nuclear-news

 Those who reject the first are derided as denialists; those dismissive of the second are praised as realists. Although action is needed now in order to keep the world on this side of the tipping point, a climate change-induced apocalypse will not occur until decades into the future.

A nuclear catastrophe could destroy us at any time, although, if our luck holds out, it could be delayed for another six decades. The uncomfortable reality is that nuclear peace has been upheld, owing as much to good luck as to sound stewardship.

Because we have learned to live with nuclear weapons for 66 years, we have become desensitized to the gravity and immediacy of the threat. The tyranny of complacency could yet exact a fearful price if we sleepwalk our way into a nuclear Armageddon. The time to lift the specter of a mushroom cloud from the international body politic is long overdue.

Nuclear weapons are strategic equalizers for weaker sides in conflict relationships, but they do not buy defense on the cheap. They can lead to the creation of a national security state with a premium on governmental secretiveness, reduced public accountability, and increased distance between citizens and governments. There is the added risk of proliferation to extremist elements through leakage, theft, state collapse and state capture.

In terms of opportunity costs, heavy military expenditure amounts to stealing from the poor. Nuclear weapons do not help to combat today’s real threats of insurgency, terrorism, poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and corruption.

As they said in the streets of Delhi in 1998: “No food, no clothing, no shelter? No worry, we have the bomb.”….

The disquieting trend of a widening circle of NPT-licit and extra-NPT nuclear weapons powers has a self-generating effect in drawing other countries into the game of nuclear brinkmanship. Adding to the five sets of concerns is the sorry state of global governance mechanisms for nuclear arms control. The Conference on Disarmament cannot even agree on an agenda.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has not yet entered into force and a fissile material cutoff treaty is no nearer conclusion…..

Tellingly, not one country that had an atomic bomb in 1968 when the NPT was signed has given it up. Judging by their actions rather than the rhetoric, all are determined to remain nuclear-armed. They are either modernizing nuclear forces and refining nuclear doctrines, or preparing to do so. For example, even after implementing START II, the U.S. will retain a cache of reserve warheads as a strategic hedge available for rapid uploading, should the need arise, and will build three new factories for increased nuclear warhead production capacity.

To would-be proliferators, the lesson is clear: Nuclear weapons are indispensable in today’s world and for dealing with tomorrow’s threats……

Japan is the emotional touchstone in the discourse as the world’s only victim of the bomb. The U.S. has a special responsibility to lead the way to nuclear abolition as the only country to have used atomic bombs and as the world’s biggest military power. The A-bomb was developed during World War II by a group of scientists brought together for the Manhattan Project under the directorship of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Witnessing the first successful atomic test on July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer recalled the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One.”

Birth and death are symbiotically linked in the cycle of life. Oppenheimer also recalled the matching verse from the Gita: “Now I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds.”…..

The most powerful stimulus to nuclear proliferation by others is the continuing possession of the bomb by some. Nuclear weapons could not proliferate if they did not exist; because they do, they will. The threat to use nuclear weapons, to deter their use by others and to prevent proliferation, legitimizes their possession, deployment and use. That which is legitimate cannot be stopped from proliferating.

Critics of the zero option want to keep their atomic bombs but deny them to others. They lack the intellectual honesty and the courage to acknowledge that the price of keeping nuclear arsenals is uncontrolled proliferation and to argue why a world of uncontrolled proliferation is better than abolition for national and international security.

The focus on nonproliferation to the neglect of disarmament ensures that we get neither. The best and only guarantee of nonproliferation is disarmament. If we want nonproliferation, therefore, we must prepare for disarmament.

Within our lifetime, we will either achieve nuclear abolition or have to live with nuclear proliferation and die with the use of nuclear weapons.

It is better to have the soft glow of satisfaction from the noble goal of achieving the banishment of nuclear weapons, than the harsh glare on the morning after these weapons have been used.  http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/eo20120131rt.html