NYE – THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS - PHYSICS AND POLITICS

·         By the 1980s, the USA and the SU together had more than 50,000 nuclear weapons.

·         The certainty is that the result of a large scale nuclear war would destroy civilization as we know it, possibly causing a nuclear winter. The burning that would be caused would produce too much carbon, which would rise to the surface of the ozone layer, and block out the sun’s rays. The earth would then die.

·         In 1983 the American Catholic bishops said ‘We are the first generation since Genesis with the capability of destroying God’s creation’.

·         In 1946 when the US proposed the Baruch Plan to establish international control of nuclear weapons, the SU viewed it as another American plot.

·         The emerging US-Soviet rivalry also slowed change in political thinking. At first, if US threatened nuclear attack, Soviets could threaten to invade Europe with conventional forces. Result was a stalemate. The revolutionary physical effects of nuclear technology were initially not enough to change the ways states behaved in an anarchic system.

·         Second stage of nuclear revolution occurred in 1952 when the hydrogen bomb was first tested.

·         With the development of the H-bomb was the important change of miniaturization. This meant that h-bombs with the same potential destruction as the large early atomic bombs could be sent in a much smaller package – increasing destructiveness and dramatizing the consequences of nuclear war.

·         Enormous destructive power of nuclear weapons meant there was now a disproportion between the military means and virtually all the political ends a country might seek.

·         This disjunction between ends and means caused a paralysis in the use of the ultimate force in most situations.

·         H-bomb had 6 significant political effects:

§         (1) It revived the concept of limited war.

§         (2) Crises replaced central war as the moments of truth. The Berlin crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Middle East crises played the functional equivalent of war, a time to see the true correlation of forces in military power.

§         (3) Nuclear weapons made deterrence the key strategy. It was now critical to organize military might to produce fear in advance so attack would be deterred.

§         (4) The development of a de facto regime of super-power prudence. Developing one key common interest: avoiding nuclear war.

§         (5) Superpowers learned to communicate. ‘Hotlines’ were developed, technology made it easier to communicate at a more personal level, codification of arms control treaties (Limited Test Ban Treaty 1963) and frequent arms control negotiations all became ways of discussing stability in a nuclear system.

§         (6) Nuclear weapons were seen by most officials as unusable in times of war. There was a stigma attached.

·         There was a lingering sense that the risk associated with nuclear weapons is unacceptable, and that they were immoral.

BALANCE OF TERROR

·         NW produced a peculiar form of the balance of power that was called the ‘balance of terror’.

·         Both sides followed a policy of preventing preponderance by the other, but the result was different from previous systems.

·         The nuclear balance of terror coincided with a period of bipolarity. More often bipolarity has occurred in history when alliances tighten so much that flexibility is lost.

·         Waltz argues that bipolarity is a particularly stable type of system because it simplifies communication and calculations. On the other hand, bipolar systems lack flexibility and magnify the importance of marginal conflicts.

·         Reasons for bipolarity not exploding after war may be down to the prudence produced by nuclear weapons and the stability Waltz attributed to pure bipolarity was really the result of the bomb.

·         The very terror of nuclear weapons may have helped produce stability through the ‘crystal ball effect’. Because few political goals would be proportionate to such destruction, they would not want to take great risks.

·         The analogy suggests why the combination of bipolarity and nuclear weapons produced the longest period of peace between the central powers since the beginning of the modern state system.

PROBLEMS OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

·         The peculiar qualities of nuclear weapons changed how the superpowers approached international relations during the Cold War.

·         John Mueller argues that nuclear weapons were irrelevant. The cause of peace was actually the increased recognition of the horror of war.

·         Most analysts believe that nuclear weapons were a major factor in avoiding World War III.

·         Effective deterrence requires both the capability to do damage and a credible threat that the weapons will be used. Deterrence is therefore not just related to capability, but also to credibility.

·         The problem of credibility leads to a distinction between deterring threats against one’s homeland and extending deterrence to cover an ally.

·         From 1945-49 the US alone had nuclear weapons, but did not use them. By the 1950s, both US and SU had nuclear weapons, and US leaders considered their use in several crises.

·         Presidents Truman and Eisenhower vetoed the use of nuclear weapons for several reasons. There is always the retaliation to think about, and the ethics and public opinion played a role.

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

·         Key case in nuclear deterrence was the Cuban Missile Crisis – October 1962.

·         This 13 day period was probably the closest call in the nuclear age to a set of events that could have led to nuclear war.

·         The reason US did not attack first in order to destroy missile strikes was because even if one or two of the Soviet missiles had escaped and been fired at an American city, that risk was enough to deter a US first strike.

·         Cuba, which had been a virtual colony of the US, had recently moved into the Soviet orbit. Newspapers begun reporting shipments of Soviet weapons to Cuba. Ordering to Khrushchev, these weapons were defensive not offensive.

·         October 16^th, 1962 Bundy brought photos to Kennedy showing SU setting up nuclear-armed ballistic missiles targeted on cities in the US.

·         For Kennedy, the presence of these missiles was intolerable. So was the fact that Khrushchev had lied to him. However, he opted for nuclear deterrence.

·         The question of how much the US won and why it won is over determined. (1) view is that the US had more nuclear weapons so Soviets gave in. (2) America had higher stake in Cuba and more conventional forces therefore gave Americans more credibility in their deterrence.

·         The nuclear dimension certainly figured in Kennedy’s thinking.

MORAL ISSUES

·         Relaxation of tension was caused by a number of things: 1963 hotline, arms control treaty limiting atmospheric nuclear tests was signed, Kennedy announced the US would increase trade with SU.

·         However, tension returned after SU invasion of Afghanistan 1979. Military budgets and number of nuclear weapons increased.

·         Is nuclear deterrence moral? Self-defence is usually regarded as a just cause, but the means and consequences by which a war is fought are equally important.

·         Low-yield nuclear weapons used on military buildings, where a clear line between combatants and noncombatants can be drawn, keeps the effects relatively limited. This can be said to be just.

·         Escalation is the great risk.

·         Nuclear weapons played v important role in keeping the Cold War from turning hot.

·         During 1980s, the American Catholic Bishops said that nuclear deterrence could be justified on a conditional basis as a tolerable interim measure until something better was developed.

·         While 189 states signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, countries such as Iran, Libya, North Korea and Iraq still pursued nuclear weapons.

·         The fear that such nuclear programs can be reconstituted was one of the causes of the Iraq War in 2003.

·         Moreover, there are reports that terrorist groups such as the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo cult and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network were investigating the production of nuclear and biological weapons.

·         The moral belief against nuclear weapons is shared not just by states who do not have the capacity to make them themselves, but also those that do.

·         Realist dimension – weapons of mass destruction carry great risk of escalation and enormous potential for devastation – changing the dynamics of conflict change.

·         The risk that these devices will be used if a crisis spins out of control raises the level of tension.

·         The threat of use by terrorists adds a chilling dimension in which deterrence is not a sufficient response.

WALZER – NUCLEAR DETERRENCE – PROBLEMS OF IMMORAL THREATS

·         Against the threat of an immoral attack, they had to put the threat of an immoral response. This is the basic form of nuclear deterrence.

·         The threat of such a slaughter, if it is believed, makes nuclear attack a radically undesirable policy. Both sides are so terrified that no further terrorism is necessary.

·         The argument against deterrence is familiar enough. Anyone committed to the distinction between combatants and noncombatants is bound to be appalled by the spectre of destruction evoked in deterrence theory.

·         The reason for our acceptance of deterrent strategy most people would say, is that preparing to kill, even threatening to kill, is not at all the same thing as killing.

·         Paul Ramsey believes that it is not acceptable since such a system makes innocent human lives the direct object of attack and uses them as a mere means for restraining countries.

·         It is in the nature of the new technology that we can be threatened without being held captive. That is why deterrence, while in principle so frightening, is so easy to live with.

·         We must not dismiss that for all its ghastly potential, deterrence has so far been a bloodless strategy.

·         Deterrence depends on a readiness to murder. Hence, the immoral issue. The immorality lies in the threat itself, not in its present or even its likely consequences.

·         This is shown again by Ramsey – ‘Whatever is wrong to do is wrong to threaten...if counter-population warfare is murder, then counter-population deterrent threats are murderous’.

·         Deterrence guards us against a double danger; first, atomic blackmail and foreign domination, and second of nuclear destruction.

·         It is not tolerable that advances in technology should put any nation at the mercy of a great power willing to menace the world or to press its authority outwards in the shadow of an implicit threat.

·         Against an enemy actually willing to use the bomb, self-defence is impossible, and it makes sense to say that the only compensating step is the (immoral) threat to respond in kind.

·         There may well be no other alternative that is practical in a world of sovereign and suspicious states.