EDITORIAL As nukes go, lets leave Cold War in the past
The recent to-and-fro over China and
its nuclear weapons program may have been intended to send up trial balloons.
Or it may have been the work of leaking bureaucrats out to undermine
opponents positions.
Whatever the case, the important point is that either President
Bush is so smitten with the idea of a missile shield or his advisers are so in
need of an international enemy that he is willing to risk the perception that
his administration is inviting China to update its nuclear arsenal. It is time
to dust off the U.S. bishops 1983 statement on war and peace.
It sounded a lot like an invitation on Sunday when The New York
Times reported that senior administration sources had said Bush was willing
to set aside objections to Chinas plans to build up its relatively
small fleet of nuclear missiles capable of striking the United States. In
exchange, the administration hopes, China would set aside its objections to the
proposed missile defense program.
The administration somewhat altered the story in response by
saying that it was not openly encouraging China, it was just recognizing
reality -- that China was going to update its missiles anyway -- and would not
get in the way. That latter spin was attributed to National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice, thus lending more than a little credibility to the original
tale.
Whether it be for love of a missile defense shield or need of an
enemy or both, the latest language coming out of the White House betrays a
frightening willingness to jump back into the mannerisms of the Cold War. It
also betrays a striking lack of imagination in contending with post-Cold War
reality and in shaping a vision for the future that is not built on the
insanity of mutually assured destruction.
Bushs missile shield presumes, as even its progenitor, the
old-style nuclear brinkmanship, did not, a world of winners and losers. In that
old scenario there can only be losers. The poison of nuclear fallout does not
confine itself to boundaries.
One of the most cynical interpretations of the China speculation
holds that a number of people in the Bush administration would love to return
to testing nuclear weapons, now forbidden by treaty, and would feel more
confident in crossing that line again if China went first, a prospect not
unlikely if China updates its arsenals.
Both the missile shield and the unofficial encouragement to China
to proceed with updating its nuclear weapons violate the spirit of the U.S.
bishops statement, which condemns further development of nuclear weapons
and sees nuclear deterrence as tolerable only as a step toward
progressive disarmament. Such initiatives, combined with U.S.
intents to abrogate past international treaties in order to go ahead with the
missile shield scheme, upend the arduous work of the disarmament community,
which can only see the latest initiatives as a step back toward Cold War
terror.
As the bishops wrote in their pastoral, Of primary
importance in this [disarmament] process is the need to prevent the development
and deployment of destabilizing weapons systems on either side.
The new folks at the White House may be sending trial balloons,
but this is not childs play. With all the work remaining to be done in
ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction, Bushs handling of the
nuclear issue so far has been inept and dangerous.
National Catholic Reporter, September 14,
2001
|