Posted on 03/13/2002 9:06:33 AM PST by Big Bunyip
By Andy Butfoy
March 14 2002
Reports that Washington has Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and China on a nuclear target list come as no surprise to strategic analysts. United States thinking on nuclear war is being driven by a predictable convergence between old Cold War habits and contemporary concerns over rogue states.
Overlaying this is a mix of lingering US triumphalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, together with the anxiety and self-righteousness that emerged after the terrorist strikes against Washington and New York.
The US is not simply talking about deterring nuclear attacks. Washington has made a calculated decision to restate its self-proclaimed right to be the first to use nuclear weapons. It is letting potential trouble makers know they could be on the receiving end of a nuclear first-strike.
This is not new. The US has maintained a first-use option for decades. During the Cold War US first-use policy was rationalised in terms of keeping Soviet and Chinese hordes at bay. When confronted by massive enemy manpower, especially in Korea and Europe, the West would rely on US nuclear weapons to be an equaliser.
Unfortunately, neither the end of the Cold War nor the emergence of an enormous American advantage in conventional weapons led to a fundamental rethink of nuclear strategy. It is true that Washington sometimes took the lead in cutting the number of nuclear weapons, and it has tried, however awkwardly at times, to lower the profile of nuclear options. But these positive trends never crossed over into a clear rejection of plans for nuclear escalation.
Indeed, as the Soviet threat disappeared into history, new concerns were used to justify the continuation of Washington's first-use option. Here Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a godsend to US hawks. It was used to exemplify what a diverse range of other so-called rogue states were really like. This simplistic grouping of opponents - the latest example being the axis of evil - is helpful when selling policy. Keeping it simple is necessary when dealing with publics that would be reduced to a condition of extreme confusion if asked to identify even basic differences between, say, Iraq and Iran.
Another polemical device used to rationalise US first-use options is the constant reference to weapons of mass destruction, a category that includes chemical and biological, as well as nuclear, weapons. Among other things, US nuclear forces are supposedly needed to deter the use of biological and chemical weapons. The existence of these things is said to provide legitimacy to US plans for nuclear war.
This stand is questionable for a couple of reasons. For one thing, it is grossly misleading to lump nuclear, biological and (especially) chemical weapons together. For example, outside of science fiction there is at present no way that chemical (or even biological) weapons would cause anything like the death and destruction of their nuclear counterparts.
Perhaps we have lost our sense of proportion about nuclear weapons. These things aren't just bigger bombs. The average US nuclear weapon today has 10 times the destructive capability of the explosion that destroyed Hiroshima. And even after all the projected cuts in its nuclear arsenal, Washington will retain nearly 2000 deployed warheads with many more held in reserve.
Moreover, Washington is hardly short of non-nuclear alternatives. It has a much wider range of economic, diplomatic and conventional military tools than any other state.
If, despite all this, Washington argues - as it does - that the threat of nuclear escalation is essential for its national security, what does this say to the rest of the international community? It says that non-proliferation of nuclear weapons is a mug's game, and that we should all get our hands on the damnable things.
US nuclear planning might be more acceptable if it were paralleled by a more constructive approach to multilateral diplomacy. After all, perhaps it makes sense to have a well-armed superpower prepared to underpin world order. But, given US unilateralism, we now have to ask: who's world order, and run according to what principles?
Washington hasn't worked hard enough at shaping an international context that would place its strategy in a more positive light. Indeed, it has rubbished important efforts to produce a more progressive world order. In particular, it has shown reckless disregard towards a range of arms control measures - such as efforts to verify bans on biological weapons and prohibit nuclear testing.
America's moral authority has been further eroded by hypocritical, and sometimes perhaps counterproductive, preaching on the need to be tough on nuclear proliferation. For example, Washington suggests that placing Iran on its nuclear hit list will make that country less inclined to develop nuclear weapons. A more likely response will be to strengthen the hand of those in Teheran who believe Iran needs its own deterrent.
The only reasonable justification for the US holding nuclear weapons is to deter their use by others. The architects of US nuclear strategy need to focus on this limited aim. This means reversing a decades-long policy and abandoning threats of nuclear first-use.
The next move should be to make first-use a war crime.
Dr Andy Butfoy is senior lecturer in international relations at Monash University
When emmissaries from the Religion of Peace brought down the Twin Towers, I thought it was a massacre. Now this jerk tells me it was just an excuse for self-righteousness!
Funny, "Butfoy" doesn't sound French.
Rumsfeld had comments about the release of Classified Information at the Pentagon briefing this morning!
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