Mark the date! April 25!
Peace House is sponsoring a Symposium on the New Nuclear Arms Race at SOU on April 25.
Speakers include Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action, and Maria Udalova of Students for Nuclear Disarmament.
Why are we sponsoring this event?
The world’s nuclear weapons states are busy upgrading their deadly arsenals. In the U.S. alone, this modernization will cost over a trillion dollars. The plans include a new intercontinental missile (the Sentinel), new nuclear submarines and submarine-based missiles, the manufacturing of new plutonium pits, as well as the vast new infrastructure necessary to deploy these weapons.
Since the end of the Cold War, concerns of nuclear war have receded to the background. But the dangers of nuclear war are ever-present. One of the largest dangers is that of an accidental use of these weapons. The list of false alarms is long and scary. Again and again, technical mishaps and incorrect information have led to alerts.
The most destabilizing part of the U.S. arsenal are the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in silos all over the upper Midwest. In the case of an alert, the U.S. president has a mere 30 minutes to decide whether or not to launch these missiles. The logic of “use them or lose them” will put incredible pressure on whoever holds the office to initiate a launch that will mean the end of the world as we know it.
But there is a way forward. Eliminate the ICBMs. The U.S. has a sufficient retaliatory capacity with its submarine-based missiles and its bombers without deploying new destabilizing ICBMs.
Speaker Bios
Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action and the Peace Action Education Fund, joined the staff on Sept 4, 2001. Kevin previously served as Director of Project Abolition, a national organizing effort for nuclear disarmament, from August 1999 through August 2001. Kevin came to Project Abolition after ten years in Chicago as Executive Director of Illinois Peace Action. Prior to his decade-long stint in Chicago, Kevin directed the community outreach canvass for Peace Action (then called Sane/Freeze) in Washington, D.C., where he originally started as a door-to-door canvasser with the organization in 1985. Kevin’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Village Voice, The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, The Progressive, Z magazine and many other publications. He has appeared on CNN, National Public Radio, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC-TV and radio, and many other local, national and international radio and television outlets. Kevin has traveled abroad representing Peace Action and the U.S. peace movement on delegations and at conferences in Russia, Japan, China, Mexico and Britain. He is married, with two children, and lives in Silver Springs, Maryland.
Maria Udalova is a senior at Brookline High School. She became interested in nuclear disarmament and climate activism during her junior year and, since then, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with passionate people and organizations, such as Students for Nuclear Disarmament, to work towards creating a safer world for all. She’s been part of the Mock Trial, Model UN, and Speech and Debate clubs, as well as writing for the Greenzine, as part of her involvement in her school’s Climate and Food Justice club. Outside of advocacy, Maria loves playing rugby, and crocheting and reading, preferably on a sunny park bench.
