Pugwash 2015: Remember your humanity, but forget about a
nuclear free world for now
“The
person who prays for peace must not hide even a needle, for a person who
possesses weapons is not qualified to pray for peace.”
-Takashi Nagai, Towers of
Peace [1]
Remember your humanity, but forget
about a nuclear free world for now. That may not be the official line, but it
was the take-away message from the Pugwash Conference sessions in Nagasaki on
November 1, 2015. Diplomatic niceties and patience were emphasized at this time
when “mutual trust and confidence” have declined amid alarming new regional
conflicts and refugee crises. The imbalances of economic and military power
make nuclear deterrence, with only slow, incremental disarmament, the only safe
way to proceed.
One might think that because the
Pugwash Conference espouses such high ideals that it has always called for the
immediate abolition of nuclear weapons, but it never actually made such a
radical demand. The website of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and
World Affairs includes the following description of the founding of the
organization:
During the darkest days of the Cold
War, the founders of Pugwash understood the dangers of nuclear weapons. In
their efforts to change dangerous policies they became pioneers of a new kind
of transnational, “track 2” dialogue. [2]
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The conference was founded two years
after Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell had released their famous 1955
manifesto, signed by nine other distinguished scientists [3]. It is notable
that the manifesto did not stress the abolition of nuclear weapons but rather
the abolition of war. It stated, “Although an agreement to renounce nuclear
weapons as part of a general reduction of armaments would not afford an
ultimate solution, it would serve certain important purposes.” A footnote
called for this to be a “concomitant balanced reduction of all armaments.” The
manifesto seemed to assume that nuclear weapons were here to stay and would
inevitably be used in war, so the more urgent issue was for nations to accept “distasteful
limitations of national sovereignty” and “find peaceful means for the
settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
Thus one shouldn’t expect the
Pugwash Conference to be a militant organization that cannot tolerate the
existence of nuclear arsenals. Pugwash and its co-founder were awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 in recognition of their mission to “diminish the part
played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run,
to eliminate such arms” [4] (emphasis added).
Other organizations have emerged
over the years that have much less patience for elimination “in the long run,”
so the Pugwash Conferences now seem complacent by comparison.
At the Pugwash Conference public session
in Nagasaki on November 1, 2015, most of the speakers, aware that they were
facing an audience of divided opinions, chose to stick to factual reports and
to refrain from expressing their personal conclusions. Government officials
preached pragmatism and patience.
There was no opportunity for the
audience to challenge the ideas presented or have a dialogue with the speakers.
The Q and A sessions were too short, and only the Pugwash members in the front
rows were offered chances to ask questions, and most of them were inarticulate
and long-winded commentaries. Some of them showed by their questions that they
hadn’t even been following current events like Fukushima and didn’t know some
of the basic science and history of the nuclear era, but they have been
deliberately asking naïve questions just to make a point.
Meanwhile, the general public and
media representatives in the back rows were supposed to only listen and learn.
It was ironic to hear the speakers saying repeatedly that the public is
woefully ignorant about the issues and needs to be educated, while here members
of the public had made the effort to attend yet their questions and comments
were not wanted. Why should the public get educated if they are not going to
have any influence even at a small conference such as this?
This structure revealed what seems
like a serious problem with the Pugwash organization. Perhaps back in 1957,
when the US and USSR were playing with hydrogen bombs like they were
firecrackers, there really was an urgent need for scientists from both
countries to get together in a remote place for private meetings so that they
could go back and hopefully influence leadership in their respective countries,
but this no longer seems necessary. This sage-on-the-stage approach is out of
date now when scientists are even more sidelined from power than they were
then. The mass media will flock to a press conference concerning the latest
iPhone release, but there is no equal to Russell or Einstein today who can assemble
the media to take note of an “important announcement.”
What is needed now are truly
participatory events that are connected with critical voices, citizen groups,
and contrarians who can break through the polite diplomatic niceties and stale
frameworks in order to truly debate the issues—at the risk of offending the
dignitaries present. These problems can’t be solved if leaders are not going to
really make the effort to educate themselves while they educate others, get out
of their elite bubbles, then listen and do the hard work of leading by obeying.
What follows is a discussion of the
session that was held on the afternoon of November 1, 2015. For anyone who has
been following the anti-nuclear movement on the street or in the free-for-all
of alternative media, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook groups, the stilted and
constrained parameters of discussion will come as a shock. All discussions were
limited by the realities that have been laid down by the United Nations and the
signatories of the Non-Proliferation, Strategic Arms Limitation, and Nuclear
Test Ban Treaties. The experts who know the history of these treaties can
extemporaneously list all the dates, treaty numbers, signatories, conditions,
and exceptions, with the effect that the listener is left in a state of utter confusion
and intimidation. Once one becomes an expert in this subject, one is in that
world and can no longer think about lofty ideals and principles. The possible
is restricted by what the treaty history has carved out. So this process is
very slow at nuclear disarmament, but it is very effective at disarming
anti-nuclear activists who would like to see rapid change.
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Statue of Mother and Child at the Hypocenter, Nagasaki
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From the start, the anti-nuclear
activist is already out of the picture because the basis of all the
Non-Proliferation Treaties is that all states which agree to forego the
development of nuclear weapons are guaranteed the freedom to develop nuclear
energy. This idea became entrenched before the first nuclear catastrophes, and
it is always presumed the IAEA will be eternally omnipotent and capable of
spotting any attempt to convert plutonium from a civilian waste product to one
that is militarily useful.
Thus the entire framework of global
disarmament has no problem with the legacy of Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi,
and the risk of other future catastrophes is not a concern. The treaties have
nothing to say about unsecured uranium mine tailing ponds, depleted uranium
weapons, and the seventy-year-old unresolved question of what to do with
nuclear waste. Ecological, social and human health impacts are of no concern.
Spent nuclear fuel facilities could
be considered as a radiological weapons which nations stupidly build as if they
wanted to do a favor for any future aggressors they might face. They spare
enemies the need to have a nuclear weapon because all they require is a
conventional missile to launch at a nuclear facility. Or it could be that
nuclear facilities are supposed to be a kind of a deterrent. Who would want to
pillage or occupy a country after it has been turned into a nuclear wasteland?
Unfortunately, disarmament treaties pay no attention to this hazard.
One of the first people on the stage
was Hitoshi Kikawada, Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Japan, who repeated the usual government platitudes: the only country ever
attacked by nuclear weapons, deeply committed to a world free of nuclear
weapons, and so on.
If the Japanese government were
serious and it really wanted to change the behavior of the nuclear states, it
would break off ties, impose sanctions, and employ any means available to alter
the behavior it wanted changed. This is where Japan’s hypocrisy becomes
obvious. It is hardly “deeply committed” to a nuclear free world at all. It
may want a nuclear free world, but it is not a high priority.
If Japan were serious, it would come out from the US nuclear umbrella, and, as
long as the US insisted on having nuclear weapons, it would not host US
military bases on its soil. States like Japan, which live under a nuclear
umbrella, have been called the “weasel states” [5] of global disarmament talks,
and along with the truly non-nuclear states they have always overlooked their
power to shun, exclude, and sanction the nuclear powers as a strategy for
forcing them to change their ways. Perhaps the time has come for them to employ
this strategy, but so far they have been divided and ruled, or other
considerations force them to stay in their alliances.
At this time of “heightened tension”
and “degraded trust” (people at the conference hesitated to say “Syria” or “Ukraine”
explicitly), it was interesting to see two officials from the US and Russia
sitting side by side, sticking to their talking points while diplomatically
only alluding to the mutual grievances that were on full display at the UN just
weeks earlier. [6] But at least they showed up in this forum to respond to an
organization that has for 61 years urged the superpowers to seek peaceful
solutions and pursue disarmament. In the roster of speakers, the absence of
representation from North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, and France was notable, and
no one from Germany was there to discuss its recent exit from nuclear energy or
its diplomacy on the front lines between East and West.
Anita Friedt, Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance,
Department of State (USA), claimed that arms reductions are continuing, and
went over the progress of the 1990s. She said the expensive upgrades to the
arsenal consist of no expansion of capability. Knowing that President Obama has
been ridiculed for his Nobel Peace Prize, she insisted that his commitment to a
world without nuclear weapons hasn’t diminished. She just blamed Russia for not
picking up the offer to begin talking about reductions.
She said all this apparently
oblivious to Russia’s reasons for not being ready for such a step. She would be
a rather incompetent official if she didn’t know that Russia is displeased with
eastward expansion of NATO, overseas “democracy promotion” propaganda in
Eastern Europe (even within Russia), [7] the recent decade of illegal wars and
drone-targeting against sovereign nations (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and
Pakistan), and America’s enormous expenditures on advanced conventional weapons that aim to eliminate strategic parity. [8]
It’s hard to know if she is incompetent or if she was deliberately trying to
portray this false image of American innocence. Vladimir Putin has spoken very
clearly on these points at recent press conferences, so the Russian point of
view is hardly a state secret. [9]
Mikhail Ulyanov, Director of the
Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Russia, hinted at these grievances but didn’t state them explicitly. This was a
shame because the audience may not have grasped exactly what he was referring
to, and in any case, a good raging argument would have made things interesting.
It was mid-afternoon by this time and the audience was getting drowsy. I had to
wonder if this is the reason we now have this lamentable state of “degraded
trust” over “situations” that couldn’t be described. If speakers at such
gatherings didn’t use such passive and evasive language, perhaps they could
really talk and work out their differences right there.
Mr. Ulyanov stressed the important
point that one cannot talk of nuclear disarmament without talking about
imbalances in conventional weapons. He could have expanded this point by adding
that conflicts are ultimately driven by financial interests and financial
crises. Russia knows well that the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria involve
struggles over energy resources and efforts to bring those countries, and
surrounding regions, into Western economic spheres.
Mr. Ulyanov, like his
counterpart, said some questionable things when he stated an
opinion about deterrence. He claimed that we just have to accept that
disarmament will proceed slowly because the rapid loss of deterrence could be
extremely destabilizing. As evidence he said that deterrence with conventional
weapons failed in WWII, and the USSR lost 27 million lives in that war. He said
Russia cannot accept ever risking that situation again. However, he left out
some crucial details such as the fact that Stalin had purged his military of
effective leadership by the time the Nazis invaded. The Western frontier of the
USSR was not sufficiently defended to deter or stop the
Nazi advance. The Soviets had no effective conventional
deterrence at the time, but perhaps there is some confusion on this point
between ”failure of deterrence” and “absence of deterrence.”
Other nations in Europe also
made insufficient attempts to create conventional forces that would
deter Germany. Mr. Ulyanov’s argument assumes that deterrence existed but
failed, when in fact it follows logically from the word’s meaning
that if it failed it didn’t exist. American general Brent Scowcroft made
this point in 1983 when he said, “... deterrence is a very ambiguous
notion. It cannot be demonstrated unless it fails, in which case you know it
was not there. Otherwise, it cannot be demonstrated.” [10] It is
difficult to conceive of how Germany could have avoided defeat once it was
opposed by both the USSR and the USA, so Hitler should have been
deterred but he obviously wasn’t. Considering the gamble he took in
fighting the war he chose to fight, it is conceivable that he wouldn’t have
been deterred in the post-nuclear world, either. Such a reckless leader might
gamble that no one would dare use a nuclear weapon, and indeed North Vietnamese
and North Korean armies did not surrender under to a nuclear-armed opponent.
In any case, the circumstances of WWII were unique,
and we must keep in mind that deterrence is not a concrete noun. It
doesn’t exist in weapons themselves. It exists as a set of behaviors and
messages deployed in a particular circumstance in order to try to influence
the behavior of others. Nations can defend themselves,
and war can be avoided in numerous ways without a nuclear arsenal,
and even a nuclear arsenal wouldn’t be enough to deter all
hypothetical opponents. In fact, the existence of a nuclear arsenal creates new
dangers and can make nations extremely complacent about building the
foundations of lasting peace.
Furthermore, if we assume that
nuclear deterrence succeeded after WWII, that is only the selfish viewpoint of
the superpowers counting the lives of their own citizens. The newly
de-colonized countries that were devastated by Cold War conflicts might have a
different view. We also have to take account of the opportunity costs, and the
ecological and human toll of uranium mining and the manufacturing and testing
of nuclear weapons, both inside and outside the territories of the US and the
USSR. The nuclearization of nations also transformed them into paranoid
security states, and the harm to the political and social fabric was carried
over to the “war on terror.” Finally, while one is busy nuclear deterring, one
is running the constant risk of unleashing all the consequences that would
follow from the accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon. The logic of
deterrence doesn’t hold up, but if Russia still wants to insist they need
deterrence, then logically it makes sense for all nations—and the weaker ones
need it all the more.
Mr. Kim Won-soo, UN Under
Secretary-General and Acting High Representative of Disarmament Affairs
(Republic of Korea) was next and spoke of being “deeply disappointed” by the
recent failure of NPT Conference earlier in 2015.[11] For this author it was “deeply
disappointing” that he couldn’t specifically talk about some of the reasons for
the failure. The hesitation to name names and describe specific disagreements
amounts to a shrug in which global leadership just seems to wistfully say “stuff
happens.”
Professor Hiromichi Umebayashi, of
the University of Nagasaki, discussed his group’s proposal for working toward a
nuclear free Northeast Asia. This plan seemed fatally flawed. It is hard to
understand how they could seriously believe that North Korea would ever
consider this plan. It depends on the building of mutual trust among North
Korea, South Korea, and Japan, with China, Russia, and the US promising (Scout’s
honor) to never resort to the use of nuclear weapons in a dispute in this
region. One flaw in the plan is the fact that the US is called a “neighboring
nation” as its territory is nowhere near Northeast Asia. More importantly,
North Korea would never consider this proposal while Japan stays under the US
nuclear umbrella and hosts US military bases. Even if the US promised not to
use nuclear weapons, its nuclear-armed submarines would still be patrolling the
ocean in the region, and the US would be capable of hitting North Korea from
afar by other means even if the subs were removed.
Furthermore, North Korea distrusts
Japan for all the same reasons as China and South Korea. There is no common
agreement about what happened in the region in the early 20th century, and this
problem provides a rather weak foundation for building the trust needed for a
nuclear weapons-free zone. A nuclear free Northeast Asia seems to require a
nuclear free world, so the first step would be for South Korea and Japan to
each unilaterally break with the American alliance. This would be the only
change that North Korea could believe in. But even then there would be that
little problem of Japan’s plutonium stockpile in Rokkasho. What, exactly, are
their intentions?
The final speaker was Ambassador
Akylbek Kamaldinov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the
Republic of Kazakhstan to Japan, who was honored by Pugwash for his nation’s
bold decision to relinquish the nuclear weapons it had on its territory at the
breakup of the USSR. Kazakhstan has recently announced that it wants to lead a
movement that will see the world free of nuclear weapons by 2045. They take the
high ground in speaking about nuclear weapons, but speak little of the
widespread contamination throughout the country caused by seven decades of
uranium mining. Kazakhstan is a leading producer of uranium, and Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe was recently there concluding deals for the future
development of nuclear energy. [12]
Progress in nuclear disarmament is
impossible if two aspects of the accepted reality continue to go unchallenged.
Firstly, nuclear energy is incompatible with a world free of nuclear weapons.
Secondly, few countries will want to give up their nuclear deterrence as long
as one superpower maintains a global network of military bases and outspends
all others combined on conventional military forces. [13] The Nagasaki Declaration
released after the conference (November 2015), called for only for “the
containment of nuclear technology risks,” when referring to the Fukushima
Daiichi catastrophe. Otherwise, Pugwash endorses nuclear energy in a world free
of nuclear weapons, a co-existence that many anti-nuclear activists believe
would be impossible to sustain. The declaration also stated that “all parties
must avoid military conflicts at all costs” but it made no mention of the
extreme imbalance in conventional military forces and military spending between
America and every other nation. [14] Like many advocacy groups, Pugwash has
decided that the best is the enemy of the good, but that also means the good is
an ally of the worst. There is a time to be practical, but one must also follow
logic wherever it leads. The pursuit of practical “third way” compromises has
eroded international security. Groups that pursue only what they deem
politically feasible and safe are like the drunk who lost his keys on a dark
street. The keys are not under the lamp post, but that’s the only place he will
look because the light is better there.
Notes
[1] This quotation is on display in the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb
Museum. For information about Takashi Nagai, read A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai-Scientist, Convert, and
Survivor of the Atomic Bomb, by Paul Glynn (Ignatius Press, 2009).
[2] “History,”
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, accessed August 27,
2016, pugwash.org/history.
[3] “The
Russell Einstein Manifesto,” Pugwash Conferences on Science and World
Affairs, accessed August 27, 2016 http://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto.
[4] “Oslo
Award of the Nobel Peace Prize,” Pugwash Conferences on Science and
World Affairs, accessed August 27, 2016, http://pugwash.org/1995/12/10/oslo-award-of-the-nobel-peace-prize.
[5] Kourosh Ziabari, “Alice Slater: US is not Honoring its
NPT Promise for Nuclear Disarmament,” Fars News Agency, October 31, 2015, http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940809000029.
[6] Luciana Bohne, “A Game of Dice With Russia: ‘Do You
Realize What You Have Done?’,” Counterpunch, October 1, 2015, http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/01/a-game-of-dice-with-russia-do-you-realize-what-you-have-done/.
[7] Gerald Sussman, “The Myths of ‘Democracy Assistance’:
U.S. Political Intervention in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe,” Monthly
Review, December 6, 2006, https://monthlyreview.org/2006/12/01/the-myths-of-democracy-assistance-u-s-political-intervention-in-post-soviet-eastern-europe/.
[8] “Gorbachev calls US military might ‘insurmountable
obstacle to a nuclear-free world’,” Russia Today, August 6, 2015, https://www.rt.com/news/311796-gorbachev-nuclear-free-world/.
[9] “Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club,”
October 22, 2015. Accessed August 27, 2016,
en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50548.
[10] ABC News Viewpoint, Discussion panel following the broadcast of The
Day After, November 20, 1983, 00:21:23~. Accessed August 27, 2016,
https://youtu.be/UzXcQ2Lr-40
[11] Editorial, “Disappointing NPT Conference,” the Japan
Times, May 26, 2015,
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/05/26/editorials/disappointing-npt-conference/
[12] Kyodo News, “Abe Says Japan Can Reap 3 Trillion Yen in
Central Asia Projects,” the Japan
Times, October 27, 2015, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/27/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-vows-support-kazakhstans-plan-introduce-nuclear-power/
[13] Chalmers Johnson, “America’s Empire of Bases,” TomDispatch.com,
January 15, 2004, http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1181/chalmers_johnson_on_garrisoning_the_planet.
[14] Nagasaki Declaration of the Pugwash Council, Pugwash
Conferences on Science and World Affairs, https://pugwashconferences.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/20151105_pugwash_nagasaki_declaration_for_release_embargoed.pdf
