To:
Comment at the Guardian |
|||
In response to a Guardian article by Max Hastings: "We need less tosh and more facts for a decision on Trident". | |||
The debate about Britain's
nuclear deterrent is far more important than many people
seem to realise, because it does not concern Britain alone,
but the whole world, which is edging slowly but surely along
the road of nuclear proliferation, which sooner or later
will inevitably result in nuclear calamity, perhaps not on
the specicidal scale that threatened during the cold war,
but nevertheless, horrific enough.
The essential point is that if
the British government can justify possessing an
independent, national nuclear capability, so too can any
other government. And to be sure, an ever-increasing number
will.
Why? Because nuclear weapons are
the ultimate in military power and there are very good
reasons for any government wishing to possess them. Just ask
the British or French governments and they will tell you,
and most of what they say will be quite rational and
reasonable. And the same arguments can be used by ANY
government.
In a world where nuclear weapons
exist, the only defence against nuclear
blackmail is the ability to threaten back (a MAD but
compelling logic). It is also an insurance against being
attacked with conventional weapons by a more powerful state
(such as America). Added to which, any government desirous
of "street cred" in the global community of nations has to
have them, just as members of a primitive street gang need
knives or guns to gain respect and status.
And who can deny that
the global community of nations has much in common with a
primitive street gang, where power (economic and military)
determines each member's status?
Apart from global warming and the
inherent non-sustainability of an
economy and way of life rooted in
man's animal nature,
the biggest threat the world faces is from nuclear
proliferation, which is happening and will continue to
happen, not least, because our government's approach to
preventing it is hypocritical and thus totally ineffective.
So what to do?
Nuclear proliferation is driven
by the logic of the global "street gang" and individual
members' (governments') desire (rational and justified, or
otherwise) for deterrence, power and "street cred". The way
to break this MAD and vicious circle is for more enlightened
governments to place their nuclear capability (actual or
potential) in the hands of a democratic international
authority, which would only use its capability to protect
its members from nuclear threats (like the nicer
and more enlightened members of
a street gang agreeing to give up individual possession of
knives and guns, but retaining an arsenal under their joint
control in case they need to protect themselves against a
bad guy).
What we need is a "coalition of
nice guys", i.e. democratic states with more enlightened
governments. For understandable reasons, the US government
would just laugh at any suggestion of it handing over
control of its nuclear capability to an international
authority, but for Britain and France the situation is quite
different. They could, and should, negotiate with other
democratic nations (within the EU, of course, but perhaps
including others as well) to place their nuclear forces under joint democratic control.
This would be a major transfer of sovereign power on the
parts of Britain and France, but exactly what is required of
enlightened government if there is to be any hope of halting
nuclear proliferation. Only then would the British and
French governments have the moral authority to insist that
other governments (such as Iran) desist from acquiring
nuclear weapons. In the longer term we might even hope and
work towards Russia joining us, as an alternative to
military rivalry, which is an all too real and terrifying
possibility. Eventually, America too might join and we would
be close to achieving the ultimate goal of placing all
nuclear weapons under global democratic control.
At the moment, many countries
rely on the American nuclear umbrella, but its reliability
is doubtful and cannot be a permanent solution (I certainly
would not want to rely on someone like George W. Bush). If
the cold war had become hot, I have little doubt that
Washington and Moscow would quickly have agreed to restrict
nuclear strikes to Western Europe. Britain and France might
have been spared thanks to their own nuclear deterrents, but
Germany and Poland, for example, would have been
incinerated.
We need the protection of a
democratically controlled, independent, international
nuclear deterrent. I'm not suggesting that setting it up
would be an easy task, especially in view of how pig-headed
British and French politicians have behaved in the past, but
the alternative is for us to proceed along the road of
nuclear proliferation and catastrophe.
Now, with Britain discussing the
future of its independent nuclear deterrent, is the time to
go for it.
|
|||