NUCLEAR HYPOCRISY – AND IMMORALITY!

The Guardian reported this week on a “radical manifesto for a new NATO” authored by the former armed forces chiefs from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands, in which these wizened and greying generals insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" for the Atlantic Alliance since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".

There has been instant criticism of the report, and its "first use fallacy", with experts in this field pointing out the obvious practical flaws in the generals’ thesis. For example, Professor Robert Hinde, chair of the British Pugwashe Group, draws attention to the inherent contradictions in the strategic recommendations contained in the report:

“The five retired military commanders suggest that a Nato policy involving readiness to make pre-emptive strikes is necessary to counter political fanatics and international terrorism, because of the mass migrations that could be triggered by climate change, and because of the weakening of nation states and the UN. But a nuclear strike is unlikely to deter a political fanatic and would be ineffective against terrorists. No one could possibly think of deterring refugees with a nuclear weapon, and such a policy could only weaken the UN further. We must choose between a world ruled by threat, or one ruled by law and mutual understanding. Most of us would prefer the latter. The first step towards it must be to take all nuclear weapons off alert and a commitment to no first use.”

Dr Ian Davis, from the British American Security Information Council, reminds readers why the heavyweight credentials of the authors (each is a former chief of the armed forces in his respective country of origin) should not necessarily overwhelm or distract us:

“Their view that "nuclear weapons - and with them the option of first use - are indispensable, since there is simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world" is certainly not shared by four veteran US cold warriors - former secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former secretary of defence William Perry, and former Senate armed services committee chairman Sam Nunn - who are leading the call for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. All three Democratic presidential candidates have endorsed this vision as well as the progressive steps needed to realise it.”

(To his list I would also add former US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, of Vietnam-era infamy.)

Yet I have yet to hear or read, in all the comment and analysis and opinion in the mainstream media about these nuclear proposals, anyone point out how undeniably counter-productive and hypocritical the chief recommendation of this new report is. After all, the generals write:

“The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."

What? You mean to tell me that five experienced, educated, intelligent, sane soldiers are suggesting that the only way to ‘prevent’ the use of a weapon of mass destruction is the ‘first use’ of another weapon of mass destruction (i.e. a nuclear weapon)? How on earth can anyone justify such a statement, such a proposal? On grounds of morality or logic? To prevent using WMDs, we should use WMDs (!) It’s like saying: “To prevent a murder taking place, we must first murder someone.” It is a ridiculous and offensive view, and an insult to logic and common sense.

Yet it is a view that goes to the heart of our foreign and defence policies here in the West. ‘We’, the enlightened, advanced, mature democracies of the West are allowed to kill, maim, loot, plunder, invade and occupy all in the name of preventing others (at some indeterminate point in the near or perhaps distant future) from killing, maiming, looting, plundering, invading and occupying. Thus actions by nations are not defined as moral or immoral, right or wrong, in and of themselves – they are judged on the basis of who is doing them. Thus, the use of WMDs is BAD but then becomes GOOD if we are the ones stockpiling, deploying and (ultimately) using those WMDs, be they nukes (in Hiroshima/Nagasaki or even chemical weapons (in Vietnam and, more recently, Fallujah).

So, ‘our’ nukes, our WMDs, good. ‘Their’ nukes, their WMDs, bad. And our nukes should be used to stop them from using their nukes. Brilliant. Great. What a way to run the world….

SIDEBAR: Guess who one of the co-writers of this war-mongering, nuke-endorsing NATO report is? The rather obnoxious and spotty neocon pundit Douglas Murray, whose nasty and belligerent views I wrote about in a recent post and whose qualifications to write on international defence policy and nuclear deterrence theory are rather unclear (and perhaps non-existent).