[NukeNet] REBUTTAL TO "THE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT FANTASY" (Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2007)

[Steven Starr]

REBUTTAL TO "THE NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT FANTASY" (Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2007) 

 by Steven Starr

 

Nuclear Deterrence or Nuclear Disarmament?

 

 

 

In their November 19, 2007, op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Harold Brown and John Deutch state that "there is no realistic path to a world free of nuclear weapons" and they describe such a goal as "fantasy".  They believe the recent call for nuclear disarmament by Kissinger, et al. (published January 4, 2007, by the Wall Street Journal), was "counterproductive" because setting such a goal "will not advance substantive progress on nonproliferation; and it risks compromising the value that nuclear weapons continue to contribute, through deterrence, to U.S. security and international stability."

 

Those opposed to this viewpoint must reply, which is the fantasy, nuclear deterrence or nuclear disarmament?  What are the likely outcomes over time of these two alternative courses of action?  Is it ultimately more dangerous to persist with current policies or to instead earnestly pursue a nuclear-weapons-free world?

 

Many who see utility and legitimacy in the perpetual maintenance of nuclear arsenals tend to regard nuclear abolition as a "de-stabilizing" goal, and apparently assume that deterrence will forever prevent a major nuclear conflict.  Their long-term optimism, however, is supported neither by logic or history.  Nuclear weapons combined with human fallibility not only make nuclear war possible, they will eventually make it inevitable - if we allow nuclear arsenals to exist in perpetuity. 

 

In their effort to dismiss the value of establishing the "distant goal" of nuclear disarmament, Brown and Deutch suggest that "nothing that the U.S. does to its nuclear posture will directly influence  . . . a nation's (let alone a terrorist group's) calculus" to obtain nuclear weapons. Apparently they fail to see that this claim fails to support their argument for keeping the nuclear status quo intact. 

 

How has the huge U.S. nuclear arsenal in any way inhibited the pursuit and development of nuclear weapons by the same groups which they describe?  Just the opposite of what they suggest is true.  As long as the Nuclear Weapon States chose to maintain nuclear weaponry as the cornerstone of their military forces, they will confer validity to the false idea that nuclear weapons provide security to those who possess them, and thus encourage non-nuclear weapon states to follow in their footsteps. 

 

Brown and Deutch concede that the end of the Cold War "has changed the balance of nuclear terror", yet they adhere to the doctrine of deterrence and attempt to tailor it to fit shrinking and distorted threats.  The doctrine of nuclear deterrence is what created the global nuclear arsenals; it cannot be used as a basis to dismantle them.  Deterrence is what this argument is really about. 

 

If the ultimate goal of national security is to ensure the survival of the nation, then surely the pursuit of this goal through nuclear deterrence must be viewed as an utter failure.  Because deterrence failed to set any rational limits on the size and composition of military forces, enough nuclear weapons were created to destroy not only our nation, but every nation on Earth. The consequences of a single failure of deterrence will condemn all present and future generations to sickness, death and destruction.  

 

Brown and Deutch believe that "there is no realistic path to a world free of nuclear weapons".  If we choose to accept this idea, then we sentence the children of the world to a dark future indeed.  We must instead reject this fatalistic mindset, which is still driving us towards the abyss, through an understanding that nuclear weapons pose a threat to the human species.  A major nuclear war will make our planet uninhabitable.  A nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought.

 

Can we move beyond a Cold War doctrine that still maintains a computerized, self-destruct nuclear mechanism capable of destroying civilization in less than an hour?  Isn't it time to take thousands of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear warheads off high-alert, launch-on-warning status?  

 

I quote Sir Michael MccGwire:

 

"The elimination of nuclear weapons is not only desirable, it is essential if we are to obviate the high probability of a nuclear catastrophe.  The main obstacles to adopting the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world are complacency and fatalism: complacency that, having avoided an inadvertent nuclear exchange in the past, we will continue to do so in the future; fatalism that nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented and there is nothing to be done about it.

 

In practical terms (science, technology, organization, administration), the elimination of nuclear weapons is eminently feasible.  In political terms, it requires vision, courage, and leadership by the five original nuclear-weapon states, the Western three in particular.  Vision is needed to project alternative courses of action twenty to thirty years ahead, to face up to the long-term consequences of current policies, and to visualize the ancillary benefits of adopting the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world in terms of international relations in general and the rule of law in particular.

 

Courage is needed to admit to Western electorates that things other than nuclear weapons were responsible for the avoidance of major war during the years of East-West confrontation, that deterrence doctrine actually increased the danger of unintended conflict with the Soviet Union, and that a significant danger of nuclear inadvertence was [and is] inherent in the danger of opposing nuclear arsenals. Leadership is needed to ensure that once the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world is adopted, it continues to receive overriding priority in terms of political attention and resource allocation, until it is finally achieved.

 

At a time when the West is striking moral attitudes about genocide and other crimes against humanity, it would be ironic if its "leaders" were unable to contemplate foregoing weapons that have no demonstrable utility, but whose very existence threatens the survival of civilization as we know it and even the human race."

 


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