Nuclear Choices

Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)

Conference on Disarmament

General Assembly First Committee

UN Disarmament Commission

Special Session on Disarmament

Nuclear Choices

Introduction

A collective choice to pursue nuclear disarmament requires changing some patterns that many see as human nature, such as inherent aggression or a constant drive for domination. An influential school of thought is built on the concept that violent confrontation is inevitable or must be deterred by threat of great violence. This school feeds national security policies such as deterrence and force projection. It might actually represent prevalent human mentality, as its protagonists, among them security experts and defense intellectuals, claim. Still, it is fundamentally a choice.

To base security on doctrines of force, domination, threat, and massive militarization is to choose, and not out of rational calculations of survival in an interdependent world but out of weakness and cowardice. It is to react to threats with fear and familiar, therefore predictable, shows of aggression, to seek domination rather than diversion or deliberate and creative action. It is simultaneously tragic and tedious. Another choice is to confront conflicts directly while laying down the weapons. As a matter of global survival this means disarmament.

Disarmament is a choice and a gesture in the direction of healthy human evolution. Breaking cycles that appear to have permeated recorded history means acting in constructive new ways as a sentient and conscious species. Key choices hang in the balance now. Some of these choices are spelled out in the contributions to this section.

Martin Butcher explains the motives behind the current drive for "mini-nukes" in the United States and points to efforts to challenge this drive. Dan Plesch discusses US National Missile Defense plans with attention to the underlying issues and proposes a way to refocus the debate. Hui Zhang adds the Chinese perspective to this issue and discusses the choices that will shape China’s response. Kevin Martin addresses the choices behind National Missile Defense from the moral perspective.

Felicity Hill looks beyond the crucial choices about nuclear weapons that emerged from the 2000 Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and suggests what their implications for Realism might be. The project "Moving Beyond Missile Defenses," the Uppsala Declaration on Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones, and the Interim Charter of the All-India National Convention for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace are examples of ways to implement the choice to disarm.