Imagine Adolf Hitler with an atomic bomb, or worse atomic bombs during World War Two. History would have taken a drastically different turn for the worse. It was this nightmarish scenario which in 1939 motivated Leo Szilard and Albert Einstein to write a letter to Franklin Roosevelt, urging the allies to develop a bomb before the Nazis. History took its own turn, the Nazis were defeated in May 1945, and three months later the bomb was used against the Japanese to end the war. Would that we could get rid of these apocalyptic atomic beasts once and for all, as many have wished, but since August 1945 further avoidance of their use is a game of possession and numbers.
First, let us talk about numbers.
Zero Atomic Bombs, Anywhere
It is still a nice and very tempting dream, that we would like to make a reality. No nuclear bombs anywhere, translates to zero chance of a nuclear apocalypse, right? Let’s not leap to that conclusion so fast. The last time there were zero nuclear weapons anywhere takes us back to before July 1945 when the world was waging war. The Nazis had just been defeated, but the war with Japan still waged on. In fact, the whole history of humankind up to that point had been one of almost incessant warfare. If one nation were not invading another for land or gain, then it was just biding its time for the right opportunity. A realist understanding of human nature comprehends just how brutal our species can be to our own kind, in the blind interests of power and nationalism.
It wasn’t even that way just in the twentieth century, but for a whole swath of history dating back to Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, just to name a few. Going back to the time when there were exactly zero bombs invites reigniting that civilizational boxing match, where the nations are not afraid to fight because they know they will not die. If there is one crazy “blessing” of the threat of nuclear war, one could argue it keeps great powers and nations in check because they know they cannot get away with what they used to. So going back to zero bombs just invites the anxiety of not knowing what sociopathic world leader might get a hold of them first. In Einstein’s day it was Hitler, but today it could be a terrorist group like Hamas, Isis or Al-Qaeda.
Mutually Assured Destruction – that grim postulate that if one nuke is used, the whole of civilization may go up in a conflagration – still seems to be a controlling idea. The idea which keeps great powers in check and prevents us from pressing that forbidden trigger. There are perhaps 12,000 or 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. It is insanity for any nation possessing them to use them in expectation of making some gain. Still, it is not a comfortable idea, nor one that we should be complacent about. If there were fewer bomb systems, there might be less chance of one getting into the wrong hands. The more tantalizing nuclear fruit hanging out there, the more risk is engendered of a rogue plucking it. Nuclear theft, the stuff of movies, cannot wholly be ruled out. Just how many nuclear weapons should we possess, so that one does not get stolen, nor does it become conceivable to use them?
That is a hard question to answer. It’s the game of numbers, which cannot fully be resolved here. What of the game of possession?
Who Possesses Nuclear Weapons
At least nine countries possess nuclear weapons: the Unites States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel. Not all of them respect nor honor the non-proliferation treaty of 1970, intended to keep the ownership of nukes from spreading. It is not just how many nukes there are that matters, but who has them. America does not worry about nuclear weapons from the UK, France, nor Israel, and probably not India or Pakistan either. But what of the threat of nukes coming from Russia, China, or North Korea? And what if Iran were to be added to this list? India’s nukes are of greatest concern to Pakistan, and vice versa. If Iran were added to the list, they would be the gravest threat to Israel. The family of world nations really isn’t a family, or if it is, it is a very dysfunctional one, where brothers and sisters still live with a venomous animosity. Who has the weapons, and what nation or nations they might be pointed at, is a crucial concern. It seems sometimes absurd that we build these things we never plan to use. But it is their existence, and simultaneously their non-use, which checks the greater human appetite for war. Putin has rattled the nuclear saber, but as long as he retains some common sense, he will not draw it.
Since August 1945, thankfully, no further use of nuclear weapons has taken place. How do we keep it that way? It is at least a game of numbers and possession. Keeping a certain number of weapons on hand, so that their use is not tempting, and trying to ally and unite their possessors as much as possible seem to be good ideas. If there were no ideological nor power splits between the nine nuclear powers, the threat would be further lifted, but we know the rifts are real and significant. Realism is taking stock of the fundamental factors of our life. Nuclear realism realizes that part of this seems to be an inevitable game of numbers and possession. Would that we could go back to a time when no countries possessed nuclear weapons. That is an understandable dream. But is it realistic?