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WHAT'S NEW IN INES? |
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No.26/2001 |
Dateline: June 29, 2001 |
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This is the weekly electronic information service of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility
Editor: Tobias Damjanov, e-mail:
INES homepages: http://inesglobal.org http://www.inesglobal.com/
INES International Office
INES Chair: Prof. Armin Tenner [Please note that the first "1" in q18 is the number one, while the last "l" is a "L"]
CONTENTS of WNII No. 26/2001
MEMBERSHIP AND PROJECTS' NEWS"
"The SEU TIMES" No 5 (20) - June 2001
"The SEU TIMES" is the electronic newsletter of the "Socio-Ecological Union", one of the Russian INES member organizations. The latest edition has the following contents:
Editor: Sviatoslav Zabelin Previous issues of "The SEU Times" may be found at "The Online Gadfly": http://www.igc.org/gadfly
Russia: Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies
The Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, a Russian INES member organization, has released a report entitled "U.S.-Russian Relations in Nuclear Arms Reductions: Current State and Prospects" (in Russian) edited by INESAP member Dr Anatoli Diakov. The report is addressed to a wide audience -- politicians, military, weapons designers, experts in international law, and to everyone interested in international security issues. You can contact the editor of the study via: .
SPECIAL SECTION
ON THE US MISSILE DEFENCE POLICY
UK: MPs attack 'son of Star Wars' project (Source: The Independent, 22 June 2001)
Tony Blair came under renewed pressure to distance the Government from American plans for a "son of Star Wars" missile programme after more than 100 Labour MPs signed a Commons motion attacking the project. Some 173 backbenchers signed an Early Day Motion expressing concern at President George Bush's intention to abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia in favour of a nuclear missile defence shield to protect against rogue states. The MPs, led by Tony Lloyd, the former Foreign Office minister, Peter Kilfoyle, the former Defence minister, and the backbencher Malcolm Savidge, MP for Aberdeen North, included Liberal Democrats, Scottish Nationalists and the SDLP. The motion endorses the unanimous conclusion of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, which recommended that the Government voice "grave doubts" about the project.
Bush Administration Plans Major Changes To Missile Defense Programs (Source: Thomas Duffy: InsideDefense.com, 25 June 2001)
The Bush administration will ask Congress for $7.9 billion to support a revamped missile defense program in fiscal year 2002, according to documents and sources. The Pentagon will scrap its current approach to developing missile defense systems by moving toward a technology effort that emphasizes the defeat of missiles in three stages: boost, midcourse and terminal. "Preliminary results of the strategy review have determined that Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) programs should be restructured to provide simultaneous research in multiple areas against threats in the boost, midcourse and terminal stages of attack, and that sea, land air and space platforms should be explored to the fullest extent possible to mitigate those threats," the PBD states. "To achieve this, it is recommended that the current BMDO program be eliminated and replaced with a streamlined program designed to merge mature and emergent technologies in innovative ways as each new combination is proven.
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization has budget and program responsibility for the Pentagon's missile defense programs and delegates execution authority to the military services. The Bush plan, however, takes three programs under BMDO's control -- the Army's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Medium Extended Air Defense System and the Navy's Area Missile Defense -- and gives them back to the services. According to the PBD, these programs are mature enough in the acquisition cycle to be shifted to the services. The Air Force will see three programs it now controls -- the Airborne Laser, the Space-based Laser, and the Space-Based Infrared System-Low -- given to BMDO, according to the PBD. Because the new BMDO program architecture calls for exploring and developing technologies that "span multiple platforms," these programs, and all money tied to them, will be shifted to BMDO's purview.
The new BMDO program is focused on five projects, each with its own funding line: $776 million for a ballistic missile defense project; $968 million for a terminal defense project; $3.9 billion for a midcourse defense project; $683 million for a boost-phase defense project; and $495 million for a sensors project.
Vladimir Putin on the ABM Treaty (Source: START Web Site News, 28 June 2001)
At a press conference on 23 June, Vladimir Putin voiced again the orthodox position of the Russian military and political establishment, essentially dismissing previous statements on possible changes in the 1972 ABM Treaty: "If the ABM Treaty ceases to exist, then START-I and START-II treaties will cease to exist. This means that all countries, including Russia, will be legally able to deploy cluster warheads with nuclear weapons on their missiles... This is the least expensive answer, which no one will be able to counter in the near 50, may be even 100 years," he said.
USA-Israel-Turkey: Joint TMD maneuver (From INESAP member Bahig Nassar, Egypt)
A joint US, Israeli and Turkish maneuver by air forces had been conducted from 17 to 29 June. Egyptian papers carried information that operation by Israeli Arrow Theatre Missile Defense (TMD) system, produced and deployed with US financial and technical assistance, was part of the maneuver. Interceptors were targeted against (imaginary) missiles supposed to be launched by Syria, Iraq and Iran. This was the first regional TMD maneuver with the participation of US and its allies. It has revealed the following:
a) Operations of TMD systems will create military alliances dividing regional states into two groups: those which are behind the shield and others located outside the shield.
b) Destabilization which is supposed to affect the three states, Syria, Iraq and Iran is actually destabilizing the entire region comprising all countries of the region which have relations with the three states and most probably will go far beyond the Middle East.
c) US participation in the Arrow system operation clearly proves that this TMD system is part and parcel of the entire US-BMD project which covers the entire planet.
d) Far from facing an imaginary aggression against the huge military forces of US and its allies TMD deployment is designed to support counter proliferation operations against threats by any state at US interests and investments in the Middle East. Additional information: Encouraged by the United States, Turkey and Israel signed a military training and cooperation agreement in 1996.
Abolition 2000 homepage: http://www.abolition2000.org Grassroots News: http://www.napf.org/abolition2000/news
Abolition 2000 Global Council: Saffron Walden Declaration
The Abolition 2000 Global Council held an open meeting at Saffron Walden, England, 7-8 May this year. It was attended by 29 participants from 10 countries: UK, USA, Sweden, Romania, Egypt, Russia, Japan, France, Australia, Belgium. At this meeting, the following Declaration was adopted: The Abolition 2000 Global Council, meeting in Saffron Walden England, with participants from Australia, Belgium, Egypt, France, Japan, Romania, Russia, Sweden, the UK, and the USA, reaffirms the Abolition 2000 Statement, which calls for a world free of the nuclear threat, and the Moorea Declaration, which acknowledges the abuses of colonialism and the suffering of indigenous peoples caused by the production and testing of nuclear weapons. We remember the hibakusha -- the atomic bomb survivors - and call on the nations of the world to heed their urgent plea: "Before the last of us leaves this world, nuclear weapons must be abolished forever." We recognise that Abolition 2000 now faces a new world context because of the continuing modernisation of nuclear weapons, the US drive to weaponise and nuclearise space, and the increasing burden on the world's resources that this immoral and illegal quest for global domination creates. The western nuclear weapons states and their allies believe they can put a "lid" on the rising tide of discontent at the economic inequity and lack of social justice among the vast majority of the earth's people in order to maintain their access to world resources and their unsustainable levels of consumption. We assert that this dangerous and destabilising paradigm cannot endure. We call instead for a new security framework that will serve all humanity, based on respect for international law and Treaties, conflict prevention and co-operation through a reformed United Nations. We call for immediate negotiations to abolish nuclear weapons, ban all missiles, and keep space for peace. We envisage a world that is free of nuclear weapons, free of the resultant environmental contamination, and free of social and economic injustice. We affirm our belief that this new framework is more than practical and ethical. It is imperative for our planet's future. Saffron Walden, May 2001.
U.S. Mayors Ask Bush To Commit To Eliminating Nuclear Weapons (Source: "U.S. Newswire", 25 June 2001)
As President Bush addressed the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Detroit on 25 June, a statement from mayors of major cities in the U. S. and abroad was released, calling on him to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons "with all deliberate speed," and "to declare your firm commitment to the task of eliminating nuclear weapons from the face of the earth." The mayors are concerned about the fact that the two most plausible nuclear threats against the U. S. today, a terrorist attack or an accidental launch of Russian nuclear missiles, would be targeted to U. S. cities. The possibility of a terrorist strike via boat or truck bomb or other form of surface transportation would not be mitigated by the Bush administration's proposed national missile defense. An accidental launch in which Russia's deteriorating early warning systems mistake a weather rocket or meteor for a ballistic missile, triggering a mistaken retaliatory strike, cannot be deterred by maintaining U. S. nuclear arsenals. In fact, they can only be prevented by nuclear disarmament and elimination of fissile material that might fall into terrorist hands. "We believe it is our responsibility to speak out," says the mayors' statement, "for if nuclear weapons are ever again used, it is virtually certain that one or more of our cities will be the target and the people we represent will be the victims." "What the mayors are essentially saying," said Tyler Stevenson of the Global Security Institute, "is that we have a fundamental choice before us. We can choose to maintain and modernize our arsenals, endlessly managing the dangers of nuclear deterrence, which perpetuates the targeting of our own cities. Or we can choose to get rid of the weapons, taking U.S. cities and their residents out of nuclear harm's way." The new statement was spearheaded by the Global Security Institute (GSI) and its founder, the late Senator Alan Cranston. The full text and list of signatories is available on the GSI website: http://www.gsinstitute.org .
RANSAC non-proliferation reports (Source: BITS' NEWS-Press-Report 2001.25, 29 June 2001)
The US-based Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council (RANSAC) has announced a number of non-proliferation reports and analyses completed by the Snezhinsk, Moscow, Obninsk, and Sarov Non-proliferation Centers which are now available for download at the RANSAC web site under the Russian Nuclear Complex Conversion Consortium link: http://www.ransac.org
NOTE in addition, that the Center for Nonproliferation Studies has recently released the sixth update of the joint Monterey Institute- Carnegie Endowment "Status Report: Nuclear Weapons, Fissile Material, and Export Controls in the Former Soviet Union". The report is downloadable in different pdf files from: http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/print/nsr2.htm
USA: Introduction of a "Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 2001"
In an effort to decrease the dangers posed by nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era, Senators of the Democratic Party have introduced the Nuclear Threat Reduction Act of 2001 (NTRA) on 27 June. The bill is based on three principles: reducing the numbers of nuclear warheads, removing as many weapons as feasible from high alert status, and preventing the diversion of Russian nuclear weapons, expertise, and weapons-usable materials. The initiative is closely linked to The Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign, a program of The Justice Project, which is working for pragmatic and effective steps to make it increasingly unlikely that nuclear weapons will ever be used. (The Justice Project is a national, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to fighting injustice and creating a more humane and just world.)
NOTE: Since the underlying article from PRNewswire (27 June 2001) is far too long to be published here but nevertheless needed to understand this important initiative, you either can get this article from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment, or you can go to: http://justice.policy.net/ntrc/
"The U.S. Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change" (Source: Nuclear Policy Project Flash, Volume 3, Number 25, June 26, 2001) http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/warplan/index.asp
This is the title of a comprehensive report by the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) with which the organisation recommends that US President George Bush abolish the secret US Single Integrated Operations Plan (SIOP) used to direct nuclear war options against potential US enemies. "At this stage in the disarmament process," the NRDC contended in the report, "a U.S. stockpile numbering in the hundreds is more than adequate to achieve the single purpose of deterrence." The study uses US President George Bush's repeated statement that Russia is not an enemy to justify a new US policy that does "not target any country specifically, but create a contingency war planning capability to assemble attack plans in the event of hostilities with another nuclear state." The NRDC's two-year study of simulated nuclear effects predicted that even a US strike that avoided big cities but attempted to knock out Russian missile silos and other nuclear forces would kill 8 million to 12 million Russians. A separate NRDC study concluded that a single US Trident missile submarine could inflict "in excess of 50 million casualties" if the missiles were aimed at Russian cities. This report is available in full in pdf format from the weblink indicated above. Clicking on a pdf link will open the file in your browser window. If you plan to save the files on your own computer, we recommend right-clicking instead to save time by saving without first viewing the files. A print version of this report will be available in mid-July. A summary is available at: http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nwarplan.asp
NOTE the following additional information:
French nuclear forces 2001
This is an article published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - NRDC Nuclear Notebook, July-August 2001: http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/ja01nukenote.html It is also available from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment.
The Nuclear Disarmament Movement: Historical Resistance From Within The Establishment
Written by Mel Hunt < >, this is a very interesting paper on scientists who changed history by offering passive resistance to atom bomb development during and after WWII. You can find at: http://www.humboldt.edu/~mlh16/arrogat.htm . It is also available from the WNII Editor as an rtf-formatted email attachment.
No new or changed addresses.
All INES e-mail addresses and homepages are available upon request from:
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