COUNTERPLAN/NUCLEAR ABOLITION

ANSWERS TO THE COUNTERPLAN

WE SHOULD WORK TOWARDS NUCLEAR WEAPON REDUCTIONS WITHOUT A DANGEROUS COMMITMENT TO NUCLEAR ABOLITION

Our policy-makers and diplomats have made great progress in recent years in reducing and stabilizing the American and Russian arsenals. Our goal should be to continue these efforts -- starting work on guidelines for the next bilateral weapons reduction treaty, which would help persuade the Russian parliament to ratify Start II -- and to concentrate on better ways of stopping the flow of nuclear technology and materials to outlaw states. The notion that destroying our arsenal will solve our principal foreign policy challenges is worse than a distraction. It is a dangerous delusion.

MOST COUNTRIES WILL RESPOND TO ABOLITION BY KEEPING SOME ALL-BUT-FINISHED BOMBS FOR EMERGENCIES

Even if they agree to destroy their existing arsenals, most of the nuclear powers, declared or otherwise, would undoubtedly keep a stock of all-but-finished bombs as a hedge against those who cheat and break the ban.

NUCLEAR ABOLITION EFFORTS WILL FAIL WITH STATES WHO HAVE SECRET NUCLEAR PROGRAMS

It is also quixotic to think that states with secret nuclear programs will abandon their efforts if the big powers disarm. Such reasoning ignores history. Those countries that in the past have eliminated their nuclear ambitions -- Argentina, Brazil, South Africa -- only did so when they determined that the weapons were no longer necessary for their immediate security. It had nothing to do with what the Americans and Russians were doing.

NUCLEAR ABOLITION BY THE GREAT POWERS WILL NOT CHANGE THINGS FOR GLOBAL NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

The same is likely to hold true in the future. Pakistan wants nuclear weapons to offset India's greater size and conventional military strength. India sees nuclear weapons as necessary in balancing China. Israel, surrounded by traditional enemies, has long viewed nuclear arms as the ultimate deterrent. None of these countries would likely be swayed if the great powers destroyed their arsenals.

THE GREAT POWERS WILL NOT AGREE TO DESTROY THEIR NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Calling for their abolition assumes that the declared nuclear powers will agree not only to destroy their weapons but to do so in concert. The day that all the great powers are prepared to do this together is the day the history of international relations as we have known it for three and a half centuries will have ended.

YOU CANNOT ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS BECAUSE THE IDEAS WILL STILL BE AVAILABLE

Besides, the abolition of nuclear weapons is impractical. You cannot disinvent an idea. The technology to build nuclear missiles is widespread and eliminating them from our arsenal will not keep them from appearing elsewhere.

ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS WOULD DESTABILIZE AMERICAN ALLIANCES

Renouncing our atomic weapons would also disrupt American alliances. It would raise questions about our reliability to defend our allies and interests, and would lead to conventional arms build-ups in Asia and elsewhere.