The Marshall Islands, Nuclear Testing, and the NPT

Lasrick writes: Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former senior policy adviser to the Energy Department's secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment, details the horrific consequences of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands and explains the lawsuits the Marshallese have filed against the nuclear weapons states. The lawsuits hope to close the huge loophole those states carved for themselves with the vague wording of Article VI of the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty), wording that allows those states to delay, seemingly indefinitely, implementing the disarmament they agreed to when they signed the treaty.

Comments

Wishful Thinking

[Fire_Wraith]

As horrible as nuclear weapons are, and as ideal as a world without them would be, this is wishful thinking at its best. The level of trust and cooperation required for everyone to give up nuclear weapons is in large part simply impossible given the current state of human and world affairs. We've certainly not managed to eliminate war or armed conflict. All we've done is limit its scope and size.

And speaking of that, it's in large part due to nuclear weapons that there have been no major wars in the past 70 years. The most we've seen were proxy wars that were limited in scope, and while many of those were horrible, they pale in comparison to the two World Wars, or really any of the major power conflicts that preceded them. The world with nuclear-armed major powers is paradoxically MORE peaceful than the world before it was. Prior to the nuclear age, it's difficult to go more than 20-30 years without two or more major powers going to war. The presence of nuclear weapons was the final thing that made "Total War" too costly a concept for rational actors to even consider it.

Reduce their number and scope? Sure, by all means. Get rid of them entirely? That's quite a different thing.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[edxwelch]

You realise we came close to a full scale nuclear war at least three times during the cold war? (Twice during the Cuban crisis and one false alarm by a Soviet early warning system)
They may appeared to make things safer, but it was just blind luck that we avoided nuclear Armageddon.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[Fire_Wraith]

I'd actually argue that it was considered more than that. MacArthur wanted to nuke China over the Korean War. I'm sure someone suggested nuking the Russians over their development of an atomic bomb, and I know that the Russians considered doing it to China when China was developing one. Each time, cooler heads prevailed, in no small part because of just how awful we realized nuclear weapons are.

And that's in part what you need to ask - how many times did we avert something worse than the historical outcome due to the fact that Russia/China/USA/etc had nukes now? Even the Great War (World War I), a war so bloody that both sides pretty much bled themselves dry fighting it, still wasn't enough to turn people off from another one twenty years later? And yes, I realize there's a lot more to it than that, but I would argue that nuclear weapons are the single sole reason that the Cold War never turned hot.

The bottom line is that Nuclear Weapons make it impossible for one nation to unilaterally impose its will by force on another without triggering mutual suicide. This turns out to make people a heck of a lot more willing to talk things out, or at least to not fight each other head on.

Now that said, I don't think it's a good idea to thereby let everyone have them. The more countries that have them, the more the risk increases that something goes wrong with that calculation, because someone decides to gamble, either from desperation or greed or whatever, and it goes nuclear.

Nuclear weapons are horrible, awful, and terrible things - but their existence also has some very important effects that shouldn't be ignored.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[BitZtream]

...

No, its working EXACTLY like he said.

No rational actor will start a nuclear war.

Its not dumb luck, its the threat of nuclear annihilation that prevents it.

Its mind numbing that someone like you can say 'hey look at these three examples of where we didn't go to war ... it means war in inevitable!@$!%!@%' completely and utterly ignoring the fact that there have been fewer wars and they've been smaller since this happened.

If you think its blind luck, you're the blind.

Re:Wishful Thinking

[Charliemopps]

As horrible as nuclear weapons are, and as ideal as a world without them would be, this is wishful thinking at its best. The level of trust and cooperation required for everyone to give up nuclear weapons is in large part simply impossible given the current state of human and world affairs. We've certainly not managed to eliminate war or armed conflict. All we've done is limit its scope and size.

And speaking of that, it's in large part due to nuclear weapons that there have been no major wars in the past 70 years. The most we've seen were proxy wars that were limited in scope, and while many of those were horrible, they pale in comparison to the two World Wars, or really any of the major power conflicts that preceded them. The world with nuclear-armed major powers is paradoxically MORE peaceful than the world before it was. Prior to the nuclear age, it's difficult to go more than 20-30 years without two or more major powers going to war. The presence of nuclear weapons was the final thing that made "Total War" too costly a concept for rational actors to even consider it.

Reduce their number and scope? Sure, by all means. Get rid of them entirely? That's quite a different thing.

No major wars in the past 70 years? Wtf have you been smoking? We've been in a proxy war with Russia since basically the end of WWII. We've invaded practically every country in the middle east, South America and most of Asia. Millions of people are dead. Basically the entire middle east is at war with us in one way or another as we speak. The only difference between now and WWII is the iron grip our leaders now have on the message our media feeds us. We are in the middle of a world war right now, and have been this entire time.

After memorial day I read an article about how Obama was celebrating the first memorial day without "boots on the ground" in 7 years or something. Meanwhile we've got special forces in every country in the middle east, bombers flying daily missions, drones bombing weddings. Just how gullible are we?!?!

Re:Wishful Thinking

[Fire_Wraith]

Go compare the number of dead. Even as absolute numbers, nevermind as percentages of the world population, the number of deaths from war from the second half of the 20th century and beyond pale in comparison to the first half.

World War II killed something like 60 million people, or about 3% of the world population. You hold up the Cold War as being bad - do you think Nukes are what made that conflict? No, they're part of what kept it from erupting into direct open warfare between NATO/the West and the Warsaw Pact/Communist Bloc. Yes, Korea was bloody (roughly about 1-2 million dead). How much more bloody would it have been had the Russians and Americans not been keen to avoid fighting one another directly lest nuclear weapons come into play? Would the USA have invaded Cuba had it not been for the threat of Nuclear War with Russia? Would Russia have invaded Western Europe at any number of points? The Cold War was unprecedented simply because there really isn't a good historical parallel of two obvious antagonists avoiding any direct conflict despite any number of flashpoints.

And why is that? Quite simply, it was that both sides knew the danger and cost of any direct conflict were far too steep and final, due to nukes.

Re:I'd prefer they stay armed, TYVM

[sideslash]

The ethics of nations maintaining nuclear arsenals is a debate not likely to be resolved soon. However, the nasty things our defense research scientists did to the people living on the Marshall Islands is hopefully something everyone could agree is not OK.

Re:I'd prefer they stay armed, TYVM

[Ol Olsoc]

There hasn't been another world war since major states nuked up, so I'd prefer everyone stayed armed, thank you very much.

So we've entered the endless small war phase. BFD.

Legal failure; politically misguided.

[mpoulton]

This lawsuit is a legal mess, destined to fail. In fact, it already did fail and they're just trying futilely to revive it. All applicable statutes of limitations passed years ago. You can't wait decades to file a lawsuit. Equally as importantly, "The Marshall Islands" as a political subdivision does not have standing to sue for injuries that occurred to specific people and property there. Those people and property owners would have to sue, not their regional government. Finally, the decisions which were made and the actions taken were political decisions made by the United States in exercise of its sovereign authority - and you can't sue for that. It seems that the plaintiffs know this, which is why they are now trying to frame the lawsuit as a claim to enforce the NPT. The problem with that is, yet again, a lack of standing on several levels, and an inaccurate interpretation of the treaty itself. First, there is no cause of action through which any individual or entity can force the government to comply with or enforce a treaty. International relations are solely the sovereign domain of the federal government, and they can decide to abide by (or disregard) treaties as our elected officials see fit. Second, the treaty is not being violated. It does not require disarmament, nor is there a mandatory timeline for any particular disarmament-related activity. It says the signatories will negotiate towards an agreement regarding disarmament. That's not an enforceable mandate in any meaningful sense. Why? Because the signatories never actually had any intention of disarming, so they made an agreement that didn't require them to disarm. A third party can't come in and force them to abide by a deal they didn't make in the first place. Look, the Marshallese got screwed. There was a discriminatory component to that. It wouldn't happen the same way today. But the bottom line is that we needed a place to test weapons of mass destruction, and the Marshall Islands were the best choice available. So the US did what they had to do to make the program work. They should have provided market-based compensation for the taking of land, and they should have relocated everyone out of the zone of danger, turning the entire area into a restricted military installation before blowing it up repeatedly. There should have been no injuries and no uncompensated loss of property. But the reasonable conclusion to take away from those events is not that nuclear weapons should be eliminated, or that the tests shouldn't have been conducted at that location. They served a critical purpose for national security, and anyone who says otherwise is a revisionist with an agenda.

Re:Legal failure; politically misguided.

[tomhath]

The lawsuit is being pushed by anti-nuke groups that have no connection to the Marshall Islands. They talked a few people there into going along so they had an excuse to file the suit, which is nothing more than a publicity stunt.

Re:other states?

[CrimsonAvenger]

How has the US/Russia/etc negotiated in good faith on effective measures

Note that they're required to negotiate in good faith on "effective measures" - when they figure out some "effective measures", then you can complain about them not negotiating "in good faith".

And just curious, what "effective measures" can you think of? Especially in light of the fact that North Korea is NOT a signatory to the NPT....

It seems that the arsenals are growing, or if shrinking, they are becoming more powerful overall as they are replaced with more modern weapons.

As to that, no, they're not actually building more powerful nukes. The delivery mechanisms are getting more accurate, so smaller nukes are as effective as big nukes were back in the day. Note that there are no multi-megaton nukes left - they've been replaced with fractional-megaton weapons with a CEP small enough that it makes no difference.

Note, by the by, that CEP is a function of the rocket (or bomber), not the nuke. And improved versions of rockets/bombers aren't limited by the NPT in any case.

Re:FAS is again full of shit

[garyisabusyguy]

You are starting with a relatively small number of people, probably better to think of it as a percentage

In the short term:
"A number of the 64 inhabitants of Rongelap experienced immediate radiation sickness including vomiting, skin damage and hair loss. By the time they were evacuated from the area two days after the detonation of Castle Bravo, some of the islanders had received 175 rads (See Chart 2) from gamma radiation and 160 rads from I-131"
http://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-t...

In the long term:
"We estimate that the nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands will cause about 500 additional cancer cases among Marshallese exposed during the years 1946-1958, about a 9% increase over the number of cancers expected in the absence of exposure to regional fallout."
http://marshall.csu.edu.au/Mar...

So, you are probably saying, wow, just over 500 people affected, pretty small number if you consider Bhopal and Chernobyl
But if you consider that the population of the islands was 10,000 at the time, then that is 5% of their population, which is significant

There is also the persistent presence of isotopes that raise the expectation of cancer for all people to 9% over people not from the Marshall islands

They certainly have a legitimate beef with the government, whether they can leverage that to change global policy is another thing.

We would probably not be having this conversation if 5% of the general population had been exposed to isotopes that had caused cancer
I suppose that it is a matter of perspective

Re:All for a good cause

[unixisc]

Every other country did it in their back yard. The Russians did it in Siberia. The Indians did it in the Thar desert. The Pakis did it in Balochistan. Why can't the US do it somewhere below the Death Valley, or under Alaska? Why can't the French do it somewhere under the French Alps? I don't know where the Brits or Chinese tested theirs, so can't comment.

Re:I'd prefer they stay armed, TYVM

[tlambert]

I think you might take a look at Afghanistan and what it helped do to the soviets

The Soviet involvement in Afghanistan was more along the lines of:

Boris: "We need something to distract the people at home! They are getting restless!"

Piotr: "How about a war? That's always worked in the past!"

Boris: "Yes, but against who? We have to pick something close enough to be threatening, but far enough away that they won't come here!"

Piotr: "How about Afghanistan?"

Boris: "Perfect! Whoever heard of a Moslem holding a grudge?"