Accepting
the uselessness
of big nuclear missiles
By
Jonathan
Power
May 17th, 2004
LONDON - If
the Iraq imbroglio has one blessing it is that it
demonstrates that there are no actual or realistically
imaginable military scenarios where nuclear weapons would
be of any practical use for a major power attempting to
subdue a smaller one.
Yet the macho culture of nuclear
weapons remains unassailed except by a brave few. General
George Lee Butler, the commander of American nuclear
forces in president George Bush senior's time, has argued
that nuclear weapons are "inherently dangerous, hugely
expensive, militarily inefficient and morally
indefensible."
Even back in the days of the U.S.
nuclear monopoly, the moral sanction against use was such
as to render them diplomatically useless, often
counterproductive.
This is why Stalin knew he could
act with impunity when seizing control of Eastern Europe.
Likewise Beijing and Hanoi went to war with American
armies in Korea and Vietnam without fear of being halted
by nuclear weapons.
Nevertheless, the massive over-kill
arsenals from the Cold War era remain only moderately
reduced. Even when the latest treaty signed in Moscow by
presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin is fully
implemented in 2012, large U.S. and Russian nuclear
forces will still exist, ready to promptly totally
destroy each other's societies. They remain on hair
trigger alert.
For a nation besieged with worry
that nuclear weapons might fall into the wrong hands it
seems more than irresponsible that neither of the two
post Cold War younger presidents has wanted to change the
culture of nuclear weapons. Reagan did profoundly and
George Bush senior too to some degree but there as been
nothing less than insouciance from both Bill Clinton and
George W. Bush. Thirteen years after the Soviet Union
threw in the towel and requested its former enemy help
dismantle many of its nuclear weapons and more
effectively guard its stockpiles of weapons grade uranium
and plutonium the job remains half done. Indeed Bush's
initial response was to cut the already inadequate budget
he had inherited from Clinton. According to Sam Nunn, the
former chairman of the U.S. Senate's Armed Services
Committee, who two weeks ago helped organize a NATO
exercise in which an Al Qaeda nuclear attack was
simulated, 60% of dangerous sites have still to be
secured.
It was Ronald Reagan, to the
consternation of most of his senior officials, who wanted
to overturn conventional thinking about nuclear weapons.
At his summit in Reykjavik in 1986 with the president of
the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, he proposed what the
jargon calls, Zero Ballistic Missiles, ZBM. Gorbachev too
was overruled by his entourage. But later in 1991 a group
of hard line Republicans including the former assistant
secretary of defense Richard Perle and Paul Nitze, the
grand old man of arms control who has just had a
battleship named after him, fleshed out the idea.
They argued for the abolishing of
massive nuclear missiles and a return to the deployment
of long distance bombers as the backbone of nuclear
defense. It was a fascinating about-face. It was the
introduction of missiles and the subordination of bombers
in the 1960s that spurred the nuclear arms race. To turn
back the nuclear clock would remove the chance of
surprise assault, thus finally assuring crisis
stability.
This is one plus. The double plus
is what ZBM would do for the rest of the world. It would
have none of the weaknesses of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty with its abstainers and cheaters.
An anti-rocket treaty would have universal application,
and it is more easily enforceable. As the Libyan, North
Korean and earlier Iraqi experience have shown much of
the work of creating nuclear weapons can be concealed
from detection. But missile systems cannot be effective
unless their engines are tested and their boosters flown
in the open.
Such a treaty wouldn't get rid of
planes carrying nuclear bombs, or cruise missiles, much
less terrorists bombs hand delivered in a suitcase. But
it would diminish the tempo of crises and conflicts and
put real pressure on would-be nuclear powers to think
again.
At the moment the frozen status quo
undermines the solemn promises on disarmament the
nuclear-haves have made in the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty and greatly diminishes their negotiating leverage
when dealing with the likes of North Korea and Iran. ZBM
in contrast, by re-charging the dead batteries of arms
control, offers the best chance of mobilizing world
opinion against the theft and clandestine development of
nuclear weapons by other states and underground groups.
The whole corrupting psychology of nuclear arms
possession that somehow justifies nuclear possession as
being OK for us but not for them has to be turned on its
head.
Not before time there is a debate
re-surfacing on ZBM. This is the right place to begin the
battle against nuclear proliferation.
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2004 By
JONATHAN POWER
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