Atlantic Community:Open Think Tank Article "Eliminating the Nuclear Threat Is Not a Pipe Dream"

Nuclear arms control and disarmament will be among the top issues on the political agenda now and in the foreseeable future. It is an issue of crucial strategic importance for Europe, and so one on which Europe should articulate its own views. At the same time, this year will determine whether US President Barack Obama's vision of a nuclear free world will remain a distant but achievable hope, or whether it must be abandoned. No one should today be under any illusions; even if all the world's nuclear weapon states (NWS) rally behind the vision of a world that will eventually be free of the threat of a nuclear conflict, nuclear weapons will continue to exist for two decades at least, and even that would require the most favourable conditions for disarmament during all that time.

There are general reasons why 2010 is such a key year.

The agreement signed in early April in Prague between Russia and the US on the reduction of strategic nuclear weapons and possibly on further cuts was accompanied by the publication in the US of the Obama Administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) identifying the nuclear capabilities the President wishes to preserve for the next four years. Then there is the NPT review conference on the adapting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty to our rapidly changing world, and in front of many policymaker's minds is the hope that before the year is out, 2010 will bring clarity on the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programmes.

There are today more than 23,000 nuclear weapons, some 40,000 fewer than during the height of the Cold War, the total yield of these weapons is nevertheless greater than 150,000 Hiroshima-size nuclear explosions. Nuclear disarmament is therefore still urgently needed, and moves by prominent politicians in the US and in Germany have produced the US-led Global Zero initiative and the setting-up of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) sponsored by Australia and Japan and co-chaired by former Foreign Ministers Yoriko Kawaguchi and Gareth Evans.

Nine-tenths of nuclear weapons are owned by the US, Russia, France, the UK and China, all signatories of the NPT, while between them India, Pakistan and probably Israel possess some 1,000 weapons. North Korea presumably has a few and Iran is most likely still pursuing a nuclear weapons programme. Presidents Obama and Medvedev have agreed on a common objective of a nuclear free world and agreed on cuts that will reduce their respective strategic arsenals to 1550 weapons each. This is more by far than the 1,000 figure Barack Obama had in mind, but it is nevertheless a huge step that could bring about further nuclear disarmament.

But the road to global nuclear disarmament will be long and bumpy. To begin with, the capacity to dismantle and destroy nuclear warheads is rather limited, and it seems that it is virtually impossible to increase it. Present capacity is some 500 weapons a year in both countries which means that the total of 2000 weapons each which the ICNND Report suggests for the year 2025 can't be fully implemented much before 2028. Then there is the likely renaissance of nuclear power plants to be taken into account. To come close to the targets that were under discussion at the Copenhagen Summit, more nuclear power plants will be unavoidable, leading to additional enrichment and reprocessing facilities so that considerable quantities of fissile materiel are going to be produced.

Continue reading the full article at Europe's World, atlantic-community.org's new partner.

General Klaus Naumann is a former chairman of NATO's military Committee.

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September 17, 2010

Greg Randolph Lawson, Wikistrat, Platinum Contributor (507)

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I simply do not understand the fetishistic attachment so many have to the nuclear disarmament agenda. I understand the emotional appeal of a "safe" world free from the threat of mushroom clouds, but, does no one give currency to the notion that nuclear weapons have actually kept a lid on Great Power conflict in the post World War II era? That should be part of the debate and it is not.

Additionally, there are several other fundamental flaws with the entire Global Zero movement:

1) Getting rid of each and every nuclear weapons, even if it could be done (which on its own is highly dubious), will not get rid of the knowledge to develop them, meaning that in a "disarmed" or "Global Zero" world, any nation that might have aggressive designs could re-establish a covert program and hold non-nuclear power states hostage. Maybe it wouldn't happen that way, but maybe it would. What leader of a nuclear power wants to be the person responsible for opening up their nationto nuclear blackmail when they once had the capacity to deter it?

2) The incentives different nations have to acquire (or pretend to acquire) nuclear weapons are multifarious and include concerns over regional security and, often, a lack of conventional military capability vis a vis regional comeptitors and rivals (see Pakistan). Absent a general disarmament that goes beyond just nuclear weapons, how do we get rid of those incentives?

A response to those two huge problems with "Global Zero" need to be addressed and addressed within the context of reality not utopias or legalistic frameworks that collapse under the pressure of exerted power. Until they are, which really means until human nature itself changes, this movement is an experiment in dangerously wishful thinking.

We have reduced our stockpiles in America a great deal as have the Russians. We are safer than during the Cold War notwithstanding the terrorist threat. To go much further than we have is to invite new strategic problems and even more instability than there already is in a world where instability is already making a distinct comeback.

September 17, 2010

Greg Randolph Lawson, Wikistrat, Platinum Contributor (507)

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As an addendum to my previous comment, I would like to ask if anyone can direct me to any literature concerning the nexus of nuclear weapons and insecurity in the face of superior conventional military capacities of rival nations or competitiors.

I am aware that numerous nations (South Africa and former Soviet Republics like Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus) have given up nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon programs in the past. However, my understanding is that they have all been done in the context of a fully nuclear world where a combination of economic inentives and the lack of a large enough nuclear deterrent made it provocative to continue with a small number of nuclear weapons as a counter to larger neighbors with larger arsenals.

In a fully denuclearized world, the race to see who gets them up and running again is a much different dynamic as is the issue of the relative importance of a small number of nuclear weapons in competition with a fully conventional military opponent. In other words a small number of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear, but conventionally superior opponent makes much more sense than to have a handful of nuclear weapons against a major power with several hundred, much less several thousand nuclear weapons.

It continues to strike me like we are always trying to put the genie back in the bottle, but the genie is as much knowledge as it is actual deployment. That can never be changed. The Rubicon was fatefully crossed when the Manhattan Project yielded its fruits.

Also, I would be very curious to see a study that explains other reasons besides the presence of nuclear weapons for the lack of a Great Power war since 1945. I have written elsewhere here at the Atlantic Community that this lack of a major war (though I recognize proxy wars, civil wars and mid power state on state wars have taken place since 1945) can largely be considered the result of nuclear weapons existance. Can anyone guarantee that conventional military competition might not again flare back up in a world without nuclear weapons? From this perspective, as contrary to conventional wisdom as it may seem, the crossing of the Rubicon has at least yielded something positive for world stability.

September 25, 2010

Tahir Ghani, A social and political thinker. A Poet, (1)

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and what agenda about the nuclear Pakistan?? which is in such a banana mood of state that anything can happen there??

November 12, 2010

Basia A Bubel, NYU, Platinum Contributor (190)

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Nuclear arms control seems to always be a major issue in any US president's campaign. I completely agree that we need to have a nuclear arms control disarmament. It would be great if the world was free of such a terribly destructive weapon. Unfortunately, we have enough to destroy the earth 100 times over and I wonder if the nuclear arms holders would agree to completely disarm all of their nuclear weapons. I don't see the major world powers letting go of their very powerful weapons. Yes, of course they will reduce the amount because after all- who really needs a 1000 extremely powerful weapons that could wipe out half of the planet with one hit? But wouldn't it be great if we got rid of every nuclear weapon.

November 18, 2010

Martin

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I'm sorry, General Naumann, but among the nuclear states I don't see any willingness whatsoever to get rid of their atomic weapons completely. They may wish to reduce their arsenals to keep the financial burden down, however, they are far from entering a path that would inevitably lead to a global zero. France and the UK see their nuclear weapons as a symbol of world power, China and Russia additionally consider them as the ultimate insurance against US conventional superiority. States like India, Pakistan or Israel are involved in regional conflicts with their neighbors and consider the NPT deeply unfair (India) or have to compensate for their conventional weaknesses (Pakistan vs. India, India vs. China, North Korea vs. South Korea and the USA).

As a disadvantaged country Germany has to stop believing that we are an ally of the P5 on this issue. Even our archfriends the French whose President proclaims that France will keep its nuclear deterrent more or less indefinitely are clearly not on our side. Furthermore, Germany must see the complex of nuclear weapons not just in the context of global security but also as a matter of status, justice and equality in international relations. We simply shouldn't accept that others feel entitled to have something that we don't have.

Our main allies are other powerful have-nots like Japan, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Argentina or South Africa. Together with them Germany should design a detailed multi-step plan with a realistic but thight timeframe that will inevitably lead to complete nuclear disarmament. This grandiose plan is then presented to the nuclear states. If the nuclear powers dare to refuse to comply our group has to make clear that we consider them in serious violation of Art. VI of the NPT. To give our demands the necessary bite we would as a last resort threathen to collectively withdraw from the NPT and keep all military options open for ourselves in the future.

The simple strategy is brutal and obvious: the nuclear powers must be cornered and offered two choices - the loss of their morally undeserved and legally questionable status as a priviledged nuclear state or the utter destruction of the NPT and possible nuclear anarchy.

Is there any other possibility to stop the unacceptable state of affairs that in the end it's the nuclear powers themselves who determine the pace and extent of nuclear disarmament? Probably not!

November 22, 2010

Unregistered User

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Basia -

It has rarely an issue in US presidential campaigns for the past 20 years. Not only the, the idea of the US disarming itself and trusting Russia to do tyhat same while it's increasingly behaving more and more amateurishly like a banana republic in energy prone to spoiling stunts just to exert its' power, is simply foolish.

Plus, there are not enough warheards to destroy the world over 1000 times. Get your facts straight.

Moreover, why disarm if it will only give a handful of erratic buffoons like the leaders of Iran, Pakistan, and in future the likes of Venezuela more leverage over the safely of the rest of the world's population? This isn't some imaginary game, or something that can be done to salve the frustration of a handful of largely dissinterested pacifists who are just as prepared to seek satisfaction for their impotent rage over some other issue.

Martin:

The idea that organizational systems are in fact sufficient to supersede the obvious percieved self-interest of nations and alliances, or is sufficent to secure any permanent re-arrangement of relations is simply ignorant, and perhaps even hateful. Even control and verification regimes aren't a solution to the "it's just a piece of paper" problem.

The question I have has to do with who exactly these "morally deserving" states and populations are, and how did you arrive at that conclusion in any way other than the fact that they take a stance based on their disposition of power, and the fact that they have had to do very little themselves to achieve a state of security? Isn't it just a case of trying to transpose interpersonal relations, in this case in the form of passive-aggression onto nations? Nations, as much as many would like to think, are not morally reasoning entities in the manner that individuals are.

November 23, 2010

Eoin Michael Heaney , Atlantic Community , Bronze Contributor (24)

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Thank you everyone for your comments so far!

However, in order to keep the discussion as productive and open as possible, please register as members with Atlantic Community. It doesn't cost anything and only takes a minute. You can do so here:

http://www.atlantic-community.org/index/users/register

Kind regards,

Eoin.

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Eliminating the Nuclear Threat Is Not a Pipe Dream

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