Arms and Disarmament

1. Arms and Disarmament

2. The conventional logic underpinning normal practices of states – and of non-state forces resorting to use of force to achieve political aims • Peace is not always good, war is not always bad • “Just war” and “unjust peace” • Weapons are neutral, what matters is who uses them and for what purpose • You can’t obtain and secure peace and justice without resort to violence as the final argument • Use of force in politics will always be with us • The best we can do is limit it

4. The antimilitarist position: The destructiveness of modern warfare • Weapons of mass destruction • In wars, most casualties are now civilian Use of force – both by states and by non-state forces - is often politically counterproductive • If we address root causes of conflict and work for just solutions by political means, weapons may not have to be used • Peace works - if it is based on justice

5. To make the world more peaceful, it is necessary to change the existing social conditions which breed conflict and violence • How to change it? Various proposed solutions: • Facilitate replacement of authoritarian regimes by democracies • Promote social and economic development to eliminate poverty and suffering • Strive for equality and social justice • Replace capitalism with some form of socialism

6. While recognizing the need to address the root causes of conflict, antimilitarism focuses on the means of political struggle • Arms buildups themselves make war more likely • Military budgets are a burden on the economy • The incidence of warfare can be reduced if states cut their armaments to a minimum

7. The idea of disarmament • Traditional: compelling a defeated state to disarm • In the 20th century: a new international practice - mutual arms control and disarmament by international treaties • Natural reaction to the Era of Global Conflict, which threatens the very existence of humanity • Limit the scale of wars • Respond to public antiwar sentiment • Opposition to arms buildups dates back to late 19th century

8. Lord Welby, British Secretary of the Treasury, March 1914: • “We are in the hands of an organization of crooks. They are politicians, generals, manufacturers of armaments and journalists. All of them are anxious for unlimited expenditure, and go on inventing scares to terrify the public.” • Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary: • “Great armaments lead inevitably to war.” • Quotes from David Cortright. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. Cambridge University Press, 2008, p.98

9. After WWI • Covenant of the League of Nations, Article 8: • “The maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety.” • 1922: the Five Power Naval Limitation Treaty, extended and Conferences of 1922 and 1930 • A historic precedent was set • World Disarmament Conference of 1932 – no success, buildup of international tensions, new wars

11. After WWII • Demobilization everywhere; strong desire for peace • Creation of the United Nations Organization • But the Cold War generated a new arms race • Its cutting edge were nuclear weapons • And the conventional (non-nuclear) arms race continued

12. The First Nuclear Age: 1945-1991

13. Trinity, history’s first nuclear explosion, Alamogordo, NM, July 16, 1945

14. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb

15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8H7Jibx-c0&feature=related

17. World’s first nuclear weapon: The Little Boy, explosive yield 12-15 kilotons (1/100 of B83 bomb)

18. Hiroshima, August 6, 1945

21. Father of the Soviet bomb: Igor Kurchatov

22. Young Andrei Sakharov played a key role in the Soviet nuclear weapons program, later became a dissident

23. 1961, Soviet Union: The biggest nuclear bomb ever built: “Tsar-bomba”, “Big Ivan”. Power – 57 megatons (40,000 more than Little Boy of 1945)

24. The US-Russian nuclear arms race

25. USAF Gen. Curtis B. LeMay, Chief of the Strategic Air Command, advocated all-out nuclear war to destroy the Soviet Union and Red China

26. Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong advocated waging nuclear war on the US “to free the world from imperialism”

27. Late 1950s: birth of the international movement for nuclear disarmament • First diplomatic moves toward arms limitation • 1961: US and Russian diplomats design a joint proposal for general and complete disarmament • 1961: The Antarctic Treaty is signed banning the use of Antarctica for military purposes. See the full text: • http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/treaties/antarctic/trty_antarctic_1961-06-23.htm

28. October 1962: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the turning point

29. The shock of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis compels 3 nuclear weapons states into joint measures to reduce the nuclear threat • 1963: The first arms control treaty signed in Moscow. The Partial Test Ban Treaty banning nuclear tests on the ground, in atmosphere and in outer space. Underground tests remain legal. See the full text: http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/treaties/partial-test-ban/trty_partial-test-ban_1963-10-10.htm

30. The paradox of the nuclear arms race • Nuclear weapons are unfit for warfighting • They can only serve as deterrents • But once deterrence becomes mutual, a new situation emerges • A powerful interest in mutual survival and security between the opposing sides • That becomes a basis for joint actions for stability, security, disarmament • On that basis, a global system of arms control has been erected

32. Means of delivery: • Ballistic missiles (IC, I, SR) – ground-based, sea-based • SLBMs • Aerial bombs • Cruise missiles (air-, sea-, ground-launched) • A special category: human-delivered devices

33. US B83 nuclear bomb, explosive yield – 1.2 megatons

36. A MIRV

37. Launch of a Minuteman III ICBM (US)

38. Topol-M ICBM (Russia)

39. Tu-95 strategic bomber (Russia)

40. B-52 strategic bomber (US)

41. ”The White Swan”: Tu-160 strategic bomber (Russia)

42. B-2A strategic bomber (US)

43. Ballistic missile defence system, space-based (design)

44. A “suitcase bomb” W54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) was produced in the United States until 1988. The W54 was a very small 0.01 or 0.02-1 kiloton suitcase nuke with the entire unit weighing in at under 163 pounds

45. Destructive Effects • Nuclear explosions produce both immediate and delayed destructive effects. • Immediate • Blast, thermal radiation, prompt ionizing radiation are produced and cause significant destruction within seconds or minutes of a nuclear detonation. • Delayed • radioactive fallout and other possible environmental effects, inflict damage over an extended period ranging from hours to years • Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Aug. 1945: 0.25 million lives • Total destructive power of existing NWs: 150,000 times the bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki • 2,000 times the firepower used in all of WWII including the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan

46. Main existing arms control treaties Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 INF, signed in 1987 START-I, signed in 1991 SORT, signed in 2002 CTR agreements The Outer Space Treaty NPT, signed in 1968, went into effect in 1970 CTBT, signed in 1996, still not fully in effect

47. 1967: The Outer Space Treaty limits the use of outer space for military purposes - http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/treaties/weapons-in-space/trty_weapons-in-space_1967-10-10.htm • 1970: The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. States without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them – in exchange for the commitment of nuclear-armed states to move towards full nuclear disarmament – http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/treaties/non-proliferation-treaty/index.htm • 1972: The Seabed Treaty prohibiting the emplacement of weapons of mass destruction on the seabed - http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/treaties/seabed/trty_seabed_1972-05-18.htm

48. 1972: US and USSR sign SALT-I agreements (the ABM Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Weapons). Ban on ballistic missile defenses and limitation of offensive nuclear arsenals – http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/abmt/text/abm2.htm • http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/treaties/usa-ussr/trty_us-ussr_interim-agreement-icbms_1972-05-26.htm

49. 1979: US and USSR sign the SALT-II Treaty to strengthen and finalize the provisions of SALT-I. But the US Senate refuses to ratify the document. http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/salt2/index.html

50. 1987: US and USSR sign the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty banning all all nuclear-armed ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (about 300 to 3400 miles) and their infrastructure. The INF Treaty was the first nuclear arms control agreement to actually reduce nuclear arms, rather than establish ceilings that could not be exceeded. Under its provisions, about 2,700 nuclear weapons were destroyed. http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/inf/index.html