In late January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ so-called Doomsday Clock was moved closer to midnight than it has ever been, indicating how grave they consider the threat of nuclear war. Now with the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran escalating in unpredictable and dangerous ways, that threat feels even more immediate.
After the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s and the disarmament agreements signed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikael Gorbachev, the danger linked to the thousands of warheads the U.S. and Russia still maintain took a lower profile. But in the intervening years, both countries have undertaken an extensive modernization of their nuclear weapons arsenal. And with Donald Trump in the White House, concern has surged about the possibility of this unpopular president, making a unilateral decision to launch a nuclear weapon, with virtually no checks or balances.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Ann Froines, an activist with the group Back from The Brink, which works to reduce the danger of nuclear war. Here she discusses the threat of nuclear catastrophe and provides information on how individuals can take action.
ANNE FROINES: Positions for Social Responsibility is one of the organizations that launched the campaign and it has recently become much more active because it has introduced these congressional resolutions concerning nuclear disarmament. It’s basically trying to set a new framework for the United States to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear war. After the fall of the Soviet Union and the sort of decline of interest in the Cold War and fear about a nuclear exchange—accidental or intentional—the problem of nuclear-armed states kind of disappeared a bit from the public view and was replaced by other issues.
This campaign is attempting to put this back on the agenda, particularly with the U.S. Congress. The basic idea of the campaign is to pursue the following goals: pursuing verifiable agreements among nuclear-armed states to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals; to renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first; to end the sole unchecked authority of any U.S. president to launch a nuclear attack and to take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.
And this is very important too. It’s aiming to cancel the plan to replace the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons. And this is especially important to emphasize with local community groups doing socially progressive things with trade unions and so on, because the United States is planning to spend between $1 and $2 trillion in the next few years, enhancing nuclear weapons—that is, making new ones. Throwing out the old ones.
Given the affordability crisis being in front of the Congress and the American people right now about healthcare, education and housing, this is an important issue that we’re trying to stress to get support from congresspersons for these resolutions. And the way resolutions work, they’re kind of a statement of intention on the part of Congress people before an actual bill is designed to go before a committee. There are two resolutions, House Resolution 317 and Senate Resolution 323.
They have exactly the same content. They’re companion resolutions. And we have so far 50 sign-ons, signatures from congresspersons for 317, and I don’t know, somewhere between six and a dozen so far for Senate Resolution 323.
MELINDA TUHUS: Anne Froines, talking about the $1 to $2 trillion cost. I believe that this whole thing started under the Obama administration, isn’t that right?
ANNE FROINES: It’s been a bipartisan issue all along, nuclear funding, nuclear weapons and nuclear expansion. The goal is to make it a bipartisan issue to slowly bring this under control, into a halt. It really isn’t a partisan issue. And I don’t think too many Republicans or possibly any have signed on yet, but it’s true that the Democrats—as well as certainly under Biden—more money was put forward for this.
MELINDA TUHUS: The other point you raised about in the resolution, I think was something like to take away the unilateral power of the president to launch nuclear weapons, right? That is very scary, the existing situation.
ANNE FROINES: This is why we’re really stressing the urgency of the timing of this now, too, given that actually four nuclear-armed nations are involved in active or very active wars. And that would be Russia, the United States, Israel and Pakistan, that’s fighting wars on its borders. So that makes this matter ever more urgent. And then the frightening instability and ignorance about international affairs in our U.S. executive branch should put everyone on alert to try to participate somehow in this issue.
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