“The challenge ahead is the design of a new or more stable security architecture…”
Introduction
Robin Wright’s “The New Nuclear Reality” provides still another dimension to citizens’ essential knowledge of the present nuclear threat. Augmenting and complementing Michael Klare’s fundamental framework of “The New Nuclear Era,” the titular post in this series that outlines the international politics in which action for abolition is to be taken, she gives some specific nuclear facts, demonstrating why “nuclear weapons [must] be eliminated from the face of the earth.” She recounts aspects of the nature of the weapons and the consequences of their use that were widely known among those gathered in Central Park, New York on June 12, 1982. These facts inspired The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and reinforce the rationale for The Declaration of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation calling for a “civil society tribunal to pronounce upon” the responsibility of the nine nuclear states for bringing about “the new nuclear reality.” Taken together the substantive content of this and all previous posts in this series provide the core of a knowledge base for peacelearning to prepare citizens to act toward nuclear abolition.
While all posts complement and deepen the substance each offers, each is characterized by some unique concept or concepts of particular significance to peace education. In Wright’s case, that concept is in posing the challenge of devising “a new or more stable security architecture.” To peace educators practicing or familiar with the pedagogy of alternative security systems the challenge is an invitation to apply the pedagogy to the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.
Learning toward the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
- In reflection on the Wright article, give particular attention to the characteristics and consequences of nuclear weapons that she describes. In addition to the humanitarian and legal issues raised by these aspects of the weapons, look into issues of the ecological, economic, social, and political ethics inherent in the weapons, their production, possession, and use.
- Consider screening a film such as “On the Beach,” “The Day After,” or “Dr. Strangelove” as a basis of affective reflection to provide motivation for undertaking the task of devising a new or more stable security architecture. You might also compile a list of documentaries on the dangers of nuclear weapons, a number of which have been shown on public television.
- Guide your learning group through the design of a new security architecture, intended to achieve and maintain the elimination of nuclear weapons.
- Once the group has settled on a design, imagine some scenarios and cases with which to test the design. Assess the outcome. Do you need to go back to the drawing board? Do several rounds of design and scenario planning and testing, until you have a workable design or determine that an alternative to the whole of the global security system is required to forever eliminate nuclear weapons and “avoid the scourge of war.”
(BAR, 6/9/22)
The New Nuclear Reality
Russia’s war in Ukraine has reawakened fears about the bomb—and endangered the principle of deterrence.
(Excerpts reposted from: The New Yorker. April 23, 2022)
By Robin Wright
[Excerpts only: read the full articles at The New Yorker.]In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, in 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, pronounced that “the risk of a global nuclear war has practically disappeared.” Moscow and Washington had veered “from confrontation to interaction and, in some important cases, partnership,” he said. The Soviet Union’s collapse—which birthed fifteen new states, including Ukraine—transformed the world. In the new Europe, Gorbachev added, every country believed that it had become “fully sovereign and independent.” Historians imagined that the end of the Cold War would lead to the demise of the nuclear age, amid new diplomacy and arms-control treaties. The ingrained fears—that kilotons of destructive energy and toxic radiation could decimate a city and incinerate tens of thousands of human beings—began to dissipate. Beyond policy wonks, the word “nuclear” largely dropped from the public lexicon.
Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has jolted the world back into an uncomfortable consciousness of the nuclear threat. In the past month, official warnings have emerged at a striking pace. “Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” William Burns, the C.I.A. director and a former ambassador to Russia, warned on April 14th. The U.S. assessment of when and why Moscow might use such weaponry has changed, Lieutenant General Scott D. Berrier, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, conceded in testimony to a House Armed Services subcommittee. A prolonged war in Ukraine will sap Russia’s manpower and matériel, while sanctions will throw the nation into an economic depression and undermine its ability to produce more precision-guided munitions and conventional arms, he said. “As this war and its consequences slowly weaken Russian conventional strength, Russia likely will increasingly rely on its nuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength to its internal and external audiences.” Putin’s aggression is “reviving fears” of a more “militaristic Russia”…
Read the entire article at The New YorkerThe war in Ukraine underscores an even bigger problem. The infrastructure of global security—like the bridges, railways, and power grids that make up our physical infrastructure—is decaying. The challenge ahead is to devise a new or more stable security architecture—with treaties, verification tools, oversight, and enforcement—to replace the eroding models established after the last major war in Europe ended, seventy-seven years ago…
The new nuclear reality poses another challenge: how to limit nuclear weapons beyond Russia and the United States. Nine nations now have nuclear capabilities. Putin’s war undermines the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the cornerstone of international arms control since 1968. It is the only binding commitment—now signed by almost two hundred states—that seeks to disarm those nations which have the bomb and to prevent others from getting it…
Since the nineteen-sixties, experts have debated whether Washington and Moscow would use a limited number of tactical nuclear weapons on a conventional battlefield—for example, to destroy a military position or gain a chunk of territory. “The answer is no,” Kimball said. “There is nothing like a limited nuclear war.” At the end of his military career, McKenzie, who spent more than four decades preparing for wars of all kinds, reflected on the nuclear stakes. “We should be rattled right now,” he said. “I am rattled. I’m concerned about where we are.” Three decades after Gorbachev’s speech, the respite now seems illusory.
Robin Wright, a contributing writer and columnist, has written for The New Yorker since 1988. She is the author of “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World.”
