There Is No Global Security

Without Nuclear Disarmament

Ivo laus

Nuclear Weapons and War

1945 1985 2005
USA
USSR/Russia
world

1985
23,000
40,000
70,000

2005
10,500
9,000
30,000

Accidents with NW: from 1950 about one or more per

year
Exposure to radiation in the USA and USSR
To seek scientists to kill or cure masses (Ben
Gurion)
1948, 1974 Titos nuclear bomb likely a total bluff

 1981: Kenneth Waltz: The spread of nuclear weapons

the more the better
And physicists also: A.Sakharov proposed tsunami
as weapon soviet admiral disagreed (told by S. P.
Kapitza)
Precepts Science is neutral and Science has
nothing to do with politics still prevail. Remnants of
ivory tower mentality (J. Rotblat, Nobel Acceptance
Speech)
2000: dirty bombs (rogue states or terrorists) + the
USA pre-emptive doctrine

CONSEQUENCES
DESTRUCTION
OF CIVILIZATION

MAD

WMD
-

local
war
NATURAL
PROBABILITY

100 %

Many dangers and threats are recent (+ financial and

demographic instabilities), and many new will appear. None
of the foreseeable threats can be addressed by military
means!
How about terrorism and rogue and failed-states? How
about totalitarian regimes?

Are military means useful in addressing natural

and/or alien threats, e.g. approaching celestial
object? Or in addressing earthquakes, tornados,
pandemics??
Are WMD useful means in such scenarios?

 Certain threats and dangers were with us for long

time and various strategies and mechanisms were
devised to deal with them, e.g. war, aggression,
conquest and political instabilities were dealt with
military power, economic strength, balance of
power, assured destruction, blockades and
economic sanctions, containment and treaties.
Almost all these strategies and mechanisms are
still prevalent, but some are now inadequate and
even dangerous.

 Si vis pacem para bellum resulted in mutually

assured destruction - MAD (nuclear arsenals 100 x >
required for any deterrent purpose) invalid as
shown by the recent Global peace index based on 24
different indicators and covering 140 states: states having
nuclear weapons - and according to the old viewpoint
they should be best prepared - are at the bottom of the list,
particularly two major NW states: the USA and Russia.
War, preparation for war and deterrence,
notably nuclear deterrence do not eliminate enemies,
but create enemies and generate other threats and
dangers.

 Terrorism and strategic crime (M. Glenny:McMafia)

linked with rogue, failed and failing states
albeit present from Antiquity - now represent
a much higher danger and threat than at any time in
our history - innocent people are victims and nothing
is achieved.
Why? Just as an expression of frustration or utter
stupidity?
It does not seem we are winning the war against
terror, nor war against crime.

 Increasing dissatisfaction of the public with governance

Opinion polls (Gallup Voice of the People, May-June 2005:
50,000 persons from 65 countries in 6 continents 1.4
billion persons):
(i) 7% - world is going in the right direction
23% - somewhat agree with above
(ii) 68% - country not governed by the will of the
people vs 27% (governed by the will of the people)
While 41% of the people of the world are living in countries
considered to be free (??)

The dissatisfaction of the public increased:

- in 1990 77% of Americans believed government failed,
- up from 23% in 1963.

 2003: more than 3700 metric tons of plutonium and

highly enriched uranium (HEU) in 60 states. Over the
last decade IAEA reported 18 incidents involving
plutonium and HEU.
About 10,000 kilograms of HEU is unaccounted for
more than 100 nuclear bombs. A terrorist group acquiring
HEU can easily manufacture a primitive nuclear explosive.

 HEU reduced to less than 20% of U-235 is not

useful for terrorists, since requires major enrichment
installation to acquire a weapon-grade HEU.
In the early 1990s Russia and the USA agreed to
down-blend 500 tons of Russian HEU, but???
It is more difficult to build a plutonium bomb. But,
plutonium can be used in other terrorists action.
Dirty bombs: easier to build, no need to transport it
and it need not be very reliable.

 A new approach needed: technological measures +

eliminating root causes of terrorism.
Technical measures include protecting critical
infrastructure, e.g chemical and nuclear plants, food
and agriculture safety and the control of weapons.
Strengthen and democratize international and
regional bodies for effective global governance
implying strengthening freedom and democracy at
home and abroad.

 The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose survival. If in the process we learn how to achieve it by
love rather than by fear---if we learn to combine the
essential with the enjoyable..that will be an extra
incentive to embark on this great task. (Rotblat 1995)

Every gun made, every warship launched, every

rocket signifies in the final sense a theft from the
hungry. The world in arms is not only spending
money. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists.
(DDE, Aug 16, 1953)

 July 9,1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto

Shall we put an end to human race, or shall mankind
renounce war...The abolition of war will demand
distasteful limitations of national sovereignity....We
appeal as human beings to human beings Remember
your humanity and forget the rest.
July 7-10, 1957 Thinkers Lodge, Pugwash, Nova
Scotia
1972 Pugwash helped achieve Biological Weapon
Convention
and 1997 Chemical Weapon Convention

 1989 The Sevilla Statement on Violence:

- Animal make war, we are like animal = scientifically
incorrect
- War part of our nature = scientifically incorrect
- Violent people live better = scientifically incorrect
- Our brain causes violence = scientifically incorrect
- War caused by instinct = scientifically incorrect
Antipersonnel landmines
- Nobel peace prize: 1997 Jody Williams

 1995 Nobel peace prize: Pugwash Conferences on

Science and World Affairs and Sir Joseph Rotblat

Pugwash always operated at the political level by its
impeccable science and absolute integrity (Rotblat, 2005)
Entire system of nuclear arms - control =??
treaties renounced by one party (e.g. ABM Treaty)
treaties that have not entered into force (CTBT)
no progress (Fissile material cut-off treaty)
Art VI of NPT: mandates nuclear disarmament, but?

Interventions, Sovereignity and International Security

2005 May failure of VII Review Conference on NPT

 H. Bethe, Nobel laureate, famous for his Manhattan

project role and a leading exponent of arms control, said at
the meeting of the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1997
at Cornell University
The atom bomb was the greatest gift we could have given
to Japanese.
His argument was based on the fact that Americans
already firebombed 66 Japanese cities killing close to one
million civilians and if the war did not quickly end
firebombing would continue killing enormous number of
Japanese civilians. So, nuclear bomb was a lesser evil.
Was it? Is it?

 I. Kant concluded that three conditions are necessary to

exclude the possibility of any war:
- dominant role of the international trade (spreading our
interests but also true in 1914),
- availability of extremely powerful weapons that anybody
would refrain from using (Kant had in mind that animals
refrain from certain mortal combats but he overlooked
nuclear accidents and nuclear terrorism. Also, Kant
believed that political decisions are done rationally, but
A. Oxenstijerna, the famous Swedish chancellor in
the17th century, warned his son that the politics is done
in a very stupid way)
- that all states should become republics (removing from
the decision-making conceited monarch and replacing
them with elected officials representing the will of the
people who certainly do not want to be killed).
(Democracies do not fight?? Different fighting!!)

 K. Waltz et al argued that it is the nuclear weapons that

saved us from the World Wars III and IV
G. Prins argued that there is no evidence that MAD
worked as a stabilizing force. He claims that the threat
of using nuclear weapons worked in one case only: it
forced the USA to provide Israel with spare parts during
the war, when Israel threatened to use his nuclear force
to prevent defeat.
All these arguments are rooted in old political concepts.
Life under the WMD umbrella is not sustainable.

States have grossly abused their monopoly in the 20th

century 400 million men, women and children have been
killed by their own governments, more than during wars,
(Rummel) so these are not so called collateral victims, and
the state does not seem to be capable of protecting their
own citizens, nor assuring them what they consider to be
their basic human needs, e.g. food, shelter and health.
"Power kills, absolute power kills absolutely (Rummel)

 Spending on nuclear weapons is enormous: the

USA spent more than 5.5 trillion dollars and
France 1.5 trillion dollars. The global yearly
military expenditures amount to $ 1,000 billion.
To put in perspective:
- for 20 billion dollars one could reduce hunger,
- for 20 billions it is possible to provide shelter,
- for 5 billions land mines could be removed,
- for 20 billions health care and AIDS could be
controlled.

R.S. McNamara: On any day the President is prepared to make a

decision within 20 minutes that could launch one of the most
devastating weapons of the world. To declare war requires an act
of Congress, but to launch a nuclear holocaust requires 20
minutes deliberation by the President and his advisers.
Group of retired generals: K. Naumann, J. Shalikashvilli, Lord
Inge, J. Lanxade and H. van den Breemen: Towards a grand
strategy for uncertain world - renewing transatlantic partnership
(late 2007) -argue that the current threats and challenges require
NATO to keep open the prospect of the first use of NW.

G. Schultz, S. Nunn, W. Perry and H. Kissinger (Wall Street

Journal January 15, 2008 and earlier in January 2007) argue that
NW-free world should be our goal, and that is particularly in the
interest of the USA.

Federation of American Scientists, Natural Resources Defence

Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists and independent
analysts in Toward True Security argue as Pugwash does.

Assurance of peace and security are essential for the stability

and development of SEE and that is best asured through NATO
membership of all SEE countries. At the same time, the extension
of NATO should not bring the introduction of NW.... Therefore,
countries of SEE should join together in declaring SEE region a
NW-free zone similar to NWFZ in Central Asia, Latin America
and South Pacific. (SEED-WAAS declaration April 19, 2007

In June 2007 Canadian Pugwash calls for denuclearization of

NATO.
DAlema, G.F. Fini, G. La Malfa, A. Parisi and F. Calogero
For a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

50th Anniversary of Pugwash July 5-7, 2005 + MPI

Declaration
As long as nuclear weapons exist, they will be used one
day. Every minute of every day, more than 26,000 nuclear
weapons - many on hair-trigger alert - are poised to bring
monumental destruction. NW have spread to more
countries, and the NPT is perilously close to collapse.
Poorly guarded stockpiles of HEU and plutonium around
the world could fall into the hands of terrorists.Momentum
is growing in the international community to declare
NW illegal and immoral, and to reduce and eliminate them
before it is too late....

We ask all governments, nuclear and non-nuclear alike:

What are you doing to fulfil the basic obligation of every
government: the responsibility to protect the lives and
human rights of its citizens that would be obliterated by
nuclear devastation?
Immediate de-alerting of NW, that could be launched by
accident, miscalculation, or unauthorized computer hacking of
command and control systems;

Declarations by all nuclear weapons-states of a No First Use

policy, and adoption of Negative Security Assurances that
nuclear weapons will never be used against countries who have
legally bound themselves not to acquire nuclear weapons;

 Immediate resumption of US-Russian nuclear negotiations to

reduce their nuclear forces to 1,000 or fewer NW, and to jointly
develop early warning systems to reduce the risk of accidental or
unauthorized launch of nuclear weapons;

NATO to withdraw all US NW from Europe, and to conclude a

global agreement that NW of any country not be deployed on
foreign territory;

Implementation of the International Monitoring System of the

CTBT to ensure the continued moratorium on nuclear testing,
prior to the entry into force of the CTBT;

Global Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and a complete

prohibition on the deployment and use of space weapons;

Complete abolition and elimination of NW through a

multilaterally-verified instrument a NWeapons Convention.

Is now war and in general any violence useless as an

instrument of achieving any goal of sovereign-states?
We argue: they are!!!
Consequently, are WMD also useless for any
sovereign-state, and actually a potential danger?
We argue: they are!!!
Edmund Burke wrote more than 200 years ago The reason the
world is suffering is not so much because of the evil deeds of the
wicked people, but because of the inaction of the good people.

Conference on holocaust in Stockholm (2000)

Ten Commandments should be augmented by:
11) Thou shalt not be a victim! and
12) Thou shalt not be neutral!

John Holdren
(keynote speech at the 55th Pugwash conference in July 2005):

There are three conceivable nuclear futures. One is

status quo, or muddling through which is unstable
because of accidents, nuclear terrorism, and above
all because of nuclear posture which declares the
right of nuclear states to use nuclear weapons first and
even against non-nuclear states. The second is the nuclear
nightmare. The third is to eliminate nuclear weapons a
trajectory toward a nuclear-weapons-free world.
Getting to zero is not an impossible mission supported
by the final document of the Students/Young Pugwashites
entitled: Mission Possible

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in his Action Plan for

a World Free of Nuclear Weapons on June 9,
1988 pointed out that nuclear deterrence is the
ultimate expression of terrorism.
Non-violence in international relations cannot be
considered an Utopian goal. It is the only
available basis for a civilised survival ...... for a
new, just equitable and democratic world order.