Is nuclear disarmament possible?

Aljazeera, 2 August 22, “We are pushing closer and closer to that point where [nuclear weapons are] eventually going to be used, and we have to drastically change,” says Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN.

“It is the nuclear-armed states, and it’s the nuclear-allied states in NATO, for example, that really have to lead this charge,” she says of the push for disarmament.

ICAN was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for spearheading the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Fihn says it is imperative for all countries to eliminate nuclear weapons, adding that the treaty is a “way of creating a revolution in this nuclear structure that we created”.

“The powerful have always lost their power when the majority has risen up and stood against it.” On UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill sits down with ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn to discuss nuclear threats and the fight for global nuclear disarmament.

August 1, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

World one misstep from ‘nuclear annihilation’: UN chief

 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/1/un-chief-warns-world-is-one-step-from-nuclear-annihilation 2 Aug 22, Antonio Guterres sounds a global alarm at the opening of the meeting to review a landmark nuclear weapons treaty.

Nuclear threats emanating from the war in Ukraine as well as in Asia and the Middle East have put the world “one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation”, the United Nations secretary-general said. 

At the UN on Monday, Antonio Guterres issued the dire warning at the opening of a long-delayed meeting to review the landmark 50-year-old Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a nuclear-free world.

Guterres told many ministers, officials and diplomats gathered in the General Assembly Hall that the month-long review conference is taking place “at a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War”.

The meeting is “an opportunity to hammer out the measures that will help avoid certain disaster, and to put humanity on a new path towards a world free of nuclear weapons”, he said.

However, Guterres warned that “geopolitical weapons are reaching new highs” as almost 13,000 nuclear arms are in arsenals around the world and countries are seeking “false security” by spending hundreds of billions of dollars on “doomsday weapons”.

“We have been extraordinarily lucky so far. But luck is not a strategy. Nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict,” the UN chief said………………………………………………

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said the Ukraine conflict is “so grave that the spectre of a potential nuclear confrontation, or accident, has raised its terrifying head again”.

Grossi warned that at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, “the situation is becoming more perilous by the day”, and he urged all countries to help make possible his visit to the facility with a team of IAEA safety and security experts, saying his efforts for the past two months have been unsuccessful.

In force since 1970, the Non-Proliferation Treaty has the widest adherence of any arms control agreement with some 191 countries that are members.

Under its provisions, the five original nuclear powers – the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain and France – agreed to negotiate towards eliminating their arsenals someday and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire them in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

India and Pakistan, which did not join the NPT, went on to develop nuclear weapons. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel is believed to have a nuclear arsenal, but neither confirms nor denies it.

Beatrice Fihn, from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, said the failure to fulfil legal commitments by nuclear powers and to work seriously on disarmament is concerning.

“If they don’t, countries like Iran might be very tempted in the future to develop nuclear weapons,” Fihn told Al Jazeera.

The UN meeting, which ends August 26, aims to generate a consensus on next steps, but expectations are low for substantial – if any – agreement. There were 133 speakers as of Monday plus dozens of side events.

The NPT’s five-year review was supposed to take place in 2020 when the world already faced plenty of crises, but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

August 1, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

UN Nuclear Review: A Prime Time to Stop the New Arms Race

The real solution to the threat of nuclear war is in plain sight, but still the powerful weapons makers and war profiteers refuse to yield.

 https://medium.com/@codepink/un-nuclear-review-a-prime-time-to-stop-the-new-arms-race-6e3303aa0ccd By Marcy Winograd and Medea Benjamin, 31 July 22,

In the run-up to August’s United Nation’s 10th Annual Review of the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a review undertaken every five years, Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s State Department issued a surprising reaffirmation of the U.S. commitment to this treaty and the “ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”

The NPT, designed to “further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament,” entered into force in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995. It has now been signed by 191 nations, including the U.S. and Russia.

If only Blinken’s verbal support for the NPT was U.S. policy, as opposed to wishful thinking or trickery.

As treaty signatories and civil society representatives from around the world gather for a month in New York to evaluate the treaty’s implementation, the White House, Congress, and military contractors will move ahead on a near $2 trillion nuclear rearmament program euphemistically termed “nuclear modernization.”

Modernization is a kitchen upgrade. New touch-to-open cabinets. New LED recessed lighting.

It is not 600 new–instead of funeralized–intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM’s) on hair trigger alert to replace the Minuteman III in the midwest. Each of these “modern missiles” would span the length of a bowling lane with new warheads that are 20 times more powerful than the bombs that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Modernization is not a new sea-launched nuclear cruise missile that carries both conventional and nuclear warheads with the same radar profile to confuse “the enemy.”

Modernization is not 100 new stealth air-launched nuclear missiles like the B-21 Raider, also capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons.

Ahh, but these nuclear weapons are just upgrades, not new systems, right?

Semantic back-flips aside, U.S. nuclear “modernization” means the development of new weapon systems with new nuclear warheads and a new arms race. What the State Department failed to mention in its reaffirmation of the NPT was that the U.S. nuclear rearmament program violates the spirit and intent of Article 6 of the NPT, which prohibits the pursuit of new nuclear weapons.

Instead of pursuing world peace and climate preservation for our children, US leaders are chasing a reckless foreign policy.

In April, the Wall Street Journal published a commentary titled “The U.S. should show it can win a nuclear war.”

More recently, the City of New York, home of the United Nations, released, however well-intentioned, a so-called public service announcement on how to survive a nuclear attack, referring to it as “the big one”, as though it were an earthquake. No mention was made of blinding flashes of light or widespread radiation that blisters the skin or immediate incineration. Instead, New Yorkers were instructed to get inside, stay inside and stay tuned. Tuned to what? Our fading heartbeats?

According to the International Committee to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a nuclear war between the US and Russia would lead to over 34-million dead and 57 million injured in the first few hours — and a dark subzero winter of famine and soot blocking the sun for those who survived.

No mention is made of this nightmare scenario, however, in the 2019 Joint Chiefs Nuclear Operations Publication (3–72), a Strangelovian document briefly released then deleted from the website of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The vanishing unclassified document, preserved by the Federation of American Scientists, reflects the Pentagon’s delusional thinking that a nuclear war can be limited and won. Mark Milley, then Secretary of the Army, now Chair of the Joint Chiefs, signed off on the chilling statements below:

“A nuclear weapon could be brought into the campaign as a result of perceived failure in a conventional campaign, potential loss of control or regime, or to escalate the conflict to sue for peace on more-favorable terms.”

“Using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability …”

UN treaty signatories, along with NGO conference delegates, should use the month-long NPT operations review to speak truth to power.

First, they should speak out against the dangerous proxy war in Ukraine between the U.S./NATO and Russia that could lead to a nuclear confrontation. The delegates should denounce Russian President Vladmir Putin for ordering the invasion of Ukraine and call on all parties in the war to engage in a negotiated settlement.

One miscalculation, one moment of confusion, one intentional launch of a short-range nuclear warhead, followed by a retaliatory long-range nuclear weapon, could burn us alive and blanket the world in ash.

Delegates should also call on the United States and NATO to denuclearize Europe. This would entail removing US nuclear weapons from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey; scrapping plans to redeploy nuclear weapons to the United Kingdom, where for 14 years nuclear storage facilities rightfully have sat empty; and removing the provocative anti-ballistic missiles from Romania and Poland, both of which are perilously close to Russia’s border.

On the broader issue of disarmament, attendees at the UN meetings should shout “Come to your senses!” to the President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley for supporting nuclear rearmament. Delegates should denounce members of Congress who recently voted for the $840 billion dollar military budget that includes $30 billion as another down payment on the nuclear rearmament program.

Participants at the UN gathering could also call on President Biden to declassify his Nuclear Posture Review. Every administration is obligated by US law to release a new Nuclear Posture Review outlining the administration’s nuclear policy.

To date, Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review remains a secret.

Classified.

Declassifying the Review would allow the people of the United States, and the world, to know whether President Biden is committed to keeping his campaign promise of no first use of nuclear weapons and if he abides by the Joint Statement he signed with Putin in 2021 and the Joint Agreement he signed in 2022 with five nuclear weapons states, including Russia and China, committing the US to the NPT because “a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.”

The real solution to the threat of nuclear war is in plain sight. It is the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons. It was adopted in July 2017 and entered into force in January 2021, after it was ratified by 50 states. None of the nuclear states have signed it.

The NPT Review Conference is a golden opportunity for the participants, and the public in general, to call on all nations to sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and to once and for all embrace the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to, in the treaty’s words, “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”

Take Action: Email the White House to demand President Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review be made public. Call your US Senators (202) 224–3121 to urge them to vote NO on the 2023 military budget or NDAA.

Marcy Winograd of Progressive Democrats of America served as a 2020 DNC Delegate for Bernie Sanders and co-founded the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party. Coordinator of CODEPINKCONGRESS, Marcy spearheads Capitol Hill calling parties to mobilize co-sponsors and votes for peace and foreign policy legislation.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of the 2018 book, “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Her previous books include: “Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection” (2016); “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control” (2013); “Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart” (1989), and (with Jodie Evans) “Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide)” (2005).

August 1, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Ukraine War Hangs Over UN Meeting on Nuclear Treaty’s Legacy

VOA UNITED NATIONS 31 July 22, — 

There was already plenty of trouble to talk about when a major U.N. meeting on the landmark Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was originally supposed to happen in 2020.

Now the pandemic-postponed conference finally starts Monday as Russia’s war in Ukraine has reanimated fears of nuclear confrontation and cranked up the urgency of trying to reinforce the 50-year-old treaty.

“It is a very, very difficult moment,” said Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.

Russia’s invasion, accompanied by ominous references to its nuclear arsenal, “is so significant for the treaty and really going to put a lot of pressure on this,” she said. “How governments react to the situation is going to shape future nuclear policy.”

The four-week meeting aims to generate a consensus on the next steps, but expectations are low for a substantial — if any — agreement……………………………

The events in Ukraine create a tricky choice for the upcoming conference, said Patricia Lewis, a former U.N. disarmament research official who is now at the international affairs think tank Chatham House in London.

“On the one hand, in order to support the treaty and what it stands for, governments will have to address Russia’s behavior and threats,” she said. “On the other hand, to do so risks dividing the treaty members.”

Another uncomfortable dynamic: The war has heightened some countries’ apprehensions about not having nuclear weapons, especially since Ukraine once housed but gave up a trove of Soviet nukes.

Ukraine is hardly the only hot topic.

North Korea appears to have been preparing recently for its first nuclear weapons test since 2017. And talks about reviving the deal meant to keep Iran from developing nukes are in limbo.

The U.S. and Russia have only one remaining treaty curtailing their nuclear weapons and have been developing new technologies. Britain last year raised a self-imposed cap on its stockpile. China says it’s modernizing — or, the U.S. claims, expanding — the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal……………..

In recent years, frustration with the Nonproliferation Treaty catalyzed another pact that outright prohibits nuclear weapons. Ratified by more than 60 countries, it took effect last year, though without any nuclear-armed nations on board.

At a recent meeting in Vienna, participating countries condemned “any and all nuclear threats” and inked a lengthy plan that includes considering an international trust fund for people harmed by nuclear weapons.

Fihn, whose Geneva-based group campaigned for the nuclear ban treaty, hopes the vigor in Vienna serves as inspiration — or notice — for countries to make progress at the U.N. conference.

“If you don’t do it here,” she said, “we’re moving on without you elsewhere.” https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-war-hangs-over-un-meeting-on-nuclear-treaty-legacy/6681249.html

July 31, 2022 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment