OPINION:
The Cold War ushered in a nuclear arms race that was unsustainable — even at the time, everyone knew it. The solution, many argued, was the abolition of nuclear weapons.
That answer was enshrined in the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which required each party to the treaty to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race … and to nuclear disarmament … ” That goal was re-stated in 2017 when 122 states negotiated the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons seeking to outlaw nuclear weapons via eventually customary international law.
However noble the goal of nuclear weapons abolition might be, it has gone nowhere since the NPT entered into force in 1970. None of the original five NPT nuclear weapons states (the U.S., U.K., U.S.S.R. (now the Russian Federation), France and China) have eliminated their nuclear arsenal, although the U.S. and Russia have made substantial reductions. Moreover, the number of states that possess nuclear weapons has subsequently increased to include Pakistan, India, North Korea, and probably Israel. Iran will probably join this group shortly.
That there has been no substantive migration to nuclear abolition is entirely predictable. There is no basis to suppose that verifiable nuclear disarmament is achievable.
Under current circumstances — and any reasonably conceivable circumstances — the U.S. would never agree to nuclear abolition. The U.S., in conjunction with our allies and partners, has and will have for the immediate future, the most lethal, agile, and responsive conventional military capability in history.
Therefore, among our rivals, we are the least reliant upon our nuclear weapons for power projection capability and deterrence. Consequently, the United States will not be the holdout against global nuclear weapons abolition.
Other nuclear states with weaker conventional military forces cling to their nuclear capabilities more tightly than we do. Indeed, our vastly superior conventional forces drive our rivals to depend on their nuclear arsenals as a countervailing force.
Nuclear arms abolitionists believe a world without nuclear weapons would be a better, safer, more prosperous place. Their beliefs are wrong on all counts. The folly of such thinking becomes clear if one considers what happens after an imagined nuclear disarmament is realized.
First, the accomplishment would merely be temporary. Consider Indian-Pakistani hostility. Pakistan has lost repeated skirmishes to its rival. It cannot match India’s superior military conventional capabilities. It will immediately recognize that it must reconstitute its nuclear arsenal for the same reason it built it in the first place, which is to deter India. It cannot do so sans a nuclear weapons capability. The same logic for reconstitution also relates to the India-Chinese and Russian-American pairs of rivals.
Second, nuclear weapons disarmament and abolition would counterintuitively weaken global security. In a nuclear weapons-free world, any rogue nation — think Iran – could constitute a small nuclear arsenal surreptitiously and emerge as the world’s extortionist nuclear power overnight. Likewise, by imposing nuclear disarmament, we would have jeopardized South Korea’s security. Its citizens could awaken any morning and confront a newly nuclear-rearmed North Korea. This South Korea, however, would have no U.S. nuclear umbrella to protect it.
Third, the cost to the Treasury would rise dramatically. Any cost calculus reveals how inexpensive nuclear weapons are on a relative basis. If the U.S. eliminated its nuclear weapons, it would break the U.S.
Treasury to meet our national and international security obligations. Since conventional weapons do not convey the military capabilities of a nuclear arsenal, a nuclear-free military for the U.S. will not only be more expensive but will be less effective as well.
We have been led to idealize the loftiness of nuclear abolition. To dispel the idealization, an analogy to the discussion of the control of firearms illuminates. The gun control argument is that if everyone disarmed, we would be safer. However, if everyone disarmed, the situation creates an enormous moral hazard by incentivizing a few malefactors to re-arm, allowing them to claim a place of primacy. And we see this in cities that have outlawed guns. Such would be the case with nuclear disarmament.
We would very much like to see worldwide complete nuclear disarmament. We just don’t consider it possible under current circumstances.
• David S. Jonas is a Partner at Fluet in Tysons, VA. He served as Nuclear Nonproliferation Planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Counsel of the National Nuclear Security Administration. He is an adjunct professor at Georgetown and George Washington University Law Schools. These are his personal opinions and not that of any organization. Patrick Rhoads leads the nuclear research efforts at the National Strategic Research Institute, a University Affiliated Research Center sponsored by the U.S. Strategic Command. These are his personal remarks and are not the opinion of NSRI.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.