The Need to Think Ahead About Nuclear Disarmament
Wolfgang Liebert
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Mayor Akiba, dear colleagues.
In 1995, two writers, the Japanese and German Nobel prize laureates Kenzaburo Oe (1994) and Günter Grass (1999) had a correspondence, which at that time was widely published. Both poets were stamped by their experience with wars of conquest waged by their respective home countries – then under the sway of a dictator – and specifically by the horrible crimes and consequences of those wars.
40 years after the end of World War II, Günter Grass wrote to his Japanese colleague:
“Two atom bombs fell and they changed the world. Ever since, our thoughts and our actions have been nuclear-contaminated. Ever since, mankind has been capable of destroying itself. (...) On the one hand, we remember the end of the war, on the other hand, the latent danger of nuclear self-destruction could not be over-ridden. Many seem to accept it as fait accompli, in combination with the protests that are revived now and then, only to decline again all to soon, accompanied by gestures of weakness and impotence. The power circles of this world have more stamina. Once it has been brought into the world deliberately, unwritten customary law favors this inordinate crime: the cynicism of political and economic power cannot be overcome by humanistic appeals.”
These sentences could be interpreted as pessimistic; to me, however, this analysis of the famous writer has rather a pragmatic touch and can point us to the reasons why we should proceed with our struggle for disarmament, and in particular for nuclear disarmament.
Over the last decades, the nuclear weapon states broke all promises to abolish nuclear weapons. In the years when the confrontation between the Eastern and Western blocs ended, they undoubtedly had the chance to make a world free from nuclear weapons come true. Instead, the leaders of the nuclear weapon states decided to keep nuclear weapons as a pillar of national security. Even worse, they also decided to utilize their nuclear weapons arsenals to emphasize their ambition to exert a vigorous influence on world politics based on this power and to enforce their own interests ruthlessly.
Strikingly inconsistent, the same political leaders try to convince other countries that access to nuclear weapons would not serve their respective security interests. Of course the latter is true, but how schizophrenic must they be to not question their own nuclear arsenal at the same time.
Accordingly, the terror of nuclear deterrence continues to threaten mankind. Currently, the active nuclear weapons arsenals have an explosive power comparable to nearly 400,000 atom bombs of the type used against the city of Hiroshima (we bow low to the victims and the hibakusha.) If we include the non-active but usable nuclear reserve, the worldwide nuclear arsenals are equivalent to more than half a million Hiroshima bombs.
When we compare the number of nuclear warheads that are currently stacked in the weapon states with those of 1970 (when the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT, entered into force), we realize that the numbers are roughly the same. It is quite obvious: more than three decades later, the promise of nuclear disarmament enshrined in the NPT has not been fulfilled to this day. Furthermore, the nuclear weapons materials from disarmed warheads are still mostly in stock both in the U.S. and in Russia.
To make things even worse, nuclear weapon powers like the United States amended their target lists to include non-nuclear weapon states that are suspected of striving for weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, these states are now also threatened by a nuclear attack. This seems to have a terrifying consequence: for these states, it is an additional incentive to obtain the nuclear weapons option. And they in turn, mirroring the nuclear weapons powers argument, justify these dangerous activities with the need to strengthen their national security.
This comprehensible, as it appears now, but unacceptable reasoning can also subliminally shape politics in other states. Any nuclear-weapons-capable member of the NPT can push nuclear weapons development quite far without formally violating the treaty. This is due to the civil-military ambivalence of nuclear technologies (like uranium enrichment and reprocessing), due to nuclear dual-use materials (like plutonium and highly enriched uranium), and due to the dramatic flaws of the NPT. The covert or subliminal path to the nuclear weapons option could therefore be tempting not only for state leaders or powerful circles in North Korea or Iran, but also in principle in Brazil, in major European countries, in Japan, and so on. In the case when there is no progress in nuclear disarmament to zero and further cases of nuclear weapons acquisition occur, then, this kind of latent proliferation will dramatically increase.
The probability that newcomer states or non-state actors, even terrorists, could go nuclear is growing due to the increasing availability of sensitive materials and technologies. For example, nearly 500 tonnes of weapons ready plutonium exists worldwide and only a few kilograms is sufficient to make a single nuclear weapon. At the same time, the asymmetries between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ grows in terms of weapons as well as in terms of dual-use nuclear capabilities. Last year, a flourishing international nuclear black market was uncovered. All these developments, these interlinked chains of irresponsibility, put international security and any moves towards the aim of enduring international peace at risk.
The dangerous global asymmetry is further fuelled by the overall military technological development. This year, global military expenditure will reach a new high of more than 900 billion US dollar (roughly 100 trillion Yen). Half of it is spent by the United States, two thirds by the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). These figures belie most threat scenarios that U.S. and NATO officials tell us daily.
As the partly leaked 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review revealed, the most powerful military nation, the United States, is seriously considering the use of nuclear weapons against socalled ‘rogue’ states and thus risks unleashing a nuclear catastrophe. A new type of nuclear weapon, allegedly effective against bunkered targets, is under development in the U.S. This provokes further destabilisation of the existing global nuclear mess. These developments steer us along a totally wrong and most dangerous course. (A change for the worse in the international climate can easily provoke a new and more deadly arms race, renewing the danger of nuclear war.)
Indeed, a pessimistic view seems to be appropriate. But where the state leaders fail, it is up to us to find a solution and we must not recommend wrong or inappropriate remedies. Many still hope for a strengthened nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and ‘stepwise’ disarmament measures, while completely neglecting the qualitative improvements of the nuclear armament.
In my view, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) does not provide the framework for a pathway to nuclear disarmament nor does it serve effective nuclear non-proliferation. To assign such attributes to the NPT is a lie and meant to render us submissive. There is much more truth in saying that the NPT perfectly serves the interests of the five recognized nuclear weapon states. They regard the NPT as a charter for maintaining their nuclear arsenals forever, including their constant modernization. The arsenals of Israel, India, and Pakistan seem now to be quietly becoming acceptable.
The inherent contradictions and loopholes of the NPT and the misbehaviour of the nuclear weapon states also means that we have to learn the unpleasant lesson that the validity of the NPT – enjoying as it does almost universal membership – cannot insure against the further spread of nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, as it stands today we cannot do without the NPT, since it is the only existing treaty that deals with the problem of nuclear proliferation. So what are we to do?
Ten years ago, several colleagues and I gathered at my home university in Darmstadt, Germany, to discuss this seemingly hopeless situation. This was prior to the indefinite extension of the NPT foreseen for the 1995 Review Conference. I suggested that we not focus exclusively on the NPT. Rather, we as scientists should look beyond the NPT and pinpoint the real and challenging needs of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, which are closely interlinked.
I suggested to my colleagues that we should try to argue for a new and better international treaty, replacing the NPT at a given time in the near future. The new treaty, the Nuclear Weapons Convention, should be designed in a way to overcome the shortcomings, loopholes and contradictions of the NPT. The pattern for the Nuclear Weapons Convention has to be similar to that already set by the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions – that is, a total ban of nuclear weapons.
In the following months, together with more than 40 international scholars we were very busy working out these ideas. In April 1995, we were able to present a study of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) at the United Nations in New York. The study was entitled “Beyond the NPT: A Nuclear-Weapons-Free World.” It comprised a comprehensive analysis of the nuclear question as a basis for laying out the way to the only secure international regime, i.e. a nuclear-weapon-free world. We suggested that the State Parties to the NPT and the non-members to the treaty should begin negotiations on a Nuclear Weapons Convention without delay.
Unfortunately, our proposal was not an immediate success. But the idea was picked up by international nongovernmental organizations. By 1997 our network, INESAP, together with the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA) and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) were able to present the comprehensive text for a model Nuclear Weapons Convention.
The Nuclear Weapons Convention would ban the possession and production of nuclear weapons as well as all kinds of acquisition, use, and threat of use. The Convention would call for the elimination of the whole infrastructure for research into, manufacture, and possession of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery. It would provide a system of technical and societal verification as well as international control for the disposal of, or at least accounting for and guarding, the remaining weapons-usable fissile materials. Upon entry into force, the Nuclear Weapons Convention would replace the NPT.
We outlined the cornerstone of a new regime that could be effective both in terms of nuclear disarmament and in terms of nuclear non-proliferation. To achieve both goals in one convincing strategy is as desperately needed now as it was then.
I would like to remind you that in 1996, the International Court of Justice gave an advisory opinion, upon request by the United Nations General Assembly, that the use and the threat of use of nuclear weapons “would generally be contrary to the rules of international law.” The Court concluded that therefore an obvious gap in international law has to be filled by pursuing and concluding “negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.” This is convincing support of what we delineated, namely the way to a nuclear-weapon-free world through a Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC).
Over the years, in cooperation with international Non-Governmental Organisations – and with the help of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation – we have continued to propagate the model Nuclear Weapons Convention. It was introduced as an official UN document by Malaysia in 1997 and was therefore translated into the official UN languages. In addition the draft treaty has been translated into Japanese by the international lawyers (IALANA). In the year 2000, together with IALANA and IPPNW, INESAP published a book entitled “Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention.” We were, however, somewhat frustrated by the lack of progress with the NWC. Accordingly, we are more than pleased that the Mayors for Peace are now making use of the model NWC in their “2020 Vision” campaign.
Only the selfish interests of political leaders in a number of states – and powerful forces behind them – are blocking this single sensible path of action. If we could ask the population of the world, the mayors and the citizens of the threatened cities, then we would undoubtedly receive overwhelming support for this way of achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world.
Let me come back to the correspondence between Günter Grass and Kenzaburo Oe from the year 1995. Kenzaburo Oe wrote to his German colleague:
“I am not naive enough to believe that after the end of the Cold War those in political power will cooperate to develop a blueprint for a world without nuclear weapons (...) The simple but dreadful basic principle, which has lead to the endless expansion of the nuclear weapons system, is the strategy of ensuring security by deterring an adversary with ones own military power. (...) (However,) the agenda for a post-Cold War world should rather have been based on continuing unilateral nuclear disarmament leading to the total elimination of these weapons – and thus ensuring security.”
These words of Kenzaburo Oe convey a very clear, understandable, and unambiguous message. We, as an international network of scientists, have been striving to work towards this goal. The political leaders could and should implement the concepts we have suggested.
Let me end by expressing my admiration for Hiroshima, which today is a flourishing and welcoming city, for its courage to face life and to strive for peace. Let me also express my admiration for Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who is so effectively leading the international Mayors for Peace. Their campaign to ban nuclear weapons is a sign of hope and is outstandingly useful for applying pressure to political leaders worldwide. Let us work together, with persistence and determination, for the elimination of the nuclear threat – in the interest of all human beings and nature on Earth.
This presentation was given at the public symposium
“Linking Science and Civil Society for
Missile and Nuclear Disarmament”, October 8,
2004, in Hiroshima, Japan.
