I. The Folly of Resuming Nuclear Testing
"The Annual General Meeting (AMG) of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons [held] on May 23, unanimously adopted a statement condemning recent reports of White House discussions to resume nuclear weapons testing. As a result of the Covid-9 pandemic, Abolition 2000 had to take the unprecedented step of holding its AGM online, allowing participants from some 40 countries to join.
The statement warns that resumed US testing of nuclear weapons would inevitably lead to resumption of testing by other nations. Such testing would, in any case, be in contravention of e Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by the United States in 1996, yet pending entry-into-force.
John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, and one of the statement's drafters, said, 'Testing of nuclear weapons evokes nuclear apocalypse, as in the days of US-Soviet brinksmanship. It must not be resumed. At the same time, we must recognize that the capabilities for apocalypse remain in place, and are being maintained and improved in the absence of nuclear explosive testing. This too must be brought to an end. ' "
"Daniel Ellsberg, former US nuclear war planner. and famed whistleblower of the Pentagon Papers,said, 'Renewed nuclear testing initiated by the US would enable India, Pakistan and North Korea to test and develop 'H-bomb' thermonuclear warheads, which the existing moratorium on testing has prevented them from destroying. They could then join the US and Russia in threatening the world with the capability to cause nuclear winter, global famine, and near-extinction of humanity. Obviously, no nation on earth should possess this power. Rather than inviting its spread, the US and Russia should neither maintain nor 'modernize' but dismantle their own Doomsday Machines.'
Jackie Cabasso, Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation,and a founding mother of Abolition 2000, said, '25 years ago, we launched the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons with an 11-point statement, which includes a call to abolish all forms of nuclear testing. For more than a quarter of a century the moratorium on full-scale explosive nuclear testing has been largely adhered to. US resumption of such tests at this time would rock the foundations of an increasingly fragile world order, and would set back efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons by decades. It must not be allowed.' "
II. "Blundering Toward Nuclear Chaos"
"A second report, "Blundering Toward Nuclear Chaos: The Trump Administration After Three Years," published by the American Policy Initiative (ANTI), an independent project of Global Zero,takes a sweeping look at how the the U.S.is navigating the complex nuclear landscape under the undisciplined and unpredictable rule of Donald Trump.
Calling for broad changes, the report's authors present a disturbing triptych of instability, inexperience and incompetence,making a powerful case for the urgent need to correct and redirect the U.S.'s approach to nuclear weapons policy.
Beginning with U.S.-Russia relations, and continuing with critiques of Trump's approach to Iran, North Korea, China, modernization, nonproliferation and other critical nuclear matters, the report is a sober, even-tempered assessment of an administration led by a temperamental bull in a nuclear china shop.
The report describes 'growing nuclear instability and the accelerating arms race between Russia and the United States' as among the 'most pressing and consequential' nuclear challenges facing the U.S. today. "
"In its relations with Iran and North Korea, the administration has taken strikingly different approaches -- 'maximum pressure' and confrontation with Iran and, in the case of North Korea, threats to 'totally destroy' the country, followed by highly choreographed summits and Trump's declaration that 'there is no longer a nuclear threat' from the North. In both cases,however, Trump's approach has failed to produce concrete steps toward denuclearization.
The report's authors note that Trump takes pride in rejecting traditional approaches to domestic and foreign policy challenges, resulting in increased tension between the administration and policy makers who have invested decades in protecting U.S. interests.
The authors also closely examine how Trump has played a disruptive --even destructive -- role in dismantling international agreements and nuclear treaties, most notably the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [on the] Iran nuclear deal, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, while acting in a manner that runs counter to arms control and nonproliferation.
The report explains why the U.S. is likely to continue rejecting Russian overtures to extend the last major U.S.-Russia bilateral nuclear agreement, the New START Treaty, set to expire in February 2021. The Trump administration insists the treaty should be renegotiated to include China, which has just over 300 nuclear weapons (compared with Russia and the U.S.,which have an estimated 6,370 and 5,8000 respectively).
Trump's rejection of extending New START appears all but certain, especially following the recent announcement by the Trump administration that it was planning to abandon the nearly three-decade old Open Skies Treaty. The treaty allows 34 party nations to carry out reconnaissance fights in the interest of transparency and the prevention of misunderstanding that could lead to war."
Footnotes:
[1] Drafters of the Abolition 2000 statement were John Burroughs, Daniel Ellsberg, and Andrew Lichterman, Senior Research Analyst,Western States Legal Foundation. The statement was released on May 23, 2020.
[2] "Trump Boosts Nuclear Spending, Fully Funding New Arms Race," Truthout, May 30, 2020.
Showing posts with label global zero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label global zero. Show all posts
Sunday, July 26, 2020
Monday, December 23, 2019
Green New Deal for Nuclear Weapons
The following is excerpted from the September 2019 issue of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists." The article is entitled "We need a Green New Deal for nuclear weapons."
The Green New Deal is a progressive response to climate change, because it's a solution commensurate with the scale of the problem. It also has a coherent vision for its implementation that is equal parts optimistic and realistic. Meanwhile, the arms control community is largely trapped in damage-control mode, valiantly resisting President Trump's efforts to build dangerous new nuclear weans and withdraw from critical nuclear agreements. Environmentalists are playing offense, while the nuclear community is playing defense.
Most progressives would argue that the answer is global zero -- a nuclear-free world. However, that is a long-term solution. Just as the Green New Deal does not immediately see a fossil-fuel-free world, a progressive nuclear policy cannot immediately see a nuclear-free one.
This does not mean, however, that progressives should be satisfied with occasional and incremental nuclear policy tweaks. By applying core principles of the Green New Deal -- international cooperation, reductions, transparency, and justice -- to nuclear weapons, progressives can begin to craft a plan that seeks to ambitiously and coherently restructure U.S. nuclear policy.
The Green New Deal aims to make the United States "the international leader on climate change." In similar fashion, a progressive nuclear policy should seek to place the United States at the forefront of global disarmament efforts -- acting as an international leader in nuclear transparency, diplomacy, and reductions.
President Trump has foolishly undone earlier diplomatic successes by killing off successful arms control treaties --including the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned an entire missile class -- and threatening to terminate President Barack Obama's New START, the treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. Nevertheless, a progressive nuclear policy should begin by emulating and expanding upon specific policies from not only the Obama era, but also from the Trump administration.
In a similar vein, the United States should immediately end its bellicose rhetoric toward Iran and attempt to pick up the shattered pieces of the Iran nuclear deal. These efforts might require targeted sanctions relief ad economic inducements to convince participating countries to return to the table in good faith.
With regard to other nuclear powers -- particularly Russia and China -- the Trump administration has embraced great-power competition and gung-ho militarist policies that will drag the world deeper into a renewed arms race. Instead, the United States should engage with Russia to reconstruct the INF Treaty, with both countries returning to compliance; immediately extend -- and try to expand -- New START; pursue arrangements to reduce military tension; draw up a long-term plan to include China and other nuclear-armed states in the arms-control process; and finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The Green New Deal suggests that U.S. technological expertise can be leveraged to help other countries achieve Green New Deals of their own.This can be mirrored in the nuclear policy space. Just as the United States could become the leading exporter of renewable energy technology, it could also emulate the "just transition" envisioned in the Green New Deal,which seeks to smoothly reorient workers toward low-carbon jobs; in the nuclear context, such a transition could result in weapons manufacturers using their expertise for disarmament --placing an emphasis on warhead dismantlement and verification, rather than on production.
Reductions. Committing to ambitious climate change goals (net-zero carbon emissions by 2050) is a critical component of the Green New Deal,and one that should also be translated to the nuclear space. For both threats, progressives must take steps to physically reduce the causes and enablers of the crisis at hand -- for climate change,it's carbon emissions for nuclear weapons, it's the weapons themselves. Over the next decade, the United States will spend nearly $100,000 per minute on its nuclear forces -- that's a tremendous amount of money that could otherwise be spent on priorities like infrastructure, health care, education, and fighting climate change.
First on the chopping block should be Trump's new nukes: a planned nuclear sea-lunched cruise missile akin to the one retired by the Obama administration for its lack of military utility and a "low-yield" warhead (the name obscures the fact that it's still one-third the size of the Hiroshima bomb that killed more than 100,000 people). These "flexible" weapons could make a nuclear strike even more tempting for military planners, making future crises all the more dangerous.
The current plan to replace nearly every weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal was actually enshrined under the Obama administration. As experts from Global Zero have argued, the majority of these replacements are unnecessary and could be phased out under a new nuclear posture favoring minimum deterrence over war fighting.Under this new posture -- and ideally alongside reductions by other nuclear-armed states -- the United States should dramatically reduce its bomber and submarine forces,and completely scrap its intercontinental ballistic missiles,which are irrelevant in a post-Cold-War era and are largely maintained to appease missile manufacturers and members of Congress where the missiles are based. Additionally, the United States should vow never to use nuclear weapons first -- a position supported by the majority of Democrats.
The United States should also be prepared to make concessions regarding its ballistic missile defenses, which -- despite being rudimentary at best and useless at worst-- are key drivers of the arms race. This is because other countries, particularly Russia and China, fear that expanded U.S. defenses might one day render their nuclear arsenals useless.
The Green New Deal is a progressive response to climate change, because it's a solution commensurate with the scale of the problem. It also has a coherent vision for its implementation that is equal parts optimistic and realistic. Meanwhile, the arms control community is largely trapped in damage-control mode, valiantly resisting President Trump's efforts to build dangerous new nuclear weans and withdraw from critical nuclear agreements. Environmentalists are playing offense, while the nuclear community is playing defense.
Most progressives would argue that the answer is global zero -- a nuclear-free world. However, that is a long-term solution. Just as the Green New Deal does not immediately see a fossil-fuel-free world, a progressive nuclear policy cannot immediately see a nuclear-free one.
This does not mean, however, that progressives should be satisfied with occasional and incremental nuclear policy tweaks. By applying core principles of the Green New Deal -- international cooperation, reductions, transparency, and justice -- to nuclear weapons, progressives can begin to craft a plan that seeks to ambitiously and coherently restructure U.S. nuclear policy.
The Green New Deal aims to make the United States "the international leader on climate change." In similar fashion, a progressive nuclear policy should seek to place the United States at the forefront of global disarmament efforts -- acting as an international leader in nuclear transparency, diplomacy, and reductions.
President Trump has foolishly undone earlier diplomatic successes by killing off successful arms control treaties --including the Iran nuclear deal and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which banned an entire missile class -- and threatening to terminate President Barack Obama's New START, the treaty that caps U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear arsenals. Nevertheless, a progressive nuclear policy should begin by emulating and expanding upon specific policies from not only the Obama era, but also from the Trump administration.
In a similar vein, the United States should immediately end its bellicose rhetoric toward Iran and attempt to pick up the shattered pieces of the Iran nuclear deal. These efforts might require targeted sanctions relief ad economic inducements to convince participating countries to return to the table in good faith.
With regard to other nuclear powers -- particularly Russia and China -- the Trump administration has embraced great-power competition and gung-ho militarist policies that will drag the world deeper into a renewed arms race. Instead, the United States should engage with Russia to reconstruct the INF Treaty, with both countries returning to compliance; immediately extend -- and try to expand -- New START; pursue arrangements to reduce military tension; draw up a long-term plan to include China and other nuclear-armed states in the arms-control process; and finally ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The Green New Deal suggests that U.S. technological expertise can be leveraged to help other countries achieve Green New Deals of their own.This can be mirrored in the nuclear policy space. Just as the United States could become the leading exporter of renewable energy technology, it could also emulate the "just transition" envisioned in the Green New Deal,which seeks to smoothly reorient workers toward low-carbon jobs; in the nuclear context, such a transition could result in weapons manufacturers using their expertise for disarmament --placing an emphasis on warhead dismantlement and verification, rather than on production.
Reductions. Committing to ambitious climate change goals (net-zero carbon emissions by 2050) is a critical component of the Green New Deal,and one that should also be translated to the nuclear space. For both threats, progressives must take steps to physically reduce the causes and enablers of the crisis at hand -- for climate change,it's carbon emissions for nuclear weapons, it's the weapons themselves. Over the next decade, the United States will spend nearly $100,000 per minute on its nuclear forces -- that's a tremendous amount of money that could otherwise be spent on priorities like infrastructure, health care, education, and fighting climate change.
First on the chopping block should be Trump's new nukes: a planned nuclear sea-lunched cruise missile akin to the one retired by the Obama administration for its lack of military utility and a "low-yield" warhead (the name obscures the fact that it's still one-third the size of the Hiroshima bomb that killed more than 100,000 people). These "flexible" weapons could make a nuclear strike even more tempting for military planners, making future crises all the more dangerous.
The current plan to replace nearly every weapon in the U.S. nuclear arsenal was actually enshrined under the Obama administration. As experts from Global Zero have argued, the majority of these replacements are unnecessary and could be phased out under a new nuclear posture favoring minimum deterrence over war fighting.Under this new posture -- and ideally alongside reductions by other nuclear-armed states -- the United States should dramatically reduce its bomber and submarine forces,and completely scrap its intercontinental ballistic missiles,which are irrelevant in a post-Cold-War era and are largely maintained to appease missile manufacturers and members of Congress where the missiles are based. Additionally, the United States should vow never to use nuclear weapons first -- a position supported by the majority of Democrats.
The United States should also be prepared to make concessions regarding its ballistic missile defenses, which -- despite being rudimentary at best and useless at worst-- are key drivers of the arms race. This is because other countries, particularly Russia and China, fear that expanded U.S. defenses might one day render their nuclear arsenals useless.
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