NUCLEARISM, the LANGUAGE OF NUKES, HAS TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES

NUCLEARISM, the LANGUAGE OF NUKES, HAS TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES

1. OUR WAY OF SPEAKING ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS NUMBS US TO THE THREAT

Robert Jay Lifton, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, The City University of New York and Director of the Center on Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, with Richard Falk, INDEFENSIBLE WEAPONS: THE POLITICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CASE AGAINST NUCLEARISM, 1991, p. 107.

Quite simply, these words provide a way of talking about nuclear weapons without really talking about them. In them we find nothing about billions of human beings incinerated or literally melted, nothing about millions of corpses. Rather, the weapons come to seem ordinary and manageable or even mildly pleasant (i.e., a "nuclear exchange" sounds more like mutual gift-giving). Now, much of this domesticated language is intentionally orchestrated by military or political bomb managers who are concerned that we stay numbed in relation to the weapons. But it is a process in which others collude, so that we may speak of a more or less spontaneous conspiracy of linguistic detoxification that contributes to the comfort of just about everyone.

Zia Mian, Lecturer, Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, HIMAL MAGAZINE, July 1998, p. 9.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, however, the moral response has been dulled. What is at issue is whether it is right or wrong to want to have, and to want to use, the power to kill hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people in the blink of an eye, to maim many more and to poison them so they die slowly and painfully over years from cancers and other illnesses induced by radiation. The experience of Hiroshima should have been enough to convince anyone that nuclear weapons were an affront to humanity. Despite this there has been a world-wide debate about nuclear weapons for over fifty years. This has happened in large part because nuclear weapons are usually not discussed in moral terms. From the very beginning of the nuclear age there has been a tendency to use language that hides the reality of what is being considered. But it is more than simple disguise. Language is used as an anaesthetic, as a way to kill feelings. Without feelings, morality dies. These are the first casualties of nuclear weapons.
3. NUCLEAR NUMBING IS FINAL STEP IN GENOCIDAL MENTALITY

Ashis Nandy, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, HIMAL MAGAZINE, July 1998, p. 1.

Nuclearism is framed by the genocidal mentality. Eric Markusen and Robert J. Lifton have systematically studied the links. In their book, The Genocidal Mentality, Markusen and Lifton make a comparative study of the psychology of mass murderers, in Nazi Germany, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and among the ideologues of nuclearism today and find remarkable continuities. In the genocidal person there is, first of all, a state of mind called "psychic numbing"-a "diminished capacity or inclination to feel - and a general sense of meaninglessness". One so numbs one's sensitivities that normal emotions and moral considerations cannot penetrate one any more. Numbing "closes off" a person and leads to a "constriction of self process". To him or her, the death or the possibility of the death of millions begins to look like an abstract, bureaucratic detail, involving the calculation of military gains or losses, geopolitics or mere statistics. Such numbing can be considered to be the final culmination of the separation of affect and cognition-that is, feelings and thinking that the European Enlightenment sanctioned and celebrated as the first step towards greater objectivity and scientific rationality.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY

1. DETERRENCE IS NECESSARY TO STOP PROLIFERATION

Baker Spring, policy analyst, "PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL: BALANCING DEFENSE, DETERRENCE, AND OFFENSE, ISSUES 2000: HERITAGE FOUNDATION CANDIDATES BRIEFING BOOK NO. 16, 2000, Accessed May 29, 2000, http://www.heritage.org/issues/chap16.html.

Moreover, in October 1998, the White House released a national security strategy statement warning that the "Proliferation of advanced weapons and technologies threatens to provide rogue states, terrorists and international crime organizations the means to inflict terrible damage on the United States, its allies and U.S. citizens and troops abroad." Yet the Administration's actions to counter the proliferation threat have not matched this sobering rhetoric. Ambitious but often ineffective arms control measures have been implemented at the expense of other policy tools that are necessary to deter proliferation--most especially defense, deterrence, and preemption.

Baker Spring, policy analyst, "PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL: BALANCING DEFENSE, DETERRENCE, AND OFFENSE, ISSUES 2000: HERITAGE FOUNDATION CANDIDATES BRIEFING BOOK NO. 16, 2000, Accessed May 29, 2000, http://www.heritage.org/issues/chap16.html.

Equating arms control treaties, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), with national security is potentially disastrous. The Clinton Administration has demonstrated excessive faith in arms control treaties. These agreements effectively promote proliferation by increasing the perceived value of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, especially among rogue states. The Administration's policies assume that vulnerability promotes strategic stability, a policy embodied in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with the former Soviet Union. The Administration continues to adhere to the restrictions in the ABM Treaty even though the treaty effectively died with the Soviet Union, and despite the fact that doing so limits America from mounting a defense to counter the proliferation threat. Arms control should never be pursued at the expense of deterrence.
3. DETERRENCE IS THE CORNERSTONE OF STRATEGIC STABILITY

Baker Spring, policy analyst, "PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL: BALANCING DEFENSE, DETERRENCE, AND OFFENSE, ISSUES 2000: HERITAGE FOUNDATION CANDIDATES BRIEFING BOOK NO. 16, 2000, Accessed May 29, 2000, http://www.heritage.org/issues/chap16.html.

Deterrence is the cornerstone of strategic stability. Deterrence is an essential component of America's non-proliferation policy. An effective deterrent enables Washington to convince hostile leaders that any attack on America with powerful weapons would be met with overwhelming force. But such a deterrent requires both a robust military arsenal that is survivable and a demonstrated willingness to use it if necessary.
4. GOOD DEFENSE REQUIRES STRONG OFFENSE

Baker Spring, policy analyst, "PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL: BALANCING DEFENSE, DETERRENCE, AND OFFENSE, ISSUES 2000: HERITAGE FOUNDATION CANDIDATES BRIEFING BOOK NO. 16, 2000, Accessed May 29, 2000, http://www.heritage.org/issues/chap16.html.

A good defense requires a strong offense. Not only must Washington support deterrence and defense, but it must also be willing to fund adequate offensive capabilities. For example, the United States must be prepared to make preemptive strikes to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the hands of hostile regimes that threaten U.S. interests, America's friends and allies, and U.S. troops overseas, as well as Americans at home. Israel demonstrated the virtue of this approach in 1981 when it destroyed an Iraqi nuclear plant before Baghdad could obtain its fissile material and fabricate a nuclear device.