the making. It is shrewdly recognized by the Bush administration that the military action will exacerbate the situation, so it is dropping food and medicine and trying to persuade the people to stay put. While an important gesture, it is not an effective response. The refugee needs go far beyond airlifted supplies. These people, reeling from two decades of civil war, need sanitation, water, medical treatment, shelter and security, just for starters.
The matter of Afghan refugees is a priority, requiring an international effort preferably through the United Nations, as suggested by Kofi Annan. Will Canada take the lead in mobilizing this kind of multilateral exercise? Can we take the lead in this kind of initiative now that we have been singled out by the U.S. President as a prime member of the military team attacking the Taliban? Or has our value as an independent player been compromised? Closer to home is the question of Canadians’ own security now that we are identified as front-line participants. Most analysts expect a retaliation to this attack. Osama bin Laden has promised a holy war. The probability of our being in the front line of that retaliation has increased commensurate with our role in the coalition. That means added responsibility to provide protection for Canadians here and abroad. This is especially crucial in enhancing security for our embassies and other visible overseas organizations such as cultural centres, aid projects and large Canadian business operations. We are about to learn the hard price to pay in fighting the war against a hidden, dedicated, merciless, covert enemy.
The aftershock of the Sept. 11 attacks is now being felt. How Canadians will muster their resources to help restore a sense of security for people around the world is the issue of our day. We have just begun to ask the pertinent questions.
* Lloyd Axworthy, foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000, is director and CEO of the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues at UBC.
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Statement By Senator Douglas Roche
September 12, 2001
Our first reaction to the horrible terrorist attacks in New York and Washington must be grief and prayers for the victims, their families and friends. An outflow of love and support for those so affected ought to guide our future actions.
The perpetrators of such evil acts must be brought to justice. But this must be done in a way that does not compound the violence. The law enforcement agencies must be given the resources they need to carry out their duties in maintaining order and apprehending criminals.
But revenge as an end in itself is unproductive and not worthy of the solemn obligation we have to ensure justice in the world. Rather, we must be motivated by a determination to end violence by getting at the root causes of violence. We must strengthen the international institutions working in the law and economic development fields so that more hope is given to the vulnerable, the oppressed and disposed that they can obtain the social justice that is their due without recourse to violence.
At this tragic moment, Canada has a special role to play in continuing to reach out to the United States with love and support to help the U.S. cope with a challenge of immense proportions. Canada, through its political and diplomatic work, must help the U.S. recognize that working multilaterally with the many governments, agencies and civil society leaders around the world is a far better response than acting alone. Canadian foreign policy should be directed at helping the U.S. to combat terrorism with comprehensive strategies that include the economic and social development of peoples around the world.
The New York/Washington attacks were attacks against humanity. They require a humanity-centered response.
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Objections to Nanoose Expropriation
Background
I am the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and have served in this position for 17 years. The Foundation is a non-governmental education and advocacy organization with headquarters in Santa Barbara, California. It has members in many countries throughout the world, including Canada. The Foundation is a United Nations Peace Messenger Organization, and is on the roster in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Our advisors and consultants are some of the great peace leaders in the world, and include the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, and Joseph Rotblat, all Nobel Peace Laureates.
By training I am a political scientist and lawyer. I have written and lectured extensively throughout the world on nuclear dangers and the need to abolish nuclear weapons. I believe, in fact, that these are not weapons at all, but instruments of genocide and portable incinerators. I serve on the International Steering Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative, an abolition initiative led by Canadian Senator Douglas Roche. I am also on the Coordinating Committee of Abolition 2000, a network of some 1,400 organizations in more than 80 countries seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons.
It is also relevant that I am a citizen of the United States. While I represent only myself and the organization that I lead, I think you should know that most Americans oppose nuclear weapons and support their global elimination. Some 87 percent of the American public want their government to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar to the Chemical Weapons Convention, leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
Expropriation Hearings
I have come to Vancouver to testify in these hearings because I believe that the issue at stake here has global significance. On the surface this is a dispute between the federal government of Canada and one of its provinces about a piece of seabed territory. Beneath the surface, however, the issue at stake here is whether or not ordinary people – the ones referred to in the opening words of the United Nations Charter – are going to have a voice in shaping their own destiny on this planet, or whether national governments are going to usurp the right of the people to create a future that is healthy for children and other living things.
The issue at stake in these hearings is not the land; it is the intended use of the land. It is the intention of the Canadian government to allow the United States the possibility to bring nuclear weapons into an area that the citizens of British Columbia have declared a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. This intention is contained in the acceptance by the Canadian government of the U.S. policy to “neither confirm nor deny” whether U.S. Navy ships are carrying nuclear weapons. It is a policy of deliberate ambiguity and deceit.
In the Notice of Intention to Expropriate the Canadian government said that the seabed areas at Nanoose “are required by Her Majesty the Queen in the right of Canada for purpose related to the safety or security of Canada or of a state allied or associated with Canada and it would not be in the public interest further to indicate that purpose.” This is a statement right out of the Cold War handbook. It provides very little information to citizens. Is the purpose for the safety of Canada or the security of Canada? Or is it for the safety or security of another state that is allied or associated with Canada? If the issue is the safety of Canadian citizens, I’m sure that there has been testimony at these hearings regarding the radiation dangers to the people and environment of British Columbia that are related to possible accidents from nuclear powered submarines and nuclear armed submarines in your waters. It is hard to imagine that it could be in the security interests of the people of British Columbia to invite the targeting of Nanoose Bay by other nuclear weapons states.
If I were a citizen of British Columbia I would find the Notice of Intention to Expropriate highly insulting. It appears to be purposely vague and ambiguous, similar to the U.S. policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons. The worst part of the Notice is the Canadian government telling its citizens that it would not be in their interest for the government to further indicate the purpose of the expropriation. In effect, the Canadian government is telling its citizens to be good children and not ask any more questions. This form of governmental paternalism is unbecoming of a mature democracy.
Grounds for Objections
I wish to object to the expropriation of the seabed in Nanoose Bay for three reasons related to the purpose of the expropriation, which is to allow the United States the possibility to bring nuclear weapons carrying submarines into the waters above the expropriated land. These reasons are illegality, immorality, and lack of respect for democratic principles.
Illegality. The International Court of Justice, the highest international court in the world, stated in its opinion of July 8, 1996 that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal if such threat or use violates international humanitarian law. This means that no threat or use of nuclear weapons can be legal if it would cause or threaten to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants or fail to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Since nuclear weapons are weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction, they cannot be used legally under international law and their threatened use for deterrence is illegal as well.
Should this expropriation occur and the United States bring nuclear weapons into Canadian waters, the citizens of Canada would become accomplices to threatening to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. These were two of the three crimes, along with crimes against peace, for which Nazi leaders were brought to justice at Nuremberg.
The Court also stated in its opinion: “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.” This is the Court’s clarification of the obligation set forth in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to which Canada is a party. By refusing to aid and abet nuclear crimes, Canada would be helping to move the United States and the other nuclear weapons states to fulfill this obligation under international law.
Immorality. Nuclear weapons threaten the mass murder of millions of innocent people, the destruction of civilization, and perhaps the extinction of the human species and most forms of life. Nuclear weapons place all creation in danger of annihilation for what some states have defined as their national security interests. I believe that the citizens of British Columbia should have the right, indeed the duty, to dissociate themselves from such extreme immorality, and in fact they have done so by declaring their province to be a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. Now, the government of Canada seeks to expropriate this territory. In doing so, they will also expropriate from the citizens of this province the right to act upon their morals in their own community on this issue of such great importance to the future of life on Earth.
Democracy. Decisions about the deployment and strategy of nuclear weapons use are being made by only a small number of people in governments aided by the military-industrial-academic complex. Decisions about the actual use of nuclear weapons reside in the hands of even fewer persons, only perhaps a few dozen throughout the world. The people have been cut out of the equation, even though in countries where polling has taken place they overwhelmingly support a treaty to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
In Canada, 92 percent of Canadians want their government to lead negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Canada could lead in this area as it did so ably with the Treaty to Ban Landmines. Yet, rather than doing so, the federal government is seeking to trample on the rights of the citizens of British Columbia in forcing them, through this expropriation, to accept the possibility of nuclear weapons in their midst.
British Columbia made a seemingly simple request in the negotiations with the federal government to extend the lease for the area in question. They simply wanted “a provision confirming that no nuclear warheads will be present at any time within the licence area.” Rather than championing this cause for the citizens of British Columbia, the federal government of Canada chose instead the route of expropriation. Rather than choosing democracy and listening to the voices of the people, the federal authorities have chosen the sledgehammer of expropriation as the means to resolve this issue. It is behavior unbecoming of a democratic state, and the people of British Columbia and the rest of Canada should oppose it.
Conclusion
When Canada took the lead on the treaty banning anti-personnel landmines it was lauded throughout the world for its efforts. Canada could also exert such leadership in creating a world free of nuclear weapons. For it to do so, however, the federal government will need to listen to the voices of its people. What is happening here in British Columbia is a serious test of whether Canada will lead or continue to be – as some have unkindly said – a lapdog of the United States.
I want to conclude by assuring you that the great majority of citizens in the United States, as in Canada, support a world free of nuclear weapons. These American citizens, if informed of the issues at stake, would strongly support the efforts being made in British Columbia to oppose the expropriation of their land without the assurance that they seek that nuclear weapons will not be brought onto their territory.
By seeking to expropriate the Nanoose seabed, the Canadian government is crushing not only the dreams of the people here for a nuclear weapons free world, but also the dreams of the great majority of ordinary American citizens who would prefer to live in and leave to their children a world free of nuclear weapons. The fight of the citizens of British Columbia is a fight for global dignity, decency, and democracy. I am here to support your effort.
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General Lee Butler Addresses The Canadian Network Against Nuclear Weapons
“… nuclear weapons are the enemy of humanity. Indeed, they’re not weapons at all. They’re some species of biological time bombs whose effects transcend time and space, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants for generations to come.”
“… today we find ourselves in the almost unbelievable circumstance in which United States nuclear weapons policy is still very much that of 1984, as introduced by Ronald Reagan. That our forces with their hair-trigger postures are effectively the same as they have been since the height of the Cold War.”
Full text of speech:
Let me begin by simply expressing my appreciation to those of you in the room who have labored in this vineyard for so many years, most I suspect, simply understanding intuitively what took years for those of us, presumably experts in this business, to appreciate.
And that is, that at the heart of the matter, nuclear weapons are the enemy of humanity. Indeed, they’re not weapons at all. They’re some species of biological time bombs whose effects transcend time and space, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants for generations to come.
So for those of you in the NGO community, I tell you right at the onset, that I personally take heed and encouragement from what you have done so assiduously all these years. I say in the same breath that for most of my life, certainly my years in uniform, I’d never heard of NGOs, and now I suppose I am one!
I think in that regard that I would begin by recalling a comment from what I understand was a Reform Party member at the hearing yesterday, who observed at the outset of his comments (a bit acerbic I might add, but that’s okay, we tend to be a lightning rod for that kind of view): “Say, weren’t you and McNamara two of those folks who used to advocate all this business, deterrence, etc.?” I think Bob would join me in saying that we’re guilty as charged, if the charge is that we now consider it our responsibility to reflect, free from the emotional cauldron of the Cold War, and with greater access to the principals and the archives of that period. Guilty of the responsibility to reappraise our positions and certainly guilty of a keen sense of obligation to understand and to expound upon the lessons that we draw from that experience.
I recall the words of a wonderful American novelist of the Deep South, Flannery O’Connor, who once put this delicious line in the mouth of one her characters. “You should know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” And in deference to our interlocutor yesterday, yes it can certainly appear odd. I appreciate that and that is why I am infinitely patient with people who are either surprised, shocked, or in some cases outraged that someone like myself or perhaps like Bob McNamara now express views that in an earlier part of our life we might have seen as antithetical.
But truth, in my own case, took me almost 40 years to grasp. What I now see as the truth of the nuclear era as I understand it in retrospect. It required 30 years simply to reach the point in my career where I had the responsibilities and most importantly, the access to information and the exposure to activities and operations that profoundly deepened my grasp of what this business of nuclear capability is all about.
What I have come to believe is that much of what I took on faith was either wrong, enormously simplistic, extraordinarily fragile, or simply morally intolerable. What I have come to believe is that the amassing of nuclear capability to the level of such grotesque excess as we witnessed between the United States and the Soviet Union over the period of the 50 years of the Cold War, was as much a product of fear, and ignorance and greed, and ego and power, and turf and dollars, as it was about the seemingly elegant theories of deterrence.
Let me just take a moment and give you some sense of what it means to be the Commander of Strategic Nuclear Forces, the land and sea-based missiles and aircraft that would deliver nuclear warheads over great distances. First, I had the responsibility for the day-to-day operation, discipline, training, of tens of thousands of crew members, the systems that they operated and the warheads those systems were designed to deliver. Some ten thousand strategic nuclear warheads. I came to appreciate in a way that I had never thought, even when I commanded individual units like B52 bombers, the enormity of the day-to-day risks that comes from multiple manipulations, maintenance and operational movement of those weapons. I read deeply into the history of the incidents and the accidents of the nuclear age as they had been recorded in the United States. I am only beginning to understand that history in the former Soviet Union, and it is more chilling than anything you can imagine. Much of that is not publicly known, although it is now publicly available.
Missiles that blew up in their silos and ejected their nuclear warheads outside of the confines of the silo. B52 aircraft that collided with tankers and scattered nuclear weapons across the coast and into the offshore seas of Spain. A B52 bomber with nuclear weapons aboard that crashed in North Carolina, and on investigation it was discovered that one of those weapons, 6 of the 7 safety devices that prevent a nuclear explosion had failed as a result of the crash. There are dozens of such incidents. Nuclear missile-laden submarines that experienced catastrophic accidents and now lie at the bottom of the ocean.
I was also a principal nuclear advisor to the President of the United States. What that required of me was to be prepared on a moment’s notice, day or night, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to be within three rings of my telephone and to respond to this question from the President:
“General, the nation is under nuclear attack. I must decide in minutes how to respond. What is your recommendation with regard to the nature of our reply?”
In the 36 months that I was a principal nuclear advisor to the President, I participated every month in an exercise known as a missile threat conference. Virtually without exception, that threat conference began with a scenario which encompassed one, then several, dozens, then hundreds and finally thousands of inbound thermonuclear warheads to the United States. By the time that attack was assessed, characterized and sufficient information available with some certainty in appreciation of the circumstance, at most he had 12 minutes to make that decision. 12 minutes. For a decision, which coupled with that of whatever person half a world away who may have initiated such an attack, held at risk not only the survival of the antagonists, but the fate of mankind in its entirety. The prospect of some 20,000 thermonuclear warheads being exploded within a period of several hours. Sad to say, the poised practitioners of the nuclear art never understood the holistic consequences of such an attack, nor do they today.
I never appreciated that until I came to grips with my third responsibility, which was for the nuclear war plan of the United States.
Even at the late date of January 1991, when the Cold War had already been declared over with the signing of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty in Paris in December of 1990, when I went downstairs on my first day in office to meet my war planners in the bowels of my headquarters. I finally for the first time in 30 years was allowed full access to the war plan. Even having some sense of what it encompassed, I was shocked to see that in fact it was defined by 12,500 targets in the former Warsaw Pact to be attacked by some 10,000 nuclear weapons, virtually simultaneously in the worst of circumstances, which is what we always assumed. I made it my business to examine in some detail every single one of those targets. I doubt that that had ever been done by anyone, because the war plan was divided up into sections and each section was the responsibility of some different group of people. My staff was aghast when I told them I intended to look at every single target individually. My rationale was very simple. If there had been only one target, surely I would have to know every conceivable detail about it, why it was selected, what kind of weapon would strike it, what the consequences would be. My point was simply this: Why should I feel in any way less responsible simply because there was a large number of targets. I wanted to look at every one.
At the conclusion of that exercise I finally came to understand the true meaning of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction. With the possible exception of the Soviet nuclear war plan, this was the single most absurd and irresponsible document I had ever reviewed in my life. I was sufficiently outraged that as my examination proceeded, I alerted my superiors in Washington about my concerns, and the shortest version of all of that is, having come to the end of a three decade journey, I came to fully appreciate the truth that now makes me seem so odd. And that is: we escaped the Cold War without a nuclear holocaust by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.
The saving grace was that truly the Cold War was ending at this very moment and therefore I was faced with a decision of great personal consequence. Now having fully to appreciate the magnitude of our nuclear capability and what it implied, when joined in an unholy alliance with its Soviet counterpart, what was I to do? Awaiting in my inbox were $40 billion of new strategic nuclear weapons modernization programs, wanting only my signature. What should be our goals for the next rounds of arms control negotiations? How hard should I fight to maintain the budget of strategic forces, to keep bases open in the face of base closure commissions? And what to do with the nuclear war plan in all of its excess? My conclusion was very simple, that I of all people had the responsibility to be at the forefront of the effort to begin to close the nuclear age. That mankind, having been spared a nuclear holocaust, had now as its principle priority to begin to walk back the nuclear cat, to learn the lessons of the nuclear dimensions of the Cold War, in the interest that others might never go down that path again.
The substance is that I withdrew my support for every single one of those $40 billion of nuclear weapons programs and they were all cancelled. I urged the acceleration of the START I accords and that Minuteman 2 be taken out of the inventory at an accelerated pace. I recommended that for the first time in 30 years bombers be taken off alert. The President approved these recommendations and on the 25th of September 1991, I said in my command center and with my red telephone I gave the orders to my bomber troops to stand down from alert. I put 24 of my 36 bases on the closure list. I cut the number of targets in the nuclear war plan by 75%, and ultimately I recommended the disestablishment of Strategic Air Command, which the President also approved. I took down that flag on the first of June 1992.
As you can imagine, I went into retirement exactly five years ago with a sense of profound relief and gratitude. Relief that the most acute dangers of the Cold War were coming to a close, and gratitude that I had been given the opportunity to play some small role in eliminating those dangers. You can also imagine, then, my growing dismay, alarm and finally horror that in a relatively brief period of time, this extraordinary momentum, this unprecedented opportunity began to slow, that a process I call the creeping re-rationalization of nuclear weapons began, that the bureaucracy began to work its way. The French resumed nuclear testing, the START 2 treaty was paralyzed in the US Senate for three years and now in the Duma for three more. The precious window of opportunity began to close, and now today we find ourselves in the almost unbelievable circumstance in which United States nuclear weapons policy is still very much that of 1984, as introduced by Ronald Reagan. That our forces with their hair-trigger postures are effectively the same as they have been since the height of the Cold War.
Even if the START 2 treaty were ratified, it is virtually irrelevant, its numbers 3000 to 35000 works meaningless. The former Soviet Union, today Russia, a nation in a perilous state, can barely maintain a third of that number on operational ready status, and to do so devotes a precious fraction of shrinking resources. NATO has been expanded up to its former borders, and Moscow has been put on notice that the United States is presumably prepared to abrogate the ABM treaty in the interest of deploying limited national ballistic missile defense.
What a stunning outcome. I would never have imagined this state of affairs five years ago. This is an indictment. The leaders of the nuclear weapons states today risk very much being judged by future historians as having been unworthy of their age, of not having taken advantage of opportunities so perilously won at such great sacrifice and cost of re-igniting nuclear arms races around the world, of condemning mankind to live under a cloud of perpetual anxiety.
This is not a legacy worthy of the human race. This is not the world that I want to bequeath to my children and my grandchildren. It’s simply intolerable. This is above all a moral question and I want to reiterate to you and to those who may be watching these proceedings a quote that I gave yesterday to the joint committees. I took this quote to heart many years ago. It is from one of my heroes, one of my professional heroes – General Omar Bradley, who said on the occasion of his retirement, having been a principal in World War II and having witnessed the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: “We live in an age of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living.” We have a priceless opportunity to elevate, to nudge higher, the bar of decent, civilized behavior, to expand the rule of law, and to learn to live on this planet with mutual respect and dignity. This is an opportunity we must not lose. My concern was such that I could not sit in silent acquiescence to the current folly. And so, I have come back into the arena to join my voices with yours, to serve in the company of distinguished colleagues like Bob McNamara and Ambassador Tom Graham who share these concerns and convictions.
Thank you for the opportunity to join you today. Thank you for the work you have done over these many years. It is a privilege to have this opportunity to talk with you.
Thank you.
—speech given by General George Lee Butler in Montreal, March 11, 1999 to the Canadian Network Against Nuclear Weapons