OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Reports about the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation increasingly dominate the daily news. We are barraged with press reports on the dangers of nuclear weapons falling into “irresponsible hands,” warned that we need to face “the North Korean challenge,” and told that it is time for “military rumblings on Iran.”

Unaware of the sixty-year history of U.S. use and threatened use of nuclear weapons, the media is easily manipulated. Blinded by the media’s focus on so-called “rogue states,” and the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of non-state terrorists, few in the U.S. are aware of the world’s growing anger over U.S. double standards and hypocrisy. These are among the primary forces driving nuclear weapons proliferation and which threaten to derail the May 2005 7th Review Conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The NPT was one of the seminal bargains of the 20th century. Non-nuclear weapons states foreswore developing and obtaining nuclear weapons in exchange for the nuclear powers agreeing in Article VI to negotiate the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals. The UN General Assembly and the World Court have both called for the nuclear powers to adhere to their commitments. At the last NPT Review Conference in 2000, under pressure from the non-nuclear nations, the nuclear powers agreed to take 13 “practical steps” toward implementing Article VI. Among these were ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, halting production of weapons-grade nuclear materials, and more.

The U.S. has since refused to ratify the CTBT, abrogated the ABM, and continues to develop new nuclear weapons. The G.W. Bush Administration has demanded that diplomacy focus on tightening provisions to prevent proliferation, while giving short shrift to global expectations that the U.S. and other nuclear powers be held accountable.

Continued U.S. pursuit of nuclear superiority will spawn further nuclear proliferation. Since 1945, every U.S. president—with the possible exception of Gerald Ford—has prepared and/or threatened to initiate nuclear war. The response was that Russia, China, France, Israel, India, and Pakistan went nuclear, as North Korea and Iran may be doing. No nation will long tolerate an unjust imbalance of power.

The world community is struggling to prevent the collapse of the non-proliferation regime and the nuclear anarchy that is likely to follow. One of the most constructive ideas comes from Mexico, which has urged building on the model of the Land Mines Treaty. Under this option, nations advocating nuclear weapons free zones and other willing states would negotiate a nuclear weapons abolition treaty, leaving nuclear weapons states who fail to join them in moral isolation.

We cannot rely on governments to ensure human survival. People’s power, practiced in the streets, in the halls of Congress, and in our communities, halted nuclear weapons testing and its deadly fallout. The Nuclear Freeze movement of the 1980s forced President Reagan to engage in arms control negotiations which led to the end of the Cold War. Humanity faces a stark choice: abolition or proliferation and nuclear holocaust. There is no “third way.” The fate of the earth lies in what each of us chooses to do.

Dr. Joseph Gerson, Director of Programs American Friends Service Committee