nuclear-news

Donald Trump and Nuclear Weapons

This is not about what you think

Ward Hayes Wilson, Aug 22 2024,  https://wardhayeswilson.substack.com/p/donald-trump-and-nuclear-weapons

In honor of the Republican and Democratic conventions, I thought I’d try to draw parallels between how Democrats have changed their approach to Donald Trump and how we should change our approach to nuclear weapons.

Outrage

For a long time Trump held center stage. He’s speeches were carried live on cable because — oh, my God! — you never knew what he was going to say! Each speech brought a deluge of anger and outrage in response. ……………………………….

The problem with this way of reacting to Trump is that when you emphasize the danger, when you get carried away, you only play into his hands. ………………………………….If you shout that Trump is the Devil, then you make it a foregone conclusion that people believe he possesses enormous power.

Weird

Of course, Trump’s hold on us has weakened. His crowds are smaller. His coverage is scantier. His polls are down (a little). And part of this change is simple exhaustion with Trump’s endless appetite for attention.

But part of it is also a change in the way Kamala Harris and Tim Walz deal with Trump. Rather than putting Trump at the center of their message, rather than getting into a lather about Trump’s constantly stirring the pot, Harris and Walz seem to be having fun…………………………..

No longer distracted by what he says — or perhaps no longer distracted by our reaction to what he says — it’s possible to see that Trump’s shtick has always been kind of strange. Instead of fearing him, people have now started laughing at him…………………….. ather than emphasizing that we should fear Trump, they note he’s kind of weird. They belittle him, in other words.

Respect and fear

Hannah Arendt, the German philosopher who fled the Nazis in the 1930s and eventually found a home at the University of Chicago, said an interesting thing about authority. In her slim, powerfully argued volume, On Violence, in which she analyses the differences between power, violence, force, strength, and authority, she says that the best way to undermine authority is to mock it. And that is at the heart of what I want to say about nuclear weapons…………………………………………………………………………..

We decide

I still run across people who want to fight against nuclear weapons by emphasizing the horror of attacks with nuclear weapons, by working to make people more afraid, and by exaggerating the effects of nuclear war……………………………………….

The recent book by Annie Jacobson, Nuclear War: A Scenario, promotes feelings of awe and fear and ends up, it seems to me, delivering a message of powerlessness. The processes of nuclear war are, according to Jacobson, inexorable and cannot be controlled. And after running through a chilling and somewhat illogical scenario for how a nuclear war would unfold, she offers not the slightest hope that there will ever be a solution.

………………………………..But nuclear weapons are not “the Destroyer of Worlds.” They aren’t the power of God. And they don’t give us god-like power. They are just weapons. Tools. We control them. We decide.

President John F. Kennedy, in his famous peace speech at American University, helpfully reminds us that “No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.”…………………………….

…………………………. The truth is nuclear weapons are too big to use on battlefields.

The truth is that using nuclear weapons to fight a long-range war where you target your adversary’s homeland is simply suicidal……………………………

The truth is that nuclear deterrence is fatal over the long run because it’s run by human beings — creatures who make mistakes and are prone to folly. We’ve been lucky so far, but you can’t have these large arsenals on hair trigger alert forever without eventually ending in catastrophe.

We have been so focused on the horror and fear of nuclear weapons that we’ve overlooked the most important truth about them: they’re ludicrous weapons. They’re so big you can’t use them. The 78 years of non-use hasn’t been the result of moral compunction or restraint imposed by their awesomeness. War is a brutally pragmatic business and countries generally do whatever is necessary to win. Their non-use is the result of nuclear weapons being blundering, bumbling, poison-spreading, lousy weapons.

What we should do

I think the shift from fear to mockery is exactly what we have to do with nuclear weapons. We treat nuclear weapons with so much awe, we are so fearful and respectful of them, we are so afraid of the issue we won’t even talk about it. Or when we finally do we use such hushed tones of awe that of course the weapons seem god-like and overwhelming.

What we need to do with nuclear weapons is to exhale and then look calmly, clear-eyed, and objectively at their utility. Tools are kept or tossed based on one criteria: utility. If nuclear weapons are useful, then you have to keep them. If they’re not, then they have to go. Having studied the issue of their utility for forty years, I would welcome a debate that puts “are they useful?” at its center.

Because, believe me, nuclear weapons are virtually useless and very dangerous. And no one keeps technology that is virtually useless and very dangerous.

August 25, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war