Negotiating an agreement with North Korea to restrain its nuclear development program is important. Even so, the problem posed by nuclear weapons goes considerably deeper than an upgraded nuclear capability by North Korea. It lies in the fact that the danger of nuclear annihilation will persist as long as any nations possess nuclear weapons.
Published Articles by Lawrence Wittner
Recent elections and opinion polls show that most people around the world -- including most people in the United States -- are not zealous nationalists. In fact, they display a remarkable level of support for moving beyond the nation-state to world citizenship.
What kind of civilization have we developed when two mentally unstable national leaders, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, in an escalating confrontation with each other, threaten one another -- and the world -- with nuclear war? This kind of reckless, irrational behavior is reminiscent of the game of "Chicken," which achieved notoriety in the 1950s.
Should the average CEO receive 347 times the pay of the average worker? That's the situation today in the United States, where the income gap has grown rapidly during recent decades.
For as long as they have existed, nations have clung to the illusion that their military strength guarantees their security. In line with this illusion, the nine nations that have developed nuclear weapons have no plans to part with them. But most other nations take a quite different view of nuclear weapons and, under UN auspices, are now crafting a treaty, scheduled to be voted on this July, to ban the bomb.
In recent years, the State University of New York (SUNY) has embarked on two "partnerships" with private, profit-making businesses: Start-Up NY and SUNY Polytechnic Institute. According to government officials, these ventures would provide a dramatic boost to the state's economy and to higher education. But the outcome of these projects raises serious questions about the costs, benefits, and intellectual integrity of university-corporate collaboration.
In recent weeks, the people of the world have been treated to yet another display of the kind of nuclear insanity that has broken out periodically ever since 1945 and the dawn of the nuclear era. And what has been the response of the public to government officials in the United States and North Korea threatening nuclear war? It has been remarkably subdued. Why?
Political parties on the far right are today enjoying a surge of support and access to government power that they have not experienced since their heyday in the 1930s. A global alliance among them is now emerging, headed by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Scientific and technological change has been outstripping the ability of social institutions to cope with it, often -- as in the case of climate change and the nuclear arms race -- resulting in extremely perilous situations. The real question is whether people and nations can muster the political will to reshape their behavior and social institutions to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.
In response to an article published in The Nation about reviving the peace movement, six leading peace proponents (including me) were asked to provide short commentaries on that subject. Here are their commentaries, published in a forum that appeared in thenation.com.