Nuclear Weapons

The Road To Zero

Joseph Rotblat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9780429721342
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume of essays, a map of the road to zero, gives the reader a primer on the current state of nuclear disarmament, provides an up-to-date argument for the merits of a nuclear-weapon-free world, and outlines the steps needed to attain that goal. Its editor is Joseph Rotblat, the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize winner. The volume assesses recent efforts by scholars, military leaders, and political figures in advocating the elimination of nuclear weapons. It brings to focus the major dilemmas of disarmament, including verification, nuclear theft, and diplomatic and security issues; and argues for why these obstacles must be overcome. Finally, a comprehensive review of the steps needed to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world is presented. }Over the past decade the concept of a world free of all nuclear weapons has transformed from a fanciful dream to a subject of serious study and action. Will it be possible for the international community to agree not simply to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to low levels, but to reduce it to zero? This volume of essays, a map of the road to zero, gives the reader a primer on the current state of nuclear disarmament, provides an up-to-date argument for the merits of a nuclear-weapon-free world, and outlines the steps needed to attain that goal. Its editor is Joseph Rotblat, the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize winner. The volume assesses recent efforts by scholars, military leaders, and political figures to advocate the elimination of nuclear weapons. It brings to focus the major dilemmas of disarmament, including verification, nuclear theft, and diplomatic and security issues; and argues for why these obstacles must be overcome. Finally, a comprehensive review of the steps needed to achieve a nuclear-weapon-free world is presented.

PART ONE
A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World

DOI: 10.4324/9780429040375-2

1
The Anatomy of the Argument

DOI: 10.4324/9780429040375-3

Michael MccGwire

In recent years, there has been a sea-change in Western thinking about nuclear weapons. Until then, there was no real debate. Nuclear weapons were believed to be essential to the security of the West, and those who questioned that assumption were marginalized. Today, there is a significant body of influential opinion (including a sizeable number of retired Generals and Admirals), which outspokenly favours their elimination.

The circumstances of the Gulf War, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union combined to open up new avenues of thought, which led many in the US national security community to conclude that it would be very much in the interests of the United States if all nuclear weapons were "taken off the table of international affairs."¹ There remained the question of how that could be brought about, and the newly activated debate focused on the feasibility of a nuclear-weapon-free world (NWFW) and how to achieve that goal.

US thinking about this problem started from the benefits of eliminating nuclear weapons. Besides removing "all kinds of risks of catastrophic destruction," America would "be free to enjoy two extraordinary strategic advantages: first, as the least threatened of major states, and second, as the one state with modern conventional forces of unmatched quality."² It was these newly available advantages, coupled with the danger that nuclear proliferation would increase the threat of nuclear terrorism and could lead, on occasion, to US conventional superiority being neutralized, that made an NWFW seem desirable.

The elimination of nuclear weapons depends absolutely on the active commitment of the United States and it is essential that US interests should be served by such a policy. But when it comes to ways of achieving that goal, the US perspective tends to obscure the reasons why it is so important and to deflect attention from the urgency of the need for immediate action to initiate the process. I, therefore, start with a restatement of the problem that faces us.

Why an NWF World Is Necessary

We need to eliminate nuclear weapons because:

• - Nuclear weapons make nuclear war possible.
• - Of mankind's many enterprises, a major nuclear war has the unique capacity to destroy civilization as we know it and to jeopardize the survival of the human race.
• - Human fallibility means that a nuclear exchange is ultimately inevitable.

These facts, coupled with the current hiatus in international affairs, lead to the conclusion that governments should act now to initiate the elimination of nuclear weapons, a process that could take 20-30 years to complete.

The aim of such a policy would he: to reduce the probability of a major nuclear exchange to zero, while reducing the probability that nuclear weapons will be used by anyone in any way to as low a figure as possible.

This aim is specific, limited, and achievable.

The elimination of nuclear weapons is a "good" in its own right.

The aim of an NWFW policy is not, in itself, to eliminate war, to achieve comprehensive disarmament, to resolve regional conflicts, or to enhance global stability.

However, while not the aim of an NWFW policy, those objectives (to the extent they are achievable), and others of that kind would be furthered if the nuclear weapon states adopted "the firm and serious policy-goal" of an NWFW.³ For example:

• - The number and variety of cooperative policy measures that would be involved in moving towards the goal of an NWFW would inevitably have a significant impact on national leaders and their electorates, and on the structure of the evolving international system.
• - The treaty-making process would help bridge the gap with the non-aligned nations and be a force for compromise and cooperation within the international community. By renouncing their nuclear capability, the most powerful nations would commit themselves to the greatest concessions. The transparency required to ensure control and verification of the NWFW regime would apply to all. And the universal goal of obviating a global catastrophe would generate a quite unusual coincidence of interests among participants.
• - Adopting the goal would defuse dissatisfaction with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Because halting proliferation would be essential to the process of achieving an NWFW, enforcement would become a matter of universal concern, rather than being seen by many nonnuclear weapon states as a dispute between haves and have nots.
• - The goal would meet a key objection to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and make it easier to police the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions.

These benefits flow from the goal of an NWFW and begin to take effect from the moment of its adoption. The logic is that of the "functionalist" approach to conflict prevention and international security, which has been demonstrated so powerfully in the genesis of the European Community. The EC grew out of the European Economic Community (founded in 1957 with just six nations), itself an extension of the European Coal and Steel Community (1950), which was the product of a policy decision to avoid further Franco-German conflict by intermeshing their heavy industry.

Although less tangible, the transformative effect of adopting a "firm and serious policy goal" was demonstrated by Mikhail Gorbachev's "new political thinking about international relations," which he publicized with increasing vigour throughout 1985. Within two years, the adoption by a superpower of that clearly articulated policy, reflecting as it did the principles underlying the UN Charter and the conclusions of the Palme Commission Report, had been largely instrumental in bringing about a relaxation of international tension from the heights it reached in the first half of the 1980s. This relaxation was achieved without noticeably softening Soviet policy towards America (that shift took place in Spring 1987); before the first concrete evidence of the change in Soviet military doctrine (the asymmetrical INF treaty signed in December 1987); and despite Gorbachev's "new political thinking" being dismissed in Washington and London as Utopian propaganda.⁴

The Main Objection

It is increasingly accepted in the United States that nuclear weapons have no practical utility besides deterring their use by another state,⁵ a function that would lapse in an NWFW. Today, the main objection to the logical corollary of that conclusion - eliminate nuclear weapons - is that to do so would create a new danger of "nuclear breakout," which would allow one state to hold the rest to ransom.⁶

The most persuasive rebuttal of that objection is comparative risk assessment. The subjects of comparison are the likely outcomes over time of alternative policies, neither of which is risk free. We tend to contrast the current post-cold-war hiatus with some future nuclear-weapon-free world, to the latter's disadvantage. The proper comparison is between two unfolding processes and not between two situations (one present, the other hypothetical) set years apart in time. The question to be answered is which policy is potentially the least dangerous and likely to bring the greatest benefits in the foreseeable future.

Risk is the product of the consequences of a calamity and the likelihood of its occurrence. In a nuclear world (such as we have known this half century), the worst case is a full-scale nuclear exchange. In an NWFW, the risk would be nuclear breakout, leading in the very worst case to the limited use of nuclear weapons.

Opinions will differ on how the probability of breakout from a tightly verified NWFW compares with that of accidental or inadvertent war in a high-salience nuclear world. But in terms of risk, we can be certain that if there were to be a significant difference between the probabilities,⁷ the disparity will not be sufficient to balance the incomparable calamity of a nuclear exchange.N

Meanwhile, cost-benefit analysis indicates that, in practice, there would be little (if any) political-military incentive to break out from an NWFW, the risk being correspondingly low.⁸ The possible exception is the irrational rogue state, but while the probability may be somewhat higher, the calamity factor of such a breakout is by far the smallest (see Chapter 6).

To the gross disparity in risk once the NWFW threshold has been crossed must be added the steadily growing disparity, in the intervening period, in the relative risk of breakout from the NPT regime. As discussed elsewhere, current nuclear policies will face a steadily increasing probability of breakout.⁹ Given the policy-goal of an NWFW, the risk will diminish over time, both for political reasons and as the heavy investment in verification bears fruit.

New Complications

As the debate has moved to the question of how best to achieve an NWFW, there has emerged a tendency to specify geopolitical conditions that would have to be met before we could adopt and implement the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.

• - The weak version contends that the final stage of elimination requires the resolution of regional conflicts and the wide-ranging renunciation of the use of force.
• - The strong version claims that any move towards nuclear disarmament (and therefore ultimately to a nuclear-weapon-free world) can be made only as part of a wider move towards regional and global stability and security.

The strong version is essentially an argument for inaction. Given that we failed to achieve regional and global stability in the past, there is no reason to expect we will be able to meet the preconditions in the future, unless there is some external stimulus. The strong version can be seen as an attempt at political correctness by those who are not yet convinced of the desirability of an NWFW, let alone its feasibility.

The weak version of the argument is more worrisome because it is advanced by those who claim to believe that an NWFW is desirable.¹⁰ The underlying rationale seems to embody three main strands, two of which may be largely subliminal.

One is the subconscious belief that nuclear weapons continue to have some use beyond simple deterrence of nuclear threats. Otherwise, why the need for regional and collective security regimes before reducing national nuclear arsenals to tens of weapons each?¹¹ The implication is that in the absence of such regimes, nuclear weapons are necessary to keep the peace. This is not, however, supported by the evidence of the last fifty years, including the 10-15 year period when the United States enjoyed an effective monopoly of the worldwide means of delivering such weapons. The irrelevance of nuclear weapons to the numerous conflicts since Hiroshima is notable, and they have provided no magic solution to the age-old problem of peace and security.

Nor do the other four "tasks" that were said to require the retention of nuclear weapons stand up to close analysis.¹² (1) The claim that nuclear weapons are needed to prevent major war once more becoming an option for settling serious disputes among advanced major powers can be dismissed as a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc¹³ (2) There are better ways of deterring or responding to attack by biological or chemical weapons;¹⁴ and by relying on the overwhelming conventional capability enjoyed by the United States and its allies, we will gain the advantage of increasingly effective enforcement of the NPT and CWC. (3) The argument that nuclear weapons are needed to prevent breakout from an NWFW is both circular and ill-founded.¹⁵ And (4), no example has been offered of how nuclear weapons "underpinned world order" in the past, or might do so in the future, particularly since extended nuclear deterrence has ceased to be credible, (particularly in Asia), outside very exceptional circumstances.¹⁶ There remains the suggestion that nuclear weapons would be needed for the defence of Europe against a resurgent Russia. Given the time-frame, relative capabilities, and the state of the Russian political economy, this was implausible, even before NATO enlargement. It could, however, turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The other subliminal strand seems to rate the "two extraordinary strategic advantages" that an NWFW would bring the United States as at least as important as eliminating the danger of a nuclear exchange.¹⁷ While informed by the best kind of enlightened geopolitical thinking, this perspective tends to be agnostic about the beneficial effects of a decision by the nuclear states to commit themselves unequivocally to an NWFW, and continues to view the world in traditional geostrategic terms, with the United States as the global arbiter and peacemaker.

The third strand is fully committed to the elimination of nuclear weapons,

but argues that "political realism" demands the specification of geopolitical preconditions.

All three strands are sustained by fallible expectations and false analogies. These must be addressed before we can turn to considering the third strand and the case for political realism.

Unsubstantiated Analogies

Regional Security. The contention that regional security is a prerequisite for adopting the goal of an NWFW is sustained by two interrelated ideas that are currently fashionable in the field of international relations. One is the optimistic belief that the kind of security that has been achieved in Northern America and Western Europe represents the leading edge of an evolutionary trend in world politics. The other is the claim that democratic states do not fight each other, the implication being that as democracy spreads, so will conflict recede.

Given the unique and ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations and Acronyms
• About the Contributors
• Introduction and Summary
• PART ONE A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World
• PART TWO The Road to Zero: Progress and Regress
• Index