November's general meeting found a young, enthusiastic speaker, Danielle Endres, PhD, educating us about Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (UCAN). A relatively new non-profit organization, UCAN informs us that worldwide, there were in 2007, over 25,000 nuclear weapons, 15,000 of them built by the US. Except for 400 in Europe, the rest of them are scattered throughout our country. Most of the remaining 10,000 were built by the Soviet Union and remain in Russia. Others are in other members of the international nuclear club.

According to Endres, the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) follows Bush's November 2001 agreement with Putin in calling for a reduction in the United States' strategic nuclear arsenal from 7,000 to 1,700-2,200, operationally deployed weapons by 2012.

The NPR states that the US should rely less on nuclear weapons and depend more heavily on conventional weapons and missile defense to ensure national security. Most of the reduction, though, will merely be shifting warheads into storage where they could quickly be reactivated.

Endres continued by referring to rhetorician Kenneth Burke who argues that certain phrases color other ways of defining security, phrases like "reasonable preparedness," "multilateral solutions," "economic and social justice," and "elimination of our greatest threats."

In addition to using national security as justification for nuclear weapons, other common myths about nuclear weapons abound:

Nuclear weapons are too difficult and costly to dismantle, nuclear weapons production and development provides jobs in the US, and we need to compete in the nuclear sciences and to keep scientists employed.

Before addressing these myths Endres said we need to look at some history: Not until World War II were nuclear weapons used in the form of atomic bombs, the first and only time. The Cold War ushered in a nuclear arms race, based on the deterrence theory, which states that rational actors will use nuclear weapons for their deterrent value. The risk of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) prevented the use of nuclear weapons by the US and Soviet Union.

As many of us are aware, the majority of US nuclear testing was at the Nevada Test Site. 928 tests were conducted there between 1951 and 1992, when we entered a moratorium and President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Still, Endres told us, many issues exist, including development of new nuclear weapons like the bunker buster and the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), a controversial new American nuclear warhead design and bomb family intended to be simple and reliable to provide a long-lasting, low maintenance future nuclear force. RRW, however, presents risks of nuclear terrorism and possibility of nuclear accidents, like the one when US B-52 bomber, armed with several nuclear warheads, accidentally flew from North Dakota to Louisiana on August 30, 2007.

While the Nuclear Posture Review calls for continued adherence to a nuclear testing moratorium, it opposes US ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. By advocating acceleration in the nuclear test readiness posture, the Review brings out the possibility that we might resume nuclear tests.

Already, we are modernizing our nuclear arsenal on several fronts: The US Minuteman ICBMs have received upgraded targeting systems. Two US aircraft, the B2 and the B52H, can carry nuclear weapons. The Pentagon maintains a tactical nuclear arsenal. We have tactical weapons stored on a few attack submarines and 150 tactical nuclear bombs in Europe for NATO use. Fighter-bombers maintain a nuclear capability.

So why abolish nuclear weapons? Chief among the reasons are terrorism, accidents, and ongoing nuclear weapons development and use. Through these reasons, UCAN builds an argument for a moral imperative to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

1. According to Endres, there is a palpable risk that as long as we have nuclear weapons, there may be terrorist uses of them. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn wrote: "Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. In today's war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass devastation. And non-state terrorist groups with nuclear weapons are conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy and present difficult new security challenges."
2. Accidents: According to Department of Defense estimates, at least one serious nuclear weapon accident occurs every year. There are false alarms and technological errors. Case in point: In1980, a computer indicated a massive Soviet attack was on its way to the US, so we had 100 nuclear-armed planes readied for takeoff. The mistake was detected, but the same computer produced the same warning three days later. There have been at least eighteen US plane crashes involving nuclear weapons. Lost in the ocean are forty-three Soviet and seven US nuclear warheads. A US B52 bomber, armed with several nuclear warheads, accidentally flew from North Dakota to Louisiana on August 30, 2007.
3. Other problems: There may be problems with our aging stockpile as discussed in "Security Upgrades at Several Nuclear [Bomb] Sites Are Lagging," Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times, October 29, 2007, p. A-12.

There are ongoing costs to the nuclear age, but these have been largely out of sight for most Americans. There are immense environmental implications of nuclear weapons development. Nuclear weapons development has had a toll on human health. Congress passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990 to financially compensate people or the families of people who were exposed to fallout from atomic testing.

Some, like Enres' co-author Mary Dickson, argue that this compensation has not been enough. Richard Miller's creates a map of fallout from testing in his 1999 book, Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing. Using data from the federal government, he dotted the map every time fallout reached a location, showing the extent of nuclear testing's potential impact.

What can we do to help abolish nuclear weapons? Write letters to the editor, blogs, and articles. Join discussion groups. Read the literature.*

UCAN is not alone in their advocacy for the abolition of nuclear weapons, concluded Enres. Said former President Eisenhower's famous admonition about disarmament:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

------------

* Readings suggested by UCAN website:

A World Free of Nuclear Weapons by George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn.

Complex 2030 Fact Sheet (pdf) by the Friends Committee on National Legislation

New Nuclear Weapons -The Reliable Replacement Warhead by the Union of Concerned Scientists

Nevada Test Site: Desert Annex of the Nuclear Weapons Laboratories (pdf) by the Western States Legal Foundation

"Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing" by Richard L. Miller

"Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons" by Joseph Cirincione

Inside the nuclear underworld: Deformity and Fear. CNN - Asia, August 31, 2007

Rocky: U.S. nuke work afflicted 36,500 Americans, Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News, August 31, 2007

"The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger" by Jonathan Schell

Note from article author: One main concern from the HOU audience was how we would defend our country without nuclear weapons. UCAN's answer is to use conventional weapons of war, believed by some to be effective. Weapons not considered conventional are chemical and biological warfare and nuclear weapons.

--Sarah Smith