John Burroughs Quotes About Nuclear Weapons

Quotes about: Nuclear Weapons

• Certainly in the United States, you have a constituency in the form of the weapons laboratories, and you also have the branches of the armed services that are involved with nuclear weapons deployment, especially the naval submarine operations and also the air force's land-based ICBM operations. So they have a big lobby in Washington.

  John Burroughs

  Air, Land, Deployment

• You cannot use [nuclear weapons] to target civilians; you cannot use them against military targets if they have indiscriminate effects on civilians in addition to the attack on the military target.

  John Burroughs

  Military, Nuclear, Target

• It doesn't seem to be that huge a commitment that would create, you know, some kind of really powerful constituency. But the history has been for the United States and Russia especially that nuclear weapons have kind of become part of the identity of the countries.

  John Burroughs

  Country, Powerful, Commitment

• You cannot cause disproportionate damage to the environment; you cannot harm neutral states. The court said that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally contrary to the international law of armed conflict.

  John Burroughs

  Law, Nuclear, Use

• Somewhat by historical happenstance the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China - also were the original five countries to have nuclear weapons.

  John Burroughs

  Country, Russia, Historical

• The court was unable to rule on all circumstances in which nuclear weapons might be used, and it said in view of the problems, the risks posed by nuclear weapons, and in view of the lack of certainty of the law in all circumstances, the best course is fulfilling the obligation of good faith negotiations of nuclear disarmament contained in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

  John Burroughs

  Views, Law, Nuclear Disarmament

• Especially in the case of India and Pakistan, it's very clear that significant parts of the elites in both countries view having nuclear weapons as a ticket to prestige.

  John Burroughs

  Country, Views, India And Pakistan

• The overall quantity of nuclear weapons in the world continues to decline slowly.

  John Burroughs

  Nuclear, World, Weapons

• Maybe that will happen with other countries as well. And so, that's why one of the things that groups like mine that work for the elimination of nuclear weapons and work for their marginalization in the meantime, we say you have to diminish the political value that's attached to nuclear weapons in order to give them less (kind of) desirability in the eyes of governments that do not now have them, and thus to help stop their spread.

  John Burroughs

  Country, Eye, Government

• [Nuclear weapons] now I think I mentioned around 27,000 and during the Cold War the total global arsenal was on the order of 70,000.

  John Burroughs

  War, Thinking, Order

• There are nine countries in the world that have nuclear weapons. There are about 27,000 nuclear weapons total on the planet. The countries that have nuclear weapons deploy them ready for use and have doctrines saying that they would use them in certain circumstances.

  John Burroughs

  Country, Doctrine, Nuclear

• Almost all of the governments have agreed that they will not acquire nuclear weapons and that they will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor their commercial and research nuclear power operations to ensure that nuclear materials - highly enriched uranium and plutonium - are not diverted to use in weapons.

  John Burroughs

  Agency, Government, Energy

• The United States says "We're complying. We're following the disarmament obligation. Look at the quantitative reductions that are taking place." But, since '96, there really hasn't been progress on specific commitments that have been made. Perhaps most disturbing is this: that the United States and France in particular, since 1996, have expanded the range of circumstances under which they might use - they say they might use - nuclear weapons.

  John Burroughs

  Commitment, Might Use, Progress

• So the idea about how detonation of a nuclear weapon might happen vary, you know - some people are especially concerned about terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons and using them. Some people are worried that there might be a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Some think the Middle East, were Israel already has nuclear weapons and where other countries may be interested at some point and acquiring them, might be a flash point.

  John Burroughs

  Country, War, Thinking

• The five original nuclear weapon states I mentioned - U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia - under the NPT have committed to the achievement of the elimination of their nuclear arsenals through good faith negotiations of nuclear disarmament - that's Article Six of the treaty.

  John Burroughs

  Russia, Nuclear Disarmament, Achievement

• Basically [United States and France] said "We will use nuclear weapons whenever it suits our purposes to do so." So this expansion of doctrines regarding possible use of nuclear weapons makes them more, you know, sort of, salient and important and so it's increasing the perceived political value of nuclear weapons and therefore causing or contributing to possible proliferation.

  John Burroughs

  Political, Important, Expansion

• There tends to be this comfortable assumption that nuclear weapons won't be used, but I don't think that's warranted, and I think we should seize the opportunity of this time of stability and cooperation and move towards global elimination of nuclear weapons as indeed people like Henry Kissinger, and William Perry, former Secretary of Defense under Clinton, and Sam Nunn, former Senator, and George Schultz, former Undersecretary of State for Ronald Reagan. All of them recently called for achievement of a nuclear weapon-free world.

  John Burroughs

  Moving, Opportunity, Thinking

• My group, the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, was one of the principle organizers. So, there was this campaign to support the United Nations General Assembly in asking the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on the legality of threat or use of nuclear weapons.

  John Burroughs

  Justice, Support, Principles

• Unfortunately, nuclear weapons have become identified with state power.

  John Burroughs

  Nuclear, Weapons, States

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