The Prestige of Bombs

A giant spectacle took place in New York on Monday. A spectacle performed for the entire world, which lasted three and a half hours and had 189 leading actors. What an amazing dramatization! The worst villain was also one of the first to go on stage. Namely, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who is suspected of secretly building atomic bombs in Iran. He, of all people, was among the opening speakers at a U.N. conference on the prevention of the proliferation of nuclear arms. It was apparent at the outset of the deliberations that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is in the throes of a crisis.

Like all the other 189 signatory states of the NPT, Iran has the right to veto any decisions that could be made at such a conference. Thus, all efforts to give inspectors more power during their searches are doomed to failure. The same problem exists with attempts to prevent any new nuclear powers from withdrawing from the treaty. The international community was helpless when, in 2003, Korea left the NPT and shortly afterward declared itself to be a nuclear power.

However, the policy of non-proliferation is not only undermined by rogue states. There is no means for dealing with certain nuclear powers, such as Israel, India and Pakistan. Finally, there is the problem that the five specifically named nuclear powers in the treaty have not adhered at all to their obligations to nuclear disarmament that were set out forty years ago.

These difficulties are schlepped from one conference to the next; a workable solution is still nowhere in sight because no one in the world has succeeded in taking the decisive step to effectively outlaw the possession of nuclear weapons. Atomic weapons are still the surest way to achieve prestige, international weight and regional supremacy. Whoever tries to obtain bombs has to accept all sorts of inconveniences. But once in possession of them, they can feel safe from attacks from a superpower. They play a role on the world stage.

The French example is of interest, France being a regional middle power. Nowadays, nobody would think to give France a permanent place on the U.N. Security Council, just as the world would have equally as little understanding for the nuclear ambitions of such a country. France was only helped to obtain this coveted double status due to a peculiar and now distant historical constellation. The “Grande Nation” guards this status ever more jealously today. Consequentially, Europe, which has an essential interest in nuclear disarmament, shows itself to be in dubious disagreement in negotiations in New York. What a catastrophic example to set!

The world has successfully outlawed the use of atomic weapons; in the 65 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it has become unthinkable to use such bombs in a military campaign. What would now have to happen in order to make even the possession of nuclear weapons illegitimate and unattractive?

There is a military part to the answer: If we succeed in developing conventional weapons with the same range and penetrating power, then atomic weapons would lose a great deal of their meaning. The development of missile shields, which would protect us from enemy nuclear missiles, would also have this effect. As perverse as it sounds, upgrading can probably help to marginalize atomic weapons.

However, the political response is more important. After a long time, the USA and Russia have taken one step further to fulfill their commitment to disarmament with the start of a new treaty. More have to follow. And they must be accompanied in their efforts toward disarmament by small nuclear powers like Great Britain and France, whose rationale in possessing such weapons has, for a long time, no longer had any grounding. The goal should be to draw up a new contract that would really deserve the title of “Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”: an international ban on the development, production, possession, distribution and use of nuclear weapons, applicable to all countries worldwide.