The nuclear deterrent that fails to deter

The nuclear deterrent that fails to deter

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-nuclear-deterrent-that-fails-to-deter-20080825-422o.html?page=-1

* Daniel Flitton
* August 26, 2008

KEVIN Rudd offered earnest praise for a high-flying Australian. "If there was an Olympic Games in international relations and in strategic studies, Hedley Bull would be without doubt a gold medallist, an absolute gold medallist."

Chances are most people have never heard of this mild Oxford professor. Bull spent his early career studying the nuclear threat at a time of intense United States-Soviet rivalry. He did not see the Cold War end - he died in 1985, aged 52 - yet even now, and while ever nuclear armageddon remains a danger, Bull's observations on the politics of nuclear weapons are crucial to understanding the problem.

Bringing to the subject what he called "historical pessimism" - as recounted in a book on his life launched by Bob Hawke in Sydney yesterday - Bull saw arms control as a more realistic goal than hopes for total disarmament. Throughout the ages, governments have always shown a grim determination to hold onto any perceived military advantage, so Bull argued peace was best found by managing political tensions between countries. But he recognised, too, the enormous danger posed by the mere existence of nuclear weapons, and the selective bias governments applied to keeping them.

"Every nuclear power or potential nuclear power makes an exception in its own case," Bull wrote in 1961. "It is not widely held in the United States that America's possession of nuclear weapons is a threat to international security, in Britain that Britain's is, in France that France's is. Every nation fears the acquisition of nuclear weapons by its enemies, more than by its allies."

Today this is illustrated by widespread concern over Iran's supposed intention to build an atomic bomb, but a general acceptance - in the West at least - of Israel's existing nuclear weapons.

Both programs fall outside international law, yet the judgement to condemn or condone rests with assumed intentions - put crudely, that allowing Iranian hands on the bomb increases the risk it will be used.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad obviously helps fuel this perception, denouncing Israel and promising to wipe the country from the map. It is impossible to know whether he would press the button as soon as Tehran developed a bomb. But, as Bull once put it: "If nuclear weapons were not important in enabling states to provide for their security, their prestige or their national independence, the problem of controlling the spread of nuclear weapons would be more easily soluble than it is."

The dilemma is obvious. Israel's nuclear weapons serve as a huge deterrent to an open Iranian attack. They may also be an incentive for Iran to acquire its own. Israel's nuclear weapons represent power. Iran wants to be powerful.

How to escape this type of conundrum has been a focus of peace activists and strategic planners alike. Bull may have thought the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons was futile but, ultimately, the Australian Government disagrees. Former foreign minister Gareth Evans heads a new international group, modelled on an earlier Australian initiative known as the Canberra Commission, that will report on ways to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The conclusions of that earlier report, published in 1996, are still worth noting: "Nuclear weapons are held by a handful of states which insist that these weapons provide unique security benefits, and yet reserve uniquely to themselves the right to own them. This situation is highly discriminatory and thus unstable; it cannot be sustained."

The key warning relates to a country's intentions. "The possession of nuclear weapons by any state is a constant stimulus to other states to acquire them." What does this mean in practical terms? So long as Israel holds a nuclear arsenal, other countries, such as Iran, will seek to acquire one. As the Canberra Commission noted: "A central reality is that nuclear weapons diminish the security of all states. Indeed, states which possess them become themselves targets of nuclear weapons."

If this logic is accepted, Israel has tremendous leverage to help international efforts to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear bomb - by offering to surrender its own. The diplomatic clout this offers could forge a deal to rid the region of nuclear ambitions. But Israel has shown no sign it will give up its nuclear weapons and, officially, does not even acknowledge they exist, although it is thought to have 150 or more.

Mostly, Israel would not trust other countries in the region to stick to any bargain for a nuclear-free Middle East. Nor is Israel trusted in the region. The world is instead left guessing about the prospect of a military strike against Iran, and Bull's counsel becomes all the more apt: that peace is found by managing political tensions.

The problem is much wider. The declared nuclear powers - the US, Russia, the UK, France and China - have never surrendered their own bombs, despite their promises.

Daniel Flitton is diplomatic editor.