Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear disarmament

Nuclear Disarmament Now

This paper was presented to the 2009 meeting of the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies

Our topic today is “Nuclear Disarmament Now.” In speaking on that subject, I will address four key points, the first being a discussion of some of the main reasons why nuclear disarmament is urgently needed. The second point will focus on an action plan developed by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation of Santa Barbara, California for advancing President Obama’s nuclear disarmament agenda. (Incidentally, for the remainder of this presentation I shall refer to the organization as the Foundation). Thirdly, we will discuss U.S. plans for the weaponization of space as an obstacle to global nuclear disarmament; and finally, I will discuss the campaign for a nuclear-free world which was recently launched by the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Security, and what you can do to help with that effort.

At the outset, lets take a look at some of the critical issues that surround nuclear weapons and why they need to be eliminated from Planet Earth. First, they are extremely dangerous, and literally threaten to make human beings an endangered species. The exact number of nuclear weapons in possession of each of the nine nuclear weapons states is a closely held national secret. Nevertheless, publicly available information and occasional leaks make it possible to obtain best estimates about the size and composition of the national nuclear weapon stockpiles. More than a decade and a half after the Cold War ended, the world’s combined stockpile remains at a very high level, i.e., more than 23,300 warheads. According to Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists more than 8,109 of these warheads are considered operational, of which approximately 2,200 U.S. and 2,200 Russian weapons are on high alert, ready for use on short notice. (1)

In case of a nuclear weapons alert, the Russian President has three minutes to decide whether or not to launch an attack on the U.S. The U.S. president has 8 minutes to decide if he receives such an alert. Launch to landing time for Russian missiles is about 25 minutes. Launch to landing time for U.S. missiles is approximately 10 minutes. (2)

During the past 64 years, there have been dozens of incidents, accidents and errors with nuclear weapons, including several near misses. One of those near misses occurred in early September, 1983, when tension between the Soviet Union and the United States was very high. Not only had the Soviet military downed a Korean passenger plane, but the United States was also conducting exercises in Europe that focused on the use of tactical nuclear weapons against the Soviets – a situation that led some Soviet leaders to worry that the West was planning a nuclear attack. To make matters worse, an unanticipated variable was thrown into the mix. On September 26, 1983, the alarms in a Soviet early warning bunker, just South of Moscow sounded as computer screens indicated that the United States had launched a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. The officer in charge of the bunker and its 200 officers and enlisted personnel was Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov. It was his job to monitor incoming satellite signals and to report directly to the Russian early warning headquarters if indicators revealed that a U.S. missile attack was underway. Years later, Col. Petrov said: ” I felt as if I had been punched in my nervous system. There was a huge map of the States with a U.S. base lit up, showing that the missiles had been launched.”

” For several minutes Petrov held a phone in one hand and an intercom in the other as alarms continued blaring, red lights blinking, and computers reporting that U.S. missiles were on their way. In the midst of this horrific chaos and terror, with the prospect of the end of civilization itself, Petrov made a historic decision not to alert higher authorities, believing in his gut and hoping with all that is sacred, that contrary to what all the sophisticated equipment was reporting, this alarm was an error… As agonizing minutes passed, Petrov’s decision proved correct. It was a computer error that signaled a U.S. attack.” (3)

“Had Petrov obeyed standard operating procedures by reporting the erroneous attack, Soviet missiles could have devastated all major U.S. cities and the Pentagon would have retaliated. In reviewing the incident, Petrov concluded that a nuclear war could have broken out and the whole world could have been destroyed. On Dateline NBC, November 12, 2000, Bruce Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information, and himself a former U.S. Minuteman missile launch officer said: ” I think this is the closest we’ve come to accidental nuclear war.” (4)

On January 25, 1995, another potentially disastrous early warning error occurred when a Russian radar mistook a U.S. weather research rocket launched from Norway as an incoming nuclear strike from a U.S. Trident submarine. Even though the United States had notified Russia it would launch a non-military weather research rocket, those in control of Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons did not receive the message. Fortunately, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, a man with a drinking problem, who had three minutes to order a retaliatory strike, elected to “ride out” the crisis and did not launch the thousands of nuclear tipped missiles available on his command. (5) As previously mentioned, there have been many serious mishaps since the beginning of the nuclear age. For a comprehensive list by date, see: www.nuclearfiles.org.

In addition to the dangers posed by the nuclear threat systems, there are other basic reasons for abolishing them. Not only are they extremely dangerous, they are also illegal, immoral, environmentally destructive and very expensive. They kill men, women and children indiscriminately and are virtually unlimited in their effects.

In addressing the illegality of nuclear deterrence, University of Illinois Professor of International Law, Frank Boyle quotes the 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion on Nuclear weapons which says: ” States must never make civilians the object of attack, and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets.” He goes on to say: “… U.S. strategic nuclear weapons systems do indeed make civilians the direct object of attack, and because of their incredible explosive power are also incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets.” (6)

In analyzing the immorality of nuclear weapons, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church has developed a resolution titled “Nuclear Disarmament The Zero Option”, which states: ” Now is the time to exercise the zero option to eliminate all nuclear weapons throughout the globe.” In keeping with that pronouncement, the Conference approved the following statement of commitment and action which says: ” We affirm the finding that nuclear weapons, whether used or threatened, are grossly evil and morally wrong. As an instrument of mass destruction, nuclear weapons slaughter the innocent and ravage the environment. When used as instruments of deterrence, nuclear weapons hold innocent people hostage to political and military purposes. Therefore, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence is morally corrupt and spiritually bankrupt. Therefore, we affirm the goal of total abolition of all nuclear weapons throughout Earth and Space.” I don’t think there is a better way to say it. Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence are unquestionably morally corrupt and spiritually bankrupt. (7)

In 1983, Cornell University Professor Carl Sagan and four other NASA scientists conducted an in-depth study of the possible atmospheric consequences of nuclear war. The study concluded that the gigantic fires caused by nuclear detonation in cities and industrial areas would cause millions of tons of smoke to rise into the Earth’s atmosphere. There the smoke would block most sunlight, causing average temperatures on Earth’s surface to rapidly cool to Ice Age levels.

The 1983 study was repeated by Professor R.P. Turco of UCLA and Professor O.B. Toon of the University of Colorado, and others. The new research modeled a range of nuclear conflicts beginning with a “regional” nuclear war between India and Pakistan, then a “moderate” nuclear war which used about one third of the current global nuclear arsenals (equivalent to the nuclear weapons now kept on launch-ready, high alert status by the U.S. and Russia), and lastly, a full scale nuclear conflict using the entire global arsenal. The new research substantiated the original 1983 findings, and found that smoke could actually remain in the stratosphere for at least a decade. A large nuclear conflict would cause crop-killing nightly frosts for more than a year in the world’s large agricultural regions, destroy massive amounts of the protective ozone layer, and lead to the collapse of many ecosystems and starvation among most people.

Recently, my University of Missouri colleague, Steven Starr published a summary of the 2006 studies in the Bulletin of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation. In that article, Steve states: ” U.S. researchers have confirmed the scientific validity of “nuclear winter” and have demonstrated that any conflict which targets even a tiny fraction of the nuclear arsenal against large urban centers will cause disruption of the global climate.” To view that summary, simply Google www.nucleardarkness.org. (8)

A final reason for abolishing nuclear weapons is the high cost of nuclear security spending. According to Stephen Schwartz and Deepti Choubey ” nuclear security spending is the amount of money the United States spends to operate, maintain and upgrade its nuclear arsenal; defend against nuclear attack; prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons, weapons materials, technology, and expertise; manage and clean up radioactive and toxic waste left over from decades of nuclear production, and compensate victims of past productive and testing activities; and prepare for the consequences of a nuclear or radiological attack.”

“Total appropriations for nuclear weapons and related programs in fiscal year 2008 were at least 52.4 billion dollars. That’s not counting related costs for classified programs, air defense, anti-submarine warfare, and most nuclear weapons-related intelligence programs, of which only 5.2 billion dollars is spent on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, weapons materials, technology and expertise” (9) Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the cost of U.S. nuclear weapons research, development, testing, deployment and maintenance has exceeded 7.5 TRILLION dollars. Clearly the abolition of nuclear weapons will free up billions of dollars for health, education and other human development programs.

So, what is needed to rid the world of these deadly, obscene devices? In June, 2009, the Board of Directors of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation adopted a five-point action plan to guide the Foundation’s work through the end of 2010. The preface to the plan states: ” The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation seeks a world free of nuclear weapons. We believe that nuclear arms reductions and the stabilization of nuclear dangers are not ends in themselves, but must be viewed in the context of achieving the total elimination of nuclear weapons. This is a matter that affects the future well-being , even survival, of the human race.” In this light the Foundation is pursing the following five-point action program:

First, we support a meaningful replacement treaty for the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty between the United States and Russia. This treaty expires on December 2009. Under President Obama’s leadership, the U.S. and Russia have embarked upon negotiations for a replacement treaty. The Foundation will press for a replacement treaty that has deep and verifiable reductions in the number of nuclear weapons on each side; one that reduces the high-alert status of the weapons on each side, and one that includes a legally binding commitment to NO FIRST USE of nuclear weapons. To this end, we will seek to form a coalition of like-minded organizations to put forward recommendations for a new treaty, to educate the public on the importance of such a treaty, and to lobby the Senate for the treaty’s ratification.

Second, we hope to secure a NO FIRST USE commitment from the United States. President Obama has called for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, but he has not referred to the possibility of making a legally binding commitment to NO FIRST USE of nuclear weapons. We believe that such a commitment would be an essential step in downplaying the role of nuclear weapons in military strategy. We will educate the public and lobby the Obama Administration to make a legally binding commitment to NO FIRST USE of nuclear weapons and seek such commitments from other nuclear weapons states as well.

Third, We seek U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The U.S. has signed but not ratified the CTBT. President Obama has said, ‘To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.’ The Foundation will work with other national organizations to achieve Senate ratification of the treaty.

Fourth, We will promote a broad agenda for President Obama’s proposed Global Summit on Nuclear Security. President Obama has pledged to hold a Global Summit on Nuclear Security within the next year. He has called for this Global Summit in the context of preventing nuclear terrorism. We will seek to broaden the agenda of the Summit to include a full range of nuclear security issues beyond only the issue of nuclear terrorism. This would include consideration of the security risks of the current nuclear arsenals and the need to open negotiations on a treaty banning all nuclear weapons. The Foundation will engage in public education, including interviews and op-eds, and networking with other organizations to lobby the Obama administration.

The fifth and final point of the 2009-10 Action Plan calls for a highly strengthened Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by assuring a successful NPT Review Conference in 20l0. The NPT is at the heart of efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The treaty also requires the nuclear weapons states to engage in good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. We believe that the key to achieving the goals of the NPT rests upon the commitment of the nuclear weapons states to take meaningful actions to achieve their Article VI nuclear disarmament obligations. Following the 2009 Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the five nuclear weapons states (who are parties to the treaty, i.e., the U.S., Russia, UK, France and China), also known as the P5, issued a joint statement in which they said: ‘ Our delegations reiterate our enduring and unequivocal commitment to work towards nuclear disarmament, an obligation shared by all NPT states parties.’ These P5 states expressed their commitment to a new U.S.-Russian agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty and to the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), as well as negotiations for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. We believe that their case for strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will be far more persuasive if they also join in assuring a broad agenda for a Global Summit on Nuclear Security and join in making legally binding commitments to NO FIRST USE of nuclear weapons. Thus, these prospects for a successful NPT Review Conference in 2010 will be considerably enhanced if the first four points of the Foundation’s Action Plan are successful. (10)

Clearly the Foundation’s Action Plan will require strong support by U.S. scientists and many other citizens if it is to have any chance for implementation. The good news is that most Americans are in favor of seriously addressing the various issues related to nuclear disarmament. A 2004 poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes found Americans to be highly concerned about nuclear weapons. Clear majorities favored reducing their role and ultimately eliminating them under provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Eighty-four percent said that doing so was a “good idea”. An even higher 86 percent wanted the United States “… to do more to work with other nations toward eliminating their nuclear weapons. In each case, more that 70 percent of Republicans and 80 percent of Democrats and independents favored working toward elimination.” (11)

The bad news is that some Americans, including several key Members of Congress are still victims of Cold War-era fear based thinking which argues that getting rid of nuclear weapons – even with open inspection and verification – would make us vulnerable. Additionally, there is another potential roadblock to genuine nuclear disarmament which centers on U.S. plans to deploy offensive weapons, including lasers, particle beams and rockets in outer space. The U.S. Air Force’s long term proposal known as ” Vision for 2020″ is a plan for the U.S. to weaponize outer space for military and commercial purposes and to deny access to outer space to other states. The provisions of the plan clearly show missile defenses for what they truly are: an early phase of militarization of space and, as such, part of an unprecedented, global offensive system masquerading as defense. (12) If the United States insists on the deployment of offensive weapons in outer space, it will be nearly impossible to convince Russia, China, and others to agree to the zero nuclear weapons option.

On the U.S. domestic front there have also been a number of nuclear deterrence advocates and military analysts who have been highly critical of disarmament measures such as those outlined in the Foundation’s Action Plan, and of any efforts to halt the U.S. weapons in space program. The critics, including corporate producers of nuclear weapons, and other members of the military-industrial-academic-congressional complex, want absolutely no reduction in the tens of billions of dollars spent annually on nuclear weapons. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council: ” Hundreds of companies, large and small, are involved in nuclear weapons research, development, production and support. Each Department of Energy (DOE) facility is managed and operated by a corporate contractor. And, nuclear weapons components and delivery systems are manufactured by hundreds of prime and subcontractors” (13). Thus, lobbyists for giant companies such as Lockheed Martin, TRW, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and dozens of others will do everything in their power to prevent significant efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide. Consequently, a highly mobilized citizen movement will be needed to counter those vested interests.

Therefore, we must speak out now to protect our nation, other nations, and our entire planet. We must challenge those who believe that ANYONE has a right to genocidal weapons. We must also challenge those who want to build a new generation of nuclear weapons and offensive killing devices in outer space. In doing so, we must vigorously seek support for the provisions of the Foundation’s Action Plan with its emphasis on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, full implementation of Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the elimination of all nuclear weapons from our Planet.

In addressing challenges to the zero option, we must emphasize the fact that such thinking is no longer the sole possession of the historic nuclear disarmament organizations, nor those only on the political left. Neither is it a Utopian dream. To date, several retired U.S. generals, including Eugene Habiger and George Lee Butler, both former chiefs of the U.S. Strategic Command, have voiced support for measures such as those outlined in the Foundation’s Action Plan. Other well known political figures of both major political parties are also making the case for nuclear weapons abolition. For example, in a January 8, 2007 Wall Street Journal commentary titled ” A World Free of Nuclear Weapons”, former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, with former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia wrote: ” Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage – to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing this proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world… ”

” Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage. The effect could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible. We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal.” (14)

In my opinion, it is critical that scientists and engineers lead the way in achieving nuclear weapons abolition as suggested by Kissinger, Schultz, Perry, and Nunn. In 1995, when Joseph Rotblat received the Nobel Peace Prize, he appealed to his fellow scientists with the following statement: ” At a time when science plays such a powerful role in the life of society, when the destiny of the whole of mankind may hinge on the results of scientific research, it is incumbent on all scientists to be fully conscious of that role, and conduct themselves accordingly. I appeal to my fellow scientists to remember their responsibility to humanity …. The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task. Above all, remember you humanity.”

On August 6, 2009 the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES) launched a campaign in support of that zero option. The first act of the campaign was the signing of an appeal titled “Scientists for a Nuclear Free World” by forty individuals, 28 of whom are Nobel Laureates. The goal of the campaign is to increase scientific as well as public awareness of nuclear weapons issues, and to add weight to calls for an international Nuclear Weapons Convention which obligates all states to achieve complete nuclear disarmament by 2020. The last four paragraphs of the appeal state:

“Nuclear weapons were created by humans, and it is our responsibility to eliminate them before they eliminate us and much of the life on our planet. The era of nuclear weapons must be brought to an end. A world without nuclear weapons is possible, realistic, necessary and urgent.”

“Therefore, we the undersigned scientists and engineers, call upon the leaders of the world, and particularly the leaders of the nine nuclear weapons states, to make a world free of nuclear weapons an urgent priority.”

” We further call on these leaders to immediately commence good faith negotiations as required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, with the goal of achieving a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2020.”

” Finally we call upon scientists and engineers throughout the world to cease all cooperation in the research, development, testing, production and manufacture of new nuclear weapons.” (14)

For those who wish to participate in the INES campaign, there are several things you can do:

– Sign the appeal individually or as an organization;

– Publish the appeal on your website, or in your newsletter, and forward it to members of organizations to which you belong;

– Collect as many signatures as possible within your network;

– Promote the appeal through your organizations; and

– Issue your own statement in support of our common cause.

For those of you who wish to sign the petition immediately, please see me following this symposium. I will have copies for your reading, signing and distribution. I will also have copies of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation materials which suggest other nuclear disarmament eduction activities, including information on our newly produced DVD which is titled: ” U.S. Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World”.

In closing, I want to quote my colleague, Rick Wayman, who is the Foundation’s Director of Programs: ” Now is the time to create a new equilibrium in the thinking of Americans. Public support is essential for strong U.S. leadership on the issue of nuclear weapons abolition. U.S. leadership is essential if progress is going to be made on the world stage. So the answer is simple. To change the reality of nuclear weapons, to reduce and then eliminate them, we must change thinking and grow the movement to support a new approach. Such a massive change in the public’s thinking is a major undertaking. But it is necessary. Otherwise, fear will carry the day. And the nuclear hawks will play on American insecurity to stymie progress and enshrine the status quo of thousands upon thousands of nuclear weapons. True security will come only from global cooperation. We must be proactive. We must pioneer a new way of thinking in society. The goal of zero nuclear weapons must be accepted as the starting point of all discussions. To achieve this, we must rally the public”

I sincerely hope you will join this effort.

References

1. Kristensen, Hans, Status of World Nuclear Forces 2009, http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclearweapons/nukestatus.html

2. “Taking Nuclear Weapons off Hair-Trigger Alert -Timeline to Catastrophe”, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, Nov. 1997, pp. 74-81.

3. Association of World Citizens, ” A Forgotten Hero of Our Time Honored with Special World Citizen Award”, ASSOCIATION OF WORLD CITIZENS NEWSLETTER, Fall 2004, p.1.

4. Ibid., p-2

5. Tri-Valley Committee Against Radioactive Environment (1999), Back from the Brink Aims to Reduce the Risk of Accidental Launch”, Press Release, http://www.trivalleycares.org/prnov99.htm

6. Boyle, Francis A., “The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence”, Nov. 14, 1997, https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/1997/11/14_boyle_criminality.htm

7. United Methodist General Conference Resolution: ” Saying No to Nuclear Deterrence”, 1998, http://www.bishops.umc.org/interior_print.asp?mid=1038

8. Starr, Steven “Catastrophic Climate Consequences of Nuclear Conflict, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation, Information Bulletin 28, 2008; To view a pdf version of the article, Google www.nucleardarkness.org

9. Schwartz, Stephen I. and Deepti Choubey, “How $52 Billion on Nuclear Security is Spent”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Fact Sheet, January 12, 2009.

10. Krieger, David, 2009-10 Action Plan, Nuclear Peace Foundation, https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/2009/06/17_krieger_action_plan.php

11. Program on International Policy Attitudes, “Survey Says: Americans Back Arms Control”, reported by the Arms Control Association, http://www.armscontrol.org/print/1580

12. U.S. Space Command, Vision for 2020, http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usspac/visbook.pdf

13. Nunn Sam, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, William Perry, ” A World Free of Nuclear Weapons”, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 8, 2007.

14. International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, a petition titled: ” Scientists for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World”, http://www.inesglobal.com/campaigns.phtml

Bill Wickersham is Adjunct Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia and a NAPF Peace Leader.

November 3, 2009
The Commitment to a Nuclear-Free World: A Historical Perspective

This article was originally published on the History News Network

Addressing a U.N. Security Council Summit on September 24, 2009, President Barack Obama observed that the resolution unanimously adopted by the Security Council earlier that day “enshrines our shared commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”

But the enthusiasm for this measure among the representatives of major nations should not obscure the fact that securing their commitment to a nuclear-free world was for years an uphill struggle—one that began, with some political sleight-of-hand, in a nuclear superpower, the Soviet Union.

Of course, for the first four decades of the Cold War, the Soviet government had spoken glibly about abolishing nuclear weapons. But it was never serious about this enterprise. Such talk was meant for propaganda purposes—to convince people of other nations that the Soviet Union was a peace-loving nation with their best interests at heart. In practical terms, about the most that could be hoped for from the Kremlin was a series of rather modest arms control agreements.

But, then, in March 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected Soviet party secretary. And Gorbachev was dead serious about nuclear disarmament. Faced with the “self-destruction of the human race,” he declared, it was time to “burn the black book of nuclear alchemy” and make the next century one “of life without fear of universal death.” The “nuclear era requires new thinking from everybody,” he argued and “the backbone of the new way of thinking is . . . humankind’s survival.” Gorbachev’s ideas and rhetoric clearly came from the tumultuous popular campaign against nuclear weapons that swept around the world during the early 1980s. As the Soviet leader put it: “The new thinking took into account and absorbed the conclusions and demands . . . of the public and the scientific community, of the movements of physicians, scientists and ecologists, and of various antiwar organizations.”

Gorbachev not only changed Soviet rhetoric, but Soviet policy. Shortly after taking office, he appointed sharp critics of the nuclear arms race as his key advisors on foreign and military affairs. In April 1985, he announced the cessation of the controversial SS-20 nuclear missile deployments in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. That July, he proclaimed a unilateral Soviet moratorium on nuclear testing and implored the U.S. government to join it. And by early 1986, the “new thinking” had produced a Soviet blueprint for a nuclear-free world. Announced by Gorbachev on January 15 of that year, it consisted of a three-stage plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons around the globe by the year 2000. Gorbachev recalled that it was not “another Soviet propaganda trick,” but a sincere effort to prevent nuclear war and create a peaceful world.

But how did Gorbachev manage to secure the acquiescence of Soviet hawks in this official commitment to a nuclear-free world? It’s an intriguing story. In the spring of 1985, Soviet military officials were worried that Gorbachev and his advisors were getting ready to offer serious concessions to the U.S. government in negotiations over the removal of intermediate range nuclear missiles from Europe. To head off such concessions, they suggested what they considered would a good combination of useful propaganda and a non-negotiable proposal: a nuclear-free world! Nikolai Detinov, an official in the Soviet Ministry of Defense who drafted the nuclear abolition proposal, recalled: “They could show, on the one hand, that the Soviet Union and its General Secretary were eager to eliminate nuclear weapons and, on the other . . . that they understood that such a declaration hardly could lead to any practical results . . . or affect . . . the ongoing negotiations.” But Gorbachev outsmarted them, for he used the military’s backing of nuclear abolition to legitimize the proposal and, then, to make it official government policy. Thus, Detinov recalled, “the real authors of this idea became entrapped by their own gambit.”

Things now moved rapidly forward. Sensitive to the strong public demand for nuclear disarmament, President Ronald Reagan responded eagerly to Gorbachev’s nuclear-free world proposal, asking: “Why wait until the end of the century for a world without nuclear weapons?” Although most national security officials in Washington and Moscow were horrified by the unexpected tilt toward nuclear abolition, Gorbachev and Reagan were considerably more enthusiastic. At the Reykjavik summit conference of October 1986, they came tantalizingly near a breakthrough on this score. And in the next two years, they did hammer out the basis for major nuclear disarmament agreements: the INF Treaty (1987); the START I Treaty (1991); and the START II Treaty (1993).

Today, when the call for a nuclear-free world has been revived by the nuclear powers, skeptics might wonder if it is merely another propaganda ploy. Are the warriors and would-be warriors ready to forgo their nuclear toys? Probably not. But clever politicians, particularly when pushed along by popular pressure, can sometimes use public commitments in unexpected ways. And this might be such a time.

Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).

October 28, 2009
President Obama and a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

A dialogue between David Krieger and Richard Falk

Krieger:      The last time that we got together to discuss nuclear weapons issues we were still in the final year of the Bush administration. Our dialogue focused on being at the nuclear precipice. We were reflecting on whether we were headed toward catastrophe or transformation. Now the Bush administration has left office, and been replaced by the Obama administration. President Obama has made a number of statements that reflect a different tone and a different set of objectives than were being pursued by the Bush administration. The question that I’d like to explore with you today is this: How seriously should we take the changes that are being proposed by the Obama administration? Do you see these proposals as a serious turning away from catastrophe toward transformation?

Falk:           I think that this is a much more hopeful time to consider these various issues bearing on nuclear weapons and, at the same time, it’s a rather confusing and complicated time. Of course it’s appropriate and accurate, I think, to welcome the kind of rhetorical leadership that President Obama has so far exhibited, particularly in his Prague speech of April 5th. One has to hope that this is more than a rhetorical posture, but represents, as he said in the speech it did, a serious commitment to take concrete steps toward the objective of a world free from nuclear weapons. But one has to look at two other factors here that make me, at any rate, somewhat less optimistic about the real tangible results.         The first is the continuing confrontation with Iran as a potential nuclear weapon state on the unspoken assumption that we still will be living in a world where some countries are allowed to have those weapons and others are forbidden. It would be a very different confrontation, from my perspective, if it was coupled with a call for a Middle East free from nuclear weapons altogether or a dual call to Israel and Iran that would take account of the existence of a nuclear weapon state in the region already. But as far as I can tell there is no disposition to do that.
A second concern, it seems to me, is the degree to which the bureaucratic roots of the nuclear weapons establishment are still very deep in the governmental structure and very dedicated, as near as I can tell, to pursuing a path that has some of President Obama’s rhetoric, but really aims at managing and stabilizing the nuclear weapons arsenals of the world and, particularly, the US arsenal. This would, in that sense, maintain this geopolitical structure of a world where some have the weapons and supposedly the great danger comes from the countries that don’t have the weapons. I find that an untenable and basically unacceptable conception of world order in relation to this challenge posed by the continued existence of nuclear weaponry.

Krieger:      You raise important concerns, and I think we should explore these. I’ve just returned from the 2009 Preparatory Committee Meeting for the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. One of the things that I took note of there was that many of the countries in the Middle East were drawing attention to the fact that when the Non-Proliferation Treaty was extended indefinitely in 1995, at the same time there was a pledge on the part of all the parties to the NPT to work for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone. And these countries in the Middle East are now saying that in their view the indefinite extension of the treaty was contingent upon fulfilling the other promises that were made at the time, including a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone. So I think that issue is going to have more and more salience because there are another dozen or so countries in the region that now want to pursue nuclear energy programs in their countries and are making reference to Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which calls for them to get assistance in doing so. With regard to nuclear weapons, the Middle East remains one of the more unsettled regions of the world.
I agree with you that it’s a significant problem that the United States and other leading countries in the world don’t make reference to Israel’s nuclear weapons, while at the same time trying to shut down Iran’s program. One way of interpreting what is going on with the new administration, with President Obama, is that he is saying the right things rhetorically to give the impression that the United States seeks a world free of nuclear weapons, but he is not yet prepared—and it’s a big yet—to make the difficult decisions that involve treating those we see as friends or potential foes with a single standard rather than a double standard. It is clear that if nonproliferation is an objective of the administration, it will not be obtained without doing away with double standards on the one hand and showing by action that the United States and other nuclear weapons states are serious about fulfilling their Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Article VI obligations of actually moving toward a nuclear weapons-free world within a reasonable timeframe.

Falk:           That is all very persuasive, but even in the Prague speech there’s no hint of concern about this double standards problem as I read the speech. At a time when the new prime minister of Israel is visiting the United States and there is a discussion of the future of the relationship between our two countries, they talk about Iran and they talk about the Palestinians, but there’s no willingness to raise the question of the regional nuclear weapons-free zone. Nor is there pressure for Israel to do something about its nuclear weapons arsenal if it expects the United States to exert pressure on Iran to forego that option. And from the point of view of the region, it’s perfectly tenable to view Israel as a greater threat than Iran. Israel has attacked its neighbors on a few occasions, it has kept these weapons, it has even put them at the ready apparently in the 1973 war, and yet it’s been given a kind of silent pass as far as retaining its nuclear weapons arsenal. So it’s an important issue and I believe that it’s our role in civil society to raise those uncomfortable issues that Congress is obviously unwilling to raise, the media is not very willing to discuss, much less press the issue of double standards or Israel’s exemption from scrutiny with respect to nuclear weaponry. Unless independent voices in civil society raise these issues effectively they won’t be raised at all in my opinion.

Krieger:      I agree with that. The question is: Should we be pushing for President Obama to call for a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East and for Israel to be a party to that zone? Is that where our efforts should be focused, or should they be focused on taking some large steps, such as negotiating a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Moscow? The United States and Russia have most of the nuclear weapons in the world, so that is where a good deal of progress could be made at this moment. Other issues have been stalled for the eight years of the Bush administration, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, gaining control of loose nuclear materials, and dealing with the potential threat posed by nuclear weapons falling into the hands of non-state extremists. There is space at this time for considerable progress on those issues before moving to some of the tougher issues. I would put a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone into that tougher issue category, and a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone as well, dealing with concerns in North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China. There are many practical questions, such as which issues should we be focusing on now, which ones can come later, as we actually move towards zero? There seems to be some momentum now, at least in comparison to what we’ve had for the Bush years and largely for the Clinton years as well.

Falk:           Yes, I think certainly there is a case to be made in favor of moving forward on these avenues of arms reduction and stabilization that have been blocked over a period when the conservatives controlled security policy for the US. But I’m convinced that unless the difficult issues are raised alongside these other issues, they will never be raised, and there is, I think, a quite serious urgency in the Middle East, to some extent in the Indo-Pakistan region, central and south Asia, as well as in the Korean peninsula that you referred to. And maybe one perspective to bring into the debate about next steps is to talk about these kinds of regional conflict zones, because they pose immediate problems that could lead to serious deterioration. There is the possibility that Pakistan could come under the control of very extremist leadership and that India would be very nervous by such a development, and one could have the first war between nuclear weapon states easily taking place. So I’m not convinced myself that these general denuclearizing steps should be privileged at this early stage of the Obama presidency. I think they should certainly be supported, but to allow them to dominate the political agenda at this stage is, in my view, a tactical as well as a strategic mistake.

Krieger:      In the Prague speech, President Obama talked about the importance of moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons, but he didn’t really indicate that it was something that needed to be done with a sense of urgency. He said something to this effect: “I’m not naïve; this may take a long time. It may not happen within my lifetime.” Surely there is cause for concern in that lack of urgency because it’s a deferral of the end state until some time in a future that can’t yet be foreseen. And that’s a similar point of view to what former officials like Kissinger, Shultz, Perry, Nunn and others are also articulating. They think that a world free of nuclear weapons would be a good thing, but they can’t see “the top of the mountain,” as they put it.

Falk:           I disagree with you a little bit there. I think there is a difference between the visionary approach embodied in Obama’s Prague speech and the very realist assessment of the status of nuclear weapons in the Kissinger, Shultz, Perry and Nunn statements. In their case, ironically, they see getting rid of nuclear weapons as a strategic benefit to the United States at this stage. They’re worried about the spread of nuclear weapons, which they don’t think can be contained by the present nonproliferation regime, and they further believe that any further proliferation will neutralize whatever benefits nuclear weapons have had up to this point in serving American security interests since the end of World War II. Kissinger initially made his career as a policy advisor on the basis of advocating the reliance on US military superiority when it comes to nuclear weapons in confronting the Soviet Union, even endorsing the Cold War idea of ‘limited nuclear war.’ I believe Kissinger hasn’t changed his worldview; he just sees, and I think probably correctly from a realist point of view, that the US military dominance would be less inhibited in a world without nuclear weapons.

Krieger:      And the United States would be less threatened in a world without nuclear weapons because of the power imbalance that nuclear weapons make possible?

Falk:           Yes.

Krieger:      I agree with you that they’re looking at nuclear disarmament from a realist point of view, and I think their greatest concern is that nuclear weapons could end up in the hands of extremist groups, which could lead to the destruction of United States’ cities, inflicting serious harm on the country.

Falk:           They’re also concerned about proliferation because they don’t want to see a lot of other countries having these nuclear weapons because then it would likely make the United States much more cautious in pursuing its overseas interests, especially when these involve military intervention. So it’s partly vulnerability, but it’s also partly military asymmetry that favors the United States that is at risk if further proliferation takes place.

Krieger:      But nonetheless, I don’t see that they have articulated or even suggested that this is something that can be done relatively quickly. Mayors for Peace have an agenda that calls for a nuclear weapons-free world by the year 2020. The Kissinger group only talks, at this point, about building a base camp to get to the top of the mountain. It has not talked about achieving the goal by a certain time, or even delving into that to look at what might be needed. Two things are needed if there is going to be a serious attempt to go from where we are now to zero nuclear weapons—whether driven by the former officials’ view of the world or by President Obama’s view of the world. The two things that are needed are: first, political will to go beyond a rhetorical commitment to actual action; and second, US leadership. Without US leadership the project is going to be stalled. If the US doesn’t lead, Russia won’t be particularly inclined to change its reliance on nuclear weapons more than it is being forced to do by economics, and other states won’t be pressed to move in that direction. So, I see the real starting point is the United States now moving from the rhetoric that Obama has put on the table to the actual steps that will move us closer to a nuclear weapons-free world, not only in numbers of weapons but in how we treat the weapons, how we view them in our strategic outlook, and how much we rely upon them militarily.

Falk:           Yes, I think those are certainly good ways of assessing the motivations associated with whatever steps are advocated by the United States in its natural position of leadership. I am a little bit less convinced that the US has this special vocation of providing the leadership. The most successful setting for real momentum toward the goal of elimination would be for mutually reinforcing developments to occur in the other nuclear weapon states, because that would both create a kind of encouragement here as well as not make others suspicious that this was a kind of US tactical, Kissinger-like move to shift the pieces on the global chess board so as to give the US a tighter grip on world politics. So I would put a lot of emphasis on engaging the other nuclear weapon states in a more global process of denuclearization. I think it would be very good, for instance, to have speeches by other leaders that responded in some way to the Obama Prague speech, and to have civil society alerted and mobilized to a much greater extent than it is at present in these other countries to see this as a moment of opportunity—stark opportunity. I think as long as the climate in civil society is as passive as I believe it still remains, even here, there will not be much significant progress toward zero. There will be some progress toward stabilization and management and reducing the risks of unintended use of nuclear weapons or perhaps making them more secure in relation to non-state actors and other essentially managerial initiatives.
I believe quite strongly that without a movement from below there will be no challenge to the nuclear weapons establishment that is well situated in the governmental structure that operates from above. I think President Obama’s political style is very much one of responding to pressure and not being willing to take big political risks to get out ahead of what he regards as the relation of forces within society. I think he’s shown that in everything he’s done so far, including his appointments to important positions, the way he has handled the economic crisis, the way he has handled the Palestine-Israel conflict. In all these areas he’s taken a very low-risk, low-profile strategy except rhetorically.

Krieger:      So that leaves us with an important question: Whether it’s possible to generate such a citizen movement around this issue? Of course, that’s the reason for being of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and we’ve struggled with generating such a movement for 27 years and continue to struggle with it. I sense that Obama’s rhetoric has made our job somewhat easier because it has alerted people to the possibility that there may be some hope. I think the years of Bush and to a lesser extent also Clinton before him, were on the side of the scale that tipped toward despair. When you tip toward despair of change, it’s very difficult to engage people in action. So now, with Obama, because of his rhetoric, we have a better chance to build a movement from below. But, as you know, it’s a difficult challenge to get people to directly confront nuclear issues and believe that they can have an effective voice in those issues. Even for civil society groups, like ours, that have been engaged for nearly three decades, it’s not so easy to believe that we can have a strong influence on policy, partly for the reasons you mentioned earlier having to do with the entrenched bureaucracy that surrounds this issue and seeks to maintain at least some level of superiority, if not dominance, with regard to maintaining the weapons.

Falk:           Yes, I think it is difficult, but unless that difficulty is overcome I think we have to guard ourselves against an orgy of wishful thinking because over this kind of issue it’s very difficult to achieve meaningful change unless there is a sufficiently altered climate of opinion in the society. Some of that has occurred, as you point out, but I think there’s a long way to go. It’s not an issue that currently is very high on the public’s agenda. There are other concerns that seem more immediate, and pressing, and in the past when the nuclear issue has become briefly prominent, the prominence has resulted from fear rather than hope. I don’t know how strong a political pillar hope is as the basis of change. I’m not sure about fear either, which evinces concern but not often any transformative actions. When one considers where and when change does occur and where and when it does not occur, it seems to me to be very dependent on some kind of significant mobilization of civil society that exerts pressure on the government and alters the way in which political officials in positions of responsibility understand and interpret these kinds of issues, and how they weigh the political consequences of their various policy options.

Krieger:      Ordinary people need to understand that this is an issue of self-interest for them to push forward. But the complexities of the issue are such that it’s very hard for ordinary citizens of the United States, and I’m sure of other countries, to make informed decisions about what’s in their interest regarding nuclear weapons. There are important psychological issues at play. One, and this is long-standing, is a mistaken sense that nuclear weapons actually protect people. This idea has been sold by the nuclear weapons bureaucracy fairly well, so that people really have to stop and think to grasp that these weapons don’t protect them. In fact, nuclear weapons make them and their families vulnerable to a counterattack if they happen to live in a country that has these weapons. The other side of that coin is that when somebody like Obama comes along and says that he wants to move toward a world free of nuclear weapons, and it’s profoundly in American’s interest and the world’s interest to do so, the people who already have the glimmer of understanding that nuclear weapons aren’t in their interest are immediately mollified. They have the sense that the problem is now taken care of because the president tells us that he sees the problem and he is going to do something about it. They think that we can check that problem off and move on to more immediate and pressing problems having to do with the economy, health care, and other issues that are more tangible.

Falk:           Yes, I think that’s a good way of describing the challenge and difficulty, and I think those of us that are involved in trying to make this rhetorical moment into a real political project are ourselves challenged to figure out what is the best way to do that. How do we take this rhetorical moment given to us by President Obama and in a different way by the Kissinger group, how do we make this into something that is more than rhetoric, that becomes a political project that envisions a real process that ends with the elimination of nuclear weapons? There’s no plausible reason that I understand why, if the project is meaningful at all, it needs to be treated as something that can only happen in the distant future. If it can happen at all, it can happen in a meaningful chronology that is well within the dimensions of a human generation, which allows for reliable verification of a disarming process, for confidence to be built and trust to be established, and for international institutions of inspection and verification to gain respect and experience. One way of testing the seriousness of the commitment to zero is to find, to concretize the process by which one moves from where we are to where we would like to be. As long as zero nuclear weapons remain purely an abstract goal, I’m very suspicious about the contribution of small steps taken to this goal, even if these steps are not so small from a stabilization perspective. Unless there is an influential roadmap to zero that has been adopted by political leaders and known to the public, I don’t believe these steps are likely to lead us toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Krieger:      I think a roadmap is a litmus test of whether a country is serious. If you say you want a world with no nuclear weapons, the logical next step is to figure out how we get from here to there. That’s been done by civil society groups. They’ve worked out a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty similar to the treaties banning chemical and biological weapons. I recently created a roadmap to satisfy my own curiosity about timeframes, and I think that a generous timeframe at the outer end would be somewhere around 17 years or perhaps 20 years. But, at the same time, with the proper political will and leadership, the elimination of nuclear weapons could be accomplished in a 10-year timeframe with far lower risks of cheating than currently exist. If there was a serious desire to move to zero nuclear weapons that was driven by an understanding that the people of any nation would be more secure in such a world, then I think it could happen relatively quickly. There would be adjustments that would be necessary, and it would open up a lot of discussion about changes in the international system so that some countries wouldn’t end up being bullied by those countries with the strongest conventional power. But you would end up, at a minimum, with an international system in which nuclear weapons would not continue to threaten the destruction of civilization, if not the species, and that seems like an intelligent starting point for moving this project forward.

Falk:           Yes, I think it is. It still raises the question of where an organization like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation should put its major emphasis: Whether it should be primarily developing a framework and support for the process of total nuclear disarmament, or it should be reinforcing and encouraging the support for the initial steps in a denuclearizing process that would hopefully build some sense of momentum that would carry forward beyond that? I feel that one needs some rather clear benchmarks that would give the Obama presidency both a kind of test of whether the goal of zero is merely rhetorical, or whether it was something that they are willing to fight for politically. That’s why I would put stress both on the roadmap as something to be endorsed and look toward an early and largely symbolic renunciation by the United States of discretion to use these weapons as instruments of statecraft. That’s why I feel the No First Use declaration by the U.S. would be an extremely significant affirmation of the claim that Obama is pursuing nuclear disarmament as well as reviving nuclear arms control. I think such a pledge would also encourage other nuclear weapon states to join us—if the US has made a firm commitment to not use these weapons as instruments of statecraft, but temporarily retained only as instruments kept available for ultimate survival purposes until the end point of a roadmap is achieved.

Krieger:      For the United States to commit publicly to limiting the use of its nuclear weapons under any circumstances to retaliation for a nuclear attack, that it was adopting a No First Use policy, would be a major step forward in demonstrating actual leadership toward diminishing the military importance of nuclear weapons. Once there’s been sufficient diminishment of the importance of the weapons in any country’s military doctrine, then it would seem to me that the next steps toward actual abolition would be much easier to take. China currently has a No First Use policy and it actually backs up that policy by not keeping its warheads attached to its delivery vehicles. It would have to put them together in order to use them. It has a declaratory policy that it will not under any circumstances use nuclear weapons first. India has made a statement similar to that. So, two of the nine nuclear weapon states have already taken this position. At one point, the former Soviet Union had that position as well, but when the United States refused to adopt that position and as the Soviet Union was losing conventional military power, it withdrew its No First Use pledge. It would be a significant area for leadership by the Obama administration to join China and India, and make a declaration of No First Use and urge others under our influence—which would include Britain, France, Israel and Pakistan—to adopt similar positions. I think that would be a landmark step from which a roadmap would certainly follow.

Falk:           But you have to ask the question, because it seems so persuasive, why hasn’t it been proposed? It’s a no-brainer from a moral, legal, and political perspective to insist that if you are genuinely dedicated to a world without nuclear weapons such a step should be taken. It also follows from the 1996 International Court of Justice advisory opinion. It follows from any kind of moral calculus of the role of nuclear weapons, recollecting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, giving a sense of what it means humanly to use these weapons, and even to contemplate and plan for their use. So the refusal and the failure to move toward such a declaration has to raise questions about whether this whole rhetoric that President Obama has deployed, whether wittingly or unwittingly, is really a blueprint for stabilizing the nuclear weapons arsenals of the world so as to avoid accidental and unintentional use or the diversion of these weapons to non-state actors. These may be, no doubt are, desirable goals, but they should not be confused with a project to get rid of the weapons altogether. Until we have more indication from the Obama administration that their substantive commitments go beyond arms control, we should mount pressure to reinforce our enthusiasm for his visionary rhetoric.

Krieger:      Another possibility is that President Obama doesn’t necessarily understand the implications of a first use policy. That may be an area he hasn’t considered to any serious extent because the issue of No First Use hasn’t come up in any of his statements. His administration has been more focused on bilateral engagement with Russia, strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty, gathering up loose nuclear materials, and preventing terrorists from getting nuclear weapons. But it seems to me within the realm of possibility that even an intelligent individual like President Obama hasn’t given serious consideration to what it means to have a policy that allows for first use. I think he may understand that a policy that allows for preemptive use is a bad policy, but I wonder whether he fully understands the implications of a first use policy.

Falk:           If this is a matter of oversight or ignorance, then it provides a good reason for anti-nuclear activists to convey a deeper understanding to the society as a whole and hopefully to the leadership in Washington. As I say, I think it’s a very good litmus test of what the real intentions are behind the advocacy of this new approach to nuclear weapons. The embrace of a No First Use posture would be, it seems to me, a very specific departure from past American policy on nuclear weapons, and it would be a very powerful signal to other nuclear weapon states the US doesn’t intend any longer to base its military planning on a nuclear weapons dimension. Until that is done, there is an inevitable ambiguity as to what the US is up to in trying to prevent its adversaries from getting these weapons, while sheltering its friends from criticism about possessing them and continuing to develop them. What does it mean to enter a positive relationship with India on nuclear technology, which seemingly rewards the country for becoming a nuclear weapon state in defiance of nonproliferation goals? Such developments confirm that, as far as nuclear weapons are concerned, geopolitics is alive and well, and as long as it is alive and well, I don’t think there’s been a real break or rupture with past American approaches to its nuclear weapons agenda, and if this is the case, then it is time for vigilance and criticism, not cheerleading.

Krieger:      Most of what you refer to and particularly the US-India agreement, for the United States to supply nuclear materials and technology to a known proliferator of nuclear weapons, occurred primarily under the Bush administration. So it’s too soon to tell whether that’s a policy that President Obama intends to follow.
I think we agree that a No First Use policy would be a strong signal to the world that the United States is serious about moving toward a nuclear weapons-free world. I think that we also agree that another signal would be for the United States to end its silence about Israel’s nuclear arsenal, and to be more proactive about a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone.

Falk:           A third point that I think is important is the serious commitment, either in collaboration with other governments or on our own, to develop a roadmap that sketched in a process that leads toward a world without nuclear weapons.

Krieger:      I was just moving to that. One of the actions that President Obama called for in his Prague speech was a Global Summit on Nuclear Security. When he called for that global summit, what he was saying was in essence that we want to prevent nuclear terrorism. If this Global Summit on Nuclear Security could be broadened, it could be a really valuable project. The United States has the convening power to bring together the nations of the world that would be needed, including the nine nuclear weapons states, for such a global summit. These states could actually look at the security issues related to nuclear weapons in all their dimensions, including the dimension of the existing nuclear weapons in the hands of the nine nuclear weapons states, and the potential for accidents, proliferation, and all of the other security issues that nuclear weapons pose. It could include nuclear policy issues, such as No First Use. It seems to me that if the Global Summit on Nuclear Security were broadened, that could actually be the place to initiate a joint effort at developing a roadmap on the way to a new treaty that would lead, with the appropriate confidence-building measures and assurances against cheating, to the phased, verifiable, irreversible, and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

Falk:           I suspect that there will be a lot of pressure to keep the global summit narrowly focused on the terrorist issue, making the argument that if the focus is diluted nothing will come out of the summit.
                              I think it’s important to bring into the discussion the role of the UN system and possibly regional groupings of states, as well as to look at what groups in civil society can do in relation to their own governments. One of the important achievements in the latter stages of the Cold War was the transnational peace movement in Europe, which had a very strong, positive effect on opposition politics in Eastern Europe and created a kind of collaboration that was often described as détente from below. A public climate of opposition was built through the mobilization of civil society that created a context able to take advantage of other opportunities for fundamental change. The most notable of these opportunities was presented by the new style of leadership in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. Important changes that were completely unanticipated began to take place. One has to try to think through the conditions under which a movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons can take shape and reinforce this kind of rhetorical initiative that President Obama has inserted into the whole dialogue on the role of nuclear weapons.

Krieger:      His rhetoric provides a point of focus for civil society, a point of focus that wasn’t there previously. The question I’m wrestling with is this: How can we make use of that point of focus, how can we take it as a serious commitment on his part and enlist civil society to stand up and support it with a strong enough voice that, even if it was more rhetoric than intention on the part of the administration, they won’t be able to back away from the expectations that they’ve engendered? But, still, we’re faced with questions of how do we more effectively encourage more people to engage in this issue: How do we awaken people to the importance of the issue and the need to engage? I think already at some basic level most people would agree that we would be better off in a world without nuclear weapons. Then the question is: How do we get those people to engage in doing something about that and not simply defering to leaders taking it in their own direction at their own pace? That would require a very proactive citizenry and a democracy that was really working. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was formed on the basis that democracy can work and, at its best, does work, and that people do awaken to issues of importance to themselves and don’t always act against their interests, but can find a way to act in their interests. I think our job continues to be to point out to more and more people and to create more and more enthusiasm for the idea that a world free of nuclear weapons is in the common interest of all Americans and all people of the world.

Falk:           Yes, I completely agree, but we have to acknowledge that the place where democracy seems to be least effective is in relation to the national security agenda, and that ineffectiveness has been reinforced now for by decades of an essentially militarist state having emerged out of first World War II and then the long decades of the Cold War and intensified after 9/11. In all these situations, what one has observed is a continuity of a governmental structure that is organized around the primacy of using military power in the world. Eisenhower, of course warned long ago, about the military-industrial complex in his farewell address, but that’s almost 50 years ago and we now spend as much as the whole world put together on our military budget. It’s an extraordinary thing. I mean Defense Secretary Gates was quoted recently as saying that the American navy is stronger than the navies of the next 13 powers in the world, but despite this disparity we must still make it even stronger. One needs to understand that a leader like Obama is faced with that enormous antidemocratic, militarized, bureaucratic structure and that he would probably receive a vicious backlash from this military establishment if he makes clear that his advocacy in favor of eliminating nuclear weapons is intended to become a real political project. At the same time, such a move would be very, very reinforcing for his leadership and for US leadership, but it would almost certainly involve a fierce struggle with the national security bureaucracy and its links to the media and to certain think tanks and so on. I think this entrenched militarism is a formidable obstacle astride the path to a nuclear free world. It’s not so much just that the public is ill-informed; it is a matter of a hidden, unaccountable power structure that does not want to make basic changes. Incremental changes are acceptable, but seeking basic cha`nges invariably arouses formidable bureaucratic resistance.

Krieger:      We’ve seen some examples of that in the aftermath of Obama’s Prague speech. There have been a number of opinion pieces that have taken the position that Obama is engaging in a fantasy, that his thoughts on a nuclear weapons-free world are an illusion, that there’s no possibility of achieving such a world, and that we should get back to reality as they see it. Their reality is based on the premises that we’re the dominant military power, we’ll continue to be so, and nuclear weapons are essential to that dominance. However, Obama’s rhetoric and his Prague speech seemed to be popular with a majority of Americans, if not with that bureaucratic elite. To succeed, what Obama probably needs to do is to enlist elements of the military in support of his position. That seems possible to me. Without knowing the players specifically, it seems to me that a military leader, as opposed to a civilian bureaucrat, would be less likely to think that nuclear weapons are useful as a matter of national defense to the United States.

Falk:           Yes, I hope so. We’ll have to wait and see whether this issue is sufficiently alive on his policy agenda to elicit this sort of more constructive response and to what degree he follows up on the Prague rhetoric with a renewal of that kind of rhetoric, and gives evidence of a serious intention to move toward implementation. We need to recall that there have been past well-intentioned attempts by American leaders to talk about getting rid of nuclear weapons in a serious way. Jimmy Carter did it at his Notre Dame speech. Very early in his presidency he said he would work every day of his administration to get rid of nuclear weapons, but the backlash from the national security establishment was so strong that he dropped the issue altogether, and even moved in the opposite direction by issuing Presidential Directive 59, a thinly disguised threat to use nuclear weapons if provoked by the Soviet Union in the Middle East. Of course, this was during the Cold War. And then Reagan, even Reagan, had the backlash experience after Reykjavik where he and Gorbachev seemed to have come very close to an agreement on getting rid entirely of strategic nuclear weapons. As soon as he returned to Washington he was savagely attacked as naïve about the role of nuclear weapons and their importance for national interests by bipartisan circles. So we have to see first, whether zero nuclear weapons is a policy priority and second, whether the assured backlash from places like The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere will be sufficiently intimidating. Perhaps even then Obama would not explicitly abandon the disarming goal, but would likely signal an intention not to challenge any further the nuclear weapons establishment.

Krieger:      Another signal may be what comes out of the US-Russia negotiations that have begun. The last agreement that Bush made in 2002, which is still being implemented, is to reduce the deployed strategic arsenals on both the US and Russian sides to between 1,700 and 2,200 nuclear weapons each. Under the Bush agreement with Putin, the strategic weapons that are taken off deployed status can either be put in storage – the core can be placed in storage – or they can be dismantled and destroyed. There’s no limit to the number of weapons that can be kept in reserve. The Bush-Putin treaty only dealt with deployed strategic weapons, so there’s no limit to the number that can be kept in reserve. Right now the US does have, as does Russia, a number of weapons awaiting dismantlement, but they also have a number of other weapons that are considered strategic reserve weapons. How to count remains an issue. Should there be one overall number—strategic, tactical and reserve—or should there be several numbers? Under the Bush plan, there was one upper limit specified (2,200), but only for deployed strategic weapons. Other numbers, for the overall arsenal, for instance, were unspecified and unknown. They were not subject to accounting. I think there should be one number of nuclear weapons, and it should be the same formula for each country. It should include reserves and deployed weapons.

Falk:           That seems to me essential to the credibility of any kind of disarming process in relation to other nuclear weapon states.

Krieger:      We don’t yet know how the new negotiations will handle the number, and we also don’t know if they’ll actually make any significant reduction below the current level that has been agreed to. There have been a number of people who have suggested that going down to 1,000 or less would be a good next step, but the numbers that I’ve heard referred to in relation to the Obama administration are around 1,500, which would be a rather minimal incremental step downward. I’m not sure how much emphasis to put on that kind of incrementalism, or even on the number itself, when in the bigger picture it is not the number that is critical as much as it is the demonstration of political will to achieve zero. At the same time, if it turns out that it’s not a very significant reduction, I think that may be a warning sign that the bureaucrats working on stabilization and wanting to continue American nuclear dominance are in more control than perhaps Obama is.

Falk:           That’s always a question as to how much leadership is possible in the national security domain of policy because of the strength of the permanent bureaucracy—its nonaccountability and its links to influential media. That’s why I feel it is so important to have this counter pressure mounted by a mobilized civil society to the extent possible. The question is whether it is possible to mobilize civil society around this kind of issue in the absence of existential fear of the sort that existed from time to time in the Cold War. When the American or European public became very scared about the prospect of a nuclear war, then the climate of opinion changed in favor of denuclearizing initiatives and visions.

Krieger:      But it was mobilized for lesser objectives. It was mobilized last for the nuclear freeze, and that was a minimalist demand. It was only to stop the increase in the size of arsenals. One thing that I do take heart from is that there is at least a discussion going on beyond civil society and into the level of former policymakers and, in Obama’s case, up to the presidency, talking about a world free of nuclear weapons as though it is a serious possibility. You mentioned Carter and Reagan as also taking it seriously at some level in their presidencies. In both cases the presidents appeared sincere in their desire and were stymied by the advisors and bureaucracies that surrounded them. If we had to make an informed guess at this point, it would be that there will be a serious attempt by the advisors and bureaucracies that surround Obama to limit his degrees of freedom in moving toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

Falk:           Do you think the Obama speech would have had more resonance if it had been given, let’s say, at the commencement at West Point or in the United States rather than at Prague?

Krieger:      That is a good question. It seems to me he chose Prague because he saw it as a global issue, and I think he saw it as an issue that would have resonance for people around the world. I suppose, though, that had he given that speech at the Air Force Academy, for example, it would have focused far more attention in the country on the speech and on his expressed desire to eliminate nuclear weapons. My guess is that cadets would have reacted quite favorably to it.

Falk:           That would have been very positive. Doesn’t that suggest that one objective of anti-nuclear activists should be to encourage some kind of follow-up speech here in the United States, preferably delivered in a national security venue. Such an undertaking would convey a seriousness of intention that went beyond making a rhetorical appeal to world public opinion. It would give more ground to believe that we have a president who is dedicated, as I believe Obama may be, to serve the global public interest, and not just a champion of American national interests.

Krieger:      The negotiators are acting right now on the US-Russian talks, so there is going to be a need for President Obama to speak to the public about those negotiations. When he speaks to the pubic about the progress that’s been made and that he hopes to see achieved in those negotiations toward a new treaty, he can also take that opportunity to reiterate that this is a step toward a nuclear weapons-free world and that it is only a step. As important as negotiations may be after these many years without them, we in this country need to view the progress as only a next step on the way to going to zero. I’d love to see him do that, and I’d love to see him do it in front of the cadets as well. I can’t think of a better audience for him than the Air Force Academy.

Falk:           There are a number of places where it would be more or less equivalent, but I think doing that in the United States, especially in a security-oriented venue, would be a very clear indication that this is a genuine and principal commitment of his presidency.

Krieger:      When you expand the conversation to look at the larger picture of US militarism, you have to also ask what is the relationship of nuclear weapons to the build-up now taking place in Afghanistan. I think that deserves some more thought and exploration. The other issue that I think deserves more thought and exploration is built into the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that is the promise of assistance in spreading so-called peaceful nuclear technology, particularly nuclear power plants, around the world. The question that comes up is whether that is compatible with actually moving to zero nuclear weapons; whether there is a means of oversight that could be implemented that would sufficiently control fissionable materials so that countries could feel assured that they could go to zero nuclear weapons without the risks of weapons proliferation stemming from nuclear power plants being too great.

Falk:           In order to do that convincingly, it would be necessary to begin treating equals equally. In other words, it is untenable to have some of the older nuclear states retaining this capacity to convert fissionable materials into weapons while insisting that other states are not entitled to develop a full nuclear fuel cycle.

Krieger:      I think it’s a given that, if we’re going to get anywhere with any of these major global issues related to nuclear weapons abolition, double standards need to be eliminated from the international system.

Falk:           But double standards are deeply embedded in the structure of the Nuclear Age.

Krieger:      Right. I think the greater problem in relation to nuclear energy is the intense desire of many countries around the world to proceed with development of nuclear energy, in part because they believe it shows a high level of technological achievement. They have bought-in to the promotional arguments that nuclear power will provide a country with its energy needs at a relatively low cost. I don’t think that’s a correct understanding, but it’s widespread. When I was at the 2009 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee meeting, I didn’t hear one country denounce the idea of the spread of nuclear energy technology, and most of them were continuing to enthusiastically embrace it.

Falk:           I think the oil squeeze with rising prices and the prospect of supply scarcities, as well as skepticism about the contribution of solar and wind energy, is making opposition to nuclear energy a losing battle. I don’t think you can stop the spread of nuclear energy capabilities. What can be done is to insist on a safeguarding and monitoring superstructure that makes diversion for military development much more difficult. Even this will be difficult to accomplish without reciprocating denuclearizing moves by the nuclear weapons states.

Krieger:      You absolutely have to stop the production and use of highly enriched uranium; convert existing stockpiles of highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium only for power plants; have safeguards that involve international challenge inspections; and control all fissionable materials, including any reprocessing of plutonium. It will be a major undertaking. It will make the job of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons harder by many degrees.

Falk:           Incredibly difficult, and it will be very difficult to get countries, like the US, to accept the same kind of regulatory standards that it would want to impose on others and without mutuality nothing very significant can be achieved.

Krieger:      We’re very accustomed to such double standards. But going back to Obama, he’s a `pretty good dad, and in that sense he must understand something about double standards. If he gets it at a basic level, maybe he will be able to apply it to global politics.

Falk:           He may get it at a level of equity and fairness, but he’s also a person that is very adept at the power game and he may conclude that unless he feels very strong counterpressure from peace groups, that the only way he can be effective as a leader is by adhering to this two-tier, double standard structure. It is built very deeply into the way in which world politics has been practiced for centuries, and especially in the Nuclear Age where membership in the nuclear club has operated as such a prime geopolitical status symbol.

Krieger:      I’d like to end on a positive note. Even should it prove that Obama’s statements are only rhetoric, which I don’t believe they are, he has raised the expectations of civil society and hopefully energized civil society to believe that there is a greater opportunity now than we’ve experienced in decades, perhaps ever, to end the nuclear weapons era. Hopefully these expectations will be transformed into a larger level of public support and a course of action on the part of the Obama administration that will prove to be irreversible.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and a Councilor on the World Future Council. Richard Falk is Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and the Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Falk and Krieger have written widely on nuclear dangers, and are co-editors of the book, At the Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

October 20, 2009
Nobel Laureates Call for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

“A world in which nuclear weapons are eliminated … is possible.”
–Ottawa, September 24, 2009.

In the wake of US President Obama’s call at the UN Security Council for greater commitment by nations towards disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, a group of 17 Nobel Laureates today issued a call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The group—which includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu, His Holiness The Dalai Lama, F.W. de Klerk, Shirin Ebadi, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire and John Hume—is calling for a comprehensive international ban on nuclear weapons.

The call notes that “nuclear weapons are indiscriminate and thus already illegal under international humanitarian law”. The Laureates are calling for a plan for “safe disarmament under effective international control”.

Here is the complete statement:

WHEREAS the nuclear age has unleashed unprecedented destructive force that can destroy our planet in an afternoon, as well as radioactive poison that will contaminate it for 250,000 years;

WHEREAS waste from every aspect of the nuclear fuel chain is a threat in all forms to the human gene pool and the sustainability of our environment;

WHEREAS nuclear weapons are indiscriminate and thus already illegal under international humanitarian law;

WHEREAS the 8 July 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons found that “there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control”;

WHEREAS the call for nuclear disarmament and a Nuclear Weapons Convention is growing, including from former military and political decision makers who once oversaw nuclear weapons policy; and

RECOGNIZING that while the linkage between nuclear power and the building of nuclear weapons is clear and a clear threat to security, nuclear energy is an issue that will likely be addressed in other frameworks;

WE CALL FOR:

A comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons: their development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, or use; and

A plan for the safe disarmament and disposal of all nuclear weapons under effective international control.

A world in which nuclear weapons are recognized as indiscriminate, illegal and immoral and thus rejected and eliminated is possible. Working together, we can make that vision a reality.

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize (1976)
Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize (1976)
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize (1980)
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize (1984)
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize (1986)
His Holiness The Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize (1989)
Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Nobel Peace Prize (1992)
F.W. de Klerk, Nobel Peace Prize (1993)
President José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize (1996)
Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize (1997)
John Hume, Nobel Peace Prize (1998)
Kim Dae-jung, Nobel Peace Prize (2000) *
Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize (2003)
Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize (2004)
Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize (2006)
~
Leon M. Lederman, Nobel Prize in Physics (1988)
Richard J. Roberts, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1993)
September 2009
* (President Kim Dae-jung signed onto this call some months before his passing.)

September 25, 2009
Two First Steps on Nuclear Weapons

This article was originally published by The New York Times

Yesterday, President Obama presided over the United Nations Security Council meeting that passed a resolution seeking to strengthen the international commitment to limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. A week ago, he announced that the United States will not deploy — at least, not in the foreseeable future — a missile defense site in Central Europe, including powerful radar in the Czech Republic and interceptor missiles in Poland.

Is there a link between the two events? I believe there is. Yet initial comments by many political figures and journalists have for the most part ignored this key relationship.

Instead, many are asserting that canceling the Eastern European missile defense was simply a concession to Russia, which must now reciprocate with a concession of its own. But President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia had already said last November that if the United States made changes to its missile defense plans, his nation would refrain from countermeasures like deploying its own missiles. Soon after President Obama’s decision was announced, this position was reaffirmed.

Many of President Obama’s critics in the United States insist that he “caved in” to Russian pressure, virtually leaving America’s NATO allies to fend for themselves. There is nothing behind this argument other than the old stereotype of “bad Russia,” a Russia that is always wrong.

Consider the merits of the case. Russia’s leaders have been saying for some time that the fear of Iran developing effective long-range missiles in the near future was not grounded in fact. Now, after a thorough review by intelligence and defense officials, the United States government has come to the same conclusion, holding that Tehran is perhaps at least five years or even a decade away from such capacity.

The initial reaction by some politicians and commentators in Poland and the Czech Republic is no less odd. They seem to enjoy the role of a spoiler in relations between other countries and Russia. Voices of realism and caution are routinely rejected, and the opinion of their own citizens, who by and large have no use for radars and missiles, is brushed aside.

In Russia, President Obama’s decision has been well received. It also met with support in Europe, with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France lauding it. The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, called it “a chance to strengthen European security.” Indeed, if the president’s decision is followed by further serious steps, it will provide an opportunity for us to strengthen global security as well as reach a new level of cooperation in ridding the world of nuclear danger.

At their meeting in Moscow in early July, Presidents Obama and Medvedev reaffirmed the relationship between strategic offensive weapons and missile defense. The two nations continue arms reduction talks and, judging by cautious diplomatic statements, they seem to be on course to complete them by Dec. 5, when the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty — which I signed with President George H. W. Bush in 1991 — is due to expire.

This week’s United Nations meeting marks the next stage of progress. It is vital that other nations come away from the meeting believing that America and Russia are moving toward verifiable nuclear arms reductions, and that by the time the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference is held at the United Nations next May, they will have made progress toward the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.

Unless they show the world they are serious, the two major nuclear powers will be accused, again and again, of not keeping their word and told that if it is acceptable for 5 or 10 countries to have nuclear weapons as their “ultimate security guarantee,” why should it not be the case for 20 or 30 others?

It is vital that the two presidents themselves monitor the negotiations closely, sometimes plunging into minute details. I know from experience how difficult it is to deal with such technical details on top of constant political pressures, but it is necessary to avoid misunderstandings that could undermine trust.

Some questions that will need to be clarified are evident now. The American secretary of defense, Robert Gates, has said that the SM-3 missiles that are to be used under the new missile-defense plan could later be perfected to intercept long-range intercontinental missiles. Yet he has also raised the possibility of cooperating with Russia on missile defense. To me, these two ideas seem incompatible. The sooner such issues are cleared up the better.

As I see it, there is only one way to move forward: Washington should agree to the Russian proposal for a joint assessment of missile threats. Let the experts from both countries have a frank discussion that would reveal which threats are real and must be dealt with, and which are imaginary. This would help to avoid misguided projects like the Polish-Czech missile shield, and could help move us from a state of mutual deterrence to a goal of minimum nuclear sufficiency for self-defense.

This is a big agenda. Realistically, it would take two or three years of intense negotiation. But Russia and the United States must set big tasks for themselves. What is needed is nothing less than a change in the strategic relationship between the two major nuclear powers — in their own interests and in the cause of world peace.

Mikhail Gorbachev is the former president of the Soviet Union.

September 25, 2009
Statement of Hope in a Year of Opportunity: Seeking a Nuclear Weapon-Free World
This statement was adopted by the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches on September 1, 2009

The production and deployment as well as the use of nuclear weapons are a crime against humanity and must be condemned on ethical and theological grounds.” -William Thompson, Presbyterian Church USA, Vancouver Assembly, 1983
1. The international community is in a season of hope. Eminent world and national figures now advocate for a world without nuclear weapons, reversing longstanding policies. Global majorities for nuclear disarmament are astir in cities, parliaments, the sciences and religions. President Barack Obama has acknowledged that, as the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons in war, the United States must lead in their elimination. The 65-nation United Nations (UN) Conference on Disarmament has adopted a program of work after a dozen years of political and procedural stalemate. Africa has brought its 1996 nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ) treaty into force and, with it, nuclear weapons are banned from a majority of the world’s countries for the first time. These positive developments must be encouraged and deepened.
2. Seven decades into the nuclear age, the onus for international peace bears down ever harder on the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Their possession of nuclear weapons is fundamentally incompatible with their privileged responsibility for international peace and security. The 183 non-nuclear-weapon states still await the five nuclear states to fulfil the pledge to eliminate their nuclear weapons.
3. Meanwhile, nuclear forces remain on high alert, nuclear know-how, technology and materials are accessible to diverse groups, more nuclear power plants cause increased security and pollution problems, militaries routinely break norms on the use of force and the protection of civilians, and progress toward global public goods is pre-empted by national sovereignty. India, Pakistan, Israel, and, in all likelihood, North Korea possess nuclear weapons outside the treaty. The time to act is now.
4. It is essential for the international community to face up to this great challenge together and to take advantage of a number of promising opportunities that the coming year presents. Churches, international civil society groups, and a world public will be watching governments for convincing evidence of progress, while taking responsibility for action and advocacy themselves. The focus for participation and concern includes:
- International Day of Peace, 21 September 2009 – The UN-sponsored day merits wide observance. This year it comes with 100 reasons to disarm and builds on the UN secretary general’s Five Point Proposal for nuclear disarmament.
- International Day of Prayer for Peace, 21 September 2009 – In an agreement with the UN, and as part of the Decade to Overcome Violence, the World Council of Churches (WCC) invites member churches worldwide to make this an annual day of prayer for peace.
- US president chairs UN Security Council, 24 September 2009 – A special disarmament session for heads of state chaired by President Obama presents a unique opportunity for the Council’s permanent members to acknowledge the essential link between nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. A collective commitment to far greater transparency in reporting on their nuclear arsenals would be a welcome first step in turning today’s inspiring disarmament rhetoric into action. Transparency is feasible, indispensable and long overdue.
- UN General Assembly and its First Committee, September-October 2009 – With the spectre of renewed stalemate arising again at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, remedial action at the General Assembly in New York may be needed. If the CD cannot negotiate a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty now, as it has agreed, it may be necessary for the UN General Assembly and First Committee to charge another appropriate body with the task.
- Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) renewal, 5 December 2009 – The US and Russia have added hope to this year of opportunity by commencing negotiations. It is urgent that START II sets the target for weapons reductions at the lowest stated level, namely 1,500 nuclear warheads each.
- African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone – We salute the African states that have ratified the Treaty of Pelindaba and brought it into force, most recently Burundi, Malawi, Mozambique and Ethiopia. We welcome Namibia’s progress in this regard and urge completion of all remaining ratifications. We ask that Russia and the US join China, Britain and France in ratifying the treaty protocols that give Africa added protections. Africa’s success demonstrates the new leadership of a 116-country world majority in protecting national territory from nuclear dangers. The Southern Hemisphere and much of the global South thus send an urgent signal to the nuclear-dominated north.
- Meeting of nuclear-weapon-free zones, April 2010 – An important political and geographic majority will gather prior to the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. Its agenda is likely to include confidence-building measures these zones can undertake, particularly in areas of tension including the Middle East and northeast Asia. Representatives from civil societies, including churches, will be present. States that have established NWFZs will seek to consolidate their strength around practical measures. These include accessions to existing treaties, security protocols with nuclear weapon states, and expert groups to address key issues for future NWFZs.
- Conclusion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) security policy review, 2010 – The WCC, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the US, the Canadian Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches have called upon NATO to abandon the notion that nuclear weapons preserve peace, and to take full advantage of the current political momentum to eliminate its reliance on nuclear arms, including the removal of foreign nuclear weapons based in five NATO member countries. The recent joint letter to NATO leaders stated that “security must be sought through constructive engagement with neighbours and that authentic security is found in affirming and enhancing human interdependence in God’s one creation”.
- NPT Review Conference, 2010 – By this much-anticipated mid-year meeting, the nuclear-weapon states must have made agreements that confirm their good faith commitment to fulfil more of their disarmament obligations. At minimum, this will include entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, consensus on an advanced draft of the Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, and agreement on the transparency measures mentioned above. It will also require clear commitment to progress in the next cycle of the NPT including a plan to begin intensive work on a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
The international community stands before a year of opportunity. The central committee of the WCC, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, 26 August – 2 September 2009:

A. Encourages governments and other parties involved to look to this year of disarmament opportunities with urgency and hope.

B. Challenges the nuclear-weapon states to fulfil their “unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament” (2000 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference).

C. Invites churches to support their governments in making whole regions of the world safer from nuclear weapons through the establishment and strengthening of nuclear weapon free zones.

D. Calls upon member churches to declare to their national leaders, “Transform opportunity into action. Signal your intentions to the global majority who want the elimination of nuclear weapons, and supply the proof of progress. Let a year of cooperation reverse a decade of nuclear deadlock. Reject weapons that should never have been made and that must never be used. Begin now to fulfil the international treaty promise to free the world from nuclear weapons. Put a deadline on this obligation to us all.”

Prayer

The following prayer is offered as a resource to enable the churches’ engagement with the issue articulated above:

God of all times and seasons, You have presented us with a season of hope and a time of opportunity for a nuclear-weapon-free world. May we not squander this opportunity but find ways of working together to make a difference for the whole global family.

Fill us with the vision of your kingdom, where the lion lies down with the lamb, and weapons are turned into farming tools. Empower us to declare that authentic security is found in enhancing our human interdependence in your one creation. Enable us to live this declaration in our relationships with neighbors, near and far and to you be all glory and praise, now and forever.
September 4, 2009
President Obama Needs Friends on Nuclear Weapons

This article was originally published by Embassy Magazine

When President Barack Obama chairs a summit of the UN Security Council Sept. 24 on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, a new and exciting moment will have arrived in the long struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons. This unprecedented event gives Canada a rare political opportunity to obtain several political goals with one stroke.

We must understand how high the stakes are in this new round of the nuclear poker game. Unlike his predecessors, President Obama has moved nuclear disarmament to the centre of US foreign policy. He said in his Prague speech in April that he has a “commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” He has re-launched nuclear negotiations with Russia, stated that he will “aggressively pursue” US ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), started work on a verifiable fissile material ban, and announced he will host a global summit on nuclear security next spring.

All this will prepare the US for a leadership role at the 2010 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, preparations for which have already been energized by the stunning U-turn in US nuclear diplomacy. From being the biggest obstacle to nuclear disarmament, the US, under Obama, is poised to become a vigorous proponent.

The nuclear weapons abolition movement sees news rays of hope.

But wait a minute. A landmine is waiting to trip up Obama. The nuclear defenders, led by the military-industrial complex and their Congressional spokespersons, are by no means succumbing to the aspirations of their president. They are determined that the US maintain what they call a “safe, secure, effective and reliable nuclear deterrent.”

Former US defense secretary Jim Schlesinger is trying to frame the all-important US Nuclear Posture Review, now being brought up to date, around the concept of “extended deterrence.” The US, it is argued, needs an effective, if smaller, nuclear arsenal to counter a nuclear threat anywhere.

This means that the US would keep its nuclear weapons to protect not only itself but its allies who do not possess nuclear weapons. In other words, so the argument goes, the US would be weakening itself and also letting down its friends if it gave up its nuclear weapons. If Schlesinger & Co. can get “extended deterrence” written into the new Nuclear Posture Review, scheduled for publication in December, this will stop Obama cold in his quest for a nuclear weapons-free world.

The nuclear defenders have already signalled that they will not oppose US ratification of the CTBT if they get “extended deterrence” codified. This will allow them to modernize US nuclear arsenals indefinitely through lab work rather than explosive testing. They think this “carrot”—CTBT ratification—will be enough to get the US safely through the 2010 NPT Review.

A huge fight is looming because Obama knows he cannot be left in an incoherent position: calling for a nuclear weapons-free world while the US modernizes its nuclear arsenal on the supposed grounds that it must do so to protect its allies. This is but a perpetuation of the two-class nuclear world and is completely unsustainable in the 21st century.

There is only one way to prevent North Korea and Iran and any other aspiring nuclear state from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that is through a global, verifiable ban on all nuclear weapons. Putin of Russia and Singh of India, to name just two of the other leaders of nuclear powers, understand this and are ready to move to comprehensive negotiations toward a global ban. In Obama, we see for the first time the abolition of nuclear weapons moving from aspiration to the strategic centre.

This final dismantling of the Cold War architecture will be a Herculean task. Fearmongers who pretend nuclear weapons bring security will shout from the rooftops. Though such former US officials as Henry Kissinger and George Schultz have given their support to the abolition of nuclear weapons, they have been countered by others, such as Richard Perle and Sen. John Kyle, who are urging the US to keep nuclear weapons “for the foreseeable future.”

In short, Obama, no matter how well motivated, cannot bring us to a nuclear weapons-free world alone. In addition to powerful domestic support, he needs strong international backing. The countries that are friends of the US—those very states that are said to be depending on the US nuclear umbrella—now need to speak up and blow away the phony “extended deterrence” argument. This brings us to Canada.

A nuclear weapons-free world has always been a value and a goal of Canada. We have been prevented from fully exercising that value because of the need to support the US, which until now has always wanted to maintain its nuclear stocks. Suddenly, the Obama moment gives Canada an opening to demonstrate its seriousness in nuclear disarmament.

The Harper government must be urged to recognize the importance of this moment. Sadly, the government seems tongue-tied. There is no program of work, no clear-cut statements from political leaders, and indeed the last round of UN voting showed Canada clinging to negative votes on time-bound measures for nuclear disarmament.

To me, this is politically incomprehensible. This is the very moment that Canada should be openly and loudly supporting the president of the United States (a posture that otherwise Canadians are accustomed to). Obama desperately needs the help of his friends. Let us give it to him. When Harper meets with Obama on Sept. 16 in Washington, the Canadian leader should put this support high on the agenda.

There’s plenty of support in Canada for the prime minister to move: 280 recipients of the Order of Canada have called for international negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which would be a verifiable treaty on the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons; four major peace groups (Canadian Pugwash, Science for Peace, Physicians for Global Survival and Voice of Women) are planning a “Zero Nuclear Weapons” forum at Toronto City Hall Nov. 13-14 where the keynote speaker will be the pre-eminent author Jonathan Schell; the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is scheduling a major meeting in Ottawa in January.

Besides this public support, there are a couple of other political points the government might consider. If Canada wants to reject any overtures from the US and NATO to extend our combat role in Afghanistan beyond 2011, how better to match this rejection than with whole-hearted support for Obama’s nuclear disarmament plans. And then there’s the matter of Canada wanting a seat on the UN Security Council. Would there be a better demonstration of our sense of international responsibility than playing a serious role with Obama and other like-minded states in working actively to make a reality the vision of a world without nuclear weapons? In politics, that’s called win-win.

Douglas Roche is a former senator and Canadian ambassador for disarmament. He is chairman emeritus of the Middle Powers Initiative.

August 24, 2009
The Hawkish Case for Nuclear Disarmament

This article was originally published by the Los Angeles Times

Last week, peace activists around the world commemorated the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, arguing that nuclear weapons should be abolished so that such destruction will never be repeated. Their call for peace through disarmament has traditionally been a rallying cry of the left. In fact, the peace sign, that ultimate icon of 1960s war protests, is actually a rendering of the semaphoric symbols for the letters “N” and “D”: “Nuclear Disarmament.”
Conservatives, by contrast, have put their faith in “peace through strength,” an ancient notion made fresh during the Cold War by Ronald Reagan. Which is why, in April, when President Obama outlined his vision of a world without nuclear weapons, the right reacted with incredulity, as if he had suggested pacifying the Taliban with a group hug. Newt Gingrich, for one, called the president’s disarmament speech a “fantasy.”
As the president moves to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal in concert with Russia’s and implement new arms control measures, the allegedly foolish goal of disarmament has become an obvious target for hawks hoping to undermine the president’s agenda. But if the abolition of nuclear weapons is a fantasy, it’s one that ought to excite the country’s hawks as much as its doves.
Traditionally, military power was measured in relative, not absolute, terms, meaning that your security was a function not of how many weapons you had, but of how many more you had than your enemy. The advent of nuclear weapons skewed that calculation. Because it would take only a few nuclear weapons to destroy a civilization, the atomic bomb became an equalizer for Davids confronting Goliath-sized enemies.
During the Cold War, one could argue that that dynamic helped the U.S. because Warsaw Pact forces outnumbered NATO’s. But today, with the specter of rogue-state nuclear programs, it’s more likely that we are the ones who would be deterred. For example, would we have waged Operation Desert Storm (let alone Operation Iraqi Freedom) if Saddam Hussein had been able to strike New York or Washington with a nuclear weapon? Probably not. Our half-trillion-dollar-a-year military can, in essence, be defanged by any dictator with a handful of A-bombs.
That is a remarkable waste of America’s incredible conventional superiority. Our fleet of stealth fighters and bombers can establish air dominance in virtually any scenario, allowing us to obliterate an adversary’s military infrastructure at will. At sea, our fleet is larger than the next 17 navies combined and includes 11 carrier battle groups that can project power around the globe. (By contrast, few of our potential adversaries field even a single carrier.) All in all, the U.S. accounts for just shy of half the world’s defense spending, more than the next 45 nations combined. That’s six times more than China, 10 times more than Russia and nearly 100 times more than Iran.

Yet despite potential flash points with nations such as Russia (over Georgia) or China (over Taiwan), it would be lunacy to engage in combat with either because of the risk of escalation to a nuclear conflict. Abolishing nuclear weapons would obviously not make conflict with those states a good idea, but it would dramatically increase American freedom of action in a crisis. That should make hawks, with their strong faith in the efficacy of American military power, very happy. Indeed, if anyone opposes disarmament, it should be our rivals.
American conservatives cling to our arsenal as though it gives us great sway over foreign countries. Yet when our conventional power has proved insufficient, nukes have done little to augment our influence abroad.
In the early years of the Cold War, when we had a nuclear monopoly, the Soviet Union reneged on promises made at Yalta and solidified its control over Eastern Europe. In 1949, despite our assistance to the Kuomintang, the Chinese Communists took over the mainland and formed the People’s Republic, and the following year they stormed across the Yalu River and into the Korean War even though our atomic arsenal could have wiped out their cities as easily as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Years later, the bomb did nothing to prevent, shorten or decide the Vietnam War. And, of course, nukes have provided no assistance in stabilizing Iraq or Afghanistan. Today, they threaten us far more than they protect us: Nuclear terrorism is the greatest threat we face, but our own nuclear arsenal cannot protect us from an attack.
Nuclear weapons do deter states from attacking us with nuclear weapons — and few would suggest that we unilaterally give up our arsenal while others retain theirs. But, oddly, it is here that conservatives seem to doubt the utility of nuclear weapons more than their counterparts on the left. Whereas many liberals and realists believe that Iran could be deterred if it built the bomb, conservatives are far less sanguine, insisting that a nuclear Tehran is an unacceptable threat. They too understand that the U.S. arsenal is no guarantor of security, and that even a handful of nuclear weapons in enemy hands threatens to neuter our conventional advantage.
Of course, we’re a long way from disarmament. But, today, beyond the small number of weapons each nuclear state can justify as a credible deterrent, every additional weapon represents only a greater risk — of theft, accident or unauthorized use. Which is why the president’s efforts to reduce the U.S. and Russian arsenals, ban nuclear testing and prevent the further production of fissile material are so valuable. Each of these measures will help protect the U.S., and if they bring us closer to disarmament, then that is a cause for celebration by hawks and doves alike.

Peter Scoblic is executive editor of the New Republic and author of “U.S. vs. Them: Conservatism in the Age of Nuclear Terror.”

August 20, 2009
In the Shadow of Hiroshima

On 6 August 1945, in total disregard of the basic tenets of science and civilization, the first Atom Bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, which created a new war paradigm: destroy an entire city. On 9 August, the second atom bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki. The sole purpose of creating the nuclear war science was to destroy and dominate other human beings. The law of war was, for 5000 years human history, not to attack unarmed civilians. Women, children, the sick and wounded were always protected. There were thousands of wounded war victims and the sick in Hiroshima and Nagasaki hospitals. Tens of thousands of unarmed citizens irrespective of gender, class, race, region and religion were killed instantly. This law of warfare was violated by a technically advanced nation that claimed, “In God We Trust” and swore by the Christian morality.

Today, in spite of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there are about 26,000 nuclear warheads mostly in the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia. Also, there are up to 2,000,000 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). It takes just 15-24 kilograms of HEU to make a nuclear bomb. There are 28 countries with the capacity to build at least one bomb and 12 countries with the capacity to make 20 bombs. Moreover, all “peaceful” nuclear power reactors add to ‘spent’ fuel which can be reprocessed to produce weapons grade plutonium. According to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, some 500,000 kilograms of plutonium is presently in global stockpiles. This is a threat to world peace and security.

The dilemma of our Nuclear Age is that while “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself,” according to George Bernard Shaw. Today, we recall the heroic act of Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov who was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for his opposition to nuclear weapons. But it was his whistle blowing against the nuclear arms race that guided Mikhail Gorbachev to bring the Cold War to an end. Dr. Sakharov had challenged the power of the state in the cause of world peace. In the history of science, the role of Sakharov proved decisive in defending human rights and civilization.

My country, India, is committed to a No First Use doctrine, but that does not prevent some reckless enemy or terrorist from striking first with a nuclear bomb. Pakistan’s nuclear program is India-specific and there is possibility of a Pakistani bomb falling in the hands of jihadis. Therefore, the Indian establishment considered it prudent to go for a “credible nuclear deterrence policy,” which intends to survive an initial atomic attack and be ready for an overwhelming retaliatory nuclear strike. Our credible nuclear deterrence is in place with the “specialized forces to tackle nuclear threat in all its dimensions”. But Indian Parliament has not debated the nuclear policy. Nor has there been any national debate, or any popular anti-nuclear campaign in the country. The patriotism of any whistleblower is questioned and no scientist can speak the truth.

But by building the credible nuclear deterrence, we are repeating the folly of the Cold War pundits who in 1950s regarded nuclear weapons as the currency of power. By 1985, Moscow and Washington both had stockpiled 50,000 nuclear warheads with total Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) capability ten times over. However, by the 80s, concerned scientists established the Nuclear Nights and Nuclear Winter paradigm, declaring that “a nuclear war cannot be fought, nor can it be won.” But the Nuclear Non-Proliferation policy posed a complex and costly problem of decommissioning and safe keeping of thousands of useless but life-threatening nuclear warheads.

Historically, Hiroshima remains a sad reminder of misuse of science. Science became identified with death and destruction. “We, scientists, have a great deal to answer for,” lamented Nobel Peace Prize recipient the late Joseph Rotblat. It is also a sad reality that the most civilized citizens around the globe still support the nuclear arms race. Admittedly, the scientists’ fraternity cannot live in isolation free from chauvinistic effects when the public and the political leaders think of nuclear weapons in terms of old warfare. But nuclear weapons have the potential of total destruction of all nations. As David Krieger of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation rightly says, “One bomb could destroy one city. A few bombs could destroy a country and a few (more) dozen nuclear bombs could reduce civilization to total ruins.” In a nuclear war there will be no victor, no vanquished.

On this day of Hiroshima and Nagasaki let us remind ourselves that nuclear weapons are not selectively discriminatory. In fact, they are inclusively destructive to all –life irrespective of gender, caste, creed, race, region or religion. Still the mad nuclear arms race is high on the agenda of most super-patriots and religious fanatics. Concerned scientists have, therefore, appealed to the political leaders and governments of all colors and creed to give up the nuclear weapons.

This Hiroshima day, we welcome the news that the U.S. President Barack Obama and the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have signed an agreement to further reduce the stockpiles of nuclear warheads. President Obama is expected to support the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and strengthening the United Nations.
It was George Santayana, the philosopher who said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” On this Hiroshima Day, we call upon the leaders of India, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea to desist the nuclear temptation. We also appeal to the Indian Parliament to declare the entire South Asian sub-continent a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.

Professor Dhirendra Sharma is author of India’s Nuclear Estate and Convener of Concerned Scientists and Philosophers.

August 6, 2009
My Plan to Drop the Bomb

The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 marked an end and a beginning. The close of the Second World War ushered in a Cold War, with a precarious peace based on the threat of mutually assured destruction.
Today the world is at another turning point. The assumption that nuclear weapons are indispensable to keeping the peace is crumbling. Disarmament is back on the global agenda – and not a moment too soon. A groundswell of new international initiatives will soon emerge to move this agenda forward.
The Cold War’s end, twenty years ago this autumn, was supposed to provide a peace dividend. Instead, we find ourselves still facing serious nuclear threats. Some stem from the persistence of more than 20,000 nuclear weapons and the contagious doctrine of nuclear deterrence. Others relate to nuclear tests—more than a dozen in the post-Cold War era, aggravated by the constant testing of long-range missiles. Still others arise from concerns that more countries or even terrorists might be seeking the bomb.
For decades, we believed that the terrible effects of nuclear weapons would be sufficient to prevent their use. The superpowers were likened to a pair of scorpions in a bottle, each knowing a first strike would be suicidal. Today’s expanding nest of scorpions, however, means that no one is safe. The Presidents of the Russian Federation and the United States—holders of the largest nuclear arsenals—recognize this. They have endorsed the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, most recently at their Moscow summit, and are seeking new reductions.
Many efforts are underway worldwide to achieve this goal. Earlier this year, the 65-member Conference on Disarmament—the forum that produces multilateral disarmament treaties—broke a deadlock and agreed to negotiations on a fissile material treaty. Other issues it will discuss include nuclear disarmament and security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states.
In addition, Australia and Japan have launched a major international commission on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. My own multimedia “WMD—WeMustDisarm!” campaign, which will culminate on the International Day of Peace (21 September), will reinforce growing calls for disarmament by former statesmen and grassroots campaigns, such as “Global Zero.” These calls will get a further boost in September when civil society groups gather in Mexico City for a UN-sponsored conference on disarmament and development.
Though the UN has been working on disarmament since 1946, two treaties negotiated under UN auspices are now commanding the world’s attention. Also in September, countries that have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will meet at the UN to consider ways to promote its early entry into force. North Korea’s nuclear tests, its missile launches and its threats of further provocation lend new urgency to this cause.
Next May, the UN will also host a major five-year review conference involving the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which will examine the state of the treaty’s “grand bargain” of disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. If the CTBT can enter into force, and if the NPT review conference makes progress, the world would be off to a good start on its journey to a world free of nuclear weapons.
My own five-point plan to achieve this goal begins with a call for the NPT Parties to pursue negotiations in good faith—as required by the treaty—on nuclear disarmament, either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification. Disarmament must be reliably verified.
Second, I urged the Security Council to consider other ways to strengthen security in the disarmament process, and to assure non-nuclear-weapon states against nuclear weapons threats. I proposed to the Council that it convene a summit on nuclear disarmament, and I urged non-NPT states to freeze their own weapon capabilities and make their own disarmament commitments. Disarmament must enhance security.
My third proposal relates to the rule of law. Universal membership in multilateral treaties is key, as are regional nuclear-weapon-free zones and a new treaty on fissile materials. President Barack Obama’s support for US ratification of the CTBT is welcome — the treaty only needs a few more ratifications to enter into force. Disarmament must be rooted in legal obligations.
My fourth point addresses accountability and transparency. Countries with nuclear weapons should publish more information about what they are doing to fulfill their disarmament commitments. While most of these countries have revealed some details about their weapons programs, we still do not know how many nuclear weapons exist worldwide. The UN Secretariat could serve as a repository for such data. Disarmament must be visible to the public.
Finally, I am urging progress in eliminating other weapons of mass destruction and limiting missiles, space weapons and conventional arms — all of which are needed for a nuclear-weapon-free world. Disarmament must anticipate emerging dangers from other weapons.
This, then, is my plan to drop the bomb. Global security challenges are serious enough without the risks from nuclear weapons or their acquisition by additional states or non-state actors. Of course, strategic stability, trust among nations, and the settlement of regional conflicts would all help to advance the process of disarmament. Yet disarmament has its own contributions to make in serving these goals and should not be postponed.
It will restore hope for a more peaceful, secure and prosperous future. It deserves everybody’s support.

Ban Ki-moon is Secretary-General of the United Nations.

August 3, 2009