December 31, 2003
A Message of Hope from Pierce Brosnan
Dear Friends:
When I look into the eyes of my children, I remember why I am committed to working for a safer world, a world without nuclear weapons.
Imagine a world without organizations like the Global Security Institute. Could we survive if the voices of conscience, reason, law, security, and morality, advocating the elimination of nuclear weapons were silenced? Such silence in the face of present dangers is unacceptable.
When our leaders are pressing for preemptive military use of nuclear weapons, resumption of nuclear testing, and the creation of new more “usable” nuclear weapons, clear, competent, morally coherent voices must be heard at the highest levels of power and politics.
I know personally that the Global Security Institute has the expertise, experience, and the political access to move policy and decision makers in the right direction. Please join me in supporting their work with as much generosity as you can afford.
In Peace,
Pierce Brosnan
An Appeal from Kim Cranston and Jonathan Granoff
Dear Friends:
We cannot sit back in apathy with a new nuclear arms race about to burst upon the world. GSI has forged a team of prominent diplomats, former Heads of Government, world leaders, activists and experts in law, security and intelligence to work strategically and effectively through four integrated programs:
– The Bipartisan Security Group has expanded its base of impact on Capitol Hill by consistently providing expert analysis and policy recommendations through briefing materials and in-depth presentations to Republican and Democrat Members of Congress and their staff, in both private and public formats.
– The Middle Powers Initiative, by meeting with heads of government, foreign ministers, and numerous diplomats; providing briefing materials; and convening symposiums and consultations, has helped energize the nuclear disarmament work of many countries, and has stimulated several NATO countries to reevaluate their nuclear policies. With treaties at risk this work is of increasing importance.
– GSI’s Disarmament and Peace Education program keeps the moral call for nuclear disarmament in the public forum, through our working relationships with Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and world leaders in politics, religion, and the arts.
– The Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament provides a new dimension to the issue: an international voice of legislators speaking together. It has grown to more than 250 members in 40 countries and, with your help, it will continue to grow.
We must succeed. GSI’s high level of political engagement requires your support. Please consider making a generous contribution to ensure the strength of our work at the United Nations, in Washington, DC, and in capitals around the world.
If you share our vision, let us be your voice. Thank you for your support.
Kim Cranston, Chairman
Jonathan Granoff, President
December 19, 2003
Nobel Peace Summit: A Report from the President
This has been a year of struggle, war and extraordinary efforts by those who yearn for a world at peace. Despite many set backs, especially the US government’s promotion of new nuclear weapons and doctrines that lower the threshold for use, world opinion is clearly converging on a consensus that abhors all weapons of mass destruction and confirms that war is not an answer to security concerns. Working to end the scourge of war and terrorism, eliminating nuclear weapons, and bringing leadership back onto a course that promises a sustainable future is our collective passion. Men and women with the capacity to inspire and lead are so valuable at this time. I am pleased to share a short report that centers on such people.
An expression of morally coherent and politically sophisticated leadership describes the 4th Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, which took place in Rome, Italy. I had the privilege of joining the delegation of the International Peace Bureau (IPB) along with delegation leader Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, former Under-Secretary-General of Disarmament at the UN and Special Advisor to the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI); and Senator Douglas Roche O.C., Chairman of the MPI. The Global Security Institute (GSI) is a member of the IPB, which won the Nobel Peace Price in 1910. IPB, in turn, is a founding member of MPI, a program of GSI.
Through such a tightly interconnected network of organizations, we coordinate our collective passion for peace and nuclear disarmament. It was gratifying to find that our concerns were completely resonant with some of the world’s most courageous, intelligent and visionary leaders. The Summit’s powerful and inspiring Final Statement (see below), which was co-drafted by our delegation, found broadest acceptance among the Nobel Peace Laureates. Though widely covered by international media, the Final Statement was largely ignored in the United States.
In an effort to give the important Final Statement the prominence and publicity it deserves, I called upon my friend Congressman Edward Markey, who took the laudable initiative to introduce the Final Statement, together with a short report about the Rome Summit, in the United States Congressional Record (see below).
Inspired by the beauty of the Campidoglio (the Capitol), where the Summit took place and where – in a distant past – dreams of empire were realized and dashed, I wish to express my sincere hope that each one of us will heed strongly the closing paragraphs of the Nobel Peace Laureate Statement.
At GSI, we are deeply aware of the privilege of service and take this opportunity to thank you for your support. With our heartfelt wishes for a New Year of renewed and strengthened commitment to peace, and prayers that our lives be blessed with health and love,
Yours truly,
Jonathan Granoff
President, Global Security Institute
Rome Report
From 27 to 30 November 2003, the 4th World Summit of Peace Nobel Laureates took place in Rome, Italy. It was convened upon invitation by Mikhail Gorbachev and Walter Veltroni, Mayor of the City of Rome.
Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, Senator Douglas Roche, Chair of the Middle Powers Initiative, and Ambassador Jayantha Dhanapala, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament, participated in the Summit as representatives of the International Peace Bureau (IPB), which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1910. Ambassador Dhanapala, who led the IPB delegation, is IPB’s Honorary President.
The following Nobel Peace Prize Winners – individuals and organizations – participated in the Summit: The XIV Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Shimon Peres, Joseph Rotblat (represented by Professor Robert Hinde), Oscar Arias Sanchez, Lech Walesa, Betty Williams, Jody Williams, American Friends Service Committee, Amnesty International, International Campaign to Ban Landmines, International Labour Organization, International Peace Bureau, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, International Law Institute, Pugwash Conferences, Quakers Peace and Social Witness, United Nations, United Nations Children’s Fund, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and United Nations Peace Keeping Forces.
The Summit’s theme was “Ethics in Politics, Economics and Science.” The IPB delegation worked closely with the Summit organizers in planning the program on Ethics and Policy, and served as facilitator for the three sessions dealing with this topic during the opening day.
Jayantha Dhanapala chaired the first panel on “Ethics, Values and Policy – Our Deeper Unity, Our Common Humanity.” The theme of this session built on the following statement by the UN’s Commission on Global Governance:
“We need a set of common values around which we can unite people, irrespective of their cultural, political, religious or philosophical backgrounds… . Foremost [?] these values must include the duty of care for one’s neighbor. In a neighborhood, all are neighbors. In our global neighborhood, therefore, the duty of care is owed to all who share the planet. This duty, of course, is more compelling the more the neighbor needs care.”
Participants in this panel included Shimon Peres, Yassir Arafat (represented), Lech Walesa, Adolfo Perez Esquivel (represented), and Kofi Annan (represented).
Link: Ambassador Dhanapala’s speech (PDF)
Jonathan Granoff chaired the second panel, entitled “Peace and Security – Multilateral and Disarmament Imperatives.” This session took an integrated approach to security. Numerous human security problems, especially those relating to environmental concerns such as global warming, diminished biodiversity, ozone depletion, and over-fished and polluted oceans can only be addressed effectively through multilateral cooperation. The necessary level of cooperation to resolve these pressing issues will not be obtained unless multilateralism becomes the norm in international affairs. Moreover, the dangers of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction cannot be eliminated unless a universal norm of disarmament is established as is required by the relevant treaties. There remains a moral, ethical and legal duty to work together to obtain the elimination of nuclear weapons and to pursue security in a multilateral manner.
Participants on this panel included Jody Williams, Joseph Rotblat (represented), Oscar Arias Sanchez, Mary Ellen McNish (representing the American Friends Service Committee), Ron McCoy (representing IPPNW), Elizabeth Bernstein (representing the International Campaign to Ban Landmines), and Paolo Cotta Ramusino (representing the Pugwash Conferences).
Link: Jonathan Granoff’s speech (PDF)
Senator Douglas Roche presided over the third and final panel of the opening day, titled “Sustainable Development – Building a Culture of Peace.” This session addressed a sustainable future in the broadest context. Social organization based on inequity and environmental indifference kept in place by force demonstrates the impoverishment of violence. This violence, whether through military application or callous indifference to human suffering, diminishes the human spirit and undermines ethics. All social and political actions must be evaluated on the basis of the explicit ethical standard of whether they enhance or diminish the capacity to develop a Culture of Peace. Not only is peace a right, but it is now an imperative for our collective survival. Peace has become an ethical imperative. And peace now involves not only human rights but a healthy and secure environment.
Speakers on this panel included Mikhail Gorbachev, Tenzin Gyatso (the 14th Dalai Lama), Mairead Maguire Corrigan, Jerzy Makarczyk and Christian Dominicé (representing the Institut de Droit International), and Marian Pink (representing Amnesty International).
Link: Senator Roche’s speech (PDF)
Final Statement
The 4th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates concluded with the adoption of a Final Statement. The IPB delegation was actively involved in the Statement’s drafting and translation.
Of particular prominence is the Statement’s call for the total elimination of nuclear weapons:
“The threat of weapons of mass destruction remains with us. We call for an immediate end to the newly resurgent arms race, which is being fueled by a failure to universally ratify a treaty banning nuclear testing, and by doctrines that lower the threshold of use and promote the creation of new nuclear weapons. This is particularly dangerous when coupled with the doctrine of pre-emption.
For some to say that nuclear weapons are good for them but not for others is simply not sustainable. The failure of the nuclear weapons states to abide by their legal pledge to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons, contained in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, is the greatest stimulus to their proliferation.
Nuclear weapons are immoral and we call for their universal legal prohibition. They must be eliminated before they eliminate us.”
Link: Full text of 2003 Final Statement (PDF)
Participants and the organizors of the Summit commended the work of GSI’s support staff, Dr. Urs Cipolat and Nadine Kjellberg. Dr. Cipolat’s contribution to editing and translating the Final Statement was indispensable to its distribution.
U.S. Congressional Record Entry
On December 8, 2003, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced the Final Statement, together with a short report about the Summit, in the US Congressional Record.
Link: Congressman Markey’s Entry in the U.S. Congressional Record (PDF)
The Nobel Summit’s inspiring Final Statement is used by participants and supporters to advance its themes by setting agendas for discussion and promoting its principles at numerous forums. In the past year, Senator Roche and Jonathan Granoff brought the Final Statement to several world leaders and discussed its contents in depth. Of particular significance were the discussions with President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada.
Photos:
1. Panel, l to r: Granoff, Cotta (Pugwash), Dalai Lama, Gorbachev, Arias Sanchez
2. Peace Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire Corrigan, Amb. Jayantha Dhanapala
3. Dalai Lama, Jonathan Granoff
4. Sen. Douglas Roche, Dalai Lama, President Gorbachev
5. President Gorbachev and staff, Jonathan Granoff drafting Final Statement
Photos by Urs Cipolat and Nadine Kjellberg.
Posted by urs_cipolat at 03:23 PM
December 13, 2003
Bush Should’ve Taken His Father’s Advice On War
In his memoir, A World Transformed, former President George Bush in discussing the Gulf War made the following observation: ”Trying to eliminate Saddam would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. There was no viable exit strategy we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that one hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in the bitterly hostile land.”
The current president should have taken heed of his father’s counsel. He did not, and as a result America is less secure today than before invading Iraq, we lost international support, and the chaos in Iraq has become a grave threat to international security.
We Americans now face the prospect of a prolonged involvement there, which will cost us dearly in lives and money. Cutting and running or premature withdrawal are not valid options. They would make the situation even worse than it is now and be a victory for terrorists of all stripes.
It is equally clear, however, that the administration’s now stated objective of helping the Iraqi people create stable institutions, which will enable them to control their own destinies without coercion from within or without, cannot be done by us alone.
Perhaps we can restore order there acting alone, although even this may prove to be impossible. Beyond that, however, unilateralism won’t work.
Simply put, Iraqis, others in the Arab and Muslim world and in the world at large are deeply suspicious about the United States’ intentions in the Middle East. The conflicting, belligerent and often naive statements of the present Bush administration both before and after the invasion have heightened these suspicions.
Clearly, the only way to overcome these suspicions and to get the linguistic, cultural and organizational skills in place to succeed in Iraq is to turn primary responsibility for the country’s reconstruction and rehabilitation over to the United Nations and to work in partnership within the rest of the international community for as long as it takes to get the job done. As one who worked long and hard in the trenches to help build the international consensus, which led to the successful conclusion of the Gulf War, I know this can be done. Others want to help because failure threatens their security as well as ours. A renewed and aggressive American commitment to work with others to move the Israeli/ Palestinian peace process forward will be necessary as well.
The lesson is clear: Unilateralism is not working. The United States must return to working collectively with the international community and in accordance with the international standards and norms, which we helped create. When we Americans make a mistake, we must have the courage to admit error and make adjustments. This is perhaps the only way we can reach the goal we share with the rest of the international community: a free and stable Iraq governed by its own people. This effort can succeed if President Bush and his advisers follow the same course that his father did. Success is still possible if we are willing to make it a collective one. Let’s hope the administration’s decision to seek a new Security Council resolution on Iraq signals a return to the policies of George Bush Sr.
Robert T. Grey Jr., a former ambassador for the Bill Clinton and current Bush administrations, is director of Bipartisan Security Group, a program of the Global Security Institute.
Posted by zack_allen at 04:38 PM
December 01, 2003
There are approximately 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, 90 percent of which are possessed by Russia and the United States. The United States has about 11,000 nuclear weapons, and the Russians have about 19,500 nuclear weapons. Thousands of these are Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles; they are armed, targeted and poised, waiting for three short computer signals to fire. These hair trigger devices represent the devastation of approximately 100,000 Hiroshimas and pose a horrific threat to life. From the moment the early-warning systems cry danger (real or cyber-glitch), the U.S. government allows itself less than twenty five minutes before launch keys are turned in retaliation; experts believe that the Russian government allows itself less than ten.
The nuclear weapons which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the equivalent of 15,000 and 12,000 tons of TNT (trinitrotoluene) respectively. Bombs in the megaton (equivalent to a million tons of TNT) and multiple megaton range are now in the arsenals, and some are even in excess of twenty megatons (20,000,000 tons of TNT). A five-megaton weapon would represent more explosive power than all the bombs used in World War II, and a twenty-megaton bomb more than all the explosives used in all wars in the history of the world.
Over time, through accident or design, human fallibility will cause the unacceptable use of these weapons. Additionally, the possession by some states is the strongest stimulant to others to acquire them.
In a stunning assertion of militarism and U.S. unilateralism over international cooperation and the rule of law, the Senate voted on September 17, 2003, mostly along party lines, to fund steps toward the development of new nuclear weapons. Some of these weapons are called “mini-nukes” and are ready to be integrated into conventional war fighting plans while others are modifications of existing weapons designed for new targets. This funding represents an enormous shift in the basic rationale for the production and use of nuclear weapons.
Previously, deterrence doctrine was designed to ensure that nuclear weapons would not be used, or at least only used as an absolute last resort. The bizarre logic was that if each nuclear equipped party has enough weapons to inflict unacceptable damage to the other–even after being hit with a nuclear attack–then neither would actually dare to use their arsenal.
In the new doctrine, nuclear weapons are viewed as usable, as a standard part of military strategy like other explosives. Simultaneously, this shift challenges the moral taboo against use and undermines the commitments made under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), now with 188 member States, to negotiate the elimination of nuclear arsenals.
The reality of such contemplated use of nuclear weapons has yet to dent the public debate. Like the response to the banality of evil that made possible the Holocaust’s Final Solution, today’s world remains numb to the banality of nuclear weapons.
Until now, there has been an international consensus that the proliferation of nuclear weapons posed a paramount threat to the security of the world. President Bush has challenged this presumption. In his 2003 State of the Union address he said, “The gravest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.” The emphasis has shifted from the weapons themselves to concern for regimes, and the policies that arise from this shift are dramatic. Instead of a policy of containment and elimination of weapons through international law, we are now seeing a policy of “regime change” based on U.S. unilateral decision making. This is very hazardous to international order, and we are only beginning to see its consequences in the aftermath of the Iraq war.
Moreover, rather than working to fulfill treaty commitments for disarmament, the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review of 2002 calls for proliferation:
The need is clear for a revitalized nuclear weapons complex that will … be able … to design, develop, manufacture, and certify new warheads in response to new national requirements; and maintain readiness to resume underground nuclear testing if required.
The U.S. National Security Strategy emphasizes that the United States will take anticipatory preemptive action. Since the Nuclear Posture Review calls for incorporating nuclear weapons into conventional war fighting capabilities, we now have a doctrine that can rationalize the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons.
North Korea’s response should come as no surprise. It is easy to understand why the rest of the world is so afraid. We should all be afraid.
Mohammed El Baradi, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), recently stated the situation clearly:
These are double standards. On the one hand, the U.S. says that the proliferation of nuclear weapons must be fought. On the other, it perfects its own arsenal. This is not acceptable… The US Administration demands from other states not to have any nuclear weapons, while it fills its own arsenals… If we do not give up such double standards, we will have even more nuclear powers. We are at a turning point now.
The steady, albeit slow, progress in building peaceful relations based on the rule of law has reversed, just as fear and uncertainty have been emphasized. Various arguments are used to rationalize this intentional process: fighting terrorism in the wake of 9-11, eliminating despotic rulers, stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But actions, such as instituting a war without clear UN Security Council authorization, speak louder than any doctrines.
The extent of the hazard has not been grasped and political arguments have not swayed the hearts of the people nor the decision makers. Worse, the irrationality of the quest to address the problem by building more weapons of mass destruction remains inadequately challenged.
Neither reason nor imagination is sufficient to grasp the magnitude of what we have created. The International Court of Justice, in its landmark opinion in 1996 on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons stated: “The destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time. They have the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire eco-system of the planet.” The Court unanimously concluded that there is a legal duty to negotiate the global elimination of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear weapons exemplify a thoroughly modern dilemma where the means of pursuing security undermine the end of obtaining security. As Thoreau said, “Improved means to unimproved ends.”
The Mayor of Nagasaki pleads with us to understand the human dimensions of one relatively small atomic bomb:
The explosion of the atomic bomb generated an enormous fireball, 200 meters in radius, almost as though a small sun had appeared in the sky. The next instant, a ferocious blast and wave of heat assailed the ground with a thunderous roar. The surface temperature of the fireball was about 7,000 degrees C, and the heat rays that reached the ground were over 3,000 degrees C. The explosion instantly killed or injured people within a two-kilometer radius of the hypocenter, leaving innumerable corpses charred like clumps of charcoal and scattered in the ruins near the hypocenter. In some cases, not even a trace of the person’s remains could be found. A wind (over 680 miles per hour) slapped down trees and demolished most buildings. Even iron-reinforced concrete structures were so badly damaged that they seemed to have been smashed by a giant hammer. The fierce flash of heat meanwhile melted glass and left metal objects contorted like strands of taffy, and the subsequent fires burned the ruins of the city to ashes. Nagasaki became a city of death where not even the sound of insects could be heard.
After a while, countless men, women and children began to gather for a drink of water at the banks of the nearby Urakami River, their hair and clothing scorched and their burnt skin hanging off in sheets like rags. Begging for help, they died one after another in the water or in heaps on the banks. Then radiation began to take its toll, killing people like a scourge (of) death expanding in concentric circles from the hypocenter. Four months after the atomic bombing, 74,000 people were dead and 75,000 had suffered injuries, that is, two thirds of the city population had fallen victim to this calamity that came upon Nagasaki like a preview of the Apocalypse.
When Mahatma Gandhi heard of this horror he pondered: “What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see.”
The psychologist Robert Jay Lifton has described part of the cost to the small handful of nuclear weapons states as “a collective form of psychic numbing.” Our readiness to unleash, in short order, devices that will rapidly transform cities into concentration camp-like ovens numbs our moral sensitivities. These weapons are ovens with wings.
Even George Kennan, the distinguished American diplomat who originated the Cold War containment policy toward the Soviet Union, a man not normally associated with moral admonitions, warns us:
The readiness to use nuclear weapons against other human beings–against people we do not know, whom we have never seen, and whose guilt or innocence is not for us to establish–and, in doing so, to place in jeopardy the natural structure upon which all civilization rests, as though the safety and perceived interests of our own generation were more important than everything that has taken place or could take place in civilization: this is nothing less than a presumption, a blasphemy, an indignity–an indignity of monstrous dimensions–offered to God!
This expression of human arrogance hides a fundamental weakness, a failure of respect for the power of love, God’s greatest gift to us. That power is denied by this threatening violence. This ultimate violence is idolatry without boundary, exalting human ideas and force above the creator’s gift and the very life of the creation.
The violence of threatening to unleash the Apocalypse represents an immorality of vast proportion and calls us to an affirmation of faith of vaster proportion. We cannot be passive in pursuing this capacity. The words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., burn through the haze of today’s news reports:
The fact that most of the time human beings put the truth about the nature and risks of nuclear war out of their minds because it is too painful and therefore not “acceptable,” does not alter the nature and risks of such war … if modern man continues to flirt unhesitatingly with war, he will transform his earthly habitat into an inferno such that even the mind of Dante could not imagine…. I do not wish to minimize the complexity of the problems that need to be faced in achieving disarmament and peace. But I think it is a fact that we shall not have the will, the courage, and insight to deal with such matters unless in this field we are prepared to undergo a mental and spiritual reevaluation–a change of focus which will enable us to see that the things which seem most real and powerful are indeed now unreal and have come under the sentence of death…. It is not enough to say “We must not wage war.” It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it … we have inherited a big house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together–black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslems and Hindus, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other…. This means that more and more our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. We must now give an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in our individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all embracing and unconditional love for all….
Developing this love is not only a personal path to salvation but a necessity for human fulfillment and survival. As King said, “When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response which is little more than emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.” Our choice is Dante’s hell or a door to ultimate reality.
What must we do?
The first step toward a solution is a sober acknowledgement of the problem and a profound commitment to change.
It is imperative that our goal of obtaining the universal elimination of nuclear weapons be grounded in strong moral positions. Since fear can cloud reason, we must awaken an activism based on an equally strong motivation. For this issue, vision requires courage; thus, spirit matters.
The mystery that placed the power of destruction in the binding forces of the atom has placed the healing power of love in our hearts and further gifted us with both the courage and wisdom to use that power effectively. King’s stand is correct: “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of nuclear annihilation.” With faith that we can be guided by and have confidence in our love of life, should we not commit to cause our country to disavow its unlawful, immoral policy of failing to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons? Will you join this call from the conscience of humanity?
We have the choice to respond to this call of conscience. With the help of each, which is a gift in our hands to choose, and the help of God, which is a gift surely granted, we can and will become the change we want to see.
We can change our government’s conduct to reflect our human values. The policies that diminish the threat to use nuclear weapons and lead to their elimination have already been painstakingly negotiated in the NPT. They include a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, deep cuts in the arsenals, reduction of the operational status of the weapons, a diminished role of weapons in policy planning, and negotiations leading to elimination.
The commitments under the NPT are an excellent foundation, but they are certainly not enough. For example, the entire budget for all inspections under the IAEA is less than $90 million per year for the whole world, while the US alone spends more than $97 million per day on our nuclear arsenal. The need for changing economic allocations is obvious.
Compared to what might arise in the future, addressing nuclear weapons is now relatively manageable. There is presently only a small group with arsenals. That group includes Israel, Pakistan and India, who are not in the NPT, and five countries under the treaty–US, UK, China, France, and Russia. The materials needed to make bombs can be monitored and controlled if sufficient funds are spent. The political will to come to very low numbers, and then begin serious negotiations to create a secure regime to move toward abolition, could be galvanized with proper political leadership. It is sufficient to invoke fears of terrorism to generate support to eliminate this threat. Nearly everyone agrees that nothing could be more hazardous than if terrorists gained access to these devices.
If we do not move quickly to curtail this capacity for self-destruction that science has given humanity with this obviously dangerous technology, how do we intend to constrain and control the next generation of weapons of mass destruction? It is time that this technology be subject to law and morality. Nothing less than our humanity and future is at stake.
We need to further awaken the public and generate the political will to fulfill our existing commitments. We need to compel our political leaders to take clear, morally coherent positions and commit to work for abolition.
At a minimum, we must demand that every candidate for national office describe their aspirations and plans to reduce and eliminate the possession and threat of nuclear weapons in every country in the world.
Jonathan Granoff is president of the Global Security Institute and a member of the Advisory Board of Tikkun.
http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0311/article/031121.html
Posted by zack_allen at 09:27 AM