In an apparent attempt to rein in America\u2019s new, erratic White House occupant, Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) and Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) recently introduced federal legislation<\/a> to require Congress to declare war before a U.S. president could authorize nuclear weapons strikes.\u00a0 The only exception would be in response to a nuclear attack.\u00a0 Peace groups are rallying around this legislation and, in a major editorial<\/a>, the New York Times<\/em> endorsed it, noting that it \u201csends a clear message to Mr. Trump that he should not be the first since World War II to use nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n But, even in the unlikely event that the Markey-Lieu legislation is passed by the Republican Congress, it does not address the broader problem:\u00a0 the ability of the officials of nuclear-armed nations to launch a catastrophic nuclear war.\u00a0 How rational are Russia\u2019s Vladimir Putin, or North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong-un, or Israel\u2019s Benjamin Netanyahu, or the leaders of other nuclear powers?\u00a0 And how rational will the rising politicians of nuclear armed nations (including a crop of rightwing, nationalist ideologues, such as France\u2019s Marine Le Pen) prove to be?\u00a0 \u201cNuclear deterrence,\u201d as national security experts have known for decades, might serve to inhibit the aggressive impulses of top government officials in some cases, but surely not in all of them.<\/p>\n Ultimately, then, the only long-term solution to the problem of national leaders launching a nuclear war is to get rid of the weapons.<\/p>\n This was the justification for the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty<\/a> (NPT) of 1968, which constituted a bargain between two groups of nations.\u00a0 Under its provisions, non-nuclear countries agreed not to develop nuclear weapons, while nuclear-armed countries agreed to dispose of theirs.<\/p>\n Although the NPT did discourage proliferation to most non-nuclear countries and did lead the major nuclear powers to destroy a substantial portion of their nuclear arsenals, the allure of nuclear weapons remained, at least for some power-hungry nations.\u00a0 Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea developed nuclear arsenals, while the United States, Russia, and other nuclear nations gradually backed away from disarmament.\u00a0 Indeed, all nine nuclear powers are now engaged in a new nuclear arms race<\/a>, with the U.S. government alone beginning a $1 trillion<\/a> nuclear \u201cmodernization\u201d program.\u00a0 These factors, including Trump\u2019s promises of a major nuclear weapons buildup, recently led the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists<\/em> to move the hands of their famous \u201cDoomsday Clock\u201d forward to 2-1\/2 minutes to midnight<\/a>, the most dangerous setting since 1953.<\/p>\n Angered by the collapse of progress toward a nuclear weapons-free world, civil society organizations and non-nuclear nations joined together to press for the adoption of an international treaty banning nuclear weapons<\/a>, much like the treaties already in place that ban chemical weapons, landmines, and cluster bombs.\u00a0 If such a nuclear ban treaty were adopted, they argued, it would not itself eliminate nuclear weapons, for the nuclear powers could refuse to sign or comply with it.\u00a0 But it would make possession of nuclear weapons illegal under international law and, therefore, like the chemical and other weapons ban treaties, put pressure on nations to fall into line with the rest of the world community.<\/p>\n This campaign came to a head in October 2016, when the member states of the United Nations voted on a proposal to begin negotiations for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.\u00a0 Although the U.S. government and the governments of other nuclear powers lobbied heavily against the measure, it was adopted by an overwhelming vote<\/a>:\u00a0 123 countries in favor, 38 opposed, and 16 abstaining.\u00a0 Treaty negotiations are slated to begin in March 2017 at the United Nations and to be concluded in early July.<\/p>\n Given the past performance of the nuclear powers and their eagerness to cling to their nuclear weapons, it seems unlikely that they will participate in the UN negotiations or, if a treaty is negotiated and signed, will be among the signatories.\u00a0 Even so, the people of their nations and of all nations would gain immensely from an international ban on nuclear weapons\u2015a measure that, once in place, would begin the process of stripping national officials of their unwarranted authority and ability to launch a catastrophic nuclear war.<\/p>\n _______________________________________<\/p>\n The accession of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency brings us face-to-face with a question that many have tried to avoid since 1945: Should anyone have the right to plunge the world into a nuclear holocaust? Ultimately, then, the only long-term solution to the problem of national leaders launching a nuclear war is to get rid of the weapons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weapons-of-mass-destruction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87740","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=87740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Lawrence-Wittner-150x150.png\")
<\/a>Dr. Lawrence Wittner<\/em><\/a>, syndicated by <\/em>PeaceVoice<\/em><\/a>, is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY\/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, <\/em>What\u2019s Going On at UAardvark?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"