Consistent Life Blog

A Global Effort to Protect Life: The UN Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapons

Posted on November 10, 2020 By Rachel MacNair

by John Whitehead

Honduras became, at the end of October, the fiftieth nation to ratify the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Treaty, which was finalized in the summer of 2017, has been signed by 84 nations. Now that 50 of those nations have ratified it, the treaty will officially enter into force as international law on January 22, 2021.

The Treaty obligates the nations that have ratified it “never under any circumstances” to “[d]evelop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” Nations party to the Treaty are also obligated never to assist any other nation with such activities. Moreover, these nations commit, to the extent they are able, to provide appropriate assistance to those affected by nuclear weapons testing and to repair environmental damage from such testing. Last, but certainly not least, nations party to the Treaty commit to encouraging other nations to join it.

To date, the Treaty has not been signed or ratified by any of the nine nuclear-armed nations in the world: Russia, the United States, China, France, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. While those nations most capable of curbing the nuclear threat may not yet be subject to the Treaty’s obligations, however, the Treaty can still make a significant and positive contribution to world peace.

The Treaty and Future Peace Activism

As advocates for the Treaty, such as Ray Acheson of Reaching Critical Will, have argued, an international treaty banning nuclear weapons creates a stigma against such weapons. Nations that fail to join the treaty have a similar questionable status to those that refuse to join treaties prohibiting landmines or chemical and biological weapons. As more nations join the treaty (even if those nations don’t possess nuclear weapons), the strength of global opinion that holds nuclear weapons to be morally suspect will grow. Further, the Treaty serves as an inspiration for further action by peace activists.

Peace activists should continue to put pressure on financial institutions or other groups that invest in companies that manufacture nuclear weapons or their components to divest their money from those companies. The existence of an international treaty prohibiting such weapons can give renewed power and urgency to such divestment efforts. Activists also can advocate for their own nations to join the Treaty or to take similar steps reduce the nuclear danger.

While nations that already possess nuclear weapons are unlikely to join the Treaty anytime soon, activists can pursue other initiatives targeted at such nations. The Back from the Brink campaign aims at nuclear abolition but also works for intermediate steps such as taking nuclear weapons off high alert and canceling American plans to spend huge sums on new nuclear weapons. Activists can mobilize around these or similar initiatives. Even without full nuclear abolition, the nuclear danger can still be reduced.

Nuclear Powers vs. the World?

As peace activists continue their work against the nuclear threat, one particular theme might be worth emphasizing. The Treaty’s biggest apparent limitation—the absence of any nations that possess nuclear weapons—is also an opportunity for activists to teach an important lesson. An anti-nuclear weapons treaty ratified only by non-nuclear nations makes a powerful statement: nuclear weapons’ threat reaches far beyond those nations that possess them.

one of the quarterly anti-nuclear vigils we do with a coalition of groups

The nuclear threat has often been characterized as being primarily between hostile nations that both possess nuclear weapons. We might think of the danger mainly as a matter of one nuclear-armed nation attacking another, which then retaliates in kind. Most of the imagined victims of nuclear weapons are the people in these warring nuclear nations.

People living in nations that go to war with nuclear weapons would indisputably be victims of such weapons. They would not be the only ones, however. Scientists studying the environmental effects of nuclear weapons have projected the catastrophic effects such weapons’ use will likely have on the earth’s climate. The soot thrown into the atmosphere by a nuclear exchange would cool the earth, causing crops to fail and probably leading to world famine.

Such an environmental cataclysm would be the probable result not only of a full-blown nuclear war between major nuclear nations such as Russia and the United States but even of a much smaller nuclear exchange. One model projects that if India and Pakistan used even 50 low-yield nuclear weapons against each other, global cooling and starvation would likely follow. Scientist Jonas Jägermeyr, an author of the India-Pakistan study, comments, “Even this regional, limited war would have devastating indirect implications worldwide . . . It would exceed the largest famine in documented history.”

These environmental dangers mean that almost any use of nuclear weapons by a nation with even a very small number of such weapons poses a colossal threat to the world. Much of humanity, not just the two nations fighting with nuclear weapons, would suffer the lethal consequences of using these nuclear weapons. Thus, people from every nation on earth can plausibly claim that the possession of nuclear weapons by any nation concerns them. The Treaty’s preamble recognizes this global concern by noting that “these risks [from nuclear weapons] concern the security of all humanity” and “all States share the responsibility to prevent any use of nuclear weapons.”

In this context, the Treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons is not only a condemnation of nuclear weapons’ threat but also an expression of defiance against a tiny number of nuclear-armed nations who are endangering the majority of the world’s people. As Acheson puts it,

“the majority of countries decided to take matters into their own hands. Recognizing the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences that nuclear weapon production, testing, and use cause throughout the world . . . meant making international law without the consent of those who believed they held all the power.”

Emphasizing the environmental dangers of nuclear weapons, as well as the global power imbalance involved in the nuclear threat, allows peace activists to connect their work both to concerns about climate change and to opposition to imperialism. Moreover, opposition to imperialism need not and should not focus exclusively on the United States: to repeat, virtually all nations possessing nuclear-weapons pose a serious threat to humanity.

Moving Forward

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons doesn’t end the nuclear threat by any means, but it does provide a new opportunity for peace activists to renew their efforts. Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, offered some comments after Honduras ratified the Treaty. Her comments should guide us as we move forward:

“While this is a time to celebrate, it is not a time for us to relax. The world is ever more dangerous . . .

“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has opened a new door, wide. Passing through it we begin a new chapter in our struggle — with a mighty embrace of gratitude from those we have lost, and a heartfelt welcome from those who are yet to come. The beginning of the end of nuclear weapons has arrived! Let us step through the doorway now!”

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For more of our posts on nuclear weapons, see:

Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons

Rejecting Mass Murder: Looking Back on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Reynolds Family, the Nuclear Age and a Brave Wooden Boat

Nuclear Disarmament as a Social Justice Issue 

“An Inferno That Even the Mind of Dante Could Not Envision”: Martin Luther King on Nuclear Weapons

“Everybody Else in the World Was Dead”: Hiroshima’s Legacy

The Danger That Faces Us All: Hiroshima and Nagasaki after 75 Years

Catastrophe by Mistake: The Button and the Danger of Accidental Nuclear War 

nuclear weapons

Catastrophe by Mistake: The Button and the Danger of Accidental Nuclear War

Posted on October 20, 2020 By Rachel MacNair

by John Whitehead

The most likely way for the United States to end up in a nuclear war today is not because of an aggressive nuclear attack by Russia or North Korea or some other nation. Nor is it likely to be because the United States launches such an aggressive attack on another nuclear-armed nation. The most likely scenario for nuclear war in 2020 is as the result of a complete accident.

Faulty early warning data or some other technological failing will lead a US president to believe the United States is under nuclear attack when it isn’t. The president will order the many nuclear weapons that are currently kept ready for use at a moment’s notice to be launched in retaliation. By the time the mistake is discovered, it will be too late. The other nuclear-armed nation, now under a genuine nuclear attack by the United States, will retaliate and mutual destruction is assured.

Preventing such a catastrophic mistake is the major concern of The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump, by William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina. Perry served as secretary of defense under Bill Clinton and had been part of the US national security establishment for decades before that. Collina is the policy director of the Ploughshares Fund and has long been involved in arms control advocacy. Their book is a powerful warning about the nuclear danger as well as a guide to reducing that danger.

Perry and Collina’s most urgent concern is reforming US policies to avoid the kind of nuclear-war-by-false-alarm scenario I described above (and which they describe in far more detail in the book’s introduction). Beyond this top priority, however, they discuss other steps to lessen the nuclear threat, including the need to improve American relations with Russia and pursue mutual nuclear weapons reductions. While they don’t discuss it in depth, Perry and Collina seem to reach toward nuclear abolition as their ultimate goal.

An Explosive Combination

Several different conditions combine to make accidental nuclear war such a plausible risk. The United States has hundreds of land-based nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that would likely be destroyed if Russia attacked the United States first with nuclear weapons. Unlike nuclear weapons on submarines or bomber planes, land-based missiles cannot be moved and are fixed targets for an adversary. If the United States were to use its nuclear ICBMs in response to a nuclear attack, it would have to use them in the short window of time between when an incoming nuclear attack is reported and when the attacking missiles land.

Moreover, the inherent practical difficulties of maintaining functional military command and control after the country has been devastated in a nuclear attack also creates major pressure to use nuclear weapons at the first sign of an attack, while command and control is still intact. This approach to using nuclear weapons is known as “launch on warning.”

The authority to order such a launch-on-warning attack lies with the president alone. While presidential authority over nuclear weapons was originally established to ensure civilian control over these weapons, its practical legacy is that a single human being has sole authority to order the most destructive act in human history. The president doesn’t have to consult with Congress, despite Congress having the constitutional authority to declare war. He doesn’t have to consult the cabinet or his closest advisors. No one else can legally check or obstruct his decision. Thus, if an incoming nuclear attack is reported to the president, he can decide on his own to order a launch-on-warning response—and he will have only minutes to make such a decision.

Along with the launch-on-warning option and sole presidential authority, the final condition creating our current perilous situation is fallibility. The fallibility of technological systems produces false alarms—The Button discusses some historical examples of such frightening errors—and also makes these systems vulnerable to hacking or cyberattacks. The fallibility of human beings produces bad decisions. Moreover, the likelihood of bad decisions increases dramatically if the president were drunk, on drugs, or otherwise impaired—and the book provides historical examples of these situations, as well. When fallibility is combined with launch on warning and extraordinary presidential power, we have the real possibility of accidental nuclear war.

Defusing the Situation

Perry and Collina recommend specific policies to avoid catastrophe. US policy should prohibit launch-on-warning. Land-based ICBMs as a category of nuclear weapon should eventually be retired. The authors argue that nuclear weapons on submarines and bomber planes, which being mobile can survive an adversary’s attack and so are less subject to launch-on-warning pressure, provide a sufficient nuclear deterrent. They also recommend limiting sole presidential authority to order the use of nuclear weapons.

Along with steps to reduce the risk of accidental nuclear war, Perry and Collina recommend policies to slow down the arms race and ease international tensions. The US plan to replace current nuclear forces, which they estimate will cost about $2 trillion over the next 30 years, should be significantly scaled back. Anti-missile defense systems, which are ineffective and sour US-Russian relations (the Russians perceive such defenses as preparations for a US attack on them), should be limited. The United States should work with Russia to radically reduce their nuclear arsenals and should seek a more peaceful relationship with Iran and North Korea.

Weaknesses and Strengths

To pacifists or others with a commitment to nonviolence, or even just people who believe war should be kept within strict limits, The Button leaves much to be desired. As their proposals suggest, Perry and Collina are willing to retain a considerable number of nuclear weapons for a long time (they refer to keeping nuclear-armed submarines for “decades to come”). Although they recommend reduced spending on nuclear weapons, they still seem to envision spending hundreds of billions of dollars on such weapons. Moreover, while they correctly wish to avoid nuclear war, they never question the morality of even threatening the indiscriminate killing of millions while maintaining the weapons to carry out this threat.

Nevertheless, even if The Button falls short of what many peace activists would hope for, Perry and Collina’s recommended policies would definitely mark a step in the right direction. They would decrease the danger from nuclear weapons and could serve as a stepping stone to abolition or something like it. Indeed, their proposals bear a strong resemblance to those of the abolition-aimed Back from the Brink initiative, of which the Consistent Life Network is an endorser.

At times, the authors gesture toward nuclear abolition. They write sympathetically of the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) that worked for the treaty. (They interviewed Beatrice Fihn, ICAN’s executive director, who is among The Button’s endorsers.) Perry and Collina even comment, “the best way to prevent the use of the bomb is to eliminate it from the face of the earth.” That they don’t elaborate on how to reach this goal is unfortunate.

While not a blueprint for nuclear abolition, The Button provides sound recommendations for countering the nuclear danger, as well as much other valuable information. The book is a useful primer for those wishing to learn about the anti-nuclear cause, as it provides historical overviews and analyses of the arms race and arms control diplomacy.

The authors also have insights applicable to other causes. They have valuable observations on the role government bureaucracies and other vested interests play in perpetuating specific military technologies or otherwise shaping policy.

They also point out that activists need to be consistently engaged. Even if a US president committed to ending the nuclear danger were elected, she or he might not follow through on that commitment without constant pressure from activists outside the government. Whatever the precise cause, protecting human life from violence cannot be left just to politicians; the work requires engagement and persistence across society.

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For more of our posts on nuclear weapons, see: 

Nukes and the Pro-Life Christian: A Conservative Takes a Second Look at the Morality of Nuclear Weapons

The Reynolds Family, the Nuclear Age and a Brave Wooden Boat

“An Inferno That Even the Mind of Dante Could Not Envision”: Martin Luther King on Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Disarmament as a Social Justice Issue

To Save Humanity: What I Learned at the “Two Minutes to Midnight” Conference

“Everybody Else in the World Was Dead”: Hiroshima’s Legacy

The Danger That Faces Us All: Hiroshima and Nagasaki after 75 Years

nuclear weapons