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Roche: Defying government position, they attend TPNW meeting

Posted on December 4, 2023editor


McPhedran, May, McPherson, Davies defy government, attend UN meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Senator Marilou McPhedran will use her experience to engage her Senate colleagues in special dialogues. Green Leader Elizabeth May says she’s ‘more committed than ever to advocate for nuclear disarmament as the only way to a secure world.’NDP MP Heather McPherson wants to develop a nuclear disarmament caucus in Parliament.

EDMONTON—Three women parliamentarians, responding to an International Red Cross call for the world to display “the dictates of public conscience” against nuclear weapons, have become the conscience of the Canadian Parliament. Non-affiliated Senator Marilou McPhedran, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, and NDP MP Heather McPherson defied the Government of Canada by attending a meeting of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons held last week at the United Nations in New York.

The government refused to attend, even as an observer, because it feared the wrath of the United States and NATO headquarters. Both the U.S. and NATO have taken a hostile position against the treaty—which has so far been ratified by 69 states—because it outlaws the possession of nuclear weapons.

Three NATO states—Germany, Norway and Belgium— did attend as observers at the weeklong meeting, which the top UN disarmament official, Izumi Nakamitsu, called “more important than ever” because of growing geopolitical tensions. These three states showed more courage than Canada, which calculated that the cost of attending would be greater in incurring the displeasure of NATO than the cost of not attending and incurring merely the disappointment of the domestic nuclear disarmament movement.

The Canadian women told me they attended out of a sense of obligation not only to protest Canada’s absence, but to better equip themselves to push this government to live up to its promises and obligations. McPhedran is a non-affiliated Senator from Manitoba; May represents Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.; and McPherson represents Edmonton-Strathcona, Alta., and is the NDP’s foreign affairs critic. The three parliamentarians have previously staked out leadership stances against nuclear weapons and are trying to rally their colleagues. This time, NDP MP Don Davies, who represents Vancouver-Kingsway, B.C., joined them at the New York meeting. As May put it to me: “We went to press for Canada to be on the right side of history in signing and ratifying the Prohibition Treaty.”

The right side of history: that’s an interesting perspective. Where is nuclear disarmament going in today’s world? With both the U.S. and Russia shredding previous agreements and treaties, the nuclear disarmament architecture is collapsing. It’s true that the number of nuclear weapons, currently about 12,500 held by nine states, is considerably down from the high of 70,000 in the 1980s. But all the nuclear states are modernizing their arsenals, and intend to keep them for the rest of this century.

The U.S. Congressional Strategic Posture Commission recently recommended that the U.S. increase its number of deployed warheads, as well as increase its production of bombers, air-launched cruise missiles, ballistic missile submarines, non-strategic nuclear forces, and warhead production capacity. The Federation of American Scientists excoriated the report for ignoring the consequences of a new nuclear arms race with Russia and China. Both countries are now enlarging their nuclear weapons capacity to counter what they see as a constant U.S. build-up.

A new nuclear arms race is under way. Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, appealed to the Prohibition Treaty meeting not to let the world “lose sight of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that any use of nuclear weapons — be it strategic or tactical, offensive, or defensive — would have.”

The leaders of the Prohibition Treaty are trying to stem the new nuclear surge, but they can hardly be heard in today’s warring atmosphere. Nonetheless, they are persevering and deepening scientific work showing how the world would totally collapse in the event of nuclear war.

So where is the technological build-up of nuclear warfare capacity really taking the world? Towards doomsday or to a new age of humanitarian enlightenment? One would think that Canada would want to make an impact on the development of nuclear history. But no, our country dodges its responsibilities in the misguided notion that its NATO obligations constrain it from joining the new march of history.

In New York, McPhedran, May and McPherson signed a statement issued by 23 parliamentarians from 14 countries promising to take this fight to the policymakers of the nuclear states. At home, they pledged themselves to shake up the Canadian establishment. They are brave politicians. They have stuck out their necks. McPhedran intends to use her experience to brief and engage her Senate colleagues in special dialogues. May says she is “more committed than ever to advocate for nuclear disarmament as the only way to a secure world.” McPherson wants to develop a nuclear disarmament caucus in Parliament.

Will they actually get Canada to move to the right side of history? Who knows, but, as McPherson said, they “felt compelled to be present.”

Former Senator Douglas Roche’s latest book is Keep Hope Alive: Essays for a War-free World
The Hill Times

Download as pdf here

Meyer: The War in Ukraine is our Nuclear Arms Wake-up Call

Posted on November 26, 2023editor

Carefully crafted arms control and disarmament mechanisms are rusting-out before us

In reflecting on the consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on prospects for nuclear disarmament, the situation we are experiencing today might best be understood as a crisis of communication. Simply put, the nuclear armed protagonists of our manmade crisis are not speaking to one another. And in the absence of such communication the risks attendant upon misunderstandings, misperceptions and miscalculations grow. Couple this breakdown of communication with the ongoing war against a sovereign state, the maintenance of thousands of nuclear missiles on a high-alert status and the maintenance of “launch on warning” doctrines and there is every reason to be alarmed.

Article by Paul Meyer linked here

Simpson: Adressing Challenges Facing NATO

Posted on November 26, 2023editor
  • Addressing Challenges Facing NATO and the United States Using Lessons Learned from Afghanistan and Ukraine: linked here
    To avoid more suffering among millions of Afghans and Ukrainians due to war necessitates attention to the lessons of Afghanistan vis-à-vis the Russian-Ukraine war. The abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan by the arbitrary deadline of August 30, 2021 led to a disastrous exit and a low point in promulgating a culture of peace. Lessons learned from Afghanistan relevant to involvement in Ukraine are presented in a timeframe dating from the origins of the conflict; to the grounds for intervention by NATO and the United States; to the type and location of intervention; to the types of warfare; to the grounds for NATO’s withdrawal. Recommendations that address the challenges facing NATO and the U.S. over Afghanistan and Ukraine are made based on lessons learned—and spurned—from the early stages of involvement in Afghanistan after 9/11, proceeding to the final stage of withdrawal in 2021.
  • Addressing Challenges Facing NATO Using Lessons Learned From Canada: linked here
    THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IS YET another international crisis that
    necessitates nations learn more from each other about how to solve challenges
    faced by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
  • Pearson and Simpson: How to de-escalate dangerous nuclear weapons and force deployments in Europe, linked here
    Amidst the war in Ukraine, it is important to raise the prospect and vision of creating mutual security guarantees and ridding Europe of its dangerous nuclear weapon systems and provocative force deployments. In view of reckless Kremlin rhetoric and aggressive military action in Russia’s so-called near abroad, it is time for renewed approaches to arms control. As the Ukraine situation plays out, Russia, the United States, and allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must return to their bargaining tables and negotiate strict limits, verification measures, and overarching controls over their nuclear use doctrines, weapon stockpiles, and conventional force deployments. All sides will have to make deep concessions and de-alert and de-operationalize mid- and short-range nuclear weapons while improving command and control safeguards—because, as we see, brandishing weapons and threatening escalation heightens tensions and increases the danger of crises spiralling uncontrollably.

Jaramillo: Canada has a duty to do more for innocent civilians in Gaza

Posted on November 9, 2023editor

Published in the Globe and Mail, November 9, 2023

Cesar Jaramillo is the executive director of Project Ploughshares and the chair of the Canadian Pugwash Group.

The horrific Hamas attacks of Oct. 7 took the world by surprise. Hundreds of innocent people were massacred at a music festival; many residents of border settlements, including babies, were also brutally murdered. In all, about 1,400 were killed; more than 200 have been taken hostage. These are war crimes.

Now Palestinian civilians are enduring unacceptable and unprecedented suffering at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces. With devastation worsening by the day and no end in sight, today Canada has the opportunity – and the duty – to defend the innocents.

After a month of increasing violence, it is past time for the Canadian government to rise to the occasion. As the leader of one of the great democracies in the world, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must speak out against what appear to be egregious human-rights violations and do everything he can to end the slaughter of innocent Palestinian children, women and men.

Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks has included practices that are inconsistent with the most fundamental precepts of international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, precaution, and proportionality. Israeli military and political leaders have boasted of acting without restraint, including Israel’s defence minister (“I have removed every restriction – we will eliminate anyone who fights us, and use every measure at our disposal“), the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (“Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction”) and the army’s spokesperson (”The emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy”).

In Gaza, more than 10,000 civilians – almost half of them children – have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities. So have scores of journalists and UN aid workers. Amnesty International has pointed to “damning evidence of war crimes” by the IDF. Refugee camps have been attacked and ambulances have been bombed. “Nowhere is safe,” the UN Secretary-General recently observed. In the view of the International Committee of the Red Cross, “the instructions issued by the Israeli authorities for the population of Gaza City to immediately leave their homes, coupled with the complete siege explicitly denying them food, water, and electricity, are not compatible with international humanitarian law.”

Mr. Trudeau once said that upholding international humanitarian law and the rules-based international order should be “at the very heart of foreign policy.” Now Canada must show what this means in practice. The true value of espousing such principles is only realized when they are defended with rigour, consistency and determination.

The rules-based international order is not an ethereal concept; it is grounded in specific norms and principles that have been crafted over generations. And Canada must always protest, loudly, whenever those rules are transgressed, especially when innocent civilians are forced to pay the price. Only by doing so can Canada remain true to the values that it has long held dear, and be a beacon of hope for those who depend on those values to promote and protect their human rights.

This government has also long championed a feminist foreign policy, recognizing the gendered impacts of armed violence and acknowledging that women often bear a disproportionate burden in times of conflict. How should such a champion respond, when attacks on civilian areas in Gaza are leading to mass casualties, with women and children representing nearly 70 per cent of the reported deaths so far?

Canada’s commitment to a feminist foreign policy must not waver. It must remain consistent with our broader commitments to justice, equality, and the well-being of all, particularly those who are most vulnerable in times of conflict.

It is incumbent upon Canada to challenge all countries, including allies, to live up to the same high standards that it has set for itself. Canada’s enduring friendship with Israel must be built on a foundation of shared values. Mr. Trudeau himself set this out in 2020, congratulating Benjamin Netanyahu on his election and noting the importance of the countries’ shared commitment to international law.

Merely adding the phrase “in accordance with international humanitarian law” to acknowledgments of the right of self-defence falls short of what is required. The extensive harm suffered by Palestinian civilians as a result of Israel’s response to the insurgent attacks is not theoretical, but a grim, continuing reality, supported by mounting evidence of concrete violations.

Upholding international humanitarian law and standing resolutely for the protection of civilians is not an option, but an obligation that defines Canada’s character as a nation. In this critical moment, Canada must do more to respond to the needs and pleas of innocent Palestinians. Now is the time to prove Canada’s principles – and this Prime Minister’s, too.

Polanyi: We cannot give up on the dream of nuclear disarmament

Posted on November 7, 2023editor

November 6, 2023
Globe and Mail, OPINION

John Polanyi is Professor emeritus at the University of Toronto who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry. This text is adapted from remarks he gave last month at Revitalizing Nuclear Disarmament After the Ukraine War, a round-table discussion in Ottawa.

When I was a young chemist at the University of Toronto in 1961, I found myself drawn into the central debate of the age. The Globe and Mail’s pages were discussing nuclear war, asking “if war comes, would we survive?” The question is as valid today as 62 years ago, but we have learned a little in the interim.

In March, 1961, John Gellner, The Globe’s military commentator, wrote these surprising words on the defeatism that marked the mood of the time: “That humanity can survive a nuclear war, and carry on after it, has been established not by the sort of freewheeling speculation that the proponents of surrender generally indulge, but by a thorough scientific enquiry conducted by the U.S. RAND Corporation.” Basing his remarks on his reading of the 1961 RAND report, On Thermonuclear War, by Herman Kahn, Mr. Gellner went on to say, “If certain basic preparations have been made, economic recovery would be 60 per cent complete within one year of a nuclear attack launched against the U.S. in the early 1960s.” The population, he conceded, would have had to “rough it for a time, but could definitely pick themselves up.”

I responded to Mr. Gellner in the Globe of April 5, 1961, arguing that he had taken from Mr. Kahn’s book the absurdly optimistic and hazardous assumption that the victims of a nuclear attack would respond by evacuating all our sizable cities, thus (in my view) precipitating the greatest panic in history. This alarming debate in a respected newspaper did not pass unnoticed. I found myself invited to the office of the minister of foreign affairs at the time, Paul Martin Sr., in Ottawa. He seized his phone and asked to be connected to the House of Commons library. I heard the librarian explaining, apologetically, that Mr. Kahn’s book was presently unavailable since it had been borrowed by Lester Pearson, the prime minister.

My modest excursion into scientific activism had already led to an invitation to participate in a Pugwash Conference, a global disarmament meeting held in Moscow in 1960. On arrival in Moscow, I was handed a message from my host, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. He was confident, he said, that his demand for “universal and complete disarmament” would be accorded the meeting’s unanimous approval.

This was a worthy goal. I regarded it then as pie in the sky. But today I consider it the very best hope for mankind. This desired outcome, as Mr. Khrushchev stated it, was not to be achieved without incident. Two years later, the world was faced with unmistakable evidence of the secret emplacement of nuclear weapons in Cuba by the USSR. The contending nations had been plunged into what we know today as the Cuban Missile Crisis – 13 days in which the world teetered on the brink of all-out nuclear war.

What had happened to the unanimous desire for peace that Mr. Khrushchev anticipated? Had it become a casualty to the foolish complacency of the RAND report? Surely not. It derived from something more real than that. Despite the heartening embrace today by world leaders of the dictum that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” we continue to plan for nuclear war. This is the source of our peril.

It remains evident today in the sustained ambition of states to modernize every branch of nuclear weaponry, whether on land, sea or in the air. The reasoning behind this is simple; these weapons have the purpose of deterring an attack by an opponent who will then cease to be a threat. They exist, therefore, to do the thing that is avowed to be impossible, namely to win a nuclear war.

Last week, Vladimir Putin signed a law revoking Russia’s ratification of the global treaty banning nuclear testing. This is bad news, but fortunately, the 2011 New START Treaty is still in effect. Under that deal, the U.S. and Russia agreed to limit the number of nuclear warheads to 1,550. Each weapon is, however, a city-destroyer. Moreover, the accord is in the process of being weakened by pressure to increase the number of missiles to counter a rising China and to offset an increased pace of warfare anticipated in a world of AI.

For U.S. president John F. Kennedy, the possibility of the destruction of mankind was constantly on his mind. “If we err we do so not only for ourselves … but also for young people all over the world, who would have no say.”

Are we ready to assume that responsibility?

CNWC Award Lecture by Tariq Rauf: Ending the Perpetual Menace of Nuclear Weapons

Posted on November 6, 2023editor

“Following the Trinity nuclear test detonation of 16 th July 1945, nuclear scientist Leó Szilárd observed that, “Almost without exception, all the creative physicists had misgivings about the use of the bomb” and further that “Truman did not understand at all what was involved regarding nuclear weapons”. These days, the movie Oppenheimer has been the rage based on a noteworthy biography of Robert Oppenheimer entitled American Prometheus written by historians Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Though the movie spares its viewers the horrors of the atomic bombing of Japan, it does reflect the warnings of the early nuclear weapon scientists about the long-term or permanent dangers of a nuclear arms race and associated risks of further nuclear weapons use. On the other hand, the film overlooks other historical works including A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies also by Martin Sherwin, that disputes and negates the US government’s narrative about the necessity of using nuclear weapons twice over civilian targets in Japan and suggests that the decisions were driven mainly by geostrategic and prestige considerations – criteria still in operation today to justify continuing retention of nuclear weapons.”

October 23, 2023, University of Ottawa

Read on: Tariq Rauf: Ending Perpetual Menace of NW

Video of Tariq Rauf’s Presentation at CIPS

Walter Dorn: Canada is letting other nations do the heavy lifting on peacekeeping

Posted on September 18, 2023editor

Canada is letting other nations do the heavy lifting on peacekeeping,
published in the Globe and Mail, September 15, 2023

Walter Dorn is a Canadian Pugwash Group board member, and professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College. He is also a UN consultant and has deployed as a civilian to several peacekeeping operations.

Thirty years ago this month, Canadian forces engaged in combat with an unlikely opponent: Croatian forces violating a UN ceasefire and engaging in ethnic cleansing. The Battle of Medak Pocket included a 16-hour firefight, which was at the time Canada’s largest military battle since the Korean War. More surprising at that moment was that the Canadians were using force as part of UN peacekeeping. Up until that time, peacekeepers had almost never engaged in combat. This story of the use of force was so unusual for traditional peacekeeping that it was kept under wraps for 10 years by the Canadian government, which only started to publicly recognize the valour of the peacekeepers in December, 2002.

Fortunately, UN peacekeeping has become much more robust in the 21st century. This followed a groundbreaking Canadian-sponsored resolution on the protection of civilians at the UN Security Council in 1999, when Canada was last on the council. After that, the UN used armed force in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Central African Republic, South Sudan and in several other missions. It even deployed armed helicopters to some of the operations, saving cities, rescuing hostages and freeing citizens from gang lords.

Certainly, the use of armed force remains a dilemma for peacekeepers who seek to de-escalate conflict in war-torn areas of the world. But when civilians are about to be slaughtered or the peacekeepers themselves are under attack, force is absolutely justified. And it is essential that the UN responds effectively to save lives, alleviate more suffering and maintain its credibility.

The United Nations needs countries to provide combat-capable forces to its missions. Unfortunately, Canada is not among those nations any more. It promised a “quick reaction force” in 2017 but it has failed to deliver on that promise. In fact, Canada has only provided troops on two occasions in the past 20 years and these were brief deployments where Canadian soldiers never fired a shot for self-defence or the protection of civilians.

Over time, the Canadian Armed Forces has become much more risk-averse in UN peacekeeping. Other nations are doing the heavy lifting. The United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Portugal, as well as many developing countries, have shown a willingness to use force to protect civilians and enforce peace in conflict-ridden lands.

Current Canadian political leaders are not requesting the Canadian forces to deploy in peacekeeping, even though the Liberal government has promised to re-engage in UN peacekeeping in the past three elections. In fact, the number of uniformed peacekeepers deployed as a monthly average under the Liberal government is half the number deployed by the previous Conservative government.

Currently Canada deploys only 35 military personnel to peacekeeping, out of the 68,000 that the UN has in the field. At the time of the Battle of Medak Pocket, Canada had 3,300 personnel in UN operations. Since 1956, when Canada proposed the first peacekeeping force, Canada deployed 1,000 peacekeepers or more at any given time over the following 40 years. But those days are long gone.

Canada still seeks to build a rules-based international order, but it must do much more to support the centre of that order, the United Nations. Peacekeeping is one of the world organization’s key instruments in alleviating human suffering and promoting peace.

What will it take for Canada to become a prolific peacekeeper again? It will need political leadership and growing practice, with military leaders willing and eager to learn the ins and outs of the UN. Most importantly, it will require that Canada summon the courage, commitment and tenacity that the Canadian soldiers once showed in Medak Pocket.

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