Military Alliances and Nuclear Disarmament: ICAN is Afraid to Face the Darkness
A drunk was looking for his keys under a lamppost. A
passerby came along and asked if he needed help. The drunk said, “I lost my
keys.”
The passerby asked, “Well, where do you think they
could be?”
“I dunno,” he replied, pointing to the darkness behind
him, “Back there probably.”
“Then why are you looking here under the lamppost?”
“Because there’s
more light here.”
The
International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) likes to stay in the
light. It pursues a goal that almost everyone on the planet shares. However, it
has so much right on its side that it tends to be somewhat blinded by its
righteousness. A certain arrogance comes across when its members use such
dismissive phrases as “get on the right side of history” in their admonishments
aimed at nations that have not signed or ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition
of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). This is the same phrase that has been used by US
leaders against governments that resist the “rules-based international order,”
a deceptive preferred phrase used these days to avoid making people think about
international law, which is usually being violated in some way in order to
uphold the “rules-based international order.” The phrase really means “our
rules”; that is, US hegemony. The US has given up claiming that it upholds
international law as it was established by the UN Charter because its own
refusals be subject to international law have become too well known. Thus the preference
now for the less precise “rules-based international order.”[i],[ii]
When
I criticize ICAN, people may think I’ve abandoned the cause of nuclear
disarmament and now support the notion of mutual nuclear deterrence, so I have
to stress that I still support the goal of a complete and rapid nuclear
disarmament. I simply think ICAN has pursued this goal in a self-defeating
fashion, in a silo, unconcerned with related issues and oblivious to many
aspects of history such as the struggles of weaker nations to defend their
sovereignty against the economic order imposed over the last five centuries by
European and American imperialism. The ICAN leadership is made up mostly of
people from the US-NATO, and US-allied sphere. They may see themselves as
oppositional and radical, but they appear to be more of a single-issue controlled
opposition group that keeps attention off the root of the problem and engages
in only restrained criticism of US power. A great deal of popular activism has
melded into a hybrid network of NGOs that have ties to corporate and government
sponsors, and ICAN appears to part of this trend. While the organization is comprised
of many good people working for undeniably good objectives, as a whole the
leadership evinces little awareness of the ways in which they further the
interests of the “rules-based international order.” As Russia and China can easily
perceive this bias, they will remain deaf to the voices of ICAN activists. Thus
ICAN’s approach is thoroughly self-defeating. I add further points in list form:
1.
ICAN
representatives have voiced mild, diplomatic criticism of the US government’s
efforts to block the TPNW treaty, but they have held back from suggesting
obvious forms of protest such as boycotts, sanctions, recall of diplomats, and
withdrawal from military alliances with the United States and other nuclear
powers. If this seems drastic, recall that Russian diplomats have recently been
recalled for matters much less urgent than nuclear disarmament—this mortal danger
to civilization that could be unleashed at any moment.
2.
The
TPNW has no provisions on nuclear energy, even though every nuclear energy
program is dual use technology that can produce fissile material for weapons.
It is theoretically possible to
operate nuclear energy without enabling nuclear weapons proliferation, but for
all practical concerns it has been and always will be impossible.
3.
ICAN
makes a false analogy between nuclear weapons and other types of weapons that
have been banned such as land mines and biological and chemical weapons. These
weapons do not have the capacity to instantly and thoroughly destroy nation
states or the planet’s life-sustaining ecosystem, so they cannot be put into
the same category. What needs to be considered is the different appeal that
nuclear arsenals have as a deterrent, whether or not one accepts that they really
do provide any such security.
4.
ICAN
has voiced only muted criticism of the escalation of new cold war tensions
between the NATO bloc and Russia, and between US-allied nations and China. Nuclear
arsenals are not likely to be eliminated quickly, even if all the nations of
the world agreed to start moving in that direction. It makes sense to keep the
world safe in the meantime and focus on the de-escalation of hostilities
between China, Russia and the United States, Israel and Iran, and Pakistan and
India. This focus on maintaining peace would have to involve taking a stand on
important matters of principle that are not directly related to nuclear weapons.
It would include strong condemnation of the numerous violations of
international law by the Israel, the US and NATO countries since the 1990s.
5.
ICAN
could also condemn the United States as the country that brought nuclear
weapons into the world and refused to put their development under international
supervision and control.[iii]
It would call on the US to engage in good faith disarmament talks with all
nuclear powers and make unilateral cuts in its arsenal, which rival nuclear
powers could then follow step by step down to zero. The US led the world into
the nuclear age, so it should also lead the world out of it—lead by example—by
taking the initiative of unilateral reductions for others to follow.
6.
ICAN
needs to say much more about the enormous imbalance of conventional military
power between the US and all other nations, an imbalance which is an obvious
motivation for weaker states to want to retain their nuclear deterrence. It is
absurd to expect North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for
some sort of “security guarantee” from the United States. The United States
abrogates treaties and changes foreign policy as administrations change with
each election cycle. The US could withdraw some forces and move its nuclear
weapons out of the region, but it would still have its enormous conventional
and nuclear capabilities. The nuclear triad could still strike North Korea, or
any part of the globe, on very short notice.
7.
ICAN
self-righteously declares that the theory of deterrence is discredited, but
does not acknowledge that this is a matter of faith, not established fact. A
state of being deterred exists, as far as one can tell, until it fails.
Meanwhile, a small nuclear power like North Korea looks at what has happened to
nations like Iraq and Libya after they gave up their nuclear programs under
pressure from the US. NATO countries planned and encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia,
and a disastrous civil war was the consequence. It was splintered into a number
of smaller countries, and Serbia was bombed by NATO with radiological weapons—a
type of “nuclear” weapon that disarmament activists speak about very little,
even though they have actually been used repeatedly since 1945. Russians are
quite sure that a similar balkanization would have come to Russia if they had
not had a nuclear arsenal.
To
cite some support for this critique of ICAN’s approach, I refer to a talk given
by an ICAN spokesman, Dr. Tilman Ruff, in Seattle in December 2018.[iv]
It is very difficult to point to faults in an organization that fights for such
a just cause as nuclear weapons abolition, but I believe it’s important for
nuclear disarmament activists to engage in rigorous self-criticism rather than
self-congratulation and self-righteousness. It is frustrating to see them expending
so much energy and getting so much attention while making no progress and failing
to face the real nature of the problem.
Dr.
Tilman, as a physician, spoke of the many well-known catastrophic consequences
of nuclear war and the risks involved in the continued existence of nuclear
arsenals. Though he stated the obvious, he didn’t address the issues raised
above, and most glaringly, at the 35:30 mark in the talk, he put forward two very
dubious notions that justify the criticisms I have made.
Dubious notion #1.
North Korea could be the first nuclear-armed state to disarm
Q. “What’s your
sense of which of the nuclear-armed States might be the first to break from the
pack?”
A. “This could change
quickly and it really depends on leadership, electoral outcomes and popular
pressure. I wouldn’t under-underestimate the value of leadership. I think, looked at currently, one would hope that North Korea might be the first, and I
think the United Kingdom is an interesting prospect.”
For
the reasons stated above, this is just an absurd expectation. North Korea is
highly unlikely to disarm, and it would do so only if it were crushed under
extreme duress. It has traditionally had a security guarantee of Chinese
support, if it came under attack, but this guarantee is more uncertain than it
used to be, so North Korea has all the more reason to depend on its own nuclear
deterrent.
Dubious notion #2.
Nations that host the nuclear weapons of allies could get those weapons off
their territory but stay in their alliances
“Most of the
thinking in ICAN has been that it may be more likely for one or more of the
nuclear-dependent states to sort of break ranks. And a very important
experience in relation to that I think bodes quite well for that potential.
That is that membership of this treaty is entirely consistent with a military
relationship with a nuclear-armed state, provided activities that justify or
assist preparations for possible use of nuclear weapons are excluded. The US
designates 17 states as major non-NATO allies. 11 of them voted for the treaty
adoption, 3 have signed: Thailand, Philippines and New Zealand, and two have
ratified: Thailand and New Zealand… it’s quite possible to continue military
collaboration provided nuclear weapons are excluded. So I think that the
reality of that should help states like my own, Australia, and Japan to take
some leadership and get on the right side of history sooner rather than later.”
This
suggestion that countries like Australia and Japan could keep their alliances
with the US is an extreme avoidance of the main cause in the world that is
increasing antagonisms between nuclear powers. The United States is a rogue
state. It has abrogated important disarmament treaties. It has violated
international law repeatedly and refuses to be subjected to judgment in
international courts. Its defense budget is the highest in the world, greater
than the sum of the defense spending of the next nine countries on the list of
top spenders. It insists on the international hegemony of its rules-based
order, and labels the rising economic power of China and Russia as threats to this
order. Friends shouldn’t let friends maintain nuclear arsenals and antagonize
nuclear-armed states. This rogue state needs to be isolated and sanctioned, not
emboldened by the approval given by nations maintaining their military alliances
with it.
In
any case, these allied nations, even if they refused to allow nuclear weapons
on their territory, would still be nuclear targets of China and Russia, so they
would not decline an offer to be protected by a nuclear response from the
United States, if they came under nuclear attack. They would still be nuclear
hypocrites sheltering under a nuclear umbrella. Furthermore, this statement
shows obliviousness to the fact that it is the large, global reach of the US
alliance (NATO and its 17 major non-NATO allies such as Ukraine, Israel, Middle
Eastern states, South Korean, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand) and its
massive conventional forces that motivate US “adversaries” to want a nuclear
deterrent.
One
might counter that this view shows a bias against the United States, and denies
the possibility of Russia and China being worthy of equal condemnation.
Shouldn’t we be balanced and neutral in our approach to the delicate problem of
nuclear disarmament? This argument falls apart when one looks at the historical
record. As Jimmy Carter pointed out in a recent statement covered by Newsweek:
“Since 1979, do you know how many times
China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war.” The U.S.,
he noted, has only enjoyed 16 years of peace in its 242-year history, making
the country “the most warlike nation in the history of the world,” Carter said.
This is, he said, because of America’s tendency to force other nations to “adopt
our American principles.”[v]
Similarly,
Russia’s record of military adventurism since 1991 has been extremely
restrained compared to US interventions. It took limited action in Georgia and
Ukraine (countries that border Russia), to counter US interventions there, and
defended Syria at the invitation of the Syrian head of state—again to counter
the destructive intervention launched in that region by other nuclear-armed
states. For a discussion of the Crimea issue, see Sergei Khrushchev’s article Crimea: Whose Land is This? where he “… argues
that Crimea was never a part of Ukraine except for bureaucratic reasons. The
land has actually been Russian for centuries and Washington is wrong to make it
a major bone of contention with Moscow.”[vi]
It’s
time for ICAN, if it wants to be taken seriously, to “get on the right side of
history” and get serious in its awareness of how nuclear disarmament is
connected more broadly to the exercise of economic power and conventional
military power. But radical approaches will not be televised. ICAN prefers to
keep searching in the light, rather than in the darkness where the key to the
problem lies. Going radical would cause ICAN to lose its coverage in high-profile
media, and would have left it ignored by the Nobel committee. It is ironic that
an ahistorical, cautious and inoffensive approach is favored for what ICAN
claims to be an urgent existential problem that could turn the world to ashes before
the next sunset.
Notes
[i]
James O’Neill, “Rules
Based International Order: the Rhetoric and the Reality,” New Eastern Outlook, October 17, 2018.
[ii]
Paul Carlene, “Goodbye
‘Freedom and Democracy’ – Hello ‘Rules-based International Order,’” Off-Guardian, February 2, 2019. Quoted
in this article, the American Rand Corporation defines the rules-based
international order as a product of American foreign policy, created for
American interests, and makes no specific mention of the United Nations Charter
as the foundation of the order: “Since 1945, the United States has pursued its
global interests through creating and maintaining international economic
institutions, bilateral and regional security organizations, and liberal
political norms.”
[iii] Peter Kuznick and
Oliver Stone, The Untold History of the
United States (Ebury Publishing, 2012), 196-197. There is a common
misunderstanding in some quarters that in the 1940s the US made a sincere
effort in nuclear disarmament which was rejected by the Soviet Union. It is
similar to the misconception that Stalin rejected Marshall Plan support. Everyone
involved in formulating the terms of the proposal did so knowing they would be
rejected and wanting them to be rejected. Kuznick and Stone describe the
sordid, disingenuous process in detail over several pages in the chapter cited
here: “Hopes for an international agreement were dashed when Truman and Byrnes
appointed Byrnes’s fellow South Carolinian, seventy-five-year-old financier
Bernard Baruch, to present the plan to the United Nations. Paying off another
old political debt, Truman empowered him to revise it as he saw fit. Baruch had
bankrolled Truman when he trailed in his 1940 Senate reelection bid and
desperately needed funds. All involved, including Acheson, Lilienthal, and
Oppenheimer, were furious, knowing that Baruch, an outspoken anti-Communist who
viewed the bomb as the United States’ ‘winning weapon,’ would reformulate the
plan so that the Soviets would reject it out of hand.”
[iv]
Dr. Tilman
Ruff, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, “Safeguarding Health and Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe” recorded November
8, 2018, University of Washington, Seattle, 35:30~.
[v]
David Brennan, “Jimmy
Carter Took Call About China from Concerned Donald Trump: ‘China Has Not Wasted
a Single Penny on War.’” Newsweek,
April 15, 2019.
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