WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD FEDERALISM:
A MODERN REPRISE
By
Ernest L. Graves
Can the problem of nuclear proliferation be solved in a civilized manner by any one nation without the full cooperation of all other nations? Can this be done on a strictly voluntary basis or will we require some legally enforceable means, such as a world government, to accomplish it?
Ernest Graves work
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WORLD PEACE THROUGH WORLD FEDERALISM:
A MODERN REPRISE
By
Ernest L. Graves
A
World peace and the end of national war as an instrument of policy through world government and the rule of law—democratically accountable to the citizens of the world—has been the announced goal of one organization for over 60 years. The organization is the World Federalist Movement (WFM). This organization, with its 35 constituent member organizations, celebrated its 60th anniversary in conjunction with its XXV WFM World Congress in Geneva, Switzerland in August, 2007.
During this sixty years the WFM has seen the attempts of nations to move away from rampant individualism to collective action, but they have not achieved the goal of world government, world peace or world cooperation. The occasion of the anniversary of the WFM provides a convenient opportunity to examine anew their stated goals in the light of the major problems which beset the world today and to see what contribution they can make toward solving our collective problems of survival. Do they make a positive contribution to solving any of the following problems concerning mankind’s survival on this planet?
1. An increasing population with a declining and depleted resource base.
2. Climate change and global warming.
3. Nationalism, competitive economics and war.
4. Globalization and the absence of uniform law.
5. Terrorism and international crime.
6. Nuclear proliferation.
To properly conduct this re-examination we first accept certain fundamental facts about our existence on the earth.
A. This is the only planet that we know of where life exists.
B. As far as we know all life operates in a single organic interdependent system.
C. All life has a genetic base, is interconnected, and we humans are a single family in the structure.
With this as a starting point one can begin to answer the question of whether the goal of the WFM can help to solve the problems of mankind’s continued existence on this planet.
1
The present and future population
We presently have about six and a half billion people on this globe and the number is expected to grow to nine or ten billion before it levels off. This is a consequence of the mathematics of Malthus as it presently projects out. As of now it is estimated that we require the resources of four planets to survive at our present rate of consumption of life forms, energy, water and mineral resources. In other words, at the present rate of usage this planet will not support the present number of people at the present standard of living and the present rate of industrialization.
The question is can this problem be solved in a civilized manner by any one nation without the full cooperation of all other nations? Can this be done on a strictly voluntary basis or will we require some legally enforceable means, such as a world government, to accomplish it? This is a global problem that clearly indicates the necessity of the cooperative structure that is proposed by the World Federalist Movement.
2
Climate change and global warming
The Arctic Ocean was once a tropical sea and it appears this is about to occur again. If this is the case, the only temperate climate will be restricted to the poles and they will not support the six and a half billion people presently alive, let alone the additional three plus billion that is expected to follow. This problem of climate change is superimposed on the population and resource mathematics of Malthus. If this is not problem enough, there is the additional speeding up and expansion of the process by our carbon based society to a global tipping point of irreversible damage to our continued existence on the planet.
The question is: can this problem be solved in a civilized manner by any one nation without the full cooperation of all other nations? Can this be done on a strictly voluntary basis or will we require some legally enforceable means such as a world government to accomplish it? This is a global problem that clearly indicates the necessity of the cooperative structure that is proposed by the World Federalist Movement.
3
Nationalism, competitive economics and war
After World War II and the use of nuclear bombs in Japan there was an increase in the felt necessity for world peace that centered on world government. For instance, Albert Einstein wrote in 1945: "In my opinion the only salvation for civilization and the human race lies in the creation of a world government, with the security of nations founded upon law. As long as sovereign states continue to have separate armaments and armaments secrets, new world wars will be inevitable."
This was also the time the World Federalist Movement started with the Montreaux declaration of the "World Movement for World Federal Government." This movement found its core meaning in the immorality and stupidity of mankind fighting among themselves when they were a single species living interconnected lives on the only living planet that they knew of in the firmament. It just didn’t make logical sense not to apply the principle of social organization to the whole and cooperate in a world government. As late as 1987 it was noted that over 200 years had passed since Emmanuel Kant had observed that while a state of civilization existed within nations (meaning obedience to the rule of law) a state of anarchy still prevails between nations and there can be no end to the sufferings and tragedies of history until the civilized state—the rule of law—is also established between nations.
Unfortunately, the world still awaits the peace that would obtain under a world government and the rule of law because we are still struggling with a 17th Century Westphalian Treaty of social order, national sovereignty and violations of the rule of law. This is the twenty-first century with nuclear weapons 1000 times more powerful than the bombs we used in Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Nationalism, national economic competition over the resources of the world, and war as an instrument of policy (Clausewitz) are obsolete concepts while we flirt with the extinction of civilization and maybe the human race.
So much has changed since the Westphalian model of social order was adopted, other than the changes enumerated above; most notably the success of the federal principle in the growth of the United States and the invention of the atom bomb and its progeny. Wars of economic dominance and sovereignty really exhibit "a death wish for the world," as President John F. Kennedy said in his Peace speech following the Cuban Missile Crisis. A speech in which he also said, "I speak of peace, therefore, as the rational end of rational man."
The question is can this problem be solved in a civilized manner by any one nation without the full cooperation of all other nations? Can this be done on a strictly voluntary basis or will we require some legally enforceable means such as a world government to accomplish it? This is a global problem that clearly indicates the necessity of the cooperative structure that is proposed by the World Federalist Movement.
4
Globalization and the absence of uniform law
The globalization of trade under our present economic system is anarchical as the nations of the world (and their corporations) separately compete against each other for advantage, benefit or dominance. This world system takes no account of size, population, level of industrialization or the differential capacity of a nation to maintain an army of persuasion, but relies on the world market system, voluntary treaties, and charities to handle the global distribution of food, goods and services to the world’s people. Further, the present system sees a nation’s economic growth, size or development as having a strategic value, either alone or in competing trading blocs with trade sanctions used for both economic and strategic purposes by the ruling hegemonies.
The result is the whole world individually scrambles, with nations designing differential laws for national incorporation, taxation, labor relations, governmental subsides and private benefits to citizens. All pursue an ever expanding national economy of worldwide industrialization in a growing pool of population with an ever depleting resource base. Moreover, the problems this anarchic system presents is cumulative and cross-potentiating with the other problems of our continued existence on this globe. In short, this system in its operation has led to half the world’s population living on less than two dollars a day while the other half lives in comparative luxury. The system cries out for world order and unification of the legal, political and social rules under which we collectively operate.
The question is can this problem be solved in a civilized manner by any one nation without the full cooperation of all other nations? Can this be done on a strictly voluntary basis or will we require some legally enforceable means such as a world government to accomplish it? This is a global problem that clearly indicates the necessity of the cooperative structure that is proposed by the World Federalist Movement.
5
Terrorism and international crime
There is little need to recapitulate in detail the need for the nations of this world to cooperate and work together in abating international terrorism, particularly the use of nuclear weapons or other means of mass destruction. Collective action is also obviously needed to combat other transnational crimes, such as the illegal drug trade, trafficking people, slavery or international high jacking of planes, and the like. A single world government with a global police force and a global prosecutorial jurisdiction would immensely facilitate the apprehension and prosecution of such practices and crimes.
The question is can this problem be solved in a civilized manner by any one nation without the full cooperation of all other nations? Can this be done on a strictly voluntary basis or will we require some legally enforceable means such as a world government to accomplish it? This is a global problem that clearly indicates the necessity of the cooperative structure that is proposed by the World Federalist Movement.
6
Nuclear proliferation
When we used the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war we little realized the full significance of introducing a 21st Century scientific tool of war into a world organized on a 16th Century (Westphalian) social model. Einstein warned us in 1945 with these prophetic words: "The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our mode of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
Sixty-two years later and we still haven’t altered "our mode of thinking" and we still drift toward "unparalleled catastrophe" as we still continue to rely on nuclear weapons as the cornerstone of our defense. A war waged with nuclear weapons risks "bringing the world to the abyss of nuclear destruction and the end of mankind," as Robert Kennedy noted in his book on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Thirteen Days.
Now, rather than two nations there are nine, possibly ten nations in the nuclear weapons club and others are threatening proliferation by getting their own nuclear deterrent. The risk of a world nuclear war gets greater every day as the rhetoric grows more and more bellicose. Here is what Fred Charles Ikle, former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the Reagan administration and who served Presidents Nixon and Ford as Director of the U.S. Arms Control Disarmament Agency, had to say about the problem in 2006: "The continuing spread of nuclear technology is turning into a disaster of unimaginable proportions. It is moving beyond the control of any national government or any international agreement" (Annihilation From Within). Compare the questions officially debated at the World Economic Forum for 2007: Is the world close to tipping into an unstoppable cascade of proliferation of nuclear arms? Is there a danger that weapons of mass destruction will fall into the hands of terrorists who would stage a nuclear 9/11? What can be done to prevent any of this happening?
The necessary inference from Fred Ikle’s writing and the debates at the World Economic Forum is that we must move away from the Empire concept of world security or otherwise we run the risk of a nuclear war, caused accidentally or intentionally, that will bring the "world to the abyss of nuclear destruction and the end of mankind" to quote Robert Kennedy once again.
The question is can this problem be solved in a civilized manner by any one nation without the full cooperation of all other nations? Can this be done on a strictly voluntary basis or will we require some legally enforceable means such as a world government to accomplish it? In short, this is a global problem that clearly indicates the necessity of the cooperative structure that is proposed by the World Federalist Movement.
B
As we, the world’s people, have increased our knowledge of ourselves and the small planet we collectively inhabit, we are starting to see the interconnectedness of the whole living planet. In the 21st Century we are seeing some of the consequences of past trends extrapolated out. Some of these trends, if continued at the present rate, will lead all of us to catastrophe unless they are altered or stopped. It would be insane for the world’s people to continue these trends when a solution is at hand. This is especially true when the solution offered is peculiarly within mankind’s capacity, which is the case of the World’s Federalist Movement’s proposal of a world government under a rule of law. We, the world’s people, invented the system of social and legal organization that is part of the problem. Therefore, mankind may change it to a system of social and legal order that more closely mirrors the necessities of the organic structure of the planet itself.
Except for a percipient few, it wasn’t so clear sixty years ago that all life is interrelated on this planet and life is genetically interconnected and interdependent. Maybe the mass of the people didn’t recognize the absolute necessity of having a global cooperative governing authority with a uniform rule of law, but now the trends are there for all to see and we, collectively, can understand that we can no longer abide rampant individualism in nations or war as an instrument of policy and must accept the message of the proposal of the World Federalist Movement.
It is now obvious to all thinking people that our adoption of the proposal of the World Federalist Movement can not only make a significant contribution to solving some of the world’s problems, but it is possibly an essential first step in creating a civilized, sustainable and peaceful world order.
Having the knowledge that we, the nations and peoples of the world, must cooperate in solving certain problems and abating certain trends in order to survive on this planet does not solve the problems themselves. It only goes to establishing the logic and the necessity of creating the structure—one world government—to begin to solve some of the world’s problems. Now that the problems have become more acute and the trends apparent, we look again to measure the concepts of Einstein and the WFM against the problems as they now exist.
While none of the world’s problems can be ignored with impunity and some are more urgent than others, there is one—nuclear proliferation—that is separately measured. This is because nuclear proliferation is representative of many of the world’s problems, is particularly pressing at the present time and is totally within the power of mankind to remedy as the legal and social structure of the world is of man’s creation. It is also selected here because it can be the means of freeing up the immense capital and labor needed to begin to remedy the other world problems from the wasteful activity of war-making and war-preparing. The concept of a world government as the solution to the problem of nuclear proliferation is measured against the two premises of the Einstein-World Federalist Movement. Does the present Empire method of stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons lead all of us to catastrophe? Is a single world government the necessary structure to solve the problem of nuclear proliferation?
C
The Empire system leads to catastrophe
When we decided to use the Atom bomb in 1945 for strategic military purposes we didn’t fully comprehend the true power and consequences of what we were doing. We knew we were winning a war by unleashing the power of the atom. What we didn’t know was the extent of its power and where its use would lead us and the world. In the beginning we knew we had a monopoly on the weapon and the technology. It could produce bombs that gave us an insurmountable edge in war, but it could also be used to produce cheap clean electricity for civil purposes. Thus it was a two-headed monster we had created because its use for civil purposes could not be separated from its bomb making function, and the nuclear technology was bound to spread in time. We wanted to make it available to the world, but there was a catch. The spread of nuclear energy with the potential of making nuclear bombs presented the U.S. with an intolerable threat if the bomb were possessed by another nation. What to do with the two-headed monster (nuclear energy and bombs) we had created? That was the great question for us.
It was the scientists of the Manhattan Project who had the first cut at this Gordian knot with the Baruch plan which was proposed by us in the U.N. This plan called for international ownership of all dangerous nuclear activities and nuclear disarmament. This plan was rejected by Russia because it gave the U.S. a temporary monopoly on the bomb and required Russia to give up its veto in the Security Council of the U.N.
The failure of the Baruch plan meant that we continued to make nuclear weapons the cornerstone of our defense policy from that day to this. After 1949, when the Russians exploded a nuclear device, the threat of the bomb’s potential became real. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace was the response to the threat as then perceived. But the cold war arms race was on, and with nuclear bombs 1000 times more powerful than those used in Japan. As President Eisenhower said in 1954, "we are piling up these armaments because we do not know what else to do to provide for our security." This in time led to the nuclear standoff of the Cuban Missile Crisis and President Kennedy’s famous post-crisis speech of June 10, 1963 when he advocated the abolition of war as a means of cutting the Gordian knot of nuclear proliferation saying that peace is the rational end of rational man and characterized those who think of making war in the nuclear age as having a "collective death wish for the world."
President Kennedy had faced the threat of an "unparalleled catastrophe" in the Cuban Missile Crisis and as a result joined the views of Albert Einstein and the World Federalist Movement on world government as the necessary structure for a peaceful world. Robert Kennedy, who was the constant companion to the President during the crisis, also subscribed to this view of the crisis , for in his book, Thirteen Days, he observed the Cuban Missile Crisis had "brought the world to the abyss of nuclear destruction and the end of mankind."
We may find the reason why President Kennedy (and Robert) agreed with Einstein in seeing war in the nuclear age as an "unparalleled catastrophe" and world peace as the rational end of rational man in the Single Integrated Plan we had prepared to counter the Soviet threat. With 27,000 weapons in the "overkill" stockpile we had planned to launch "a massive strike of thousands of nuclear weapons against the Communist bloc in the first 24 hours of conflict, with estimated casualties of between 360 and 450 million people" (Bulletin of Atomic scientists, May/June 2006). And that estimate did not include the casualties the Americans, Canadians and our other allies would suffer from the Soviet retaliation.
That number of casualties was seen as obscene and raised serious moral issues. It was the reason the Kennedys joined with Albert Einstein in subscribing to changing our "mode of thinking" and presented a program for the abolition of war. It was now a serious moral issue, but it was more. Nuclear energy with its inseparable dual function of making nuclear bombs is the key to attaining world peace and mankind’s continued existence on this globe. We have to cooperate and use the technology of nuclear energy for peace, but that carries the bomb-making risk and the only sure way for us to accomplish this is to abolish war by forming a world government. If we do not form a world government the separate nations of the world will surely use the technology to annihilate each other and end mankind’s stay on this planet. That was the choice for mankind as seen by Albert Einstein in 1945, the perceptive individuals of the World Federalist Movement in 1947, and Kennedy in his peace speech after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Forty-four years have passed since the Cuban Missile Crisis and Kennedy’s 1963 speech on world peace and we have not changed our "mode of thinking." We still rely on nuclear weapons for our ultimate security as set out in our National Security Strategy of 2002 and 2006—the Empire manifesto and its implementation in Iraq. But the question remains: Has the Empire response to nuclear proliferation increased our safety or brought us yet closer to the catastrophe of a global nuclear war?
We started with the five nations contemplated in the U.N. Charter, with the five member Security council—each nation having a veto power over collective action by the others—and each acting voluntarily to maintain the new security system for the world.
The nuclear weapon states have increased from the original five to nine, with four of the states—Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea—not covered by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Then there is Iran which has threatened to pull out of the NPT of which it is now a member, and India with whom we have agreed to supply nuclear material banned to other non-signers of the NPT.
Yet still other nations threaten proliferation by acquiring the weapon for defensive purposes, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Japan, Brazil and others. Additionally, there are 34 nations capable of operating the full nuclear fuel cycle for civil purposes, and there are now some two million pounds of fissile material to be constantly guarded against potential diversion to terrorists and other non-state actor.
We have tried the Empire response for 62 years and the world now asks how can we can be safe in a world where the thermonuclear bomb exists? And the question is: have we stopped proliferation? Does anyone believe that no further proliferation will occur? If not we have to face the fact that as long as we seek to have the nuclear weapon in our arsenal of persuasion we will have other nations seeking to offset their disadvantage in nuclear or conventional arms by obtaining nuclear weapons.
In a world where each nation-state is separate and independent no scientific discovery of a new weapon will remain long hidden. In such a world no nation willingly accepts dominion by another nation and will seek to protect itself by obtaining that weapon. In the case of the atom bomb the U.S. has continued to disregard this lesson of history, and tried to preserve control and military possession of the weapon to itself and its allies. But despite the announced efforts backed by 750 bases in 150 countries, the National Security Strategy of the United States of America of 2002 and 2006 (the Empire declaration of military dominance, preemption/prevention/interdiction, and a missile defense) we have failed to halt proliferation of nuclear weapons states or the amount of fissile material for terrorists of this planet. In fact, it has increased the risk of the catastrophe of a global nuclear war.
Important people in and out of government have seen the paradox of the Empire system and have begun to question the sufficiency of this model of world security. These people see the expansion of the club of nuclear weapon states and the number of nations that now contemplate obtaining nuclear weapons for defensive purposes, as rendering the Empire system of world security unmanageable and increasing the risk of a global nuclear war as an incidence of World War III.
That is the situation at the present time. What will it be in 20, 50 or 100 years, or in perpetuity when the National Security Strategy for 2006 itself notes, ". . . it requires closing a loophole in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that permits regimes to produce fissile material that can be used to make nuclear weapons under cover of a civilian nuclear program". While the same document also states: "To close this loophole we have proposed that the world’s leading exporters create a safe, orderly system that spreads nuclear energy without spreading nuclear weapons." (Emphasis added) It is anything but certain that companies will obey or that nations will sign a document that creates a class of have and have-not nations.
Small wonder that the negative appraisal of the present system of world security by Fred Ikle, or the debates of flaws in the Empire system at the recent meeting of the World Economic Forum (as previously quoted) are published or the debates conducted at a world economic meeting.
What is of even greater significance was a conference that was held at the Hoover Institute about abandoning our collective reliance on nuclear weapons globally, thereby ending this weapon as a threat to the world. This conference was called by George P. Schultz, a distinguished fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford and former Secretary of State and Sidney H. Drell. A statement under the banner, A World Free of Nuclear Weapons, was joined in by Mr. Schultz and Mr. Drell, as well as William J. Perry, a former Secretary of Defense; Henry A. Kissinger, former Secretary of State; Mr. Sam Nunn, former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and others attending the conference. The tenor of the statement issued on January 4, 2007 by the conference was that in view of the present and future proliferation of nuclear weapons, plus the combined risk of terrorists getting their hands on them, and the probable failure of present or future safeguards which "are not adequate to the danger," we must all remove nuclear weapons from our military arsenals. A step by step abandonment of global reliance (use or employment) of nuclear weapons for our ultimate security was recommended.
This position espoused after 62 years by leading political figures who served in different administrations in effect repudiates the present Empire system of controlling nuclear proliferation and promises no more than did the Manhattan scientists to give all of us a peaceful world so that we can hope to address our many problems. In fact, it infers authorization of war between nations, but only with conventional arms (no nuclear weapons) and it also implies that no nation will ever use the nuclear technology to produce nuclear weapons to redress the balance between nations.
President Kennedy experienced the nuclear dilemma in the Cuban Missile Crisis and concluded that any war waged in a nuclear age, with its possibility of escalation, is only advocated by those who have "a collective death wish for the world". He saw the dilemma of uniformly getting all nations to agree to abandon the technology and the use of these weapons long before Richard Butler called the world’s attention to it. Richard Butler was the head of the U.N. Special Commission to disarm Iraq from 1997 to 1999, and wrote of this problem in his book Fatal Choice, as follows:
We might want to dispose of our nuclear weapons, but others may or may not cheat. Others will always aspire to obtain nuclear weapons, especially rogues or terrorists. We would expose ourselves to grave danger, or at least blackmail, if we eliminated our nuclear weapons."
And as Butler hastened to add:
"But the problem of nuclear weapons is nuclear weapons.
Any serious attempt to address the problems they pose must focus on their very existence. The issue of their control and management are subsidiary. And as long as they exist anywhere they will spread."
Thus we see that President Kennedy joined Albert Einstein and the World Federalists in seeing that any war in the nuclear age carried with it the risk of an "unparalleled catastrophe" leading to ending our stay on this planet. Today, this danger is no abstract proposition, but a terrible reality as we are talking of World War III or a War of Civilization and threaten a "disaster of unimaginable proportions" as the world cascades "close to the tipping point." This, accidentally or intentionally, "brings the world (once again) to the abyss of destruction and the end of mankind."
D
World government is a necessary structure
While one world government, as espoused by Einstein and the World Federalist Movement, may be perceived as necessary to solve many of the world’s problems, it is both necessary and sufficient to solve the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Only by a world government will we, as a world, solve the problem. The master logician, Albert Einstein, pointed this out in 1945 when he wrote that unless we changed our "mode of thinking" we were headed for catastrophe as he related the danger from nuclear weapons to a certain "mode of thinking" and concluded that unless we changed that "mode of thinking" it would inevitably lead to catastrophe. Here is what he wrote: "In my opinion the only solution for civilization and the human race lies in the creation of a world government with the security of nations founded upon the rule of law." (Emphasis added)
The WFM accepted Einstein’s reasoning in 1947 and it is still valid today. The vision of our world leaders is catching up as they are gradually coming to accept the logic of Einstein; conceiving of world cooperation sufficient to contain the world’s proliferation of nuclear weapons by outlawing them. It took sixty-two years for them to appreciate this step banning nuclear weapons. That the world must also ban war itself in the nuclear age is the final step written in the logic of Einstein.
The world government structure, besides being necessary is also a sufficient structure because a world government implies a world military enforcing the collective rule of law. Thus, the proposal of the World Federalist Movement corresponds to the logic of Einstein in being both a necessary and a sufficient solution to the problem of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
There is an additional reason why the risks of the present global system of world security makes the proposal of the World Federalist Movement for a world government so appealing and so necessary. It is the issue of control. That is, what is the control system governing the use of nuclear weapons? In other words, who can start a war with nuclear weapons? Originally there were only the five member nations authorized to possess nuclear weapons by the U.N. Charter. It has now increased to nine, perhaps ten, four of which are not monitored because they are not members of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). There are at least thirteen other nations supposedly seeking to become nuclear weapon states.
Since any one of these nations can start a nuclear war, each addition increases the risk by enlarging the pool of nuclear weapons states. It also increases the sites and the weapons to be guarded against terrorists. And because each nation may have different allies (that may change over time) who could draw them into a conventional war that could escalate and multiply the risk for all of us.
The differences in the political, economic and social composition of the nine nation now in the nuclear club further increases the uncertainty and risk in the present global security system. To repeat, the nine nation are: Russia, an erstwhile enemy who has since converted to capitalism; China, a communist country with the army subservient to the communist party; India, a western style capitalistic democracy; Pakistan, a Moslem country under a military dictator with a radical Islamic minority; Israel, an orthodox, Jewish-capitalistic democracy; North Korea, a communist country under a hereditary dictatorship; United States, England and France, the three Christian capitalistic democracies.
Add to this national heterogeneity the fact that all of the nuclear weapon states have their own system for the control and usage of nuclear weapons, as they, like the United States, ultimately rest their national security upon nuclear weapons. In every case there are always a small number of elitists who run the nation and control the nuclear weapons, be it a few or only one. (See infra) This again adds a further dimension to the risk in our total global security system. The increased risk is not alone the uncertainty in the usage of the nuclear weapons by the United States, but the total risk of the nine combined members of the nuclear weapons club.
The system in the U.S. may serve as an illustration. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki the atom bomb was entirely in the control of the Commander-in-Chief, President Truman, who was then in charge of the war. A year later the Atomic Act of 1946 was enacted, establishing the structure of sole presidential control over the use of nuclear weapons. Later the National Security Council was created to assist the President in making the decisions, but his is the sole finger on the nuclear trigger (the so-called football that accompanies him everywhere). The ultimate strategy of our reliance on nuclear weapons has been incorporated in the National Security Strategy of 2002 and 2006. By this document the United States proclaims the right of pre-eminence in military might, a missile defense and the right of interdiction and pre-emption (read prevention).
Now multiply that strategic decision by nine with different religious leaders and dictators having the sole power over the decision to use the weapons or when their intelligence leads them to suspect others of building nuclear weapons (as they did in Iraq). While we have the trappings of democracy, recent events have shown that what the people want is of little consequence if the sole decider, the unitary president, chooses to ignore their wishes. If the other eight nuclear states also adopt pre-emption, the risks become incalculable.
This ungoverned proliferation of nuclear nations, nuclear weapons and fissile material with disparate control systems substantially increase the risk of nuclear war. This situation, with nuclear bombs 1000 times more powerful than the atom bombs released over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is too precarious a structure upon which to rest the future of man on this planet. A mere examination of the present structure demonstrates that it is fraught with incomparably greater risks than the world government advocated by Einstein and the World Federalist Movement.
Separate from the above there is the issue presented by the previously mentioned human element in the very structure of our control of nuclear weapons in the present world security system. That is, to whom do we entrust the power to decide the use or non-use of the nuclear weapons of the world? We have already said it is always a small group of elitist, mostly men, with or without a single ultimate decider who has the power of decision. A brief look at some facts about the structure will reveal the scope of the issue: (1) We have changed the face of war. Now the noncombatants—the innocent civilians, men women and children—bear ninety percent (90%) of the casualties in any war. Thus we, the people of the world, are the ones being protected with nuclear weapons and we, the world’s people, will be the ones to bear the majority of the burden if they are used, whether accidentally or intentionally. (2) Yet according to a 2005 Pew Research Center world-wide poll, seventy-four percent (74%) of the world’s people favor the elimination of nuclear weapons. (3) Judging by the estimate of causalities Americans would have caused in the Cuban Missile Crisis—360 million to 450 million casualties (lost lives)—a modern nuclear war would conservatively cause 600 to 900 million casualties, 90% or 560 to 810 million of whom would be innocent civilians, in its initial onslaughts.
The world’s people cannot afford the human cost of such protection and do not want it. We, the people of the world, do not wish to provide a few of the elites or deciders of the world the pleasure of watching the game played out of our respective dominance with our lives as either the prize or the forfeit; the risks and the casualties estimates are ever increasing by the proliferation of nuclear weapon states, nuclear material and new technology for their usage.
E
How did this obscene result come about? How did we get to a place where a handful of people in the world or one decider have life and death control over an astronomical number of lives? And without any decisive input from the world’s people. No elections, no debate, no anything, for the world’s people to have had a meaningful say regarding their destruction or elimination. Kings never had such absolute power over the lives of their subjects. How in the name of human decency could such a state of affairs come to pass in a world that believes in democracy; where government by, for, and of the people is treasured worldwide?
In the midst of a war we developed and employed for war purposes a technology that was powerful beyond anything the world had previously imagined. This was implemented in a world’s socio-political system that was modeled on a 16th century treaty, which defined nation states as competing entities with territorial sovereignty over persons and property. The nuclear weapons were put to the service of national objectives as just another weapon to guarantee security against other nations by the military. The public was not involved. In time two things happened. First, the weapons became yet more powerful, exceeding even the destructive dreams of men and their use threatened human civilization, even human life on this planet. Still, nations saw them as the premier weapons in their arsenal of security. Second, more and more nations began acquiring nuclear weapons for security in the mistaken belief that they added to their security when, in fact, they were increasing the world’s risk of a cataclysmic event threatening the very existence of human life on the planet.
These two events present two distinct problems for all humanity to ponder:
- Aside from the moral issue of the right of an elite clique in one nation to order the death of hundreds of millions of the world’s people, and threaten the extinction of civilization, maybe even life on this planet, there is the issue of the limits on the power of destruction that a small clique or a single decider should have as a practical matter. Does a clique or one person have the power and the right to endanger the lives of all? Should there not be some limit to the number of people they can kill or endanger in a bout of destructiveness? How do we, the people of the world, put a governor on war once it has broken out?
- Do we, the peoples of the earth, want to bestow the power on a clique or a single decider for all of us to decide the question of our extermination as a species? Do we, the peoples of the world, want to give any leader that authority? Should not the peoples of the world have the exclusive right and power to decide that question, individually and collectively? Is not this issue the "Jones in Guyana" issue brought to the level of the human race? And how do we answer that question, individually and collectively?
That is where we have come to with our present Empire system of guaranteeing the world security and coping with the problem of nuclear proliferation. The Empire system of world security is now breaking down and gives signs of becoming a war of civilizations, engulfing the whole world in nuclear war. This problem alone of mankind’s survival is now moving "beyond the control of any one nation or agreement and threatens a disaster of unimaginable proportions" as it cascades "close to the tipping point." The risks in the Empire system call aloud to all of us for an elimination of these risks. The only remedy according to the logic of Einstein is the proposal for a world government by the World Federalist Movement.
If, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, a threat of hanging in a fortnight wonderfully concentrates the mind, what will it take to concentrate the mind and consciousness of the world’s people? Is the killing of 360 million to 450 million alone in the initial onslaught of a nuclear war, as the American estimate was in the Cuban Missile Crisis enough? Or do we need a revised estimate covering the number of deaths caused by a nuclear war involving nine or ten nations?
When will we face it? We must eliminate war or the instruments of war will eliminate all of us from this planet. The choice must reside with the majority of the people of the world as they must choose for themselves whether they want a world government and peace, or choose the world annihilation of people by accepting the present Empire solution to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Do we lose anything by having a worldwide U.N. sponsored referendum on this issue?
World government as proposed by the World Federalist Movement is the only viable solution to the problem of nuclear proliferation. Also, as we have seen, world government makes a positive contribution to solving each of the other major problems.