NEGATIVE/NUCLEAR/GENERAL

WAR IS NOT A SERIOUS THREAT IN THE STATUS QUO

THE WORLD IS SAFER NOW FROM NUCLEAR WAR THAN IT HAS BEEN IN 50 YEARS

The Prague Post, June 16, 1999 HEADLINE: Nuclear fears are unjustified // Inu-acs

Czech children, if fearful of nuclear war, should read their own history, and indeed their parents should teach them that the world is safer from nuclear war now than it has been in the last 50 years.

REAL PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE IN REDUCING THE ROLE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN WORLD AFFAIRS

RICHARD N. HAASS, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, and Chair in International Security at the Brookings Institution, Foreign Affairs, September, 1999 / October, 1999; Pg. 37 HEADLINE: What to Do With American Primacy // ln-10/99-acs

Real progress has been made in the effort to reduce the role of weapons of mass destruction. The world has come a long way since nuclear weapons were the basic unit of account of great-power competition. U.S. and Russian nuclear inventories are slated to decrease to approximately 3,500 weapons apiece under the signed but (in the Russian case) unratified START II accord. The two inventories would shrink further under START III. Biological and chemical weapons are prohibited, as is all nuclear testing. Although India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests last year, a number of states, including Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina, have voluntarily given up nuclear weapons programs in recent years. The remaining items on the agenda include negotiating further reductions in the arsenals of existing nuclear weapons states, principally Russia; methodically introducing defensive antimissile systems; discouraging the proliferation of missile and nuclear capability to additional states or nonstate actors; and enforcing the ban against possessing or using chemical and biological weapons.

WE CAN AVOID THE ROLE OF FORCE IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM, AND ARE ALREADY STARTING TO DO SO

RICHARD N. HAASS, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, and Chair in International Security at the Brookings Institution, Foreign Affairs, September, 1999 / October, 1999; Pg. 37 HEADLINE: What to Do With American Primacy // ln-10/99-acs

The goal of reducing, if not eliminating, the role of force is not foolishly optimistic. Already, the use of force by one major power against another is either politically unthinkable or prohibitively expensive -- with costs that include the danger of escalation to unconventional weaponry.

NEW PATTERNS OF COOPERATION IN THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM WILL ALLOW US TO

AVOID WAR AND CONFLICT

RICHARD N. HAASS, Director of Foreign Policy Studies, and Chair in International Security at the Brookings Institution, Foreign Affairs, September, 1999 / October, 1999; Pg. 37 HEADLINE: What to Do With American Primacy // ln-10/99-acs

Only when there is consensus among the major powers on these and related issues will a significant degree of order exist. Without great-power agreement, international relations could easily revert to a much more hostile system than the one that exists today. With such cooperation, however, we can ameliorate (though never abolish) some of the dangers of great-power competition and war that have plagued the world for much of its history.