Abstract
This issue, which is largely devoted to the test ban debacle, originally was designed to explore the future of nuclear weapons. That seemed a fitting way to begin a new century. Despite the thousands of weapons that remain, nuclear weapons, at least arguably, belong to humankind's past rather than its future. But the rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the U.S. Senate was a wake-up call. Insofar as the present Senate is concerned, nuclear weapons are as vital as ever.
Old ideas die hard. Sure. But the world has changed so greatly over the past decade that I had supposed that even the most ardent of Cold Warriors would eventually see, however reluctantly, the value of the test ban treaty and other arms control initiatives. I should have remembered Kuhn.
Thomas S. Kuhn's essay, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, was published in 1962. Although it dealt with the Copernican revolution, Science called it a “landmark in intellectual history.” Revolutions has been controversial. But its central thesis remains compelling: The universe is endlessly confusing. An infinite variety of sensory data bombards the mind. One makes sense of the world only by simplifying, by organizing, by constructing intellectual models or paradigms into which one fits data like so many puzzle pieces.
The models may not be correct, in that the puzzle pieces may not always fit without a good deal of bending and shoving, but we regard our models as mainly right, because they calm the sensory storm and produce order. In particular, we protect our most fundamental models, such as a belief in the efficacy of the scientific method or religion or (to an ever diminishing few) Marxism, even to the point of ignoring the implications of new and incompatible data. They give meaning and purpose to our lives.
Joe Cirincione (page 32) makes it plain that in the test ban vote we saw, in part, a clash of models, of worldviews. Opponents and proponents of the treaty agree that the world is a dangerous place. But one side seeks to lessen the danger through cooperation and multilateral agreements; the other sees that process as the deadliest of traps. No one has a monopoly on truth. Those of us who believe in cooperation are often surprised and dismayed by how brutally evil the real world is. Meanwhile, hardliners seem marvelously oblivious to the most basic reality: enthusiastic preparations for warfighting often provoke dangerously destabilizing counterreactions.
As we begin a new century, most of us are locked in the embrace of old ideas, some good, some dangerous, some harmless. While we are open to new data and new ideas at the margins, we seldom abandon the models that truly guide our lives. Our minds are generally not quite as open to new ways of constructing reality as our own rhetoric may suggest.
Gen. Lee Butler (page 20) is an exception. He exhibits the rarest of human traits: the ability to change one's mind about truly fundamental matters as objective circumstances warrant. During the Cold War, he believed the Soviet Union was a threat and he acted accordingly, eventually becoming commander of all U.S. strategic forces. After the Cold War, he recognized a new reality and again he acted. He championed the view that nuclear weapons themselves had become the threat and must be eliminated.
That sort of change—a revolution in worldviews—takes intellectual courage. As the century unfolds, one hopes that the United States will have the collective courage to follow Butler's example regarding the centrality of nuclear weapons. At some point will the United States take the lead toward creating a nuclear-weapons-free world? That's a question of the century.