Language & Pointillism, Minutiae and Macro-disarmament

If you stand close to a Georges Seurat painting all you see is dots, periods really, or maybe commas. It is only when you step back that the big picture emerges. It is the same with international treaties and negotiations. The nagging questions surrounding the details of language often obscure the larger goal.

A fundamental dispute which surrounds the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty involves a comma. A comma in Article 6, which reads:

Each of the parties to the treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

The comma in this article is the subject of numerous articles, debates, and policies. The question involved is if and how the comma links the two clauses. It is the debate over such small details that has stopped the process toward nuclear disarmament from evolving positively. It is the minutiae in language which can derail progress already made.

In fact, this comma may be the one dot which, used procedurally, is holding up nuclear disarmament. That is, the nuclear weapon states say that nuclear disarmament is contingent upon general and complete disarmament. Others say, abolish the nuclear arsenals first and then address conventional arsenals. Which is held to be right is a product of interpretation and perspective.

With this in mind the efforts toward a Nuclear Weapons Convention face similar challenges. Fundamental definitions are not held to be the same by all involved parties. Getting to the core assumptions is difficult given such differing perspectives. The details of language, the pointillism, need to be addressed but should not stop the overarching goal of macro-disarmament from being achieved.

The architects of the nuclear weapon abolition regime have a weighty job.

Addressing fundamental assumptions will require asking hard questions. Questions like: When working toward nuclear disarmament, what is the final goal? Is it the dismantlement of the weapons themselves? Or will it include the shutting down of all nuclear research facilities? How does nuclear power fit into achieving the goal of nuclear disarmament? How do nuclear arsenals relate to conventional weaponry? What of other industrial uses of radionuclides, and what of the medical uses? Will nuclear disarmament only happen after the weapons design industry has created the next obscene generation of weaponry thus making the existing nuclear arsenals obsolete? How will the culture of secrecy and hegemony be transformed as part of this new global structure of disarmament? How will the power structure be defined without Mutual Assured Destruction behind it to blackmail full participation? How have nuclear weapons affected the level of violence in our world, and what needs to be done to address the legacies of MAD? And how will the waste, the millions of tons of toxic waste, be dealt with in the next hundred thousand years and beyond?

Further complicating this situation is the disconnected reality that the various "actors" have regarding each other on this stage. On one side, you have the diplomatic community who are for the most part career civil servants who may or may not have disarmament experience or even find it a compelling topic to address. Then there are the state governmental players who have both national and regional security and economic concerns. They make decisions based on electoral concerns and influenced by potential or existing contracts and the creation of jobs. Adding to the mix, there are the people who represent non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Special interest, this group is often called. In this case, the NGOs who focus on nuclear weapons tend to be calling for the survival of the planet. Not exactly a special interest for only one part of the society. Lastly, but not at all least, there are the designers and makers of the nuclear weapons themselves. These actors on the nuclear stage are considered by many in the above-mentioned groups to be passive mouthpieces or spear carring characters. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The directors of the nuclear weapons labs have the future of the world in their radioactive hands and are fighting dirty for the life of their guild.

It is through doublespeak and black budget items that the designers get the new facilities and all the resources they need to continue qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons. The Stockpile Stewardship program used to be called Reconfiguration and then it was Complex 21. The working assumption of all these schemes is to continue making nuclear weapons work as well funded as the market will bear. Today, the US is spending annually more on nuclear weapons development then at the height of the cold war. The madness of nuclear weapons has not yet been cured.

The communities of people working for a nuclear weapons free world can also get bogged down in the language. Ultimately though, the labels are meaningless; it is the actions which are of paramount importance.

The fundamental truth is that the issue of nuclear disarmament is connected to every person's life on this planet, including the beautiful baby girl recently born in a tree in the flooded region of Mozambique.

Achieving a Nuclear Weapons Convention will take the common understanding of all people that genocide is to be avoided, and that planning for genocide is tantamount to achieving it. A rejection of the economic structures that threaten extinction is called for, along with the embrace of a vision of a world thriving, with every person working toward a future without the threat of extinction.

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