Apocalypse Never

8. Nuclear Weapons are Militarily Unnecessary and Militarily Useless. For Us.

Chapter 8 Nuclear Weapons Are Militarily Unnecessary and Militarily Useless. For Us. Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal both served as nuclear policy advisors to the presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama. During the transition period after his election, their article “The Logic of Zero: Toward a World Without Nuclear Weapons,” appeared in the November–December 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs, the quintessential forum for America’s foreign policy elite.1 The article urged the new president to “make the elimination of all nuclear weapons the organizing principle of U.S. nuclear policy” and offered several promising suggestions about how the United States might persuade other states to follow a bold American initiative toward that end.2 Because of its timing, its placement, and its authors’ connection to the incoming president, the article was arguably comparable in importance to the Wall Street Journal op-eds, discussed in the opening chapter above, that issued from the pens of the Gang of Four in January 2007 and January 2008. Concerning one point, however, Daalder and Lodal did not seem fully to appreciate the vast potential that America’s conventional military might now holds to transform the global nuclear status quo. “Only one real purpose remains for U.S. nuclear weapons: to prevent the use of nuclear weapons by others,” the authors wrote. “There is no way to defend reliably against a nuclear attack from the missiles or aircraft of a hostile state; such an attack can only be deterred through the certainty of devastating retaliation. Accordingly, so long as others have nuclear weapons, the United States must maintain a viable nuclear deterrent.”3 Indeed, President Obama has put forth much the same sentiment. He, too, as indicated in the opening chapter, has called unambiguously 125 CH008.qxd 2/4/10 11:05 AM Page 125 for nuclear weapons abolition, most notably in his groundbreaking speech in Prague on April 5, 2009. However, not only did he declare in Prague that nuclear weapons elimination might take more than the remainder of his lifetime to complete, but he also said, “Make no mistake : As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary.”4 The presumption could hardly have been clearer. For Obama, such deterrence can apparently only be exercised by the United States through the continued possession of an “effective [nuclear] arsenal.” This chapter will offer a three-pronged thesis about the political and military utility of nuclear weapons for different actors in the contemporary international arena—and the different strategies required to persuade them to walk together down the road toward abolition. First is a specific contention quite different from that offered above by Daalder and Lodal and Obama. In the early twenty-first century, the United States, uniquely, can promise “the certainty of devastating retaliation,” and consequently can “deter any adversary,” with its conventional military power alone. To protect American national security, to defeat any enemy, and to dissuade any potential aggressor by threatening to inflict catastrophic retaliatory destruction upon it, America’s conventional military power alone can fully do the job. For those missions, U.S. nuclear weapons are militarily unnecessary. Second, nuclear weapons cannot accomplish the many other missions that American conventional weapons—for all their firepower— cannot accomplish for the United States. For those missions, U.S. nuclear weapons are militarily useless. Third, unfortunately, today’s geostrategic realities make these kinds of calculations very different for other, weaker states. For them, nuclear weapons hold a powerful appeal as an effective means—indeed, likely the only available means—to dissuade stronger states from attacking them. To persuade these states to sign on to the abolitionist project will require simultaneous initiatives on three parallel tracks. One would contain foreign and defense policies that assure weaker states that stronger states do not intend to attack them. Another would contain rhetoric and diplomatic overtures that convince weaker states that, on balance, their national security will best be served in a world where neither they nor anyone else possesses nuclear weapons, instead of a world where they A p o c a l y p s e N e v e r 126 CH008.qxd 2/4/10 11:05 AM Page 126 do—but so, too, do many others. And a third would carry nuclear weapons policies that directly address the long-simmering resentments about the nuclear double...