Sixty years after the United States unleashed atomic carnage in Japan, we're accustomed to living in the shadow of nuclear threat. For example: despite US pressure and the joint diplomatic efforts of its neighbors, North Korea refuses to deactivate its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, boasting the capacity for a steady buildup of its arsenal of warheads. Iran, although thawing toward inspections by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, remains adamant in maintaining programs capable of producing bomb-grade plutonium and uranium.

North Korea is evil. So is Iran. We know because George said so. It goes without saying that armed non-state agents are evil, particularly if they are Islamic. Pakistan, however, is a top ally in Bush's righteous war on terror. Early this year, Pakistan's top nuclear scientist AQ Khan was implicated in supplying weapons designs and components to both North Korea and Iran. Such inconsistency is nothing new; the US government armed and funded Saddam Hussein against Iran from 1980-88, and the future Taliban against the USSR from 1980-1991. Strategic super-powers make fickle friends.

But the double standard on weapons of mass destruction is even more direct. International agencies searching for WMDs, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, would do well to start looking in California. Since the foundation of Los Alamos (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore (LLNL) National Laboratories in 1946 and 1953 respectively, UC has overseen all US nuclear bomb design and construction at these facilities. The management contracts are administered through the National Nuclear Security Agency, a semi-autonomous unit of the Department of Energy. But as the contracts come up for bid in 2005, UC's complicity is now subject to negotiation for the first time.

Despite its insistence on most other countries' adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties, the US itself has ample plans underway for developing and testing new nukes. The Pentagon's 2003 Nuclear Posture Review, along with a GOP Senate committee recommendation for the 2004 budget, call not only for upgrades to existing weaponry under the guise of the Stockpile Stewardship Management program, but for the development of a new generation of warheads and "tactical" low-yield nukes, including the much-maligned bunker-buster or Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. LLNL is key in both programs. The Pentagon recommendations also call for immediately resuming production of plutonium pits and bomb-grade tritium, and fast-tracking the resumption of nuclear testing to within two years after a moratorium dating from 1992. Plutonium pit production has already begun at Los Alamos, which also routinely detonates "sub-critical" masses of plutonium 242. Most frighteningly, the Posture Review encourages a pre-emptive nuclear attack policy against nations accused of posing "immediate, potential or unexpectedly contingent" threats. As for biological defense initiatives, LLNL seeks an upgrade as an experimental "hot lab" with a Bio-Safety Level 3 rating, making it eligible to keep aerosol-ready anthrax , bubonic plague and ebola.

Yet UC's tradition of anti-military defiance is as long as its institutionalized warmaking role. Coming together in early 2003, the Coalition to Demilitarize UC currently spans five campuses in addition to Livermore watchdog group TriValleyCares, Oakland-based Western States Legal Foundation, Santa Barbara's Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and the Los Alamos Study Group in New Mexico. In the attempt to democratize the decision making process on the crucial lab contract issue, the coalition has lobbied UC President Richard Dynes, the UC Regents, academic senates and student government bodies on the various campuses, calling for public forums and referendums. A student demilitarization group in close contact with the UC coalition has sprung up at the University of Texas to preempt the aggressive bidding campaign expected there.

But the militarization of the university goes far deeper than the two weapons lab contracts. Including projects for the PentagonŐs Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), NASA and DOE, military-relevant federal research funding for all universities totaled well over $11 billion as of 2000. As these funding agencies acknowledge, US imperial dominance is dependent on its technological advantage; universities provide the source of this cutting edge. Last year the UC Regents stated their commitment to military-relevant research as a public service in the cause of Homeland Security.

The question for many is which is the least of evils: if UC doesn't manage the labs, who will? Another school, or a corporation? A public or private entity? Some form of joint management? Does academic affiliation provide a degree of ethical oversight, or merely a legitimizing figleaf for essentially unjustifiable activities? In truth, military R&D projects have long depended on the triangular collaboration of government, academic and industrial sectors. Prior to the current bidding contest, UC sought a thwarted partnership with Honeywell, Washington Group International, and nuclear-materials handler BWXT. Currently UT is the frontrunner among academic rivals, while Lockheed Martin leads the pack among corporate defense contractors.

But are defense contractors motivated by their own profits more dangerous than the "pure" motives of an academy heavily indebted to Pentagon funding agencies? Some UC-Demil members consider the unequivocal abolition of the labs to be the only acceptable option. Others suggest converting the labs toward civilian research focusing on medical advances and renewable energy sources. The coalition is now preparing a public "bid" intended as a document arguing the case for democratization, disarmament, ecological sustainability and social justice.

Lab-watchers predict the likelihood UC will surrender one lab but keep the other, a situation government scientists believe conducive to a productive level of competitive pressure between the two. Yet we face a greater problem than whether or not UC manages Los Alamos after 2005. We are implicated in a university system that's been retooled to supply the world's most lethal and ubiquitous military; embedded in a funding environment which rewards researchers for prioritizing projects with military application. The Bay Area economy is dependent on defense contracts while statewide, school systems are decimated at every level.

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