When the song remains the same, the dangers of nuclear weapons will never go away.
Last
week, the United Nations took an historic step towards global
elimination of nuclear weapons, in voting to begin negotiations next
year on a treaty to ban nukes. The U.S. and other nuclear weapon states,
other than North Korea, declined to support the resolution, with the
U.S. and its allies lobbying hard to defeat it. The contradictions in
the official U.S. statement are myriad, but here are just a few.
"How can a state that relies on nuclear weapons for its security
possibly join a negotiation meant to stigmatize and eliminate them?” argued
Ambassador Robert Wood, the U.S. special representative to the UN
Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. "The ban treaty runs the risk of
undermining regional security.”
Taking the first sentence,
Ambassador Wood actually has it backwards. With its huge conventional
military superiority, the U.S. would be much more secure in a world free
of nuclear weapons. Instead, nuclear weapons are increasingly relied on
by other countries, particularly Russia, as a counterweight to the U.S.
conventional advantage (which is why nuclear disarmament is unlikely to
happen in a vacuum; U.S. conventional military superiority is an
impediment to global denuclearization).
So, other countries are
more likely to hang onto their nukes, making the U.S. and the whole
world less secure, not more. As for the second sentence about the risk
of undermining regional security, Wood did not say which regions he was
referring to, probably because he couldn’t plausibly name one. Regional
nuclear-free and weapons of mass destruction-free zones, which cover the
entire global South, are wildly successful and have helped increase
regional security. And wouldn’t the Middle East, Indian subcontinent,
and Korean peninsula be much safer if Israel, India, Pakistan, China and
North Korea ditched their nukes?
Similarly, Wood’s statement
"…while we respect the views of the proponents, we disagree with the
practicality of their approach and are concerned with the negative
effects of seeking to ban nuclear weapons without consideration of the
over-arching international security environment” is a head scratcher.
Nuclear-free and WMD-free zones have been very effective and practical,
and moreover, the increasingly unstable, insecure and militarized
international security environment is a terrific reason to move toward
banning nuclear weapons worldwide. And hasn’t U.S. military
intervention, particularly in the greater Middle East and Near East
Asian regions over the last decade and a half significantly degraded
said international security environment?
The following paragraph uttered by Ambassador Wood packs a lot of unwise "conventional wisdom” into a short statement and deserves some critical deconstruction:
"The current challenge to nuclear disarmament is not a lack of legal instruments. The challenges to disarmament are a result of the political, technical and security realities we presently face. The United States is ready to take additional steps including bilateral reductions with Russia and a treaty ending the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, some states are currently unwilling to engage in further nuclear reductions, and others are increasing their arsenals.”
1. "The current challenge to nuclear disarmament is not a lack of
legal instruments.” That is true. The problem is the U.S. and other
nuclear states blowing off, since 1970, their legal obligation under
article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue
negotiations toward nuclear disarmament. If they were doing this in good
faith, last week’s UN vote would never have happened. The Republic of
the Marshall Islands courageously stepped up to sue the nuclear weapons
states at the International Court of Justice for the failure to uphold
article VI. The court recently threw the cases out on procedural
grounds, but the Marshalls and their allies will persist with appeals,
including in U.S. District Court.
2. "The challenges to
disarmament are a result of the political, technical and security
realities we presently face.” Also true, but with a heavy dose of
cynical, feigned naivete, as if those realities fell from the sky one
day. As the unipolar super power, the world’s leading country
politically, economically and militarily, doesn’t the U.S. bear a
disproportionate responsibility for the dangerous state of global
affairs? Aren’t our "security realities” mostly of our own making
through our overly militarized foreign policy, which has earned us
enemies and adversaries in so many corners of the globe?
3. "The
United States is ready to take additional steps including bilateral
reductions with Russia and a treaty ending the production of fissile
material for use in nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, some states are
currently unwilling to engage in further nuclear reductions, and others
are increasing their arsenals.” There is a lot to dissect here. Yes, the
Obama Administration did want to negotiate further nuclear cuts with
Russia. Regrettably, Russia refused, but it was understandable. Between
astonishingly arrogant U.S. post-Cold War triumphalism, NATO expansion
eastward to Russia’s borders (violating a pledge not to do so by the
first President Bush), vilification not just of Russian President
Vladimir Putin but of Russia itself, and the afore-mentioned U.S.
conventional superiority (with foreign bases and military allies
surrounding Russia, and also China), U.S. interests in further nuclear
cuts were thwarted - by U.S. foreign policy. And in terms of increasing
arsenals, the U.S. has initiated a 30 year, $1 trillion program to
upgrade and overhaul the entire U.S. nuclear weapons complex, from
weapons labs to warheads to missiles, planes and submarines, predictably
starting a new nuclear arms race, as every other nuclear state has
followed suit in announcing plans to "modernize” their own nuclear
arsenals.
The phrase that jumps to mind in all of this is
"Physician, heal thyself.” Instead of whining about the majority of the
world’s countries (123 of the 177 countries voted for the resolution to
commence nuclear weapons ban treaty negotiations) being unrealistic, the
U.S. needs to cancel its exorbitant, proliferation-inducing nuclear
"modernization” plans and get serious about banishing the scourge of
nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth. Joining in, and perhaps even
leading, the ban treaty negotiations would be fitting for the only
country ever to use nuclear weapons in war.