Taking Stock

As we start a new year with a new president in the United States, I thought it might be appropriate to offer a broad overview of our situation with respect to nuclear weapons. The primary purpose of this article is to explain why so many anti-nuclear activists believe the UN Decade of Disarmament (2010-2020) will be the Decisive Decade.

First, some basic history. Forty years ago, after nuclear weapons had proliferated from the US to the Soviet Union, England, France, and China, the nuclear-weapon states felt it would be in their interest to stop this proliferation. They proposed and obtained nearly universal agreement on a treaty that came to be known as the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons). This treaty was signed in 1968 and went into effect in 1970. Only India, Pakistan and Israel have never signed. North Korea was long a member but withdrew in 2005 to become a nuclear-armed nation in 2006.

This treaty was a bargain. The non-nuclear-weapon states said, “OK, we agree not to develop or possess nuclear weapons. In return, you have to help us with peaceful uses of the atom, namely, electricity and medical applications. In addition, you have to agree to negotiate in good faith to eliminate your nuclear arsenals. You have to be working toward a nuclear-weapon-free world.”

The nuclear-weapon states said, “Sure, whatever.” Article VI of the treaty does, indeed, stipulate an obligation to eliminate nuclear weapons, but 1970 was near the height of the Cold War. The nuclear-weapon states were building warheads and missiles as fast as they could, and no one really expected anyone to pay attention to Article VI.

Then, the Cold War ended. Sighs of relief could be heard around the world, even in Hiroshima. Now, finally, the human family was poised to graduate to a peace culture and slough off nuclear weapons. When the NPT was reviewed in 1995, the voices calling for disarmament were stronger than ever. As a result, we almost lost the treaty, but in the end, it was extended indefinitely with a commitment to a review by all parties every five years.

At the first subsequent review in 2000, the non-nuclear-weapon states said, more forcefully than ever before, “OK, the Cold War has been over for ten years. It’s time to get rid of nuclear weapons.”

The nuclear-weapon states responded to this pressure by promising, more explicitly than ever before, “an unequivocal undertaking…to eliminate [our] nuclear arsenals.” Of course, they didn’t say by when, but they did strongly reiterate their original promise of a nuclear-weapon-free world.

Then we got the Bush administration and 9/11 and John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN. At the 2005 Review Conference, Mr. Bolton took a hard line. He claimed that 9/11 had changed the world. Therefore, all previous promises were off the table. The US was not interested in discussing the promise of 1968 or 2000 or disarmament at all. His only concern was to prevent proliferation. In other words, he was saying, “It’s such a dangerous time, we obviously need to keep our nuclear weapons. The only issue is how to keep you from getting them.”

This did not sit well with certain non-nuclear-weapon states. They said, “Hey, that’s not the bargain we signed. Proliferation and disarmament are a single package. Each depends on the other.” As a result of this conflict, the 2005 Review Conference was a failure. It didn’t even produce a final document.

The next review will be in May 2010. If that review fails in the manner of 2005, we might lose the treaty or at least see a number of defections. In fact, after Prime Minister Olmert of Israel accidentally named Israel in a list of nuclear-weapon states, the Arab League loudly and publicly declared that if Israel ever admits to having nuclear weapons, they will immediately drop out of the NPT and have their own nuclear weapons.

Much of the world is chaffing under what they consider to be an unfair two-tier system of first-class and second-class nations. The five official nuclear-weapon states are the only permanent members of the Security Council and have the power to veto anything the UN tries to do. This system apparently made sense during the Cold War, but now many countries are in one way or another saying, “OK, the time has come. Either you nuclear-weapon states get rid of your nuclear weapons or we will have our own.” According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 40 countries have recently submitted notice of new “peaceful” nuclear programs; 44 countries could, if they tried, have nuclear weapons in a matter of months or a few years.

The above history partially explains why the anti-nuclear NGO community sees the 2010 Review Conference as so decisive. At that conference, will a cooperative family of nations decide to lay down its ecocidal weapons? Or will a few arrogant nuclear-weapon states cling to their obscenely dangerous status symbols, then watch in helpless rage as the nuclear club spreads around the planet?

But the problem is deeper than this. As a species, we are entering a time of hyper-competition and extreme instability. The Soviet Empire collapsed 20 years ago, and the US attempt to become the lone boss of the world is ending in failure. The US Empire is collapsing. To add to the instability, the white people’s empire is ending. White people have pretty much had things their own way for at least a thousand years. Now, the centers of power are slowly but surely shifting away from the US and Europe to China and Asia. In the past, times like these have been marked by extended, extensive violence. When the British Empire and overt, physical colonization collapsed, we experienced World Wars I and II.

But the changes we face today are deeper than that. The era of cheap oil is ending. The price has fallen from the high a few months ago, but this is temporary and mostly a result of global economic contraction. Fundamentally, oil production is peaking, and demand is soaring. China, India, all of Asia, and much of Latin America are developing enormous appetites. Competition and price can only increase. And it’s not just oil. The supply of precious metals we need for computers and hybrid cars is quite limited. Who will get them? Africans are already dying by the thousands as a direct result of this competition.

But the problem is even deeper than competition. We human beings cannot keep living like this. Our economic system has produced extreme economic inequality and suffering. The Earth’s population is clearly divided into those who benefit from the system and those who suffer from it. Those who suffer are increasingly aware of and angry about the injustices involved and, as has happened thousands of times in human history, when the poor get numerous and angry enough, they will rise up and violently change their leadership. We are already seeing food riots and price riots, even in Iceland. Unless President Obama can actually offer the poor at home and abroad the help he has promised, much larger and more destructive riots are not far down the road.

Meanwhile, our profit-driven industrial growth society is destroying our eco-system. Our oceans are becoming acidic and dying. Our rainforests, the lungs of the Earth, are being cut down faster than ever. The percent of oxygen in the air we breathe is plummeting. The globe is warming, ice is melting, waters are rising. Even if we manage to control our toxic and radioactive weapons, we will make this planet unlivable simply by continuing to do what we are doing. We are being forced to consciously change our lifestyles more rapidly, radically and globally than we have ever even contemplated before.

That we are entering a time of unprecedented turmoil and change is beyond doubt. The question is, will we manage our transitions in a civilized and peaceful manner, through dialogue, negotiations, treaties, and international law? Or will we descend into worldwide violence and a dark, desperate, selfish and barbaric struggle for land, oil, water, and physical survival?

The answer to this question depends heavily on the answer to the previous question about nuclear weapons. If the international community cannot agree even to eliminate these completely unnecessary, ridiculously expensive, clearly visible and obviously horrifying threats to our existence, how can we possibly address the many far more subtle and difficult cooperative tasks that confront us? Thus, if the 2010 NPT Review Conference is a failure, we can start counting down the last few decades of civilized human presence on Earth.

On the other hand, if the international community can set aside its rivalry and mutual hatred enough to make a serious, convincing commitment to a nuclear-weapon-free world, we, as a species, will have said, “Yes, we will cooperate for our mutual survival.” If we say this in response to the nuclear threat, we open the door to further cooperation, perhaps even the level of cooperation required to preserve a livable environment.

Nuclear weapons are not the most important problem we face. The plunging levels of ocean pH and atmospheric oxygen are far more important, but nuclear weapons are the problem now boiling over on the front burner. They represent a prerequisite test we must pass to obtain even a chance at graduating from the dead-end war culture to a sustainable culture of peace and justice.

In 2008, Hiroshima’s Mayor Akiba begged the nations assembled at the NPT prepcom in Geneva to deal quickly with nuclear weapons and, thereby, give the human family the time we need to solve our other problems. At that conference, he also introduced the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol, a simple commitment to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world by 2020. Today, this Protocol is our best hope for turning us in the right direction and should be a litmus test for leadership. Any national leader who fails to support the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Protocol should be hounded mercilessly and removed from office at the first opportunity.

We have no time for a “long, long road to abolition.” We are not fooled by talk of gradual reductions and have no patience for talk of deterrence. Anyone who thinks nuclear weapons are deterring anything is still fighting the Cold War. Anyone who contemplates even a retaliatory strike with nuclear weapons is woefully ignorant, stupid or criminally insane.

We are all crewmembers on Spaceship Earth. Unless we abandon our childish rages and obsolete competition for dominance, we will make our spaceship unlivable. Only by rejecting war and violence altogether, starting with nuclear violence, can we offer a safe, comfortable, sustainable, enjoyable ride to our children and their children and generations to come. We need nuclear abolition now! Please do whatever you can.