Nuclear Non-Proliferation — Fantasy and Reality
The nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 was officially measured as a 13 kiloton explosion. It killed 66,000 people, including 100% of people in a 1.1 mile radius of the detonation. Tiddlywinks. The most powerful nuclear weapon in use today (but not historically) is the B83, which is 75 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Nuclear non-proliferation is not an issue about which we think every day, but the sheer destructive power makes clear the need for a strong proliferation regime. And yet the idea that nuclear weapons could be removed from the face of the Earth - “global zero” - is more fantasy than reality. The eradication of smallpox provides an excellent illustration of why “global zero” is not possible. On 8 May 1980, the World Health Assembly declared that smallpox had been eradicated. And yet smallpox exists in two highly secure vaults in the United States and Russia. These vaults provide both a hedge against the disease’s natural reemergence, and as insurance against the weaponization of the virus by the other side. Mutually Assured Destruction be it from nuclear weapons or smallpox makes impossible the reduction of existing stockpiles of disease to zero.
And while there may be lingering idealists who believe in the fantasy of “global zero,” in my view it is reasonable to say that there exists a consensus in the foreign policy community that nuclear weapons are here to stay for the foreseeable future. Even organizations dedicated to combating nuclear weapons such as the Ploughshares Fund emphasize reduction and nuclear security, not “global zero,” even if that is their official position. Nevertheless, “global zero” is a useful framework as it focuses the goal not just on non-proliferation, the focus of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but on actual reduction of nuclear weapons.
And yet, beyond a certain point reduction itself is an extraordinarily difficult goal - the US and Russia have both reduced their deployed nuclear arsenal by over 70 % from their peaks, and there is further that they can go, but there is a floor on the number of nuclear weapons that the US and Russia can possess to form a credible deterrent against each other and against other potential foes.There have been cases of states giving up their nuclear weapons; but unfortunately, one of those states was Ukraine. And the idea now that any state would give up its nuclear arsenal strains credulity, and why would they?
Pakistan and India can’t go to zero for the same reason as the U.S. and Russia. Israel can’t go to zero because it is vastly outnumbered by the states that don’t recognize its right to exist. France has always sought military independence from the U.S. and from NATO; and l’affaire du Trump makes the U.S. commitment to NATO contingent on the American election, which rules out a UK move to zero nuclear weapons. Finally, there is North Korea, which can quite literally get away with murder because of its nuclear arsenal. So, if we can’t decrease the number of nuclear powers, what can we do?
There are two important items on which the world should focus. First, we can secure the nuclear material that exists; and second, we can make sure that additional countries don’t go nuclear. The security of nuclear material is an area on which both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations have made tremendous strides - both by buying up uranium from the sources and by helping to secure nuclear materials in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
The security of nuclear materials and the need to prevent terrorist groups such as ISIS from gaining access to nuclear materials was a major focus of President Obama at the most recent Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. Obama said, “There is no doubt that if these madmen ever got their hands on a nuclear bomb or nuclear material, they would certainly use it to kill as many innocent people as possible.” To that end, it is important that strict sanctions and monitoring of North Korea be maintained; and that pressure be continuously be applied on China to continuously apply pressure to North Korea. It is not just North Korea that should be kept under scrutiny - tough monitoring of Pakistan must be maintained to insure that Islamist radicals be prevented from gaining access to nuclear materials. The best way to ensure that terrorist groups do not get their hands on nuclear materials is to contain those materials to the states that already possess them.
Non-proliferation has been one of President Obama’s few successes in foreign policy, but this success is tenuous. The idea that there should be no new nuclear states is the basic premise of the NPT. However, the ability of the world to prevent non-nuclear states from going nuclear hinges in part on the U.S. presidential election. If Donald Trump is elected president, something that I think is unlikely but not impossible, it would mark the end of the NPT as we know it. Trump has not only demonstrated his willingness to break American treaty obligations, but seems almost gleeful and excited about doing so-- and there is no reason to think that the NPT would be immune to his insanity and inanity. The Trumpian view on proliferation is markedly different than that of Kenneth Waltz in his famous Adelphi Paper, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better.” In that piece Waltz argues that, “I have argued that the gradual spread of nuclear weapons is better than no spread and better than rapid spread” (emphasis added). Not only does he not make the case for rampant proliferation, he also argues that in many cases other U.S. policies would counter the need for some states to develop nuclear weapons. Thus, a policy of non-proliferation is unnecessary, because that goal can be achieved through other means.
Waltz writes, “Many South Korean officials believe that South Korea would lose more in terms of American support if she acquired nuclear weapons than she would gain by having them.” The Trumpian inward turn would not achieve the gradual proliferation about which Waltz wrote - and even Waltz’s position on this matter is famously controversial. Trump is not Waltz - I hesitate to even put their names in the same sentence. Indeed, Trump has already suggested that Japan and South Korea should build a nuclear arsenal and cover the cost of defending themselves from North Korea.This policy would be a dramatic reversal of decades of U.S. (and Japanese) policy.
Moreover, if Trump follows through on his threats to abandon Saudi Arabia, or to “rethink” the U.S. commitment to NATO, it will cause nuclear proliferation on an unprecedented scale. Even though other NATO countries would be unlikely to develop nuclear weapons, the perception among other actors, like Taiwan, would be that U.S. security guarantees are meaningless. Rampant proliferation is destabilizing, and would dramatically increase the number of nuclear sites to secure, including from cyber attacks. It is dangerous because some of these governments have their own extremists within them, like Saudi Arabia; or because there is continued domestic instability, like in Egypt. Le Phenomenon Trump itself shows that even the U.S. can fall prey to a leader that otherwise should not be allowed within 100 miles of the nuclear launch codes. If an ignorant know-nothing who responds “ten-fold” to personal attacks is in control of 1500 nuclear weapons, then we are all in danger.
And if that can happen in the United States, I shudder to think about the potential damage caused by nuclear proliferation in other states. “Global zero” may be impossible, but it’s a nice idea, and the Obama Administration understands the importance of non-proliferation and the vitality and importance of the NPT. We should all hope and pray that the next U.S. administration has the same view.