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Forging a New Start March 31st, 2010

After a year of negotiations, the U.S. and Russia recently announced they’ve completed a new agreement to reduce the excessive size of our nuclear arsenals in a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The new treaty will be signed April 8 in Prague and its objectives are fairly straightforward: it reduces deployed strategic weapons (i.e., missiles and bombs) from 2,200 to 1,550; it cuts delivery vehicles (bombers, silos, subs) to 800; and it continues the Reagan legacy of “trust but verify” with Moscow.

Strategic nuclear weapons? Missiles? Prague? These aren’t words with a whole lot of relevance in today’s activist crowd—they conjure up icons like Gorbachev, Dr. Strangelove, or maybe Matthew Broderick in War Games. Let’s face it: this is not cutting-edge stuff. Our parents might remember classroom “duck and cover” drills (historical note: plywood desks offer minimal protection against thousands of tons of TNT), the fear of total annihilation, and the threat that one incident or accident could usher in the destruction of every nation. But this was a conflict that had two superpowers pointing thousands of missiles at each other.

What’s really unfortunate is that we may actually have been safer then.

At the height of the Cold War, there were more than 70,000 nuclear weapons in existence, enough to destroy the world many times over. This number has been dramatically reduced by treaties just like the one we’re about to sign. But there are approximately 20,000 nuclear weapons still in existence, 95 percent of which are in the U.S. and Russia.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger observed of nuclear weapons that “our age has stolen fire from the gods; can we confine it to peaceful purposes before it consumes us?” In our post-Cold War, post-9/11 world, this “fire” is now harder to contain and capable of quickly spreading. For this reason, the United States and Russia are recognizing that reductions to our own arsenals are necessary if we want to have any moral authority in curbing breakout in countries like Iran.

Yet the quiet acknowledgment coming out of the negotiating rooms is that this treaty is really pretty modest. Because it wouldn’t take the thousands of remaining nuclear weapons to ruin the world for which we are called by God to care. Just one bomb would cause tens of thousands of deaths, massive environmental damage and financial suffering worldwide. (Check out the video on the front page of TwoFuturesProject.org for a visual of what this looks like.)

So the new START isn’t a silver bullet for our nuclear problem—but it’s not insignificant, either. The question now is whether or not the Senate will ratify it. There are some positive signs, like Richard Lugar—a Republican Senator and important voice on foreign policy—saying he looks forward to working “quickly to achieve ratification of the treaty.”

Unfortunately, Congress has recently proven itself to be not only inefficient, but also incapable at times of passing meaningful legislation due to a venomous political climate, and crippling partisan gridlock. Senate rules require 67 votes to ratify a treaty, so ratification of START must be bipartisan. The question is whether a handful of outspoken ideologues in the U.S. Senate can derail the treaty. Inaction would not only damage strategic relations between the United States and Russia, it would be a huge step in the wrong direction toward nuclear insecurity.

A lot of people in our generation are suspicious of anything political, and there aren’t many things more political than ratification of a nuclear treaty in the U.S. Senate. But nuclear weapons are not an issue we can afford to ignore. In fact, inaction is itself a choice; it’s like waking up to find out that your house is on fire, and deciding to go back to bed. We believe God calls us to use our “talents” in the service of His kingdom—and whether we like it or not, having a say in the American political process is one of the most significant gifts for which God will hold us responsible. So let’s make sure that in this, as in all things, we’ll act in a way that will be met with the judgment, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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This post was published on RELEVANT Magazine’s “Reject Apathy” blog in March of 2010.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy |

Reduce the Danger of Nuclear War and Help Feed Hungry Kids November 24th, 2009

Nowadays  everyone’s talking about nuclear disarmament.  The Queen of England, George Shultz, President Obama, Dwight from The Office (Don’t believe me?  Check Rainn’s Wilson’s twitter feed).

We at the Two Futures Project couldn’t be happier.  We believe that the sooner Americans wake up to the incredible dangers of nuclear weapons, the sooner moral people of all political persuasions will band together and get rid of these dangerous weapons once and for all.

The thing is, even though nuclear weapons are on the public’s mind more than ever, Congress hasn’t really caught up. Sure, they have plenty of other important issues to worry about, but we know that unless our elected leaders are on board, it’s going to be a lot harder reaching our end goal — a world free of nuclear weapons.

In recent years, though, there haven’t been a lot of vehicles for Congressional action. That changed last spring, when two Congressmen from opposite sides of the aisle — Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Dwight Lungren (R-CA) — got together and crafted a bill that not only paves the way toward necessary reductions in our nation’s nuclear arsenal, but also — wait for it — redirects a good chunk of that spending toward efforts to curb global hunger and help child survival.

The Global Security Priorities Resolution (H.Res. 278) is a bipartisan bill that calls for reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1500 warheads per side — with the resulting savings split between efforts to combat nuclear terrorism and programs that encourage global child survival.

What’s not to like?  We already know that the weapons that are being reduced are unnecessary, and the money saved — which adds up to 13 billion annually — will go straight toward efforts to promote nuclear security and make sure that more kids around the world grow up to see adulthood.

That’s why the bill has been endorsed by, among others:

- President Reagan’s top arms control official
- the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
- Lutheran World Relief
- World Vision

Aside from its obvious merits, Two Futures Project is supporting the bill because it’s a great way to help build bipartisan support for the arms reduction treaty currently being negotiated between the U.S. and Russia, which is a critical step toward a world without nuclear weapons.
To succeed, the Global Security Priorities Resolution needs 25 Members of Congress to sign on as co-sponsors. Earlier in November, each Member got a letter from the main sponsors, Reps. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Dan Lungren (R-CA), asking that they join them. But so far, only 15 out of 435 have signed on! It’s clear that we, the voters, are the only ones who can make sure that this gets the attention it deserves.

We know that everyone’s busy preparing for Thanksgiving. But if you’re able to take fifteen minutes or less (maybe while your pumpkin pie is cooking) you can make a critical difference in spreading the word to Congress.

Click here to send a quick email to your Congressperson urging them to cosponsor this critically important bill.

If you’d like to learn more about the Global Security Priorities Act by watching a quick homemade video, visit 2FP’s November Priorities Campaign.

In a recent Rolling Stone piece, Bono talked about “vision over visibility” — the urgent need “to look past what you can see in favor of what can be.”

Working toward a nuclear weapons free world will take vision.  But reminding Congress that the first step toward that vision needs to start now?  That only takes fifteen minutes.  And one click . . . right here.

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This post was published on Sojourners God’s Politics Blog in November of 2009.

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Posted in Take Action |

Obama, the UN, and the Bomb: Six Takeaway Points September 25th, 2009

In the nuclear security business, it’s a good day when nothing goes wrong. It’s a great day when something goes right. The latter can be few and far between, but this week we saw two great days back-to-back during President Obama’s time at the UN.

On Wednesday, Obama used his time in front of the General Assembly to name “four pillars that are fundamental to the future that we want for our children.” Non-proliferation and disarmament were the first pillar, and Obama was clear to point out that the U.S. was embracing its responsibility to “keep our end of the bargain” on nuclear security. In other words, the days of “do as we say, not as we do” are over.

On Thursday, Obama became the first U.S. President ever to chair a summit-level meeting of the Security Council — meaning that the members were represented by their heads of state. That meeting generated unanimous approval for Resolution 1887, which would provide a framework for cracking down on countries — such as Iran — whose nuclear programs threaten international stability. We’ll see the results of this strategy almost immediately, as a statement about a recently-uncovered covert Iranian nuclear facility is expected later today.

Here’s the takeaway from New York:

1) Security isn’t just the responsibility of world leaders. There are only a couple dozen people on the planet who can have a direct impact on nuclear policy. But, as President Obama stated, “real change can only come through the people” that world leaders represent. With partisan domestic issues tearing the American public apart at home, achieving nuclear security is something we all can and should agree on. That’s why (prepare for blatant self-promoting plug) I’m delighted that the Two Futures Project – a movement to raise up an authentically Christian witness on nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War, post-9/11 era — has just launched a twelve-city speaking tour to inform the faithful nationwide about the challenges and opportunities we face.

2) The security benefits of nonproliferation require movement on disarmament. In the post-Cold War era this is critical, because the treaty obligations that prevent non-nuclear nations from building new nuclear weapons (nonproliferation) are paired with the nuclear powers’ good faith commitment to pursue the reduction and elimination of their own arsenals (disarmament). For this reason, a two-tiered status quo of nuclear haves and have-nots cannot be sustained over the long term. If we want to prevent future nuclear breakout, the nuclear powers have got to be serious about leading by example. As Sam Nunn says, we’re toeing the line between “cooperation and catastrophe.”

3) U.S. leadership is necessary but not sufficient to achieve nuclear security. President Obama offered what one news outlet called “put up or shut up” remarks to the General Assembly, saying, “those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone.” As the world’s only superpower, the U.S. is the only country that can plausibly blaze the trail to a nuclear weapons-free world. But we can’t go it alone — leadership means that others are following along. In the wake of the failed neoconservative experiment in global domination, we’re now seeing what it looks like to be a responsible superpower: embracing our power and wealth and not apologizing for our national interests, while also recognizing, as Obama said, that “in an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero sum game.” The gains achieved at the UN — including a verbal agreement from Russia to take a harder line on Iranian flaunting of international law — are critical to addressing the most immediate crises of nuclear breakout.

4) Progress requires a bold long-term vision and concrete short-term steps. This link between the vision of a nuclear weapons-free world and threat-reduction measures was articulated by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn in their landmark Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. President Obama’s time at the UN proved what they posited: that the vision gives urgency and cohesion to the steps, and the steps give reality and teeth to the vision. This fact was demonstrated by the unanimous vote in the Security Council to crack down on potential nuclear breakout, and to make a priority of securing nuclear material from the hands of terrorists. And Secretary Clinton’s address to a conference on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was a demonstration of the administration’s commitment to “ban the bang” once and for all.

5) A world free of nuclear weapons is a safer world. Opponents of the Obama/Reagan vision of a nuclear-free world decry it as risky, without ever acknowledging the risks of the status quo. The fact is that it is more dangerous to maintain Cold War nuclear postures than it is to pursue responsible, verifiable, multilateral disarmament. In particular, opponents have raised the specter of extended deterrence — America’s commitment to defend allies from nuclear attack — by saying that if we continue our bilateral arms reductions with the Russians, our allies will be forced to build their own nuclear arsenals. The redness of this particular herring was shown up by our national allies’ unanimous and strong support for Obama’s proposals — especially the remarks of the new Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama.

6) Dealing with nuclear weapons is the key to addressing other global issues. Oftentimes nuclear weapons seem like an anachronistic problem, a relic of the Cold War, compared with the crises of pandemic disease and climate change that threaten the twenty-first century. But all of these problems are of a piece: the bomb was the first technological development — but far from the last — that gave globe-spanning potential to the homicidal impulses of the human heart. President Obama identified four pillars of security; nuclear weapons were rightfully first, but they are not alone. If we can’t deal with nuclear weapons — a relatively simple technology with a notoriously fragile supply chain — then we won’t be able to deal with the far more complex issues arising now. By contrast, if we can successfully tackle nuclear weapons, the cooperative mechanisms and trust-building necessary for disarmament may well be the key to advancement on a host of other problems.

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This op-ed was published in Sojourners God’s Politics in September of 2009.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy |

Daring to Disarm: McNamara and the Moscow Summit July 7th, 2009

At around 9:30 a.m. on Monday, two headlines were dueling for the coveted center space of the New York Times Web site.  The first referred to the groundbreaking Moscow Summit between President Obama and Russian President Medvedev.  The second announced the passing of former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara.

I think he would have wanted it that way.

While McNamara will be forever associated with his actions during the Vietnam War, I had the distinct pleasure of encountering him while he was devoting his life to a very different cause.  A few years ago, I sat across from a 90-year-old McNamara as he pounded the table with his fist, quivering with rage about the fact the U.S. political establishment did not share his urgent conviction that for humanity to survive, nuclear weapons must be eliminated.

As the eye-opening documentary The Fog of War demonstrates, McNamara was a truly rare breed of statesman—someone who dedicated his latter years to the serious, public reflection of the choices he made earlier in his life.  As a result, his twilight years were marked by outspoken attention to issues such as nuclear disarmament.

And so it seems fitting that July 6, 2009, is not only the date of McNamara’s death, but also the beginning of a renewed commitment between Russia and the United States on nuclear weapons reductions.  Just a few hours after the announcement of McNamara’s passing, Presidents Obama and Medvedev announced a formal agreement to reduce their strategic nuclear warheads in preparation for a new arms control treaty.

Good news?  Definitely.  The mere fact that the Moscow Summit took place at all is extremely gratifying–it’s the first summit meeting between the U.S. and Russia in decades, and testifies to Obama’s desire to “press the reset button” in U.S.-Russian relations.

But as encouraging as this agreement is, it’s not yet going far enough.  The reductions are relatively modest, and the announcement lacks an articulation of the real danger we face from continuing to rely on nuclear weapons as a means of security.  The world deserves more from the U.S. and Russia, which currently hold 95 percent of the world’s arsenal of nuclear weapons.

That’s where you come in.  There are two important things that you can do right now to help push our leaders toward the moral imperative of nuclear disarmament.

First, pray for Presidents Obama and Medvedev. An urgent conviction from these two men, matched with concrete actions, can turn the tide toward nuclear disarmament.  Remember that at the 1986 Reykjavik summit Gorbachev and Reagan came within a few breaths of an agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons.  Presidents Obama and Medvedev are perfectly placed to break through partisan confines and issue a broad appeal to prioritize nuclear disarmament.  Ask God to stir their hearts, and pray that the critical first step of the nuclear arms reductions through today’s Moscow Summit will bloom into an appropriately urgent commitment to nuclear disarmament led by the U.S. and Russia.

Second, let your elected leaders know that you are tracking these matters carefully. Members of Congress have told us that they only hear from a small handful of constituents on issues related to nuclear weapons and disarmament.  That needs to change.  Let your Representative know that you want to see greater urgency for nuclear disarmament—and that the first way they can signal their support is by signing on as a Cosponsor to the Global Security Priorities Resolution (H. Res. 278), which will make significant cuts of nuclear stockpiles and direct much-needed funds toward child survival. You can send a message to your Representative here.

Several years ago, at the Louisville Festival of Faiths, Robert McNamara gave a fiery appeal to religious people for the elimination of nuclear weapons, saying, “I can’t think of anything more demanding of Christians than to rid the human race of this risk.”

At the Two Futures Project, a new movement of Christians committed to abolishing nuclear weapons, we share that conviction, as well as McNamara’s feeling that without fervent action, the combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons could lead to the destruction of nations.  Please join us in choosing an alternative future—one in which the shadow of nuclear weapons lifts from our world once and for all.

[This op-ed was published in Sojourners "God's Politics" blog in July of 2009.]

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Posted in Nuclear Policy |

Two Myths About North Korea, Iran, and Disarmament June 17th, 2009

Anyone watching the news over the past couple of months will have noticed a flurry of action from two of the nations in former President Bush’s infamous “Axis of Evil.” North Korea tested a long-range missile on April 5 and a nuclear weapon on May 25, both with mixed results. At least one, and perhaps two of the missile’s three stages failed. And the yield of the warhead appears to have been only a few kilotons.  Meanwhile, Iran erupted in turmoil after accusations of election fraud in favor of its hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a situation that is still unfolding.

This news, most of which is disturbing and destabilizing, has many questioning what is going on, what to do about it, and what it should mean to those who are working for a world free of nuclear weapons. Two myths, in particular, deserve debunking.

Myth #1: There is a military-based solution to the problem

Taken together, North Korea and Iran demonstrate the fatal limitations of counter-proliferation: a strategy that accepts a two-tier system of nuclear haves and have-nots and seeks to prevent nuclear proliferation when it threatens to break out. That is, these two nations prove that we cannot simply bomb our way out of nuclear breakout.

Some, like columnist Bill Kristol, have urged air strikes against North Korea. This advice is spectacularly myopic and insanely dangerous. North Korea has a standing army of 1.2 million, making it the fifth-largest military in the world (in terms of personnel) and the largest per capita (one in five of adult men is in uniform). This force is mere hours from South Korea, where more than 25,000 U.S. troops are stationed. Moreover, it is estimated that North Korean artillery positions could drop half a million shells in the first hour of hostilities on the Southern capital of Seoul, home to more than 20 million people.

Iran also presents itself as a challenging dilemma. A nuclear Iran is unacceptable, given the existential threat it would pose to Israel, and the possibility of its igniting an arms race in the Middle East. But the consequences of unilateral, preemptive air strikes against Iran’s known nuclear facilities—leaving aside the illegality of such action under international law—would be catastrophic.

First, it would be impossible to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability entirely, meaning that in the wake of such action we would face an enemy still capable of acquiring a nuclear weapon, and with bolstered resolve to do so.

Second, an attack on Iran, given the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, would prompt a global backlash of violent opposition from the Muslim world, resulting in a net decrease of global and U.S. national security.

Third, such aggressive action by the West is the only force capable of radicalizing Iran’s progressive, pro-Western youth, who make up the majority of the population (60 percent of Iranians are under the age of 30)—a fact demonstrated by the way in which President Ahmadinejad has used inflammatory rhetoric to bait the West and create the perception of an external enemy, in order to bolster domestic support.

In sum, solving these crises requires a commitment to engaging intractable problems with creativity and constant attention—while resisting the tempting, but ultimately catastrophic, urge to seek a military solution.

Myth #2: North Korea and Iran prove the impossibility of nuclear disarmament

The prospect of complete nuclear disarmament, dismissed as utopian even a few years ago, has emerged as a serious and credible policy goal, with champions like former Cold Warriors such as George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and Henry Kissinger. In a speech on Palm Sunday in Prague, President Obama called “for the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” and this goal is having a demonstrable effect on American nuclear policy.

Critics of this promising development point to Iran and North Korea as examples of why they believe a world free of nuclear weapons to be impossible.  Such criticism is profoundly misguided, for two reasons.

First, even supporters of disarmament recognize that the goal will be long and hard-fought. No long-term goal can be evaluated in terms of viability by immediate-term results. Every ambitious aim in human history has appeared, in its infancy, to be impossible. With audacious goals, the difference between impossibility and inevitability has always been perseverance.

Second, to cite North Korea and Iran as examples of the impossibility of disarmament is to ignore the way in which these two crises are products of their environment. In our present context, nuclear weapons are the exclusive possession of global powers—so we can hardly be surprised that other nations will want them.

When we assume that nuclear weapons are going to be around forever, it is inevitable that lesser powers will seek them to bolster their status and influence. Then, when nuclear powers respond disapprovingly, it sounds like preaching temperance from the atomic barstool.

But nuclear weapons are not particularly useful militarily; if they were, they would have been used in the more than half-century since WWII. Rather, they are status symbols—and yet other weapons of mass destruction, like bio or chemical weapons, are not. No nation seeks to achieve global legitimacy by acquiring, for example, the bubonic plague.

The status conferred by nuclear weapons, however, is a mutable condition, dependent upon common agreement—in other words, it doesn’t have to be this way. This is why recent statements affirming a world free of nuclear weapons, by Presidents Obama and Medvedev (who lead countries that together possess 95 percent of all nuclear weapons on the planet) are so important.

As we move closer and closer to international agreement that weapons of mass destruction have no place in the family of nations, and represent a threat to all of us, then breakout nations like Iran and North Korea cease to be countries striving for legitimacy—they instead become threats to global peace and stability.

This context matters, as demonstrated by the increasingly desperate rhetoric coming from Iran in response to the recently renewed American commitment to multilateral disarmament.

Conclusion

The takeaway is this: If we continue on a course where nuclear weapons are the unique possession of elite nations, then intractable breakout crises like Iran and North Korea are inevitable. A commitment to global disarmament will not solve our current crises; they cannot be wished away, and must be dealt with prudentially, using ongoing, creative, and open-ended methods.  But the pursuit of a world free of nuclear weapons will greatly enhance our credibility in dealing with such crises in the immediate term, while simultaneously helping to create a global climate that is far less conducive to nuclear breakout.

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This op-ed was published on Sojourners God’s Politics blog in June of 2009.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy |