{"id":48231,"date":"2014-10-06T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T11:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=48231"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:41","slug":"u-s-nuclear-policy-taking-the-wrong-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/10\/u-s-nuclear-policy-taking-the-wrong-road\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Nuclear Policy: Taking the Wrong Road"},"content":{"rendered":"

On September 21, 2014, the International Day of Peace, The New York Times<\/em> published an article by William Broad and David Sanger, \u201cU.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 The authors reported that a recent federal study put the price tag for modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal at \u201cup to a trillion dollars\u201d over the next three decades.\u00a0 It appears that Washington\u2019s military and nuclear hawks have beaten down a president who, early in his first term of office, announced with conviction, \u201cAmerica\u2019s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many U.S. military leaders, rather than analyzing and questioning the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence to provide security, are acting as cheerleaders for it.\u00a0 Rear Admiral Joe Tofalo, director of the Navy\u2019s Undersea Warfare Division, recently pontificated, \u201cFor the foreseeable future, certainly for our and our children\u2019s and our grandchildren\u2019s lifetimes, the United States will require a safe, secure and effective strategic nuclear deterrent.\u00a0 The ballistic nuclear submarine forces are and will continue to be a critical part of that deterrent\u2026.\u201d\u00a0 He went on to argue that all legs of the nuclear triad \u2013 bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine launched ballistic missiles \u2013 would be needed to \u201cprovide a strong deterrent against different classes of adversary threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Admiral Tofalo was backed up by Admiral Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, who argued, \u201cIn a world where our traditional adversaries are modernizing, emerging adversaries are maturing and non-state actors remain elusive and dangerous, we must get 21st century deterrence right\u2026the reality is that an effective modernized nuclear deterrent force is needed now more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

All this emphasis on modernizing the nuclear deterrent force may be good for business, but ignores two important facts.\u00a0 First, nuclear deterrence is only a hypothesis about human behavior that has not been and cannot be proven to work.\u00a0 Second, it ignores the obligations of the U.S. and other nuclear-armed states to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.<\/p>\n

The U.S. and other nuclear-armed countries are gambling that nuclear deterrence will be foolproof rather than a game of chance, like nuclear roulette.\u00a0 Rather than providing security for the American people, nuclear deterrence is a calculated risk, similar to loading a large metaphorical six-chamber gun with a nuclear bullet and pointing the gun at humanity\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

The only foolproof way to assure that nuclear weapons won\u2019t be used, by accident or design, is to abolish them.\u00a0 This is what the generals and admirals should be pressing to achieve.\u00a0 Negotiations in good faith for abolishing nuclear weapons are required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and by customary international law.\u00a0 Since these obligations have not been fulfilled in 44 years, one courageous country, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries, seeking the International Court of Justice to order their compliance.\u00a0 They have also brought a lawsuit specifically against the U.S. in U.S. Federal Court.<\/p>\n

Rather than showing leadership by fulfilling its obligations for ending the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament, the U.S. conducted a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile test on September 23, just days after the International Day of Peace and days before the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons on September 26.\u00a0 Such displays of arrogance, together with U.S. plans to spend some $1 trillion on modernizing its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades, suggest that if the people don\u2019t demand it, we may have nuclear weapons forever, with tragic consequences.<\/p>\n

You can find out more about the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits and support the Marshall Islands at www.nuclearzero.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

On September 21, 2014, the International Day of Peace, The New York Times published an article, \u201cU.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms.\u201d Federal study put the price tag for modernizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal at \u201cup to a trillion dollars\u201d over the next three decades. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48231","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=48231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}