Security by Nukes is No Way to Live!

The disintegration of the former Soviet Union arguably placed the final full stop on every argument that delusively justified the Manhattan Project.

The search for contemporary justifications primarily has the United States pointing first to an expensive insurance policy for that sacred supreme superpower status, then to threats posed by terrorism. Russia follows aggressively with a case for balance of power, given the US’ relentless drive for perfection in nuclear arsenal fortification.

Put together, the world has been served a readymade recipe for perpetual global insecurity.

The combined destructive capacity enthusiastically nurtured by the US and Russia, in the name of ‘security’, is capable of trivializing the likely outcome of a thousand re-intensifications of climate change and more; a murderous heritage capable of obliterating all human existence in a matter of minutes.

Unfortunately, this calculation which equals to Armageddon is not inclusive of nuclear stockpiles held by China, France and Great Britain. Neither does it consider the mutually assured destruction postures held by India and Pakistan, nor the rationale behind a nuclear-armed Israel amidst hostile Arab neighbours. North Korea’s is another matter entirely.

One thing all nuclear powers share in common – both legal and illegal possessors of weapons of mass destruction – is a conviction that nuclear weapons are a most effective deterrent against threats to political sovereignty, territorial integrity, and all what not.

However when we speak of threats to global peace and stability, especially in the 21st century, simple reference to common sense reveals that nuclear weapons have no place in ensuring our collective security from such threats.

At the Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World Seminar which was held last month at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, and hosted by the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA), it was clear that the younger generation think of nuclear weapons as grossly irrelevant in ensuring world security. Students from all parts of the globe gathered, under the distinguished chairmanship of Dr. Hans Blix, President of WFUNA and legendary Chair of the United Nations’ Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, to spark a global youth movement against reliance on nuclear weapons as guarantors of security.

One student from New Zealand argued that “climate change, energy shortages, ethnic tension, local wars, discrimination, terrorism, disease, hunger and extreme poverty” are the foremost contributors to today’s global security challenges. Nuclear weapons “cannot destroy these new adversaries” of our world today. They therefore “deliver no security”, are “obsolete in this new age” and serve “no purpose in our world, our lives, our time.”

It becomes hard to fathom why any government will set out to squander obscene sums of money on nuclear arms, even when it is common knowledge that nobody really wants to put these things to use.

And who sets the pace? Any guess should pass.

According to Stephen Schwartz of the Monetary Institute of International Affairs, combined U.S. military expenditures between 1940 and 1996 totaled $18.7 trillion. At least 29% ($5.8 trillion) of that went straight to its water basket nuclear weapons program.

Then reflect on a recent United Nations report suggesting that poverty can be wiped off the surface of the earth, forever, by simply reversing from waste in nuclear ambitions to investments in extensive life-transforming goals. If the UN estimates that about $195 billion/year can end hunger and poverty completely, just imagine what a difference deviating from nuclear spending to boosting agricultural production in developing countries would have made considering the current food crises.

Instead what we get are 75,000 – 100,000 people dying unnecessarily day after day from lack of food, water, shelter, and sanitation etc. while nuclear weapons live on. Where then is the security our leaders speak of? Not a single unit of nuclear warheads is capable of saving one human life from this notorious lack of basic living necessities.

Students at the Geneva seminar also attempted to draw the world’s attention to this ill-trend, with a view to getting people to cry out for change.

“Enough is enough!” lamented a Nigerian student, while his Australian counterpart added – as though speaking for an entire generation of hopeful leaders of tomorrow – that “we want to solve these problems before we inherit them”. The search for solutions led to the initiation of a global network of Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World, last week at the United Nations in Geneva.

While the students were at it, another international group of rather elderly nuclear disarmament campaigners called Footprints for Peace had walked all the way from Britain to Switzerland. Making recurring references to Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl, their International Peace Walk was a peaceful protest against the extent of insecurity nuclear weapons have created for human lives.

As both groups converged, it turned out to be an eloquent confirmation of suggestions that the young and old seem to agree more on nuclear insecurity issues than either group does with the current mix of relatively middle-aged world leaders.

Although we do not really want our current leaders dead and gone, to pave way for a new generation of futuristic thinkers, the world can take a lot of consolation in knowing they cannot be around for too long.

In early preparation for their exit, the youth have already taken the initiative by planning to expand the disarmament campaign via internet, emails, travels and exchanges at all possible levels.

The strategy is straight-forward: facilitate a worldwide campaign that targets, among others, the reorientation of young people in order to increase chances that future world leaders would have been impacted and positively influenced by the campaign.

The message too is clear: the younger generation is definitely not interested in inheriting the war mentality.

So far, nobody has been crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon again since 1945. That is a commendable achievement for the world, but still it is marred by a few stubborn baby boomers that have refused to do away with their nuclear armaments. In the event, the idea of proliferation gets increasingly attractive to more and more international actors who believe they cannot be held accountable by powers who have flagrantly violated commitments made in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Thus a dangerous spiral of insecurity takes root as humanity constantly confronts the likelihood of universal death.

Our collective fate, if terrorists of the 9/11 caliber were to grab a hold of just one nuclear weapon, is a story we may not even be around to tell.

Such risks must be eliminated, and the only way to be free from them is by inspiring enough political will for a concerted and progressive nuclear disarmament.