Dear CCI Friends,
We are experiencing an explosion of articles in the past week … warnings from scientists, philosophers, physicians, political figures, the clergy, journalists … citizens of all categories. They all deal with the grave place wherein we Americans find ourselves mid-2020.
The Nuclear Threat outweighs every other concern. If we don’t handle this one adroitly, we won’t be alive to deal with the rest of our challenges!
Katrina vanden Heuvel puts the issue straight forward in the article below. Please send this note and her article to your family, friends, neighbors and business colleagues. This issue isn’t political, it should not offend anyone. It is a very needed “Wake Up Call” for each American on your and our E-lists.
Finally, Russia and China just declared to the world, their joint commitment to protect and defend each other’s national security and vital interests. Our inept political leaders have been trying to pit one of them against the other for years. The result is we must deal with them as one entity.
This should put our Pentagon and weapons controllers on guard, to not take any risks … to do everything possible to avoid a mistake since our nuclear missiles are currently in air or in the oceans. Hundreds of them are patrolling in any given hour of the day or night. One firing mistake could decimate the entire world, given the inevitable fact of “nuclear winter” that would follow.
Putin has made it clear that Russia will return full force, if one nuclear missile, regardless of size, lands on Russian territory.
Please bring this up in conversations wherever you are, with whomever you are talking to … please let me what kinds of responses you get. We need to have a sense of whether this reality is penetrating the consciousness of our American people. Many thanks!
Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Our Nation Needs a Wake-up Call to the Nuclear Threat
July 7, 2020
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
In 1982, the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union had reached a fever pitch. That June, as many as 1 million people braved the New York City summer, flooding Central Park and the streets outside the United Nations as it hosted a special session on disarmament. I was there. The energy was palpable and urgent as protesters called for a nuclear freeze. And the event, the largest political demonstration in U.S. history to that point, commanded the world’s attention.
Today, the threat posed by nuclear weapons is just as great as it was nearly 40 years ago. But the sense of urgency has since waned. We need a wake-up call, and former defense secretary William J. Perry, together with leading nuclear policymaker Tom Collina, has given us just that. Their new book, “The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump,” is the alarm our nation needs — especially now.
Over the past four years, President Trump systematically undermined international arms treaties. He has pulled out from the Iran nuclear agreement and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Over the strident objection of our allies, his administration announced the United States’ withdrawal from the Open Skies treaty, which helps ensure that signatories comply with arms-control measures.