Although today’s public protests against nuclear weapons can’t compare to the major antinuclear upheavals of past decades, there are clear indications that most Americans reject the Trump administration’s nuclear weapons policies. Since entering...
In Debates, Let’s Raise the Issue of How To Avert Nuclear War
You mass media folks lead busy lives, I’m sure. But you must have heard something about nuclear weapons – those supremely destructive devices that, along with climate change, threaten the continued existence of the human race. Yes, thanks to popular...
Breaking the Grip of Militarism: The Story of Vieques
Vieques is a small Puerto Rican island with some 9,000 inhabitants. Fringed by palm trees and lovely beaches, with the world’s brightest bioluminescent bay and wild horses roaming everywhere, it attracts substantial numbers of tourists. But, for about six...
Don’t Expect Rulers of Nuclear-Armed Nations to Accept Nuclear Disarmament – Unless They’re Pushed to Do So
At the beginning of February 2019, the two leading nuclear powers took an official step toward resumption of the nuclear arms race. On February 1, the U.S. government, charging Russian violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, announced that it...
Lurching Toward Catastrophe: The Trump Administration and Nuclear Weapons
In July 2017, by a vote of 122 to 1, with one abstention, nations from around the world attending a United Nations-sponsored conference in New York City voted to approve a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Although this Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons...
Getting Ready for Nuclear War
Although many people have criticized the bizarre nature of Donald Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea, his recent lovefest with Kim Jong Un does have the potential to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. Even so, buried far below the...
The ‘Merchants of Death’ Survive and Prosper
During the mid-1930s, a best-selling exposé of the international arms trade, combined with a U.S. Congressional investigation of munitions-makers led by Senator Gerald Nye, had a major impact on American public opinion. Convinced that military contractors were...
A Negotiated Curbing of North Korea’s Nukes Is Good, But Not Good Enough
The North Korean government’s progress toward developing a long-range nuclear weapons capability, accompanied by bellicose pronouncements, has been alarming enough to spark worldwide public dismay and new sanctions by a unanimous UN Security Council. But even if, at...
Playing Nuclear ‘Chicken’ With Our Lives
What kind of civilization have we developed when two mentally unstable national leaders, in an escalating confrontation with each other, threaten one another – and the world – with nuclear war? That question arises as a potentially violent showdown emerges...
National Illusions and Global Realities
For as long as they have existed, nations have clung to the illusion that their military strength guarantees their security. The problem with this kind of thinking is that the military power that one nation considers vital to its security fosters other nations’ sense...