Reflections on the UN General Assembly general debate 2012

by Ray Acheson, Reaching Critical Will of WILPF

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) held its general debate from 25 September–1 October. The theme for this year’s debate, set by UNGA President Vuk Jeremić of Serbia, was “adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations by peaceful means”. In his open remarks he specified, “A solution to an international problem can be legitimately achieved only upon renunciation of unilateralism; it can become truly sustainable only when its provisions are willingly accepted and fulfilled in good faith.” 

WILPF Statement on the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals

With only five years left until the 2015 deadline to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on world leaders to attend a summit in New York on 20–22 September to accelerate progress towards the MDGs. The 2010 MDG Report, produced by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, notes that “unmet commitments, inadequate resources, lack of focus and accountability, and insufficient dedication to sustainable development have created shortfalls in many areas.” Some of these shortfalls, the report explains, were aggravated by the global food, climate, economic, and financial crises as well as armed conflict. The report estimates that poverty rates will continue to increase throughout the world as a result of the persisting global economic crisis.

However, upon releasing its 2010 Yearbook, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute noted, “The financial crisis and economic recession that have affected most of the globe appeared to have little effect on levels of military expenditure, arms production or arms transfers.” In 2009, worldwide military expenditure totaled an estimated 1531 billion USD, which is an increase of 5.9% in real terms compared to 2008 and an increase of 49% since 2000. Of those countries for which data was available, 65% increased their military spending in real terms in 2009.

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom emphasizes the links between military expenditure, the arms trade, violent conflict, and the reduction of available resources for social and economic development. Governments that spend excessive financial, technological, and human resources on their militaries divert resources from economic, social, and environmental programmes. The military-industrial-academic complex—composed of a state’s armed forces, the government, suppliers of weapons systems and services (corporations), and academic institutions that conduct research on weapon systems and designs—absorbs vast amounts of funding that could otherwise be spent on human security, including the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Furthermore, funds reserved for development initiatives are increasingly spent on emergency relief and rehabilitation operations to clean up after violent conflict.

While military expenditures increase every year, investment in conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and development lags far behind. As SIPRI notes in the release of its 2010 Yearbook, while the financial crisis did not seem to affect military spending, it “probably did undermine the willingness and ability of major governments and multilateral institutions to invest other, non-military resources to address the challenges and instabilities that threaten societies and individuals around the world.”

Since the end of the Cold War, militarism has been growing in response to an increasingly unstable world, propelling the world even further into tension and war. Armed conflict—and the constant threat of war or terrorism—has become both the cause of and response to this growing militarism. War and the threat of war destroy lives, infrastructure, and well-being, creating a culture of fear, violence, and instability. This impedes development by upsetting social programmes, education, transportation, business, and tourism, which prevents economic stability, mental well-being, and sustainable livelihoods. The manufacture and use of weapons also prevents sustainable ecological development and preservation, creating unequal access to resources and further impeding poverty reduction initiatives.

The continued investment in militarism does not make the world safer. Weapons cannot address the main threats people all over the world are facing today, such as natural disasters, increased food prices, and lack of adequate health care, education, and a clean environment. Yet these threats are aggravating arms races and weapons development. SIPRI has warned that growing competition for natural resources “may lead to increased military spending as a means of protecting resources from internal or external threats, while resource revenues are often a source of funding for arms purchases.” Therefore, in the context of the 2010 UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals, WILPF urges UN member states and civil society to consider, what would you rather pay for:

One year of the world’s military spending, or over 24 years of the additional foreign aid required to reach the MDGs by 2015?

One year of the world’s military spending, or 700 years of the UN regular budget?

One year of the world’s military spending, or 2928 years of the new UN women’s agency?

Article 26 of the UN Charter mandates the UN Security Council with formulating a plan to promote the establishment and maintenance of international peace and security with the least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources. The Security Council has entirely neglected this responsibility and its permanent members have instead engaged in weapons profiteering and arms races, resulting in crises of international, national, and human security and of sustainable development.

The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom calls on all governments to:

• reduce military spending and redirect that expenditure to meet human and environmental needs, including fulfilling the MDGs;

• report on military spending and arms trade through the established UN mechanisms;

• support a robust legally-binding arms trade treaty that prevents arms transfers where there is a risk of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and that acknowledges the impact of the arms trade on socio-economic development; and

• call on the UN Security Council to report on progress made towards a plan to reduce the human and economic resources spent on armaments and indicate an intention to evaluate the Security Council’s performance and initiatives towards advancing article 26 in the next General Assembly session.

WILPF also calls on civil society to push their governments to meet these goals and to make the reduction of militarism a global norm by reframing the concept of security with a premium on universal human and ecological security, multilateralism, and a commitment to cooperative, nonviolent means of conflict resolution. We urge all governments present in New York this week to commit to making their MDG policies and strategies consistent with their obligations under Article 26 of the UN Charter and to remember that establishing peace and security for all humans is not separate from actions to fight poverty—it is central to these efforts.

Resources and further reading

The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010, United Nations, New York, 2010.
“Media Background—Military expenditure,” SIPRI Yearbook 2010, 2 June 2010.
“You get what you pay for!” Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 2009.

President Obama's Nuclear "Surge"

The Obama administration released its budget for FY 2011 today.

The centerpiece of the budget's National Nuclear Security Administration section is a "surge."

You can read about president Obama's $5 billion dollar nuke spending hike by downloading the NNSA budget. According to the administration they are boosting spending on nuclear weapons by 9.8% this year, with larger increases in outyears, so as to "take steps toward achieving a world without nuclear weapons" (p. 7).

Here's an excerpt (emphases added):

"Weapons Activities: The request for this appropriation is $7.0 billion, an increase of 9.8 percent over the FY 2010 appropriated level. This level is sustained and increased in the later outyears. Increased funding is requested for programs in direct support of the nuclear weapon stockpile, for scientific, technical and engineering activities related to maintenance assessment and certification capabilities for the stockpile, and for critical infrastructure improvements" (p. 9).

By "critical infrastructure improvements" the administration means the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Faciltiy planned for Los Alamos Lab, and the Uranium Processing Facility being built at Y-12 in Tennessee. The first is essentially a plutonium pit factory costing several billion. The second will provide uranium for US nuclear weapons programs, also at a cost of several billion. Neither facility is needed to "maintain" the stockpile, especially if the US is poised to reduce the numbers of nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Both of these projects are necessary to lock-in nuclear weapons spending at the labs for many decades, and fully commit the US to nuclear weapons, regardless of how well international treaty discussions might go.

The importance of these facilities is emphasized in the NNSA's budget request:

"The President’s Request includes funding to complete the design and begin construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Facility Replacement (CMRR) nuclear facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This facility conducts plutonium research and development and provides analytical capabilities in support of pit surveillance and production. Current planning would have this facility fully operational by 2022. A related project is requested to increase pit production capacity and capability at the adjoining PF-4 facility that is part of the main plutonium facility at Los Alamos to demonstrate pit reuse by 2017 and production by 2018-2020. The budget request also includes funding to complete the design and begin construction of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex to support production and surveillance of highly-enriched uranium components. This facility is also planned to achieve full operations by 2022" (p. 11).

The Obama administration's budget also appears to be easing the way for design efforts of new weapons at the laboratories, something that was resisted under the Bush White House's tenure. The NNSA budget states that;

"The President’s Request provides funding necessary to protect and advance the scientific capabilities at the U.S. national security laboratories — including the ability to design nuclear warheads as well as development and engineering expertise and capabilities— through a stockpile stewardship program that fully exercises these capabilities" (p. 10).

More spending for more disarmament?

In a third op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the “four horsemen”—Schultz, Perry, Kissinger, and Nunn (SPKN)—advocate for increased spending on nuclear weapons. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. As others have pointed out, “their work reflects a pragmatic strategy to maintain U.S. military and economic dominance well into the 21st century, resulting in the formation of a new intellectual paradigm perhaps best described as ‘anti-nuclear imperialism.’” The institutional loyalties of SPKN and their larger political agendas reflect a political economy that is not only fundamentally at odds with nuclear abolition, but is anathema to peace and justice.

Further evidence of this can be found in their 19 January 2010 op-ed, wherein they argue that as we “work to realize the vision of a world without nuclear weapons,” significant investments “are urgently needed to undo the adverse consequences of deep reductions over the past five years in the laboratories’ budgets for the science, technology and engineering programs that support and underwrite the nation’s nuclear deterrent.”

This misleading claim ignores the fact that while the US nuclear weapons budget has been reduced by about $1 billion over the past five years, this followed an increase over a decade (1995–2005) of about $3 billion. Instead, SPKN aim to support their friends at the labs in the expected request for increased funding for nuclear weapons in the FY 2011 budget. Indeed, SPKN argue, “The United States must continue to attract, develop and retain the outstanding scientists, engineers, designers and technicians we will need to maintain our nuclear arsenal, whatever its size, for as long as the nation’s security requires it.”

This statement assumes a lot. It assumes that the United States relies on, and will indefinitely continue to rely on, nuclear weapons for its security. It does not explain whose security nuclear weapons protect in the United States. Its citizens? Or its technocratic elite—the same people who work at the labs that SPKN and others who are part of that elite structure so vigorously defend? “National security,” as it is typically invoked in this sense, does not refer to the well-being of the general population but of those managing the military-industrial-academic complex.

The above statement also assumes that those who design, build, and maintain nuclear weapons have a right to continue doing this work—and what does that say about the possibilities for ever eliminating nuclear weapons throughout the world?

Andrew Lichterman of the Western States Legal Foundation has written extensively about the US nuclear weapon labs. In a recent article, he argues:

The constellation of organizations that constitute the nuclear weapons complex sits close to the apex of global power and privilege, and the upper echelon inhabitants of those organizations are quite determined to hold on to what they have. Nuclear weapons establishments, in fact, are preeminent manifestations of how far those in power will go to preserve it—they will play dice with all humanity, even all life on earth. The nature of the institutions ultimately can not be separated from the purposes and practices that have shaped them since their inception. Born in secrecy and sequestered throughout their existence within the least accountable sector of American government, the nuclear weapons laboratories and the broader nuclear weapons complex have become powerful institutions in their own right. They have done so by using all the tools that the powerful have developed in this society for staving off democracy—control of information and technologies, propaganda, and alliances with other huge organizations in common strategies aimed at extracting a steady and expanding stream of wealth from the rest of the economy. There is no way to provide the upper level denizens of the nuclear weapons establishment—the scientists and engineers, the technocrats, bureaucrats, and propagandists—with some other pursuit that gives them a similarly “rewarding” position in society, unless we can come up with some other set of “missions” that can assure them of an equally comfortable, secure, and largely unaccountable place in the upper few percent of a national and global economy characterized by stark disparities in wealth. And why should we want to do that?

Finally, SPKN frame their call for increased weapons spending in the context of disarmament—if we want to achieve a nuclear weapon free world, we need to make sure that our nuclear weapons are “safe, secure, and reliable” (that they remain an “effective deterrent” to others) until we achieve that world. This is outrageously circular logic. Modernized or “refurbished” nuclear weapons research and production facilities capable of building the nuclear threat anew, as a trade-off for arms control treaties or arsenal reductions, is not disarmament. If the danger of nuclear war is to be eliminated, ceasing to plan and build for an eternal nuclear threat must come early, not late, in the process. The “nuclear danger” does not come from without, but from within. To seek to “hedge” against the nuclear threat only perpetuates it, sustaining the global climate of fear and distrust that makes real disarmament progress always a receding goal.

A farewell to (a few) arms

On 6 April 2009, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates released a $534 billion military budget proposal for 2010 (not including the Iraq or Afghanistan wars) that attempts to move away from so-called “Cold War” technologies to those needed to fight “insurgencies” in Afghanistan and Iraq. His plans are being welcomed by some who support arms control as a “credible effort to bring new discipline and focus to military spending after the unrestrained, inchoate years of the Bush administration” (New York Times editorial).

The money
However, few who either oppose or support the cuts have noted that the US military budget went up again this year. 2009’s budget was $515.4 billion—without including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear weapon research, maintenance, and production, and veteran affairs.

Writing on AfterDowningStreet.org, David Swanson noted the radically different spin put on the budget by mainstream media and business sources. He pointed out, for example, that MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said, “... that thump-thump-thump sound that you heard in the distance as [Gates revealed the budget] was the sound of executives at all the big defense contractors passing out.” Meanwhile, MarketWatch, in an article entitled, “Pentagon still a cash cow despite budget cuts,” quoted the Wall Street analysts’ perspective: “there’s still plenty of funding for the country’s top military contractors.”

“Lockheed Martin had the best outcome from Gates’ budget decisions, there was also strong support for Northrop Grumman’s and General Dynamics’ shipbuilding businesses,” said Douglas Harned, an analyst with Bernstein Research. “Notably, there were no indications of plans to bring budgets down significantly in 2011.”

Likewise, Janes noted, “Major US defence stocks were raised out of the doldrums by Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ budget proposals thanks to the lifting of a degree of uncertainty and proposals that were not as dramatic as the markets expected.”

The programmes
An editorial in the New York Times, which overall advocated for more spending on weapons of “use” rather than a reduction of spending, did at least note, “Scrapping wasteful weapons programs is essential, but how much better it would be if they were never built at all. The Pentagon’s procurement system has so run amok that 70 percent of the weapons were over budget last year by a total $296 billion.”

A good example of this is the Airborne Laser—a chemical laser mounted on a Boeing 747. No, really. The Airborne Laser programme suffered from chronic cost and schedule overruns—according to Ellen Tauscher, chair of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee: four years and billions of dollars over. Government funding for the programme has been reduced for the past several years, though the Missile Defense Agency continued requesting more money, shrilly arguing that its first “live shoot-down test” couldn’t afford to be postponed any longer, for the security of the nation.

In 2006, former Missile Defense Agency chief Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering, III, explained the value of the Airbone Laser: “I believe we are building the forces of good to beat the forces of evil.... We are taking a major step in giving the American people their first light saber.” Remarking on the rather awkward aesthetics of the weapon system, he also commented, “This is not the prettiest aircraft I have seen. It is not supposed to be pretty. It is supposed to be mean.”

Thankfully, Gates is recommending this programme be cut, along with the deployment of interceptor missiles to the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system in Alaska, one segment of the US missile “defense” system. For the most part, tests of the Alaska system have failed miserably. Rockets usually fail to make it out of their launch tubes and kill vehicles have failed to separate from their rockets when they do make it out. A year ago, the Missile Defense Agency estimated the Ground-based segment would cost about $50 billion.

However, as the NYT editorial also argued, “He should have cut deeper than $1.4 billion into the unproven missile defense program.” Likewise, giving a testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capability, William Hartung of the New America Foundation outlined six weapon systems that could be cut “without undermining [US] security,” which included missile defence as a whole. He argued, “This year marks the 26th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars speech, and there has yet to be realistic test that indicates that we can reliably shoot down incoming nuclear warheads launched from a long-range ballistic missile.”

Unfortunately, Hartung went on to assert, “The elements of the missile defense budget that involve defending against ICBMs can be eliminated without harming our security in any way. There is some indication that mid-range systems designed to protect troops or nearby allies from medium-range missiles may prove to be more effective.” In reality, the vast majority of anti-missile technologies have faced cost overruns and delays. Even more importantly, their development, testing, and deployment will have harsh consequences for international relations, particularly between Russia and the United States, and for the US economy.

Overall, the varying reactions to Gates’ proposed military budget are virtually devoid of any criticism of what the $534 billion is spent on—weapons of war. Weapons that are used in the wars that the United States instigates, wars which have another budget all their own. On the contrary, even those supposedly in support of arms control and disarmament have recommended the military stop wasting money on weapon systems they don’t use and spend it on weapons they do use. Further, no one seems to have questioned the need or right of the United States to use these weapons—that the US would need different types of weapons to fight new types of wars is accepted as fact. For all the talk of giving the military budget a “massive overhaul,” no one has referred to the distinction between offensive and non-offensive defence, the latter focusing on defence systems that protect a state rather than on armed attack against other states.

And no, missile “defence” is not a form of non-offensive defence, as its methods and means are inherently offensive. For example, as has even been argued by pro-missile “defence” advocates, “The mere fact that missile defense ships could be deployed to war zones as part of larger naval armadas gives them an immediately recognizable offensive dimension.” Further, as Mike Moore pointed out, “The infrastructure for a ballistic missile defense system is, in large measure, the same as that needed for an offensive anti-satellite system.”

Finally, as the military budget continues to grow even in a time of the global financial crisis, where is the money for everything else a country needs to survive going to come from? Why isn’t anybody asking that?