I am skeptical about the degree of optimism some people are expressing about nuclear weapons. To take just one example: Between the mid-1980s and the present, the number of nuclear weapons has been reduced from over 70,000 to approximately 14,500. This is a reduction of more than 55,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Some analysts see this as a sign that the world is out of nuclear danger. However, while the number of nuclear weapons has come way down, one nuclear war with only a tiny percentage of the nuclear weapons that still exist could end civilization and possibly the human species. Reductions in the size of nuclear arsenals are a positive sign, but they do not indicate that humanity is secure from nuclear threat.
At the same time that these reductions in arsenals have taken place, nuclear weapons have proliferated to three new countries (India, Pakistan and North Korea), in addition to the six initial nuclear weapons states (US, Russia, UK, France, China and Israel). The more nuclear weapon states, the greater the nuclear danger. In addition, nuclear-armed states have withdrawn from existing arms control agreements, such as the US unilaterally withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002, Trump withdrawing from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Agreement) in 2018 and his administration’s recent announcement of suspension of obligations and intention to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in February 2019. These unilateral steps on the part of the US are undermining nuclear stability and leading to new qualitative nuclear arms races.
With Trump as the US president, the world remains in a precarious situation, close to the ultimate brink, and even with a more truthful and rational president, we would still be close to the brink. That is the reason that I see peace as an imperative of the nuclear age, and why I think the only reasonable number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero. Instead of negotiating to achieve that goal, the nuclear weapon states are all planning to modernize and improve their nuclear arsenals. This is occurring in an environment in which leaders of the nuclear weapon states and their allies are giving magical and unrealistic powers and efficacy to nuclear deterrence. In part, we learned far too little from the Cuban Missile Crisis, and we may not be so fortunate on the next nuclear standoff, which could occur at any time. The large reduction in nuclear arsenals that has taken place in recent decades is not sufficient to assure human survival, and we should not be celebrating our success until the world is out of danger of nuclear holocaust.
I would prefer to be more optimistic about our nuclear-armed world, but I am concerned that optimism can breed inaction and a lack of engagement on the issue. What we need now is healthy skepticism about nuclear weapons and the policies which guide their use, and strong citizen engagement in pressuring the nuclear-armed countries to participate in good faith negotiations for total nuclear disarmament, as they are obligated to do under international law.
Nuclear deterrence can fail and does not provide protection, especially to citizens of nuclear-armed countries. Rather, it paints a target on their backs. Arms reductions, which still leave all of us vulnerable, are not enough. What we need is commitment to nuclear abolition and widespread citizen engagement, leading their leaders, to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Thus, I remain skeptical about nuclear security, but hopeful that humanity will awaken to the challenge.
This article was originally published by The Hill under the title “Yes, there are fewer nuclear weapons – but they can still wipe us out.”
David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and has served as its president since 1982. His latest book is In the Shadow of the Bomb: Poems of Survival.
Rick Wayman, NAPF’s Director of Programs and Operations, delivered this statement to the United Nations Conference to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination, on June 16, 2017. The text of the final treaty, adopted on July 7, 2017, is here.
Thank you Madame President,
Nuclear deterrence, the logic it professes, and the practices it justifies, are reckless, costly, and completely counterproductive to the aims of global security. We agree with Indonesia, which has highlighted the need to delegitimize nuclear deterrence as a concept.
I refer you to our Working Paper 39, which presents reasons why nuclear deterrence is inadequate and flawed as a means of providing security, and is antithetical to the goal of comprehensive nuclear disarmament.
Relying on the constant threat of nuclear weapons use, nuclear deterrence in any form cannot coexist with the pursuit of comprehensive nuclear disarmament.
Therefore, we encourage the inclusion of a clause in the preamble of the treaty to the effect of:
“Understanding that nuclear deterrence is only an unproven hypothesis regarding human behavior — one that does not provide physical protection and could fail catastrophically.”
In addition, since nuclear deterrence constitutes an ongoing threat of nuclear weapons use, we support proposals outlined by South Africa and Iran, and backed by numerous states, to include the threat of use of nuclear weapons in the preamble.
This short animated video from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation outlines many of the reasons why nuclear deterrence cannot be proven to work and represents an existential threat to humanity.
Nuclear Disarmament: Time for Abolition A Contribution of The Holy See
Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva
Vienna, 8 December 2014
Nuclear weapons are a global problem. They affect not just nuclear-armed states, but other non-nuclear signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, non-signatories, unacknowledged possessing states and allies under “the nuclear umbrella.” They also impact future generations and the planet that is our home. The reduction of the nuclear threat and disarmament requires a global ethic. Now more than ever the facts of technological and political interdependence cry out for an ethic of solidarity in which we work with one another for a less dangerous, morally responsible global future.
Breaches of Trust
Pope FrancisOur existing disarmament treaties are more than just legal obligations. They are also moral commitments based on trust between states and their representatives, and they are rooted in the trust that citizens place in their governments. Under the NPT, the duty of the nuclear powers and all other parties under what has been described as “a grand bargain” between nuclear and nonnuclear states is to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures to disarm. In the case of nuclear weapons, moreover, beyond the details of any agreement, there are moral stakes for the whole of humanity including future generations.
The purpose of this paper is to encourage discussion of the factors that underpin the moral case for nuclear disarmament, and, in particular, to scrutinize the counter-argument for the belief that nuclear deterrence is a stable basis for peace. The strategic nuclear situation has changed dramatically since the end of the Cold War. Rather than providing security, as the defenders of nuclear deterrence contend, reliance on a strategy of nuclear deterrence has created a less secure world. In a multi-polar world, the concept of nuclear deterrence works less as a stabilizing force and more as an incentive for countries to break out of the non-proliferation regime and develop nuclear arsenals of their own.
Contrary to the frequent assertions of nuclear strategists, the history of the nuclear age has shown that nuclear deterrence has failed to prevent unanticipated events that might have led to nuclear war between possessing states. These include: nuclear accidents, malfunctions, mishaps, false alarms and close calls. Even the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, previously characterized in popular literature as a success for diplomatic brinksmanship, involved events that all too easily could have launched a nuclear war independent of the intentions of national decision-makers.
A Changed Strategic Environment
Today because of the changing strategic environment, the structure of nuclear deterrence is less stable and more worrisome than at the height of the Cold War. The contemporary global environment includes the dangerous proliferation of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states, as well as a growing risk of nuclear terrorism and nuclear weapons use. Possessing states believe preventing proliferation to some countries is necessary, while they have for years ignored the unacknowledged growth of nuclear arsenals in others. This double standard undermines the universality on which the NPT was constructed.
Under the weight of these developments, the architecture of nuclear deterrence has begun to crumble. The expansion and fears of expansion of the nuclear club bring new, unpredictable forces to bear on the bi-lateral strategic balance that has constituted nuclear deterrence. The superpowers no longer seem to share an acute risk of mutual nuclear war. Instead, the proximate threat of nuclear war mainly comes now from regional powers.
Furthermore, the merchandizing and export of nuclear material and expertise for civilian nuclear energy purposes has also increased the risk that terrorist groups will acquire nuclear weapons. In addition, instability threatens nuclear-armed states with the capture of nuclear weapons and related materials by insurgents with aspirations for global violence. The spread of global terrorism through weak and failed states, together with sustained insurgencies in nuclear-armed states, further complicates efforts for arms control and disarmament.
In addition, the process of disarmament by the major nuclear powers has slowed. The most recent arms reduction treaty between the superpowers (2010) fell far short of expectations; it left the world far from the goal of nuclear disarmament. Many more missiles remain on both sides than what even at the height of the Cold War was thought to be the minimum needed for stable deterrence. In addition, certain nuclear weapon possessors have taken actions or articulated policies which continue to make nuclear war-fighting an option for the future even where there is no nuclear provocation.
While the superpowers now deploy fewer weapons on alert, their numbers are still worryingly large. In addition many more thousands are stored in readiness for deployment. There are big gaps in accounting for fissile material over many decades, and the pace of re-processing materials for peaceful purposes has slowed. Missiles and other vehicles for weapons transport have yet to be reduced. Controls on delivery systems are lacking.
For sixty years nuclear deterrence has been thought to provide only “a peace of a sort.” Nuclear deterrence is believed to have prevented nuclear war between the superpowers, but it has also deprived the world of genuine peace and kept it under sustained risk of nuclear catastrophe. Since the end of the Cold War more than twenty years ago the end of the nuclear stand-off has failed to provide a peace dividend that would help to improve the situation of the world’s poor. Indeed, enormous amounts of money are still being spent on ‘modernizing’ the nuclear arsenals of the very states that are ostensibly reducing their nuclear weapons numbers.
Finally, it must be admitted that the very possession of nuclear weapons, even for purposes of deterrence, is morally problematic. While a consensus continues to grow that any possible use of such weapons is radically inconsistent with the demands of human dignity, in the past the Church has nonetheless expressed a provisional acceptance of their possession for reasons of deterrence, under the condition that this be “a step on the way toward progressive disarmament.” This condition has not been fulfilled—far from it. In the absence of further progress toward complete disarmament, and without concrete steps toward a more secure and a more genuine peace, the nuclear weapon establishment has lost much of its legitimacy.
The Problem of Intention
It is now time to question the distinction between possession and use which has long been a governing assumption of much ethical discourse on nuclear deterrence. Use of nuclear weapons is absolutely prohibited, but their possession is judged acceptable on condition that the weapons are held solely for deterrent purposes, that is, to dissuade adversaries from employing them.
The language of intention obscures the fact that nuclear armories, as instruments of military strategy, inherently bear active disposition for use. Nuclear weaponry does not simply lie dormant until the conditional intention is converted into an actual one at the moment when a nuclear attack is launched by one’s adversary. The machinery of nuclear deterrence does not work that way. It involves a whole set of acts that are pre-disposed to use: strategic designs, targeting plans, training drills, readiness checks, alerts, screening for conscientious objectors among operators, and so on.
The political and military officials of nuclear possessing states assume the responsibility to use these weapons if deterrence fails. But since what is intended is mass destruction—with extensive and lasting collateral damage, inhumane suffering, and the risk of escalation—the system of nuclear deterrence can no longer be deemed a policy that stands firmly on moral ground.
Toward a Non-nuclear Peace
The time has come for new thinking on how to challenge complacency surrounding the belief in nuclear deterrence. Changed circumstances bring new responsibilities for decision-makers. The apparent benefits that nuclear deterrence once provided have been compromised, and proliferation results in grave new dangers. The time has come to embrace the abolition of nuclear weapons as an essential foundation of collective security. Realists argue that nuclear deterrence as a security framework must be abandoned slowly and with calculation, if at all. But, is it realistic to allow the current unstable nuclear environment to persist with minor, incremental and essentially bilateral changes? Shall we continue to ignore the conditions that lead to nuclear instability, as systems of international control remain unable to restore stability? Is it realistic, moreover, to deny that the disparity between nuclear and nonnuclear states is one of the major factors resulting in destabilization of the Non-Proliferation Regime? Can we count on strategic ‘realism’ to build us a secure peace? We would be foolish to imagine so.
A genuine peace cannot grow out of an instrumental prudence that establishes a precarious ethics focused narrowly on the technical instruments of war. What is needed is a constructive ethic rooted in a deeper vision of peace, an ethic in which means and ends coincide more closely, where the positive components of peace inform and limit the use of force. World leaders must be reminded that the commitment to disarm embedded in the NPT and other international documents is more than a legal-political detail, it is a moral commitment on which the future of the world depends. Pacta sunt servanda (“Treaties must be observed”) is a first principle of the international system because it is the foundation on which trust can be built.
Solidarity and a Global Ethic of Abolition
Responsibility for the abolition of nuclear weapons is an essential component of the global common good. Abolition is one of those tasks that exceed the capacity of any single nation or any set of nations to resolve on their own. Reduction and disarmament of nuclear arsenals requires a global ethic to guide global cooperation.
On this issue in particular, now more than ever, the logic of technological interdependence cries out for an ethic of solidarity in which we work with one another for a less dangerous, morally responsible global future. It diminishes our humanity when the development of harmful technologies so often controls the imaginations and moral judgments of the brightest among us. To dwell in a humane society, we must govern our technologies with conscious attention to our global responsibilities.
In search of the political will to eradicate nuclear weapons, and out of concern for the world our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will inherit, the human family will have to become united in order to overcome powerful institutionalized interests that are invested in nuclear armaments. Only in solidarity will we recognize our common humanity, grow in awareness of the threats we face in common, and discover the paths beyond the impasse in which the world now finds itself.
The process of nuclear disarmament promised by the Non-Proliferation Treaty and repeatedly endorsed by religious and civic leaders is far from realization. At a time when political will among world leaders for the abolition of nuclear weapons is lacking, solidarity across nations could break through the blockages of diplomacy-as-usual to open a way to the elimination of these weapons of mass destruction. In the 1980s people round the world voiced their “No” to nuclear war-fighting. In this decade, the time has come for people of all nations to say, in solidarity, once and for all “a ‘No’ to nuclear weapons.”
Fifty years ago Pope John XXIII proposed that “nuclear weapons should be banned” and “all should come to agree on fitting program of disarmament.” Since that time the Holy See has repeatedly called for the abolition of nuclear weapons. At the General Assembly last September, Archbishop Dominque Mamberti endorsed the Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon’s “Five Point Plan for Nuclear Disarmament” and called for a worldwide conference to draw up a convention on abolition. “The Holy See,” he explained, in another talk, “shares the thoughts and sentiments of most men and women of good will who aspire to the elimination of nuclear weapons.” Chief among these are the former American statesmen who have become advocates of abolition. Their conversion from proponents of nuclear deterrence to advocates of nuclear abolition is a sign of the times that solidarity in this cause is possible between secular and religious leaders as well as between possessing and non-possessing states. Now is the time to affirm not only the immorality of the use of nuclear weapons, but the immorality of their possession, thereby clearing the road to nuclear abolition.
Other Ethical Issues Pressing for Disarmament
With solidarity as a basis for a global ethic of abolition, let us examine some of the particular factors that put in question the moral legitimacy of the architecture of the “peace of a sort” supposedly provided by deterrence between the major nuclear powers. We propose looking at four specific concerns: (1) the costs of the nuclear stalemate to the global common good, (2) the unstable security inherent in the current nuclear environment under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, (3) the built-in injustice in the NPT regime, and (4) the price to the poor and vulnerable of current nuclear policies.
Threats to the Global Common Good
Last year’s international conference in Oslo highlighted the egregious-humanitarian consequences that inevitably result from any use of nuclear weapons. These consequences amount to basic offenses against humanity and the global common good. So, too, would such use bring about widespread harm to other life forms and even eco-systems. In addition, maintenance of the world’s nuclear weapons establishment results in misallocation of human talent, institutional capacities and funding resources. Promotion of the global common good will require re-setting those allocations, re-ordering priorities toward peaceful human development.
Though it may be said, by way of a narrow casuistry, that possession of nuclear weapons is not per se evil, it does come very close to being so, because the only way such weapons work, even as a deterrent, is to threaten death to masses of human beings. And even should nuclear weapons be employed for narrowly restricted military goals, – so called “tactical” nuclear weapons – civilians would nonetheless be killed as “collateral damage”. Contaminants would be dispersed far into the future, resulting in harm to the environment for decades, even centuries, to come.
While most attention is giving to the mass-killing power of nuclear weapons, scientists and international lawyers are now giving attention to the “unnecessary suffering” inflicted by the use of nuclear weapons. It has been observed that survivors of a nuclear conflict will envy the dead. The infliction of unnecessary suffering has long been banned by military codes and international law. What is true in conventional war is all the more true of nuclear conflict.
To the immediate and long-term effects of radiation sickness must be added the suffering due to starvation, the disruption and contamination of water supplies, the spread of disease across a newly vulnerable population, and the inability of ecosystems to restore themselves to sustainable levels after nuclear detonations. The continuing radioactive disaster at the civilian nuclear energy plant at Chernobyl and Fukushima should be a stark reminder to us that technical fixes are non-trivial and certainly not feasible in the far worse situation of a nuclear weapon detonation in conflict. Not only human lives but the land and water and marine resources would be damaged for the foreseeable future.
Illusions of Security
Proponents of nuclear weapons and opponents of abolition have often presented nuclear deterrence as a major pillar of international peace. Some historians, however, offer a different perspective. Despite the common assertion that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives and brought the Japanese to sue for peace, records of the deliberation of the Japanese government, revisionist historians argue, show that it was not the dropping of the atomic bombs but the entrance of Soviet Union into the war that led to the collapse of Japanese resistance and its surrender to the U.S. Even before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese Empire had already suffered more death and destruction in “conventional” fire-bombing of Japanese cities without surrendering than from the dropping of the two nuclear bombs.
Nuclear arsenals, moreover, have proved no obstacle to conventional war in the nuclear era. They did not intimidate smaller powers from going to war or fighting against nuclear adversaries in different regions at different times. Indeed, nuclear weapons have themselves been a casus belli in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Other examples of cyber or conventional attacks were conducted because of real or alleged nuclear weapons programs. In the lead up to the Cuban Missile Crisis, moreover, both sides had engaged in provocative acts that led them to the brink.
In 2003, false assessments of weapons of mass destruction development became a pretext for a war of choice against Iraq that unleashed a cascade of problems we too antiseptically call “instability” that continues to roll through that country and across the region.
The possession of nuclear weapons, moreover, seems to have posed little deterrent to attacks on nuclear powers from smaller, non-nuclear powers and non-state actors. It has not prevented conventional war between nuclear-armed states, and it has not dissuaded terrorists from attacking the nuclear powers. All the nuclear weapons states have endured terrorist attacks, often repeated ones.
Thus, the argument that nuclear deterrence preserves the peace is specious. The “peace of a sort” provided by nuclear deterrence is a misnomer and tends to cloud our collective vision. Prolongation of the current nuclear polyarchy has set the stage for wars and for ongoing tensions. It is an expensive system that can’t protect from prolonged low-level wars, inter-state wars or terrorist attacks. Accordingly, the misleading assumption that nuclear deterrence prevents war should no longer inspire reluctance to accepting international abolition of nuclear arsenals. If it ever was true, today it has become a dodge from meeting responsibilities to this generation and the next.
Inequality among NPT Signatories
The non-proliferation regime is rooted in inequality. In the grand bargain at the treaty’s foundation the non-possessing powers granted a monopoly on nuclear weapons to the possessing powers in return for a “transformative” good faith pledge by the nuclear weapons states to reduce and disarm their existing nuclear arsenals. What was intended to be a temporary state of affairs appears to have become a permanent reality, establishing a class structure in the international system between possessing and non-possessing states.
While other factors also underlie national status, the inequality between non-nuclear and nuclear states matters enormously because it appears to establish a unique kind of security which makes a nuclear-armed country immune to external pressures and so more able to impose its will on the world. For that reason, the nuclear disparity becomes an incentive for non-nuclear-armed states to break out of the NPT agreement in pursuit of major power status. Thus, the asymmetry of the relationship between nuclear and non-nuclear states affects the stability, the durability and the effectiveness of the nonproliferation regime.
In the absence of effective practical disarmament, efforts to enforce nonproliferation give rise to suspicions that the NPT is an instrument of an irremediably unequal world order. With the Cold War now a quarter century behind us, nonnuclear states increasingly perceive the regime as managing the system to serve the interests of those with nuclear weapons. Without solid progress toward disarmament as pledged under the NPT, questions continue to grow over the legitimacy of the system. Non-possession begins to appear inconsistent with the sovereign equality of nations and the inherent right of states to security and self-defense. Nuclear capability is still regarded in certain countries as a prerequisite of diplomatic influence and great power status, building incentives for proliferation and thus undermining global security.
Furthermore, at the same time as the nuclear powers enforce, with the assistance of the IAEA, strict non-proliferation measures on potential break-out states, there is no international monitoring and enforcement mechanism to implement the disarmament provisions of the NPT. There are no agreed-upon means to insure that the promise of transformation to a nuclear-arms-free world moves ahead. In the absence of a functioning Conference on Disarmament, those decisions are left to bi-lateral negotiation and unilateral policymaking, yielding slow and sometimes near-meaningless shifts in the nuclear balance. Under the 2010 NPT Action Plan, the nuclear-weapon States have committed to accelerate concrete progress on the steps leading to nuclear disarmament, contained in the Final Document of the 2000 Review Conference, in a way that promotes international stability, peace and undiminished and increased security. So far, the only accountability has been via non-governmental organizations monitoring the implementation of the 2010 NPT Action Plan. However, the nuclear weapons States are required to report their disarmament undertakings to the NPT Review Conference Preparatory Committee in 2014, and the 2015 Review Conference will take stock and consider the next steps for the full implementation of article VI.
Re-establishing the stability, legitimacy and universality of the NPT regime demands the establishment of norms and mechanisms for supervision of nuclear disarmament on the part of all nuclear weapons states. If there is little or no progress toward disarmament by the nuclear states, it is inevitable that the NPT will be regarded as an unjust perpetuation of the status quo. Only insofar as the nuclear-armed states move toward disarmament will the rest of the world regard the nonproliferation regime as just.
Neglect of the Poor and the Vulnerable
For decades the cost of the nuclear polyarchy to the world’s poor has been evident. Fifty years ago, the Second Vatican Council declared, “[T]he [nuclear] arms race is an utterly treacherous trap for humanity, and one which injures the poor to an incredible degree.” Today, the production, maintenance and deployment of nuclear weapons continue to siphon off resources that otherwise might have been made available for the amelioration of poverty and socio-economic development for the poor. The prolongation of the nuclear establishment continues to perpetuate patterns of impoverishment both domestically and internationally.
In most societies, duties to the poor and vulnerable are primary moral obligations. In 2005 the international community in adopting the Responsibility to Protect agreed that it is the responsibility of government to protect its populations from basic deprivation, and it has allowed the international community to intervene when governments fail to do so. Humanitarian agencies and world religions likewise see support of the poor and promotion of development as essential to the global common good. But, after establishing the reduction of extreme poverty as one of the Millennial Goals in 2000, the United Nations’ goal of the reduction of the numbers of people living in absolute poverty by one half by the year 2015 is far from realization. Contributions by developed nations to this important developmental contribution to peace have fallen short.
Further delay in meeting those goals could be satisfied by matching savings from cuts in spending for nuclear weapons to expenditures in support for poverty reduction.
The re-allocation of funding from arms to development is essential to social justice. For social justice consists in the justice of our institutional arrangements. The disparity of resources between situations dedicated to human development and those dedicated to nuclear armament is a fundamental injustice in the global political order. Re-allocation of resources from wasteful and dangerous weapons programs to the constructive and peaceful purposes of global human development would undo shameful imbalances in public funding and institutional capacities.
Peace does not consist in the mere “absence of war,” but rather in enjoyment of a full set of rights and goods that foster the complete development of the whole person in community. The Millennium Development goals provide a handy summary of the material goods a peaceful life would include: the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, the empowerment of women, reduced childhood mortality, maternal health, combatting HIV/AIDs and other diseases, environmental sustainability, and a global partnership in development.
The philosopher William James sought a “moral equivalent of war,” a fulsome commitment of personal energies to a cause that would substitute for war as a great human undertaking. Writing at the time of the First Gulf War, Saint John Paul II called for “a concerted worldwide effort to promote development” as an endeavor of peace. He wrote, “[A]nother name for peace is development. Just as there is a responsibility for avoiding war,” he wrote, “so too there is a collective responsibility for promoting development.” Through their own work, he argued, the poor should be trusted to make their own contributions to economic prosperity. But to do so, they “need to be provided with realistic opportunities.” Re-allocation of resources from nuclear armaments to development programs is an eminently appropriate way to make those opportunities possible by further contributions to attaining the newly-updated Millennial Development Goals. In one move, there would be a double contribution to peace: reducing the danger of nuclear war and satisfaction of the collective responsibility for promoting development.
Reason, Rationality and Peace
As U. S. president John F. Kennedy began his work toward a nuclear test ban, he asserted in a June 1963 speech at American University that peace through nuclear disarmament is “the necessary, rational end of rational men.” The rationality that gives rise to peace is not the technical reasoning of weapons scientists and arms-control specialists. It consists rather in the broad moral reasoning that arises from examined living and is sourced by our historic wisdom traditions. At its best, it posits a morality of ends as the basic architecture of politics. Technical reason—the morality of means—should be its servant, not its governor. It is moral reason that tells us nuclear abolition is possible. It is moral reason that tells us how to utilize technocratic reason in the work of disarmament. It is moral reason that recognizes deterrence as an obstacle to peace, and leads us to seek alternative paths to a peaceful world.
Moral reasoning is not a simple rational calculation. It is reasoning informed by virtue, that is, “right reason”; it is reason shaped by the examined experience of moral lives, what the ancients called “wisdom.” Autonomous technical reason, unguided by a deeper moral vision and tempered by the virtues of the good human life, can result in catastrophe, as the misuse of the Just War Tradition in support of unjust wars over the centuries demonstrates. Moral reason is a beacon to a fully human life. It is only reason, in this larger sense, the logic of ends, which can lead us to a nuclear-free world.
In short, to achieve nuclear abolition, we need to resist succumbing to the limits set by political realism. While recognizing how these concepts can provide a prudent curb on unwarranted exuberance, we must ultimately reject them as the defining outlook for our common political future. The fear that drives the reluctance to disarm must be replaced by a spirit of solidarity that binds humanity to achieve the global common good of which peace is the fullest expression.
I have been working for a world free of nuclear weapons for over four decades. On occasion I am asked, “Why do you continue this struggle when change seems to come so slowly?” Here is my response.
Nuclear weapons threaten the existence of civilization and the human species. We humans cannot continue to be complacent in the face of the nuclear dangers that confront us. Too many people are complacent and too many are ignorant of the threat posed by these weapons.
Albert Einstein warned: “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” The nature of the catastrophe was demonstrated first at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki. We continue to face the possibility of a global Hiroshima.
If even a few nuclear weapons were used today, the humanitarian consequences would be beyond our capacity to cope. There would not be enough surviving medical personnel available to aid the suffering of the victims. There would not be enough hospitals or burn wards. Water supplies would be contaminated. Infrastructure would be destroyed. The damage would not be containable in either time or space.
Atmospheric scientists have modeled the effects of the use of nuclear weapons. They find that the use of only one hundred Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons in a regional war between India and Pakistan would trigger a nuclear famine that would lead to the deaths by starvation of some one billion people globally. That would be the result of a small nuclear war. How would this happen? The weapons would destroy cities, putting massive amounts of soot into the stratosphere, blocking warming sunlight, shortening growing seasons, causing crop failures and food shortages.
A large-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia would, of course, be far worse, lowering temperatures on Earth to Ice Age levels. There would be few survivors.
All this is to say that perhaps I know too much. I cannot stop struggling to end the nuclear weapons era. I am challenged to fight against ignorance and indifference. I know that this is not a problem that can be set aside with the expectation that it will take care of itself.
There has been progress. By 1986, the number of nuclear weapons in the world had ballooned to 70,000. Today, the number is around 17,000. Over 50,000 nuclear weapons have been eliminated. That is worth celebrating, but not for too long. It hasn’t changed the fundamental proposition that nuclear war could destroy most complex life on the planet, and this planet remains the only place we know of in the universe where life exists. As Carl Sagan used to remind us, we live on a “pale blue dot,” our planetary home, one which is infinitesimally small in relation to the universe, but infinitely precious.
President Obama, in a recent speech in Berlin, stated, “Peace with justice means pursuing the security of a world without nuclear weapons – no matter how distant that dream may be.” Yes, we – all of us – need the security of a world without nuclear weapons, but why must the dream be distant? Why must we think of the dream as being distant? Why must President Obama frame it in this way? Is he not demonstrating a deficit of leadership in doing so? Whose interests are being served – those of corporate weapons makers or those of the people of the world?
Nuclear deterrence does not protect us. If it did, there would be no need for missile defenses. Nor would we object to other countries developing nuclear deterrent forces. And, of course, nuclear deterrence does not even apply to terrorist organizations, which have no territory to retaliate against and may be suicidal.
Nuclear weapons are actually suicidal weapons. Use them, and they will be used against you. Use them, and run the risk of nuclear famine or nuclear winter. They may also be omnicidal weapons, their use leading to the death of all.
If we want to end the insecurity of a world with nuclear weapons, we must continue the struggle for a world without them. And we must realize that the nature of the weapons require that the struggle be approached with a sense of urgency and boldness.
So, I continue the struggle – in the hope that you may join with me and many others to make the abolition of nuclear weapons an urgent – rather than distant – dream.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
This article was originally published by Truthout.
The United States and North Korea are playing a dangerous game of Nuclear Roulette. The US is taking actions that threaten North Korea, such as conducting war games with US ally South Korea, including practice bombing runs that send nuclear-capable B-2 bombers from Missouri to the Korean Peninsula. The North Koreans, in turn, are blustering, declaring they are in a state of war with South Korea, which technically is true since a truce and not a peace agreement ended the Korean War in 1953. North Korean leaders have also cancelled the “hot line” with Seoul and are threatening nuclear attacks on the US, its troops and its allies.
North Korea withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and has since tested nuclear devices on three occasions (2006, 2009 and earlier this year). It has also tested medium- and long-range missiles and is developing capabilities to threaten the US and its allies with nuclear weapons. The US has responded to the North Korean tests by holding talks with other countries in Northeast Asia and putting increasingly stringent sanctions on North Korea. The US also continues to regularly test its long-range, nuclear-capable missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Tensions in Northeast Asia continue to rise.
Nuclear threats are an integral part of nuclear deterrence. For nuclear deterrence to work effectively, it is necessary for an opponent to believe a nuclear threat is real. When the US joins South Korea in playing war games with nuclear-capable aircraft on the Korean Peninsula, the message of threat is clear to the North Korean leaders. Equally clear is the message from North Korea to the US with its nuclear tests and bluster: North Korea has a nuclear capability that could cause unacceptable harm to the US, its troops and its allies.
From an objective perspective, each country has the capability to cause the other (or its troops or allies) horrific damage. While they are pounding on their chests and demonstrating that they are in fact crazy enough to use nuclear weapons, they are engaged in a drama that hopes to dissuade the other side from actually doing so. Both countries should take note of this.
The dangerous game of Nuclear Roulette is built into the nuclear deterrence paradigm. Each time the hammer of the gun is cocked and the gun is pointed at the other side’s head, the barrel of the opponent’s gun is also pointed at one’s own head. An accident or miscalculation during a time of tension could trigger a nuclear holocaust.
Yes, of course the United States is the stronger of the two countries and would fare better, perhaps far better, in a nuclear war, but that isn’t good enough. Yes, North Korea could be destroyed as a functioning country, but at what cost? In addition to the terrible cost in lives of North Koreans, the US and its allies would also pay a heavy price: first, in the deaths of US troops stationed in the Northeast Asian region; second, in the deaths and devastation of US allies, South Korea and Japan, and possibly of the US itself; and third, in the loss of stature and credibility of the US for having engaged in nuclear warfare that destroyed the lives of potentially millions of innocent North Koreans.
Nuclear Roulette has no winners. It is a game that no country should be playing. But the leaders of countries with nuclear weapons tend to believe these weapons make their own country more secure. They do not. They risk everything we hold dear, all we love, and they undermine our collective sense of decency. The only way out of the Nuclear Roulette dilemma is to unload the gun and assure that it cannot be used again by any side.
We can do far better than we are doing. For the short term, the US should stop conducting provocative war games in the region and instead offer some diplomatic carrots rather than sticks. The US would go far to defuse a dangerous situation by again offering to support North Korea in providing food and energy for its people. For the longer term, the US should lead the way forward by using its convening power to commence negotiations for a new treaty, a global Nuclear Weapons Convention, to achieve the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
A few years ago, my wife pointed out that whoever coined the term nuclear deterrence was a marketing genius: it implies that threatening to destroy the world will deter behavior we don’t like. But what happens if nuclear deterrence morphs into nuclear chicken, with neither side willing to back down and be humiliated? Two articles I came across today help illuminate how that could happen.
Today’s New York Times has an article about the ongoing Sino-Japanese dispute over a few uninhabited island known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China. The article noted:
The diplomatic maneuvering underscores the emotions in both nations. In China, the islands are seen as the last unreturned piece of Chinese territory seized during the building of Japan’s empire more than a century ago, and thus a sign that Japan remains unrepentant. To many Japanese, the islands have become emblematic of the broader challenge that their nation, long Asia’s strongest power, faces from the emergence of an increasingly powerful China seemingly bent on settling old scores.
Where territorial disputes are concerned, even a few small, uninhabited islands can cause rationality to evaporate, and an irrational adversary is unlikely to be deterred. If Japan is irrational enough to get into a war with China, we would be dragged in by our mutual security treaty which Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell clearly stated extends to these disputed islands.
Paradoxically, nuclear deterrence depends on our adversary being rational enough to be deterred, while we must appear irrational enough to risk our existence as a nation. The second part of that paradox was clearly enunciated in a 1995 USSTRATCOMM white paper, “Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence”:
Because of the value that comes from the ambiguity of what the US may do to an adversary if the acts we seek to deter are carried out, it hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed. The fact that some elements may appear to be potentially “out of control” can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary’s decision makers. This essential sense of fear is the working force of deterrence. That the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be part of the national persona we project to all adversaries. [emphasis added]
The second article today which relates to a potential failure of nuclear deterrence is Ward Wilson’sguest post on the Arms Control Wonk blog, which explains how President Kennedy failed to be deterred during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ward’s column is related to his new book, Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, which I highly recommend. When I got my copy of the book, I wasn’t sure how much time I’d be able to give it. After all, this is my primary area of academic interest and I’ve read extensively on the issues treated here. But I found myself drawn in to the point that I finished the book the same day it arrived! That hasn’t happened in a long time, and is a tribute to both Ward’s masterful writing style and his concise arguments. Buy it, you’ll like it!
And, most importantly, let’s start recognizing that nuclear chicken (i.e., nuclear deterrence) is not a rational basis for our national security.
Martin Hellman is a NAPF Associate and is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University.
The lead article in the July/August 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs is titled “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb.” The author, Kenneth Waltz, a former president of the American Political Science Association, argues that the world should stop worrying about Iran getting the bomb. He sums up his basic argument this way: “If Iran goes nuclear, Israel and Iran will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have. There has never been a full-scale war between two nuclear-armed states. Once Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, deterrence will apply, even if the Iranian arsenal is relatively small.”
In essence, Waltz puts his faith in nuclear deterrence and justifies this in historical terms. But the history is short and there have been many close calls. During the 67-year period since the dawn of the Nuclear Age there have been numerous accidents, miscalculations and threats to use nuclear weapons. Fifty years ago, the US and Soviet Union stood at the precipice of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Waltz’s faith in nuclear deterrence reflects a belief in rationality, a belief that all leaders will behave rationally at all times, including under conditions of extreme stress. This defies our understanding of human behavior and the ever-present potential for human fallibility.
Another way to view the historical data from which Waltz finds comfort is by an analogy of a man jumping off a hundred-story building. As he passes floor after floor, he wonders why people on the ground are showing concern for his well-being. He ignores the approaching ground and focuses his attention on the fact that nothing bad has happened to him yet. In Waltz’s theory of nuclear deterrence, there is no hard ground below, nor gravity acting upon the jumper. He argues that “history has shown that where nuclear capabilities emerge, so, too, does stability. When it comes to nuclear weapons, now as ever, more may be better.” While having more may be better, it may also be far worse.
Martin Hellman, a professor emeritus of electrical engineering at Stanford University and an expert in risk analysis, argues that a child born today has a ten percent or greater chance of having his or her life cut short by nuclear war. Unlike Waltz’s analysis, risk analysis takes into account the odds of an event occurring and doesn’t base its analysis of the future simply on what the historical record shows at a given point in time. Ten coin flips may produce ten straight “heads,” but it would be unwise to assume that the results between heads and tails would not even out over time. With nuclear weapons, the consequences of being wrong in one’s projections are, of course, far more dire than with coin tosses.
Another analogy that has been used to describe the standoff between nuclear-armed powers, particularly the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War, was of two men standing up to their waists in the same pool of gasoline and each man being ready to strike an unlit match. If either man struck the match, both men would be consumed by the fire that would result. With nuclear weapons, the conflagration would not stop at the two men – it would include their families, their communities, their countries and the world.
Waltz makes the bet that no leader of a nuclear weapon state will ever strike the match or allow the match to fall into hands that will strike it. It is a foolish bet to make. The two men, and the rest of us, would be far safer if the gasoline were drained from the pool. In the same way, the world would be much safer if nuclear weapons were abolished, rather than shared in the hope they would enhance security in the Middle East or elsewhere.
Waltz may believe that it is precisely the threat of conflagration that keeps the men from striking the matches. For many, even most, men he may be correct, but the fact is that neither Waltz nor anyone else can predict human behavior under all conditions. There may be some leaders in some circumstances for whom striking the match would seem rational. In addition, even if neither man were to strike a match, lightning may strike the pool of gasoline or other sparks may ignite the pool from unforeseen causes. Instances of accidents, madness and human fallibility abound.
Nuclear weapons have brought humankind to the precipice. These weapons threaten cities, countries, civilization and complex life on the planet. It is the responsibility of those of us alive on the planet now to abolish these weapons of mass annihilation, not justify their spread, as Waltz would have us do.
It’s often said that nuclear weapons have protected nations from military attack.
But is there any solid evidence to bolster this contention? Without such evidence, the argument that nuclear weapons prevented something that never occurred is simply a counter-factual abstraction that cannot be proved.
Ronald Reagan — the hardest of military hard-liners — was not at all impressed by airy claims that U.S. nuclear weapons prevented Soviet aggression. Kenneth Adelman, a hawkish official in the Reagan administration, recalled that when he “hammered home the risks of a nuclear-free world” to the president, Reagan retorted that “we couldn’t know that nuclear weapons had kept the peace in Europe for forty years, maybe other things had.” Adelman described another interchange with Reagan that went the same way. When Adelman argued that “eliminating all nuclear weapons was impossible,” as they had kept the peace in Europe, Reagan responded sharply that “it wasn’t clear that nuclear weapons had kept the peace. Maybe other things, like the Marshall Plan and NATO, had kept the peace.” (Kenneth Adelman, The Great Universal Embrace, pp. 69, 318.)
In short, without any solid evidence, we don’t know that nuclear weapons have prevented or will prevent military aggression.
We do know, of course, that since 1945, many nations not in possession of nuclear weapons and not part of the alliance systems of the nuclear powers have not experienced a military attack. Clearly, they survived just fine without nuclear deterrence.
And we also know that nuclear weapons in U.S. hands did not prevent non-nuclear North Korea from invading South Korea or non-nuclear China from sending its armies to attack U.S. military forces in the ensuing Korean War. Nor did massive U.S. nuclear might prevent the Soviet invasion of Hungary, the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Also, the thousands of nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal did nothing to deter the terrorist attacks of 9/11 on U.S. territory.
Similarly, nuclear weapons in Soviet (and later Russian) hands did not prevent U.S. military intervention in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Nor did Soviet nuclear weapons prevent CIA-fomented military action to overthrow the governments of Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, and other nations.
Other nuclear powers have also discovered the irrelevance of their nuclear arsenals. British nuclear weapons did not stop non-nuclear Argentina’s invasion of Britain’s Falkland Islands. Moreover, Israel’s nuclear weapons did not prevent non-nuclear Egypt and non-nuclear Syria from attacking Israel’s armed forces in 1973 or non-nuclear Iraq from launching missile attacks on Israeli cities in 1991. Perhaps most chillingly, in 1999, when both India and Pakistan possessed nuclear weapons, the two nations — long at odds — sent their troops into battle against one another in what became known as the Kargil War.
Of course, the argument is often made that nuclear weapons have deterred a nuclear attack. But, again, as this attack never took place, how can we be sure about the cause of this non-occurrence?
Certainly, U.S. officials don’t appear to find their policy of nuclear deterrence very reassuring. Indeed, if they were as certain that nuclear weapons prevent nuclear attack as they claim to be, why are they so intent upon building “missile defense” systems to block such an attack — despite the fact that, after squandering more than $150 billion on such defense systems, there is no indication that they work? Or, to put it more generally, if the thousands of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguard the United States from a nuclear attack by another nation, why is a defense against such an attack needed?
Another indication that nuclear weapons do not provide security against a nuclear attack is the determination of the U.S. and Israeli governments to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. After all, if nuclear deterrence works, there is no need to worry about Iran (or any other nation) acquiring nuclear weapons.
The fact is that, today, there is no safety from war to be found in nuclear weaponry, any more than there was safety in the past produced by fighter planes, battleships, bombers, poison gas, and other devastating weapons. Instead, by raising the ante in the ages-old game of armed conflict, nuclear weapons have merely increased the possibility that, however a war begins, it will end in mass destruction of terrifying dimensions.
Sensible people and wise government leaders have understood for some time now that a more promising route to national and international security is to work at curbing the practice of war while, at the same time, banning its most dangerous and destructive implements. This alternative route requires patient diplomacy, international treaties, citizen activism, the United Nations, and arms control and disarmament measures. It’s a less dramatic and less demagogic approach than brandishing nuclear weapons on the world scene. But, ultimately, it’s a lot safer.
![By Tânia Rêgo/ABr (Agência Brasil) [CC BY 3.0 br (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Pope_Francis_at_Vargihna.jpg)
I have been working for a world free of nuclear weapons for over four decades. On occasion I am asked, “Why do you continue this struggle when change seems to come so slowly?” Here is my response.
The lead article in the July/August 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs is titled “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb.” The author, Kenneth Waltz, a former president of the American Political Science Association, argues that the world should stop worrying about Iran getting the bomb. He sums up his basic argument this way: “If Iran goes nuclear, Israel and Iran will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have. There has never been a full-scale war between two nuclear-armed states. Once Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, deterrence will apply, even if the Iranian arsenal is relatively small.”
It’s often said that nuclear weapons have protected nations from military attack.