This month’s anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings remind that the danger of nuclear warfare is still with us. Further, as highlighted in a recent report from the Center for a New American Security, new developments in geopolitics introduce new, destabilizing problems into the management of that danger. The idea of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether, espoused by Henry Kissinger and others, becomes all the more important.
The idea’s importance has increased for reasons that have developed rather quietly. In short, the diplomatic usage of nuclear weapons has become more widespread and more explicit. During the Cold War, nukes deterred two sides from risking all-out war directly on each other. Deterrence is actually a usage of nuclear arsenals: in the Cold War no devices exploded in anger, but they shaped the dealings between the two blocs. Today a Russian nationalist might say that U.S. nukes deterred the Soviets from using theirs, diplomatically or otherwise, to counter our cultural and economic might, which proved to be the existential threat. Today Vladimir Putin uses his arsenal to constrain the West’s response to his aggression in Ukraine.
Any country’s diplomatic usage of nuclear weapons depends on various conditions, such as the number of its warheads, its relations with other powers, and geopolitical circumstance. Israel’s undeclared arsenal is small, serving only as a last resort, with its alliance with the U.S. sheltering it from nuclear backed threats. An Iranian nuclear weapon appears to Israel as just one more threat against Israel itself; a deal to stop Iran’s program stops only one threat. For Iran, the threat actually to produce weapons-grade material carries diplomatic power, perhaps worth retaining, which might be lost if they build a bomb. The arsenals of India and Pakistan are aimed at each other, though India may feel a need for a larger one to deter China.
China’s bolstering of its arsenal, to become a nuclear peer of the Russians and Americans, brings even more questions to the fore, as noted at CNAS. Could non-nuclear weaponry, say in a mass cyberattack, inflict worse damage than a nuclear detonation, and would that justify a nuclear response? Where a US-USSR exchange would have hit population centers, a US-Chinese conflict would involve nuclear detonations over the ocean – is that now palatable?
From the relatively simple US-Soviet MAD deterrence, set in a primarily military confrontation, the diplomatic use of nuclear weapons is spreading, and becomes more of a normality. Questions and calculations grow ever more complex. Nukes can help secure any interest, and not just scare others from launching missiles. In Ukraine, they are already used to cover aggression.
The more that international relations navigate around such nuclear calculations, the more that nations assess whether to defer to nuclear deterrents, or to figure out how to circumvent them. As calculations and counterstrategies increase, the fear of Armageddon recedes. But so long as anyone has nuclear weapons, others will feel a need to have them, and the more parties have them, the more incentive there is for anyone to use them, either diplomatically or in an attack. As the proliferation of diplomatic usage increases, so will the risk that someone will either flout all caution, give in to internal political urges, or miscalculate.
For America, this proliferation of diplomatic usage challenges our core national interest. If more Kim Jung Uns can cloister their tyranny behind a nuclear curtain, if more Putins can invade their neighbors without fear of armed response, such actors impose a zero-sum state of nature on the world. They force others to play more Realpolitik, and focus more on hard security, which impedes the role of values and ethics. Our founding commits us to show that government by the governed, for the unalienable rights of persons, is viable, and any spread of Realpolitik distracts us from that mission.
Further, the rise of bad actors will also strain the U.S. nuclear deterrent. In our impulse to counter more bad guys, we will wield our nuclear power, however implicitly behind our diplomacy, more widely. Numbers of warheads are not the final determinant in nuclear deterrence, but deterring too many adversaries does reduce our credibility with each additional countermeasure that is covered by our arsenal. Plus, that threat, even unspoken, fits badly with our values and core interest.
Eliminating nuclear weapons altogether is an idea that keeps looking better. Can the US spark movement in this direction? Nuclear weapons will not go away until no one has incentive to get one. Incentives will remain so long as anyone with nuclear weapons uses their doomsday deterrent to back their policies. International affairs has always involved the threat, and use, of whatever force the protagonists can muster. To induce everyone to renounce a game-changing weapon will take decades.
Historically, calls to eradicate nuclear weapons have led to arms limitations talks. For better or worse, with the proliferation of nuclear or near-nuclear powers, arms negotiations become a topic in themselves among statespersons. So the threat of gaining nuclear weapons now brings a nation into the spotlight, and forces others to engage on the proliferator’s terms – it brings diplomatic power to a nation. The arms control path can actually raise incentives for regimes to start weapons programs. Arms limitation talks will help manage the risks, but have not yet expunged the incentive to obtain the bomb.
America is in a position to influence everyone’s incentives. To make use of that position, we do need to assess what it is. We cannot, notably, deny a transgressive aspect of our founding ethos. As a nation oddly conceived in a creed of personal rights, we pose a standing threat to any regime that represses those rights. We also bear an onus, to support societies that embrace them and people who aspire to them. Renouncing these burdens would risk betraying our founding premise.
So America must ensure that any measures to protect or promote freedom are tightly focused on those goals. Any initiative and any commitment to defend someone implies protection from our nuclear deterrent, so any steps we take should be well connected in their rationales to rights and freedom. We also need to keep our deterrent credible, which also entails clear focus, in our rationales and by limiting its use. That focus must be on our core national interest of rights and self-government.
It is feasible to arrange our policy to this configuration. An open declaration that all foreign policy moves are driven by our core interest in personal rights, and that for us the purpose of arms is to secure those rights, offers a context for others to see, and for us to observe. Efforts to enable others to grow in rights must be explicitly unarmed, and offered only where asked. Consistency in this practice puts why will expose any bad actor who objects to American influence as an opponent to freedom. Pure consistency may not be possible – we may have to back “our SOB” in some cases – but any contradictions should be minimized and fully explained.
If we establish that our power is defensive, dedicated to our core virtues of rights and democracy, we reduce misconception about our motives. We become enemies to bad regimes, and friends to the people. Our power, conserved and refocused, then gives incentive to others to support freedom, and reduce their repressions. As more states evolve in this mode, they focus more on internal well being. The contentious stakes in international relations can recede, over time if not sooner. The incentives to have any arms will recede, and the desire for expensive nuclear weapons will lead the trend.
So America doing well by our creed will also do the most effective good, to move the world to eradicate the threat of nuclear war. Which serves our deepest interest in a virtuous cycle.
This month’s anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings remind that the danger of nuclear warfare i
s still with us. Further, as highlighted in a recent report from the Center for a New American Security, new developments in geopolitics introduce new, destabilizing problems into the management of that danger. The idea of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether, espoused by Henry Kissinger and others, becomes all the more important.
The idea’s importance has increased for reasons that have developed rather quietly. In short, the diplomatic usage of nuclear weapons has become more widespread and more explicit. During the Cold War, nukes deterred two sides from risking all-out war directly on each other. Deterrence is actually a usage of nuclear arsenals: in the Cold War no devices exploded in anger, but they shaped the dealings between the two blocs. Today a Russian nationalist might say that U.S. nukes deterred the Soviets from using theirs, diplomatically or otherwise, to counter our cultural and economic might, which proved to be the existential threat. Today Vladimir Putin uses his arsenal to constrain the West’s response to his aggression in Ukraine. Any country’s diplomatic usage of nuclear weapons depends on various conditions, such as the number of its warheads, its relations with other powers, and geopolitical circumstance. Israel’s undeclared arsenal is small, serving only as a last resort, with its alliance with the U.S. sheltering it from nuclear backed threats. An Iranian nuclear weapon appears to Israel as just one more threat against Israel itself; a deal to stop Iran’s program stops only one threat. For Iran, the threat actually to produce weapons-grade material carries diplomatic power, perhaps worth retaining, which might be lost if they build a bomb. The arsenals of India and Pakistan are aimed at each other, though India may feel a need for a larger one to deter China. China’s bolstering of its arsenal, to become a nuclear peer of the Russians and Americans, brings even more questions to the fore, as noted at CNAS. Could non-nuclear weaponry, say in a mass cyberattack, inflict worse damage than a nuclear detonation, and would that justify a nuclear response? Where a US-USSR exchange would have hit population centers, a US-Chinese conflict would involve nuclear detonations over the ocean – is that now palatable? From the relatively simple US-Soviet MAD deterrence, set in a primarily military confrontation, the diplomatic use of nuclear weapons is spreading, and becomes more of a normality. Questions and calculations grow ever more complex. Nukes can help secure any interest, and not just scare others from launching missiles. In Ukraine, they are already used to cover aggression. The more that international relations navigate around such nuclear calculations, the more that nations assess whether to defer to nuclear deterrents, or to figure out how to circumvent them. As calculations and counterstrategies increase, the fear of Armageddon recedes. But so long as anyone has nuclear weapons, others will feel a need to have them, and the more parties have them, the more incentive there is for anyone to use them, either diplomatically or in an attack. As the proliferation of diplomatic usage increases, so will the risk that someone will either flout all caution, give in to internal political urges, or miscalculate. For America, this proliferation of diplomatic usage challenges our core national interest. If more Kim Jung Uns can cloister their tyranny behind a nuclear curtain, if more Putins can invade their neighbors without fear of armed response, such actors impose a zero-sum state of nature on the world. They force others to play more Realpolitik, and focus more on hard security, which impedes the role of values and ethics. Our founding commits us to show that government by the governed, for the unalienable rights of persons, is viable, and any spread of Realpolitik distracts us from that mission. Further, the rise of bad actors will also strain the U.S. nuclear deterrent. In our impulse to counter more bad guys, we will wield our nuclear power, however implicitly behind our diplomacy, more widely. Numbers of warheads are not the final determinant in nuclear deterrence, but deterring too many adversaries does reduce our credibility with each additional countermeasure that is covered by our arsenal. Plus, that threat, even unspoken, fits badly with our values and core interest. Eliminating nuclear weapons altogether is an idea that keeps looking better. Can the US spark movement in this direction? Nuclear weapons will not go away until no one has incentive to get one. Incentives will remain so long as anyone with nuclear weapons uses their doomsday deterrent to back their policies. International affairs has always involved the threat, and use, of whatever force the protagonists can muster. To induce everyone to renounce a game-changing weapon will take decades. Historically, calls to eradicate nuclear weapons have led to arms limitations talks. For better or worse, with the proliferation of nuclear or near-nuclear powers, arms negotiations become a topic in themselves among statespersons. So the threat of gaining nuclear weapons now brings a nation into the spotlight, and forces others to engage on the proliferator’s terms – it brings diplomatic power to a nation. The arms control path can actually raise incentives for regimes to start weapons programs. Arms limitation talks will help manage the risks, but have not yet expunged the incentive to obtain the bomb. America is in a position to influence everyone’s incentives. To make use of that position, we do need to assess what it is. We cannot, notably, deny a transgressive aspect of our founding ethos. As a nation oddly conceived in a creed of personal rights, we pose a standing threat to any regime that represses those rights. We also bear an onus, to support societies that embrace them and people who aspire to them. Renouncing these burdens would risk betraying our founding premise. So America must ensure that any measures to protect or promote freedom are tightly focused on those goals. Any initiative and any commitment to defend someone implies protection from our nuclear deterrent, so any steps we take should be well connected in their rationales to rights and freedom. We also need to keep our deterrent credible, which also entails clear focus, in our rationales and by limiting its use. That focus must be on our core national interest of rights and self-government. It is feasible to arrange our policy to this configuration. An open declaration that all foreign policy moves are driven by our core interest in personal rights, and that for us the purpose of arms is to secure those rights, offers a context for others to see, and for us to observe. Efforts to enable others to grow in rights must be explicitly unarmed, and offered only where asked. Consistency in this practice puts why will expose any bad actor who objects to American influence as an opponent to freedom. Pure consistency may not be possible – we may have to back “our SOB” in some cases – but any contradictions should be minimized and fully explained. If we establish that our power is defensive, dedicated to our core virtues of rights and democracy, we reduce misconception about our motives. We become enemies to bad regimes, and friends to the people. Our power, conserved and refocused, then gives incentive to others to support freedom, and reduce their repressions. As more states evolve in this mode, they focus more on internal well being. The contentious stakes in international relations can recede, over time if not sooner. The incentives to have any arms will recede, and the desire for expensive nuclear weapons will lead the trend. So America doing well by our creed will also do the most effective good, to move the world to eradicate the threat of nuclear war. Which serves our deepest interest in a virtuous cycle.
Common Conviction 