Lifting ban on small nuclear weapons in preparation for preemptive wars -- Akahata editorial, November 30U.S. President George W. Bush signed a defense authorization bill for fiscal 2004 lifting the ban on research and development of small nuclear weapons.
The small nuclear weapons of less than five kilotons are called "usable nuclear weapons" because they are highly likely to be used in actual wars.
That the United States has lifted the ban on developing such weapons means that U.S. preparations for fighting nuclear wars have entered a new stage.
The move is in defiance of the wishes of people of the world calling for nuclear weapons to be abolished.
Linked to preemptive strike strategy
At the center of this development is the fact that small nuclear weapons can penetrate underground targets. It represents an attempt to produce nuclear weapons that can destroy underground bunkers that conventional warheads cannot destroy.
We must not forget that despite the U.S. defense authorization acts since 1993 banning the development and manufacturing of small nuclear weapons, the United States has carried out preparations for nuclear war through conducting subcritical nuclear tests for the maintenance, improvement, and development of nuclear weapons, and through developing bunker-buster bombs that penetrate deep underground before exploding.
Without doubt, the lifting of the ban will accelerate the production and actual deployment of usable nuclear weapons.
The crucial point is that this policy decision is linked to the Bush administration's preemptive strike strategy to overthrow foreign governments that are not in favor.
Although postwar U.S. governments did not deny the possible preemptive use of nuclear weapons, their stated policy was one of maintaining the right to use them in "self-defense" from enemy attack. The Bush administration, however, takes the policy of invading "axis of evil" countries even though it has not been attacked, and use nuclear weapons as necessary, thus lowering the threshold for a nuclear war.
The "Nuclear Posture Review" which the U.S. Department of Defense published in January 2002 stated that the DoD would implement a program "to improve significantly the means to locate, identify, characterize, and target adversarial hard and deeply buried targets." In its unpublicized paragraphs, the Review called for plans to use nuclear weapons against seven countries, including Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Libya.
Rejecting the U.N. role, the U.S. Bush administration follows a strategy of unilateral use of force. Its dangerous use is already clear from the Iraq war, which the U.S. launched without a U.N. resolution, alleging that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
What will happen if "mini nukes" are used?
A U.S. analyst has pointed out that the U.S. forces had a plan to use nuclear weapons in Iraq. This represents a grave defiance of the international community calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
At the 2000 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, the U.S. and all the other nuclear weapons possessing states clearly promised to work for the complete elimination of their nuclear arsenals.
It stands to reason that international criticism of the U.S. policy of hegemony that leads to launching preemptive attacks on other countries under arbitrary pretexts by deliberately forgetting its own promise is increasing.
U.S. faces opposition by the majority in U.N.
Calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons now form a major current of the 21st century that can't be checked.
This year's UNGA adopted a resolution calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons and expressing concern about the development of "usable nuclear weapons" by a vote of 121-6.
The U.S. Bush administration is now increasingly isolated from the international community because its lawless war on Iraq is getting bogged down in further tragedy. Equally, the dangerous preemptive nuclear strike policy of the U.S. will face increasingly severe criticism from throughout the world.
The Japanese government must decide how to stand on this issue, as the government of the world's only atom-bombed country. (end)