Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: omnicide

  • Reflections on Omnicide, Nuclear Deterrence and a Maginot Line in the Mind

    This article was originally published by Truthout.

    David KriegerI offer a few reflections in an effort to separate fact from fiction with regard to nuclear weapons, their capacity for devastation and our ability to assure global security by preventing their use.

    First, today’s nuclear arsenals are capable of omnicide, the death of all. In that sense, nuclear weapons are not really weapons but instruments of annihilation. They place all complex life at risk of extinction.

    Omnicide is possible because of the unique capacity of nuclear weapons to cause a “nuclear winter” and to trigger “nuclear famine.” In addition to the ordinary ways that nuclear weapons destroy – blast, fire and radiation – they have the capacity to block sunlight from reaching the earth, shorten growing seasons, and lead to the destruction of crops, resulting in global nuclear famine.

    Second, nuclear weapons are justified by their possessors by their belief in the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence.

    We must always keep in mind that nuclear deterrence is not a fact; it is a hypothesis about human behavior. It is a hypothesis that posits rational leaders; and it is, in fact, highly irrational to believe that humans will behave rationally at all times under all conditions. How many national leaders are you aware of who always act rationally, regardless of the circumstances?

    It is also true that humans are fallible and prone to error, even when they construct elaborate safeguards. Examples of human fallibility are found in the nuclear power plant accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, and in numerous accidents with nuclear weapons in transport, such as the refueling accident over Palomares, Spain.

    As Ban Ki-moon said earlier this year in a speech at the Monterey Institute of International Studies: “Nuclear deterrence is not a solution to international peace and stability. It is an obstacle.”

    Third, I urge you to remember the Maginot Line. It was a high-tech wall that French leaders believed would prevent another invasion of their country, as had occurred in World War I. The Maginot Line was highly regarded right up to the time that it failed, catastrophically for France, when the German attackers simply marched around it.

    I view nuclear deterrence theory as a Maginot Line in the mind. It is likely to be relied upon right up until the moment it fails, and when it fails it will be catastrophic, far more so than in the French case. Like the original Maginot Line, it will seem clear after the fact that it was destined to fail.

    What is missing from the discourse on nuclear armaments among national leaders is political will for nuclear weapons abolition, a sense of urgency and the courage to lead. Mr. Obama spoke in his 2013 State of the Union Address about the US “leading the global effort to secure nuclear materials that could fall into the wrong hands.” The problem with the president’s perspective is that all hands are the wrong hands.

    Who will make this clear to Mr. Obama and to the leaders of the other nuclear weapons states? This is a role for the citizens of the nuclear weapon states and for the leaders of middle-power countries. It is necessary if we are to preserve our world and pass it on intact to new generations.

    Mr. Obama also said that “our ability to influence others depends on our willingness to lead.” Who will step up and lead on this mostcritical of all issues for humanity’s future?

    Strategies for nuclear weapons, based on nuclear deterrence, have been MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). MAD has given way to SAD (Self-Assured Destruction), as today’s arsenals of thermonuclear weapons have the capacity to trigger Ice Age conditions (leading to nuclear famine) that would assure the destruction of the attacking nation, even without retaliation.

    We must have the courage to move past MAD and SAD to PASS (Planetary Assured Security and Survival). This will require moving rapidly but surely to the total abolition of nuclear weapons, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    I urge national leaders and security specialists, as well as the public, to base their strategic thinking, leadership and action regarding nuclear weapons on three basic understandings that separate fact from fiction, truth from hypothesis. First, nuclear weapons are capable of omnicide. Second, nuclear deterrence is only a hypothesis about human behavior, not a fact that can be relied upon for the indefinite future. Third, the Maginot Line was fancy and high-tech and was thought to be foolproof by most security experts, but it failed to provide a defense when it mattered, and its failure was devastating for France.

    Nuclear deterrence is a Maginot Line in the mind, and its failure would be devastating, not only to nuclear armed countries, but to people everywhere, as well as to the future of complex life on the planet.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Securing a Nuclear Weapon-Free World Today

    2010_04_26_wfc_booklet.pdf

  • Moving from Omnicide to Abolition

    Nuclear weapons present humankind with an immense challenge, one far greater than most people understand.  Many people realize, of course, that nuclear weapons are dangerous and deadly, and that in the past they were used to destroy the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with a single weapon demolishing each city.  But few people have grappled with the proposition that these weapons are omnicidal; they go beyond suicide and genocide to omnicide, the death of all.  

    In a cataclysmic strike, resulting in the destruction of present life forms on the planet, these weapons would also obliterate the past and future, destroying both human memory and possibility.  They would obliterate every sacred part of being, leaving vast ruin and emptiness where once life, love, friendship, decency, hope and beauty had existed.

    Despite the omnicidal capacity of nuclear weapons, leaders of a small number of countries continue to maintain and develop nuclear arsenals and rely upon these weapons for national security.  They justify this reliance on the basis of nuclear deterrence, arguing that the weapons prevent war by the threat of retaliation with overwhelming destructive force.  This argument has many flaws, the most important being that deterrence is only a theory and is subject to human fallibility.  

    Deterrence theory posits rational decision makers, but it is highly unlikely that all political leaders will act rationally at all times, particularly under conditions of high stress.  Deterrence is also widely understood to be ineffective against non-state actors, such as extremist groups, which cannot be located and whose members are suicidal.  In other words, deterrence may fail, and such failure would be catastrophic.

    Unfortunately, leaders of the major nuclear weapon states are continuing to drag their feet on nuclear disarmament, sometimes rhetorically expressing the vision of a nuclear weapon-free world, but resisting serious actions toward the abolition of their arsenals that would provide assurance of their commitment.  For example, in his much heralded Prague speech in April 2009, President Obama said, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  But he quickly followed this visionary statement with a lowering of expectations.  “I’m not naïve,” he said.  “This goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime.  It will take patience and persistence.”  

    President Obama is a relatively young man, who is likely to have a long life.  He is to be commended for his vision of a nuclear weapon-free world, but his lack of urgency in seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons opens the door to the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and their potential use.  There are still some 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world, far more than are needed to end civilization, the human species and other forms of complex life on the planet.  

    The next major international event at which the subject of nuclear weapons will be before the international community is the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which will take place in May 2010.  This treaty calls for both nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.  In their deliberations, the states parties to the treaty should bear in mind the following points in seeking a comprehensive solution to the omnicidal threat of nuclear weapons:

    • Nuclear weapons continue to present a real and present danger to humanity and other life on Earth.
    • Basing the security of one’s country on the threat to kill tens of millions of innocent people, perhaps billions, and risking the destruction of civilization, has no moral justification and deserves the strongest condemnation.
    • It will not be possible to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons without fulfilling existing legal obligations for total nuclear disarmament.
    • Preventing nuclear proliferation and achieving nuclear disarmament will both be made far more difficult, if not impossible, by expanding nuclear energy facilities throughout the world.
    • Putting the world on track for eliminating the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons will require new ways of thinking about this overarching danger to present and future generations.  

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation supports the following five priority actions for agreement at the 2010 NPT Review Conference:

    1. Each signatory nuclear weapon state should provide an accurate public accounting of its nuclear arsenal, conduct a public environmental and human assessment of its potential use, and devise and make public a roadmap for going to zero nuclear weapons.
    2. All signatory nuclear weapon states should reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their security policies by taking all nuclear forces off high-alert status, pledging No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapon states and No Use against non-nuclear weapon states.
    3. All enriched uranium and reprocessed plutonium – military and civilian – and their production facilities (including all uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technology) should be placed under strict and effective international safeguards.
    4. All signatory states should review Article IV of the NPT, promoting the “inalienable right” to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, in light of the nuclear proliferation problems posed by nuclear electricity generation.
    5. All signatory states should comply with Article VI of the NPT, reinforced and clarified by the 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion, by commencing negotiations in good faith on a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons, and complete these negotiations by the year 2015.

    The most important action by the 2010 NPT Review Conference would be an agreement to commence good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.  Such an agreement would demonstrate the needed political will among the world’s countries to move forward toward a world without nuclear weapons.  If the United States fails to lead in convening these negotiations, I would urge Japan to do so.  Regardless of which countries provide the leadership, however, I would propose that the opening session of these negotiations be held in Hiroshima, the first city to have suffered nuclear devastation, and the final session of these negotiations be held in Nagasaki, the second and, hopefully, last city to have suffered atomic devastation.

    If agreement could be reached to begin these negotiations for a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, we would be on a serious path toward a nuclear weapon-free world, one that would allow the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to know that their pleas have been heard.

    If climate change is an “inconvenient truth,” as Al Gore argues, then the potentially omnicidal consequences of nuclear weapons are an even more critical inconvenient truth.  Perhaps the greatest contemporary challenge confronting humanity in the 21st century is urgently ending the nuclear weapons era.  To move from omnicide to abolition will require a major outpouring of support from people everywhere.  The task cannot be left to political leaders alone.  Without a strong foundation of public support, political leaders are unlikely to be courageous and persistent in seeking to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.  Ordinary citizens must overcome their disempowerment and propensity to defer to experts in order to act for the benefit of all humankind and demand the change they seek, in this case the abolition of nuclear weapons.

  • Omnicide and Abolition

    This speech was delivered by David Krieger to the 4th Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons on February 6, 2010.

    It is a great pleasure to be again in Nagasaki.  Thank you all for welcoming us so warmly to your beautiful city.  I have always been struck by the chance nature of the bombing of Nagasaki.  The target of the bomb that fateful day was another city, Kokura, but clouds prevented the bombing of that city.  If it hadn’t been for those clouds, Nagasaki might never have been bombed.  If there had not been a break in the clouds over Nagasaki, the city might never have been bombed.  Something as ordinary as clouds can change our lives in profound ways.  But so can our actions to build a world of peace and to eliminate nuclear weapons from our planet.  

    Over the years I have written a number of poems about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I would like to share one of these, entitled Echoes in the Sky.  It begins with a quote by the former mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Itoh.

    ECHOES IN THE SKY

    “Today the bells of Nagasaki echo in the sky…”
    — Mayor Iccho Itoh

    The sky, bitter, blue, unyielding, holds promise.  The city, so welcoming,
    deserved far better.  Clouds opened making space for devastation.  Before
    anyone expected, the flowers returned.  Memories are painful, sometimes
    unbearable.  Words of apology never came.  Survivors grow old and feeble. 
    Generations pass.  The air above the sea is thick with sorrow.  The bells ring
    out for peace, echo in the sky.

    This is the first time I have been in Nagasaki since the tragic death of Mayor Itoh. I remember him vividly as a man of great charm and warmth.  He had a deep commitment to ending the nuclear weapons era and to assuring that Nagasaki’s past does not become any other city’s future.  Many of us throughout the world feel a debt of gratitude for the leadership he provided on this most critical issue of our time.

    Nagasaki is a city at once magical and poetic.  From the ashes of atomic devastation nearly 65 years ago, Nagasaki has arisen to become a leading global city in the movement for a world free of nuclear threat.  These Citizens’ Assemblies are models of engagement to involve ordinary citizens in the task of abolishing nuclear weapons.  The bells of Nagasaki echo in the sky’s embrace.  These bells send forth a call to people everywhere to awaken to the spirit of peace, to global cooperation and the transformative powers of forgiveness and love.  Nagasaki has always been an entry point for foreigners into Japan.  It has also been a gateway outward to the world, and your message is one that is critical for the world to hear.  

    I have worked for nuclear disarmament for four decades, and have done so with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation since its founding in 1982.  Our first and most important goal at the Foundation is the abolition of nuclear weapons.  We also seek to strengthen international law and to empower new generations of peace leaders.  These goals go together hand-in-hand.  We will not achieve abolition without strengthening international law and empowering new generations of peace leaders.  So we need to be firm in our demands for the total abolition of these monstrous weapons in accord with international law, and new generations of peace leaders must join in this demand and stand with us shoulder-to-shoulder.  We need to educate and mentor young leaders to carry forward this struggle until the last nuclear weapon is dismantled and destroyed.  

    I would like to talk to you about Omnicide and Abolition.  Omnicide is a term coined by the philosopher John Somerville.  It is an extension of the concepts of suicide and genocide.  It means the destruction of all, of everything.  Nuclear weapons have the potential for omnicide.  They could destroy everything — civilization, the human species, other forms of life, art, music, memory, poetry, literature, the past, the future.   Anything you can imagine can be destroyed by nuclear weapons, even imagination itself.  How clever we humans are.  We are a tool-creating species, and we have created tools with which we are capable of annihilating ourselves and other forms of life.  This should be a frightening thought to all of us.  

    There is no doubt that the number of nuclear weapons on our planet is sufficient to end human life.  What can justify this risk?  Is it not insane to continue to run this risk?  Why does this seem to be something that our political leaders cannot see?  Where is the leadership for change?  

    One ray of hope is Barack Obama assuming the presidency of the United States.  He seeks “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  But he tells us that he is not naive, and that this is not likely to be achieved in his lifetime.  He tells us we must be patient.  But if he knew that patience might make nuclear proliferation more likely and lead to further nuclear catastrophes, would he not instill his goal with a greater sense of urgency?

    Another ray of hope is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has called for all parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith – as required by the treaty – on nuclear disarmament either through a new convention or through a series of mutually reinforcing instruments backed by a credible system of verification.”  This is important leadership coming from the top international civil servant.

    Our task as global citizens is to become a strong enough voice that leaders seeking abolition, like President Obama and Ban Ki-moon, will feel a solid base of support behind them, providing them with the strength to seek to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity with a sense of urgency.    

    We have our work cut out for us.  There is no doubt it will be difficult to achieve our goal.  We face powerful forces.  We must make our demands heard.  As the 19th century anti-slavery abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never has and it never will.”  

    We must encourage President Obama to act with greater urgency, but we must also encourage Kim Jong-Il to come to the negotiating table, give up his nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances and development assistance, and join a Northeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone.  We must also bring the spirit of the hibakusha to the negotiating table.  If we can do this, we can use the transforming powers of forgiveness and love to infuse the negotiations with a new energy reflective of the changed “modes of thinking” that Albert Einstein saw as essential to avert “unparalleled catastrophe.”  

    The hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have given testimony to enough pain and suffering for many lifetimes.  Let their voices echo in the sky and throughout the Earth.  I would ask you to take five actions from this Citizens’ Assembly.  

    First, invite President Obama and other world leaders to visit your city.  Help them to see at first hand the nature of the nuclear power of annihilation and compare that to the transformative powers of forgiveness and love.  

    Second, send a strong delegation of hibakusha to the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and lobby each of the delegates to the conference, encouraging them to approach the elimination of nuclear weapons with a sense of urgency.  

    Third, send delegations of hibakusha throughout the world to tell their stories to young people, to share with them the Appeal that will come from this Assembly, and to encourage their leadership in the struggle for a world without nuclear weapons.

    Fourth, lobby the Japanese government to step out from under the US nuclear umbrella and to end its reliance on extended nuclear deterrence.  

    Fifth, continue to lobby for a Nobel Peace Prize for the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  President Obama received the prize for what he might do; the hibakusha deserve the prize for what they have done in powerfully spreading the message, “Never again!”  

    Now I would like to focus on the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which will take place in May.  In their deliberations, states parties to the conference should bear in mind the following in seeking a comprehensive solution to the threat of nuclear weapons rather than narrow advantage:

    • Nuclear weapons continue to present a real and present danger to humanity and other life on Earth.
    • Basing the security of one’s country on the threat to kill tens of millions of innocent people, perhaps billions, and risking the destruction of civilization, has no moral justification and deserves the strongest condemnation.
    • It will not be possible to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons without fulfilling existing legal obligations for total nuclear disarmament.  
    • Preventing nuclear proliferation and achieving nuclear disarmament will both be made far more difficult, if not impossible, by expanding nuclear energy facilities throughout the world.  
    • Putting the world on track for eliminating the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons will require new ways of thinking about this overarching danger to present and future generations.  

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation supports the following five priority actions for agreement at the 2010 NPT Review Conference:

    1. Each signatory nuclear weapon state should provide an accurate public accounting of its nuclear arsenal, conduct a public environmental and human assessment of its potential use, and devise and make public a roadmap for going to zero nuclear weapons.
    2. All signatory nuclear weapon states should reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their security policies by taking all nuclear forces off high-alert status, pledging No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapon states and No Use against non-nuclear weapon states.
    3. All enriched uranium and reprocessed plutonium – military and civilian – and their production facilities (including all uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technology) should be placed under strict and effective international safeguards.
    4. All signatory states should review Article IV of the NPT, promoting the “inalienable right” to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, in light of the nuclear proliferation problems posed by nuclear electricity generation.
    5. All signatory states should comply with Article VI of the NPT, reinforced and clarified by the 1996 World Court Advisory Opinion, by commencing negotiations in good faith on a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons, and complete these negotiations by the year 2015.

    The most important action by the NPT Review Conference would be an agreement to commence good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.  Such an agreement would demonstrate the needed political will among the world’s countries to move forward toward a world without nuclear weapons.  If the United States fails to lead in convening these negotiations, I would urge Japan to do so.  Regardless of which countries provide the leadership, however, I would propose that the opening session of these negotiations be held in Hiroshima, the first city to have suffered nuclear devastation, and the final session of these negotiations be held in Nagasaki, the second and, hopefully, last city to have suffered atomic devastation.

    If agreement could be reached to begin these negotiations for a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, we would be on a serious path toward a nuclear weapons-free world, one that would allow the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to know that their pleas have been heard.

    I would like to conclude by sharing another poem, “The Bells of Nagasaki.”

    THE BELLS OF NAGASAKI

    The bells of Nagasaki
    ring for those who suffered
    and those who suffer still.

    They draw old women to them
    and young couples
    with love-glazed eyes.

    They draw in small children
    walking awkwardly
    toward the epicenter.

    The Bells of Nagasaki,
    elusive as a flowing stream,
    ring for each of us, ring
    like falling leaves.

    Thank you, and let’s make sure that the echoes of the Nagasaki bells are heard throughout the world.  Never lose hope, and never give up the struggle for a safer and saner world, free of all nuclear weapons.