Changing the mad mindset about nuclear weapons

Photo: La Moncloa/WikimediaCommons

By Linda Pentz Gunter

For most of the world’s population, the continued possession of nuclear weapons — and their potential use — are an abomination. Many countries agree, too. That is why the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has become law.

Millions of people around the world already struggle just to survive under the current stresses of deprivation and conflict. Yet the leaders of nuclear weapon nations persist in ramping up spending on — and escalation of — their lethal atomic arsenals. This comes as the devastation wrought by the climate crisis worsens, a time when humanity should be joining together, not threatening to destroy each other and our only home.

This is in part what makes the decision by the U.S. Biden administration to largely adhere to the same nuclear weapons spending policy established under the Trump regime, so frustrating. And wrong. As Joseph Gerson wrote, in an article we republished on Beyond Nuclear International:

“Tragically, despite widespread high hopes for change, in the existential realm of potentially omnicidal nuclear war preparations, the Biden administration has signaled more continuity than change.”

Specifically, Gerson says, “The sad and dangerous truth is that the nuclear weapons budget President Biden submitted to Congress differs little from Trump’s nuclear weapons “modernization” commitments. Despite Biden’s election year and earlier statements that the “sole use” of nuclear weapons that he could imagine was in response to a nuclear attack against the United States, the budget he submitted to Congress includes funding to replace the country’s entire arsenal of first-strike—use them or lose them—ground based ICBMs.”

Not only must we work to cut this insane and genocidal military budget, but we must also work to change the mindset in th ehalls of poer, one that still believes we “need” nuclear weapons and is willing to contemplate using them as well. (Photo: La Moncloa/WikimediaCommons)

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