Towards a Nuclear Weapons Free World

The article is full of euro-pacifism and reminds me of the 1983 when the United States was installing Pershing II missiles in Western Europe and of the summer of 1989, when I was in Germany, when the rallying cry of the deutches volkes was ``Ami Aus !`` I can empathise with the authors sentiments on the horror of the nuclear weapons and their well intentional aims.

They have presented a whole a litany of reasons why the nuclear schadenfruede must be abolished, but have no where given a reasonable alternative to it. Granted, there are scores of international treaties banning the idea of nuclear proliferation and its use as weapon of war, but those treaties combined are not worth the paper they are printed on. Before the nuclear powers give up their arsenals, they have to replace the power vacuum created by a crediable deterrent. Nation states derive the legitmacy of their exitence based on their abilities to wage war. Consquently, they will not give up their nuclear rights unless a viable replacement exists. The problem, and the biggest obstacle, to nuclear disarmament lies in disciphering what that alternative is and agreeing upon it.

I do not not subscribe to the viewpoint of the nuclear protangonists, but I agree that some of their arguments are valid. Wars are prvented on the basis of a crediable deterrence and the ability to inflict unaccectable damage on the aggressor. International treaties do not deter wars, but merely appease them.

A good example is the Munich Conference of 1938. The reasons why the British and French, not to mention the Czechoslovakians, capitiualted to Hitler`s Germany, was because they could not resist him militarily and sought to do so by an agreement. It is ironic that a couple of Germans are advocating a regimé of international treaties to outlaw nuclear war. Ironic in the sense that Germany has never historically kept its international agreements.

Instead of preaching nuclear free zones and using idealistic agruments to justify why Utopia would be so better, it would be far more constructive to rationalize the concepts, modualaities and methodologies that would and could help in reducing the nuclear terror and replacing it with a viable alternative.

I agree with the authors that the world has gone back to a place where a nuclear war is a likely possibility, but I think we have to move beyond mere words and treaties and realistically try to deal with this situation as it pertains in an imperfect world and not how it could be dealt with in an idealistic scenerio. We will never be rid of the nuclear genie, or jinn, but we have to seek ways to replace it with something less, but equally frightening.

What I meant to imply when I said, ``The genie is out`` is that the superpowers of this world tried their best to control Nuclear Power so as to control the world itself.

But now, it is out of their hands (genie is out). They have to come to the same table as India and Pakistan, find a mutually beneficial solution, and implement it!

From now on its NOT going to be, “Screw the East, we can consume over 90% of the world resources and nobody can touch us!”

As I indicated in my last line, I am not afraid of even terrorists, I am afraid of powers who HAVE used the bomb and STILL posses it.

A

With all due respect!

Why is the genie only out of the bottle when India and Pakistan exploded the bomb.

Your article was unreal and unoriginal at best. The very core of the problem dictates who uses weapons of mass destruction and when. I hope you can guess then, that the core of the problem is not the possession of the bomb but the presence of the conflicts of interest that I feel Saad eluded to in his reply so well.

Justice needs to be served before peace can be achieved. Served once, the presence of anything including the nuclear weapons will not matter.

Unoriginal thoughts and article. Well suited for a school course book, too simple for any one who has read a newspaper in the last few months.
It did however manage to do what it`s original intent may have been (perhaps), i.e get us to look up the Transcend Network.

Very direct and concise. Your article is very simple and straight forward, some authors try to keep the reader guessing or bring them around slowly, you tell it how it is.

People should think more of the purpose of this article rather then criticizing its simplicity.

The genie is out my friend! We should now seriously consider ways to harness and control nuclear power.

Just one point, I would not be that concerned about terrorists with nuclear weapons, I am more concerned about governments who have used it and still protect and posses it.

Anwar

Nuclear weapons are just another instrument of force. Such instruments have a natural place in human societies because of the chronic tension between the individual and the collective good. To secure the abolition of nuclear weapons, one has to eliminate this tension between the individual and society. Sure nulcear weapons kill thousands more than other instruments of force such as fists, swords, bullets and TNT, but is one death any less significant than a thousand deaths ? I don`t think so.

The difference between an atomic bomb and a bullet is only quantitative, not qualitative. So why the focus on nuclear weapons ? Why not also seek the abolition of guns and daggers, kicks and punches ? There is, of course, no way to abolish the knowledge of nuclear weapons and, so long as the human tension between the individual and the collective good exists, there will always be people pursuing these instruments of force. It is tempting to blame the discovery of nuclear technology for letting the genie out of the bottle, but the genie was let out of the bottle long before that, during the evolution of the human brain. Motivated by the tension between the individual and the collective good, Homo sapiens sapiens were killing other hominid species ages and ages before Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus and Leo Szilard and Robert Oppenheimer harnessed its destructive energy.

I say, with respect, to all those who demand nuclear disarmament: if you have no concurrent plans for eliminating the tension between the individual and society, save your breath. For unless you can somehow redress this glitch in the mental software of our species, humans will always want to hurt other humans.

saad shafqat

right on.

as temporal said, ready, willing and able to serve for that mass movement.

regards.

Messrs. Galtung & Fischer:

You write. `` the abolition of nuclear weapons requires a popular movement, in the same way as the abolition of slavery, colonialism, and most recently aparheid came about only after sustained public pressure.``

Do we live on the same planet?

Slavery, colonialism and apartheid are alive and well. Only the descriptive words have changed. Ask any third world peasant.

However. I am for an end to all exploitaion. Can we have a mass movement for it please?

I have just this to say.

NO MORE HIRSOHIMA!!!!

ArtZ