Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Russia

  • Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US-Russia Relations and Finally Ban the Bomb

    Hiroshima Unlearned: Time to Tell the Truth About US-Russia Relations and Finally Ban the Bomb

    This article was originally published by InDepth News.

    August 6 and 9 mark 74 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where only one nuclear bomb dropped on each city caused the deaths of up to 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Today, with the U.S. decision to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) negotiated with the Soviet Union, we are once again staring into the abyss of one of the most perilous nuclear challenges since the height of the Cold War.

    With its careful verification and inspections, the INF Treaty eliminated a whole class of missiles that threatened peace and stability in Europe. Now the U.S. is leaving the Treaty on the grounds that Moscow is developing and deploying a missile with a range prohibited by the Treaty. Russia denies the charges and accuses the U.S. of violating the Treaty. The U.S. rejected repeated Russian requests to work out the differences in order to preserve the Treaty.

    The US withdrawal should be seen in the context of the historical provocations visited upon the Soviet Union and now Russia by the United States and the nations under the US nuclear “umbrella” in NATO and the Pacific. The US has been driving the nuclear arms race with Russia from the dawn of the nuclear age:

    — In 1946 Truman rejected Stalin’s offer to turn the bomb over to the newly formed UN under international supervision, after which the Russians made their own bomb;

    — Reagan rejected Gorbachev’s offer to give up Star Wars as a condition for both countries to eliminate all their nuclear weapons when the wall came down and Gorbachev released all of Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation, miraculously, without a shot;

    — The US pushed NATO right up to Russia’s borders, despite promises when the wall fell that NATO would not expand it one inch eastward of a unified Germany;

    — Clinton bombed Kosovo, bypassing Russia’s veto in the UN Security Council and violating the UN Treaty we signed never to commit a war of aggression against another nation unless under imminent threat of attack;

    — Clinton refused Putin’s offer of cutting massive nuclear arsenals to 1000 bombs each and call all the others to the table to negotiate for their elimination, provided we stopped developing missile sites in Romania;

    — Bush walked out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and put the new missile base in Romania with another to open shortly under Trump in Poland, right in Russia’s backyard;

    — Bush and Obama blocked any discussion in 2008 and 2014 on Russian and Chinese proposals for a space weapons ban in the consensus-bound Committee for Disarmament in Geneva;

    — Obama’s rejected Putin’s offer to negotiate a Treaty to ban cyber war;

    — Trump now walked out of the INF Treaty;

    — From Clinton through Trump, the US never ratified the 1992 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) as Russia has, and has performed more than 20 underground sub-critical tests on the Western Shoshone’s sanctified land at the Nevada test site. Since plutonium is blown up with chemicals that don’t cause a chain reaction, the US claims these tests don’t violate the Treaty;

    — Obama, and now Trump, pledged over one trillion dollars for the next 30 years for two new nuclear bomb factories in Oak Ridge and Kansas City, as well as new submarines, missiles, airplanes, and warheads!

    What has Russia had to say about these US affronts to international security and negotiated treaties? Putin at his State of the Nation address in March 2018 said:

    I will speak about the newest systems of Russian strategic weapons that we are creating in response to the unilateral withdrawal of the United States of America from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the practical deployment of their missile defence systems both in the US and beyond their national borders.

    I would like to make a short journey into the recent past. Back in 2000, the US announced its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)Treaty. Russia was categorically against this. We saw the Soviet-US ABM Treaty signed in 1972 as the cornerstone of the international security system.

    Under this Treaty, the parties had the right to deploy ballistic missile defence systems only in one of its regions. Russia deployed these systems around Moscow, and the US around its Grand Forks land-based ICBM base.

    Together with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the ABM Treaty not only created an atmosphere of trust but also prevented either party from recklessly using nuclear weapons, which would have endangered humankind, because the limited number of ballistic missile defence systems made the potential aggressor vulnerable to a response strike.

    We did our best to dissuade the Americans from withdrawing from the Treaty.  

    All in vain. The US pulled out of the Treaty in 2002. Even after that we tried to develop constructive dialogue with the Americans. We proposed working together in this area to ease concerns and maintain the atmosphere of trust.

    At one point, I thought that a compromise was possible, but this was not to be. All our proposals, absolutely all of them, were rejected. And then we said that we would have to improve our modern strike systems to protect our security. 

    Despite promises made in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that the five nuclear weapons states – US, UK, Russia, France, China – would eliminate their nuclear weapons while all the other nations of the world promised not to get them (except for India, Pakistan, and Israel, which also acquired nuclear weapons), there are still nearly 15,000 nuclear bombs on the planet. All but 1,000 of them are in the US and Russia, while the seven other countries, including North Korea, have about 1000 bombs between them.

    If the US and Russia can’t settle their differences and honor their promise in the NPT to eliminate their nuclear weapons, the whole world will continue to live under what President Kennedy described as a nuclear Sword of Damocles, threatened with unimaginable catastrophic humanitarian suffering and destruction.

    To prevent a nuclear catastrophe, in 2017, 122 nations adopted a new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It calls for a ban on nuclear weapons just as the world had banned chemical and biological weapons. The ban Treaty provides a pathway for nuclear weapons states to join and dismantle their arsenals under strict and effective verification.

    The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which received the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts, is working for the Treaty to enter into force by enrolling 50 nations to ratify the Treaty. As of today, 70 nations have signed the Treaty and 24 have ratified it, although none of them are nuclear weapons states or the US alliance states under the nuclear umbrella.

    With this new opportunity to finally ban the bomb and end the nuclear terror, let us tell the truth about what happened between the US and Russia that brought us to this perilous moment and put the responsibility where it belongs to open up a path for true peace and reconciliation so that never again will anyone on our  planet ever be threatened with the terrible consequences of nuclear war.

    Here are some actions you can take to ban the bomb:

    – Support the ICAN Cities Appeal to take a stand in favor of the ban Treaty

    – Ask your member of Congress to sign the ICAN Parliamentary Pledge

    – Ask the US Presidential Candidates to pledge support for the Ban Treaty and cut Pentagon spending

    – Support the Don’t Bank on the Bomb Campaign for nuclear divestment

    – Support the Code Pink Divest From the War Machine Campaign 

    – Distribute Warheads To Windmills, How to Pay for the Green New Deal, a new study addressing the need to prevent the two greatest dangers facing our planet: nuclear annihilation and climate destruction.

    – Sign the World Beyond War pledge and add your name to this critical new campaign to make the end of war on our planet an idea whose time has come!

  • Trump Administration Terminates the INF Treaty and the World Gets More Dangerous

    For Immediate release

    Contact: Sandy Jones (805) 965-3443 ; sjones@napf.org

    Today, the Trump administration terminated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement (INF). This treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, required the United States and the former Soviet Union (now Russia) to eliminate all nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

    The treaty was the first agreement between Washington and Moscow that required the two nuclear superpowers to eliminated entire categories of nuclear weapons. As a result of the INF Treaty, the U.S. and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 missiles by the treaty deadline of June 1, 1991 (1,846 Soviet missiles and 846 U.S. missiles).

    Many believe that the termination of the INF brings us to the brink of a new and dangerous arms race. Russia could move to deploy new short-range and intermediate-range cruise missiles and ballistic missiles on its territory as well as on that of its allies, such as Belarus. If the U.S. were to respond with new intermediate-range missiles of its own, they would be based either in Europe or in Japan or South Korea to reach significant targets in Russia. This would spell the beginning of a new arms race in Europe on a class of especially high-risk nuclear weapons.

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, commented, “Today the world has become immeasurably less secure with the U.S. pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, in effect, ending the bilateral nuclear arms control treaty with Russia.  The treaty was signed by two leaders who understood that ‘nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.’ Now, both the U.S. and Russia are free to deploy such nuclear-armed missiles in the foolish pursuit of nuclear advantage. This is part of a pattern of bad nuclear decisions by the Trump administration, which also includes pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran.”

    With his deeply irrational and erratic leadership style, Trump is demonstrating yet again why nuclear weapons remain an urgent and ultimate danger to us all.

     

  • Trump Withdraws U.S. from INF Treaty

    Trump Withdraws U.S. from INF Treaty

    NUCLEAR AGE PEACE FOUNDATION

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

    Contact: Sandy Jones  (805) 965-3443; sjones@napf.org

    Rick Wayman  (805) 696-5159; rwayman@napf.org

     

    The Trump administration announced that it will formally suspend the United States’ obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, effective February 2nd. This crucial treaty requires the United States and the former Soviet Union (now Russia) to eliminate all nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

    The INF Treaty was the first agreement between the two nuclear superpowers that eliminated entire categories of nuclear weapons. As a result of the INF Treaty, the U.S. and the Soviet Union destroyed a total of 2,692 missiles by the treaty deadline of June 1, 1991 (1,846 Soviet missiles and 846 U.S. missiles).

    David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, commented on the imminent withdrawal, saying, “This is a massive mistake. The withdrawal moves the world closer to sounding a death knell for humanity. Rather than withdrawing from the treaty, U.S. leaders should be meeting with the Russians to resolve alleged treaty violations. Rather than destroying arms control and disarmament agreements, the U.S. should be taking the lead in bolstering such agreements, including providing support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”

    Since July 2014, the U.S. has alleged that Russia was in violation of its INF Treaty obligation not to “possess, produce, or flight-test a ground-launched cruise missile having a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers” or “to possess or produce launchers of such missiles.” In late November 2017, a senior U.S. national security official stated that the Novator 9M729, a land-based cruise missile, was the weapon that the United States believed violates the INF Treaty. The Russian Foreign Ministry asserts there is absolutely no evidence to support these claims.

    For its part, Russia alleges that the U.S. has violated the INF Treaty by deploying a component of a missile defense system — the Mark 41 Vertical Launch System (VLS) — that is capable of launching offensive missiles. It also claims that the U.S. has used prohibited missiles in defense tests and that some U.S. armed drones are effectively unlawful cruise missiles. To date, the U.S. has not made public any evidence to disprove these claims.

    Where does this leave us should Trump go forward as planned with the withdrawal?

    It brings us to the brink of a new and dangerous arms race. Russia could move to deploy new short-range and intermediate-range cruise missiles and ballistic missiles on its territory as well as on that of its allies, such as Belarus. If the U.S. were to respond with new intermediate-range missiles of its own, they would be based either in Europe or in Japan or South Korea to reach significant targets in Russia. This would spell the beginning of a new arms race in Europe on a class of especially high-risk nuclear weapons.

    The INF Treaty is just the latest treaty the Trump administration will have walked away from. He has been systematically undermining the longstanding framework of European and global security. He has withdrawn the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (commonly referred to as the Iran Nuclear Agreement) and The Paris Accord (on climate change). He has also contemplated withdrawing the U.S. from NATO.

    Krieger went on to say, “The country would be well-served to look at what Trump is doing with regard to withdrawing from the INF treaty, and do the opposite – that is, strengthening the treaty and building upon it.”

    #        #         #

    If you would like to interview David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, or Rick Wayman, Deputy Director of the Foundation, please call (805) 696-5159.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s mission is to educate, advocate and inspire action for a just and peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons. Founded in 1982, the Foundation is comprised of individuals and organizations worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative status to the United Nations. For more information, visit wagingpeace.org.

  • Reagan’s Ambassador to Moscow Says US Suffers from Autistic Foreign Policy

    martin_hellman1This article was originally published by Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    Three days ago, I posted excerpts I had found in news articles from an important but overlooked speech by Ambassador Jack Matlock. Today I found both a full transcript of his speech and its YouTube video. Matlock was our Ambassador to Moscow under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

    I compared the transcript to the video and found the transcript to be accurate. Other than cleaning up some verbal comments to make them more readable, I only found a few, inconsequential errors. I’ve attached what I saw as the most important parts of Ambassador Matlock’s speech below my signature line.

    If you think this speech deserve greater attention, please let friends know of this post via email, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, or other social media. This speech by one of America’s most respected experts on foreign relations – Matlock represented us in key negotiations to end the Cold War – still has not been covered by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and I suspect most other major American media. (An OpEd in the Washington Post did mention it, but only in passing and in derogatory terms. Another OpEd in the Post reported on the speech in favorable terms.)

    Martin Hellman

    === BEGIN EXCERPTS FROM AMBASSADOR MATLOCK’S SPEECH ===

    … as things have developed, and as I see debates now as to whether the United States should supply lethal weapons to Ukraine, I wonder what is going on.

    I see all these debates, and saying, “Oh, Russia’s only a regional power.” … I think the elephant in the room, which nobody is referring to, is the nuclear issue. No country which has ICBMs … is a regional power.* …

    The most important thing we did in ending the Cold War was cooling the nuclear arms race. If there are any issues for this country to face that are existential, that’s it. …

    If the United States gets further involved in what is, in the minds of the Russians, territory [Ukraine] which has historically been part of their country, given the present atmosphere, I don’t see how we are going to prevent another nuclear arms race. And that’s what scares me.

    … when we ended the Cold War, we had a coherent policy … Our goal, and that of our allies, and that of the Soviet leaders, and their successor Russian leaders, was a Europe whole and free. …

    Now, there’s been a lot of debate as to whether President Gorbachev was promised that there would be no NATO expansion to the East. There was no treaty signed saying that. But as we negotiated an agreement to end the Cold War, first President [George H.W.] Bush, at a Malta meeting in 1989, and then later, in 1990, almost all the Western leaders, told Gorbachev: If you remove your troops from Eastern Europe, if you let Eastern Europe go free, then we will not take advantage of it.

    Now, there’s no way, by moving an alliance that was originally designed to protect Western Europe from the aggression of the East, you move it to the East—how are you going to keep a Europe whole and free? If you have a Europe whole and free, Russia and all the others have to be part of the system.

    So later, not out of design, but simply, I think, largely because of domestic politics, and the East Europeans wanting protection against a threat that at that point didn’t exist, but [which] might in the future, we started expanding NATO.

    The Russian reaction at first was not that negative, but then other things began to happen. After 9/11, then President Putin was the first foreign President to call President [George W.] Bush, and offer their cooperation and support. And we got it when we invaded Afghanistan. We got their vote in the UN. We got intelligence support and other support, logistics support, in getting there.

    What did they get in return? … We walk out of the ABM Treaty, which was the basis of all of our arms control treaties, and the one in which we could deal with each other as equals. We keep on expanding NATO, and not only expand it, we begin to talk about bases there [in Eastern Europe], about deploying anti-ballistic missiles, for no good reason at all. Supposedly it was to defend the Europeans against the Iranians—the Iranians at that point didn’t have missiles that could attack them, nor was it apparent to many of us why the Iranians would ever want to attack the Europeans. What are they going to get out of that? …

    We didn’t set out … to stick it to Russia. I don’t think there was any intent. We had a lot of reasons, mainly domestic political reasons, to follow these courses. But, we were simply ignoring the Russian reaction, the inevitable Russian reaction.

    And so what we began to get was a reaction from what you could say was, at best, inconsiderate American actions, to a Russian over-reaction. And you know, when you set up these vibrations, they can be amplified. …

    But the process was, that we developed an atmosphere, which, even before this Ukrainian crisis broke upon us, was one of … perceived hostility … between us. Something that we had [ended], when we ended the Cold War. …

    [When President Reagan was working to end the Cold War, he wrote a memo that] said we’re much too upfront on human rights. We will get a lot of cheers from the bleachers by beating up on them on human rights, but it will not help the people involved. In fact, it could hurt them. And he went on to say, we’ve got to go private. It’s too important to confront them.

    And he concluded this memo by saying, whatever we achieve, we must not consider it victory, because that will simply make the next achievement more difficult.

    You have, in a nutshell, a description, I would say, of what, in the last 15 years at least, we have been doing the opposite. And I think what Reagan understood … was human relations. And he also understood, unlike many of the people on his staff, that the other side are made up also of human beings, with their own politics, their own requirements. And number one, you’ve got to deal with them with respect, and you’ve got to deal with them in a way that you don’t expect them to do something that is not in the true interest of their country.

    So, our effort then was simply, that we needed to convince the Soviet leader—and in this case, eventually, Gorbachev—that their past policy was not serving their interests. And it was not! …

    Now, what do we see has happened [today to make a new Cold War possible]? … I would say it’s not just the President—in fact, the worst offender by far is the U.S. Congress. And what Russia has been reacting to is what they consider insufferable arrogance and humiliation for several years. … we’re reading op-eds right now—to save the world system of peace, we must provide arms to Ukraine so that they can defend themselves. …

    Let me add another element now, which I find particularly disturbing, and that is the personalization of the whole relationship. It’s hard to read anything in most of our press that doesn’t attribute all the Russian actions to one man, and that man is usually characterized in the most unflattering terms, with various names. This is true both of the media, which, of course, can call things as they wish, but also, of our officials. You know, it seems to me that if you really want to settle the situation, you don’t set up, in effect, a public duel between your President and another person, particularly when the other President has most of the marbles in the nation at issue.

    When President Putin says we’re not going to allow the Ukrainian situation to be resolved by military means, he means it. And no amount of shouting about this is going to change that. And for the President of the United States to appear to challenge him to do other things, simply has a negative effect. …

    So, I think that one thing that we need to do, is to get this personal debate at the top of the government out. We really have to stop that, because it’s got a negative effect! When you say, “I’ve isolated him, he’s losing. Look, you didn’t like what I was doing, but this guy’s losing.” What’s his reaction? “I’ll show him if I’m losing!”

    So, who wins from that sort of exchange?

    But the biggest problem really hasn’t been the President. He’s been much better on many of these issues than Congress. And I would say one of the most outrageous things, that did much to create the atmosphere that we are in, which is one that nobody is going to benefit from, was the Magnitsky Act. [Search this blog on Magnitsky and Jackson-Vanik (its predecessor) for details.]

    Here you have the United States Congress, which, in that year [2012], could not even pass a budget, passing a law about a court case in Moscow, where it was alleged that the lawyer was mistreated, and he died while he was in detention. That was potentially a real scandal in Moscow.

    So, what does the U.S. Congress do? They pass legislation requiring the Administration to identify publicly, and take action … [against] specific people who might have been involved. One of the things, when I was ambassador in Moscow, I would talk about a lot, is how we really need to respect the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Here we have a case, in another jurisdiction—there may have been a scandal there, there may not have been—a law is passed, limited to Russia, by name, and when one Congressman was asked about it, he said, “Oh, it’s not about Russia, it’s about human rights.”

    If it’s not about Russia, why did you limit it to Russia? And I would point out, this was at a time when the United States had torturers and was not prosecuting them. Was that any concern to the American Congress? It was a time where, since then, we have learned that were several prisoners on death row who were proved to be innocent. … It would seem to me that the U.S. Congress should pay a little more attention [to those violations of human rights]. … human rights are important, very important. But you do not protect them by public pressure on another country, particularly when you are unwilling to judge yourself.

    The State Department, now for decades, has to report on human rights in every country in the world, but one—want to guess which one that is?

    … it seems to me when I really looked at what our policies have been … what we have gotten has been action/reaction, insults followed by insults answered, and so on. I wonder, when I think about how the policy is made, I was wondering, how do you characterize this?

    We’ve heard a lot recently about autism, and whether there’s any connection with vaccination and so on. And suddenly, I said, you know, we have an autistic foreign policy! Let me read you—I went back and looked at the actual definition of autism:

    “Autism is characterized by impaired social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.”

    When the Congress of the United States votes over 30 times in a legislation they know is never going to become law, I would say that is restricted and repetitive behavior, and our problem is really an autistic foreign policy.

    ___________

    * Ambassador Matlock was referring to President Obama’s March 25, 2014, speech at The Hague, in which he said: “With respect to Mr. Romney’s assertion that Russia’s our number one geopolitical foe, the truth of the matter is that, you know, America’s got a whole lot of challenges. Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors — not out of strength, but out of weakness.”

  • A Dangerous Trend Line

    This article was originally published on Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    martin_hellman1For a number of years I have advocated a risk framework for reducing the danger of a Russian-American crisis escalating out of control to nuclear threats. One tool in that approach is to highlight early steps in accident chains which could lead to catastrophe and, instead of ignoring them, to treat them as early warning signs needing remedial action. Doing that is one goal of this blog, but a recent Gallup poll shows how miserably I (and others) are succeeding. Gallup’s accompanying news release starts out:

    Russia now edges out North Korea as the country Americans consider the United States’ greatest enemy. Two years ago, only 2% of Americans named Russia, but that increased to 9% in 2014 as tensions between Russia and the U.S. increased, and now sits at 18%.

    An article in yesterday’s Moscow Times notes a similar trend in Russia:

    Meanwhile, the results of a recent Russian survey shows the feelings are mutual. Some 81 percent of Russians view the United States negatively, independent Moscow-based pollster the Levada Center revealed earlier this month. The findings represented an all-time high for the pollster, which has been conducting similar studies since 1990.

    The Gallup news release concludes with a possible prescription for halting this accident chain before it progresses any closer to the nuclear abyss (emphasis added):

    However, because Americans’ attitudes about Russia have changed substantially in the past and have been quite positive at times — which has not been the case for countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea — if Russian and American policy interests find more common ground, Americans’ views of Russia could recover quickly.

    While the release doesn’t say what that “common ground” might be, mutual survival in the nuclear age would seem to top the list. Another common interest would be to alleviate the human suffering in Ukraine, something which can only be done by reining in both the pro-Russian separatists and the most virulently nationalistic elements within the Ukrainian militias.

  • More Russians Fear Nuclear War

    This article was originally published on Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    martin_hellman1The risk analysis approach I have advocated for reducing the threat of nuclear war doesn’t wait for a catastrophe to occur before taking remedial action since, clearly, that would be too late. Instead, it sees catastrophes as the final step in a chain of mistakes, and tries to stop the accident chain at the earliest possible stage. The news coming out of Ukraine for over a year has given us many options for doing that, but few in this country seem aware of the nuclear dimension to the risk. Russians are more aware, with a recent poll showing 17% who fear a nuclear war, versus 8% two years ago. 

    I suspect that much of the difference in American and Russian perspectives is due to our relative distances from the carnage. The Ukrainian civil war is being fought on Russia’s doorstep, and has flooded Russia with hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees.

    Unfortunately, those very different perspectives also create the possibility for one side to inadvertently threaten the perceived vital interests of the other. To a large extent, that’s how the Cuban Missile Crisis started.

    Numerous examples of such misperception have been highlighted in this blog (search on Ukraine to find them), and a recent article in the Nixon Center’s journal The National Interest provides additional examples. These examples focus on the West’s mistakes not because Putin is blameless, but because our mistakes are the only ones which we have the power to correct.

    Looking at the ways we could help stop the violence in Ukraine illustrates another advantage of risk analysis: It doesn’t just reduce the risk of catastrophe. It also helps build a more peaceful world.

    If you agree that these ideas need wider consideration, please add a link on Facebook, tweet it on Twitter, and use other social media to help get the word out. Thank you!

  • Are the U.S. and Russian Governments Once Again on the Nuclear Warpath?

    This article was originally published by History News Network.

    Lawrence WittnerA quarter century after the end of the Cold War and decades after the signing of landmark nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, are the U.S. and Russian governments once more engaged in a potentially disastrous nuclear arms race with one another? It certainly looks like it.

    With approximately 15,000 nuclear weapons between them, the United States and Russia already possess about 93 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal, thus making them the world’s nuclear hegemons. But, apparently, like great powers throughout history, they do not consider their vast military might sufficient, especially in the context of their growing international rivalry.

    Although, in early 2009, President Barack Obama announced his “commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” the U.S. government today has moved well along toward implementing an administration plan for U.S. nuclear “modernization.” This entails spending $355 billion over a ten-year period for a massive renovation of U.S. nuclear weapons plants and laboratories. Moreover, the cost is scheduled to soar after this renovation, when an array of new nuclear weapons will be produced. “That’s where all the big money is,” noted Ashton Carter, recently nominated as U.S. Secretary of Defense. “By comparison, everything that we’re doing now is cheap.” The Obama administration has asked the Pentagon to plan for 12 new nuclear missile-firing submarines, up to 100 new nuclear bombers, and 400 land-based nuclear missiles. According to outside experts and a bipartisan, independent panel commissioned by Congress and the Defense Department, that will bring the total price tag for the U.S. nuclear weapons buildup to approximately $1 trillion.

    For its part, the Russian government seems determined to match―or surpass―that record. With President Vladimir Putin eager to use nuclear weapons as a symbol of Russian influence, Moscow is building, at great expense, new generations of giant ballistic missile submarines, as well as nuclear attack submarines that are reportedly equal or superior to their U.S. counterparts in performance and stealth. Armed with nuclear-capable cruise missiles, they periodically make forays across the Atlantic, heading for the U.S. coast. Deeply concerned about the potential of these missiles to level a surprise attack, the U.S. military has already launched the first of two experimental “blimps” over Washington, DC, designed to help detect them. The Obama administration also charges that Russian testing of a new medium-range cruise missile is a violation of the 1987 INF treaty. Although the Russian government denies the existence of the offending missile, its rhetoric has been less than diplomatic. As the Ukraine crisis developed, Putin told a public audience that “Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers,” and foreign nations “should understand it’s best not to mess with us.” Pravda was even more inflammatory. In an article published in November titled “Russia prepares a nuclear surprise for NATO,” it bragged about Russia’s alleged superiority over the United States in nuclear weaponry.

    Not surprisingly, the one nuclear disarmament agreement signed between the U.S. and Russian governments since 2003―the New START treaty of 2011―is being implemented remarkably slowly. New START, designed to reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons (the most powerful ones) in each country by 30 percent by 2018, has not led to substantial reductions in either nation’s deployed nuclear arsenal. Indeed, between March and October 2014, the two nations each increased their deployed nuclear forces. Also, they maintain large arsenals of nuclear weapons targeting one another, with about 1,800 of them on high alert―ready to be launched within minutes against the populations of both nations.

    The souring of relations between the U.S. and Russian governments has been going on for years, but it has reached a very dangerous level during the current confrontation over Ukraine. In their dealings with this conflict-torn nation, there’s plenty of fault on both sides. U.S. officials should have recognized that any Russian government would have been angered by NATO’s steady recruitment of East European countries―especially Ukraine, which had been united with Russia in the same nation until recently, was sharing a common border with Russia, and was housing one of Russia’s most important naval bases (in Crimea). For their part, Russian officials had no legal basis for seizing and annexing Crimea or aiding heavily-armed separatists in the eastern portion of Ukraine.

    But however reckless the two nuclear behemoths have been, this does not mean that they have to continue this behavior. Plenty of compromise formulas exist―for example, leaving Ukraine out of NATO, altering that country’s structure to allow for a high degree of self-government in the war-torn east, and organizing a UN-sponsored referendum in Crimea. And possibilities for compromise also exist in other areas of U.S.-Russian relations.

    Failing to agree to a diplomatic settlement of these and other issues will do more than continue violent turmoil in Ukraine. Indeed, the disastrous, downhill slide of both the United States and Russia into a vastly expensive nuclear arms race will bankrupt them and, also, by providing an example of dependence on nuclear might, encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional nations. After all, how can they succeed in getting other countries to forswear developing nuclear weapons when―47 years after the U.S. and Soviet governments signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in which they pledged their own nuclear disarmament―their successors are engaged in yet another nuclear arms race? Finally, of course, this new arms race, unless checked, seems likely to lead, sooner or later, to a nuclear catastrophe of immense proportions.

    Can the U.S. and Russian governments calm down, settle their quarrels peacefully, and return to a policy of nuclear disarmament? Let’s hope so.

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, “What’s Going On at UAardvark?”

  • More on the Ukraine

    martin_hellman1This article, along with Hellman’s full series on the Ukraine crisis, can be found at his blog Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    With the Crimea voting today on whether to secede from the Ukraine, and early returns indicating strong support for secession, the following perspectives on the crisis are particularly relevant. As before, I am emphasizing unusual perspectives not because the mainstream view (“It’s  Russia’s fault!”) doesn’t have some validity, but because it over-simplifies a complex issue. And, when dealing with a nation capable of destroying us in under an hour, it would be criminally negligent not to look at all the evidence before imposing sanctions or taking other dangerous steps.

    In his blog, Russia: Other Points of View, Patrick Armstrong asks, “If, as seems to be generally expected, tomorrow’s [now today’s] referendum in Crimea produces a substantial majority in favour of union with the Russian Federation, what will Moscow’s reaction be?” It will be interesting to assess his answer a week from now, when time will tell if he was right:

    I strongly expect that it will be……

    Nothing.

    There are several reasons why I think this. One is that Moscow is reluctant to break up states. I know that that assertion will bring howls of laughter from the Russophobes who imagine that Putin has geography dreams every night but reflect that Russia only recognised the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia after Georgia had actually attacked South Ossetia. The reason for recognition was to prevent other Georgian attacks. Behind that was the memory of the chaos caused in the Russian North Caucasus as an aftermath of Tbilisi’s attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the 1990s. Russia is a profoundly status quo country – largely because it fears change would lead to something worse – and will not move on such matters until it feels it has no other choice. We are not, I believe, quite at that point yet on Crimea let alone eastern Ukraine.

    Moscow can afford to do nothing now because time is on its side. The more time passes, the more people in the West will learn who the new rulers of Kiev are.

    To show “who the new rulers of Kiev are,” Armstrong then quotes from a Los Angeles Times article, which starts off:

    It’s become popular to dismiss Russian President Vladimir Putin as paranoid and out of touch with reality. But his denunciation of “neofascist extremists” within the movement that toppled the old Ukrainian government, and in the ranks of the new one, is worth heeding. The empowerment of extreme Ukrainian nationalists is no less a menace to the country’s future than Putin’s maneuvers in Crimea. These are odious people with a repugnant ideology.

    Read the rest of the article to learn more.

    And a Reuters dispatch shows how the interim Ukrainian government is making it more likely that Crimea’s desire to secede and re-join Russia will be honored by Russia:

    Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk vowed on Sunday to track down and bring to justice all those promoting separatism in its Russian-controlled region of Crimea “under the cover of Russian troops”.

    “I want to say above all … to the Ukrainian people: Let there be no doubt, the Ukrainian state will find all those ringleaders of separatism and division who now, under the cover of Russian troops, are trying to destroy Ukrainian independence,” he told a cabinet meeting as the region voted in a referendum on becoming a part of Russia.

    We will find all of them – if it takes one year, two years – and bring them to justice and try them in Ukrainian and international courts. The ground will burn beneath their feet.”

    Given that the Ukrainian opposition demanded amnesty for even the violent protesters in Kiev, how can the new government possibly expect the more peaceful Crimean opposition not to secede under such threats? It is also worth noting that this new government was installed by force in violation of an agreement worked out between Yanukovych and the political leaders of the Ukrainian opposition.

  • What On Earth are Nuclear Weapons For?

    Eric Schlosser’s hair-raising new book about actual and potential accidents with nuclear weapons, “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety,” sharpens the dialogue, such as it is, between the anti-nuclear peace movement and nuclear strategists who maintain that these weapons still enhance the security of nations.

    We can imagine a hypothetical moment somewhere in time. No one can say when exactly, but for my money it is definitely far in the past. Before that moment—perhaps it was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, or perhaps one of the terrifying incidents Schlosser describes, when computer glitches caused the Soviets or the Americans to misperceive that nuclear missiles had been launched—realists could argue that the deterrent effect of the balance of terror was preventing world war. After that moment, the more nuclear weapons, the more risk and insecurity for the planet as a whole and therefore for all nations whether they have the weapons or not.

    One of the important points that Schlosser makes, one which former Secretary of Defense William Perry has also emphasized, is that our present moment is not less dangerous because the Cold War has passed and treaties have reduced the overall numbers of warheads, but much more dangerous—because military service in the nuclear weapons sector is considered a career dead-end, and the very lack of post-cold-war tension increases potential carelessness. At least General Curtis Lemay, whom John Kennedy had to restrain from launching World War III by attacking Cuba in 1962, pushed the Strategic Air Command to adhere to strict protocols for the safer handling of the weapons. Still, even that additional rigor was insufficient to prevent some of the near-disasters that Schlosser chronicles in such vivid detail.

    The ultimate absurdity of the whole system of security-by-nukes is the potential of nuclear winter, which posits that it would only take the detonation of a small percentage of the total warheads on the planet to loft enough soot into the atmosphere to shut down world agriculture for a decade—in effect a death-sentence for all peoples and nations. Wherever the hypothetical line is before which nuclear weapons enhanced international security, the possibility of nuclear winter demonstrates irrefutably that we are on the other side of that line.

    If some superior intelligence equipped with an interstellar version of the Diagnostical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders looked closely at the accepted order of things on our planet, they would have serious misgivings about our mental health. As such a visit from aliens seems unlikely to happen, we come to the question of authority here on earth. Ever since Oppenheimer and other scientists gave us nuclear weapons, other deep thinkers like Herman Kahn in his book “Thinking about the Unthinkable” and Henry Kissinger have tried to make rational the permanently irrational subject of mass death. In retirement, Kissinger has thrown up his hands and works now for total abolition. He does this because he knows from experience that nuclear weapons put us in the realm of Rumsfeld’s unknown knowns—no matter what experts may assert, we do know that no one knows how a nuclear war might begin. We have a somewhat clearer idea of how it would end, and “victory” is not one of the words that we associate with such an end.

    No one defined more exactly the reasons why we have been so slow to acknowledge our own madness than Dag Hammarskjold:

    “It is one of the surprising experiences of one in the position of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to find in talks with leaders of many nations, both political leaders and leaders in spiritual life, that the view expressed, the hopes nourished, and the trust reflected, in the direction of reconciliation, go far beyond what is usually heard in public. What is it that makes it so difficult to bring this basic attitude more effectively to bear upon the determination of policies? The reasons are well known to us all. It might not be understood by the constituency, or it might be abused by competing groups, or it might be misinterpreted as a sign of weakness by the other part. And so the game goes on—toward an unforeseeable conclusion.”

    On Thursday, September 26, 2013, the UN hosted the first ever High-Level Meeting on Nuclear Disarmament. Russia and the United States boycotted the meeting.

    The urgent and primary task is educational, and that is where you and I can do our small but necessary part, with letters to our newspapers and our legislators. The task is to seed into worldwide discourse the complete dysfunctionality of “realist” nuclear rhetoric—an act of love on behalf of our beautiful and deeply threatened planet. If we succeed in changing the paradigm, a moment in time will come, again a hypothetical, indefinable moment, when the majority of the world’s people and leaders, Obama and Putin and Netanyahu and Hasan Rouhani, the new head of Iran, the thinkers and the generals of the nine nuclear powers, the corporations who make money off these weapons, all will come to realize the futility of the course we are on. And together we will begin to change. God help us, may no fatal accident or misinterpretation happen before that moment arrives.

  • New START Treaty

    Below is a link to the full text of the New START Treaty:

    http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/140035.pdf