Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear abolition

Kiribati and Kazakhstan’s UN Resolution on Nuclear Justice

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The nuclear age began in 1945, with the United States developing three atomic bombs that year, using one in a nuclear test, called Trinity, in New Mexico, and two more in attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since that time, many other countries acquired nuclear weapons and currently, nine countries posess them across three continents. The nuclear weapons development programs all involved testing of both atomic and hydrogen bombs. Over 2000 nuclear tests took place around the world, causing devastating humanitarian consequences. Many of the affected communities have been left to fend for themselves in face of physical and mental health impacts, and loss of land, culture, and sustainable practices.

Kiribati and Kazakhstan, two countries affected by Soviet and United Kingdom/United States nuclear testing programs, respectively, have been spearheading the fight for nuclear justice. As part of the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), they have tabled a resolution entitled “Addressing the Legacy of Nuclear Weapons: Providing Victim Assistance and Environmental Remediation to Member States Affected by the Use or Testing of Nuclear Weapons.” The resolution seeks to utilize the framework of multilateral treaties to promote victim assistance and environmental assessment and remediation, requests support for affected states, and promotes public awareness and education around the International Day Against Nuclear Tests. It is currently under consideration by the First Committee of UNGA.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is proud to support the work of the Republics of Kazakhstan and Kiribati. Our Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, Christian N. Ciobanu, serves as the TPNW Advisor for the Mission of Kiribati and has been deeply involved in every step of this effort. We see the issue of supporting victims of nuclear use and testing as intimately connected to nuclear abolition itself. It is about righting the historical wrongs, but also making sure that such harm and suffering never happen again.

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Read the text of the resolution HERE.

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October 13, 2023
Nuclear Abolition: Q&A with Dr. David Krieger

*The following is a special dialogue held at Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara during our overseas fieldwork on February 1, 2019. This session was held between 13 Kansai Soka High School students and Dr. David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Dr. Krieger: In the discussion, you said that the reason for nuclear deterrence is that it protects a country against assault and possible assault. However, if you really think about it, deterrence cannot protect, not in the sense of physical protection, and that is the confusion about deterrence in most people’s minds. They think that nuclear deterrence actually protects, but deterrence is only a psychological concept, not a physical barrier. I think of deterrence as something like the Maginot Line in World War II. France built a strong wall and thought that it would protect them from Germans invading again. However, the Germans just went around the wall, attacked and occupied France. I think deterrence is misunderstood, and I don’t really think you can have a compromise between the people who support nuclear deterrence and those who do not.

Emi Kuroda: Why do you think nuclear deterrence supporters cannot compromise with people who don’t support deterrence?

Dr. Krieger: I think deterrence is a false premise. I don’t think deterrence can provide any protection. You mentioned in your slideshow that deterrence cannot provide 100% protection. I would say that deterrence cannot provide 50% protection or even 1% protection. Over time, deterrence will fail. If you do a statistical study and the level of chance where it can fail is 1%, you will have a failure over time. That is true. So I think you are right to come down on the side of abolition. I think you are right to look to ICAN, which we have supported from the beginning, as a partner organization. I think you are right to support the new treaty, which is a departure from deterrence, as it implicitly recognizes that deterrence cannot work over time. I think people who support deterrence actually have another agenda, and the other agenda is to give themselves an advantage over other countries and threaten them with the offensive use of nuclear weapons. So I would say that your presentation is very good, but I would be careful about thinking of nuclear deterrence as a way to add to the disarmament of nuclear weapons. Many countries believe in deterrence, but I believe it’s a magical fallacy.

Rei Hagihara: I would like to ask a question. We think that we should find a common ground between the two sides (nuclear deterrence supporters & nuclear abolition supporters). Do you think we should find a common ground? If you do, what do you think is the common ground?

Dr. Krieger: I’m very skeptical that you can find a common ground, because I think deterrence is based on a false assumption, which is that nuclear weapons can protect you. But the reality is they can’t protect you. I think people who have accepted the premise that deterrence can protect you believe in that. I don’t see them moving away from that to a common ground. I don’t know what the common ground would be. I think having a common ground is a nice idea, but I don’t see it working in the case of people who support nuclear deterrence.

The second president of Soka Gakkai, Josei Toda, said nuclear weapons are an absolute evil. So how do you compromise with an absolute evil? Well, actually I have one idea of compromise. Sixty-six million years ago, a meteor hit the earth and caused mass extinction of most complex life at the time. It wiped out the dinosaurs, for example. It actually made it possible for our human ancestors to survive because they were so small. But possibly, if we eliminate the nuclear weapons down to one, two or three, and they are kept in international storage just in case the earth is threatened by a meteor, that is a kind of compromise. Although not really a compromise for deterrence, it is a compromise for those saying you might go to a very low number—on the way to zero—and decide that a meteor is a sufficient threat to maintain a couple of nuclear weapons under international control. But tell me how you think compromise is possible.

Emi Kuroda: We think that a possible common ground is human rights because nuclear abolition supporters think that human rights of all human beings should be protected, but nuclear deterrence supporters think that human rights of their own country is a priority. But we don’t think we can make nuclear deterrence supporters compromise by using human rights.

Dr. Krieger: Well, human rights include the right to life. That’s in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I think nuclear weapons pose a threat not only to individual lives but also a threat of mass extinction to humans and other complex life. So I agree with you that human rights is an important element—because of the right to life. I think the people who advocate for nuclear deterrence ironically think that protecting their country is more important than human lives and human rights.

Let me say one more thing. There is such a widespread belief in nuclear deterrence that a lot needs to be done to challenge the logic of nuclear deterrence. That is a very important element. We had a symposium here on nuclear deterrence and created the Santa Barbara Declaration, which you might want to take a look at when thinking about nuclear deterrence. We also have a 4-minute video called “The Myth of Nuclear Deterrence.”

Emi Kuroda: We gathered the opinions of nuclear deterrence supporters, and we originally thought that those opinions would help us understand the reality. But we struggled with how to deal with those opinions. What do you think the role of the opinions of nuclear deterrence supporters is? How do we use those opinions to promote nuclear abolition?

Dr. Krieger: I think you need to educate people, starting with young people—and put a lot of emphasis on educating young people—because nuclear deterrence is a very common myth that nuclear weapons can protect a country. I just don’t think that is reality. I think you have to counter those opinions, and that’s why in the presentation we gave, we talked about malice, madness, mistake, miscalculation, and manipulation (hacking). So I think a dangerous aspect of nuclear weapons, going forward, is that skilled computer hackers will break into nuclear weapon systems. What if the systems are not that sophisticated? You only need to break into the weakest country’s system. What if a hacker could, for example, break into North Korea’s nuclear weapons? Probably North Korea doesn’t have the warheads connected to missiles right now, but it will eventually. What about Pakistan? What if a skilled hacker could break in and trigger the use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan against India? And India, instead of trying to figure it out, attacks Pakistan, and they will go back and forth. Experts in climatology predict that if 100 nuclear weapons are used, with 50 on each side between Pakistan and India, it could result in a cut in food supplies, leading to 2 billion deaths globally. So, how good is deterrence against a hacker? It’s not at all. How good is deterrence against madness? What if you have a leader who is crazy, mad? We may have one now, in the US. What if there is a mistake? There have been many mistakes in interpreting nuclear launches. Russians, thinking nuclear weapons were launched against them, found out that actually it was just geese reflected against the cloud cover. Nuclear deterrence has no value against mistakes, miscalculation, madness or hacking. Maybe deterrence could dissuade a country from using nuclear weapons out of malice, but that is only a possibility. There is no assurance that it would work.

Emi Kuroda: Yesterday, during our presentation in Los Angeles, we said that deterrence doesn’t work because terrorists can use nuclear weapons. But yesterday we heard that it is really difficult for terrorists to have nuclear weapons. Is it true that it is almost impossible for terrorists to get nuclear weapons?

Dr. Krieger: A Christian nun and two anti-nuclear activists went to a nuclear weapons site in Oakridge, Tennessee. I think it was called the Y-12 National Security Complex. They cut through the outer fence, they hiked a quarter mile to the place where nuclear weapons were kept. They painted on the bunkers where the nuclear weapons were stored. The nun was 82 years old. So can terrorists get nuclear weapons? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t rule it out. And that’s in the United States, which supposedly has a good system of protection. What if there is a coup d’état in Turkey, where the US keeps 50 nuclear weapons? What if there’s a coup d’état in Pakistan?

Over time, I think the chances are more likely that terrorists can get nuclear weapons; the probability is not zero. We don’t know what the probability is, but over time, terrorists are a worry. That’s why it’s so important to be all in for abolition. That’s why it’s important to understand that abolition is the answer. It has got to be a negotiated abolition, a phased abolition and a verified abolition. It will take time, but the starting point is negotiations. Maybe that is a common ground—starting negotiations. People who don’t believe in deterrence could invite people who do believe in deterrence, to try to educate them on the importance of moving from deterrence to abolition. Terrorism could take the form of hacking.

Hiromi Hashide: I’d like to ask how you developed your sense of poetry. I have read the dialogue between yourself and Dr. Ikeda, and I was able to understand the importance of a sense of poetry. I think those who understand the importance of poetry can also understand the dignity of life, and I’d like more people to have a sense of poetry, including myself.

Dr. Krieger: Thank you. That’s a really good question. The more I work in the area of nuclear weapons abolition and peace and war, the more I think that the most important things in life are truth, beauty, love, family, and nature; those are all subjects of poetry. Maybe poets pay more attention to those concepts than ordinary people. I think when you study nuclear weapons and work for their abolition, it can be a very dark place, thinking about the devastation that is possible. So, for myself, I tend to rely on reason and logic, and I realized that reason and logic may not be enough to change people’s minds, so I began writing poetry as a way of reaching out more directly to a person’s heart. We have the faculties of our mind and faculties of our heart. I think that a mind, no matter how reasonable and logical one is, cannot really tackle fully issues like the danger of nuclear weapons, the danger of climate change, or the danger of destroying the environment. So, for me, poetry is a means of sharing my heart, which I hope has more effectiveness than my logic. Does that answer your question? Do you have another question?

Hiromi Hashide: Yes. How did you develop your poetry skills?

Dr. Krieger: By writing poetry. And also by reading poetry.

Kaz: Do you have a favorite poet?

Dr. Krieger: I have some favorite poets, whom I mentioned at the time when I was writing a book with Dr. Ikeda. I like Pablo Neruda. He was an Ambassador of Chile, and Chile has a nice tradition of inviting poets to be ambassadors. I like Denise Levertov, and I like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who turned 100 this year. Actually, there are a number of poets I like, but I especially like poets who pay attention to peace, and I try, in my poetry, to pay attention to peace. My advice to you, if you want to be a poet, is to sit down and write poems, and read a wide variety of poets and find your style because there are so many different styles of poetry; so experiment with styles that you are interested in.

Kaz Iguchi: Any other questions?

Ayumi Otsuji: Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. When I imagine a “peaceful world,” I imagine that everyone is smiling. If you imagine a peaceful world that you want to achieve, what would you imagine?

Dr. Krieger: I would not imagine everybody smiling. I would imagine that, in a peaceful world, you would still have conflicts, but the conflicts would be resolved peacefully, non-violently. Everyone would accept the idea that life is sacred, and nobody would try to injure or destroy. But it wouldn’t be a world where people didn’t have disagreements. Having disagreements, I think, is a valuable part of life. I mean, you learn from disagreements, you grow from disagreements, but you don’t try to settle disagreements with your fists or with guns. You start with respect for other human beings and you then have a sense of belonging. I think, in a peaceful world, your sense of belonging to the world and to humanity has to be greater than your sense of belonging to one nation or one group. You can still belong to different groups; you can be Japanese, I can be American, but we should not fight and destroy each other because our common humanity is greater than our individual sense of identity. That’s what I think.

Ayumi Otsuji: Thank you so much.

Dr. Krieger: But smiles are good. Everybody should smile more. You can experiment, walking down the street, just smile. And I think other people who see you will smile too.

Yuichi Matsuna: Thank you very much. I read Choose Hope, and I was impressed with the idea that “recovery of imagination” is important for nuclear abolition. Why should people have an imagination for the abolition of nuclear weapons?

Dr. Krieger: Why should people use their imaginations for the abolition of nuclear weapons? Well, there is a lot of ignorance and apathy around nuclear weapons. In your school, perhaps, if you say to someone that we should abolish nuclear weapons, maybe they will say “well, that’s a good idea, but I haven’t thought about it,” or “I’m too busy,” or something like that—expressing different kinds of reasons not to be involved. I think imagination is limitless, knowledge has boundaries. We don’t know certain very important things: we don’t know where we come from, or why we were born; we don’t know where we go when we die; we don’t know what is in the rest of the universe, or even in our own galaxy. But imagination can take you anywhere, and it’s an opportunity to try to figure out some puzzles. Einstein was a big advocate of imagination, and I think he was correct in thinking that “imagination is a great gift.” So how do you apply imagination to nuclear weapons’ abolition? Think outside the bomb, come up with new ideas. Peace Literacy is a new movement. I encourage you to look into the Peace Literacy idea. As Sarah said, Paul Chappell, who went to the US military academy, and was trained as an officer in a military, is now trying to apply the same principles of waging war to waging peace. I think that’s a great application of imagination, to take the principles of waging war and turn them to waging peace. Do you have anything to add, Sarah?

Sarah: Thank you for asking. On Paul, I think something that is very significant about what he argues is that we have spent so much time and effort thinking about how to wage war; so as Dr. Krieger was saying, Why haven’t we spent as much time and effort—or have as many people—thinking about how to build peace instead? And so I think that’s a part of where Paul’s mind-set came from. Instead of spending all the time and effort to figure out how to better wage war, let’s figure out how to better wage peace. That’s using imagination.

Ryoma Masutani: Thank you very much. I’d like to ask about nuclear abolition. I think, even if all nuclear weapons are abolished, the knowledge or technique of creating nuclear weapons will still remain. So what is true nuclear abolition? And how can we achieve this?

Dr. Krieger: I think you are right. We can’t get rid of the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons, and probably the materials too. But I think abolition is when we have no nuclear weapons. I think we have to understand that even with no nuclear weapons, they could come back because people understand now the physics of making nuclear weapons. And I think the way to deal with that is through verification. So, first of all, abolition will be negotiated; secondly, it would be done in phases, increments, and with each increment, you will build support, and build confidence that the system is working. Verifications could be spot inspections. So if the United States says that it was down to 500 nuclear weapons, and Russia says “we want to verify that,” the United States, as part of the agreement, will have to let Russian inspectors go wherever they want to, and whenever they want, to check whether the United States is doing what it claims, and vice versa. I think negotiations, verification, inspections, phased reductions to build confidence—all those things will help in going to zero nuclear weapons, trusting that it will lead to zero nuclear weapons. You have to trust. Ronald Reagan, one of our most conservative US presidents, said “trust, but verify.” Verification is extremely important. Okay?

Ryoma Masutani: Yes.

Dr. Krieger: Do you have another question?

Takuma Furukawa: Thank you. Many countries have nuclear weapons, and one of them is North Korea. The United Nations decided to give North Korea an economic penalty, but I think the situation in North Korea will become worse. The people in North Korea will suffer more because of it. Could you please share your opinions about how developed countries should deal with North Korea?

Dr. Krieger: There have been times when there have been agreements with North Korea to end sanctions. I think about 20 or 25 years ago, we were close to an agreement with North Korea to give them nuclear power plants, and give them something in exchange for them doing away with developing nuclear weapons. But the US never followed through, and it has tried to deal with North Korea with sanctions; and now maybe it is too late to change North Korea’s nuclear power with sanctions. Really, I’m not sure if there are any more reasons for North Korea to disarm its nuclear arsenal. I mean, if any country that has nuclear weapons can argue that deterrence works, I would say the country would be North Korea. But I don’t believe in deterrence, as I said, so I’m not supporting that. But I do think we should use our imaginations and try to get all countries to abolish nuclear weapons, not just North Korea, which is in a very precarious situation from which to go for abolition. I don’t know what the practical argument is for North Korea to abolish its nuclear weapons, while the United States, Russia and other countries that have them shouldn’t also do so. If they want North Korea to abolish its nuclear weapons, the rest of the world has to be ready to abolish their nuclear weapons. That’s my belief. Does it make sense to you?

Takuma Furukawa: Yes, thank you.

Takuto Yoshii: Thank you for giving us this opportunity to talk to you. My name is Takuto Yoshii. My question is, as you said, each country will try to protect itself. As I have read in Choose Hope, each country has to be altruistic to realize a sustainable and peaceful world, and I learned that people need to change their hearts, and have thoughtfulness towards others. I think it is very difficult for people to think that way. So how do you think people can learn how to think altruistically? What kind of education do you think is necessary?

Dr. Krieger: That is a great question. Altruism is very important. I think we have to learn it. This may sound silly, but I think we have to learn to love each other. I think the way we practice that is by smiling, by acts of kindness, by empathy, where you feel for other people’s difficult situations. I think that question requires a lot of imagination. How do you put altruism, kindness, and empathy into the learning that you do in school, for example? Most religions make a claim to teach those things, but I’m not sure if they really do. I’m not sure if schools are really prepared to teach altruism, kindness, and empathy. One way they could do so would be to teach about the lives of great peace leaders, such as the life of Gandhi, the life of Martin Luther King, Junior, the life of Nelson Mandela, and many more. There are so many lessons to be learned in those lives which are dedicated to peace and nonviolence. We give an award every year for distinguished peace leadership, and we have given an award for world citizenship from time to time. I am happy to say we gave the world citizenship award to Dr. Ikeda one year. He is one of our distinguished awardees. I think SGI does something similar, where it gives awards. So, that’s another way you can learn about altruism and empathy—through people who have lived distinguished lives, in which they have given and sacrificed in the pursuit of peace and world citizenship. From there, I think you can use your imaginations to think of other ways to instill altruism.

One other way that I can think of right now, and it has already been done, but it can be done even more, is to videotape the thoughts of such people, including the Hibakusha. So many Hibakusha have impressed me by the suffering that they’ve gone through, and the kindness in the lives that they have led. One of the poems that I wrote is called “The Deep Bow of a Hibakusha,” and it is about a particular Hibakusha whose name is Miyoko Matsubara. She came here to Santa Barbara to study English so that she could share her experience with young people in the United States. I think that’s very altruistic. Most of the Hibakusha that I have met don’t have any feelings of hostility, or revenge; they are all kind. And what they want to say is, “don’t let what happened to me happen to anybody else.” So that’s another thought: meeting with and interviewing Hibakusha. But you can interview many other people, and you might choose to interview somebody who you think is very altruistic, like a parent, an uncle or aunt, or a grandparent, someone not widely known to the world. Those are my thoughts on altruism. It is a fertile area to continue to develop and think about and practice. Small acts of kindness take you so far. There’s a movie called “Pay it Forward,” about doing something kind for somebody, and not expecting to get paid back, but rather expecting the recipient of the kindness to do something kind for another person. It’s a good movie. I recommend it.

Atsushi Saitou: I think everyone understands the danger of nuclear weapons, but maybe that is not enough to make people really understand that we don’t need nuclear weapons. So rather than just saying nuclear weapons are bad, because everybody understands that, is there another more powerful way to reach out to people to stop nuclear weapons?

Dr. Krieger: I don’t agree with the assumption that people know that nuclear weapons are bad. It’s not enough to spread the knowledge of the dangers. I think it is only when enough people understand and take seriously the dangers of nuclear weapons, will it make a difference. Nuclear weapons have got to go. Right now, we are educating people about these dangers, but they have to be taken seriously enough to become a political project. Here in the United States, virtually no one who is running for the presidency talks about doing something about nuclear weapons. Most are believers in nuclear deterrence. Nuclear weapons are a danger, and understanding that they are a danger is a starting point, but it’s not enough. We have to keep using our imaginations and building the number of people who think that nuclear weapons are a serious danger. We have to do that to the point that it makes a difference politically. Right now, people’s priority here and in most other places—probably in Japan as well—puts greater emphasis on the economy, the environment, social issues, and education. Those are all important, and I don’t disagree that they are important. But nuclear weapons could end civilization in an afternoon, and I think that’s something that should make an impact in people’s minds. In a certain way, working for nuclear abolition is an act of faith, because we don’t see the results immediately, so we have to believe that enough people will catch on before nuclear weapons are used—not after—to make a difference. A lot of movies are about post-apocalyptic societies, and I think it would be a great failure of imagination if we end up in a post-apocalyptic world because we can’t use our imaginations to see that such a world is a real possibility if we don’t act. So it is as an act of faith and an act of hope that we do this work, and we do this work on behalf of not only schools and organizations, but on behalf of all humanity. Humanity has been at risk from nuclear weapons for almost 75 years. That is not a very long time. We haven’t had a nuclear war for almost 74 years, which is good, but it shouldn’t give us confidence that a nuclear war, nuclear accident, or nuclear terrorism couldn’t begin anytime.

Emi Kuroda: How can we encourage people around us to have confidence that they have the power to achieve nuclear abolition?

Dr. Krieger: I think we have to recognize the power that each of us has. Any person on this planet has power. I would like to talk about the power of one. One person can make quite a difference in the world, and we’ve seen that in the lives of many people, including Dr. Daisaku Ikeda. I think, though, with nuclear weapons, it’s not going to be the power of one, it’s going to be the power of many, or many ones. When we build a movement that’s strong enough, that movement can take many shapes: it can take the form of petitioning, it can take the form of educating, or it can take the form of protesting. It can take a lot of different shapes. But I don’t think we can convince people that they have that power. We can only say that unless you join us, and add your power, it is unlikely that we will ever build a movement large enough and strong enough to abolish nuclear weapons. By not participating, by not joining such a movement, you are actually creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we need a big movement, and we need people to care. Abolishing nuclear weapons may sound negative because it’s getting rid of something, but it’s really very positive because we are getting rid of something that is evil, something that could destroy us. So I would tell people that nuclear weapons are the ultimate human rights issue. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate environmental issue. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate altruism issue. And we need you. If each of you would join us and use your imagination, we will be one person closer to a nuclear weapons free world. That’s what I think.

Sarah: Do you know about this old Japanese saying that goes, “if all of us cross the street in front of the red light, it isn’t scary”? Are you familiar with this saying?

Dr. Krieger: I’m not familiar with that saying. I thought you were going to say the Japanese proverb, “if you fall down seven times get up eight.” I think that is good advice. “Seven times down, eight times up.” It’s not going to be easy to abolish nuclear weapons. Nothing important is going to be done just like that. You are going to be challenged if you work for any great goal.

Sometimes I think of the medieval people who built cathedrals in Europe. When you build a cathedral, it is usually not done in one lifetime. It has to go through many generations. I don’t know if we have that capacity to last through generations on nuclear weapons, but I do think that each generation should do its part, and I know the kind of education all of you have had makes you prime prospects for doing something really worthwhile in the world. And I hope that you will make working towards the abolition of nuclear weapons one of those goals that you seek to achieve, no matter how difficult. Join with others. Join with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Join with ICAN. SGI is already doing a lot. So, I think you have great opportunities. Don’t be disheartened. Choose hope, and get up that last time, even if you get knocked down. Get up and come up, struggling altruistically, non-violently.

Students: Thank you.

Dr. Krieger: All right, you had great questions. I’m very impressed.

Kaz Iguchi: Lastly, would you like to give a message to those students in Japan, as well as Dr. Ikeda, that we can bring back home?

Dr. Krieger: In my message for the students, I would say this: Your fellow students have represented Kansai Soka High School very well. I’m impressed by the students who came here. I hope that they will share with you the questions and answers, and what we talked about in Santa Barbara. I hope all of you will do something great in your lives. Please use your imaginations to set your goals high and then do what’s in your power to create a better world and never give up, never give up.

And to Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, I would say: You are an amazing leader, and I’m so proud to know you and to be your friend. I know you have just celebrated your 91st birthday, and yet your ideals are as high and strong as ever. I know your message of peace focuses again on young people, and I share very much your desire to see young people pick up the baton from all of us older people and finish the job that we have worked so hard on. I admire you greatly for your courage, your compassion, and your commitment to creating a world free of nuclear weapons and at peace.

September 18, 2019
Judith Lipton | In Her Own Words

How has your background in medicine, evolutionary biology and science shaped your worldview?
My family subscribed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists from my early childhood. We lived in Hyde Park, Chicago, near the University of Chicago where my parents taught, and also near the first nuclear reactor at Stagg Field. My parents were both psychiatrists, and my father (Morris Lipton, MD/PhD) taught me how to write molecular structures on dinner table napkins before I was 8. He was someone who loved science, with almost religious fervor, and I was raised knowing chemistry and physics from childhood. I played Go with Marshall Nirenberg in the 1950s. He won the Nobel Prize in 1968 for discovering the DNA triplets. I did research on serotonin receptors and LSD at Yale (before LSD was made illegal). I was a chemistry major at Reed College, but I enjoyed quantum physics and held a license to operate the nuclear reactor at Reed. As I grew up, I maintained a commitment to science, tinctured by zoophilia, love of animals. As the Cold War became increasingly ominous, “our friend the atom” didn’t look so friendly. I was raised in perpetual fear of nuclear war in the context of scientific literacy.

What is the salience of gender in discussions and negotiations related to peace and nuclear disarmament?
I have co-authored with my husband, David Barash, four books about sex: Making Sense of Sex: The Biology of Male-Female Differences (1998); The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People (2001); Strange Bedfellows: the Surprising Connection between Sex, Evolution and Monogamy (2009) and How Women Got Their Curves and Other Just-So Stories (2009). Based on my knowledge of the biology of sex differences, I would have to say that the differences are more political than biological. There is no doubt that in general, critters (like people) that make XY chromosomes, or a large number of small gametes like sperm, are more violent than critters who make XX chromosomes, encased in a small number of large gametes like eggs. Reproductive success depends on whether you are male or female. XX females have a virtual certainty of making as many babies as they choose, while XY critters may not prevail. If you are an elephant seal male, your chances of being a father could be zero, while if you are female you will likely get pregnant every season. This differential reproductive success creates a tendency for males to be more competitive with one another. Females compete as well, for social success (like “catty undermining”) or access to rich males. However, in general, males tend to be larger, more aggressive, and much more violent than females.

Whether this matters at all in discussions of peace and nuclear disarmament, I don’t know. I think Missile Envy, and phallic images of missiles are overrated. I don’t think peace depends on taking the toys away from the boys. Everyone loses in nuclear war. You or your family cannot maximize your reproductive success or be fruitful and multiply if there is a nuclear war.

I don’t know if there is any good data to the effect that males have more “psychic numbing” than females. However, as I suggested in The Caveman and the Bomb (1985, McGraw-Hill), insofar as women – unlike men – are guaranteed relatedness to their children and therefore appear to be more maternally inclined than men are paternal, it is possible that we would all benefit from less patriotism and more matriotism.

Female leaders such as Helen Caldicott and Beatrice Fihn have made enormous contributions to peace, but other females such as Phyllis Schlafly helped to create the US right wing, with its sexism and nationalism. Females can be as brainwashed as males. Hopefully, with access to information, economic equality, and reproductive rights, females should be as capable of doing the nuclear math as males. Nobody wins a nuclear war.

Can you point to a particular experience or person that has most influenced your recent book, Strength Through Peace (2018, Oxford University Press)?
There was no one particular experience or person. My husband and I were living in Costa Rica, and I was intensely happy there. Then I read Nicholas Kristoff’s article about Costa Rica in the New York Times, 2010. Kristoff’s first sentence is “Hmmm. You think it’s a coincidence? Costa Rica is one of the very few countries to have abolished its army, and it’s also arguably the happiest nation on earth.” David and I went on a long intellectual journey trying to find out whether indeed Costa Rica is the happiest nation on earth, and concluded that happiness is elusive and not easily quantified. We gave up on happiness. What we did find is that Costa Rica is perhaps the most successful nation on earth with a moderate GDP, a modest economy, and only 4.8 million people in a country the size of West Virginia. Nicoya, a part of Guanacaste, where we lived, is a Blue Zone, a place where people, especially men, live much longer than average. Costa Rica has universal healthcare, universal access to education, and low birth mortality. We couldn’t put our fingers on happiness, but we could understand health and literacy, and the big correlation is: Costa Rica has abolished its military! They have not spent a colón on the military since 1948.

In general, my life changed in 1980, when Helen Caldicott came to Seattle and stayed with me for 5 days while she did approximately 30 talks, interviews, and meetings She transformed me. She is my mentor and role model.

How do you see the relevance of psychological studies playing out in international relations? Do you think these kinds of studies can affect decisions related to nuclear weapons?
I’m not sure whether academic psychology or psychiatry has much to do with international relations. There have been important psychologists and psychiatrists whose work is pertinent to international history. Robert J. Lifton’s lifelong studies of evil, from Hiroshima to Nazi doctors, has been of ongoing, incalculable benefit. He coined the term “psychic numbing,” as well as “exterminism,” and he dilated upon nuclearism. Eric Fromm’s studies of evil, especially The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, is important, as is Hannah Arendt’s work on the origins of totalitarianism. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, and Jerome Frank’s book Sanity and Survival in the Nuclear Age are very important. The problem is, who reads these authors now? Who cares about nuclearism?

One very important area of contribution and collaboration between psychologists, and psychiatrists pertaining to international relations is in game theory. Daniel Ellsberg notes that the theory of deterrence was derived at Harvard from the work of Thomas Schelling, an economist. For decades the Games of Prisoner’s Dilemma and Chicken have dominated nuclear scheming. The problem is that those games do not include provisions for psychosis, evil, and sociopathy. The mental health fields could contribute to debunking deterrence by explaining the deep fallibility of human rationality.

I am more impressed by Masha Gessen and Jill Lepore, historians who write for the New Yorker, than any contemporary psychologists. I find Stephen Pinker’s optimism nauseating. Robert Sapolsky’s work on stress is quite wonderful – but he is a contemporary evolutionary biologist.

When I think of which people helped most to form my worldview, the list would contain Albert Camus, a philosopher (The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus); Thomas Merton, a monk (A devout meditation on Adolf Eichmann) and Paul Robeson, an opera singer and athlete. Tom Lehrer, the composer and singer, and Bertolt Brecht, The Three Penny Opera. The psychologists Karen Pryor (Don’t Shoot the Dog) and horseman, Philippe Karl, have shaped my approach to training both animals and people.

Recently Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale, who along with Robert J. Lifton have edited a book and promoted the use of the 25th amendment to remove Donald Trump from office. Forensic psychiatrists and psychologists who work on the issue of dangerousness and involuntary commitment have discussed Trump’s apparent mental status and unfitness for duty. They are stepping up to the plate, using their professional knowledge to try to forestall catastrophe.

Other than that, I don’t think contemporary academic psychology has much except common sense to offer international relations: there is no way that 9 countries in the north of the planet should be able to destroy the life on earth. Not as groups or individuals.

It is a ridiculous power imbalance. As Weird Al Yankovic puts it, in Happy Birthday: “It doesn’t take a military genius to see that we’ll all be crispy critters after World War 3.”

What has been one of the most controversial discoveries in your research?
Probably the most controversial finding in our work had to do with sex, not directly with nuclear weapons. But I would say this: There is no instinct, no “hard wiring” for war. There are indeed normal mammalian instincts for sex, aggression, territoriality, competition and cooperation. There are multiple examples in animal behavior of deception and cheating. People are perfectly good mammals, with one intriguing feature: we can override the whisperings within. We don’t have visible heat cycles that make us want to copulate like crazy like cats, dogs, and horses, We can make choices. When we are angry, we can practice mindfulness. We have a huge capacity for patience and deliberation, if we learn to use our frontal lobes. We don’t have to lie, cheat, and scheme. The take home message is that while violence or aggression may be natural, nuclear war is not. But given human propensities, we had best get rid of the damn things.

If you could leave our readers with one insight, whether in connection with health, relations, peace, sexuality, choice etc., what would you like to say?
Look around you at this very moment. Where are you? What do you treasure? The scenery? The features of a building where you sit or stand or see? Creatures, great and small, near and far. Your friends, relatives, children, grandchildren, Your food. Your body, with its breaths and heartbeats? Your future? That of others?

Now try to imagine nothingness. Extinction. Everything totally gone forever. We are trying to save life on earth. There is nothing more important.

Dr. Judith Eve Lipton is a renowned psychiatrist, author and blogger who practiced psychopharmacology and psychosomatic medicine for 30 years. She, along with her husband, David Barash, has co-authored 8 books about war, sex, human nature and nuclear weapons. She is passionate about animals, peace, and the prevention of nuclear war and believes, “There is no way that nine countries in the north of the planet should be able to destroy the life on earth. Not as groups or individuals. It is a ridiculous power imbalance.”

March 8, 2019
Alice Slater: China Is the Only Country that Promised Not To Use Nuclear Weapons First

This article was originally published by RIA Novosti.

Alice Slater, New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, told Rossiya Segodnya about the current situation with the nuclear weapons in China. 50 years ago China detonated its first nuclear test, nearly 20 years after the US dropped their bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are nine countries that have nuclear weapons today: the US, Russia, UK, France, and China, who signed the Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) in 1970.

China’s first nuclear test took place 50 years ago. How would you assess the current situation with the nuclear weapons in the country? Does it represent any potential danger?

Alice Slater: Every country’s nuclear bombs represent a danger to the world. It is estimated that there are 16,300 nuclear bombs on the planet with all but a thousand of them in the US and Russia. China is estimated to have about 250 of them. China is the only country among the NPT signers who has promised not to be the first to use them. But essentially, just the possession of a nuclear arsenal is a form of use. When a bank robber walks into a bank and points a gun at people, even if the gun is never shot, it is still being used by the robber to bully and intimidate. That is what the possession of nuclear weapons means, by any country possessing, them, even China with its modest arsenal.

Is it true, in your view, that possessing nuclear weapons increases the country’s diplomatic credibility on the international arena? Do nuclear weapons provide important security benefits to China and generally to the countries possessing nuclear weapons?

Alice Slater: It is an illusion to think that there are any security benefits to possessing nuclear weapons. We are learning now of the many near-accidents with airplane crashes carrying nuclear weapons, misplaced missiles flown unknown to distant bases carrying unaccounted nuclear weapons, missing and lost nuclear weapons in the US. Undoubtedly similar situations exist in Russia. Perhaps not in China since they never built the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia competed with to show who was stronger, when it actually made us weaker and more vulnerable to accidents, hazardous waste issues, not to mention possible miscalculations. We were very lucky not to have experienced an accidental nuclear war. While laboring under the illusion that nuclear weapons provide security, it isn’t so for the major nuclear powers. Of course the fact that Saddam Hussein wound up in a hole in the ground and Muammar Gaddaffi in a sewer pipe after they gave up or were forced to turn over their nuclear technology, may give cause to isolated nations like North Korea to cling to their nuclear “deterrent”.

Do you think it is important to continue the development of nuclear weapons or should the countries work on its elimination?

Alice Slater: With the planet facing catastrophic climate change, droughts, hurricanes, tsunamis, forest fires, from the excessive carbon emissions from the industrial age, we can little afford to spend our national treasures of money and intellectual power on nuclear technology – both for weapons and power. The nuclear waste lasts 250,000 years and we don’t know how to safely isolate it from the environment for that inordinate length of time. It is now reported that the US is contemplating expenditures of one trillion dollars over 30 years on its nuclear arsenal, laboratories, and delivery systems, with $300 billion budget for the next ten years. Russia and China, as well as India and Pakistan, have also been announcing new expenditures on this destructive and useless technology. Perhaps Asia can lead the way towards nuclear disarmament. The West is now caught up in a new cold war, having failed to contain NATO as promised to Gorbachev when the wall came down in Berlin and having expanded the missile program into eastern Europe after the US walked out of its Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

Given the current political situation in the world, is there a risk that any of Nuclear-Weapon States will use the weapons against another country? What are your estimates in this regard? What country could it be?

Alice Slater: I don’t think any country would deliberately use nuclear weapons first, but we can’t be lucky forever on accidental launch or misjudgments. The world remembers Russia’s Colonel Petrov, in the Soviet bunker who disobeyed orders when a radar blip indicated a nuclear attack from the US and it was only a Norwegian weather satellite that had gone off course. We could have had a nuclear holocaust had he not done the right thing. We also came very close to miscalculating the presence of nuclear weapons during the Cuban missile crisis. We shouldn’t continue to push our luck! Some wise country, or group of countries should take the lead and start the talks for elimination under monitoring, verification and a tight timeline.

Do you think any nuclear threat from Iran exists and what is your personal view on Iran’s nuclear program? Is it peaceful?

Alice Slater: Iran is no more of a threat than other countries. Once you have the enrichment technology, you have the capacity to make the bomb, just as North Korea did. Every nuclear power plant is a bomb factory and the sooner we phase out nuclear power and rely on the abundant, clean, free energy of the sun, wind, water, geothermal we will all be safer, less poor, and may actually have some peace on earth. Over 400,000 people marched in NYC this month to make the links between poverty, war, and climate catastrophe. If Russia could put a man on the moon, surely it can work to end destructive technology and lead the way to a 21st century free of nuclear and fossil fuel.

China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States are officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons by the Non – Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Three states – India, Israel, and Pakistan – never joined the NPT and are known to possess nuclear weapons. What other countries could potentially possess nuclear weapons or facilities to create such weapons?

Alice Slater: Any country with a nuclear reactor has the capacity to develop a bomb. Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, were on the way to making bombs and changed course. Japan has the capacity and every now and then its generals say it should use its tons to enriched plutonium to make bombs. Brazil is enriching plutonium. We are planning to sell nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia but they won’t give us assurances that they won’t enrich uranium.

How can you describe relations between China and the United States in the nuclear weapons development sphere?

Alice Slater: I don’t know if the US and China even discuss nuclear weapons. The two main players are the US and Russia. Right now there is a push from the military industrial complex and the unregulated corporations to make an enemy of Russia over Ukraine. We should be clearing up the events that occurred in the Ukraine as the corporate dominated media in the US doesn’t report events accurately and Russia is being blamed by our government and press without evidence. We still don’t know what happened. Some members of Civil Society called for an investigation, but nothing has happened. I think Russia should bring this up in the Security Council and in the First Committee of the UN that is meeting this week and next week. Let’s get all the facts out on the table.

Finally, Russia and China should come to the meeting in Vienna on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons this December. India and Pakistan came to the last two in Mexico and Oslo which the p-5 boycotted. This is the time for China and Russia to join the Asian nuclear weapons states and call for a treaty to ban the bomb, just as we’ve banned chemical and biological weapons. It would give the Western states pause, and empower civil society to press more effectively for nuclear disarmament in the US, UK, and France, as well as in the five European states that are part of NATO’s nuclear sharing – Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Netherlands and Spain.

October 17, 2014
Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day

Yasuyoshi Komizo, Chairperson of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, delivered this speech in the Marshall Islands on March 1, 2014, as part of Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day.

Dear Friends,

First of all, on behalf of the citizens and city of Hiroshima, I would like to reiterate our profound gratitude to H.E. Mr. Christopher J. Loeak, President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, for his recent visit to Hiroshima on 15 and 16 February 2014. President Loeak visited Hiroshima despite the heavy snow storm that forced commercial flights to be cancelled. We are deeply moved and profoundly grateful for the strong sense of commitment to peace and humanitarian solidarity expressed by President Loeak not only by his words but also by his deeds.

During his visit to Hiroshima, an invitation was made to our city to participate in this important event here in Majuro to mark the 60th anniversary of the Castle Bravo nuclear test. The City of Hiroshima accepted this kind invitation with honor and gratitude, because we share the memory of the indescribable horror of the inhumane consequences of nuclear weapons; we share the painful loss of loved ones; we share the deep pains of devastation and loss of our beloved homes and community we cherished so much. And above all, we share the unshakable will to reconstruct our society, culture, economy and environment. We have never lost our human dignity and strong bonds of humanity. We shall continue to work together with you toward building a peaceful world without nuclear weapons.

At 8:15 on August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb in the history of mankind was dropped on human population in Hiroshima. In a moment, the entire city was reduced to ruins, and 140,000 precious lives were lost.

Even for survivors, lives were permanently altered. Under harsh, painful circumstances, the “hibakusha“, atomic bomb survivors, have struggled with anger, hatred, grief and other agonizing emotions. Suffering with aftereffects, over and over they cried, “I want to be healthy. Can’t I just lead a normal life?” The suffering of the hibakusha continues to this day almost 70 years later, while Hiroshima has become known as the city of water and greenery with a population of over 1,180,000. To the eyes of the hibakusha, the nuclear weapon is the ultimate inhumane weapon and an absolute evil.

Having lived through unimaginable sufferings, the hibakusha have arrived at their profound humanitarian conviction that “no one should ever again suffer as we have.” Based firmly on this conviction, they have earnestly been appealing for the realization of a peaceful world without nuclear weapons. They plead that every person, without distinction, has a right to live a good life. We shall all work together to create peace.

Even with the average age surpassing 78, the hibakusha have never ceased promoting this humanitarian appeal for peace. This is remarkable because it is not a message of revenge, but a very important unifying call of deeply humanitarian nature. This precious and powerful message should be solemnly shared by all of us who live in today’s world. And I believe that it has a special significance as a rich source of inspiration to the youth who are about to build the future world in their own vision and efforts.

In order to create a rising tide of humanitarian efforts toward building a peaceful world without nuclear weapons, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki took initiatives to establish Mayors for Peace in 1982. Current membership has expanded to over 5,900 cities with the total population of approximately 1 billion citizens in 158 countries and regions, including Majuro and Bikini Atoll. As a group of mayors with a strong sense of responsibility to guarantee the safety and welfare of citizens, Mayors for Peace has inscribed deep in their heart the spirit of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for peace and is aiming for nuclear abolition by 2020.

As Secretary General of Mayors for Peace, I welcome that the world community is finally focusing on the harshly inhumane reality of nuclear weapons, and discussion is proceeding also at the governmental level. As a concrete step towards the nuclear abolition, Mayors for Peace is campaigning for a nuclear weapons convention. We also acknowledge various other approaches and measures for nuclear disarmament as they are complementary. We also place high priority on raising awareness for peace across a wide range of civil society, because it creates a sound basis for world leaders to take bold steps for peace.

From the standpoint of humanity, we appeal to all our fellow human beings that we shall never again allow nuclear weapons to be used. The only secure way to prevent the use of nuclear weapons is to abolish them. The need to achieve a world without nuclear weapons that will be sustainable over the long term compels us to build a society in which mutual distrust and threats are replaced by a shared sense of community, rooted in an awareness that we all belong to the same human family. In such a society, diversity will be treasured and disputes will be resolved through peaceful means. The road to this goal may be long and difficult, but it is certainly achievable, and we must proceed with determination. This sense of global community can support a new type of reliable international security, doing away with the threat based “nuclear deterrence” and will ultimately become the basis for lasting world peace. In this process to be free from the danger of nuclear weapons use, we ask world leaders to put in place concrete policies, frameworks and confidence-building measures to promote international and regional peace and security.

On our part, we shall spare no effort to work together with you towards the realization of a peaceful world without nuclear weapons. Equally, whatever the source of radiation may be, we must do everything we can to prevent any more hibakusha anywhere.

Lastly, I sincerely pray for the citizens of this beautiful part of the world, who have experienced unthinkable hardship through the aftermath of nuclear weapons tests, to enjoy a peaceful life more than anyone and anywhere else – one of compassionate human spirit, robust health, dynamic culture, and filled with smiling faces of neighbors who live in harmony.

Thank you very much!

March 1, 2014
Bravo: 60 Years of Suffering, Cover-Ups, Injustice

Sixty years ago on March 1 in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, the United States detonated the most powerful nuclear weapon in its history.

Codenamed Bravo, the 15-megaton hydrogen bomb was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima nine years earlier. The Bravo blast “represented as revolutionary an advance in explosive power over the atomic bomb as the atomic bomb had over the conventional weapons of World War II,” historian-lawyer Jonathan Weisgall notes.

Also unlike Hiroshima’s A-bomb, Bravo was laced with plutonium, a most toxic element with a radioactive existence of half a million years that may be hazardous to humans for at least half that time.

And, unlike the atomic airburst above Hiroshima, Bravo was a shallow-water ground burst. It vaporized three of the 23 islands of tiny Bikini Atoll, 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii, and created a crater that is visible from space.

A fireball nearly as hot as the center of the sun sucked unto itself water, mud and millions of tons of coral that had been pulverized into ash by the incredible explosion; these clung to tons of radioactive uranium fragments. The fireball swooshed heavenwards, forming a shimmering white mushroom cloud that hovered over the proving grounds of Bikini and Enewetak atolls, whose inhabitants had earlier been evacuated.

Wafting eastward, the cloud powdered 236 islanders on Rongelap and Utrik atolls and 28 U.S. servicemen. The islanders played with, drank and ate the snowflake-like particles for days and began suffering nausea, hair loss, diarrhea and skin lesions when they were finally evacuated to a U.S. military clinic.

These islanders had become a unique medical case. As scientist Neal Hines explains, “Never before in history had an isolated human population been subjected to high but sublethal amounts of radioactivity without the physical and psychological complexities associated with nuclear explosion.”

Bravo bequeathed the world a new word: fallout. Even before Bravo, experts—but not the public–knew that the radioactive dust of atmospheric nuclear weapons explosions was invisibly powdering the continental U.S. and touching others worldwide. But Bravo for the first time revealed to the world a new kind of invisible menace, a danger that could not be smelled, seen, felt or tasted. Bravo exposed radioactive fallout as, what Weisgall calls, “a biological weapon of terror.” It visibly ushered in the globalization of radioactive pollution.

For these islanders, Bravo also ushered in 60 years of sufferings and a chain reaction of U.S. cover-ups and injustices, as detailed below. Over the decades, their pleas for just and adequate compensation and U.S. constitutional rights they had been promised were rejected by the U.S. courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, by Congress and by executive-branch administrations headed by presidents of either party.

SNUBBED BY “AMERICA’S FIRST PACIFIC PRESIDENT”

The silence by today’s administration of President Obama is acutely embarrassing, given that shortly after his election he described himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” and promised to “strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world.”

Since then, Obama has initiated a “pivot” to the Pacific by beefing up and re-positioning U.S. military units in the region. But he failed to acknowledge or recognize that these remote Pacific atolls had served after World War II as proving grounds vital for U.S. superpower status today. They provided sites for nuclear-weapons tests too powerful and unpredictable to be detonated in the 48 contiguous states and for tests enabling the transition in nuclear delivery systems from conventional bombers to intercontinental missiles—Star-War-like tests that still continue.

More recently, also ignoring the moral implications undergirding Marshallese pleas, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called on U.S. military leaders to better instill ethics in their services so as to ensure “moral character and moral courage.”

He issued his instructions for more accountability in the wake of investigations into cheating scandals on proficiency and training tests given to nuclear-related personnel in the Navy and Air Force. The Pentagon is also investigating possible illegal drug violations by 11 Air Force officers, including some responsible for launching America’s deadly nuclear missiles.

U.N. CRITICIZES U.S. ON HUMAN RIGHTS

If U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific is un-remembered by the American government, it has not been forgotten internationally. While the U.S. regularly castigates the governments of China and Russia for human rights abuses or violations, a special United Nations report urges the U.S. government to remedy and compensate Marshall Islanders for its nuclear weapons testing that has caused “immediate and lasting effects” on their human rights.

“Radiation from the testing resulted in fatalities and in acute and long-term health complications,” according to the report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council in September 2012 by Special Rapporteur Calin Georgescu. “The effects of radiation have been exacerbated by near-irreversible environmental contamination, leading to the loss of livelihoods and lands. Moreover, many people continue to experience indefinite displacement.”

The report also urged the U.S. to provide more compensation and to consider issuing a presidential acknowledgment and apology to victims adversely affected by its tests.

The international community and the U.N. “has an ongoing obligation to encourage a final and just resolution for the Marshallese people,” the report reads, because they placed the Marshallese under the U.S.-administered strategic trusteeship for 40-plus years from 1947 until 1990. These international groups might consider a more comprehensive compilation of scientific findings “on this regrettable episode in human history.”

As the sole administrator for the U.N.-sanctioned trust territory, the U.S. government pledged in 1947 “to protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and resources.” Instead, the U.S. from 1946 to 1958 conducted 67 atomic and hydrogen tests in the Marshall Islands, with a total yield of 108 megatons, which is 98 times greater than the total yield of all the U.S. nuclear tests conducted in Nevada and is equivalent to 7,200 Hiroshima-size bombs. That works out to an average of more than 1.6 Hiroshima-size bombs per day for the 12 years.

In addition, the U.S. as the trust administrator was obliged “to protect the health of the inhabitants.” But the Bravo blast, more than any other single detonation, made visible to the world the adverse health and environmental effects these islanders suffered. Bravo was the first U.S. hydrogen device that could be delivered by airplane and was designed to catch up with the Soviets who had six months earlier exploded their aircraft-deliverable hydrogen bomb.

A CHAIN REACTION OF COVER-UPS & “ASHES OF DEATH”

A U.S. cover-up began just hours after the Bravo weapon was detonated. Hardly a “routine atomic test” as it was officially described, Bravo initially created a radioactive, leaf-shaped plume that turned into a lethal zone covering 7,000 square miles—that is, the distance from Washington to New York. Then, radioactive snow-like particles began descending 100 to 280 miles away over lands, lagoons and inhabitants of Rongelap and Utrik atolls. Within three days, 236 islanders were evacuated to a U.S. Navy clinic.

The U.S. had hoped to keep the evacuation secret but a personal letter from Corporal Don Whitaker to his hometown newspaper in Cincinnati shared his observations of the distraught islanders arriving at the clinic. The U.S. then issued a press release saying the islanders were “reported well.” But gripping photographs taken at the time and later published in the Journal of the American Medical Association documented a 7-year-old girl whose hair had tufted out and a 13-year-old boy with a close-up of the back of the head showing a peeling off of the skin, a loss of hair and a persistent sore on his left ear. Others had lower blood counts that weaken resistance to infections. Decades later, in 1982, a U.S. agency described Bravo as “the worst single incident of fallout exposures in all the U.S. atmospheric testing program.”Just days after the Cincinnati newspaper expose, another surprise stunned the U.S. government and the world. News accounts reported 23 crew members of a Japanese tuna trawler, the No. 5 Fukuryu Maru (the “Lucky Dragon”) had also been Bravo-dusted with what is known in Japan as shi no hai, or “ashes of death.”

When the trawler reached home port near Tokyo two weeks after the Bravo explosion, the crews’ radiation sickness and the trawler’s radioactive haul of tuna shocked U.S. officials and created panic at fish markets in Japan and the West Coast. The Japanese government and public described the Lucky Dragon uproar as “a second Hiroshima” and it nearly led to severing diplomatic relations.

A U.S. doctor dispatched by the government to Japan predicted the crew would recover within a month. But, six months later, the Lucky Dragon’s 40-year-old radio operator, Aikichi Kuboyama, died. The New York Times described him as “probably the world’s first hydrogen-bomb casualty.”

The U.S. cover stories for Bravo’s disastrous results plus subsequent official cover-ups at the time—and continuing today–were that the might of the Bravo shot was greater than had been expected and that the winds shifted at the last minute unexpectedly to waft radioactivity over inhabited areas. Both cover stories have since been rebutted by revelations in once-secret official documents and by testimonies of two U.S. servicemen who were also Bravo-dusted on Rongerik Atoll.

A STRING OF UNENDING INJUSTICES

Within days after the Bravo shot, the U.S. cover-up had secretly taken a more menacing turn. In an injustice exposing disregard for human health, the Bravo-exposed islanders were swept into a top-secret project in which they were used as human subjects to research the effects of radioactive fallout.

A week after Bravo, on March 8, at the Navy clinic on Kwajalein, E.P. Cronkite, one of the U.S. medical personnel dispatched there shortly after the islanders’ arrival, was handed a “letter of instruction” establishing “Project 4.1.” It was titled the “Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation Due to Fallout from High Yield Weapons.” To avoid negative publicity, the document had been classified as “Secret Restricted Data” until 1994, four years after the end of U.S. responsibilities for its trusteeship at the U.N. and when the Clinton Administration began an open-government initiative.
It would be 40 years before islanders learned the true nature of Project 4.1. Documents declassified since 1994 show that four months before the Bravo shot, on November 10, 1953, U.S. officials had listed Project 4.1 to research the effects of fallout radiation on human beings as among 48 experiments to be conducted during the test, thus seeming to indicate that using islanders as guinea pigs was premeditated. However, an advisory commission appointed by President Clinton in 1994 indicated “there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate intentional human testing on Marshallese.”

For this human-subject research, the islanders had neither been asked nor gave their informed consent—which was established as an essential international standard when the Nuremberg code was written following the war crimes convictions of German medical officers.

Under Project 4.1, the exposed Rongelapese were studied yearly and so were the Utrik Islanders after thyroid nodules began appearing on them in 1963. The islanders began complaining they were being treated like guinea pigs in a laboratory experiment rather than sick humans deserving treatment. A doctor who evaluated them annually came close to agreeing when he wrote 38 years after Bravo, “In retrospect, it was unfortunate that the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission], because it was a research organization, did not include support of basic health care of populations under study.”

During this time, Bravo-dusted islanders developed one of the world’s highest rates of thyroid abnormalities; one third of the Rongelapese developed abnormalities in the thyroid, which controls physical and mental growth, and thus resulted in some cases of mental retardation, lack of vigor and stunted development. Islanders complained of stillborn births, cancers and genetic damage.

Seven weeks after Bravo, on April 21, Cronkite recommended to military officials that exposed Marshallese generally “should be exposed to no further radiation” for at least 12 years and probably for the rest of their natural lives.

Yet, three years later, U.S. officials returned the Rongelapese to their radioactive homeland after they had spent three months at the Kwajalein military facility and at Ejit Island. Besides being Bravo-dusted, their homeland by 1957 had accumulated radioactivity from some of the 34 prior nuclear explosions in the Marshall Islands. Utrik Islanders were returned home by the U.S. shortly after their medical stay on Kwajalein.

For 28 years the Rongelapese lived in their radioactive homeland until 1985. Unable to get answers to their questions, they discounted U.S. assurances that their island was safe. Failing to provide the Rongelapese “information on their total radiation condition, information that is available, amounts to a coverup,” according to a memo dated July 22, 1985 written by Tommy McCraw of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Safety.

In mid-1985, when the U.S. refused to move them, 300 Rongelapese persuaded the environmental organization Greenpeace to transport them and 100 tons of their building materials 110 miles away to Majetto Island. Many of them have since stayed there because they fear their homeland is still too radioactive even though the U.S. has funded resettlement facilities.

NEW AGREEMENTS BUILT ON U.S. SECRECY

In 1986, President Reagan signed the Compact of Free Association with related agreements after its ratification by the central government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and the U.S. Congress, thus ending bilaterally America’s trusteeship arrangement, which was continued by the U.N. Security Council until 1990.

The Compact recognizes RMI as a sovereign, self-governing independent nation in terms of internal management and international relations but with significant U.S. economic aid and services and continues to reserve to the U.S. government sole military access to RMI’s 700,000 square miles used still for long-range missile tests.

Yet, during the Compact negotiations, the U.S. government failed to disclose material information about its testing program to the Pacific Islanders. Not until 1994 did the U.S. government respond favorably to RMI’s Freedom of Information Act request for details about the total number of nuclear tests conducted in its territories as well as the kind and yield of each test. Newly declassified information then also revealed that more islanders were exposed to radiation than previously admitted by the U.S. As late as June 2013 the U.S. gave RMI officials 650-plus pages detailing freshly declassified fallout results of 49 Pacific hydrogen-bomb blasts with an explosive force equal to 3,200 Hiroshima-size bombs conducted in only two years–1956 and 1958.

While the Marshallese were kept in the dark during negotiations about material information, the U.S. crafted Compact agreements that included a provision prohibiting those inhabitants from seeking future legal redress in the U.S. courts and dismissing all current court cases in exchange for a $150 million compensation trust fund to be administered by a Nuclear Claims Tribunal.

However, that trust fund is now depleted. That fund proved inadequate to pay $14 million in monies already awarded for personal health claims and 712 of those granted awards (42%) have died without receiving their full payments. The nuclear-weapons tests are presumed by the U.S. to have afflicted many Marshallese with various kinds of cancers and other diseases. A Congressional Research Service Report for Congress in March 2005 indicates that “as many as 4,000 claims may have yet to be filed among persons alive during testing.”

A Marshallese petition sent to the House Speaker and President Bush on Sept. 11, 2000 states that circumstances have changed since the initial agreements and the Marshallese government demands far more in just and adequate compensation for health and property claims. But those demands for justice have thus far gone unanswered.

March 1 will be solemnly remembered in Asia and the Pacific. In the Marshall Islands flags are flown at half-mast during the Nuclear Memorial and Survivors Remembrance Day. Last year on the anniversary of the Bravo shot, Marshallese President Christopher J. Loeak described March 1 as “a day that has and will continue to remain in infamy in the hearts and minds of every Marshallese.” He renewed his call for President Obama and the U.S. government for justice.

This year President Loeak is scheduled in February for a state visit to Japan. He will meet with Emperor Akhito and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and journey to the Hiroshima Peace Park and Memorial Museum.

With the approaching 60th anniversary of the Bravo blast, Loeak might also visit a pavilion exhibiting the hull of the ill-fated Lucky Dragon fishing trawler and a marker commemorating its 450 tons of radioactive tuna that touched off worldwide alarms.

The Lucky Dragon and Hiroshima beseech “America’s first Pacific president” and the world to reflect on the catastrophic horror of nuclear weapons and to rectify their bitter legacy of lingering injustices.

Beverly Deepe Keever is author of News Zero: The New York Times and the Bomb and of Death Zones and Darling Spies: Seven Years of Vietnam War Reporting.

February 26, 2014
Nukes Are Nuts: The Sequel

Nuclear weapons are monstrous – obscene – explosive devices that have no function other than to threaten or cause mass annihilation. They kill indiscriminately and cause unimaginable suffering. The world knows well the death, destruction and lingering pain caused by these weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons could end civilization and have no place in a civilized society. Nukes are nuts!

Nuclear weapons are very effective killing devices. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated that a single, small nuclear weapon is capable of destroying a city and causing mass death and suffering beyond any society’s capacity to cope with such a humanitarian tragedy. The City of Hiroshima 2013 Peace Declaration, issued 68 years after a single atomic weapon destroyed the city, reflected on the effects of the US atomic bomb: “Indiscriminately stealing the lives of innocent people, permanently altering the lives of survivors, and stalking their minds and bodies to the end of their days, the atomic bomb is the ultimate inhumane weapon and an absolute evil.” Nuclear weapons corrupt our humanity. Nukes are nuts!

Atmospheric scientists inform us of what would happen in a relatively small regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan, in which each side used 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. It would result in putting enough soot into the upper stratosphere to restrict warming sunlight, shorten growing seasons and cause crop failures leading to global nuclear famine and the deaths by starvation of some 2 billion people. Nukes are nuts!

The possibility of nuclear famine is horrendous, but even more terrifying would be an all-out nuclear war, which could send the planet into another ice age and make precarious the continued existence of human life. Nuclear weapons threaten not the planet itself, for the planet can recover after hundreds of thousands of years. They threaten the human species and all other forms of complex life. The nuclear-armed countries are playing Russian roulette with the human future. Nukes are nuts!

In November 2013, the Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement passed a resolution on “Working towards the elimination of nuclear weapons: Four-year action plan.” The council reiterated “its deep concern about the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, including the unspeakable human suffering that their use would cause and the threat that such weapons pose to food production, the environment and future generations.” Nukes are nuts!

By any measure, the possession, threat or use of nuclear weapons is immoral and exceedingly dangerous. Continued reliance on these weapons of mass annihilation by the nine nuclear-armed countries encourages nuclear proliferation and keeps open the door for terrorists to obtain nuclear arms. A nuclear war could be initiated by accident, miscalculation or design. Nukes are nuts!

Those of us privileged to be alive on the planet now have responsibilities to be good stewards of the planet and its varied life forms, and to pass the planet on intact to new generations. What kind of stewards are we? Are we fulfilling our responsibilities to future generations of humans who are not yet here to speak for themselves? Nukes are nuts!

Is it not extreme hubris for the leaders of nuclear-armed states to assert that the manufacture, possession, deployment, modernization, threatened use and use of these weapons, capable of omnicide, the death of all, can be controlled by human beings without proliferating to other countries or being used by accident or design, putting at risk all that we treasure, including the future of the human species? Nukes are nuts!

Nuclear weapons are creations of the human mind that came into being through political decisions and scientific and technological expertise. While these weapons are products of human invention and effort, our human capacity to control the destructive uses of this technology, by means of law or morality, has been grossly inadequate. We need to change our mindsets about nuclear weapons. They do not protect us but, rather, bring us to the precipice of catastrophe. Nukes are nuts!

Humanity cannot afford a sequel to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We must learn from our past and assure that nuclear weapons and nuclear war are not our legacy to the future. Nukes are nuts!

This article was originally published by Truthout.

Find out more about Nukes are Nuts at www.nukesarenuts.org.

January 27, 2014
Two Billion at Risk: The Threat of Limited Nuclear War

This article was originally published by Common Dreams.

As physicians we spend our professional lives applying scientific facts to the health and well being of our patients. When it comes to public health threats like TB, polio, cholera, AIDS and others where there is no cure, our aim is to prevent what we cannot cure. It is our professional, ethical and moral obligation to educate and speak out on these issues.

That said, the greatest imminent existential threat to human survival is potential of global nuclear war. We have long known that the consequences of large scale nuclear war could effectively end human existence on the planet. Yet there are more than 17,000 nuclear warheads in the world today with over 95% controlled by the U.S. and Russia. The international community is intent on preventing Iran from developing even a single nuclear weapon. And while appropriate to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, there is precious little effort being spent on the much larger and more critical problem of these arsenals.

Despite the Cold War mentality of the U.S. and Russia with their combined arsenals and a reliance on shear luck that a nuclear war is not started by accident, intent or cyber attack, we now know that the planet is threatened by a limited regional nuclear war which is a much more real possibility.

A report released Tuesday by the Nobel Laureate International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and its US counterpart Physicians for Social Responsibility documents in fact the humanitarian consequences of such a limited nuclear war. Positing a conflict in South Asia between India and Pakistan, involving just 100 Hiroshima sized bombs— less than 0.5% of the world’s nuclear arsenal— would put two billion people’s health and well being at risk. The local effects would be devastating. More than 20 million people would be dead in a week from the explosions, firestorms and immediate radiation effects. But the global consequences would be far worse.

The firestorms caused by this war would loft 5 million tons of soot high into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and dropping temperatures across the planet. This climate disruption would cause a sharp, worldwide decline in food production. There would be a 12% decline in US corn production and a 15% decline in Chinese rice production, both lasting for a full decade. A staggering 31% decline in Chinese winter wheat production would also last for 10 years.

The resulting global famine would put at risk 870 million people in the developing world who are already malnourished today, and 300 million people living in countries dependent on food imports. In addition, the huge shortfalls in Chinese food production would threaten another 1.3 billion people within China. At the very least there would be a decade of social and economic chaos in the largest country in the world, home to the world’s second largest and most dynamic economy and a large nuclear arsenal of its own.

A nuclear war of comparable size anywhere in the world would produce the same global impact. By way of comparison, each US Trident submarine commonly carries 96 warheads each of which is ten to thirty times more powerful than the weapons used in the South Asia scenario. That means that a single submarine can cause the devastation of a nuclear famine many times over. The US has 14 of these submarines, plus land based missiles and a fleet of strategic bombers. The Russian arsenal has the same incredible overkill capacity. Two decades after the Cold War, nuclear weapons are ill suited to meet modern threats and cost hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain.

Fueled in part by a growing understanding of these humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, there is today a growing global movement to prevent such a catastrophe. In 2011, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent movement called for its national societies to educate the public about these humanitarian consequences and called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Seventeen nations issued a Joint Statement in May 2012 on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons that called for their total elimination. By this fall the number rose to 125 nations.

The international community should continue to take practical steps to prevent additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. But, this effort to prevent proliferation must be matched by real progress to eliminate the far greater danger posed by the vast arsenals that already exist.

Simply put, the only way to eliminate the threat of nuclear war or risk of an accidental launch or mishap is to eliminate nuclear weapons. This past year the majority of the world’s nations attended a two-day conference in Oslo on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. The United States and the other major nuclear powers boycotted this meeting. There will be an important follow up meeting in Mexico in February. It is time for us to lead the nuclear weapons states by example in attending this meeting and by embracing the call to eliminate nuclear weapons.

December 12, 2013
Some Thoughts on the 2013 Nagasaki Appeal

The Fifth Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was held November 2-4, 2013 in Nagasaki. Citizens of Nagasaki continued their tradition of convening such Global Citizens’ Assemblies, which they have held every few years since the year 2000. I have been privileged to have been a participant and speaker in all five meetings as an invited guest of the city of Nagasaki, and to have participated in the drafting of all the Nagasaki Appeals.

The 2013 Nagasaki Appeal is an extraordinary document. It reflects the spirit of Nagasaki, the second of two atomic bombed cities on the planet, and the desire of its atomic bomb survivors to assure that Nagasaki remains the last city ever to suffer such a tragedy. I believe the Appeal should be read by every citizen of Earth and studied by young people everywhere. I’d like to share with you some of its highlights.

The Appeal begins with good news and bad news. It points out that over 50,000 nuclear weapons have been eliminated in the past quarter century (good news), but that 17,000 remain, only a small number of which could end civilization and most life on Earth (bad news). It expresses concerns that repeated delays by the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their commitment to nuclear disarmament under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “has discredited the nonproliferation regime and may destroy it.” Such a consequence would indeed be very bad news.

The Appeal takes note of the nuclear power accident at Fukushima, Japan in March 2011: “The fear and suffering of Fukushima citizens for their health and life renewed our recognition of the danger of radioactivity, whether from nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. The experiences of Fukushima and the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have shown us that the effects of nuclear disasters are uncontrollable in time and space.”

Despite “daunting challenges,” the Appeal finds there are reasons for hope, among which is the renewed international attention to the devastating humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. It also found that reliance upon nuclear deterrence for national security is “delusional,” in a world in which human security and global security are threatened by nuclear weapons.

The Appeal calls for a series of concrete actions, including commencing negotiations on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons; the US and Russia taking unilateral and bilateral nuclear disarmament measures; phasing out of reliance on nuclear weapons in the security policies of all countries; having greater citizen participation in nuclear abolition campaigns; establishing new nuclear weapon-free zones; aiding the victims of Fukushima; and learning the lesson that humanity cannot continue to rely upon nuclear energy any more than it can rely upon nuclear weapons.

The Appeal also offers some specific advice to the Japanese government based upon its special responsibilities as the world’s only country to be attacked with nuclear weapons. These responsibilities include: coming out from under the US nuclear umbrella; providing leadership to achieve a nuclear weapon-free zone in Northeast Asia; demonstrating leadership for nuclear weapons abolition; and seeking and welcoming international assistance in controlling the radiological crisis at Fukushima.

The participants in the Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly pledge to continue “utmost efforts to achieve a world without nuclear weapons.” It is a necessary goal for humanity and for the future. It is the great challenge that confronts all of us living on the planet in the Nuclear Age. Nagasaki is doing its part to lead the way. They need our voices and our commitment to succeed.

November 20, 2013
Hope for a Nuclear Zero World

NAPF President David Krieger delivered this speech at Soka University of America on November 16, 2013.

I’m very pleased to be back at Soka University of America. I have high respect for educational institutions, such as yours, that promote world citizenship. I’ve also witnessed the outstanding efforts that have been made in the past by the youth of Soka Gakkai International.

A Journey of Hope

In 1997, I spoke in Tokyo to an international group of Soka Gakkai youth. In doing so, I told them about an Abolition 2000 International Petition to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The petition called for ending the nuclear weapons threat by, for example, de-alerting nuclear arsenals; signing an international treaty by the year 2000 to eliminate nuclear weapons within a time-bound framework; and reallocating resources from military purposes to assuring a sustainable future.

A few days after my talk to the Soka Gakkai youth, I was told that, led by the youth of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these young people and their friends were determined to gather one million signatures on the Abolition 2000 Petition. I thought this was a large and ambitious number and was very happy that they had made this commitment. By the time they were finished, though, they had vastly exceeded their initial goal, gathering over 13 million signatures in a matter of only a few months.

On that trip to Japan, I had the pleasure of meeting Soka Gakkai International President Daisaku Ikeda in Yokohama. It was a memorable meeting, as we watched together a most impressive cultural festival with performers from many countries. The next year I was invited back to Japan to symbolically accept the 13 million signatures for transmittal to the United Nations. On that trip, I visited Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa. I had the chance to personally thank the young people who had participated in the signature-gathering campaign. I called my trip through Japan a “Journey of Hope,” hope because of the diligent efforts and promising action of young people.

Choosing Hope

At the end of that trip, when meeting with President Ikeda in Okinawa, we decided to do a dialogue on choosing hope. The dialogue took over a year to complete. It was published in Japanese in the year 2000, and two years later in English with the title, Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age. In that dialogue, President Ikeda and I exchanged ideas about peace, nuclear weapons and hope. Among the areas of our agreement are the following:

Peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age. The creation, possession, modernization, testing, proliferation, threat and possible use of nuclear weapons make peace essential. Nuclear weapons have the potential to destroy civilization and end complex life on Earth, including human life.
Nuclear weapons are an absolute evil and must be abolished. This conclusion builds on the 1957 Declaration of Josei Toda, the second president of Soka Gakkai. Nuclear weapons kill indiscriminately. They are illegal and immoral. Their effects cannot be contained in time or space. They threaten the human future.

Peace must be pursued actively. It must be waged with a similar intensity, commitment and courage as the waging of war. The nonviolence of peace does not imply passivity.

To achieve peace and abolish nuclear weapons, young people must lead the way. Today’s youth are the future of humanity. If they desire peace and a future free of nuclear threat, they must stand up, speak out and demand peaceful solutions to conflict and the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Choosing hope is critical to any great goal, including the abolition of nuclear weapons. We all have a choice. We can choose hope or allow ourselves to fall into despair. Hope gives rise to action, and action reinforces hope. The opposite of hope is despair, which gives rise to inaction. Thus, we encourage all people, and particularly young people, to choose hope and act upon it.

There are three important C’s: compassion, commitment and courage. Meaningful change in our world requires individuals who live lives of compassion, commitment and courage.

One must never give up. All difficult goals require perseverance. Giving up on peace, nuclear weapons abolition, or any difficult goal is not an option if we want to create a more decent and loving world.

To achieve the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world will require all of the above and more. It will also require: understanding what nuclear weapons really are and the danger they pose to humanity; delegitimizing nuclear weapons for all countries of the world with no exceptions; recognizing the important role of the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the hibakusha; and developing a new universal ethic for the 21st century.

Understanding What Nuclear Weapons Really Are: Nukes Are Nuts

They are not ordinary weapons of war. They are insanely powerful devices of mass annihilation. They cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants, making them both immoral and illegal. Further, they do not protect their possessors; they only make possible mass murder of innocent people. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate suicide note to the planet. They are uncivilized tools of vengeance that have no place in a civilized world. Nukes are nuts.

Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons

Political and military leaders of some countries believe that nuclear weapons have legitimate military purposes. They are short-sighted and mistaken. Weapons of mass annihilation can have no legitimacy. A simple test is this: If nuclear weapons are legitimate for one country, why shouldn’t they be considered legitimate for all countries? The same leaders who advocate legitimacy of these weapons for their own countries would be horrified at the prospect of doing the same for all countries.

Importance of Hibakusha

No group of people can reach the hearts of their fellow humans and make clearer what these weapons really are than the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That is why their words and their pleas are so important. They have lived with the pain of those fateful and deadly bombings. They have sounded the warning. Because hibakusha are growing older and becoming fewer, their message to the world, and particularly to young people, is even more precious and comes with a greater sense of urgency. I urge young people to reach out to hibakusha, learn from them, and help in conveying their message to the world; make their understanding about the need to abolish nuclear weapons also your own message to the world.

Nuclear weapons endanger all of us. In the crisis of shared danger, comes the opportunity for shared action to overcome that danger. The hibakusha and civil society organizations are helping to lead the way out of the Nuclear Age. They are leading, but the leaders of the nuclear weapons states are not yet demonstrating the political will to follow or to lead themselves.

New Universal Ethic

Nuclear weapons could render the planet uninhabitable for humans and other complex forms of life, but the planet itself would survive the worst we could do. It is not the planet that is endangered; it is we humans.

I believe we humans need a new ethic to see us safely through and out of the Nuclear Age. For me, this new universal ethic would have the following elements:

Reverence for life. This is the central philosophy of Albert Schweitzer. It requires us to care for our fellow humans and for all creatures. We must be kind and good stewards of the planet.

Earth citizenship. We owe our allegiance to the Earth and to people everywhere. Our problems are global and our solutions must be global as well.

Universal human rights, including the sacred right to peace. All humans are entitled by virtue of being human to the basic rights set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As the United Nations has declared, there is also a sacred right to peace.

Universal human responsibilities. With rights come responsibilities, including each generation’s responsibility to pass the planet on intact to new generations.

Nuclear weapons are incompatible with these ethical foundations. As the ultimate mass killing device, they are the antithesis of reverence for life. They divide countries and their inhabitants into nuclear haves and have-nots. They are an assault on human rights and life itself, and their possession and threat of use are a violation of our responsibilities to humankind as a whole and to future generations.

Nuclear Zero

In 1945 the first nuclear weapon was tested by the United States. Within a few weeks the US then used two nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying those cities and killing and injuring their inhabitants. This was followed by a nuclear arms race, which reached its peak by 1986 with 70,000 nuclear weapons on the planet. Since then, the numbers have declined significantly, and today there are just over 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world, mostly in the arsenals of the US and Russia. This is still far too many, since one nuclear weapon can destroy a city and only 100 nuclear weapons used in a regional war between India and Pakistan could cause a Nuclear Famine leading to two billion deaths worldwide. The only number of nuclear weapons on the planet that makes sense is Zero. Our urgent goal must be a safe passage from where we are to Nuclear Zero.

On the path to Nuclear Zero, I would encourage bold actions to engage the nuclear-addicted states (those with nuclear weapons) and the nuclear-dependent states (those that rely upon the nuclear umbrella of nuclear-addicted states). The concerned citizens of these states, along with the citizens of the nuclear-free states, must form a bond to push for change. The status quo is no longer acceptable. The sense of urgency and the speed of change toward Nuclear Zero must intensify for the common good.

A Summit of Youth

I believe it must be young people, following in the moral footsteps of the hibakusha, who must lead the way. How are you to do it? I can only point you in the direction that you need to travel. You must forge a new path, one not yet cleared in the Nuclear Age. The path must be forged in the belief that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil and in the spirit of waging peace. It must be traveled boldly and with the confidence that the future belongs to those who follow their dreams for a better tomorrow.

I strongly support Daisaku Ikeda’s proposal for a Nuclear Abolition Summit in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2015. It is a bold and hopeful proposal. If the nuclear weapon states (the nuclear-addicted states) and the nuclear-dependent states won’t participate, though, I suggest making it a Summit of Youth from around the world to come together to join forces for a world free of nuclear weapons. Invite the non-nuclear weapons states (the nuclear-free states) to come to the Summit to initiate negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

Let’s get to work banning nuclear weapons, with or without the nuclear weapon states. They cannot hold out indefinitely when confronted with the energy and passion of the youth of the world. One thing that seems certain to me is that the youth of the world are a more powerful force than even the most powerful nuclear warheads. Let the young people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima lead the way, starting with a Youth Nuclear Abolition Summit in 2015.

Our Best Hope

Our best hope for the human future is to unite in our support of the abolition of nuclear weapons. National security must give way to planetary security through the acts of individuals joining together with compassion, commitment and courage. To these we can add two more C’s – creativity and cooperation. We need to awaken from our slumber and be the noble people we are capable of being. We need leadership from the survivors of the atomic bombings and from the youth of Nagasaki and Hiroshima who support them. We actually need leadership from all youth of all countries. When nuclear weapons are abolished, it will be time for a new “C” – celebration. We can celebrate our gift to ourselves and to the future of humankind.

Why Work to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

I will conclude with 12 reasons for working to abolish nuclear weapons.

We can change the world in important and necessary ways.

We can take a giant step forward for humankind.

We can join with others in demonstrating good stewardship of the planet.

We can take control of our most dangerous technology.

We can help shape a more decent common future.

We can end the threat of omnicide posed by nuclear weapons.

We can uphold international law for the common benefit.

We can lead the way toward ending war as a human institution.

We can meet the greatest challenge confronting our species.

We can put compassion into action and action into compassion.

We can help to protect everything in life that we love and treasure.

We can pass on a more secure world to our children and grandchildren and all future generations.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

November 16, 2013