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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN
ISSUED BY SWEDISH PHYSICIANS AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN COLLABORATION WITH;
DANISH PHYSICIANS AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS, SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS, SWEDISH DENTISTS AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Nr 120
FEB 2010
“I commend this journal not just to readers who are interested in what is ahead at the
Review Conference, but also to those who care about the future of nuclear disarmament,
which could well affect the future of our planet. This is a subject that all physicians and all
their patients, everywhere, have a legitimate right to know.”
Sergio Duarte
United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs
NOW IS THE TIME TO PROHIBIT
NUCLEAR WEAPONS!
Hopes before the upcoming NPT Review conference in New York May 2010
A special edition of the journal of the Swedish section of the IPPNW
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
SVENSKA LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN
Informationsblad nr 120, feb 2010
ISSN: 1400-2256 Upplaga: ca 1500 ex
Since the Nuclear non-Proliferation
Treaty entered into force in 1970, the
parties have met regularly to review the
treaty under the auspices of the UN,
with more or less success. The 2000
NPT RevCon turned out an unexpected
success, ending in an agreement with
thirteen practical steps towards fulfilling
Article VI of the treaty. A hope for non-
proliferation and nuclear disarmament
was created. But alas, the hope was
quenched by the complete failure of the
2005 NPT RevCon! Henrik Salander, in
his article “Reaching Nuclear Disarma-
ment – from Visions to Reality”, dis-
cusses this and what hopes there may be
for the 2010 RevCon. And the 2010
RevCon is also the main reason for this
special issue of our journal. Civil society
must engage to put pressure on govern-
ments before the NPT RevCon to make
it a success. Our ambition is to deliver a
package of high quality articles on nucle-
ar weapons issues to be used in lobbying
and discussions with politicians and
other decision makers. Please read also
Ray Acheson on what you can do from
your home for the NPT and for nuclear
disarmament.
The outlawing of nuclear weapons by
a Nuclear Weapons Convention might
seem a naive and unrealistic idea. Hans
IN THIS ISSUE
Corell, former Legal Counsel of the UN,
thinks differently. From a legal point of
view it is feasible albeit complex to nego-
tiate a convention prohibiting nuclear
weapons. And the necessary legal exper-
tise is there — it is only a question of
political will. Actually there is already a
Model Convention available, “drafted by
a team that included lawyers, scientists,
political analysts and former diplomats”
as writes Merav Datan in her article
“The irresistible logic of a Nuclear
Weapons Convention”. She was one of
the main contributors to the Model
NWC, published in 1997.
Do nuclear weapons give safety? This
is certainly an argument for keeping the
weapons often heard from nuclear pos-
sessors. Peace researcher Peter Wallen-
steen explains why this is not true; as an
example he discusses the relations
between India and Pakistan which have
not improved since 1998 when they
both performed nuclear tests. Read the
article – it is interesting and, indeed,
important.
Nuclear winter – we have heard it
before. In the 1980s there was much talk
about the catastrophic climate conse-
quences of an all out nuclear war. New
research now tells us more: even a
regional nuclear war, using a tiny frac-
tion of total world arsenals, would result
in a decrease of global temperature and
the death of as much as one billion peo-
ple, mainly due to starvation. These
appalling facts are presented to us by
Steven Starr, a highly qualified specialist
in the field.
Spreading the knowledge about
nuclear weapons is important but not
easy. The Swedish section of IPPNW has
created a web based education tool, now
available in Swedish, English and
Norwegian: www.learnaboutnukes.org
Nuclear bomb or nuclear power,
which one came first? And which is the
connection between these two inter-
twined phenomena? Stefan Björnson
from the Swedish Scientists and
Engineers against Nuclear Arms explains
to us.
Claes Andreasson is an independent
public radio producer based in Los
Angeles who regularly gives us updated
articles on nuclear issues as seen from the
US horizon. In this number he gives us
the history of Missile Defence: “To hit a
bullet with a bullet”.
Finally, try the nuclear quiz on the
back-cover. After reading the journal it
should not be all that difficult. Sorry, no
prices given except your own satisfac-
tion!
Ulf König, Jan Larsson
Front cover:
Hiroshima on
August 6, 2009:
tens of thousands of
peace lanterns on
river Ota
Photo: Wenjing Tao
Key to quiz
1C, 2A, 3B, 4C, 5B, 6C, 7B, 8C, 9B, 10A
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN is a
quarterly journal published by the orga-
nization Svenska Läkare mot
Kärnvapen (SLMK), the Swedish affili-
ate of International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).
SLMK has 3 000 physicians and medi-
cal students as members and IPPNW
consists of about 150 000 physicians in
approximately 50 countries all over the
world. SLMK and IPPNW is a non-par-
tisan organization and is based on vol-
untary work. Through raising opinion
and dialogue with decision makers we
promote what most people want to
achieve – a nuclear free world. IPPNW
is based in Boston and is led by three
co-presidents.
Ansvarig utgivare: Jan Larsson | Linnég. 2 H, 753 32 | UPPSALA
Tel 018-14 62 12 | E-post: jan.larsson@slmk.org
Red för detta nr: Jan Larsson, Ulf König och Josefin Lind
Tryckeri: AM-tryck & reklam i Hässleholm | 0451-38 49 50
Grafisk red. & formgivning: AM-tryck & reklam i Hässleholm | 0451-38 49 50
From the editors
The editors wish to thank John
Loretz and Wendi Berman for
English proofreading.
Jan Larsson, Ulf König, Josefin Lind
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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Twenty-four years have now passed since Dr. Yevgeny Chazov and Dr. Bernard Lown received the Nobel Peace
Prize on behalf of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). By many indica-
tors, the world has clearly been moving away from nuclear weapons ever since.
Stockpiles of such weapons have reportedly been dropping considerably—though the key word here is “report-
edly”, since these reductions have only been declared, but not internationally verified, and the world does not
know the extent that these reductions may be reversible. To the applause of world public opinion, Presidents
Dimitry Medvedev and Barach Obama have repeatedly and publicly affirmed their commitment to pursue a
world free of nuclear weapons.
And as the stockpiles of the Russian Federation and the United States have been falling, China, France, and
the United Kingdom have also taken various steps away from such weapons—including such actions as shut-
ting down nuclear test sites, ceasing production of fissile material for weapons, and eliminating certain types
of nuclear-weapon delivery systems, to name only a few such steps.
Yet today, some 64 years after the UN General Assembly first identified the goal of eliminating all nuclear
weapons—and 40 years after the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force—over 20,000
such weapons reportedly remain. Some are on hair-trigger alert. Some are deployed in other countries. Some
are being improved or modernized. And all states with such weapons continue to maintain some version of
the doctrine of nuclear deterrence.
In addition, no multilateral negotiations on nuclear disarmament are underway; the Comprehensive Nuclear-
Test-Ban Treaty has not entered into force; and significant hurdles remain to be overcome before negotiations
can begin on a fissile material treaty. And several nuclear disarmament resolutions in the UN General
Assembly remain the subject of deeply divided votes.
Such are the contrasting circumstances that the NPT States Parties are facing as they prepare for the Treaty’s
Review Conference next May. Yes, progress has been made. But yes, the NPT is still facing significant chal-
lenges ahead in strengthening all of its key pillars: nuclear disarmament; non-proliferation; and the peaceful
uses of nuclear energy.
The eleven excellent essays in this special edition of the journal of the Swedish section of the IPPNW help the
public to understand both the urgency for progress in nuclear disarmament and the obstacles that still stand
in the way of such progress. I commend this journal not just to readers who are interested in what is ahead at
the Review Conference, but also to those who care about the future of nuclear disarmament, which could well
affect the future of our planet. This is a subject that all physicians and all their patients, everywhere, have a
legitimate right to know.
New York, 27 January 2010
Sergio Duarte
United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs
Foreword
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
Learn about Nuclear Weapons is a web-based education tool from the Swedish Physicians
against Nuclear Weapons. It is available in Swedish, English and Norwegian:
www.learnaboutnukes.org
Learn about Nuclear Weapons is divided into 17 topics, covering the issue of nuclear weapons
and disarmament from several angles. Here you find information about the history of nuclear
weapons; about the science behind it; about international law, treaties and organizations;
about medical and psychological consequences of nuclear weapons; about political and
financial aspects of nuclear weapons; about who possess nuclear weapons; about environ-
mental effects of these weapons and about ethical and religious reasoning around nuclear
weapons. Each section can be read as a freestanding part that you can study according to
your own interest. All chapters consist of a basic level and of several in-depth articles that give
you more information. Here you will find a list of all acronyms and abbreviations used in the
chapters, and a list of links to international organisations working with nuclear disarmament
issues. You can also find movies, work shop materials, exercises etc. If you are interested in
doing something for disarmament yourself, you will find a lot of information on how to go
along. One section offers tips and materials for teachers and educators who wish to teach
about nuclear weapons and disarmament issues – Learn abolition.
Learn about Nuclear Weapons is owned by the Swedish Physicians against Nuclear Weapons
and the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society. The first edition of the web based material
was launched in 2002. Frida Blom was the principal author. The new version of Learn about
Nuclear Weapons was developed by Alexandra Sundberg and launched in summer 2008.
Feel free to use any information contained in Learn about Nuclear Weapons, but always
remember to refer to the source.
Josefin Lind
Josefin Lind is Information
manager, Swedish section of
International Physicians for
the Prevention of Nuclear War.
LEARN ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS 2008
© SWEDISH PHYSICIANS AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONS,
SWEDISH PEACE AND ARBITRATION SOCIETY
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Learn about Nuclear Weapons 4
Jaosefin Lind
Is it possible to outlaw nuclear arms? 6
Hans Corell
The irresistible logic
of a Nuclear Weapons Convention 10
Merav Datan
Nuclear weapons and peace 12
Peter Wallensteen
Power hen or bomb egg 14
– which one comes first?
Stefan Björnson
To hit a bullet with a bullet: ten years 20
of Missile Defense
Claes Andreasson
International Outlook 24
Inge Axelsson
Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones 26
– a success story
Jan Prawitz
Reaching Nuclear Disarmament 29
– from visions to reality
Henrik Salander
Deadly climate change from nuclear war: 32
a threat to human existence
Steven Starr
Only prevention is effective 37
Jan Larsson
NPT 2010 Review Conference: 38
What you can do to help make it a success
Ray Acheson
New hope for nuclear disarmament 40
Ami Lönnroth
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
“A key challenge is to dispel the perception that outlawing
nuclear weapons is a utopian goal.”
Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
In 2003 the Swedish Government established the Weapons of
Mass Destruction Commission. It was composed of a team of
highly qualified and experienced commissioners from all over
the world, led by Hans Blix. In 2006, the Commission issued
its report “Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear,
Biological and Chemical Arms”. The line quoted above is one
of the conclusions in the report.
This brief contribution examines the possibilities of outla-
wing nuclear weapons from two viewpoints: the legal and the
political perspective.
The legal perspective
As a point of departure we must recognize that there is no
treaty banning nuclear arms. Nevertheless, you may wonder
whether they are legal.
The most authoritative response to this question is the advi-
sory opinion that the International Court of Justice – the
principal judicial organ of the United Nations – issued on 8
July 1996.
The question put to the Court by the General Assembly
was: “Is the threat or use of nuclear weapons in any circums-
tance permitted under international law?”
The most salient elements in the opinion are that:
- There is in neither customary nor conventional internatio-
nal law
1
any specific authorization of the threat or use of
nuclear weapons (unanimously);
- There is in neither customary nor conventional internatio-here is in neither customary nor conventional internatio-
nal law any comprehensive and universal prohibition of the
threat or use of nuclear weapons as such (by eleven votes to
three);
- A threat or use of force by means of nuclear weapons that
is contrary to Article 2, paragraph 4, of the United Nations
Charter and that fails to meet all the requirements of Article 51
[the right to self-defence], is unlawful (unanimously);
- A threat or use of nuclear weapons should also be com-
patible with the requirements of the international law appli-
cable in armed conflict, particularly those of the principles and
rules of international humanitarian law, as well as with specific
obligations under treaties and other undertakings which
expressly deal with nuclear weapons (unanimously).
The Court also stated the following (by seven votes to
seven, by the President’s casting vote):
It follows from the above-mentioned requirements that
the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be
contrary to the rules of international law applicable in
armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules
of humanitarian law;
However, in view of the current state of international
law, and of the elements of fact at its disposal, the Court
cannot conclude definitively whether the threat or use of
nuclear weapons would be lawful or unlawful in an
extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which the very
survival of a State would be at stake;
For our purposes, however, it is of particular interest to note
the unanimous statement by the Court that there exists “an
obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion
negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects
under strict and effective international control.”
The question is then whether the formulation of an agree-
ment on nuclear disarmament including a provision on outla-
wing them would be complex from a legal point of view. The
answer is that such a treaty would entail a number of complex
provisions relating mainly to verification and control. But
these are difficulties that should be relatively easy to resolve;
there are many experts in this field who can advise the contrac-
ting states.
There are as a matter of fact treaties that can serve as models
for the core element in an agreement on nuclear arms, the
outlawing. By way of example could be mentioned:
- The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and
1 Customary international law is developed through state practice. By generally and consistently following certain practices based on a sense of legal obliga-
tion, states develop norms that are considered binding on all states. Conventional international law derives from international agreements (such as the NPT)
that are binding on the contracting parties. Customary law and conventional law are the primary sources of international law.
IS IT POSSIBLE
TO OUTLAW NUCLEAR ARMS?
Hans Corell
Hans Corell was the Legal Counsel of the
UN 1994-2004. In 1972-1984 he served in
the Ministry of Justice, the last three years
as Chief Legal Officer. He was Ambassador
and Head of the Legal Department of the
Ministry for Foreign Affairs 1984-94.
Homepage: http://www.havc.se
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, 1972 (155 parties);
- The Convention on the Prohibition of the Development,
Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on
their Destruction, 1992 (188 parties); and
- The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling,
Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their
Destruction, 1997 (156 parties)
These conventions contain very similar provisions to the
effect that each state party to the respective convention under-
takes never under any circumstances to develop, produce,
stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain the weapons regulated
by the treaty. The same technical solution could be used in a
convention outlawing nuclear arms.
Proposals to this end have also been advanced. As an
example could be mentioned Securing Our Survival (SOS):
The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. This 2007
publication contains an elaborate Model Nuclear Weapons
Convention, proposed by the International Association of
Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, the International Network of
Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation and International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
From a legal perspective negotiating a treaty outlawing
nuclear arms would therefore not present problems that cannot
be overcome. As a matter of fact, there are already models that
could be used for this purpose. The obstacles that so far have
prevented the conclusion of such a treaty are therefore not of a
legal nature.
The political perspective
It is obvious that a a treaty outlawing nuclear arms cannot be
negotiated unless there is political support for the idea. An ana-
lysis of the question from this angle produces a very complex
picture.
A treaty of this nature would obviously have to be negotia-
ted under the auspices of the United Nations. An analysis of
relevant UN documents demonstrates that there is broad sup-
port for the idea that nuclear arms should be outlawed.
In the wake of the advisory opinion of the International
Court of Justice, the General Assembly has adopted yearly
resolutions, the latest on 2 December 2009 (A/RES/64/55),
in which the Assembly underlines the unanimous conclusion
of the Court that there exists an obligation to pursue in good
faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear
disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective inter-
national control.
Most importantly, the General Assembly calls upon “all Sta-
tes immediately to fulfil that obligation by commencing multi-
lateral negotiations leading to an early conclusion of a nuclear
weapons convention prohibiting the development, production,
testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nu-
clear weapons and providing for their elimination.”
The Security Council with its five permanent members, all
of them nuclear-weapon states, has also adopted resolutions in
the same vein. Suffice it in this context to refer to the Security
Council Summit and its resolution 1887 (2009) Maintenance
of international peace and security: Nuclear non-proliferation
and nuclear disarmament, adopted on 24 September 2009.
This resolution takes as a point of departure the Treaty on
the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1968 (the NPT
Treaty). The Council is resolved to seek a safer world for all
and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear wea-
pons, in accordance with the goals of the NPT, in a way that
promotes international stability, and based on the principle of
undiminished security for all.
In particular, the resolution calls upon the parties to the
NPT, pursuant to Article VI of the treaty, to undertake to pur-
sue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to
nuclear arms reduction and disarmament, and on a treaty on
general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control. All other states are called upon to join in
this endeavour.
This brings us to the question of the manner in which the
nuclear-weapon states fulfil the commitment that they have
undertaken in Article VI of the NPT:
Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue
negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating
to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and
to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and
complete disarmament under strict and effective interna-
tional control.
The argument is often made by many states and certainly
by members of civil society that the nuclear-weapon states that
are party to the NPT expect other parties to the treaty to fulfil
their obligations under the NPT, while they do not themselves
make serious efforts in accordance with their undertaking in
Article VI. This could be seen as another example of the dou-
ble standards that the permanent five members of the UN
Security Council sometimes apply.
Furthermore, there are three de facto nuclear-weapon states
that are not bound by the NPT. A major problem here is that
these states are in fact increasing their nuclear arsenals.
Against this background it is interesting to note the latest
development under the new US administration. In an address
in Prague on 5 April 2009, President Barack Obama made the
following commitment:
So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s
commitment to seek the peace and security of a world
without nuclear weapons. I’m not naive. This goal will
not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime. It
will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must
ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot
change. We have to insist, “Yes, we can.”
In his Nobel Lecture in Oslo on 10 December 2009,
President Obama also addressed the issue of nuclear weapons:
PROHIBITING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of
nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. In
the middle of the last century, nations agreed to be
bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have
access to peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear
weapons will forsake them; and those with nuclear weap-
ons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to
upholding this treaty. It is a centerpiece of my foreign
policy. And I’m working with President Medvedev to
reduce America’s and Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.
Reference must also be made to the many initiatives by states
and non-governmental organizations in the field of disarma-
ment:
By way of example, reference can be made to the Canberra
Commission, convened by the Government of Australia. In
1996, the Commission issued a report on practical steps
towards a nuclear-free world.
This was followed by the efforts of the New Agenda Coalition
(NAC), formed by Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New
Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden. A Joint
Declaration in June 1998 by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs
of these countries called upon the nuclear-weapon states and
the three nuclear-weapons-capable states to make a clear com-
mitment to the speedy, final and total elimination of their
nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons capability.
This paved the way for so called Thirteen Practical Steps for
the implementation of Article VI, which was adopted by the
2000 NPT Review Conference.
In the meantime the Tokyo Forum for Nuclear Non-
Proliferation and Disarmament had issued its report on 25
July 1999.
Sadly, the development over the next several years went in the wrong
direction. The 2005 NPT Review Conference was a failure and
the famous World Summit in September of the same year
2
does not
even contain the words weapons of mass destruction.
In its report in 2006, the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Commission made a number of detailed recommendations
relating to nuclear disarmament. In this context
Recommendation 30 is of particular significance:
All states possessing nuclear weapons should commence
planning for security without nuclear weapons. They
should start preparing for the outlawing of nuclear wea-
pons through joint practical and incremental measures
that include definitions, benchmarks and transparency
requirements for nuclear disarmament.
Among the non-governmental organizations, reference can be
made to the Middle Powers Initiative (MPI), dedicated to the
worldwide reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons. The
MPI brings together eight international non-governmental
organizations, among them International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War, to work primarily with ”middle
power” governments to encourage and educate the nuclear
weapons states to take immediate practical steps that reduce
nuclear dangers, and commence negotiations to eliminate
nuclear weapons.
In particular, reference should be made to the efforts by the
MPI within the framework of the Article VI Forum established
after the failure of the 2005 NPT Review Conference.
Recommended reading is also the MPI Briefing Paper:
”Making Good on the Promises: From the Security Council
Summit to the 2010 NPT Review”, which contains an excel-
lent analysis of these events and a number of recommenda-
tions.
The Final Communiqué on 27 June 2008 of the InterAction
Council of Former Heads of State and Government
3
con-
tains a number of recommendations. Among them are the
following two that have a direct bearing on our topic:
– Acknowledging that the challenges mankind faces must
be addressed through multilateral solutions within a rule-based
international system;
– Accepting the vision of a nuclear weapon free world and
urging the nuclear weapon possessing powers to take the lead
in a renewed effort in the disarmament process by phasing out
nuclear arsenals and avoiding the development of new systems
that would instigate a renewed arms race;
The 2009 Final Communiqué contains further recommenda-
tions in relation to nuclear disarmament.
These are just a few examples of the many efforts that have
been made and are made in the pursuit of ridding the world of
nuclear arms. Many others are engaged in this work, including
several non-governmental organizations and prominent politi-
cians in their personal capacity.
Conclusions
Against this background one must ask the question why it is so
difficult to create the momentum where states can come
together to negotiate a treaty outlawing nuclear arms. Many of
the actors referred to in the foregoing seem to be of the view so
clearly formulated by the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Commission. Disarmament and non-proliferation are best
pursued through a cooperative rules-based international order,
2 The 2005 World Summit in September 2005 was a follow-up summit meeting to the UN 2000 Millennium Summit.
3 The InterAction Council of Former Heads of State and Government was established in 1983 as an independent international organization to mobilize the ex-
perience, energy and international contacts of a group of statesmen who have held the highest office in their own countries. Council members jointly develop
recommendations on, and practical solutions for the political, economic and social problems confronting humanity. The Council aims at fostering international
cooperation and action in three priority areas: peace and security, world economic revitalization, and universal ethical standards.
PROHIBITING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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applied and enforced through effective multilateral institu-
tions, with the UN Security Council as the ultimate global
authority.
This is definitely how I see the situation from my perspec-
tive. The Security Council holds the key to any success in the
endeavour to rid the world of nuclear arms.
As a matter of fact, this is just one aspect of the role that the
UN Security Council could play if all its members clearly
demonstrated that they are prepared to respect international
law and apply the same standard to all including themselves.
Surely, this is what we have the right to expect from the mem-
bers of the body to which the UN Charter assigns the primary
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and
security!
It is obvious that there are great problems that have to be
tackled by the world community in the future, generated by
climate change, globalisation, possible overpopulation, pover-
ty, disease, terrorism. These phenomena constitute serious
threats to international peace and security. The only way in
which they can be managed is by establishing a just rule of law
both at the national and international level.
In another context I have expressed the opinion that the
way in which the members of the Security Council, and in
particular the permanent members of the Council, conduct
themselves will be the determining factor in what must be a
global effort to establish the rule of law. Therefore, the perma-
nent members must now lead the way by fully respecting their
obligations and bow to the law.
However, in order to make this happen it is important that
civil society engages itself even more actively in convincing
those who make the decisions in capitals that this is the only
way ahead. It is in this context that the argument should be
made that the existing arsenal of nuclear arms poses a tremen-
dous threat to all humankind.
After World War II, states that possess nuclear arms have so
far refrained from using them. But who knows how long
this will last? And then there is the additional risk if nuclear
arms come into the hands of terrorists. If this happens, we
cannot count on the restraint demonstrated so far by states.
Terrorists will simply use the arms. Seen in this perspective
there is no other way ahead if we want to protect ourselves
and our planet as a habitat for human beings than to see to
it that nuclear arms are outlawed and destroyed. Let us
hope that the 2010 NPT Review Conference will be a step
in the right direction!
Links to documents referred to
Advisory opinion that the International Court of Justice
issued on 8 July 1996
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/95/7495.pdf
General Assembly resolution A/RES/64/55 of 2 December
2009
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/
N09/565/50/PDF/N0956550.pdf?OpenElement
Security Council resolution 1887 (2009)
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/
Others/infcirc140.pdf
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1968
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/
Others/infcirc140.pdf
Securing Our Survival (SOS): The Case for a Nuclear
Weapons Convention http://www.icanw.org/securing-our-
survival
Remarks by President Barack Obama, Prague, 5 April 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-
By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/
Nobel Lecture by Barack H. Obama, Oslo, 10 December
2009
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laurea-
tes/2009/obama-lecture_en.html
Declaration by New Agenda Coalition
http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/
G98/624/76/IMG/G9862476.pdf?OpenElement
Tokyo Forum for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament
http://www.mofa.go.jp/POLICY/un/disarmament/forum/
tokyo9907/index.html
The Thirteen Practical Steps
http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/2000-
NPT/pdf/FD-Part1and2.pdf
Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological
and Chemical Arms
http://www.wmdcommission.org/files/Weapons_of_
Terror.pdf
Middle Powers Initiative
http://www.middlepowers.org/index.html
InterAction Council of Former Heads of State and
Government
http://www.interactioncouncil.org/sessions/commu-
nique/s26.pdf
PROHIBITING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
The political goal of a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC)
has become clearer and closer over the past decade. The con-
cept of a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons and setting out
a framework for their elimination has been promoted and
debated for over a dozen years now. Counter-arguments to
the calls for negotiations on such a treaty — or a framework
of inter-locking agreements — have characterized the goal as
idealistic, unrealistic, and premature.
But times have changed since the concept of an NWC and
calls for negotiations towards such a treaty first emerged. The
change over time in reactions to the model NWC that was
introduced in 1997 reflects this shift. This model, drafted by a
team that included lawyers, scientists, political analysts and
former diplomats, was warmly received by some. In fact it was
a response to demands for such a model. But the notion of
THE IRRESISTIBLE LOGIC
OF A NUCLEAR WEAPONS
CONVENTION
such a treaty was dismissed as premature and idealistic by oth-
ers, including disarmament advocates. Today many of those
same governmental and non-governmental representatives are
calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. Voices that reject-
ed the possibility of complete nuclear disarmament five or ten
years ago, and others that accepted it but rejected the NWC as
part of the process, have changed their tune.
It is time to reassess the assertions that it would be idealistic,
unrealistic, or premature to begin efforts towards a nuclear
weapons convention. As Rebecca Johnson commented: “Civil
society is frequently credited with the idealistic thinking that
identifies ’visions of how we would like the world to be’, only
to be patronised as ’well meaning but ignorant’ when we cam-
paign to turn these aspirations into reality.”
1
In fact, it is idealistic to think that we can maintain current
policies and practices — knowing that ‘domino effect’ is writ-
ten into nuclear policies — without some unforeseen or
unforeseeable nuclear catastrophe. To think that current
nuclear policies are capable of meeting the underlying inter-
linking dangers posed by the widespread availability of nuclear
materials and the prevailing post-cold war complacency —
that is the real La La Land.
Is the goal of the NWC unrealistic? Again, citing Johnson:
“we have to challenge [the] political limits and limitations
and... identify and work for the transformational progress that
so-called realists believe to be impossible. As we commemorate
the 20
th
anniversary of the Berlin wall being pulled down, let’s
remind ourselves how quickly civil society can accomplish
what governments and experts think is impossible!” A genera-
tion of academics with a rather limited vision of human capa-
bilities gave themselves the complacent label ‘realists’. “...such
labels act as linguistic sleight of hand to make it harder to ask
essential questions.” It is much harder to ask HOW an NWC
can be achieved — and to question old doctrines — than to
dismiss the concept by declaring the goal impossible. True, if
no efforts are made, an NWC is not possible. But if govern-
ments engage in good faith efforts to identify points of agree-
ment and potential progress, then they might be able to create
the conditions that will make disarmament more realistic. It is
the familiar question of political will.
Lack of political will is the scapegoat for lack of progress on
nuclear disarmament. But rather than dismiss the option of
engaging on the basis of lack of political will, each and every
government might take a closer look at its own political will
Merav Datan
Merav Datan is an international
lawyer and a board member of
Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear
Policy. She is the principal draft-
er of the Model Nuclear
Weapons Convention released
in 1997 (revised 2007).
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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11
and at ways of exercising that will. Perhaps today progress on
disarmament turns not on the question political will, which
exists in potential form, as much as on the question of the
energy to inspire and exercise this will. Popular energy needs to
drive political will.
If disarmament succeeds, many will (rightfully) claim credit,
but for this to happen they must invest in advance and help
make it happen. Some will need to be inspired or provoked
into taking action, others still need to be persuaded of the
feasibility of the NWC. The tools are available in the form of
various campaigns, networks and political mechanisms.
2
It is also important not to allow disingenuous calls for the
NWC to cloud our judgment or deter clear thinking about its
feasibility. As the NWC gains credibility, we can expect to see
a wide range of expressions of support, some genuine, others
possibly some form of political posturing, particularly if com-
ing from states that have a nuclear weapons program or come
under a nuclear umbrella. Such expressions of support for the
NWC should not be dismissed as disingenuous, however, since
they can be used to hold governments to their word and to
engage them, using the concept and elements of the NWC as
talking points.
The political logic of a nuclear weapons convention has
been disputed but never refuted. Often the goal was dismissed
as a political impossibility, as ‘unrealistic’ and incompatible
with the political reality and the inevitability of armed conflict.
But even these arguments did not dismiss the logic of the
NWC — the need for some form of agreed upon regime — if
the conditions for disarmament were to exist. Rather, these
realists dismissed the possibility of political conditions that
would make planning for complete disarmament planning a
meaningful pursuit. But times have changed, and those who
reject the notion that it is time to begin negotiations are losing
ground.
There is no need to recount here yet again the variety of
voices that have added their support to the NWC concept —
whether using this terminology or not — over the past half-
decade. From the four nuclear ‘horsemen’
*
to presidents and
prime ministers, to the UN Secretary-General’s Five Point
Plan, to international dignitaries and popular entertainers,
voices from sources steeped in the tradition of realism, trained
to reason, and toughened by hard reality, as well as voices
reflecting the rhythm and mood of popular opinion, these and
others have come to see that a comprehensive and united effort
to rid the world of nuclear weapons is essential if our world as
we know it is to survive.
The political logic of eliminating nuclear weapons is noth-
ing new. It is exactly as old as the weapons themselves. The
very first United Nations General Assembly resolution, coming
just after the first use of nuclear weapons, called for their
elimination. It is the question of timing (when real nuclear
disarmament will begin) and the approach to time (now is the
time) that has changed.
Political realities have presented themselves in such stark
terms in recent years that the nuclear threat appears more real,
and therefore its solution more imperative. Can we afford to
get tied up today over questions of precisely what timelines and
deadlines will apply tomorrow? Many former and presumably
continuing sceptics have come to realise that the answer to this
question is no. No, we cannot afford to waste time debating
the most ‘realistic’ approach. We must approach the challenge
of disarmament head on, undertaking what we know will be a
work in progress, setting forth goals and goalposts that will
create new realities, refining the framework and timelines as
real disarmament work progresses.
A civil society strategy for starting the process towards a
nuclear weapons convention involves getting the goal of the
NWC into the mainstream, “to gain recognition for the NWC
as a realistic and reasonable concept even among those who
disagree with its aims.”
3
The elements of such a strategy inclu-
de:
• Engaging governments in discussions about the legal
framework for prohibiting and eliminating nuclear wea-
pons
• Encouraging governments to including consideration of
the NWC (whether using this terminology or not) in
their official statements, to generate an “accumulation of
proposals” and/or to endorse the UN Secretary General’s
five-point disarmament plan of 24 October 2008
• Following the 2010 NPT Review Conference, internatio-
nally coordinated and locally implemented actions in
support of the NWC, regardless of the outcome of the
Conference
• Creating a partnership between civil society and govern-
ments to establish the conditions for the NWC
The most prevalent counter-argument against starting nego-
tiations towards a Nuclear Weapons Convention has been
that it is premature, not that it is illogical if the conditions for
disarmament exist. Times have changed, and the many old
and new voices calling for complete nuclear disarmament are
evidence that the conditions exist, and the time to begin dis-
cussions about the goal and content of such a treaty is now.
References
1 Rebecca Johnson, “Reaching Nuclear Disarmament - from Visions
to Reality”, Reaching Nuclear Disarmament - the Role of Civil Society in
Strengthening the NPT, Stockholm, Sweden, 6 November 2009,
http://nucleardisarmament.se/attachment/files/6128/Rebecca_Johnson__
Acronym_Institute_.pdf
2 International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, www.icanw.org
3 Johnson, pp. 4-7
*The four horsemen of the Apocalypse from The Book of revelations, Chapter
6 (refers to Kissinger, Schultz, Perry, and Nunn).
NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONVENTION
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NUCLEAR WEAPONS
AND PEACE
Nuclear weapons were first built during
World War II and the purpose was to use
them. Those in command in Washington
were not troubled by the effects of the
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
From their perspective the war was
already horrible, the number of American
victims high, and the purpose righteous.
During the 65 years since 1945, psycho-
logical and political barriers against the
use of nuclear weapons have grown —
even though the US still considers it has
a right to first use in a conflict that invol-
ves vital US safety interests. Governments
in other nuclear weapons states probably
hold the same opinion, although they
express it differently in official contexts.
Therefore, it is no surprise that the
option to use nuclear weapons has been
seriously considered in four — perhaps
five — conflicts. Documents exist which
show that threats to use nuclear weapons
have been presented to the adversary or,
in some cases, formulated as military
options. The list contains, among others,
the US threat against North Korea in
1953, aiming to terminate the Korean
War; the Vietnam War (different phases);
and the Soviet threat at the end of the
1960s as part of the Sino-Soviet conflict.
It is not easy to assess the risk that nuclear
weapons could have been used in these
conflicts. Suffice it to point out that the
use of nuclear weapons will be one option
for any nuclear-weapon state engaged in a
serious conflict.
Deterrence is not peace
The threat of nuclear retaliation was an
integral part of the Cold War. The strate-
gy of deterrence was referred to, quite
appropriately, as a balance of terror: if
Soviet forces were to attack Western
Europe, the US would respond with a
nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.
Likewise, if NATO were to attack the
Soviet Union, Moscow would retaliate by
destroying Western Europe and the US. It
was real terror: clearly declared threats
against the defenseless civilian population
of the other side. There was an on-going
debate as to which targets would be the
most effective for deterrence: directly
threatening to extinguish the population
of the other side by aiming at large cities
(the so-called countervalue strategy), or
aiming at the weapons of the other side
(the counterforce strategy). The better the
accuracy of weapons and weapon carriers,
the more the focus tended to shift to the
latter strategy.
In this way, however, more insecurity
was built in: “what if the weapons of the
other side are so numerous and so accura-
te that they can eliminate all our weapons
before we have time to launch them?”
That would mean a devaluation of deter-
rence, giving an advantage to the other
side. The feasibility of this so called first-
strike capacity caused levels of nuclear
armament to rise even higher, as it took a
great quantity of mobile, unreachable
systems to counteract it. As a result, the
arms race between the superpowers acce-
lerated. Armament expenses rose to ever
more absurd levels and a number of pro-
posals for new weapons systems were put
forward. These, however, elicited an
increasing number of protests. The inter-
national Nuclear Freeze Movement of the
1980s contributed to tempering the rear-
mament fever. Together with a new lead-
ership in the Soviet Union, it created an
example of how the dynamic could be
broken. When the Intermediate-Range
Nuclear Forces Treaty entered into force
in 1988, the US and the Soviet Union for
the first time agreed to the common pha-
sing out of a whole class of nuclear wea-
pons. The nuclear weapons dynamic of
the Cold War had been broken and could
be transformed into engagement for
disarmament. Unfortunately, this process
has come to a standstill for several years.
The theory of deterrence was funda-
mental during the Cold War. It created an
ever-present insecurity between the par-
ties. It may have had a restraining effect
on some decision makers, but the world
was far from a peace system worthy of the
name. Measures considered defensive by
one party were seen as offensive by the
other. The ability to handle conflicts and
crises was negatively affected.
One very early example was the Cuban
Missile Crisis of 1962. The issue — from
an American perspective — was that
Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba under-
mined the US capacity to deter a Soviet
strike. Within few minutes Soviet missiles
could reach and eliminate the American
forces — before the US would have had
the time to react. The Soviet Union regar-
ded the missiles in Cuba as a way to deter
an American invasion of Cuba (i.e. as
defensive). The fact that the US had
nuclear weapons in Turkey, which could
reach Soviet deployments, was probably
included in the decision process. The
Cuban Missile Crisis came to be the most
dramatic moment in Cold War history. In
the course of the crisis, the whole world
could follow a drama with global implica-
tions. Nuclear weapons, intended to
deter, instead scared powerless people.
Later crises between the superpowers
illustrate similar risks. In 1973, in the
Middle East, the US thought that the
Soviet Union might defend Egypt with
nuclear weapons when the war with Israel
changed to the advantage of Israel. The
US placed their nuclear weapons on the
highest state of readiness to demonstrate
to the Soviet Union that they disliked the
situation. Had the US misunderstood it?
The insecurity that was supposed to lead
to safety created more insecurity.
Peter Wallensteen
Peter Wallensteen holds the Dag
Hammarskjöld Chair of Peace
and Conflict Research at Uppsala
University, Sweden and is a
Professor of Peace Studies at the
Kroc Institute, University of Notre
Dame, USA. He leads Uppsala
Conflict Data Program and a program on sanctions.
He has published on third parties, conflict dynam-
ics, peacebuilding, and targeted sanctions.
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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13
Illusory safety
Nuclear weapons have not been used in
war since 1945. As already described,
plans for their use as one option have
been made, but the weapons have been
regarded as militarily difficult to use: large
areas can be contaminated, radioactive
clouds may blow in over own troops, and
it is impossible to discriminate between
civilians and military personnel. This
inutility has left nuclear weapons with
only one role: weapons of deterrence.
The idea that if A threatens to use
nuclear weapons, B will not attack —
either with conventional or with nuclear
weapons — attracts some states. Nations
that feel exposed to existential threats
from the surrounding world consider this
a reason to acquire these weapons. “They
give us more safety”. As we have seen
from the history of the Cold War, this is
an illusory safety. In reality, possession of
nuclear weapons increases the level of
suspicion between the parties: actions are
more apt to be misinterpreted, the need
for information (spies, satellites, infiltra-
tion) will become infinite (the less you
find, the more convinced you will be that
something big is about to happen because
it is kept so secret).
India and Pakistan have possessed
nuclear weapons since 1998. Relations
between the two countries have not
improved and no underlying conflicts
have been resolved. Rather, nervousness
has increased (e.g. about whether the
Pakistani arsenals are really well under the
control of legal authorities). The possibi-
lity of a fundamentalist takeover is a
source of worry not only for Pakistan but
also for India and the rest of the world.
Israel has probably had access to
nuclear weapons for a long time.
Nevertheless, it has been afflicted by two
Palestinian revolts, one non-violent and
one violent; it has been involved in several
wars (Lebanon 2006, Gaza 2008-09); and
it has been the victim of rocket attacks
and suicide assaults. Being a nuclear wea-
pons possessor has not helped to bring the
country closer to a desirable peace order
in the Middle East. Rather, it has stimula-
ted other nations to develop nuclear
research programs: Iraq, Iran, Libya,Syria.
As of today, only Iran has a nuclear power
ambition, though the leadership has
declared it does not intend to produce
weapons. The military insecurity of Iran,
however, is probably not caused by Israel
but by the unresolved conflict with the
US, the conflicts in Iraq, the Pakistani
complications, and the inflamed crisis in
Afghanistan.
The US war against Iraq is probably
the only war where the threat of a possible
nuclear weapons arsenal has actually star-
ted a full-blown war. The official
American motivation was to prevent Iraq
from ever getting this capacity. This pre-
ventive war against nuclear proliferation
will hopefully remain an exception but,
all the same, it shows that nuclear wea-
pons can create conflicts and that the fear
of them can make superpowers act short-
sightedly, neglecting reasonable peaceful
alternatives.
It is possible to argue that the nations
most likely to go for a nuclear weapons
program, are those which do not belong
to defense pacts, regard themselves as dif-
ferent, consider themselves victims of
threats from superpowers, and are ques-
tioned by the rest of the world. North
Korea fits this description and so does the
Islamic Republic of Iran. South Africa
during the apartheid regime belonged in
the same category and its return to the
international community at the begin-
ning of the 1990s coincides with the
abolition of its nuclear weapons and with
its internal democratization.
Potential nuclear weapons nations
should be looked for in this group in the
future. In addition to North Korea and
Iran there are also Burma/Myanmar and
maybe Syria (even if their nuclear plants
seem to have been destroyed in an air-
strike in 2007). One could also speculate
about other countries with economic
resources which are in conflict with the
Western countries.
History, however, shows that when a
new nation gets nuclear weapons, this
step often leads to more conflicts with the
surrounding world. This is what happe-
ned in 1949 when the Soviet Union
exploded their first atomic bomb, when
China did the same in 1964, and in May
1998 when both India and Pakistan per-
formed nuclear tests. The nuclear explo-
sions in 1998 increased tensions between
India and Pakistan, leading them to a war
in 1999. These weapons do not create
more security, let alone peace.
Disarmament
creates peace
The lesson from these nuclear weapons
situations is that peace will come when
nuclear arsenals are abolished or reduced,
not when they are acquired. Nuclear wea-
pons are linked to insecurity. The treaties
made between the superpowers during
the Cold War were mainly meant to take
care of tensions created by the weapons,
not to solve the basic conflicts. Nuclear
weapons shift focus away from the pro-
blems that really need to be solved. When
the threat of a nuclear war in Europe was
lessened through the removal of provoca-
tive weapons, the need for Soviet control
of Eastern Europe was reduced. When
Libya announced the intention to close
down its nuclear program, the Western
»
Article continues on page 19.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND PEACE
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
POWER HEN OR BOMB EGG
– WHICH ONE COMES FIRST?
Discussion of the relationship between nuclear power and nuclear arms
Introduction
There is a notion that buildup of a nuclear power program is
an entry gate to development of nuclear weapons. It can also
be claimed that nuclear power plants came as a sort of spin-off
from development of nuclear weapons. There is certainly a
connection between production of fissionable material for
either purpose, but that connection depends on the economic
and geo-political conditions in the particular circumstances.
Those who oppose nuclear power sometimes argue that
nuclear power and nuclear weapons are “siamese twins”, clai-
ming that used nuclear fuel contains enough Plutonium to
manufacture – in theory - hundreds of thousands of nuclear
bombs. This is true, but the Plutonium in used fuel is not
suitable as material for bombs with reliable properties. Such
weapons might only serve as tools for terrorists. This is a frigh-
tening enough perspective, but should be compared with the
possibility that terrorists can cause other kinds of disasters with
chemical or biological substances. In my opinion, the greatest
risk posed by the continued buildup of nuclear power in the
world is that, in the longer term, it will call for development of
new types of fuel, which will lead to an increased circulation
and proliferation of fissionable and radioactive material.
Diagram showing the relationship between nuclear power and nuclear arms.
The following paths to development of nuclear weapons can be identified:
1. Irradiated fuel is removed from a research reactor and reprocessed for separation of weapons-grade Plutonium.
2. A Uranium enrichment process for production of nuclear fuel is used for production of weapons-grade Uranium.
3. Partially burnt-out fuel from a nuclear power reactor is reprocessed to separate weapons-grade Plutonium.
Stefan Björnson has a degree
of MSc in Engineering Physics
and a background of work in
nuclear power generation
industry. He is a board member
of the Swedish Scientists and
Engineers Against Nuclear
Arms.
Stefan Björnson
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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15
Enormous energy
in the smallest units of matter
Nuclear physics research took off in the first decades of the
20th century. Many previously unexplained phenomena could
now be sorted out in a coherent scientific view of physics.
Among other discoveries, it was understood that energy could
be produced by splitting large atomic nuclei. When these dis-
coveries were made, they came out predominantly as scientific
advances without apparent practical use in everyday life.
Among the then-available materials, the Uranium isotope
U235 had the right properties for generation of nuclear energy.
Uranium is a scarce element, only 0.75% of which consists of
the isotope U235. The general perception was probably that
setting up a program for supply of energy through nuclear fis-
sion was technically infeasible and economically unjustified.
Moreover, in the 1930s there were apparently unlimited reser-
ves of oil and coal and there was no understanding of problems
with greenhouse gases.
But then came the war.
In a letter to US president Roosevelt, Albert Einstein stated
that it would be possible to manufacture extremely powerful
bombs through the use of nuclear energy. The president reac-
ted immediately and appointed a committee, tasked with
investigating the options for such development. The whole
issue gained momentum when the USA entered the war and
there were concerns that Nazi-ruled Germany was about to
obtain such bombs. The continued development of nuclear
weapons — with a first nuclear blast in the Nevada desert in
July 1945, the two atomic bombs over Japan in August, and
the resulting arms race between the superpowers — is well
known history.
How does it work?
If a heavy atomic nucleus is split through irradiation by neu-
trons at a suitable energy level, the binding energy, which has
kept the fragments together, will be released. This is the first
factor behind nuclear energy. The second factor is that some
atomic nuclei emit neutrons when they are split and these can,
in turn, split other nuclei, which then, in turn, emit neutrons,
splitting more nuclei, and so on. Such an exponentially pro-
gressing chain reaction takes place during a very short time and
results in the release of enormous quantities of energy. As men-
tioned above, the isotope U235 has suitable properties for this,
but there are also other materials that can be used for a chain
reaction, among them Plutonium 239 and Uranium 233.
These latter isotopes are of importance for the next generation
of nuclear reactors, to the extent that such reactors will be
developed. In a nuclear reactor, the fission process must be
kept under strict control so that energy production matches
current demand. In an atomic bomb, however, as much energy
as possible must be released during as short a strech of time as
possible. The technical conditions for each of these processes
will therefore be quite different. The common factor is availa-
bility of fissionable material with suitable properties, and it is
here that the connection between nuclear power and nuclear
weapons should be sought.
Nuclear power and nuclear
bombs in a historical perspective
Table 1 provides an overview of the development of material
for nuclear power and nuclear weapons, respectively, under
different political and economic conditions. Cases where there
may be a connection between nuclear power and nuclear wea-
pons have been highlighted through shading.
PartiesRaw materialNuclear fuelMaterial for bombs
USA, early 1940s, war industry
Imported Uranium, originating
in Belgian Congo
Not applicableEnriched Uranium, over 90% U235
Plutonium from research
reactor
Not applicable
Reprocessed with separation of
weapons grade Plutonium
Major states, post- war period.
Arms race, initial development
of nuclear power
Uranium from domestic
sources or legal markets
Enriched Uranium, over 4%
U235
Enriched Uranium, over 90% U235
Plutonium from research
reactors
Not applicable
Reprocessed with separation of
weapons grade Plutonium
New nuclear-weapon states,
reduced tensions. Regional
balance of power
Domestic Uranium resources
or illegally acquired Uranium
Enriched Uranium, over 4%
U235
Enriched Uranium, over 90% U235
Plutonium from research reac-
tors or power generation reac-
tor (at low burnout)
Not applicable
Reprocessed with separation of
weapons grade Plutonium
States with a long term nuclear
power program and in
international cooperation
Uranium from domestic sourc-
es or from a legal market
Enriched to about 4% U235 or
LEU acquired on a legal market
Not applicable
Plutonium from reprocessed
fuel or from breeders
Reprocessed fuel
Thorium
Irradiated in breeders and
reprocessed with separation of
U233
Increased risk for proliferation
through more extensive handling of
fissionable material
»
Table 1. A historical perspective
NUCLEAR POWER – NUCLEAR WEAPONS
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
World War 2
The USA developed Uranium and Plutonium bombs in coo-
peration with Great Britain (Manhattan project). The work to
develop nuclear bombs started in the autumn of 1942 and
resulted three years later in the first nuclear test in Nevada and
the two bombs that were dropped on Japan. The focus at all
times was on producing a weapon that would lead to victory in
the war and - from the outset of the project – to get ahead of
a possible German bomb. There may have been a discussion
about using nuclear fission for production of energy, but the
atomic bombs were developed directly based on theoretical
and experimental results.
Post-war period, arms race
During the post-war period, four additional states acquired
nuclear weapons: Great Britain, the Soviet Union, France, and
China. The development of nuclear power plants occured at
the same time and it is likely that facilities for Uranium enrich-
ment were used for both nuclear power and nuclear weapons.
Reduced tensions, regional balance of power
New nuclear weapon states, in addition to the five original
ones, acquired nuclear weapons by combining their own
research programs with knowledge and technology that had
been transferred for development of civil nuclear technology
(science, medicine, power generation). Such transfers open up
opportunities for setting up plants for Uranium enrichment or
extraction of weapons-grade Plutonium from power plants
that have been operated with a low level of burnout (which is
sub-optimal for energy production).
Long term nuclear power program
Forecasts made in 2008 indicate that known and projected
supplies of Uranium will last approximately until the end of
this century, give or take a decade or two. This applies to use
in present reactor types. If nuclear power is to serve as an
enduring source of energy, it will be necessary to apply techno-
logy for fuel generation through breeding
1
(Plutonium,
Thorium). One problem with this, however, is that there are
no working breeder reactors in operation today.
Power for a new era
In the post-war period, this new and seemingly mysterious
power from some of the most elementary units of matter
appealed to the prevailing optimistic view of technical achieve-
ments. In the new age, it was expected that nuclear power
would provide unlimited energy resources – so cheap that it
might no longer be worth the effort to charge for the electri-
city. In addition, it was proposed that nuclear bombs might be
used for blasting harbors, re-aligning large rivers, opening up
strip mines and other imaginative prospects. As we know now,
there was not to be any civilian use of nuclear bombs, but plans
for energy production with nuclear power progressed.
Countries such as Sweden, where there is neither coal nor oil,
saw in this an opportunity for independent energy production
from domestic supplies of Uranium. The Swedish program was
shaped with heavy water reactors and natural (non-enriched)
Uranium. But the plans did not stop at peaceful nuclear ener-
gy; there were also ideas about developing nuclear bombs of
the Plutonium type, where the Plutonium was to be manufac-
tured in a breeding process adjacent to the power reactors. So
in this case there was a connection between nuclear power and
nuclear weapons. But further deliberations with respect to geo-
political, military, and economic aspects resulted in the conclu-
sion that it would not be in the best interest of Sweden to
invest all available defense resources in developing nuclear
weapons. Reportedly, there was also diplomatic pressure and
promises of benefits from the USA, which played a significant
role in swaying the Swedish resolve. A groundswell of domestic
public opinion opposed plans for Swedish nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, the international community was turning against
a scenario where nuclear weapons would become standard
armaments in arsenals worldwide. This resulted in the Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for nuclear weapons, which was
signed in 1968. A number of countries (e. g., South Africa,
Argentina, and Brazil) have initiated nuclear weapons pro-
grams, which were cancelled before these countries declared
that they were nuclear-weapon states.
The Cold War political bomb
The NPT stipulates that nuclear weapons would not be acqui-
red by others than the five nuclear-weapon states at that time
(France, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, China, and the
USA), who in turn undertook to reach agreement on disarma-
ment and abolition of these weapons. In reality, it had already
1 Breeding means that a surplus of neutrons in a reactor core is used to produce new nuclear fuel: Plutonium (from U238) and U233 (from Thorium).
NUCLEAR POWER – NUCLEAR WEAPONS
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17
been established that nuclear weapons can have no military
role other than in a doomsday war. The propositions that were
made to employ nuclear weapons during the Korean War and
Vietnam War, respectively, did not gain support. During the
Falklands War there were also proposals to bomb Argentinian
air bases with nuclear weapons. But the bombs had already
lost their military significance and were useful only as showpie-
ces of the power and might of the country that owned them.
Since the great powers kept sticking to and, furthermore, con-
tinued developing their nuclear weapons, other countries
started questioning whether the NPT had been entered in
good faith, or was merely a maneuver to maintain the mono-
poly of the nuclear states. A quest for regional balance of power
pushed some countries in Asia towards developing their own
nuclear weapons. India performed its first nuclear test in 1974.
Pakistan followed suit with a nuclear weapons program that
resulted in a test in 1998, more or less as a reaction to renewed
tests in India. In both of these cases it is claimed that the two
countries had received international aid for a nuclear research
program, which had gone off-rail.
According to several analysts, Israel possesses up to 200
nuclear warheads. Israeli officials have neither confirmed nor
denied this. The weapons were presumably developed at a
nuclear research facility close to the city of Dimona in the
Negev desert. Expert analysts of satellite photos are said to have
identified nuclear-weapons-related objects in that plant.
Furthermore, an Israeli technician, Mordechai Vanunu, who
worked in the plant, has blown a whistle on development of
nuclear weapons there. It has been noted that no scientific
reports have come out of the Dimona plant, despite its status
as a research facility.
The example of South Africa is interesting as a parallel to
both the cancelled Swedish nuclear weapons project and the
current project in Iran for Uranium enrichment. The main
reason for scrapping the South African nuclear weapons capa-
city was that the global political situation had changed when
Cuban forces left Angola and the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
Production of nuclear weapons from enriched Uranium in
South Africa shows that it is feasible for a country with limited
resources to develop relatively simple nuclear weapons, which
can be integrated into existing armament. In this case a nuclear
power program, including fuel production with domestic
enrichment of Uranium from South African mines, had been
used for production of weapons-grade Uranium. Manufacture
of bombs had been integrated into the domestic weapons
industry. The international sanctions, which were aimed at the
apartheid system resulted in some slowing down of the opera-
tions, but they also strengthened a resolve to make the country
strong and independent – according to then-prevailing politi-
cal dogmas.
The Bomb vs rogue states
Those who now seem to stand in line to get the bomb include
a number of the so-called rogue states – North Korea, Iran,
Burma. The military reasons for these states wanting to obtain
a nuclear capacity are beyond the scope of this article, but there
is, in any case, some additional distance to go before they can
have operational nuclear charges that can be dropped on an
adversary.
In the case of North Korea, there is a connection between
research at the Yongbyon science plant and nuclear weapons. It
is likely that the charges that were exploded by North Korea
consisted of Plutonium from the core of a 50 MW reactor,
which also was used to heat buildings in the science plant. So
in this case it can be said that there is a connection between
nuclear weapons and nuclear power, even if the connection to
nuclear research is stronger.
Iran claims to strive for an independent supply of fuel for a
nuclear power program. Consequently, the country focuses on a
domestic capacity for enrichment and is reported to be making
progress with this. There is a justified concern in the internatio-
nal community that the enrichment might be kept on beyond
the 4% of U235 needed for nuclear fuel and up to the 90%+
that might be used to produce Uranium bombs. In the case of
Iran there is a connection between nuclear power and nuclear
weapons - if developed - since establishment of the enrichment
capacity is justified through a nuclear power program.
It is not clear whether any real plans correspond to the
rumor that the rulers of Burma would want to acquire nuclear
weapons. If this is the case, North Korea is considered to be the
most likely supplier of knowledge and equipment.
Performing nuclear tests is really just a statement of ”yes, we
could!”, because several steps remain before the country in ques-
tion has a functional nuclear weapon in actual deployment.
First, the charge must have a shape and weight that can be car-
ried by airplanes or by missiles. Second, these airplanes and
missiles must be available as delivery systems and, third, there
should be a credible military strategy for when and how such
weapons might be deployed. What would happen the day after
a nuclear bombing; what would the international reaction be?
»
NUCLEAR POWER – NUCLEAR WEAPONS
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Nuclear power generation based on Thorium: The left side of the diagram shows how
an essentially self-sustained Thorium reactor might work. The right side shows the
transition process with breeder technology to get the Thorium process started. The
different steps are explained with reference to numbers 1-5 below.
1 – Natural Uranium is enriched from 0.7% U235 up to about 4% low enriched ura-
nium for use in a breeder reactor. The surplus neutron flux in the breeder is used to
convert Th232 to U233 and U238 to Pu239 (a side-effect).
2 – The irradiated breeded material is removed from the reactor and reprocessed.
Surplus material is stored in a final deposit.
3 – The effect of the Thorium reactor may be boosted with extra high-enriched U235
(>20%). Thorium is added as fuel.
4 – Breeding material is removed from the Thorium reactor. Reprocessed U233 and to
some extent Pu239 serve as sources of energy and neutron flux for conversion of
Thorium to U233. It is also possible to run the system in once-through mode, without
reprocessing.
5 – The waste material is processed in a suitable way and dispatched for final storage.
Note: To-date there is no universally accepted safe method for final storage of nuclear
waste.
The Thorium process, future nuclear power?
A simplified description of the technology
The diagram below is an overview of the different steps for a Thorium-based nuclear
power cycle.
The Future?
In 2005 there were about 450 nuclear
power plants in the world, which supp-
lied 16% of the produced electricity and
2.2% of worldwide energy needs. Under
certain assumptions about extended
nuclear power and exploitation of known
and assumed Uranium supplies, the
Uranium will last until approximately
the turn of the century, give or take a
couple of decades. Considering the
dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and the
goal to reduce emission of greenhouse
gases, it is not likely that our civilisation
will abandon nuclear power as a source
of energy. It will then be necessary to
resort to various methods for prepara-
tion of nuclear fuel of other kinds, such
as breeder technology or Thorium reac-
tors (c.f. informative frame below) if
nuclear power is to last into the coming
centuries. This will lead to significant
increases in the quantity of fissionable
material (Plutonium, Uranium 233) in
circulation. It will become more difficult
to monitor fissionable material and the
risk for nuclear weapon proliferation will
increase. The advanced technology that
is required to get such a nuclear power
program to work, however, calls for
international cooperation, which should
restrain nuclear weapon aspirations.
Society as a whole will become more
vulnerable, and strict control and secu-
rity functions will have to be set up.
NUCLEAR POWER – NUCLEAR WEAPONS
world could get an acknowledgement
concerning the Lockerbie bombing.
Furthermore, today Iran is offered a posi-
tive relation with the West if only they
allow the IAEA to perform their inspec-
tions. The new US negotiation/boycott
strategy towards Burma/Myanmar aims
to lessen this country’s ambition to deve-
lop nuclear weapon of its own.
Nuclear weapons and a policy of deter-
rence have not managed to build a lasting
and constructive peace. Furthermore,
these days the effectiveness of deterrence
is questioned in a new, still more worry-
ing way: the political suicide. The mere
existence of people who are not held back
by the death of many innocent people as
a result of their violent deeds, undermines
the basic idea of deterrence. The deter-
rence thinking assumes that the one to be
deterred is held back by the danger of
retaliation. However, if the actor is not
worried about retaliation there is no
deterrent effect.
In sum, nuclear weapons a) have been
used in war; b) have been part of military
thinking in particular conflicts; c) have
been used to threaten opponents; d)
generate considerable insecurity even
when not explicitly used as threats; e)
become issues of conflict in themselves
»
Article continues from page 13.
due to their inherent dangerousness; f)
induce parties to develop more weapons
in order to preempt possible new moves
on the others side (i.e. are coupled to
arms races that are difficult to check); g)
are only politically useful as deterrents,
which, however, requires that they have
credibility based upon a) through f); and
h) build on deterrence which is increa-
singly undermined in an age of suicide
heroism. For the sake of peace it is time
to do what US President Ronald Reagan
said in 1983: render these nuclear wea-
pons impotent and obsolete!
Translation from Swedish:
Jan Larsson, Ulf König
NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND PEACE
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”Another world is not only
possible, she is on her way.
Maybe many of us won’t be
here to greet her, but on a
quiet day, if I listen carefully,
I can hear her breathing.”
Arundhati Roy
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”A HISTORIC DAY”
To hit a bullet with a bullet:
ten years of Missile Defense
On June 22, 1999, President Bill Clinton signed the National Missile Defense Act into law. It states
that “it is the policy of the United States to deploy as soon as is technically possible an effective
National Missile Defense system capable of defending the territory of the United States against
limited ballistic missile attack.”
“Any National Missile Defense system we deploy must be operationally effective, cost-effective and
enhance our security”, President Clinton said after signing the bill.
Five years later, before any of these conditions were met, the first missile was put into its silo at the
former army base Fort Greely in Interior Alaska. Another five years later, President Barack Obama
decided to shelve a similar ground-based system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic.
Between overgrown aspen and windblown white and black
spruce, you could catch a glimpse of the snow-capped Alaskan
Range, with the majestic Mount Hayes. A sudden wind gust
whipped up another burst of dust over the 800 acre open, flat
field.
It was an early July morning in 2004 as a giant crane slowly
started to lower the 54-foot Orbital missile into its launching
silo at Fort Greely in the Interior of Alaska. Before the end of
the year, another five missiles would be housed here.
– It’s a historic day. When the remaining missiles are in
place, we will — for the first time — be able to defend our
country against enemy missiles, said a proud Major General
John Holly, in charge of building the system at Fort Greely.
Because of the vicinity of the nearby city Delta Junction, this
was initially planned to be just a test site. No missiles were
supposed to ever be launched from here.
– It’s true that it started out as a test site, John Holly said.
However, we have every intention to make this system opera-
tional.
Missile launches just a few miles south of town didn’t seem
to worry people in Delta at the time.
– A show of force and power leads to peace, so I don’t have
any problems with it, said farmer and reverend Terry Flugrad.
Besides, I think there is a bigger risk getting killed driving on
the freeway that being hit by a missile.
Many in Delta also remember the mid-1990s when the
army base was in essence closed.
– A lot of people lost their jobs. Some moved away from
here. So it became really clear to me what an important part of
In the summer of 2004, the first missile was put in its silo at the
former army base Fort Greely in Interior Alaska. The following
day the event was the top story in the local newspaper, the
Fairbanks News-Miner.
Claes Andreasson
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21
the community Fort Greely and its activities are to us, says
Delta Junction’s Mayor, Mary Leith Dowling.
Missile defense was clearly a welcomed economic boost to a
community with about a thousand people within the city lim-
its.
– We are very dependent upon Fort Greely. We don’t pay
any [local] income tax and rely entirely on money from the
state and federal government, says Swedish immigrant and pas-
tor Carin Björn von Letzendorf.
The military paid for a new library, an elementary school, a
new modern landfill, an outdoor hockey rink, plenty of new
homes. And a new fire station, where Pastor “Bear” volunteers
as fire chief.
– And they bought us a new zamboni for the hockey rink.
Believe me; all the hockey people are thrilled! says Mayor Leith
Dowling.
According to one account, Fort Greely generates about $65
million dollars in economic activity annually.
– The construction jobs have been very important to our
economy, Mayor Leith Dowling says. We have lots of people
with bunk houses in which crews are living now. In the eve-
ning, those crews don’t just want to sit in the bunk house, so
they go out and eat and spend money in town.
– The military also gives us money to fund the library, to
help us keep it open longer hours. And the construction work-
ers go there to read and to use the computers.
Most infamously stupid
But there are critics.
– No doubt the missile defense program has been an eco-
nomic success for us here in Delta, says Deanne Meyer. But I
have always been very doubtful that the system will ever work.
I think it is an enormous waste of money.
– I don’t feel an ounce safer today than I did before the mis-
sile defense system was deployed, says David Koester, professor
of anthropology at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. It’s
probably true that a lot of people want a strong defense, and
local politicians often talk about the economic benefits of the
missile defense. But I believe that this is bad labor politics.
There’s got to be better ways to spend our tax dollars.
The sentiment is shared by others who also welcomed
President Obama’s recent decision to cut back on the ground-
based missile defense program.
– Considering that this is by far the most infamously stupid
and expensive part of the program, the president’s decision is
not surprising, says Stacey Fritz from the action group No
Nukes North in Fairbanks. I think the entire direction of the
missile defense is offensive and damaging.
But decreased defense spending angered many elected offi-
cials in Alaska.
– This is the wrong message to send our adversaries, says
Senator Lisa Murkowski. Moreover, the U.S. has already
invested substantial amount of money in the purchase of addi-
tional interceptor missiles and the construction of a second
missile site. Are these dollars to be lost to our national security?
In Delta Junction, the defense cut-backs were also a cause of
concern.
– There was major concern among the military when
Barack Obama was elected, Pastor Carin Björn von Letzendorf
says. If the base would ever be closed, it would affect the com-
munity severely. This is truly a “boom and bust community.”
Moldy silos
Fort Greely was originally supposed to house forty missiles. In
the most recent defense budget the number of missiles were cut
to 26, with an additional four at Vandenberg Air Force Base in
California. A remaining 14 missiles, already purchased, will be
used as back-up.
There have been problems reported with mold and water
leaks in missile field 1 at Fort Greely, due to the hasty construc-
tion in 2004. While the field is operational, it will grow
increasingly expensive to maintain. The problem caused Alaska
senator Mark Begich to introduce a bill directing the adminis-
tration to spend an additional $82 million dollars to finish the
first half of a third missile silo field at Fort Greely, while in
return shutting down the damaged silos.
– The agreement we have reached will ensure that Alaska
continues to serve as America’s frontlines of defense against
rogue states, Senator Begich said in a statement.
In Delta Junction there are no signs, at least not yet, of
any defense cut-backs. And truth be told, to some a bit of a
slow down wouldn’t hurt.
– It’s almost impossible to find someone to help you do
standard work in your home. With all the construction, all the
people that used to be available, are now working on the base,
says Mayor Leith Dowling. There is also a lot more people in
town. To some, that’s a nuisance. Alaskans are independent,
and not used to waiting in line at the store or the post office.
– But overall I think the missile defense is a positive. I think
we are a very supportive community. And the people at Fort
Greely want to work with us, they try to keep us informed
about what they’re doing. It has brought jobs back and a more
positive tone to the area.
To hit a bullet with a bullet:
ten years of Missile Defense
Claes Andreasson is an
independent public
radio producer based in
Los Angeles.”
MISSILE DEFENSE
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September 17, 2009 President Obama
announced that he would shelve the pre-
vious administration’s plans for a ground-
based missile defense program in Europe,
abandoning blueprints for a large radar
station in the Czech Republic and ten
interceptors in Poland.
– The White House deserves credit for
changing course, says David Wright of
science-based non-profit Union of
Concerned Scientists.
The United States will instead expand
the existing ship-based Aegis defense sys-
tem, along with a network of sensors and
land-based mobile Standard Missile-3
interceptors primarily in southern Europe.
– The Bush plan was focused on inter-
continental ballistic missiles. Iran doesn’t
have any ICBMs, says former Assistant
Secretary of Defense, Philip Coyle. Barack
Obama is now focusing on what Iran
does have, short- and medium range mis-
siles that can reach southern Europe.
Although the administration perceives
a changed Iranian threat, some analysts
still doubt how serious it is:
– I continue to believe that the Iranian
regime is not suicidal enough to launch
an attack against Europe, says Tom
Collina of think tank Arms Control
Association. They’re not crazy as much as
they try to appear unpredictable. They’ve
taken a page out of the North Korean
playbook – sometimes it’s good to appear
a little crazy, because your opponent
doesn’t know what to expect from you.
Starting in 2011 the Obama adminis-
tration will deploy missile defenses in the
south, starting perhaps in Turkey. This
doesn’t necessarily mean that Poland and
the Czech Republic are entirely out of the
picture:
– We are very interested in continuing
to work with the Czech Republic, in
terms of a piece of this architecture,
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said
after the announcement. We are eager to
go forward with the framework agree-
ment with the Czechs on this, which
would allow that. Clearly, what this repre-
sents is, if the Poles are interested in going
forward, it meets their concerns about
having this capability in Poland. And so I
think that this is actually an enhanced
U.S. SHIFTS EUROPEAN MISSILE DEFENSES
Claes Andreasson
opportunity for – particularly the Polish
government, but it also offers opportuni-
ties for the Czech Republic.
The Achilles Heel
If a reassessment of the Iranian threat was
one reason for the change of plans, the
planned ground-based system’s technical
problems was another.
– The technology doesn’t work here in
the United States. It wouldn’t have worked
in Europe either, says Tom Collina.
– The new plan has significant techni-
cal problems too, adds David Wright.
The Aegis interceptors, current and
planned, are also designed to intercept
missiles above the atmosphere and would
therefore be vulnerable to decoys and
countermeasures, just like the current
ground-based interceptors.
– It doesn’t reflect sound science, says
Lisbeth Gronlund of the Union of
Concerned Scientists. Neither the ground-
based system, nor the Aegis system has
been tested under real-world conditions.
They both remain unproven.
In a testimony before the House
Committee on Armed Services earlier this
year, former Assistant Secretary of Defense
Philip Coyle called the decoys and coun-
termeasures “the Achilles Heel of missile
defense.”
– Shooting down an enemy missile
going 17,000 miles per hour in space is
like trying to hit a hole-in-one in golf,
when the hole is going 17,000 mph. If an
enemy uses decoys and countermeasures,
missile defense is shooting a hole-in-one
when the hole is going 17,000 mph and
the green is covered with black circles the
same size as the hole. The defender
doesn’t know which target to aim for.
Improved security?
The European missile defense system was
always a thorn in the side of U.S. relations
with Russia, which viewed the radar and
interceptors as a threat to its strategic
nuclear force. The decision to shelve the
costly, controversial, untested ground-
based interceptor system was a pragmatic
decision regardless of Russia’s concern,
but could help secure Russian assistance
in dealing with potential Iranian threats,
as well as their cooperation on cutting
U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.
– The fact that the new plan happens
to please the Russians is all good, says
Tom Collina. It’s the icing on the cake.
– However, David Wright adds, since
hundreds of Aegis interceptors are now
planned, with the improved generation of
interceptors to follow, it’s likely to pro-
voke both Russian and Chinese concerns.
Russian hawks might use the US system
to argue against meaningful reductions in
Russia’s nuclear arsenal and other steps to
reduce the nuclear threat. Chinese hawks
will be able to make an even stronger case
since their country has a much smaller
arsenal.
The Bush administration’s program was
based on bilateral agreements between the
United States and Poland and the Czech
Republic respectively. The new plan is
under the full umbrella of NATO. “One
benefit of the phased, adaptive approach is
that there is a high degree of flexibility – in
addition to sea-based assets, there are many
potential locations for the architecture’s
land-based elements, some of which will
be relocated. We plan to deploy elements
in northern and southern Europe and will
be consulting closely at NATO with Allies
on the specific deployment options,”
according to the official statement from
the Defense Department.
While most analysts applaud the
Obama administration’s decision to shelve
the old missile defense plan for Europe,
there is still some disagreement about the
benefits of the new program.
– Overall, the Obama plan is prag-
matic and provides better coverage sooner
than the Bush plan would have, Philip
Coyle says.
– The worst thing is deploying a sys-
tem that doesn’t work. Because what you
do, is you get everyone thinking they’re
safe. You get the Iranians to build more
missiles to overcome a system you have
put in, which isn’t going to work anyway,
says Tom Collina.
– Only time will tell if the Obama
missile defense plan really has made an
improvement in the U.S. and European
security, concludes David Wright from
the Union of Concerned Scientists.
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Using an analog computer, Bell Telephone Laboratories completed 50,000 simulated intercepts of ballistic missile tar-
gets. The simulations indicated that it was possible to hit a missile with another missile.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara informs the American people that the Soviets were deploying the Galosh bal-
listic missile defense system. A few months later he and President Johnson try to convince Soviet Premier Kosygin to
abandon the effort. Kosygin’s response “Defense is moral, offense is immoral”
The Johnson administration announces the decision to deploy the Sentinel ballistic missile defense system, a two-tiered
system that employed two nuclear interceptors, the Spartan and the Sprint. The Spartan was supposed to intercept
warhead and decoys outside the atmosphere, the Sprint inside the atmosphere where air resistance would strip away
decoys and make it easier to find the attacking warhead. Eighteen months later, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird
halted the deployment of the Sentinel program.
President Richard Nixon decides to deploy a missile defense system, Safeguard, designed to protect U.S. ICBM fields
from attack by Soviet missiles.
U.S. President Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signs the SALT I Agreement which includes the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) which limited the deployment of two ABM sites, each having 100 interceptors. One
to guard an ICBM field, the other to protect national command authorities at each nation’s capital city.
Congress orders the Army to close down the Safeguard system, barely four months after it had become operational.
President Ronald Reagan announces his decision to launch a major new research and development program to see if
it might be feasible to deploy effective missile defense at some point in the future.
Presidential National Security Decision Directive 119 establishes the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to explore the
possibility of developing missile defenses as an alternative means of deterring nuclear war.
Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev hold their second summit at Reykjavik, Iceland. During the meeting Gorbachev pres-
ses Reagan to accept limitations on the SDI program, but Reagan refuses to accept his terms.
The germination of the concept for ‘Brilliant Pebbles’ occurs in discussions between Lowell Wood and Greg Canavan.
‘Brilliant’ technologies refers to the use of powerful, miniaturized computers and sensors to give the capabilities pre-
viously possessed only by large, expensive satellites, to much smaller, inexpensive satellites.
According to press reports, for the first time in history, an anti-missile missile intercepted and destroyed a ballistic mis-
sile under combat conditions. A Patriot air defense missile destroyed an Iraqi Scud missile that was attacking a U.S. air
base in Saudi Arabia. A reporter from the Los Angeles Times writes “The age of ‘Star Wars’ had arrived.”
President George H. Bush signs the Missile Defense Act of 1991, which requires the Dept. of Defense to “aggressively
pursue the development of advanced theater missile defense systems, with the objective to down selecting and
deploying such systems by the mid-1990s.”
A year later Congress amends the Act, placing more emphasis on treaty compliance and eliminating the target date
of 1996 for deployment.
Secretary of Defense Les Aspin notes that the end of the Cold War means that the U.S. no longer faces the threat of a
massive Soviet attack such as that the SDI program had concentrated on. Now, the U.S. faces theater ballistic missiles
in the hands of Third World dictators.
The Rumsfeld Commission report to the Congress “Concerted efforts by a number of overtly or potentially hostile nati-
ons to acquire ballistic missiles with biological or nuclear payloads pose a growing threat to the United States, its
deployed forces and its friends and allies. These newer, developing threats in North Korea, Iran and Iraq are in addition
to those still posed by the existing ballistic missile arsenals of Russia and China. These newer ballistic missile-equipped
nations’ capabilities will not match those of the U.S. systems for accuracy or reliability. However they would be able to
inflict major destruction on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire such capability (10 years in the case
of Iraq). During several of those years, the U.S. might not be aware that such a decision had been made.”
Congress adopts the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 “to commit the United States to deploy a national anti-
missile defense system as soon as technologically possible.”
President George W Bush notifies Russia that the U.S. will withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which paved
the way to deploying the ground-based missile defense systems in Alaska and California.
President Obama announces that he is shelving the Bush administration’s plans for a ground-based missile defense
system, based in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead he is focusing on a more flexible system including Aegis
ships, a network of sensors and mobile land-based missiles.
THE AGE OF STAR WARS
1955
Nov 10 1966
Sept 18 1967
March 14 1969
May 26 1972
1976
March 23 1983
Jan 6 1984
Oct 11-12 1986
Nov 1986
Jan 18 1991
Dec 5 1991
May 13 1993
Jul 15 1998
Mar 16-17 1999
Dec 13 2001
Sept 17 2009
MISSILE DEFENSE
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International Outlook
Readings and excerpts from International Media on Nuclear Weapons Issues
Editor: Inge Axelsson, Pediatrician and Associate Professor, Mid Sweden University
inge.axelsson@miun.se
“The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 ... for
a world without nuclear weapons.”
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the
Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President
Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen
international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.
The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s
vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”
Nobelprize.org http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/
laureates/2009/press.html
Looking Backward and Forward
In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates and doors
and also the god of beginnings and endings. He had two
faces, looking in opposite directions. In “Homage to Janus,”
Victor W Sidel and Barry S. Levy look backward and for-
ward at the anti-war movement among physicians. They
point to six challenges facing us: 1) Addressing the un-
derlying causes of war; 2) Documenting the health conse-
quences of war; 3) Minimizing the health consequences of
war; 4) Reducing access to weapons; 5) Promoting nonvio-
lent resolution of conflict; 6) Fostering a culture of peace.
ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weap-
ons) works hard with issue 4), Reducing access to weapons.
Sidel VW, Levy BS. Homage to Janus: Looking backward and
forward. Medicine, Conflict and Survival 2009;25(4):271–
274.
CTBT
All European countries, including the nuclear weap-
ons countries France, Russia and the UK, have rati-
fied the Complete Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The treaty
has been signed but not ratified by the nuclear weapons
countries China, Israel and the USA, and of the thresh-
old country Iran. Nuclear weapons countries India,
North Korea and Pakistan have not signed the treaty.
http://www.ctbto.org/
“Yes, we can”
President Barack Obama has made an ambitious and impas-
sioned pitch to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Removing
the forward-deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Europe
seems like one of the more obvious first steps. In Prague on
April 5, 2009, president Obama said:
“Some argue that the spread of [nuclear] weapons cannot be
stopped, cannot be checked -– that we are destined to live
in a world where more nations and more people possess the
ultimate tools of destruction. Such fatalism is a deadly
adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weap-
ons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to
ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable...So
today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commit-
ment to seek the peace and security of a world without
nuclear weapons. (Applause). I’m not naive. This goal will
not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime. It will
take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore
the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We
have to insist, ‘Yes, we can’.”
President Obama’s intentions are supported by Gordon
Brown (PM, the UK) but not by the French President
Nicolas Sarkozy. The German minister of foreign affairs
Guido Westerwelle has told his American colleague, Hilary
Clinton, that he wants to get rid of the tactical nuclear
weapons in Europe, and he is supported by the governments
of Belgium and the Netherlands.
Borger J. The Guardian 6 Nov 2009
Loretz J. peaceandhealthblog.com 2009 Nov 7
Remarks by President Barack Obama, Hradcany Square,
Prague, Czech Republic. The White House, April 5, 2009.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-
President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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25
US Nuclear Weapons in Europe
The USA still has 200 tactical nuclear weapons in the fol-
lowing European countries: in Turkey 90 bombs; Italy 50;
Belgium 20; Germany 20; and in the Netherlands 20 bombs.
All the bombs are gravity bombs for delivery by US or
NATO aircrafts. During the Cold War, these weapons
were used as a deterrent against a conventional Soviet at-
tack on US European allies, but today their military util-
ity and strategic value have diminished substantially.
NATO currently includes all of the Central European
countries plus the three Baltic States, (previously parties to
the Warsaw Pact), and as for Russia, it is now a strategic
NATO partner. Washington should therefore remove the
weapons from Europe, thereby demonstrating its com-
mitment to strengthening the non-proliferation regime.
van der Zwaan B, Sauer T. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
2009 (www.thebulletin.org)
Illicit Trafficking of Nuclear Weapons
After nine-eleven (the attack on September 11, 2001), the
US authorities have been worried by the enormous influx
of containers on merchant vessels. A container could hold a
nuclear device that might be exploded in a port. Different
methods for detection of nuclear devices have been tested.
The volume of container ship traffic is now so huge that x-
ray scan is possible only for a fraction of them. An Italian
study has tested passive detection of fissionable material us-
ing an activation foil of iridium; it will detect weak radiation
from plutonium oxide. However, the content of other mate-
rials in the container could weaken the plutonium signal. It
seems that the USA has a long way to go to efficiently detect
nuclear devices in containers.
Janssens-Maenhout G et al. J Environ Radioact 2009 Oct
27. [Epub ahead of print]
Defining Risk, Motivating Responsibility
and Rethinking Global Warming
“This paper breaks with the sociological notion of ‘risk
society’ and argues in favour of a philosophical view that
sees the two planetary threats of late modernity, nuclear
weapons and global warming, as ultimate challenges to
morality and politics rather than risks that we can take
and manage” the Italian philosopher Furio Cerutti writes.
He defines ‘risk’ as a harmful event where we can attach
numeric values to the size of the expected loss (e.g. number
of dead humans) and to the probability that the event will
take place. If we have no figures for the event, Cerutti does
not talk about risk but about threat or hazard facing us in a
condition of uncertainty.
Cerutti notes that we accept generational nepotism: we are
only ready to enforce changes and restraints as far as needed
to protect the generations currently living, plus their chil-
dren and grandchildren. There are, according to Cerutti,
two ways to protect our planet. The first alternative is the
theory of justice: we owe something to future generations
out of the obligations that we accept—along with their
consequences—when we undertake to build a just society
without overusing nature. Cerutti, however, believes in the
second alternative: “we cannot possibly allow ourselves to
break up the transgenerational chain of elementary solidar-
ity and fairness that has given and is supposed to continue
to give every generation of parents a chance to take care
of their children in an Earth that is still in an acceptable
state.”
The difference between the two arguments is not quite
clear to me but most of the essay is understandable and
sensible. The meaning of life must include a hope for a
meaningful life for coming generations. We need a living
debate on our responsibilities for our planet.
Cerutti F. Sci Eng Ethics. 2009 Oct 2. [Epub ahead of print]
26
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
Nuclear-weapon-free zones have emer-
ged as an important but largely unno-
ticed approach towards a nuclear-wea-
pon-free world. The eight zones esta-
blished so far cover some 50 % of the
world’s land areas, including 99 % of
all land south of the equator and 74 %
of all land outside nuclear-weapon
state territory. These zones include
119 states and 18 other territories with
some 1.9 billion inhabitants.
When the possible proliferation of
nuclear weapons to more states became
an urgent political problem in the 1950s,
three different solutions were discussed.
One was an Irish proposal that states
without nuclear weapons should abstain
from acquiring such weapons in the
future and that nuclear-weapon powers
should not transfer such weapons to any
receiver whatsoever. This proposal was
the basis for the agreement in 1968 on
the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Today all states in the world but four are
parties to the NPT. India, Israel, and
Pakistan have never joined the NPT.
North Korea became an NPT party in
1985 but withdrew in 2003
A second proposal, from Sweden, was
named the Undén-plan after then-Min-
ister of Foreign Affairs Dr Östen Undén,
proposing the formation of a non-nucle-
ar club of states where no nuclear weap-
ons would be present and which states
would be invited to join. The proposal
was turned down as it did not fit the
interests of the two military alliances in
Europe during the Cold War.
The third was the idea that states
could join together regionally to com-
pletely prohibit the presence of nuclear
weapons in their regions, that is to estab-
lish so-called nuclear-weapon-free zones.
NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE ZONES
– A SUCCESS STORY
That idea was tabled for the first time in
the United Nations in 1956 by the
Soviet Union. One year later Poland
proposed that four states in Central
Europe — Poland, Czechoslovakia, East
Germany, and West Germany — should
establish such a zone. Those proposals
were not accepted either because of the
Cold War.
According to the NPT, non-nuclear-
weapon states are prohibited from
acquiring their own nuclear weapons,
but they are not prohibited from hosting
such weapons of others on their territo-
ries. As a consequence, Europe was
stacked with nuclear weapons and partly
still is, despite the fact that all European
states became parties to the NPT. On the
other hand, the NPT encourages the
parties (Art. VII) to go beyond the treaty
and to establish nuclear-weapon-free
zones.
The first such zone was established in
Antarctica in 1959, when this no-man ́s-
land was regulated by international
agreement. The objective was to prevent
the Cold War from spilling over to the
White Continent. Part of the agreement
was to declare Antarctica as demilitarised
and thus, by implication, denuclearised.
In 1963, Brazil proposed that Latin
America and the Caribbean should
become a nuclear-weapon-free zone.
Agreement on the proposal — the
Tlatelolco Treaty — was reached in
1967. The zone grew successively until
its final entry into force in 2002. The
zone includes large parts of the South
Atlantic and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
But the nuclear-weapon states declared
that they did not intend to respect any
nuclear-weapon-free status of sea areas of
the zone, referring to international law
and the principle of the freedom of the
high seas.
In 1985, the member states of the
South Pacific Forum were next to estab-
lish a nuclear-free zone in the South
Pacific — the Rarotonga Treaty — rang-
ing from Latin America to the west coast
of Australia and from the Antarctic
area(S 60°) to the equator. The treaty
applies only to the land areas of partici-
pating states and not to the large sea
areas of the zonal territory.
In 1990, a very special nuclear-weap-
on-free zone was established. According
to the so-called 4+2 treaty among four
victorious second world war states and
the German Democratic Republic
(DDR) and the Federal Republic of
Germany regarding the reunification of
the two Germanys, nuclear weapons
should not be stationed on the former
DDR territory, despite the fact that uni-
fied Germany is a member of NATO, a
nuclear-armed alliance.
In 1991, the two Korean states agreed
to declare their peninsula a nuclear-
weapon-free zone. That treaty entered
into force the year after but has not been
implemented and must now be consid-
ered dead. On the contrary, North Korea
has since then test fired two nuclear
explosive devices.
In 1995, ten ASEAN states agreed to
establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in
South East Asia — the Bangkok treaty
— including i. a. the archipelagic states
of Indonesia and the Philippines.
That same year Mongolia declared
itself a one-state nuclear-weapon-free
zone based on internal legislation rather
than international agreement. Mongolia
got its nuclear-weapon-free status recog-
nized by the United Nations’ General
Assembly in 2002.
In 1996, Africa was declared a nucle-
ar-weapon-free zone at a conference in
Cairo, the Pelindaba treaty, that formerly
Jan Prawitz, Visiting scholar at
the Swedish Institute of
International Affairs. Formerly
Special Assistant for Amrs
Control to the Minister of
Defence of Sweden 1970-1992.
Jan Prawitz
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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27
entered into force in July 2009, despite
the fact that all potential zonal states had
not yet joined.
In 2003, five former Soviet republics
that are now independent states in
Central Asia — Kazakhstan,
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
and Kyrgyzstan — got together to estab-
lish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in their
region — the Semipalatinsk treaty that
entered into force in 2009. The names of
the zone treaties indicate the places
where they were negotiated.
To this could be added that quite a
few small areas that were declared as
demilitarised in the past, often long
before the atomic bomb was invented,
today could be considered denuclearised
as well. Two such areas close to Sweden
are the Norwegian Spitzbergen archipel-
ago (1920) in the Arctic and the Finnish
Aaland Islands (1921) in the Baltic.
Sometimes when reference is made to
nuclear-weapon-free zones, two other
treaties are mentioned, the contents of
which are theoretically close to the zone
concept. One is the Outer Space Treaty
of 1967 prohibiting the placement of
nuclear weapons and other weapons of
mass destruction in satellite orbit around
the Earth and on the moon and other
celestial bodies. The latter could theo-
retically thus be considered nuclear-
weapon free. The other is the Sea Bed
Treaty of 1971 prohibiting the emplace-
ment of nuclear weapons and other
weapons of mass destruction on the sea
bed, which likewise could be considered
a nuclear-weapon free area.
It could also be mentioned that cit-
ies, counties, research institutions, and
similar bodies sometimes have declared
themselves nuclear-weapon-free zones.
Such “zones” do not, however, have any
status according to international law and
should rather be considered expressions
of opinion.
The history of nuclear-weapon-free
zones has produced a lot of experience
about the nature and content of the zone
concept which has turned out to be very
flexible and adaptable to local political
and geographic peculiarities. The zone
treaties frequently include a fair amount
of fine print. The main objective of
zones, however, is to free a region from
presence of nuclear weapons and from
outside attack by such weapons.
Comprehensive guidelines for “zone-
making” were adopted by the UN
General Assembly in 1999. A basic rule
is that the initiative to establish a zone
should come from inside the group of
prospective zonal states.
Although the zones established so far
are different in several respects, they do
have some basic functions in common.
I. Non-possession of nuclear
weapons by zonal states.
II. Non-stationing of nuclear
weapons in the zone by any state.
III. Non-use or non-threat of use
of nuclear weapons throughout the
zone and against targets within the
zone to be guaranteed by the
nuclear-weapon states.
IV. A verification system to con-
trol the implementation of the
zonal treaty.
The procedure for establishing nucle-
ar-weapon-free zones has typically been
very time consuming; several years or
decades. The procedure may be the fol-
lowing: One state in the region takes the
initiative. Prospective zonal states nego-
tiate treaty provisions. After agreement,
an entry-into-force procedure starts for
every single zonal state and for the guar-
antee protocols to be signed by nuclear-
weapon states. Different states may
require different lengths of time. In that
way, the zone is successively built up
until all the relevant states adhere to all
relevant commitments. During this time
the zonal obligations could be assumed
by the member states as they sign up.
An example in point is the establish-
ment of the African zone. The proposal
to establish that zone was introduced in
the agenda for the UN General Assembly
in 1961, in the first place to prohibit the
suspected plans of the Republic of South
Africa to acquire their own nuclear
weapons. But real negotiations did not
start until South Africa signed the NPT
in 1991; incidentally, those negotiations
were led by South Africa. A treaty text
was agreed in 1996 and entered into
force in 2009, although the signatures of
a number of zonal states are lacking.
All nuclear-weapon-free zones men-
tioned above have formally entered into
force, but for some of them a few pieces
remain to fall into place. For some of
them, the nuclear-weapon powers have
yet to sign the guarantee protocols.
Nuclear-weapon powers invited to sign
are the five acknowledged by the NPT
— China, France, Great Britain, Russia,
and the USA. India, Pakistan, and North
Korea are sometimes considered de facto
nuclear-weapon states, but they are not
acknowleged by the NPT, they are not
granted a nuclear-weapon state status by
the world community, and they are thus
not invited to sign the guarantee proto-
cols. Nuclear-weapon powers and other
extra-zonal states with dependent terri-
tories within the zonal areas have in sev-
eral cases agreed that zonal commit-
ments will apply also in their dependen-
cies. This is true, for instance, for the
British Falkland Islands and Virgin
Islands and the American Puerto Rico
and the Guantanamo naval base in Cuba
plus French and Dutch colonies within
the Latin American zone. This is true
also for French Polynesia in the South
Pacific and its dependencies within the
African zone.
Many other nuclear-weapon-free
zones have been proposed over the
years but were not established for a vari-
ety of mostly political reasons. Major
Western powers, in particular the USA,
have declared a number of political con-
ditions for supporting a proposed new
nuclear-weapon-free zone project. One
important condition is that a zone
should not infringe upon existing secu-
rity arrangements. All proposed zones
located in Europe have thus been turned
down, because membership in a nuclear-
weapon-free zone has not been consid-
ered compatible with a simultaneous
membership in NATO, the strategic
concept of which implies an active par-
ticipation in the nuclear roles of the alli-
ance. Another condition is that zone
NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE ZONES
28
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
obligations should not infringe upon the
rights according to international law
regarding the freedom of the high seas
and thus the right to bring along nuclear
weapons onboard ships and aircraft. This
condition has prevented an effective
inclusion of sea areas in the zones.
Inclusion of sea areas would also be dif-
ficult to negotiate as no state could
legally represent the sea areas.
One proposed zone that never mate-
rialized was the one referring to
Nordic Europe. The idea of a
nuclear-weapon-free zone in
“northern Europe” was first
proposed in 1958 by then-
prime minister of the Soviet
Union, Nicolaj Bulganin, in
letters to the prime ministers of
the Nordic states. The proposal
died, however, when the Nordic
states asked the Soviet Union to
clarify what parts of the west-
ern Soviet territory were
intended to be included in the
zone. The idea was reintro-
duced in 1963 by then-presi-
dent Urho Kekkonen of Finland. The
Kekkonen-plan referred to a zone includ-
ing four states—Denmark, Finland,
Norway, and Sweden. The objective was
to exclude this area already free of any
nuclear weapons from nuclear strategic
speculations. But the proposal was
turned down. Denmark and Norway
were and still are members of NATO.
When Dr Kekkonen reintroduced his
proposal in 1978, the West Nordic areas
— the Atlantic islands the Faroe Islands,
Iceland and Greenland — added their
interest in the project. But his proposal
was turned down again this time for the
same reasons. Since the fall of the Berlin
wall in 1989, the proposal has not exist-
ed on the political agenda.
Another example is the proposal by
Belarus in 1995 to separate the nuclear
weapons of NATO and of Russia by
means of a wide nuclear-weapon-free
corridor from the Baltic Sea to the Black
Sea. The envisaged area was not precisely
defined but was at the time assumed to
cover all territory earlier belonging to the
Warszaw Pact west of the Russian
Federation. Also this proposal was
turned down because several of the pro-
spective zonal states were applying for
membership in NATO.
Two other zone proposals have been
on the international agenda for a long
time — South Asia and the Middle East.
The South Asia proposal — including
the seven states of Bangladesh, Bhutan,
India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan,
and Sri Lanka — has had little success.
Two prospective zonal states, India and
Pakistan, are today de facto nuclear-
weapon states. Therefore, the proposal
has mostly been a subject for political
debate.
The proposal for a nuclear-weapon-
free zone in the Middle East was intro-
duced on the agenda of the UN in 1974
and has been recommended by the
General Assembly every year since then
— unanimously since 1980. The pro-
posal is thus supported by all 23 pro-
spective zonal states which are the mem-
bers of the League of Arab states, Iran,
and Israel. The proposal now has a prior-
ity position on most political agendas
and is well researched and prepared. The
concept of the zone proposal was wid-
ened in 1990 when president Mubarak
of Egypt proposed a zone free of weap-
ons of mass destruction in the Middle
East, a concept later adopted by the UN
General Assembly and the rest of the
world community. Such a zone project
would take care of two problem states in
the area: Israel, widely assumed to be a
nuclear-weapon state without ever hav-
ing declared itself possessing such weap-
ons; and Iran, suspected of preparing to
acquire nuclear weapons while insisting
on the opposite. Half the proposed
treaty area has already become nuclear-
weapon-free as part of the African zone.
But one obstacle remains. The timing!
All prospective zonal states except Israel
would prefer an early establishment of
the zone in order to remove the weapons
of mass destruction from the continued
peace process in the Middle East. Israel
has a different security problem than all
the others, and insists that the establish-
ment of the zone should
crown the final and success-
ful conclusion of the peace
process.
Finally, the proposal for
a nuclear-weapon-free
Arctic could be mentioned.
This idea has been discussed
for many years, particularly
in Canada, but has now
gained a wider interest along
with the global warming
and the subsequent melting
polar ice making the area
more accessible. But the
proposed project would probably be dif-
ficult to negotiate. Among the eight
states immediately concerned —
Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Finland,
Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and
the USA (Alaska) — two are nuclear-
weapon states and five are members of
NATO. In addition, a large part of the
prospective zone is a sea area.
As the NPT after 40 years in force
has got an almost complete participa-
tion, the growing number of nuclear-
weapon-free zones is now the dynamic
element of the non-proliferation
regime. The establishment of further
zones is regularly encouraged by the
review conferences of the NPT-parties
every five years. The zones so far include
74 % of all land outside the territories
of the nuclear-weapon powers acknowl-
eged by the NPT. The remaining 26 %
include primarily Canada and
Greenland in the Western Hemisphere,
and NATO-Europe, the Asian part of
the Middle East, South and Norteastern
Asia of the Old World. And not to be
forgotten, all seas and oceans covering
some 70 % of the surface of the earth.
Red : Land territory covered by nuclear-weapon-free treaties
Dark blue: Sea territory covered by nuclear-weapon-free treaties
www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/images/NWFZ_Map_small.gif
NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE ZONES
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
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29
In November 2000, two things coincided: first, the
New Agenda resolution, with the thirteen steps, got an
overwhelming UN majority and a yes vote from the United
States; and second, the world did not know for many weeks
whether Al Gore or George Bush had won the presidential
election days before. The first thing was a display of United
States leadership together with forward-looking middle
power countries; the second, not known at the time, was
the start of eight years of retrogression in nuclear non-
proliferation and disarmament. Now, nine years later, things
are different. US leadership is back, starting in Prague in
April 2009 with President Obama’s speech. The spark may
have been lit as early as in January 2007 in the Wall Street
Journal by four elder US statesmen claiming the necessity of
total nuclear abolition.
Self-proclaimed “realists” maintain that a nuclear-weapons-
free world is a visionary dream, impossible in reality: nuclear
weapons cannot be un-invented and a world government
is needed before nuclear weapons can be eliminated. Both
arguments are beside the point. Of course the scientific
knowledge itself cannot be undone, but the weapons can be
controlled and prohibited and, after that, breakout capacity
1
can also be controlled – not easy, but possible. Furthermore,
the weapons will not be eliminated by a utopian all-powerful
world government, but by key states with responsible leaders
once they recognize, in their self-interest, that continued
deterrence is much riskier for them than leaving reliance on
nuclear weapons behind. This process has already been started,
first informally by retired leaders in several countries, and
recently formally by Presidents Obama, Medvedev and others.
Governments have created instruments intended to control
the only invention that can destroy mankind itself instantly.
The most important of these instruments is the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which hangs on, decade after
decade, having refused to disintegrate, as has sometimes been
predicted.
Pessimistic forecasts
Before each NPT Review Conference (RevCon) there have
been pessimistic forecasts. Sometimes they have been met,
as in 2005. Sometimes they have not, as in 2000. There are
opportunities and challenges every time, and they are taken or
missed, met or frustrated.
REACHING NUCLEAR
DISARMAMENT
– from visions to reality
Between the important reviews in 1995 and 2000 there
were some bright signs globally: the NPT had been extended
indefinitely and seemed to hold up well; no nuclear tests had
taken place for a while; an entry-into-force of the nuclear test
ban seemed possible; and the fissile material negotiations in
Geneva were close to starting. In 1998, however, the Indian
and Pakistani nuclear tests overturned this. Furthermore, the
nuclear test ban treaty was defeated in the US senate, and
the fissile material negotiations drowned in the quagmire in
Geneva. Once again it became clear that multilateral negotia-
tions between nuclear-weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear-
weapon states (NNWS) are unbalanced, with the status quo
leaning in favour of the NWS and the burden of proof resting
with the NNWS.
Unexpected success in 2000
In 2000 the situation again changed: the NPT RevCon
unexpectedly ended in a consensus agreement, containing
thirteen practical steps towards fulfilling Article VI
2
. This was one
of the few occasions in recent decades where the nuclear haves and
have nots did not speak in monologues but actually tried to create
mutual benefit via a dialogue. The success turned out to be short-
lived, but this soon-to-be-ten-years old agreement is still valid.
What do the monologues say? The NWS regard non-
proliferation as the decisive element, whereas the NNWS
view disarmament as the neglected part of the bargain.
The NWS’ rhetoric does not admit this stance, whereas
the NNWS point to the double standards of the NWS.
Frustration among non-nuclear states
Things would be clearer if NNWS were to speak with
a unanimous voice. Some of them take very principled
positions, whereas others are more pragmatic. Some are NATO
members, or US allies outside NATO; many others are non-
aligned. Some are in regional conflicts. Some are very big
and influential, such as Indonesia, Germany, Egypt, Brazil,
and South Africa; many are small. Only a few of them may
want nuclear weapons, but most of them are frustrated, even
those that do not feel directly threatened by nuclear weapons.
This frustration got its strongest expression in 1995, when the
indefinite extension of the NPT would not have taken place
without specific pledges from the NWS regarding the road to
fulfilling Article VI and resolving the Middle East issue. Pledges
were given by the nuclear five on fissile material non-
1 The risk of a state in a nuclear weapons free world secretly acquiring nuclear weapons is usually referred to as the breakout problem
2 Article VI of the NPT: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the
nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective
international control.”
Ambassador Henrik Salander is chairperson of Middle
Powers Initiative. He was earlier Sweden’s Ambassador to
the Geneva Conference on Disarmament (1999-2003)
where he authored the 2002 “five ambassadors” compro-
mise proposal that is still the basis for efforts there to start
negotiations on a fissile materials cut-off treaty and other
treaties. He has also served as Deputy Director-General of
the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Henrik Salander
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LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
production (FMCT), on a comprehensive test ban (CTBT),
and on systematic and progressive efforts towards meeting
Article VI. Concessions were made again in 2000, but little
has happened thereafter to make good on the promises. Cuts
in numbers have certainly been made, but for most NNWS
it does not matter much whether the nuclear five have 6,000,
2,000 or 200 warheads each, as long as the role of nuclear
weapons in security policies remains the same, or worse.
On these three parts — FMCT, CTBT and meeting Article
VI — some agreements will be necessary in 2010, making it
clearer what kind of multilateral process the nuclear five are
willing to undertake. If FMCT negotiations are not started, and
progress is not made on CTBT entry into force, this amounts to
continued breaking of political pledges made fifteen years ago.
Therefore, it is not promising that there are active efforts
in the US to tie test ban treaty ratification to commitments
to new warheads and production facilities, based on the
rationale of maintaining reliable weapons without testing. It
is also worrying that the fissile material negotiations may take
a narrow approach to a treaty, and that the Conference on
Disarmament (CD) is in danger of being inactive again.
The 13 steps of NPT 2000
The so-called “systematic and progressive efforts” (from 1999)
were reawakened in 2000 and resulted in another important
heritage, the thirteen steps. How to treat them next year is a
challenge with many unknowns: not only how much the Obama
administration’s actual positions will be changed when it comes
down to the detail, but also how much Russia, France and China
will try to hold back regarding new — and old — Article VI-
related recommendations, guidelines and decisions. Signs in the
PrepCom were not promising, but everything starts anew in May.
A few of the thirteen steps are a bit dated or overtaken by
events, but they cannot be rolled back or thrown away. A
credible way of renewing and updating them must be found.
This will be much up to the NWS, which will be put in a
corner if they do not propose reformulations of some of the
commitments and pledges, making them relevant for today.
Equally important, however, and in a sense new since 1995
and 2000, is the “diminishing role” of nuclear weapons. In
2000 this became only a sub-step under step 9, guarded by
the umbrella of “international stability” and “undiminished
security for all”. This time, some clear expression is needed
about the NWS’ ambitions to downgrade reliance on nuclear
weapons. In the case of the United States and the Obama
administration, the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review
will be a decisive reference point. Therefore, it is important
that the cynical doctrinal concepts of counterforce and
counter-value are not kept as parts of the nuclear doctrine.
The challenge of the negotiating format
An organized and representative structure for the production
of an agreement will be needed for a successful NPT
RevCon. In 2000, the outcome was determined by a direct
negotiation between the nuclear five and the seven-country
New Agenda Coalition during the final few nights. This
will not happen again, for the simple reason that other
countries will not accept standing outside closed doors,
unable to affect the outcome. In 2000, the nuclear five
needed a credible and representative counterpart, and the
NAC was the only possible one. This is no longer the case.
In 2000, this may even have been a kind of mistake on the
part of the NWS. If they had invited all countries that wanted
to take part — and there were many of them — they would
have had a less coherent counterpart. In fact, the cohesion and
discipline of the NAC was surprising. The seven delegations
knew each other’s limits in great detail. This made it possible
for them to support each other rather than compete for goods
in the eventual outcome. Therefore, a real question before May
will be whether other countries outside of NAC, as well as
the seven themselves, will be as coordinated as they were ten
years ago. The five NWS will definitely look for a counterpart,
perhaps hoping that it is not as well prepared as in 2000. With
a large and uncoordinated counterpart group, the nuclear five
will be able to divide and rule, as has happened before.
US leadership
US leadership can create the conditions for starting on the
road to zero. And President Obama has made that clear. He
even recognized the moral responsibility of the US to act
and lead, as the only power to have used a nuclear weapon.
This is a great statement, generating hope and promise.
The next test of it will come in only a few weeks, when the
Nuclear Posture Review will be published in Washington.
That review and its successors must recognize the new
situation and make a new calculus of the balance between
status quo risks and the difficulties of the road to zero.
We must understand that the countering forces to the
President’s vision will be strong and very sophisticated, both
in the US and in other states. These forces have inertia and
inactivity on their side. In both governments and civil society,
therefore, we must sharpen our arguments and our activities.
After the Prague speech and the Security Council Summit, a
realization is spreading that nuclear weapons create insecurity
rather than security and that reliance on them has to be phased
out. This must be done through a number of steps. The first
three steps are: verified deep reductions by US and Russia,
including stored weapons, with legally binding instruments,
and planning for further cuts; a negotiated fissile material
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production stop; and getting the test ban into force. They can
be described as consensus steps, agreed but not realized by
NPT parties, over the fourteen years since 1995.
There are a number of other steps that are equally necessary
but also are not sufficient, and which do not yet meet with
consensus. Like the first three, they have been analyzed
by the Middle Powers Initiative and identified as priorities
in our Article VI Forums. Examples are: negative security
assurances; multilateral regulation of the fuel cycle; de-alerting
of launch-ready weapons; no-first use pledges; and improved
governance of the NPT as a process and as a treaty. These,
too, have been around for decades. They are variations of what
has been proposed in UN resolutions, in the thirteen steps,
by the Canberra Commission and the Blix Commission,
in the Global Zero project and the Model Convention,
in the Wall Street Journal articles, by the UN Secretary-
General one year ago, and by President Obama in Prague.
Why are all these proposals and packages so similar? Because
they are the natural first steps for securing confidence and
restoring the bargain between nuclear possessors and non-
possessors. However, the package outlined by the UN Secretary-
General in five points differs somewhat from the others. He
went further than governments, holding up the possibility of a
strongly verified nuclear weapons convention, or a framework
of interlocking instruments. He lifted the debate and at the
same time elevated the convention from a slightly utopian idea
to a logical instrument for strengthening the security of nations.
Governments, both nuclear and non-possessors, have difficult
analyses and decisions in front of them. One task for the MPI is
to point to options for those decisions, especially for influential
non-nuclear weapon states. In a paper, Making Good on the
Promises – from the Security Council Summit to the 2010 NPT
Review, the MPI discusses how US-Russia negotiations could
facilitate future multilateral negotiations, and why the US
CTBT ratification should not be coupled to modernization
of warheads or infrastructure. In particular, we advise middle
powers to state clearly that “extended deterrence” is not a
justification for an expansive role of nuclear weapons. NATO
non-nuclear members also have an important task in updating
the NATO nuclear doctrine, reconciling it with disarmament
goals.
Securing confidence between nuclear
possessors and non-possessors
Non-nuclear-weapon states have played an important role.
Before the CTBT, for example, some of them did technical work
on verification long before the CD had a negotiating mandate.
This work was led by Sweden. Norway is working with the
UK on verification of nuclear disarmament and Canada has
established the Centre for Treaty Compliance. Finally, other
middle powers drive resolutions through the UN’s normative
processes, an important preparatory phase. There are many
other possibilities to explore that can help develop various
aspects of a regime for zero, even before the nuclear weapon
states are ready to start full negotiations.
Civil society engagement
It has been proven over several decades that civil society can
play an influential role in nuclear weapons issues. This was
confirmed recently in the big NGO conference in Mexico
City which made an input to Security Council members
before the Summit last September. The Secretary-General has
lent his authority to this approach, as have parliamentarians,
legislatures, and governments. Swedish NPT RevCon
delegations, as an example, always contain a civil society
representative. The Middle Powers Initiative is but one
example of those diverse roles. It is sponsored by and works
with eight global NGOs active in nuclear disarmament
and with very public roles. MPI itself, however, works
more behind the scenes with diplomats and governments.
One example of NGOs’ influence and productive work is the
Model Nuclear Weapons Convention. Three of MPI’s sponsoring
organizations have collaborated on a detailed investigation
into what is required from a nuclear weapons convention. In
a document, Securing Our Survival, all the crucial problems
are tackled: enforcement, the international security system,
the problem of breakouts, deterrence, verification, nuclear
knowledge and reversibility, and finally economic aspects.
Negotiators and diplomats tend to think of a convention as
something that takes away focus from more immediate steps.
Although the first steps will require years of negotiations, the
draft convention has a role even today. It leads directly to the
central issues, helping us to focus on the steps to be taken after
the packages that governments agree upon. I am deeply grateful
to the MPI partners and to Rebecca Johnson for their engaged
work. Civil society is our “hot line” to the neglected part of
the nuclear weapons dilemma: the ethical dimension. Mankind
must reach enough moral maturity to rid itself of the self-
invented means of destroying itself. The nuclear weapons era
must be a parenthesis in the history of mankind. Civil society
has a lot to do.
This article is an adapted version of a speech made by Henrik Salander at
the Stockholm conference Reaching Nuclear Disarmament in November
2009. The complete speech can be downloaded at
http://nucleardisarmament.se/
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Deadly climate change and massive
ozone destruction from nuclear war
Nuclear detonations within urban and industrial areas would
ignite immense firestorms which would burn everything
imaginable and create millions of tons of thick, black smoke.
Much of this smoke would rapidly be lofted above cloud level,
into the stratosphere, where it would block warming sunlight
from reaching the lower atmosphere and surface of the Earth.
Sunlight would then markedly heat the upper atmosphere and
cause massive destruction of the protective ozone layer, while
darkness below would produce average surface temperatures
on Earth characteristic of those experienced during an Ice Age.
The darkness and global cooling predicted to result from
nuclear war (along with massive radioactive fallout, pyrotoxins,
and ozone depletion) was first described in 1983 as “nuclear
winter”.
4
These initial studies estimated the smoke from
nuclear firestorms would stay in the stratosphere for about a
year. However in 2006, researchers using modern computer
models found the smoke would form a global stratospheric
smoke layer that would last for ten years.
5
The longevity of such a smoke layer would allow much
smaller quantities of smoke than first predicted in the 1980’s
to have a great impact upon both global climate and atmos-
pheric ozone which blocks ultraviolet (UV) light. Thus scien-
tists predict that even a “regional” nuclear conflict could pro-
duce enough smoke to significantly cool average global surface
temperatures, reduce precipitation, and vastly increase the
DEADLY CLIMATE CHANGE FROM NUCLEAR WAR:
A THREAT TO HUMAN EXISTENCE
Steven Starr
amount of dangerous UV light reaching the surface of Earth.
In other words, a nuclear war fought between such nations
as India and Pakistan would produce enough smoke to make
the blue skies of Earth appear grey. Although the amount of
sunlight blocked by this smoke would not produce the pro-
found darkening of the Earth predicted in a nuclear winter
(following a nuclear war fought with thousands of strategic
nuclear weapons), the deadly climate change created by the
regional conflict would likely have devastating global effects
upon all human populations through its negative influence
upon agriculture.
6
Nuclear war fought with hiroshima-size
(15 kiloton) low-yield nuclear weapons.
In 2006, U.S. researchers used a NASA computer model
(Model 1E, also used for the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change to predict global warming) to evaluate the
effects of a regional nuclear war fought in the sub-tropics.
7
50
Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons (15 kilotons per weapon)
were detonated in the largest cities of each combatant nation
(100 total detonations).
The studies predicted the nuclear explosions would kill 20
million people in the war zone, the equivalent to half of all the
people who died during World War II. The conflict would also
significantly disrupt global climate. Up to 5 million tons of
smoke from burning cities would quickly rise above cloud level
into the stratosphere, and within 2 weeks would form a global
stratospheric smoke layer which would remain in place for
1 A. Robock, L. Oman, G. L. Stenchikov, O. B. Toon, C. Bardeen, and R. Turco, “Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts”,
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Vol. 7, 2007, p. 2003-2012.
2 M. Mills, O. Toon, R. Turco, D. Kinnison, R. Garcia, “Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict”,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Apr 8,2008, vol. 105(14), pp. 5307-12.
3 O. Toon , A. Robock, and R. Turco, “The Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War”, Physics Today, vol. 61, No. 12, 2008, p. 37-42.
4 R. Turco, O. Toon, T. Ackermann, J. Pollack, and C. Sagan,
“Nuclear Winter: Global consequences of multiple nuclear explosions”, Science, Vol. 222, No. 4630, December 1983, pp. 1283-1292.
5 A. Robock, L. Oman, G. Stenchikov, “Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences”,
Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres, Vol. 112, No. D13, 2007. p. 4 of 14.
6 I. Helfand, ”An Assessment of the Extent of Projected Global Famine Resulting From Limited, Regional Nuclear War”, 2007,
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Leeds, MA.
7 In 2009, India and Pakistan were estimated by the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) to have a total of 140 to 160 operational nuclear weapons,
and there are 32 other non-nuclear weapon states which have sufficient fissionable nuclear materials to construct weapons, some in a relatively short
period of time.
Steven Starr is a Senior Scientist with Physicians for Social
Responsibility, and Director of the Clinical Laboratory
Science Program at the University of Missouri. He has been
published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and by the
Center for Arms Control of the Moscow Institute of Physics
and Technology. Website: www.nucleardarkness.org.
The detonation of a tiny fraction of the operational nuclear arsenals within cities would generate enough smoke to cause
catastrophic disruptions of the global climate
1
and massive destruction of the protective stratospheric ozone layer.
2
Environmental devastation caused by a war fought with many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons would quickly leave the
Earth uninhabitable.
3
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about 10 years.
8
The computer models estimated this smoke layer would
block 7–10% of warming sunlight from reaching the surface of
the Earth. Average surface temperatures beneath the smoke
would become colder than any experienced during the last
1000 years. There would be a corresponding shortening of
growing seasons by up to 30 days and significant reductions in
average rainfall in many areas, with a 40% decrease of precipi-
tation in the Asian monsoon region.
9
Such rapid and drastic climate change would have major
impacts on global grain reserves, which already are at 50 year
lows.
9
Grain exports would likely cease for several years from
large exporting nations like Canada.
10
The 700 million people
now living on the edge of starvation, along with those popula-
tions heavily dependent upon grain imports, would face mass
starvation as grain reserves disappeared, prices skyrocketed and
hoarding occurred. Global nuclear famine is the predicted
result of this scenario. As many as one billion people could die
during the years subsequent to the deadly climate change cre-
ated by this level of nuclear conflict.
11
Stratospheric ozone destruction and increased
levels of harmful ultraviolet (UV-B) light
A stratospheric smoke layer would also cause massive destruc-
tion of the protective ozone layer. Studies in 2008 predicted
smoke from a regional nuclear conflict (as described above)
would create ozone losses of 25-45% above mid latitudes, and
50-70% above northern high latitudes persisting for 5 years,
with substantial losses continuing for 5 additional years.
12
Severe
ozone depletion would allow intense levels of harmful ultravio-
let light (UV-B) to reach the surface of the Earth – even with
the stratospheric smoke layer in place.
Global stratospheric ozone levels would fall to near those
now seen only over Antarctica during the formation of the
“ozone hole”. The UV index in the northern mid-latitudes
would increase by 42–167%, which would cause fair skinned
people to suffer sunburn in as little as 7 minutes.
13
Massive increases of UV-B light would clearly have negative
impacts upon marine and terrestrial ecosystems, yet no research
is being done to investigate the consequences of such a scenario.
Likewise, no studies using modern climate models have yet been
8 Robock, et al., “Climatic consequences..., op. cit., p. 2003-2012.
9 Ibid.
10 Starr, S., “Catastrophic Climatic Consequences of Nuclear Conflicts”, INESAP Bulletin 28, April 2008, Figure 1.
11 Helfand, I., op. cit.
12 M. Mills, et al, “Massive global ozone loss . . . op. cit.
13 Personal correspondence with Dr. Paul Newman of NASA, Nov. 20, 2009.
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done to assess ozone depletion following larger nuclear conflicts
fought with high-yield strategic nuclear weapons.
Nuclear war fought with high-yield
strategic nuclear Weapons
14
The high-yield strategic nuclear weapons in the operational
arsenals of the U.S. and Russia have a combined explosive
power at least 500 times greater than the low-yield weapons
detonated in the regional war conflict. A large fraction of these
strategic weapons are kept on high-alert status (in 2009, more
than 2000 U.S. and Russian strategic warheads were on high-
alert).
15
Virtually all their land-based intercontinental ballistic
missiles are kept ready to launch within 30 seconds to 3 min-
utes, apparently operating under the policy of Launch-On-
Warning.
16
In 2008, scientists predicted the detonation of 4400 strate-
gic nuclear weapons in large cities could cause 770 million
prompt fatalities and produce up to 180 million tons of thick,
black smoke.
17
Ten days after detonation, the smoke would
form a dense global stratospheric smoke layer which would
block about 70% of warming sunlight from reaching the sur-
face of the Northern Hemisphere and 35% of sunlight from
reaching the Southern Hemisphere.
18
The resulting nuclear darkness would cause rapid cooling of
more than 20º C (36º F) over large areas of North America and
of more than 30º C (54º F) over much of Eurasia (Figure 2).
Daily minimum temperatures would fall below freezing in the
largest agricultural areas of the Northern Hemisphere for a
period of between one to three years. Average global surface
temperatures would become colder than those experienced
18,000 years ago at the height of the last Ice Age.
19
The cooling of the Earth’s surface would weaken the global
hydrological cycle and the Northern Hemisphere summer mon-
soon circulations would collapse because the temperature differ-
ences that drive them would not develop. As a result, average
global precipitation is predicted to decrease by 45%.
20
The
cumulative effects of deadly climate change and ozone destruction
would eliminate growing seasons for more than a decade.
14 High-yield weapons are generally 8 to 75 times more powerful than low-yield Hiroshima-size weapons.
15 S. Starr., “High-Alert Nuclear Weapons: the Forgotten Danger”, SGR Newsletter, Autumn, 2008, p.1.
16 Launch-On-Warning (LOW) is a responsive or reflexive launch of nuclear weapons after Early Warning Systems (EWS) identify what is believed to be an
incoming nuclear attack of nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, but before the hostile nuclear attack is confirmed by one or more nuclear detonations which
occur in the time(s) and place(s) predicted by EWS data. High-alert nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, EWS and nuclear command and control systems,
all working together, provide the U.S. and Russia the capability to implement LOW. The combination of LOW capability with LOW policy has created what
is commonly referred to as launch-on-warning status.
17 O. B. Toon et al, “The Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War”, p. 38.
18 Personal correspondence with Dr. Luke Oman of NASA, Dec. 1, 2008.
19 A. Robock, et al, “Nuclear winter revisited . . . op. cit., p. 6 of 14.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid, p. 6 of 14.
Figure 2: Surface Air Temperature (degree C) changes averaged for June, July, and August in the year after 150 million tons of black
smoke forms a global stratospheric smoke layer.
23
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Figure 3: Northern Hemisphere average surface air temperatures during the last 1000 years contrasted with forecast temperature drops
from a range of nuclear conflicts.
24
Catastrophic climatic effects lasting for many years would
occur in regions far removed from the target areas or the countries
involved in the conflict.
21
Under such conditions, it is likely that
most humans and large animal populations would die of starva-
tion.
22
Conclusions
The scientific studies summarized in this paper make it clear
that the environmental consequences of a “regional” nuclear
conflict could kill hundreds of millions of people far from the
war zone. Deadly climate change caused by a war fought with
the strategic nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia would
threaten the continued survival of the human species.
Yet neither the U.S., nor Russia, nor any other nuclear
weapons state has ever officially evaluated what effects a war
fought with their nuclear arsenals would have upon the Earth’s
climate and ecosystems.
25
Surely it is time for such evaluations
to be openly conducted and made subject to public discussion.
Nations with nuclear weapons should be required to create
Environmental Impact Statements on the likely results of the
detonation of their arsenals in conflict.
Deadly climate change from nuclear war must become a
primary topic in the debate about the need for “a world with-
out nuclear weapons”. This discussion must include the dan-
gers posed by the nuclear arsenals of all nations, including
those in the U.S. and Russia. A failure to recognize and
describe the apocalyptic potential of strategic nuclear arsenals
will prevent the abolition discussion from developing the sense
of urgency needed to bring about fundamental change in the
nuclear status quo.
The nuclear weapons which are kept ready for virtually
instant use constitute a well-maintained self-destruct mecha-
nism for the human race. What political or national goals can
possibly justify the existence of such a threat? There can be no
“victory” in universal suicide.
Therefore, the U.S. and Russia must recognize the senseless-
ness of continued preparations for a nuclear war, or a “success-
ful” nuclear first-strike, which would make the whole world –
including their own country – uninhabitable. It is imperative
that they renounce the first use of nuclear weapons, stand-
down their high-alert nuclear forces (which make accidental
nuclear war possible through launch-on-warning postures),
26
and dismantle the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in
their active and reserve arsenals.
Nuclear weapons cannot ultimately provide “national secu-
rity” when a single failure of nuclear deterrence can end
human history. Unless deterrence works perfectly forever,
nuclear arsenals will eventually be used in conflict. We must
abolish these arsenals – before they abolish us.
22 O. B. Toon et al, “The Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War”, op. cit. p. 37.
23 Robock et al., “Nuclear winter revisited..., op.cit., Figure 4.
24 Starr, S., “Catastrophic Climatic Consequences of Nuclear Conflicts”, Updated 2009 version (from INESAP Bulletin 28, April 2008), Fig. 1, http://www.
nucleardarkness.org/warconsequences/catastrophicclimaticconsequences/
25 There are also other important considerations which must be made when estimating the environmental and ecological impacts of nuclear war. These
include the release of enormous amounts of radioactive fallout, pyrotoxins and toxic industrial chemicals into the ecosystems.
26 A. Phillips, S. Starr, “Change Launch on Warning Policy”, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental
Studies, 2006; www.armscontrol.ru/pubs/en/change-low.pdf
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MEDICAL STUDENTS WORKING FOR
A NUCLEAR WEAPONS FREE WORLD
Iran 2007: Iranian and Swedish students on the mountain
Tochal, holding a workshop on Nuclear Weapons Basics
Portugal 2007: European students demonstrate the effects of a
nuclear attack on Porto
The Netherlands 2008: Dutch students try to start a debate about
NATO:s nuclear weapons at the base Volkel
London 2007: “Have you ever considered the consequences of a
nuclear attack here in London? Norwegian student Margrethe
talks with passers-by about nuclear weapons
India 2008: Students marching for peace in Ludhiana.
Photo: Wenjing Tao
Photo: Inga Blum
Photo: Jonne van Koot
Photo: Åsa Lindström
Photo: Andreas Tolf
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ONLY PREVENTION
IS EFFECTIVE
Jan Larsson, President
Swedish Physicians against
Nuclear Weapons, is a con-
sultant anaesthetist at
Uppsala University Hospital
Jan Larsson
Throughout recorded history, human
beings have used their ingenuity to make
daily living easier but also to make war
more effective. The aim of warfare is to
destroy and create disorder. The sword
used by the medieval warrior and the
Roman war machine are examples of
technical progress in the art of doing
harm to humans and destroying the
works of man. Such progress was wel-
comed by those who possessed a new
weapon and was feared by its potential
victims. The sense of power given to the
possessor of a superior weapon can be
overwhelming. Robert J. Oppenheimer,
scientific leader of the Manhattan Project,
on witnessing the first atomic detonation
in the Nevada desert, recalled the words
of the Hindu god Vishnu: “Now I am
become Death, destroyer of worlds.”
At some time in the close or distant
future, a nuclear explosion may occur—
as the result of a terrorist action, a
human error, or an intentional military
decision. Those who happen to be in the
vicinity of such an explosion will be the
victims of mechanical and thermal trau-
ma as well as the effects of radiation, all
three having the potential to inflict
deadly harm to their bodies.
It is an important task for physicians to
describe the medical effects of nuclear
weapons. The aim, however, is not pri-
marily to make us better prepared to take
care of the victims of a nuclear holocaust.
Instead it is to make people understand
that prevention is the only cure available;
that we, as doctors, must keep on talking
about the medical consequences of nucle-
ar war. We must see to it that all negotia-
tions about nuclear weapons are pursued
against a background of solid knowledge
about the effects of such weapons, about
the kind of harm done and the magnitude
of the destruction, the number of people
killed and harmed.
Nuclear weapons are a violation of
our sense of reverence for human life.
Doctors have a special obligation to
remind people of this moral fact. By
meeting ill or hurt people in their daily
work, they have the necessary prerequi-
sites to understand what it was like to be
one of the few surviving doctors in
Hiroshima. Or what it will be like to
meet some of the people, more than one
million in numbers, who will be seri-
ously hurt by an attack on Moscow or
New York with today’s nuclear weapons.
Health care in such situations will face
insurmountable challenges in trying to
help those injured.
Read about the medical effects of
nuclear weapons at:
www.learnaboutnukes.org.
“The nuclear bomb is the most anti-democratic,
anti-national, anti-human, outright evil thing that
man has ever made. If you are religious, then
remember that this bomb is Man’s challenge to
God. It’s worded quite simply: We have the power
to destroy everything that You have created. If
you’re not religious, then look at it this way. This
world of ours is four thousand, six hundred million
years old. It could end in an afternoon.”
Arundhati Roy
From “The end of imagination”, The Guardian (UK)
1998)
Indian writer Arundhati Roy protesting against
nuclear tests on the Indian Peninsula
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The 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
Review Conference will meet in New York City
from 3–28 May 2010. The conference is part of the
formal review process for the Treaty, whereby
governments that have ratified the Treaty meet
every five years to assess its implementation and
negotiate an action plan to carry the Treaty for-
ward. 190 states are parties to the Treaty; only
India, Israel, and Pakistan have not joined and
North Korea withdrew in 2003.
Previous Review Conferences
The 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences were successful.
In 1995, the Review Conference addressed the question of
extending the Treaty past its initial 25 years. States parties at
the 1995 Review and Extension Conference agreed to a pack-
age of decisions: 1. Strengthening the review process and estab-
lishing Preparatory Committees to be held between Review
Conferences; 2. Adopting principles and objectives for achie-
ving nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament; 3. Extending
the Treaty indefinitely; and 4. Adopting a resolution on estab-
lishing a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle
East. In 2000, states parties at the Review Conference adopted
thirteen progressive and systematic steps to implement the
nuclear disarmament obligation in the Treaty and the decisions
reached at the 1995 Review Conference.
However, in 2005 states parties failed to agree on an outcome
document. This was largely because the nuclear armed states
that belong to the Treaty—especially France, the United
Kingdom, and the United States—emphasized the importance
of strengthening non-proliferation efforts and focused on spe-
cific cases of actual and suspected non-compliance with the
Treaty, while non-nuclear armed states emphasized the impor-
tance of implementation of past disarmament obligations.
Developments outside the review process also prevented pro-
gress, including the failure to bring into force the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, the United States’ withdrawal from the Anti-
Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the lack of implementation of the
1995 NPT’s resolution on creating a nuclear weapon free zone
in the Middle East. These issues, and many others, have stag-
nated progress in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation
and must be addressed at the next Review Conference to faci-
litate the NPT’s sustainability over the long term.
Current situation: rhetoric or reality?
Five years later, positions are still polarized between those states
that possess nuclear weapons or benefit from security arrange-
ments with nuclear armed states and those states that do not.
While some nuclear armed states now espouse a goal of the
complete elimination of nuclear weapons, their rhetoric does
not match their policies, which instead aim to create stricter
divisions between the nuclear armed and non-nuclear armed
states while maintaining their nuclear weapon infrastructure
for the long-term.
US President Obama’s vision of a nuclear weapon free world
appears to provide a unique opportunity to reconcile the inte-
rests and agendas of those who prioritize disarmament and
those who prioritize non-proliferation. As the first American
president to set as his goal the complete elimination of nuclear
weapons, Obama has overcome the previously wide gulf bet-
ween governments’ positions, and it would seem that all that
needs to be worked out are the details.
However, the US government and several of its allies have
adopted new policies on nuclear “disarmament” that focus
nearly exclusively on promoting an aggressive campaign for
increased non-proliferation obligations for states that do not
possess nuclear weapons while indefinitely postponing any
concrete measures on disarmament, which is hardly in accor-
dance with the “vision of a nuclear weapon free world”.
Furthermore, all of the nuclear armed states are currently
seeking to modernize their nuclear weapons, providing for
their sustainability for decades to come. US Secretary of State
Clinton has expressed support for maintaining the nuclear
infrastructure needed to sustain a “safe and effective deterrent,”
explaining that this means “supporting a robust nuclear com-
plex budget in 2011” and “a new Stockpile Management
Program that would focus on sustaining capabilities.”
1
The
UK, China, France, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Israel are also
modernizing their nuclear arsenals.
Civil society needs to approach the 2010 Review Conference
with as unified message as possible, expressed in as many dif-
ferent ways as possible. While each individual non-governmen-
tal organization has its own methods of working and target
audience, the most important aspect to a campaign that wants
to ensure real progress on disarmament at the next Review
Conference should focus on a few simple, unifying themes.
1. A commitment to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in
security doctrines. To reduce the role of nuclear weapons in
security postures, the value of nuclear weapons has to be dimi-
nished. Here, many non-nuclear weapon states have a role to
play. Thirty non-nuclear weapon states shelter under the US
NPT 2010 REVIEW CONFERENCE:
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP MAKE IT A SUCCESS
1) Hillary Rodham Clinton, Remarks at the United States Institute of Peace, Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC, 21 October 2009, at
<http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/10/130806.htm>.
Ray Acheson is the Director of Reaching
Critical Will, a project of the Women’s
International League for Peace and
Freedom. Ray previously worked with
the Institute for Defense and
Disarmament Studies on its flagship
journal, the Arms Control Reporter.
Ray Acheson
LÄKARE MOT KÄRNVAPEN 2010 # 120
|
39
nuclear umbrella.
Many proponents of
retaining nuclear wea-
pons in the United
States espouse “exten-
ded deterrence” as
their justification.
Public statements
from governments
under the US nuclear
umbrella stating that
they believe US secu-
rity commitments
will still be viable wit-
hout nuclear weapons
would thus remove a
key obstacle to deeper
reductions in the US
nuclear arsenal.
Citizens in NATO countries, Australia, South Korea, and
Japan have long advocated for their countries to let go of the
cold war nuclear umbrellas and forge more independent and
balanced relationships for national, regional, and international
security. Now key legislators from all these countries are
joining the call. We need to support these efforts and draw
attention around the world to the movements against nuclear
weapons in these countries. Furthermore, removing nuclear
sharing from NATO’s Strategic Concept, combined with
removal of nuclear weapons from Europe, would be an impor-
tant confidence-building measure and would likely facilitate
bilateral dialogue that could lead to much deeper cuts in the
US and Russian nuclear arsenals.
2. A commitment to cease the modernization and qualitative
improvement of nuclear weapon systems. If the nuclear-
armed states are committed to maintaining and modernizing
their nuclear weapon complexes, how are these states going to
agree to give up their nuclear weapons? Trading some arms
control agreements or arsenal reduction for modernized
nuclear weapons research and production facilities capable of
building the nuclear threat anew is not disarmament. If the
danger of nuclear war is to be eliminated, ceasing to plan and
build for an eternal nuclear threat must come early, not late, in
the process. This has to be one of the key things that civil
society and other governments really advocate strongly against.
Modernization is not acceptable, for any reason.
3. Consideration of the ways and means to start negotiations
on an international framework to achieve a nuclear weapon
free world. Civil society experts developed a model Nuclear
Weapons Convention some years ago as a resource and guide,
with suggestions and options for how to prohibit, reduce, and
eliminate nuclear weapons safely and securely, while providing
insurance against other states acquiring nuclear weapons. This
model Convention has been circulated by the Secretary-
How to engage with the NPT
Many NGO representatives and other members of civil soci-
ety come to New York for the Review Conference, where they
can attend plenary meetings of the NPT conference, hold
and attend side events, and interact with government and
civil society delegates from all over the world.
However, the most effective advocacy for the NPT and
nuclear disarmament can be done from your home.
Educating friends, neighbours, communities, and elected
representatives is the most important step toward nuclear
disarmament. There are a lot of misconceptions about
nuclear weapons and it is up to us to dispel the myths. Use
the talking points above, or develop your own, and:
• Make an appointment with your Foreign Ministry or
equivalent. Urge your Foreign Minister to attend the confe-
rence, reminding them that they represent you.
• Call your diplomatic representatives in New York and
Geneva, to let them know that you are paying attention, and
that you are demanding nuclear disarmament.
• Talk to your parliamentarians. They have direct access
to the decision-making organs of your government.
Encourage them to check out the resources from the
Parliamentarian Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and
Disarmament (PNND)
2
.
• Call your local media. Publicize your views and your
government’s policies, and let them know what’s happening
at the Conference on Disarmament and the NPT conferen-
ces.
• Talk to and engage your friends, family, neighbours, local
representatives, community groups, schools, and churches
about the issues.
• Organize demonstrations and seminars about nuclear
disarmament in your town. Join the big march and demon-
strations being planned in New York.
• Subscribe to Reaching Critical Will’s E-News and NPT
News in Review to keep up with what’s happening before
and during the Review Conference.
3
You can find archived information about previous NPT confe-
rences at www.reachingcriticalwill.org, where you can also
keep up with what happens in 2010, find government contact
information, and more.
2) http://www.gsinstitute.org/pnnd/
3) http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/action/listindex.html
General as an official UN document. Civil society should
encourage all states parties to the NPT to commit to the nego-
tiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention in their statements
to the NPT and push for it to be included in any final docu-
ment. We should also ask for formal responses from govern-
ments to the model NWC, in order to give us an opportunity
to engage in direct dialogue on its substance with as many
delegations as possible.
Two representatives for the Swedish IPPNW-
affiliate, Emma Rosengren and Johannes
Eldblom, outside the UN Headquarters dur-
ing the NPT Preparatory Committee in 2009
Photo: Klas Lundius
NPT REVCON 2010
In May of this year there is a chance of taking another important step towards the elimination of
nuclear weapons. The review conference for the Non-proliferation Treaty (the NPT) that is held every
five years will take place in New York, this time with renewed hope for concrete achievements. In this
special issue of the newsletter for the Swedish section of the International Physicians for the
Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) you will find a lot of information and important background
knowledge. This concerns us all. Without massive public pressure on the political leaders of the
world no progress will be made. To quote one of the contributors to this special issue: “We must
eliminate the nuclear weapons arsenals before they eliminate us.“
Test your nuclear knowledge with the help of this quiz. You will find the answers in the articles.
After answering you can also check the key on page 2. But don’t cheat! The quiz first!
What do you know? A nuclear quiz
NEW HOPE FOR
NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
1. In what document do you find this quotation:
“A key challenge is to dispel the perception that outlawing
nuclear weapons is a utopian goal.”
A In the Nobel Lecture by Barack Obama, Oslo, 10 December
2009
B In Advisory opinion, issued by the International Court of Justice
on 8 July 1996
C In the report ”Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and
Chemical Arms” from the Weapons of Mass Destruction
Commission, 2006
2. How much of the total energy consumption of the world did
the nuclear power plants provide in the year 2005?
A 2,2%
B 16%
C 37%
3. Who said: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of
worlds."
A Dr Mengele
B Robert Oppenheimer
C President Harry Truman
4. Which year did Pakistan do its first atomic bomb test?
A 1964
B 1983
C 1998
5. Which country proposed in 1995 a nuclear-weapon-free
corridor from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea?
A Finland
B Belarus
C Sweden
6. The Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC) was first intro-
duced in
A 1946
B 1962
C 1997
7. What would the NWC imply?
A A total ban on anti-ballistic nuclear missiles
B The concept of a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons and the
setting of a framework for their elimination
C A commitment by the nuclear powers not to renew their nuclear
weapons arsenals
8. The 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference
will take place in New York 3 – 28 May 2010. How many states
are party to the Treaty?
A 13
B 84
C 190
9. What year did the NPT enter into force?
A 1946
B 1970
C 2000
10. Which American president was the first to set as his goal
the complete elimination of nuclear weapons?
A Barack Obama
B Gerald Ford
C John F. Kennedy
Key to quiz page 2 bottom.
Ami Lönnroth is a Swedish journal-
ist and writer. She has won several
journalism awards, among them the
Inga Thorsson Media Peace Award
in 1990. She was appointed guest
professor of practical journalism at
the Stockholm University in 1995.
Ami Lönnroth
