Gaza, Israel & the United States: an update

The paper below was written by Carol Turner for CND’s International Advisory Group on 26 March, and circulated to CND’s Spring Council, April 2024.

On 25 March the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2728 (2024) by 14 votes for, including the UK, and 1 abstention by the United States. The UNSC resolution demands ‘an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan’ and ‘the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale, in line with international humanitarian law’. 

Israel immediately announced it would not comply with the resolution, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a scheduled trip to the US by his senior advisers. The Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, tweeted: ‘We will destroy Hamas and continue to fight until the last of the hostages returns home.’ 

The current strain in relations between Israel and the US, which have led to the first successful ceasefire resolution in six months, emerged into the open in December when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans for his military operation in Rafah. The US insists this is ‘a major mistake’. But diplomatic efforts to change Netanyahu’s direction have so far failed to achieve results. 

Rafah: a shift in US-Israel relations

Rafah not only marks a new and brutal phase in Israel’s war on Gaza, it also represents a significant shift in US relations with the Netanyahu government. It does not, however, signal a fundamental break in the United States relations with Israel. Nor is it the first sign of tensions between Israel and the US over Gaza.

An intelligence report, the Annual Threat Assessment 2024 of the US Intelligence Community – 

released on 5 February this year but prepared over months before recent tensions emerged – predicts that Israel will struggle to achieve its goal of destroying Hamas. The report expresses concern that Netanyahu’s right wing coalition ‘may be in jeopardy’, and poses the possibility of ‘a different, more moderate government’ in Israel.

The following exchanges (mostly taken from New York Times reports) trace the path to the United States abstention on UNSC resolution 2728:

9 March: President Joe Biden said Netanyahu was ‘hurting Israel more than helping Israel’. 

10 March: in an interview with Politico US, Netanyahu dismissed Biden’s comment saying the ‘overwhelming majority’ of Israelis agree with his, Natanyahu’s policies.

14 March: Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, majority Senate leader and described as the most senior Jewish elected official in the US called for elections to replace Netanyahu. He said Netanyahu’s ‘political survival [was] taking precedence over the best interests of Israel’.

15 March: Biden confirmed the White House had been given notice of Schumer’s speech: ‘He made a good speech, and I think he expressed serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans.’

Israeli politicians were divided. Yair Lapid, leader of Israel’s opposition since January 2023 and founder of Yesh Atid, described as a centrist, liberal Zionist party, welcomed Schumer’s comments. He said ‘Netanyahu is causing heavy damage to the national effort to win the war and preserve Israel’s security. 

War cabinet member Benny Ganz tweeted that Schumer ‘erred in his remark’ saying ‘external intervention is not correct and not welcome’. 

US pressure on Netanyahu

Should Biden be unable to persuade Netanyahu to change course, the intelligence report together with the political comments and exchanges cited above suggest that the US is willing to publicly encourage a change of government in Israel. This is further confirmed elsewhere.

Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, President of the Middle East Policy Council and a former US Ambassador to Malta told BBC Newsnight, Schumer was known as a staunch ally of Israel and the point of his speech was ‘for it to be noticed by the Israeli people’. Ehud Olmert, speaking on the same programme said ‘every minute that [Natanyahu] is prime minister he is a danger to Israel’ and pointed out ‘a majority of Israelis don’t trust the prime minister’. Olmert is a former Israeli prime minister 2006-09 and Mayor of Jerusalem 1993-2003. 

Sadly, this does not reflect a change of heart in relation to Gaza so much as concern that the impact of Netanyahu’s military action in Gaza is significantly undermining international support for Israel and, therefore, acting as a hinderance to US influence in the Middle East. 

In an interview with MSNBC, Biden elaborated on his comments that Netanyahu was hurting more than helping Israel. He had, he said, spoken to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and they are ‘all fully willing to recognise Israel and begin to rebuild the region’.

It is not yet clear that the events of the past week will lead either to a change of policy on humanitarian aid to Gaza and the collective punishment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, or to a change of government in Israel. 

Despite Netanyahu’s personal unpopularity in Israel and the differences that exist in the Knesset, all the political parties share an over-arching goal – that of protecting the existence of the state of Israel. So far this has meant the Knesset is unwilling to distance itself from Netanyahu’s military strategy, even though some politicians are critical of the details. This is the fundamental roadblock Biden is facing. 

Postscript: the Gaza solidarity campaign

UNSC resolutions are legally binding. Israel’s refusal to adhere to UNSC 2728 violates the UN charter and international law and can lead to further action. In this case, in theory at least, it could lead to a block on arms exports to Israel. This is extremely unlikely, and is already being downplayed by commentators close to the Biden administration.

It does suggest though that CND should consider joining forces with Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Campaign Against Arms Trade, and others campaigning to Stop Arming Israel. This aspect of support for Gaza comes to the fore in the aftermath of the UNSC resolution. By helping take forward support for Gaza in this way, CND will have an additional advantage – that of highlighting Israel as a nuclear armed state and promoting our long-held call for a nuclear weapons free Middle East. 

1 The full text of UNSC Resolution 2728, of 25 March 25, can be found at https://www.jns.org/full-text-un-security-council-resolution-2728/

2 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community, 5 February 2024, at https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2024-Unclassified-Report.pdf 

3 BBC Newsnight, 19 March 2024, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001xj50/newsnight-19032024?seriesId=unsliced&page=1

Carol Turner is Chair of London Region CND and a CND Vice Chair. She is a directly elected member of CND’s National Council and part of the International Advisory Group.

Carol is a long-time peace campaigner, a member of Stop the War Coalition’s National Officer Group, and author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s Continuing Controversy.

No Wars, No Nukes - Carol Turner suggests a new year resolution for us all

Only two weeks in, and 2024 is already looking bleak for anti-war and peace campaigners. Over 23,000 dead in Gaza, no resolution to the Ukraine war on the horizon, fighting in Sudan’s civil war continues, as does the long drawn-out conflict in Niger Delta, no let-up in the Saudi-led war in Yemen – and now the threat of action against Houthi solidarity attacks on commercial shipping as a US aircraft carrier steams towards the Red Sea…

 There are so many military engagements across the globe that most of them don’t even merit a mention in the western media. That’s not the case for campaigners with an internationalist perspective on peace and justice, with a big job ahead this year.

 London CND’s annual conference, No Wars No Nukes could prove a much needed dose of inspiration and determination, as well as practical inputs on what’s to be done, preparing us all for the solidarity struggles that lie ahead. As the name implies, the two keynote speakers and both panels are focussed on nuclear dangers facing Britain and the world, and on solidarity with the Occupied Territories as the prospect of regional escalation draws closer.

Prospects for the Occupied Territories

The humanitarian situation in Gaza is beyond bad. Restricted aid access means the risk of famine grows daily. At least one in four Gazan households face ‘catastrophic hunger’ according to the UN-backed IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification). The destruction and damage to essential water, sanitation and health systems brings disease spreading among a weakened population. Prolonged diarrhoea, for example, puts children in particular at risk from death through malnutrition.

 There are no signs yet of any shift to a ‘less intense’ warfare strategy that Israel claims to be adopting. On the contrary, signs are growing that the conflict could spread across the region. Israel looks determined to pull Hezbollah into all-out confrontation. Its successful strikes on Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon and Iraq has resulted in a retaliatory drone attack on northern Israel with tens of thousands of Israelis being evacuated from the border.

 London CND’s keynote speech by Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot sets the scene for a panel discussion, chaired by Murad Qureshi, with Raghad Altikriti, Muslim Association of Britain President, one of the six groups organising the mass mobilisations in Britain. She’s joined by Jenny Manson, a founder member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians and co-chair of Jewish Voice for Labour, and Sami Ramadani, Iraqi Democrats Against War and an anti-war voice in Britain for three decades.

Nuclear war clouds gathering

Bell Ribero-Addy MP, an outspoken Labour voice for Gaza and a Vice Chair of Parliamentary CND, kicks the conference off with a view from Westminster, followed by a panel on Nuclear War Clouds Gathering, with well-known climate change activist Samantha Mason, reflecting on the relationship between war and climate, and Cllr Emma Dent-Coad and myself reviewing the nuclear threats of 2024 and the role the anti-war movement can play in combatting them.

Most immediate and important to peace activists in Britain, is the return of US nukes to Lakenheath, part of NATO’s European nuclear forces; while the renewal this year of the decennial UK-US Mutual Defence Agreement is a good time to remind ourselves that nuclear weapons are at the centre of the so-called special relationship.

 NATO and Russia

The potential of the Ukraine war to stimulate a nuclear exchange between NATO and Russia is at the forefront of threats that confront us in 2024. Israel too is a  nuclear armed state, and the far right have already raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons in the Gaza conflict.

 Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu suggested in a radio interview reported in the Times of Israel that the nuclear option ‘was one way’ of dealing with Gaza. As unrealistic as it sounds to consider dropping a nuclear bomb on your own doorstep, Israel does have tactical nuclear weapons. Given IDF belligerence on Gaza, who’s to say a section of the Israeli leadership won’t consider threatening their use, or even using them, should Iran become an issue. What seemed like a hollow threat from a few Israeli government outliers last autumn, could be a step closer as the consequences spread across the Middle East and North Africa.

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London CND’s annual conference takes place online Sunday 14 January, 12 noon to 2.30pm. Register in advance at http://tinyurl.com/NoWarsNoNukes

This blog first appeared in Labour Outlook 

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Carol Turner is co-chair of London Region CND and a CND Vice Chair. She is a directly elected member of CND’s National Council and part of the International Advisory Group.

Carol is a long-time peace campaigner, a member of Stop the War Coalition’s National Officer Group, and author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s Continuing Controversy.

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This year at Tavistock Square

A warm summer day and the presence of friends such as Jeremy Corbyn, Emma Dent-Coad, and Roger McKenzie attracted a good attendance at London CND’s Hiroshima Commemoration in Tavistock Square this year, which included a performance by Michael Mears & Riko Nakazono of an extract from Michael’s play The Mistake, on tour across England and Wales during September & October.

As always the Mayor of Camden, Cllr Nazma Rahman, launched the 2023 commemoration on Sunday 6 August, and laid a wreath at the Hiroshima Cherry Tree in memory of all those who died as a result of the United States bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She was followed by traditional chanting from Reverend Nagase from the London Peace Pagoda, which celebrated its 38th anniversary in Battersea Park this year.

London Co-Chair Hannah Kemp-Welch compered the event and spoke on behalf of London CND at the Nagasaki Commemoration a few days later. Other contributors to this year’s event included Shigeo Kobayashi representing Japanese Against Nuclear and London CND’s other Co-Chair, Carol Turner.

Hugh Goodacre contributed some of the peace movement’s favourites songs accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, and Raised Voices choir gave a rousing rendition of H-Bombs Thunder to close the proceedings.

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Carol Turner is co-chair of London Region CND. She is a directly elected member of CND’s National Council and part of the International Advisory Group.

Carol is a long-time peace campaigner, a member of Stop the War Coalition’s National Officer Group, and author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s Continuing Controversy.

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Ukraine: Voices for peace are raised across Europe

On the eve of Saturday’s Peace Talks Now demonstration in London, some readers may have watched the Ukraine war anniversary addition of the BBC’s Newsnight. One year on, a live audience of Ukrainian refugees gave their views and expressed their feelings about the war raging in their country. Who could fail but be moved by their concerns for the fate of their families and friends, the descriptions of what happened to their towns and neighbourhoods, and their hopes and fears for the future?

What struck me most of all, sending a chill down my spine, were the unreal expectations they expressed about the war’s likely end game. One woman’s desire for the war to continue until Putin was crushed and the Crimea and Donbass brought within Ukraine’s borders caused even Mark Urban to raise an eyebrow. The BBC’s Diplomatic Editor, no friend of Russia, felt obliged to highlight ‘the limits of western will’. Recently, he said, ‘it is explicit from the US, Germany, and France that they do not support the reconquest of Crimea.’

The responsibility for such expectations should be laid squarely at the door of the US and UK governments and their media allies whose war fever has encouraged Ukrainians to believe that outright victory and total defeat of Russia is not just possible but likely.

“Calls for escalation point the way to war in Europe and beyond”

In the run up to the 12-month anniversary, President Biden and Prime Minister Sunak have called loud and often for escalating the war in Ukraine. Most noticeably though, they have failed to match their war mongering words with concrete commitments to supply the tanks and aircraft President Zelenskiy is  seeking. Biden and Sunak recognise as we do that escalation is the road to war in Europe and beyond, with the possibility of nuclear war.

 The actual commitment Biden has made amounts to speeding up the provision of ammunition and imposing further sanctions. Sunak has pledged merely to ‘give serious consideration’ to Zelenskiy’s request for fighter aircraft. Even if aircraft were forthcoming, Sunak points out, it would take months, even years, before they were delivered and the Ukraine military trained to use them.

Behind the beat of western war drums a picture of US strategy begins to emerge – that of embroiling Russia in a long and protracted war which drains the country’s military, economic, and political resources; hoping a weakened Putin will be thrown to the wolves by the Russian people to be replaced by a more malleable leader. Needless to say, such a strategy takes little if any account of the war’s impact on the Ukrainian people. Nor does it acknowledge the possibility that, in extremis, nuclear. weapons might be used.

“Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war”

— John F. Kennedy

Compare the rhetoric of Biden and Sunak, with a speech by President John F Kennedy in 1963, a year on from the Bay of Pigs and just weeks before his assassination. ‘Above all,’ Kennedy said, ‘nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy—or of a collective death-wish for the world.’

Disregard for the fate of the peoples and countries in whose name the US and its allies claim to act can be seen in a long line of recent wars – in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, in Afghanistan in 2001, in Iraq in 1991 as well as 2003, in Syria, and in Libya. All of them have left a trail of death and destruction from which each still suffers. This is the real lesson of 21st century wars.

The outcome of a prolonged war in Ukraine is not self-determination, as a few voices in the UK peace movement misguidedly imagine when they support Biden and Sunak’s calls to step up the war. The only way forward is peace talks.

“Backing the calls to step up the war, however unintentional, provide a progressive gloss for warmongering and profiteering”

In backing escalation, however unintentional, these tragically mistaken voices provide a progressive gloss for warmongering and profiteering. The same voices would never be raised in support of the Tories austerity agenda. Why would anyone imagine Johnson, Truss and Sunak have changed their spots when it comes to Ukraine?

On Saturday 25 February 2023, led by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Stop the War Coalition, the peace movement took to the streets of London to mark the first anniversary, demanding End War in Ukraine! Peace Talks Now! The same demands to stop the war and build the peace are ringing out across Europe – in Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Portugal, Austria, France, Brussels, Poland, the Netherland, and beyond.

CND is part of a growing movement across Europe. Every single one of us who marched on Saturday can be proud that our voices were raised for sanity, for the future of Ukraine, and for the future of the human race. When history is written, and the miasma of rhetoric and lies forgotten, our stand will be a small footnote on history’s pages. That is something we should all be justly proud of.

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Carol Turner is co-chair of London Region CND. She is a directly elected member of CND’s National Council and part of the International Advisory Group.

Carol is a long-time peace campaigner, a member of Stop the War Coalition’s National Officer Group, and author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s Continuing Controversy.

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War in Ukraine, Cold War with China - The big challenges 2023 holds

As we cross the threshold of a new year, two imponderables demand our attention: how will the new cold war between the US and China shape up in 2003, and what course is war in Ukraine likely to take? Both will come under scrutiny this Saturday at London CND’s online conference.

The Ukraine propaganda bubble, a short military campaign leading to a rout of the Russian invasion, burst months ago. No one doubts the Ukraine war is an extended and devastating struggle. With the potential to spread beyond Ukraine’s borders, it raises the spectre of nuclear engagement.

Nato and the EU are discussing providing another round of heavy weaponry to Ukraine. Modern tanks are top of President Zelensky’s military must-have list, though Germany for one is reportedly reluctant to sanction the further escalation of conflict this would presage. Germany, France, Poland, and others including Britain, have already provided some tanks to Ukraine, but well below the 500 or so Zelensky is calling for.

Recent news that  Britain is considering providing up to 10 Challenger II tanks to the Ukrainian army is a step in exactly the wrong direction. More military hardware will encourage Ukraine forces to stay dug in for a long war which they cannot win without Nato backing or US support. If the west escalates the conflict and Russia finds itself under even greater pressure in Ukraine, who’s to say President Putin won’t consider using nuclear weapons?

Neither is Russia the only party likely to be considering the use of nukes. The notion of a nuclear war in Europe isn’t something circulating among crazed peacenik circles. Since early summer 2022, this danger of has been publicly acknowledged by a growing number of western military sources.

On 9 January this year, the Federation of American Scientists nuclear specialist Hans Kristensen revealed that B61-12s nuclear bombs have been cleared for transport to bases in Europe. They are the United States newest guided nuclear bomb, the same type used on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, though considerably more powerful of course.

Their locations in Europe include RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk which last year became the sixth nuclear base in Europe funded by the US. Guided nuclear bombs were stored at Lakenheath until 2008. The silo facilities at are still intact there.

The first of a new-generation US fighter bomber aircraft, the F-35A which is equipped to carry them, arrived at Lakenheath in December 2021. Crew training began last year, as more of these aircraft began arriving.

Last October, Politico news service reported that the US had brought forward the deployment of the B61-12s from spring 2023 to December 2022. The Pentagon dismissed the report at the time, saying ‘There is no speeding up because of any Ukraine crisis’. In his recent report, Kristensen point out ‘it is unknown if B61-12 shipments to Europe have begun’.

Meanwhile, the strategic background against this threat of escalation between Nato and Russia over Ukraine takes place, is another escalation of tensions – that between the US and China. Under Biden, US rhetoric about the supposed threat to Taiwan posed by China, has been a growing factor in acclimatising western public opinion to the idea that we are heading into a new cold war.

The Guardian recently reported, for example, the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) had wargamed a variety of military confrontation scenarios. Unsurprisingly all of them involved heavy losses on both sides. Of more concern, their report highlighted the need for both Taiwan and the US to build up ‘deterrence forces’.

The immediate material corollary of a propaganda campaign around Taiwan is a real growth of US military forces in the region, including drawing Japan closer via bilateral security arrangements with the US. This includes the use of the Japanese island of Guam, which is a strategic US naval base. In 2009, it was combined with a US air force base, and would be an important facility in any nuclear confrontation.

Britain is already closely tied into the United States strategic pivot to Asia. The UK is part of the Aukus partnership, with the US and Australia, created in 2021 which provides for nuclear powered submarines to patrol the waters surrounding China’s coastline. Only days ago, Rishi Sunak welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to London for the signing of a bilateral defence agreement which allows UK forces to be deployed to Japan. Downing Street has described it as ‘the most significant defence agreement between the two countries in more than a century’.

Each of these developments, and other related realignments in security relations, merit fuller consideration. We are heading into a truly dangerous period, and need to begin mapping out a military as well as political picture of how international relations are shaping up.

As with Ukraine, so with China. The single most important question about both these conflicts is, undoubtedly, whether they will remain non-nuclear.

Such major issues as these raise bigger questions than London CND’s 2023 annual conference alone can answer. With a terrific line-up of speakers though, we hope interest in New Cold War Challenges will extend well beyond the boundaries of Greater London. Register in advance for your free ticket and join us on Saturday.

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This article originally appeared on Labour Outlook website.

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Carol Turner is co-chair of London Region CND. She is a directly elected member of CND’s National Council and part of the International Advisory Group.

Carol is a long-time peace campaigner, a member of Stop the War Coalition’s National Officer Group, and author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s Continuing Controversy.

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We need your help!

Dear London CND supporter

I’m writing to ask for your financial support in the busy year ahead. London CND faces big challenges – the return of US nuclear weapons to Lakenheath, Britain’s role in the new cold war, which is the subject of our upcoming annual conference, and deescalating the drift towards nuclear war posed by the Ukraine crisis. We also have some important opportunities – expanding support in Britain for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and last but by no means least, continuing to press our government to abandon Trident.

Our activities in 2021 were marked by strong actions and creative ways of attracting new audiences to our message. There’s a short account of this below. We plan to keep up the pace this year too.

Activities began with a London CND Annual Conference, exploring Britain’s international role in the context of the AUKUS, with guests from America and Australia adding their perspective on the new tripartite treaty. An AGM followed, which agreed to expand our committee meetings to include reps from all London CND groups. As #KillTheBill protests kicked off, we hosted an explanatory session with one of London CND’s Vice-Presidents Baroness Jenny Jones, who was instrumental in the House of Lords voting down some of the worst elements of the bill.

With the covid ban lifted, we demonstrated side by side with sister struggles, such as Palestinian solidarity, and highlighted the discrepancy between the urgent need to prioritise welfare spending as opposed to the nuclear spending spree heralded by the Integrated Review and the military spending hike the Ukraine War represented. As the cost of living crisis grew, London CND joined protests organised by the People’s Assembly and the TUC, under the banner of Nurses Not Nukes and Wages Not Weapons.

In line with our priorities, we deepened our social media presence, producing explanatory videos such as NATO Debunked, a format we re-employed when the return of US nukes to Britain was announced. As we organised transport to RAF Lakenheath, we recorded a last video from Bruce Kent, just before his sad death, encouraging everyone to join the protest.

We held our traditional Hiroshima Day commemoration in Tavistock Square and supported the London Peace Pagoda’s Nagasaki Day ceremony. Thanks to London Coordinator Julie’s creative campaigning, we also developed a partnership with the Victoria and Albert Museum, with an exclusive tour of the museum’s archive of anti-nuclear posters with artist Peter Kennard. A second event brought a cultural angle on the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Bombs and Monsters, exploring the links between Japanese mythology and the nuclear bomb.

In September, we led national CND’s creation of a TikTok account, launching with a comedy video confronting the Labour Party’s pro-nuclear stance and another made for the Just Stop Oil month of action, highlighting the links with militarism. In November, London CND joined forces with Yorkshire CND and Drone Wars UK, to organise an in-person Future War: the shape of things to come conference, aimed at scientist and science students. After an xmas break we’ll kick off activities again with an annual conference on New Cold War Challenges on Saturday 14th January, an AGM, and a New Year get together over supper in Waterloo on Friday 27th January.

London CND is self-financing, so I hardly need say we’re relying on your support to see us through 2023. We recognise it’s going to be a difficult year for everyone, please donate if you can, or better still make a regular financial commitment, by completing the form. If you make a bank transfer, please reference it ‘Appeal’; if you’re sending a cheque or setting up a standing order, please return it to Phil Sedler, London CND Treasurer, 6 Headlam Street, E1 5RT.

With warm wishes,

Carol Turner

London CND Co-Chair

One miscalculation away from nuclear war?

The last couple of months have seen a growing number of warnings that nuclear war could be closer than we think – not just from CND, but from international figures, security specialists, and military personnel.

Speaking at the opening of the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s 10th review conference in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres counselled that we are ‘one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation’. The possibility of ‘a nuclear attack or accident hasn’t been this high for decades.’ he said.

It is a sad irony that Guterres was speaking less than a week before London CND commemorated the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in which an estimated 340,000 lost their lives and hundreds of thousands more suffered the terrible aftereffects of radiation poisoning. Indeed, a third generation of Hibakusha, the atom bomb survivors, still suffer the health consequences to this very day.

The UN Secretary-General is not alone in expressing concern that nuclear war is moving closer. A week before, as tensions mounted over Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the UK’s national security adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove warned another New York audience that a ‘breakdown of communication’ with China and Russia had increased the chance of ‘an accidental escalation into a strategic war’.

During the cold war, the US and USSR benefited from a series of negotiations and dialogues that improved their understanding of each other’s doctrine and capabilities. ‘This gave us both a higher level of confidence that we would not miscalculate our way into nuclear war,’ Lovegrove said. ‘Today, we do not have the same foundations with others who may threaten us in the future…’

In mid-August, Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, a former commander of UK and NATO Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Forces wrote in the Daily Telegraph that the ‘threat of a nuclear attack or accident has rarely been higher.’ Despite assertions by Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu that Russia has ‘no need’ to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, De Bretton-Gordon queried whether it was so unlikely ‘that Putin would make use of a nuclear weapon, even a small one, to achieve his goals’.

These and other such warnings reinforce CND’s message that the war in Ukraine is closer to the shores of Britain than we might like to think.

The war in Ukraine is a direct result of the inability of OSCE negotiators to broker an agreement which satisfied the security interests of both Russia and Ukraine and ended the conflict over the Donbas region – the Minsk Agreement negotiations which began in 2014. On 21 February this year, Russia officially recognised the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics, and President Putin declared the Minsk Agreements ‘no longer existed’. Three days later, on 24 February 2022 Russian troops entered Ukraine.

CND continues to call for the withdrawal of Russian troops and for the re-opening of negotiations. The Ukrainian peace movement has condemned ‘all military actions on the sides of Russia and Ukraine in the context of current conflict. We call the leadership of both states and military forces to step back and sit at the negotiation table.’ Peace activists in Russia have also spoken out.

Behind the immediate conflict over Donbas, tensions between Russia and the United States have been building for two decades. During this time Nato has expanded its area of operation to the borders of Russia, accepting the majority of Russia’s neighbours into full membership or bilateral partnership.

Recognising this, CND continues to argue that the entry of Russian forces into Ukraine makes diplomacy more urgent, not less. The Ukraine war poses the possibility, accidental or deliberate, of a nuclear engagement – a possibility now acknowledged to be closer than almost ever before.

The US has around 150 nuclear weapons stationed in Europe. British and French nuclear arsenals are committed to Nato should conflict break out. Meaningful negotiations are the only road to a lasting peace in Ukraine and a secure future for us all.

Against this background, the danger that siting US nuclear weapons in Britain brings must not be ignored. As Antonio Guterres said in his address to the NPT, and as Kate Hudson rightly highlights on behalf of CND: ‘Luck is not a strategy. Nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict’.

US intelligence-gathering infrastructure is already located. The rapid growth of the US Spy Base, Menwith Hill, during the past two decades and its widening role in new forms of intelligence-led warfare is cause for concern. As part of CND conference 2022, Yorkshire CND is hosting a day of workshops, with a trip to RAF Menwith Hill on Sunday 16 October. We hope many of you will be able to join us.

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More about Menwith Hill here.

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Carol Turner is co-chair of London Region CND and a Vice Chair of CND UK. She is a member of Stop the War Coalition’s National Officer Group.

Carol is a long-time peace campaigner, a former foreign policy advisor to British parliamentarians, and author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s Continuing Controversy.

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Nato and the Ukraine conflict

The outcome of the Ukraine conflict is a potential game changer for international politics. It also brings the terrible prospect of nuclear war closer than it has been for many decades.

CND perspective

CND recognises how much the people of Ukraine are suffering. We also recognise Ukraine carries a much wider potential – for an existential conflict between two nuclear powers, Russia and the United States. These two have almost 12,000 nuclear weapons between them, some of which are 3,000 – that’s right three thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

The fireball created by the US atom bomb destroyed 13 square kilometres of the city, and left up to 180,000 dead. Three days later, the bombing of Nagasaki added another 50,000 to 100,000 to the death toll.

Those who survived the initial detonation and the firestorms suffered radiation poisoning. And long after the bombings, survivors – the Hibakusha – are still more likely to experience leukaemia and malignant tumours, not to mention post-traumatic stress disorders. A third generation of Hibakusha – the grandchildren of the original survivors are suffer right now, with increased susceptibility to cancers and the like.

Despite what we know about nuclear war, we’re hearing one light-minded comment after another from politicians and media pundits. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, offered one of the most staggering. London he said, is – and I quote – ‘well prepared for nuclear war.’

CND supports a ceasefire and is calling for:

• a de-escalation of the Ukraine conflict

• a withdrawal of Russia troops

• an end to Nato expansion, and

• a return to the negotiating table to make the Minsk agreements work.

This is the path we want the British government to pursue – not the irresponsible, macho chest-beating war propaganda that’s streaming out of our TVs, radios and newspapers.

And it’s CND and Stop the War’s job to do everything we can to get that across.

I believe that tensions between Nato and Russia, which have been building for three decades are the spark that ignited the present conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

NATO what it is and what it’s not

False claims

Nato would have us believe it’s a defensive alliance. It’s not.

• It does not guarantee democracy and security – as the people of Afghanistan and the Middle East would be the first to testify.

• Nor has Nato ushered in an era of peace in Europe. Contrary to assertions by the BBC that Ukraine is the first war in Europe since 1945, Nato’s aerial bombardment of Serbia in 1999 was the first military attack on a sovereign European country since the end of WWII. It took place without UN approval and is widely regarded as illegal under international law.

Russia on the other hand claims it’s encircled by Nato and threatened by US nuclear weapons stationed nearby its borders. Judge for yourselves:

• The North Atlantic Alliance is a nuclear-armed alliance committed to using nuclear weapons pre-emptively in a military conflict whether or not its adversaries possess nuclear weapons. Since the 1950s, Nato has rejected successive calls to adopt a nuclear no-first use policy.

• Declassified US documents testify to the fact that the use of nuclear weapons was actively considered during Nato’s first military engagement, the Korean war of 1950-53.

• Three Nato members are nuclear weapons states – Britain, France and the US. Five EU members – Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Turkey – host US nuclear weapons on their territories, pledged to deploy them if Nato so decides.

• The US and Nato allies do not disclose exact figures for their European-deployed nuclear stockpiles. Last year the Centre for Arms Control and Non Proliferation estimated there are 100 US-owned nuclear weapons stored in those five Nato member. This is the organisation which produces Nukes of Hazard blogs and podcasts if you’re familiar with that.

• Seven more European Nato members provide conventional for US / Nato nuclear operations – including Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania in Eastern Europe, as well as Denmark, Greece, Norway.

NATO membership today

• The Warsaw Pact dissolved in July 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By contrast Nato extended its area of operations. In the ensuing three decades, it has expanded its mission statement and enlarged its membership.

• There are currently 30 Nato member states. Additionally, Nato works with 40 non- member partner states across the globe on a wide range of political and security- related issues.

Nato enlargement is best described visually rather than in words. Here’s a map showing European Nato members in relation to Russia. Since 2016, when the map was produced, Montenegro and North Macedonia have joined Nato.

And a chart of which countries joined when:

As you can see from the map of countries that have joined Nato since collapse of the USSR. There’s little room to doubt that Nato is creeping closer and closer to Russia’s borders.

• Full Nato members in East Europe include Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Albania, and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania which border Russia.

• Nato partners with borders on Russia include Finland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Russia’s near abroad – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – are also Nato partners.

Like every other sovereign state, Russia has a legitimate right to have its security concerns addressed. This is what the Minsk Agreements are about.

Conclusion

Ukraine is the flash point for tensions between Russia and Nato. It must not be allowed to become the pretext for a military clash between two nuclear armed adversaries.

The pressures that we in the UK peace and anti-war movements can put on our government to halt the drift to war couldn’t be more important.

We might be a minority of public opinion at present. But we are a significant minority and we are right. After two decades of war in Afghanistan and the Middle East, public opinion has learned to be distrustful of government rhetoric and assertions.

We want to make sure that remains the case when it comes to Ukraine. Opinion on Ukraine will shift as the conflict develops and the human and economic cost not only to the people of Ukraine but to all of us in Europe becomes clear.

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Carol Turner is co-chair of London Region CND and a Vice Chair of CND UK. She is a member of Stop the War Coalition’s National Officer Group.

Carol is a long-time peace campaigner, a former foreign policy advisor to British parliamentarians, and author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s Continuing Controversy.