OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Mr. President, senators and the American people: I am speaking today to urge you all to make a firm commitment to nuclear disarmament. I speak on behalf of the youth of the world and for the children and generations to come.

Mr. President, I am 16. You were 16 in 1962. That was the year when the world held its breath. You must have felt then something of the fear felt around the globe as the world teetered on the brink of annihilation as President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev locked horns over the Cuban Missile crisis. Perhaps like many others you would have gone to bed genuinely uncertain whether or not you would live until tomorrow. Somehow the moment of maximum danger passed and people breathed again. But is the relative peace that we in the Western world enjoy today really any less fragile?

The current nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan increases a thousand times over the dangers in that part of the world. But this is by no means the only nuclear tension. The world is a much riskier place with nuclear weapons. It is up to America, as the world’s most powerful nation, to show that its political and military pre-eminence is matched by moral leadership. America must lead the world in nuclear disarmament.

There are at least three main reasons why nuclear disarmament is essential. First, we should do this. The use, or threat of use, of nuclear arms is immoral. Secondly, we'd better do this. It is crazy to fill the world with nuclear material that can fall into the hands of terrorists or rogue states. Thirdly, we promised we would. Existing obligations must be fulfilled. Let me say more about each of these points.

Firstly, nuclear weapons are immoral because they are weapons of mass murder. They do not distinguish between armed forces and civilians. It is immoral for the security of any country to be based on the threat of global annihilation. In a world of scarce resources it is immoral to have nuclear weapons at such great economic cost especially when, even in the U.S., one in six children live in poverty. As Eisenhower once 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 are not clothed.”

Every year the U.S. spends tens of billions of dollars on nuclear weapons, and dealing with nuclear waste generated by these weapons. In comparison, just $5.6 billion could educate every child in the world. And what does all this money buy? Because it is generally unthinkable to use nuclear weapons, all we have bought is a false sense of security and a false sense of national pride—like an adolescent boy who gets himself a gun to look tough—and to feel big. America does not need a gun to look big.

Secondly, the elimination of nuclear arms would reduce the likelihood of other less responsible nations developing nuclear weapons. The Cold War era also showed that a nuclear arms race creates and exacerbates rivalries and hostilities. If those states with nuclear capabilities claim that their nuclear weapons are defensive, it is only reasonable that rogue states with less powerful supplies of conventional weapons would want nuclear arsenals.

During the Cold War, there was an argument that nuclear weapons could increase our security as the threat of “mutually assured destruction” would deter any attack. Whatever merits this argument held in the past have now passed. The threat today is not a foreign invader, it is the terrorist. A nuclear arsenal is useless against terrorists. The elimination of nuclear weapons would also destroy the threat of terrorist networks gaining nuclear capabilities. Nuclear weapons and production sites are vulnerable. For example, Russia lost substantial amounts of nuclear materials after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. The risks of maintaining nuclear arms are simply not balanced by any increase in security from possessing these weapons.

Thirdly, America should honor its existing agreements. In the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT), opened for signature in 1968, the non-nuclear nations promised that they would not gain nuclear weapons. In return, the states with nuclear weapons agreed to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….” States parties further agreed in 1995 to continue the treaty indefinitely with the nuclear weapons states agreeing to “a determined pursuit… of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goals of eliminating those weapons …." If the U.S. ignores these commitments, we demonstrate to the world contempt for international treaties. How then can we expect other states to observe international law? Similarly, how can America lecture others on possessing “weapons of mass destruction” when we are a world leader in stockpiling them?

Mr. President, senators, citizens. I hope that in these few minutes I have convinced you that it is our moral and legal duty, as well as in our best interest, to rid the world of nuclear weapons. But why should America take the lead? The U.S. and Russia have more nuclear weapons than any other country. Therefore, it is up to these countries to lead in disarmament. Russia has already signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, while Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, has called for disarmament talks to resume as soon as possible. The time has come for the United States to take up the baton of disarmament. It is an historic opportunity. With the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons are obsolete. If America acts, the world will follow.

What I propose is not an impossible dream. Already, treaties signed by southern hemisphere states have been successful in keeping the Global South nuclear free. We can dare—we must dare—to imagine a world where the threat of nuclear destruction is lifted, where children can go to bed knowing that there will be a world for them to wake up to.

This essay is an adapted version of the winning essay of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 Swackhamer Peace Essay Contest. The full text, with references and footnotes, as well as other winning essays can be found at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's web site.