Saturday was the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The nuclear powers were commemorating it in their own special way: by seeking to ensure that the experiment is repeated.
Columnist Robin Cook pointed out recently that the British government appears to have decided to replace its Trident nuclear weapons, without consulting Parliament or informing the public. He mentioned the atomic weapons establishment at Aldermaston, which has been re-equipped to build a new generation of bombs. When this news was first leaked in 2002 a spokesperson for the plant insisted the equipment was being installed not to replace Trident but to build either mini-nukes or warheads that could be used on cruise missiles.
If this is true it means the government is developing a new category of boil-in-the-bag weapons. As if to ensure we got the point, Geoff Hoon, then the defence secretary, announced before the leak that Britain would be prepared to use small nukes in a pre-emptive strike against a non-nuclear state. This put Britain in the hallowed company of North Korea.
It is because nuclear weapons confer power and status on the states that possess them that the non-proliferation treaty determines two things: that the non-nuclear powers should not acquire nuclear weapons, and that the nuclear powers should “pursue negotiations in good faith on … general and complete disarmament”. Tony Blair has decided to rip it up.
But in helping to wreck the treaty Britain is only keeping up with its friends across the water. In May the US government launched a systematic assault on the agreement. The summit in New York was supposed to strengthen it, but the US, led by John Bolton — the undersecretary for arms control — refused even to allow the other nations to draw up an agenda for discussion. The talks collapsed, and the treaty may now be all but dead. Needless to say, George W Bush promoted Bolton to US ambassador to the UN.
Bush wanted to destroy the treaty because it couldn’t be reconciled with his new plans. Last month the Senate approved $4-million for research into a “robust nuclear earth penetrator” (RNEP). This is a bomb with a yield about 10 times that of the Hiroshima device, designed to blow up underground bunkers that might contain weapons of mass destruction. (You’ve spotted the contradiction.) Congress rejected funding for it in November, but Bush twisted enough arms to get it restarted. The RNEP idea was actually conceived in 1991 as a means of dealing with Saddam Hussein’s biological and chemical weapons. Hussein is pacing his cell, but the Bushites march on. To pursue his war against the phantom of Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Bush has destroyed the treaty that prevents the use of real ones.
It gets worse. Last year Congress allocated funding for something called the “reliable replacement warhead”. The government’s story is that the existing warheads might be deteriorating. When they show signs of ageing they can be rebuilt to a “safer and more reliable” design. It’s a feeble excuse for building a new generation of nukes. The development probably means the US will also breach the test ban treaty — so we can kiss goodbye to another means of preventing proliferation.
But the biggest disaster was Bush’s recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. India is one of three states that possesses nuclear weapons and refuses to sign the treaty. The treaty says India should be denied access to civil nuclear materials. But on July 18 Bush announced that “as a responsible state with advanced nuclear technology, India should acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states”. Four months before the meeting the US lifted its south Asian arms embargo, selling Pakistan a fleet of F-16 aircraft and India an anti-missile system. As a business plan, it’s hard to fault. Here, then, is how it works. If you acquire the bomb and threaten to use it, you will qualify for American exceptionalism by proxy. Could there be a greater incentive for proliferation?
The implications have not been lost on other states. “India is looking after its own national interests,” a spokesperson for the Iranian government complained. “We cannot criticise them for this. But what the Americans are doing is a double standard.”
North Korea is in talks with the US. While the Bush administration is doing the right thing by engaging with Pyongyang, the lesson is clear. If you have oil and aren’t developing a bomb (Iraq) you get invaded. If you have oil and are developing a bomb (Iran) you get threatened with invasion. If you don’t have oil, but have the bomb, the US representative will fly to your country and open negotiations.
The world of Bush’s imagination comes into being by government decree. As a result of his tail-chasing paranoia, assisted by Blair’s cowardice and Singh’s opportunism, the global restraint on the development of nuclear weapons has, in effect, been destroyed. The world could now be more vulnerable to the consequences of proliferation than it has been for 35 years. Thanks to Bush and Blair, we might not go out with a whimper after all.