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Nuclear disarmament and nuclear blackmail

A government serious about preventing nuclear blackmail would be ready to bring something decisive to the non-proliferation review in New York in May. The UK’s claim that we’re working towards full multilateral disarmament while investing £70-odd billion in nuclear rearmament doesn’t exactly have the ring of conviction.

War With The Ghosts | Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, 25 March 2010, “………….The only certain means of preventing nuclear blackmail is multilateral disarmament. The only route to multilateral disarmament is for the nuclear powers to show that they are serious about junking their weapons. The non-proliferation treaty commits the nuclear powers “to pursue negotiations in good faith on … nuclear disarmament  In return, other nations promise not to acquire nuclear weapons. By failing to honour their side of the bargain in the name of defending themselves from proliferation elsewhere, the nuclear nations invite other countries to proliferate.

But the very power of these weapons defuses the threat they present. The consequences of using a nuclear weapon are such that other nations know you’re not really going to do it. The only question you have to ask yourself is this: if a country subject to someone else’s nuclear blackmail launches its nuclear weapons, is it more or less likely to get nuked? Everyone knows the answer, which is why nuclear weapons are useless as a credible strategic threat. They might have some use against a non-nuclear power, but in that case the nuclear blackmailer is you, not the enemy.

A government serious about preventing nuclear blackmail would be ready to bring something decisive to the non-proliferation review in New York in May. The UK’s claim that we’re working towards full multilateral disarmament while investing £70-odd billion in nuclear rearmament doesn’t exactly have the ring of conviction.

War With The Ghosts | Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

March 26, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear weapons