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.
