Addition in light of comment below: there are many reasons for war - religious/ethnic differences play a part - see Martin Whitesides' piece in The Citizen today linked above - many other factors are also important - the arms trade, demand for resources like oil and water - and climate change - the situation in Darfur for example has been fueled by increasing drought cycles - the Sahara's southward expansion creating conflicts between nomadic and sedentary groups over shortages of water and land - there are other factors also at play but we'll save that for another Blog.
It is just not true to suggest nuclear weapons have helped with peace over the last 50 years - their production and environmental impacts of the nuclear industry itself are huge. There is also much evidence now about how close the US came to using nuclear weapons - can we really trust the likes of Reagan, Bush and others to come? And a world in which conflicts like the Congo (3 million dead), Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc rage cannot be a world of peace - many of these wars have been fuelled directly or indirectly by British and/or US policies - furthermore a world in which poverty is growing is not a world of peace :
- One third of deaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day - are due to poverty-related causes. That's 270 million people since 1990, the majority women and children, roughly equal to the population of the US.
- Every year nearly 11 million children die before their fifth birthday.
- 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day
- 800 million people go to bed hungry every day.
History has also shown that any weapon allowed to be kept in existence will be eventually be deployed, and whatever weapon is deployed will be used. Even now, over a decade after the end of the Cold War, the Bush Administration has officially issued a new nuclear doctrine that envisions the use of new nuclear weapons, such as the mini-nuke and the bunker-buster, in a wide variety of circumstances against at least seven countries. Moreover, the world can’t forever endure a permanent double standard, where it’s legitimate for certain countries to possess nuclear weapons forever, but illegitimate for others ever to obtain them. Such a double standard is seen as hypocritical by the non-nuclear countries, and isn’t ethically or politically viable.
So long as tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and tons of nuclear weapon grade materials, continue to exist, it is inevitable that nuclear weapons will be eventually be used—by terrorists who obtain them, by accident, or by states who feel their ultimate national interests are threatened. Global nuclear weapons abolition under strict and effective international control is the only way to prevent their future use.
See comments from Stroud's Mayor Kevin Cranston - a retired Lieutenant Colonel and Army helicopter pilot - made after a meeting with the Mayor of Hiroshima.
An excellent report on global security and sustainable responses can be found by clicking here.
2 comments:
Although there is always a localised conflict going on somewhere (you can blame that pretty much 100% on religious and/or ethnic differences) we have not had a global conflict since 1945. Why ? Simple. Nuclear weapons STOP global war. Look how close the world came over the Bay of Pigs but even Kruschev wasn't mental enough to press the button, even an idiot like Reagan understood mutually assured destruction. If those two old fools can see the benefit of retaining a nuclear deterrent (even of limited size) then why can't you and the dreamers at the CND ?
Supporters of nuclear deterrence (should they be termed nuclear de-terrorists?) claim that nuclear weapons prevented the Cold War breaking out into actual hostilities. While it is obvious that the presence of nuclear weapons (NW) raises the threshold for countries going to war, it is not the case that possession of nuclear weapons for deterrence absolutely prevents their actual use as war-fighting weapons. If it did, the nuclear deterrorist lobby would be arguing that if every country in the world had a nuclear deterrent, (something that could easily be arranged) the result would be universal and perpetual world peace.
The assumption is therefore that some countries (notably the US, UK, Russia, China, France and…er… Israel) are responsible enough to have these weapons of mass destruction and use them to keep the peace, but others (notably Iran and North Korea) are not so responsible and cannot be trusted with them. The criteria for being “responsible” are not clear, especially in the case of states that are blatantly abusive of human rights such as the US, UK, China, Russia, Israel, and indeed, France, when we remember the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior.
It is not the case that deterrence with these weapons of mass destruction is infallible, even for a hypothetically “responsible” state.
Take a scenario where there is bitter tension between two nuclear weapons states. At a time that the war cabinets are meeting on both sides, there is an ambiguity on an early warning screen caused by a computer fault or an unusual electrochemical event affecting an early warning sensor; the appearance is then interpreted as an incoming attack - and the president gives the order to respond with his nuclear weapons. >From this point, we have to assume that there would be an escalation into all-out nuclear war.
The consequences of this are well studied. A nuclear winter caused by hemispheric dust clouds would follow for a couple of years - and after the clouds disperse, we would have enhanced global warming through the burned forests and towns. We would lose everything. Homo “sapiens” might survive, but as a guilty, primitive entity.
The argument can be put as a logical syllogism:
1 If the consequences of the failure of a system are infinite, then it is rational to use that system if and only if the chances of its failure are zero.
2 The consequences of failure of the system of nuclear deterrence for our world civilisation and for Gaia are infinite. Life, including human life, would probably survive, but our civilisation, with its abilities and its values, would not.
3 The chances of failure of nuclear deterrence system are greater than zero.
4 Therefore the nuclear deterrence system must be abandoned.
www.greenhealth.org.uk
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