Congratulations and Suggestions to INESAP on its 10th Anniversary
Bruce Gagnon 
The connection between INESAP and the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (GN) began in 1997 when a joint meeting was held in Darmstadt, Germany, to explore the space weaponization issue. Then again in 1999 another such meeting was held in Darmstadt as GN members from around the world met with leaders and associates of INESAP in an attempt to better understand the common agenda of the grassroots peace in space movement and technical experts.
There is always much that can be learned from joint meetings such as these. For a grassroots person, such meetings are an opportunity to sharpen technical understanding of the often complex world of space weapons technology. Since many of the technical experts cooperating with INESAP have some connection (either directly or indirectly) to the aerospace industry, academia, or government, it is often one opportunity for a peace activist to hear a broader interpretation about intentions and motivations that can be valuable in trying to understand the larger picture.
Such mutual contact is helpful in sounding out possible solutions. INESAP is often working on ideas of how to prevent a space arms race by developing consensus around new treaties and options for controlling the proliferation of these new technologies. Associates of INESAP often have ties to governments that local peace activists never could hope to develop.
The members of the GN would like to thank INESAP for this relationship and wish you another 10 years of good work.
If we could be so bold, we'd also like to explore some tactical questions that should be raised at this time as the U.S. walks away from international agreements like the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, refuses to discuss a space weapons ban at the UN, and moves to expand the number of countries with which it works to move the arms race into the heavens.
Today, it would appear that our chances for enforcing current disarmament measures are as far away as Mars. Hopes of securing new treaty regimes seem even farther out of reach. Clearly, the U.S. is pushing other nations to expand funding, research and development, production, and testing of new technologies that will, in time, develop space as a new and dangerous battlefield. Japan, Israel, Britain, Italy, China, India, and now even the European Union are among the nations moving into the space arms race at one level or another. A new arms race in space serves the interests of the aerospace industry, thus, they want to multiply the number of nations involved in the process. Both the Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. Congress have reached virtual consensus by supporting every Star Wars funding request by both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
When Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after 'discovering' the new world, Spain began the 100 year process of building the Spanish Armada to protect its new "interests and investments" on the other side of the ocean. This, of course, helped create the global war system as other nations began similarly building their own naval forces to compete for control and domination of the seas.
Imagine being a peace activist in those times. Who would bother to listen to you sounding the alarm about the dangers of creating new ships outfitted with 'modern' cannons? The Columbus discoveries offered new opportunities for jobs, prestige, and incredible wealth. Today, we are in the same boat as we look to halt the negative aspects of space technology.
How can technical experts who are a part of INESAP best work today in this climate? How can grassroots peace activists make any progress when the military-industrial complex is spreading money around inviting its allies in countries around the world to get on-board the Star Wars train now or get left behind?
I would begin with a couple of questions. First, to technical experts, I would ask how are governments responding to you today? Are they still inviting your input or are the gates beginning to close? Are your previous allies within industry and government turning a cold shoulder to you and basically saying "We've got to follow the money?" It would be my impression this is happening more so than ever.
For grassroots activists who organize around local aerospace industry installations or military bases, the debate is always about jobs. How can we just ask people to stop making weapons/space technology? They have families and financial responsibilities. What alternatives do we have to offer?
This is one area where groups like INESAP could begin to offer help. Technical experts could begin to focus their energy creating visions and plans for alternative job creation that grassroots organizers could take into local communities to show positive alternatives to present war machine production. Help show the products that could be produced. Help show how many more jobs could be created producing sustainable environmental products instead of space weapons technologies. Help show that government funding could be instead used for peaceful, positive, life sustaining purposes.
Second, INESAP and its associates could work on expanding their base of technical experts and begin to explore with social scientists and political organizers the questions of how to mobilize mass movements around the issues of the arms race. How can we best make connection with the public? What will it take to foster interest and movement with the public? How can we get the public's attention?
In other words, can scientists also begin to think about their role in grassroots mobilization? Who is their present audience? Is it elite policy makers within governments/industry who are now restricted in their ability to deliver, even if they wished to? Would our friends and allies within 'established' quarters have more political maneuvering room if the pressures from the public were strong enough to demand an end to new arms races and the financing of them?
Third, can technical experts not only come up with new plans for disarmament, but also begin to explore and act in ways to make them possible? What would happen if groups of technical experts like INESAP turned away from past primary focus on advising government, and instead began to fashion aggressive plans to work with grassroots groups to reach the public with these concerns?
One of the things that comes from working with elite policy makers is compromise. The job of government agents is to fashion policies that offend the fewest and ultimately benefit the most powerful. When technical experts enter into those relationships, even with the best of intentions, they inevitably become engaged in the process of legislative sausage making. This of course saps vision and energy from movements.
At this time, when the possibilities for positive disarmament have been hijacked by the global military-industrial complex, would it not be wise to consider redirecting our energies away from the current near-hopeless pit of policy and instead put that energy into the effort of creating genuine, mass counter-pressure that could, in time, crack open the doors and hearts of governments?
The only way to create that counterpressure is, of course, by helping to expand the global peace movements now underway. People around the world are recognizing a global corporate new world order has taken control of the planet and new weapons technologies will be used to further its interests. People are organizing against the impact of "free trade," against the so-called "war on terrorism," and against the many manifestations of corporate control and domination.
One great need is to show the connection between this corporate global domination plan and the weapons that will sustain it. Military spending is ravishing the earth. Cutbacks in health care, social security/pension programs, education and the like are now impacting all countries in the industrial world. It appears as though the plan of the corporate elite is to lower the standard of living for all the world to the lowest level possible. Recently I was speaking in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. People pointed to a pork production factory and told me that the workers there used to make $15 an hour. The company destroyed the union and reduced the pay to $5 an hour by bringing in foreign workers. Now, the local workforce is out of a job and feeling hostility toward the Mexicans who have been brought in to take their positions.
Is this the future for all of us? What good is an arms control treaty to struggling and unemployed workers? Why should they care if the arms race moves into space, except for the fact that it might possibly create jobs for them? How can the peace movement get the attention of these people, and the millions like them around the world?
It seems to make sense that there is a huge need today for the creation and propagation of new visions for the future. But, in order to take on the task of this envisioning, one has to let go of an old way of thinking. The difficult hope of influencing government and industry at this stage would have to give way to the recognition that work must be done to create new visions and expectations with the mass public. In time, those visions of new possibilities could become so strong that governments would have to embrace them, or be replaced by those who recognize the new thinking.
I recently saw Bill Clinton on TV say that if he was running for president today he would be talking endlessly about the one million jobs that could be created by developing environmentally sustainable technologies. If he made that his political 'mantra' he felt that the public, which is job hungry, would rally to his positive and hopeful message.
I see the task of the peace movement and our allies in organizations like INESAP the same way. If we want to rally the public, if we want to draw their support for creating a stable and non-violent future, then we have to offer them a sense of their place in such a world. Can they eat and pay the bills in our new world vision? How? What will it look like? How much will it cost? How will we pay for it? What do we have to do to get there? Who will come up with the plans?
I hope that in another ten years the GN and INESAP and our allies will be evaluating how we made the transition during this challenging time. Did we understand the role our organizations should play in the coming period and did we respond accordingly?
My best wishes to INESAP for many more years of heartfelt and dedicated work.
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