Eugene Robinson: Why Not a World Without Nukes?

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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/04/why_not_a_world_without_nukes.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Why Not a World Without Nukes?
Eugene Robinson


Are you kidding me? Do I hear the new administration's critics -- okay, one critic, Bill Kristol -- complaining about President Obama's call for moving toward a world without nuclear weapons? To quote the great philosopher John McEnroe: You. Can. Not. Be. Serious.

In 1968, the United States was one of the first nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- the landmark agreement that has been used, with great success, to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. When the NPT went into force, there were five nuclear powers -- the U.S., Britain, France, China and the Soviet Union (now Russia). In the four decades since, the world has added four more -- India, Pakistan, Israel (not officially, but that's the consensus) and North Korea, although the Hermit Kingdom's damp-squib test weapon and its wobbly ballistic missile make me think that Kim Jong-Il's nuclear program is more of a threat to Pyongyang than to Portland. One new nuclear power in the world is one too many, but that's an astoundingly good record of deterrence, especially given that basic nuclear weapons technology is pretty widely understood by now. Nations that could have had nukes -- Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Libya and others -- were persuaded that they would be safer and more prosperous without them.

The NPT requires signatory nations "to negotiate in good faith" toward total, worldwide nuclear disarmament. This has been official U.S. policy for 40 years: We seek a world with no nuclear weapons. Obama said nothing new.

Has any U.S. administration really been serious about the prospect of eliminating all nuclear weapons? Of course not -- and neither has any government of any of the other nuclear powers that belong to the NPT. To abandon the goal of disarmament, though, would weaken the treaty's ability to dissuade nuclear-capable nations from becoming nuclear-armed nations. And as for the argument that nuclear weapons keep the peace, such as it is, I would argue that in the vast majority of conflict scenarios the United States may face -- those short of Armageddon -- the U.S. nuclear arsenal is not a factor. We were never going to nuke Belgrade or Baghdad.

We give up nothing and gain a measure of good will by restating our 40-year commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons -- knowing full well that reaching that goal could only be possible if the kinds of threats that the world faced in 1939 were somehow beyond anyone's imagination.