INES Newsletter No. 33

NGOs like INES will not work effectively unless they realize the new situation in politics, wealth and power which arises due to a bundle of new "basic innovations." These new basic innovations are triggered by the new information and communication technologies (new ICTs).

Computers and the Internet are redefining and redistributing power and wealth. Whereas oil, banks and cars used to define wealth until the 1980s, by now the largest economic sectors are, in this order: R tourism, information and communication sector and } experience and entertainment industry.

The experience and entertainment sector is the fastest growing sector. Much of it is based on the new ICTs. Old industries have become dwarfed by new ones, and moreover, most old industries are in serious trouble, e.g. Daimler-Chrysler, Rover or Mitsubishi from the car sector. Some carmakers have successfully entered new sectors; e.g. Ford USA makes more than half of its profit with financial services. Another sector with serious problems is the banking sector; banks fuse into bigger units to survive global competition.

Such ascent and decline of major economic sectors is nothing new. Mensch and others have studied historic basic innovations, major innovations such as the railway system, carbochemistry, cars, airplane and mass media. For example, starting in the 1960s air transport caused a disappearance of transoceanic transport of passengers. In the developed countries many harbors and shipbuilding regions have since declined in power and wealth. Basic innovations have always redefined power and wealth and created new players in globally ever-wider circles of countries. Innovative use of railways allowed Prussia to defeat France in the war of 1870/1871; use of a special version of cars (in the form of tanks) and of aircraft enabled Fascist Germany to defeat France in WW II by overcoming its Maginot Line which was built to defeat the immobile technologies of WW I. U.S. aircraft operated with impunity over Serbia under a screen provided by new ICTs. There are numerous examples throughout history how new basic innovations offered economic opportunities for new regions. For example, during the 18^th century the "rich" Netherlands lost their traditional leading role to England, which had been comparatively poor. The Netherlands had been rich from its shipping industry, financial sector and trade; England developed into the center of the new cotton industry and became much richer and more powerful than the Netherlands. Beginning with the late 19^th century England lost its technological lead to the USA and Germany both of which excelled in new industries such as the chemical industry and the car industry.

Remarkable in basic innovations is their rapid, bundled and sectorally concentrated appearance. Usually, basic innovations are started by young people on their own and usually in a fight with established powers from industry and politics. This brings a new entrepreneurial group into power. Now we are again experiencing this pattern. The new ICTs are a major driving force of present changes. Although most experts on this topic agree that not much of their new potential has been used so far, changes in economy and military have already been dramatic.

The U.S. has become the only remaining superpower. Europe, as Wired puts it, "loves to hate" the "New Economy." One reason may be that the industrial society was a European brainchild whereas the emergence of the information society indicates a kind of European descent in cultural leadership. But this ambiguous attitude makes Europe fall behind and become ever more dependent on the U.S., certainly not what those want who object to the new.

As in previous basic innovations, once again, young people out of nowhere have started most of the present wave of new basic innovations. One example is the Internet. This was programmed and defined by several 10,000 young people, and more recently up to several 100,000 people, often unpaid, in a grassroots movement. When in the early 1990s governments and big industries became aware of the Internet, it already had a size of several million servers. It developed "below the radar" of established watchdogs as it was the fastest growing technology in human history with two periods of hyperexponential growth in the 1980s (fourfold increase in number of hosts per year) and doublings per year in the number of hosts for all other years since 1981. (A host is a computer that puts information into the Internet.) Given the inertia in observing something entirely new, which defied traditional definitions, the Internet was already very big when it was first perceived as a threat by major players. Almost all established powers tried to kill the Internet and failed. For example, Microsoft established its competing Microsoft Network (MSN) to make the Internet obsolete with more money and superior technology. But several months after establishing MSN, Microsoft realized that it could not compete with the original thing, and instead embraced the Internet. IBM applied different tactics but ended up becoming another Internet company. Time Magazine printed a cover story on pornography in the Internet although prior to publication it had received substantial warnings that this story was a falsification. This article caused a storm against the Internet but did not stop it and ended up harming Time magazine; several months later Time printed a second cover story on how it accepted a falsification. A few years later AOL, the biggest Internet provider in the world, bought Time-Warner and with it, the Time Magazine. Internet economies had won over old media.

Some readers may feel relieved how this development hits big players. But beware. This development has many more facets: "established players" includes most of the literary, cultural and religious elite of the world. The Internet was build by "young wilds" in a technological race ignoring this elite and their norms, values, power base and inner circles. The young wilds are making their own new inner circles.

Other readers may feel inclined to belittle this development. For example, a common statement is: "But we cannot eat information, we will always need food." This is true and agricultural production is higher than ever. Nevertheless, the contribution of the agricultural and forestry sector to Gross Domestic Product is lower than ever because other sectors have emerged which did not exist before and which dramatically increased GDP. Another argument is: "The New Economy does not earn money." Each new basic innovation, in its beginning, consumes lot of money; and after some time there has always been an economic shakeout, often in the form of a severe economic crisis, the worst being that of the 1930s. Still, the basic innovations which became well established just prior to the 1930s continued to grow and to dominate economy and military: cars, aircraft, mass media, phone. In much the same way the New Economy will not go away. Instead, it is transforming mature industries. E.g., Asian Brown Bovery which used to be a manufacturer of equipment related to the electrical power sector, in 1996 earned more than 60% of its profits with information products and this fraction has since increased. More than 60 % of the 1000 biggest companies of the world (the "Fortune 1000") have negative growth rates (they shrink). As many companies from the New Economy are among these 1000 and as almost all companies from the New Economy have high positive growth rates this means that far more than 60% of the old companies are shrinking. The decline of the old economy is more rapid than one might expect. Most of them will not disappear; we will always need electrical motors, for example, but at present it is no longer possible to make regions rich with the production of electrical motors. Also, as is obvious from history, e.g. Netherlands which had been rich from banking prior to Englands ascend with the cotton industry, sectors may cyclically rise and decline, such as banking, which was a source of wealth for most of the period from the late 1930s to the late 1980s. Banking was in major crises in the 1930s and again since the late 1980s. The decline in importance also affects science in both respects, relative importance of sectors of knowledge and value of expertise.

Figure 1 illustrates all of this in a heuristic way. It shows the value of production of the major economic sectors over time. The "First Sector" comprises agriculture, forestry and production of resources e.g. minerals or coal. This sector was overtaken in the value of production in the second half of the 19^th century by the goods-producing sector. This was the ascent of the industrial society. Since the 1850s goods created more wealth than resources. Both the resource sector and the goods-producing sector always needed service, e.g. transport and information processing. This type of service plus personal services, e.g. medical or hair cutting, constitute the third economic sector, that of services.

Specialization gives advantages in production but needs an increasing division of labor which in turn needs more specialized services. Thus, specialization in production or services is impossible without an increase of the service sector. In the 1960s, the service sector overtook the goods producing sector. Since the early 1990s we see the emergence of a fourth sector. For example, phone lines are a part of the service sector. It is no longer service in the proper meaning if somebody provides Internet access through phone lines or offers multimedia content through the Internet. It is helpful to view such activities as belonging to a new, fourth sector of economy.

Other examples of this sector are the so-called experience economy (Pine, B.J., J.H. Gilmore. 1999: The Experience Economy. Boston: Harvard Business School Press) or the production with a computer of videos of dinosaurs.

There is no clear separation between these sectors. For example, research on fractals and mathematical wavelets allowed a dramatic compression of images by a factor of 100 without noticeable loss in the quality of these images (e.g. www.cengines.com).

Existing telecommunication satellites could suddenly handle 100-fold the amount of TV programs; software replaced hardware; third sector products competed with and enhanced second sector products. Hardware, satellites in this example, belong to the second sector, software to the third sector. Nowadays, most goods are becoming ever more dependent on software. Modern cars would not run without software. In other words, these sectors are somewhat heuristic but they are immensely useful.

Until the late 1980s, military might was defined by the first three sectors. Now, figure 1 is beginning to mirror the distribution how the four sectors contribute to military power: it is increasingly becoming dominated by fourth-sector products.

With the ascent of the fourth sector it becomes possible to earn an income and achieve profits with an entirely new line of products and services. Figure 1 illustrates how this fourth sector will double national income. As national income is about to double through the contribution of the fourth sector, the third sector has to fire every second employee to be able to pay competitive wages. The reason is: average income is proportional to GDP divided by number of working population. If GDP doubles, average income doubles. Sectors can pay more if they earn more. As this is not possible in the first three sectors, the alternative is to fire employees; the second sector has to fire two out of three and the first sector has to fire three out of four. The first sector cannot earn more as we will not eat more or pay more for agricultural products. But the consequences for the resource sector are detrimental. Obviously, this needs a further intensification of agricultural production with severe environmental impacts. This heuristic Fig. 1 explains much of what we see: goods production is rationalizing like mad, the service sector is in trouble and is beginning to fire hundreds of thousands of people, whereas the new ICT and the experience economy are creating more jobs than get lost in all other three sectors taken together. According to the U.S. statistics from the Bureau of Census: on average during the last 20 years the U.S. have created 4.5 million new jobs per year. At the same time, 2.5 million got lost in the first three sectors. This gives a net increase per year of 2 million. Out of 130 million jobs in the U.S., 90 million have been created new during the last 20 years. Of the 20 million additional jobs created in the last 10 years, 45 % belong to the highest category, managerial professional and another 20 % to one of the second highest categories, technical occupation. Numbers from the OECD and from the EU for the U.S. are somewhat different but tell essentially the same story.

Figure 1 also explains something about the relative importance of knowledge. With the relative, not absolute, economic decline of the first three sectors we see a corresponding decline in the importance of the know-how and knowledge created for these sectors. But, if this knowledge is combined with knowledge originating from the fourth sector, it becomes possible to achieve what is called "exponential benefits" for these old sectors from the new know-how. For example, since 1850 the goods producing sector allowed such an exponential benefit for agriculture, the service sector allowed such an exponential benefit for both the first and the second sector and now we see a repetition of this pattern with the fourth sector enhancing the other three sectors. It was through an exponential benefit of "old" aircraft (planes being an old technology) by new ICTs that U.S. warplanes could evade Serbian radar. Those scientists will become increasingly useless who decline to enhance their knowledge with new knowledge emanating from new ICTs. Those NGOs will increasingly be of the mark that refuse to deal with the new realities.

There is a major problem: NGOs are used to their set of partners and opponents and these all, NGOs, partners and opponents, share the cozy home of the first three sectors in knowledge, world-view and economy. Now, fourth sector people are redefining the show, ignoring the established. It is natural for the established to belittle the fourth sector, but it is not good for their effectiveness. Instead it is important to learn as much as possible about the fourth sector its knowledge, its key people, its world-view and to enhance ones own knowledge with the new prospects.

In general, material and energy resources and land are becoming much less important. Know-how is more important than ever, and "knowledgeable people are the biggest limitation in the New Economy" (John Doerr). "Knowledgeable people are the crown jewels of the New Economy and they know it." In much the same way knowledgeable people those who understand the new information potential and can create products with it are the crown jewels of a modern military, of new operations for the protection of nature and for bringing socially disadvantaged into good jobs (the author contributes to this and knows what he is talking about).

But these people are different. At present, they are the young wilds, the nouveaux riches, although actually, they are usually highly educated, see for example their communication platform www.slashdot.org . But they are different and they build their own circles and are redefining power and origin of wealth.

In summary: there is a big challenge for NGOs to remain effective, to learn a new world, to meet a new group of people and to explore new opportunities for their own causes.

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ESST A Master Programme at the University of East London

Nana Melchior

Formal education in science and engineering often proceeds without any consideration of the interplay between science, technology and society, yet many students are seriously concerned about socially responsible innovation and the impacts they as working professionals will have on society. It is my aim, with this article, to introduce an academic field that examines the interrelationships between science, technology and society, including the socially responsible uses of science and technology.

ESST is a one-year master programme offered by the University of East London in co-operation with fifteen universities from throughout the European Union, Norway, Switzerland and, most recently, Turkey. ESST is part of a relatively new research tradition that focuses on the interrelationships between social, scientific and technological processes.

The basic characteristic of this tradition is an insistence on the necessity to think about social and economic circumstances in order to understand the evolution of science and technology. The development of Science is often seen as an essentially autonomous process; a process of gradual accumulation of knowledge, driven by purely internal imperatives, such as a process of applied science, a kind of lesser cousin, which simply followed from previous scientific advances. Science was conceived as opening fields of knowledge which engineering exploited. This began to change in the 1950s and 1960s as a new approach emerged (STS), which regarded scientific activity and technological change as deeply embedded in our society. This tradition insists that a study of the evolution of science and technology must include social, political, cultural, and economic dimensions, and involves a multi-disciplinary approach, which ESST was established to promote. The interesting aspect of ESST is that it differs from other studies where science and technology is the subject of research because it is concerned with both science and technology from a social responsibility point of view, merely than from a scientific point of view. This means that the research, development and teaching is very much concerned with a socially responsible use of science and technology and the broader aim is not to neglects the thought of making the world a better place to live in.

Many policy decisions in modern societies necessitate an understanding of the interactions between science, technology and society. There is, however, a lack of systematic knowledge about the dynamics of scientific and technological change, within households, workplaces, the media, government and elsewhere. In Europe, there exists a tradition of research and training in the science, technology and society (STS) field, which has produced new insights on these issues. What ESST is aiming for is not only an understanding of science and technology interacting with society, but also aims to give an understanding for the responsibility we, as scientists, have for sustainable technological innovation, and its relevance to the formulation of modern policies. During recent years, several hundred young academics have graduated from STS programs, such as ESST, and as part of this, they have submitted theses based on their own research.

The multidisciplinary profile of ESST has always been a source of inspiration, strength and a challenge not only for ESSTs educational programme, but also for all students who after the end of their studies have started their professional careers in a surprising variety of positions in the European public and private sector or in academia. Recent years have shown that ESST students actually end up making many important decisions, whether working in the public or private sector, of tremendously importance to society and the development of it. The important aspect in this context is the professional choices we, as academics, also possess for planning and achieving sustainable technological innovation now and in the future, through our expertise with the interrelationship between science, technology and society in combination with our workplace.

The ESST programme is international in its outlook, and is a multicultural venture rooted in the teaching, research and scientific cultures of many European regions and countries, and in their wider social experience.

In the first semester of ESST, you normally attend the ESST course taught at your home university. The course is taught, and operated, in English throughout all of the involved universities in Europe. In the second semester, you are encouraged to attend the ESST course at one of the other ESST-universities, where the teaching programme are in different subjects, all within the field of STS. UEL, for example, offers an ESST course called "Europe in an Information Society," and in this semester we are 13 students from 7 different countries in Europe, and from many different academic backgrounds which makes ESST even more `cross boundary´ and even more interesting to study and be a part of.

I am myself a combined honours student and my academic background is in the fields of communication and public administration, in which I have a bachelor degree. I am from Denmark, and the reason why I choose to study at the ESST programme at UEL, was mainly its interdisciplinary focus, and its international reputation. At UEL I have come to realise that the opportunities we have been given in terms of the ESST programme are almost unlimited, both in terms of getting involved in research projects and in terms of our future professional prospects. ESST graduates find employment in a wide variety of organisations, from public administration to private companies to academia; some stay on to study for a Ph.D.

The four students from semester one at UEL were involved in the POSTI conference (Policy Agendas for Sustainable Technological Innovations), held at UEL in December 2000. At least 75 people from more than 18 different countries attended in all, and they were not only from Europe. People with a similar research interest came from all over the world, such as US, Japan, Turkey, and the Ukraine. From UEL we had undergraduate, ESST students, Ph.D. students, several Innovation Studies and Cultural Studies staff, and staff from the Departments Architecture and Sociology plus the Dean of Social Sciences. There were colleagues from five other UK universities; Imperial College, Middlesex, the Open University, South Bank, and Surrey. In addition, participants also came from industry and national laboratories and included high-level R&D policy makers in the EU and the OECD, as well as a researcher for the European Parliament.

We, as students, got to be equally involved as colleagues in this conference, and the outcome was a successful conference, and entering "a new world" for us four MA students. We came to realise that it is not only about getting an MA, but also about being given the opportunity to expand your knowledge through your academic field. Another result of this conference was to launch the Inter ESST alumni association, which now holds more than 40 members of different academic levels, in various fields, and from countries all over Europe and beyond. As a student at UEL, but also as a student from abroad, I find it of great importance that we get the chance to develop within our field, and to cross borders between academic fields, countries, cultures etc. We really do have much to learn and gain from each other. It is the obligation of all academics to be concerned with the social responsibility we have towards society in both the laboratory and in the policy making of our future society.

For more information about ESST on University of East London please visit: www.uel.ac.uk/innovation/innovation/docs/pg/esst.html or contact Gill Perkins at or +44 20 8223 4215.

Visit the InterESST alumni association on: www.esst.uio.no/alumni.html

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DataBank Sustainable Development

Experts and Institutions in Europe

On April 30^th the end of the first stage of the Database project "Data Bank Sustainable Development Experts and Institutions in Europe" has been reached. Up to this date the databank-team has filesaved 11,500 addresses in a local database. They were all approached by letter or e-mail for detailed information. With more than 2200 entries the rate of return exceeds 19% at this moment. In future the DataBank will be maintained and updated by two scientists.

References from several governments emphasize the quality of the database.

The DataBank is open for general use and can be reached at:

www.sd-eudb.net

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Nuclear Deterrence, Missile Defenses and Global Instability

David Krieger

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Vice-Chairman of INES.
He can be contacted at .

More articles by him and information on this subject
can be found at www.wagingpeace.org .

The author would like to thank Commander Robert Green for his helpful suggestions on this paper.

In the world of nuclear deterrence theory, beliefs are everything. What the leaders of a country perceive and believe is far more important than the reality. Nuclear deterrence is a seemingly simple proposition: Country A tells country B that if B does X, A will attack it with nuclear weapons. The theory is that country B will be deterred from doing X by fear of nuclear attack by country A. For deterrence to work, the leaders of country B must also believe that country A has nuclear weapons and will use them. Nuclear deterrence theory holds that even if country A might not have nuclear weapons, so long as the leaders of country B believed that it did they would be deterred.

The theory goes on to hold that country A can generally rely upon nuclear deterrence with any country except one that also has nuclear weapons or one that is protected by another country with nuclear weapons. If country B also has nuclear weapons and the leaders of country A know this, then A, according to theory, will be deterred from a nuclear attack on country B. This situation will result in a standoff. The same is true if country C does not have nuclear weapons, but is under the "umbrella" of country B that does have nuclear weapons. Country A will not retaliate against country C for fear of itself being retaliated against by country B.

Thus, if country A has nuclear weapons and no other country has nuclear weapons, country A has freedom within the limits of its moral code, pressures of public opinion, and its willingness to flout international humanitarian law to threaten or use nuclear weapons without fear of retaliation in kind. For a short time the United States was the only country with nuclear weapons. It used these weapons twice on a nearly defeated enemy. Deterrence played no part. The United States never said to Japan, dont do this or we will attack you with nuclear weapons. Prior to using the nuclear weapons, these weapons were a closely guarded secret.

From 1945 to the early 1950s, US strategic thinking saw free-fall nuclear weapons simply extending conventional bombing capabilities. The United States never said that it would attack another country with nuclear weapons if it did X, but this was implied by the recognized existence of US nuclear weapons, the previously demonstrated willingness of the US to use them, and the continued public testing of these weapons by the US in the Pacific.

The Dangerous Game of Deterrence

After the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949, the dangerous game of nuclear deterrence began. Both the US and USSR warned that if attacked by nuclear weapons, they would retaliate in kind massively. They also extended their respective so-called nuclear deterrence "umbrellas" to particular countries within their orbits. As the arsenals of each country grew, they developed policies of Mutual Assured Destruction. Each country had enough weapons to completely destroy the other. Britain and France also developed nuclear arsenals because they did not want to rely upon the US nuclear umbrella, and to try to preserve their status as great powers. They worried that in a crisis the US might not come to their aid if it meant that the US risked annihilation by the USSR for doing so. China also developed a nuclear arsenal because it felt threatened by both the US and USSR. Israel, India, Pakistan and South Africa also developed nuclear arsenals, although South Africa eventually dismantled its small nuclear arsenal.

Nuclear deterrence took different shapes with different countries. The US and USSR relied upon massive retaliation from their large arsenals of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. The UK, France and China maintained smaller deterrent forces of a few hundred nuclear weapons each. India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons and missile delivery systems, but it is uncertain whether they have yet deployed nuclear weapons. Israel, known to have some 200 nuclear weapons, offers only the ambiguous official statement that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.

One obvious way that nuclear deterrence could fail is if one side could destroy the other sides nuclear forces in a first strike. To prevent this from happening, nuclear armed states have tried to make their nuclear forces invulnerable to being wiped out by a first strike attack. One way of doing this was to put the weapons underground, in the air and in the oceans. Many of the weapons on land were put in hardened silos, while those in the oceans were put on submarines that were difficult to locate underwater. For decades the strategic bombers of the US and USSR carrying nuclear weapons were kept constantly on alert with many in the air at any given moment.

Nuclear deterrence became a game of sorts a dangerous and potentially tragic one and also deeply selfish, irresponsible and lawless, risking all humanity and the planet. Countries had to protect their deterrence forces at all costs and not allow themselves to become vulnerable to a first strike attack on their nuclear forces. In a strange and perverse way, nuclear-armed countries became more committed to protecting their nuclear forces than they were to protecting their citizens. While they hardened their land-based missile silos and placed their submarines in the deep oceans, their citizens remained constantly vulnerable to nuclear attack.

The game of nuclear deterrence required that no country become so powerful that it might believe that it could get away with a first strike attempt. It was this concern that drove the nuclear arms race between the US and USSR until the USSR was finally worn down by the economic burden of the struggle. It also ensured a high level of hostility between rival nuclear-armed countries, with great danger of misunderstandings witness, for example, the Cuban missile crisis and many other less well-known scares. Mutual Assured Destruction lacked credibility, requiring the development of policies of "Flexible Response," which lowered the nuclear threshold, encouraged the belief that nuclear weapons could be used for war-fighting, increased the risk of escalation to all-out nuclear war, and stimulated more arms racing.

Notice that a first strike does not require that one country actually have the force to overcome its opponents nuclear forces. The leaders of the country only have to believe that it can do so. If the leaders of country A believe that country B is planning a first strike attack, country A may decide to initiate a preemptive strike. If the leaders of country A believe that the leaders of country B would not initiate a nuclear attack against them if they did X, then they might well be tempted to do X. They might be mistaken. This led to the "launch-on-warning" hair-trigger alert status between the US and Russia. More than ten years after the end of the Cold War, each country still has some 2,250 strategic warheads ready to be fired on a few moments notice. Nuclear deterrence operates with high degrees of uncertainty, and this uncertainty increases, as does the possibility of irrationality, in times of crisis.

Ballistic Missile Defenses

President George W. Bush cites as his primary reason for wanting a ballistic missile defense system for the US his lack of faith that nuclear deterrence would work against so-called "rogue" states. Yet, the uncertainty in nuclear deterrence increases when ballistic missile defenses are introduced. If country A believes that it has a perfect defense against country B, then country B may also believe that it has lost its deterrent capability against country A. Ballistic missile defenses, therefore, will probably trigger new arms races. If countries A and B each have 500 nuclear warheads capable of attacking the other, both are likely to believe the other side will be deterred from an attack. If country A attempts to introduce a defensive system with 1,000 anti-ballistic missile interceptors, country B may believe that its nuclear-armed ballistic missile force will be made impotent and decide to increase its arsenal of deliverable warheads from 500 to 2,000 in order to restore its deterrent capability in the face of Bs 1,000 defensive interceptors. Or, country B may decide to attack country A before its defensive force becomes operational.

If country A plans to introduce a defensive system with only 100 interceptors, country B might believe that its nuclear force could still prevail with 500 deliverable nuclear weapons. But country B must also think that country As interceptors would give A an advantage if A decides to launch a first strike attack against Bs nuclear forces. If country A is able to destroy 400 or more of country Bs nuclear weapons, then A would have enough interceptors (if they all worked perfectly) to believe that it could block any retaliatory action by B. Thus, any defensive system introduced by any country would increase instability and uncertainty in the system, making deterrence more precarious. Worse, this introduces a fear that ballistic missile defense has little to do with defense, and far more to do with an offensive "shield" behind which a country could believe that it could coerce the rest of the world with impunity.

It was concern for the growing instability of nuclear deterrence to the point where it might break down that led the US and USSR to agree in 1972 to place limits on defensive missile forces in the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. In this treaty each side agreed to limit its defensive forces to no more than two sites of 100 interceptors each. These sites could not provide protection to the entire country. It is this treaty that the United States is now seeking to amend or unilaterally abrogate in order to build a national ballistic missile defense. It claims this defense is needed to protect itself against so-called "rogue" states such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq. At present, however, none of these countries is even expected to be able to produce nuclear weapons or a missile delivery system capable of reaching the United States before 2010 at the earliest.

Russia and China have both expressed strong opposition to the US proceeding with ballistic missile defense plans. Russia wants to maintain the ABM Treaty for the reasons the treaty was initially created, and is aghast at comments from the US such as those of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld calling the treaty "ancient history." Russia is also seeking to reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal for economic reasons and its leaders fear the instabilities that a US national ballistic missile defense system would create. Russian leaders have said that such a system that abrogated the ABM Treaty could result in Russia withdrawing from other arms control treaties including the START II and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

China has a nuclear force a fraction of that of Russia or the US. It has some 400 nuclear weapons, but only some 20 long-range missiles capable of reaching the US. If the US sets up a system of some 100 to 200 interceptors, China would have to assume that its nuclear deterrent capability had been eliminated. Chinese leaders have called for the US not to go ahead with a ballistic missile defense system that would force China to develop a stronger nuclear deterrent force. Were China to do so, this would inevitably provoke India to expand its nuclear capability, which in turn would lead Pakistan to do the same.

Increasing Instabilities

At a time when major progress toward nuclear disarmament is possible and even promised by the nuclear weapons states, the US desire to build a ballistic missile defense system to protect it against small nuclear forces is introducing new uncertainties into the structure of global nuclear deterrence and increasing the instability in the system. Nuclear deterrence has never been a stable system. One countrys nuclear strategies have both predictable and unpredictable consequences in other countries.

Security built upon nuclear arms cannot endure. US nuclear weapons led to the development of the USSR and UK nuclear arsenals. These led to the development of the French and Chinese nuclear forces. The Chinese nuclear forces led to the development of Indian nuclear forces. Indias nuclear forces led to the development of Pakistani nuclear forces. Israel decided to develop nuclear forces to give it a deterrent among hostile Middle East neighbors. No doubt this provoked Saddam Hussein and gave him the pretext to develop Iraqs nuclear capability, and is driving Iran to follow suit.

Now the US is seeking to introduce national and theater ballistic missile defenses that will provide further impetus to nuclear arms development and proliferation. The world is far more complicated than country A deterring country B by threat of nuclear retaliation. As more countries develop nuclear arsenals, more uncertainties enter the system. As more defenses are set in place, further uncertainties enter the system. While the US seeks to make itself invulnerable against threats that do not yet even exist, it is further destabilizing the existing system of global nuclear deterrence to the point where it could collapse especially when the President demonstrates his belief that the system can no longer be relied upon.

The full consequences of US missile defense plans are not predictable. What is predictable is that the introduction of more effective defenses by the US will change the system and put greater stress on the global system of security built upon nuclear deterrence. The system is already showing signs of strain. With new uncertainties will come new temptations for a country to use nuclear forces before they are used against it. Nuclear deterrence is not sustainable in the long run, and we simply dont know what stresses or combination of perceptions and/or misperceptions might make it fail.

Nuclear deterrence cannot guarantee security. It undermines it. The only possibility of security from nuclear attack lies in the elimination of nuclear weapons as has already been agreed to in the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reiterated in the 2000 Review Conference of that treaty. Ballistic missile defenses, which increase instability, move the world in the wrong direction. For its own security, the US should abandon its plans to deploy ballistic missile defenses that would abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and instead provide leadership in immediately negotiating a Nuclear Weapons Convention leading to the phased and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons, like the widely-acclaimed enforceable global treaty banning chemical weapons.

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PLEDGE

The American Association for the Advancement of Science launches a Scientists and Engineers Pledge To Renounce Weapons of Mass Destruction:

I pledge never to participate in the design, development, testing, production, maintenance, targeting, or use of nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons or their means of delivery; or in research or engineering that I have reason to believe will be used by others to do so.

More details are on the web:
Pledge and supporting statement: http://www.wslfweb.org/abolition/pledge.htm

Full press release: http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/SciEngpr.htm

On-line pledge sign-up form: http://www.lasg.org/pledge/

Contact information for sponsoring groups: http://www.wslfweb.org/abolition/pledge.htm#pledgecontact

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Construction of an Internet Site for the Exchange of

Information on Renewable Material Resources

Project Outline presented by Prof. Dr. Hamed EL-Mously

Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Objective of the project

Stimulation of the dynamic interaction between different stakeholders associated with the production and usage of renewable material resources within the framework of sustainable development.

Partners involved

Institute for Chemical Engineering Fundamentals, Graz University of Technology, Austria.

Association for Agricultural Research Institutes in the Near East and North Africa (AARINENA).

Duration Two years

Expected product

A live Internet site associating the R & D institutions working in the area of renewable material resources with those involved in the industrial use and building applications of these resources (entrepreneurs, small- and medium-scale enterprises, artisans, NOOs, et.).

Intention

In a world really threatened by the still dominant unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and facing the threats of exhaustion of non-renewable resources, greenhouse effects and deterioration of the quality of life, it is a forbidden luxury to conduct a project just for its symbolic value or for preaching to people on the sustainable use of renewable material resources. Therefore, this project is intended to be of real value to people concerned with the production and use of renewable material resources, i.e., farmers and investors in agriculture, artisans using these resources in handicrafts and building, researchers, small- and medium-scale industrial entrepreneurs, as well as consumers and environmental activists, concerned with the adherence to more sustainable patterns of production and consumption and with the protection of the environment. This project aims at connecting those stakeholders on the different shores of the "lake" by involving a number of outstanding resource persons, project partners and supporting organizations and fostering the mobilization of their forces for more sustainable use of these resource. It is of value from the onset of launching of the project to keep this intention in mind for all concerned with the project, so as to guide the path of the project and develop the appropriate criteria for its evaluation.

Focus of concern of the project

It is suggested to confine the scope of the present project to:

industrial applications (manufacturing industries from handicrafts to small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs));

building applications;

infrastructural applications (e.g. geotextiles).

Project significance

The project will give support for the international efforts to make a shift from reliance on non-renewable (e.g. fossil-based materials) to renewable material resources within the framework of sustainable development. This is a virgin area of scientific and industrial innovation. Contrary to the patterns of industry prevailing in the 20^th century, using mass production wasteful techniques, the industrial use of renewable material resources will give birth to a quite different pattern of micro, small and medium sized industrial establishments, using environrnentally benign techniques and symbiotically integrated on the regional level in order to realize the whole resource potential without any waste. The project, as well, stimulates a dialogical relation between the South and the North, which will in turn motivate innovation in the area of industrial use of renewable material resources.

View of the project within the scope of interest of INES

INES has vested interest in the realization of sustainable development. But the concept of sustainable development itself could only be operational through finding new tangible alternatives for development. The renewable material resources represent a pillar in any strategy for the realization of sustainable development because they are more compatible with the ecosystem cycles: during their extraction, manufacture, consumption as well as their postconsumption or disposal stage of their life-cycle. That is why this project could be considered of special interest to INES as a catalyst for the promotion of sustainable development worldwide.

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Civil society organizations call on all governments
to reinforce the global ban on biological weapons

Biological warfare agents are a unique class of weapons, as they include living organisms with the ability to reproduce and perpetuate their destructive mission beyond the intended target area and time. The threat of biological weapon agents to humankind and the environment has led to a global ban of these weapons. The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) of 1975, ratified by 143 States Parties, outlaws the development and possession of all biological weapons. The last decade has been witness to dramatic and rapid changes in bioscience that are likely to facilitate the development of biological weapons. Civil society organizations around the world are concerned that the BTWC has no mechanism to monitor compliance with the Convention. To solve this problem, States Parties to the Convention established an Ad Hoc Group in 1994 to develop a Protocol to strengthen the Bioweapons Convention. The goal has been to complete the negotiations before the 5th Review Conference of the BTWC convenes in Geneva end of this year. We call on all governments to undertake every effort to reach consensus on a strong Protocol, including broad criteria for facility declarations, random visits to all declared facilities, clarification procedures, challenge investigations and an export monitoring system. The global consensus against the hostile use of living organisms is increasingly endangered. Some programs blur the boundary between peaceful and hostile uses of biological agents, such as pathogenic fungi that are currently being eveloped for use in drug crop eradication programs. These efforts undermine the global taboo against the development and use of biological weapons. We call on the 5th Review Conference of the BTWC, to be held in November 2001 in Geneva,

to address these issues and to reiterate the broad prohibition of all non-peaceful applications of living organisms and toxins, regardless of whether they target humans, animals, plants or materials,

to reaffirm in their Final Declaration that there is no exemption in the BTWC for law enforcement, and

to state that any use of biological agents against a nation, a regional group or individuals against their will is not a peaceful purpose and thus banned by the BTWC.

Finally, we call on all governments to undertake every step necessary to reinforce the global ban on biological weapons. For a world at peace, and a world at peace with the environment, Ecoropa (International) GeneWatch (UK) IATP - Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (USA) Sunshine Project (International) WILPF Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (International).

More information: Sunshine Project, Jan van Aken

Gross Flottbeker Straße 44, D-22607 Hamburg, Germany

Tel: 1, Fax: 8, www.sunshine-project.org

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PROCEEDINGS of the INES 2000 Conference in Stockholm

The Proceedings of the plenary lectures of the INES Conference in Stockholm, 14-18 June 2000, are available in printed form under the title:

SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY.

Contents:

Greetings from Michael Gorbachev w Susan George, Confronting and transforming the international economic and financial system: A succinct users guide w Pentti Malaska, Science and technology for sustainable development w Walter R. Stahel, Complexity, technology, sustainability w Sven Widmalm, Four hundred years of Western science Evolution and impact w Hubert Laitko, Great shifts in scientific thinking and human development in the last four hundred years: Evolution and impact of western science w Sandra Harding, Gender, democracy, and philosophy of science w Britta Schinzel, Women in science and engineering w David Krieger, Nuclear weapons abolition at the beginning of the 21^st century w Alla Yaroshinskaya, New developments blocking progress in nuclear disarmament The Russian perspective w Alexander Nikitin, About the environmental problems in Russia and the relationships between NGOs and the Russian authorities w Barbro Westerholm, The culture of responsibility: How to establish universal standards of responsibilities for individuals and institutions w Mona Dahms, A new paradigm for engineering sciences? w Ana Maria Cetto Science by whom, science for whom A southern perspective w INES 2000 Conference Statement

Editor: Armin Tenner

The book may be ordered at the INES Office, Gutenbergstraße 31, 44139, Dortmund, Germany.

Price: $ 6.- / ¬ 6.-.

Also available in printed form is the report of the WORKSHOP:

TOWARDS A CULTURE OF INDIVIDUAL AND INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

Starting with an introduction by Günter Emde it contains the lectures of four eminent whistleblowers: Arpad Pusztai, Guillermo Eguiazu, Siegwart Horst Günther, and Alexander Nikitin. In addition, it contains papers from Barbro Westerholm, Stephen Unger, Guy Dehn and Tom Carpenter.

The full text of the plenary lectures and the presentations in the workshops is available on the Internet web page: www.inesglobal.com

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A Word from the Editor

Again in the last months, INES was involved in political and peacekeeping problems, which is reflected by the contents of the present issue of the Newsletter. We kept contact with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation which held its consultations on Peace and Human Rights. There were follow-up activities of the Hague Appeal for Peace Congress in The Hague in 1999 and the Triennial Conference of the International Peace Bureau in Paris / Nanterre in 2000. The intent of the US Government to install a National Missile Defense system (NMD) stood central in all political discussions.

INESAP, the INES project against proliferation made progress by nominating Regina Hagen, Darmstadt as a coordinator to take care of the management of the project. In close collaboration with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, INESAP created a joint project "Moving Beyond Missile Defense." A first workshop has been held in Santa Barbara, California. In the near future, more workshops will follow in different parts of the world.

Also INESPE, the INES initiative for ethics protection strengthened its organization by the nomination of Antje Bultmann as a coordinator. The publication of their proceedings of the INES 2000 Conference, described elsewhere on this page, is a valuable follow-up activity of that conference.

In this Newsletter a possible new project is announced by Hamed EL-Mously, professor at the Ain Shams University, Cairo and member of the INES Executive Committee, to create an Internet Site for the Exchange of Information on Renewable Material Resources. The development of such a project, is a follow-up activity of the INES 2000 Conference in Stockholm.

Also following a previous conference is the call of UNESCO to NGOs and scientific organizations to evaluate the progress made in following the recommendations made by the UNESCO / ICSU Science Conference in Budapest in 1999. I request the INES members to participate in this evaluation and to send me their comments and recommendations.

In order to create a shorter link between the INES Executive Committee, the INES Dortmund Office and the INES members, a new webpage has been opened on the Internet. The address is

www.inesglobal.com

It exists in parallel with the old homepage inesglobal.org . The new homepage should provide information about the life of INES, showing the members better what is going on. The proceedings of the INES 2000 Conference in Stockholm are completely available through this webpage, as well as recent publications of the Network. The webpage will also give detailed information about the progress made in the various projects of INES.

In addition, in this Newsletter you will find the announcement of a new webpage that contains the first version of the databank which is the result of the INES project "Data Bank Sustainable Development."

There are several new INES members listed in this Newsletter. I take the opportunity to wish them welcome to the INES Network.

Armin Tenner, Amsterdam

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Honorary Doctorate for Mordechai Vanunu

Fifteen years ago, Mordechai Vanunu revealed military secrets about the Israelian nuclear program, making him one of the most prominent whistleblowers of this time. He is still imprisoned in Israel, in spite of many attempts to get him released. One of the international organizations to honour Vanunu was the International Peace Bureau (IPB): the membership elected him Vice-President of IPB at the Triennial Conference in Nanterre, Paris, in October 2000. Now the University of Tromsö, Norway, confers an Honorary Doctorate on him. The struggle for Vanunus release continues.

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NEW INES MEMBERS

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Follow-up of the UNESCO / ICSU Conference 1999

The World Conference on Science (WCS) was convened by UNESCO and ICSU in Budapest on 26 June 1 July 1999.

Two documents were prepared for the conference and approved by the assembly:

Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge and Science Agenda-Framework for Action.

The documents are displayed on the WCS website www.unesco.org/science/wcs .

UNESCO now collects information about the progress made in the realization of the proposed projects and the actions recommended in the above documents. Dr. Howard Moore, coordinator of follow-up to the WCS writes:

"We consider it essential for all partners involved in follow-up to the WCS to be aware of whether follow-up action is providing to be effective, and to have information on action still to be taken to meet expectations as regards the role of science vis-à-vis society. In this connection, UNESCO has begun the preparation of an analytical report to governments and international partners on the returns on the Conference, the execution of follow-up and further action to be taken. This is being done in co-operation with ICSU and in pursuance of a WCS proposal urging such an appraisal.

You may be interested in sending us some information which, in your view, might be useful for this analytical report. This input could, for example, include such elements as:

information on key activities/ actions carried out, being implemented or planned that would constitute your organizations contribution to the achievement of goals proclaimed by the WCS;

policy assessments and recommendations that you feel your organization should make as regards further efforts to be undertaken or partnerships to be developed in order to derive full benefit from the service of science to society;

concrete proposals on follow-up activities your organization may wish to share with current or potential partners within the follow-up to the WCS."

In order to react to this request, INES, as one of the involved NGOs invites its members to take part in this evaluation and send their contributions to the INES office or to the Newsletter editor .

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The INES NEWSLETTER

is edited by Armin Tenner

Buziaustr. 18
1068 KN Amsterdam
The Netherlands

Tel/Fax:
E-mail:

The Newsletter can be found on the INTERNET web pages:

inesglobal.org and www.inesglobal.com

An ASCII version is distributed by E-mail. Ask the editor to put you on his list.

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