Author: Robert Dodge

Ignoring international partners, world public opinion and action, the U.S. took additional steps these past weeks to renounce another international leadership role, this time in nuclear disarmament. On the same day that Austria became the 9^th nation to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran Nuclear Deal while the US House of Representatives Armed Forces Committee approved funding of the submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) "low-yield" nuclear warheads – each action fueling the new arms race and moving us closer to the brink of nuclear war.

The world’s non-nuclear nations have given up on waiting for the United States and other nuclear nations to fulfill our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligation to "work in good faith to eliminate nuclear weapons." They are refusing to be held hostage any longer to the threats of the "nuclear nine" realizing from the 2013 "Nuclear Famine, 2 Billion At Risk" scientific report that there is no such thing as a "limited nuclear war." Any regional nuclear war has the potential to cause climate change potentiating a global famine. The non-nuclear nations have taken their future into their own hands, adopting last year’s "Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons" declaring nuclear weapons illegal to have, develop, use or threaten to use. Once 50 nations have ratified the Treaty, it becomes international law and the nations that continue to possess these weapons will be further stigmatized as pariah states. Vietnam became the 10^th nation to ratify the Treaty on Thursday.

Continue reading “At the Brink of Nuclear War, Who Will Lead?”

Since the beginning of the nuclear age and the dropping of the first atomic bombs, humankind has struggled with the reality of being able to destroy the planet on the one hand and the abolition of these weapons on the other. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear (ICAN) acknowledges these realities and celebrates the efforts to achieve the latter. The Nobel Peace Prize with its award criteria specifies: the promotion of fraternity between nations; the advancement of disarmament and arms control and the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

From the beginning of the nuclear age in 1945 to the founding of the United Nations, 71 years ago, with its very first resolution – advocating for the importance of nuclear disarmament and a nuclear weapon-free world – nuclear abolition has been the necessary goal for our survival. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) exemplifies these ideals and brings hope to our world.

Continue reading “The 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons: Saving Humanity From Itself”

Today, September 26, is the International Day for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons. This day, first proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, draws attention to the international commitment to global nuclear disarmament by the majority of the world’s nations as expressed in Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It also highlights the lack of progress by the nine nuclear nations who hold the rest of the world hostage with their nuclear arsenals.

Albert Einstein said in 1946, "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our mode of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." This drift has perhaps never been more perilous than at the present time. With careless rhetoric of threatened use of nuclear weapons, fire and fury, and total destruction of other nations, the world has recognized that there are no right hands to be on the nuclear button. Total abolition of nuclear weapons is the only response.

Continue reading “Today Is the Day: International Day for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons”

Finally, 72 years after the US dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki, there is hope that we will see the abolition of these most deadly weapons of mass destruction, for this year on July 7 an historic treaty banning nuclear weapons like every other weapon of mass destruction was adopted at the United Nations. Recognizing and responding to the medical and humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, the world has come together and spoken.

In drafting the treaty nations acknowledged the science that proves even a "small" regional nuclear war using less than ½ percent of the global nuclear arsenals would result in the deaths of two billion people on the planet from blasts, radiation sickness, and the "nuclear autumn" famine that would follow.

Continue reading “Hope this Hiroshima Day”