Commentary
We have had the past seven U.S. presidents advocate for either major reductions in nuclear weapons or their near abolition, but almost no analysis has been forthcoming as to what reductions have secured for U.S. security, and whether one should try practically to get to or toward abolition. When such an analysis is completed, the maze of contradictions in the arguments for complete abolition become apparent, as does the troubling impact such abolition narratives have on the current nuclear strategic balance, including arms reductions.
It is true that even before the use of atomic weapons against Japan ended World War II, there were those who wished that nukes could be banned altogether. After August 1945, and absent abolition, there were calls for such weapons and for all uranium mining and research to be controlled by a U.N. organization under what was known as the 1946 Baruch Plan. All nations would allow inspections by a U.N. authority to ensure that nuclear activity was peaceful. The United States would unilaterally give up its nuclear capability, while Russia promised that it would do so some time in the future.
Baruch failed. After the 1961 Berlin and 1962 Cuban crises, although the United States and USSR decided not to lob nuclear warheads at each other, luckily, off-ramps were available and taken. But still the scent of Armageddon remained in the strategic environment. So, some six years later, the Johnson administration proposed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to at least prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. Those having exploded a nuclear device were designated the permanent five members—China, the United States, Russia, France, and the UK. Israel, Pakistan, and India did not sign the deal. Six years later (1974), Israel was assumed to have nukes, and that same year India exploded its first nuclear weapon. Thirty years later, in 1998, Pakistan followed suit.
The treaty language required the permanent five to reduce their reliance on nuclear weapons, promote non-proliferation, and, in the view of some, seek abolition. And thus, here was the first contradiction. The United States and NATO members would never have signed an agreement in which they pledged to eliminate nuclear weapons in Europe, in the face of the huge Soviet conventional force advantage that was only balanced by the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent.
The U.S. National Security Council wrote a presidential memo to that effect. The fact: Nuclear abolition is only pursued under conditions of general and complete conventional disarmament. Although the 1986 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe agreement and the collapse of the USSR markedly reduced former Warsaw Pact forces, military forces remained, requiring U.S. extended nuclear deterrence to remain in place.
Russia and China have built arsenals of highly accurate and very low-yield, battlefield nuclear weapons. While it may indeed be fanciful to believe that such use of nuclear weapons—e.g., “escalate to win”—makes sense, unfortunately Moscow and Beijing believe that such warfare is workable and have deployed just such forces.
If, on the other hand, one believes that the threat to use such battlefield nuclear weapons is all bluff, then why does the West keep any nuclear extended deterrent in Europe? And if the bad guys won’t escalate using theater nuclear weapons, why would they escalate and use central strategic systems? It’s either all bluff or all real. Either the United States needs a nuclear deterrent or we don’t. Again, another contradiction.
Many abolitionists reject the option of nuclear deterrence at any level for fear that the retaliatory use of nuclear weapons will lead quickly to all-out nuclear use and Armageddon. Many new books and Hollywood movies now have this message. Thus, for fear that without abolition nuclear war is inevitable, the abolitionists would unilaterally get rid of the very American nuclear deterrent that has kept the nuclear peace for 80 years. And thus, in still another contradiction, abolitionists make it more likely that our adversaries and enemies will use against us and our allies the very nuclear weapons whose elimination is being sought because the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable!
Another abolition narrative is that it is unfair for the nuclear “have” nations to bully other “have not” nuclear nations. Hans Blix, a Swedish diplomat and the former International Atomic Energy Agency director-general, told me at a U.S. Senate briefing that there was no reason that the United States should have nuclear weapons but that no other country—such as Sweden, for example—should. He declared that the only fair solution was for everyone to have such weapons or no one. This, again, is a popular framing of the nuclear environment but nonetheless highly distorted, even dangerous. In the absence of abolition, Blix was advocating wholesale proliferation, a total contradiction of his mission at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Furthermore, the U.S. extended deterrent force is hardly for bullying, as it is totally defensive and not coupled with a conventional force that can invade east in Europe or west in the Pacific. On the other hand, China and Russia have battlefield nuclear force precisely to commit aggression, such as against Ukraine and Taiwan. They do not have nuclear weapons with which to extend protection to their friends. Their proxy friends such as North Korea and Iran routinely attack and murder their neighbors.
Between 1965 and 1973, for example, as South Korean retired Gen. Chun In-bum recently explained, North Korea regularly attacked South Korean military bases, resulting in more than 1,000 North Korean terrorists killed or captured on South Korean territory.
Iran is the state in the world that engages in the most terror attacks, including on its own people. The Islamic Jihad, Hamas (the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinians), Hezbollah, and Houthi terrorist groups undertake serial murder, rape, and bombing campaigns at the direction of Iran in the name of ridding the world of Jews, Christians, and others standing in the way of spreading radical Islam everywhere, including by planning and executing the attacks of 9/11. In yet another contradiction, ending U.S. extended deterrent would let loose the adversary bullies now chanting “death to America.”
President Ronald Reagan pushed at Reykjavik, Iceland, for the elimination of nuclear weapons but as part of a strategy to first eliminate what Ambassador Ron Lehman told me were “fast flyers,” especially large, multiple-warhead, land-based missiles—the very missiles banned under START II. And this is precisely why Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and then the Russian Duma later rejected START II. Again, Iceland was when Reagan sought to lessen the major coercive and blackmail power of nuclear armed missiles, the very core of Soviet military power. START II got rid of such missiles, but that objective is now missing in abolition strategies today. Another contradiction.
Though abolition continues to be a project for the distant future in the rhetorical hopes of some, the serious business is eliminating the blackmail and coercive (albeit reckless) use of nuclear weapons. Our enemies seek not to deter war, but to secure the objectives of war itself, whether invading Ukraine, taking over Taiwan, killing all Israelis, or swallowing South Korea.
To ensure success, the Brothers Mayhem (Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran) are seeking their objectives through a cooperative “unrestricted warfare” against the United States and the West. Nuclear weapons are the shield behind which they fight. Our job? To make sure we win, they lose.
From RealClearWire
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
