First Committee Monitor, Vol. 20, No. 6
Editorial: Stopping the Military Mayhem
5 November 2022
Ray Acheson
As the 77th session of the First Committee draws to a close, some of us who follow its work can’t help but feel the grim warnings alerting us to present danger and future catastrophe. As has been the case throughout history, one does not need to be psychic or have premonitions to feel the grim darkness of violence descending. One only needs to look at the money being spent on weapons, the flaming rather than extinguishing of tensions, and the blood already spilled to see that we are headed in a terrible direction.
What makes this moment particularly frustrating is that we have been here before and we know that it resulted in devastation for all but the most elite capitalists in all of the states involved. In the wake of other conflicts and crises, the world has constructed institutions to prevent such calamity from occurring again. While not perfect, international laws and forums were built to prevent war and settle tensions and divisions through other means. The leaders of the states responsible for the current crisis are those that have abrogated these obligations and responsibilities, that have prioritised their political interests and the profits of their death-making industries above the well-being, equity, and even survival of the rest of the world.
The time to stop charging down the path of destruction is now. Instead, these same state leaders are doubling down.
Bombers away
Even today, with Russia waging war in Ukraine and threatening to use nuclear weapons, the United States is seeking to exacerbate tensions with China. Just two months after Australia repeated ad nauseum at the NPT Review Conference that it was not acquiring nuclear weapons through the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine arrangement, it has agreed to host up to six US nuclear-capable B-52 bombers as part of the United States’ strategy of flexing its military muscles in the Asia-Pacific region.
Australia is already heavily militarised by the United States, hosting US soldiers at military bases as well as US intelligence agents at the Pine Gap satellite surveillance base. While some Australian commentators have tried to downplay the introduction of B-52 bombers as another routine part of this militarised landscape, the US military has made it clear this is about sending a message to China. Australian investigative journalist Peter Cronau described the deployment of the bombers as “military madness,” while Australian Greens senator David Shoebridge argued, “This is a dangerous escalation. It makes Australia an even bigger part of the global nuclear weapons threat to humanity's very existence and by rising military tensions it further destabilizes our region.”
Divisions instead of resolutions
These real-world developments—of which there are many more examples—impact what happens at the First Committee. The United Nations is supposed to be the gathering place for all governments of the world to work out their problems; instead, it is being used as place to score points and force further divisions.
The voting patterns on certain resolutions, and the introduction of new and ever more divisive texts on some subjects such as outer space, cyber security, and nuclear weapons, demonstrates the unwillingness of the most heavily militarised governments to work together. The statements, explanations of vote, and rights of reply at this year’s First Committee became increasingly redundant as time went on. With more explanations of vote than ever in recent memory, the Committee barely even finished its work on time.
Among the various points of contention was that between those who see international law as the way forward versus those who see voluntary principles or confidence-building or risk reduction measures as best. Of course, some of the supporters of each “side” of this division actively violate both law and norms, and hypocritically accuse each other of bad behaviour in which they themselves routinely engage. This leaves the majority of states in the middle, trying to figure out whether to agree with things because they want to support the principle of the matter, or stand against the hypocritical absurdity of it all.
This is no clearer example than Japan’s draft resolution L.61, “Steps to building a common roadmap towards a world without nuclear weapons,” which Brazil noted has become a “symbol for fragmentation” within the First Committee. While Japan posits this as a “bride-building” resolution, for several years now it has only exacerbated divisions, whilst scoring some points for Japan with the United States—which it even managed to secure as a co-sponsor this year, in exchange for excising from the text anything resembling a meaningful commitment to nuclear disarmament.
“Not only does this resolution expect Member States to take gradual steps, but it wants to require Member States to build a common roadmap moving towards, but never attaining, a world without nuclear weapons,” warned South Africa in its explanation of vote on L.61. “The resolution sets the disarmament agenda back, creating conditionalities for disarmament that can never be reached. It tries to make retaining nuclear weapons more palatable by reducing the risk of keeping, maintaining and modernizing them.” Furthermore, it “conspicuously and deliberately omits the obligations of Nuclear Weapon States related to their unequivocal undertakings to disarm” and sets “the bar for the first preparatory committee of the 11th [NPT] Review Conference so low, that the possibility to progress on nuclear disarmament already seems unattainable.”
Many other non-nuclear-armed states outlined similar concerns with L.61. Some voted in favour to show their support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while warning of the resolution’s problems; others abstained or voted against the resolution because it seriously undermines the credibility of the NPT and belays hope of achieving nuclear disarmament.
This resolution sends the opposite message than what needs to be conveyed by the First Committee this year. With nuclear threats back in the news, the failure of the last two NPT Review Conferences, ongoing nuclear weapon modernisation and deployment, and rising tensions among many of the nuclear-armed states, the First Committee should have been resolute in its resolve to work collectively for peace and security through disarmament. Instead, the First Committee is a place where nuclear-armed states can apparently say, as India did in relation to its explanation of vote on L.46, “Ethical imperatives for a nuclear-weapon-free world,” that questions of “morality” need to be put in context of states’ security needs in a nuclearised world order. That is, ethics and morals have no place in a world with nuclear weapons. Coupled with the total abrogation of their disarmament obligations by all nuclear-armed states, we are thus left with the impression that this is how things will always be.
The world is not a playground for the “powerful”
But this is pure fantasy. The idea that “this is just the way the world is and anyone trying to change it is naïve or dangerous” reflects militarised, masculinised ideal of might makes right, where there are good guys and bad guys and zero-sum outcomes with winners and losers in every game, where every perceived slight requires the use or threat of violence to maintain one’s integrity. This is a pathetic world order. And it absolutely cannot last, because one of these days, one of the boys with the bombs is going to go too far and end it all. In the meantime, the majority of the world’s people will suffer from poverty, pandemics, climate chaos, and conflict.
Stopping the military mayhem is the core imperative for our world. Saying no to the dark road of despair we are currently on and forging instead new, demilitarised paths is the only way out of this mess. The governments and industries profiting from the wars and chaos they create will not lead. As has been demonstrated in other UN processes that have successfully led to disarmament, the other states working closely with civil society must break away and set the standards, laws, and funding for peace and care—leading by example and not just following the so-called “major powers” to our end.
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