Figure from Weapons Of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms, Report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, p.36.

Andrew Lichterman

“So long as any state has nuclear weapons, others will want them. So long as any such weapons remain, there is a risk that they will one day be used, by design or accident. And any such use would be catastrophic. The accumulated threat posed by the estimated 27,000 nuclear weapons, in Russia, the United States and the other NPT nuclear-weapon states, merits worldwide concern. However, especially in these five states the view is common that nuclear weapons from the first wave of proliferation somehow are tolerable, while such weapons in the hands of additional states are viewed as dangerous.” Weapons Of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms, p.60.

As noted in the previous entry, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, chaired by Hans Blix, released its report, Weapons Of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms, at a press conference at the United Nations Thursday (download the full report in pdf here). The Washington Post online ran a Reuters story on the report predictably tracking mainstream Washington’s obsessions and repressions, focusing on Iran (who has no nuclear weapons) and its relationship to Israel (who does). The immense nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, and those of the other original nuclear weapons states, are an afterthought, relegated to a few paragraphs at the end.

A good place to start in turning this skewed world view right side up is by remembering that nuclear weapons are the true “weapons of mass destruction.” And it is worth contemplating the magnitude of the danger presented by the arsenals of the existing nuclear powers, still big enough to destroy most, perhaps all, of human civilization in a day.

A single U.S. ballistic missile submarine, armed with 12 Trident missiles each capable of carrying up to eight separate nuclear warheads, can deliver as many as 192 nuclear weapons in short order. Independent analysts estimate that the average missile load today is 6 warheads, which means 144 warheads on a single boat. Each of these weapons will have a yield of either 100 or 475 kilotons, depending on which of the two SLBM warheads are employed. The yield of the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima was, by comparison, estimated to be at most 15 kilotons– so these modern warheads range from more than 6 to almost 32 times the size of that first city-destroying weapon.

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Jackie Cabasso

Readers of this blog have been privy to in-depth information and analysis about the Iranian crisis and what it really means, by my colleagues, Andrew Lichterman, John Burroughs, and Michael Spies. You might wonder about the name of our blog, “DisarmamentActivist.org.” We believe that education and critical thinking are essential building blocks of effective activism. But at the same time, while we’ve been delving into the facts and putting them into context, we’ve also been working with our colleagues on plans for action. (Obviously much more needs to be done!) The initial results can be found on the new United for Peace and Justice No War on Iran! No Nukes! campaign pages. There you can sign and send letters to members of Congress and the U.N. Security Council calling on them to oppose military action against Iran, uphold the law, support diplomatic solutions, and put an end to U.S. nuclear hypocrisy. You can also sign AfterDowningStreet’s petition to Bush and Cheney, and find links to additional educational materials and action items. On April 29, under the banner No Nukes! No Wars! we’ll be marching for Peace, Justice and Democracy in New York City, and hosting an interactive No War on Iran! No Nukes! tent in the Peace and Justice Festival. Join our Nuclear Abolition contingent at 20th Street, east of Broadway, starting at 11:00 am (enter from Park Avenue South)!

This recent activity is the result of a steady, patient, behind the scenes campaign. Since late 2002, during the runup to the Iraq war, we’ve been working with U.S. member groups of the Abolition 2000 Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons to bring nuclear disarmament “home” to the peace and justice movement. In the run up to the U.S. attack on Iraq, premised in part on the wholly unsubstantiated claim that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, a new anti-war movement began to coalesce, with a heightened sensitivity to the domestic impacts of the “war on terror,” including attacks on immigrants, and drastic cuts to social services for the poorest members of our population.

The first National Assembly of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), held in Chicago in June 2003, seemed like a good opportunity to reclaim nuclear disarmament as a peace and justice issue, and to reintegrate it into the broader anti-war movement. A proposal from Abolition 2000 groups to make nuclear disarmament a UFPJ priority was adopted, with little discussion or controversy. It was striking, however, that several delegates voiced objections to the effect that “nuclear disarmament is the Bush agenda!” This turned out to be the tip of an iceberg, exposing a vast lack of awareness in the new anti-war movement–reflecting the general lack of public awareness–about the realities of U.S. nuclear weapons and their central role in our “national security” policy. And it marked the beginning of a continuing internal education process in UFPJ, the largest anti-war coalition in the country, with over 1,300 member groups. The Nuclear Disarmament/Redefining Security Working Group of UFPJ, which I convene, has been working steadily to raise awareness about the historically unbroken U.S. nuclear threat in the context of an increasingly aggressive, unbelievably arrogant and unilateral administration in Washington.

Now it seems that like it or not, the threatened use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Iran, reported by Seymour Hersh in the April 17 New Yorker, is forcing the still somewhat reluctant anti-Iraq-war movement to come to grips with the prospect of nuclear war. With the risk of use of nuclear weapons climbing towards levels not reached since the darkest days of the Cold War, where is the public outcry? What happened to the massive anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s? Why has the anti-war movement been so quiet about nuclear weapons?

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Jackie Cabasso

After agreeing to comment on the State of the Union Address for the Institute for Public Accuracy (as one of many commentators), I forced myself to watch the Commander in Chief make his annual grand performance, fortified by a martini and surrounded by close friends. Afterwards, I went home and struggled to find words that would convey my outrage, while also attempting to offer some cogent information and analysis. I was nearly overwhelmed, because the speech was long, there was so much provocative rhetoric to react to, it was so Orwellian, and I was on a tight deadline. There was also so much missing, like — in a speech rife with glowing references to growing international “democracy,” “political freedom,” and “peaceful change” — no reference was made to the recent elections in Latin America. On the domestic front, though the Pres declared “… our greatness is not measured in power or luxuries, but by who we are and how we treat one another,” he didn’t even mention Hurricane Katrina. And the speech raised some questions for me, which there was no time to look into. Why were Zimbabwe and Burma added to the “hit list,” along with Syria, North Korea and Iran?

The Institute for Public Accuracy quoted from some of my musings, along with a number of esteemed colleagues, in their February 1 news release, Responses to State of the Union Address, and a related critique for public distribution, A Critical Look: The State of the Union 2006, here’s the rest. I want to stress that these comments by no means represent a comprehensive analysis of the speech — just a few uneven thoughts triggered by specific references in the speech.

Though this year’s State of the Union Address was no where near as over-the-top as last year’s 2005 version of “Manifest Destiny,” two words continue to characterize the Bush Administration’s approach to the world: “arrogance” and “hypocrisy.” Bush began his speech by acknowledging the loss of Coretta Scott King. But, Mrs. King early on recognized the insidious link between U.S. militarism and civil rights, taking a stand against the Vietnam War even before her husband, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, came out against the war. Surely she would not want to be remembered in association the Bush Administration’s “long war” of empire or its unchecked domestic surveillance activities. (more…)

Andrew Lichterman

In a January 19 entry to his blog “Early Warning,” William Arkin notes the proposed conversion of Trident submarine launched ballistic missiles to carry conventional warheads:

“Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has given the Navy go ahead to develop a conventionally armed Trident missile. Two dozen existing nuclear-armed submarine-launched missiles will be converted to carry conventional warheads. The missiles will then be assigned “global strike” missions to allow quicker preemptive attacks.

For the first time since intercontinental ballistic missiles were “captured” in arms control treaties 40 years ago as unique and potentially destabilizing weapons, the United States will muddy the waters by modifying an existing nuclear weapon for use in day-to-day warfare.

The conversion of Trident missiles abandons the strict segregation of nuclear from conventional weapons.”

Arkin credits Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News with breaking the story, which can be found here: “U.S. May Arm Subs With Conventional Warheads for Quicker Strike”

There are other proposals and ongoing R&D programs to upgrade long-range missile capabilities. These range from incremental upgrades to existing systems like Trident and the land-based Minuteman ICBM to options like the Common Aero Vehicle (CAV), a maneuverable re-entry vehicle that could carry a variety of conventional or nuclear payloads and that could be delivered by either intercontinental ballistic missiles or by more exotic means, such as a space shuttle-like military space plane. Arkin was one of the first to write about the CAV in a 1999 piece in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists ( not available on-line). I have followed some of these programs over the past few years in papers for the Western States Legal Foundation, including The Military Space Plane, Conventional ICBM’s, and the Common Aero Vehicle: Overlooked Threats of Weapons Delivered Through or From Space (2002), Missiles of Empire (2003), and War is Peace, Arms Racing is Disarmament: The Non-Proliferation Treaty and the U.S. Quest for Global Military Dominance (2005)

The bigger picture is that the United States is in the process of planning and developing a new generation of strategic weapons. Among other things, military planners hope to continue to make significant increases in accuracy for all kinds of weapons, from those delivered by aircraft to intercontinental ballistic missiles. Improved accuracy may allow them to do a number of things, particularly destroying some targets with less energy. This is why, for example, they are considering non-nuclear warheads now for intercontinental ballistic missiles — before, you couldn’t hope to get close enough at that range to destroy things reliably with non-nuclear payloads. These same improvements may also make it possible to destroy some targets with lower yield nuclear weapons. Other technologies being considered for long range missiles, and for associated sensing, targeting and command and control systems, may allow the destruction of other kinds of targets that previously were hard to hit with long range missiles, for example things that move, like mobile missiles. (more…)

John Burroughs

On January 19, 2006, at the UN in New York, the Association of World Citizens presented an award to Stanislav Petrov. On September 26, 1983, Petrov was the duty officer at a Soviet command and control center who declined to pass along to headquarters apparent signals from satellites showing incoming U.S. missiles. In his comments, Petrov said he was not a hero, as several described him at the event, but rather somebody doing his work, along with others in his unit. But he did seem convinced that the decision likely averted catastrophe, in the form of a Russian counterstrike. He indicated that the decision could have gone the other way, saying that he was not sure he had made the right one until it was confirmed later that the signals were a false alarm.

The Russian Mission to the UN distributed a press release at the event. This curious document is worth quoting at some length:

“On January 19, 2006, former Russian colonel Stanislav Petrov will receive an award from the Association of World Citizens ‘for a unique act of heroism that saved the world’. According to representatives of the Association in 1983 Petrov did not react to an erroneous computer warning of a US missile attack on the Soviet Union and thus ’saved the world from nuclear war’.

It is not a secret that warnings of missile launches took place both in the Soviet Union and in the United States. Often natural phenomena like flocks of birds or the Northern Lights were taken as ICBMs. Under no circumstances a decision to use nuclear weapons could be made or even considered in the Soviet Union (Russia) or in the United States on the basis of data from a single source or a system. For this to happen, a confirmation is necessary from several systems: ground-based radars, early warning satellites, intelligence reports, etc. Therefore, even if one officer had ‘reported a satellite signal about an incoming nuclear missile’, the nuclear war would have never started. Besides, one should keep in mind that both in the United States and in the Soviet Union (Russia) the information automatically fed from satellites is directed to various recipients, and a single hero or miscreant cannot stop it.”

Afterwards, I asked one of the speakers, Bruce Blair, what he thought of the Russian statement. Blair, now president of the Center for Defense Information and formerly of the Brookings Institute, is a former missile control officer who became a leading scholar of nuclear command and control. He also became a key advocate of standing down nuclear forces, often called “dealerting,” by a range of measures, from taking the launch keys away from missile control officers to removing missiles from silos and submarines. Blair said that there were basically three factors involved, also mentioned in the Russian release: 1) data from early warning satellites; 2) data from ground radar; and 3) the overall assessment of the strategic situation. In 1983, the Soviet assessment of the strategic situation was dire, not surprisingly; that was when, among other things, the Reagan administration was talking freely about fighting and winning a nuclear war. Data from ground radar would come in later than satellite data, and might be missing or otherwise inconclusive or too late to stop a process underway. Blair’s comments indicate that while there is much that is not known about this incident, and while it’s inherently difficult to say given X, Y would have happened – there could be other intervening variables, nonetheless it’s not farfetched to call Petrov, as he was in the award given him at the UN, “The Man Who Averted Nuclear War.” Blair noted that Petrov was an engineer who was aware that the Russian systems were new and in need of debugging. If it had been more of a “warrior” type, primed to act reflexively…

As Blair observed in his public remarks, incredibly, today the United States and Russian Federation remain locked in the hair-trigger nuclear standoff that existed in 1983. In a side conversation I asked him what the current numbers are: how many warheads are the two countries capable of launching within a matter of minutes after an order to do so. The range that disarmament NGOs have been using for several years is four to five thousand. Blair said that while he has not analyzed the matter in the last couple of years, his off-the-cuff estimate would be around 3000: 1000-1200 in Russia, 1600-1700 in the United States. Or, put another way, about 75,000 Hiroshima bombs.

Current data on the world’s nuclear arsenals can be found at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.