核兵器問題 １９９０年〜２０１９年
日本語の説明は英語の説明の後にあります。
At present Australia, like New Zealand, is in
the fortunate position to be experiencing a decline in the number of new cases
of Corona virus, although
sadly many other parts of the world are still
facing a worrying increase in new cases as well as deaths. The severity of this
pandemic has naturally led the media to focus on this global problem.
Accordingly, many other crucial issues like global warming and nuclear issues
have been ignored. Distressingly, the current and future situation regarding
nuclear weapons worldwide looks very grim.
In
1998, my wife, Jo, and I translated the Japanese picture book, Hiroshima no Genbaku (Fukuinkan Shoten,
Tokyo) written by Nasu Masamoto and
illustrated by Nishimura Shigeo. The title of the English edition is Hiroshima: A Tragedy Never to Be Repeated.
This book gives information on the
historical background of the production of the A-Bomb that was dropped on
Hiroshima, as well as the devastating effects of the bomb upon the people in
this city. The book also details basic scientific information on nuclear
physics, nuclear arms and illnesses caused by radiation. At the end of the
book, there is an historical chart, which gives information on major events and
nuclear accidents that happened every year between 1945 - 1997.
The book has consistently sold well in Japan
over the past 22 years, in particular at the A-Bomb Museum bookshop in
Hiroshima. In recent years we had become increasingly aware that the historical
chart should be extended from 1997 to the present. However, technical problems
when re-printing meant this was not easy. Instead, when preparing for the new
edition released in November last year, we elected to add a short explanation
about the history of nuclear issues between 1990 and 2019 at the end of the
book.
Below
is a copy of this explanation and we hope this will help you to understand how
critical the situation regarding the nuclear arms now is.
Nuclear Issues - 1990-2019
During
the early 1990s there was a positive shift towards nuclear disarmament among
the major nuclear power states, mainly due to the official end of the Cold War
at the close of 1989, following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November that
year. Simultaneously, however, a reverse trend emerged within some smaller
nations. This was partly related to the outcome of the Gulf War in January
1991, in which Iraq was decisively defeated by the coalition forces led by the
US military. Shortly after the war, smaller nations hostile to the US such as
North Korea and Iran began contemplating developing nuclear weapons themselves
as a deterrent to the US. In 1993 North Korea withdrew from the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons) and in the following year from the IAEA
(International Atomic Energy Agency). In 1993 it tested its first intermediate-range
missile, Nodon 1. Twelve years later it claimed possession of its first nuclear
weapons and in 2009 it produced an ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile).
Similarly, after the Gulf War, Iran strengthened its desire to produce
weapons-grade plutonium itself and has pursued this aim ever since.
It should be noted that during the Gulf War, the coalition forces led by the US used 950,000
depleted uranium bullets (about 300 tons), which later caused “the Gulf War
Syndrome” - acute symptoms similar to those caused by radiation exposure -
among US soldiers. NATO forces also used about 10,000 depleted uranium bullets
during the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995, and again more than 30,000
bullets during the Kosovo Conflict in March-June 1999. On each occasion
symptoms similar to “the Gulf War Syndrome” affected NATO soldiers.
India, which conducted its first nuclear
weapon test in 1974 as a deterrent to China and Pakistan, carried out nuclear
tests five times in mid-May 1998, one of which was an H-bomb test. To
counteract this bold demonstration of nuclear power, Pakistan, too, conducted
six nuclear tests in late May the same year, thereby creating a serious
possibility of nuclear war between these two nations. This risk still exists today.
Although the major nuclear power states
ceased nuclear weapon tests by the mid 1990s, in the latter half of that decade
both the US and Russia started so-called “subcritical nuclear experiments.”
These tests serve to identify and diminish uncertainties in weapon performances
without
actually exploding nuclear weapons. Ever since the US, Russia and China have
repeatedly conducted such experiments as a substitute to underground nuclear
weapon tests.
On September 10, 1996, the United Nations
General Assembly adopted the CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty) – a
multilateral treaty that bans all nuclear explosions in all environments. As of
February 2019, 168 states have ratified the CTBT and another 16 states have
signed this agreement, although not yet ratified it. The US, China, Israel,
Iran and Egypt have signed but not ratified; India, Pakistan and North Korea
have not signed it.
On September 11, 2001, the Islamic terrorist
group al-Qaeda carried out a series of suicide attacks against the US,
completely destroying the World Trade Center in New York and partially damaging
the Pentagon Building in Washington DC. Almost 3,000 people were killed. In
October that year, the US responded by declaring a War on Terror and invaded
Afghanistan to depose the Taliban. In March 2003, the coalition led by the US
forces invaded Iraq, claiming that Iraq was behind these terrorist attacks and
was also producing nuclear as well as chemical and bacteriological weapons.
Ultimately no such weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. In order to
confront terrorist groups and “rogue states,” the US started placing new
emphasis on “non-strategic nuclear force employment” and limited or regional
nuclear operations. It meant a greater focus on tactical nuclear weapons
including the development of “mini-nukes,” despite an overall reduction in the
number of nuclear weapons.
In May 2002 the US and Russia concluded
negotiations on SORT (Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty), which stipulated a ceiling of 1,700-2,200 deployed strategic warheads for
the nuclear arsenals of each country. Since the end of the Cold War, the two
nations had made efforts to reduce their nuclear weapons through a number of
treaties like START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) signed in 1991 and START II signed in 1993. START
I barred its signatories from deploying more than 6,000 nuclear warheads in
addition to a total of 1,600 ICBM and bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
Yet, START II, which aimed to further reduce the number of nuclear warheads in
both countries to a cap of 3,000–3,500, did not come into force due to disagreement
over the issue of missile defense.
New START was signed by US President Barack
Obama and Russian Prime Minister Anatolyevich Medvedev on 8
April 2010. This
new treaty was
to reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear
warheads to 1,550, 10% less than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the
2002 treaty SORT.
It was also to limit the number of deployed ICBMs,
SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) and heavy bombers equipped for
nuclear armaments to 700. The treaty came into force on February 5, 2011 and is
due to expire on February 5, 2021.
On
April 5, 2009, a year prior to the New START agreement, Obama made a grand
speech in Hradčany Square in the center of Prague, where he spoke of his dream
to abolish nuclear weapons. This announcement led him to win the Nobel Peace
Prize that year. New START was undoubtedly a remarkable achievement, but in
actual fact, many dismantled nuclear warheads are stockpiled and still
operational in both the US and Russia. The treaty does not limit the number of
such operationally inactive stockpiled nuclear warheads. Thus,
as of May 2019, Russia has a stockpile of 2,730 deployable nuclear warheads and
the US 2,050. In addition, both the US and Russia have 1,600 nuclear warheads
each currently under deployment. The total estimated number of deployed and
deployable nuclear warheads worldwide is 9,155, of which 7,980 (87%) belong to
the US and Russia. About 1,800 out of 3,759 currently deployed nuclear weapons
throughout the world are categorized as “high alert,” meaning they can be
launched very quickly. These nuclear weapons alone could destroy the entire
world many times over.
Despite these agreements, some nuclear power
states, in particular the US, continue to allocate a huge annual budget for
“modernization programs” of nuclear weapons. Notwithstanding his Prague speech
and Nobel Peace Prize of 2009, Obama substantially increased the US budget for
refurbishing existing deployable warheads through the so-called “Life Extension
Program,” modernizing “Strategic Delivery Systems” (missiles, submarines and
bombers) and the “Nuclear Weapons Production
Complex.” In
2014, his administration projected that the US would spend a staggering $1
trillion over the following 30 years to maintain
the current arsenal, by buying replacement systems
and upgrading existing
nuclear bombs and warheads.
In April 2014, the government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands filed
lawsuits in the ICJ (International Court of Justice) in The Hague to hold the
nine nuclear-armed states accountable for flagrant violations of international
law with respect to their nuclear disarmament obligations under the 1968 NPT
(Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and customary international law. The
lawsuits filed in the ICJ were accompanied by a related lawsuit in the US
Federal District Court in San Francisco against the United States. These were
unprecedented legal actions against the violation of NPT by the nuclear power
states.
The US government under the Trump
administration intends to continue the “modernization plan” laid out by the
Obama administration. It aims to develop several new nuclear weapon
capabilities, in particular small-size and “usable” tactical nuclear weapons as
well as low-yield (SLBM) submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It also
proposes the longer-term development of new nuclear submarine-launched cruise
missiles (SLCM).
On February 2,
2019, the Trump administration notified Russia of the
US intension to withdraw from the INF Treaty - the
agreement for banning Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces – signed by the Soviet
Prime Minister, Mikhail Gorbachev and the US President, Ronald Regan in
December 1987. As a result, the INF Treaty was terminated on August 2, 2019.
This treaty was a significant step towards the end of the Cold War in December
1989. Trump claimed that
Russia was violating the treaty by building and deploying a new type of cruise
missile known as the SSC-8 and thereby jeopardizing US national security. The Trump administration also suspects that China,
which is not a party to the INF Treaty, is gaining military advantage in East
Asia by deploying large numbers of treaty-noncompliant missiles.
As noted above,
New START, which came in to force in February 2011, will expire in February
2021. Although a 5-year extension is possible, the future of this treaty does
not look secure given the current unpredictable bilateral US-Russian
relationship. If New START becomes ineffective in 2021, there will be no legal
binding force to limit the nuclear arms forces of the two most powerful
nations, meaning the world nuclear situation would revert to that of 1972 – a
disastrous regression.
Since 2010, in
particular, civil movements against nuclear weapons such as ICAN (International
Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons) have been vigorously active. Established in
April 2007, ICAN used IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention
of
Nuclear War) as its base for augmenting the campaign against nuclear weapons.
IPPNW had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. ICAN in turn made a
significant contribution to making the United Nations adopt the TPNW (Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons) which was adopted on July 7, 2017 by a vote of 122 to 1. This treaty,
which prohibits the development, testing, production, manufacture, acquisition,
possession, stockpiling, transfer, use and threatened use of nuclear weapons or
other
nuclear explosive devices will come into force once it has been ratified
by 50 states.
ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for this
achievement. As of August 2019, however, only 26 of 70 signatory states have
ratified the treaty.
Nuclear
weapons and their role in the world today are a matter of grave concern for the
reasons indicated above. A constant reminder of their dangers are the
devastating and on-going effects of accidents at nuclear power stations like
Chernobyl in the Ukraine in April 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in March 2011. In
order to achieve a safe and peaceful world, free from the dangers of
irradiation and mass destruction a myriad of complex problems centered around
nuclear weapons and energy must first be overcome.
(September 2019)
Yuki Tanaka & Joanna King
ps. For some cheerier inspiration see Pete
Seeger singing Forever Young
日本語説明
この数日、オーストラリアのコロナウィルス感染者数は、ニュージーランドと同様に、かなり減って一桁台になってきました。しかし世界各地の状況は、まだまだ感染者も死亡者も増え続けています。もちろんこのパンデミック問題はひじょうに重要ですが、メディアはこの問題に集中して報道活動を続けているため、他の重要な問題、とりわけ地球温暖化と原発・核兵器問題がないがしろにされています。
しかし、核兵器問題については世界の状況はこの数年ひじょうに悪化しています。昨年８月には、１９８７年に締結されたINF（中距離核戦力全廃）条約を、アメリカが一方的に破棄しました。来年２月にはNew
START（新戦略兵器削減条約）の期限が切れますが、トランプ大統領はこれを延長するつもりはありません。したがって、この条約が失効すると核兵器を規制する国際条約は皆無となります。そんな状況の下、アメリカは使用可能な小型核兵器の開発・製造にやっきになっています。ひじょうに危険な状況になっているのです。
２２年も前のことになりますが、那須正幹・作、西村繁男・絵『絵で読む広島の原爆』（福音館書店、１９９５年）を私は妻と一緒に英語に翻訳しました。幸いにして、この英語版はこの２２年という長い間、地道に売れ続けてきましたが、この本の最後に付けられている歴史年表は１９４５年から始まり１９９７年で終わっています。したがって、かなり前から、英語版の歴史年表を９７年から現在まで加筆したいと思っていたのですが、印刷技術の面からそう容易ではないことを福音館書店から知らされました。そこで、昨年９月に、１９９０〜２０１９年までの核兵器問題に関する世界の動向について簡略に解説する英文を英語版の本の末尾につけることを出版社に提案し、受け入れてもらいました。したがって、現在、原爆資料館で販売されている英語版には、この解説文が付けられています。この解説文を上でそのまま紹介しています。英文で申し訳ありませんが、これを読んでいただければ、いかに状況が悪化しているかを理解していただけると思います。
将来が子供たちにとって少しでも明るく安全な社会になることを祈りつつ、ピート・シーガー（１９１９〜２０１４年）の歌（ボブ・ディラン作曲）を送ります。
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