Life Without Nukes? Some Day

Written by Fran Moreland Johns

What does Ploughshares Fund’s annual gala “Chain Reaction” look like from a donor’s perspective?

Fran Moreland Johns, a writer and supporter of Ploughshares Fund, details her experience attending the 2022 event and why she believes in Ploughshares’ mission to create a safer and more secure future. To view the original article by Johns on her personal blog, click here.


Life Without Nukes? Some Day

A safe and secure future? Imagine.

At “Chain Reaction,” the recent annual fundraiser/celebration of Ploughshares Fund, supporters were doing just that. Ploughshares President Dr. Emma Belcher and Board Chair Terry Gamble Boyer were on hand, along with a variety of global experts ranging from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey to former Ambassador Fiona Hill, all talking about lowering the threat level.

With hostility among nuclear-armed states currently close to the boiling point, assurance of a safe and secure future for everyone may seem a far-off goal. The five major “Nuclear Weapon” countries — U.S., Russia, U.K., France and China — have enough such weapons among them to blow the planet to smithereens at least a dozen times, with plenty remaining. Plenty of bombs, that is, not planets.

But Ploughshares is working hard to keep that from happening. If Ploughshares reaches its goal — assurance of a safe and secure future for us all — the nuclear threat will disappear. That might be an impossibility, but you’ve got to love Ploughshares for trying. HARD.

More than 40 years ago, sculptor, human rights activist, mother & wife Sally Lilienthal gathered a few friends in her San Francisco living room to talk about what could be done to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons here and abroad. This was the year (1981) when Ronald Reagan unveiled a “strategic modernization program” which called for — among other things nuclear — thousands of new warheads, an increase in bomber forces including development of stealth bombers, a new land-based strategic missile (the MX), and new intermediate-range missile deployments in Europe. In addition, he proposed deploying more than 3,000 air-launched cruise missiles on bombers.

Thanks in large part to Ploughshares partners, along with other calmer heads, stockpiles of nuclear weapons have been declining fairly steadily since those hyper-fearful days. According to Wikipedia, the U.S. stockpile, for instance, has gone from 23,368 in 1980 to a projected 3,620 this year, and Russia — the most highly armed — from 30,062 in 1980 to a projected 5,350 this year. When you consider we started all this with two bombs in 1945, and by 1950 it was U.S,= 299; Russia=5, it’s easy — and more than a little scary — to see that statistic zoom up to the 60,000+ peak of weapons held by multiple countries in 1985.

Any of us could still blow all of us to bits in short order. Maybe diplomacy makes more sense. Ploughshares supporters hope so.