Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapons

  • Welcoming the Disarmament Committee of the United Nations General Assembly

    Statement by Under-Secretary General Jayantha Dhanapala, October 8, 2001

    I begin by congratulating you, Mr. Chairman, upon your election to guide the work of this Committee. Your distinguished career equips you well for the tasks ahead — a career that, in the disarmament area, features your prominent role in the historic 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as your chairmanship of the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. I also congratulate the other members of the bureau and pledge the fullest support of the Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) in all your efforts to make this a productive session.

    On 10 September 2001, the Secretary-General issued his annual Message on the eve of what was to be the International Day of Peace. He urged people everywhere to “try to imagine a world quite different from the one we know.” He called on everybody to “picture those who wage war laying down their arms and talking out their differences.” He stated that this “should be a day of global ceasefire and non-violence.” And he closed with these words of hope: “let us seize the opportunity for peace to take hold, day by day, year by year, until every day is a day of peace.”

    The next morning, only an hour before the Secretary-General was planning to ring the Peace Bell, thousands of citizens from dozens of countries perished in acts of unmitigated brutality that defy description. The challenge now facing this Committee, as it convenes in the shadow of this dark and ominous cloud, is to confront these new and old threats to international peace and security. At this critical juncture — when the peoples of the world stand together in repudiating mass terrorism — we must all work together to build upon this remarkable display of unity. This is a time for cooperation, for reaffirming the rule of law, for recognizing common threats, and for acknowledging the extent to which our common security depends upon justice, fundamental human rights, and equitable development for all societies. For this Committee, it is particularly a time for reinforcing the roads and bridges leading to the fulfilment of multilateral disarmament commitments, while exploring new paths to reach the same destinations. It is, in short, a time to resume the work of realizing the vision described in the Secretary-General’s Message on the International Day of Peace.

    Only history will decide how much of a defining moment 11 September will be. But history will certainly not absolve us for failing to learn the lessons of this unspeakable tragedy. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his address on 1 October to the General Assembly, stated “While the world was unable to prevent the 11 September attacks, there is much we can do to help prevent future terrorist acts carried out with weapons of mass destruction.” For us in the disarmament community he set out several guidelines for future actions that I hope delegations will consider carefully.

    Some specific initiatives that merit serious consideration include:

    · First, the need to expand the membership of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, while strengthening controls over nuclear facilities and the storage and transportation of nuclear materials.

    · Second, the need for new efforts to negotiate a convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism — the recent terrorist attacks should add new urgency to these efforts.

    · Third, the need for a global database — based on publicly available material — on acts, threatened acts, or suspected acts of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. The Department for Disarmament Affairs is in contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on many of these issues and is prepared, if so mandated, to establish such a database.

    Mr. Chairman, the starting point for the work of this Committee must be the sobering realization that last month’s tragedy could have been so much worse had nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons been used. The objective facts require that we be neither alarmist sowers of panic, nor complacent do-nothings. We do, however, have a duty to protect innocent citizens throughout the world by reinforcing the multilateral disarmament regime. Many of the deadliest super-weapons remain difficult to manufacture due to the unique characteristics of their weapons materials, improvements in methods of detecting the production or testing of such weapons, and technical problems in converting dangerous materials into effective, deliverable weapons. The world community must do all it can to raise these hurdles, while strengthening the fundamental norms against the possession or use of such weapons. The best way to accomplish this is through the active pursuit of a robust disarmament agenda. Of one thing we must be clear — in the disarmament area there is no going back to business as usual.

    The agenda of this Committee has always been challenging, yet the tasks ahead are more critical than ever. Many of these challenges, however, existed well before the tragic events of 11 September. At the conclusion of its 37th session in Geneva last July, the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters concluded that “there currently exists a crisis of multilateral disarmament diplomacy.”

    The symptoms of that crisis — while numerous earlier in the year — are now self-apparent even to casual observers. We are witnessing a weakening of the basic infrastructure of disarmament — one of the eight priority areas in the United Nations work programme. This state of affairs — if allowed to continue — will threaten the very sustainability of disarmament as a means of enhancing international peace and security.

    Disarmament is facing difficult times. There is no doubt that its future rests heavily upon a strong level of understanding and support in civil society. Yet today we see signs of private foundations and other funding agencies moving out of the field of disarmament or reducing their commitments to this goal. As funding grows scarce — a problem aggravated by the turbulent global financial markets — key groups in civil society are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their work on disarmament issues. In academia, we find all too few articles in serious scholarly journals on disarmament per se and very few new doctoral dissertations that deal directly with disarmament. We find the news media focusing on the glare of current conflicts rather than the typically slow and incremental process of eliminating the weapons used in such conflicts — or eliminating the weapons that could even destroy the world. These trends must be reversed, and at a minimum, more funding made available to non-governmental groups working in the field of disarmament.

    On an inter-state level, we find few governments with offices specifically devoted to disarmament issues, and New Zealand still has the distinction of having the only minister of disarmament. We see a flourishing global arms market — the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimates the total value of arms transfers from 1993 through 2000 at around $303 billion — and almost 70 percent of these arms were imported by developing countries. Meanwhile, global military expenditures are again on the rise — amounting last year to an estimated $800 billion. This growth in the arms trade and military spending contrasts with the terms of Article 26 of the Charter, which refer to the least diversion of the world’s human and economic resources for armaments.

    At times it appears — certainly in terms of the United Nations budgetary procedures — that we are seeing instead the least diversion of resources for disarmament. It goes without saying that the smallest department in the United Nations is the Department for Disarmament Affairs, which is now seeking a modest increase in the 2002-2003 biennium budget that is before this session of the General Assembly. It is also not uncommon to read of financial problems and resource shortages in key treaty-based organizations like the IAEA and OPCW.

    Two of the classic diplomatic measures for advancing disarmament, non-proliferation, and anti-terrorism goals — export controls and sanctions — are now in dispute, based on claims that they are ineffective, discriminatory, or harmful to other global values. The utility and legitimacy of these mechanisms requires that these criticisms be addressed, with a view to reaching universally-agreed guidelines. The danger remains that without them, the world community would find itself confronted with a stark choice between ignoring gross violations of global disarmament and non-proliferation norms and having to defend such norms by force of arms.

    The treaties that constitute the global legal regime for disarmament are also seriously incomplete. None of the key treaties prescribing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction has universal membership, and un-documented allegations of non-compliance continue to be heard among the States parties, eroding confidence in the various treaty regimes. Many important treaties have still not entered into force, including START II and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), whose members will soon meet in New York to consider ways of accelerating the ratification process. With respect to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), many years of efforts to conclude a protocol to strengthen this key treaty have ended abruptly. The treaty’s next five-year Review Conference, scheduled to convene next month in Geneva, provides an opportunity to revisit this issue. It must not be missed.

    With regard to the NPT, while it is still too early to predict the fate of the “thirteen steps” to nuclear disarmament agreed at the NPT 2000 Review Conference, it is fair to say that delegates attending next year’s first Preparatory Committee meeting for the treaty’s 2005 Review Conference will certainly expect hard evidence of a good faith effort to implement each of these important goals.

    The elimination of landmines is another very important international disarmament activity, given that they continue to impede the development and security of populations in almost one third of the world’s countries. Last month, I attended the third annual meeting of the States parties to the Mine Ban Convention in Managua, Nicaragua, convened by the United Nations pursuant to Resolution 55/33 V. Despite the uncertainties of air travel at the time, the event was marked both by an impressive attendance of more than 90 states and by positive results that augur well for the future implementation of this convention. The second annual conference of States parties to Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) will take place later this year. It will consider several proposals addressing the scope of the convention, compliance issues, small calibre weapons and ammunition, anti-vehicle mines, and the problem of explosive remnants of war. The Secretary-General is committed to fulfilling his responsibilities as Depositary to both of these important legal instruments.

    The global legal regime is particularly underdeveloped in the fields of conventional weapons, small arms and light weapons, preventing an arms race in outer space, and missiles and other delivery vehicles for weapons of mass destruction. Some of these problems, however, have been getting increased attention in recent years. General Assembly Resolution 55/33 A has asked the Secretary-General to prepare a report, with the assistance of a panel of governmental experts, on the issue of missiles in all its aspects, and to submit this report to the General Assembly at its 57th session. China has introduced in the Conference on Disarmament a proposal for a treaty banning the deployment of weapons in space. The Programme of Action successfully adopted at the July 2001 Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects provides a blueprint for international cooperation that may eventually lead to binding international norms. A question remains: will the events of 11 September encourage States to consider once again the need to prohibit the transfer of military-grade small arms and light weapons to non-state actors?

    The chronic deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament — the world’s single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum — is another serious problem that demands an urgent solution, one that will be found only in the political will of Member States to begin negotiations. Perhaps the new spirit of cooperation that has been re-kindled by the events of 11 September will help to breathe new life into this vitally important international institution.

    Taken alone, any one of these obstacles would be a cause for concern, but taken together, they suggest that disarmament is facing a very difficult road ahead. The crisis that disarmament is facing in multilateral diplomacy may reflect a deeper crisis of the nation-state system as it copes with the new forces of globalization. Large-scale terrorist events, and the possession or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, are only two of a growing list of twenty-first century problems that are straining the capacities of political institutions that were developed in other historical contexts, while casting new doubts on the utility of attempting to solve such problems through the exercise of military might. As highlighted in the Millennium Declaration, the Road Map to implement that declaration, and the Secretary-General’s recent report on the work of the organization, the United Nations offers indispensable tools to address precisely such twenty-first century problems.

    Despite the difficult challenges ahead for international peace and security, disarmament remains an attractive alternative to both deterrence and military defensive measures as responses to these challenges. One of the most important contributions of the United Nations in this field comes in the gathering and dissemination of information about worldwide progress in achieving important arms limitation and disarmament goals. On behalf of Member States, the DDA maintains the Register of Conventional Arms, which keeps track of the production and trade of seven categories of major weapons systems. This year more than a hundred governments made submissions to the Register, the highest level of participation since the Register was created nine years ago.

    More Member States are also using the Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures — this year, nearly 60 have reported data using this instrument, almost double the average number from previous years. Last July, the States attending the United Nations Small Arms Conference assigned the DDA the responsibility of collating and circulating data on the implementation of the Programme of Action agreed at that conference. DDA’s role as the coordination centre in the Secretariat of all United Nations activities in the field of small arms was specifically welcomed in UNGA Resolution 55/33 F.

    As requested by the General Assembly, DDA is also working with a group of outside experts to prepare a study on disarmament and non-proliferation education that the Secretary-General will submit to the General Assembly at its 57th session. These experts have met twice this year and are making progress in identifying constructive initiatives at the primary, secondary, university and postgraduate levels of education, in all regions of the world. Through its many symposia, newsletters, databases, monographs, films, posters, brochures, lectures to student groups, intern and fellowship programmes, a regularly-updated web site, and its new 454-page annual United Nations Disarmament Yearbook — DDA is giving its educational responsibilities every bit of attention they deserve, despite the heavy strain on its limited resources.

    I would like to take this occasion to invite all members of this Committee to attend a special symposium on “Terrorism and Disarmament” that the DDA will host on the afternoon of 25 October, involving experts from the IAEA, the OPCW, and other institutions. This timely event will examine the specific contributions that disarmament can make in addressing global terrorist threats.

    Mr. Chairman, this Committee faces the difficult task of moving beyond the tears, the grief, and the anger from 11 September — and from all acts of terrorism in all countries — to the re-establishment of a just and stable foundation for international peace and security. The Committee must adhere to its long-standing priorities — it must keep its focus on discovering the ways and means of eliminating all weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. As the Secretary-General stated in his message last month to the General Conference of the IAEA, “Making progress in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament is more important than ever in the aftermath of last week’s appalling terrorist attack on the United States.” Though all terrorism is tragic and unacceptable, the United Nations must place its highest priority on eliminating threats that potentially affect the greatest number of people — threats to international peace and security — threats, in short, that arise from weapons of mass destruction.

    The Committee has before it many resolutions that point the way ahead in achieving this basic aim. As it considers these resolutions, Member States may also wish to consider in their deliberations some broader questions that concern the disarmament machinery of the United Nations. Recent events, combined with the current crisis in multilateral disarmament diplomacy, may also suggest that the time has come to re-visit the proposal to convene a Fourth Special Session of the General Assembly on Disarmament.

    There is one question, however, that surely does not belong on this agenda, and that is the question of whether the primary focus of this Committee should change from “disarmament” to merely the regulation or limitation of arms. There is of course an important need for efforts on both fronts. When it comes to weapons of mass destruction, there is no question that the world would be far better off pursuing the total and verifiable elimination of such weapons than in perpetuating the fantasy that their possession can be permanently limited to an assortment of exclusive, but by no means leak-proof clubs. By contrast, controls over conventional weapons are in general better pursued by transparent regulatory approaches that limit the numbers or characteristics of agreed weapons systems — approaches that are consistent with the inherent right of self defence in Article 51 of the Charter. Together, both approaches complement each other well in serving the common interest of international peace and security

    Much ground has already been tilled. In their Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the States parties reaffirmed their common conviction that “the total elimination of nuclear weapons is the only absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons” — and that includes a terrorist use of a nuclear weapon. Given the consequences of even a single use of a nuclear weapon, is international peace and security best preserved by partial or conditional guarantees, or by an absolute guarantee? The same question also applies to other weapons of mass destruction.

    It is not at all unrealistic or inappropriate for this Committee to keep its focus on the search for absolute guarantees, and the more it searches, the more it will return to disarmament — not regulation — as the solution for weapons of mass destruction. In addressing such weapons, the Committee should explore ways of bringing disarmament to the world, or of bringing the world to disarmament, but disarmament must be done. As members of this committee, ask not for whom the Peace Bell tolls. It tolls for you.

  • Hope Will Shape Our Future

    Terrorist acts are the acts of people who have given up hope that they can be heard or achieve their goals by more reasonable forms of discourse and action. Terrorist acts are not acts of first recourse. They are acts of desperation, sending messages in blood and death. They are acts of individuals whose only hope lies in the worst forms of cruelty without regard for the welfare of their innocent victims.

    There is no doubt that terrorists are criminals and should be punished for their crimes, including those against humanity. International terrorism is a problem of the global community and should be punished by international tribunals established for this purpose. The international community, through the United Nations, should also be mobilized to join hands in the fight to prevent all forms of terrorism.

    In fighting terrorism, though, it is not enough to apprehend and punish the terrorists. More important is to prevent the future loss of innocent lives that can occur by means of terrorism, including chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks.

    We need to clearly grasp the fact that the consequences of acts of terrorism in a nuclear-armed world could grow much worse than what we have yet seen. Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists could mean the destruction of cities rather than buildings.

    The vulnerability of our high-tech societies to terrorism places civilization itself at risk. The stakes are very high. We must put an end to terrorism. To do this, we must be able to offer some hope to terrorists and would-be terrorists that their lives can be made better through political discourse and action.

    Thus, no one on our planet can be excluded from the hope of living a decent life, from living with dignity and justice. Each person excluded from this hope is a potential terrorist, a potential recruit as a saboteur of our vulnerable civilization.

    Military power alone cannot solve our problem and make the world safe from terrorism. In fact, military power – because it is a blunt instrument likely to cause more innocent deaths – is likely to reinforce the hopelessness of those attacked and create a greater pool from which to recruit terrorists.

    We must rather look deeper, and try to understand the factors that motivate terrorism: crushing poverty, oppression, and the sense that one’s grievances are not being heard and will not be heard. While our policies must not be dictated by terrorists, neither can we be indifferent to their grievances and to the conditions that spawn terrorism.

    Our civilization cannot survive with a small bastion of privileged societies trying to hold out against multitudes mired in poverty and oppression, those who have given up hope for a more decent future for themselves and their children.

    Hopelessness grows when some 35,000 children die daily of malnutrition and preventable diseases, when 50,000 children a year die in Iraq as a result of US-led economic sanctions on that country, when the Palestinians are increasingly marginalized and oppressed in their land.

    If we in the United States want to have hope of living without fear of terrorist attacks, we must reflect upon our policies that take away hope from others throughout the world. We are connected on this planet by not only our common humanity, but by our common vulnerability.

    Hopeless enemies will find ways to attack us where we are most vulnerable, and we are vulnerable nearly everywhere: our cities, our water, our air, our energy, our transportation, our communications, our financial institutions, and our liberties. Therefore, our policies must build hope by waging peace against poverty and oppression and by encouraging an open forum through the United Nations for listening to grievances and responding to them with justice.

    The future of our planet will be shaped by hope, and hope itself will be shaped by the policies and leadership of the United States. We must choose hope and foster it, not only for ourselves, but for every citizen of our planet. We must give hope, to even those who hate us and, in doing so, turn potential enemies into allies in the struggle for a better world.

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is co-author of Choose Hope, a Dialogue with Daisaku Ikeda, recently published in Japan.

  • Memories of the Trinity Bomb, Reflections of the 7th Annual Sadako Peace Day

    Fifty-six years ago the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the world was changed. Humankind lives the legacy of the events of the summer of 1945 in countless ways, great and small, personal and political. The end of the Cold War did not halt the fierce global race for more powerful armaments. And today, as citizens of the United States, as members of the world community, we face many great and grave decisions about the future, concerning missile defense, arms control and test ban treaties, the international proliferation of nuclear weapons and the development of, and trade in, weapons material, nuclear, biological and chemical. It is difficult not to despair of the overwhelming amount of work to be done.

    However, this afternoon, in a garden dedicated to children and to peace, I would like to put aside these daunting challenges and look to the sacredness of the small and the power of place to transform our lives. I am reminded of Mother Theresa’s statement, “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

    This is the seventh ceremony to be held in this garden, on these benches, dedicated to Sadako Sasaki, one of the millions of children we lost to the twentieth century’s brutal wars. This garden has come to have personal significance for me, and for many like me, who have found moments of inner quietude in the shelter of the Tree of Faith. My husband, Joseph, and I have come to the Immaculate Heart Center on retreat over the last six years, and I have learned many things from the Tree of Faith. Several years ago, I was looking at the very top, at the fragile new leaves opening there. And I realized that those leaves, growing from the majesty of this sturdy trunk and these strong branches, were as young, as fresh, as the smallest seedling growing in the brush. This was a lesson to me about history, about aging, about the past giving birth to the future. This regal tree delicately recreating itself through time- God’s grace at work in small things.

    So, this afternoon, let us renew ourselves, and rededicate our lives to peace.

    Several years ago, I realized that in order for me to deepen my understanding of what it might mean to invent a peace that has never existed in humankind’s history, I had first to deepen my understanding of the legacy of war in my own life. Thus, an explanation of the title of my comments is in order. Memories of the Trinity Bomb is the name of a Japanese documentary film about me and my search for the moral legacy of the atomic bomb, as the daughter of Manhattan Project scientists. Last fall, a Japanese documentary maker, Yoshihiko Muraki, read portions of my book, Atomic Fragments: A Daughter’s Questions, and was inspired to tell Japanese people the story of my quest in search of the personal meaning of the bomb in the lives of the scientists who created it.

    Mr. Muraki told me that there is a great gap between Japanese and American understandings of the atomic bomb. Japanese people, he said, see themselves as victims of the bomb, Americans see the bomb as having ended a brutal war. My words spoke to him across that gap, and he hopes that his film, which premiered last night on Japanese television, will be a step toward bridging understandings between our peoples-another small thing.

    This past spring, I spent more than thirty days with the Japanese film crew, traveling to Manhattan Project sites around the country, and to other places of personal and historical significance. The first place we visited together was the Trinity site in New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was first tested in July 1945. The last place we visited together was this garden.

    Although I was born four years after the end of the war, I do have very real “memories of the Trinity bomb.” I grew up with pictures of the Trinity test. My mother, with an undergraduate degree in physics, was an optics expert, and a member of the Los Alamos team that developed the photographic equipment for the test. I have a vivid childhood memory of studying the photographs of that test, famous pictures that many of you have no doubt seen, of the silvery bubble that was the deadly fire ball, expanding into the towering mushroom cloud.

    Then, three years ago, while doing research for my book, I visited Trinity. The site is only open to the public twice a year, and thousands of people came. I was alone among the crowds. At the obelisk marking ground zero, I witnessed a young Japanese woman weeping.

    As I wrote in Atomic Fragments, I was struck by the sacredness of the place, somehow representing not only the lives and deaths of the bomb’s victims, but the lives and deaths of all victims of war. I silently walked the great circle around ground zero, wondering if my prayers had the power to relieve past suffering.

    After Trinity, I drove up to Santa Fe. The next day was Sunday, and I walked to the cathedral, where mass was being said. Listening to the message of Christian loving kindness, I felt a lonely, deep despair. I could not imagine how, with all of our differences, it would ever be possible for the planet’s peoples to understand each other. How would the world ever be free of war? But following on that, I was graced with the smallest sense of hope. And at that moment, a nascent feeling, the conviction that there is something in our humanity that binds us together, was the only thing I was sure of.

    I never expected to visit Trinity again. However, when the Japanese film makers read my description of ground zero, they asked me to return there with them. There were eight of us at the Trinity site last April, along, with our military escort. There were no crowds, just eight of us, dwarfed by the desolate enormity of the stormy New Mexican wilderness and the memories imprinted on its landscape. I became aware that I was embarking, with them, on a new spiritual journey. They asked what I remembered, and what I felt. Again, I walked the circumference of ground zero, but I was no longer alone. I was accompanied, being observed, interpreted, and listened to.

    Our understandings of the place and time were very different. We were sometimes surprised by each other’s questions and observations, careful about each other’s feelings, judgmental of each other’s actions, and vulnerable to each other’s judgments. But in being there, in experiencing that place together, in examining the fearsome history that joins us, we consented to learn from each other, and in each others’ presence. Our understandings were filtered through our cultures, but by assenting to experience Trinity together, we were united in ITS space and time.

    The last place we visited together was this garden. I had written about attending the dedication on August 6, 1995, and Mr. Muraki wanted to film me here. So, in June, Joseph and I brought our Japanese colleagues, that they might experience its gentle refuge-a space so far from Trinity site. A tiny oasis capable of holding an infinity of prayers. I told them about the dedication of the benches on the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima, about Stella Matsuda’s Dance of a Thousand Cranes-Up From Ashes, which she performed in the chapel. I told them about returning here over the years, and even recited a poem I had composed one night under a full moon.

    And so we came to the end of our journey-thirty days together over a three month period. I do not know if, as Mr. Muraki hoped, the story of the daughter of Manhattan Project scientists will speak, in human terms, to the Japanese general public. But I am certain that during our difficult and gratifying time together we took steps toward each other.

    After filming here, we went to my home in Oak View. I motioned to Mr. Muraki that I wished to show him a little garden, sheltered by an old oak tree, where I love to sit. Mr. Muraki speaks some English, but I speak no Japanese. There were two chairs in different sections of the lawn. After some few moments of trying to communicate, I understood that he was asking me in which chair I liked to sit. I showed him. He sat down, and looked out at the mountains in silence.

    There he stayed for many minutes-longer than I had anticipated he would. He was making a gentle gesture, discovering a window into my life, and opening for me, a window into his. A small moment of peace.

    I would like to close by relating my earliest memory of A Thousand Cranes. But first, some background: At Los Alamos, my father worked on the electronics of the bomb’s trigger mechanism. During the war, he advocated a demonstration of the bomb to compel the Japanese surrender. After the war, he never again worked on weapons and dedicated himself to peaceful scientific pursuits, to political and social action, and to building relationships with scientists worldwide, particularly in Japan.

    In the early 1960s, he hosted a young Japanese postdoctoral fellow at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Dr. Wakuta stayed in the United States for one year, and every day of that year, at home in Japan, his wife and young daughter folded three origami cranes as a prayer for his safe return. At the end of a year, they had made one thousand cranes, and once back home, Dr. Wakuta sent the cranes to my parents. Although I did not discuss it with my mother and father at the time, I now wonder if the gift of a Thousand Cranes was not an allusion to the bomb, a gesture of reconciliation, a prayer of forgiveness.

    It is a gift I remember even today-a small thing. One thousand fragile folded cellophane birds of blue, yellow, red, purple, green, suspended in long strands from a flat woven disk.

    Sadako’s cranes had flown around the world. And they continue their flight today, recreated now and into the future, by our hands and our hearts, as we bind ourselves to Sadako’s dream of peace, her small act of great love.

    Mary Palevsky, Ph.D. marypalevsky@cs.com

    Atomic Fragments: A Daughter’s Questions University of California Press, 2000 http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8743.html

  • Update on Mordechai Vanunu

    Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, is serving an 18-year sentence at Ashkelon Prison for informing the public about Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program. After revealing information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper, Vanunu was lured from the UK to Rome, where Israeli agents apprehended him. Vanunu was kept in solitary confinement for more than 11 years, from September 30, 1986 until March 12, 1998. Vanunu’s story published on October 5, 1986, confirmed to the world for the first time that Israel had become a nuclear weapons state and had enough fissile material for as many as 200 advanced nuclear warheads.

    The following is the most recent letter* written by Mordechai Vanunu to David Krieger. The letter was written on December 4th, 2000 and received on June 14th, 2001 by air mail. Portions of the letter were literally cut out to censor Vanunu’s words relating to Israel’s nuclear policies which exemplifies the country’s resolve to continue its “secret” nuclear weapons program without being subjected to international accountability. The censored portions of this letter are marked with brackets [ ].

    Vanunu needs your support. You can write to him at Ashkelon Prison to encourage him. Mail from supporters sustains his hope.

    Mordechai Vanunu Ashkelon Prison Ashkelon, Israel December 4th, 2000

    Dear Mr. David Krieger,

    Thank you very much for your letter of November 13th. I am very glad to know that you are ready to do more for my release and for the abolition of all nuclear weapons [censored] – I’ll continue to write to you as I am writing to others. As you requested in your letter, I will respond on the issue of the nuclear weapons threat to the entire world. As to the names of people, you can ask Sam Day. He knows all the names. I am writing to Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Hans Bethe and others to request they send copies of their letters of support to Sam Day.

    In regards to nuclear weapons, although we are seeing reductions in nuclear weapons by the states who produce and possess them, the vision of abolishing nuclear weapons has not become a reality despite the many large campaigns, ranging from all societies and including retired Admirals and Generals. On the other hand, all those who are supporting nuclear weapons have suffered a huge setback since the end of the Cold War when nuclear weapons lost their justification. For nuclear weapons, lost enemies, lost conflicts and not future justification will happen. Those who are against nuclear weapons must continue to put pressure toward a total ban, abolishing all nuclear weapons in all states which possess them. Economically, nuclear weapons are redundant and states will spend more to continue maintaining them even though they have no future use. That we are moving in the path of abolishing all nuclear weapons is a positive optimist view.

    The second problem is how to deal with small states that have nuclear weapons [censored] which superpowers like the US are now using as a reason to keep nuclear weapons and even justify the development of missile defenses. My example was the best way to deal with [censored] nuclear weapons secrets by revealing to the media world-wide. But it was not enough. As we have witnessed, Israel yet continues to deny and ignore this information and continues to lie in public. This is why the superpowers are not ready to use that information to demand that Israel end its nuclear weapons program. In my view, all anti-nuclear campaigners should use that information to fight Israel’s secret policies, force Israel to open Dimona reactor and sign the NPT with all the consequences [censored] then other small states who also engage in nuclear weapons secrets will follow [censored] and sign the NPT. This is the way to deal wth this phenomena of an unbalanced world of states who have nuclear weapons and states who do not have nuclear weapons. The world would be in a more balanced reality; that is all small states should be free from nuclear weapons. Then all small states, which would be the world’s majority, will put pressure on the superpowers to abolish nuclear weapons. This step is not currently succeeding because of one small state, Israel, is breaking the unity among the world majority to force the superpowers to abolish all nuclear weapons.

    The next interesting point is that all anti-nuclear weapons campaigners do not understand the “Israel effect” on nuclear weapons abolition. Another interesting point is the connection between nuclear weapons and the economy. The post-Cold War era has been an age of economic growth and development. More and more states are realizing the deficit in possessing nuclear weapons and that nuclear weapons do not promote economic development in most of the undeveloped states. These countries are ready to back and support any initiative that will bring the end of nuclear weapons in the entire world. They know that the abolition of nuclear weapons in Europe, the US and the entire world will only bring help and encouragement to global economic activities, including globalization. So anti-nuclear activists should work in this new field to use economic reasons and alliances to defeat nuclear weapons. This could be done especially at economic summits like the G-8 and WTO meetings where decisions or declarations could be issued to abolish nuclear weapons. Rather than fighting the WTO like anarchist environmentalists, we can recreate the WTO and G-8 to begin working toward zero nuclear weapons.

    As to my release, no date for parole or release has been set. My official date of release is April 2004. I support any initiative you and others can do for my release.

    Hope to be free and to meet you and others in Santa Barbara. Thank you.

    Yours Sincerely,

    [signed] Mordechai Vanunu

    *This letter was edited for publishing.

  • U.S. and Russian Nuclear Defense Strategies are Fatally Flawed – They Can’t be Used Without Self-Destruction

    Nuclear Defense Strategies – The nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, left-over from the Cold War, present the world with its greatest danger. These two arsenals have 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons. The nuclear defense strategies for Russia and the U.S. are similar. Within minutes upon receiving instruction to fire, either one or both countries can launch thousands of missiles. These strategies are fatally flawed because launching thousands of nuclear weapons could destroy all countries including themselves.

     

    Global Danger – In a study made by the World Health Organization, they found that a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia could kill one billion people outright. In addition, it could produce a Nuclear Winter that would probably kill an additional one billion people. It is possible that more than two billion people, one-third of all the humans on Earth, would be destroyed almost immediately in the aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. The rest of humanity would be reduced to prolonged agony and barbarism. These findings are from a study chaired by Sune K. Bergstrom (the 1982 Nobel laureate in Physiology and Medicine) nearly 20 years ago. (1)

     

    Subsequent studies have had similar findings. Professor Alan Robock says, “Everything from purely mathematical models to forest fire studies shows that even a small nuclear war would devastate the earth. (2)

     

    Rich Small’s work, financed by the Defense Nuclear Agency, suggests that burning cities would produce a particularly troublesome variety of smoke. The smoke of forest fires is bad enough. But the industrial targets of cities are likely to produce a rolling, black smoke, a denser shield against incoming sunlight.(3)

     

    The late Dr. Carl Sagan and his associates in their studies found that a nuclear explosive force equal to 100 million tons of dynamite could create a global nuclear winter. (4) The U.S. and Russia each have on alert a nuclear explosive power more than 10 times greater than that needed to create a nuclear winter.

     

    Nuclear explosions with temperatures of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees centigrade at ground zero could start giant flash fires leaving large cities and forests burning with no one to fight them. Nuclear explosions can also lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere, creating more than l00,000 tons of fine, dense, dust for every megaton exploded on a surface. (5) This dust would add to the darkness and cold.

     

    Explosive Power Compared – Nuclear weapons are far more powerful than is generally realized.

     

    *The terrorist bomb that was detonated outside an office building in Oklahoma City in 1995 killed 168 people. This fertilizer and fuel bomb weighted 3 and 1/2 tons. (6)

     

    * A small nuclear warhead, that one person can lift can have an explosive power equal to 40,000 tons of dynamite, or 8,000 trucks each carrying 5 tons of dynamite, or 3 Hiroshima size bombs

     

    *One average size U.S. strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive force equal to 50,000 trucks each carrying 5 tons of dynamite.

     

    *If 1,000 of the average size 0U.S. warheads were used they could produce an explosive force equal to 50 million trucks each carrying 5 tons of dynamite.

     

    *One average size Russian strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 40,000 trucks each carrying 5 tons of dynamite. (7)

     

    Leader’s Concern – General Lee Butler (USAF), former head of the US Strategic Command, said, “… twenty nuclear weapons would suffice to destroy the twelve largest Russian cities with a total population of twenty-five million people and therefore that arsenals in the hundreds, much less in the thousands, can serve no meaningful strategic objective.” (8) Twenty nuclear warheads is less than one percent of the nuclear weapons that the U.S. has set for hair-trigger release.

     

    Robert McNamara, former Secretary of Defense under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, says there was no long-range war plan. Neither Russia nor the U.S. wanted to get behind. Each side strove to build the greatest number of nuclear weapons. More importantly, he said, the totals far exceeded the requirements of any conceivable war plan. (9)

     

    Accidental Nuclear War – There have been at least three times in the past that the U.S. and Russia almost launched to false warnings. Each time they came within less than 10 minutes of launching before learning the warnings were false.

     

    * In l979, a U.S. training tape showing a massive attack was accidentally played.

     

    * In l983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly signaled the launch of a U.S. missile.

     

    * In 1995, Russia almost launched its missiles because a Norwegian rocket studying the northern lights was mistakenly taken as the start of a nuclear attack. (10)

     

    False warnings are a fact of life. For example, during an 18-month period in 1979-80 the U.S. had 147 false alarms in its strategic warning system. (11)

     

    Casper Weinberger, when he was President Reagan’s Defense Secretary, said that since an anti-ballistic missile defense could require decisions within seconds there would be no time for White House approval. Hitting a missile having a head start and going thousands of miles per hour does not allow much time to assess whether a warning is false or not. (12) Do we want computers determining our fate?

     

    Action – All countries with nuclear weapons need to assess what would be the consequences of their use, including possibility of self-destruction. Reporting these findings to the public could help build a better understanding of the need to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

     

    General Butler has said the world can immediately and inexpensively improve security by taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert. (13)

     

    Reference and Notes

     

    1. Sagan, Carl. The Nuclear Winter, Council for a Livable World Education, Boston, MA, 1983.

     

    2. Robock, Alan. “New models confirm nuclear winter,’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, September 1989, pp.32-35.. .

     

    3. Blum, Deborah, Scientists try to predict nuclear future from forest fires, The Sacramento Bee. Nov. 28, 1987.

     

    4. Sagan, Op. Cit.

     

    5. Ibid.

     

    6. Hamilton, Arnold. “McVeigh forgoes 2 final appeals,“ Contra Coast Times, June 8, 2001.

     

    7. Norris, Robert S. and Arkin, William. “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile,”’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/Aug. 96.

     

    8. Butler, Lee. Talk at the University of Pittsburgh , May13, 1999.

     

    9. McNamara, Robert. Blundering Into Disaster, Pantheon Books, New, York, 1986.

     

    10. Babst, Dean. “Preventing An Accidental Armageddon,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Feb., 2000.

     

    11. Hart, Senator Gary and Goldwater, Senator Barry, Recent False Alerts from the Nation’s Missile Attack Warning System, a report to the Senate Armed Forces, 9 October, 1980, pp. 4 & 5.

     

    12. Strategic Defense and Anti-Satellite Weapons, hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 25, 1984, pp. 69-74.

     

    13. Schell, Jonathan, “The Gift Of Time,” The Nation, Feb. 8, 1998, p. 58.

  • Preventing an Accidental Nuclear Winter

    Nuclear Winter

    In a study made by the World Health Organization, they found that a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia could kill one billion people outright. In addition, it could produce a Nuclear Winter that would probably kill an additional one billion people. It is possible that more than two billion people, one-third of all the humans on Earth would be destroyed almost immediately in the aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. The rest of humanity would be reduced to prolonged agony and barbarism. These findings are from a study chaired by Sune K. Bergstrom (the 1982 Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine) nearly 20 years ago. (1)

    Subsequent studies have had similar findings. Professor Alan Robock says, “Everything from purely mathematical models to forest fire studies shows that even a small nuclear war would devastate the earth.” (2)

    Rich Small’s work, financed by the Defense Nuclear Agency, suggests that burning cities would produce a particularly troublesome variety of smoke. The smoke of forest fires is bad enough. But the industrial targets of cities are likely to produce a rolling, black smoke, a denser shield against incoming sunlight. (3)

    Nuclear explosions can produce heat intensities of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Centigrade at ground zero. Nuclear explosions can also lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere, creating more than l00,000 tons of fine, dense, radioactive dust for every megaton exploded on the surface. (4) The late Dr. Carl Sagan said the super heating of vast quantities of atmospheric dust and soot will cover both hemispheres. (5) For those who survive a nuclear attack, it would mean living on a cold, dark, chaotic, radioactive planet.

    A nuclear warhead is far more destructive than is generally realized. For example, just one average size U.S. strategic 250 Kt nuclear warhead has an explosive force equal to 250,000 tons of dynamite or 50,000 World War II type bombers each carrying 5 tons of bombs. The truck bombs that terrorists exploded at the New York World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City each had an explosive force equal to about 5 tons of dynamite. (6)

    Accidental Nuclear War

    The U.S. and Russia each have more than 2,000 strategic nuclear warheads set for hair-trigger release. If launched they could be delivered to targets around the world in 30 minutes. They would have an explosive force equal to l00,000 Hiroshima size bombs. (7) Russia and the U.S. have more than 90 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. The more automated and shorter the decision process becomes the greater is the possibility of missiles being launched to false warnings.

    The U.S. is trying to decide whether to build an anti-missile “star wars” defense or not. In order for an anti-ballistic missile to hit another missile traveling at incredible speed that can come from many different directions, it would be necessary to have a very complex computerized system.

    President Reagan’s Defense Secretary, Casper Weinberger, said that since an anti-missile defense would require decisions within seconds, completely autonomous computer control is a foregone conclusion. There would be no time for screening out false alarms and a decision to launch would have to be automated—there would be no time for White House approval. (8)

    A highly automated defense system that has no time for determining whether a warning is false or not is highly likely to launch to a false warning. There are always false warnings. For example, during 1981, 1982 and 1983 there were 186, 218 and 255 false alarms, respectively, in the U.S. strategic warning system. (9)

    There have been at least three times in the last 20 years that the U.S. and Russia almost launched to false warnings. Fortunately there was enough time to determine that the warnings were false before decision time ran out.

    In 1979, a U.S. training tape showing a massive attack was accidentally played.

    In 1983, a Soviet satellite mistakenly signaled the launch of a U.S. missile.

    In 1995, Russia almost launched its missiles because of a Norwegian rocket studying the northern lights. (l0)

    If the U.S. builds an anti-missile defense it appears certain that missiles would be launched to false warnings because no time is available for determining whether a warning is false or not.

    Preventive Action Needed

    Plans to build an anti-missile defense need to be carefully researched as to how it could increase the danger of an accidental nuclear war. As the research progresses, the findings need to be widely discussed in the news media. The more widely and clearly the danger is made known the more concerned the public should be for agreements to greatly reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons from the world.

    As humanity’s safety becomes more and more dependent upon technology, the technological dangers need to be guarded against. Technical errors in one system may trigger errors in others. When researching missile defense dangers the following types of factors need to be included in the assessments, e.g. Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)), “Dead Hand” control of missiles, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO). Russia’s blind spots in its satellite warning system also need to be included in this research.

    The U.S. and Russia are in a position where either can destroy humanity in a flash and yet there appears to be little recognition of this peril hanging over the world. Only 71 out of 435 U.S. congressional representatives signed a motion calling for nuclear weapons to be taken off of hair-trigger alert. (11) The U.S. Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999. (12)

    Queen Noor al Hussein, of Jordan, said “The sheer folly of trying to defend a nation by destroying all life on the planet must be apparent to anyone capable of rational thought.” (13) There is a need to greatly increase public awareness of the danger in order to provide broad, long-term understanding and support for arms agreements ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

    Reference and Notes

    1. Sagan, Carl. The Nuclear Winter, Council for a Livable World Education Fund, Boston, MA, 1983.

    2. Robock, Alan. “New models confirm nuclear winter,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist, September l989, pp 32-35.

    3. Blum, Deborah. “Scientists try to predict nuclear future from forest fires,” The Sacramento Bee, November 28, 1987.

    4. Sagan, Op.Cit.

    5. Ibid

    6. Babst, Dean, Preventing An Accidental Armageddon,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, February 2000,

    7. Blair, Bruce. “Nuclear Dealerting: A Solution to Proliferation Problems,” The Defense Monitor, Volume XXXIX, No.3, 2000.

    8. Strategic Defense and Anti-Satellite Weapons, hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 25, 1984, pp. 69-74.

    9. Letter from Air Force Space Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, February 16, 1984.

    10. Babst, Op.Cit.

    11. The Sunflower, No. 31, Jan. 00, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, Calif.

    12. Gordon, Michael R. “Russia rejects call to amend ABM treaty,” Contra Costa Times, Oct. 2l, 1999.

    13. Hussein, Queen Noor al. “The Responsibilities of World Citizenship,” Waging Peace Series, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, Calif., Booklet No 40, July 2000.

    *Dean Babst is a retired government research scientist and Coordinator of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Accidental Nuclear War Studies Program. The author acknowledges the helpful suggestions of David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Bob Aldridge, who heads the Pacific Life Research Center, and Andy Baltzo, who is Founder of the Mount Diable Peace Center in northern California.

  • Taking Ourselves Off the Endangered Species List

    Can you imagine a world without human eyes to view its wonder? Nuclear weapons make such a world possible. Our inaction in the face of nuclear dangers may make such a world probable. Despite the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons continue to place human beings on the endangered species list. It is up to us to take ourselves off this list. Before we can do so, however, we must first recognize that we are on it.

    Perhaps this recognition is a motivating factor in US plans to develop and deploy a National Missile Defense system. These plans represent a pursuit of invulnerability to nuclear attack for US citizens. The problem is that there can be no invulnerability for one piece of territory or one country ‘s citizens in the Nuclear Age. There are no perfect defenses and, n the case of nuclear weaponry, even small margins of error can spell disaster.

    The problem is complicated by the fact that if one country proceeds with a defensive system, other countries will feel threatened. The reason for this is that one country ‘s invulnerability or even imagined invulnerability will give it potential offensive advantages over other countries. If, for example, the US has a missile defense system it believes will make it invulnerable to attack, then China will worry about being bullied by the US and further develop its offensive missile capabilities. Thus, improved defensive capabilities can lead to offensive arms races. Such is the contorted logic of security in the Nuclear Age.

    Invulnerability is not an option, but US decision makers are proceeding as though it is. This is a dangerous policy that could rekindle nuclear arms races throughout the world. A far better approach would be to provide leadership toward a nuclear weapons free world. Such an approach would increase global stability and reduce the risks of catastrophe resulting from human fallibility. This approach would be in accord with international law and the precepts of morality basic to all religions. It would also bring nuclear weapons and materials under tighter controls and reduce the risks of the weapons or materials falling into the hands of terrorists or criminals.

    For these reasons, individuals from through- out the world are adding their names and voices to the Foundation ‘s Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity. Walter Cronkite, one of the most respected men in America and a signer of the Appeal, wrote: “Facing a holocaust that could take thousands or perhaps billions of lives and render much of the earth uninhabitable, how is it possible for humankind to continue to believe that the way to settle its disputes is by killing each other? Nuclear weapons represent the utmost fantasy in the perpetuation of this savage philosophy.”

    If you ‘d like to add your name to this Appeal, you can sign up online. If you are not already a member of the Foundation, we invite you to join us in waging peace by educating yourself, educating others and taking action. We try to make this easy for you by providing up-to-date information and suggestions for action.

    There is strength in numbers. When people come together for peace they are a powerful force. Like a mighty ocean, people power can overcome even the dangers of the Nuclear Age. We may not be invulnerable, but we are not without the power to shape our future. I invite you to play a greater role in spreading the Foundation ‘s message of peace, and helping us to grow to fulfill our mission of creating a peaceful, nuclear weapons-free future for humanity and all life.

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

  • Nuclear Deterrence, Missile Defenses, and Global Instability

    In the world of nuclear deterrence theory, beliefs are everything. What the leaders of a country perceive and believe is far more important than the reality. Nuclear deterrence is a seemingly simple proposition: Country A tells country B that if B does X, A will attack it with nuclear weapons. The theory is that country B will be deterred from doing X by fear of nuclear attack by country A. For deterrence to work, the leaders of country B must also believe that country A has nuclear weapons and will use them. Nuclear deterrence theory holds that even if country A might not have nuclear weapons, so long as the leaders of country B believed that it did they would be deterred.

    The theory goes on to hold that country A can generally rely upon nuclear deterrence with any country except one that also has nuclear weapons or one that is protected by another country with nuclear weapons. If country B also has nuclear weapons and the leaders of country A know this, then A, according to theory, will be deterred from a nuclear attack on country B. This situation will result in a standoff. The same is true if country C does not have nuclear weapons, but is under the “umbrella” of country B that does have nuclear weapons. Country A will not retaliate against country C for fear of itself being retaliated against by country B.

    Thus, if country A has nuclear weapons and no other country has nuclear weapons, country A has freedom — within the limits of its moral code, pressures of public opinion, and its willingness to flout international humanitarian law — to threaten or use nuclear weapons without fear of retaliation in kind. For a short time the United States was the only country with nuclear weapons. It used these weapons twice on a nearly defeated enemy. Deterrence played no part. The United States never said to Japan, don’t do this or we will attack you with nuclear weapons. Prior to using the nuclear weapons, these weapons were a closely guarded secret.

    From 1945 to the early 1950s, US strategic thinking saw free-fall nuclear weapons simply extending conventional bombing capabilities. The United States never said that it would attack another country with nuclear weapons if it did X, but this was implied by the recognized existence of US nuclear weapons, the previously demonstrated willingness of the US to use them, and the continued public testing of these weapons by the US in the Pacific.

    The Dangerous Game of Deterrence

    After the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949, the dangerous game of nuclear deterrence began. Both the US and USSR warned that if attacked by nuclear weapons, they would retaliate in kind massively. They also extended their respective so-called nuclear deterrence “umbrellas” to particular countries within their orbits. As the arsenals of each country grew, they developed policies of Mutual Assured Destruction. Each country had enough weapons to completely destroy the other. Britain and France also developed nuclear arsenals because they did not want to rely upon the US nuclear umbrella, and to try to preserve their status as great powers. They worried that in a crisis the US might not come to their aid if it meant that the US risked annihilation by the USSR for doing so. China also developed a nuclear arsenal because it felt threatened by both the US and USSR. Israel, India, Pakistan and South Africa also developed nuclear arsenals, although South Africa eventually dismantled its small nuclear arsenal.

    Nuclear deterrence took different shapes with different countries. The US and USSR relied upon massive retaliation from their large arsenals of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. The UK, France and China maintained smaller deterrent forces of a few hundred nuclear weapons each. India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, but it is uncertain whether they have yet deployed nuclear weapons. Israel, known to have some 200 nuclear weapons, offers only the ambiguous official statement that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

    One obvious way that nuclear deterrence could fail is if one side could destroy the other side’s nuclear forces in a first strike. To prevent this from happening, nuclear armed states have tried to make their nuclear forces invulnerable to being wiped out by a first strike attack. One way of doing this was to put the weapons underground, in the air and in the oceans. Many of the weapons on land were put in hardened silos, while those in the oceans were put on submarines that were difficult to locate underwater. For decades the strategic bombers of the US and USSR carrying nuclear weapons were kept constantly on alert with many in the air at any given moment.

    Nuclear deterrence became a game of sorts – a dangerous and potentially tragic one and also deeply selfish, irresponsible and lawless, risking all humanity and the planet. Countries had to protect their deterrence forces at all costs and not allow themselves to become vulnerable to a first strike attack on their nuclear forces. In a strange and perverse way, nuclear-armed countries became more committed to protecting their nuclear forces than they were to protecting their citizens. While they hardened their land-based missile silos and placed their submarines in the deep oceans, their citizens remained constantly vulnerable to nuclear attack.

    The game of nuclear deterrence required that no country become so powerful that it might believe that it could get away with a first strike attempt. It was this concern that drove the nuclear arms race between the US and USSR until the USSR was finally worn down by the economic burden of the struggle. It also ensured a high level of hostility between rival nuclear-armed countries, with great danger of misunderstandings – witness, for example, the Cuban missile crisis and many other less well-known scares. Mutual Assured Destruction lacked credibility, requiring the development of policies of “Flexible Response,” which lowered the nuclear threshold, encouraged the belief that nuclear weapons could be used for war-fighting, increased the risk of escalation to all-out nuclear war, and stimulated more arms racing.

    Notice that a first strike doesn’t require that one country actually have the force to overcome its opponent’s nuclear forces. The leaders of the country only have to believe that it can do so. If the leaders of country A believe that country B is planning a first strike attack, country A may decide to initiate a preemptive strike. If the leaders of country A believe that the leaders of country B would not initiate a nuclear attack against them if they did X, then they might well be tempted to do X. They might be mistaken. This led to the “launch-on-warning” hair-trigger alert status between the US and Russia. More than ten years after the end of the Cold War, each country still has some 2,250 strategic warheads ready to be fired on a few moments’ notice. Nuclear deterrence operates with high degrees of uncertainty, and this uncertainty increases, as does the possibility of irrationality, in times of crisis.

    Ballistic Missile Defenses

    President George W. Bush cites as his primary reason for wanting a ballistic missile defense system for the US his lack of faith that nuclear deterrence would work against so-called “rogue” states. Yet, the uncertainty in nuclear deterrence increases when ballistic missile defenses are introduced. If country A believes that it has a perfect defense against country B, then country B may also believe that it has lost its deterrent capability against country A. Ballistic missile defenses, therefore, will probably trigger new arms races. If countries A and B each have 500 nuclear warheads capable of attacking the other, both are likely to believe the other side will be deterred from an attack. If country A attempts to introduce a defensive system with 1,000 anti-ballistic missile interceptors, country B may believe that its nuclear-armed ballistic missile force will be made impotent and decide to increase its arsenal of deliverable warheads from 500 to 2,000 in order to restore its deterrent capability in the face of B’s 1,000 defensive interceptors. Or, country B may decide to attack country A before its defensive force becomes operational.

    If country A plans to introduce a defensive system with only 100 interceptors, country B might believe that its nuclear force could still prevail with 500 deliverable nuclear weapons. But country B must also think that country A’s interceptors would give A an advantage if A decides to launch a first strike attack against B’s nuclear forces. If country A is able to destroy 400 or more of country B’s nuclear weapons, then A would have enough interceptors (if they all worked perfectly) to believe that it could block any retaliatory action by B. Thus, any defensive system introduced by any country would increase instability and uncertainty in the system, making deterrence more precarious. Worse, this introduces a fear that ballistic missile defense has little to do with defense, and far more to do with an offensive “shield” behind which a country could believe that it could coerce the rest of the world with impunity.

    It was concern for the growing instability of nuclear deterrence to the point where it might break down that led the US and USSR to agree in 1972 to place limits on defensive missile forces in the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. In this treaty each side agreed to limit its defensive forces to no more than two sites of 100 interceptors each. These sites could not provide protection to the entire country. It is this treaty that the United States is now seeking to amend or unilaterally abrogate in order to build a national ballistic missile defense. It claims this defense is needed to protect itself against so-called “rogue” states such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq. At present, however, none of these countries is even expected to be able to produce nuclear weapons or a missile delivery system capable of reaching the United States before 2010 at the earliest.

    Russia and China have both expressed strong opposition to the US proceeding with ballistic missile defense plans. Russia wants to maintain the ABM Treaty for the reasons the treaty was initially created, and is aghast at comments from the US such as those of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld calling the treaty “ancient history.” Russia is also seeking to reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal for economic reasons and its leaders fear the instabilities that a US national ballistic missile defense system would create. Russian leaders have said that such a system that abrogated the ABM Treaty could result in Russia withdrawing from other arms control treaties including the START II and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    China has a nuclear force a fraction of that of Russia or the US. It has some 400 nuclear weapons, but only some 20 long-range missiles capable of reaching the US. If the US sets up a system of some 100 to 200 interceptors, China would have to assume that its nuclear deterrent capability had been eliminated. Chinese leaders have called for the US not to go ahead with a ballistic missile defense system that would force China to develop a stronger nuclear deterrent force. Were China to do so, this would inevitably provoke India to expand its nuclear capability, which in turn would lead Pakistan to do the same.

    Increasing Instabilities

    At a time when major progress toward nuclear disarmament is possible and even promised by the nuclear weapons states, the US desire to build a ballistic missile defense system to protect it against small nuclear forces is introducing new uncertainties into the structure of global nuclear deterrence and increasing the instability in the system. Nuclear deterrence has never been a stable system. One country’s nuclear strategies have both predictable and unpredictable consequences in other countries.

    Security built upon nuclear arms cannot endure. US nuclear weapons led to the development of the USSR and UK nuclear arsenals. These led to the development of the French and Chinese nuclear forces. The Chinese nuclear forces led to the development of Indian nuclear forces. India’s nuclear forces led to the development of Pakistani nuclear forces. Israel decided to develop nuclear forces to give it a deterrent among hostile Middle East neighbors. No doubt this provoked Saddam Hussein – and gave him the pretext – to develop Iraq’s nuclear capability, and is driving Iran to follow suit.

    Now the US is seeking to introduce national and theater ballistic missile defenses that will provide further impetus to nuclear arms development and proliferation. The world is far more complicated than country A deterring country B by threat of nuclear retaliation. As more countries develop nuclear arsenals, more uncertainties enter the system. As more defenses are set in place, further uncertainties enter the system. While the US seeks to make itself invulnerable against threats that do not yet even exist, it is further destabilizing the existing system of global nuclear deterrence to the point where it could collapse – especially when the President demonstrates his belief that the system can no longer be relied upon.

    The full consequences of US missile defense plans are not predictable. What is predictable is that the introduction of more effective defenses by the US will change the system and put greater stress on the global system of security built upon nuclear deterrence. The system is already showing signs of strain. With new uncertainties will come new temptations for a country to use nuclear forces before they are used against it. Nuclear deterrence is not sustainable in the long run, and we simply don’t know what stresses or combination of perceptions and/or misperceptions might make it fail.

    Nuclear deterrence cannot guarantee security. It undermines it. The only possibility of security from nuclear attack lies in the elimination of nuclear weapons as has already been agreed to in the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reiterated in the 2000 Review Conference of that treaty. Ballistic missile defenses, which increase instability, move the world in the wrong direction. For its own security, the US should abandon its plans to deploy ballistic missile defenses that would abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and instead provide leadership in immediately negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention leading to the phased and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons, like the widely-acclaimed enforceable global treaty banning chemical weapons.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The author would like to thank Commander Robert Green for his helpful suggestions on this paper.

  • Earth Day is Every Day

    Earth Day comes only once a year (this year on April 22nd), but protecting our Earth matters everyday. As syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman noted, “In the Earth Day flourish of attention, how did we manage to overlook the greatest environmental danger of all – the mushroom cloud over the green space?”

    Earth is home to all life that we know of in the Universe. Most life on Earth, including the human species, is threatened by nuclear weapons. No country or government has the right to jeopardize the human future and life on our planet for its own shortsighted concept of security through nuclear threat. People need to set their governments right, and demand of their governments an end to this threat.

    If you would like to help make a difference, you can join with others from around the world in signing the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity. You can also spread the word by sending this message with a copy of the Appeal to ten friends. Let’s get responsible about saving our planet – it’s the only one we have.

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

  • Globalization and the End of Nuclear Weapons

    Nuclear weapons will only be abolished when the moral consciousness of humanity is raised, just as it was raised by the moral re-assessment and rejection of slavery, colonialism and apartheid.

    The Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) would not be able to so blithely carry on with their nuclear weapons programs if world consciousness, raised to a new recognition of this continued affront on humanity, demanded abolition. But world consciousness has been dulled. We have lived with the bomb so long that it has insinuated itself into our thinking.

    Why are some in the abolition movement now saying that the abolition of nuclear weapons is a remote, receding, and unrealistic goal?

    Why are governments still being allowed to claim that the outmoded strategy of nuclear deterrence has even a shred of credibility or morality?

    Why are the nuclear retentionists not being driven to obscurity by the sheer force of the legal, moral, political, and military arguments against the possession of nuclear weapons?

    To address the paramount issue of our time with these searching questions brings us face to face with the hardest question of all: Does 21st century humanity have the vision, the courage, the strength, the perseverance to abolish the very instruments that can obliterate humanity itself? To that question we must give a resounding “yes”.

    Public Priorities: A Common Ground For All Humanity

    The first and perhaps over-arching requirement in building a world free of nuclear weapons is to have the confidence that it can be done. The doubters have had their way long enough. Having shown our anger at mis-placed public priorities where we prepare for war to preserve a fragile peace, let us now display our confidence that enough of us making a difference in the circumstances of our daily lives can indeed make a difference in the world as a whole.

    Let us demand of our governments that they stop their duplicitous conduct and move beyond the traditional approaches of preventing war, which have failed disastrously. Today billions are spent on arms and militarization, while worthwhile peace initiatives and programs for human security are starved for lack of funds. These priorities must be reversed.

    Globalization is a moment for us to express a vision of the kind of world we want in the 21st century.

    Let me tell you my vision.

    I want a world that is human-centered and genuinely democratic, a world that builds and protects peace, equality, justice and development. I want a world where human security, as envisioned in the principles of the United Nations Charter, replaces armaments, violent conflict and wars. I want a world where everyone lives in a clean environment with a fair distribution of the Earth’s resources and where human rights are protected by a body of international law.

    But it is hard to obtain such a world. As U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has reminded us, the century just ended was disfigured time and again by ruthless conflict. Grinding poverty and striking inequality persist within and among countries amidst unprecedented wealth. Nature’s life-sustaining services are being seriously disrupted and degraded. These diverse challenges to human security carry a powerful message.

    Globalization must bring a new understanding of the world as a single community.

    Globalization must mean more than creating bigger markets.

    Globalization must use the sweeping power of technology to raise all of humanity to higher levels of civilization under a common global ethic.

    By “global ethic,” I do not mean a global ideology or a single unified religion, and I certainly don’t mean the domination of one religion at the expense of others. Rather, I mean a fundamental consensus on binding values, irrevocable standards, and personal attitudes. This ethic is the expression of a vision of peoples living peacefully together, of peoples sharing responsibility for the care of the planet. The abolition of nuclear weapons must become a central part of this new global ethic of enlightened realism.

    Because of massive transformations in technology, communication and transportation humanity can now see itself, its unity and disunity, as no generation before could do. Humanity must also see not only its coexistence but also its commonality and the need for cooperation with one another.

    Beyond all else, one great fact must stand out – the whole of the Earth is greater than the parts. Global security is of a higher order than national security – security at the expense of others.

    Violence, injustice, war, oppression and poverty are seen not as the inevitable consequences of greed and aggression, but as symptoms of a world disorder caused by putting the parts before the whole. A globalized world of peace and justice can only be achieved by fostering this global ethic. This is an ethic that is not disloyal to community or country, rather, it lifts up the consciousness of one’s surroundings to a new recognition, never possible in the pre-technological age of globalization, of the interdependence of nations and systems making up the whole.

    To address the human security agenda there needs to be an infusion of values-based principles into public policy that would establish and reinforce a common ground for all humanity: One that would emphasize the core values of respect for life, freedom, justice and equity. Sadly, this common ethic remains elusive in public policy. Consider:

    The world’s nuclear arsenals have thus far cost over $8 trillion and counting. The U.S. alone has spent $5.5 trillion on its nuclear weapons and American taxpayers expend about $100 million a day in order to maintain them.

    Despite the end of the Cold War, the world still spends $781 billion a year on armaments. Contrast this preparation for war with the $1.3 billion it spends on maintaining United Nations programs for peace.

    For every dollar that all governments spend on military activities, less than a quarter-of-a-cent is spent on U.N. peacekeeping. Contrast this reality with the following: At least one-quarter of the world’s people live in extreme poverty, meaning they do not get enough food, access to clean water, proper sanitation, are subject to rampant disease, and are deprived of proper education.

    Across the world nearly one billion people, two thirds of them women, will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or so much as write their names. This total includes more than 130 million primary school-aged children who are growing up without access to basic education.

    Despite the purported goal of universal primary education, OXFAM argues that if current trends continue an estimated 75 million children will be out of school in the year 2015. These facts are not indicative of some tragic twist of fate, but are the result of the choices our governments have made, a testament to a deliberate turning of heads away from the poor. We must give meaning and value to all life.

    It is not the resources that are lacking, but the political will. Let us remember such contrasts when we think of globalization and building a common ethic for a culture of peace. Elimination of the instruments of violence, beating swords into plougshares, making the transition from a culture of war, maintained and advanced by the huge war machine human industry has built up over many centuries, would be the greatest legacy we could ever leave to future generations. This must be our resolve.

    Policy-makers must rid themselves of the idea that peace and security can be bought only with weaponry. We need to foster and promote the transition from a culture of war, violence, and discrimination to a culture, an ethic, of non-violence, dialogue, and tolerance. It will have to be based on collective efforts from a variety of partners inside and outside of government. It will depend upon the ability to raise people’s awareness of the fundamental human security needs and rights affecting the daily lives of millions.

    A transformation of human consciousness, as great as the transformative power of globalization itself, must occur.

    The Political Will To Abolish Nuclear Weapons

    The single biggest impediment to successful globalization – that is peaceful and just – is the maintenance of nuclear weapons.

    With the proliferation of nuclear and of other weapons of mass destruction, the weapons themselves have become the main enemy. Because an increasing number of nations will not tolerate the possession of nuclear weapons by some to the exclusion of others, the abolition of nuclear weapons is the indispensable condition for peace in the 21st century. Their abolition must be the focal point to the deep social change required for a global ethic of peace, since there is not hope for an equitable world as long as a handful of powerful States retain and rely on nuclear weapons while trying to prevent others from acquiring them.

    The adherents of nuclear weapons say that their abolition will be the end result of the solidification of peace. They are putting the cart before the horse; the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) – through maintaining their nuclear weapons as instruments of power – are the catalysts for the spread of nuclear weapons and thus destabilizing the regions of the world. Of course, a security architecture must be built to support the abolition of nuclear weapons, but it is the outright refusal of the NWS to enter comprehensive negotiations for elimination that is worsening international relations.

    The maintenance of nuclear weapons into the 21st century is not to fight wars, although that can never be excluded, but to perpetuate power. This power flows from the structures of greed by which the rich think they have a right to the lion’s share of the world’s resources, after which they will, in the right mood and setting, share superfluous largesse. What are the real concerns of the nuclear retentionists? The ability to maintain a free hand to coerce and impose their will globally; ergo the decision to construct a National Missile Defence system in order to preserve asymmetrical power between themselves and the rest of the world.

    Proponents of missile defence claim they will not allow the United States to be black mailed by smaller nuclear powers. But because the U.S. intends to continue do just that with its own nuclear arsenal, it merely postpones the inevitable. Eventually either most nations will possess their own nuclear deterrent for self-defence or no one will.

    The public seems precariously unaware of the present nuclear danger. Let us bring the basic facts into sharp focus. Today, eight nations possess some 32,000 nuclear bombs containing 5,000 megatons of destructive energy, which is the equivalent of 416,000 Hiroshima-size bombs. This is enough to destroy all major cities of 500,000 population or greater in the United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Korea, Vietnam, Australia, South Africa, and Cuba.

    U.S. and Russian nuclear-weapons systems remain on high alert despite the fact they ceased to be formal enemies a decade ago. Many Americans, as I know many Canadians, do not realize that the U.S. and Russia still rely on the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). This doctrine purportedly made the use of nuclear weapons unthinkable during the Cold War by threatening the launch “on warning” of nuclear arsenals to counter any pre-emptive strike from the enemy, thus ensuring the devastation of all in any scenario.

    The Cold War is supposed to be over, we have entered a new century and a new millennium, yet we still retain the ways and means to destroy ourselves. Indeed those means are spreading to other countries. This fact, combined with the aging and weakness of Russian technical systems, which the Kursk submarine disaster illustrated, has increased the risk of accidental nuclear attack. The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that an accidental intermediate-sized launch of weapons from a single Russian submarine would result in the deaths of 6,838,000 persons from firestorms in eight U.S. cities. A similar catastrophic toll of death would result in Russia from a U.S. accident.

    Why then is there no real action for elimination on the part of all the Nuclear Weapon States? Because the political will has not yet been developed.

    The actual year in which the last nuclear weapon is dismantled or the precise time when the international community recognizes that war is no longer a viable means of resolving disputes is less important than the decision taken today to start down that road. The refusal of States to recognize that war is outmoded and a new architecture of global security must be built leaves the world in an increasingly dangerous condition.

    The opportunity opened up by the end of the Cold War has been squandered. The nuclear retentionists have succeeded in sowing doubts that the abolition goal is feasible, in insisting that regional security everywhere is a precondition, in claiming that the technicalities of compliance and verification are overwhelming. They get away with this intellectual corruption because neither the political order, the media, nor the public has yet summoned up the wrath to denounce the retentionists for the deceit, charlatanry, greed, and power they represent.

    The Right To Peace And The Abolition Of Nuclear Weapons

    Society accepts the maintenance, indeed the reliance, of nuclear weapons because we accept violence. Nuclear weapons are the reflection of society’s willingness to commit violence. It is violence when great sections of humanity are economically discriminated against and even robbed of their right to basic human needs. It is violence when we sell arms to governments to intimidate, if not wage war against, their neighbours and even their own people. Violence is so endemic in our culture that it has become routine. It is the ultimate violence to threaten to use nuclear weapons against other human beings — against people we do not even know and to place in jeopardy not only their own survival as a people but the natural structure upon which all civilization rests.

    The moral, legal and political challenge to nuclear weapons must be reinvigorated. Civil society, by this I mean communities, churches, citizens’ groups, all have a most pivotal role to play in heightening the pressure on governments to begin effective negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament. It is essential that non-governmental leaders speak, with one voice, that nuclear weapons are unacceptable. Nuclear planners would then be deprived of any claim to moral legitimacy.

    We must speak out to decry these very instruments that attack humanity. This is not “moralism,” it is not “rhetoric,” it is not “simplism.” It is, rather, the strengthening of a teaching that human conscience must assert itself in any understanding of right and wrong. To fail to do this is to consign humanity to denigration of intellect and loss of will, to deny it the very essence of humanity. I have stressed in this lecture the possibilities of globalization to promote attitudinal change in society so that it seeps into moral and legal thinking to both stimulate and sustain new government policies. A whole new way of thinking about nuclear weapons is required to effectuate change. This is the goal of UNESCO in promoting knowledge of a culture of peace.

    A culture of peace is the set of values, attitudes, traditions, modes of behaviour and ways of life that inspire respect for all life, rejection of violence, and promotion of all human rights. A culture of peace is a process of individual, collective and institutional transformation. It grows out of beliefs and actions of the people themselves and develops in each country within its specific historical, socio-cultural and economic context. Mobilizing public opinion and developing new education programs, at all levels, are essential.

    The themes of a culture of peace are the architecture for the human right to peace. The protection of the right to life and bodily security are at the heart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When a weapon has the potential to kill millions of people in one blast, human life becomes reduced to a level of worthlessness that totally belies human dignity as understood in any culture. No weapon invented in the long history of warfare has so negated the dignity and worth of the human person as has the nuclear bomb.

    The most devastating attack on the Declaration of Human Rights comes from those who would assault the very existence of human life on the planet.

    We are yet some distance from a general societal recognition that the right to peace demands the abolition of nuclear weapons. But let us have a vision that morality and law, fully developed, will bring us to this vision. While we must bring our head to this matter, we must also bring our heart.

    I reject the thinking of those who hold that the end of nuclear weapons is at least 100 years away and that until then “we must live with nuclear weapons as responsibly and quietly as we can.” That is dangerous pessimism. The world does not have 100 years to stamp out this pernicious cancer that is eroding human security.

    There are too many people suffering, too much political frustration, too much potential for global devastation, to allow a mood of passivity. The abolition of nuclear weapons will not, by itself, bring peace, but it will allow the international community to deal more effectively with other threats to peace.

    All great historical ideas for change go through three stages: first, the idea is ridiculed; then it is vigorously objected to; finally, it is accepted as conventional wisdom. The movement to abolish nuclear weapons has entered the second stage.

    The time for those who understand the threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons to make their voices heard, to wake up the public, to shake up governments is now. My hope lies in the blossoming of human intelligence and the emergence of a caring, activist civil society working along side of like-minded governments. We do not have the luxury of despair. We must believe that, with the application of our minds and hearts, we can overcome the nuclear retentionists.

    When leaders in civil society work with like-minded governments, powerful results can be obtained. It is now the responsibility of civil society to put a worldwide spotlight on the recalcitrance of the NWS governments and show them that human consciousness has moved beyond them.