8-06-07, 9:44 am

Editor's Note: As usual, this article should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any candidate.


Sen. Barack Obama's recent assertion that under his administration if 'actionable intelligence' became available regarding the location of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan he would use conventional rather than nuclear weapons to destroy those targets fits into his larger foreign policy aims of 'de-emphasizing the role of nuclear weapons.'

Drawing renewed attention to the issue, Obama's stand on nuclear weapons is a direct denunciation of the Bush administration's public nuclear weapons usage policy, which for the first time authorized the preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

August 6th marks the 62nd anniversary of the first and only time nuclear weapons have ever been used: by the United States in the destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki three days later.

Whether one is a proponent of the improbable theory that the use of these weapons against Japan was necessary to end World War 2 or the more likely assertion that they were meant as the first shots in the Cold War, those few seconds 62 years ago that destroyed 210,000 civilian lives in August 1945 changed the world.

Yoku Nakamura, an A-bomb survivor from Hiroshima said, “The atomic bomb brought 140,000 deaths in Hiroshima and 70,000 deaths in Nagasaki 62 years ago. People around the world need to know how a nuclear bomb can brutally destroy a city and take so many lives away, miserably, in a split second, and also should know that nuclear bombs today can bring even more horrifying destruction upon us.”

Nakamura also stated, “It has been more than half a century since the Hibakusha (A-bomb sufferers) organized themselves and joined forces to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons so that there would be no more Hiroshimas or Nagasakis. For all the rest of my life, I sincerely wish, pray and fight for all the people on earth in this 21st century to be able to live their lives fully with dignity and peace.”

Those moments that Nakamura so poignantly recalls helped careen this planet to the brink of annihilation from which, after the end of the Cold War more than 16 years ago, we have not found a means to return.

Sen. Obama's rejection of the Bush administration's nuclear posture might mean a first step away from the nuclear arms race to annihilation that Bush reinvigorated. When Bush revamped the US nuclear posture in 2002, ostensibly as a response to 9/11, despite the fact that neither the 10,000 nuclear weapons currently in the US arsenal nor the thousands more in the arsenals of US allies deterred the attack or could have defended us against it, he launched a nuclear arms race which many countries he designated as part of the 'axis of evil' felt obliged to join.

It has been only within the last few months when threats of air strikes and other forms of military and economic force were taken of the table against North Korea that that country has opted for a conciliatory posture that included international oversight of the elimination of its nuclear weapons making facilities.

Obama has been criticized as being 'naive' and lacking experience for his comments about the use of nuclear weapons, which, if implemented, would move the US closer to the publicly stated position on nuclear weapons adopted by former President Clinton (and previous presidents). Prior to Bush, the US insisted that its massive arsenal was defensive and also promised not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.

The criticisms are ironic because some of the sharpest have come from Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign, who despite the fact that every president, including her husband, has taken a public position on the use of nuclear weapons, insisted that an experienced president would not make such statements.

This leaves Sen. Clinton open to the accusation that she has not sufficiently rejected the Bush administration's inherently flawed, unnecessarily aggressive, and dangerous nuclear posture. Her differences with the Bush administration need to be clarified.

Republican candidates have been more willing to openly adhere to the 'nuke 'em all' point of view, with Rep. Duncan Hunter asserting his willingness to use nuclear weapons to attack Iran and professional xenophobe Rep. Tom Tancredo raising the need to conduct a nuclear strike on Mecca and other Islamic holy sites.

Are these responsible positions that an experienced president should take?

In a memo released to the press last week, Samantha Power, executive director of the Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, questioned the definition of 'experience' used in recent criticisms of Obama: 'if experience leads you to make gratuitous threats about nuclear use – inflaming fears at home and abroad, and signaling nuclear powers and nuclear aspirants that using nuclear weapons is acceptable behavior, it is experience that should not be relied upon.'

Nuclear weapons might as effectively destroy terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan as conventional weapons, but the short and long-term costs of such a deadly move would definitely have the opposite intended consequences. Ill-will toward the US would grow as consequences from radiation fall-out, the abuse of national sovereignty, and the likely impact on the lives of local, regional and global non-combatants would be devastating.

Indeed, how much more quickly would the global nuclear arms race be escalated if the president who succeeds George W. Bush refuses to reject the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear and/or non-state actors? Think of the responses of India, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, and other countries in the region.

This point also raises the issue of the overwhelming cost to human life and the environment that nuclear weapons would bring, a fact reiterated by opponents of the use and even the possession of nuclear weapons have made since the 1940s.

From a legal perspective, the nuclear posture under the Bush administration remains in violation of US obligations (and thus US law) under the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In that treaty, the US agreed to two central provisions: 1) provide assistance to non-nuclear states who seek to use nuclear energy for civilian purposes 2) block the proliferation of nuclear weapons and reduce and deescalate its own arsenal.

In a recent statement for United for Peace and Justice, Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space, highlighted the hypocrisy in the current US nuclear posture. He said, “the Bush administration lectures the rest of the world about the evils of weapons of mass destruction while at the same time developing new generations of our own. On top of that the Pentagon is now moving toward deployment of offensive weapons in space that will only make the world more unstable.'

Nuclear disarmament activist Jackie Cabasso, executive director of Western States Legal Foundation, added that 'the U.S. is violating its NPT nuclear disarmament obligation by retaining some 10,000 nuclear weapons, designing new ones, and pouring billions of dollars into its nuclear weapons manufacturing complex. Meanwhile, leading presidential candidates from both parties are warning Iran that ‘all options are on the table.''

The 'all-options-on-the-table' threat, while giving an impression of strength, actually weakens the US position. It is a political stunt designed more to appeal to a domestic audience than a foreign one. Foreign governments need not be reminded of US military power. But when leading US politicians, some of whom are vying for the job of getting their finger on the button, issue such threats that could potentially destroy thousands of lives with one blast, foreign countries feel more inclined to take the risk of entering the nuclear arms race.

Ultimately, when this happens tensions and threats escalate. Talks become more difficult. Finding multilateral solutions to difficult problems, e.g. Middle East peace, suddenly take on new and much more complicated dimensions that move farther outside of the US capacity to help resolve. Just such a moment may have already arrived in the Middle East.

Presidential candidates need to deescalate their nuclear talk and come back to earth. While Obama's position on deemphasizing the role of nuclear weapons is a far cry from actually implementing the provisions of the NPT and drawing the world closer to nuclear disarmament, it is a rational first step that other candidates need to follow.

Readers who want to learn more about the nuclear question and these complicated issues should go to for local events commemorating the anniversary of the 1945 bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at

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