Shirin Vossoughi Vossoughi is a
fourth-year history and international development studies student
who encourages you to speak your mind at shirinv@ucla.edu.
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Fifty-seven years ago, atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
obliterated over 200,000 human beings at once. Today, we remember
such destruction as a controversial and shameful reality of our
past. Yet the recent disclosure of a secret Pentagon report on
developing new nuclear weapons forces us to think again. With the
United States gearing up for deployment on a scale heretofore
unseen, we now face the prospect of global nuclear war.
The Nuclear Posture Review was unintentionally leaked to the Los
Angeles Times over the weekend. In it, the Pentagon outlines an
extensive plan for the build-up of nuclear weapons and smaller
nuclear devices. Possible targets include seven countries: Iraq,
North Korea, Iran, Libya, China, Russia and Syria, and possible use
in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
An attitude of deterrence has dictated nuclear policy since
World War II. However, the NPR marks a crucial and alarming step
over the precarious line of nuclear warfare, from defense to
offense, from the reduction of nuclear arsenals following the Cold
War to harnessing power for a new global conflict, one in which the
U.S. is increasingly set on going it alone.
According to the report, nuclear weapons could be used in three
situations ““ against targets that can withstand non-nuclear
attack, in retaliation for an attack using nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons, and in the event of surprising military
developments. (Observer of London, March 10) In other words,
whenever and against whomever the Pentagon pleases.
 JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Sunday, on CNN, Sen. Joseph Lieberman urged the American people
to avoid “overreacting” to the report. But if mass
murder and the guarantee of an unstable world are effects we want
to avoid, then there is no such thing as overreaction.
Threatening a long list of countries with the use of nuclear
weapons assumes that deterrence by a superpower works. Sept. 11
showed that it does not. Since then, many have also woken up to the
fact that substantial anti-American sentiment exists around the
world. We can either address it constructively or throw gas on the
fire with unilateral steps like nuclear deployment. If anything,
such reckless policies as the NPR will trigger a global arms race
to counterbalance U.S. dominance and further isolate and anger
nations on the list. Thus, the message to the world ““ develop
weapons capable of mass murder and destruction, and we will
consider using the same weapons against you and your people. Where
is the logic in that?
As the report divulges, nuclear weapons are no longer considered
a weapon of last resort. Unlike during the Cold War, it does not
take another superpower to reach the brink of nuclear conflict.
Instead, such weapons could now be used against countries that do
not themselves have nuclear capabilities, like Libya and Syria
(Observer of London, March 10). The NPR also reveals the wide rift
between the Bush administration’s nuclear policy on and off
the record. Publicly, Bush trumpets the reduction of such weapons,
from 6,000 warheads to about 2,000 (New York Times, March 10). But
behind the curtain there plays a different tune. Not only does the
NPR reveal the administration’s true cravings for such
weaponry, but the Pentagon has conveniently changed the established
rules for counting nuclear weapons and no longer considers bombs or
nuclear missile submarines as such.
Finally, while Russia still managed to make it on the U.S. hit
list, NPR states that Moscow’s nuclear programs do remain a
cause for concern, but that the Cold War’s “ideological
sources of conflict” have been destroyed, deeming the
likelihood of an attack on Russia “plausible” but
“not expected” (L.A. Times, March 9).
Considering Russia’s own nuclear capabilities and its
selling of weapons to other nations, the U.S. mantra is clear:
don’t ask questions or stray from our political and economic
path and you can have all the weapons you want ““ and
we’ll probably sell them to you. Stray from our stance and
you could be the next target.
This is not the formula for a safer world. It reeks of the
danger and destruction all sane-minded people would like to avoid.
Behind all the political jargon lies the prospect of mass murder
and genocide, plain and simple.
While the Pentagon’s report must prompt serious pause for
thought, what we know about the NPR was not disclosed, it was
leaked, typifying the current government’s love of secrecy
cloaked in “security.”
But it is a secrecy we must actively confront and resist, along
with resisting the rhetoric that tells us of rogue states and
renegade nations, as if these places are somehow void of people
living their daily lives and trying to survive just like everyone
else.