Part II

Global Problems that

Need Global Solutions
 7

Eliminating
Nuclear Weapons
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
—Victor Frankl

Hiroshima changed our world forever. The advent of “the

bomb” was yet another horror to compound the devastation
left behind by the war in Europe. As the revulsion over
Hiroshima and Nagasaki spread, a desperate sense arose in
many quarters that mankind was facing certain doom unless
nuclear weapons technology was brought under the control of
a world government.
“One world or none!” suddenly became the oft-repeated
slogan of laymen, intellectuals, and even atomic scientists.
Albert Einstein joined a chorus of prominent leaders and intel-
lectuals who argued for the urgent necessity of a supranational
government with greater powers than the newly formed United
Nations. “Mankind’s desire for peace,” wrote Einstein in 1946,
“can be realized only by the creation of a world government.”1
Einstein’s words seem even more prophetic today, as human
kind has failed so far to contain the spread of the bomb and
other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
A fatal turning point occurred in the latter half of 1946.
In a unilateral gesture almost unthinkable today, the US made
an offer at the United Nations to surrender its death weapon to
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an international authority, detailed in what became known as

the Baruch Plan. The plan had features of enforceable global
law, and was widely supported by advocates of world govern-
ment. The defeat of this initiative by December 1946 provides
a key lesson for today’s world democracy activists: The world
federalist movement remained divided into bickering factions
throughout 1946, unable to unite around this historic
prop-osal. The Baruch Plan died an early death, and by 1947
a nuclear arms race had descended upon the world.
Since then, the prospect of nuclear war has hovered over
the planet like a sword of Damocles. The convergence of the
bomb with a “war system” based on the delusion of unlimited
national sovereignty remains the gravest threat facing human-
kind. The control and eventual abolition of nuclear weapons
and WMDs will be the highest priority task of the coming
democratic world government.

Controlling “nukes” will

require peoples’ power
Nuclear war is not an option in any scenario. Those who
endured the years of President Ronald Reagan’s build-up
toward a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union in the
mid-1980s will remember the scary descriptions of “nuclear
winter.” In the aftermath of a full nuclear exchange, the
amount of debris blown into the atmosphere would block the
rays of the sun for several years, creating a drastic lowering of
the earth’s temperature and triggering mass extinctions. Even
without a nuclear winter, the amount of radiation released
would kill most of the human population on earth and alter
the world’s environment forever.
Proving Einstein right, the United Nations has been
impotent in the face of accelerating nuclear proliferation;
 Eliminating Nuclear Weapons 123

the veto power in the Security Council rendered the UN

superfluous while the US and the Soviet Union stockpiled
thousands of nuclear warheads and other WMDs, and as
nuclear weapons soon spread to the UK, France, and China,
and then Israel, India, and Pakistan.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, one might have
hoped for a more significant reduction in nuclear stockpiles—
some sort of peace dividend. But the US has neither disarmed
fully nor closed its nuclear installations around the world. The
insanity of the nuclear threat continues: The US and Russia
still have enough nuclear firepower to threaten the existence of
all people on earth. And the economies and political culture of
America and Russia are still in recovery from decades of living
on the brink of nuclear suicide.
Much as the visionary Baruch Plan got scuttled long ago,
the US has squandered the historic opportunities created by
the end of the Cold War and the introduction of a market
economy in China. With the help of the other nuclear powers,
it might have moved swiftly in the wake of the fall of commu-
nism to create a post-nuclear age based on enforceable global
law. This would have been the ideal. Instead, it appears that
the task of creating a world without nuclear weapons, not to
mention the abolition of conventional war, must come from
a progressive worldwide movement of people that will eventu-
ally lead to the creation of a federal world government. Sixty
years after Hiroshima, our leaders have failed to rise to
Einstein’s call.

We must face the challenge

of nuclear proliferation
Even after the reductions of the last decade or so, the US
still has approximately 7,500 nuclear weapons. Of these,
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2,000 to 2,500 remain on hair-trigger alert, ready to launch at

a moment’s notice. The US has a fleet of submarines bearing
nuclear weapons ready to launch that are only fifteen minutes
away from most targets. As if this were not enough, we also
have 1,750 nuclear weapons on intercontinental planes that
are ready to launch.2
Russia keeps between 2,000 and 2,500 nuclear weapons
on hair-trigger alert as well. It has approximately 9,000
nuclear weapons in its entire arsenal.
But we are far from the simpler days of a balance of
terror between the US and Russia; the asymmetric spread of
nuclear weapons to countries in a variety of regions of the
world has greatly increased the chances of their use. Today
China has approximately 400 nuclear weapons; France, 350;
the United Kingdom, 185; Israel, 200; India 60, and Pakistan
somewhere between 24 and 48. North Korea has a few nuclear
weapons but it is unknown exactly how many.3 Iran also has a
nuclear program that the West and the UN are attempting to
control.
As smaller countries have gained nuclear weapons tech-
nology, the world has become all the more dangerous. This
threat of proliferation was foreshadowed during the 1973 Yom
Kippur War, as Israel put the nuclear option on the table when
its defeat looked possible. A chilling recent example is that of
Pakistan and India, now both nuclear powers, who alarmed
the world in May 2002 when they raised the possibility of a
nuclear exchange because of an unresolved dispute over
Kashmir. Also disturbing was the revelation early in 2005 that
Pakistan had sacked its top nuclear scientist amid a probe into
the secret sale of nuclear technology to Iran and Libya. This
scientist, A.Q. Kahn, is known as the “father” of the Islamic
world’s atomic bomb.
 Eliminating Nuclear Weapons 125

Pakistan has yet to agree to a “no-first-use” policy––

meaning it could respond to a conventional threat with a
nuclear response. Pakistan is home to a large Muslim funda-
mentalist population and is currently governed by an unpop-
ular military dictator who has survived several assassination
attempts. Control of this country’s nuclear weapons could
easily fall into the hands of fundamentalist Muslim leaders and
their fanatical followers in the event of a coup or revolution.
Terrorist organizations including al Qaeda have made
numerous documented attempts to buy nuclear weapons on
the black market. We’ve noted that experts widely believe that
the chances of a terrorist group acquiring and using nuclear
weapons are high. Islamic terrorists would lack the restraint of
a nation; they would not be deterred by the threat of retalia-
tion because there would be no specific nation or locale against
which to retaliate. In the final analysis, the only way this threat
can be contained is through a worldwide ban on nuclear
weapons and other WMDs, backed by the security and justice
that only a system of enforceable world law can provide.

No nation has a “right”

to possess nuclear weapons
Most people block out the frightening reality of living in
a nuclear age; we all have a shared numbness to the facts about
the potential of nuclear destruction. Because nuclear weapons
were used only twice at the end of World War II, many peo-
ple seem to assume that the bomb will never be used again.
To be fair, we must acknowledge that some progress has
been made. As of 2005, the number of nukes is half what it
was at the peak of the Cold War. The US and Russia have
agreed to another round of weapons reductions that will cut
their collective nuclear stockpile by two-thirds by 2010. The
126 One World Democracy

states that once comprised the Soviet Union have chosen not
to be nuclear powers and have transferred their nuclear
weapons to Russia or destroyed them. South Africa had
nuclear weapons before apartheid ended but fortunately chose
to give them up under the leadership of Nelson Mandela.
But this progress may be too little too late. Neither the
US nor any other country can stop continued nuclear prolif-
eration if a state or a terrorist group is determined to join the
nuclear club. Nuclear weapons the size of a suitcase can be
delivered anywhere in the world, and many are thought to
have disappeared from Russia. How can one defend against
this sort of proliferation? The folly of building a supposed
nuclear shield in space—the ongoing legacy of the so-called
“Star Wars” space defense—represents a dangerous and tragic
way of avoiding America’s true responsibilities to the planet.
The war on terrorism may fatten the budgets of the military-
industrial-intelligence complex in Washington, but it cannot
guarantee that a nuke will never be smuggled into the US.
The only hope for a “defense” against nuclear terror is the
technique that has worked throughout history: social justice
and equity obtained through law and democratic government.

In addition, one might well ask: What gives one nation

the right to have nuclear weapons, but not some other nation?
What nation or group possesses the right to decide who
belongs to the nuclear club, and who does not? One of the
largest obstacles to controlling nuclear proliferation is the
hypocrisy at the heart of global nuclear policy. Those world
powers that today are pressuring countries like Iran and North
Korea to forsake the nuclear option are themselves clinging to
the bomb as the centerpiece of their own security. This makes
it rather strange for these countries to claim that it is morally
 Eliminating Nuclear Weapons 127

reprehensible for others to possess nuclear weapons, but still

morally acceptable for themselves to rely on them!
Of course, our answer is that no nation should have the
right to possess nuclear weapons; they are simply too dangerous
and should be banned by world law. Getting nations to
destroy their nuclear weapons will require a set of rules that
apply equally to all countries and are enforced by a neutral
world body. Under the current war system, each nation strives
to protect itself and thus tries to acquire the most advanced
weapons available. Therefore, it will require replacing the
“protection” provided by those weapons with the protection
of a global security system controlled by a democratic world
government. Nuclear-overkill arsenals like those of the US
and Russia can be reduced prior to global government, but
stopping proliferation and completely eliminating nuclear
weapons will require global government. Only the rule of law
can put an end to this scourge.
There is no way to control what sovereign states do to
provide for their own security amidst global anarchy; treaties
and visionary pronouncements have never worked. Only the
rule of law worldwide can bring reason to a world gone mad
with militarism. As we have seen, global government can
settle disputes between nations in a world court that operates
according to a global constitution and that safeguards the
rights of individuals and nations. Only this sort of process can
make the need for nuclear weapons obsolete. It is clear that
we need to move forward with creating a sovereign global
democracy—and that we need to do so quickly.

The next great advance in the evolution of civilization

cannot take place until war is abolished.
––Douglas MacArthur