Between Killing with Nukes and the Possibility of a Nonkilling Global Society

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 12 Aug 2024

Roland Joseph, Ph.D. | Center for Global Nonkilling, India – TRANSCEND Media Service

9 Aug 2024 – As nonkilling peace activists, it is important to take the time to reflect on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed more than 200,000 human beings. Honoring the victims is a good thing for the movement to eliminate the risk of killing with those weapons. In Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945, the uranium bomb killed more than 140,000 human beings within months. Three days later, in Nagasaki, on August 9, the plutonium bomb killed more than 74,000 human beings by the end of 1945.

79 years after the bombing of these two Japanese cities, the risk of killing directly and indirectly with nukes remains tangible. When I say directly, I mean at any time, nuclear weapons can be used by accident, miscalculation, and by the willingness of nuclear states.

Nuclear accidents have already happened so many times in the nuclear weapon system. Experts use the military term “Broken Arrow” to refer to nuclear weapon accidents. According to Atomic Archive, “a Broken Arrow is an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that results in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft, or loss of the weapon” (Atomic Archive, n.d). I read on the website of Atomic Archive, “Since 1950, there have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents”  (Atomic Archive, n.d).

At any time, nukes can be used by miscalculation to destroy all of us. What does a nuclear miscalculation mean? This phrase “refers to the risk that a state will mistakenly understand the intentions of another state and respond by launching a nuclear strike” (The William J. Perry Project, n.d.). One of the most important examples of nuclear miscalculation was in September 1983, when Stanislav Petrov, a Russian officer, did not inform his supervisor after noticing an alarm indicating that the United States would launch five intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons on Russia. And yet, it was a false alarm. Thanks to the nonkilling capability of Petrov, the world did not enter a nuclear war. This example illustrates perfectly when Paige said, “Every political scientist and each person can be a center for global nonkilling to facilitate the transition to a nonkilling world” (Paige, 2002, p. 126).

When I say indirect killing, I am thinking about the billions of dollars used to develop and modernize nuclear arsenals while a huge percentage of human beings across the planet cannot access basic needs such as food, healthcare, housing, etc. In 2023, all nine nuclear states, which include China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the UK, and the US, spent together $91.4 billion on their nukes (ICAN, 2023). $91.4 billion dollars in only one year to develop and modernize a weapon that has never been used since August 1945. Imagine how this fund would help address structural violence, like poverty, across the planet. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, cited by Paige in his seminal book Nonkilling Political Science, said:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children…. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron (Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953, Paige, 2002, p.106).

The funds used by all nine nuclear countries to develop their arsenals are a waste, and the nonkilling paradigm has an important role to play in transforming this reality. As Paige put it, nonkilling political science opposes the perpetuation of economic deprivation brought on by global militarization and advocates proactive involvement in freeing humanity from the “Iron Cross” to end “the ‘holocaust’ of poverty (Paige, 2002, p. 106).

I think nonkilling scholars and activists should actively engage in the movement to eliminate the risk of killing with nukes, or the use of nuclear warheads will kill all of us. That is, we will not be able to think about the possibility of achieving a nonkilling global society because we will be part of the victims.

A simulation by researchers at Princeton Science and Global Security programme cited by The International Campaign to Abolish nuclear weapons (ICAN) shows that in a nuclear war involving the US and Russia using one low-yield nuclear weapon, 34.1 million people could be killed, and another 57.4 million could be injured within the first few hours (ICAN, 2019, para 1). A nuclear war between India and Pakistan could, in less than a week, kill between 50 million and 125 million people (Strain, 2019).

Even though the risk of killing with nukes is tangible and real, we are not hopeless about the possibility of achieving a world free of nuclear arsenals thanks to some nonkilling efforts. Some of the nonkilling efforts are the treaties and agreements signed by nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states to reduce or abolish nukes. One of the most important nuclear weapon treaties is the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The notion of Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones is also important when analyzing nonkilling steps toward the abolition of nuclear arsenals. There are six regions on the planet that prohibit the stationing, testing, use, and development of nuclear weapons in their territories. Established by treaty, those Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones include Antarctica, Latin America, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central Asia (Department of Defense, 2020).

Based on those nonkilling peace efforts, I am convinced that a world free of nukes is possible. Today, all nuclear states have about 12,000 nuclear warheads. It has not always been like that. In the 1960s, it was about 70, 000. The number has diminished while the risk of a nuclear war continues to rise. To totally eliminate the risks, we need to eliminate the weapon. To eliminate the weapons, we need to get involved with all people in the movement, including activists and researchers from the Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK). Daisaku Ikeda, a Buddhist Philosopher, said: “If nuclear weapons epitomize the forces that would divide and destroy the world, they can only be overcome by the solidarity of ordinary citizens, which transforms hope into the energy to create a new era” (Ikeda, 2009, para 1). I would like to conclude with some questions asked by Daisaku Ikeda to the leaders of all states possessing nukes: Are nuclear weapons really necessary? Why do we need to keep them? What justifies our own stockpiles of nuclear weapons when we make an issue out of other states’ possession of them? Does humanity really have no choice but to live under the threat of nuclear weapons? (Ikeda, 2009).

References:

Atomic Archive. (n.d.). Broken Arrows: Nuclear weapons accidents. Retrieved from https://www.atomicarchive.com/almanac/broken-arrows/index.html

Eisenhower, D. D. (1953, April 16). Speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Full-page excerpt in The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 1985, p. 29.

Ikeda, D. (2009). Building global solidarity toward nuclear abolition. Retrieved from https://www.daisakuikeda.org/sub/resources/works/props/disarm_proposal.html

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). (2019). New study on U.S.-Russia nuclear war. Retrieved from https://www.icanw.org/new_study_on_us_russia_nuclear_war

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). (2023). Global nuclear weapons spending surges to $91.4 billion. Retrieved from https://www.icanw.org/global_nuclear_weapons_spending_surges_to_91_4_billion#:~:text=In%202023%20China%2C%20France%2C%20India%2C%20Israel%2C%20North,than%20all%20the%20other%20nuclear%2Darmed%20countries%20put

Paige, G. D. (2002). Nonkilling global political science. Xlibris.

Strain, D. (2019). An India-Pakistan nuclear war could kill millions, threaten global starvation. University of Colorado Boulder. https://www.colorado.edu/today/nuclear-war

U.S. Department of Defense. (2020). Nuclear weapons prohibited regions. In Nuclear Matters Handbook (Chapter 4). Retrieved from https://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/NMHB2020rev/chapters/chapter4.html

The William J. Perry Project. (n.d.). Nuclear miscalculation. Retrieved from https://www.wjperryproject.org/nuclear-miscalculation

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Dr. Roland Joseph is a former Haitian Journalist, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, a researcher at the Center for Global Nonkilling (CGNK), and a translator of Glenn Durland Paige’s book Nonkilling Global Political Science into Haitian Creole. He is the former chair of the Latin America and Caribbean Working Group (LACWG) of the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) in Florida. He introduced nuclear disarmament education in the Haitian and Caribbean communities in the US with the support from the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security (CPDCS); he also advocates in collaboration with the International Peace Bureau (IPB) and the Université Publique du Sud-Est à Jacmel (UPSEJ), Haiti, for integrating peace education in the curriculum of the Haitian school system. Dr. Joseph has a BA in Political Science and holds an MA degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution with a concentration in Global Conflict from Nova Southeastern University (NSU). His research focuses on non-killing global political science theory and nuclear disarmament. Email: jrolandjoseph@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 12 Aug 2024.

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