Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: September 21

  • Message for 100-Day Countdown to the International Day of Peace

    Ban Ki-moonToday, we start the 100-day countdown to the observance of the International Day of Peace, when we call on combatants around the world to put down their weapons and try to find peaceful solutions to their conflicts.


    The International Day of Peace, marked every year on 21 September, gives us all a chance to reflect on the unconscionable toll – moral, physical, material – wrought by war.  Those costs are borne not only by us today, but by future generations as well.


    That is why this year’s theme is “Sustainable Peace for a Sustainable Future.” It highlights the fact that we cannot possibly think about building a sustainable future if there is no sustainable peace.  Armed conflicts attack the very pillars of sustainable development, robbing people of the opportunity to develop, to create jobs, to safeguard the environment, to fight poverty, to reduce the risk from disasters, to advance social equity and to ensure that everyone has enough to eat.


    One week from today, as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development opens in Rio de Janeiro, the world will have an opportunity to fight back.  With tens of thousands of politicians, policy-makers, social activists, business leaders and others mobilized for action, Rio+20 can help us to create a global roadmap for a sustainable future, the future we want.


    We want a future where natural resources are protected and valued rather than used to finance wars, where children can be educated at school and not recruited into armies, where economic and social inequalities are resolved through dialogue instead of violence.


    If we are to build such a future, we must all play our individual part.  I urge everyone, between now and 21 September, to think about how they can contribute.  Let us work together to ensure that the Road from Rio leads us to sustainable development, sustainable peace… and a secure future for all.  

  • US Cancels Nuclear-Capable Missile Test on International Day of Peace

    David KriegerThe US Air Force is standing down its plan to launch a nuclear-capable missile on the United Nations International Day of Peace.  It’s a very small step, but it is a step in the right direction.  It’s possible that the Air Force planners didn’t know about the International Day of Peace or even that there is such a day.  There is such a day, though, and it is observed annually by the countries of the world on September 21st.


    When the Air Force announced that it had scheduled a test of a nuclear-capable Minuteman III inter-continental ballistic missile for September 21st, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation notified its Action Alert Network.  Members of this Network sent over 7,000 messages to President Obama calling for cancellation of the offending missile test, and for the president to act in taking US nuclear weapons off high-alert status. 


    Perhaps those thousands of messages awakened someone to the inappropriateness of demonstrating a nuclear show of force on the International Day of Peace.  But perhaps not.  In announcing the cancellation of the missile test, a spokesperson said it was being postponed in order to complete “post test analysis” of another Minuteman III test that failed on July 27th.  It makes sense to study previous failures, but one wonders why the Air Force would announce a test shortly after a failure, and then use the failure as the reason to cancel the new test.


    At any rate, the US has precluded one serious mistake, that is, to have thumbed its nose at the world community by performing a nuclear-capable missile test on the International Day of Peace.  Regardless of its public justification for standing down its missile test, it was the right decision to cancel it. 


    The International Day of Peace will now be a slightly more peaceful day.  But the fact remains that the United States and Russia each maintain some 1,000 nuclear weapons on high-alert status, a Cold War posture that has no place in the 21st century.  President Obama could take a meaningful step toward his stated goal of a world free of nuclear weapons by taking all US nuclear weapons off high-alert status.  This would be showing real leadership, the kind of leadership hoped for from the United States.


    The United Nations General Assembly called in its Resolution 55/282 in 2001 for the International Day of Peace to “be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence….”  It would be a major step for the United States to actually observe the International Day of Peace by observing a ceasefire in its current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and its hostilities in various other countries.  That would send a message to the world that the US is ready to begin leading an international effort for peace, rather than being so quick, determined and persistent in seeking to settle disputes with its powerful military forces.