D.5.c.ii. General Political Campaigns against Nuclear Weapons

Brown discusses why the devolved Scottish government has opposed both nuclear energy as a power source, and also strongly opposed the UK government's decision to renew the Trident missile (which carries nuclear warheads) for the submarine fleet based at Faslane.  Although there are several factors, such as abundant resources  available for energy, Brown argues that the Scottish government's stance can be best understood by 'considering the underlying (and deliberate) bridging of policy frames that is noticeable between environmental, pacifist and Scottish independence actors'.

After giving a brief review of the anti-nuclear weapons movement that developed in the 1980s and the landmark treaties that were signed then, Coburn points to the difficulties campaigners face in the Trump era.

This book by the General Secretary of CND was published on the 60th anniversary of the launch of CND in February 1958. It covers both the major campaigns within the nuclear disarmament movement of the first three decades, including the Aldermaston marches and Greenham Common. It also charts the evolving role of CND after 1990: becoming prominent in the resistance to Britain's involvement in wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan; and more recently supporting the movement to achieve the UN Treaty to ban all nuclear weapons. CND has also continued to focus on opposing British production and deployment of nuclear weapons, and in particular the government's decision to renew the Trident missile force.

Historian Vincent Intondi describes the long but little-known history of Black Americans in the Nuclear Disarmament Movement from 1945, when some protested against the A- bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to today. He shows how those black activists who fought for nuclear disarmament connected the nuclear issue with the fight for racial equality. Intondi also shows that from early on, blacks in America saw the use of atomic bombs as a racial issue, asking why such enormous resources were being spent building nuclear arms instead of being used to improve impoverished communities.

Discusses briefly the potential for a significant movement either against new nuclear power plants, especially in the light of the US 2008 deal to assist India's civilian nuclear energy programme, or against India's nuclear weapons policy. Sarkar notes that a number of lively local protest movements had sprung up against the construction of new nuclear reactors.  There are also a number of groups, backed by 'prominent citizens', opposed to India's possession of nuclear weapons. But Sarkar is sceptical about the likelihood of an effective national campaign against either the energy programme, or the nuclear weapons policy, capable of influencing the government's commitment to both.

The author argues that there are two stages in the process of developing an effective progressive force like the nuclear disarmament movement, whether regionally in South Asia, or globally. In the first phase a movement needs to attack and undermine the popular legitimacy that all governments seek to obtain for their policies. In the second phase, it can practically develop on a very large scale and achieve a critical mass that impacts on actual policy.