Inside the Arms Control Association
September 2024
Since the outset of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s illegal, unprovoked, all-out invasion of Ukraine, the specter of nuclear weapons use has grown. Putin has tried to use nuclear threats to try to coerce and intimidate, and at one point in late-2022 he seriously considered the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine. But Russia’s nuclear arsenal and threats of nuclear first use have failed to prevent Western military assistance to help the people of Ukraine resist Russian aggression.
And unlike nuclear threats that were issued during the Cold War era, Russia’s nuclear rhetoric has elicited strong international condemnation, including powerful statements from G-20 leaders that nuclear weapons use and threats of use are “inadmissible.”
But as the war approaches the three-year mark, Russia is warning Washington not to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike at targets in Russia from which Moscow is launching deadly attacks into Ukraine.
According to President Putin: “This will mean that NATO countries … are at war with Russia. And if this is the case … we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
This comes as Russia says it is revising its formal doctrine on nuclear weapons use in light of events surrounding the war on Ukraine.
The White House is still weighing the cost-benefits of such targeting, including whether the use of such weapons can actually degrade Russia’s ability to strike targets in Ukraine and the possibility Russia may strike back against U.S. or NATO assets.
Putin has issued threats before and not followed through, in part because the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict between nuclear-armed adversaries risks WWIII, yet the world remains in a heightened state of nuclear danger.
“None of us should take lightly the risks of escalation,” CIA Director Wiliam Burns told an audience at a Financial Times event in London Sept. 7.
So long as the conflict continues, all sides must be careful not to cross the other’s nuclear use “red lines,” because if and when the line is crossed, it is too late.
To help preserve and strengthen the global consensus against nuclear weapons use and threats of use, ACA, working with our civil society partners and allies, will continue to:
- Encourage the international community to sustain pressure against those who might try to break the nuclear taboo against nuclear use and nuclear threats;
- Encourage direct communication between Washington and Moscow on nuclear risk reduction measures; and
- Remind policymakers on all sides of the risks and consequences of nuclear escalation.
Kuramitsu to UNGA: “Collectively, we are not doing enough.”
On Sept, 4, the United Nations General Assembly held a high-level session to mark International Day Against Nuclear Testing. At the invitation of the president of the UNGA, the Arms Control Association’s research assistant Shizuka Kuramitsu was invited to address the meeting on behalf of civil society. In her address, she underscored that:
“Our generation is very concerned. We see growing dangers of nuclear weapons and feel aghast at the human consequences of past nuclear weapons development, testing, and use.
I am a native of Hiroshima, where the first nuclear test explosion in warfare took place. I grew up surrounded by the A-bomb survivors in my hometown. I heard their testimonials from generations of hibakusha about the horrors of the first use of nuclear weapons in war.
As if the bombings of the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not horrific and inhumane enough, the world's nuclear weapons states have detonated more than 2,000 nuclear weapon test explosions.
The adverse health, social, environmental, and enduring consequences of these detonations is still too poorly understood, and the victims and survivors are still in need of medical monitoring and assistance. Their voices need to be heard and answered.
We need more research, more resources, and more support for nuclear testing victims.
We need acknowledgement and apologies for the wrongs committed in the past.
We need to see a strong commitment to never repeat the evil of nuclear detonations.”
The full text of Shizuka’s address is online here.
The video recording of her address, and the other speeches to mark International Day Against Nuclear Testing, is available here: http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1l/k1lui7z78e
ACA Releases Proposal for Nuclear Disarmament Summits
On Sept. 17, ACA unveiled our new, in-depth report proposing a new series of high-level disarmament summits to inject new energy and momentum into global efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.
The full report, Nuclear Disarmament Summits: A Proposal for Rejuvenating Progress Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, is available for download at www.ArmsControl.org/Reports
U.S.-German-Russian Commission on N-Risks Meets In October
Since 2013, the Commission on Challenges to Deep Nuclear Cuts has brought together a high-level group of experts from the United States, Europe, and Russia to exchange insights and ideas, and to formulate solutions to advance progress on nuclear risk reduction and disarmament.
In the wake of Putin’s war on Ukraine, it is one of the few “track 2” initiatives that is still functioning and active. In 2021, the project also established the Young Deep Cuts Commission.
As the U.S. partner for the project, the ACA provides significant support and guidance and will be well represented at the Commission’s next meeting in Belgrade next month. You can find out more about the Commission’s work and its membership online.
Election 2024 and the Nuclear Challenges Facing the President
As Carol Giacomo, the chief editor of Arms Control Today, notes in our September issue, “Weeks before the United States elects a new president, the global nuclear security environment could hardly be more precarious.”
In an effort to foster debate and prudent decision-making, Arms Control Today asked eight experts to consider the challenges facing the president ahead. See the collection of essays online here and please be sure to join the Arms Control Association to help support and get access to all that Arms Control Today delivers.
In a separate essay published last week in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Daryl Kimball also notes that “so far in the unorthodox 2024 presidential race, there has been virtually no indication from Vice President Kamala Harris or former president Donald Trump on whether they have a plan—or even ‘the concept of a plan’—for dealing with the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons.”
In the article, Kimball suggests that the candidates should answer key questions about “three critical sets of issues the next president will have to make decisions about within weeks—or even days—of Inauguration Day.”
Looking Back 25 Years Ago: the Senate Debate and Vote on the CTBT
It has been a quarter-century since the United States Senate voted not to provide its advice and consent for U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Ironically, the United States was the first to sign the treaty on Sept. 24, 1996.
As Daryl G. Kimball wrote in Arms Control Today following the Senate vote in 1999 (when he was director of the 17-organization Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers):
“The game of politics rarely produces clear winners or even final results. In the case of the Senate's 51-48 rejection of the CTBT on October 13, 1999, both proponents and opponents lost, and national and international security were damaged. The highly partisan debate and vote placed the United States in a state of test ban policy limbo that is detrimental to U.S. security.”
“By rejecting the CTBT, the Senate deprived the United States of the moral and legal authority to encourage other nations not to conduct nuclear test explosions … it denied the United States the benefits of the treaty's extensive nuclear test monitoring and on-site inspection provisions, and has shaken U.S. allies' confidence in the United States' ability to deliver on its arms control commitments.”
“If the CTBT is to enter into force within the next few years,” Kimball argued “the president and treaty proponents must carefully examine the course of events leading to the 1999 Senate vote and adjust their approach, actively engage senators in an ongoing exchange of views on the CTBT, and reinforce the existing international norm against testing.”
Since that time, of course, no U.S. president has committed the political capital necessary to build support for the CTBT to the point that the requisite 67 votes are within reach, and the issue of CTBT ratification has become even more politicized in Congress.
Nevertheless, the de facto global nuclear test moratorium is a reality. The United States has observed a nuclear test moratorium since 1992. North Korea is the only country to have conducted a nuclear test in this century, and even Pyongyang has halted testing since 2017.
Even though the treaty has not formally entered into force due to its peculiar entry into force provision, it has been one of the most successful nuclear arms control and nonproliferation agreements of all time.
The CTBT and the nuclear test moratorium, however, cannot be taken for granted. There are looming threats to the test ban from Russia, from North Korea, and from some in the United States. Civil society pressure and U.S. leadership remain critical to ensuring there are no further nuclear test explosions.
You can count on ACA to remain a leading voice and proponent for the CTBT and the nuclear test moratorium in the years ahead no matter who or what may pose a challenge to the nuclear testing taboo.
As President Bill Clinton said on Oct. 13, “the CTBT is well worth fighting for and I assure you, the fight is far from over.” Find the video here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?152828-1/nuclear-test-ban-treaty-defeat
ACA in the News
- "Exclusive: U.S. researchers find probable launch site of Russia's new nuclear-powered missile," Reuters, Sept. 3. "The Skyfall is a uniquely stupid weapon system, a flying Chernobyl that poses more threat to Russia than it does to other countries," ACA Board of Directors Chair Thomas Countryman told Reuters.
- “How Japan’s PM can help renew action for disarmament on 80th anniversary,” by Thomas Countryman, Shizuka Kuramitsu and Daryl G. Kimball, in Kyodo News, Sept. 7. The authors suggest that Japan should consider convening a landmark two-day global conference on the human health and environmental impacts of nuclear weapons next year as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
- “The Armageddon Agenda: Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and the Race to Oblivion,” By Michael Klare in TomDispatch, September 12.
- “At UN Iran and Europeans to test diplomacy with US election looming,” via Reuters, September 19. Kelsey Davenport, told Reuters that substantive talks before the U.S. election were unlikely, but interim steps, such as Iran receiving some sanctions relief in return for expanding IAEA monitoring of its nuclear facilities, could be possible. “De-escalation is feasible. I think it would benefit both sides,” she said.
- “Question for the candidates: Do you agree with other world leaders that the use of—or threat to use—nuclear weapons is ‘inadmissible’?” by Daryl G. Kimball in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September 19, 2024.