Between Iran and North Korea, nuclear weapons have been in the news these past few weeks. Civilization faces at least two existential threats, nuclear war and climate disruption. Climate disruption is more certain, but nuclear war remains all too possible.
The US, far and away the world's most over-armed nation, bears the major historical responsibility for the global nuclear threat. We started the nuclear arms race with the world's first fission bomb test in 1945, followed by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the only wartime uses of nuclear weapons. We tested the world's first fusion bomb, potentially thousands of times more powerful than fission bombs, in 1952.
Our military expenditures for 2018 totaled $649 billion. The military spending of the next seven contenders (China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom, Germany), totaled $609 billion in all, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
I am proud to have spent a sabbatical at the institute in 1985, studying arms control. Physicists invented the bomb and I am delighted that many physicists now work to consign it to history's ash heap. As one example, I was part of a group of 10 physicists who published an arms control book titled The Future of Land-Based Strategic Missiles (American Institute of Physics, New York, 1989). I co-edited the book and wrote four chapters, three of which were later published in the international journal Science and Global Security. It's a topic I've followed closely all my professional life.
There are nine nuclear weapons nations. Together with their year of nuclear acquisition and current number of separately-targetable nuclear warheads, these are: United States (1945, 6,450), Russia (1949, 6,490), United Kingdom (1952, 215), France (1960, 300), China (1964, 280), Israel (probably 1966, 80), India (1974, 130), Pakistan (mid-1980s, 140), North Korea (2006-2013, 25).
In 1970, the United Nations-sponsored Non-Proliferation Treaty entered into force. Today all nations are parties to the treaty except for South Sudan and four nuclear powers (India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan) which were non-nuclear when the treaty was established but then acquired nukes in violation of the treaty. The purposes of the treaty are to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy and achieve nuclear disarmament. The treaty's central idea is that non-nuclear states agree not to acquire nuclear weapons while nuclear states agree to share peaceful nuclear technology and to pursue the elimination of all nuclear arsenals.
The four non-complying nuclear powers have their own "deterrence" rationales: India and Pakistan deter each other, Israel deters hostile Mideast nations, and North Korea deters the US and its allies. Iran is currently threatening to acquire nuclear weapons to deter the US, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations.
Americans must understand that we are not the only nation that feels it needs a nuclear arsenal to prevent enemy attack. We still surround ourselves by 6,500 nuclear weapons, far more than "needed" and enough to destroy civilization many times over. Other nations also have their fears. Certainly North Korea and Iran fear the supremely powerful US -- fears justified by our attacks on Vietnam, Iraq and Libya, among others. President Obama negotiated a remarkable nuclear deal with Iran requiring them to refrain from nuclear weapons in return for relief from crushing sanctions. President Trump's foolish violation of that treaty produced the expected Iranian countermoves: Increased uranium enrichment and the expected re-opening of a plutonium-producing reactor. Enriched uranium and plutonium are the two key fission weapon fuels.
It's good that Trump gets along with North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong Un, but I doubt good vibes are going to be enough to re-assure Kim that policy advisors John Bolton and Mike Pompeo will not attack a non-nuclear North Korea, or that some future US president would not attack. He knows he needs nuclear weapons for deterrence.
Threats and crushing sanctions are not the way to peace with Iran or North Korea. We need to remove our hostile sanctions on Iran and return to compliance with the nuclear deal. We need to accept a nuclear-armed North Korea just as we have accepted a nuclear-armed India, Pakistan and Israel. I think Kim would accept an agreement allowing North Korea a treaty-limited nuclear arsenal similar to Israel's. And we need to seriously negotiate with the Russians to greatly reduce both superpowers' mountain of nuclear warheads, as both nations promised to do when we signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
You can help: Join the weekly demonstrations against war with Iran at the Washington County Courthouse, Saturdays from 11 a.m. to noon.
Commentary on 07/23/2019