Minute in Support of Back from the Brink Nuclear Disarmament Campaign
Minute in Support of Back from the Brink Nuclear Disarmament Campaign
Northern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Approved 4/7/25 by NYM Nimble Responders
Friends (Quakers) have a long standing peace testimony and are deeply concerned about the threat of nuclear war.
Since the 1950’s, there have been numerous instances of accidents and near launches of nuclear weapons due to technical and human error. Modern cyberterrorism and geopolitical conflicts involving nuclear states further increase the risk of a nuclear attack. The world currently has approximately 12,000 nuclear weapons and the US, Russia and China are engaged in a new nuclear arms race.
Even a “limited” nuclear exchange could lead to the death of billions of people due to catastrophic climate change.
We endorse the Back from the Brink Nuclear Disarmament campaign, a national grassroots initiative seeking to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy. The campaign embraces the 2017 United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which calls for a multilateral, verifiable agreement among nuclear states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. It also calls on the US to take four immediate steps to prevent nuclear war by:
- renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first,
- ending the sole, unchecked authority of any President to launch a nuclear attack,
- taking US nuclear weapons off hair-trigger or high alert
- cancelling the plan to replace its entire nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons.
The estimated total U.S. Nuclear Weapons Programs expenditure in fiscal year 2024 was $94,485,000,000. This included not only the cost of warheads and delivery systems but the costs of the nuclear missile defense system, environmental cleanup and programs to safeguard nuclear weapons in Russia and the former Soviet Union States. Based on Wisconsin’s population and per capita income, Wisconsin spent approximately $1.62 billion. These funds could be far better spent on health care, housing, education and renewable energy sources for Wisconsin residents.
It is said that nuclear arsenals are a deterrent to war. But we can think of far more powerful deterrents: the elimination of world hunger and poverty and international diplomacy.
We must do all we can today to eliminate nuclear weapons so that the world will be safer for the children of the future.