Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: World War III

  • Could We Stumble Into World War III?

    We’ve stumbled into war before.  We could certainly do it again.  But doing it in a world with nuclear weapons could be even more devastating than World War I or, for that matter, World War II.

    David KriegerI wrote the short poem below to mark the 100th anniversary on June 28th of the assassination that set in motion what became known as the “Great War” and later came to be referred to as World War I. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand should remind us how easy it is for leaders of countries to stumble into wars that no one seems to want, and the grave and unforeseen consequences of doing so.  The U.S. wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq also serve as good reminders, as should the civil wars now going on in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.  We should also not be complacent about the U.S.-Russia standoffs that occurred over the country of Georgia in the past and the one now unfolding over Ukraine.

    Since the possibility of stumbling into war is always with us, it seems foolish in the extreme to fail to do all in our power to eliminate nuclear weapons – as soon as possible.  The national leaders of nuclear-armed states are failing badly in this regard, despite their obligations under international law.  There is one country, however, that is doing all it can to move forward on fulfillment of the unkept promises and unmet obligations to achieve a Nuclear Zero world: that is, the small Pacific Island country of 70,000 inhabitants, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), whose people still suffer from 12 years of nuclear testing (1946 – 1958) and whose land remains contaminated by radioactive fallout.

    The world owes a collective debt of gratitude to the people and government of the RMI for bringing lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries in the International Court of Justice, and a separate lawsuit against the United States in U.S. Federal District Court.  The RMI is acting on behalf of humanity.  It is not seeking monetary compensation for itself, but rather to assure that no other people now or in the future suffer as it has.  This small island country seeks to hold the nuclear-armed states accountable for breaching their obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to pursue and complete negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament. The Republic of the Marshall Islands deserves our support.  More information on these Nuclear Zero lawsuits can be found at www.nuclearzero.org.

    We have not had a nuclear war since nuclear weapons were used at the end of World War II, but that is no guarantee that there will not be one in the future.  So long as nuclear weapons exist, they pose a threat to the future of civilization and the human species. The possession of these weapons of mass annihilation is premised on nuclear deterrence, the threat of nuclear retaliation, but nuclear deterrence is not a law of nature.  It is a construct of humans, and it is subject to human failure in the same way that fallible humans have experienced major technological failures of nuclear reactors and have stumbled into past wars.  We are fallible creatures and we would be wise to eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us.

    ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND

    Archduke Franz Ferdinand
    with no troops at his command
    was brought down by an assassin’s hand.
    That’s how the war began.

    No one thought it would last long,
    but they were all sadly wrong,
    as with alliances and patriotic song
    they moved the war along.

    From the very start
    the men in trenches did their part
    until shot through the head or heart
    to be taken away on a medic’s cart.

    As history has taught before
    the fighting gave us only blood and gore.
    If not to stop the next great war,
    what are lessons for?

    One wonders if in time we’ll learn
    to put away our weapons, to discern
    the true value of a human life, to turn
    from war to peace before we burn.

    A century past the Archduke’s time
    the game of war is still a crime.
    A century past the Archduke’s time
    The arts of peace are still sublime.

     

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).  He is the author of ZERO: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.  He has written or edited many other books on achieving Nuclear Zero and several books of peace poetry.

  • Do Nuclear Weapons Really Deter Aggression?

    Lawrence WittnerIt’s often said that nuclear weapons have protected nations from military attack.

     

    But is there any solid evidence to bolster this contention? Without such evidence, the argument that nuclear weapons prevented something that never occurred is simply a counter-factual abstraction that cannot be proved.

     

    Ronald Reagan — the hardest of military hard-liners — was not at all impressed by airy claims that U.S. nuclear weapons prevented Soviet aggression. Kenneth Adelman, a hawkish official in the Reagan administration, recalled that when he “hammered home the risks of a nuclear-free world” to the president, Reagan retorted that “we couldn’t know that nuclear weapons had kept the peace in Europe for forty years, maybe other things had.” Adelman described another interchange with Reagan that went the same way. When Adelman argued that “eliminating all nuclear weapons was impossible,” as they had kept the peace in Europe, Reagan responded sharply that “it wasn’t clear that nuclear weapons had kept the peace. Maybe other things, like the Marshall Plan and NATO, had kept the peace.” (Kenneth Adelman, The Great Universal Embrace, pp. 69, 318.)

     

    In short, without any solid evidence, we don’t know that nuclear weapons have prevented or will prevent military aggression.

     

    We do know, of course, that since 1945, many nations not in possession of nuclear weapons and not part of the alliance systems of the nuclear powers have not experienced a military attack. Clearly, they survived just fine without nuclear deterrence.

     

    And we also know that nuclear weapons in U.S. hands did not prevent non-nuclear North Korea from invading South Korea or non-nuclear China from sending its armies to attack U.S. military forces in the ensuing Korean War. Nor did massive U.S. nuclear might prevent the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Also, the thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal did nothing to deter the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on U.S. territory.

     

    Similarly, nuclear weapons in Soviet (and later Russian) hands did not prevent U.S. military intervention in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Nor did Soviet nuclear weapons prevent CIA-fomented military action to overthrow the governments of Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and other nations.

     

    Other nuclear powers have also discovered the irrelevance of their nuclear arsenals. British nuclear weapons did not stop non-nuclear Argentina’s invasion of Britain’s Falkland Islands. Moreover, Israel’s nuclear weapons did not prevent non-nuclear Egypt and non-nuclear Syria from attacking Israel’s armed forces in 1973 or non-nuclear Iraq from launching missile attacks on Israeli cities in 1991. Perhaps most chillingly, in 1999, when both India and Pakistan possessed nuclear weapons, the two nations — long at odds — sent their troops into battle against one another in what became known as the Kargil War.

     

    Of course, the argument is often made that nuclear weapons have deterred a nuclear attack. But, again, as this attack never took place, how can we be sure about the cause of this non-occurrence?

     

    Certainly, U.S. officials don’t appear to find their policy of nuclear deterrence very reassuring. Indeed, if they were as certain that nuclear weapons prevent nuclear attack as they claim to be, why are they so intent upon building “missile defense” systems to block such an attack — despite the fact that, after squandering more than $150 billion on such defense systems, there is no indication that they work? Or, to put it more generally, if the thousands of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguard the United States from a nuclear attack by another nation, why is a defense against such an attack needed?

     

    Another indication that nuclear weapons do not provide security against a nuclear attack is the determination of the U.S. and Israeli governments to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. After all, if nuclear deterrence works, there is no need to worry about Iran (or any other nation) acquiring nuclear weapons.

     

    The fact is that, today, there is no safety from war to be found in nuclear weaponry, any more than there was safety in the past produced by fighter planes, battleships, bombers, poison gas, and other devastating weapons. Instead, by raising the ante in the ages-old game of armed conflict, nuclear weapons have merely increased the possibility that, however a war begins, it will end in mass destruction of terrifying dimensions.

     

    Sensible people and wise government leaders have understood for some time now that a more promising route to national and international security is to work at curbing the practice of war while, at the same time, banning its most dangerous and destructive implements. This alternative route requires patient diplomacy, international treaties, citizen activism, the United Nations, and arms control and disarmament measures. It’s a less dramatic and less demagogic approach than brandishing nuclear weapons on the world scene. But, ultimately, it’s a lot safer.