Roundtable: Nonproliferation in the 21st Century
The Gordian Knot: Moral Debate and Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons are not awe-inspiring, epochal, or war-winning, nor are they certain instruments of doom. They are clumsy, muscle-bound, expensive, unhandy weapons with little use except as totems of status. They are very difficult to win a war with—even if you have a monopoly on their use. As a result, what we already know about nuclear weapons is sufficient. We simply have to ask ourselves if it is right to kill innocents unnecessarily. The answer to this question will provide all the guidance we need.
The Threat of Nuclear Proliferation: Perception and Reality
The United States is right to be vigilant against the threat of nuclear proliferation. But such vigilance can all too easily lend itself to exaggeration and overreaction, as the 2003 invasion of Iraq painfully demonstrates. In this essay, I critique two intellectual assumptions that have contributed mightily to Washington’s puffed-up perceptions of the proliferation threat. I then spell out the policy implications of a more appropriate analysis of that threat.
Justice and Fairness in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime
This essay focuses on two key questions: First, how do the issues of justice and fairness affect the stability, durability, and effectiveness of the nuclear nonproliferation regime? Second, what is the relationship of equity issues to conceptions of national security and “interests”?
Nonproliferation: A Global Issue for a Global Ethic
This essay, focused on the continuing moral challenge of nuclear weapons, recalls the intellectual and moral lessons of the last century and identifies three leading issues in nuclear ethics today: post-cold war challenges to nonproliferation and deterrence, the new challenges posed by the terrorist threat, and recent proposals for Going to Zero.
