Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: US nuclear policy

  • Sanctifying Mass Destruction

    The toxic terms of discourse of the nuclear debate have insidiously intruded into the public’s mind and distorted its moral perspective.

    Whatever the final fate of the India-United States nuclear deal, it is undeniable that the media-driven debate over it has had a profound impact on public consciousness. Thus, not just television anchors, but even college students, are mouthing phrases like the “historic opportunity” (the agreement offers to India to become a world power) through a “strategic partnership” with the U.S., and promoting India’s “national interest” (which self-evidently lies in superpowerdom and in containing China) and “energy security” via nuclear power development (as if there were no alternatives).
    One notion that is rapidly becoming part of middle-class commonsense is that the deal undoes the iniquitous technology-denial sanctions imposed on India since the 1970s and rewards it as a “responsible” nuclear weapons state (NWS), or, as the July 2005 agreement put it, “a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology”.
    “Responsible” nuclear weapons state? Can this be anything but an oxymoron? NWSs not only possess the ability to kill millions of non-combatant civilians instantly but are prepared and willing to use that capability in cold blood. Indeed, they make their security dependent upon keeping scores of these weapons of terror ready to be fired at short notice.
    All NWSs, regardless of intent or the size and lethality of their arsenals, and despite their professed faith in nuclear deterrence, have doctrines for the actual use of nuclear weapons to incinerate whole cities — that is, to commit unspeakably repulsive and condemnable acts of terrorism against unarmed civilians. The world’s greatest terrorist act was not the Twin Towers attack (which killed 3,600 people), but Hiroshima (where 140,000 perished).
    Yet, those who erase this terrible, yet fundamental, truth from their consciousness still justify the idea that India is a “responsible nuclear power”. They advance six claims in support. First, India has an impeccable non-proliferation record and has never diverted civilian nuclear materials to military use or participated in clandestine nuclear commerce. Second, India practices exemplary nuclear restraint through its “minimum deterrence” doctrine and its policy of no-first-use.
    Third, India has always responded positively to, if not advocated, proposals for non-discriminatory and equal treaties for arms control and disarmament. Fourth, India’s foreign policy orientation is strongly multilateralist; New Delhi rejects collusive bilateral agreements in favor of multilateral, universal treaties leading to disarmament. This derives from the view that the nuclear threat/danger is global.
    A fifth claim is that India abhors any policy or action that will start or aggravate a nuclear arms race, especially in its neighborhood. It has not triggered such a race and will never do so. Finally, India is a peaceful, mature, stable and law-abiding democracy, which respects human rights and can be trusted to act with restraint – unlike, say, Pakistan.
    All these claims are questionable, if not altogether specious. True, India has never run an A.Q. Khan-style “nuclear Wal-Mart” or willingly proliferated nuclear technology. But, India has been an active proliferator and has participated in clandestine as well as open nuclear commerce with a host of countries to develop its military and civilian programs.
    Right from its very first nuclear reactor, Apsara, to the latest pair under construction (at Koodankulam), India has bought, borrowed and both overtly and covertly procured nuclear technology, equipment or material from states as varied as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and later Russia, France, China, and even Norway.
    The basic design of its mainline power generator is Canadian – the pressurized heavy water reactor named CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium). India’s very first power reactors, at Tarapur, were donations from the U.S. Agency for International Development and were executed as a turnkey job by General Electric and Bechtel. The much-touted Fast Breeder Test Reactor, the only such reactor to operate in India, was developed with French assistance.
    India used spent fuel from CIRUS (Canada-India Research Reactor, to which the U.S. supplied heavy water, adding to the acronym) for military purposes by reprocessing plutonium from it. This was used in the 1974 Pokhran blast. CIRUS was designed and built by the Canadians.
    A condition for Canadian and U.S. assistance was that the products of CIRUS would only be used “for peaceful purposes”. India blatantly violated this and, to evade legal liability, declared Pokhran-I a “peaceful nuclear explosion”.
    India also clandestinely imported heavy water from Norway and, later, from China. We do not know what price was paid for these transactions, but it is unlikely to have been purely monetary in the Chinese case.
    None of this speaks of “responsibility” or strict adherence to legality, leave alone of India’s “clean hands” as far as dubious nuclear trade goes. In truth, nuclear materials are among the world’s well-traded/transferred commodities. Many countries have participated in such trade. India is no exception and cannot pretend to be Simon-pure.
    Second, the restraint claim is belied by India’s official nuclear doctrine, which commits it to a large triadic (land, sea and air-based) nuclear arsenal with no limits whatsoever on technological refinement. This super-ambitious plan sits ill with the profession of “minimum nuclear deterrent”, which is generally understood as a few dozen weapons. (How many does it take to flatten half-a-dozen Chinese or Pakistani cities?)
    India has also diluted its no-first-use commitment by excluding from it states that have military alliances with NWSs and including retaliation against other mass-destruction weapons. In practice, given the lack of strategic distance from Pakistan, it is doubtful if no-first-use has much meaning.
    Besides, the nuclear deal will allow India to expand its nuclear arsenal substantially by stockpiling huge amounts of weapons-grade plutonium.
    Third, India has refused to sign any multilateral nuclear restraint/disarmament agreement since the mid-1960s. In the 1980s and 1990s, India also turned down at least seven Pakistani proposals for regional nuclear restraint or renunciation, including mutual or third-party verification — without making a single counter-proposal to “call Pakistan’s bluff”.
    Fourth, the very fact of India’s signature of the bilateral nuclear deal with the U.S. puts paid to its professed multilateralist commitment. The deal marks a major departure from New Delhi’s earlier insistence on international and universal non-discriminatory treaties on arms control/disarmament. But this bilateral agreement is now meant to be imposed upon the multilateral International Atomic Energy Agency and the plurilateral Nuclear Suppliers 7; Group for their approval — a procedure that India would have strongly objected to in the past.
    India has taken a parochial course, which in future could mean giving the go-by to multilateral approaches in favor of expedient bilateral ones.
    Fifth, a considerable likely expansion of India’s nuclear arsenal, which the deal facilitates, will inevitably escalate the regional nuclear arms race. There is evidence that in response to the India-U.S. deal, Pakistan is building at least one (and probably two) plutonium reprocessing plants, which will help it maximize the production of weapons-grade material with its limited uranium reserves. That is what a nuclear arms race is all about.
    More worrisome, as India builds up its arsenal to the same level as the lower range of estimates of China’s nuclear weapons (250 or so), Beijing can be expected to make more warheads and missiles. This spells a dangerous nuclear arms race. Yet, as U.S. strategists see it (see Ashley Tellis’s quote in Frontline, August 10), a major purpose of the deal is precisely to help India amass more nuclear weapons to deter China — via an arms race.
    Finally, it stretches credulity to contend that India’s behavior towards its neighbors has been exemplarily benign and peaceful. India’s past record of belligerence towards Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal (on which it imposed an economic blockade in the late 1980s) negates that claim, as does its annexation of Sikkim in 1975.
    India is, of course, a democracy, but it is by no means a rule-of-law state. India’s human rights record is deeply flawed — not just in Kashmir and the northeastern region, but also in respect of religious minorities, Dalits and Adivasis, and more generally, numerous underprivileged groups. One only has to recall the 2002 Gujarat carnage, the 1992-93 Mumbai communal clashes, the savage repression under way against the tribals of Chhattisgarh through Salwa Judum, and police brutality against mere suspects in countless terrorist attacks.
    Our history of strategic misperception and miscalculation (for instance, during 1987-88, 1990 and 1999) also bears recalling. At any rate, having a democratic government is no guarantee that a country will not use mass-destruction weapons.
    The only state to have ever used nuclear weapons was the democratic U.S. It would be tragic if our citizens look for Washington’s recognition of India as a “responsible” nuclear power while deadening their own moral sensibilities against weapons of terror.

  • Nuclear Weapons and the University of California

    Nuclear Weapons and the University of California

    It is perhaps the least talked about and most worrying irony of our time. The United States has a massive defense budget, but spends relatively little addressing the most immediate danger to humanity.

    Global security is vital to family life, the growth of business, the wise husbanding of resources and the environment. And yet, all our hopes and plans for the future exist under the shadow of a catastrophic threat – one that could kill millions of people in a few moments and leave civilization in shambles.

    Although there are other significant threats, such as global warming and infectious diseases, it is nuclear weapons that are the greatest immediate danger confronting our species. We must stop ignoring this threat and start providing leadership to eliminate nuclear arsenals around the globe.

    Let’s look at some of the facts about nuclear weapons. They are the only weapon capable of destroying civilization and the human species. They kill indiscriminately, making them equal opportunity destroyers. In the hands of terrorists, they could destroy a country as powerful as the United States. A nuclear 9/11 could have resulted in deaths exceeding one million and the collapse of the US and world economies.

    There are currently some 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and 12,000 of these are deployed. Of these, 3,500 nuclear weapons are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments.

    Nine countries currently possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. More than 95 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world are in the arsenals of the US and Russia. The UK, France, China and Israel are estimated to have arsenals numbering a few hundred each. India and Pakistan are thought to have arsenals under 100, and North Korea to have up to 12 nuclear weapons. As many as 35 other countries have the technological capability to become nuclear weapons states, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, Iran and Egypt.

    Nuclear weapons give a state sudden clout in the international system. India, Pakistan and North Korea all increased their stature in the international system after testing nuclear weapons. Recently, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva emphasized the perceived prestige that nuclear weapons potential gives a country. He said: “Brazil could rank among those few nations in the world with a command of uranium enrichment technology, and I think we will be more highly valued as a nation — as the power we wish to be.”

    Nearly all countries in the world are parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Only three countries have not signed the treaty: Israel, India and Pakistan. A fourth country, North Korea, withdrew from the NPT in 2003. All of these countries have developed nuclear arsenals.

    The NPT obligates the nuclear weapons states that are parties to the treaty to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice has interpreted this to mean that negotiations must be concluded “leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.”

    As the world’s only remaining superpower, the United States can lead the way in fulfilling this obligation. It has failed to do so. The US missile defense program has been provocative to other countries, particularly Russia and China, and has resulted in these countries improving their offensive nuclear capabilities. The US has also sought to upgrade and improve its nuclear arsenal, and has proposed replacing every thermonuclear weapon in the US arsenal with the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead. The US has, in effect, said to the world that it intends to rely upon its nuclear arsenal indefinitely.

    In addition, the US has failed to provide legally binding security assurances that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. In fact, the US indicated in its 2001 Nuclear Posture Review that it was developing contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries – two nuclear weapons states (Russia and China) and five non-nuclear weapons states (Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea, which at the time was not thought to have nuclear weapons).

    US nuclear policy undermines the security of its people. The more the US relies on nuclear weapons, the more other countries will do so. Former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has stated: “The more that those states that already have [nuclear weapons] increase their arsenals, or insist that such weapons are essential to their national security, the more other states feel that they too must have them for their security.” Reliance on nuclear weapons will assure their proliferation.

    The more nuclear weapons in the world, the more likely they will end up in the hands of terrorist extremists incapable of being deterred. The longer nations rely on nuclear weapons for security, the more likely it is that they will be used, by accident or design.

    The US needs to work urgently for a treaty for the phased, verifiable, irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons under strict international control, just as we have already done with chemical and biological weapons. To do this requires political will, which has not been demonstrated by the current US administration. Continuing with existing US nuclear policies is a recipe for disaster. The Cold War ended more than 15 years ago, and new problems now confront humanity. It is time for a drastic change in US nuclear policy – change that will require strong and effective leadership.

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

  • We Want Results on Disarmament

    Speech to Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference, Washington, DC

    Thank you very much for that welcome and for those very kind words,

    I expect that many – perhaps all – of you here today read an article which appeared in the Wall Street Journal at the start of this year. The writers would be as familiar to an audience in this country as they are respected across the globe: George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn.

    The article made the case for, and I quote, “a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage”. That initiative was to re-ignite the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and to redouble effort on the practical measures towards it.

    The need for such vision and action is all too apparent.

    Last year, Kofi Annan said – and he was right – that the world risks becoming mired in a sterile stand-off between those who care most about disarmament and those who care most about proliferation. The dangers of, what he termed, such mutually assured paralysis are dangers to us all. Weak action on disarmament, weak consensus on proliferation are in none of our interests. And any solution must be a dual one that sees movement on both proliferation and disarmament – a revitalisation, in other words, of the grand bargain struck in 1968, when the Non-Proliferation Treaty was established.

    What makes this the time to break the stand-off ?

    Today the non-proliferation regime is under particular pressure. We have already seen the emergence of a mixture of further declared and undeclared nuclear powers. And now, two countries – Iran and North Korea, both signatories of the NPT – stand in open defiance of the international community. Their actions have profound and direct implications for global security. Each of them also raises the serious prospect of proliferation across their region.

    In the case of Iran, in particular, if the regime is trying to acquire nuclear weapons – and there are very few either in that region or outside it who seriously doubt that that is the goal – then it is raising the spectre of a huge push for proliferation in what is already one of the most unstable parts of the world.

    That alone makes the debate on disarmament and non-proliferation we have to have today different in degree: it has become more immediate and more urgent.

    On top of that, we must respond to other underlying trends that are putting added pressure on the original non-proliferation regime. One of those, just one, is the emergence of Al Qaeda and its offshoots – terrorists whom we know to be actively seeking nuclear materials.

    Another though is the anticipated drive towards civil, nuclear power as the twin imperatives of energy security and climate security are factored into energy policy across the world. How can we ensure this does not lead to either nuclear materials or particularly potentially dangerous nuclear know-how – particularly enrichment and reprocessing technologies – being diverted for military use or just falling into the wrong hands? How do we do so without prejudice to the economic development of countries that have every right under the NPT to develop a civil, nuclear capability.

    And last there are some very specific triggers for action – key impending decisions – that are fast approaching. The START treaty will expire in 2009. We will need to start thinking about how we move from a bilateral disarmament framework built by the US and Russia to one more suited to our multi-polar world.

    And then in 2010 we will have the NPT Review Conference itself. By the time that is held, we need the international community to be foursquare and united behind a global non-proliferation regime. We can’t afford for that conference to be a fractured or fractious one: rather we need to strengthen the NPT in all its aspects.

    That may all sound quite challenging – I meant it to. But there is no reason to believe that we cannot rise to that challenge.

    Let’s look at some of the facts. Despite the recent log-jam, the basic non-proliferation consensus is and has been remarkably resilient. The grand bargain of the NPT has, by and large, held for the past 40 years. The vast majority of states – including many that have the technology to do so if they chose – have decided not to develop nuclear weapons. And far fewer states than was once feared have acquired and retained nuclear weapons.

    Even more encouragingly, and much less well known outside this room, many more states – South Africa, Libya, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Argentina, Brazil – have given up active nuclear weapons programmes, turned back from pursuing such programmes, or – as the case of the former Soviet Union countries – chosen to hand over weapons on their territory.

    And of course the Nuclear Weapons States themselves have made significant reductions in their nuclear arsenals, which I will come to later.

    So we have grounds for optimism; but we have none for complacency. The successes we have had in the past have not come about by accident but by applied effort. And we will need much more of the same in the months and years to come. That will mean continued momentum and consensus on non-proliferation, certainly. But, and this is my main argument today, the chances of achieving that are greatly increased if we can also point to genuine commitment and to concrete action on nuclear disarmament.

    Given the proliferation challenges we face, it is not surprising that so much of our focus should be on non-proliferation itself.

    For the reasons I gave a moment ago, stopping and reversing nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran has to remain a key priority for the whole international community.

    With North Korea the best hope to reverse their nuclear programme remains patient multilateral diplomacy underpinned by sanctions regimes.

    As for Iran, the generous offer the E3+3 made in June 2006 is still on the table. Sadly Iran has chosen not to comply with its international legal obligations, thereby enabling negotiations to resume. That forced us to seek a further Security Council Resolution. And we will do so again if necessary.

    The US contribution on Iran has, naturally, been critical. It made the Vienna offer both attractive and credible – showing that the entire international community was willing to welcome Iran back into its ranks provided that it conformed to international norms on the nuclear file and elsewhere. And I have no doubt that the close co-operation between the US, Europe, Russia and China has been a powerful point of leverage on the Iranians. We must hope that it succeeds.

    The US has also taken the lead on much of the vital work that is going on to prevent existing nuclear material falling into the hands of terrorists and rogue states. That framework is perhaps more robust than ever before – the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism and efforts to prevent the financing of proliferation.

    Meanwhile, there is some imaginative work going on aimed at persuading states that they can have guaranteed supplies of electricity from nuclear power without the need to acquire enrichment and reprocessing technologies. For example, the work on fuel supply assurances following the report of the IAEA expert group; the US’s own Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative on more proliferation-resistant technologies; and the UK’s own proposal for advanced export approval of nuclear fuel that cannot subsequently be revoked – the so-called “enrichment bond”.

    But the important point is this: in none of these areas will we stand a chance of success unless the international community is united in purpose and in action.

    And what that Wall Street Journal article, and for that matter Kofi Annan, have been quite right to identify is that our efforts on non-proliferation will be dangerously undermined if others believe – however unfairly –that the terms of the grand bargain have changed, that nuclear weapon states have abandoned any commitment to disarmament.

    The point of doing more on disarmament, then, is not to convince the Iranians or the North Koreans. I do not believe for a second that further reductions in our nuclear weapons would have a material effect on their nuclear ambitions.

    Rather the point of doing more is this: because the moderate majority of states – our natural and vital allies on non-proliferation – want us to do more. And if we do not, we risk helping Iran and North Korea in their efforts to muddy the water, to turn the blame for their own nuclear intransigence back onto us. They can undermine our arguments for strong international action in support of the NPT by painting us as doing too little too late to fulfil our own obligations.

    And that need to appear consistent, incidentally, is just as true at the regional level. The international community’s clear commitment to a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone in successive UN resolutions has been vital in building regional support for a tough line against Iran.

    So what does doing more – and indeed being seen to do more – on disarmament actually mean?

    First, I think we need to be much more open about the disarmament steps we are already taking or have taken. Here in the long-standing, and perhaps understandable, culture of increased secrecy that surrounds the nuclear world we may be our own worst enemy. There is little public remembrance or recognition of the vast cuts in warheads – some 40 000 – made by the US and the former USSR since the end of the Cold War. Nor, for that that matter, the cuts that France and the UK have made to our much smaller stocks. We all need to do more, much more, to address that. And I welcome the US State Department’s recent moves in that direction.

    But we would be kidding ourselves if we thought that this was a problem only of perception– simply of a failure to communicate, although that failure is very real. The sense of stagnation is real enough. The expiry of the remaining US-Russia arms control deals; the continued existence of large arsenals; the stalemate on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. They all point to an absence of debate at the highest levels on disarmament and a collective inability thus far to come up with a clear, forward plan.

    What we need is both vision – a scenario for a world free of nuclear weapons. And action – progressive steps to reduce warhead numbers and to limit the role of nuclear weapons in security policy. These two strands are separate but they are mutually reinforcing. Both are necessary, both at the moment are too weak.

    Let me start with the vision because, perhaps, that is the harder case to make. After all, we all signed up to the goal of the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons back in 1968; so what does simply restating that goal achieve today?

    More I think than you might imagine. Because, and I’ll be blunt, there are, I was going to say some, but I think many who are in danger of losing faith in the possibility of ever reaching that goal.

    That would, I think, be a grave mistake. The judgement we made forty years ago, that the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons was in all of our interests – is just as true today as it was then. For more than sixty years, good management and good fortune have meant that nuclear arsenals have not been used. But we cannot rely just on history to repeat itself.

    It would be a grave mistake for another reason, too. It underestimates the power that commitment and vision can have in driving action.

    A parallel can be drawn with some of those other decades-long campaigns conducted as we’ve striven for a more civilised world.

    When William Wilberforce began his famous campaign, the practice of one set of people enslaving another had existed for thousands of years. He had the courage to challenge that paradigm; and in so doing helped with many others to bring an end to the terrible evil of the transatlantic slave trade.

    Would he have achieved half as much, would he have inspired the same fervour in others if he had set out to ‘regulate’ or ‘reduce’ the slave trade rather than abolish it? I doubt it.

    Similarly the Millennium Development Goals, the cancellation of third-world debt, increased overseas aid were all motivated by the belief that one day, however far off it might seem, we could “Make Poverty History”.

    So too with nuclear weapons. Believing that the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons is possible can act as a spur for action on disarmament. Believing, at whatever level, that it is not possible, is the surest path to inaction. If there will always be nuclear weapons, what does it matter if there are 1000 or 10 000?

    And just as the vision gives rise to action, conversely so does action give meaning to the vision. As that Wall Street Journal article put it, and again I quote: “Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair and urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible”

    By actions, I do not mean that the nuclear weapons states should be making immediate and unrealistic promises – committing to speedy abolition, setting a timetable to zero.

    The truth is that I rather doubt – although I would wish it otherwise – that we will see the total elimination of nuclear weapons perhaps in my lifetime. To reach that point would require much more than disarmament diplomacy, convoluted enough though that is in itself. It would require a much more secure and predictable global political context.

    That context does not exist today. Indeed it is why, only a few months ago, the UK took the decision to retain our ability to have an independent nuclear deterrent beyond the 2020s.

    But acknowledging that the conditions for disarmament do not exist today does not mean resigning ourselves to the idea that nuclear weapons can never be abolished in the future. Nor does it prevent us from taking steps to reduce numbers now and to start thinking about how we would go about reaching that eventual goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons.

    That is why in taking the decision to retain our ability to have nuclear weapons, the UK government was very clear about four things. First that we would be open and frank with our own citizens and with our international partners about what we were doing and why. It is all being done upfront and in public – not as in the past, behind the scenes. Second that we would be very clear and up front that when the political conditions existed, we would give up our remaining nuclear weapons. Third that we were not enhancing our nuclear capability in any way and would continue to act strictly in accordance with our NPT obligations. And fourth that we would reduce our stock of operationally available warheads by a further 20 per cent – to the very minimum we considered viable to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent.

    This was our way – and I can assure you it was a difficult process – to resolve the dilemma between our genuine commitment to abolition and our considered judgement that sadly now was not the time to take a unilateral step to totally disarm.

    It’s the same dilemma every nuclear weapons state faces. And we can all make the same choices in recommitting to the goal of abolition and taking practical steps towards achieving that goal.

    Practical steps include further reductions in warhead numbers, particularly in the world’s biggest arsenals. There are still over 20 000 warheads in the world. And the US and Russia hold about 96 per cent of them.

    Almost no-one – politician, military strategist or scientist – thinks that warheads in those numbers are still necessary to guarantee international security. So it should not be controversial to suggest that there remains room for further significant reductions. So I hope that the Moscow Treaty will be succeeded by further clear commitments to significantly lower numbers of warheads – and include, if possible, tactical as well as strategic, nuclear weapons.

    Since we no longer live in a bipolar world, those future commitments may no longer require strict parity. They could be unilateral undertakings. Certainly the UK experience – and indeed the United States’ own experience with the reduction of its tactical weapons in Europe – is that substantial reductions can be achieved through independent re-examination of what is really needed to deter: that approach has allowed the UK to reduce our operationally available warheads by nearly half over the last ten years from what was already a comparatively low base. We have also reduced the readiness of the nuclear force that remains. We now only have one boat on patrol at any one time, carrying no more than 48 warheads – and our missiles are not targeted at any specific sites.

    Commitments like these need not even be enshrined in formal treaties. The UK’s reductions, after all, are not. But clearly both the US and Russia will require sufficient assurance that their interests and their strategic stability will be safeguarded. Part of the solution may be provided by the extension of the most useful transparency and confidence building measures in the START framework, should the US and Russia agree to do so.

    And I should make clear here again, that when it will be useful to include in any negotiations the one per cent of the world’s nuclear weapons that belong to the UK, we will willingly do so.

    In addition to these further reductions, we need to press on with both the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and with the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty. Both limit – in real and practical ways – the ability of states party to develop new weapons and to expand their nuclear capabilities. And as such they therefore both play a very powerful symbolic role too – they signal to the rest of the world that the race for more and bigger weapons is over, and that the direction from now on will be down and not up. That’s why we are so keen for those countries that have not yet done so to ratify the CTBT. The moratoriium observed by all the nuclear weapon states is a great step forward; but by allowing the CTBT to enter into force – and, of course, US ratification would provide a great deal of impetus – we would be showing that this is a permanent decision, a permanent change and in the right direction.

    At the same time, I believe that we will need to look again at how we manage global transparency and global verification. This will have to extend beyond the bilateral arrangements between Russia and the US. If we are serious about complete nuclear disarmament we should begin now to build deeper relationships on disarmament between nuclear weapon states.

    For our part, the UK is ready and willing to engage with other members of the P5 on transparency and confidence building measures. Verification will be particularly key – any future verification regime for a world free of nuclear weapons will need to be tried and tested. In my opinion, it will need to place more emphasis on the warheads themselves than the current arrangement which focuses primarily on delivery systems. That will become particularly true as numbers of warheads drop.

    And we have to keep doing the hard diplomatic work on the underlying political conditions – resolving the ongoing sources of tension in the world, not least in the Middle East and between Pakistan and India. We also need to build a more mature, balanced and stable relationship between ourselves and Russia.

    And since I have the non-proliferation elite gathered in one room, let me emphasise the importance this and future UK governments will place on the agreement of an international and legally binding arms trade treaty. Conflicts across the globe are made more likely and more intense by those who trade all arms in an irresponsible and unregulated way. And an arms trade treaty would contribute to a focus on arms reduction and help build a safer world.

    And when it comes to building this new impetus for global nuclear disarmament, I want the UK to be at the forefront of both the thinking and the practical work. To be, as it were, a “disarmament laboratory”.

    As far as new thinking goes, the International Institute of Strategic Studies is planning an in-depth study to help determine the requirements for the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. We will participate in that study and provide funding for one of their workshops, focussing on some of the crucial technical questions in this area.

    The study and subsequent workshops will offer a thorough and systematic analysis of what a commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons means in practice. What weapons and facilities will have to go before we can say that nuclear weapons are abolished? What safeguards will we have to put in place over civil nuclear facilities? How do we increase transparency and put in place a verification regime so that everyone can be confident that no-one else has or is developing nuclear weapons? And finally – and perhaps this is perhaps the greatest challenge of all – what path can we take to complete nuclear disarmament that avoids creating new instabilities themselves potentially damaging to global security.

    And then we have these new areas of practical work. This will concentrate on the challenge of creating a robust, trusted and effective system of verification that does not give away national security or proliferation sensitive information.

    Almost a decade ago, we asked the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment to begin developing our expertise in methods and techniques to verify the reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons. We reported on this work throughout the last Non-Proliferation Treaty review cycle. Now we intend to build on that work, looking more deeply at several key stages in the verification process – and again report our findings as soon as possible.

    One area we will be looking at further is authentication – in other words confirming that an object presented for dismantlement as a warhead is indeed a warhead. There are profound security challenges in doing that. We need to find ways to carry out that task without revealing sensitive information. At the moment we are developing technical contacts with Norway in this area. As a non-nuclear weapons state they will offer a valuable alternative perspective on our research.

    Then we will be looking more closely at chain of custody issues – in other words how to provide confidence that the items that emerge from the dismantlement process have indeed come from the authenticated object that went into that process to begin with. Here we face the challenge of managing access to sensitive nuclear facilities. We have already carried out some trial inspections of facilities to draw lessons for the handling of access under any future inspections regime.

    And last we intend to examine how to provide confidence that the dismantled components of a nuclear warhead are not being returned to use in new warheads. This will have to involve some form of monitored storage, with a difficult balance once again to be struck between security concerns and verification requirements. We are currently working on the design concepts for building such a monitored store, so that we can more fully investigate these complex practical issues.

    The initiatives I have announced today are only small ones. But they are, I hope you will agree, in the right direction – a signal of intent and purpose to ourselves and to others. We will talk more and do more with our international partners – those who have nuclear weapons, and those who do not – in the weeks and months to come.

    I said earlier that I am not confident, cannot be confident, that I would live to see a world free of nuclear weapons. My sadness at such a thought is real. Mine, like yours, is a generation that has existed under the shadow of the bomb – knowing that weapons existed which could bring an end to humanity itself. We have become almost accustomed to that steady underlying dread, punctuated by the sharper fear of each new nuclear crisis: Cuba in 1962, the Able Archer scare of 1983, the stand-off between India and Pakistan in 2002.

    But there is a danger in familiarity with something so terrible. If we allow our efforts on disarmament to slacken, if we allow ourselves to take the non-proliferation consensus for granted, the nuclear shadow that hangs over us will lengthen and it will deepen. And it may, one day, blot out the light for good.

    So my commitment to that vision, truly visionary in its day, of a world free of nuclear weapons is undimmed. And although we in this room may never reach the end of that road, we can take thos first further steps down it. For any generation, that would be a noble calling. For ours, it is a duty.

  • Doomsday Clock Reset for an Alarming World

    Be afraid. Be more afraid.

    For the first time in five years, the elite board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is moving the minute hand on their Doomsday Clock closer to the fatal hour of midnight.

    The clock – a symbol of the perils facing the human race – is expected to shift two minutes, from the current seven minutes to midnight to five, a figure the Bulletin would not confirm before its news conference today.

    “This is a sober and highly alarming judgment by a group of people who are knowledgeable and experienced,” said Nobel laureate John Polanyi, a faculty member in the University of Toronto’s chemistry department.

    “The most immediate hazard we face is also the most easily addressed, namely the thousands of nuclear-armed weapons aimed at Russia and the United States, and left pointlessly in a state of high alert. The fact that they are is an appalling failure to step back from the brink.”

    The clock, which hangs in the University of Chicago, was first set 60 years ago to focus on the danger of nuclear weapons. But for the first time it will take into account the perils posed by global warming, which has sparked renewed interest in building nuclear power plants.

    The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded by former Manhattan Project scientists who turned against nuclear weapons after developing the first atomic bomb.

    “The major new step reflects growing concerns about a ‘Second Nuclear Age’ marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing launch-ready status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks,” said a statement released before a news conference today.

    The clock was first set in 1947 at seven minutes to midnight, and plunged to an all-time low of two minutes in 1953, when the United States and Soviet Union both tested hydrogen bombs. Since then India, Pakistan, North Korea and, it is believed, Israel have developed nuclear weapons and Iran is enriching uranium that could potentially be used to fuel an atomic bomb.

    The clock was set furthest from midnight – 17 minutes – in 1991, when Washington and Moscow signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

    But it has crept steadily nearer since then as global military spending increased, India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons, the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to pave the way for its missile defence program, and reports spread of terrorists seeking nuclear weapons.

    American non-proliferation expert Joseph Cirincione said today’s movement of the Doomsday Clock’s hand was a “measurable indicator of how bad things are. If some of the world’s smartest scientists are saying we are now closer to doomsday, it should focus attention on both the problems, and the urgency of finding solutions.”

    And, he said, U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration has made the dangers faced by the planet worse.

    “They came in determined to make a radical change and they made it. It was a complete disaster. Every member of what they call the ‘axis of evil’ is a greater threat now than it was before they came to power. They thought they could use the blunt instrument of military might to overthrow evil regimes. But instead of intimidating countries, they made things worse.”

    And global warming is also worse, said Cirincione, a senior vice-president at the Washington-based Center for American Progress.

    “We lost six years when we could have been taking steps to fix the problem.”

    Last week, the once-hawkish former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, and three other American former officials, declared that reliance on nuclear arms was “becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective,” and called for Washington to lead in creating “a world without nuclear weapons.”

    The group, which included former defence secretary William Perry, said “North Korea’s recent nuclear test and Iran’s refusal to stop its program to enrich uranium – potentially to weapons grade – highlight the fact that the world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era.”

    Ernie Regehr, a policy adviser for Waterloo-based Project Ploughshares, agreed that the trends “are all in a dangerous direction, and the notion of a nuclear renaissance, the spread of nuclear power, is making (them) more so.”

    Even a modest movement to revive nuclear power, he added, was perilous.

    At the same time, Regehr said, not only the United States but Britain and France are helping to stoke the fires of nuclear proliferation by refusing to give up their deadly arsenals, or even signalling that they will update them.

    “Britain could have pointed the world in the direction it needs to go, because it is a secure country that doesn’t need nuclear weapons. …

    “Yet, in defiance of all that, it has indicated an interest in modernizing the arsenal, which is a heavy blow to non-proliferation.

    Published on Wednesday, January 17, 2007 by the Toronto Star

  • Troubling Questions About Missile Defense

    Troubling Questions About Missile Defense

    On September 1, 2006, the US held a missile defense test, which has been widely heralded by the government as a “success.” The $80 million test involved a dummy warhead launched from Kodiak Island in Alaska, which was intercepted and destroyed by an interceptor missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

    Lt. General Henry Obering III, the director of the Missile Defense Agency, was rhapsodic in his praise for the test: “I don’t want to ask the North Koreans to launch against us – that would be a realistic end-to-end test. Short of that, this is about as good as it gets.”

    For the defense contractors profiting from the missile defense system, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, this must be about as good as it gets. But the rest of the American public, who might end up as victims of a nuclear attack and who have already paid over $100 billion for the development of missile defenses, are entitled to a lot more clarity on just how realistic such a test is. While the interceptor missile did destroy the dummy warhead, there are many questions worth asking.

    First, if the system works so well, why did it have to be postponed due to bad weather the previous day? Will the system work only in good weather? Will cloud cover make the system ineffective?

    Second, did the Missile Defense Agency include a homing device in the dummy warhead, as it has frequently done in the past, to help guide the interceptor missile to its target? Homing devices in the target dummy warheads have made the missile defense tests seem a lot more successful than they really are, and it is highly unlikely that a potential enemy would want to help our missile defense system by placing homing devices in their warheads.

    Third, would the system be able to work against a sophisticated attacking missile that was able to take evasive action or against an attack by multiple missiles? There is also the question of whether the system would be able to find the real warheads hidden in a volley of decoys.

    After the recent test, General Obering commented, “I feel a lot safer and sleep a lot better at night.” While the general may feel safer, I doubt that the American people should feel safer until these questions are answered to their satisfaction.

    If the rest of us want to join General Obering in feeling safer and sleeping better at night, perhaps we should encourage our government leaders to try diplomacy aimed at building friendships and partnerships with potential enemies, rather than continuing to base our security and our future on a costly and ineffectual missile defense system that is likely to fail under real world conditions. Another cost effective way of improving our security would be to encourage our top officials to show some actual leadership in achieving the obligations for nuclear disarmament that are set forth in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • Prospects for Preventing Nuclear Proliferation

    Prospects for Preventing Nuclear Proliferation

    Also published in Volume 8, Number 1-2, Winter/Spring 2006 of “Global Dialogue”

    In 1945, the United States became the world’s sole nuclear power, and almost immediately used its new weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Following the creation of the first nuclear weapon by the United States, all further development of these weapons has constituted some form of nuclear proliferation, either horizontal proliferation to other countries or vertical proliferation within a country already possessing nuclear weapons.

    Many scientists who worked on the Manhattan Engineering Project – the US nuclear weapons development program – warned the government that use of nuclear weapons against Japan launch a dangerous nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. They were right. It took the Soviet Union just four years to succeed in its pursuit of nuclear weapons, conducting its first nuclear test in 1949.

    During the four year period from1945 to 1949, the US continued to develop and test its nuclear arsenal, engaging in a kind of unilateral nuclear arms race. Once the Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons in 1949, a bilateral nuclear arms race began, concluding only with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.

    In the decade and a half following the Soviet Union’s development of nuclear arms, the UK, France and then China also developed nuclear weapons. By 1967, the five declared nuclear weapons states formed an exclusive club. They were the only states with nuclear weapons, and they were all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. As such, these nations had considerable prestige in the world. They all justified their nuclear arsenals on the basis of deterrence – the threat to retaliate to a first-strike nuclear attack – and all but China, which had pledged “No First Use” of nuclear weapons, held open the possibility of responding to a conventional attack with nuclear force.

    Among the five nuclear powers, there was a great deal of posturing by means of atmospheric nuclear tests and missile launches, first by the US alone, then by the USSR, and finally by the other nuclear weapons states. They all played the game of comparing explosive force and missile sizes, demonstrating their power through these highly visible means. Australian physician and nuclear activist Helen Caldicott characterized this posturing as “missile envy.”

    At the height of the nuclear arms race, there were more than 60,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Today there are still some 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and more than 95 percent of these are in the arsenals of the US and Russia. The trend is in the right direction, but the pace of reductions has been agonizingly slow.

    The unwillingness of the nuclear weapons states to give up their reliance on nuclear arsenals or their options for vertical proliferation, and to move with greater rapidity toward a nuclear weapons-free world, remains a significant incentive to horizontal proliferation. This is extremely dangerous, and particularly so in a world in which extremist groups seek nuclear weapons capabilities to threaten massive destruction of powerful states.

    Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

    In the mid-1960s, following the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the US, UK and USSR forged ahead with a treaty to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. They feared a far more dangerous world in the event of proliferation to many states. In negotiations with non-nuclear weapons states, they agreed to a trade-off in which the non-nuclear weapons states would not develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapons states would in turn make three commitments: first, end the nuclear arms race at an early date; second, engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament; and third, assist the non-nuclear weapons states in developing nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970.

    Despite making this agreement, the nuclear weapons states subsequently demonstrated little effort to stop the nuclear arms race or to engage in good faith negotiations for total nuclear disarmament. Instead, they focused their efforts on partial measures of arms control, such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT) and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START). Through these negotiations, the nuclear arms race continued largely unabated and there were no good faith efforts to eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

    On the third part of the bargain, assisting with the development of “peaceful” nuclear technology, the nuclear weapons states were more helpful, particularly when profits could be made by selling nuclear reactors. The problem with this part of the bargain was that nuclear reactors used enriched uranium and produced plutonium that could be used in weapons programs. In other words, nuclear energy programs, particularly those involving enriching uranium and plutonium separation, have actually aided in nuclear weapons proliferation.

    Over the years, many countries, and finally nearly all countries, became parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. A few, however, stayed outside the treaty so as not to be bound by it. Israel was one of these, and is widely understood, although has not admitted, to have developed an arsenal of some 200 or more nuclear weapons. Mordechai Vanunu, a technician at the Dimona reactor in Israel, released information on Israel’s clandestine nuclear program to British newspapers, and subsequently was kidnapped, secretly tried and served 18 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement. Even after his release from prison, Vanunu is not allowed to leave Israel or speak with foreign journalists. Israel still refuses to confirm the existence of its nuclear arsenal.

    India and Pakistan also never became parties to the treaty. India was always clear that it was willing to forego the nuclear option, but not live in a world of nuclear apartheid. In other words, India was prepared to be a non-nuclear weapons state in a world where no state had nuclear weapons, but would not do so in a world where some states reserved nuclear weapons status for themselves but denied such status to others. India first tested a nuclear weapon in 1974, and then tested more extensively and openly in May 1998. Immediately following India’s 1998 nuclear tests, Pakistan conducted its own nuclear tests, sending a message back to India that it too could play the nuclear game. India and Pakistan, two rival states that have warred many times over the disputed territory of Kashmir, are now engaged in a nuclear standoff.

    The last state thought to have developed a small nuclear arsenal is North Korea, a country that withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in January 2003. No one is certain that North Korea actually has a nuclear arsenal, but it claims to have developed nuclear weapons and it has the technological capability and the weapons-grade nuclear materials from its nuclear reactors to have done so.

    The 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference

    By the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a Review and Extension Conference was held in 1995, 25 years after the treaty had entered into force. Some states parties to the treaty and many civil society organizations argued that the treaty should not be extended indefinitely because that would be akin to giving a blank check to the nuclear weapons states who had been so lax in fulfilling their disarmament obligations under the treaty. These states and groups argued that instead of an indefinite extension, the treaty should be extended for 5 or 10 year periods with automatic extensions if the nuclear weapons states had achieved concrete progress on nuclear disarmament.

    Under heavy lobbying and arm twisting by the United States, the treaty was extended indefinitely. To reach this outcome, certain additional promises were made. Among these were the following points listed in the Final Document of the conference:

    First, completion of negotiations for a universal and verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty no later than 1996;

    Second, The immediate commencement and early conclusion of negotiations on a treaty banning production of fissile materials; and

    Third, the “determined pursuit by the nuclear-weapon states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons….”

    The document also made reference to UN Security Council Resolution 984 (1995), which provided security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states, and called for further steps that would be “internationally legally binding.”

    While the international community did manage to complete and open for signature a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) by 1996, the treaty required the ratifications of all nuclear capable states. As of this time, there are still about one-quarter of the 44 states in this category that have not ratified. The United States was the first to sign the treaty, but the US Senate rejected ratification in 1999, and the Bush administration has been hostile to the treaty and has not resubmitted it to the Senate.

    The Bush administration’s opposition to the CTBT is best understood in relation to its interest in developing a new generation of nuclear weapons, such as “bunker busters” and low yield nuclear weapons. This is reinforced by the administration’s efforts to reduce the time needed to resume nuclear testing from 36 months to 18 months, suggesting that it is holding open the possibility of breaking the current moratorium on underground nuclear testing.

    There have not been negotiations in the UN Conference on Disarmament on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. Nor have there been any efforts to provide legally binding assurances against the use of nuclear weapons on non-nuclear weapons states. Given this lack of progress, it is hard to argue that there has been a “determined pursuit…of systematic and progressive efforts” by the nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament. In fact, the Bush administration’s secret Nuclear Posture Review, released to Congress at the end of 2001, states that US nuclear policy includes a possible nuclear response to a non-nuclear attack against the US or its allies.

    2000 NPT Review Conference: 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament

    At the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the parties agreed by consensus to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. This was viewed as an important step forward on the path to achieving nuclear disarmament. These steps included the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, the establishment in the Conference on Disarmament of a subsidiary body to deal with nuclear disarmament issues, preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, applying the principle of irreversibility to nuclear disarmament, and an “unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….”

    Unfortunately, the nuclear weapons states have not taken these steps seriously. In the world community, the United States has been the country least responsive to these steps, putting up obstacles to nearly all of them. The US opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, opposed a verifiable Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, opposed a subsidiary body to deal with nuclear disarmament in the Conference on Disarmament, abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and made nuclear disarmament completely reversible in the one agreement they did reach with Russia.

    The 2002 Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT), entered into by the US and Russia, calls for reducing deployed strategic nuclear weapons from about 6,000 on each side to about 2,000 on each side by the year 2012, but makes no provision for destroying these weapons or otherwise making the reductions irreversible. After 2012, the treaty ends with no further prohibitions on the size of nuclear arsenals. In some respects this treaty may even promote proliferation by allowing both sides to keep many nuclear warheads in reserve, and therefore potentially more vulnerable to theft by extremist groups.

    2005 NPT Review Conference

    The most recent NPT Review Conference in 2005 ended without progress and without a Final Document demonstrating even a modicum of agreement. The US opposed any mention of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament in the agenda of the conference, giving the impression that they wanted to rewrite history, blotting out any memory of the progress made in the year 2000.

    The 2005 NPT Review Conference was almost surrealistic. In the basement of the United Nations where the conference was taking place, there was a broad corridor leading to some of the conference rooms. At one end of this corridor were a group of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki earnestly pleading for progress on nuclear disarmament so that their fate would not befall others in the future. At the other end of the corridor was a representative of the United States handing out slick brochures claiming that the US was leading the world in nuclear disarmament. Conveniently removed from the timeline in one of these brochures was any mention of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty being opened for signatures in 1996 or of the agreement on the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament in the year 2000. George Orwell’s presence seemed alive and well in the US promotional literature.

    Nuclear Double Standards

    The original intent of the Non-Proliferation Treaty was to stop proliferation and put an end to nuclear double standards by achieving nuclear disarmament. The nuclear weapons states have, however, largely made it clear that they are committed to double standards rather than to fulfilling their obligations to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    In an attempt to quell proliferation, while maintaining nuclear double standards, George W. Bush has promoted a Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which he first announced in Krakow on May 31, 2003. The PSI was described in a White House press release as “a broad international partnership of countries which, using their own laws and resources, will coordinate their actions to halt shipments of dangerous technologies to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern – at sea, in the air, and on the land.” The original members of the PSI were all European states except Australia and Japan, and included the three Western nuclear weapons states – the US, UK and France. A PSI “Statement of Interdiction Principles” was adopted on September 4, 2003. The first and key principle is: “Undertake effective measures, either alone or in concert with other states, for interdicting the transfer or transport of WMD, their delivery systems, and related materials to and from states and non-state actors of proliferation concern.”

    On April 28, 2004, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1540, which called upon states to “refrain from providing any form of support to non-State actors that attempt to develop, acquire, manufacture, possess, transport, transfer or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery.” The resolution also called upon states to establish domestic controls to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and their means of delivery, as well as border and export and transit controls.

    Resolution 1540 was in effect a Security Council effort to further the Proliferation Security Initiative, seeking to enforce controls against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The Proliferation Security Initiative, its Statement of Interdiction Principles and Security Council Resolution 1540 all seek to prevent proliferation by means of international cooperation and, if necessary, the use of force. They also seek implicitly to maintain the nuclear double standard, since they make no reference to the current arsenals of nuclear weapons or the need for their dismantlement.

    A key question for the international community and for any thinking person concerns whether proliferation can be prevented in a world composed of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” Those who promote the double standard initiatives, seem to believe that they can hold back nuclear proliferation while continuing to rely themselves on nuclear weapons for security. Their argument, however, leaves no room for inevitable errors and misjudgments.

    Zero Tolerance

    So long as nuclear weapons and materials exist in the world, there is the possibility that they may proliferate to other states or non-state actors. In the hands of non-state extremist groups, the prospects of deterrence by means of retaliatory threat are zero. Deterrence is a psychological theory, which requires rationality and also fear of retaliation. It cannot work against a terrorist organization that cannot be located. Nor can it work against groups or individuals who are prepared to die for their cause. Therefore, the tolerance level for nuclear weapons falling into the hands of extremist groups is also zero.

    The more nuclear weapons in the world, the greater the possibility that some will be obtained by extremist groups. The fewer nuclear weapons in the world, the less weapons-grade nuclear materials and the greater the international controls, the less likely these weapons will fall into the hands of extremists groups.

    Zero tolerance requires zero nuclear weapons and full international controls. It requires implementation of the Article VI nuclear disarmament obligations in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Viewed in this light, the PSI and Security Council Resolution 1540 may be viewed as band-aids, possibly comforting but unlikely to solve the problem.

    We have already seen that the criminal ring headed by Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, was quite active in spreading nuclear technology and materials for proliferation. It appears that his ring was stopped in time, but it is not fully certain how much damage was done by Khan’s efforts or what their results will be in the future.

    Iraq, Iran and North Korea

    In his 2002 State of the Union speech, George W. Bush named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “Axis of Evil.” These states, along with some others, had already shown up in the US Nuclear Posture Review as states for which the US was making contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons. In 2002, Bush and other US administration officials began talking about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. Subsequently, in March 2003, the US invaded Iraq, initiating a war of aggression against that country and using the justification in part of nuclear proliferation.

    Following the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, no weapons of mass destruction were found. Surely, the war against Iraq has put other states on notice that nuclear weapons may be useful to them to prevent a US attack. This suggests that, while nuclear weapons may not be particularly useful to a powerful state, they would have deterrent value to a weaker state to prevent the attack of a more powerful state. This may be the lesson drawn by both Iran and North Korea.

    Iran is relying on the Article IV provision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (nuclear energy as an “inalienable right”) in maintaining its right to enrich uranium for nuclear reactors. This points to the inherent contradiction in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which seeks both to prevent nuclear proliferation and promote nuclear energy.

    In the case of North Korea, it has withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, undertaken reprocessing of its spent fuel to extract plutonium, and claims to have developed a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Six party talks have taken place for several years between the US, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. The North Korean negotiators have been clear that they are seeking security assurances and development aid from the US in exchange for giving up their nuclear programs and returning to the NPT. After several years of negotiating, little progress has been made, although it would seem that the conditions set forth by the North Koreans are reasonable.

    Incentives to Proliferate

    There are many countries that could develop nuclear arsenals, but have chosen not to do so. Among these are Canada, Sweden and Japan. Decisions by Canada and Sweden were taken early in the Nuclear Age. Japan is a good example of a virtual nuclear power. It has the technological capability to make nuclear weapons and tons of reprocessed plutonium for doing so, but has thus far foregone the option as it currently falls under the US nuclear umbrella. If Japan did decide to become a nuclear weapons state, it could become a major one in a matter of months. North Korea’s advances in its nuclear arsenal and missile technology may play a key role in determining whether Japan decides to join the nuclear club in future years.

    Some states have developed or obtained nuclear weapons and given them up. South Africa actually developed a small nuclear weapons arsenal and then destroyed it just before the end of apartheid. Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan inherited nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union split apart, but agreed to transfer all of their nuclear weapons to Russia for dismantlement. Brazil and Argentina had nuclear programs and were on the path to creating nuclear weapons, but gave up these programs.

    Among the major incentives to proliferation are threats of nuclear attack, threats of conventional attack by a more powerful state, and national prestige. These incentives suggest that nuclear weapons serve the purposes of the weak more than they do the strong. They suggest that strong states would better serve their national security and their citizens by leading the way toward nuclear disarmament rather than clinging to nuclear arsenals. By their very act of reliance on their own nuclear arsenals, the nuclear weapons states provide incentives for other states to join them in the nuclear club. A two-tier system of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” is ultimately unstable and untenable.

    A Return to the Basics

    Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty calls for “good faith” negotiations by the nuclear weapons states to achieve nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice in 1996 ruled: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    At the 2005 NPT Review Conference, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation called for the following eight commitments as the minimum necessary to revive nuclear disarmament in the non-proliferation regime.

    • Commitment to total nuclear disarmament and to good faith negotiations. This is the basic commitment of Article VI of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
    • Commitment to a timeframe for achieving nuclear disarmament. This is a necessary commitment to indicate to the international community that the nuclear weapons states are indeed acting in good faith.
    • Commitment to No First Use. Without this commitment there will always be pressure for some non-nuclear weapons states to consider developing nuclear arsenals to provide deterrence against larger nuclear weapons states.
    • Commitment to irreversibility and verifiability. This is one of the key steps of the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. It would close the door to reversing the progress made in disarmament efforts, and would be a strong confidence building measure.
    • Commitment to standing down nuclear forces. This would dramatically reduce the possibility of using nuclear weapons inadvertently, currently a serious danger to humanity.
    • Commitment to no new nuclear weapons. This would be another sign of good faith on the part of the nuclear weapons states, indicating that they are not basing their policies on the double standard of asking others not to develop new nuclear weapons while doing so themselves.
    • Commitment to a verifiable ban on fissile materials. This is one of the 13 Practical Steps and would rein in the amount of fissile material being created that could be used for nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons states should commit to placing their stores of weapons-grade fissionable materials under strict international control and to the elimination of this material.
    • Commitment to accounting, transparency and reporting. These are essential for building confidence and providing a baseline for verification of the disarmament process.In addition to these eight commitments for achieving nuclear disarmament, the Foundation called for five additional commitments for closing the loophole created by the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s promotion of the so-called “peaceful” uses of atomic energy. These are:
    • Commitment to a global ban on spent fuel reprocessing and reduced reliance on nuclear energy. Reprocessing of spent fuel may be good for nuclear industry, but it creates far more weapons-grade material that could be used for military purposes.
    • Commitment to bring uranium enrichment and plutonium separation facilities under strict international control. It is primarily enriched uranium and separated plutonium that can be converted to weapons use. These controls must be placed on all states, not only the non-nuclear weapons states.
    • Commitment to regulate and store spent nuclear fuel under strict international control. There need to be high standards of control for the regulation and storage of spent fuel in order to keep it from being reprocessed for weapons use.
    • Commitment to make the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol mandatory for all states. The IAEA Additional Protocol places states under a higher set of standards for safeguarding nuclear materials. Currently the Additional Protocol only applies to non-nuclear weapons states, and this should be universalized to apply to nuclear weapons states as well.
    • Commitment to highly restrict the trade of all nuclear materials and technology. The trade in nuclear materials and technology creates possibilities for proliferation through theft or enhancement of a country’s nuclear programs.These final five commitments can help to create a far stronger barrier between the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and the military uses. They are critically important steps in keeping nuclear materials from being diverted to weapons programs. These commitments complement the eight commitments above to revive nuclear disarmament. Both sets of commitments are mutually reinforcing.

      Evaluating the Prospects for Preventing Proliferation

      If it is true that these commitments are needed to prevent the further proliferation of nuclear weapons, then it may be unlikely that proliferation will be prevented. Most of the nuclear weapons states seem comfortable continuing with the double standards that have characterized their behavior, and seem unwilling to make the necessary commitments. The nuclear weapons states appear comfortable asking for commitments from others, but not in making commitments themselves. Over time, this promises to be a recipe for international failure in preventing nuclear proliferation.

      It is noteworthy that the nuclear weapons states at the bottom of the nuclear pyramid – namely, China, India and Pakistan – have all indicated a willingness to go to zero nuclear weapons if the other nuclear weapons states would do so. Additionally, Russia has offered to reduce its nuclear arsenal below the levels agreed to in the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, but the US has not accepted these lower levels.

      In the end, preventing proliferation will depend upon changes in the policies of the most powerful nuclear weapons state, the United States. The US sets the tone for the world. If the United States does not show leadership in this area, proliferation will certainly continue. At the present, the US non-proliferation effort is based entirely on double standards. It continues to rely upon its nuclear arsenal, while seeking to develop and implement mechanisms to prevent others countries from doing as it does. The US even seeks to develop new nuclear weapons, a form of vertical proliferation.

      Given the US aversion to serious nuclear disarmament measures and its failure to provide leadership to the other nuclear weapons states to fulfill their disarmament obligations, nuclear proliferation appears inevitable. This is not only due to the narrow policy positions of the Bush administration. It was also true, in a less extreme form, during the Clinton administration. The great irony of this is that the country most likely to be the target of a terrorist nuclear attack is the United States.

      This leads to the conclusion that the United States is acting against its own best interests in not ending nuclear double standards and making phased and negotiated nuclear disarmament a priority of its nuclear non-proliferation program. Perhaps at some point US leaders will awaken to the likelihood that their nuclear posturing is making it more likely that their cities and citizens will become the victims of their own nuclear policies.

      Hopefully, this awakening will not be the result of a nuclear attack, and that it will be possible to prevent such an attack against the US or any other country. This may be possible if we employ imagination, reason and leadership, and seek the necessary international cooperation.

      1. Caldicott, Helen. Missile Envy. New York, Bantam, 1984.

      2. 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, Part I, (NPT/Conf.1995/32 (Part I), p. 10.

      3. 2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Final Document, Vol. I (NPT/CONF.2000/28 (Parts I and II)), Part I.

      4. “Statement on Proliferation Security Initiative,” White House, Office of the Press Secretary, September 4, 2003.

      5. Proliferation Security Initiative: Statement of Interdiction Principles, adopted in Paris, September 4, 2003.

      6. S/RES/1540 (2004).

      7. Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, United Nations General Assembly, A/51/218, 15 October 1996.

      8. Krieger, David and Carah Ong, “Back to Basics: Reviving Nuclear Disarmament in the Non-Proliferation Regime.” Santa Barbara, CA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 2005, pp. 13-15.

      9. Krieger and Ong, Op.Cit., pp. 16-17.

      David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort for a world free of nuclear weapons.

  • The Treaty Wreckers

    In just a few months, Bush and Blair have destroyed global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons.

    Saturday is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The nuclear powers are commemorating it in their own special way: by seeking to ensure that the experiment is repeated.

    As Robin Cook showed in his column last week, the British government appears to have decided to replace our Trident nuclear weapons, without consulting parliament or informing the public. It could be worse than he thinks. He pointed out that the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston has been re-equipped to build a new generation of bombs. But when this news was first leaked in 2002 a spokesman for the plant insisted the equipment was being installed not to replace Trident but to build either mini-nukes or warheads that could be used on cruise missiles.

    If this is true it means the government is replacing Trident and developing a new category of boil-in-the-bag weapons. As if to ensure we got the point, Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, announced before the leak that Britain would be prepared to use small nukes in a pre-emptive strike against a non-nuclear state. This put us in the hallowed company of North Korea.

    The Times, helpful as ever, explains why Trident should be replaced. “A decision to leave the club of nuclear powers,” it says, “would diminish Britain’s international standing and influence.” This is true, and it accounts for why almost everyone wants the bomb. Two weeks ago, on concluding their new nuclear treaty, George Bush and the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh announced that “international institutions must fully reflect changes in the global scenario that have taken place since 1945. The president reiterated his view that international institutions are going to have to adapt to reflect India’s central and growing role.” This translates as follows: “Now that India has the bomb it should join the UN security council.”

    It is because nuclear weapons confer power and status on the states that possess them that the non-proliferation treaty, of which the UK was a founding signatory, determines two things: that the non-nuclear powers should not acquire nuclear weapons, and that the nuclear powers should “pursue negotiations in good faith on … general and complete disarmament”. Blair has unilaterally decided to rip it up.

    But in helping to wreck the treaty we are only keeping up with our friends across the water. In May the US government launched a systematic assault on the agreement. The summit in New York was supposed to strengthen it, but the US, led by John Bolton – the undersecretary for arms control (someone had a good laugh over that one) – refused even to allow the other nations to draw up an agenda for discussion. The talks collapsed, and the treaty may now be all but dead. Needless to say, Bolton has been promoted: to the post of US ambassador to the UN. Yesterday Bush pushed his nomination through by means of a “recess appointment”: an undemocratic power that allows him to override Congress when its members are on holiday.

    Bush wanted to destroy the treaty because it couldn’t be reconciled with his new plans. Last month the Senate approved an initial $4m for research into a “robust nuclear earth penetrator” (RNEP). This is a bomb with a yield about 10 times that of the Hiroshima device, designed to blow up underground bunkers that might contain weapons of mass destruction. (You’ve spotted the contradiction.) Congress rejected funding for it in November, but Bush twisted enough arms this year to get it restarted. You see what a wonderful world he inhabits when you discover that the RNEP idea was conceived in 1991 as a means of dealing with Saddam Hussein’s biological and chemical weapons. Saddam is pacing his cell, but the Bushites, like the Japanese soldiers lost in Malaysia, march on. To pursue his war against the phantom of the phantom of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, Bush has destroyed the treaty that prevents the use of real ones.

    It gets worse. Last year Congress allocated funding for something called the “reliable replacement warhead”. The government’s story is that the existing warheads might be deteriorating. When they show signs of ageing they can be dismantled and rebuilt to a “safer and more reliable” design. It’s a pretty feeble excuse for building a new generation of nukes, but it worked. The development of the new bombs probably means the US will also breach the comprehensive test ban treaty – so we can kiss goodbye to another means of preventing proliferation.

    But the biggest disaster was Bush’s meeting with Manmohan Singh a fortnight ago. India is one of three states that possess nuclear weapons and refuse to sign the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The treaty says India should be denied access to civil nuclear materials. But on July 18 Bush announced that “as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states”. He would “work to achieve full civil nuclear energy cooperation with India” and “seek agreement from Congress to adjust US laws and policies”. Four months before the meeting the US lifted its south Asian arms embargo, selling Pakistan a fleet of F-16 aircraft, capable of a carrying a wide range of missiles, and India an anti-missile system. As a business plan, it’s hard to fault.

    Here then is how it works. If you acquire the bomb and threaten to use it you will qualify for American exceptionalism by proxy. Could there be a greater incentive for proliferation?

    The implications have not been lost on other states. ” India is looking after its own national interests,” a spokesman for the Iranian government complained on Wednesday. “We cannot criticise them for this. But what the Americans are doing is a double standard. On the one hand they are depriving an NPT member from having peaceful technology, but at the same time they are cooperating with India, which is not a member of the NPT.” North Korea (and this is the only good news around at the moment) is currently in its second week of talks with the US. While the Bush administration is doing the right thing by engaging with Pyongyang, the lesson is pretty clear. You could sketch it out as a Venn diagram. If you have oil and aren’t developing a bomb (Iraq) you get invaded. If you have oil and are developing a bomb (Iran) you get threatened with invasion, but it probably won’t happen. If you don’t have oil, but have the bomb, the US representative will fly to your country and open negotiations.

    The world of George Bush’s imagination comes into being by government decree. As a result of his tail-chasing paranoia, assisted by Tony Blair’s cowardice and Manmohan Singh’s opportunism, the global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons has, in effect, been destroyed in a few months. The world could now be more vulnerable to the consequences of proliferation than it has been for 35 years. Thanks to Bush and Blair, we might not go out with a whimper after all.

    Originally published by the Guardian.

  • A Revolution in American Nuclear Policy

    A metaphorical “nuclear option” — the cutoff of debate in the Senate on judicial nominees — has just been defused, but a literal nuclear option, called “global strike,” has been created in its place. In a shocking innovation in American nuclear policy, recently disclosed in the Washington Post by military analyst William Arkin, the administration has created and placed on continuous high alert a force whereby the President can launch a pinpoint strike, including a nuclear strike, anywhere on earth with a few hours’ notice. The senatorial “nuclear option” was covered extensively, but somehow this actual nuclear option — a “full-spectrum” capability (in the words of the presidential order) with “precision kinetic (nuclear and conventional) and non-kinetic (elements of space and information operations)” — was almost entirely ignored.

    The order to enable the force, Arkin writes, was given by George W. Bush in January 2003. In July 2004, Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated to Adm. James Ellis Jr., then-commander of Stratcom, “the President charged you to ‘be ready to strike at any moment’s notice in any dark corner of the world’ [and] that’s exactly what you’ve done.” And last fall, Lieut. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force, stated, “We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes.”

    These actions make operational a revolution in US nuclear policy. It was foreshadowed by the Nuclear Posture Review Report of 2002, also widely ignored, which announced nuclear targeting of, among others, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. The review also recommended new facilities for the manufacture of nuclear bombs and the study of an array of new delivery vehicles, including a new ICBM in 2020, a new submarine-launched ballistic missile in 2029, and a new heavy bomber in 2040. The review, in turn, grew out of Bush’s broader new military strategy of pre-emptive war, articulated in the 2002 White House document, the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, which states, “We cannot let our enemies strike first.” The extraordinary ambition of the Bush policy is suggested by a comment made in a Senate hearing in April by Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, who explained that the Defense Secretary wanted “bunker buster” nuclear bombs because “it is unwise for there to be anything that’s beyond the reach of US power.”

    The incorporation of nuclear weapons into the global strike option, casting a new shadow of nuclear danger over the entire planet, raises fundamental questions. Perhaps the most important is why the United States, which now possesses the strongest conventional military forces in the world, feels the need to add to them a new global nuclear threat. The mystery deepens when you reflect that nothing could be more calculated to goad other nations into nuclear proliferation. Could it be that the United States, now routinely called the greatest empire since Rome, simply feels the need to assert its dominance in the nuclear sphere?

    History suggests a different explanation. In the past, reliance on nuclear arms has in fact varied inversely with reliance on conventional arms. In the very first weeks of the nuclear age, when the American public was demanding demobilization of US forces in Europe after World War II, the U.S. monopoly on the bomb gave it the confidence to adopt a bold stance in postwar negotiations with the Soviet Union over Europe. The practice of offsetting conventional weakness with nuclear strength was soon embodied in the policy of “first use” of nuclear weapons, which has remained in effect to this day. The threat of first use under the auspices of the global strike option is indeed the latest incarnation of a policy born at that time.

    This compensatory role for nuclear weapons emerged in a new context when, after the protracted, unpopular conventional war in Korea, President Eisenhower adopted the doctrine of nuclear “massive retaliation,” intended to prevent limited Communist challenges from ever arising. And it was in reaction to the imbalance between local “peripheral” threats and the world-menacing “massive” nuclear threats designed to contain them that, in the Kennedy years, the pendulum swung back in the direction of conventional arms and a theory of “limited war” to go with them. Meanwhile, nuclear arms were officially assigned the more restricted role of deterring attacks by other nuclear weapons — the posture of “mutual assured destruction.”

    Today, though the Cold War is over, the riddle of the relationship between nuclear and conventional force still vexes official minds. Once again, the United States has assigned itself global ambitions. (Then it was containing Communism, now it is stopping “terrorism” and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.) Once again, the United States is fighting a limited war — the war in Iraq — and other limited wars are under discussion (against Iran, North Korea, Syria, etc.). And once again, nuclear arms appear to offer an all too tempting alternative. Arkin comments that a prime virtue of the global strike option in the eyes of the Pentagon is that it requires no “boots on the ground.” And Everett Dolman, a professor at the Air Force School at Maxwell Air Force Base, recently commented to the San Francisco Chronicle that without space weaponry, “we’d face a Vietnam-style buildup if we wanted to remain a force in the world.”

    For just as in the 1950s, the boots on the ground are running low. The global New Rome turns out to have exhausted its conventional power holding down just one country, Iraq. But the 2000s are not the 1950s. Eisenhower’s overall goal was mainly defensive. He wanted no war, nuclear or conventional, and never came close to ordering a nuclear strike. By contrast, Bush’s policy of preventive war is inherently activist and aggressive: The global strike option is not only for deterrence; it is for use.

    A clash between the triumphal rhetoric of global domination and the sordid reality of failure in practice lies ahead. The Senate, on the brink of its metaphorical Armageddon, backed down. Would the President, facing defeat of his policies somewhere in the world, do likewise? Or might he actually reach for his nuclear option?

    Jonathan Schell, author of The Unconquerable World, received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2003 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

  • Bush’s Nuclear Addiction

    George W. Bush might have kicked his alcohol and drug habits, but he still appears to have at least one serious addiction–to nuclear weapons.

    Last year, Congress refused to fund the administration’s ambitious proposal for new nuclear weapons, largely because both Republican and Democratic lawmakers agreed that the world would be a safer place with fewer—rather than more–nuclear explosives in existence.

    But, undeterred by last year’s rebuff, the Bush administration recently returned to Congress with a proposal for funding a new generation of “usable” nuclear weapons. These weapons are the so-called “bunker busters.” Despite the rather benign name, the “bunker buster” is an exceptionally devastating weapon, with an explosive power of from several hundred kilotons to one megaton (i.e. a thousand kilotons). To put this in perspective, it should be recalled that the nuclear weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki had explosive yields of from 14 to 21 kilotons. “These weapons will bust more than a bunker,” remarked U.S. Senator Jack Reed. “The area of destruction will encompass an area the size of a city. They are really city breakers.”

    In addition, the Bush administration has requested funding for the “Reliable Replacement Warhead.” If continued beyond the planning stage, this program would lead to the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrading U.S. nuclear warheads and might result in the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, which has not occurred since 1992.

    Of course, it is not unusual for the leaders of nation states to crave nuclear weapons. After all, the history of the international system is one of rivalry and war and, consequently, many national leaders itch to possess the most devastating weapons available. This undoubtedly accounts for the fact that, today, there are eight nations that possess nuclear weapons, a ninth (North Korea) that might, and additional nations that might be working to develop them.

    Even so, there is a widespread recognition that the nuclear arms race–indeed, the very possession of nuclear weapons–confronts the world with unprecedented dangers. And, for this reason, nations, among them the United States, have signed nuclear arms control and disarmament treaties. The most important of them is probably the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968, in which non-nuclear nations agreed to forgo the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear nations agreed to move toward nuclear disarmament. As late as the NPT review conference of 2000, the declared nuclear weapons states proclaimed their commitment to an “unequivocal undertaking . . . to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

    Thanks to these agreements and to independent action, there has been a substantial reduction in the number of nuclear weapons around the world.

    Furthermore, even if nations were to disregard these treaty obligations and cling doggedly to their nuclear weapons, how many do they need? The United States possesses more than 10,000 nuclear weapons–a number that, together with Russia’s arsenal, constitutes more than 90 percent of the world total. Does it really need more? And how are they to be used?

    President Bush, of course, wraps all his military policies in the “war on terror,” and his nuclear policies are no exception. But how, exactly, are nuclear weapons useful against terrorists? Terrorists do not control fixed territories that can be attacked with nuclear weapons. Instead, they are intermingled with the general population in this country and abroad. Unless one is willing to attack them by conducting a vast and terrible nuclear bombardment of civilians, dwarfing in scale any massacre that terrorists have ever implemented, nuclear weapons have no conceivable function in combating terrorism.

    Indeed, adding to the stockpile of nuclear weapons only adds to the dangers of terrorism. Terrorists do not have the knowledge or materials that would enable them to build their own nuclear weapons. But, the more nuclear weapons that exist, the more likely terrorists are to obtain them from a government stockpile–through theft, or purchase, or conspiracy. Therefore, as Congress has recognized, the United States would be safer if it encouraged worldwide nuclear disarmament rather than the building of additional nuclear weapons.

    In this context, Bush’s voracious appetite for new nuclear weapons is, to say the least, remarkable. In addition to his repeated attempts to get Congress to fund a U.S. nuclear buildup, he has pulled the United States out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (thereby effectively scrapping the START II Treaty, negotiated and signed by his father), opposed U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (negotiated and signed by President Clinton), pressed Congress to smooth the path toward the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing, and dropped further negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

    These repeated attempts to escape from the constraints of nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements and acquire new nuclear weapons suggest that Bush has what might be called a nuclear addiction.

    There are other signs of this addiction, as well. Indifferent to everything but acquiring their desired substance, addicts typically lose their appetite for the fundamentals of life, even eating. In a similar fashion, the president has proposed a budget that severely slashes funding for U.S. health, education, and welfare programs and redirects it to the military, including his pet nuclear projects. But how long can a society be starved of health, education, and welfare before it collapses? Impervious to reason or to the consistent public support for funding in these areas, Bush does not seem to consider this question. Instead, he presses forward with his demand for . . . more nukes!

    When the 2005 NPT review conference opens this May at the United Nations, Bush’s lust for nuclear weapons seems likely to be criticized by many nations. It is already being assailed by numerous peace and disarmament organizations, which are planning a massive nuclear abolition march and rally in New York City on May 1, the day before the NPT review conference convenes. And popular sentiment is not far behind. A recent AP-Ipsos poll reports that two-thirds of Americans believe that no nation should possess nuclear weapons, including the United States.

    Is George Bush able to accept the idea of a nuclear-free world? It’s certainly possible. But, first, it might take a decision by him to buckle down and kick his nuclear addiction.

    Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition (Stanford University Press).

    Originally published by the History News Network.

  • Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy 2004 International Law Symposium

    From 13-15 May, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held its 2004 International Law Symposium on Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy in Santa Barbara, California . The Symposium brought together experts in the fields of nuclear policy, communications and campaign strategy to develop creative ways in which to reverse the current trends of US nuclear policy. Participants included: Dr. Brent Blackwelder, Friends of the Earth; Michele Boyd, Public Citizen; Dr. John Burroughs, Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy; Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation; Dr. Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Policy Research Institute; Dr. Urs A. Cipolat, Middle Powers Initiative; Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, independent international security analyst; Professor Richard Falk, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Dr. Michael Flynn, Center on Violence and Human Survival; Dr. Randall Forsberg, Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies; Dr. David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Professor George Lakoff, The Rockridge Institute; Professor Adil Najam, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy/Tufts University; Carah Ong, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Professor Thomas G. Plate, UCLA Speech and Communication Studies; Dr. Bennett Ramberg, independent international security analyst; Dr. Tom Reifer, University of California at Riverside; Hon. Douglas Roche, Middle Powers Initiative; Jonathan Schell, The Nation Institute; Alice Slater, Global Resource Action Center for the Environment; and Rob Stuart, AdvocacyInc.

    US Nuclear Policy and the Geopolitical Landscape

    Richard Falk, Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, delivered opening remarks to set the backdrop for the Symposium. He noted that there are three formidable challenges to charting a new course for US nuclear policy including post-realism, the “Hiroshima Temptation” and bipartisan nuclearism.

    The US , as the leading nuclear weapons state, has its first post-realist political leadership. It interprets conflict from the perspective of good versus evil, and illusion, rather than assessing risks and costs. It’s a struggle between good and evil, no rational calculations are appropriate. When it comes to illusions, none is greater than the US claimed mission to bring “democracy” to the beleaguered peoples of the Middle East . The reality is that it is a region that is only remotely compatible with American goals. The current administration is post-realist in the sense that earlier leaders prided themselves, especially in the context of nuclear weapons, on their sense of rationality, their awareness of limits, and their exclusion of moralizing the justification for use of force. The post-realist American world view is reinforced by the suicidal extremism of the al Qaeda engagement with conflict.

    When it comes to nuclear weapons, we are witnessing a revival of what Falk labels the “Hiroshima Temptation,” the absence of an inhibiting restraint arising from the prospect of retaliation. This is part of a larger, dangerous condition in which the US is inclined to use force to uphold its position of global dominance, given its decline in economic and diplomatic leverage. The US has dismissed international law – from the failure to observe the Geneva Conventions with respect to prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to the defiant attitude of the White House with respect to recourse to wars of choice. President Bush has stated that the US will never seek a “permission slip” when its security is at stake, indicating his disregard for international law.

    The nature of the policy and structural issues associated with nuclear weapons are deeper than the Bush administration. Both Bush, Sr. and, even more so, Clinton missed a golden opportunity to advocate nuclear disarmament in the 1990s – after the Soviet Union collapsed – to achieve a regime of total abolition of weapons of mass destruction. Not only was this not done, it was not even seriously considered. Holding open a nuclear option was no longer premised on deterrence, but rather it became associated with dominance. It was during the 1990s that the Pentagon began speaking of “full-spectrum dominance.” And it should not be forgotten that the neo-conservatives were thirsting for a second Pearl Harbor . One of the present dangers is a willed complacency regarding the possibility of a second 9/11.

    The only hope for charting a new course for US nuclear policy is to restore realism in the US leadership. US leadership must also make a self-interested repudiation of the “Hiroshima Temptation” and rebuild a cooperative multi-polar world order. US leadership will be greatly enhanced by the rejection of nuclearism, the only clear path to non-proliferation.

    The US and the Non-Proliferation Regime

    Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., gave a report on the 2004 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) Meeting, which concluded six days prior to the start of the Symposium. It is clear the NPT, the cornerstone of the non-proliferation regime, is in crisis. To examine how the crisis came about and what to do about it, we must look at the role of the US . While the other declared Nuclear Weapons States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China are all also in contravention of their responsibilities to the NPT, it is the US that sets the pace. The US is the leading military power in the world by far, the lynchpin of NATO, and the dominant voice at the United Nations. With 31 members, the US delegation was the largest at the recent NPT PrepCom. US views deeply affect the policies of all Western nations and Russia .

    The US astounded many delegates at the 2004 PrepCom by disowning its own participation in the 2000 consensus that produced the “unequivocal undertaking.” It refused to allow the 2000 Review Conference to be used as a reference point for the 2005 Review. The result was turmoil and a collapse of the PrepCom.

    What delegates from around the world are deeply concerned about is the US attempt to change the rules of the game. At least before, there was a recognition that the NPT was obtained in 1970 through a bargain, with the nuclear weapons states agreeing to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear weapons in return for the non-nuclear states shunning the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Adherence to that bargain enabled the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and the 13 Practical Steps of 2000. Now the US is rejecting the commitments of 2000 and premising its aggressive diplomacy on the assertion that the problem of the NPT lies not in the actions of the nuclear weapons states but in the lack of compliance by states such as North Korea and Iran .

    The whole international community, nuclear and non-nuclear alike, is concerned about proliferation, but the new attempt by the nuclear weapon states to gloss over the discriminatory aspects of the NPT, which are now becoming permanent, has caused the patience of the members of the Non-Aligned Movement to snap. They see a two-class world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” becoming a permanent feature of the global landscape. In such chaos, the NPT is eroding and the prospect of multiple nuclear weapons states, a fear that caused nations to produce the NPT in the first place, is looming once more.

    But the US vigorously defended its policies, giving no ground to its critics. From the opening speech by John R. Bolton, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, US representatives insisted that attention not be diverted from the violations of the NPT by would-be nuclear powers “by focusing on Article VI issues that do not exist.”

    A March 2004 report to Congress reveals that the US is employing a double standard concerning compliance with the NPT. Whereas the US wants to move forward with a new generation of nuclear weaponry, it adamantly rejects the attempt by any other state to acquire any sort of nuclear weapon. The US clearly wants to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons; of that there can be no doubt. But it does not want to be questioned on what it regards as its right to maintain enormous stocks (despite numerical reductions) and to keep nuclear weapons as a cornerstone of its military doctrine. The US is widely criticized around the world for this double standard.

    There is no way to reconcile this resurgence of nuclear weapons development ( Germany called it a nuclear “renaissance”) with disarmament. Even as it says it is adhering to the NPT, the US is flouting it. Only a change in attitude by the US administration can now save the Treaty.

    Responding to US Nuclear Policy in a Climate of Violence

    Daniel Ellsberg noted in his presentation that humans are not a species to be trusted with nuclear weapons. We need to understand ourselves as humans in relation to this deadly technology. The US has always had as its plan to act first or preemptively. Ellsberg noted that nuclear weapons have been used many times as a threat like a gun pointed at someone’s head.

    Tom Reifer observed that the Bush administration reserves the right to invade countries on the basis of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. There is a need to reframe the message to talk about the real dangers. While some are afraid that nuclear weapons may fall into the wrong hands, we must realize that there are no right hands for nuclear weapons. We need to connect to the global economic movement and connect nuclear weapons issues to militarism issues.

    Bennett Ramberg began his presentation noting that Libya is no longer a nuclear aspirant and Iraq is no longer a nuclear threat. Iran is now a nuclear threat and it is likely that the US or Israel may preemptively strike Iran . Ramberg proposed that Israel should be encouraged to give up its nuclear weapons and in exchange be brought under the NATO nuclear umbrella. We must also work for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, and create a nuclear taboo around the world.

    Civic, Moral and Legal Responses to Nuclear Weapons

    John Burroughs said that among the overarching themes under which to place nuclear abolition have been “human security,” the “right to peace,” and the “rule of law”. The Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research pursued the latter theme in the 2003 book, Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties . The book places US non-compliance with the NPT disarmament obligation in the broader context of US rejection or undermining of a range of global security treaties concerning global warming, international justice, landmines, and biological and chemical weapons. “Rule of law” clearly is an important element of the message. However, it doesn’t seem to be the best overall theme, rather a sub-theme. It does not wholly persuade the US policy elite, much of which accepts US hegemony and has a highly skeptical attitude about international law and institutions. It has some resonance with the public, because the rule of law is associated with US traditions and constitutionalism. But it is not a galvanizing theme.

    The rule of law message can help in the essential work of counteracting ongoing US reliance on threat or execution of preventive war against nuclear proliferation. This may be the shape of years and decades to come if the US does not adopt a policy of relying instead on preventive diplomacy and reciprocal and cooperative action that includes reduction and elimination of the US arsenal. See Peter Weiss’s remarks at http://lcnp.org/disarmament/nuclearweaponspreventivewar.htm

    One critical task for nuclear abolition outreach and organizing is to relate seriously to other movements, not only in the use of rhetoric but also through concrete contributions. An example is LCNP’s work on the World Tribunal on Iraq , which held its New York session on May 8, 2004 . For information and presentations, see www.worldtribunal-nyc.org . Organizers included highly motivated and competent graduate students and activists.

    Jonathan Schell stated that the Bush Administration is pursuing a path that will lead to a multitude of disasters. We need an alternative path. We have been deceived about the Nuclear Age. The US establishment did not want nuclear weapons discredited after Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they planned to rely upon them. Reagan and Gorbechev understood the danger of nuclear weapons. There was radical neglect of addressing the nuclear threat during the Clinton years. Under the Bush Administration there has been a nuclear “unlearning.” Deep truths have been cast aside. Even President Reagan understood that nuclear weapons cannot win wars and must never be used. The US must make its nuclear arsenal visible to Americans. We are facing layer upon layer of deception. We need to reincorporate the nuclear story.

    Helen Caldicott stated that killers throughout history have been put on pedestals. American people are good people. How do we teach the American people? We have to make an emotional appeal and reach their hearts as well as their minds.

    Setting Priorities for US Nuclear Policy

    Adil Najam stated that if the planet were a country, it would be a poor, divided, degraded, insecure, poorly governed, country of apartheid, as well as a third world country. We need to understand nuclearism in a feudal context. South Asia contains 40% of the world’s poor, ½ of all illiterates in the world. 260 million live without basic health facilities, 337 million do not have safe drinking water, 400 million go hungry and 500 million people live below the poverty line. Alas, South Asia is the most militarized area of the world. Spending money for military purposes has a real cost to the security of people. There is a new politics of nuclearism. Nuclear weapons are the poor man’s weapon. There is no argument one can make to disarm if the US does not take the lead. Najam quoted his grandmother saying, “If you point your finger at someone, three fingers will point back at you.”

    Urs Cipolat said that International Law is the most powerful antidote to the acceptance of nuclear weapons. The only tool human society uses to prevent the abuse of power is law. The rule of law is not intended to be the language of elite but rather to restrict the power of the elite. Absent the rule of law, force rules.

    Jackie Cabasso said that the US now relies on extended deterrence. The US is now spending $6.5 billion a year on nuclear weapons. “It’s too expensive” or “it won’t work” are fatally flawed arguments.

    Alice Slater asked, “What is the difference between the commercial nuclear industry that seeks to sell nuclear materials ‘at reasonable cost’ and the international Mafia that is now trading and profiting from the same materials? It is the delusory vision held by the “legal” nuclear industrialists that proliferation can be controlled. We will never be able to guard all the loose nuclear materials and black market smuggling while we constantly generate ever more lethal nuclear waste. The time for nuclear arms control fixes while continuing business as usual is over. The game is up.

    There is only one way to move forward. The nations of the world must call not only for complete nuclear disarmament, but for an end to “peaceful” nuclear power. At this critical moment, with a world mired in poverty and the constant threat of war and terrorism, our survival depends on implementing a plan for sustainable energy abundant in nature-local renewable resources-the sun, the wind, the tides. Urgent action is needed to fund and harness these natural treasures by establishing an International Sustainable Energy Fund.

    Developing a Blueprint for US Nuclear Policy

    David Krieger answered the question, “What would be the basic contours of a new course for US nuclear policy?” There are many forms and timeframes that a new US nuclear policy could take. Most important, however, must be a commitment to achieve the multilateral phased elimination of nuclear weapons within a reasonable timeframe and the further commitment to provide leadership toward that goal. The US will have to demonstrate by its actions, not only its words, that it is committed to this goal.

    The US must use its convening power to bring all nuclear weapons states together to the negotiating table to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention. This would be consistent with the unanimous conclusion of the International Court of Justice in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Illegality of Nuclear Weapons: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    In terms of a timeframe, one proposal, put forward by the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, calls for starting negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons in 2005, the completion of negotiations by 2010, and the elimination of all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. The exact date of completing the process of nuclear disarmament may be less important than the demonstration of political will to achieve the goal combined with substantial steps toward the goal. It is clear that the world will become far safer from nuclear catastrophe when there are a few tens of nuclear weapons rather than tens of thousands.

    The US must forego provocative policies in nuclear weapons research and development leading to new and more usable nuclear weapons (“bunker busters” and “mini-nukes”). It must also stop working toward reducing the time needed to resume nuclear testing; and cease planning to create a facility to produce plutonium pits for large numbers of new or refurbished nuclear warheads.

    The US will need to reevaluate building defensive missile systems and weaponizing outer space, both projects that stimulate offensive nuclear responses.

    The US will have to make its nuclear reduction commitments irreversible by dismantling the weapons taken off active deployment.

    Finally, the US must give assurances to other countries that it is not relying upon its nuclear weapons for use in warfare. Such assurances could take the form of legally binding negative security assurances (the US will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapons state) and an agreement to No First Use against other nuclear weapons states, as well as taking its arsenal off hair-trigger alert.

    Krieger also answered the question, “What would be needed to achieve this change in course in US nuclear policy?” It is unlikely that US leaders will come to the conclusion of their own accord that it is necessary to chart a new course in US nuclear policy. They need serious prompting, both from American citizens and from the rest of the world. Other countries have been trying to influence the US government on this issue throughout the post-Cold War period to little avail. While other countries should certainly continue in this pursuit, the burden of responsibility for changing the course of US nuclear policy remains primarily with US citizens. It is an awesome responsibility, one on which the future of the world depends.

    A massive education and advocacy program is needed in the United States to mobilize widespread support for a new course in US nuclear policy. It will require resources, professionalism and persistence. The issue must be framed in a way that US citizens can grasp its importance and raise it to a high level in their hierarchy of policy priorities. The messages must be simple, clear and compelling. It is a challenge that demands our best thinking and organized action. It will require the wedding of old fashioned policy promotion with new technologies such as the internet. It will also require greater cooperation among advocacy groups and creativity in expanding the base of involvement by individuals and civil society groups that care not only about peace and disarmament, but also about the environment, human rights, health care and many other issue areas.

    Michael Flynn stated that the possible use of nuclear weapons will remain as long as states maintain dominance. 9/11 was a low tech affair. Since then, we have just been waiting for the next attack, and we are expecting that it will be a more sophisticated affair. Most claims by the current administration are stated in such a matter-of-fact way that journalists do not source facts and they take what is said at face value.

    War has always shown men what they are capable of under stress, and war always brings out the best in technology. Many theorists write about the salvational power of nuclear weapons. People have been led to believe that our security depends on them, and many who believe in them know little about them.

    Randy Forsberg said we need a campaign to reverse US nuclear policy. She said we should not limit the campaign to just the nuclear issue. We need to recapture the American dream. We need to coalesce the efforts of all nuclear disarmament and arms control organizations. We also need to allow those organizations buy-in to a US campaign for a new direction in US nuclear policy.

    Issue Framing

    George Lakoff spoke about issue framing. The right wing has created a self-sustaining system. They train all legislators, candidates for office, judges, lawyers and kids down to the age of 15. There is a reason they have invested this way. If you look at their moral system – they defend and extend their moral system itself. They look and plan ahead. The highest value on the right is to defend the moral structure and build infrastructure for it. The highest value on the left is to help individuals. The right has state-of-the-art facilities. 80% of talking heads are from right-wing think tanks. Their message of discipline is enforced across the entire spectrum.

    The right wing understands the nature of thought and the relationship between thought and language. If someone tells you not to think of an elephant, that is the only thing you will be able to think about. A word is defined relative to a frame. If you negate it, you still have the same frame.

    Rule # 1: don’t negate their frame. Find your own.

    Rule # 2: In most cases, it takes a long time to get a frame into most peoples’ brains. If a fact contradicts a frame, the frame remains. Frames do not occur alone. They are in systems that support each other. You can’t just negate one frame because other frames support it.

    Deep-framing is about largely unconscious world views. The metaphorical thought for morality is different between liberals and conservatives. We all have a metaphor for the nation’s founding.

    There are two different understandings of the nation and two different understandings of the family. We can therefore look at the metaphor of the nation as a family. There are two models. For the right, James Dobson is in the forefront for setting family values. He is heard on 3,000 radio stations across the country every day. He is also the author of Dare to Discipline . The right believes that the world is a dangerous place and that there will always be competition. They also believe kids are born bad and they will do what they want. Thus, kids need a strict father – who will give painful punishment. In order for kids to be made moral, they must be physically disciplined. This physical discipline will lead to mental discipline and this leads to a belief in the link between morality and prosperity.

    The right believes that there are winners and losers and the losers deserve to lose. Thus, it is moral to pursue self-interests. For the right, retribution is the main model. If you do something bad, there must be a consequence. Power and morality should go together. For the right, there is also a moral hierarchy: God over man, man over nature, parents over children, straights over gays, whites over non-whites. And, the strict father is the moral authority. For the right, giving up nuclear weapons would be giving up a means of discipline.

    The other model is the progressive model. They believe in having two nurturing parents and they raise their children to be nurturers. Progressives empathize with their children and if you empathize with your child, you will want them to be protected. PROTECTION, then, is a value for progressives. Progressives want their children to be treated FAIRLY, they want their child to be FULFILLED, to have OPPORTUNITY . Progressives are also interested in maintaining COMMUNITY, COOPERATION, TRUST, HONESTY and OPEN, TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION.

    Every person has both these models in their lives and we live and vote by these models. At least 38 to 40 percent percent of people have chosen one of these models. A swing voter is someone in the middle; i.e. they have both models in different parts of their life.

    Centrism is doubly mistaken. Both family models are in your brain. When one side uses your language, they are activating their models. We must therefore approach the issue from the level of shared morality and use our own language and rename theirs.

    Communications Strategies

    Rob Stuart spoke about communications strategies and also network-centric versus ego-centric models. BURST! Media surveyed 12,000 Web users. Of those surveyed, 53.4% were definite voters and 70% of the definite voters between the ages of 18 – 24 plan to use the Internet for information on the 2004 election. The survey also found that 61% of senior voters plan to use the Internet as a source for political information. This is a big increase over Internet usage during the mid-term 2002 elections. The number of women who will use the Internet for political information for the upcoming 2004 election will also dramatically increase from the mid-term 2002 elections, making the numbers of likely women almost equal to the numbers of likely men to use the Internet for political information.

    Stuart also offered some statistics related to current Internet users. According to AOL, 43% of broadband subscribers have multiple Internet sessions per day, in contrast to only 19% of narrow band users. 73% of broadband users call the Internet a better source of information than newspapers or television. The Internet is their preferred source for getting information. Broadband users do much more blogging and content offering. 60% have created online content or shared files. Broadband users spend 5 times as much time online vs. dial-up users. On AOL, broadband users have 80% more community sessions and share 40% more files.

    While the Internet is changing everything, natural forces are all around us. People share a deep connection to the Earth, their community and to each other. The goal then is to use the Internet’s infrastructure to tap into these connections and foster growing networks of effective supporters for coordinated campaigns and actions.

    Ego-Centric Model

    The ego-centric model focuses on building organizational morale and internal team cohesion. Key staff are evaluated on internal organizational goals and value is placed on raising organizational profile, development and centralizing organizational resources. In the ego-centric model, leadership focuses on goals and managing staff to achieve specific goals. Ego-centric organizations are generally resistant to information sharing. In the ego-centric model, there is a hierarchal decision making structure, members contribute money but not ideas and the organization defines programs as unique or original.

    Network-Centric Model

    The network-centric model is focused on expanding the number of people and organizations reached. It is also focused on expanding capacity of the network to perform. In the network-centric model, more attention is paid to information sharing. A network-centric organization values social contact between staffs of partner organizations and facilitates the rise of multiple leaders by enabling coordinated action. A network-centric model has a distributed power structure, and leverages and shares resources with partners. The leadership of a network-centric organization provides vision and energy to the network.

    What’s Needed

    For a campaign or organization to be successful, it must provide tools that connect and inform people as well as tools that model best practices and establish a “code.” A successful campaign or organization also needs strategies that facilitate individual and community “bottom up” action as well as strategies that will facilitate messages that aggregate power and stimulate new learning.

    Shaping the Message: Influencing the Public and Policy Makers

    Tom Plate said there is no such thing as free press. He noted that editors are interested in stories, not ideas. In general, the media is not interested in foreign issues because it is hard to get the US public to focus on it. It is more important to be seen on web pages than in hard copy because that is where most people are getting their information.

    Brent Blackwelder stated that the most important thing that the disarmament community can do is to be part of a larger framework. The progressive community has to get its hands dirty and mobilize the electorate. We also need to participate in broader issues as part of our long-term goals.

    Michele Boyd stated that members of Congress are always looking for political cover. Nothing will happen in Congress unless an outside force pushes it. If we want something done in Congress, there needs to be prior public discourse. We need to get Rotary clubs and businesses interested in our campaigns. Editorials in the press are not democratic, but they are powerful in moving congress and can influence votes.

    Carah Ong said that the Bush Administration has afforded us an opportunity to reinvigorate a movement for human and environmental security. A movement to chart a new course for US nuclear policy must re-frame the message in the current geopolitical context. A new movement must also include age, race and gender diversity, and it must re-empower citizens everywhere. A new movement must address the sanitization of violence that prevails in our society and delegitimize excuses for violent behavior.

    Carah also said that we should spend time finding out what resonates with young people today. We need to link with the music culture and use it as a means to disseminate our message. We also need to link university involvement in nuclear weapons issues to broader issues of militarization. We must also actively register young people to vote.

    Young people need mentors to be more involved in the movement. There is also a need for sustainable jobs and living wages within the nuclear disarmament movement. The movement must also do a better job of empowering and providing organizing tools and networking opportunities for youth and encourage networking with other issue areas. The campaign needs to develop curricula and distribute it to university professors, particularly in Global Security, International Studies and International Relations fields.

    The media is not the enemy, it is a tool. We have to remember that members of the media are not experts in the nuclear disarmament field. Today, we are not only in the “Age of image over content,” as Tom Plate stated, but we are also in the age of short attention span. As such, we must have an attractive and sexy message. We also need to focus on Internet media, including OneWorld, Alternet, and Common Dreams, because they service millions of Internet users and rapidly distribute information. We need to have a constant coordinated response to world events and link those issues/events to the nuclear issue. We need a spokesperson who is credible and well-known to speak on behalf of the campaign.

    Next Steps

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the participants of the 2004 Symposium will continue to work together to develop a campaign to Chart a New Course for US Nuclear Policy this year. The participants have set up an email listserve to continue discussion and planning. At the end of the Symposium, a working group was established to develop a set of Talk ing Points on Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy based on progressive core values. The campaign will support existing nuclear disarmament campaigns, but also bring the “New Course” nuclear issues into larger fora connected with peace and disarmament, social justice, nuclear power, the environment, and human rights issues. Members of the campaign will also pitch stories about US nuclear policy and nuclear issues to editorial boards and other members of the media. The campaign seeks to mentor and involve more youth in the effort.