Nuclear Disarmament
This is an op-ed peice that I had to write for class. I thought I'd post it here too. If the United States wants to prevent nuclear proliferation, then it must lead by example. A nuclear state can never promote nonproliferation to a non-nuclear state. First of all, nuclear weapons are valuable. They are both economically and strategically valuable. The case can be made that a certain state should not have nuclear weapons, but this can prove problematic. All states suffer from periods of instability. Possibly the greatest nuclear threat in the last quarter century is post-Soviet Russia. A nuclear state without the means to keep track of its nukes is downright scary. How then, can we be certain enough a state as stable as say, France, will not have another revolution? This is leads us to a unilateral stance on the issue. The only way to make a case for universal anti-proliferation is to argue that nuclear weapons are not morally permissible. If a state believes this, then they must also be perusing Complete Nuclear Disarmament (CND). There are two important parts to CND. The first and most important is that nations that are currently nuclear powers must be willing to disarm. The second part is that the non-nuclear powers must be willing to give up their nuclear aspirations. Assuming that each state controls its own nuclear desires, these two conditions are incredibly hard to reach. Because of this, we need to look more closely at what single states can do to bring about CND. A good first guess would be coercive diplomacy. Any foray into coercive diplomacy must meet a number of conditions to be successful. First, the demands must be clear and must be able to be met. We will assume that the threat is clear. Unless domestic repercussions are so great that the nation cannot abandon development of nukes, then the demand is attainable. Next, the threat must be credible. This, of course, varies with the threat. One option that absolutely cannot be used as a threat is a nuclear weapon. The use of a nuke here would only show the opposing nation the strength of being a nuclear power. In addition, using nuclear force as a threat would violate the very principles of CND. Finally, the consequences of not complying with the demand must be worse than those suffered by caving in. This means that a state would essentially need to trump the prospect of nuclear power without using nuclear power. Or is that true? If a state is going to get rid of its nukes anyway, why not get something for them? What if disarmament was traded for nonproliferation? Although it is hard to think of a nation such as the United States diminishing its nuclear stockpile to stop, say, North Korea from going nuclear, remember that both the US and the Soviet Union participated in cooperative threat reduction during the cold war. Essentially, in order for CND to occur states must be willing to put nuclear disarmament above their own relative power. No debate on CND would be complete without including the United Nations. To be denied a nuclear arsenal by the international community is a constraint on any state. CND would be a restraint on all states. This type of rule would be an international rule and as such it would need to be enforced somehow by the international community. The only current forum for this is the United Nations. It is possible that a forum such as the Geneva Convention might be called and then all nations who choose to can forego nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this would take the "complete" out of CND.
