by Lawrence Wittner | Oct 23, 2022 | Disarmament
It’s been a long time since the atomic bombings of August 1945, when people around the planet first realized that world civilization stood on the brink of doom. This apocalyptic ending to the Second World War revealed to all that, with the advent of nuclear weapons, violent conflict among nations had finally reached the stage where it could terminate life on earth. Addressing a CBS radio audience in early 1946, Robert Hutchins, chancellor of the University of Chicago, summed up the new situation with a blunt warning: “War means atomic bombs. And atomic bombs mean suicide.”
The Public Uprising Against Nuclear War
With millions of people jolted awake by the atomic bombings and anxious to stave off worldwide catastrophe, calls for banning nuclear weapons and for building a federation of nations strong enough to keep the peace were widespread. Organizations among antinuclear scientists, world government advocates, and peace proponents emerged and flourished in the United States, as well as in much of the world. Often working together in the same peace and disarmament campaigns, activists in these organizations frequently adopted a common rallying cry: “One World or None!”
For a time, these activists had public opinion on their side. In August 1946, a Gallup poll found 54 percent of American respondents favored (and only 24 percent opposed) turning the United Nations into “a world government with power to control the armed forces of all nations.” Similar polls in other nations during the late 1940s reported comparable results.
In practice, the efforts of activists went toward transforming the new United Nations into an institution that had the power to rid the world of nuclear weapons and to end the ancient practice of war. Thus, in the United States, where, by 1949, United World Federalists had some 47,000 members, it managed to get 111 members of the House of Representatives and 21 Senators to co-sponsor a resolution to turn the United Nations into “a world federation” with enough power “to preserve peace and prevent aggression.”
The Response of the “Great Powers”
Even so, while giving lip service to nuclear disarmament and peace, the world’s governments―and particularly those of the “great powers”―weren’t ready for this dramatic a departure from their traditional practices. After all, for thousands of years, competing territories, and later, nations, had been accustomed to waging wars and using the most powerful weapons available to them in these conflicts.
Yes, at times, the governments of the great powers were forced by popular pressure to curb their nuclear ambitions. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, public protest campaigns against nuclear weapons testing led to the world’s first nuclear arms control agreement (the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963), to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970, and to the beginning of Soviet-American détente. Similarly, public protest campaigns in the early 1980s against the revived nuclear arms race led to major nuclear disarmament agreements (the INF Treaty and the Start I and II treaties) and to the end of the Cold War.
But, despite these concessions, the governments of the major powers weren’t ready to dispense with nuclear weapons or, for that matter, with war. Consequently, as popular protest ebbed, they gradually returned to their customary behavior. Starting about a decade ago, they ceased signing nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. Instead, they began scrapping them, including the INF Treaty, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Iran nuclear agreement. Meanwhile, they commenced a race to “modernize” their nuclear arsenals with the production of new nuclear weapons possessing greater speed, maneuverability, and accuracy. Also, to intimidate other nations, their leaders—most notably Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, who commanded the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals―openly threatened to attack these nations with nuclear weapons.
Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set the hands of their famed “Doomsday Clock” at 100 seconds to midnight, the most dangerous setting since the clock’s appearance in 1947.
The Alternative to Nuclear Destruction
Of course, the world could yet be saved by what Albert Einstein termed “a new type of thinking” and, decades later, by what Mikhail Gorbachev called “the new thinking.” Based on the threat nuclear weapons pose to human survival, this approach entails abolishing nuclear weapons and enhancing global governance to end their motor force, war. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, snubbed by the nine nuclear powers but now signed by 91 nations and ratified by 68 of them, would, if enforced, finally lift the nightmare of nuclear destruction from the people of the world. And a strengthening of the United Nations as the guarantor of international security would help to end the long-term practice of powerful nations waging war whenever their governments felt like it.
As things now stand, however, we’re once more enmeshed in the dire situation so starkly revealed in August 1945: While nuclear weapons exist, any war can turn into a nuclear holocaust. Unless the people of all nations, recognizing the peril of universal death, demand the establishment of an international organization capable of enforcing policies of disarmament and peace, then, sooner or later, the time will come to say “bye-bye world.”
by Lawrence Wittner | Oct 13, 2022 | Peace, UN Reform
The war in Ukraine provides us with yet another opportunity to consider what might be done about the wars that continue to ravage the world.
The current Russian war of aggression is particularly horrific, featuring a massive military invasion of a smaller, weaker nation, threats of nuclear war, widespread war crimes, and imperial annexation. But, alas, this terrible war is but one small part of a history of violent conflict that has characterized thousands of years of human existence.
Is there really no alternative to this primitive and immensely destructive behavior?
Failed Alternatives
One alternative, which has long been embraced by governments, is to build up a nation’s military might to such an extent that it secures what its proponents call “Peace through Strength.” But this policy has severe limitations. A military buildup by one nation is perceived by other nations as a danger to their security. As a result, they usually respond to the perceived threat by strengthening their own armed forces and forming military alliances. In this situation, an escalating atmosphere of fear develops that often leads to war.
Actually, governments are not entirely wrong about their perception of danger, for nations with great military power really do bully and invade weaker countries. Furthermore, they wage wars against one another. These sad facts are not only demonstrated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but by the past behavior of other “great powers,” including Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, China, and the United States.
If military strength brought peace, war would not have raged over the centuries or, for that matter, be raging today.
Another war-avoidance policy that governments have turned to on occasion is isolation, or, as its proponents sometimes say, “minding one’s own business.” Sometimes, of course, isolationism does keep an individual nation free from the horrors of a war engaged in by other nations. But, of course, it does nothing to stop the war—a war that, ironically, might end up engulfing that nation anyway. Also, of course, if the war is won by an aggressive, expansionist power or one grown arrogant thanks to its military victory, the isolated nation might be next on the victor’s agenda. In this fashion, short-term safety is purchased at the price of longer-term insecurity and conquest.
The More Promising Alternative
Fortunately, there is a third alternative―one that major thinkers and even, at times, national governments have promoted. And that is strengthened global governance. The great advantage of global governance is its replacement of international anarchy with international law. What this means is that, instead of a world in which each nation looks exclusively after its own interests―and thus, inevitably, ends up in competition and, eventually, conflict with other nations―there would be a world structured around international cooperation, presided over by a government chosen by the people of all nations. If this sounds a bit like the United Nations, that is because, in 1945, toward the end of the most destructive war in human history, the world organization was created with something like that in mind.
Unlike “peace through strength” and isolationism, the jury is still out when it comes to the usefulness of the United Nations along these lines. Yes, it has managed to pull the nations of the world together to discuss global issues and to create global treaties and rules, as well to avert or end many international conflicts and to use UN peacekeeping forces to separate groups engaged in violent conflict. It has also sparked global action for social justice, environmental sustainability, world health, and economic advance. On the other hand, the United Nations has not been as effective as it should be, especially when it comes to fostering disarmament and ending war. All too often the international organization remains no more than a lonely voice for global sanity in a world dominated by powerful, war-making nations.
The logical conclusion is that, if we want the development of a more peaceful world, the United Nations should be strengthened.
How the United Nations Could Be Strengthened
One of the most useful measures that could be taken would be to reform the UN Security Council. As things now stand, any one of its five permanent members (the United States, China, Russia, Britain, and France) can veto UN action for peace. And this is often what they do, enabling Russia, for example, to block Security Council action to end to its invasion of Ukraine. Wouldn’t it make sense to scrap the veto, or change the permanent members, or develop a rotating membership, or simply abolish the Security Council and turn over action for peace to the UN General Assembly―an entity that, unlike the Security Council, represents virtually all nations of the world?
Other measures to strengthen the United Nations are not hard to imagine. The world organization could be provided with taxing power, thus freeing it from the necessity for begging nations to cover its expenses. It could be democratized with a world parliament representing people rather than their governments. It could be bolstered with the tools to go beyond creating international law to actually enforcing it. Overall, the United Nations could be transformed from the weak confederation of nations that currently exists into a more cohesive federation of nations―a federation that would deal with international issues while individual nations would deal with their own domestic issues.
Against a backdrop of thousands of years of bloody wars and the ever-present danger of a nuclear holocaust, hasn’t the time arrived to dispense with international anarchy and create a governed world?
by Donna Park | Oct 9, 2022 | World Federation
I am a grandmother, and I have a dream that grandparents will work with their grandchildren to unite the world and build a better future.
But first we need to have a vision of how the world could be improved.
Many global problems face the world today
There are many problems facing the world today, including war and the threat of nuclear destruction, climate change, human rights abuses, hunger, extreme poverty, growing income inequality, and global pandemics. One central source of our global problems is that we have put nations above people. I think we should put people first. National sovereignty and security should not be more important that the sovereignty and security of individuals. Governments should be protecting the rights and freedoms of their people, not sacrificing them.
War is one way in which nations sacrifice their people rather than protect them. War kills and injures people. War destroys the environment. War robs us of our financial and natural resources War does not bring peace, although it does make a lot of money for some.
Think creatively to eliminate war
Surely it is time to think creatively about eliminating war. Here in the United States, we can look to our own history for a way to accomplish that. When Americans decided to transform the confederation of 13 colonies into a federation of states, they agreed to resolve their differences in a court of law rather than on the battlefield. The original 13 states were able to eliminate or transform their militias. With no need any longer to fight one another, they could rely on the rule of law to settle disputes. Although the rule of law is not perfect, it is the best method we have found. And it is preferable to war.
We need a similar transformation at the global level. Why not transform the confederation of nations known as the United Nations into a United Federation of Nations? Under this strengthened UN system, all nations could agree to resolve their differences using the rule of law rather than weapons of destruction. Nations could be required to disarm and to transform their armed forces into peacekeeping forces that would respond to natural disasters and other domestic crises.
Unite the World
To implement this program, we could start by creating a World Parliament at the United Nations to give a voice to the people of the world, rather than just their governments. We also need a world constitution to define a democratic federation of nations with a universal declaration of human rights and the ability to create and enforce world law that outlaws war and nuclear weapons. Furthermore, we will need international courts (such as the International Criminal Court) and international police to arrest those who break the law. Fortunately, much work has been done defining these components over the past 75 years.
All these components will cost much less than the vast amounts spent on the current war systems. Furthermore, a United Federation of Nations could be employed to deal effectively with other global problems, such as climate change.
This vision is shared by the Young World Federalists. Their tag line is “Unite the World.” As their website explains, they are “a global movement to unite humanity through the creation of a democratic world federation.” They believe that the current system of competitive sovereign countries fails to tackle the global challenges that impact us all. Accordingly, they advocate a new form of global governance, one in which people cooperate to secure their common interest through a democratic world federation. They envision a sustainable, just, and peaceful world through a democratic world federation. It would be a world run by humanity, for humanity, providing equal opportunity to all on a thriving planet.
Work across the generations
The Young World Federalists (YWF) are building on the work of well-established organizations such as Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS). CGS was founded 75 years ago, and many of its supporters, like me, are grandparents of the Young World Federalists’ generation. We are delighted to be working with these young people and, in fact, have a lot to learn from them in this modern era of social media and technology. We also have a lot to share with them, including our knowledge, experience, and funding. One of their programs that we are co-sponsoring is the Week for World Parliament, which includes an event in New York City on October 22-23.
Working together, young and old, we are committed to building a united world and a better future for all.
