Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 5 februar
2013 / Time Line February 5, 2013
Version 3.5
4. Februar 2013, 6. Februar 2013
02/05/2013
Is the Obama Administration Abandoning Its Commitment to a
Nuclear-Free World?
By Lawrence S.
Wittner
In a major address in Prague on April 5, 2009, the
newly-elected U.S. President, Barack Obama, proclaimed "clearly and
with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security
of a world without nuclear weapons." On January 24, 2013, however,
Senator John Kerry, speaking at Senate confirmation hearings on his
nomination to become U.S. secretary of state, declared that a
nuclear weapons-free world was no more than “an
aspiration,” adding that “we’ll be lucky if we
get there in however many centuries.” Has there been a change
in Obama administration policy over the past four years?
There are certainly indications that this might be the case.
During the 2008 presidential election campaign, Obama made his
support for nuclear weapons abolition quite clear on a number of
occasions, most notably in Berlin. Speaking on July 24 before a
vast, enthusiastic crowd, the Democratic presidential candidate
promised to "make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a
central element in our nuclear policy." He argued that “this
is the moment to secure the peace of the world without nuclear
weapons.”
Obama certainly seemed to follow through with this program during
his first year in office. His Prague speech of April 5, 2009 -- the
first major foreign policy address he delivered as president -- was
devoted entirely to building a nuclear weapons-free world. In
September of 2009 he became the first American president in history
to chair a meeting of the UN Security Council -- one dealing with
nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. The upshot was unanimous
Security Council support for Resolution 1887, which backed the goal
of nuclear abolition and an action plan to reduce nuclear dangers.
Obama’s promotion of a nuclear weapons-free world played a
key role in the announcement that October that he would receive the
Nobel Peace Prize.
The anti-nuclear momentum, however, slowed somewhat in 2010. In
April of that year, the White House released its Nuclear Posture
Review, which did reorient U.S. policy toward less reliance on
nuclear weapons. But the policy shifts were fairly minor and
smaller than anticipated. Soon thereafter, the U.S. and Soviet
governments announced the signing of the New START treaty, which
set lower limits on the number of deployed nuclear warheads and
deployed delivery systems for the two nations. Although the U.S.
Senate ratified New START by a vote of 71 to 26, the reductions in
all types of nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia
were actually rather modest. Consequently, the two nations
continued to possess about 95 percent of the world’s nuclear
weapons.
Much worse, from the standpoint of nuclear disarmers, was the fact
that strong Republican opposition to the treaty led to an Obama
administration retreat on the issue of building a nuclear-free
world. The most obvious indication was the White House pledge to
provide roughly $214 billion over the next decade for modernizing
U.S. nuclear forces and infrastructure. Apparently offered in an
attempt to buy GOP support for the treaty, this pledge set the U.S.
government on a course that totally contradicted its talk of
disarmament. In addition, the administration withdrew plans to
submit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (signed by President Bill
Clinton in 1996) for Senate ratification, did not even begin
negotiations for further nuclear arms reductions with Russia, and
-- with the exception of mobilizing other nations against the
possibility of Iran joining the nuclear club -- let nuclear arms
control and disarmament vanish from the policy agenda. In 2011,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remarked dismissively that a
nuclear weapons-free world would be attained “in some
century.” President Obama’s January 2013 inaugural
address did not discuss a nuclear-free world, or even specific arms
control and disarmament measures.
The hearings on Senator Kerry are revealing. As the Republicans
were eager to have him leave the Senate and open up his seat for a
Republican (then presumably former Senator Scott Brown), Kerry had
a very easy time of it, and used his newfound popularity to defend
the more controversial Chuck Hagel, the administration’s
nominee for secretary of defense. When the Republicans raised the
issue of Hagel’s support for Global Zero, a group advocating
the abolition of nuclear weapons, Kerry responded that he did not
believe Hagel wanted to completely eliminate them. Kerry added
that, personally, he favored a policy of nuclear deterrence and
believed that “we have to maintain” the U.S. nuclear
stockpile. “We have to be realistic about it,” Kerry
explained, “and I think Senator Hagel is realistic about
it.” Kerry’s remarks about the “many
centuries” it would take to eliminate nuclear weapons emerged
in this context.
Of course, actions can speak much louder than words. Kerry’s
remarks might represent no more than soothing pabulum for GOP
hawks. The real test of the Obama administration’s commitment
to a nuclear-free world will be its actions in the coming years.
Will it reduce expenditures for modernizing U.S. nuclear weapons
and facilities, promote Senate ratification of the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, negotiate a treaty with Russia for deeper weapons
reductions, and take actions that do not require Senate
ratification (for example, join with Russia to remove nuclear
weapons from high alert status)? Above all, will it begin to
negotiate a treaty for the verifiable, worldwide elimination of
nuclear weapons? We shall see.
In the meantime, people interested in removing the dangers posed by
over 17,000 nuclear weapons around the globe might want to press
the administration to honor its commitment to seek a nuclear-free
world.
[Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of
History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is "Working for
Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual”
(University of Tennessee Press).]
02/05/2013
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