The Nobel Peace Prize Forum with leading experts on global nuclear politics, including three former Nobel laureates, convened to discuss the continued risk of nuclear weapons. Credit: Soka Gakkai mInternational.

By Naureen Hossain
UNITED NATIONS & OSLO, Dec 12 2024 (IPS)

The existential threat that nuclear weapons present remains as pertinent as ever, even when they have not been deployed in war for nearly 80 years. As some countries seek out nuclear weapons or to upgrade and modernize their existing warheads, global voices in nuclear politics and disarmament warn of the potential risk of a new nuclear arms race amid the weakening of nuclear treaties that prohibit the proliferation and use of nuclear arms.

At this year’s Nobel Peace Prize Forum in Oslo, Norway, leading experts on global nuclear politics, including three former Nobel laureates, convened to discuss the risk of growing nuclear arsenals and what must be done to mitigate these risks. The forum ‘NUKES: How to Counter the Threat’ was hosted on December 11 at University Aula with the support of the city of Oslo, the International Forum for Understanding, and Soka Gakkai International.

The Nobel Institute has awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on 13 occasions to individuals and groups whose work was in service to the argument for the prohibition of nuclear weapons. This was seen up to the present day with Japanese grassroots organization Nihon Hidankyo, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. When accepting the award, co-chair Terumi Tanaka called for the world to listen to the testimonies of A-bomb survivors and to feel the “deep inhumanity of nuclear weapons.”

The forum began with the testimonies from two Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Keiko Ogura was eight years old in Hiroshima. She recalled the trauma she carried with her in the aftermath of the bombing, as she saw people die around her, not yet knowing that they were suffering due to radiation. She and other Hibakusha came forward years later to share their experiences and the direct costs of deploying nuclear weapons.

“Before I die, we want to see this planet free of nuclear weapons,” said Ogura. “For us, discounting the number of nuclear weapons is nonsense. A single nuclear weapon means destruction of this world.”

Masao Tomonaga was two years old when Nagasaki was bombed, and his memories of that time are based on his mother’s recollections of that day. He followed in his father’s footsteps to become a doctor, who oversaw Hibakusha care at Nagasaki University and conducted research into the medical consequences of radiation from nuclear fallout. In his own research, Tomonaga found that the stem cells in the survivors’ bodies contained genetic abnormalities due to radiation, which made them vulnerable to leukemia and cancer. As one of the few cells that accumulates and survives across generations, he noted, they also accumulate “genetic errors” that could occur randomly across a lifetime. He hypothesized that the Hibakusha likely held pre-cancerous cells within them.

In the past decade, there have been efforts to reduce the number of nuclear warheads among the countries that held them. Yet in recent years, the attitude has started to shift in the opposite direction. Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, remarked that this shift is marked by military nuclear doctrines that were previously respected and are now being questioned or overstepped.

“We are seeing a normalization of discourse of use of nuclear weapons,” Grossi warned, remarking on how these doctrines are being revisited to allow for some concession for the possession and use of nuclear weapons.

In such times, Grossi remarked, world leaders have an “irrevocable responsibility” to make the critical steps forward to nuclear disarmament. “It’s time that we are reminded at the right level of the necessity of this decision at the top, whether we like it or not,” he said. “We hope that this determination of the world leadership to tackle the issue of nuclear weapons, especially in a world so fragmented as the one we have.”

Yet in the debate of nuclear disarmament, countries seem split on their thinking of nuclear weapons. Experts also warned that the more ‘casual’ discussions of nuclear weapons by major parties also demonstrates an undermining of nuclear treaties. Although 191 member states joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), critics have pointed out that this has not been enforced to the extent that it is intended to, especially among the major players.

Speaking during a panel discussion on the risks of nuclear activity, Manpreet Sethi of the Centre for Air Power Studies in New Delhi, India, reflected on how certain countries—nuclear powers—held different perceptions of the risk of nuclear warfare.

“There is no shared sense of risk like there was during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962,” Sethi said. “Everyone is perceiving risk differently.” Sethi also remarked that countries were pushing the boundaries on the ‘nuclear envelope’—the limits on nuclear deployment, evident in the language used in discussing nuclear arms and proliferation.

The threat of nuclear warfare is also heightened when considering the advances made in technology and the impact of modernization and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. Wilfred Wan, Director of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Programme in SIPRI, noted that disruptive technologies such as AI and automation would only “increase the vulnerabilities in nuclear weapons.” The relative unknown factors that remain with AI would also bring an “aura of instability [and] unpredictability to nuclear weapons.” “The only way to eliminate risk… is to eliminate nuclear weapons,” said Wan.

What are the measures then to mitigate the risks of nuclear arsenals in the present day? For one, dialogue between nuclear states and non-nuclear states is one possible step forward for non-nuclear states to call for nuclear states to cease their activities and work towards reduction. Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stated that the Global South is in a position to make these demands, especially as many of these countries are also signatories to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), has said that one step forward would be for all countries, including nuclear powers, to sign the TPNW. The United Nations recently approved a new study on the effects of nuclear warfare for the modern age, a study that would be more comprehensive and update the understanding of nuclear warfare for the 21st century.

“The new UN study will be looking at things like the latest scientific confirmation from the 2022 Nature Food Journal that… even a limited nuclear war would not only kill millions of people outright, but it would cause global climate disruption, massive amounts of soot going into the stratosphere, circling the globe, blocking out sunlight, causing agricultural collapse, and the death by starvation of more than 2 billion people in a nuclear winter,” said Parke.

“I expect the new study will confirm what the Hibakusha have been telling us—have been warning us about. That the risks are real, immediate, and immense. Confronting them now is not a matter of choice but of necessity,” she said. “And that the necessary action is not just no-use but total nuclear disarmament, as that is the only way of eliminating the existential threat of nuclear weapons.”

A concerted, collective effort will be needed to put pressure on nuclear states to move towards non-proliferation and disarmament. That effort can begin on the individual level.

Ogura remarked that the world held a collective responsibility to prohibit nuclear weapons, from world leaders to the youth of the next generation. This could be achieved if the experiences of the Hibakusha and the survivors of nuclear fallout and testing are shared and never forgotten. With a hint of optimism, she said, “We are more than just a single drop.” Water spreads the word—through the ocean, the tide, through the continent. I have a belief—someday we can make it.”

IPS UN Bureau Report