MIM Notes No. 198, November 15, 1999

U$A rejects nuclear test ban treaty: Cold War attitude in 1999

Following a vulgar series of negotiations over how the united 
snakes can best preserve its nuclear hegemony, the u.$. Senate 
(upper house of the Amerikan congress) has voted against ratifying 
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that would ban all 
underground testing of nuclear weapons.(1) President Klinton 
signed the CTBT in 1996, along with heads of 153 other states and 
his supporters have made the two-pronged argument that the treaty 
is (1) necessary to keep countries without or with low-level 
nuclear capabilities from development, and (2) no threat to 
further development of the Amerikan arsenal. The united snakes is 
supposed to have sufficient experience of physics from developing 
its existing weapons to proceed with computer-simulated tests and 
keep its weapons advanced.(2)

These debates are embarrassing to watch as we remember the history 
of nuclear destruction this century. The recent Tokaimura accident 
is bitter in Japan because that is the only country in the world 
that has ever been the object of a nuclear attack. This accident 
is bitter for anti-militarists in the united $nakes because the 
nuclear attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 
were macabre experiments thinly disguised as an act of war. Forty 
thousand people were killed instantly in the bombing of Nagasaki; 
60-80,000 died as a result of the Nagasaki bombing in 1945 
alone.(3)

The opposition to the CTBT argues that u.$. weapons technology is 
likely to go stale if it is not kept up to date with continuing 
testing. It also argues that current CIA monitoring is not perfect 
at detecting nuclear explosions so enforcement of the treaty would 
be impossible.(4) (This last is a chicken-and-egg argument, as the 
treaty includes provisions for additional testing mechanisms.) It 
is a shame to anti-militarists in Amerika that this country's 
government has rejected the CTBT. 

But MIM is clear that passage of the CTBT would not be worth 
anything to proletarian internationalism. The treaty is intended 
as a lever against so-called rogue nations -- Iraq, Libya and 
north Korea principally -- so that the united snakes and United 
Nations can threaten these countries with sanctions or war if they 
are seen to be violating the treaty. In reality the treaty is only 
a formality, as various iterations of the united snakes, U.N. and 
NATO are all exercising some form of sanction against these 
countries that do not comply readily with imperialist demands.

Odds of survival: better with socialism

In an article on the importance of movement for peace within the 
imperialist countries, MIM wrote: "If it is only a two percent 
chance [of nuclear annihilation] we face each year, then after 50 
years the probability of surviving is 36.4%. (That is .98 raised 
to the 50th power.) Socialism is outlawing production for profit. 
If socialism could reduce the causes of war just one percent each 
year, it could prove to buy us the time we need as a species to 
learn to cooperate ... our probability of survival after 50 years 
would rise from 36.4% to 60.5%. ... It is actually very difficult 
to design a system that fails only 1% of the year."(5)

Arjun Makhijani, an engineer who organizes for nuclear 
disarmament, also emphasizes the importance of rational political 
and economic systems for dealing with nuclear weapons and energy. 
Makhijani's purpose is not to argue for socialism, he simply makes 
a consistently emphatic case against the entropy of what he calls 
the current "Nuclear establishment" -- those corporations, their 
scientists and allied government and regulatory officials who run 
the nuclear arms and energy industries. In this, he is a great 
friend to the international proletariat -- this form of honest 
scientific thinking contributes to the proletarian case against 
imperialism.(6)

Makhijani points out that while these business and government 
officials claim that people should trust them and their 
calculations, their practice of science is uniformly bad. He 
accuses them of shoddy work including inaccurate and fabricated 
data, and basic mechanical failures like using measuring tools 
that have not been calibrated regularly. Makhijani clearly states 
that as soon as the nuke-makers set off their first bomb and 
opened the possibility of evaporating the world's population, the 
world's people lost the possibility of security with respect to 
nuclear weapons.(6)

MIM agrees with Makhijani on the dangers of nuclear weapons but we 
argue that we lost such security much earlier, albeit not through 
a nuclear threat. The exact mechanism of obliteration has not been 
the issue during the age of imperialism. While militarists cannot 
imagine the thought of conceding weapons superiority, they will 
find a way to destroy the humyn species if given enough time.

Makhijani also exposes the fact that death of some portion of 
people is a certain outcome of nuclear production (of weapons and 
energy). He asserts that we can say with certainty that in the 100 
years since the beginning of the nuclear age in 1945, 100,000 
people will have died from radiation-related causes. This is 
mathematically demonstrated, based on the risks the producers know 
to be associated with nuclear production. Makhijani's "nuclear 
establishment" calls this risk "insignificant," but he exposes 
this as a judgment that the people who are at risk are 
"insignificant" to the nuclear producers.(6)

Organize for anti-militarism and anti-imperialism

To put Makhijani's criticism in proletarian terms: we are 
dialectical materialists, we understand that as people live, they 
must also die. But within this understanding we take 
responsibility for our own actions as they affect other people. We 
work for Socialism and cooperation among people because we know 
with scientific certainty that this is the best way to assure 
access to the basic necessities of life for the most people.

We address the militarists on these terms: you say the risk is 
insignificant, but what do we gain from this risk? How many lives 
will it save? If we do not gain in the rights of people all over 
the world to control their own destinies then there is no question 
of risk we need to discuss, because that is the principal 
contradiction to advancing humyn society and saving lives at this 
time in humyn history.

MIM organizes for proletarian anti-imperialism and anti-
militarism, for socialist revolution. We take this approach, 
rather than pursuing efforts to reform nuclear production or to 
get treaties through the u.$. congress, because humyn lives are at 
stake. The international big bourgeoisie may choose to throw its 
own chances of life away on the assurance of an "insignificant" 
threat of nuclear obliteration, but we cannot tolerate this choice 
because it is forced on the international proletariat at the same 
time. We must keep an ever-vigilant proletarian line, and never be 
caught bargaining away the lives of the oppressed.

Notes: 1. NYT 14 October, 1999. 2. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/politics/daily/oct99/testban6.htm 3. SJ Mercury News 5 
October, 1999. 4. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/national/daily/oct99/nuclear3.htm 5. 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/kosovo/kospeace.txt 6. 
"Environmental and Public Health Hazards of Nuclear Weapons 
Production and Testing," Community Forum on Nuclear Weapons 
Abolition 8 October, 1999. MIM has reviewed Makhijani's work in 
our bookstore at 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bookstore/offbooks.html Select 
"Reviewed Books," then "Capital, Wealth & Poverty."

edited by MC17