Nuclear Deterrence: Time to address the sacred cow!

Probably the biggest barrier to making progress on nuclear disarmament and in preventing nuclear proliferation is the continued role of nuclear deterrence in security thinking and doctrines. As long as States believe that nuclear deterrence can protect them from aggression, they will resist or block efforts and initiatives for nuclear disarmament – even if they accept legal obligations or make political commitments otherwise.

The International Court of Justice, in considering the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, affirmed that any threat or use would generally be inconsistent with the rules of law applicable in wartime including international humanitarian law. The Court rejected arguments by the Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) that there were circumstances in which the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be legal. However, the ICJ also noted the practice of nuclear deterrence, which is ascribed to by the nuclear-weapon States and their allies (under extended nuclear deterrence relationships). As this was a practice that had been part of the security doctrines of a significant number of States, the ICJ could not conclude absolute illegality in all circumstances, noting an uncertainty in the case of self-defense in which the very survival of a State is at stake.

The ICJ recognized a threat to international order and to international law by the ongoing divergence of opinion on nuclear weapons, and indicated that the resolution of this dilemma existed in States fulfilling the obligation to pursue in good faith, and bring to a conclusion, negotiations on nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control. Such negotiations would need to include the development of security methods and mechanisms to replace nuclear deterrence.

Shultz, Perry, Kissinger, and Nunn, argue that while nuclear deterrence was vital to prevent world war and to ensure national security in the bipolar world that existed from 1945 until 1991, in a world which has outgrown the security framework of the Cold War, the doctrine “is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”

However, this perspective has not been embraced by the NWS and their allies, who continue to ascribe a key role to nuclear deterrence in providing security. There are some analysts who claim that security through nuclear deterrence is illusory, and that the real reason for States to hold onto nuclear weapons does not have to do with security but rather power projection, domestic politics or the political power of the weapons industry.

There are others who claim that nuclear deterrence is perhaps not required by countries with large and modern conventional forces or where there is little realistic risk of invasion that would threaten the existence of the State, but might perhaps be required by smaller countries in vulnerable positions that have been threatened with attack, such as Israel, Iran or North Korea.

Regardless of whether nuclear deterrence is illusory or provides a real security benefit, if it is perceived as necessary by a State (and the State’s population) then it will not be possible to abandon the policy and achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world until there is a change in perception, or the replacement of nuclear deterrence by alternative security methods or mechanisms.

There is thus a need, and even a legal obligation, for those States that still ascribe to nuclear deterrence doctrine to identify the specific situations in which nuclear deterrence plays, or could play, a security role, and examine alternative approaches to achieving security in those situations.

A useful contribution to this exploration has been made by the International Commission for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND) in their report Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policy Makers which identified a number of key rationales for nuclear deterrence, examined the validity of these, and provided possible approaches to reducing and replacing the genuine security roles for nuclear deterrence.

In essence, the ICNND indicated that some drivers for nuclear deterrence are totally illegitimate. These include:

• The argument that nuclear weapons cannot be un-invented so there is no point trying to eliminate them;
• The ascribing of status to nuclear weapons possession;
• The use of nuclear weapons as a tool of power and persuasion;
• The argument that disarmament is not necessary to advance non-proliferation

Other writers have also identified the financial interest of corporations producing nuclear weapons systems and the nuclear weapons scientific communities as strong drivers for maintaining nuclear weapons policies.

The ICNND argued that other drivers or roles ascribed to nuclear deterrence are ill-founded, un-proven or can now be met by other means. These include the beliefs that:

• Nuclear weapons have deterred, and will continue to be required to deter, war between the major powers;
• Nuclear weapons are required to deter any chemical or biological weapons attack;
• Nuclear weapons are required to deter terrorist attacks;
• Nuclear weapons are required to protect US allies;
• Any major move toward disarmament would be inherently destabilizing.

However, the ICNND argues that there are some genuine security roles for nuclear deterrence which must be addressed in order to achieve comprehensive nuclear disarmament. These include the role of nuclear weapons to deter nuclear attack and the possible role of nuclear weapons in countries with inferior conventional forces to deter any large scale conventional attack.

"Nuclear deterrence is a scheme for making nuclear war less probable by making it more probable."
Commander Robert Green (Royal Navy, retired)
Breaking Free from Nuclear Deterrence, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

A robust, verifiable and enforceable global prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons, for example under a nuclear weapons convention, would remove the ‘necessity’ to possess nuclear weapons in order to deter against other nuclear weapons. Replacing the role of nuclear weapons to deter a conventional attack might require a range of measures including cooperative security mechanisms, legally binding security assurances and/or progress on conventional forces agreements.

However, Ward Wilson (Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, to be published soon) argues that the deterrence role ascribed to nuclear weapons is in most cases illusory and does not stand up to rational military or security thought. Wilson argues that, despite long-held beliefs to the contrary, nuclear weapons do not shock and awe opponents; nuclear deterrence is not effective in a crisis; massive damage and killing civilians does not cause leaders to back down; and that the bomb has not kept the peace for sixty-five years. Deterrence could thus be abandoned even without the need to devise alternatives.

Up until recently the Sacred Cow of nuclear deterrence – the irrational faith in the policy – has been virtually un-examined and unquestioned by security planners. Wilson notes that nuclear weapons “are wrapped in a shroud of sixty years of rhetoric and hyperbole. We have attached such deep feelings to them that they have been transfigured. We constantly misconceive the problems and issues that are associated with nuclear weapons because we cannot see the weapons themselves with unblinking eyes.”

However, an increasing public acceptance of nuclear weapons as both contrary to international humanitarian law and counter-productive to national and human security could increase the rational analysis of nuclear deterrence, and lower the security threshold required for States to join a nuclear abolition process. Indeed the internationalization of finance, trade, communications, social relationships and culture is relegating nuclear deterrence to being a dinosaur of the 20th Century – totally irrelevant to current political conditions and security needs – particularly in the minds of the younger generations, including in the NWS, who increasingly see no rationale for maintaining nuclear weapons.

Helen Clark (then Prime Minister of New Zealand and now the Head of the UN Development Program) has noted that “In the 21st Century, as the ever-expanding exchange of peoples, cultures and trade across nations helps to ease nationalistic prejudices, and as the shibboleths of the Cold War subside, it is time to abolish nuclear weapons and make the world a safer place for all peoples.”

Alyn Ware, Founder of the Nuclear Abolition Forum
Comments to alyn@lcnp.org

Published in IALANA News, April 2012

Additional reading:

• Breaking Free from Nuclear Deterrence, Rob Green
  www.wagingpeace.org/menu/programs/public-events/frank-kelly-lecture/10th-annual-lecture/kelly_lecture_2011.pdf
• Flaws in the Concept of Nuclear Deterrence, John Scales Avery
  www.wagingpeace.org/articles/pdfs/2012_04_04_avery_deterrence.pdf
• Santa Barbara Declaration: Reject Nuclear Deterrence: An Urgent Call to Action,
  http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/db_article.php?article_id=209
• Delegitimizing Nuclear Weapons: Examining the validity of nuclear weapons, Patricia Lewis, Benoit Pelopidas, Nikolai Sokov, and Ward Wilson,
  http://cns.miis.edu/opapers/pdfs/delegitimizing_nuclear_weapons_may_2010.pdf