Abstract
Abolishing nuclear weapons is a good idea in theory. In practice, however, it would be impossible to verify and would make the world less safe.
Nuclear disarmament has received renewed support of late. Prominent experts, some of whom have contended otherwise in the past, have recently argued that nuclear disarmament would improve both U.S. and world security. Lacking from this dialogue is an evaluation of whether total nuclear disarmament is even possible.
Nuclear weapons, like other weapons, will always be at least latently available. Even if all existing nuclear weapons are eliminated, more can be built with existing materials and facilities, or with new ones. Aircraft or missiles to deliver the weapons are widely available and will remain so. The time needed to reconstitute nuclear weapons would vary depending on the country but could be short compared with the time needed to take effective countermeasures. The time it takes for a government, particularly a democracy, to react to a potential threat is longer than the timetable an aggressor typically sets. This is especially the case if the reaction requires a difficult and costly decision such as rearming. U.N. Security Council action would likely take even longer.
Indeed, the elimination of nuclear weapons would itself have to be taken on faith. All of the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and the thousands of tons of nuclear weapons materials that now exist cannot verifiably be destroyed. The best that technology can do, given full transparency, is to keep track of installations and material flows. It cannot ascertain initial inventories or find hidden objects a few feet in dimensions. The choice for the United States and other nuclear weapon states then is not whether to eliminate nuclear weapons or live with them, but whether to live with them openly present in some countries or to relegate most of them to latency, while running the risk that some could be hidden intact.
Thus nuclear disarmament, were an agreement politically feasible, would only remain stable so long as every nuclear-capable country continues to find it in its interest. The first question then is whether such an agreement is politically feasible. The second is, if disarmament is achieved, how long would every nuclear-capable country find such circumstances in its interest? And if one nation chooses to rearm, how would other nations react?
On the feasibility question, any serious move toward eliminating nuclear weapons would have to be undertaken jointly by all states armed with such weapons. These include the five nuclear weapon state parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)–China, France, Russia, Britain, and the United States–plus India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan. They would not need to disarm at the same pace or start at the same time; indeed, the timing and pacing of disarmament would raise a host of security and diplomatic questions among states, such as Japan, that have relied on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The nine nuclear-armed states, however, would need to have an underlying agreement. The burden of starting along this path rests with the United States and Russia, which have the bulk of existing weapons and weapon delivery systems.
Disarmament would take years given the technical and political difficulties involved, but meaningful steps in that direction could occur in the short-term and provide some of the benefits of full disarmament. Those steps could include renouncing the use of nuclear weapons except as deterrents of last resort; stronger security assurances for the NPT's non-weapon states in good standing; and further reductions in the number of weapons, particularly on the part of the United States and Russia. These steps, coupled with a declaration of an intent to disarm in accordance with Article VI of the NPT, would certainly be welcomed by a number of NPT non-nuclear weapons parties (though not by all). They do not, however, constitute nuclear disarmament. When a single nuclear weapon is capable of destroying an entire city, even a small arsenal makes a big difference.
At present, the nuclear-armed states do not seem interested in doing without at least this minimal nuclear deterrent. While France, Russia, Britain, and the United States have all adjusted their nuclear doctrines to state or imply that nuclear weapons could be used against states aiding or sponsoring catastrophic terrorism, these changes do not affect the basic perception of nuclear weapons as essential deterrents. To date, nuclear weapons have functioned as a warning light not to push crises too far. The governments of nuclear-armed states have not been inclined to gamble on not needing that warning light or having to rebuild their nuclear forces in time if a sufficiently serious threat were to arise. The impossibility of verifying complete disarmament or of assuring that a disarmament agreement would hold in a crisis bolsters that reasoning.
Nevertheless, if nuclear disarmament were pursued, what would happen if an existential threat to one or another country arose? The emergence of a demagogic leader bent on war, in the vein of Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein, who also has nuclear aspirations, could constitute such a threat. If such a threat were to arise, would there be a race to rearm? Could the international community prevent this, and could it act in a timely manner to stop opposing sides from obtaining nuclear weapons? Its record in such cases is poor. The international community did not take timely action in the case of Hitler or Saddam, nor did it confront many of the threats to states with less strategic importance to the major powers. It did not halt several of the more dangerous nuclear-armed states that exist today, and it may not act to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. In general, domestic and international political considerations have typically prevented action from being taken.
This leads to the main argument against full nuclear disarmament: The state of international relations is not such as to verifiably and irreversibly support it. Nations still perceive nuclear weapons to be effective in deterring threats to their vital interests, and such threats remain. History supports this perception. During the Cold War, crises that once led to wars ended peacefully. Europe, the cradle of the world's worst wars, has evolved, at last, into a peaceful union. The Soviet Union and China transformed themselves peacefully, and, although Russia's Monroe Doctrine for its near abroad poses problems, no one advocates settling those by war. It could be argued that the unequal, unplanned distribution of nuclear weapons has restricted the zones of war to a few regions: the Middle East, Africa, and perhaps South Asia. Perhaps it doesn't matter which states have nuclear weapons so long as the most powerful nuclear-armed states have an interest in maintaining peace and work together.
While this would seem to bode poorly for nuclear nonproliferation, history shows that progress toward disarmament doesn't typically coincide with a halt in the spread of nuclear weapons. On the contrary, during most of the U.S.-Soviet arms race, proliferation was at a minimum. At the conclusion of the Cold War, proliferation expanded. Far more significant for stopping proliferation than disarmament is the presence of credible security agreements that protect parties who agree to their conditions against the threat of nuclear or conventional attack. Expanding these arrangements is the key to nuclear nonproliferation and the best way to lessen the asymmetry inherent in the NPT.
The state of international relations is not such as to verifiably and irreversibly support full nuclear disarmament. nations still perceive nuclear weapons to be effective at deterring threats to their vital interests, and such threats remain.
Nuclear deterrence provides, at some risk and cost, protection for nuclear weapon states and their allies, and the NPT should offer protection to non-weapon states in good standing. Starting 40 years ago, prior to the signing of the NPT, states that were to relinquish their right to nuclear weapons have wanted more explicit assurances that they would not be subject to nuclear attack and that weapon states would come to their aid in case of such a threat. Nuclear weapon states have since offered a series of partial and, at least in the opinion of the U.S. State Department, non-binding negative assurances that they will not attack non-weapon states with nuclear weapons, while offering few positive assurances of assistance, aside from states that came under U.S. and Soviet umbrellas.
Reinstating and strengthening those assurances would provide a meaningful quid pro quo to non-nuclear weapon states and would help rebuild the consensus originally forged by the NPT. A priority for the 2010 NPT Review Conference therefore should be to provide some form of security for non-weapon states in good standing, in lieu of nuclear deterrence. Without some meaningful steps toward effective security arrangements, more states are likely to develop nuclear weapons. The lack of security will also undermine cooperative efforts to prevent catastrophic terrorism and the acceptance of tightened safeguards. Moving toward a world without nuclear weapons, even if disarmament were fully verifiable, would not provide the security needed to keep nuclear weapons from re-emerging under conditions much less favorable than the present to maintaining peace.