1-8
9-16
1-8
9-16
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Union.
government exploded a new weapon, the atomic bomb, over the cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. A departure from conventional explosives, the
bombs used the nuclear power stored in the atomic structure of matter, rather
than chemical reactions, to produce a devastating explosion. The blast destroyed
more than 10 sq km (4 sq mi) of the city, completely destroying 68 percent of
Hiroshima’s buildings, another 24 percent were damaged. Nearly 130,000 people
were killed; more than 60,000 were incinerated almost instantaneously in a
tremendous fireball. In Nagasaki one-third of the city was destroyed and nearly
66,000 people were killed.10
July 1953. Begun as a war between South Korea (Republic of Korea) and North
Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) after the North’s invasion of the
South, the conflict swiftly developed into a limited international war involving
the United States and 19 other nations. Periods of heavy fighting continued,
however, both on the ground and in the air. U.S. troop strength remained at
around 260,000. Forces from other UN nations stayed at about 35,000, while
Republic of Korea (ROK) forces grew from some 280,000 to about 340,000. The
Communist forces increased from approximately 500,000 to 865,000, and their
armored strength grew from almost nothing to one North Korean and two Chinese
armored divisions and one mechanized division, with an estimated 520 tanks. Air
power played a key role in the war, which proved to be the first battlefield in
history for supersonic jet aircraft. The Chinese had developed into a major air
power. Half of their 1400 aircraft were Soviet-built MiG-15s, generally regarded
by military experts as the finest jet aircraft in the world. Operating from bases in
Manchuria and seldom venturing over UN lines, the MiG-15s, nevertheless,
threatened UN air supremacy over so-called MiG Alley in northwest Korea. Not
until the United States responded with a crash program that produced the
formidable F-86 Sabres did UN forces have aircraft capable of challenging the
MiG-15s on approximately equal terms. Large-scale air battles resulted ultimately
Encarta 97, ibid
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in the loss of some 58 Sabres and 800 MiGs.
The Korean War was terminated after more than three years of conflict. The U.S.
suffered 157,530 casualties; deaths from all causes totaled 33,629, of which 23,300
occurred in combat. South Korea sustained 1,312,836 military casualties,
including 415,004 dead; casualties among other UN allies totaled 16,532,
including 3094 dead. Estimated Communist casualties were 2 million. The
economic and social damage to the Korean nation was incalculable.”11
determined attempt by Communist guerrillas (the so-called Vietcong) in the
South, backed by Communist North Vietnam, to overthrow the government of
South Vietnam. The struggle widened into a war between South Vietnam and
North Vietnam and ultimately into a limited international conflict. The United
States and some 40 other countries supported South Vietnam by supplying
troops and munitions, and the USSR and the People’s Republic of China
furnished munitions to North Vietnam and the Vietcong. Before troop
withdrawal, U.S. military strength in South Vietnam had peaked at over 541,000 in
1969. In the United States itself, as military involvement increased, the war issue
increasingly became highly controversial. A peace movement developed and
gathered momentum, organizing marches and moratoriums against the war in
major U.S. cities. As a result of more than eight years of these methods of warfare,
it is estimated that more than 2 million Vietnamese were killed, 3 million
wounded, and hundreds of thousands of children orphaned. It has been estimated
that about 12 million Indochinese people became refugees. Between April 1975
and July 1982, approximately 1,218,000 were resettled in more than 16 countries.
About 500,000, the so-called boat people, tried to flee Vietnam by sea; according
to rough estimates, 10 to 15 percent of these died, and those who survived the
great hardships of their voyages were eventually faced with entry ceilings in the
countries that agreed to accept them for resettlement.
153,303 wounded. At the time of the cease-fire agreement there were 587 U.S.
military and civilian prisoners of war, all of whom were subsequently released. A
current unofficial estimate puts the number of personnel still unaccounted for in
the neighborhood of 2500.
Encarta 97, ibid
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that were engendered by the war-the questioning of U.S. institutions by the
American people and a sense of self-doubt.
bombs in destructiveness, and major military powers stocked their arsenals with
these arms. Yet during those years, nuclear weapons were never again used
against human targets. The world learned to live in the shadow of these powerful
weapons. In the process, the atomic bomb became a symbol of fear, achievement,
and even amusement — a complex and contradictory presence, permanently tied
to the fate of humanity.”12
genocide” has grown evermore likely. That danger explicitly was the result of two factors
— 1) the general acceptance of Nuclear Weapons as appropriate in military-political
actions, and 2) the rise of Communism as an apparent equal of Democracy in the struggle
for the minds and hearts of Humanity.
the shift of the entire Eastern Block towards personal freedom and democracy, it would
seemthat the danger humanity has faced since the end of World War II is over or will soon
be over. Former President Bush and President Yeltsin announced plans to decommission
~90% of the nuclear missiles currently deployed. This could leave each side with as few as
3000 weapons apiece. For decades those humans committed to reduction of the risk of war
have focused their energy on elimination of nuclear weapons. Now some would have us
believe that at long lastwe are safe. And while a 90% reduction in nuclear arms clearly
would be a monumental accomplishment, it seems simplistic to this scientist that this
change would in fact make our earth safe.
Republics (USSR) in 1991 resulted in increased world peace and some security
from the threat of nuclear war. The nuclear missiles of the United States and the
former USSR, for example, are no longer targeted toward one another.
Nonetheless, peace has ironically resulted in an increase in a new nuclear threat:
the threat of nuclear proliferation.
Encarta 97, ibid
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weapons proliferation: vertical and horizontal. Vertical proliferation is the
amassing of atomic weapons by established nuclear powers, as occurred during
the 1960s when the United States and the USSR stockpiled thousands of nuclear
arms. Horizontal proliferation describes the spread of nuclear weapons to
conventionally armed nations, as occurred when India acquired the bomb in 1974.
have reduced the threat of vertical proliferation. Horizontal proliferation,
however, has become a pressing concern. Many nation-states with strained ties to
the world community-such as North Korea, Iran, and Iraq-have attempted to
build or buy atomic weapons, and many strategists fear that if these nations
acquire nuclear arms, they may use them recklessly.
proliferation, has increased the threat of horizontal proliferation. Strategists fear
that an underground trade in leftover Soviet nuclear technology and weapons is
developing in the former Soviet republics, a trade dangerous to world peace.”13
“CHICAGO, JUNE 11, 1998 — The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the
minute hand of the “Doomsday Clock,” its symbol of nuclear peril, five minutes
closer to midnight.
Encarta 97, ibid
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addition of two more states as declared nuclear powers, but also to dramatize the
failure of world diplomacy in the nuclear sphere; the increased danger that the
nonproliferation regime might ultimately collapse; and the fact that deep
reductions in the numbers of nuclear weapons, which seemed possible at the start
of the decade, have not been realized.
devices by India and Pakistan. The consequences of a possible nuclear exchange
between India and Pakistan are unforeseeable. But if barriers to the use of nuclear
weapons ever fail, the physical, economic, and psychological security of every
person on the planet will be threatened.
Pakistani tests. The tests are a symptom of the failure of the international
community to fully commit itself to control the spread of nuclear weapons — and
to work toward substantial reductions in the numbers of these weapons.
— to make deep and meaningful reductions in nuclear arms, or to stand down the
roughly 7,000 nuclear warheads still on alert — weapons that could be fired with
less than 15 minutes notice. The Bulletin clock now stands at nine minutes to
midnight.”14
In the 1983 movie WARGAMES, NORAD’s computer — Joshuamakes a discovery after
playing out all possible outcomes for Global Thermonuclear War. His conclusion, “A
strange game, the only winning move is not to play.”
suddenly nonexistent on planet Earth. Let us further assume that through some agent of
sanity the very concept of nuclear weapons is so repugnant to humans as to make their re-
creation unthinkable. Would we then be safe?
Doomsday Clock, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science,
Chicago, September/October 1998
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limit. Weapons of infinite destructive capacity. If these weapons are produced, sooner or
later, such weapons will be used and sooner or later such use will destroy humankind.
us who watched the recent example of high tech warfare demonstrated against Iraq in
Desert Stormcan have no illusion in regards to the enormous danger of high-tech warfare.
Encarta documents:
developed and acquired during the ten-year-old Reagan-Bush military buildup.
More than 4000 bombing runs were flown by allied aircraft in the first week, and
the pace continued for another four weeks before a ground invasion began. After
only 100 hours, Bush halted the offensive. When it was all over 149 allied soldiers
had been killed, and 513 had been wounded. Official estimates of Iraqi dead
ranged from 8000 to 25,000, with unofficial estimates reaching 100,000 killed in
action.”15
incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool. As Galambos explained:
powerful tools. Since human knowledge can grow without limit, then tools
themselves can be made without limit. When tools are used to harm other humans
they are called weapons. Therefore humans can make limitless weapons.“16
proposes in his article Militarism: A Psychosocial Disease:
implies a commitment to abolish war itself.”
Encarta, ibid
16Andrew J. Galambos, Volition201—Protection of Primary Property, Free Enterprise Institute, Los
Angeles, Privately Published 1961-84
17N. Arthur Coulter, Militarism: A Psychosocial Disease, Medicine and War, Vol. 8: 7-17, 1992
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give up nuclear war, we must, in fact, give up war in any form to insure our mutual
safety. Some would argue that elimination of Nuclear Weapons robs Coulter and I of a
continuing basis for our commitment to the abolishion of War itself. These “realists” argue
that war without nuclear weapons is much safer, and in any event the adversary wayis
such a natural part of human nature and so deeply ingrained in the human psyche, that all
attempts to achieve a warless culture are inheritly naive and thus doomed to failure
anyway.
belief. It is they who are naive in their belief that humanity and war must and always will
be co-existing.
weapons but the abolition of war itself.
the art for the twentieth century. God only knows what high tech weapons will be
invented in the next century.
The survival of humanity will require that we give up war.
we change. If humanity is to have a future, we must take action — we must change. If
humanity is to have a future, we must believe the truth.
The solution to crime and war does not require more powerful weapons. It requires the
elimination of weapons. This brings us back to the paragraph I used to open this essay:
incorporated into matter-energy, it becomes a tool. As Galambos explained:
powerful tools. When tools are used to harm other humans they are called
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can be made without limit. And limitless tools can will produce limitless
weapons.”18
represent the state of the art for the twentieth century. God only knows what high
technology weapons could be invented in the next century. The problem we humans face
therefore is not nuclear weapons, but weapons themselves.
During a period of moratorium, all humans would be expected to surrender all weapons
into the custody of the Life Trust Guardians. A few of these weapons would go into
museums, some would be be made available to the public within Earth Trust hunting
parks and designated sport weapons clubs.
designated hunting parks managed by the Earth Trust Guardians and regulated by the
Life Trust Guardians. Those humans who desire to use weapons for sport shooting may
do so only through designated sport weapon clubs which are regulated and monitored by
the Life Trust Guardians. All weapons must be kept on the premises of the sports clubs, or
within the grounds of the hunting parks. These weapons will be montored and accounted
for under strict Life Trust Guardian guidelines.
is prohibited, and is by definition an adversary event. The Life Trust Guardians will
dispense Containment Officers to confiscate the weapon or weapons and take those
responsible into custody. They individuals found responsible for weapons possession
would be subject to the same public safety process as any other human found responsible
for an adversary event including rehabilitation, education, restitution, and prevention of
future adversary events.
Andrew J. Galambos, Volitional Science, Free Enterprise Institute,1962-80
TrustMark 2001 by Timothy Wilken