Nuclear threats grow stronger and more immediate

The city of Nagasaki commemorated the 78th anniversary of the atomic bombing this week.

It was a quiet ceremony: Concern that Typhoon Khanun might strike forced officials to move events indoors and shrink their size. That is a pity. There were expectations of a much larger service following the visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum by heads of state during the Group of Seven summit that was held in May. This attention would allow Japan to build on the Hiroshima Vision, released at that gathering, and continue efforts to promote nuclear disarmament.

Nagasaki has held an annual commemoration of the atomic bomb attack since 1956. At 11:02 a.m., a moment of silence marked the exact time when the bomb exploded over the city, killing about 74,000 people by the end of the year and leaving countless more to suffer the effects of the blast — physical and psychological — for the rest of their lives.

That devastation followed by three days the bombing of Hiroshima — the first time that an atomic weapon was used in war — an attack that killed an estimated 140,000 people. The tragedy in Nagasaki was the second and last time that a nuclear weapon was dropped on human beings. World War II ended six days later with Japan’s surrender to Allied forces.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made nuclear weapons a focal point of his chairmanship of the G7. Holding the annual summit in Hiroshima (his home constituency) was a chance for him to press his concerns on other heads of state, three of which — the United States, Britain and France — possess their own nuclear weapons. He described the visit of the leaders to the city and to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum where they met 86-year-old atomic bomb survivor Keiko Ogura, who shared her story. The Japanese leader said it was “historic from the perspective of showing our determination for a world without nuclear weapons.”

Kishida’s interest and efforts yielded the Hiroshima Vision, the G7’s first document to address nuclear disarmament. In it, the leaders reaffirmed their “commitment to achieving a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all.”

The document underscored “the importance of the 77-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons,” and called for transparency regarding nuclear weapons, efforts to reduce nuclear risks, immediate commencement of negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear devices, as well as an end to all nuclear tests. It also calls the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the “cornerstone” of nonproliferation and the “foundation” for disarmament.

Kishida emphasized the role of the vision document, saying that through it and the discussions of nuclear weapons at the summit, “We succeeded in building momentum once more within the international community for progress in nuclear disarmament.”

The anniversary commemorations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki sought to accelerate that momentum. In remarks on Aug. 6, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui called on world leaders to “immediately take concrete steps to lead us from the dangerous present toward our ideal world.”

In his speech that day, Kishida acknowledged the difficulties that hinder progress toward disarmament, but added that “it is precisely because of these circumstances that it is imperative for us to reinvigorate international momentum once more toward the realization of a world without nuclear weapons.”

The inclement weather prevented the prime minister from attending the Nagasaki ceremony, the first time since 1999 that Japan’s leader was not present. In recorded remarks, he pledged that Japan “will continue to lead the world toward disarmament while calling for it to be united in strengthening and maintaining” the NPT.

While disarmament has long been the nation’s stated goal, Japanese policy has equivocated. All Japanese governments have recognized that their country relies on nuclear weapons for national security, sheltering as it does under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Washington extends its deterrent to allies and a decision by the U.S. — however fanciful — to give up those weapons would leave it and its partners vulnerable to coercion or predation by adversaries.

In practical terms, this has meant that Japan did not join 92 other nations and sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, commonly called the Ban Treaty, which prohibits any form of engagement with nuclear weapons, including development, stockpiling and use, and it went into force in 2021.

The mayors of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki recognize this gap and condemn it. Both men dismiss nuclear deterrence as “folly” and have called on leaders to “show courage” and abandon it. As a first step, they both have pushed Japan to sign the Ban Treaty.

Their positions reflect an admirable logical consistency and purity — and a lack of responsibility for the nation’s security. Japan’s external security environment is replete with nuclear threats. China and North Korea rely on nuclear weapons to advance their foreign policies and both countries are modernizing those arsenals to ensure that the threat of nuclear use is credible.

Pyongyang and Moscow have been more explicit about their readiness to use their weapons, even if the credibility of those threats is uncertain. Such threats must be taken seriously, however. At the Hiroshima ceremony, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres warned that “the drums of nuclear war are beating once again.”

In this world, unilateral disarmament and the hope that setting an example will inspire other nations to follow suit is fantasy. Our ally’s conventional military capabilities are too great. Adversaries need their nuclear weapons to advance and protect their own interests.

A piecemeal approach to the elimination of those weapons makes sense. The NPT is a first step, halting the spread of nuclear arsenals while committing the nuclear powers to eventual disarmament; that is the bargain inherent in the NPT. When horizontal proliferation is stopped — a challenge, given North Korea’s refusal to honor its obligations — nuclear-weapon states can proceed in earnest to reduce their arsenals. That demands a return to the strategic arms reduction treaties between the U.S. and Russia as well as reviving the intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement between Washington and Moscow and the inclusion of Beijing in those talks, too.

Soon after, the smaller nuclear weapon states like Britain and France must be included along with the non-NPT signatories such as India, Israel and Pakistan.

This is a much-simplified roadmap to disarmament. It glosses over the confidence-building exercises that are a precondition of success in this endeavor. It assumes a transformation of the security environment from one characterized by suspicion and zero-sum calculations of national interest to one that emphasizes trust and cooperation. For hard-nosed realists it is naive and fanciful. Perhaps, but this month’s commemorations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are reminders of what will happen if those efforts fail.