{"id":147313,"date":"2019-11-11T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=147313"},"modified":"2019-11-18T08:30:54","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T08:30:54","slug":"a-tight-grip-on-our-nuclear-toys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/11\/a-tight-grip-on-our-nuclear-toys\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tight Grip on Our Nuclear Toys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

6 Nov 2019 – <\/em>\u201cEveryone wants to play with the big boys, and the only way to become one of the big boys is to have nuclear toys.\u201d\u00a0 <\/a><\/em>Attention Planet Earth! Attention Planet Earth! It is time to grow up.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The words are those of Mohamed ElBaradei<\/a>, then director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, from a 2005 interview, several months before he and the agency were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. They remain eerily relevant in 2019, summing up as they do the puerile recklessness that is in the process of regaining its grip on geopolitics. Nuclear weapons treaties are withering on the vine and proliferation threatens a triumphant return.<\/p>\n

Hello, omnicide. We may not be as lucky as we were in the Cold War era, when the consequences of nuclear accidents and political brinkmanship were relatively contained and the victims of nuclear development were limited to the people who lived near test areas like the Marshall Islands, Kazakhstan or the Nevada Test Site in the western United States. Nuclear stockpiles have shrunk, not grown, and nuclear-armed nations number nine.<\/p>\n

This is still insane, of course. That number should \u2014 must \u2014 find its way to zero, as declared by the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was passed by a United Nations vote of 122-1 in 2017 but still awaits actual ratification by 50 countries (32 have ratified it so far). Hope-inspiring as that treaty is, the big boys \u2014 who boycotted the U.N. vote two years ago \u2014 still control the game, and led by the USA, they are pulling out of the treaties that constrain them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the recent death of the treaty covering intermediate-range missiles, a new arms race appears to be taking shape, drawing in more players, more money and more weapons at a time of increased global instability and anxiety about nuclear proliferation,\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Steven Erlanger wrote recently in the New York Times<\/a>, referring to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, which the Trump administration pulled out of.<\/p>\n

Since then. Trumpica has also indicated it wants to dump the New START Treaty, brokered by Barack Obama with the Russians in 2011, which expires in February 2021, shortly after the inauguration of whoever is the next president. New START limits the two countries\u2019 \u201cstrategic arsenals\u201d (not their \u201ctactical arsenals\u201d) to 1,550 weapons each \u2014 still enough to, uh, destroy the world and all, but . . .at least they bring the concept of limits into the nuclear discussion, putting, you might say, a parental check on the big boys and their nukes.<\/p>\n

Thus, writes Erlanger: \u201cThe dismantling of \u2018arms control,\u2019 a Cold War mantra, is now heightening the risks of a new era when nuclear powers like India and Pakistan are clashing over Kashmir, and when nuclear Israel feels threatened by Iran, North Korea is testing new missiles, and other countries like Saudi Arabia are thought to have access to nuclear weapons or to be capable of building them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe consequence, experts say, is likely to be a more dangerous and unstable environment, even in the near term. . . .\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then quotes Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear analyst and president of the Ploughshares Fund: \u201cIf there\u2019s not nuclear disarmament, there will be proliferation. If big powers race to build up their arsenals, smaller powers will follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, global leadership is adolescent in nature. Big boys rule and lust for power takes control of the brain, especially power in a competitive context. If you represent the interests of a nation-state, you could easily become consumed by the hostile environment in which those interests are trying to establish themselves. And the interests of the planet as a whole (e.g., survival, a future) could easily disappear as anything but idealistic, ignorable abstractions. Disarmament? Give me a break. Not when regional powers, as Erlanger also writes, are \u201cchallenging American hegemony.\u201d<\/p>\n

Add to this the transnational, corporate interest in militarism. There\u2019s no money in peace, which is seen mostly as a black hole, the lull between wars. Money doesn\u2019t start to flow until the bullets and the bombs start to fly. If you\u2019re opposed to war, the real enemy isn\u2019t Russia or China\u2019 it\u2019s the military-industrial complex (which can smell, for instance, the trillion-plus-dollars earmarked for an upgraded nuclear arsenal).<\/p>\n

So what we have right now is a world in which the public\u2019s natural desire for peace is diverted to the status of impossible, at least until we destroy our enemies and secure our hegemony; and the growing global peace movement remains utterly marginalized. How much time do you think will be devoted to the issue of denuclearization, let us say, in the looming presidential race?<\/p>\n

All of which leads me back to the Kings Bay Plowshares 7<\/a>, the seven courageous peace activists who were arrested last year<\/a> after they cut through the fencing around the Kings Bay Naval Base, in St. Mary\u2019s, Ga., the Atlantic home port of the country\u2019s Trident nuclear missile-carrying submarines, and entered the base without permission. There, they poured out vials of blood (their own) on the grounds, hung up signs and issued an indictment of the U.S. military for violating the 1968 U.N. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.<\/p>\n

Their trial, during which they were not allowed to present their case on the global danger of nuclear weapons, recently ended. To no one\u2019s surprise, they were found guilty<\/a> and await sentencing.<\/p>\n

\u201c. . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Isaiah 2:4, the 3,000-year-old cry for peace, remains irrelevant.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Nov 2019 – The interests of the planet as a whole could easily disappear as anything but idealistic, ignorable abstractions. Disarmament? Give me a break. Not when regional powers are \u201cchallenging American hegemony.\u201d Add to this the transnational, corporate interest in militarism. There\u2019s no money in peace, a black hole, the lull between wars. Money doesn\u2019t start to flow until the bullets and the bombs start to fly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,68,57],"tags":[1476,1301,450,875],"class_list":["post-147313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","category-weapons-of-mass-destruction","category-militarism","tag-nuclear-abolition","tag-nuclear-war","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-wmd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}