Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear weapons

  • Open Letter to the Leaders of all Non-Nuclear Weapons States

    Your Excellencies:

    The outcome of the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which begins April 24, 2000 at the United Nations in New York, will play a significant role in determining the security of humanity in the 21st century. Your personal commitment to a successful outcome of this Review Conference is essential to strengthening nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, and thus to humanity’s future.

    The nuclear perils to humanity are not sufficiently widely recognized nor appreciated. In the words of writer Jonathan Schell, we have been given “the gift of time,” but that gift is running out. For this reason vision and bold action are called for.

    General George Lee Butler, a former Commander in Chief of all US strategic nuclear weapons, poses these questions: “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at the moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestation?”

    It is time to heed the warnings of men like General Butler, who know intimately the risks and consequences of nuclear war. The time is overdue for a New Agenda on nuclear disarmament. What is needed is commitment and leadership on behalf of humanity and all life.

    The heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty agreement is the link between non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The non-nuclear weapons states agree in the Treaty not to develop nor acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for the nuclear weapons states agreeing to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. The Treaty has become nearly universal and the non-nuclear weapons states, with a few notable exceptions, have adhered to the non-proliferation side of the bargain. The progress on nuclear disarmament, however, has been almost entirely unsatisfactory, leading many observers to conclude that the intention of the nuclear weapons states is to preserve indefinitely a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”

    At the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference many countries and non-governmental organizations challenged the nuclear disarmament record of the nuclear weapons states. They argued that to extend the Treaty indefinitely without more specific progress from the nuclear weapons states was equivalent to writing a blank check to states that had failed to keep their promises for 25 years. These countries and NGOs urged instead that the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty be linked to progress on Article VI promises of good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. Pressure from the nuclear weapons states led to the Treaty being extended indefinitely, but only with agreement to a set of non-binding Principles and Objectives that was put forward by the Republic of South Africa.

    These Principles and Objectives provided for:

    — completion of a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996;

    — early conclusion of negotiations for a non-discriminatory and universally applicable treaty banning production of fissile materials; and

    — determined pursuit by the nuclear weapons states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination.

    Progress toward these goals has been unimpressive. A CTBT was adopted in 1996, but has been ratified only by the UK and France among the nuclear weapons states. The US argues that the CTBT necessitates its $4.6 billion per year “Stockpile Stewardship” program, which enables it to design new nuclear weapons and modify existing nuclear weapons in computer-simulated virtual reality tests and “sub-critical” nuclear tests. Despite the existence of this provocative program, ratification of the CTBT by the US Senate was rejected in October 1999. The US and Russia continue to conduct “sub-critical” nuclear weapons tests. Negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty have yet to begin, and the “determined pursuit” promise has been systematically and progressively ignored by the nuclear weapons states.

    In its 1997 Presidential Decision Directive 60, the US reaffirmed nuclear weapons as the “cornerstone” of its security policy and opened the door to the use of nuclear weapons against a country using chemical or biological weapons. The US, UK and France have also resisted proposals by other NATO members for a review of NATO nuclear policy. Under urgent prodding by Canada and Germany, they did finally agree to a review of nuclear policy, but this will not be completed until December 2000, after the 2000 NPT Review Conference.

    The US seems intent on moving ahead with a National Missile Defense plan, even if it means abrogating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which most analysts view as a bedrock treaty for further nuclear arms reductions. The US is also moving ahead with space militarization programs. In the US Space Command’s “Vision for 2020” document, the US proclaims its intention of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.”

    Russia has abandoned its policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons in favor of a policy mirroring that of the western nuclear weapons states. The START II agreement is stalled and is still not ratified by the Russian Duma. The date for completion of START II has, in fact, been set back for five years from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2007. Negotiations on START III are stalled.

    China is modernizing its nuclear arsenal. India and Pakistan, countries that have consistently criticized the discriminatory nature of the NPT, have both overtly tested nuclear weapons and joined the nuclear weapons club. Israel, another country refusing to join the NPT, will not acknowledge that it has developed nuclear weapons and has imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu for more than 13 years for speaking out on Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

    In the face of the intransigence of the nuclear weapons states, the warning bells are sounding louder and louder. These warnings have been put forward by the Canberra Commission, the International Court of Justice, retired generals and admirals, past and present political leaders, the New Agenda Coalition, the Tokyo Forum, and many other distinguished individuals and non-governmental organizations working for peace and disarmament.

    The future of humanity is being held hostage to self-serving policies of the nuclear weapons states. This is an intolerable situation, not only for the myopic vision it represents and the disrespect for the rest of the world that is implicit in these policies, but, more important, for the squandering of the precious opportunity to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to our common future.

    The more nuclear weapons in the world, the greater the danger to humanity. At present we lack even an effective accounting of the numbers and locations of these weapons and the nuclear materials to construct them. The possibilities of these weapons or the materials to make them falling into the hands of terrorists, criminals or potential new nuclear weapons states has increased since the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

    What is to be done? Will the 2000 NPT Review Conference again be bullied by strong-armed negotiating techniques and false promises of the nuclear weapons states? Or will the non-nuclear weapons states, the vast majority of the world’s nations, unite in common purpose to demand that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their long-standing promises and obligations in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty?

    Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is the greatest challenge of our time. We ask you to step forward and meet this challenge by demanding in a unified voice that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. As we stand on the threshold of a new century and millennium, we ask that you call upon the nuclear weapons states to take the following steps to preserve the Non-Proliferation Treaty and end the threat that nuclear weapons arsenals pose to all humanity:

    • Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.
    • Publicly acknowledge the weaknesses and fallibilities of deterrence: that deterrence is only a theory and is clearly ineffective against nations whose leaders may be irrational or suicidal; nor can deterrence assure against accidents, misperceptions, miscalculations, or terrorists.
    • Publicly acknowledge the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons under international law as stated by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, and further acknowledge the obligation under international law for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.
    • Publicly acknowledge the immorality of threatening to annihilate millions, even hundreds of millions, of people in the name of national security.
    • De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.
    • Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Establish an international accounting system for all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials.
    • Sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, cease laboratory and subcritical nuclear tests designed to modernize and improve nuclear weapons systems, cease construction of Megajoule in France and the National Ignition Facility in the US and end research programs that could lead to the development of pure fusion weapons, and close the remaining nuclear test sites in Nevada and Novaya Zemlya.
    • Re-affirm the commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and cease efforts to violate that Treaty by the deployment of national or theater missile defenses, and cease the militarization of space.
    • Support existing nuclear weapons free zones, and establish new ones in the Middle East, Central Europe, North Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.
    • Set forth a plan to complete the transition under international control and monitoring to zero nuclear weapons by 2020, with agreed upon levels of nuclear disarmament to be achieved by the NPT Review Conferences in 2005, 2010 and 2015.
    • Begin to reallocate the billions of dollars currently being spent annually for maintaining nuclear arsenals ($35 billion in the U.S. alone) to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.
    • You have a unique historical opportunity to unite in serving humanity. We urge you to seize the moment.

    Sincerely,

    David Krieger

    President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    cc: Leaders of United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel

  • The Non-Proliferation Treaty Crisis

    The global nuclear weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty is in jeopardy due to the continued failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their obligations under the Treaty.

    Background

    The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was signed on July 1, 1968 and remains the foundation of the post-World War II global nuclear nonproliferation. 187 nations signed the treaty; four did not — Cuba, Israel, India and Pakistan. The signers agreed to convene a special conference in 25 years to decide on whether or not to continue the treaty. And in 1997 at the UN headquarters in New York, 174 nations agreed to strengthen the treaty’s review process, i.e., to continue to hold more review conferences in the years to come.

    The latest treaty review conference — the year 2000 NPT Review Conference — will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York from April 24 to May 19, 2000. The central issue for that conference is if this treaty will continue to be the centerpiece for global efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons, or if the Treaty will begin to unravel.

    The upcoming Review Conference has crucial implications not only for NPT member states, but also for non-member states, especially India, Pakistan and Israel. The upcoming conference presents a tremendous opportunity to make substantive progress towards nuclear disarmament. Crucial to the outcome of this Review Conference will be the extent to which the nuclear weapon states are able to demonstrate any progress made toward fulfilling obligations under Article VI of the NPT, which states:

    “Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    In its 1996 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice concluded unanimously that:

    “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.’

    While the number of nuclear weapons possessed by the nuclear weapon states has decreased, the status of Article VI obligations is in a state of impasse. Parties of the NPT must take nuclear responsibility and avoid further attempts to weaken non-proliferation efforts.

    Challenges to the NPT

    The following developments represent the growing peril that challenges international and human security:

    Though the Cold War ended more than ten years ago, more than 30,000 nuclear weapons remain worldwide.

    Since the 1995 NPT review and extension conference, two additional countries, India and Pakistan, have tested nuclear weapons.

    US and Russian nuclear arsenals remain in permanent, 24 hour, “launch on warning” status in spite of recommendations to de-alert nuclear weapons made by the Canberra Commission (1996), two resolutions passed by massive majorities in the UN General Assembly in 1998, another two in 1999, and a unanimous resolution of the European Parliament (1999).

    The US Senate has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in spite of nearly unanimous endorsement of the treaty by the international community and massive US public support for nuclear disarmament. In addition, the US and Russia, continue to conduct “subcritical” nuclear tests, undermining the spirit and purpose of the CTBT. The clear aim of the CTBT is to restrain weapons development, yet the US, Russia, and other weapons states proceed to develop new nuclear weapons in computer-simulated “virtual reality”, with the aid of subcritical underground nuclear testing.

    NATO has jeopardized the NPT by declaring in April 1999 that nuclear weapons are “essential” to its security.

    US efforts to deploy a National Missile Defense (NMD) system and circumvent the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, have increased tensions with Russia and China and threaten a new arms race.

    The irresponsibility of the nuclear weapons states to pursue good faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons is unacceptable. Failure to make progress on Article VI obligations provides incentive for non-nuclear states to acquire nuclear weapons, thereby increasing the nuclear danger.

    Nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have undermined the international norm of nonproliferation established by the treaty.

    medium range missile tests in India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea have undermined the NPT

    Iraq’s defiance of UN Security Council Resolutions requiring it to complete its disclosure of efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction have threatened the stability of the NPT

    Nuclear weapons states are not strongly supporting the treaty’s review process. For example, the US Senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999 sending a message to the world that nuclear nonproliferation was not a critical issue according to the US Senate.

    Sharing peaceful uses of nuclear energy has become a contentious issue

    “Additional threats to the regime’s [NPT’s] stability came in 1999 from the erosion of American relations with both China and Russia resulting from NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia — with additional harm to relations with China resulting from US accusations of Chinese nuclear espionage and Taiwan’s announcement that it was a state separate from China despite its earlier acceptance of a US-Chinese ‘one China’ agreement. Major threats to the regime also came from the continued stalemate on arms control treaties in the Russian Duma and the US Senate, from a change in US policy to favor building a national missile defense against missile attack and from a Russian decision to develop a new generation of small nuclear weapons for defense against conventional attack.” Ambassador George Bunn, former US Ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference and a negotiator of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

  • A Twelve Step Program to End Nuclear Weapons Addiction

    The following steps should be taken by the nuclear weapons states to assure a full commitment to ending the nuclear weapons threat that now hangs over the heads of all humanity and clouds our future:

    1. Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

    2. Publicly acknowledge the weaknesses and fallibilities of deterrence: that deterrence is only a theory and is clearly ineffective against nations whose leaders may be irrational or suicidal; nor can deterrence assure against accidents, misperceptions, miscalculations, or terrorists.

    3. Publicly acknowledge the illegality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons under international law as stated by the International Court of Justice in its 1996 opinion, and further acknowledge the obligation under international law for good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

    4. Publicly acknowledge the immorality of threatening to annihilate millions, even hundreds of millions, of people in the name of national security.

    5. De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles.

    6. Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.

    7. Establish an international accounting system for all nuclear weapons and weapons-grade nuclear materials.

    8. Sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, cease laboratory and subcritical nuclear tests designed to modernize and improve nuclear weapons systems, cease construction of Megajoule in France and the National Ignition Facility in the US and end research programs that could lead to the development of pure fusion weapons, and close the remaining nuclear test sites in Nevada and Novaya Zemlya.

    9. Re-affirm the commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and cease efforts to violate that Treaty by the deployment of national or theater missile defenses, and cease the militarization of space.

    10. Support existing nuclear weapons free zones, and establish new ones in the Middle East, Central Europe, North Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.

    11.Set forth a plan to complete the transition under international control and monitoring to zero nuclear weapons by 2020, with agreed upon levels of nuclear disarmament to be achieved by the NPT Review Conferences in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

    12. Begin to reallocate the billions of dollars currently being spent annually for maintaining nuclear arsenals ($35 billion in the U.S. alone) to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world.

  • Failure of the US Senate to Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty

    In voting down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the U.S. Senate acted with irresponsible disregard for the security of the American people and the people of the world. It is an act unbecoming of a great nation. The Senate sent a message to the more than 185 countries that have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that the United States is not prepared to lead the global effort for non-proliferation nor to keep its promises to the international community. I urge the American people to send a strong message of disapproval to the Senators who voted against this treaty, and demand that the United States resume a leadership role in supporting the CTBT and preventing further nuclear tests by any country at any time and at any place.

    The American people should take heart that the Treaty is not dead, and this setback should be viewed as temporary — until they have made their voices reverberate in the halls of the Senate.

    List of Senators and How They Voted on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty October 13, 1999 (Rollcall Vote No. 325 Ex.)

    YEAS–48 * Akaka (D-HI) * Baucus (D-MT) * Bayh (D-IN) * Biden (D-DE) * Bingaman (D-NM) * Boxer (D-CA) * Breaux (D-LA) * Bryan (D-NV) * Chafee (R-RI) * Cleland (D-GA) * Conrad (D-ND) * Daschle (D-SD) * Dodd (D-CT) * Dorgan (D-ND) * Durbin (D-IL) * Edwards (D-NC) * Feingold (D-WI) * Feinstein (D-CA) * Graham (D-FL) * Harkin (D-IA) * Hollings (D-SC) * Inouye (D-HI) * Jeffords (R-VT) * Johnson (D-SD) * Kennedy (D-MA) * Kerrey (D-NE) * Kerry (D-MA) * Kohl (D-WI) * Landrieu (D-LA) * Lautenberg (D-NJ) * Leahy (D-VT) * Levin (D-MI) * Lieberman (D-CT) * Lincoln (D-AR) * Mikulski (D-MD) * Moynihan (D-NY) * Murray (D-WA) * Reed (D-RI) * Reid (D-NV) * Robb (D-VA) * Rockefeller (D-WV) * Sarbanes (D-MD) * Schumer (D-NY) * Smith (R-OR) * Specter (R-PA) * Torricelli (D-NJ) * Wellstone (D-MN) * Wyden (D-OR)

    NAYS–51 * Abraham (R-MI) * Allard (R-CO) * Ashcroft (R-MO) * Bennett (R-UT) * Bond (R-MO) * Brownback (R-KS) * Bunning (R-KY) * Burns (R-MT) * Campbell (R-CO) * Cochran (R-MS) * Collins (R-ME) * Coverdell (R-GA) * Craig (R-ID) * Crapo (R-ID) * DeWine (R-OH) * Domenici (R-NM) * Enzi (R-WY) * Fitzgerald (R-IL) * Frist (R-TN) * Gorton (R-WA) * Gramm (R-TX) * Grams (R-MN) * Grassley (R-IA) * Gregg (R-NH) * Hagel (R-NE) * Hatch (R-UT) * Helms (R-NC) * Hutchinson (R-TX) * Hutchison (R-AR) * Inhofe (R-OK) * Kyl (R-AZ) * Lott (R-MS) * Lugar (R-IN) * Mack (R-FL) * McCain (R-AZ) * McConnell (R-KY) * Murkowski (R-AK) * Nickles (R-OK) * Roberts (R-KS) * Roth (R-DE) * Santorum (R-PA) * Sessions (R-AL) * Shelby (R-AL) * Smith (D-NH) * Snowe (R-ME) * Stevens (R-AK) * Thomas (R-WY) * Thompson (R-TN) * Thurmond (R-SC) * Voinovich (R-OH) * Warner (R-VA)

    ANSWERED `PRESENT’–1 * Byrd (D-WV)

     

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    PRESS RELEASE – THE WHITE HOUSE

    Office of the Press Secretary

    For Immediate Release October 13, 1999

    STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

    Outside Oval Office

    8:37 P.M. EDT

    THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. I am very disappointed that the United States Senate voted not to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This agreement is critical to protecting the American people from the dangers of nuclear war. It is, therefore, well worth fighting for. And I assure you, the fight is far from over.

    I want to say to our citizens, and to people all around the world, that the United States will stay true to our tradition of global leadership against the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

    The Senate has taken us on a detour. But America eventually always returns to the main road, and we will do so again. When all is said and done, the United States will ratify the test ban treaty.

    Opponents of the treaty have offered no alternative, no other means of keeping countries around the world from developing nuclear arsenals and threatening our security. So we have to press on and do the right thing for our children’s future. We will press on to strengthen the worldwide consensus in favor of the treaty.

    The United States will continue, under my presidency, the policy we have observed since 1992 of not conducting nuclear tests. Russia, China, Britain and France have joined us in this moratorium. Britain and France have done the sensible thing and ratified this treaty. I hope not only they, but also Russia, China, will all, along with other countries, continue to refrain from nuclear testing.

    I also encourage strongly countries that have not yet signed or ratified this treaty to do so. And I will continue to press the case that this treaty is in the interest of the American people.

    The test ban treaty will restrict the development of nuclear weapons worldwide at a time when America has an overwhelming military and technological advantage. It will give us the tools to strengthen our security, including the global network of sensors to detect nuclear tests, the opportunity to demand on-site inspections, and the means to mobilize the world against potential violators. All these things, the Republican majority in the Senate would gladly give away.

    The senators who voted against the treaty did more than disregard these benefits. They turned aside the best advice — let me say this again — they turned aside the best advice of our top military leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and four of his predecessors. They ignored the conclusion of 32 Nobel Prize winners in physics, and many other leading scientists, including the heads of our nuclear laboratories, that we can maintain a strong nuclear force without testing.

    They clearly disregarded the views of the American people who have consistently and strongly supported this treaty ever since it was first pursued by Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. The American people do not want to see unnecessary nuclear tests here or anywhere around the world.

    I know that some Senate Republicans favored this treaty. I know others had honest questions, but simply didn’t have enough time for thorough answers. I know that many would have supported this treaty had they been free to vote their conscience, and if they had been able to do what we always do with such treaties, which is to add certain safeguards, certain understandings that protect America’s interest and make clear the meaning of the words.

    Unfortunately, the Senate majority made sure that no such safeguards could be appended. Many who had questions about the treaty worked hard to postpone the vote because they knew a defeat would be damaging to America’s interest and to our role in leading the world away from nonproliferation. But for others, we all know that foreign policy, national security policy has become just like every domestic issue — politics, pure and simple.

    For two years, the opponents of this treaty in the Senate refused to hold a single hearing. Then they offered a take-or-leave-it deal: to decide this crucial security issue in a week, with just three days of hearings and 24 hours of debate. They rejected my request to delay the vote and permit a serious process so that all the questions could be evaluated. Even worse, many Republican senators apparently committed to oppose this treaty before there was an agreement to bring it up, before they ever heard a single witness or understood the issues.

    Never before has a serious treaty involving nuclear weapons been handled in such a reckless and ultimately partisan way.

    The Senate has a solemn responsibility under our Constitution to advise and consent in matters involving treaties. The Senate has simply not fulfilled that responsibility here. This issue should be beyond politics, because the stakes are so high. We have a fundamental responsibility to do everything we can to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and the chance of nuclear war. We must decide whether we’re going to meet it.

    Will we ratify an agreement that can keep Russia and China from testing and developing new, more sophisticated advanced weapons? An agreement that could help constrain nuclear weapons programs in India, Pakistan, and elsewhere, at a time of tremendous volatility, especially on the Indian sub-continent? For now, the Senate has said, no.

    But I am sending a different message. We want to limit the nuclear threat. We want to bring the test ban treaty into force.

    I am profoundly grateful to the Senate proponents of this treaty, including the brave Republicans who stood with us, for their determination and their leadership. I am grateful to all those advocates for arms control and national security, and all the religious leaders who have joined us in this struggle.

    The test ban treaty is strongly in America’s interest. It is still on the Senate calendar. It will not go away. It must not go away. I believe that if we have a fair and thorough hearing process, the overwhelming majority of the American people will still agree with us that this treaty is in our interest. I believe in the wisdom of the American people, and I am confident that in the end, it will prevail.

    Q Mr. President, when you say the fight is far from over, sir, do you mean that you expect this treaty to be brought up again during your term in office?

    THE PRESIDENT: I mean, I think that — we could have had a regular hearing process in which the serious issues that need to be discussed would have been discussed, and in which, as the Senate leaders both agreed yesterday when they thought there was an agreement and they shook hands on an agreement, would have resulted in next year being devoted to considering the treaty, dealing with its merits, and then, barring extraordinary circumstances, would have put off a vote until the following year.

    By their actions today the Republican majority has said they want us to continue to discuss and debate this. They weren’t interested in the safeguards; they weren’t interested in a serious debate; they weren’t interested in a serious process. So they could have put this on a track to be considered in an appropriate way, which I strongly supported. They decided otherwise.

    And we, therefore, have to make it clear — those of us who agree — that it is crazy for America to walk away from Britain and France, 11 of our NATO allies, the heads of our nuclear labs, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 32 Nobel laureates, and the whole world, having depended on us for all these decades, to lead the fight for nonproliferation. Therefore, we have to keep this issue alive and continue to argue it in the strongest and most forceful terms.

    I wish we could have had a responsible alternative. I worked until the 11th hour to achieve it. This was a political deal. And I hope it will get the treatment from the American people it richly deserves.

    Thank you.

    END 8:47 P.M. EDT

    And one last word from a contemporary Peace Hero:

    “Hope is the engine that drives human endeavor. It generates the energy needed to achieve the difficult goals that lie ahead. Never lose faith that the dreams of today for a more lawful world can become the reality of tomorrow. Never stop trying to make this a more humane universe.”- Benjamin Ferencz

  • Statement by Senator Douglas Roche on the New Agenda Coalition Vote Taken Nov. 9, 1999 in the United Nations First Committee on Disarmament and International Security

    1. On November 9th, the U.N. First Committee adopted the New Agenda Coalition resolution with 90 yes votes, 13 no’s and 37 abstentions. Last year’s First Committee vote was 97-19-32. The heart of the resolution is contained in Operative Paragraph 1: “Calls upon the Nuclear Weapon States to make an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the speedy and total elimination of their nuclear arsenals and to engage without delay in an accelerated process of negotiations, thus achieving nuclear disarmament to which they are committed under Article VI of the NPT.”

    2. Four NWS (the U.S., Russia, the U.K., and France) again voted no and China repeated its abstention. In 1998 NATO, which then had 16 states, voted 0-4-12. This year, with 19 members, Turkey and the Czech Republic moved from no to abstention, while Hungary and Poland voted no. Thus the NATO count was 0-5-14. Though some states (e.g. Azerbeijan, Benin) dropped to abstention from last year’s yes, the effect of this was offset by 14 NATO states together sending a message to the NWS that progress must be made.

    3. The Explanations-of-vote contained revealing observations. The U.K. said the NAC resolution was incompatible with the maintenance of a credible minimum deterrence. France accused the NAC of having ulterior motives in challenging the right to self-defence. The U.S. said it had already given a “solemn undertaking” concerning Article VI of the NPT and why should it be asked to give more? Canada, which abstained, praised the resolution but added: “The nuclear-weapon states and their partners and alliances need to be engaged if the goals of the New Agenda resolution are to be achieved.” This was a tacit admission that the Western NWS (the NATO leaders) had tied Canada’s hands. Australia, which also abstained, said it did not want to challenge the sincerity of the NWS commitment to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons.

    4. It is disappointing that the leaders of the NATO countries could not bring themselves to vote that the Nuclear Weapon States make an “unequivocal undertaking” to engage without delay in negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament. The present situation is truly alarming: the U.S. Senate has rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the U.S. is preparing to deploy a missile defence system over the objections of Russia and China; India is preparing to deploy nuclear weapons in air, land, and sea; Pakistan, which has successfully tested nuclear weapons, is now ruled by the military; meaningful discussions at the Conference on Disarmament are deadlocked; the preparatory conferences for the 2000 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have failed; the Russian Duma has not ratified START II. The gains made in the past decade on reducing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons are being wiped out. Immense dangers to the world lie ahead if the present negative trends are not reversed.

    5. We have offered logic, law, and morality to government leaders as reasons for them to move forward on nuclear disarmament. We are tempted, at this moment, to despair that we will ever be heard. That is the wrong reaction. We are being heard as never before, and the proponents of the status quo are being forced to invent the most preposterous reasons to justify their slavish adherence to weapons that have justly been called “the ultimate evil.” We do not have the luxury of despair at this moment. We must continue, with all our growing might, to speak truth to power.

    6. It is disturbing to be thwarted by a residual Cold War mentality driven by the military-industrial complex that infects the political decision-making process with fears of an unknown enemy. It is myopic for NATO government leadership to live in fear of U.S. government retribution for voting to advance nuclear disarmament. It is an abrogation of governments’ responsibility to humanity to stare silently into the abyss of more nuclear weapons.

    7. But rage bounces off the shields of denial constructed by the powerful. It does little to berate government leaders. Those in governments and in civil society who have worked hard for the successful passage of the NAC resolution as a way out of looming catastrophe must be humble enough to recognize that there is still not a vibrant public opinion in our society against nuclear weapons. The public generally does not know enough about the present situation even to be in denial.

    8. The time has come to inject renewed energy into the nuclear weapons debate. The sheer force of this energy must penetrate the consciences of decision-makers in the powerful states and thus transfer the nuclear abolition debate into a whole new field of action. We must rise up above the political, economic, social and cultural blockages to abolition and infuse the societal and political processes with a dynamic of action. The approach I am calling for must be based on our overpowering love for God’s planet and all humanity on it. In this call to witness, we will find new confidence in our ability to overcome the temporary denial by politicians and officials who do not understand the power of this transformation moment in history.

    9. By coincidence, the NAC vote, in which the NWS are still showing their defiance, occurred on the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Wall fell because enough people created a force for freedom that became unstoppable. The Wall of resistance to nuclear weapons abolition will also crumble when the non-nuclear allies of the U.S. demonstrate the courage that we must give them. Already there are signs, in the speculation that tactical nuclear weapons will be removed from seven NATO countries in Europe, that the NATO leadership is feeling this pressure.

    10. Our first task now is to give our complete support to the leaders of the New Agenda Coalition, telling them we will not cease our active support of their efforts. Our second is to gather more strength among the public so that even the most skeptical of leaders will feel a new heat on this issue. Our third is to be a witness in our own communities, each in our own way, to our unflagging desire to leave a world for humanity that will indeed be nuclear-weapons-free.

    * Senator Douglas Roche is Former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament and Chairman, Middle Powers Initiative.

  • Our Own Worst Enemy

    The U.S and Russia have so many nuclear weapons that if used, either alone could destroy humanity. The Center for Defense Information said, “It is folly, verging on madness, to perpetuate the Cold War nuclear confrontation at levels that threaten the survival of human kind.” (1)

    How do we explain such a crazy situation? Consider the following. When thinking about nuclear weapons matters, it is much easier and less hideous to think about them in terms of numbers rather than the consequences of their use. As a result, consequence of use is generally ignored. In the arms reduction talks, the talks are in term of having equal numbers even if we can’t use them all.

    One way around the stalled nuclear arms reduction talks is to think about the relationship between the number of nuclear weapons and consequences of use. The following provides a guide for such thinking. The more nuclear weapons the greater the self-destruction.

    One Nuclear Bomb – One average size U.S. strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 25,000 trucks each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. One average size Russian strategic nuclear warhead has an explosive power equal to 40,000 trucks each carrying 10 tons of dynamite. In order to give an idea of how destructive these warheads can be, compare them with the destruction created by the truck bombs that were exploded by terrorists in the NY World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City. Each terrorists truck bomb had about 10 tons of dynamite.(2)

    Twenty Nuclear Bombs – If 20 nuclear bombs, less than one percent of the nuclear weapons that the US and Russia each have set for hair trigger release, were used it would be enough to destroy each other. If one nuclear bomb hit Washington, D.C. it could vaporize Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and the Pentagon. If another nuclear bomb hit New York City it could vaporize the United Nations headquarters, communication centers for NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and the New York Stock Exchange. And that is only two of the twenty. Nuclear explosions would also leave the areas highly radioactive and unusable for years. Where the radioactive fallout from the mushroom clouds would land in the world would depend upon the direction of the wind and rain conditions at the time of the explosion.

    General Lee Butler USAF commanded the US Strategic Air Command until it was folded into the U.S. Strategic Command, which he then commanded until he retired. General Butler said, “That twenty nuclear weapons would suffice to destroy the twelve largest Russian cities with a total population of twenty-five million people – one-sixth of the entire Russian population and therefore that arsenals in the hundreds, much less in the thousands, can serve no meaningful strategic objective. From this prospective the START process is completely bankrupt. The START II ceiling of 3000 to 3500 operational warheads to be achieved by the year 2007 is wholly out of touch with reality.” (3)

    General Butler said,”It is imperative to recognize that all numbers of nuclear weapons above zero are completely arbitrary; that against an urban target one weapon represents an unacceptable horror.” (4)

    Four Hundred Nuclear Bombs – If 400 nuclear bombs, less than ten percent of the nuclear weapons the U.S. and Russia have set for hair trigger release, were used they could destroy everyone on earth. The late Dr. Carl Sagan and his associates, in their extensive studies of nuclear weapons use, found that a nuclear explosive force equal to 100 million tons of dynamite (100 megatons) could produce enough smoke and fine dust to create a Nuclear Winter over the world leaving few survivors. (5)

    A nuclear bomb blast can produce heat intensities of 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Centigrade at ground zero. This could start giant flash fires leaving large cities and surrounding area burning with no one to fight them. The firing of 400 nuclear explosions can lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere – more than 100,000 tons of fine dust for every megaton exploded in a surface burst. If there were any survivors they would have to contend with radioactive fallout carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins, furans, and increased ozone burnout. (6)

    Actions That Can Be Taken

    General Butler USAF (Ret. 1994) said the world can immediately and inexpensively improve security by taking nuclear weapons off of hair-trigger alert. (7) This action should also provide a better atmosphere for reaching agreements in the arms reduction talks.

    There are very important positive forces at work for peace. Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin for the past five years has been chairing the Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation. The Commission has grown into a bilateral government conglomerate, with officials at many levels working on problems of energy, health, agriculture, investment, space and the environment. (8)

    The way the U.S. and Russia are planning on working together during the transition to the year 2000 to guard against any false alerts that might be triggered by Y2K in the warning system, is also very encouraging. (9) Let us hope they can continue to work together after the first of the year until there are no more nuclear weapons.

    “There is no doubt that, if the people of the world were more fully aware of the inherent danger of nuclear weapons and the consequences of their use, they would reject them.” This conclusion appeared in the 1996 report of the Canberra Commisson on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a group of the world’s nuclear weapon experts. (10)

    The creation of a Consequence Study Center within the U.N., in which many countries share in the studies, could help everybody become more fully aware of the consequences of nuclear weapon use and better understand the need to rid the world of them.

    Notes and References

    1. Smith, Daniel; Stobhl, Rachel; and Carroll, Eugene E, “Jump-START: A way Ahead in Nuclear Arms Reduction,” The Defense Monitor, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5, 1999. Washiington, D.C.

    2. Babst, Dean V. “Preventing An Accidental Armagedon,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Sept. 1999.

    3. Butler, Lee. Talk at the University of Pittsburgh, May 13, 1999, p.12.

    4. Ibid.

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

    6. Ibid.

    7. Schell, Jonathan, “The Gift Of Time,” The Nation, 2/9, 1998, p.56.

    8. Lippman, Thomas W. “Gore Carves Unique Post With U.S.-Russia Collaboration,” Washington Post, Washington, D.C., March 14, 1998.

    9. Burns, Robert. “Russia, U.S. set Y2K missile vigil,” The Contra Costa Times, Sept. 11, 1999.

    10. Green, Robert D. “Zero Nuclear Weapons,” Middle Power Initiative, Cambridge. Mass., 1998, p. 8.

    *Dean Babst is a retired government research scientist and Coordinator of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Accidental Nuclear War Studies Program. In the development of this article, appreciation is extended for 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, the Founder of the Mt. Diablo (California) Peace Center.

  • Facing Nuclear Dangers and Flinching – Comments on the Final Report of the Tokyo Forum

    The Final Report of the Tokyo Forum is entitled, “Facing Nuclear Dangers: An Action Plan for the 21st Century.” The Report, however, is not nearly as bold as its title would suggest. A clue as to why this may be so is found in paragraph 12 of the opening section of the Report where it states, “Terrorism using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons has been possible for some time, but serious policymakers have traditionally seen other threats as more pressing.” The members of the Tokyo Forum have aimed their recommendations at influencing such “serious policymakers,” particularly those in the nuclear weapons states. The Final Report ends up being short on vision, and proposes only incremental changes, the kind that might be acceptable to those who have no real desire to change the status quo.

    The Report recognizes, “the fabric of international security is unraveling and nuclear dangers are growing at a disturbing rate.” This is a diagnosis that calls for strong medicine. The Tokyo Forum, however, offers only weak tea and toast, proposals unlikely to offend the “serious policymakers” in the nuclear weapons states. In doing so, the Report falls painfully short of the mark as to what is needed as we approach the beginning of a new century and millennium. Like Nero, the “serious policymakers” in the nuclear weapons states have been fiddling while the nuclear fuse continues to burn.

    When it comes to the issue of nuclear proliferation, the Report finds that the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “must be reaffirmed and revitalized.” With breathtaking logic, the Report reaches the conclusion that “The discriminatory basis of the NPT regime need not constitute a moral and practical flaw in the treaty provided that the nuclear-weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states keep their parts of the bargain.” The problem here is that the nuclear weapons states have never kept their part of the bargain, and seem far more intent on maintaining a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” than in doing so.

    One bright point in the Report is its denunciation of the use of nuclear weapons to deter a chemical, biological or large-scale conventional attack. The Report states, “Until they are abolished, the Tokyo Forum believes that the only function of nuclear weapons is to deter the use of other nuclear weapons.” This is a position with which many so-called “serious policymakers” in the nuclear weapons states apparently do not agree. U.S. Presidential Decision Directive 60, a secret document, is purported to expand the use of nuclear weapons to counter chemical or biological attacks.

    In the end, the Report fails to ask enough of the nuclear weapons states. It calls on the U.S. and Russia “to further extend reductions to 1,000 deployed strategic warheads.” This is a step in the right direction, but far from sufficient. The Report asks for a “goal of zero nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.” Recognizing millennial computer risks, the Report calls for removing nuclear weapons from alert status “for the period of concern.” Good idea, but why not use this as a starting point for keeping all nuclear weapons separated from delivery vehicles to prevent any possibility of accidental launch. Perhaps in the minds of the members of the Tokyo Forum, this would go too far for “serious policymakers.”

    Rather than opposing Ballistic Missile Defenses, which seem to offer only the false promise of security and to have the potential to reignite the development of offensive nuclear capabilities, the Report asks only that “all states contemplating the deployment of advanced missile defences to proceed with caution….”

    The Tokyo Forum offers too little, too late to meet the dangers of our nuclear-armed world. While the Report is not a complete disgrace, it does little if anything to build upon and advance the Report of the Canberra Commission to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons issued three years earlier. I find the Report a serious disappointment when measured against the calls of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a world free of nuclear weapons.

    The people of Japan, even more than the people of most countries of the world, strongly support rapid action to achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. The government of Japan, on the other hand, has been content to crawl under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The Tokyo Forum has aligned itself much more closely with the policies of the U.S. and Japanese governments than with the people of Japan, and particularly those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is often what happens when aspiring “serious policymakers” speak to those in power.

    The people of Japan are far ahead of their government and far ahead of the experts in the Tokyo Forum. They should demand a far stronger and more active leadership role for their government in reducing nuclear dangers, beginning with a demand for the de-alerting of all nuclear weapons and the separation of nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles. This would be a valuable first step on the part of the nuclear weapons states toward fulfilling their obligations in Article VI of the NPT to achieve nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

    The way to proceed is with good faith negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased elimination of nuclear arsenals under strict and effective international control. There is no reason not to commence these negotiations immediately and to conclude them with a treaty by the end of next year. In this way, we could enter the 21st century with an agreed upon plan in place to abolish nuclear arms. The Tokyo Forum was timid about asking for action within a timeframe, but their timidity should not inhibit people everywhere from asking for what is right and in the best interests of humanity, now and in the future.

    * David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and is the editor of Waging Peace Worldwide. He is a member of the international coordinating committee of Abolition 2000 and a member of the executive committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.

  • Defended to Death

    India and Pakistan are governed by madmen. The prime ministers are mad, the generals, scientists, civil servants all mad. The proof of their madness is their paranoid obsession with security and nuclear weapons. What, after all, could be more insane than two desperately poor countries, struggling to feed, educate, and house their people spending scarce resources on preparing to murder millions of innocent people, then glorying in their capability and willingness to commit such a monstrous deed. More disturbing still is that while these madmen and their obsessions may mean the death of us, we do next to nothing about them. Perhaps the people, governed by lunatics for so long, have also quietly gone mad, to protect themselves from the consequences of understanding what is happening to them.

    These thoughts have been brought on by India’s recently released nuclear doctrine, and the expectation that the madmen in Islamabad will follow those in Delhi and move a step closer to deploying their nuclear weapons, and a step closer to using them.

    The Indian nuclear doctrine contains no surprises. It is what anyone should have expected from India’s National Security Advisory Board, given that it is a nest of nuclear hawks. Asked to produce a doctrine, no one should have expected reason from them. Each was bound to try to out do the others, and none would relish being found wanting in patriotism or hard-headedness. Then there is the lure of history. The nuclear tests were about science and technology, and the scientists took the credit. As strategic thinkers, the National Security Board will take credit for having made the plan for how India’s weapons are to be used. For some of them, this report is the culmination of decades of writing and arguing for India to have nuclear weapons; it reflects their hopes, dreams, fantasies, of a nuclear India.

    Given how nationalistic these men are, how committed to a kind of independence at any cost, one is reminded, ironically, of Lord Macaulay’s famous 1835 Minute on Education. Writing about British rule in India, he said the aim should be to create “a class of persons Indian in blood and color, but English in taste and opinions, in morals and intellect.” The British succeeded to the extent that a hundred or so years later it was anglicized Indians like Nehru and Jinnah who took over from them. American strategic thinkers, who preside like demented gods over their own nuclear weapons, can boast they have had the same effect in even less time. Despite all their differences, and animosities, within fifty years of inventing nuclear weapons, destroying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then claiming that nuclear weapons were for defence, the US nuclear weapons complex has successfully created enclaves of Indians, and Pakistanis, who have exactly their nuclear “morals” and “intellect.”

    The tone and content of India’s nuclear doctrine carries the stamp of the hardest of the hardest liners and their global fears and ambitions. The doctrine declares that “the very existence of offensive doctrine pertaining to the first use of nuclear weapons and the insistence of some nuclear weapons states on the legitimacy of their use even against non-nuclear weapon countries constitute a threat to peace, stability and sovereignty of states.” It is this threat, the doctrine declares, that India’s nuclear weapons are supposed to protect against. But the countries which have said they will use nuclear weapons first are the US, UK, France, Russia, and Pakistan. China has a policy of no-first-use. Israel has never said what it would do, but no doubt will use nuclear weapons whenever it feels like it. It is also the US, in particular, and its NATO allies, who have indicated policies of using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states.

    The fixation on the US is part of an established pattern. Indian hawks have always had global pretensions. For years, members of the National Security Advisory Board have justified Indian nuclear weapons with reference to the inequities of the international system and US threats to India during the 1972 war with Pakistan. One member of the Board, Bharat Karnad, wrote last year that India’s nuclear weapons should be aimed at “deterring an over-reaching and punitive minded United States leading the Western combine of nations.”

    With this in mind, the doctrine is blunt, India’s nuclear forces are aimed at “convincing any potential aggressor that… India … shall inflict damage unacceptable to the aggressor.” Worst case analysis, the kind of thing that nuclear hawks love, would suggest that India has to build a nuclear force able to retaliate against the US, even after a massive US attack on India. This may seem absurd. The USSR tried it and ended up building over 30,000 nuclear weapons. How could India possibly manage it?

    One way to try would be to follow the Chinese example. Following its first nuclear test in 1964, China is estimated to now have about 400 nuclear warheads. They are on aircraft, missiles, some artillery shells, and a few at sea. The majority are spread over about 20 locations, including some hidden in caves in mountainous regions, in the hope that they would survive an attack and could be used to retaliate – and kill even more people. China has about 20 missiles able to hit the US, each has a single warhead of 4,000-5,000 Kt, (a hundred times more destructive than the hydrogen bomb India claimed to have tested, and a few hundred times more destructive than the simple atom bombs Pakistan claimed it tested).

    It seems Indian hawks are hoping for something like a Chinese style arsenal which is to be developed over a long period of time. The doctrine describes a triad, with warheads on planes, missiles and at sea. Bharat Karnad has talked of 350-400 nuclear warheads and a cost of at least 700 billion rupees over the next thirty years as meeting the aims of the doctrine. It is certain to cost more, take longer, and be more difficult.

    What does the Indian doctrine mean for Pakistan? There are enough madmen in Pakistan who will demand that, no matter what, we must do what India does. If India has a nuclear doctrine with operational nuclear forces we must have one also. We must have the planes, the missiles, the nuclear weapons at sea. They will say this for all the usual reasons – it satisfies their hate for India, feeds their ambition to father another bomb or a missile, guarantees them and their institutions even more money, and gives them more power. In previous situations they have prevailed. If they prevail again the arms race will enter an even more tortuous lap.

    All the elements are there. Last May, Indian weapons scientists claimed that they had tested a Hydrogen bomb. Last week the head of India’s nuclear program claimed not only that India could build a neutron bomb (an advanced kind of hydrogen bomb that generates a higher than usual amount of radiation), but that they could design and build bombs of “any type or size.” Soon after the May tests last year, the managers of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program talked of being able to build a Hydrogen bomb, should they be asked, and provided they were given enough money. Now, it is said, Pakistan can build a neutron bomb also – although this verges on the unbelievable since Pakistan has not yet tested a simple hydrogen bomb.

    The missiles too are being lined up. In April, Abdul Kalam, the head of India’s missile program said that the Agni-II, a 2,000-3,000 km range, was “operationally ready” for deployment with a nuclear warhead. In his independence day speech, India’s prime minister announced that “AGNI-2 has been tested… and will be integrated into our defence arsenal.” India’s space launcher successfully launched three satellites from one rocket, and could be converted into an intercontinental ballistic missile with multiple warheads, given enough time and money. There is no doubt Pakistan’s missile men will say that they too can achieve this, if they are given enough money.

    There is no end to the madness. There is talk of an Indian anti-ballistic missile system that will shoot down incoming missiles. Bhabha Atomic Research Center even claims it is building a device (called Kali-5000) that can be used as a beam weapon which “when aimed at enemy missiles and aircraft, will cripple their electronic systems and computer chips and bring them down.” No doubt Pakistan’s scientists will claim they can match that too – given enough money.

    This is certainly the response from Pakistan that India’s hawks hope for. In early July, the Hindustan Times ran a report “What Should We Do With Pakistan?” The first answer was “smash them.” But it was not with nuclear weapons. General V.R. Raghavan (former Director General of Military Operations) said “Till now, we¹ve borne heavy costs. Now we must impose costs.” A former Foreign Secretary urged “We must hurt them in every single way…” Brahma Chellaney, a member of the National Security Advisory Board, went further: “Hit them when they least expect, ideologically, strategically and economically, with military force being only a small slice of the offensive.” The Hindustan Times reported him as calling for economic warfare.

    The clearest of all was K. Subrahmanyam, the guru of India’s nuclear hawks and head of the National Security Advisory Board. He answered the question of what to do about Pakistan by saying “The perfect war is subjugation of the adversary without going to battle. If India raises its defence expenditure to 3 per cent of GDP from the present 2.3, Pakistan will try to match it and go broke. This was how the US under Reagan precipitated the Soviet collapse.” His plan is simple. Pakistan will be incited into an arms race that it is bound to lose. It will, in effect, defend itself to death. Unless there is war.

    The alternative is to put the madness of the bomb behind us. To give it up while there is time, before the bomb’s hateful machinery and its demented mechanics take complete control of life and death.

    *Zia Mian is a physicist and peace activist from Pakistan, currently on the research staff of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Princeton University. He is a founding member of Abolition 2000, and a member of its Global Council. He is also on the Coordinating Committee of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation, and a member of the Board of Directors of the United Nations NGO Committee on Disarmament.

    He is the editor of Pakistan’s Atomic Bomb and The Search for Security (1995) and Making Enemies, Creating Conflict: Pakistan’s Crises of State and Society (1997). Other publications by ZIa Mian include “Diplomatic Judo: Using the NPT to Make the Nuclear-Weapons States Negotiate the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons” by Zia Mian and MV Ramana in Disarmament Diplomacy Issue #36.

  • “We, The People”: Weaponization and Citizenship

    “‘We, the people’ who, according to the preamble of our constitution are entrusted with sovereign power, have not been expected to participate in the decision making process on a matter as serious as this. We have been relieved of the responsibility of citizenship, spared the trouble of debating and deciding about the developmental priorities of our poor nation and the desired budgetary allocations across sectors. We have been told and, in turn, accepted that power is defined as domination and war capability and not as empowerment and human capability.”

    A year after Pokharan II nuclear explosions and a few weeks after the publication of India’s draft nuclear doctrine, this note is addressed not to the politicians and policy makers who are directly responsible for conducting those tests or drafting the `nuclear doctrine’, nor to the group of scientists whose active interests and efforts, sadly misdirected, have made such tests possible, nor to the military-industrial complex, national and international, whose vested interests relentlessly fuel the engine of weaponization worldwide. Understandably, a variety of comments and criticisms have been leveled against them and their activities during the course of the year by persons of diverse analytical and political proclivities. Here I intend to divert our attention away from “them” to “us” – to the generic public, to ordinary people, to relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors who are my fellow citizens on a daily basis.

    Jingoism, Mass-Mesmerization, Powerlessness

    Most of us are not directly involved in the act of weaponization, nuclear or otherwise, but we have an opinion about the nation’s nuclear policies and more particularly about the recent nuclear tests. Very disturbingly, for many of us, this opinion is quite positive, occasionally veering towards a vulgar and alarming tone of jingoism (though the initial euphoria amongst some of us has died down over time). However distressed, one cannot dismiss this hard reality as mere trivia, since it involves a large number of people around us whose views, or more appropriately, blissful indifference, inaction and passificism do create a congenial yet inert public opinion – an ideal atmosphere from which elite-dominated, citizen-irreverent public policies originate.

    While one may retain a basic faith in the old maxim that “all the people cannot be fooled all of the time”, one cannot but acknowledge the dangerous possibility that a sizable number of people can be effectively persuaded within quite a short period of time to suspend their refined common sense and judgments about things that really matter in their day-to-day living and believe instead in the illusion that “military security” will enhance human security, that flexing our nuclear muscles will literally energize the muscles of our teeming millions who are poor, famished and malnourished and help them cope with the perpetual vulnerabilities which adorn their daily existence. Many of us have descended into this disillusionment in recent times. How has a country with a legacy of passive resistance, non-aligned movements and democratic socialism stooped to this level?

    Postponing the examination of this momentous issue for now, here I would like to underline the supreme need to acknowledge the reality of such a mass-mesmerization. As a fellow citizen I find it important to comprehend this not-so-insignificant support for pro-nuclear policies. Such an act of comprehension and serious recognition of the ground reality alone can enable us to launch a strategy of counter-persuasion. The plentiful nuclear-philists amidst us compel a nuclear-phobist, like myself, to take them seriously. However, it is the responsibility of the nuclear-phobist to convince them to think otherwise and help them break free of their brain-washed, pro-nuclear mind set.

    More concretely, I base my appeal to the unconverted audience on three arguments: 1) Weaponization, especially nuclear, is the poorest method of ensuring human security. 2) In uncritically endorsing the “logic” behind nuclear tests then and the nuclear doctrine now, we are playing the role of powerless subjects in the euphemistic guise of citizenship. 3) Unlike many crises that are “more or less” in nature, damages that can be potentially caused by nuclear conflicts are of the kind of “either or”; they contain the germs of total annihilation, leading to points of no return.

    Is there any military answer to the social and economic malaise that plagues the majority of the country? Does the bomb guarantee our security when it is understood in the sense of providing a safety net for all? A pragmatic look at the fragile existence of the mass of the Indian population would suggest the exact opposite.

    Excessive preoccupation with military security in fact undermines human security. Rather, it appallingly detracts our attention from issues related to development, environment and human rights. When the daily existence of a large number of people in the country is subject to calamitous conditions caused by economic, social and political constraints, to speak of bomb-bred security indeed seems to be a bombastic claim! Furthermore, the risks and costs of weaponization are bound to be socialized, though in a very regressive way.

    An oversized military budget, which is a likely fallout of the ongoing trend in armament, and an attendant decline in social sector spending are bound to create new social and economic risks and vulnerabilities for workers, agricultural laborers, slum dwellers, in short, the mass of the people who had nothing to do with the decision to go nuclear. They are the ones who will end up bearing a disproportionate amount of the costs and grievously suffering from the effects, i.e. social expenditure cuts, sanctions and so on, of acquiring the “exotic nuclear endowment”.

    It is indeed ironic that, in the current national and international climate of cost-consciousness, we often hear a clamor for rolling back or even dismantling the state in various sectors of activities. Yet, the same state is expected to be hyperactive in the task of expanding nuclear and other weapons! Let the state take the lead in proliferating the “public bad” of huge military arsenals, its absolute inertia and sloth in providing fundamental “public goods” to citizens notwithstanding! The military budget indeed appears to be a sacred cow, supplying much-needed subsidies to the military-industrial complex, while vociferous advocates of fiscal adjustment selectively target their guns at helpless victims like education and health care spending. The message is clear and simple : austerity in public spending and the “free market” are for the poor, whereas the welfare state is for the rich who will take shelter under the wings of a generous defense expenditure.

    Have the weaponization proponents amongst us noticed this role reversal of the state, while celebrating the nation’s newly acquired nuclear prowess or endorsing the recently published nuclear doctrine which appears to call for a robust nuclear force? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The reason for this is easily found. Recall that the decision to conduct nuclear tests was made in the most undemocratic fashion under tight security and control, without even full cabinet knowledge, let alone public discussions.

    “We, the people” who, according to the preamble of our constitution are entrusted with sovereign power, have not been expected to participate in the decision making process on a matter as serious as this. We have been relieved of the responsibility of citizenship, spared the trouble of debating and deciding about the developmental priorities of our poor nation and the desired budgetary allocations across sectors. We have been told and, in turn, accepted that power is defined as domination and war capability and not as empowerment and human capability.

    Simply put, we have embraced a model of citizenship in the form of subjects who remain at the margin of agenda-setting and decision-making, yet we are happy, docile and proud of the national military prowess. What is more, we are strongly discouraged, penalized, or disregarded when we try to assert our rights of citizenship.

    The ongoing political and electoral drama of coalition-breaking and coalition-making at the center is an utter disregard for popular mandates. We are encouraged to ungrudgingly consume, not to question or debate, the official “logic” of empowerment through armament. This consumer orientation to citizenship is a step towards the marginalization of people, towards denying them some influence over their rights and affairs as citizens. Noam Chomsky’s observed in a different but related context, “The Public are to be observers, not participants, to be consumers of ideology as well as products.” We are the uninformed, subject “citizenry”, the riffraff, flaunting an unexamined faith in the special interests and ambitions of the political, scientific and bureaucratic elite, cleverly camouflaged as the national interest. So much for our well thought-out and informed endorsement of nuclear and arms proliferation!

    One may argue that on an issue as vital and serious as national security, decisions should be left to “experts” alone and kept away from the public. In a deliberative democracy, voters are expected to participate and contemplate serious issues and not simply vote. Norms such as participation and accountability are indeed the bedrock of democracy. The examination of pros and cons of security issues may be conducted by experts, but they are then required to present their views and results for citizens and elected leaders to consider in the context of country’s overall social, economic and political objectives.

    To be sure, people do not speak in a single voice; neither can we assert that deliberation is always the only or the best way to arrive at a political decision. It is precisely because the weaponization issue at hand has wide-ranging ramifications for the public that citizens should have the opportunity for debating the question of its merits. Each accountable representative should justify their views and decisions by giving persuadable reasons. Such collective engagement in the underlying reasoning of divergent views is a vital source of the legitimacy of collective decisions. In the case of the nuclear question, it is precisely the denial of such a scope for public debate and dialogue that has rendered the country’s citizens as subjects and consumers rather than producers of ideas.

    Draft Nuclear Doctrine

    Admittedly, the recently published nuclear doctrine, prepared by the National Security Advisory Board, is a draft document aimed at generating wider public discussions. In principle there is some scope for citizens to deliberate on the country’ s future nuclear policy, practice and posture. Keeping in mind how rhetoric translates into reality, two important issues merit attention here. First, if there were “security” reasons that compelled the concerned authorities to be secretive about the nuclear tests, now there are political and electoral reasons to make the document public, that is to say, to tap into our “Kargil euphoria” for the vindication of a pro-nuclear posture. Second, moving beyond the logic of the timing of the publication and coming to the specifics of the doctrine, the document focuses on “effective credible minimum deterrence”.

    We have tolerated such abject human conditions for a full fifty years of our independent existence, despite pious policy rhetoric to do otherwise. More distressingly, no corrupt practices on the part of the elite, no pilferage of public funds, no flagrant violations of public duties (e.g., the Gaisal rail accident) have been “deterred” on account of their unacceptably deleterious consequences for the well-being of the poor and the unfavored.

    When persistent damages to the lives of “sovereign” people have been routinely and infinitely tolerated by the governing classes of our country as well as those of our neighboring nuclear “adversary”, is it reasonable to expect that jingoistic nuclear behavior of vested interests on either side of the LOC will be deterred by the human costs it entails? Do “We, the people” matter in the calculus of unacceptable damage? Our heritage of deprivation, our social policy failures and our citizenship records reveal quite the opposite.

    Recent debates on the notion of unacceptable damage concentrate mainly on strategic and geo-political considerations, which relatively neglect and threaten, both in times of war and peace, the lives of large segments of the population. In the face of such chronic insensitivity on the part of the political leadership to human security issues, we need to be wary as to whether “We, the people” and our day-to-day vulnerabilities will be factored into the damage assessment of the powers that exist.

    Informed Public and Responsive Governments

    Reclaiming our sovereignty as the people of a democratic nation is, however, not an impossible task. Indeed, when policy making is embedded in consultative and transparent processes, democracy offers a way of rescuing governments that have fallen under t he sway of vested interests. As Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.” Therefore, the real challenge is to encourage the initiatives of the citizens, to harness the power of public opinion and action so that governments become responsive and accountable to the will of the majority and make a real difference in the quality of people’s lives.

    Fortunately, informed public debates have been taking place during the last year in different corners of the country, critically reviewing the `merits’ of the decision to go nuclear. Out of the nuances and well-documented evidence that are being presented in these discourses, what echoes in resounding notes is the unmistakable and plain understanding that we have only one earth to live in and save. The destructive capacity of a nuclear conflict is so catastrophic, so complete and final that it cannot be measured on a scale of “more or less”. It is a judgment call of “either, or”, “preserve or perish”. There are no two ways about it. To take liberty with Gandhi, an eye for an eye, the so-called “mutually assured destruction” will indeed make the whole world blind and a radiated ruin. It is, therefore, futile to endorse a position of the limited use of low-yield nuclear weapons. There is no alternative to developing an absolute nuclear phobia, to admitting that it is an utter prejudice to take pride in nuclear possessions, low-yield or high-yield.

    Why is this prejudice still so prominent in our minds? I take a shorthand to address this profound issue by quoting economist Paul Krugman, “Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups.” We, the people” are responsible to see through the deceit.

    I would like to conclude this note on a self-policing tone. While making a strong case for nuclear disarmament and abolition, I am willing to concede that many concerns vis-à-vis the de-weaponization path still endure. More concretely, the cautionary views and nagging doubts about the viability of the de-weaponization path now being expressed in light of the recent NATO bombings in Yugoslavia, cannot be left unacknowledged. To do so would be unconvincing to those with whom we disagree on the issue of weaponization. A realist would argue that in a uni-polar world with an overly militarized rogue superpower, it is a compulsion to arm and to even go nuclear in order to protect people’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Conversely, a proponent of disarmament and peace will have to address this issue squarely. She has to relentlessly search for an alternative to armament which at once engenders peace and protects sovereignty and the right to self-determination of the people in the developing world against the military aggrandizement of the nuclear-rich countries. This is not an easy task; but neither is it impenetrable.

    Sane voices for global peace must converge and raise a clamor for wholesale disarmament and abolition of nuclear weapons, both locally and globally, both in developed and in developing countries. The challenge that lays before us is to find a feasible way of resolving the alleged tension between ensuring global peace on the one hand and local freedom on the other in a highly militarized, geo-political situation. There is surely no magical solution.

    One may also point out that in this age of MNC-dominated globalization, countries — especially the resource poor countries — are vulnerable not just to military threats but more frequently to economic insecurities and predicaments. These political-economic arguments, highlighting the iniquitous nature of the present world economic order, must be factored to ensure a just treatment of the question of global peace.

    An Appeal for International Law

    To be sure, these concerns are not new. They have indeed continued to grip the imagination of nation-states since the Second World War. One thing, however, that has become transparent to peace proponents over time, is that the solution to these entrenched problems must be sought in political and not in military terms. A rule of International Law administered by a supra-national global government is the only viable tool to ensure peace on earth and to tame the extant military and economic hegemonies. To that end, debates, discussions and public action must occur in order to empower the currently atrophied United Nations, revive the moribund non-aligned movement and educate people worldwide about the misleading nature of the deterrence argument. This is an appeal to enact all of the standard democratic practices, debates, deliberations, organizations and protests in order to promote the emergence of a sane and collective wisdom.

    *Manabi Majumdar is a social scientist who works at the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai, India, specializing in political economy. Her research interests include social exclusion, democratic decentralization, and child labor from the human security perspective. Manabi has studied at Presidency College, Calcutta University and University of Maryland. Manabi currently lives in Chennai with her husband.

  • Objections to Nanoose Expropriation

    Background

    I am the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and have served in this position for 17 years. The Foundation is a non-governmental education and advocacy organization with headquarters in Santa Barbara, California. It has members in many countries throughout the world, including Canada. The Foundation is a United Nations Peace Messenger Organization, and is on the roster in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Our advisors and consultants are some of the great peace leaders in the world, and include the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, and Joseph Rotblat, all Nobel Peace Laureates.

    By training I am a political scientist and lawyer. I have written and lectured extensively throughout the world on nuclear dangers and the need to abolish nuclear weapons. I believe, in fact, that these are not weapons at all, but instruments of genocide and portable incinerators. I serve on the International Steering Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative, an abolition initiative led by Canadian Senator Douglas Roche. I am also on the Coordinating Committee of Abolition 2000, a network of some 1,400 organizations in more than 80 countries seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    It is also relevant that I am a citizen of the United States. While I represent only myself and the organization that I lead, I think you should know that most Americans oppose nuclear weapons and support their global elimination. Some 87 percent of the American public want their government to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention, similar to the Chemical Weapons Convention, leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Expropriation Hearings

    I have come to Vancouver to testify in these hearings because I believe that the issue at stake here has global significance. On the surface this is a dispute between the federal government of Canada and one of its provinces about a piece of seabed territory. Beneath the surface, however, the issue at stake here is whether or not ordinary people – the ones referred to in the opening words of the United Nations Charter – are going to have a voice in shaping their own destiny on this planet, or whether national governments are going to usurp the right of the people to create a future that is healthy for children and other living things.

    The issue at stake in these hearings is not the land; it is the intended use of the land. It is the intention of the Canadian government to allow the United States the possibility to bring nuclear weapons into an area that the citizens of British Columbia have declared a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. This intention is contained in the acceptance by the Canadian government of the U.S. policy to “neither confirm nor deny” whether U.S. Navy ships are carrying nuclear weapons. It is a policy of deliberate ambiguity and deceit.

    In the Notice of Intention to Expropriate the Canadian government said that the seabed areas at Nanoose “are required by Her Majesty the Queen in the right of Canada for purpose related to the safety or security of Canada or of a state allied or associated with Canada and it would not be in the public interest further to indicate that purpose.” This is a statement right out of the Cold War handbook. It provides very little information to citizens. Is the purpose for the safety of Canada or the security of Canada? Or is it for the safety or security of another state that is allied or associated with Canada? If the issue is the safety of Canadian citizens, I’m sure that there has been testimony at these hearings regarding the radiation dangers to the people and environment of British Columbia that are related to possible accidents from nuclear powered submarines and nuclear armed submarines in your waters. It is hard to imagine that it could be in the security interests of the people of British Columbia to invite the targeting of Nanoose Bay by other nuclear weapons states.

    If I were a citizen of British Columbia I would find the Notice of Intention to Expropriate highly insulting. It appears to be purposely vague and ambiguous, similar to the U.S. policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons. The worst part of the Notice is the Canadian government telling its citizens that it would not be in their interest for the government to further indicate the purpose of the expropriation. In effect, the Canadian government is telling its citizens to be good children and not ask any more questions. This form of governmental paternalism is unbecoming of a mature democracy.

    Grounds for Objections

    I wish to object to the expropriation of the seabed in Nanoose Bay for three reasons related to the purpose of the expropriation, which is to allow the United States the possibility to bring nuclear weapons carrying submarines into the waters above the expropriated land. These reasons are illegality, immorality, and lack of respect for democratic principles.

    Illegality. The International Court of Justice, the highest international court in the world, stated in its opinion of July 8, 1996 that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is illegal if such threat or use violates international humanitarian law. This means that no threat or use of nuclear weapons can be legal if it would cause or threaten to cause unnecessary suffering to combatants or fail to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Since nuclear weapons are weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction, they cannot be used legally under international law and their threatened use for deterrence is illegal as well.

    Should this expropriation occur and the United States bring nuclear weapons into Canadian waters, the citizens of Canada would become accomplices to threatening to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. These were two of the three crimes, along with crimes against peace, for which Nazi leaders were brought to justice at Nuremberg.

    The Court also stated in its opinion: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” This is the Court’s clarification of the obligation set forth in the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to which Canada is a party. By refusing to aid and abet nuclear crimes, Canada would be helping to move the United States and the other nuclear weapons states to fulfill this obligation under international law.

    Immorality. Nuclear weapons threaten the mass murder of millions of innocent people, the destruction of civilization, and perhaps the extinction of the human species and most forms of life. Nuclear weapons place all creation in danger of annihilation for what some states have defined as their national security interests. I believe that the citizens of British Columbia should have the right, indeed the duty, to dissociate themselves from such extreme immorality, and in fact they have done so by declaring their province to be a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. Now, the government of Canada seeks to expropriate this territory. In doing so, they will also expropriate from the citizens of this province the right to act upon their morals in their own community on this issue of such great importance to the future of life on Earth.

    Democracy. Decisions about the deployment and strategy of nuclear weapons use are being made by only a small number of people in governments aided by the military-industrial-academic complex. Decisions about the actual use of nuclear weapons reside in the hands of even fewer persons, only perhaps a few dozen throughout the world. The people have been cut out of the equation, even though in countries where polling has taken place they overwhelmingly support a treaty to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

    In Canada, 92 percent of Canadians want their government to lead negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Canada could lead in this area as it did so ably with the Treaty to Ban Landmines. Yet, rather than doing so, the federal government is seeking to trample on the rights of the citizens of British Columbia in forcing them, through this expropriation, to accept the possibility of nuclear weapons in their midst.

    British Columbia made a seemingly simple request in the negotiations with the federal government to extend the lease for the area in question. They simply wanted “a provision confirming that no nuclear warheads will be present at any time within the licence area.” Rather than championing this cause for the citizens of British Columbia, the federal government of Canada chose instead the route of expropriation. Rather than choosing democracy and listening to the voices of the people, the federal authorities have chosen the sledgehammer of expropriation as the means to resolve this issue. It is behavior unbecoming of a democratic state, and the people of British Columbia and the rest of Canada should oppose it.

    Conclusion

    When Canada took the lead on the treaty banning anti-personnel landmines it was lauded throughout the world for its efforts. Canada could also exert such leadership in creating a world free of nuclear weapons. For it to do so, however, the federal government will need to listen to the voices of its people. What is happening here in British Columbia is a serious test of whether Canada will lead or continue to be – as some have unkindly said – a lapdog of the United States.

    I want to conclude by assuring you that the great majority of citizens in the United States, as in Canada, support a world free of nuclear weapons. These American citizens, if informed of the issues at stake, would strongly support the efforts being made in British Columbia to oppose the expropriation of their land without the assurance that they seek that nuclear weapons will not be brought onto their territory.

    By seeking to expropriate the Nanoose seabed, the Canadian government is crushing not only the dreams of the people here for a nuclear weapons free world, but also the dreams of the great majority of ordinary American citizens who would prefer to live in and leave to their children a world free of nuclear weapons. The fight of the citizens of British Columbia is a fight for global dignity, decency, and democracy. I am here to support your effort.