May 14, 2018
Leaders of the international peace movement met in
New York City over the weekend to grapple with an increasing threat of nuclear
war. Taking a cue from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and
its famous Doomsday Clock, a day-long conference,
held Saturday, May 12, at Judson Memorial Church, was titled “Two Minutes to
Midnight.”
Opening keynote speaker Noam Chomsky struck a dour
tone, wondering whether the human species is an “evolutionary error.”
“An objective and informed observer might conclude
that, since World War II, the species has been dedicated to establishing the
thesis that humans are simply a mistake,” he declared.
Noam Chomsky wondered whether the human species is
an “evolutionary error.”
Hanging heavily over the proceedings were President
Donald Trump’s announced withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal—reneging on a
U.S. promise formally endorsed by a unanimous U.N. Security Council—and
Israel’s immediate response of striking Iranian
assets in Syria. Participating leaders of the Abolition 2000disarmament
network discussed whether they needed to focus immediately on efforts to
prevent a war that could soon erupt between Israel and Iran.
The gathering of activists had originally been
scheduled to coincide with a United Nations High-Level Conference on Nuclear
Disarmament in May, an event the U.N. General Assembly has indefinitely postponed.
The idea for the conference grew out of a proposal
from the 120-member voting bloc representing the Non-Aligned Movement, which
controls a majority in the U.N. General Assembly. The explanation provided for
the postponement was that no member state had been selected to chair the
conference. Diplomats from non-aligned states conceded that not all of
the nine nuclear-armed
nations had committed to attending the High-Level Conference, or to be
represented there by high-level officials. And indeed, all nine nuclear-armed
governments are committed to upgrading their arsenals.
But after years of dormancy, there have been
surprising stirrings of late in the nuclear disarmament field. In 2017, the
non-aligned states of the global south used their General Assembly majority to
pull off an insubordinate act of multilateral nuclear diplomacy. With a handful
of northern states joining them in negotiations—the
nine nuclear powers declining to participate—122 countries voted to approve
the Treaty on
the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. One country, the Netherlands, voted
against it. Fifty-eight of
the countries that voted in favor—including two that have relinquished nuclear
armaments, South Africa and Kazakhstan—have since put their signatures to the
treaty. On May 8, Austria became the ninth nation to ratify it. After fifty
governments have ratified the accord, which could occur within a year or two,
it will become binding upon all states that have signed.
A new coalition of civil society groups, the
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, helped galvanize support for
the process. For its efforts the coalition was awarded the
2017 Nobel Peace Prize.
The ban treaty endeavours to put in place a new
global norm stigmatizing nuclear weapons, just as the 1997 Ottawa Treaty banned
anti-personnel landmines. The text of
the agreement, particularly its preamble, explicitly repudiates nuclear weapons
and declares any use of the bomb flatly illegal under international
humanitarian law.
In drafting this agreement, anti-nuclear campaign
groups worked alongside diplomats, creating what Reiner Braun of the
International Peace Bureau called “a new atmosphere” of cooperation inside the
United Nations. The campaign’s success, with many young people coming on board,
generated a sense of excitement not felt in disarmament circles since the
1980s.
“These are signs of hope,” Braun said, “and they
create new possibilities.”
However, the “Two Minutes” conference made clear
that the ban treaty may have a more limited value than its proponents claim,
and has raised difficult questions about how to advance disarmament. Even if
enacted, the treaty would not eliminate a single warhead. The United States,
France, and the United Kingdom have voiced outspoken opposition and said they
will never sign such an agreement, and every NATO member, save the Netherlands,
boycotted the process entirely.
States whose security doctrines rely on nuclear
deterrence are not likely to be persuaded to renounce their policies in the
near term by a renewed effort to stigmatize the ultimate weapon of mass
destruction.
Critical voices in the disarmament field note that
the ban treaty negotiators shied away from some of the more confrontational
proposals put forward, that could have had direct impact on the nuclear-armed
states even if they did not join the treaty. These included banning the transit
of nuclear-armed vessels through the ports or airspace of non-nuclear states,
and provisions mandating divestment from corporations and financial mechanisms
supporting the nuclear arms industry.
“We have a problem of international order . . .”
Some veteran activists and analysts, even in the
nuclear abolitionist camp, were skeptical of ICAN’s tactical focus on achieving
the ban treaty within a rapid time frame and without the engagement of any of
the nuclear-armed states or their allies. They feel the whole exercise has only
deepened the diplomatic divide on nuclear weapons.
“We have a problem of international order,” said
the physicist Zia Mian in one of Saturday’s most striking speeches. “The way
the world is, is beyond the capacity of our systems of management of the world
to cope.” This broad assessment extends beyond issues of war, weaponry, and
arms control to the other intractable predicaments that have brought midnight
so nigh, like climate change, poverty, and wealth inequality.
Mian, of Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security,
also noted the heightened danger posed by Trump’s violation of the multilateral
Iran deal. “The system is now being undermined by its own leading members,” he
said. “So the crisis of legitimacy of the international order is now coming
into full view. And we have to deal with this, otherwise the system may well
fall apart."
Roger Kimmel Smith is a freelance wordsmith based in
Ithaca, New York. He is a former network coordinator for the NGO Committee on
Disarmament at the United Nations.
http://progressive.org/dispatches/world-gets-a-two-minute-warning-on-the-risk-of-nuclear-war-180514/
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