Weapons and Hope

Would the World Really be better off Without Nuclear Weapons?

In addition to the debate over whether or not a world without nuclear weapons is realistically attainable, another debate continues to lurk in the background: whether or not the world would be better off without nuclear weapons.  The immense destructive power of nuclear weapons has been made viscerally clear by the approximately 2,000 nuclear detonations in the 64-year history of nuclear weapons.  Moreover, it does not take a collection of academic and esoteric theoretical frameworks to understand that humans and the international system naturally tend towards conflict.  The combination of these two things seems to be an evident equation for catastrophe.

Nonetheless, the world has lived with nuclear weapons for over 64 years without nuclear conflict aside from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.  In addition, the world has been without major global conflicts for that period of time.  Some would argue that this is directly linked to the inimitable effects of global nuclear deterrence.  But this, of course, is mere postulation.  Basing decisions on postulation can be a treacherous way of going about business; facts are much more reliable.  However, when dealing with the social and phenomenological realm of international relations, fact and postulation are not necessarily dichotomous entities that may be clearly separated.

Anthropologist Michael Herzfeld has denied the “positivistic” attitude toward facts, instead suggesting that humans render items of knowledge into “facts” to provide greater order in human life and understanding: “Facts are the external shell of classification.  They are brought into being by fiat—religious dogma, educational inculcation, or bureaucratic intransigence” (Herzfeld, “Factual Fissures: Claims and Contexts,” 1998: pg. 73).  Facts are constituted and instituted through deliberate renderings of examined objects; a priori assumptions and predetermined associations are established to create authoritative understandings of those objects.  However, some “facts” are more easily constructed and more convincingly real than others.  On a relative scale, one should be able to separate postulation from these more convincing “facts.”  This task must be incorporated into the debate on nuclear weapons—that is, whether or not the world would ultimately be safer and more productive without them.

POSTULATION

There are several strong theoretical arguments that have been applied to the nuclear debate.  Though based in solid logic, counterfactuals, and historical evidence, many of these arguments are simply postulation that must be carefully considered.  The following are things we do not know with convincing certainty.

1. The usefulness and reliability of nuclear deterrence

A U.S. Peacekeeper ICBM

It is unclear exactly why there has not been large-scale, global conflict over the past sixty years.  Perhaps, it is because of nuclear weapons, and the multifaceted layers of deterrence that have been established as a result of several nuclear weapon powers.  Or perhaps it is because for the majority of the last sixty years, the international arena was dominated by a bipolar power rivalry.  The Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet superpowers sucked up virtually the entire world’s international relations dynamics, which could arguably have provided overarching global stability with or without nuclear weapons.  Within this stream of logic, the transition into the post-Cold War world introduced a unipolar international power structure that has similarly served to provide overarching global stability.  Or perhaps the conflict trend over the past sixty years should be attributed to a combination of countless things that we cannot quite explain because of the chaos and idiosyncrasies of international relations.  It does not seem possible to create an overwhelmingly convincing argument on why exactly the last sixty years have been free of a third world war.  Some academic realists may argue that it must be a result of nuclear weapons, as the international system intrinsically tends toward conflict.  However, a broader view of history shows that world wars may in fact anomalies, not the norm.

To Prevent Conventional War

It is unclear that nuclear deterrence is truly reliable to prevent conventional war.  After all, the last sixty years have been plagued by smaller-scale conflicts and wars, many of which have included nuclear-armed nations and some of which have been proxy wars between nuclear-arms nations.  The lack of large-scale conflicts and profusion of small-scale conflicts in the post-WWII era has been explained by a theory known as the stability/instability paradox, coined by theorist Glenn Snyder in 1965.  Robert Jervis exaplains the stability/instability paradox within the context of U.S.-Soviet bilateral relations:

Strategic stability creates instability by making lower levels of violence relatively safe and undermining “extended deterrence”—that is, the threat to use strategic nuclear weapons to protect allies.  This, the argument goes, the ability of the Soviet Union to destroy the United States means that the United States cannot credibly threaten to use its strategic nuclear forces in response to a Soviet attack on West Europe or the Persian Gulf. (Robert Jervis, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, 1989, pg. 20)

Similarly, nuclear retaliation has never occurred in the wake of aggressive action taken by non-nuclear nations against nuclear nations, creating a trend that displays the unreliability of nuclear deterrence to prevent conventional war.  As was displayed by many international conflicts, no nuclear-armed nation was truly willing to use nuclear retaliation against non-nuclear aggression.  Hall Gardner of the American University of Paris recently wrote an article emphasizing the need to dispel several nuclear myths, including the concept that nuclear weapons deter conventional warfare.   He gives many examples pointing to this argument, including the proxy wars during the Cold War (such as in Vietnam and Afghanistan), the 1982 Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom, and the 1999 Indian-Pakistani Kargil Crisis, a year after both had displayed their nuclear might through series of nuclear tests.

Nonetheless, there are many so-called “nuclear optimists” who believe in the stability that nuclear weapons endow upon the world.  Perhaps the most well-known, influential nuclear optimist is international relations theorist Kenneth Waltz, who famously outlined his position in a 1981 paper.  Waltz has gone as far as to say that:

Waltz also outlines his nuclear proliferation optimism in this iconic book, co-authored with nuclear proliferation pessimist Scott D. Sagan

The worst number of nuclear weapons to have in the world is zero.

In his 1981 article, Waltz stated:

If states can score only small gains because large ones risk retaliation, they have little incentive to fight.

However, we have seen many cases over the last sixty years in which states have found plenty of incentive to fight despite nuclear threats.

Alongside Waltz, other academics have made strong cases for maintaining comprehensive nuclear deterrence schemes involving many nuclear-armed nations, even encouraging greater proliferation.  Here is a good article that describes the “nuclear optimism” movement in academia.

Although certainly supported by solid theoretical frameworks and profound academic logic, what is described by the nuclear optimists cannot be considered empirical conclusions.  In reality, it is pure theorization.  It is incredibly interesting and comfortable to think that this is how it may actually be.  However, this form of speculation can be incredibly dangerous when dealing with things as destructive and risky as nuclear weapons.

In a recent Newsweek article, journalist Jonathan Tepperman explains:

The logic of nuclear peace rests on a scary bargain: you accept a small chance that something extremely bad will happen in exchange for a much bigger chance that something very bad—conventional war—won’t happen. This may well be a rational bet to take, especially if that first risk is very small indeed. But it’s a tough case to make to the public.

Seeing this hypothetical “bargain” as a good deal is an incredibly short-sighted type of thinking—the type of thinking that is endemic to nuclear debates, as explained here.  The description of the bargain does not quite catch the magnitude of the trade-off.  In the long run, the “extremely bad” thing makes the “very bad” thing essentially negligible; nuclear confrontation entails risks of an apocalyptic magnitude.

To Prevent Nuclear Strikes

Moreover, it remains unclear that nuclear deterrence will indefinitely continue to achieve its primary goal: to deter the use of nuclear weapons.  It is certainly evident that nuclear weapons have existed but have not been aggressively used over the past sixty-four years (with the exception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki).  Nonetheless, it is impossible to consider this to be empirical proof that basic nuclear deterrence is a constant in all situations going into the indefinite future.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is used as the most compelling example nuclear deterrence being safe and reliable.  During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the U.S. and Soviet Union were close to war and the potential use of nuclear weapons for roughly 13 days of threats, provocation, and urgent diplomacy.  That these two nations emerged virtually unscathed may be testament to the reliability of nuclear deterrence.  Perhaps, in this one case, nuclear deterrence did prove to be reliable.  Or perhaps we just got incredibly lucky.  This is Robert McNamara’s stance, one that we should value highly given his intimate role in the crisis.  In a documentary (The Fog of War) about Robert McNamara and revolving around filmed interviews with McNamara, he states simply in regard to the Cuban Missile Crisis:

Robert McNamara, United States Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968

I want to say—and this is very important—in the end, we lucked out; it was luck that prevented nuclear war.  We came that close to nuclear war.  Rational individuals! Kennedy was rational. Khrushchev was rational. Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.

To Deter Terrorists

It is convincingly clear that terrorist organizations would not be deterred by threats of nuclear retaliation.  The possession of nuclear power by various nations certainly has not thwarted terrorist attacks for several reasons.  First, nuclear weapons are not suited for small-scale targets.  Second, it is debatable that hardcore terrorist organizations can be thwarted by any threat of force.  Third, terrorist organizations are often dispersed within a society’s population, making an indiscriminate nuclear blast almost inconceivable.

1. 2. The Morality of Nuclear Weapons

Their Use and Threats to Use

Morality is an issue that often comes into play in nuclear debates for intuitive reasons: nuclear weapons represent the most destructive force on the planet controlled by humans.  Coupled with the ubiquity of religious, spiritual, and humanistic thinking, nuclear weapons have become an icon of evil to many.  The power of all the nuclear weapons on the planet is of an apocalyptic magnitude.

This may seem to be a self-evident truth to many people in the world.  For many, it may be the most important consideration within the nuclear debate.  Nonetheless, the moral argument is not something that can necessarily be considered a fact of sufficiently convincing substance to the overarching collective that constitutes the whole nuclear debate.  The practice of ethics and morality is one of the most powerful motivators on an individual levels, but it also a practice of cultural context.  The concept of ethics, or ethical action, is a complex social construction that cannot enjoy shared meaning and understanding amongst society’s diversity of individuals, institutions, and interest groups.

Some would go so far to say that ethics are arbitrary based on a person’s subjective, or inculcated, understanding of a hypothetical metaphysical reality.  Metaphysical realities and arguments of the sort are certainly important and they should be applied on a personal level.  However, they cannot be said to have convincing clarity within the context of open, contentious debates (as anyone who has had an argument about religion can attest to).

The Hiroshima/Nagasaki Debates

The atomic explosion over Nagasaki

Debates over the morality of nuclear weapons usage, in the past and in the hypothetical future, are characterized by tradeoffs of incommensurable value.  The contentious debates over the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are an informative illustration.  On the one side are those who contend that the use of the atomic bomb against Japan ended the war, sparing the lives of countless others upon whom the war would have inevitably taken its toll.  Others suggest that although the Japanese were getting closer to surrender, the seemingly swift end to the war that came in the wake of the atomic bombings prevented a planned invasion by U.S. forces, thereby saving the lives of countless U.S. soldiers at the expense of Japanese civilians.  On the other side, others believe that the use of the atomic bombs against Japan was an inexcusable act of genocide.  Each stance relies on a different reading of the evidentiary landscape as well as different sets of valuation on the lives involved.  The Hiroshima/Nagasaki debates underscore the likely set of moral debates that would precede a serious consideration of a nuclear strike today.  No single moral understanding is overwhelming convincing amid the variety of perspectives and interests that constitute each society.  See here for a very thorough examination of the Hiroshima debate.

FACTS—or, at least, better than postulation

They may not be facts either, but the following contentions should prove to be more collectively convincing, able to enjoy greater shared and widespread understanding, than the issues above.

1.  The costs of maintaining nuclear weapons are astronomical

Taking into account the money that has been directed into the nuclear-weapon production complex (which includes fissile material production and weaponization processes), the production of delivery vehicles, and maintenance of these strategic forces and the necessary expertise, the nuclear weapons have taken an incredible toll on the resources of the nuclear-armed states, particularly the U.S. and Russia.  The Brookings Institute completed a project, entitled The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project, in August 1998.  The project, whose purpose is self-explanatory based on the title, was created into a book called Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940.  The project archives are still on the Brookings Institute.  See here for a helpful summary in the form of quick facts.  Below are some of the facts:

1. Cost of the Manhattan Project (through August 1945): $20,000,000,000

2. Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500

3. Estimated construction costs for more than 1,000 ICBM launch pads and silos, and support facilities, from 1957-1964: nearly $14,000,000,000

31. Estimated amount spent between October 1, 1992 and October 1, 1995 on nuclear testing activities: $1,200,000,000 (0 tests)

50. Estimated 1998 spending on all U.S. nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs: $35,100,000,000

In Stephen Schwartz’s overview of the project findings, he indicates that:

From 1940 through 1996, we spent nearly $5.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs, in constant 1996 dollars.

In a 1953 speech, President Dwight D. Eisenhower poignantly declared:

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  This world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.  Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

Eisenhower’s statement is a dramatized (and, for many, incredibly moving) version of a simple fact: the immense investments made into modern weapons divert resources, energy, and human labor away from more productive uses.  Many believe military force to be incredibly important for the stability and security of the modern world, and perhaps they may be right according to realist and neorealist predictions.  Nonetheless, it still remains clear that each dollar put into weapons expenditure is one less dollar that could potentially be put into fostering the basic necessities, health, and peaceful welfare of the human race.  This is a simple physical, financial reality.

Nuclear weapons inhabit the top of the weapons expenditure hierarchy.  Even though the U.S. no longer produces new nuclear weapons, the costs each year of maintaining the current stockpile are astronomical.  Within the context of active nuclear rivalries, those costs will not remain and will continue to plague national economies around the world.  Hall Gardner believes that the costs of nuclear weapon rivalries “can destabilize the political economy of whole regions.”

2.  The more nuclear weapons there are and the more countries have them, the more likely it is that they will get into terrorist hands

This is another simple physical reality.  If terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda remain persistent about attaining nuclear weapons, it is not unreasonable to assume that eventually, they will achieve their goal.  Unlimited time comes with infinite possibilities, and the greater the numbers and the more profuse the locations of nuclear weapons, the greater the potential access terrorist organizations have to nuclear weapons.  Whether through theft of a working nuclear device, the use of scientist or military insiders in some national program, or the gradual assembly of a bomb through continued theft and the use of its own experts, the prospects of a terrorist nuclear bomb increase every day as long as the status quo of nuclear weapons numbers and states is maintained.  This is a simple mathematical fact: the more nuclear weapons and components in the world, the more nuclear weapons and components in the world that terrorists could potentially acquire.  Nuclear weapon safety and security are obviously also, and perhaps more, important than the numbers problem.  But this is a different issue altogether, and should have no bearing on the numbers issue.

In addition, it is impossible to say convincingly according to almost anyone’s standards that deterrence would function against a terrorist nuclear bomb.  A terrorist organization’s possession of a nuclear weapon is virtually equivalent to the inevitable usage of that nuclear weapon—or at least, the employment of unacceptable threats made by a terrorist organization that would end up in comparably horrible results and most likely the ultimate use of the nuclear weapon anyway.

3.  The longer nuclear weapons are around, and the longer the NWS maintain their general status quo, the more likely proliferation to other countries will occur

U.S. W76 Warheads

So far, reductions achieved by the U.S. and Russia have been, perhaps, quantitatively significant.  However, they have not been qualitatively significant.  Qualitatively, it may be argued that the current U.S. and Russian nuclear deployed warhead arsenals are strategically equivalent to those at the height of the Cold War arms race.  From the perspective of other nations around the world, the U.S. and Russia have not upheld their duty according to Article VI of the NPT:

to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

This situation provides other nations with both the incentive and justification to pursue their own nuclear weapons.

President John F. Kennedy predicted in the 1960s that by the 1970s, there would be 20-30 nuclear weapon states.  His prediction turned out to be incorrect, leading to much reason for optimism in regard to nuclear proliferation.  Kenneth Waltz espoused such optimism in Tepperman’s recent Newsweek article:

In 64 years, the most nuclear-weapons states we’ve ever had is 12.  Now with North Korea we’re at nine. That’s not proliferation; that’s spread at glacial pace.

It may be true that, over the past 64 years, nuclear weapons have proliferated at a pace slower than most would have predicted.  However, it would be foolish to assume that the future trend will simply match the trend of the past.  Many things have occurred to maintain the nonproliferation regime, including promises by the five official nuclear-weapon states to seriously pursue reductions and disarmament in order to achieve an indefinite extension of the NPT.  The nonproliferation regime, and confidence in the NPT, is indeed fragile.  The actions of nations that have pursued, or are suspected of pursuing, nuclear weapons (such as Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq) despite the global push for nonproliferation is evidence that the nonproliferation regime is not perfectly solid.  And with the existence of dozens of “virtual” nuclear powers—nations that possess the technology, expertise, components, knowledge, and material to produce nuclear weapons should the decision be made—and with more countries joining these ranks, the world is constantly on the brink of breaking the threshold at which point the nonproliferation regime ceases to function effectively.

4.  The more nuclear weapons there are in the world, and the longer they are there, the closer we are to human extinction

This is not a prediction that a massive nuclear war will inevitably occur at some point in the foreseeable future.  Instead, this is another simple physical fact: the more nuclear destructive power that exists on the planet, the greater the possibility that human extinction by nuclear destruction could actually occur.  It is certainly unclear whether or not an event would occur that would actually bring about the employment of all these nuclear weapons.  However, such an event is possible.  And if it were to occur, the world would be best kept safe if it had as few as possible.

CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions should be for the reader to make.  As explained in the introduction, the different between fact and postulation is often vague, and perhaps impossible to delineate when dealing with complex political and phenomenological issues.  Thus, I tried to keep the “facts” described above (with the exception of the third) as deeply grounded in simple physical realities as possible, making them pieces of evidence that are as indispensible as possible.  In contrast, I cannot claim that the “postulations” described above are as deeply grounded in physical realities—though they may be more deeply grounded than anything else in certain academic and political realities.  It is for the reader to decide if he or she agrees with this assessment of fact versus postulation in the context of the nuclear debate.  And it is for the reader to decide how greatly to rely on what he or she would consider postulations and what he or she would consider facts.