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Commentary "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 havingnuclear 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 countrieshave 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)(population23 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 itsU.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 thoughonly 5 percentof
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 in1968
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 sign 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
NPT (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.  '. Visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
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