Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear threat

  • US Presidential Elections: An Opportunity For Debate On US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    US Presidential Elections: An Opportunity For Debate On US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    In the post 9/11 world there has been strong concern about nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists or “rogue” states. The pretext for the initiation of the US war against Iraq was the concern that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, including a suspected program to develop nuclear weapons, posed an “imminent threat” to the United States. While it turned out that Iraq had neither such weapons nor programs, the United States continues to maintain a large nuclear arsenal as a matter of long-standing national policy. Whether US nuclear weapons policies serve to promote prospects for world peace and national security, or conversely to undermine them, is a question that begs for serious public debate.

    US nuclear weapons policy should be a subject of concern to every American. Yet there exists some kind of taboo that prevents the subject from being debated in public forums, in the media, or in Congress. The US presidential elections provide an important opportunity for national discussion and debate on this issue. With the US nuclear arsenal of some 10,000 nuclear weapons, along with policies to research more usable nuclear weapons while ignoring international obligations for nuclear disarmament, there are critical issues that require public attention and informed debate.

    Throughout the Cold War, the US and USSR built up their nuclear forces so that each threatened massive retaliation in a standoff of mutually assured destruction. This was a high-risk strategy. In the event of an accident, miscalculation or miscommunication, the world could have been engulfed in an omnicidal conflagration. While today the US and Russia are on friendly terms, each continues to base its nuclear policy, in major part, on the potential threat posed by the other.

    Despite the enormous changes in the world in the aftermath of the Cold War, there has not been a serious public debate in the United States about nuclear weapons policy that takes into account changes in the global security environment. To the extent that there has been consideration of nuclear weapons policy, it has been almost entirely about preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other states and to non-state actors, with virtually no consideration of how US nuclear policy affects US and global security.

    Current US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    US nuclear policy affects the security of every person on the planet, including, of course, every American. Current US nuclear weapons policy, under the Bush administration, sends a message to other states that the US intends to rely upon nuclear weapons for the indefinite future.

    The major outlines of current US nuclear weapons policy are as follows:

    • The US continues to rely upon its nuclear arsenal to threaten retaliation against a nuclear attack, and has extended this threat of nuclear retaliation to chemical and biological weapons attacks or threats of attacks on the US, as well as its troops or allies, wherever they are located in the world.
    • Despite previous promises not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states, the US has developed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against five non-nuclear weapon states: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya. (It is possible, but still not certain, that North Korea has now developed a small nuclear arsenal.)
    • The US has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, in order to develop missile defenses, making way for the development of space weapons, despite promising to preserve and strengthen this treaty.
    • The US has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, despite making commitments to do so. While it still adheres to the nuclear testing moratorium, except for sub-critical tests and computer simulations, it has allocated funds to reduce the time needed to ready the Nevada Test Site to resume testing.
    • The US has entered into the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) with the Russians to reduce the deployed long-range nuclear weapons on each side to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012, but has failed to make these reductions irreversible in accord with the consensus agreement at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Additionally, the treaty terminates in 2012 unless extended. Despite this agreement, each side continues to keep some 2,250 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, poised to attack the other at a moment’s notice.
    • The US has ended a decade-long Congressional ban on research and development of nuclear weapons under 5 kilotons (mini-nukes), and allocated funds to perform research on the development of such weapons, increasing the likelihood of use of nuclear weapons and blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons.
    • The US has allocated funds for researching more powerful Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator weapons, another way of making nuclear weapons more usable and therefore more likely to be used.
    • The US has allocated funds to create a facility to produce some 450 plutonium pits annually that could only be used for new nuclear weapons. This suggests to other nations that the US is planning to further develop new nuclear weapons and to possess and rely upon nuclear weapons for the indefinite future.
    • The US has not adhered to the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament agreed to in the year 2000 by the states that are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the five declared nuclear weapon states.
    • The US has not challenged the reliance on nuclear weapons by our allies, including Israel, UK and France, and has made no attempt to provide leadership for broad-based nuclear disarmament.

    In sum, the current US approach to nuclear weapons is to rely upon them for extended deterrence, to research more usable weapons, to indicate that its reliance on these weapons is long-term, to violate treaty agreements, to unilaterally reverse previous commitments, and to fail to provide leadership toward significant and irreversible reductions in nuclear arms. In a post Cold War environment, with the United States wielding overwhelming military superiority, there is concern in many parts of the world that the United States could succumb to what has been referred to by Richard Falk, a leading international law professor, as the “Hiroshima Temptation,” to use nuclear weapons against a far weaker enemy without fear of meaningful response.

    US nuclear weapons policy under the Bush administration appears to be rooted in a “do as I say, not as I do” approach. This raises two important questions: Does this policy make the US more secure? Is this a policy that the American people would support if they understood it? I believe the answer to both these questions is No.

    A third question arises. Is it possible that members of the public could raise the issue of US nuclear weapons policy and stimulate a real debate on the current course of the country in this year’s presidential elections? It is of utmost importance that the American people recognize the importance of these issues and raise them with the presidential and congressional candidates, forcing these issues into the public arena.

    Considerations to Guide US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    In the post-Cold War and post-9/11 world there are important considerations that should guide US policy on nuclear arms. These include:

    • Nuclear weapons cannot be used against another country with nuclear weapons without facing retaliation unless a country can deliver a devastating first-strike (preventive) attack that would be calculated – likely wrongly – to destroy nearly all of the other side’s retaliatory force (the remainder would be calculated – likely wrongly – to be stopped with missile defenses or to be “acceptable losses”). Such a first-strike attack would potentially kill tens of millions of innocent people, be highly immoral and unlikely to be successful.
    • The use of nuclear weapons in a first-strike (preventive) attack against a country without nuclear weapons would be both immoral and illegal under international law.
    • The only possible justification for nuclear weapons is their role as a deterrent. But, so long as nuclear weapons threaten other nuclear weapon states, the threatening nation will in turn be threatened, even if it possesses so-called missile defenses.
    • The greater the number of nuclear weapons that exist in the world, the more likely that one or more of these weapons will fall into the hands of non-state extremists that could not be deterred from their use.
    • Russia can no longer be considered an adversary of the United States, and this creates an ideal opportunity to negotiate with them far greater reductions in nuclear arms and to make these reductions irreversible.
    • China can no longer be considered an adversary of the United States (in fact, it is a major trading partner), and US nuclear weapons policy should not provoke China to further develop its current minimal deterrent force. However, US development and deployment of missile defenses is causing China to increase its deterrence capability.
    • By branding nations as part of an “Axis of Evil” and by demonstrating willingness to engage in preventive warfare against Iraq, the US provides incentives to other countries, such as North Korea, to develop nuclear deterrent forces.
    • The greatest threat to US security arises from the possibility of extremists getting their hands on nuclear weapons and using them against a US city. The best way to prevent this possibility is to reduce nuclear weapons globally to a low number and assure that the remaining weapons are kept under strict control, preferably international control. It would also be necessary to establish a global inventory of weapons-grade fissile materials and the facilities capable of producing these materials and to place these under strict international control. The only way for this to happen is for the US to take leadership in promoting this course of action. The US would also have to provide additional funds to help assure the dismantlement and control of the aging Russian nuclear arsenal.
    • India and Pakistan, relatively recent additions to the nuclear weapons club, have indicated that they are willing to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, but not unless all other countries will do so as well. They are not willing to live in a world of nuclear apartheid, further demonstrating that the effort to achieve nuclear disarmament requires US leadership.
    • The widely recognized possession of nuclear weapons by Israel is provocative to other countries in the Middle East. Only the United States, due to the large amount of military aid it provides to Israel, can pressure Israel to forego its nuclear weapons and move forward with peace negotiations to resolve the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.
    • North Korea has indicated that it is willing to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if it is given security assurances by the US and economic aid. This seems like a solid basis on which to establish an agreement that would benefit both North Korea and the international community.

    Given these considerations and the extent to which current US policy does not reflect them, there needs to be broad public discussion of these issues. This should include, and perhaps be led by, a debate among presidential candidates on the direction of US nuclear policy. The American people should demand that the candidates for the presidency of the United States address these most important security issues facing our country that will affect the future of all Americans.

    A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    A responsible US nuclear policy should include the following:

    1. Removing all US nuclear weapons from hair-trigger alert, in conjunction with similar initiatives from Russia.
    2. Ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and supporting a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty that would place all weapons-grade nuclear materials in all countries under strict and effective international control.
    3. Reinstituting US Negative Security Assurances not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states.
    4. Pledging No First Use of nuclear weapons and making this legally binding.
    5. Making all reductions in nuclear armaments irreversible through treaty agreements and verified inspection procedures.
    6. Putting the development of missile defenses and space weaponization on hold while negotiating for the elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control.
    7. Fulfilling US obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for “a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date” by ceasing to perform research on developing new nuclear weapons.
    8. Fulfilling further US obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith on … nuclear disarmament” by adhering to the agreed upon 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including “an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” The US should convene a meeting of all nuclear weapon states, declared and undeclared, to agree upon a treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Without such changes in US nuclear policy, it is likely that nuclear weapons will again be used by accident or design, including finding their way into the hands of extremists who will not hesitate to use them as a statement of rage against the US or other countries. Additionally, serious US efforts to achieve both regional and global prohibitions on weapons of mass destruction, nuclear and otherwise, will aid the country in resuming the leadership role that it has lost in recent years due to policies of unilateralism, exceptionalism and belligerence, policies reflective of double standards in both law and morality.

    Each of us has a role to play in bringing these policy issues into the US presidential and congressional debates. Candidates should be asked to speak to his or her plan to reduce the security dangers that nuclear weapons continue to pose to the US and to all humanity, indeed to all life on earth.

     

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the co-author of Nuclear Weapons and the World Court.

  • Terrorism Has Altered The Nuclear Equation Forever

    LOS ANGELES: Fifty years ago this month President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his Atoms for Peace proposal at the United Nations. This seminal event laid the groundwork for much of the nuclear enterprise that we see around the world today. It also generated a nuclear Trojan horse.

    Countries around the world greeted the prospects of the atom with glee: nuclear power plants would be too cheap to meter and nuclear isotopes would generate a renaissance in science, medicine and industry. While the atom contributed to some of these laudable objectives, it unwittingly booby-trapped the landscape with nuclear mines that terrorists can now set off.

    The world is littered with possibilities. Dirty-bomb ingredients are ubiquitous. They are in hospitals and industry. They are transported through cities as nuclear waste to storage sites. They cannot just disappear. Nuclear power plants are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Nuclear weapons derived from the peaceful atom reside in such unstable countries as Pakistan and North Korea. In more stable regions, countries insist on recycling weapons useable plutonium which can be diverted.

    Booby-trapping the world certainly was not Eisenhower’s intention. Anguished by the accelerating nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, he sought a way out. His solution was to reduce the capacity of the superpowers to produce nuclear weapons by conveying their “normal uranium and fissionable materials” to an atomic energy agency. The new organization would house and distribute the stocks for peaceful purposes.

    While an international “bank of fissionable material” never came about, the Atoms for Peace address broke the American inhibition against spreading nuclear knowledge and technology to the rest of the world. In 1955, Washington initiated the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. Twenty-five thousand scientists descended on Geneva to take advantage of the declassification of documents that held many of the secrets of the nuclear age.

    Washington did not proceed down this road naïvely. It knew that Atoms for Peace was not risk-free. But it faced a conundrum: if the United States did not promote the atom, it could not control it either. Knowledge is universal; inevitably, the rest of the world would catch up. The challenge was to build dikes to curtail the negative implications of the spread of nuclear technology. In 1957, the International Atomic Energy Agency was created to promote and monitor global nuclear markets. The 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty sought to halt the ambitions of nations to get the bomb in return for the peaceful nuclear assistance. Domestic and international controls over nuclear and dual-use exports followed. Most recently, Washington gathered several nations together in a Proliferation Security Initiative to intercept nuclear contraband.

    The dikes were not enough to prevent seepage. Israel used the “peaceful” atom provided by a French research reactor to develop the bomb. India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iraq and South Africa followed. At the same time, the United States beat back the temptations of Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, West Germany and Taiwan. When regimes changed in Belarus, Ukraine, South Africa and now Iraq, nuclear weapons programs were abandoned.

    As the international community reinforced its dikes against proliferation, it continued to build its peaceful nuclear infrastructure oblivious to another risk: nuclear terrorism. During the early nuclear era, terrorism as we know it today had not raised its ugly head. When it did emerge in the 1970’s, terrorists seemed mindful about the political costs of taking too many innocent lives.

    Nonetheless, even from the beginning of the nuclear age, the creators speculated on the risks of nuclear terrorism. In 1944, scientists at University of Chicago working on the Manhattan Project conjectured that a political group could unleash a nuclear blitzkrieg by smuggling an atomic weapon into the United States on a commercial aircraft. The terrorism of the 1970’s prompted public policy groups, many driven by a phobia of all things nuclear, to demand that weapons-useable plutonium and highly enriched uranium no longer fuel nuclear power and research reactors. The Europeans, Russians and Japanese resisted. America wavered. Then, many of these same groups began asking questions about the vulnerability of nuclear plants to terrorist attack. American officials took umbrage.

    As the 20th century ended, the absence of any serious act of nuclear violence convinced officials that nuclear terror would remain to province of fiction writers. Then the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. President George W. Bush announced that in the caves of Afghanistan, U.S. forces had uncovered plots to attack nuclear power plants. But eliminating the risks in the short run was impossible. Enhancing protection, while imperfect, remained the only option.

    As we map our nuclear future we should be mindful of the closing remarks of Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace speech: “The United States pledges before you – and therefore before the world – its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma – to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”

    In the post-Sept. 11 world, solving “the fearful atomic dilemma” requires not more but less Atoms for Peace. The risk of nuclear terrorism, coupled to the environmental and proliferation burdens the initiative gave rise to, now requires that we roll back Eisenhower’s vision and try to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle.

    *This article was originally published in Atoms for Peace’. The writer, who served in the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs during the first Bush administration, is author of “Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy.”

  • On the Brink of a Nuclear Arms Race

    Mohamed ElBaradei, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), believes the world is on the brink of a new nuclear arms race. North Korea could start nuclear tests any time. Iran is also due to build its own bomb shortly. And the United States, for fear of terrorism, is eagerly playing with fire, too.

    [Stern] Mr. ElBaradei, talks have started in Beijing with North Korea on the country’s nuclear weapons program. Russia is already setting up refugee camps should war break out on the Siberian border. Are we on the brink of a nuclear war?

    [ElBaradei] North Korea is currently representing the biggest threat. Nearly everything that is evil seems to come together in North Korea: the country is in the middle of deep economic crisis. People are starving. The US Army is, so to speak, standing next door, in South Korea. North Korea wants to survive. To this end, it needs security guarantees and economic aid.

    [Stern] And in order to get this aid, Kim Jong-Il is playing around with the nuclear bomb?

    [ElBaradei] I think someone like him is terribly afraid of a regime change . . . [ellipses as published throughout]

    [Stern] . . . as we have just seen in Iraq . . .

    [ElBaradei] He is now trying to get the most out of the situation for himself. This nuclear blackmail demonstrates a very alarming development: war was waged on Iraq because of assumed weapons of mass destruction. But there are talks under way with North Korea, on its nuclear program. This is nothing but a call for emulation.

    [Stern] Does North Korea have the nuclear bomb?

    [ElBaradei] We do not know for sure. But it is not important either. We know that the country has weapons-grade plutonium. This can be used to produce nuclear bombs, within just a few months. And it has the missiles for them.

    [Stern] This sounds as if the threat was rather acute.

    [ElBaradei] The world has become more dangerous. Today, we feel much more insecure than during the times of the Cold War. Many states feel threatened — above all, in regions of conflict such as Southeast Asia or the Middle East. We have to assume that Israel has the bomb, as a result of which other countries in the region feel defenseless.

    [Stern] How great is the risk that weapons of mass destruction are disseminated over the whole world?

    [ElBaradei] In the past, nuclear weapons were seen as a deterrent, they were the final step . . .

    [Stern] . . . that guaranteed mutual destruction.

    [ElBaradei] Yes. Today, there are serious discussions about the actual use of nuclear weapons. In the past 10 years, at least two new nuclear powers have emerged: India and Pakistan, two countries that are bitter enemies. Today, nuclear weapons are more in demand than ever. Dictators also want to survive.

    [Stern] Is this also true for the regime of the mullahs in Iran?

    [ElBaradei] For years, UN inspectors have been checking facilities there. Nevertheless, nearly a year ago a secret nuclear facility was discovered in the town of Natanz — of which the inspectors knew nothing.

    [Stern] Is Iran working on nuclear weapons?

    [ElBaradei] This is what we are trying to verify at the moment.

    [Stern] The facility in the desert near Natanz has been used to enrich uranium. Why was its construction kept secret if it was officially a civilian plant?

    [ElBaradei] Natanz is indeed the critical point of our inspections. Here it is possible to produce weapons-grade material. We have taken samples and found traces of highly enriched uranium on centrifuges. . .

    [Stern] . . . which is, in addition to plutonium, the basic material for a nuclear bomb.

    [ElBaradei] This worries us greatly. Should it turn out that Iran is not using its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, this could have disastrous consequences.

    [Stern] What are your Iranian partners telling you?

    [ElBaradei] They say these are gas-powered ultracentrifuges that were already polluted when delivered.

    [Stern] From where does the equipment originate?

    [ElBaradei] We are unable to say at this point.

    [Stern] Pakistan is regarded as one of the main suppliers in the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

    [ElBaradei] We cannot rule that out. Iran must disclose everything and cooperate with us.

    [Stern] Are we seeing the beginning of a new nuclear arms race?

    [ElBaradei] The technology has long since been in place. Countries are trading their knowledge and corresponding commodities on the black market. Export controls are not particularly effective. Above all, however, nuclear weapons have become thoroughly attractive, because it suddenly appears that it will be possible to actually use them. We must reconsider our entire policy of banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    [Stern] A total of 188 states have committed to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

    [ElBaradei] Nuclear weapons give you power. Those who have them assume to have more security. They look more and more legitimate. They are no longer outlawed.

    [Stern] A few months ago, the US Senate resolved to finance research into so-called mini-nukes.

    [ElBaradei] These are double standards. On the one hand, the United States says that the proliferation of nuclear weapons must be fought. On the other, it perfects its own arsenal. This is not acceptable. Under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty all states are committed to nuclear disarmament, including the United States. What is happening at the moment is the complete opposite. The US Administration demands from other states not to have any nuclear weapons, while it fills its own arsenals. Then, a few privileged ones will be covered by a nuclear umbrella — and the rest of the world is left to its own devices. In reality, however, there are no good or evil weapons of mass destruction. If we do not give up such double standards, we will have even more nuclear powers. We are at a turning point now.

    [Stern] Is the United States, with its new armaments program, violating the treaty on the adherence of which it insists when others are concerned?

    [ElBaradei] It is still just research. But this is bad enough. I think this is not in line with the treaty the United States has signed.

    [Stern] Does it mean that the United States is actually fuelling the nuclear arms race in this way?

    [ElBaradei] The five nuclear powers must send a clear message to the world: we, too, disarm. We do not develop new nuclear weapons. Either we take the risk emanating from proliferation seriously or we have to live with the consequences. So far, we rather act like firemen: Iraq today, North Korea tomorrow, and Iran the day after. And then?

    [Stern] But the United States believes that the nuclear threat effectively helps to protect itself against terrorists — rather than by agreements no one keeps.

    [ElBaradei] The agreements have always had just half-hearted support. In addition, there are a whole lot of other and very effective weapons. It is an illusion to believe that terror can be fought with military means alone. Its reasons are poverty, social injustice, and the suppression of human rights in brutal dictatorships. Dictatorships that acquire weapons of mass destruction.

    [Stern] This is your vision. How do you want to avert the dangers existing today?

    [ElBaradei] We need more rights for UN inspectors.. They must get access to all facilities, unannounced and unhindered. Do you know how many states signed the relevant protocol? Just 35 of 188.

    [Stern] Assuming all had signed?

    [ElBaradei] States should undertake to put their uranium enrichment facilities under international control. This is the key technology on the way to nuclear weapons. Sanctions only protract things, they do not prevent the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. And we finally need strict export controls.

    [Stern] How quickly are terrorists able to produce a “dirty bomb”?

    [ElBaradei] This is not particularly difficult. All you need is TNT and a radioactive material. There are a great number of radioactive sources in the world that are insufficiently secured. Dirty bombs are no weapons of mass destruction. They are weapons of mass terror.

    [Stern] Who is to assume responsibility in the struggle against nuclear terrorism?

    [ElBaradei] This, too, will be possible only with the help of the United Nations. But the power of the world community is limited today. The UN Security Council must not remain a nuclear power club. It must be extended to include countries such as Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil.. Neither does it help to pave the way by force. This is what we are currently experiencing in Iraq. We are all losing there: the United States, the United Nations, and, again, the Iraqis themselves. The United Nations is no moral authority in Iraq.

    [Stern] Why not?

    [ElBaradei] Over a period of 10 years, the UN economic embargo punished the people, rather than the regime. The population was at the mercy of the sanctions. The United Nations is not seen as an organization that wants to help Iraq. This is probably the reason for the dreadful attack carried out in Baghdad last week. Sanctions must punish dictators, not ordinary people.

    [Stern] And how is that supposed to happen?

    [ElBaradei] There must be no difference between dictators that are friendly toward the West and so-called evil ones. Forbid them to travel. Freeze their foreign wealth. Force dictators to carry out reforms.

    [Stern] Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction were the material reason for the war. None have been found to date. Has the world been led by the nose?

    [ElBaradei] It is a shame that we were unable to finish our work. Now, it may turn out that no weapons existed in the first place, and war could have been avoided.

    [Stern] Now, with hindsight, do you feel you have been used?

    [ElBaradei] No, not really. Experience in Iraq shows that intelligence service information has to be taken with a grain of salt. Do we really want to wage war on every country that is suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction? I think that inspections can really help. This, however, requires time and patience. Meaningful inspections can prevent a nuclear holocaust.


    *    Mohamed ElBaradei isDirector of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This interview appeared in Germany in Hamburg Stern, major independent, illustrated weekly magazine, on 28 August 2003. The interviewers were Katja Gloger and Hans-Hermann Klare. [FBIS Translated Text]

  • “Unlimited Damage”

    Originally Published in The Telegraph, Calcutta

    There are genuine fears that the anticipated US war on Iraq might lead to such an explosion of hostility to the US that somewhere down the line over the next few years or decades nuclear weapons might be used by terrorist groups or by the US itself. Such a prognosis no longer seems unreal. The world remains very much under the nuclear shadow. Barring the first few years after the end of the Cold War (when genuine steps towards actual nuclear disarmament and not just arms management were being made) in the post-Cold War period now unfolding, the dangers of nuclear war are even greater, albeit different, from what they were during that past. Then the justified fear was of a global holocaust. Now it is of a regional or ‘limited’ nuclear war or exchange.

    Supporters of nuclear weapons in India do not want to believe this. On the contrary, they want to use the example of that Cold War past, as the reassurance that we need not fear the use of nuclear weapons now. Deterrence assured peace then, so it will do so now! Actually, the world came close to nuclear use on a number of occasions during the Cold War especially in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Nuclear peace was not the result of deterrence but much more because of the existence of a nuclear taboo established by the very horror of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 57 years ago. Despite US governments contemplating the use of nuclear weapons during the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as on other occasions, the White House was fully aware that even the American public would not condone such use except in circumstances where the homeland territory itself was threatened.

    The longer this taboo lasted – and credit here must go to the much derided peace movements and to the general public sentiment that viewed these instruments of war as uniquely evil – the more difficult it became to break the taboo. Now, it is a very different situation. There are four possible contexts in which this taboo might finally be broken. Moreover, was this to happen the world would not come to an end. There would most likely not be a nuclear winter and much of the advanced and prosperous world would escape the consequences of these regional or ‘limited’ holocausts were they, as most likely, to take place in the ‘third world’.

    As much as the Indian bomb lobby, in particular, might wish to deny it, the first scenario of such possible use involves South Asia and the India-Pakistan face-off. The US and the USSR were not territorially contiguous. They did not have a foundational dispute (like Kashmir) existing from their very inception as independent states. They never suffered from the growing ascendance of communal or religious extremist forces promoting the kind of hatreds and demonizations of the ‘other’ that are so prevalent in South Asia today. They never had direct conventional wars, or the near-wartime situations that belong to the history of India-Pakistan relations and which create the most favorable contexts for escalating hostilities to the nuclear level. Their respective military-technology systems were never as ramshackle as those in South Asia, that make the chances of an accidental triggering of nuclear exchanges so much greater here.

    There are three possible positions one can take regarding the prospects of a nuclear war in South Asia arising from an India-Pakistan conventional military conflict escalating into a nuclear exchange. The first view, widespread outside India and Pakistan among both pro nuclearists and anti-nuclearists, is that such an exchange sometime in the future between the two countries is almost inevitable. A second view is that the danger of this is so small it is negligible. This is certainly the position of most of those in India who supported India going nuclear. Interestingly, among Pakistani supporters of the bomb there is a greater degree of pessimism with a greater proportion, who even as they support Pakistan’s acquisition of the bomb, are fearful that there could well be a nuclear exchange between the two countries. The difference in perspectives between these two bomb lobbies is not difficult to understand. Pakistan’s tests in 1998 were a reaction to India’s tests. The Pakistan bomb has always been India-specific motivated by fear of India. India’s tests, however, were not motivated by fear of Pakistan (no matter what the occasional rhetoric) but was motivated by more grandiose visions of enhanced global and regional status and the desire to be taken more seriously as a major power. Prospects of growing regional insecurity or nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan have always been more casually dismissed on the India side. There is, of course, a third position that is far and away the most sober one – the possibility of a nuclear exchange is not negligible nor inevitable but in-between; that is to say, it is a real-case scenario, not just a worst-case one, and that its likelihood varies depending on how serious conjunctural tensions are between the countries

    The second context in which a ‘limited’ or regional nuclear conflict might break out is easy enough to visualize. India and Pakistan have ‘got away’ with having nuclear weapons. This inspires others. In a few more years, Iran could well do the same and this would certainly be followed by open declaration of nuclear status by Israel dramatically raising nuclear dangers in the Middle East, with nuclear-capable countries like Egypt aiming to follow suit. Does anyone, even among those worshipping at the altar of nuclear deterrence, think the Middle East would become safer were this to happen?

    In the third scenario, terrorists attack the US with a ‘suitcase’ nuclear bomb or a dirty bomb (explosive dispersion of radioactive materials but no nuclear chain reaction) or attack a nuclear reactor plant. Such is the mind-set of the US elite and much of its population after September 11, that the first would be virtually certain to lead to a serious nuclear retaliation somewhere by Washington, while even the second or third kind of terrorist attack might push it to break the taboo against use of tactical nuclear weapons.

    In the fourth scenario, the US deliberately initiates the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The US today is much more aggressively unilateralist in its behavior and nuclearly ambitious than ever before. Its nuclear policies and practical preparations (e.g. the Ballistic Missile Defense systems) aim at establishing a unilateral dominance over all other countries; at developing a range of tactical weapons, even mini- and micro-nukes; at extending their possible use (against selected countries deemed to have biological and chemical weapons); at completely blurring the distinction between such weapons and conventional ones. The latest Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) makes both part of the same military operational strategy to support general US foreign policy perspectives and ambitions.

    There are a great many powerful people in and around the US government who want to break the taboo against use of nuclear weapons since these would be ‘confined’ to places far away from the homeland and against forces that have no capability to retaliate against it. As for the threat of a possible nuclear terrorist attack against the US, the prior use of tactical nuclear weapons against some perceived enemy is, itself, seen as providing the most powerful deterrent example to prevent such an attack happening in the future.

    Short of again creating a disarmament momentum, it will be folly to think that over the next 57 years, nuclear weapons will not be used.

  • The Nuclear Issue After the Posture Review

    We have to look reality in its ugly face. The drive for the elimination of nuclear weapons is not going well; indeed, it is going very badly. The campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons, pursued by INES, Pugwash and many other organizations, has not only come to a halt, but the use of these weapons may become a routine part of military strategy, according to the recently disclosed Nuclear Posture Review.

    What is all the more worrying is the loss of support from the general public. This is evident, for example, from the results of a public opinion poll in the UK, which has been conducted systematically, every month, for the last 20 years. The graph presents the combined response to two questions: (1) What would you say is the most important issue facing Britain today? (2) What do you see as other important issues facing Britain today? At one time, over 40 per cent put nuclear disarmament and nuclear weapons as the most important issues, but the percentage of such answers decreased rapidly, and ever since the end of the Cold War has remained very low, at about 1 per cent. I do not have corresponding statistics for other countries, but from various indicators it would appear that the response in the US would be similar. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the great majority of the people came to the belief that either the nuclear threat has disappeared altogether, or that the deterrent effect of existing nuclear arsenals will take care of the threat. Neither of these beliefs is justified, as should be obvious today, when two nuclear powers are poised for a military showdown over Kashmir.

    To me the situation is reminiscent of that I experienced 40 years ago, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I do hope that, like that crisis, it will be resolved without a nuclear exchange. Should such a nuclear exchange happen, however, with the inevitable immense loss of life, hundreds of thousands, millions perhaps, there would be such an upsurge of public opinion, that an agreement on the elimination of nuclear weapons would soon be reached.

    My question is, why, oh why, do we have to wait for such a disaster to actually happen? Why could we not use our imagination, to take these steps now, to prevent it happening?

    Clearly, we have not succeeded in putting this over to the public. I do not wish to diminish the past achievements of anti-nuclear organizations. Although it is impossible to provide concrete proof, I am convinced that these organizations deserve some credit for the fact that a nuclear war has been avoided so far. Mikhail Gorbachev told us so directly, but we cannot rest on past successes. Our job has not been done; and, although the prospects are bleak, we must pick ourselves up and resume our campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons. In this paper I am urging the renewal of a mass campaign, and I propose that it be based mainly on judicial and moral principles.

    The revelations in the Nuclear Posture Review shocked us: it abandons the previous doctrine of nuclear weapons being viewed as weapons of last resort, and spells out a strategy which incorporates nuclear capability into conventional war planning. It is a major and dangerous shift in the whole rationale for nuclear weapons.

    Actually, the revelations in the NPR should not have come as such a surprise. They are obviously much influenced by the events of September 11th, but in reality they are an egregious expression of the policy that has been pursued covertly by the United States ever since, or even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in contradiction to the official line of pursuing nuclear disarmament.

    At the core of this duplicitous and hypocritical policy is the doctrine of nuclear deterrence. Ironically, it was introduced by the scientists who initiated the atom bomb project.

    The scientists in the UK who initiated the research ss myself among them — were humanitarian scientists: we pursued scientific research for its own sake but with the underlying expectation that it would be used for the benefit of humankind. The thought of working on a weapon of mass destruction would have been abhorrent to us in normal circumstances. But the circumstances were not normal: we knew that a war was imminent, a war between democracy and the worst type of totalitarianism, and we were afraid that it the bomb could be made, and was developed in Germany, it would enable Hitler to win the war and impose on the world the evil Nazi regime. At the time we thought that the only way to prevent this happening would be for us — the Western Allies — also to have the bomb and threaten its use in retaliation. I developed the concept of nuclear deterrence in the summer of 1939, even before the start of World War II.

    It took me a little while to appreciate the fallacy of the deterrence concept. Our aim was to prevent the use of the atom bomb by anybody; we hoped that the threat of using it in retaliation would do the trick. This might have worked with a rational leader, but Hitler was not rational. I am convinced, though cannot prove it, that if Hitler had had the bomb, the last order from his bunker in Berlin, would have been to drop it on London, in the full knowledge that this would bring terrible retribution upon Germany. This would have been in the spirit of his philosophy of Götterdämmerung.

    At it happened, this thesis was never put to the test: Hitler was defeated by conventional weapons, before the atom bomb was manufactured in the United States. But the fact remains that the concept of nuclear deterrence was used from the very beginning, and has been with us ever since. Its variant, extended deterrence, i.e. the threat to use nuclear weapons even against a non-nuclear attack, is — in my opinion — the greatest obstacle to the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    By July 1945, when the first bomb was ready for testing, many scientists who initiated the Project were strongly opposed, on moral grounds, to the use of the bomb on civilian populations. They used this moral argument in their petitions to the US President and government.

    The petitions were rejected. The politicians and the military leaders had their own ideas about the bomb; moral scruples hardly figured in them. The desire to bring the war to an end was undoubtedly an important factor, but perhaps even more important was to demonstrate to the world — and, particularly, to the Soviet Union — the newly acquired military might of the United States, and this required such use of the bomb that would utilize its devastating power to the maximum effect.

    That the Soviet Union was thought of as the main enemy became evident soon after the end of the War, but I personally happened to find this out much earlier, directly from the mouth of General Leslie Groves, the head of the whole Manhattan Project. In a casual conversation, at a private dinner in Los Alamos which I attended, he said: “You realize, of course, that the main purpose of the Project is to subdue the Russians.” The date of this event, March 1944, is significant. This was the time when the Russians were our allies, in the common fight against Hitler. Thousands of Russians were dying every day, holding back the German forces at Stalingrad, and giving time for the Allies to prepare for the landing in France.

    Two months after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in October 1945, General Groves outlined his views on the US policy on nuclear weapons in a blunt statement:

    “If we were truly realistic instead of idealistic, as we appear to be (sic), we would not permit any foreign power with which we are not firmly allied, and in which we do not have absolute confidence, to make or possess atomic weapons. If such a country started to make atomic weapons we would destroy its capacity to make them before it has progressed far enough to threaten us.”

    Fifty-seven years later, this realism is spelled out in the NPR.

    The “idealistic” sentiment lamented by General Groves was the worldwide reaction to the destruction of the two Japanese cities, a reaction of revulsion, shared by the great majority of people in the United States. From the beginning, nuclear weapons were viewed with abhorrence; a moral stand that evoked an almost universal opposition to any use of nuclear weapons; I believe this is still true today. This feeling found expression in the United Nations in the very first resolution of its General Assembly. The Charter of the United Nations was adopted in June 1945, two months before Hiroshima, and thus no provision is made for the nuclear age in the Charter. But when the General Assembly met for the first time in January 1946, the first resolution, adopted unanimously, was to set up a Commission, whose terms of reference were to:

    “… proceed with the utmost despatch and enquire into all phases of the problem, and … make specific proposals … for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”

    The United States government could not openly oppose this objective, but it tried its best to kybosh it. The campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons began in the United States immediately after Hiroshima and was spearheaded by the scientists from the Manhattan Project. They set up working parties which studied specific proposals for the control of atomic energy in all its aspects. The outcome was the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which recommended the creation of an International Atomic Development Authority with the power to control, inspect and licence all nuclear activities; it also made specific proposals, such as:

    “Manufacture of atomic bombs shall stop;

    Existing bombs shall be disposed of pursuant to the terms of the treaty.”

    The Acheson-Lilienthal Report was the basis for the Baruch Plan which expounded the official stand of the US Government, and was presented to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, in June 1946.

    It began in apocalyptic language:

    “We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead. That is our business.

    Behind the black portent of the new atomic age lies a hope which, seized upon with faith, can work our salvation. If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of Fear. Let us not deceive ourselves: we must elect World Peace or World Destruction.”

    Fine words, strong sentiments, but alas not followed by deeds.

    The Baruch Plan incorporated certain conditions to the treaty which were obviously designed to be unacceptable to the Soviet Union, such as the removal of the right of veto by the permanent members of the Security Council. And sure enough, the Baruch Plan was rejected by the Soviets and the UN Atomic Energy Commission ended in failure.

    This pattern of dissembling has characterized the nuclear policy of the United States government ever since. On the one hand, the US government feels obliged to pay lip-service to the policy of nuclear disarmament leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons, bowing to the pressure of world opinion expressed in resolutions adopted year after year by large majorities of the United Nations General Assembly. This has led to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which all but four members of the United Nations are now parties. Under the terms of the NPT, the 182 non-nuclear countries have undertaken not to acquire nuclear weapons, and the five overt nuclear states have undertaken to get rid of theirs. There was some ambiguity in the formulation of the relevant Article VI of the NPT, which provided the hawks with an excuse for the retention of nuclear weapons until general and complete disarmament had been achieved. But — again under pressure of public opinion — this ambiguity was removed two years ago in a statement issued after the 2000 NPT Review Conference. This statement, signed by all five nuclear-weapon states, contains the following:

    “…an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties are committed under Article VI.”

    Thus, the United States and the other official nuclear states — China, France, Russia and the UK — are formally and unequivocally committed to the elimination of all nuclear arsenals. The creation of a nuclear-weapon-free world is a legal commitment by all signatories of the NPT.

    On the other hand, there is the de facto nuclear strategy of extended deterrence, which implies the indefinite existence of nuclear arsenals.

    Since the end of the Cold War, the actual US nuclear strategy has been increasingly orientated towards the use of nuclear weapons, along the lines originally advocated by General Groves. Immediately after the end of the Cold War, the US policy, supported by many NATO countries, envisaged the use of nuclear weapons as a last resort only; this means against an attack with nuclear arms. But the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review, under the Clinton Administration, for the first time made explicit mention of the use of nuclear weapons in response to an attack with chemical or biological weapons. The current Nuclear Posture Review goes further still, it makes nuclear weapons the tool with which to keep peace in the world.

    If this is the purpose of nuclear weapons, then these weapons will be needed as long as disputes are settled by recourse to military confrontations, in other words, as long as war is a recognized social institution. Such a policy is unacceptable in a civilized society on many grounds: logical, political, military, legal, and ethical. In this paper I am mainly concerned with the last two, legal and moral.

    US nuclear policy is self-defeating on logical grounds. If some nations — including the most powerful militarily — say that they need nuclear weapons for their security, then such security cannot be denied to other countries which really feel insecure. Proliferation of nuclear weapons is thus the logical consequence of the US nuclear policy. The USA and its allies cannot prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by other countries while retaining them for themselves. The policy of extended deterrence undermines the non-proliferation policy.

    There is yet a further aspect of the logical argument which strikes at the very basis of deterrence. This is the assumption that both sides in a dispute think and behave rationally; that they are capable of a realistic assessment of the risks entailed in a contemplated action. This would not be the case with irrational leaders. I mentioned this earlier in relation to Hitler. Even a rational leader may behave irrationally in a war situation, facing defeat; or may be pushed into irrational action by mass hysteria, or when incited by religious fanaticism or nationalistic fervour. This is exactly the situation facing us today. Deterrence would certainly not apply to terrorists, who have no respect for the sanctity of human life.

    The policy of extended deterrence is unacceptable on political grounds. It is highly discriminatory in that it allows a few nations — in practice, one nation — to usurp to themselves certain rights, such as policing the world by imposing sanctions on nuclear proliferators, or directly threatening them with military action: such action should be the prerogative of the United Nations. Indeed, it goes against the very purpose of the United Nations, an organization set up specifically for the maintenance of international peace and security.

    The policy of extended deterrence also means a permanent polarization of the world, with some nations being offered protection by a powerful nuclear state; while others may be protected by another nuclear state, or have no protection at all.

    The policy is not credible on military grounds in relation to terrorist attacks. As the events of September 11th have shown, a major threat to security comes from terrorist groups, a threat which includes the use of all kinds of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear ones. The thousands of nuclear weapons still in the arsenals are useless against terrorists for the simple reason that terrorist groups do not usually present an identifiable target, unless the killing of thousands of innocent people is seen as collateral damage and thus acceptable. At the same time, the very existence in the world of nuclear weapons, or nuclear-weapon-grade materials, increases the threat, because these materials may be acquired by the terrorists, in one way or another.

    Extended deterrence is unacceptable on legal grounds. The United States, together with 186 other nations, that is 98 per cent of the UN membership, have signed and ratified the NPT. After the clarification at the 2000 Review Conference, the situation is perfectly clear: the policy of extended deterrence, which requires the indefinite retention of nuclear weapons, is in direct breach of the legally binding Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is a sine qua non of a civilized society that nations fulfil their legal commitments and adhere to international treaties.

    But above all, the nuclear deterrent is not acceptable on ethical grounds. The whole concept of nuclear deterrence is based on the belief that the threat of retaliation is real, that nuclear weapons would be used against an act of aggression; otherwise, the bluff would soon be called. George W. Bush must show convincingly that he has the kind of personality that would enable him to push the button and unleash an instrument of wholesale destruction, harming not only the alleged aggressor but mainly innocent people, and potentially imperilling the whole of our civilization. I find it terrifying to think that among the necessary qualifications for leadership is the readiness to commit an act of genocide, because this is what it amounts to in the final analysis. Furthermore, by acquiescing in this policy, not only the President, but each of us, figuratively, keeps our finger on the button; each of us is taking part in a gamble in which the survival of human civilization is at stake. We rest the security of the world on a balance of terror. In the long run this is bound to erode the ethical basis of civilization.

    This erosion has probably already set in. Here I have to tread with caution, because I can only speak as a layman who has been observing events over many years. It seems to me that people cannot go on for decades living under the threat of instant annihilation, without this having an effect on their psyche. I cannot help the feeling that the increase of violence in the world — from individual mugging, to organized crime, to groups such as al-Qaeda — has some connection with the culture of violence under which we have lived during the Cold War years, and still do. I am particularly concerned about the effect on the young generation.

    We all crave a world of peace, a world of equity. We all want to nurture in the young generation the “culture of peace,” which we keep on proclaiming. But how can we talk about a culture of peace if that peace is predicated on the existence of weapons of mass destruction? How can we persuade the young generation to cast aside the culture of violence, when they know that it is on the threat of extreme violence that we rely for security?

    I do not believe that the people of the world would accept a policy that is inherently immoral and is bound to end in catastrophe, a policy that implies the continued existence of nuclear weapons. But the resolutions for nuclear disarmament, passed every year by large majorities in the General Assembly, are completely ignored by the nuclear-weapon states, which in practice means the United States government.

    In saying this, I have made a distinction between the US government and the US people, because I am convinced that the latter share with the great majority of people all over the world an abhorrence of the use of nuclear weapons.

    There are groups within the US community, such as the military-industrial complex identified by President Eisenhower, with vested interests in pursuing a policy based on the continuing possession of nuclear weapons by the United States. The influence of these groups on the Administration may wax and wane, but it appears to be particularly strong in the Administration of George W. Bush, with its main characteristic of unilateralism.

    The defeat of Communism in the Cold War, and the triumph of the open market economy, gave a great fillip to the capitalist system, despite its ugly faces of greed and selfishness. Profit making has become a main driving force for those groups, and protection of property a necessary upshot. The most powerful country in the world, economically, technologically, and militarily, feels the need for even greater security by seeking more protection against an attack from outside, and by the suppression — if need be, with military means — of the acquisition of greater military power by countries seen as an enemy. A ballistic missile defence system — which may include nuclear interceptors — is considered necessary to prevent any missiles reaching the territory of the USA. But even with a defence system 100 per cent effective, which is technically unlikely, the possession of a few thousand nuclear warheads is still considered necessary to deter other countries from acquiring these means of protection for themselves.

    It is in the interaction with other countries that the unilateralist tendencies are so pernicious. The interests of the United States must come first and foremost. International treaties, even those already agreed to, can be ignored or unilaterally revoked, if they do not serve these interests. During the first year of the George W. Bush Administration we have seen a whole string of steps along the unilateral path: abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); refusal to sign the Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention; withdrawal from the Kyoto Agreement on the Environment; opposition to the International Criminal Court; etc. etc.

    These negative measures, which weaken international treaties and agreements, are accompanied by steps designed to increase the military strength of the USA. They include a considerable increase in military expenditure, particularly in the nuclear field. They include the decision not to destroy mechanically the warheads which were due for dismantlement in accordance with the START agreements. These have now been replaced by the treaty that has been signed in Moscow today, a treaty that has been hailed as a momentous step towards world peace, but is nothing of the kind. Any reduction of weapons of mass destruction is of course, greatly welcome, but in this case the reduction is illusory. The warheads withdrawn from the arsenals under the Bush-Putin treaty — over the unnecessarily long period of ten years — will be kept in storage as a reserve force, which could be quickly activated; either side having the right to withdraw from the treaty on 90 days notice.

    The steps also include the development of new and greatly improved warheads, a programme that started covertly under Clinton and now continues more overtly under Bush.

    In the early 1990s — after the end of the Cold War — there was a period of goodwill when both sides agreed to take measures to reduce the enormous nuclear arsenals. As part of this, the United States Government decided to halt the production of new nuclear warheads and to end nuclear testing.

    There is a general assumption that new nuclear weapons cannot be developed and made militarily usable without their being tested. Hence, the great importance of the CTBT, which was signed by President Clinton, but its ratification was rejected by the then Republican majority in the Senate. Initially, this was thought to be a rather petty vengeance against Clinton, which would soon be rectified, but since then it emerged that the main reason was the perceived need for further testing of new, or modified old warheads.

    The retention of a nuclear arsenal necessitates an infrastructure to ensure the safety and reliability of the warheads in the stockpile, as well as the capability to resume testing at short notice. An adequate core of scientists and engineers would be employed to carry out these tasks. This was the origin of the Stockpile Stewardship management Program which began in 1994, with a budget recently increased by the Bush Administration to $5.3 billion.

    The Stewardship Program includes the task to “maintain nuclear weapon capability; develop a stockpile surveillance engineering base; demonstrate the capability to design, fabricate and certify new warheads.” This brief is broad enough to allow the scientists to do almost anything as long as it does not openly entail nuclear testing and the actual production of new nuclear warheads. Considering the role which scientists played in the nuclear weapons establishments during the Cold War, it is a fair assumption that they will go to the limit of their brief.

    The development of new warheads is not allowed, but this obstacle can be circumvented by taking an old weapon and introducing a number of modifications, each of which is permitted under the terms of the Program but which in the end produces a more usable weapon, although eventually it would have to be tested, to give the military people confidence in the improved product. With President Bush’s contempt for international agreements, there can be no doubt that he will authorize new nuclear testing, when he decides that this would be in the interest of the United States, as was confirmed in the opening statement to the Preparatory NPT Review Conference that was held a few weeks ago.

    There are persistent rumours, reported in articles in reputable journals, that work in Los Alamos has resulted in the development of new warheads. Most of the military research in the national laboratories, Los Alamos, Livermore, Sandia, is carried out in secrecy, making it impossible to say how reliable these rumours are, but they seem credible. Certainly, there is much more activity going on in Los Alamos, with new buildings being erected, as I have seen myself during a recent visit to Los Alamos (although I did not go into the tech area). And, of course, we know that much more money has been allocated for research there.

    The persistent rumours are about the development of a new nuclear warhead, of a very low yield, almost overlapping the yields of conventional high explosives, but with a shape that will give it very high penetrating power into concrete, a “bunker-bursting mini-nuke,” as it has been called. The additional property ascribed to it is that it is a “clean” bomb, in the sense that the radioactive fission products are contained. This claim needs to be treated with caution; considerable doubt has been expressed about the prevention of the release of radioactivity.

    But the main worry about this bomb, even if its attributed characteristics should prove to be correct, is the political impact. If it is “clean,” and its explosive yield can be made so low as to be within the range of that of conventional explosives, then the distinction between the two types of weapon will become blurred. The chief characteristic of a nuclear weapon is its enormous destructive power, which classifies it as a weapon of mass destruction, unique even in comparison with the other known weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical or biological. This has resulted in a taboo about the use of nuclear weapons in combat, a taboo that has held out since Nagasaki. But if at one end of the spectrum a nuclear bomb can be manufactured which does not differ quantitatively from ordinary explosives, the qualitative difference will also disappear, the nuclear threshold will be crossed, and nuclear weapons will gradually come to be seen as a tool of war, even though their main characteristic, of potentially the existence of the human race, will still remain. The Nuclear Posture Review makes this a real possibility; the situation has become even more dangerous.

    The wording of the Nuclear Posture Review was no doubt strongly influenced by the events of September 11th. These events came as a terrible shock to the people of the United States. Having never been subject to an attack on the American Continent they suddenly found themselves vulnerable; the “splendid isolation” was breached; a near panic ensued on a mere rumour of an attack with a biological weapon.

    In the campaign that I am urging, to put the nuclear issue back on the public agenda, we should make use of the very arguments and tactics employed by President Bush in the actions against terrorism. In order to be able to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda following the September 11 attacks, he had to build up a coalition of many countries for the military campaign in Afghanistan, even though the military burden was carried almost entirely by the United States. He also had to build up a moral case for the campaign, by presenting the terrorists as evil men, in contrast to the coalition who are the virtuous people.

    By calling for help from other countries President Bush acknowledged the failure of his own unilateralist policy. An example of this is the event that took place today in Moscow; despite his contempt for international agreements, President Bush felt obliged to sign a new international treaty. Even though this treaty is a sham, we should exploit this in our efforts to put the elimination of nuclear weapons back on the agenda. No Man is an Island, particularly in a world which — thanks largely to the fantastic progress in technology — is becoming more and more interdependent, more and more transparent, more and more interactive. Inherent in these developments is a set of agreements, ranging from confidence-building measures to formal international treaties; from protection of the environment to the clearance of mine fields; from Interpol to the International Criminal Court; from ensuring intellectual property rights to the Declaration of Human Rights. Respect for, and strict adherence to, the terms of international agreements are at the basis of a civilized society.

    Without this, anarchy and terrorism would reign, the very dangers the coalition was set up to prevent.

    In line with this the world community has the right to call on the US government to take the following steps immediately:

    • ratify the CTBT;
    • retract its notice to with draw from the ABM;
    • reject any notion of weaponization of space;
    • take its nuclear weapons off alert;
    • adopt a no-first-use policy;
    • all this in preparation for the implementation of its commitment to nuclear disarmament, under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    An even stronger argument towards the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free world should be based on the moral objections to nuclear weapons. President Bush insists that the campaign against terrorists, following the September 11th events, has a strong moral basis; a “moral crusade” he called it initially, and although this was quickly dropped, because of its unfortunate historical connotations, it is still presented as a struggle between good and evil, with the USA being on the side of the angels. But such a claim can be sustained only if the US policies and actions are demonstrably guided by ethical considerations. The hypocritical policy of preaching one thing and practicing just the opposite hardly comes under this category. The use of nuclear weapons, and even the threat of using them, is generally viewed as highly immoral; a moral stand is completely incompatible with the readiness by the President to push the nuclear button. If the United States is to insist in calling itself a leader of a campaign based on moral principles, then it should denounce any use of weapons of mass destruction; and it should implement the policy of their total abolition to which it is in any case committed legally.

    A campaign for abolition, based on moral principles, will be seen as a fanciful dream by many, but I trust not by INES, an organization committed to ethical values. You will not submit to a policy which may result in the deaths of many thousands or millions of people, potentially threatening the very existence of the human species.

    The situation is grim; the way things are moving is bound to lead to catastrophe. If there is a way out, even if seemingly unrealistic, it is our duty to pursue it. Arguments based on equity and morality may not cut ice with hardened politicians, but they may appeal to the common citizen. If we can bring to the notice of the general public the grave dangers inherent in the continuation of current policies, at the same time pointing out the long-term merits of policies based on equity and morality, we may succeed in putting the nuclear issue back on the agenda of public concern.

    A colossal effort will be required, a sustained collective campaign by INES, Pugwash, and other kindred organizations. I hope that they will find the courage and the will to embark on this great task, to restore sanity in our policies, humanity in our actions, and a sense of belonging to the human race.

     

    *This paper has been presented by Sir Joseph Rotblat on 24 May 2002 at the occasion of the INES seminar “New Security Challenges: Global and Regional Priorities” in Bradford, UK. The seminar was organized by INES together with Scientists for Global Responsibility and the Department of Peace Studies of the University of Bradford.

  • International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES) and INES Against Proliferation (INESAP) Statement on Nuclear Dangers

    India and Pakistan stand on the brink of war over Kashmir with serious dangers of nuclear war between the two countries.

    We call upon the international community, through the United Nations Security Council to immediately intervene diplomatically to prevent war and with peace keeping forces, if necessary, to ensure that neither country uses nuclear weapons under any circumstance.

    In this context we express our strong dissatisfaction with the United States Nuclear Posture Review and with the United States withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, and the recently signed nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia. This treaty, reflecting the United States Nuclear Posture Review, does far too little too slowly and continues to set the example to the world that nuclear weapons are useful even for the strongest nations.

    We urge the United States and Russia to return to the negotiation table to agree to deeper cuts, the irreversible destruction of dismantled warheads, and the immediate de-alerting of their nuclear arsenals.

    We further urge that all five declared nuclear weapon states begin multilateral negotiations to fulfill their obligation for an “unequivocal undertaking” to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons in the world, including those of India, Pakistan and Israel. The leadership of the United States and Russia, as well as that of the United Kingdom, France and China, is essential to achieve these ends and to present nuclear weapons from being used again.

  • U.S. Can’t Ignore Nuclear Threat

    Originally Published in USA TODAY

    I’m worried that we’re about to make the same mistake we made a decade ago.

    In August of 1991, when a coup by Soviet hard-liners fell apart, then-president Mikhail Gorbachev gave credit to live global television for keeping world attention on the action, and Time magazine wrote: ”Momentous things happened precisely because they were being seen as they happened.”

    But if good things can happen because a lot of people are watching, bad things can happen when few people are watching. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the media moved off the story of the nuclear threat — and we moved into the new world order without undoing the danger of the old world order.

    In the wake of Sept. 11, people are realizing that the nuclear threat didn’t end with the Cold War. Soviet weapons, materials and know-how are still there, more dangerous than ever. Russia’s economic troubles weakened controls on them, and global terrorists are trying harder to get them.

    When President Bush (news – web sites) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (news – web sites) meet in Moscow next week, they will sign a treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on each side. They need to reduce a lot more than that. Some of the poisonous byproducts of the two powers’ arms race are piled high in poorly guarded facilities across 11 time zones. They offer mad fools the power to kill millions.

    At a Bush-Putin news conference two months after the terrorist attacks, Bush declared: ”Our highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.” He also has told his national security staff to give nuclear terrorism top priority.

    Where’s the money?

    But it’s hard to see this priority in the budget and policies of the administration. Not a dollar of the $38 billion the administration requested in new spending for homeland defense will address loose weapons, materials and know-how in Russia. The total spending on these programs — even after Sept. 11 — has remained flat at about a billion dollars a year, even though, at this rate, we will still not have secured all loose nuclear materials in Russia for years to come.

    But what worries me most is not the lack of new spending, but the lack of new thinking. Where are the new ideas for preventing nuclear terrorism?

    We can’t just keep doing what we’ve been doing, and we can’t just copy old plans; we’ve got to innovate. If we are hit with one of these weapons because we slept through this wake-up call from hell, it will be the most shameful failure of national defense in the history of the United States.

    Waning public interest

    Unfortunately, public pressure for action is weak, partly because media attention on nuclear terrorism has begun to fade. And it’s fading not because the threat has been addressed or reduced, but because the media cover what changes, and threats don’t change much day to day. They just keep on ticking.

    The media need to stay on this story because it’s harder to get government action when there’s not much media coverage. If something’s not in the media, it’s not in the public mind. If it’s not in the public mind, there’s little political pressure to act. If public attention moves off this nuclear threat before the government has moved to reduce it, we will be making the same mistake we made after 1991.

    Leadership, however, means being out in front even if no one’s pushing from behind. Bush and Putin need to think bigger and do more. They need to reduce the chance that terrorists can steal nuclear weapons or materials or hire away weapons scientists. They need to work together as partners in fighting terror and encourage others to join. They need to launch a worldwide plan to identify weapons, materials and know-how and secure all of it, everywhere, now — if we are to avoid Armageddon.
    *CNN founder Ted Turner last year established the Nuclear Threat Initiative, dedicated to reducing the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He has pledged to provide $250 million to fund its activities.

  • No Launch On Warning

    Ploughshares working paper 02-1

    Preface by Ernie Regehr:

    Any post-Cold War temptation to complacency in the pursuit of nuclear weapons prohibition or abolition should quickly give way to a sobering sense of urgency on reading Alan Phillips’ account of nuclear arsenals poised for launching within minutes of an order to do so. And the fact that such an order could (in some instances almost has) come in response to a false warning of attack only serves to add a sense of the macabre to the urgency. It’s not that Dr. Phillips’ account is alarmist; quite the opposite. Through careful analysis he concludes that a clear policy rejecting launch-on-warning is logical, possible, and necessary to dramatically reduce the risk of inadvertent nuclear war. Nuclear weapons abolition remains an urgent goal that must be pursued as a longer-term objective. But until nuclear disarmament is a reality, it is critically important that nuclear weapon states be persuaded to take all possible measures to reduce nuclear dangers – and prominent among these dangers is the possibility of nuclear attacks being precipitated by a false warning of attack. Policies to preclude launch-on-warning would yield immediate benefits by reducing the risk of inadvertent war, and would also help pave the way toward more extensive de-alerting measures to make launch-on-warning impossible. We commend to nuclear disarmament NGOs and advocates both the analysis and the policy proposal advanced here by Dr. Phillips. His is an important contribution that clearly sets out an issue of immediate concern and a credible and achievable policy response. This study will help the nuclear disarmament community explore ways in which support for a policy of no launch-on-warning can become part of our ongoing efforts toward complete and irreversible nuclear disarmament.
    ———————

    1. Introduction
    2. Definition of Launch on Warning
    3. The Emergence of a Launch on Warning Policy
    4. The Danger of Inadvertent Nuclear War from False Warnings or Chance Coincidences
    5. Distinguishing Between De-Alerting and NO L-o-W
    6. Exploring the NO L-o-W Posture
    7. The Effect on Deterrence
    8. De-Alerting: Methods, Benefits and Difficulties
    9. Conclusion
    1. Introduction

    This paper argues for abandoning the policy of “Launch on Warning” (L-o-W). The discussion is based on the simplifying assumption of a one-against-one nuclear stand-off between the US and Russia, with the stability in that stand-off based on nuclear deterrence. The assumption is appropriate because L-o-W is only relevant between adversaries that regard themselves as mutually vulnerable to a “disarming first strike,” rather than, say, to a surprise attack on cities. It is those two countries, and probably only those two, that now follow a policy, or retain the option, of L-o-W. In the present relationship between the two countries an intentionally started nuclear war is extremely improbable. There is, however, the risk of an unintended war starting from one cause or another, and under the policy of L-o-W the likeliest cause is a false warning.

    The prevention of any nuclear war is of very great importance. Prevention of nuclear war between Russia and the US is vital for the future of the world because both countries retain such large arsenals that if they should go to war the result would be much more extensive than complete destruction of both countries. Radioactivity, and smoke from the many firestorms, would severely affect at least the whole of the northern hemisphere. Nuclear winter, widespread starvation, and other consequences might even combine to exterminate the human species. To risk such a disaster happening because of a mere accident to a man-made system is absurd.

    While the claim that long-term stability can be assured through nuclear deterrence must be rejected, deterrence remains the central basis upon which arms control discussions, and agreements, between the governments and military establishments of the US and Russia take place. Nuclear deterrence is assumed for the present discussion because the focus here is on changing just one feature in the two States’ military posture. It is argued that the change to a policy of “NO L-o-W” is a logical necessity and is readily possible; it is urgently needed, and it does not require any immediate change in the assumptions upon which current policy is based, whether these are valid or not. The change can and should be made immediately. It can be initiated unilaterally, without causing relative strategic advantage or disadvantage to either side. It does not require formal agreement, nor verification.

    The change from L-o-W to NO L-o-W is financially neutral, not requiring substantial expense, nor yielding significant savings. It does not require physical changes to the weapons systems.
    2. Definition of Launch on Warning

    The term “Launch on Warning” is used here in reference to retaliation with rocket-mounted nuclear weapons to a perceived nuclear attack. A L-o-W capacity is one that would make it possible to launch a retaliatory attack in response to a warning (by radar or satellite sensors) of attacking missiles, before any incoming warhead had arrived and detonated. This allows the option of L-o-W, which permits a decision, within the few minutes available between the warning and the predicted time of first impact, on whether or not to launch a response before impact. A L-o-W policy is one in which it would be standard procedure for a retaliatory launch to be actively considered and probably carried out before the first impact, though in the American case only after authorization by the President, assuming he could be consulted within the short time available.

    The term “Launch under Attack” has been used less precisely by US Strategic Command and in Congress, possibly sometimes with the intention of causing confusion. It is commonly presented as meaning the prompt launch of retaliation as soon as one or more incoming nuclear weapons have detonated. However, in the late 1970’s it was included in the dictionary of military terms by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and explained as “execution by National Command Authorities of Single Integrated Operational Plan Forces subsequent to tactical warning of strategic nuclear attack against the United States and prior to first impact.”1 This definition is identical to L-o-W. But at times military personnel have said their policy is not L-o-W, but “launch under attack”, implying that there is a difference, and that retaliation would be launched only after impact or detonation. An alternative distinction has sometimes been implied: that L-o-W means to launch on a warning from one system (radar or satellite) alone, and “launch under attack” means launching retaliation before detonation, but only if the warning is confirmed by a second system.2 In any event, both Russia and the US have launch on warning capacity, and thus must be assumed to maintain a L-o-W policy3 or, at the very least, a policy of considering the option of L-o-W.
    3. The Emergence of a Launch on Warning Policy

    The avowed function of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles is “deterrence”. Deterrence is in theory achieved when a potential attacker is convinced that an attack will be unavoidably followed by retaliation so devastating that it would be irrational to attack in the first place.

    As the accuracy of nuclear weapons advanced, it was realized that a massive pre-emptive salvo directed at command and control systems and retaliatory weapons could diminish or eliminate a capacity to retaliate. If either side believed it could achieve such a “disarming first strike”, it might be tempted to attack.

    To avoid this weakening of deterrence through the pre-emptive destruction of an adversary’s retaliatory forces, both sides explored the possibility of launching retaliation before the first impact of a pre-emptive strike – thus “Launch On Warning”. It was probably put into effect as soon as such a quick launch became possible, the development of solid fuel as rocket propellant (around 1960) being a decisive factor.

    During atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the early 1950’s the electrical phenomenon called “Electro-Magnetic Pulse” (EMP) was discovered.4 Around 1960 the US conducted a series of high-altitude nuclear explosions to investigate it, incidentally causing significant disruption of radio communications each time. The purpose was presumably two-fold: to explore the possibility that the phenomenon could be used by either side to enable a disarming first strike, and to study methods of protecting their own electronic equipment so that deterrence would be maintained even if the enemy was planning to use EMP. This possibility that electrical disruptions might prevent retaliation provided a second reason to adopt L-o-W.

    As early as 1960 the propriety and morality of adopting L-o-W was being discussed because of the recognized danger of launching on a false warning, and so starting an unintended nuclear war.5 In that year the Planning Board wrote that it was “essential” to avoid the possibility of launching unrecallable missiles based on a false warning. They stressed the importance of a “reliable bomb alarm system to provide early positive information of actual missile hits.”6 Such a system was in fact installed. It was not without defects, and at least once these caused a spurious alert.7 In 1962, Robert McNamara said that as long as he was Secretary of Defense and Jack Kennedy was President, the US would never launch on warning.8 But the same year, the Secretary of the Air Force must have been thinking of L-o-W when he informed Kennedy that once the Minuteman missiles had been deployed in the first complex, in their “normal alert status”, all “twenty missiles will be able to be launched in thirty seconds.”9

    A discussion in 1969 is on record as showing that some who were opposing “Ballistic Missile Defense” favoured L-o-W, but The White House is said to have opposed it “on the grounds that 50% of warnings from Over-the-Horizon Radar were false”.10 (No true warning of a nuclear ballistic missile attack has ever been received, so presumably the other 50% were true observations of test rocket launches.) However the newly developed satellite early warning system was estimated to produce only one false warning per year, which appears to have been regarded as acceptable. Georgy Arbatov, a Soviet deterrence specialist who had joined the National Security Council, assured Council members that “neither side would wait if it received warning of an attack but instead … would simply empty its silos by launching a counter-strike at once.”11 That reduces concern about failure of deterrence against a surprise first strike, but underlines the danger from a false warning.

    It is probable that by 1969 L-o-W was the military policy on both sides, and had been for a number of years, notwithstanding the record that in 1973 Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird expressed the hope that “that kind of strategy would never be adopted by any Administration or by any Congress.”12 The recollections of former officers and enlisted men of Strategic Air Command (SAC) from the early 1970’s confirm that L-o-W was in effect then.13

    The capability, and presumably the policy, of L-o-W are retained by the US and Russia, even though the Cold War is regarded as over. This seems inexcusably dangerous.
    4. The Danger of Inadvertent Nuclear War from False Warnings or Chance Coincidences

    Launch on Warning has kept the world exposed, for at least 30 years, to the danger of a nuclear war caused by nothing but a coincidence of radar, sensor, or computer glitches, and a temporary failure of human alertness to appreciate that an unexpected message of attack from the warning system is false, the enemy having done nothing. There is at most 20 minutes for the human operators and commanders to call and conduct a “threat conference”, while the chief of Strategic Command is put in touch with the President to advise him, and the President decides whether to order retaliation. The disaster of an accidental nuclear war has not happened yet, in spite of a large number of false warnings of which at least a few have had very dangerous features. This is a credit to the care and alertness of the military in both Russia and the US. It should not be taken as reassurance. A single instance of launch of nuclear weapons on a false warning would result in nuclear war, and the end of civilization, just as surely as a nuclear war started by an actual attack. There would be no chance to review the system to make it safer after one failure of that kind.

    The threat conferences require, and so far have achieved, the extraordinary standard of perfect accuracy. They have not been rare events. Probably most of them have been routine and it was easy to exclude a real attack; others have been serious enough that the silo lids were rolled back. To get an idea of how the laws of chance apply to the situation, suppose we make a very conservative assumption: that just one conference a year had a risk of error as high as 1% (and that the rest had a much lower risk). It is a simple calculation to show that taking one 1% risk of disaster per year for 30 years results in a 26% probability of one actual disaster in that period. On that assumption, then, we had approximately 3 to 1 odds in favour of surviving the period 1970 – 2000, and we did survive. But that means, from the risk of accidental war alone, we had (on that assumption) a one in four chance of not surviving. A single trial of Russian roulette is safer: it gives a one in six chance of death, or 5 to 1 odds in favour of surviving.14

    During the Cold War, many mishaps within the nuclear retaliation system on the US side are known to have occurred, including false warnings. There must have also been many similar incidents on the Russian side. One has been reported in which a Russian officer decided on his own initiative not to report an apparently grave warning on his computer screen, on the correct belief that it was a false warning. He may have saved the world, but was disgraced for failing to follow his orders; his career was ruined, and he suffered a mental breakdown.15

    In a study of rival theories of accident probabilities, Scott Sagan described a large number of errors and accidents within the US nuclear deterrence system. He concluded that the risk of nuclear war from accidents had not been excessive.16 I came to the opposite conclusion from his data. I have collected 20 instances of mishaps, from that source and others, which with less alertness among military officers, or accompanied by chance by some coincidental problem, might have started a nuclear war.17

    One example of a situation which was difficult to assess correctly at the Command Center, was this: On the night of 24 November, 1961, all communication links between SAC HQ and NORAD went dead, and so cut SAC HQ off from the three Ballistic Missile Early Warning Sites, at Thule (Greenland), Clear (Alaska), and Fylingdales (England).18 For General Power at SAC HQ, there were two possible explanations: either enemy action, or the coincidental failure of all the communication systems, which had multiple ostensibly independent routes including commercial telephone circuits. The SAC bases in the US were therefore alerted by a code message instructing B-52 nuclear bomber crews to prepare to take off, and start their engines, but not to take off without further orders. In the hope of clarifying the situation, radio contact was made with an orbiting B-52 on airborne alert which was near Thule (5,000 kilometers away) at the time. Its crew contacted the Thule base and could report that no attack had taken place, so the alert was cancelled. The reason for the “coincidental” failure was that the “independent” routes for telephone and telegraph between NORAD and SAC HQ all ran through one relay station in Colorado. At that relay station a small fire had interrupted all the lines.19

    There was a coincidental mishap during this event, which could have been disastrous. It seems there was an error in transmitting the alert code to 380th Bomb Wing at Plattsburg, New York. A former aircraft maintenance technician who was serving at that B-52 bomber base, recently told the author his vivid recollection of the incident. The code order first received by the bomber crews was “alpha”, instructing them to take off and proceed directly to their pre-assigned targets, and bomb. They had never received that code before. Before any bomber had taken off the code was corrected to “cocoa”, meaning “wait with engines running”. If the corrected code had not been received in time it could have been very difficult to stop the bombers.

    The episode just described took place before L-o-W was instituted for the ICBMs that were in service. By 1979 the policy of L-o-W was in effect and in that year, on the morning of 9 November, a war games tape was running on a reserve computer when failure of the operational computer automatically switched in the reserve to take its place. The Threat Conference saw the picture of a massive attack in a realistic trajectory from Russian launch sites. On that occasion, preparation to retaliate got as far as launch of the president’s National Emergency Airborne Command Post (though without the president), before the error was discovered.

    The most recent example known to the public was on 25 January 1995 when, as described in a report of the Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Trade, “the Russian missile early warning system detected a scientific rocket launched off the coast of Norway. This area is frequented by U.S. submarines, whose ballistic missiles could scatter eight nuclear warheads over Moscow within fifteen minutes. Norway had informed the Russian Foreign Ministry about the upcoming launch, but this information had not been transmitted to the military. Over the next several minutes President Yeltsin was informed of the possible American attack, and, for the first time ever, his ‘nuclear briefcase’ was switched into alert mode for emergency use, allowing him to order a full Russian nuclear response. Tension mounted as the rocket separated into several stages, but the crisis ended after about eight minutes (just a few minutes before the procedural deadline to respond to an impending nuclear attack) when it became clear that the rocket was headed out to sea and would not pose a threat to Russia.”20
    5. Distinguishing Between De-Alerting and NO L-o-W

    “De-alerting” is a term commonly used in suggestions and recommendations that nuclear weapons should be taken off “hair-trigger alert” by introducing physical changes to impose an unavoidable delay between a decision to launch and the irrevocable step that actually starts the launch. With such a delay L-o-W would of course be impossible; but it is possible and highly desirable to abandon the policy of L-o-W immediately, without waiting for the changes involved in introducing such a delay.

    Several reports to governments have indicated the importance of abandoning a hair-trigger stance with weapons of such terrible destructive power. Most of them, however, have not distinguished between terms like “high alert” or “hair-trigger alert”, which usually imply the technical ability to “launch on warning”, and the policy or option actually to launch before any incoming warhead explodes.

    The Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons was established by the Australian government in 1995. Its mandate was to recommend practical steps towards elimination of nuclear weapons from the world. Its report states:
    “The first requirement for movement towards a nuclear weapon free world is for the five nuclear weapon states to commit themselves unequivoc-ally to proceed with all deliberate speed to a world without nuclear weapons …”.21
    It then defines six additional immediate steps starting with these two:
    o taking nuclear forces off alert, and
    o removal of warheads from delivery vehicles.

    The Canberra report emphasizes the danger of launch on warning or launch-under-attack options, implying that they are different, but it does not indicate that giving up either option can be different from “taking nuclear forces off alert.” It goes on to say that “taking nuclear forces off alert could be verified by national technical means and nuclear weapon state inspection arrangements. In the first instance, reductions in alert status could be adopted by the nuclear weapon states unilaterally.” The report does not make the point that, if nuclear deterrence is to remain the policy, it is acceptable to abandon L-o-W unilaterally but unacceptable to de-alert unilaterally.

    Similarly, the Report of the Canadian Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, entitled Canada and the Nuclear Challenge: Reducing the Political Value of Nuclear Weapons for the Twenty-First Century, discusses in a general way the need for both Russia and the United States to reduce the alert status of their nuclear arsenals: In the interest of increased nuclear safety and stability, and as a means to advance toward the broader goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada endorse the concept of de-alerting all nuclear forces, subject to reciprocity and verification – including the arsenals of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the three nuclear-weapons-capable States – and encourage their governments to pursue this option.22

    At least two studies have advocated the adoption of a clear policy declaration on rejecting launch on warning options as a first step toward de-alerting. A major work from the Brookings Institute, Nuclear Turning Point: A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and De-alerting Nuclear Weapons, defines de-alerting as a two-step process. “It seeks first to eliminate the hair-trigger option of launch on warning” – essentially a policy commitment not to exercise a L-o-W option, even though there is a capacity for it. Second, in the words of the Brookings paper, de-alerting moves from a policy to forego L-o-W options, to measures that physically “extend the launch preparation time to days, weeks, or longer through graduated reciprocal measures instituted by the two parties.”23

    The Committee on Nuclear Policy coordinated by the Stimson Center made a similar recommendation in its 1999 report. It called on the United States to “declare its intention, with a parallel, reciprocal commitment from Russia, to eliminate the launch-on-warning option from nuclear war plans.” In other words, it calls on the two states to make mutual commitments to abandon launch on warning options. This commitment, the report said, should be followed by “discussions among the five nuclear weapon states on verifiably removing all nuclear forces from hair-trigger alert.”24

    These are important calls for the public rejection of L-o-W postures and options, but in both instances the reports call for reciprocal NO L-o-W policies. Under deterrence theory and practice, however, rejection of the launch on warning policy or option does not need to be symmetrical or verifiable. It is of value even if only one side does it, and it is argued below that the only theoretical disadvantage in rejecting L-o-W is actually less if it is not verified. If the US were to immediately renounce the L-o-W option, it would then be in a position to tell Russia why it has done so and ask for a reciprocal commitment. One side making that commitment and carrying it out unilaterally does not produce any relative advantage or disadvantage for either side, but it does confer an advantage on both sides, namely, lowering the risk of accidental war.
    6. Exploring the NO L-o-W Posture

    If Russia and the US were actually to abandon the option of launching on warning, even while they retained the capability, they would eliminate the risk of a nuclear war being started by a false warning. Since a false warning is immediately revealed as such when the predicted time has passed for the first rockets to arrive and no detonation has been detected, simply delaying retaliation until there has been a nuclear detonation guarantees that a war will not be started accidentally from that cause.

    Incidents as a result of which a purely accidental war might have been started seem to have outnumbered the actual geopolitical crises when nuclear war was intentionally threatened. And most of the deliberate threats to resort to nuclear weapons, though extremely troubling and dangerous, have been regarded more as threatening gestures than as actual intentions.

    Since the Berlin Wall came down, the most serious threat of a nuclear war between Russia and the US known to the public was the “Norwegian Rocket event” of January 1995, described above. Without L-o-W, that is, if the Russian policy had been never to launch a retaliatory attack until after a nuclear detonation was detected, the Russian alert and the anxious few minutes would still have occurred, but there would have been absolutely no danger of nuclear war because the rocket was unarmed. There could not have been a nuclear explosion, even if the guidance system had malfunctioned and directed the rocket over Russia.

    To change from L-o-W to NO L-o-W does not require any change of alert status of the retaliatory system. It only requires a change of standing orders and standard operating procedure, such that no launch may take place until a nuclear detonation is reported.

    The elimination of L-o-W does not eliminate any other retaliation options. It just ensures that retaliation would not take place without confirmation of a nuclear detonation. As soon as a warning of attack was received, one which a threat conference deemed to be real, the order to prepare for a retaliatory launch could be given. The President (in the US case) would then be charged with deciding, not whether to launch immediately and risk it being an irrevocable response to what could still be a false warning, but whether to launch immediate retaliation in the event of a detonation. If the decision was to retaliate upon detonation, full preparation would be made to launch immediately upon receipt of a positive bomb alarm signal.

    Bomb alarms were installed many years ago near all military installations and all big cities in the US, and presumably in Russia, which automatically and instantaneously indicate at the Strategic Command Centers the location of any nuclear explosion. If, and only if, indication of a nuclear explosion was received at the predicted arrival time of the attack, the final order to launch could be sent immediately to the silos. No delay to obtain presidential authorization would be needed at that point. The actual retaliatory launch could probably take place within a minute of the first detonation. If the final order to launch was not received within a certain short time after the time of predicted impact, the launch preparations would be reversed.

    A policy of NO L-o-W would not eliminate the horrific threat of nuclear annihilation. Only the abolition of nuclear weapons can do that; but a NO L-o-W posture would remove the danger of launching nuclear-armed rockets in response to a false warning. That would probably eliminate 90% of the current risk of nuclear war between the US and Russia. A secondary benefit would be the reduced stress on the President during those vital minutes in which a reported attack was being assessed. He would know that he was not in danger of starting a war on a false warning. Under L-o-W that worry might impair his concentration on the main issues.

    Neither side wants an accidental war. They know that if either side mistakenly launches nuclear weapons both countries are going to be destroyed: it makes no difference who started it. If one side changes to NO L-o-W the risk of a purely accidental war from a false warning is approximately halved, immediately. It does not even depend on the other side knowing that the change has been made.
    7. The Effect on Deterrence

    There can be few grounds for objection, by the military or by the governments, to this very necessary safety measure. One possible objection has to be taken seriously: that “NO L-o-W” might impair deterrence and tempt one side to try a “disarming first strike”. There are good reasons why this objection should not be allowed to prevent the policy change.

    For either side to consider first strike to be a rational option, the attacking side would have to be absolutely sure that its first salvo would fully disarm the other’s retaliatory capacity. They would know that any surviving weapons would pose a retaliatory threat that could be launched immediately after the first attack had hit its target. Under NO L-o-W the degree of alertness of surviving weapons would not be reduced, and retaliation for a real attack could still be launched promptly, probably within a minute of the first detonation. Synchronization of detonation times of the opening salvo, from widely separated launch sites to widely separated targets – the enemy missile launch sites and command posts – could not be assured to such precision.

    The other possible method of preventing retaliation would be a first salvo engineered to maximize Electro-Magnetic Pulse and disable the other side’s electronics. It is hardly credible that the attacking side could feel sure that their EMP would disrupt communication and launch mechanisms sufficiently, since they would know that military electronics will have been shielded. Furthermore, they would know that submarine-launched missiles would not be disabled, because the sea-water shields submarines and their contents.

    The side planning a pre-emptive attack would also have to be sure that its adversary had in fact changed to and remained under a policy of No L-o-W. They cannot be sure of this without verification. So from the point of view of preserving deterrence, verification is actually undesirable. Verification that L-o-W policies were no longer in place would help to reassure the other countries of the world, but it is not necessary in order to gain the benefit of the change. Thus, a NO L-o-W policy on either side would have minimal impact on deterrence, and would be an advantage to both, simply because it halves the risk of a purely accidental nuclear war. NO L-o-W by both sides makes this particular risk zero.

    If, despite these arguments, the military establishment on either side is not persuaded to abandon L-o-W, the head of state must balance the elimination of the very definite risk of accidental war due to a false warning, against a hypothetical possibility of weakened deterrence resulting in war. The results of a nuclear war would be the same, whether started by accident or by intention.
    8. De-alerting: Methods, Benefits and Difficulties

    As described in the report from the Brookings Institute, “de-alerting” moves beyond the policy to forego L-o-W options, to measures that physically extend the launch preparation time to days, weeks, or longer, through graduated reciprocal measures instituted by the two parties.

    A wide variety of methods has been suggested to introduce the delay necessary to constitute a de-alerted posture. A very radical measure would be to have all warheads removed from all delivery vehicles, and stored at a distance from them. Less drastic measures could be used to enforce shorter delays, and possible methods include:
    o making a heap of earth and rocks on silo lids that would require heavy machinery to remove it;
    o removing hydraulic fluid from the machines that raise silo lids;
    o de-activating the mechanism that rolls back garage roofs (Russia);
    o pinning open a switch in a place that takes time to reach, or within a casing that takes time to open; and
    o removing batteries, gyroscopes, or guidance mechanisms from rockets or re-entry vehicles.

    For de-alerting to be effective, it should be noted that every nuclear weapon on both sides would have to be de-alerted. Heads of state and diplomats have been apt to say “de-alert as many weapons as possible”, but that would not be adequate. To launch one nuclear weapon is sufficient to start a full-scale nuclear war.

    Full de-alerting would make sure that nuclear weapons could not be brought into use hastily. It would tend to reduce reliance on them in crisis situations, and thus be a step towards their eventual elimination from national arsenals. De-alerting would also make unauthorized launch of a nuclear weapon far more difficult to do, and would remove entirely the risk of accidental war due to a false warning. It would make more improbable the already unlikely event of a serious dispute between Russia and the US pushing either of the two into intentionally starting a war, by giving more time for diplomatic exchanges between the hostile governments and for conciliatory efforts by third parties.

    However desirable and urgent de-alerting is, it poses significant challenges. Until elimination of the weapons is complete and assured by treaty, the two states will continue to regard the possession of nuclear weapons as essential to deterrence. To maintain deterrence it is necessary for the enforced delay to be closely equal on the two sides, otherwise the side that could launch first might be tempted to try a “disarming first strike”. This symmetry will not be easy to ensure, considering that the warheads, the delivery vehicles, and the launch procedures are different in the two countries.

    Thus de-alerting will require complex arrangements, and intrusive verification, to ensure the completeness of the de-alerting measures actually carried out, and to ensure that they cannot be secretly reversed. This may require observers from neutral countries, and perhaps from the adversary, in the vicinity of each side’s launch sites. At the same time, both sides will be concerned about maintaining the secrecy of key features of their systems. Verification acceptable for submarine-launched missiles would be extremely difficult.

    It would take prolonged technical study and negotiation to set up these two systems, the de-alerting itself and the verification, in a way that would satisfy the two parties. Once that had been achieved (which might prove impossible) a formal written agreement would be needed. This might require negotiation of a treaty, needing ratification by the parliament on each side, which raises another possibility of disappointing failure after years of work.
    9. Conclusion

    For the present, adoption of a NO L-o-W policy offers a quick and simple means of reducing the danger of accidental war. It does not need symmetry, verification, agreement, nor even trust, between the adversaries. If adopted unilaterally by one side it is of immediate benefit to both, and it does not impair deterrence. Unilateral operation of NO L-o-W by one country for a time, might well be sufficient for the other to understand the benefit and to realize that the change did not in fact invite a first strike.

    Putting NO L-o-W into effect requires only an executive order, followed by a change in standing orders to the effect that no rocket is launched until a nuclear explosion is reported to Strategic Command. There is no reduction in alert status. There would be minor changes in the launch sequence to suit whatever safeguards would be made to ensure that no launch could occur while the crews in the silos were waiting for the final order, and that they would be ready for instant launch if that order came through.

    All the world’s people would be safer for the change. Therefore all governments have a duty to their people to urge the US and Russian governments to make it at once.

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    The author acknowledges valuable research assistance by Sarah Estabrooks of Project Ploughshares, and very helpful editing by Sarah and by Ernie Regehr.

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    Acronyms

    EMP ElectroMagnetic Pulse
    HQ Headquarters
    ICBM Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile
    L-o-W Launch on Warning
    NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command
    SAC Strategic Air Command (later changed to “Strategic Command”)
    SIOP Single Integrated Operational Plan
    SLBM Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile
    Footnotes

    1. In Bruce Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute) 1992.
    2. This is too uncertain a distinction to rely on. If one system were temporarily out of action there would be great pressure to act on an indication from the remaining one.

    3. If this is true of Russia, they must be relying on warning from only one system for a large fraction of the time. Their satellite fleet is incomplete and there are periods when segments of their periphery are not doubly monitored. Some of the radar complexes installed under the Soviet system are now in independent States. There is said to be a corridor along which missiles could approach giving no warning early enough for evaluation of the situation before impact. We have no way of knowing whether, for that direction of attack, their retaliation would be purely reflex or would wait for impact.

    4. The Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) is an extremely sharp and energetic electromagnetic impulse that is emitted by electrons travelling at nearly the speed of light from a nuclear explosion. It is maximal when the detonation is at very high altitude and the electrons interact with the earth’s magnetic field above the atmosphere. It disrupts unshielded electrical and electronic equipment over a wide area.

    5. Memorandum of Gerard C. Smith, Director, U.S. Department of State Policy Planning Staff to Foy Kohler, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, 22 June 1960. Marked TOP SECRET. Source: National Security Archive microfiche collection, U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Weapons and Politics in the Missile Era, 1955-68. Washington, D.C. 1998. National Security Archive electronic briefing book, “Launch on Warning: The development of U.S. capabilities, 1959-79”, William Burr, ed., April 2001. Document 3. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB43/

    6. Memorandum for the National Security Council from the National Security Council Planning Board, 14 July 1960. Marked TOP SECRET. Subject: U.S. Policy on Continental Defense. Source: National Security Archive microfiche collection, U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Weapons and Politics in the Missile Era, 1955-68. Washington, D.C. 1998. Burr, Document 4.

    7. Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 183.

    8. Account quoted by Jeffrey Richelson citing an interview with Jack Ruina in America’s Space Sentinels: DSP Satellites and National Security (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1999), p. 256. no. 37. In Burr, 2001.

    9. Letter from Secretary of the Air Force, Eugene M. Zuckert, to President John F. Kennedy, 26 October 1962. Source: National Security Archive microfiche collection, U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Weapons and Politics in the Missile Era, 1955-68. Washington, D.C., 1998. Burr, Document 7.

    10. Memorandum from Lawrence Lynn, U.S. National Security Council Staff, to Henry Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, 1 May 1969. Subject: Talking Paper on “Firing on Warning” Issue. Marked TOP SECRET when with attachment. Source: National Security Archive’s Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Security Council Files, Box 840, Sentinel ABM System, Vol. II, 4/1/69. Burr, Document 9.

    11. Memorandum from Helmut Sonnenfeldt, National Security Council Staff to Henry Kissinger, 22 September 1969. Subject: “Message” to You from Arbatov. Marked SECRET/NODIS. Source: National Security Archive’s Nixon Presidential Materials Project, National Security Council Files, Box 710, USSR Vol. V, 10/69. Burr, Document 10.

    12. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) Public Affairs Bureau, “The Launch on Warning Question in the First Phase of SALT”, 21 December 1973. Marked SECRET NOFORN. Source: ACDA FOIA release to National Security Archive. Burr, Document 11.

    13. Author’s personal communication with former Air Force Personnel. Anonymity retained.

    14. This is not an attempt to calculate an actual probability. It is merely an example to illustrate the cumulative effect of any low-probability risk that is taken repeatedly, or accepted continuously, over a period of time.

    15. Incident reported by Allan Little in “How I Stopped Nuclear War”, BBC News, 21 October 1998.

    16. Sagan, The Limits of Safety.

    17. Alan F. Phillips, “20 Mishaps that Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War” (Toronto: Defence Research and Education Centre) 1998.

    18. Sagan, p. 176.

    19. Ibid., p. 176.

    20. Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada and the Nuclear Challenge: Reducing the Political Value of Nuclear Weapons for the Twenty-First Century, December 1998.

    21. Report of The Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Executive Summary, 30 January 1997.

    22. SCFAIT Report, Recommendation 5, p. 24.

    23. Bruce Blair, The Nuclear Turning Point, A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and De-Alerting, (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute) p.101.

    24. Report of the Committee on Nuclear Policy, Jump-START: Retaking the Initiative to Reduce Post-Cold War Nuclear Dangers, The Henry L. Stimson Center, February 1999.
    References

    Blair, Bruce in Feiveson, Harold A. et al. The Nuclear Turning Point, A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and De-Alerting. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute. 1999.

    Blair, Bruce. The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institute 1992.

    Burr, William, ed. National Security Archive electronic briefing book, “Launch on Warning: The development of U.S. capabilities, 1959-79”. April 2001. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB43

    Little, Allan. “How I Stopped Nuclear War”. BBC News. 21 October 1998.

    Phillips, Alan. “20 Mishaps that Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War”. Toronto: Defence Research and Education Centre. 1998. Online at: www.nuclearfiles.org/anw/

    Report of The Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, 30 January 1997.

    Report of the Committee on Nuclear Policy, Jump-START: Retaking the Initiative to Reduce Post-Cold War Nuclear Dangers. The Henry L. Stimson Center. February 1999.

    Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Canada and the Nuclear Challenge: Reducing the Political Value of Nuclear Weapons for the Twenty-First Century, December 1998.

    Sagan, Scott D. The Limits of Safety. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1993.
    *Dr. Alan Phillips graduated with honours in physics at Cambridge University in 1941. He spent the rest of World War II doing radar research for the British Army. After the war he qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University and specialized in the treatment of cancer by radiation. He retired in 1984. His retirement activities have included the study of nuclear armaments and the risks of accidental nuclear war.
    ————–

    Project Ploughshares Working Papers are published to contribute to public awareness and debate of issues of disarmament and development. The views expressed and proposals made in these papers should not be taken as necessarily reflecting the official policy of Project Ploughshares.

  • Nuclear Dangers Remain After Bush-Putin Agreement

    Nuclear Dangers Remain After Bush-Putin Agreement

    When major newspapers around the world trumpet headlines such as “U.S., Russia to Cut Nuclear Arms,” it should be cause for excitement, even celebration. Undoubtedly most people will greet this news with a sense of relief that we are moving in the right direction. Certainly it is better to have less nuclear weapons than more of them. But before we bring out the champagne, it would be a good idea to read the fine print and examine more closely what the treaty will and will not do.

    The treaty calls for reducing the size of the actively deployed US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals from some 6,000 weapons on each side today to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012. This is approximately a two-thirds reduction in actively deployed long-range nuclear weapons, a move that is certainly positive.

    The treaty, however, has serious flaws. The nuclear weapons taken off active deployment will not necessarily be destroyed. It will be up to each country to determine what to do with these weapons. Many, if not most, of them will be placed in storage, ready to be rapidly redeployed if either country decides to do so.

    There is also no immediacy to moving from current levels of strategic nuclear weapons to the promised lower levels. According to the terms of the treaty, each country needs only to reduce to the agreed upon levels by the year 2012. That also happens to be the year that the treaty terminates unless extended.

    The United States has been a proponent of making the nuclear reductions reversible. The major problem with this approach is that it leads the Russians to do the same, and thereby increases the likelihood that these weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. It would be better for both countries to permanently dismantle the nuclear weapons removed from active deployment, thereby removing the risk of theft by terrorists.

    The treaty deals only with strategic or long-range nuclear weapons. It does not seek to control or reduce tactical or short-range nuclear weapons. Each side still retains thousands of these weapons, and there is serious concern about the Russian arsenal’s vulnerability to theft or unauthorized use. The US Nuclear Posture Review, made partially public in January 2002, called for the development of so-called “bunker buster” nuclear weapons that would be far more likely to actually be used than the larger long-range nuclear weapons.

    As we evaluate this treaty, we should remember that even at the lowest level of 1,700 strategic nuclear weapons on each side, there will still be a sufficient number to destroy more than 3,000 cities. The use of far fewer nuclear weapons than this would put an end to civilization as we know it.

    President Bush claims, “This treaty will liquidate the legacy of the Cold War.” This remains to be seen. By designing a treaty that will hold so many nuclear weapons in reserve and retain so many on active “hair-trigger” alert, the two sides are not exactly demonstrating a level of trust commensurate with their current friendly relations.

    When the treaty is examined closely, it has more the feel of a public relations effort than a solid step toward reducing nuclear dangers and fulfilling the long-standing promises of the two countries to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Unfortunately, even if this treaty is ratified and enters into force, we will remain in the danger zone that nuclear weapons pose to humanity and all life.

    We still need an agreement that provides for deeper, more comprehensive and irreversible cuts with a far greater sense of urgency. Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin need to return to the negotiating table.

     

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Let Us Choose Life; Let Us End The Nuclear Weapons Threat Now

    As a member of the human family, as a person who feels a deep kinship with all life, as a war veteran who supported President Truman’s decision to use atom bombs to end the war in the Pacific in 1945, I call upon the leaders of my country to act now to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity’s future.

    Mr. Truman told me that he made his horrifying decision when our nation and other nations were in hell. “War is hell,” he said. “We were burning up thousands of Japanese men, women, and children with fire bombs, night after night. I wanted to end that slaughter.” In a speech he made in 1948, he said: ” I decided that the bomb should be used in order to end the war quickly and save countless lives – Japanese as well as American.”

    I was a soldier in Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis when he took that action. With thousands of other soldiers there and elsewhere, I knew that I might be sent to Japan, to take part in an invasion that might cost my life and the lives of many thousands of people. When the bombs were dropped and the Japanese Emperor surrendered quickly, I took part in a celebration. The hellish time of torment was ended. The joy of release from war uplifted us all.

    As a science fiction writer in the 1930’s, I assumed that the release of nuclear energy would occur. I knew it would cause great dangers, but I thought it could be harnessed for peaceful purposes. I thought that the unlocking of nuclear knowledge might be part of the Creator’s plan for the high development of civilization. With unlimited power available, prosperity might be available for everyone. Poverty would be abolished. Humanity would enter a new age of fulfillment.

    But now I know that nuclear weapons are monstrous instruments that threaten to obliterate life on our beautiful planet. My country, as the nation that used these weapons in a war, has a special obligation to take the lead in getting rid of them.

    As a taxpayer, I helped to finance the construction and proliferation of these terrible weapons. When I worked as a speechwriter for President Truman and for members of the U.S. Senate, I supported the idea of “deterrence” – the belief that such weapons would keep heavily armed nations from going to war. I realized that President Ronald Reagan was right when he said: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” But I did not fully understand that the very existence of such weapons constituted an unbearable peril. Now I do.

    Now I completely endorse the statements in the recent appeal issued by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The signers of the appeal declared:

    “We call upon the leaders of the nations of the world and, in particular, the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to act now for the benefit of all humanity and all life by taking the following steps:

    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education, and welfare throughout the world.”

    That appeal has been signed by former President Jimmy Carter; Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Elie Wiesel, and many other Nobel prize winners.

    I believe it is an appeal that could be signed by millions of human beings like myself, who have become aware that nuclear weapons endanger all of us and may destroy the whole earth.

    I ask for the forgiveness of my fellow citizens and people everywhere for the part I had in supporting the nuclear arms race when I worked in Washington as a special assistant to the Senate Majority Leader from 1949 to 1952; for the belligerent speeches I wrote for Senators, and the statements I made to friends.

    I still believe that Harry Truman was principally motivated by a desire to save lives when he authorized the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The destruction of those two cities, depicted on film and viewed later by millions of people, had profound effects on the leaders of nations in the subsequent years. It is possible that those bombings prevented a third world war.

    But now it is folly to risk the survival of life on earth by permitting nuclear weapons to exist. Let us choose life; let us get rid of them as fast as we can. I can no longer support their existence. I urge everyone to call for their abolition, as I do now.
    *Frank K. Kelly is senior vice president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.