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By Jess Hicks
When Little Boy split the sky over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, 140,000 lives were destroyed - the Big Bang giving birth to the Atomic Age. Three days later, at Nagasaki, another 70,000 were snuffed out. The numbers are important, our coldest accounting of the first - and only - case studies in nuclear fire.
Fast-forward almost 60 years, through the duck-and-cover drills of the 1950s, the brinksmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the controlled madness of Mutually Assured Destruction. Pass through the cloud of persistently looming Armageddon. Despite conducting 1,030 nuclear tests, stockpiling more than 10,000 nuclear weapons in the process, the United States has never again pulled the nuclear trigger. With the thawing of the Cold War, some claim the Bomb has become obsolete, a relic of another time.
The problem, they say, is that the Bomb has no deterrent power in the post-Cold War world. With two nuclear superpowers, the enemy was well-defined, mutual destruction assured. Now, in a world of rogue states and terrorist groups, multimegaton nukes are, quite literally, overkill. Because their destruction is so indiscriminate, their use is impossible, their threat impotent.
Some American strategists, like children trying to hold on to toys they've outgrown, will make any argument to keep their nuclear pacifiers. They insist the peacekeepers and minutemen of yesterday can be hammered into the low-yield explosive of tomorrow: the mini-nuke. Finally, they rejoice, nuclear weapons that won't just sit around gathering dust.
There are several roadblocks on the primrose path to usable atomic weapons. The first is the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty, the 1999 moratorium backed by President Clinton. The CTBT would have solidified America's voluntary suspension, in place since 1992. Against the advice of top military and scientific leaders, the Senate refused to ratify the CTBT, leaving America as the only nuclear state to reject the treaty.
Testing is a vital step in designing new weapons; the CTBT was written specifically to counter this "vertical" proliferation and encourage gradual disarmament. Mini-nukes will need extensive testing, further alienating America from the international community.
Ironically, such tests would prove mini-nukes less effective in their intended purpose - destroying underground bunkers - than conventional tactics. A nuclear blast is too imprecise to be an effective "bunker buster," but does have the side effect of blasting contaminated earth and rock high into the air. It also creates an impressive fallout cloud that kills indiscriminately, as radiation knows no uniform.
Pursuing usable nuclear weapons puts the United States in an awkward position, given the billions we are currently spending on a missile defense shield. The question is whether our lowering the bar on nuclear weapons use while seeking to deflect its effects will make the world any safer. Expanding our arsenal while simultaneously developing a missile shield may well provoke other, less insulated countries to pursue their own nuclear arsenals.
We've already pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to pursue the missile shield. Developing mini-nukes disregards the CTBT and violates the spirit of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Dismantling these three pillars of non-proliferation may be the prerogative of the superpower, but such arrogance and casual disregard for the state of the world will return to haunt us.
The most serious problem with mini-nukes is the most intangible: the breaking of the nuclear taboo. We've survived almost six decades under the atomic shadow by making nuclear war too horrible to contemplate. Nuclear weapons have passed from military last resort to diplomatic bargaining chip and, finally, into obsolescence. To conceive of a usable nuke is to undo all that progress.
In Vietnam and Korea, atomic bombs were suggested as an option. The Bush administration has hinted at the possibility of pre-emptive nuclear strikes in Iraq - the irony is lost on them. We've stood at the precipice many times, but never unleashed Hell upon the world. But what if nukes lost their awful power and became just another weapon? How much easier would it be then?
The analysts are right when they say the Bomb is obsolete. The age of opposing superpowers wrestling on the brink is over. Things are more complicated now, and the Bomb is, at its heart, an uncomplicated thing. The lesson of those two mornings in 1945 is that the Bomb can do nothing but inflict death on a scale unimaginable. So, if at the opening of a new millennium, the Bomb is Dead, I say let it rest in peace.
Jesse Hicks is a columnist for The Pitt News. He may be reached at Jhicks@pittnews.com
The Pitt News
February 28, 2003
Mini-Nukes Undermine Worldwide Non-Proliferation Efforts
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