NUCLEAR WEAPONS – ARE THEY A THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE ?

People often have strong and differing opinions on the topic of nuclear weapons. It is either that they believe nuclear weapons are a danger to international peace, or they believe that nuclear weapons aids to maintain international peace. I believe that deciding whether nuclear weapons are a threat to international peace is not clear cut. I shall argue that nuclear weapons are a threat to international security depending on certain factors and circumstances such as the time, who owns the nuclear weapons and human error.

 

Nuclear weapons can be a threat to humanity by mistake or miscalculation, if not by design. During the cold war years,the nuclear weapons systems were strained by mistakes, false alarms as well as human error. So long as we are human, there is a risk of miscalculation. Miscalculation on a nuclear weapon can have some grave consequences on the world. Hence, even if by design, nuclear weapons are not a threat to international peace, they pose a threat to the world because the people who have these nuclear weapons are prone to mistakes and miscalculation.

 

The mere existence of nuclear weapons might not be an immediate threat to international security, but the proliferation of nuclear weapons is definitely a threat to the international system.Proliferation of nuclear weapons  creates a security dilemma which then leads to the nuclear arms race. Nuclear arms can happen in terms of Horizontal proliferation is  the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries or non-state actors (Walton and Gray, 2007: 210) “Vertical” proliferation refers to nation-states that do possess nuclear weapons and are increasing their stockpiles of these weapons, improving the technical sophistication or reliability of their weapons, or developing new weapons. ( Sidel, Victor)“Horizontal” proliferation refers to nation-states or nonstate entities that do not have, but are acquiring, nuclear weapons or developing the capability and materials for producing them. On the grounds that some countries have nuclear weapons, other countries will want to acquire nuclear weapons as well. Some countries may  may want to  nuclear weapons because they are threatened by the other country’s nuclear stockpile, and believe increasing the amount of nuclear weapons in their stock will give them the security they need

 

Also, nuclear terrorism can be classified as a huge risk to international peace. If nuclear weapons fall into the hands of violent non-state actors, it may cause a great threat to international peace. Terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda have tried to acquire some nuclear weapons for some of their campaigns.Using the 9/11 attack on the United States, one can understand the danger the rest of the world faces if such non-state actors acquire such weapons. They  will explode these nuclear weapons in places that will cause hundreds of death to make their political statements. They have little or no regard for human life, a disturbing fact, given what we know about the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons. What’s more interesting is that these violent  non-state actors are free from nuclear retaliation, meaning they do not have much to lose anyway. Hence, they will not hesitate to use these weapons when they deem fit. It is easy to see why nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist groups can be detrimental to world peace.

 

Critics however believe that nuclear weapons are not as dangerous as we make them seem.

Nuclear peace is a theory of international relations that argues that under some circumstances nuclear weapons can induce stability and decrease the chances of crisis escalation.Nuclear weapons are said to have induced stability during the Cold War, when both the US and the USSR possessed mutual second strike retaliation capability, eliminating the possibility of nuclear victory for either side. Proponents of nuclear peace argue that controlled nuclear proliferation may be beneficial for inducing stability.

 

Nuclear weapons may have influenced political rhetoric, public defense budgets  but it is not clear that they have had a significant impact on the history of world affairs since WW2.  They do not seem to have been necessary to deter ww3, alliance patterns or to cause the United States and the Soviet Union to behave cautiously ( the essential irrelevance of nuclear weapons: stability in the post war world – John Mueller)

 

In conclusion, nuclear weapons are what you make of them. If you see nuclear weapons as a threat to international peace, then they would be. Nuclear weapons on its own, is not a threat to international peace, but may become a threat due to certain variables.

 

 

References :

Evans, Gareth. Nuclear Weapons as a threat to Global Peace.Address by Professor Gareth Evans, Co-Chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group and former Foreign Minister of Australia, to the UNI Global Union 3rd World Conference, Nagasaki, Japan, 11 November

 

 

Walton, C. D., Gray, C. S. (2007) ‘The Second Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-first Century.’In Strategy in the Contemporary World, edited by John Baylis, James Writz, Colin . Gray and Eliot Cohen. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Sidel, Victor W., and Barry S. Levy. “Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: Opportunities for Control and Abolition.” American Journal of Public Health 97.9 (2007): 1589–1594. PMC. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.

Movie Review – “The Shadow Company”

The shadow company directed by Nick Bicanic and Jason Baroque talks about  the lives of mercenaries around the world but focuses mainly on the security contractors in Iraq. Shedding more light on the lives of the private security contractors, the Shadow company is an investigative documentary that seeks to reveal the beginnings and destinations of these mercenaries. It tries to satisfy the  questions of who, what and why of private security companies as well as how the rules of war have changed and how mercenaries have changed too. It is an interesting yet inaccurate look into the lives of mercenaries and how mercenaries affect past as well as contemporary conflicts.

What makes this documentary special is that it presents the issues at hand in 3 different forms. One is the personal account method where James Acroft , a security personnel tells us his personal experiences as a mercenary. In the interview sections of the documentary, the CEO’s  as well as past and current members of the private security companies, shed light on the life of a mercenary by answering some  questions.  Lastly, the directors use the small case studies methods, where they focus on other countries that have employed private security companies and assess how successful they were.

Using the personal interview method, the directors are able to make these mysterious mercenaries more relatable.  In personal interviews, the security contractors explain that there is a long procedure to getting hired as a private contractor. Although the personal interview section did shed a lot of light on mercenary life habits, it failed to address the topic of how to choose which mission to undertake. For example, it does not show that there are steps to choosing which country to work in. Alan Bell, the CEO of Global Risks let it be known that he will not  go into a country “with no functioning government”, proving that the private security companies do indeed consider certain factors before accepting a contract. Some CEO’s have also said that they would not post contractors to countries where they would not go, to a large extent proving that they do take into account ethical frameworks, as well as  uncovering the camaraderie amongst the private security contractors. Hence instead of dismissing the negative image of mercenaries as people who kill others for money , it perpetuates the negative image even more.

I enjoyed James personal account method as it presented the daily activities of the mercenaries. He spoke about the food they ate, the people they came into contact with, how they dealt with being so far away from home and how they were communicated with their parents. In the little anecdote which told us about his colleague reassuring his wife that things were alright on the phone during an attack, the directors were able to emphasize the vulnerable sides of these mercenaries, erasing the “Rambo” and tough guy image. Even though this documentary shows how serving in a country plagued with conflict affects their lives,it does not show how the presence of mercenaries in a conflict can affect the whole picture. It spent a lot of time on their daily activities and their training than it did identifying how their presence changes the course of a conflict.

My least favourite method was the use of small case studies. Countries like Sierra Leone, Papua New Guinea employed private  and had different outcomes. It talks about the death rate of civilians when the contractors become involved in the conflict  but Leaves out  the death rate for the mercenaries.  Even though it does acknowledge that these mercenaries could die at any moment on this job, it does not make this poignant by disclosing the number of battle related casualties for the mercenaries.

After watching this documentary, I accept that mercenaries are “ a function of all the other things we do” and accept their roles in conflict.