October
23, 2006
"People
who talk of outlawing the atomic bomb are mistaken
— what needs to be outlawed is
war."
Leslie
Richard Groves
“The
unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking
and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
Albert
Einstein (1879-1955)
"A people without a reliable war deterrent are
bound to meet a tragic death and the sovereignty of their country is bound to
be wantonly infringed upon. This is a bitter lesson taught by the bloodshed
resulting from the law of the jungle in different parts of the world."
North Korean foreign ministry, (October 3, 2006)
Are we moving
towards a lawless world in which only countries with second-strike nuclear
capability will have real national sovereignty? Some countries seem to think
that the only way a country can be protected from the actions of international
(nuclear) bullies is to acquire the deterrence
that having nuclear weapons offers.
Countries such as North Korea, Iran, Israel, Brazil and others seem to have
reached the conclusion that in a world where international law is violated
with impunity and where the United Nations Charter is a dead letter, a
government that does not plan for the acquisition of nuclear armaments is
derelict in its duties toward its citizens. In fact, it
is estimated that between 30 and 40 non-nuclear countries have the technical skill, and in some cases the required
material, to build an atomic bomb.—What is
required for these countries to jump onto the nuclear wagon is a few more years
of irresponsible U.S. foreign policy.
On
October 9, 2006, the relatively small Communist
country of North Korea (DPRK) (population 23 million) announced that it had completed its first test of a low-yield nuclear device in an underground
facility, thus presumably entering the club of countries with nuclear
capabilities (USA, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom, India, Pakistan,
Israel). The North Korean government said that
it conducted the test to demonstrate its military technology in the face of
perceived threats from the United States. This led the U.N. Security Council to
adopt sanctions against North Korea, under its U.N. resolution 1718, which in effect imposes a dangerous
naval blockade of the country, but ironically rules out expressly
military action against it. In fact, however, such an embargo may
lead to a military conflict on the Korean peninsula.
Therefore, even though only 5 percent of Americans favor a military conflict with North Korea,
in the end, that is likely what the American people are going to get. Indeed,
if the U.N. resolution about boarding and searching ships bound for and leaving
North Korea is implemented too aggressively, the risk of a military incident is
very high.
The Neocons in
the U.S. administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, never believed in
the use of negotiations,
to settle conflicts. Their favorite way has always been the bullying way.
—As a matter of fact, the U.S. government has refused to negotiate
directly with the North Korean government since 2001, raising the worst fears
in the latter. Indeed, in March 2001, then Undersecretary of State for
Nonproliferation John Bolton willfully sabotaged any diplomatic effort to
address North Korea's fears. Diplomatic talks with North Korea were suspended,
and in his State of the Union Address of January 2002, George W. Bush labeled
North Korea, in his inflammatory language, as
one of the three legs of the "Axis of Evil." This brinkmanship
approach to international relations was in clear contrast to the approach of
the Clinton administration, which carried on productive bilateral talks with
Pyongyang.
In
1994, for example, the U.S. persuaded North Korea to stop work on the nuclear
power plant it was building, in exchange for the U.S. building cold-water
reactors that would give North Korea the electric power it needed. But the
Neocon Bush-Cheney administration was not interested in such a reasonable
approach and went full speed ahead with its right-wing foreign policy
agenda, even going as far as refusing to talk to North Korean officials.
Year after year, the club of nuclear-weapons countries keeps getting
larger and larger as more countries embark upon a strategy of nuclear
deterrence to protect themselves from larger countries that indicate openly
their willingness to act as imperial powers, somewhat along the lines of the
old empires of the 19th century. Understandingly, some governments think it is
their paramount duty to protect their country from foreign imperial domination.
In principle, any
nation is entitled to possess nuclear weapons for its own defense. But to avoid
a dangerous proliferation of nuclear arms, many nations chose not to have them
and elected instead to rely on international law to preserve national
sovereignties. That is what happened in
1968 when most sovereign nations signed the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Today, 188 nations have signed the
NPT, but India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korean are not recognizing it. The
purpose was to simultaneously attempt to reduce and disarm existing nuclear
stockpiles without blocking the production of peaceful nuclear energy. Indeed,
the Treaty contained three pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the
right to use nuclear technology peacefully. —This meant that non-nuclear
nations accepted not to develop nuclear weapons on their own, while the
existing so-called nuclear powers committed themselves not to "induce
any non-nuclear-weapon State to ... acquire nuclear weapons."
Implicitly, it was understood that no country would ever use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons.
In 1975, in a
parallel agreement, some 44 nuclear-supplier states
voluntarily accepted to coordinate their controls regarding the export of
nuclear-related materials, equipment, and technology. These so-called NSG
members, including the United States, are expected to forgo nuclear trade with
governments that do not subject themselves to the International Atomic Energy
Agency Safeguards regime, while the IAEA has the responsibility for verifying
that these countries' exports are not used by the importing state for any
military purpose.
The Bush-Cheney administration is the principal
culprit behind the present rush toward nuclear weapons because it has violated
both the spirit and the letter of the Non proliferation treaty (NPT). Indeed,
it gave a very bad example in announcing, in its 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, that first, it was keeping its nuclear
options wide open, including the use of nuclear weapons in response to chemical
or biological attacks or unspecified "surprising military
developments", and second, that the U.S could seek to develop, and possibly
test, new types of nuclear weapons in the future, such as
"mini-nukes" to attack underground bunkers.
Considering that
the Bush-Cheney administration has adopted a policy of preemptive use of nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear states as an integral part of its
global military strategy, it should surprise no one that a nuclear weapons arms
race is now going full speed ahead among some smaller nations, anxious to
protect themselves from foreign interference or foreign blackmail.
Moreover, it can
be argued that the United States has also violated the Non proliferation treaty
(NPT) when it signed, on March 2, 2006, a nuclear cooperation agreement with
India, which has obvious military applications. Indeed, by agreeing to supply
nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise to help India produce larger quantities of
plutonium, without insisting that India sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the
Bush-Cheney administration has given the appearance of 'rewarding' India for
its non compliance with the NPT. This is on top of the fact that the U.S. has,
for years, assisted the government of Israel in building its stockpile of
nuclear bombs, without insisting that the latter country join the NPT. —Therefore,
it can be said that the genie is out of the bottle and it is difficult to see
how it could be put back in. —Other nuclear powers have followed on the
American path. Great Britain and France, for example, have indicated that they
may use nuclear weapons in response to a non-conventional attack by "rogue
states". —The introduction of such preemptive-strike doctrines and
the adoption of external threatening postures in the affairs of other sovereign
states have considerably reduced the legitimacy and logic of the Treaty on
Non-Proliferation (NPT). In fact, it may have emasculated it.
What is even more
problematic is the fact that some of the countries that are not party to the NP
Treaty (Israel, India, Pakistan) have developed nuclear weapons programs of
their own, without being subjected to sanctions, while other countries trying
to do the same thing (North Korea and Iran) have been threatened with pressures
and retaliation. This smacks of a double standard and has considerably reduced
confidence in the fairness of international agreements.
What
would seem to be badly needed is some international political leadership along
with some vision to convene an international conference with the main purpose
of outlawing nuclear wars once and for all, and for destroying all stocks of
nuclear weapons. Without such a bold move, the nuclear arms race will only
intensify in the coming years, significantly raising the risk of a nuclear
conflagration.
Rodrigue Tremblay is
professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be
reached at tremblay.rodrigue@yahoo.com He is the author of the book 'The New American Empire'
Visit
his blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's
Website: http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/
_____________________________________
Posted,
October 23, 2006, at 5:30 am
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