Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapons

Reliance on Nuclear Weapons in Naively Unrealistic

For many years the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has advocated the global elimination of nuclear weapons. This advocacy is consistent with the moral position adopted by nearly all major religions as well as with the dictates of international law. It is also consistent with the security interests of all states, including the current nuclear weapons states. Nonetheless, many Americans cling tenaciously to the idea that the US is more secure with nuclear weapons than it would be without them.

In response to an article that I wrote recently on “Global Hiroshima,” a letter to the editor took the position, “The proposal to eliminate nuclear weapons is idealistic, but it is naively unrealistic, unless a creditable concept for protecting the US from other nations’ nuclear weapons is available.” The writer concluded his letter by stating, “Our nuclear weapons are not to use, but to prevent other nations from using theirs.”

This is, unfortunately, a falsely reassuring and illusory viewpoint. Nuclear deterrence – the threat of nuclear retaliation – could fail for many reasons, including accidental launches, miscalculations, poor decisions in time of crisis, or the inability to credibly threaten extremist organizations that cannot be located and therefore retaliated against. A threat to retaliate against an opponent that you cannot locate, such as al Qaeda, is futile.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has never called for the US to unilaterally disarm its nuclear arsenal. What we do advocate is for the US to take a leadership role in negotiating nuclear disarmament among all nations. This is a role that only the US can assume, due to its enormous military and economic power.

By taking on this role, the US would be acting in accord with a unanimous 1996 ruling of the International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, which concluded: “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.”

Our position at the Foundation is that the US should take this obligation under international law seriously, both because the US has a responsibility to follow the dictates of international law and because doing so will enhance our national security. This is not a prescription for immediate or unilateral nuclear disarmament. It is a prescription for demonstrating the political will to move judiciously but urgently toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

The first step in following this path would be for the US to convene the other nuclear weapons states and set forth a negotiating agenda. An important confidence building measure would be a legal commitment by all nuclear weapons states to No First Use of nuclear weapons. This would demonstrate that nuclear weapons had no other purpose than deterring another country from using theirs. Other confidence building steps would include the de-alerting of existing nuclear weapons and ratification by all nuclear capable states of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The goal of the negotiations would be the phased elimination of nuclear arsenals under strict and effective international controls. Countries would phase out their nuclear arsenals gradually and in a verifiable manner. Processes would be established to assure that nuclear weapons and materials were not being diverted into secret stores outside the purview of international inspectors.

The plan is simple. It begins with good faith negotiations convened by the US. It ends with a world free of nuclear weapons. In between, there is much to be worked out to assure the security of all states. One thing is certain, however: This is not a “naively unrealistic” plan. It is the only approach that will assure that cities, countries and civilization remain safe from nuclear devastation and that humankind is secure from future Hiroshimas and Nagasakis.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a

leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

August 16, 2006
Nagasaki Peace Declaration

“What can people possibly be thinking?”

At the close of the 61st year following the atomic bombings, voices of anger and frustration are echoing throughout the city of Nagasaki.

At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed our city, instantly claiming the lives of 74,000 people and injuring 75,000 more. People were burned by the intense heat rays and flung through the air by the horrific blast winds. Their bodies bathed in mordant radiation, many of the survivors continue to suffer from the after-effects even today. How can we ever forget the anguished cries of those whose lives and dreams were so cruelly taken from them?

And yet, some 30,000 nuclear weapons stand ready nonetheless to annihilate humanity.

A decade ago, the International Court of Justice stated that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law, strongly encouraging international society to strive for the elimination of nuclear armaments. Six years ago at the United Nations, the nuclear weapon states committed themselves not merely to prevent proliferation, but to an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.

Nuclear weapons are instruments of indiscriminate genocide, and their elimination is a task that mankind must realize without fail.

Last year, the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which 189 countries are signatories, ended without result, and no progress has been observed since.

The nuclear weapon states have not demonstrated sincerity in their efforts at disarmament; the United States of America in particular has issued tacit approval of nuclear weapons development by India, and is moving forward with the construction of cooperative arrangements for nuclear technology. At the same time, nuclear weapon declarant North Korea is threatening the peace and security of Japan and the world as a whole. In fact, the very structure of non-proliferation is facing a crisis due to nuclear ambitions by various nations including Pakistan, which has announced its possession of nuclear arms; Israel, which is widely considered to possess them; and Iran.

The time has come for those nations that rely on the force of nuclear armaments to respectfully heed the voices of peace-loving people, not least the atomic bomb survivors, to strive in good faith for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and to advance towards the complete abolishment of all such weapons.

It must also be said that nuclear weapons cannot be developed without the cooperation of scientists. We would urge scientists to realize their responsibility for the destiny of all mankind, not just for their own particular countries, and to abandon the development of nuclear arms.

Once again we call upon the Japanese government, representing as it does a nation that has experienced nuclear devastation firsthand, to ground itself in reflection upon history, uphold the peaceful intentions of the constitution, enact into the law the three non-nuclear principles, and work for establishment of a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, that the tragedy of war may not occur again. We also urge the Japanese government to provide greater assistance to aging atomic bomb survivors, both within Japan and overseas.

For 61 years, the hibakusha atomic bomb survivors have recounted their tragic experiences to succeeding generations. Many have chosen not to hide the keloid scars on their skin, continuing to tell of things that they might rather not remember. Their efforts are indeed a starting point for peace. Their voices reverberate around the world, calling for the deepest compassion of those who are working to ensure that Nagasaki is the last place on our planet to have suffered nuclear destruction.

The 3rd Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons will be held in October of this year. We invite people working for peace to span generations and national boundaries, and gather together to communicate. Let us firmly join hands and foster an even stronger network for nuclear abolition and peace, extending from Nagasaki throughout the world.

We remain confident that the empathy and solidarity of all those who inherit the hopes of the hibakusha atomic bomb survivors will become an even more potent force, one that will surely serve to realize a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.

In closing, we pray for the undisturbed repose of the souls of those who lost their lives in such misery, we resolve that 2006 should be a new year of departure, and we proclaim our commitment to continue to strive for the establishment of lasting world peace.

Iccho Itoh was the mayor of Nagaski. [He died in April 2007]

August 9, 2006
Towards a Nuclear Free World

If someone holds a classroom full of children hostage with a machine gun, threatening to kill them unless his demands are met, we consider him a dangerous, crazy terrorist. But if a head of state holds millions of civilians hostage with nuclear weapons, many consider this as perfectly normal. We must end that double standard and recognize nuclear weapons for what they are: instruments of terror.

On July 8, 1996, the World Court declared the threat or use of nuclear weapons contrary to international law and unanimously called on all states to conduct negotiations leading to complete nuclear disarmament.

Treaties have been concluded to ban biological and chemical weapons. Why has an agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons eluded us for so long? If Hitler had used nuclear weapons and lost the war, they would have been outlawed as cruel and inhuman long ago.

But because they were first used by the victorious side in a war considered just, they have enjoyed an undeserved aura of legitimacy. Over the last fifty years, many flawed arguments have been put forward intended to justify the policy of nuclear deterrence.

It has been asserted, for example, that nuclear weapons have helped prevent war. Yet the five declared nuclear powers have been involved in eight times as many wars on average since 1945 as the non-nuclear countries. Some credit nuclear weapons with having prevented nuclear war, which is preposterous: without nuclear weapons, there could not possibly be any nuclear war. At the peak, the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals had a destructive power nearly 10,000 times all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or, as President Carter said in his farewell address, one World War II every second for a slow afternoon.

It is conceivable that the threat of nuclear retaliation may help deter a deliberate attack, but not every war begins that way.

When tensions are high, events may escalate out of a small incident, and it is sometimes hard to say who did what first.

Relying on the threat of mutual destruction to deter war is as if we sought to prevent traffic accidents by packing our car with dynamite, putting a trip wire around it and telling everyone, “Don’t hit my car, or it will explode and kill you!” (and me too, of course). This should deter others from hitting me intentionally, but the slightest accidental collision would be fatal.

On numerous occasions, we came close to a nuclear catastrophe, due to misinformation, misunderstandings, or computer errors.

During the Cuban missile crisis, the United States was ready to retaliate against the Soviet Union if Castro had shot down American observation planes, convinced that he did so on Soviet orders. That could easily have escalated out of control. In fact, Khrushchev had ordered Castro to stop shooting at American planes, but Castro ignored his orders. Fortunately, no plane was hit.

As long as the nuclear powers insist on the right to keep their arsenals, some other countries will be tempted to acquire nuclear weapons, too. Once terrorists get hold of nuclear weapons, they may not shrink from using them. Unless we eliminate nuclear weapons, it is only a question of time until they are used, whether deliberately or by accident. We are playing Russian roulette with our future.

Despite decades of government propaganda, US and British polls have found repeatedly that up to 85 percent of voters are in favor of eliminating all nuclear weapons. We must tell the leaders of the nuclear nations that we reject our role as involuntary nuclear hostages. The abolition of nuclear weapons requires a popular movement, in the same way as the abolition of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid came about only after sustained public pressure.

Some grant we might be better off if nuclear weapons had never been invented, but argue that now that we know how to make them, we cannot disinvent them, and therefore have to live with them as long as civilization exists. It is true that we cannot disinvent nuclear weapons, but nobody has disinvented cannibalism either, we simply abhor it. Can’t we learn to abhor equally the thought of incinerating entire cities with nuclear weapons

Dietrich Fischer is Academic Director of the European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria (www.epu.ac.at) and Co-Director of TRANSCEND (www.transcend.org), a peace and development network.

August 5, 2006
The Hiroshima Myth

Every year during the first two weeks of August the mass news media and many politicians at the national level trot out the “patriotic” political myth that the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945 caused them to surrender, and thereby saved the lives of anywhere from five hundred thousand to one million American soldiers, who did not have to invade the islands. Opinion polls over the last fifty years show that American citizens overwhelmingly (between 80 and 90%) believe this false history which, of course, makes them feel better about killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians (mostly women and children) and saving American lives to accomplish the ending of the war.

The best book, in my opinion, to explode this myth is The Decision to Use the Bomb by Gar Alperovitz, because it not only explains the real reasons the bombs were dropped, but also gives a detailed history of how and why the myth was created that this slaughter of innocent civilians was justified, and therefore morally acceptable. The essential problem starts with President Franklin Roosevelt’s policy of unconditional surrender, which was reluctantly adopted by Churchill and Stalin, and which President Truman decided to adopt when he succeeded Roosevelt in April of 1945. Hanson Baldwin was the principal writer for The New York Times who covered World War II and he wrote an important book immediately after the war entitled Great Mistakes of the War. Baldwin concludes that the unconditional surrender policy “. . . was perhaps the biggest political mistake of the war . . . . Unconditional surrender was an open invitation to unconditional resistance; it discouraged opposition to Hitler, probably lengthened the war, costs us lives, and helped to lead to the present aborted peace.”

The stark fact is that the Japanese leaders, both military and civilian, including the Emperor, were willing to surrender in May of 1945 if the Emperor could remain in place and not be subjected to a war crimes trial after the war. This fact became known to President Truman as early as May of 1945. The Japanese monarchy was one of the oldest in all of history dating back to 660 B.C. The Japanese religion added the belief that all the Emperors were the direct descendants of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. The reigning Emperor Hirohito was the 124th in the direct line of descent. After the bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9 of 1945, and their surrender soon thereafter, the Japanese were allowed to keep their Emperor on the throne and he was not subjected to any war crimes trial. The Emperor, Hirohito, came on the throne in 1926 and continued in his position until his death in 1989. Since President Truman, in effect, accepted the conditional surrender offered by the Japanese as early as May of 1945, the question is posed, “Why then were the bombs dropped?”

The author Alperovitz gives us the answer in great detail which can only be summarized here, but he states, “We have noted a series of Japanese peace feelers in Switzerland which OSS Chief William Donovan reported to Truman in May and June [1945]. These suggested, even at this point, that the U.S. demand for unconditional surrender might well be the only serious obstacle to peace. At the center of the explorations, as we also saw, was Allen Dulles, chief of OSS operations in Switzerland (and subsequently Director of the CIA). In his 1966 book The Secret Surrender, Dulles recalled that ‘On July 20, 1945, under instructions from Washington, I went to the Potsdam Conference and reported there to Secretary [of War] Stimson on what I had learned from Tokyo – they desired to surrender if they could retain the Emperor and their constitution as a basis for maintaining discipline and order in Japan after the devastating news of surrender became known to the Japanese people.’” It is documented by Alperovitz that Stimson reported this directly to Truman. Alperovitz further points out in detail the documentary proof that every top presidential civilian and military advisor, with the exception of James Byrnes, along with Prime Minister Churchill and his top British military leadership, urged Truman to revise the unconditional surrender policy so as to allow the Japanese to surrender and keep their Emperor. All this advice was given to Truman prior to the Potsdam Proclamation which occurred on July 26, 1945. This proclamation made a final demand upon Japan to surrender unconditionally or suffer drastic consequences.

Another startling fact about the military connection to the dropping of the bomb is the lack of knowledge on the part of General MacArthur about the existence of the bomb and whether it was to be dropped. Alperovitz states “MacArthur knew nothing about advance planning for the atomic bomb’s use until almost the last minute. Nor was he personally in the chain of command in this connection; the order came straight from Washington. Indeed, the War Department waited until five days before the bombing of Hiroshima even to notify MacArthur – the commanding general of the U.S. Army Forces in the Pacific – of the existence of the atomic bomb.” Alperovitz makes it very clear that the main person Truman was listening to while he ignored all of this civilian and military advice, was James Byrnes, the man who virtually controlled Truman at the beginning of his administration. Byrnes was one of the most experienced political figures in Washington, having served for over thirty years in both the House and the Senate. He had also served as a United States Supreme Court Justice, and at the request of President Roosevelt, he resigned that position and accepted the role in the Roosevelt administration of managing the domestic economy. Byrnes went to the Yalta Conference with Roosevelt and then was given the responsibility to get Congress and the American people to accept the agreements made at Yalta.

When Truman became a senator in 1935, Byrnes immediately became his friend and mentor and remained close to Truman until Truman became president. Truman never forgot this and immediately called on Byrnes to be his number-two man in the new administration. Byrnes had expected to be named the vice presidential candidate to replace Wallace and had been disappointed when Truman had been named, yet he and Truman remained very close. Byrnes had also been very close to Roosevelt, while Truman was kept in the dark by Roosevelt most of the time he served as vice president. Truman asked Byrnes immediately, in April, to become his Secretary of State but they delayed the official appointment until July 3, 1945, so as not to offend the incumbent. Byrnes had also accepted a position on the interim committee which had control over the policy regarding the atom bomb, and therefore, in April, 1945 became Truman’s main foreign policy advisor, and especially the advisor on the use of the atomic bomb. It was Byrnes who encouraged Truman to postpone the Potsdam Conference and his meeting with Stalin until they could know, at the conference, if the atomic bomb was successfully tested. While at the Potsdam Conference the experiments proved successful and Truman advised Stalin that a new massively destructive weapon was now available to America, which Byrnes hoped would make Stalin back off from any excessive demands or activity in the post-war period.

Truman secretly gave the orders on July 25, 1945 that the bombs would be dropped in August while he was to be in route back to America. On July 26, he issued the Potsdam Proclamation, or ultimatum, to Japan to surrender, leaving in place the unconditional surrender policy, thereby causing both Truman and Byrnes to believe that the terms would not be accepted by Japan.

The conclusion drawn unmistakably from the evidence presented, is that Byrnes is the man who convinced Truman to keep the unconditional surrender policy and not accept Japan’s surrender so that the bombs could actually be dropped thereby demonstrating to the Russians that America had a new forceful leader in place, a “new sheriff in Dodge” who, unlike Roosevelt, was going to be tough with the Russians on foreign policy and that the Russians needed to “back off” during what would become known as the “Cold War.” A secondary reason was that Congress would now be told about why they had made the secret appropriation to a Manhattan Project and the huge expenditure would be justified by showing that not only did the bombs work but that they would bring the war to an end, make the Russians back off and enable America to become the most powerful military force in the world.

If the surrender by the Japanese had been accepted between May and the end of July of 1945 and the Emperor had been left in place, as in fact he was after the bombing, this would have kept Russia out of the war. Russia agreed at Yalta to come into the Japanese war three months after Germany surrendered. In fact, Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945 and Russia announced on August 8, (exactly three months thereafter) that it was abandoning its neutrality policy with Japan and entering the war. Russia’s entry into the war for six days allowed them to gain tremendous power and influence in China, Korea, and other key areas of Asia. The Japanese were deathly afraid of Communism and if the Potsdam Proclamation had indicated that America would accept the conditional surrender allowing the Emperor to remain in place and informed the Japanese that Russia would enter the war if they did not surrender, then this would surely have assured a quick Japanese surrender.

The second question that Alperovitz answers in the last half of the book is how and why the Hiroshima myth was created. The story of the myth begins with the person of James B. Conant, the President of Harvard University, who was a prominent scientist, having initially made his mark as a chemist working on poison gas during World War I. During World War II, he was chairman of the National Defense Research Committee from the summer of 1941 until the end of the war and he was one of the central figures overseeing the Manhattan Project. Conant became concerned about his future academic career, as well as his positions in private industry, because various people began to speak out concerning why the bombs were dropped. On September 9, 1945, Admiral William F. Halsey, commander of the Third Fleet, was publically quoted extensively as stating that the atomic bomb was used because the scientists had a “toy and they wanted to try it out . . . .” He further stated, “The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . . . . It was a mistake to ever drop it.” Albert Einstein, one of the world’s foremost scientists, who was also an important person connected with the development of the atomic bomb, responded and his words were headlined in The New York Times “Einstein Deplores Use of Atom Bomb.” The story reported that Einstein stated that “A great majority of scientists were opposed to the sudden employment of the atom bomb.” In Einstein’s judgment, the dropping of the bomb was a political – diplomatic decision rather than a military or scientific decision.

Probably the person closest to Truman, from the military standpoint, was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Leahy, and there was much talk that he also deplored the use of the bomb and had strongly advised Truman not to use it, but advised rather to revise the unconditional surrender policy so that the Japanese could surrender and keep the Emperor. Leahy’s views were later reported by Hanson Baldwin in an interview that Leahy “thought the business of recognizing the continuation of the Emperor was a detail which should have been solved easily.” Leahy’s secretary, Dorothy Ringquist, reported that Leahy told her on the day the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, “Dorothy, we will regret this day. The United States will suffer, for war is not to be waged on women and children.” Another important naval voice, the commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated that the naval blockade and prior bombing of Japan in March of 1945, had rendered the Japanese helpless and that the use of the atomic bomb was both unnecessary and immoral. Also, the opinion of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz was reported to have said in a press conference on September 22, 1945, that “The Admiral took the opportunity of adding his voice to those insisting that Japan had been defeated before the atomic bombing and Russia’s entry into the war.” In a subsequent speech at the Washington Monument on October 5, 1945, Admiral Nimitz stated “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war.” It was learned also that on or about July 20, 1945, General Eisenhower had urged Truman, in a personal visit, not to use the atomic bomb. Eisenhower’s assessment was “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing . . . to use the atomic bomb, to kill and terrorize civilians, without even attempting [negotiations], was a double crime.” Eisenhower also stated that it wasn’t necessary for Truman to “succumb” to Byrnes.

James Conant came to the conclusion that some important person in the administration must go public to show that the dropping of the bombs was a military necessity, thereby saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, so he approached Harvey Bundy and his son, McGeorge Bundy. It was agreed by them that the most important person to create this myth was Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. It was decided that Stimson would write a long article to be widely circulated in a prominent national magazine. This article was revised repeatedly by McGeorge Bundy and Conant before it was published in Harper’s magazine in February of 1947. The long article became the subject of a front-page article and editorial in The New York Times and in the editorial it was stated “There can be no doubt that the president and Mr. Stimson are right when they mention that the bomb caused the Japanese to surrender.” Later, in 1959, President Truman specifically endorsed this conclusion, including the idea that it saved the lives of a million American soldiers. This myth has been renewed annually by the news media and various political leaders ever since.

It is very pertinent that, in the memoirs of Henry Stimson entitled On Active Service in Peace and War, he states, “Unfortunately, I have lived long enough to know that history is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.”

To bring this matter more into focus from the human tragedy standpoint, I recommend the reading of a book entitled Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, August 6, September 30, 1945, by Michiko Hachiya. He was a survivor of Hiroshima and kept a daily diary about the women, children and old men that he treated on a daily basis in the hospital. The doctor was badly injured himself but recovered enough to help others and his account of the personal tragedies of innocent civilians who were either badly burned or died as a result of the bombing puts the moral issue into a clear perspective for all of us to consider.

Now that we live in the nuclear age and there are enough nuclear weapons spread around the world to destroy civilization, we need to face the fact that America is the only country to have used this awful weapon and that it was unnecessary to have done so. If Americans would come to recognize the truth, rather than the myth, it might cause such a moral revolt that we would take the lead throughout the world in realizing that wars in the future may well become nuclear, and therefore all wars must be avoided at almost any cost. Hopefully, our knowledge of science has not outrun our ability to exercise prudent and humane moral and political judgment to the extent that we are destined for extermination.

John V. Denson is the editor of two books, The Costs of War and Reassessing the Presidency. In the latter work, he has chapters especially relevant for today, on how Lincoln and FDR lied us into war.

First Published in Lew Rockwell

August 2, 2006
Much Ado about Something: North Korea’s Missile Tests

North Korea’s missile tests triggered condemnations from capitals worldwide and may soon be taken up by the UN Security Council. But do these launches really represent an escalation of North Korea’s threat to global security? The answer is both yes and no.

First the facts. The launch of the long-range Taepodong missile had been anticipated for weeks; the United States and Japan had already threatened dire consequences if North Korea followed through. While its estimated range includes Alaska, the rocket had never been tested, and Tuesday’s failure early in its flight offers no evidence it’s ready for prime time. The 1998 test of an earlier Taepodong version was more successful, overflying Japan before failing in its third stage. North Korea has successfully developed and deployed the shorter-range Nodong (Rodong) missile, several of which were also launched on Tuesday. But the accuracy and reliability of these missiles is mediocre.

North Korea almost certainly has enough fissile material for six to ten nuclear weapons and has probably fashioned at least one explosive device. The 1994 agreement with the United States freezing North Korea’s nuclear program (the “Agreed Framework”) collapsed at the end of 2002, freeing North Korea to expand these capabilities. But North Korea is not known to have conducted a nuclear test and is not likely to have yet fashioned a nuclear warhead small, light and durable enough to ride any of its missiles.

In short, a credible North Korean nuclear threat to North America is a long way off. Vancouver is safe. So why all the fuss?

First, if left unchecked, North Korea is on course to develop these capabilities eventually. While this prospect may be at least a decade away, uncertainty over North Korea’s technological prowess shortens the “worst-case” time estimates.

Second, North Korea’s missiles can now reach Japan, a core Western ally; and North Korea continues to sustain considerable conventional capabilities, including thousands of artillery tubes at the demilitarized zone that could devastate Seoul, South Korea’s capital. North Korea has little rational reason to unleash these forces offensively; but their existence is threatening nonetheless.

Most importantly, though, the missile tests are a demonstration of Pyongyang’s sustained will and current mood. While the North Korean regime does not respond predictably to either confrontation or overtures, its one consistent behavior over the past fifteen years has been to act provocatively whenever engagement is stalled and US interests are focused elsewhere. Such has been the circumstance this spring.

Pyongyang’s diplomatic brinkmanship has born fruit in the past. The 1998 missile test deepened short-term tensions but got Washington’s attention: resuscitated engagement led to North Korea’s 1999 unilateral moratorium on missile tests, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s visit to Pyongyang in 2000, and negotiations (not concluded) to eliminate North Korea’s missile program entirely. In 2002-3, with such engagement shunned by the more hostile Bush Administration, Pyongyang exercised a more aggressive brinkmanship, breaking out of the nuclear freeze agreement just as Washington was gearing up for war with Iraq, thereby maximizing prospects for minimal US response. The Bush Administration blinked, and North Korea’s nuclear capabilities have been expanding since.

Similar conditions prevail now. A renewed engagement effort in 2005 through the so-called “Six-Party Talks” led to a statement of agreed principles in September, but when that consensus proved fleeting the Bush administration retreated to a posture of slow siege, applying economic and political pressure where it could (such as on counterfeiting operations) but resisting direct engagement. Meanwhile, the Pyongyang regime has undoubtedly noticed how Iran, skillfully following North Korea’s own playbook, has parlayed a far less advanced nuclear program into increasing attention and sweetened offers – now including the prospect of light-water reactors similar to those promised to North Korea under the Agreed Framework but terminated when that deal collapsed. A new provocation from Pyongyang was almost inevitable.

What’s the best response? North Korea’s frantic gesticulations do demand attention – ignoring them would simply encourage Pyongyang to escalate down the road. The question is not how seriously to take the missile tests, but rather how to take them seriously. Knee-jerk counter-threats and aggressive posturing hardly answer the need. Indeed, the compounding failure of the recent policies of the United States and its allies must be a principal focal point.

Many Bush officials came to power highly critical of their predecessors’ 1994 deal with North Korea, convinced it was giving up too much for too little, and were at best ambivalent to that deal’s subsequent collapse. But they have now presided over North Korea withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), expelling International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring, recommencing nuclear fuel reprocessing, declaring itself to be nuclear armed, and breaching its moratorium on missile tests – in effect giving up much more for much less.

The call by ex-Clinton defense officials Ashton Carter and William Perry for a pre-emptive US attack on the Taepodong expressed a frustration with the ineffectualness of current US policy as much as with North Korea itself. This restiveness is increasingly shared by knowledgeable Republicans in both houses of the US Congress, some of whom have renounced the Bush Administration’s refusal to meet North Korea directly. But what would a fresh approach entail?

A first step is to recognize clearly that the collapse of the 1994 nuclear freeze agreement allowed North Korea to cross key thresholds in its ambitions: what had been a national proliferation problem has metastasized into a regional security problem with important economic, energy and social dimensions. Previously, solving the North Korean nuclear issue has been seen as a way to catalyze greater East Asian regional security cooperation; now, such cooperation is a prerequisite. Abating North Korea’s nuclear ambitions requires, more than ever, grappling with the “hermit kingdom’s” long-term regional role.

From a human security perspective, this also means facing honestly the difficult dilemmas posed by the poverty and oppression millions endure just because they happen to live on the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula. Neither human rights resolutions nor unqualified food aid are long-term answers – the human security imperative compels a comprehensive solution.

An immediate need is for the United States and China to find an enduring common ground. And, indeed, the missile tests may make China more amenable to US calls for more coercive pressures. Decision-makers in Beijing are no doubt frustrated and angry, not least because Tuesday’s launches (as in 1998) will bolster support for US-Japan missile defense cooperation many Chinese regard as really aimed at them. The tests were also a slap in the face, coming on the heels of the announcement that China and North Korea would soon exchange top-level visits.

But US and Chinese concerns in Korea are far from convergent; in particular, Beijing won’t support actions aimed at “regime change” in Pyongyang. In Washington, though, the missile tests are likely to reinforce hardline positions that view regime change – through either pressure or patience – as a necessary prerequisite to a final solution. Many of this persuasion are also most vocal in concerns over a “rising China.” Hence, the further ascendance of this approach will tend to push China farther from, rather than closer to, US positions on North Korea, neutralizing the effect of the missile tests themselves. Less directly involved states, such as Canada, can play important roles to smooth these frictions in US-China coordination.

Another pressing need is to find a way to sustain meaningful engagement between North Korea and the United States even when public diplomacy is stymied. When circumstances prevent engagement through the front door, it should be pursued around the back. Canada, with both diplomatic ties to Pyongyang and a trusted voice in Washington, is uniquely situated to facilitate such private contacts.

What is not needed are more grandiose overstatements of the threat North Korea currently poses or more chest-pounding warnings of further dire consequences to follow. That’s North Korea’s game. It’s time to change the rules.

Wade L. Huntley, Ph.D. is Director of the Simons Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Research at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia.

July 5, 2006
Britain’s Nuclear-Weapons Fix

The determination of Britain’s political elite to maintain the country as a nuclear-weapons state is rooted in a half-century of military planning to which the possibility of tactical and first use of nuclear weapons is central. In just five words, Gordon Brown, the United Kingdom’s chancellor of the exchequer and would-be successor to Tony Blair, has intentionally reignited the debate over the future of Britain’s nuclear weapons. In a wide-ranging speech on 21 June 2006 focusing on global markets, financial services and economic policy, he included as part of his prognosis for UK security in the 21st century the commitment to “retaining our independent nuclear deterrent”.
As so often with New Labour, the way the entire speech was “spun” by Brown’s aides was revealing. This element was, they indicated, key among all the topics the chancellor covered. As Andrew Rawnsley commented: “It has enraged the left of the Labour Party. It was contrived to do just that. It was unashamedly designed – Mr Brown’s acolytes make no pretence otherwise – to try to make the Chancellor a more appealing figure to Middle England” (see “Why Gordon Brown decided it was the time to go nuclear”, Observer, 25 June 2006).
In the coming weeks and months there may well be a debate on plans to replace Trident – Britain’s submarine-carrying ballistic nuclear-weapons system – and it is probable that Labour will, in due course, make its decision. There could be some discussion in parliament and there might even be a vote, though few doubt the outcome. “Middle England” will no doubt remain comforted by Britain preserving its civilised, semi-great-power status by retaining the capacity to kill tens of millions of people.
The wider point, though, is that there is a vigorous attempt to confine the debate to the limited theme of a “deterrent”. Indeed, the entire debate is constructed along the very narrow premise that Britain’s nuclear weapons offer, and have always offered, nothing more than a last-ditch deterrent protection against a would-be enemy threatening the country with annihilation.
During the forty-five-year cold war, that enemy was seen to be the Soviet Union. This now presents some difficulties in that the much-missed “evil empire” has disappeared, removing the original point of possessing the bomb. It isn’t clear, for example, how Trident could have prevented the London bombings of 7 July 2005. After all, nuking the home towns of the young bombers – Leeds and Dewsbury – in retaliation would have been a bit excessive, even for New Labour.
Still, George W Bush has neatly constructed an “axis of evil” to replace the late, lamented Soviet Union. This offers his closest ally Tony Blair (and his successor as British prime minister) the opportunity to argue that Trident’s successor is designed to deter threats from those Islamofascists in Tehran, the world-conquering James Bond-hating hordes of North Korea, the Taliban when they take over Pakistan, the Naxalites when New Delhi finally falls and, of course, that historic enemy – the French.
Every part of this construct, however, is still underpinned by the doctrine of “deterrence”. Middle England must rest secure in the knowledge that our nuclear weapons are “good” nuclear weapons and would only ever be used as weapons of final response – after, perhaps, not just Middle England but also the furthest bits of Wales, Scotland and even Northern Ireland had been turned to radioactive dust.
The problem with this is that it is one of the great myths of the nuclear age. Ever since the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki performed the same destructive tasks that had previously required thousand-bomber raids (such as the devastating fire-bombing of Tokyo), the nuclear age has been replete with the idea that nuclear weapons are usable as weapons of war. This has been central to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato’s) nuclear planning, as well as to the Warsaw Pact (and now Russia).
Nato as an alliance, and Britain as a state, have long planned to fight nuclear wars at levels falling far short of a cataclysmic central nuclear exchange. This also means that Nato and Britain have had, and still maintain, policies that can envisage “first use” of nuclear weapons.
On the eve of what could possibly be a period of open debate about the role of Britain’s nuclear weapons, it might be useful to trace this somewhat hidden history. This could serve the purpose of revealing matters that successive governments prefer to avoid discussing in public, and thus help ensure a more interesting debate.
This debate must consider two distinct issues: Nato as an alliance of which Britain is a prominent member, and Britain’s long-term pursuit of policies for nuclear first use outside the Nato area.
The early days
Britain commenced its nuclear-weapons programme shortly after the end of the second world war. It tested a fission (atomic) bomb in October 1952 and a crude fusion (hydrogen) bomb in May 1957. By the end of the 1950s Britain had developed a strategic nuclear force based on the V-bomber medium-range jet bombers: the Valiant, Victor and Vulcan.
From the mid-1960s, Britain began to develop a force of ballistic-missile submarines capable of deploying the United States’s Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The first such submarine, Resolution, started to patrol in June 1968, and control of the UK strategic nuclear force passed to the Royal Navy in July 1969.
Britain also developed a range of tactical nuclear weapons, principally bombs, deployed on a number of land-based and carrier-based strike aircraft from the late-1950s onwards. These included the Scimitar, Buccaneer, Jaguar and Sea Harrier, and the Lynx and Sea King helicopters. US-made nuclear depth-bombs were carried by Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft and US-made Lance missiles; in addition, nuclear warheads, and nuclear artillery shells, were deployed with the British Army.
At its peak, in the early 1980s, Britain deployed some 400 of its own nuclear weapons together with several scores of US nuclear weapons. With the ending of the cold war, most of the types of nuclear weapons declined fairly rapidly, but two major types of British nuclear weapon remained in service until the late 1990s: the Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile and the WE-177 tactical nuclear bomb.
In the 1990s, these were replaced by Trident, another submarine-launched missile. This is deployed with two warheads, a powerful strategic warhead many times more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb, and a “sub-strategic” or tactical warhead that has around half the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
Since the 1950s onwards, Britain has operated a twin-track policy of committing nuclear forces to Nato and having them available for independent deployment and possible use.
Nato’s nuclear planning
Although the early nuclear weapons of the 1940s and early 1950s were essentially strategic – intended for use against the core assets of an opposing state – the development of nuclear weapons intended for tactical use within particular war-zones was an early feature of the east-west nuclear confrontation. By the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union were developing relatively low-yield freefall bombs as well as early forms of nuclear-capable artillery. Over the next twenty-five years, a remarkable array of tactical nuclear weapons was developed and deployed, covering almost every type of military posture.
As well as freefall bombs, short-range battlefield missiles were developed along with nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missiles and several types of nuclear artillery and mortars. Nuclear landmines known as atomic demolition munitions were developed that could be emplaced to destroy major bridges or tunnels or even block mountain passes. At sea, submarines were equipped with nuclear-tipped torpedoes, surface ships carried anti-submarine nuclear depth-bombs which could be delivered by missile or helicopter, and aircraft carriers could fly off strike aircraft carrying several kinds of nuclear bomb. There were even air-to-air missiles such as the US Genie, that were nuclear-armed.
By the 1980s, there were around 20,000 tactical nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and the Soviet Union, based in more than fifteen countries and on warships and submarines throughout the world. In the great majority of cases, the presumption was that if such weapons were used, they would not necessarily involve an escalation to an all-out nuclear war. In other words, nuclear war-fighting could be controlled. In Europe, perhaps the tensest region of the cold-war nuclear confrontation, both alliances had policies of the first use of nuclear weapons in response to conventional attack. (For a full discussion, see the relevant chapter, “Learning from the Cold War”, in Paul Rogers, Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century, Pluto Press, 2002).
For Nato in the 1950s – before the Soviet Union had developed a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, the posture was codified in a military document MC14/2, colloquially termed the “tripwire” posture. Any Soviet attack against Nato would be met with a massive nuclear retaliation, including the use of US strategic nuclear forces; this assumed that the US could destroy the Soviet Union’s nuclear forces and its wider military potential without suffering unacceptable damage itself.
By the early 1960s, the Soviet Union was developing many classes of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons, making it less vulnerable to a US nuclear attack. In such circumstances, MC14/2 became far less acceptable to western military planners, who consequently sought to develop a more flexible nuclear posture for Nato. This became known as “flexible response”. It involved the ability to respond to Soviet military actions with a wide range of military forces, but also with the provision that nuclear weapons could be used first in such a way as to force the Soviet Union to halt any aggression and withdraw. Once again, it embodied the belief that a nuclear war could be fought and won.
The new flexible-response doctrine was progressively accepted by Nato member-states in 1967 and 1968. It was codified in a document entitled Overall Strategic Concept for the Defence of the NATO Area, or MC14/3. It was a posture with one particular advantage for the United States: that it might avoid nuclear weapons being used against its own territory.
A US army colonel expressed this rather candidly at the time, writing that the strategy: “recognizes the need for a capability to cope with situations short of general nuclear war and undertakes to maintain a forward posture designed to keep such situations as far away from the United States as possible” (see Walter Beinke, “Flexible Response in Perspective”, Military Review, November 1968).
Flexible response was to remain in operation for most of the last quarter century of the cold war, including periods of considerable tension in the early 1980s. Operational plans for nuclear use were (and are) developed by the nuclear activities branch of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Shape) near Mons in Belgium, operating in conjunction with the US joint strategic target planning staff responsible for the SIOP strategic nuclear posture from its base in Omaha, Nebraska.
By the early 1970s, flexible response was well established under Nato’s nuclear operations plan which embraced two levels of the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Soviet forces: selective options and general response. Selective options involved a variety of plans, many of them assuming first use of nuclear weapons against Warsaw Pact conventional forces.
At the smallest level, these could include up to five small air-burst nuclear detonations intended as warning shots to demonstrate Nato’s intent. At a rather higher level of use were the so-called pre-packaged options involving up to 100 nuclear weapons. The US army field manual at the time defined such a package as: “a group of nuclear weapons of specific yields for use in a specific area and within a limited time to support a specific tactical goal … Each package must contain nuclear weapons sufficient to alter the tactical situation decisively and to accomplish the mission” (see Operations: FM 100-5, US Department of the Army, 1982).
While these different levels of selective use were thought to be possible ways of winning a nuclear war, the possibility remained that this would fail, and a more general nuclear exchange would result. This was the second level of use of tactical nuclear weapons; it was termed a general nuclear response in which Nato nuclear forces in Europe would be used on a massive scale along with US strategic forces.
Thus, by the end of the 1970s, Nato had developed a flexible-response strategy that involved detailed planning for the selective first use of nuclear weapons in the belief that a limited nuclear war could be won. By the early 1980s, with highly accurate fast ballistic missiles such as the Pershing 2 being deployed by the United States, there were indications that Nato was even moving to a policy of early first use of nuclear weapons.
One indication of this came in a remarkably candid interview given by the Nato supreme commander, General Bernard W Rogers. He said that his orders were: “Before you lose the cohesiveness of the alliance – that is, before you are subject to (conventional Soviet military) penetration on a fairly broad scale – you will request, not you may, but you will request the use of nuclear weapons…[emphasis in the original].” (International Defense Review, February 1986).
The long-standing Nato policy of the first use of nuclear weapons was not promoted widely in public, where all the emphasis was placed on nuclear weapons as an ultimate deterrent. Even so, the policy was made clear on relatively rare occasions. One example is evidence from the UK’s ministry of defence to a parliamentary select committee in 1988: “The fundamental objective of maintaining the capability for selective sub-strategic use of theatre weapons is political – to demonstrate in advance that NATO has the capability and will to use nuclear weapons in a deliberate, politically-controlled way with the objective of restoring deterrence by inducing the aggressor to terminate his aggression and withdraw.”
With the ending of the cold war and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-91, there was some easing of Nato nuclear policy. This included the withdrawal of a substantial proportion of Nato nuclear weapons from western Europe as the Soviet Union withdrew from its former satellites in east-central Europe. The possibility of first use was considered increasingly unlikely, but not abandoned as a facet of Nato policy.
Although the Soviet Union is no more, Nato nuclear planning still involves a policy of first use, British nuclear weapons remain committed to Nato and the United States still maintains tactical nuclear bombs at one of its remaining bases in the UK, Lakenheath in Suffolk, eastern England.
Britain’s independent targeting
Since the 1950s, Britain has deployed nuclear weapons on many occasions outside the immediate Nato area of western and southern Europe and the north Atlantic. This included the basing of RAF nuclear-capable strike aircraft in Cyprus in the 1960s and 1970s, regular detachments of V-bombers to RAF Tengah in Singapore in the mid-1960s, and the deployment of Scimitar and Buccaneer nuclear-capable strike aircraft on the Royal Navy’s aircraft carriers from 1962 to 1978. Nuclear weapons were also carried on four task-force ships during the Falklands/Malvinas war of 1982.
This long history of “out-of-area” deployments of nuclear weapons by Britain is matched by a number of indications of a willingness to use them in limited conflicts. In one of the few published studies of British tactical nuclear targeting, Milan Rai wrote in his 1994 paper Tactical Trident (Drava Papers): “Sir John Slessor, Marshall of the RAF in the 1950s, and one of the most influential military theorists of the period, believed that ‘In most of the possible theatres of limited war . it must be accepted that it is at least improbable that we would be able to meet a major communist offensive in one of these areas without resorting to tactical nuclear weapons’.” This statement was made by a senior military figure rather than a politician, but similar comments did come from more official government sources. In 1955, the then defence minister (and later prime minister) Harold Macmillan stated in the house of commons: “.the power of interdiction upon invading columns by nuclear weapons gives a new aspect altogether to strategy, both in the Middle East and the Far East. It affords a breathing space, an interval, a short but perhaps vital opportunity for the assembly, during the battle for air supremacy, of larger conventional forces than can normally be stationed in those areas.”
Such an idea of a small nuclear war was further expressed during the 1957 defence debate by Macmillan’s successor as defence minister, Duncan Sandys: “one must distinguish between major global war, involving a head-on clash between the great Powers, and minor conflicts which can be localised and which do not bring the great Powers into direct collision. Limited and localised acts of aggression, for example, by a satellite Communist State could, no doubt, be resisted with conventional arms, or, at worst, with tactical nuclear weapons, the use of which could be confined to the battle area.”
This historical context raises the question as to whether the smaller sub-strategic Trident warheads, or indeed the more powerful strategic versions, might be used independently of Nato. Britain reserves this right, and one of the more detailed assessments of the range of options for sub-strategic Trident warheads was made in the authoritative military journal International Defence Review in 1994: “At what might be called the ‘upper end’ of the usage spectrum, they could be used in a conflict involving large-scale forces (including British ground and air forces), such as the 1990-91 Gulf War, to reply to an enemy nuclear strike. Secondly, they could be used in a similar setting, but to reply to enemy use of weapons of mass destruction, such as bacteriological or chemical weapons, for which the British possess no like-for-like retaliatory capability. Thirdly, they could be used in a demonstrative role: i.e. aimed at a non-critical uninhabited area, with the message that if the country concerned continued on its present course of action, nuclear weapons would be aimed at a high-priority target. Finally, there is the punitive role, where a country has committed an act, despite specific warnings that to do so would incur a nuclear strike (see David Miller, “Britain Ponders Single Warhead Option”, International Defence Review, September 1994).
It is worth noting that three of the four circumstances envisaged involve the first use of nuclear weapons by Britain.
Such issues rarely surface in the public arena, but concern has been expressed in parliament that the government has not been sufficiently clear about the circumstances under which British nuclear weapons would be used in post-cold-war circumstances. For example, the house of commons defence select committee noted in 1998: “We regret that there has been no restatement of nuclear policy since the speech of the then Secretary of State in 1993; the SDR [Strategic Defence Review] does not provide a new statement of the government’s nuclear deterrent posture in the present strategic situation within which the sub-strategic role of Trident could be clarified. We recommend the clarification of both the UK’s strategic and sub-strategic policy.”
This was, in part, in response to comments made to the committee by the then secretary of state for defence, George (now Lord) Robertson. He had told the committee that the sub-strategic option was “an option available that is other than guaranteed to lead to a full scale nuclear exchange”. He envisaged that a nuclear-armed country might wish to “…use a sub-strategic weapon, making it clear that it is sub-strategic in order to show that … if the attack continues [the country] would then go to the full strategic strike,” and that this would give a chance to “stop the escalation on the lower point of the ladder”.
This statement indicated that “a country”, such as Britain, could consider using nuclear weapons without initiating an all-out nuclear war, and that the government therefore appeared to accept the view that a limited nuclear war could be fought and won. It was evidently not the clear statement that the committee sought, and it did not indicate the circumstances in which such weapons might be used. In particular, it did not appear to relate to whether Britain or British forces had already been attacked with nuclear weapons, or whether nuclear weapons would be used first in response to other circumstances.
The Iraq wars
At the same time, there had been no evidence to suggest that Britain had moved away from the nuclear posture of the cold-war era that included the possibility of using nuclear weapons first. Indeed, just as the cold war was winding down, the first Iraq war in early 1991 was one occasion when British nuclear use might have been considered. As the UK forces embarked for the Gulf in September 1990, the Observer reported that Britain was prepared to retaliate to an Iraqi chemical attack with nuclear weapons: “A senior officer attached to Britain’s 7th Armoured Brigade, which began to leave for the Gulf yesterday, claims that if UK forces are attacked with chemical gas by Iraqi troops, they will retaliate with battlefield nuclear weapons. The Ministry of Defence refused to confirm this last night, but it is the first unofficial indication that British troops might be authorised to use nuclear weapons to defend themselves if attacked” (see Observer, 30 September 1990, front page).
More than a decade later and prior to the start of the second Iraq war in 2003, the then secretary of state for defense, Geoff Hoon, was questioned by members of the select committee and appeared to indicate that Britain maintained this policy. In relation to a state such as Iraq he said: “They can be absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.”
This exchange did not make clear whether this would be in response to a nuclear attack initiated by a state such as Iraq. Hoon was questioned on this point on 24 March 2002 on the Jonathan Dimbleby programme on ITV. He was asked whether nuclear use might be in response to non-nuclear weapons such as chemical or biological weapons. He replied: “Let me make it clear the long-standing British government policy that if our forces or our people were threatened by weapons of mass destruction we would reserve the right to use appropriate proportionate responses which might … might in extreme circumstances include the use of nuclear weapons.”
Later in the exchange, Hoon made it clear that he could envisage circumstances in which British nuclear weapons were used in response to chemical or biological weapons. He was later asked by Dimbleby: “But you would only use Britain’s weapon of mass destruction after an attack by Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction?” Hoon replied: “Clearly if there were strong evidence of an imminent attack if we knew that an attack was about to occur and we could use our weapons to protect against it.”
The implication of this is clear – that there are circumstances where Britain would consider using nuclear weapons in response to a non-nuclear attack involving chemical or biological weapons and would even consider using nuclear weapons to pre-empt such an attack.
A time for air
Britain has deployed nuclear forces for almost fifty years. For most of that time, they have been primarily committed to Nato, which has maintained a nuclear-targeting posture that includes the first use of nuclear weapons. Britain also retains the capability to use nuclear weapons independently.
Although the publicly acknowledged “declaratory” policy remains one of “last resort” use of nuclear weapons, the “deployment” policy involves the idea of nuclear war-fighting that falls far short of responding to a nuclear attack on Britain. This is the long-standing reality. It could certainly liven up the forthcoming debate on replacing Trident if this enduring feature of British nuclear-weapons policy got a really thorough airing.

Paul Rogers is a professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. Paul Rogers has continued to focus on trends in international conflict, developing an analysis of the linkages between socio-economic divisions, environmental constraints and international insecurity.

June 29, 2006
Prospects for Preventing Nuclear Proliferation
Also published in Volume 8, Number 1-2, Winter/Spring 2006 of “Global Dialogue”

In 1945, the United States became the world’s sole nuclear power, and almost immediately used its new weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following the creation of the first nuclear weapon by the United States, all further development of these weapons has constituted some form of nuclear proliferation, either horizontal proliferation to other countries or vertical proliferation within a country already possessing nuclear weapons.

Many scientists who worked on the Manhattan Engineering Project – the US nuclear weapons development program – warned the government that use of nuclear weapons against Japan launch a dangerous nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. They were right. It took the Soviet Union just four years to succeed in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, conducting its first nuclear test in 1949.

During the four year period from1945 to 1949, the US continued to develop and test its nuclear arsenal, engaging in a kind of unilateral nuclear arms race. Once the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons in 1949, a bilateral nuclear arms race began, concluding only with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.

In the decade and a half following the Soviet Union’s development of nuclear arms, the UK, France and then China also developed nuclear weapons. By 1967, the five declared nuclear weapons states formed an exclusive club. They were the only states with nuclear weapons, and they were all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. As such, these nations had considerable prestige in the world. They all justified their nuclear arsenals on the basis of deterrence – the threat to retaliate to a first-strike nuclear attack – and all but China, which had pledged “No First Use” of nuclear weapons, held open the possibility of responding to a conventional attack with nuclear force.

Among the five nuclear powers, there was a great deal of posturing by means of atmospheric nuclear tests and missile launches, first by the US alone, then by the USSR, and finally by the other nuclear weapons states. They all played the game of comparing explosive force and missile sizes, demonstrating their power through these highly visible means. Australian physician and nuclear activist Helen Caldicott characterized this posturing as “missile envy.”

At the height of the nuclear arms race, there were more than 60,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Today there are still some 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and more than 95 percent of these are in the arsenals of the US and Russia. The trend is in the right direction, but the pace of reductions has been agonizingly slow.

The unwillingness of the nuclear weapons states to give up their reliance on nuclear arsenals or their options for vertical proliferation, and to move with greater rapidity toward a nuclear weapons-free world, remains a significant incentive to horizontal proliferation. This is extremely dangerous, and particularly so in a world in which extremist groups seek nuclear weapons capabilities to threaten massive destruction of powerful states.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

In the mid-1960s, following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the US, UK and USSR forged ahead with a treaty to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. They feared a far more dangerous world in the event of proliferation to many states. In negotiations with non-nuclear weapons states, they agreed to a trade-off in which the non-nuclear weapons states would not develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapons states would in turn make three commitments: first, end the nuclear arms race at an early date; second, engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament; and third, assist the non-nuclear weapons states in developing nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970.

Despite making this agreement, the nuclear weapons states subsequently demonstrated little effort to stop the nuclear arms race or to engage in good faith negotiations for total nuclear disarmament. Instead, they focused their efforts on partial measures of arms control, such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT) and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START). Through these negotiations, the nuclear arms race continued largely unabated and there were no good faith efforts to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

On the third part of the bargain, assisting with the development of “peaceful” nuclear technology, the nuclear weapons states were more helpful, particularly when profits could be made by selling nuclear reactors. The problem with this part of the bargain was that nuclear reactors used enriched uranium and produced plutonium that could be used in weapons programs. In other words, nuclear energy programs, particularly those involving enriching uranium and plutonium separation, have actually aided in nuclear weapons proliferation.

Over the years, many countries, and finally nearly all countries, became parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. A few, however, stayed outside the treaty so as not to be bound by it. Israel was one of these, and is widely understood, although has not admitted, to have developed an arsenal of some 200 or more nuclear weapons. Mordechai Vanunu, a technician at the Dimona reactor in Israel, released information on Israel’s clandestine nuclear program to British newspapers, and subsequently was kidnapped, secretly tried and served 18 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement. Even after his release from prison, Vanunu is not allowed to leave Israel or speak with foreign journalists. Israel still refuses to confirm the existence of its nuclear arsenal.

India and Pakistan also never became parties to the treaty. India was always clear that it was willing to forego the nuclear option, but not live in a world of nuclear apartheid. In other words, India was prepared to be a non-nuclear weapons state in a world where no state had nuclear weapons, but would not do so in a world where some states reserved nuclear weapons status for themselves but denied such status to others. India first tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, and then tested more extensively and openly in May 1998. Immediately following India’s 1998 nuclear tests, Pakistan conducted its own nuclear tests, sending a message back to India that it too could play the nuclear game. India and Pakistan, two rival states that have warred many times over the disputed territory of Kashmir, are now engaged in a nuclear standoff.

The last state thought to have developed a small nuclear arsenal is North Korea, a country that withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in January 2003. No one is certain that North Korea actually has a nuclear arsenal, but it claims to have developed nuclear weapons and it has the technological capability and the weapons-grade nuclear materials from its nuclear reactors to have done so.

The 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference

By the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a Review and Extension Conference was held in 1995, 25 years after the treaty had entered into force. Some states parties to the treaty and many civil society organizations argued that the treaty should not be extended indefinitely because that would be akin to giving a blank check to the nuclear weapons states who had been so lax in fulfilling their disarmament obligations under the treaty. These states and groups argued that instead of an indefinite extension, the treaty should be extended for 5 or 10 year periods with automatic extensions if the nuclear weapons states had achieved concrete progress on nuclear disarmament.

Under heavy lobbying and arm twisting by the United States, the treaty was extended indefinitely. To reach this outcome, certain additional promises were made. Among these were the following points listed in the Final Document of the conference:

First, completion of negotiations for a universal and verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty no later than 1996;

Second, The immediate commencement and early conclusion of negotiations on a treaty banning production of fissile materials; and

Third, the “determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons….”

The document also made reference to UN Security Council Resolution 984 (1995), which provided security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states, and called for further steps that would be “internationally legally binding.”

While the international community did manage to complete and open for signature a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by 1996, the treaty required the ratifications of all nuclear capable states. As of this time, there are still about one-quarter of the 44 states in this category that have not ratified. The United States was the first to sign the treaty, but the US Senate rejected ratification in 1999, and the Bush administration has been hostile to the treaty and has not resubmitted it to the Senate.

The Bush administration’s opposition to the CTBT is best understood in relation to its interest in developing a new generation of nuclear weapons, such as “bunker busters” and low yield nuclear weapons. This is reinforced by the administration’s efforts to reduce the time needed to resume nuclear testing from 36 months to 18 months, suggesting that it is holding open the possibility of breaking the current moratorium on underground nuclear testing.

There have not been negotiations in the UN Conference on Disarmament on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Nor have there been any efforts to provide legally binding assurances against the use of nuclear weapons on non-nuclear weapons states. Given this lack of progress, it is hard to argue that there has been a “determined pursuit…of systematic and progressive efforts” by the nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament. In fact, the Bush administration’s secret Nuclear Posture Review, released to Congress at the end of 2001, states that US nuclear policy includes a possible nuclear response to a non-nuclear attack against the US or its allies.

2000 NPT Review Conference: 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament

At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the parties agreed by consensus to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. This was viewed as an important step forward on the path to achieving nuclear disarmament. These steps included the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the establishment in the Conference on Disarmament of a subsidiary body to deal with nuclear disarmament issues, preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, applying the principle of irreversibility to nuclear disarmament, and an “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….”

Unfortunately, the nuclear weapons states have not taken these steps seriously. In the world community, the United States has been the country least responsive to these steps, putting up obstacles to nearly all of them. The US opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, opposed a verifiable Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, opposed a subsidiary body to deal with nuclear disarmament in the Conference on Disarmament, abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and made nuclear disarmament completely reversible in the one agreement they did reach with Russia.

The 2002 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT), entered into by the US and Russia, calls for reducing deployed strategic nuclear weapons from about 6,000 on each side to about 2,000 on each side by the year 2012, but makes no provision for destroying these weapons or otherwise making the reductions irreversible. After 2012, the treaty ends with no further prohibitions on the size of nuclear arsenals. In some respects this treaty may even promote proliferation by allowing both sides to keep many nuclear warheads in reserve, and therefore potentially more vulnerable to theft by extremist groups.

2005 NPT Review Conference

The most recent NPT Review Conference in 2005 ended without progress and without a Final Document demonstrating even a modicum of agreement. The US opposed any mention of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament in the agenda of the conference, giving the impression that they wanted to rewrite history, blotting out any memory of the progress made in the year 2000.

The 2005 NPT Review Conference was almost surrealistic. In the basement of the United Nations where the conference was taking place, there was a broad corridor leading to some of the conference rooms. At one end of this corridor were a group of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki earnestly pleading for progress on nuclear disarmament so that their fate would not befall others in the future. At the other end of the corridor was a representative of the United States handing out slick brochures claiming that the US was leading the world in nuclear disarmament. Conveniently removed from the timeline in one of these brochures was any mention of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty being opened for signatures in 1996 or of the agreement on the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament in the year 2000. George Orwell’s presence seemed alive and well in the US promotional literature.

Nuclear Double Standards

The original intent of the Non-Proliferation Treaty was to stop proliferation and put an end to nuclear double standards by achieving nuclear disarmament. The nuclear weapons states have, however, largely made it clear that they are committed to double standards rather than to fulfilling their obligations to achieve nuclear disarmament.

In an attempt to quell proliferation, while maintaining nuclear double standards, George W. Bush has promoted a Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which he first announced in Krakow on May 31, 2003. The PSI was described in a White House press release as “a broad international partnership of countries which, using their own laws and resources, will coordinate their actions to halt shipments of dangerous technologies to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern – at sea, in the air, and on the land.” The original members of the PSI were all European states except Australia and Japan, and included the three Western nuclear weapons states – the US, UK and France. A PSI “Statement of Interdiction Principles” was adopted on September 4, 2003. The first and key principle is: “Undertake effective measures, either alone or in concert with other states, for interdicting the transfer or transport of WMD, their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern.”

On April 28, 2004, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1540, which called upon states to “refrain from providing any form of support to non-State actors that attempt to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery.” The resolution also called upon states to establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery, as well as border and export and transit controls.

Resolution 1540 was in effect a Security Council effort to further the Proliferation Security Initiative, seeking to enforce controls against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The Proliferation Security Initiative, its Statement of Interdiction Principles and Security Council Resolution 1540 all seek to prevent proliferation by means of international cooperation and, if necessary, the use of force. They also seek implicitly to maintain the nuclear double standard, since they make no reference to the current arsenals of nuclear weapons or the need for their dismantlement.

A key question for the international community and for any thinking person concerns whether proliferation can be prevented in a world composed of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” Those who promote the double standard initiatives, seem to believe that they can hold back nuclear proliferation while continuing to rely themselves on nuclear weapons for security. Their argument, however, leaves no room for inevitable errors and misjudgments.

Zero Tolerance

So long as nuclear weapons and materials exist in the world, there is the possibility that they may proliferate to other states or non-state actors. In the hands of non-state extremist groups, the prospects of deterrence by means of retaliatory threat are zero. Deterrence is a psychological theory, which requires rationality and also fear of retaliation. It cannot work against a terrorist organization that cannot be located. Nor can it work against groups or individuals who are prepared to die for their cause. Therefore, the tolerance level for nuclear weapons falling into the hands of extremist groups is also zero.

The more nuclear weapons in the world, the greater the possibility that some will be obtained by extremist groups. The fewer nuclear weapons in the world, the less weapons-grade nuclear materials and the greater the international controls, the less likely these weapons will fall into the hands of extremists groups.

Zero tolerance requires zero nuclear weapons and full international controls. It requires implementation of the Article VI nuclear disarmament obligations in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Viewed in this light, the PSI and Security Council Resolution 1540 may be viewed as band-aids, possibly comforting but unlikely to solve the problem.

We have already seen that the criminal ring headed by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, was quite active in spreading nuclear technology and materials for proliferation. It appears that his ring was stopped in time, but it is not fully certain how much damage was done by Khan’s efforts or what their results will be in the future.

Iraq, Iran and North Korea

In his 2002 State of the Union speech, George W. Bush named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “Axis of Evil.” These states, along with some others, had already shown up in the US Nuclear Posture Review as states for which the US was making contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons. In 2002, Bush and other US administration officials began talking about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. Subsequently, in March 2003, the US invaded Iraq, initiating a war of aggression against that country and using the justification in part of nuclear proliferation.

Following the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction were found. Surely, the war against Iraq has put other states on notice that nuclear weapons may be useful to them to prevent a US attack. This suggests that, while nuclear weapons may not be particularly useful to a powerful state, they would have deterrent value to a weaker state to prevent the attack of a more powerful state. This may be the lesson drawn by both Iran and North Korea.

Iran is relying on the Article IV provision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (nuclear energy as an “inalienable right”) in maintaining its right to enrich uranium for nuclear reactors. This points to the inherent contradiction in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which seeks both to prevent nuclear proliferation and promote nuclear energy.

In the case of North Korea, it has withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, undertaken reprocessing of its spent fuel to extract plutonium, and claims to have developed a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Six party talks have taken place for several years between the US, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. The North Korean negotiators have been clear that they are seeking security assurances and development aid from the US in exchange for giving up their nuclear programs and returning to the NPT. After several years of negotiating, little progress has been made, although it would seem that the conditions set forth by the North Koreans are reasonable.

Incentives to Proliferate

There are many countries that could develop nuclear arsenals, but have chosen not to do so. Among these are Canada, Sweden and Japan. Decisions by Canada and Sweden were taken early in the Nuclear Age. Japan is a good example of a virtual nuclear power. It has the technological capability to make nuclear weapons and tons of reprocessed plutonium for doing so, but has thus far foregone the option as it currently falls under the US nuclear umbrella. If Japan did decide to become a nuclear weapons state, it could become a major one in a matter of months. North Korea’s advances in its nuclear arsenal and missile technology may play a key role in determining whether Japan decides to join the nuclear club in future years.

Some states have developed or obtained nuclear weapons and given them up. South Africa actually developed a small nuclear weapons arsenal and then destroyed it just before the end of apartheid. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan inherited nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union split apart, but agreed to transfer all of their nuclear weapons to Russia for dismantlement. Brazil and Argentina had nuclear programs and were on the path to creating nuclear weapons, but gave up these programs.

Among the major incentives to proliferation are threats of nuclear attack, threats of conventional attack by a more powerful state, and national prestige. These incentives suggest that nuclear weapons serve the purposes of the weak more than they do the strong. They suggest that strong states would better serve their national security and their citizens by leading the way toward nuclear disarmament rather than clinging to nuclear arsenals. By their very act of reliance on their own nuclear arsenals, the nuclear weapons states provide incentives for other states to join them in the nuclear club. A two-tier system of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” is ultimately unstable and untenable.

A Return to the Basics

Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty calls for “good faith” negotiations by the nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice in 1996 ruled: “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.”

At the 2005 NPT Review Conference, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation called for the following eight commitments as the minimum necessary to revive nuclear disarmament in the non-proliferation regime.
- Commitment to total nuclear disarmament and to good faith negotiations. This is the basic commitment of Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
- Commitment to a timeframe for achieving nuclear disarmament. This is a necessary commitment to indicate to the international community that the nuclear weapons states are indeed acting in good faith.
- Commitment to No First Use. Without this commitment there will always be pressure for some non-nuclear weapons states to consider developing nuclear arsenals to provide deterrence against larger nuclear weapons states.
- Commitment to irreversibility and verifiability. This is one of the key steps of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. It would close the door to reversing the progress made in disarmament efforts, and would be a strong confidence building measure.
- Commitment to standing down nuclear forces. This would dramatically reduce the possibility of using nuclear weapons inadvertently, currently a serious danger to humanity.
- Commitment to no new nuclear weapons. This would be another sign of good faith on the part of the nuclear weapons states, indicating that they are not basing their policies on the double standard of asking others not to develop new nuclear weapons while doing so themselves.
- Commitment to a verifiable ban on fissile materials. This is one of the 13 Practical Steps and would rein in the amount of fissile material being created that could be used for nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons states should commit to placing their stores of weapons-grade fissionable materials under strict international control and to the elimination of this material.
- Commitment to accounting, transparency and reporting. These are essential for building confidence and providing a baseline for verification of the disarmament process.In addition to these eight commitments for achieving nuclear disarmament, the Foundation called for five additional commitments for closing the loophole created by the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s promotion of the so-called “peaceful” uses of atomic energy. These are:
- Commitment to a global ban on spent fuel reprocessing and reduced reliance on nuclear energy. Reprocessing of spent fuel may be good for nuclear industry, but it creates far more weapons-grade material that could be used for military purposes.
- Commitment to bring uranium enrichment and plutonium separation facilities under strict international control. It is primarily enriched uranium and separated plutonium that can be converted to weapons use. These controls must be placed on all states, not only the non-nuclear weapons states.
- Commitment to regulate and store spent nuclear fuel under strict international control. There need to be high standards of control for the regulation and storage of spent fuel in order to keep it from being reprocessed for weapons use.
- Commitment to make the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol mandatory for all states. The IAEA Additional Protocol places states under a higher set of standards for safeguarding nuclear materials. Currently the Additional Protocol only applies to non-nuclear weapons states, and this should be universalized to apply to nuclear weapons states as well.
- Commitment to highly restrict the trade of all nuclear materials and technology. The trade in nuclear materials and technology creates possibilities for proliferation through theft or enhancement of a country’s nuclear programs.These final five commitments can help to create a far stronger barrier between the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the military uses. They are critically important steps in keeping nuclear materials from being diverted to weapons programs. These commitments complement the eight commitments above to revive nuclear disarmament. Both sets of commitments are mutually reinforcing.
  Evaluating the Prospects for Preventing Proliferation
  
  If it is true that these commitments are needed to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons, then it may be unlikely that proliferation will be prevented. Most of the nuclear weapons states seem comfortable continuing with the double standards that have characterized their behavior, and seem unwilling to make the necessary commitments. The nuclear weapons states appear comfortable asking for commitments from others, but not in making commitments themselves. Over time, this promises to be a recipe for international failure in preventing nuclear proliferation.
  
  It is noteworthy that the nuclear weapons states at the bottom of the nuclear pyramid – namely, China, India and Pakistan – have all indicated a willingness to go to zero nuclear weapons if the other nuclear weapons states would do so. Additionally, Russia has offered to reduce its nuclear arsenal below the levels agreed to in the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, but the US has not accepted these lower levels.
  
  In the end, preventing proliferation will depend upon changes in the policies of the most powerful nuclear weapons state, the United States. The US sets the tone for the world. If the United States does not show leadership in this area, proliferation will certainly continue. At the present, the US non-proliferation effort is based entirely on double standards. It continues to rely upon its nuclear arsenal, while seeking to develop and implement mechanisms to prevent others countries from doing as it does. The US even seeks to develop new nuclear weapons, a form of vertical proliferation.
  
  Given the US aversion to serious nuclear disarmament measures and its failure to provide leadership to the other nuclear weapons states to fulfill their disarmament obligations, nuclear proliferation appears inevitable. This is not only due to the narrow policy positions of the Bush administration. It was also true, in a less extreme form, during the Clinton administration. The great irony of this is that the country most likely to be the target of a terrorist nuclear attack is the United States.
  
  This leads to the conclusion that the United States is acting against its own best interests in not ending nuclear double standards and making phased and negotiated nuclear disarmament a priority of its nuclear non-proliferation program. Perhaps at some point US leaders will awaken to the likelihood that their nuclear posturing is making it more likely that their cities and citizens will become the victims of their own nuclear policies.
  
  Hopefully, this awakening will not be the result of a nuclear attack, and that it will be possible to prevent such an attack against the US or any other country. This may be possible if we employ imagination, reason and leadership, and seek the necessary international cooperation.
  
  1. Caldicott, Helen. Missile Envy. New York, Bantam, 1984.
  
  2. 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, Part I, (NPT/Conf.1995/32 (Part I), p. 10.
  
  3. 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, Vol. I (NPT/CONF.2000/28 (Parts I and II)), Part I.
  
  4. “Statement on Proliferation Security Initiative,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, September 4, 2003.
  
  5. Proliferation Security Initiative: Statement of Interdiction Principles, adopted in Paris, September 4, 2003.
  
  6. S/RES/1540 (2004).
  
  7. Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, United Nations General Assembly, A/51/218, 15 October 1996.
  
  8. Krieger, David and Carah Ong, “Back to Basics: Reviving Nuclear Disarmament in the Non-Proliferation Regime.” Santa Barbara, CA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 2005, pp. 13-15.
  
  9. Krieger and Ong, Op.Cit., pp. 16-17.
  
  David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.
June 28, 2006
Globalizing Security: A Challenge For Your Generation

Thank you, Dean Einhorn. Distinguished guests, members of the faculty, families and friends, honoured graduates,

Today, in a remote village in Darfur, a young woman named Aisha is packing up to leave town. While the situation has started to quiet down, there are rumors that the same militia group that killed her father and mother last year might be planning another raid. Aisha is not sure of her destination, but she is desperate to get her younger brother and sister to a safe place.

There are many such stories, each with a different twist. Lives in the balance, lives needlessly lost. In a rural area of Zambia, a young man named Mitambo has watched many of his friends grow sick or die from HIV/AIDS, and worries about the future of his village. In the Gaza Strip, a young man named Hassan mourns the loss of his younger brother, unable to understand what drove him to become a suicide bomber. In Cincinnati, a young man named Steven is grieving at the news that his older brother was killed in Fallujah.

Here in Constitution Hall is a young woman named Susan. In the six years since she began her university training, the international landscape has changed radically. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 marked the beginning of her undergraduate sophomore year. The split at the UN Security Council over Iraq´s suspected weapons of mass destruction became a case study for her junior year. Developments in North Korea and Iran have made for lively classroom debates throughout her graduate studies. Susan is looking forward to receiving her diploma today. She plans a career in international relations, and is eager to make her world a safer place.

Aisha, Mitambo, Hassan, Steven and Susan. All these young people are in their twenties. Their names are fictional, but their circumstances are very real. And now that you have heard their stories, I would like to talk to you about the major challenge of the 21st century: how to re-shape our approach to security in a way that takes into account the hopes – and the fears – of each of these young people, and in fact of all their fellow human beings around the world.

Let me say at the outset that, to do this, we must think and act differently. We must globalize our concepts of security. We must develop a system of security that fits with these concepts. But most importantly, we must act accordingly.

The story of the past few generations can be read as a series of efforts to build institutions that could resolve conflicts peacefully and, in parallel, to limit the scope of war and prohibit certain types of weapons.

After the devastation of the First World War, the League of Nations was formed. But it could not prevent the rise of Adolf Hitler, or the atrocities that claimed millions of lives.

After World War II, the United Nations was born. Principles for maintaining international peace and security were agreed upon. Economic and social development for all. Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Mechanisms for the peaceful settlement of disputes. Centralization of the authority to use force, in the UN Security Council. And limitations on the conditions under which States could justify using force in self-defence.

The United Nations and its institutions have had many successes, in regulating various aspects of our increasingly interconnected lives: international trade, civil aviation, postal standards, labour practices, and so forth.

But the overall success of the United Nations as a body is measured most often in terms of its performance in keeping the peace – particularly its role as a peacemaker in terms of conflict prevention and conflict resolution, and as a peacekeeper in the aftermath of conflicts. Here the UN record is mixed. The UN can point to some success stories, such as in the case of Namibia, in which sustained and active UN engagement led to the country´s transition from occupation to independence. Or the case of East Timor, which through similar UN involvement has become a free and independent nation.

The problem is how to make such successes the norm. In too many cases, such as the Middle East or South Asia, we find ourselves incapable of finding solutions to conflicts that have gone on for decades. And too often we fail to act when intervention is clearly needed – such as during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, when nearly 1 million people were slaughtered in just over 3 months.

What about our scorecard on limiting the scope of war or prohibiting the most destructive types of weapons? Here the record is also mixed. As far back as the Hague Conventions of 1899, efforts were made to limit the effects of armed conflict — through, for example, protecting people who are not part of hostilities, and prohibiting methods and means of warfare that cause unnecessary suffering.

The Biological Weapons Convention of 1975 and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997, which outlawed the production and use of these weapons, were major steps forward.

But the irony is that we still have not outlawed the “big guns”: nuclear weapons. Under the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – the five countries that had nuclear weapons at the time – China, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States – committed themselves to &quote;negotiate in good faith” effective measures for the elimination of nuclear weapons and, in the meantime, to share peaceful nuclear technology with any other countries party to the Treaty. In return, those other countries agreed not to pursue nuclear weapons.

On the one hand, efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons through the NPT treaty regime can be viewed as a remarkable success. With the exception of India, Israel and Pakistan, every country in the world has joined the NPT. The vast majority of NPT members have stood by their commitments. And the number of nuclear warheads has been reduced by more than 50 percent from its Cold War peak.

On the other hand, in recent years, we seem to have come to an impasse, and many see the NPT regime as faltering. You might say that, while we started on the right track, we have lost our sense of direction. Today we have eight or nine countries that possess nuclear weapons – and more than 20 other members of alliances that continue to rely on these weapons for their security. Some countries are actually announcing programmes for modernizing their stockpiles, and some have even spoken of the possibility of using such weapons – all the while insisting that they are off-limits to others.

This is a dilemma worth reflecting on. As an international community, we have no difficulties in cooperating when it comes to regulating shipping, coordinating the use of airwaves, or jointly fighting epidemics. But when it comes to how to resolve our differences, our approach dates back to the Stone Age, still rooted primitively in who carries the biggest club.

In 1974, I was like you today – waiting to receive my graduate diploma from the New York University School of Law.

It is now over thirty years later. My generation has had its successes and failures. But I also believe we have learned a number of lessons and insights that you may reflect on as you prepare to take over.

The first lesson is that international peace and security cannot be achieved through business as usual with our existing norms and institutions. Clearly, these norms and institutions – whether the NPT or the UN Security Council – are far from perfect. They need to be strengthened in a variety of ways.

But beyond the re-engineering of these norms and institutions, we need a complete change of mindset. Most importantly, our approach to security can no longer be centred on the idea of “Us Versus Them”. It must instead be anchored on the idea of the unity of the human family.

Our world today is marked by asymmetry. Twenty percent of the world´s population consumes 80 percent of the resources. And 2 out of every 5 people still live on less than $2 per day.

Given that SAIS just completed its “Year of Energy”, let me explain this asymmetry in another way. The average American has 1,800 watts at his or her disposal – powering everything from air conditioners to iPods. By contrast, your average Nigerian has to make do with only enough power for a single 8-watt light bulb.

In the past, with little travel or communication between countries and peoples, this sort of imbalance could endure for centuries.

This brings us to Lesson Number Two: in our era of globalization, this imbalance is no longer sustainable. Television and the Internet have made this imbalance glaringly visible. In some cases, that imbalance in living conditions is leading to a sense of injustice – a fertile breeding ground for conflicts and the emergence of extremist groups. And increasingly, the insecurities of one country or region become the insecurities of all.

In the final year of World War II, President Roosevelt said, “We have learned that our own well being is dependent on the well being of other nations far away.” This reality is now ever more apparent. Chaos mathematicians sometimes describe what is known as “the butterfly effect” – the notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in Washington DC can affect the initial conditions of a chain of meteorological events that ultimately bring about, say, a sandstorm in the Sahara. Today, one can equally speak about the same butterfly effect of insecurity. The recent terrorist attacks in Europe, which could be traced back to the sense of humiliation in parts of the Middle East, are a case in point. Security is no longer as simple as building another wall. Globalization is forcing us to realize that, whether we like it or not, we are all in the same boat.

When we look at nuclear weapons through this lens, Lesson Number Three becomes obvious. Nukes breed nukes. As long as some nations continue to insist that nuclear weapons are essential to their security, other nations will want them. There is no way around this simple truth. Here, too, the playing field will need to be leveled, one way or another.

As recently as a few decades ago, the control of nuclear technology and nuclear material was a sensible strategy for preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We are still working vigorously – and must continue to work – to maintain and improve those controls. The proposal to bring under multinational control those facilities capable of producing weapon-usable nuclear material – a proposal endorsed in various forms by many world leaders – is just one such improvement.

But ultimately, as more countries gain advanced engineering capabilities, these controls, in and of themselves, are no longer enough. Advances in communication have simply made it too easy to share knowledge and technology. And regardless of how diligently we work to block the illicit trade in nuclear technology to nations – or worse, to extremist groups who seek this technology – there will be limits to how much can be controlled.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, we are reaching a fork in the road. Either we must begin moving away from a security system based on nuclear weapons, or we should resign ourselves to President Kennedy´s 1960s prediction of a world with 20 to 30 nuclear-weapon States. Efforts to control the spread of such weapons will only be delaying the inevitable – a world in which each country or group has laid claim to its own nuclear weapon. Mutually Assured Destruction will once again be the absurd hallmark of civilization at its technological peak.

Is that really the world we want to live in?

To date, no one has seriously taken up the challenge of developing an alternative approach to security that eliminates the need for nuclear deterrence. But only when such an alternative system is created will nuclear-weapon States begin moving towards nuclear disarmament. And only when nuclear-weapon States move away from depending on these weapons for their security will the threat of nuclear proliferation by other countries be meaningfully reduced. And finally, only when both groups of countries shift their focus – from a security system based on the build-up of armaments to a security system that addresses the root causes of insecurity, ranging from poverty and repression to unresolved conflicts – will we be able to improve global security.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to develop this alternative system of collective security. The good news is that, as tough as it may sound, this is not “Mission Impossible”. As graduates of the School of Advanced International Studies, you are equipped with the right skills and the broad outlook to take on such a challenge. The globalization of security will require creative diplomacy, innovative technology and above all leadership.

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the exact nature of such an alternative system. But I can tell you some of the features that will be essential to its success.

At its root, this new system of collective security requires a basic belief that we are all part of one human family.

This requires a re-arrangement of our global priorities. In 2004, the nations of the world spent over $1 trillion on weapons, and less than 10% of that amount – a mere $80 billion – on official development assistance. Experts tell us that, for an additional $65 billion per year, we could cut world hunger in half, put programmes in place for clean water worldwide, enable reproductive health care for women everywhere, eradicate illiteracy, and provide immunization for every child.

With those kinds of numbers, it doesn´t take a nuclear scientist to figure out a smarter approach to improving our security situation. To quote President Eisenhower, speaking with far-sighted vision in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies… a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

If we can focus on giving our less fortunate neighbours the opportunity to raise their living standards – the chance to compete, to regain their sense of dignity and self-respect – the likelihood of conflict will immediately begin to drop.

This new system of collective security should incorporate a deterrence based primarily on the interdependence of nations, through the exchange of people, ideas and goods. Armed conflict must become too costly to be anything but the very last option. We must find ways to make nuclear weapons relics of the past.

Secondly, this alternative system of collective security must include institutions capable of maintaining international peace and security. The United Nations Security Council now holds this responsibility. The Security Council must be representative of the global community it serves. It must be structured in a way that makes it agile in its responses to crises. It must be consistent in its actions. It must have the resources to carry out its mission. And it must make it a high priority to resolve conflicts that have continued to fester for decades. We should not forget, however, that at the end of the day, international institutions are constellations of states, and states are made up of people who should be the focus and the drivers of any system of security.

Third, we should initiate a series of dialogues to promote mutual understanding and respect. To correct misconceptions. To understand and address causes of hostility. These dialogues should be tailored especially towards young people – young people like Aisha, Mitambo, Hassan, Steven and Susan – because a mindset of mutual respect and understanding will be essential to the effort of your generation to put in place an equitable global security system.

In the 1960s, Timothy Leary coined the famous phrase: “Turn On; Tune In; Drop Out” – calling on the younger generation to disengage from society and seek enlightenment through psychedelic drugs.

I would call on you to do exactly the opposite, to engage and become part of the solution – in other words, “Turn Back; Tune In; Reach Out”. Turn Back from an approach to security that relies on nuclear deterrence. Tune In to the security needs of your fellow human beings around the globe. And Reach Out to make those needs your own, so that the dream of peace and security can finally become a reality. Every one of you can make a difference.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Class of 2006: the future rests in your hands. May God bless you with the wisdom and courage necessary to lead us to a safer and more humane world.

Thank you.

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei is the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. He also shared the 2005 Noble Prize for Peace with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

May 25, 2006
End U.S.-Iranian Nuclear Standoff by Ending Double Standards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 24, 2006
Why Nuclear Weapons Should Matter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 1, 2006