US Nuclear Policy
The US cannot afford to destroy its nuclear weapons. The more nuclear weapons the US has, the safer the world is.
This post is a response to this article (also published here) by Cheryl Rofer. In it Cheryl asks bloggers to weigh in on what they think the US’ nuclear policy should be. Proliferation? Should the US slowly but surely destroy its nuclear weapons, and should it try to convince other countries to destroy their nuclear weapons as well? Should the US keep its nuclear weapons? Should the US have more nuclear weapons? Should the US get rid of its major nuclear bombs and replace them with tactical nuclear weapons?
Although the question seems difficult, I am sure, to me, it’s actually a very easy one: the US should improve its nuclear arsenal, other major powers should be allowed to keep their nuclear weapons, but the international community has to make sure that countries that don’t have nuclear weapons at this point in time, won’t develop them in the future either. Especially enemies of the West should be prevented, against all cost, from developing them.
George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn wrote an OP-ED (for the Hoover Institution) a while ago in which they argue that the US has to “take the world to the next stage—to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.” Other people, mostly liberals, tend to agree with that: nuclear weapons are incredibly destructive, they argue, the world will be a saver place without them.
Sadly, it doesn’t quite work like that. The reality is that the US would not have won the Cold War if it didn’t have nuclear weapons. The US army is strong, yes, but it would not have been able to beat the much bigger Soviet Army by using conventional weapons alone.
The Cold War is over, Cheryl argues in the post I linked to in the first paragraph of this post, it’s time to move on. Well, the Cold War is over in so far that the Soviet Union does no longer exist, but Russia continues to pose a threat to the West. In fact, Putin is drawing increasingly more power to himself; under his leadership Russia’s is slowly but surely becoming a major player once again; he’s threatening countries that don’t do what he wants them to do in Eastern Europe; in other words, Russia is back. When the US announced that it would build a missile shield in Eastern Europe, Russia responded that it would most likely aim its ballistic missiles on, for instance, the Czech Republic.
And that is, as far as I can tell, only the beginning. I think that, in the coming years, we’ll see a stronger and more active Russia. The Cold War will be back, at least to a degree.
The only possible thing keeping Russia in check when it recovers will be the knowledge that the US has nuclear weapons and will be prepared to use them if absolutely necessary to protect Eastern European countries. Again, if Russia regains its former military strength, and it will, the US will not be able to beat the Russians by conventional weapons alone. A non-nuclear world means a world in which numbers and the willingness to use power count: in such a situation, Western countries lose, both from Russia and China.
All too often people pretend that nuclear weapons are horrible per sé. This is not true. Nuclear weapons are horrible and pose a threat to the world when they’re in the wrong hands. When the US, however, has nuclear weapons, they’re not only not posing a threat to the world, they’re actually bringing stability and safety to it.
With regards to tactical nuclear weapons: I think that the US should invest more in these kinds weapons. However, tactical weapons alone won’t be suffice to keep Russia, China and rogue regimes like the ones in North Korea and Iran in check.
The US’ foreign policy with regards to nuclear weapons should, then, be that the powerful countries that have them are allowed to have them and develop more of them, while countries that don’t have them at this point in time have to be prevented from getting their hands on them. This means that it has to be illegal to share knowledge in this regard with other countries and / or to help them develop nuclear weapons in other ways. Everyone involved has to know that if they break the agreements, they’ll be held accountable. Countries like Iran that develop WMDs have to be punished severely. Sanctions are key, in this regard, but if necessary force has to be used to prevent enemies from developing nuclear weapons.
The policy of the US – and of the West as a whole – should be that some may consider that to be unfair, but that we consider that to be completely and utterly irrelevant. It’s not about what’s fair, it’s about what’s best. And yes, we are arrogant enough to say that we know what’s best – if not for the world then at least for ourselves – and our enemies don’t.
The world is a Hobbesian place. We’d better realize that and behave accordingly.
I would much prefer it if the US reeled in the small arms proliferation that is adding to the woes and bloodshed in third-world countries.
As for the issue of nuclear arms – if we are going to have those disgusting things around I’d much prefer it if the US had the biggest, most deadly arsenal but was ready to scale back somewhat if other countries realized that a) unless they have more mature, dignified and more free statehoods they can’t be trusted to the same degree as the US and b) thus decided to make the international community as secure as possible in the knowledge that said countries will not under any circumstances try to get nuclear arms or allow rogue entities inside their borders obtain them.
The US can’t get a carte blanche, and its human rights record resembles a dalmatian sometimes, but I will say that the ball is not in the US’ court regarding this. They can scale back when the sane and free people see some development and good faith from the usual suspects
Edit by MvdG: don’t cross the line Chris.
As long as our adversaries have nuclear weapons or the capability to easily create them, then we should have them too. However, we don’t need so many that we can destroy the world 40 times over. That’s just madness, and invites mistakes with the handling of nuclear material, early warning systems, etc.
As for keeping other nations from developing them, it’s a nice idea, but it’s not very practical. Information, science, technology, it all has a way of spreading despite best efforts to the contrary. And as long as we keep our arsenal, we can’t expect our adversaries to keep from developing their own, no more than we can reasonably invade or bomb every country that threatens to do so.
I’m not saying they aren’t interesting photos… I just think it’s interesting how often you use them
We don’t have enough nukes to end the world 40 times over that is an exaggeration! Bush is reducing our arsenal to around 4600 nukes, thats down from 16000 at the end of the cold War and 10500 when Bush took office. I think we should have more not less, like around 20000 nukes that seems about right. The cold War was only won with nukes not conventional weapons but nukes. That is why i support a Strong Nuclear arsenal.
Zachary,
Why 20,000? I’m guessing you just like the sound of it.
I think we should spend our tax dollars more wisely.
Michael, a bit of US history.
This is the traditional US pattern:
1) get hit hard at the beginning of a war, and have minimal military available to respond.
2) kick US industry into gear, arm up, and win the war.
3) once the war is over, decide that a strong military is not necessary, and largely disarm.
4) surprise, surprise: return to #1
All that changes is the length of time between surprises, and the identity of the attacker.
Spend the money more wisely on what? The U.S. needs a strong nuclear deterent. We are what keeps the enemy in line. If the U.S. were to get rid of all of its nukes than the ememy would build their nukes even faster, they don’t care what we do they will still build nukes and Russia, China, India, Pakistain, maybe North Korea, and Iran if they get them will never get rid of their nukes. How big of an arsenal do you think we should have, I think it has to be big because a small arsenal wont be threating to our enemies and the definition of nuclear deterence is lost.
I’m not concerned so much with the number of the nukes, but who is in charge of deploying them, and for what reason. In the wrong hands, 2 nukes could be 2 too many. Last September..we had a bent spear incident that coincided with Israels Operation Orchard. It was speculated the nukes were headed to bomb Iran and the Air Force had refused the order. Now..believe what you want, but the official story was a breakdown in procedure. I was in the military, and I promise you… nukes don’t just get inadvertently loaded on B-52s without knowledge. Ironic coincidence, a peculiar cluster of six deaths, during the weeks immediately preceding and following the flight, of personnel at the two Air Force bases involved in the incident and at Air Force Commando Operations headquarters.
No, just one nuke in the wrong hands can spell disaster, but if say 4600 nukes are in the hands of the U.S. which we are the good guys then yes it is ok. Oh I almost forgot, about the Iran and B-52 issue, those nukes were not heading for Iran its just a liberal myth to bitch at Bush thats all.
Having enough Nukes to destroy the entire world is not enough of a deterrent?
Entire world is being pretty overlooking, but here is a fallout calculator.
http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=426
Best estimates give us at least 10,000 warheads… how many major cities can any one country possibly have?
As for it being a waste of money, think about our crumbling bridges and highways. It’s money that could be spent to help cure cancer…
Hell we could keep it and spend more on ourselves.
The list of targets can go as long as you’d like. If you’re counting the lesser cities (anything with a population over 30k or so but not considered major) that’s a hell of a lot of targets. Factor in the redundancy needed to ensure missiles aren’t shot down and the target is destroyed and 10k isn’t that hard to get to. But that being said I agree, we could better use this money domestically.
Dustin,
What you’re talking about is on the scale of genocide. We don’t need nukes to blow up bridges, military bases, radar sites, food producing areas, pipelines, mass troop deployments. I find it revolting to even think about using them in any of those situations.
The US has enough nuclear warheads to kill everyone on earth multiple times. America’s recent announcement, declaring our intention to reduce our arsenal, does not reduce the deterrence effect of our military strength. The reduction is an encouraging diplomatic development, as we’re often criticized for acting to prevent/discourage other countries from creating/maintaining nuclear arsenals while keeping such a stockpile of our own.
This article was featured on The Issue in a feature on US Nuclear Policy.
-Stephen, TheIssue.com
i think the u.s government should make more nuclear weapons b/c the fat man bomb and little boy are what stoped the japanese and the soviet union from thinking of invading the u.s its waht save lots of lives…
i think the u.s shuold make nuclear weapons but they should make more weapons for so soldiers have better protection and more surviv if they can make something that can blow up half the world they should be able to make some thing to save the soldiers..