Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Obama

D-Day + 75: Time to Repay an Overdue Debt of Gratitude

This article was originally published at Defusing the Nuclear Threat on June 5, 2014. .

[Note from June 5, 2019 update by Martin Hellman: My friend and D-Day veteran Bill Kays died on September 9, 2018. One of the best ways we can pay tribute to his memory and his sacrifices is to work toward building a more peaceful world so no one ever has to face the horror that he did on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944. Today’s Russian-American relations are even worse than when this post was first written five years ago and, as Bill notes below in his letter to President Obama, “Humiliating Germany after the First World War played a key role in Hitler’s rise to power. Humiliating Russia today increases tensions which can lead to confrontation – possibly even a Third World War.” With that update, here’s the original post:]

On this 70th anniversary of D-Day, I am devoting this blog to a letter from a D-Day veteran to President Obama. In it, he asked the president to “make a long overdue payment on the debt of gratitude we owe the Russians,” and noted, “I probably owe my life to the Russians’ heroic actions in weakening Nazi Germany prior to our opening the Western Front. … As bad as [the enemy fire trying to repel the landing] was, it would have been far worse if our Russian allies hadn’t kept most of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. Imagine how Omaha Beach would have been with two to three times the number of defending Germans!”

This letter was written by my friend and colleague, former Dean of Stanford’s Engineering School Bill Kays, who landed on Omaha Beach in one of the first waves. I’ve included some background information on Bill at the end of this post.

Our nation – indeed the entire world – owes a debt of gratitude to Bill and his comrades-in-arms who bravely waded assure in the early morning hours seventy years ago. But it is typical of Bill that, rather than glorying in our adulation, he wants to share the credit with an overlooked ally.

When Bill sent this letter last December there was hope that President Obama might use today’s D-Day ceremonies as a way to further his attempted “reset” of Russian-American relations. The Ukrainian crisis has made that a non-starter. There is no way the president can say anything nice about the Russians, no matter how true it might be. That is not only sad, but also dangerous for reasons Bill brings out in his letter.

Martin Hellman

BILL’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

December 10, 2013

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

As a D-Day veteran, I am writing to ask that your commemoration speech at its 70th anniversary next June make a long overdue payment on the debt of gratitude we owe the Russians. I probably owe my life to the Russians’ heroic actions in weakening Nazi Germany prior to our opening the Western Front. It is a mistake to celebrate D-Day as the battle which turned the tide of war without fully recognizing the role the Soviet Union played. It belittles their millions of dead. Stalingrad, Moscow, and Leningrad turned the tide of war every bit as much as D-Day, and did so earlier. I ask that you recognize this important fact in your commemoration speech.

On June 6, 1944, I waded ashore on Omaha Beach as a First Lieutenant of the First Engineer Combat Battalion, First Infantry Division – “The Big Red One.” We had been told that our pre-invasion bombardment would knock out most enemy defenses before our landing craft hit the shore. So my heart sank as we approached the beach and I saw deadly enemy fire, seemingly everywhere. I also saw dead and drowning soldiers, and machine gun fire was bouncing off our boat. It seemed like Hell on Earth, and the 23rd Psalm raced through my head, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.”

As bad as it was, it would have been far worse if our Russian allies hadn’t kept most of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. Imagine how Omaha Beach would have been with two to three times the number of defending Germans! Our invasion might well have failed, and my unit probably would have been mauled as badly as my friends in “E” Company, which suffered a 2/3 casualty rate, half of those dead.

My request to honor the Russians’ sacrifices in no way diminishes the gratitude the world owes my comrades-in-arms who stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day, especially those less lucky than I who gave their lives or were grievously wounded. Rather, it is intended to shine a spotlight on similar sacrifices which we too often overlook.

Your 2009 speech on D-Day’s 65th anniversary made a step in the right direction when you noted that the Russians “sustained some of the war’s heaviest casualties on the Eastern Front.” Even though it was just a dozen words out of more than 2,100, Moscow Top News noticed:

Not a single word was said by Sarkozy, Brown or Harper about the decisive role in the victory of the Soviet Union, which took the hardest blows from Hitler’s army and sustained the heaviest casualties … Only U.S. President Barack Obama mentioned the Soviet Union’s contribution to defeating fascism and its horrendous losses at the ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of the landings … Full marks to President Obama for bothering to mention the Soviet contribution towards defeating Hitler and his Nazis.

Imagine what would happen if we gave the Russians the full credit they deserve! It could be a small, but important first step toward your goal, expressed in 2009 in Prague, “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Humiliating Germany after the First World War played a key role in Hitler’s rise to power. Humiliating Russia today increases tensions which can lead to confrontation – possibly even a Third World War. Conversely, if your speech at the 70th anniversary commemoration fully recognized Russia’s contribution to the defeat of Nazism, it would open the possibility of a desperately needed “reset” in Russian-American relations.

Sincerely,
William M. Kays

BACKGROUND ON BILL

I came to know Bill Kays when he served as Dean of Engineering at Stanford from 1972 to 1984. Whenever I came to his office, there on his wall was that iconic picture of the D-Day landing, taken by Life magazine photographer Robert Capa.

I knew that Bill had landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day, but only recently did I learn that he is in that picture! He, his radioman (Doyle), and his runner (Fitzwater) are indicated in the marked version of the photo on the next page.

I learned this when I found out that Bill had written a book for his family, based on 123 letters that his mother had saved as he fought his way through Tunisia, Sicily, France, Belgium, and Germany. The book is now available from Amazon, so I bought a copy and learned a lot more about my friend and colleague. The next few pages are excerpts which explain how Bill came to be in that picture, and what he experienced on that momentous day.

Excerpts from Letters From a Soldier, by William M. Kays, pages 167-176

At about H+1 hour (one hour after the initial landing) two companies of the 1st Battalion, to which I was attached, were to land, followed a few minutes later by the remainder of the 1st Battalion. … It was an attack in very great depth, which of course provided little comfort to those [of us] in the first waves. … I was in a boat with the 1st Battalion Headquarters … I found myself standing next to Life magazine photographer, Robert Capa, who had taken my picture the night before [on the troop transport]. …

Suddenly I heard machine-gun fire, very loud. Bullets were bouncing off our boat. … what really caught my eye in that brief instant were men (and the bodies of men) lying on the shingle bank just beyond the water’s edge. In a flash I knew this was the front line. The initial assault had failed!

… we saw men apparently drowning in the water next to us and my radio operator, Doyle, panicked. He was carrying a heavy radio on his back and he and Fitzwater, my runner, took off the radio and decided to carry it between them rather than on Doyle’s back. The ramp dropped and we all rushed out into about two or three feet of water and headed for the beach. [Doyle and Fitzwater, carrying the radio, were right behind me as we went ashore.] … Capa’s pictures seem to show that he must have stopped on the ramp and shot two or three pictures. …

I saw men and bodies … I ran to the right and then headed towards a tank about 50 yards ahead. I don’t recall the noise, but at that moment I saw the splashes of machine gun bullets hitting the water immediately in front of me. …

My overwhelming feeling at the time was that this whole enormous national effort was ending in an incredible disaster. …

At about that time I became aware of little splashes and puffs of black smoke near me every now and then. They were lobbing rifle grenades onto us, probably trying to hit the tank that I was crouching behind. There were apparently a lot of Germans up there somewhere on that bluff and they were shooting with everything they had. … artillery and mortar shells were coming in here and there as they attempted to get at the men on the shingle bank. …

[Running to take cover behind another tank just ahead of my previous position] I saw at the water’s edge, a few feet ahead, one of our mine-detector boxes standing perfectly upright … On either side of the box lay a dead soldier, both pitched forward with their faces in the gravel. …

[After running another 100 yards,] I saw the beach and all its horror, dead men, wounded men, some mangled by artillery shells, others running out in little teams into the water to rescue men, and also to pull in wheeled carts of ammunition. …

“E” Company … suffered 51 dead and 54 wounded that day (out of 150), but [Lieutenant] Spalding’s boat section [had landed in an unexpected soft spot in the German defenses and] … had only two dead and 8 wounded out of about 30. The other four boat sections of “E” had been decimated by the murderous fire from the enemy E3 strong point to Spalding’s left. “F” Company still further to the left suffered a similar fate. Captain John Finke, CO of “F,” said that all his officers were killed … Finke himself was wounded around noon and at the end of the day the remnants of “F” were commanded by a sergeant.

I believe [Spalding’s salient] was the first significant penetration inland from Omaha Beach; I had been lucky enough to have landed close by. …

[Battalion Commander Colonel Ed] Driscoll, while still on the shingle bank, had evidently seen Americans moving up the ravine [following Spalding], and that is why he led us to the spot beside the house foundations. …

Machine gun bullets chipped dust and brick fragments from a foot above our heads in our temporary haven on the left side of the foundation wall, but I don’t recall worrying at all. Driscoll had lost his radio operator and asked to use my radio to contact his companies. … [but my radioman] Doyle jerked the handset out of the radio container and broke a connecting wire, so my radio didn’t work (at least we found later that this was the problem.) …

Soon Driscoll and his staff moved up the bluff and onto the plateau and headed up the road toward Coleville. I followed.

At this point I felt that the battle for the beach was over and that I should think about making contact with Murphy and our “A” Company. It was now apparent that we had landed about 500 yards to the left of where we should have … I got the idiotic idea that I should take off to the right through the hedgerows … I wasn’t thinking very clearly and evidently completely forgot that there was an enemy. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was so traumatized by the beach experience that I apparently thought I was immortal.

The fact is that for the first, and undoubtedly the last time during the war, I had reached a mental state where I was oblivious to bullets and shells. …

The scene below me on the beach was appalling. There was wreckage of boats and vehicles as far as you could see in both directions, and many fires and much smoke. Artillery shells were still coming in and hitting boats. I watched an LCT loaded with anti-aircraft guns turn sideways and come in broadside and hit a mine on one of the beach obstacles. Virtually all of the tanks in the little group where I had landed were still there but were now burning. They were being picked off one by one by anti-tank guns …

Today the Normandy American Cemetery and monument is located at the spot where I was now standing. In fact, the main path from the cemetery to the beach, which is now paved, follows the line of the trail we came up. …

So what had I contributed on D-day? Actually not much. I provided one additional target for the Germans to shoot at, but that was about it. [This was a result of Bill’s have been landed 500 yards from where they should have been, so they could not rendezvous with “A” Company as planned. Also, as noted above, Bill’s radio failed when Battalion Commander Ed Driscoll needed it after losing his own radio operator.]

June 5, 2019
A Moral Revolution?

A MORAL REVOLUTION?
Reflections on President Obama’s Visit to Hiroshima

There is no doubt that President Barack Obama’s visit to Hiroshima this May crossed some thresholds hitherto taboo. Above all the visit was properly heralded as the first time a sitting American president has dared such a pilgrimage, which has already been critically commented upon by patrioteers in America who still think that the Japanese deserved such a punishment for initiating the war or believed that only such “shock and awe” could induce the Japanese to surrender without a costly invasion of the mainland. As well many in Asia believe that Obama by the visit is unwittingly letting Japan off the accountability hook for its seemingly unrepentant record of atrocities throughout Asia, especially given the perception that the current Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, is doing his conservative best to reinvigorate Japanese nationalism, and even revive imperial ambitions.

Obama is a gifted orator who excels in finding the right words for the occasion, and in Hiroshima his rhetoric soared once more. There he noted “[t]echnological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of the atom requires a moral revolution as well.” Such stirring words would seem to be a call to action, especially when reinforced by a direct challenge: “..among nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them.” Obama at Prague in 2009, shortly after being sworn in as president, set forth an inspiring vision along the same lines, yet the small print there and now makes us wonder whether his heart and head are truly aligned. The words flow with grace and even passion, but where are the deeds?

As in Prague, Obama expressed the cautionary sentiment in Hiroshima that “[w]e may not realize this goal in my lifetime.” At which point Obama associates himself with the stabilizing agenda of arms control, reducing the size of the stockpile, making the weapons less obtainable by “fanatics,” and implementing nonproliferation goals. Apparently, neither Obama nor the media take note of the tension between eliminating the weaponry and these proposals designed to stabilize the nuclear weapons environment by making it more reliably subject to prudent and rational policies of control. Yet at the same time making proposals to eliminate the weaponry seem less needed, and even at risk of threatening the stability so carefully constructed over the course of decades.

The real reason for skepticism about Obama’s approach is his unexplained reasons to defer the abolition of nuclear weaponry to the distant future. When Obama declares that a world without nuclear weapons is not likely to happen in his lifetime without telling us why he is changing his role from an advocate of the needed ‘moral revolution’ so as to achieve the desired political transformation to that of being a subtle endorser of the nuclear status quo. Of course, Obama may be right that negotiating nuclear disarmament will not be easy or quick, but what is the argument against trying, why defer indefinitely?

The global setting seems as favorable as it is likely to get. We live at a time when there are no fundamental cleavages among leading sovereign states, all of whom seek to benefit from a robust world economy and to live together without international wars. It would seem to be an overall situation in which dramatic innovations of benefit to the entire world would seem politically attractive. In such an atmosphere why could not Obama have said at Hiroshima, or seven years earlier at Prague, “that during the Cold War people dreamed of a world without nuclear weapons, but the tensions, distrust, and rivalry precluded a reliable disarming process, but now conditions are different. There are no good reasons not to convert dreams of a world without nuclear weapons into a carefully monitored and verified disarmament process, and there are many important reasons to try to do so.” What holds Obama back? Why does he not table a proposal or work with other nuclear governments to produce a realistic timetable to reach nuclear zero?

Worse than the seeming absence of what the great theologian, Paul Tillich, called “the courage to be” is the worrisome evidence of double dealing—eloquent words spoken to warn us of the menace of nuclearism coupled with deeds that actually strengthen the hold of nuclearism on the human future. How else should we interpret by plans of the U.S. Government to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years for the modernization and further development of the existing nuclear weapons arsenal, including provocative plans to develop nuclear weapons with potential battlefield, as opposed to deterrent, missions? Such plans are provocative because they weaken inhibitions on use and tempt other governments to emulate the United States so as offset feared new vulnerabilities to threat and attack. What stands out is the concreteness of the deeds reinforcing the nuclear established order and the abstractness of the words challenging that same order.

Beyond this, while calling for a moral revolution, Obama seems at the same time to give his blessings to nuclear energy despite its profound moral shortcomings. Obama views nuclear energy as a contribution to reducing carbon emissions in relation to global warming concerns and as a way to sell nuclear technology abroad and at the same time satisfy the energy goals of countries, such as India, in the global South. What is not acknowledged by Obama is that this nuclear energy technology is extremely dangerous and on balance detrimental in many of the same ways as nuclear weapons, prone to accidents of the sort associated with the incidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima, subject to the hazards of accumulating and disposing of nuclear wastes, vulnerable to nuclear terrorism, and creating the technological capacity for the development of the weapons in a series of additional states.

Obama made a point of announcing before visiting Hiroshima that there would be no apology for the attacks by the United States. Clearly, Obama was unwilling to enter a domain that in America remains inflamed by antagonistic beliefs, interpretations, and priorities. There is a scholarly consensus that the war would have soon ended without an invasion or the atomic bomb, but this thesis continues to be challenged by veterans and others who think that the bomb saved American lives, or at minimum, ended the captivity of captured soldiers far sooner than would have been the case without the attacks.

In fairness, Obama did acknowledge the unspeakable tragedy for Japanese civilians that experienced the Hiroshima bomb, and he showed real empathy for survivors (hibakusha) who were there in the front rows when he spoke in Hiroshima Memorial Peace Park, but he held back from saying the use of the bomb was wrong, even the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Obama’s emphasis, instead, was on working together to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. In this sense, Obama was indirectly legitimating the impunity that was accorded to the victors after World War II, which contrasted with the punitive measures of accountability used to deal with the crimes committed by the surviving leaders of defeated Japan and Germany. The main value of an apology is to bring a degree of closure to those directly and indirectly victimized by those terrible, events that took place more than 70 years ago. By so doing the United States would have moved a bit closer to suspending its self-serving insistence on impunity and this would have withdrawn geopolitical legitimacy from the weaponry.

There is something disturbing about America’s unwillingness to live up to the full horror of its past actions even while making a never again pledge. In another recent development that is freighted with similar moral ambiguities, former Senator Bob Kerrey was named the first Chair of the Board of the new Fulbright Vietnam University, a laudable joint educational project of the two countries partly funded by the U.S. Congress, despite his apparent involvement in a shameful atrocity committed during the war. The incident occurred on February 25, 1969 in the village of Thang Phong where a unit of Navy SEALS was assigned the task of assassinating a Viet Cong leader believed to be in the vicinity. Instead of a military encounter, 20 civilians were killed, some brutally. 13 were children and one a pregnant woman.

Kerrey contends that the carnage was a result of mistakes, while both a fellow member of the SEALS squad and village residents say that the killing of the civilians was a result of deliberate actions, and not an accident in the darkness. Kerrey received a Bronze Star for the mission, which was reported falsely to his military superiors as resulted in killing 21 Viet Cong militants. What is almost worse, Kerrey kept silent about the incident for more than 30 years, and only spoke about it in public after learning there was about to be a published piece highly critical of his role. Kerrey now says “I have been haunted for 32 years” and explains, “It was not a military victory, it was a tragedy, and I had ordered it.” The weight of the evidence suggests that Kerrey participated as well as ordered the killings, and that although certainly a tragedy it is more properly acknowledged as a severe war crime amounting to an atrocity.

We can only imagine what would be the American or Chinese reaction if Japan sent to the United States or China a comparable person to provide an honorific link between the two countries. For instance, sending a Japanese officer to the U.S. who had cruelly administered a POW camp where Americans were held captive and tortured or sending to China a Japanese commander who had participated in some of the grisly happenings associated with “the rape of Nanking.” It is good that Kerrey is finally contrite about his past role and appears to have been genuinely involved in promoting this goodwill encouragement of quality education in Vietnam, yet it seems unacceptably insensitive that he would be chosen to occupy such a position in an educational institution in Vietnam that is named after a prominent American senator who is particularly remembered for his efforts to bringing the Vietnam War to an end.

What connects these two seemingly distinct concerns is the steadfast refusal of the United States Government to take responsibility for its past crimes, which ensures that when future political pressures push toward immoral and unlawful behavior a similar disregard for minimal decency will be papered over. Obama’s refusal to consider accountability for the unabashed reliance on torture during the presidency of George W. Bush similarly whitewashes the past while unconvincingly promising to do better in the future. Such a pattern makes a mockery of claims made by Obama on behalf of the United States that unlike its adversaries this is a country that reveres the rule of law whenever it acts at home or abroad. From the pragmatic standpoint of governing America, in fairness, Obama never really had a choice. The political culture would have rebelled against holding the Bush administration accountable for its crime, which brings us closer to the truth of a double standard of suspending the applicability of international criminal law with respect to the policies and practices of the United States while championing individual legal responsibility for its adversaries as an expression of the evolution of moral standards in international life.

I believe that double standards has led Obama to put himself forward both as a visionary who seeks a transformed peaceful and just world and also as a geopolitical manager that accepts the job description of the presidency as upholding American global dominance by force as necessary. Now that Obama’s time in the White House is nearing its end we are better able to grasp the incompatibility of his embrace of these two roles, which sadly, and likely tragically, leads to the conclusion that the vision of a world without nuclear weapons was never meant to be more than empty words. What the peoples of the world need to discover over and over again is that the promising words flow easily from the lips of leaders have little significance unless supplemented by a robust movement from below that challenges those who are governing from above. As activists in the 1960s began to understand is that only when the body pushes against the machine will policies incline toward peace and justice, and we in the 21^st century will have to rediscover this bit of political wisdom if hope for a nuclear free world is to become a genuine political project.

If more than rhetoric is attached to the call for a “moral revolution,” then the place to start would be to question, prior to abandoning, the mentality that is comfortable with double standards when it come to war making and criminal accountability. The whole idea of impunity for the victors and capital punishment for the losers is morally regressive. Both the Obama visit to Hiroshima, as significant as it was, and the Kerrey relationship to the Fulbright Vietnam University, show that American society, even at its best, is far from prepared to take part in the necessary moral revolution.

June 7, 2016
Draft of U.N. Security Council Resolution on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nuclear Disarmament

United States Draft

UNSC Resolution on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nuclear Disarmament

The Security Council,

PP1. Resolving to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in accordance with the goals of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), in a way that promotes international stability, and based on the principle of undiminished security for all,

PP2. Reaffirming the Statement of its President adopted at the Council’s meeting at the level of Heads of State and Government on 31 January 1992 (S/23500), including the need for all Member States to fulfill their obligations in relation to arms control and disarmament and to prevent proliferation in all its aspects of all weapons of mass destruction,

PP3. Recalling also that the above Statement (S/23500) underlined the need for all Member States to resolve peacefully in accordance with the Charter any problems in that context threatening or disrupting the maintenance of regional and global stability,

PP4. Bearing in mind the responsibilities of other organs of the United Nations in the field of disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation, and supporting them to continue to play their due roles,

PP5. Underlining that the NPT remains the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the essential foundation for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament and for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and calling upon all States Parties to the NPT to cooperate so that the 2010 NPT Review Conference can successfully strengthen the Treaty and set realistic and achievable goals in all the Treaty’s three pillars: non-proliferation, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and disarmament,

PP6. Reaffirming its firm commitment to the NPT and its conviction that the international nuclear non-proliferation regime should be maintained and strengthened to ensure its effective implementation,

PP7. Calling for further progress on all aspects of disarmament to enhance global security,

PP8. Welcoming the decisions of those non-nuclear-weapon States that have dismantled their nuclear weapons programs or renounced the possession of nuclear weapons,

PP9. Welcoming the nuclear arms reduction and disarmament efforts undertaken and accomplished by nuclear-weapon States, and underlining the need to pursue further efforts in the sphere of nuclear disarmament, in accordance with Article VI of the NPT,

PP10. Welcoming in this connection the decision of the Russian Federation and the United States of America to conduct negotiations to conclude a new comprehensive legally binding agreement to replace the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, which expires in December 2009,

PP11. Welcoming and supporting the steps taken to conclude nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties and reaffirming the conviction that the establishment of internationally recognized nuclear-weapon-free zones on the basis of arrangements freely arrived at among the States of the region concerned, and in accordance with the 1999 UN Disarmament Commission guidelines, enhances global and regional peace and security, strengthens the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and contributes toward realizing the objectives of nuclear disarmament,

PP12. Recalling the statements by each of the five nuclear-weapon States, noted by resolution 984 (1995), in which they give security assurances against the use of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon State Parties to the NPT, and reaffirming that such security assurances strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime,

PP13. Reaffirming its resolutions 825 (1993), 1695 (2006), 1718 (2006), 1874 (2009),

PP14. Reaffirming its resolutions 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1835 (2008),

PP15. Reaffirming all other relevant non-proliferation resolutions adopted by the Security Council,

PP16. Gravely concerned about the threat of nuclear terrorism, including the provision of nuclear material or technical assistance for the purposes of terrorism,

PP17. Mindful in this context of the risk that irresponsible or unlawful provision of nuclear material or technical assistance could enable terrorism,

PP18. Expressing its support for the 2010 Global Summit on Nuclear Security,

PP19. Affirming its support for the Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism,

PP20. Recognizing the progress made by the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, and the G-8 Global Partnership,

PP21. Reaffirming UNSC Resolution 1540 (2004) and the necessity for all States to implement fully the measures contained therein, and calling upon all UN Member States and international and regional organizations to cooperate actively with the Committee established pursuant to that resolution, including in the course of the comprehensive review as called for in resolution 1810 (2008),

1. Emphasizes that a situation of noncompliance with nonproliferation obligations shall be brought to the attention of the Security Council, which will determine if that situation constitutes a threat to international peace and security, and emphasizes the Security Council’s primary responsibility in addressing such threats;

2. Calls upon States Parties to the NPT to comply fully with all their obligations under
the Treaty, and in this regard notes that enjoyment of the benefits of the NPT by a State Party can be assured only by its compliance with the obligations thereunder;

3. Calls upon all States that are not Parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to join the Treaty so as to achieve its universality at an early date, and in any case to adhere to its terms;

4 Calls upon the Parties to the NPT, pursuant to Article VI of the Treaty, to undertake to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear arms reduction and disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control, and calls on all other States to join in this endeavor;

5. Calls upon all States to refrain from conducting a nuclear test explosion and to join the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), thereby bringing the treaty into force;

6. Calls upon the Conference on Disarmament to negotiate a Treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices as soon as possible, and welcomesthe Conference on Disarmament’s adoption by consensus of its Program of Work in 2009;

7. Deplores in particular the current major challenges to the nonproliferation regime that the Security Council has determined to be threats to international peace and security, and demands that the parties concerned comply fully with their obligations under the relevant Security Council resolutions,

8. Encourages efforts to advance development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy in a framework that reduces proliferation risk and adheres to the highest international standards for safeguards, security, and safety;

9. Underlines that the NPT recognizes in Article IV the right of the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I , II and III of the Treaty;

10. Calls upon States to adopt stricter national controls for the export of sensitive goods and technologies of the nuclear fuel cycle;

11. Encourages the work of the IAEA on multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle, including assurances of nuclear fuel supply and related measures, as effective means of addressing the expanding need for nuclear fuel and nuclear fuel services and minimizing the risk of proliferation, and urges the IAEA Board of Governors to agree upon measures to this end as soon as possible;

12. Affirms that effective IAEA safeguards are essential to prevent nuclear proliferation and to facilitate cooperation in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and in that regard:

a. Calls upon all non-nuclear-weapon States party to the NPT that have yet to bring into force a comprehensive safeguards agreement or a modified small quantities protocol to do so immediately,

b. Calls upon all States to adopt and implement an Additional Protocol, which together with comprehensive safeguards agreements constitute essential elements of the IAEA safeguards system,

c. Stresses the importance for all Member States to ensure that the IAEA continue to have all the necessary resources and authority to verify the declared use of nuclear materials and facilities and the absence of undeclared activities, and for the IAEA to report to the Council accordingly as appropriate;

13. Encourages States to provide the IAEA with the cooperation necessary for it to verify whether a state is in compliance with its safeguards obligations, and affirms the Security Council’s resolve to support the IAEA’s efforts to that end, consistent with its authorities under the Charter;

14. Undertakes to address without delay any State’s notice of withdrawal from the NPT, including the events described in the statement provided by the State pursuant to Article X of the Treaty, while recognizing ongoing discussions in the course of the NPT review on identifying modalities under which NPT States Parties could collectively respond to notification of withdrawal, and affirmsthat a State remains responsible under international law for violations of the NPT committed prior to its withdrawal;

15. Encourages States to require as a condition of nuclear exports that the recipient State agree that, in the event that it should terminate, withdraw from, or be found by the IAEA Board of Governors to be in noncompliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement or withdraw from the NPT, the supplier state would have a right to require the return of nuclear material and equipment provided prior to such termination, noncompliance or withdrawal, as well as any special nuclear material produced through the use of such material or equipment;

16. Encourages States to consider whether a recipient State has in place an Additional Protocol in making nuclear export decisions;

17. Urges States to require as a condition of nuclear exports that the recipient State agree that, in the event that it should terminate its IAEA safeguards agreement, safeguards shall continue with respect to any nuclear material and equipment provided prior to such withdrawal, as well as any special nuclear material produced through the use of such material or equipment;

18. Calls for universal adherence to the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and its 2005 Amendment;

19. Welcomes the March 2009 recommendations of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1540 (2004) to make more effective use of existing funding mechanisms, including the consideration of the establishment of a voluntary fund, and affirms its commitment to promote full implementation of UNSCR 1540 by Member States by ensuring effective and sustainable support for the activities of the 1540 Committee;

20. Reaffirms the need for full implementation of UNSCR 1540 (2004) by Member States and, with an aim of preventing access to, or assistance and financing for, weapons of mass destruction, related materials and their means of delivery by non-State actors, as defined in the resolution, and calls upon Member States to cooperate actively with the Committee established pursuant to that resolution and the IAEA, including rendering assistance, at their request, for their implementation of UNSCR 1540 provisions, and in this context welcomes the forthcoming comprehensive review of the status of implementation of UNSCR 1540 with a view to increasing its effectiveness, and calls upon all States to participate actively in this review;

21. Calls upon Member States to share best practices with a view to improved safety standards and nuclear security practices and raise standards of nuclear security to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism, with the aim of securing all vulnerable nuclear material from such risks within four years;

22. Calls upon all States to manage responsibly and minimize to the greatest extent that is technically and economically feasible the use of highly enriched uranium for civilian purposes, including by working to convert research reactors and radioisotope production processes to the use of low enriched uranium fuels and targets;

23. Calls upon all States to improve their national technical capabilities to detect, deter, and disrupt illicit trafficking in nuclear materials throughout their territories, and to work to enhance international partnerships and capacity building in this regard;

24. Urges all States to take all appropriate national measures in accordance with their national authorities and legislation, and consistent with international law, to prevent proliferation financing, shipments, or illicit trafficking, to strengthen export controls, to secure sensitive materials, and to control access to intangible transfers of technology;

25. Declares its resolve to monitor closely any situations involving the proliferation of nuclear weapons, their means of delivery or related material, including to or by non-State actors as they are defined in resolution 1540 (2004), and, as appropriate, to take such measures as may be necessary to ensure the maintenance of international peace and security;

26. Decides to remain seized of the matter.

US President Barack Obama will chair a special meeting of the UN Security Council on September 24 to discuss nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

September 14, 2013
Leading Nuclear and Climate Scientists: Act in Second Term to Avoid Cataclysms

Is the world any closer to destroying itself now than it was a year ago? According to the nuclear and world-climate experts who advise the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the answer is a complicated yes and no. But the complexity didn’t deter the organization from sending President Barack Obama a letter that’s critical of the progress his Administration is making on preventing global catastrophe.

Last year, the scientists wrote to Obama, “was a year in which the problems of the world pressed forward, but too many of its citizens stood back. In the U.S. elections the focus was ‘the economy, stupid,’ with barely a word about the severe long-term trends that threaten the population’s well-being to a far greater extent: climate change, the continuing menace of nuclear oblivion, and the vulnerabilities of the world’s energy sources.”

Each year, the Chicago-based Bulletin convenes a forum of scientists to help decide whether to adjust the hand of the Doomsday Clock, a warning symbol that has appeared on the cover of the magazine, and now its Web site, since 1947. At the beginning of 2012, the Bulletin announced it would move the clock’s hand from 6 minutes to midnight to 5 minutes to midnight – a warning that, all risks taken together, civilization was inching steadily closer to annihilation. Risks now considered are nuclear war, global warming, the threat of nuclear power plant mishaps, and potential emerging threats such as bioterrorism.

The annual “Doomsday Clock Symposium” was held in late November, and the decision of the organization’s Science and Security Board to keep the clock’s hand at 5 minutes to midnight, at least for another year, was announced in January. The reasoning behind the decision not to change the clock, despite the progressive worsening of certain global risks, was outlined in an open letter from the Bulletin to President Obama. It was the first time that the decision regarding the clock took the form of a letter to a U.S. president. The communication to the president largely was an appeal for bolder, more decisive action rather than congratulations for what he already may have achieved.

While the Bulletin did praise Obama for his continued support of New START (the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty), the nuclear arms reduction agreement between the U.S. and Russia that became effective in February 2011, the group’s leaders were critical of “unrealized opportunities” to make even more serious cuts in nuclear stockpiles. The Bulletin also said the U.S. should make more progress to take its nuclear weapons off high-alert status, and to stop the spread of fissile materials that can be used by terrorists or hostile nations to make weapons of mass destruction.

The Bulletin is calling on the U.S. to cut nuclear stockpiles beyond the terms of New START so that each side has fewer than 1,000 deployed strategic warheads. Under the treaty, the U.S. and Russia are permitted to have a total of 1,550 warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The organization also is calling for quantities of non-deployed strategic warheads to be “significantly reduced,” and for tactical nuclear warheads to be completely put out of commission.

Tactical nuclear weapons, which generally are less powerful and are considered “battlefield” weapons, are not covered by New START. According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the U.S. in 2011 was thought to have about 500 tactical nuclear warheads deployed in Europe, as well about 700 to 800 more tactical nuclear warheads in storage. It was estimated by the Federation of the Atomic Scientists that Russia had as many as 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads deployed and more than 3,000 in storage or retired in 2010.

In addition, the Bulletin wants the Obama administration to seriously question if all three legs of the nation’s nuclear “Triad” – ICBMs, bomber jets, and nuclear submarines – are necessary to national defense, arguing that maintaining redundant systems is “an expensive legacy of a bygone era.” The administration should “fundamentally restructure” the Triad as a way of making more extreme reductions in the nation’s deployed nuclear warheads, the Bulletin told Obama. This process should include cuts in the number of warheads on submarines and bombers as a signal to the world that the U.S. is interested in peace, the magazine said.

The letter to Obama did not address international concerns that Iran is moving closer to achieving nuclear weapons capability. At the symposium in November in Washington, however, John Polanyi, chemistry professor at the University of Toronto, recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1986, and a leading arms control advocate, said proliferation of nuclear weapons to more countries, including Iran, “surely adds to the risk of nuclear war.”

Nonetheless, Polanyi told fellow scientists that Obama’s recent assurances that the U.S. will do whatever’s necessary to prevent Iran from gaining such weapons do not add to the cause of peace, and that preemptive strikes to prevent other countries from gaining nuclear weapons are based on the philosophy that “might makes right” or “the law of the jungle.” Polanyi noted that the U.S. refrained from taking military action to prevent nations such as the Soviet Union, India, Pakistan or North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Polanyi added that the notion that all nuclear nations might someday peacefully agree to international control over their weapons stockpiles may seem hard to imagine, but is “not preposterous.” There is no “divine right of nations to behave as they please,” he said, noting that in 1945 the original member states of the United Nations agreed to the UN Charter’s specification that nations are prohibited from attacking other UN member states – a recognition that war must only be declared for purposes of self-defense. Thus, there is precedent that national leaders may be willing to give up power to ensure international peace and security, Polanyi said.

On the issue of preventing fissile materials from falling into hostile hands, the Bulletin called for the U.S. to “rejuvenate and expand” international efforts to get control of both civilian and military stores of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. The organization warned that approximately 2,000 tons of fissile materials are not yet safeguarded, and that theoretically such an amount could be incorporated into “several hundred thousand” nuclear bombs.

The U.S. needs to put all missile materials not currently in warheads under the control of international monitoring and, in cooperation with other nuclear nations, declare a moratorium on making more fissile materials for weapons until a permanent Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty is signed, the Bulletin told Obama.

The cut-off treaty is a proposal to ban worldwide any more production of materials that can be used to make nuclear weapons and related devices. Although in the early 1990s the UN General Assembly voted that such a treaty should be negotiated internationally, the agreement has failed to become reality as various nations have disagreed on verification and other terms.

The organization also addressed the dangers of climate change, reminding Obama that 2012 was the hottest year on record for the continental U.S. While praising the U.S. government for spurring some progress in promoting alternative energy sources, those advances have been “dwarfed” by unchecked expansion in fossil fuel production, such as coal, tar sands, oil shale, and shale gas, the Bulletin said.

Obama must pursue the expansion of natural gas resource development, tempered by careful regulation to prevent methane leakage, water pollution, and other harmful environmental side effects, the letter said.

The president in general needs to “confidently face those who irresponsibly argue that climate change science is not relevant” and instead listen attentively to knowledgeable experts who are charged with making recommendations to the government about climate change, it said.

Daniel Kammen, professor of public policy and nuclear engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, told symposium attendees that China and the U.S. lead the world in greenhouse gas pollution, with China releasing the most pollutants overall but the U.S. leading by far in per capita pollution. In 2007, China emitted nearly 7,000 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, while the U.S. emitted almost 6,000 million metric tons. When figured per capita, however, the U.S. was responsible for about 23 tons of carbon dioxide per person, as opposed to just 5 tons per person for China (2005 figures).

China has declared a goal of reaching 11.4 percent of its national energy consumption from non-fossil fuels by 2017, through increasing use of such alternative fuel sources as wind turbines, various types of solar energy, and hydroelectric power. Kammen said it’s unclear if that goal can be reached.

The Doomsday Clock has been adjusted 20 times since 1947 to reflect increasing or decreasing perceived dangers to world peace, and, more recently, climatic stability. It was initially set at 7 minutes to midnight in 1947, and reached its closest position to “doomsday” in 1953, when the Bulletin set it at 2 minutes to midnight to convey alarm and dread over the explosion of the first thermonuclear device by the U.S. in 1952, followed in suit by the Soviets with a test of an H-bomb several months later. The farthest the clock’s hand has been moved away from midnight was in 1991, after the Cold War ended, arms limitations agreements were reached between the U.S. and Russia, and each nation removed most missiles and bombers from high alert.

The clock was moved from 6 minutes to midnight to 5 minutes to midnight in January 2012 because, the Bulletin said, “the potential for nuclear weapons use in regional conflicts in the Middle East, Northeast Asia and South Asia are alarming; safer nuclear reactor designs need to be developed and built, and more stringent oversight, training, and attention are needed to prevent future disasters; [and] the pace of technological solutions to address climate change may not be adequate to meet the hardships that large-scale disruption of the climate portends.”

Robert Kazel is a Chicago-based freelance writer and was a participant in the 2012 NAPF Peace Leadership Workshop.

January 23, 2013
NATO and U.S. Missile Defense in Europe are a Serious Political Concern

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently published an article by Pavel Podvig, “Point of Distraction”, which categorizes the ongoing US/NATO deployment of an integrated missile defense system in Western, Eastern and Southeastern Europe as an “overblown distraction” to U.S.-Russian relations. Given that Podvig’s first reference is to recent public threats made by Russia’s most senior military commander to launch military attacks against US/NATO missile defense bases, and that these threats have also been publicly made by Russian President Medvedev, Podvig’s assertions seem very abstracted from current political realities.

What is striking about Podvig’s analysis is that he omits any reference to the fact that US missile defense is being deployed in Europe via NATO. In fact, the word NATO does not appear anywhere in the article, and thus the entire issue of NATO is avoided. This is unfortunate and misleading, because Russia has always viewed the NATO military alliance, which was set up to “keep the Russians out”, as a real threat to Russian security. BMD and its deployment by NATO are inseparable issues from any realistic political point of view.

Podvig subsequently fails to address a concern that has been voiced by Russian Generals and recognized by their counterparts in America, that is, the Russian fear that the US/NATO European missile defense system night be used as a “mop-up” system against Russian strategic nuclear forces that survived a US disarming first-strike. I note that General Cartwright addressed this fear directly, as reported by Arms Control Today:

“Gen. Cartwright and his coauthors go after the root cause of the problem: Moscow, they say, is not just concerned that the European missile system might be capable of intercepting a few Russian missiles. Rather, Russian leaders are worried about the U.S. capability to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack and then use strategic missile interceptors planned for deployment in 2020 (the SM-3 IIB) and thereafter to deny a Russian retaliatory strike.”

While Russian political leaders are thus far reluctant to openly discuss the threat of a US nuclear first strike, it clearly is not taboo for Russian generals to do so. They have some cause to worry, since both nations continue to maintain 1700 strategic nuclear weapons at launch-ready status. But their fears are exacerbated because Russia has also watched NATO and US bases surround their borders, while NATO has become actively involved in many international military conflicts, and presses to add Georgia and Ukraine as member states.

In this context, missile defense is much more than a “distraction”, it is rather the focal point of Russian discontent. It is the straw that is breaking the Russian camel’s back. US scientists, like Theodore Postol and Yousaf Butt have explained the technological basis of Russian concerns, which unfortunately US political leaders continue to foolishly deny, as if the Russians were not capable of understanding such things.

The deployment of a highly integrated and layered missile defense system also adds real strength to NATO’s conventional capabilities. Russian war planners certainly fear NATO’s overwhelming conventional military strength – following the NATO intervention in Kosovo, it was such fears that led Russia to develop its military doctrine of “nuclear de-escalation”.

This is where the danger of military conflict between the US and Russia lies. The expansion of NATO to Russian borders will surely provide opportunities for the clash of NATO and Russian troops. That such a conflict could quickly go nuclear is made even more probable by the forward-based nuclear weapons of NATO and standard Russian operating procedures that plan for the preemptive use of their tactical nuclear weapons against overwhelming NATO conventional force.

This concern was recently voiced in a letter to David Krieger from Russian Minister Lavrov, in which Lavrov agreed with the suggestions made in the “Open Letter on NATO Missile Defense Plans and the Increased Risk of Nuclear War.” Lavrov states, “One cannot help agreeing to a conclusion that deployment of missile defense system at the very borders of Russia as well as upbuilding system’s capabilities increase the chance of any conventional military confrontation might promptly turn into a nuclear war.”

The deployment of US/NATO European missile defense is hardly a “distraction” to U.S.-Russian relations and it is a mistake to categorize it as such. Analysts who focus solely on the technical capabilities of missile defense, while ignoring the larger picture of missile defense as an integral part of NATO, are missing the forest for the trees. To continue to dismiss Russian concerns on these issues as trivial is a serious political mistake on the part of both the US and its NATO allies.

July 20, 2012
Letter to President Obama: Veto the National Defense Authorization Act

2012_06_18_house_ndaa.pdf

June 18, 2012
Why Not Get the Law and Politics Right in Iran?

This article was originally published on Richard Falk’s blog.

In his important article in the New York Times, March 17, 2012, James Risen summarized the consensus of the intelligence community as concluding that Iran abandoned its program to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, and that no persuasive evidence exists that it has departed from this decision. It might have been expected that such news based on the best evidence that billions spent to get the most reliable possible assessments of such sensitive security issues would produce a huge sigh of relief in Washington, but on the contrary it has been totally ignored, including by the highest officers in the government. The president has not even bothered to acknowledge this electrifying conclusion that should have put the brakes on what appears to be a slide toward a disastrous regional war. We must ask ‘why’ such a prudent and positive course of action has not been adopted, or at least explored.

Given that the American debate proceeds on the basis of the exact opposite assumption– as if Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons is a virtual certainty. This contrary finding that it is a high probability that iran gave up its quest of nuclear weapons almost a decade ago is quite startling. Listening to the Republican presidential candidates or even to President Obama makes it still seem as if Iran is without doubt hell bent on having nuclear weapons at the earliest possible time. With such a misleading approach the only question that seems worth asking is whether to rely on diplomacy backed by harsh sanctions to achieve the desired goal or that only an early attack to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold.

It seems perverse that this public debate on policy toward Iran should be framed in such a belligerent and seemingly wrongheaded manner. After all the United States was stampeded into a disastrous war against Iraq nine years ago on the basis of deceptive reports about its supposed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, trumped up exile allegations, and media hype. I would have assumed that these bad memories would make Washington very cautious about drifting toward war with Iran, a far more dangerous enemy than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It would seem that at present the politicians are distrustful of reassuring intelligence reports and completely willing to go along with the intelligence community when it counsels war as ‘a slam dunk.’

Reinforcing this skepticism about Iran’s nuclear intentions is a realistic assessment of the risk posed in the unlikely event that the intelligence community’s consensus is wrong, and Iran after all succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons. As former heads of Mossad and others have pointed out the existential threat to Israel even then would still be extremely low. It would be obvious that Iran’s few bombs could never be used against Israel or elsewhere without producing an annihilating response. There is no evidence that Iran has any disposition to commit national suicide.

There is a further troubling aspect of how this issue is being addressed. Even in the Risen article it is presumed that if the evidence existed that Iran possesses a nuclear weapons program, a military attack would be a permissible option. Such a presumption is based on the irrelevance of international law to a national decision to attack a sovereign state, and a silent endorsement of ‘aggressive war’ that had been criminalized back in 1945 as the principal conclusion of the Nuremberg Judgment.

This dubious thinking has gone unchallenged in the media, in government pronouncements, and even in diplomatic posturing. We need to recall that at the end of World War II when the UN was established states agreed in the UN Charter to give up their military option except in clear instances of self-defense. To some extent over the years this prohibition has been eroded, but in the setting of Iran policy it has been all but abandoned without even the pressure of extenuating circumstances.

Of course, it would be unfortunate if Iran acquires nuclear weapons given the instability of the region, and the general dangers associated with their spread. But no international law argument or precedent is available to justify attacking a sovereign state because it goes nuclear. After all, Israel became a stealth nuclear weapons state decades ago without a whimper of opposition from the West, and the same goes for India, Pakistan, and even North Korea’s acquisition of weapons produced only a muted response that soon dropped from sight.

There are better policy options that are worth exploring, which uphold international law and have a good chance of leading to regional stability. The most obvious option is containment that worked for decades against an expansionist Soviet Union with a gigantic arsenal of nuclear weapons. A second option would be to establish a nuclear weapons free zone for the Middle East, an idea that has been around for years, and enjoys the endorsement of most governments in the region, including Iran. Israel might seem to have the most to lose by a nuclear free zone in the Middle East because it alone currently possesses nuclear weapons, but Israel would benefit immensely by the reduction in regional tensions and probable economic and diplomatic side benefits, particularly if accompanied by a more constructive approach to resolving the conflict with the Palestinian people. The most ambitious option, given political credibility by President Obama in his Prague speech of 2009 expressing a commitment to a world without nuclear weapons, would be to table a proposal for complete nuclear disarmament on a step-by-step basis. Each of these approaches seem far preferable to what is now planned, are prudent, accord with common sense, show respect for international law, a passion for the peaceful resolution of conflict, and at minimum deserve to be widely discussed and appraised.

As it is there is no legal foundation in the Nonproliferation Treaty or elsewhere for the present reliance on threat diplomacy in dealing with Iran. These threats violate Article 2(4) of the UN Charter that wisely prohibits not only uses of force but also threats to use force. Iran diplomacy presents an odd case, as political real politik and international law clearly point away from the military option, and yet the winds of war are blowing ever harder. Perhaps even at this eleventh hour our political leaders can awake to realize anew that respect for international law provides the only practical foundation for a rational and sustainable foreign policy in the 21st century.

March 25, 2012
The Menace of Present and Future Drone Warfare

After the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the colossal scale of devastation disclosed, there was a momentary embrace of sanity and rationality by world leaders and cultural commentators. There was a realization that living with such weaponry was at best a precarious journey into the future, and far more likely, an appointment with unprecedented human catastrophe if not apocalypse. This dark mood of foreboding did produce some gestures toward nuclear disarmament tabled initially by the U.S. Government, but in a form that reasonably struck others at the time, especially the Soviet Union, as a bad bargain—the U.S. was proposing getting rid of the weapons for the present, but retaining the materials, the technology, and the experience needed to win handily any nuclear rearmament race. In other words, the United States offered the world a Faustian Bargain that rested on bestowing trust upon the dominant geopolitical actor on the global stage, and depended crucially on Soviet willingness to go along on such a basis, an option that never seriously tempted the Stalinist approach to world order.

It should not seem surprising then or now that given the political consciousness of those running the strongest and richest modern states, that this kind of one-sided deal was not an attractive response to nuclear weaponry. Even the governments most closely allied with the United States in World War II, the United Kingdom and France, were unwilling to forego the status and claimed security benefits of becoming second tier nuclear weapons state. And of course, America’s rivals, first, the Soviet Union and later China, never hesitated to develop their own nuclear weapons capability, interpreting security and global stature through the universal geopolitical optic of countervailing hard power, that is, maximizing military capabilities to defend and attack. Thus disarmament faded into the obscurity of wishful thinking, and in its place a costly and unstable nuclear arms race ensued during the whole of the Cold War, with an array of situations that came close to subjecting humanity to the specter of a nuclear war. That this worst of all nightmares never materialized provides little reassurance about the future, especially if public and elite complacency about the risk of nuclear warfare persists.

What is less appreciated than this failure to eliminate the weaponry in the immediate aftermath of World War II was the adoption and implementation of a Plan B. The United States pushed hard for the negotiations that led in 1968 to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was successfully marketed to most states in the world. The NPT represented a one-sided bargain in which non-weapons states agreed to give up their weapons option in exchange for two commitments by nuclear weapons states: to share fully the non-military benefits of nuclear technology, especially relating to producing energy that was early on expected to be both clean and cheap; and to undertake in good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament as the earliest possible time, and even to go further, and to work toward the negotiation of general and complete disarmament. This nonproliferation agreement over the years, although a success in Western realist circles, has experienced a number of discrediting setbacks: a few countries with nuclear weapons ambitions stayed outside the treaty and managed to acquire the weaponry without adverse consequences to themselves (India, Pakistan, Israel), while others (Iraq, Iran) have been attacked or threatened because they were suspected of seeking nuclear weapons; there has been a virtual failure of will to seek nuclear disarmament despite a unanimous World Court reaffirmation of the NPT obligations in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on The Legality of Nuclear Weapons; and there has been a discriminatory pattern of geopolitical management of the NPT, most notably ignoring Israel’s nuclear weapons program while treating Iran’s alleged pursuit of a breakout capability as justifying recourse to war.

This nonproliferation approach has been accompanying by three massive forms of deception that continues to mislead public opinion and discourage serious debate about the benefits of nuclear disarmament even at this late stage: First, the fallacious implication that the states that do not possess nuclear weapons are currently more dangerous for world peace than the states that possess, develop, and deploy these weapons of mass destruction, and have used them in the past; secondly, that periodic managerial moves among nuclear weapons states, in the name of arms control, are steps in the direction of nuclear disarmament—nothing could be further from the truth as arms control aims to save money and stabilize reliance on nuclear weaponry by way of deterrence, and is generally averse to getting rid of the weaponry; thirdly, the phony claim, endorsed by Barack Obama in his Prague speech of 2009 on the theme, that obtaining a world without nuclear weapons is to be sure an ‘ultimate’ goal to be affirmed, but that it is not a political project that can be achieved in real time by way of a phased and verified nuclear disarmament treaty. In actuality, there is no genuine obstacle to prudently phasing out these weapons over the course of a decade or so. What blocks the elimination of nuclear weapons is only the dysfunctional refusal of the nine nuclear weapons states to give up the weaponry.

It should be appreciated that this two-tier approach to nuclear weaponry is a departure from the approach taken to other weapons of mass destruction—that is, either prohibiting a weapon altogether or allowing its use in a manner consistent with the principles of customary international law bearing on the conduct of war (proportionality, discrimination, necessity, and humanity). Regimes of unconditional prohibition exist with respect to biological and chemical weapons, and are respected, at least outwardly, by the main global geopolitical actors. Why the difference? The atom bombs dropped on Japan were to a degree, despite the havoc, legitimized because used by the prevailing side in what was claimed to be military necessity and perceived as a just war. The contrast with the prohibition of chemical weapons widely used by the German losing side in World War I illustrates the lawmaking role of geopolitically dominant political actors that impose their will on the evolution of international law, especially in the security domain.

The U.S. reliance on attack drones to engage in targeted killing, especially in third countries (Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Pakistan) has raised controversial international law issues of sovereign rights in interaction with lethal acts of war, especially those far removed from the zone of live combat. The increasing reliance on drones during the Obama presidency has produced unintended deaths, civilians in the vicinity of the target and attacks directed at the wrong personnel, as with the NATO helicopter attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers who had been deployed near the Afghan border on November 25, 2011, provoking a major international incident (although not a drone attack, it was linked by angered Palistani officials to similar mis-targeting by drones). There are also unconfirmed reports of drone follow up raids at sites of targeted killing that seem directed at those who mount rescue operations or arrange funerals for prior victims. As with the Bush torture debate the political leadership in Washington has turned for justifications to government lawyers who have responded by developing drone legal briefs that seem somewhat analogous to the notorious Yoo ‘torture memos.’ There are, however, some differences in the two contexts that work against equating the two controversies about post-9/11 war making.

For one thing, torture has a long history, having been practiced by governments for centuries, and its relatively recent prohibition is embedded in a clear norm criminalizing torture that is contained in the International Torture Convention of 1984. Torture is also enumerated as one of the Crimes Against Humanity in the statute of the International Criminal Court. Drone technology adapted to serve as a battlefield weapon is, in contrast, of extremely recent origin. Nothing in international law exists that is comparably specific with respect to drone attacks to the legal repudiation of torture. There is some resemblance between efforts by Obama law officials to stretch the conception of self-defense beyond previously understood limits to justify targeted killing and the Bush lawyers who claimed that water boarding was not torture. Expanding the prior understanding of the legal right of self-defense represents a self-serving reinterpretation of this core international legal norm by the U.S. Government. It seems opportunistic and unpersuasive and seems unlikely to be generally accepted as a reframing of the right of self-defense under international law.

Perhaps, the most important difference between the torture and drone debates has to do with future implications. Although there are some loopholes involving extraordinary rendition and secret CIA operated overseas black sites, torture has been credibly prohibited by President Obama. Beyond this, the repudiation of torture has been understood in a manner that conforms to the general international consensus rather than the narrowed conception insisted upon by the Bush-era legalists. In contrast, drones seem destined to be central to operational planning for future military undertakings of the United States, with sharply escalating appropriations to support both the purchase of increasing numbers and varieties of drone. The government is engaging in a major research program designed to make drones available for an expanding range of military missions and to serve as the foundation of a revolutionary transformation of the way America will fight future wars. Some of these revolutionary features are already evident: casualty-free military missions; subversion of territorial sovereignty; absence of transparency and accountability; further weakening of political constraints on recourse to war.

Future war scenarios involve attacks by drones swarms, interactive squadrons of drones re-targeting while in a combat zone without human participation, and covert attacks using mini-drones. A further serious concern is the almost certain access to drone technology by private sectors actors. These musings are not science fiction, but well financed undertakings at or beyond the development stage. It is in these settings of fhere, especially, where the analogy to nuclear weapons seems most pertinent, and discouraging. Given the amount invested and the anticipated profitability and utility of drones, it may already be too late to interrupt their development, deployment, and expanding sphere of use. Unlike nuclear weaponry, already some 50 countries reportedly possess drones, mainly adapted to surveillance. As with nuclear weaponry, the United States, and other leading political actors, will not agree to comprehensive prohibitions on the use of drones for lethal purposes.

If this line of reasoning is generally correct, there are two likely futures for attack drones: an unregulated dispersion of the weaponry to public and private actors with likely strategic roles undermining traditional international law limits on war making and public order; or a new non-proliferation regime for drones that permits all states to possess and use surveillance drones within sovereign space and allows some states to make discretionary use of drones globally and for attack purposes until a set on constraining regulations can be agreed upon by a list of designated states. That is, drone military technology will perpetuate the two-tier concept of world order that has taken shape in relation to nuclear weapons, and reflects the consensus that both nuclear disarmament and unrestricted proliferation of nuclear weaponry are unacceptable. In this regard, a counter-proliferation regime for drones is a lesser evil, but still an evil.

The technological momentum that has built up in relation to drones is probably too strong to be challenged politically. The military applications are too attractive, the technology is of a cutting edge fantasy quality, the political appeal of war fighting that involves minimum human risk is too great. At the same time, for much of the world this kind of unfolding future delivers a somber message of a terrifying unfolding vulnerability. At present, there seems to be no way to insulate societies from either intrusive and perpetual surveillance or the prospect of targeted killing and devastation conducted from a remote location. It may be contended that such an indictment of drones exaggerates their novelty. Has not the world lived for decades with weapons of mass destruction possessed by a small number of non-accountable governments and deliverable anywhere on the planet in a matter of minutes? This is superficially true, and frightening enough, but the catastrophic quality of nuclear weaponry and its release of atmospheric radioactivity operates as an inhibitor of uncertain reliability, while with drone their comparative inexpensiveness and non-apocalyptic character makes it much easier to drift mindlessly until an unanticipated day of reckoning occurs by which time all possibilities of control will have been long lost.

As with nuclear weaponry, climate change, and respect for the carrying capacity of the earth, we who are alive at present may be the last who have even the possibility of upholding the life prospects of future generations. It seems late, but still not too late to act responsibly, but we will not be able to make such claims very much longer. Part of the challenge is undoubtedly structural. For most purposes, global governance depends on cooperation among sovereign states, but in matters of war and peace the world order system remains resolutely vertical and under the control of geopolitical actors, perhaps as few as one, who are unwilling to restrict their military activities to the confines of territorial boundaries, but insist on their prerogative to manage coercively the planet as a whole. When it comes to drones the fate of humanity is squeezed between the impotence of state-centric logic and the grandiose schemes of the geopolitical mentality.

February 13, 2012
Isn’t the Cold War Over?

This article was originally published on Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

Most people justify their complacency about the world’s 20,000 nuclear weapons by noting that the Cold War is over. But, the more I study Russian-American relations, the more potential I see for a misunderstanding to escalate into a crisis, and the more concerned I become about the world’s nuclear complacency. I sometimes feel like a German Jew in the early 1930′s who has read Mein Kampf and vainly tries to alert his countrymen to the need to take action before it’s too late.

Just from its title – “Russia and the United States: Pushing Tensions to the Limit?” – you can tell that a recent Stratfor article challenges that complacency. Stratfor – short for Strategic Forecasting, Inc. – is a highly respected, private intelligence company that has been referred to as “the shadow CIA,” so hopefully their concern will be taken seriously. Here are some key excerpts:

Moscow and Washington have been in a standoff over myriad issues ever since Russia began to roll back Western influence in its periphery and assert its own power. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States got involved in the region intending to create a cordon around Russia to prevent it from ever becoming a global threat again. … Moscow’s ultimate goal is not to recreate the Soviet Union – that entity eventually failed. Instead, Russia wants to limit the influence of external powers in the former Soviet Union and be recognized as the dominant player there. …

Tensions between Moscow and Washington can be attributed to one primary issue: ballistic missile defense (BMD). … Russia offered to integrate its BMD system with NATO’s system. … However, Washington rejected the offer, thereby confirming Moscow’s suspicions that the BMD system is more about Russia than the Iranian threat.

While we see Russia’s attempts to exercise influence in its “near abroad” as meddling in other nations’ affairs, our own efforts to impose our will throughout the world are seen in a totally benign light. That double standard threatens our very existence because Russia is capable of standing up to us if its vital national interests are threatened, but only by playing its nuclear card. And that’s a game we shouldn’t want to play.

February 13, 2012
Open Letter on NATO Missile Defense Plans and Increased Risk of Nuclear War
To President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev:

Recent U.S. decisions to deploy an integrated missile defense system in Western, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, coupled with the continued expansion of NATO and its military activities, have created increasingly sharp divisions and distrust between the Russian Federation and the United States.[i] This process now threatens to destroy the New START agreement and reverse previous progress toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. Further deterioration of U.S.-Russian relations could result in a return to the perilous nuclear postures of the Cold War.

Although the “Phased Adaptive Approach” missile defense system is being installed under the auspices of NATO, it is perceived by Russia to be “a U.S. system on European soil.”[ii] This system is regarded with apprehension by Russia, particularly since later phases include plans to deploy very advanced-stage Standard Missile-3 land-based interceptors, which have the potential to effectively target Russian strategic nuclear missiles. Russia consequently regards the proposed and ongoing deployments as no more than “an interim step toward building a full-scale missile defense system to provide guaranteed protection of U.S. territory against any missile attack.”[iii]

The official U.S. political rationale for these deployments is that they are necessary to defend against yet-to-be-developed Iranian long-range ballistic missiles. Yet American scientists have stated that forward-based European radar systems give the U.S. the ability to track Russian ICBMs very early after a launch and to guide interceptors against them.[iv] Russian leaders have expressed specific concerns that the U.S./NATO missile defense system could be used for such a purpose and continue to question at whom the system is directed.

Fundamental mutual distrust stems from the fact that both the U.S. and Russia still maintain strategic war plans that include large nuclear strike options, with hundreds of preplanned targets that clearly include cities in each other’s nation.[v] Both nations keep a total of at least 1,700 strategic nuclear weapons mounted on launch-ready ballistic missiles, which can carry out these strike options with only a few minutes’ warning.

Thus, many in Russia believe the final stages of deployment of the U.S./NATO missile defense system are designed to have the capability of greatly reducing or eliminating Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent. Continued technological advances in hypersonic missiles,[vi] which would greatly enhance interceptor missile capabilities, combined with the possibility that nuclear warheads could be installed in missile interceptors, will only serve to exacerbate Russian fears about U.S./NATO European missile defense.[vii]

Mutual suspicion has prevented true cooperation in joint missile defense, just as it has with the still defunct U.S.-Russian Joint Data Exchange Center, which was supposed to share information about U.S. and Russian missile launches.[viii] The failure to include Russia in a joint missile defense also reflects the fact that NATO has not made Russia a full partner in the alliance, despite the end of the Cold War.

It is only natural that Russia should consider NATO a potential threat, particularly since NATO has greatly expanded eastward, has actively recruited and included former members of the Warsaw Pact and has engaged in extensive military campaigns in Europe, Africa and South Asia. The combination of NATO expansion with the deployment of a massive missile defense system that surrounds Russia has triggered a strong political reaction in Russia. From a Russian perspective, a U.S./NATO missile defense system in Europe undermines their perceived nuclear deterrent, decreases U.S. vulnerability and increases Russian vulnerability to a U.S. nuclear first-strike attack.

In November, President Medvedev made his most forceful political statement against the U.S. and NATO to date.[ix] Included in the speech was a specific warning that Russia would withdraw from the New START agreement should the U.S./NATO missile defense system continue to move forward. This is not new information—the Russian Federation issued an unambiguous statement in April 2010 when New START was signed, making clear that both quantitative and qualitative limitations on the U.S. missile defense program were so essential that Russia would be prepared to withdraw from the treaty if these limitations were not honored.[x]

A Russian withdrawal from New START would likely precipitate a fully-renewed nuclear arms race and thus completely reverse movement toward a world without nuclear weapons. Many of the signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would also regard the collapse of the New START process as an explicit violation of the NPT; this could lead to the collapse of the NPT and extensive nuclear proliferation.

In his November speech, President Medvedev also issued a number of explicit instructions to his military forces that essentially amounted to military threats against the U.S. and NATO. He stated, “I have instructed the Armed Forces to draw up measures for disabling missile defense system data and guidance systems, if need be …. [I]f the above measures prove insufficient, the Russian Federation System will employ modern, offensive weapon systems in the west and south of the country, ensuring our ability to take out any part of the missile defense system in Europe.”[xi]

Although many political analysts in the West have discounted this warning as merely a way to put pressure on the U.S. and NATO to change course, this statement by President Medvedev must be taken seriously. Russia will certainly carry out the directives of its President.

The leaders of the U.S., NATO and Russia must seriously consider the possibility that the current course of political events is pushing them towards an eventual military confrontation and conflict. Further expansion of NATO, its “nuclear umbrella” and missile defense system to the very borders of Russia increase the odds that any conventional military confrontation would quickly escalate into nuclear war.

If Russia decided “to take out any part of the missile defense system in Europe,” as threatened by President Medvedev, would not such an action be likely to lead to nuclear conflict between the U.S. and Russia? According to recent peer-reviewed studies, the detonation of the launch-ready U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals could leave the Earth virtually uninhabitable for more than a decade.[xii] Such a war would lead to global famine and starvation of most of the human race.[xiii]

We suggest the following steps, both as a way out of the immediate crisis and to advance the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free-world. These are not the only steps that could be helpful, but we are hopeful that leaders on both sides might be willing to act upon them:
1. There should be a freeze on U.S./NATO deployment of missile defenses in Europe pending an open, joint U.S.-Russian quantitative assessment of the threats that missile defense is supposed to counter, and of the threats posed by U.S. and Russian tactical and strategic nuclear forces.[xiv] The threats posed by missile defense and its effectiveness should be studied and integrated into the previously-mentioned assessment. It is essential that this analysis include a thorough scientific evaluation of the long-term effects of nuclear conflict upon the global environment, climate and human agriculture.[xv]
2. It is essential, not only for the creation of a peaceful and secure Europe but for the continuation of civilization and the human species itself, that launch-ready nuclear arsenals be immediately stood-down, that nuclear war be avoided, and that nuclear arsenals be eliminated. This is a priority that must trump all other priorities, including what are seen as the most pressing security priorities of major world powers.
We reiterate strongly that differences of opinion over missile defense must not be allowed to de-rail progress to zero nuclear weapons, or worse, to put that progress into reverse and instead reinstate Cold War security postures, as would be precipitated by the collapse of New START.

In pursuing a solution, it is vital that both sides feel their concerns are being respected and that their security interests have been properly taken into account. An outcome that advantages one side only, or that is perceived as doing so, is no solution at all.

The elimination of nuclear weapons must take place not in some far-off utopian future, but at an early date, as demanded by the vast majority of the world’s governments in resolution after resolution at the United Nations. It is quite clear that the ordinary citizens of every nation no longer wish to live under the shadow of imminent nuclear destruction and see no reason why massive nuclear arsenals should continue to exist when they clearly represent a self-destruct mechanism for the human race.

Signed:

Organizations

Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (France)
Artistes pour la Paix (Canada)
Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition (Australia)
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)
Canadian Pugwash Group (Canada)
Daisy Alliance (USA)
Footprints for Peace (Australia)
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space (USA)
International Association of Peace Messenger Cities
International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War – Kenya (Kenya)
Just Peace Queensland (Australia)
Los Alamos Study Group (USA)
Medact (UK)
Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia)
No2nuclearweapons (Canada)
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (USA)
Pax Christi Metro New York (USA)
Pax Christi Montreal (Canada)
People for Nuclear Disarmament NSW (Australia)
People for Nuclear Disarmament WA (Australia)
Physicians for Global Survival (Canada)
Physicians for Social Responsibility (USA)
Project Ploughshares (Canada)
Réseau Sortir du Nucléaire (France)
Science for Peace (Canada)
Scientists for Global Responsibility (UK)
Swedish Peace Council (Sweden)
Transnational Foundation (Sweden)
Tri-Valley CAREs (USA)
US Peace Council (USA)
Veterans Against Nuclear Arms (Canada)
West Midlands Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK)
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – U.S. Section (USA)
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom – Vancouver (Canada)

Individuals (Organizational affiliation for identification purposes only)

Lynn Adamson (Co-Chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Canada)
Janis Alton (Co-Chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, Canada)
Marcus Atkinson (International Coordinator, Footprints for Peace, Australia)
Rosalie Bertell (Regent, International Physicians for Humanitarian Medicine, Switzerland)
Amanda Bresnan (Member, Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly, Australia)
Adele Buckley (Executive Committee, Canadian Pugwash Group, Canada)
Yousaf Butt (Federation of American Scientists, USA)
Helen Caldicott (Co-Founder, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Australia)
Lisa Clark (Beati i Costruttori di Pace, Italy)
Gill Cox (West Midlands Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK)
Phyllis Creighton (Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Canada)
Wilfred Dcosta (Indian Social Action Forum, India)
Roberto Della Seta (Member, Senate of the Republic, Italy)
Dale Dewar (Executive Director, Physicians for Global Survival, Canada)
Kate Dewes (Disarmament & Security Centre, New Zealand)
Jayantha Dhanapala (Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament, 1998-2003, Sri Lanka)
Gabriele Dietrich (National Alliance of People’s Movements, India)
Dennis Doherty (Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, Australia)
Gordon Edwards (President, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, Canada)
George Farebrother (Secretary, World Court Project, UK)
Gregor Gable (Shundahai Network, USA)
Bruce K. Gagnon (Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, USA)
Joseph Gerson (American Friends Service Committee, USA)
Bob Gould (President, Physicians for Social Responsibility – San Francisco, USA)
Jonathan Granoff (President, Global Security Institute, USA)
Ulla Grant (Hall Green Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK)
Commander Robert Green (Royal Navy, ret., New Zealand)
Jenny Grounds (President, Medical Association for Prevention of War, Australia)
Mark Gubrud (University of North Carolina, USA)
Luis Gutierrez-Esparza (Latin American Circle of International Studies, Mexico)
Regina Hagen (Darmstädter Friedensforum, Germany)
John Hallam (People for Nuclear Disarmament, Australia)
David Hartsough (PEACEWORKERS, USA)
John Hinchcliff (President, Peace Foundation, New Zealand)
Herbert J. Hoffman (Vice President, Maine Veterans for Peace Chapter 001, USA)
Inge Höger (Member of Parliament, Germany)
Kate Hudson (General Secretary, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK)
Cesar Jaramillo (Program Officer, Project Ploughshares, Canada)
Pierre Jasmin (President, Artistes pour la Paix, Canada)
Birgitta Jónsdóttir (Member of Icelandic Parliament and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Iceland)
Martin Kalinowski (Chairman, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Centre for Science and Peace Research, Germany)
Sergei Kolesnikov (Member of Russian Parliament and President of the Russian affiliate of IPPNW, Russia)
David Krieger (President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, USA)
Harry Kroto (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, USA)
Steve Leeper (Chairman, Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, Japan)
Mairead Maguire (Nobel Peace Laureate, Peace People, N. Ireland)
Ak Malten (Pro Peaceful Energy Use, Netherlands)
Willem Malten (Director, Los Alamos Study Group, USA)
Alfred Marder (International Association of Peace Messenger Cities, USA)
Bronwyn Marks (Hiroshima Day Committee, Australia)
Jean-Marie Matagne (President, Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire, France)
Ibrahim Matola (Member of Parliament, Malawi)
Lisle Merriman (Palestine-Israel Network, USA)
Natalia Mironova (President, Movement for Nuclear Safety, Russia)
Sophie Morel (Board member, Réseau Sortir du Nucleaire, France)
Peter Murphy (Coordinator, SEARCH Foundation, Australia)
Abdul Nayyar (President, Pakistan Peace Coalition, Pakistan)
David Norris (Senator, Ireland)
Rosemarie Pace (Director, Pax Christi Metro New York, USA)
Sergei Plekhanov (Professor, York University, Canada)
Pavel Podvig (Russian Nuclear Forces Project, Russia)
John Polanyi (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, USA)
Ernie Regehr (Research Fellow, University of Waterloo, Canada)
Barney Richards (New Zealand Peace Council, New Zealand)
Bob Rigg (Former Chair, New Zealand National Consultative Committee on Peace and Disarmament, New Zealand)
Bruce A. Roth (Daisy Alliance, USA)
Joan Russow (Global Compliance Research Project, Canada)
Kathy Wanpovi Sanchez (Tewa Women United, USA)
Mamadou Falilou Sarr (African Center for Global Peace and Development, Senegal)
Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck (Chairman, Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany)
Jürgen Schneider (Professor, Universität Göttingen, Germany)
Sukla Sen (Committee for Communal Amity, India)
Steven Starr (Senior Scientist, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Associate, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, USA)
Kathleen Sullivan (Program Director, Hibakusha Stories, USA)
P K Sundaram (DiaNuke.org, India)
Terumi Tanaka (Secretary General, Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, Japan)
Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Laureate, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa)
Hiro Umebayashi (Special Advisor, Peace Depot, Japan)
Jo Vallentine (Chairperson, Anti-Nuclear Alliance of Western Australia, Australia)
Dirk Van der Maelen (Member of Parliament, Belgium)
Achin Vanaik (University of Delhi, India)
Alyn Ware (International Representative, Peace Foundation, New Zealand)
Elizabeth Waterston (International Councilor, Medact, UK)
Rick Wayman (Director of Programs, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, USA)
Dave Webb (Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, UK)
Tim Wright (Director, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Australia)
Col. Valery Yarynich (Soviet Missile Forces – ret., Russia)
Uta Zapf (Member of the Bundestag, Germany)

Endnotes:

[i] To date, Spain, Romania, the Netherlands, Poland and the Czech Republic have agreed to participate in this deployment. Patriot missiles have been deployed in Poland on the border of the Russian enclave in Kaliningrad and X-band radar is also likely to be deployed in Turkey. Medium- and intermediate-range interceptor missiles are scheduled to be deployed on U.S. warships in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.
[ii] Tom Collina, “NATO Set to Back Expanded Missile Defense,” Arms Control Today, retrieved from http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_11/NATOMissileDefense.
[iii] Rusian Pukhov, “Medvedev’s Missile Threats are only his Plan B,” The Moscow Times, December 1, 2011, retrieved from http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/medvedevs-missile-threats-are-his-plan-b/448992.html.
[iv] Yousaf Butt and Theodore Postol, “Upsetting the Reset: The Technical Basis of Russian Concern over NATO Missile Defense” (2011), FAS Special Report No. 1, Federation of American Scientists, September 2011, retrieved from http://www.fas.org/pubs/_docs/2011%20Missile%20Defense%20Report.pdf.
[v] U.S. strategic targets include Russian military forces, war supporting and WMD infrastructure, and both military and national leadership. Hans Kristensen, “Obama and the Nuclear War Plan,” Federation of American Scientists Brief, February 2010, retrieved from http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/publications1/WarPlanIssueBrief2010.pdf.
[vi] The U.S. has successfully tested non-ballistic missiles which have traveled at speeds up to mach-20 (16,700 mph or 27,000 km per hour). See http://www.examiner.com/military-technology-in-washington-dc/the-usaf-x51-a-and-the-u-s-army-ahw-both-test-november-2011.
[vii] “Hypersonic missile: who is the target?” Voice of Russia, November 28, 2011, retrieved from http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/11/28/61168605.html.
[viii] JDEC was agreed on and ratified by both the U.S. and Russia, with the purpose of preventing accidental nuclear war between them as a result of a false warning of attack. See http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/jdec/text/000604-warn-wh3.htm. However, neither side appeared willing to share the “raw” or unfiltered data from their early warning systems because of concerns it would reveal too much to the other side about its warning system capabilities. Thus, the facility was never opened; an empty building in Moscow where the center was supposed to be stands as a testament to the continued failure to cooperate.
[ix] Text of Medvedev’s November 23, 2011 speech translated from the Russian version, retrieved from http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/3115:
   First, I am instructing the Defence Ministry to immediately put the missile attack early warning station in Kaliningrad on combat alert.
   Second, protective cover of Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons will be reinforced as a priority measure under the programme to develop our air and space defences.
   Third, the new strategic missiles commissioned by the Strategic Missile Forces and the Navy will be equipped with advance missile penetration systems and new highly-effective warheads.
   Fourth, I have instructed the Armed Forces to draw up measures for disabling missile defence system data and guidance systems, if need be.
   These measures will be adequate, effective, and low-cost.
   Fifth, if the above measures prove insufficient, the Russian Federation System will employ modern, offensive weapon systems in the west and south of the country, ensuring our ability to take out any part of the missile defence system in Europe.
   One step in this process will be to deploy Iskander missiles in the Kaliningrad region.
   Other measures to counter the European missile defence system will be drawn up and implemented as necessary.
   Furthermore, if the situation continues to develop not to Russia’s favor, we reserve the right to discontinue further disarmament and arms control measures.
Besides, given the intrinsic link between strategic offensive and defensive arms, conditions for the withdrawal from the New START Treaty could also arise, and this option is enshrined in the treaty.
   But let me stress this point, we are not closing the door on continued dialogue with the USA and NATO on missile defence, and on practical cooperation in this area. We are ready for that. However, this can only be achieved by establishing a clear, legal basis for cooperation that would guarantee our legitimate interests and concerns are taken into account. We are open to dialogue and hope for a reasonable and constructive approach from our Western partners.
[x] Missile defense is explicitly discussed in the preamble and in Article 5 of New START. The preamble recognizes the “relationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms” and stipulates that “current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of strategic offensive arms of the Parties.” Thus, the ongoing deployment of U.S./NATO missile defense systems is, in the eyes of Russia, at least a violation of the spirit of New START.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii] Steven Starr, “Catastrophic Climatic Consequences of Nuclear Conflict,” The International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, December 2009, retrieved from http://www.icnnd.org/Documents/Starr_Nuclear_Winter_Oct_09.pdf.
[xiii] Steven Starr, “U.S .and Russian Launch-Ready Nuclear Weapons: A Threat to All Peoples and Nations,” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, October 2011, retrieved from /wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2011_06_24_starr.pdf.
[xiv] Specific proposals for such assessments have already been published. See B. Blair, V. Esin, M. McKinzie, V. Yarynich, P. Zolotarev, “One Hundred Nuclear Wars: Stable Deterrence between the United States and Russia at Reduced Nuclear Force Levels Off Alert in the Presence of Limited Missile Defenses,” Science & Global Security, 2011, Vol. 19, Issue 3, pp. 167-194, and H. Kristensen, R. Norris, and I. Oelrich, “From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence: A New Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Eliminating Nuclear Weapons,” Federation of American Scientists & The Natural Resources Defense Council, Occasional Paper, April 2009, p. 15, retrieved from http://www.fas.org/pubs/_docs/OccasionalPaper7.pdf.
[xv] O. B. Toon and A. Robock, “Local nuclear war, global suffering,” Scientific American, 302, 74-81 (2010), retrieved from http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010.pdf.
February 5, 2012