France – enfant terrible in nuclear disarmament
Will France at least discuss nuclear disarmament?
France has a reputation of being the country where the question of nuclear disarmament is taboo. Any aspect of nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy is the prerogative of the President who does not condescend to discuss these exalted questions with the parliament or – God forbid! – journalists or common citizens. French diplomats taking part in international negotiations insist that as long as there is a bow and an arrow in the world, France needs its nuclear weapons. The reason for the French intransigence may be that the raison d’etre of the French nuclear force is so weak.
To keep Germany down and the USA in.
When the French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès-France in 1954 decided that France should develop nuclear weapons, his decision was based on his wartime experience: he feared German rearmament. As NATO grew stronger it became clear that the organization was going to be successful in two of its three goals: To keep Russia out and Germany down. However, France distrusted the USA and was uncertain if the third goal of NATO, to keep USA in Europe, could be secured. NATO was not sufficient. France developed its nuclear strategy with the goal to force the USA to defend Europe. To this end, the French nuclear armed missiles were directed towards Soviet cities, not against that country’s nuclear installations. If the Soviet Union threatened, or invaded, Western Europe, French nuclear weapons would destroy Leningrad, Moscow , Minsk and other big cities. The Soviet military leaders would see this as an attack by NATO . Nuclear missiles have no “Sender” label. The response from the Soviet Union would be an all out attack on all NATO countries, especially the USA. Knowing that this was French strategy, the US would be forced to tell the Russians that they would stand up for Europe. The French nukes were intended to force US policy. Read more…
A Toast to Presidents Medvedev and Obama
by James E. Muller, MD
I offer this toast to Presidents Medvedev and Obama for their courageous efforts to mobilize the strengths of the Russian and American people against the world’s leading problems. I speak from the vantage point of an American physician who has had the privilege of living and working in both countries.
The list of problems addressed at their first summit in July is familiar, and when viewed by an individual, or even by a single nation, overwhelming – the global economic crisis, disease and the problems of healthcare structure, environmental degradation, the end of the fossil fuel era, terrorism, and most importantly the threat of nuclear annihilation. But viewed through the lens of cooperative Russian-American efforts the challenges appear less daunting.
Although Russia and the US have come close to fighting a nuclear war, the full history of the relationship includes many successful cooperative efforts. During the American Civil War, Lincoln sought and received support from Russia including a visit by the Russian fleet. In World War II, the US joined Russia to defeat Hitler. Today Russians and Americans work together in the International Space Station and in many other programs.
As a physician I celebrate the determination of the two leaders to work together against the diseases that afflict both nations and the people of the entire world. Beyond traditional health concerns physicians, and all, applaud their bold intent to address a danger to health so extreme and so immediate that it too often escapes our consciousness – the threat of the use of a nuclear weapon. Read more…
Climate Change And Global Security – Recipes for Disaster
by Tova Fuller & Lauren Zajac
By now, it is obvious to most that the effects of climate change on human health are manifold. Heat waves themselves pose a danger, causing heat exhaustion, heat stroke and exacerbation of existing conditions. In the long run, crop yields will decrease, and changing temperatures may alter the distribution of vector- and waterborne diseases. Amongst the challenges brought on by climate change are droughts, food shortages and storms Increased natural disasters would create relief emergencies. The WHO estimates more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million “disability adjusted life years” (DALYs) occur EACH YEAR due to the diseases and malnutrition caused by climate change….and WHO-estimated annual deaths are estimated to double by 2030.
The indirect effects to health climate change has as a security threat are less obvious, even though even the Pentagon released a 2004 report that stated climate change “should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern.” Note that individually, climate change will not only affect physical but also mental health, increasing the rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, violent behavior, individual panic and group hysteria. On a greater scale, climate change might affect global tensions, acting as a “threat multiplier” for existent threats. Already particularly vulnerable areas include sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia who will see the worst of the flooding, water crises and food shortages brought on by climate change. Land loss and flooding leads to environmental refugees as seen on a smaller scale from Hurricane Katrina. These mass migrations may lead to heightened domestic, regional or international conflict and/or religious or racial tensions. Furthermore, extreme weather events may destroy or damage military bases. Destabilized states may be vulnerable to not only domestic disorder but also threats such as terrorism and extremist groups. As such, climate change and security are intimately linked. Read more…
The Climate Change Peril and the Nuclear Peril: Different in both Magnitude and Immediacy
by Tad Daley
It is difficult to dispute that global climate change poses the single greatest long-term peril to human civilization, at least as such things can be perceived from our present vantage point. However, it is equally difficult to dispute that the nuclear peril — in its many incarnations — poses the single greatest immediate such peril. Although climate change is undoubtedly already having profound effects in certain areas, its most worrisome impacts probably still lay some two or three or five decades down the road. But a major world city, without any warning, could suddenly disappear into a vaporized radioactive cloud tomorrow morning. All in the blink of an eye, the snap of a finger, the single beat of a human heart.
It could be a successful attack by nuclear terrorists. (It is well documented that both Al Qaeda and other militant groups have aspired to carry out such an attack, and explored the routes by which they might do so.) It could be an accidental nuclear launch, of one or 101 nuclear warheads. (Hardly any Americans know that thousands of nuclear weapons, in American and Russian and other arsenals, remain poised on hair-trigger alert, and that dozens of near accidental nuclear launches have taken place in the history of the nuclear age – some with only minutes to spare.) It could be a hot political crisis between one or more nuclear-armed countries, with some leader under intense pressure, sweating, getting advice from five sides, hasn’t slept in three days, getting harassed about something or other by his wife or his kids or his mistress … and he decides to push the button. (The world came close to such an eventuality during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the Able Archer episode in 1983, and possibly on several other occasions as well.) Alternatively, it could be not political calculations turning into nuclear miscalculations in a moment of fear and uncertainty and panic, but instead a sober, considered, rational calculation by the leadership of some state that for some international political tangle, the benefits of a nuclear first strike exceed the costs. (If that sounds fantastic, consider that the Administration of George W. Bush proffered just such a possibility in its December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, named seven states as the possible targets of an American nuclear first strike, and – according to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker magazine – seriously considered actually carrying one out against the nation of Iran.) Read more…
Another Nobel Controversy
This was originally posted on the History News Network.
Link to Original: http://www.hnn.us/articles/118314.html
Another Nobel Controversy
By Lawrence S. Wittner
Dr. Wittner is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).
The swirling controversy over President Barack Obama’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize brings to mind another controversy that began in October 1985, when the Norwegian committee announced that that year’s prize would go to International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).
This global physicians’ movement was initiated in 1979 by Dr. Bernard Lown, a prominent American cardiologist deeply concerned about the spiraling nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union and what it portended for the future. Approaching the distinguished Soviet cardiologist, Dr. Evgenii Chazov, with whom he had had previous professional contacts, Lown sought to convince Chazov that they should build an international physicians’ movement that would alert the world to the nuclear peril. Chazov was initially reluctant to involve himself in this venture, for it seemed likely to lead to the sacrifice of the modern hospital he was building and, worst of all, engage him in political difficulties with the Soviet authorities. Even so, he succumbed to Lown’s pleas and, in late 1980, a small group of U.S. and Soviet physicians laid the groundwork for IPPNW, with Lown and Chazov and co-chairs. Read more…
Postcard from London: A call to action from Oslo
I’ve traveled a lot as an IPPNW staff member, and I’ve never missed being home as much as I do now. I saw the headline announcing that Barack Obama had received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize while walking toward Victoria Station in London, and headed right for the Underground and the nearest internet connection to get some questions answered. Did they give it to him in recognition of what he’s done or because of the hope he’s inspired for change? Did they mention ridding the world of nuclear weapons? How did he respond? How was everyone else responding? How late would I have to stay up rewriting my speech for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament conference tomorrow?
I watched Obama’s press conference first. The man has class. I learned that whatever the Nobel Committee had said, he was taking it not as praise but as “a call to action.” I got the other answers from the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s website: “The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” And Nobel Committee chair Thorbjorn Jagland made it clear that this award was intended as much to recognize aspiration, shared purpose, and expectations of leadership as it was to reward accomplishment.
Here’s some of what I plan to say at CND tomorrow that I had not thought of saying earlier today:
“We now have not only a sitting US President who has committed himself to working for ‘the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,’ but also a Nobel Peace Laureate who suddenly has greater authority, greater incentive, and – I hope – an even greater sense of responsibility to prove that abolition can be accomplished in his lifetime.”
I hope that everyone back home is conspiring to arrange the first meeting among Nobel Peace laureates – old and new.
The Truth about Qom
It was revealed to the press by Presidents Obama and Sarkozy and Prime Minister Brown on Friday, September 25th – incidentally the day after the US resolution on non-proliferation was unanimously passed in the Security Council – that Iran had a second uranium enrichment facility near Qom, a Shi’ite holy city in Central Iran. Actually it was revealed four days earlier by Iran itself, who had written a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to say they had constructed a pilot-scale plant designed to produce up to 5% enriched uranium. However, this is less interesting to the media than the response that this declaration received from the powers-that-be. Sarkozy looked like he would have gladly used the “Force de Frappe”, rather than more sanctions. You would be hard pressed to find any reports on this issue in the days before that press conference.
The media turned out in force and reported the findings of the US intelligence services as reported by ‘senior administration officials’. No names were given and a lot of information was withheld. You can read those findings here (http://tiny.cc/72QVG), but it won’t really help you find out the truth about Qom. It will only tell you what US senior administration officials want you to know (or to think) about Qom. Read more…
Extended deterrence: Outdated, dangerous, wrong for Australia
Barack Obama has issued a massive challenge to the world.
It is a challenge to rid the world of its worst weapons of terror.. It is a challenge to banish one of humanity’s greatest fears– the threat posed by nuclear weapons.
President Obama’s chairing of the UN Security Council on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation on September 24 served to focus the nuclear spotlight where it is most needed, on the Council’s five permanent members.
Between them – Russia, USA, France, China and the UK are responsible for all but a fraction of the world’s 26,000 nuclear weapons. The President spoke of the need for “new strategies and new approaches” to reach the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, with every nation playing a part.
Notwithstanding the enormous responsibility of the nuclear weapon states to get rid of their own weapons, the barriers to disarmament go further than just these nations, and far beyond the usual suspects such as Iran and North Korea.
That challenge includes Australia, and our subservience to an out-dated and dangerous Cold War policy that lives on. The policy is “extended deterrence”. Read more…
Note to Security Council: The conditions for a nuclear-weapons free world already exist
How do we “create the conditions” for a world without nuclear weapons?
The UN Security Council has resolved to do just that, at the urging of a nuclear superpower no less. SC1887, which lists a few concrete early steps toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons along with a lot of proposals related to proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear energy development, was adopted unanimously in the opening minutes of the special summit on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament chaired by President Obama, who brought the US-drafted resolution to New York with him and deftly shepherded it through the process like the community organizer he remains at heart.
UN Security Council summit on nuclear disarmament. UN Photo/Mark Garten
While underscoring the difficulty of the task as he has whenever he has broached the subject, Obama said plainly that ridding the Earth of nuclear weapons is the responsibility of “a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love.” And he dug up yet another quote from that iconic abolitionist Ronald Reagan (because the post-Reykjavik Reagan is so quotable): “We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the Earth.”
“That,” Obama said, “is our task.”
So as much as I want to believe we’re finally moving in the right direction, I’m still left wondering what conditions have to be created for the elimination of nuclear weapons that don’t already exist. Is it not enough, as President Obama himself said this morning, that a single nuclear weapon exploded in a major city would kill hundreds of thousands of people and “badly destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life?” Or that 100 bombs could kill tens of millions outright and damage the global climate so severely that a billion more would die from a nuclear famine? Or that 1,000 or more nuclear weapons —less than 5% of the world stockpile — could render the Earth itself unfit for life? Read more…
The Right Decision on Missile Defenses
The Obama administration’s decision to scrap plans for missile defense deployments in the Czech Republic and Poland is the first really substantial indication that changes in US nuclear policy are more than just rhetoric.
Abolitionists have been holding their breaths ever since January, wondering whether Obama would renounce a Bush administration priority that had been forced upon US allies, had met with significant domestic opposition, and had angered Russia to the point of threatening to hold further disarmament negotiations hostage.
Today’s answer comes as a relief, even though it was couched in somewhat ambiguous language about the possible development of a different kind of defensive system sometime in the future. I certainly would have been happier with an unequivocal repudiation of a scheme that traces its lineage back to the Star Wars fantasies of the Reagan years and has already wasted billions of dollars that could have been spent on more effective ways to prevent nuclear war. But I’ll gladly count this as one for our side (if all of humanity is a “side”). Read more…
IPPNW peace and health blog 