PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

Dear Delegates,

Ever since 2009, I have regularly attended NPT meetings, both prepcoms and revcons.

I have been attending meetings on nuclear disarmament at the UN since 2006. 18 years.

At every one of these meetings I have:

--Held a panel on nuclear risk reduction

--Addressed plenary on nuclear risk reduction.

This year, a grossly swollen prostate, resulting in brief hospitalisation on three occasions, has prevented my coming. Fortunately, a biopsy has revealed no malignancy. The prostate needs to be attended to.

My place in plenary has been ably filled by Scottish parliamentarian Bill Kidd, whose formal statement, containing as it does much of what I had initially intended to deliver myself, with a preface of his own, I strongly commend to all NPT Prepcom delegates.

https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/prepcom24/statements/23July_A2000_NFUG.pdf

I also strongly commend and urge delegates to read the 'Turning Back the Doomsday Clock' delivered by Baroness Chiltern-Dormer.

https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/prepcom24/statements/23July_PNND.pdf

Both stress the urgency of measures both to reduce nuclear risk in the immediate term, and to eliminate nuclear weapons. It is my strong view over the 18 years I have been lobbying the UN that risk reduction, and abolition, far from competing with each other are mutually reinforcing and are of equal importance. In the current fraught geopolitical situation, risk reduction takes on an existential importance. 

On every occasion since approximately 2010 or maybe 2012, I have noted that 'this year has been the riskiest year ever' for the possibility of, by accident or insanely malevolent design, nuclear war.

It is clear that if, every year that I have addressed you has been the most dangerous year yet from the point of view of the risk of global thermonuclear war, then that risk must be inexorably climbing. Indeed this is the case.

And, had it been my lot as in previous years to address plenary on nuclear risk reduction I would have said yet again that this year is either the riskiest year yet, or possibly, that we may have stepped barely a half centimetre back from last years peril.

The situation in which the world finds itself since Feb 2022, is unprecedented.

Never before have explicit nuclear threats been made, almost with a sense of gloating over the possible end of civilisation, by a significant military power engaged in the invasion of a smaller power.

This did not take place at any point even during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, where – even during the most dangerous moments – the language was always somewhat restrained on both sides.

To be sure, there were moments in which the world may have been delivered from the apocalypse by divine providence – both the incident in which the firing of a nuclear tipped torpedo was prevented by a stubborn political liaison officer, and in which US penetration of Soviet airspace by bombers was narrowly avoided, as well as that in which the firing of megaton – tipped US cruise missiles in Okinawa was avoided by a persistent commander. There have been other moments of extreme peril, notably the one in 1983 in which sunlight reflecting off high vertical clouds directly over US launch sites looked to Soviet satellite surveillance like a series of launches – not to mention the one where a relatively junior US officer inadvertently sent the launch codes to everything in the US arsenal and did not know he had done so – but they have been just that, MOMENTS of extreme peril. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a 13 day event. Colonel Petrov's 1983 Serpukhov-15 event was a half-hour of unbelievable stress for Petrov, but half an hour. Still if it were to take place tomorrow, is there a Colonel Petrov to deliver us from obliteration?

The peril in which we now still stand, even if we have shifted away from it by half a centimetre from the brink, has been in place ever since Putins statement of 24 Feb 2022. Similar statements are made now on a regular, one might say almost a weekly, basis by Russian government representatives- Medvedev, Lavrov, Putin himself (or his double), and others. Deliberately provocative exercises are held and are being held right now) with tactical nuclear weapons. Whatever criticisms (and there are many) might be levelled at NATO, the purveying of explicit nuclear threats and blackmail have not been evident, though the expansion of NATO may be a longer range contributor to the current crisis. 

It is hard to say what if anything can deliver us from the risk that, either at some stage, threat will become an entirely (perversely) deliberate reality, or, that by misadventure once again, or as a result of miscalculation, malware, or misinformation, codes will be transmitted from briefcases, keys will be turned and more codes typed in, and missiles will rise from silos – and civilisation as we know it will end.

Anne Jacobsen has given one scenario by which this can take place. I beg to differ from her slightly in that she suggests the DPRK could trigger the apocalypse. It is my strong view that the most likely trigger is the already blazing war between Russia and the Ukraine. Bill Kidd MSP has said Putins threats 'may be a bluff – let us hope it is'. Indeed let us hope it is. But even bluffs can be called, and called inadvertently, by an unfortunate set of words or by unfortunate military posturing. And this is a bluff one does not want ever to call.

The result of the use, by deliberation or miscalculation, of 4-5,000 nuclear warheads by the US/NATO and Russia (and maybe China) would be:

--The destruction of much of the US midwest and Siberia, as (probably empty) missile silos are targeted, with an attendant collateral damage in the millions

--The destruction of most of the worlds largest cities, with an immediate body count of several BILLION.

--The burning of said cities, lofting over 150 million tones of dense black carbon into the upper stratosphere, and causing a 'nuclear winter' or a 'nuclear twilight', in which crops will not grow, and in which most humans will starve.

Well before any of this takes place, nuclear explosions in space above the US, Europe and Eurasia as well as Australia will have taken most of us on a quick trip to the 18^thcentury. Even if nothing further took place, most of us will not survive the transformation of our electronic devices, electricity supplies, and bank accounts into silicon junk.

The risk reduction documents I have cited from Baroness Miller and Bill Kidd MSP, both constitute ways forward that hopefully make these dire possible outcomes less likely.

There are some specific immediate term measures that this gathering and that First Committee in October 2024 can take, that are especially important.

--The G20 Bali and Delhi declarations that the 'use or threats of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible' needs to be reaffirmed. Myself and others (including Bill Kidd) have in previous years lobbied for that to take place at First Committee, as well as for its inclusion in the final declaration of an NPT Prepcom. Both should be done.

--The same goes for the Reagan-Gorbachev declaration that 'A Nuclear war Cannot be won and most never be fought'.

--No First Use must be seriously considered by not just China and India (who both have NFU policies with whatever reservations), but by other nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable states.

The Chinese working paper needs to be looked at in this regard.NPT/CONF.2026/PC.II/WP.33 

https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/prepcom24/documents/WP33.pdf

However, the cessation of talks between China and the US over NFU and wider risk reduction measures is unhelpful and should be reversed.

A final helpful and very useful paper is Austria's

NPT/CONF.2026/PC.II/WP.16

https://reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Disarmament-fora/npt/prepcom24/documents/WP16.pdf

The risks of the current moment are dire. Whether or not they are 1% more or less than six months ago is moot and anyway academic.

Action needs to be taken to reduce the risk of the inadvertent or all to advertent end of civilisation immediately and this conference as well as First Committee are the places to do it. 

Hopefully a year from now my prostate will be under control. Hopefully a year from now, by some untoward miracle we will all, contrary to reasonable expectations, still be here. If both those conditions apply, then hopefully I will be able to stand once more before you at plenary without having to say that this year is the most dangerous yet. 

John Hallam

Nuclear Campaigner, People for Nuclear Disarmament-foraCo-Convenor, 

Abolition 2000 Working Group on Nuclear Risk Reduction,

Member, No First Use Global Steering Committee