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With each year that passes, nuclear weapons provide their possessors with less safety while provoking more danger. Possession of nuclear arms provokes proliferation. Both nourish the global nuclear infrastructure, which in turn enlarges the possibility of acquisition by terrorist groups.
The step that is needed to break this cycle can be as little doubted as the source of the problem. The double standard of nuclear haves and have-nots must be replaced by a single standard, which can only be the goal of a world free of all nuclear weapons.
What is it that prevents sensible steps toward nuclear abolition from being taken? The answer cannot be in doubt, either. It is the resolve of the world's nuclear powers to hold on to their nuclear arsenals. Countries that already have nuclear arms cite proliferation as their reason for keeping them, and those lacking nuclear arms seek them in large measure because they feel menaced by those with them.
A double-standard regime is a study in futility -- a divided house that cannot stand. Its advocates preach what they have no intention of practicing. It is up to the nuclear powers to take the first step.
Their nuclear arsenals would be the largest pile of bargaining chips ever brought to any negotiating table. More powerful as instruments of peace than they ever can be for war, they would likely be more than adequate for winning agreements from the non-nuclear powers that would choke off proliferation forever.
The art of the negotiation would be to pay for strict, inspectable, enforceable nonproliferation and nuclear-materials-control agreements in the coin of existing nuclear bombs. What would be the price to the nuclear powers, for example, of a surrender by the nuclear-weapons-free states of their rights to the troublesome nuclear fuel cycle, which stands at the heart of the proliferation dilemma? Perhaps reductions by Russia and the United States from two thousand to a few hundred weapons each plus ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?
Further reductions, now involving the other nuclear powers, might pay for establishment and practice of inspections of ever-greater severity, and still further reductions might buy agreements on enforcement of the final ban on nuclear arms. When nuclear weapons holdings reached zero, former nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states, abolitionists all, would exercise a unanimous will to manage, control, roll back, and extirpate all nuclear weapon technology.
A world from which nuclear weapons had been banned would, of course, not be without its dangers, including nuclear ones. But we must ask how they would compare with those now approaching.
Let us suppose that the nuclear powers had agreed to move step by step toward eliminating their own arsenals. The iron chains of fear that link all the nuclear arsenals in the world would then be replaced by bonds of reassurance. Knowing that Russia and the United States were disarming, China could agree to disarm. Knowing that China was disarming, India could agree to disarm. Knowing that India was ready to disarm, Pakistan could agree to disarm as well. Any country that decided otherwise would find itself up against the sort of united global will so conspicuous by its absence today.
During the Cold War, the principal objection in the United States to a nuclear-weapon-free world was that you could not get there. That objection melted away with the Soviet Union, and today the principal objection is that even if you could get there, you would not want to be there. The arguments usually begin with the observation that nuclear weapons can never be disinvented, and that a world free of nuclear weapons is therefore at worst a mirage, at best a highly dangerous place to be. It is supposedly a mirage because, even if the hardware is removed, the know-how remains. It is said to be highly dangerous because the miscreant re-armer, now in possession of a nuclear monopoly, would be able to dictate terms to a helpless, terrorized world or, alternately, precipitate a helter-skelter, many-sided nuclear arms race.
This conclusion seems reasonable until you notice that history has taught an opposite lesson. Repeatedly, even the greatest nuclear powers have actually lost wars against tiny, backward nonnuclear adversaries without being able to extract the slightest utility from their colossal arsenals. Think of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, or the U.S. in Vietnam, or Britian in Suez.
If, in the 60 years of the nuclear age, no great power has won a war by making nuclear threats against even tiny, weak adversaries, then how could a nuclear monopoly by a small country enable it to coerce and bully the whole world? The danger cannot be wholly discounted, but it is surely greatly exaggerated.
If the nuclear powers wish to be safe from nuclear weapons, they must surrender their own. They should collectively offer the world's non-nuclear powers a deal of stunning simplicity, inarguable fairness, and patent common sense: we will get out of the nuclear weapon business if you stay out of it. Then we will all work together to assure that everyone abides by the commitment.
The united will of the human species to save itself from destruction would be a force to be reckoned with.
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With each year that passes, nuclear weapons provide their possessors with less safety while provoking more danger. Possession of nuclear arms provokes proliferation. Both nourish the global nuclear infrastructure, which in turn enlarges the possibility of acquisition by terrorist groups.
The step that is needed to break this cycle can be as little doubted as the source of the problem. The double standard of nuclear haves and have-nots must be replaced by a single standard, which can only be the goal of a world free of all nuclear weapons.
What is it that prevents sensible steps toward nuclear abolition from being taken? The answer cannot be in doubt, either. It is the resolve of the world's nuclear powers to hold on to their nuclear arsenals. Countries that already have nuclear arms cite proliferation as their reason for keeping them, and those lacking nuclear arms seek them in large measure because they feel menaced by those with them.
A double-standard regime is a study in futility -- a divided house that cannot stand. Its advocates preach what they have no intention of practicing. It is up to the nuclear powers to take the first step.
Their nuclear arsenals would be the largest pile of bargaining chips ever brought to any negotiating table. More powerful as instruments of peace than they ever can be for war, they would likely be more than adequate for winning agreements from the non-nuclear powers that would choke off proliferation forever.
The art of the negotiation would be to pay for strict, inspectable, enforceable nonproliferation and nuclear-materials-control agreements in the coin of existing nuclear bombs. What would be the price to the nuclear powers, for example, of a surrender by the nuclear-weapons-free states of their rights to the troublesome nuclear fuel cycle, which stands at the heart of the proliferation dilemma? Perhaps reductions by Russia and the United States from two thousand to a few hundred weapons each plus ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?
Further reductions, now involving the other nuclear powers, might pay for establishment and practice of inspections of ever-greater severity, and still further reductions might buy agreements on enforcement of the final ban on nuclear arms. When nuclear weapons holdings reached zero, former nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states, abolitionists all, would exercise a unanimous will to manage, control, roll back, and extirpate all nuclear weapon technology.
A world from which nuclear weapons had been banned would, of course, not be without its dangers, including nuclear ones. But we must ask how they would compare with those now approaching.
Let us suppose that the nuclear powers had agreed to move step by step toward eliminating their own arsenals. The iron chains of fear that link all the nuclear arsenals in the world would then be replaced by bonds of reassurance. Knowing that Russia and the United States were disarming, China could agree to disarm. Knowing that China was disarming, India could agree to disarm. Knowing that India was ready to disarm, Pakistan could agree to disarm as well. Any country that decided otherwise would find itself up against the sort of united global will so conspicuous by its absence today.
During the Cold War, the principal objection in the United States to a nuclear-weapon-free world was that you could not get there. That objection melted away with the Soviet Union, and today the principal objection is that even if you could get there, you would not want to be there. The arguments usually begin with the observation that nuclear weapons can never be disinvented, and that a world free of nuclear weapons is therefore at worst a mirage, at best a highly dangerous place to be. It is supposedly a mirage because, even if the hardware is removed, the know-how remains. It is said to be highly dangerous because the miscreant re-armer, now in possession of a nuclear monopoly, would be able to dictate terms to a helpless, terrorized world or, alternately, precipitate a helter-skelter, many-sided nuclear arms race.
This conclusion seems reasonable until you notice that history has taught an opposite lesson. Repeatedly, even the greatest nuclear powers have actually lost wars against tiny, backward nonnuclear adversaries without being able to extract the slightest utility from their colossal arsenals. Think of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, or the U.S. in Vietnam, or Britian in Suez.
If, in the 60 years of the nuclear age, no great power has won a war by making nuclear threats against even tiny, weak adversaries, then how could a nuclear monopoly by a small country enable it to coerce and bully the whole world? The danger cannot be wholly discounted, but it is surely greatly exaggerated.
If the nuclear powers wish to be safe from nuclear weapons, they must surrender their own. They should collectively offer the world's non-nuclear powers a deal of stunning simplicity, inarguable fairness, and patent common sense: we will get out of the nuclear weapon business if you stay out of it. Then we will all work together to assure that everyone abides by the commitment.
The united will of the human species to save itself from destruction would be a force to be reckoned with.
With each year that passes, nuclear weapons provide their possessors with less safety while provoking more danger. Possession of nuclear arms provokes proliferation. Both nourish the global nuclear infrastructure, which in turn enlarges the possibility of acquisition by terrorist groups.
The step that is needed to break this cycle can be as little doubted as the source of the problem. The double standard of nuclear haves and have-nots must be replaced by a single standard, which can only be the goal of a world free of all nuclear weapons.
What is it that prevents sensible steps toward nuclear abolition from being taken? The answer cannot be in doubt, either. It is the resolve of the world's nuclear powers to hold on to their nuclear arsenals. Countries that already have nuclear arms cite proliferation as their reason for keeping them, and those lacking nuclear arms seek them in large measure because they feel menaced by those with them.
A double-standard regime is a study in futility -- a divided house that cannot stand. Its advocates preach what they have no intention of practicing. It is up to the nuclear powers to take the first step.
Their nuclear arsenals would be the largest pile of bargaining chips ever brought to any negotiating table. More powerful as instruments of peace than they ever can be for war, they would likely be more than adequate for winning agreements from the non-nuclear powers that would choke off proliferation forever.
The art of the negotiation would be to pay for strict, inspectable, enforceable nonproliferation and nuclear-materials-control agreements in the coin of existing nuclear bombs. What would be the price to the nuclear powers, for example, of a surrender by the nuclear-weapons-free states of their rights to the troublesome nuclear fuel cycle, which stands at the heart of the proliferation dilemma? Perhaps reductions by Russia and the United States from two thousand to a few hundred weapons each plus ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty?
Further reductions, now involving the other nuclear powers, might pay for establishment and practice of inspections of ever-greater severity, and still further reductions might buy agreements on enforcement of the final ban on nuclear arms. When nuclear weapons holdings reached zero, former nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states, abolitionists all, would exercise a unanimous will to manage, control, roll back, and extirpate all nuclear weapon technology.
A world from which nuclear weapons had been banned would, of course, not be without its dangers, including nuclear ones. But we must ask how they would compare with those now approaching.
Let us suppose that the nuclear powers had agreed to move step by step toward eliminating their own arsenals. The iron chains of fear that link all the nuclear arsenals in the world would then be replaced by bonds of reassurance. Knowing that Russia and the United States were disarming, China could agree to disarm. Knowing that China was disarming, India could agree to disarm. Knowing that India was ready to disarm, Pakistan could agree to disarm as well. Any country that decided otherwise would find itself up against the sort of united global will so conspicuous by its absence today.
During the Cold War, the principal objection in the United States to a nuclear-weapon-free world was that you could not get there. That objection melted away with the Soviet Union, and today the principal objection is that even if you could get there, you would not want to be there. The arguments usually begin with the observation that nuclear weapons can never be disinvented, and that a world free of nuclear weapons is therefore at worst a mirage, at best a highly dangerous place to be. It is supposedly a mirage because, even if the hardware is removed, the know-how remains. It is said to be highly dangerous because the miscreant re-armer, now in possession of a nuclear monopoly, would be able to dictate terms to a helpless, terrorized world or, alternately, precipitate a helter-skelter, many-sided nuclear arms race.
This conclusion seems reasonable until you notice that history has taught an opposite lesson. Repeatedly, even the greatest nuclear powers have actually lost wars against tiny, backward nonnuclear adversaries without being able to extract the slightest utility from their colossal arsenals. Think of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, or the U.S. in Vietnam, or Britian in Suez.
If, in the 60 years of the nuclear age, no great power has won a war by making nuclear threats against even tiny, weak adversaries, then how could a nuclear monopoly by a small country enable it to coerce and bully the whole world? The danger cannot be wholly discounted, but it is surely greatly exaggerated.
If the nuclear powers wish to be safe from nuclear weapons, they must surrender their own. They should collectively offer the world's non-nuclear powers a deal of stunning simplicity, inarguable fairness, and patent common sense: we will get out of the nuclear weapon business if you stay out of it. Then we will all work together to assure that everyone abides by the commitment.
The united will of the human species to save itself from destruction would be a force to be reckoned with.
"I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away," said the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde.
The inaugural interfaith service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday proceeded with the usual prayers and music, but after delivering her sermon, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde appeared to go off-script and made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump.
Recalling the Republican president's assertion on Monday that he was "saved by God" after a bullet hit his ear in an assassination attempt in July, Budde asked Trump, who was seated in the church, "in the name of our God... to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now."
"There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families," said Budde, "some who fear for their lives. And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals."
"I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here," said Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C.
Budde's appeal followed Trump's signing of 26 executive orders in his first day in office, with dozens more expected in the first days of his second term. The president signed orders ending birthright citizenship—provoking legal challenges from immigrant rights groups and state attorneys general—and pausing refugee admissions, leading to devastation among people who had been waiting for asylum appointments at ports of entry. Official proclamations declared a national emergency at the southern border and asserted that the entry of migrants there is an "invasion."
Trump also took executive action to declare that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female.
"May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people in this nation and the world," said Budde in her address to Trump.
The president kept his eyes on Budde for much of her speech, at one point looking annoyed and casting his eyes downward. Vice President JD Vance leaned over and spoke to his wife, Usha Vance, as Budde talked about undocumented immigrants, and raised his eyebrows when she said the majority of immigrants are not criminals.
Trump later told reporters that the service was "not too exciting."
"I didn't think it was a good service," he said. "They can do much better."
Democratic strategist Keith Edwards applauded Budde's decision to speak directly to the president, calling her "incredibly brave."
Budde "confronted Trump's fascism to his face," he said on the social media platform Bluesky.
The study was published as President Donald Trump was blasted for an executive order that one critic said shows he wants to turn the Alaskan Arctic into the "the world's largest gas station."
For thousands of years, the land areas of the Arctic have served as a "carbon sink," storing potential carbon emissions in the permafrost. But according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change Tuesday, more than 34% of the Arctic is now a source of carbon to the atmosphere, as permafrost melts and the Arctic becomes greener.
"When emissions from fire were added, the percentage grew to 40%," according to the Woodwell Climate Research Center, which led the international team that conducted the research.
The study, which was first reported on by The Guardian, was released the day after President Donald Trump issued multiple presidential actions influencing the United States' ability to confront the climate crisis, which is primarily caused by fossil fuel emissions, including one directly impacting resource extraction in Alaska, a section of which is within the Arctic Circle.
Sue Natali, one of the researchers who worked on the study published in Nature Climate Change, told NPR in December (in reference to similar research) that the Arctic's warming "is not an issue of what party you support."
"This is something that impacts everyone," she said.
As the permafrost—ground that remains frozen for two or more years—holds less carbon, it releases CO2 into the atmosphere that could "considerably exacerbate climate change," according to the study.
"There is a load of carbon in the Arctic soils. It's close to half of the Earth's soil carbon pool. That's much more than there is in the atmosphere. There's a huge potential reservoir that should ideally stay in the ground," said Anna Virkkala, the lead author of the study, in an interview with The Guardian.
The dire warning was released on the heels of Trump's executive order titled "Unleashing the Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential" that calls for expedited "permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska," as well as for the prioritization of "development of Alaska's liquefied natural gas (LNG) potential, including the sale and transportation of Alaskan LNG to other regions of the United States and allied nations within the Pacific region."
The order also rolls back a number of Biden-era restrictions on drilling and extraction in Alaska, which included protecting areas within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas leasing.
"Alaska is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet, a trend that is wreaking havoc on communities, ecosystems, fish, wildlife, and ways of life that depend on healthy lands and waters," said Carole Holley, managing attorney for the Alaska Office of the environmental group Earthjustice, in a statement Monday.
"Earthjustice and its clients will not stand idly by while Trump once again forces a harmful industry-driven agenda on our state for political gain and the benefit of a wealthy few," she added.
Trump wants to turn the Alaskan Arctic into the "the world's largest gas station," said Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, in a statement Monday. "Make no mistake, Trump's rushed and sloppy actions today are an existential threat to these lands and waters, and the communities and wildlife that depend on them."
The U.N. ambassador nominee also shrugged off the Nazi salutes made by Elon Musk on Inauguration Day.
As U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik faced questioning by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday regarding her nomination for a top diplomatic position, the rights group Jewish Voice for Peace Action called on lawmakers to consider her "record of antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, and anti-democracy rhetoric and policy" and block her confirmation.
Stefanik's (R-N.Y.) record was reinforced at the hearing as she was asked about her views on Palestine, expressions of antisemitism in the United States, and far-right Israeli leaders' political agenda, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) recalling a meeting he had with the congresswoman after President Donald Trump nominated her to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
At the meeting, Van Hollen said, Stefanik had expressed support for the idea that Israel has a Biblical right to control the entire West Bank—a position that is held by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, but runs counter to the two-state solution that the U.S. government has long supported.
"Is that your view today?" asked Van Hollen, to which Stefanik replied, "Yes."
Van Hollen noted that Stefanik's viewpoint also flies in the face of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions and international consensus about the Middle East conflict.
"If the president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, we're going to have to look at the U.N. Security Council resolutions," said the senator. "And it's going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed, which is a view that was not held by the founders of the state of Israel."
Stefanik also refused to answer a direct question from Van Hollen regarding whether Palestinian people have the right to self-determination, saying only that she supports "human rights for all" and pivoting to a call for Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas.
Jenin Younes, litigation counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, said Stefanik expressed "religious fanaticism, pure and simple" at the confirmation hearing—which was held as Israeli settlers and soldiers ramped up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
"That [Stefanik] will now play a major role with respect to our foreign policy in the region is terrifying," said Younes.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action noted that in addition to supporting "the Israeli government's brutal genocide of Palestinians," Stefanik has also "amplified the antisemitic Great Replacement theory"—which claims the influence and power of white Christian Americans is being deliberately diminished by Jewish Americans and immigration policy.
Despite her support for the debunked conspiracy theory, Stefanik made headlines last year for her accusations against college students, faculty, and administrators over the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that exploded across campuses as Americans spoke out against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza. The congresswoman said the protests were expressions of antisemitism and pushed for the resignation of university leaders who declined to discipline students who spoke out against Israel.
The hearings where Stefanik lambasted college leaders "were part of a broader campaign to silence anti-war activism and dissent on college campuses while forwarding the MAGA culture war campaign against [diversity, equity, and inclusion], critical race theory, and LGBTQ+ rights," said JVP Action.
An exchange between Stefanik and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday also raised questions over Stefanik's views on antisemitism. Murphy asked the nominee about the Nazi salute twice displayed by billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk—whom the president has named to lead his proposed Department of Government Efficiency—at an event Monday night.
" Elon Musk did not do those salutes," Stefanik asserted.
Murphy countered by reading several comments from right-wing commentators who applauded Musk's "Heil Hitler" salute.
"Over and over again last night, white supremacist groups and neo-Nazi groups in this country rallied around that visual," said Murphy.
JVP Action said Stefanik has "deeply embraced Trump's anti-democratic agenda."
"Her nomination must be blocked," said the group.