Talking Points: Turning Off Code Red

COMPLEX TRANSFORMATION

The Department of Energy recently proposed a plan that would dramatically increase the U.S.’s ability to produce new nuclear weapons, called “Complex Transformation”

What will be the environmental impacts of resumption of testing nuclear warheads? What will the global security impacts of the U.S. building more nuclear weapons and testing them be?

• Complex Transformation is the Bush Administration’s plan to overhaul the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, including building a new bomb plant that would enable mass-production of nuclear weapons for the first time in two decades
• The plan calls for more production of plutonium pits, the essential core of nuclear weapons. The U.S.’s current policy doesn’t require production of new plutonium pits until at least 2015 and more likely 2022. Existing plutonium pits are expected to have a lifetime in excess of 85 years. Is there a need?
• Until the nation decides on the future size of its nuclear arsenal, the DOE’s recommendation to build the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Nuclear Facility and the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) are premature
• Although Complex Transformation consolidates the Complex, consolidating weapons-grade nuclear materials into fewer locations, it also increases the nuclear weapon production capacity by proposing to build a new bomb plant
• The new bomb plant would be located in Los Alamos National Laboratory northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. There have been serious security concerns at Los Alamos in the past
• DOE’s own estimates suggest that the Complex Transformation initiative will cost well over $200 billion over the next two decades
• A U.S. plan to build new nuclear weapons and production facilities could spur nuclear proliferation because, for example, the U.S. is asking North Korea to scale back and challenging Iran (a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), while building their own complex and making deals with India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

FCNL’s information page on Complex Transformation

FCNL’s Q&A’s on Complex Transformation

Comments of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research on the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy in its Draft Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (By Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., and Annie Makhijani 30 April 2008)

“Nuclear Bailout: A Critique of the Department Of Energy’s Plans For a New Nuclear Weapons Complex” (by William Hartung, New America Foundation, March 25, 2008)

“The Cart before the Horse: DOE’s Plan for the Future of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex” (Stephen Young and Lisbeth Gronlund, Union of Concerned Scientists, May 2008)

FUTURE DIRECTION FOR A FUTURE ADMINISTRATION

The next President will have the ability to set the future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy. What kind of policy will set the future for U.S. nuclear policy and thus foreign policy?

State of the Union 2008, by Craig Eisendrath and Kevin Hansen, addresses many of the policy choices that the next President faces:

• Congress has mandated a Nuclear Posture Review, which the next president will implement, looking into the Nuclear Complex from bottom to top and implementing a new nuclear weapons policy

• The U.S. can reverse the “hegemonic policeman” direction of our policy that is unilateral and enforces a “go it alone” strategy in foreign affairs. We can be world leaders in diplomacy by working on our issues through international bodies and international partnerships.

• The U.S. needs to work out a deal with the Russians to de-alert a threatening 5,000 active nuclear warheads, to tell the world that we will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, to control fissile materials with international inspection and to sign on to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

• The U.S. needs to move faster on getting rid of the weapons we have and adhering to the legal requirements of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. could compromise its integrity under the NPT Treat through a deal with India which would ship fissile material to the country, which is not a signatory to the NPT.

• The U.S. could set the example by coming down from code red, de-alerting nuclear weapons and planning to shrink and eventually end our stock pile. This example could be used to influence the rest of the world to end their proliferation plans and to not make any new plans.

• The U.S. should declare that we will never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state which is presently contradicted by the Administration’s Global Strike Policy, which unconstitutionally excludes Congress.

• The U.S. should sign on to a treaty prohibiting all weapons in outer space. If the U.S. does pursue space weapons, we will need to test them, sending thousands of pieces of debris into our atmosphere which would be lethal and would threaten hundreds of billions of dollars of satellites we already have in space for many military and non-military uses.

10 steps for the next president to take to bring U.S. nuclear weapons policy into line with today’s political and strategic realities:

1. Declare that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter and, if necessary, respond to the use of nuclear weap­ons by another country.
2. Reject rapid-launch options by changing U.S. deployment practices to allow the launch of nuclear forces in days rather than minutes.
3. Eliminate preset targeting plans, and replace them with the capability to promptly develop a response tailored to the situation if nuclear weapons are used against the United States, its armed forces, or its allies.
4. Promptly and unilaterally reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to no more than 1,000 warheads, including deployed and reserve warheads. The United States would declare all warheads above this level to be in excess of its military needs, move them into storage, begin dismantling them in a manner transparent to the international community, and begin disposing—under international safeguards—of all plutonium and highly enriched uranium beyond that required to maintain these 1,000 warheads. By making the end point of this dismantlement process dependent on Russia’s response, the United States would encourage Russia to reciprocate.
5. Halt all programs for developing and deploying new nucle­ar weapons, including the proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead.
6. Promptly and unilaterally retire all U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons, dismantling them in a transparent manner, and take steps to induce Russia to do the same.
7. Announce a U.S. commitment to reducing its number of nuclear weapons further, on a negotiated and verified bilateral or multilateral basis.
8. Commit to not resume nuclear testing, and work with the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
9. Halt further deployment of the Ground-Based Missile Defense system, and drop any plans for space-based missile defense. The deployment of a U.S. missile defense system that Russia or China believed could intercept a significant portion of its survivable long-range missile forces would be an obstacle to deep nuclear cuts. A U.S. missile defense system could also trigger reactions by these nations that would result in a net decrease in U.S. security.
10. Reaffirm the U.S. commitment to pursue nuclear disarma­ment, and present a specific plan for moving toward that goal, in recognition of the fact that a universal and verifiable prohibition on nuclear weapons would enhance both nation­al and international security.

From “TOWARD TRUE SECURITY: Ten Steps the Next President Should Take to Transform U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy” (Union of Concerned Scientists, in partnership with the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council, February 2008)

Talking Points: The Food Crisis, a "Silent Tsunami"

Food Price Crisis – What's going on with the global price of food?:

• According to the World Bank, food prices have climbed 83% in the last 3 years
• Real price of rice rose to a 19-year high in March of 2008– an increase of 50% in 2 weeks alone
• Real price of wheat hit a 28-year high in March 2008
• Staples that many of the world's poor rely on are the food items that are rising in cost: cereal grains, cooking oil, dairy
• In Bangladesh, rice prices have gone up 70%, hitting a population where the majority live on less than $1 a day
• In Haiti, where ¾ of the population earns less than $2 a day and 1 in 5 children is chronically malnourished, the most destitute are consuming mud patties mixed with oil and sugar

What is causing global food prices to skyrocket?:

• Diverting lands for biofuel production has increased the cost of food
• The IMF's World Economic Outlook 2008, released in April 2008, states “...Although biofuels still account for only ½ percent of the global liquid fuels supply, they accounted for almost half the increase in the consumption of major food crops in 2006-07.”
• Biofuel demand has propelled the prices of not only corn, but other grains, meat, poultry and dairy
• Increase in fuel costs for transporting goods
  
• Diesel fuel is well over $4.00/gallon in the U.S.
• The world oil price increased by 80% over the past 12 months and since 2001, China alone has accounted for about 40% of the increase in oil demand
• Average crude oil prices are expected to jump 30.1% in 2008, compared to just 9.5% between 2006 and 2007
• Climate Change
• The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report projects that the effects of climate change will increase the number of undernourished people to between 40 and 170 million
• Multiple year droughts in Lesotho and Swaziland caused exceptional shortfalls in aggregate food production/supplies
• Multiple year droughts in Australia caused major shortfalls in wheat production, helping to drive the price of wheat up
  
• In Nigeria and Ghana, the decline of coarse grain production led to tight food supplies, affecting rising food prices in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo
• China experienced the harshest ice rains, snow and freezing weather since 1951, severely damaging millions of hectares of vegetable and oil crops. About 90 million people were reportedly affected since January 2008
• Structural adjustment programs and other development programs for poorer nations have required a shift from food growing to cash cropping, a longer-term cause of the current global food price crisis

Food Riots – Food shortages undermine gains of middle classes and threaten political and social stability worldwide:

• 2 were killed in Somalia during recent food riots
• In Haiti, 4 people were killed in protests over a 50% rise in the cost of food staples in the past year
• In February 2008, the UN World Food Program reported seeing “the emergence of a 'new era of hunger' in developing countries where even middle-class urban people are being 'priced out of the food market' because of rising food prices.”
• World Bank President Robert Zoellick has estimated that 33 countries could face social unrest because of higher food and energy prices

How are countries addressing this issue?:

• In Cairo, Egypt, the military has been put to work baking bread for the poor
• Pakistan has reintroduced ration cards for the first time in two decades
• Russia has frozen prices of bread, milk, eggs and cooking oil
• Indonesia revised its 2008 budget and has increased food subsidies by $280 million following protests
• In the Philippines, the National Bureau of Investigation has been called in to raid traders suspected of hoarding rice to push up the prices
• China, India, Egypt, Vietnam and Cambodia have imposed export controls on key agricultural commodities like rice (China) and powdered milk (India)
• Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, established a global food crisis task force that will begin meeting on May 12, 2008. He said he is moving “at full speed” to address the world food crisis. The UN is also looking at getting fertilizer and seeds to small farmers around the world
• Bush requested an additional $775 million for international food aid from the U.S. Congress

REPORTS:

“The Food Price Crisis: A Wake Up Call for Food Sovereignty” (Publication of the Oakland Institute)

“Dangerous Liaisons: A Battle Plan from the UN and the International Financial Institutions to Fight Global Hunger”

ARTICLES:

Global food crisis 'silent tsunami' threatening over 100 million people, warns UN (UN News Centre, 4/22/08)

UN joins fight against world food crisis – Ban (by Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, 5/5/08)

Food Fights (by Laura Carlsen, Center for International Policy's Americas Program, 4/4/08)

Bush remarks on food crisis spark anger in India (By Alistair Scrutton, Reuters/Guardian, 5/5/08)

Somalis riot over food prices (CNN, 5/5/08)

Source: Unrest prompts U.S. military probe of food crisis (by Barbara Starr, Pentagon Correspondent, CNN, 5/5/08)

Price Shock in Global Food (Christian Science Monitor, 4/7/08)

Solving Asia's Food Crisis (by Haruhiko Kuroda, Opinion, Wall Street Journal, 5/5/08)

The World's Growing Food-Price Crisis (by Vivienne Walt, Time Magazine, 2/27/08)

ORGANIZATIONS:

The United Nations World Food Programme

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Food First Institute for Food and Development Policy

The Oakland Institute

Organic Consumers Association

Global Policy Forum

Consumer's Union - Food

Center for Food Safety

Action Contre la Faim