Proliferation

Is there a logical or ethical case for nuclear nonproliferation without disarmament? If there is what states should - and shouldn't - possess nuclear arms?

Firstly, is it hypocritical of the United States and other powers to maintain nuclear arsenals while discouraging Iran, North Korea, and others from doing the same? By most moral standards, absolutely. However, moral equivalence is not a particularly useful standard when dealing with the most destructive device available to human beings.

OK, so what makes the United States so qualified to have nuclear weapons? After all, we are the only country to, you know, actually use them.

Aside from the argument from historical circumstance (Max Hastings makes this point incredibly effectively in a mere page with two photos in Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945 - it's a fascinating book, read it), there's also the theoretically relevant circumstance - the use of atomic bombs occurred in the world's first and only period of nuclear monopoly. Because of this important circumstance, you essentially get the case for having two or more nuclear powers - when you can annihilate a city or two and your enemy can't do the same thing, why not do it?

OK, so how is that relevant? The point is, even if everybody in the world got rid of their nuclear arms, there'd still be a pretty significant incentive to develop them - moreso for states such as North Korea and Iran (and Pakistan and Taiwan and others) than the US, Russia or anyone else. Atomic arms first existed as a substitute for conventional force in WWII, but is unlikely the US would be engaged in that sort of apocalyptic pitched battle against a suicidally determined enemy - yes, neoconservatives, I find it very unlikely we'll see millions of Americans fighting millions of Islamic jihadists - look at AQ strength estimates in Iraq if you don't believe me, but I digress.

Here's the idea: if the US and North Korea, or heck, the ROK and North Korea, are in a confrontation, the obvious conventional advantage is to the US/ROK. These countries are richer, larger, and have more powerful and competent military forces. North Korea is going to lose any conventional conflict. What it needs to do is increase the price of attack so much that the opponent does not invade - and if you're already stretching your small country's conventional capability to the limit, the easiest way is to get yourself a nuclear bomb. Thus, nuclear bombs have two separate purposes as deterrents - against conventional military power, and nuclear military power. Advocates of the 'hypocrisy' argument say the fact other countries sit on so much nuclear power necessitates a nuclear deterrent for other states - this is, for the most part, ridiculous. Iran and North Korea are never going to deter US, Russian, or probably even French nuclear capability. The wealth and potential power disparity does come into play when you have to deter against hundreds or thousands of nuclear bombs. Current nuclear aspirants simply could not maintain the numbers of warheads, strategic aircraft, missiles and naval assets necessary to deter a major power's nuclear arsenal. What a smaller state can do is develop enough nuclear weapons to wipe out a division, carrier group, or base or two of an invading force - enough to make the cost of invasion prohibitive and ward off a neighboring, non-nuclear power or even a nuclear major power, which in many cases will be reluctant to enter a nuclear war even in a second-strike situation - if the situation gets out of control, the potential that another major nuclear power might launch is dangerous enough for the invader to write off the entire enterprise in the first place.

So in a denuclearized - and nuclearized - world, there remains a significant incentive to get a nuclear device, especially if the aspiring state is unpopular, unstable and/or weaker in conventional terms than a potential opponent. One might argue there is nothing wrong with 'self defense' nuclear weapons, but the ability to ward off potential opponents gives a great deal of offensive flexibility - a state can wage a campaign that might invite a wider conflict if it has a 'nuclear veto' over the entry of a potentially stronger opponent's conventional forces.

So... If nuclear monopoly and nuclear proliferation are generally dangerous, who then should have nuclear weapons? That will be the subject of a future post.