What to me is the most dangerous aspect of nuclear proliferation is the use of the smaller nuclear states as cat's paws by the bigger ones. China uses North Korea in exactly this way against the USA, and has every interest in keeping North Korea a nuclear power hostile to the USA: Russia uses Iran in the same way, and the USA uses Israel in a similar fashion against the Arabs and Iran. It is all too easy for puppet nuclear states to be used to strike a first strike against a perceived enemy, while claiming that the principal power is blameless, and thus not having to be held responsible. China is playing this game exactly with North Korea--always stating for public consumption that North Korea must give up its nuclear arsenal and always finding ways of preventing this from happening. This will be how the next nuclear war starts, and there is no telling exactly which of the "big" powers will be the puppeteer behind the straw dog. China and Russia should realize that they are much closer to North Korea and Iran than the US is, and are thus susceptible to manipulation by those soon-to-be nuclear empowered states. The USA will have to accept responsibility if Israel decides to get froggy with the Islamic world. Everybody will have to decide if such a world as is coming is worth the risk to humanity. Governments themselves are increasingly becoming cabals of nuclear gangsters who hold their own populations hostage to the nukes which are controlled by the few. Who is saying anything about that? Not Kissinger, who is one of the nuclear gangsters.
Our Nuclear Nightmare
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The effort to develop a new nuclear agenda must involve our allies from its inception. U.S. and NATO policy are integrally linked. Key European allies are negotiating with Iran on the nuclear issue. America deploys tactical nuclear weapons in several NATO countries, and NATO's declaratory policy mirrors that of the United States. Britain and France—key NATO allies—have their own nuclear deterrent. A common adaptation to the emerging realities is needed, especially with respect to tactical nuclear weapons. Parallel discussions are needed with Japan, South Korea and Australia. Parallel consultations are imperative with China, India and Pakistan. It must be understood that the incentives for nuclear weapons on the Subcontinent are more regional than those of the established nuclear powers and their threshold for using them considerably lower.
The complexity of these issues explains why my colleagues and I have chosen an incremental, step-by-step approach. We are not able to describe the characteristics of the final goal: how to determine the size of all stockpiles, how to eliminate them or to verify the result. Affirming the desirability of the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons, we have concentrated on the steps that are achievable and verifiable. My colleague Sam Nunn has described the effort as akin to climbing a mountain shrouded in clouds. We cannot describe its top nor be certain that there may not be unforeseen and perhaps insurmountable obstacles on the way. But we are prepared to undertake the journey in the belief that the summit will never come into view unless we begin the ascent and deal with the proliferation issues immediately before us, including the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.
A closing word: A subject at first largely dominated by military experts has attracted the commitment of disarmament advocates. The dialogue between them has not always been as fruitful as it should be. Strategists are suspicious of negotiated attempts to limit the scope of weapons. Disarmament advocates occasionally seek to pre-empt the outcome of the debate by legislating restrictions that achieve their preferred result without reciprocity—on the theory that anything that limits nuclear arsenals, even unilaterally, is desirable in and of itself.
The two groups need to be brought together. So long as other countries build and improve their nuclear arsenals, deterrence of their use needs to be part of Western strategy. The efficiency of our weapons arsenals must be preserved. The program sketched here is not a program for unilateral disarmament. Both President Obama and Senator McCain, while endorsing this approach, also made it clear, in President Obama's words, that the United States cannot implement it alone.
The danger posed by nuclear weapons is unprecedented. They should not be integrated into strategy as simply another, more efficient, explosive. We thus return to our original challenge. Our age has stolen fire from the gods; can we confine it to peaceful purposes before it consumes us?
© 2009
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