Breaking Free From the Nuclear Deterrence Scam

[bananas]

A surprisingly small network of individuals drove the campaign to abolish slavery. As with nuclear deterrence, slavery's leading apologists were the power elites of the United States, Britain and France. They argued that slavery was a "necessary evil," for which there was "no alternative." They were discredited as charlatans after a few courageous, committed ordinary British, American and French citizens mobilized unstoppable public and political support for their campaign to replace slavery with more humane, lawful and effective ways to create wealth. The analogy holds for nuclear deterrence, which can and must be discarded for more humane, lawful and safer security strategies if civilization and the Earth's ecosystems are to survive.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-green/breaking-free-from-the-nu_b_828390.html

Robert Green
Commander, Royal Navy (Retired)
Posted: February 25, 2011 03:46 PM

Breaking Free From the Nuclear Deterrence Scam

Yesterday I spoke at the EastWest Institute in Manhattan on the consequences of nuclear deterrence failure. I began by explaining that I will shortly fly home to my earthquake-ravaged city of Christchurch, in nuclear-free New Zealand. Friends describe it as a war zone, with over 110 dead, 160 badly injured, and 200 missing. My family are fortunate: apparently our house is trashed and barely standing, but it is reparable. Though likely to cost over $10 billion, Christchurch will be rebuilt; sewerage and water systems will be relaid, power reconnected; the land and survivors will recover.

As the only ex-British Navy Commander with nuclear weapon experience to have come out against them, I then recounted my experience of a public meeting in Islamabad in 2001. Anti-nuclear nuclear scientist Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy had persuaded General Aslam Beg, one of the "fathers" of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, to join a panel with him and me. Beg warned against raising awareness about the effects of a nuclear strike on a Pakistan city, "in case it scares the people." He had a simplistic faith in nuclear deterrence, ignoring all the added dangers of nuclear rivalry with India. He is not alone: my experience is that most believers in nuclear deterrence refuse to discuss the consequences of failure. This is why.

<snip>

The American writer H L Mencken once quipped: "There's always an easy solution to every problem: neat, plausible, and wrong." As the only ex-British Navy Commander with nuclear weapon experience to have come out against them, I have learned that:

• Nuclear weapons have been exploited as a fetishistic currency of power
• Nuclear weapons did not end World War 2
• Nuclear deterrence has an insoluble credibility problem
• It did not work in Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, Israel or Iraq
• It might not work against a paranoid regime
• It is worse than useless against terrorists
• It stimulates hostility, mistrust and arms racing
• It provokes proliferation
• It creates instability
• It is immoral and implicitly unlawful
• There are safer, more cost-effective, humane and lawful security strategies

<snip>

A surprisingly small network of individuals drove the campaign to abolish slavery. As with nuclear deterrence, slavery's leading apologists were the power elites of the United States, Britain and France. They argued that slavery was a "necessary evil," for which there was "no alternative." They were discredited as charlatans after a few courageous, committed ordinary British, American and French citizens mobilized unstoppable public and political support for their campaign to replace slavery with more humane, lawful and effective ways to create wealth. The analogy holds for nuclear deterrence, which can and must be discarded for more humane, lawful and safer security strategies if civilization and the Earth's ecosystems are to survive.

Robert Green served as a bombardier-navigator in Buccaneer nuclear strike jets and anti-submarine helicopters equipped with nuclear depth-bombs. On promotion to Commander, he worked in the UK Ministry of Defense before his final appointment as Staff Officer (Intelligence) to CinC Fleet during the Falklands War. His latest book, Security Without Nuclear Deterrence, is available on www.amazon.com.

Via http://nuclear-news.net/2011/03/01/robert-greens-inspirational-call-for-scrapping-nuclear-weapons/

[Chris_Texas]

1. Equating nuclear weapons with slavery is ridiculous.

It is reasonable to argue that our nuclear stockpile today is excessive ( I would agree). It is reasonable to debate whether or not it ever needed to be as vast as it once was (Probably true, but we will never really know). However, neither question is remotely similar to the question of whether or not slavery is morally justified.

A nation has both an ethical right and responsibility to defend itself, and by extention to arm itself against attack. You can argue against the level of threat, you can debate the extent and cost of said defense, but the moral foundation remains.

It is NEVER ethical to enslave other people.

[bananas]

2. The analogy is valid.

The abolition of nuclear weapons is very similar to the abolition of slavery.

[Nihil]

6. You've really jumped the shark with that one.

> The abolition of nuclear weapons is very similar to the abolition of slavery.

:spray: :rofl:

Yeah, right Bananas ... whatever you say fella ...

:wtf:

[kristopher]

7. The use seems valid to me.

"A surprisingly small network of individuals drove the campaign to abolish slavery. As with nuclear deterrence, slavery's leading apologists were the power elites of the United States, Britain and France. They argued that slavery was a "necessary evil," for which there was "no alternative." They were discredited as charlatans after a few courageous, committed ordinary British, American and French citizens mobilized unstoppable public and political support for their campaign to replace slavery with more humane, lawful and effective ways to create wealth. The analogy holds for nuclear deterrence, which can and must be discarded for more humane, lawful and safer security strategies if civilization and the Earth's ecosystems are to survive."


Perhaps you could explicitly point out where the failure resides.

[bananas]

3. Nuclear deterrence: "almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes"

Martin Hellman has done a rudimentary fault-tree analysis on nuclear deterrence failure, and estimates the failure rate is about 1% per year.
He explains:

"If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes."

http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php

Soaring, Cryptography and Nuclear Weapons
Martin Hellman

<snip>

On an annual basis, that makes relying on nuclear weapons a 99% safe maneuver. As with 99.9% safe maneuvers in soaring, that is not as safe as it sounds and is no cause for complacency. If we continue to rely on a strategy with a one percent failure rate per year, that adds up to about 10% in a decade and almost certain destruction within my grandchildren's lifetimes. Because the estimate was only accurate to an order of magnitude, the actual risk could be as much as three times greater or smaller. But even ⅓% per year adds up to roughly a 25% fatality rate for a child born today, and 3% per year would, with high probability, consign that child to an early, nuclear death.

Given the catastrophic consequences of a failure of nuclear deterrence, the usual standards for industrial safety would require the time horizon for a failure to be well over a million years before the risk might be acceptable. Even a 100,000 year time horizon would entail as much risk as a skydiving jump every year, but with the whole world in the parachute harness. And a 100 year time horizon is equivalent to making three parachute jumps a day, every day, with the whole world at risk.

While my preliminary analysis and the above described intuitive approach provide significant evidence that business as usual entails far too much risk, in-depth risk analyses are needed to correct or confirm those indications. A statement endorsed by the following notable individuals:

* Prof. Kenneth Arrow, Stanford University, 1972 Nobel Laureate in Economics
* Mr. D. James Bidzos, Chairman of the Board and Interim CEO, VeriSign Inc.
* Dr. Richard Garwin, IBM Fellow Emeritus, former member President's Science Advisory Committee and Defense Science Board
* Adm. Bobby R. Inman, USN (Ret.), University of Texas at Austin, former Director National Security Agency and Deputy Director CIA
* Prof. William Kays, former Dean of Engineering, Stanford University
* Prof. Donald Kennedy, President Emeritus of Stanford University, former head of FDA
* Prof. Martin Perl, Stanford University, 1995 Nobel Laureate in Physics

therefore "urgently petitions the international scientific community to undertake in-depth risk analyses of nuclear deterrence and, if the results so indicate, to raise an alarm alerting society to the unacceptable risk it faces as well as initiating a second phase effort to identify potential solutions."

<snip>

[bananas]

4. Targeting civilians is immoral

For some reason, it's A-OK to target conscripts and draftees who were forced into the military, but targeting civilians is considered immoral.
Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is, and there are internationally recognized treaties acknowledging and acquiescing to this double standard.

A draftee or conscript is for all intents and purposes a slave, worse than most slaves who are simply exploited for their blood, sweat, and tears; military draftees and conscripts are coerced into murdering other innocent humans.

Oh wait, my first sentence in this post is incorrect, it's only immoral to target civilians with non-nuclear weapons. If you target them with nuclear weapons, your psychopathy and sociopathy is perfectly acceptable.

My bad.

:sarcasm: (for those who don't get it)

[Statistical]

5. Read up on countervalue vs counterforce.

You don't need to target civilians with nuclear weapons.

The primary targets of a counterforce launch are strategic in nature.

The largest stabilizing aspect of the nuclear cold war was the emergence of submarine launch ballistic missiles. SLBM are essentially immune to counterforce attack. The inability for either side to neutralize the other's boomers increase the deterrence effect of nuclear weapons. The UK for example scrapped all land based and air based nuclear weapons relying solely on ballistic submarines. Almost indetectible, able to launch from amywhere, and able to receive orders at anytime and anyplace, and once launched are immune to any defensive system.

The US could trim our arsenal by relying more on SLBM.