Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapons

  • Our Salvation Requires that We Grasp the Danger of Nuclear Weapons

    This article was originally published by Project Syndicate.


    Gareth EvansOne of the most dispiriting features of today’s international debates is that the threat to humanity posed by the world’s 23,000 nuclear weapons – and by those who would build more of them, or be only too willing to use them – has been consigned to the margin of politics.


    U.S. President Barack Obama did capture global attention with his Prague speech in 2009, which made a compelling case for a nuclear weapon-free world. And he did deliver on a major new arms-reduction treaty with Russia, and hosted a summit aimed at reducing the vulnerability of nuclear weapons and materials to theft or diversion.


    But nuclear issues still struggle for public resonance and political traction. It would take a brave gambler to bet on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the U.S. Senate any time soon.


    The film “An Inconvenient Truth” won an Academy Award, led to a Nobel Prize for Al Gore, and attracted huge international attention to the disastrous impact of climate change. But “Countdown to Zero,” an equally compelling documentary, made by the same production team and making shockingly clear how close and how often the world has come to nuclear catastrophe, has come and gone almost without trace.


    Complacency trumps anxiety almost everywhere. Japan’s Fukushima disaster has generated a massive debate about the safety of nuclear power, but not about nuclear weapons. Fear of a nuclear holocaust seems to have ended with the Cold War.


    Indeed, Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem an eternity ago; new nuclear-weapons states have emerged without the world ending; no terrorist nuclear device has threatened a major city; and possession of nuclear weapons, for the states that have them, seems to be a source of comfort and pride rather than concern or embarrassment. With only a handful of exceptions, the current generation of political leaders shows little interest in disarmament, and not much more in non-proliferation. And their publics are not pressuring them to behave otherwise.


    Few have worked harder to shake the world out of its complacency than four of the hardest-nosed realists ever to hold public office: former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. In a series of opinion articles over the last five years, they have repeatedly sounded the alarm that the risks of nuclear weapons outweigh any possible usefulness in today’s security environment. Moreover, they have called for a complete rethinking of deterrence strategy, in order to minimize, and ultimately eliminate, reliance on the most indiscriminately destructive weapons ever invented.


    Last week in London, the “gang of four” convened a private meeting with leading think-tank researchers and a worldwide cast of some 30 former foreign and defense ministers, generals, and ambassadors who share their concern and commitment. But our average age was over 65, and the limits of our effectiveness were neatly described by former British Defense Minister Des Browne: “People who used to be something really want to tackle this issue. The trouble is that those who are something don’t.”


    No quick fix will turn all this around. Getting the kind of messages that emerged from the London meeting embedded in public and political consciousness is going to be slow boring through hard boards. But the messages demand attention, and we simply have to keep drilling.


    The first message is that the threat of a nuclear weapons catastrophe remains alarmingly real. Existing global stockpiles have a destructive capacity equal to 150,000 Hiroshima bombs, and in handling them there is an omnipresent potential for human error, system error, or misjudgment under stress.


    Pakistan versus India is a devastating conflict-in-waiting, and North Korea and Iran remain volatile sources of concern. We know that terrorist groups have the capacity to engineer nuclear devices and would explode them anywhere they could; we simply cannot be confident that we can forever deny them access to the fissile material they need to fuel them.


    The second message is that Cold War nuclear-deterrence doctrine is irrelevant to today’s world. So long as nuclear weapons remain, states can justify maintaining a minimum nuclear-deterrent capability. But that can be done without weapons on high alert, and with drastically reduced arsenals in the case of the U.S. and Russia, and, at worst, at current levels for the other nuclear-armed states.


    The third message is that if the existing nuclear powers sincerely want to prevent others from joining their club, they cannot keep justifying the possession of nuclear weapons as a means of protection for themselves or their allies against other weapons of mass destruction, especially biological weapons, or conventional weapons. Indeed, the single most difficult issue inhibiting serious movement toward disarmament – certainly in the case of Pakistan versus India, and Russia and China versus the United States – are conventional arms imbalances, and ways of addressing them must rise to the top of the policy agenda.


    The final message is that neither piecemeal change nor sloganeering will do the job. Nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, counter-terrorism, and civil nuclear-energy risk reduction are inextricably connected, and they call for sustained commitment around a comprehensive agenda, and detailed argument. Sound bites and tweets are an unlikely route to nuclear salvation.


    Kissinger is no idealist icon. But he’s always worth listening to, and never more so than with respect to the question that he has been asking for years: When the next nuclear-weapons catastrophe happens, as it surely will, the world will have to respond dramatically. Why can’t we start right now?

  • What Nuclear Weapons Teach Us About Ourselves

    David KriegerNuclear weapons are the most fearsome and destructive killing devices yet created by the human species.  They have the capacity to destroy cities, countries and civilization.  Yet, although these weapons give rise to some concern and worry, most humans on the planet are complacent about the inherent dangers of these weapons.  It is worth exploring what our seeming indifference toward these weapons of mass annihilation teaches us about ourselves, and how we might remedy our malaise.


    1. We are ill-informed.  We appear to go about our daily lives with a self-assured degree of comfort that we will not be affected by the dangers of the weapons.  We need more education about the extreme dangers and risks posed by nuclear weapons.


    2. We are tribal.  We divide ourselves into national tribes and identify with our own tribe while demonizing “the other.”  We need to be more global in our thinking.  We need to think as members of the human species, not as members of a national tribe.


    3. We are self-serving.  We see our own nuclear weapons and those of our allies as being positive and useful, while we view the nuclear weapons of our enemies as being negative and harmful.  We need to realize that nuclear weapons, as instruments of indiscriminate mass destruction, are illegal, immoral and dangerous in any hands, including our own.


    4. We are arrogant.  We seem to take perverse pride in our cleverness at having created such overwhelmingly powerful weapons.  We need to take pride in constructive uses of our science-based technologies, and recognize the inherent dangers and immorality of their destructive uses.


    5. We are pathological.  We rely for our protection upon these weapons that threaten to kill millions of innocent civilians.  We need to realize that true security cannot be based upon the threat of mass murder of innocents.


    6. We are deluded.  We believe that we will not survive threats from “the other” if we do not rely upon these weapons of mass annihilation for our security.  We need to engage “the other” in dialogue until we realize that our common humanity supersedes our differences, and our common future demands our unity.


    7. We are reckless.  We are willing to bet the human species and the human future that we can keep these weapons under control.  We need to stop playing Russian roulette with the human future.


    8. We are foolish.  We trust our leaders to act responsibly, so as to keep nuclear weapons under control.  We need to realize that this is too great a responsibility for any person and that all leaders do not act responsibly at all times.


    9. We are timid.  We do not challenge the status quo, which gives rise to such extreme dangers.  We need to confront the challenges posed by nuclear weapons and give voice to our legitimate fears of the weapons themselves.


    10. We are adolescent.  As a species, we have not matured to the point of taking responsibility for, and directly confronting, the nuclear threat to ourselves and future generations.  We need to grow up and take responsibility to assure our common future for ourselves and generations yet unborn.


    Individually and collectively, we are threatened by nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries. If we fail to act expeditiously to abolish these arsenals, the consequence is likely to be nuclear weapons proliferation to other countries and eventually their use.  The question that confronts humanity is: Can we end the nuclear era and ensure our survival as a species?  To do this, we will need to change our thinking about the weapons and about ourselves.  I think this is what Albert Einstein was alluding to when he said, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”  Preventing such catastrophes must begin with changing our thinking, followed by engaging in actions to end the danger.  Species-wide threats must be faced with species-wide awareness and engagement.


    The further question that awaits an answer, assuming we can change our modes of thinking, is whether we are sufficiently powerful to control and eliminate the threats posed by the weapons.  Individually we are not and nationally we are not.  But collectively and globally we have the potential to assert a constructive power for change that is far greater than the destructive power of the weapons themselves.

  • Militarist Madness

    This article was originally published on the History News Network.


    Lawrence WittnerDespite the vast rivers of blood and treasure poured into wars over the centuries, the nations of the world continue to enhance their military might.


    According to a recent report from the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures grew to a record $1.63 trillion in 2010.  Middle East nations alone spent $111 billion on the military, with Saudi Arabia leading the way.


    Arms sales have also reached record heights.  SIPRI’s Top 100 of the world’s arms-producing companies sold $401 billion in weaponry during 2009 (the latest year for which figures are available), a real dollar increase of eight percent over the preceding year and 59 percent since 2002.  These military companies do a particularly brisk business overseas, where they engage in fierce battles for weapons contracts.  “There is intense competition between suppliers for big-ticket deals in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America,” reports Dr. Paul Holtom, Director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program.  Until recently, in fact, defense contractors scrambled vigorously to sell arms to Libya.


    In numerous ways, the United States is at the head of the pack.  Of the $20.6 billion increase in world military expenditures during 2010, the U.S. government accounted for $19.6 billion.  Indeed, between 2001 and 2010, the U.S. government increased its military spending by 81 percent.  As a result, it now accounts for about 43 percent of global military spending, some six times that of its nearest military rival, China.


    U.S. weapons producers are also world leaders.  According to SIPRI, 45 of its Top 100 weapons-manufacturers are based in the United States.  In 2009, they generated nearly $247 billion in weapons sales—nearly 62 percent of income produced by the Top 100.  Not surprisingly, the United States is also the world’s leading exporter of military equipment, accounting for 30 percent of global arms exports in the 2006-2010 period.


    Being Number 1 might be exciting, even thrilling, among children.  But adults might well ask if the benefits are worth the cost.  Are they?


    Let’s take a look at the issue of terrorism.  Much of the last decade’s huge military buildup by the United States was called for in the context of what President George W. Bush called the “War on Terror.”  And the costs, thus far, have been high, including an estimated $1.19 trillion that Americans have paid for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus thousands of Americans and vast numbers of Afghans and Iraqis who have been slaughtered.  By contrast, the benefits are certainly dubious.  Neither war resulted in the capture or killing of the terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who was tracked down in another country thanks to years of painstaking intelligence work and dispatched by a quick commando raid.  Wouldn’t Americans (and people in other lands) be a lot safer from terrorism with fewer wars and better intelligence?


    Of course, there is also the broader national security picture.  Even without terrorism, the world is a dangerous place.  War is certainly a hardy perennial.  Nevertheless, simply increasing national military spending does not make nations safer.  After all, when one country engages in a military buildup, others—frightened by this buildup—often do so as well.  The result of this arms race is all too often international conflict and war.  Wouldn’t nations be more secure if they worked harder at cooperating with one another rather than at threatening one another with military might?  Even if they were not the best of friends, they might find it to their mutual advantage to agree to decrease their military spending by an equal percentage, thus retaining the current military balance among them.  Also, they could begin turning over a broader range of international security issues to the United Nations.


    Maintaining a vast military apparatus also starves other areas of a society.  Currently, in the United States, most federal discretionary spending goes for war and preparations for war—and this despite an ongoing crisis over unemployment and a stagnating economy.  Continuing this pattern, the Obama administration’s proposed federal budget for fiscal 2012, while increasing military spending, calls for sharp cuts in funding for education, income security, food safety, and environmental protection.  Even as congress wrestles with the thorny issue of priorities, huge numbers of teachers, firemen, health care workers, social workers, policemen, and others—told that government revenues are no longer sufficient to fund their services—are being dismissed from their jobs.  Other public servants are having their salaries and benefits slashed.  Social welfare institutions are being closed.  Thus, instead of defending the home front in the United States, the immensely costly U.S. military apparatus is helping to gut it.


    Ultimately, as many people have learned through bitter experience, militarism undermines both peace and prosperity.  Perhaps it’s time for government officials to learn this fact.

  • Dysfunctional Disarmament

    Ban Ki-moonAs the United Nations Conference on Disarmament begins a seven-week session in Geneva, its future is on the line. Whereas countries and civil-society initiatives are on the move, the Conference has stagnated. Its credibility – indeed, its very legitimacy – is at risk.


    The “CD,” as it is informally known, has long served as the world’s only multilateral forum for negotiating disarmament. Its many impressive accomplishments include the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Much of this progress was achieved during the Cold War, proving that it is possible to create global legal norms even in times of deep political division.


    Yet today, all is not well at the CD. It operates under a consensus rule, and its member states have different priorities. Some want negotiations on nuclear disarmament; others want to ban the production of fissile material for weapon purposes; and still others insist that such a treaty should also cover existing stocks. Some want a treaty on security guarantees for non-nuclear-weapon states to assure them against the threat or use of nuclear weapons; others want a treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space.


    But, instead of compromise and the give-and-take of good-faith discussions, there has been paralysis. There was a brief glimmer of hope in 2009, when the sense of paralysis led the Conference to consensus on a program of work. Unfortunately, that agenda was never implemented. As a result, the CD has failed to make any substantive progress for 15 years. We simply must not let one lost decade turn into a second.


    The CD’s future is in the hands of its member states. But the disarmament and non-proliferation agenda is too important to let the CD lapse into irrelevancy as states consider other negotiating arenas. Last September, I convened a high-level meeting at the UN to consider ways to revitalize the CD’s work and to advance multilateral disarmament negotiations.


    The participants – who included dozens of foreign ministers – were unanimous in stressing that membership of the CD is a privilege. So is the consensus rule. Just one or two countries should not be able to block the organization’s work indefinitely.


    The message was clear: no more business as usual. The CD’s member states must recognize that the Conference’s future is at a critical juncture. Continued stalemate increases the risk that some like-minded countries might take up the matter elsewhere.


    After all, the deadlock has ominous implications for international security; the longer it persists, the graver the nuclear threat – from existing arsenals, from the proliferation of such weapons, and from their possible acquisition by terrorists.


    I have urged the CD to adopt an agenda based either on the consensus that was forged in 2009, or on an alternative arrangement. Upon my request, the UN’s entire membership will take up the matter in a first-of-its-kind General Assembly meeting this July. That schedule makes the CD’s current session crucial to its future.


    Reaffirming the CD’s agenda offers the prospect of renewed negotiations on disarmament issues. Prior agreement on the scope or outcome should not be a precondition for talks – or an excuse to avoid them – but rather a subject of the negotiations themselves.


    The current stalemate is all the more troubling in view of recent momentum on other disarmament tracks, including last year’s successful NPT Review Conference and heightened attention to nuclear security. With the world focused so intently on advancing disarmament goals, the CD should seize the moment.


    Shakespeare once wrote that “there is a tide in the affairs of men.” The tide of disarmament is rising, yet the CD is in danger of sinking. And it will sink unless it fulfills its responsibility to act.

  • A Bomb in Every Reactor

    Joschka FischerTwenty-five years after the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, the ongoing catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan has ― it must be hoped ― made clear once and for all that the purported blessings of the nuclear age are mere illusions: nuclear power is neither clean nor safe nor cheap.


    Indeed, the opposite is true. Nuclear power is saddled with three major unresolved risks: plant safety, nuclear waste, and, most menacing of all, the risk of military proliferation. Moreover, the alternatives to nuclear energy ― and to fossil fuels ― are well known and technically much more advanced and sustainable. Taking on nuclear risk is not a necessity; it is a deliberate political choice.


    Fossil-fuel and nuclear energy belong to the technological utopias of the 19th and 20th centuries, which were based on a belief in the innocence of the technologically feasible and on the fact that, at the time, only a minority of people worldwide, largely in the West, benefited from technological progress.


    By contrast, the 21st century will be informed by the realization that the global ecosystem and its resources, which are indispensable for human survival, are finite, and that this implies an enduring responsibility to preserve what we have. Meeting this imperative entails both an enormous technological challenge and an opportunity to redefine the meaning of modernity.


    The energy future of nine billion people, which is what the world population will be in the middle of the century, lies neither in fossil fuels nor in nuclear energy, but in renewable energy sources and dramatic improvements in energy efficiency. We already know this.


    Why, then, do the most advanced countries, in particular, take on the risk of a mega-catastrophe by seeking to create energy from radioactive fission?
    The answer, ultimately, doesn’t lie with any civilian use of nuclear energy, but first and foremost with its military applications.


    The energy derived from splitting uranium and plutonium atoms was originally used for the ultimate weapon, the atomic bomb. Being a nuclear power provides sovereign states with protection and prestige. Even today, the bomb divides the world into two classes: the few states have it, and the many that do not.


    The old Cold War world order was based on the nuclear arms race between the two superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union. To stop others from trying to become nuclear powers, which would have multiplied and spread the risk of nuclear confrontation, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was framed in the 1960s. To this day, it governs the relationships between the nuclear powers and the rest of the world, imposing renunciation on the have-nots and nuclear-disarmament obligations on the haves.


    Of course, the NPT has repeatedly been violated or circumvented by states that never subscribed to it. To this day, therefore, the risk remains that the number of nuclear powers will increase, particularly given small and medium powers’ hope to enhance their prestige and position in regional conflicts. Iran is the most current example of this.


    The nuclearization of these not-always-stable states threatens to make the regional conflicts of the 21st century much more dangerous, and will also substantially increase the risk that nuclear weapons eventually end up in the hands of terrorists.


    Despite the NPT, a clear separation between civilian and military use of nuclear energy hasn’t always worked, or worked completely, because the NPT’s rules permit all signatory states to develop and use ― under international supervision ― all of the components of the nuclear fuel cycle for civilian purposes. From here, then, all that is required to become a nuclear power are a few small technical steps and political leaders’ decision to take them.


    This political power, not the requirements of energy policy, is what makes giving up nuclear energy so difficult. As a rule, the path to nuclear-power status always begins with so-called “civilian” nuclear programs. The supposed “civilian” nuclear ambitions of Iran have thus, for instance, led to a large number of such “civilian” programs in neighboring states.


    And, of course, the reactions of the nuclear powers to the disaster at Fukushima will be watched and analyzed closely by the so-called “clandestine threshold countries.”


    So how will the world ― first and foremost, the main nuclear powers ― react to the Fukushima disaster? Will the tide truly turn, propelling the world toward nuclear disarmament and a future free of nuclear weapons? Or will we witness attempts to downplay the calamity and return to business as usual as soon as possible?


    Fukushima has presented the world with a far-reaching, fundamental choice.


    It was Japan, the high-tech country par excellence (not the latter-day Soviet Union) that proved unable to take adequate precautions to avert disaster in four reactor blocks. What, then, will a future risk assessment look like if significantly less organized and developed countries begin ― with the active assistance of the nuclear powers ― to acquire civilian nuclear-energy capabilities?


    Any decision to continue as before would send an unambiguous message to the clandestine threshold countries that are secretly pursuing nuclear weapons: despite lofty rhetoric and wordy documents, the nuclear powers lack the political will to change course. Were they to abandon nuclear energy, however, their epochal change of heart would constitute a seminal contribution to global nuclear security ― and thus to the fight against nuclear proliferation.

  • Climate Change, Nuclear Risks and Nuclear Disarmament: From Security Threats to Sustainable Peace

    2011_05_17_scheffran_climate.pdf

  • Earth Day

    David KriegerI keep thinking that Earth Day should be about something far more profound than recycling.  Not that recycling isn’t good.  It’s just not good enough.  We humans are destroying our earth: using up its topsoil, devouring its precious resources, polluting its air and water, altering its climate.  And we are bombing and shelling the earth and each other with our wasteful and destructive military technologies.  In short, we are behaving extremely badly and fouling our own nest.  And we are doing this not only to ourselves, but to future generations.

    Earth Day should be a spiritual day, a day of appreciation and thanksgiving for the earth’s abundance and beauty.  We should stand in awe of the miracle of the earth and its myriad forms of life, including ourselves.  We should kneel before the majesty and uniqueness of our planet.  We should be humbled by the gift of this water planet and treat it with the care and love it deserves, not only on Earth Day, but every day.

    How did we become destroyers of our planetary home, rather than its guardians?  How did we become the spoilers of the future, rather than its trustees?  We did it in part with our arbitrary lines that we call borders.  We did it with our greed and selfishness, and with our lack of wonder and our lost hope.  We did it by our unquenchable thirst for more and more, and by losing sight of fairness and decency.  We did it by taking and not giving back.  What is destroying the earth?  It is us, and only us, collectively.

    We seem to care more for material things than we do for each other.  We associate richness with an abundance of things, and poverty with a scarcity of things.  We are losing the arts of contemplation, communication, and care.  We are failing in courage, compassion and commitment.  Earth Day could be a beginning point in time for becoming who we could be: vibrant and creative citizens of earth, living in joy and harmony with the earth and each other.  What can save the earth?  It is us, and only us, collectively.

    We live in the Nuclear Age, and nuclear weapons are the ultimate symbol of our lost connection to the earth, ourselves and each other.  We have reached the point in our evolution, or devolution, at which we are willing to destroy the planet to provide ourselves with the illusion of security.  Why don’t we commit this Earth Day to ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life?  Why don’t we bring the Nuclear Age to an end and begin a new age of dignity, decency, responsibility and respect for life?

    *To read the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, click here.

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.

  • Nuclear Energy and Weapons: Uncontrollable in Time and Space

    This article was originally published on the Huffington Post.


    Alyn WareThe earthquake and tsunami in Japan devastated a whole region. Radioactive emissions from the damaged nuclear reactors are very serious, and have already contaminated food and water, prompting a ban on food exports from four prefectures and a government warning not to give Tokyo tap water to babies. The crisis could impact human health and the environment on an even wider scale — across Japan and around the globe.


    Whether or not the brave technicians in Fukushima are successful in containing the bulk of the radiation in the six reactors, the message is clear: natural disasters and accidents will happen. If it can go wrong sooner or later it will go wrong, and Murphy’s law and nuclear energy do not mix.


    In Japan, the fear of radiation spreading is connected to the memory of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki over 65 years ago. Over 100,000 people died from radiation exposure — nearly as many as from the blast. The genetic effects continue down through the generations.


    Japan’s nuclear crisis has brought back to public consciousness the basic truth that the effects of nuclear disasters — whether from nuclear energy or nuclear weapons — are uncontrollable in time and space.


    Current events at Fukushima remind us of the negligence of nuclear power companies in building nuclear power plants on earthquake fault lines or vulnerable coastlines. But they should also remind us of the even greater negligence of the nuclear weapon states in maintaining their arsenals of 20,000 nuclear weapons — most with yields over 100 times greater than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and many on hair trigger alert, ready to launch within minutes. Any accidental, unauthorized, inadvertent or intentional use today (or tomorrow) would have a catastrophic, widespread, unprecedented and unimaginable impact on humanity and the environment.


    A recent statement released by international law experts from around the world, including former judges from the International Court of Justice, affirms that maintaining nuclear weapons and a readiness to use them is not only negligent, but given the dire consequences of any use, also against the law. The Vancouver Declaration on “Law’s Imperative for the Urgent Achievement of a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World,” notes that the use of nuclear weapons would be “contrary to the fundamental rules of international humanitarian law (laws governing use of force in wartime) forbidding the infliction of indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering.”


    In other words, during war one can attack military targets and personnel, but not civilians. One can inflict harm on military personnel, but not such harm that would last long after the conflict is over. In addition, it is illegal even in wartime to inflict long-term and severe damage on the environment. Nuclear weapons, with their uncontrollable blast, heat and radiation effects, could not be used without violating these laws. And if such an act is illegal, the threat to commit such an act is also illegal.


    Thus, in 1996 the International Court of Justice (a. k. a. the World Court) determined that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal, and that there is an unconditional obligation to achieve the complete prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons through good-faith negotiations.


    Since then, failure of the nuclear weapon states to comply has had predictably disastrous results for global proliferation and nuclear danger, convincing India, Pakistan and North Korea that if they can’t cajole the nuclear weapon states to give up nuclear weapons, then they might as well join their nuclear club. Others are bound to follow suit.


    Until recently, states that wanted to hang onto their nuclear arsenals and their policies to use them argued that such policies were legal by misrepresenting a clause in the Court’s opinion. That clause stated that the ICJ could not reach a conclusion on the legality of threat or use in the extreme circumstance of self-defense when the very survival of a state is at stake. So by stating that they would only use nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances,” the nuclear weapon states avoided applying the general ruling of illegality to their nuclear weapons policies.


    But they can no longer avoid this. In May 2010, the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which includes the major nuclear weapon states, affirmed that any use of nuclear weapons would cause catastrophic humanitarian consequences, and that states must comply with international humanitarian law “at all times.” They also agreed that all states must make special efforts to build the framework for a nuclear weapons-free world, citing the United Nations Secretary-General’s proposal for negotiations on a global nuclear abolition treaty.


    Now governments have to choose: hang onto their nuclear arsenals, or uphold the rule of law to which they have agreed. They can’t do both. We all know which will make us safer. Nuclear possession is a recipe for proliferation and corrosive to international humanitarian law, which, as the Vancouver Declaration says, “is essential to limiting the effects of armed conflicts, large and small, around the world.”


    The nuclear crisis in Japan has debunked the claims of authorities that their nuclear power stations, built with inferior containment on fault-lines, are safe and fully under control. Before something goes horribly wrong on the weapons front, we must also debunk the claims of the nuclear weapon states that nuclear weapons are safe as long as they are in the ‘right hands.’


    States including the US take the position that we should just trust them to take small steps towards nuclear disarmament sometime in an indefinite future. That’s like trusting the nuclear power industry to police itself and voluntarily phase itself out in deference to public safety. It simply won’t happen without a global prohibition enforced by the rest of the world, like the one outlined in the draft treaty circulated by the UN Secretary-General.


    In 1996, the President of the International Court of Justice called nuclear weapons an “absolute evil.” We have already applied international humanitarian law to other inhumane and indiscriminate (read “evil”) weapons such as landmines and cluster munitions in order to achieve global treaties for banning them. Now it’s time for absolute prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

  • How Japan Learned About Nuclear Safety

    This article was originally published on the History News Network.


    Lawrence WittnerAlthough people can be educated in a variety of ways, experience is a particularly effective teacher.  Consider the Japanese, who today are certainly learning how dangerous nuclear power can be.


    Of course, the Japanese people also have had a disastrous experience with nuclear weapons—not only in 1945, when the U.S. government destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs, but in 1954, when a U.S. government H-bomb test showered a Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, with deadly radioactive fallout, and a vast nuclear disarmament movement began.


    The Lucky Dragon incident occurred in the context of the first U.S. H-bomb test, conducted by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) in March 1954.  The AEC had staked out a danger zone of some 50,000 square miles (an area roughly the size of New England) around Bikini atoll, the test site in the Marshall Islands, which the United States governed as a UN “trust territory.”  But the blast proved more than twice as powerful as expected, and sent vast quantities of radioactive debris aloft into the atmosphere.  When large doses of this nuclear fallout descended on four inhabited islands in the Marshall chain (all outside the official danger zone), the U.S. government evacuated U.S. weather station personnel and, days later, hundreds of Marshall Islanders.  The islanders quickly developed low blood counts, skin lesions, hemorrhages under the skin, and loss of hair.  Eventually, many came down with radiation-linked illnesses, including thyroid cancer and leukemia.


    Meanwhile, about 85 miles from the test site—and also outside the danger zone—radioactive ash from the H-bomb test fell on a small Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon.  Two weeks later, when the vessel had reached its home port of Yaizu, the crew members had become seriously ill, with skin irritations, burns, nausea, loss of hair, and other radiation-linked afflictions.  In short order, the Japanese government hospitalized the stricken fishermen and destroyed their radioactive cargo.  Although most of the fishermen survived, the Lucky Dragon’s radio operator, Aikichi Kuboyama, died during hospital treatment.


    As the news of the Lucky Dragon incident spread throughout Japan, a panic gripped the nation, as well as a fierce determination to end the victimization of people, in Japan and the world, through nuclear weapons.  Nuclear fallout—or, as the Japanese referred to it, “the ashes of death”—became a household term.  A poll found that only two percent of the population approved of nuclear testing unconditionally.  In May 1954, a group of middle class housewives in the Suginami ward in Tokyo began a petition campaign to ban H-bombs.  Carried in their shopping baskets, this “Suginami Appeal” grew into a nationwide movement and, by 1955, had attracted the signatures of 32 million people—about a third of the Japanese population.  Japan’s nuclear disarmament campaign blossomed into the largest, most powerful social movement in that nation’s history.  Polls showed overwhelming popular support for it.


    Naturally, this upsurge of “ban the bomb” sentiment shocked U.S. government officials, who—with their nuclear weapons program at stake—engaged in a systematic policy of denial.  The chair of the AEC, Lewis Strauss, publicly declared that the Marshall Islanders were “well and happy.”  The Japanese fishermen, he conceded, had experienced a few minor problems; but, in any case, he stated falsely, they “must have been well within the danger area.”  Privately, he was more caustic.  The Lucky Dragon, he told the White House press secretary, was really a “Red spy outfit,” a component of a “Russian espionage system.”  At the request of Strauss, the CIA investigated this possibility and categorically denied it.  Nonetheless, Strauss continued to maintain that the irradiation of the Lucky Dragon “was no accident,” for the captain of the vessel must have been “in the employ of the Russians.”  He also told authors to ignore the contention of the “propagandists” that a crew member of the vessel had died of radiation exposure.


    Other American officials, too, saw no justification for the Japanese response to the Lucky Dragon incident.  From Japan, the U.S. ambassador lamented that nation’s “uncontrolled masochism.”  He reported that Japan, “aided by [an] unscrupulous press, seemed to revel in [its] fancied martyrdom.”  According to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, President Dwight Eisenhower found this message “of great interest and value from [the] standpoint of policy formulation.”  Like Strauss, Eisenhower insisted in his memoirs that the fishermen were within the danger zone.  Commenting on the effects of the Lucky Dragon incident, the acting secretary of state added his own warnings about public attitudes in Japan.  “The Japanese are pathologically sensitive about nuclear weapons,” he told Eisenhower.  “They feel they are the chosen victims.”


    In reality, most Japanese had learned from the tragic events of 1954 that, when it came to nuclear arms, everyone was a potential victim.  Or, to put it another way, there are no safe nuclear weapons.  But many Japanese continued to cling to a belief in safe nuclear energy—at least until this month, when their crippled nuclear reactors began spewing out radioactivity and heading toward a meltdown.


    Plenty of people in other countries, including the United States, remain in denial about the safety of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.  What kind of experience will it take to convince them to rid the world of these monstrous things?  More to the point, is it really necessary to wait for that experience to occur?

  • Nuclear Deterrence: Impeding Nuclear Disarmament

    David KriegerIn an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, published on March 7, 2011, four former high-level US policy makers – George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn – focused their attention on nuclear deterrence.  They concurred that deterrence based on nuclear weapons is precarious, could destroy civilized life and raises enormous inhibitions against employing nuclear weapons.  They concluded that the US and Russia were “lucky” that nuclear weapons were not used during the Cold War, and asked: “Does the world want to continue to bet its survival on continued good fortune with a growing number of nuclear nations and adversaries globally?” 


    The four former policy makers argued that “nations should move forward together with a series of conceptual and practical steps toward deterrence that do not rely primarily on nuclear weapons or nuclear threats to maintain international peace and security.”  Their first step is to recognize that “there is a daunting new spectrum of global security threats” and that an “effective strategy to deal with these dangers must be developed.”  Their second step is to realize that reliance on nuclear weapons encourages or excuses nuclear proliferation.  Their third step is to cease the deployment of US and Russian nuclear arsenals in ways that “increase the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon, or even a deliberate exchange based on a false warning.” 


    So far, so good.  Their fourth step, however, seems to be a non sequitur: “[A]s long as nuclear weapons exist, America must retain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear stockpile primarily to deter a nuclear attack and to reassure our allies through extended deterrence.”  The former policy makers had just reviewed the great dangers of relying upon nuclear deterrence, and then followed this by indicating the need for America to rely upon nuclear weapons for deterrence, including nuclear deterrence “extended” to US allies.  They also left unstated what uses the US nuclear stockpile might have other than deterring a nuclear attack.  It appears the former policy makers have chosen a “safe, secure and reliable” nuclear arsenal over a safe and secure citizenry.  Nuclear weapons undermine the possibility of a safe and secure citizenry.  As conceived, the modernization of US nuclear forces would also be expensive and provocative and would limit the possibilities for nuclear disarmament.  I’ve often wondered what is meant by a reliable nuclear arsenal: One with sufficient capacity to annihilate a potential enemy down to the last child?


    The four former policy makers do say that the US and Russia “must continue to lead the “build-down” and “must begin moving away from threatening force postures and deployments.”  But such leadership is needed not only for the “build-down,” but also to envision a world with zero nuclear weapons and to commit to doing what is necessary to achieve that vision. 


    In their fifth step, the group of four recognizes that “nuclear weapons may continue to appear relevant” to some nations.  They thus see the need to “redouble efforts” to resolve regional confrontations and conflicts.  Insightfully, they find, “A world without nuclear weapons will not simply be today’s world minus nuclear weapons.”  They demonstrate a lack of urgency, though, in suggesting that “over time” the US and its allies can work together to make changes to extended deterrence.


    The group of four concludes, “Moving from mutual assured destruction toward a new and more stable form of deterrence with decreasing nuclear risks and an increasing measure of assured security for all nations could prevent our worst nightmare from becoming a reality, and it could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations.”


    Just a few weeks before the publication of this Wall Street Journal article on nuclear deterrence by George Shultz and his colleagues, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation convened a conference in Santa Barbara on “The Dangers of Nuclear Deterrence.”  The conference concluded with a Santa Barbara Declaration: “Reject Nuclear Deterrence: An Urgent Call to Action.”  The Declaration states, “Nuclear deterrence is discriminatory, anti-democratic and unsustainable.  This doctrine must be discredited and replaced with an urgent commitment to achieve global nuclear disarmament.  We must change the discourse by speaking truth to power and speaking truth to each other.”  In other words, we cannot find nuclear deterrence “precarious” on the one hand, and seek to modernize America’s nuclear forces under the guise of keeping them “safe, secure and reliable” on the other hand. 


    The Santa Barbara Declaration concluded, “Before another nuclear weapon is used, nuclear deterrence must be replaced by humane, legal and moral security strategies.  We call upon people everywhere to join us in demanding that the nuclear weapon states and their allies reject nuclear deterrence and negotiate without delay a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of all nuclear weapons.”  The goal must be a world without nuclear weapons, and reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence remains a major impediment to achieving that goal.