International Meeting
2024 World Conference against A and H Bombs
Joseph Gerson, President
Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security
U.S.A.
Dangers, Resistance, and Hope in a Perilous Time
It is a privilege and a pleasure to return to the World Conference in this perilous time. Here we can celebrate the commitments and achievements of Gensuikyo, our movements – not least as represented by the Ban Treaty – and plan for the future.
Let me begin with some encouraging news. A broad coalition of U.S. peace organizations is releasing an open letter to the Japanese people stating that we “bring our sincere apologies for our nation’s horrific atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…[and] for the subsequent nuclear testing in the Pacific that brought about death and great mental and physical hardships for decades since…” We urge the abolition of nuclear weapons and also “urge our own country to reverse course in East Asia — to stop ratcheting up provocative military exercises that increase the danger of a nuclear conflict with China over Taiwan and a broader conflagration…”
There is also the need to apologize to Okinawans and other Japanese. Apparently nothing has been learned from the brutal and disgusting 1995 GI kidnapping and rape of a schoolgirl. Once again we read that U.S. troops continue to terrorize Japanese with sexual assaults. And not only is the futile effort to build a massive air and naval base in Henoko going forward despite its financial and environmental costs, but the SDF is militarizing far flung Okinawan islands as it joins the US in preparing for war with China over Taiwan. All of this much be condemned and stopped.
UN Secretary General Guterres warns that “Humanity is on a knife’s edge. The risk of nuclear weapons being used has reached heights not seen since the Cold War.” New Cold War bloc systems have reemerged with the “lattice-like” network of U.S. Indo-Pacific alliances, NATO, and the Chinese, Russian, North Korean, and Belarussian entente. And Japan is reemerging as a major military power.
Just as the forces that were building toward World War in 1914 were triggered by the wildcard of Balkan terrorism, we have a new and very dangerous wildcard to add to our new Cold War equations.
With the collapse of the arms control regime and the absence of arms control diplomacy, we are on the cusp of an unrestricted nuclear arms races. With wars in Ukraine and Gaza, military confrontations over Taiwan, the South and East China Seas, as well as in Korea, humanity is sleepwalking to catastrophe as each conflict carries the risk of escalation to nuclear war. The refusal of the nuclear powers and others to collaborate to eliminate the nuclear and climate existential threats explains why the hands of the Doomsday Clock remain set at 90 minutes to midnight.
Medvedev and media commentators in Russia are not the only crazies urging the use of nuclear weapons. Sen. Lindsey Graham recently tested the commitment of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to fight a nuclear war by asking if he would have supported the A-bombing of Hiroshima. Tim Walberg, a right-wing member of Congress urged Israel to nuke Gaza. The Bipartisan Congressional Strategic Posture Report calls for the U.S. to prepare to fight and win simultaneous wars against China and Russia and insisted that the US must “increase [its] reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic or collaborative aggression.” And in response to China’s nuclear buildup and Moscow’s threats, Biden and Trump threatened to expand the US nuclear arsenal. Trump’s Project 2025, which would consolidate dictatorial rule, also calls to “[p]rioritize nuclear weapons programs over other security programs” with the “most dramatic buildup of nuclear weapons since the start of the Reagan administration” four decades ago.
The Knife’s Edge
But there is that “knife’s edge.” National security journalist Annie Jacobsen’s new and chilling book Nuclear War: A Scenario draws on her deep knowledge of U.S. and other powers nuclear infrastructures and doctrines and realistically describes how a catastrophic miscalculation could generate a civilization-ending thermonuclear exchange in 72 minutes. In that light, consider a recent track II discussion among Russian, European, and U.S. former arms control negotiators, advisors, and military officials that focused on growing concerns about weaknesses and gaps in the nuclear powers’ failsafe systems, in the event of an early warning system failure. One former senior Russian military official reported that the 1983 mistaken Russian system’s warning that US ICBMs were headed for Moscow was not completely blocked by Col ?Petrov’s courageous action as many of us have believed. In fact, the warning made it to General Secretary Andropov’s nuclear suitcase, and Andropov was awakened amidst a nuclear emergency. With today’s U.S., Russian, and North Korean nuclear weapons exercises, and Ukrainian missiles disabling Russian radar sites, there is no guarantee that a similar systems failure will not trigger a “lose them or use them” thermonuclear exchange. And there are questions about whether Pakistan even has a failsafe system.
Reflecting Biden’s Cold War commitments, Pranay Vaddi, senior director of National Security Council, recently warned that “absent a change” in Chinese and Russian nuclear strategies the “United State may be forced to expand its nuclear arsenal.” Rather than press for a cease-fire and negotiations for a secure and neutral Ukraine, Biden and the military are committed to the fantasy of Russia’s “strategic defeat,” meaning regime change in Moscow. They oppose ceasefire and peace negotiations as they continue to support Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s self-defeating war to regain Crimea and occupied Russian-oriented eastern Ukraine. Biden embraced Netanyahu despite their disagreements and continues to provide Israel with offensive weapons and diplomatic support. This makes the U.S complicit in the Gaza genocide and the murderous West Bank settler land grab. And, even if it is not sufficient for Trump, Biden’s military budget is roughly a trillion dollars and includes this year’s multi-billion upgrade of the nuclear arsenal and triad.
Beginning with the Bush-Cheney withdrawal from the ABM treaty in pursuit of U.S. nuclear superiority, the arms control architecture has unraveled. The START and INF treaties are now relics of history, as is the Open Skies verification agreement. New START limits expire in February 2026, and with AI, Cyber, and other new high-tech capabilities there is no time to negotiate an updated follow on treaty. That possibility is further ruled out by the Kremlin refusing to engage in arms control negotiations until it prevails in the Ukraine War and it is satisfied that prospects for a new post war European strategic security architecture can be negotiated.
The moment is reminiscent of the unrestrained nuclear arms races of the 1950s. In Europe, following Russian nuclear threats, the U.S. and NATO conducted nuclear battlefield exercises, and Washington is basing nuclear-capable Tomahawk intermediate range missiles in Europe. Putin, in turn, vowed to deploy nuclear armed intermediate range missiles within range of Washington’s European and Asian allies and has deployed nuclear weapons to Belarus. Not to be outdone, outgoing NATO General Secretary Stoltenberg upped the ante, promising increased availability of nuclear weapons to counter Russia and China. Elsewhere in Europe, the Swedish and Polish prime ministers pledged that in case of wider war, their countries would welcome NATO nuclear weapons.
Compounding these nuclear expansions, French and British great power ambitions endure. Spurred by uncertainties about Trump and the limits of Putin’s territorial ambitions. They have each offered their nuclear arsenals to serve as an umbrella for Europe.
Across East Asia, even as Beijing reaffirms its no first use doctrine, China has doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal and appears to seek parity with Washington and Moscow before engaging in serious arms limitation negotiations. North Korea has attempted to rule out the possibility of a nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula by revising its constitution to confirm its status as a nuclear power. And South Korea’s Prime Minister Yoon says that “for now,” with the Washington Declaration’s commitments to defend South Korea with the “full range” of its capabilities and the newly signed nuclear guideline that provides for deployment of U.S. nuclear assets on and around the Korean peninsula,? Seoul doesn’t need its own nuclear arsenal. Yet Han Dong-Hoon, a conservative candidate to succeed President Yoon, says that the country “should move…to the point of equipping ourselves with the potential capabilities to go nuclear whenever we decide to do so.”
Finally in Southwest Asia, with its new centrifuges, Iran could have nuclear weapons grade uranium in very short order. This in turn fuels not only negotiations for a U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal, but also political pressure in Israel to launch a preemptive and possibly nuclear war with Iran.
The End of U.S. Democracy?
In the US, our Supreme Court marked what may be the culmination of a sixty-year counterrevolution in reaction to our civil rights and progressive victories. The Court’s recent decisions signal an end to constitutional democracy, replacing it with what Justice Sotomayor declared to be a “king above the law.” A Japanese scholar remarked that, “it is not that different from Xi Jinping in China.” With Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s new establishment nominee who will hue to Biden’s foreign and military policies the fundamentals have not changed. Trump’s warning of a “blood bath” should he lose and the danger of another attempted coup d’etat still hang over the nation.
Should Trump return to office, it will NOT be a replay of his first presidency. To shatter the misnamed “deep state,” their Project 2025 is designed to circumvent our constitution’s checks and balances by removing thousands of civil servants and replacing them with Trump loyalists. Trump promises retribution for his political enemies, and a police state structure will be needed to deport those millions of immigrants whose ethnic origins lie in the Global South.
Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security advisor who is tipped to return to the White House with Trump, described Trump’s past and future foreign and military policy commitments in a major article published in Foreign Affairs. O’Brien’s pledge to renew nuclear weapons testing garnered the headlines, but there was more: Chillingly, he explained that Trump adheres “to his own instincts.” Despite doubts about Trump’s commitment to alliances, O’Brien also reported that:
- The Trump mantra is “Ameria first is not America alone…” Trump never canceled or postponed a single deployment to NATO. His pressure on NATO governments to spend more on defense made the alliance stronger.”
- Trump’s 2017 “ fire and fury” threat against North Korea brought us closer to nuclear war than is understood
- “Xi is China’s most dangerous leader since the murderous Mao Zedong. “It is “pablum to believe that China is not truly an adversary.”
- NATO and U.S. cooperation with Japan Israel, and the Arab Gulf States were all militarily strengthened when Trump was president”
- U.S. “should focus its Pacific diplomacy on allies such as Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea…[and]traditional partners such as Singapore and emerging ones such as Indonesia and Vietnam”
- The Navy should move an aircraft carrier from the Atlantic to the Pacific, move the “entire Marine Corps to the Pacific” (later clarified to be operational troops, not admin). We need to add a more stealthy Virginia class submarines and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines. Congress should fund all 100 planned B-21 bombers. 256 strategic bombers are needed.
- “Test new nuclear weapons for reliability…and resume production of uranium 235 and plutonium 239”
- Decouple the US economy from China with a 60% tariff on Chinese goods and tougher export controls on technology
- In the Middle East “maximum pressure” on Iran, the source of Palestine-Israel conflict
- Support lethal aid to Ukraine paid for by Europeans, while keeping the door open for diplomacy with Russia and NATO rotates ground and air forces in Poland.
RENEWED JAPANESE MILITARISM & THE LATTICE LIKE NETWORK OF ALLIANCES
Then, ass a friend of the Japanese peace movement, I need to say that like Trump and our Supreme Court, your government apparently has no respect for your constitution, especially Article 9. In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift in Japanese foreign and military policies. It has been spurred not only by the Japanese elite’s long-term salami slicing strategy of remilitarization, including the SDF’s belief that it has the right to possess tactical nuclear weapons, but also in collaboration with U.S, containment ambitions. As Asahi Shimbun editorialized, “gaining possession of the ability to strike enemy bases, to hit targets in another country’s territory, would eviscerate the nation’s long-established principle of sticking to a strictly defensive security policy. Doubling the nation’s defense spending could lead to an unrestrained military buildup.”
Amidst Japan’s economic woes, Kishida increased SDF spending to 7.95 trillion yen, has overseen an SDF build up on Okinawan islands, has deepened integration with the NATO alliance, developed military ties with Britain and France including preparations for reciprocal troop pacts, interoperability, and engaged New Zealand in an intelligence sharing pact.
These changes have been critical elements of what is termed the United States’ new “lattice-like” network of military alliances designed to contain China. While creating a near-NATO-like structure, it also undergirds Japanese military ties with a wide range of Indo-Pacific allies.
Building from last year’s Washington Declaration, Prime Minister Kishida’s recent state visit to Washington was described by Biden as “the most significant upgrade in our alliance since it was first established.” The summit was designed in part to Trump-proof the alliance, creating a situation where no one can unbind their ties.” It served to deepen military cooperation, including development of AI, space technology, and semiconductors, and Japanese export of weapons to US including missiles to replenish depleted US stocks that have run low because of the Ukraine War. As part of this process, the Diet adopted military enhancement laws, including for counterattack capabilities to be targeted against China or North Korea. The Defense Ministry Establishment Act creates “joint operations command,” possibly led by a four-star US general.
Another dimension of the near-NATO-like lattice-like alliance network is the tripartite U.S.-Japanese-South Korean alliance. The Biden-Kishida- Marcos summit reiterated Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to the Philippines and committed the three nations to increasing miliary interoperability. As part of the trilateral trend, US-Australia-New Zealand joint exercises were reinforced by the meeting in May of US, Australian, Philippine, and Japanese military chiefs in Honolulu.
SOURCES OF HOPE
Against these dangerous developments, we had some openings in our campaigning for survival: the Second Meeting of TPNW States Parties, the Oppenheimer film, which despite its flaws, increased awareness of nuclear dangers. We won increased popular and Congressional support for the Back from the Brink campaign. In May, the New York Times gave unprecedented attention to nuclear weapons victims and highlighted the growing dangers of nuclear war. Initiated by our friend Jackie Cabasso, last month the US Conference of Mayors statement gave voice to what many of us believe. And the nations of the Global South, without whom we would not have the Treaty on Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, are emerging as a geopolitical force, most of whose members refuse to choose sides in the bloc system.
Led by young people, there were massive demonstrations and encampments on college campuses in the U.S. and elsewhere demanding an end to the Gaza genocide. This presages the rise of a new generation of peace activists. Growing numbers call for ceasefires and peace negotiations for both Gaza and Ukraine. And civil disobedience actions are unmasking the roles played by major banks in promoting fossil fuels and accelerating the climate emergency.
With Harris as the Democratic Party’s nominee, there is hope that a full-fledged personality cult U.S. fascism can be averted. Even then, from our new Cold Wars to t rising seas, the existential threats remain and must be overcome. Hope is something we make, in the streets, the polling booths, and the halls of power.
Let’s do it!