Two speeches by IPB Co-President and CPDCS Director Joseph Gerson, given on August 3rd and 4th, 2026, at the World Conference Against A and H Bombs in Hiroshima, Japan.
Conference Speech
By Joseph Gerson
HIroshima, August 4, 2026
Minosan Konichiwa. Friends, it was a pleasure to work with Gensuikyo in organizing our successful international conference in New York on the eve of the NPT Review Conference. Let me share a moment from the Hibakusha tour that followed. At one university, I saw that there were two Chinese professors were in the audience, After Kanamoto-San’s and Ohmura-san’s speeches, I added that Nihon Hidankyo is critical of Japan’s past conquest and brutalities in China. Ohmura-san followed immediately, saying that Hidankyo remains angry that the Japanese government has yet to apologize for the war and brutal occupation in China. A brief exchange with one of the professors and Ohmura-san followed, and the next thing I was the two men embracing. That embrace won’t change policies, but it illustrates what is possible.
Friends, no one can count on Trump for anything – except his corrupt commitment to increase his and his family’s wealth. And Secretary of War Hegseth was clear that U.S. support in times of crisis will be conditional. This uncertainty helps to explain Tokyo hedging, its military and artificial intelligence pact with India, its security and defense pact with the EU, the centralized intelligence agency, and the new strategic partnerships with European nations and even the Solomon Islands.
Pax Americana is now history. The U.S. is no longer the world’s uncontested hegemon. But vulnerable empires become more dangerous as they struggle to retain power. We see this in Trump’s wars on Iran and Venezuela. It’s there in Trump’s pursuit of renewed U.S. nuclear superiority, his threats to resume nuclear weapons testing, and his commitment to “Golden Dome” missile defenses. It is also there in U.S. reaffirmations of its Asia-Pacific alliances and last month’s massive RIMPAC military exercises,
We are now threatened by wars involving three nuclear powers (Russia, US, and Israel). Each could escalate, and a senior Russian recently warned that Kyiv’s drone attacks could lead Putin to finally launch his nuclear weapons. More, the U.S., Russian, and Israeli aggressions undermine the U.N. charter and international law, the cornerstones of 80 years of relative international stability. These and other power-hungry nations forced the failure of NPT RevCon weakening the Treaty, thus fueling nuclear ambitions in Japan, South Korea, Poland, Sweden, Iran and maybe Saudi Arabia.
In addition, Trump and Rubio want Cuba, Greenland, and portions of Canada. These wars and interventions drive rising food, fuel, energy, and housing costs in the U.S. and internationally. Most Americans are aghast and oppose ICE kidnappings and murders of immigrants on our streets. So, as we approach November’s elections Trump and his allies are working to rig them to protect their corrupt regime and stay out of jail.
Forty years ago, I was told that with pressure from the U.S. the LDP was committed to remilitarization. Given Japanese opposition to militarism, a salami strategy was being used: one slice of popular opinion at a time. Ten years later the lead author of Japan’s Defense White Paper told me that the SDF’s interpretation of the Constitution was that they have the right to develop and deploy nuclear weapons, a right, he said, that they had yet to exercise.
Now Defense Minister Koizumi implies that it’s time to exercise that right. This, after Takaichi said that the Three Non-Nuclear Principles must be reviewed. Much of the world is shocked. We look to you to prevent the only a-bombed country from preparing to inflict nuclear genocide.
The U.S.-Japanese military alliance imposed by the U.S. remains centrally important. Japan now has its most militarist government since 1945. It is doubling its massive military spending. Takaichi seeks to trash the Peace Constitution and shockingly wants Japanese military ranks to return to those of the 1930s and ‘40s. Tokyo is deploying preemptive strike missiles that can reach China and North Korea. Takaichi proclaimed her readiness to go to war for Taiwan, and at the NATO summit Japan called for deeper cooperation between its Indo-Pacific partners and NATO.
Tragically, the U.S. and Japan are not the sole sources of international insecurity. Putin’s Ukrainian aggression generates fear and fuels massive European militarization. Russia tested a new ICBM that can carry 15 nuclear warheads. France and Poland will join in future nuclear drills, and Norway placed itself under Paris’s nuclear umbrella. Finland is welcoming nuclear weapons, and Britain is expanding its nuclear arsenal.
Elsewhere Beijing presents itself as a source of stability, committed to the U.N. Charter and to common security diplomacy. But it adds 100 new nuclear warheads to its arsenal each year. This makes us hostage to three nuclear scorpions trapped in a bottle. China militarily enforces its disputed South China Sea claims. It sends warships east of Taiwan, and we have the Senkaku/Diaoyu rocks.
What are we doing in response? In the U.S. we are pressing the Back from the Brink disarmament campaign, now supported by 66 members of Congress.
We celebrate our new ally, Pope Leo. In this month’s anniversary commemorations, we are drawing on his Rome Declaration for a Disarmed and Disarming Peace that calls for elimination of nuclear weapons and preventing integration of AI to nuclear weapons.
CPDCS is providing speakers for anniversary events, is releasing a new video featuring Hibakusha, and the abolition movement, and we are working on diplomatic common security visions for the Indo-Pacific and Europe.
Our near-term priority must be defending U.S. democracy and human rights as we approach November’s elections. We will make the most of the TPNW RevCon, work to end the Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, and Lebanon wars, and promote Hibakusha testimonies to teach that nuclear wars cannot be won and must never be fought.
No more Hiroshimas. No more Nagasaki’s, No more Hibakusha, No more war!
Rally Speech
Joseph Gerson
Hiroshima, August 3, 2026
Konichiwa. Thank you for the opportunity to return to the World Conference.
It was a pleasure to work with Gensuikyo and our many partners to hold our international conference in New York on the eve of the NPT Review Conference. Following the RevCon, we had the privilege of hosting a speaking tour with Nihon Hidankyo leaders Kanamonto-san, Ohmura-san, and Tsuchida-san of Gensuikyo.
Our expectations for the Review Conference were appropriately low, but our conference allowed us to share analyses and information about our movement’s priorities. It provided an opportunity to deconstruct deterrence mythologies, and it prepared us for the nasty landscape that we face on this side of the RevCon.
Two university moments from the tour stand out in my memory stand. At Holy Cross, a leading Catholic institution, our host welcomed the school’s very bright students to meet with Hibakusha only if they came prepared with thoughtful questions. They did, and those questions led to unusually deep engagements.
At another university, I noticed that two Chinese professors were in the audience, After Kanamoto-san’s and Ohmura-san’s speeches, and thinking about how these professors might be reacting to their testimonies, I commented that Nihon Hidankyo has long been critical of Japan’s 1930s and ‘40s conquest and brutalities in China. Ohmura-san followed up saying that they remain angry that the Japanese government has yet to officially apologize for the war and brutal colonial occupation in China. There followed a brief exchange between Ohmura-san and one of the professors, and the next thing I knew, the two men were embracing.
While that embrace will not change national policies, it did illustrate what is possible. And I was encouraged later to learn that Kaku Keiko of Akahata described that moving encounter in her report about the tour. Perhaps coverage of that emotional moment educated some Japanese about the still open wounds from Japan’s imperial war and the need to make amends if we are to reestablish trust which is necessary for peace.
In the wider world we are challenged by wars involving three nuclear powers (Russia, US, and Israel) as they rage in Ukraine and the Middle East. Each of these could escalate horizontally and vertically. Both the U.N. charter and international law which have served as the cornerstones of what stability we have enjoyed for four generations. Moreover, there is the failure of NPT RevCon to reach even the least common denominator consensus reaffirming Article V, or the past agreed steps; or even the Reagan-Gorbachev formula that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The Treaty was thus further weakened, and the failure fuels calls to become nuclear weapons states from Japan and South Korea, to Poland, Sweden, and Iran to become nuclear weapons states. And now we may have Trump’s nuclear deal with Saudia Arabia, with no limits on enrichment and lacking “additional protocol” inspections.
The Post Cold War unipolar order is now history. No longer is the U.S. the world’s uncontested hegemon. Just ask Iran. We face the emergence of either a G-2 (US-China) or multi-polar world, while the U.S. seeks to restore its military, technological, and economic dominance in part by “predatory imperialism.” This includes massive spending increases for still more sophisticated nuclear and high-tech weapons, for military interventions, for trade wars, and for the race to develop the most advanced artificial intelligence system.
The Trump government has alienated most U.S. Americans and much of the world with its aggressions. Meanwhile, it is pursuing regime change in Cuba by tightening the 64-year blockade and threatening a “boots on the ground” invasion. Trump’s other territorial ambitions include Greenland and at least portions of Canada (Alberta). These costly and alienating wars and interventions are compounded by related rising food, fuel, energy, and housing costs in the U.S. and internationally. We all suffer the staggering corruptions of Trump, his family, and cronies. And we are aghast and protest the ICE kidnappings and murders of innocent immigrants on our streets. All of this results in record low approval poll numbers for Trump and his loyalists as we approach November’s Congressional elections. That said, Trump and his allies are doing all that they can to rig the elections to protect their authoritarian regime and to keep out of jail.
We know from history that vulnerable empires don’t simply fade away. They often become still more dangerous as they struggle to retain their power. We see this now in Trump’s wars on Iran and Venezuela and in his support for Israel in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. It is there in Trump’s pursuit of renewed U.S. nuclear weapons superiority, in his threats to resume nuclear weapons testing, and in his commitment to build a “Golden Dome” missile defense system that will increase fears of U.S. first strike attacks. These desperate ambitions drive the campaign to increase U.S. military spending to $1.5 trillion – a 40% increase over its already gargantuan military budget. The campaign to restore U.S. hegemony is there in Trump’s, Colby’s, and Hegseth’s reaffirmations of U.S. Asia-Pacific alliances and in last month’s RIMPAC, Rim of the Pacific, military exercises. These maneuvers were the world’s largest international and intimidating naval show of force. Almost one third of NATO nations sent land, air and sea forces to join the US and its Indo-Pacific allies in 38 days of Indo-Pacific war preparations.
NATO’’s recent transformation to NATO 3.0 also reflects that U.S. global dominance is only possible with NATO as a critical asset. Despite Trump’s demeaning rhetoric about NATO, he and his mandarins value the world’s largest and most powerful military alliance because it allows them to do what they want to do elsewhere, beyond Europe, especially across the Indo-Pacific.
AMPO, the U.S.-Japanese military alliance imposed by the U.S. as a condition for ending its post-war military occupation of Japan, continues to be centrally important to the U.S. in this new era. Recall, that on the sidelines of the NATO summit the Takaichi government called for deeper cooperation between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners. Japan, as you know, remains colonized by more than 100 U.S. military bases and installations. But, encouraged by successive U.S. presidents, Japan now has its most militarist government since 1945, one that it is doubling its already massive military spending with the resulting hardships for ordinary people. The Takaichi government is moving to trash the Peace Constitution’s Article 9 and the three Non-Nuclear Principles, while the world stands aghast at Defense Minister Koizumi’s insistence that Japan cannot avoid touching on the nuclear taboo. Tokyo is deploying conventional preemptive strike missiles that can reach China and North Korea. And it proclaimed its readiness to go to war for Taiwan.
As it reinforces U.S. military power, Tokyo is hedging against possible future reductions in U.S. military commitments to the region. No one can count on Trump for anything – except his corrupt commitment to increase his and his family’s wealth, and Secretary of War Hegseth made it clear that U.S. support in times of crisis will be conditional. This helps explain Tokyo’s recent military and artificial intelligence pact with India, its security and defense pact with the EU, the creation of a centralized intelligence agency, and the strategic partnerships and weapons development agreements with distant countries, including Britain, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. All of these reflect efforts to adjust to the uncertainties related to the relative decline of the United States compounded by Trumpian whimsical and domineering misrule.
As bad as they are, the U.S. and Japan are not the sole sources of international insecurity and danger. Putin’s Ukrainian aggression has generated irrational fear and fueled massive militarization across Europe. Adding to this, Russia recently tested its Sarmat ICBM which can carry 15 nuclear warheads, including hypersonic glide vehicles to penetrate defenses. Elsewhere, France and Poland agreed to join in future nuclear drills. Britain is expanding its warhead stockpile, altering its nuclear doctrine, and adding nuclear capable F-35s to its arsenal. Finland is welcoming nuclear weapons deployments on its territory. And Norway has placed itself under the French as well as the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Fears of a first strike “strategic surprise” continue to drive these spiraling arms races.
We are now all held hostage to three nuclear scorpions trapped in a bottle. While Beijing presents itself as a source of stability committed to the U.N. Charter and to common security diplomacy. it continues to add 100 new nuclear warheads to its arsenal each year in pursuit of parity with the U.S. and Russia. China continues to militarily enforce its claims to roughly 80% of the South China Sea at the expense of other nations with competing claims, and it is sending warships east of Taiwan to reinforce its claims to the province and to signal the possibility of a future blockade. And we have Chinese maneuvers near the Senkaku/Diaoyu rocks.
What are we doing in response? Dr. Ira Helfand will speak in the next panel. Ira is a leading figure in IPPNW, ICAN, and is an initiator of Back from the Brink campaign, our most effective nuclear weapons abolitionist and disarmament campaign, which was just endorsed by the Massachusetts state legislature. There is no need for me to duplicate what he will say.
I want to celebrate the fact that we have a new ally in Pope Leo in the. Last month, thirty Nobel laureates, former heads of state and government officials, artificial intelligence experts, and prominent universities met with Pope Leo in Rome. There they issued the Rome Declaration Vatican for a Disarmed and Disarming Peace. Their Declaration seeks to establish principles and guidelines for governing artificial intelligence, calls for nuclear weapons abolition, and promoting international security based on “cooperation, human dignity, integral human development and peace among peoples.” In the U.S. we are working with the declaration. In one of our U.S.Hiroshima/Nagasaki commemorations., Joseph Gainza, who once hosted Tanaka-Terumi of Hidankyo in Vermont and led that state to become the first to officially call for nuclear weapons abolition, is integrating lessons from the Rome Conference with their Hiroshima commemoration in the state’s capital, Montpelier. He will also convene a conference of scholars, activists and religious leaders to focus on the related dangers of nuclear weapons, AI, and high-tech weapons. Also know that July’s Rome Conference will be followed by a summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in the Vatican which Cora Fabros and I will be attending.
I am also happy to say that in a few days, CPDCS will release our new video designed to engage and inspire young people and new activists to become active for nuclear disarmament. It features Hibakusha, the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, last year’s 80th anniversary events, and the history of abolition campaigning.
Finally, for many of us in the U.S. our priority must be educating and mobilizing to defend democracy and human rights as we approach November’s Congressional elections. We’ll be stuck with Trump and MAGA for at least two more years, but with control of at least one house of Congress we can slow their campaign to create a blood and soil white nationalist fascist oligarchy. Beyond that we will make the most of the TPNW Review Conference. We must do all that we can to win real ceasefires in the Iran, Ukraine, and Lebanon wars. We will promote Hibakusha testimonies to build for the future, and teach the lesson that nuclear wars cannot be won and must never be fought.
Thank you for your attention.
No more Hiroshimas. No more Nagasaki’s, No more Hibakusha, No more war!
