This week the Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA), of which IPPNW is an active member, launched the Global Campaign for Violence Prevention (GCVP)2012-2020. The VPA is a network of WHO Member States, international agencies and civil society organizations working to prevent violence. This Plan aims to unify the efforts of the main actors in international violence prevention and identify a small set of priorities for the field. It was developed in response to a need for a plan of action identified by hundreds of violence prevention experts who convened at the September 2011 Fifth Milestones in a Global Campaign for Violence Prevention Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa and the April 2012 Violence Prevention Alliance meeting in Munich, Germany. Read more…
Should NATO be handling world security?
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (better known as NATO) is in the news once again thanks to a NATO summit meeting in Chicago over the weekend of May 19-20 and to large public demonstrations in Chicago against this military pact.
NATO’s website defines the alliance’s mission as “Peace and Security,” and shows two children lying in the grass, accompanied by a bird, a flower and the happy twittering of birds. There is no mention of the fact that NATO is the world’s most powerful military pact, or that NATO nations account for 70 percent of the world’s annual $1.74 trillion in military spending.
The organizers of the demonstrations, put together by peace and social justice groups, assailed NATO for bogging the world down in endless war and for diverting vast resources to militarism. According to a spokesperson for one of the protest groups, Peace Action: “It’s time to retire NATO and form a new alliance to address unemployment, hunger, and climate change.” Read more…
My words fly up
my deeds remain below,
Words without deeds
never to heaven go
(After Shakespeare, Hamlet)
So this NPT PrepCom is over. The words were mostly hopeful, the promises of action feeble. At many NPT Revs and NPT PrepComs words have to a degree been aggressive. So a better atmosphere this time. Mostly because the NPT Rev in 2010 was felt to have been such a positive event, compared to NPT Rev 2005, and this PrepCom did build on 2010.
Most good words were on the need to avoid the terrible humanitarian catastrophe that even a “limited” nuclear war would cause – a limited war with unlimited, global consequences, as was learned from the “side event” on the global climate disasters after a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. These words on the humanitarian consequences seemed to irritate the nuclear weapon states, who as usual wanted to talk about ways to keep their nuclear weapon oligopoly. But the nuclear weapons addicts did not want to attack the Red Cross and could not attack the climate scenario, so they fell back on their usual tactics of pretending to plan for nuclear disarmament, but “not in our lifetime”.
Watch out, the nukes may end your lifetime, maybe even by mistake. That the Still-not-Nuclear-Weapon-Free States—SNNWFS—intend to remain in their state of non-compliance is shown by their refusal to take nukes off High Alert and by their very active nuclear weapons modernization program , “Mutual Assured Destruction for Ever”. They MADE MAD perennial.
The good words seem to be pinned to the upcoming conference in Norway next year. The SNNWFS do not want to use their considerable influence to make real the Helsinki Conference on a Middle East free of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and seem to have given up this very important opportunity.
So we in the Nuclear-Weapons-Free States, and you in the SNNWFS who want to free the world of this yoke, must try hard to make substantial concrete moves towards a Nuclear Weapon Free World—NWFW—at that conference in Oslo. Again, High Alert is Russian roulette for mankind and we must never accept that. And we should repeat again and again: Why High Alert? Maybe the SNNWFS could limit the Hair Trigger Alert to one single nuclear missile targeted on the adversary’s capital?
And why do you go on with your modernization program if you intend to free yourselves of all nuclear weapons? In this era of recurring financial crises, when a generation of young people are bereaved of the hope of employment, it must be possible to make the taxpayer see the light: A billion spent in the social sector gives many times more jobs than in the weapons sector.
Good words must be followed by good acts. Let’s see to that.
NPT: Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, in force since 1970.
NPT Rev: The NPT is reviewed every five years.
NPT PrepCom: NPT Preparatory Committee meeting, preparing for the next NPTRev, in 2015.
MAD: Mutual Assured Destruction, the so called Peace through Deterrence during the Cold War, still official doctrine.
SNNWFS: The Nuclear Weapon states pledged in 1970 in the NPT Art. VI to abolish their all their nuclear weapons, thus they are Still-Non-Nuclear-Weapons-Free States, but keep the world hostage to total destruction.
It is hard to imagine a nuclear weapon-free world from where we stand today. It reminds me of early 1989 in Berlin, when the editor of an english-speaking magazine that I wrote for suggested that we run a feature on “After the Wall”. No one took the idea seriously, we laughed and went on with our lives, not knowing that only months later the Wall would actually come down. We did not anticipate, nor did we believe it would happen. But that did not stop Germans wanting it or calling for it to happen. Indeed, much of the ground was prepared for it to happen.
History is like that. All of a sudden, the conditions are ripe for a change to occur, sometimes only coincidentally. If that change is desired, then we have to prepare for such a precipitous moment thoroughly beforehand so that nothing stands in the way when the time comes. In order to arrive at a nuclear weapon-free world, we have to give some thought to how we can achieve the right security conditions necessary for it to happen. Read more…
Are the nuclear weapon states rattled?
Just a few of the ICAN campaigners who have been advocating for a global treaty banning nuclear weapons at the NPT PrepCom in Vienna. (L to R: Arielle Denis, Arife Köse, Akira Kawasaki, Tim Wright, Sharon Dolev, Alex Reidon, John Loretz, Ghassan Shahrour, Nasser Burdestani)
Something is happening at the NPT PrepCom, and the nuclear-weapon states do know what it is.
The idea that nuclear weapons represent a humanitarian catastrophe—language that was actually part of the outcome document of the 2010 NPT Review—has been taken up as a thematic focal point of this PrepCom, not only by NGOs but also by a growing and energized group of states.
From what we can tell, the nuclear-weapon states have been taken by surprise by this development and are not very happy about it. Read more…
The first Preparatory Committee session (PrepCom) for the 2105 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is midway through its first week in Vienna. IPPNW and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) are among 60 NGOs participating in the PrepCom, with the goal of focusing Member State attention on the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war and the urgency of a global treaty to ban nuclear weapons.
This afternoon, NGOs presented a series of papers to the PrepCom during a formal plenary session. IPPNW Regional Vice President and the Chair of the ICAN core group, Dr. Tilman Ruff, delivered the following paper on the risks and consequences of nuclear weapons, which was prepared by IPPNW in collaboration with the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy and People for Nuclear Disarmament. This and the other NGO papers are available online at Reaching Critical Will.
Dr. Tilman Ruff of IPPNW and ICAN addresses the 2012 NPT PrepCom. “If one bomb can destroy a city, the consequences of a war involving many nuclear explosions are on a scale larger than anything we have experienced previously in human history.”
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Delegates:
We are here in Vienna, a city steeped in history and culture and surrounded by natural beauty, sheltered for the moment from the conflicts that are killing and maiming thousands of people around the world. We are here, in a comfortable city largely removed from such violence, out of a sense of obligation to prevent present and future conflicts from escalating into something far more catastrophic. Read more…
100 nuclear explosions—a billion people starve to death
Ira Helfand: "The danger identified in this report requires a fundamental change in our thinking about nuclear weapons. We must now recognize that it is not just the arsenals of the nuclear super powers that threaten all humanity."
A new IPPNW/PSR study released today at the annual Nobel Peace Laureates Summit in Chicago offers compelling scientific evidence that most of the nuclear arsenals in the world —whether large or small—threaten everyone on Earth. The consequences for global agriculture of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, for example, would be so severe and long lasting that we must now fundamentally change our thinking about nuclear weapons and redouble our efforts to eliminate them, according to the study’s author, Ira Helfand.
Dr. Helfand has been working in close consultation with climate scientists Alan Robock, O. B. Toon, and others since 2007, when their research into the global climate effects of a nuclear war using only 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons was featured at an IPPNW conference held in London with the Royal Society of Medicine.
Robock, Toon, and their colleagues—many of whom had worked together with Carl Sagan on the “nuclear winter” studies produced during the Cold War—had come to the startling and largely unexpected conclusion that even a fraction of the nuclear weapons contained in the bloated US and Russian arsenals could disrupt the global climate so severely that the world’s major agricultural centers would sustain unprecedented damage for at least a decade.
Based on existing data about global food reserves, the nutritional status of impoverished populations, and historical evidence about the relationship between volcano-induced climate change and past famines, Dr. Helfand came to a tentative conclusion that a famine caused by the climate effects of a nuclear war on this scale could leave a billion people or more without sufficient food to survive. Read more…
On April 17, 2012, as millions of Americans were filing their income tax returns, the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its latest study of world military spending. In case Americans were wondering where most of their tax money — and the tax money of other nations — went in the previous year, the answer from SIPRI was clear: to war and preparations for war.
World military spending reached a record $1,738 billion in 2011 — an increase of $138 billion over the previous year. The United States accounted for 41 percent of that, or $711 billion.
Some news reports have emphasized that, from the standpoint of reducing reliance on armed might, this actually represents progress. After all, the increase in “real” global military spending — that is, expenditures after corrections for inflation and exchange rates — was only 0.3 percent. And this contrasts with substantially larger increases in the preceding thirteen years.
But why are military expenditures continuing to increase — indeed, why aren’t they substantially decreasing — given the governmental austerity measures of recent years? Read more…
In less than 100 days the nations of the world will convene at the United Nations in New York Cityfor final negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The world will be watching to see if states can agree to a strong and humanitarian-based ATT that will help prevent injuries and deaths worldwide from armed violence. The Control Arms Coalition, of which IPPNW is an active member and serves on the Steering Board, is preparing to participate fully during the month of negotiations. IPPNW members from all corners of the globe will arrive at the UN to ensure that diplomats 
understand the devastating human and health consequences of armed violence. Control Arms has launched a Speakout Campaign to show the diverse voices that support a “bulletproof” ATT. Personal stories are being featured each day on the web site. IPPNW-Nigeria’s Dr. Daniel Bassey ‘s personal story is featured now, and other IPPNW voices will be featured in the weeks to come.
In July IPPNW will also be presenting to diplomats signatures from our Medical Alert for a Strong ATT, along with petitions from parliamentarians and an interfaith coalition. If you have not yet done so, please sign the petition , and circulate it to colleagues at your university, hospital, medical school or other networks. We need your voice to convince the negotiators that the health professionals of your country want action now!
Assuring destruction forever: Important new report on nuclear modernization programs from Reaching Critical Will
Assuring destruction forever: nuclear weapon modernization around the world
soft cover • 152 pages • March 2012
PDF available online for free
Hard copies available for $8 + s/h
As of March 2012, the nuclear weapon possessors—China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—are estimated to possess approximately 19,500 nuclear weapons. All of them have plans to modernize—upgrade and/or extend the lives of—their nuclear weapons.
Reaching Critical Will has coordinated and edited a new study on the modernization plans and programs of eight of the nuclear-armed states (all except the DPRK, due to lack of publicly available information on its program).
In Assuring destruction forever (which echoes the phrase “mutually assured destruction” from the decades of the Cold War), non-governmental researchers and analysts provide information on each country’s modernization prospects. They also analyze the costs of nuclear weapons in the context of the economic crisis, austerity measures, and rising challenges in meeting human and environmental needs. There are eight country chapters followed by three “thematic” chapters that address issues of international law, divestment, and political will. The country chapters are chock full of detailed information about nuclear weapon programs and policies while the thematic chapters analyze these policies in a broader context.
Bimal Khadka
Bjorn Hilt
Charles K. Johnson
Gunnar Westberg
IPPNW
John Loretz
Lawrence Wittner
Maria Valenti
mollymcgint
Sue Wareham
Tilman Ruff
Tim Wright
Xanthe Hall
IPPNW peace and health blog 