Nation Topics - Nuclear Arms and Proliferation | The Nation

Calls for an end to nuclear weapons are growing--including in
Washington.

A DECADE after the end of the cold war, the peril of nuclear destruction
is mounting. The great powers have refused to give up nuclear arms,
other countries are producing them and terrorist groups are trying to
acquire them.

POORLY GUARDED warheads and nuclear material in the former Soviet Union
may fall into the hands of terrorists. The Bush Administration is
developing nuclear "bunker busters" and threatening to use them against
nonnuclear countries. The risk of nuclear war between India and Pakistan
is grave.

DESPITE THE END of the cold war, the United States plans to keep large
numbers of nuclear weapons indefinitely. The latest US-Russian treaty,
which will cut deployed strategic warheads to 2,200, leaves both nations
facing "assured destruction" and lets them keep total arsenals (active
and inactive, strategic and tactical) of more than 10,000 warheads each.

THE DANGERS POSED by huge arsenals, threats of use, proliferation and
terrorism are linked: The nuclear powers' refusal to disarm fuels
proliferation, and proliferation makes nuclear materials more accessible
to terrorists.

THE EVENTS of September 11 brought home to Americans what it means to
experience a catastrophic attack. Yet the horrifying losses that day
were only a fraction of what any nation would suffer if a single nuclear
weapon were used on a city.

THE DRIFT TOWARD catastrophe must be reversed. Safety from nuclear
destruction must be our goal. We can reach it only by reducing and then
eliminating nuclear arms under binding agreements.

WE THEREFORE CALL ON THE UNITED STATES AND RUSSIA TO FULFILL THEIR
COMMITMENTS UNDER THE NONPROLIFERATION TREATY TO MOVE TOGETHER WITH THE
OTHER NUCLEAR POWERS, STEP BY CAREFULLY INSPECTED AND VERIFIED STEP, TO
THE ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS. AS KEY STEPS TOWARD THIS GOAL, WE CALL
ON THE UNITED STATES TO:

§  RENOUNCE the first use of nuclear weapons.

§  Permanently END the development, testing and production of nuclear warheads.

§  SEEK AGREEMENT with Russia on the mutual and verified destruction of nuclear weapons withdrawn under treaties, and increase the resources available here and in the former Soviet Union to secure nuclear warheads and material and to implement destruction.

§  STRENGTHEN nonproliferation efforts by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, finalizing a missile ban in North Korea, supporting UN inspections in Iraq, locating and reducing fissile material worldwide and negotiating a ban on its production.

§  TAKE nuclear weapons off hairtrigger alert in concert with the other nuclear powers (the UK, France, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Israel) in order to reduce the risk of accidental or unauthorized use.

§  INITIATE talks on further nuclear cuts, beginning with US and Russian reductions to 1,000 warheads each.

TO SIGN THE STATEMENT, GO TO URGENTCALL.ORG OR SEND NAME,
ORGANIZATION/PROFESSION (FOR ID ONLY) AND CONTACT INFORMATION TO URGENT
CALL, C/O FOURTH FREEDOM FORUM, 11 DUPONT CIRCLE NW, 9TH FLOOR,
WASHINGTON, DC 20036. WE NEED TAX-DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS, MADE TO URGENT
CALL, TO DISSEMINATE THIS CALL. PLEASE MAIL TO THE SAME ADDRESS.

THIS CALL WAS DRAFTED BY JONATHAN SCHELL, THE HAROLD WILLENS PEACE
FELLOW OF THE NATION INSTITUTE AND THE AUTHOR OF THE FATE OF THE
EARTH; RANDALL CAROLINE (RANDY) FORSBERG, DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE
FOR DEFENSE AND DISARMAMENT STUDIES AND AUTHOR OF THE "CALL TO HALT THE
NUCLEAR ARMS RACE," THE MANIFESTO OF THE 1980s NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREEZE
CAMPAIGN; AND DAVID CORTRIGHT, PRESIDENT OF THE FOURTH FREEDOM FORUM AND
FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SANE.

A more virulent nuclear era has superseded the perils of the cold
war.

When India and Pakistan conducted their nuclear tests in 1998, even those of us who condemned them balked at the hypocrisy of Western nuclear powers.

"... Come my friends,
'tis not too late to seek
a newer world, ..."

A move is on to blur the line between conventional and nuclear weapons.

George W. Bush went out of his way to praise America's allies in his speech marking the six-month anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In a clear effort to massage the sensibilities of nations worried about escalating US unilateralism, he spoke of "the power and vitality of our coalition" against Al Qaeda and singled out for praise nations from Denmark to Uzbekistan.

But the international concerns about US intentions persist, and with good reason. Before Bush made his speech stroking the Afghanistan allies, from the Pentagon leaked previously confidential portions of the Nuclear Posture Review, calling for more flexible nuclear weapons, arguing for a resumption of weapons testing and exploring "contingencies" that could require nuclear attack on Russia, China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Iraq or Iran.

Arguments for the tactical use of nuclear weapons are not new. But the endorsement of that strategy at the highest levels of the Administration marks a dramatic departure, a direct threat of first-use nuclear strikes against nonnuclear states. The review envisions nuclear weapons not as unthinkable engines of holocaust--their very use a crime against humanity--but as the next logical battlefield step from bunker-busters and daisy-cutters. Yet there is no such thing as a logical use of a nuclear weapon. On page 7 Jonathan Schell writes that just as New York was dealing with a false nuclear bomb scare, the "government was moving to relegitimize the use of nuclear weapons in general and throwing down the nuclear gauntlet to the Middle East in particular--the very part of the world from which New York and Washington and other cities most fear attack."

This unprecedented waving of the nuclear stick against nonnuclear foes (unprecedented, anyway, since Richard Nixon threatened to drop the bomb on Hanoi and was dissuaded by Henry Kissinger, a moment captured on newly released tapes) is even more worrisome because despite Bush's reassuring language, his speech outlined the "second stage" of the war on terrorism. This phase envisions a significant shift from the international police action aimed primarily at Al Qaeda. Bush, who has already dispatched advisers to Georgia, Yemen and the Philippines, said the United States "encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and the peace of the world" and offered troops and assistance. The suggestion to coalition partners: Support future American action against Iraq, and we'll actively support you against whatever militants harbor, in Bush's words, "differences and grievances" with your government. He also raised the possibility of pre-emptive strikes against nations deemed to be developing weapons of mass destruction--now, presumably, with nuclear weapons.

Rather than legitimizing nuclear warfare, the United States should be leading a global campaign to shun nuclear weapons as genocidal and promoting effective international agreements to halt nuclear proliferation and the development of other weapons of mass destruction.

Bush's speech stakes out a massive expansion of American military options. Where the nuclear policy review and the war on terror come together is an expanding pursuit of American military and political supremacy as an end in itself.

Manhattan

The news that the Pentagon had secret contingency plans to fight terrorism with nuclear weapons has the marks not of considered military doctrine but rather of an infantile tantrum born of the Bu

Disarmament Wars