Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: US nuclear policy

  • The Cost of Nuclear Security

    Seven years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, at a time when government officials and outside experts are expressing growing concern about the prospect of a nuclear 9/11, few members of Congress know how much the United States spends on nuclear security or where the money goes.

    When Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Energy-designate Steven Chu head into their Senate confirmation hearings Tuesday, they’ll face difficult questions about how the U.S. is addressing nuclear dangers. Although most lawmakers would rank nuclear threats at the top of their list of national security concerns, they won’t have sufficient or comprehensive information to work with. But Congress can fix this.

    Our report, the first public examination of open-source data, shows that the U.S. spent at least$52.4 billion on nuclear weapons and programs in fiscal 2008. This budget, which spans many agencies, not just the Defense Department, does not count related costs for air defense, anti-submarine warfare, classified programs or most nuclear weapons-related intelligence programs.

    The 2008 nuclear security budget exceeds all anticipated spending on international diplomacy and foreign assistance ($39.5 billion) and natural resources and the environment ($33 billion). It is nearly double the budget for general science, space and technology ($27.4 billion), and it is almost 14 times what the Energy Department allocated for all energy-related research and development.

    Although the size of the overall budget is troubling, another concern is that we spend so little on initiatives to minimize the risk of nuclear and radiological attacks. More than 17 years after the end of the Cold War, it may come as a surprise to most Americans that the U.S. still spends relatively large annual sums upgrading and maintaining its nuclear arsenal ($29 billion), developing ballistic missile defenses ($9.2 billion) and addressing the deferred environmental and health costs associated with more than 50 years of unconstrained bomb building and testing ($8.3 billion).

    More alarmingly, the government spends relatively little money locking down or eliminating nuclear threats at their source, before they can reach U.S. shores ($5.2 billion), or preparing for the consequences of a nuclear or radiological attack on U.S. soil ($700 million).

    As President-elect Barack Obama’s team heads into an enormously difficult budget season, it will need to propose expenditures that match policy goals and economic realities. How, one might ask Chu, can a Department of Energy that devotes 67% of its budget to nuclear weapons-related programs meet Obama’s plan to develop new and cleaner forms of energy?

    Clinton is already on the right track by reportedly seeking to expand the State Department’s role and fighting for a larger budget. State is the frontline agency tackling proliferation concerns with Iran and North Korea, shoring up a rocky relationship with Russia and pursuing cooperation with other states to secure nuclear materials and address the growing threat of nuclear terrorism. Clinton is right to insist that her agency receive more than half a percent ($241.8 million) of the total nuclear security budget.

    As both proliferation dangers and fiscal concerns grow, taxpayers will want to know that their government is getting the best returns on its nuclear security investments. But effective oversight of government nuclear security programs is impossible without complete and reliable scrutiny of their cost and impact, and such an accounting has never been available to decision makers.

    Congress can remedy this by requiring the executive branch to submit, as part of the annual budget request, an unclassified and classified accounting of all nuclear weapons-related spending. A senior White House official, perhaps within the congressionally mandated office to coordinate nuclear proliferation and counter-terrorism efforts, or the National Security Council, should be responsible for overseeing this exercise, in conjunction with key officials of the Office of Management and Budget and senior budget officials of key departments and agencies.

    Working outside of government and using publicly available data, we’ve proved that it is possible to provide a more comprehensive accounting of our nuclear security dollars.

    Implementing these recommendations would increase understanding and accountability, which would in turn lead to greater public support for crucial nuclear security programs and a more effective allocation of public resources. When combined with a new focus on nuclear issues, including the Obama administration’s forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review, these efforts would help ensure that political and financial priorities are properly aligned.

    The nuclear threat is changing, and as long as it grows, the United States needs to be prepared to address it — even in a time of austerity. That starts with knowing where the dollars go.

    This article was originally published in the Los Angeles Times

    Stephen I. Schwartz is the editor of the Nonproliferation Review at the Monterey Institute of International Studies; Deepti Choubey is the deputy director of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

  • For a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    In the United States, the call by [Shultz/Perry/Nunn/Kissinger] has been echoed broadly and has received prominent support. There are no known decisions of support by European governments.

    Our response reflects from a German perspective the expectations that are linked with the administration of Barack Obama. This century’s keyword is cooperation.

    We unconditionally support the call of the four eminent U.S. persons for a radical change of direction in nuclear weapons policies, not only in the United States. This relates specifically to the following proposals: The vision of a world without the nuclear threat, as it has been developed by Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik, has to be revived. Negotiations have to be started with the goal of drastic cuts in nuclear weapons, first between the United States and Russia, which possess the largest number of nuclear weapons, in order to also attract the other states that possess such weapons. The NPT has to be strengthened decisively. The United States has ratify the CTBT. All short-range nuclear weapons have to be dismantled.

    From a German perspective it has to be added: The agreement on the reduction of strategic weapons will expire this year. From this results the most urgent need of action between Washington and Moscow.

    It will be decisive for the 2010 NPT review conference that the nuclear weapon states finally fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the treaty to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.

    The ABM treaty has to be restored. Outer space has to be used only for peaceful purposes.

    [Post Cold War European stability] would for the first time be jeopardized by the American wish to deploy missiles with a matching radar system on extraterritorial bases in Poland and the Czech republic, on NATO’s Eastern border. Such a relapse into the times of confrontation with implications for an arms build-up and tensions can be avoided by an amicable agreement on the topic of missile defense which also reflects the interests of NATO and the EU – and best by restoring the ABM treaty.

    Fundamental efforts by the United States and Russia to achieve a nuclear weapons-free world would facilitate an agreement with all nuclear weapon possessors – regardless whether they are permanent members of the the United Nations Security Council or not – about appropriate behavior. A spirit of cooperation could spread from the Middle East to East Asia.

    Relics from the period of confrontation no longer fit into our new century. Cooperation does not fit well with NATO’s and Russia’s still valid doctrine of nuclear first use, even in response to non-nuclear attacks. A general no-first use treaty among the nuclear armed states would be a highly desirable step.

    Germany, which has renounced nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, has to press for a commitment by the nuclear states not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states. We are also of the view that the remaining U.S. nuclear warheads should be removed from Germany.

    The authors are well-respected German politicians. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt (Social Democrat); Former President Richard von Weizsaecker (Christian Democrat); Former Federal Minister Egon Bahr (Social Democrat); and former Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (Liberal).

  • Need Cash? Cut Nuclear Weapons Budget

    This article was originally published in the Boston Globe

    President-elect Barack Obama needs money. “To make the investments we need,” he said last week, “we’ll have to scour our federal budget, line by line, and make meaningful cuts and sacrifices, as well.”

    There is no better place to start than the nuclear weapons budget. He can cut obsolete programs and transfer tens of billions of dollars per year to pressing conventional military and domestic programs.

    Transfers to domestic programs will help jumpstart the economy. Military spending provides some economic stimulus but not as much as targeted domestic spending. This is one reason Representative Barney Frank has called for a 25 percent reduction in military budgets that have exploded from $305 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $716 billion in fiscal year 2009, including the $12 billion spent every month for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    We must, of course, spend what we need to defend the country. But a good part of the military budget is still devoted to programs designed for the Cold War, which ended almost 20 years ago. This is particularly true of the $31 billion spent each year to maintain and secure a nuclear arsenal of almost 5,400 nuclear weapons, with 1,500 still deployed on missiles ready to launch within 15 minutes.

    We can safely reduce to 1,000 total weapons, as recommended by Senator John Kerry and other nuclear experts. That reduction would save over $20 billion a year, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

    The reductions could be done without any sacrifice to US national security, particularly if the Russians did the same (as they indicated they’d be willing to do) either by a negotiated treaty or the kind of unilateral reductions executed by former presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991.

    The arsenal of 1,000 warheads could be deployed on 10 safe and secure Trident submarines, each with enough weapons to devastate any nation. In total, the smaller, cheaper arsenal would still be sufficient to destroy the world several times over. Further reductions would generate further savings over time.

    Additional savings are available in the related anti-missile programs created during the Bush administration. Total spending is now $13 billion a year – up from $4 billion in 2000. Bush and former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld exempted the agency from the normal checks of Pentagon tests and procurement rules in an effort to institutionalize the program, locking in the next president. Obama will inherit half-built facilities in Alaska and California, along with plans to build new sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, but no assurance that the interceptors actually work -and a huge bill to pay. If Obama were to continue the program as is, he would spend an estimated $62 billion through 2012.

    In a congressional review of these programs, Representative John Tierney of Massachusetts concluded, “Since the 1980s, taxpayers have already spent $120 to $150 billion – more time and more money than we spent on the Manhattan project or the Apollo program, with no end in sight.” Tierney recommends refocusing the program to concentrate on defenses against the short-range weapons Iran and other nations currently field, and restoring realistic testing and realistic budgeting. Doing so could save $6 billion or more a year.

    Further savings can be found by stopping a planned expansion of nuclear weapons production facilities pushed by contractors and some government nuclear laboratories. The facilities would cost tens of billions of dollars and produce hundreds of new nuclear warheads. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates strongly backs the expansion. In a direct challenge to Obama’s plans to reduce nuclear weapons and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Gates said in October, “there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program.” Obama will have to back him down or pony up billions to pay Gates’s nuclear tab.

    What will the new president do? He comes to office with a comprehensive nuclear policy that could save billions. Obama will now have to show that his new security team will implement the change he promised, not their own parochial agendas.

    Joe Cirincione is President of the Ploughshares Fund and author of “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.”
  • President-elect Obama and a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    President-elect Obama and a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States is a great moment for America and the world – a time of celebration and tears. The American people have chosen hope over fear, unity over division. In doing so, we have repudiated policies of violence, lawlessness and closed-door rule. We have restored hope and made possible the restoration of America’s credibility in the world.

    President-elect Obama has already made many statements about US nuclear policy during his long campaign for the presidency. The one I like best is: “A world without nuclear weapons is profoundly in America’s interest and the world’s interest. It is our responsibility to make the commitment, and to do the hard work to make this vision a reality. That’s what I’ve done as a Senator and a candidate, and that’s what I’ll do as President.”

    He has also said, “I will make the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide a central element of US nuclear policy.” He has also wisely stated that “if we want the world to deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia must lead by example.” He has made clear that he does not seek unilateral disarmament, but that America must lead in achieving the global elimination of nuclear weapons.

    Among the specific steps for US leadership that the newly elected President emphasized in his campaign are the following:

    • lead an international effort to deemphasize the role of nuclear weapons around the world;
    • strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty;
    • lock down the loose nuclear weapons that are out there right now;
    • secure all loose nuclear materials within four years;
    • immediately stand down all nuclear forces to be reduced under the Moscow Treaty and urge Russia to do the same;
    • seek Russia’s agreement to extend essential monitoring and verification provisions of the START I [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] before it expires in December 2009;
    • work with Russia to take US and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert;
    • work with other nuclear powers to reduce global nuclear weapons stockpiles dramatically by the end of his presidency;
    • stop the development of new nuclear weapons;
    • seek dramatic reductions in US and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material;
    • set a goal to expand the US-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global;
    • build a bipartisan consensus for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
    • cut investments in unproven missile defense systems; and
    • not weaponize space.

    President-elect Obama has proven himself a man of vision and integrity. For the first time since Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev met at the Reykjavik, Iceland Summit in 1986 and came close to reaching an agreement on abolishing nuclear weapons, the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons appears to be within the realm of possibility. This will require presidential leadership, and the President-elect will need support and encouragement from the American people and from people throughout the world.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

  • A Treaty to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

    Article first appeared on the History News Network

    Although few people are aware of it, there has been considerable progress over the past decade toward a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons.

    For many years, there had been a substantial gap between the pledges to eliminate nuclear weapons made by the signatories to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 and the reality of their behavior. To remedy this situation, in 1996 the New York-based Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy—the U.S. affiliate of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms—began to coordinate the drafting of a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention. Formulated along the lines of the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force in 1997, this model nuclear convention was designed to serve as an international treaty that prohibits and eliminates nuclear weapons.

    Although the late 1990s proved a difficult time for nuclear arms control and disarmament measures, the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, joined by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the International Network of Engineers Against Proliferation, continued its efforts. Consequently, in 2007, these organizations released a new model treaty, revised to reflect changes in world conditions, as well as an explanatory book, Securing Our Survival.

    In 1997, like its predecessor, this updated convention for nuclear abolition was circulated within the United Nations, this time at the request of Costa Rica and Malaysia. In addition, it was presented at a number of international conclaves, including a March 2008 meeting of non-nuclear governments in Dublin, sponsored by the Middle Powers Initiative and by the government of Ireland.

    Although the Western nuclear weapons states and Russia have opposed a nuclear abolition treaty, the idea has begun to gain traction. The Wall Street Journal op-eds by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn have once again placed nuclear abolition on the political agenda. Speaking in February 2008, the U.N. High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, condemned the great powers’ “refusal to negotiate or discuss even the outlines of a nuclear-weapons convention” as “contrary to the cause of disarmament.” Opinion surveys have reported widespread popular support for nuclear abolition in numerous nations—including the United States, where about 70 percent of respondents back the signing of an international treaty to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons.

    Of course, it’s only fair to ask if there really exists the political will to bring such a treaty to fruition. Although Barack Obama has endorsed the goal of nuclear abolition, neither of his current opponents for the U.S. presidency has followed his example or seems likely to do so. John McCain is a thoroughgoing hawk, while Hillary Clinton—though publicly supporting some degree of nuclear weapons reduction—has recently issued the kind of “massive retaliation” threats unheard of since the days of John Foster Dulles.

    Furthermore, the American public is remarkably ignorant of nuclear realities. Writing in the Foreword to a recent book, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security, published by the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, the Western States Legal Foundation, and the Reaching Critical Will project of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (www.wmdreport.org), Zia Mian, a Princeton physicist, points to a number of disturbing facts about contemporary U.S. public opinion. For example, more Americans (55%) mistakenly believe that Iran has nuclear weapons than know that Britain (52%), India (51%), Israel (48%), and France (38%) actually have these weapons.

    Although the United States possesses over 5,700 operationally deployed nuclear warheads, more than half of U.S. respondents to an opinion survey thought that the number was 200 weapons or fewer. Thus, even though most Americans have displayed a healthy distaste for nuclear weapons and nuclear war, their ability to separate fact from fiction might well be questioned when it comes to nuclear issues.

    Fortunately, there are many organizations working to better educate the public on nuclear dangers. In addition to the groups already mentioned, these include Peace Action, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Federation of American Scientists, Faithful Security, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. And important knowledge can also be gleaned from that venerable source of nuclear expertise, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

    But there remains a considerable distance to go before a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons becomes international law.

    Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book, co-edited with Glen H. Stassen, is Peace Action: Past, Present, and Future (Paradigm Publishers).

  • New Leaders and Policies are a Cause for Hope

    Article originally appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on March 8, 2008

    We are in a period of dramatic political transition. The U.S. presidential election is just one part of an unusual simultaneous change in global leadership. Combined with two other political developments, they could lead to sweeping change in policies governing the 26,000 nuclear weapons in the world today.

    By early 2009, four of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (France, Britain, the United States and Russia) will have new leaders. Other key states, including Iran and Israel, may also. Several already have made the switch – South Korea, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, Britain and Italy.

    The rise of so many new leaders less wed to past policies brings the possibility that some, perhaps many, could adopt new policies to dramatically reduce many of the nuclear dangers that have tormented governments for decades. They would not need new policies if the old ones were working. But they are not.

    The second big development is the collapse of current U.S. nuclear policy. Bush administration officials were openly contemptuous of their predecessors who had negotiated security arrangements that treated all nations equally. In their view, there were good proliferators, like India, and bad proliferators, like Iraq. The former got trade deals, the latter would be eliminated. The Iraq War was the first implementation of this radical regime change strategy. It proved fatally flawed. The Iraq threat was inflated. Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear weapons, and Iran and North Korea, the two other states targeted as the “axis of evil,” accelerated their nuclear programs after the invasion. Efforts to coerce them into surrender or collapse failed.

    Globally, terrorist threats grew while programs to secure loose nuclear weapons languished. The rejection and neglect of international treaties weakened U.S. security and legitimacy. Today, most of the proliferation problems the administration inherited have grown worse.

    The emergence of new policies is the third critical development, and they come from an unlikely source: veteran cold warriors who helped build the vast U.S. nuclear weapons complex. With two prominent op-eds in The Wall Street Journal in the past 14 months, former Democratic defense secretary William Perry, former Democratic senator Sam Nunn, and former Republican secretaries of state George Schulz and Henry Kissinger have laid out a plan for “a world free of nuclear weapons.”

    It is not just words. They have started a policy movement including seminars, in-depth studies and, just this month, an international conference in Oslo, Norway. Their efforts have garnered the backing of 70% of the living former national security advisors and secretaries of state and defense, including James Baker, Colin Powell, Melvin Laird and Frank Carlucci.

    The political world is responding. The new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged last month, “We will be at the forefront of the international campaign to accelerate disarmament amongst possessor states, to prevent proliferation . . . and to ultimately achieve a world that is free from nuclear weapons.”

    While Sen. John McCain has not addressed this issue in any detail, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says “we need to change our nuclear policy and our posture.” He embraces the vision of a nuclear weapon-free world and marries it to practical proposals to negotiate deep reductions in arsenals and ban long-range missiles like those Iran and others want to build. He pledges to virtually eliminate nuclear terrorism by leading “a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years,” something the Bush or Clinton administrations did not.

    Together, these developments indicate that a rare policy window is opening. Nothing is guaranteed, and much work will be required of many. But with new leaders, a new vision and a new activism, this might be a moment when changes seem not just possible but probable.

    Joseph Cirincione is president of the Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation focused on nuclear weapons policy. He is the author of “Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.”

  • US Leadership for Global Nuclear Disarmament

    US Leadership for Global Nuclear Disarmament

    “The road from the world of today, with thousands of nuclear weapons in national arsenals to a world free of this threat, will not be an easy one to take, but it is clear that US leadership is essential to the journey and there is growing worldwide support for that civilized call to zero.” Thomas Graham Jr. and Max Kampelman

    There will be no substantial progress on nuclear disarmament without the active participation and leadership of the United States. I recognize that many countries and individuals throughout the world are rightly skeptical of US leadership after nearly four decades of noncompliance with Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, and particularly after the past seven years of US nuclear policy under the Bush administration.

    But on the issue of nuclear disarmament, there is no choice. If the US does not lead on nuclear disarmament, no substantial progress will be possible, mainly because without US leadership, Russia will not move and this will block the UK, France and China from taking significant steps.

    The US has thus far been the limiting factor in progress on nuclear disarmament. It has promoted nuclear double standards and it has provided leadership in the wrong direction, toward long-term reliance on nuclear arms. In 15 votes on nuclear disarmament issues in the 2007 United Nations General Assembly, the US cast a negative vote on every one of the resolutions.

    The US has engaged in a preventive war against Iraq, based on the now undisputed lie that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. The US has threatened Iran because it pursues uranium enrichment. At the same time, the US has supported the transfer of nuclear technology to nuclear-armed India, shielded Israel’s possession of nuclear arms, and sought to replace every thermonuclear warhead in its own arsenal with more “reliable” weapons.

    The issues I mention are just the tip of the iceberg, but they demonstrate how nuclear weapons deeply undermine democracy. A small group in power, even a single leader, such as Mr. Bush, can thwart both US and global opinion on nuclear disarmament and, in a worst case, plunge the world into a devastating nuclear war by accident, miscalculation or design.

    Kissinger, Shultz, Perry, Nunn and other US foreign policy elites have awakened to the dangers that continued reliance on nuclear weapons pose to the United States. They understand that such reliance makes nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism more likely, threatening the cities of the US, its European Allies and others. They understand that deterrence no longer works (if it ever really did) and cannot be relied upon, particularly in the case of extremists in possession of nuclear weapons.

    A new US president will be chosen in November. There will be change. The new president will need to hear from the American people and from people throughout the world. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are partnering with other groups throughout the world to present the new president with one million signatures on an Appeal calling for US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world. The Appeal calls specifically for the new president to take the following steps:

    • De-alert. Remove all nuclear weapons from high-alert status, separating warheads from delivery vehicles;
    • No First Use. Make legally binding commitments to No First Use of nuclear weapons and establish nuclear policies consistent with this commitment;
    • No New Nuclear Weapons. Initiate a moratorium on the research and development of new nuclear weapons, such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead;
    • Ban Nuclear Testing Forever. Ratify and bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
    • Control Nuclear Material. Create a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty with provisions to bring all weapons-grade nuclear material and the technologies to create such material under strict and effective international control;
    • Nuclear Weapons Convention. Commence good faith negotiations, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons;
    • Resources for Peace. Reallocate resources from the tens of billions currently spent on nuclear arms to alleviating poverty, preventing and curing disease, eliminating hunger and expanding educational opportunities throughout the world.

    For all of these points, and others that could be added, political will is more critical than technological skill. The possibility of US leadership on nuclear abolition will be greatly enhanced if the US government is pressured from abroad. The US government needs to hear from its friends. It needs to be pressured by its friends. If NATO continues to buckle under and go along with US opposition to nuclear disarmament due to US pressure, and that of the UK and France, it only enables their nuclear addiction.

    We have a saying in the US, “Friends do not let friends drive drunk.” US nuclear policy endangers not only other drivers. It endangers the world. It is time to take away the keys. This can only be done by friends who care enough to act for the good of the drunk and the good of others on the road.

    An additional benefit to strong public pressure for nuclear weapons abolition by US allies is that it helps those of us in the US that are seeking to move our own government to take responsible action on this issue. The opening for US leadership created by the Kissinger-Shultz group can be bolstered by strong statements from US friends abroad. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Appeal to the Next President will also be furthered by such support. And, of course, it will matter greatly who is chosen as the next president. Friends from abroad can help us to choose wisely by emphasizing the decisive importance of US leadership for global nuclear disarmament.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the Executive Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.

  • Wisconsin elected Officials Speak Out Against Building New Nuclear Weapons

    On Saturday, February 16th at a citizens’ hearing at the Capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. Senator Russell Feingold, U.S. Representative Tammy Baldwin, State Senator Frederick Kessler, and State Senator Mark Miller made statements opposing current U.S. nuclear weapons policy and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed nuclear weapons complex transformation.

    At a citizen hearing co-sponsored by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, experts, representatives of state and federal government, members of the general public, and citizen groups addressed the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposed $150 billion plan to revamp the industrial infrastructure responsible for building and maintaining U.S. nuclear weapons.

    Under the National Environmental Policy Act, DOE is required hold hearings around the country in the communities near nuclear weapons facilities. Madison was not one of those chosen communities, but the decision to build new nuclear weapons threatens all Americans. This hearing was a chance for Wisconsin to have a voice on the future of US nuclear weapons.

    A shorter, edited video of the hearing along with written testimony will soon be available on www.wagingpeace.org. If you would like to see the full version, go to www.wiseye.org/wisEye_programming/ARCHIVES-FEB08.html#evt_080216_cnf_nukes.

    For more information on this event, or for assistance in setting up a citizens’ hearing in your area, contact Nick Roth, Washington DC Office Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at (202) 543-4100 x.105 or nroth@napf.org.

  • The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Needs You

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Needs You

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) is a civil society organization, made up of and supported by individuals who care about its goals. Like thousands of other civil society organizations throughout the world, the Foundation tries to accomplish goals that will make the world a better place.

    The principal goal of NAPF is to abolish nuclear weapons. This is a goal that it cannot accomplish directly. It is a goal, for example, that differs from the direct assistance of providing food or medical supplies to disaster victims or people living in extreme poverty. To achieve its goal of abolishing nuclear weapons, NAPF must exert influence on public policy, leading to creating a world free of nuclear weapons. The Foundation works by educating and advocating. For its work, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been recognized by the United Nations as a Peace Messenger organization.

    Since the goal of creating a world free of nuclear weapons requires a broad international effort and the Foundation has limited resources, it must be strategic in fulfilling its mission. Thus, NAPF has concluded that it is best to direct its efforts for change by working with international networks of like-minded civil society organizations and by focusing specifically on changing US nuclear policy.

    In its networking, NAPF helped found the Abolition 2000 Global Network for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a network now linking over 2,000 organizations and municipalities worldwide. It was also a founding member of the Middle Powers Initiative, a coalition of international organizations that works with middle power governments to apply pressure to the nuclear weapons states for nuclear disarmament. NAPF helped found the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility. The Foundation also maintains an office in Washington, DC where it networks with US arms control and disarmament organizations on nuclear policy issues coming before the Congress. The Foundation continues to be active in all of these networks, providing leadership where it can.

    The Foundation is a US-based organization, and it has concluded that US leadership is necessary in order to make significant progress in eliminating nuclear weapons. Thus, NAPF puts special emphasis on educating the US public on issues of nuclear weapons dangers and the need to abolish these weapons. It also seeks to influence US policy makers to assert greater leadership in this policy area.

    More than 60 years into the Nuclear Age, there is today not one US Senator that champions the abolition of nuclear weapons as one of his or her principal legislative goals. Nor has such leadership been exerted by any US President, although many have noted the importance of this issue.

    The Foundation has concentrated on building its base by educating the public on the need to abolish nuclear weapons and by advocating positions that the public can press for with their elected representatives. The Foundation believes that public pressure is needed to move policy makers to take stronger positions on the elimination of nuclear weapons.

    There are many obstacles to achieving change in the area of US nuclear policy. First, the mainstream media are not highly receptive to the Foundation’s message. Second, psychological factors of fear, denial and apathy make this a difficult issue for attracting widespread public involvement. Third, the public most likely also feels that their voices do not count on this issue and that policy makers do not pay attention to them. Fourth, there are corporate interests with profit motivations exerting a strong counterinfluence on the US government.

    Despite these obstacles, public opinion polls show that over 70 percent of Americans favor nuclear disarmament. It is significant that there is a major disconnect between the majority of people in the US and their government on the issue of eliminating nuclear arsenals. The US government, for reasons having more to do with power and profit than security, finds it preferable to continue to rely upon nuclear weapons, even in light of the dangers of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorists who could not be deterred from using them.

    A number of former high-level US policy makers – including Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn – have concluded that the world is at a nuclear “tipping point,” and that it is strongly in the US interest to provide leadership for a world free of nuclear weapons. This is the position that the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation reached 25 years ago.

    The Foundation has been a voice of conscience and sanity on the nuclear threat confronting humanity for 25 years. It has also been a voice largely in the wilderness. NAPF has been right, but it has been ignored. It is time for new leadership in America. The Foundation’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and US leadership to obtain this goal should be at the forefront of a new direction for the country.

    Without US leadership, the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world is not a possibility. With US leadership, the US can take important steps to assure its own future security, as well as that of humanity, and can free up resources for constructive pursuits.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s work is more critical than ever. But to succeed as a civil society organization, the Foundation needs greater personal and financial support from civil society. Those who give low priority to abolishing nuclear weapons are rolling the dice on the future of their children, grandchildren and all generations to follow. Abolishing nuclear weapons is the Foundation’s mission; it is also a responsibility of all of us alive on the planet today.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Diverse Coalition Launches Campaign to Stop US Nuclear Deal with India

    WASHINGTON, DC –Twenty-three organizations today launched a coalition to stop the Bush Administration’s proposed nuclear trade agreement with India.  The proposed agreement would exempt that nuclear-armed nation from longstanding U.S. and international restrictions on states that do not meet global standards to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

    The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade believes the agreement would: dangerously weaken nonproliferation efforts and embolden countries like Iran and North Korea to pursue the development of nuclear weapons; further destabilize South Asia and Pakistan in particular; and violate or weaken international and U.S. laws, including the Hyde Act, which Congress passed in 2006 to provide a framework for the bilateral U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement.

    “When Congress takes a close look at the Bush Administration’s proposed agreement, it will find a dangerous, unprecedented deal,” said John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World.  “The proposal undermines over 30 years of nonproliferation policy, will increase India’s capability to produce nuclear weapons and its stockpile of nuclear weapons-material, and sends the wrong message to Pakistan during a time of crisis in that country.  We feel confident that, under the Congressional microscope, the many flaws of this deal will be exposed, and it will ultimately be rejected for the sake of preserving national security and global stability.”

    The U.S.-Indian bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement would allow the transfer of U.S. nuclear technology and material to India.  However, it fails to hold India to the same responsible nonproliferation and disarmament rules that are required of advanced nuclear states. The deal will increase India’s nuclear weapons production capability, exacerbate a nuclear arms race in the region, undermine international non-proliferation norms, and encourage the creation of large nuclear material stockpiles. Its contribution to meeting India’s growing energy needs has been greatly exaggerated and it would create economic opportunities for foreign nuclear industries without any guarantees for U.S. businesses.

    The pact must win approval from the U.S. Congress, which changed U.S. law in December 2006 to allow negotiation of the agreement, under several conditions that have not been met in the final language of the agreement.  Those conditions include a new agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency for safeguarding Indian power reactors and changes to the international guidelines of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, which currently restrict trade with India.

    Members of the Campaign are working to educate the U.S. Congress and public about the dangers of the deal, and are working with experts and organizations in two-dozen countries to inform deliberation over the deal within Nuclear Suppliers Group and its member state governments.

    The new coalition’s partners include:  Council for a Livable World, Arms Control Association, Federation of American Scientists, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington office, United Methodist Church – General Board of Church and Society, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Institute for Religion and Public Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, All Souls Nuclear Disarmament Task Force, British American Security Information Council, Women’s Action for New Directions, Americans for Democratic Action, Peace Action, Peace Action West, Arms Control Advocacy Collaborative, Beyond Nuclear, Bipartisan Security Group, Citizens for Global Solutions, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Nuclear Information Resource Information Service.

    Advisors to the coalition include Ambassador Robert Grey (Ret.), former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament and Director of the Bipartisan Security Group; Dr. Leonard Weiss, former staff director of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs; Dr. Robert G. Gard, Jr., Lt. Gen., U.S. Army (Ret.), Senior Military Fellow, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; Subrata Ghoshroy, Director, Promoting Nuclear Stability in South Asia Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Dr. Christopher Paine, Nuclear Program Director, Natural Resources Defense Council.

    The Campaign’s website is www.responsiblenucleartrade.com.

    About the Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade

    The Campaign for Responsibility in Nuclear Trade, a partnership project of 23 nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, environmental and consumer protection organizations, opposes the July 2005 proposal for civil nuclear cooperation with India and the additional U.S. concessions made to India as a result of subsequent negotiations because they pose far-reaching and adverse implications for U.S. and international security, global nuclear non-proliferation efforts, human life and health, and the environment.  More information about the campaign can be found at www.responsiblenucleartrade.com.

    Arms Control Experts, Environmental Activists, Consumer Advocates, Religious Groups and Doctors Find Proposed Agreement Would Dangerously Undermine National Security, Global Stability