Nuclear weapons are insanely powerful. They cause extreme suffering and widespread death, and cannot distinguish between combatants and civilians. They are long-distance killing devices, cowardly in conception. They are capable of destroying cities, countries and civilization. They threaten the future of humanity and all complex forms of life. Nuclear weapons have zero redeeming qualities, and our global goal must be zero nuclear weapons.
The nine nuclear-armed countries are all engaged in modernizing their nuclear arsenals. The United States plans to spend $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades. It will upgrade its nuclear warheads and replace its land-based, sea-based and bomber-based nuclear delivery systems. It will make its nuclear weapons smaller, more accurate, and thereby more usable. It will modernize weapons whose primary purpose is to annihilate whole populations and whose effects cannot be contained in time or space.
The United States and other nuclear-armed countries are planning to modernize weapons that terrorize and vaporize.
In addition, there are far better ways to spend $1 trillion than on preparing for global annihilation, including providing food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, healthcare for those in need, and education for all children.
Humankind appears to have gained little wisdom from the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or from the more than 2,000 nuclear tests conducted since the onset of the Nuclear Age. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are dedicated to awakening humanity to the peril of reliance on nuclear weapons.
The United States led the way into the Nuclear Age, and we believe it should provide leadership in bringing the Nuclear Age to an end by fulfilling its legal obligations under international law to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race (modernization) and for total nuclear disarmament. If not the United States, who might lead? If not now, when?
At the moment, leadership for nuclear disarmament is coming from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), one of the world’s smallest countries. The RMI has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries, calling upon them to fulfill their legal obligations for nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law. We are proud to be a consultant to the Marshall Islands in these Nuclear Zero lawsuits.
Join us in working for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.