Stop the spiral of nuclear armament

In memory of the devastating consequences of the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, FIR, as part of the international peace movement, demands that the planned armament with nuclear medium-range missiles in Europe must be stopped.

At the NATO summit in Washington a few weeks ago, the American government announced that it plans to station cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles and other missile systems in Germany beginning in 2026. At this meeting, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised Germany’s support for these armament plans without consulting his own government or even parliament. Pax christi, the international Catholic peace movement, has already warned against this decision. It stated, “Officially justified with the aim of ‘deterring’ Russia, this decision opens the door to an even greater arms race. The lessons of the Cold War seem to have been forgotten and the resource-destroying, pointless doctrine of deterrence is being set in motion again.”

This is an inadequate description of the planned arms build-up, as Germany, France, Italy and Poland recently decided a joint development of a cruise missile or hypersonic missile with a range of around 2,000 kilometers. Media reports point out that if it were to be stationed in Germany or Poland, Moscow could be reached directly. Until the time this European weapon system is operational, US Tomahawk cruise missiles and SM-6 guided missiles are to be stationed in Europe. Washington also wants to deploy Dark Eagle hypersonic weapons as soon as their development is complete. Unlike the new European weapon to be developed, the US weapons stationed temporarily will remain under US control and will be launched by US units in the event of war. Under the NATO Industrial Capacity Expansion Pledge, there are also plans for the coordinated development of new arms industries, as NATO emphasizes that arms production is “part of defense planning”.

The fact that the deployment of the Tomahawk cruise missiles is possible is the result of the Trump administration’s termination of the INF Treaty, which Washington and Moscow concluded on December 8, 1987. This treaty provided for the complete disarmament of all land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. Research by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has shown that the Pentagon began awarding contracts worth more than USD 1.1 billion for the development and construction of new medium-range missiles as early as October 2018. On February 1, 2019, the Trump administration terminated the INF Treaty; in March 2019, the Pentagon officially confirmed that it was now starting to build the new medium-range missiles. It is significant that the Biden administration has made no effort whatsoever to reach arms limitation agreements with Russia during its time in office to date, instead continuing Trump’s policy without interruption and aligning NATO with this strategy.

As was to be expected, Russia has reacted to NATO’s announcement and announced a “mirror image response”. This could mean that medium-range nuclear missiles would be stationed either on Russia’s western border or in Belarus and Kaliningrad and aimed at European capitals. This would be a threat to the whole of Europe.

The USA also sees these new weapons systems as part of the military confrontation with China. Last fall, the Pentagon announced that the USA would also be deploying Typhoon batteries, which can be used to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles, to the Asia-Pacific region in 2024. In April 2024, the first maneuvers with a Typhon battery took place in the north of the Philippines, from where large parts of southern China could be attacked with Tomahawks.

In memory of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, FIR therefore calls on the international peace movement to do everything in their power to stop the spiral of armament and military threat.

This means: No to the renewed stationing of far-reaching US weapons systems in Germany!
Stop the development of European medium-range missiles! The money for this war production is urgently needed for socio-political social tasks.

Resume arms limitation talks with the Russian Federation to prevent an escalation of the nuclear threat for all sides. The new armament spiral in the NATO states and Russia must be broken!

This is the only way to achieve a long-term perspective for peace and security in Europe.

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