Despite the immense dangers and costs, the nuclear powers are building a new generation of nuclear-armed submarines that will carry the nuclear arms race well into the 21st century -- if these nations survive that long.
Although national officials around the world are behaving much like their predecessors -- gearing up their countries for war -- there are reasons why war might actually be on the way out.
Economic inequality is growing in American higher education. At the same time that increasing numbers of university presidents are becoming millionaires, the livelihoods of most faculty members are deteriorating and students are being plunged into unprecedented levels of debt.
Is overwhelming national military power a reliable source of influence in world affairs? Apparently not, for, currently, the United States is militarily supreme in the world, but unable to cope with a number of international challenges. Also, in recent decades, substantial U.S. military advantages -- even when employed in bloody wars -- failed to prevent developments that it desperately sought to avoid.
This new book about leading women environmentalists over the course of American history is richly detailed and documented, providing a ground-breaking account of undaunted activists, determined to prevent environmental catastrophe.
Your doctors are worried about your health--in fact, about your very survival. No, they're not necessarily your own personal physicians, but, rather medical doctors around the world, represented by such groups as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and the World Health Organization. They are warning you about a looming nuclear catastrophe as nations, embroiled in war, continue to brandish over 17,000 nuclear weapons. Are you ready to change the destructive behavior of your national leaders?
There has been a substantial growth in the number of "peace ships" in the past century and, for the United States, the most important of them is the "Golden Rule." By boldly challenging nuclear weapons tests in 1958, the "Golden Rule" and its pacifist crew set the pattern for the daring voyages of Greenpeace and other activists who finally convinced officials of the great powers to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty. Today, after being wrecked off the California coast, the "Golden Rule" is being lovingly restored by Veterans for Peace for a new mission designed to foster nuclear disarmament and world peace.
Some of America's poorest people work at higher educational institutions, and many of them are members of the faculty. Conversely, some of the nation's richest people are also employed at colleges and universities--and they are the administrators.
Although Iran is taking action to forgo development of nuclear weapons, nations already armed with these weapons are flouting their treaty and rhetorical commitments to nuclear disarmament. Instead of disarming, they are currently engaging in an immensely expensive modernization of their nuclear arsenals.
Many Americans have a pattern of turning against wars they once supported. There would be less disillusionment, as well as a great savings in lives and resources, if they recognized the terrible costs of war before they rushed to embrace it.