Bob Dylan, the celebrated Nobel poet and songwriter, wrote that you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Well, you don’t need a weatherman to know that the world is heading into a nuclear war. That the winds of the apocalypse are now carrying radioactive seeds. That the verbal exchanges between these old-time Cold War warriors show only foolish self-justification accompanied by the usual righteous lies. And with Trump nominally directing the negotiation process we now have the blind leading the blind leading the blind. Into this toxic stew are the psychotic military men, all the while maddeningly modernizing their gleaming nuclear weapons, believing that what they do actually makes any sense.
There are two major treaties that regulate the existence of nuclear weapons – the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT-signed in 1968 and entered into force since 1970). It has 191 members. The other treaty is the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW- adopted on July 7, 2017 and entered into force on January 22, 2021). It has been ratified by 74 states with nuclear weapons.
The treaties each have two very different agendas and, which as we shall see, are diametrically opposed to each other.
The purpose of the NPT is to maintain the status quo by ensuring that the nuclear nations can keep their weapons while at the same time keeping the non-nuclear nations from joining their exclusive club. The treaty stipulates that the nuclear members will disarm their nuclear weapons on some unspecified date. This intentionally false agreement has proven to be a now 57-year-old lie, consistent with the reality that the nuclear nations have never ever planned to abide by it in the first place.
The treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons (TPNW), on the other hand, was created by the non-nuclear nations of the world as opposed to the NPT which was created by the nuclear nations, which, as we have seen, has been to enshrine possession of their own nuclear weapons. In contrast, the TPNW’s true and only goal, given its origins, is indeed, the realization of universal nuclear weapons abolition. And it is only through this complete and absolute abolition of nuclear weapons that the prevention of a nuclear holocaust is possible.
It is for this reason that the TPNW represents a threat to the hegemony of the nuclear weapons states who are adherents of the NPT and why these states have attempted to undermine and obstruct the development and workings of the TPNW.
For instance, in 2020, the United States sent out a highly critical letter threatening countries that had ratified the TPNW to withdraw their support to keep the treaty from reaching the 50 ratifications needed to trigger its entry into force.
Principal among the nuclear nations is the United States, the original creator of the atomic bomb, and its imperial wing, NATO. Through NATO, America, for propaganda purposes, has come up with what they call the Deterrence Doctrine, to justify why they must retain their nuclear weapons and why they are actually not obliged to keep the covenant they solemnly made to disarm originally in the NPT. The Doctrine is based on a series of implausible, nonsensical rationalizations such as that in order to prevent nuclear war every nation should have nuclear weapons and other arrogant extravagant claims such that the members of NATO are the only countries in the world responsible enough to possess nuclear weapons.
But the real reason why the nuclear states want to keep their weapons, underlying all the rhetoric and posturing, is the rudimentary male instinct to dominate other males by violence, combat and war.
Not inaccurately, the relationship between the United States and Canada is often compared to an older, bullying, domineering big brother and the younger, supplicating, approval-seeking little, younger brother. This pattern is no doubt a product of their mutual but differing colonial histories, but it has led to Canada failing to have its own autonomous foreign policy. Thus, the reason as to why Canada is not prepared to take the necessary steps to work in a concrete and realistic way towards global nuclear disarmament lies in Canada’s historical and indelible subservient relationship to this hegemony of the United States.
And indeed, Canada prides itself to being a loyal vassal to NATO. We have participated with enthusiasm in NATO’S many ill-advised colonial wars, hoping to be patted on the shoulder “for doing our bit.” We play the role of the junior partner in costly “collaborative” NATO boondoggles such as NORAD and the ever-present ballistic missile defense schemes. And our new Prime Minister Mark Carney has signed us up to donate five per cent of our GDP to the NATO/American weapons manufacturers. This level of expenditures threatens current and future Canadian budgetary solvency. But most importantly this dominated/domineering relationship expresses itself in Canada’s failure to develop an effective nuclear weapons abolition policy.
Drawing on the branding that has come from its past involvement in UN peacekeeping, Canada has sold itself to others and to itself as a peaceable nation. However, that reality on many international fronts proves that to be a lie. For instance, Canada is the third largest exporter of weapons in the world. But it is within the NATO alliance that Canada’s voice for peace and nuclear abolition is totally lost.
In keeping with the direction of America and NATO, Canada has refused any involvement with the TPNW but rather proudly presents itself as a strong supporter of the NPT. In fact, in 2017, the then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau categorically refused to meet with Setsuko Thurlow, a Japanese Canadian hibakusha (Hiroshima survivor) who had just accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), the organization behind the TPNW. And despite the recent change of government to Prime Minister Mark Carney, there is absolutely no change in the Canadian government’s nuclear weapons policies.
There is only one thing that will save Canada and the rest of the peoples of the earth from the bleak apocalyptic future of nuclear war and that is complete and absolute nuclear weapons abolition. This can never be achieved through the NPT. The NPT can only and will only inevitably lead the world to the destruction of nuclear war. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee has sent the world a powerful and thoughtful message, a message that says that there is indeed a different but workable solution. A solution that leads to a more equitable and safer world. But to make this solution work, countries like Canada and others must free themselves from avaricious death grips of military alliances and create their own independent and enlightened paths to human survival.
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