THE FIRST HALF OF 2010: GLIMMERS OF HOPE, PLENTY OF PESSIMISM

Charles Kindleberger
7/1/2010

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? In the months since the beginning of this year evidence has shown that you have reason to be both. This article traces some of the developments concerning the threat of nuclear war and the military industrial complex over the past 6 months, from the perspective of those who believe in a peace economy.

Nuclear Weapons. In mid January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, reduced ever so slightly the Doomsday clock with a decision to change the clock from 5 to 6 minutes. The group, which contains 19 Nobel laureates and has maintained the clock since 1947, saw reasons for hope.

"It is 6 minutes to midnight,” they write. “We are poised to bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons. For the first time since atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, leaders of nuclear weapons states are cooperating to vastly reduce their arsenals and secure all nuclear bomb-making material. And for the first time ever, industrialized and developing countries alike are pledging to limit climate-changing gas emissions that could render our planet nearly uninhabitable. These unprecedented steps are signs of a growing political will to tackle the two gravest threats to civilization--the terror of nuclear weapons and runaway climate change."

START. On April 8th there was again reason for hope with the signing of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by President Obama and President Medvedev. If ratified, this treaty will reduce total nuclear weapons to 1550 and deployed delivery systems to 700 for each Russia and the USA. Not since the 1960s have the numbers been this low. Members of the peace community believe that they must go a lot lower, as do many others. For example, Gary Schaub Jr. and James Forsyth Jr., professors at the Air War College and the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies respectively, recently wrote an Op Ed article in the NYT (An Arsenal We Can All Live With, May 21, 2010). There they argue that 311 warheads is more than enough for an effective nuclear deterrent – 100 Minuteman III ICBMs, 12 Ohio Class Submarines (8 on patrol at any given time with 24 Trident D-5 missiles per ship) and 19 nuclear cruise missiles each on a B-2 Stealth Bomber. Still a huge and dangerous deterrent. Our challenge is to get not just to those numbers but to continue on to zero.

What happens next? In the United States, ratification of a treaty takes a favorable vote by two thirds of the Senate. Thus considerable Republican support will be necessary to approve the treaty, and most of them do not appear in a hurry. Moreover, some will apparently use this issue to fight for a new generation of nuclear weapons (so called Reliable Replacement Warheads). Others on the far right have already begun promoting conspiracy rumors, demanding to see the classified annexes to the treaty and arguing that the new START is nothing more than a gift to the Russians who, they claim, can barely maintain any missiles and bombers today.
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3 Steps to a Peace Economy

by Andy Heaslet, PEP Coordinator
Adapted from a presentation to attendees of the Memorial of the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Columbia, MO on August 8th, 2009.

I’ve said it many time, instead of a War Economy, we should shift towards a Peace Economy.

What does that mean, though? And how do we get there?

A Peace Economy, well, a Peace Economy wouldn’t make profit off of making instruments of war. Wouldn’t profit off of inciting and supporting international arms races. Wouldn’t profit off of fear-mongering and hate.

In a sentence, a Peace Economy would place the needs and priorities of the people ahead of the needs of war profiteers. More...

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