by Jeanne Trubek
Member of Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment
Peace and Common Security working group
On Tuesday, February 10, the city council will be requested to support a Back From the Brink resolution asking our U.S. government to work toward world nuclear disarmament. This request comes from a citizen petition initiative.
We obtained close to 500 signatures of Watertown residents on petitions requesting the City Council to support this resolution that asks our government to pursue a verifiable agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons and to enter into negotiations with other nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. This agreement must remove the option of using nuclear weapons first for every country with nuclear weapons. In the U.S. we must end the sole authority of the President to launch a nuclear attack. We must take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert and cancel plans to replace the nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons. Here we outline reasons to support this resolution.
Why now? We all know that the potential consequences of a nuclear war include immediate deaths to millions of people and subsequent deaths of most of the world population due to climate degradation, radiation and effects on food production. The reason we must talk about it now is because of the serious dangers of use of these weapons as countries struggle with their enemies in wars such as those between Russia and Ukraine, India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran. In addition, treaties that offer some protection against wars have been terminated and there may well be a resumption of testing of weapons with harmful health effects of this testing. At this time the U.S. is planning a major upgrade of our nuclear arsenal and planning to let the current New START Treaty come to a halt. We must interrupt the cycle we are in with active talks about reduction of weapons and broaden these talks to an international level.
Some say that because this is a global issue and a national issue it is not a local issue. It is true that it is a global existential issue. However all politics is ultimately local. We take on locally many global and national issues that affect our population. For example, Climate Change is a global and national issue that can have a devastating effect on all of us. Watertown is making a strong attempt to play its part in reducing climate change; the Climate and Energy Plan, the new schools, solar panel ordinance are some of the many ways the city has reduced its contribution to greenhouse gases and therefore to climate change. It is true that if Watertown were the only city
in the country doing this, it would have no impact. Similarly, if we are the only city calling for an end to nuclear weapons, it will have no impact. But we are not alone. So far over 20 Massachusetts cities and towns have passed such a resolution, including our neighbors Boston, Cambridge, Newton, Brookline in addition to Marshfield, Cummington, Goshen, Windsor, and Shutesbury. The three largest cities in Massachusetts: Boston, Springfield and Worcester, have all passed such resolutions.
The deterrence argument — saying that if others have nuclear weapons then we must have them — is a fear-based lie. We are not made safer by the possession of nuclear weapons. Deterrence practices are put us at risk. States that base their security on Nuclear weapons have an interest in maintaining the threat of using them. This argument rests on the assumption that all decision makers would behave rationally at a time when there may be little intelligence available. There is a great chance that a leader could abandon the rational position that nuclear weapons should never be used and make a mistake that would be fatal to humanity. Indeed, there is documentation of many close calls where weapons were about to be used in tragic error when there was no real threat. Our luck might run out and we can’t base a nuclear policy on luck. Further, another overarching assumption made by nuclear deterrence theory is that the existence of nuclear weapons can continue indefinitely without anything ever going wrong. This is very questionable, and we have no plan B if it does.
Nuclear disarmament must be considered a local issue in addition to being a national issue. We in Watertown know that weapons are developed, stored, transported and tested in specific communities, putting nearby residents at risk. We have already experienced the loss of land that can come from having a nuclear facility in our city. It took a long time, with great expense, for the city to clean up the radioactive mess from the Arsenal — and this was small compared to what would happen now. We should not wish this on any community. Radiation exposure and contamination affect local people, land, and water for generations. Cities would be targeted and the Boston area, with its many technology centers, would certainly be on the list. Local governments and first-responders would have to manage nuclear accidents or attacks. Community activism and city policies have historically driven progress toward disarmament. In the 1980s the movement for a freeze on nuclear weapons began with community referendums. This spread widely throughout the country until it could not be ignored. The money that national governments spend on maintaining an enormous nuclear arsenal is money taken away from human needs: infrastructure, social programs and education, health access for everyone.
Nuclear weapons and their storage of nuclear waste have already harmed millions of people for decades in the process of their development and testing, and of course have killed millions with their use in World War II Japan. The huge expenditure of maintaining and updating nuclear weapons continues to waste taxpayer money that could have been spent on helpful programs that deal with social problems. In fact, nuclear weapons are not only threatening our existence on this planet, but they are useless against today’s 21st century-threats from climate change, terrorism and cyber-attacks — threats to our safety and well-being. In the current international climate the existence of nuclear weapons can make conflict worse. For example, during the 2022 Russian
invasion of Ukraine the threat of using nuclear weapons was used by Russia to limit the capacity of states in NATO to respond to acts of blatant aggression by Russia.
Negotiations are always better than threats. We should be working with all countries to establish international agreements and verifiable processes for monitoring the dismantling of nuclear weapons. It seems a wiser course to rely upon negotiations, communication and developing trust and solid personal relations between people of all countries and their leaders. Gorbachev and Reagan came to an agreement that led to reduction of both nuclear arsenals in the past. We need to find ways to identify mutual interests in preventing nuclear conflict. History shows that the existence of nuclear weapons has done nothing to prevent many terrible conflicts since 1945, including acts of aggression against countries with nuclear weapons. Part of the role of local politicians is to take actions that promote the safety of their constituents. Since this is an issue that includes the terrifying possibility of earth’s extinction, anything our local officials do to influence the national authorities to pay attention to it and act on our behalf contributes significantly to our confidence in them and our sense of safety. Safety, indeed, is also a local issue!
Please attend the City Council meeting Tuesday, February 10, at 7 p.m. in City Hall in the Council Chambers. If you wish to, you will have an opportunity to speak about this issue at the beginning of the meeting.