COMMENTARY: Get a nuke - it pays!
Difficult talks on nuclear weapons programmes could be getting even more difficult
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By Kari Huhta
It is amazing that more countries do not try to get a nuclear weapon, when we consider what the consequences of getting one are.
It is no more than just under eight years from when India and Pakistan both conducted a series of underground nuclear tests in May 1998.
India had been a latent nuclear power already for a long time, but with the nuclear test, it made a public declaration of being a country with nuclear weapons, and neighbouring Pakistan followed right behind.
Both countries were sharply denounced on the international level. The United States implemented extensive sanctions. Bill Clinton, who was President at the time, had no options, because the US law on nuclear non-proliferation gives no leeway. Sanctions had to be imposed.
The purpose of the sanctions is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to new countries, but in this case, the spread had already happened, and sanctions or protests no longer had any effect.
During his ongoing trip to the sub-continent, Clinton's successor George W. Bush is not even trying to persuade India and Pakistan to give up their nuclear weapons. He is making sure that they are more or less on the same side as the United States, and that they are not tempted to use nuclear weapons.
One key for the temptation to have nuclear weapons is that once they have been acquired, they are difficult to take away. In order to force a country to give up nuclear weapons, one must be willing to wage nuclear war. The threshold for this is tremendously high.
The benefit of owning nuclear weapons has been seen to be very great, as long as there is no need to use them. Then one easily also becomes a nuclear target.
The benefit is based on the simple fact that no more awful weapon has been invented with which people can threaten each other. This is why a country with nuclear weapons expects to be treated differently from those that do not have them.
The United States is both a superpower and above all the world's leading nuclear power.
Even in its darkest moments after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia was able to give reminders of being a nuclear weapons state - according to a joke at the time, an Upper Volta with nukes.
Having a nuclear weapon of one's own also has some significance for bench-warmers in the global squad. Britain and France are in a special position in Europe, thanks to their bombs.
For China, having a nuclear weapon was its first linkage with being a great power long before the present China syndrome.
The Arab countries know that in the final analysis, they have Israel's nuclear weapons to contend with.
Giving up nuclear weapons voluntarily would require an exceptional historical moment. Such a moment has occurred only once. South Africa dismantled its own nuclear capability in 1993, as white power in the country collapsed. If it had hesitated even a little, the moment might have passed.
Giving up a mere development programme is also rare. A historical change could also be helpful. Argentina and Brazil understood, as they were becoming democratic in the 1980s, to give up the megalomania of their generals.
Libya gave up its own weapons programme for purely pragmatic reasons; it had been frightened by the war in Iraq, and wanted to be accepted internationally.
The lesson of the cases of India and Pakistan is that in order to stop the growth of the nuclear club, nobody should be allowed over the nuclear bomb threshold. Each new nuclear state increases the possibility that nuclear weapons might be used, providing an incentive for new countries to try.
The lesson has been put to a difficult test with Iran and North Korea. Iran denies that it even has a nuclear weapons programme, but it behaves as if it did. North Korea might have nuclear weapons, but it has not yet declared itself to be a nuclear power, so negotiations are still possible.
Both countries are taking full advantage of their negotiating positions. Iran is spinning a web of deceit and delay. North Korea breaks off negotiations when its dictator is called a dictator, or when the United States reacts to suspicions of the manufacture of counterfeit US dollars in North Korea.
The fact that this kind of clowning is tolerated suggests that there are only very bad options in store for the negotiations.
At the same time, the route of negotiations is becoming more difficult, as India and Pakistan are rewarded for having reached the finish-line in the same competition.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 3.3.2006
KARI HUHTA / Helsingin Sanomat
kari.huhta@hs.fi
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| 7.3.2006 - THIS WEEK |
 COMMENTARY: Get a nuke - it pays! |
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