December 21st, 2009
Ask Not For Whom the Black Swan Sings; It Sings for Thee
The mere existence of nuclear weapons poses an impending “black swan”—a rare unpredictable event beyond the realm of normal expectations with the potential to create a major impact.1 Because there has never been a global nuclear crisis, and the Cold War has been over for about 20 years, the threat of nuclear weapons does not even rise to the level of the subconscious in many people. Paradoxically, the threat of a nuclear explosion in a major city has increased. By denying the internecine impact of these weapons on civilization and continually permitting the urgent to crowd out the important, the human species will inevitably sing its own swan song.2
This has been an historic year for the nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament movement. Important changes have been made in intergovernmental relations that give cause for hope. President Obama not only opposes nuclear weapons but has taken active steps to reduce U.S. dependence on them as a security strategy, and he is promoting global disarmament. Negotiations between the U.S. and Russia to extend nuclear weapons reductions are ongoing. The U.S.’ nuclear posture is under review, and the potential exists for a significant departure from our historic Cold War policy and strategy to one of removing nuclear weapons from hair trigger alert status and implementing a no-first-use policy. President Obama addressed the UN Security Council about the need to eliminate nuclear weapons as a tool of global policy and in September, the Security Council unanimously passed the U.S. drafted Resolution 1887, reaffirming an international commitment to the vision of a nuclear weapons free world.
Yet, in spite of these arms control successes, the global nuclear threat has not diminished; indeed, new threats are emerging. Although the end of the Cold War halted the arms race between the U.S. and Russia, new arms races have erupted. The nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea are particularly vexing. Pakistan and India, the nuclear armed Hatfields and McCoys, have come to the brink of war. Scientists in India have recently begun pressuring the government to resume nuclear testing, which could spur Pakistan to do the same. Pakistan presents a second problem—an unstable and ineffective government in the midst of a battle with Al Qaeda over its control.
We also face the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorist organizations and rogue states, which are not likely to respond to the logic of deterrence or the principle of mutual assured destruction (MAD). Terrorist groups pose a deterrence conundrum—they have no state, making retaliation difficult and costly, and they do not fear retaliation since their methods include suicide bombing and martyrdom. A terrorist nuclear attack, rather than being a wake-up call for the elimination of nuclear weapons, could as likely provoke a retaliatory nuclear strike against the nation harboring the terrorists, leading to new rounds of nuclear armament in the name of deterrence.
There is a feeling in the global community that the fabric of the U.S.’ extended nuclear umbrella may be fraying. Some U.S. allies fear that the U.S. might not retaliate on their behalf in the event they are attacked with a nuclear weapon by a “rogue” state. Uncertainties such as these are weakening the power of deterrence and may provide the impetus to use (or threaten to use) nuclear weapons as a strategic tool. Possession of nuclear weapons also increases the chances of conventional warfare. As horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons increases, more states will have the ability to deter the U.S. from using nuclear attacks in response to conventional attacks on its allies, thus undermining U.S. power in world affairs.
The global community will not be able to prevent a cataclysmic event as long as nuclear weapons are extant. Global security is up to us. Call on your government to do the following:
• Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) without haste and work internationally to ensure that the remaining hold outs that prevent the Treaty’s entry into force do the same.
• Make a significant change in U.S. nuclear policy and strategy during the upcoming nuclear posture review—especially taking weapons off hair trigger alert status and implementing a no-first-use policy.
• Begin a substantial disarmament process, even if unilateral at first, to signal a serious commitment to arms control and disarmament.
Give the gift of vision this holiday season—a vision of a future where the threat of nuclear annihilation no longer exists, and the music you hear is that of cooing doves.
Written by Holly Lindamood, Program Director
(With apologies to John Donne3 and Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
- The term “black swan event” can be credited to Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book, The Black Swan. The term black swan derives from the seventeenth century European presumption that all swans must be white because all historical records reported that swans had white feathers. A black swan was something impossible and could not exist—until they were discovered in Western Australia during the eighteenth century. This term now connotes a perceived impossibility. [↩]
- There was an ancient belief that a swan is mute until just before death, when it sings a beautiful song. “Swan song” has become an idiom referring to a final appearance. [↩]
- The title is an adaptation of John Donne’s Meditation XVII from “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions,” which serves as a reminder of our own death, the awareness of human mortality, and the interconnectedness of mankind. [↩]
