• Status
• Legislative Summary
  • Landmines
  • Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
  • Code of Conduct
  • Missile Defense
• Position of the Reform Jewish Movement
• Arms Control and Jewish Values
• Press Releases
• For More Information

Legislative Summary

• Landmines maim or kill approximately 26,000 civilians every year, including 8,000 to 10,000 children.
• There are 60 to 70 million landmines in the ground in at least 70 countries.

Since 1994, President Clinton has repeatedly stated his commitment to sign a treaty which would ban both "short-lived" landmines (those which self-destruct after a short period of time) and "long-lived" landmines (those which must be taken out of the ground and deactivated.) However, the Administration's action has fallen short in making this vision a reality.

The recent effort to create an international treaty to ban landmines was effectively launched at the Ottawa International Strategy Conference on October 3-5, 1996. At that meeting, Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Auxworthy called for the signing of a ban treaty in Ottawa in December, 1997. The Canadian-led efforts gained worldwide attention by attracting over 100 nations to participate in negotiating a comprehensive landmine ban treaty. The treaty went into effect on March 1, 1999, and the United States is one of a handful of countries yet to sign on. To learn more about the effort to get the United States to sign on, visit the USA Campaign to Ban Landmines.

Within the Department of State, the Office of Humanitarian Demining Program assists selected countries in relieving human suffering and in developing an indigenous demining capability while promoting U.S. interests. The program provides increased humanitarian demining assistance to countries suffering from the presence of landmines, which maim and kill innocents, obstruct emergency assistance activities, hamper economic development, and impede free movement of citizens.

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)

The CTBT would prevent the global community from conducting explosive nuclear tests and would create an extensive global array of monitoring stations, which would be able to detect nuclear explosions of significance. It would guard against the renewal of the nuclear arms race because a ban on testing would impede the nuclear powers from creating new and more sophisticated weapons. It would also curb the spread of nuclear weapons to countries that do not yet have the technology to develop them. Furthermore, it would protect the world from the radioactive fallout that comes from the testing of nuclear weapons. A 1992 U.S. law already prohibits the U.S. from conducting any nuclear tests unless another nation does so first, so the CTBT would not affect the United States' military strength.

On October 13, 1999, the Senate voted not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by a sharply partisan 51 to 48 vote. This defeat was much more convincing since 67 votes were necessitated to ratify the treaty. According to Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, "the failure of the Senate to ratify the CTBT is a damaging blow to the national security of the United States that will be felt for years to come. The rejection of the treaty contradicts the will of the American people, our nations' leading military and scientific officials, and the views of our closest allies. Rejection of the Test Ban Treaty will undermine U.S. and international security by giving a green light to other nations to conduct nuclear tests".

Code of Conduct

The United States sells more weapons to dictators than any other nation in the world. For the past five years, the U.S. had sold an average of $10 billion in weapons to developing nations; 84% of those weapons went to non-democratic nations. In order to ensure that our arms exports do not fall into the wrong hands, we must scrutinize carefully the recipients of our arms transfers abroad.

The Code of Conduct would require the President to submit to Congress, once a year, a list of countries that meet certain eligibility criteria in order to import American weapons. The conditions set out in the "Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers" are:

• democratic form of government;
• respect for basic human rights of its citizens;
• non-aggression (against other states); and
• full participation in the U.N. Register of Conventional Arms.

These criteria are all primary foreign policy tenets of past and present U.S. administrations. Nevertheless, 85% of U.S. arms transfers during 1990-95 went to states which did not meet the Code's criteria.

Missile Defense

In the last several years, a number of rogue states have emerged as potential threats to U.S. security. To expand their military capabilities, nations not included in the usual list of super-powers have begun research in the development of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. While only Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom currently have inter-continental ballistic missiles that could reach America's shores, other states, such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, and South Korea are widely thought to be trying to develop such missiles. On August 31, 1998, North Korea conducted its first missile test since 1993 by launching a missile into the Pacific Ocean, spraying debris for over 4,000 miles. Though the launch was actually a failed attempt to orbit a satellite, the range of the missile suggests that North Korea may have the capacity to hit Hawaii or Alaska.

July 2000 witnessed the second failure of three missile defense tests. Despite these results, with President Clinton facing a decision later this year on whether to deploy the system at a cost of up to $60 billion, the Senate voted largely on party lines, 52-48, to kill a measure requiring testing of the project against decoys and other countermeasures intended to foil the system. The proposal, offered as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill, also called for an independent panel to evaluate missile defense testing.

The Senate, on March 17, 1999, approved the National Missile Defense Act of 1999 (S.257) calling for National Missile Defense (NMD) deployment as soon as technologically possible, by a vote of 97-3. A similar bill (H.Res.120) passed the House the next day by 317-105. The defense system would be a small one aimed at stopping one or two missiles from rogue states, not a full attack by a super-power. While the President had initially threatened to veto the bill, he decided to support it after the adoption of two amendments: one that stated that NMD deployment must go through the usual authorization and appropriations process, and another stating that the Senate would continue to support negotiated reductions in nuclear arms. The disarmament community claims these amendments are meaningless and argues that Democrats would have rallied to the cause and Congress would have been able to sustain a veto if the President had vetoed the bill. Two similar bills were defeated in the Senate in 1998 by a 59-41 margin (on a measure that needed 60 votes for passage).

Critics of the system, including the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the Council for a Livable World, charge that the program would be extremely expensive and unlikely to succeed. Over the past 40 years, the United States has spent over $120 billion on NMD, $67.7 billion of which was spent after President Reagan introduced the Star Wars program in 1983. In the Pentagon?s current budget plan, NMD would receive $10.5 billion over the next 6 years. Despite this outpouring of money, the United States has not been able to produce the technology to deploy a NMD system. Recent NMD testing has produced only 4 successful tries out of 18 attempts. Critics argue that not withstanding this lack of success, the National Missile Defense Act would push Congress towards deploying a system whether or not the system was truly effective.

Position of the Reform Jewish Movement

In 1995 the CCAR resolved to encourage an international ban on the use, production, stockpiling, and sale transfer or export of all anti-personal landmines. It further supports the establishment of an international registry, administered by the United Nations, to monitor the location of anti-personal landmines throughout the world. Finally it calls on all nations who have not done so to declare a moratorium on the export of all anti-personal landmines.

In 1969 the URJ passed a resolution stating that national security rested on missile parity and urging defeat of the ABM Systems proposals by Congress. The URJ has also supported other arms control treaties including SALT II. In 1981, the URJ urged the United States and Soviet Union to cut their nuclear stockpiles 50% across the board, with the ultimate goal of total elimination of nuclear weapons, and appealed to all nuclear powers to agree to a mutual freeze on testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. In 1983, the URJ called on the United States and the USSR to renew the 1972 treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile systems.

In 1994 the CSA resolved to support the principles outlined in the "Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers" as it would increase the scrutiny of arms transfers and subsequently reduce the flow of arms to undemocratic nations.

Arms Control and Jewish Values

As Jews we have always been firmly committed to the belief that nations must "beat their swords into plowshares" and that people must act toward one another in a spirit of kindness and humanity. Moreover, we recognize our unique role as active participants in bringing about this era of peace and harmony. We must ?seek peace and pursue it? (Psalms 34:15). As a result, the Reform Jewish Movement has long advocated policies designed to curb the loss of life resulting from armed conflicts.