How To Deal With Nuclear Dangers
By Harlan M. Smith 

       The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will break down as present nuclear powers, especially the U.S., do not start reducing nuclear bomb stockpiles to zero.  Even those claiming to want only nuclear power plants are believed to be on the way to producing nuclear bombs.  The spread of actual & potential nuclear bomb possessing nations would be a much more dangerous world, & an irretrievable disaster could result from even an accidental nuclear war.   So everything possible should be done to prevent this possibility.  That is to say that everything possible should be done to move toward a world that would be free of all nuclear bombs.

       The first question seems to be whether to start working on the present nuclear powers to reduce their stockpiles, or whether to start working on prospective nuclear powers to give up such plans.  Present nuclear powers fear even small hostile states acquiring nuclear bombs more than fear other present nuclear powers, so they would opt for the second alternative.  But present non-nuclear powers say they have as much right as any other nations to be nuclear powers too, so they say present nuclear powers must eliminate their nuclear bombs as the price of others not going nuclear.  That seem to imply that any effort for a nuclear free world must work on both sets of nations simultaneously.

       So how to proceed is the next question.   This is not only a matter of what arguments might be more persuasive with each group of nations, but also who could be more believable & effective in presenting the case for each group doing what is necessary to relieve the world of nuclear dangers.

       I think that those who would be most believable & hence most effective for the purpose would be a group of scientists, from as many nations as possible, most of whom are knowledgeable of nuclear bomb & nuclear power physics and some knowledgeable of military warfare issues.  A few such scientists should be assembled that agree on the end objective & work out a set of arguments they would support in dealing with both groups of nations.

        As I do not belong to any such group, I cannot presume to know what agreements they might reach.  But I must indicate the arguments that I think need to be made to each group.

       To both groups, I think it must first be emphasized that nuclear bombs are not defensive weapons that can be used to protect people from being bombed.  Nuclear bombs can only retaliate after being militarily attacked. Whether the attack was provoked or unprovoked, retaliation even by a single nuclear bomb can destroy an entire city of
non-combatants. This would be condemned by the whole world even if the initial attack was provoked.

       The argument that a nuclear bomb threat is an effective deterrent to other nations so they will not do anything that could start a war may not work if the threat is unbelievable.  Now that everyone knows how a nuclear bomb (as much as a thousand times as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima) can wipe out virtually a whole sizable city, it is unbelievable that any nation possessing nuclear bombs would retaliate that way if another nation did something locally that was in its interest & that otherwise might start a war. There might be no nuclear retaliation at that point, but if war started, before either side might accept defeat in the war, it might use its nuclear bombs. So nuclear bombs may not stop any war except one that could start by a direct nuclear strike from another country.  Possessing nuclear bombs could avert a direct threat by another nuclear bomb possessing nation. Such threats of retaliation neutralize each other.

       But in the cold war the world witnessed the results of two hostile nations each thinking their only protection against nuclear bombing by the other was to build up its nuclear bombing capability.  The result was two stockpiles of nuclear bombs and delivery mechanisms that led knowledgeable scientists to speculate on what life might survive on earth if all those bombs were exploded in a nuclear war.  Most thought that human life on earth would be extinguished slowly by fallout if not killed more directly.  The real danger was that there were too many possibilities that nuclear war might be started by any of a number of possible accidents including mistaking other phenomena for enemy missile launches.  Even third parties could mislead both parties into a war that would destroy both of them, as any nuclear war would.

       The world must find a way to eliminate nuclear threats before more nations could get into situations where more than two of them might all get involved in wars that would destroy all of them and many others besides.  If many more nations become armed with nuclear bombs and delivery systems, the world will be more in danger of nuclear world wars than during the cold war  that we escaped by luck rather than good management.

       We now know that no nation can be secure by its own military might when all are attempting to do the same thing, since each nation's military is  a threat to other nations.  All will find national security only if none are subject to military threats from any others.  So it is not absolute military destructive power from offensive nuclear weapons that gives security--they decrease security for all nations.  Instead national security can come for any nation only as all nations give up the power of life and death over other nations. That requires an end to the military power race and instead saving huge amounts of money by stopping military production.  That requires a system of inspection of each others military capabilities & disarmament that is as close to foolproof as humans can make it. The problem is really how to get that process started.