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If
ever a treaty deserved to go down, it was the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty. The objection to it is not that the United States would no longer
be able to possess whatever weapons it wanted in its armory. It is that
there is something profoundly wrong about trying to limit the nuclear
club to a handful of supposedly responsible states. After the demented
destruction of civilian life in Yugoslavia, only a fool would put his
trust in U.S. professions of good faith and reticence about resorting
to extreme violence.
The
patent dishonesty of the Treaty was apparent in the arguments of its
champions. We were told that because of the ban on tests no state other
than one of the club of five would be able to acquire nuclear weapons.
"Unless proliferators are able to test their devices, they can
never be sure that any new weapon they design or build is safe and will
work," announced Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac
in an excruciatingly self-important article in The New York Times.
However,
it turns out that the restriction on tests would not really apply to
the United States. Americans apparently have this terrific computer
capability that enables them to go on testing, but without making use
of nuclear devices. In other words, Americans could go on testing and
also claim that they were not really testing.
The
Treaty was thus yet another instance of international law that applies
to everyone but the United States.
President
Jiang Zemin of China expressed the concern of many when he pointed out
that "Disarmament should not become a tool for stronger nations
to control weaker ones, still less should it be an instrument for a
handful of countries to optimize their armament in order to seek unilateral
security superiority." The argument in favor of limiting nuclear
weapons to a handful of states has lost its validity, if it ever had
it. Countries will want to acquire nuclear weapons for the same reason
that Americans came to rely on them. It is the best and cheapest form
of defense money can buy. If you have nuclear weapons no one messes
with you. If Sudan had had nuclear weapons it would still have a pharmaceutical
factory today. If the Serbs had nuclear weapons Belgrade would still
be intact and cargo ships would still be happily cruising along the
Danube. If Indonesians had had nuclear weapons there would be no Australians
strutting around in East Timor. (Australians have no nuclear weapons,
but have a security arrangement with a power that does.)
There
is no evidence whatsoever that there exist certain countries that are
inherently more "responsible" than others and can therefore
be trusted to use nuclear weapons wisely. The only country in the world
that has ever used nuclear weapons is the United States. It was the
first country to build them. And the moment they were ready they were
in use. If the bombs had been ready a few months earlier the Germans
would also have gotten clobbered with them. If more than two bombs had
been available in August 1945, other Japanese cities would have been
hit. Our much-touted "responsibility" came only after other
powers started acquiring nuclear weapons.
Ask
yourself: Would the United States have gone on fighting for three years
in Korea without resorting to nuclear weapons if there had been no threat
of retaliation from the Soviet Union? Would the United States have accepted
defeat in Vietnam while there remained the possibility of resolving
things swiftly by the dropping of a few H-bombs? Resorting to nuclear
weapons is particularly tempting to powers that enjoy a vast technological
superiority over others and are extremely reluctant to take any casualties.
Obviously, it is the threat of getting hit oneself, not some inherent
"responsibility," that prevents nations from letting fly.
Even in the throes of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s China was
not about to do anything crazy with nuclear weapons.
Ah!
But what about the so-called "rogue states"? Would it not
be the end of civilization as we know it the moment they got their hands
on nuclear weapons? Possibly. However, all the evidence suggests that
the "rogue states" are nothing if not shrewd in the way they
juggle their few resources to acquire greater standing in the world
than they would have were they to go down the approved U.S. government-IMF-World
Bank path. In repeatedly threatening to develop a nuclear capability,
North Korea, for instance, has very skillfully blackmailed the United
States into making all sorts of concessions. It received a commitment
to help to build a nuclear reactor as well as a promise to lift economic
sanctions. Iraq – yet another one of the rogue states – is also
far from displaying pathological symptoms. Saddam used SCUD missiles
during the Gulf War in the hope of provoking an Israeli retaliation,
thereby breaking up the coalition arrayed against him. The ploy failed,
but it was a gamble worth taking. On the other hand, packing chemical
and biological warheads on those missiles would definitely not have
been a gamble worth taking. American retaliation would have been swift
and devastating. Saddam wisely avoided going down that path.
According
to Chirac, Blair and Schroeder: "As we look to the next century,
our greatest concern is proliferation of weapons of mass destruction…
We have to face the stark truth that nuclear proliferation remains the
major threat to world safety."
Now,
Messrs. Clinton, Schroeder, Blair and Chirac have been doing plenty
of mass destruction themselves lately. It is hard to see who today poses
a greater threat to "world safety" than this bunch of feebleminded
politicians animated by the insipid "Blair Doctrine." The
Blair Doctrine, enunciated earlier this year, holds that there exists
a right of humanitarian intervention anywhere in the world. This right,
however, is to be exclusively exercised by powers equipped with nuclear
weapons. And it is to be exercised against powers not equipped with
nuclear weapons.
This
right, moreover, is to be exercised in a distinctly nonhumanitarian
way. There is something nauseatingly hypocritical about nations that
are fully stocked up with nuclear weapons lecturing others on the horrors
of weapons of mass destruction. Shortly after India and Pakistan conducted
their nuclear tests in 1998, the hideous harridan of Foggy Bottom read
the riot act to both countries: "[A] nuclear exchange of even a
limited nature would kill not thousands, but millions… Each faces
the risk of nuclear missiles being pointed at their cities." Pointing
nuclear missiles at cities! What kind of barbarian would do a thing
like that?
Moreover,
India and Pakistan had so much to look forward to had they eschewed
the nuclear option. Why, only "a month ago," she lamented
at the time, "India and Pakistan could look forward to improved
relations with the United States and other major powers; to steadily
increasing outside investment and beneficial trade… Today, those
prospects have been demolished." That nations may have interests
other than enjoying "improved relations with the United States"
is a notion too complex for her to grasp.
Shortly
after the tests, the Indian government announced, "[T]he pursuit
of non-proliferation in an arbitrary selective regional context remains
the fundamental flaw in the global nuclear disarmament regime. The Government
of India cannot consider any prescriptions which have the effect of
undermining India’s independent decision making."
Exactly.
This is why neither India nor Pakistan bothered to sign the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty. The two countries want what other powers want: respect
and the certainty that they will not be subjected to the depredations
of self-righteous aggressors.
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