Foreign Policy In Focus

Non-nuclear weapons states forget that the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty exists at their pleasure.

Back in November, at Truthout, David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, wrote about the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty's linchpin article -- the infamous number VI.* He explained that it

… contains three obligations: "Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."

… It has been 42 years since the treaty entered into force, and the nuclear arms race continues. All of the NPT nuclear weapon states are modernizing their arsenals. They have not negotiated in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early date.

Nor have they negotiated

… to achieve nuclear disarmament.

Nor on placing nuclear weapons

… under strict and effective international control.

Krieger levels a damning indictment.

The NPT nuclear weapon states seem perfectly comfortable with their failure to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the NPT.

But

… the prospects for a new international treaty are dim if states continue with business as usual.

Therefore the "non-nuclear-weapon states need to demonstrate to the nuclear weapon states that they are serious about the need for a new international treaty," which is only "the means to fulfill the NPT Article VI obligations" anyway.

Because

UN General Assembly resolutions are not getting the job done. They are not being taken seriously by the nuclear weapon states, nor are exhortations by the UN secretary-general and other world leaders.

Thus

… the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation called for bold action by the non-nuclear weapon states in its briefing paper for the 2012 Preparatory Committee Meeting for the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

Among the call for action's other premises, Krieger cites:

• The understanding that even a regional nuclear war would have global consequences (e.g., nuclear famine modeling).

• The risks of nuclear war, by accident or design, have not gone away. Stanford Professor Emeritus Martin Hellman, an expert in risk analysis, estimates that a child born today has a one-in-six chance of dying due to a nuclear weapon in his or her 80-year expected lifetime.

• The understanding that humans and their systems are not infallible (e.g. Chernobyl and Fukushima).

• The understanding that deterrence is only a theory that could fail catastrophically.

Among Krieger's examples of what constitutes bold action.

• Announcing a boycott of the 2015 NPT Review Conference if the nuclear weapon states have not commenced negotiations for a [new treaty].

• Commencing legal action against the NPT nuclear weapon states, individually and/or collectively, for breach of their NPT Article VI obligations.

• Withdrawal from the NPT as a protest against its continuing two-tier structure of nuclear haves and have-nots.

• Declaring the NPT null and void as a result of the failure of the nuclear weapon states to act in good faith in fulfilling their Article VI obligations.

You can see that David Krieger isn't fooling around. Of course, the measures he suggests require political will and/or wise prioritizing on the parts of the non-nuclear-weapon states. They just need to remember that without them -- the have-nots, largely on whose behalf the NPT was negotiated -- there would be no NPT.

*Note lower-case "n" in "nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty." Many forget that it's the last two words that NPT abbreviates.

Nuclear weapons and voter ignorance are a lethal mix.

Most of us keep our distance from the subject of nuclear weapons. Nor is it hard to understand why. Many think that since the end of the Cold War, nuclear war has become a minor threat. Especially when compared to an economy that seems like it's always on the brink of imploding just as the United States and Russia seemed always on the brink of exploding into nuclear war. Nor, understandably, are most who are aware that nuclear war remains a threat capable of facing what may well be a sword of Damocles hanging over their very existence, as well as their families'.

Another, less apparent, reason why most of us avert our attention from the prospect of war waged with nuclear weapons is that we believe that national-security policy, as well as warfighting strategy, not to mention the daunting technology of nuclear weapons, are above our pay grade. After all, deterrence seems to be working, doesn't it? Perhaps, but, when it comes to weapons with the destructive power of nuclear weapons, keeping the world waiting with bated breath to make sure that war doesn't break out is not a long-term solution.

In an oped at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists titled Democracy and the bomb, Kennette Benedict, its executive editor, points to the lack of attention paid to nuclear weapons and disarmament in the recent election as evidence that most of us feel overwhelmed by the whole subject. "Too often," writes Ms. Benedict

… many of us lucky enough to live in democracies view elections as the only responsibility we have as citizens and leave the policy discussions to the elected and to the experts. … Political leaders and policy experts don't always encourage a lot of participation, either; perhaps they believe that citizens are badly informed about issues and that their participation will result in poor decisions.

But

Allowing policy leaders and officials to make decisions for us, however, is at odds with the principle of equality, as Robert Dahl notes in his often overlooked essay "Controlling Nuclear Weapons: Democracy versus Guardianship." …  The principle of guardianship … holds that only a small minority of citizens is sufficiently qualified and therefore capable of making binding decisions for the nation. As Dahl observes, the political system of a modern democratic country is usually a combination of democracy and meritocracy, but, when it comes to nuclear weapons, "We have in fact turned over to a small group of people decisions of incalculable importance to ourselves and mankind, and it is very far from clear how, if at all, we could recapture a control that in fact we have never had." We are living in a democracy based on guardianship, not equality, when it comes to nuclear weapons.

Since it combines two of our favorite subjects -- nuclear weapons and voter ignorance and/or apathy -- we were only too happy to go straight to the horse's mouth and read Controlling Nuclear Weapons (Syracuse University Press, 1985), which, though Benedict refers to it as an essay, was published as a short book. Dahl, who taught at Yale University and was known as the "dean" of American political scientists, writes that the idea that only a minority of persons are competent to rule, per Plato's The Republic, has enjoyed new life (at least as of the eighties) in democratic countries because

… the complexity of public issues challenges the assumption that ordinary people are competent to make decisions about these matters. in order to make wise decisions, decision makers need specialized knowledge that most citizens do not possess.

Furthermore

One might respond by saying that even in a democracy, after all, complex decisions like these can be delegated to experts. But suppose that most of us do not even possess enough knowledge to understand the terms on which we can safely delegate authority over these decisions to those more expert than we? Then we have not simply delegated authority. Instead, we have alienated [or given away -- RW] control over our lives to others: that is, for practical purposes we simply lose control over crucial decisions, and lose control over our lives. The more we alienate authority … the more we lose our freedom, and the more hollow the democratic process becomes. Or to put it another way, the more that we alienate authority the more the external forms of democracy clothe a de facto regime of guardianship.

Thus, the subject of nuclear weapons not only overwhelms us, but may strain democracy itself to the breaking point. As Dahl asks:

Are the institutions of contemporary democracy adequate to cope satisfactorily with the enormous complexity of public matters?

The reservation we have with Dahl's otherwise valuable book is that he seems to think that nuclear weapons are a problem to which society needs to adjust. Dahl provides ideas for solutions for citizen participation in nuclear-weapons decisions, many of them more or less implemented in the meantime via information technology. But they seem like so much tweaking.

The case can be made that nuclear weapons are the ultimate test of democracy. But the stakes are too high if we lose. In fact, the existence of nuclear weapons needs to adjust to the needs of society by eliminating them.

We find ourselves in reluctant accord with libertarians, though while many of them believe that government is too large and complex for the average voter (as best explained by Ilya Somin for the Cato Institute in 2004) to understand, we'll just stick with "too complex." Nuclear weapons, with the existential questions they force us to face and their daunting strategy and technology, exponentially compound the problem. They discourage participation in democracy, at exactly the point democracy is most needed. As Benedict writes:

Once citizens no longer feel qualified to participate in decisions about their very survival, the connection between the governing and the governed is severed. It is hard to see where the democracy is in this.

Pakistan's perceived need for nuclear weapons may be vastly overstated.

Michael Stimson, co-founder of the Stimson Center, has written a valuable paper  Pakistan's Nuclear Strategy and Deterrence Stability, in which he concludes:

Pakistan’s [nuclear-weapons] stockpile is likely to grow as long as key constituencies within the country view their nuclear programs as a success story, domestic critics can be easily dismissed, relations with India remain contentious, and the sense of Pakistan’s international isolation grows.

As for India …

The central purpose of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, as defined by those who set nuclear requirements, is to protect Pakistan from a predatory neighbor that seeks either its demise or its submissiveness. … This widely held view within military circles remains fixed, even as Pakistan has become increasingly peripheral to India’s national ambitions. To acknowledge that a “hegemonic” neighbor has more pressing interests than to punish Pakistan would only magnify a sense of Pakistan’s national decline.

Indeed …

Indian elites resent being compared to Pakistan because, by almost every indicator, Pakistan is receding in India’s rear-view mirror.

Let me get this straight. Pakistan maintains and expands its nuclear-weapons program out of a need to believe that it's a priority of India to invade, or at least retaliate with harsh measures, for extremist attacks, such as Mumbai, that Pakistan has failed to prevent? In other words Pakistan has locked itself into enacting this charade that's not only prohibitively expensive but threatens its own existence because the bottom might drop out of its national pride if it wasn't foremost in the minds of India as a threat?

That's a high price to pay for a case of low self-esteem.

Federal prosecutors seek to remove justification for the existence of nuclear weapons from the trial of the Transform Now Plowshares Three.

Remember the activists, including an 82-year-old nun, who infiltrated the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on July 12? They're members of  Transform Now Plowshares, the current version of the original Plowshares Christian pacifist movement. The Plowshares Eight initiated these kinds of actions in 1980 when they snuck into a General Electric nuclear missile facility in Pennsylvania.

Like their predecessors, the Transform Now Plowshares Three are as physically courageous as they are morally. A lengthy jail term could see at least one of its members, 82-year-old Sister Megan Rice, die while incarcerated.

At the trial in February they each face 15 years in prison and fines up to $500,000. Worse, as the co-director of a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin called Nukewatch, John LaForge, wrote at the Transform Now Plowshares site, "federal prosecutors have mentioned bringing two heavier charges, including sabotage 'during wartime,' which together carry up to 50 years."

Even worse, the Transform Now Plowshares Three may be left destitute of tools with which to defend themselves. LaForge explains.

If the government gets it way, the trial judge will keep facts about nuclear weapons away from jurors and make sure that questions about the Bomb's outlaw status are left out of jury instructions. … before starting deliberations.

On Nov. 2, federal prosecutors [urged the judge] to "preclude defendants from introducing evidence in support of certain justification defenses." The motion asks the court to forbid all evidence — even expert testimony — about "necessity, international law, Nuremberg Principles, First Amendment protections, the alleged immorality of nuclear weapons, good motive, religious moral or political beliefs regarding nuclear weapons, and the U.S. government's policy regarding nuclear weapons."

The prosecution's justification? That it is "not relevant." Even though

The U.S. Attorney's motion … confesses, "[w]e do not suggest that the deployment of nuclear armament systems does not violate international law, but merely that Congress has power to protect government property."

The value of the Transform Now Plowshares Three's efforts was initially depreciated because the only kind of soul searching resulting from their actions was about plant security, not the morality of nuclear weapons. Now, federal prosecutors would move to expunge justification for the existence of nuclear weapons from the trial and reduce it to a simple case of trespass and vandalism at a military installation.

Clearly, the U.S. Attorney's office fears that admitting discussion of the justice of nuclear weapons to the jurors' deliberations will only obstruct the progress of the trial. More to the point it probably knows it's an argument it can't win. 

In fact, corporations not only manage them, but increasingly determine their agendas.

Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG) recently returned from another one of his trips to Washington, during which he meets with congressional and executive-branch officials and analysts about nuclear weapons. First, he followed up on the proposed nuclear-pit laboratory at Los Alamos, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF), which has now been delayed five years, in large part due to the efforts of LASG.

He reports in LASG's most recent newsletter that, despite the delay, the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, "will almost certainly contain (as does the House version) … a requirement to continue CMRR-NF design and construction." As of this date, I'm unable to ascertain if that's the case with the bill, which passed in the Senate yesterday (Dec. 5). Next a House-Senate committee reconciles their separate bills and sends the final version to the president.

Mello gives us an idea of the opposition the LASG has been up against in trying to put "a stake through the heart" of the CMRR-NF just locally in New Mexico (emphasis added).

When and if these provisions pass, they will do so in substantial part because of strong efforts of New Mexico Democrats (Heinrich, Udall, Bingaman, and to a lesser extent Lujan), who have consistently allied with the most hawkish members of Congress to achieve this end. 

Mello was also in Washington to reemphasize his concerns with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is becoming increasingly privatized.

The last sliver of NNSA which is not a management and operating (M&O) contractor (just 3%, by dollars spent) is not making many decisions.  To say there is a leadership vacuum is an understatement. 

In fact, writes Mello:

There is very little space left in which a vacuum could form.  When it does, the big nuclear labs and plants (i.e. the contractors) automatically fill it. 

Worse

… when NNSA needs “independent” advice, it generally turns to more contractors to help out.  The U.S. nuclear warhead business – and it is a very big business, with sweet multi-decade contracts for the vaguest sort of work that run more than $30 billion in total value in the case of [the Los Alamos National Laboratory] (just to pick one) – has very little federal character left.

Mello explains.

The proposals of the nuclear hawks basically amount to unshackling the contractors even more – giving them even more money to begin even more projects with even less accountability.  Despite the appearance of occasional inter-party conflict, the federal government – really all parts of it, at the moment – have basically circled the wagons to protect the contractors who run the warhead complex.  

He can only conclude that

… most members of Congress do not really understand the degree of privatization involved, or that the nuclear weapons laboratories are actually corporate actors, not federal.