Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 64, May - June 2002

Editorial

Democracy and Security

By Rebecca Johnson

We have been hearing a lot about security in recent months, especially in the juxtaposition of security versus terrorism. Of course people want to feel secure, especially when everything seems so unpredictable, but when national security is used to justify hanging on to weapons of mass destruction we should not let it go unchallenged.

During the recent NPT meeting in New York, which despite a veneer of success was actually a rather sorry affair, Britain's representative linked the continued possession of nuclear weapons three times in one paragraph with national security and security interests. In effect he was saying that the UK could not take further disarmament steps without compromising British security. In truth, what security does Trident guarantee? Deterrence still seems to be the catch-phrase. We need those big Trident submarines to loiter in Scotland's lochs or patrol the deep oceans to deter someone out there, do we? And without Trident we would be attacked, would we? Sure, it's worked against the IRA, Argentina (the media has recently been full of the Falklands/Malvinas war anniversary), Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, increased flooding due to climate change, and the crack dealers destroying young lives!

No, no, I hear the Ministry of Defence officials say: no-one says nuclear weapons can deter those kind of threats, but they have prevented major war and kept the peace for over 50 years! If nuclear deterrence were cost free and risk free, like saying a prayer to keep the aeroplane in the sky when we fly, there would be less problem, but it distracts attention and resources from more dependable (but less glamorous) security measures.

If someone believes that walking three times anti-clockwise round her house at sunset every day keeps the roof up, I won't criticise, as long as she doesn't neglect the upkeep of the walls. And if she takes the fact of ten, twenty, fifty years without a falling roof as proof positive that her sunset perambulations are effective, that's fine by me, as long as the unverifiable belief doesn't make her so confident she starts removing the weight-bearing walls and oak beams that really hold the roof up.

In many ways, the January 2002 US Nuclear Posture Review represents a "Dear John" letter to nuclear deterrence: "Sorry, but I don't believe in you any more." So the United States puts in a whole lot of other provisions for defence and "dissuasion", but like any other addict, it cannot quite let go of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear weapons have to be found a new role, though, or else the logical answer would be to get rid of them. Having spent all those resources, some wiseguy suggests, why don't we make nuclear weapons to actually use? The generation that can't remember the 13 kiloton devastation of Hiroshima and has forgotten the predictions of nuclear winter wants to make nuclear weapons more user friendly.

Elsewhere, since 1998 India and Pakistan seem to have quickly learnt to love the bomb, with politicians in both countries - now in a state of permanent war-alert - lauding the virtues of deterrence and the blessings of nuclear weapons for national security. They also, paradoxically, promise that nuclear strikes can be survivable, at least by some. Israel's arsenal continues to distort non-proliferation efforts in the Middle East, while the UK, France, Russia and China seem averse to NPR-style doctrinal innovation and, equally, to real nuclear disarmament, as required under the NPT. None seems keen on using nuclear weapons, but they insist on depending on nuclear weapons in order not to use them - a logic that defies history.

The walls are cracking, the cracks are getting wider, and still we are walking anti-clockwise at sunset, muttering mumbo jumbo about deterrence. International diplomats and arms control practitioners interested in collective security appear cowed into timidity. There have been so many setbacks, dating back not so much to September 11 but to January 20, 2001. The latest is the US repudiation of the International Criminal Court, following formal notification that Washington no longer considers itself legally bound by its signature to the Rome Statute. Plaster from eroding multilateral agreements now litters the streets. These are the load bearing walls of international security and the rest of the world is getting anxious.

The anxieties are not anti-American. Far from it. America's opponents and the opponents of pluralist democracy must be thrilled to see the Bush Administration dismantle the international legal and security regimes piece by piece. America's allies appear particularly nervous of being viewed as disloyal appeasers, but it is necessary for them to uphold the importance of those load-bearing walls. Even more importantly, American democracy must shake itself out of its September 11 paralysis and rediscover the importance of pluralism, including healthy dissent and argument within Congress, the press, and among the government agencies, particularly the Pentagon and State Department.

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