Nuclear disarmament unlikely, but possible

There are many barriers in the way of a global nuclear disarmament

North Korea’s recent claim of nuclear warhead testing has brought up the discussion of worldwide nuclear disarmament once more. The possibility of a nuclear-free world is something that could potentially happen, but there are still many important barriers to discuss before making it a reality.

The idea of nuclear disarmament is not a new issue. The consequences of nuclear weapons were highlighted to the public in 1954 when a nuclear warhead was tested in the Pacific. The radioactive fallout from this test ending up causing the death of a Japanese fisherman, as well as contaminating the rest of the crew.

It’s important to realize that one of the primary reasons countries like America and Russia have nuclear weapons in their arsenal is as a method of deterrence. The concept here is that if someone attacks them, they have the power to retaliate with nuclear weapons. This would cause irreparable damage to the attacker, and no one would think about launching an assault against such a country.

The most prominent example of this was the Cold War. No major large scale engagements actually occurred, but the destructive potential both sides had ready was more than anything in the past. Both sides stockpiled nuclear weapons, enough to annihilate the other many times over. If either side had decided to bring their full arsenal forward, the world would be a very different place today.

Getting governments to willingly give up their weapons of deterrence is a very difficult prospect. It’s kind of like having two people pointing guns at each other. Neither one of them is going to put down the gun until the other does, but neither of them is going to be willing to put their own gun down first. Catch 22.

Prominent, politically powerful people have historically called for nuclear disarmament, however. President Ronald Reagan said in his 1984 State of the Union speech that, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?”

However, when it came to actually putting those words into action, Reagan did not follow through. When Randall Forsberg, a young defense and disarmament researcher, launched the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, Reagan fought it thoroughly.

The New York Times quoted Reagan as calling the people who supported the freeze campaign a group of “honest and sincere people,” being manipulated by “some who want the weakening of America.”

If somehow countries were willing to agree on disarming their weapons at the same time, there is still the issue of trust. How do each of the countries trust that the others will go through with the disarmament? If widespread disarmament is going to happen, a global organization would have to be responsible to enforce it. It likely would have to have equal representation from each country involved in the disarmament to assure equality.

These barriers to disarmament will only be solved if countries actively work towards finding a common solution. They have to want it to happen.

But what about the places that don’t want to cooperate? In order to convince these places to disarm, economic sanctions or even military operations would likely need to be used. The risk of such actions might have dire consequences.

Ultimately, nuclear weapons give a country power, and power is a very difficult thing to give up once you have it. Right now, countries with nuclear weapons don’t only hold the power, they strongly believe they need it to keep themselves safe.

What if countries didn’t feel the need to have destructive power to keep themselves safe? What if we could change the world culture to one of cooperation?

If complete nuclear disarmament is going to happen, the best way is to make nuclear weapons no longer have a purpose. In order to render nuclear weapons purposeless, we have to change our culture.

Of course, this is probably one of the most difficult and improbable things imaginable. While the average person probably wants nothing but a productive and peaceful life, there are always a select few that seem to ruin things for everyone. It’s these people that make it seem like we need super powered weapons to keep ourselves safe, especially if they have them too.