OPINION:
While admiring the objectives and perseverance of Joseph Adam Ereli and James Grant in seeking common ground for contemporary arms control regimes, (“Proactive nuclear disarmament talks must begin now before its too lat,” Web, Sept. 2), the writers seem to disregard some 50 years of international mistrust.
In 1970 the Non-Proliferation Treaty sought to thwart further proliferation, although the treaty was clearly an effort by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council to demonstrate to the world that action was being taken to restrict the proliferation of nuclear-warhead capabilities beyond their exclusive club. To those working in the field the treaty appeared likely only to slow proliferation through the erection of bureaucratic procedures, rather than prevent it in the long term. The intervening years have demonstrated that while nations without nuclear weapons saw the possession of such systems as their warranty of security, they would go to great lengths to acquire them. Several, such as India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and possibly Iran, have succeeded. Without the involvement of all parties it is difficult to understand what could be achieved through bilateral agreements.
Despite the failure of the treaty to prevent others from acquiring these incredibly destructive capabilities, many efforts have been made to reach some sort of nuclear-weapon ban. The most recent was a 2017 U.N. conference on the subject. The output was a legally binding instrument to prohibit possession of nuclear weapons. The organizers hoped this would eventually lead to the total elimination of such devastating arsenals, but such an initiative could only be described as naive. The five original members of the nuclear club had every opportunity to prevent proliferation before, even after the introduction of the Non Proliferation Treaty. A lack of trust between them prevented a unified approach then and the proliferation that has occurred since has all but ruled out further unified progress. It is not difficult to persuade the vast majority of members of the United Nations who do not possess nuclear warheads to support denuclearization. It is quite another to get possessors to surrender what they consider their trump card in international activities.
Realistically, proactive multilateral disarmament is not the order of the day, as proposed by Mr. Ereli and Mr. Grant. We have to continue to live with deterrence that has avoided nuclear use for the past 75 years.
STANLEY ORMAN
Rockville, Md.
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