Author: Assistant Coordinator

 90 Seconds to Midnight: A Wake-Up Call for Peace? 

Official Statement – 25/01/2023

On 24 January 2023, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists officially announced that the Doomsday Clock moved to 90 seconds to midnight – the closest the count has been to global apocalypse in its 78 years of existence, underlining the grim state of the world in 2023. 

This report is a wake-up call to the world; we cannot continue on the path that we have been going. The International Peace Bureau and our global network once again call on all parties involved in the war in Ukraine – including those indirectly involved through weapons transfers and other support – to push for an immediate ceasefire and take good-faith efforts to return to the negotiating table, in order to avoid the unprecedented threats that the war poses for the future of all life on our planet.

The Bulletin references the dangers of escalation in the war in Ukraine – where both parties are entrenched in their positions and Russia has threatened the use of nuclear weapons – alongside the weaponization of nuclear plants, the lack of cooperation on climate change, and the erosion of international norms.

While the war in Ukraine may be the most immediate existential threat we face, the end of the war itself is not enough to push us back from the brink. We urgently need Common Security, including a new peace architecture in Europe to avoid future conflicts.  Furthermore, we need global cooperation to eliminate nuclear weapons through the framework of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). New agreements between nuclear weapons states on reductions of such weapons, an end to their modernization and the nuclear sharing between the US and European countries, and the expansion of Nuclear Weapons Free Zones (NWFZ) could be a starting point toward their elimination.

Importantly, the “Joint Statement of the Leaders of the Five Nuclear-Weapon States” just over a year ago emphasized that a nuclear war can never be won.

Finally, we need urgent global cooperation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to clean energy; we need to cease the alarming use of new militarized like drones and artificial intelligence; and we need global justice, standing together against colonialism, militarism, inequality, and exploitation, to avoid the conflicts of tomorrow. A negation of militarism and a reduction of military spending – which globally amounts to more than 2 trillion US dollars –  in favour of social spending can ensure that we avoid moving any closer to global catastrophe.

The International Peace Bureau will continue to work with our network and partners to push us back from the brink and create a brighter, peaceful future.

You can download the PDF version of this official statement here:

IPB-Statement-90-Seconds-to-MidnightDownload

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➡️ Our office is open to reply to any doubts regarding the documents that were above presented. To get in touch with us, e-mail us at info@ipb-office.berlin.

Militarized Japan and the Biden-Kishida Summit Signal Moment in the New Cold War

Article by Joseph Gerson – 11/01/2023

➡️ Read the original article in commondreams.org

Across the Indo-Pacific, as well as in the escalating Ukraine War, humanity stands an accident or miscalculation away from the calamity of nuclear war.

Japan in December adopted a set of three security and defense strategy documents that break from its exclusively self-defense-only stance. Under the new strategies, Japan vows to build up its counterstrike capability with long-range cruise missiles that can reach potential targets in China, double its defense budget within five years, and bolster development of advanced weapons.” —Asahi Shimbun

“U.S. officials have welcomed Japan’s willingness to take on more offensive role, while experts say it could also help widen cooperation with Australia, their main regional defense partner.” —Asahi Shimbun

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida comes to Washington on Friday, January 13. Unlike Japan, his summit with President Joe Biden will not garner much press attention here in the United States, but it marks a signal moment in Japan’s rise in military power and in the implementation of the Biden Administration’s National Security Strategy. The Strategy, which prioritizes Chinese and Russian challenges to the so-called “rules-based order”, a euphemism for U.S. primacy which is rife with contradictions, prioritizes the centrality of alliances to U.S. global power, stating that “our alliances and partnerships around the world are our most important strategic asset.”

The revitalized 70-year-old U.S.-Japan alliance has renewed importance in enforcing U.S. defense of Taiwan and resisting the expansion of Chinese influence across the South China/West Philippine Sea. This Sea is the geopolitically critical expanse of ocean across which 40% of world trade—including Middle East oil which fuels East Asian economies—flows. Similarly, further integration of the Japanese and U.S. economies and technological resources are encompassed by the alliance and seen as essential to the power and wealth of both nations.

Prime Minister Kishida has stated that the summit will be a “very important” opportunity to “demonstrate at home and abroad the further strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance.” The alliance is not a new development. In 1952 the Mutual Security Treaty (AMPO in Japanese) was secretly imposed on Japan as a condition for ending the postwar military occupation. Since then, contrary to Japan’s “peace constitution,” the island nation has served as the center of the United States’ hub and spokes Asia-Pacific alliance structure. It reinforced the Cold War containment doctrine in Asia, and in the 21st century it plays a critical role in containing and managing China’s rise and its challenge to U.S. regional hegemony.

➡️ Read the original article in commondreams.org

Continue reading “Militarized Japan and the Biden-Kishida Summit Signal Moment in the New Cold War”

Official Documents – General Assembly 2022

From the 14th to the 16th of October 2022 in the city of Ghent (Belgium), the International Peace Bureau (IPB) held its General Assembly. In our triennial meeting, we gathered many of our Board and Council members to discuss the past, present, and future of the organization’s plans and actions. A new Board and Council were elected and we even had the opportunity to award Mr. Hiroshi “Taka” Takakusaki his Seán MacBride Prize (watch the ceremony here).

As the discussions held in our General Assembly and Council meetings are public, we now come to present the documents that were drafted and produced throughout the three days of the event. They represent IPB’s current character and serve to establish and present our organization’s focus and plans.

Continue reading “Official Documents – General Assembly 2022”

dED appeal to UK Universities – End your Partnerships with the Global Arms Trade and Instead Champion Peace!

Demilitarize Education is working to end the militarization of universities and is building the world’s biggest database of UK universities’ investments and partnerships with the global arms trade. Together in solidarity, we can work to see a world where universities champion peace, not war.

So far, dED has uncovered £619,686,663.57 worth of investments, research funding, and consultancy between arms trade companies and universities – and we’re just getting started! 

We’re reaching out to you to ask for help in signing and sharing our petition, as we build on the national movement to demilitarize our education.

These arms companies – including the likes of BAE Systems, Raytheon, Rolls Royce, and MBDA – involve themselves in universities for research and development, recruitment, and PR purposes. The universities then turn a profit from arms-trade research and investment income. 

But all the while these companies’ activities contribute to enormous carbon emissions, destabilize global relations, and facilitate war crimes by morally bankrupt regimes. That’s why we’re calling on universities to sever their ties to the global war machine, and invest in peace – not war! 

If you are interested in giving your voice to this campaign to demilitarize education, please support dED with the following: 

➡️ Check out their petitions: https://actionstorm.org/petitions/demilitarise-education/

➡️ Visit their website: https://ded1.co/

You can also follow them on Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Twitter!

The Dismal State of Nuclear Disarmament

Viewpoint by Jacqueline Cabasso

The writer is the Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation.

OAKLAND, California (IDN) — The year 2022 has been a nightmare for nuclear disarmament. The year started out with a mildly reassuring Joint Statement by the five original nuclear-armed states, issued on January 3, 2022, declaring:

“The People’s Republic of China, the French Republic, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America consider the avoidance of war between Nuclear-Weapon States and the reduction of strategic risks as our foremost responsibilities. We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

But less than two months later Russia launched a brutal war of aggression on Ukraine, accompanied by a series of veiled and no-so-veiled nuclear threats, raising concerns about the dangers of nuclear war to their highest level since the darkest days of the Cold War. And prospects for progress on nuclear disarmament went down from there.

The January 3 Joint Statement also avowed: “We remain committed to our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations, including our Article VI obligation ‘to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament…’.”

However, more than 50 years after the NPT entered into force, their behavior points in the opposite direction. All of the nuclear-armed states, including the four outside the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea) are engaged in costly programs to qualitatively upgrade and in some cases quantitatively increase their nuclear arsenals.

The 10th NPT Review Conference, which took place in August, was an abject failure, not because it couldn’t agree on a final outcome document, but because the nuclear-armed states haven’t made good on their fundamental nuclear disarmament obligation under Article VI of the Treaty, nor on the promises and commitments to action items that would lead to nuclear disarmament they agreed to in connection with the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995 and in the 2000 and 2010 final documents.

Despite the reassuring-sounding words in the Joint Statement, “We intend to continue seeking bilateral and multilateral diplomatic approaches to avoid military confrontations, strengthen stability and predictability, increase mutual understanding and confidence, and prevent an arms race that would benefit none and endanger all,” the reality is that a new nuclear arms race is already underway—compounded by offensive cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, developing hypersonic capacities, a return to intermediate-range delivery systems, and the production of delivery systems capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear payloads.

In September and October, while our attention was focused on the U.S. midterm election results and Russia’s continuing nuclear threats in Ukraine, alarming developments were taking place on the Korean peninsula, where North Korea conducted a flurry of missile tests.

According to North Korea’s state news agency, these tests simulated showering South Korea with tactical nuclear weapons, as a warning in response to large-scale navy drills by South Korean and U.S. forces.

As the year wore on, negotiations on reviving the Iran nuclear deal stalled. And as Iran increased its uranium enrichment, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia declared, “If Iran gets an operational nuclear weapon, all bets are off.”

Against this volatile backdrop, ten months into the Russian war in Ukraine, the Biden administration released the unclassified version of its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which doubles down on the centrality of nuclear deterrence—the threatened use of nuclear weapons—in U.S. national security policy.

The NPR could be read as pouring gas on the fire, naming Russia and China as strategic competitors and potential adversaries, and identifying North Korea and Iran as lesser potential threats. While giving lip service to “a renewed emphasis on arms control”, it declares, “For the foreseeable future, nuclear weapons will continue to provide unique deterrence effects that no other element of U.S. military power can replace. …” To this end, “The United States is committed to modernizing its nuclear forces, nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) system, and production and support infrastructure. …”

This commitment is fully funded in the obscene $858 Billion National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Senate on December 15, which includes $50 Billion for nuclear weapons – more than was requested in the NPR.

The current state of nuclear disarmament affairs might be exemplified by the public unveiling of the B-21 Raider on December 3, with great fanfare, at contractor Northrup Grumman’s California headquarters. The B-21, a “sixth generation” aircraft, is the first new strategic bomber in more than three decades, designed to deliver both nuclear and conventional munitions.

It deploys the latest stealth technology and has global reach. Earlier plans included an unmanned option. The B-21 will replace the B-1B and B-2A bombers, and the number of strategic bomber bases in the U.S. that can store nuclear weapons will be increased from two at present to five by the mid-2030s. And so, it goes.

The Doomsday clock is ticking. By doubling down on the concept of national security through military might, at any cost, the governments of the nuclear-armed states and their allies are putting humanity on the road to Armageddon.

People everywhere, together, need to rise up non-violently and demand the implementation of a different concept of security, one based on cooperation among governments to make meeting human needs and protecting the environment their highest priority.

[IDN-InDepthNews – 25 December 2022]

This article was reproduced from IDN-InDepthNews with their authorization: https://www.indepthnews.net/

IDN is the flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.

This article was produced as a part of the joint media project between The Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group and Soka Gakkai International in Consultative Status with ECOSOC on 25 December 2022.

We believe in the free flow of information. Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, except for articles that are republished with permission.

Climate & The Military: How Global Militarization Is Costing Us The Earth

By Alessandra Fontanella, Assistant Coordinator (IPB)

New Reports Show the Extent of Military Pollution on our Planet

Recent data from reports published by Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR)and the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), as well as from the Transnational Institute (TNI), Stop Wapenhandel, and Tipping Point North South (TPNS) demonstrate the overwhelmingly negative impact of global military activities on our climate.

The 2022 SGR report estimates that the world’s militaries contribute to 5.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas  (GHG) emissions. It also finds that if the world’s militaries were a country, it would have the 4th largest national carbon footprint in the world. To illustrate these findings further, if global militaries were combined they would be the world’s 29th top oil consumer, ahead of Venezuela and Poland.  SGR and CEOBS estimate the annual military carbon footprint of the US at 205 million tonnes, and 11 million tonnes for the UK.

Despite the new methodology that has enabled scientists to approximate the level of military carbon pollution, their estimations are limited. A lack of clear and consistent reporting of data by governments has made it difficult to provide accurate estimations of military greenhouse gas emissions – under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, governments are not obligated to report their emissions data to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). Further, collaborative research by between CEOBS and Concrete Impacts: militaryemissions.org shows no yearly improvements on voluntary reporting by governments. It is also difficult for researchers to measure emissions from damage to buildings, eco-systems and reconstructions efforts post-conflict leading to significant data gaps.

Despite these limitations, the existing data is alarming and highlights the need for dialogue between governments, international organisations and civil society to work towards a global plan. Civil society can play a crucial role in advocating for the redirection of finance from the military towards funding climate change. The richest countries (annex II in the UN Climate Talks) have a military expenditure 30 times greater than what they allocate to climate finance for vulnerable countries and have failed to meet their obligation of providing $100bn a year to the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. The redistribution of just one year’s military spending by the top 10 military countries towards climate finance would provide 15 years  (US $100bn) of the promised funding.

Moreover, a thorough set of data protocols should be put in place to enhance transparency and pave the way for more comprehensive and accurate data on global military emissions, as suggested by SGR. We must demand greater transparency and accountability from governments, and promote the dissemination of information about military emissions to increase public attention on governments’ military spending and activities.  Collective action in the peace and climate movements  is necessary to bring about a  reduction of military carbon emissions, and the redirection of spending in this sector towards mitigative action for our climate.

The best way to reduce military pollution on our planet is to reduce war. The International Peace Bureau is committed to promoting positive peace and justice, below we outline several recent actions that IPB has taken:

  • IPB’s year round campaign – Global Campaign on Military Spending (GCOMS) raises awareness of excessive military spending and aims to reduce global military expenditures.
  • IPB Council member Tyson Smith Berry Jr. hosted the panel “Climate Change & Common Security: challenges and solutions in Africa and the world at large” at the conference : From Conflict to Beloved Communities – A Series of International Gatherings on Peace, Justice and Non-Violence on November 8 in Juba, South Sudan.
  • For the COP 27 which recently took place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the IPB alongside the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and World BEYOND War (WBW)sent two open letters addressed to the UNFCC and Green Climate.
  • Visit IPB’s Youtube Channel to watch our broadcast updates from COP27 – focused on the events and activists that brought together the themes of peace and climate.

IPB Christmas Peace Appeal

IPB is calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine for Christmas 2022/2023, from the 25 December to the 7 January, as a sign of our shared humanity, reconciliation and peace.

To be a part of our appeal for peace and negotiations, please sign our petition on the Christmas appeal website.

The Christmas Peace Appeal is available in seven different languages available on the website, where you can also learn about the history of the 1914 Christmas Truce. If your language is not covered by our translations and you would like us to add it to our website, send a translation to: ipb@info-office.berlin.

IPB has put together a collection of proposals and possibilities for a ceasefire and resolution to the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine. The document is available here.