Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear abolition

  • After New START: Where Does Nuclear Disarmament Go from Here?


    This article was originally published on the History News Network.


    Lawrence WittnerWith U.S. Senate ratification of the New START treaty on December 22, supporters of nuclear disarmament won an important victory.  Signed by President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last April, the treaty commits the two nations to cut the number of their deployed strategic (i.e. long-range) nuclear warheads to 1,550 each—a reduction of 30 percent in the number of these weapons of mass destruction.  By providing for both a cutback in nuclear weapons and an elaborate inspection system to enforce it, New START is the most important nuclear disarmament treaty for a generation.


    Nevertheless, the difficult battle to secure Senate ratification indicates that making further progress on nuclear disarmament will not be easy.  Treaty ratification requires a positive vote by two-thirds of the Senate and, to secure the necessary Republican support, Obama promised nearly $185 billion over the next decade for “modernizing” the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex and nuclear weapons delivery vehicles.  Even with this enormous concession to nuclear enthusiasts—a hefty “bribe,” in the view of unhappy arms control and disarmament organizations—Senator Jon Kyl, the Republican point man on the issue, continued to oppose New START and ultimately voted against it.  So did most other Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell (Senate Republican leader) and John McCain (the latest Republican presidential candidate).  Leading candidates for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, including Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin, also opposed the treaty.  As a result, New START squeaked through the Senate by a narrow margin.  With six additional Republicans entering the Senate in January, treaty ratification will become much harder.


    So where do the possibilities for progress on nuclear disarmament lie in the future?


    One obvious focus for action is ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).  Signed by the United States and most other nations in 1996, the treaty provides for a total ban on the nuclear explosions that serve as the basis for the development of new nuclear weapons.  This ban would be enforced by an extensive international verification system.  Republican opposition blocked Senate ratification of the CTBT in 1999, and President George W. Bush—hostile to this arms control measure and others—refused to resubmit the treaty.  Nevertheless, President Obama has consistently supported ratification of the CTBT, and has promised to bring it before the Senate once again.  After the bruising battle over the START Treaty and in the context of heightened Republican strength in the new Senate, however, he might now change his mind.


    A more promising area for progress is a follow-up nuclear disarmament agreement between the United States and Russia.  As these two nations possess the vast majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, other countries have long argued that, before progress can be made in reducing the arsenals of the other nuclear powers or blocking nuclear proliferation, the two nuclear giants must cut their nuclear stockpiles substantially.  In fact, officials from both the United States and Russia have spoken of another round of START negotiations that would reduce their deployment of strategic warheads to 1,000 each.  There is also pressure to cut the number of tactical nuclear weapons they possess—especially the very large numbers still maintained by Russia.  Indeed, Republican opponents of the New START treaty seized on the tactical nuclear weapons issue to argue that the real need for a treaty lay in the tactical weapons area.  Given their rhetorical stance, it might be useful to confront them with such a treaty.


    Nevertheless, stumbling blocks remain to a new arms treaty with Russia.  Not only are the Republicans likely to use their enhanced Senate strength to block its ratification, but the Russians might refuse to accept a new agreement.  The apparent reason for Russian reluctance is U.S. government insistence upon deploying a missile defense system in Europe, on Russian borders.  Although the Obama administration does not appear enthusiastic about missile defense, it has given way before Republican demands to install it.  Conversely, if the administration bargains away missile defense in treaty negotiations with the Russians, it seems quite likely that Republicans will strongly oppose the treaty.


    Perhaps the most promising area for disarmament progress doesn’t involve treaty negotiations or ratification, but simply blocking nuclear “modernization.”  After all, Senator Kyl and most Republicans didn’t accept the “bribe” offered them, but continued to oppose the New START treaty.  Why, then, should the Obama administration follow through on providing $185 billion for refurbishing the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, especially when such a program so clearly flies in the face of his pledge to work for a nuclear weapons-free world? 


    Even if the administration sticks to its “modernization” line, however, there is no reason for other forces, inside and outside Congress, to do so.  Over the coming years, in the midst of a huge debate on budgetary priorities, there will be a fierce battle over scarce government resources.  Are angry seniors (concerned about cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare), parents, students, and teachers (concerned about cutbacks in education), the hungry, homeless, and unemployed (concerned about the collapse of the social safety net), and other groups (facing serious attacks on their living standards) going to welcome spending $185 billion for new nuclear weapons facilities?  Certainly groups with domestic spending priorities, plus peace and disarmament groups, are going to press congress to move the money from funding wars and weapons to meeting social needs.  Perhaps they will succeed.


    Thus, in the next two years, the Republicans may end up choking off the opportunities for negotiated disarmament and opening the floodgates to unilateral action. 

  • An Ottawa Process for Nukes?

    2010_12_31_ware_ottawa.pdf

  • A Silly Dream?

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.


    David KriegerA note recently came to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation that said: “Are you folks out of your minds?  The nuclear genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back in.  Shortly even non-state actors will have nukes!  Quit wasting your time on this silly dream.”  The author of the note, to his credit, signed his name, and also indicated that he is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. 


    The colonel poses a critical question: Are we out of our minds to believe that change is possible and that humans might find a way to cooperate to eliminate the existential threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity (and other forms of life)?  Perhaps we are, but it seems to me that the future of civilization, the human species and other complex forms of life are worth the effort.  The Nuclear Age is distinct from the periods that preceded it in having the capacity to end most complex life, including human life, on the planet.  Fighting for the elimination of nuclear weapons is also the fight for human survival and for the rights of future generations.  I’ve always believed that we have a choice: nuclear weapons or a human future.  Along with the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I believe it is unlikely that both are possible.


    Next, the colonel asserts that “[t]he nuclear genie is out of the bottle and isn’t going back in.”  I suppose this means that the knowledge of how to create nuclear weapons exists and cannot be erased.  Granted, the knowledge now exists.  The challenge is whether countries will choose to eliminate nuclear weapons in their common interest, or whether they will be paralyzed by fear into failing to try.  Knowledge alone is not sufficient to make nuclear weapons.  Scientific and engineering skills are also needed, as are nuclear materials.  There may not be a foolproof method to assure the elimination of nuclear weapons, but there is also no foolproof method to assure that existing nuclear weapons will not be used in a nuclear war that could kill billions of people and destroy civilization. 


    The question is: which is a safer path for humanity?  On the one hand, to seek the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons and effective international safeguards on nuclear materials; or, on the other hand, to continue the status quo of having the world divided into a small but increasing number of nuclear “haves” and a far larger number of nuclear “have-nots”?  I would place my bet on working for the elimination of the weapons, the same path chosen by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and Ronald Reagan.  According to his wife, Nancy, President Reagan “had many hopes for the future, and none were more important to America and to mankind than the effort to create a world free of nuclear weapons.” 


    The colonel seems to like the odds of continuing with the status quo, even though he recognizes that “[s]hortly even non-state actors will have nukes!”  This is most likely true and it poses an enormous problem for the US and other nuclear armed countries, if we fail to bring nuclear weapons and the materials to make them under strict and effective international control.  All of the thousands of nuclear weapons in the US arsenal can’t deter a terrorist organization in possession of a single nuclear weapon.  You can’t credibly threaten retaliation against an organization or individuals that you can’t even locate.


    “Quit wasting your time,” the colonel admonishes, “on this silly dream.”  But all dreams may seem silly before they are realized.  Mohandas Gandhi had a dream of an independent India.   It must have seemed silly to Winston Churchill and other British leaders at the time.  Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream of racial equality.  Perhaps it seemed silly to many.  Nelson Mandela dreamed of an end to apartheid in South Africa.  During his 27 years in prison, this dream must have seemed silly to the white power structure in South Africa. 


    There are dreams of justice and equality that must seem silly to many.  There are dreams of alleviating poverty and hunger, and dreams of educational opportunity for all children.  There are even dreams of eliminating war.  It is not silly to fight for a better future, and certainly not silly to fight to assure the future itself. 


    For me, a New Year is a new beginning and always brings hope.  I will continue to choose hope and to fight for the dream of peace and the elimination of nuclear weapons.  Achieving these goals is the great challenge of our time, and on their success depend the realization of all other goals for a more just and decent world.

  • 2010 United Nations Day Keynote Address

    Thank you to the San Francisco Chapter of the United Nations Association for organizing this celebration of the 65th anniversary of the United Nations and for bringing together such an impressive group of leaders for this event.  Thank you also to Soka Gakkai International for hosting this event in your Ikeda Auditorium.  

    I want to draw attention to the beauty of the flower arrangements on the dais.  They are filled with sunflowers, and sunflowers are the universal symbol of a world without nuclear weapons.  Whenever you see a sunflower, I hope you will think of the need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons.  Sunflowers are beautiful, natural and nutritious.  They turn toward the sun.  They stand in stark contrast to the manmade missiles that threaten death and destruction on a massive scale.  Sunflowers remind us of the importance of preserving the natural beauty of our planet and ending the manmade threats of massive annihilation with which we currently live.

    My subject today is nuclear disarmament.  The United Nations Charter was signed on June 23, 1945.  The first nuclear weapon was tested successfully just over three weeks later on July 16, 1945.  The United Nations sought to save the world from the “scourge of war,” among other high ideals.  Nuclear weapons threatened to destroy the world.

    The subject of nuclear weapons is one that many people, perhaps most, understandably would like to put out of their minds.  Assuring a human future demands that we resist that temptation.

    We know that a single nuclear weapon can destroy a city and a few nuclear weapons can destroy a country.   Scientists also tell us that an exchange of 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on cities, such as could occur between India and Pakistan, could result in a billion fatalities, due to blockage of sunlight and crop failures leading to mass starvation, in addition to the blast, fire and radiation.  A full scale nuclear war could destroy the human species and most complex forms of life on Earth.  

    Given such high stakes, why do we tolerate nuclear weapons?  I believe that there are two major reasons.  First, we have been misled to believe that nuclear weapons actually protect their possessors.  They do not.  These weapons can be used to threaten retaliation, to retaliate or to attack preventively in a first-strike, but they cannot protect.  

    Second, we have grown far too complacent about these devices of mass annihilation over the period of 65 years since their last use in warfare.  But the odds of catastrophe are too high for complacency.  According to Stanford Professor Emeritus Martin Hellman, an expert in risk analysis, a child born today has at least a ten percent chance over the course of his or her expected lifetime of dying in a nuclear attack and possibly as high as a fifty percent chance.  These are clearly unacceptable odds.

    Any use of nuclear weapons would be a crime against humanity.  These weapons cannot discriminate between soldiers and civilians, and the unnecessary suffering they cause is virtually boundless and can continue through generations.  The International Court of Justice, in its 1996 landmark Advisory Opinion on the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, described the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons as “their capacity to cause untold human suffering, and their ability to cause damage to generations to come.”  The Court wrote: “The destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time.  They have the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet.”

    The use, even the threat of use, of nuclear weapons is morally abhorrent.  The possession of nuclear weapons should be taboo.  No country has the right to possess weapons that could destroy our species and much of life.  They threaten our true inalienable rights – as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – to life, liberty and security of person.  Nuclear weapons are the negation of these rights.  They are an extreme manifestation of fear and militarism, reflecting the most destructive elements of the human spirit.

    The generations who are alive today on the planet are challenged by the imperative to end the nuclear weapons era and strengthen our common efforts for achieving the global good as reflected in the eight Millennium Development Goals.  This will require leadership.  At present, this leadership has resided primarily with the United Nations and with civil society organizations.  The UN and its supporting civil society organizations have provided vision and direction for social responsibility on disarmament, demilitarization and improving the lives of the world’s people.  

    The key to achieving a world without nuclear weapons lies in a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  But agreement on such a treaty will require a far greater commitment by the governments of the world, including the nine nuclear weapon states.  The United States, as the most powerful of these governments, will need to be pushed from below by its citizens.  Each of us needs to embrace this issue, along with whatever other issues move us to action.  It is an issue on which the future of humanity and life rest.  

    I’d like to share with you a reflection from my new book, God’s Tears, Reflections on the Atomic Bombs Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It is called, “The Final Period?”

    The Final Period?

    “Scientists tell us that the universe was created with a “Big Bang” some 15 billion years ago.  To represent this enormous stretch of time, we can imagine a 15,000 page book.  It would be a very large and heavy book, some 50 times larger than a normal book.  In this book, each page would represent one million years in the history of the universe.  If there were 1,000 words on each page, each word would represent 1,000 years.  

    “Most of the book would be about the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang.  Our solar system would not occur in this history of the universe until page 10,500.  It would take another 500 pages until the first primitive forms of life occurred on Earth some four billion years ago.  The slow evolution of life would occupy the book nearly to its end.  It would not be until page 14,997 that human-like creatures would appear on the planet, and it would not be until just ten words from the end of page 15,000 that human civilization would make its appearance.  

    “The Nuclear Age, which began in 1945, would be represented by the final period, the punctuation mark on the last page of the 15,000 page book.  This small mark at the end of the volume indicates where we are today: inheritors of a 15 billion year history with the capacity to destroy ourselves and most other forms of life with our technological achievements.  It is up to us to assure that the page is turned, and that we move safely into the future, free from the threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity and all forms of life.”

    Let me conclude with these thoughts: As the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have warned us over and over, “Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot coexist.”  We must choose, and we are fortunate that we still have a choice.  In another great war, such as World War II, the war that gave birth to both nuclear weapons and the United Nations, that choice could be foreclosed.  Or, it could be foreclosed in less dramatic ways, by a nuclear accident or nuclear terrorism.  

    Now, today, we have the opportunity to turn the page of that great book that documents the development of our universe, the evolution of life and the history of humankind.  Let us seize that opportunity with all our hearts and all our capacities by working to abolish nuclear weapons, strengthen the United Nations and international law, and put the missing Millennium Development Goal, disarmament, to work in achieving the elimination of poverty and hunger, and the promotion of education, health care, opportunity and hope for all of the world’s people.

  • Nuclear Detonation: Fifteen Scenarios

    Many people are complacent about nuclear weapons.  They would prefer to deny the nuclear threat and put nuclear dangers out of their minds.  Unfortunately, this is a dangerous approach to a serious threat to humanity. There are many ways in which a nuclear detonation could take place, including accident, miscalculation and intentional use.  Any use of nuclear weapons, including by accident or miscalculation, could lead to the destruction of a city as occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Further, a nuclear weapon detonation could trigger a retaliatory response leading to nuclear war and even broader devastation, including the annihilation of complex life on the planet.  Listed below are 15 possible scenarios for a nuclear detonation.  These are 15 arguments against complacency and for engagement in seeking a world without nuclear weapons.

    1. False Alarm:  A false alarm triggers a decision to launch a nuclear attack.
    2. Unauthorized Launch: Launch codes are obtained by hackers, espionage agents or coercion and used to launch high alert forces.  This could involve the physical takeover of a mobile missile, or the use of codes obtained via pre-delegation.
    3. Accidental Nuclear War:  An accidental launch leads to an escalation into a nuclear war.
    4. Control and Communications failure:  A rogue field commander or submarine commander falls out or deliberately puts himself out of communications with his central command and launches a nuclear attack on his own authority.
    5. “Dr. Strangelove” Nuclear War:  The launch of a nuclear attack by a rogue field or submarine commander leads to a retaliatory strike that escalates into a nuclear war.
    6. A Terrorist Bomb:  A terrorist group obtains nuclear materials and creates an unsophisticated nuclear device or obtains a bomb and succeeds in detonating it in a large city.
    7. Terrorist Bomb Triggers Nuclear War:  A terrorist nuclear attack is disguised in such a way as to appear to come from another nuclear weapons state, leading to a “retaliatory strike” that escalates into nuclear war.
    8. Preemptive Attack:  Believing one’s country to be under nuclear attack or about to be under such attack, a leader of a nuclear weapon state launches a preemptive nuclear attack.
    9. Preventive Nuclear War:  A nuclear weapons state launches an unprovoked nuclear attack against another country perceived to pose a future threat.  An example would be the use by Israel of a small tactical nuclear weapon against deeply buried nuclear facilities in Iran.
    10. Escalation of Conventional War:  India and Pakistan, for example, engage in further conventional war over Kashmir.  The conflict escalates into a nuclear exchange of approximately 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons, resulting in potentially a billion deaths.
    11. Military Parity:  In a conventional war, Russia defaults to nuclear weapons due to its deteriorating conventional military capability.
    12. Irrational Leader:  An unstable and paranoid leader, fearing attack and/or regime change, launches a nuclear attack against perceived adversaries.  There are no democratic controls.
    13. Rational Leader:  A leader, making what he deems to be rational calculations, launches a nuclear attack against perceived adversaries to assure the survival of his country.  There are no democratic controls.
    14. Prompt Global Strike:  The US proceeds with plans to place conventional weapons on some of its inter-continental ballistic missiles.  When launching one of these missiles, it is mistaken for a nuclear-armed warhead, resulting in a retaliatory nuclear attack.
    15. Intentional Nuclear War:  Tensions and conflict between major nuclear powers mount, leading to an intentional nuclear war.  Civilization is destroyed and complex life on Earth is ended.

  • Address at Hiroshima Peace Park

    Hiroshima no minasama konichiwa. Ohayo gozaimasu.

    We are here, on hallowed ground, to see, to feel, to absorb and reflect.

    I am honored to be the first UN Secretary-General to take part in this Peace Memorial Ceremony on the 65th anniversary of this tragic day. And I am deeply moved.

    When the atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I was one year old. Only later in life, could I begin to understand the full dimension of all that happened here. As a young boy, I lived through the Korean War. One of my earliest memories is marching along a muddy road into the mountains, my village burning behind me. All those lives lost, families destroyed — so much sadness. Ever since, I have devoted my life to peace. It has brought me here today.

    Watakushiwa sekai heiwa no tameni Hiroshima ni mairimashita.

    We gather to pay our solemn respects to those who perished, sixty-five years ago, and to the many more whose lives forever changed. Life is short, but memory is long.

    For many of you, that day endures, as vivid as the white light that seared the sky, as dark as the black rains that followed. To you, I offer a message of hope. To all of you, I offer my message of peace. A more peaceful world can be ours. You are helping to make it happen. You, the survivors, who inspired us with your courage and fortitude. You, the next generations, the young generation, striving for a better day.

    Together, you have made Hiroshima an epicentre of peace. Together, we are on a journey from ground zero to Global Zero ? a world free of weapons of mass destruction. That is the only sane path to a safer world. For as long as nuclear weapons exist, we will live under a nuclear shadow.

    And that is why I have made nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation a top priority for the United Nations – and put forward a five-point plan.

    Our moment has come. Everywhere, we find new friends and allies. We see new leadership from the most powerful nations. We see new engagement in the UN Security Council. We see new energy from civil society. Russia and the United States have a new START treaty. We made important progress at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington last April, which we will build upon in Korea.

    We must keep up the momentum. In September, I will convene a high-level meeting in support of the work of the Conference on Disarmament at the United Nations. We will push for negotiations towards nuclear disarmament. A Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. A Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Disarmament education in our schools — including translating the testimonies of the survivors in the world’s major languages. We must teach an elemental truth: that status and prestige belong not to those who possess nuclear weapons, but to those who reject them.

    Ladies and gentlemen,

    Sixty-five years ago, the fires of hell descended upon this place. Today, one fire burns, here in this Peace Park. That is the Flame of Peace ? a flame that will remain lit until nuclear weapons are no more. Together, let us work for that day ? in our lifetime, in the lifetimes of the survivors. Together, let us put out the last fire of Hiroshima. Let us replace that flame with the light of hope. Let us realize our dream of a world free of nuclear weapons so that our children and all succeeding generations can live in freedom, security and peace.

    Thank you. Domo arigato gozaimasu.

  • Countdown to Zero: Your Role in Getting There

    In the Nuclear Age, the potential exists to end civilization and destroy complex life on Earth.  In the 20th century, we moved from homicide to genocide to the potential for omnicide – the death of all.

    A new documentary film, Countdown to Zero, by the producers of An Inconvenient Truth, stresses one core principle of the Nuclear Age: The only safe number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero.  Nuclear weapons do not make us safer; they leave us standing on the precipice of nuclear catastrophe.

    What is still needed, however, is a sense of urgency and a plan to get from where we are, in a world with some 20,000 nuclear weapons, to zero.  

    President Obama, who favors a world without nuclear weapons, says, “This goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime.”  Secretary of State Clinton has says that the goal may be reached “in some century.”  

    In the meantime, the US continues to rely upon nuclear weapons for its security and continues to spend more than $50 billion annually on its nuclear weapons program, including modernizing its nuclear arsenal.  The US plans to spend $80 billion on improving the US nuclear weapons infrastructure over the next decade and $100 billion on improving nuclear weapons delivery vehicles.  That does not seem like a serious path to zero.  It seems instead like a path for maintaining nuclear “superiority.”

    The problem with nuclear weapons is not just that terrorists or rogue states may acquire and use them.  The problem is that any state has nuclear weapons, including the nine states that currently do: US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.   Nuclear weapons in any hands, including our own, pose a significant threat to humanity.

    A plan to get to zero nuclear weapons will require negotiations on a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  Such good faith negotiations are a requirement of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Other indicators that the US is serious about achieving zero nuclear weapons would include:

    1. Ceasing to provide special favorable treatment to parties outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), such as the US-India Nuclear deal.
    2. Ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and urging other countries to do so, so that the treaty may enter into force.
    3. Stopping to press for strategic advantage – weapons modernization, missile defenses, space weaponization, global strike force, etc.
    4. Recognizing publicly the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal as a starting point for achieving a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East.
    5. Taking all nuclear weapons off a quick-launch or launch-on-warning posture.
    6. Adopting a policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons, with no exceptions, changing the current policy of reserving the right to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states not in compliance with the NPT.

    Getting to zero will require US leadership and a sense of urgency.  How is that to happen?  In the way any significant change has always occurred; it will require the people to lead their leaders.  That means that each of us has a role to play.

    We can start by supporting ratification of New START, the new agreement between the US and Russia, lowering the number of nuclear weapons on each side to 1,550 each.  This is a step in the right direction.  It is a necessary step, but not sufficient. 

    Here are three steps you can take today to become part of the ongoing solution:

    First, educate yourself.  Sign up at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s website, www.wagingpeace.org, to receive our free monthly newsletter, The Sunflower.

    Second, take action.  Go to www.wagingpeace.org/goto/action to participate in the Foundation’s Action Alert Network.

    Third, educate others.  Speak out and be a force for ending complacency on this most critical of all issues confronting humanity.  Encourage others to see Countdown to Zero and to also sign up for The Sunflower and the Action Alert Network at www.wagingpeace.org. 

  • Message to Hiroshima Conference

    I am pleased to greet all the participants in the Hiroshima Conference for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons by 2020.

    Nuclear disarmament is often dismissed as a dream, when the real fantasies are the claims that nuclear weapons guarantee security or increase a country’s status and prestige. The more often countries make such claims, the more likely it will be that others will adopt the same approach. The result will be insecurity for all. Let us be clear: the only guarantee of safety, and the only sure protection against the use of such weapons, is their elimination.

    I thank Mayors for Peace helping to point the way to a world free of nuclear threats. Most of the world’s population today lives in cities. If the mayors of the world are uniting, the world is uniting.

    My own five point plan, which I put forward in October 2008 offers a practical approach to the elimination of such weapons, including support for the idea of a nuclear weapons convention. We must also build on the momentum generated by the successful outcome of this year’s NPT Review Conference.

    The timeline in the 2020 Vision Campaign to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons is especially important. I have deep admiration for the hibakushas and their determination to tell the world about their experience of the horrors of nuclear weapons.

    I urge all leaders, especially those of the nuclear-weapon States, to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to see firsthand the drastic reality caused by nuclear war. I myself will go there in ten days’ time for this year’s peace memorial ceremony, at which I will appeal for urgent steps to advance the disarmament agenda.

    I urge you all to intensify your efforts even further. Let us work toward the day when governments no longer have a choice but to respond to the will of the people for a nuclear-free world. Thank you all for your commitment to this great cause.

  • Why We Wage Peace

    Some things are worth Waging Peace for: our planet and its diverse life forms, including humankind; our children and their dreams; our common future.  All of these are threatened by the possibility of nuclear catastrophe.

    We live on an amazing planet, the only one we know of in the universe that supports life, and does so in abundance and diversity.  Our planet is worth Waging Peace for – against those who are despoiling and ruining its delicate and beautiful environment.  

    On our unique planet are creatures of all shapes and sizes: Birds that fly, fish that swim, animals that inhabit jungles and deserts, mountains and plains, rivers and oceans.  Life is worth Waging Peace for – against those who are disrespecting and destroying the habitats of creatures great and small.

    Among the diverse creatures on our planet are human beings.  We are homo sapiens, the knowing ones, and are relative newcomers to the planet.  Yet, our impact has been profound.  We are creatures capable of learning and loving, of being imaginative and inventive, of being compassionate and kind.  We are worth Waging Peace for – against those who would diminish us by undermining our dignity and human rights.

    Human beings, like other forms of life, produce offspring who are innocent and helpless at birth.  These human children, all children, require care and nurturing as they grow to maturity.  The world’s children are worth Waging Peace for – against those who would threaten their future with war and other forms of overt and structural violence.

    Children as they grow have dreams of living happy and decent lives, dreams of building a better future in peaceful and just societies.  These dreams are worth Waging Peace for – against those whose myopia and greed rob children anywhere of a better future.

    Each generation shares a responsibility to pass the planet and civilization on intact to the next generation.  Accepting this responsibility is an important part of Waging Peace.  It is a way of paying a debt of gratitude to all who have preceded us on the planet by assuring that there is a better future.

    In the Nuclear Age, we humans, by our cleverness, have invented tools capable of our own demise.  Nuclear weapons are not really weapons; they are instruments of annihilation and perhaps of omnicide, the death of all.  Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age requires that we awaken to the dangers that these weapons pose to humankind and all life, and work to rid the world of these insane tools of global devastation.

    For too long humanity has lived with nuclear policies of Mutually Assured Destruction, with the appropriate acronym of MAD.  We need a new and distinctly different formulation: Planetary Assured Security and Survival, with the acronym PASS for passing the world on intact to the next generation.

    Among the greatest obstacles to assuring survival in the Nuclear Age are ignorance, apathy, complacency and despair.  These can only be overcome by education and advocacy; education to raise awareness of what needs to change and advocacy to increase engagement in bringing about the needed change.   

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has three major goals: the abolition of nuclear weapons, the strengthening of international law, and the empowerment of new peace leaders.   The Foundation was created in 1982 in the belief that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age and that the people must lead their leaders if we are to assure a safe and secure human future.  We need your generous support to continue to educate and advocate for a brighter future for humanity.

  • Report on the Morning NGO Abolition Caucus: Insomniacs for Peace

    The NGO Abolition Morning Caucus met every day during the four week Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference starting on Tuesday, May 4th straight through to the last day of the UN meeting on May 28th. We gathered each day at 8:00 AM at the UN gates on First Avenue, waiting for the guards to unlock the chains on the UN fence and then proceeded through “security” to the temporary building on the North Lawn where a conference room had been reserved for the use of NGOs. Conference Room A was almost always in use, hosting the Abolition Caucus, the daily NGO government briefings organized by Reaching Critical Will, the plethora of NGO panels, films, testimony from Hibakusha, brainstorming and strategy sessions through the course of the Review. 

    Our Abolition Caucus began each morning by reviewing the day’s calendar, proposing a new agenda for each day, and then brainstorming to plan various actions during the course of the Conference. At the end of each meeting a new facilitator would volunteer to Chair the meeting for the following day, and volunteers sent out daily minutes of our work. In the first week, as many as 60 nuclear activists showed up at our morning meetings, hailing from every continent and united in our commitment to rid the world of the nuclear scourge. 

    We were encouraged by the many nations who called for negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention and all signed on to about 30 thank you notes that were presented to their Ambassadors at the Review conference.  The Ambassador from Switzerland was so moved by our message that he asked us to send another one to his Foreign Minister. We sent two letters from the caucus to Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon. One expressed our thanks and appreciation for his enthusiastic support of negotiations for a nuclear weapons convention and his Five Point Plan.The other was to express our dismay and urge mediation instead of the rude treatment we witnessed of Iran’s President, by the western powers who walked out on him during his speech on the first day of the Conference.

    We drafted statements in response to the Main Committee I and III reports, issued our own nuclear abolitionists preamble to the report, did a satirical take on the conference in The Scallion, a riff on The Onion, a US publication that writes spoofs of current events, and issued a final statement and critique of the weakened outcome document at the Conference. Usually our documents were inserted in the News in Review issued each day by Reaching Critical Will for distribution to the delegates.  The Abolition Caucus documents are on the web at http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/npt/2010index.html under “Other Resources”.  We also networked with the Commission on Sustainable Development which was meeting concurrently with the NPT and addressing the catastrophic results of mining.  They held a heart-wrenching presentation on the havoc of uranium mining.   Our caucus was able to enroll the French government, represented at one of the morning briefings, to permit us to show the promo for a film on the evils of uranium mining at the closing of a French presentation on the benefits of “peaceful” nuclear power.

    At the close of the meeting we presented the delegates with fortune cookies, which when opened, said “Global Zero Now”. Most important, we now have a list of over 100 international participants who can continue the warm relationships and camaraderie that developed over the four weeks, newly energized and inspired by each other as we work together for a nuclear free world. Onward to June 5th and International Nuclear Abolition Day!!  See www.icanw.org.