Nuclear Ban Daily, Vol. 4, No. 1
Editorial: The Shape of Nuclear Abolition
24 November 2023
By Ray Acheson
Writer Martin Amis describes nuclear weapons as instruments of blood and rubble. These days, blood and rubble seems to be everywhere, most of all, for the moment, in Gaza. Thousands of bombs dropped on apartment buildings, hospitals, bakeries. And still, this is apparently not enough blood or rubble. The genocidal bombing continues, as do the shipments of weapons to continue the genocidal bombing. And in the midst of all this bombing, an Israeli minister found it appropriate to muse about dropping a nuclear weapon on Gaza. His remarks have been condemned by many governments, but are they surprising, when the practice of nuclear-armed states is to commit massive amounts of violence wherever and whenever they desire?
Nuclear weapons are part of the spectrum of violence—at the possibly-world-ending end of the spectrum. Daniel Ellsberg recognised this, describing how the firebombing of Dresden, London, and Tokyo in World War II led to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, normalizing the concept of cities on fire, of civilians as targets. In this world of blood and rubble, every day that nuclear weapons exist is a day that they might be detonated, dropped on a city or a missile silo, tested on an island or in a desert, unleashing terrible forces of blast, heat, fire, and radiation on people’s bodies, into the land, water, and air. Every day that nuclear weapons exist is a day that a so-called political leader might decide to use them.
Blood and rubble are policy choices. Blood and rubble are planned for by all of those who shape and propagate the dangerous doctrine of nuclear deterrence. In his introduction to Einstein’s Monsters, Amis writes:
What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the only established defence against nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. How do we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? By threatening to use nuclear weapons. And we can’t get rid of nuclear weapons, because of nuclear weapons.
This is the relentless circular (il)logic of deterrence, the principal tenant of which is that the possession of nuclear weapons makes their use impossible and thus prevents war. But whether it is the United States attacking Iraq, Russia invading Ukraine, or Israel committing genocide in Palestine, it should be clear to all that nuclear weapons do not prevent war. They enable it.
Whether nuclear weapons are used or not, they facilitate other forms of violence. They are the backbone of a mentality that security can best be achieved through building up the capacity to commit mass destruction, and by committing mass destruction. Nuclear weapons are used as shields to prevent others from standing up to their possessors’ acts of aggression, to their war crimes. Financial investments in nuclear weapons provide profits for weapons manufacturers that also build conventional bombs, missiles, guns, fighter jets, and other technologies of war. Nuclear weapons provide sustenance to the war machine, and exist as the overarching, final threat of that machine.
The possession of nuclear weapons drives the development of self-destructive plans masquerading as national security. Governments willfully put people and the planet in harm’s way, arrogantly asserting that this is the best way to protect them. One example is the land-based missile silos in the United States, which are intended to serve as targets for enemy nuclear weapons with no concern for the communities or land upon which they are based. As part of his new ground-breaking project examining the US government’s plan to modernise its nuclear forces, Sébastien Philippe of Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security writes in Scientific American, “a key argument for the continued existence—and now the replenishment—of the land-based missiles is to provide a large number of fixed targets meant to exhaust the enemy's resources.” Yet the most recent, 3000-page report from US government on these silos does not mention what happens if the missiles are attacked. But as Philippe’s modelling of these “sacrifice zones” shows:
A concerted nuclear attack on the existing U.S. silo fields—in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota—would annihilate all life in the surrounding regions and contaminate fertile agricultural land for years. Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas would also probably face high levels of radioactive fallout. Acute radiation exposure alone would cause several million fatalities across the U.S.—if people get advance warning and can shelter in place for at least four days. Without appropriate shelter, that number could be twice as high. Because of great variability in wind directions, the entire population of the contiguous U.S. and the most populated areas of Canada, as well as the northern states of Mexico, would be at risk of lethal fallout—more than 300 million people in total. The inhabitants of the U.S. Midwest and of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario in Canada could receive outdoor whole-body doses of radiation several times higher than the minimum known to result in certain death.
“Higher than the minimum known to result in certain death.” How can anyone read these words and think, “No, this is not relevant for a study on the impacts of our weapon systems.” Or, more broadly, that “No, this is not relevant for our consideration of the possession and deployment of these weapons at all. In fact, we will base our security strategy on the possibility of mass death and unspeakable suffering, and this is normal and fine for us and a few select others—this is how we will dominate. This is how we ‘win’.”
The irrationality of basing national security on the ability to execute or absorb catastrophic events like genocide is not lost on states parties and signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). These governments understand that security must be provided for through other means. That it is both immoral and illogical to threaten to melt people, to turn them into shadows, or to subject them to a protracted, painful death from radiation poisoning, in order to—what, exactly? Exercise dominance within the so-called world order? Be able to wage wars of aggression against whomever one wants, whenever one wants?
The governments that join the TPNW are not just pledging against acquiring nuclear weapons themselves—they are also committed to achieving the abolition of all nuclear weapons, and to building a world that does not rely on massive nuclear violence for security. When these governments gathered with activists and others in 2017 to prohibit nuclear weapons, they changed the world. Not just rhetorically, but materially. The creation of a legally binding treaty outlawing the possession, use, and threat of use of atomic bombs has enabled unprecedented financial divestment and political stigmatisation of these weapons. It has changed discourse, even if it has not yet changed doctrines. But one follows the other.
Six years after the adoption of the TPNW, the nuclear-armed states and nuclear-supportive allies are still clinging to their arsenals of mass destruction. But the horrors these governments have collectively wrought upon the world are clearer—and more condemned—than ever. The masks are off, the wizards are no longer behind the curtain. Political leaders that condone mass death are being denounced; global inequalities are being exposed and opposed. The tide may not yet have fully turned, but the wave of opposition to permanent war and violent aggression is growing every single day. People are organising and getting organised. There is no time to waste, not when it comes to genocide and not when it comes to nuclear weapons.
This meeting of TPNW states parties is an opportunity to advance collective action against the bomb. The governments that have signed and ratified this treaty must adopt a strong declaration condemning nuclear deterrence and the continued possession and modernisation of nuclear arsenals. They must continue to implement last year’s action plan and work to get more countries onboard the treaty, especially those still trying to hide behind the false security promised by nuclear-armed states in exchange for sharing the economic and political burdens of nuclearism. The governments that aid and abet nuclear-armed states must relinquish this immoral space and join the rest of the world in renouncing the policies and practices of mass death.
But this meeting of states parties is not just about governments, it’s about people. It’s about the Indigenous Peoples upon whose bodies and lands nuclear weapons have been detonated, again and again and again. It’s about the communities who have been forced, without their consent or knowledge, to host uranium mines, nuclear laboratories, missile silos or bomber and submarine fleets, radioactive waste dumps. It is about all of us living with radiation from nuclear testing in our bodies, contaminated for generations by the hubris of political and corporate leaders who put their profits and sense of power above everything else. This meeting will be filled with people from affected communities, activist organisations, scientific groups, academic institutions, and more. Nuclear weapons have never just been about states. Nuclear weapons, fundamentally, are about human life, about all life. The nuclear-armed states have refused to acknowledge, let alone include, most people in conversations or policy making about their bombs. But the TPNW is a space for everyone to have a voice, to participate, and to determine how we fight for nuclear abolition, together.
“Nuclear weapons are mirrors in which we see all the versions of the human shape,” writes Amis. What shape do we want to reflect?
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