Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapons

  • Letter to NATO Secretary General and Member States

    Excellency,

    This letter comes to you, to the leaders of other NATO members and to the NATO Secretary General from the councils that represent churches across the member states of NATO, namely, the Conference of European Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ USA, the Canadian Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.

    Our letter is a joint initiative to encourage joint action.  We ask your Government to ensure that the forthcoming NATO summit commits the Alliance to a thorough reform of NATO’s Strategic Concept. The 60th anniversary meeting is a welcome opportunity to begin the process of up-dating the Alliance’s security doctrine.  In particular, we encourage new initiatives that will end NATO’s reliance on nuclear weapons and will engage with nuclear weapon states and other states outside of NATO in the serious pursuit of reciprocal disarmament.

    Such collective action by NATO can be a major factor in revitalizing the nuclear non-proliferation regime at this critical time.  It is also an important opportunity for the alliance to reinforce the vision of a world without nuclear weapons so compellingly put forward in recent months by eminent figures on the global security stage. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, four elder statesmen of Germany and former Foreign Secretaries of the United Kingdom are among those urging both a recovery of that vision and concrete steps to realize it.

    NATO has the opportunity to fashion a new strategic doctrine that, on the one hand, takes full account of the threats posed by nuclear weapons, and, on the other hand, takes full advantage of the political momentum that is now finally available to support decisive inter-governmental action against the nuclear threat.

    We encourage NATO to consign to history the notion that nuclear weapons “preserve peace” (as claimed in paragraph 46 of the current Strategic Concept), and instead to recognize the reality that “with every passing year [nuclear weapons] make our security more precarious” (President Gorbachev’s assessment; echoed by other leaders).

    We are convinced that NATO security in the years ahead will require not only long-delayed action on reciprocal disarmament but also concerted new action to resolve injustices, divisions and conflicts that affect both the Alliance and its neighbours.  We believe security must be sought through constructive engagement with neighbours and that authentic security is found in affirming and enhancing human interdependence within God’s one creation.

    Inasmuch as all NATO members are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), we urge the Alliance to promote the actual implementation of the backlog of disarmament and non-proliferation measures already elaborated through the NPT review process or awaiting negotiation as the current cycle culminates.

    One very important measure of NATO’s good faith in terms of NPT and the pursuit of nuclear disarmament will be its willingness to remove the 150-250 US tactical nuclear weapons still based in five member countries — Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Turkey.  In so doing NATO would boost international confidence in an NPT regime that has been seriously eroded since 2000.  NATO would also honor the longstanding international call that all nuclear weapons be returned to the territories of the states that own them.  Removal of these weapons would be a timely signal that NATO’s old nuclear umbrella will not be extended and that there are real prospects for progress on collective security agreements in greater Europe.

    The emerging vision of a world without nuclear weapons is giving citizens and churches in every NATO country cause for hope.  We are requesting that NATO’s security doctrine be realigned in a direction which establishes such hopes.

    Sincerely,

    Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia
    General Secretary
    World Council of Churches

     

    		 The Venerable Colin Williams
    General Secretary
    Conference of European Churches
    Rev. Michael Kinnamon, Ph.D.
    General Secretary
    National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA    		 The Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton
    General Secretary
    The Canadian Council of Churches

  • Book Review- At the Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation?

    This book review appeared in the March 2009 edition of the Peace Magazine

    At the Nuclear Precipice: Catastrophe or Transformation? Richard Falk and David Krieger (Eds) Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, 291pp.

    There has always been an ebb and flow of popular interest in eliminating nuclear weapons from the world, and currently, there seems to be a rising tide of activity. Men who did little to curb nuclear weapons when they were in power are now saying that something should be done: ‘The only sure way to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war is to rid the world of nuclear weapons.’ Since peace-making depends on coalition building we cannot belittle these new-found friends.

    David Krieger and Richard Falk, long-time activists for the abolition of nuclear weapons within the framework of world law, have edited a book which will be useful in the new debates and strategy making, although many of the issues have been discussed before. There have always been at least two major aspects of nuclear issues — the one is to prevent the proliferation to new states, the other is to reduce the number of warheads among the existing nuclear-weapon states. The long chapter on Iran by Asli Bali is the most action oriented and will be useful as policy toward Iran is debated. The reduction of the number of warheads seems to be on the table of new US-Russia negotiations.

    A second theme which has colored popular action on nuclear weapons has been whether to place an emphasis on the goal of total abolition or on partial steps such as the ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Those working for partial measures have always said that abolition was the ultimate aim, but in practice, the partial measures always became the focus of action. I recall that when I was in college, I used to walk to relax and would meet from time to time Albert Einstein walking from his office to his home. I would say ‘Good Evening, Prof Einstein, and he would reply ‘Good Evening, Young Man’. Although I had no idea then or now what his theories were about, I knew that they had something to do with atoms, and he had come out early for nuclear control. ‘One World or None’ was the slogan of the late 1940s. Einstein’s final appeal shortly before his death, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955) with its call to think “not as members of this or that nation, continent or creed, but as human beings” is reprinted in the book.

    When I used to see Einstein, I was already active on the partial measures of the time — an end to testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. I had followed the lead of Senator Estes Kefauver who was the first US political leader to attack actively nuclear testing. As Kefauver had taken on the link between politics and organized crime, he could take on also the US Atomic Energy Commission which was deaf to all calls to prevent nuclear fallout from entering the food chain. It took till 1963 to get the tests to move below ground, but the mid-1950s nuclear testing campaign was the entry point of my generation into nuclear issues.

    I tend still to stress limited steps within the framework of regional settlements of disputes. There seems to me to be three opportunities to press ahead, and there are ideas throughout the book which will be helpful in developing position papers.

    1) The first and easiest because it involves two states without major conflict issues is a reduction in the number of nuclear warheads of the USA and Russia — the number of 1000 each seems to be on the table. It is still too many and strategic thinking in the two countries is not very clear what they are for, but this is a case where ‘fewer is better’, so let us push for this sharp reduction while we try to see what role the USA and Russia can usefully play in the world society.

    2) The second opportunity is for a nuclear-weapon free zone in the Middle East. The elimination of Israeli nuclear weapons and no nuclear-weapon development in Iran would help reduce Middle East tensions. Mohammed ElBaradei of the IAEA has been calling for this Middle East nuclear weapon free zone for some time and has a useful chapter in the book. However, there will have to be strong popular pressure for such a zone as neither the Israeli nor the Iranian government seems to be moving fast in the direction.

    3) The third opportunity for non-governmental suggestions is the 2010 review conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The Review conferences every five years have been the most NGO-friendly of the arms control negotiations. I had chaired the NGOs attending the 1975 and 1980 reviews and with the help of Ambassador Garcia Robbles of Mexico, the NGOs had the ability to distribute proposals and to interact fully, though not to address the conference. Our proposals were widely discussed and even presented by one government as its own. At the 1980 review when no government text could be agreed upon, the NGO draft was seriously discussed at a midnight meeting of the Conference Bureau, but wording was not the real issue. After the 1985 Review I gave up, having repeated Article VI even in my sleep. However 2010 could be the time to pull together NGO new thinking on the issues and make a real effort during the preparatory phase.

    Falk and Krieger have produced a good background document to help in drafting a comprehensive set of proposals.

     

    René Wadlow is the representative of the World Association of Citizens to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

  • Inspired by the Hibakusha

    This article was published by the Hiroshima Peace Media Center

    In 1975, I was a 22-year-old high school music teacher in New Zealand. The school syllabus included a Threnody (‘song of lament’) for the Victims of Hiroshima by Penderecki. Until then I had never heard of hibakusha. My life changed forever when I read their stories, and showed photos and their paintings to my young students. The hibakusha inspired me to dedicate my life to help them abolish nuclear weapons.
    At that time there were over 52,000 nuclear weapons. Hundreds more were being tested by the US, UK and France in the Pacific: in Australia, Tahiti, the Marshall Islands and Kiribati. Radioactive fallout from these was even detected in mothers’ milk in New Zealand. Regional protest groups emerged, enraged that the “superpowers” would use our “Ocean of Peace” to test weapons causing severe health and environmental effects, and capable of annihilating most life on the planet. They lobbied their governments and, in 1973, New Zealand, Australia and other Pacific Islands took France to the International Court of Justice (World Court) and effectively forced future tests underground. When US warships, probably carrying nuclear weapons, visited our ports under the Australia New Zealand US (ANZUS) military alliance in 1976, peace groups organised “peace squadrons” of hundreds of small boats to oppose them. Thousands of people demonstrated on the streets throughout the country demanding that New Zealand should become a nuclear free zone.
    Ordinary citizens, including young mothers like myself, were angry that ANZUS membership made us a target for the enemies of the US and her allies, and we did not want nuclear weapons used against others in our defence. We worked hard over the next decade to establish 300 small neighbourhood peace groups throughout the country who educated the public about the dangers of both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. We showed films and exhibitions about hibakusha, and doorknocked nearly every home asking people to display nuclear free stickers on their homes and cars, and in their workplaces.
    By 1984, 66% of municipal councils were nuclear free and the new government pledged to ban visits by nuclear armed and powered vessels. Prime Minister David Lange believed that by rejecting the nuclear umbrella, New Zealand was strengthening its national security. He said: “We were, simply, safer without nuclear weapons in our defence than with them…”
    Although the government came under heavy US, British and Australian pressure, they were bolstered by a massive mobilisation of public support by the peace movement in both New Zealand and the US. The French government’s terrorist bombing of Greenpeace’s anti-nuclear flagship, Rainbow Warrior, in Auckland coincided in 1985 with the creation of a South Pacific Nuclear Weapon Free Zone. When the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in 1986, the combination of these events ensured the passage into law of the Nuclear Free Act. In 1986, retired magistrate Harold Evans, from our local Christchurch peace group, initiated the World Court Project. This grew into a worldwide campaign to persuade the UN General Assembly to request an advisory opinion from the Court on the legal status of nuclear weapons. It took nearly a decade to build support and momentum nationally and internationally, helped by the improved political climate after the end of the Cold War.
    In 1994, for the first time the World Court accepted evidence from citizens which included 11,000 signatures from international judges and lawyers; a sample of the 100 million signature Hiroshima and Nagasaki Appeal, and material surveying 50 years of citizens’ opposition to nuclear weapons. In addition, over 700 citizen groups worldwide endorsed the Project. Forty-four states and the World Health Organisation participated in the biggest World Court case ever, with two-thirds arguing for illegality.
    Just before the oral hearings in 1995, the Court accepted 4 million individually signed Declarations of Public Conscience, including over 3 million from Japan. After strong domestic pressure, the Japanese government allowed the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to testify. They confronted the 14 judges with huge photographs depicting the devastation and suffering. Over 50 hibakusha were present to witness this historic legal challenge. A woman from the Marshall Islands powerfully described how many islanders are still dying of cancers and women give birth to deformed babies including some which look like “jellyfish.”
    In July 1996, the Court delivered its historic Advisory Opinion that “a threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law.” The judges also unanimously agreed that “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.”
    The World Court Opinion helped spark new initiatives to achieve a nuclear weapon free world. As a former member of the World Court Project Steering Committee, I was invited in 1998 to join the Middle Powers Initiative. This campaign by a network of international citizen organisations worked closely with seven countries, including New Zealand, which had played important roles in the World Court Project. Called the New Agenda Coalition, they lobbied effectively within the UN and, at the 2000 Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, secured an unequivocal commitment from the nuclear weapon states to eliminate their nuclear weapons.
    The Middle Powers Initiative also established the Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament (coordinated by New Zealander Alyn Ware, another leader of the World Court Project). It now has over 500 members in 70 countries with regular newsletters, and a website translated into 11 languages including Japanese. Recently, politicians from different parties in Belgium, Germany, Holland, Italy, Turkey and the UK called for the removal of US nuclear weapons from their soil after a US Air Force investigation concluded that “most sites” used for deploying nuclear weapons in Europe do not meet US Department of Defense minimum security requirements. In June 2008, 110 US tactical nuclear weapons were withdrawn from Britain, which means that there are now no US nuclear weapons there for the first time since 1950.
    Following the presentations by the Mayors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima to the World Court in 1995, they were inspired by the 1996 Opinion to renew their call for nuclear abolition and launch an international membership drive for Mayors for Peace. To mark the 10th anniversary of the Court’s Opinion in 2006, Mayors for Peace launched the Good Faith Challenge and the “Cities Are Not Targets” project. Today there are 2,708 member cities in 134 countries. Of these, 89 are capital cities, almost half the world’s capitals, including Moscow, Beijing, London and Paris.
    Other states supportive of the World Court Project, led by Malaysia and Costa Rica, sponsored UN resolutions calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention–an enforceable global treaty to ban nuclear weapons. A consortium of lawyers, scientists and disarmament experts drafted a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention which was distributed by the UN Secretary-General in 1997 for states to consider. In 2007, the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention was updated, and translated into Japanese. The proposed treaty, and the more general call for nuclear abolition, have received growing support from across the political spectrum and from a wide array of constituencies including former Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, mayors, military leaders, academics, parliamentarians, scientists, governments, Nobel Laureates, NGOs and the general public.
    On United Nations Day last year, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launched a five-point plan for nuclear disarmament. He called for the nuclear weapon states to fulfil their obligation under the NPT by pursuing “a framework of separate, mutually reinforcing instruments. Or they could consider negotiating a nuclear-weapons convention, backed by a strong system of verification, as has long been proposed at the United Nations.”
    With the world’s total of nuclear weapons now half what it was in 1975, and US President Obama himself calling for nuclear abolition, the time is ripe for all states to work together to take weapons off high alert; make immediate and drastic cuts to their nuclear arsenals; cancel missile defence systems; sign and ratify a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; and negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and an Outer Space Treaty. There has never been a more hopeful moment for us all to press our leaders to start negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Then the pain and anguish suffered by hibakusha everywhere will not have been in vain, and our dreams and aspirations for a nuclear free world can be realised.

     

    Dr. Kate Dewes coordinates the Disarmament and Security Centre and taught Peace Studies at Canterbury University for 20 years.

  • Doomsday Clock May Finally Stop Ticking

    This article was published by InterPress Service and appeared on Commondreams.org

    UNITED NATIONS – The Barack Obama administration’s apparent resolve to take U.S. foreign policy in a new direction is creating ripples of hope for an enhanced U.N. agenda on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.
    Observers and diplomats who are due to take part in a major meeting to discuss progress on the implementation of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) told IPS they had never before so optimistic about the U.N.-led negotiation process.

    “I think he [Obama] is sincere about what he is saying,” said David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an advocacy group that works closely with the U.N. “I think he is willing to stand up against the vested interests.”

     

    Many peace activists, like Krieger, believe that the threat of a possible nuclear catastrophe is not going to go away so long as the major nuclear powers remain reluctant to take drastic steps towards dismantling their nuclear arsenals.

    Countries that rolled back their weapons programs, as well as those that never produced such arms, have long been calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons, but the response they received from the major nuclear powers has always been disappointing. In addition to actions against the spread of nuclear weapons, the NPT requires the five declared nuclear states – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China – to engage in “good faith” negotiations for disarmament. Until now that task has remained elusive.

    The United States and Russia are the world’s largest nuclear weapon states. They possess no less than 93 percent of the total number of nuclear weapons in the world, according to Sipri, a Sweden-based think tank that tracks weapon production and export worldwide.

    Among others, China has 400 warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain about 200 each. India is believed to have more than 80 and Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons.

    Critics see the United States as the most irresponsible member of the nuclear club, for it not only failed to meet the NPT obligations, but also contributed, at great length, to block, and even derail, the international discourse on nuclear disarmament.

    The Ronald Reagan administration, for example, looked the other way when Pakistan was developing its illegal nuclear program in the 1980s. Similarly, the George W. Bush administration decided to make a nuclear trade deal with India that remains outside the fold of the NPT.

    The Bush administration is held responsible by many for sabotaging the U.N. agenda on disarmament by its decision to abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and to install controversial missile defenses in countries located next to Russia’s borders.

    During the past eight years, the former U.S. administration also refused to endorse the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which is considered by experts an integral part of the international framework to achieve the goal of disarmament.

    “We have been through the dark ages,” Krieger told IPS. “It was a death plan for humanity.”

    During his two terms, Bush never spoke of nuclear disarmament. He rather fully supported the move to generate new kinds of nuclear weapons. In March 2007, his administration declared plans to make new kinds of nukes, a move considered as controversial by many.

    Bush argued that the existing warheads had become obsolete, but many experts saw his line of reasoning as out of step with reality because in their conclusion, the U.S. stockpile was already ‘safe and reliable’ for at least 50 years.

    At the time, many independent think tanks in Washington warned that such a move would prove provocative and counter-productive because countries like Iran and North Korea would use it as justification to possess nuclear weapons.

    In contrast to the Bush administration, however, the message from the new administration in Washington appears to be radically different.

    “A world without nuclear weapons is profoundly in America’s interest and the world’s interest,” said the new U.S. president in a recent statement. “It is our responsibility to make the commitment, and to do the hard work to make this vision a reality.”

    Currently, a coalition of peace advocacy groups is running a nationwide signature campaign to press Obama to take immediate, effective, and practical measures for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

    “Nuclear weapons could destroy civilization and end intelligent life on the planet,” said the campaign in a letter to Obama. “The only sure way to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism and nuclear war is to rid the world of nuclear weapons.”

    Krieger told IPS that so far over 50,000 people, including some Noble laureates, have signed the letter. He expects that by next month when the letter is due to be delivered to the White House, at least one million people would have endorsed it.

    An international group, known as “Global Zero,” is proposing deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, a verification and enforcement system, and phased reduction leading to the elimination of all stockpiles.

    Supporters of the Global Zero campaign includes many distinguished international figures and former statesmen, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter; former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger; former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci; former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev; and Shaharyar Khan, a former Pakistani foreign minister.

    The launching in Paris follows 18 months of consultations among diplomats and military leaders and in effect established Global Zero as a participant in mobilizing efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Last July Obama said, “as long as nuclear weapons exist we will retain a strong deterrent,” but added in the same breath:” We will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.”

    According to unconfirmed reports, the Obama administration is already engaged in negotiations on the proposal to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to 1,000 in the first phase and that it is possible that the reaction from Moscow is likely to be positive.

    However, in Krieger’s view, that would happen only if the Obama administration takes a different position on the deployment of the U.S. missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, which Russia perceives to be a threat to its sovereignty.

    Building the missile defense systems has cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, although it’s still not clear that it would be especially effective.

    “The defense contractors in the United States will continue to put pressure,” he told IPS. “But he [Obama] has to understand that this system is not going to work.”

    While Krieger and many others seem satisfied with the gradual and phased reduction of nuclear weapons on both sides, some nuclear abolitionists remain skeptical about the outcome of such measures and would rather like to see dramatic results in a short span of time.

    “Cutting down to 1,000 nuclear weapons each? 1,000 are too many. It’s the same kind of slow process as it was during the cold war,” said Zia Mian, a nuclear physicist and peace activist at Princeton University. “It’s about restoring the process, not breaking away from the process.”

    Mian, who plans to attend the upcoming NPT preparatory meeting in May, added: “If Obama wants a real change, he must say: We are going to negotiate a treaty now to eliminate the nuclear weapons.”

  • The Missouri University Nuclear Disarmament Education Team (MUNDET)

    Recently, President Barack Obama stated: ” I will make the goal of elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide a central element of U.S. nuclear weapons policy.” Without question, this is the most promising nuclear disarmament statement by a U.S. president in recent history. However, the road to abolition will not be an easy one. Given the financial and political power of the corporate/military nuclear weapons complex, the president will face many hurdles, and will have to obtain strong grassroots support to convince Members of Congress to endorse the kind of comprehensive international regimen which will be required to accomplish the president’s goal.

    Presently, insufficient intellectual and political activity concerning nuclear disarmament (especially at the local level) is going on in this country or other parts of the world. Despite the recent, encouraging statements by several well-known political figures both here and abroad, and the excellent work by numerous non-governmental organizations who are supplying timely information and strategies for political action, nuclear war prevention continues to rank low on the list of immediate citizen concerns when compared with problems of unemployment, economic recession, health care, education, etc. Additionally, most college and university professors who normally address other serious human problems, have seriously defaulted on the world’s most pressing environmental/survival issue. Nuclear war will not merely warm the planet, it will “sizzle” it.

    With the academic default in mind, the University of Missouri – Columbia Peace Studies Program has initiated the Missouri University Nuclear Disarmament Education Team (MUNDET) whose mission is to inform citizens of Missouri, and other parts of the world, of the urgent need to abolish nuclear weapons from Planet Earth, and inspire them to work for that goal. MUNDET works with educational, religious, civic and other community groups by addressing the main issues connected with the nuclear threat, and how it must be met. Among its tools has been the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s excellent DVD “Nuclear Weapons and the Human Future: How You Can Make a Difference” and the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s DVD ” The Last Best Chance”.

    In accordance with the university’s three major functions, i.e., research, instruction, and public service, MUNDET:

    • Consults with interested faculty and students at colleges and universities (and elsewhere) about RESEARCH into nuclear disarmament problems;
    • Provides assistance to college, university, and high school faculties regarding nuclear disarmament education CURRICULUM PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT; and,
    • Assists environmental, civic and faith-based organizations, as well as other interested parties with nuclear disarmament education PROGRAMMING AND PROMOTION.

    MUNDET currently has six team members, including:

    John Kultgen, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Missouri who is author of IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: REFLECTIONS ON THE MORALITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE (Peter Lang, 1999). In 2006, he presented a paper on THE MORALITY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN A WORLD OF PROLIFERATION, ROGUE STATES, TERRORIST GROUPS AND NUCLEAR STOCKPILES to the Oxford Round Table at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University. The paper will be published in a volume that will be titled TERRORISM AND GLOBAL INSECURITY: A MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVE.

    Steven Starr, Senior Scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility has been published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. His writings also appear on the websites of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Center for Arms Control Energy and Environmental Studies; Scientists for Social Responsibility; and the International Network of Scientists Against Proliferation. He has worked with the governments of Switzerland, Chile, New Zealand and Sweden in support of their efforts at the United Nations to encourage the elimination of thousands of high-alert, launch ready nuclear weapons. He has made presentations to ministry officials, parliamentarians, universities, and citizens around the world. He also specializes in making technical, scientific information understandable to all audiences.

    Bill Wickersham, Educational Psychologist and Adjunct Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Missouri is a specialist in the social and psychological obstacles to nuclear disarmament, and frequently addresses ” The Role of Education, Religion and the Community in the Prevention of Nuclear War”.

    Lily Tinker Fortel, A graduate of Earlham College’s Peace Studies Program, is a full time staff member at Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, and does community organizing and outreach on behalf of peace and nuclear disarmament education with the Columbia Peace Coalition.

    Russ Breyfogle, Social worker and teacher is president of the University of Missouri’s Friends of Peace Studies, and serves as MUNDET’s liaison to the MU Peace Studies Program.

    Scott Jones, President of the Peace and Emergency Action Coalition for Earth.

    MUNDET’s Coaches are:

    Frances A. Boyle, Professor of international law, University of Illinois

    David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, CA, and

    Rick Wayman, Director of Programs, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    Jonathan Schell , Nation Institute Fellow, and Distinguished Fellow, Center for the Study of Globalization, Yale University.

    For additional information, contact Bill Wickersham at:

    bwickers@centurytel.net or 573-817-1512

     

    Bill Wickersham is an adjunct professor of Peace Studies at the University of Missouri, a member of Veterans for Peace and a member of the U.S. Steering Committee of Global Action to Prevent War.

  • The UN and NATO: Which Security and for Whom?

    The world the UN advocates looks good on paper. (1)
    In June 1945, the Charter of the United Nations was signed by 51 member states. Several years later, the two great conventions for civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights came into being, and in subsequent years, important conventions on torture, genocide, women’s and children’s rights followed. After long negotiations, the UN member states came to a consensus at the end of 2008 on a cluster bomb treaty – unfortunately containing limitations – on which several countries insisted, including Germany.
    The existence of extensive international law shows that governments in all parts of the world know what is important for human security and what must be protected.
    And yet, since 1945 international law has been continuously broken. Basic rights to food, health, housing, education, work, freedom of opinion have remained unattainable for many. Wars have been (and are) carried on, in utter violation of the United Nations Charter, e.g. against Yugoslavia, Iraq and in Palestine.
    Torture is practiced, genocide carried out, weapons treaties ignored, the environment robbed of irreplaceable treasures. Uncontrolled financial transactions and economic activities and greed have given rise to an unprecedented crisis of worldwide dimensions.
    Pragmatism flourishes while moral principles are shunted aside. “Ethics” has become a foreign word. Political lying prevails. The gap between the rich and the poor grows wider. The life and survival chances of people have become yet more unequal. Behind all this lie such significant causes as the lack of political will to speak out in defense of the community of the majority as opposed to the welfare of the few and the resulting neglect of rights and the rule of law. The United Nations strains to carrying out its mandate.
    21st century born under the sign of worldwide hypocritical denial
    It should thus come as no surprise that the twenty-first century was born under the sign of confrontation and of worldwide, hypocritical denial.
    Western alliances such as NATO are being challenged by new alliances with weighty members such as Russia, China and India. The key word here is “rearrangement”. Dag Hammarskjoeld, the great man of the United Nations (2), in 1964 shortly before his death expressed his great concern that “ways out of the narrow, matted jungle in the struggle for honor, power and advantage” must be found. Looking back at the beginning of 2009, one can see that since the founding of the United Nations in 1945, two systems, communism and capitalism have collapsed. Maximization of profit hand-in-hand with dishonesty and ethnocentrism are among the causes.
    The UN at a crossroads
    The world of the 192 UN member states has come to a fork in the road. One way leads to a world focused on the well being of society, conflict resolution and peace, i.e. to a life of dignity and human security with social and economic progress for all, wherever they may be – as stated in the United Nations Charter. Down the other road is where the nineteenth century “Great Game” for power will be further played out, a course which, in the twenty-first century, will become more extensive and dangerously more aggressive than ever. This road supposedly leads to democracy, but in truth it is all about power, control and exploitation.
    The peace dividend never existed
    Nothing has ever been seen of the peace dividend that was expected from the end of the Cold War. The aggregate military budgets of all United Nations member states set a new record in 2007, reaching $1,200 billion. The United States military alone represents some 50% of this; the NATO countries 70%. (3) In the same year, development aid was $103 billion. (4) or 8.3% of the amount spent on the military!
    Since 1969, the United Nations has requested that every year the tiny amount of 0.7% of the GDP of the industrialized countries be allocated to development aid. In fact, the figure for 2008 is around 0.3%. (5) This extreme inequality between military and development spending shows that the current emphasis is not on human security as envisioned in the United Nations Millennium Goals (6} but on countries’ military security. Those who point out how ludicrous such a comparison is willingly misunderstand that strengthening personal human security constitutes a decisive contribution to reducing the root causes of worldwide conflict. They refuse to accept that military security through alliances and the self-interest of governments encourages and deepens international conflicts.
    UN and NATO: bonum commune or western interests
    A comparison of the mandates of the United Nations and of NATO shows clearly how opposed the purposes of these two institutions are. In the 63 years of its existence, the United Nations mandate has remained the same.
    The United Nations was created to promote and maintain worldwide peace. NATO exists to assure the self-interest of a group of 26 UN member countries. Its mandate, grounded in the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, originally dealt with the defense of its member states. At the end of the Cold War, in 1989, its mandate appeared to have been fulfilled. Nevertheless, the NATO members wanted to maintain this Western alliance. This launched the search for a new role for NATO.
    21st century NATO incompatible with UN Charter
    In 1999, NATO acknowledged that it was seeking to orient itself according to a new fundamental strategic concept. From a narrow military defense alliance it was to become a broad based alliance for the protection of the vital resources’ needs of its members. Besides the defense of member states’ borders, it set itself new purposes such as assured access to energy sources and the right to intervene in “movements of large numbers of persons” and in conflicts far from the boarders of NATO countries. The readiness of the new alliance to include other countries, particularly those that had previously been part of the Soviet Union, shows how the character of this military alliance has altered.
    In the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, the Charter of the United Nations was declared to be NATO’s legally binding framework. However, the United Nations monopoly of the use of force, especially as specified in Article 51 of the Charter, was no longer accepted according to the 1999 NATO doctrine.
    NATO’s territorial scope, until then limited to the Euro-Atlantic region, was expanded by its member to encompass the whole world in keeping with a strategic context that was global in its sweep. At the Budapest summit, on 3 April 2008, NATO declared that it intended to meet the emerging challenges of the twenty-first century “with all the possible means of its mission.”
    It added that the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty of the founding countries had been ratified by the current parliaments and thereby had become international law. This did not hold for later NATO strategies and doctrines.
    UN-NATO-accord: serious threat to peace
    In spite of this NATO declaration, which, officially, would serve only the interests of a small minority of United Nations member states, on 23 September 2008, an accord was signed between the United Nations and NATO Secretaries General, Ban Ki-moon, and Jaap de Hoop-Scheffer. This took place without any reference to the United Nations Security Council.
    In the generally accepted agreement of stated purposes, one reads of a “broader council” and “operative cooperation”, for example in “peace keeping” in the Balkans and in Afghanistan. Both secretaries general committed themselves to acting in common to meet threats and challenges.
    In these current times of confrontation, one expects from the United Nations secretariat an especially high level of political neutrality. The UN/NATO accord is anything but neutral and will thus not remain without serious consequences. The Russian representative to NATO in Brussels, Dmitry Rogozin, has characterized the United Nations agreement with NATO, a politico-military structure, as “illegal”; Serge Lavrov, former Russian ambassador to the United Nations in New York and current Russian foreign minister has declared himself “shocked” that such a pact has been ratified in secret and without consultation.
    UN-NATO-accord: incompatible with UN Charter
    Several important questions thus arise:
    Is the United Nations accord with NATO – a military alliance with nuclear weapons – in contradiction with Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, which requires that conflicts be resolved by peaceful means? Can UN and NATO actions be distinguished when three of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are also NATO members? How can future violations of international law by NATO be legally prosecuted? Is an institution like NATO, which in 1999, without a UN mandate, unlawfully bombed Serbia and Kosovo, a suitable partner for the United Nations?
    UN mandate makes NATO obsolete
    Any evaluation of the UN/NATO pact must take into account that NATO is a relic of the Cold War; that NATO, as a Western alliance, is regarded with considerable mistrust by the other 166 United Nations member states; that a primary NATO aim is to assert, by military means, its energy and power interests in opposition to other United Nations member states and that the United States, a founding member of the NATO community, in the most unscrupulous ways, has disparaged the United Nations and broken international law. (7)
    Finally, it must be pointed out that the Charter of the United Nations provides for a Military Staff Committee, whose mandate is to advise and assist the United Nations Security Council “on all questions relating to the Security Council’s military requirements for the maintenance of international peace and security.” (8) If it is thus a matter of NATO countries looking after the well-being of the international community and not the interests of small group of states, then the United Nations mandate makes NATO obsolete!
    It is urgent that one or several member states petition the International Court of Justice to rule on the interpretation of the UN/NATO pact of 23 September 2008, in conformity with the Courts statutes. (9)
    The people of the world have a right to request such a ruling and a right to expect an answer. It will be recalled that the preamble to the Charter of the United Nations Charter states, “We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined […] to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained,” and not “We, the governments”! (10)
    Thus, the question of what road the peoples of the world should take would be answered. Whoever seeks to serve the cause of peace and conflict resolution must take the rough road of United Nations multilateralism and eschew the smooth road of the NATO alliance. As the Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy said to the Security Council in 1998: “We must find our way to multilateralism, which exists for the benefit of the world community and not for the self-interest of the few.” The way to it will be a long one, for there has never yet been a multilateralism of this kind.
    In 1994, the United Nations began promoting the concept of “human security”. In so doing, it wished to emphasize how important it is to see human rights as part of the daily lives of individual persons – freedom from fear and freedom from want. In 2000, for the first time in the history of the United Nations, development goals were quantified. This represents real progress for the strengthening of human security. Eight so-called Millennium Development Goals in the fight against poverty, child and mother mortality, primary education etc. are to be reached between 2000 and 2015. “Military humanism” – deception for self-interests
    In this way, the United Nations seeks to make clear that besides country-related (national/military) security, there is also human-related security. Advocates of national security, for example governments, whose goal is military security through the strengthening of alliances such as NATO, know this.
    They openly speak of “military humanism”. They pursue their legitimate interests. From this comes their interpretation of the new concept of “responsibility to protect”. (11)
    This is a sham, for it is a matter of advancing specific, individual interests and not of simply protecting the innocent. Were this really the case, it would be obvious in Afghanistan, Darfur, Gaza, Goma, Somalia, Zimbabwe and elsewhere.
    In all areas of human security, there has been progress. Yet it improbable that the Millennium Goals will become reality by 2015. A sum of $135 billion will be needed for the attainment of these goals in the remaining time of 2009–2015. This comes to $ 22.5 billion per year. Those who claim that this is a huge sum probably do not realize that the United States spends $ 180 billion per year for its military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan – or that in late 2008 the countries affected by the economic and financial crisis made available at a few days’ notice some $ 3,000 billion (!) for the bailout of mismanaged institutions in need of reform within their borders.
    The possibilities are available – the political will is required

    The success of the United Nations Millennium Goals is not a question of money even in the context of the present economically critical times. Progress in the area of increased human security requires political will for such a transformation. Over the previous decades of international discussion about financing international cooperation, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that it would be easy to create innovative financing alternatives. (12) Plausible suggestions are ignored or rejected. Many governments fear that the independence of international institutions such as the United Nations might become too great.
    Those who in the twenty-first century want to live in peace will encounter no difficulty in choosing the road to follow. Access to this road is open. The Charter of the United Nations, which is to be the means by which we beat swords into ploughshares and not ploughshares into swords, remains the basis for human progress and security.
    Endnotes:
    1. The new alliances include i) the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), founded in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its main objective is security in Central Asia. India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia enjoy observer status with the SCO. ii) Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) created a political and commercial community in 2001, and iii) Brazil, India and South Africa, a combination that has on several occasions brought about the downfall of the WTO Doha trade round on the grounds of a dispute on tariffs. 2. Dag Hammerskjoeld, born near Lund (Sweden) in 1905. He was the second UN Secretary General from 1953 to 1961, when he was killed in a mysterious air crash near the Congo border in Rhodesia. 3. See: Swedish International Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI), 2008 Almanac, 9 June 2008. 4. See: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Aid Targets Slippage out of Reach? DAC 1 Official and Private (Aid) Flows. 5. According to a 1969 UN guideline, donor countries should provide 0.7% of their GNP each year for international development cooperation. Only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have so far achieved this target. 6. In 2000, the UN General Assembly adopted eight development objectives for the period 2000–2015. These include reducing hunger and poverty by 50%, basic schooling for all children, equality of men and women, reducing child mortality by 66% and mortality rates for women in connection with childbirth by 75%. 7. The keywords are the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and torture flights. 8. Chapter VII Article 47 of the UN Charter provides for a Military Staff Committee consisting of the chiefs of staff of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Although it has never been convened since 1945, the Article has remained in effect. 9. The statute of the International Court of Justice is given jurisdiction for the interpretation of treaties by Chapter XII, Article 36. 10. See Preamble to the UN Charter. 11. This concept is mentioned in the UN Document 2005 World Summit Outcome (A/60/L.1 – 15 September 2005), paras. 138 and 139, see also para. 79). In this document, the UN General Assembly clearly states that only the Security Council has the right to use Chapter VII of the Charter to protect populations against genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, if necessary using force. 12. The innovatory proposals for financing also include the “Tobin tax” named after James Tobin, an American economist, who in 1972 proposed that a tax (0.05-1.00%) should be levied on international currency transactions that could be used inter alia to finance development aid.
    Seven challenges for the present:
    1) Progress towards a fundamental reform of the UN as a global objective. Multilateralism in the interests of humanity can be achieved; 2) Return to the principles of the UN Charter. The UN must no longer simply be a political toolbox; 3) Recognition and furtherance of human security as the priority for dignified survival. Military security cannot substitute for human security; 4) Compliance with international law. Political responsibility without having to render accounts for the consequences of actions must not be permitted; 5) Abandonment of the free (and anarchic) market economy. Order, supervision and control of the economy and of the finance industry are a guarantee and not a threat to democracy; 6) Urgency of a UN declaration against double standards. The elimination of special rights for alliances is a precondition for settling conflicts and serves peace; 7) Development of ethical principles for state and governmental information and media standards. Organized untruths must be punished. Finally, an appeal to the general public to continue to make demands of the body politic and to take a more active role in contemporary events. Dag Hammerskjoeld used the term “negotiations with oneself.”

    Hans von Sponeck is former UN Assistant Secretary General and Chairman of the Centre for the UN Millenium Development Goals in Basel, Switzerland. He is a Councilor of the World Future Council.

  • A Recipe for Survival

    After two mostly wasted decades since the end of the Cold War, nuclear disarmament is again high on the international agenda.

    President Obama has pledged to seek a world free of nuclear weapons – a legal commitment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty – and, as a first step, to negotiate further cuts in nuclear stockpiles with Russia. These two countries combined hold 95 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal.

    Former statesmen are getting together to demand the scrapping of all nuclear weapons. After eight years in which arms control was not a priority for the United States, the fog has lifted. The challenge now is how to ensure that this new enthusiasm does not fizzle out.

    The change of heart has been motivated not just by idealism but by a sober realization that the risk of nuclear weapons being used is increasing significantly.

    Next time, the culprit could well be a terrorist group for whom the concept of deterrence, which helped the world until now to escape a nuclear Armageddon, is irrelevant.

    The nonproliferation regime is starting to come apart at the seams. Sensitive technology thought to be the preserve of a few advanced countries has recently been acquired with alarming ease by others. Possession of nuclear weapons is still seen as conferring prestige and providing an insurance policy against attack, as Iraq and North Korea seem to demonstrate.

    Nuclear weapon states, which between them have some 27,000 warheads, reinforce this message by modernizing their nuclear arsenals. To make matters worse, countries that master uranium enrichment can have a bomb within months if they so decide.

    Fortunately, there is now an emerging consensus on what could and should be done:

    • Bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force and ban the development of new nuclear weapons;
    • Initiate negotiations on a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty that would ban the production of material for nuclear weapons;
    • Negotiate a successor for the START treaty between Russia and the United States, which expires this year, containing significant, verifiable cuts in their nuclear warheads. An initial target could be to cut to 1,000 or even 500 warheads on each side;
    • Extend the warning time for possible nuclear attack. As an insane relic of the Cold War, Russian and United States leaders may have no more than 30 minutes to respond to an apparent attack that could be the result of computer error or unauthorized use;
    • Develop a mechanism to put all facilities for enriching uranium and reprocessing plutonium under multinational control. This would give countries guaranteed supplies of fuel for peaceful nuclear power but not access to the material needed to build a weapon;
    • Give the International Atomic Energy Agency sufficient legal authority, technological capabilities and resources to credibly verify the disarmament process and to ensure that non-nuclear-weapon states use nuclear energy exclusively for peaceful purposes. The IAEA and the Security Council together must be able to effectively deter, detect and respond to possible proliferation cheats;
    • Radically improve the physical security of nuclear materials.

    Recent statements by the Obama administration give us hope that some of these measures can be adopted quickly. However, the deep-rooted causes of the insecurity that have plagued the world for decades need to be addressed simultaneously if durable security is to be attained.

    First, poverty and inequality. The links between poverty, repression and injustice, on the one hand, and extremism and violence, on the other, are clear for all to see. We must learn to value all human life equally. Developed countries – quick to react when the lives of their own citizens are at stake – give the clear impression that they do not really care about the lives of the world’s poor.

    Second, festering conflicts. The Middle East, home to the world’s most perilous and intractable conflict, will never be at peace until the Palestinian question is resolved. What compounds the problem is that the nuclear nonproliferation regime has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of Arab public opinion because of the perceived double-standards concerning Israel, the only state in the region outside the NPT and known to possess nuclear weapons.

    Iraq and Libya are unlikely to be the last countries in the Middle East to be tempted to acquire nuclear weapons. Concerns about current and future nuclear programs in the region will persist until a lasting peace is achieved and all nuclear weapons in the area are eliminated as part of a regional security structure. The Obama administration’s pledge to engage in direct diplomacy with Iran, without preconditions and on the basis of mutual respect, and to seek a grand bargain, is long overdue.

    Third, the weakness of international institutions. The most pressing threats facing the world, such as weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, the global financial crisis and climate change, can only be addressed through collaborative global action.

    For that we need multilateral institutions. We must overcome the cynicism that has too often characterized government attitudes to the UN. The UN and related agencies must be given adequate authority and funding and put in the hands of leaders who have vision, courage and credibility.

    Above all, we need to halt the glaring breach of core principles of international law such as limitations on the unilateral use of force, proportionality in self-defense and the protection of civilians during hostilities in order to avoid a repeat of the civilian carnage in Iraq and, most recently, in Gaza.

    A convincing response to these challenges requires a new system of security. The Security Council, often paralyzed and with its authority dwindling due to frequent discord, needs to be reformed to reflect the world of today and not of 1945. It should have a robust and well defined peacekeeping capability to prevent the massacre of innocent millions in places like Congo, Rwanda and Darfur. The Council should be systematically engaged in preventing and resolving conflicts, addressing root causes and not just symptoms.

    Nuclear disarmament is key to our very survival. We now have another chance to create a saner, safer world by working to eliminate the nuclear sword of Damocles that hangs over all our heads. Let us not waste this opportunity.

     

    Mohamed ElBaradei is Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

  • Can President Obama Change Nukes Policy?

    Originally published at truthout.org

    What should the world expect from the new US president on the nuclear front?

    The question may sound distant and largely disconnected from the current context, where the financial crisis looms as his administration’s first priority. No one can be blamed, however, for raising it, as nuclear weapons form one of the main issues on which Barack Obama differentiated himself clearly from his rivals – during the battle for the Democratic nomination as well as the war for the presidency.

    Obama did so dramatically on August 2, 2007, when confronted with a query about use of the ultimate weapon in the war on terror and against proliferation. He declared: “I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance.” He then added: “Involving civilians.”

    Obama then said, “There’s been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.” That brought reactions bordering on ridicule. “It’s naive to say,” sneered a dismissive John McCain, “that we will never use nuclear weapons.” Hillary Clinton came out with a stronger-than-Republican rebuff: “”Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons. Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace. And I don’t believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.”

    “Presidents,” she added for good measure, ” never take the nuclear option off the table.”

    As president now, will Obama keep the terrible option off the table? This and other questions of his nuclear outlook reflect more than ideal curiosity in regions on which the new president’s foreign policy focuses. In South Asia, one of such regions, the questions acquire added urgency.

    Before coming to the region with two nuclear-armed rivals, a little more about what Obama has let the world know so far about his mind on the weapons of mass destruction that provided only an excuse for war to his predecessor.

    In Obama’s inaugural address, the subject figured only in the sentence: “With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet.” He, however, had made clearer promises during the campaign.

    In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago in October 2007, he added his voice to an anti-nuke plan endorsed earlier by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the Cold War era, including Henry Kissinger. The group had wanted the US to start building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that had become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.” Obama set a goal of eliminating nuclear weapons in the world, adding that the US must greatly reduce its stockpile of nuclear arms as well.

    Speaking at Purdue University in Indiana in July 2008, he declared: “It’s time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons.” He added: “As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong deterrent. But we’ll make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.”

    The promises compelled attention because of the contrast they presented to what the world had been hearing from the White House. As a summary by the New York-headquartered Natural Resources Defense Council put it years ago: “The Bush administration assumes that nuclear weapons will be part of US military forces at least for the next 50 years. Starting from this premise it is planning an extensive and expensive series of programs to sustain and modernize the existing force and to begin studies for a new ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) to be operational in 2020, a new SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile) and SSBM (surface-to-surface ballistic missile) in 2030, and a new heavy bomber in 2040, as well as new warheads for all of them.”

    Nuclear weapons were to continue to play a “critical role” because they possess “unique properties” that provide “credible military options” for holding at risk “a wide range of target types” important to a potential adversary’s threatened use of “weapons of mass destruction” or “large-scale conventional military force.” The neocon regime wanted a return of the US to nuclear testing, even as Bush promoted the idea of battlefield nukes like bunker-busters.

    Obama has never disowned the general declarations of his intent on nuclear disarmament, but has increasingly been couching it in anti-terrorist terms. A more detailed “foreign policy agenda” delineated on the White House web site cites terrorism as the top-priority target of his administration’s plan of action in this area.

    After recalling Obama’s record as a senator in taking congressional action to counter “the threat of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon and the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes,” the agenda states: “Obama and (Vice President Joseph) Biden will secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years. While working to secure existing stockpiles of nuclear material, Obama and Biden will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. This will deny terrorists the ability to steal or buy loose nuclear materials.”

    The agenda is silent on US fears of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into terrorist hands, but these continue to be voiced. Threats of American efforts to “take out” Pakistan’s nuclear arms have been heard, from time to time, ever since the fall of the military regime of Pervez Musharraf, presumed somehow to have made these weapons pilferage-proof. Apprehensions in that regard have been revived after David Sanger’s article earlier this month, based on his book, “The Worst Pakistan Nightmare for Obama.”

    Pakistan’s army and its civilian government have hastened to assure the US of the safety and security of their nuclear weapons. The Pakistani media have made clear a public resentment, which Islamabad could not officially articulate, over the implications of what are seen as Washington-Pentagon insinuations. Indignant note is made of the fact that, while there is panic over Pakistan’s weapons, India’s nuclear arsenal is not seen as a serious problem at all.

    The second task listed in the agenda – strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) – has an India link, too. The agenda, however, takes no note of the blow that, according to the world peace movement, the US-India nuclear deal has dealt the treaty distinguished for its increasing brittleness over the years.

    Instead, the agenda says: “Obama and Biden will crack down on nuclear proliferation by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.” To many, the formulation would seem to reflect the false priorities that have weakened the “world nuclear order” that the NPT allegedly represents.

    The only way to strengthen the treaty would seem to lie in serious and sincere action by the leading nuclear powers on Article VI of the NPT. The provision, introduced under international pressure, says: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    The agenda, in fairness to its formulators, addresses this issue as well. Talking of the third task of the new administration on the nuclear weapons front, the document says: “Obama and Biden will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it. Obama and Biden will always maintain a strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist. But they will take several steps down the long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons. They will stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take US and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the US-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global.”

    This, however, is easier said than done. A weighty Bush legacy of nuclear militarism is waiting to be lived down. Officially, the Obama administration is bound to an extent by the interim report of a bipartisan congressional commission, released as recently as last month, which talks about the US teetering “on the brink of losing the capability to maintain its nuclear weapons.”

    The new president cannot listen to this argument and make the nuclear leap he has promised. Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association offers a strikingly different counsel: “If Obama directs the Pentagon to conduct a congressionally mandated nuclear posture review on the basis of this ‘core deterrence’ mission, then Washington and Moscow could each slash their respective arsenals to 1,000 or fewer total warheads. This would open the way for Obama to fulfill his campaign pledge …”

    Obama faces a challenge to his drive for a change in the US nukes policy not only from the old policies he seeks to discard, but also from personalities whom he prefers to retain in the administration. Reports about a conflict of views on a crucial issue between him and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have not been officially rebutted so far. Gates continues to press for a reliable replacement warhead (RRW) program, while the president’s agenda (quoted above) asserts without ambiguity that the new administration “will stop the development of new nuclear weapons.”

    Obama has shown courage in acting for the closure of the Guantanamo torture chambers, in defiance of powerful defenders of “anti-terrorist” atrocities. Will he move forward towards nuclear disarmament in the face of inevitable opposition from the military-industrial complex?

  • President Obama and the Ballistic Missile Defense System in Eastern Europe

    Overview

    Will nuclear weapons remain a key instrument to reinforce American national security? The dawning of a new American leadership has aroused much curiosity within the international community: how will President Obama respond to the planned American ballistic missile defense system in Eastern Europe? This analysis seeks to answer the following questions concerning President Obama’s position on the ballistic missile defense (BMD) system and prospects on future Russo-American relations:

    • How has the BMD project redefined Russo-American relations?
    • Should this plan go ahead, what implications would it have on the international community?
    • How can President Obama maintain global stability?

    Background

    The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was followed by Eastern Europe’s hasty departure from Moscow’s periphery. To quickly integrate these former Soviet satellites under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) security umbrella, the Alliance initiated the Partnership-for-Peace program, which served as a stepping stone towards full NATO membership. This was seen as an aggressive encroachment into Russia’s immediate periphery and drastically tipped Eastern Europe’s delicate power balance. With clashing regional security interests and some 3,000 Russian and American nuclear weapons remaining on high (hair-trigger) alert, it has become ever so critical to revisit or replace major nonproliferation accords: the 1972 Antiballistic Treaty (from which President Bush withdrew in 2001), 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (suspended by Russia in 2007), 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (expires in December 2009), and 2002 Treaty of Moscow (scheduled to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles to 1,700 to 2,200 per country by 2012). Still, existing weaknesses of these accords paralyze the international community from eliminating nuclear weapons altogether: reduction cannot be reliably verified and the lack of a requirement to dismantle the weapons allows the U.S. and Russia to simply keep the weapons in storage.

    On the American side, while President Bill Clinton was hesitant about NATO’s eastward expansion, his successor’s defense policies considerably deteriorated Russo-American relations. In particular, President George W. Bush’s strong push of the BMD system in Eastern Europe has rekindled a dangerous Cold War mentality of distrust and rivalry. Despite fervent objections from the Russian side and European public leaders, NATO members meeting at the April 2008 summit reluctantly endorsed Washington’s controversial plan to install the BMD system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

    Even as U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) experts questioned its effectiveness, the Bush administration claimed that the missile shield’s “purely defensive capabilities” would allow the U.S. to respond to any potential attack on its chief ally, Europe, from “dangerous and unpredictable regimes” like Iran. President Bush explained in 2007, “Instead of spending decades trying to develop a perfect shield, we decided to begin deploying missile defense capabilities as soon as the technology was proven ready — and then build on that foundation by adding new capabilities as they matured.”1 Poland plans to host ten interceptor missiles in exchange for significant U.S. military assistance. The Czech Republic plans to host a related tracking radar system designed to identify and shoot down missiles. Tests and developments on the project are already costing $10 billion annually, the Pentagon’s largest procurement program.2

    As the BMD project progresses, Moscow has warned of retaliation. President Dmitrii Medvedev chose to postpone his State of the Union speech until the day after the U.S. presidential election to criticize America’s missile shield plan. In recent months, he has intensified the testing and mass production of advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles specifically designed to penetrate antiballistic shields such as the Bulava and Russian RS-24.3 More relevant is a proposal to install mobile Iskander missiles in Kalingrad, Russia’s southern enclave bordering Poland. Clearly, these weapons will be capable of destroying America’s proposed interceptor missiles in Poland. Furthermore, Medvedev plans to utilize radio equipment to intercept Washington’s planned defense system. Seeking to compromise, the Bush administration offered to allow Russian observers at the planned BMD sites, but President Medvedev swiftly rejected the offer.
    Again disregarding Russia’s opposition to the project, on December 5, 2008, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency tested its “largest, most complex” $120-150 million long-range ballistic missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California. This was the first remote launching of an expansively coordinated experimental project incorporating multiple systems from various branches of the armed forces. While the agency immediately declared success, claiming that “all its components performed as designed,” there were several notable deficiencies associated with the test. This missile test actually failed to “release countermeasures designed to try to confuse the interceptor missile like decoys or chaff to throw off an incoming interceptor.”4 Since these tests began in 2001, many have failed or been scaled back because of technical problems. Adding to these are the unpredictability of missile attacks and unreliability of a missile shield. This leads us to ask: how reliable are the Bush administration and MDA’s “successful” missile tests and are they worth an annual cost of $10 billion?5 Costs of the United States’ missile defense program in the past 25 years have accrued to at least $150 billion.6

    Analysis

    Russia remains committed to a “reactive” foreign policy. With the Kalingrad plan, President Medvedev aims to “neutralize – if necessary – the [American] anti-missile system”. Furthermore, he is confident in Russian technological superiority that would counter any incoming missile attack. He recently asserted that “the Americans will never be able to implement this scenario, because Russian strategic nuclear forces, including the Strategic Missile Forces, will be capable of delivering a strike of retribution under any course of developments.” To take this a step further, President Medvedev announced in early December a comprehensive upgrade of Russia’s missile program. New developments would include the RS-24 missiles specifically designed to counter space-based missile attacks as well as penetrate any missile shield.

    What explains Russia’s intensified reaction? Eastern Europe is strategically positioned at the heart of continental Europe. Washington’s increasingly intimate relations with Poland and the Czech Republic is seen as an intrusion into Russia’s “near-abroad” and traditional sphere of influence. Iran recently announced that it produced and tested missiles capable of hitting southern Europe, but experts remain skeptical as there is not much concrete evidence to support this claim. More notably, the ballistic missile plan explicitly targets space-based military weaponry, and with Russia as the only country with technological capability to develop such advanced weaponry, one could assume that the missile shield targets Russia.

    After European leaders heavily criticized Russia’s proposed missile plan in Kalingrad, both the Russian political and military leadership requested renewed Russo-U.S. relations and invited the new American leadership to engage in deeper dialogue and cooperation on European security. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has expressed renewed hope in cooperating with his new American counterpart, suggesting that new U.S. leadership would unfold a fresh chapter in Russo-American relations, “We very much hope that these changes will be positive. We are now seeing these positive signals.” Obama’s cautious stance on the ballistic missile defense plan has attracted much attention from the Russian leadership; he explains, “If we want the world to deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia must lead by example… We cannot and should not accept the threat of accidental or unauthorized nuclear launch.”7 While the Russian leadership anxiously awaits concrete actions, Prime Minister Medvedev also states, “If it’s not just words, if they are transformed into practical policy, we will respond accordingly…we will not do anything until America does the first step.”8

    Obama, throughout his presidential campaign, persistently reiterated two primary global concerns: nuclear terrorist attacks and nuclear weapons proliferation by rogue states. He envisioned the U.S. taking up global leadership to denuclearize to allow for “a world in which there are no nuclear weapons” and promised more commitment and funding towards nuclear nonproliferation, which he calls “the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world.” To move toward this nuclear-free world vision, the Obama administration hopes to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty aimed at reducing nuclear weapons and materials by limiting nuclear development, testing, and proliferation. In addition, the Obama administration has outlined plans to cooperate with Russia to remove thousands of nuclear weapons from operational readiness, or hair-trigger alert, to avoid the possibility of an accidental nuclear launch. To allow for an actual chance for a nuclear-free world, the President-elect staunchly believes that Russo-American cooperation is integral to leading a global effort.

    According to Obama, in the immediate future, any American unilateral nuclear disarmament would prove futile and enormously dangerous to American national security. 9 His foreign policy statement says, “As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong nuclear deterrent.”10 President Obama singles out “dangerous” regimes, notably Iran and Korea, whose nuclear missile developments could lead to a global nuclear catastrophe. Because of this, he acknowledges that a missile defense system would still serve as a vital security shield to strategic America’s European partners. However, the President urges against any “premature” deployment of the missile system but would support the missile plan only after “vigorous testing” has proven the system’s operational effectiveness. In the long run, he warns that such a plan would certainly produce highly undesirable implications on the entire international security regime with the American public bearing enormous financial costs for an experimental project whose capability remains far from able to guarantee Americans and its allies security from missile attacks.

    The claimed “success” of the December 5, 2008, test has produced serious implications for the progression of the BMD plan. Not only has it consolidated public support of the proposed missile shield, but it has already forced the new President into an awkward position and could effectively undermine his commitment to nuclear disarmament. To immediately withdraw the BMD plan, the President-elect would be criticized for appeasing to the Russian demands as well as neglecting to provide sustained support to NATO allies; some fear that such a move would drastically undermine American global leadership. This issue is especially delicate, so the Obama administration will have to develop strategic ways to cooperate with Russia.

    Future Outlook

    Should President Obama move forward with the BMD project:

    • The only real winners are Boeing and other major contractors from the military industrial industry, which are reaping enormous profits at the cost of American taxpayers’ money.
    • The current international structure would become dangerously destabilized. This would antagonize Russia, a crucial participant in global nonproliferation and disarmament, and retard two decades of moderate cooperation on nuclear issues.
    • Continued proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile defense would spur a new Cold War arms race with more sophisticated weaponry with the devastating possibility of a nuclear launch. This would prompt other countries to continue or start their own nuclear programs with nuclear weapons becoming strategic instruments of political leverage in international relations.
    • American unilateral security engagement would undermine European security. Instead of deterring, Washington’s active engagement with Eastern Europe would trigger a new arms race with Russia and others. Continental Europe could become a new target for attack by the United States’ adversaries.

    If President Obama stops the BMD project, the implications are as follows:

    • Much-needed resources could be diverted towards more strategic security measures to safeguard American and global security.
    • Reinforce American leadership and commitment to international security and nonproliferation through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and European Union.
    • President Obama could gain full support from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who has actively pushed for more funding for the State Department to substantially expand its diplomatic corps, cautious NATO expansion and engagement in the former Soviet satellites, and limited reliance on military defense.

    Conclusion When did nuclear deterrence ever deter? Paradoxically, America’s deeply ingrained confidence in nuclear deterrence has only accelerated the arms race. The national missile defense project has consistently exacerbated the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and pushed the international community to the brink of a dangerous arms race. The Bush administration’s “new deterrence” policy put at great risk the delicate power balance of the global community.11 The new presidency presents America a unique opportunity to reassess the missile defense plan. Russia’s top political and military leadership, Medvedev, Putin, and General Nikolai Marakov, have already extended their offer of engagement. President Obama has immense power to pursue wise, pragmatic, and strategic global leadership; these are some recommended strategies that he could take:

    1. Initiate regular, high-level dialogue to foster mutual understanding and cooperation with Russia.
    2. Revisit arms control treaties to make necessary changes to address newly emerging dangers of nuclear weaponry. This includes placing a limitation on nuclear stockpiles and the development and production of particularly dangerous weapons of mass destruction. To ensure their effectiveness, the U.S. and Russia would need to engage other nuclear powers, particularly Pakistan, India, and China.
    3. The U.S. could pursue a more multilateral strategy and engage with Moscow through the NATO-Russia Council. This would level the playing field and provide a more transparent forum for the engagement of all 26 members of NATO, in particular Poland and the Czech Republic.
    4. Collaborate with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to develop more strategic, pragmatic, capable, and cost-effective defense strategies which emphasize diplomacy and are detached from the military-industrial complex.

    Endnotes

    1. Bush, George W. (2007, October). Discussion of Global War on Terror. Speech presented at National Defense University, Washington, DC.

    2. Gordon, M. (May 2006). “U.S. Seeks antimissile shield to block Iran.” International Herald Tribune.

    3. Faulconbridge, G. (Dec 2008). “Russia Starts Production of New Ballistic Missiles.” Reuters.

    4. “Pentagon Says It Destroyed Missile In Test of Air Shield” (Dec 2008). Associated Press.

    5. “Obama’s challenge at the Pentagon” (Nov 2008). International Herald Tribune.

    6. “How to Pay for a 21st-century Military” (Dec 2008). New York Times.

    7. “The Candidates and Nuclear Nonproliferation”. Council on Foreign Affairs. <www.cfr.org>.

    8. Isachenkov, V. (Dec 2008). “Russia’s leaders optimistic about ties with US”. Huffington Post.

    9. White House Website <www.whitehouse.gov>.

    10. White House Website. <www.whitehouse.gov>.

    11. Colby, E. (Apr 2008). RAND Corporation. <www.rand.org>.

    Loan C. Pham is a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation intern and is pursuing a Masters degree in Global Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

  • A World Free of Nuclear Weapons: The Wrong and Right Way to Do It

    UPI Outside View, January 24, 2008

     

    Since the beginning of the Atomic Age, policymakers and scholars have attempted to come up with formulas to constrain the nuclear genie. In mid-January, in an effort to move this ambition forward, former senior decision-makers — Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, Defense Secretary William Perry and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Samuel Nunn — released “Toward a Nuclear-Free World,” a report published in the Wall Street Journal designed to advance nuclear abolition.

    The timing would seem propitious. In December 2007, in voting down a new nuclear weapon (the reliable replacement warhead), Congress mandated that President Bush and his successor rationalize the U.S. nuclear arsenal by the end of 2009 to justify future appropriations. As a result, a disarmament proposal advanced by such statesmen and endorsed by dozens of prominent experts should be taken seriously. Unfortunately, it cannot.

    At first blush the Shultz et al. proposal appears to be promising for nuclear-arms controllers, who could object to extension of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, deeper nuclear reductions beyond those promoted by the Bush administration or increasing the warning time for the initiation of nuclear use. Likewise the call for cooperative ballistic missile defense, increased security at nuclear materials sites, strengthening non-proliferation verification and implementation of the treaty banning nuclear weapons testing. If constraining nuclear development or use marks the objective, the answer is no one.

    However, if the aim truly is the elimination of nuclear arms — the authors declared an objective to eradicate the “threat to the world” — the proposal falls far short. A review of what could be done versus what the authors say should be done supports this conclusion.

    — Set a timeline for the elimination of nuclear arsenals, not an “agreement to undertake further substantial reductions.” The authors’ call for extension of the monitoring provisions of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty coupled to undefined reductions below the 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear warheads allowed under the 1992 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty with Russia may be admirable, but it does not amount a “nuclear-free world.” Absent weapons elimination benchmarks — including disposal of non-deployed warheads — the authors’ plan amounts to maintenance of diminished but still substantial weapons caches.

    — Separate nuclear warheads from delivery systems. To reduce the risk of nuclear war prior to abolition, the authors advocate increased warning and decision time for nuclear initiation. They speak abstractly about mutually agreed upon “physical barriers in the command-and-control sequence” to prevent premature nuclear launch. Only warhead separation from missiles meets the objective. Certainly, if Pakistan can separate its bombs from delivery vehicles to allow time for prudent decisions, so can the United States, Russia and others.

    — Eliminate long-range ballistic missiles except those used for commercial and scientific research. Such an approach nullifies the authors’ promotion of ballistic missile defense. A precedent for negotiated missile elimination includes the 1987 Reagan-Gorbachev Intermediate Force Reduction Treaty. Elimination also finds precedent in the unilateral withdrawal and destruction of obsolete delivery systems from arsenals.

    — Eliminate all high enriched uranium and separated plutonium rather than enhance security at sites holding such material. The authors call for countries to apply the highest standards of security to nuclear materials. But only removal and disposal will prevent access by terrorists or nuclear ambitious nations.

    — Ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty. The U.S. Senate failed to do so during the Clinton administration. The authors propose a “process” to get the treaty implemented but fail to call upon the most prominent hold out to adopt the agreement it gave birth to.

    — Go beyond the Additional Protocol to verify that countries are not using civil nuclear programs for military purposes. The protocol allows International Atomic Energy Agency inspection of all suspect nuclear sites. Many countries have yet to adopt it, but the protocol itself is imperfect. Placing all atomic plants under IAEA co-management would do a better job to prevent nuclear breakouts.

    — Provide teeth to deal with nuclear violators. The authors fail to furnish a strategy to combat atomic cheats. Given the gravity of an attempted nuclear breakout, the international community must have “in place” a dedicated military capacity to stop any nuclear fudging.

    Shultz and his colleagues conclude, “Progress (toward a nuclear-free world) must be facilitated by a clear statement of our ultimate goal.”

    Unfortunately the goal is muddled by the authors’ own formulation. If nuclear disarmament is the objective, we can do far better.

    Bennett Ramberg, Ph.D., J.D., served in the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Bush administration. The author of three books and editor of three others on international security, he has written for such prestigious journals as Foreign Affairs and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Ramberg’s Op-Eds have appeared in all major newspapers in the United States and many around the world.