As if to make it official, former Secretary of Defense William Perry and his associates have just released a report called "The Day After" (sorry, Mr. SecDef, no points for originality), which was excerpted in The New York Times. Concentrating on prevention and survival of a nuclear terrorist attack, it also attempts to rescue the fall-out shelter from the oblivion it shares with "duck and cover."
But states with nukes –- like the US –- remain equally dangerous. With their plans to deploy missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, Bush & Co. seem bound and determined to revive the Cold War. Maybe Russia is a bone Cheney and his people are throwing Condoleezza Rice, to whom Sovietology is a first love. It could serve as a reward to her for going down with the Fatah ship in Palestine. Or, more important, it might divert her from continuing to diplomatically triangulate with Iran and the International Atomic Agency, thus clearing the decks for air strikes against Iranian nuke sites.
On the other hand, there was some rare good news on the nuclear disarmament front. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee voted to increase Department of Energy nonproliferation programs by $940.7 million. It also eliminated $88.8 million worth of proposed funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead. (Their selling points are greater simplicity and lower maintenance than existing warheads.)
But, as Kyle Atwell reports on Nukes of Hazard, a blog affiliated with the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation: "The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) released its markup of the Defense Authorization Bill yesterday. . . . and allotted just over $195 million for the RRW program, a 165% increase from the president's request of $118.8 million."
He concludes: "My guess is that the House will keep funding low, the Senate will keep funding high, and a middle ground will be hashed out in the joint committee." Can we ever reach nuclear disarmament, a destination ever more distant, using baby steps like that?
Ian Anthony heads up the Nonproliferation and Export Control Project for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "The decisions taken by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council," he said, "will keep nuclear weapons in their arsenals beyond 2050."
Meanwhile, on War in Context, Paul Woodward said, "What winning the Cold War really meant was that by luck rather than design, we didn't all get incinerated." Do we really want to continue to consign our fortunes to Lady Luck?
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