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Policies and Public Awareness as Integral Ingredients to Nuclear Disarmament
by Orr Ashenberg

We live in an age that believes more is better. More food is better. More money is better. More life is better. However, let us ask ourselves this, are more deaths better? Is the “security” provided by nuclear weapons worth the risk of living under the heavy sword of nuclear holocaust? As a moral person who values life, I must say no.

Nuclear weapons are the most powerful and at the same time the most grotesque weapons on this planet. They are brutal and indiscriminate in whom they deform and kill. They leave victims vaporized or melted, crushed in a building or left with radiation burns. A reporter from Hiroshima on the invisible terror of radiation said, “For no apparent reason, their health began to fail. They lost their appetite. Their hair fell out. Bluish spots appeared on their bodies. And then bleeding began from their ears, nose and mouth.” This inhumane tragedy must not recur in our modern society.

At this time more than ever, the public must be made aware of the danger of nuclear weapons because without strong public pressure, the US government will never take any decisive actions. First, the public must grasp the full horror of nuclear weapons. It is hard to envision a million deaths and far easier to relate to an individual misfortune. As Stalin said, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” This way of thinking must be rejected.

Second, the public must understand that there is truly no winner in a nuclear war. Once a single nuclear bomb is dropped, all moral restrictions against dropping more rapidly fade. The use of nuclear weapons is not a sane option.

Finally and most importantly, the public must realize it is not too late to withdraw from this situation. Their opinions do matter and by loudly expressing these opinions, they can become the instruments of change. Now more than ever, the public must demand life. The government will listen.

A nuclear war might start in many ways in the post 9/11 world. Nuclear terrorism, false alarms, and mistakes by both humans and machines are all possible. Perhaps the most likely scenario for a nuclear war is a dispute between two countries that spirals into an escalating confrontation like in the Cuban Missile Crisis or in today’s India-Pakistan conflict. This way involves governments making hasty, bad decisions under moments of high stress.

The task of nuclear disarmament is difficult but not impossible and by following certain policies, it can become an achievable goal. The first and most difficult step of this process is a declaration by the US of the necessity of nuclear disarmament. This will come only when public support is strong enough for our government to take serious notice. If the US does make this bold declaration, then more nations, including the other nuclear powers, will surely follow. In their own declarations, nuclear nations must dedicate themselves to disarmament and non-nuclear nations must decide to refrain from pursuing nuclear weapons. The countries that do this should then come together and form a committee that will make all disarmament policies. It is imperative that all nuclear nations be on this committee but the committee must remain neutral at all times with each nation whether nuclear or non-nuclear having equal power.

Before continuing, it is important to understand why simple reductions cannot replace total disarmament. The reason is that it is not the number of nuclear weapons that matter but rather their mere existence. As long as one nation has nuclear weapons, other nations will develop them as well and this will result in further proliferation along with another arms race. More seriously though, so long as nations possess these weapons, they imply that they are willing to make the terrible and immoral decision of creating another Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Reductions must simply be a means, not an end.

With this in mind, the US and other members of the committee should discard their cold war mentalities at once. No nations of the committee on disarmament should be allowed to target one another with their nuclear weapons. The cold war has been over for a decade but Russia and the US still have thousands of warheads targeted at each other. Ending this absurd policy will not only make nuclear war less likely but will also be seen as a gesture of good will. Furthermore, to reduce the chance of another arms race, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty should be upheld by all nations including the US. In addition, nuclear forces should be taken off alert and governments should realize their huge nuclear inventories only make nuclear war more likely.

The first step towards disarmament should be setting in place a nuclear freeze. The production of nuclear weapons should halt. Those with the highest explosive power and first strike capabilities should be the first to leave production. At the same time, all research into nuclear weapons should cease and no new fissile material should be produced for nuclear explosions. The most important part of the freeze should be the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. There has been small success with the Partial Test Ban Treaty and it is now time for a complete ban. To date 92 out of 193 states have ratified the CTBT but for the treaty to go into affect, 13 more states including Pakistan, India, China, Israel, and the US must ratify it. The nuclear freeze, which will prevent present nuclear technology from becoming even more deadly, should be gradual, taking place over a few years. One positive externality of this freeze is that the enormous expenses going into nuclear weapons could be transferred anywhere from education to strengthening the economy.

During the nuclear freeze, each member of the committee on disarmament including the US should adopt a no first-use policy. With this policy, each nation will vow never to be the first to use a nuclear weapon in a conflict. This decision will drastically reduce the chance of nuclear war and it will lessen any fears during a serious confrontation.

Once the nuclear freeze is achieved, the reductions can begin. As with the freeze, the most dangerous nuclear weapons should be addressed first. Warheads should be removed from their delivery vehicles, dismantled, and destroyed. In addition, the first strike capabilities of all warheads should be taken away. The committee on disarmament can set goals for reductions but each nation should be allowed to take its own path in achieving these objectives. What is important though is that the warheads be destroyed and not just put away in storage. If the warheads are not eliminated, then they can easily be put back on alert thus negating any benefits of reductions. Any treaty, such as the one recently concluded between America and Russia, which does not use irreversible reductions, is more for public image rather than for global security. As reductions continue, nuclear free zones should be set up throughout the world. In these zones, no nuclear weapons would be allowed and eventually these zones would come to cover the globe. Disarmament will then have been a success.

With all these policies, one question that comes to mind is how to verify compliance. Already there is an International Monitoring System in place for verifying adherence to the test ban. To verify reductions, weapons inspectors should be allowed into all nuclear countries. Also the committee on disarmament should use satellites to track nuclear weapons and, in addition, each nuclear power should let the other members know the number and location of all their nuclear weapons. For nations that do not comply, economic sanctions should be set up.

However, none of these beneficial changes will ever go into effect if the American public does not wake up to the horror of nuclear war and powerfully demand nuclear disarmament. As Einstein said, “To the village square we must carry the facts of atomic energy. From there must come America’s voice.” The public can make its voice heard through many ways such as organizing community groups, writing letters to congressmen, or setting up rallies. As seen in every national movement in US history from civil rights to environmental protection, if many people unite over an issue, then there will certainly be progress.

Discovering nuclear energy was a great scientific discovery but it has given us the potential to be the destroyers of our own planet. Eliminating nuclear weapons will be a great victory for humanity as nations of the world come together and affirm their value of all life. As the strongest world power, the US can and should be the leader in achieving this victory. Omar Bradley once said, “Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” Let’s prove him wrong.

Bibliography

Barash, David and Lipton, Judith Stop Nuclear War! A Handbook (1982). New York: Grove Press, Inc.

The Harvard Nuclear Study Group (1983). Living with Nuclear Weapons. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

History Learning Site. Hiroshima - August 6th 1945. Retrieved form the World Wide Web September 18, 2002 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/hiroshima.htm.

Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues (1982). Common Security: A Blueprint for Survival. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Mikkelsen, Randall. (2002, May 14). US, Russia Agree on Treaty to Cut Nuclear Warheads. London: Reuters.

Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Home. Retreived from the World Wide Web September 18, 2002 http://pws.ctbto.org/.

Union of Concerned Scientists. Nuclear power. Retrieved form the World Wide Web September 18, 2002 http://www.ucsusa.org/index.html.

Union of Concerned Scientists (1982). The Road to Nuclear Sanity. Boston: Beacon Press.

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De-alerting the United States Strategic Nuclear Arsenal
By Justin Murray

Despite the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia once again find themselves on the brink of a nuclear Armageddon. However, in the post-Soviet era, this dire threat does not stem from hostilities or a premeditated, intentional strike but from miscalculation and computer errors. Although diplomatic tensions have diffused, the Cold War mentality remains a prominent ideology guiding nuclear posture. In a precarious display of irony, the United States and Russia both maintain thousands of nuclear weapons to “launch on warning” – ready to fire at the first indication of an incoming nuclear attack from the other side. However, we are not condemned to an inexorable fate; the United States could take the initiative in establishing a global “de-alerting” regime to prevent the risk of an accidental nuclear war. An international de-alert policy is an essential element in limiting and ending the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Both Russia and the US are plagued by what is known as the nuclear “use them or lose them dilemma;” their commanders are instructed to launch their nuclear forces before the incoming strike can decimate them. The United States and Russian procedures for issuing launch orders are almost identical. This sequence of events is completed in an extremely brief period of time in light of the fact that the world’s future hinges on the decisions of a few individuals under enormous pressure. The doomsday machine is set in motion when the early warning stations first interpret data resembling a nuclear attack. Within the span of just minutes, they are forced to make a decision about whether the attack is real or false. The information is transferred to the Pentagon, where a general in command notifies the President. This general briefs the President only for an allotted 30 seconds, at which point the President authorizes retaliation or dismisses the claim. In just a few seconds after permission is granted to launch, the command is relayed to officers around the country, who input the guidance coordinates and the access codes. As Morton Mintz concludes, "the process from start to finish takes about as much time as it does to prepare a continental breakfast."

Contrary to popular belief, United States early warning systems are not immune to operational instabilities. The US experienced several near-accidents at its Cheyenne Mountain early warning station in the late 1970s. Twice, the equipment at the base generated false indications of a nuclear missile strike from Russia and nearly prompted US retaliation on both occasions. The risk of such an incident erupting into a nuclear conflagration has actually increased due to lack of modernization and maintenance of command and control systems. United States officials are overconfident in the efficacy of their computers and do not feel the need to search out bugs and solve operational difficulties.

The nuclear safety in Russia is even more hazardous. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been a prodigious decay in early warning capabilities as several satellites and command stations have been lost to former Soviet republics. Consequently, many portions of the world are left blank to them, and their ability to determine a false alarm from a real one has been eviscerated. A fire that destroyed a satellite control facility in May of 2001 has only exacerbated these detrimental conditions. Disgruntled commanders receive paychecks late, command outposts get electricity cut off because they can not afford to pay the utility bills, and many of Russia’s nuclear weapons are in disrepair. These factors coalesce to diminish Russia’s ability to distinguish a false alarm from an actual strike, and drastically heighten the odds of a miscalculated strike.

If the United States took the first step with a verifiable de-alerting regime, Russia would have every incentive to reciprocate shortly after. First, de-alerting would relieve Russia from the extreme economic pressures of maintaining early warning systems, satellites, and personnel for launch order standby. Because Russian politics revolve around economics, Vladmir Putin and the Duma would probably jump at the chance to cut down on spending if they knew it would not put Russia at a military disadvantage. Second, Russia is aware that de-alerting is reversible; they may fear that if they failed to respond with reciprocity, the United States might put its weapons back on high alert, marking a return to a situation unfavorable to Russia. Third, the current spirit of cooperation between President Bush and Putin highlights healthy prospects for Russian modeling of a unilateral de-alerting regime. If the United States extended the olive branch via a de-alerting initiative, it would doubtless be to Russia’s military and financial benefit to emulate the action.
Although there are variations in de-alerting proposals, Bruce Blair's recommendations appear to offer the most auspicious solution. He suggests the establishment of the following policies to increase launch preparation time to at least 24 hours:
Removing the warhead from intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and storing them in separate facilities;
Exchanging guidance chips between Trident submarines so that an underwater rendezvous would be required to reinstall the equipment and launch the missiles;
Move all submarines out of range of Russian targets;
Explore methods of verification with the Russians.

Increasing launch preparation time would completely eradicate the possibility of a miscalculated nuclear strike. Computer glitches would surely be discovered and remedied in the 24 hour period between the original alarm and the reconstitution of nuclear forces. Furthermore, since it takes nowhere near 24 hours for an ICBM to traverse the distance between the US and Russia, the commanders could easily infer that a warning was false when no detonation occurred.

Critics of de-alerting propose several objections, but none remain valid under logical scrutiny. First, they argue that a de-alerting regime would be unverifiable, leaving a high propensity for “re-alerting.” On-site inspections, they contend, are worthless as tools of monitoring since weapons can be relocated to different storage facilities to evade detection. However, these critics ignore recent technological developments that allow verification of ICBMs and submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) via electronic seals. These seals would be placed on silo doors or missiles, and would have to be broken in order to reconstruct the weapon. When destroyed, these seals would transmit a radio signal to the inspectors, indicating a violation of the agreement. However, even if the verification regime ran into difficulties, fear of discovery would prevent cheating. Both the US and Russia would realize that the entire framework would break down if they breached the agreement, which would deter covert re-alerting.

The other major concern of de-alerting opponents epitomizes Cold War nuclear dogma; they contend that protracting the amount of time required to launch renders the U.S. nuclear deterrent insufficient. These critics are living in the world of 15 years ago, not the status quo environment of bilateral cooperation. In the modern era, it is vital not to hold deterrence as a crucial value in and of itself, but to ask, who must the U.S. deter? The United States possesses unrivaled conventional military prowess, and the greatest threat to our national security comes not from a massive pre-emptive launch from Russia, but from miscalculated launches from Russia or masked men with box-cutters, who certainly will not be deterred by nuclear weapons when they have demonstrated their willingness to die for their
"ideals".

The United States government must act as the world’s moral leader in implementing a comprehensive program to de-alert its nuclear arsenal in order to have a viable opportunity to significantly reduce or end the use of weapons of mass destruction. The world is past the age of superpower confrontation; we do not face adversaries that necessitate an enormous, launch-ready nuclear posture. Furthermore, de-alerting is a crucial step towards the abandonment of a Cold War mentality, forging even closer cooperation between the United States and Russia. Such ties would obviate the need for a nuclear deterrent, and enable further progressive steps towards complete, global disarmament. This ultimate ethical goal will, possibly within a decade, allow us to forever eliminate the ominous clouds which constantly hover above humanity, threatening to unleash the final torrent: nuclear apocalypse.

End Notes

(1) Mintz, Morton (2001, February 26). Two Minutes to Launch. The American Prospect, Volume 12, Issue 4. Retrieved from the World Wide Web September 18, 2002 http://www.prospect.org.

(2) Sagan, Scott (1995). The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

(3) Feiveson, Harold (Ed.) (1999). The Nuclear Turning Point: A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and De-alerting of Nuclear Weapons. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

(4) Mazarr, Michael (1999). Virtual Nuclear Arsenals: A Second Look. Retrieved form the World Wide Web September 18, 2002 http://www.csis.org/pubs/wr_vnaintro.html.

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A Strategic Doctrine on a United States' Weapon of Mass Destruction: Economic Sanctions
By Amber Herman

If the estimates are even roughly correct, economic sanctions have been a necessary cause of the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all the nuclear weapons used in World War II and all the chemical weapons used in World War I combined ~ John Mueller

U.S. Department of Defense, Proliferation Threat and Response 2001 refers to weapons of mass destruction as those with "...capabilities to inflict mass casualties and destruction.” The global community has witnessed the creation of several types of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons over the past decades. However, another weapon of mass destruction has silently emerged and carries startling death statistics, long-term damages, and targets civilian populations. Economic sanctions are a weapon of mass destruction and, like nuclear weapons, are a direct assault on humanity.

According to Robert O’Quinn, an economic sanction is any restriction imposed by one country on international commerce with another country in order to influence the target country’s political leaders. Economic sanctions include, but are not limited to, interfering with or banning exports and imports, restricting international investment in the sanctioned country or prohibiting private financial transactions.
There is much speculation over whether or not economic sanctions are considered a weapon of war. This discussion is critical in determining if the Rules of the War Convention apply. The objective of economic sanctions, according to Tor Egil Forland, is straightforward:

An intense, disturbance of the economy of an adversary state, aimed at diminishing
its power. It is analytically distinguished from “military warfare,” which attacks the
adversary’s military capabilities, not its economic resources.

In 1978 and 1979, a unilateral sanction was placed on the Somoza regime in Nicaragua that suspended military aid. These military sanctions would be considered a legitimate act of war, as they do not affect the noncombatant population. Sanctions aimed at changing minor foreign policies without causing a humanitarian crisis are considered acceptable.

In other instances, economic sanctions are far more detrimental to innocent civilians. The military community has applied the principle of discrimination when determining which people are legitimate targets of aggression and which are labeled innocents. Like nuclear weapons, it is clearly evident that economic sanctions are a non-discriminatory weapon. They impact all people, not just those involved in the military. A total economic sanction, like those placed on Iraq, are morally unacceptable. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State stated, “sanctions must not be used as means of war or to punish a population.” However, that is often the intent.

Albert C. Pierce states, “the purpose of economic sanctions is to inflict great human suffering, pain, harm and even death.” Civilian populations generally consider sanctions, like other forms of military action, as hostile and destructive acts of a foreign power. In August of 1990, the United Nations Security Council and the United States authorized Resolution 661, a strict embargo on Iraq in retaliation for the invasions of Kuwait. In theory, the sanctions on Iraq would force the deprived civilians to rise up against the regime. Instead, thousands of elderly, children, and women began slow agonizing deaths due to lack of health care, proper sanitation, and malnutrition. The Iraq military leadership continues to ignore the suffering of its countrymen.

A 1999 United Nations report stresses that “the gravity of the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people is indisputable and cannot be overstated”: the country has experienced “a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty” (UN 1999, paras. 43, 49). “The number of peoples died since the imposition of UN sanctions on Iraq in August 1990 up to the end of the last year is 1,629,639 persons, of them 674,780 children under 5 and 954,859 persons above 5” (Death).
Unilateral economic sanctions often prove counterproductive because the sanction policy aimed at the country’s political leaders actually undermines the emerging middle class population. U.S. unilateral sanctions strike hardest at the Western-educated professionals who often lead their governments in the democratic process. Not only is the middle class impacted but all civilians become hostile, not towards their government, but the sanctioner. Chile, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand first created a strong and financially secure middle class to stabilize their country before their government was able to successfully make the transition into a democratic society (O’Quinn).

Sanctions also have a negative impact on the United States economy. In 1994, the Council of Competitiveness conducted a study on the economic impact of sanctions and found that eight specific sanctions cost the U.S. economy $6 billion in annual export sales and 120,000 export-related jobs (Council). In 1995, economic sanctions eliminated more than 200,00 jobs in relatively high-wage export sectors, and caused American workers to lose nearly $1 billion in wages (Hufbauer).
The United States policy to allow the quick and deliberate implementation of economic sanctions must be reviewed. Robert O’Quinn proposed several guidelines for Congress and the President to follow that allows careful consideration of the effects, and outcome of a specific sanction by providing a case-by-case theory. The following strategy is quoted from his paper, “The User’s Guide to Economic Sanctions”:
The United States must develop a new strategic doctrine that includes the use of economic sanctions to advance foreign policy objectives. Economic sanctions can be an important strategic weapon in the foreign policy arsenal; but they are only one step below a blockade or other military action. Their application should be given the same sober consideration accorded the commitment of U.S. troops to battle. To implement this new doctrine, Congress should:
1. Establish guidelines for implementing economic sanctions. Before Congress and the President consider imposing economic sanctions, the following remedies should be tried and exhausted:

• Private persuasion. The President should try to use private talks to persuade a target country to change objectionable policies.
• If private persuasion fails, the President should warn a target country publicly to change its objectionable policies or risk further action.
• Consultation with allies on multilateral sanctions.
• Non-economic sanctions. If the target country still fails to change its objectionable policies, Congress and the President should consider imposing one or more of several non-economic sanctions: (1) canceling summit meetings with the target country; (2) denying visas to a target country's officials to enter the U.S; (3) withdrawing the U.S. ambassador; (4) blocking a target country from joining international organizations; (5) opposing a target country's bid to host highly visible international events; (6) withholding foreign aid; and (7) instructing U.S. directors to vote against new loans to a target country at the World Bank or other financial institutions.
• Economic sanctions. If these initiatives prove fruitless, Congress and the President then may consider economic sanctions. Economic sanctions proposed for national security purposes and other foreign policy purposes should be analyzed separately.

Congress and the President require greater flexibility in applying economic sanctions for national security objectives than in applying them for other foreign policy objectives. If a proposed economic sanction seeks to achieve non-security objectives, Congress and the President should ask the following four questions:

1. Is the proposed sanction's objective limited enough to be achievable?
2. Does the United States have a monopoly advantage that it can exploit against the target and, if not, will other countries cooperate with the United States to impose the sanction?
3. Is the sanction's likely impact so large that it may persuade the target country to change its policies?
4. Is the sanction's probable impact on the U.S. economy small enough not to cause significant harm to American companies and their workers, as well as American consumers?

Congress and the President should proceed with a proposed economic sanction only if all of the above questions can be answered affirmatively. Otherwise the sanction has no plausible hope of achieving its objective and should be rejected.
2. Limit the application of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to clear-cut national security issues. Enacted in 1977, the IEEPA grants the President powers to regulate or prohibit trade, investment, and financial transactions with foreigners. Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton stretched the IEEPA to impose economic sanctions when U.S. national security was clearly not at stake.
3. Mandate that the President consult with Congress within a set period following the imposition of economic sanctions by executive order. The War Powers Resolution requires the President to receive congressional approval for an extended military engagement, Congress should approve, directly and expressly, any extended use of economic sanctions.
4. Direct the Secretary of Commerce to identify and compile a list of all American companies that have suffered material economic loss because of economic sanctions.
5. Direct the Council of Economic Advisers to publish an annual study of how much economic sanctions cost the U.S. economy.

In conclusion, economic sanctions are capable of mass destruction and should be treated accordingly. Ask one of the twenty-three million Iraqi people who have suffered cruelly for a dozen years under US sanctions. “It is time to end this failed policy," says Dr. James. E. Jennings of the Compassion Iraq Coalition. Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, resigned as a result of the sanctions on Iraq, “We are in the process of destroying an entire country. It is as simple and as terrifying as that.” Without real effort at a political solution, sanctions become not an instrument of diplomacy but a weapon of mass destruction.