Trump announced that the United States is withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), negotiated in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, and warned that he has no interest in renewing the modest new START treaty negotiated by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev. Obama paid a heavy price to secure congressional ratification of START, promising a $1 trillion program over 10 years for two new nuclear bomb factories, and new warheads, missiles, planes and submarines to deliver their lethal payload, a program that is continuing under Trump. While the INF limited the United States and Russia to physically deploying up to a maximum of 1,500 bomb-laden nuclear missiles out of their massive nuclear arsenals, it failed to make good on the 1970 U.S. promise made in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to eliminate nuclear weapons. Even today, nearly 50 years after those NPT promises were made, the United States and Russia account for a staggering 14,000 of the 15,000 nuclear bombs on the planet.
With Trump’s U.S. military posture in seeming disarray, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fashion bold new actions for disarmament. The most promising breakthrough for nuclear disarmament is the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, negotiated and adopted by 122 nations at the UN in 2017. This unprecedented treaty finally bans the bomb, just as the world has done for biological and chemical weapons, and won its organizers, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the Nobel Peace Prize. The treaty now needs to be ratified by 50 nations to become binding.
Instead of supporting this new treaty, and acknowledging the U.S. 1970 NPT promise to make “good faith” efforts for nuclear disarmament, we are getting the same stale, inadequate proposals from many in the Democratic establishment who are now taking control of the House. It is worrisome that Adam Smith, the new Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, talks only of making cuts in our massive nuclear arsenals and putting limits on how and when a president can use nuclear weapons, without even a hint that any consideration is being given to lending U.S. support for the ban treaty or for honoring our 1970 NPT promise to give up our nuclear weapons.
The United States and its NATO and Pacific allies (Australia, Japan and South Korea) have thus far refused to support the ban treaty. But a global effort, organized by ICAN, has already received signatures from 69 nations, and ratifications in 19 parliaments of the 50 nations needed in order for the prohibition against the possession, use, or threat to use nuclear weapons, to become legally binding. In December, Australia’s Labor Party pledged to sign and ratify the ban treaty if it wins in the upcoming elections, even though Australia is presently a member of the U.S. nuclear alliance. Similar efforts are happening in Spain, a member of the NATO alliance.
A burgeoning number of cities, states and parliamentarians around the world have been enrolled in the campaign to call on their governments to support the new treaty. In the U.S. Congress, however, so far only four representatives — Eleanor Holmes Norton, Betty McCollum, Jim McGovern, and Barbara Lee — have signed the ICAN pledge to secure U.S. support to ban the bomb.
Just as the Democratic establishment is ignoring the groundbreaking new opportunity to finally rid the world of the nuclear scourge, it is now undercutting the extraordinary campaign for a Green New Deal to fully power the United States with sustainable energy sources in 10 years, led by the inspiring Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected proposals from masses of young demonstrators who petitioned her office to establish a Select Committee for the Green New Deal. Instead, Pelosi established a Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, lacking subpoena powers and chaired by Rep. Kathy Castor, who refused a Green Deal Campaign demand to ban any members from serving on the Committee who took donations from fossil fuel corporations.
A New Peace Deal should make similar requests of the members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. How can we expect the chairs of these committees, Democratic Congressman Adam Smith or Republican Senator James Inhofe, to be honest brokers for peace when they have each received contributions of approximately $250,000 from the weapons industry? A coalition called Divest from the War Machine is urging all members of Congress to refuse money from the weapons industry, since they vote every year on a Pentagon budget that allocates hundreds of billions of dollars for new weapons. This commitment is particularly critical for members of the Armed Services Committees. No one who has been funded with substantial contributions from arms manufacturers should be serving on those committees, particularly when Congress should be examining, with urgency, the scandalous report of the Pentagon’s inability to pass an audit last year and its statements that it has no ability to ever do so!
We cannot tolerate a new Democratic-controlled Congress continuing to do business as usual, with a military budget of over $700 billion and a trillion dollars projected for new nuclear weapons over the next 10 years, while struggling to find funds to address the climate crisis. With the extraordinary upheavals created by President Trump’s withdrawal from both the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, we must urgently mobilize to save our earth from the two existential threats: catastrophic climate destruction and the looming possibility of nuclear annihilation. It’s time to leave the nuclear age and divest from the war machine, freeing up trillions of wasted dollars over the next decade. We must transform our lethal energy system to one that sustains us, while creating genuine national and international security at peace with all of nature and humanity.
Medea Benjamin is codirector of CODEPINK for Peace and author of several books, including “Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic.”
Alice Slater serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War and is the UN Representative of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Please Help ZNet and Z Magazine
Due to problems with our programming that we have only now finally been able to fix, it has been over a year since our last fund raising. As a result, we need your help more than ever to continue to bring the alternative information you have been looking for for 30 years.
Z offers the most useful societal news we can, but in judging what is useful, unlike many other sources we emphasize vision, strategy, and activist relevance. When we address Trump, for example, it is to find ways beyond Trump, not to merely repeat, over and over, how terrible he is. And the same is true for our addressing global warming, poverty, inequality, racism, sexism, and war making. Our priority is always that what we provide has potential for aiding determining what to do, and how best to do it.
In fixing our programming problems, we have updated our system to make becoming a sustainer and giving donations easier. It has been a long process but we are hopeful it will make it more convenient for everyone to help us grow. If you have any trouble, please let us know right away. We need input on any problems to make sure the system can continue to be easy to use for everyone.
The best way to help, however, is to become a monthly or annual sustainer. Sustainers can comment, post blogs, and receive a nightly commentary by direct email.
You can also or alternatively make a one-time donation or get a print subscription to Z Magazine.
Subscribe to Z Magazine here.
Any aid will help greatly. And please email any suggestions for improvements, comments, or problems right away.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate