"Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon," read the headline. This front page banner in the satirical weekly, The Onion may not have gotten the number exactly right. The Obama administration reported in 2010 that the U.S. possesses 5,113 warheads in the stockpile and an additional 4,500 retired, but not yet dismantled, making the grand total even higher than the spoofers had guessed.
While media pundits in the U.S. warn darkly of Tehran's nuclear ambitions, America itself is regarded as the main nuclear threat in much of the world today. The United States argues that it needs these weapons to deter attacks on itself and its allies, and that it would only use them to prevent or respond to such an attack. But people in other countries wonder why we need so absurdly many of them -- secreted away in missile silos, on submarines and in bombers, computer-targeted to obliterate their cities at the turn of a key.
The U.S. rightly wants to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to nations like Iran that do not yet possess them. Quite simply, the more actors that have the bomb, the greater the risk that it will eventually be used, either as part of a regional war, or in a freelance act of terror. Yet by what right can we ask others to abstain, when we ourselves continue -- along with our Cold War rival Russia -- to maintain an arsenal large enough to destroy life on the planet several times over?
The problem is not just that we lack the moral authority to preach nonproliferation. The larger problem is that the U.S. is setting a bad example for other nations to follow. We are telling others, by our hoarding of warheads, that in order to be secure in the world today you need nuclear weapons -- and lots of them. Is it any wonder if leaders in Iran and elsewhere might want to buy some protection for themselves with a nuclear stockpile of their own?
In truth, nukes make nobody safe. They breed fear, and fears and mutual suspicions make for war not peace. A world bristling with weapons of mass destruction may be temporarily frozen in terror (a condition called in strategic parlance "mutual deterrence.") But the smallest spark in that tinderbox can set off a conflagration. Unless we find some way to eliminate these scourges from the earth, it is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
World leaders recognize these dangers. Every recent president has engaged in arms control talks with Russia, and worked toward strengthening nonproliferation programs. Nuclear weapons numbers have been significantly reduced over the past decades, most recently through a series of START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) negotiations between the U.S. and Russia which were initiated by president Reagan in 1982. But so far we have not succeeded in fundamentally altering the Cold War logic which keeps thousands of warheads in U.S. and Russian arsenals on hair-trigger alert more than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Not only is this ongoing nuclear standoff certifiably insane for both countries, but in a time of deficits and cutbacks in government spending it is a madness that we can no longer afford. The dirty little secret of our ongoing nuclear weapons program is how expensive it is. Few Americans realize that we are spending more dollars today on nuclear weapons research, development and modernization than we were at the height of the Cold War, even after factoring in for inflation.
All told, the U.S. lavishes over $50 billion a year on nuclear arms related programs. To give some perspective, this is nearly double what we devote to all other scientific and technological initiatives combined, including the space program.
President Obama stated in 2009 that he wanted to work toward eventually creating a nuclear weapons free world. As a step in this direction, the administration is currently considering several options for cutting America's nuclear arsenal, most likely in conjunction with future arms control negotiations with Russia. Many in the Pentagon believe that this is an idea whose time has come, a change in focus which will free up funds for our real defense needs rather than maintaining thousands of redundant nuclear warheads in perpetuity.
"Small numbers of nuclear weapons produce dramatic effects," three Air Force authors assert in the military journal, Strategic Studies Quarterly. "In fact, the United States could address military utility concerns with only 311 nuclear weapons in its nuclear force structure while maintaining a stable deterrence."
Yet even before the administration has decided on what course to take, some Republicans are already up in arms. Thirty-four lawmakers sent a letter to the White House warning of dire consequences should the president reduce our nuclear arsenal. "I just want to go on record as saying that there are many of us that are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that this preposterous notion does not gain any real traction," Representative Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said.
Where were these critics when Republican presidents like Reagan and both Bushes cut back the US nuclear arsenal (Bush Senior by nearly 50 percent)? But in an era of Obama-can-do-nothing-right, the GOP hawks have been quick to paint the president as weak and naive because he wants to continue the decades long trend toward reducing nuclear weapons. The real weakness would be holding onto an antiquated nuclear force which no longer serves our strategic needs.
In a 2004 poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, when asked how many nuclear weapons the United States needs to deter other countries from attacking, the average response was 100.
The president's final number will undoubtedly be much higher than what Americans say that we require to remain safe. Still, by cutting our warheads to possibly hundreds rather than thousands, we will have taken a big step toward lowering global tensions and saving billions of dollars. We would also gain crucial standing to actually persuade countries like Iran not to join the nuclear club.
And not to worry, we would still have more than enough weapons to ward off an attack by China, Russia, Pakistan, North Korea, and any conceivable nuclear power that might rise in the future. What we might no longer have, however, was enough firepower to unilaterally terminate life on the planet. You would think that even a Republican might concede that that is not such a bad idea.
(A version of this article was first published in Le Monde Diplomatique)
MND is also called Civil Deterrence, or Civilizing Deterrence.
MND makes both venues unsafe for war.
a FEW NUKES can Deter MANY NUKES.
Deterrence: is inaction caused by the perception of danger.
MND leads to fewer Nukes in the world.. not more.
MND leads to voluntary arms reductions...
MND leads to voluntary disarmament...
No nation wants NUKES except to deter sociopathic governments from attacking them.
The best defensive weapons are defensive deterrent weapons..
Mutual Assured Destruction MAD is insanity.. and it is not what causes deterrence..
what is the minimal nuclear capability that creates deterrence?
deterrence is all throughout nature...
Beware, Mutual Nuclear Deterrence -Civil Deterrence- has enemies whose tactics and agenda are not in your best interests...
most of the world's opinion and thoughts about Civilized Deterrence -MND- has been manipulated by those who are not your friends and who have ulterior motives...... most of what you hear on this subject is misinformation -propaganda- and those who believe it are in many positions of decision making government... they don't know much all they ever heard is one point of view -the propaganda- and all they can do is repeat the propaganda...
I have summarized some of the important points... each one of them can be supported with clear thinking, facts... beware of anyone who is against Civil Deterrence, Civilized Deterrence. MND.
A dozen nukes is a good deterrence, 1000 is insane.
Israel is seriously dangerous, like any armed paranoid schizophrenic off their meds and whilst we hear a lot about messianic Islam, what about the equally loony messianic Zionism?
That is a terrible idea. Elimination of nuclear weapons would open the way for another world war.
This is what happened in both world wars when there were no nuclear weapons. The fact that there were no nuclear weapons made the leaders of the combatant nations think the risk of war was low, so they went to war. There were many sparks during the cold war that could have set off a larger war (Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.) but there was no large scale war between the US, the USSR, or China. Why? Because they all know nuclear war means the end of the world.
Actually, yes they do. Since nuclear weapons were introduced, there haven't been any large scale wars between major powers. Those types of wars are the most destructive types of wars, and nuclear weapons prevent them through their power of deterrence.
But what on earth has this to do with preventing a bunch of religious fanatics (berserk with an extreme ideology glorifying death and "martyrdom") from gaining the possibility to suicide-nuclear bomb, rather than "just" suicide-bomb??
The launch of a single nuclear missile will instantly escalate to a full scale nuclear war.
Iran is more stable than Israel, Pakistan and India. Iran should have a limited number of short range missiles as should Israel. These numbers must be monitored and enforced.
I personally believe no country should have nuclear weapons when other less destructive weapons can deter attacks. No country should possess weapons of mass destruction including the superpowers. We must protect the future of our children.
Children should not be destroyed because a single person ‘pushed the button’. In fact, no one should have that power, and we must strive to illuminate all nuclear weapons. With that being said, not a single major power will rid themselves of these warheads.
There is a single nuclear country in the Middle East; Israel. There needs to be an opposing nuclear country to assure mutual destruction.
Today it is widely known that with a wink and a nod ISRAEL, INDIA & Pakistan all got nukes with the express approval of the USA...many here will also know that Pakistan was complicit in the attack on 9-11 by accepting money and the training of 15 Saudis...so now we should all know that the US attacked the wrong country IRAQ who had nothing to do with it. But the thought must have been its always good to attack a weak country that can not fight back(they were under no fly zones by Bush 1 previously)
In my eyes a nuclear Pakistan is a REAL THREAT, Iran is not as their religious fundamentals will not allow them to have such a device.
I thank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA
You are totally wrong on that one! Israel is the biggest nuclear threat in the world today - and they are not even supposed to have nukes. No IAEA oversight in that country - and everybody keeps pretending Israel doesn't have nukes and doesn't constantly threaten to bomb its neighbors!
There is indeed a need to reduce the cost and number of nuclear weapons, but the present cost should not be compared with the huge expenditures from 1945 to 1990.
If you add in the cost of maintaining deployed nuclear weapons, and the costs of the submarines, bombers and missiles that carry them, is very much greater than that $9bn, and yet still very much less than the cost of doing it all at the height of the cold war. The true cost of nuclear weapons should also include the costs of maintaining the space- and ground-based early-warning infrastructures, and the extra maritime patrol aircraft, submarines and ships required to search for russian submarines.
9600 or 50K, won't matter to rouge actors nor the state actor(s) that enable them.
Non state actors flew 3 planes into 3 buildings and one plane into a field. No body got nuked. However if you think about it, 10 years & 2 wars later, about the same number of people killed or wounded, infrastructure destroyed but hey no radiation right?
I'm not afraid of Iran having the bomb. I'm more afraid because Pakistan already has the bomb and has violated the NPT (and celebrate the guy that did it) and harbors known terrorists and whose government has highly questionable relationships with Al Quad-ea and the Taliban. oh oh oh, and is home to a number of known terrorist training facilities. (we give them billions annually)
Do you feel safer when you go through a TSA check point and a strange man or woman rubs your crotch with their hand just because one wants to limit the accumulated amounts of radiation one receives? (Radiation does affect your DNA)
Me neither.
My biggest concern, is the religious nut cake that finally reaches that certain point and freaks out and launches or detonates a nuke our own soil cause they've been listening to the rantings of a radioactive lunatic believing some supreme being spoke to them.