10th January 2018 – Just when you thought things could only get better – they got a whole lot worse! Today the lead article in the Guardian was titled: “US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more ‘usable’ warheads”. It describes how President Trump is reacting to the new UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons by actually increasing the likelihood of a nuclear war. By making a new generation of weapons that are more accurate but of lower yield and by loosening the restrictions on their actual use, the volatility and sometimes irrational behaviour of the President has suddenly become even more worrying.
The Guardian quotes Daryl Kimball, the head of the Arms Control Association, as saying that the development of new weapons in the US nuclear arsenal was “dangerous, Cold War thinking” and that broadening the circumstances in which nuclear weapons would be used was far from a good idea. He is quoted as saying that “the use of even a small number of these weapons would be catastrophic,” and that threatening even a small scale nuclear attack to counter new kinds of threats is not necessary, “would increase the risk of nuclear weapons use, and would make it easier for other countries to justify excessive roles for nuclear weapons in their policies.”
This underlines the importance of the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty and the recognition that possession and threats to use even small sized nuclear weapons is prohibited under the treaty as the escalation and terrible human consequences are totally unacceptable.
Don’t forget that the UK is upgrading the Trident nuclear weapons system along the same lines. Trident is set to become more accurate, more versatile and more usable. Do we really want to be part of this nuclear madness?
We call on the government to Scrap Trident and Sign up to the Ban Treaty – for the sake of us all.
