Over the course of the past three decades, I have made a long and arduous intellectual journey from staunch advocate of nuclear deterrence to public proponent of nuclear abolition. I feel the weight of a special responsibility in these matters, having spent much of my military career embroiled in every aspect of American nuclear policy making and force structuring culminating as Commander in Chief of the U.S. Strategic Air Command (1991- 1992) and of the U.S. Strategic Command (1992-1994) with responsibility for all U.S. Air Force and Navy nuclear forces.
Toward the end of my career, I was witness to and deeply involved in the extraordinary events that led to the dramatic end of the Cold War, the democratization of Russia and the reshaping of Central Europe. I saw for the first time the prospect of restoring a world free of the apocalyptic threat of nuclear weapons. That shimmering hope has now become a deeply held conviction: that only a world devoid of nuclear weapons could be a world free of the threat of nuclear weapons. The concerns that compelled this conviction were:
First, a growing alarm that despite all of the evidence, we have yet to fully grasp the monstrous effects of these weapons, that the consequences of their use defy reason, transcending time and space, poisoning the earth and deforming its inhabitants;
Second, a deepening dismay at the prolongation of Cold War policies and practices in a world where our security interests have been utterly transformed;
Third, that foremost among these policies, deterrence reigns unchallenged, with its embedded assumption of hostility and associated preference for forces on high states of alert;
Fourth, an acute unease over renewed assertions of the utility of nuclear weapons, especially as regards response to chemical or biological attack;
Fifth, grave doubt that the present highly discriminatory regime of nuclear and non-nuclear states can long endure without a credible commitment by the nuclear powers to eliminate their arsenals; and
Finally, the horrific prospect of a world seething with enmities, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, and hostage to maniacal leaders strongly disposed toward their use.
Many argue for the retention of nuclear weapons, either as fearsome weapons of last resort, or as a vital hedge against a resurgence of a hegemonic communism; to deter an attack by other weapons of mass destruction, or as a form of a retaliation against such attack.
To them I contend that proliferation cannot be contained in a world where a handful of self-appointed nations both arrogate to themselves the privilege of owning nuclear weapons, and extol the ultimate security assurances they assert such weapons convey. That overt hedging against born-again, Soviet-style hard liners is as likely to engender as to discourage their resurrection. And that we cannot resort to the very acts we condemn.
I regret to have to say that the harsh truth is that six years after the end of the Cold War we are still enmeshed in the apocalyptic vocabulary of mutual assured destruction, still in the thrall of the nuclear era. Even worse, strategists persist in conjuring up worlds which spiral toward chaos, and concocting threats which they assert can only be discouraged or expunged by the existence or employment of nuclear weapons.
Indeed, I am dismayed, that even among more serious commentators the lessons of fifty years at the nuclear brink can still be so grievously misread, that the assertions and assumptions underpinning an era of desperate threats and risks prevail unchallenged, that a handful of nations cling to the impossible notion that the power of nuclear weapons is so immense their use can be threatened with impunity, yet their proliferation contained.
Albert Einstein recognized this hazardous but very human tendency many years ago, when he warned that the unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe .
How else to explain the assertion that nuclear weapons will infallibly deter major war, in a world that survived the Cuban missile crisis no thanks to deterrence, but only by the grace of God? How else to accept the proposition that any civilized nation would respond to the act of a madman by adopting his methods? How otherwise to fathom a historical view that can witness the collapse of communism but fail to imagine a world rid of nuclear weapons? Or finally, to account for the assumption that because we are condemned to live with the knowledge of how to fabricate nuclear weapons, we are powerless to mount a global framework of verification and sanctions which will greatly reduce the likelihood or adequately deal with the consequences of cheating in a world free of nuclear weapons.
Many well meaning friends have counseled me that by championing elimination I risk setting the bar too high, providing an easy target for the cynical and diverting attention from the more immediately achievable. My response is that elimination is the only defensible goal and that goal matters enormously. First and foremost, all of the declared Nuclear Weapon States are formally committed to nuclear abolition in the letter and the spirit of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Every President of the United States since Dwight Eisenhower has publicly endorsed elimination. A clear and unequivocal commitment to elimination, sustained by concrete policy and measurable milestones, is essential to give credibility and substance to this long standing declaratory position. Such a commitment focuses analysis on a precise end state; all force postures above zero simply become way points along a path leading toward elimination. The goal matters enormously and the only defensible goal is elimination.
But let me say clearly, and unreservedly, that realistic prospects for elimination will evolve only over a number of years. They are still too rigidly conditioned by an arms control mentality deeply rooted in the Cold War. We fall too readily into the intellectual trap of judging the goal of elimination against current political conditions. We forget too quickly how seemingly intractable conflicts can suddenly yield under the weight of reason or with a change of leadership. We have lost sight too soon that in a blink of an historical eye the world we knew for a traumatic half- century has been utterly transformed.
Is it possible to forge a global consensus on the propositions that nuclear weapons have no defensible role; that the broader consequences of their employment transcend any asserted military utility; and that as true weapons of mass destruction, the case for their elimination is a thousand-fold stronger and more urgent than for deadly chemicals and viruses already widely declared immoral, illegitimate, subject to destruction and prohibited from any future production?
I am persuaded that such a consensus is not only possible, it is imperative. A renewed appreciation for the obscene power of a single nuclear weapon is coming back into focus as we confront the dismaying prospect of nuclear terror at the micro level. Clearly the world has begun to recoil from the nuclear abyss.
How then, should we proceed? I was highly honoured and greatly privileged to be invited to be a member of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. I was gratified by the unanimity of views and the forceful logic of our report in August 1996. It sets forth the essence of my own conclusions about the risks and penalties associated with nuclear weapons. Most important, it presents a practical, realistic blueprint for working toward their elimination.
It begins not with a call for greater reductions, but rather to initiate immediate, multilateral negotiations toward ending the most regrettable and risk laden operational practice of the Cold War Era: land and sea-based ballistic missiles standing nuclear alert. Why is it that five years after removing bombers, the most stable element of the triad, from alert, we keep missiles, with their 30 minute flight time, on effectively hair-trigger postures? What possibly can justify this continuing exposure to the associated operational and logistical risks? What could be more corrosive to building and sustaining security relationships built on trust? What could undercut more overtly the credibility of our leadership in advancing a Non-Proliferation Treaty premised on a solemn obligation to eliminate nuclear arsenals?
There are a host of other measures outlined in the Canberra Commission report which should also be given immediate consideration.
Most important, however, is the defining question upon which the debate must ultimately turn and the future of humanity be decided: above all nations, how should the United States see its responsibility for dealing with the conflicted moral legacy of the Cold War? Russia, with its history of authoritarian rule and a staggering burden of social transformation, is ill-equipped to lead on this issue. It falls unavoidably to us to work painfully back through the tangled moral web of this frightful 50-year gauntlet.
I have concluded after long reflection that, because of my unique experience, if the message of the Canberra Commission is to be heard, it would require a very direct and public intervention on my part. I have therefore decided to join my voice and efforts with other respected colleagues to urge publicly that the United States make unequivocal its commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons and take the lead in setting the agenda for moving forthrightly toward that goal.
(General Lee Butlet (ret.) served as the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Strategic Air Command from 1991 to 1992 and of the U.S. Strategic Command from 1992 to 1994 and served on the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.)