Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear disarmament

  • Tadatoshi Akiba to Take Up Duties as MPI Chairman in October

    Tadatoshi Akiba

    The former Mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, who recently was named Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, will take up his duties in October 2012.  His first major task is to plan the next meeting of the MPI Framework Forum, which will be held in Berlin in early 2013.

    As President of Mayors for Peace, Professor Akiba developed a network of 5,300 mayors in 153 countries and regions who united in calling for negotiations to start on a nuclear weapons convention. He was Mayor of Hiroshima from 1999 until 2011.  He started his professional career as a mathematics professor in New York before being elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in 1990. David Krieger, Chairman of MPI’s Executive Committee, hailed Akiba, one of the world’s foremost campaigners for the abolition of nuclear weapons, as “an internationally respected leader for his stewardship of Mayors for Peace.”

    Founded in 1998 by eight prominent nuclear disarmament organizations, MPI works with influential middle power countries to bridge the political divide between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states, and to advance practical proposals for nuclear disarmament. Akiba will direct MPI’s work, which consists of delegations to capitals, publishing briefs on nuclear disarmament, and organizing and facilitating informal government consultations.

    Since 2005, MPI has brought governments together in informal Article VI Forum consultations to forge an agreed pathway to a nuclear weapons-free world, based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Article VI obligation to achieve nuclear disarmament. MPI has started a new series of consultations, called the “Framework Forum,” for interested governments to start preparatory work leading to negotiations for a global ban on nuclear weapons.

    In addition to being a leading international voice for peace and nuclear disarmament, Akiba championed environmental protection and government transparency.  For his dedication to a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world, he has received many honors, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award (often considered Asia’s Nobel Prize), the Sean MacBride Peace Prize from the International Peace Bureau, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

    Senator Douglas Roche, founding Chairman of MPI, welcomed the appointment of Akiba: “With his deep knowledge of nuclear disarmament issues, unending commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons, immense personal prestige, and outstanding international reputation, Tad Akiba will lift up MPI and make it an even more effective instrument helping to produce a nuclear weapons-free world.”

    MPI’s co-sponsors include: Albert Schweitzer Institute, Global Security Institute, International Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation, International Peace Bureau, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

  • Do Nuclear Weapons Really Deter Aggression?

    Lawrence WittnerIt’s often said that nuclear weapons have protected nations from military attack.

     

    But is there any solid evidence to bolster this contention? Without such evidence, the argument that nuclear weapons prevented something that never occurred is simply a counter-factual abstraction that cannot be proved.

     

    Ronald Reagan — the hardest of military hard-liners — was not at all impressed by airy claims that U.S. nuclear weapons prevented Soviet aggression. Kenneth Adelman, a hawkish official in the Reagan administration, recalled that when he “hammered home the risks of a nuclear-free world” to the president, Reagan retorted that “we couldn’t know that nuclear weapons had kept the peace in Europe for forty years, maybe other things had.” Adelman described another interchange with Reagan that went the same way. When Adelman argued that “eliminating all nuclear weapons was impossible,” as they had kept the peace in Europe, Reagan responded sharply that “it wasn’t clear that nuclear weapons had kept the peace. Maybe other things, like the Marshall Plan and NATO, had kept the peace.” (Kenneth Adelman, The Great Universal Embrace, pp. 69, 318.)

     

    In short, without any solid evidence, we don’t know that nuclear weapons have prevented or will prevent military aggression.

     

    We do know, of course, that since 1945, many nations not in possession of nuclear weapons and not part of the alliance systems of the nuclear powers have not experienced a military attack. Clearly, they survived just fine without nuclear deterrence.

     

    And we also know that nuclear weapons in U.S. hands did not prevent non-nuclear North Korea from invading South Korea or non-nuclear China from sending its armies to attack U.S. military forces in the ensuing Korean War. Nor did massive U.S. nuclear might prevent the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Also, the thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal did nothing to deter the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on U.S. territory.

     

    Similarly, nuclear weapons in Soviet (and later Russian) hands did not prevent U.S. military intervention in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Nor did Soviet nuclear weapons prevent CIA-fomented military action to overthrow the governments of Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and other nations.

     

    Other nuclear powers have also discovered the irrelevance of their nuclear arsenals. British nuclear weapons did not stop non-nuclear Argentina’s invasion of Britain’s Falkland Islands. Moreover, Israel’s nuclear weapons did not prevent non-nuclear Egypt and non-nuclear Syria from attacking Israel’s armed forces in 1973 or non-nuclear Iraq from launching missile attacks on Israeli cities in 1991. Perhaps most chillingly, in 1999, when both India and Pakistan possessed nuclear weapons, the two nations — long at odds — sent their troops into battle against one another in what became known as the Kargil War.

     

    Of course, the argument is often made that nuclear weapons have deterred a nuclear attack. But, again, as this attack never took place, how can we be sure about the cause of this non-occurrence?

     

    Certainly, U.S. officials don’t appear to find their policy of nuclear deterrence very reassuring. Indeed, if they were as certain that nuclear weapons prevent nuclear attack as they claim to be, why are they so intent upon building “missile defense” systems to block such an attack — despite the fact that, after squandering more than $150 billion on such defense systems, there is no indication that they work? Or, to put it more generally, if the thousands of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguard the United States from a nuclear attack by another nation, why is a defense against such an attack needed?

     

    Another indication that nuclear weapons do not provide security against a nuclear attack is the determination of the U.S. and Israeli governments to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. After all, if nuclear deterrence works, there is no need to worry about Iran (or any other nation) acquiring nuclear weapons.

     

    The fact is that, today, there is no safety from war to be found in nuclear weaponry, any more than there was safety in the past produced by fighter planes, battleships, bombers, poison gas, and other devastating weapons. Instead, by raising the ante in the ages-old game of armed conflict, nuclear weapons have merely increased the possibility that, however a war begins, it will end in mass destruction of terrifying dimensions.

     

    Sensible people and wise government leaders have understood for some time now that a more promising route to national and international security is to work at curbing the practice of war while, at the same time, banning its most dangerous and destructive implements. This alternative route requires patient diplomacy, international treaties, citizen activism, the United Nations, and arms control and disarmament measures. It’s a less dramatic and less demagogic approach than brandishing nuclear weapons on the world scene. But, ultimately, it’s a lot safer.

  • Book Review: Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual

    Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual by Lawrence S. Wittner


    Publisher:  University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN


    Publication Date: February 2012, 288 pages


    Paperback Price: $29.95


    Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual is a must read for all who are interested and involved in the search for peace, racial equality, and other aspects of social justice.  The book is a very well written autobiography by Lawrence S. Wittner, emeritus professor of history at the State University of New York-Albany.


    Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York,  Wittner graduated from Columbia College (B.A., 1962), the University of Wisconsin (M.A., 1963), and Columbia University (Ph.D. in history, 1967).  His teaching assignments were at Hampton Institute, Vassar College, the University of Toyko, and finally, SUNY/Albany from which he retired as a full professor in 2010.  His scholarship included authorship of eight books and the editing or co-editing of another four, plus the writing of over 250 published articles and book reviews.  His most challenging scholarly effort was the completion of a three book series The Struggle Against the Bomb on the history of the nuclear disarmament movement.  The books were:  One World or None: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953;  Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1954-1970;  and Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present.  An abbreviated version of the entire trilogy is also available as Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement. Additionally, his Rebels Against War: The American Peace Movement, 1933-1983 is a widely acclaimed, comprehensive account of the missing link between the mass peace and justice movements of the 1930s and their rebirth in the 1960s with emphasis on civil rights, non-violent resistance and the prevention of World War III.


    During the course of his research, Wittner delved into the records and periodicals of many peace organizations like the War Resisters League, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and SANE (now Peace Action). Among the prominent peace activists whom he interviewed for his publications were A.J. Muste, Norman Thomas, Dave Dellinger, and Mercedes  Randall.  During his research for the Struggle Against the Bomb series, he interviewed such well known peace movement leaders as Randy Forsberg, Sandy Gottlieb, Helen Caldicott, John Isaacs, Randy Kehler, Jeremy Stone, Bernard Lown, Bob Musil and Frank von Hippel.


    In addition to his research and teaching roles, Wittner was a tireless agitator and social activist.  A paragraph in the Preface of the book describes those activities:


    ” Over the course of my life, I … have been tear-gassed, threatened by police with drawn guns, charged by soldiers with fixed bayonets, spied upon by U.S. government intelligence agencies, and purged from my job for political reasons.  Although, in my opinion, I did nothing that merited this kind of treatment, it is certainly true that much of my behavior was quite unconventional.  Indeed throughout most of my life I worked diligently as a peace agitator, civil rights activist, socialist organizer, labor union militant, and subversive songwriter. My experiences ranged from challenging racism in the South, to building alliances with maquiladora workers in Mexico, to leading the annual antinuclear parade through the streets of Hiroshima.  Like Wendell Phillilps, the great abolitionist leader, I have been a consistent thorn in the side of complacency – at least I hope so.”


    Clearly Wittner paid a price for his agitation and activism.  While he had a very enviable and successful academic career, his road to success was not easy.  Most major U.S. universities require three primary duties of their tenured professors and those who are seeking tenure.  Those duties are research, teaching, and community service.  If there ever was a university professor who excelled in all three of those functions, it was Lawrence Wittner.  That fact, notwithstanding, he had a VERY rough road to promotion and success because of ultra conservative presidents, deans, departmental chairs, and dead-wood academic colleagues.  Several of those individuals threw sand into the gears of his work as researcher, teacher, and community service provider.  Inane university politics delayed his achievement of tenure,  and ensured that his pay was not usually commensurate with his voluminous work output.   Lesser individuals would have succumbed to such outlandish obstacles.  This was not the case with Lawrence Wittner.  His life was, and is, a life of caring, persistence and dedication to the cause of peace, social justice and human survival.  It is important that his life’s contributions and achievements be passed on to young and old alike.  Working for Peace and Justice is an excellent book for general audiences, peace activists, ethicists, students of peace studies, students of history, and social activists of every stripe. 

  • Nuclear Weapons and a Sustainable Future

    2012_05_01_npt_briefing.pdf

  • Nuclear Zero: Getting to the Finish Line

    This article was originally published by Truthout.


    David KriegerAlmost five decades ago, I first visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It was 18 years after the atomic bombings flattened the cities, and the cities had returned to a kind of normalcy.  At the memorial museums, though, a very different perspective on nuclear weapons was presented than that taught in American schools.  It was the perspective from below the bombs – that of the victims – not the technological perspective of having created and used the bombs.


    Nuclear weapons are not simply a technological achievement, as the West has tended to portray them.  They kill indiscriminately – children, women and men.  They are not weapons of war; they are tools of mass annihilation.  No matter what we call them, they are not truly weapons, but instruments of unbridled mass destruction.  Their threat or use is illegal under international law.  Surely, their possession, like chemical or biological weapons, should be as well.  They are immoral, as has been concluded by all the world’s great religions.  And they have cost us dearly, in financial and scientific resources and in compromises of the soul.


    Three decades ago, in 1982, we founded the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  Its vision is a just and peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons.  The Foundation’s mission is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.  So we educate, advocate and empower – that’s what we do.  We speak out.  We are a voice of conscience.  We advocate for sane policies and for leadership to achieve a world without nuclear dangers.  Our goal is to educate and engage millions of people to move the world to nuclear disarmament and peace.


    We challenge bad theory, such as the theory of nuclear deterrence, a theory that justifies reliance on nuclear weapons, but has many faults.  For nuclear deterrence to work successfully, leaders of nuclear-armed states must be rational at all times and under all circumstances, particularly under conditions of stress when they are least likely to be rational.  Also, nuclear deterrence cannot deter those who have no territory to retaliate against or who are suicidal.  Thus, nuclear deterrence has no possibility of success against terrorist organizations.  To see one of many ways that deterrence can fail, I encourage you to watch the 1964 movie, Fail-Safe, directed by Sidney Lumet, based upon the 1962 novel of the same name by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler.


    The Foundation also challenges bad nuclear policies, including those that tolerate a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”  We believe that the ultimate consequence of this two-tier structure will be nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war.  We also advocate for nuclear policies that reduce risks and move us toward a world without nuclear weapons, policies such as security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states of: no first use of nuclear weapons; no launch on warning of nuclear attack; lowering the alert status of nuclear weapons; a comprehensive test ban treaty; and a fissile material cut-off treaty.  These are all elements of the critical goal of nuclear weapons abolition and must be viewed in that context.


    Scientists tell us that even a small nuclear war with an exchange of a hundred Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons, destroying cities and sending smoke into the stratosphere, could result in blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature, leading to massive crop failures and famine, resulting in some one billion deaths.  This would be the kind of nuclear war that could occur in South Asia between India and Pakistan.  A larger-scale nuclear war, fought with a few hundred thermonuclear weapons, the kind that could occur between the US and Russia, could destroy civilization and possibly cause the extinction of the human species and most other forms of complex life on the planet.  We all share a responsibility to assure there are no small- or large-scale nuclear wars, but as long as nuclear weapons exist in any substantial numbers, the possibility of nuclear war also exists.


    In October 1962, the world held its collective breath as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded.  The world was poised on the brink of a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR.  John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev managed to navigate those dangerous currents, but many of their advisors were pushing them toward nuclear war.  Decisions on all sides were made with only partial knowledge, which could have resulted in disaster.  Robert Kennedy’s eye-witness account of the crisis, Thirteen Days, is sobering reading.


    In 1982, the year the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was created, there was considerable concern in the world about nuclear dangers.  There were more than 60,000 nuclear weapons, nearly all in the arsenals of the US and USSR.  More than one million people gathered in Central Park in New York calling for a nuclear freeze.  Of course, they were right to do so.  The nuclear arms race was out of control, and the leaders of the US and USSR were not talking to each other.  An uncontrollable nuclear arms race coupled with a failure to communicate were and are a recipe for disaster.


    By 1986, the nuclear arms race reached its apogee with over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, nearly all in the arsenals of the US and USSR.  But by this time Mikhail Gorbachev had come to power in the USSR and was talking about abolishing nuclear weapons by the year 2000.  Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, who shared Gorbachev’s view about nuclear weapons, came heartbreakingly close to agreeing to abolish their nuclear arsenals at a summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986.  Their attempt to find their way to zero nuclear weapons foundered on the issue of the Strategic Defense Initiative, now commonly referred to as missile defense.  Reagan wanted it; Gorbachev didn’t.


    So, in 1986 there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world.  Since then, we have made progress in substantially reducing nuclear arsenals to the current number of under 20,000 worldwide, having shed some 50,000 nuclear weapons.  Of the 8,500 nuclear weapons in the US arsenal, about 3,500 are awaiting dismantlement and fewer than 2,000 are deployed, about the same number deployed in Russia.  The US and Russia have agreed that they will each reduce their deployed strategic weapons to 1,550 by the year 2017.  Neither country has conducted an atmospheric or underground nuclear weapon test since 1992 (other than underground subcritical nuclear tests in which the nuclear material does not reach the criticality necessary for a nuclear chain reaction). 


    We have made progress.  We are now on relatively positive terms with Russia, since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.  Through solid US negotiating, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus agreed to give up the nuclear arsenals that the former Soviet Union had left on their territories and to give these weapons over to Russia for dismantlement. 


    A significant event occurred in 1996 when US Secretary of Defense William Perry met with the Russian and Ukrainian Defense Ministers at a former missile base in Ukraine to plant sunflowers.  Secretary Perry said on the occasion, “Sunflowers in the soil instead of missiles will ensure peace for future generations.”  We adopted the sunflower as a symbol of a nuclear weapons-free world.  The sunflower symbolizes everything that a nuclear-armed missile is not, being natural, nutritious, healthy, beautiful, grounded in the earth and powered by the sun.


    We have come a long way, but we haven’t reached the finish line, which is a world without nuclear weapons.  The issue we face now is to educate decision makers and the public that the dangers of nuclear weapons have not gone away.  There are still many flash points of nuclear danger in the world: India-Pakistan, North Korea, the continued possession of nuclear weapons by the UK and France, the possession of nuclear weapons by Israel and the incentive for nuclear proliferation this creates in the Middle East, and the relationship of the nuclear energy fuel cycle to nuclear proliferation.


    The greatest problem related to nuclear weapons is not that Iran might develop such weapons.  It is that the countries with nuclear weapons are not taking seriously enough their obligations to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and achieve nuclear disarmament.  Nuclear weapons do not make their possessors more secure.  When a country has nuclear weapons or seeks to acquire them, that country will also be a target of nuclear weapons.  This goes for both the US and Iran, and for all other countries with nuclear weapons or seeking to develop them.  Nuclear weapons turn cities and countries into targets for mass annihilation.


    What shall we do to advance to zero?  In the spirit of Gorbachev and Reagan, the US and Russia must lead the way. They still possess over 95 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world.  It was recently revealed that President Obama has requested a study of reductions of deployed strategic nuclear weapons to three levels: 1000 to 1,100 weapons; 700 to 800 weapons; and 300 to 400 weapons.  This is significant.  It is worth advocating for US leadership to reduce the US nuclear arsenal to the lower level, to 300 nuclear weapons, as a next step.  But, of course, this would not be the desired end result.  First, it is not low enough; it is not zero.  It still would be more than enough to destroy civilization and potentially cause the extinction of complex life on the planet.  Second, it is unilateral; it must be bilateral and moving toward multilateral.


    At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we have never called for unilateral nuclear disarmament.  Going down to 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons would be a significant reduction, but it should be a joint endeavor with Russia. To get Russia to join us in this next step will require the US to move its missile defense installations away from the Russian border, so that Russia does not feel threatened by these defenses, particularly at lower levels of offensive weapons.  US officials tell Russia not to worry about these missile defense installations, but the Russians are wary.  It is easy to understand this, if one imagines the Russians placing missile defense installations on the Canadian border and telling the US not to worry.  Missile defenses, if they are needed, must be a joint project, just as reductions in the numbers of offensive nuclear weapons must be a joint project.


    The US and Russia must cooperate on continuing to pare down their nuclear arsenals for their own security and for global security.  At the level of 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons each, they would then be in a position of rough parity with the other nuclear weapon states and in a position to effectively negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.  The number that matters most in the nuclear disarmament arena is zero. It is the most secure and stable number of nuclear weapons.  It must be achieved carefully and in phases, but it must be achieved for the benefit of our children, grandchildren and all future generations.

  • Nuclear Disarmament’s Midnight Hour

    This article was published by Project Syndicate.


    Gareth EvansLast month, the Doomsday Clock’s hands were moved a minute closer to midnight by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the respected global organization that for decades has tracked the risk of a nuclear-weapons catastrophe, whether caused by accident or design, state or terrorist, fission bomb or dirty radiological bomb.


    Few around the world seemed to be listening. The story – as others like it since the end of the Cold War ­– came and went within a half-day’s news cycle. But the Scientists’ argument was sobering, and demands attention. Progress since 2007 – when the Clock’s hands were last set at five minutes to midnight – has stalled, and political leadership has gone missing on all of the critical issues: disarmament, non-proliferation, and key building blocks needed for both.


    On disarmament, the balloon has well and truly deflated. The New START treaty, signed by the United States and Russia in 2010, reduced the number of deployed strategic weapons, but left both sides’ actual stockpiles intact, their high-alert status undisturbed,  weapons-modernization programs in place, disagreements about missile defense and conventional-arms imbalances unresolved – and talks on further draw-downs going nowhere.


    With no further movement by the US and Russia, which together hold 95% of the world’s total of more than 20,000 nuclear weapons, no other nuclear-armed state has felt pressure to reduce its own stocks significantly, and some – China, India, and Pakistan – have been increasing them.


    The 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference was a modest success, mainly because it did not collapse in disarray, as had the previous one in 2005. But it could not agree on measures to strengthen the regime; its push for talks on a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East has so far gathered no momentum; North Korea is no closer to being put back in its NPT box; and Iran is closer than ever to jumping out of it, with consequences that would ricochet around the region – and the global economy – if it makes that decision.


    Despite President Barack Obama’s good intentions, the US Senate is no closer to ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, while China, India, and Pakistan, among others, take shelter behind that inaction, with a fragile voluntary moratorium the only obstacle to resumed testing. And negotiations on another crucial building block for both disarmament and non-proliferation – a treaty to ban further production of weapons-grade fissile material – remain at an impasse.


    The only half-way good news is that progress continues on a third building block: ensuring that weapons-usable materials, and weapons themselves, currently stored in multiple locations in 32 countries, do not fall into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. At the end of March, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will host a follow-up meeting to Obama’s successful Nuclear Security Summit in 2010, which brought together 47 government leaders to agree on a comprehensive program aimed at securing all such materials within four years. High on the agenda will be the security implications of nuclear safety: the Fukushima catastrophe showed that nuclear-power plants may be vulnerable not only to natural disaster, but also to terrorist sabotage.


    But nuclear security is only one small part of what must be done to eliminate nuclear threats once and for all, and summit fatigue will make it difficult to sustain key world leaders’ commitment to meeting for so narrow a purpose. New thinking is urgently needed on how to recover the momentum of just two years ago.


    To achieve that requires meeting three conditions. First, political leaders and civil-society leaders must restate, ad nauseam if necessary, the case for “global zero” – a world without nuclear weapons – and map a credible step-by-step path for getting there.


    Second, new mechanisms are needed to energize policymakers and publics. One is to develop and promote a draft Nuclear Weapons Convention as a framework for action. Another is a “State of Play” report card that pulls no punches in assessing which states are meeting their disarmament and non-proliferation commitments, and which are not (the Nuclear Materials Security Index, just published by Senator Sam Nunn’s Nuclear Threat Initiative, is one example). Advocacy-focused leadership networks, such as those now operating in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, comprising well-known former leaders and other senior figures, could also help.


    Third, sustaining high-level policy attention to the entire nuclear agenda requires an institutional setting. The Nuclear Security Summit’s focus is too narrow for this role; the International Atomic Energy Agency’s formal mandate is too restricted; the NPT Review Conference meets too irregularly; and the United Nations Security Council’s membership is too limited. The best forum for norm-building may prove to be the G-20, whose members embrace both North and South, account for most of the world’s population, GDP, and all but a handful of its nuclear weapons, and whose heads of government meet regularly.


    With its foreign ministers meeting in Mexico this month to discuss broader global governance issues, the G-20 is beginning to move beyond a narrow economic focus. That is to be welcomed. Economic destruction causes immense and intolerable human misery. But there are only two global threats that, if mishandled, can destroy life on this planet as we know it. And nuclear weapons can kill us a lot faster than CO2 can.

  • A Nuclear-Free Middle East: Necessary, Desirable and Impossible

    This article was originally published by Al Jazeera.


    Richard FalkFinally, there is some discussion in the West that supports the idea of a nuclear-free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the deafening beat of the war drums. To the extent proposed, it also tends to be defensively and pragmatically phrased to reinforce the prevailing anti-Iran consensus.


    For instance, in a recent New York Times article by Shibley Telhami and Steven Kull a full disclosure title gives the plot away: “Preventing a Nuclear Iran”. The authors offer us a prudential argument against attacking Iran to avoid a damaging Iranian retaliation and in view of the inability of an attack to do more than delay Iran’s nuclear programme by a few years. Beyond this, an attack seems likely to create irresistible pressures in Iran to do everything possible to obtain a nuclear option with a renewed sense of urgency, as well as to disrupt Western interests wherever possible.


    This Telhami/Kull position is reinforced by evidence that Israeli society is not as war-prone as claimed, and would be receptive to a more cautious and less belligerent approach. They refer readers to a recent Israeli poll finding that only 43 per cent of Israelis favour a military strike, while 64 per cent support establishing a nuclear-free zone (NFZ) in the region that included Israel.


    In effect, then, establishing a NFZ that includes Israel would seem politically feasible, although not a course of action that seems within the range of options being considered by the current Israeli political leadership.


    The failure of the United States to raise the possibility of a solution to the conflict other than either an Iranian surrender with respect to its enrichment rights or an impending military attack is also discouraging. The silence of Washington with respect to a peaceful regional solution to the conflict with Iran confirms what is widely believed around the world – that the US Government will not deviate from the official Israeli line on security issues in the Middle East.


    The fact that the Israeli public may be more peace-oriented than its elected leaders seems to make no difference to strategic thinking in the US, and what is more, the realisation that the exercise of the military option would have a likely huge negative impact on national and global interest is also put to one side.


    Prince Turki‘s proposals


    Another variant of NFZ thinking is more oriented to the realities of the Middle East. It has most clearly formulated by the influential Saudi Prince, Turki Al-Faisal, former Saudi ambassador to the United States and once the head of his country’s intelligence service. He argues that NFZ is preferable to the military option for many reasons, and he believes, in contrast to President Obama, that it should be removed from the bag of tricks at the disposal of diplomats.


    Prince Turki believes that sanctions have not, and will not alter Iran’s behaviour. His proposal is more elaborate than simply advocating a NFZ. He would be in favour of coercive steps against Iran if there is ever convincing evidence that it actually possesses nuclear weapons, but he also argues for the imposition of sanction on Israel if it fails to disclose openly the full extent of its nuclear weapons arsenal.  


    Prince Turki’s approach has several additional features: extending the scope of the undertaking to all weapons of mass destruction (WMD), that is, including biological and chemical weapons; a nuclear security umbrella for the region maintained by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council; a resolution of outstanding conflicts in the region in accordance with the Mecca Arab proposals of 2002 that calls for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights occupied in 1967, as well as the political and commercial normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world.


    Prince Turki warns that if some such arrangement is not soon put in place, and Iran proceeds with its nuclear programme, other countries in the region, including Turkey, will almost certainly be drawn into an expensive and destabilising nuclear arms race.


    In effect, as with Telhami/Kull, Prince Turki’s approach is designed to make sure that worst case scenarios do not happen. It is more contextually framed to encompass several larger challenges in the Middle East, rather than confining its rationale to addressing the Israel/Iran confrontation.  


    The Turki proposals have some problematic aspects, including the idea that governments in the region could be expected to rely on the five permanent members of the Security Council to co-operate effectively if faced with a challenge to the NFZ. From another perspective, the proposal might be questioned as a historically insensitive effort to delegate authority over future security issues in the region to former colonial powers.


    NFZ or WMDFZ without Israel


    There is another perplexing feature of Prince Turki’s vision of a peaceful future for the Middle East. He urges the adoption of such a collective commitment to the elimination of WMD in the region with or without Israeli support at a conference of parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty scheduled for later this year in Finland, which seems to play into the hands of Western hawks.


    Israel is not even a party to the NPT, has so far not indicated its willingness to attend the conference, and if participating, would likely play an obstructive role. What is the point of a NFZ or WMDFZ without Israel? As long ago as the 1995 NPT Review Conference, the Arab countries put forward a proposal to establish in the Middle East a WMD-free zone, but it has never been subsequently invoked.


    Israel, which is not a member of the NPT, has consistently taken the position over the years that only after peace prevails throughout the region, will it consider lending support to a legal regime, prohibiting the possession of nuclear weapons.


    The NFZ or WMDFZ initiatives need to be seen in the setting established by the NPT regime. An initial observation involves Israel’s failure to become a party to the NPT coupled with its covert nuclear programme that resulted in the acquisition of the weaponry more than 20 years ago with the complicity of the West as documented in Seymour Hersh’s 1991 The Samson Option.


    This Israeli pattern of behaviour needs to be contrasted with that of Iran, a party to the NPT that has reported to and accepted, although with some friction in recent years, international inspections on its territory by the Western oriented International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran has consistently denied any ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, but has insisted on its rights under Article IV of the treaty to exercise “… its inalienable right… to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination…”


    Iran has been under constant threat of an attack by Israel. It has also been the target for several years of Israel’s extremely dirty low intensity war, as well as being the subject of a US Congressionally funded destabilisation programme of the US that is reinforced by a diplomacy that constantly reaffirms the relevance of a military option, and operates in a political climate that excludes consideration of Israel’s nuclear arsenal.


    What is surprising under these circumstances is that Iran has not freed itself from NPT obligation as it is entitled to do. All parties to the NPT have a treaty right to withdraw set forth in Article X requiring only that a withdrawing state give notice to other treaty parties and provide an explanation of its reasons for withdrawing.


    Geopolitical priorities


    Comparing these Israeli and Iran patterns of behaviour with respect to nuclear weapons, it would seem far more reasonable to conclude that it is Israel, not Iran, that should be subjected to sanctions, and put under pressure to participate in denuclearising negotiations. After all, Israel acquired the weaponry secretly and defiantly, has not been even willing to accept the near universally applicable discipline of the NPT, and has engaged periodically in aggressive wars against its neighbours that have resulted in several long-term occupations.


    It can be argued that Israel was entitled to enhance its security by remaining outside the NPT, and thus is acting within its sovereign rights. This is a coherent legalistic position, but we should also appreciate that the NPT is more a geopolitical than a legal regime, and that Iran, for instance, would be immediately subject to a punitive response if it tried to withdraw from the treaty. In other words, geopolitical priorities override legal rights in the NPT setting.


    The history of the NPT has reflected its geopolitical nature. This is best illustrated by the utter refusal of the nuclear weapons states, above all the US, to fulfill its core obligation under Article VI “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”


    The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on The Legality of Nuclear Weapons unanimously affirmed in its findings the legal imperative embodied in Article VI: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament in all its aspects under strict international control.”


    This finding that has been completely ignored by the nuclear weapons states (who had made full use of their diplomatic leverage in a failed effort to convince members of the UN General Assembly not to seek guidance from the ICJ with respect to the legal status of nuclear weapons and the obligations of the NPT). The refusal to uphold these obligations of Article VI would certainly appear to be a material breach of the treaty that under international law authorises any party to regard the treaty as void.


    Again, the international discourse on nuclear weapons is so distorted that it is a rarity to encounter criticism of its discriminatory application, its double standards as between nuclear and non-nuclear states, and its geopolitical style of selective enforcement. In this regard, it should be appreciated that the threat of military attack directed at Iran resembles reliance on the so-called Bush Doctrine of preventive war that had been used to justify aggression against Iraq in 2003, and represents a blatant geopolitical override of international law.


    Need to avoid war


    In summary, it is of utmost importance to avoid a war in the Middle East arising from the unresolved dispute about Iran’s nuclear programme. One way to do this is to seek a NFZ or a WMDFZ for the entire region that must include the participation of Israel. What has given this approach a renewed credibility for the West at this time is that such a measure seems to be the only way to prevent a lose/lose war option from materialising in an atmosphere where mainstream pundits are increasingly predicting an attack on Iran during 2012. 


    A NFZ plan has some prudential appeal to change minds in Tehran and Tel Aviv before it is too late, and could also encourage Washington to take a less destructive and self-destructive course of action. Whether this prudential appeal is sufficiently strong to overcome the iron cage of militarism that constrains policy choices in Israel and the US remains doubtful.


    Thinking outside the militarist box remains a forbidden activity, partly reflecting the domestic lock on the political and moral imagination of these countries by their respective military industrial media think-tank complexes.


    I would conclude this commentary with three pessimistic assessments that casts a dark shadow over the regional future:



    (1) an NFZ or WMDFZ for the Middle East is necessary and desirable, but it almost certainly will not be placed on the political agenda of American-led diplomacy relating to the conflict;


    (2) moves toward nuclear disarmament negotiations that have been legally mandated and would be beneficial for the world, and for the nuclear weapons states and their peoples, will not be made in the current atmosphere that blocks all serious initiatives to abolish nuclear weapons;


    (3) the drift toward a devastating attack on Iran will only be stopped by an urgent mobilisation of anti-war forces in civil society, which seems unlikely given other preoccupations. 


    To overcome such pessimism requires a broader vision of peace and justice that is even broader than the contextual approach taken by Prince Turki. It would centre on demilitarisation of the region through disarmament, as well as a firm regional commitment to avoid entangling alliances with external actors, meaning no military deployments or bases in the region. With drones engaging in lethal missions in the Middle East and an array of American military bases, this seems like a utopian fantasy, and maybe it is.


    But maybe also we have reached a paradoxical stage in the region, and possibly the world, where only the utopian imagination can offer us a realistic vision of a hopeful human future.

  • Creating a World Without Nuclear Weapons

    2011_12_09_krieger_dream_of_nation.pdf

  • A Farewell to Nuclear Arms

    Mikhail GorbachevTwenty-five years ago this month, I sat across from Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland to negotiate a deal that would have reduced, and could have ultimately eliminated by 2000, the fearsome arsenals of nuclear weapons held by the United States and the Soviet Union.


    For all our differences, Reagan and I shared the strong conviction that civilized countries should not make such barbaric weapons the linchpin of their security. Even though we failed to achieve our highest aspirations in Reykjavik, the summit was nonetheless, in the words of my former counterpart, “a major turning point in the quest for a safer and secure world.”


    The next few years may well determine if our shared dream of ridding the world of nuclear weapons will ever be realized.


    Critics present nuclear disarmament as unrealistic at best, and a risky utopian dream at worst. They point to the Cold War’s “long peace” as proof that nuclear deterrence is the only means of staving off a major war.


    As someone who has commanded these weapons, I strongly disagree. Nuclear deterrence has always been a hard and brittle guarantor of peace. By failing to propose a compelling plan for nuclear disarmament, the US, Russia, and the remaining nuclear powers are promoting through inaction a future in which nuclear weapons will inevitably be used. That catastrophe must be forestalled.


    As I, along with George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, Sam Nunn, and others, pointed out five years ago, nuclear deterrence becomes less reliable and more risky as the number of nuclear-armed states increases. Barring preemptive war (which has proven counterproductive) or effective sanctions (which have thus far proven insufficient), only sincere steps toward nuclear disarmament can furnish the mutual security needed to forge tough compromises on arms control and nonproliferation matters.


    The trust and understanding built at Reykjavik paved the way for two historic treaties. The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty destroyed the feared quick-strike missiles then threatening Europe’s peace. And, in 1991, the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) cut the bloated US and Soviet nuclear arsenals by 80% over a decade.


    But prospects for progress on arms control and nonproliferation are darkening in the absence of a credible push for nuclear disarmament. I learned during those two long days in Reykjavik that disarmament talks could be as constructive as they are arduous. By linking an array of interrelated matters, Reagan and I built the trust and understanding needed to moderate a nuclear-arms race of which we had lost control.


    In retrospect, the Cold War’s end heralded the coming of a messier arrangement of global power and persuasion. The nuclear powers should adhere to the requirements of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty and resume “good faith” negotiations for disarmament. This would augment the diplomatic and moral capital available to diplomats as they strive to restrain nuclear proliferation in a world where more countries than ever have the wherewithal to construct a nuclear bomb.


    Only a serious program of universal nuclear disarmament can provide the reassurance and the credibility needed to build a global consensus that nuclear deterrence is a dead doctrine. We can no longer afford, politically or financially, the discriminatory nature of the current system of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”


    Reykjavik proved that boldness is rewarded. Conditions were far from favorable for a disarmament deal in 1986. Before I became Soviet leader in 1985, relations between the Cold War superpowers had hit rock bottom. Reagan and I were nonetheless able to create a reservoir of constructive spirit through constant outreach and face-to-face interaction.


    What seem to be lacking today are leaders with the boldness and vision to build the trust needed to reintroduce nuclear disarmament as the centerpiece of a peaceful global order. Economic constraints and the Chernobyl disaster helped spur us to action. Why has the Great Recession and the disastrous meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi in Japan not elicited a similar response today?


    A first step would be for the US finally to ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). President Barack Obama has endorsed this treaty as a vital instrument to discourage proliferation and avert nuclear war. It’s time for Obama to make good on commitments he made in Prague in 2009, take up Reagan’s mantle as Great Communicator, and persuade the US Senate to formalize America’s adherence to the CTBT.


    This would compel the remaining holdouts – China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan – to reconsider the CTBT as well. That would bring us closer to a global ban on nuclear tests in any environment – the atmosphere, undersea, in outer space, or underground.


    A second necessary step is for the US and Russia to follow up on the New START agreement and begin deeper weapons cuts, especially tactical and reserve weapons, which serve no purpose, waste funds, and threaten security. This step must be related to limits on missile defense, one of the key issues that undermined the Reykjavik summit.


    A fissile material cut-off treaty (FMCT), long stalled in multilateral talks in Geneva, and a successful second Nuclear Security Summit next year in Seoul, will help secure dangerous nuclear materials. This will also require that the 2002 Global Partnership, dedicated to securing and eliminating all weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, chemical, and biological – is renewed and expanded when it convenes next year in the US.


    Our world remains too militarized. In today’s economic climate, nuclear weapons have become loathsome money pits. If, as seems likely, economic troubles continue, the US, Russia, and other nuclear powers should seize the moment to launch multilateral arms reductions through new or existing channels such as the UN Conference on Disarmament. These deliberations would yield greater security for less money.


    But the buildup of conventional military forces – driven in large part by the enormous military might deployed globally by the US – must be addressed as well. As we engage in furthering our Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) agreement, we should seriously consider reducing the burden of military budgets and forces globally.


    US President John F. Kennedy once warned that “every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment.” For more than 50 years, humanity has warily eyed that lethal pendulum while statesmen debated how to mend its fraying cords. The example of Reykjavik should remind us that palliative measures are not enough. Our efforts 25 years ago can be vindicated only when the Bomb ends up beside the slave trader’s manacles and the Great War’s mustard gas in the museum of bygone savagery.

  • Looking Back at Reykjavik

    This article was originally published by The Hill.


    David KriegerTwenty-five years ago, on October 11-12, 1986, Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavík, Iceland and came close to agreeing to eliminate their nuclear arsenals within 10 years.  The main sticking point was the US “Star Wars” missile defense technology.  Reagan wouldn’t give up its development and future deployment, and Gorbachev wouldn’t accept that. 


    The two men had the vision and the passion to achieve a world without nuclear weapons, but a difference of views about the role of missile defenses that kept them from concluding an agreement.  For Reagan, these defenses were seen as protective and helpful.  For Gorbachev, these defenses upset the strategic balance between the two countries by making the possibility of US offensive attacks more likely.  


    The summit at Reykjavik was a stunning moment in Cold War history.  It was a moment when two men, leaders of their respective nuclear-armed countries, almost agreed to rid the world of its gravest danger.  Both were ready to take a major leap from arms control negotiations to a commitment to nuclear disarmament.  Rather than seeking only to manage the nuclear arms race, they were ready to end it.  Their readiness to eliminate these weapons of annihilation caught their aides and the world by surprise.  Unfortunately, their passion for the goal of abolition could not be converted to taking the action that was necessary.


    When the two leaders met in Reykjavik, there were over 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world, nearly all in the arsenals of the US and Soviet Union.  Today there is no Soviet Union, but there remain over 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world, with over 95 percent in the arsenals of the US and Russia.   In 1986, there were six nuclear weapon states: the US, Russia, UK, France, China and Israel.  Today, three more countries have been added to this list: India, Pakistan and North Korea. 


    In 1986, the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty was in force and had been since 1972.  An important element of the Soviet position was that this treaty should remain in force, preventing a defensive arms race that would feed an offensive arms race, and maintaining treaty provisions that would prevent an arms race in outer space.  In 2002, George W. Bush unilaterally abrogated the ABM Treaty, and this has remained a strong element of contention between the US and Russia. 


    At the time of the summit in Reykjavik, there was a strong anti-nuclear movement in the US, the Nuclear Freeze Movement, but its goals were modest: a freeze in the size of nuclear arsenals.  Today, many people have lost interest in nuclear disarmament and it has largely slipped off the public agenda.  Public concern faded rapidly after the end of the Cold War in 1991, although serious nuclear dangers still plagued humanity then and continue to do so.  These include nuclear proliferation, nuclear accidents, nuclear terrorism, and new nuclear arms races (for example, between India and Pakistan).  As long as the weapons exist, the possibility will exist that they will be used by accident, miscalculation or design, all with tragic consequences for the target cities and for humanity.


    There were other differences in the positions of the two sides at Reykjavik that would have needed to be worked out, even had they gotten through the stumbling block of missile defenses.  While both side’s proposals called for a 50 percent reduction in strategic nuclear forces in the first five years, the proposals differed on the next five years.  The Soviet proposal called for the elimination of all remaining strategic offensive arms of the two countries by the end of the next five years.  The US proposal called for the elimination of all offensive ballistic missiles in the next five years, thus not including the elimination of strategic nuclear weapons carried on bomber aircraft.  This was not an insignificant detail.


    What is important to focus on is that these two leaders came close to achieving a goal that has eluded humanity since the violent onset of the Nuclear Age.  They demonstrated that with vision and goodwill great acts of peace are within our collective reach.  These two leaders didn’t reach quite far enough, but they paved the way for others to follow.  In the last 25 years, there has been some progress toward eliminating nuclear weapons, but not nearly enough.


    The people of the world cannot wait another 25 years for leaders like Reagan and Gorbachev to come along again.  They must raise their voices clearly and collectively for a world free of nuclear threat.  It is long past time to stop wasting our resources on these immensely destructive and outdated weapons that could be used again only at terrible cost to our common humanity.


    Five important steps, supported by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, that would move the world closer to the goal are: first, make binding pledges of No First Use of nuclear weapons to reduce concerns about surprise attacks; second, lower the alert levels of all existing nuclear weapons to prevent accidental launches; third, negotiate a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone; fourth, bring the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into force with the required ratifications of the treaty; and fifth, begin negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.