Deterrence, not Global Zero, needed for nuclear proliferation

In Greek legend, Prometheus stole fire and suffered immensely for his hubris by being perennially chained to Mount Kazbek in the Caucuses and having his liver eaten every day for eternity by an eagle. Much like this tragic figure, from the day we successfully developed nuclear weapons, we too stole fire. Thus far, except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mankind has avoided a Promethean punishment despite our transgression against the proverbial gods. Can such fate be tempted indefinitely? With the upcoming deal negotiated by the Obama administration and Iran, this question would appear to resume its urgency.

The last several years have not been kind to the Global Zero crowd that has been advocating for the abolition of the world’s nuclear weapons. The unfolding challenges to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the current guise of Iran and North Korea have made it become increasingly evident that we are entering a new, uncharted time; a dawning of what I would term the “Golden Age of Proliferation.” This concept is clearly not lost in the security field. In fact, Paul Bracken has been describing how to confront the “Second Nuclear Age” for some time. This new era of proliferating nuclear weapons is an issue for strategists and leaders to take with the utmost seriousness.

Unfortunately, a focus on nuclear policy has been atrophying since the end of the Cold War and initial successes of nuclear counter-proliferation embodied in such bipartisan efforts as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Let us understand why this Golden Age of Proliferation is so rapidly emerging.

{mosads}First, we should consider how important nuclear power is likely to be as the world grapples with global warming and seeks to ameliorate the amount of carbon belched into the atmosphere. Indeed, while nuclear power may well be only one option, it is an option that will probably see many nations embracing it. This clearly raises the concerns of “breakout” as a nation may, under the guise of a purely civilian nuclear program, step to the threshold of possible weaponization.

Second, one must consider the status that nuclear arms convey on the world stage. While most experts would no doubt argue that the key to nonproliferation is the need to delegitimize the acquisition of nuclear weapons, this is evidently not happening and certainly not happening within a timeframe that would offer any confidence for those who think the road to disarmament is a good path. Again, we return to the two most prominent examples: North Korea and Iran.

In fact, despite the histrionics over the Obama-Iran nuclear deal on both sides of the aisle, the tipping point has already been reached. No deal that the president reaches will prevent Iran from at least reaching the covert breakout phase and no sanctions Congress passes will cause Iran to give up its course. Even a military response by either the U.S., or more likely Israel, will do little more than “mow the grass” and delay, rather than eliminate, the fundamental problem. Iran now has the knowledge base it needs to step up to the nuclear threshold. Only a complete repudiation of the present clerical regime might work. However, it should not be lost that Iran was seeking nuclear technology long before the Ayatollah Khomeini-inspired and led revolution of 1979. The shah of Iran had a strong nuclear appetite as well.

This should not be a surprise. While some countries, such as South Africa and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, have given up their nuclear weapons, the reality, as mentioned earlier, is that nuclear weapons still confer upon those that have them certain benefits. In some cases, they make up for conventional military shortcomings vis a vis likely competitors (see Pakistan); other times, they are for existential defense (see Israel). In Iran’s case, it is tied to both the regime’s self-image, which goes back to the Achaemenid Empire of Persia that fought the “300 Spartans” at Thermopylae and fell to Alexander the Great, as well as current geopolitical considerations in the ongoing Sunni-Shiite split in the Middle East.

To think that this complex mixture of cultural superiority and geopolitical imperative can be done away with by some agreement is an example of America’s strategically myopic view of international law. Sometimes, international law simply doesn’t really work within the anarchical framework of a world without a single global cop with the ability to enforce it in the way states are able to enforce laws within their territory.

If we concede Iran will likely go nuclear with or without the Obama-negotiated deal, what does this mean? Many think it will lead to cascading proliferation in the Middle East. Given the Thirty Years War-like scenario playing out in the Middle East today, this is certainly no far-fetched notion. Saudi Arabia, arguably the pivotal Sunni power (and an Arab one, as opposed to the Persian Iranians), is the prime suspect for future nuclear weapons acquisition in the face of an Iranian bomb. Their potential procuring of weapons from Pakistan is a well-known option. Egypt cannot be discounted either. Already, Russia is working to give Egypt a nuclear power plant. Though there are no indications of anything more at present, the present instability in the region can cause local actors’ strategic calculus to change rapidly.

Nor is the Middle East the only region where proliferation is possible. East Asia, with a rising China and a nuclear-armed and erratic North Korea, is also entering a time of shifting stability. If the U.S. weakens its position in the region in the face of these challenges, the potential for at least Japan, despite being the only nation ever to thus far suffer a nuclear attack and the present unlikelihood of such a move, to embrace a deterrent capability cannot be discounted.

The fact that all of these troubling trends are converging simultaneously surely indicates that a new era is at hand. This is likely one of the reasons why there is such a pronounced reinvigoration of a drive to achieve Global Zero both by President Obama and by such eminent practitioners of statecraft as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and former Secretary of Defense William Perry. However, despite the fact that, other than the president, these are clearly not utopian, pie-in-the-sky dreamers, one wonders whether they may be trying to prevent a flood that they know too well is breaking through the dam.

Nuclear weapons are here to stay. The genie is out and will not go back into the bottle. Knowledge cannot be unlearned and despite the best efforts of stigmatization, the truth is that nuclear weapons are a symbol of power as well as a useful negotiating chip for some nations. To pretend that the Golden Age of Proliferation is either not here or that we can stall it by paens to a nuclear-free world doesn’t seem wise.

The well-known Nobel Prize-winning economist Thomas Schelling has stated clearly that even if we could get to Global Zero, stability would not be achieved:

In summary, a “world without nuclear weapons” would be a world in which the United States, Russia, Israel, China, and half a dozen or a dozen other countries would have hair-trigger mobilization plans to rebuild nuclear weapons and mobilize or commandeer delivery systems, and would have prepared targets to preempt other nations’ nuclear facilities, all in a high-alert status, with practice drills and secure emergency communications. Every crisis would be a nuclear crisis, any war could become a nuclear war. The urge to preempt would dominate; whoever gets the first few weapons will coerce or preempt. It would be a nervous world.

A new paradigm for dealing with this tumult is desperately needed. Though controlling nuclear technology flowing to civilian programs should remain a major focus of the United States and other powers, a reinvigorated deterrence posture will form the backbone of defense efforts in this new era.

It is time to change from a Cold War focus that is rigidly confined to a mostly bipolar, rational actor model to a flexible model that allows numerous options to be examined before being summarily dismissed. Does this mean that nuclear weapons will remain a part of deterrence? Yes. So the upgrading of the U.S. nuclear arsenal will be the first and most important step for dealing with proliferation. Additionally, a wholesale strategic crash course in multipolar deterrence should be immediately engaged in. What red lines should be established and enforced? What is the right mix for the strategic triad?

Few will be excited to consider these steps. Embracing them necessarily calls into question the long-term validity of international agreements and airy notions of global peace. However, these are also steps that will allow the world to navigate this newly treacherous path in a far more realistic way.

There remains time to avoid Prometheus’s fate. Yet the utopians that seek to save us from that fate are unwittingly opening the door to it. It is time to dispense with utopian fantasies. The longer that leaders and strategists cling to those ideas, the longer they avoid dealing with the reality that faces us.

Lawson is a contributing analyst at Wikistrat.