Herewith an eloquent speech at Princeton University on November 28 by outgoing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan:
Let me begin by saying how delighted I am to have been invited to give this address by a School named after Woodrow Wilson, the great pioneer of multilateralism and advocate of world peace, who argued, among other things, for agreed international limits on deadly weapons.
Princeton is indissolubly linked with the memory of Albert Einstein and many other great scientists who played a role in making this country the first nuclear power. That makes it an especially appropriate setting for my address this evening, because my main theme is the danger of nuclear weapons, and the urgent need to confront that danger by preventing proliferation and promoting disarmament, both at once. I shall argue that these two objectives -- disarmament and non-proliferation -- are inextricably linked, and that to achieve progress on either front we must also advance on the other.
Almost everyone in today's world feels insecure, but not everyone feels insecure about the same thing. Different threats seem more urgent to people in different parts of the world.
Probably the largest number would give priority to economic and social threats, including poverty, environmental degradation and infectious disease.
Others might stress inter-State conflict; yet others internal conflict, including civil war. Many people –- especially but not only in the developed world -- would now put terrorism at the top of their list.
In truth, all these threats are interconnected, and all cut across national frontiers. We need common global strategies to deal with all of them -- and indeed, Governments are coming together to work out and implement such strategies, in the UN and elsewhere. The one area where there is a total lack of any common strategy is the one that may well present the greatest danger of all: the area of nuclear weapons.
Why do I consider it the greatest danger? For three reasons:
First, nuclear weapons present a unique existential threat to all humanity.
Secondly, the nuclear non-proliferation regime now faces a major crisis of confidence. North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while India, Israel, and Pakistan have never joined it. There are, at least, serious questions about the nature of Iran's nuclear programme. And this, in turn, raises questions about the legitimacy, and credibility, of the case-by-case approach to non-proliferation that the existing nuclear powers have adopted.
Thirdly, the rise of terrorism, with the danger that nuclear weapons might be acquired by terrorists, greatly increases the danger that they will be used.
Yet, despite the grave, all-encompassing nature of this threat, the Governments of the world are addressing it selectively, not comprehensively.
In one way, that's understandable. The very idea of global self-annihilation is unbearable to think about. But, that is no excuse. We must try to imagine the human and environmental consequences of a nuclear bomb exploding in one, or even in several, major world cities -- or indeed of an all-out confrontation between two nuclear-armed States.
In focusing on nuclear weapons, I am not seeking to minimize the problem of chemical and biological ones, which are also weapons of mass destruction, and are banned under international treaties. Indeed, perhaps the most important, under-addressed threat relating to terrorism -- one which acutely requires new thinking -- is the threat of terrorists using a biological weapon.
But, nuclear weapons are the most dangerous. Even a single bomb can destroy an entire city, as we know from the terrible example of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and today, there are bombs many times as powerful as those. These weapons pose a unique threat to humanity as a whole.
Forty years ago, understanding that this danger must be avoided at all costs, nearly all States in the world came together and forged a grand bargain, embodied in the NPT.
Russ Wellen is the nuclear deproliferation editor for OpEdNews. He's also on the staffs of Freezerbox and Scholars & Rogues.
"It's hard to tell people not to smoke when you have a cigarette dangling from your mouth." -- Mohamed El Baradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
Thanks for posting the speech - Kofi truly is a human asset.
Question: Is there a legitimate scenario where nuclear weapons could be used against nuclear ambitions. If, for example, a UN multilateral body were given its own nuclear arsenal and both mandate and responsibility to eliminate all other arsenals and means of production - could that succeed?
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cam (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 54 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 12:48:50 PM
I've never heard anything like that before, Cam. But I guess sometimes you have to beat the devil at his own game.
After World War II, though, a similar scenario presented itself. The idea was tossed around that the US and Russia would share joint ownership of nuclear weapons. It seems hard to believe in the context of today's polarized world. The Americans shot it down 'cause they were winning the nuclear arms race.
I came across that in possibly the best nonfiction book of the year, read "House of War" by The Boston Globe columnist James Carroll. It's a history of America's militarization, focusing on the nuclear, since World War II. Almost every page is a revelation.
The biggest revelatio is that both the Red Menace ad the nuclear arms race were sparked and fueled by the US.
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Russ Wellen (58 articles, 1029 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 335 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 1:59:43 PM
The idea of some body to be able to use nuclear weapons to stiffle the proliferation of ones is utopian, sorry. People are people and it is impossible for them to give such power to some specific body. It is like unleashing a rampant force. No way.
There were cases ( at least I know two of those) when on the Eastern side there were projects of unleashing Nuclear war: once it was Mao's initiaitive to Khrushev and once ( as it is told now) Academician Sakharov actually proposed to bomb the Atlantic USA with hydrogen bombs ( this information, though, is coming from not very reliable sources). In both cases the ideas were shot down by the people in charge just for their ' craziness'. I am coming to the conclusion that the nuclear problem is first and foremost a challenge to the people's psychy, an evolutionary trap. If we get through it- we go further, if not- we are doomed.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3358 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 2:13:42 PM
If we are to be at the mercy of nuclear weapons then shouldn't we try elect a collective and repponsible finger on the trigger. If am act of nuclear aggression is almost inevitable, then should't we make it a rational act that will halt further escalation.
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cam (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 54 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 2:53:10 PM
Most of the U.N is made up of clowns who hate the U.S. Do you really want that group of people in charge of a cache of nukes that could be used against us? If so, you are strange thinker to say the least.
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larry booth (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 267 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 10:28:52 PM
The UN doesn't hate the US. It's merely a collective, without the capacity to hate anyone.
Anyway, the UN nuclear arsenal would be no threat to a non-nuclear US. The US would have to be party to any nuclear strike against any state, which could only be countenanced if that state was either in possesion ot actively developing nukes.
It would be rather like living in Japan, or any other country currently at someone's nuclear mercy - except all we would have to do to avoid nuclear anhilation is not make our own bombs.
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cam (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 54 comments)
on Friday, December 8, 2006 at 7:55:09 AM
Yes, the U.N.is a collective.....of people. They have plenty of capacity to hate the U.S. At any rate, I don't think we will be turning over control of our nukes anytime soon. Dreams are one thing, but as they say, reality bites. And I for one am glad!
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larry booth (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 267 comments)
on Friday, December 8, 2006 at 1:16:20 PM
Quoting from an earlier article Has Jesus Come and Gone?, in which I quoted an interview with David Brower:
Mariah: What is your greatest source of dismay at what we are doing to this planet?
Brower: Proliferating nuclear technology in the attempt to harness the atom for peace. As Indira Gandhi proved, atoms for peace are very easily changed to atoms for war. I refer here to the fact that Canada and the United States provided the nuclear technology that enabled India to fashion and detonate its first atomic bomb. What India did, any country with any reasonably intelligent people can do, without any help other than what is in the public domain, in the libraries.
The burden of my argument is that the atom in the fist and the atom in the glove are the same atom; the only thing that makes them different is whatever human determination there is to maintain a barrier between the two. To keep that barrier intact requires an infallibility that does not exist. It requires a stability of government that has never existed. The way to avoid proliferation is to stop it where it starts, and that is with the peaceful atom. Once we do this [the United States], other countries will see that we are serious, that we are not just trying to stop their export of reactors so that we can get the business. We want to stop the whole thing, so that nobody gets the terminal business the atom promises.
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Daniel Geery (26 articles, 58 quicklinks, 121 diaries, 677 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 2:43:55 PM
progress of technology cannot be stopped. What can be acknowledged is that progress of technology now puts problems which can only be decided and solved if ALL the Humanity is involved. Now we have to say that only about 1/3 of the Humanity is somehow involved in the political decisions: 4/3 are struggling for survival. That is a primary problem, the problem of all problems. As such nuclear isssue points a finger at us and asks us all to become different. That is why I call it an evolutionary trap or a bottleneck.
As for whether the situation now is different from the situation with the designated force, I can only say that yes, it is different. Unilateral usage of the nuclear power by anyone now is deterred only by one force- a proper understanding that it will unite the whole Humanity against a perpetrator. And it will. In sorts of way Humanity is waiting for such challenge. But nobody wants to be fully exterminated. Our rulers now are mad but they are rational enough to understand that if they use the nuclear force, against, say, Iran, on the next day all US citizens in the foreign countries will be at mortal danger and it will be only the beginning.
That's the difference. No one, knowing this mechanism will create a mutually acceptable way of using the nuclear force with impunity. Usage of it will be always connected to the threat of total annihilation.
Someone might say that such deterrent as now could not deter, say, terrorists. That is true. But protection of the materials, covert activity and proper vigilance are at our disposal. We just need good people. That is the issue- people.
Nuclear power is a great discovery. It has to power the spaaceships. It has to serve people. But such servant can serve only Humanity. It cannot serve separate nations.
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Mark Sashine (46 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3358 comments)
on Thursday, December 7, 2006 at 5:40:40 PM
