On Feb. 4, Geoff Bennett reported on the PBS News Hour, “For the first time in more than a half-century, there are no limits on the world’s two largest atomic arsenals. The sole remaining nuclear arms treaty in the world, known as New START, is expiring, and arms control advocates fear a new arms race.” Note, the treaty expired that same day.
This report reminded me of the vote taken at the New Ipswich town meeting in 1983. Several of us had gotten together to submit a warrant article to declare the town a nuclear weapons-free zone. Spontaneously, at the town meeting, a veteran stood and spoke emotionally about his harrowing experience of being assigned to a bunker to watch a nuclear bomb test up close. It had been a traumatic frightening experience for him and an unforgettable testimony for those present at the meeting.
A majority of the citizens voted “yes” for a nuclear-free zone. We knew the vote was symbolic, but it expressed the conviction that there is no place for nuclear weapons in the United States or in the world.
Over 40 years later, the United States is still in possession of 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles and 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, limited by the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. On Jan. 28, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock forward to 85 seconds until midnight. In a 24-hour day, that is the relative time left before a nuclear war may break out.
Yet we hear nuclear weapons and national security expert Frank Miller say, “What bothers me is that the United States doesn’t have a deterrent force adequate to deter China and Russia simultaneously.” The U.S. is changing nearly every aspect of its nuclear forces throughout the next decade and will need at least $540 billion in acquisition costs.
What are leaders of nations thinking when they insist upon holding each other hostage with these weapons of mass destruction? How many nuclear weapons does it take to threaten Russia and China at the same time? The destructive blast effect of one typical nuclear weapon extends miles from its detonation point, and communities hundreds of miles downwind of a single explosion may be blanketed with lethal fallout. “Government estimates suggest that over half of the United States’ population could be killed by the prompt effects of an all-out nuclear war,” according to the MIT Press Reader.
Given this kind of destructive force, any use of nuclear weapons would result in suicide. There would be an immediate retaliation to a nuclear attack resulting in massive destruction and millions killed on both sides.
Yet, leaders insist upon the necessity to maintain deployed nuclear weapons. For example, on a PBS News Hour debate, news correspondent Nick Schifrin asks, “What’s wrong with taking more warheads out of storage?” Rose Gottemoeller, who was chief U.S. negotiator for the New Arms Reduction Treaty during the Obama administration, answers, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. And, in fact, we are planning and preparing to do so.”
Really? Nothing wrong! Collateral deaths of noncombatant civilians in a nuclear war are exponentially greater than in a conventional war. Yet, even in present-day conflicts, there is a deep aversion toward civilian deaths. Also, collateral deaths of civilians are against international law and responsible ethics. It is impossible to avoid civilian deaths in a nuclear war — even with the use of only one nuclear weapon. As those words from the Bob Dylan folksong say, “How many times must the cannonballs fly before they are forever banned? The answer is blowing in the wind!”
The answer is for the U.S. to give up all of its nuclear armaments, both deployed and in storage or in development. The result would be a country whose ethics reject, even at its own peril, any intent to rely upon the possession of nuclear weapons for use in war or to deter a nuclear attack from others. By all measures, offensive or defensive, the use of nuclear weapons is irresponsible, immoral, and just wrong.
As one of the most powerful nations in the world, America’s elimination of its nuclear arsenal would serve as a model for the aspirations of non-nuclear nations and as an incentive for others to give up their stockpiles. Of course, there will always be a risk for a country without nuclear weapons. However, I suggest there is an even a greater risk, both physically and ethically, in a world that houses nuclear weapons.
As the citizens of New Ipswich and many other towns implied in their vote in 1983, there is no place for nuclear weapons in the U.S. or in the world. Now that the New Start Arms Reduction Treaty has expired, let a possible new arms race treaty be a race to a nuclear weapons free world.
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.