Dr Ira Helfand to Speak on the Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Ira Helfand, MD, a two-time Nobel Peace Prize laureate, will address the growing threat of nuclear war at the Free Press Second Saturday Salon on July 11th from 2-4 pm at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 93 W. Weisheimer Road. Dr. Helfand’s visit is co-sponsored by the Columbus Free Press, Simply Living, the First UU Church, and the Ohio Nuclear Free Network. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is not required, but interested participants may sign up here.
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Ira Helfand, MD
Dr Helfand is a member of the Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, and the Past President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which was the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.
He is also co-founder & past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, IPPNW’s US affiliate. He has represented ICAN at intergovernmental meetings to address the humanitarian impacts of nuclear war and at key United Nations assemblies that led to the successful negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
He was educated at Harvard College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is a former chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine and President of the Medical Staff at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. He is a retired internist and urgent care physician at the Family Care Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Back From the Brink
Dr. Helfand will outline the work of Back from the Brink, a US-based grassroots coalition of individuals, organizations, & elected officials working together to rid the world of nuclear weapons and secure a set of common-sense policies that will make the world safer, healthier, and more just. It was conceived & initiated by leaders from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Physicians for Social Responsibility in the fall of 2017.
The threat of nuclear war is real & growing, yet many people are unaware of the danger, or the harmful here-and-now impacts of developing & maintaining our nuclear arsenal. Others are concerned but don’t feel as if they have any meaningful way to get involved and make a difference. As a result, policymakers rarely hear concerns about nuclear weapons from their constituents and thus feel little pressure to act.
Back from the Brink aims to grow public pressure to act by giving everyone a voice on the issue and providing a way to be part of a politically powerful & diverse constituency for nuclear disarmament that demands real change.
Back from the Brink Policy Solutions
Back from the Brink has recommended five policy solutions the US should take to immediately reduce the threat of intentional or accidental nuclear war while pursuing a verifiable, timebound agreement among nuclear armed states to eliminate all nuclear arsenals. The US, along with Britain, China, France, & Russia, are already obligated under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to take concrete steps toward eliminating their nuclear arsenals.
The power & potential of Back from the Brink lies in its focus on everyday people and communities and on an organizing approach that enables advocates to educate & engage other individuals, organizations, & municipalities in their region. Organizers are able to use local endorsements & municipal resolutions to demonstrate to members of Congress that their constituents want them to take action and show leadership on this issue.
Pursue Global Elimination of Nuclear Arsenals
Given the extraordinarily destructive power of nuclear weapons, it should be the highest US national security priority to pursue a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. Even our own nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to our survival. Recent studies have shown that the use of any significant portion of our nuclear arsenal, even against an adversary who never fired back, would cause worldwide climate disruption.
Nations that joined the NPT as non-nuclear-weapons states, pledging that they would not develop their own nuclear weapons, did so in part on the basis of this promise of disarmament. These states have become increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress among the nuclear weapons states toward meeting their treaty obligations and have worked toward negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
The TPNW, which was approved in July 2017 and has been signed by 94 countries and ratified by 73, makes it illegal under international law to “develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess, or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.”
The US refused to participate in the negotiating process and has continued to actively encourage countries to reject the TPNW. The US and the other eight nuclear-armed nations should live up to their responsibility to begin negotiations now for a verifiable, enforceable agreement to dismantle their nuclear weapons, which can be implemented through Article 4 of the TPNW.
Renounce the First Use Option
The US has never renounced the right to use nuclear weapons first. This increases the chance that a conflict could escalate to nuclear war. The Obama administration narrowed the role of nuclear weapons by stating that the US would not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any country that was in compliance with its NPT obligations.
However, it stopped short of declaring that its sole purpose was to deter the use of nuclear weapons. Instead, it cited “a narrow range of contingencies” in which US nuclear weapons might be used. The first Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review broadened the range of scenarios that might lead to the first use of US nuclear weapons, a step in wrong direction.
Retaining the option to use nuclear weapons as part of a preemptive or preventive strike, or in response to conventional, chemical, biological, or other types of weapons makes it more likely that an adversary facing the threat of US nuclear weapons may decide to be the first to take this step.
Given the overwhelming strength of its conventional military, the US has nothing to gain from escalating a conflict to the nuclear level. Indeed, the US and the world have everything to lose. The US should declare that it will never be the first to use nuclear weapons and would use them only in response to a previous nuclear attack.
Of course, the goal is the complete elimination of nuclear weapons, but as long as they exist, a “no first use” declaration would reduce the likelihood that tensions or conventional conflict with another nuclear-armed state would escalate to nuclear use.
End the Hair-Trigger Alert
The US has roughly 1,700 deployed nuclear weapons and another several thousand in reserve. Four hundred of these are on missiles in underground silos, ready to be launched within minutes of a presidential order. This alert status, called hair-trigger alert, increases the chance of a launch in response to a false alarm. There have been numerous close calls over the past 40 years due to both human and technological errors.
Hair-trigger alert is an outdated policy. The original rationale was the fear during the Cold War that either side could launch a surprise first strike that might wipe out its adversary’s ability to retaliate, which at that time largely consisted of land-based missiles and bombers.
Today such an attack is exceedingly unlikely, but even if the worst were to happen, the US now deploys more than 1,000 nuclear warheads on submarine-based missiles, hidden at sea. These sea-based missiles are not under the same pressure to be launched quickly as land-based missiles and ensure that the US would still be able to launch a retaliatory strike.
There is no compelling reason to maintain US missiles on hair-trigger alert, and many reasons not to. Taking land-based missiles off hair-trigger alert and removing rapid-launch options from US nuclear plans would reduce the risk of nuclear use.
End the Sole Authority of a US President for a Launch
Currently there is no check on the US President’s authority to order the use of nuclear weapons, either first or in response to a nuclear attack. The President can simply notify the military of the decision, and no one has the authority to countermand a legal launch order.
Presidential sole authority is an artifact of the Cold War, when the greatest fear was a massive bolt-from-the-blue first strike by the Soviet Union that would wipe out the US missiles before it had a chance to retaliate. But this system is now unjustified; no single individual should be able to make such a momentous decision. There are practical ways that the process can be changed to include multiple decision-makers in authorizing the use of nuclear weapons, and the US should adopt such changes.
Cancel the plan for an Enhanced Nuclear Arsenal
Over the next 30 years, the US plans to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion dollars to replace its entire nuclear arsenal and the bombers, missiles, and submarines that deliver the weapons with more capable versions. Such a tremendous investment of money & effort is unnecessary.
The current US nuclear arsenal is more than sufficient to deter an attack (and indeed sufficient to destroy life on this planet as we know it many times over). Thus, the US should cancel the plan to replace its entire arsenal with enhanced weapons.
According to many experts, nuclear modernization tremendously increases the risks of catastrophic cyber-attacks on the US nuclear weapons arsenal. As new technology is integrated into our nuclear command, control, & communications infrastructure, we inevitably shift control over our arsenal closer to the Internet and other types of systems that can be hacked from afar by malicious state & non-state actors.
Rebuilding the US arsenal also sends a message to the rest of the world, making it clear that the US continues to see its nuclear arsenal as central to its security. This will only encourage other states to believe they also need to develop or improve their own nuclear arsenals, leading to dangerous proliferation and an accelerating arms race.
Instead, the United States should deemphasize the importance of nuclear weapons in its security policy as it works with the other nuclear armed states to eliminate these weapons altogether.
