Peace Strategy to Avoid Nuclear War
For Discussion at the Workshop on Nuclear Risk Reduction, EMP, and the Non-Proliferation Treaty Framework,
At the United Nations Non-Proliferation Treaty PrepCom, April 29, 2019
Prepared by John Lewallen www.avoidingnuclearwar.com<lewallen@mcn.org>(707)684-0824
A Positive and Hopeful Opening
We are meeting today to have the first discussion of nuclear electromagnetic pulse in the halls of the United Nations. We all have a key role to play in avoiding nuclear war in general, and avoiding nuclear EMP attacks in particular. We are the people who lead the way to avoid nuclear war. Keep the faith: in the United Nations, in humanity, in life!
The good news is that the human race has avoided detonations of nuclear weapons in space since 1962, when the devastating effects of high-altitude nuclear EMP on global electronic civilization were discovered. Now, with the threat of nuclear war is in many ways increasing, so are worldwide efforts to ban nuclear weapons and reduce nuclear war risks. May we work together in joyous optimism, with love and respect for each other’s sincerity.
Nuclear Threat Reduction is Essential to Avoid Nuclear War
(The following are my personal opinions, based on scientifically-verified reality, offered for review and discussion.)
If I leave you with only one idea for contemplation, let it be this: Nuclear threat escalation is the most dangerous factor driving the world toward nuclear war today.
No nuclear weapon has been detonated in battle since an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki Japan, on August 9, 1945. However, every second since then nuclear weapons have been used as weapons of threat. Today’s nuclear war is a constant war of threat and counter-threat. More threat pushes the world closer to the brink of actual nuclear war. Threat reduction reduces the danger of nuclear war.
I believe the danger of nuclear war, and the safety and security of all people, could be very rapidly reduced by a unilateral decision by the world’s largest nuclear weapons power, the United States, to renounce its current nuclear posture of escalating first-strike threat, embracing the strategic goal of avoiding nuclear war. Immediate moves to reduce threatening first-strike nuclear weapons deployments, and elimination of all nuclear weapons unnecessary for the purpose of deterring a nuclear strike, would make it clear to all that the United States harbors no intention to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on anyone.
In the “unthinkable” event that a nuclear-armed nation decided to commit the omnicidally (all-destroying) risk of detonating a nuclear weapon in battle, or in space anywhere even as a “test,” the first shot is almost certain to be a nuclear EMP blast in space. The reasons for using nuclear EMP in an actual strategic nuclear war—involving nuclear attack on a whole nation or nations—or as a desperate tactical act in a “limited war” context are easy to understand. The nuclear EMP attack could destroy the opposing military command and control systems, disable computer-dependent weapons, and be so catastrophically damaging to a whole nation that its will to fight anyone would be immediately replaced by a struggle for basic survival. Also, there might be no way to know who had made the attack, making retaliation both impossible and absurd.
We all have a key role to play in avoiding nuclear EMP and nuclear war. Here are some proposals:
Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Information Campaign
Everyone deserves to know that even one nuclear weapon detonated in space would cause incalculable damage to global electronic civilization. All academics and journalists writing about nuclear weapons and threats should be challenged to inform people about nuclear EMP.
U.N. Treaty Protecting Global Electronics from Nuclear EMP
Support a U.N. General Assembly Resolution calling for a treaty prohibiting detonation of any
nuclear weapon above the Earth’s atmosphere.
End the Korean War
The Korean War now is a confrontation between two nuclear powers, the United States and the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in which threat of nuclear EMP use endangers world civilization.
End this senseless war now!
Affirm that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty clearly bans deployment of nuclear weapons on satellites.
Renounce the Use of Nuclear EMP:
All nations should renounce the use of nuclear EMP, and join together to prevent nuclear EMP capability from being used by terrorists.
Organize a U. N. Peace Conversion Conferences on the level of the1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Environment:
Today the world is one civilization united by a computerized electronic network that could be completely destroyed with a few nuclear EMP bombs available to several nations. To survive, we must transcend national military confrontation driven by a military-industrial complex, and move toward peace conversion on all levels. This workshop is one of countless moves toward peace conversion, which so far have avoided nuclear weapon detonation in battle since August 9, 1945. Let’s move toward a UN Conference on Peace Conversion!
