First Committee Monitor, Vol. 20, No. 4
Editorial: First Committee Horror Stories
22 October 2022
Ray Acheson
As the threat of nuclear war shrouds the world in a fog, bringing grave unease and anxiety, many people are looking to the UN for answers. Surely the gathering of all the world’s governments, in a space designed for disarmament diplomacy and negotiation, will prevent the potential massacre threatened by the use of nuclear weapons. But as the First Committee churns on and the resolutions pile up, it’s not clear what all this work will mean for changing the course of our current moment.
Over the past three weeks, the nuclear-armed states have repeatedly blamed each other for the current situation, willfully ignoring their joint responsibility for the collective insecurity they have thrust upon the entire world. Rather than using the shared time to negotiate a way through this violent quagmire, they issue of right of replies condemning each other’s aggression and egregious behaviour without any reflection of their own.
It was only a few months ago that the political leaders of the five permanent UN Security Council nuclear-armed states (the P5) endorsed a joint statement reaffirming that nuclear war “cannot be won and must never be fought.” Since then, Russia’s government has issued threats to use nuclear weapons. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United States and the Republic of Korea, and Russia have been engaging in war gaming exercises, to ensure they are prepared to commit mass murder and potentially global annihilation. They say this is normal. An annual macabre exercise to practice ending the world.
This is a horror story of the nuclear age. While the current crisis has elevated public attention once again to the threat of nuclear war, the underlying monstrosity is that for decades these weapons have existed, out of sight and out of mind for many people, deliberately shrouded in fog by the nuclear-armed states but posing a daily threat to life on this planet. The persistent harm caused by nuclear weapons is already so grave, and the potential for further disaster lurks around every corner, but most people are too busy grappling with the everyday horrors of living in a world in climate chaos and capitalist exploitation to remember the monsters in the missile silos. Until now.
While Russia’s threats have drastically increased the current risk of nuclear war, all the nuclear-armed states and nuclear-supportive allies are complicit in this crisis. They have all perpetuated the belief that nuclear weapons afford security and stability, leading to proliferation and preparedness for use. They have together invested billions of dollars into the modernisation and maintenance of nuclear weapon systems, extending the possession of these weapons of terror into the indefinite future, in violation of their legal obligations to disarm. The production and testing of these bombs has contaminated land, water, and bodies for generations but the nuclear possessors resist effective remediation and reparation.
Sri Lanka highlighted these horrors this week when quoting Arundhati Roy’s devastating critique of nuclear weapons:
It is such a supreme folly to believe that nuclear weapons are deadly only if they are used. The fact that they exist at all, their presence in our lives, will wreak more havoc than we can begin to fathom. Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking, control our behavior, administer our societies, inform our dreams. They bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizer.
The nuclear meat hooks do indeed seem to have permeated the brain stems of a select few governments, propelling them to insist on their need for nuclear weapons even as the world is embroiled in compounding crises that nuclear weapons only make worse. As South Africa said, their continued devotion to nuclear bombs makes “no legal, moral, or ethical sense,” yet, here we are. A horror story is perhaps a compelling way to explain this phenomenon—as all good horror shows us, the corrupting force of power and profit is the real terrifying story of our times.
Nuclear knots
They story can sometime seem routine. During the thematic debate on nuclear weapons this past week, each of the nuclear-armed states rallied against the others, as is their custom.
Russia condemned NATO’s “rampant malicious expansion into our borders” and its nuclear war exercises. “Such irresponsible actions increase strategic risks, including nuclear risks, and hinder disarmament efforts,” said Russia, taking no responsibility for its own actions to this end by starting a war in Ukraine.
For its part, the United States said, “Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling and its brutal war on Ukraine casts doubt on its commitment” to the P5 statement, but it offered no comment on the NATO nuclear bomb dropping exercises or its own refusal to engage in practical measures that would reduce the risk of nuclear war, let alone lead to disarmament. The US delegation also continued to ratchet up its rhetoric against China, condemning the build-up of its nuclear arsenal and its ballistic missile tests, glossing over the United States’ own nuclear weapon modernisation and missile tests.
China, meanwhile, claimed it will never engage in a nuclear arms race, apparently trying to differentiate between a build-up and arms race, as if both don’t result in the same thing: more nuclear weapons. Interestingly, China argued, “The obsession with enjoying security and absolute security does not put one's own security above the security of others,” which is likely a critique of the United States, and that states “should not use nuclear weapons to compete for hegemony or bully and coerce non-nuclear-weapon states,” which could be read as a critique of both the United States and Russia.
The United Kingdom argued that “Russia’s unprovoked and illegal war in Ukraine, and its deeply irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, cast a dark shadow over international disarmament negotiations.” Of course, none of the nuclear-armed states are engaged in nuclear disarmament negotiations, though the UK is likely referring to negotiations at the Tenth NPT Review Conference, which were more like negotiations against disarmament than for it.
France, also focusing its statement on condemning on Russia, simply reiterated the nuclear disarmament-related activities it undertook decades ago.
The problem of nuclear weapons does not just belong to the P5, of course. India described itself as a “responsible nuclear weapon state” while rejecting the TPNW. Pakistan talked as if it does not even possess nuclear weapons at all, condemning nuclear weapon modernisation and geopolitical tensions of other countries. Israel, too, said nothing about its status as the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, critiquing instead the nuclear activities of Iran and Syria. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea defended its nuclear weapon possession based on the United States’ hostile policies towards it. Several NATO members and others who include US nuclear weapons in their security doctrines continued to espouse the importance of nuclear deterrence, even as its failures are on display for all the world to see.
This hodgepodge of accusatory politics and justification for preserving weapons of mass destruction is standard. But it becomes particularly repugnant when the threat of nuclear war is so prominent. In facing this moment, the nuclear-armed states should be working out how to de-escalate and disarm. Instead, they are not only blaming each other for this mess, but also states that don’t even possess nuclear weapons.
Bullies with bombs
During the thematic debate, many of the nuclear-armed states criticised the efforts of non-nuclear armed states as either not going far enough for nuclear disarmament or going too far. The nuclear-armed are angry that non-nuclear states outlawed nuclear weapons through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The nuclear-armed are also angry that non-nuclear states have still not “created the conditions” for the bullies with the bombs to give up their weapons.
Russia argued that non-nuclear-armed states have an equal responsibility as nuclear-armed states to “contribute to the overall reduction of the level of international tension and the establishment of a realistic global disarmament agenda.” In its next breath, it argued that the possession of nuclear weapons “remains the only possible response to specific external threats.” Thus, not only does Russia blame the rest of world for the nuclear risks it has elevated, but also demands non-nuclear-armed states to take responsibility for this situation and to do more for nuclear disarmament, even as Russia reiterates that it will not disarm.
While most of the past few months have seemed like pages out of the Dr. Strangelove script, apparently Catch-22 is also being thrown into the mix. Both, arguably horror stories in their own right, illuminate the gravity and absurdity of our current situation.
This was also brought to the fore recently at the Tenth Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in August, where as Brazil said, non-nuclear armed states “accepted a severe curtailment of our ambition regarding disarmament as a bitter but necessary price to pay to keep” the NPT going. But even this fell short, as Russia blocked the outcome. The non-nuclear states “cannot bear the brunt of the sustaining the regime,” warned Brazil. And “the draft outcome document we had before us at the end of the Conference cannot be misconstrued as the golden standard of international consensus on disarmament. It was a pragmatic—but, alas, futile—effort by responsible stakeholders. As we begin a new review cycle of the NPT, these efforts must start anew.”
In part, this may be a warning to the sponsors, led by Japan, of the draft resolution “Steps to building a common roadmap towards a world without nuclear weapons”. This is a revised version of Japan’s perpetually revised resolution, which desperately tries to appease the nuclear-armed states each year. The new (2022) text draws heavily on the unadopted outcome from the Tenth NPT Review Conference. But as countless non-nuclear armed states said at that conference and during the First Committee, this was not the outcome they wanted. Even the new title of this draft resolution says a lot—it is about steps to building a roadmap, rather than taking action now.
It remains clear from the NPT Review Conference and the First Committee what non-nuclear armed states want, and what they see as the way to get there. That is why they worked together to outlaw these weapons through the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. But a slim minority of countries seem to believe their “security interests” are greater than the survival of the planet. While this responsibility foremost lies with the nine nuclear-armed states, the states that support their possession of nuclear weapons also buy into this pursuit of security supremacy.
South Africa critiqued these nuclear-supportive allies, which shelter under the so-called nuclear “umbrella” while abdicating any responsibility for sustaining nuclear weapons. “The approach of Non-Nuclear-Weapons States that call for disarmament, while under extended nuclear deterrence guarantees needs to be assessed,” said South Africa. “Such states that include nuclear weapons in its doctrines therefore have a vested interest in the indefinite possession of nuclear weapons. We are sure that States in nuclear military alliances would be delighted by any lowest common denominator resolutions adopted by this meeting, especially since it shields them from criticism for advocating the value and utility of nuclear weapons. This in no way encourages them to reject nuclear weapons.”
Nuclear abolition now
While the nuclear-armed states rail against each other and the world, and the nuclear-supportive states try to provide cover for their continued possession of nuclear weapons, the non-nuclear armed states are demanding meaningful action. This past week, they repeatedly emphasised the urgency of this moment, with Ghana warning, “We cannot claim to want a peaceful world yet take actions against peace. If we do not take actions to reverse the wrong paths now, it may be too late to pull back.”
For most UN member states, the answer is nuclear abolition—now. Delegation after delegation fiercely and categorically rejected nuclear weapons throughout the thematic debate. Bangladesh urged “the international community to unite against the perpetual holding of nuclear weapons by a handful of states in total disregard of the safety and security of humanity,” while the Philippines argued, “No amount of ambition or aspiration can ever justify the catastrophic humanitarian impact of all nuclear weapons, whether tactical or otherwise.”
Austria pushed back against the attempt to normalise the potential use of nuclear weapons, noting, “We hear too much irresponsible talk about the use of tactical nuclear weapons, as if this would somehow be ‘not so bad’.… This is dangerous and simply not acceptable.” Austria emphasised that replying on nuclear deterrence as a strategy for security is also not acceptable or tenable. “This current acute crisis demonstrates the unacceptable risks that nuclear weapons pose to us all and the fragility, the highly precarious nature and even the flimsiness on which the theory of nuclear deterrence rests,” said Austria, arguing:
We need to stop believing that nuclear deterrence and the threat with nuclear weapons will not lead to these weapons being used. The risk of the opposite happening is enormous. Nuclear deterrence is a theory that is necessarily based on the credibility, the readiness and the reassertion of that readiness to actually use nuclear weapons. The readiness to inflict catastrophic humanitarian consequences, mass destruction and the killing and wounding of civilians on an unimaginable scale. Not only is this abhorrent to any sense of morality or ethics. The use of nuclear weapons would be a clear violation of the UN Charter and international law, in particular international humanitarian law.
Kiribati, speaking from the perspective of a state that experienced the horrors of nuclear weapons, said it is fully convinced “that nuclear weapons are evil and must not be allowed to be used as instruments of peace and security.” Instead, “They must be erased from the face of the earth.” Namibia argued nuclear weapons “are a source of international antagonism, instilling fear and posing endless threats of the use of destructive force to entrench international instability.”
Overcoming the misogyny of militarism
In the face of the arrogant dedication to nuclear bombs by certain states, others are looking for ways to prevent an apocalypse and build the world of peace promised by the United Nations. “We must overcome this misogyny of militarism,” proclaimed Costa Rica. There is an urgent need “to adopt a more intersectional approach focusing on the question of ‘upending the nuclear patriarchy’ and the importance of addressing the gendered discourse that is the foundation of the nuclear narrative.”
This approach is imperative. It goes well beyond nuclear weapons—it is about building international relations that work for all, instead of a few; that is not about power but about equality among nations, as envisioned by the United Nations in the wreckage of World War II. This is the alternative to nuclear meat hooks and security supremacy.
The misogyny of militarism and the horror show it has brought to the world is about more than nuclear weapons. As Norway warned during the conventional weapons debate, “We are in a time of re-armament.” Citing the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s findings “that 2021 broke yet another record for global military spending,” Norway—and countless others—have called for demilitarisation rather than the pursuit of domination.
Norway said it is “convinced that improved security and protection for all can be achieved at significantly lower levels of armament,” which “requires building trust and confidence around commonly agreed norms and rules.”
We have these tools—the treaties prohibiting nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as cluster bombs and landmines, the new political declaration against the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, the Arms Trade Treaty and the UN Programme of Action on small arms and light weapons, and emerging support for new rules and norms on autonomous weapon systems and cyber peace and security.
Just this Friday, 70 states recognised the importance of elaborating a normative and operational framework regulating autonomous weapons, “including through internationally agreed rules and limits.” This is important. The impending horrors from weapons that operate without meaningful human control, weapons that use artificial intelligence and algorithms to determine who lives and dies, machines that can target and kill human beings, is the stuff of science fiction nightmares, here now at our doorstep. That so many diverse states can agree that autonomy in weapon systems raises serious humanitarian, legal, security, technological, and ethical concerns and express a willingness to work together on this issue is important, especially as wars rage around us.
It is through demilitarisation and disarmament—and the prevention of new tools of violence—that we can build a better world, a world that works outside of the violent hellscape created by those governments that cling to weapons of mass destruction as a security blanket, threatening to smother us all. But we have no time to spare: we must end this tale of horror and write a new story for our world, right now.
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