Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear war

  • The Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

    The Challenge of Abolishing Nuclear Weapons

    There are many serious problems confronting humanity, but none looms larger than the continuing dangers of nuclear weapons. We have entered the seventh decade since nuclear weapons were created and used on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During this period, the world has witnessed an insane nuclear arms race, in which the human species was threatened with annihilation. Despite the end of the Cold War more than 15 years ago, the threat has not gone away. The future of civilization, even the human species, hangs in the balance, and yet very little attention is paid to ending this threat. We are challenged, individually and collectively, to end this ultimate danger to humanity.

    Warnings

    Nuclear weapons unleash the power inside the atom. The creation of these weapons demonstrated significant scientific achievement, but left humankind faced with the challenge of what to do with them. Albert Einstein, whose theoretical understanding of the relationship of energy and mass paved the way for nuclear weapons, was deeply troubled by their creation. “The unleashed power of the atom,” he prophesied, “has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    By 1955, ten years after the first use of nuclear weapons, both the US and USSR had developed thermonuclear weapons, thousands of times more powerful than the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they had begun testing these weapons on the lands of indigenous peoples. Einstein continued his dire warnings. Along with philosopher Bertrand Russell, an appeal to humanity was issued called the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, signed also by nine other prominent scientists. They wrote: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    Other warnings from highly credible sources throughout the Nuclear Age sought to put the world on notice of the peril nuclear weapons posed to humanity. The most recent warning came from the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, also known as the Blix Commission after its chairman, former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix. Referring to weapons of mass destruction, the 2006 report stated: “So long as any state has such weapons – especially nuclear arms – others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.”

    With the serious dangers that nuclear weapons pose to the human future, it is curious that so many warnings, over so long a period of time, have gone unheeded. There are still some 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Some 97 percent of these are in the arsenals of the United States and Russia. Seven other countries also have nuclear weapons: the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. There are also countries such as Japan that are virtual nuclear powers, possessing the technology and nuclear materials to develop nuclear arsenals in days or weeks.

    What will it take to awaken humanity, and change its course? Many people think that this will not happen until there is another catastrophic use of nuclear weapons, but this would be an immense tragedy and a great failure of imagination. If we can imagine that another nuclear catastrophe is possible, shouldn’t we act now to prevent it?

    Nuclear weapons are often justified as providing security for their possessors. But it is clear that nuclear weapons themselves cannot provide protection in the sense of physical security. At best, they can provide psychological security if one believes that they provide a deterrent against attack. The United States is currently spending tens of billions of dollars to develop a missile defense system. The only reasonable interpretation of this expenditure is that US defense planners understand that deterrence is not foolproof and that it can fail. Of course, missile defenses are far from foolproof as well and can also easily fail. In fact, most scientists not being paid by the missile defense program believe that missile defenses will fail.

    The Shortcomings of Deterrence

    Deterrence has many shortcomings. For it to be effective, the threat must be accurately communicated and it must be believed. In addition, the opponent must care about the threat enough to alter its behavior. Deterrence won’t work when the threat is unbelievable, or when the opponent is suicidal or not locatable.

    If nuclear weapons cannot provide protection for a population, what other advantages do they offer? One possible answer to this question is prestige. Since the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council all developed nuclear weapons, it may seem to other states that nuclear weapons would contribute to their prestige in the world. This thought was given credence by the large-scale celebrations in the streets of India and Pakistan when these two countries tested nuclear devices in 1998.

    Whatever prestige nuclear weapons may confer comes with a heavy price. Nuclear weapons are costly and possessing them will almost certainly make a country the target of nuclear weapons.

    It seems reasonable to conclude that nuclear weapons serve the interests of the weak more than they do the powerful. In the hands of a relatively weak nation, nuclear weapons can serve as an equalizer. One has only to look at the difference in the way the US has treated the three countries that Mr. Bush incorrectly labelled as being part of an axis of evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The US invaded Iraq on the false charge of having a nuclear weapons program, is threatening Iran for enriching uranium, but has done little but bluster about North Korea, which is thought to have a small arsenal of nuclear weapons and recently tested long-range missiles, adding to the anxiety of many of its potential enemies.

    From the perspective of a powerful state, the worst nightmare would be for nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of non-state terrorist organizations, whose members were both suicidal and not locatable. This could create the ideal conditions for these weapons to be used against a major nuclear power or another state. The US, for example, would be relatively helpless against a nuclear-armed al Qaeda. The US would not be able to deter al Qaeda. Its only hope would be to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon or the materials to create one.

    Why Abolish Nuclear Weapons?

    Nuclear weapons undermine security. Under current circumstances, with so many nuclear weapons in the world and such an abundance of fissile materials for constructing nuclear weapons, the likelihood is that nuclear weapons will eventually end up in the hands of non-state terrorist organizations. This would be a disastrous scenario for the world’s most powerful counties, opening the door to possible nuclear 9/11s.

    In addition, nuclear weapons are anti-democratic. They concentrate power in the hands of single individuals. The president of the United States, for example, could send the world spiraling into nuclear holocaust with just one order to unleash the US nuclear arsenal. The undemocratic nature of nuclear weapons should be of great concern to those who value democracy and the participation of citizens in decisions that affect their lives.

    Nuclear weapons should also be viewed in terms of their consequences. They are long-range weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction. They destroy equally civilians and combatants, infants and the infirm, men and women. Viewed from this perspective, these weapons must be viewed as among the most cowardly ever created. By their possession, with the implicit threat of use that possession implies, nuclear weapons also destroy the souls of those who rely upon them.

    They are a coward’s weapon and their possession, threat and use is dishonorable. This was the conclusion of virtually all of the top military leaders of World War II, most of whom were morally devastated that the US used these weapons against Japan. Truman’s Chief of Staff William Leahy, for example, wrote about the use of atomic weapons on Japan: “I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

    Humanity still has a choice, in fact, it is the same choice posed in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. We can choose to eliminate nuclear weapons or risk the elimination of the human species. A continuation of the status quo, of reliance by some states on nuclear arsenals, is likely to result in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to others states and to terrorist organizations. The alternative is the elimination of nuclear weapons.

    What Would It Take?

    What would it take to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons? On the one hand, the answer to this question is “very little.” On the other hand, because of the resistance, complacency and myopia of the leaders of the nuclear weapons states, the answer may be a “great amount.”

    To move forward with the elimination of nuclear weapons would require compliance with existing international law. The International Court of Justice concluded in 1996: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” In the decade since the Court announced its opinion, there has been little evidence of “good faith” negotiations by the nuclear weapons states moving toward any reasonable conclusion.

    The negotiations that the Court describes as an obligation of the nuclear weapons states would need to move toward the end a Nuclear Weapons Convention, a treaty setting forth a program for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons with appropriate measures of verification. With the political will to pursue these required negotiations, a treaty would not be a difficult task to achieve. What is lacking is the requisite political will on the part of the nuclear weapons states.

    A Special Responsibility, A Tragic Failure

    The United States, as the world’s most powerful country and the only country to use nuclear weapons in warfare, has a special responsibility to lead in fulfilling its obligations under international law. In fact, without US leadership, it is unlikely that progress will be possible toward nuclear disarmament. But rather than lead in this direction, the United States under the Bush administration has been the major obstacle to nuclear disarmament. It has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, has withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to pursue dreams of “star wars,” has opposed a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, and in general has acted as an obstacle to progress on all matters of nuclear disarmament.

    The US has also pursued a double standard with regard to nuclear weapons. It has been silent on Israeli nuclear weapons, and now seeks to change its own non-proliferation laws to enable it to provide nuclear technology and materials to India, a country that has not joined the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has developed a nuclear arsenal. At the same time, the US has developed contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against seven countries, five of which are non-nuclear weapons states, despite giving assurances that it would not use nuclear weapons against such states.

    What is tragic is that the American people don’t seem to grasp the seriousness of their government’s failure. They are lacking in education that would lead to an understanding of the situation. Their attention has been diverted to Iraq, Iran and North Korea, and they fail to see what is closest to home: the failure of their own government to lead in a constructive and lawful manner to achieve the elimination of nuclear weapons. “And thus,” in Einstein’s words, “we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    To bring about real change in nuclear policy, people must begin with a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and then they must speak out as if their lives and the lives of their children depended on their actions. It is unlikely that governments will give up powerful weapons on their own accord. They must be pushed by their citizenry – citizens unwilling to continue to run the risk of nuclear holocaust.

    A New Story

    We need a new story for considering nuclear dangers, a story that begins with the long struggle of humans over some three million years to arrive at our present state of society. That state is far from perfect, but few would suggest that it should be sacrificed on the altar of weapons of mass annihilation capable of reducing civilization to rubble.

    The first humans lived short and brutal lives. They were both predators and preyed upon. They survived by their nimbleness, more of body than mind, doing well if they lived into their twenties. Enough early humans were able to protect and nurture their infants in their hazardous environments that some of the children of each generation could survive to an age when they could themselves reproduce and repeat the cycle.

    Without these amazingly capable early ancestors, and those that followed who met the distinct challenges of their times and environments for many hundreds of thousands of generations, we would not be here. Each of our ancestors needed to survive the perils of birth, infancy, childhood and at least early maturity in order for each of us to have made it into the world.

    On the basis of the pure physical capacity to survive, we owe a debt to our ancestors, but with this debt comes something more. We each have a responsibility for helping to assure the chain of human survival that passes the world on intact to the next generation. In addition to this, we share an obligation to preserve the accumulated wisdom and beauty created by those who have walked the earth before us – the ideas of the great storytellers and philosophers, the great music, literature and art, the artifacts of humankind’s collective genius in its varied forms.

    All of the manifestations of human genius and triumph are placed in jeopardy by nuclear weapons and the threat of their use. Why do we tolerate this threat? Why are we docile in the face of policies that could end not only humanity, but life itself?

    Those of us alive today are the gatekeepers to the future, but the assumption of power by the state has left us vulnerable to the continuing threat of nuclear annihilation. The only way to be free of this threat is to be free of nuclear weapons. This is the greatest challenge of our time. It will require education so that people can learn to think about nuclear weapons and war in a new way. We will need organizational modes of collective action to bring pressure to bear on governments to achieve nuclear disarmament. Ordinary people must lead from below.

    The Role of Citizens

    Organizations working for nuclear disarmament – such as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Abolition 2000, the Middle Powers Initiative and the Mayors for Peace – can help give shape to efforts to put pressure on governments. But the change that is needed cannot be the sole responsibility of interest groups. Without the intervention of large numbers of people, we will go on with business as usual, a course that seems likely to lead to nuclear proliferation and further catastrophic uses of nuclear weapons. This is not a distant problem, nor one that can be shunted aside and left to governments.

    We who have entered the 21st century are not exempt from responsibility for assuring a human future. Japanese Buddhist leader Josei Toda called for young people to take the lead in pursuing nuclear disarmament. His proposal has great merit given the fact that it is their future and the future of their children that is imperiled by these weapons.

    Change occurs one person at a time. Each of us must take responsibility for creating a world free of nuclear threat. Noted anthropologist Margaret Mead offered this hopeful advice: “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

    In the end, the necessary changes cannot be left to governments alone. It is up to each of us. What can we do? I have five suggestions. First, become better informed. You can do this by visiting the website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at www.wagingpeace.org. Second, speak out, wherever you are. Talk to your family, friends, and other people around you. Third, join an organization working to abolish nuclear weapons, and help it to become successful. Fourth, use your unique talents. Each of us has special talents that can help make a difference. Use them. Fifth, be persistent. This is a tough job requiring strength and persistence.

    In working for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, you can be a force for saving the world. Being a nuclear weapons abolitionist will require all the courage and commitment of those who worked in the 19th century for the abolition of slavery. Abolishing slavery was the challenge of that time; abolishing nuclear weapons is the even more consequential challenge of our time

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.
  • Time to Wake Up

    Time to Wake Up

    In this season of the 61st anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, it is noteworthy that there are still 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. These weapons are in the arsenals of nine countries, but over 95 percent of them are in the arsenals of just two countries: the US and Russia. These two countries each actively deploy some 6,000 nuclear weapons and keep about 2,000 on hair-trigger alert.

    The political elites in the US seem to think this is fine, and that they can go on with nuclear business-as-usual for the indefinite future. Not a single member of the US Senate has called for pragmatic steps leading to the abolition of nuclear weapons, including negotiations for nuclear disarmament as required by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    US leaders are living within a bubble of hubris that is manifested in many ways, flagrant examples of which are the pursuit of an illegal war in Iraq, and opposition to joining the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto accords on global warming. Underlying their policies is the attitude that US military and economic power gives them the right to violate international law at will and pursue a unilateral path of force when it suits their fancy. We citizens are being held hostage to their major errors in judgment, which in the Nuclear Age could result in the destruction of the country and much of civilization.

    Rather than working to reduce the nuclear threat, US nuclear policy is promoting nuclear proliferation. A recent example is the proposed US-India nuclear deal, in which the Congress appears prepared to change its own non-proliferation laws in order to sell nuclear materials and technology to a country that never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and secretly developed nuclear weapons. US leaders must have their heads deeply buried in the sand if they fail to grasp that this will spur an even more intense nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent and be viewed as hypocritical by the vast majority of the non-nuclear weapons states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    In the 2006 Hiroshima Peace Declaration, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba pointed out that the US Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution in June “demanding that all nuclear weapons states, including the Untied States, immediately cease all targeting of cities with nuclear weapons.” Of course, this would be a good beginning, but nuclear weapons have little use other than to target cities or other nuclear weapons. They are, after all, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

    The World Court found the threat or use of nuclear weapons to be illegal. Most churches have been vocal about their immorality. These weapons detract from security rather than add to it. A recent international commission report on weapons of mass destruction, Weapons of Terror, concluded: “So long as any state has [weapons of mass destruction] – especially nuclear arms – others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain in any state’s arsenal, there is a high risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. Any such use would be catastrophic.”

    Why are we not appalled by the myopia and arrogance of our political leadership for disastrous policies such as those that ignore the obligation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty for good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects? We should be asking: How do individuals who support these insane policies rise to such high office? We should also be asking: Why do ordinary Americans not care enough about their survival to change their leadership?

    A large part of the answer to the first question is that the system is broken and far too dependent on large cash contributions to buy television ads. Insight into an answer to the second question may be found in the recent Harris Poll (July 21, 2006) that reported that 50 percent of US respondents still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the US invaded that country in March 2003. One opinion analyst, Steven Kull, described such views as “independent of reality.” That is how it is for many Americans and their political leaders in this 61st year of the Nuclear Age. Living with such purposeful ignorance is a recipe for disaster.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.
  • Global Hiroshima

    Global Hiroshima

    Hiroshima was destroyed by a single atomic weapon, giving rise to the Nuclear Age, an era characterized by humankind living precariously with weapons capable of destroying the human species. Should the incredible dangers of nuclear weapons not have been immediately apparent from the destruction of Hiroshima and, three days later, of Nagasaki, throughout the Nuclear Age there have been repeated warnings of their unprecedented capacity for destruction. These warnings have come from scientists, military leaders, religious leaders and, occasionally, political leaders. Mostly, these warnings have fallen on deaf ears.

    Sixty-one years after the destruction of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and 15 years after the ending of the Cold War, there are still some 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Over 95 percent of these are in the arsenals of the US and Russia, with some 4,000 of these kept on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. In addition, seven other countries now possess nuclear weapons: UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. All of the nuclear weapons states continue to improve and test missile delivery systems for their nuclear warheads.

    Throughout the Nuclear Age there have been accidents, miscalculations and near inadvertent nuclear wars. The closest we may have come to nuclear war was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, tense days in which decision makers in the US and USSR struggled to find a way through the crisis without an escalation into nuclear exchange. In the 44 years since that crisis, despite other close calls, humankind collectively has relaxed and let down its guard against the dangers these weapons pose to all.

    It has been widely accepted that nuclear weapons are illegal and immoral because they are weapons of mass murder that do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Ten years ago, the International Court of Justice concluded that there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. Progress toward this goal has not been reassuring. No such negotiations are currently in progress. Most political leaders in the US are more concerned with the reliability of nuclear weapons than with finding a way to eliminate them.

    To safely navigate the shoals of the Nuclear Age, three key elements are needed: leadership, a plan, and political will. Only one country currently has the capacity to provide this leadership and that is the US. A spark of hope that such leadership might exist briefly flared during the Reagan presidency when Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev came close to an agreement on nuclear disarmament at their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Their good intentions faltered on the divisive issue of missile defenses. Since then, no high-ranking American political leader, including members of the Senate, has spoken out for a world free of nuclear weapons. President Bush’s leadership on the issue of nuclear disarmament has been non-existent and, in fact, has set up obstacles to achieving this goal.

    The years pass with the threat of nuclear Armageddon hanging over us, and we wait, seemingly in vain, for political leaders to emerge who are willing to make the abolition of nuclear weapons a high priority on the political agenda. We continue to wait for political leaders who will challenge the nuclear double standards, which assume that some countries can maintain nuclear weapons in perpetuity while other countries must be forever content to forego these weapons.

    We wait for political leaders who will advance a viable plan for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. Civil society has been able to devise a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, a draft treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons, so certainly government leaders should be able to do so as well.

    After 61 years of the Nuclear Age, it seems clear that the political leaders needed to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world are unlikely to emerge from existing political systems and structures. These leaders will emerge only if ordinary people demand such leadership. The leaders will have to be led by the people toward assuring a future free of nuclear threat. Absent a sustained surge of political pressure from below, humanity will continue to drift toward increased nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and, finally, nuclear annihilation. The choice remains ours: a future free of nuclear threat or a global Hiroshima. The stakes could not be higher.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.
  • Why Nuclear Weapons Should Matter

    Why Nuclear Weapons Should Matter

    For most Americans, nuclear weapons are a distant concern, and deciding what to do about them is a low priority. As a culture, we are relatively comfortable possessing nuclear weapons, believing that they are, on balance, a good security hedge in a dangerous world. We leave it to our leaders to determine what should be done with these weapons. But our leaders may be moving in exactly the wrong direction.

    Seymour Hersh reported in the April 17, 2006 New Yorker magazine that the US government is developing plans for the possible preemptive use of nuclear weapons against Iranian nuclear facilities. Although George Bush dismissed such reports as “wild speculation,” he did not deny them. The reports should awaken the American people to some relevant issues. First, our political and military leaders are considering the preemptive first-use of nuclear weapons, an act that would undoubtedly constitute aggressive war and a crime against humanity. Second, these leaders hold open the possibility of using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapons state, despite official pledges not to do so. Third, the decision about whether or not to use nuclear weapons preemptively rests in the hands of a single individual, the president.

    The framers of our Constitution could not have imagined the circumstances of the Nuclear Age, in which the possibility exists of one leader triggering a nuclear holocaust, yet they wisely stipulated that the consent of Congress, the political arm of the people, would be necessary to initiate any war.

    We need an open and vigorous discussion in every village, town and city about the anti-democratic and anti-Constitutional tendencies inherent in the presidential control of nuclear weapons. Without such discussion, we relegate the fate of the country and the world to the whims of a single individual.

    In addition, an equally fundamental question must be confronted – have nuclear weapons increased or decreased our security as a nation? In today’s world, nuclear weapons are a far more powerful tool in the hands of a weak actor than in the hands of a powerful state. Thus, Pakistan can deter India and China can deter the US and Russia. A powerful state, such as the US, has everything to lose and very little to gain from the possession of nuclear weapons. This concern isn’t being effectively addressed in the US.

    The more the US relies on nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that other countries will do so as well. The most reasonable course for the US to take is to provide leadership to bring the world back from the nuclear precipice by working to achieve global nuclear disarmament.

    An argument can be made that a small number of nuclear weapons are needed for deterrence until they are all eliminated. But any threat or use of nuclear weapons for purposes other than minimum deterrence will certainly encourage other states to seek their own nuclear arsenals, if only to prevent being bullied by nuclear weapons states. This is the position that North Korea and Iran find themselves in today.

    Current US nuclear policy favors allies, such as Israel and India, and threatens perceived enemies, such as Iran and North Korea. We are already engaged in an aggressive, illegal, protracted and costly war against Iraq, initiated on the false basis that it had a nuclear weapons program. Iran, because of its uranium enrichment, is currently within US gun sights.

    There is no conceivable US use of nuclear weapons, with their powerful and unpredictable consequences, that would not turn the US into a pariah state. The US engenders animosity by pushing beyond the limits imposed by minimum deterrence and failing to take seriously its disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It also creates a climate in which other states may seek to develop nuclear arsenals and in which these weapons may end up in the hands of terrorists. This should be a major concern for all Americans because it could lead to US cities being the targets of nuclear weapons used by extremist groups.

    Polls show that Americans, like most other people in the world, favor nuclear disarmament. However, as a nation, we neither press for it nor question the nuclear policies of our government. But we refrain from such actions at our peril, for a bad decision involving nuclear weapons could destroy us. Inattention and apathy leave the weapons and the decision to use them beyond our reach.

    Thus, we continue with nuclear business as usual, drifting toward the catastrophic day when our policies will lead either to nuclear weapons again being used by us or, as likely, against us by extremist organizations that cannot be deterred by threat of retaliation. We are long past time to bring our nuclear policies back onto the public agenda and open them to thoughtful public discourse.

     

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

  • Gandhi, Bush, and the Bomb

    On February 24, at a press briefing, White House National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley announced that, when U.S. President George W. Bush travels to India, he will lay a wreath in honor of Mohandas Gandhi.

    For those familiar with the cynical gestures of government officials, it might come as no surprise that an American President would attempt to derive whatever public relations benefits he can by linking himself to one of the most revered figures in Indian and world history.

    But the level of hypocrisy is heightened when one recalls that Bush is currently one of the world’s leading warmakers and that Gandhi was one of the world’s leading advocates of nonviolence. Furthermore, the American President’s major purpose for traveling to India is to clinch a deal that will provide that nation with additional nuclear technology, thus enabling it to accelerate its development of nuclear weapons.

    Gandhi, it should be noted, was not only a keen supporter of substituting nonviolent resistance for war, but a sharp critic of the Bomb. In 1946, he remarked: “I regard the employment of the atom bomb for the wholesale destruction of men, women, and children as the most diabolical use of science.” When he first learned of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Gandhi recalled, he said to himself: “Unless now the world adopts non-violence, it will spell certain suicide.” In 1947, Gandhi argued that “he who invented the atom bomb has committed the gravest sin in the world of science,” concluding once more: “The only weapon that can save the world is non-violence.” The Bomb, he said, “will not be destroyed by counter-bombs.” Indeed, “hatred can be overcome only by love.”

    That is certainly an interesting backdrop against which to place President Bush’s plan to provide India with nuclear technology. India is one of only four countries that have refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—a treaty endorsed by 188 nations. Thumbing its nose at the world, India has conducted nuclear tests and has developed what experts believe to be 50 to 100 nuclear weapons. Under the terms of the NPT, the export of nuclear technology is banned to nations that don’t accept international inspections of their nuclear programs. In addition, U.S. law prohibits the transfer of nuclear technology to a country that rejects full international safeguards. U.S. law also bans such technology transfer to a non-NPT country that has conducted nuclear test explosions.

    Thus, if the President were to give any weight to Gandhi’s ideas, international treaty obligations, or U.S. law, he would not be working to provide India with the same nuclear-capable technology that he so vigorously condemns in Iran—a country, by the way, that has signed the NPT, has undergone inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and has not conducted any nuclear weapons tests.

    There are other reasons to oppose this deal, as well. Although India’s relations with Pakistan are relatively stable at the moment, they might well be very adversely affected by any perception that the Indian government was racing ahead with a buildup of its nuclear arsenal. Furthermore, Pakistan might demand the same nuclear assistance as India. Indeed, if India can simply ignore the NPT and, then, receive nuclear technology from the United States, why should other countries observe its provisions? The Iranians, certainly, will make this point.

    At home, the Bush administration’s double standard has not gone unnoticed. In Congress, Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA) and Fred Upton (R-MI) have introduced a bipartisan resolution—H.Con.Res. 318–expressing strong concern about the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal. Although this resolution affirms humanitarian and scientific support for India, it contends that full civil nuclear cooperation between the two nations poses serious dangers. For example, it points to the possibility that the supply of nuclear fuel to India could free up India’s existing fissile material production, thereby enabling it to be used to expand India’s nuclear weapons arsenal. The resolution also opposes transfer of nuclear technology to any country that is not a party to the NPT and has not accepted full safeguards.

    Whatever happens to this resolution, if the Bush administration were to implement its nuclear agreement with the Indian government, it would have to convince Congress to amend U.S. law. And arms control and disarmament groups are determined to prevent that from happening.

    Thus, the Bush administration might genuflect to Gandhi in its efforts to arrange a nuclear pact with India, but it is going to have to convince a lot of very skeptical observers before it implements this agreement.

    Dr. Wittner, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press).

    Originally published by the History News Network.

  • The Effects of a 300 kiloton Nuclear Warhead Detonated Above Washington, D.C.

    If you live in a large city in the U.S., Russia, or any other nation possessing nuclear weapons, there is at least one nuclear warhead aimed at you. It patiently waits day and night for a computer to give it your address and send it on a 10 to 30 minute flight to incinerate you and your family. There are many thousands of strategic nuclear warheads kept constantly ready to turn the cities of the world into hurricanes of fire.

    Click here for a larger version Image by Steven Starr and Taylor Starr

    This is a brief description of the effects which a single average sized strategic nuclear weapon would have if detonated above the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (dozens of such weapons are probably targeted upon D.C. by Russia). The warhead has an explosive power of 300 kilotons (kT), equaling 600 million pounds of dynamite and would be detonated at an altitude of 1500 feet above its target.

    A 300 kT warhead would within a millionth of a second release 300 trillion calories of energy primarily in the form of intense light. The surrounding air would be superheated and create a rapidly expanding fireball. Almost all the air within and around the fireball would be compressed into a steeply fronted luminous blast wave of enormous extent and power.

    The fireball would extend more than a mile in diameter and at its center produce temperatures of over 200 million degrees Fahrenheit, about four to five times the temperature found at the center of the sun. This unearthly release of heat and energy would create an environment of unimaginable lethality, igniting extensive fires for many tens of square miles and producing a blast wave which would crush and tear apart any structures in its path. The blast wave would also increase the incidence and rate of fire spread by exposing ignitable surfaces, releasing flammable materials and dispersing burning objects.

    At Pentagon City, a shopping and office complex 0.7 miles from ground zero at the Pentagon, light from the fireball would melt asphalt in the streets, burn paint off walls, and melt metal surfaces within a half second of detonation. The interior of vehicles in line of sight of the fireball would explode into flames.

    About one second later, the blast wave and 750 miles per hour (mph) winds would arrive and toss burning and disintegrating vehicles into the air like leaves in a wind. The blast wave could cave in buildings and would turn windows and furniture into missiles and shrapnel. The interiors of buildings that remained standing would, within minutes, be burning pyres of splintered walls, doors and other combustibles. Seconds after the passage of the blast wave, suction effects created in part by the rising fireball would reverse the winds, drawing them toward the detonation point at perhaps 50 – 70 mph.

    All the areas within 1.3 miles of the Pentagon (almost all of the Arlington National Cemetery, most of the Virginia Highlands and Addison Heights neighborhoods, and parts of Washington D.C. reaching to the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials) would experience more than 15 times the thermal energy found at the edge of the mass fire which destroyed Hiroshima. The fireball here would, for a moment, shine 5,000 times brighter than a desert sun at noon.

    Grass, vegetation, and leaves on tress would explode into flames, and the surface of the ground would explode into superheated dust. Flames and black smoke would spew out from all combustible materials illuminated by the fireball. The marble on the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials would crack, pop, and possibly evaporate. The light would melt the surface of the bronze statue of Jefferson. Birds in flight would drop from the sky in flames. People exposed to the light would be instantly cremated.

    Four seconds later the blast wave would arrive and collapse the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. This would be followed by winds of 300-400 mph which combining with the blast wave would completely destroy wood-frame and residential brick buildings. Aluminum surfaces on the aircraft at the Reagan National Airport would melt and warp. Interior sections of the aircraft exposed to the fireball would burst into flame. Tires on the aircraft and any nearby vehicles would also catch fire.

    Within 3 miles of ground zero the clothing worn by people in direct line of sight of the fireball would burst into flames or melt, and areas of skin not covered by clothing would be scorched, charring flesh and causing third-degree burns. For many miles in all directions, any creature unfortunate enough to look into the fireball at the time of detonation would either be blinded or suffer permanent retinal damage.

    Only a few mass fires have occurred in human history; those created by British and American conventional incendiary weapons and the U.S. atomic bombs in World War II. The unique features of the mass fire – the simultaneous combustion of many fires over a large area, which causes a great volume of air to heat, rise, and suck in large amounts of fresh air at hurricane speeds from the periphery – fundamentally distinguish it from other fires in history (otherwise know as line fires, which can burn and spread for days, but were not simultaneously set over large areas).

    Fire environments created by mass fires are fundamentally more violent and destructive than fires of smaller scale, and they are far less affected by external weather conditions. Because their dynamics are dominated by the intense hydrodynamic flows generated by the vast releases of energy from combustion in an area of enormous size and the resulting rise of air over the fires zone, these fires are not substantially altered by seasonal and daily weather conditions.

    The 300kT detonation would create a mass fire with a radius of 3.5 miles in all but the most extreme weather conditions. Under a majority of weather conditions, there would be a mass fire ignited to a distance of just over 4.5 miles from the detonation.

    This gigantic fire would quickly increase in intensity and in minutes generate ground winds of hurricane force with average air temperatures well above the boiling point of water (212 degrees F). The fire would then burn everywhere at this intensity for three to six hours, producing a lethal environment over a total area of approximately 40 to 65 square miles – an area about 10 to 15 times larger than that incinerated by the 15 kT atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.

    Even after the fires burned out, street pavement would be so hot that even tracked vehicles could not pass over it for days, and buried and unburned materials from collapsed buildings could burst into flames if exposed to air even weeks after the attack. Those who sought to flee through the streets would be burned alive by hurricane-force winds laden with flames and firebrands. Even those who sought shelter in the deepest subbasements of massive buildings would likely die from heat prostration, suffocation, or lack of water. There would be no escape. The fire would eliminate all life in the fire zone.

    The smoke and mushroom cloud, seething with radioactivity, would rise up to blot out the sun. Deadly fallout would contaminate hundreds of square miles downwind with radioactive poisons from the blast, dooming hundreds of thousands of humans and animals to a painful, vicious death from radiation sickness. Much of the land contaminated by the fallout would remain uninhabitable for years. Scattered deaths and higher mortality rates would continue for centuries from cancer, leukemia, and genetic damage to succeeding generations.

    Imagine this same event happening, in less than an hour, with not one, but with thousands of strategic nuclear weapons detonating in the cities of the U.S., Russia, China, Europe, India, and Pakistan. The details of such a holocaust are already inscribed in the guidance mechanisms of the missiles waiting to deliver the warheads. Now you understand what the global nuclear arsenals, continually kept at launch on warning status, are capable of doing.

    What are you going to do about it?

    Most of the information in this article has been taken, with the permission of the author, from the first chapter of the book by Lynn Eden, Whole World on Fire (Cornell University Press, 2004). An adaptation of this first chapter also appeared as “City on Fire,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (January/February 2004). Anyone interested in learning more about this subject should read these works.

  • The Role of US Nuclear Weapons New Doctrine Falls Short of Bush Pledge

    A nuclear draft doctrine written by the Pentagon calls for maintaining an aggressive nuclear posture with weapons on high alert to strike adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), pre-emptively if necessary.

    The doctrine, the first formal update since the Bush administration took office, is entitled “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations”[1] and has been strongly influenced by the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and other directives published by the Bush administration since 2001. A final version is expected later this fall.

    The draft doctrine and editing comments were freely available on the Internet until recently, providing a rare glimpse into the secret world of nuclear planning in the post-Cold War era.

    Foremost among the doctrine’s new features are the incorporation of pre-emption into U.S. nuclear doctrine and the integration of conventional weapons and missile defenses into strategic planning. The Bush administration claims that it is significantly reducing the role of nuclear weapons.

    Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the updated doctrine falls far short of fulfilling the administration’s claim. Instead of reducing the role of nuclear weapons, the new doctrine reaffirms an aggressive nuclear posture of modernized nuclear weapons maintained on high alert. Conventional forces and missile defenses merely complement—instead of replace—nuclear weapons.

    The new doctrine continues the thinking of the previous version from 1995 in its reaffirmation of nuclear deterrence. It differs in three other key elements: the threshold for nuclear use, nuclear targeting and international law, and the role of conventional and defensive forces.

    What’s New?

    The importance of the new doctrine is less about what it directs the military to do, and more about what it shows U.S. nuclear policy has become. It has changed considerably from the 1995 version. A new chapter has been added on theater nuclear operations, a discussion of the role of conventional and defensive forces, and an expanded discussion on nuclear operations.

    The addition of a chapter on theater nuclear operations reflects the post-Cold War preoccupation of U.S. nuclear planners on finding ways of deterring regional aggressors (i.e., rogue states) armed with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. It also reflects a decade-old rivalry between the regional combatant commanders and U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) over who “owns” regional nuclear-strike planning.

    Yet, the new doctrine’s approach grants regional nuclear-strike planning an increasingly expeditionary aura that threatens to make nuclear weapons just another tool in the toolbox. The result is nuclear pre-emption, which the new doctrine enshrines into official U.S. joint nuclear doctrine for the first time, where the objective no longer is deterrence through threatened retaliation but battlefield destruction of targets.

    Another highly visible change is the incorporation of a discussion of the role of conventional weapons and defensive forces into the sections describing the purpose, planning, and employment of nuclear forces. What is most striking is the extent to which conventional and defensive capabilities are woven into the fabric of nuclear planning.

    Reaffirmation of Deterrence

    In the foreword to the 2001 NPR report, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated that the review “puts in motion a major change in our approach to the role of nuclear offensive forces in our deterrent strategy.” In Rumsfeld’s testimony to Congress and numerous statements made by other officials, the Bush administration portrayed the NPR as reducing the role of nuclear weapons, lowering the readiness requirement for the nuclear forces, and increasing the role of non-nuclear and missile defense capabilities.

    Yet, the “major change” in the role of nuclear weapons is difficult to find in the new doctrine. Instead, the new nuclear doctrine presents an emphatic defense for nuclear deterrence with sustaining and modernizing nuclear forces maintained on high alert. “To maintain their deterrent effect,” the doctrine states, “U.S. nuclear forces must maintain a strong and visible state of readiness…permitting a swift response to any no-notice nuclear attack against the United States, its forces, or allies.”

    For the authors of the new doctrine, the logic behind such an aggressive posture is simple: military strength automatically strengthens deterrence. Therefore, stronger nuclear capabilities also benefit national security. Indeed, defending the nation against its enemies is best achieved, the new nuclear doctrine declares, through “a defense posture that makes possible war outcomes so uncertain and dangerous, as calculated by potential adversaries, as to remove all incentives for initiating attack under any circumstances.”

    This nuclear dogma is by no means new to deterrence theory, but the new nuclear doctrine fails to explain, even illustrate, why deterrence necessarily requires such an aggressive nuclear posture and cannot be achieved at lower levels without maintaining nuclear forces on high alert. A deterrence posture can also be excessive, with capabilities far beyond what is reasonably needed. Threatening nuclear capabilities may in theory deter potential enemies but may just as well provoke other countries and undercut other vital aspects of U.S. foreign policy. The end result may be decreased security for all.

    Nor does the new nuclear doctrine spell out why the Pentagon ultimately settled on the force that it did. It says that the basis of its decision is a vague and unspecific invention called “capability-based planning” that the Pentagon says “focuses on the means and how adversaries may fight; not a fixed set of enemies or threats.” This hardly seems to be a new development, as U.S. military planning has always focused on how adversaries might fight. Even capability-based planning must identify a set of enemies and threats that is, for all intents and purposes, fixed. Still, the new doctrine repeats the NPR’s decision that a force level of 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed strategic warheads is “the lowest possible number” that the United States can maintain while maintaining a credible deterrent. Just how the 1,700-2,200 warhead level was decided remains a mystery.

    The mystery is even greater because the Pentagon claims that the force-sizing is “not driven by an immediate contingency involving Russia.” Yet, in 1996 when STRATCOM examined force structure options in preparation for the 1997 Helsinki agreement—when Russia was an immediate contingency—the bottom-line force level was also 2,000 warheads.[2] Keith Payne, who co-chaired the Deterrence Concepts Advisory Group that drafted the NPR and subsequently served as deputy assistant secretary of defense from 2002 to 2003, recently explained:

    In general, the NPR’s recommended force structure and number of deployed nuclear warheads was calculated to support not only the immediate requirements for deterrence, but also to contribute to the additional goals of assuring allies and friends, dissuading potential opponents from choosing the route of arms competition or military challenge, and providing a hedge against the possible emergence of more severe, future military threats or severe technical problems in the arsenal.[3]

    The only item on that list that is new, and only partially so, is “dissuading potential opponents from choosing the route of arms competition or military challenge.” Deterring enemies, assuring allies, and hedging are all elements of U.S. nuclear planning that are as old as the post-Cold War era; the first two are even as old as the nuclear age itself.

    Even so, under the headline “New Thinking for a New Era,” the new nuclear doctrine describes capability-based planning as “a major break from Cold War thinking” that “allows the United States to take the lead in reducing nuclear stockpiles rather than rely on protracted arms control negotiations.” That claim overlooks the first Bush administration’s Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991 and 1992, both of which took the lead without protracted negotiations well before the current Bush administration presented its “new thinking.” The claim also overlooks that not one of the strategic nuclear reductions announced by the 2001 NPR was conceived by the Bush administration. All, without exception, implemented decisions made in the 1990s.

    Lowering the Bar for Nuclear Use

    So what does the Pentagon mean when it refers to capability-based planning? One indication comes from the claim made in the new nuclear doctrine and by government officials during the past couple of years that a major break has occurred in nuclear planning. A break does seem to have occurred but is not about reducing the role of nuclear weapons. Granted, the number of weapons have been reduced, but the major break is about transforming nuclear plans and capabilities to enable destruction of targets anywhere in the world more efficiently. In that transformation lays a subtle belief that nuclear deterrence will fail sooner or later, and before it does, U.S. nuclear forces and war plans need to be ready and capable of striking, even pre-emptively.

    The signs of this development are evident throughout the new nuclear doctrine in its description of the need for responsive nuclear forces that can “rapidly respond” to threats anywhere. It even defines a new category of nuclear planning, Crisis Action Planning, as “the time-sensitive development of joint operations plans and orders in response to an imminent crisis.” It is different from highly structured Deliberate Planning and flexible Adaptive Planning:

    Crisis action planning follows prescribed crisis action procedures to formulate and implement an effective response within the time frame permitted by the crisis. It is distinct from adaptive planning in that emerging targets are likely to have no preexisting plans that could be adapted. Success in engaging these types of targets depends heavily upon the speed with which they are identified, targeted, and attacked.

    The basis for this drive for speed and responsiveness is the perception of the threat that faces the United States and its allies in the 21st century. It has become almost a mantra in national security discussions and analysis to portray today’s multipolar security environment as more unpredictable and dangerous than even the Soviet threat during the Cold War. The new nuclear doctrine enshrines that hype into nuclear doctrine.

    Although today’s threats from “rogue” states and terrorists are serious indeed, it is healthy to keep in mind, especially when discussing nuclear weapons policy, that they are on a completely different scale than the global nuclear standoff that characterized the Cold War. Then, the human race and life on the planet was held at nuclear gunpoint for four decades, only 30 minutes away from global annihilation. Today’s nuclear strategy often operates on a far different scale: incorporating the far more limited threat from hostile states and even terrorists.

    Yet, the new doctrine ignores this distinction and instead lowers the crisis intensity level needed to potentially trigger use of U.S. nuclear weapons by replacing “war” with “conflict.” The change may seem trivial, but its implication is important and deliberate. The change was proposed by STRATCOM, which explained that “[r]eplacing the word ‘war’ with ‘conflict involving the use of’ emphasizes the nature of most conflicts resulting in use of a nuclear weapon. Nuclear war implies the mutual exchange of nuclear weapons between warring parties—not fully representative of the facts.”

    During the Cold War, a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union would have involved both countries launching nuclear weapons at each other. Yet, in the post-Cold War era a conflict may involve only one or a few nuclear weapons being used and not necessarily by both warring countries in an exchange. The new doctrine predicts that terrorists and “rogue” states armed with weapons of mass destruction “will likely test U.S. security commitments to its allies and friends.”

    To be sure, some parts of this approach are not new: the 1995 doctrine also considered a role for nuclear weapons against terrorists despite serious questions about the credibility of such a role. Put together, however, the rhetoric in the new doctrine indicates that military planners anticipate that U.S. nuclear weapons might be used in much less intense crises than envisioned previously.

    For example, the new nuclear doctrine states that an adversary might detonate a nuclear weapon high in the atmosphere to damage U.S. military electronic equipment with a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse. Whatever the adversary use might be, the new nuclear doctrine makes it clear that the United States will not necessarily wait for the attack but pre-empt with nuclear weapons if necessary. It identifies four conditions where pre-emptive use might occur:

    • An adversary intending to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S., multinational, or allies forces or civilian populations.

    • Imminent attack from an adversary’s biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy.

    • Attacks on adversary installations including weapons of mass destruction; deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons; or the command and control infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies.

    • Demonstration of U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use.

    The previous doctrine from 1995 did not describe specific scenarios where the United States might use nuclear weapons pre-emptively, but the new doctrine enshrines the Bush administration’s pre-emption policy into official U.S. nuclear doctrine. It acknowledges that “the belligerent that initiates nuclear warfare may find itself the target of world condemnation” but adds that “no customary or conventional international law prohibits nations from employing nuclear weapons in armed conflict.” In other words, the Pentagon seems to conclude the United States is legally free to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively if it chooses.

    The End of “Nonstrategic”

    The pre-emptive nuclear options are included in the chapter on theater nuclear operations, which traditionally have been associated with nonstrategic nuclear weapons (those with shorter range). The 1995 doctrine described the theater (local or regional) mission with nonstrategic nuclear weapons as a means of controlling escalation by linking conventional forces to the full nuclear retaliatory capability of the United States. By contrast, strategic weapons historically have included weapons of intercontinental range.

    The separation has always been somewhat blurred, but the new nuclear doctrine does away with a separate theater role for nonstrategic nuclear forces. Instead, it assigns all nuclear weapons, whether strategic or nonstrategic, support roles in theater nuclear operations. The theater mission will be further detailed in “Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Theater Nuclear Planning” (Joint Pub 3-12.1), a secret subdoctrine scheduled for publication by the Pentagon sometime after the release of the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.

    Military officials have argued for years that there are no nonstrategic nuclear weapons; all nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era should be seen as strategic because all nuclear use is strategic in nature. Yet, the language in the new doctrine and the elimination of a specific regional role for nonstrategic nuclear weapons hint of a deeper shift: strategic nuclear weapons have increasing regional (theater) roles as nonstrategic nuclear weapons are reduced and guidance and doctrine demand new missions against the capabilities of rogue states and nonstate actors.

    The increasing incorporation of strategic weapons from the global-intensity level into smaller regional conflicts means that the operational distinction between strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons is being blurred. In a regional deterrence scenario against an adversary armed with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, all nuclear weapons can be battlefield weapons or strategic weapons, depending on the circumstances. The U.S. pre-emption or retaliation could utilize a B61 nuclear bomb deployed in Turkey or a strategic warhead launched from a Trident submarine patroling near Japan.

    This doctrinal shift has already progressed to the point that STRATCOM has drawn up and implemented a new global strike plan for the use of nuclear and conventional forces in regional scenarios. The new strike plan, called Contingency Plan (CONPLAN) 8022, was first put into effect in late 2003, less than a year after the White House issued National Security Presidential Directive 17, its strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction. CONPLAN 8022 makes operational the Bush administration’s pre-emption policy and the new nuclear doctrine codifies it.

    The Role of Conventional Weapons

    Another new element of the nuclear doctrine is the role of advanced conventional weapons in strategic planning. This was one of the central pillars of the 2001 NPR, and the new doctrine states that “targets that may have required a nuclear weapon to achieve the needed effects in previous planning may be targeted with conventional weapons.” The doctrine describes how “integrating conventional and nuclear attacks will ensure the most efficient use of force and provide U.S. leaders with a broader range of strike options to address immediate contingencies.”

    Yet, in the same breath the document cautions that “some contingencies will remain where the most appropriate response may include the use of U.S. nuclear weapons.” The objective is still assured destruction of facilities, and it seems clear that the conventional capabilities need to evolve considerably before conventional weapons will be capable of significantly replacing nuclear weapons in the war plans. Indeed, in an acknowledgement that “there are few programs to convert the NPR vision to reality,” the Pentagon in April established a task force aimed in part at better integrating the new triad of nuclear, conventional, and defensive capabilities. Four and a half years after the Bush administration announced its “major change” to strategic targeting, the incorporation of conventional weapons still appears marginal at best.

    Part of the impediment appears to be the challenge of incorporating sufficient accuracy into the two ballistic missile legs of the nuclear triad. The explosive power of conventional weapons also is inherently inferior to the yield of even the smallest nuclear warheads in the stockpile. “It’s more than just precision,” STRATCOM Commander General James Cartwright told Inside the Pentagon in April 2005. “I can’t generate enough [conventional explosive] energy for some of these targets to destroy them. So I’m not leading you down a path that I can get rid of nuclear weapons.”

    Also, there is the issue of command and control for conventional strategic forces. The line of command for nuclear strikes has evolved over many decades, but how will it work when a non-nuclear weapon is used in a strategic strike against an adversary’s nuclear weapons facility? The Air Force, which maintains nuclear ICBMs and bombers, pointed out during the editing of the new nuclear doctrine that, although the president and secretary of defense are required to approve all nuclear targeting, they do not necessarily approve conventional targeting.[4] Presumably, the Bush administration will want to close that hole to ensure 100 percent control of strategic strikes and ensure that other nuclear powers do not misinterpret the intention.

    Finally, but equally important, merging nuclear and conventional warheads on ballistic missiles or on strategic platforms has serious implications for crisis stability. A nuclear-weapon state being attacked by a conventionally armed ballistic missile early in a conflict may conclude that it is under nuclear attack and launch its own nuclear weapons. Merging nuclear and conventional capabilities seems to be a recipe for disaster.

    Missile Defenses

    The second pillar of the 2001 NPR was the role of active defenses in strategic planning, and the new doctrine incorporates the new mission. The previous doctrine from 1995 also described the contribution of missile defense, but this issue is expanded in the new doctrine. Instead of describing how missile defenses can be used to protect people from missile strikes, however, the new doctrine appears to focus on how missile defenses can enhance the survivability of nuclear forces and increase offensive capabilities.

    Focusing on protecting nuclear forces rather than people might not seem so cynical if not for the Bush administration’s emphasis on protecting people in its justification for withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and securing congressional funding for the multibillion-dollar missile defense program. In December 2001, when preparing to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, President George W. Bush stated:

    I have concluded the ABM treaty hinders our government’s ability to develop ways to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks…. Defending the American people is my highest priority as commander in chief, and I cannot and will not allow the United States to remain in a treaty that prevents us from developing effective defenses.[5]

    In stark contrast with the president’s priority, the new doctrine describes missile defense as a tool to protect military forces. The doctrine only mentions defense of the population three times and always in a secondary role, after protection of military forces.

    Moreover, the doctrine states that one objective of protecting military forces is to enhance U.S. offensive nuclear strike capabilities. STRATCOM planning seeks to integrate U.S. and allied offensive and defensive forces, the doctrine explains, “in order to exploit the full range of characteristics offered by U.S. strategic nuclear forces to support national and regional deterrence objectives.”

    In an operational scenario, limited or insufficient missile defense capabilities could force U.S. decision-makers into a corner where they would have to choose between saving Los Angeles or Vandenberg Air Force Base.

    Nuclear Targeting and International Law

    The new nuclear doctrine’s deepening of the commitment to regional targeting beyond nuclear facilities, and lowering the bar for when nuclear weapons could be used—even pre-emptively—raise important questions about nuclear targeting and international law. During the editing process of the new nuclear doctrine, a debate was triggered among the different commands over which term to use for different types of targeting. Of particular concern was the legal status of countervalue targeting, a targeting methodology that was included in the 1995 nuclear doctrine:

    Countervalue targeting strategy directs the destruction or neutralization of selected enemy military and military-related activities, such as industries, resources, and/or institutions that contribute to the enemy’s ability to wage war. In general, weapons required to implement this strategy need not be as numerous or accurate as those required to implement a counterforce targeting strategy, because countervalue targets generally tend to be softer and unprotected in relation to counterforce targets.[6]

    During the editing of the new doctrine, STRATCOM declared that it had decided that “countervalue targeting violates” the Law of Armed Conflict. The command therefore suggested changing “countervalue” to “critical infrastructure targeting.” In explaining its decision, STRATCOM stated:

    Many operational law attorneys do not believe “countervalue” targeting is a lawful justification for employment of force, much less nuclear force. Countervalue philosophy makes no distinction between purely civilian activities and military related activities and could be used to justify deliberate attacks on civilians and non-military portions of a nation’s economy. It therefore cannot meet the “military necessity” prong of the Law of Armed Conflict. Countervalue targeting also undermines one of the values that underlies Law of Armed Conflict—the reduction of civilian suffering and to foster the ability to maintain the peace after the conflict ends. For example, under the countervalue target philosophy, the attack on the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 could be justified.[7]

    Other military commands did not agree with the name change. The argument from European Command was that countervalue should not be changed to critical infrastructure because countervalue has an institutionalized and broadly understood meaning in the academic literature on nuclear warfare and in international security studies in general. “If in doubt on this point,” European Command argued, “insert the word ‘countervalue’ in any electronic search engine and note how many ‘hits’ appear that are directly relevant to nuclear policy.”[8]

    In the end, the commands could not agree and the term “critical infrastructure targeting” was withdrawn to end the discussion. Yet, the term “countervalue” also disappeared and is no longer included in the new nuclear doctrine. The issue was dropped, although targeting appears to continue, and simply changing the terminology obviously does not change the illegal targeting itself.

    To be fair, the new nuclear doctrine emphasizes U.S. abhorrence of unrestricted warfare and U.S. adherence to laws of war. Yet, if the intention of mentioning international law is that it matters, then the doctrine notably ignores that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its 1996 ruling on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons could not reach agreement (it was a split vote) that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is lawful, even in an extreme circumstance of self-defense where the very survival of a state is at stake. The ICJ did agree unanimously that international law does not authorize even the threat of use of nuclear weapons.[9] These important nuances are ignored by the new doctrine.

    Conclusion

    Although there has been extensive public debate on whether to build new or modified nuclear weapons, there has been essentially no debate about the doctrine that guides the use of nuclear weapons and influences future requirements. This is ironic given the considerable interest in the Bush administration’s policy on pre-emption. As a result, the rewriting of the nuclear doctrine has occurred with essentially no public debate.

    Still, the doctrine and editing documents reveal a significant contradiction between the Bush administration’s public rhetoric about reducing the role of nuclear weapons and the guidance issued to the nuclear planners. Although the overall number of warheads is being reduced, the new doctrine guiding planning for the remaining arsenal reaffirms an aggressive posture with nuclear forces on high alert, ready to be used in an increasing number of limited-strike scenarios against adversaries anywhere, even pre-emptively. The new doctrine appears to be precipitated by anticipation among military planners that deterrence will fail and U.S. nuclear weapons will be used in a conflict sooner or later.

    For the nuclear planners, it seems so simple: deterrence must be credible, and the way to make it more credible is to increase the capabilities and number of strike options against any conceivable scenario. Ironically, a decade and a half after we should have escaped this nuclear deterrence logic of the Cold War, the planners cling to these old business practices. Instead of drastically reducing the role of nuclear weapons, as the Bush administration told the public it would do, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism seem to have spooked the administration into continuing and deepening a commitment to some of the most troubling aspects of the nuclear war-fighting mentality that symbolized the Cold War.

    US Nuclear Weapons Guidance, War Plans

    The updated Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations reflects how combatant commanders have translated the administration’s attempts to reshape U.S. nuclear policy into operational guidance for military forces. It comes nearly five years after the completion of the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) in December 2001 and represents the first revision of basic nuclear doctrine in a decade. The list below describes some of the major milestones that led to the new doctrine and their significance. [1]

    2001

    May: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld publishes the Strategic Defense Review. This document, among other things, sets “requirements for the number and types of weapons in the stockpile.”

    December 31: Rumsfeld forwards the NPR report to Congress.

    2002

    June: The White House issues National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 14, “Nuclear Weapons Planning Guidance.”

    September 14: The White House issues NSPD 17, “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction.” The document states that “[t]he United States will make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including potentially nuclear weapons—to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.”

    September 17: The White House issues the “National Security Strategy of the United States.” The document provides the first official public articulation of a strategy of pre-emptive action against hostile states and terrorist groups developing weapons of mass destruction.

    October 1: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues a new nuclear supplement to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan for fiscal year 2002, which translates White House guidance into specific military plans.

    December 10: The White House releases “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” the unclassified version of NSPD 17. The wording in NSPD 17 of using “potentially nuclear weapons” is replaced with “all of our options.”

    December 16: The White House issues NSPD 23, “National Policy on Ballistic Missile Defense,” which orders withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and construction of a national ballistic missile defense system.

    2003:

    January 10: Bush signs Change 2 to the Unified Command Plan, which, in addition to maintaining nuclear strike plans, assigns four additional missions to U.S. Strategic Command: missile defense planning, global strike planning, information operations, and global C4ISR (Command, Control, Computers, Communication, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance).

    March: Rumsfeld issues to Congress “Nuclear Posture Review: Implementation Plan, Department of Defense Implementation of the December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review Report.” The document formally implements the decisions of the 2001 NPR.

    2004

    March 13: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues the “National Military Strategy of the United States,” including the classified Annex B (Nuclear). The document translates the National Security Strategy into specific guidance for military planners.

    April 19: Rumsfeld issues the Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy. The document states in part that “ U.S. nuclear forces must be capable of, and be seen to be capable of, destroying those critical war-making and war-supporting assets and capabilities that a potential enemy leadership values most and that it would rely on to achieve its own objectives in a post-war world.”

    May: The White House issues NSPD 34, “Fiscal Year 2004-2012 Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan,” which “directs a force structure through 2012” and cuts the total stockpile “almost in half.”

    May: The White House issues NSPD 35, “Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization,” which authorizes the military to continue deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

    December 31: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues a new nuclear supplement to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan for fiscal year 2005, codifying new global strike and theater nuclear operations guidance and implementing the 2004 Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy.

    2005

    January: In a letter to U.S. Strategic Command, Rumsfeld tasks the command with spearheading the Defense Department’s efforts to combat weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

    January 10: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issues Global Strike Joint Integrating Concept, Version 1, for conducting global strike operations during the “seize the initiative” phase of a conflict (“seconds to days”). Targets include WMD production, storage, and delivery capabilities, critical command and control facilities, anti-access capabilities (radars, surface-to-air missile sites, theater ballistic missile sites), and adversary leadership.

    Fall 2005: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to publish Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.

    ENDNOTES

    1. A chronology of nuclear weapons guidance issued by the Bush administration is available at http://www.nukestrat.com.

    Hans M. Kristensen is co-author of the World Nuclear Forces appendix to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Yearbook and a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

    ENDNOTES

    1. The draft doctrine might be slightly different from the final doctrine, although at this late stage any changes are expected to be cosmetic. Copies of the new doctrine, previous versions, and editing comments are available at http://www.nukestrat.com.

    2. See U.S. Strategic Command, “Post-START II Arms Control,” 1996 (partially declassified).

    3. Keith B. Payne, “The Nuclear Posture Review: Setting the Record Straight,” Washington Quarterly 28, no. 3 (Summer 2005), p. 147.

    4. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 16, 2004, p. 59.

    5. The White House, “Remarks by the President on Missile Defense,” December 13, 2001.

    6. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 15, 1995, p. II-5.

    7. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Joint Staff Input to JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations (Second Draft),” April 28, 2003, pp. 34-35.

    8. CJCS, “JP 3-12, Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations,” December 16, 2004, pp. 67-69.

    9. International Court of Justice, “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons,” July 8, 1996, items A and E (advisory opinion).

  • A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It is good to be back at All Saints. This church represents what a Peace Church should be. I appreciate that Reverend Bacon has gone to Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas in support of Cindy Sheehan and in opposition to the illegal war in Iraq.

    We are still in the season of Hiroshima. Sixty years ago that city was devastated by a single US nuclear weapon, and three days later the city of Nagasaki was devastated by another US nuclear weapon.

    What most Americans don’t know is that in between those two bombings, which took place on August 6th and 9th, 1945, the US and the other Allied powers in World War II agreed to hold the Nuremberg Tribunals at which they held the Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Between these two great crimes of slaughtering civilian populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we agreed to the Nuremberg Tribunals. The most basic principle of these Tribunals is that no one stands above international law, no matter how high his or her position – not presidents, not prime ministers, no one.

    We Americans have a lot of ambiguity about nuclear weapons. We somehow think that they protect us, but they don’t. They make us more vulnerable. So long as the US continues to rely upon nuclear weapons for security, other countries will do so as well, and new countries will find it in their national interests to follow our example. If the most powerful country in the world demonstrates by its policies that it needs nuclear weapons, other countries will choose this route as well.

    The greatest threat, though, lies with terrorists. If they get their hands on a nuclear weapon – a possibility made more likely by our policies of retaining large numbers of these weapons – they will not hesitate to use them against us. Extremist groups cannot be deterred by nuclear threats. You cannot deter those you cannot locate and you cannot deter those who are suicidal. Deterrence has major flaws, and it has zero value against extremist groups.

    The US has not fulfilled its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Back in 1968, we promised good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Those negotiations have yet to take place. We still have some 10,000 nuclear weapons in our arsenal. We and the Russians still have some 2,000 nuclear weapons each on hair trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. It is 15 years since the end of the Cold War. Our continued reliance on nuclear weapons is insane. It looks like the reflection of a “death wish” for the planet.

    In the year 2000, the US, along with all other parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. This would be a great step forward, except for the fact that the US has fulfilled none of these, and is now the major obstacle to nearly all of them. The Bush administration does not like to even see mention of nuclear disarmament in international documents. They held up agreement on the agenda for the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference for some ten days because they did not want to see reference to these 13 Practical Steps, nor of any of the components, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, and the promise of an unequivocal undertaking to achieve total nuclear disarmament – all points to which the US had previously agreed.

    A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It’s long past time for a responsible US nuclear weapons policy, not only to fulfill our legal obligations and to uphold reasonable moral standards, but also to enhance the security of the US and the world. I would suggest that, at a minimum, a responsible US nuclear policy would include the following Ten No’s and a Yes.

    Ten No’s

    1. No new nuclear weapons
    2. No research and development of new nuclear weapons.
    3. No new plutonium pit production.
    4. No resumption of nuclear testing.
    5. No use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states.
    6. No first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
    7. No maintaining nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.
    8. No strategy of launch on warning.
    9. No nuclear weapons on foreign soil.
    10. No double standards.

    And a Yes

    Provide affirmative leadership to achieve existing obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament set forth at the treaty’s 2000 Review Conference. Above all, initiate good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, as called for in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control within a reasonable period of time.

    This does not mean unilateral disarmament. It means multilateral disarmament for all states with US leadership. It would constitute a major change of direction in US policy.

    Who Are We?

    I’ve thought a lot about the relationship of the war in Iraq to US nuclear weapons policies. I think what they have in common are these points: arrogance, double standards, disrespect for international law (and therefore the international community), and unilateralism. These characteristics are undermining what is decent and just about us. They are destroying us, and they have the potential to destroy the world.

    We need to ask ourselves the question: Who are we? Have we become people of the bomb? Is the bomb more important to us than our humanity? The Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955, emphasized: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” We need to return to our roots and regain our souls. The starting point is remembering our humanity.

    Take Action

    We can’t just recognize the problems intellectually. We must do something about them. We must all become part of the force for change. We can’t just sit back while illegal and immoral actions are committed in our names. We need to take heart and take action. We need to become involved and do our part.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has some resources that may be helpful at our www.wagingpeace.org website.

    First, you can sign up there for our free monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower. It will keep you up-to-date on nuclear issues and provide action alerts.

    Second, at the website you can become involved in our Turn the Tide Campaign, and send letters to your elected representatives on key nuclear issues.

    Third, we have an excellent Speakers’ Bureau that can help you get the word out.

    Above all, use your creativity and your special talents to help others “remember their humanity” and take part in turning around US nuclear policy.

    Choose Hope

    There are times when the world looks pretty bleak, but we can take heart from all the great peace leaders who have preceded us. Here is my list of Fifty-One Reasons for Hope. I’m sure you can add to it, and I hope that you will.

    1. Each new dawn.

    2. The miracle of birth.

    3. Our capacity to love.

    4. The courage of nonviolence.

    5. Gandhi, King and Mandela.

    6. The night sky.

    7. Spring.

    8. Flowers and bees.

    9. The arc of justice.

    10. Whistleblowers.

    11. Butterflies.

    12. The full moon.

    13. Teachers.

    14. Simple wisdom.

    15. Dogs and cats.

    16. Friendship.

    17. Our ability to reflect.

    18. Our capacity for joy.

    19. The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Oscar Romero.

    20. The gift of conscience.

    21. Human rights and responsibilities.

    22. Our capacity to nurture.

    23. The ascendancy of women.

    24. Innocence.

    25. Our capacity to change.

    26. Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.

    27. The internet.

    28. War resisters.

    29. Everyday heroes.

    30. Lions, tigers, bears, elephants and giraffes.

    31. Conscientious objectors.

    32. Tolstoy, Twain and Vonnegut.

    33. Wilderness.

    34. Our water planet.

    35. Solar energy.

    36. Picasso, Matisse and Miro.

    37. World citizens.

    38. Life.

    39. The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    40. The King of Hearts.

    41. Rain.

    42. Sunshine.

    43. Pablo Neruda.

    44. Grandchildren.

    45. Mountains.

    46. Sunflowers.

    47. The Principles of Nuremberg.

    48. A child’s smile.

    49. Dolphins.

    50. Wildflowers.

    51. Our ability to choose hope.

    It is our ability to choose hope, even in dark times, that can keep us going. I urge you to never stop fighting for a more decent world. We will not attain peace by making war, and we will not end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity by continuing to rely upon these most destructive and cowardly of all weapons for our security.

    Nothing will change if we are complacent and accept the status quo. We need to rise to our full stature as human beings, and exert our full human powers to change the world and create a more decent future for ourselves and for those who follow us on this miraculous life-supporting planet.

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of a recent book of anti-war poetry, Today Is Not a Good Day for War.

  • Remembering Normand Brissette

    Normand Brissette died 60 years ago on Aug. 19, 1945. But who was Normand Brissette, and why should anyone pause to remember his death?

    On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Brissette, a 19-year-old Navy airman from Lowell, was one of 11 American POWs being held at Chugoku Military Police Headquarters in the center of Hiroshima. All were members of Air Force B-24 or Navy dive-bomber crews who had been captured after parachuting when their planes were shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire on July 28.

    The prison was about 1,300 feet from ground zero. Like everyone killed at Hiroshima, these men could never have imagined the force that was about to annihilate them when the first atomic bomb ever used against a human population exploded in an airburst above them exactly 45 seconds after it had been released from the Enola Gay at 8:15 a.m.

    Most of the American POWs must have perished almost instantly, but Brissette and another man, Air Force Sergeant Ralph Neal, didn’t die at once. They suffered severe radiation burns and were somehow moved to a different location, where other American POWs futilely tried to look after them. Brissette and Neal survived in torment for 13 days and died on Aug. 19.

    Even today, most Americans are unaware that American POWs were also victims of the atomic bombs.

    At Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri, there is a symbolic common grave at Section 82, Gravesite 156, that lists eight of their names. Brissette’s is not among them, though Neal’s is.

    There is no memorial plaque stating who these men were or how they died. Only the death date listed on their common grave, Aug. 6, 1945, might make a passerby pause to wonder about them.

    Even the national cemetery official at Jefferson Barracks with whom I spoke had no idea of the significance of this gravesite until I explained it to him. None of this is an accident. We cannot remember Brissette if we never knew he existed. Like the bomb, secrecy is a potent weapon.

    For at least 35 years after the war ended, these Hiroshima POW deaths were kept secret by the US government. Not even immediate family members were informed how their loved ones died. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that researchers using the Freedom of Information Act began to uncover the stories of these atomic ”friendly fire” victims.

    There were almost certainly additional American POWs killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with hundreds of Allied POWs from Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Between 1,000 and 2,000 Japanese-Americans trapped in Japan by the war were killed. Thousands of slave laborers from China, Manchuria, the Philippines, and conquered European colonies in South Asia were killed. About 30,000 Korean slave laborers were killed.

    In all, some 200,000 to 250,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed instantly or within three months. Of these, 35,000-50,000 were non-Japanese.

    These numbers don’t draw attention from the enormous suffering of the Japanese. Instead, they reveal how all humanity became fused as victims of these first two nuclear blasts.

    While the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima are a tiny fraction of all victims, they bear ghostly witness to the still unlearned lesson that nuclear weapons are not only weapons of mass destruction, but weapons of self-destruction as well.

    There are only two memory points for these POWs on American soil. One is Common Gravesite 156. The other is a memorial plaque at the National POW Museum in Andersonville, Georgia, which names 9 of the 11, including Normand Brissette.

    But a Japanese historian named Shigeaki Mori, himself a survivor of the Hiroshima A-blast, has worked almost single-handedly since the 1970s to memorialize the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima. In 1998, he dedicated a memorial plaque honoring these men on the site where they died. He has also led efforts to get their names added to official listings of A-bomb victims, contacting American family members when possible.

    In 2002, Mori succeeded in getting Brissette’s name added to the official list of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb victims.

    When reporters for Stars and Stripes Pacific Edition contacted Normand’s sister, Connie Provencher in Dracut regarding Mori’s efforts, she said, ”It’s gratifying to me that they are recognizing my brother. He was only 19 when he died fighting for his country. He died from the bomb’s radiation and it was an excruciating death. My brother will be forever young because he gave us all his tomorrows.”

    David Rubin is a retired faculty member from the College of Public and Community Service at UMass-Boston.

    s death?

    On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, Brissette, a 19-year-old Navy airman from Lowell, was one of 11 American POWs being held at Chugoku Military Police Headquarters in the center of Hiroshima. All were members of Air Force B-24 or Navy dive-bomber crews who had been captured after parachuting when their planes were shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire on July 28.

    The prison was about 1,300 feet from ground zero. Like everyone killed at Hiroshima, these men could never have imagined the force that was about to annihilate them when the first atomic bomb ever used against a human population exploded in an airburst above them exactly 45 seconds after it had been released from the Enola Gay at 8:15 a.m.

    Most of the American POWs must have perished almost instantly, but Brissette and another man, Air Force Sergeant Ralph Neal, didn’t die at once. They suffered severe radiation burns and were somehow moved to a different location, where other American POWs futilely tried to look after them. Brissette and Neal survived in torment for 13 days and died on Aug. 19.

    Even today, most Americans are unaware that American POWs were also victims of the atomic bombs.

    At Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri, there is a symbolic common grave at Section 82, Gravesite 156, that lists eight of their names. Brissette’s is not among them, though Neal’s is.

    There is no memorial plaque stating who these men were or how they died. Only the death date listed on their common grave, Aug. 6, 1945, might make a passerby pause to wonder about them.

    Even the national cemetery official at Jefferson Barracks with whom I spoke had no idea of the significance of this gravesite until I explained it to him. None of this is an accident. We cannot remember Brissette if we never knew he existed. Like the bomb, secrecy is a potent weapon.

    For at least 35 years after the war ended, these Hiroshima POW deaths were kept secret by the US government. Not even immediate family members were informed how their loved ones died. It wasn’t until the 1980’s that researchers using the Freedom of Information Act began to uncover the stories of these atomic ”friendly fire” victims.

    There were almost certainly additional American POWs killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with hundreds of Allied POWs from Australia, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Between 1,000 and 2,000 Japanese-Americans trapped in Japan by the war were killed. Thousands of slave laborers from China, Manchuria, the Philippines, and conquered European colonies in South Asia were killed. About 30,000 Korean slave laborers were killed.

    In all, some 200,000 to 250,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were killed instantly or within three months. Of these, 35,000-50,000 were non-Japanese.

    These numbers don’t draw attention from the enormous suffering of the Japanese. Instead, they reveal how all humanity became fused as victims of these first two nuclear blasts.

    While the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima are a tiny fraction of all victims, they bear ghostly witness to the still unlearned lesson that nuclear weapons are not only weapons of mass destruction, but weapons of self-destruction as well.

    There are only two memory points for these POWs on American soil. One is Common Gravesite 156. The other is a memorial plaque at the National POW Museum in Andersonville, Georgia, which names 9 of the 11, including Normand Brissette.

    But a Japanese historian named Shigeaki Mori, himself a survivor of the Hiroshima A-blast, has worked almost single-handedly since the 1970s to memorialize the 11 American POWs killed in Hiroshima. In 1998, he dedicated a memorial plaque honoring these men on the site where they died. He has also led efforts to get their names added to official listings of A-bomb victims, contacting American family members when possible.

    In 2002, Mori succeeded in getting Brissette’s name added to the official list of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb victims.

    When reporters for Stars and Stripes Pacific Edition contacted Normand’s sister, Connie Provencher in Dracut regarding Mori’s efforts, she said, ”It’s gratifying to me that they are recognizing my brother. He was only 19 when he died fighting for his country. He died from the bomb’s radiation and it was an excruciating death. My brother will be forever young because he gave us all his tomorrows.”

    David Rubin is a retired faculty member from the College of Public and Community Service at UMass-Boston.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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