The Nuclear pissing contest

Published February 15, 2005
The Daily Targum

Condoleezza Rice, the new Secretary Of State, has been busy shuttling around Europe and the Middle East to take some of the sharpness out of relations between the United States and the rest of the world that have bittered considerably since the Bush Administration took over the show.

Despite this renewed attempt at diplomacy, while the United Nations is attempting to pull together some self-respect and exercise a little diplomatic influence over badly-behaved nuclear wannabes like Iran and North Korea, talks seem slow to progress and the United States is getting fidgety.

The US, like a father who forfeits a relationship with his children because he must work and ‘bring home the bacon,’ leaves the mundane nurturing of the brats to his wife, the UN. She does what she can, given the little money he brings in, but he’s been bringing in less and less than he promised, and her hands are usually tied when it comes to disciplining them because he wants the final say, but he’s never home to give it. The munchkins grow up and become petulant, and one day father US comes home to find mother UN yanking her hair out with frustration – threats of sanctions just don’t do the trick. He whips off his leather belt and lets the twerps have it.

Simplistic, perhaps, but the situation is far too reminiscent of the traditional male-dominated family unit to pass up the metaphor.

It all began when, back in the good old days of the Cold War, there were two super-powers – the United States and Russia. It was a happy and balanced time, because the peoples and nations dominated and exploited by one power at least lived with a healthy hatred for another power – a good outlet for the frustration of the oppressed.

What came with this Cold War, which lasted between World War II and the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, was the proliferation of nuclear warheads in the U.S. and Russia – an arms race that lasted nearly 50 years. This in turn was accompanied by a paranoia of total annihilation should the little red-faced dictator on the other side decide to press the little red button.

The United States was the first to acquire nuclear capability, following research conducted by several American scientists, including Albert Einstein, between 1939 and 1945 – “the Manhattan Project.” Russia followed, developing capabilities in 1949, then the UK in 1952, France in 1960 and China in 1964.

Fast-forward to the present day, and we now live in a world where Russia is thought to possess 8,500 warheads, with another 11,000 in stockpiles. The U.S is believed to have 7,000 operational warheads with 3,000 in reserve, and China, France and the UK follow with 420, 350 and 200 respectively.

Considering it took only one uranium bomb, “Little Boy,” to kill 66,000 people and injure 69,000 others at Hiroshima in an instant, the thought of thousands of these weapons of mass destruction sitting around in stockpiles around the world is less than comforting.

Matters get even more unnerving when you realize that the above-listed nuclear countries are only those who have declared their capabilities and have signed a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) along with 182 other countries. These countries submit their nuclear activities to the inspections of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Security Council, if necessary. Their conformance to the rules becomes increasingly irrelevant, however, when other states do not.

India, Israel and Pakistan are the only three nations known to possess nuclear weapons who have not signed the treaty. While India and Pakistan have declared their possession of nuclear weapons and have conducted very controversial nuclear tests in machismo displays over their border squabbles, Israel has declined to even admit it possesses weapons but is believed to have between 75 and 200.

Iran, which is a signatory of the NPT, hid its nuclear enrichment program for years, violating the stipulations of the treaty. It has agreed to suspend nuclear enrichment activities for the moment, while talks are being conducted with Britain, France and Germany.

But as a senior Iranian cleric and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said last week in response to the EU talks, ``It is not acceptable that developed countries generate 70 or 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear energy and tell Iran, a great and powerful nation, that it cannot have nuclear electricity.”

France does, in fact, produce close to 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power stations, and other industrial countries produce less, but do use the technology for electricity generation.

This brings up an important point. The U.S and U.N. are not dealing with children. They are dealing with nations and cultures that have extremely strong and proud histories, and a set of rationalities and values that, while they may not sit nicely with Western rationality, cannot be dismissed as irrational, whimsical and fanatic.

What right, after all, do industrialized countries have to their advanced nuclear energy programs and nuclear warheads, if they deny developing countries the same right?

Surely America’s latest rampage for freedom and democracy doesn’t preclude the right to self-protection from developing and politically unstable countries, when it has the second largest stockpile of nuclear warheads itself?

It is this very instability and insecurity that leads a nation to develop nuclear weapons in the first place. This was what led to the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia, and it is the same thing that is creating nuclear arms races between India and Pakistan, and Israel and its neighbors.

It is also what led the United States, the only country to ever use nuclear weapons against another nation, to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Saying that politically unstable nations should not have access to nuclear weaponry is absolutely correct. To have this ideal implemented, nuclear arms should not be accessible to anybody. No one can possibly use the amount of nuclear warheads available in actual war – the entire world would be annihilated. It is more about display of power than actual security measures.

But I do not believe there is a developed nation today that is willing to give up all of its nuclear capabilities in the name of peace and security.

The United States, seemingly the biggest advocate for eradicating nuclear development in countries like Iran and Korea, must lead the process by eliminating its own stockpile.

The possession of nuclear arms, whether by developing nations or developed, is the surest recipe for disaster.