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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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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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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London CND joins the Peace in Ukraine Coalition

London Region CND's name has joined the Peace in Ukraine Coalition and supports the global day of action on Sunday 6th March under the slogans:

Stop the War in Ukraine.

Russian Troops Out.

No to NATO expansion.

As well as CND, the coalition includes: No to NATO Coalition, Pax Christi USA, CODEPINK, Peace Action USA, Stop the War Coalition, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans For Peace, and many more national, regional, and local organisations. You can see the list here and take a look at the Coalition's website.

Protest NATO: 70 years too many

This April, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) celebrates its 70th birthday.

As CND General Secretary Kate Hudson writes, ‘in the 30 years since the Cold War and the removal of its political and military rival, the Soviet Union, NATO has massively expanded territorially, changed its mission statement from a defensive to an aggressive posture and embarked on a series of wars, of which their intervention in Afghanistan is getting on for two decades long. ‘

CND has long opposed NATO, and on the 2nd April will protest to challenge this aggressive alliance which makes all of us less safe. Linking with anti-NATO protests internationally, CND will be at NATO’s Allied Maritime Command in Northwood.

Join us on the 2nd April to say No to Nato and No to Trump!

"This is a first strike weapon": report from our March public meeting

On Tuesday evening 60 London CND members crowded into a meeting room at SOAS for a talk on the explosive theme ‘are we heading for nuclear war?’

Ted Seay addressing the meeting on Tuesday

We had two excellent speakers. The first was Ted Seay, tactical nuclear weapons expert and former arms control advisor with the US Mission to NATO.

Ted talked us through the recent US Nuclear Posture Review, which you can read about on our website here. The key problem with the review, he explained, is the move away from reducing nuclear stockpiles towards developing smaller nuclear weapons - or even fitting non-nuclear warheads onto Trident missiles. As he pointed out, this is not the greatest idea in a world of heightened global tensions, where the slightest provocation - let alone the firing of a Trident missile! - risks provoking nuclear war.

Ted also spoke about NATO, giving us the benefit of his many years’ experience working with the organisation. All NATO states are signed up to eradicate nuclear weapons - “but don’t hold your breath!” Under the Obama administration, there was an opportunity for the US to withdraw its nuclear weapons from European soil - a key first step towards denuclearisation. But that chance was missed and it’s unlikely to happen under Trump. Not only this but the development of new nuclear weapons like the B61-12 (more on that later!) explicitly violates the commitment not to develop new nuclear capabilities.

As Ted pointed out, NATO’s raison d’etre - the USSR - was dissolved in 1991. The US has a responsibility to lead the way in de-nuclearising the alliance. So far it’s failing miserably.

Our second speaker was Professor Dave Webb, CND chair. He took us in more detail through the new nuclear weapons currently being developed - including the B61-12. The B61-12 is designed to be more ‘precise’ than the current generation of nuclear missiles, increasing accuracy to within 10 metres - which, as our speakers pointed out, is patently absurd when you’re talking about a weapon with such far-reaching and devastating effects as a nuclear bomb. These developments are already being seen as dangerous and provocative both inside and outside the US.

Professor Dave Webb talking us through the new "super-fuze" 

Professor Webb left us with a chilling final question. “If these weapons are for deterrence, why do they need to be precise? This is a first strike weapon.”

You can read our live Twitter updates from the meeting here.