Russia eager to salvage nuclear weapons treaty, once Biden is USA president
 For Russia, nuclear arms curbs with Biden are a ‘no brainer’ https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2021/01/15/for-russia-nuclear-arms-curbs-with-biden-are-a-no-brainer-.html Jonathan Brown Agence France-Presse Moscow / Fri, January 15, 2021 Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a video conference call with Mikhail Degtyarev, an LDPR party lawmaker, in Kerch, Crimea, on July 20, 2020. (Sputnik/AFP/Alexey Druzhinin )
When US President-elect Joe Biden enters the White House next week his administration will be in a race against time to salvage a landmark nuclear arms accord with Russia. The New START treaty, which expires just 16 days after Biden’s inauguration, is the last major arms reduction pact between old foes whose bulging nuclear stockpiles dominated fears for global security during the Cold War.
But the fast-approaching deadline to find compromise comes as tensions between Moscow and Washington are at fever pitch over recent hacking allegations, and after Biden vowed to take a firm stand against Russia. The stakes of reaching an agreement are high, says Elena Chernenko, a foreign editor at Russia’s Kommersant newspaper who has closely followed negotiations. “The treaty limits the chances of one side miscalculating the intentions or plans of the other, which we saw happen several times leading to very dangerous moments during the Cold War,” she told AFP.
Any agreement is also likely to define spending priorities for both governments, said Russian political columnist Vladimir Frolov. Extending New START could determine both in Moscow and Washington whether “more money than necessary would have to be spent on nuclear toys as opposed to health care,” he told AFP.
New START was signed in 2010 between then-US president Barack Obama and former Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev, curbing warheads to 1,550 each and restricting numbers of launchers and bombers.
Biden will be eager to score a big diplomatic win early in his term, but he is also under pressure to tread a fine line and make good on a campaign promise to be tough on Russia. Lawmakers in the US demanded punishment for Russia last year after concluding that Kremlin-backed hackers were behind a sweeping cyber intrusion into government institutions.
That standoff is just the latest in a litany of disagreements over conflicts in Ukraine and Syria and allegations of Russian election meddling. Still, rhetoric from Moscow and Washington as the New START expiration deadline approaches has raised hopes that arms control could offer a rare area of compromise. Biden’s incoming national security advisory Jake Sullivan said this month that the president-elect had tasked officials with looking at extending New START “right out of the gates”.
In Moscow, Putin recently proposed a one-year extension without preconditions and tasked Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with getting a “coherent” US response to the offer. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a champion of Soviet-era arms accords with the United States, said this week he expects Biden to prolong the accord and urged both sides “to negotiate further reductions”.
“Russia is on record at the highest level that it wants to extend the treaty for five years without any preconditions,” said Frolov, the columnist. Moscow is in favor of an extension, he said, because it would allow Russia to modernize its own nuclear forces at an affordable and measured pace, without rushing into an arms race. Frolov added that Russia was unlikely to sabotage negotiations just to make Biden appear weak at the onset of his tenure, saying the Kremlin “does not care about Biden’s wins”.
For Putin, extending New START is “a no brainer,” Frolov said. Negotiations under US President Donald Trump stumbled over an American demand that China become party to the agreement – Beijing having shown no interest in joining. That demand was highlighted in an embarrassing episode last June, when a US negotiator at arms control talks in Vienna tweeted a picture of China’s flag next to empty chair. “China is a no-show,” US Special Presidential Envoy for Arms Control Marshall Billingslea wrote, even though Beijing was never expected to attend.
With the dawn of the Biden era, that tone of negotiation has likely come to an end, analysts believe. “There are now adults in the room in the United States, so even with these areas of confrontation, maybe this is the one avenue where Moscow and Washington will be able to compromise to make the world a little bit safer,” Chernenko said.
While both Washington and Moscow have signaled a positive outcome for Feb. 5 – the New START expiration date – what comes next is a different question. “That’s the moment when Russia will come to the table with a big portfolio of grievances and demands,” Chernenko cautioned.
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Global nuclear policy is stuck in colonialist thinking. The ban treaty offers a way out.
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Global nuclear policy is stuck in colonialist thinking. The ban treaty offers a way out.
 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists By Molly Hurley | January 15, 2021 The world recently reached a significant milestone on international nuclear weapons policy: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons—commonly called the nuclear ban treaty—hit 50 ratifications, triggering its entry in force on January 22, 2021. None of the 50 ratifications comes from a country with an actual nuclear arsenal. Nevertheless, as the name suggests, the ban treaty prohibits states party to it from developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, otherwise acquiring, possessing, or stockpiling nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. The treaty is a step in the right direction for those in the disarmament camp, but it is much more than that. While the current system regulating nuclear weapons is unstable, dangerous, and unfair to much of the world because it grew out of a colonial system, the ban treaty can help the world move in a less dangerous, post-colonial direction.
A post-colonial perspective on national security begins by overturning a number of currently held assumptions within the mainstream nuclear policy regime—one that is solely dedicated to nonproliferation and deterrence and lacks a genuine commitment to eventual disarmament. These assumptions are that exporting a Western values system, especially through military intervention, builds democracy and brings “civility” to Global South countries; that “might makes right,” and one country can impose its arms control demands on the rest of the world; that the West rightfully serves as the primary guardian and custodian of arms control and disarmament; and that nuclear weapons make the world safer, but only when certain countries possess them. One of the principal benefits of the ban treaty is that it can help subvert these assumptions, opening a pathway toward a new, post-colonial conception of security. “Civilizing” the Global South. The current system implicitly gives the United States the right to determine the validity of Global South countries’ form of government. For example, when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the George W. Bush administration posited that the necessity of this action stemmed not only from a concern for Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons development, but also a concern for overthrowing Saddam Hussein and bringing democracy to the country. Intelligence on the accusation of a nuclear weapons program was revealed to be murky at best and a complete lie at worst. As for the democracy pursuit, deeper analysis shows this to also be a cover. In reality, a primary motivator for the US invasion of Iraq was to demonstrate superiority as a world power. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in 2001 that taking down Saddam would “enhance US credibility and influence through the region” and “demonstrate what US policy is all about.” The sentiment grew particularly strong after 9/11, an event that President Bush felt was a humiliation on the part of US power and security. Although the claim for this underlying motivation is contested by some, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith admitted in 2006 that “the rationale for the war didn’t hinge on the details of this intelligence, even though the details of the intelligence at times became elements of the public presentation.” The misleading of the public aside, the very premise of the United States holding a responsibility to lead in the development of spreading “democracy” around the world is inherently racist……….. Bringing it back to the ban treaty, the treaty shows that Global South does not need “civilizing,” since it was Global South countries that led the way in its negotiation and adoption. If anything, it’s the opposite: Article 12 of the treaty obligates state parties encourage other countries to join on, with the goal of universal adherence. So leaders like Nigeria, Mexico, and Bangladesh will now be working diplomatically to “civilize” the nuclear powers. Might makes right. The second assumption of the current nuclear policy regime is that military aggression or interference is a critical centerpiece in bringing about peace and stability. Just look at deterrence theory at its essence. Nuclear-armed countries have built the foundations of their security policies around nuclear arsenals and the principle of deterrence. Mutual assured destruction dominated the Cold War understanding of nuclear weapons and still underpins the concept of deterrence today. It’s a game of Russian roulette, but with all guns loaded and fingers on the trigger. Deterrence is built on the idea that with enough nuclear weapons no one will dare attack. Yet this belief is deeply flawed because it ignores the potential for misperception, accidents, and leaders who follow different decision-making calculuses. Deterrence theory is also a belief in the right of the five officially recognized nuclear weapon states under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (China, France, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom) to have the power to threaten nuclear annihilation to force “peace” on the rest of the world. How is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons different? Simply look at the course of the ban treaty from its early stages of development, to its adoption in 2017, and up to today. The ban treaty came about from the Humanitarian Initiative, a series of discussions held by non-nuclear weapons states about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear possession and nuclear war. Participants also included members of civil society. All nuclear weapons states, most NATO members, and many military allies of nuclear weapon states boycotted the negotiations, which were chaired by Costa Rican Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gomez. Even in the lead up the treaty’s creation and adoption, the severe humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons and their possible use was the focus, rather than their strategic capabilities as tools of war, and the discussions were led not by the UN Security Council but by those historically overlooked or ignored in nuclear policy discussions. Currently, 50 countries have ratified (and 86 countries have signed) the treaty. Its entry into force in this month will signal a large shift in the international dialogue on the path to disarmament, giving a voice to the countries who have become party to the treaty and who would otherwise have been given small, if any, roles to play in the global affairs of nuclear policy. The custodians of arms control. Following this, should the United States and other recognized nuclear weapons states just by virtue of possessing nuclear weapons get to be the sole decision makers in international nuclear policy and disarmament and nonproliferation efforts?…….. Movement toward dedicated, deliberative diplomacy, negotiation, and multilateralism not only runs counter to the current assumption of “might equals right” and US primacy but also leads to the creation of more nuanced, culturally-appropriate, and indigenous decision-making processes, in line with a post-colonial approach to national and international security. A return to multilateralism is a return to confidence-building and international cooperation toward a safer world. Instead of the few nuclear “haves” dictating nonproliferation and disarmament policy to the rest of the world as they tried to do in their boycott of the meetings leading up the treaty’s adoption, the rest of the world can be the arbiters of our nuclear future. Adoption of the treaty by each country is an independent decision under each country’s sovereignty and right to freedom from nuclear threat and devastation. The treaty de-centers the historically Eurocentric idea of security by instead focusing on the development and defense of the “weak,” and not of Western great powers………….. If Western policy makers can acknowledge the destabilizing effects of nuclear weapons possession by the East, then surely they can realize the destabilizing effects of their own arsenals. The ban treaty does this. It doesn’t call out just the Eastern countries for the role they play in nuclear hegemony and the oppression the world’s population faces, but all nuclear powers, both recognized and unrecognized. A step in a post-colonial direction. Given this fallacy in the safety of nuclear weapons possession, whose security do these weapons actually prioritize? Whatever the answer, they certainly do not prioritize global security. A post-colonial security, by contrast, would do just that. It would focus on the humanitarian consequences of such policies and be sensitive to the multiplicity of different cultural conceptualizations of “humanity” and “security.” It would protect all humans, natures, and cultures from destruction………https://thebulletin.org/2021/01/global-nuclear-policy-is-stuck-in-colonialist-thinking-the-ban-treaty-offers-a-way-out/ |
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How will Entry Into Force of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty impact non weapons states parties, including Australia?
 How will EIF impact non states parties, including Australia? https://icanw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Australia-EIF-of-the-TPNW.pdf16 Jan 21, While non states parties are not legally bound to the terms of the treaty, the norms set out and strengthened by the treaty can shape their behaviour and build pressure for them to join. The entry into force of the treaty puts Australia out of step with international law. While Australia has joined every other treaty that prohibits indiscriminate or inhumane weapons, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, it has not yet signed or ratified the ban on nuclear weapons. This position is contested by a growing nationwide movement and at all levels of government. The treaty reveals Australia’s complicity in the problem by including nuclear weapons in its defence posture.
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As a country with a devastating history of nuclear testing, Australia will be obliged to take action as a state party to assist survivors of nuclear testing and take steps towards remediating contaminated environments. These obligations should be informed by and developed in collaboration with impacted First Nations people, nuclear test veterans, civil society, public health and other experts.
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Entry into force of previous ban treaties has led to a substantial decrease in the production and deployment of prohibited weapons such as cluster munitions and landmines, both by states parties and non states parties. EIF will also impact the flow of funds to nuclear arms producing companies. Financial institutions often choose not to invest in “controversial weapons,” which are typically weapons prohibited by international law. The entry into force of the TPNW clearly puts nuclear weapons in this category and will likely trigger additional divestment, including by Australian banks and superannuation funds.
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EIF of the treaty will further stigmatise nuclear weapons, including in Australia, by: Prompting further debate: more than 250 federal, state and territory parliamentarians have declared their support for the treaty and the federal Opposition, the Australian Labor Party, has committed to sign and ratify the treaty in government. Decision-makers will continue to be asked to engage with this new piece of international law.
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Institutionalisation: entry into force will entrench the treaty’s place in the international legal architecture for nuclear weapons. It is already referenced in international fora as signatories and states parties proudly declare their commitment to nuclear disarmament.
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Impacting alliances: all states parties in alliances with nuclear-armed states will be required to renounce the use of nuclear weapons on their behalf, and ensure they are not assisting with the use or threat of use of the weapons. Once a state party, Australia will need to cease any policy that countenances and supports the use of nuclear weapons. Other US allies, including New Zealand and Thailand, have already joined the treaty.
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It will take years to build the necessary political will for some states to join the nuclear weapon ban treaty. Shifting nuclear weapons from a symbol of status to a liability of shame is slow, yet crucial, work. As the signatures and ratifications of the treaty continue beyond entry into force, non states parties will face increasing criticism from their citizens, international organisations and other states. Almost all of Australia’s neighbours in the Pacific and Southeast Asia support the treaty. It is only a matter of time before Australia joins the treaty and thereby becomes part of the solution to these abhorrent weapons.
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A clean return to the Iran nuclear deal should be Biden’s first option
A clean return to the Iran nuclear deal should be Biden’s first option Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist By Eric Brewer | January 11, 2021 Of all the international agreements President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to rejoin upon taking office, perhaps none is more controversial than the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Although the deal was containing Iran’s program until Trump withdrew in mid-2018—a move that led Iran to ramp up its nuclear activities—some are now arguing that returning to the deal isn’t a good idea or is too difficult given developments over the last four years.
This is unfortunate. Returning to the deal is not only viable but also presents the best chance of preventing an Iranian bomb. It is the best path toward building on the agreement and addressing some of the shortfalls that critics deride. Moreover, with a bit of planning, the Biden team could address several key concerns about the US return.
Arguments against rejoining the deal: Sorting the good from the bad. Some of the arguments and policy prescriptions offered by skeptics of returning to the deal are not realistic and should be dismissed. For example, some favor increasing pressure on Iran until that country’s leaders make more concessions on nuclear and non-nuclear activities. But no amount of pressure alone will cause Iran to abandon its ballistic missile program entirely or cease its support to terrorist groups, militias, and other malign non-state actors. Those policies are central to Iran’s concepts of national security and defense and ending them would require dramatic changes to the region and Iran’s threat perceptions, at a minimum.
The past four years has demonstrated that extreme pressure and unrealistic demands only cause Iran to increase its nuclear program and regional aggression.
But other critiques of returning to the deal have some merit and deserve consideration. A well-planned attempt at a “clean return”—in which the United States and Iran follow a series of agreed steps that bring them back into compliance to the deal’s original terms—would address many of them.
These objections can be broken down into three categories—strategy, process, and politics.
Objections to strategy. Some argue that it makes little sense to rejoin the deal because restrictions on Iran have already expired or would expire in the next few years, and that giving Iran significant sanctions relief would yield important leverage that could help secure a follow-on deal.
In fact, rejoining the agreement would put the United States in a stronger position to address both of these concerns. By returning, Washington would immediately cease to be the problematic actor—global attention would shift back toward Iran. This would make it easier for the United States to work with the international community to limit the fallout from the expired conventional arms embargo and to plan for the lifting of restrictions on Iran’s missile program, slated to occur in October 2023. A Biden team would then have the remainder of its first term to make progress toward a new deal (or deals) that addresses Iran’s nuclear and non-nuclear activities—long before the most important sunsets kick in. (The limits on enrichment levels and Iran’s stockpile of uranium, which are key to maintaining longer breakout timelines, don’t expire until 2031 and many of the monitoring provisions last even longer).
The United States still has ample incentives it can offer Iran in negotiations for a follow-on deal. These range from further assistance for Iran’s civil nuclear program, to relaxing the US trade embargo, to taking steps to help Iran actually reap the economic benefits of sanctions relief. (Recall that Iranian officials were quite dissatisfied that the removal of sanctions under the deal did not translate into the economic gains they expected or advertised.) And if and when talks expand to include missile and other regional issues, this will likely involve other players in the region that can put additional incentives on the table .
Concerns about process. Another set of concerns focuses on the process of returning to the agreement. Skeptics claim there simply just isn’t enough time. Biden will be inaugurated January 20, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will be out of office less than six months later, likely replaced by a more hardline successor. Potentially further complicating a swift return by both sides, Iran has hinted that it may insist on US compensation for its withdrawal from the deal; and it will expect Washington to remove sanctions first before dialing back its program.
True, the United States and Iran would have to act quickly to agree on the process by which both come back into compliance, but there are reasons to believe it might work. Both sides want to get it done. Iranian officials have been fairly consistent that they would be willing to return to compliance if the United States does the same………… https://thebulletin.org/2021/01/a-clean-return-to-the-iran-nuclear-deal-should-be-bidens-first-option/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MondayNewsletter01112021&utm_content=NuclearRisk_IranReturn_01112021
Donald Trump the Worst President in the History of the United States
Anna Thurlow, 9 Jan 21, Donald Trump Has Been the Worst President in the History of the United StatesBy Eve ottenburg and Karl Grossman
“For those who concluded from the Covid-19 debacle that Trump simply wasn’t up to the job, it looks unlikely, to say the least, that his China legacy will be anything other than catastrophic. U.S. and Chinese economies are intertwined and, as we’ve already seen, decoupling hurts lots of Americans, starting with farmers. Trump’s executive order on December 28, prohibiting investments in firms reportedly controlled by the Chinese military does little besides ratchet up tensions. Hostilities between the two navies in the South China Sea could explode into regional war at any time. And how that war would be prevented from becoming nuclear is a very well-kept secret. But the geniuses in the Pentagon aren’t concerned. They believe in their new generation of small, “smart” nuclear weapons and “winnable” nuclear wars, as does Trump, the president who arguably has done more to promote nuclear war than perhaps any predecessor since mankind first split the atom.
Donald Trump has been the worst president in the history of the United States.”
Eve ottenburg
The attack by his supporters on the Capitol was a capstone of his presidency — lawless, an attack on democracy, a U.S. counterpart of the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s.
It was a horror representative of his tenure.
Thank heavens and thanks to successful and hard political work, he will in days be out of office. And there must be criminal prosecutions on the state and local levels as well the federal level, which he’ll likely try to wrangle out of with a pardon.
There must be consequences to his horrendous term in office.
“An American Tragedy” was the title of a piece by David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, right after Election Day 2016. “The election of Donald Trump,” Remnick wrote, “is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism.” There would be “miseries to come”– and there have been.
Remnick warned against an “attempt to normalize” the election of Trump. “Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader”, “a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right…a flim-flam man” with “disdain for democratic norms.”
The attack on the Capitol by the Trumpsters was an attempt at a coup to undo a presidential election in which a record number of voters came out to dump Trump and elect Joe Biden.
It was an act of insurrection incited by Trump.
As he tweeted to followers on December 20th — “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
Yes, and indeed it was wild.
And then, in a speech in front of The White House on Wednesday, addressing his backers who had arrived, said: “We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue…and we’re going to the Capitol.” He added: “You have to be strong.”
His call was preceded by his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, proclaiming “let’s have trial by combat.”
Giuliani, who took an oath to be an attorney and adhere to rule of law, represented Trump in many courts in challenges to his election defeat with claims that judges found totally untrue–but Giuliani opted instead, in violation of that oath, for “trial by combat.”
Remnick warned about an “attempt to normalize” Trump, but so much of media have engaged in “both sides-ing” the situation, as Julie Hollar of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has written.
When a person tells an out-and-out lie, there is no journalistic obligation to “balance” a story with a falsehood
And Trump, The Washington Post report has recorded, has uttered more than 20,000 falsehoods in his term in office.
And then there have been the Trump disinformation machines led by Fox -about which Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels would smile.
But this is far more than a media problem.
Trump tapped into a vein of racism and other poisons in the United States.
He soon will be out of The White House but Trumpism, so horribly, will still be here.
“You have to summon an act of will, a certain energy and imagination, to replace truth with the authority of a con man like Trump,” George Packer wrote in the current issue of The Atlantic.
Trump’s “barrage of falsehoods — as many as 50 daily in the last fevered months of the 2020 campaign — complemented his unconcealed brutality,” writes Packer.
“Two events in Trump’s last year in office broke the spell of his sinister perversion of the truth,” he says: COVID-19 and a free election.
“The beginning of the end of Trump’s presidency arrived on March 11, 2020, when he addressed the nation for the first time on the subject of the pandemic and showed himself to be completely out of his depth. The virus was a fact that Trump couldn’t lie into oblivion or forge into a political weapon — it was too personal and frightening, too real. As hundreds of Americans died and the administration flailed between fantasy, partisan incitement, and criminal negligence, a crucial number of Americans realized that Trump’s lies could get someone they love killed,” says Packer.
He continues: “The second event came on November 3”– the election.
And that is what Trump and his followers who attacked the Capitol sought to undo. And, on the same day, Trump enablers in Congress were trying to undo it by having the votes of the Electoral College denied.
“The election didn’t end his lies — nothing will…But we learned that we still want democracy. This, too, is the legacy of Donald Trump,” Packer concluded.
Yes, most Americans still want democracy, but the history of authoritarian takeovers shows that a relatively small group of fanatics can beat the majority.
And we still are left with those toxic issues that Trump capitalized on.
Another component here is the enabling of Trump by all those Republicans.
Margaret Sullivan wrote a piece earlier this week in The Washington Post, headed “We must stop calling Trump’s enablers ‘conservative.’ They are the radical right.”
She wrote: “These days the true radicals are the enablers of President Trump’s ongoing attempted coup: the media bloviators on Fox News, One America and Newsmax who parrot his lies about election fraud; and the members of Congress who plan to object on Wednesday to what should be a pro forma step of approving the electoral college results, so that President-elect Joe Biden can take office peacefully on Jan. 20.
“But instead of being called what they are, these media and political figures get a mild label: conservative. Instead of calling out the truth, it normalizes; it softens the dangerous edges,” she continued. “It makes it seem, well, not so bad. Conservative, after all, describes politics devoted to free enterprise and traditional ideas. But that’s simply false. Sean Hannity is not conservative. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama are not conservative. Nor are the other 10 (at last count) Senators who plan to object” to the Electoral College vote.
She notes Tim Alberta wrote on Politico that “‘There is nothing conservative about subverting democracy.’ He suggests ‘far right’ as an alternative descriptor. Not bad. But I’d take it a step further, because it’s important to be precise. I’d call them members of the radical right.
“Members of the radical right won’t like this, of course. They soak in the word ‘conservative” like a warm bath.”
“On Jan. 20, we can still presume Trump will be gone from the White House,” she writes. “But his enablers and the movement that fostered him, and that he built up, will remain. That’s troubling. We should take one small but symbolic step toward repairing the damage by using the right words to describe it. It would be a start.”
Journalist Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame, says Trump “will be in our history books as a dark, dark stain unlike any president of the United States.” And he investigated Nixon.
Military strategy relying on nuclear weapons – a dangerous myth
 The myth of nuclear power, Financial Express By: fe Features | January 10, 2021 A cogent analysis of why just mere possession of nuclear weapons does not guarantee victory; sound strategy does,…….. ” In National Security and Conventional Arms Race: Spectre of a Nuclear War, Asthana argues that there is no way the Indian military can guarantee a “solution of the Pakistan problem or the China problem” by inflicting a decisive defeat on the nuclear-armed adversaries, frenzied race to import conventional weapons notwithstanding.
Consider these lines in the opening chapter: “We might blunder into a war almost unknowingly because since the past few years, people have collectively started consuming the heady mix of a cleverly manufactured hyper-nationalism and xenophobia. This means that both the people and the rulers have been playing into the hands of populist sentiments and exploit them in turn for electoral benefits… In popular perception, shared by political as well as military leaders, no significance is attached to the fact that both Pakistan and China are nuclear powers. It demonizes them with all the attributes of an evil human being, who will not behave unless they are spanked… Under a delusion that we have somehow, magically become invincible, a large number of Indians seem to be itching for a war.”
Asthana cautions that our weapon acquisition notwithstanding, our invincibility in a nuclear neighbourhood may be a myth. He points out that nobody has so far invented a miraculous weapon anywhere in the world that could ensure a quick, decisive victory in a conventional or nuclear war. Cautioning against the growing trend of politicians exploiting enmity with Pakistan for electoral benefits, he says this has left India with a one-dimensional policy, one which is unrealistic in view of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
India’s Achilles heel, he argues, is that there is no “national war-fighting strategy”………
“In any case, the moment Pakistan feels that it is going to lose a conventional war under the weight of a bigger Indian military, they will have to go nuclear immediately. This is not 1971 and a military defeat now will become an existential crisis for Pakistan as a nation, something they cannot afford at all. A decisive victory in a conventional war, short or long, in a nuclear overhang, is therefore a treacherous fallacy, spelling nothing but doom,” he says. To win any war, Indians, as a people, he asserts will have to be prepared for suffering the horrors and devastations of war. “Our strategic planning has not prepared the people for a nuclear war. Raw valour of troops is no substitute for sound strategy and the national will essential for sustaining great destruction,” he writes. ……..
Asthana concludes that Indian citizens and the political leadership must understand that accepting the nuclear reality is not synonymous with any sign of national impotence.
National Security and Conventional Arms Race: Spectre of a Nuclear War |
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Kim Jong Un signals plans to develop new nuclear weapons
Kim Jong Un signals plans to develop new nuclear weapons. North Korea raises tensions with incoming US administration of Joe Biden. Ft.com Edward White in Seoul JANUARY 9 2021 Kim Jong Un has signalled plans to develop new nuclear weapons and described the US as North Korea’s “biggest enemy”, moves that threaten to raise tensions with US president-elect Joe Biden. The North Korean leader’s comments, made at a rare gathering of top political officials in Pyongyang, marked the dictator’s strongest broadside against Washington since Mr Biden won the presidency in November’s election.
“Our external political activities going forward should be focused on suppressing and subduing the US, the basic obstacle, biggest enemy against our revolutionary development,” Mr Kim said, according to a translation by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. ………. https://www.ft.com/content/b4971c6e-8b89-43b5-93d2-9098d5f229ef
Iran will expel U.N. nuclear inspectors unless sanctions are lifted
Iran will expel U.N. nuclear inspectors unless sanctions are lifted: lawmaker
By Reuters Staff DUBAI (Reuters) 10 Jan 21, – Iran will expel United Nations nuclear watchdog inspectors unless U.S. sanctions are lifted by a Feb. 21 deadline set by the hardline-dominated parliament, a lawmaker said on Saturday.
Parliament passed a law in November that obliges the government to halt inspections of its nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency and step up uranium enrichment beyond the limit set under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal if sanctions are not eased.
Iran’s Guardian Council watchdog body approved the law on Dec. 2 and the government has said it will implement it….
Beatrice Fihn: How to implement the nuclear weapons ban treaty
Beatrice Fihn: How to implement the nuclear weapons ban treaty, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, By John Mecklin, December 7, 2020
………..Beatrice Fihn, ICAN’s executive director spoke with me at length about how the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons might be implemented once it was ratified by the requisite 50 countries, an event expected to happen, at the time we spoke, within a matter of months. In fact, it occurred just weeks later, and the treaty will enter into force in January 2021.
The treaty was not supported by any of the nine countries that possess nuclear weapons, including the United States. Many of those opposed to the ban treaty have contended it is an unrealistic and naïve effort that could actually undermine nuclear nonproliferation efforts. US officials have been especially critical.
Here, Fihn lays out a possible future in which the ban treaty delegitimizes nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapons countries are persuaded to decide that it is best to give up the most fearsome weapons ever created—in those countries’ own interests…….
we’re trying to sort of remind the people that this issue still exists. This is still dangerous. These weapons are still around, and we’re really hoping that the treaty, and the progression will be the starting point of moving away from these weapons. Creating a new norm, implementing the treaty—in many ways, it’s just building normative pressure, building financial pressure through divestments.
see a lot of people really, really evaluating things during this year. What is it that we prioritize? And what is security? How come 200,000 Americans are dying from a pandemic, and we are still investing $35 billion in nuclear weapons? The structures that people in power have built to protect us, such as the police force and nuclear weapons, actually harm people and kill people. Both through police violence, through nuclear testing, for example. So I see a lot of possibilities for the next term to really start questioning the decisions our governments have made on our behalf around these things. …..
I think we have to be realistic. Ideally, we would want governments to take very strong measures and threaten to boycott if this doesn’t work. But in reality, of course, it’s the big economic powers that have nuclear weapons. And many countries are very dependent on them, and it wouldn’t be realistic to think that a small country in Africa can boycott the nuclear weapon states in that way. But I definitely think that there are a lot of potentials for action. First of all, I think we need to reckon—I think particularly in the West, in Europe and maybe North America—how the power dynamics in the world are changing quite rapidly. And this idea that we in the West are the center of the power in the world might not hold for very long……..
I can also see an emergence of a new power structure. This treaty in many ways is that a lot of countries are basically banning the power tool of the [UN] Security Council. And I think that’s going to have some very significant impact. But in practical terms, what we’re hoping for is, of course, that this treaty stands next to the Chemical and Biological Weapons Convention, like the bans on all weapons of mass destruction. This completes the treaty or treaties, in a way. So that the political pressure and the reputational cost of countries that don’t join this treaty is increased. We’re looking to focus quite a lot on the divestment side, making sure that banks and pension funds are pulling their money out of producing companies. And we’ve seen that influence on landmines and cluster munitions; they have quite a concrete impact in reducing companies’ willingness to be involved in these practices…….
Every year we do this “Don’t Bank on the Bomb” report that shows that it’s growing, the number of banks that have policies against this. We’ve seen just this year, the Norwegian Oil Fund, for example, pulled out of nuclear weapons companies and referred to the TPNW as a reason. One of the super banks in Japan, Mitsubishi Bank Group, or whatever they’re called. They adopted a new policy. Deutsche Bank last year adopted a new policy with nuclear weapons after work with ICAN in Germany. The Deutsche Bank [policy] wasn’t flawless, there’s some holes still, but it’s a sign that they are reacting to this.
So we have two of the five biggest pension funds in the world, the Dutch Pension Fund as well, the public one. We’ve been working on the local cities initiative as well, trying to see if the whole trend on the climate change issue and other issues as well, that cities are taking sort of international action and seeing themselves as almost actors on an international stage. We have over 400 cities around the world now, including I think something like 30 cities with over a million people, that have joined this call to action and that are supporting the treaty and calling on their national governments to join. ……. New York City is supporting the TPNW. And it’s going to divest the city pension funds from nuclear weapons users.
……… this is an issue so solvable. I mean, it’s a lot easier to solve than climate change. It’s nine states. It’s not the whole world, it’s nine states that have them. …….. This is very old fashioned, wiping out a whole city and releasing radioactive fallout. It’s not the best strategy in any kind of warfare situation.
…….. this is all connected to power and holding power. A small group of actors are holding power and oppressing the larger majority. For people like me, for example, I’m Swedish. I live in Switzerland. Me and my family and my two countries will also die in nuclear war if there’s nuclear war. Yet, I don’t get a say. In that way, it’s much like climate change. What one country does, it’s not their own business.
…….. this is an issue that is connected to economic inequalities, sexism, racism, the disproportion in the way we use public funding and tax money in terms of protecting people—like taking the money from things that actually protect us, health care right now, education that will actually make people safer. Yet we divert it towards nuclear weapons and a hugely inflated military budget.
So I think that’s sort of what I would like to say to young people…………….
I think it’s really important to delegitimize nuclear weapons and devalue them. We’ve almost created this mythical perspective on these weapons, that they somehow are safeguarding the world and that they somehow have all these magical attributes, which isn’t true. It’s just a really giant radioactive bomb. It’s not magic, it’s not special. And it costs a lot of money and it’s very dangerous to the countries that have them, and it makes you a target of nuclear weapons. So I think it’s really important, for nuclear arms states also, to understand that the more value that’s put into nuclear weapons—both symbolic value and money value—the more vulnerable you are also to other countries getting that weapon. …….
I think what’s extremely important is that we look also, again, at research and science and see that societies that have a lot of weapons, that invest a lot of money in weapons, are less secure and safe than societies that invest a lot in health care, education, equality, for example. And these are always seen as soft issues, unrelated to national security. We really urgently need leaders who are smart, who understand how to protect their people. And protecting their people is not through spending hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons…….. https://thebulletin.org/premium/2020-12/beatrice-fihn-how-to-implement-the-nuclear-weapons-ban-treaty/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter01072021&utm_content=NuclearRisk_Fihn_12072020
Fossil fuels benefited from the push for nuclear power, and the delay in renewables growth.
it’s time to let nuclear technologies retire to a well earned place in our history books. It’s deeply unfortunate that nuclear geopolitics massively extended our use of fossil fuels and hence the power of the fossil fuel industry to pivot to gas generation and delay renewables, but their time has come as well.
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Geopolitics Of Nuclear Generation Delayed Renewables By Decades To Fossil Fuel Industry Benefit, Our Detriment, Clean Technica, December 28th, 2020 by Michael Barnard Recently someone asked me to do a thought exercise: what if we’d built renewables instead of nuclear generation? They were curious about the implications. I thought it was an interesting question, and didn’t have a great answer at hand, so I thought I’d work out what might have been.Remember, of course, that this is a thought exercise, and hence like asking how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Well, actually, it’s a lot more sensible a discussion with a much greater likelihood of being correct than that, but undoubtedly theological-quality arguments will be made by pro-nuclear types who assert that I’m wrong. The history of electrical generation has had several phases: renewables and coal early (85,000 dams in USA alone), then nuclear and coal, then renewables and gas, and now renewables. To be clear, lots more renewables earlier with the nuclear would have been a lot better than all of that coal and gas. However, the question was whether we could have skipped nuclear entirely and gone straight to renewables. The answer is, very probably and most likely with major advantages. Let’s look at the major components. First off, storage. Closed-loop pumped hydro storage is 1890s technology. We have vastly more storage potential than we need. And we’ve built an awful lot of pumped hydro, mostly to give inflexible nuclear generation something to do at night, but still. We have a lot more options today with mature lithium-ion and strongly emerging redox flow solutions which will dominate different segments of the storage market, but closed-loop pumped hydro storage could have been built globally in large enough quantities at reasonable prices decades ago. There is no storage problem. Second off, hydroelectric. The first generation of electricity from hydro power was in the 1880s………… There’s tons of capacity left in almost empty lands in Canada and other northern countries that could have been exploited long ago. Third off, the solar power cell was invented in 1839. It was made into an effective, manufacturable product about 50 years later. Silicon-based cells were first created in 1954, around the same time as Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace push. If the world had turned hard into the manufacturing and distribution of solar energy in the 1950s when the first cheapish ones were possible, the cost of solar energy would have plummeted decades earlier, probably by the 1980s. They would have been the lowest cost form of electrical generation by 1990 instead of by 2030 as we have now. 80% of the cost reductions of solar aren’t technological, after all, but policy and the global supply chain. If we’d pivoted to solar, we’d probably have a lot more solar power being delivered globally today than nuclear. Fourth off, wind power. The first electrical generation with wind turbines was done by three different inventors in three different countries within a couple of years of each other around 1890. In 1941, the first 1.25 MW capacity wind turbine was put on an electrical grid in Vermont. There’s nothing magical about wind energy. The physics was obvious 130 years or more ago, and a utility-scale turbine was in place 80 years ago. If Eisenhower’s speech had been “Renewables for Peace,” it would have been much more accurate, and if all the global resources that went into nuclear had gone into renewables instead, including the geopolitical strategic pushes, the federal government’s heavy hand on the scales of regional decision making, federal purchasing power and the like, we could have been ahead of where we are today by 1990 at the latest. All of the economies of scale and incremental improvements would have been already baked in. This was all very achievable, if the will had been there. There’s nothing magical or special about harvesting water, wind, and solar…… There would have been many positives. Given the very reasonable fears of nuclear proliferation, nuclear generation was restricted to roughly 30 countries globally, and its tight strategic linkages to nuclear weapons meant that it faced headwinds that renewables didn’t. Wind and solar already being dirt cheap around the time China was massively building out its economy would have averted a tremendous amount of the coal build out there. China’s nuclear generation program, which is underperforming massively compared to its wind and solar programs, was established around 1995, and while it might have continued, the reality is that if China had been building as much wind and solar in 1990 as it is in 2020, absurd amounts of greenhouse gases would have been avoided. Ditto if it had done the Three Gorges Dam in 1970 instead of 2012. We would have had utility-scale wind and solar generation in every country in the world by 2000 at the latest, providing clean, safe electricity to a much larger percentage of the population. It’s probable that natural gas generation would never have achieved a major foothold because instead of displacing coal, it would be competing with cheap, low-carbon, zero-pollution wind and solar instead. The wasted couple of decades from 1990 to 2010, when absurd amounts of natural gas generation came on line, would have seen a lot more wind and solar instead. Natural gas as a bridge fuel is already seeing the end of its lifetime approaching fast. It’s flat now, and likely to be exceeded by renewables by 2028 at the latest, and then it will see the diminished capacity factors and bankruptcies endemic to coal generation for a couple of decades before it disappears. But in the meantime, a whole lot of CO2, methane, and NOx air pollution will have been emitted which could have been avoided……….. The coal industry in North America would have disappeared a lot faster, and those workers would have been building pumped hydro storage instead, becoming part of the new economy, not lamenting the dead economy that the remain tied to. The fossil fuel industry would have had a lot less power and money. Without conservative parties being co-opted by the fossil fuel industry in the 1990s, a tremendous amount of the deny and delay program success would have been avoided. And there would have been some downsides………. However, I can’t see a path that would have led to this alternative history in the aftermath of World War II, the use of the first nuclear weapons in Japan, the Cold War and its resultant arms race and mutually assured destruction. Sadly, the worse angels of our nature meant that the major, industrialized and militarized countries had to double down on nuclear weapons, which meant a similar doubling down on its nuclear generation twin sister. ………. it’s time to let nuclear technologies retire to a well earned place in our history books. It’s deeply unfortunate that nuclear geopolitics massively extended our use of fossil fuels and hence the power of the fossil fuel industry to pivot to gas generation and delay renewables, but their time has come as well. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/12/28/geopolitics-of-nuclear-generation-delayed-renewables-by-decades-to-fossil-fuel-industry-benefit-our-detriment/? |
Human Rights and the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
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Australia: The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Corrs Human Rights Day event recap https://www.mondaq.com/australia/human-rights/1019602/the-un-treaty-on-the-prohibition-of-nuclear-weapons-corrs-human-rights-day-event-recap
23 December 2020 Corrs Chambers Westgarth On 10 December 2020, Corrs marked Human Rights Day with an ‘In Conversation’ event focused on the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Treaty).
The event brought together leading experts in the field of nuclear disarmament and the humanitarian impacts of a nuclear event, including;
Discussion between the panellists focused on the significance of the Treaty and how it may shape future obligations of states and corporates in connection with nuclear weapons and nuclear disarmament. The Treaty currently has 51 parties and 86 signatories and is set to enter into force on 22 January 2021, cementing a categorical ban on nuclear weapons, 75 years after their first use. Australia has yet to ratify the Treaty. A number of themes that emerged from the conversation are explored below. Why is this conversation so critical?The panellists agreed that the prohibition of nuclear weapons is perhaps more urgent now than ever before. In early 2020, the Doomsday Clock – which symbolises the gravest existential dangers facing humankind – was moved to 100 seconds to midnight, indicating that humankind was closer to the apocalypse than ever in history. This movement was attributed to the increased threats of nuclear war and the continued global failure to address climate change. The adjustment was described as indicative of ‘the most dangerous situation that humanity has ever faced’. This is unsurprising. Today, there remain around 13,500 nuclear weapons in the hands of only a few states. Many are in a high operational readiness, and have the ability to be rapidly deployed. It is well understood that the use of even a fraction of these weapons would result in unimaginable loss of human life and have long-term effects on human health, the environment and global food supplies. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has consistently found that all the world’s health resources would not be effective in responding to even a singlenuclear attack. A paradigm shiftThe Treaty was born out of a shift in focus from the assumed defence and international security benefits of nuclear weapons to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences they would incur. The Red Cross, ICAN and members of civil society played a vital role in shaping that discussion. Dr Durham noted that this shift in momentum began when then President of the ICRC Jakob Kellenberger addressed the Geneva Diplomatic Corp in the lead up to the Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2010, declaring that the debate on nuclear weapons must be guided not by ‘military doctrine and power politics’, but by ‘human beings, . the fundamental rules of international humanitarian law, and . the collective future of humanity’. The humanitarian focus of the discourse continued its momentum with a series of conferences convened to consider the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons in Norway (2013), Mexico (2014) and Austria (2014). Dr Durham and Dr Ruff reflected on their respective involvement in these conferences, observing how they provided a platform to discuss the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapon use at the international level, significantly shifting the debate and bringing to bear increased urgency in the need to ban nuclear weapons. Legal significance and relationship with other treatiesWhen the Treaty enters into force, it will be the first international legal instrument which makes nuclear weapons illegal, prohibiting their development, testing, production, acquisition, stockpiling, use, deployment or threat of use. The Treaty will also prohibit the provision of assistance to any state in the conduct of prohibited activities. It is notable that, even with all their destructive power, nuclear weapons are the last form of weapons of mass destruction to be prohibited. The Treaty will only bind those states which have formally signed and ratified it, which means that non-parties (such as Australia) do not have any formal obligations under the Treaty. Other nuclear weapons treaties, including the nearly universal Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which has been in force since 1970, will continue as a cornerstone in the international legal framework governing nuclear weapons. In this regard, Dr Durham observed that the NPT and the Treaty are complimentary rather than conflicting in their shared aspiration to eliminate nuclear weapons. Legal ramifications for the commercial sectorFor businesses, the Treaty will begin a process of stigmatisation of companies that are involved in the production of nuclear weapons. It may also render their operations unlawful. Tara Gutman observed that the impact of the Treaty’s prohibitions is already being felt, noting that:
In addition, state parties to the Treaty are expected to make the manufacture of nuclear weapons or their components unlawful under domestic laws in their territories. How these matters impact the commercial sector in the coming years will be interesting to follow. What’s next?The panellists reminded us that the entry into force of the Treaty is but a step on what has been a long path towards nuclear disarmament. Other nuclear weapons treaties, including the nearly universal Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which has been in force since 1970, will continue as a cornerstone in the international legal framework governing nuclear weapons. In this regard, Dr Durham observed that the NPT and the Treaty are complimentary rather than conflicting in their shared aspiration to eliminate nuclear weapons. Legal ramifications for the commercial sectorFor businesses, the Treaty will begin a process of stigmatisation of companies that are involved in the production of nuclear weapons. It may also render their operations unlawful. Tara Gutman observed that the impact of the Treaty’s prohibitions is already being felt, noting that:
In addition, state parties to the Treaty are expected to make the manufacture of nuclear weapons or their components unlawful under domestic laws in their territories. How these matters impact the commercial sector in the coming years will be interesting to follow. What’s next?The panellists reminded us that the entry into force of the Treaty is but a step on what has been a long path towards nuclear disarmament. |
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Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison could stop the persecution of Australian citizen Julian Assange
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Rex Patrick, Independent senator, January 5, 2021 A British judge has rejected the US Justice Department’s effort to have Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange extradited to the United States to face espionage charges for obtaining and publishing secret documents that revealed war crimes. The decision of Judge Vanessa Baraitser to deny the extradition request has given Assange an important legal victory in his efforts to avoid extradition for actions many would regard as inherent to media freedom – the right of journalists to obtain and publish information and to protect confidential sources. However, in her ruling Judge Baraitser dismissed the arguments of Assange’s lawyers in relation to these matters, saying she was satisfied that the American authorities made their extradition request in good faith, that the case was not politically driven, and that Assange was not merely acting as a journalist. |
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The risk of USA – Iran military showdown before Trump leaves office
Are the US and Iran headed for a military showdown before Trump leaves office? The Conversation Clive Williams
Campus visitor, ANU Centre for Military and Security Law, Australian National University, January 4, 2021 Tensions are running high in the Middle East in the waning days of the Trump administration.
Over the weekend, Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, claimed Israeli agents were planning to attack US forces in Iraq to provide US President Donald Trump with a pretext for striking Iran.
Just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the US assassination of Iran’s charismatic General Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also warned his country would respond forcefully to any provocations.
Today, we have no problem, concern or apprehension toward encountering any powers. We will give our final words to our enemies on the battlefield.
Israeli military leaders are likewise preparing for potential Iranian retaliation over the November assassination of senior Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh — an act Tehran blames on the Jewish state.
Both the US and Israel have reportedly deployed submarines to the Persian Gulf in recent days, while the US has flown nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the region in a show of force.
And in another worrying sign, the acting US defence secretary, Christopher Miller, announced over the weekend the US would not withdraw the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and its strike group from the Middle East — a swift reversal from the Pentagon’s earlier decision to send the ship home.
Israel’s priorities under a new US administration
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like nothing more than action by Iran that would draw in US forces before Trump leaves office this month and President-elect Joe Biden takes over. It would not only give him the opportunity to become a tough wartime leader, but also help to distract the media from his corruption charges.
Any American military response against Iran would also make it much more difficult for Biden to establish a working relationship with Iran and potentially resurrect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
It’s likely in any case the Biden administration will have less interest in getting much involved in the Middle East — this is not high on the list of priorities for the incoming administration. However, a restoration of the Iranian nuclear agreement in return for the lifting of US sanctions would be welcomed by Washington’s European allies.
This suggests Israel could be left to run its own agenda in the Middle East during the Biden administration.
Israel sees Iran as its major ongoing security threat because of its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Palestinian militants in Gaza.
One of Israel’s key strategic policies is also to prevent Iran from ever becoming a nuclear weapon state. Israel is the only nuclear weapon power in the Middle East and is determined to keep it that way.
While Iran claims its nuclear program is only intended for peaceful purposes, Tehran probably believes realistically (like North Korea) that its national security can only be safeguarded by possession of a nuclear weapon.
In recent days, Tehran announced it would begin enriching uranium to 20% as quickly as possible, exceeding the limits agreed to in the 2015 nuclear deal.
This is a significant step and could prompt an Israeli strike on Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear facility. Jerusalem contemplated doing so nearly a decade ago when Iran previously began enriching uranium to 20%.
How the Iran nuclear deal fell apart……….. https://theconversation.com/are-the-us-and-iran-headed-for-a-military-showdown-before-trump-leaves-office-152606
Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: The Road There and the Road Ahead.
 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: The Road There and the Road Ahead. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/01/05/treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons-road-there-and-road-ahead?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter For those of us who have been part of the anti-nuclear movement, this moment in history is one filled with possibilities.byMadelyn Hoffman, Ryan Swan, On January 22, 2021, the world will take a major step toward global nuclear disarmament when the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) enters effect. This is one step closer to realizing the vision the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Hibakusha) have spoken about all over the world. They have never given up their efforts to prevent another collision between humans and nuclear weapons and end every talk with “No More Hibakusha, No More Hiroshimas and No More Nagasakis.” Their message of preventing further nuclear catastrophe is now recognized and embodied in this groundbreaking new Treaty. Anti-nuclear organizing efforts need to honor the determination, commitment and vision of Hibakusha, even if achieving the end goal of nuclear abolition requires taking just one step at a time.
The Road to the TPNW An early significant development was the conclusion of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), negotiated throughout the 1960s and entering force in 1970. Its aims were to curtail the spread of nuclear weapons and commit those states already in possession of such weapons to work toward disarmament. While the NPT has proved largely effective on the nonproliferation front, its disarmament achievements have been unsatisfactory, as nuclear weapon states (NWS) have continuously failed to pursue “negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race… and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament” as the NPT requires them to do (Article VI). Non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS) frustration with the lack of disarmament progress has grown over the years and finally reached a tipping point after the 2014 Ukraine Crisis and reinvigorated major power nuclear competition. The Marshall Islands brought an unprecedented case before the International Court of Justice claiming that the nuclear weapon states had failed to live up to their NPT disarmament obligations, which – while dismissed on suspect jurisdictional grounds – gained widespread international attention and support. Around this same time in 2014, the New Agenda Coalition proposed the idea of a convention banning nuclear weapons to serve as an “effective measure” implementing Article VI.. Negotiations began in 2016 and, in summer 2017, 122 nations came together in support of the historic TPNW. Garnering its 50th ratification in late October 2020, the TPNW is now set to enter force on January 22, 2021 and will round out the chemical weapons and biological weapons conventions in banning the last outstanding weapon of mass destruction. The Road Ahead—Obstacles to Overcome Not unexpectedly, the NWS have maintained firm opposition to the TPNW, with the U.S. casting it as an illegitimate and “dangerous” challenger to the NPT. It asserts that the TPNW fails to recognize the strategic context in which nuclear weapon states find themselves and that it “is and will remain divisive in the international community,” threatening the global nonproliferation regime by permitting “forum-shopping” opportunities for states seeking to skirt the NPT’s strict International Atomic Energy Agency-overseen (IAEA) verification protocols. This characterization is clearly suspect and motivated by self-interest. Countering it is an important first step. Statements from TPNW drafting states specifically emphasize the mutually-reinforcing relationship between the two treaties. Far from being in competition with the NPT, the TPNW specifically complements it by legally augmenting Article VI. The TPNW text also renders dubious the alleged forum-shopping concerns. TPNW Article 3 specifies that each state party “at a minimum, maintain its [IAEA] safeguards obligations in force at the time of entry into force of this Treaty” and that those states which have “not yet done so shall conclude with the [IAEA] and bring into force a comprehensive safeguards agreement.” This battle over narrative is particularly important now in the leadup to the next quinquennial NPT Review Conference (RevCon) this coming spring. A central RevCon issue will be how – and if – RevCon final documents acknowledge the TPNW in the event consensus is reached. The NWS have been fiercely opposed to any mention of the TPNW and the U.S. has urged states not to accede to (or recognize) it. Formal acknowledgement in the RevCon process would be a significant step toward overcoming NWS attempts to stymie the TPNW and toward paving the way for ultimate integration of the treaty into the NPT and broader international legal framework. Such entrenchment would make it more and more difficult for the NWS to continue to belittle the TPNW and perpetually procrastinate on their disarmament obligations. Carpe Diem For those of us who have been part of the anti-nuclear movement, this moment in history is one filled with possibilities. When the majority of the world’s peoples feel the need to mobilize and, once and for all, put a sense of urgency behind the need to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons, it feels like a “now or never” moment. We must all take advantage of this moment to push for greater TPNW awareness. Those of us who live in the NWS have a unique responsibility to move our governments to understand that, once the TPNW becomes law, mere possession of nuclear weapons, let alone “upgrading and modernizing them” to the tune of trillions of dollars, will be understood as illegal by a growing number of the world’s nations. Everything must be done to apply concerted pressure on NWS governments. In the U.S., calls, e-mails and letters to our Senators should be issued, urging them to acknowledge the Treaty and its validity and value. Discontent with the allocation of enormous tax-payer dollars to gratuitously dangerous nuclear arsenal modernization should also be emphasized. At the international level, the NNWS must insist on formal acknowledgement of the TPNW as a condition for their consent to any eventual NPT RevCon final documents. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and other NGOs should also continue their public relations campaigns in NWS ally states to pressure domestic governments to recognize the TPNW as valid international law. Madelyn Hoffman is co-chair of the Green Party USA’s Peace Action Committee and was the Green Party of New Jersey’s candidate for U.S. Senate in 2018 and 2020. She was the director of NJ Peace Action (formerly NJ SANE founded in 1957) from 2000 to 2018.
Ryan Swan, J.D., M.Phil., is an incoming doctoral student in peace and conflict studies at the University of Bonn. He has professional experience in security policy analysis and serves on the Green Party USA’s Peace Action Committee. |
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Biden Plans Renewed Nuclear Talks With Russia While Punishing Kremlin
Biden Plans Renewed Nuclear Talks With Russia While Punishing Kremlin, Adviser Says. The president-elect also plans to pursue a “follow-on negotiation” with Iran over its missile capabilities if Tehran re-enters compliance with the nuclear deal.
NYT, By David E. Sanger, Jan. 3, 2021
President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s incoming national security adviser said on Sunday that the new administration would move quickly to renew the last remaining major nuclear arms treaty with Russia, even while seeking to make President Vladimir V. Putin pay for what appeared to be the largest-ever hacking of United States government networks.
In an interview on “GPS” on CNN, Jake Sullivan, who at 44 will become the youngest national security adviser in more than a half century, also said that as soon as Iran re-entered compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal — which he helped negotiate under President Barack Obama — there would be a “follow-on negotiation” over its missile capabilities.
“In that broader negotiation, we can ultimately secure limits on Iran’s ballistic missile technology,” Mr. Sullivan said, “and that is what we intend to try to pursue through diplomacy.”
He did not mention that missiles were not covered in the previous accord because the Iranians refused to commit to any limitations on their development or testing. To bridge the impasse, the United Nations passed a weakly worded resolution that called on Tehran to show restraint; the Iranians say it is not binding, and they have ignored it.
Taken together, Mr. Sullivan’s two statements indicated how quickly the new administration would be immersed in two complex arms control issues, even as Mr. Biden seeks to deal with the coronavirus pandemic and the economic shocks it has caused. But the first issue to arise, renewing the New Start, will be made more complex because of Mr. Biden’s vow to assure that Moscow pays for the hacking of more than 250 American government and private networks, an intrusion that now appears far more extensive than first thought.
Mr. Biden has said that after the government formally determines who was responsible for the attack, “we will respond, and probably respond in kind.” But that means moving to punish Russia while keeping New Start — a remnant of the era when nuclear rather than cyber was the dominant issue between the two countries — from lapsing and setting off a new arms race. ……… https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/03/us/politics/biden-russia-iran.html
1 This Month
26 April – Chernobyl: Inside the Meltdown airs on National Geographic on Sunday 26th April from 4pm
29 April – Nuclear Expert Webinar #1 – Radiation Impacts on Families with Mary Olson and Cindy Folkers
- 12:15 PM MT – 1:45 PM MT
- Location: Virtual – REGISTER TODAY
4 May -West Suburban Peace Coalition to discuss Iran war at May Educational Forum
Monday, May 4, 7:00 – 8:00 PM Central Standard Time
Title: : How Trump’s Narrative Tries to Shape the Reality of the War on Iran.
Contact Walt Zlotow, zlotow@hotmail.com 630 442 3045 for further information
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
Pine Ridge Uranium is the real threat, not Tehran- Tell Burgum: Stop the Extraction.
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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