Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 4. Juni 2012 / Time Line June 4, 2012
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06/04/2012
Kinesisk
militær knuser en demonstration for demokrati på den
himmelske freds plads / Tiananmen Square, i Peking. Flere hundrede
dræbes, 1989.
Litteratur: Tiananmen Square, 1989 : The Declassified
History.
A National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book
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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB16/documents/index.html
06/04/2012
Chinese military crushed a demonstration for democracy at the
Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Several hundred are killed, 1989.
06/04/2012
Do Nuclear Weapons Really Deter Aggression?
By Lawrence S.
Wittner
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.
Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at
SUNY/Albany. His latest book is "Working for Peace and Justice:
Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual” (University of Tennessee
Press).
06/04/2012
Official Nuclear Weapons Costs Too Low, Arms Control Today
Article Finds
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http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/Official-Nuclear-Weapons-Costs-Too-Low-Arms-Control-Today-Article-Finds
(Washington, D.C.) As Congress debates defense spending and
deficit reduction, observers have pointed to U.S. nuclear weapons
as a target for budget cuts. Yet, there has been disagreement about
the actual costs of nuclear weapons, and estimates vary. Now, using
a new methodology, an article in the June issue of Arms Control
Today, the journal of the Arms Control Association, finds that the
United States spends about $31 billion on nuclear weapons annually,
or about 50 percent more than official estimates.
The article, "Resolving the Ambiguity of Nuclear Weapons Costs," by
Russell Rumbaugh and Nathan Cohn of the Stimson Center, finds that
the differences between previous cost estimates can be explained by
two factors: a tendency to count different things, and a Pentagon
budget that is hard to fathom. "Once these two issues are
addressed," the authors find, "there is little disagreement about
the cost of nuclear weapons."
Using a bottom-up approach, the authors' estimate of $31 billion
includes $22.7 billion from the Defense Department (delivery
systems, command and control, research, and related costs) and $8.2
billion from the Energy Department (nuclear warheads, naval
reactors, and related costs). This is $11 billion higher than the
official estimate ($20 billion) but significantly lower than some
outside estimates. According to Rumbaugh and Cohn, "At the very
least, this study should clarify that official estimates relying on
a narrow definition of nuclear weapons understate the actual
amounts the United States spends on nuclear weapons."
The article finds that it is reasonable to include, as some higher
estimates do, the budgets for missile defense, environmental
cleanup and nonproliferation under costs of nuclear weapons, but it
is also reasonable to leave them out. According to the authors,
"the study has demonstrated that nuclear weapons do incur costs
greater than the ones the official estimates describe, no matter
how narrowly nuclear weapons spending is defined."
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