Disarmament as a Pejorative

The problem with President Obama’s vision of a nuclear free world is that he refrains from identifying its components. The political far right, simple minded and militaristic, reflexively characterizes all arms reduction efforts as disarmament, always meaning unilateral disarmament.


The Wall Street Journal’s lead editorial on April 8, “Dreams of Disarmament,” applied the disarmament opprobrium first to the Nuclear Posture Review, then to the forty year old Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, and finally to the New START Treaty. WSJ winds up by asserting that arms control is “more theological than practical.”

Charles Krauthammer writes in Investor’s Business Daily (April 12) that what the President is trying to do is insane, morally bizarre, naive, and strategically loopy, all his terms.

The President concentrates on today’s primary danger, which is terrorist efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. Right wing fear mongers, ironically, ignore this threat, because they have no answer for it and their political success is based on the child-speak with which they have marshaled voters ever since World War II.

To reach Zero nuclear weapons necessitates many steps, and this month’s and next month’s efforts are only two of them - arms reductions and preventing weapons spread. The President would be well advised to describe more of the future steps, including the substitution of international law enforcement for superpower peace keeping. He knows, though, that to enlarge public comprehension, necessary as it is, will invite further accusations of loopy unilateral disarmament.

The missing voice is that of the threatened populations. They have no voice but their nations’ and nations serve a variety of masters. Nations serve the interests that control them, the interests of the individuals who from time to time comprise the national governments. Those interests are financial, political, and ideological. Another voice is needed, one that is authentic, non-political, and free to invent, one that can tell the potential victims of nuclear holocaust how security must be achieved. NGOs are helpful, but lack the authenticity of a public voice.

The missing link is cities. Were they organized to speak up for their residents, President Obama would find a potent ally when a serious effort arises, as it apparently will, to defeat START’s Senate ratification. He could use cities during the NPT Review next month, recalling how John Bolton and the Bush minions defeated the last five year Review. He could use them even more when he gets ready to discuss the further steps that must precede Zero, steps toward global law enforcement and global democracy that must accompany enforcement.