Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a humanitarian disaster with untold thousands of military and civilian deaths in addition to an estimated 4.1 million refugees who’ve fled Ukraine, and another 6.5 million who are internally displaced. The nightmare for the people of Ukraine has also triggered fear around the world of an unthinkable nuclear war, either through accident or reckless decisions made during adrenaline-fueled confusion of combat.
As the U.S. and NATO confront Russia’s aggression, Europe’s most serious conflict since the end of World War II, for the first time the world’s two most powerful nuclear-armed nations are virtually pitted against one another in war. Making the situation far more dangerous is the post-cold war abrogation of U.S.-Russia nuclear arms control agreements. In 2002, President George W. Bush unilaterally withdrew from the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty. The Trump regime then abandoned the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 and the Open Skies treaty in 2020.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Jon Rainwater, executive director of Peace Action and the Peace Action Education Fund, who talks about Russia’s Ukraine invasion, the threat of escalation to nuclear warfare and the urgent need for Washington and Moscow to renegotiate abrogated and expired nuclear arms control agreements.
JON RAINWATER: It’s a somewhat terrifying prospect. Any time two nuclear powers are close to or engaged in the conflict, you have to be worried about nuclear war. And I think it’s a wake-up call that we’ve failed to address the threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity. But in terms of the Ukraine conflict or war, accidents can happen. I mean, there have been missile attacks within 10 or 15 miles of Poland that have killed dozens of people. And had those missiles missed their target by just a little bit, they could trigger NATO’s provisions to have NATO enter the war, which would mean two nuclear powers facing off.
So there is a lot of ways in which this could spiral out of control. And so far, the Biden administration has not been escalating when it comes to nuclear talk. Really, what should be happening is that peace-loving people across this country and in other countries should be really vocal right now that we’ve got to back away from the nuclear brink here and tamp down any talk of of nuclear weapons being used in this conflict.
One of our concerns right now with the Biden administration and arms control is that they’re about to release their nuclear posture review. This is something that presidents do near the beginning of their terms, sets the tone for nuclear policy both in terms of U.S. policy itself, and also gives a hint to what sorts of agreements they might be searching for. And it’s very disappointing what we’re hearing in terms of declaratory policy of the United States. Biden had said that he supported a sole-use policy, which means that nuclear weapons would only be used for deterrence.
Obviously, Peace Action wants to get rid of all nuclear weapons. But a step in the right direction would be to make clear that we would never use nuclear weapons first. And Biden did not put that into his nuclear posture review as he indicated he would during the campaign. So that’s a huge problem. And that should get a lot of protests from folks, including those in Congress.
There are a couple bills in Congress to create a no-first use policy to mandate a no-first use policy for the United States. And I think the Ukraine crisis shows why we need one so that there’s no mistaking the fact that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. So we should push for those bills.
In terms of diplomacy, we need to get back to the table, ironically, with Russia eventually to have a follow on agreement to New START before it expires, to have even deeper cuts in nuclear weapons with Russia. But we’re seeing the opposite. The hint really is in the Biden budget, where we’re seeing a large increase in funding for nuclear weapons.
And it’s being justified by talk of Russia invading Ukraine, which obviously is horrific. But not an excuse to beef up nuclear weapons. It didn’t deter Putin from invading, spending more money on nuclear weapons won’t. And China is being pointed to as well.
So one of the first things we can do is oppose increases to spending on nuclear weapons, which are starving funding for things like pandemic prevention and dealing with climate change and those sorts of things. So we’re seeing some bad signs in terms of U.S. playing a constructive role in nuclear disarmament. And we have to push against that in Congress and elsewhere.
SCOTT HARRIS: The U.S. peace movement since the end of the Cold War and more recently after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 has really been in hibernation. The peace movement generally, despite your good work, it’s not out in the street. What in this very dangerous environment we’re now in with the Ukraine invasion — what is the role of the peace movement in your view? And why should people get reactivated?
JON RAINWATER: We have the wrong security policy for the United States and we need to connect with people and say, “While we’ve been building up the Pentagon budget, a million people have died of COVID. We’ve got climate change wreaking havoc and we need to bust the silos and reach across them and create a unified movement that says we need to reorient how we do security in this country and focus on human security. What keeps our communities safe? Health care, education, jobs. Preventing and mitigating the impacts of climate change.”
I think that’s a new peace movement that we need that’s not just about anti-war, but is about these other issues. But at the same time, I think people are seeing how horrific war is on their television screens in Ukraine. And we need to connect the dots so that people see that what’s going on in Ukraine is also going on in Yemen with the support of the United States supporting the Saudi coalition that’s bombing in Yemen and say no wars. No more wars anywhere.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Jon Rainwater (25:59) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
For more information, visit Peace Action at peaceaction.org.
