REFLECTIONS ON NUCLEAR DETERRENCE: Or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Accept the Bomb.
How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Accept the Bomb.
In the early 1980's I was an active supporter of CND. I marched,
I protested, and in Easter 1983 I held hands to form a human chain linking the
US nuclear bases in southern England.
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| Human Chain Easter 1983 |
My support was not purely based upon a deep abhorrence of
nuclear weapons, - what sane person doesn’t feel such abhorrence. No, I was as
much concerned by the gung-ho attitude of the Reagan and Thatcher governments
of the period. With all the talk of missile defence shields and ‘tactical’
devices you did not have to feel especially paranoid to think that, Reagan in
particular, they were just mad enough to use them. So I don’t regret my involvement
not even that we might have proved useful to Russian propagandists; ‘playing
into the hands of…’ always a weak
argument, particularly when moral issues are concerned. I have however changed my
mind and I could no longer support CND.
My abhorrence of these weapons has not diminished but what
has changed is my sense of both the reality of the existence of such weapons
and of the nature of the world we now inhabit. On the first point, put simply,
nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented, though of course world would be a better
place if they did not exist. But this short statement is also misleading in its
simplicity, for to say that nuclear weapons cannot be uninvented is to say a
great deal. We live daily with a potent and perilous existential truth, a truth
with which we have made an uneasy accommodation, namely that actions taken
cannot be undone, and words said cannot be unsaid. We may of course make amends,
we can seek to restore an original state of affairs, but the act, the words spoken,
remain forever, like footprints in quick drying cement.
In the field of science this truth carries extra costs, never
better illustrated than at Los Alamos. “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,”
Robert Oppenheimer intoned, quoting the Bhagavad Gita, as the first atomic bomb
exploded. The scientists in the Nevada desert knew what they had done and knew
that it could not be undone.
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| “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." |
This does not mean that we should not seek to prevent the
proliferation of nuclear weapons, nor take steps to reduce the number of such
weapons in the world. However it is to realise that the idea of a nuclear
weapon free world is little more than wishful thinking. However for the sake of
argument just suppose that all the current nuclear armed states agreed to
destroy their weapons, that India, Pakistan, China, North Korea, and Russia and
of course Israel, all agreed with Britain, France and the US to create a nuclear
free world. Would that be problem solved? Well no, - for leaving aside the
little matter of non-state actors, - there is still the problem of the
scientific knowledge. This knowledge would still be out there, still available.
Even if it was not, that it could somehow be magically erased, science has an
incredibly strong record of stumbling upon such facts. Sooner or later the
problem would re-emerge.
All of this of course is wholly fanciful, a nuclear free
world is not going to happen and we must therefore face the fact that we live
in a world where nuclear weapons are a reality that is not going to go away. The
question remains how we are to live with this reality.
Firstly every step must be taken to try and prevent the
proliferation of such weapons, neither India nor Pakistan paid a sufficiently
high price for developing the bomb, whilst Israel has paid no price at all. This
sent out a clear message to other would be nuclear powers that the initial storm
could easily be ridden out.
Secondly through a process of negotiations the number of
such weapons must continue to be reduced. This will at first continue to be
between Russia and the US, though other states would eventually need to also be
engaged in the process.
Particular attention needs to be brought to bear on the conflict
between India and Pakistan, both sides should be encouraged to participate in conflict
reduction forums and an emergency hot-line structure established.
Respecting the UK’s own weapons, given the state of the
world at present, it seems to me now that we would be foolish to rid ourselves
of them. They represent a serious deterrent to any would be aggressor, but only
a deterrent. Using such weapons would be not only the ultimate disaster but
also the ultimate failure. They exist to create in the mind of any potential
enemy an unacceptable level of risk should they choose to attack, the risk that
we might just press the button. So to have them and then state openly, as
Jeremy Corbyn did, that he would never use them was the most stupid statement I
have heard in a very long time. It is rather like declaring to any would be
intruder that ‘no matter what, you kill
my children, rape my partner attempt to kill me, I will never resort to lethal
violence, this may be true but you are not wise to advertise the fact. As
it happens I find the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn being willing to press ‘the
button’ as unlikely as Corbyn ever being Prime Minister. (For that matter I am
not certain that I, in the circumstances, would be willing to do so myself).
But to be so stupid as to remove any doubt! All he needed to say that he was
not willing to confirm or deny that he would be able to sanction the use of
Trident, secure in the knowledge that he would not, -thus keeping his
conscience clean and maintaining the deterrent effect. Instead of which he
chose to parade his conscience, to assure the world of his moral worth, an assurance
for which we all may pick up the tab.
Retaining these weapons whilst working against further
proliferation of course involves a degree of hypocrisy, however given the
stakes it seems to me to be no great moral dilemma. Though for what it’s worth
if I genuinely believed that the UK abandoning its nuclear weapons would lead
to India and Pakistan following suit, I would support such a move.
I began writing this before the events in Paris began
unfolding. People will say that nuclear weapons are not any use against
terrorism and of course that’s true up to a point. We are now however entering
the era of the terrorist state, with the creation of ISIS, and in which whole
tracts of lawless territory are scattered about the Middle East and parts of
Africa. The possibility of terrorist groups getting hold of a primitive nuclear
weapon or dirty bomb increases. Could it be that even the ‘Caliphate’ might baulk at bringing about its own nuclear annihilation?[1]
Talking about nuclear weapons is a grim business, but there
is no ducking the debate and I have decided where I stand, consequently my CND
badge will remain in a drawer, a souvenir from another age.
[1]
Or they may indeed wish to incite precisely this, in which case it needs to be
made clear to them that we will survive in some shape or form, Islamism will
not.
