Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear threat

  • End U.S.-Iranian Nuclear Standoff by Ending Double Standards

    End U.S.-Iranian Nuclear Standoff by Ending Double Standards

    The Bush administration is being hypocritical about Iran, approaching it with very different standards than it has for Israel, India or even itself.
    If the United States expects Iran to fully adhere to the rules set forth in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, then Washington should be expected to do so as well. This treaty requires the United States and other nuclear powers that are parties to the treaty to enter into good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. The United States is not doing so.

    In 1999, the US Senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Bush administration has not resubmitted this treaty to the Senate. For the past five years, the US has opposed a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. In 2002, the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

    The Bush administration has also sought to develop new nuclear weapons — such as the “bunker buster” — and has generally thwarted negotiations leading to transparent and irreversible nuclear disarmament.

    Further, the Bush administration has indicated its intent to rely on nuclear weapons for the indefinite future. It also has made not-so-veiled threats to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states.

    These policies violate the spirit if not the letter of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And they perversely encourage states such as Iran and North Korea to develop nuclear arsenals.
    Nevertheless, the Bush administration claims Iran is acting illegally under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This 1970 treaty encourages the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. In Article IV of the treaty, it refers to the “inalienable right of all Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.”
    As a result, Iran argues that, as a party to the treaty, it is within its legal rights to develop a nuclear energy program, including a program that involves the enrichment of uranium. Uranium enriched to 6 percent to 8 percent U-235 may be beneficial for use in nuclear reactors for generating power. However, if uranium is enriched to higher levels of U-235 — 80 percent to 90 percent — it may be used as fissionable material in nuclear weapons.

    While Iran has begun enriching, it is nowhere near the level needed for nuclear weapons. But that possibility cannot be ruled out. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has tried for three years to find out about Iran’s nuclear program. So far, Iran has provided inadequate transparency, according to the IAEA.
    Iran has cooperated with IAEA inspectors, voluntarily subjecting its facilities to the more comprehensive inspection requirements of the Additional Protocol to the IAEA agreement. However, when the United States threatened to take the matter to the U.N. Security Council, Iran responded by ending its voluntary adherence to the Additional Protocol, and raising the possibility of withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether.
    The United States must lead by example. It must work toward a world free of nuclear weapons. The United States should seek universal standards so that all uranium enrichment for all states, including for United States and its allies, is placed under strict international control and verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

    Maintaining nuclear double standards under international law is not sustainable. It is just plain bad policy.

     

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Find out more at the Foundation’s website and its blog.

  • Turning Away from the Nuclear Abyss

    Turning Away from the Nuclear Abyss

    “Is elimination of nuclear weapons, so naïve, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not.”

    • Robert S. McNamara, former US Secretary of Defense

    “I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

    ”If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.”

    • Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Lecture

    The world is following a sure and steady path toward the nuclear abyss. It is being led in this direction not so much by small rogue states as by the most powerful of all states, the United States of America. US nuclear policies are placing the world on a collision course with disaster. The US seeks to deter and inhibit states deemed to be unfriendly to US interests from developing nuclear arsenals, while at the same time turning a blind eye to the nuclear programs of states deemed to be friendly to US interests. Moreover, US policies assume an unquestioned right for the US and other established nuclear weapons states to maintain this status. Such continued and blatant double standards cannot hold.

    The US initiated a war against Iraq on the false premise that it had programs to create nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Further, the US has developed contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya.(1) At the same time the US protects Israel’s nuclear program from international censure, and seeks to change US non-proliferation laws in order to provide nuclear materials and technology to India and Pakistan, two countries that developed nuclear weapons outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    The only real hope to avoid lurching into the nuclear abyss is that people throughout the world, and particularly those in the US, will demand that these weapons be abolished before they abolish us. It is a daunting task, but one that is necessary if we are to save civilization and life on earth. In light of the modest gains that have been achieved to date in relation to the enormity of the challenge presented by nuclear weapons, the task is all the more essential.

    Deterrence Is a Failed Strategy

    For most of the Nuclear Age, the security of powerful nations has rested upon a theoretical construct known as deterrence. Deterrence theory posits that nuclear attacks can be prevented by the threat of nuclear retaliation. For the most powerful nations, the theory has spawned threats of massive nuclear retaliation, sufficient to destroy not only the attacking nation, but likely civilization and much if not all life on Earth.

    One of the great fallacies of strategic thinking in the Nuclear Age is that deterrence theory is based upon rationality. The theory holds that a rational actor will not attack an enemy that could massively retaliate against one’s own country. But what would happen if there were irrational actors in the system? What would happen, for example, if the leader of a small nation in possession of nuclear weapons believed irrationally that he could attack a more powerful country with impunity? What would happen if a leader was suicidal and didn’t care about the prospects of retaliation? In such cases, deterrence would fail and the nuclear threshold would again be crossed with devastating consequences that cannot be fully foreseeable.

    In addition to being a theory based upon only rational actors, deterrence theory requires that it must be physically possible to retaliate against an attacker and that a potential attacker must understand this. Thus, deterrence theory has no validity against a non-state terrorist organization such as al Qaeda. Should such an organization obtain nuclear weapons, deterrence would be of no avail. The only security against a terrorist nuclear attack is prevention – preventing nuclear weapons or the materials to make them from falling into the hands of terrorists. There is no tolerance for error.

    In the case of non-state extremism, security cannot rest upon deterrence. This means that a powerful country does not increase its security by adding to the quality or quantity of its nuclear arsenal. Rather, the opposite is the case. The fewer nuclear weapons there are in the world, the less possibility there would be for one or more of these weapons to fall into the hands of an extremist organization. The same is true of weapons-grade nuclear materials.

    Nuclear Weapons and Power

    The advent of nuclear weapons represented a enormous leap in the power of weaponry. The development of these weapons by elite scientists during World War II successfully tapped the potentially vast power inherent in Einstein’s theory, E = mc2, for destructive purposes. While humans have always devised destructive weapons, nuclear weapons moved the bar of destructiveness to new heights. With nuclear weapons, a single weapon could destroy a city, as demonstrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who created or obtained these weapons seemed to possess a unique and special power of death over life. In the aftermath of World War II, this power was possessed at first only by the United States, but over the next decades other countries would join the nuclear club: the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and, most recently, North Korea.

    But the power conferred by nuclear weapons is ghostly and illusory, for it cannot be used without causing death and destruction on such a massive scale that the attacker would be branded by all the world as cowardly and inhuman. In the case of the use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US justified its attacks both to its own people and to the world as necessary to end a long and brutal war in which it had been the victim of an unprovoked attack. Since then, nuclear weapons have dramatically increased in power, but the ability to use the weapons has been curtailed by psychological constraints against such massive killing. This has been true even when a nuclear-armed country is losing a war, as was the case with the US in Vietnam or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

    Nuclear weapons are more useful to relatively weak actors than to those who are already powerful in other ways. For example, they may give North Korea the ability to deter the United States, and Pakistan the ability to deter India. Beyond the possibility of deterrence, nuclear weapons in the hands of an extremist organization would provide the potential to bring even the most powerful countries to their knees by destroying their cities.

    The Logic of Self-Interest

    A further negative consequence of reliance upon nuclear weapons is that a nuclear weapons state must not only be concerned with safeguarding its own nuclear arsenal and weapons grade nuclear materials, but must also be concerned with the capacity of all other nuclear weapons states to protect their arsenals and nuclear materials. It must be assumed that extremist groups would seek to prey upon the weakest links among the states in possession of nuclear weapons.

    It is in the self-interest of the most powerful states to lead the way to nuclear disarmament. The logic for this position can be set forth as follows:

    1. Large nuclear arsenals are like dinosaurs in having little adaptability to changing strategic circumstances.
    2. The more powerful the nation in conventional terms, the less utility for security is provided by a nuclear arsenal.
    3. Weaker countries, particularly those threatened by more powerful adversaries, have the greatest incentive to develop nuclear arsenals for purposes of deterring a nuclear armed adversary.
    4. The more states that develop nuclear arsenals, the greater the danger will be that these weapons or the materials to make them will fall into the hands of non-state extremists.
    5. Non-state extremists will not hesitate to use these weapons against far more powerful states without fear of retaliation.
    6. It is strongly in the security interests of powerful states to minimize the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of extremist groups.
    7. The nuclear policies of the most powerful nuclear weapons states must have zero tolerance for nuclear weapons or materials from any state falling into the hands of extremist groups.
    8. Preventing extremist groups from obtaining nuclear weapons can only be achieved by dramatically reducing the number of nuclear warheads in the world and bringing the remaining weapons and materials to make them under effective international control.
    9. To achieve this will require a high degree of international cooperation with leadership from the principal nuclear weapons states.
    10. Only the United States, as the world’s most militarily powerful state, can effectively initiate such cooperative action, and it is strongly in US security interests to do so.

    A Failure to Heed Warnings

    From the very beginning of the Nuclear Age, prophets have warned of the dangers to humanity. The warnings have been passionate and numerous. They have come from individuals in all walks of life – scientists, physicians, literary figures, philosophers and generals. Albert Einstein warned, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    But such warnings seem to have fallen on deaf ears among our political leaders. Despite the end of the Cold War, reliance on nuclear weapons for the security of powerful nations has not diminished. The United States appears intent upon developing a Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), a move that will ensure not only the reliability but the continuation of the US nuclear arsenal for many decades into the future. In doing so, we are sending a message to other nuclear and potential nuclear weapons states that these weapons are useful. With the US abandonment of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), Russia has improved the capabilities of its missile delivery system to assure that its nuclear-armed missiles would not be intercepted by the US missile defense system. China has responded by modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal.

    In the sixty years of the Nuclear Age, there has been no fundamental shift in thinking among those in possession of nuclear weapons. The weapons are deemed necessary to prevent others from initiating a nuclear attack, even in post-Cold War circumstances in which nuclear weapons states do not view each other as enemies, with the exception of India and Pakistan. Rather than seize the opportunity to dramatically reduce and dismantle their nuclear arsenals, the principal nuclear weapons states seek to assure the reliability of the weapons and their delivery systems. In doing so, they fail to close the door on nuclear proliferation to other states and extremist organizations. They leave open the possibility of future nuclear attacks.

    A Unique Responsibility

    On the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Millennium Summit, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, issued a report, “In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all.” In this report, the Secretary-General stated, “…the unique status of nuclear-weapon States also entails a unique responsibility, and they must do more, including but not limited to further reductions in their arsenals of non-strategic nuclear weapons and pursuing arms control agreements that entail not just dismantlement but irreversibility. They should also reaffirm their commitment to negative security assurances. Swift negotiation of a fissile material cut-off treaty is essential. The moratorium on nuclear test explosions must also be upheld until we can achieve the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.”(2) The Secretary-General urged the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to endorse these measures at the 2005 NPT Review Conference, but unfortunately the nuclear weapons states, led by the United States, exercised their power in such a way as to assure that the Review Conference ended without agreement and in failure.

    The “unique responsibility” of the nuclear weapons states falls to them both because of their power and because of their obligations. The Non-Proliferation Treaty itself lays out the basic responsibility of the nuclear weapons states: “…to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….”(3) Following the entry into force of the NPT in 1970, the US and USSR continued to improve their nuclear arsenals for the next three decades. But at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, they agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….”(4) This promise, like others made over the years, proved to be little more than words, as the US worked against progress on nuclear disarmament in the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament and at the 2005 NPT Review Conference.

    The ICJ Opinion

    In 1996, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons. The Court found that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law.”(5) The Court went on to indicate its inability to determine the law in the particular instance when the survival of a state was at stake. It found that “in view of the current state of international law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very survival of a State would be at stake.”(6) It is important to note that the Court was not saying that under such circumstances the threat or use would be lawful, but only that it could not make that determination.

    The Court then took the unusual step of going further than asked and unanimously concluding, “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.”(7) The Court left no doubt that the nuclear disarmament commitment set forth in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty was a legal commitment binding upon the nuclear weapons states.

    Barriers along the Path

    There have been legal and moral barriers, as well as those of practicality and security, along the twisted path leading to the nuclear abyss. But despite promises, obligations and apocalyptic warnings, the nuclear weapons states continue to move surely and steadily down this deadly path. Legal, moral and practical barriers have not been sufficient to move the leaders of nuclear weapons states to step away from this path. It is perhaps worth contemplating what might lead to a change in direction.

    Changing Direction

    Determining what needs to be done is not the difficult part of the task. Many important proposals have been put forward for changing directions and moving away from the nuclear abyss. One example of these was the seven-step proposal by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the 2005 Nobel Peace Laureate. He called for the international community to take the following seven steps:

    1. A five-year hold on additional facilities for uranium enrichment and plutonium separation;
    2. Speeding up existing efforts to modify the research reactors worldwide operating with highly enriched uranium and converting them to use low-enriched uranium, not suitable for making bombs.
    3. Raising the bar for inspection standards to verify compliance with Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations.
    4. Calling upon the UN Security Council to act swiftly and decisively in the case of any country withdrawing from the NPT.
    5. Urging states to pursue and prosecute any illicit trading in nuclear material and technology.
    6. Calling upon the five nuclear weapon states that are parties to the NPT to accelerate implementation of their “unequivocal commitment” to nuclear disarmament.
    7. Acknowledging the volatility of longstanding tensions that give rise to proliferation, in regions such as the Middle East and the Korean peninsula, and take action to resolve existing security problems and, where needed, provide security assurances.(8)

    ElBaradei emphasized that all steps required a concession from someone, and that none would work in isolation. As ElBaradei stresses, concessions must come from all, including the nuclear weapons states, which must change their policies. At present, the nuclear weapons states seek to prevent proliferation, but are failing to fulfill their disarmament obligations. They seem content to live indefinitely in a world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” This is a short-sighted perspective, one that is not sustainable. Until this is recognized by the leaders of the nuclear weapons states, there is not much hope to achieve a balanced approach to preventing nuclear proliferation and achieving nuclear disarmament.

    The Need for Leadership

    If the world is going to move in a new direction, away from the nuclear abyss, certain qualities of leadership will be needed. These include:

    Imagination: the ability to imagine the consequences of remaining on the path we are on.

    Respect for human dignity: the recognition that nuclear weapons and human dignity are incompatible.

    Vision: the ability to see another way forward, a world in which security can be obtained without reliance on nuclear weapons.

    Courage: the willingness to challenge the business-as-usual ingrained attitudes of the defense establishment and its so-called security experts.

    One notable leader of a nuclear weapons state, Mikhail Gorbachev, came to office with these qualities and proposed in the mid-1980s that nuclear weapons be abolished by the year 2000. Unfortunately, he was not in a position to act alone, but needed the support of the United States. He came close to achieving this when he met with US President Ronald Reagan at the Reykjavic Summit in 1986. The two leaders talked seriously about eliminating all nuclear weapons, but their agreement faltered on the issue of missile defenses, which Reagan was committed to implementing and Gorbachev feared.

    We cannot count on another political leader to emerge with these qualities. Rather than waiting for such a leader to come along and save humanity, ordinary people must become leaders and create the necessary political will that leaders of nuclear weapons states will have no choice but to act nobly and in the interests of all humanity. Awakening the people of the world to accept this responsibility is the work of civil society organizations committed to these issues. It is certainly the greatest challenge of our time.

    1. Excerpts from the Nuclear Posture Review, submitted to the Congress on 31 December 2001, can be found at: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm.
    2. In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all, Report of the Secretary-General, United Nations General Assembly, A/59/2005, 21 March 2005, p. 28.
    3. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, entered into force March 5, 1970.
    4. Final Document Issued by 2000 NPT Review Conference, 20 May 2000. Federation of American Scientists website: http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/docs/finaldoc.htm.
    5. Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, United Nations General Assembly, A/51/218, 15 October 1996, p. 36.
    6. Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, United Nations General Assembly, A/51/218, 15 October 1996, p. 37.
    7. Ibid.
    8. ElBaradei, Mohamed. “Seven Steps to Raise World Security,” Financial Times, 2 February 2005.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of many studies of peace in the Nuclear Age, and a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.

  • Nagasaki Peace Declaration 2005

    Today the bells of Nagasaki echo in the sky, marking 60 years since the atomic bombing. At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, a single atomic bomb was dropped from an American warplane, exploding in this same sky above us, instantly destroying the city of Nagasaki. Some 74,000 people were killed, and another 75,000 wounded. Some of the victims never knew what happened. Others pleaded for water as death overtook them. Children, so burned and blackened that they could not even cry out, lay with their eyes closed. Those people who narrowly survived were afflicted with deep physical and mental wounds that could never be healed. They continue to suffer from the after-effects of the bomb, living in fear of death.

    To the leaders of the nuclear weapons states: Nuclear weapons must never be used for any reason whatsoever. This we know from painful experience. For sixty years we have repeated our plea, “No more Hiroshima! No more Nagasaki!” International society has also been exerting effort for the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests and the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones. In 2000, the nuclear weapons states themselves promised an “unequivocal undertaking” for the “elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

    Nevertheless, at the end of the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons held at United Nations headquarters in May of this year, no progress was achieved. The nuclear weapons states, and the United States of America in particular, have ignored their international commitments, and have made no change in their unyielding stance on nuclear deterrence. We strongly resent the trampling of the hopes of the world’s people.

    To the citizens of the United States of America: We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, is your security actually enhanced by your government’s policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new “mini” nuclear weapons? We are confident that the vast majority of you desire in your hearts the elimination of nuclear arms. May you join hands with the people of the world who share that same desire, and work together for a peaceful planet free from nuclear weapons.

    To the government of Japan: Our nation deeply regrets the last war, and our government has supposedly resolved not to engage in actions that might lead to the tragedy of war again. The peaceful ideals of our constitution must be upheld, and the threefold non-nuclear principle of neither possessing, manufacturing, nor allowing nuclear arms within our borders must be enacted into law without delay. The efforts of concerned countries for nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula, combined with the concomitant results of the threefold non-nuclear principle, will pave the way for a Northeast Asia nuclear-weapon-free zone. We urge you to adopt a stance that does not rely upon the “nuclear umbrella,” and to take a leading role in nuclear abolition.

    We would also point out that the atomic bomb survivors have become quite elderly. We further call upon the Japanese government to provide greater assistance to those who continue to suffer from the mental anguish caused by the bombing, and to extend sufficient aid to survivors who now reside overseas.

    Here in Nagasaki, many young people are learning about the atomic bombing and about peace, and are engaged in activities that they themselves have originated. To our young people: Remember always the miserable deaths of the atomic bomb victims. We ask each of you to earnestly study history and to consider the importance of peace and the sanctity of life. The citizens of Nagasaki stand behind your efforts. May you join hands with the world’s citizens and NGOs, that the bells of peace will ring loud and clear in the sky over Nagasaki.

    Today, as we mark 60 years since the atomic bombing, we pray for the repose of the souls of those who died, even as we declare our commitment, together with Hiroshima, never to abandon our efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the establishment of lasting world peace.

    Iccho Itoh Mayor The City of Nagasaki

  • Los Alamos on the 60th Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima

    As we gather here to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the annihilation of Hiroshima, it is significant that we raise these memories here at Los Alamos in the heart of the dragon the very place where such an unprecedented level of violence against humanity was created in a single blast, resulting in the death of over 200,000 people by the end of 1945, most of them civilians. In the 60 years since, delayed effects including radiation-induced cancers, immunologic disorders, psychological trauma and birth defects have killed and afflicted many tens of thousands more in Japan.

    But it is not only the people of Japan who are suffering from the 60 year nuclear nightmare first created at Los Alamos. We are all downwinders. Nuclear weapons drove us to the unspeakable act of secretly testing radiation on our own population. 23,000 American civilians were subjected to radiation research in about 1400 projects over 30 years. The government tested on retarded children, mental patients, poor women and US soldiers. More than 200,000 troops were ordered to observe nuclear test detonations and were exposed to radiation.

    After 60 years, there are now at least seven acknowledged nuclear powers, and 44 nuclear capable states, thanks to the so called Atoms for Peace program which spread nuclear reactors and materials around the world and put the keys to the nuclear bomb factory in those nations hands­handing them the technology and materials for bombs, under the guise of “peaceful” nuclear energy. The world is awash in radioactive waste. We haven’t a clue where to put it. The best we have come up with in the US is a harebrained scheme to ship the toxic waste from weapons and power plants, by rail and by truck from the four corners of the continent and bury it in a hole in the ground in Nevada at Yucca Mountain. Citizens groups, like the proverbial boy with his finger in the dike, have been holding off the onslaught of this devastating disposal solution, preventing legislation from passing in the Congress for years, and now, when the current Republican Congress voted for it to proceed, with a lawsuit in the courts that hangs by a thread, having enlisted the Court’s aid in forestalling the process until some of the tainted, fraudulent evidence submitted by the government as to the suitability of the repository is re-examined. Deadly plutonium remains lethal for 250,000 years and there is no way to guarantee that the Yucca site could prevent radioactive seepage into the ground water over this unimaginable period of time. Remember that all of recorded history is only 5000 years old!

    The US has spent nearly six trillion dollars on nuclear weapons over the past sixty years, We’ve created more than 4500 contaminated sites, covering tens of thousands of acres that may take 75 years and cost as high as one trillion dollars “to clean up” Clean up of radioactive waste, much of which remains toxic for hundreds of thousands of years is the wrong word. At best, we can only attempt to manage and contain the poisons from seeping into the air soil, and groundwater and visiting further destruction on our planet.

    And yet, 60 years later, our Doctor Strangeloves continue to create new sources of toxic waste with sub-critical underground tests of plutonium blown up with high explosives 1,000 feet below the desert floor at the Nevada test site; plans to fabricate new plutonium pits for nuclear bombs here at Los Alamos; plutonium powered rockets to fire into space which could spew down highly carcinogenic radioactive particles upon the earth below should there be an accident like the ill-fated Challenger and Columbia shuttles; as well as the bullets and tanks made with depleted uranium in a bizarre recycling program which enabled the government to make a dent in the 500,000 tons of depleted uranium waste amassed since the Manhattan Project. Don’t be misled by the term “depleted uranium”. Like “spent fuel” from civilian reactors, depleted uranium is highly toxic and carcinogenic and has a half-life of some 4.4 billion years. “Half life” is another euphemism that distances us through our language from grasping the deadly seriousness of what we are doing to our planet. For example, while the Half-life of plutonium is 26,000 years, it remains toxic for about 250,000 years until all the radioactivity decays. So you can imagine­or can you­the life span of depleted uranium with its half-life of over 4 billion years!

    There are heartbreaking reports that the hundreds of tons of DU ammunition used in Iraq during both wars, as well as in Bosnia left a growing legacy of respiratory problems, liver and kidney dysfunction among US vets and birth defects among their new born children with similar reports coming from Iraq and Kosovo, with an increase in leukemia and birth defects. Yet, as in so many cases, our government has covered up and denied that depleted uranium has been harmful even though a new National Academy of Sciences Report on the Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation has reaffirmed that there is no safe dose of radiation. Even the lowest levels of radiation can be carcinogenic. Discouragingly, an August report in the Denver Post informs us that 8500 uranium mining permits have been requested in Utah and Colorado, in the wake of the numerous new nuclear projects in the works, including a push by the Bush administration to build 50 new nuclear power plants by 2020.

    But perhaps the most damaging injury from the 60 years of the nuclear age is the toxic effect it has had on our very democracy. Because of nuclear weapons, the government created a whole culture of secrecy, lies and cover ups about the awful effects of the bomb. The very existence of nuclear weapons demonstrates a failure of democracy. We are not permitted to confront our own history. In 1995, 50 years after the bomb, Congress actually fired the Historian at the Smithsonian Museum, our must prestigious historical institution, because they didn’t want Americans to know about the controversy that preceded President Truman’s decision to drop the bomb at the end of World War II. Top US military officials, like Generals Omar Bradley and Eisenhower, wrote letters to Truman telling him it was unnecessary to use the bomb to end the war against Japan. Then there were reports of Winston Churchill, urging Truman to drop the bomb before Russian entered the Pacific front.

    Recent reports, in anticipation of this 60th Anniversary, have told us how the military censored photographs and films of the gruesome devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By not only developing the bomb and trying to maintain a monopoly on its use­despite urging by the “father of the bomb”, Robert Oppenheimer, to President Truman to stop the spread of atomic weapons by placing international controls over all atomic technology, the United States lost its moral compass and entered a 60 year cycle of Empire. Pushing our weight around the world, we brandish our nuclear weapons. They are the brass knuckles on the fist of our empire. Even without ever dropping another nuclear weapon on a so-called “rogue or “axis of evil” state we are still using the 10,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal, just as a bank robber uses a gun in a hold up ­even without ever pulling the trigger. Breaking our promises for good faith efforts for nuclear disarmament in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, refusing to submit the Comprehensive Test Ban to the Senate for ratification, trashing the Anti-Ballistic Treaty to clear the way for dominating and controlling the military use of space–and spurring a new arms race to the heavens, developing new more useable nuclear weapons and planning to replace all the thousands we already have, we are seen as the nuclear bully, lawlessly menacingthe world with our might like some mad cowboy nation from the Wild West, while actually going to war without legal authority and slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians under the false premise that Iraq was a nuclear threat to America.

    Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, of Hiroshima has written that “according to Japanese and Chinese tradition, a 60th anniversary begins a new cycle of rhythms in the interwoven fabric that binds humankind and nature.” Let us begin a new cycle in a life affirming connection of our humanity and nature. Let us awaken from our 60-year nuclear nightmare of imperial hegemony. Let us reject the drive for Empire and reclaim our democracy by working for the abolition of nuclear weapons. We know from public opinion polls that the majority of Americans, 65% in the latest poll taken even while we waged this misbegotten war against Iraq, said they think we’d be better off without nuclear weapons if all countries gave them up. Abolition Now, the campaign of the Abolition 2000 Network, of over 2000 organizations in 95 countries, is working with Mayor Akiba and nearly 1,000 Mayors around the world, to enroll our Mayors in a campaign to have a treaty negotiated by 2010 for the elimination of nuclear weapons, with full implementation by 2020. We have already produced a model nuclear weapons convention that is now an official UN document as a starting point for negotiations. We are working with the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament to enroll our members of Congress in these efforts. At least, until we get regime change here at home, we’ll have to work with our local, state and congressional members to use this cycle of renewal to put an end to the nuclear scourge. Congresswoman Lynne Woolsey of California has submitted a resolution proposing that negotiations begin on a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. It needs the support of your member of Congress. We need a Senator to sponsor a similar resolution. There’s lots we can do to take back our Democracy and halt the spread of Empire. Let us use this 60th anniversary to begin a year of awakening, acknowledge our shameful nuclear history in which we sacrificed so much of our democracy to the national security state, and say no to the nuclear scourge and yes to our highest ideals of an open and transparent society that, with an informed public, can deliver on our cherished American ideals to uphold the rule of law and live in peace with other nations.

    Alice Slater is president of Global Resource Center for the Environment (GRACE).

  • Hiroshima Peace Declaration 2005

    This August 6, the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing, is a moment of shared lamentation in which more than 300 thousand souls of A-bomb victims and those who remain behind transcend the boundary between life and death to remember that day. It is also a time of inheritance, of awakening, and of commitment, in which we inherit the commitment of the hibakusha to the abolition of nuclear weapons and realization of genuine world peace, awaken to our individual responsibilities, and recommit ourselves to take action. This new commitment, building on the desires of all war victims and the millions around the world who are sharing this moment, is creating a harmony that is enveloping our planet.

    The keynote of this harmony is the hibakusha warning, “No one else should ever suffer as we did,” along with the cornerstone of all religions and bodies of law, “Thou shalt not kill.” Our sacred obligation to future generations is to establish this axiom, especially its corollary, “Thou shalt not kill children,” as the highest priority for the human race across all nations and religions. The International Court of Justice advisory opinion issued nine years ago was a vital step toward fulfilling this obligation, and the Japanese Constitution, which embodies this axiom forever as the sovereign will of a nation, should be a guiding light for the world in the 21st century.

    Unfortunately, the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty this past May left no doubt that the U.S., Russia, U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and a few other nations wishing to become nuclear-weapon states are ignoring the majority voices of the people and governments of the world, thereby jeopardizing human survival.

    Based on the dogma “Might is right,” these countries have formed their own “nuclear club,” the admission requirement being possession of nuclear weapons. Through the media, they have long repeated the incantation, “Nuclear weapons protect you.” With no means of rebuttal, many people worldwide have succumbed to the feeling that “There is nothing we can do.” Within the United Nations, nuclear club members use their veto power to override the global majority and pursue their selfish objectives.

    To break out of this situation, Mayors for Peace, with more than 1,080 member cities, is currently holding its sixth General Conference in Hiroshima, where we are revising the Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons launched two years ago. The primary objective is to produce an action plan that will further expand the circle of cooperation formed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the European Parliament, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and other international NGOs, organizations and individuals worldwide, and will encourage all world citizens to awaken to their own responsibilities with a sense of urgency, “as if the entire world rests on their shoulders alone,” and work with new commitment to abolish nuclear weapons.

    To these ends and to ensure that the will of the majority is reflected at the UN, we propose that the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, which will meet in October, establish a special committee to deliberate and plan for the achievement and maintenance of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Such a committee is needed because the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and the NPT Review Conference in New York have failed due to a “consensus rule” that gives a veto to every country.

    We expect that the General Assembly will then act on the recommendations from this special committee, adopting by the year 2010 specific steps leading toward the elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.

    Meanwhile, we hereby declare the 369 days from today until August 9, 2006, a “Year of Inheritance, Awakening and Commitment.” During this Year, the Mayors for Peace, working with nations, NGOs and the vast majority of the world’s people, will launch a great diversity of campaigns for nuclear weapons abolition in numerous cities throughout the world.

    We expect the Japanese government to respect the voice of the world’s cities and work energetically in the First Committee and the General Assembly to ensure that the abolition of nuclear weapons is achieved by the will of the majority.

    Furthermore, we request that the Japanese government provide the warm, humanitarian support appropriate to the needs of all the aging hibakusha, including those living abroad and those exposed in areas affected by the black rain.

    On this, the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing, we seek to comfort the souls of all its victims by declaring that we humbly reaffirm our responsibility never to “repeat the evil.”

    “Please rest peacefully; for we will not repeat the evil.”

    Tadatoshi Akiba Mayor The City of Hiroshima

    Tadatoshi Akiba, the mayor of Hiroshima and the president of Mayors for Peace, serves on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council. The Mayors for Peace received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 World Citizenship Award.

  • Nuclear Plants are Still Vulnerable, Panel Says

    Three and a half years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government has failed to address the risk that a passenger plane flying at high speed could be deliberately crashed into a commercial nuclear plant, setting off fires and dispersing large amounts of radiation, a long-awaited report by the National Academy of Sciences has concluded.

    Officials at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have maintained that such an attack is improbable and that detailed analyses of the consequences of such attacks are unnecessary. Experts at the nation’s premier scientific body said those judgments are flawed.

    “There are currently no requirements in place to defend against the kinds of larger-scale, pre-meditated, skillful attacks that were carried out on September 11, 2001,” a panel of scientists said, even as it agreed such an attack would be difficult to pull off.

    Academy officials battled the government for months to make their declassified conclusions public — and the version released yesterday charged that federal secrecy edicts designed to keep information from terrorists were paradoxically hurting efforts to defend against such attacks.

    Restrictions on sharing information imposed by the NRC had kept the industry from addressing vulnerabilities, the report said.

    As a result, government labs and independent researchers have sometimes worked at cross-purposes, searched for solutions that others had already found and duplicated complex analyses.

    NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said the agency “respectfully disagrees” that there are no provisions to deal with major attacks.

    Security measures have been upgraded since 2001, and the agency continues to analyze risks, he said. But he emphasized that such attacks are improbable and that other agencies are guarding against them.

    “We do believe that the possibility of a successful attack using commercial aircraft is very small,” he said. It is impractical to ask commercial plants to defend against such attacks, Burnell concluded. But he said plants are aware of the risk and are implementing measures to deal with worst-case scenarios.

    As to the complaint of excessive secrecy, Burnell said the commission has to implement the law, which requires controls on information that could be misused. The debate is not over classified information but rather over sensitive data that ought not to be publicized.

    In an earlier interview, E. William Colglazier, executive officer of the academy, said the nuclear agency’s guidelines for this classification are vague. Even when officials agreed that certain details in the report are not secret, he said, they had argued that chunks of non-secret information, when presented together, constituted “Safeguards Information.”

    The report said government scientists and independent researchers had conducted analyses of threats without knowing that others were doing the same.

    Burnell acknowledged that “the system was not perfect” but said that as more people receive security clearances such bottlenecks could be reduced. The commission has indicated it is seeking to increase access to information.

    To the relief of the industry, the academy report disputed a characterization that the commission used in a letter to Congress on March 14. The letter implied that the academy was recommending moving spent nuclear fuel from large pools to dry storage casks. Industry believes that the pools are as safe as the casks and that moving the fuel is not worth the expense.

    Louis J. Lanzerotti, chairman of the academy’s report, said that his panel had called for analyses of large attacks and that those results might prompt the commission to move fuel to dry storage at some plants.

    Although dry storage has advantages, the risk of major attacks could be sufficiently addressed by changing how spent fuel is stored in pools and by installing water sprays to control fires, said the academy’s Kevin Crowley, the study coordinator.

    Originally published by The Washington Post

  • Increasing the Nuclear Threat: A Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post

    In his Nov. 16 op-ed piece, “New Threats, Old Weapons,” retired Adm. Robert R. Monroe said that to have a more effective deterrent against rogue states and terrorist groups, we need a new generation of nuclear weapons.

    His notion that a leaner nuclear arsenal will deter rogue states and terrorist groups from using nuclear weapons to harm us presumes that we are dealing with reasonable adversaries. Given the tactics that terrorists use, that is a naive assumption.

    Further, the Bush administration’s January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review stresses the importance of being prepared to use nuclear weapons in an offensive manner and against a wider range of countries, even those that are not nuclear. In my view, the president’s initiatives to develop additional nuclear weapons are not about deterrence but about adding a tool to our military arsenal.

    Adm. Monroe said that we must have nuclear weapons with “greatly increased accuracy,” “specialized capabilities” and “tailored effects.” But according to Stanford University physicist Sidney Drell, the effects of even a small nuclear bunker buster would be disastrous. A one-kiloton weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero and eject a million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air.

    Our reopening the nuclear door to a new generation of weapons will only encourage proliferation. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statement that Russia is developing new nuclear missile systems is testimony to that effect.

    This year Congress eliminated funding for new nuclear weapons programs in the recent appropriations bill. This was the right move because, to make our nation safer from nuclear threats, the best investment we could make is to secure nuclear materials at facilities around the world while insisting that other nations follow us down the path of nonproliferation.

    Dianne Feinstein U.S. Senator (D-Calif.) Washington

  • Civil Society Initiatives for Nuclear Disarmament

    Civil Society Initiatives for Nuclear Disarmament

    The fate of the world depends upon whether humankind will be able to eliminate the world’s nuclear arsenals. Nuclear weapons, designed to cause massive damage to large populations, are essentially city-destroying weapons, as was tragically demonstrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These weapons may be created in the hope that they will never be used, but this cannot be guaranteed. Once created, nuclear weapons are an ongoing threat to humanity and other forms of life. So long as these weapons exist, no leader can provide a guarantee that they will not be used.

    I keep on my desk a small booklet, published by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, with the words of General George Lee Butler, a former Commander of the United States Strategic Command. General Butler, who advocates abolition of all nuclear weapons, believes that humanity has been given a “second chance” by our Creator. Here is the perspective of this retired four-star general who now sees himself simply as “a citizen of this planet”:

    “Sadly, the Cold War lives on in the minds of men who cannot let go the fears, the beliefs, the enmities of the Nuclear Age. They cling to deterrence, clutch its tattered promise to their breast, shake it wistfully at bygone adversaries and balefully at new or imagined ones. They are gripped still by its awful willingness not simply to tempt the apocalypse but to prepare its way.

    “To them I say we cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it. It is time to reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason and the rightful interests of humanity.” 1

    These are powerful words, not the kind we are accustomed to hearing from politicians or military leaders. General Butler, an anomaly, is a retired air force officer, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, who once commanded the entire US strategic nuclear arsenal, and came away from this experience sobered by what he had learned. For a short time, General Butler spoke eloquently for a world free of nuclear weapons, his military background giving authenticity to his concerns.

    But there are few military men such as General Butler, and fewer still who have spoken publicly on this most important of all issues confronting humanity. For the most part, military leaders and politicians appear comfortable moving forward with only slight variations of the nuclear status quo. It appears that if there is to be change toward a world free of nuclear threat, the leadership must come from civil society organizations. These organizations face the challenge of awakening largely dormant populations within somnambulistic societies that seem content to sleepwalk toward Armageddon.

    Civil Society Leadership

    In the area of nuclear disarmament, the role of civil society leadership is critical. We obviously cannot depend upon political leadership, which is capable in our frenetic world of only dealing with problems as they become acute. There is a furious pace to politics that dulls the political imagination and often results in less than visionary leadership.

    There are two possible paths to awakening the political imagination on the issue of nuclear disarmament. The first and tragic possibility would be a sadly belated response to a nuclear detonation destroying a city, whether by accident or design, by a nuclear weapons state or by a non-state extremist group. The second would be by an effective campaign led by civil society that awakened and empowered the people of the planet to put sufficient pressure on their political leaders for them to take action as a political expedient without needing to engage their moral imaginations.

    Clearly the second option is far preferable to the first. The critical question is whether civil society organizations can actually provide the leadership to sufficiently awaken a dormant public to in turn move political leaders to take action.

    Why have civil society organizations and their followers not been successful in past campaigns calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons? Intrinsic psychological, political and social factors impede efforts to build a sustained and effective mass movement seeking this goal. A crude but accurate analogy can be made with the plight of a frog placed in a pot of lukewarm water and placidly treading water while the pot is gradually heated to a boil. Here are some of the reasons one could speculate that the frog (or our own species) fails to take the necessary action to save itself:

    • Ignorance. The frog may fail to recognize the dilemma. It may be unable to predict the consequences of being in water in which the temperature is steadily rising.
    • Complacency. The frog may feel comfortable in the warming water. It may believe that because nothing bad has happened yet (even though it has), nothing bad will happen in the future.
    • Deference to authority. The frog may believe that others are in control of the thermostat and that it has no power to change the conditions in which it finds itself.
    • Sense of powerlessness. The frog may fail to realize its own power to affect change, and believe that there is nothing it can do to improve its situation.
    • Fear. The frog may have concluded that, although there are dangers in the pot, the dangers outside the pot are even greater. Thus, it fails to take action, even though it could do so.
    • Economic advantage. The frog may conclude that there are greater short-term rewards for staying in the pot than jumping out.
    • Conformity. The frog may see other frogs treading water in the pot and not want to appear different by sounding an alarm or acting on its own initiative.
    • Marginalization. The frog may have witnessed other frogs attempt to raise warnings or jump out, and seen them marginalized and ignored by the other frogs.
    • Technological optimism. The frog may understand that there is a problem that could lead to its demise, but believe that it is not necessary to act because someone will find a technological solution.
    • Tyranny of experts. Even though the frog may believe it is in danger, the experts may provide a comforting assessment that makes the frog doubt its own wisdom.

    Identical challenges must be overcome if civil society initiatives are to be successful in moving the human population to action. Other challenges have to do with the mass media, which is not inclined to cede either time or authority to civil society leadership. Thus, the messages of those who often have little to say, but are in powerful positions, tend to dominate the media, while civil society organizations struggle for even modest media exposure.

    Civil Society Initiatives

    Indeed, there have been many courageous and ambitious civil society initiatives for nuclear disarmament over the period of the Nuclear Age. They have included marches, protests, appeals, policy recommendations and civil disobedience. I will discuss a few of these important initiatives that have occurred in the post Cold War period, although there are far too many for me to provide a comprehensive overview. Some of these outstanding initiatives have been Abolition 2000, The Middle Powers Initiative, the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, and the Turn the Tide Campaign of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    Abolition 2000, a global network of over 2,000 civil society organizations and municipalities, was formed during the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference by representatives of organizations that were disappointed with the manner in which the nuclear weapons states, particularly the United States , had manipulated the outcome of the Conference. Despite the serious lack of progress by the nuclear weapons states in fulfilling their nuclear disarmament obligations to that point in time, the treaty was extended indefinitely. Abolition 2000 began with a Founding Statement, created by civil society representatives at the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, which articulated its principles. 2 The strong points of Abolition 2000 were that it was broadly international, included many forms of expertise, was activist in its orientation, and was committed to complete nuclear disarmament. This network was largely responsible for bringing the terms “abolition” and “elimination” into the dialogue on nuclear disarmament. It moved the discussion from arms control to abolition.

    The initial goal of Abolition 2000 when it was formed in 1995 was to achieve an agreement for the total elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2000. When this agreement by governments proved impossible to achieve, despite Abolition 2000 having drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, the network decided to continue its abolition work, maintaining contacts within the global network with the more than 2,000 civil society organizations and municipalities that comprised the network.

    The Middle Powers Initiative (MPI) is a coalition of eight international civil society organizations. It was formed in 1998 to encourage middle power governments to promote a nuclear disarmament agenda. Only months after MPI’s formation, a group of middle power countries, calling itself the New Agenda Coalition (NAC), went public with a strong nuclear disarmament agenda. These countries were: Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden. 3 They have been active in promoting their agenda in the First Committee of the United Nations (Disarmament Committee) and at the meetings of the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. They were instrumental in achieving the consensus adoption of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament in the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    MPI has given support to the New Agenda countries by convening high level consultations, sending delegations to many countries, including NATO countries and Japan , and publishing briefing papers in support of NAC positions and the preservation of the NPT. By its support of the NAC, the Middle Powers Initiative has tried to focus the attention and efforts of key civil society organizations to bring pressure to bear on the nuclear weapons states from friendly middle power governments. 4

    The Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, also known as Vision 2020, is a relatively recent campaign, having begun its work in 2003. The goal of the campaign is to press governments to begin negotiations for a treaty banning nuclear weapons in 2005, to complete negotiations on this treaty by the year 2010 and to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. In a sense, this Emergency Campaign picks up from Abolition 2000, setting its target date for governments to complete negotiations just a decade further in the future than Abolition 2000. This Emergency Campaign has another important element. It is led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , two cities dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons, and is composed of mayors in over 600 cities. 5

    The Mayors for Peace participated in the 2004 Preparatory Committee meeting of the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, bringing 16 mayors and deputy mayors from 12 countries to New York to attend the meetings. They are planning to bring over 100 mayors and deputy mayors to the 2005 NPT Review Conference. There is no doubt that the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign is bringing important new energy to the global effort for nuclear disarmament. Abolition 2000 has created a special arm, Abolition Now!, to support the mayors campaign and that calls upon all countries to make public their plans for nuclear disarmament in accord with their treaty obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. 6

    A new and hopeful campaign focuses on the United States , the world’s most powerful state, because US leadership and support is essential for serious global progress on nuclear disarmament. The campaign, called Turn the Tide, is a project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. It seeks to inform and mobilize US citizens to participate in directing messages via the internet to their elected representatives on key nuclear weapons issues. The campaign utilizes sophisticated software to send action alerts and enables easy communications with key officials. 7

    The Turn the Tide Campaign is based on a 13-point Statement:

    • Stop all efforts to create dangerous new nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
    • Maintain the current moratorium on nuclear testing and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
    • Cancel plans to build new nuclear weapons production plants, and close and clean up the toxic contamination at existing plants.
    • Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No Use of nuclear weapons against any nation or group that does not have nuclear weapons.
    • Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nations possessing nuclear weapons.
    • Cancel funding for and plans to deploy offensive missile “defense” systems which could ignite a dangerous arms race and offer no security against terrorist weapons of mass destruction.
    • In order to significantly decrease the threat of accidental launch, together with Russia , take nuclear weapons off high-alert status and do away with the strategy of launch-on-warning.
    • Together with Russia , implement permanent and verifiable dismantlement of nuclear weapons taken off deployed status through the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).
    • Demonstrate to other countries US commitment to reducing its reliance on nuclear weapons by removing all US nuclear weapons from foreign soil.
    • To prevent future proliferation or theft, create and maintain a global inventory of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons materials and place these weapons and materials under strict international safeguards.
    • Initiate international negotiations to fulfill existing treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.
    • Initiate a moratorium on new nuclear power reactors and gradually phase out existing ones, as these are a primarily means for the proliferation of nuclear materials, technology and weapons; simultaneously establish an International Sustainable Energy Agency to support the development of clean, safe renewable energy.
    • Redirect funding from nuclear weapons programs to dismantling nuclear weapons, safeguarding nuclear materials, cleaning up the toxic legacy of the Nuclear Age and meeting more pressing social needs such as education, health care and social services.

    Conclusions

    For nearly 60 years, since the first nuclear test at Alamogordo , New Mexico , the world has been muddling through the nuclear dilemma. Despite the end of the Cold War, we are far from being secure from the nuclear threat. The threat today takes a different form, but is no less dangerous. In our divided world, there are terrible tensions and there is the possibility that nuclear weapons could end up in the hands of non-state extremists who would have no reservations about using them against the populations of many countries, including the nuclear weapons states. The irony of this is that none of the nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nuclear weapons states can provide an ounce of deterrence or security against such extremists.

    The only way to assure the security of the nuclear weapons states, or any state, from a nuclear attack, is to eliminate these weapons in a phased, orderly and verified manner and place the materials to make these weapons under strict and effective international control. This is the reality of our common nuclear dilemma, and getting this message through to the leaders of nuclear weapons states, particularly the United States, is one of the most critical challenges, if not the most critical challenge, of our time. Only with the success of civil society in meeting this challenge can we have a reasonable expectation, in General Butler’s words, to “reassert the primacy of individual conscience, the voice of reason and the rightful interests of humanity.”

    David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the co-author of Nuclear Weapons and the World Court and may other studies of peace in the Nuclear Age.

    Butler , George Lee, “Ending the Nuclear Madness,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Waging Peace Series, Booklet 40, September 1999.

    See http://www.abolition2000.org

    Originally Slovenia was also a part of the New Agenda Coalition, but did not stay long in the coalition.

    See http://www.mpi.org

    See http://www.mayorsforpeace.org

    See http://www.abolitionnow.org

    See https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com

  • Ending the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity: New Thinking and Effective Campaigns are Needed

    Ending the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity: New Thinking and Effective Campaigns are Needed

    We need new thinking and effective campaigns if we are to succeed in quelling the growing nuclear dangers in the world. The existing nuclear weapons states are failing to fulfill their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. North Korea has withdrawn from the NPT, and claims to have become a member of the nuclear weapons club. Iran is enriching uranium for what it claims are peaceful purposes. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently reminded the world that there are forty countries capable of converting their “peaceful” nuclear programs to weapons programs.

    There are still well over 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world, perhaps closer to 30,000, mostly in the arsenals of the US and Russia. These two countries also continue to maintain over 2,000 nuclear weapons each on hair-trigger alert, creating the ongoing and increasing possibility of an accidental nuclear launch. Other nuclear weapons states include the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and likely North Korea .

    Throughout the world, terrorism is on the rise with groups such as Al Qaeda openly expressing a desire to obtain nuclear weapons. Should such a group succeed in this quest, they could not be deterred from using these weapons, since deterrence implies being able to locate the attacking party in order to retaliate. Thus, existing arsenals of thousands of nuclear weapons cannot deter a small group of terrorists from attacking the cities of the militarily most powerful states.

    The US attacked Iraq because of Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, and has made threats of preemptive action to North Korea and Iran based on their nuclear arsenals. For geopolitical reasons, the US has turned a blind eye to Israel ‘s nuclear weapons and those of other allied nations, while attacking Iraq, a country that it falsely accused of having such weapons. The US has basically adopted a “do as I say, not as I do” strategy of nuclear arms control. Such a strategy, based on clear double standards, is extremely dangerous and destined to fail.

    The world is walking a dangerous tightrope, while facing harsh prospects of potential nuclear disaster. The only way to prevent a nuclear 9/11 is to dramatically reduce the nuclear weapons, technologies and materials in the world and to bring the remaining ones under international control. This will require US leadership as the world’s most powerful country. Without US leadership, the world will continue its flirtation with nuclear disaster, increasing the likelihood that the US itself could become the victim of its own double standards.

    Unfortunately, the US, under the Bush administration, has not only failed to show leadership to prevent nuclear terrorism and nuclear double standards, but has actively sought to improve its nuclear arsenal. It has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and is moving toward lowering the time needed to resume nuclear testing. It has been allocating funds to research “bunker busting” nuclear weapons and “mini-nukes.” And it has forged ahead with deployment of untested missile defense systems that have caused Russia and China to make offensive improvements in their nuclear arsenals in order to maintain their deterrent capabilities.

    If we are to avert future nuclear catastrophes it is necessary to change the course of current nuclear policy. In order to do this, we need a new way of thinking about nuclear weapons that reflects the view that they undermine rather than enhance our security. This is the conclusion reached by General George Lee Butler, the former head of the US Strategic Command. General Butler was once in charge of all US strategic weapons. He stated, “Sadly, the Cold War lives on in the minds of men who cannot let go the fears, the beliefs, the enmities of the Nuclear Age. They cling to deterrence, clutch its tattered promise to their breast, shake it wistfully at bygone adversaries and balefully at new or imagined ones. They are gripped still by its awful willingness not simply to tempt the apocalypse but to prepare the way.”

    Nearly fifty years ago, Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of the 20th century, argued, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Shortly before Einstein’s death, he joined Bertrand Russell in issuing a short manifesto signed by themselves and nine other prominent scientists, including Joseph Rotblat , the one scientist who left the Manhattan Project when he realized that the Germans would not succeed in developing a nuclear weapon. The document, known simply as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, set forth the case that nuclear weapons make the abolition of war necessary. “Here, then, is the problem that we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.”

    The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was Einstein’s final warning and plea to humanity. The manifesto urged that humanity has a choice: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?” The document went on to urge: “Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    To succeed in ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity, ordinary people must engage in the issue and it must become a top priority issue. At present, most people are not engaged in this issue, or may even incorrectly believe that nuclear weapons provide prestige and enhance rather than undermine their security. What is needed is a massive, well-funded campaign of public education and advocacy in order to arouse ordinary people and officials everywhere to action.

    I will mention two encouraging campaigns that are in their early stages. The first is the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons. 1 This campaign seeks to activate mayors around the world to engage their populations to pressure their national leaders to begin in 2005 negotiations on eliminating nuclear weapons, to complete these negotiations by 2010, and to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. This campaign, led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , holds promise, but at this point in time it remains dramatically under-funded. Nonetheless, it is moving forward with the expectation that more than 100 mayors and deputy mayors will state their case for nuclear disarmament at the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations. The Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign is receiving support from Abolition 2000, which has created Abolition Now! to help further the Mayors Campaign. 2

    A second campaign now underway is called Turn the Tide. 3 It was created by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to focus on changing US nuclear policies. It is a campaign that reaches out to US citizens via the internet and urges them to communicate with their elected representatives to support actions set forth in their 13-point Campaign Statement:

    1. Stop all efforts to create dangerous new nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
    2. Maintain the current moratorium on nuclear testing and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
    3. Cancel plans to build new nuclear weapons production plants, and close and clean up the toxic contamination at existing plants.
    4. Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No Use of nuclear weapons against any nation or group that does not have nuclear weapons.
    5. Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nations possessing nuclear weapons.
    6. Cancel funding for and plans to deploy offensive missile “defense” systems which could ignite a dangerous arms race and offer no security against terrorist weapons of mass destruction.
    7. In order to significantly decrease the threat of accidental launch, together with Russia , take nuclear weapons off high-alert status and do away with the strategy of launch-on-warning.
    8. Together with Russia , implement permanent and verifiable dismantlement of nuclear weapons taken off deployed status through the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).
    9. Demonstrate to other countries US commitment to reducing its reliance on nuclear weapons by removing all US nuclear weapons from foreign soil.
    10. To prevent future proliferation or theft, create and maintain a global inventory of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons materials and place these weapons and materials under strict international safeguards.
    11. Initiate international negotiations to fulfill existing treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.
    12. Initiate a moratorium on new nuclear power reactors and gradually phase out existing ones, as these are a primarily means for the proliferation of nuclear materials, technology and weapons; simultaneously establish an International Sustainable Energy Agency to support the development of clean, safe renewable energy.
    13. Redirect funding from nuclear weapons programs to dismantling nuclear weapons, safeguarding nuclear materials, cleaning up the toxic legacy of the Nuclear Age and meeting more pressing social needs such as education, health care and social services.

    There is no magic formula for accomplishing these goals or, for that matter, for changing the world in any direction. Change often occurs one person at a time. The problem with the nuclear weapons threat is that there may not be time for such a progression of involvement. People must immediately change their thinking and they must engage in this issue as if their very lives depended upon it because they do. Many people think that this will probably not happen until another major city has been destroyed by a nuclear weapon. It would be a terrible failure of imagination if the destruction of a city is required to move us to take significant action to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity.

    We know that the danger is lurking in the dark recesses of our collective consciences. Why else would we give our tacit assent to nuclear weapons programs, even in our most prestigious universities where the next generation of leaders is being educated? We must bring the hidden fears and dangers of the Nuclear Age into the light and act with resolve to change the course of history, which sadly now seems to be racing toward inevitable future nuclear catastrophes, unless there is a real awakening.

    David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.

    1 See http://www.mayorsforpeace.org
    2 See http://www.abolitionnow.org
    3 See https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com

  • We Need You

    We Need You

    The Foundation’s overarching goal is to help create a world free of nuclear weapons. In a rational world, this should not be a difficult task. A persuasive case can be made that a nuclear war could destroy civilization and possibly put an end to the human species and most forms of life. At a minimum, the use of these weapons could obliterate cities, including our own. We know what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a result of two small nuclear weapons. Today’s weapons have on average eight times the explosive power of those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    But, of course, this is not a rational world. It is a world in which fear, denial and irrationality hold high office. It is a world in which international law is trampled on and strategies of “might makes right” are employed far too frequently by national leaders. In our world, many leaders cling to old views of power, failing to realize that in the Nuclear Age, as Einstein pointed out, “everything has changed save our modes of thinking.”

    At a recent Foundation event, a woman asked, “Can an organization like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation make a difference on the issue of eliminating nuclear weapons?” This is an important question. The honest answer is that it is a tough struggle, one in which there are no guarantees of success. In many respects, fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons is an act of faith rooted in a strong belief in a resilient human spirit.

    It is clear that the dangers of the Nuclear Age have not diminished, despite the end of the Cold War. It remains a dangerous world in which the ultimate expression of anger and frustration, a nuclear 9/11 or 3/11, must be prevented. The best way to prevent such an occurrence is to assure that nuclear weapons and materials do not proliferate any further than they already have. The best way assure this is to dramatically reduce the number of these weapons with the goal of their elimination, and to apply international safeguards to both nuclear weapons and materials.

    Achieving a nuclear weapons-free world is a colossal task,one that too many people consider unattainable and therefore not worth the effort. In fact, it is the consequences of not undertaking this effort that makes it so essential. The risks posed by nuclear weapons are far too great to leave to chance or to politicians or generals. They demand a response from the people; they demand our involvement.

    The work of the Foundation is perhaps even more necessary today than it was at
    the height of the Cold War. It is to bring critical issues related to nuclear dangers
    to people everywhere, and to provide quality information, analysis and ideas
    for advocacy. This is the work we engage in daily and the work we have engaged in
    for more than 20 years. Our only chance of success is to work with others to build a movement big enough to impact governments. To do this, we need your active support
    and involvement.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation seeks to be a voice of reason at a critical juncture in human history. This election year we are launching a campaign to Chart a New
    Course in US Nuclear Policy. We need your help. Please add your voice, and help us to extend the Foundation’s reach and its ability to achieve a more rational and caring world, one that we can be proud to pass on to the next generation.