The Descent Into MADness

A cabal of retired top generals argue that the West must expressly reserve the right to pre-emptive nuclear attack to halt the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. From The Guardian:

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.

Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".

This takes the doctrine of pre-emptive war well past its bounds. The doctrine permitted one nation to attack another about to launch an attack of its own. In other words, the nation about to be attacked was allowed to strike first.

What these generals are advocating has nothing to do with being attacked. The mere acquisition or attempt to acquire WMDs would be enough to justify nuclear pre-emption. What's wrong with that? Plenty.

For starters, whose intelligence do we use in deciding who is and isn't acquiring nuclear weapons? The Americans have the largest intelligence machine - a combined budget of $50-billion annually. It failed to detect the Pakistani or Indian nuclear weapons programmes. It completely botched Iraq but that wasn't discovered in time to block the American invasion. It botched Iran until redeeming itself at the last minute. It botched Korea. No, we can't trust the demonstrably incompetent US intelligence services or the ginned-up nonsense spewed from the White House. The same has to go for the sycophantic Pentagon. And the Brits haven't been significantly better. For that matter, NATO has been a bust too.

Which politicians do we rely on in reaching these fundamental decisions? George Bush? Rudy Giuliani? No, I don't think so. The American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation?

The simple fact is there's no nation, no service and no leader in the West deserving to be entrusted with the decision for a nuclear first strike. That's reason enough to scrub it right there. But there are other reasons, lots of them.

What of Israel? If the West was to attack a small country under this doctrine, would it not justify the same treatment of Israel and its nuclear arsenal? If the US was to say that Israel is exempt due to American protection, what would prevent other nuclear states from extending the very same protection to smaller nations of their choosing?

Then there's the civilian question. Nations covertly seeking to develop WMDs will undoubtedly locate their installations in heavily populated areas. How many nations are prepared to countenance a pre-emptive nuclear attack on a civilian population? For the West it would tear alliances to shreds. For the rest of the world it would evolve alliances very hostile to the West.

This lunatic talk of nuclear pre-emption comes at a time of rising global, superpower instability. I know, I know we're now in a unipolar world with but one superpower. That doesn't mean there aren't several newcomers moving up and there's an arms race underway in almost every one of them.

Russia, China and India are all going full out to rearm their nations. Russia is developing a new generation of missiles and warheads designed to defeat America's anti-ballistic missile defence systems. China is developing a blue water navy complete with missile subs and plans on extending its force into space. Even India is re-arming, greatly expanding its own naval and air forces.

The West's economic and political hegemony faces new challenges from these emerging powers. How will they respond to a West that declares it has the right to a nuclear first-strike independent of the Security Council? I think it would give some of them even more reason to distrust the West at a time when we need their support and cooperation more than ever. The last thing we need to do is to lower the nuclear threshhold.

This policy will drive smaller nations to seek the protection of larger states. They know from recent example how the West can make "mistakes" even mistakes of convenience. I would think we would find a lot of smaller states searching for a benevolent big brother, one not of our choosing. Smaller states with the resources upon which the West is so dependent.

No, this policy is lunacy writ large and it could have repercussions, short and long-term that could make us rue the day we contemplated it. It's time to put these old warhorses back in the stable and tell them to stay there.

Do we really want the world to return to a state of teetering on the brink of Mutually Assured Destruction?