Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 19 Marts 2012 / Time Line March 19, 2012
Version 3.503/19/2012
Try a Little Nuclear Sanity
By Lawrence S.
Wittner
On February 8, 2012, Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA)
took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce
the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act (H.R. 3974). This
SANE Act would cut $100 billion from the U.S. nuclear weapons
budget over the next ten years by reducing the current fleet of
U.S. nuclear submarines, delaying the purchase of new nuclear
submarines, reducing the number of ICBMs, delaying a new bomber
program, and ending the nuclear mission of air bombers.
“America’s nuclear weapons budget is locked in a Cold
War time machine,” noted Markey, the senior member of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee. “It doesn’t
reflect our twenty-first-century security needs. It makes no sense.
It’s insane.” He went on to explain: “It’s
insane to spend $10 billion building new plants to make uranium and
plutonium for new nuclear bombs when we’re cutting our
nuclear arsenal and the plants we have now work just fine.”
Furthermore: “It’s insane that we’re going to
spend $84 billion for up to fourteen new nuclear submarines when
just one sub, with 96 nuclear bombs on board, can blow up every
major city in Iran, China and North Korea.” Finally,
“it is insane to spend hundreds of billions on new nuclear
bombs and delivery systems . . . while . . . seeking to cut
Medicare, Medicaid and social programs that millions of Americans
depend on.”
Since its introduction, the SANE Act has picked up significant
support. Not surprisingly, it is backed by major peace and
disarmament organizations, such as Peace Action, Physicians for
Social Responsibility, the Friends Committee on National
Legislation, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and the Ploughshares
Foundation. But it has also attracted the support of the National
Council of Churches, the Project on Government Oversight, and the
Congressional Progressive Caucus. Indeed, the SANE Act now has 45
Congressional co-sponsors.
In light of the vast and very costly nuclear weapons enterprise
operated by the U.S. government, cutting the nuclear weapons budget
makes a lot of sense. The U.S. government currently possesses over
five thousand nuclear weapons and, as the New York Times noted in a
caustic editorial late last October (“The Bloated Nuclear
Weapons Budget”): “The Obama administration, in an
attempt to mollify Congressional Republicans, has also committed to
modernizing an already hugely expensive complex of nuclear labs and
production facilities. Altogether, these and other nuclear-related
programs could cost $600 billion or more over the next
decade.”
Of course, if America’s vast nuclear arsenal were absolutely
necessary to protect U.S. national security, the case for
maintaining it would be strengthened. But, with the exception of
Russia, no nuclear-armed nation has more than a few hundred nuclear
weapons. It is not even clear what military or deterrent purpose is
served by maintaining an arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons.
As Congressman Markey observed: The “U.S. nuclear arsenal
could destroy the world five times over.” The New York Times
concluded that the United States “does not need to maintain
this large an arsenal,” and “it should not be spending
so much to do it, especially when Congress is considering deep cuts
in vital domestic programs.”
The real nuclear threat to the United States does not lie in the
fact that it does not (or will not) possess enough nuclear weapons
to deter a nuclear attack. Rather, it is that there is no guarantee
that nuclear deterrence works. That is why the U.S. government is
so worried about North Korea possessing a few nuclear weapons or
Iran possibly obtaining a few. That is also why the U.S. government
squanders billions of dollars every year on a “missile
defense” shield that is probably ineffective. The grim
reality is that, if governments are reckless or desperate, they
will use nuclear weapons or perhaps give them to terrorists to
attack their foes. While nuclear weapons exist, there is always a
danger that they will be used.
Thus, what has made the United States safer in this dangerous world
has not been piling up endless numbers of nuclear weapons but,
rather, nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. The
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for example -- by trading
promises of the nuclear powers to disarm for promises of the
non-nuclear powers to forgo nuclear weapons development -- has
persuaded the vast majority of nations not to develop nuclear
weapons. In this fashion, the willingness of the U.S. government to
decrease its nuclear arsenal (something it has done, although
reluctantly) has made Americans safer from nuclear attack by other
nations.
As a result of patient U.S. diplomacy, even the leaders of North
Korea, one of the worst-governed countries in the world, seem to
have shown glimmers of sanity in recent weeks. In late February,
they announced that, thanks to an agreement with the U.S.
government, they would suspend nuclear tests and uranium
enrichment, as well as allow international inspection of their
nuclear facilities.
If even the government of North Korea can manage to display a
measure of common sense, then is it too much to ask our own
government to do the same? Our leaders in Washington could join
Representative Markey and his Congressional allies in cutting back
the U.S. government’s vast and expensive nuclear doomsday
machine and using the savings to provide for the needs of the
American people. Surely it’s time to try a little nuclear
sanity.
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).
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