Global Security Institute

Japan and NATO Are Ready for the US to Reduce Nuclear Weapons
Huffington Post
by Alyn Ware
February 18, 2010

It has been nearly a year since President Obama's now famous Prague speech, announcing America's commitment to a nuclear weapons-free future. A key test of that commitment is at hand: the current U. S. Nuclear Posture Review. The Obama administration might use it to announce a plan for a deeper reduction in nuclear stockpiles, a shift in nuclear policy to "sole purpose" (i.e., retaining nuclear weapons solely for purposes of deterring others from using such weapons) and begin the process of phasing out nuclear deterrence itself.

Harper government missing on nonproliferation
Embassy
by Douglas Roche and Ernie Regehr
February 3, 2010

High-ranking officials of the US State Department, NATO and the United Nations were in Ottawa last week to meet with the leaders of five national nuclear disarmament groups and experienced civil society leaders. It was all designed to move the Canadian government to actively support US President Barack Obama's commitment to a nuclear weapons-free world.

Heeding the warning of bioterrorism
The Hill
by Barry Kellman
January 25, 2010

The warning is clear: Bioterrorism is a serious danger to the United States, says the Report Card Grading Government on Protecting the United States, released Tuesday by the congressionally-mandated commission charged with assessing threats of weapons of mass destruction. We are unprepared for a catastrophic bio-attack, and the rest of the world is in far worse shape.

Anthrax Response: Guidance and Questions
Journal of Homeland Security
by Barry Kellman
December 2009

How should we cope with a massive anthrax attack, and how can we prepare now so that our coping is optimal? The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism predicted that a biological attack was likely within five years from 2008, and the Intelligence Community identifies anthrax as the most likely biological agent capable of causing mass casualties to be used in the near term. Thus, security communities should welcome the Homeland Security Department’s September 29, 2009, “Proposed Guidance for Protecting Responders’ Health During the First Week Following a Wide-Area Anthrax Attack.”

Building bridges to a better future
Edmonton Journal
by Douglas Roche
December 23, 2009

Lest Santa Claus think I'm a bit greedy, I hasten to point out that these bridges are not just for me, they're for our society as a whole.

There are so many walls between us -- walls of fear, walls of weapons, walls between rich and poor -- that we need a new system of bridges to help bring people together to express our common humanity.

Biological weapons hazards
LA Times
LTE by Barry Kellman
December 16, 2009

Characterizing the Obama administration's decision to not support international monitoring of the Biological Weapons Convention as "ducking the issue" manifests a serious misunderstanding of how to reduce biological weapons threats.

Stepping into the Biopolicy Breach
The Hill
by Barry Kellman, BSG Member
December 15, 2009

The Commission on Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism identified two existential threats: nuclear and biological weapons. Bioweapons are easier to make and could be used repeatedly to inflict widespread terror and death. There is a 50-50 chance of a bio-attack against the U.S. by 2013.

Last week, at the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) Meeting in Geneva, Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher announced President Barack Obama’s strategy for countering biothreats. By announcing at this forum, the administration highlights the imperative of global cooperation to address biothreats and signals an implicit commitment to the centrality of the BWC in this domain.

Thinking the Unthinkable on Nuclear Policy
The Huffington Post
by Alyn Ware
November 9, 2009

In late September, President Obama chaired the UN Security Council as it adopted an unprecedented resolution on non-proliferation and global nuclear disarmament, vague on the details perhaps, but nonetheless a symbolic first step toward a world without nuclear weapons. It was a down payment on pledges Obama made in Prague in April, when he spoke of America's commitment to nuclear disarmament, saying we "must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change." It didn't take long for those voices to chime. Three days after the Security Council resolution, the North Korean government fulminated that giving up its nuclear weapons was "unthinkable, even in a dream."

"But he hasn't done anything yet!" That sentence was on the lips of skeptics the minute they heard that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Evangelical Voices Against Nukes,"
Washington Post/Newsweek
by GSI Board Member Tyler Wigg Stevenson

Even a casual student of American politics must wonder what evangelicals are doing at the vanguard of a new movement toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. After all, the anti-Communism of a previous generation of evangelicals frequently left them opposed to more liberal, mainline brethren in their support for a robust Cold War deterrent.

MORE...

A Nuclear-Weapons-Free World: Is it achievable?
UN Chronicle
by Miguel Marin-Bosch

After the worst of times, we are perhaps entering the best of times for proponents of nuclear disarmament. At long last, advocates of the elimination of nuclear weapons have reason for some guarded optimism. The road to a nuclear-weapons-free world will be long and bumpy, but those expected to take the initiative seem to have finally de-cided to lead. That is encouraging.

Arms Control Has Been Bipartisan
Wall Street Journal
LTE by Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr.

In "Why Democrats Fail at Arms Control" (op-ed, Sept. 24), Stephen Rademaker argues that Democratic presidents have failed with Russia on strategic arms control agreements because of "their excessive enthusiasm and ambition." I disagree. In fact, at least until 2001, the conduct of the strategic arms control process in the U.S. was remarkably bipartisan.

One Small Step for the Council, One Giant Leap for Humankind
Huffington Post
by Jonathan Granoff and Rhianna Tyson Kreger

President Obama's historic Security Council summit on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation should be seen for what it is: an extremely important step towards a safer, saner, more secure planet.

No Nukes is Good Nukes
Relevant
by Tyler Wigg-Stevenson

To a generation that’s come of age since the Cold War’s end, the news this week from the UN might seem ho-hum : A summit-level meeting of the Security Council unanimously passed a resolution laying the groundwork for a nuclear weapons-free world.

And? The Bomb is so last century.

Except it’s not. With 20,000-plus nuclear weapons worldwide, and nuclear breakout threatening from North Korea to Iran, we’re actually headed toward a 21 st century crisis—a “nuclear tipping point,” as Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz, puts it.

MORE...

Nuclear Testing and Proliferation: An Inextricable Connection
Disarmament Diplomacy
by Thomas Graham, J.r and David Hafemeister

President Obama's call in Prague to complete the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was widely praised on the global stage. But what will be entailed for the United States to ratify the CTBT and reinvigorate international efforts to secure the remaining signatures and ratifications so that the Treaty can at last enter into force?

Nuclear Weapons Free: Let's Support President Obama
Huffington Post
by GSI President Jonathan Granoff
August 27, 2009

Imagine if the Biological Weapons Convention said that polio and small pox as weapons are banned universally but the plague as a weapon can be brandished and held at the ready by nine countries because these special countries are uniquely moral, restrained, trustworthy, and responsible.

Such is the incoherence in which the world is living under the sword of nuclear annihilation.

Japan ready for 'no nukes'
The Japan Times
by Shingo Fukuyama and MPI Steering Committee member Hiromichi Umebayashi
August 25, 2009

As the Obama administration contemplates major reductions to its nuclear arsenal, Japan's commitment to nuclear disarmament is being tested as never before.

In his Prague speech on April 5, President Barack Obama said, "We will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same." He went on to say, "we will begin the work of reducing our arsenal."

But in between these two landmark pledges he said, "as long as these weapons exist, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies."

Obama Needs Friends on Nuclear Weapons
Embassy
by MPI Chairman Emeritus Douglas Roche
August 19, 2009

When President Barack Obama chairs a summit of the UN Security Council Sept. 24 on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, a new and exciting moment will have arrived in the long struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons. This unprecedented event gives Canada a rare political opportunity to obtain several political goals with one stroke.

Nuclear Proliferation: A Mother's Legacy
Huffington Post
by GSI Board Member Christie Brinkley
May 13, 2009

Change is a constant. Sometimes the world changes imperceptibly, slowly, and sometimes it can come in a flash. The world is now poised for changes for the better. But let us never forget that the danger that sits over our head arrived in a flash. At precisely 5:30 AM on the 16th of July 1945 in a place in the desert of New Mexico, named Journey of the Dead Man or Jornada del Muerto, that flash of the Trinity Test, caused Dr. Robert Oppenheimer to recite the famous verse from the Bhagavad-Gita, "I am death, the shatterer of worlds." The world changed on that day. The extent of that change was demonstrated shortly thereafter in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It should not surprise us then that the first resolution of the General Assembly on January 24, 1946, called for creating a Commission designed to help obtain the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.

Evangelicals join the nuclear-weapon-free world movement
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
by Rev. Tyler Wigg-Stevenson
May 6, 2009

Though many might imagine faith and science as incompatible, religion and atomic science, at least, are natural bedfellows. Both lead their truest devotees into a troubled insomnia, staring wide-eyed at dark ceilings as undeniably existential matters banish any thought of sleep. The first nuclear test was itself an oddly syncretistic undertaking--bearing the moniker of the Christian Godhead, Trinity; recounted by J. Robert Oppenheimer with his infamous appropriation of the Hindu scriptures; and, in the explosion, the apotheosis of materialism itself, rending the very building blocks of the universe. And, as the nuclear age took shape, humanity's faith traditions proved instrumental as centers of resistance to what many of us see as categorically immoral devices.

In the first 100 days of his presidency, Barack Obama has started to move the United States towards a culture of peace, a remarkable achievement in a world still torn by conflict.

His actions on winding down the war in Iraq, restarting nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia, thawing relations with Cuba, closing Guantanamo and ending the policy of torture have been dramatic. In short, the new president is bringing the world to...

An open, honest nuclear debate
The Edmonton Journal
by Douglas Roche
May 6, 2009

The consultation process launched by the Alberta government to determine if a nuclear power plant should be built in the Peace River area appears designed to dampen any opposition to the plan.

Humanity's Greatest Challenge and Its Solution
Huffington Post
by Kim Cranston
May 4, 2009

Climate change is not humanity's greatest challenge (even though scientists predict it may unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration in 20 years, and increase the global surface temperature up to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100).

Neither are pandemics, nuclear proliferation, water scarcity, the Middle East conflict, or many other things you might think.

Our greatest challenge is that our institutions can't resolve any of these challenges, let alone prioritize climate change as the challenge that poses the greatest threat if we don't act immediately. Until we address the crisis of the failure of our institutions to resolve the significant challenges we face, don't expect progress on any of them.

With the ushering in of the Obama administration, the mood of the international security community has drastically changed. We have moved far from that low point in May 2005, when the Review Conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) collapsed in acrimony. Cooperation and respect for the rule of law have returned as primary principles of US policy, and President Barack Obama's call for cautious optimism has been adopted by most. We can now reasonably expect concerted efforts towards advancing many of the "13 practical steps" toward nuclear disarmament agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, such as negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), deeper cuts in the US and Russian arsenals, and even progress towards the entry-into-force of the Comprehensive nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)....

Mr. Obama and Nuclear Weapons
Washington Post
Letter to the Editor
Thomas Graham, Jr.

Anne Applebaum claimed that worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons was President Obama's idea ["Yes, We Can . . . Disarm?" op-ed, April 7]. But President Ronald Reagan called for the elimination of "all nuclear weapons," which he denounced as "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization."

Obama's Palm Sunday Mandate
Relevant Magazine
Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, GSI Board of Directors

...In the early hours of the morning at the start of this week, while most American churchgoers still kept their beds, President Obama delivered an address in Prague that should be marked by history as “the Palm Sunday speech.” Standing before tens of thousands of Czech citizens, he called for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons from the earth, and outlined a set of practical steps to begin the process.

Zero Nuclear Weapons
New York Times
Michael Christ, IPPNW Executive-Director
LTE

Re “Promises of a ‘Fresh Start’ for U.S.-Russia Relations” (news article, April 2): Twenty-three years ago, President Ronald Reagan and President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union nearly signed an agreement to abolish nuclear weapons, but American commitment to missile defense killed the deal. It was a fateful missed opportunity to end the threat of nuclear Armageddon and to prevent the subsequent birth of new nuclear weapon states in India, Pakistan, North Korea and now possibly Iran. … Michael Christ Exec. Dir., International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

Japan's Mistake at the NSG
Far Eastern Economic Review
Kono Taro, PNND Council

also published as Step Up Non-proliferation Efforts in The Japan Times online

January 2009

...I am beginning to wonder, though, what exactly Japan’s other “concrete efforts” are. I cannot imagine that the Japanese representatives who agreed to the U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Agreement at the August meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) envisaged their yes vote as any sort of effort towards nuclear disarmament. The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal breaks every rule in the nonproliferation book, and Japan did nothing to stop it.

A two-class world, with nuclear weapon “haves” and “have nots,” is incompatible with the cooperation needed to effectively protect the global commons, address crushing poverty, and ensure sustainable development.

UN Sets Ground for Future Disarmament Battles
Arms Control Today
Jim Wurst
December 2008

The UN General Assembly committee dealing with nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament issues ran a wait-and-see session in October 2008, with progress perhaps stymied by the upcoming presidential transition in the United States. The session, which ended four days before the U.S. election, debated and voted on 58 resolutions. Under the umbrella of nuclear disarmament, the committee usually considers numerous drafts on specific issues-such as operational status, security assurances, and nuclear-weapon-free zones-and three comprehensive, omnibus drafts each year.

North Korea and Six Party Talks: Resolving a Nuclear Crisis
by Kevin Davis
Disarmament Times
Fall 2008, Vol. 31, No.3

August 11 was the day many expected North Korea to be removed from the United States' list of state sponsors of terrorism as a result of Pyongyang's progress towards dismantling its nulear program. The day, however, came and passed with the United States taking no action, and some observers grumbled that the on-again, off-again Six Party Talks, which aim at resolving the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, had once again come to a stand still. But even given this most recent hurdle, these misgivings are premature. Indeed, if one looks back at the talks' progress thus far, patience and guarded optimism should be the rule of the day.

The persistence of "-isms" in international relations
The Hindu
Op-ed by by Jayantha Dhanapala
September 18, 2008

Terrorism, nationalism and consumerism have emerged as challenges
facing the entire global community.

A reckless Georgian President has just tried to restart the Cold War
by triggering a dangerous series of events. Rhetoric on both sides
redolent of the bad old days threatens international peace and
security. But, of one thing we can be fairly certain. The ideological
confrontation between the East and the West, in what was portrayed as
a Manichaean struggle between capitalism and communism, will not
resume. It is this 'de-idelogisation' of international relations that
is less likely to return in a new competition between the USA-led
NATO alliance and Russia and such allies as it can muster. Instead,
we are more likely to see three '-isms' continue to dominate global
affairs affecting all nations and requiring our collective and
cooperative attention and energies.

Last September, I was accorded the privilege of contributing an article to The Hindu on the subject of the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal. The editor chose to introduce the piece by spotlighting the following two sentences from the article: “Good leadership looks as far down the road as possible to anticipate obstacles and detours. On the nuclear deal, a combination of U. S. and Indian hubris has led India down the garden path without any clear strategy for reaching the ultimate destination other than economic enticements and intimidation.”

One Way to Save the Relationship
The St. Petersburg Times
Op-ed by Rose Gottemoeller
August 29, 2008

For anyone who cares deeply about U.S.-Russian relations, events in Georgia are as great a tragedy as they are for the inhabitants of the region — the Ossetians, Abkhaz, Georgians and Russians alike. Against the backdrop of this war, the agenda for cooperation with Russia is quickly being thrown into doubt.

Triumph of Peace
South China Morning Post
Op-ed by David Krieger
August 27, 2008

The world has again witnessed 16 days of extraordinary beauty and talent by young athletes gathered from throughout the world. The athletes met in Beijing for the XXIXth Olympic Games of modern times and competed on a global stage. They inspired me and I believe they must have inspired billions of people in every part of the world by the amazing feats of speed, strength, agility and teamwork of which we humans are capable.

Canada should not abet erosion of international nuclear restraints
The Chronicle Herald
by Tamara Lorincz
August 6, 2008

Canadians should be very concerned about nuclear weapons proliferation because our country is one of the main suppliers of uranium, a raw material needed for these weapons, on the world market...We must heed their call and support the work of the Middle Powers Initiative, Physicians for Global Survival, the Pugwash Peace Exchange and other partners to abolish the estimated 25,000 nuclear weapons in existence today. This week, events are happening across the country to mark the 63rd anniversary of the first nuclear bombings and to promote the Mayors for Peace 2020 Vision for nuclear abolition...

Nuclear Weapons: What Obama actually said on deterrence
The Washington Times
by John Hollum
August 1, 2008

...The central element of Mr. Obama's approach to nuclear weapons is his steady focus on the emerging security threat that terrorists, not susceptible to deterrence, will acquire a nuclear weapon. Beginning from his first days in the Senate, he concentrated on bipartisan efforts with Sen. Richard Lugar to lock up loose nuclear materials. In October, he made answering the nuclear terrorism danger a centerpiece of his campaign, and laid out further steps to thwart terrorists' efforts to acquire the highly enriched uranium and plutonium they could use to build a bomb.

Placing Nova Scotia at centre of disarmament movement
The Chronicle Herald
July 11, 2008
by Alexa McDonough

AS ONE of the global council co-presidents of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (PNND), I will have the privilege this weekend to collaborate with legislators from five continents and leading experts in nuclear disarmament who will be gathering in Pugwash. Through energetic and visionary efforts of Pugwash Peace Exchange, the goal of this international conference is to build the necessary political will to advance nuclear non-proliferation and, ultimately, a nuclear weapons-free world.

Much has been written about what the next president's priorities should be. Iraq? Health care? The environment? The economy? Seldom mentioned is a danger many Americans have chosen to forget - the atom bomb. The damage done to one of the world's great cities by just one atom bomb, not to mention the thousand times more powerful hydrogen bomb, would eclipse any other imminent danger faced by humanity.

Questions for the candidates
International Herald Tribune
July 4, 2008
by Mikhail Gorbachev

There has been unusual interest throughout the world in the U.S. presidential race.

Skeptics, of whom there are quite a few, say the campaign is just a marathon show that has little to do with real policymaking. Even if there's a grain of truth in that, in an interdependent world the statements of the contenders for the White House are more than just rhetoric addressed to American voters.

Nuclear Fuel Recyling: More Trouble Than Its Worth
Scientific American
April, 2008
by Frank N. von Hippel

Although a dozen years have elapsed since any new nuclear power reactor has come online in the U.S., there are now stirrings of a nuclear renaissance. The incentives are certainly in place: the costs of natural gas and oil have skyrocketed; the public increasingly objects to the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels; and the federal government has offered up to $8 billion in subsidies and insurance against delays in licensing (with new laws to streamline the process) and $18.5 billion in loan guarantees. What more could the moribund nuclear power industry possibly want?

The Misperception Trap
International Herald Tribune
April 16, 2008
by Rose Gottemoeller

On my way out of Moscow on the day when George Bush and Vladimir Putin met for the last time in Sochi, Russian blogs were alight with complaints about how Putin had lost big at the NATO summit meeting in Bucharest the day before...

As the 21st century unfolds, a new truth is gradually being recognized: Nuclear weapons and human security cannot co-exist.

Almost two decades after the end of the Cold War, there are still 25,000 nuclear weapons in existence, about 95 percent held by the United States and Russia with smaller numbers also possessed by the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel. All told, half of humanity still lives in a nuclear-weapons state. The total amount of money spent by these countries on their nuclear arsenals exceeds $12 trillion, a stupendous sum only a fraction of which could have resolved the issues of mass poverty, health deficiencies, and education neglect.

'Toward a Nuclear-Free World': Reaganites against the bomb
Sojourners
April 2008
by Tyler Wigg Stevenson and Jessica Wilbanks

In January 4, 2007, former Reagan administration officials George Shultz and Henry Kissinger joined Democrats William Perry and Sam Nunn in publishing “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons” in TheWall Street Journal. A year later, this past January 15, the co-authors expanded on their original proposal in a second op-ed, “Toward a Nuclear-Free World.” The two titles describe a bold vision that must be worked toward with concrete actions.

The authors’ logic is simple: If we cling to our own nuclear weapons in contravention of our treaty obligations, we will not be able to prevent global proliferation and an undeterrable terrorist bomb. The only choice now is to lead the world toward the prohibition and verifiable elimination of all nuclear arsenals and bomb material.

After a long dry spell, the seeds planted by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva in 1985 and Reykjavik in 1986, appear to be bearing fruit. Their declaration in Geneva that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," set the stage for the historic Reykjavik meeting at which the two leaders came tantalizingly close to finally abolishing their nations' nuclear arsenals.

Juggling and the Kashmir-Jammu Conflict
SGI Quarterly
April 2008
by Alyn Ware

I am visiting a school in rural New Zealand and am with a group of 15 students outside on the playing field. I have a bag of balls at my side. "Who here knows how to juggle a couple of balls?" I ask, tossing two balls into the air as I speak. A few hands go up. "How about three balls?" I query as I perform a simple three-ball pattern. A couple of hands remain. "Well, today I am going to teach you how to juggle eight balls at once." Now they think I am joking. "It’s too difficult to do alone. I can only juggle four by myself. But together we can juggle eight! It’s called group juggling. Let’s do it."

Spiritual Disaster Preparedness: Will evangelicals show the will to pursue the prevention of a pending threat?
Christianity Today
March 31, 2008
by Tyler Wigg Stevenson

At 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, May 25, 2017, a 14-foot U-Haul truck will abruptly come to an inexplicable stop in the middle of the 900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. There, in the heart of downtown Washington, D.C., only yards away from the FBI and the Justice Department, the nuclear warhead hidden in the truck's cargo bed will explode.

A Merciful White Flash
Christianity Today
March 31, 2008
by Tyler Wigg Stevenson

Before I became a Christian, I had the worst lunch breaks in the world. They went like this:

Every day I would take my bowl of rice and beans into the noonday sun and sit on the tailgate of my '87 Ranger, which commanded a billion-dollar view. Armed with the painfully earnest idealism of a new college graduate, I had scored a job at a nonprofit organization located in a house-cum-office just off the southern foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'd sit there in the parking lot, humming Otis Redding, literally at the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. As I ate, I'd take in the bridge, the Marin headlands, Alcatraz and the East Bay, and the stunning Mediterranean sweep of the San Francisco skyline.

And every day the scenery was swept clean, in my mind's horrified eye, by the merciless white flash of a nuclear airburst.

Tensions, it seems, between the US and Russia heighten daily. Increasingly hostile rhetoric is slung from both sides in a tactical volley best characterized as dumb and dumber. One side’s foolhardy plans to deploy missile defense sites in Eastern Europe are met with even dumber threats to withdraw from key arms control treaties. Add to this the continued existence of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons- thousands of which are still on high-alert status-and a cold war re-run seems just around the corner.

Throughout the Cold War, nuclear deterrence was at the heart of U.S. nuclear policy. But deterrence has some important limitations that make it highly unreliable, particularly in a time of terrorism.

America Was Not Entirely Asleep at the Nuclear Switch
The Embassy
by Jonathan Granoff

Those of us who vigorously advocate for a nuclear weapon-free world are often thought to ignore positive efforts by nuclear weapon states. Let us put that to rest. Here is a short list of several noteworthy accomplishments by the United States:

Quiet diplomacy or lost opportunity?
The Chronicle Herald
November 18, 2007
by Adrian Bradbury, Alexa McDonough and Paul Dewar

CANADA is the world’s largest financial contributor to the peace process in what region?

Addressing the nuclear threat
The Courier-Journal
November 7, 2007
by Jonathan Granoff

Religious leaders gathering this week at the Festival of Faiths in Louisville must make a forceful call to forge a consensus of conscience and reason: Nuclear weapons are unworthy of civilization. No other threat to human survival is as immediate and hazardous as the 27,000 warheads still in existence.

On Friday at the United Nations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will discuss strategy regarding Iran's nuclear program with her counterparts from Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. What is needed is not another UN Security Council resolution strengthening existing sanctions. Rather the Bush administration should talk directly with Iran, and soon, because the U.S.-Iran confrontation is heating up dangerously. Tensions over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit this week are just the tip of the iceberg.

Eleven years after it was opened for signature, ten countries still have to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) before it can take full legal effect. For a treaty that has been sisigned by 177 countries and ratified by nearly 140, this is a ridiculous - and potentially dangerous - situation.

Nuke War Watch: Arms Race Shadow
United Press International
August 7, 2007
by Craig Eisendrath

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- In December 1957 I was a private first-class in the U.S. Army stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. We had a Russian kid in our unit, and when we weren't on guard duty or peeling potatoes, he would translate programs for us from Radio Moscow.

Right before Christmas, we heard a narrator telling a story to some children. He said, "Aloysha, look up in the sky. There are three moons, and two of them are Russian."

We were in the Space Age! The Russians had just put up their first sputniks, pre-empting the Americans much to their acute dismay. The Americans, not to be outdone, launched their own satellites early in 1958. Though they were not as large or impressive as the Russians', the space race had begun.

On November 6, 1995, Lijon Eknilang, a quiet, unassuming woman from the Pacific island of Rongelap, made what is probably the longest trip in the world for a court appearance. It took her more than two days traveling to reach the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the highest judicial body in the world. She relayed to the 14 officiating judges horrifying testimony about the effects of nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Old thinking about a new threat The politics of missile defenses
International Herald Tribune
June 8, 2007
By Theodore Postol and James Goodby

"President Vladimir Putin's compromise proposal to President George W. Bush concerning the U.S. ballistic missile defense system currently slated to be installed in Poland and the Czech Republic makes very good sense. By using a Russian early warning radar in Azerbaijan, the United States would have the ability to track and engage all Iranian long-range missiles launched against both the East and West Coasts of the United States, thus turning the barrel of the U.S. missile defense away from Russia and directly and unambiguously onto Iran."

The first preparatory meeting for the 2010 Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is set to begin in Vienna on April 30, beginning a new cycle in the long struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons. A number of other factors are likely to affect that struggle.

A New US Government Could Be the Bright Light in a Bleak Nuclear Arms Future
Analysis by Douglas Roche
Embassy Magazine
May 2, 2007

A new moment has arrived in the long struggle to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Representatives of 188 nations, which have ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), are meeting in Vienna this week and next to try again to construct a viable plan for nuclear disarmament. They will continue these meetings each year until 2010 when a critical decision will have to be made on whether the NPT is still viable.

It is high time that the US returns to its own values. We are the first country founded on confidence in the power of law. We rejected the law of power asserted by the British overreaching empire. Let’s not let this Administration’s quest for “full spectrum dominance,” a radical assertion of empire, blind us to our own values and self interest. It is time to negotiate prohibitions against an arms race in space.

The Nuclear Threat
Op-ed by Mikhail Gorbachev
Published in The Wall Street Journal
January 31, 2007
p. 13

"The essay, 'A World Free of Nuclear Weapons,' published in this newspaper on Jan.4, was signed by a bipartisan group of four influential Americans -- George Schulz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn-- not known for utopian thinking, and having unique experience in shaping the policies of previous administrations. It raises an issue of crucial importance for world affairs: the need for the abolition of nuclear weapons."

The Global Forum on Preventing Bio-Terrorism—Heeding the Call
Journal of Homeland Security
August 2006
By Barry Kellman

"United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has issued a call for a global forum on preventing biological terrorism. Bio-terrorism is, according to the Secretary-General, “the most important under-addressed terrorist threat” that “requires new thinking on the part of the international community.” Annan has earlier drawn international attention to bio-terrorism, but his recent comments are far more pointed in how he characterizes the threat and what he requests the world to do. It is imperative that the communities of scientists, government officials, and other experts who are concerned about bio-terrorism take up this call."

Think Again: US-India Nuclear Deal
Foreign Policy
July 2006
By Thomas Graham, Jr., Leonor Tomero, Leonard Weiss

A nuclear deal announced in March would allow the United States to sell nuclear materials to India and, in return, bring parts of India's nuclear program under international safeguards. But the pact undermines decades of nuclear non-proliferation work and gives too much freedom to a state with a questionable nuclear history.

Remembering the Marshall Islands
Op-Ed from the San Francisco Chronicle
Jane Goodall, Rick Asselta
Friday, June 30, 2006

As a result of nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands 60 years ago, many of the Marshallese Islanders still suffer today. Yet, few Americans know about this shameful chapter of history. Today, June 30, which marks a painful anniversary for many in the South Pacific, is just another day for those unaware of the atrocities that took place there. This year, I hope the anniversary might open the eyes of people in America and around the world: We must acknowledge the damage done in the past and rise up out of our apathy to ensure such horrors are not perpetrated again.

George W. Bush thought that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He was wrong. Now Mr. Bush has returned from India, and has proposed a nuclear deal that he believes will help both the Indian and American people. He is wrong again.

Mr. Bush wants to cut a deal that will advance India's nuclear capabilities, with potential profit for US corporations. The deal will bring some of India's nuclear reactors under international safeguards, but will have the effect of further undermining the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

During the past five years the United States has abandoned many of the nuclear arms control agreements negotiated since the administration of Dwight Eisenhower. This change in policies has sent uncertain signals to other countries, including North Korea and Iran, and may encourage technologically capable nations to choose the nuclear option. The proposed nuclear deal with India is just one more step in opening a Pandora's box of nuclear proliferation.

The only substantive commitment among nuclear-weapon states and others is the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), accepted by the five original nuclear powers and 182 other nations. Its key objective is "to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology . . . and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament." At the five-year U.N. review conference in 2005, only Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan were not participating -- three with proven arsenals.

WASHINGTON - State Department officials appointed by President Bush have sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with less experienced political operatives who share the White House and Pentagon's distrust of international negotiations and treaties.

The reorganization of the department's arms control and international security bureaus was intended to help it better deal with 21st-century threats. Instead, it's thrown the agency into turmoil and produced an exodus of experts with decades of experience in nuclear arms, chemical weapons and related matters, according to 11 current and former officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder.

Oslo, Norway - Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, the risk of nuclear disaster is as great as ever with terrorists zealously pursuing atomic weapons, chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei said Saturday in accepting the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency he leads received the coveted award in the Norwegian capital for their efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons -- a job ElBaradei nearly lost because of a dispute with the United States over Iran and Iraq.

In the weeks following the atomic attacks on Japan almost 60 years ago, and then for decades afterward, the United States engaged in airtight suppression of all film shot in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombings. This included footage shot by U.S. military crews and Japanese newsreel teams. In addition, for many years all but a handful of newspaper photographs were seized or prohibited.

The public did not see any of the newsreel footage for 25 years, and the U.S. military film remained hidden for nearly four decades.

Regrettably, there are times when multilateral forums tend merely to reflect, rather than mend, deep rifts over how to confront the threats we face. The review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which ended on Friday with no substantive agreement, was one of these.

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The Framework of Human Unity
By Jonathan Granoff
Enlightenment Magazine
June-August, 2005

Nobel Peace laureates have a right, an ability, and a responsibility to articulate a morally empowered vision for all people on the planet. Most leaders, when they say 'we,' are referring to their own nation, race, religion, or community. But when Nobel Peace laureates say 'we,' they mean the entire human community. Articulating that framework of human unity is the first step that needs to be taken to address the crises facing our world.

A Revolution in American Nuclear Policy
By Jonathan Schell
Common Dreams
Thursday, May 26, 2005

A metaphorical "nuclear option" - the cutoff of debate in the Senate on judicial nominees - has just been defused, but a literal nuclear option, called "global strike," has been created in its place. In a shocking innovation in American nuclear policy, recently disclosed in the Washington Post by military analyst William Arkin, the administration has created and placed on continuous high alert a force whereby the President can launch a pinpoint strike, including a nuclear strike, anywhere on earth with a few hours' notice. The senatorial "nuclear option" was covered extensively, but somehow this actual nuclear option - a "full-spectrum" capability (in the words of the presidential order) with "precision kinetic (nuclear and conventional) and non-kinetic (elements of space and information operations)" - was almost entirely ignored.

The United States is sending the wrong signal to signatories of the global pact against nuclear weapons by backing out of previous arms control pledges, arms experts and diplomats said on Wednesday.

The 188 parties to the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty are near the end of a monthlong conference that participants said would almost certainly fail to agree on any steps to improve the pact aimed at halting the spread of nuclear arms.

The U.N. Secretary-General and Security Council should take on the job of blocking the spread of nuclear weapons if the troubled conference on the nonproliferation treaty fails to take action, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara said Tuesday.

"There's a high probability - I would say a certainty - that the conference will fail," said McNamara, who once oversaw 30,000 nuclear warheads but has since become a leading voice for disarmament.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said Tuesday he feared the U.N. nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference will fail to strengthen the measure as needed, more states will get nuclear weapons and the Security Council will have to act.

But, he told reporters at U.N. headquarters, he didn't know what the body charged with the world's peace and security could do, given its five permanent members hold vetoes and all are nuclear states.

United Nations - U.S. and NATO nuclear policies are immoral, dangerous and destructive for the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, a former Defense Secretary from the Vietnam War era, Robert McNamara, said on Tuesday.

McNamara, who spoke at a conference taking stock of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, was defense secretary in the 1960s under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He was the architect of early U.S. policy in the Vietnam War.

Robert McNamara is worried. He knows how close we've come. His counsel helped the Kennedy administration avert nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today, he believes the United States must no longer rely on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. To do so is immoral, illegal, and dreadfully dangerous.

It is time-well past time, in my view-for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I would characterize current U.S. nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous. The risk of an accidental or inadvertent nuclear launch is unacceptably high. Far from reducing these risks, the Bush administration has signaled that it is committed to keeping the U.S. nuclear arsenal as a mainstay of its military power-a commitment that is simultaneously eroding the international norms that have limited the spread of nuclear weapons and fissile materials for 50 years. Much of the current U.S. nuclear policy has been in place since before I was secretary of defense, and it has only grown more dangerous and diplomatically destructive in the intervening years.

Fifty years ago, I joined Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and eight others in signing a manifesto warning of the dire consequences of nuclear war. This statement, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, was Einstein's final public act. He died shortly after signing it. Now, in my 97th year, I am the only remaining signatory. Because of this, I feel it is my duty to carry Einstein's message forward, into this 60th year since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which evoked almost universal opposition to any further use of nuclear weapons.

As the review conference of the Nonproliferation Treaty convenes in New York this month, we can only be appalled at the indifference of the United States and the other nuclear powers. This indifference is remarkable, considering the addition of Iran and North Korea as states that either possess or seek nuclear weapons programs.

Renewal talks for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are scheduled for May, yet the United States and other nuclear powers seem indifferent to its fate. This is remarkable, considering the addition of Iran and North Korea as states that either possess or seek nuclear weapons programs. A recent United Nations report warned starkly: "We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation."

The inspection disarmament efforts through the UN system worked in Iraq. The invasion was not necessary. Billions of dollars have been squandered, thousands of lives and limbs lost, and the people of Iraq live in increasing poverty and insecurity. Did this happen because important facts were ignored?

As we witness the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq, I wonder what my father, the late Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., would have thought about the situation there.

A few days before he passed away in December 2000, he completed a book entitled "The Sovereignty Revolution." The book explored ways humanity can effectively address global challenges, from climate change to terrorism and genocide. He concluded that our concept of sovereignty, which is "widely and unwisely thought . . . to mean only national sovereignty," helped make the 20th century the bloodiest in history. He argued humanity will not survive the next century unless we revise our concept of sovereignty to acknowledge the primacy of the individual and emphasize the importance of strengthening transnational organizations and international law.

People make mistakes. We should not be too surprised or dismayed at the failure of intelligence regarding weapons in Iraq. We now know that blood and treasure is being spent based on speculation or evidence ignored. David Kay's testimony that Iraq did not pose a threat to the US highlights why we must return to American values. Our founding fathers knew that because people make mistakes the inefficiencies of checks and balances must be legally mandated. We should be very alarmed that these restraints on action were and continue to be ignored with bravado.

In his memoir, A World Transformed, former President George Bush in discussing the Gulf War made the following observation: ''Trying to eliminate Saddam would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. There was no viable exit strategy we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that one hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in the bitterly hostile land.''

There are approximately 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, 90 percent of which are possessed by Russia and the United States. The United States has about 11,000 nuclear weapons, and the Russians have about 19,500 nuclear weapons. Thousands of these are Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles; they are armed, targeted and poised, waiting for three short computer signals to fire. These hair trigger devices represent the devastation of approximately 100,000 Hiroshimas and pose a horrific threat to life. From the moment the early-warning systems cry danger (real or cyber-glitch), the U.S. government allows itself less than twenty five minutes before launch keys are turned in retaliation; experts believe that the Russian government allows itself less than ten.

The Bush administration and its critics agree that the viability of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is crucial to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. Any actions to prevent nuclear proliferation must reinforce the treaty and not weaken it.

North Korea's withdrawal from the treaty and its claim that it has and will continue to produce weapons grade nuclear material put the NPT and international security at risk. A nuclear armed North Korea with excess weapons grade nuclear material available for export would be an intolerable threat and must be dealt with promptly and firmly. The issue is how to deal with the threat. There are no easy answers, only difficult choices, and even with prudence, patience and the best of intentions it may not be possible to get North Korea to give up the nuclear option.

Nothing but trouble
WASHINGTON, DC--Even as U.S. forces struggle to consolidate victory in a war justified largely to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the White House is preparing to build and test new nuclear weapons for America's own arsenal. The administration supports provisions in the 2004 Defense Authorization Bill eliminating a 1994 ban on low-yield nuclear weapons, funding research on them, and compressing the time needed to prepare nuclear tests.

The Bush administration wrongly believes it can eliminate the nuclear threat by wars of prevention. This policy may actually stimulate efforts by other countries to quickly obtain nuclear weapons.

Sept. 11, 2001 focused the attention of the world on the threat of global terrorism, and the international community responded collectively to the threat it posed.

But the tools for collective international action are being undermined by a small, radical and vociferous minority in the United States. It is difficult to see what sort of mandate this cult of radical unilateralists has, though many of them hold influential but unelected positions within the Bush administration.

War does not exist without the shedding of innocent blood. Under the best-case scenario, Iraq's children - present victims of the Ba'ath Party mafiocracy with its Don, Saddam Hussein - will suffer most. Destruction of Baghdad's electronic grid will collapse hospitals and water supply systems, and innocent civilians will certainly be the chief victims.

Sir, If Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction, their control and elimination must be done in an effective manner that reinforces international stability.

It is in the utmost interest of the US that its response conforms to international law. Should President George W. Bush decide to use military force in the Gulf, he must conform with the UN charter. Violating it would violate the US constitution, which makes treaties the supreme law of the land (Article VI.2).

To the Editor:
Re "U.S. Rejects All Support for New Court on Atrocities" (news article, May 7): The Bush administration's repudiation of the International Criminal Court is a grave disappointment with lasting, harmful implications.

A Pretty Poor Posture for a Superpower
by Robert S. McNamara and Thomas Graham, Jr.
L.A. Times
March 13, 2002

During the Cold War, peace was supported by the doctrine of “mutual assured destruction,” which simply meant that each side maintained second strike capability, thereby deterring nuclear war. The Antiballistic Missile Treaty and other treaties limiting the use of offensive nuclear forces were the underpinning of this doctrine. They were also the basis for ending the nuclear arms race.

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Pentagon Report Reveals Dangerous Shift in US Nuclear Doctrine
By Jonathan Granoff
March 12, 2002

Details of the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) make explicit a dangerous shift that threatens to undermine US security by encouraging others to develop new nuclear weapons and use them, and would violate US political and legal obligations. The NPR is a political roadmap to ultimate catastrophe.

The idea of waging nuclear war is taking flight in Washington. Canada must protest, says Douglas Roche, former chair of the UN Disarmament Committee.

Nuclear weapons are back on the front pages, with news of a Bush administration policy document, the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, which projects the role of nuclear weapons into the future -- not as deterrents, but for the purpose of waging wars. The document even names potential targets. This document and the thinking behind it are reckless. They not only jeopardize international law but the support of America's closest allies. Canada must state its opposition immediately.

MOSCOW - In the past month, the world has witnessed something previously unknown: a common stand taken by America, Russia, Europe, India, China, Cuba, most of the Islamic world and numerous other regions and countries. Despite many serious differences between them, they united to save civilization.

It is now the responsibility of the world community to transform the coalition against terrorism into a coalition for a peaceful world order. Let us not, as we did in the 1990's, miss the chance to build such an order.

Since World War II, humanity has mastered extraordinary challenges. We can orbit the earth. We can transplant organs. We can travel faster than sound, and we can communicate across the globe almost instantaneously.

We can commit global suicide, too. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., are stunning, sickening proof of humanity's capability to reduce the best of what we are to rubble, smoke and death.

Conservatives and liberals alike should be wary of the alarmist rhetoric of Americans for Missile Defense (news article, Aug. 6). The coalition's spokesman, Jeffrey Baxter, suggests that we need a missile defense rather than diplomacy: "When I look at people in North Korea, Libya, Iraq and Iran, understand folks, these folks don't sit around and watch 'Seinfeld' and eat Milky Way candy bars all day."

Is he suggesting that digesting American popular culture is a prerequisite for rational thought?

It is misleading to suggest that missile defense is an issue for conservatives to rally around. America prides itself on values of freedom and democracy, and assisting, rather than bullying, other countries. A better defense is to strengthen trust and cooperation among people and countries.

ZACHARY ALLEN
Program Director
Global Security Institute
San Francisco, Aug 6, 2001

In their July 22 meeting in Genoa, Italy, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to consider the topics of national missile defense and further cuts in nuclear arsenals. While discussion is preferable to confrontation, agreement here is by no means assured. Russia wants to continue to have some influence over future U.S. missile defense developments.

WASHINGTON: Much media attention has been focused on cabinet selections and partisan politics. But it has become clear that any legislative success in the 107th Congress will require a coalition of centrists from both sides of the aisle.

Nowhere is bipartisan cooperation more important than in the realm of national security. The new Congress must identify issues on which bipartisan agreement is possible. The spread of weapons of mass destruction is one such issue. Seeking a bipartisan approach to nuclear nonproliferation should be among the principal goals of the next administration and Congress.

When Air Force One touched down in Moscow yesterday, nuclear politics again took center stage, just as they did so often during the Cold War. Nearly three decades ago, the Nixon administration and the Brezhnev regime came to agreement on a "big idea" about their nuclear-arms race: nuclear defense would beget ever more nuclear offense and diminish the security of all. Today, U.S. plans to deploy a National Missile Defense, or NMD, threaten to cast that idea onto the rubble heap of history. In doing so, and in insisting that Russia and the United States both retain thousands of nuclear warheads, they leave little hope for preventing some kind of nuclear conflagration in the 21st century.

YOU ARE POINTING a loaded machine gun at someone just a few feet away. His loaded machine gun is aimed at your chest.

You've been doing this for 50 years, and now your adversary is weaker and less bellicose -- but you still aren't sure if you can trust him. Meanwhile strangers are arriving, pulling up chairs and loading machine guns of their own.

But you remain calm. You have a plan: If anyone pulls the trigger, you'll fire first, knocking down all their bullets before they hit you.

SAN FRANCISCO -- This Sunday, a live television drama will reintroduce millions of viewers to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The CBS television network will broadcast a remake of Fail Safe, the 1964 best-selling novel and subsequent film about how a nuclear war could be launched accidentally.

Every five years, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT) comes up for reassessment by the countries that have signed it. This is the treaty that provides for international restraints (and inspections) on nuclear programs... It covers not only the nuclear nations but 180 other countries as well, including Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. An end to the NPT could terminate many of these inspections and open a Pandora's box of nuclear proliferation in states that already present serious terrorist threats to others.

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NATO and Peace Would Gain from a No-First-Use Policy
By Thomas Graham, Jr., Robert Mcnamara and Jack Mendelsohn
L.A. Times
December 15, 1999

We believe it is critical for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to reconsider its nuclear policy and agree to a no-first-use provision on nuclear weapons. Such a policy would be a signal to the international community that the most powerful nations in the world are prepared to accept that nuclear weapons have no utility other than to deter a nuclear-armed opponent from their use. It also would help strengthen a nuclear nonproliferation regime severely shaken by the U.S. Senate’s rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Nukes Beget Nukes: Away with Bombs
By Alan Cranston
San Francisco Examiner
Tuesday, November 16, 1999

LOS ALTOS HILLS: Shortly after atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I met Albert Einstein. He warned if the bomb were developed further, and ever used all-out, the human race could be exterminated.

The bomb has been developed further. One super bomb could now let loose more destructive energy than all that has been released from all weapons fired in all wars in all history.

A century of war, the twentieth century spawned the devil's own weapons-nuclear weapons-and humankind has yet to free itself of their threat.Nonetheless, inspired by the memory of the hundreds of thousands who died so tragically in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all of war's victims, we have fought for the fifty-four years since those bombings for the total abolition of nuclear weapons.

BEIJING: For 50 years, hanging over our heads like a sword of Damocles, nuclear weapons have never ceased threatening humanity's survival. The end of the Cold War has not brought about their disappearance.

India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests reveal the impotence of current policies intended to prevent proliferation. Moralizing appeals, threats of sanctions and offers of military and economic aid for not testing have done nothing to contain the crisis.

The abolition statement by international civilian leaders, made public on 2 February 1998 by General Lee Butler and the State of the World Forum - the full text of which follows this article - follows the pattern set by the two widely noted statements made by retired generals and admirals made public in late 1996 by General Andrew Goodpaster, General Butler and the Forum. Like the military professionals, the civilian leaders advocate that specific steps be taken now to reduce ongoing nuclear weapon dangers still facing us all after the end of the Cold War, and they urge that the nuclear powers declare umabiguously that their goal is eventual abolition.