Nuclear Disarmament Using the Tools Term Paper
- Length: 8 pages
- Sources: 6
- Subject: Military
- Type: Term Paper
- Paper: #61330364
- Related Topic: Nuclear Energy, Exorcism, Carl Rogers
Excerpt from Term Paper :
But the threshold nuclear-weapons states will not give up their nuclear option without seeing proof of a timetabled move towards a nuclear-free world. The road towards the nuclear-free destination includes still deeper reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the five nuclear-weapons states; further constraints on the deployment of their nuclear weapons on the territories of other states, for example by means of regional nuclear-weapon-free zones; the entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the negotiation of a ban on missile test flights and on the production of fissile materials; and so on.Thakur 15)
One point that Thakur also makes if that this development of strategic and cultural demands is not achievable unless the demand is global, and includes a zero tolerance policy, which will allow the situation to be more easily investigated and confiremed.
International agreement will be much easier to achieve on a zero than on a low-limit nuclear weapons regime. An agreement which freezes the right of the existing nuclear-weapons states to retain their nuclear-weapons capability indefinitely is simply not politically sustainable. Verification of zero nuclear weapons will also be easier than of low limits on their numbers. The only guarantee against the threat of nuclear war is the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. They are the common enemy of mankind.... nuclear weapons... cannot be disinvented. (Chemical weapons are probably easier to reinvent, given how commonly used their ingredients are around the house.) but like them, nuclear weapons too can be outlawed under an international regime that ensures strict compliance through effective and credible inspection, verification and control regimes. In most contexts, a step-by-step approach is the best policy. But such caution can be fatal if the need is to cross a chasm. In the case of nuclear weapons, the chasm that needs to be leaped across is the mental conditioning of national and world security resting on weapons of maximum insecurity.
Thakur 15)
The proposed problems often include such sweeping non-conditional statements that are unlikey to really be passed or implemented given the extremely complicated nature of the situation and the number of players and potential players in it, all with different degrees of investment and agendas.
One possibility is an international treaty signed by all states providing for the destruction of all national nuclear stockpiles; the establishment of an international inspection procedure to see that no nuclear weapons are produced secretly; and the establishment of an international force equipped with, say, fifty nuclear weapons to be used only by order of the U.N. Security Council against any country found to be violating the treaty by building nuclear weapons. This U.N. nuclear force would be used only as a last resort, after diplomatic and political efforts had failed, and then only if circumstances were such that a conventional force would not be able to accomplish the task of disarming the rogue country. As a practical matter, the U.N. force would probably serve solely as a deterrent and an earnest of U.N. intentions.
Hilsman 291)
The ethical and moral issues associated with disarmament are as diverse as those associated with the strategic and power centered models, many groups for and against the utilization of nuclear technology are outspoken and all have various messages. One of the most morally inept arguments in favor of keeping nuclear weapons is that the deterrence of war is worth the concern, yet no body really believes that a major power would even really use such weapons, as they are far more aware of the whole of their damaging effects than ever before and know that million if not billions innocent lives would be destroyed and the world would be put in serious environmental crisis. The deterrent argument also does not effect those rouge states or terrorist organizations that would be seeking weapons, as they do not necessarily have the same motive for abstention of their use. In the case of the terrorist question, their goals are not based upon material earthly goals or on the defense of their own lives and therefore deterrence is a mute point. Just like deterrence doesn't really work in the case of the death penalty, as the people who commit acts that warrant it do not either care about their subsequent death or do not think they will ever really be put to death. If they have the forethought to believe they will be put to death for their crimes than they would have the forethought not to commit them in the first place.
From a Christian standpoint, the ideas associated with deterrence have finally been abandoned, as many more people come to terms with the potential conclusion of the utilization of a single nuclear weapon as an affront to God, as destruction of what God has built is a direct moral failing and the existence of items that can do this destruction is also therefore an affront to God.
In working groups 5 and 6, ethics and ecclesiology were bound together within the Life and Work tradition on the basis of the threats to the life of the world -- and thereby to our Christian confession of "Jesus Christ -- the Life of the World."... In the report from working group 5 the issue of status confession is very clear: Nuclear deterrence, as the strategic doctrine which has justified nuclear weapons in the name of security and war prevention, must now be categorically rejected as contrary to our faith in Jesus Christ who is our life and peace.(26)for the first time the two "streams" of Faith and Order and Life and Work are brought together in the Programme Guidelines Committee's proposal "to engage member churches in a conciliar process of mutual commitment (covenant) for justice, peace and the integrity of all creation"(27)
Lodberg 128)
The possibility of the destruction that nuclear weapons could and have done to the world is enough to sway many Christians to believe that their existence is contrary to the word of God and therefore not to be tolerated.
One demonstrative solution to the problem of nuclear disarmament is seeded in education, as educating people about the threat created by the existence of nuclear weapons, as well as the existing stockpiles and diplomatic problems will likely make them more aware of the need for individual action. Pressuring the national and international communities has proven effective in the past, with regard to weapon use, consider chemical and biological weapon bans. In the following student survey there is wisdom, that outlines the complicated and simple nature of the question.
Only 25% said that continuing development of new nuclear weapons is important for our security (36% disagreed and 39% were undecided). Many students were in favor of plans to stop producing or to decrease nuclear weapons. For example, 50% of the students were in favor of Richard Garwin's proposal to reduce the nuclear stockpile by 96% if he were correct about the United States still being able to deter the U.S.S.R. from attacking. Seventy-five percent agreed or mostly agreed that weapons should be banned from space. Eighty-nine percent of the students felt that we should make a "no first use" pledge. (Interestingly, 78% did not know that we have not made such a pledge.) Although the subjects did support nuclear reduction, they were not in favor of unilateral disarmament (56% opposed). Furthermore, they felt that we did need greater military power than the U.S.S.R. (49% favored) and that having enough invulnerable nuclear weapons so that we could strike back after a nuclear attack was important to our security (50% favored).
Sunday, and Lewin 100)
Though solutions to the problem are complicated and multifaceted, almost requiring a degree in fifteen different subjects to understand, educating the public about expenditures and effects of this powerful and antiquated weaponry is clearly the best possible way to help solve the problem.
Works Cited
Best, Geoffrey. "Winston Churchill the H-Bomb & Nuclear Disarmament: Geoffrey Best Considers Winston Churchill's Growing Alarm about the Possibility of Nuclear War, and His Efforts to Ensure That Its Horrors Never Happened." History Today Oct. 2005: 37.
Brookings Institute website " Estimated 1998 Expenditures on U.S. Nuclear Weapons and Weapons-Related Programs" at http://www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/nucwcost/curspend.htm
Brookings Institute website "50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons" at http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/50.htm
Disarmament, Nuclear." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2004.
Hilsman, Roger. From Nuclear Military Strategy to a World without War: A History and a Proposal. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1999.
Lodberg, Peter. "The History of Ecumenical Work on Ecclesiology and Ethics." The Ecumenical Review 47.2 (1995): 128.
Mayer, Donald O. "Corporate Governance in the Cause of Peace: An Environmental Perspective." Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 35.2 (2002): 585.
Nuclear Weapons Proliferation website MSNEncarta at http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_701702692_1/Nuclear_Weapons_Proliferation.html
Smith, Ron. "The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons: Possibilities and Practicalities." New Zealand International Review 22.1 (1997): 9.
Sunday, Suzanne R., and Miriam Lewin. "Chapter 1 Integrating Nuclear Issues into the Psychology Curriculum." Perspectives on Nuclear War and Peace Education. Ed. Robert Ehrlich. New York:…
