Author: Metta Spencer
Even before our primate ancestors began to walk upright, there were wars—times when whole human communities or groups within a community tried to kill each other. Scholars have reached this conclusion partly on the basis of Jane Goodall’s discovery that our closest primate relative, the chimpanzee, engages in war,(1) and partly on the basis of archaeological evidence. One site of skeletons was found in Kenya dating back 9,500 to 10,500 years showing that a group of 27 people had been massacred together.(2) Indeed, there is strong evidence that levels of violence were higher in prehistoric times than today.(3) One example is a cemetery about 14,000 years old where about 45 percent of the skeletons showed signs of violent death.(4) An estimated 15 percent of deaths in primitive societies were caused by warfare.
But life did not consistently become friendlier as our species spread and developed. By one estimate, there were 14,500 wars between 3500 BC and the late twentieth century. These took around 3.5 billion lives.(5)
Can we conclude, then, that war is simply an intrinsic part of “human nature,” so that one cannot reasonably hope to overcome it? No, for there is more variation in the frequency and extent of warfare than can be attributed to genetic differences. In some societies, war is completely absent. Douglas Fry, checking the ethnographic records, identified 74 societies that have clearly been non-warring; some even lacked a word for “war.” The Semai of Malaysia and the Mardu of Australia are examples.(6)
We may gain insights about solutions to warfare by exploring the variations in its distribution, type, and intensity. We begin with the best news: We are probably living in the most peaceful period in human history!
Historical Changes in Rates of War
Steven Pinker is the scholar who most convincingly argues that violence has declined, both recently and over the millennia. Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now, contains a graph showing the numbers of battle deaths by year from 1945 to 2015. A huge spike represents World War II, of course, for that was most lethal war in human history, causing at least 55 million deaths. How can we reconcile that ghastly number with any claim that the modern era is a peaceful epoch?
Pinker’s proof is based on distinguishing sharply between absolute numbers and rates. To be sure, 55 million is a huge number, but the Mongol Conquests killed 40 million people back in the thirteenth century, out of a world population only about one-seventh the size of the world’s 1950 population. Pinker says that if World War II had matched the Mongols’ stupendous rate of killing, about 278 million people would have been killed.
Read moreAnd there was an even worse war than the Mongol Conquest: the An Lushan Revolt of eighth century China, an eight-year rebellion that resulted in the loss of 36 million people — two-thirds of the empire’s population, and a sixth of the world’s population at the time. Had it matched that level of atrocity, considering the size of the world’s population in the 1940s, World War II would have killed 419 million people! Pinker calls An Lushan the worst war in human history. By his calculations, based on rates or percentages, World War II was only the ninth worst in history and World War I was the 16th worst.(7)
Moreover, Pinker shows that the two world wars were huge spikes in a graph of war deaths that has declined remarkably since 1950. There has been a slight upward bump since 2010, representing the civil war in Syria, but even that increase is minuscule in comparison to the rates of battle deaths over the preceding centuries.(8)
Pinker admits that there is no guarantee that this civilizing trend will continue, but he marshals much empirical evidence to explain it in terms of several historical changes. One was the transition to agriculture from hunting and gathering. This brought about a fivefold decrease in rates of violent death from chronic raiding and feuding.(9)
A second factor occurred in Europe between the Middle Ages and the 20th century when feudal territories were consolidated into large kingdoms with centralized authority and an infrastructure of commerce. This led to a tenfold-to-fiftyfold decline in homicide rates. There have been numerous other changes since then, including the abolition of such practices as slavery, dueling, sadistic punishment, and cruelty to animals. Since the end of World War II the downward trend has been remarkable.(10)
Nature
Unlike Steven Pinker, who attributes the current relatively wonderful degree of peacefulness to cultural and social changes in history, Dave Grossman attributes it to nature itself. In contrast to those who claim that human nature destines us to be killers, Grossman argues that people are “naturally” reluctant to kill members of their own species. In this respect we resemble other animals, for it is normal for animals to avoid killing their own species. When, for example, two male moose bash each other with their horns, they rarely do much real damage.
In fact, the human reluctance to kill their own kind poses a real problem for military leaders, who must induce their soldiers to fight wars. Lt. Col. Grossman himself had been responsible for training US Army Rangers, and he seems to have taken considerable pride in overcoming nature’s inhibitions.
Grossman cites Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall’s book Men Against Fire, which showed that only 15 to 20 percent of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their weapons at an exposed enemy soldier.(11) Similar results can be shown in earlier wars as well, including for example the battlefield of Gettysburg, where of the discarded muskets later found there, 90 percent were still loaded.(12)
On the other hand, soldiers who work together as crews (e.g. in launching cannon-fire or flamethrowers together) do not show the same hesitation, nor do soldiers whose officers stand nearby, ordering them to fire. And distance matters too; stabbing an enemy is harder to do than shooting one a few meters away, and the farther away the enemy is, the easier it is to shoot him. Bombardiers rarely hesitate to drop shells on the people below, nor do drone operators sitting at controls in a different continent. Distance, team spirit and authority can apparently overcome nature’s misgivings.
In response to Marshall’s discovery, the U.S. military developed new training measures to break down this resistance. For example, instead of having soldiers fire at bulls-eye targets, the army now provides realistic human-shaped silhouettes that pop up suddenly and must be shot quickly. The training also relies on repetition; soldiers are required to shoot many, many times so they stop thinking about the possible implications of each shot.(13)
The best technological innovation for inuring fighters for battle is the video training simulator. As a result of using the equivalent to violent videogames, the military successfully raised soldiers’ firing rates to over 90 percent during the Vietnam War. Because of this “superior training,” Grossman claims that today “non-firers” are almost non-existent among U.S. troops.
While lauding the military for developing such excellent training systems, Grossman is scathing in criticizing the use of video games as entertainment. He maintains that the very methods that turn soldiers into superb killers will, and do, influence the players to become violent in real life. He blames the epidemic of school shootings, for example, largely on the exposure of teen-aged boys to violent films and especially violent video games.(14)
Moreover, the training of soldiers for battle does not protect them from the psychological consequences of fighting. In a study of World War II soldiers, after sixty days of continuous combat, 98 percent of all those surviving had become psychiatric casualties. One-tenth of all American military men were hospitalized for mental disturbances between 1942 and 1945.[14] Moreover, upon their return to civilian life, the incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder remains high, and more veterans commit suicide than had been killed during the war. Also, the U.S. Army dismissed more than 22,000 soldiers for misconduct between 2009- 2016 after they returned from war with mental health problems or brain injuries.(15)
These facts clearly disprove the assertion that human nature itself destines us all to be killers; indeed, one might argue that, on the contrary, nature intends for us all to be peaceful. However, even that assertion is hard to sustain when we look at the evidence showing how widespread is the cultural pattern of glorifying war and warriors.
The Hero Warrior
Not everyone is reluctant to kill. On the contrary. For example, consider Mr. L, an Asian friend of ours whose brother was found decapitated on a forest trail. Mr. L knew who had done it — the army of Burma — so he went to the jungle and joined the resistance army. For seventeen years he was a sniper. Now living in Canada, he finds the memory hard to explain:
“Actually, I loved it. I probably killed about thirty men in all, and it was the greatest feeling! I was always so elated after killing an enemy soldier that I couldn’t sleep that night. That’s what I went to there to do, after all. But now? Well…”
No one in Canada glorifies Mr. L’s achievements, but in another time or place he might be considered a war hero. Brave, effective warriors have been honored by their own societies at least as far back as the ancient Assyrians and Greeks.
There were good reasons for it. When our ancestors still lived in caves, presumably some strong fellow volunteered to stand guard at night to keep out the saber-toothed tigers. His mother must have felt proud of him, and perhaps also praised him and his brave buddies for raiding the neighbors’ cave and bringing home valuable loot.
The Iliad is one long bloodcurdling story about heroes seeking to outdo each other in courage and brutality. Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values.(16) Among the most intelligent militarists who glorified war was the philosopher Georg Hegel,(17) whose views were perfectly ordinary in the Prussian society of his day.
A century later in America militarism was not quite as popular, but the great American psychologist William James, who was a pacifist, could nevertheless understand and even respect it as a moral stance. He pointed out that young males need a thrilling opportunity to test their capacity for enduring physical hardship and surmounting obstacles. That is what sports are for, but James wanted this experience to involve sacrifice and a sense of service as well. He was seeking to innovate a rigorous substitute for military discipline whereby youths could instead contribute positively to society. James understood the emotional value and even romance of militarism, as shown in his sardonic depiction of war from the militarists’ point of view:
“Its ‘horrors’ are a cheap price to pay for rescue from the only alternative supposed, of a world of clerks and teachers, of co-education and zoophily, of ‘consumer’s leagues’ and ‘associated charities,’ of industrialism unlimited, and feminism unabashed. No scorn, no hardness, no valor any more! Fie upon such a cattleyard of a planet!”(18)
James believed that this “manly” yearning for hard challenges ought to be fulfilled. He proposed a system of national service whereby all young males would be conscripted to serve in a challenging role. (He called it a “war against nature,” which is a shocking notion today; we’d prefer to call it a “war for nature.”) He thought that privileged youths should have to experience at least once the hardships that poor people endure throughout their lives. And indeed, since James’s day, the United States and many other prosperous societies have developed programs such as the Peace Corps to fill that need. It is unlikely, however, that the challenges they offer overseas are comparable to the emotions of killing or stepping onto a landmine.
If Pinker’s fond hopes (and our own) could be fulfilled, the planet might indeed resemble what James’s militarists consider a boring “cattleyard” — but that seems unlikely to occur. Our war heroes are still celebrities. And many of them still commit suicide.
The Evolution or the Death of Warfare?
Pinker’s statistics are correct, but it is far too early to celebrate the impending death of war. Weaponry continues to become ever more deadly, and the history of warfare is best described in terms of the evolutionary improvement of weapons. We present in Table 1 the summary of those developments provided by Dave Grossman and Loren Christensen— who, oddly, have omitted today’s worst weapons of mass destruction, as well as the future of autonomous weapons and cyber weapons. These innovations require our utmost concern.
Table 1. Landmarks in the Evolution of Combat
Dates generally represent century or decade of first major, large-scale introduction
c. 1700BC Chariots provide key form of mobility advantage in ancient warfare
c. 400BC: Greek phalanx
c. 100BC: Roman system (pilum, swords, training, professional leadership)
c. 900AD: Mounted knight (stirrup greatly enhances utility of mounted warfare)
c. 1300: Gunpowder (cannon) in warfare
c. 1300: Wide scale application of long bow defeats mounted knights
c. 1600: Gunpowder (small arms) in warfare, defeats all body armor
c. 1800: Shrapnel (exploding artillery shells), ultimately creates renewed need for helmets, c. 1915
c. 1850: Percussion caps permit all-weather use of small arms *
c. 1870: Breech-loading, cartridge firing rifles and pistols
c. 1915: Machine gun
c. 1915: Gas warfare
c. 1915: Tanks
c. 1915: Aircraft *
c. 1915: Self-loading (automatic) rifles and pistols
c. 1940: Strategic bombing of population centers
c. 1945: Nuclear weapons
c. 1960: Large scale introduction of operant conditioning in training to enable killing *
c. 1960: Large scale introduction of media violence begins to enable domestic violent crime
c. 1965: Large scale introduction of helicopters in battle
c. 1970: Introduction of precision-guided munitions in warfare
c. 1980: Kevlar body armor provides first individual armor to defeat state-of-the-art small arms in over 300 years *
c. 1990: Large scale introduction of operant conditioning through violent video games begins to enable mass murders in domestic violent crime
c. 1990: First extensive use of precision guided munitions in warfare (approximately 10 percent of all bombs dropped), by Unites States forces in the Gulf War
c. 1990: Large scale use of combat stress inoculation in law enforcement, with the introduction of paint bullet training
c. 2000: Approximately 70 percent of all bombs used by United States forces in conquest of Afghanistan and Iraq are precision-guided munitions
c. 2000: Large scale use of combat stress inoculation in United States military forces, with the introduction of paint bullet combat simulation training *
* Represents developments influencing domestic violent crime.
Source: Grossman and Christensen, Evolution of Weaponry. Loc. 2058 in Kindle version
In a nutshell, weapons keep get more and more effective at killing, and the population keeps increasing (especially during the past century), so this might suggest a gloomy prediction: that we must expect a world war vastly larger than either of the two previous ones.
But neither Pinker nor Grossman have concluded that the magnitude of a war will inevitably be determined by either the population or the effectiveness of weapons. Pinker believes that the records of history show that war is rather randomly distributed over time and space, not following any discernable pattern.
Scholars know quite a lot about warfare in early civilizations, for we have epic stories such as Gilgamesh in Mesopotamia (about 2500 BCE) and Achilles versus Hector in Homer’s Greece (supposedly 1184 BCE).
The Hittites invented the chariot, and the Egyptians adopted it from them, though there were long intervals when chariots were not used in any Middle Eastern wars. Though the Greeks often used chariots, they would sometimes stop and dismount for hand-to-hand combat. The Greeks invented the phalanx, or row of middle-class citizen-soldiers(19) fighting side by side with their shields overlapping, with long pikes against an enemy’s phalanx.
But the elite warriors worked differently. Achilles, for example, would individually single out the enemy he considered a worthy match. Such a noble warrior might stroll across the battlefield to the enemy’s side, and call out their best fighter by name to come and fight him to the death. This kind of semi-organized warfare also has been practiced until recently in some paleolithic societies, such as in Papua New Guinea.(20)
We need not trace the complete evolution of weaponry from ancient times to now, except to mention a few dramatic innovations. One was the invention of gunpowder, which of course made it easy to kill large numbers of opponents. It was discovered in China during the late ninth century, but was not used in that country except for fireworks. It was adopted in the West, and ironically, much later, the Chinese were defeated by Westerners with firearms.
Historians debate why the Chinese did not use gunpowder(21) for military purposes, but the more interesting point is simply the fact that they did not. We can take this as evidence that technological innovation does not take an inevitable course, for sometimes a society opts not to perfect a weapon that offers the every prospect of improved effectiveness.
Much later, there were other extraordinary military discoveries that have been prohibited almost everywhere. Chemical weapons (notably chlorine, phosgene, and mustard gas.) were used in World War I. Although the Germans soon developed powerful nerve agents such as sarin, no chemical weapons were used in World War II. Some say that Hitler ruled out using them against troops because he had experienced gas poisoning during World War I. However, he did not hesitate to use them in his death camps. In the Geneva Protocol of 1925 the international community banned the use of chemical and biological weapons. In 1973 and 1993 the prohibition was even strengthened by the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the development, production, stockpiling and transfer of these weapons. By now 193 states have ratified that treaty and the whole world expresses shock whenever it is violated, as in the Syrian civil war in 2017.(22)
Likewise, biological agents could be, and have sometimes been, used effectively in warfare. For example, in 1763 the British forces defending Fort Pitt, near Philadelphia, gave blankets from smallpox patients to Indian chiefs who had come to negotiate an end to their conflict.(23)
Epidemics of disease have been a regular feature of warfare throughout the ages. Indeed, more people died of “Spanish flu” during World War I — between 20 million and 50 million(24) — than were killed by military action. When troops move around, they may be exposed to pathogens and carry them with them. However, such epidemics are not spread intentionally, and there is not only a norm against the use of biological agents to kill enemies, but it is also prohibited by the same treaty that bans the use of chemical weapons.
Thus it is evident that at times even the most horrible technological means of killing — gunpowder, chemical, and biological weapons — have been banned and the prohibitions against them have generally been obeyed. People sometimes opt not to use weapons that are available to them. Take heart, for this proves that war is not inexorable.
Yet not all of the worst weapons have been banned, and until they are abolished, one cannot be as optimistic as Steven Pinker in expecting the end of warfare. There are four crucial initiatives going on now to ban weapons. If all are fulfilled, such optimism will be wholly justified. These propose to (a) regulate the trade in conventional arms among nations to prevent the violation of human rights; (b) ban the existence of nuclear weapons, and (c) prohibit the development of lethal autonomous weapons — those sometimes called “killer robots” — and (d) regulate the potential for cyberattacks. Our Platform for Survival promotes each of these bans in specific planks.
The Arms Trade Treaty
It is not now realistic to ban all firearms or other conventional weapons, if only because we depend on states to authorize the use of weapons by police to protect citizens whenever necessary. Nevertheless, it is possible to reduce the incidence and violence of contemporary wars by preventing the transfer of conventional weapons (e.g. assault rifles and other military hardware such as armored personnel carriers) to insurgent groups or lawless states.
Most of the real wars in today’s world differ from what we previously thought of as war. Mary Kaldor calls them “new wars.”(25) For centuries, war had meant conflicts between states with the maximum use of violence. But these “new wars” combine war, organized crime, and human rights violations. They are sometimes fought by global organizations, sometimes local ones; they are funded and organized sometimes by public agencies, sometimes private ones. They resort to such tactics as terrorism and destabilizing the enemy with false information on the Internet.
What is a suitable response to such wars, given our historical assumption that, according to Max Weber’s definitions, a sovereign state is any organization that succeeds in holding the exclusive right to use, threaten, or authorize physical force against residents of its territory.(26) In a time of globalization, Kaldor insists that the monopoly of legitimate organized violence must be shifted from a national to a transnational level and that international peacekeeping must be redefined as law enforcement of global norms. Kaldor’s proposal is consistent with our Platform for Survival’s plank 25, which promotes the cosmopolitan notion of “sustainable common security.”
This approach can begin with the development of a treaty regulating (though not completely banning) the international trade in conventional weapons. Such an international law — the Arms Trade Treaty — was adopted in 2013, when 155 UN member states voted in favor of it and three against, with 23 abstentions. It entered into force on 24 December 2014 after the fiftieth state ratified it.
The treaty, if well enforced, can reduce the incidence and violence of wars. Although one might suppose that the main source of weaponry for “new wars” is the black market trade in illegal arms, that is not the case. Until now, most violent movements have obtained their weapons by purchasing them openly from states that are indifferent as to whether or not the “end users” are responsible. The Arms Trade Treaty prohibits countries from permitting the transfer of weapons to any group or state that violates human rights or international humanitarian law. However, the treaty is only a regulation between states, having no bearing on nations’ internal gun laws.
The Nuclear Bomb: The “Perfect Weapon”?
If there is such a thing as a “perfect sword,” or a “perfect storm,” then what would be a “perfect weapon”? Probably it would be a thermonuclear bomb. A nuclear bomb manifests precisely every attribute of an ideal killing machine; it is the consummate device for destroying enemies on an unlimited scale.
The largest hydrogen bomb that was ever exploded was the Soviet invention, Tsar Bomba, which was exploded by the Soviet Union on 30 October 1961 over Novaya Zemlya Island in the Russian Arctic Sea. It was equivalent to 58.6 megatons of TNT, and its fireball was five miles wide and could be seen from 630 miles away. It was ten times more powerful than all of the munitions expended during World War II combined. The blast wave orbited the earth three times. And even so, Tsar Bomba was only half the size that the inventors had originally planned to build. They had realized that exploding that a full-sized version might have been self-destructive. Indeed, such a weapon is too big ever to be used in a war. It is the “perfect weapon” — so good that it can kill everything, including its creators. No war with such weapons can ever be won. And, as Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan agreed, no nuclear war must ever be fought.
Tsar Bomba was only one bomb, and logically a single such perfect weapon ought to be enough — indeed, it should be “one too many.” You would want to dismantle it as soon as possible. But suppose your crazy enemy has such a bomb too. You might reasonably fear that, seeing you without one, he would take the opportunity to use his. To prevent that, you might want to keep some of these “perfect weapons” and declare that you will retaliate if he starts a fight.
That is what happened. The owners of nuclear weapons each kept a growing stockpile of them. Each side knew that any nuclear war would involve “mutual assured destruction” or “MAD” — the total annihilation of them all. Each side also knew that to explode one them in war would be an act of suicide, yet by 1986 there were 64,449 nuclear bombs on the planet.(27) Madness! But once such a situation of mutual deterrence is established, how can you end it?
The creators of “mutual assured destruction” proposed that the situation be reversed gradually by a process of “arm control.” The adversaries would meet, discuss their predicament, and agree to reduce their stockpiles in equal amounts, one step at a time. But this was tricky, for each side considered every weapon to be, not only a terrible threat, but also a necessity for “security.” It would be used only to deter the other side, keep the adversary from using his bomb.
But when your arsenals contain bombs of different sizes, in different types of delivery systems, it is hard to decide which combination of weapons to offer as your package, or what combination your adversary should offer to match yours. You could go on haggling over this kind of thing for decades.
As indeed the arms controllers have done. Negotiations for nuclear disarmament are supposed to take place by 55 states in Geneva — an organization called the Conference on Disarmament — “CD.” However, all decisions there require the unanimous consent of all parties— which never happens. No progress has been made at the “CD” since the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was negotiated in August 1996. In fact, the nuclear weapons states make it clear that they do not intend to relinquish their bombs within the foreseeable future, since they claim that their “security” depends upon retaining them.
In a strange sense, they are right. However weak a country may be, if it acquires a nuclear arsenal, any unfriendly country will think twice before threatening it. On the other hand, that is obviously an insane notion of “security.” The existence of a “perfect weapon” creates a logical paradox as well as a practical dilemma that no military leaders have solved.
The most humane solution to the paradox is one that the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev recognized and adopted in dealing with President Ronald Reagan during the Cold War. In this he was influenced by the German politician Egon Bahr, who explained in a 1994 interview:
“I came to a very astonishing result at that time. I thought, based on the mutual assured destruction, it’s quite obvious that neither side in a major nuclear exchange can win a war. So if this is true, then the result is in the political sphere — that the potential enemy becomes the partner of your own security and the other way around. In other words, despite the fact of the East-West conflict, both sides can live together or can die together. If this is true, we live in a period de facto of common security.
“And when I reached this result, I was surprised because this was against the experience of history. In history, when you fought, you had to beat the enemy. To become secure, you had to win a war. So, I wrote this down and I thought, better think it over.”(28)
This notion of common security became the guiding principle in the Palme Commission, which was then seeking solutions to the Cold War. The Russian participant in the Palme Commission, Georgy Arbatov, conveyed Bahr’s ideas to Mikhail Gorbachev, who was then the Soviet Minister of Agriculture. Evidently Gorbachev fully assimilated the notion to his own thinking. Shortly after he came to power, Egon Bahr met him and Gorbachev began explaining to him the idea of common security as if he had thought of it himself.(29)
Actually, however, Gorbachev’s notion of common security seems to have differed from that of Bahr, who believed that the situation of common security was created by, and even depended on, the existence of the relationship of mutual assured destruction. Gorbachev cannot have believed that, for it was he, more than anyone else, who sought to abolish all nuclear weapons for the sake of common security. And for about one day, October 11, 1986, in Reykjavik, Iceland he almost got his wish.
President Ronald Reagan shared Gorbachev’s recognition that nuclear war could never be won, and when the two men met in Iceland’s capital, Gorbachev offered to disarm every one of his nuclear weapons if the Americans would do the same with theirs. Since between them the two countries owned the vast majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, such a deal would have ended the arms race and moved humankind back closer to a state of genuine security.
Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan wanted to have both nuclear disarmament and a defence against nuclear weapons, lest any be kept and used to bomb the United States. He had developing a project called “Strategic Defense Initiative,” (then popularly called “Star Wars”) that he hoped would be able to intercept and destroy incoming nuclear missiles before they could reach their targets. If it worked, such a system would only be defensive; it could not attack an enemy but only defend against an enemy’s bombs. However, any country with such a “shield” would enjoy vast superiority over an enemy if it retained even a few nuclear weapons secretly, for its enemy would be helpless. Mutual Assured Destruction would no longer exist to confer its perverse version of “security” on both sides. Gorbachev realized that he could not trade away MAD for such partial progress. Thus the deal collapsed — much to the relief of Reagan’s advisers who had never wanted to give up their country’s nuclear arsenal at all. The subject was never officially broached again in the United States.
However, the conversation between the two superpower leaders did have benign effects. A year later the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to a new treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987. Both sides agreed to ban ground-launched missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. This removed the most frightening danger of that era, when both the Soviet side and the NATO side had been toe-to-toe, nearly installing weapons in Europe that would almost inevitably have led to a real nuclear war.
Indeed, Gorbachev went even further, removing Soviet troops from Eastern Europe and no longer promising to support any of the Communist regimes in that region, should their citizens wish to leave the Soviet sphere of influence — as indeed they did. In 1989, protests swept through those states and forced the Communist regimes, now lacking the support of Soviet military intervention, to relinquish power to formerly dissident political activists.
Nor was the Soviet Union itself exempt from opposition movements. In 1991 Gorbachev had to lower the Soviet flag from the Kremlin, for nationalism and the economic strains of transitioning to capitalism were fragmenting the union that he had led.
But the Cold War was over, and nuclear disarmament continued for several years, though relations between East and West never quite became cordial. Their last arms reduction agreement, the “New START” Treaty, was signed by Presidents Dmitri Medvedev and Barack Obama in 2010. Today there are still about 15,000 nuclear weapons on the planet, 90 percent of which belong to the US or Russia.(30) Moreover, to win approval of that treaty by the U.S. Senate, Obama had found it necessary to consent to modernizing the American nuclear arsenal, which is expected to cost about $1.5 trillion over the next thirty years—unless the Democrats now controlling the House of Representatives reverse that plan.
Tensions are still increasing, with Russia complaining that the US broke the promise it made to Gorbachev not to move NATO “one inch to the east” when he was so readily dismantling the Warsaw Treaty Organization. Indeed, he should probably have insisted that such a promise be recorded in a treaty, for most of the formerly Soviet bloc countries now hope to join NATO and several already have been admitted.
Moreover, although “Star Wars” never lived up to its promoters’ hopes, there is a continuing interest in defensive systems that can intercept incoming missiles in flight. NATO (read “the US”) is installing such a system called Aegis on ships in the Mediterranean, as well as ashore in Romania and Poland. Russia objects that these are not merely defensive, and in a recent paper Theodore A. Postol has shown that their objections are well founded. The canisters from which missiles can be launched in the Aegis Ashore system can easily have software installed that can launch cruise missiles, in violation of the INF Treaty.(31)
For its part, the US has accused Russia of violating the INF Treaty too by preparing to install a new missile that count hit Western European cities. Indeed, President Trump has announced his intention of withdrawing from the INF Treaty in six months and President Putin says he will develop new nuclear weaponry in response. We are in a new arms race.
Thus we see that the long experiment with arms control has failed to abolish nuclear weapons. What other options might succeed instead?
Though there is no prospect of speedy progress, the best alternative initiative is the “Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” (TPNW), which was adopted (by a vote of 122 States in favour (with one vote against and one abstention) at the United Nations on 7 July 2017. It will enter into force 90 days after the fiftieth ratification has been deposited.(32)
The TPNW was the result, not of official arms control negotiations, but of action by civil society—notably an organization called the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). According to all international public opinion polls, the majority of citizens of virtually every country have always wanted nuclear weapons to be abolished, but they have lacked any means of forcing the nuclear weapons states to comply. But the governments of Norway, Mexico, and Austria convened several conferences that flatly denied that nuclear weapons can ever make the world safer. The participants reminded everyone of the catastrophic humanitarian effects of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and showed that on numerous occasions nuclear missiles have nearly been exploded, sometimes by intention, sometimes by mistake. ICAN’s argument has been convincing, and nations are ratifying the TPNW more quickly than with most previous treaties.
So far, the nuclear weapons states just ignore the treaty. Nevertheless, ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 and continues pressing the nuclear states to comply, invoking shame to motivate them. To be sure, the leaders of all nuclear weapons states are shameless and are unmoved by humanitarian appeals to any ethical principles. On the other hand, they can no longer pretend to be progressing toward disarmament with the methods that they have used so far.
So the greatest threat lies ahead, when states are no longer inhibited by the INF treaty or, possibly, even by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which may also be terminated if the nuclear arms race heats up. The US is making a new nuclear weapon only one-third the size of the Hiroshima bomb. One might consider such smaller bombs less dangerous than large ones, but that is not so. A small nuclear weapon is designed to be used in battle, not merely rattled ominously to intimidate or deter an enemy. We are in a post-MAD world now, and something new must be done to counter the threat.
Killer Robots and Cyberattacks
Gunpowder and nuclear weapons were “breakthroughs” in the development of weaponry. Now we must act quickly to prevent the development of other innovations with shocking potential: the application of artificial intelligence, robotics, and cyber-hacking to the development of weapons. Fortunately, we may still have enough time to stop lethal autonomous weapons, for the Pentagon is not yet working on producing them.(33) It is much harder to stop a weapons program after investors have sunk their savings into it and workers’ jobs would be lost by banning the weapon. Stopping cyberattacks will be harder to achieve, for there are already huge institutions using such systems.
In a way, it is entertaining to imagine two shiny robots fighting a duel — a nicer replay of the Iliad, when Achilles and Hector went mano-a-mano at Troy. If the two machines would merely kill each other we might even enjoy cheering for our side’s tin soldier, since no real blood would be shed. Unfortunately, lethal autonomous weapons will not be so restrained. Instead, they will be programmed to hunt down you or me–human adversaries. And if they have artificial intelligence, they may even learn to plan how to take over the world. Or at least such is the warning of some widely respected persons, including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking.
But the Chinese rejected gunpowder, and we can reject killer robots and cyber war. The mechanism for opposing lethal autonomous weapons is a UN body that reviews and enforces a treaty called the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Of course, killer robots are not plausibly considered “conventional,” but they are officially categorized as such because they are not chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The common trait shared by all the banned so-called “conventional” weapons is that they are deemed “inhumane.” (Some of us do not consider any weapons humane except perhaps the darts that are used to tranquilize wild animals for medical treatment.) We must expect that lethal autonomous weapons, if allowed to select their own targets, would not be gentle, so there is an urgent need for such innovations to be prohibited.(34)
Cyberattacks are already a familiar experience for most of us, since we receive fraudulent phishing attacks or fake news in our social media all the time. Banks experience large losses through cyber theft, but prefer not to publicize that fact. There are even ransom attacks on civilians and hospitals, whereby the hacker promises to restore one’s computer to proper functioning only after receiving a large payoff. But these are mere annoyances when compared to an organized cyber war.
Indeed, a malevolent adversary can wreak terrible effects on any society today without firing any weapon. Already you are probably receiving “likes” on your Facebook account from foreign “bots” — fake accounts purporting to belong to someone who shares your values. The purpose is to lure you into reading posts that influence you to accept more extremist ideas or even to participate in extremist street demonstrations. We lack any easy means of identifying and intercepting these messages, though the political effects can indeed be significant in a democracy.
Still the effects of a violent cyber war can surpass these problems. It would be easy for the anti-ballistic missile defence system of any country or alliance to knock out the satellites belonging to its enemy. Already our electric grid and municipal water purification systems are vulnerable to attack, and we are entering the era of the “Internet of Things.” All our digital equipment— e.g. cars, door locks, kitchen stoves, phones — will be managed through remote systems that are vulnerable to hacking. If ten million electric cars stall at the same time on our streets, we will be helpless.
The plans to manage these threats are almost exclusively military: deter your enemy by proving that you can retaliate powerfully to any cyberattack. In 2010 the Obama Administration established a military Cyber Command in the military, and the US is not unique. Out of 114 states with some form of national cyber security programs, 47 assign some role to their armed forces.(35) Russia has already used cyberattacks against Estonia and Georgia; Israel has used them against Syria in conjunction with its bombing of a covert nuclear facility; and the US has used them (a cyber “worm” called “Stuxnet”) against Iran’s nuclear enrichment plant. None of these advanced countries seem genuinely interested in reaching an international agreement to regulate or ban any of their cyber activities.
On the other hand, there have been ostensible efforts to create limits. Obama’s administration called for some action and In 2011 China and Russia submitted a Code of Conduct for Information Security to the UN General Assembly. Most of the proposals in it were innocuous, but one clause asserted all states’ sovereign right to protect their ”information space”. The vagueness of this principle left others wondering whether the whole code of conduct was meant as a serious proposal or as only a cover for problematic intentions. There is an urgent need for international law to prevent cyber war.
Is Militarism the Main Problem?
War and weapons constitute only one of the six global threats that we must urgently address, since any one of them could destroy civilization within a short interval. If we are to strategize and decide how to solve the six threats together, it may be useful to identify which option may have the largest payoff. Probably the answer is this: reduce militarism.
You may ask: Why militarism? Answer: Because war and weapons cause or exacerbate all five of the other global threats. By reducing the national armed forces (we probably cannot eliminate them entirely) we will reduce all the other risks.
Global warming is a danger on the same scale as war. To solve it we must urgently halt the emissions of greenhouse gas from every expendable human activity. And war is not only expendable, but abolishing it would benefit every person involved.
Moreover, it harms all the rest of us by emitting vast amounts of carbon. Manufacturing each gun, each airplane, each tank, each bomb, each bomb or bullet emits greenhouse gas. Flying the planes, shooting the bullets emits it too. The Pentagon is the largest consumer of fuel in the world. When it conducts a military operation overseas, such as in Afghanistan or Iraq, forty percent of the cost goes for transporting the fuel for use there. Then that fuel is used for injuring people and destroying buildings that later must be reconstructed, emitting even more carbon.
Suppose every country reduces its military by, say, 80 percent by the year 2030. No one can say with certainty how much this would reduce the CO2 in the planet’s atmosphere. However, one of the strongest arguments for cutting military expenditures is to limit climate change.
But militarism imposes huge opportunity costs. Diverting the money from militarism could enable other essential innovations, including limiting climate change. Global military expenditures between 1995 and 2016 hovered at about 2.3% of the world’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Sustainable Development Goals could be met with about half of that amount. In other words, such a shift in expenditures would enable humanity’s unmet needs to be provided, for health, education, agriculture and food security, access to modern energy, water supply and sanitation, telecommunications and transport infrastructure, ecosystems, and emergency response, humanitarian work, plus climate change mitigation and adaptation.(36)
The most grave threat besides the risk of nuclear war is climate change, and the most promising way of reducing CO2 in the air is by planting about a trillion trees. But that will cost vast sums. The only likely source of such funds is by diverting budgets from military activities to afforestation. Reducing militarism is the best — maybe the only realistic — way to reduce climate change. Unfortunately, in Kyoto and Paris accords, no country is even obliged to report /em> its military activities as part of its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions.
The other global threats are also all connected to militarism. For example, the only famines in the world today are not the result of food shortages. They are all created deliberately as acts of war or to subdue a population. For example, Saudi Arabia has blockaded food shipments into Yemen precisely to starve the Yemeni population into submission. And the people of Venezuela are starving because of their government’s deliberate policies to suppress protests against a military-backed regime. Famines are designed to violate human rights. Ending militarism would be a decisive step toward ending famine.
Likewise, ending militarism would reduce the incidence of epidemics. Historically, soldiers on the move carry diseases with them and spread them wherever they go. Germ warfare is prohibited by international law now but, as usual, more of the famine victims in Yemen are dying from diseases such as cholera than are actually starving to death or dying in battle. When people are weakened by stress and deprivation, they succumb to diseases. War is a cause.
Furthermore, ending militarism would reduce the risks of massive exposure to radioactivity. The original reason for creating reactors was to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs. Only later did anyone think of using the heat from these reactors as a means of generating electricity. Today large swathes of land are poisoned by radioactive waste, as for example around Hanford, Washington, where the Manhattan Project produced the radioactive ingredients for America’s nuclear arsenal. Seventy years later, the Hanford area is still poisonous and, as Ronan Farrow has reported, “Clean up of the toxic material at the Hanford Nuclear Site is expected to take 50 years.”(37) Numerous other contaminated military sites exist around the world, including battlefields in Syria and Iraq littered with depleted uranium(38) and a leaking dome-shaped dump in the Marshall Islands.(39)
There are countless ways of using radioactivity as a weapon of war. Crashing a plane into an enemy’s reactor may create a plume that would circle the planet, falling everywhere or polluting the oceans. Terrorist organizations are known to be seeking access to radioactive materials, probably for “dirty bombs” that will not explode but will contaminate large areas. The more radioactive waste there is in the world, the more opportunities will inevitably exist for these to become weapons. A solution to the problem requires two approaches: (a) managing the radioactive waste itself for many thousands of years, and (b) reducing the militarism that misuses these wastes as weapons. The technological challenge of burying the waste is probably easier than the social challenge of changing militaristic thinking.
Finally, reducing militarism obviously will reduce the risk of cyberattacks. Indeed, when we speak of cyberattacks, most people assume that we are speaking of a military attack, though there are probably more such attacks waged every day by civilian criminals stealing from businesses and individuals than are sponsored by foreign governments.
All six threats tend to interact causally, so that we need to address them together as a system. Nevertheless, there may be more “leverage” available by quickly demanding a reduction of militarism than through any other direct policy changes.
Still, this will not be easy. People have their jobs and their live savings tied up in the military-industrial complex and will not readily change to projects that can actually save the world. And they will argue that their security depends on having a robust military to defend their country from attack. Their concerns cannot properly be disregarded. If militarism is to be reduced, some other form of armed protection is necessary. We would not, for example, abolish the police in a country or city, for doing so always results in more crime and violence. A few countries (notably Costa Rica) have abolished their armed forces, but they still have police. Something similar must be provided at the international level. Two planks in the Platform for Survival call for the development of “sustainable common security” and a United Nations Emergency Peace Service, which would quickly rush to protect people anywhere in the world who are in danger of attack.
But how many people would trust the United Nations to protect them? There are surely good reasons for skepticism, since the Security Council is controlled ultimately by the veto power of five major states. Only a more democratically accountable body in the United Nations can be trusted to protect people equally, without regard to alliances and enmities between states. Hence, in the Enabling Measures section of the Platform for Survival, we consider some reforms of the United Nations that will make the United Nations a more reliable source of security.
All of these reforms, if introduced together, can reduce militarism and the risks that flow from war and weapons. This argues for a policy assigning top priority to the drastic, worldwide reduction of armed forces as the best means of saving the world from all six global threats.
Footnotes for this article can be seen at the Footnotes 1 page on this website (link will open in a new page).
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Canada, NATO, & The Nuclear Ban Treaty
Paul Meyer | CDA Institute | 19 January 2021
“Does the TPNW complement existing treaties? What are its aims and what gaps could it fill?
Supporters of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) characterized it as filling a “legal gap”. This refers to the fact that of the three categories of WMDs—chemical, biological, and nuclear, only the first two categories are subject to comprehensive prohibition treaties. Nuclear weapons are only constrained by the 1968 (Nuclear) Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT has a far lower standard of restriction on nuclear weapons. The treaty commits its state parties to work towards nuclear disarmament and oppose any proliferation, but the NPT is actually silent on the possession and use of nuclear weapons. Article VI of the NPT outlines an obligation to engage in good faith negotiations to bring the arms race to a cessation at an early date, and for nuclear disarmament. But the NPT lacks the comprehensive prohibition of the other treaties. What’s especially significant is that the TPNW also prohibits the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.”
Read More Here: https://cdainstitute.ca/paul-meyer-canada-nato-the-nuclear-treaty-ban/
That’s an interesting point, but it sure seems contradictory to say that you are negotiating in good faith while actually continuing to possess nuclear weapons. In fact, I don’t think any NW state even pretends to be negotiating for nuclear disarmament.
Well, they did disarm somewhat when Russia and the US were negotiating various treaties. Quite a bit, in fact. They are just not planning to get rid of them all.
Canada, NATO, & The Nuclear Ban Treaty
Paul Meyer | CDI Institute | 19 January 2021
“Does the TPNW complement existing treaties? What are its aims and what gaps could it fill?
Supporters of the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) characterized it as filling a “legal gap”. This refers to the fact that of the three categories of WMDs—chemical, biological, and nuclear, only the first two categories are subject to comprehensive prohibition treaties. Nuclear weapons are only constrained by the 1968 (Nuclear) Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NPT has a far lower standard of restriction on nuclear weapons. The treaty commits its state parties to work towards nuclear disarmament and oppose any proliferation, but the NPT is actually silent on the possession and use of nuclear weapons. Article VI of the NPT outlines an obligation to engage in good faith negotiations to bring the arms race to a cessation at an early date, and for nuclear disarmament. But the NPT lacks the comprehensive prohibition of the other treaties. What’s especially significant is that the TPNW also prohibits the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.”
Read More Here: https://cdainstitute.ca/paul-meyer-canada-nato-the-nuclear-treaty-ban/
If you’re in Canada, please take action to say No to the War on Yemen,
Yemen is now the world’s worst humanitarian disaster – and 15 billion in Canadian-made weapons are going to the Saudis. Take action and call on Trudeau to stop sending munitions that fuel the war in Yemen.
Social Media Post to use:
Please kindly sign & widely share this Canadian Government petition. With enough signatures we can tell the Trudeau Govt to stop the sale of arms to Saudi & to bring them to The Hague for war crimes in #Yemen > https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-3075 #YemenCantWait #Yemen #StopArmingSaudi
Thank you
Excellent suggestion, Ali. Is there any proof that the Saudis are using Canadian weapons against the Yemen people? I am not saying that they AREN’T — I really just don’t know.
I don’t know either. But does it matter? I mean, we know what they are doing to the Yemen people, regardless of the national origin of their weapons, so we should not be providing them with tools that they MIGHT use to oppress people. Sell weapons only to legitimate police forces, and only certain kinds of non-military weapons at that.
On Tuesday, February 9, 2021 at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, I will be joining a conversation with Metta Spencer on her To Save The World YouTube channel. We will be speaking about my work on the McIntyre Powder Project, which is a justice project that I founded to seek answers about the health effects on miners and factory workers who were historically required by their employers to inhale finely ground aluminum dust known as McIntyre Powder – a non-consensual prophylactic medical treatment against the lung disease silicosis. My father, Jim Hobbs, was one of the affected underground miners, who ended up with Parkinson’s. After years of advocacy, researchers found a link between Parkinson’s and McIntyre Powder exposure in a groundbreaking study released in 2020.
What does this have to do with PEACE? Metta’s invitation to engage in this conversation gave me pause to think about the notion of peace and how it relates to the fight that I am engaged in to seek justice and reparation for what was at its core an industrial human health experiment. Where there is wrongdoing, human rights violations, or similar offences, the pathway to peace begins with acknowledgement of the wrongdoing, the violations, the offences. It is fundamental for healing to acknowledge the wound. I very much look forward to speaking with Metta and her guest co-host Dr. Richard Denton.
For anyone seeking background on this subject, please watch The Fifth Estate’s 2016 documentary “The Miner’s Daughter”, or read the Toronto Star’s April 15, 2017 article “In human experiment, Ontario miners say they paid a devastating price” – both of which are available under the “Media Reports” tab of the McIntyre Powder Project website. Thanks!
https://youtu.be/pv2rrwf_wx8
The following document was produced by a movement initiated by Sergey Rogov, former director of the USA/Canada Institute in Moscow. It has been endorsed by 146 experts; see their names at the end. We hope to produce a talk show on our Youtube channel with arms control experts in Moscow, Canada, and other NATO countries. Watch for it on our channel, https://youtube.com/c/ToSaveTheWorld .
— Metta Spencer
Recommendations of the Participants of the Expert Dialogue on NATO-Russia Military Risk Reduction in Europe
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This group of experts from Russia, the United States and Europe held 15 online-seminars on NATO–Russia Risk Reduction in summer and fall of 2020 and offer the following ideas:
To maintain strategic stability, we look forward to immediate action to extend the New START Treaty for 5 years.
At the same time, we are concerned by the deterioration of the European security situation in recent years. The nuclear and conventional arms control system that took decades to build is rapidly unraveling, with nothing to take its place. Incidents in the course of military activities which bring Russian and NATO forces into close proximity are worrisome in their own right and run the risk of escalation. While members of our group diff er over the root causes of the crisis, we are concerned that as tension builds between Russia and NATO, a real military confrontation becomes an increasing danger.
Given this situation, we call upon our countries’ leaders to demonstrate the political will necessary to take a number of urgent actions in order to reduce the risks of military conflict. These military and security actions should be pursued whether or not we make progress in reducing the serious political disputes among our countries. Indeed, these steps can contribute to an atmosphere, in which resolution of those difficult political issues becomes more achievable.
We propose a set of measures, recognizing that not all of these steps will be immediately feasible. The detailed recommendations below address the following areas:
1. Re-establishing practical dialogue between Russia and NATO, including direct contacts between the military commanders and experts of Russia and NATO member states.
2. Developing common rules that will reduce the risk of unintended incidents on land, air and sea.
3. Enhancing stability by increasing transparency, avoiding dangerous military activities, and providing dedicated communication channels that would avoid escalation of incidents that might occur.
4. Utilizing (and possibly supplementing) the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act to codify restraint, transparency and confidence-building measures.
5. Exploring possible limitations on NATO and Russian conventional force deployments in Europe to enhance transparency and stability.
6. Establishing consultations between Russia and US/NATO on the topics of intermediate-range missiles and ballistic missile defense, in order to prevent a new nuclear missile race in Europe.
7. Preserving the Open Skies Treaty.
SPECIFIC PROPOSALS
1.The need for dialogue
1.1. Political dialogue should be revitalized at the ambassadorial level in the NATO-Russia Council and include briefi ngs by military experts as appropriate.
1.2. As part of the NATO 2030 refl ection process, Russia and NATO member states should analyze relations between NATO and Russia with a view to developing the military-to-military dialogue. At a time when most NATO-Russia cooperation remains suspended, such a dialogue should not be viewed as a departure from NATO’s “no business as usual” policy, but as a step that is necessary to increase predictability and reduce the risk of military incidents at sea, in the air and on land escalating to the level of military conflict.
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1.3 Once Russia and NATO member states reach a formal or informal understanding or agreement, they could take initial steps in the form of parallel unilateral measures that do not necessarily require conclusion of a formal agreement between NATO, or NATO member states, and Russia, which could prove politically difficult to achieve in the present environment.
1.4. Regular meetings should be held between the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff , the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) and the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, reinforced by military experts, to address issues of current concern.
1.5. In addition, NATO member states and Russia should resume contacts at the level of military representatives in the NATO Military Committee and restore the Russian military liaison mission at SACEUR Headquarters.
1.6. Furthermore, NATO member states and Russia should enhance military contacts in OSCE forums to provide a more effi cient and inclusive format for discussion and quick decision-making on current issues relating to military activities.
1.7. NATO and Russia should consider the possibility of establishing special NATO-Russia communication channels or hotlines in sensitive regions such as the Baltic, and Black sea regions and the High North area.
1.8. While the recommendations off ered in this paper would be developed primarily in NATO-Russia channels, a number of them could be opened to discussion with and participation by other countries, such as Sweden and Finland in the Baltic and High North regions, and Ukraine and Georgia in the Black Sea region.
2.Preventing incidents
2.1. Prevention of incidents and de-escalation once they have occurred is the most urgent issue related to military interaction. NATO member states and Russia, as well as other European states, need to together formulate a minimum set of realistic measures that could be adopted as formal agreements, informal understandings or parallel, coordinated steps. While they do not have to be in the form of a legal treaty, they should have real force so as to effectively reduce the level of mutual tension.
2.2. NATO and Russia should develop a single set of common rules that would define minimum distances between military aircraft and ships as well as procedures for interaction of crews. To this end, they could resume joint work within the framework of the Cooperative Airspace Initiative (CAI), which had as one of its tasks the strengthening of confidence-building measures along the NATO-Russia line of contact. To address this task, sides should resume a navigational data exchange on the air situation along Russia’s Western border with NATO member states that was already established in the past.
2.3 As one of the options for managing incidents, the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Agreement on Prevention of Incidents at Sea and in the Airspace Above the Sea, as well as 11 similar agreements between certain NATO member states and Russia, could be taken as the basis for additional bilateral or multilateral agreements. Another source of ideas and approaches can be found in the Sino-American agreement of 2014 and Protocol of 2015 on prevention of incidents, which combines principles of prevention of incidents at sea and prevention of incidents during military activities in general.
2.4. Russia and the United States should reach agreement on notifi cation of heavy bomber patrols and fl ights near the borders of the other side, similar to the notifi cations they exchange of ICBM and SLBM launches.
2.5. NATO and Russia should develop and adopt standardized procedures for de-escalation of military incidents and confl icts. They should also conduct joint staff training exercises to prepare for de-escalation, create de-confliction mechanisms in the Baltic, High North and Black Sea regions, and establish a joint mechanism similar to the one built up by Russia and the United States in Syria.
3. Ensuring stability
3.1. NATO member states and Russia should reaffirm the reciprocal political commitments contained in the NATO-Russia Founding Act (1997) and the CFE Final Act (1999) whereby NATO and Russia agree to refrain from additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces in areas close to the territory of the other side in Europe.
3.2. They should explore the possibility of reciprocal constraints or further parallel unilateral commitments on the size and scope of military activities in contiguous areas, or on the level of armed forces permanently located in such areas, with scope wider and thresholds for advance notification and mandatory observation much lower than those required under the 2011 Vienna Document. A focus for such measures could be the Baltic Region (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland and Germany), including Kaliningrad and Russia’s Western military district.
3.3. NATO member states and Russia should consider including in transparency measures land-based and sea-launched conventional intermediate (medium-range) strike systems, such as cruise missiles that may be located outside the contact zones if they can support exercises and military operations in the contact zones.
3.4. They could also draw on the experience with the provisions relating to the inner-German border area contained in the 1989 U.S.-Soviet agreement on preventing dangerous military activities. That agreement required troops to behave with caution in the border area. The sides could consider the establishment of reciprocal zones in which exercises should not be conducted, e.g. within 5 to 10 kilometers of specified borders, while also limiting personnel and certain kinds of military equipment in such zones.
3.5. Russia and NATO member states could agree that both sides will conduct large-scale military exercises, as a rule, at a militarily meaningful distance from their borders taking into account the specificity of contact zones. They should consider reducing the scale and frequency of military activities with respect to numbers and geography, in particular exercises in near borders. Generally, military exercises should be executed responsibly, not provocatively.
3.6. As for “snap exercises”, which continue to be a source of tension and are not subject to prior notification, we recommend the establishment of a regime of mutual transparency at a high military level between Russia and NATO. To that end, a “quiet notification” mode should be developed, e.g. providing confidential advance high-level notice to the other side, but with no advance warning to troops participating in the exercises. “Quiet notification” could also be applied to short-notice transit of multinational forces. An appropriate level for this sort of mutual information exchange would be the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
4. NATO-Russia Founding Act
4.1. If agreements can be reached between NATO and Russia on additional confidence-building, transparency and restraint measures, these could be incorporated as additional protocols or annexes to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act.
4.2. NATO and Russia could also agree to defi nitions of the parameters of the reciprocal measures of restraint mentioned in the Founding Act, such as “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.” This could be established as the equivalent of one army brigade and one air wing/regiment per country or Russian military district.
4.3. With the implementation of these additional risk-reduction measures and significant progress in the resolution of broader political differences between NATO and Russia, the sides could agree to draw up a new Code of Conduct for European security, which could also engage other European states beyond NATO and Russia.
5. Possible agreements on conventional armed forces in Europe
5.1. Confidence-building measures and possible measures of restraint should provide for eff ective collective and individual defense for all states in the region, big and small, with a view to enhancing stability and transparency, avoiding surprises, and minimizing risks of escalation. Given that a new conventional arms control treaty does not seem possible or practicable at this time, agreements may take the form of political commitments.
5.2. NATO and Russia should start negotiations to adopt certain measures to limit the arms race in the European region based on the assumption that currently deployed force levels are sufficient. Agreement should be aimed primarily at limiting destabilizing concentrations of forces and military training activities.
5.3. Both sides should consider and discuss the potentially destabilizing capabilities of some precision and long-range conventional weapons with a view to exercising restraint and ensuring transparency in this sphere. They could adopt transparency measures also with respect to conventional strike forces located outside the zone of direct contact of Russia and NATO. This refers to naval forces, long-range aviation and ground-based weapons, not covered by New START, with the range capability to reach this region.
5.4. The measures proposed in this paper should be significantly more far-reaching than the provisions of the Vienna Document 2011. They should take into account the experience of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and its adapted version and extend their scope.
5.5. Therefore, we recommend conducting an analysis of the Vienna Document 2011 with a view to extending the scope of its transparency and verification measures and its provisions on large-scale military exercises and other deployments to include naval forces, all large air force and air defense formations, conventional ground-, air- or sea-launched ballistic or cruise missiles, as well as logistic and communication units.
5.6. NATO member states and Russia should practice parallel unilateral arms control measures, coordinating them in advance, where practicable, and reciprocating as appropriate.
6. Missile Defenses and Intermediate Range Missiles in Europe
6.1. Russia and the United States/NATO should hold consultations on missile defense in Europe, both strategic and non-strategic, nuclear and non-nuclear, with a view to increasing transparency and overcoming existing differences.
6.2. They should consider ways to bridge the differences between NATO’s declared intention not to deploy any nuclear-armed ground-based missiles in Europe and Russia’s proposal for a moratorium on nuclear- and conventionally-armed medium-range and intermediate-range missiles in Europe. A first step could be to agree upon reciprocal transparency measures with regard to existing capabilities.
6.3. Russia, the United States and other NATO member states should enhance transparency beyond current capabilities through an annual exchange of ten-year plans for the development of missile defense in Europe, the creation of a data exchange center, and notification of new missile defense elements that have reached operational readiness.
7. Open Skies Treaty
7.1. Participants in the dialogue support preserving the Open Skies Treaty as it is one of the few remaining transparency instruments geared to promote confidence-building between states parties in Europe.
7.2. We should focus on the consequences of the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty for the remaining 33 states parties and on preserving the treaty. All states parties, including Russia, should remain in the Treaty for a sufficient time to assess how it would function in these conditions and to allow time for possible re-entry by the United States. Russia and the United States, as well as other states parties, should discuss their concerns about the treaty and try to find agreed solutions.
7.3. Remaining states parties should consider the possibility of joint diplomatic initiatives aimed at returning the United States to the Open Skies Treaty.
Americans, Europeans and Russians, who signed the statement
Note: Each of the signers of these recommendations agrees with most but not necessarily all of them.
Affiliations are for purposes of identification only.
1. Benoît d’Aboville, Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative to NATO, Vice President of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS), France.
2. James Acton, co-director, Nuclear policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace;
3. Graham Allison, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, “Founding Dean” of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, until 2017 Director of its Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, former Assistant Secretary of Defense;
4. Roy Allison*, Professor of Russian and Eurasian International Relations, Director, Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford;
5. Alexey Arbatov, Head, Center for International Security, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
6. Nadezhda Arbatova, Head, Department for European Political Studies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO);
7. Valeriy Baranov, Colonel General (ret.), Inspector general of the Ministry of Defense.
8. Vladimir Baranovsky*, Member of the Directorate, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International relations (IMEMO), Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
9. Alexandra Bell*, former Director for Strategic Outreach in the Office of the US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Senior Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation;
10. Robert Bell*, former assistant to the US President, former counselor to the Secretary General of NATO, distinguished Professor of the Practice, Georgia Tech;
11. John Beyrle, former Ambassador of the United States to the Russian Federation (2008–2012), former Ambassador to Bulgaria (2005–2008), Chairman of the U.S. Russia Foundation
12. James Bindenagel*, Ambassador (ret.), Henry Kissinger Professor, em.Center for Advanced Security, Strategy and Integration Studies, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn;
13. Hans Blix, former Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs, former IAEA Director General, Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC);
14. Dieter Boden, Ambassador (ret), Potsdam;
15. Michael Boyce, Former Chief of the Defence Staff and First Sea Lord of the Royal Navy; a cross bench member of the the British House of Lords;
16. Ulrich J. Brandenburg, German Ambassador to NATO (2007–2010), German Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2010–2014);
17. Karl-Heinz Brunner, Member of Parliament, Spokesman on the Sub-Committee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation of the German Bundestag, Berlin;
18. Corentin Brustlein, Director of the Center for Security Studies, France 19. Philip Breedlove*, USAF General retired. Distinguished Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, former US European Command Commander and Supreme Allied Commander Europe;
20. Des Browne, Chair of the European Leadership Network (ELN), Vice-Chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Convener of the TLG and former UK Defence Secretary
21. Denis Bukonkin*, Director of Foreign Policy and Security Research Center, Minsk; Belorussia;
22. William J. Burns, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Deputy Secretary of State, former Ambassador to Russia;
23. Evgeniy Buzhinsky*, Lieutenant General (ret.), Vice President of the Russian International Affairs Council; Chairman, Executive Board, PIR Center;
24. Vincenzo Camporini, former Chief of the Joint Defence Staff , Former Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Italy;
25. Samuel Charap*, former Senior Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, 2011–2012;
26. Pierce Corden*, former head of the department of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, research fellow at the Center for science, technologies and security policy;
27. Thomas Countryman*, former Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, Chairman of the Arms Control Association;
28. Dmitry Danilov*, Head of Department at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IERAS);
29. Christopher Davis*, Professorial Research Fellow, University of Oxford;
30. Lewis Dunn*, former U.S. Ambassador to the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons;
31. Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, Former Danish Foreign Minister (1982–1993);
32. Victor Esin*, Colonel General (ret.), Former Head of the Main Staff of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces, Leading Research Fellow, Department for Military-Political Research, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN);
33. Marc Finaud*, Head of Arms Proliferation and Diplomatic Tradecraft, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy;
34. Ute Finckh-Kraemer, former Member of Parliament, Foreign Affairs Committee, Sub-Committee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-proliferation; Alumna of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-proliferation (PNND);
35. Cornelius Friesendorf, Head, Centre for OSCE Research, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy, at the University of Hamburg (IFSH);
36. Helmut W. Ganser, Brigadier-General (ret), Defence Advisor to the German NATO Delegation 2004–2008, Brussels;
37. Rainer L. Glatz, Lieutenant-General (ret), former Commander German Armed Forces Joint Force Command, Potsdam;
38. Valery Garbuzov, Director, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN);
39. Francois Le Goff, General Secretary of the Franco-German-British Club of Three;
40. Thomas Gomart, Director, Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI);
41. Alexander Graef, Research Fellow, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH);
42. Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform (CER), UK;
43. Philippe Gréciano, Professor at Grenoble Alpes University, Jean Monnet Chair, Member of the Center for International Security and EU Cooperation, France;
44. Alexey Gromyko**, Director of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IERAS), Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
45. Wolfgang Guensche, LtColonel (ret), former Head of Arms Control Unit, German Armed Forces Verification Centre, Geilenkirchen; former military advisor to the German Foreign Office on security, arms control and disarmament;
46. David Hannay, Former Ambassador to the EU and to the UN; current Chair of UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation in the UK Parliament;
47. Ruediger Hartmann, Ambassador (ret), former Commissioner of the German Federal Government for Disarmament and Arms Control;
48. Benjamin Hautecouverture, Senior Research Fellow at Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS);
49. François Heisbourg, Chairman and Special Advisor, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) / Foundation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS), France;
50. Kurt Herrmann, Lieutenant-General (ret), former Head NATO Military Liaison Mission (MLM), Moscow, and former Director NATO Communication and Information Systems Services Agency (NCSA);
51. Sven Hirdman, Ambassador to Russia 1994–2004, State Secretary Ministry of Defence of Sweden (1979–1982);
52. Matthias Hoehn, Member of Parliament, Chairman, Sub-Committee on Disarmament, Arms Control and Non-Proliferation of the German Bundestag, Berlin;
53. Hellmut Hoffmann, Ambassador (ret), former Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Conference on Disarmament (2009–2013);
54. Heiner Horsten, Ambassador (ret), Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the OSCE in Vienna 2008–2012;
55. Hans Huebner, Brigadier-General (ret), former Director, German Arms Control Verification Centre, Geilenkirchen;
56. Hans-Dieter Heumann, Ambassador (ret.), former President of Federal College for Security Policy, Berlin;
57. Jon Huntsman, former Governor of Utah, former Ambassador of the United States to Russia, to China and to Singapore;
58. Igor Istomin, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Applied International Political Analysis, MGIMO University;
59. Igor Ivanov, Minister of Foreign Affairs (1998–2004), former Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation (2004–2007), President of Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC);
60. Juhani Kaskeala, Senior Finnish Admiral and former Chief of Defence of the Finnish Defence Forces (2001–2009);
61. Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association;
62. Michael Kofman*, Director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA, Fellow at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center;
63. Bert Koenders, Former Foreign Minister of the Netherlands;
64. Lawrence Korb*, US Navy Captain (ret.), former Assistant Secretary of Defense, Reagan Administration, Senior Research Fellow, Center for American Progress, and Senior Advisor, Defense Information Center;
65. Andrey Kortunov*, Director General, Russian International Affairs Council;
66. Oleg Krivolapov*, Research Fellow, Department for Military-Political Research, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN);
67. Evgeniy Kozhokin, Dean of School of International Relations and Regional Studies of the State University for Humanitarian Studies;
68. Ulrich Kuehn, Head, Arms Control and Emerging Technologies, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH);
69. Valentin Kuznetsov*, Vice Admiral (ret.), former Chief Military Representative of the RF at NATO, Senior Research Fellow, Department for Military-Political Research, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN);
70. Henrik Larsen, Senior Researcher, Center for Security Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich);
71. Robert Legvold, Marshall D. Shulman Professor, Columbia University;
72. Imants Liegis, Latvian Ambassador to France and to Hungary, Latvia’s Defense Minister (2009–2010) and the Acting Minister of Justice (2009–2010);
73. Osman Faruk Logoglu, former Turkish Ambassador to the United States and former Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
74. Mogens Lykketof, former Minister for Finance and Foreign Affairs and Speaker of Parliament, Denmark. Former President of the United Nations General Assembly (2015–2016), Denmark;
75. Roderic Lyne, former British ambassador to the Russian Federation;
76. Ruediger Luedeking, Ambassador (ret), former Deputy Commissioner of the German Federal Government for Disarmament and Arms Control;
77. Vladimir Lukin, Russian Ambassador to the United States (1992-1994),
director on the board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council of the RF;
78. Douglas Lute*, Lieutenant General (rt.), US Ambassador to NATO,
2013–2017, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center, Harvard University;
79. Emmanuelle Maitre, Research Fellow at FRS;
80. Michael Maclay, Chairman of the Franco-German-British Club of Three;
81. János Martonyi, Former Foreign Affairs Minister of Hungary;
82. John McColl, former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) and Lieutenant-Governor of Jersey, UK;
83. Oliver Meier, Senior Researcher, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH);
84. Giles Merritt, Founder and Chairman, Friends of Europe;
85. Mira Milosevich-Juaristi, Senior Analyst for Russia and Eurasia, Elcano Royal Institute for International and Strategic Studies, Spain;
86. Victor Mizin*, Leading Research Fellow, Center for International Security, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO);
87. Thierry de Montbrial, founder and Executive chairman of Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI);
88. Klaus Naumann, General (ret), former Chief of Staff of the Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces); Former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee (1996-1999);
89. Alexander Nikitin*, Director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Security, of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation (MGIMO), Honorary President of the Russian Association of Political Science;
90. Bernard Norlain, General (ret), former Air Defense Commander and Air Combat Commander of the French Air Force;
91. Joseph Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Under-Secretary of State, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, former Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government;
92. Olga Oliker*, Director for Europe and Central Asia, International Crisis Group;
93. Sergey Oznobishev*, Head, Department of Military and Political Analysis and Research Projects, Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO);
94. William Perry, former US Secretary of Defense, Director of the Preventive Defense Project at CISAC, FSI Senior Fellow;
95. Thomas R Pickering, former US Under Secretary of State, former Ambassador to Jordan, Nigeria, El Salvador, Israel, the United Nations, India and Russia;
96. Steven Pifer*, former US Ambassador to Ukraine, William Perry research fellow at Stanford University and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution;
97. William Potter, Director, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Foreign Member to the Russian Academy of Sciences;
98. Pavel Palazhchenko*, Head of the International Relations, the Gorbachev Foundation;
99. Giampaolo Di Paola, former Minister of Defence of Italy; Former Chairman of NATO Military Committee;
100. Solomon Passy, former Chairman of the United Nations Security Council, former Bulgarian Foreign Minister;
101. Friedrich W. Ploeger, Lieutenant-General (ret), German Airforce, former Deputy Commander AIRCOM Ramstein (2010–2013);
102. Ruprecht Polenz, President German Association for East European Studies, former Chairman Committee on Foreign Affairs of the German Bundestag
103. Paul Quilès, President of the Initiatives for Nuclear Disarmament (IDN). Former Defence Minister and former President of the Defence and Armed Forces Committee of the National Assembly of France;
104. Alain Richard, French Senator; Defence Minister of France (1997–2002);
105. David Richards, General (ret), former Chief of the Defence Staff, member of the UK House of Lords;
106. Wolfgang Richter*, Colonel (ret.), Senior Military Advisor of the Permanent Representation of Germany to the OSCE, Vienna (2005–2009); Senior
Associate, International Security Division, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin (SWP)
107. Malcolm Rifkind, Former Conservative MP in the UK Parliament, former chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee and former British Defence Secretary and former Foreign Secretary;
108. Cynthia Roberts*, Professor of Political Science, Hunter College, City University of New York, Senior Research Scholar, Columbia University, policy adviser, Joint Staff , US Department of Defense, 2019;
109. George Robertson, Former NATO Secretary General; Former UK Secretary of State for Defence;
110. Sergey Rogov**, Academic Director, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN), Chairman of the International Security Advisory Board of the Scientific Council at the Security Council of the Russian Federation; Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
111. Kevin Ryan*, Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Member of the US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, former Defense Attache at the US embassy in Russia, Brigadier General;
112. Laëtitia Saint-Paul, French Politician and Vice President of the National Assembly;
113. Pavel Sharikov*, Leading Research Fellow, Department for Military-Political Research, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN);
114. Igor Sherbak, former First Deputy of the Permanent Representative of the RF at the United Nations, Research Fellow Chief the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
115. Robby Schlund, Head of German-Russian Parliament Group, Deutscher Bundestag;
116. Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Senior Associate Research Fellow, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF);
117. Reiner Schwalb, Brigadier-General (ret), National German Representative at NATO Allied Command Transformation, Norfolk/VA, 2007–2010; German Senior Defense Official and Attaché to the Russian Federation, Moscow, 2011–2018;
118. Vladimir Senko, former Foreign Minister of Belarus; Former Ambassador of Belarus to the United Kingdom.;
119. Stefano Silvestri, Senior Scientific Advisor at Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), former Under Secretary of State for Defence, former President of IAI (2001–2013);
120. Hartwig Spitzer, Professor, Centre for Science and Peace Research, University of Hamburg;
121. Michael Staack, Professor, Helmut-Schmidt-University/University of the Armed Forces in Germany, Hamburg;
122. Armin Staigis, Brigadier-General (ret), former Vice President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin;
123. Stefano Stefanini, former Permanent Representative to NATO, Former Diplomatic Advisor to the President of Italy;
124. Angela Stent, professor, Georgetown University;
125. Nataliya Stepanova* Research Fellow, Department for Military-Political Studies, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN);
126. Goran Svilanović, Former Secretary General, Regional Cooperation Council, Serbia;
127. Strobe Talbott, Distinguished fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, Deputy Secretary of State (1994–2001), President of the Brookings Institution (2002–2017);
128. John Tefft, former US Ambassador to Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Lithuania
129. Greg Thielmann*, Board member of the Arms Control Association, Commissioner of the U.S.-Russian-German “Deep Cuts” Project;
130. Adam Thomson*, Director of the European Leadership Network, Permanent UK Representative to NATO (2014–2016);
131. Alexander Tikhansky, military-political analyst (Belarus), professor of the Academy of Military Science of Russia;
132. Nathalie Tocci, Director of Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Italy, Special Adviser to EU High Representative/Vice President Josep Borrell;
133. Vyacheslav Trubnikov, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (1996–2000), Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation (2000–2004), Member of the Directorate, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO);
134. Vygaudas Ušackas*, former Foreign Minister of Lithuania, Lithuanian ambassador to USA, Mexico and UK as well as EU ambassador to Russia and Afghanistan, Member of the Board of Directors of Avia Solutions Group;
135. Alexander Vershbow*, former Assistant Secretary of Defense, former NATO Deputy Secretary General; former US Ambassador to South Korea, NATO, Russia; Distinguished Visiting Fellow at University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House; Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council;
136. Karsten D. Voigt, former Member of Parliament and President of the NATO-Parliamentary Assembly, former German-American Coordinator in the German Federal Foreign Office;
137. Fedor Voytolovsky, Director, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
138. Andrew Weber, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, and Senior Fellow, Council on Strategic Risks.
139. Igor Yurgens*, President of the All-Russian Insurance Association, Member of the Board of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs;
140. Andrey Zagorskiy*, Head, Department for Disarmament and Conflict Resolution Studies, Primakov National Research Institute for World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO);
141. Dr Wolfgang Zellner, Senior Research Fellow and former Deputy Director, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH)
142. Valery Zhuravel, Colonel (ret), chief adviser of the Department of International Security of the Staff of the Security Council of the Russian Federation (2009–2014), head of the Center for Arctic Studies of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
143. Vitaliy Zhurkin, Director Emeritus, Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IERAS), Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
144. Pavel Zolotarev*, Major General (ret.), Leading Research Fellow, Department of Military-Political Studies, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (ISKRAN);
145. Vladislav Zubok, professor, London School of Economics.
146. Per Carlsen, former Assistant Secretary of Defence (Denmark), Former Ambassador to Vilnius, Moscow and Riga
* – Members of the expert group.
** – Co-chairs of the expert group.
‘This is going to be quite a show’: Biden’s arms control team eyes nuclear policy overhaul
President Joe Biden is assembling a national security team with an unusually ambitious agenda to negotiate new arms control treaties, scale back the nuclear arsenal, and review decades of military doctrine.
But veterans of the last administration fear this newly empowered group of progressives may be naive about what can be achieved without undermining U.S. security, and are already warning them to prepare for a shock when they read the latest intelligence.
Taking up posts at the Pentagon, State Department and National Security Council are a cadre of experts who collectively have their sights on a renaissance in nuclear restraint, after President Donald Trump withdrew from three arms control pacts, threatened a nuclear war with North Korea and expanded the role of nuclear weapons in war planning.
Biden has already agreed to extend the last remaining nuclear agreement with Russia, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and called for further negotiations with Moscow to place new limits on their arsenals, the world’s largest. And the group of arms control experts he is enlisting to carry out his agenda represents the vanguard of a decades-long progressive push to pull back from the nuclear brink and seek the elimination of atomic weapons.
“The stars are aligned,” said Joe Cirincione, a veteran nonproliferation advocate who mentored a number of Biden’s picks. “Extending New START for five years is just the opening gambit. This is going to be quite a show.”
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“I think a lot of these guys who are going into government are going to finally start getting classified briefings about what China has been up to,” said Tim Morrison, who oversaw the arms control portfolio on the National Security Council under Trump and is now at the Hudson Institute. “I want to be a fly in the room. The color is going to drain out of their faces, they are going to sit back in their chairs, and they are going to say ‘oh s—.'”
Under Trump, the United States significantly increased spending on nuclear weapons and also fielded a new submarine-launched warhead, citing Russian and Chinese nuclear buildups and more aggressive efforts by North Korea to increase its arsenal and develop more advanced long-range missiles.
Others see Biden’s willingness to accept Russia’s offer to extend New START a full five years without preconditions as a worrying sign the new team won’t be tough enough on the Russians.
“I think that is a bad signal and suggests that Biden may be a pushover when it comes to this sort of thing because even those who still see value in New START agree there are some things the United States should be pushing for,” former Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, a leading skeptic of arms control agreements, said in an interview.
Trump’ chief arms control negotiator, former Ambassador Marshall Billingslea, is also critical about Biden’s first move.
“They gave away all of the leverage that they had in order to get additional arms control done,” he said. “It’s not at all clear to me what further interest the Russians have in negotiating anything with the Biden administration.”
But the team advising Biden has big ambitions. One leading player is Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, a veteran of the Obama State Department who coordinated efforts to combat the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. She has been nominated to be undersecretary of State for arms control and international security.
Jenkins has recently argued for declaring a “no first-use” policy when it comes to nuclear weapons, which arms control advocates consider a major step toward reducing nuclear tensions.
“We are trying to say, ‘we are not going to attack you with a nuclear weapon unless you attack us with a nuclear weapon,” she explained in a podcast this month. “That’s kind of the direction it was going. However, in 2018 we kind of took some steps back on that. We have added all these conditions where we can actually use a nuclear weapon. We have gone backwards.”
She is joined by a growing roster of progressive-minded national security experts who have advocated for some of the most drastic changes in U.S. nuclear policy in recent years.
For example, several key players in the new administration have ties with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the research arm of the liberal Council for a Livable World, which aims to “reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.”
Alexandra Bell, a former State Department official who most recently was the center’s policy director, has been appointed as deputy assistant secretary of State in the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance. Leonor Tomero, former chief counsel for the House Armed Services Committee who was the think tank’s director, will oversee nuclear and missile defense programs for the undersecretary of Defense for policy.
Meanwhile, Mallory Stewart, the new senior director for arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation on the National Security Council, is a longtime national security official and think tank scholar who was a member of the center’s board. And others with ties to the organization include Colin Kahl, Biden’s nominee to be Pentagon policy chief, who is an adviser.
“They want to lower the risk of having any nuclear catastrophe,” said former Rep. John Tierney, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, calling their new influence “a tremendous win for the State Department, the United States, and indeed, every person on the planet who believes a world free from nuclear threats is possible.”
“They want have have as much reasonable, verifiable arms control as they can to lower the risk of a nuclear catastrophe,” he added.
Other players on the arms control front include the NSC’s head of strategic planning, Sasha Baker. She’s a former national security adviser to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading advocate in the chamber for reducing the size of the American arsenal.
“She is probably the person who’s going to rewrite the national security strategy,” Darryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, one of the leading disarmament groups, said of Baker.
Many of Biden’s arms control advisers believe deeply that the United States’ plan to modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad — bombers, submarines and land-based missiles — is more comprehensive and expensive than needed to deter nuclear adversaries.
They are expected to review the nuclear modernization portfolio, which is expected to cost upwards of half a trillion dollars over the next decade alone, and much more after that. They are almost certain to try to kill a new, “low-yield” nuclear warhead that the Trump administration outfitted on submarines.
They are also likely to find more allies in a Democratically-controlled Congress.
“I think [Biden] is in a position where he can change our nuclear weapons doctrine,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and leading advocate for curtaining nuclear weapons spending, said in an interview.
He also believes the need for arms control has only grown “because of these past four years with Donald Trump.”
“We can see how quickly our relationship with other nuclear weapon powers can become much more tense and dangerous,” Markey said. “We can’t afford nuclear weapons overkill.”
Meanwhile, Tomero’s former boss, Rep. Adam Smith, is chair of the Armed Services Committee. Smith, a leading national security progressive in Congress, has been among the most vocal proponents for cutting the nuclear budget.
“There is a good opportunity when you add in the fact that Adam Smith clearly sees that this whole modernization plan, as it’s currently projected, is going to be way too expensive,” Tierney said.
“We don’t need any of the new weapons that Trump put in,” he added. “And [Biden] was clear on that when he was running. There is no reason why we should be developing new classes of weapons and nuclear warheads. That is destabilizing and it just leads to an arms race and makes everybody less safe.”
But the political and diplomatic obstacles to Biden’s agenda are also enormous, whether Washington tries to revive arms control agreements or pursue new ones with Russia, Iran, North Korea or China, or curtail U.S. plans to upgrade its own arsenal and reduce the role of nuclear weapons in American strategy.
“Some of the aspirations, some of the idealized goals of some of his base, they may not get what they want,” said Morrison, the former Trump administration NSC official.
Peter Huessy, director of strategic deterrent studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, which is supported by the defense industry, also worries that the United States lacks enough experienced negotiators to replicate some of the arms control successes of the Cold War.
“By not having a professional cadre of arms negotiators, we lose institutional memory as well as full understanding of the gambits used by the Russians and the tricks they play in negotiations,” he said.
Follow along as we track the administration’s first 100 days. »
Others rebutted the idea that Biden’s team doesn’t have what it takes, or that they are naive about what can be achieved.
“They are believers, as has every president from Eisenhower to Obama, that arms control is a key tool to national security that reduces both existential and lesser risks to the United States,” said Ambassador Tom Countryman, who served as acting undersecretary of State for arms control and international security in the Obama administration.
“There is no greater risk to the existence of the United States than the increasing risk of the use of nuclear weapons,” he added. “It is a national security mandate to reduce that risk and the vehicle to do that is arms control. They are a dream team, not of ideologues, not of boastful dealmakers, but of people who are willing to do the hard work that is necessary.”
But he also acknowledged how hard it will be to make their visions reality. “It won’t be easy to get it done,” Countryman said. “I’m reluctant to predict any specific achievement besides the extension of New START.”
Suggestion Box: Compulsory Dispute Resolution to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
James Ranney has posted this proposal in the suggestion box:
“The missing link? Compulsory international dispute resolution. Check out my new book, World Peace Through Law.”
Great idea, James. Would you care to elaborate on it with another comment here? You may need to propose ways of making it happen!
Sure. The argument is as follows: 1) We must abolish war (or war will abolish us, JFK); 2) we therefore need ALTERNATIVES TO WAR; 3) this means we need INTERNATIONAL ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION; and 4) this means, in order to be workable, we need COMPULSORY INTERNATIONAL DISPUTE RESOLUTION (compulsory negotiation, which would probably have prevented WWI, according to two historians); compulsory mediation (which would probably prevent 95% of all int’l conflict); compulsory arbitration (as argued by President Theodore Roosevelt, but was rejected by the Republicans in the Senate); and compulsory adjudication in the World Court (proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 & discussed for a couple years before being forgotten). This proposal was accepted by representatives of the U.S. and the USSR in the famous McCloy-Zorin Agreement in 1961, but has been totally forgotten since then.
Suggestion Box: Petition Canada to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons!
Nancy Covington has posted this suggestion:
“Until closing Feb 6, 2021 petition to call on the Canadian Government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is open. Sign here:https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-3028”
Yes! This is important, folks. Let’s get behind this campaign!
Suggestion Box: Build New Global Peace Movement by Women for Children
Andre Sheldon has posted this idea in the suggestion box:
” I have networked with women leaders from around the world, planting seeds, in preparation for this moment….Global Strategy of Nonviolence, For the Children Facilitator, CALL to WOMEN, a World-Wide Unity Campaign +1-617-964-5267 Email: Andre@GlobalStrategyofNonviolence.org Website: http://www.GlobalStrategyofNonviolence.org Facebook: Global Movement of Nonviolence”
Suggestion Box: Conventional Wars Count Too!
Alberto Portugheis posted this idea in the suggestion box: “It should be the other way round: “Weapons & War” and NEVER “especially nuclear.” 1,000s die daily from conventional warfare. Alberto, President HUFUD.”
Of course it’s true. The people being killed in wars now are all hit by regular bullets and bombs, not nuclear ones. Would you like to come back to this comments column and elaborate on this idea, Alberto? You can also tell us about HUFUD, or post events if you have anything planned. Thanks for your sensible comment.
Will America Help Britain Build A New Nuclear Warhead?
Matthew Harries | War on the Rocks | 22 October 2020
“The future of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent depends, in part, on decisions being made right now in the U.S. Congress. At stake are Britain’s plans to build a replacement for its current nuclear warhead. According to the U.K. defense secretary and senior U.S. officials, the United Kingdom’s program is reliant on the United States pursuing its own new warhead program of record, the W93. But the Donald Trump administration’s Fiscal Year 2021 request for funds for the W93 was first nixed by House appropriators and then excluded from the stopgap continuing resolution. It is neither clear whether the W93 program will eventually make it into the budget proper, nor whether it would be taken up immediately by a potential incoming Joe Biden administration.”
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The United Kingdom’s new warhead will be housed in the U.S. Navy’s proposed new Mk7 aeroshell, and is intended to be developed in parallel with the W93 warhead, sharing key design parameters and using some common non-nuclear components. In April, U.K. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace wrote to members of Congress on relevant committees, claiming that their “support to the W93 program in this budget cycle is critical to the success of our replacement warhead program and to the long-term viability of the U.K.’s nuclear deterrent.” Senior Trump administration officials have also repeatedly told Congress that a failure to fund the W93 will prevent the United States from supporting the British program. The future of a nuclear deterrent that the United Kingdom calls its “ultimate insurance policy as a nation” and a contribution to the “ultimate guarantee of collective Euro-Atlantic security” is being called into question.
Most media discussion of Wallace’s letter focused on the propriety of the defense secretary lobbying Congress. But Wallace’s letter was remarkable on grounds of substance, not just process. At face value, his letter made very serious claims, suggesting that the fate of the United Kingdom as a nuclear power is in the hands not of members of Parliament, but of congressional appropriators. These claims deserve close interrogation — not least by Parliament, which has so far failed in its duty of scrutiny. British legislators should be asking why, exactly, a new warhead is needed; what the backup plan in case U.S. assistance is disrupted; what military and technical requirements are being set for the new warhead; whether the United Kingdom’s fraying infrastructure can deliver what is asked of it; and how much this endeavor will cost. Buried in these questions are significant risks and long-term strategic choices for the United Kingdom, the future of its nuclear deterrent, and Anglo-American defense ties.
Dependent Deterrent
The United Kingdom’s nuclear force is strongly dependent, in material and programmatic terms, on the United States. The Royal Navy deploys four nuclear-armed submarines equipped with the U.S.-built and maintained Trident II D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile, drawing from a common missile pool at King’s Bay, Georgia. The essence of this cooperative relationship on delivery systems has been in place since the conclusion of the Polaris Sales Agreement in 1963, signed after Prime Minister Harold Macmillan persuaded President John F. Kennedy to sell the United Kingdom the Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile. Bilateral cooperation on warhead-relevant matters, including the transfer to the United Kingdom of special nuclear material and non-nuclear weapon components, is authorized under the 1958 U.K.-U.S. Mutual Defense Agreement, which freed London from Washington’s postwar prohibition on nuclear cooperation under the 1946 McMahon Act.
The United Kingdom is currently working on a successor submarine, the Dreadnought class, which will replace the currently deployed Vanguard class in the 2030s, and which will share a common missile compartment with America’s own successor class, the Columbia. In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair secured from President George W. Bush an agreement that the United Kingdom would participate in a missile life extension program so that the Dreadnought class could continue to carry the Trident II D-5. In addition, London would be invited to participate in any program to replace or further life extend the D-5. A program is now underway to develop a successor missile once the D-5 leaves service in 2042, currently designated the D-5 Life Extension 2.
The basic parameters of the British warhead are thus set by the need for it to be certified for use with an American missile system and housed in an American aeroshell. The United Kingdom’s current nuclear warhead, the Holbrook, is sometimes referred to as an “Anglicized” version of the U.S. W76. It is certainly a similar design, and is referred to as such by U.S. national laboratories, although the degree of similarity is not publicly known. Several non-nuclear components of the warhead are known to be procured from the United States, including the arming, fusing, and firing system; neutron initiator; and the gas transfer system. The United Kingdom has made some updates to the Holbrook while the United States has conducted a life extension of the W76, now designated the W76-1, including at least the incorporation of the Mk4a arming, fusing, and firing system. However, it has not been publicly disclosed whether the United Kingdom has conducted an equally extensive life extension program of its own.
There is little reason to believe that the United Kingdom wishes to depart significantly from this model when it comes to building the next warhead. The structural incentives to hew closely to U.S. plans are strong. Procurement of non-nuclear components from the United States is seen as an obvious cost-saving measure, and reliance on U.S. facilities and information-sharing gives Britain a hedge against technological risks in design and certification. An explicit goal of the United Kingdom’s program to modernize its nuclear infrastructure has in recent years been to “increase engagement with the United States to align capabilities and requirements for any future warhead decision.”
Unless the United Kingdom wants to diverge significantly from the United States, then its new warhead program needs a parallel U.S. program against which to align. Enter the W93. The announcement of a new program of record was good news for the U.K. nuclear establishment, which had been in a holding pattern during several years of U.S. deliberations and interservice wrangling. But the United Kingdom fields only one warhead in its nuclear arsenal, and so has considerably less margin for error than the United States, which already has two warhead types delivered by submarine-launched ballistic missiles (the W76-1 and W88, plus a lower-yield W76-2 variant), as well as the redundancy of two alternative delivery vehicles (land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bombers), each with their own warhead types. The United Kingdom also appears to be working toward a rather pressing deadline. According to official U.K. statements, a replacement warhead could be needed as early as the late 2030s, and it has previously been estimated to take 17 years from a procurement decision to the eventual production of the warhead.
This sense of urgency leaves Britain in an uncomfortable position, because many in Congress do not appear convinced that the United States truly needs the W93 program to start right away. Funding for the W93 program was not anticipated to be required for two more years, and the timing of the administration’s request has provoked pushback from Democratic legislators. One possible theory is that Trump administration officials want the W93 on the books before a potential Biden administration enters office. Another more concrete explanation is that U.S. defense officials might not trust the National Nuclear Security Administration — the semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy which manufactures the United States’ nuclear warheads — to deliver the W93 on schedule, and would like a more generous margin of error. The National Nuclear Security Administration request is only for the first of seven phases of warhead development, and calls for the relatively modest sum of $53 million, alongside a Pentagon request for $32 million for the Navy Mk7 program. The latter request, unlike that of the National Nuclear Security Administration, was originally approved by House appropriators.
Even if a potential incoming Biden administration agreed with the requirement for a new warhead for its submarine-launched ballistic missiles, it might still choose to delay the program. This could be a symbolic gesture toward reducing emphasis on nuclear weapons, or a practical recognition both that National Nuclear Security Administration already has four life extension or modification programs to execute and a new sea-launched cruise missile warhead to produce, and that the U.S. nuclear modernization program is shaping up to be spectacularly expensive at a time of COVID-19 induced budget pressure. Even without a conscious decision to delay the program, it might still be pushed back if a Biden administration wished to consider the W93 in the context of a Nuclear Posture Review, which would take time to complete.
Unanswered Questions
The United Kingdom, in other words, is in quite a bind. The defense secretary has stated, in writing, that the viability of the British deterrent depends on a program which the U.S. Congress might be about to stymie. It could be the case that, if work on the Mk7 aeroshell can start even in the absence of National Nuclear Security Administration funding for the W93, the United Kingdom could begin work on its own program. But the longer that Britain proceeds without a parallel U.S. warhead program in place, the greater the risks it would be incurring. Vanishingly little is publicly known about the decision-making process which has led to this point, which makes the precise degree of risk facing the United Kingdom very difficult to judge.
Congress has now had four public hearings at which the W93 was discussed, including several references to the program’s importance to the United Kingdom, and the administration has given briefings on the rationale behind the program. Yet in the United Kingdom, where the stakes are allegedly much higher, the sum total of the government’s public output on the warhead is a vaguely written statement to Parliament, and confirmation that the warhead will use the Mk7 aeroshell. This leaves open several key questions.
Why Has the United Kingdom Decided to Build a New Warhead, Rather Than Seeking to Further Refurbish or to Remanufacture Holbrook?
The fact that the United Kingdom has decided to build a new warhead at all, rather than seeking to further prolong the life of the Holbrook, is something that needs justifying. Has the United Kingdom made an independent judgment that a replacement warhead is essential, or is this decision simply the combination of a U.S. decision to proceed with W93 and the United Kingdom’s preference for alignment? Ever since the 2006 White Paper in which the decision to renew the ballistic missile submarine force was taken, the U.K. government has repeatedly told Parliament that at some point a decision on whether to build a new warhead would be need to be made. That decision has now been made, and Parliament and the public do not know why.
It is not clear that the United States sees a critical need to replace the W76-1, which has recently been life-extended, providing for additional decades of use. Some discussions of the W93’s role suggest that it could exist in parallel with both the W76-1 and the W88 as one of America’s three submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads. Were the United States to decide that the W76-1 could be further life-extended, or remanufactured from scratch, the U.K. government has not yet provided any public reasoning why the same could not be done for the Holbrook. Such reasons can certainly be imagined: there might be materials used in the original U.K. design that have now aged, and cannot for technical, legal, or safety reasons be remanufactured other than at disproportionate cost. There is also a case to be made that further life-extending old warheads introduces a degree of risk of technical failure that is unacceptably high for a country that depends on a single design, and that changes in the security environment, such as developments in missile defenses, could set future military requirements that the current warhead cannot meet. These arguments, however, have not yet been publicly made by the U.K. government.
What Are the Critical U.S. Activities on Which the U.K. Replacement Warhead Will Depend in the Next Few Years, and What Is the United Kingdom’s Backup Plan if These Activities Are Not Funded?
The U.K. government has emphasized the need for its warhead to be “compatible” with America’s Trident system. What this probably means in practice is that the United Kingdom needs to know key parameters of the Mk7 aeroshell which will define the size, shape, mass distribution, and other aspects of the British warhead which will fit inside it. Beyond that, in order for the United Kingdom to be able to cooperate closely with the United States on key scientific and engineering aspects of the warhead’s design, manufacturing, and certification, the United Kingdom will need to know U.S. intentions for various design choices. Until the United States starts work on the W93 program, the United Kingdom will either have to delay its own choices or make assumptions about likely U.S. decisions in order to begin necessary work. Either path could involve increased costs and technical risk.
Beyond a small delay, more serious disruption to the W93 program raises very challenging questions: would the United Kingdom pursue indigenous production of components that would otherwise have been procured from the United States, and if so, at what risk and cost? If the United Kingdom still wishes to remain aligned with the United States, are there alternatives to a replacement warhead based on the W93/Mk7? More broadly, Parliament might ask whether such close alignment to the United States is truly worth the accompanying loss of sovereignty. It is often assumed that the United Kingdom has simply no other option, and a more independent program would certainly involve taking a greater share of technical risk and would very likely incur greater financial costs. Nevertheless, close alignment with the United States has downsides as well as upsides, including greater vulnerability to disruption or delayed supply of materials, components, and expertise, and less discretion in setting military and other requirements for the warhead. This is a strategically important choice which has not yet been fully debated in public.
What Are the Likely Requirements for the W93, and How Do These Relate to the U.K. Program?
Assuming that the W93 program does go ahead, the first phases of its development will involve, among other things, the drafting of military characteristics and a stockpile-to-target sequence. Taken together, these will define the performance requirements and physical characteristics of the weapon, as well as the environments and threats it will be exposed to that must be taken into account in its design. This will require deciding, for example, what explosive yield the warhead will have, what defenses it must defeat — including nuclear, hit-to-kill, and (potentially) directed energy weapons — and what kind of hardening and countermeasures will be necessary. Choices will also be made regarding surety requirements, such as whether to use insensitive high explosives, which could mean a relative increase in mass and volume.
Requirements set in the United States during this process are likely to determine or strongly influence several characteristics of the British warhead. Embedded in those requirements are important implications for U.K. policy and strategy, and although London is likely to have a voice in U.S. discussions over such questions, it will not have a deciding vote. Briefings by U.S. officials suggest, for example, that the W93 is intended to be of higher yield than the W76-1. If the United Kingdom were to follow this path, the overall explosive yield of its operational stockpile could increase for the first time since it began deploying Trident in 1994. The emphasis placed by U.S. officials on the W93’s “flexibility” implies variable yield, which would be somewhat consistent with the existing lower-yield warhead variant the U.K. reportedly deploys at present, but would leave the United Kingdom vulnerable to accusations that it was reinforcing a global trend toward the development of supposedly more “usable” nuclear options. Any potential improvement to the warhead’s ability to strike hard targets might also draw criticism from those opposed to enhancements in nuclear weapon capabilities, as was the case when the U.K. began introducing the Mk4a arming, fusing and firing system. Lastly, U.K. defense planners might be thinking about future deterrence requirements for countries other than Russia, the traditional driver of U.K. warhead needs. This might have an impact on the requirements for a new warhead, such as on the question of the new warhead’s weight, which helps determine the maximum range that missiles can reach. This is a potentially relevant factor when considering the risk that future developments in anti-submarine warfare might complicate U.K. operations.
Can the United Kingdom Successfully Execute a Warhead Replacement Program?
The state of the United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons infrastructure suggests that the country will face significant challenges in producing its next warhead, even if cooperation with the United States runs entirely smoothly. By now, at least three key U.K. facilities should have been up and running: Pegasus (to handle enriched uranium components), Mensa (to assemble and disassemble warheads), and Hydrus (to conduct hydrodynamic tests). None is fully operational. Pegasus has been suspended after initial designs were judged too expensive and unwieldy, Mensa is now being built at least six years late and at more than twice the original cost, and Hydrus has been replaced by a joint U.K.-French hydrodynamic facility in France not scheduled to be fully operational for the United Kingdom at least until 2022.
More fundamentally, this will be the first warhead the United Kingdom has designed for some thirty years, and the first ever without explosive nuclear testing. It will also be designed just as the last generation of Atomic Weapons Establishment employees with firsthand experience designing new warheads are retiring. With civil nuclear projects also planned for the coming decades, the Atomic Weapons Establishment will be facing considerable workforce recruitment, training, and retention challenges.
How Much Will the United Kingdom’s New Warhead Cost?
In the context of the COVID-19 crisis, the forecast hit to the U.K. economy caused by Brexit, and an ongoing strategic review, there is likely to be financial pressure on the warhead program even if it is shielded from immediate cuts. Yet the government is staying remarkably coy about the projected costs of the new warhead. The 2006 White Paper estimated the cost to be 2 to 3 billion pounds ($2.6 to $3.9 billion). This estimate was confirmed in government documents as late as 2013. Since then, however, no official estimate has been provided, although the 2013 Trident Alternatives Review, a government-published document — though not a statement of policy — estimated the cost of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead to be 4 billion pounds in 2012 prices.
The Nuclear Warhead Capability Sustainment Program, under which much of the supporting infrastructure for building a new warhead was supposed to be built, has an overall budget of 21 billion pounds spread out from 2005 to 2025, and is subject to the scrutiny requirements applied to major projects. The government has said that the program to build the new warhead will also be subject to those requirements, but is not giving a specific cost estimate, citing national security concerns. Likewise, it has not said which parts of the Nuclear Warhead Capability Sustainment Program will be subsumed under the new warhead program. It is certainly tricky to separate the costs of the new warhead from the overall costs of having nuclear infrastructure capable of maintaining the existing warhead. And yet not only has the U.K. government done so in the past — making it difficult to imagine national security grounds for withholding the information now — the U.S. government has also provided estimates of how much the W93 might cost: $14.4 billion, according to the Nuclear Security Administration’s last published assessment.
Take Back Control
The United Kingdom’s replacement nuclear warhead program is a long-term, complex, and expensive endeavor. It deserves proper scrutiny. And while many of the technical details of the U.K. warhead must remain classified, the broad parameters of the decision the government has made — and the risks the program faces — are fair game for public debate. The British public learned of the decision to replace the Holbrook warhead not because the government decided to announce it, but because U.S. officials told Congress and reporters in February. In several respects, the transparency of the U.S. government, and the persistence of Congress in extracting answers, is throwing the opacity of the United Kingdom’s nuclear warhead program into stark relief. It is time for Parliament to take back control.
Read More: https://warontherocks.com/2020/10/will-america-help-britain-build-a-new-nuclear-warhead/
Until closing Feb 6, 2021 petition to call on the Canadian Government to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is open.
Sign here: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Sign/e-3028
Vatican’s Foreign Minister Reaffirms Church’s Shift Away From Accepting Nuclear Deterrence
Joshua J. McElwee | National Catholic Reporter | 16 December 2020
ROME — The Vatican’s foreign minister reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s recent shift away from accepting the Cold War-era global system of nuclear deterrence Dec. 16, telling a webinar featuring arms control activists that nuclear weapons only give “a false sense of security.”
“International peace and security cannot be founded on the threat of mutual destruction or total annihilation, or maintaining a balance of power,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher told the webinar, which was co-hosted by the Vatican and several institutes at Georgetown University and the University of Notre Dame.
“Peace and security must be built on justice, integral human development, [and] respect for fundamental human rights,” said Gallagher. “From this perspective, it is necessary to go beyond nuclear deterrence.”
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The webinar, livestreamed on the Vatican’s YouTube channel, was meant to mark the third anniversary of a landmark November 2017 Vatican symposium at which Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church’s position on nuclear deterrence.
Developing the teaching of previous pontiffs, who had granted conditional moral acceptance to the system of deterrence as a way of preventing any world power from using nuclear arms, Francis told the 2017 event that even the possession of nuclear weapons is to be “firmly condemned.”
Francis’ changing of the church’s teaching on deterrence came shortly after the Vatican joined the U.N.’s 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty, which prevents signatories from developing, producing, stockpiling or testing nuclear arms, is set to go into force on Jan. 22.
The United States has not taken part in the treaty, which has been signed by 86 countries and ratified by 51 of those.
Cardinal Peter Turkson, whose Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development had coordinated the 2017 Vatican event, told the Dec. 16 webinar that maintaining nuclear stockpiles “wastes precious resources” that could be used to feed the world’s population or towards social welfare campaigns.
Turkson quoted U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1953 speech highlighting the cost of the Soviet-U.S. arms race: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed.”
Among others joining the webinar was Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the organization that helped bring about the new nuclear ban treaty and was the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
Fihn said that nuclear deterrence is “becoming increasingly stigmatized as a security policy.”
“Any state that supports nuclear weapons … lends credibility to this dangerous notion that it is acceptable and legal to mass-murder civilians,” she said.
Also taking part in the event was Rose Gottemoeller, a former deputy secretary general of NATO and former State Department official who is now a lecturer at Stanford University.
Gottemoeller starkly disagreed with Fihn and Gallagher, saying that the nuclear ban treaty places “irreconcilable burdens” on countries that maintain nuclear weapons.
“While nuclear weapons continue to exist, we must ensure that they remain safe and secure, lest they fall into the wrong hands and become the tools of nuclear terrorists or madmen,” said Gottemoeller.
“The nuclear weapons states also care about ensuring that the weapons are effective, for if the dreadful day ever arrives when they had to be used, they must be ready,” she added.
Gallagher was asked during the event if the Vatican planned to give direction to national bishops’ conferences about how to speak about the “moral unacceptability of nuclear weapons” following the entry into force of the nuclear ban treaty.
“There’s no formal intention at this stage of so doing,” said the archbishop. “I think that the bishops’ conferences are very aware of the position of the Holy See and what the Holy Father has said about this.”
“We, generally speaking … like to leave such initiatives up to the discretion of local bishops’ conferences because the response is different, obviously, in almost every country depending on policies of governments,” said Gallagher.
“I don’t think a decree will go out from Caesar Augustus in this respect,” the archbishop quipped.
Link: https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/vaticans-foreign-minister-reaffirms-churchs-shift-away-accepting-nuclear-deterrence
Google Earth Reveals Suspected Nuclear Weapons Facility in Pakistan
Adam Vaughan | NewScientist | 27 November 2020
Sleuthing with satellite images on Google Earth has revealed a substantial and undocumented expansion to a suspected nuclear processing plant in Pakistan. Researchers say it is a possible sign of the country boosting the capacity of its nuclear weapons programme.
Pakistan has possessed nuclear weapons since 1998, but isn’t a signatory to key international treaties on nuclear proliferation and tests. The country’s secretive nuclear weapons programme is closely watched due to tensions with neighbouring India, which also has a nuclear arsenal.
Full article available here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261031-google-earth-reveals-suspected-nuclear-weapons-facility-in-pakistan
Time to Ban the Bomb: A Path Forward:
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Beatrice Fihn | Ploughshares Fund | 2020
“The risk of use of nuclear weapons is higher today than it has been for years. With developments in cyber warfare, autonomous weapons and an increasingly uncertain global security situation, that risk will only increase over time. A security policy based on plans to fight — and “win” — a nuclear war is morally bankrupt and unsustainable. The United States must begin developing a policy for a non-nuclear future, or risk becoming an outlier without moral authority.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a global coalition of over 530 organizations, is leading a movement to achieve this non-nuclear future. Over 10 years, together with countless partners in governments, international organizations and civil society groups around the world, we helped incubate and amplify a previously-ignored conversation about nuclear weapons. We placed civilians and the harm caused to them by nuclear weapons at the center of debate. This movement ultimately led to the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to ICAN being awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in promoting nuclear disarmament.
The Treaty emerged through something new and different in the disarmament debate within the nuclear community — the Humanitarian Initiative. This initiative reframed the discourse around nuclear weapons to make the horrific humanitarian consequences caused by their use the center of discussion, rather than a secondary issue. In seeking the negotiation and adoption of the treaty, we followed the path set by other global weapons prohibitions, including conventions related to biological weapons, chemical weapons, antipersonnel landmines and cluster munitions. The premise, based in international law, is founded on the total abnegation of possession and use of weapons with unspeakable consequences.”
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No sustainable, smart or effective national security strategy can be based on weapons that cause the level of harm to civilians that nuclear weapons do. This reflects a shift in security and development policies toward a more pre-eminent role for humanitarian concerns, humanitarian law and the protection of civilians. Therefore, such weapons cannot remain legal or be considered legitimate options for states in warfare.
On July 7, 2017, the TPNW was adopted by 122 states at the United Nations (UN). It will enter into force once 50 states have deposited their instruments of ratification, which2 we expect will happen by 2020. This moment represents an opportunity for the international community to make real progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons. With this in mind, the United States — and all states possessing nuclear weapons — must engage the majority of the world’s countries working toward true global peace and security.
The United States’ path forward is clear: 1) end nuclear saber-rattling and place humanitarian consequences at the center of nuclear policy; 2) commit in good faith to multilateralism with a view to ending the new nuclear arms race, putting legal and diplomatic options above military expansionism; and 3) cease denigrating the TPNW and instead support the treaty and its signatories.
Humanitarian Consequences at the Center of Nuclear Policy
By their nature, nuclear weapons are indiscriminate and inhumane. Any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would quickly ripple across the world, even if a nuclear conflict was localized. The use of a nuclear weapon over a populated area would immediately kill tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of men, women and children, and injure countless more.3 We continue to pay the price of atmospheric nuclear testing in many countries around the world with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people dying early from cancers.
We also must not forget that the effects of nuclear detonations have disproportionately affected women. Though the immediate effects of nuclear weapons use are indiscriminate — no matter your sex or gender identity — the impact on survivors is not. Women in Hiroshima and Nagasaki have nearly double the risk that men do of developing and dying from solid cancer due to ionizing radiation exposure.5 Robust findings from the Chernobyl disaster indicate that girls are considerably more likely than boys to develop thyroid cancer from nuclear fallout.6 Pregnant women exposed to nuclear radiation face a greater likelihood of delivering children with physical malformations and stillbirths, leading to increased maternal mortality.7 And these effects last generations.8 Women’s rights, human rights, cannot be fully realized when we are threatened by, or threaten others, with such consequences.
A national security framework that respects human rights must work to eliminate and legally ban any weapon that causes these consequences. The TPNW codifies the stigma against the infliction of such barbarity and can be used as an example of how to incorporate humanitarian consequences at the center of policy. A congressional inquiry is needed on the short- and long-term environmental and human cost of past nuclear programs. Members must ask: Who has died early as a result of these programs and who will die in the future as a result of past misdeeds? And to be credible, such an inquiry must include women and other survivors as an integral part of the process.
The full article is available here: https://ploughshares.org/issues-analysis/article/time-ban-bomb
Talking Tough and Carrying a Radioactive Stick:
The Nuclearization of American Diplomacy
Michael T. Klare | Moyers on Democracy | 20 October 2020
“States have long engaged in military operations to intimidate other powers. Once upon a distant time, this would have been called “gunboat diplomacy” and naval vessels would have been the instruments of choice for such missions. The arrival of nuclear arms made such operations far more dangerous. This didn’t, however, stop the US from using weaponry of this sort as tools of intimidation throughout the Cold War. In time, however, even nuclear strategists began condemning acts of “nuclear coercion,” arguing that such weaponry was inappropriate for any purpose other than “deterrence” — that is, using the threat of “massive retaliation” to prevent another country from attacking you. In fact, a deterrence-only posture eventually became Washington’s official policy, even if the temptation to employ nukes as political cudgels never entirely disappeared from its strategic thinking.”
Read the full article here: https://billmoyers.com/story/talking-tough-and-carrying-a-radioactive-stick
US urges countries to withdraw from UN nuke ban treaty
Edith M. Lederer | The Associated Press | 21 October 2020
Link: https://apnews.com/article/nuclear-weapons-disarmament-latin-america-united-nations-gun-politics-4f109626a1cdd6db10560550aa1bb491
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States is urging countries that have ratified a U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons to withdraw their support as the pact nears the 50 ratifications needed to trigger its entry into force, which supporters say could happen this week.
The U.S. letter to signatories, obtained by The Associated Press, says the five original nuclear powers — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — and America’s NATO allies “stand unified in our opposition to the potential repercussions” of the treaty.
It says the treaty “turns back the clock on verification and disarmament and is dangerous” to the half-century-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global nonproliferation efforts.
“Although we recognize your sovereign right to ratify or accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), we believe that you have made a strategic error and should withdraw your instrument of ratification or accession,” the letter says.
The treaty requires that all ratifying countries “never under any circumstances … develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” It also bans any transfer or use of nuclear weapons or nuclear explosive devices — and the threat to use such weapons — and requires parties to promote the treaty to other countries.
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Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize-winning coalition whose work helped spearhead the nuclear ban treaty, told The Associated Press Tuesday that several diplomatic sources confirmed that they and other states that ratified the TPNW had been sent letters by the U.S. requesting their withdrawal.
She said the “increasing nervousness, and maybe straightforward panic, with some of the nuclear-armed states and particularly the Trump administration” shows that they “really seem to understand that this is a reality: Nuclear weapons are going to be banned under international law soon.”
Fihn dismissed the nuclear powers’ claim that the treaty interferes with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as “straightforward lies, to be frank.”
“They have no actual argument to back that up,” she said. “The Nonproliferation Treaty is about preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eliminating nuclear weapons, and this treaty implements that. There’s no way you can undermine the Nonproliferation Treaty by banning nuclear weapons. It’s the end goal of the Nonproliferation Treaty.”
The NPT sought to prevent the spread of nuclear arms beyond the five original weapons powers. It requires non-nuclear signatory nations to not pursue atomic weapons in exchange for a commitment by the five powers to move toward nuclear disarmament and to guarantee non-nuclear states’ access to peaceful nuclear technology for producing energy.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the nuclear weapons ban treaty “a very welcome initiative.”
“It is clear for me that we will only be entirely safe in relation to nuclear weapons the day where nuclear weapons no longer exist,” he said in an interview Wednesday with AP. “We know that it’s not easy. We know that there are many obstacles.”
He expressed hope that a number of important initiatives, including U.S.-Russia talks on renewing the New Start Treaty limiting deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers and next year’s review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, “will all converge in the same direction, and the final objective must be to have a world with no nuclear weapons.”
“That the Trump administration is pressuring countries to withdraw from a United Nations-backed disarmament treaty is an unprecedented action in international relations,” Fihn said. “That the U.S. goes so far as insisting countries violate their treaty obligations by not promoting the TPNW to other states shows how fearful they are of the treaty’s impact and growing support.”
The treaty was approved by the 193-member U.N. General Assembly on July 7, 2017 by a vote of 122 in favor, the Netherlands opposed, and Singapore abstaining. Among countries voting in favor was Iran. The five nuclear powers and four other countries known or believed to possess nuclear weapons — India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel — boycotted negotiations and the vote on the treaty, along with many of their allies.
The treaty currently has 47 ratifications and needs 50 ratifications to trigger its entry into force in 90 days.
Fihn said there are about 10 countries that are trying very hard to ratify to get to 50, “and we know that there are a few governments that are working towards Friday as the date. … We’re not 100 percent it will happen, but hopefully it will.”
Friday has been an unofficial target because it is the eve of United Nations Day on Oct. 24 which marks the anniversary of the entry into force in 1945 of the U.N. Charter. The day has been observed since 1948 and this year is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the U.N.
Fihn stressed that the entry into force of the treaty will be “a really big deal” because it will become part of international law and will be raised in discussions on disarmament, war crimes and weapons.
“And I think that over time pressure will grow on the nuclear-armed states to join the treaty,” she said.
In subtle diplomatic move, Canada ceases its opposition to nuclear weapons prohibition treaty
The Hill Times | Douglas Roche | October 30, 2020
In a renewed political atmosphere, the paralysis that has plagued nuclear disarmament for so long may be broken. With a becoming modesty, Canada has nudged this process forward.
EDMONTON—In a subtle diplomatic move, the Government of Canada has ceased its opposition and now “acknowledges” the reason for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which will enter into force on Jan. 22, 2021.
The new treaty, which has been ratified by 50 states, has been denounced by the Trump administration and also rejected by NATO. Canada is betting that the expected election, on Nov. 3, of Joe Biden as president will bring the United States back into more cooperative multilateral work, and that NATO will gradually recognize that the global norm against the possession of nuclear weapons is rising.
Only the states that join the treaty will be bound by it, but its central provision—the prohibition of the possession of nuclear weapons—is a direct attack on the military doctrine of nuclear deterrence.
Canada is not joining the treaty—at least at this moment in history. But its policy is shifting. In 2017, when negotiations for the treaty were under way, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the exercise “useless.” Then, when 122 states adopted the treaty at the UN, government spokespeople dismissed it as “premature.” Now Global Affairs Canada says: “We acknowledge the widespread frustration with the pace of global efforts toward nuclear disarmament, which clearly motivated the negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
Some might argue that this is not a clear-cut endorsement of the treaty, but given that Global Affairs Canada did not want to directly contradict the prime minister or directly challenge NATO, which still claims that nuclear weapons are the “supreme guarantee” of security, the statement is a diplomatic expression of a shift in policy. Doubtless, the recent rebuke to NATO’s nuclear policies by two former Canadian prime ministers (Jean Chrétien, the now later John Turner), three former foreign ministers (Lloyd Axworthy, Bill Graham, John Manley) and two former defence ministers (Jean-Jacques Blais, John McCallum)—all of them Liberals—made an impression on the Pearson Building. The prohibition treaty is now treated with respect in Canada. The logical next step is for Canada to open a dialogue with NATO to bring the organization’s nuclear weapons policies into conformity with the Prohibition Treaty.
The government statement adds that, for 50 years, Canada has pursued a “pragmatic, inclusive approach to nuclear disarmament,” which is “anchored” in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But, with nine states still holding 13,865 nuclear weapons, the NPT has clearly not produced a nuclear weapons-free world.
Reacting to this failure to eliminate nuclear weapons, a new movement, composed of activist governments and civil society leaders, began to warn of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. The Prohibition Treaty resulted.
The treaty, driven by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for its efforts, does not pretend to eliminate nuclear weapons. Nor does it seek to replace the NPT, which the treaty hails as the “cornerstone” of nuclear disarmament. What it does is stigmatize nuclear weapons as standing outside international humanitarian law and prepare the ground for comprehensive negotiations by all states for the elimination of nuclear weapons as called for by the NPT.
At the same time, the treaty is more than an exercise in public education. It is an international legal reality, binding on all those who join it. The combined educational, political, and legal value of the treaty, taking the world a step closer to the end of nuclear weapons, is what the U.S. fears most.
In a letter to supporters of the treaty urging they recant, the U.S. claims that the treaty is divisive and “will detract from realistic and practical efforts to advance the cause of nuclear disarmament.” It is quite hard to see how the U.S. is advancing nuclear disarmament when it plans to spend $1.7-trillion over the next quarter-century modernizing its fleet of nuclear missiles.
Whether Joe Biden, if elected president, will butt heads with the military-industrial complex, driving such outrageous expenditures, remains to be seen. But he did say in his campaign, “I will work to bring us closer to a world without nuclear weapons.” And he emphasized his respect for treaties: “For decades, American leaders of both parties have understood that the United States has a national security imperative and a moral responsibility to reduce nuclear threats, including by negotiating treaties and agreements to control and eventually eliminate these weapons.”
It will take a lot of pressure on a Biden presidency to “acknowledge” the Prohibition Treaty, but even if he only stops the U.S. attack on it, the treaty may come to be seen as a reinforcement of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In a renewed political atmosphere, the paralysis that has plagued nuclear disarmament for so long may be broken.
With a becoming modesty, Canada has nudged this process forward.
Statement issued to Doug Roche from Global Affairs Canada Oct. 26, 2020:
Former Senator Douglas Roche is a former Canadian ambassador for disarmament.
Lloyd Axworthy, Jean Chrétien, Bill Graham, John McCallum, John Manley, and the now-late John Turner all signed an open letter.
Historic Milestone: UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Reaches 50 Ratifications Needed for Entry Into Force
ICAN | 24 October 2020
On October 24, 2020, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons reached the required 50 states parties for its entry into force, after Honduras ratified just one day after Jamaica and Nauru submitted their ratifications. In 90 days, the treaty will enter into force, cementing a categorical ban on nuclear weapons, 75 years after their first use.
This is a historic milestone for this landmark treaty. Prior to the TPNW’s adoption, nuclear weapons were the only weapons of mass destruction not banned under international law, despite their catastrophic humanitarian consequences. Now, with the treaty’s entry into force, we can call nuclear weapons what they are: prohibited weapons of mass destruction, just like chemical weapons and biological weapons.
ICAN’s Executive Director Beatrice Fihn welcomed the historic moment. “This is a new chapter for nuclear disarmament. Decades of activism have achieved what many said was impossible: nuclear weapons are banned,” she said.
Setsuko Thurlow, survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, said “I have committed my life to the abolition of nuclear weapons. I have nothing but gratitude for all who have worked for the success of our treaty.” As a long-time and iconic ICAN activist who has spent decades sharing the story of the horrors she faced to raise awareness on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons this moment held particular significance: “This is the first time in international law that we have been so recognized. We share this recognition with other hibakusha across the world, those who have suffered radioactive harm from nuclear testing, from uranium mining, from secret experimentation.” Survivors of atomic use and testing all over the world have joined Setsuko in celebrating this milestone.
The three latest states to ratify were proud to be part of such a historic moment. All 50 states have shown true leadership to achieve a world without nuclear weapons, all while facing unprecedented levels of pressure from the nuclear armed states not to do so. A recent letter, obtained by AP only days before the ceremony, demonstrates that the Trump administration has been directly pressuring states that have ratified the treaty to withdraw from it and abstain from encouraging others to join it, in direct contradiction to their obligations under the treaty. Beatrice Fihn said: “Real leadership has been shown by the countries that have joined this historical instrument to bring it to full legal effect. Desperate attempts to weaken these leaders’ commitment to nuclear disarmament demonstrate only the fear of nuclear armed states of the change this treaty will bring.”
This is just the beginning. Once the treaty is in force, all states parties will need to implement all of their positive obligations under the treaty and abide by its prohibitions. States that haven’t joined the treaty will feel its power too – we can expect companies to stop producing nuclear weapons and financial institutions to stop investing in nuclear weapon producing companies.
How do we know? Because we have nearly 600 partner organisations in over 100 countries committed to advancing this treaty and the norm against nuclear weapons. People, companies, universities and governments everywhere will know this weapon has been prohibited and that now is the moment for them to stand on the right side of history.”
https://www.icanw.org/historic_milestone_un_treaty_on_the_prohibition_of_nuclear_weapons_reaches_50_ratifications_needed_for_entry_into_force
Canada can’t hide behind NATO in refusal to sign treaty on nuclear weapons prohibition
Here is Senator Douglas Roche’s article in The Hill Times, regarding the extraordinary new list of eminent persons urging all states to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
EDMONTON—Sept 21.
Lloyd Axworthy, Jean-Jacques Blais, Jean Chrétien, Bill Graham, John McCallum, John Manley, and John Turner.These seven names hardly need an introduction to readers of The Hill Times and certainly not to the Government of Canada. Two of them are former prime ministers, three are former foreign ministers, and two are former defence ministers, who ran and served Liberal governments. All of them signed an open letter, released on Sept. 21, that features 53 former high officials of NATO countries expressing support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It is an astonishing rebuke of NATO’s moribund policies on nuclear weapons, and the most serious challenge to NATO’s nuclear orthodoxy in the organization’s 71-year history. Even two former NATO secretaries-general, Javier Solana and Willy Claes, as well as former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, joined in this protest.< The treaty, which bans the possession of nuclear weapons, was adopted by 122 states at the UN in 2017 and must be ratified by 50 states before it enters into force. To date, 44 states have ratified it, so it won’t be long before the treaty becomes binding law for those who have signed it. The Canadian government, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pictured Sept. 16, 2020, has said it cannot make such a commitment to sign the treaty because of its membership in NATO. But NATO, following the lead of the U.S., the U.K., and France, has vigorously rejected the treaty because it “risks undermining” the Non-Proliferation Treaty and supposedly creates divisions in the international community. It would be harder to find a more pungent example of nuclear hypocrisy. First, the treaty explicitly recognizes the NPT as the “cornerstone” of nuclear disarmament efforts. Second, it is the refusal by the nuclear weapons states to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons, as ordered by the NPT, that led to the development of the Prohibition Treaty.
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NATO doesn’t have a leg to stand on in maintaining that nuclear weapons are the “supreme guarantee” of security. It has now been called out by its own strongest supporters—former high officials in 20 NATO countries, Germany, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Denmark, and others, as well as the Canadians—who have signed the letter organized by the Nobel Peace Prize winning-International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons.
The letter accuses the U.S., Russia, the U.K., France, and China—permanent members of the Security Council that all possess nuclear weapons—of viewing the NPT “as a license to retain their nuclear forces in perpetuity.” They are all flouting the NPT by modernizing their arsenals.
The letter adds: “With close to 14,000 nuclear weapons located at dozens of sites across the globe and on submarines patrolling the oceans at all times, the capacity for destruction is beyond our imagination. … Without doubt, a new nuclear arms race is under way.”
The prohibition treaty is explicit in its condemnation of nuclear weapons, stating: “Each State Party undertakes never under any circumstances to develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”
The Canadian government has said it cannot make such a commitment because of its membership in NATO. But the letter contests this stand, arguing that nothing in the new treaty precludes a NATO state joining, as long as it never assists the use of nuclear weapons. This was the stand taken by Canadian Pugwash, a prominent civil society group, which said that Canada should sign the treaty and argue within NATO councils to get the nuclear policies changed. Indeed, Lloyd Axworthy, one of the signatories of the letter, went to NATO when he was foreign affairs minister to get the policy changed, but was rebuffed.
Pierre Trudeau, the father of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, once told me that NATO’s obsolete policies were one of the biggest thorns he had to endure as prime minister. Justin Trudeau has not yet learned how NATO contravenes the basic idea of nuclear disarmament, for he called the negotiations that led to the adoption of the Prohibition Treaty “useless.” And his government has continued to use NATO membership as a block to the new treaty.
COVID-19 has upended the world order. It has dramatically shown the uselessness of piling up military hardwire to provide human security. Many steps need to be taken to boost cooperative security. One of the most important would be to renounce nuclear weapons. That is what the Prohibition Treaty does. The nuclear weapons states’ plan to spend $1-trillion this decade on nuclear weapons is an outrage to a humanity crying out for resources to survive against the coronavirus.
The seven former Canadian high officials—all of them Liberals—have pulled the rug out from under the Liberal government’s pathetic excuse for not signing the Prohibition Treaty. These seven are not alone among prominent Canadians calling for this action.
Other signatories include: John Polanyi, Ed Broadbent, John English, Gerry Barr, Bruce Kidd, Margaret MacMillan, Stephen Lewis, Ernie Regehr, Jennifer Simons, Clayton Ruby, Jane Urquhart, and many other distinguished recipients of the Order of Canada who have signed a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau by Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, calling for Canada to make nuclear disarmament “a national priority.”
Another civil society organization, the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, representing 16 national organizations, wants Canada “to take a leadership role within NATO” to create the conditions for a nuclear weapons-free world. This was exactly what the House of Commons Committee on National Defence unanimously recommended in 2018.
Justin Trudeau and his deputy, Chrystia Freeland, should now look around and see what important people in the country are saying to them. Not least their own former colleagues.
Former Senator Douglas Roche was also Canadian ambassador for disarmament. | The Hill Times
Program ABM systems to shoot down intrusions, without regard to their source
Unlike Ronald Reagan’s 1980s Strategic defence initiative, a.k.a. Star Wars, the anti-missile defence shield, into which Canada currently seems to be placing some serious stock, is quite realistic and technologically sound. In fact, over two decades ago the tech had impressively (at least to me) proved itself to be on solid ground, though I feel that it could’ve already been by now solidly established as a fully functional defense shield.
Though there still are skeptics, I can recall the successful interceptions by Patriot missiles launched from batteries stationed around Israel during Desert Storm.
If I recall correctly, the Patriot missiles had been barely developed with no practical testing, thus they had to be field tested during actual warfare. Only one scud made it through the defence shield intact and another after being severely damaged, though both did not result in death, injury nor even notable damage. Had the system been shy of competent, let alone a failure, there’s no reason to believe that the nuclear-armed nation of Israel was bluffing when it promised to retaliate against Iraq if the Patriots failed to deliver and Israeli casualties were incurred.
Unfortunately, whatever small degree to which the U.S. has thus far developed its shield technology in actual hardware would only serve to intercept ballistic missiles targeting nations that are U.S. friendly or their protection is in U.S. interests.
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A good means of avoiding such dreary anti-productive measures-thus-counter-measures would be to ensure all interested ‘sides’ that the anti-missile defence shield would be independently programmed to intercept all airborne projectiles regardless of their origin.
Admittedly, a notable sticking point could be the neutrality of the parties or national interests, etcetera, that would program such a system’s computer.
The system would monitor the planet’s air space and launch anti-missile defensive measures, equipped with latest computer-systems-hacking fail-safe technology.
The naysayers of such a universal defence shield should suggest other plausible ways through which to avoid nuclear-exchange devastation anywhere, let alone everywhere. As for those who say such a shield would be too expensive—just how much is Earth and humanity worth?
Does the Soviet “Dead Hand” system count as a Lethal Autonomous Weapon? Has this system carried over into modern day Russia?
Arctic Peace and Security Policy Issues
In this context, it is very important to recall the 1983 Declaration of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) on a Nuclear Free Arctic. Re-Issue of an updated Declaration by the ICC could have a powerful impact on the international community and influence progress toward a nuclear-weapon-free Arctic. Canadian Pugwash, together with its international contacts, has significant expertise in current political status of nuclear weapons and would gladly offer assistance in producing updated wording of the Declaration.
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When and if the circumpolar non-nuclear-weapon states agree on the nuclear-weapon-free goal, they could approach the United Nations, which would readily offer assistance in forming a Treaty. Russia and the United States, over time, could have reason to withdraw nuclear weapons from this very limited geographic region. Alternatively, true militarization of the Arctic is a possibility, in which case the nuclear weapons of China, Britain and France might also be deployed in the Arctic. Without changing the security strategy presently employed by NW states and their allies, a nuclear-weapon-free Arctic offers a model situation for working out methodology for reduction of NW, verification and eventual nuclear disarmament.
China, in its new Arctic Policy, has announced its intention to be a key player, to expend major resources to that effect, and, in particular, to facilitate a ‘Polar Silk Road’ . The newly issued policy is aspirational, rather than specific. The policy states ‘Peace and stability in the Arctic provides a significant guarantee for all activities in the region,and serves the fundamental interest of all countries including China’. Every nation involved in the Arctic at present or in the future should and could adopt this stance, but if there is conflict, military activity, including deployment of weapons, could result. China and others would possibly be prompted to send nuclear-weapon equipped submarines; probably forever closing the opportunity for a nuclear-weapon free Arctic. This is the reason why the Government of Canada should act now.
By: Adele Buckley, Canadian Pugwash Group
Proposals for a Nuclear Weapon Free Arctic
To read more, click- http://arcticnwfz.ca/
And/or the government of some other country in the circumpolar community. The Arctic should be nuclear-weapon free. It was Gorbachev who first proposed that notion, decades ago. Hurry up! The opportunity is closing.
I doubt that the opportunity closing or really changing much at all. They could probably have come up withe an Arctic NWFZ a long time ago if it weren’t for the Russian nuclear submarines. They pretty much have to keep their subs in the far north, mostly on the Kola Peninsula, and they have to go through the Arctic to get in and out.
Japan Council’s Statement on Trump’s Nuclear Tests
President Trump’s Message on the Occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Trinity Nuclear Test Shows No Sign of Remorse and Blatantly Declaring Further Nuclear Arms Buildup
On July 16, U.S. President Trump released a Presidential Message on the 75th Anniversary of the Trinity Nuclear Test held in New Mexico. Referring to the Manhattan Project which produced the atomic bombs, the Message says that it “helped end World War II and launch an unprecedented era of global stability” and “Our nuclear deterrent has also greatly benefitted our Nation and our allies”. This is a laudatory statement trying to justify the current nuclear buildup and modernization program promoted by the Trump Administration.
We strongly protest against his attempt to justify the production of the atomic bombs, rather than shifting to the elimination of nuclear weapons in the 75th year of the atomic bombing, which blatantly betrays the aspiration of the Hibakusha and challenges the world public opinion in support of the elimination of nuclear weapons. The atomic bomb attack was made on Hiroshima and Nagasaki when both Germany and Italy had surrendered and Japan had lost its war potential completely though it had yet to make a decision to surrender. It was the attack against undefended cities, where most of the victims were non-combatants. It was an unprecedented scale of mass destruction, which cannot be justified even in the light of international law in those days.
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Under the direction of President Trump, the U.S. has abandoned some existing treaties for nuclear arms control and is now stepping out for a new nuclear arms race with Russia. However, the deepening crisis over COVID-19, by which the U.S. people have suffered the greatest sacrifice, shows that what is most needed now is global cooperation and efforts for peace based on the U.N. Charter, disarmament and elimination of nuclear weapons, not inciting further confrontation or division.
In the present world, whether over the question of nuclear weapons prohibition, climate change, pandemic, poverty and social gap or gender equality, overwhelming majority of countries are working hand in hand with the civil society in creating a major trend toward solving these problems, focusing on the “human security”. We strongly call on the United States to reflect on its own history of having caused the crisis of annihilation of humankind, and change its course towards prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons and achieving a peaceful and just world.
Published: July 17, 2020
YASUI Masakazu, Secretary General
Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Gensuikyo)
There is something strange about the laws of war. There are treaties that outlaw certain types of conventional weapons for being too “inhumane.” If I recall correctly, there are “dumdum” bullets that explode upon impact and cause lacerations and these are forbidden. But nuclear weapons? Nah! That’s fine. Go right ahead with them!
“Five reasons to say no to spending $19 billion on war planes”
By: Brent Patterson
The Canadian government intends to sign a $19 billion contract in 2022 with one of three transnational corporations bidding to manufacture 88 fighter jets for the Royal Canadian Air Force. Here are five reasons to say no to that planned purchase:
1- We can’t afford the fighter jets. On July 8, Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced that he expects a $343.2 billion deficit for the 2020-21 fiscal year due to the spending related to the pandemic. This is a dramatic increase from the $19 billion deficit in 2016 when the Trudeau government announced the bidding process for new fighter jets.
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2- We need work, not war planes. Research by the Costs of War Project based at Brown’s University in Providence, Rhode Island found that $1 million spent on “defence” creates 6.9 direct and indirect jobs, while the same amount invested in solar power creates 9.5 jobs, in health care 14.3 jobs, and in education 19.2 jobs.
3- Bombing doesn’t bring peace. Canada’s current fleet of fighter jets has conducted 1,598 bombing missions. That bombing of Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yugoslavia did not bring the world closer to peace. Canada flew 10% of the NATO strike missions in Libya. The NATO bombing of water infrastructure in Libya has been described as a war crime.
4- Water, not war planes. In ‘Canada does not need fighter jets, period’, Charles Nixon, Canada’s Deputy Minister of National Defence (1975 to 1983) wrote: “New Canadian fighters … are not required to protect Canada’s populace or sovereignty.” In contrast, $4.7 billion would provide clean drinking water and sanitation services to all First Nations.
5- War planes are heavy polluters. The F-35 releases more carbon into the atmosphere in one long-range flight than a typical automobile does in a year. Canada’s six-month bombing campaign of Libya consumed 8.5 million litres of fuel. In contrast, $19 billion for a Green New Deal would help the needed transition to a green economy.
Spending $216 million on a fighter jet that costs CAD $40,000 an hour to fly is a bad investment that doesn’t help to save lives, create jobs, sustain the environment, or bring peace. To help make space for peace, please call on your Member of Parliament to publicly state their opposition to the purchase of new fighter jets.
To read more on this article: https://pbicanada.org/2020/07/24/five-reasons-to-say-no-to-spending-19-billion-on-war-planes/
Title: Five reasons to say no to spending $19 Billion on war planes
By: Brent Patterson
Published: July 24th, 2020
Yes! The pandemic gives us an extra argument for turning down the whole plan. Spend the money on things that Canadians actually will need in order to create a healthy society after this damned pandemic!
New Technologies Disrupt the Nuclear Balance!
Article by: Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall
“For decades, American policymakers and military planners have focused on preserving what is known in the nuclear lexicon as ‘strategic stability.’ During the Cold War, especially as mutual assured destruction became accepted logic between the United States and the Soviet Union, the pursuit of strategic stability provided a framework for managing the existential risks associated with massive nuclear arsenals.
Under conditions of strategic stability, each superpower recognized that its adversary could massively retaliate against a nuclear first strike—which created a disincentive to resorting to nuclear weapons. Preserving confidence that each side had a “second-strike capability” thus became essential. And even with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, strategic stability has continued to structure thinking among policymakers and planners about how to create predictability in the nuclear relationship and reduce incentives to escalation.”
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Yet as the quest for strategic stability has continued to guide defense planning and arms control, it has become increasingly untethered from technological and geopolitical realities. Since 2011, tensions have been mounting in the ;U.S.-Russian relationship, giving rise to the very real possibility that some combination of deliberate actions, misunderstandings, miscalculations, and accidents could lead to nuclear escalation and catastrophe.
Continue reading this article here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2020-07-21/age-strategic-instability
Title: The Age of Strategic Instability- How Novel Technologies Disrupt the Nuclear Balance
By: Elizabeth Sherwood-RandallPublished: July 21, 2020
Hey, look: It’s not nuclear “balance” that we need! It’s disarmament, stupid!
Are Killer Robots Conventional Weapons?
The photo is of a UN meeting in Geneva addressing the issue of lethal autonomous weapons.
Anyway, there is a regular UN organization that is suppposed to evaluate these so-called “conventional” weapons and since 2014 they have been meeting and discussing the legitimacy of their use — and even of their creation.
The official governmental body is being “lobbied” by a civil society organization called the “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots,” which includes 160 non-governmental organizations in 60 countries. As their title implies, the group insists that there must be meaningful human control over the use of all weapons.
A treaty has been in force since 1983 covering this category of weaponry: the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. However, the Campaign insists that new legally binding instruments are needed — which might take the form of a new protocol to the treaty. In the view of the Campaign, states should be launching negotiations to that end. To be sure, the CCW state adopted some “guiding principles” in 2018 and 2019, but these are inadequate.
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The 2020 chair of the CCW’s Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapons systems, Ambassador Janis Karklins, urges CCW delegations to provide their “recommendations in relation to the clarification, consideration and development of aspects of the normative and operational framework” on lethal autonomous weapons systems. He invites CCW commentaries or working papers addressing the need to retain meaningful human control as a new international treaty. All eight CCW meetings on lethal autonomous weapons systems have shown the intensity of concern about retaining human control over weapons systems and the use of force. In April there was a virtual Berlin Forum on lethal autonomous weapons systems attended by more than 60 countries. There also had been a virtual consensus at a seminar in Rio in February 2020 that human control is the issue that should be the key feature of the states’ collective work on the topic.
In determining the quality and extent of human-machine interaction, a range of factors should be considered including the operational context, and the characteristics and capabilities of the weapons system as a whole. In particular, the human operator of a weapon system should have an understanding of the operational environment; an understanding of how the system functions, including what it might identify as a target; and sufficient time for deliberation. Operational components can make human control more meaningful by limiting when and where a weapon system can operate and what it can target. A new international treaty could lay down explicit rules to ensure appropriate constraints on autonomy in weapons systems and resolve differing views on human control over the use of force.
Since 2014, states have made some progress at the CCW to identify key issues of concern regarding autonomy in weapons systems. Virtually all states have acknowledged the importance of human control over the use of force and several have committed not to acquire or develop lethal autonomous weapons systems. A total of 30 countries have called for a ban on such weapons systems, while group of states such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) have repeatedly called for a legally-binding instrument stipulating prohibitions and regulations on lethal autonomous weapons systems.Yet,the CCW talks have yielded little in the way of a lasting multilateral outcome due to the opposition by a handful of military powers, most notably Russia and the United States, which firmly reject proposals to negotiate a new international treaty or protocol.
This comment draws upon material from the “Commentary for the Convention on Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems” 5 June 2020
What countries are developing autonomous weapons? Don’t we need a campaign to shame them? I think everyone would agree that these robots must be outlawed — but if they don’t know it’s happening, nobody will prevent it. We are all so preoccupied with the pandemic and the economy now that we aren’t paying attention to some other horrible challenges.
I have heard that no country has a fully developed weapon system yet that operates without human beings “in the loop.” That’s why it is still possible to stop them. Once they exist, it gets a lot harder to get rid of them. At least, I think it probably does.
Brezhnev was not so bad (comparatively)…
This No-First-Use policy is a pretty mild form of self-limitation, but it has actually been the policy of certain states. India and China both maintain this position. However, NATO has always refused to make such a promise. It claims that a “pre-emptive nuclear strike” is essential for the credibility of its policy of deterrence against Russia.
For its part, Russia used to adhere to a position of No-First-Use. It was Leonid Brezhnev who made that promise in 1982, and the Soviet regime continued that pledge until 1993. Since 2000, Russia has “reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to any large conventional aggression.”
In any case, “No-First Use” is just a “declaration.” There is no way of knowing what people will do in a real situation as long as they have the means. The only way to make sure that someone will not use a weapon is to remove the weapon.
The Need for and Elements of a New Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons
By Bonnie Docherty
States parties to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) have held eight in-depth meetings on lethal autonomous weapons systems since 2014. They have examined the extensive challenges raised by the systems and recognized the importance of retaining human control over the use of force. Progress toward an appropriate multilateral solution, however, has been slow. If states do not shift soon from abstract talk to treaty negotiations, the development of technology will outpace international diplomacy.
Approaching the topic from a legal perspective, this chapter argues that fully autonomous weapons cross the threshold of acceptability and should be banned by a new international treaty. The chapter first examines the concerns raised by fully autonomous weapons, particularly under international humanitarian law. It then explains why a legally binding instrument best addresses those concerns. Finally, it proposes key elements of a new treaty to maintain meaningful human control over the use of force and prohibit weapons systems that operate without it.
The Problems Posed by Fully Autonomous Weapons
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Fully autonomous weapons would find it even more difficult to weigh the proportionality of an attack. The proportionality test requires determining whether expected civilian harm outweighs anticipated military advantage on a case-by-case basis in a rapidly changing environment. Evaluating the proportionality of an attack involves more than a quantitative calculation. Commanders apply human judgment, informed by legal and moral norms and personal experience, to the specific situation. Whether the human judgment necessary to assess proportionality could ever be replicated in a machine is doubtful. Furthermore, robots could not be programmed in advance to deal with the infinite number of unexpected situations they might encounter on the battlefield.[3]
The use of fully autonomous weapons also risks creating a serious accountability gap.[4] International humanitarian law requires that individuals be held legally responsible for war crimes and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. Military commanders or operators could be found guilty if they deployed a fully autonomous weapon with the intent to commit a crime. It would, however, be legally challenging and arguably unfair to hold an operator responsible for the unforeseeable actions of an autonomous robot.
Finally, fully autonomous weapons contravene the Martens Clause, a provision that appears in numerous international humanitarian law treaties.[5] The clause states that if there is no specific law on a topic, civilians are still protected by the principles of humanity and dictates of public conscience.[6] Fully autonomous weapons would undermine the principles of humanity because of their inability to show compassion or respect human dignity.[7] Widespread opposition to fully autonomous weapons among faith leaders, scientists, tech workers, civil society organizations, the public, and more indicate that this emerging technology also runs counter to the dictates of public conscience.[8]
Fully autonomous weapons pose numerous other threats that go far beyond concerns over compliance with international humanitarian law. For many, delegating life-and-death decisions to machines would cross a moral red line.[9] The use of fully autonomous weapons, including in law enforcement operations, would undermine the rights to life, remedy, and dignity.[10] Development and production of these machines could trigger an arms race, and the systems could proliferate to irresponsible states and non-state armed groups.[11] Even if new technology could address some of the international humanitarian law problems discussed above, it would not resolve many of these other concerns.
The Need for a Legally Binding Instrument
The unacceptable risks posed by fully autonomous weapons necessitate creation of a new legally binding instrument. It could take the form of a stand-alone treaty or a protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Existing international law, including international humanitarian law, is insufficient in this context because its fundamental rules were designed to be implemented by humans not machines. At the time states negotiated the additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions, they could not have envisioned full autonomy in technology. Therefore, while CCW states parties have agreed that international humanitarian law applies to this new technology, there are debates about how it does.[12]
A new treaty would clarify and strengthen existing international humanitarian law. It would establish clear international rules to address the specific problem of weapons systems that operate outside of meaningful human control. In so doing, the instrument would fill the legal gap highlighted by the Martens Clause, help eliminate disputes about interpretation, promote consistency of interpretation and implementation, and facilitate compliance and enforcement.[13]
The treaty could also go beyond the scope of current international humanitarian law. While the relevant provisions of international humanitarian law focus on the use of weapons, a new treaty could address development, production, and use. In addition, it could apply to the use of fully autonomous weapons in both law enforcement operations as well as situations of armed conflict.[14]
A legally binding instrument is preferable to the “normative and operational framework” that the CCW states parties agreed to develop in 2020 and 2021.[15] The phrase “normative and operational framework” is intentionally vague, and thus has created uncertainty about what states should be working toward. While the term could encompass a legally binding CCW protocol, it could also refer to political commitments or voluntary best practices, which would be not be enough to preempt what has been called the “third revolution in warfare.”[16] Whether adopted under the auspices of CCW or in another forum, a legally binding instrument would bind states parties to clear obligations. Past experience shows that the stigma it would create could also influence states not party and non-state armed groups.
The Elements of a New Treaty
CCW states parties have discussed the problems of fully autonomous weapons and the adequacy of international humanitarian law since 2014. It is now time to move forward and determine the specifics of an effective response. This chapter will lay out key elements of a proposed treaty, which were drafted by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School and adopted by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots in 2019.[17]
The proposal outlined below does not constitute specific treaty language. States will determine the details of content and language over the course of formal negotiations. Instead, the proposal highlights elements that a final treaty should contain in order to effectively address concerns that many states, international organizations, and civil society have identified. The elements include the treaty’s scope, the underlying concept of meaningful human control, and core obligations.
Scope
The proposal for a new treaty recommends a broad scope of application. The treaty should apply to any weapon system that selects and engages targets based on sensor processing, rather than human input.[18] The breadth of scope aims to ensure that all systems in that category—whether current or future—are assessed, and that problematic systems do not escape regulation. The prohibitions and restrictions, which are detailed below, however, are future looking and focus on fully autonomous weapons.
Meaningful Human Control
The concept of meaningful human control is crucial to the new treaty because the moral, legal, and accountability problems associated with fully autonomous weapons are largely attributable to the lack of such control.[19] Recognizing these risks, most states have embraced the principle that humans must play a role in the use of force.[20] While they have used different terminology, many states and experts prefer the term “meaningful human control.” “Control” is stronger than alternatives such as “intervention” and “judgment” and is broad enough to encompass both of them; it is also a familiar concept in international law.[21] “Meaningful” ensures that control rises to a significant level.[22]
States, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and independent experts have identified numerous components of meaningful human control.[23] This chapter distills those components into three categories:
• Decision-making components give humans the information and ability to make decisions about whether the use of force complies with law and ethics. For example, a human operator should have: an understanding of the operational environment; an understanding of how the system functions, such as what it might identify as target; and sufficient time for deliberation.
• Technological components are embedded features of a weapon system that enhance meaningful human control. Technological components include, for example, predictability and reliability, the ability of the system to relay information to a human operator, and the ability of a human to intervene after activation of the system.
• Operational components limit when and where a weapon system can operate and what it can target. Factors that could be constrained include the time between a human’s legal assessment and a system’s application of force, the duration of a system’s operation, and the nature and size of the geographic area of operation.[24]
None of these components are independently sufficient, but they each increase the meaningfulness of control, and they often work in tandem. The above list may not be exhaustive; further analysis of existing and emerging technologies may reveal others. Regardless, a new legally binding instrument should incorporate such components as prerequisites for meaningful human control.
Core Obligations
The heart of a legally binding instrument on fully autonomous weapons should consist of a general obligation combined with prohibitions and positive obligations.[25]
General Obligation
The treaty should include a general obligation for states to maintain meaningful human control over the use of force. This obligation establishes a principle to guide interpretation of the rest of the treaty. Its generality is designed to avoid loopholes that could arise in the other, more specific obligations. The focus on conduct (“use of force”) rather than specific technology future proofs the treaty’s obligations because it is impossible to envision all technology that could prove problematic. The reference to use of force also allows for application to both situations of armed conflict and law enforcement operations.
Prohibitions
The second category of obligations is prohibitions on weapons systems that select and engage targets and by their nature—rather than by the manner of their use—pose fundamental moral or legal problems. The new treaty should prohibit the development, production, and use of systems that are inherently unacceptable. The clarity of such prohibitions facilitates monitoring, compliance, and enforcement. Their absolute nature increases stigma, which can in turn influence states not party and non-state actors.
The proposed treaty contains two subcategories of prohibitions. First, the prohibitions cover systems that always select and engage targets without meaningful human control. Such systems might operate, for example, through machine learning and thus be too complex for humans to understand and control. Second, the prohibitions could extend to other systems that select and engage targets and are by their nature problematic: specifically, systems that use certain types of data—such as weight, heat, or sound—to represent people, regardless of whether they are combatants. Killing or injuring humans based on such data would undermine human dignity and dehumanize violence. In addition, whether by design or due to algorithmic bias, they may rely on discriminatory indicators to choose targets.[26]
Positive Obligations
The third category of obligations encompasses positive obligations to ensure meaningful human control is maintained over all other systems that select and engage targets. These systems may not be prohibited under the treaty as inherently problematic, but they might have the potential to be used without meaningful human control. The positive obligations apply to all systems that select and engage targets based on sensor processing, and they establish requirements to ensure that human control over these systems is meaningful. The components of meaningful human control discussed above can help determine the criteria necessary to ensure systems are used only with such control.
Other Elements
The elements outlined above are not the only elements of a new legally binding instrument. While beyond the scope of this chapter, other important elements include:
• A preamble, which would articulate the treaty’s purpose;
• Reporting requirements to promote transparency and facilitate monitoring;
• Verification and cooperative compliance measures to enforce the treaty’s provisions;
• A framework for regular meetings of states parties to review the status and operation of the treaty, identify implementation gaps, and set goals for the future;
• Requirements to adopt national implementation measures; and
• The threshold for entry into force.[27]
Conclusion
After six years of CCW discussions, states should actively consider the elements of a new treaty and pursue negotiations to realize them. In theory, negotiations could lead to a new CCW protocol, but certain states have taken advantage of the CCW’s consensus rules to block progress. Therefore, it is time to consider an alternative forum. States could start an independent process of the kind used to create the Mine Ban Treaty or the Convention on Cluster Munitions, or they could adopt a treaty under the auspices of the UN General Assembly as was done for the Arms Trade Treaty and the Treaty on the Prohibition on Nuclear Weapons. Ultimately, states should pursue the most efficient path to the most effective treaty that preempts the dangers posed by fully autonomous weapons.
Endnotes
[1] Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), adopted June 8, 1977, 1125 U.N.T.S. 3, entered into force December 7, 1978, arts. 48 and 51(4-5).
[2] Human Rights Watch and IHRC, Making the Case: The Dangers of Killer Robots and the Need for a Preemptive Ban (December 2016), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/arms1216_web.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), p. 5.
[3] Ibid., pp. 5-8.
[4] See generally Human Rights Watch and IHRC, Mind the Gap: The Lack of Accountability for Killer Robots (April 2015), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/arms0415_ForUpload_0.pdf (accessed May 20, 2020).
[5] See generally Human Rights Watch and IHRC, Heed the Call: A Moral and Legal Imperative to Ban Killer Robots (August 2018), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/arms0818_web.pdf (accessed May 20, 2020).
[6] See, for example, Convention (II) with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and its Annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague, adopted July 29,1899, entered into force September 4, 1900, pmbl., para. 8; Protocol I, art. 1(2).
[7] Human Rights Watch and IHRC, Heed the Call, pp. 19-27.
[8] See, for example, PAX, “Religious Leaders Call for a Ban on Killer Robots,” November 12, 2014, https://www.paxforpeace.nl/stay-informed/news/religious-leaders-call-for-a-ban-on-killer-robots; “Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers,” opened for signature July 28, 2015, https://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/?cn-reloaded=1 (signed, as of May 2020, by 4,502 AI and robotics researchers and 26,215 others); Scott Shane and Daisuke Wakabayashi, “‘The Business of War’: Google Employees Protest Work for the Pentagon,” New York Times, April 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html?partner=IFTTT; Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Learn: The Threat of Fully Autonomous Weapons,” https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/learn/; Ipsos, “Six in Ten (61%) Respondents across 26 Countries Oppose the Use of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems,” January 21, 2019, https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/human-rights-watch-six-in-ten-oppose-autonomous-weapons (all accessed May 21, 2020). See also Human Rights Watch and IHRC, Heed the Call, pp. 28-43.
[9] UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Christof Heyns, “Lethal Autonomous Robotics,” http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session23/A-HRC-23-47_en.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), p. 17 (writing, “Machines lack morality and mortality, and should as a result not have life and death powers over humans”).
[10] See generally Human Rights Watch and IHRC, Shaking the Foundations: The Human Rights Implications of Killer Robots (May 2014), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/arms0514_ForUpload_0.pdf (accessed May 20, 2020). See also Heyns, “Lethal Autonomous Robotics,” pp. 6 (on the right to life: “the introduction of such powerful yet controversial new weapons systems has the potential to pose new threats to the right to life”), 15 (on the right to remedy: “If the nature of a weapon renders responsibility for its consequences impossible, its use should be considered unethical and unlawful as an abhorrent weapon”), and 20 (on dignity: “there is widespread concern that allowing [fully autonomous weapons] to kill people may denigrate the value of life itself”).
[11] “Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers”; Human Rights Watch and IHRC, Making the Case, pp. 29-30.
[12] The applicability of international humanitarian law to lethal autonomous weapons systems is the first of 11 guiding principles adopted by CCW states parties. “Report of the 2018 Session of the Group of Governmental Experts on Emerging Technologies in the Area of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems,” CCW/GGE.1/2018/3, October 23, 2018, https://www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/(httpAssets)/20092911F6495FA7C125830E003F9A5B/$file/CCW_GGE.1_2018_3_final.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), para. 26(a).
[13] Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons: Frequently Asked Questions,” February 2020, https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/FAQ-Treaty-Elements.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), p. 2.
[14] Ibid.
[15] CCW Meeting of High Contracting Parties, “Final Report,” CCW/MSP/2019/9, December 13, 2019, https://undocs.org/CCW/MSP/2019/9 (accessed May 21, 2020), para. 31.
[16] “Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers.”
[17] Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons,” November 2019, https://www.stopkillerrobots.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Key-Elements-of-a-Treaty-on-Fully-Autonomous-WeaponsvAccessible.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020). See also Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons: Frequently Asked Questions.”
[18] Article 36, “Autonomy in Weapons System: Mapping a Structure for Regulation through Specific Policy Questions,” November 2019, http://www.article36.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/regulation-structure.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), p. 1.
[19] Human Rights Watch and IHRC, “Killer Robots and the Concept of Meaningful Human Control,” April 2016, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/supporting_resources/robots_meaningful_human_control_final.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), pp. 2-6.
[20] Ray Acheson, “It’s Time to Exercise Human Control over the CCW,” Reaching Critical Will’s CCW Report, vol. 7, no. 2, March 27, 2019, https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/ccw/2019/gge/reports/CCWR7.2.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), p. 2 (reporting that “[o]nce discussions got under way, it became clear that the majority of governments still agree human control is necessary over critical functions of weapon systems”).
[21] Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons: Frequently Asked Questions,” p. 5.
[22] According to Article 36, “The term ‘meaningful’ can be argued to be preferable because it is broad, it is general rather than context specific (e.g. appropriate) [and] derives from an overarching principle rather being outcome driven (e.g. effective, sufficient).” Article 36, “Key Elements of Meaningful Human Control,” April 2016, http://www.article36.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/MHC-2016-FINAL.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020), p. 2.
[23] See, for example, Allison Pytlak and Katrin Geyer, “News in Brief,” Reaching Critical Will’s CCW Report, vol. 7, no. 2, March 27, 2019, pp. 10-12 (summarizing states’ views on control from one CCW session); International Committee of the Red Cross, “Autonomy, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: Technical Aspects of Human Control,” August 2019, https://www.icrc.org/en/document/autonomy-artificial-intelligence-and-robotics-technical-aspects-human-control; International Committee for Robot Arms Control, “What Makes Human Control over Weapons Systems ‘Meaningful’?” August 2019, https://www.icrac.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Amoroso-Tamburrini_Human-Control_ICRAC-WP4.pdf; International Panel on the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons (iPRAW), Focus on Human Control (August 2019), https://www.ipraw.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/2019-08-09_iPRAW_HumanControl.pdf (all accessed May 21, 2020).
[24] Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons,” pp. 3-4.
[25] These obligations are drawn from the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons.”
[26] For further discussion of the second subcategory of prohibitions, see Article 36, “Targeting People: Key Issues in the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons Systems,” November 2019, http://www.article36.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/targeting-people.pdf (accessed May 21, 2020).
[27] Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, “Key Elements of a Treaty on Fully Autonomous Weapons,” p. 9.
Arms June 1, 2020 10:46AM EDT Forthcoming publication by Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão, based on presentation at Rio Seminar on Autonomous Weapons Systems, Feb. 20, 2020
What a Scary Idea!
You are re-stating an old Roman conundrum: Who will guard the guardians?
Probably a lot depends on the “early warning system” that will tell people at the UN when trouble is brewing so they can get some conflict resolution experts into the field in time. I heard someone say that it helps for everybody to be carrying cameras. Or even body cameras, so long as the potential aggressors know that they are being watched. How much truth is there in that notion? Has anyone studied it systematically?
Centenarians for a Standing UN Army!
Sir Brian is now 101 years old, and certainly the person with the longest career at the United Nations. He worked on it while it was still only a “preparatory committee,” but went on to become Under-Secretary General. In that capacity he directed the first peacekeeping forces, especially in Cyprus.
I just worry that the UN peacekeepers (or this new military unit) would be used to fight for one side against another. If they are used to keep separate combattants apart long enough to negotiate a settlement, then fine! But it’s not okay to use them to help one side win a war — even if it’s the side that we all consider more desirable than its enemy.
The End of the Open Skies Treaty and the Politics of Compliance
By Alexander Graef
On May 22, the Trump administration notified the remaining state parties that the United States would withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty. The treaty has been in force since January 2002 and allows its 34 members to conduct joint, unarmed observation flights over each other’s territory using sensors with a predefined resolution. The U.S. withdrawal will come into effect in November. On July 6, all member states will meet at an online state conference to decide whether to preserve the treaty without U.S. participation.
Why has the U.S. decided to leave the treaty? The main reason is a bilateral conflict with Russia. The official withdrawal statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Russia of “flagrantly and continuously violating the Treaty in various ways for years.” Moscow had “twisted and perverted” the treaty’s implementation and even used it as “a tool to facilitate military coercion.” The United States could not “remain in arms control agreements that are violated by the other side, and that are actively being used not to support but rather to undermine international peace and security.” In contrast to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the U.S. did not claim “material breach,” however.
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The remaining state parties have reacted cautiously to these allegations. In a common statement, the foreign ministers of 12 member states reaffirmed that “this treaty remains functioning and useful,” and argued that “regarding issues on Treaty implementation” they “will continue to engage Russia … and other European partners to address outstanding issues.” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas even stated that although “there have indeed been difficulties with respect to implementation on Russia’s part,” they do “not justify withdrawing from the Treaty.”
This begs the question of whether the compliance concerns raised by the U.S. administration vis-à-vis Russia are justified and, if so, on what grounds.
Assessing treaty compliance is difficult, because the indeterminacy of legal provisions enables governments to use norm-based arguments strategically. This is particularly the case in international law. States use the absence of a sovereign legislature and judiciary to draw on political arguments concealed by legal rhetoric. They justify their interests on the grounds of allegedly common and uncontested standards of legitimacy. The Open Skies Treaty adds another challenge: Secrecy around the treaty has limited the public’s ability to make informed judgments about the degree of legal deviation and its severity.
Even the annual compliance reports published by the U.S. State Department acknowledge normative ambiguity, arguing that “concerns relating to compliance involve matters of interpretation.” State actions that give rise to concerns can either “constitute violations or simply represent differences in implementation approaches or some other permissible activity.” Over time the wording of the compliance reports, however, has changed in subtle but significant ways. From 2005 to 2017 the unclassified versions of the reports did not formally find Russia “in violation” of the Open Skies Treaty or its provisions. Instead, they accused Moscow of failing “to meet [its] Treaty obligations” and being “not in compliance with its obligations[,]” or they expressed “serious compliance concerns[.]” The tone changed suddenly in the 2018 report, the first one solely prepared and published by the Trump administration. How can we explain this shift in wording?
To understand the underlying politics, we need to take a closer look at the four allegations as cited by Pompeo in his withdrawal statement. They fall into three categories: flight safety, territorial status conflicts and national security.
Flight Safety
Disputes about compliance have been a constant feature of the Open Skies Treaty since its inception. Most contested measures, as the U.S. State Department puts it, “can largely be attributed to different interpretations and understandings of various Treaty provisions.” Some are trivial and even arcane, for example, controversies about the feasibility of overflights during national weekends and holiday periods; others have limited full territorial observation on the grounds of national safety and air traffic control regulations. The Open Skies Treaty itself knows no such limits, however. It allows observing the entire area of a state’s territory, including flights through hazardous airspace. The treaty cites flight safety as an exception to this rule, but only in connection with bad weather.
As a result, flight safety concerns regularly cause disputes. Over time, member states have learned to settle some of them successfully within the Open Skies Consultative Commission (OSCC), including long-standing issues between Russia and the U.S. In April 2016, Russia lifted altitude restrictions over Chechnya. Similarly, in 2016, the U.S. finally granted access to all its island territories, which Russia had repeatedly asked for. In June 2017, Russia stated that it would no longer impose airspace restrictions during the presence of VIPs (presidential envoys). There have also been debates about altitude restrictions for flight safety over the Moscow city center. It has turned out, however, that imposing altitude restrictions over national capitals is common practice in many member states. Altitude restrictions in general are now being addressed (by the OSCC) as part of a broader discussion about air traffic control procedures.
Military Exercises and Kaliningrad
Two compliance concerns related to flight safety measures remain. The first involves restrictions during Russia’s strategic Tsentr military exercise that happens every four years. In September 2019, Russia denied a joint U.S.-Canadian team a previously agreed-upon second flight segment over the exercise, citing flight safety as the reason. Attempts to find agreement on alternative flight paths were unsuccessful.
The second concern, which revolves around a 500 km limit for flights over the Kaliningrad region imposed by Russia since June 2014, is a more complicated issue. According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the reason for this measure had been a Polish overflight in April that year, which took an unusually lengthy path over the small region. Its alleged zigzag route had reportedly caused chaos with air traffic control and limited civilian air travel. The controversy is not about whether a separate limit for flights over the Kaliningrad region is justified in general. This is indeed possible, but only for flights originating from the newly designated Open Skies airfield in Khrabrovo located in the region, which since 2014 functions as a new point where observation flights may start or end. Instead, the question is whether the treaty allows establishing sublimits for flights from already established Open Skies airfields such as Kubinka, near Moscow. The treaty allows establishing different limits for territories separated from the mainland to ensure “effective observation” (Annex E), on two conditions: if the territory is separated by more than 600 km, or if it is located beyond 35 percent of the maximum flight distance from a designated Open Skies airfield. Neither rule applies to the Kaliningrad region. A decision by the OSCC from March 2004 further specifies that states shall neither “increase the number of flights required for the opportunity to observe the entire territory” nor decrease the maximum flight distance of already established airfields.
Russia is stretching the wording of the treaty, pushing the limits of accepted rules to their breaking point. Moscow holds that the number of flights to observe Russia’s entire territory has not changed; efficient observation of the Kaliningrad region would be possible and the maximum flight distance from Kubinka (5,500 km) remained essentially the same even with a sublimit in place. Russia is also relying on practical arguments, suggesting that the 500 km limit would be sufficient to cover 77 to 98 percent of the Kaliningrad region’s territory per flight. Although this might be true, such concerns provide no grounds for the establishment of sublimits.
Territorial Status Conflicts
A second set of concerns involve territorial status conflicts. These are more problematic, because they are unrelated to the treaty. For example, since 2002 Turkey has consistently vetoed the accession of the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member state, to the treaty, because Ankara does not recognize Cyprus’s sovereignty. In 2005, the unsolved issue prevented the adoption of the final document at the treaty’s review conference, because Turkey objected to a statement that described the accession of Cyprus as pending. From January 2011 to July 2013, the normal proceedings of the OSCC were interrupted, because Greece insisted on putting Cyprus’s membership on the agenda, to which Turkey, again, refused to give its consent. Another issue in the same category is the status of the Crimean peninsula. In 2014, Russia invited other parties to overfly the territory from a designated Open Skies refueling airfield. Since the other state parties continue to view Crimea as part of Ukraine, the peninsula remains practically outside of treaty provisions.
Georgian-Russian Border
Russia’s denial of observation flights within a 10 km corridor along its border with Georgia is similar in kind. It stems from a territorial conflict about the political status of two Georgian breakaway regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia recognized the sovereignty of both regions in the aftermath of its war with Georgia in August 2008. In light of this recognition, Russia sees as applicable Article VI of the Open Skies Treaty: “[T]he flight path of an observation aircraft shall not be closer than … ten kilometers from the border with an adjacent State that is not a State Party.”
No member state of the Open Skies Treaty shares this position. To them, Abkhazia and Ossetia are de jure Georgian territories. Hence, the article cited by Russia does not apply. Georgia regards the Russian position as a violation of its own sovereignty. Nevertheless, even after the war in 2008, both states continued to conduct overflights over each other’s territory, each time with the U.K. as a flight partner.
In April 2012, Georgia informed the state parties that it would cease performing its obligations vis-à-vis Russia under the treaty. It stopped its own flights over Russia and the latter has not been able to conduct flights over Georgia in turn, although it has continued to request such flights during the annual flight quota negotiations.
From a purely technical point of view, the 10 km limit imposed by Russia on its border is less problematic than it might seem. Given a sufficiently high altitude and good weather conditions, panorama cameras used by the U.S. (with a swath width of more than 20 km) can take images beyond this distance.
Nevertheless, the dispute has had significant effects on the treaty. At the quota negotiations in October 2017, Russia made a successful bid for a flight over Georgia, which led Tbilisi to withhold its consent to the full package of quota distribution. The lack of consensus made regular flight missions for all member states in 2018 impossible. At the negotiations in October 2018, Russia did not file a request for an overflight, and flights resumed in 2019. The underlying problem, however, has not yet been solved.
National Security
The third category of concerns pertains to perceived threats to national security. Such concerns go beyond the treaty’s normative framework, because they question its very purpose as an instrument of trust- and confidence-building. Instead of compliance with (contested) treaty provisions and their practical application, the issues at stake are political power and the treaty’s conceptual validity.
When President George H.W. Bush revived Eisenhower’s original idea of Open Skies in May 1989, he argued that “such unprecedented territorial access would show the world the true meaning of the concept of openness” and could reveal the Soviet Union’s commitment to change. From the outset of negotiations, one major concern was to strike the right balance between the openness necessary for confidence-building and national security.
The possible implications of this trade-off between transparency and security were also discussed in the U.S. Congress upon ratification. In its report on the “Intelligence and Security Implications of the Treaty on Open Skies” from May 1993, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that “little or no sensitive defense information is likely to be compromised by Open Skies flights.” The committee further argued that “limits on sensor resolution, combined with required delays between submission of a mission plan and the beginning of a limited observation period, effectively limit any country’s ability to gain sensitive information from overflights of the United States or U.S. facilities overseas.” In terms of this view being true, not much has changed since.
Targeting Critical Infrastructure
Nevertheless, since 2016, an increasing number of anonymous administration officials and intelligence officers has publicly expressed worry that Russia could be using Open Skies imagery to target U.S. critical infrastructure. In February 2016, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, suggested that by using digital techniques Russia would “get incredible foundational intelligence on critical infrastructure, bases, ports, all of our facilities.” Around the same time, USSTRATCOM commander Adm. Cecil Haney warned that “the treaty has become a critical component of Russia’s intelligence collection capability directed at the United States.” Considering that the allowed maximum sensor resolution and the general rules for mission planning have remained the same since 2002, these statements came as a surprise. All state parties, including the United States, have welcomed the ongoing transition from analogue, black-and-white film to commercial digital aerial cameras.
Hence, Pompeo’s statement about the Russian use of Open Skies imagery “in support of an aggressive new … doctrine of targeting critical infrastructure in the United States and Europe with precision-guided conventional munitions” must be taken with a grain of salt. Given the standardized, limited resolution of Open Skies sensors and established procedures for data processing, the idea that Moscow would receive valuable information for targeting critical infrastructure seems far-fetched. Nevertheless, the fact that these and similar allegations are made at all speaks to the lack of trust between both states. Since public verification of classified data is impossible, such claims ultimately become questions of belief and reinforce existing political sentiments.
Conclusion
The sublimit over Kaliningrad, the denial of observations in the border area to Georgia, and conflicts about national safety regulations are problematic and legitimate grounds for critique. However, they do not diminish the overall practical value of Open Skies missions, whose “vast majority,” as the State Department acknowledges, “occur without incident.” For European member states, the treaty is important for both intelligence collection and confidence-building. Allies also consider the recent, tentative steps to address compliance issues by Russia.
In March 2018, Moscow signaled that it would resume “receiving observation flights in 10 kilometers contiguous to two sections of Russia’s state border in the Caucasus” and make them permanent under the condition “that Georgia implements in good faith its obligations to accept Russian observation missions.” Likewise, in February 2020, Russia allowed a joined flight by the U.S., Lithuania and Estonia with a range of 505 km over the Kaliningrad region, thereby undermining its own long-held policy. It is unclear whether this was done to buttress public justification efforts in the wake of an expected U.S. withdrawal or whether it represents a genuine sign of goodwill. Time will tell.
By contrast, treaty opponents in the U.S. have used legitimate compliance concerns to argue that Russia has, as Pompeo puts it, “weaponized the Treaty by making it into a tool of intimidation and threat.” They have thus succeeded in transforming compliance issues into matters of national security. As we know now, this strategy has been politically effective. The U.S. withdrawal from the treaty reflects both the very poor bilateral relations with Russia and President Trump’s contempt for the international liberal order. It also illustrates the limits of using cooperative international law in times of perceived great power competition. Given the supreme quality of U.S. national technical means, the Open Skies Treaty has always been more about Washington’s foreign policy leadership and global diplomatic engagement, including alliance politics, than about the collection of additional intelligence. However, to the current U.S. administration, these objectives seem to be elements of a bygone era.
Lawfare July 6. 2020
https://www.lawfareblog.com/end-open-skies-treaty-and-politics-compliance
Besides, I bet they don’t need spy planes for surveillance anymore anyhow. The satellites are zipping around the world at all times, taking photos that are probably as good as the ones the planes used to take during the Cold War. (I am just guessing, of course. Can someone tell me whether I am right or not, please?)
Can Your Country Feel Secure Without an Army?
This is the flag of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
It is true that there are some countries that lack any army, though I think they all have police and some have institutions like militias and “national guards.” Nonviolence is a marvelous aspiration, but no modern society has come close to achieving it, and even Christianity soon abandoned any general recommendation that the faithful should “turn the other cheek” to those who would injure them. Instead, the high goal of perfect nonviolence was soon replaced with the notion of the “just war,” which involves all kinds of qualifications, but mainly makes it clear that everyone has the right to self-defence. We should occasionally review the criteria for deciding that a war is just, but I don’t think we are likely to give up the idea altogether within any foreseeable future.
Japan goes through that conversation incessantly, for there is a large movement in that country
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After 1951, the US left some troops in Japan to protect the country against external aggression. Although various police units expanded, a firm decision was made that Japan will never again maintain “land, sea, or air forces or another war potential.” Nevertheless, this clear-cut commitment was gradually blurred, as more people came to insist that the country should have a “self-defence force” that strongly resembles an armed force. By 1960 Japan and the US had overcome their unequal status by agreeing to a mutual defence pact.
Perhaps we can read the evolution of these policies over the decades as a sign that similar trends are inevitable — that the hope to abolish militarism is doomed to fail in the long run, at least so long as there are separate nation states and no international rule of law that can be enforced.
Or perhaps not. The question is worth thinking about.
And that flag is kind of ominous looking, isn’t it? Remember ‘the land of the rising sun’?
Defund the Police, Then Defund the Military
Democrats used to have a clearer agenda for cracking down on an out-of-control military. It’s time to bring that back.
BY NOAH BERLATSKY
Following the brutal police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month, activists and protesters are calling on the government to “defund the police.” The Minneapolis City Council has declared its intention to do exactly that. But national Democratic pundits and elected officials have been wary of adopting the idea. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has opposed defunding police; so has his erstwhile primary opponent, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders.
But throttling cash flows to harmful institutions isn’t a new idea on the left, or for Democrats. For decades, Democrats and the left called for the defunding of the military in much the same terms as protesters and activists are calling for the defunding of the police. “Defund the military” has, it’s true, largely been abandoned as a high-profile strategy by both mainstream Democrats and the anti-war left. But it’s a useful precedent for thinking about what defunding the police means and the benefits it can bring. In turn, slashing the budgets of militarized police forces could reinvigorate calls to cut the bloated budget of a military that had ambitions to be a global police officer.
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In the 1960s and ’70s, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, a venerable anti-war organization, printed a famously popular bumper sticker declaring “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” As with “defund the police,” this is not just a slogan—it’s a political philosophy and a political argument.
The organization was pointing out that prioritizing the military and war means deprioritizing the resources that make peace possible, like education. In the same vein, Black Lives Matter and the American Civil Liberties Union have called to defund the police in order to redirect money to mental health services and investments in black communities—like, for example, schools. Police officers themselves have pointed out how they’ve become a service of last resort, struggling to deal with the fallout of austerity elsewhere. In 2017, for example, Chicago spent more than 38 percent of its budget on police, and Minneapolis spent more than 35 percent. The New York City post-coronavirus budget for fiscal year 2021 includes $2 billion in cuts across education, housing, health, and other services, while the police’s $6 billion budget is being slashed by only 0.3 percent.
Meanwhile, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago shuttered six city-run mental health clinics in 2012, contributing to long wait times for services that continue today. As with other closures, that has left police as de facto mental health crisis providers, a job they’re poorly trained for. People with severe mental illness are involved in 25 to 50 percent of fatal encounters with law enforcement, even though they make up only about 3 percent of the population.
For Democrats, constraining military budgets in order to invest in social services was once a mainstream position, not a fringe one.
While the Democrats were on the whole the party that supported large military budgets in the 1950s, that changed in the ’60s. President Lyndon B. Johnson clearly articulated the danger of military funding and military priorities: “If I left the woman I really loved—the Great Society—in order to get involved with that bitch of a war on the other side of the world, then I would lose everything at home. All my programs. All my hopes to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless.”
Johnson ultimately chose the war anyway, blighting his hopes for social transformation and his political prospects. But, in part in reaction to that disaster, at least some Democrats in the ’70s and ’80s called for major cuts in defense spending and tried to restrain military budgets. California Sen. Alan Cranston warned that “we have to make sure we’re only investing in military matters what is really needed.” In 1990, Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn proposed $255 billion in defense cuts over a five-year period. Colorado Rep. Pat Schroeder repeatedly worked for military cuts, trying to defund President Ronald Reagan’s priorities such as the MX mobile weapons system and the B-1 bomber.
These Democrats were hardly radicals. Nunn was careful to warn that he didn’t want to cut too much too quickly. In one of her attacks on the Pentagon, Schroeder compared defense contractors to “welfare queens,” implicitly accepting the racist Reagan-era demonization of the poor. But the fact that Nunn and Schroeder were not leftists is the point. Taking money away from violent institutions in order to invest in nonviolent solutions has plenty of precedent, because it’s rooted in common sense. Democratic leaders like Biden could embrace that precedent, rather than proposing another $300 million for police departments that have already seen their budgets bloat by 445 percent between 1982 and 2007.
In turn, “defund the police” could serve to reinvigorate an anti-war program that has had trouble gaining traction in the United States in the last few years.
Democrats have largely abandoned even token efforts to rein in defense budgets. The anti-war left pushed hard for Sanders and his anti-war platform. But after his defeat, it will need an approach other than presidential politics, at least for the near term.
At least one of those approaches should be “defund the military.” Activists have long criticized the Section 1033 provision of the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the transfer of tactical military equipment to police departments, so that police can confront protesters and civilians with terrifying Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicles and heavily armed SWAT teams. Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz has proposed ending Section 1033.
But this could also be a moment to ask why the military is so glutted with surplus equipment in the first place. One way to prevent the military from belching tanks and ammunition onto U.S. streets would be to stop pouring money into the military in the first place. A leaner military would force U.S. leaders to think more clearly and carefully about the use of force and its economic as well as its moral and reputational costs.
The military also directly benefits from, and relies on, domestic disinvestment and poverty. The armed services focus recruitment efforts on lower-middle-class and poor households; as of 2004, almost two-thirds of recruits in the U.S. Army came from counties in which median household income was below the countrywide median. The army remains one of the few ways in the United States for the working class to get universal health care and a free college education. Governments skimp on social services and education spending in poor and minority communities. They spend lavishly on police who stop and harass black people in those neighborhoods with terrifying frequency. And then the well-funded military sets up recruiting stations in poor neighborhoods to fill its ranks, as kids with few other options sign up to go shoot others and be shot at in turn in the United States’ endless foreign wars.
The United States spends about $115 billion on policing a year, more than any other country’s military budget save China’s. It spends $732 billion on the military, which is more than the next 10 highest-spending countries combined. Economic choices are moral choices. Activists and protesters calling to defund the police are trying to remind the United States that funneling money to people with guns and tanks is a choice, not an inevitability. Mainstream critics of U.S. defense spending once understood that. They should take up the call again. Defund the police. Defund the military. Fund peace, equality, and hope.
Foreign Policy, JUNE 15, 2020, 12:13 PM https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/15/defund-the-police-military-spending-militarization-black-lives-matter/
What Does Russia think of the TPNW?
Russia can launch its nuclear weapons from missiles, submarines, and airplanes. The former Soviet Union tested 715 nuclear weapons from 1949-1990, at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in modern-day Kazakhstan and across modern-day Russia.
In 2019, Russia spent an estimated $8.5 billion to build and maintain its nuclear weapons.
Russia did not participate in negotiations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and has not yet signed or ratified it.
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The minister for foreign affairs of Russia, Sergey Lavrov, said in November 2019 that the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons cannot be achieved “by the unilateral and rather arrogant methods on which this document is based”.
Russia voted against a UN General Assembly resolution in 2019 that welcomed the adoption of the treaty and called upon “all states that have not yet done so to sign, ratify, accept, approve, or accede to the treaty at the earliest possible date”.
Ahead of the commencement of the negotiating conference in March 2017, Lavrov said: “Efforts to coerce nuclear powers to abandon nuclear weapons have intensified significantly recently. It is absolutely clear that the time has not yet come for that.”
In 2016, Russia voted against the UN General Assembly resolution that established the formal mandate for states to commence the negotiations in 2017 on “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.
This missile looks to me like a giant plucked chicken, ready to put into the oven.
Why won’t Canada sign the Treaty?
Canada supports the retention and potential use of nuclear weapons on its behalf, as indicated by its endorsement of various alliance statements of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), of which it is a member.
Canada has not yet signed or ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It did not participate in the negotiation of the treaty at the United Nations in New York in 2017 and thus did not vote on its adoption.
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In a statement in Geneva in February 2018, the then-minister for foreign affairs of Canada, Chrystia Freeland, said that the “popularity” of the treaty “speaks to the desire of countries, activists, and communities to accelerate the work toward disarmament” and “reflects frustration and disappointment at the pace of global efforts so far”.
Canada’s New Democratic Party and Green Party have criticised the Liberal government for its failure to sign the treaty. The government voted against a parliamentary motion in 2017 urging it to sign the treaty.
Several Canadian cities, including Toronto and Vancouver, have urged the Canadian government to sign and ratify the treaty.
Setsuko Thurlow, a renowned disarmament campaigner and survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, who jointly accepted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in 2017, has repeatedly called on the Canadian government to change its stance.
Canada voted against a UN General Assembly resolution in 2019 that welcomed the adoption of the treaty and called upon “all states that have not yet done so to sign, ratify, accept, approve, or accede to the treaty at the earliest possible date”.
In 2016, Canada voted against the UN General Assembly resolution that established the formal mandate for states to commence the negotiations in 2017 on “a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination”.
In a “non-paper” sent to NATO members ahead of the vote, the United States “strongly encourage[d]” members, including Canada, to vote against the resolution, “not to merely abstain”. In addition, it said that, if the treaty negotiations do commence, allies and partners should “refrain from joining them”.
And Canada did not get chosen for a position on the Security Council. See the connection? You can talk big about hot “Canada’s back!” but unless you do something sensible, the rest of the world will see you for what you are! A lackey of the United States!
Botswana is fortieth to ratify!
On July 16, 2020, Botswana became the 40th State to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Now there are only ten more ratifications lacking, and they are happening fast. (Botswana followed Fiji by only a few days.) It opened for signature on September 20, 2017, and the “Treaty shall enter into force 90 days after the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession”.
Congratulations, Botswana! And Fiji too!
Congress may block new nuclear tests
This is a photo of the Nevada underground test site at Frenchman’s Flat, unused since 1992.
Recently there has been a serious discussion in the White House about resuming nuclear testing, and Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark) has won approval in a party-line committee vote to add $10 million to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the budget of 2021 for a nuclear test explosion.
However, polls show that about 72 percent of Americans would oppose a nuclear test today. And, during the week of July 20, 2020, the House will consider an amendment to prohibit funding for a demonstration nuclear test explosion in fiscal year 2021. Moreover Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass) and 16 other senators are preparing a similar amendment to the NDAA. These bills are complementary.
The Arms Control Association points out the following arguments against any resumption of testing:
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—DARYL G. KIMBALL, executive director
Source: Arms Control Association, Issue Brief, Vol. 12, Issue 5, July 1, 2020. Updated July 20, 2020
Ed Markey just got re-nominated in the Massachusetts primary for his senate seat, though he was challenged by a Kennedy! It seems that he is popular with the young voters because of co-authoring the Green New Deal. He has always (even in the House of Representatives) been a great promoter of nuclear disarmament. Nice work, Ed!
Eek! Trump’s even talking of testing
The Washington Post reported on May 22 that the Trump administration weighed whether to conduct a nuclear test explosion during a May 15 meeting with national security agencies. (See ACT, May 2020.) The administration reportedly believes that a nuclear test would help prod Russia and China into negotiating a new trilateral arms control deal.
While Senator Tom Cotton proposed allocating money for such new tests, Senator Ed Markey
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and other Democrats introduced legislation to block any funding nuclear tests. This legislation, titled “the Preserving Leadership Against Nuclear Explosives Testing (PLANET) Act,” was introduced on June 4 and co-sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and 13 other senators.
The Russian and Chinese foreign ministries also condemned the Trump administration for contemplating a resumption of nuclear testing.
“This bombshell,” said a Russian statement, demonstrates “a U.S. campaign against international law.” Russia ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 2000.
Source: “U.S. Testing Interest Triggers Backlash” by Shannon Bugos, Arms Control Today, July/Aug 2020. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2020-07/news/us-testing-interest-triggers-backlash
Are these REALLY immoral?
I found this interesting that morality was brought up – why is delegating killing to machines immoral? After all, I believe that humans would need to program the machines to only kill in certain circumstances- therefore the humans make the decision when to kill and under what circumstance. Therefore, the humans really decide…
Well, yes, in a way you are right. But can programmers foresee all possible circumstances that may arise and the exceptions that should be made? Not in my experience. Just remember those telephone messages that tell you to press 2 for this and 3 for that and 4 for the other thing. Invariably, the issue I am dealing with will not fit into any of the categories they had anticipated, so there is no number established for me to press. So imagine saying “if this,” immediately shoot. “If that,” wait and while and think it over. Etc.
China is Happy to Negotiate — But Only If…
Mr. Xi has a point. Donald Trump has been demanding that China join any future nuclear arms reduction talks, which the past have been deals struck by the US and Russia. Clearly, Trump is not interested in nuclear disarmament, or even in maintaining the reductions in weaponry that had been achieved by previous administrations. Nor is it clear that Vladimir Putin in enthusiastic about creating any new arms control treaties. Both the US and Russia are building terrible new weapons and bragging about how dangerous they are.
Nevertheless, neither leader feels quite comfortable in accepting the blame for the collapse of arms control — even the New START Treaty that Obama had achieved. So Trump wants to put the blame on — of all people! — Xi of China.
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Fiji Ratifies the Treaty! We’re Getting Close!
Fiji has become the 39th nation to ratify the treaty banning nuclear weapons. That island country was active throughout the period when the treaty was negotiated in 2017. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will enter into force 90 days after 50 States have deposited their instrument of consent to be bound by it. Hence, to the dismay of the nations possessing nuclear weapons (none of whom has signed the treaty) it is highly likely to become a binding international law soon. When that happens, let’s all shout for joy and demand that ALL nations on earth sign and comply with it.
The Brits Do it Too
What are they selling? In Canada it’s armoured personnel carriers.
What’s new?
We need some updates on status of disarmament agreements
No News is not Good News
Hurting Military Friends’ Feelings
Some of my friends with military backgrounds are deeply offended by the video that we posted this week. It is a recording of our monthly town hall, and we discussed the new proposal to defund the military. You can talk about defunding the police now, but you must nut speak of defunding the military, lest you hurt their feelings. Pride and honor mean too much to them.
But surely everyone can see that all those weapons we have purchased have not given us any security. A tiny virus can kill millions, so we should.be spending on health, education, and climate change. How can anyone take offense because i propose that? The world spends $1.9 trillion per year on militarism. That is ridiculous. Sorry, pal. We are friends but I cannot softpedal that reality to make you feel good about your job.
More Plutonium Pits for Uncle Sam
The US (well, call it the Trump administration) is planning to resume the production of plutonium pits for nuclear weapons. Despite a history of trouble producing them at Los Alamos, about 30 per year will be manufactured there, and 50 more annually at the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. Shame!
That plutonium pit is being held by someone wearing a rubber glove. But is that safe? I wouldn’t hold a piece of plutonium for anything in the world, would you?
John Polanyi is a Nobel laureate in chemistry and a professor at the University of Toronto.
We must do more to prevent nuclear war
By John Polanyi December 9, 2019
When Greta Thunberg gives a speech, she wastes no time getting to the point.
“You come to young people for hope,” she told the United Nations General Assembly in September. “You say you understand the urgency…How dare you then pretend that this can be solved by ‘business as usual’?…Change is coming, whether you like it, or not.”
What Greta said is no less true of the most serious danger we face today: nuclear war.
To counter that, the world needs to take two major steps back from the brink of disaster, on which we have teetered for three-quarters of a century. The first of these steps is disarmament, and the second a ban on nuclear weapons.
You may think these overly ambitious aims. But, to many, they represent the minimum that our predicament demands. Fortunately for the world, there are strong precedents for both these steps. Unfortunately, we have yet to heed those precedents.
Why are we faced with this need for change? It stems from the transformative power of modern science, which marks off the age of the atom from all preceding history. This need did not arise overnight, but did happen with remarkable suddenness.
The word “atom” is based on the Greek “a-tomos”: “not divisible”. Scientists, beginning with Ernest Rutherford, began questioning that thousand-year-old supposition. Rutherford and his students realised that they had in their experiments broken the atom apart. Then, a student of my father’s, Leo Szilard, devised a way of harnessing the energy released in the nuclear break-up. His idea was to exploit the chemist’s notion of chain reaction.
In 1935, when I was a child, Szilard sat in the garden of our house in Manchester, calculating, with my father, the temperature that would be reached in a nuclear chain reaction (which Szilard had patented, donating the patent to the British navy). The answer was thousands of millions of degrees centigrade. Ten years later, in 1945, two atomic bombs based on this idea were used in war, and 200,000 people were killed.
That was the start of our new era, as different from earlier times as the iron age was from the stone age. Since the ages of mankind only follow one another at thousand-year intervals, you should reflect on the extraordinary timing of your arrival on this planet. If, rather than being born in recent decades, you had been born in the previous thousands of years, great feats of imagination would not have been required of you. Today, they are needed for your, and your fellow beings’, survival.
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As early as 1945 leading scientists – Szilard and Nobel laureate James Franck among them – realised that world history had undergone a fundamental transformation. They stated this clearly, despite the fact that they were prevented from speaking publicly by secrecy.
What these scientists were saying, in advance of the first A-bomb, was the following (I quote from their report, given in secret): “Unless an effective international control…is instituted, a race for nuclear armaments is certain to ensue following the first revelation of our possession of a nuclear weapon.”
They were right. Seventy years later, we still find ourselves in the midst of that arms race. As their report foresaw, such a race isn’t likely to end spontaneously, but disastrously – unless we deliberately curb armaments. And that we must do by law.
The notion that war should be subject to law, is not new. It is as old as war. What is altogether new today is the scale on which we can kill, which leaves us no alternative but to curb war by law.
This change became clearly evident through the years of the Second World War, when thousands of bombers were engaged in dispersing death indiscriminately. Opposition to this murderous development was at first muted. Today, when plans for war can no longer be distinguished from plans for genocide, the changed circumstance should be evident. Not for the first time, mankind has reached a historic moral divide.
Our task is to make people aware of this new reality. It is a noble task. We should rejoice that it falls to us. Rejoice or not, the obligation is ours. And it is clearly a task of education.
Let me say a word about my own education regarding the nuclear age. This was an inescapable topic when I was a young scientist at Princeton University, in the early 1950s. Today, it should be an inescapable topic for all scientists.
As so often happens, one discovery was in the process of triggering another. At the time of my arrival in Princeton, there was talk of an altogether new weapon, the H-bomb, more powerful by a further factor of a thousand than the A-bomb. The new weapon was to be based not on nuclear fission, but on the fusion of hydrogen nuclei – the reaction that powers the sun. The scientists in the know agonised over this awful development.
That same year, 1950, President Truman determined to proceed with the H-bomb, despite virtually unanimous opposition from his most senior scientific advisors. Importantly, the source of their opposition was not technical, but moral.
The basis for the scientists’ opposition was set out in an article by a leading nuclear physicist, my friend Hans Bethe. Despite all attempts at censorship, it was published in Scientific American in early 1950. “Can we who insist on morality and humanity,” he wrote, “introduce this weapon of total annihilation into the world?…Shall we convince the Russians of the value of the individual, by killing millions?”
Bethe, I remind you, was speaking before even a single H-bomb existed. For the second time in a few years, the scientists were being asked to look ahead, and to think beyond their area of expertise. Half a century later, we still struggle to comprehend the truth of Bethe’s warning.
In retrospect you may be amazed that Truman ignored the advice of his scientists. Truman made his decision to proceed from atomic bombs to H-bombs, impelled by the terrible logic of the arms race. The Soviet Union had just tested an A-bomb and was designing an H-bomb. To the US, having been the first to make an A-bomb in 1945, it seemed imperative to be the first with the H-bomb, too. And so it was, in 1952. But this advantage, as should have been anticipated, was short-lived. Two years later, the Soviet Union tested its own H-bomb. Within a few years H-bombs were being built on both sides, in their thousands.
How, you will ask, could nations be persuaded to engage in such folly? The most prominent reason was the desire to keep ahead of their opponents. Moreover, since each party was obliged, in such a crucial matter, to leave a margin of error, that competition would be unending. Accordingly, in 1952, for the second time in the space of a few years, the world was launched on a quest for vastly increased destructive power. This time, to our shame, the development was in peace, rather than in war.
It would have been much saner to negotiate an agreement for mutual restraint with the single nuclear opponent at the time, the Russians. The option was discussed, but the voice of reason was too faint to be heard. What was missing, because of secrecy, was the clamour of popular demand.
The scientists, then as now, have a special responsibility to raise the alarm. Their voices were heard in the several appeals, most clearly in the Russell-Einstein manifesto of 1955, which called for international meetings of scientists, with clear public recommendations. Cyrus Eaton, a Canadian industrialist, offered to finance such meetings, starting in his hometown of Pugwash, Nova Scotia. In 1960, one of what became known as the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs was held in Russia for the first time. I was in attendance.
The participants agreed that, as an unmistakable step toward disarmament, the sides should have only a “minimum deterrent”. They even suggested that this minimum comprise a single bomb located under Washington DC, and another under Moscow. This macabre proposal is worth recalling in today’s world of thousands of H-bombs.
But the number of nuclear weapons, far from stopping at a minimum level that might be justified by mutual deterrence, reached 30,000 on either side by the end of the Cold War in 1990. At that time, Moscow, as we now know, was targeted by 400 nuclear weapons, so that it could be destroyed a hundred times over.
This madness was followed by significant restraint. The “New Start” agreement of 2011 at present limits the two countries to 1,550 deployed (plus some 6,000 stored) nuclear weapons each, with, importantly, provision for intrusive inspection. The agreement lapses in February 2021, and negotiations for its renewal need urgently to be under way. But, tragically, there is no evidence of negotiations.
Reason is not dead. But the restraint that remains is a consequence of repeated close calls. This is a game of roulette too dangerous to continue. We would do well to recall the closest of close calls, the Cuban Missile Crisis. The crisis occurred two years after the Moscow Pugwash meeting. For 13 days, the world found itself at the brink of all-out nuclear war.
The danger came suddenly, as can happen when nations are poised at the brink of war. On 16 October 1962, a stunned public heard President Kennedy announce on television that the USSR was installing nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba. Kennedy responded that the launch of a single missile from Cuba against the US would lead to “a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union”. This meant unrestricted nuclear war, and the deaths of hundreds of millions. At stake was the fate of civilisations.
During those 13 days, we largely stopped work in our lab. What was the point? Because of my involvement with Pugwash, I was asked by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, to comment. I arrived with a manuscript, which the show’s producer examined. He remarked, “I’m glad that you are giving this talk, not me”.
I knew that what I was planning to say would be controversial. I felt it important to insist, contrary to accepted opinion, that the world had not been transformed by Khrushchev’s action. We in the West had been totally vulnerable to Soviet nuclear weapons before his ill-judged act and were now, in addition, vulnerable to weapons in Cuba. But a colossal deterrent force still remained in the hands of the West: US missiles and the US air force maintained a threat of total devastation against the USSR. It would be reckless, therefore, for the US to invade Cuba to “restore the balance”. The balance did not need restoring. We had best not start something we could not stop.
But this was not at all what people wanted to hear. Nor, indeed, was it the whole story.
Khrushchev had chosen to secretly ship nuclear missiles from Russia to Cuba. He thought he had good reason to do that. The Russian missiles that he sent closely resembled those that the US had the previous year installed in Turkey, a few minutes’ flight from Russia. Khrushchev supposed Kennedy would see his move as restoring the balance. After all, Kennedy had been reported as saying that “geography doesn’t make much difference today. What does it matter if you got blown up by a missile based in Cuba, or the Soviet Union?”
It turned out it mattered a lot. Politics is not mathematics. Had Kennedy not responded forcefully to Khrushchev, he would have been seen to be weak, tempting Khrushchev to take still greater risks probably in Berlin, where the sides tensely confronted one another.
The two principals in the Cuban Missile crisis, it should not need to be said, were extremely anxious to avoid war. Yet purely defensive actions taken by the US against Soviet submarines approaching Cuba seemed to Russia to carry a message of US readiness to launch nuclear war. For those submarines, entirely unknown to the US, were nuclear-armed. This was an unintended confrontation of nukes by nukes. The sides were inching closer to the brink.
At the same time, Kennedy was under heavy pressure from his military to send troops to attack the Russian missiles in nearby Cuba. Something he did not know was that the missiles in Cuba were nuclear-armed. Something else he did not know was that the local commanders in Cuba had been empowered to fire them.
It was the world’s good fortune that Kennedy had the strength of character to hold back his generals. An attack, we now realise, would have resulted in nuclear war.
By the 13th day, it was clear that Khrushchev was ordering his missiles out of Cuba. This was the end of the crisis and also of Khrushchev’s career – a matter of importance to him.
The 1962 crisis may seem remote. Today, we have nine independent nuclear powers, not two. But we can all recall the Korean missile crisis of 2017-18. Instead of a nuclear power rashly shifting weapons across the board, what we were experiencing was the advent of a new nuclear power, North Korea.
Prominent among North Korea’s opponents were nations that had long had nuclear weapons, and zealously guarded their privileged status. They blithely assured the North Koreans that the existing nuclear weapons would not constitute a threat to their country, if only North Korea would end its reckless behaviour and disarm. The argument was sufficiently weak that the aspiring nuclear power lied year after year about its intentions, and, at the same time, raced to achieve the goal of nuclear invulnerability to a US first strike. Incredibly, on the backs of its destitute population, North Korea managed to achieve that – by building mobile ICBMs that could not be reliably targeted, supplemented today by submarine-launched ICBMs similarly invulnerable to attack.
In its vain attempt to thwart this development, the US had threatened nuclear war at intervals for the 30 years, starting in the 1990s, that it took North Korea to achieve its objective of becoming a nuclear superpower with a guaranteed second strike capability. This spectacle of the helplessness of the most powerful nation on earth in the face of one of the weakest has not had the attention it deserves.
It has two sources. The first is that the existing nuclear weapons states have no special right to possess nuclear weapons. Indeed, they should have no such moral right. Secondly, although powerful, these existing nuclear powers are vulnerable, being bound together by fragile networks of nuclear obligations. The guarantees of nuclear retaliation that they have given to their allies ensure that a small nuclear match can set aflame a large tinderbox. It is our great good fortune – nothing more – that has spared us from nuclear war.
How close did we come to nuclear war in the recent North Korean crisis?
The impasse was only resolved, as in the case of the Cuban crisis, by one side backing down. But this time it was the US that retreated, accepting the fact that a new country had joined the Nuclear Club. The risks of nuclear war, were, however, real. The foreign minister of North Korea was stating a fact when he declared at the UN that “the slightest miscalculation could have led to all-out war”.
This account, alarming as it is, glosses over an important further source of danger. It stems from the fact that the two principal actors in this story, President Trump and North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un, were individually empowered to initiate nuclear war. This appalling circumstance comes about through the belief, in a dictatorship or a democracy, that nuclear war should not be subject to delay. The button, as the leaders repeatedly termed it, must always be at hand.
We have for too long acceded to this perilous situation, rendered still more dangerous by secret delegations of power that subsequently come to light when and if history is written.
These observations are fraught with lessons. The first is that the risk of nuclear war from miscalculation, even when all parties are alert to the danger, is intolerably high. The second is that restraint can be counted on to bring unforeseen rewards.
In regard to the second point, we realise today that in addition to the millions killed directly by a nuclear war, millions more will die in subsequent years from famine, as crops fail due to the “nuclear winter” caused by the blocking of the sun’s rays by soot from fires. We cannot calculate the precise numbers, but it is not an experiment we should ever dare conduct.
The hazards do not end there. Today, as never before, miscommunication heightens the danger. Miscommunication comes not only by chance but by intent, since it has become a weapon. An escalating arms race in cyberspace is forever compounding the risk of war.
We take heart from the fact that despite increasing risks, for three-quarters of a century there has been no nuclear war. Most mistakenly attribute this to the solidity of deterrence. But deterrence is less stable than it appears. If deterrence were indeed stable, why would nuclear powers compete so vigorously to strengthen their armaments, as they are doing? What is the lack that calls constantly for weapons modernisation and diversification? Why is it that the supposed equilibrium of deterrence is accompanied by its opposite, a race for dominance?
The reason is as simple as it is alarming. It is that the parties who claim to be deterred are not. They have yet to hear the voices of Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev declaring that “A nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.” Instead, although they seldom advertise it, they nurture the ambition to be nuclear victors.
This, too, is the reason they keep their “strategic” arsenals ready for launching in a matter of minutes. Their objective of this “launch-on-warning” is to first degrade the opponent’s attack by a disarming first strike, followed by missile defence of their own territory.
This is not the only way in which the concept of deterrence is being eroded. A second development in the same direction is to reduce the explosive power of nuclear weapons so that they can be seen as suitable for achieving limited objectives. This “tactical” use of nuclear weapons was proposed decades ago and was rejected when military exercises convinced the parties that what was being protected by such means would have been destroyed.
So what is the path forward? I return to the steps I mentioned at the outset. First, we must demand that the nuclear weapons states move to the situation that most imagine, quite wrongly, already exists, namely deterrence based on shared vulnerability. A clear-sighted Robert Oppenheimer likened this to a pair of scorpions in a bottle, each able to kill the other but only at the cost of its own life.
We shall know deterrence actually exists when only a few nuclear weapons remain. We shall also know deterrence is the aim when these weapons are no longer kept on alert, being instead separated from their warheads. This is not a preposterous demand. China has for years limited itself to a deterrent of a few hundred nuclear weapons, with its missiles and warheads visibly separated.
This step must be followed by a second more demanding one. We must set aside the perilous notion (expressed by Winston Churchill) that “peace can be the sturdy child of terror”. The risks of such a course, as should be evident, are intolerable. Instead, we must resolve, at last, to implement a solemn agreement made by almost all the nuclear and non-nuclear states as long as half a century ago. It is an agreement to outlaw nuclear weapons. This lies at the heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, the central arms control agreement of the age.
The objective spelled out in Article 6 commits the five then existing nuclear powers to complete nuclear disarmament. This was a logical necessity since the five had no basis whatsoever for arguing that their nuclear weapons, in contrast to others’, served the cause of peace.
In the intervening years, those five have been joined by a further four, and all nine can be seen to be extending their nuclear arsenals. Yet in the New START agreement, limiting the number of nuclear warheads deployed by the superpowers, the central assertion is that more weapons would be accompanied by less security. This is an important step on the path to acknowledging that the continued existence of these weapons poses an unacceptable threat to humankind.
Importantly, at the UN General Assembly on 7 July 2017, an overwhelming majority of nations, 122 of the UN’s 190, voted to frame a global “Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty”. Once ratified by 50 UN states, this treaty would prohibit nations developing, testing, possessing, using or threatening to use nuclear weapons. So far, 33 have ratified.
Is this nuclear weapon ban beyond the realm of the possible? Surely, not. In 1968, the entire region of Latin America declared itself a nuclear weapon-free zone, under the Treaty of Tlatelolco. That prohibition remains. The framers of that agreement, in common with today’s proponents of a nuclear weapons prohibition, were acting out of moral repugnance against weapons of indiscriminate slaughter. That repugnance, as it should be, is already present in international law, giving rise to such measures as the existing bans on chemical and biological weapons, cluster bombs and anti-personnel mines.
But where, it will be asked, does such legal commentary on moral matters get us? The answer is that, little by little such laws inevitably come to govern behaviour. That has proved to be the case in regard to such issues as slavery, apartheid and genocide.
It goes without saying that the existing nuclear powers and their allies scorn the proposed nuclear weapons ban as undermining the international order. The government of my country, Canada, deems it “unrealistic” and “premature”. Better premature, perhaps, than too late. As for “unrealistic”, we pass through unreality on the way to new realities. Consider the fact that Canada, a member of a nuclear alliance, has for half a century refused to have nuclear weapons on its soil. Canadians take pride in that protest against a reality so clearly in need of change.
What is the circumstance that most compellingly calls for change? It is our present enslavement to barbaric instruments of war. To a few they bring wealth, to most impoverishment, and to all, peril. Essential to the earlier escape from slavery was moral revulsion; this cannot help but be the case again.
President Kennedy’s life was cut short by a crazed assassin, yet he left us with a guide to our common future. “We all inhabit this small planet,” he remarked. “We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/we-must-do-more-prevent-nuclear-war
Remembering August 6, 1945
Thank you, John Polanyi.
So you knew Szilard. Well, I knew others who also contributed to the tragedy that took place seventy-five years ago. In a sense, maybe I am one of them. Today is Hiroshima day and my heart is heavy with the memory of it. I was 13 years old. Both of my parents were working at a military supply depot at San Bernardino, California. They helped collect the equipment for bombing missions.
I remember reading the newspaper, with its big headline about an “Atomic Bomb,” which no one had ever heard of before. I have to acknowledge this horrible truth: I was glad, even thrilled. It was a wonderful thing. for we were almost certain to win the war soon with such a weapon.
My response was normal. It must have been at least four or five years after that before I heard anyone question whether the bombing had been morally justifiable. I am sure there were people who asked that question immediately, but I never met such a person.
Many, many years later I met Hibakushas and others who knew vividly what we had done. I have felt grief and shame, and then a new resolution to prevent any future explosion of such a bomb. I remember being in the million-person march in New York city, and going over to the side of the street where some Japanese girls in white were standing. I had to apologize to someone, and they understood, though I think they did not speak English. We hugged and I cried. Then five years ago, more Japanese Hibakushas came to Toronto and I was sort of the hostess. Again, I had to confess, this time in public.
Confession is essential. I do say, “I am sorry,” but I cannot ask for forgiveness. That is too much to request of anyone.
I have read the article on the front page of today’s Washington Post. It acknowledges the true horror of nuclear weapons, and yet it says that they “have kept the peace” for 75 years and that we must learn to live with them.
Oh God.
It says they are dangerous, yes. It says we need to re-start arms control, that we need to regulate them and make them as safe as possible. But it explicitly says we cannot abolish them.
What can you reply to such an argument: that the world needs, even requires, nuclear weapons?
I have never tried to debate that question with anyone who believes it. Maybe that is my true duty. If there is redemption for any of us, it begin by persuading humankind, or at least almost all of us, that there are other ways of achieving peace. No, we cannot abolish conflict, but we can abolish the means of perpetrating such violence and establish accountable legal institutions to settle disputes.
The Washington Post writer (I don’t even want to mention his/her name) does not mention the name of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Is that because it is really unknown, so far, in Washington, DC? I think not. Today three more States are ratifying that treaty and we can be confident that it will soon come into effect, declaring as a matter of international law that no one (certainly no nation) may possess such a weapon. Even the Washington Post has heard about that.
We shall abolish those weapons, and humankind will be safer for doing so. We do not need them to make us behave as human beings should. We can do that much for ourselves.
Are you proposing general and complete disarmament of all weapons, or just nuclear ones? If you don’t get rid of all armies and weapons, we will still have horrible wars. And to get rid of all weapons we have to have a global government that can keep any nation from becoming aggressive. How to get there from here?
Prevent the weaponization of space
The Russian News Agency TASS has published articles about the Kremlin’s recent statements on preventing the weaponization of space. This appears to be a response to President Trump’s recent statement on potential commercial activities on the moon. Let’s remember the 1966 Outer Space Treaty.
Any attempts to ‘privatize’ outer space unacceptable — Kremlin
GENEVA, August 14. /TASS/. Moscow calls on the global community to develop consensus measures to keep outer space free from weapons, which will contribute to strengthening peace and security, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Office and other international organizations in Geneva Gennady Gatilov said at a plenary meeting of the Conference on Disarmament on Wednesday.
“We call on all states to have a meaningful, constructive conversation to prevent an arms race in outer space with a view to jointly developing consensus measures to keep outer space free from weapons and thereby strengthen international peace and global security,” the diplomat said.
“There is no time to spare,” he stressed. “Missing this chance will be a crime against future generations.”
Gatilov recalled that, in 2004, Russia assumed the obligation not to be the first to deploy weapons in outer space. To date, 21 countries have become full-fledged participants in that initiative. The head of the Russian mission voiced regret and concern over the fact that none of the Western countries, primarily from among the ones significant in terms of space exploration, expressed a desire to join it until now.
Gatilov stressed that the implementation of intentions to bring weapons to the near-Earth space would have an adverse effect on international security and global stability.
“Thanks to efforts made by individual Western countries, we are entering a new space era,” he noted. “We can say with a high degree of probability that it will be marked by further degradation of trust between nations.”
The diplomat described statements on deploying weapons in outer space and their potential combat use as “an ultimatum to the global community” and the intention to seek uncontrolled dominance in outer space. He noted that this would give an opportunity for individual countries to dictate their terms both in the low Earth orbit and on Earth.
Russia remains committed to “finding reliable ways to keep outer space free from weapons of any kind,” Gatilov noted. One of the ways of achieving that goal would be “a legally binding treaty on preventing the deployment of weapons in outer space based on the principles and norms of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty,” he said. The diplomat explained that the signing of such an agreement and participation of countries most active in space in it would make it possible to remove preconditions for turning outer space into the armed confrontation sphere.”
The Conference on Disarmament consists of 65 countries. It was established in 1979 following the first special UN General Assembly session on disarmament held in 1978 as the only international negotiating forum of the global community to hammer out disarmament agreements.
7 April 2020 https://tass.com/science/1141217
More information on the 1966 Outer Space Treaty is available here: https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/introouterspacetreaty.html
[/read]
I don’t understand why the existing Outer Space Treaty is not enough to prevent the weaponization of outer space. That’s what it was meant to do. Will someone please explain. And what that has to do with the commercialization of the moon?
I am wondering as to the phrasing of the treaty – does it cover all classes of weapons? It discusses prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and WMDs.
What about newer activities like asteroid and lunar mining? How would this fit within the notion of “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means?”
The United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs offers the following principals for the 1966/1967 Outer Space Treaty:
The Outer Space Treaty provides the basic framework on international space law, including the following principles:
https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/introouterspacetreaty.html
Regarding the last point, there is already a lot of debris and junk orbiting Earth. Should this be cleaned up eventually? Is it “harmful contamination?”
When the Minuteman Missiles Disappeared
This is an alarming article by Dr. Bruce G. Blair – one of the co-founders of Global Zero.
But as with many things involving nuclear weaponry, escalation of this strategy has a downside: United States forces are also vulnerable to such attacks.
Imagine the panic if we had suddenly learned during the Cold War that a bulwark of America’s nuclear deterrence could not even get off the ground because of an exploitable deficiency in its control network.
We had such an Achilles’ heel not so long ago. Minuteman missiles were vulnerable to a disabling cyberattack, and no one realized it for many years. If not for a curious and persistent President Barack Obama, it might never have been discovered and rectified.
Read more
In 2010, 50 nuclear-armed Minuteman missiles sitting in underground silos in Wyoming mysteriously disappeared from their launching crews’ monitors for nearly an hour. The crews could not have fired the missiles on presidential orders or discerned whether an enemy was trying to launch them. Was this a technical malfunction or was it something sinister? Had a hacker discovered an electronic back door to cut the links? For all the crews knew, someone had put all 50 missiles into countdown to launch. The missiles were designed to fire instantly as soon as they received a short stream of computer code, and they are indifferent about the code’s source.
It was a harrowing scene, and apprehension rippled all the way to the White House. Hackers were constantly bombarding our nuclear networks, and it was considered possible that they had breached the firewalls. The Air Force quickly determined that an improperly installed circuit card in an underground computer was responsible for the lockout, and the problem was fixed.
But President Obama was not satisfied and ordered investigators to continue to look for similar vulnerabilities. Sure enough, they turned up deficiencies, according to officials involved in the investigation.
One of these deficiencies involved the Minuteman silos, whose internet connections could have allowed hackers to cause the missiles’ flight guidance systems to shut down, putting them out of commission and requiring days or weeks to repair.
These were not the first cases of cybervulnerability. In the mid-1990s, the Pentagon uncovered an astonishing firewall breach that could have allowed outside hackers to gain control over the key naval radio transmitter in Maine used to send launching orders to ballistic missile submarines patrolling the Atlantic. So alarming was this discovery, which I learned about from interviews with military officials, that the Navy radically redesigned procedures so that submarine crews would never accept a launching order that came out of the blue unless it could be verified through a second source.
Cyberwarfare raises a host of other fears. Could a foreign agent launch another country’s missiles against a third country? We don’t know. Could a launch be set off by false early warning data that had been corrupted by hackers? This is an especially grave concern because the president has only three to six minutes to decide how to respond to an apparent nuclear attack.
This is the stuff of nightmares, and there will always be some doubt about our vulnerability. We lack adequate control over the supply chain for nuclear components — from design to manufacture to maintenance. We get much of our hardware and software off-the-shelf from commercial sources that could be infected by malware. We nevertheless routinely use them in critical networks. This loose security invites an attempt at an attack with catastrophic consequences. The risk would grow exponentially if an insider, wittingly or not, shares passwords, inserts infected thumb drives or otherwise facilitates illicit access to critical computers.
One stopgap remedy is to take United States and Russian strategic nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert. Given the risks, it is dangerous to keep missiles in this physical state, and to maintain plans for launching them on early indications of an attack. Questions abound about the susceptibility to hacking of tens of thousands of miles of underground cabling and the backup radio antennas used for launching Minuteman missiles. They (and their Russian counterparts) should be taken off alert. Better yet, we should eliminate silo-based missiles and quick-launch procedures on all sides.
But this is just a start. We need to conduct a comprehensive examination of the threat and develop a remediation plan. We need to better understand the unintended consequences of cyberwarfare — such as possibly weakening another nation’s safeguards against unauthorized launching. We need to improve control over our nuclear supply chain. And it is time to reach an agreement with our rivals on the red lines. The reddest line should put nuclear networks off limits to cyberintrusion. Despite its allure, cyberwarfare risks causing nuclear pandemonium.”
So sad to hear that Bruce Blair has died. He made wonderful contributions with his analyses of nuclear forces. Not many other people know as much about those weapons as he did.
Nuclear Vulnerability to Hacking the Missile Controls
By Dr. Bruce G. Blair – one of the co-founders of Global Zero.
New York Times 14 March 2017
Article Excerpt(s):
“It is tempting for the United States to exploit its superiority in cyberwarfare to hobble the nuclear forces of North Korea or other opponents. As a new form of missile defense, cyberwarfare seems to offer the possibility of preventing nuclear strikes without the firing of a single nuclear warhead.
But as with many things involving nuclear weaponry, escalation of this strategy has a downside: United States forces are also vulnerable to such attacks.
Imagine the panic if we had suddenly learned during the Cold War that a bulwark of America’s nuclear deterrence could not even get off the ground because of an exploitable deficiency in its control network.
Read more
We had such an Achilles’ heel not so long ago. Minuteman missiles were vulnerable to a disabling cyberattack, and no one realized it for many years. If not for a curious and persistent President Barack Obama, it might never have been discovered and rectified.
In 2010, 50 nuclear-armed Minuteman missiles sitting in underground silos in Wyoming mysteriously disappeared from their launching crews’ monitors for nearly an hour. The crews could not have fired the missiles on presidential orders or discerned whether an enemy was trying to launch them. Was this a technical malfunction or was it something sinister? Had a hacker discovered an electronic back door to cut the links? For all the crews knew, someone had put all 50 missiles into countdown to launch. The missiles were designed to fire instantly as soon as they received a short stream of computer code, and they are indifferent about the code’s source.
It was a harrowing scene, and apprehension rippled all the way to the White House. Hackers were constantly bombarding our nuclear networks, and it was considered possible that they had breached the firewalls. The Air Force quickly determined that an improperly installed circuit card in an underground computer was responsible for the lockout, and the problem was fixed.
But President Obama was not satisfied and ordered investigators to continue to look for similar vulnerabilities. Sure enough, they turned up deficiencies, according to officials involved in the investigation.
One of these deficiencies involved the Minuteman silos, whose internet connections could have allowed hackers to cause the missiles’ flight guidance systems to shut down, putting them out of commission and requiring days or weeks to repair.
These were not the first cases of cybervulnerability. In the mid-1990s, the Pentagon uncovered an astonishing firewall breach that could have allowed outside hackers to gain control over the key naval radio transmitter in Maine used to send launching orders to ballistic missile submarines patrolling the Atlantic. So alarming was this discovery, which I learned about from interviews with military officials, that the Navy radically redesigned procedures so that submarine crews would never accept a launching order that came out of the blue unless it could be verified through a second source.
Cyberwarfare raises a host of other fears. Could a foreign agent launch another country’s missiles against a third country? We don’t know. Could a launch be set off by false early warning data that had been corrupted by hackers? This is an especially grave concern because the president has only three to six minutes to decide how to respond to an apparent nuclear attack.
This is the stuff of nightmares, and there will always be some doubt about our vulnerability. We lack adequate control over the supply chain for nuclear components — from design to manufacture to maintenance. We get much of our hardware and software off-the-shelf from commercial sources that could be infected by malware. We nevertheless routinely use them in critical networks. This loose security invites an attempt at an attack with catastrophic consequences. The risk would grow exponentially if an insider, wittingly or not, shares passwords, inserts infected thumb drives or otherwise facilitates illicit access to critical computers.
One stopgap remedy is to take United States and Russian strategic nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert. Given the risks, it is dangerous to keep missiles in this physical state, and to maintain plans for launching them on early indications of an attack. Questions abound about the susceptibility to hacking of tens of thousands of miles of underground cabling and the backup radio antennas used for launching Minuteman missiles. They (and their Russian counterparts) should be taken off alert. Better yet, we should eliminate silo-based missiles and quick-launch procedures on all sides.
But this is just a start. We need to conduct a comprehensive examination of the threat and develop a remediation plan. We need to better understand the unintended consequences of cyberwarfare — such as possibly weakening another nation’s safeguards against unauthorized launching. We need to improve control over our nuclear supply chain. And it is time to reach an agreement with our rivals on the red lines. The reddest line should put nuclear networks off limits to cyberintrusion. Despite its allure, cyberwarfare risks causing nuclear pandemonium.”
Could the Coronavirus Be a Biological Weapon in the Not-Too-Distant Future?
By Deen, Thalif
Inter Press Service: News Agency 20 March 2020
Article Excerpt(s):
“The devastating spread of the deadly coronavirus across every continent– with the exception of Antarctica– has triggered a conspiracy theory on social media: what if the virus was really a biological weapon?
And more specifically, was it an experimental weapon that accidentally escaped from a laboratory in China?
Or as others contend, is it a weapon surreptitiously introduced to de-stabilize a country with more than 1.4 billion people and described as the world’s second largest economy, after the United States.
Both narratives are considered false, and probably part of a deliberate disinformation campaign, according to military experts.
Still, in the US, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has repeated the charge that the virus was a creation of the Chinese military while others source it to North Korea.
Read more
And US President Donald Trump has been roundly condemned for “a racist remark” after describing the deadly disease as “a Chinese virus.”
But one hard fact remains: the potentially destructive power of biological weapons, which were banned by an international convention, going back to 1975.
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates predicted in a TED talk in 2015: “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it is likely to be a highly infectious virus, rather than a war.”
They will not be missiles, he warned, but microbes.
And two years later, according to GeekWire, Gates repeated the same warning at a side event during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos: “It’s pretty surprising how little preparedness there is for it,” Gates was quoted as saying in 2017.
Addressing the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle last month, Gates said the impact of COVID-19 could be “very, very dramatic,” particularly if it spreads to areas like sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia.
Meanwhile, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged about $100 million to fight the virus, “as part of its broader efforts in global health”.
Dr Filippa Lentzos, Associate Senior Researcher, Armament and Disarmament Programme, at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told IPS a biological weapon comprises a biological agent and a delivery mechanism.
In theory, she pointed out, any virus could be used as a weapon, but historically some agents have been viewed as more effective than others, e.g. anthrax, brucellosis, Q fever, tularaemia, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, glanders, plague, Marburg virus disease and smallpox.
She pointed out that much will depend on what ends or purpose the weapons are being used for.
“In terms of the coronavirus, there would no longer be a surprise factor, and resistance to the virus may in future have been built up, though the jury is still out on that one”.
As of March 19, the coronavirus has accounted for over 208,000 positive cases worldwide and over 8,700 deaths—and rising.
In the United States, there have been 49 deaths so far, and over 10,000 positive cases of the spreading virus.
The New York Times of March 18 cites a study by Imperial College, London, which estimates the virus can kill over 250,000 in the UK and more than a million in the US –- “unless officials took action to slow its spread.”
Asked if there are any countries identified as still manufacturing or hoarding biological weapons despite their ban, Dr Lentzos said over the past 100 years, about 25 countries are believed to have possessed a biological weapons programme for some period of time.
“Most programmes were of a short duration. They were small and developed limited, unsophisticated capabilities”.
Only two countries are known to have had sophisticated capabilities that could inflict mass casualties or extensive economic harm: the United States and the Soviet Union (now Russia), said Dr Lentzos, who is also a Senior Research Fellow at King’s College London and a biosecurity columnist at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Today, she said, “there is limited public information on possible illicit biological weapons activity. The main concern today is not really that countries have offensive biological warfare programmes, but that they are building dual use capabilities.”
https://thebulletin.org/2018/07/darpas-prepare-program-preparing-for-what/
Asked about the use of biological weapons as part of germ warfare during World War I, she said there was some covert use by Germany during World War I to infect horses with biological agents to block their use by Allied military forces.
“In World War II, there were substantial covert attacks on China by Japan, as well as some clandestine use in Europe against Germany. There has been very limited known use since 1945”, said Dr Lentzos, who is also an Associate Editor of the journal BioSocieties, and the NGO Coordinator for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
https://www.ipsnews.net/2020/03/coronavirus-biological-weapon-not-distant-future/
According to the Washington-based Arms Control Association, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a legally binding treaty that outlaw biological arms.
Opened for signature on April 10, 1972, the BWC entered into force on March 26, 1975. It currently has 182 states-parties. Ten states have neither signed nor ratified the BWC, including Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Israel, Kiribati, Micronesia, Namibia, South Sudan and Tuvalu.”
Biological warfare is a horrible thought, but not a new one. During the early years, Americans presented “gifts” of blankets to Indian leaders who had come to negotiate with them. These blankets had previously been on the beds of smallpox patients. One of the Americans wrote in his diairy that he hoped they would have the intended effect.
There are lots of stories like that. Apparently before there was any scientific study of pathogens, many people knew to keep their distance from contaminated objects and other people with infectious diseases. During the Black Death, for example, people tried to get out of town and stay in quarantine. Apparently they had better judgment than some Americans of today who won’t wear masks. But at least we’re not trying to infect each other on purpose.
Here Earl Turcotte – the Chair of the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (CNANW) – examines the links between nuclear disarmament and other global crises, such as pandemics.
Public Health Crisis Offers New Lens Towards Nuclear Disarmament
Earl Turcotte, The Hill Times, 15 April 2020
“That COVID-19 has created a new global reality is clear. If there is any positive aspect to this unfolding situation, it could be a deeper understanding of the fact that the well-being of people throughout the world is inextricably linked. The COVID crisis might also serve as a cautionary tale, helping us to appreciate the fragility of life and avoid threats to humanity that are within our control.
In 2019, a team of researchers at Princeton University simulated a limited exchange of low-yield “tactical” nuclear weapons to depict “a plausible escalating war between the United States and Russia, using realistic nuclear force postures, targets, and fatality estimates.” They concluded that more than 90 million people would be killed or injured within a few hours and many more would die in the years following.
Read more
This is far from the worst-case scenario. In 1982, the Ronald Reagan administration conducted a war game dubbed “Proud Prophet” that concluded that even a limited nuclear attack on the then-Soviet Union would almost certainly elicit a massive response, resulting in a half-billion people killed in the initial exchanges and many more from radiation and starvation over following decades. To be sure, the nuclear threat has been around for a while. Why worry about it now more than usual, when we have so much else to worry about?
Because developments of late have made the “unthinkable”—nuclear Armageddon—more probable than ever; factors that led the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Jan. 23 of this year to move the hands of the Doomsday Clock up to 100 seconds to midnight, closer than ever before. Over the past few years, nuclear-armed states have embarked on a new nuclear arms race, precipitated by the U.S. under the banner of “modernization.” Russia and the U.S. have produced missiles that can travel up to 27 times the speed of sound and are considered to be unstoppable. There has been steady deterioration of the nuclear arms control regime with U.S. withdrawal and subsequent unravelling of the nuclear deal with Iran; U.S., then Russian withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty; and U.S. refusal to renew the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia that is set to expire in 2021, to name just a few.
Add to the mix rising tension among nuclear-armed states, ongoing testing by North Korea, signs that Iran, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea might also pursue nuclear weapons capability, the possibility that one or more terrorist groups will acquire nuclear weapons and the ever-present potential for human miscalculation or accident. Canada is to be congratulated for recently joining 15 other non-nuclear armed nations in the Stockholm Initiative—led by Sweden—that calls upon nuclear-armed states to “advance nuclear disarmament and ensure in the interest of humanity, nuclear weapons will never be used again.”
Does this represent a more forceful posture on nuclear disarmament more generally? We pray it does. Our lives and indeed the future of our planet could depend upon it.”
If The Hill Times version is behind a paywall, the article is additionally available on CNANW’s website here: https://www.cnanw.ca/2020/04/
Here Senator Douglas Roche discusses the interconnection of conflicts / wars and COVID-19. he obviously admires the Secretary General of the United Nations for his bold proposal to cease warfare during the pandemic.
Warring Parties Must Lay Down Weapons To Fight Bigger Battle Against COVID-19
By Douglas Roche, the Hill Times, 6 April 2020
Article Excerpt(s):
EDMONTON—”The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.” In one short sentence, UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened the door to a new understanding of what constitutes human security. Will governments seize the opportunity provided by the immense crisis of COVID-19 to finally adopt a global agenda for peace?
In an extraordinary move on March 23, Guterres urged warring parties around the world to lay down their weapons in support of the bigger battle against COVID-19 the common enemy now threatening all of humanity. He called for an immediate global ceasefire everywhere: “It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”
His plea to “silence the guns” would create corridors for life-saving aid and open windows for diplomacy in the war-torn zones in Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the central areas of Africa.
But the full meaning of Guterres’s appeal is much bigger than only suspending existing wars. It is a wakeup call to governments everywhere that war does not solve existing problems, that the huge expenditures going into armaments divert money desperately needed for health supplies, that a bloated militarism is impotent against the new killers in a globalized world.
Read more
All the armies in the world can’t stop COVTD-19. It’s a dark and scary moment when a bunch of microbes brings humanity to its knees. We’ve come to a turning point in world history. The old ways of building security—bigger and better weapons—are completely irrelevant now.
So what do we do when a virus blatantly crosses borders and ignores strategic weapons systems? More of the same thinking that deceived people into believing that as long as we had big guns we would be safe won’t do. We have to overhaul our thinking.
“Big thinking” is not just a bromide. It’s now essential for survival. We have to build a system to provide common security. In the midst of the Cold War four decades ago, an all-star international panel led by Swedish prime minister Olof Palme established the principle that, in the age of weapons of mass destruction, no nation by itself can find security. Nations can only find security in cooperation and not at one another’s expense. Common security, Palme argued, requires an end to arms competitions, national restraint, and a spirit of collective responsibility and mutual confidence.
Over the following years, the idea of common security broadened out beyond military measures to include new streams of cooperation in economic and social development and protection of the environment.
Suddenly, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. The Soviet Union imploded.The Cold War ended. In 1992, the UN secretary-general at the time, Boutros Boutros-Ghali wrote a stunning document, Agenda for Peace, incorporating the ideas of common security into practical programs for peacebuilding, preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping.
But instead of overhauling the global security system to provide common security for everyone, governments lumbered on and threw the peace dividend they had in their hands out the window. The Western countries expanded NATO up to Russia’s borders. Russia invaded Crimea. Arms expenditures shot up. Governments squandered a magnificent opportunity to build a world of peace.The culture of war was too strong and the moment was lost.
Three decades ago, the great historian Barbara Tuchman and author of The March of Folly was right when she wrote: “Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of pre-conceived notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs.”
Now, in the current crisis, Guterres is telling us that continuation of the “folly” of war is jeopardizing the security for all—the rich as well as the marginalized.The Trump administration’s call for $46-billion more for nuclear weapons when the country can’t even provide enough masks for health workers in treating COVID-19 is obscene beyond words.
And what about Canada? The government plans to increase defence spending to $32-billion by 2027. Why? To appease U.S. Donald President Trump’s gargantuan military appetite driving NATO states to spend two percent of their GDP on weaponry and all that goes with it. We can beat COVID-19 by spending money on health and development measures, not arms.
Far better to cut Canada’s planned defence spending by 10 per cent and put an extra $2-billion to $3-billion into the UN’S Sustainable Development Goals, the 17-point program centring around huge improvements in maternal health, water systems and sustainable agriculture. But we can’t get there with a continuation of “ordinary” planning. We need truly bold thinking to beat back the threat posed to common security by COVID-19.
The Canadian government wants to show what it could do on the Security Council. Switching political thinking from the culture of war to a culture of peace would be worthy of the greatest health challenge Canada has faced in the past hundred years.”
The Bomb Still Ticks
By George Perkovich April 07, 2020
Summary: Kaplan shows in his new book that the Americans and Russians who built the doomsday machine will not allow it to be dismantled. The more pertinent question is whether they could be motivated to meaningfully downsize and constrain it.
“Nuclear books don’t sell,” a New York book editor advised not long ago. “To have a chance, you would have to feature a really interesting central character.” Fred Kaplan’s excellent new volume, “The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War,” will test this proposition.
Plenty of characters (nearly all male) abound in his fast-paced easy-to-follow narrative: from Curtis LeMay, Robert McNamara, John Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon, and so on to Barack Obama and Donald Trump. But what drives the story is an unresolvable dilemma: “[h]ow to plan a nuclear attack that [is] large enough to terrify the enemy but small enough to be recognized unambiguously as a limited strike, so that, if the enemy retaliated, he’d keep his strike limited too” (p. 120).
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This question introduces Kaplan’s other protagonist: the rabbit hole. To convince an adversary that you really would nuke him, you had to convince yourself that you would keep fighting after he hit you back, until he gave up or you destroyed each other (and maybe the rest of the world). “The compelling, and frightening, thing about the logic was that once you bought into its premises, you fell into the rabbit hole; there seemed no exit” (p. 298).
Perkovich works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues; cyberconflict; and new approaches to international public-private management of strategic technologies.
This can be dismal and dense stuff, but Kaplan’s narration is so brisk and keen that you speed through it. A longtime reporter at Slate, and the author of the seminal 1983 study of nuclear deterrence and war planning, “The Wizards of Armageddon,” Kaplan knows this story well. The earlier chapters come to life through quotations from recently released White House audio files and declassified documents. The chapters on the George H.W. Bush, Obama and Trump administrations benefit vividly from extensive interviews with key aides and policymakers.
Several themes stand out.
Successive presidents are briefed about extant nuclear war plans. They are shocked by the scale of destruction and death they would cause. Presidents—via their civilian advisers—then order changes. Often they believe these changes really make a difference. Yet their successors arrive and discover that operational plans still call for more weapons to be detonated over more targets with more destruction than the new president can abide.
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Henry Kissinger wrote several (famous, though overrated) books and articles on nuclear strategy before he became national security adviser in Nixon’s first term. After receiving his initial briefings on nuclear war plans, he demanded changes. Four years later, in a meeting with 15 officials from the relevant military and civilian agencies, Kissinger grumbled: “We have come to no conclusions …. What … does ‘control of escalation’ mean? … To have [as] the only option that of killing 80 million people is the height of immorality” (pp. 114-116).
Nearly 15 years later, in the Reagan administration, two young Defense Department policymakers—Franklin Miller and Gil Klinger—scrubbed the nuclear war plan in a similar attempt at reform. Klinger “drew a fifty-mile circle around [Moscow] and counted the number of weapons that were aimed at targets within the circle,” Kaplan writes. “There were 689 of them, many releasing more than a megaton of explosive power” (pp. 186-187).
Many presidents have turned to arms control to limit or reduce the costs and destructive risks of nuclear enterprise. But from Nixon onward they found that militarists in Congress, officers in the logrolling Navy and Air Force, and scientists in the logrolling nuclear weapons laboratories demanded more spending for new nuclear weapon systems in return for supporting Senate ratification of treaties.
For Democratic presidents, the price was usually higher. Carter and Clinton could not secure enough senatorial votes to get the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) ratified. (The U.S. and Russia still abided by SALT II until 1986 and agreed on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty [START I] five years after that. The U.S. continues to abide by the CTBT’s terms today, with little prospect of ratifying it or violating its terms—a strange type of rationality).
Even Ronald Reagan and (less surprisingly) Mikhail Gorbachev could not overcome the gravitational force of the rabbit hole. At Reykjavik, in 1986, the two leaders agreed to each cut their ballistic missile stockpiles by 50 percent within five years, followed by elimination of the rest over the next five years. The catch was that the Soviets wanted the U.S. to confine testing of ballistic missile defenses (the Strategic Defense Initiative) to the laboratory for 10 years. No testing in outer space.
Reagan could not agree to that; Gorbachev’s military would not let him accept anything less. And so 34 years later, the United States still does not have a reliable defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles and has entered a renewed missile arms race with Russia.
Barack Obama understood the problem. “Let’s stipulate that this is all insane,” he said at the beginning of a National Security Council meeting on nuclear policy, Kaplan writes (p. 243). But Obama also knew he lacked the political capital to overcome the resistance in Washington and Moscow and concluded he could not achieve more than was done in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and the New START Treaty of the same year.
Kaplan reports from the rabbit hole; he does not try to guide readers out of it. But the documents and people he quotes provide at least two clues for deciding how much nuclear weaponry and war would be too much.
When the aforementioned Franklin Miller and Gil Klinger were doing their targeting review in the late 1980s, Klinger quipped to Miller: “If (God forbid) there’s a nuclear war, and if (God forbid) you and I survive it, and if (God forbid) the Russians win, we’re going to be put on trial at Nuremberg” (p. 180). (Presumably they would have been just as guilty if the U.S. won but would not have faced trial.)
Fast forward 30 years. The Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (like the Obama administration’s before it) affirms the United States’s commitment to “adhere to the law of armed conflict [in any] initiation and conduct of nuclear operations.” Yet U.S. officials never detail how this would be done. (The other eight nuclear-armed states, nota bene, are even less forthcoming.) Kaplan recounts how numerous war-planning documents declare obligatorily that these weapons are not aimed “at population per se,” or that operations would spare urban areas “to the degree practicable,” but nevertheless call for hundreds of detonations on cities (p. 176).
To move beyond false legal consciousness, we might ask whether compliance with the law of armed conflict (or at least less unnecessary human and environmental destruction) would be more likely with a smaller arsenal of lower-yield weapons that were not meant to be used in a first strike against Russian or Chinese nuclear deterrents. Of course, the U.S. would not unilaterally change its arsenal this way. But the question could guide a way out of the rabbit hole, prompting the U.S. to seek reciprocal moves from Russia, and an agreement from China not to expand its smaller and more restrained nuclear posture.
The second clue, like the dog that doesn’t bark, is the silence of nuclear policy-makers regarding the environmental consequences of nuclear war. The larger the yield and the more urban the target, the greater the risk that soot from fires will be chimneyed up into the stratosphere where it can persist and block sunlight, reducing evaporation and rain on which agriculture depends. This prospect—“nuclear winter”—was widely reported and publicly debated in the early 1980s. Kaplan ignores it because the U.S.’s (and other nuclear countries’) nuclear policy-makers have ignored it. They would reckon with it only if they were pressed to answer the question: How much is too much?
The science of nuclear winter is uncertain, so an obvious move would be for the U.S. and other states to commission scientific bodies to model the most plausible nuclear war scenarios and assess the climatologic (and other) effects. These studies could then be made available for international experts to analyze and debate. If some types of arsenals and targeting plans are not so threatening to the global food chain, this finding should be used as a benchmark for making deterrents more accountable to the interests of all humankind. (Advocates of nuclear prohibition could still make other arguments for complete disarmament.)
For all the new, often vivid details “The Bomb” offers, it brings the reader—at least this one—back to two old observations and a conclusion. First, nuclear deterrence is rational. Second, escalatory nuclear war would be murderous, suicidal and irrational. Therefore, as long as states retain nuclear weapons, the physical potential for escalation must be severely limited.
Kaplan shows in this book that the Americans and Russians who built the doomsday machine will not allow it to be dismantled. The more pertinent question is whether they could be motivated to meaningfully downsize and constrain it, as the United Kingdom and France, arguably, have done. Don’t hold your breath, but don’t look away either. Your future may depend on it.
https://tass.com/politics/107347By
This article was originally published by Lawfare Blog.
Stephen Young is Washington representative for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. By Stephen Young, 27 February 2020.
House Hearings Should Reveal Recklessness of Administration’s Nuclear Weapons Budget Request
Article Excerpt(s):
“The Trump administration is charging ahead with new nuclear weapon systems and joining a new nuclear arms race with Russia. Not only are these weapons pushing up current budgets by billions, but they are unnecessary add-ons to an already bloated, excessively expensive plan to rebuild the entire U.S. arsenal. Coupled with the Trump administration’s disdain for arms control, these new weapons will lead to a more dangerous strategic environment.
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“The administration has already pulled out of the INF Treaty with Russia and has not committed to extending New START, the last U.S.-Russian arms control treaty standing. It also deployed a new, more ‘useable’ warhead on U.S. submarines and is planning for a new, nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile.
“The administration’s latest scheme is the W93 nuclear warhead for Navy missiles, even though both existing Navy warheads are in excellent shape, with the W76-1 just completing an upgrade and the W88 now being thoroughly overhauled. Both warheads should be good for decades, so what is the rush to build a new warhead now, particularly when the National Nuclear Security Administration already has so much on its plate?
“According to press reports, President Trump personally signed off on an extra $2 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration after Representative Liz Cheney told him it would mean ‘unilateral disarmament’ if he didn’t. Most of that $2 billion came out of the Pentagon’s budget, and likely at the cost of a Navy Virginia-class attack submarine. Worse yet, that $2 billion will only seem like loose change when the full bill for the entire plan to maintain and replace the U.S. nuclear arsenal comes due, at a likely cost of $2 trillion over the next 30 years.
“These new weapons and excessive spending will not make the United States safer. The world was lucky to survive one global nuclear arms race. We can’t count on luck to save us again. We need saner heads to stop this buildup and reduce the role that nuclear weapons play in U.S. security policy.”
Young, Stephen
Union of Concerned Scientists
Link: https://www.ucsusa.org/about/news/trump-administration-charging-ahead-new-nuclear-weapon-systems-and-joining-new-nuclear
Canada Played a Critical Role in Nuclear Development. We Should Play a Critical Role in Reparations
This is an interesting article about some (not all) of Canada’s connections to nuclear weapons.
By Matt Korda
CBC News Opinion, 30 August 2019
Article Excerpt(s):
“Canada holds contradictory positions in the world of nuclear weapons. We played an essential role in their development, but we never built any bombs of our own.
No nukes are stationed on Canadian soil; however, they were for 20 years, until we finally sent the last American warheads back home in 1984.
As a people, Canadians are largely against nuclear weapons; however, Canada is part of a nuclear alliance and our government actively participates in NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group.
Almost 60 per cent of Canadians live in regions that have banned nuclear weapons, like Ontario, Manitoba, and the Northwest Territories, or in self-proclaimed nuclear weapons-free cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Red Deer, Alta.; however, we currently allow American and British nuclear-capable vessels to visit our ports.
Very simply, in the nuclear arena, Canada is awkwardly straddling a line –– we’re not a member of the nuclear club, but we’re not exactly outside of it either. This position usually works in Canada’s favour, because it lets us simultaneously satisfy both our anti-nuclear impulses and our NATO defence commitments.
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However, with regards to the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons –– the first legally binding international agreement to ban nuclear weapons entirely –– Canada did something very un-Canada-like: we picked a side.
When the treaty was being negotiated in 2017, Canada never formally engaged in the process. Along with nearly every other NATO member, we abstained from negotiations at the behest of the United States, the United Kingdom, and France –– our other nuclear-armed allies.
What has picking this side gotten us? A fair amount of anger and frustration, from both domestic and international activists who feel that Canada has abrogated its moral responsibility on the global stage. At the same time, picking the other side would have set up a bitter and unprecedented fight between Canada and the United States; it could have even called Canada’s NATO membership into question.
In the nuclear policy world, the treaty was billed as a zero-sum decision: the nuclear-armed states and their allies were on one side, and the abolitionists were on the other. And both sides employed similar language: if you aren’t with us, you’re against us.
But it didn’t have to be a zero-sum decision. As always, there was a middle ground to be found, and there is still time for Canada to occupy it.
Today, despite the treaty boasting 70 signatories and nearing entry into force (it now has exactly half of the 50 ratifications needed), Prime Minister Trudeau has characterized it as “sort of useless.” But the treaty contains a number of humanitarian provisions that are right up Canada’s alley.
In particular, the treaty obligates countries to provide age- and gender-sensitive medical aid to victims of nuclear testing, offer financial assistance to those affected, and to provide environmental remediation to contaminated areas like the Marshall Islands, where countless Bikinians were irradiated and displaced by Cold War nuclear tests, yet remain basically forgotten by the nuclear superpowers. These are policies on which Canada can –– and should –– take the lead.
Trudeau’s Liberal government prides itself on its feminist foreign policy, and particularly its promotion of women and girls around the globe. This emphasis should also be applied to the nuclear context. It is a well-established fact that nuclear weapons detonations disproportionately affect women –– not only in terms of the biological effects of ionizing radiation, but also in terms of the social, economic, and psychological impacts of the weapons themselves. For example, a UN study found that the American military subjected Marshallese women to uniquely humiliating examinations after U.S. nuclear weapons tests, which resulted in the social stigmatization of those women.
Canada is uniquely poised to lead on these humanitarian initiatives by providing financial, medical, and environmental aid to those most harmed. Doing so falls firmly within our foreign policy priorities, it wouldn’t affect our existing defence commitments, and, crucially, it would establish Canada as a bridge-builder between two sides that continue to view the nuclear issue as a zero-sum game.
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
We are also already a party to every other major nuclear non-proliferation treaty, including the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear weapons testing. This was easy for us to join in 1998; we had no nuclear weapons to test. However, engaging with the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons would give Canada an opportunity to go beyond our existing, relatively painless, obligations. And we would also be the first nuclear umbrella state to do so, thus setting a meaningful and lasting precedent.
Perhaps most importantly, Canada has a moral obligation to provide aid to victims and environments affected by nuclear testing. We don’t like to talk about it much, but Canada played a critical role in the development of these horrific weapons: scientists at the Montréal Laboratory were an essential part of the Manhattan Project, and the first atomic bombs were made with uranium shipped from the Northwest Territories.
These are unfortunate truths that Canadians have yet to truly reckon with, but committing to a platform of nuclear reparations would be a good start. “
How the Coronavirus Outbreak is like a Nuclear Attack: An Interview with Jeffrey Lewis
This Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ interview with Dr. Jeffrey Lewis – author of “The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel.”
Jeffrey Lewis and John Krzyzaniak
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 20 March 2020
Article Excerpt(s):
“One thing about nuclear command and control, which the virus outbreak underscores, is that it is so hard to get good information in a crisis. The epidemic spiraled out of control so quickly in certain countries that even the best experts were rushing to figure out what was going on.
To me the danger of a nuclear war is not that somebody’s going to get up one morning and say, “Ah, fuck it,” and push the button. It’s that we’re deeply flawed as human beings, and we have imperfect information, and we’re always trying to make decisions under complexity.
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Link: https://thebulletin.org/2020/03/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-is-like-a-nuclear-attack-an-interview-with-jeffrey-lewis/
The South China Morning Post published this editoria about the NPT Does it reflect wider Chinese opinions?
Talks Give World an Opportunity to Avoid Nuclear Weapons Nightmare
South China Morning Post, 20 March 2020
Article Excerpt(s):
“The United States sparked fears of a new nuclear arms race when it pulled out of a key missile treaty with Russia little more than six months ago. Hopes of preventing a race are now focused on another pact credited with helping keep us safe since the height of the Cold War – the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which came into force 50 years ago this month. More importance now attaches to a five-yearly treaty review conference set to be held at the United Nations headquarters in New York next month.
The US pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed in 1987 after Washington and Nato accused Russia of violating it by deploying a new type of cruise missile, which Moscow has denied. Russia suspended its own obligations to the treaty shortly afterwards. It is reassuring therefore that the five permanent members of the Security Council, including the US and Russia, have marked the anniversary of the NPT with a joint declaration celebrating “the immeasurable contributions” this landmark treaty has made to international security and prosperity and reaffirming their commitment to it. Such a consensus is increasingly rare these days.
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The US pulled out of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed in 1987 after Washington and Nato accused Russia of violating it by deploying a new type of cruise missile, which Moscow has denied. Russia suspended its own obligations to the treaty shortly afterwards. It is reassuring therefore that the five permanent members of the Security Council, including the US and Russia, have marked the anniversary of the NPT with a joint declaration celebrating “the immeasurable contributions” this landmark treaty has made to international security and prosperity and reaffirming their commitment to it. Such a consensus is increasingly rare these days.
With more countries having become de facto nuclear powers or acquiring nuclear technology, and with huge investment in the next generation of nuclear weapons, it is understandable that old fears were revived by the collapse of the US-Russia pact. At the same time, technological advances have lowered the bar for producing weapons-grade material. How to manage that remains a challenge.
Current nuclear arsenals are only about one-fifth their size when the NPT came into effect, thanks largely to arms control and the end of the Cold War. But the reductions were unlikely to have been achieved without the moral pressure channelled through the NPT, apart from its goal of preventing proliferation.
The arsenals of the US and Russia still account for more than 90 per cent of the total number of warheads. Nine countries are known to possess nuclear weapons, but fears of much greater proliferation by the 21st century have, thankfully, not been borne out.
With international tensions rising, disarmament deals can play an important part in maintaining stability. The demise of the INF treaty is a setback. There has to be concern about the survival of perhaps the most important Cold War agreement – the New Start treaty limiting long-range nuclear weapons, which is due to expire next February. The NPT may not be perfect but next month’s conference is a chance to refocus on stopping nuclear weapons becoming a nightmare for humanity and to restore confidence in international arms control.”
Alarming US acceptance of Landmine Use
Here’s an excerpt from the World Federalist newsletter.
Article Excerpt(s):
At the end of January, US President Donald Trump reversed the Obama-era ban on the use of landmines (other than in the defence of South Korea).
The brief statement from the White House says, “The Department of Defense has determined that restrictions imposed on American forces by the Obama Administration’s policy could place them at a severe disadvantage during a conflict against our adversaries. The President is unwilling to accept this risk to our troops.”
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A new US policy on landmines “will authorize Combatant Commanders, in exceptional circumstances, to employ advanced, non-persistent landmines specifically designed to reduce unintended harm to civilians and partner forces.”
The United States has not signed the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines (otherwise known as the Ottawa Treaty or Mine Ban Treaty), although 164 other countries have done so.
In a statement from Human Rights Watch, Steve Goose, director of HRW’s arms division said, “Most of the world’s countries have embraced the ban on antipersonnel landmines for more than two decades, while the Trump administration has done a complete about-face in deciding to cling to these weapons in perpetuity. Using landmines, which have claimed so many lives and limbs, is not justified by any country or group under any circumstances.”
HRW points out that “in recent years, landmines have only been used by regimes known for their human rights abuses in Burma and Syria, and by non-state armed groups like ISIS” and that the US has not actually used landmines since 1991, exported them since 1992, produced them since 1997, and have, in fact, destroyed millions that were stockpiled.
In an op-ed in the Globe and Mail, former Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and John English, a former special ambassador on landmines, address the “reducing risk” rationale, which was, as they put it, “debunked effectively during the debate on the landmine treaty negotiations in the 1990s, when the International Committee of the Red Cross, supported by senior U.S. army commanders … pointed out that the weapons were a huge risk to civilians and soldiers alike.”
They also say that the US is not acknowledging the impact and effectiveness of the Ottawa Treaty, including the drop in annual rates of those injured or killed by landmines which have accompanied the major de-mining projects still in process.
The lifting of US restrictions “gives licence to rogue combatants around the world, to say nothing of major powers such as Russia and China, which will now feel free to amend their own no-use policies.”
In an op-ed published by Postmedia in their various newspapers, Erin Hunt (Mines Action Canada) and Liz Bernstein (Nobel Women’s Initiative), in addition to raising similar points to Axworthy and English about the reduction in casualties and demining projects, also discuss the failure of “technological fixes,” such as the the self-destruct mechanism in non-persistent landmines, to reduce casualties.
Hunt and Bernstein also call on the Canadian government to publicly support the ban and fund demining projects, as well as assist victims. They suggest that Canada take on the role of president of the Ottawa Treaty, an annual commitment Canada has never assumed.
What you can do
Write to Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne and suggest that Canada publicly re-affirm its commitment to upholding the Ottawa Treaty Banning Anti-Personnel Landmines, and confirm its financial support for de-mining activities around the world.
Title: TakeAction: United States removes restrictions on landmine use: What should Canada do?
Author: World Federalist Movement (Canada Chapter)
Publication(s): World Federalist Movement (Canada Chapter)
Date: 12 March 2020
Link: https://www.wfmcanada.org/2020/03/3345/
So you’re telling me that Trump and the USA are willing to just use any type of weapon as long as it gives them the advantage?!!!!
Does that surprise you?
Do Young People Care About Nuclear Weapons?
By Matt Korda, Inkstick, 27 February 2020
Article Excerpt(s):
“Last month, the International Committee of the Red Cross released a report with a shocking — and seemingly contradictory — pair of statistics.
According to the report, a majority of millennials (54%) believe that a nuclear attack will occur within the next decade. Yet those same respondents simultaneously ranked nuclear weapons as the “least important” out of 12 global issues.
These findings, although seemingly in conflict, may not actually be that surprising. In fact, they reflect an existential question that the nuclear community has been grappling with for some time:
HOW CAN WE GET YOUNGER PEOPLE TO CARE ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS?
Two of the most common responses to this question are either: “we should scare the youths straight,” or: “we should meme nuclear weapons.” Neither of these is the answer. In fact, millennial Dadaist humor is already rooted in an ironic acceptance of the dystopian years that lie ahead of us. We’re terrified of our futures and apocalyptic memes are our defense mechanism.
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Interestingly enough, this isn’t the case with other systemic issues like climate change, gun violence, or health care, for which millions of young people around the world are striking, marching, and — most importantly —voting.
Why don’t they do the same for nukes? Some blame lies with the nuclear community, which has both an exclusivity and an elitism problem. In stark contrast to the climate change and gun violence movements, we almost never hear from those on the front lines of the nuclear issue. In fact, when talking about nuclear weapons, the community generally prefers a wonky, fetishistic lexicon that elevates the weapons over their victims.
Additionally, the nuclear community often demands that people care about nukes more than they care about any other issue. This is an understandable instinct, given that nuclear war is arguably the greatest existential threat that humanity faces. However, emphasizing the existential nature of nuclear weapons often makes people switch off, as our brains have a tough time processing non-proximate threats. By treating nuclear weapons as a standalone, singular issue that trumps all others, we lose the chance to connect with folks who feel more viscerally threatened by things like climate change, lack of access to health care or education, and police brutality.
To illustrate this point, consider the Green New Deal. Its proponents understand that an effective response to the climate crisis cannot rely solely on building solar farms or scaling back factory farming. Incremental policies like these barely scratch the surface of the problem, and they are too wonky to bring the imperative for climate justice into the mainstream. This is why Green New Deal advocates constantly tie the issue to more proximate concerns, like health care, education, public housing, capitalism, militarism, and social justice.
This strategy works: the Green New Deal has broad majority support across the country, including in states that voted for Trump in 2016. On top of that, emphasizing the intersections between these issues has proven highly effective in building a broad coalition that elevates the voices of those most affected.
We need to emphasize that nuclear weapons exacerbate all of these issue areas as well, and that nukes, therefore, must be considered as elements of a larger ecosystem that must be tackled in tandem:
CLIMATE CHANGE
As I have written in The Nation, climate change and nuclear weapons have a symbiotic relationship: climate change is making nuclear war more likely, and a nuclear war would devastate our climate in ways we cannot fully fathom. Not to mention the fact that decades of uranium mining, nuclear testing, and nuclear waste dumping have already contaminated some our planet’s ecosystems, displacing entire communities––often communities of color––in the process. Nuclear weapons are undoubtedly a climate justice issue.
HEALTH CARE
Nuclear weapons must also be inextricably tied to discussions about health care. During the Cold War, US atomic veterans, Marshall Islanders, and “Downwinders” (communities throughout the American Southwest located downwind from the Nevada Test Site), among others, were exposed to harmful doses of radiation that dramatically raised the rates of cancer for those communities. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which has thus far awarded over $2 billion to a small portion of these populations, expires in 2022. Not only should this program be extended and expanded, but nuclear disarmament advocates must also unequivocally advocate for universal health care as a means for addressing those past and present nuclear harms.
CAPITALISM
As political philosopher Michael Hardt has written, “capital needs military spending and cannot survive without it.” This is because weapons — and especially nuclear weapons — are not kept in check by the typical limits of consumption. As Hardt explains, “a society’s appetite for arms can be limitless, and capital turns a profit even when weapons are ultimately unused.” Simply put, if your goal is invulnerability, then you can never have enough weapons, missile defenses, or nukes.
However, this framing is obviously flawed: no one — especially not an entire country — can ever achieve invulnerability. Therefore, the “arms race” has no finish line. Instead, it’s just an endless loop: we constantly seek out “deterrence gaps” and rush to fill them with new weapons, regardless of whether those gaps are real or fabricated. The arms race is not the means to an end. For those who profit from these weapons, it is an end in itself.
Therefore, just as the most effective resistance to climate change encourages struggle against our fossil-fuel based economic system, we must tie nuclear disarmament to a parallel, anti-capitalist struggle against our internalized pursuit of military invulnerability.
CORRUPTION
When it comes to big money items like oil, guns, or nukes, corruption is basically legal in the United States. You only need to look at the case of “senator-turned-lobbyist-turned-senator-turned lobbyist,” Jon Kyl, to understand how the Washington revolving door enables profit to drive nuclear decision-making. Disarmament will always be a pipe dream so long as nuclear policy remains a business decision.
TRADEOFFS
For more indirect issues like education, infrastructure, and poverty, the link to nuclear weapons is easy: nukes will cost the United States $100,000 per minute over the next 30 years –– where could that money be better spent? We could end homelessness for $20 billion –– the price of 36 B-21 bombers. We could trade in the proposed new $85 billion intercontinental ballistic missile program to cancel Puerto Rico’s $74 billion debt––and even have a “little” left over! That new low-yield warhead that the Navy just deployed? It cost five times more than the entire country’s $10 million student lunch debt crisis.
Imagine this: your political candidate of preference unveils an ambitious social program, and when they are inevitably asked how they plan to pay for it, they respond not by presenting alienating and overly-wonky cost measurements –– but by drawing a link between the potential success of their initiative and the excesses of the nuclear weapons budget.
That is how you galvanize people –– and especially young people –– around the nuclear issue: by demonstrating that their lives could be tangibly improved by eliminating unnecessary weapons programs that they never voted for in the first place. In short, we shouldn’t seek to scare young folks, we should seek to activate them.”
Link: https://inkstickmedia.com/do-young-people-care-about-nuclear-weapons/
One potential victim of coronavirus? Nuclear inspections in Iran
By George M. Moore, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 17 March 2020
Article Excerpt(s):
” Should the new IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi decide to suspend inspection visits to protect the health of his inspectors, it could metastasize concerns about Iranian nuclear proliferation. The same result would occur if Iran acted unilaterally to bar inspectors based on real or manufactured concerns about further spread of Covid-19.
To date, there is no public information about whether the IAEA will continue to send inspectors to Iran under the terms of the nuclear deal. Suspending inspections, even temporarily, could potentially leave a multi-month gap that Iran could exploit if it chose to fully break out of the nuclear agreement. In early March, the IAEA reported that Iran had amassed over 1,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, nearly triple the amount allowed under the deal.
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Following this announcement, updated estimates of Iran’s breakout time—the amount of time needed to amass enough fissile material to produce one nuclear weapon—ranged from approximately four to six months. These estimates depend on assumptions about the type of design Iran might be capable of initially using. Implosion systems require less fissile material than gun-type designs. Whatever the exact breakout time might be, most estimates fall within a timespan that health officials seem to indicate might be the duration of the Covid-19 threat.
Whether Iran would attempt to use the cover of Covid-19 to begin a dash for a nuclear weapon is uncertain. However, the loss of “eyes on the ground” in the form of IAEA inspections would probably heighten the worst fears about Iranian proliferation and possibly worsen already dim prospects for cooperation. Even before the coronavirus breakout, Iran had expanded its production of enriched uranium, probably in an attempt to exert pressure and improve its negotiating leverage following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the deal and its reimposition of sanctions in 2018.
A second and related danger is that, absent the IAEA inspections, there is a greater possibility of miscalculation regarding Iran and its nuclear potential and intentions. Without hard data, US policy makers could begin to fear the worst and assume that Iran was dashing toward a bomb, and it would be difficult to prove otherwise. Other nations, both Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East and other global powers, might also react in unexpected ways, based on insufficient information and fear that Iran was breaking out to produce a nuclear weapon. In any event, lack of information generally leads to instability and whenever nuclear weapons, or the threat of nuclear weapons, is involved, instability could be exceedingly dangerous.
What could, or should, Director General Grossi and the IAEA member states do about this situation to mitigate any potential risks? First, it is essential that any hazards to the health of IAEA inspectors be minimized. The agency must pre-screen its inspectors before they travel to identify those at heightened risk. In addition, inspectors should be equipped to deal with potential contact with the virus by using proper disposable clothing and disinfecting procedures. Inspectors should also be accompanied by medical personnel and should strive to be self-sufficient with food and housing. It is also possible that enhanced technical oversight systems could be installed to temporarily decrease or eliminate the need for inspectors. Although the IAEA has apparently used remote surveillance systems in Iran, the effectiveness of those systems in a situation where inspectors cannot enter Iran will need to be evaluated, and new or upgraded systems may be needed. Such installations would need to be installed by the IAEA in order to be considered reliable, and that would involve the same risks to those personnel as to inspectors in dealing with the virus.
IAEA member states should fully support such efforts so that inspections can continue. Though it might require extraordinary efforts by the IAEA and its board of governors, it is in the world’s interest to have the nuclear watchdog continue its verification programs in Iran despite whatever level of hazard the Covid-19 outbreak presents. Failure to do so could have dire consequences.”
Here Dr. Tariq Rauf discusses the impacts of COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) on the upcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty conferences. There is a possibility the conferences and associated discussions will be pushed to 2021 and beyond.
Relentless Spread of Coronavirus Obliges Postponing the 2020 NPT Review to 2021
By Tariq Rauf
Article Excerpt(s):
“Harvard University epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch in his “very, very rough” estimate (relying on “multiple assumptions piled on top of each other”) has stated that 100 or 200 people were infected in the U.S. a week or so ago. But that is all it would take to widely spread the disease. Lipsitch has predicted that within a year, 40% to 70% of the world’s population could be infected with COVID-19? With the world’s population hovering around 7.5 billion, that translates to some 3 to 5 billion people getting COVID-19 and that perhaps fatalities of 60 to 100 million, according to Lipsitch.
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Should unfortunately this worst case prevail, we could have the worst pandemic in human history, even exceeding the Spanish Flu of 1918-1919 that killed 50 million people. Under the above scenario, in the United States there could be up to 130 to 230 million cases of COVID-19, with up to 2.5 to 3.5 million fatalities. Obviously, these are the worst “worst case” predictions and likely will not come true, but still an abundance of caution is advisable and unnecessary large conferences and gatherings of people should be avoided. Hence, all the more reason to postpone the 2020 NPT review conference to 2021.”
[…]
What is the NPT?
“The NPT is the world’s most widely adhered to multilateral nuclear arms reduction and non-proliferation treaty. It is considered to be a resounding success in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons to five States that have signed the Treaty and to four others that are not bound by it. Mainly as a result of the NPT, some 10% of the electricity generated in the world is by nuclear power reactors contributing to clean energy, and billions of people benefit daily from the applications of nuclear technologies in such areas as medicine, agriculture, water and animal husbandry.
The principal failing of the NPT has been lack of progress towards eliminating nuclear weapons. Despite a half-century having elapsed since the NPT entered into force, as I have written previously, “The grim reality is that more than 14,000 nuclear warheads of the nine nuclear-armed States are deployed at more than 100 locations in 14 States, the dangers of nuclear weapon use are increasing, and there are stocks of nearly 1,400 tonnes (or 1,400,000 kg) of weapon-grade uranium and 500 tonnes (or 500,000 kg) of weapon-usable plutonium good for more than 130,000 nuclear warheads. Remember, it takes 25 kg or less of highly-enriched uranium and 8 kg or less of plutonium for one nuclear warhead.””
[…]
“Furthermore, some delegations have been complaining about visa denials by U.S. authorities to attend UN conferences and this year’s session of the UN Disarmament Commission had to be postponed. Costs of hotel accommodation in New York are soaring, as are the costs of food and eating out in restaurants. The expertise for nuclear verification, safety and security, and peaceful uses lies in Vienna (Austria), while that of negotiating multilateral nuclear arms control in Geneva (Switzerland). New York has no diplomatic expertise related to the NPT. Thus, there are no compelling reasons at all to convene the presently scheduled NPT review conference in New York this year.”
[…]
“An NPT review conference this year though desirable for meeting the five yearly cycle is not absolutely necessary; rather under the circumstances it poses unacceptable health risks and is a luxury that the international community can ill afford.
The best option is to formally announce the postponement of the 2020 NPT review conference to 2021 with the venue being Vienna, as soon as possible – the earlier the better. The longer this decision is delayed the greater the costs incurred in cancelling flights and hotel rooms – while government and IAEA/CTBTO delegates may well be able to afford such penalties as tax dollars pay for their expenses, for civil society participants the cancellation costs would be onerous and unaffordable as they either self-finance or rely on charitable donations.
For all the reasons noted above, including especially the continuing spread of the COVID-19 virus designated by WHO as a very high global risk, it would not only be inexcusable but also immoral on the part of the UN and the NPT Secretariats to delay any further the announcement of the postponement of the NPT review conference to 2021 and to initiate the logistical preparations for holding it in Vienna next year. ”
A World War Could Break Out in the Arctic
By Michael Klare
The Nation, 11 feb. 2020
Finnmark, Norway
Notes: Discusses various elements ranging from the role of the military to the role of the resource extraction industry. Particular focus is on the new military exercises that will be occurring in March 2020 in Scandinavia.
Article Excerpt:
“In early March, an estimated 7,500 American combat troops will travel to Norway to join thousands of soldiers from other NATO countries in a massive mock battle with imagined invading forces from Russia. In this futuristic simulated engagement—it goes by the name of Exercise Cold Response 2020—allied forces will “conduct multinational joint exercises with a high-intensity combat scenario in demanding winter conditions,” or so claims the Norwegian military anyway. At first glance, this may look like any other NATO training exercise, but think again. There’s nothing ordinary about Cold Response 2020. As a start, it’s being staged above the Arctic Circle, far from any previous traditional NATO battlefield, and it raises to a new level the possibility of a great-power conflict that might end in a nuclear exchange and mutual annihilation. Welcome, in other words, to World War III’s newest battlefield.
For the soldiers participating in the exercise, the potentially thermonuclear dimensions of Cold Response 2020 may not be obvious. At its start, Marines from the United States and the United Kingdom will practice massive amphibious landings along Norway’s coastline, much as they do in similar exercises elsewhere in the world. Once ashore, however, the scenario becomes ever more distinctive. After collecting tanks and other heavy weaponry “prepositioned” in caves in Norway’s interior, the Marines will proceed toward the country’s far-northern Finnmark region to help Norwegian forces stave off Russian forces supposedly pouring across the border. From then on, the two sides will engage in—to use current Pentagon terminology—high-intensity combat operations under Arctic conditions (a type of warfare not seen on such a scale since World War II).
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And that’s just the beginning. Unbeknownst to most Americans, the Finnmark region of Norway and adjacent Russian territory have become one of the most likely battlegrounds for the first use of nuclear weapons in any future NATO-Russian conflict. Because Moscow has concentrated a significant part of its nuclear retaliatory capability on the Kola Peninsula, a remote stretch of land abutting northern Norway—any US-NATO success in actual combat with Russian forces near that territory would endanger a significant part of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and so might precipitate the early use of such munitions. Even a simulated victory—the predictable result of Cold Response 2020—will undoubtedly set Russia’s nuclear controllers on edge.
To appreciate just how risky any NATO-Russian clash in Norway’s far north would be, consider the region’s geography and the strategic factors that have led Russia to concentrate so much military power there. And all of this, by the way, will be playing out in the context of another existential danger: climate change. The melting of the Arctic ice cap and the accelerated exploitation of Arctic resources are lending this area ever greater strategic significance.
ENERGY EXTRACTION IN THE FAR NORTH
Look at any map of Europe and you’ll note that Scandinavia widens as it heads southward into the most heavily populated parts of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. As you head north, however, it narrows and becomes ever less populated. At its extreme northern reaches, only a thin band of Norway juts east to touch Russia’s Kola Peninsula. To the north, the Barents Sea, an offshoot of the Arctic Ocean, bounds them both. This remote region—approximately 800 miles from Oslo and 900 miles from Moscow—has, in recent years, become a vortex of economic and military activity.
Once prized as a source of vital minerals, especially nickel, iron ore, and phosphates, this remote area is now the center of extensive oil and natural gas extraction. With temperatures rising in the Arctic twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet and sea ice retreating ever farther north every year, offshore fossil-fuel exploration has become increasingly viable. As a result, large reserves of oil and natural gas—the very fuels whose combustion is responsible for those rising temperatures—have been discovered beneath the Barents Sea and both countries are seeking to exploit those deposits. Norway has taken the lead, establishing at Hammerfest in Finnmark the world’s first plant above the Arctic Circle to export liquified natural gas. In a similar fashion, Russia has initiated efforts to exploit the mammoth Shtokman gas field in its sector of the Barents Sea, though it has yet to bring such plans to fruition.
For Russia, even more significant oil and gas prospects lie further east in the Kara and Pechora Seas and on the Yamal Peninsula, a slender extension of Siberia. Its energy companies have, in fact, already begun producing oil at the Prirazlomnoye field in the Pechora Sea and the Novoportovskoye field on that peninsula (and natural gas there as well). Such fields hold great promise for Russia, which exhibits all the characteristics of a petro-state, but there’s one huge problem: The only practical way to get that output to market is via specially designed icebreaker-tankers sent through the Barents Sea past northern Norway.
The exploitation of Arctic oil and gas resources and their transport to markets in Europe and Asia has become a major economic priority for Moscow as its hydrocarbon reserves below the Arctic Circle begin to dry up. Despite calls at home for greater economic diversity, President Vladimir Putin’s regime continues to insist on the centrality of hydrocarbon production to the country’s economic future. In that context, production in the Arctic has become an essential national objective, which, in turn, requires assured access to the Atlantic Ocean via the Barents Sea and Norway’s offshore waters. Think of that waterway as vital to Russia’s energy economy in the way the Strait of Hormuz, connecting the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, is to the Saudis and other regional fossil-fuel producers.
THE MILITARY DIMENSION
No less than Russia’s giant energy firms, its navy must be able to enter the Atlantic via the Barents Sea and northern Norway. Aside from its Baltic and Black Sea ports, accessible to the Atlantic only via passageways easily obstructed by NATO, the sole Russian harbor with unfettered access to the Atlantic Ocean is at Murmansk on the Kola Peninsula. Not surprisingly then, that port is also the headquarters for Russia’s Northern Fleet—its most powerful—and the site of numerous air, infantry, missile, and radar bases along with naval shipyards and nuclear reactors. In other words, it’s among the most sensitive military regions in Russia today.
Given all this, President Putin has substantially rebuilt that very fleet, which fell into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet Union, equipping it with some of the country’s most advanced warships. In 2018, according to The Military Balance, a publication of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, it already possessed the largest number of modern cruisers and destroyers (10) of any Russian fleet, along with 22 attack submarines and numerous support vessels. Also in the Murmansk area are dozens of advanced MiG fighter planes and a wide assortment of anti-aircraft defense systems. Finally, as 2019 ended, Russian military officials indicated for the first time that they had deployed to the Arctic the Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile, a weapon capable of hypersonic velocities (more than five times the speed of sound), again presumably to a base in the Murmansk region just 125 miles from Norway’s Finnmark, the site of the upcoming NATO exercise.
More significant yet is the way Moscow has been strengthening its nuclear forces in the region. Like the United States, Russia maintains a “triad” of nuclear delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), long-range “heavy” bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Under the terms of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), signed by the two countries in 2010, the Russians can deploy no more than 700 delivery systems capable of carrying no more than 1,550 warheads. (That pact will, however, expire in February 2021 unless the two sides agree to an extension, which appears increasingly unlikely in the age of Trump.) According to the Arms Control Association, the Russians are currently believed to be deploying the warheads they are allowed under New START on 66 heavy bombers, 286 ICBMs, and 12 submarines with 160 SLBMs. Eight of those nuclear-armed subs are, in fact, assigned to the Northern Fleet, which means about 110 missiles with as many as 500 warheads—the exact numbers remain shrouded in secrecy—are deployed in the Murmansk area.
For Russian nuclear strategists, such nuclear-armed submarines are considered the most “survivable” of the country’s retaliatory systems. In the event of a nuclear exchange with the United States, the country’s heavy bombers and ICBMs could prove relatively vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes as their locations are known and can be targeted by American bombs and missiles with near-pinpoint accuracy. Those subs, however, can leave Murmansk and disappear into the wide Atlantic Ocean at the onset of any crisis and so presumably remain hidden from US spying eyes. To do so, however, requires that they pass through the Barents Sea, avoiding the NATO forces lurking nearby. For Moscow, in other words, the very possibility of deterring a US nuclear strike hinges on its ability to defend its naval stronghold in Murmansk, while maneuvering its submarines past Norway’s Finnmark region. No wonder, then, that this area has assumed enormous strategic importance for Russian military planners—and the upcoming Cold Response 2020 is sure to prove challenging to them.
WASHINGTON’S ARCTIC BUILDUP
During the Cold War era, Washington viewed the Arctic as a significant strategic arena and constructed a string of military bases across the region. Their main aim: to intercept Soviet bombers and missiles crossing the North Pole on their way to targets in North America. After the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, Washington abandoned many of those bases. Now, however, with the Pentagon once again identifying “great power competition” with Russia and China as the defining characteristic of the present strategic environment, many of those bases are being reoccupied and new ones established. Once again, the Arctic is being viewed as a potential site of conflict with Russia and, as a result, US forces are being readied for possible combat there.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the first official to explain this new strategic outlook at the Arctic Forum in Finland last May. In his address, a kind of “Pompeo Doctrine,” he indicated that the United States was shifting from benign neglect of the region to aggressive involvement and militarization. “We’re entering a new age of strategic engagement in the Arctic,” he insisted, “complete with new threats to the Arctic and its real estate, and to all of our interests in that region.” To better protect those interests against Russia’s military buildup there, “we are fortifying America’s security and diplomatic presence in the area…hosting military exercises, strengthening our force presence, rebuilding our icebreaker fleet, expanding Coast Guard funding, and creating a new senior military post for Arctic Affairs inside of our own military.”
The Pentagon has been unwilling to provide many details, but a close reading of the military press suggests that this activity has been particularly focused on northern Norway and adjacent waters. To begin with, the Marine Corps has established a permanent presence in that country, the first time foreign forces have been stationed there since German troops occupied it during World War II. A detachment of about 330 Marines were initially deployed near the port of Trondheim in 2017, presumably to help guard nearby caves that contain hundreds of US tanks and combat vehicles. Two years later, a similarly sized group was then dispatched to the Troms region above the Arctic Circle and far closer to the Russian border.
From the Russian perspective, even more threatening is the construction of a US radar station on the Norwegian island of Vardø about 40 miles from the Kola Peninsula. To be operated in conjunction with the Norwegian intelligence service, the focus of the facility will evidently be to snoop on those Russian missile-carrying submarines, assumedly in order to target them and take them out in the earliest stages of any conflict. That Moscow fears just such an outcome is evident from the mock attack it staged on the Vardø facility in 2018, sending 11 Su-24 supersonic bombers on a direct path toward the island. (They turned aside at the last moment.) It has also moved a surface-to-surface missile battery to a spot just 40 miles from Vardø.
In addition, in August 2018, the US Navy decided to reactivate the previously decommissioned Second Fleet in the North Atlantic. “A new Second Fleet increases our strategic flexibility to respond—from the Eastern Seaboard to the Barents Sea,” said Chief of Naval Operations John Richardson at the time. As last year ended, that fleet was declared fully operational.
DECIPHERING COLD RESPONSE 2020
Exercise Cold Response 2020 must be viewed in the context of all these developments. Few details about the thinking behind the upcoming war games have been made public, but it’s not hard to imagine what at least part of the scenario might be like: a US-Russian clash of some sort leading to Russian attacks aimed at seizing that radar station at Vardø and Norway’s defense headquarters at Bodø on the country’s northwestern coast. The invading troops will be slowed but not stopped by Norwegian forces (and those US Marines stationed in the area), while thousands of reinforcements from NATO bases elsewhere in Europe begin to pour in. Eventually, of course, the tide will turn and the Russians will be forced back.
No matter what the official scenario is like, however, for Pentagon planners the situation will go far beyond this. Any Russian assault on critical Norwegian military facilities would presumably be preceded by intense air and missile bombardment and the forward deployment of major naval vessels. This, in turn, would prompt comparable moves by the United States and NATO, probably resulting in violent encounters and the loss of major assets on all sides. In the process, Russia’s key nuclear retaliatory forces would be at risk and quickly placed on high alert with senior officers operating in hair-trigger mode. Any misstep might then lead to what humanity has feared since August 1945: a nuclear apocalypse on Planet Earth.
There is no way to know to what degree such considerations are incorporated into the classified versions of the Cold Response 2020 scenario, but it’s unlikely that they’re missing. Indeed, a 2016 version of the exercise involved the participation of three B-52 nuclear bombers from the US Strategic Air Command, indicating that the American military is keenly aware of the escalatory risks of any large-scale US-Russian encounter in the Arctic.
In short, what might otherwise seem like a routine training exercise in a distant part of the world is actually part of an emerging US strategy to overpower Russia in a critical defensive zone, an approach that could easily result in nuclear war. The Russians are, of course, well aware of this and so will undoubtedly be watching Cold Response 2020 with genuine trepidation. Their fears are understandable—but we should all be concerned about a strategy that seemingly embodies such a high risk of future escalation.
Ever since the Soviets acquired nuclear weapons of their own in 1949, strategists have wondered how and where an all-out nuclear war—World War III—would break out. At one time, that incendiary scenario was believed most likely to involve a clash over the divided city of Berlin or along the East-West border in Germany. After the Cold War, however, fears of such a deadly encounter evaporated and few gave much thought to such possibilities. Looking forward today, however, the prospect of a catastrophic World War III is again becoming all too imaginable and this time, it appears, an incident in the Arctic could prove the spark for Armageddon.”
There is ongoing debate in Ireland about allowing the United States’ military to use airports – both as a base for operations, as well as a stopover.
Should the Irish government push for an end to the US military use of Shannon Airport?
News Agency: The Journal (Ireland) 29 January 2020
Article Excerpt:
If in Government, Labour would push for an end to the use of Shannon Airport for US military planes according to party leader Brendan Howlin.
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Speaking to The Journal.ie for the general election podcast The Candidate, Howlin said the Labour Party would go head-to-head with President Donald Trump and end the use of Shannon for US military planes unless those troops were involved in UN-sanctioned military operations.
Howlin’s calls follow concerns about inspections of US aircraft that land at Shannon being raised on numerous occasions in the last Dáil.
The issue was highlighted again last week when US Vice President Mike Pence met with US troops during a stopover at Shannon Airport.
So, today we’re asking you: Should the Irish government push for an end to the US military use of Shannon Airport?
Link: https://www.thejournal.ie/us-military-shannon-4984136-Jan2020
New York City Divests Pension Funds from Fossil Fuel Companies. Next maybe nuclear weapons?
Jonathan Granoff
In January 2018, New York City decided to divest the city’s $189bn pension funds from fossil fuel companies within the next five years. Now the city looks set to also divest from the nuclear weapons industry.
Last Tuesday (January 28), the Council held public hearings on draft Resolution 0976 which calls on New York City to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and divest from the nuclear weapons industry, and on Initiative 1621 to reaffirm New York City as a nuclear weapons-free zone and establish an advisory committee to implement this status.
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The draft measures were introduced to the council in June 2019 by Council members Daniel Dromm, Helen Rosenthal and Ben Kallos. Since then, New York peace, climate and disarmament activists have been campaigning to build endorsement from enough council members for the adoption of these two measures.
The campaign has included directed research, lobbying of councillors, public events & actions, and open letters in support such as the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money Open letter to New York City Council sent to every city councillor in November 2019.
‘City of New York pension funds should not be used to support any aspect of nuclear weapons production, plain and simple,’ Councillor Helen Rosenthal told a support action organised by the Move the Nuclear Weapons Money campaign in front of City Hall in October 2019.
‘Helping to fund nuclear proliferation (whether directly via investments in weapons manufacturers, or indirectly via Citibank and other financial institutions with ties to weapons makers) runs contrary to what this city and our 300,000+ municipal workers stand for. Our teachers, fire fighters, social workers, and so many other public sector workers have devoted their careers to making life better for their fellow New Yorkers. We cannot in good conscience assist in underwriting the catastrophic loss of life and environmental ruin that would result from a nuclear conflict.’
Impact of NYC nuclear weapons divestment:
New York City pensions have approximately $480 million invested in the nuclear weapons industry. The divestment of this amount would probably not make any financial impact on the weapons manufacturers.
However, it would serve as a positive example of an action that can be taken by cities and other investors to align their investments with their ethical values. And it would give support to federal initiatives to cut nuclear weapons budgets, such as the SANE Act introduced into the U.S. Senate by PNND Co-President Ed Markey and the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act, introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by PNND Member Eleanor Holmes-Norton.
The Hearings:
The public hearings on Thursday were run jointly by Council member Daniel Dromm and Council member Fernando Cabrera, chair of the NYC Committee on Governmental Operations. They included testimony from a wide range of New Yorkers and civil society organisations, including from labour, education, academia, finance, health, religious and law sectors and from communities impacted by the production, testing and use of nuclear weapons. Witnesses stretched in age from 19-90. Click here for a video of the testimonies.
As the public hearings opened on Thursday, the two measures were one-vote short of a veto-proof majority. By the end of the hearings, Council Member Fernando Cabrera had affirmed his support thus ensuring the required votes for adoption. As such, it looks fairly certain that the measures will be adopted.
New York Administration resistance addressed by Move the Nuclear Weapons Money
One unresolved issue from the hearings is which city department would oversee the implementation of the two measures. Another issue is what resources, including budget, would be required for implementation and from where these would come.
The New York City administration was represented by Ms Penny Abeywardena, New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs, who argued that her department (the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs) had neither the resources nor the mandate to implement the measures if they were adopted. She argued that her department was responsible for building good working relations between NY City and the United Nations, educating youth about the United Nations, and reporting to the UN on NYC’s implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, but not to engage in national security policy or international disarmament which was the mandate for the Federal government – not the city.
Mr Jonathan Granoff, representing Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, responded in his oral testimony that the remit from these resolutions was not that the City engage in advocacy at the United Nations, but rather to implement obligations arising from the UN that are applicable to cities as well as to federal governments. This is exactly what her department is doing with respect to SDGs, and is what they have a mandate to do for nuclear disarmament.
‘The very first resolution of the United Nations, which was adopted by consensus, affirmed a universal commitment to abolish atomic weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and this is further affirmed as an obligation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty ,’ said Mr Granoff, who is also President of Global Security Institute and an internationally respected lawyer.
‘Ms Abeywardena, in outlining her department’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, seems to be unaware that SDG 16 includes the obligation to implement such international law at all levels of government, including at city level. As such, the Commission on International Affairs does indeed have the mandate to implement these measures if and when they are adopted.’
With regard to the human resources required to implement the measures, Mr Granoff agreed with Ms Abeywardena that her commission and the City Council did not have much expertise on nuclear weapons. ‘This is exactly why an advisory committee is required – to provide that expertise, and that expertise is here in this room, and you can have our expertise for free. The only resource standing in the way of getting rid of nuclear weapons is emotional, spiritual and political will.’
New York City and Mayors for Peace:
The written testimony of Move the Nuclear Weapons Money included a proposal that a key action New York City should take in implementing the resolutions once adopted would be for them to join Mayors for Peace.
Jackie Cabassso, North America Representative for Mayors for Peace, in her oral testimony outlined some of the actions of Mayors for Peace – including introduction of nuclear disarmament resolutions that were adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Ms Cabasso reminded the City Council of the invitation from Mayors for Peace to New York to join, and urged she that they do so.
Divest Nuclear!
On Tuesday last week (January 28), New York City Council held public hearings on two measures (draft Resolution 0976 and Initiative 1621) which if adopted would oblige the city to divest its city pension funds from the nuclear weapons industry and establish an advisory committee to develop city action to further implement its status as a nuclear-weapon-free zone.
New York City pensions have approximately $480 million invested in the nuclear weapons industry. The divestment of this amount would probably not make any financial impact on the weapons manufacturers. However, it would serve as a positive example of an action that can be taken by cities and other investors to align their investments with their ethical values. And it would give support to federal initiatives to cut nuclear weapons budgets, such as the SANE Act introduced into the U.S. Senate by PNND Co-President Ed Markey and the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Economic and Energy Conversion Act, introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by PNND Member Eleanor Holmes-Norton.
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The adoption of the two measures could also pave the way for New York to become a member of Mayors for Peace, a global network of over 8000 cities working for global nuclear abolition (see Mayors for Peace, below).
Actions to support the two measures:
The two measures, which were introduced to the Council in June 2019 by Council members Daniel Dromm, Helen Rosenthal and Ben Kallos, have been supported by local peace and disarmament campaigners and by Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, a global campaign co-sponsored by the Basel Peace Office to cut nuclear weapons budgets, end investments in the nuclear weapons and fossil fuel industries and reallocate these budgets and investments to support peace, climate and sustainable development.
Actions to promote the draft measures have included an Open Letter to New York City Council endorsed by representatives of over 20 New York peace, disarmament and climate action organizations, and a count the nuclear weapons money action in front of city hall.
City of New York pension funds should not be used to support any aspect of nuclear weapons production, plain and simple,’ Councillor Helen Rosenthal told the Count the Nuclear Weapons Money action. ‘Helping to fund nuclear proliferation runs contrary to what this city and our 300,000+ municipal workers stand for. Our teachers, fire fighters, social workers, and so many other public sector workers have devoted their careers to making life better for their fellow New Yorkers. We cannot in good conscience assist in underwriting the catastrophic loss of life and environmental ruin that would result from a nuclear conflict.’
The Hearings
The public hearings on Thursday were run jointly by Council member Daniel Dromm and Council member Fernando Cabrera, chair of the NYC Committee on Governmental Operations. They included testimony from a wide range of New Yorkers and civil society organisations, including from labour, education, academia, finance, health, religious and law sectors and from communities impacted by the production, testing and use of nuclear weapons. Witnesses stretched in age from 19-90.
As the public hearings opened on Thursday, the two measures were one-vote short of a veto-proof majority. By the end of the hearings, Council Member Fernando Cabrera had affirmed his support thus ensuring the required votes for adoption. As such, it looks fairly certain that the measures will be adopted.
Resistance from New York City Administration:
Issues that were presented by the city as difficulties in adopting and implementing the resolutions were the human and financial resources required to implement them, and which city department would be responsible.
Ms Penny Abeywardena, New York City’s Commissioner for International Affairs, testified argued that her department (the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs) had neither the expertise, resources nor the mandate to implement the measures.
However, her concerns were addressed fully in the oral testimony of Jonathan Granoff, represeting Move the Nuclear Weapons Money, who argued that the expertise and human resources were available from the disarmament and investment communities present at the hearings, and that the mandate for the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs to act already existed in their commitments and programs for implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals – Goal 16 of which includes the role of local authorities to implement universal peace and disarmament obligations.
New York City and Mayors for Peace:
The written testimony of Move the Nuclear Weapons Money included a proposal that a key action New York City should take in implementing the resolutions once adopted would be for them to join Mayors for Peace.
Jackie Cabassso, North America Representative for Mayors for Peace, in her oral testimony outlined some of the actions of Mayors for Peace – including introduction of nuclear disarmament resolutions that were adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Ms Cabasso reminded the City Council of the invitation from Mayors for Peace to New York to join, and she urged that they do so.
Risk of Nuclear War Rises as U.S. Deploys a New Nuclear Weapon for the First Time Since the Cold War
By William Arkin, Democracy Now! 7 Feb. 2020
Article Excerpt:
The Federation of American Scientists revealed in late January that the U.S. Navy had deployed for the first time a submarine armed with a low-yield Trident nuclear warhead. The USS Tennessee deployed from Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia in late 2019. The W76-2 warhead, which is facing criticism at home and abroad, is estimated to have about a third of the explosive power of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) called the news “an alarming development that heightens the risk of nuclear war.” We’re joined by William Arkin, longtime reporter focused on military and nuclear policy, author of numerous books, including “Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State.” He broke the story about the deployment of the new low-yield nuclear weapon in an article he co-wrote for Federation of American Scientists. He also recently wrote a cover piece for Newsweek titled “With a New Weapon in Donald Trump’s Hands, the Iran Crisis Risks Going Nuclear.” “What surprised me in my reporting … was a story that was just as important, if not more important, than what was going on in the political world,” Arkin says.
Transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: As the nation focused on President Trump’s impeachment trial, a major story recently broke about a new development in U.S. nuclear weapons policy that received little attention. The Federation of American Scientists revealed in late January the U.S. Navy had for the first time deployed a submarine armed with a low-yield Trident nuclear warhead. The USS Tennessee deployed from Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia in late 2019, armed with a warhead which is estimated to have about a third of the explosive power of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima.
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The deployment is facing criticism at home and abroad. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, called the news “an alarming development that heightens the risk of nuclear war.” On Capitol Hill, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith said, quote, “This destabilizing deployment further increases the potential for miscalculation during a crisis.” Smith also criticized the Pentagon for its inability and unwillingness to answer congressional questions about the weapon over the past few months. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov responded by saying, quote, “This reflects the fact that the United States is actually lowering the nuclear threshold and that they are conceding the possibility of them waging a limited nuclear war and winning this war. This is extremely alarming,” he said.
We’re joined now William Arkin, longtime reporter who focuses on military and nuclear policy. He broke the story about the deployment of the new low-yield nuclear weapon in an article he co-wrote for the Federation of American Scientists. He also wrote the cover story for Newsweek, which is headlined “With a New Weapon in Donald Trump’s Hands, the Iran Crisis Risks Going Nuclear.” He’s the author of many books, including Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State.
Bill Arkin, it’s great to have you back.
WILLIAM ARKIN: Thanks for having me on, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, to say the least, this has been an explosive week of news in Washington, D.C., and your news, which has hardly gone reported, is — should really be one of the top news stories of these last weeks.
WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, during the very time when the Iran crisis was at its highest, the United States, last December, deployed a new nuclear weapon, the first new nuclear weapon to be deployed, Amy, since the end of the Cold War. So here we have not just a momentous occasion, but a weapon which is intended explicitly to be more usable — and not just more usable against Russia and China, but to be more usable against Iran and North Korea, as well. It seemed to me that looking more deeply at this weapon, looking more deeply at the doctrines behind it, and then, really, what surprised me in my reporting, looking more at Donald Trump and the role that he might play in the future, was a story that was just as important, if not more important, than what was going on in the political world.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what this — what does it mean, “low-yield” nuclear weapon?
WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, “low-yield” is actually a little bit wrong. The United States actually possesses nuclear weapons with even smaller yields than five to six kilotons, which is what this is estimated at. That’s 5,000 to 6,000 tons. And so, that would be — if you thought of it in Manhattan terms, it would be probably something on the order of 20 square city blocks obliterated and radiation coming from that area. So, to say “low-yield” is, of course, a little bit wrong. But it is the lowest-yield missile warhead available to the strategic nuclear forces.
And the real reason behind deploying a Trident warhead with this low-yield weapon was that the United States, the nuclear planners, felt that they didn’t have a prompt and assured capability to threaten Russia or threaten other adversaries — “prompt” meaning that it would be quickly delivered, 30 minutes, or even, if a submarine is close, as low as 15 minutes, and “assured” meaning that it isn’t a bomber or an airplane that has to penetrate enemy air defenses in order to get to the target. So, those two things, prompt and assured, is what they really wanted. And putting a warhead on the missiles on the submarines allowed them both covert deployments as well as getting close to the target.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what this means between the United States and Russia.
WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, between the United States and Russia, I think it really doesn’t change very much. The Russians can denounce the Trident warhead, but the reality is that they have 2,000 of their own small nuclear weapons of this sort opposite Europe. And one of the justifications for the deployment of this new nuclear weapon, Amy, was that the Russians in fact had, if you will, a numerical advantage against NATO, and there was a desire to have a more “usable” nuclear weapon in order to eliminate that advantage. I think the U.S.-Russian situation is certainly tense, but it’s not really what this weapon is about. What this weapon is about is having a more usable nuclear weapon against countries like Iran and North Korea, where in fact a shocking first use of nuclear weapons, a preemptive use of nuclear weapons, would be used to either stop a war or to destroy a very important target, say, for instance, if there were a missile on a launchpad ready to strike at that United States.
AMY GOODMAN: In 2017, General John Hyten, who’s now vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. already has military capabilities to respond to Russian deployment of nuclear weapons.
GEN. JOHN HYTEN: The plans that we have right now — one of the things that surprised me most when I took command on November 3rd was the flexible options that are in all our options today. So we actually have very flexible options in our plans. So, if something bad happens in the world and there’s a response and I’m on the phone with the secretary of defense and the president and the entire staff, which is the attorney general, secretary of state and everybody, I actually have a series of very flexible options, from conventional all the way up to large-scale nuke, that I can advise the president on to give him options on what he would want to do.
AMY GOODMAN: Bill Arkin, if you could respond?
WILLIAM ARKIN: Options. That’s what they’re always saying, “options.” They need better options to do this, better options to do that. You have to look at this new weapon and say, “In its most basic terms, what does it give the United States that it doesn’t already have?” And those two things that I already mentioned: a prompt capability, being able to strike at a target in 15 minutes or less, and, second, an assured capability — that is, a missile that’s able to penetrate any enemy air defenses.
That makes it a particularly dangerous weapon in the hands of the current president, because I’ve heard from many people, more than I expected in my reporting, that they were concerned that Donald Trump, in his own way, might be more prone to accept the use of nuclear weapons as one of options when he was presented with a long list of options. One senior officer said to me, “We’re afraid that if we present Donald Trump with a hundred options of what to do in a certain crisis, and only one of them is a nuclear option, that he might go down the list and choose the one that is the most catastrophic.” And that officer said, “In 35 years of my being in the military, I’ve never thought before that I had to think of the personality of the president in presenting military options.”
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk about Iran now and what this means for Iran.
WILLIAM ARKIN: Well, the deployment, it happened very quickly. The decision was made in February 2018. The Trident warhead was already on the production line for the strategic submarines. So, at the end of the run of these warheads, they made about 50 new ones that were of the low-yield variety, because the production line was already operating and hot. So it happened very quickly. Ironically, it happened at the very time that the House of Representatives was debating whether or not the weapon should even be deployed. And by the time that was finished and President Trump had signed the defense appropriations bill on 20th of December, the weapon had already been in the field. So, it shows really a disconnect, as well, in the congressional debate between what’s actually happening on the ground and what it is that they’re talking about.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, for this to have been passed, you know, the House isn’t the Senate. The House is controlled by Democrats, so the Democrats passed this.
WILLIAM ARKIN: That’s correct. But in the end, the Senate turned down the House recommendation that the weapon not be deployed. And really, the tragedy here is that all of this occurred while the Tennessee was being loaded with a new missile, while the Tennessee was being prepared to go out on a new patrol, while the Tennessee actually went out into the Atlantic Ocean.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk again about Iran, exactly.
WILLIAM ARKIN: So, Iran is important because in June, when the drone was shot down, the president declined to retaliate militarily. And I think he got a lot of criticism from his party, from his wing, that he had made the wrong decision, that the United States should have retaliated against Iran. I think that stuck with Donald Trump. And I think, in the end, when it came to the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, in Baghdad, killed on the 2nd of January, that strike, people have told me, specifically was approved by Donald Trump, enthusiastically pushed by Donald Trump, because it kind of erased the mistake of him not retaliating in June.
At the same time, the United States was also increasing the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, in the Iran area. B-52 bombers were flown to Qatar. The USS Abraham Lincoln was sailed into the region. And there was a general buildup of defensive forces in places like Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE, Saudi Arabia.
At this very moment when U.S.-Iranian relations are at such a deep, I think, divide and at a time also when Iran is free — and it’s not clear that they will, but free — to continue to pursue the development of nuclear materials and nuclear weapons, I think that we see maybe the beginning of a little bit of a creation of an argument that Iran is developing weapons of mass destruction and that the United States is going to have to take action against that. And you’ve seen now from the president a number of very blunt statements that have said, “We will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.” That’s not necessarily what anyone I’m talking to in the military is focusing their attention on. They’re much more concerned about Iran in Syria, Iran in Yemen, Iran’s role in Iraq. But in terms of war planning, I think at the highest levels within the U.S. government there’s a general consensus about Iran as being still one of the “axis of evil,” still being in pursuit of nuclear weapons. And the Trump administration, particularly if it’s re-elected, is going to make Iran, I think, the centerpiece of a new defense strategy.
AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, it is President Trump that set that situation up by pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear accord and decimating it.
WILLIAM ARKIN: Yes, that and also the second decision that was made, which was designating the Quds Force as a foreign terrorist organization. This, ironically, in kind of the bureaucracy of terrorism, triggered a number of decisions and a number of actions, one of which was, with foreign terrorist organizations, the U.S. military then begins the process of targeting their leadership. And that’s what resulted in their starting to track Qassem Soleimani and then ultimately killing him. So it seems to me that we have these two separate tracks kind of converging at the same time: a foreign terrorist organization designation, on the one hand, and weapons of mass destruction, on the other.
AMY GOODMAN: The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently advanced the Doomsday Clock 20 seconds closer to midnight, the clock a symbolic timekeeper that tracks the likelihood of nuclear war and other existential threats. It now stands closer to catastrophe than at any time since its creation in 1947. This is Mary Robinson, former Irish president, former U.N. human rights chief, speaking last month as the clock was set to 100 seconds to midnight.
MARY ROBINSON: The Doomsday Clock is a globally recognized indicator of the vulnerability of our existence. It’s a striking metaphor for the precarious state of the world, but, most frighteningly, as we have just heard, it’s a metaphor backed by rigorous scientific scrutiny. This is no mere analogy. We are now 100 seconds to midnight, and the world needs to wake up. Our planet faces two simultaneous existential threats: the climate crisis and nuclear weapons.
AMY GOODMAN: Former Irish President Mary Robinson. The significance of the Doomsday Clock, Bill?
WILLIAM ARKIN: I think the real significance is the lack of public interaction and public activism on the question of nuclear weapons. Really, that’s the missing ingredient today, Amy. We have a situation where the United States and Russia are engaged in multi-hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of nuclear modernization, at a time when the United States is at a high level of crisis with Iran and North Korea. And where is the public? Where is the public? And where is the anti-nuclear movement? And where even is any candidate speaking up about this subject?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, speaking of the anti-nuclear movement, the nuclear-armed submarine we’re talking about was deployed from Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia. This is the same base where seven Catholic peace activists were recently found guilty on three felony counts and a misdemeanor charge for breaking into the base on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth [sic], on April 4th, 2018. This is Plowshares activist Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Dorothy Day. It was actually the anniversary of his assassination. But this is Martha Hennessy, the granddaughter of Dorothy Day, speaking after she was convicted.
MARTHA HENNESSY: The weapons are still there. The treaties are being knocked down one after the next. But we are called to keep trying. And we will do this together. And we have no other choice. Thank you so much.
AMY GOODMAN: Martha Hennessy is the granddaughter of the Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, one of the seven who were found guilty when they went onto that nuclear base. So, Bill, in this last comment, if you can talk about the significance of their action? And also, when you say “low-yield” nuclear weapon, it must calm people. But this is a third of the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima?
WILLIAM ARKIN: So, “low-yield” is merely the title. It’s like saying that a Hummer is a small truck. I think that what’s important for people to take away from this development is that the United States has a new usable nuclear weapon, what the military itself considers to be more usable. That’s the change. And it’s also a weapon that can be stealthily and covertly deployed in the oceans. And that’s a change. And we do it at a time when, at least against Russia and North Korea and Iran, the United States is engaged in nuclear brinksmanship, at a time when it seems to me that the Congress is out to lunch, and there isn’t really an anti-nuclear movement in the United States, a mass movement, that could take up arms against this.
AMY GOODMAN: And the significance of Martha Hennessy, Liz McAlister, the peace activist and widow of Phil Berrigan, and others getting convicted on their protest at the base?
WILLIAM ARKIN: I started writing about nuclear weapons in 1981, when Ronald Reagan became president. I believe that’s about the time when we met. And then we had marches in which hundreds of thousands of people were in Central Park and in Europe and around the world. And today we have nothing of the sort. So, yes, it’s important that these peace workers continue to do their work and continue to do their important attention operations and exercises, their own, if you will, actions against nuclear weapons. But it’s not enough. The public has to be more engaged. And I believe that the Democratic Party candidates for president need to speak up and say something about nuclear weapons, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, there is a debate tonight in New Hampshire. We’ll see if that question is raised. William Arkin, longtime reporter who’s focused on military and nuclear policy, author of many books, including Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State. And we will link to your articles and your cover story in Newsweek magazine.
How to dispose of plutonium?
Russia and the USA agreed to dispose of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium. This was an agreement made in 2000 – 20 years ago.
It is unclear how the USA plans on safely disposing of this surplus plutonium – as the 8 November 2018 senate report mentions they are cancelling the MOX program – though no viable alternative exists. Russia has been using fast reactors to burn up the surplus material.
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There was additionally a roundtable discussion on 14 March 2001 – hosted in Washington DC by the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Project and the Monterey Institute for International Studies – which sought to examine challenges in disposing of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. The chairs for this were Alex Flint, Laura Holgate, and John Tuck. Does anyone know if there have been any more-recent round-table discussions on this subject?
I additionally presently have a CSIS report written by John Taylor, Lindsey Graham, and Peter V. Domenici (among others) called “Disposing of Weapons-Grade Plutonium” – which I got from the University of Toronto library and which I am planning to read in conjunction with Dr. Ann Frisch’s materials. I came across the report linked above after Googling Lindsey Graham’s connection to the industry.
https://www.lgraham.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=FB223CA2-01F2-4C69-AE70-68750263A995
Who will send them into action?
If we had an emergency peace service, what would be the procedure for sending them into action? The ICJ ruled that Myanmar had gravely wronged the Rohingya, but that was three years ago. Would UNEPS be sent to intervene immediately, not delaying justice three years?
Good question, John. But I worry more about the fairness of the Security Council. As it stands now, the P5 have all the final power, and they have their own interests and alliances in mind more than justice. Some of these changes have to occur at the same time, if they are to be realized at all, I’m sorry to say.
Amazing discussion, with this being the key question. All addressed at length in my book called “World Peace Through Law: Replacing War With the Global Rule of Law” (Routledge 2018). For a discount flyer, email me at jamestranney@post.harvard.edu
What is the current status of sonic weapons?
Are these prohibited under any of the treaties?
I have heard of some sonic weapons that play the person’s own voice back to them at a slight delay, causing the person to stop talking – as well as some that mess with people through ultra-low volumes and/or infrequent noises.
Sonic weapons: Sonic and ultrasonic weapons (USW) are weapons of various types that use sound to injure, incapacitate, or kill an opponent. Some sonic weapons are currently in limited use or in research and development by military and police forces
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon
Radioactive Chemical Gas!
I have been reading “Plutopia” by Dr. Kate Brown – a MIT professor of Science, Technology, and Society.
Dr. Brown discusses that during the early stages of Hanford’s development – the US government temporarily considered using strontium-90 byproducts to create a radioactive chemical gas – that could be used on battlefields. This strontium-90 based gas would be incredibly dangerous – with both immediate and lingering effects. Fortunately, military officials and researchers deemed it too dangerous to create and too dangerous to use – so it was never implementing. Alarming to consider nonetheless.
Why don’t nations just ban killer robots?
“Nations dawdle on agreeing rules to control ‘killer robots’ in future wars”
by Nita Bhalla, Reuters [17 January 2020]
“Countries are rapidly developing “killer robots” – machines with artificial intelligence (AI) that independently kill – but are moving at a snail’s pace on agreeing global rules over their use in future wars, warn technology and human rights experts.
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Some other excerpts:
From drones and missiles to tanks and submarines, semi-autonomous weapons systems have been used for decades to eliminate targets in modern day warfare – but they all have human supervision.
Nations such as the United States, Russia and Israel are now investing in developing lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) which can identify, target, and kill a person all on their own – but to date there are no international laws governing their use.”
[…]
“The ICRC oversaw the adoption of the 1949 Geneva Conventions that define the laws of war and the rights of civilians to protection and assistance during conflicts and it engages with governments to adapt these rules to modern warfare.
AI researchers, defence analysts and roboticists say LAWS such as military robots are no longer confined to the realm of science fiction or video games, but are fast progressing from graphic design boards to defence engineering laboratories.”
[…]
“You simply can’t trust an algorithm – no matter how smart – to seek out, identify and kill the correct target, especially in the complexity of war,” said [Noel] Sharkey, who is also an AI and robotics expert at Britain’s University of Sheffield.”
[…]
““We need to have a new international treaty as we have for landmines and cluster munitions. We have to prevent the avoidable tragedy that is coming if we do not regulate our killer robots.”
Link: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-rights-killer-robots/nations-dawdle-on-agreeing-rules-to-control-killer-robots-in-future-wars-idUSKBN1ZG151
At the end of the day, it’s all just a security dilemma. All countries have to decide to ban these weapons together, otherwise none will- because then certain countries will have the advantage. After all, these weapons give such an advantage…but at what cost?
From October 2018:
The Case Against France
“France is being taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for carrying out nuclear weapons tests in French Polynesia, a Polynesian opposition leader announced on Tuesday.”
“France carried out 193 nuclear weapons tests on islands in the archipelago between 1960 and 1996 until French President Jacques Chirac halted the program.
Around 150,000 military and civilian personnel were involved in France’s nuclear tests, with thousands of them later developing serious health problems.
France has long denied responsibility for the detrimental health and environmental impacts of the tests, fearing that it would weaken the country’s nuclear program during the Cold War.
In 2010, France passed a law allowing military veterans and civilians to be compensated if their cancer could be attributed to the nuclear tests.
Out of approximately 1,000 people who have filed complaints against France, only 20 have been compensated.”
The article additionally discusses German anti-nuclear protests.
https://www.dw.com/en/france-sued-for-crimes-against-humanity-over-nuclear-tests-in-south-pacific/a-45826054
Shipping Containers: The Poor Man’s ICBM
Radioactive materials have been found in shipping containers before, such as a batch of Cobalt-60 discovered in an Italian port. It was within a container of scrap metal originating from Jeddah, Saudia Arabia and destined for Genoa, Italy. The container sat around for over a year, until authorities could figure out who was responsible for it and subsequently how to safely handle and remove it.
By Matthew Wallin, 1 September 2011, American Security Project
Excerpt: “60,000 people dead—instantly. 150,000 more exposed to hazardous radiation. All ships and infrastructure at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach destroyed. An exodus of six million people from the greater Los Angeles region. Initial costs of $1 trillion. This is exactly the scenario considered in a 2006 RAND Corporation study of the effects of a possible detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear device hidden in a standard 20-foot shipping container. In 2010 alone, these ports received a combined total of over 7.2 million 20-foot equivalent containers. Haystack indeed. ”
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Title: We could have shipping containers full of foreign nukes in our ports and not know it – J. M. Phelps [27 February 2018 : Centre for Security Policy]
Link: https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2018/02/27/we-could-have-shipping-containers-full-of-foreign-nukes-in-our-ports-and-not-know-it/
Excerpt: “Though speculative, the numbers could be staggering. Some ships hold as many as 3,000 cargo containers. “Relying on intelligence and risk analysis,” Van Hipp tell us in his book, The New Terrorism, “we are only able to scan less than one percent of the incoming containers before they enter the country.” Do the math, and that’s 30 or fewer containers scanned per 3,000. The potential for a national security threat to be offloaded at Port Canaveral or any other port around the country is alarming. These 40-foot shipping containers could be carried by semi trucks or freight trains anywhere around the country without raising a single eyebrow.”
Title: This Long-Lost Law Leaves U.S. Ports Vulnerable To Nukes – James King [9 September 2016: Vocativ]
Link:
Excerpt: “Right now, our ports are vulnerable targets for terrorism. Not only do they lack sufficient security, an attack on just one port could cripple the national, if not global, economy.” —Congresswoman Janice Hahn. The report also said that “the most powerful investments may be for improvements in technologies with applications across the transportation modes, such as scanning technologies designed to screen containers that can be transported by plane, ship, truck, or rail.” It acknowledged, however, that widespread deployments of these types of technologies are “years away.” In its recommendation, the Commission noted that “hard choices must be made in allocating limited resources. The U.S. government should identify and evaluate the transportation assets that need to be protected, set risk-based priorities for defending them, select the most practical and cost-effective way of doing so, and then develop a plan, budget and funding to implement the effort.””
Link: https://www.americansecurityproject.org/shipping-containers-the-poor-mans-icbm/
https://www.vocativ.com/357650/port-security-nuclear-weapons/index.html
Diego Garcia and the Chagossians
Diego Garcia is a remote atoll archipelago in the Indian Ocean – between the Maldives, Mauritius, and the Seychelles. For administrative purposes, it is considered part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).
In the 1500s, the Portuguese used the area as a slave depot. Prior to this, the islands were uninhabited. A cultural group – known as the Chagossians – and who have a distinct language – emerged from the slave trade. During the Cold War, the Chagossians were evicted by the American and British military forces who cited the strategic geographic importance of the islands in relation to global and regional security – within the specific context of air and maritime access.
Various tactics were used to remove the population (population: 1500 in the late 1960s – 3000-4000 in the 2010s) – including inviting the population to neighboring Mauritius for a conference during Christmas in 1965 and subsequently prohibiting return to Diego Garcia. Other tactics included forced removal – such as via blockade of food supplies and/or forced (and allegedly violent) deportation. Alleged military documents – cited in books about Diego Garcia and its associated foreign policies – indicate that suppression of rights of the Chagossians were encouraged during the late 1960s due to the geopolitical significance of the region. By 1973, all Chagossians had been expelled from Diego Garcia.
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Many of the Chagossians now live in Mauritius and the United Kingdom. There have been ongoing appeals and lawsuits in relation to gaining official recognition of the abuse and forced deportation of the Chagossians, alongside some form of financial compensation. The first of these appeals for allowing return to Diego Garcia was filed in 1975, but denied. In 1974, £650 000 was provided to assist with Chagossian resettlement efforts. In 1982 – during the same era that the Marshall Islands were going through legal proceedings around alleged compensation for damage from nuclear weapons testing – the Ilois Trust Fund was established for the Chagossians – though to participate in the financial compensation – it was expected for individuals to sign away their right to return to the islands. In 1995, the United Nations’ Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights Committee declare that Diego Garcia is being illegally occupied by joint American-British military forces – in violation of the Chagossian’s right to self determination. Post-2001, the islands were re-classified as a “vital military asset” in the Afghanistan war – which re-defined and re-shaped the geopolitical significance of the region. A marine reserve was established in the vicinity of Diego Garcia.
Leaked documents – from WikiLeaks – allege this was a tactic to limit Chagossian access to the island – while maintaining military and state access. This shares interesting similarities with the environmental protection zone / sanitary protection zone established near the East Ural Radioactive Trace and Mayak site in Russia. Circa 2012, Chagossians were permitted to return to the minor islands in the atoll – but had very limited access to territories and thus limited access to traditional lands used for agriculture, cultural, fishing, etc. purposes.
The Treaty of Pelindaba (African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone) covers some, but not all of the continental region. Perhaps there is potential to expand this to Diego Garcia.
Furthermore, in recent years, alarming reports have arisen from Diego Garcia. These include reports of nuclear weapons being stored on Diego Garcia, alongside a maintenance and re-fueling base for nuclear submarines belonging to the United Kingdom and United States of America. Other reports indicate the presence of an alleged torture site for interrogation by security agencies, as well as a launch zone for aerial attacks against states in the Middle East.
What the CANDU reactor has done abroad
This is a CANDU reactor: Darlington
An excerpt:
“Our uranium and nuclear technology launched the UK and USA stockpiles, then the Indian nuclear arsenal, followed by Pakistan and others. We continued to sell our CANDU reactor for ‘peaceful energy use’ which was secretly described as a “military plutonium production reactor” by the insiders ever since the Manhattan Project.”
“Plutonium=forever.” Even if bombs are not made, plutonium goes on and on emitting deadly radiation for centuries.
“… ‘following the atoms’ proves that we are a boy-scout nation with a very dirty secret. It has been underwritten by $30 billion taxpayer dollars, greased with secret bribes to win export deals, and buried in decades of deceit by official Ottawa.”
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/review-atomic-accomplice
Beware the Solar Flares!
Is there a risk that a solar flare or solar store – of sufficient strength, such as one comparable to the 1859 Carrington Event – could trigger the detonation and/or launch of a nuclear warhead? Several media articles indicate a solar flare in 1967 almost started a nuclear exchange due to communication and radio signals being jammed.
However (and fortunately) some space weather scientists identified the cause was a solar flare. There was another incident where sunlight reflecting off the atmosphere almost triggered a nuclear launch – as early computer systems interpreted it as a nuclear flash. This would have been around the 1960s. Alarming to think about!
The 1859 Carrington Event was one of the largest solar storms with extensive records. There were a limited amount of electronic devices in this era – mostly telegraph wires – which were reported to have gone absolutely haywire when the storm hit.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/solar-flares-ballistic-missile-radar-station-cold-war-1.3719177
Most clashes are about race or religion
As heartening as it is to read of, for example, communing large multi-racial and -religious groups of people humanely allied against the common enemy of blind hatred, I nonetheless dread that it will sadly resettle to normal everyday life—and politics.
There are no greater differences amongst us humans than race and religion—remove that and left are less obvious differences over which to clash, such as sub-racial identity (i.e. ethnicity), nationality, and so forth down that scale we tumble.
Hypothetically, reduce our species to just a few city blocks of residents who are similar in every way and eventually there may still be some sort of bitter inter-neighbourhood fighting.
Will The Arms Merchants Comply?
The Arms Trade Treaty limits what weapons a country can sell to other countries, especially if the weapons are likely to be used to attack others. So is there any evidence so far that it is working? Has any country actually changed its plans and refrained from selling weapons just because it signed the treaty? I’m trying not to be cynical in asking. I’d prefer to hear good news.
Two Cheers for China!
I think the reason China is gaining influence is not their military (though they are surely spending more on weapons than a few years ago) but rather their investments in other countries’ development. That Belt and Road Initiative is going to give China a huge amount of power throughout Central Asia and all the way to Europe. They are also helping Africa develop too. That’s how to win! (Not that I admire their political system, but they will win anyhow.)
Is China More Reliable Than Canada?
Good point. If you want to be trusted, keep your word! But they are not so good about keeping their word regarding Hong Kong!
What Will Biden Do?
I guess that Elise is asking how the treaty is to be enforced. That’s a good question. Does anyone know the answer? (But I bet there are lots of treaties that cannot be enforced. We just expect people — and countries — to keep their word. Some do, and I suppose some do not.)
How Much Shall we Cut Military Expenditures?
Notice that the Platform for Survival does not say how much we are supposed to reduce the size of the military. I was in the audience at the forum when we discussed that and I heard the proposal originally was 80 percent. We were told that such a high number would be considered unreasonable or even laughable. But I think it is a good number. Reduce all the military systems in the world by 80 percent and we’d be on our way to a real solution to other global problems.
And yes, it will be hard to do. But I’d like us to pick a target number, please. Lately Bernie Sanders has proposed a ten percent reduction. Okay, that’s a starting point. Who will raise the bid?
Would that be good for bad for the economy?
Were they referring to just the military itself – or the number of businesses, industries, etc. which have the military as significant economic partners? What type of extent would reducing the (US?) military that much have on the global economy?
Rank Countries for their Demilitarizing
Good point. Maybe we should assign scores to countries based on how much they have reduced their military spending and converted it to the development of negative emission technologies — e.g. forest planting or carbon capture and conversion to fuel.
Hooray for the Pope!
Yes, it’s a great interview. I particularly like his statements that it’s a sin merely to own nuclear weapons, and that it’s hypocrisy to say you believe in peace while you’re making money from selling weapons. Right on, Francis!
Pope Francis on a Plane
Here is Pope Francis on a plane. I find it inspiring–at least the part that I understand. Some parts refer to things I know nothing about, and apparently things that the Pope himself doesn’t fully understand. It’s good that he says so.
During the in-flight press conference aboard the plane bringing him back to Rome from Japan, Pope Francis answers journalists’ questions on a variety of issues: from the immoral use and possession of atomic weapons, to the financial investigation inside the Vatican.
“The use of nuclear weapons is immoral, which is why it must be added to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Not only their use, but also possessing them: because an accident or the madness of some government leader, one person’s madness can destroy humanity.”
In addition to repeating this strong message pronounced at Hiroshima, Pope Francis responded to many questions posed to him by the journalists during the flight bringing them back to Rome from Japan.
Now follows an unofficial translation of the in-flight press conference.
“I thank you for your work, for an intense journey with a categoric change: Thailand was one thing and Japan another. You can’t evaluate these two with the same categories. Realities must be evaluated from within same category. Japan and Thailand are two completely different realities. That’s why double work is needed, and I thank you for that, even on very full days, I felt close to you in this job.”
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Father Makoto Yamamoto, Catholic Shimbum
Thank you very much for coming to Japan from so far away. I am a diocesan priest. I live near Nagasaki. You saw Nagasaki and Hiroshima. How did you feel? Does the Church and society in the West have anything to learn from the Church and society in the East?
“I will begin with the last question. The saying lux ex Oriente, ex Occidente luxus inspired me a lot. Light comes from the East; luxury, consumerism, come from the West. There is this type of Eastern wisdom, which is not only the wisdom of knowing, but of time, of contemplation. It would be very helpful to our Western society, which is always in too much of a hurry, to learn contemplation, the act of stopping and looking poetically at things too. This is a personal opinion, but I think the West could do with a little more poetry. There are some beautiful poetic things, but the East goes beyond. The East is capable of looking at things with eyes that go beyond. I don’t want to use the word “transcendent” because some Eastern religions don’t mention transcendence, but have a vision that goes beyond the limit of immanence, but without saying transcendence. That is why I use expressions like poetry, superfluous [gratuità], the search for personal perfection through fasting, penance, reading the wisdom of the Eastern sages. I believe it would do us Westerners good to stop a bit and give time to wisdom.
“Nagasaki and Hiroshima both suffered [as a result of] the atomic bomb, and this makes them appear similar. But there is a difference: Nagasaki not only experienced the bomb, but it also had Christians. Nagasaki has Christian roots. Christianity goes way back. There was a persecution of Christians throughout Japan, but it was very strong in Nagasaki. The secretary of the Nunciature gave me a wooden facsimile with the “Wanted” sign of that time on it: Christians wanted! If you find one, turn him in and you will get a reward. If you find a priest turn him in, and you will get a big reward. This leaves an impression: there were centuries of persecution. This is a Christian phenomenon that somehow “relativises”, in the good sense of the word, the atomic bomb. Going to Hiroshima, instead, was solely to commemorate the atomic bomb attack, because it is not a Christian city like Nagasaki. That is why I wanted to go to both. There was the atomic disaster in both.
“Hiroshima was a real human catechesis on cruelty. I could not visit the Hiroshima museum because time did not permit, because it was a difficult day. But they say it’s terrible. There are letters from Heads of State, Generals explaining how a greater disaster could be produced. The experience was much more touching for me. And there I reiterated that the use of nuclear weapons is immoral, that is why it must be added to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Not only their use, but also possessing them: because an accident or the madness of some government leader, one person’s madness can destroy humanity. The words of Einstein come to mind: ‘The Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones.’ ”
Shinichi Kawarada, The Asahi Shimbum
As you rightly pointed out, lasting peace cannot be achieved without disarmament. Japan is a country that enjoys the nuclear protection of the USA, and is also a producer of nuclear energy, which entails a great risk, as happened at Fukushima. How can Japan contribute to world peace? Should nuclear power plants be shut down?
“Returning to the possession of nuclear power plants: an accident can always happen. You experienced the triple disaster.[1] Nuclear power has limits (let’s leave out nuclear weapons because they are destructive). The use of nuclear power has limits because we have not yet achieved absolute safety. You could tell me that even electricity could cause a disaster because of lack of safety, but it would be a very small disaster. A nuclear power plant disaster will be huge disaster. Safety systems have not been worked out yet. It is my personal opinion, but I would not use nuclear energy until its use is completely safe. Some say it is a risk for the care of creation and that using nuclear energy must be stopped. I stop at safety. There is no guarantee ensuring that a disaster does not happen. Yes, one every ten years in the world. Then there is creation. The disaster nuclear power causes on creation, on the human person. There was the disaster in Ukraine.[2] We have to conduct research regarding safety, both to avoid disasters and because of the environmental consequences. I believe we have breached the limit regarding the environment – with pesticides in agriculture, with raising chickens that doctors tell mothers not to feed their children because they are given hormones and are bad for your health. There are so many rare diseases today because of an incorrect use of the environment. Either care of the environment takes place today, or it never will. But returning to nuclear energy: construction, safety and care of creation”.
Elisabetta Zunica, Kyoto News
Akamada Iwao is a Japanese person sentenced to death and awaiting a review of the trial. He was present at the Mass at the Tokyo Dome, but did not have the opportunity to speak with you. Was a brief meeting with you planned? In Japan, the issue of the death penalty is very much under discussion. Thirteen death sentences were carried out shortly before the revision of the Catechism on this issue. There is no reference to that in your speeches. Did you have the opportunity to discuss this with Prime Minister Shinto Abe?
“I heard about that case regarding the death penalty later. I did not know about that person. I spoke about many problems with the Prime Minister: trials, sentences that never end, either with or without death. I spoke of general problems that exist in other countries as well: overcrowded prisons, people kept waiting with preventive imprisonment without the presumption of innocence. Fifteen days ago, I gave a speech at the International Conference on Criminal Law and I spoke seriously on this subject. The death penalty cannot be carried out, it is immoral. This must be connected to developing consciousness. For example, some countries cannot abolish it because of political problems, but they do suspend it, which is a way of sentencing someone to life in prison without declaring so. But any sentence must always allow for reintegration, a sentence without a ray of hope is inhuman. Even when it comes to life imprisonment, one must think how the person serving a life sentence can be reintegrated, inside or outside. You will tell me: but there are people sentenced because of problems of insanity, sickness, genetic incorrigibility… In that case, a way to make them feel like people must be sought. Prisons are overcrowded in many parts of the world; they are warehouses of humanity. Instead of getting better, many times they are corrupted. We must combat the death penalty slowly. There are cases that make me happy because some countries say: we will stop. Last year, before leaving office, a State Governor made its suspension almost definitive. these are steps taken by a human conscience. But some countries have not yet succeeded in incorporating themselves into this humane way of thinking.”
Jean-Marie Guénois, Le Figaro
Good day, Holy Father. You said that true peace can exist be a “disarmed” peace. But what about legitimate defence, when one country is attacked by another? In that case, does the possibility of a “just war” still exist? A small question… there was talk about an encyclical on non-violence. Do you still plan such an encyclical on non-violence? Two questions… Thank you, Holy Father.
“Yes, the plan exists, but the next Pope will do it… There are other projects on the back burner. One of them is on peace. It’s maturing. I feel I will do it when the time comes. For example, the problem of bullying is a problem of violence. I specifically spoke about it to the Japanese young people. It is a problem we are trying to solve with many educational programs. It is a problem of violence. I don’t feel ready yet to write an encyclical on non-violence, I have to pray a lot and find the way.
There’s that Roman saying, “Si vis pacem para bellum” (“If you want peace prepare for war”). We have not made progress there: international organisations don’t succeed, the United Nations don’t succeed. They mediate often and well: countries like Norway are always willing to mediate. I like that, but it’s insufficient, we need to do even more. Take the UN Security Council: if there is a problem with armaments and everyone agrees to solve the problem to avoid a conflict, everyone votes “yes”. One country with the right of veto votes “no”, and everything stops. I can’t judge whether it’s a good idea or not, but I have heard it said that perhaps the United Nations should take a step forward and remove certain nations’ right of veto in the Security Council. I heard this was a possibility. There are issues regarding the international equilibrium that I cannot judge right now. But everything that can be done to stop arms production, to stop wars, to encourage negotiation, with the help of mediators, must always be done, and it produces results. For example, the case of Ukraine and Russia wasn’t about weapons, but about negotiating a prisoner exchange, and this was positive. In Donbass, they are thinking about planning a different governmental regime. Discussions are underway. This is a positive step.
“The ugly hypocrisy of the ‘arms trade’. Christian countries, European countries that talk about peace and live off weapons. This is hypocrisy, a word from the Gospels: Jesus said it in Matthew, Chapter 23. We have to stop this hypocrisy. It takes courage to say: “I can’t talk about peace, because my economy earns so much through arms sales’”. These are all things we need to say, without insulting and vilifying any country, but speaking as brothers and sisters, for the sake of human fraternity: we must stop because this is a terrible thing. A ship arrived in port from a country, that was supposed to hand over weapons to another ship that was going to Yemen, and the port workers said “no”. They did a good thing and the ship returned home. That’s one case, but it shows us in which direction we need to go. Today, peace is very weak but we must not be discouraged. The idea of legitimate defense is always valid; even moral theology allows for it, but as a last resort. The use of arms is a last resort. Legitimate defence must go through diplomacy, mediation. Legitimate defence with weapons is a last resort. I insist: a last resort! We are making ethical progress of which I approve, putting all these things into question. What is beautiful about this is that it confirms humanity moves towards good, not only toward evil.”
Cristiana Caricato, TV2000
People are reading in the newspapers that the Holy See has purchased properties for hundreds of millions of euro in the centre of London. People are a bit disconcerted by this use of Vatican finances, particularly when Peter’s Pence is involved. Were you aware of these financial operations, and, above all, in your opinion, is the use made of Peter’s Pence correct? You have often said that money should not be made with money, you have denounced the unscrupulous use of finances, but then we see that the Holy See is involved in these operations, and we are shocked. How do you view the whole affair?
“Thank you. First of all, good administration: when the money from Peter’s Pence comes in, what do I do, put it in a drawer? No, that would be bad administration. I try to invest it, and when I want to give it away, when there are needs, in a year, I take it, and the capital hasn’t devalued, it’s stayed the same, or grown a little. This is good administration. ‘Putting money in a drawer’ is bad administration. What we need is good administration, good investments. Is that clear? Even what, in Argentina, we call ‘widow-style’ investments: the way widows leave two eggs here, three here, five there. If one breaks, there is another and nothing is ruined. It’s always safe and always moral. If you invest Peter’s Pence in an weapons factory, that’s not where Peter’s Pence should be. If you make an investment and don’t touch the capital for years, it’s not right. Peter’s Pence must be spent within a year, or a year and a half, until the next collection is made around the world. This is good administration, a safe one. And yes, you can purchase a property, rent it out and then sell it, but always safely, taking all the necessary measures for the good of the people and of Peter’s Pence. Then what happened, happened. A scandal. They did things that appear not to be clean. But the accusation did not come from outside. The economic reform, already introduced by Benedict XVI, was implemented, and it was the internal Auditor who said: something bad is going on here, something’s not right. He came to me, and I asked him: ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes’, he said, and he showed me the figures. ‘What must I do?’ he asked. I told him there is the Vatican justice system and he should go and report this to the Promoter of Justice. I was pleased about this because it shows the Vatican administration now has the resources to shed light on the bad things that happen internally, like in this case. And if it is not the case of the London property – because this remains unclear – there was corruption nonetheless. The Promoter of Justice studied it, carried consultations and saw there were problems on the balance sheet. He then asked me for permission to proceed with the search. The presumption of corruption exists and he told me what he would have to do in this, that or the other office. I signed the authorisation. Five offices were searched. Today, although there is the presumption of innocence, there is capital that is not administered well, even corruptly. I believe that with a month the depositions will begin of the five people who were suspended because there was evidence. You may ask me: “But are these five people corrupt?” No. The presumption of innocence is a guarantee, a human right. But there is corruption. We can see it. The results of the search will show whether they are guilty or not. It’s bad thing, it is not good for these things to be happening inside the Vatican. But they are being resolved by internal mechanisms that Pope Benedict XVI introduced, and that are beginning to work. I thank God for this. I don’t thank him for the corruption, but because the Vatican’s control system works well.”
Philip Pullella, Reuters
In recent weeks there has been concern about developments in Vatican finances and some say there is an internal war regarding who controls the money. Most of the members of the AIF (Vatican Financial Authority) have resigned. The Egmont Group, which is the association of these financial authorities, suspended the Vatican from its secure communications after the raid of October 1. AIF’s Director is still suspended, as you said, and there is still no Auditor General. What can you do or say to assure the international financial community and the faithful called to contribute to Peter’s Pence that the Vatican will not once again be considered a pariah to be kept excluded and mistrusted, and that the reforms will continue and there will be no returning to past ways of doing things?
“The Vatican has made progress in its administration: for example, today the IOR[3] is now accepted by all banks and can act like Italian banks, something that was not yet there a year ago, hence there has been progress. Then, regarding the Egmont Group, it is an unofficial international group, a group to which AIF belongs, and international control doesn’t depend on the Egmont Group, which is a private group even if it is highly regarded. Moneyval will do the inspection scheduled for the first months of next year; it will do it. AIF’s Director was suspended because there were suspicions of poor administration. AIF’s President tried to retrieve the [sequestered] documents with the help of the Egmont Group, something the [Vatican] justice system cannot do. Faced with this, I consulted an Italian magistrate of good standing about what to do. Justice in the face of an accusation of corruption is something sovereign to a country, no one can meddle in it, no one can give the papers to the Egmont Group. The papers that might bring to light that which seems to be bad administration, in the sense of bad supervision, must be studied. It seems that it was the AIF that did not control others’ crimes. Its duty was to supervise. I hope that it will be proved that this is not the case. Right now there is the presumption of innocence. For the moment, the magistrate is sovereign and must study what happened, otherwise a country would be subject to a higher administration that would damage its sovereignty. The mandate of the AIF President expired on 19 [November]. I had called him a few days earlier and he wasn’t aware of that, he told me later. I announced that he was leaving on the 19th. I have already found his successor, a magistrate, highly esteemed at juridical and economic levels, nationally and internationally. On my return, he will assume the office of President of AIF. It would have been a contradiction if the supervisory authority had sovereignty over the State. This is not an easy thing to understand. What has been a little worrying is the Egmont Group, which is a private group: it helps a lot but it does not have the authoritative control of Moneyval. Moneyval will study the numbers, the procedures, how the Promoter of Justice acted, and how the judge and judges determined the matter. I know that in these days the interrogation of some of the five that have been suspended will begin. It is not easy, but we must not be naive, we must not be slaves. Someone told me: “But I don’t believe it: the fact about the Egmont Group that’s been brought up, people are frightened that it is a bit of terrorism [psychological]. Let’s leave that aside. We go ahead with the law, with Moneyval and with the new AIF President. And the director is suspended: let’s hope he is innocent, I would like it to be so because it’s a good thing that a person be innocent and not guilty, I hope so. But some noise was made regarding this Group who didn’t want the papers pertaining to the group to be touched.
It’s the first time in the Vatican that the pot has been uncovered from inside, not from outside. It has been many times from outside. They have told us many times and it was really embarrassing… But Pope Benedict was wise, he began a process that has matured, and now there are institutions. That the Auditor had the courage to make a written complaint against five people, [shows] it’s working… I really don’t want to offend the Egmont Group because it does so much good, it helps, but in this case, the sovereignty of the State is a question of justice, which is more sovereign than the executive power. It’s not easy to understand but I ask you to understand it.”
Roland Juchem, CIC
Holy Father, on the flight from Bangkok to Tokyo you sent a telegram to Carrie Lam of Hong Kong. What do you think of the situation there, with the demonstrations and the municipal elections? And when will we be able to accompany you to Beijing?
“The telegrams are sent to all Heads of State, it’s an automatic greeting; and it is also a polite way to request permission to fly over their territory. This does not mean either condemnation or support. It is a mechanical thing that all planes do when they technically enter, they advise that they are entering, and we do it out of courtesy. This does not really answer your question; the telegram is only a courtesy.
“With regard to the other question you asked me: when we think about it, it’s not just Hong Kong. Think about Chile, think about France, democratic France: a year of yellow jackets. Think of Nicaragua, think of other Latin American countries that have problems like this, and even some European countries. It’s something general. How does the Holy See handle this? It calls for dialogue, for peace. But it’s not only Hong Kong, there are various problematic situations that I am unable to evaluate at the moment. I respect peace and I ask for peace for all these countries that have problems, Spain too. It is better to put things in perspective and to call for dialogue, for peace, so that problems can be resolved. And finally: I would like to go to Beijing, I love China.”
Valentina Alazraki, Televisa
Pope Francis, Latin America is in flames. We have seen after Venezuela and Chile images we did not think we would see after Pinochet. We have seen the situation in Bolivia, Nicaragua, or other countries: revolts, violence in the streets, deaths, injuries, even churches burnt, violated. What is your analysis on what is happening in these countries? Is the Church – and you personally as a Latin American Pope – doing something?
“Someone told me this: An analysis needs to be done. The situation today in Latin America resembles that of 1974-1980, in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay with Strössner, and even Bolivia I think… they had Operation Condor at that time. A situation in flames, but I don’t know if it is the same problem or another. Honestly, at this moment I’m not able to do the analysis on this. It is true there are declarations that are not exactly peaceful. What is happening in Chile frightens me, because Chile is emerging from a problem of abuse that have caused much suffering, and now there is a kind of problem we don’t understand well. But it is in flames as you say, and dialogue must be sought, as well as analysis. I still haven’t found a good analysis done on the situation in Latin America. And also there are weak, very weak governments, who haven’t been able to establish order and peace; and for this reason, we’ve come to this situation.”
Evo Morales has requested your mediation, for example. Something concrete…
“Yes, something concrete. Venezuela has requested mediation, and the Holy See is always willing. There is a good relationship, really a good relationship, we are present there to help when necessary. Bolivia did something like that, made a request to the United Nations, which sent delegates, and someone from some European nation as well. I don’t know if Chile has made some request for international mediation; Brazil, certainly hasn’t, but there are some problems there, too. It’s a bit strange, but I don’t want to say a word more because I am not qualified and I have not studied it well, and honestly I don’t understand it very well either.
“I take advantage of your question to add that you have spoken little about Thailand, which is different from Japan, a culture of transcendence, a culture of beauty too, different from the beauty of Japan: a culture, so much poverty, so many spiritual riches. But there is also a problem that wounds the heart, that makes us think of “Greece and the others”. You are an expert in this problem of exploitation, you have studied it well, and your book has done a lot of good. And Thailand, some places in Thailand, are difficult in that regard. But there is southern Thailand, and there is also beautiful northern Thailand, where I was not able to go, that is tribal and has a completely different culture. I received about twenty people from that region, first Christians, first baptised, who came to Rome, with another, different culture, those tribal cultures. And Bangkok, we saw, is a big, very modern city; but has some problems different from those of Japan, and has riches different from those of Japan. I wanted to emphasise the problem of exploitation in order to thank you for your book, as I would also like to thank Franca Giansoldati for her “green” book: two women on the plane, each of whom has written a book, treating modern problems: the ecological problem and the problem of the destruction of mother earth, of the environment; and the problem of human exploitation that you have touched on. This proves that women work more than men and are capable. Thank you, both of you, for this contribution. And I still haven’t forgotten Rocio’s shirt.[4]”
And thank you for asking direct questions, that’s good. Enjoy for me. Enjoy your lunch.
This is a working translation from a non-official transcript done by Alessandro Guarasci and Andrea Tornielli.
[1] Editor’s note: the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear disaster of the Fukushima power plant in 2011.
[2] Editor’s note: in Chernobyl, in 1986.
[3] Editor’s note: Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank.
[4] Editor’s note: The reference is to the shirt of a murdered Mexican woman that Valentina Alazraki had given to Pope Francis during a recent video interview.
With thanks to Vatican News, where this article originally appeared.
This is a related article discussing the issue of cyber weapons and how they might participate on the battlefield.
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https://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/3081583/autonomous-weapons-ai-war-google
That’s an understatement, Richard. It’s about a woman who quit Google last year because of their military project. She says that AI can accidentally start a war.
Artificial Intelligence + high tech weapons is a recipe for disaster.
Read more
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/she-was-a-top-google-engineer-now-she-has-an-urgent-warning-about-something-most-people-never-think-of.html
An Open Letter to Justin Trudeau
I am commenting by incorporating the whole of a recent letter from the Canadian Network to Abolish Nuclear Weapons to the Prime Minister and many other government officials. In an election period, all concerned citizens should make known their views to candidates, and ask questions at all-candidates meetings in their riding.
Adele Buckley
Canadian Pugwash, a member group of CNANW
—————————————-
Nuclear Disarmament: Canadian Leadership Required
Open Letter to PM Justin Trudeau
cc. All Members of Parliament and Senators
Dear Prime Minister,
The risk of nuclear catastrophe is growing and urgent action is required to prevent it.
Recent developments include:
• marked deterioration in East/West relations, most notably between Russia and NATO;
• U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran;
• imminent U.S. and Russian withdrawal from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty;
• poor prospects for renewal of New START in 2021;
• heightened military tension between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan;
• resurgence of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program;
• the development of ‘tactical nuclear weapons’ and hypersonic missile systems;
• increased vulnerability to cyber-attacks; and
• the real possibility that non-state actors will acquire and use nuclear weapons or fissile material.
All of this is occurring within the context of a new nuclear arms race, precipitated in large part, by the U.S. allocation of $1.5 trillion to ‘modernize’ its nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has set the Doomsday Clock to 2 minutes to midnight, the closest it has been since the height of the Cold War. Humanity, literally, faces the prospect that at any moment, human folly, miscalculation or nuclear accident could end life on earth as we know it, if not completely.
Canada can help to prevent this.
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As you know, in the early 1980s, your late father personally conducted an international campaign aimed at “suffocating” the nuclear arms race; and in recent years, parliamentarians of all political stripes have signaled strong support for Canadian action to this end.
In 2010, a motion was adopted unanimously by Canadian members of parliament and senators that “encourages the Government of Canada to engage in negotiations for a nuclear weapons Convention…and to deploy a major world-wide Canadian diplomatic initiative in support of preventing nuclear proliferation and increasing the rate of nuclear disarmament.”
On June 18, 2018, the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence issued the following (all-party) recommendation:
“That the Government of Canada take a leadership role within NATO in beginning the work necessary for achieving the NATO goal of creating the conditions for a world free of nuclear weapons…”
Yet Canada continues to work on the margins of the issue and in 2017, boycotted negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), a historic breakthrough supported by 122 UN Member States.
As a member of the G7, G20, NATO, and as a traditionally strong supporter of the United Nations, Canada could do so much more.
The world desperately needs a nuclear disarmament ‘champion’ – a national leader who is well placed and prepared to work closely with the UN Secretary General – to forcefully press nuclear armed states: to reverse the nuclear arms race, to renew and broaden membership to the INF and New START Treaties, and to accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons or to negotiate a new, complementary Nuclear Weapons Convention that will achieve the ultimate goal – global denuclearization.
We believe this could be you, Prime Minster.
Please, take up the cause of nuclear disarmament – as you did climate change in 2015 – the other existential threat facing our world.
Time is of the essence and the stakes could not be higher.
Sincerely,
Earl Turcotte, Chairperson, CNANW
Laser Broom to Tidy Up Space
In 1978, Donald J. Kessler theorized that kessler syndrome would become a significant issue. This is where debris in orbit collides with other items in orbit, causing a cascading chain reaction. This was a plot in the 2013 movie Gravity – where a satellite that was shot down for decommissioning and started a cascading chain reaction that took out communications and research satellites across the world.
Orbital decay would take decades in some cases and it would be virtually impossible to launch new satellites or repair missions to pre-existing satellite if this was occurring .There is already research into a laser broom in attempts to clear some of the pre-existing debris from the planet’s orbit.
Here is a CBC article about a laser broom from 2000: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/laser-broom-will-sweep-up-space-junk-1.243442
We, the People, have to Demand Compliance
There’s a vigorous campaign going on now called “Campaign Against the Arms Trade.” And one of their specific objectives is to “stop arming Saudi Arabia!”
Nuclear terror
Personally I find the thought of Nuclear War pretty scary and to have heard stories from survivors makes it even more real and terrifying. To think that our world could end in a heartbeat threatens to throw me into despair. Its only the kindness of some humans that gives me hope in addition to a belief in a God Creator who is taking care of us.
Scott Ritter offers this correction to the recent story about the Russian missile explosion.
The Media’s Russian Radiation Story Implodes Upon Scrutiny
Lewis’s assessment was joined by President Trump’s, who tweeted, “The United States is learning much from the failed missile explosion in Russia…. The Russian ‘Skyfall’ explosion has people worried about the air around the facility, and far beyond. Not good!” Trump’s tweet appeared to conform with the assessments of the intelligence community, which, according to The New York Times, also attributed the accident to a failed test of the Skyfall missile.
Former Obama administration national security analyst Samantha Vinograd tweeted: “Possibly the worst nuclear accident in the region since Chernobyl + possibly a new kind of Russian missile = this is a big deal.”
The Washington Post editorial board joined Vinograd in invoking the imagery of Chernobyl: “If this slow dribble of facts sounds familiar, it is — the same parade of misdirection happened during the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.”
They’re all wrong. Here’s the real story of what actually happened at Nenoksa.
Liquid-fuel ballistic missiles are tricky things. Most Russian liquid-fueled missiles make use of hypergolic fuels, consisting of a fuel (in most cases asymmetrical dimethylhydrazine, or heptyl) and an oxidizer (nitrogen tetroxide), which, when combined, spontaneously combust. For this to happen efficiently, the fuel and oxidizer need to be maintained at “room temperature,” generally accepted as around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. For missiles stored in launch silos, or in launch canisters aboard submarines, temperature control is regulated by systems powered by the host—either a generator, if in a silo, or the submarine’s own power supply, if in a canister.
Likewise, the various valves, switches, and other components critical to the successful operation of a liquid-fuel ballistic missile, including onboard electronics and guidance and control systems, must be maintained in an equilibrium, or steady state, until launch. The electrical power required to accomplish this is not considerable, but it must be constant. Loss of power will disrupt the equilibrium of the missile system, detrimentally impacting its transient response at time of launch and leading to failure.
Russia has long been pursuing so-called “autonomous” weapons that can be decoupled from conventional means of delivery—a missile silo or a submarine—and instead installed in canisters that protect them from the environment. They would then be deployed on the floor of the ocean, lying in wait until remotely activated. One of the major obstacles confronting the Russians is the need for system equilibrium, including the onboard communications equipment, prior to activation. The power supply for any system must be constant, reliable, and capable of operating for extended periods of time without the prospect of fuel replenishment.
The solution for this power supply problem is found in so-called “nuclear batteries,” or radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG). An RTG generates electricity using thermocouples that convert the heat released by the decay of radioactive material. RTGs have long been used in support of operations in space. The Russians have long used them to provide power to remote unmanned facilities in the arctic and in mountainous terrain. Cesium-137, a byproduct of the fission of U-235, is considered an ideal radioisotope for military application RTGs.
On August 8, a joint team from the Ministry of Defense and the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, subordinated to the State Atomic Energy Corporation (ROSATOM),conducted a test of a liquid-fueled rocket engine, in which electric power from Cesium-137 “nuclear batteries” maintained its equilibrium state. The test was conducted at the Nenoksa State Central Marine Test Site (GTsMP), a secret Russian naval facility known as Military Unit 09703. It took place in the waters of the White Sea, off the coast of the Nenoksa facility, onboard a pair of pontoon platforms.
The test had been in the making for approximately a year. What exactly was being tested and why remain a secret, but the evaluation went on for approximately an hour. It did not involve the actual firing of the engine, but rather the non-destructive testing of the RTG power supply to the engine.
The test may have been a final system check—the Russian deputy defense minister, Pavel Popov, monitored events from the Nenoksa military base. Meanwhile, the deputy head of research and testing at the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Vyasheslav Yanovsky, considered to be one of Russia’s most senior nuclear scientists, monitored events onboard the off-shore platform. Joining Yanovsky were seven other specialists from the institute, including Vyacheslav Lipshev, the head of the research and development team. They accompanied representatives from the Ministry of Defense, along with specialists from the design bureau responsible for the liquid-fuel engine.
When the actual testing finished, something went very wrong. According to a sailor from the nearby Severdvinsk naval base, the hypergolic fuels contained in the liquid engine (their presence suggests that temperature control was one of the functions being tested) somehow combined. This created an explosion that destroyed the liquid engine, sending an unknown amount of fuel and oxidizer into the water. At least one, and perhaps more, of the Cesium-137 RTGs burst open, contaminating equipment and personnel alike.
Four men—two Ministry of Defense personnel and two ROSATOM scientists—were killed immediately. Those who remained on the damaged platform were taken to the Nenoksa base and decontaminated, before being transported to a local military clinic that specializes in nuclear-related emergencies. Here, doctors in full protective gear oversaw their treatment and additional decontamination. All of them survived.
Three of the ROSATOM scientists were thrown by the explosion into the waters of the White Sea and were rescued only after a lengthy search. These men were transported to the Arkhangelsk hospital. Neither the paramedics who attended to the injured scientists, nor the hospital staff who received them, were informed that the victims had been exposed to Cesium-137, leading to the cross-contamination of the hospital staff and its premises.
The next day, all the personnel injured during the test were transported to Moscow for treatment at a facility that specializes in radiation exposure; two of the victims pulled from the water died en route. Medical personnel involved in treating the victims were likewise dispatched to Moscow for evaluation; one doctor was found to be contaminated with Cesium-137.
The classified nature of the test resulted in the Russian government taking precautions to control information concerning the accident. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) seized all the medical records associated with the treatment of accident victims and had the doctors and medical personnel sign non-disclosure agreements.
The Russian Meteorological Service (Roshydromet) operates what’s known as the Automatic Radiation Monitoring System (ASKRO) in the city of Severdvinsk. ASKRO detected two “surges” in radiation, one involving Gamma particles, the other Beta particles. This is a pattern consistent with the characteristics of Cesium-137, which releases Gamma rays as it decays, creating Barium-137m, which is a Beta generator. The initial detection was reported on the Roshydromet website, though it was subsequently taken offline.
Specialized hazardous material teams scoured the region around Nenoksa, Archangesk, and Severdvinsk, taking air and environmental samples. All these tested normal, confirming that the contamination created by the destruction of the Cesium-137 batteries was limited to the area surrounding the accident. Due to the large amount of missile fuel that was spilled, special restrictions concerning fishing and swimming were imposed in the region’s waters — at least until the fuel was neutralized by the waters of the White Sea. The damage had been contained, and the threat was over.
The reality of what happened at Nenoksa is tragic. Seven men lost their lives and scores of others were injured. But there was no explosion of a “nuclear cruise missile,” and it wasn’t the second coming of Chernobyl. America’s intelligence community and the so-called experts got it wrong — again. The root cause of their error is their institutional bias against Russia, which leads them to view that country in the worst possible light, regardless of the facts.
At a time when the level of mutual mistrust between our two nuclear-armed nations is at an all-time high, this kind of irresponsible rush to judgement must be avoided at all costs.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West’s Road to War.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02574-9
Is there a risk of a similar incident in the American context? I have heard several alarming reports, such as the fact that the production of intermediate missile materials – such as an aerogel foam used within the warhead itself – have fallen out of general production. One such material is “fogbank” which was manufactured in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The material is so classified that finding manufacturing instructions and records have been a significant challenge for the industry, as pre-existing materials age out and need replacing.
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Many of the original researchers have died and/or retired from the field. Furthermore – research out of Lawrence-Livermore Laboratories – indicate that many of the original yield calculations (determining how large of an explosion a warhead makes) are off by as much as 30%. Another alarming report came out of Arkansas in 1980 when a wrench was dropped in a silo during maintenance – puncturing the fuel component of a nuclear warhead – almost causing a critical incident (explosion) which would have irradiated surrounding environments. These are slightly different than RTGs – but the risk of an explosion due to aging materials, accidents or errors, or miscalculations is an alarming thought.
Does Turkey want nuclear weapons? This is from Newsweek.
Turkey Has U.S. Nuclear Weapons, Now It Says It Should be Allowed to Have Some of Its Own
by Tom O’Connor | 9/4/19 AT 6:13 PM EDT
The American nuclear weapons are at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, shown here.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has argued that his country should be allowed to develop nuclear weapons as other major powers have.
Addressing the Central Anatolian Economic Forum in the central province of Sivas, Erdogan lauded the expansion of the Turkish defense industry, especially recent conversations with the United States and Russia, while hinting at future talks with China. He then recalled how “some countries have missiles with nuclear warheads” and “not just one or two.”
“But I cannot possess missiles with nuclear warheads? I do not accept that,” Erdogan said. “Right now, nearly all the countries in the developed world have nuclear missiles.”
The U.S. currently has an estimated 50 of its nuclear weapons deployed to Turkey as part of the NATO Western military alliance’s nuclear sharing policy, according to an accidentally-released NATO report published in July by Belgian newspaper De Morgen. The weapons, located at Incirlik Base, are under U.S. control, but some have raised concerns as to their safety there amid regional instability and political differences.
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In 1980, Turkey signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) opposing nuclear weapons in the hands of countries other than “recognized powers” that include Russia, the U.S., France, the U.K. and China. Still, other powers such as India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel were all believed to have developed and be in possession of such weapons of mass destruction.
Though a member of NATO since 1952, Turkey has strained ties with other members of the Cold War-era defense pact by shoring up relations with Russia, against whom the nuclear sharing agreement was conceived. Ankara recently defied Washington’s warnings by accepting Moscow’s state-of-the-art S-400 surface-to-air missile system, which the Turkish Defense Ministry said Wednesday its personnel had started training on in the Russian town of Gatchina.
President Donald Trump hit back at Turkey’s acquisition in July by suspending the country’s planned participation in the advanced F-35 fifth-generation fighter jet program, but Russian President Vladimir Putin responded by showing off his nation’s own fifth-generation Su-57 and modernized Su-35 during Erdogan’s visit last week to the International Aviation and Space Show (MAKS) at the Zhukovsky International Airport outside Moscow.
After inspecting the Su-57, Erdogan asked if it was for sale and Putin said “yes, you can buy it” as they both laughed.
Turkey has continued to display interest in U.S. weapons too, however, and Erdogan also said Wednesday he would discuss buying the Patriot surface-to-air missile system — designed primarily to take out ballistic missiles, not aircraft as well, unlike the dual-use S-400 — with Trump at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly. He said, however, he would only buy the system “under the same conditions” offered to him by Russia during the S-400 purchase.
Ankara also worked alongside both Washington and Moscow in Syria, where all three nations have competing interests. Turkey has remained the last major foreign sponsor for insurgents once backed by the U.S. and a number of its regional allies in a bid to unseat Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but has at the same time joined Assad allies Russia and Iran as part of a trilateral peace process.
Following a phone call Wednesday with White House nationals security adviser John Bolton, Turkish spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin said his country had “completed its preparations to put into action without delay” a proposed safe zone designed to allow the withdrawal of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces, some of which were designated terrorist organizations by Ankara, from the Syrian border with Turkey.
Does Turkey have ingredients for a Dirty Bomb?
I read online that for a while – in the late 1990s and early 2000s — old radioactive materials from the former USSR countries (Georgia, etc.) were being sent to a site in Turkey for decommissioning. These included items like old RTGs, etc. Is there a risk of the fissile materials in these products being used to construct a “dirty bomb” or other improvised nuclear / radioactive explosive device?
When did Turkey get those Missiles?
Hi Jeremy – do you know when Turkey received the current batch of missiles as part of the NATO Agreement(s)? I thought the presence of “Jupiter’ missiles in Italy and Turkey was a significant negotiating factor in the Cuban Missile Crisis – with these eventually being removed. Have there been missiles continuously in this region since the 1960s?
Sauce for the Goose is Sauce for the Gander
While of course we don’t want Erdogan to get nuclear weapons, he has as much right to them as anyone else, doesn’t he? The nuclear weapons states keep claiming they have a right and nobody else does. No they don’t!
Well, if any country is allowed to have them, then every country should. That makes sense. But the answer is obvious: Then NO COUNTRY should have any of them.
Coming Soon to a Battlefield: Robots that Can Kill
By Zachary Fryer-Biggs | The Atlantic, Sept 3, 2019.
The U.S. Navy’s ship Sea Hunter patrols the oceans without a crew, looking for submarines that, one day, it may attack directly. And the U.S. Army has a missile system that, without humans, can pick out vehicles to attack. So what do we think of such things? And what can we do about it? Here’s what Zachary Fryer-Biggs wrote in The Atlantic:
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https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/killer-robots-and-new-era-machine-driven-warfare/597130/
Project West Ford and the Copper Needles
Meet Project West Ford — in the 1950s-1960s – the United States of America launched 480 million copper needles into the upper atmosphere for Cold War radio communication. Some of them are allegedly still up there, orbiting in the lower-gravity.
“The same year that Martin Luther King, Jr. marched on Washington and Beatlemania was born, the United States launched half a billion whisker-thin copper wires into orbit in an attempt to install a ring around the Earth. It was called Project West Ford, and it’s a perfect, if odd, example of the Cold War paranoia and military mentality at work in America’s early space program.
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The Air Force and Department of Defense envisioned the West Ford ring as the largest radio antenna in human history. Its goal was to protect the nation’s long-range communications in the event of an attack from the increasingly belligerent Soviet Union.
“A potential solution was born in 1958 at MIT’s Lincoln Labs, a research station on Hanscom Air Force Base northwest of Boston.
Project Needles, as it was originally known, was Walter E. Morrow’s idea. He suggested that if Earth possessed a permanent radio reflector in the form of an orbiting ring of copper threads, America’s long-range communications would be immune from solar disturbances and out of reach of nefarious Soviet plots.”
https://www.wired.com/2013/08/project-west-ford/
When NASA Shot Copper Needles Into space
On October 21, 1961, NASA launched the first batch of West Ford dipoles into space. A day later, this first payload had failed to deploy from the spacecraft, and its ultimate fate was never completely determined.
“U.S.A. Dirties Space” read a headline in the Soviet newspaper *Pravda. *
**Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was forced to make a statement before the UN declaring that the U.S. would consult more closely with international scientists before attempting another launch. Many remained unsatisfied. Cambridge astronomer Fred Hoyle went so far as to accuse the U.S. of undertaking a military project under “a façade of respectability,” referring to West Ford as an “intellectual crime.”