International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

The problem is 26,000 nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons are not like other weapons - there is no other weapon that can kill hundreds of millions of people in a few hours and bring about the end of human civilisation. According to the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January 2007, just 50 of today’s nuclear weapons could kill 200 million people.

The approximately 26,000 nuclear weapons in existence are illegal, immoral and genocidal; they can destroy our cities, health, water catchments and our food chain, and they routinely deplete funds and attention from achieving human security. Nuclear weapons have no legitimate purpose. To possess them and thereby threaten their use is utterly immoral. They are the ultimate weapons of terror.

Nuclear weapons are futile against any of today's real security threats. Nuclear weapon cannot address climate change, depletion of water & environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, overpopulation, pandemics such as AIDS or avian flu, failing states, non state armed groups or terrorists, organised crime, or trafficking in drugs, people and arms

In fact, nuclear weapons budgets and policies make most of these problems much worse because they divert enormous financial and technical resources from where they are really needed. In addition, the development of nuclear weapons directly adds to environmental degradation, and breed mistrust rather than cooperation between nations .

Estimating the risk

Who has the weapons?

USA – 10,000
Russia – 15,000
UK - 200
France - 350
China -130
India – 50-200
Pakistan – 50-92
Israel – 75 - 200 (undeclared)
North Korea – 1-10

Source: All numbers are estimates from the Natural Resources Defense Council, published in 2005 and 2007 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, www.thebulletin.org

Legally binding disarmament obligations violated

In 1970 the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty came into force. Today all but four countries in the world are parties to this treaty, which binds nuclear weapons states to an obligation to disarmament through Article VI of the Treaty. The International Court of Justice reaffirmed the legal obligation to disarm in 1996.

Despite these binding international agreements, we see no signs that the nuclear weapon states intend to eliminate their nuclear weapons. On the contrary, some nuclear weapon states now talk openly about battlefield uses for their weapons. This threat drives more countries to seek to acquire their own nuclear weapons as a route to prestige and power.

The United States
US budgets for nuclear-weapon work have soared. Millions are being spent at the Nevada nuclear-test site to ensure it is ready to resume nuclear testing within 18 months of any political decision being taken. In order to maintain expertise, non-nuclear or subcritical tests are being conducted, which simulate all parts of a nuclear weapon except the explosion itself.

The Department of Energy plans to spend almost $90m in fiscal year 2008, and $300m over the next few years to develop the first of the Reliable Replacement Warhead group of warheads. This new weapon would replace the W-76 Trident warhead in service with the US Navy.

Russia
For the past several years, Russia has advocated an agreement reducing U.S. and Russian strategic warheads to 1,500 warheads or fewer. However, in September 2005 President Putin said that Russia was developing “new strategic high-precision systems” that can alter “course and height.”

The purpose behind such capabilities is to make a warhead a more elusive target for anti-missile systems, such as those the United States is pursuing, a point Russian officials repeatedly emphasize. In 2006 Russia conducted its first flight test of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and reportedly a successful test of a new warhead.

The United Kingdom
The UK is contemplating replacement of the Trident submarine-based nuclear weapon system, which the Parliament supported in March 2007 in a strongly contested vote. The UK has extended its nuclear-weapon cooperation agreement with the United States for another ten years.

In 2006 the UK announced its intent to spend just over £1,000 million over the next three years on refurbishing key facilities at its nuclear-weapons complex. This includes new facilities for assembling and disassembling nuclear weapons and the handling of high explosives and weapons-grade uranium, as well as a new high-energy laser facility. It also plans to recruit over 1,000 new staff over three years.

France
In January 2006, President Chirac stated that France would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons in response to terrorism. Laboratory-based expansion of French nuclear-weapon design, development and production capacities has been under way for a number of years. For example, over US$ 3,000 million is being spent on a new high-energy laser facility.

France is expected to start testing a new missile for its submarine-launched nuclear warheads, which will have an increased range, and it is also working on improving the capabilities of its air-launched nuclear delivery vehicle along with a more “robust” warhead, the tête nucleaire aeroportee.

China
China is engaged in a nuclear weapons modernisation program. Initially China was interested in replacing older missile systems for more modern designs but increasingly China has predictably become concerned with US plans to construct a ballistic missile defence system and to place other weapons in space, and is likely to increase is nuclear arsenal in response.

Recently the US military drew up formal plans for a major military conflict with China that would include the use of nuclear weapons. Zhu Chenghu, a senior Chinese general responded to this development by warning that Beijing is ready to use nuclear weapons in response.

The case against nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons are acutely dangerous:

• The presence of nuclear weapons poses an unnecessary danger to citizens because nuclear weapons are themselves targets.
• Due to human or technical error nuclear weapons could be fired accidentally or in response to faulty intelligence or misinterpreted signals. This particularly applies to the thousands of US and Russian nuclear weapons that are kept on high alert.
• Nuclear weapons are an invitation for theft and attack by potential rogue, terrorist and non-state networks. Terrorist networks have already identified such possibilities. Specifically Al-Qaeda has plotted attacks against NATO nuclear weapons bases in both Belgium and Turkey.
• Information is lacking about the extent of potential safety and security dangers resulting from the presence of nuclear weapons. However, it can be concluded that contingency planning (including making available information about what to do in the event of a nuclear weapons-related accident) is inadequate.

The existence of nuclear weapons fuels proliferation:

• Repeatedly, high-level reports, including most recently the report “Weapons of Terror” from the UN Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission chaired by Hans Blix, have affirmed the inextricable links between non-proliferation and disarmament, as have former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and former senior US officials Robert McNamara, George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn. They recognise that it is only when nuclear weapons are seen to have reduced security utility and symbolic power that others will not seek them. The Canberra Commission stated, “The possession of nuclear weapons by any state is a constant stimulus to others to acquire them”.
• Chinese nuclear weapons were a significant factor in India’s decision to build the bomb, and Pakistan similarly felt threatened by India’s weapons.
• The continued presence of NATO nuclear weapons in Europe reinforces the status attached to these weapons.
• The presence of US nuclear weapons in Korean Peninsula waters is repeatedly stated as the pretext for the development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons are too expensive:

• Nuclear weapons drain enormous human and economic resources. According to the Brookings Institution, the US alone spent $ 5.8 trillion on nuclear weapons from the early 1940s – 1996. No one knows how much it will cost to clean up leaking waste sites or store weapons-related nuclear wastes for many thousands of years.
• In late 2004, the Natural Resources Defense Council estimated, “Approximately $40 billion, or about 10% of the annual military budget is spent on US nuclear weapons.”
• In 2004/2005, China (62.5 billion), Russia (61.9 billion), the UK (51.1 billion), Japan (44.7 billion) and France (41.6 billion) spent more than $40 billion in total on their military services.
• The opportunity cost of this expenditure is staggering. In all the nuclear weapons states, weapons programmes divert scarce funds away from health care, education and other essential services.
• What else could $40 billion be used for? According to the 1998 UN Human Development Report, the additional cost of achieving and maintaining universal access to basic education for all, basic health care, reproductive health care for all women, adequate food and clean water and safe sewers would amount to roughly $40 billion a year.

Nuclear weapons are undemocratic – the majority want disarmament:

• Every major decision taken by governments that developed nuclear weapons was done in the absence of full cabinet knowledge, let alone approval of the population. Therefore, the decision to develop nuclear weapons was in each case undemocratic, and led to the establishment of secret institutions, policies and practices which erode trust and undermine security.
• Nuclear disarmament is the democratic wish of the majority of the world’s countries and citizens. The vast majority of countries (182) do not have and do not want nuclear weapons, with only a handful (9 countries) possessing them. Poll results reveal that the vast majority of citizens want nuclear disarmament.

Nuclear weapons do not keep the peace:

• 26,000 nuclear weapons are deployed on land, sea and air, threatening cities, water, and people, posing a constant threat of nuclear annihilation and radioactive contamination and nuclear winter. This cannot be called peace
• Nuclear weapons states have been involved in more wars than non-nuclear weapons states. Between 1945 and 1997, nuclear weapons states have fought in an average of 5.2 wars, while non-nuclear weapons states averaged about 0.67 wars. Nuclear weapons did not prevent wars involving nuclear weapons states in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Falklands or Iraq.
• Nuclear weapons in fact intensify mistrust, often where it is already in short supply. The fear created by the mere suspicion of nuclear weapons in Iraq was used to unleash a catastrophic war in that country in 2003. The issue of nuclear weapons greatly heightens tension between Iran and Western nations.
• A further example of nuclear weapons representing an impediment to peace can be found in the case of past US nuclear deployments in Taiwan. Following US President Nixon’s historic visit to China in 1972 and a secret pledge, the US withdrew its nuclear weapons from Taiwan in order to improve relations with China.

Nuclear weapons are unusable:

• Nuclear weapons are futile against any of today's real security threats. Nuclear weapons cannot address climate change, depletion of water & environmental degradation, poverty, hunger, overpopulation, pandemics such as AIDS or avian flu, failing states, non state armed groups or terrorists, organised crime, or trafficking in drugs, people and arms.
• Nuclear weapons have no value tactically because they have no battlefield utility. They have no value in the long term since nuclear disarmament is an affirmed universal goal, nor in the near term since they intensify mistrust precisely where building trust is most needed.
• Military commanders in both Europe and the US believe that they do not have any utility. The US Defense Science Board Task Force on Future Strategic Strike Forces recommended that the nuclear capability of “forward-based, tactical, dual-capable aircraft should be eliminated because there is ‘no obvious military need for these systems.’” Seymour Hersh noted that in the case of Iran, US generals concluded that the nuclear option was politically untenable.
• In particular, nuclear weapons are worse than useless against terrorists. Terrorists cannot be targeted with nuclear weapons or deterred by them. As noted above, however, the weapons may be a target for terrorist activity.

Nuclear weapons are indiscriminate and illegal:

• Nuclear weapons are unique in their destructive capacity, A single weapon can devastate a city, or even a nation, in an instant. They do not discriminate between civilians and combatants.
• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the judicial branch of the UN, and the highest court in the world on general questions of international law. In its 1996 Advisory Opinion on the legal status of nuclear weapons, the ICJ concluded that "the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particular the principles and rules of humanitarian law." In making their cases, the nuclear weapon states failed to demonstrate to the Court that any use of nuclear weapons, including a "clean" use involving "low yield" weapons, could comply with legal requirements or avoid catastrophic escalation.
• The Court stated, a "fundamental" and "intransgressible" rule under humanitarian law is that "States must never make civilians the object of attack and must consequently never use weapons that are incapable of distinguishing between civilian and military targets." It is accordingly prohibited to use weapons causing them such harm or aggravating their suffering. Under humanitarian law, the ICJ also stated, "methods and means of warfare, which would preclude any distinction between civilian and military targets, or which would result in unnecessary suffering to combatants, are prohibited. In view of the unique characteristics of nuclear weapons, … the use of such weapons in fact seems scarcely reconcilable with respect for such requirements". Self-defence warrants "only measures which are proportional to the armed attack and necessary to respond to it".

In the event of a nuclear attack, there will be no effective medical response:

• Nuclear weapons cause intense firestorms, hurricane force winds and irradiation. Victims suffer burns, melting or vapourisation of body parts, multiple fractures and other blast injuries, blindness and radiation sickness. Any medical services that survived an attack would be overwhelmed by the scale of human suffering. Most of the injured survivors would not even receive pain relief, let alone treatment. Many of the survivors would subsequently develop cancers.
• The effects of radiation sickness include blood component changes, fatigue, diarrhoea, nausea and death. These effects will develop within hours, days or weeks, depending on the size of the dose. The larger the dose, the sooner a given effect will occur.
• If the damage to the DNA code occurs in a reproductive cell (egg or sperm) the coding error may be passed onto offspring, resulting potentially in birth defects and cancers in the children.
• Uranium miners are exposed to radioactive radon gas, and consistently suffer increased rates of lung cancer. Uranium mining is the most ecologically damaging phase of the production of nuclear power. Mine tailings (waste) contain 85% of the radioactivity of the original ore. One of the major isotopes in uranium mine tailings is thorium-230, whose half-life is 75,000 years. While tailings ponds can be lined to try to prevent leaching into the surrounding soil, time frames of this order make a mockery of assurances about long-term safety.

Nuclear disarmament is reasonable and achievable:

• Reductions of nuclear weapons to date prove that elimination of the remaining weapons is physically and practically achievable.
• Negotiations and treaties have dealt with other weapons systems, such as chemical and biological weapons.
• The failure to take full advantage of the immediate post-cold war opportunity for nuclear disarmament is seriously regrettable, but the window of opportunity to rid the world of nuclear weapons remains wide open in light of the complete lack of utility of nuclear weapons, prevailing public opinion against their use and threat, the simplicity of the solution of removal, and the great potential benefits.
• Removal of US tactical nuclear weapons from Europe would facilitate global nuclear disarmament. It is an element of the 13 steps towards complete nuclear disarmament identified in 2000 by the 187 countries party to the NPT. For the US, withdrawing its B-61 bombs from Europe is something it can offer to address its own poor disarmament record.