Hiroshima Day Vigil, 2017

Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Never Again!

Ban the Bomb!

Global Denuclearization Now!

The world’s attention has been focused on opposition to North Korea’s nuclear arms and missile programs. But, denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is not enough!

Now is the time to demand global denuclearization!

The proliferation of nuclear weapons can only be halted by a complete ban on not only their use, but their possession. This can only be accomplished with the active support of the US and Russia, the two countries with, by far, the largest nuclear arsenals.

Presidents Trump and Putin should put global denuclearization at the very top of their foreign policy agendas. A joint agreement between the US and Russia, vowing to dismantle and eliminate their nuclear arsenals is a necessary precondition for complete global nuclear disarmament.

But rather than pursuing denuclearization the US led a boycott of a UN Conference on banning nuclear weapons held in March 2017. Instead Trump has pursued Obama’s program of modernization of the nuclear forces. The US policy of nuclear modernization is discussed in detail in an article in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in March 2017. The authors observe that the nuclear weapons modernization program will increase the overall killing power of existing U.S. ballistic missile forces by a factor of roughly three and cost trillions of dollars which obviously could be used to address pressing human needs both at home and abroad. They note that rather than eliminating the threat of nuclear war nuclear modernization creates the capacity to fight and win a nuclear war by disarming enemies with a surprise first strike.

It is time to stand up and demand global denuclearization now! It is time to ban nuclear weapons, not develop plans to use them!