Login/Logout

*
*  

“We continue to count on the valuable contributions of the Arms Control Association.”

– President Joe Biden
June 2, 2022
Daryl Kimball

G-7 Expected to Focus on Nuclear Dangers in Hiroshima


May 2023
By Daryl G. Kimball

The leaders of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations, who will convene this month in Hiroshima, the city destroyed in 1945 by the world’s first nuclear attack, are expected to emphasize measures to address rising nuclear dangers.

Paper lanterns float on the Motoyasu River as The Atomic Bomb Dome looms in the background at the peace park in Hiroshima, Japan, which commemorates the first use of a nuclear weapon in armed conflict. Some 90,000 to 146,000 people were killed in the 1945 bombing and the entire city was destroyed. G-7 leaders will meet in Hiroshima this month. (Photo by Yuichi Yamazaki/Getty Images)Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who will preside over the summit, chose Hiroshima as the venue “to deepen discussions so that we can release a strong message toward realizing a world free of nuclear weapons.” In response to concerns that Russia might use nuclear weapons in its war in Ukraine, Kishida also said on Jan. 9 that the G-7 needs to “demonstrate a firm commitment to absolutely reject the threat or use of nuclear weapons.”

By the end of 1945, an estimated 215,000 people had died from the Aug. 6 and 9 atomic bomb attacks by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and many more have suffered since then from the long-term health effects of radiation exposure.

U.S. President Joe Biden will join the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Union at the May 19–21 meeting.

In 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama delivered an address at Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park and visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. He was escorted by Kishida, who was Japan’s foreign minister at the time and who is from Hiroshima.

According to The Japan Times, the Japanese government is arranging for a meeting between the G-7 leaders and some of the remaining hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb attacks, during a visit to the peace museum on May 19.

In February, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue met with Kishida and proposed that the government arrange a visit by the G-7 leaders to the museum and a dialogue with atomic bombing survivors.

Kishida also met representatives from the “Civil 7” group of nongovernmental organizations from 72 countries on April 13 to hear their recommendations on how the G-7 leaders could advance progress on nuclear risk reduction and nuclear disarmament. Among other measures, the civil society group recommended that G-7 leaders meet atomic bombing survivors, unequivocally condemn threats to use nuclear weapons, and endorse urgent negotiations to achieve the complete elimination of nuclear weapons before 2045.

In a statement from the G-7 nonproliferation directors group issued April 17, the governments noted that Hiroshima and Nagasaki “offer a reminder of the unprecedented devastation and immense human suffering the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced as a result of the atomic bombings of 1945.”

The statement, which may preview a possible G-7 leaders’ statement on nuclear weapons, does not condemn unequivocally all forms of nuclear threats. Instead, it recalls the joint statement from January 2022 by the leaders of the five nuclear-armed states under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, including Russia, that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The nonproliferation director’s statement also asserts that, unlike Russia, G-7 security policies “are based on the understanding that nuclear weapons, for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war and coercion.”

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden issued a statement on the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings, saying, “As president, I will restore American leadership on arms control and nonproliferation as a central pillar of U.S. global leadership.” He added, “I will work to bring us closer to a world without nuclear weapons, so that the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are never repeated.”

The leaders of the G-7 group of industrialized nations, set to convene this month in Hiroshima, are expected to emphasize measures to address rising nuclear dangers.

Preventing Escalation of Russia’s War on Ukraine

Inside the Arms Control Association April 2023 As Russia’s disastrous war against Ukraine enters its second year, the destruction and bloodshed continue. Despite the enormous human toll of the war, Moscow is still trying to seize more Ukrainian territory and Kyiv is still fighting hard to retake its Russian-occupied lands. As a result, a negotiated and lasting end to the war is not yet in sight. As long as the war continues, there is a serious risk of escalation, including further nuclear threats from the Kremlin. To help prevent a bad situation from becoming even worse, our team here at ACA...

Global Nuclear Freeze Could Avert New Arms Race


April 2023
By Daryl G. Kimball

After more than a decade of deteriorating relations and dithering on disarmament, the three largest nuclear powers—Russia, the United States, and China—are on the verge of an unconstrained era of dangerous nuclear competition.

A Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile is launched during a test at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on April 20, 2022. (Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation)Because there are no winners in a nuclear war or a costly nuclear arms race, leaders in Washington, the leading non-nuclear-weapon states, and concerned people everywhere need to press these states, as well as France and the United Kingdom, to exercise restraint and engage in disarmament diplomacy.

The problems go back at least to 2013, when Russia rebuffed a U.S. proposal to negotiate a further cut of their strategic arsenals of one-third below the levels of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), from 1,550 to 1,000 deployed warheads. Since then, the two sides have barely discussed new arms control ideas as they aggressively pursued rival nuclear weapons modernization programs. Today, each possesses some 4,000 warheads of all types.

On Feb. 21, just two years after agreeing to extend New START by five years, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia is suspending implementation of the pact, although for now it will observe its limits. He claims he will not engage in arms control talks until the White House softens support for the defense of Ukraine against Russia’s brutal war of aggression.

At the same time, China has embarked on a major buildup of its relatively small but still deadly nuclear arsenal. According to the Pentagon, China has more than 400 deployed warheads, 300 of which are on land- and sea-based strategic missiles, and possibly could deploy about 1,500 warheads by 2035.

Putin’s decision to suspend New START is not the end of the treaty, but it makes it likely that, after New START expires in 2026, there will be no agreement limiting U.S. and Russian arsenals for the first time since 1972. Without such constraints, each side could quickly double its strategic arsenal to 3,000 or more deployed warheads by uploading additional warheads on missiles. If Russia and the United States break out of New START limits, China undoubtedly would accelerate its own nuclear buildup to ensure its nuclear retaliatory capabilities.

Key figures in the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment, including former Pentagon war planners, defense contractor-funded pundits, and Republicans from districts hosting nuclear facilities, argue that the United States should respond by increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal and developing new nuclear weapons for the first time in decades.

What is to be done? To start, Russia and the United States need to reengage on nuclear risk reduction talks and agree to continue observing the central limits of New START until a new nuclear arms control framework is concluded. Under Article VI of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, they are obligated to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to
nuclear disarmament.”

As importantly, leaders in Washington and other capitals should urge China, France, and the UK to agree to freeze the size of their arsenals as long as Russia and the United States meet their disarmament responsibilities. A global freeze on the expansion of nuclear arsenals would not eliminate the threat of nuclear war, but it would increase the chance that China finally might engage in arms control and improve conditions for progress on nuclear risk reduction and disarmament.

U.S. policymakers should not increase the already enormous U.S. arsenal or press for new weapons, such as a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile out of fear of facing two near-peer nuclear rivals.

As U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Dec. 9, “Nuclear deterrence isn’t just a numbers game. In fact, that sort of thinking can spur a dangerous arms race.” The Pentagon also says a new sea-launched cruise missile with a new warhead would have “zero value” and would not be completed until 2035 or later.

Any decision to increase the number of deployed U.S. strategic nuclear weapons above New START levels or to build new varieties of nuclear weapons would not only be costly but counterproductive. It would make it more likely that China would decide to deploy more nuclear weapons on an even wider array of delivery systems over the coming decade.

The U.S. nuclear arsenal far exceeds what is necessary to hold sufficient assets of an adversary at risk of nuclear obliteration and thus deter a nuclear attack. Even if Russia and China increase their long-range nuclear arsenals, that move would have little to no effect on the U.S. “assured second-strike capabilities,” which include nearly 1,000 nuclear warheads on strategic submarines.

Nuclear weapons pose global dangers. Their elimination requires a global enterprise involving renewed, robust leadership, dialogue, and action by all nations. A unified push for further Russian-U.S. arms cuts combined with a global nuclear weapons freeze could create the conditions for serious and overdue multilateral action on disarmament and a safer world for all.

After more than a decade of deteriorating relations and dithering on disarmament, the three largest nuclear powers—Russia, the United States, and China—are on the verge of an unconstrained era of dangerous nuclear competition.

Nuclear Arms Control at High Risk

Inside the Arms Control Association March 2023 In a rambling Feb. 21 speech attempting to justify Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his decision to “suspend” implementation of New START, the last remaining treaty limiting the world's two largest nuclear arsenals. While this does not mark the end of the treaty, Putin’s announcement makes it far more likely that, after New START expires Feb. 5, 2026, there will be no agreement limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals for the first time since 1972. Despite Russia’s failure to comply with...

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Daryl Kimball