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The Military Government

The Marshall Islands, Nuclear Testing, and the NPT 69

Posted by samzenpus from the big-booms dept.
Lasrick writes: Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former senior policy adviser to the Energy Department's secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment, details the horrific consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands and explains the lawsuits the Marshallese have filed against the nuclear weapons states. The lawsuits hope to close the huge loophole those states carved for themselves with the vague wording of Article VI of the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty), wording that allows those states to delay, seemingly indefinitely, implementing the disarmament they agreed to when they signed the treaty.
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The Marshall Islands, Nuclear Testing, and the NPT More

The Marshall Islands, Nuclear Testing, and the NPT

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  • The damage done to them was only by the United States

    The NPT is not violated by any member state's actions, read it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Coren22 ( 1625475 )

      If you don't think anyone is violating the treaty, please explain how the US's current system of replacing nukes with newer and better nukes is in keeping with the wording of:

      Article VI

      Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

      from:
      http://www.un.org/en/conf/npt/... [un.org]

      How has the US/Russia/etc negotiated in good faith on effective measures ... to nuclear disarmament? It seems that the arsenals are growing, or if shrinking, they are becoming more powerful overall as they are replaced with more modern weapons.

      • The total number of nuclear weapons is in decline. They take a number of warheads out of service because they are old and replace them with fewer, more modern models which are "better" in some ways (more accurate, more yield, lighter, what have you). Overall there are fewer warheads. That's how.

        • The total number of nuclear weapons is in decline.

          Many of the doomsday horrors that tipped ICBMS for Cold War Game Over scenarios [youtube.com] have been rendered into electricity.

          cite [wikipedia.org] "The Megatons to Megawatts program was initiated in 1993 and successfully completed in December 2013. A total of 500 tonnes of Russian warhead grade HEU (high enriched uranium, equivalent to 20,008 nuclear warheads) were converted in Russia to nearly 15,000 tonnes tons of LEU (low enriched uranium) and sold to the US for use as fuel in American nuclear power plants. During the 20-year Meg

      • Re:other states? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @04:44PM (#49786359)

        How has the US/Russia/etc negotiated in good faith on effective measures

        Note that they're required to negotiate in good faith on "effective measures" - when they figure out some "effective measures", then you can complain about them not negotiating "in good faith".

        And just curious, what "effective measures" can you think of? Especially in light of the fact that North Korea is NOT a signatory to the NPT....

        It seems that the arsenals are growing, or if shrinking, they are becoming more powerful overall as they are replaced with more modern weapons.

        As to that, no, they're not actually building more powerful nukes. The delivery mechanisms are getting more accurate, so smaller nukes are as effective as big nukes were back in the day. Note that there are no multi-megaton nukes left - they've been replaced with fractional-megaton weapons with a CEP small enough that it makes no difference.

        Note, by the by, that CEP is a function of the rocket (or bomber), not the nuke. And improved versions of rockets/bombers aren't limited by the NPT in any case.

      • Well, how about all the arms reduction treaties from the 1970s to the 1990s? Such as SALT, SALT II, START, START II (not enacted, but negotiated) and New START?

        Sounds like they're doing what they agreed to - negotiating in good faith. Also, going past that, as they actually have eliminated all IRBMs, reduced MIRV count, reduced launcher count, banned all testing, etc.

        The US current system of replacing nukes is consistent with all treaties because warhead and launcher count is what is specified in the diff

  • Wishful Thinking (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @04:10PM (#49786095)
    As horrible as nuclear weapons are, and as ideal as a world without them would be, this is wishful thinking at its best. The level of trust and cooperation required for everyone to give up nuclear weapons is in large part simply impossible given the current state of human and world affairs. We've certainly not managed to eliminate war or armed conflict. All we've done is limit its scope and size.

    And speaking of that, it's in large part due to nuclear weapons that there have been no major wars in the past 70 years. The most we've seen were proxy wars that were limited in scope, and while many of those were horrible, they pale in comparison to the two World Wars, or really any of the major power conflicts that preceded them. The world with nuclear-armed major powers is paradoxically MORE peaceful than the world before it was. Prior to the nuclear age, it's difficult to go more than 20-30 years without two or more major powers going to war. The presence of nuclear weapons was the final thing that made "Total War" too costly a concept for rational actors to even consider it.

    Reduce their number and scope? Sure, by all means. Get rid of them entirely? That's quite a different thing.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by edxwelch ( 600979 )

      You realise we came close to a full scale nuclear war at least three times during the cold war? (Twice during the Cuban crisis and one false alarm by a Soviet early warning system)
      They may appeared to make things safer, but it was just blind luck that we avoided nuclear Armageddon.

      • Re:Wishful Thinking (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Fire_Wraith ( 1460385 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @07:19PM (#49787215)
        I'd actually argue that it was considered more than that. MacArthur wanted to nuke China over the Korean War. I'm sure someone suggested nuking the Russians over their development of an atomic bomb, and I know that the Russians considered doing it to China when China was developing one. Each time, cooler heads prevailed, in no small part because of just how awful we realized nuclear weapons are.

        And that's in part what you need to ask - how many times did we avert something worse than the historical outcome due to the fact that Russia/China/USA/etc had nukes now? Even the Great War (World War I), a war so bloody that both sides pretty much bled themselves dry fighting it, still wasn't enough to turn people off from another one twenty years later? And yes, I realize there's a lot more to it than that, but I would argue that nuclear weapons are the single sole reason that the Cold War never turned hot.

        The bottom line is that Nuclear Weapons make it impossible for one nation to unilaterally impose its will by force on another without triggering mutual suicide. This turns out to make people a heck of a lot more willing to talk things out, or at least to not fight each other head on.

        Now that said, I don't think it's a good idea to thereby let everyone have them. The more countries that have them, the more the risk increases that something goes wrong with that calculation, because someone decides to gamble, either from desperation or greed or whatever, and it goes nuclear.

        Nuclear weapons are horrible, awful, and terrible things - but their existence also has some very important effects that shouldn't be ignored.

      • ...

        No, its working EXACTLY like he said.

        No rational actor will start a nuclear war.

        Its not dumb luck, its the threat of nuclear annihilation that prevents it.

        Its mind numbing that someone like you can say 'hey look at these three examples of where we didn't go to war ... it means war in inevitable!@$!%!@%' completely and utterly ignoring the fact that there have been fewer wars and they've been smaller since this happened.

        If you think its blind luck, you're the blind.

      • You realise we came close to a full scale nuclear war at least three times during the cold war?

        Yes - and if we could un-invent the things I'd be absolutely for that. However complete disarmament would not help with a cold war scenario like this since the tensions were so high that paranoia would set in an one side would worry that the other side was rebuilding its nuclear weapons in secret and so start their own re-armament program in secret.

        This leads to a potentially even more dangerous situation than having two sides each with a known nuclear arsenal. If one side believes that they are the fir

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I disagree with your premise. Technical verification is comparatively easy. What's lacking is the real will. Don't forget that we are talking geopolitcs and company profits here. They, as usual, dominate.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Reduce their number and scope? Sure, by all means. Get rid of them entirely? That's quite a different thing.

      Indeed it is. Possessing even just a handful of nuclear weapons can be a cost effective deterrent to outright invasion by a major power and thus are an attractive alternative to a large and well equipped military, especially for smaller nations which cannot afford to compete heads up with great powers in conventional military forces.

    • Re:Wishful Thinking (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @08:55PM (#49787657)

      As horrible as nuclear weapons are, and as ideal as a world without them would be, this is wishful thinking at its best. The level of trust and cooperation required for everyone to give up nuclear weapons is in large part simply impossible given the current state of human and world affairs. We've certainly not managed to eliminate war or armed conflict. All we've done is limit its scope and size.

      And speaking of that, it's in large part due to nuclear weapons that there have been no major wars in the past 70 years. The most we've seen were proxy wars that were limited in scope, and while many of those were horrible, they pale in comparison to the two World Wars, or really any of the major power conflicts that preceded them. The world with nuclear-armed major powers is paradoxically MORE peaceful than the world before it was. Prior to the nuclear age, it's difficult to go more than 20-30 years without two or more major powers going to war. The presence of nuclear weapons was the final thing that made "Total War" too costly a concept for rational actors to even consider it.

      Reduce their number and scope? Sure, by all means. Get rid of them entirely? That's quite a different thing.

      No major wars in the past 70 years? Wtf have you been smoking? We've been in a proxy war with Russia since basically the end of WWII. We've invaded practically every country in the middle east, South America and most of Asia. Millions of people are dead. Basically the entire middle east is at war with us in one way or another as we speak. The only difference between now and WWII is the iron grip our leaders now have on the message our media feeds us. We are in the middle of a world war right now, and have been this entire time.

      After memorial day I read an article about how Obama was celebrating the first memorial day without "boots on the ground" in 7 years or something. Meanwhile we've got special forces in every country in the middle east, bombers flying daily missions, drones bombing weddings. Just how gullible are we?!?!

      • Go compare the number of dead. Even as absolute numbers, nevermind as percentages of the world population, the number of deaths from war from the second half of the 20th century and beyond pale in comparison to the first half.

        World War II killed something like 60 million people, or about 3% of the world population. You hold up the Cold War as being bad - do you think Nukes are what made that conflict? No, they're part of what kept it from erupting into direct open warfare between NATO/the West and the Wa

        • Go compare the number of dead. Even as absolute numbers, nevermind as percentages of the world population, the number of deaths from war from the second half of the 20th century and beyond pale in comparison to the first half.

          World War II killed something like 60 million people, or about 3% of the world population. You hold up the Cold War as being bad - do you think Nukes are what made that conflict? No, they're part of what kept it from erupting into direct open warfare between NATO/the West and the Warsaw Pact/Communist Bloc. Yes, Korea was bloody (roughly about 1-2 million dead). How much more bloody would it have been had the Russians and Americans not been keen to avoid fighting one another directly lest nuclear weapons come into play? Would the USA have invaded Cuba had it not been for the threat of Nuclear War with Russia? Would Russia have invaded Western Europe at any number of points? The Cold War was unprecedented simply because there really isn't a good historical parallel of two obvious antagonists avoiding any direct conflict despite any number of flashpoints.

          And why is that? Quite simply, it was that both sides knew the danger and cost of any direct conflict were far too steep and final, due to nukes.

          You have a typically myopic American conservative point of view. You're picking and choosing your numbers to fit your point of view. WWII killed 60 million people? Really? So you're including the holocaust? and the flu?

          And using WW2 as the "bar" for what war is like is kind of a joke. WW2 was a unique event in human history. It had never happened before and claiming that anything has prevented it from happening again is kind of a joke. It very well could happen again but now we have nukes! Yay! Do you thin

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Legal failure; politically misguided. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mpoulton ( 689851 ) on Wednesday May 27, 2015 @04:42PM (#49786343)
    This lawsuit is a legal mess, destined to fail. In fact, it already did fail and they're just trying futilely to revive it. All applicable statutes of limitations passed years ago. You can't wait decades to file a lawsuit. Equally as importantly, "The Marshall Islands" as a political subdivision does not have standing to sue for injuries that occurred to specific people and property there. Those people and property owners would have to sue, not their regional government. Finally, the decisions which were made and the actions taken were political decisions made by the United States in exercise of its sovereign authority - and you can't sue for that. It seems that the plaintiffs know this, which is why they are now trying to frame the lawsuit as a claim to enforce the NPT. The problem with that is, yet again, a lack of standing on several levels, and an inaccurate interpretation of the treaty itself. First, there is no cause of action through which any individual or entity can force the government to comply with or enforce a treaty. International relations are solely the sovereign domain of the federal government, and they can decide to abide by (or disregard) treaties as our elected officials see fit. Second, the treaty is not being violated. It does not require disarmament, nor is there a mandatory timeline for any particular disarmament-related activity. It says the signatories will negotiate towards an agreement regarding disarmament. That's not an enforceable mandate in any meaningful sense. Why? Because the signatories never actually had any intention of disarming, so they made an agreement that didn't require them to disarm. A third party can't come in and force them to abide by a deal they didn't make in the first place. Look, the Marshallese got screwed. There was a discriminatory component to that. It wouldn't happen the same way today. But the bottom line is that we needed a place to test weapons of mass destruction, and the Marshall Islands were the best choice available. So the US did what they had to do to make the program work. They should have provided market-based compensation for the taking of land, and they should have relocated everyone out of the zone of danger, turning the entire area into a restricted military installation before blowing it up repeatedly. There should have been no injuries and no uncompensated loss of property. But the reasonable conclusion to take away from those events is not that nuclear weapons should be eliminated, or that the tests shouldn't have been conducted at that location. They served a critical purpose for national security, and anyone who says otherwise is a revisionist with an agenda.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      The lawsuit is being pushed by anti-nuke groups that have no connection to the Marshall Islands. They talked a few people there into going along so they had an excuse to file the suit, which is nothing more than a publicity stunt.
  • Speaking of the horrific consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific, a big one that's still with us today is the knee-jerk phobia of nuclear power, often by people who can't distinguish between the two. Along with wind and solar, nuclear power is one of our chief tools to mitigate global warming, which will in the long term prove to be far worse than weapons testing. It sure doesn't help that the US government lied through its teeth about atmospheric testing. I've been trying to find a copy of

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