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by Alice Slater

Calling on the nuclear weapons states "to demonstrate an unequivocal commitment to the speedy and total elimination" of their nuclear arsenals, the New Agenda Coalition of eight nations — Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, and Slovenia - won an extraordinary victory in the UN this past December on their resolution for a new nuclear policy agenda. Despite intense lobbying by U.S. envoys in capitols all over the world, urging governments to vote against the resolution, it passed by a vote of 114 in favor, 18 against, and 38 abstentions. Slovenia, a NATO-wannabe, had to withdraw its sponsorship and voted to abstain after some arm-twisting by Uncle Sam.

Overturning long-standing precedent, all of the non-nuclear NATO nations with the exception of Turkey withstood heavy-handed pressure from the United States, aided by France and the U.K., breaking ranks to abstain on the resolution. Canada, emulating its leadership role in pushing through the landmines treaty and International Criminal Court agreement over U.S. objections, sent representatives to NATO capitols urging those nations to resist U.S. pressure. Grassroots activists supporting these efforts achieved a stunning policy reversal in Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Greece, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Iceland, Portugal, and Denmark, as well as non-NATO allies Japan and Australia, which all rejected the rusty Cold War position of the U.S..

The New Agenda Coalition has issued a clarion call to the nuclear weapons states, and the nuclear-capable states which are not members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (i.e., India, Pakistan, Israel), to take more immediate and practical steps toward nuclear disarmament, urging that we not enter the next millennium without a clear and rapid path toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. The United States strenuously objected in the UN debate to the New Agenda's call to review existing nuclear strategic doctrines and to de-alert all nuclear weapons, stating that such measures would undermine its policy of nuclear deterrence.

The new German Foreign Minister recently issued a call that NATO adopt a no first-use policy, although Germany's Defense Minister, on a subsequent visit to Washington, avoided a clear statement on no first-use, responding to U.S. pressure and expressions of alarm that NATO Cold War doctrine might actually be changed to conform to new realities. Canada's Foreign Affairs Committee recently issued a parliamentary report urging that Canada and NATO allies should work with the New Agenda Coalition and encourage the nuclear weapons states to conclude negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons. It also endorsed the de-alerting of all nuclear weapons, and called upon the government to "argue forcefully" for a re-examination of NATO's nuclear policy.

Now is the time for the United States to heed its allies and begin taking the practical steps recommended by the New Agenda Coalition. With the Y2K problem threatening uncertain possibilities for tragic nuclear accidents due to faulty computer programming, taking our weapons off hair-trigger alert is particularly appealing. Reports from Russia that the Duma is likely to pass START II, reducing arsenals to about 3,500 deployed strategic warheads in each country, and then to move for cuts much deeper than the 2,500 warheads contemplated under START III, is an added further incentive for the United States to support the lead of its partners in NATO and friends in the New Agenda Coalition by moving toward meaningful nuclear disarmament.

The continued reliance on nuclear weapons as instruments of national security is a provocative invitation to other nations to acquire them - witness events in India and Pakistan. It's time to put the Cold War behind us and negotiate a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. By clinging so obdurately to its useless and dangerous nuclear capability, the United States is perceived by other nations as having joined the league of so-called "rogue" states which use the terror of weapons of mass destruction as an instrument of policy.

The United States should join with its allies in working rapidly to eliminate the nuclear scourge. It must not repeat the tragic and shameful conduct that led to its pariah status on the landmines and International Criminal Court treaties.

Alice Slater is president of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment and a founder of Abolition 2000, an international network working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.