I might be traipsing across my threshold of partisan political expression that I set for this blog here...
I went to a talk a couple of nights ago at the German Historical Institute on the dangers associated with nuclear weapons. For someone who feels like he has a relatively informed perspective on the issues involved, I regret not speaking up to express some of my thoughts. The one issue that they kept mentioning, but always neatly danced around was the nonproliferation regime. Afterwards, I had a hard time deciding if they simply wanted to avoid the topic or were dismissing it.
To my eyes and ears, the room was filled with mostly older, wonky people who had been sipping the total disarmament Kool-Aid with a little too much zeal. In short, the conversation was heavy on academic musings and light on a discussion of practical policy solutions. The discussion was framed from a historical perspective (with a touch of the counter factual) so I suppose I should not be surprised.
The most surprising comment came from one of the panel members who claimed that when she was visiting a college recently to give a talk on nuclear disarmament, the "kids" didn't know what a "nuclear weapon" was. I can understand if the average person can't tell you which countries have nuclear weapons or how many, but in the post-9/11 era of mushroom cloud smoking guns, I have a hard time believing that story. Honestly, it is also a little insulting.
Panelists and audience members seemed to collectively lament the divorce of policy from nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era while simultaneously bemoaning the Cold War mentality toward nuclear weapons today. On the first point, the divorce of policy from nuclear weapons is merely an illusion caused by the disintegration of the Cold War deterrence paradigm. For all the complexity of a system defined by counterforce, circle error probables, throw weight, assured destruction and second strike capability, Cold War nuclear policy was simple compared to the multi-polar and multidisciplinary contemporary policy.
On the second point, when I read stories like this, I could not agree more. Arms control treaties are always going to be mind-numbingly verbose, but when they are turned into political footballs, we lose perspective. I fail to understand why the world needs tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. Until we can solve the problem of nuclear proliferation, I don't think that having no nuclear weapons is a good idea either. I want a pragmatic approach to modern nuclear policy. A cold calculus of deterrence will not solve the dilemma of nuclear weapons - neither will a naive belief that total disarmament will prevent other countries from keeping or maintaining nuclear arsenals.
So where is a good place to start? One place is the pun from the query. The Senate needs to ratify the new START treaty. It is by no means a silver bullet, but it does force significant cuts to the two largest nuclear stockpiles in the world. Since the last arms control treaty expired, there have been no verification inspectors visiting Russian nuclear sites. Until a new treaty is ratified, both countries have zero transparency when it comes to meeting treaty obligations. Furthermore, it serves as a base for tackling trickier issues, like paring down Russia's massive tactical nuclear arsenal. Ratifying the START treaty will also lend some legitimacy to our efforts to stop countries from acquiring nuclear weapons.
That brings me to the last problem I had with the discussion: nuclear weapons provide utility beyond the affirmation of national prestige. The panel members seemed to believe that national prestige was the sole driving force behind the continued maintenance and spread of nuclear weapons. They are wrong.
A good exercise for strategic planning is to put yourself in the other side's shoes. Let's do that for one of the biggest proliferation threats today: Iran. If I was an Iranian leader, why would obtaining nuclear weapons seem like a good idea? Firstly, in the last 10 years, the global hegemon has invaded and occupied the countries on Iran's east and west borders with 100,000+ troops. In the last 30 years, Iran fought a border war with a regional power that had active chemical and nuclear weapons programs. In the last 40 years, the U.S. supported an Iranian regime that suppressed political opponents - this regime was overthrown in a popular uprising. Iran's regional ideological adversary, Israel, clandestinely obtained nuclear weapons during the Cold War and was not heavily sanctioned or ostracized.
For an example that is a little closer to home, in the early decades of the Cold War, NATO faced major shortcomings when it came to contingency plans in Europe. The Soviet Union had clear superiority in conventional terms and a massive conventional assault on western Europe would have ended badly for NATO. The only way NATO could have prevented the Red Army from overrunning West Germany was using tactical nuclear weapons. It is not difficult to see the path of escalation that leads to a strategic nuclear exchange, but that was the simple reality of defending western Europe.
Obtained from The National Security Archive
Prior to the nuclear age, a state that faced a rival from a position of strategic and/or martial inferiority could accept vassalage or form an alliance or risk neutrality. Today, how does China hedge its survival against its conventionally superior strategic rival (the U.S.)? Indeed, how does any nation that draws the ire of or faces the prospect of poor relations with a conventionally superior state insure its survival? Nuclear weapons have immense value beyond the "me too!" factor.
This is a massive problem: how can we de-legitimize nuclear weapons while these weapons still serve as useful hedges against foreign aggression? A show of good faith by ratifying the new START treaty would be a good step.
