The Danish Peace Academy
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 22. juni 2009 / Time Line June 22, 2009
Version 3.506/22/2009
Kicking the Nuclear Habit: Why We Need a World Free of Nuclear
Weapons
By Lawrence S. Wittner
With President Barack
Obama and other world leaders now talking about building a
nuclear-free world, it is time to consider whether that would be a
good idea.
Six reasons for supporting nuclear abolition are particularly
cogent.
The first is that nuclear weapons are morally abhorrent. After all,
they are instruments of widespread, indiscriminate slaughter. They
destroy entire cities and entire regions, massacring civilian and
soldier, friend and foe, the innocent and the guilty, including
large numbers of children. The only crime committed by the vast
majority of victims of a nuclear attack is that they happened to
live on the wrong side of a national boundary.
The second reason is that nuclear war is suicidal. A nuclear
exchange between nations will kill millions of people on both sides
of the conflict and leave the survivors living in a nuclear
wasteland, in which—as has been suggested—the living
might well envy the dead. Even if only one side in a conflict
employed nuclear weapons, nuclear fallout would spread around the
world, as would a lengthy nuclear winter, which would lower
temperatures, destroy agriculture and the food supply, and wreck
what little was left of civilization. As numerous observers have
remarked, there will be no winners in a nuclear war.
The third reason is that nuclear weapons do not guarantee a
nation's security. Despite their nuclear weapons, the great powers
over the decades became entangled in bloody conventional wars.
Millions died in Korea, in Algeria, in Vietnam, in Afghanistan, in
Iraq, and numerous other lands—including large numbers of
people from the nuclear nations. As the leaders of the nuclear
powers learned, their nuclear arsenals did not help them a bit in
these conflicts, for other peoples were simply not cowed by their
nuclear might. Nuclear weapons simply weren't useful.
Nor has the vast nuclear arsenal of the United States protected it
from terrorist assault. On September 11, 2001, nineteen
men—armed only with box cutters—staged the largest
terrorist raid on the United States in its history, in which some
3,000 people died. Of what value were U.S. nuclear weapons in
deterring this attack? Of what value are they now in "the war on
terror"? Given the fact that terrorists do not occupy territory, it
is difficult to imagine how nuclear weapons can be used against
them, either as a deterrent or in military conflict.
The fourth reason is that nuclear weapons undermine national
security. Of course, this contention defies the conventional wisdom
that the Bomb is a "deterrent." And yet, consider the case of the
United States. It was the first nation to develop atomic bombs and,
for some years, had a monopoly of them. But in response to the U.S.
nuclear monopoly, the Soviet government built atomic bombs. And so
the U.S. government built hydrogen bombs. Whereupon the Soviet
government built hydrogen bombs. Then the two nations competed in
building guided missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads, and
on and on. Meanwhile, other nations built and deployed their
nuclear weapons. And, each year, all these nations felt less and
less secure. And they were less secure, because the more they
threatened others, the more they were threatened in return!
Moreover, as long as nuclear weapons exist there remains the
possibility of accidental nuclear war. Over the course of the Cold
War and in the years since then, there have been numerous false
alarms about an enemy attack that have nearly led to the launching
of a nuclear response with devastating potential consequences.
Furthermore, nuclear weapons can end up being exploded in one's own
nation. For example, in the summer of 2008 the top officials of the
U.S. Air Force were dismissed from their posts because,
thoughtlessly, they had allowed U.S. flights with live nuclear
weapons to take place over U.S. territory.
The fifth reason is that, while nuclear weapons exist, there will
be a temptation to use them in wars. Waging war has been an
ingrained habit for thousands of years and, therefore, it is
unlikely that this practice will soon be ended. And as long as wars
exist, governments will be tempted to draw upon their stockpiles of
nuclear weapons to win them.
Admittedly, nuclear armed nations have not used nuclear weapons for
war since 1945. But this reflects the development of massive
popular resistance to nuclear conflict, which stigmatized the use
of nuclear weapons and pushed reluctant government officials toward
arms control and disarmament agreements. But we cannot assume that,
in the context of bitter wars and threats to national survival,
nuclear restraint will continue forever. Indeed, it seems likely
that, the longer nuclear weapons exist, the greater the possibility
that they will be used in a war.
The sixth reason is that, while nuclear weapons remain in national
arsenals, the dangers posed by terrorism are vastly enhanced.
Terrorists cannot build nuclear weapons by themselves, as the
creation of such weapons requires vast resources, substantial
territory, and a good deal of scientific knowledge. The only way
terrorists will attain a nuclear capability is by obtaining the
weapons or the materials for them from the arsenals of the nuclear
powers—either by donation, by purchase, or by theft.
Therefore, as long as governments possess nuclear weapons, the
potential exists for terrorists to secure access to them.
What, then, is holding us back from nuclear abolition? Certainly it
is not the public, which poll after poll shows in favor of building
a nuclear-free world. Even many government leaders now agree that
getting rid of nuclear weapons is desirable. The real obstacle is
the long-term habit of drawing upon the most powerful weapons
available to resolve conflicts among hostile nations. This habit,
though, has proved a deeply counter-productive, irrational
one—worse than smoking, worse than drugs, worse than almost
anything imaginable, for it places civilization on the brink of
destruction. It is time to kick it—and create a nuclear-free
world.
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